#chance and brought them into a team and taught them new ways to see the sport they both love.

[kanoyachi]

very often i think about hinata's favorite one piece character being zoro. he has a type

[j0eyj0rdis0n]

CHRISTOPH SCHNEIDER - Night Out

Never out of his watchful eye.

Genre: Neutral

Notes: Sooooo I finally came up with a name for the female addition to the team. I'll still write her as a reader insert when asked for oneshots! But when both her and the romantic reader are in the same story, she now has a designated name. Sorry if that ruined the magic, but I really want them to co-exist! Otherwise… Enjoy!!

The two of you didn’t go out all that often. Especially not to the club. He was often busy with his job and truly, that was no problem with you. It wasn’t exactly the safest to go out considering he’s in a gang you wished so badly he’d give up. Yet sometimes you both decided to break the rules a little. You were craving some social interaction and Schneider wasn’t against getting a drink or two. Uncharacteristically, his comrades decided to tag along on the escapade. Till saying something about ‘team building’ while Flake grumbled all the way. You weren’t close with any of them by any means, only knowing their names and a vague hierarchy between them. Schneider never really talked about any of them. And in turn, you never asked.

But in all honesty, they scared you. Which you’d try really hard to get over since you had no choice but to be around them for the evening. Even though that’s exactly the feeling they were supposed to instill in you, fear. And it seemed they were doing their jobs quite well even if they weren't trying.

Paul had brought his girlfriend with him, a nice girl you’d met before and enjoyed quite well considering the small amount of time you'd actually spent together. The opportunity to see each other was few and far between, but you believed it would be good to catch up again with one of the only other woman who seemed to be consistently around.

Richard was alone as he usual. Schneider guessed he'd find some poor girl on the dance floor to fuck around with tonight. Till and Flake stood together, as they always seemed to whenever you'd seen them. Flake with his arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed while he talked to a much lighter but still quite serious Till.

A younger girl sat with Oliver, the both of them keeping mostly to themselves in quiet conversation. The girl being only slightly more animated than the stoic Riedel. Schneider had told you about her being the new addition, how he saw promise in her.

That was months ago by now. She seemed nice enough.

The club was packed to the brim, pretty girls in glittery dresses similar to your own danced haphazardly while handsome men chased after them, hoping for some sort of a chance. The lot of you had gotten a large booth off of the dance floor, giving the group a good view of their surroundings and all the action.

You leaned down to your boyfriend who sat lazily in the booth, a barely full glass of whiskey in one hand with legs spread wide. “Let me get you another! I’m going to the bar anyway!” You spoke into his ear, trying not to shout so close to him.

“Be careful!” He responded, a hint of warning in both his face and tone.

Schneider wasn’t too worried about you and your ability to stand up for yourself, he had taught you plenty of ways to defend yourself if need be. But what he was worried about were the dogs who would inevitably come sniffing around. But he knew it meant a lot to you to still be able to have your freedom. Especially despite his dangerous job and how that could fall back on you. So he always kept a watchful eye, knowing exactly when he needed to swoop in.

“I will! You worry so much!” You gave him a quick peck on the lips, your dark lipstick transferring slightly in the exchange, as if placing your claim on him. “I’ll be back!” You chimed out, giving him a smile that made his poor heart melt.

He admired the way your hips swayed with each step, your tiny silver dress sparkling in the flashing lights. He was no better than any other man with the way he stared. Unholy thoughts creeped into his head as his eyes trailed down your body. Your slender legs encased in sheer tights that he was just dying to rip off you. Eyes raking down further to your strappy silver heels that he wished were over his shoulders. You were irresistible. A temptation God knew he couldn’t resist. Like a forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden. Yet, there was no reason to resist you. You were his.

He crossed one arm over his torso, swirling his drink with his other hand, a dirty smirk on his face.

You were his.

No filthy hound in this place could ever lay claim to you.

"You look at her like you want to tear her apart." Richard chuckled before sipping his drink, throwing his arm over the back of the booth.

"I do." Schneider spoke bluntly. His answer being no surprise. They all knew how badly he wanted you. How dearly he treasured you. How incredibly devoted he was to you. And to you only.

"Gross!" Paul snickered with his girlfriend, clinking their glasses together. Always the epitome of happiness.

Schneider rolled his eye, letting an uncharacteristic smile creep on his face at Paul's quip. He wasn't lying when he said he wanted to tear you apart. Rip that skimpy little dress off of you and have his way.

His thoughts were cut short as he watched some half drunk guy lean up to you at the bar. His gaze now laser focused. Grip tightening around his glass as he let the scene play out. You hadn't given him any sort of signal you needed him quite yet. He watched as you held a hand out in this douchebag's direction, a 'stop, back up' motion. Yet he just wouldn't quit. Schneider watched as your stern expression turned slightly worried, the idiot getting closer than Schneider would've ever liked.

It seemed as if the rest of the table was watching too.

"Schnei-" Anya begun.

"I got it." Schneider snapped, practically slamming his glass down on the table, liquid sloshing onto the table as he got up, now stalking angrily in your direction.

You saw him approaching like a tiger focusing on it's prey, the slight afraid look you gave him only quickened his pace. In an instant he was behind you, pulling you from the drunken asshole with his hand securely around your waist.

“Who the fuck are you?” The man slurred, an irritated expression forming on his face.

“Her boyfriend.” Schneider growled. “I suggest you step away. Before I take more final steps.” He spit out, discreetly opening his suit jacket to reveal his engraved revolver neatly tucked in the waistband of his slacks.

“Whoa dude- I- I didn’t know!” He stuttered, holding his hands up in quick surrender, taking fumbled steps backwards.

“Go.”

And he did. Looking like a kid who pissed himself he stumbled, tripping over his own feet as he practically ran to get away from Schneider. Not once did he dare to look back as he disappeared into the crowd.

“My savior!” You cheered, standing on tiptoe to plant a kiss to your boyfriend’s strong cheekbone. “Now! Let’s get some drinks!”

As quickly as you kissed him you were turned around talking with the bartender, ordering a round of shots for the table and a long pour of whiskey for your hero.

Schneider stood protectively behind you, one hand on your hip as his cheeks flamed from your swift kiss. No matter how long you two had been together it seemed he’d never get used to public affection. Your boldness was incredibly attractive. Of course he had his assertive moments, but nothing compared to you. Ever the free spirit.

Shoving his new glass of whiskey into his hand you carried the tray of shots back to the table. Everyone had moved on from what had happened only minutes further, the atmosphere light and cheerful.

“Shots for everyone!” You smiled, passing the shots out like candy.

Schneider reclaimed his spot, waving away the shot in favor of his own drink.

“Oh come on honey! Have a shot with us!” You giggled, leaning in and giving him yet another kiss to loosen him up.

He wasn't one to ever say no to you. With a warning glance he took the shot from your hand. "This is it for me. I have to drive you home." He reminds, raising his glass, now ready to take the shot with his friends.

With a brief cheers, everyone downs their shot with a smile (aside from Flake, who still sits grumpily next to his co-leader). Schneider tries to hide his smirk at your grimace, the strong alcohol contorting your features.

"Don't look at me like that Christoph!" You sat in his lap, a pout evident on your face.

The use of his first name has heads turning from the rest of the group. No one was accustomed to the usage of it like you were. He was just 'Schneider' to his colleagues. It was as if you were talking about a different person.

Your drunken words brought an embarrassed blush to Schneider's cheeks. Grabbing your jaw firmly, he brought you nose to nose with him. He spoke gently, yet his expression was serious. "Not in front of them love."

You nodded in response, enjoying the grip he had on you. You knew he wasn't joking around, but to you he'd only be Christoph. His last name just wasn't something that was spoken at home. A word you practically refused to use unless you were thoroughly upset.

"What do you say?" He asked, not relinquishing his hold on you.

"Yes sir..." You spoke, giving him your best puppy dog eyes. The ones you used when he spoke to you like this. The ones you knew pulled at his heart, that he couldn’t dare resist.

He let out a hefty exhale. Oh what you did to him...

"Good girl."

[wanderingmind867]

Issue #6: Josh wakes up in Gotham harbour. He doesn't know where Arani, Val and Cliff are, and he's shocked he even managed to survive. But he stumbles through the streets of gotham, and eventually discovers a tv in a show window that's broadcasting some really dramatic news. Steve Dayton has told the press that The New Doom Patrol is responsible for the death of the original Doom Patrol members, and they need to be brought to justice immediately!

So for the first time in their long career, the Doom Patrol have become enemies of the law. Josh has to try and hide in plain sight, but Mister Nobody isn't letting any of these Doom Patrol members go down without a fight. So he uses his powers to create a new villian to fight Tempest and his solar blasts: meet ____, the oppressive unknown. is everything and nothing. They're the unexplainable darkness you sometimes see. They're a shapeless, formless void, capable of swallowing anyone whole. And now they've come for Josh, and they won't stop until they get their target.

Josh tries to fight them, but a true predicament presents itself: how do you fight the concept of the void? Turns out: oppressive light. So Josh has to pretty much cause a solar flare in Gotham, all just to destroy ____ (and he still didn't destroy them fully. He merely managed to defeat them for a time). And after the Solar Flare manages to save Josh, he finds Val. She landed in the caribbean, and she was flying all the way to Midway City when she spotted Josh. Now they team up to head back to Midway City. Hopefully from their mansion headquarters, they can use their tech to find Cliff and Arani.

Issue #7: Arani wakes up in Iceland. Just like all the others, she's absolutely lost. She doesn't know where Cliff, Josh or Val are, and she's never been to Iceland before. But she's currently more focused on getting back to Midway City, where she can use her husband's supplies to find and locate Josh, Val and Cliff. But before Arani gets the chance to do any of that, she runs into a young man crying near a lake.

This young man is named Finnar Adnesson, and he's a 14 year old mutant/metahuman, exiled because of his uncontrollable powers. His power? He can control and create ice and snow. Also, he's got a pair of fairy wings, and his skin is so white that he looks like he's made of snow. How can this be? Well, his mother was infertile, and she prayed for a son. And he was born, but he came from the land of the fae. Growing up, he was taught to hide his wings and suppress his magical powers. But a few weeks before Arani showed up, Finn accidentally lost control and summoned a blizzard when some of the kids at school bullied him. Now he's been hiding out in the forests, trying to avoid everyone.

But Arani shows Finnar that she can control Ice too, and that he's not alone in having special abilities. In fact, Arani has a home for him, back in Midway City. If his own countrymen won't accept him, she'll gladly bring him back with her to the US. So that's what they do. Finnar uses his wings to help fly Arani back to Midway City, where he can hopefully find a home with her.

As you can probably tell, this issue isn't very action packed. It's more character based, as Arani finds a kindred spirit in this young boy. He's pretty much going to become her adopted son, a child whom she can train in the ways of the world. I suppose you could see him as the new Beast Boy figure for the team, but I insist they're different enough for that comparison to only work on the most basic of levels.

Issue #8: Josh and Valentina arrive back in Midway City, only to find a horrible reception committee waiting for them: a legion of highly skilled mercenaries, the best money can buy. Hired by Steve Dayton to attack and punish the Doom Patrol for killing Rita, they've been waiting to ambush them at the mansion for hours now. Josh and Negative Woman manage to fight their way into the mansion, but they quickly become overwhelmed after around an hour or two of defending their ground. And just when things start looking grim, that's when Robotman reappears to save the day!

Cliff then explains what happened to him. He woke up in the Miami area, somehow having been pulled there by the tides. And after seeing the news about Steve Dayton declaring the Doom Patrol public enemy no. 1, Cliff hijacked a car and drove frantically cross country. He's been driving for almost 24 hours non-stop, and arrived back at the manor just in time to save them from certain death at the hands of these two-bit mercenaries. From here, our trio end up having to try and work out plans to defend the mansion from the mercenaries, using all the old tech left behind by The Chief.

Issue #9: Arani and Finnar arrive in Midway City just as Josh, Val and Cliff are finishing a battle with some mercenaries hired by Steve Dayton. It's at this moment that they have to tell Arani that Mento seems to have lost his mind, and he's currently blaming them all for the deaths of Rita, Larry and Niles. So the team can't stay here in Midway City. Steve knows all about this mansion, and he's got men coming every which way to harass them. They need to escape.

But before they can escape, Arani insists on entering the house and searching for something. She's looking for copies of the letters her and niles sent each other back and forth. She saw them in the mansion once, but she's lost them and needs time to find them. So in the meantime, Cliff, Josh and Valentina end up having to fend off more and more of Steve's hired hands. Finnar tries to help them, but he's young and unused to combat.

Still, Arani finds the letters eventually, and then the team takes off in an already prepared ship, leaving their home in Midway City far behind them. And while Valentina flies the ship, Arani reads over the letters from Niles and cries. The letters show us that he truly did care for her. Despite their startling age gap, it is made clear that Niles actually did want to come back for her one day. And although the letters never say this, I think it's clear that the main reason he stayed away from her was because he didn't want her to see him in his crippled, wheelchair bound state. He was so full of self pity that he didn't want to let her in…

But he sent her letters detailing everything about the Doom Patrol. She knew all about his team and their missions. He never left any details out. He said he wanted her to meet them one day. She was his love. And every day without her was a day of pain and anguish. Still, he couldn't ever bring himself to visit her. He couldn't bear to see her reaction to his wheelchair bound form. He was always scared she'd reject him, since he'd never had anyone who loved him before, in the way that arani loved him. He was terrified to lose it.

And realizing all of this as she reads back the letters, Arani just cries. If Niles is still alive, she will find him. He means the world to her, and she will do anything to bring him back. Meanwhile, Mister Nobody just watches from the shadows, overconfident in his success over these wannabe heroes…

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Bad News Bears (2005)

If you didn’t care for the 2005 remake of The Bad News Bears, it was probably because you deemed it inferior to the original. But what if you didn’t see the original? My rating may change once I finally see the 1976 sports comedy but until then, I say this one has a lot of laughs, a perfectly cast Billy Bob Thornton and a pitch-perfect ending.

Liz Whitewood (Marcia Gay Harden) hires washed-up alcoholic former baseball player Morris Buttermaker (Thornton) to coach the Bears, a children’s team whose players show little promise. Whether they’re constantly fighting each other, displaying no sports skills, making you question if there might be something wrong with in their heads, or wheelchair-bound, they stand no chance of winning anything. Even less with the dispassionate Buttermaker leading them.

Made two years after Bad Santa, this is basically that film but with less of a foul mouth, and for kids… kinda? There’s certainly no shortage of cursing, name-calling and terms that will make anyone who cares about political correctness woozy. No nudity though, and the sex jokes are likely to go over the kid’s heads - I mean that’s what happens to his young baseball players, so probably. If you show this to the young ones you may have some awkward questions to answer about strip clubs… but it’s not R-Rated, so aim for teens and up? The point is this material was made for Thornton (it may have literally been, come to think of it). Even once you’ve figured out the movie’s central gag, it remains funny thanks to the many ways director Richard Linklater shows us just how trashy Buttermaker is. One of my favorite jokes comes right at the beginning and it tells you everything you need to know about him but I was still surprised by what came later.

Along with the coach, we get enough of several players (played by Ridge Canipe, Tyler Patrick Jones, Aman Johal and others) to be both amused and somewhat frustrated (in a good way) by Buttermaker’s disregard for the team. You like seeing him not care but you'd like the rascalls to learn something, maybe even win some games. With some star players brought in (played by Sammi Kane Kraft and Jeffrey Davies), it's certainly possible. This keeps you invested in the story. That gag about not caring can only go so far, after all. The introduction of a villain - a coach who cares too much about winning, played by Greg Kinnear - helps. If he gets taught a lesson, it’ll feel like a win.

Though I enjoyed the film and laughed consistently, I can also kind of see where it might be a disappointment. You can picture the way The Bad News Bears could do more, push things further and be even more outrageous than it is. It’s another reason why I’m curious to see the original but for now, I’ll endorse this film. Mostly for Thornton’s dry, acidic humour rather than the sports story itself but that’s more than enough. (On DVD, September 27, 2021)

[digitaljaneaustenproject]

What Jane Austen Taught Me About Running Zoom Meetings

Many of our social interactions happen digital these days, even “face-to-face” ones like Zoom meetings. It’s still just not the same as in-person, whether for meetings, a book club, or just to hang out. There must be a better way to gather digitally. I think a big piece of why digital isn’t working is that we don’t have social norms there.

Social norms are what make a conversation flow smoothly. You see it in how close you stand or sit together, how you take turns, and in the type of space you choose. Basic videoconferencing has none of this: we can’t control distance, audio lags or mutes, and it’s almost always the same black screen of videos from job interviews to birthday parties.

Some tools try to mimic in-person social interactions and norms in digital meeting spaces, kind of like a video game. Each person has an avatar that moves around a digital space and hears nearby conversation. The word for directly recreating things or experiences into digital tools is skeuomorphism. It’s easy for people to learn because it’s just like the other familiar version. But it also can point out the ways that digital just can’t be the same as in-person. Making a videogame-like social event does bring some social norms into that digital conversation, but it also reminds us that we aren’t in person, we can’t shake hands, we look at the whole room like a map instead of from our eyes.

So digital doesn’t work and just mimicking in-person doesn’t make it all intuitively work. So I’m going to look for new social norms.

Actually, I’m going to look for really old ones.

~~~

Regency era England definitely had well-established social norms. Think Jane Austen’s books, like Pride and Prejudice, or Netflix’s Bridgerton. The middle and upper classes of that time easily knew what to expect from each other and what would be expected of them just from where they were and what was going on, thanks to social rules and etiquette. At least some of these social norms feel overly strict to a modern eye. And this is actually what I was looking for with digital social norms. Computer rules are also very, very strict (eventually it’s all 1s and 0s). They don’t give us wiggle room within the rules. In a lecture, you shouldn’t talk, but you can whisper to the friend next to you. But try whispering in a Zoom meeting while muted. So what can Jane Austen’s social norms give digital meeting spaces? I have 3 ideas to start.

~~~

1. Being a host is a social job, not tech support

The host of Regency ball had little in common with a Zoom host. On Zoom, hosting is muting and unmuting attendees, managing recording, and placing avatars in different rooms; tech support. Being a Regency host was social, they greeted each person on arrival, introduced them people they should know, and generally showed them what the ball had to offer. And this was before they entered the ball.

I think it would be nice to not just appear in a sea of black squares, not knowing who was there and not knowing if conversation had already started. Imagine a one-on-one greeting between you and an organizer who took you to a small group of peers and introduced you, or brought you to the full group after explaining that people are waiting for the actual book club to start but can join breakout rooms to chat in the meantime.

~~~

2. Dancing lets us get to know each other and the group

Don’t worry, I am not going to ask you to dance in Zoom. Like I said, I’m not here for skeuomorphism. But a major reason for dancing at balls (you know, besides it was fun) was a chance for two people to chat one-on-one and for the larger community to know who was chatting with who. Everyone saw who was dancing not just by looking at the dance floor, but also by looking at people’s dance cards (which they carried or hung on their wrist) and seeing whose name was written for each dance.

Hybrid teams struggle to get to know each other because they mostly communicate through text or in team meetings with little time for social chatting. Us remote workers miss having a space to just talk, not about work or anything in particular. We could make digital meeting spaces that use voice chat to let pairs of people quickly connect and talk, and use a digital dance card to let the group see who’s been chatting with who.

~~~

3. Candles set the stage and expectations

Little details at a Regency ball could give important cues to attendees. The length of the candles burning in the rooms would tell people how long the ball was expected to last and that told them what was available at the ball. Short candles? A few hours of dancing and some food. Long candles? Settle in for a long night and look for places to take a break with card games or other amusement.

Digital meetings spaces are entirely missing this. Zoom always looks the same! It doesn’t matter if I’m playing a game with my family or presenting a progress report. The skeuomorphism can help here to bring in the same cues we have in person; make the background a living room for game night or an office for the presentation. But sometimes that just reminds us that we’re not in a living room together and might make the video uncanny. I want digital meeting places to have décor cues that are all their own. Because digital meeting spaces are not just replacements for in person ones. They’re something new and I want us to really explore what we can do with them.

[5sosfanfictioncatalogue]

Sporty!Calum Masterlist

95 & 96 (ao3) - Buckysprostate michael/calum, calum/ofc M, 14k (WIP)

Summary: Norwest christian college has one thing going for it, as stated in the schools name, It is a christian school. So all of the team mates and coaches would not find it very nice to find out the secret that Clifford and Hood are hiding.

Or Michael is gay and the rest of the team hates him for it until Calum realizes he might have something in common.

A Bear and a Wolf (ao3) - HolyAFIx94 calum/ashton T, 33k

Summary: rivalry is natural in sports, but the goalie of the Wolves team seems to dislike the captain of the Bears team off the field as much as on. when at practice said goalie has an unfortunate accident and Calum speeds onto the field to help who he learns is named Ashton, it might just be the chance they need to see past the rivalry...

Anywhere With You Is Cool Too (ao3) - orphan_account calum/ashton, michael/luke T, 5k

Summary: Ashton's been friends with Calum since freshman year when he moved to a new state and he may or may not been infatuated with the boy since.

(or the one where Ashton's head over heels for Calum, Calum's the nicest jock there is, Luke loves to see how far Ashton can pine over his crush and Michael really wants Luke to suck his dick.)

coast (with you) (ao3) - galacticsugar luke/calum M, 6k

Summary: Luke has a type. Dark hair, dark eyes, preferably nice full lips. It’s just what he’s drawn to the most, and he has a long line of dark haired, dark eyed exes to prove it. Which has taught him an important lesson: you don’t try to date the hot dark haired, dark eyed party hook-up. You fuck them and you move on with your life.

desperation (my chest hurts) (ao3) - retromalum michael/calum G, 4k

Summary: Desperation. That’s all Michael can taste in this kiss. It’s written all over his mouth in his messy handwriting, it’s obvious in the way his tongue props at his own mouth. Kissing Calum after so long is like coming back home after a long day, except for the fact that he hasn’t seen him in over four years. And he’s all the same.

or

The one where Calum chooses football over music and leaves the rest of the boys on their own. They fall apart.

feeling the weight of the world (ao3) - babyblueliveshere calum/ashton M, 22k

Summary: duke university and the university of north carolina, ten miles apart, home to the most intense rivalry in all of college basketball. and now, they have the top two high school basketball recruits in the nation: ashton irwin and calum hood.

It was always you (ao3) - CliffordAffliction luke/calum, michael/ashton E, 48k

Summary: Everyone wants Calum Hood and Luke can have him just as long as it’s on Calum’s terms. Thing’s take a turn for the worst when Luke begins to push Calum away, fed up with the way he treats him, and Calum begins to realize how much he really needs Luke in his life after all.

My Cobain Shirt (ao3) - unconditionalcalum michael/calum, luke/ashton T, 14k (WIP)

Summary: Michael's heart skipped a beat. Did he, Calum fucking Hood, just talk to him, Michael? Michael managed to smile at him quickly before the tanned boy walked away, already talking to someone else. It never happened before. Until this moment, Michael wasn't even sure Calum knew he existed. But apparently, he did.

Or: the one where the shy boy with the bright hair (Michael) has a hopeless crush on the popular soccer-player-with-a-scholarship (Calum).

never know what you've got until it's gone - @sup3rbloom (haveufoundwhaturlookingfor) calum/ashton, michael/luke T, 10k

Summary: Ashton's had the biggest crush on Calum Hood since forever. Luke knew this. He only had the best of intentions when he brought up Ashton's crush to Calum. He never thought about Ashton potentially finding out.

off track (ao3) - galacticsugar, kaleidoscopeminds luke/calum E, 113k

Summary: Calum’s bumped into exes before, of course, but not all his exes are Luke Hemmings, who’s the sort of person that Calum had gotten used to the idea of never seeing again. And Calum had long since reasoned that it’s probably for the best that he doesn’t see him in the flesh ever, because Luke Hemmings is an itch in the back of his brain that never quite goes away, that he’s never been able to scratch, the someone that features in his dreams when he lets his subconscious take the reins.

He’s Calum’s the one that got away.

Off The Field (ao3) - crikeymatee michael/calum, luke/ashton E, 110k (WIP)

Summary: "Neither one of you are playing until you learn to get along. You're both benched for the remaining games unless you learn to get along with each other." Coach said.

"WHAT?!", they screamed in unison.

"How am I supposed to get along with this, t-this fag?!"

"Oh fuck you, you self-centered little bitch."

Playin’ In The Street, Gonna Be A Big Man Some Day (ao3) - senoritastyles calum/ashton G, 3k

Summary: “Alright, Ohio calls the toss since they’re the home team.” The ref says, holding a coin in his hand and looking at Ashton. “Call it.” He requests, flipping the coin into the air.

“Heads.” Ashton says, eyes mischievous when they catch Calum’s through the masks on their helmets.

Calum subtly shakes his head with a smirk and the ref bends to pick up the coin off the ground. “Heads it is. Ohio, it’s your choice.”

Ashton smirks and looks knowingly at his boyfriend. “We’ll kick off first.”

Or: Calum and Ashton face off in the national college football championship.

Playin’ In The Street, Gonna Be A Big Man Some Day (ao3) - senoritastyles calum/ashton G, 3k

Summary: “Alright, Ohio calls the toss since they’re the home team.” The ref says, holding a coin in his hand and looking at Ashton. “Call it.” He requests, flipping the coin into the air.

“Heads.” Ashton says, eyes mischievous when they catch Calum’s through the masks on their helmets.

Calum subtly shakes his head with a smirk and the ref bends to pick up the coin off the ground. “Heads it is. Ohio, it’s your choice.”

Ashton smirks and looks knowingly at his boyfriend. “We’ll kick off first.”

Or: Calum and Ashton face off in the national college football championship.

there's something that you should know (ao3) - cxmp michael/calum T, 4k

Summary: Every summer, skater boys Calum and Michael travel to a sleepaway camp like no other — Camp Woodward — to hone their skills, meet new friends, and take their talents to the next level. But it's what they're not expecting that will change their lives forever.

your lips are like a homerun (ao3) - waywardaussies michael/calum, luke/ashton E, 4k

Summary: or michael and calum are on rival baseball teams and have a lot of sexual tension between them

[imagineanime2022]

Dating Headcannons For Atsushi Murasakibara

Atsushi Murasakibara X GN!Reader

Requested: Anon

Request: Murasakibara from Kuroko's basketball with a male reader that's taller than him? Or just general dating headcannons. Noticing a lot of your current content is pointed towards obey me and Bungo stray dogs. Are you getting bored of writing for those?

a/n: Kept the reader gender neutral so as many people as possible could enjoy this, though is geared more towards male reader I hope as that is what you asked for.

🍭 For starters there is probably a large amount of time that he spends not noticing you but you definitely noticed him, you were working in a convenience store that frequented.

🍭 You always kept his favourite snacks back for him and that was when he started to take notice of you. 🍭 The first time he really saw you, you were teaching some kids how to play basketball. He could see that you were good, the way that you interacted with the kids and taught them. You glanced over and waved before calling him in. 🍭 The real indication that liked you was actually playing one on one match with you to show the kids a real game. That was the day he realised that you were taller than him, you were always behind a counter or miles away from him he’d never noticed before. 🍭 You started talking more from there on but then his team needed a new manager so he asked you. 🍭 You took the position and that meant that you spent even more time together, you often brought his favourite food, just to get him to take part in practice properly or snap him out of whatever mood he was in. 🍭 You started calling him ‘Sushi which he seemed to love. Everyone noticed that you were very close but the person to say something was Tatsuya, nothing came from it until after the match against Seirin after his first loss he found himself looking for you to find comfort and it was after that that basically declared to the world (you included) that you belonged to him. 🍭 He never really officially asked, he did give you every chance to reject any advancement or shows of affection at any time. 🍭 You guys are probably the cutest thing that most people have seen, he’d often feed you if he knew that you hadn’t eaten and he always knew. You didn't know how but he always did. 🍭 He asked you why you didn’t play and you explained an injury that you got when you were younger so you just helped people that played instead. Since hearing that he’d always watch you and if he deems it necessary (which he always does) he’ll just carry you places or take your bag and carry that for you. 🍭 He’s the stronger of the two of you despite the fact that you were taller than he was, you always worried about him carrying you around but he dismissed the concern by jolsting you around and showing you he could hold you easily. 🍭 Everyone comes to you when they need to convince him to do something and he’ll usually do it but only if you would come with him, so be careful what you agree to. 🍭 The rest of the generation of miracles are all surprised to see him with you, mostly because he’ll often be standing there with a bag of crisps and he’ll eat one and then feed one to you, they were shocked the first time they all saw it, like they all just stopped talking at looked at him, which annoyed him and you had to calm him down after that too. 🍭 You doted over him when he broke his arm in the Jabberwock match and he loved it soaked up every bit for affection. Side note he’ll have you tie up his hair before every match as well often with the excuse that he can’t be bothered to lift his arms. 🍭 Often calls you sugar or sweetness and you could see Tatsuya roll his eyes every time. 🍭 You have to tell him off for being mean to everyone even if his nicknames were absolutely hilarious, you were in charge of keeping him out of trouble when Tatsuya wasn’t around. 🍭 You help him study a lot of the time if you can and he’ll listen to you though it’s always hard to get him to actually focus in the first place, if you're both hopeless then it just devolves into messing around. 🍭 When you guys cuddled up together, you usually wrapped around him, in some way, he’d be the one to pull you down to cuddle because you just won’t stop moving and he stopped caring about that task you had set for yourself and just wants you close. 🍭 He doesn’t like it when he doesn’t know where you are or can’t see you but there is only so much that you can do about that but you’ll text and call him as much as you can to make him a little more happy. 🍭 You don’t argue very often but small disagreements are common, considering his lazy and resistant attitude, you argue playfully about his attitude towards something, he’ll likely walk away from you and then wait for him to approach you again usually offering some kind of food for peace. 🍭 If he ever hears that something happened to you, he was there before you even knew what happened, he’d drop anything, he’d skip class and practice if it meant that he’d be able to make sure that you were okay. 🍭 All in all he loves you a lot and it might take him a while to say but he’ll show you everyday, just be sure to show him as well. He’s easily bored and if he doesn’t get back what he gives he’ll leave.

Request Here!!

[maximov-widow]

hi! i love your work and was wondering if you’d write a one shot where reader is thor’s younger sister and it’s her first time visiting earth. she’s clueless and doesn’t know how anything works 😩 wanda and nat get super smitten and eventually fall for the reader 😳 can we also get some protective big sister hela ♥️♥️♥️

Goodbye forever..

Pairing: Natasha x Wanda x Reader

Warning: Language, fluff, little bit of angst :3

Summary: First time visiting a place and being left by your brother, Thor for safety, falling into hands of Natasha and Wanda, will they help you adapt?

Word count: 4.1k

My requests are always open so feel more than welcome to pop in a suggestion for the next story :3

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"Asgard is in danger at the moment so I had to bring her down here Stark" Thor explained as you stood not far from him as you looked around.

"That's not what I'm saying, she doesn't know anything here and I can't babysit her, I am a busy man if you haven't noticed" Tony raised his concerns.

"I'm not asking you to babysit her, all I need is for to stay here until Asgard is clear from whatever is putting it in danger" Thor had that charm at convincing people to what he wants, which was working on Tony.

"What if she leaves or something? Or accidently hurts someone with her powers, she's still young and doesn't know her full strength" Tony was sitting down as he slowly started to crack, but there were doubts.

Thor looked back at you as you stared at the one of the tools that were laying around "She is young but she has been trained by me and Loki but if you're still worried, Wanda knows how to control her powers so she can train her and just keep an eye out. She is the strongest so she can easily over power her"

There was a moment of silence as Tony thought "Okay, I will brief Wanda about this"

Thor smiled widely as he was quick to give the rather smaller man a hug "I will be back as soon as possible"

Tony nodded with a small smile himself as he asked for Wanda, Thor turned towards you and took couple steps towards you which caught your attention "Y/n"

You looked at him with a smile "Brother"

"You'll be staying here for now until I came back from Asgard" He place his hand on your shoulder.

"I could help you fight in Asgard, you don't need to leave me here" Convincing Thor was a lot more harder than anyone really thought.

"We already spoke about this Y/n and you know my answer to that, I will try to visit but until then I'm ordering you to stay here and you can't leave" Thor stood straight as he slightly tensed when this was mentioned again.

You nodded, it's not like you had a choice and he nodded back "Good" Just in time Wanda walked in as she saw Thor since he was blocking you from her view, he turned with a smile at her sight, to which Tony walked out.

He hugged you "They will take care of you don't worry"

You nodded once again as you let a tear slide down your cheek, this was a big change, you didn't know anyone here and you was slightly afraid but only slightly.

He moved to the side to which now Wanda had a full view on you "Wanda, that's Y/n, you'll be training her. They will brief you now I have to go" Tony explained as he walked out.

Wanda raised her eyebrows at Tony but her gaze shifted to you and Thor to which she took couple steps, Thor rolled his eyes at Tony "Well anyways, this is Y/n as Tony said, she will be staying here for some time before I came back so I just need you to keep an eye out and keep her out of trouble so Tony doesn't try to kill me"

Wanda nodded as she smiled at you "Okay, that's not a problem, If I understood from what Tony said I will be training her?"

He nodded "Yes, she has powers even though she has them under control but just in case, just give her some tips or something"

Wanda wanted to know why you were here but she didn't want to cross any lines, she will find out if you tell her and that's what she will stick to.

"Well I have to go.." He stated as he awkwardly waited for Wanda to stop staring at you.

"Okay, I will show her around then" Wanda looked at Thor with a smile as he nodded, he gave you the last hug and walked off.

You followed Wanda around as she showed you everything, your room, meeting room, party room, training room, anything that she knew of, the last was the living room where most of the team was.

No one knew you were Thor's sister and you didn't know they didn't know so you just went along with it, as soon as you walked into the living room, the TV caught your attention.

Wanda stood near the kitchen as she faced you "Well this is the living room where the team usually relaxes after missions"

"And there is the kitchen to make food, usually I cook since they can barely make toast without burning it" She pointed towards the door that led to the kitchen.

You looked and smiled "Thank you, I think I understand everything now"

She nodded "Well if you have any questions, you can ask me"

This pulled the teams attention toward Wanda, their eyes landed on you and they quickly gathered around the two of you "Who is this?" Steve asked as he crossed his arms.

"This is Y/n, Thor brought her here from Asgard for the time being, so she will be staying with us" Wanda simply explained.

They all nodded and Wanda asked again "So Y/n do you have any questions?"

You nodded with a small smile "Yes, why are there people stuck in a box?"

Natasha frowned in confusion "People stuck in a box?"

You nodded as you pointed towards the TV "There, they seem to be frozen"

Natasha along with everyone looked over to see what you were talking about, Natasha tried her best to keep her chuckle in as she looked back at you "It's a TV, this is already recorded so we are just watching back"

Your lips turned into a perfect O shape as you nodded "Oh that's definitely new"

Sam held his face as he stared at you "You don't have TV's in Asgard?!"

You shook your head "That is not a thing, no. We have advanced technology there"

"Well, besides that I'm Steve" He reached his hand out for you, you looked at Wanda a little clueless to which she giggled slightly and showed you what to do.

You smiled widely at the hand shake, and then moved to Sam and Bucky and Bruce, they all shook your hand but when it came to Natasha, you leaned down and kiss her hand as she introduced herself.

They all stared at you with shock, Natasha didn't pull away which was more of a shock for the team, you turned back as you looked at the team "Is this not normal for people to do?"

They shook their head with awkward smiles "Not really, unless you're are rich and you're looking for a business deal"

You nodded slowly and looked over at Wanda "Don't worry I will teach you everything"

You gave a quick nod as you excused yourself to go back to your room, to which the team went back to watching the movie but Natasha lingered near Wanda.

"What is it Natasha?" Wanda asked as she knew it was her.

"Do you mind me tagging along?" The redhead didn't waste any time.

Wanda looked at her with her brows raised "Really? But why?"

She shrugged "I have nothing else to do"

Wanda tilted her head "Didn't you just tell the team you were overloaded with mission reports?"

"Well they aren't interesting unlike our new female recruitment" Natasha leaned on a door frame as a small smirk made it's way to her lips.

"Yeah okay, it will be easier with another person around" Wanda nodded to agree and started to prepare things to cook.

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For few weeks, Natasha and Wanda trained and taught you how to be more human, which you really appreciated. It wasn't as bad as you thought this stay would be, you grew fond of the two women quite quickly.

The witch and the former assassin felt the same, well they were more aware of what those feelings were but for you it was a lot more harder to understand why you wanted to spend more time with them than the rest of the group.

The two women started to fall in love with you and each time it was harder to hide. The team had their suspicions to which they were confirmed each time.

There was this one time...

"Okay, we need to somehow get some clothes for Y/n" Tony stated as he tried to think of a loophole.

You was standing in front of him, being quiet and just waiting for them to come up with a solution, your attention shifted to Steve "We can always just go shopping with Y/n"

Bucky raised his brows at Steve "As if you know anything about women's fashion"

Steve frowned "I rather think of myself as an expert"

Sam laughed "Yeah an expert in messing up, she would look like fashion show gone wrong"

Tony even manged to crack a smile at the comment "Sorry Steve but no"

Steve dramatically huffed "You guys are so mean, you need to give me a chance"

A voice spoke up from behind them "Give you a chance for what Steve?"

You turned around at the familiar voice, as you saw Wanda and Natasha walk in, a smile spread across your lips at the sight of them and you waved at them and quickly going back to your serious face after they wave back.

"It seems like Steve wants to buy me clothes" You spoke up for the first time since you was called in her.

"That's a terrible idea" Natasha spoke up this time as she walked past Steve with Wanda and stood next to you.

"Thanks for the support Romanoff" Steve sounded offended at the comment, earning a laugh from Wanda.

"You know what, just leave it up to us Tony, we will take care of this little issue" Wanda proposed the idea to which Tony quickly agreed and went on with his little project.

And so Wanda and Natasha snuck you out and went on a shopping spree to find you better clothes. You looked like you were from the medieval rather than from this century so a new wardrobe was in desperate need.

You ended up buying a lot of clothes and decided to explore a bit before coming back, you had like 10 bags in one hand and it was still light to you, it was pretty impressive and definitely Natasha with Wanda admired the way your muscles would flex.

The amount of dirty jokes Natasha had to swallow down, Wanda didn't even need to look into her mind, she was thinking the same thing.

You stopped abruptly as you looked at the creature before you "Stay behind I will protect both of you"

Natasha nearly bumped into you to which she peeked to see what you were talking about "Protect from what Y/n?"

"That creature" You narrowed at the dog that was walking lazily with it tongue out.

Wanda looked at Natasha with a smile at how cute you were with your knowledge "It's a dog, not a creature Y/n/n"

You looked over at Wanda "A dog? It wont try to attack us?"

She shook her head with a smile, she pulled the woman's attention who was walking the dog "Sorry, do you think my friend can pet your cute dog?"

The woman was quick to agree with a big smile across her lips, Natasha kneeled down and you followed her lead, she placed her hand over yours, you felt goose bumps at the contact and she placed your hand on the dogs head.

"See, it just loves pets" Natasha spoke softly to you as she watched your reaction.

You were sceptic at first but gently petted the little dog, a smile slowly appeared across your lips as you looked over to Natasha, inches away from her face, if heart eyes were real Natasha would definitely have them in that moment.

"It's harmless.." You stated out practically with disbelief.

Wanda smiled as she placed her hand on your shoulder, she felt her heart melt at the scene in front of her "Okay, let's go and grab something to eat"

You looked at the woman in front of you and thanked her politely "She really trained that creature very well"

"Why do you call it a creature?" Wanda asked curiously as she linked her arm with yours and so did Natasha.

"Well in Asgard we have Fenris Wolf, they are a lot bigger but very violent and it did look like Fenris so I was worried it would try to hurt you both"

They were melting, the way you felt like you had to protect them from a Fenris Wolf and put yourself in danger first, it was adorable and there was slight worry in your tone.

"Well" Wanda spoke with a huge smile "Thank you for worrying"

You smiled back and looked between the two women who were on either of your side "You shouldn't thank me, ladies should be treated like treasure"

An innocently precious look settled across the two women's faces at your words, their eyes filled with adoration and love, you were perfect and that's what they loved about you.

Or this time...

You had woke up pretty early, having your mind set to preparing breakfast for the two redheads, you wanted to do something nice for how they both took care of you and always made sure that you felt a little bit less loner here.

You knew how to cook but it was a little difficult to make anything here with earth ingredients, that didn't mean you would give up, you make sure Natasha and Wanda taught you how to use something called internet, you managed to search up videos and taught yourself how to make food.

With a smile at your success, you delivered your food to their beds, Natasha and Wanda shared a room together which made it a lot easier to give them your hard worked breakfast.

You memorized the way they did their coffee and quietly walked inside their bedroom, with food and coffee in hand. You placed it down as you slowly started to wake the women in bed.

Wanda was quicker to wake up, she sat up as she stared at you "What is wrong Y/n/n?"

Natasha slowly stirred as she opened one eye and looked at you and half awake Wanda, she never was a morning person so she groaned at being woken up.

"I have made food for my two favourite ladies" You stated simple with a innocent smile.

Wanda rubbed her eyes and finally was able to take in the smell and the sight of the food, it was waffles with blueberries and whipped cream, it was both of their favourite.

She looked at you again "Thank you Y/n/n"

She looked over at Natasha who had a smile but her eyes were shut "Yeah thank you Y/n I really appreciate food in bed"

"You welcome Lady Natasha"

Wanda giggled at how you called her "You didn't have to do this"

You stood up as you walked over to the food and give Wanda her plate and Natasha as well "Nonsense, I will be forever grateful how yous have treated me, with most care and respect so I shall give back something as well"

Natasha smirked "You should definitely feed me if you want to give back something"

Wanda raised her brows at Natasha's comment to which you proceed at her command "Anything you wish for Lady Natasha"

Natasha chuckled as she waved her hand to dismiss you "I was joking Y/n but I appreciate your dedication"

"You are most certainly welcome" You bowed down in front of them, earning nods and slight giggles.

This was just a pure moment between the three of you, something that the redheads treasured and adored, it was those moments that made them realise how important you had become to their simple lives, you bright them up and surprise them each time which was new compared to the boring days on earth.

If we were to go through all of the times, we would be here for days, but the point has been made to why the team had their suspicions.

Weeks turned into months and you definitely was better and had a better grasp on your powers, you learnt their language properly and slang which made expressing a lot more easier.

The only thing you struggled was your feelings, asking was a lot more complicated since you didn't quite understand what you should even ask, you wanted to just be with them and when you learnt about something called kissing, it never left your mind.

To understand it better you searched everything they had on kissing on the internet, realising it's something you wanted to do, something you wanted to experience with Wanda and Natasha.

So now that you understood that, you were determent to ask about it to Wanda and Natasha, making your way towards the meeting room where they were.

You opened the door and almost immediately they looked up at you "Y/n/n what brings you here"

You felt hot just at them looking at you "Lady Natasha, Lady Wanda" You bowed as you always did.

Natasha noticed your nervous to which she stood up and Wanda followed, she walked over to you with a soft smile "Why are you nervous Y/n?"

You smiled nervously at her "I wanted to talk"

Wanda followed right after with a soft smile just like Natasha's "What do you want to talk about Darling" They slightly trapped you in between them which you didn't mind at all.

You took a deep breath and just as words were about to leave your mouth, a familiar voice to you spoke up but to the redheads it was unknown "There you are Y/n"

You turned to face the voice as Natasha took a step in front of you along with Wanda, her hands ready to fire away with red mist, what took them off guard was your question "Sister Hela?"

They looked back at you with shocked faces, the tall woman stood in the same place but just opened her arms for you, to which you gladly took, you hugged her.

Living on earth for long and having company made you forget that Asgard even existed in the first place "What are you doing here?"

"I will get to that in a second, right now I want to know why these two trapped you?" The protective sister was activated as she death stared the two women in front of her.

You pulled away from Hela as you looked in the direction of the two redheads "They didn't trap me, they are cool don't worry"

"Cool?" Hela questioned as she raised her brows at you "Is this the language they teach on earth?"

She shook her head "I knew your brother did a mistake taking you here"

Natasha crossed her arms "I'm sorry but who are you?"

She looked with no emotions at Natasha "Hela Goddess of death?"

"Doesn't ring a bell" Natasha spat out with a cold glare.

"Thor's sister?" She answered but more in a question tone.

Wanda looked from you to Hela as realisation hit her "If you are Thor's sister... And Y/n is your younger sister.. That means Thor is Y/n's brother"

You nodded simply "Yes, I thought everyone knew"

Wanda facepalmed herself "Of course! That's why you were so clueless of everything on earth and your powers! You are a goddess"

Wanda looked up at you with the most huge smile anyone had witnesses, she was impressed and surprised at her discovery, Natasha spoke up with a smile "Damn she's more badass than we thought"

"Well, this interaction seems nice but I'm here because it's safe to come back to Asgard, Thor sent me to fetch you" Hela cut in before this can go any further.

You looked at Hela "Asgard is safe?"

She nodded with a smile "Yes, you can come back home"

Those smiles that were on the redheads lips, fell almost instantly at Hela's words. They didn't want to lose you, there was an obvious pain in their hearts at this news but they decided to stay strong.

You nodded at her "Is brother Thor here?"

"Yes, I believe he is talking with some people inside, so now let's go so you can say your goodbyes with everyone" She spoke up as she placed her hand on your shoulder.

"Okay sister" You agreed as you looked over at Natasha and Wanda.

"We are right behind you Y/n/n" Wanda spoke up through the pain in her throat, she was going to break and she didn't want you to see.

You nodded and your sister led you towards the rest of the people, you hugged Thor as you commented "Nice haircut, I really like it"

He laughed "Thank you Y/n, the long hair was really hard to fight with"

You nodded and pulled away, so you started off by saying goodbye to everyone, they had grown pretty attached to you and your weird outbursts, they grown to love you as you and your food.

The last two people that were left were Natasha and Wanda, you walked over to them. You wished you had realised what you felt towards them and acted on it before you had to come back.

They both hugged you, each face on your shoulders as you whispered "I wish I could stay more but it isn't my choice"

Natasha had a sad smile as she whispered back "Everyone has a choice детка (baby)"

You pulled away and looked at Wanda who let tears finally slide down her face, you wiped it with your thumb as you looked into her eyes "I will miss yous"

Wanda nodded as she chocked out "We will miss you too, make sure to visit more often"

You nodded and finally returned next to your brother and sister, you couldn't stop your heart practically breaking at the sight of Wanda's eyes looking like a waterfall, whilst Natasha tried to act strong.

It felt like everything was muted until Thor spoke up "Have you gathered everything important Y/n?"

You looked up at him, in this moment you knew what to do "No"

He tilted his head "Well then go bring that important thing to take with us"

"It's impossible" You stated.

"How so?"

You looked over at Hela who had a proud smile across her lips "Are you sure Y/n?"

You nodded as you wiped a tear from your cheek "Okay, what's happening that I don't know off"

"Forgive me brother but I will not go to Asgard because I'm not leaving what's important to me" You spoke up with more confidence.

There was a gasp from practically everyone in the room but you only heard Wanda's "I am staying here because this has became my home when you left"

You looked back at the two redheads "I don't want to leave them because they are important to me and I think I might have feelings for them"

Thor had a smile across his face so when you finally looked back at him, he spoke "Okay Y/n, I'm glad you are able to decide for yourself and what you need"

His gaze shifted to the Russian and the Sokovian "I'm glad you found a home in these two"

You looked back with a smile as you made your way towards them and finally blurred out "I want to kiss yous"

Wanda giggled whole heartedly as your outburst as Natasha giggled with her brows raised perfectly "Are you sure?"

"You said everyone has a choice, so I chose to want to kiss the both of you" You said in one sentence so nervously to which Natasha proudly smiled and pulled you into her face, kissing you and you kissed her back gently, just like you were.

You pulled away and instantly Wanda collided her lips with yours, guiding you and preventing herself from deepening the kiss in front of everyone, she pulls away, leaving you wanting more, just like whenever you would spend your time with them.

"Okay okay, enough" Hela spoke up with slight disgust in her voice, causing the three of you to look over and turn the whole room into giggles.

"But I swear if my little sister ends up heartbroken, I will haunt you two redheads to the rest of your life" There was seriousness in Hela's tone and they both respectfully nodded, acknowledging Hela's words.

This time you were saying goodbye, not to the people you met here but to your previous life and welcoming the new beginning with open arms....

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[lily-drake]

Photograph

Based on

Thank you @johannaiii for letting me write this!!!! It was so much fun and it was a really good prompt!

Talia didn’t like the process of giving birth, in fact she loathed it.  She swore she would never, and she meant never do it again.  But when she was giving birth, and she found out that she was having twins, and she got to hold her children that she sacrificed and suffered for, she loved them.  When she learned that one of them was a girl, she knew that her father would be furious and demand her death.  So she immediately summoned one of the monks from the Tibetan temple that her father was allying with and gave them the girl.  She demanded that they train her and protect, and that she would never, ever be mentioned to Ra’s.  She even killed the nurses who helped her give birth to make sure that there was no one left who would know.  It wouldn’t be hard to find replacements for them anyways, it’s not like their lives were significant.  They had served out their use, now there was no need for them.  When it was time she presented her son, Damian, to her father claiming him to be the only child and heir to the Demon’s Head.  Ra’s was very pleased with her and she felt pride at being able to carry out her task properly that her father was very much pleased with her and her child.

Even though Marinette, as she had named the child before she had given her up, was no longer in the league, she made sure she was still in her daughter’s life.  Once every year she left for “training” purposes with Damian and went to the ancient temple in Tibet to visit her daughter and make sure that the two siblings got to spend time with each other.  Marinette was growing up so fast and the monks would report to her of her daughter’s progress.  They told her that Marinette was destined for greatness and to be a powerful leader, and that pleased Talia greatly.  The man in charge of her daughter's training, Master Wang Fu, would show her photos of her daughter and her accomplishments; she wished that she would be allowed to do the same for Damian.  But the League and the Temple of Order, while partners, were two separate entities when it came to how they were trained and taught.  She smiled as she saw her children sparing on the temple’s grounds, each assessing how strong the other had become since their last meeting a year ago.

They were both 6-years-old now, and Marinette had lost one of her top baby teeth.  She wore the traditional light blue training robes the monks wore while Damian wore his traditional black and red armor with his katana sheathed on his back.  She watched her children and a small smile graced her lips as she watched the two.  They were opposites in almost everything, yet they were still so similar.  Damian’s fighting was aggressive and forceful while Marinette’s focussed on out maneuvering and tiring out the opponent from a distance before striking where it hurt the most.  Their personalities were like fire and ice with Damian being aggressive and mighty while Marinette was soft and humble.  Damian was assertive and forceful in the way he spoke, while Marinette was gentle and descriptive.  Though, like she said before they had many similarities that helped to cement their relationship.  They both were very artistic, in battle they both would get up and personal with their challenger if given the opportunity, both were very intelligent and soaked everything up like a sponge, and both were highly competitive.  The sound of metal being hit together sounded from the training grounds as Damian and Marinette fought with their respective weapons; Damian with his katana and Marinette with her two daggers.

“You’ve definitely improved since the last visit, 'ukht, but so have I.”

Damian announced as he went in to sweep his sister’s legs all while bringing his blade down towards her.  Marinette used her daggers to lift Damian’s blade and flipped backwards as Damian tried to perform his strike.  She was very flexible and graceful when she was in the air.  It sometimes looked as if she were flying when she performed some of her stunts.

“Maybe you have, Xiōngdì, but I seem to still have the upper hand.”

Marinette replied with smugness dripping from her voice as her brother glared at her.  Marinette carefully crafted her words to manipulate while Damian spoke his mind and used his to order and command.  They were opposites, but they completed each other in a way few will ever know.

The day Damian and Talia were to begin their trek back down the mountain Fu ran up to Damian and placed a piece of paper in his hands.  He bowed respectfully to the old man and looked at the picture.  It was a picture the old man had taken a few days ago.  Marinette was smiling brightly and had her arm around his shoulder while he had his arms crossed in front of him and leaned into his sister’s touch with a small smirk.  They were both in their training clothes and stood in front of the mountains that hid and protected the Temple of Order.  He smiled at it and glanced at his sister who was waving goodbye with a big sad smile.  He simply nodded and left not knowing that this would be the last time he would for many years that he would lay eyes on her once again.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Order, it was gone, destroyed!  Marinette felt tears rush down her face as she watched her friends and mentors perish in the flames of miraculous magic gone astray.  She could feel the cold wind passing by her as Master Fu dragged her away, but she couldn’t remove her gaze from her home that was falling into pieces.  What would Damian think, she had to leave something for him to let him know she was okay!  But she was never given the chance because she couldn’t pull away from her master.  They were the last ones left, and Marinette couldn’t wrap her mind around it at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

Damian and Talia hiked the trial many months later, and as they neared the top they could sense something was definitely off.  The top of the temple would usually be in view by now. When they finally reached the top they froze as they saw the ruins of the burned and destroyed temple in front of them.  Talia was the first to break from her daze and ran to the ruins searching through them to find any remains of her daughter.  Damian soon joined his mother, but it was no use.  Damian and Talia believed the worst had happened to her, and with silent tears flowing down his face he stabbed his sword into the ground in front of the burnt remains and fell onto his knees in front of it.  The sword would serve as a gravestone for the fallen warriors here, but it specifically would serve as Marinette’s grave marker.  She was a brave warrior, one of the best, and she was gone now.  Talia stood by her son’s side and soon kneeled in front of it as well with her hand placed on her son’s shoulder.  As they traveled down the mountain Damian swore that he would never be vulnerable again, he would never care about anyone ever again, because the pain he felt was too intense and never wanted to feel it ever again.

So both He and Talia took on more missions, Talia was rarely at the base, always gone doing whatever her father needed.  The training in Tibet never happened again, and Damian grew closer to his grandfather.  He trained harder, attacked ruthlessly, and channeled all his pain and rage into his strikes.  He held onto the photo that Fu had given him of the two of them so many years ago.  He had it tucked away in a secret place in his room where no one would ever find it, because he wanted to keep her with him in some way.  Never again, he wouldn’t be hurt like before ever again.

~~~~~~~~~~

Marinette lived with Master Fu in a tea parlor under the guise of Marin Fu.  She helped him run his parlor and distribute his charms to the people through the teas she brewed while he placed charms on people through the massage therapy he did.  Fu let her be home schooled as she already knew way more than any normal school could teach her.  She would just be repeating things when she could be learning more new material.  She was also taught how to better practice her magic and use the miraculous.  She was going to be the new guardian one day, she was going to be the last guardian one day, and that thought scared her and brought back all of the nightmares.  She locked that night and anything before the fire back up in her mind only remembering what she needed to when she needed to.

Fu wanted her to interact with people though, so with the money he made he sent her to a gymnastics class where she could still retain her skills and get better at them.  She honestly loved the classes and she felt so free when she did them.  Nobody could beat her, in fact she advanced to level 10 quickly and was well on her way to the elite by the time she was 13.  And that’s when Hawkmoth struck Paris.

Lady Rouge and her partner Chat Noir made a decent team, but he was nowhere near her skill level which often annoyed her.  He wasn’t a true black cat, her brother was.  He was her balanced counterpart, and this cat was just a stand in.  And as time went on the imbalance continued the boy became corrupted by the destructive energy of the ring.  She had continually told Master Fu about it, but he would not listen.  And then it was time for him to pass, and she became the grand guardian, the last grand guardian.  Tears fell down the young 15-year-olds face as she watched her mentor's spirit leave him in his peaceful slumber.  He was so old, and it was just his time for him to go, but now she had nowhere to go, but she knew what she had to do.

“Hello, M’lady.”

Chat Noir said in a flirty tone as he spun his staff as if the speed he was doing it at would impress her.

“Hello, Chat.”

She replied terse with her arms crossed in front of her as she leaned on the railing of the Eiffel Tower and gazed at the sky that held little stars due to all of the lights of the city below them.

“Are you not excited to see your soulmate?  Come on M’lady,”

He said grabbing one of her hands with a large smile and deep voice,

“let me take you out somewhere, just the two of us.”

It took everything in Marinette not to break his wrist in that moment, but she had to play along.

“Okay.”

Chat’s eyes widened and his leather tail began to move side to side in an excited manner.

“W-wait, really?!”

“You know what, ya.  This week has been really tough and I could use it.”

Chat’s smile turned into a smirk and a dark twinkle lit up his eyes.  He took a step back and held his hand, his ringed hand, out for her to take.  SHe smiled at him gently and innocently and took his hand, and as he was about to pull her forward she took hold of the rings and ripped her hand off, taking the ring with her.  There was a blonde boy with green eyes staring at her with shock and hurt written all over his face, then eventually anger.

“I am revoking you from being able to wield the Black Cat Miraculous.  You are not compatible to wield this power as you are not my balanced counterpart.  The ring has been corrupting and harming you after all of your exposure to it when you are not the right one to wear it while I hold the earrings.  Thank you for the help you have given me in the past, but I’m afraid that I can not risk hurting you any longer.”

The boy stared at her with wide shocked eyes and nodded.  She could see that he too had now noticed the change as with the ring it didn’t feel like he changed at all.  She helped him get to his house and left after shaking his hand and thanking him one last time for his help.  And as she was about to leave the property she heard the sound of something above her opening and through the now open window she saw an akuma flying out of it.

She quickly caught the akuma and crashed through the glass window into the dark room.  Before Hawkmoth could even realize what had happened she had tied him up in her yo-yo and he was pinned in place with the tight cord.  If she pulled it any tighter it would cut into his skin and draw blood.  She grabbed the broach from the middle of the suit --which was as hideous as his akuma designs, if not worse-- and watched the man detransform making sure the camera on her yo-yo recorded the whole thing.

“You will be subject to the curse of whatever your abused kwami sees fit for you, and then the people of Paris will have you.”

Was all she said as she brought the man onto his knees so he could properly respect the kwami and the God’s they are.  Nooroo appeared and stared down at the man in front of him with an angered fiery glare.

“Gabriel Agreste, you have abused me and my miraculous for too long!  I bring upon a curse upon you, that no one will ever believe a word you say, and that your craft of manipulation will only work against you!”

And with that, pain courses through Gabriel and the wings of a butterfly were branded on the left side of his chest just above his heart.  She left soon after that and sent the footage for the police.  She watched from a distance as the police took him in, and told one of the officers that Adrien was innocent and had no connection to his father’s scheme.  Once she was sure Gabriel would not be able to escape his justice she pulled the horse miraculous from her yo-yo and summoned a portal to wherever she needed to be next.

~~~~~~~~~~

Damian was in the cave training when Todd burst in and began to run towards him with a stupid smug grin on his face.  Damian rolled his eyes and watched Todd stop in front of him holding something small and flimsy in his hand.

“Demon Spawn,”

He breathed out, his smug smile growing wider,

“Did you have a girlfriend in the league?”

Damian was….confused.  He had no such thing, but as Todd showed him the thing in his hand his blood froze.  It was the photo of him and Marinette.  How did he find it?!  Why did he even have it?!

“Give it back, Todd.”

Damian growled lowly hands gripping the hilt of his sword tightly.

“She is!  Guys, Damian had a-“

He tackled Jason after that and wrestled the photo out of his grip and held it close to him.  He glared daggers at Todd and made absolutely sure that the old photo was still intact.  Once he was sure.  Todd was back on his feet and Damian had the urge to run him through with his sword for daring to rummage through his belongings and to dare touch his picture.  He opened his mouth to spit out fiery words of anger, when a portal opened right in front of Damian.  A girl walked out of it and the portal immediately closed.  It was absolutely silent in the cave as the other occupants who were also there stared at the person.  The girl was rigid as she stared Damian directly in the eyes, and he felt a familiar pull to her.

“Kaalki, Tikki separate.  Tikki spots off.”

She spoke quickly, and her voice, and those words, and he knew who she was.  But that was impossible, because she had died, hadn’t she?!  Arms wrapped around him and he could hear sniffles and he felt his arms wrap robotically around the small frame of his sister.

“Xiōngdì, I missed you so much!  I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner!  Th-the Order was destroyed and Fu woul-wouldn’t let me leave a message, and-and someone was misusing the Butterfly in France (sniff).  And-and…..”

She took a long shaky breath in and sighed,

“I missed you so much.”

It took a while to realize that silent tears were falling down his face, and he hugged her even tighter against his chest.  Because his sister, his twin sister was alive, and she hadn’t died in the fire and destruction of the temple.

“It’s okay, 'ukht.  I’ve got you.”

They stayed like that for a few precious moments before Todd yelled,

“What the f*!”

———————

Permanent Taglist:

@aespades @adrestar

[asciendo]

Your Eyes Tell

You break up with Zuko when Ozai threatens his life if you continue with your relationship. But when you find out Ozai sends an assassin to kill him when he leaves to join team Avatar, you leave the Fire Nation to save him despite knowing how much you hurt him. 

It's been two months since you broke up with Zuko and now he's gone.

You heard from your father that Zuko switched sides and joined the Avatar. You tried to hide your concern at the dinner table as your father broke the news to your family. Your mother gave you a worried look as she always had suspicions about your relationship with the Prince.

"Ozai is furious. I don't think he's going to give Zuko another chance after this." Your father stated as you continued to fiddle with your hands. "That's his son. I don't think...do you think he'd go that far?" Your mother questioned. "I don't know...you saw what he did to Zuko after he questioned him..." Your father sighed. You tried to remain calm but you felt like your heart was beating out of your chest.

Your father was a high ranking general and was a close confidant of Ozai. Although, lately you could tell he's been questioning Ozai's methods after seeing the destruction and death he's been laying upon the other nations. Your father was loyal to the Fire Nation would do anything to protect its people, but you'd overhear him and your mother talking about how he was worried about Ozai's methods.

"He's sending an assassin after Zuko." Your gaze shot up, "WHAT?!" You blurted out. "A-are you sure?" Your mother asked and your dad nodded. "He's sending the combustion mad." You froze. He was known to be one of the most ruthless assassins in the Fire Nation. He was known to master a rare style of fire bending that allows him to trigger explosions from a tattoo on his forehead. "I'm not feeling well...can I go to my room?" You asked and your father nodded leaving your mother with a concerned look in her eyes as you left.

As soon as you entered your room you fell to the floor and cried. You hated this. You hated yourself for breaking up with Zuko but you had no choice.

It was two months ago and you were walking around the palace. Thanks to your father's close relationship with the Fire Lord, you spent your whole life within the palace walls. You grew up with Azula and Zuko and your families were close as well. It wasn't until Zuko returned from his banishment that the both of you began your relationship but decided to keep it a secret as he still had a lot to prove to his father. Zuko wanted to prove he was focused and determined and if Ozai found out he was seeing you, Zuko would be right back where he started before leaving to capture the Avatar.

Unfortunately, your fears came true and Ozai discovered your secret relationship. You were on your way home after sneaking into Zuko's room and as you made your way to the throne room until you heard voices. You recognized one to be Ozai's and the other Azula's.

"Your brother appears to be distracted these days." Ozai's voice boomed throughout the room. " Well it's because he's with his little girlfriend most of the time." Azula replied

"Girlfriend?!" Ozai fires back and you gulp. "Yes, your favorite general's daughter." There was a hint of disgust in Azula's voice which made your blood boil. Despite being "friends" with Azula, it was obvious she looked down on you along with Mai and Tai Lee.

"First, Zuko questions me, now he's frolicking with that girl instead of focusing on his duties as Fire Prince." Ozai growls and you heard his footsteps walk back and forth as he paced around his throne. "He has to be taught a lesson that boy."

"I couldn't agree more, father." You could almost see the smirk on Azula's face at the tone of her voice. "I wonder...does Zuko really need his other eye?" Your heart dropped. His father was about to punish Zuko again...because of you. Your memory shot back to the moment Ozai burned Zuko's face in their Agni Kai. You remember burying your face in your hands while trying to shut out Zuko's screams. .

"Bring him here." Ozai commanded. You don't know what came over you, but you found yourself running into the throne room.

Azula and Ozai both stared at you and Azula chuckled. "Don't hurt him." You were surprised at your own voice coming out. "And why shouldn't I? He's being careless and has to be taught a lesson."

"I'll end it." Your voice shook as you were being stared down by the two of them. "Would that even do anything?" Azula rolled her eyes as she lazily observed her fingers.

"It will. You'll see...it was my idea to start a relationship. Not his. If you're going to punish someone...punish me." Azula raised an eyebrow at your suggestion and looked towards Ozai who began to think.

"Not necessary." Ozai stated and Azula frowned. "Your father is an important ally of mine, wouldn't want to upset him."

The room fell silent as the three of you stared at one another. "I suppose...if you end your relationship with my son...that will do for now." Your shoulders dropped in relief.

"But, I don't care if you're together or not, if he upsets me in any way again I won't hold back." Ozai turned his back and left the room. Azula smirked at you and followed him out.

You were lying in bed that night and couldn't sleep. Your mind was racing with thoughts of Zuko and how you were going to end it. You heard the window open and the sound of familiar footsteps making its way to your bed.

Before Zuko could slip in next to you, you immediately turned away from him.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he chuckled but you refused to answer.

"I don't need you anymore." You spat out and he stammered back. "What do you mean you don't need me anymore?!"

You buried your head in your covers, trying not to look at him. "I mean, I don't need you anymore, Zuko. I'm done."

"Done?! W-what do you mean done—did something happen?" you heard his footsteps come over to your side of the bed and you huffed.

He lifted the covers over your face and you had no choice but to look at him.

Zuko's eyes were a mixture of sadness and confusion and you chocked out a sob. He slowly brought his hands to your face, but you swatted it. Knowing exactly what to say to get him to leave, to leave you for good. "I can't be with a coward." Zuko stumbled back after this. You knew about his never-ending torment about betraying Iroh out of fear of his father. How he barely slept every night thinking about his uncle sitting in his cell, about how he was scared to do the right thing because he would lose his honor in his family again. "W-what?" Zuko was farther from you now, sad eyes staring into your like daggers. You were fighting the urge to break right there, tell him everything you knew about his father's warning, but you had to protect him. "You left Iroh to rot in a cell. You can't even stand up against your father and you're a disgrace to the Fire Nation. What kind of future is that?" You said coldly, biting your tongue to fight back the tears that were fighting to come out. "

"Do you really mean it?" His voice broke and you were dying to apologize to him, to tell him you thought he was so much more than what he thought of himself, that he was one of the few genuinely good people here, but you had to do this to protect him.

"Yes. I hate you, Zuko...I didn't realize it till now but...I'm embarrassed of you. Being with you...makes me hate myself too." You stated, face blank. Zuko's face dropped. You've never seen him like this, so empty, like he lost all the hope he had in the world. You wanted to reach out to him, you did...but he was gone before you could.

You'd see him in State events but never spoke, and the one time he had to greet you out of courtesy it was like he was talking to a stranger.

Now, here you are somewhere in the forest, looking for him. You heard from one of the guards who was loyal to you that combustion man was able to track Team Avatar near the mountains next to the refugee camps. He told you that he got his scent and was close by.

You heard voices and crouched by the bush. You saw a figure by the river and crawled closer to see who it was. It was a girl, probably your age dressed in blue who was doing laundry. This must be the water bender you thought. Mai and Ty Lee would tell you stories about their time chasing the Avatar and reuniting with Zuko.

Deciding to confront her and ask where Zuko was you began to walk towards her. Her shoulders tensed at the sound of footsteps behind. The girl whipped her head around and her eyes grew wide. Before you could speak, she was shooting water in your direction. "HEY!" You dodged, but she kept going. Grunting in frustration, you began shooting fire back at her.

You were fighting for a while now until suddenly, a boomerang was flying next to your head which caused you to duck.

There was a boy in blue running towards you with a smaller girl in green running next to him.

The girl stomped her foot on the ground and rocks in the shape of bars began to form around you but you were able to roll out of the way. The water bender was about to attack once more but then you heard your name being called behind you.

"Y/N?" You froze and your heart dropped. You haven't heard Zuko's voice in so long and you swore you almost crumbled right there. Slowly, you turned around and faced him for the first time in months. "W-what are you doing here?" he asked, and you couldn't answer. The Avatar arrived and the whole group was staring at you.

You couldn't speak. You didn't know what to say to him and time just stopped. Your eyes never left Zuko and he was staring right back at you.

"Who is she?!" The water bender asked as you and Zuko continued to look at each other.

"Y/N." Was all Zuko said which caused everyone to look at one another in confusion except the guy with the boomerang. "Oh...is she the one you were telling me about?" Zuko blushed in embarrassment but walked towards you.

"I'm sorry, I'm lost...who is she?" The Avatar asked.

"Zuko's ex-girlfriend." Boomerang guy attempted to whisper but failed as everyone heard him. The water bender stared at you curiously while the earth bender huffed and stuck up her nose.

"What are you doing here, Y/N?" Zuko was in front of you now and your heartbeat was rising. You missed him. All you wanted was to kiss him right then and there, but you knew whatever you two had was over. Before you could reply, you saw a figure suddenly appear behind Zuko. The rest of the team was too busy waiting what would happen that they didn't notice combustion man's arrival.

Combustion man's eyes turned red and he smirked, the eye in the middle of his head started to glow and you knew he was about to attack.

"LOOK OUT!" You shouted and shoved Zuko to the side before Combustion man could strike.

The rest of the group were on the floor from the explosion except the Avatar who was on a tree.

"WHO IS THAT?!" Boomerang guy yelled above the explosion.

Looking down, you realized you fell on top of Zuko. Your eyes met his and you noticed his expression change to somewhat of realization. He looked like he was putting the pieces of a puzzle together while looking at you and he was frozen. Combustion Man tried to attack Zuko again but you pulled him away.

"WHAT IS HAPPENING?!" Boomerang guy yelled once more. Spotting the boomerang attached to his waist, you created a plan.

"AVATAR!" You yelled and he looked down at you from the tree. "Distract him!" He looked at you with confusion. You realized they didn't trust you yet, still being in your Fire Nation clothes, they still weren't sure what side you were on. "Come on! Do it!" You yelled and he nodded.

"BOOMERANG GUY!" You shouted once more and he looked at you in fear. "When the Avatar has him distracted, throw your boomerang at the eye on his forehead, it will block his chi."

"Why should I listen to you?! You were just attacking my sister!" he yelled back. "GOSH SOKKA JUST DO IT! THIS IS NOT THE TIME!" The earth bender yelled and Sokka jumped back in shock. "ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!"

The Avatar shot an air ball at Combustion Man which caused him to stumble. While he was caught off guard, Sokka threw his boomerang hitting him directly on the eye.

Combustion Man grunted in pain but suddenly lost control and shot an explosion to the nearby mountain. Suddenly the rocks began to shake and immediately rolled down the mountain and crushed him.

The whole group sighed but Zuko was still looking at you. Suddenly, you felt rock squeeze around your wrists. Looking down, your wrists were bound in handcuffs made of rocks.

"Seriously?! I just saved your lives!" You yelled but the group continued to stare at you. "Yeah, but you were attacking Katara when we got here." The earth bender stated.

"SHE ATTACKED ME FIRST!" But they weren't having it. You looked at Zuko and his expression changed. He looked deep in thought as he stared back at you.

"Come on...just let me go and I'll be out of here." You whispered still looking at him. "We still don't know why you're here. You could be a spy." You rolled your eyes at the small girl.

"If I as a spy I would have let you all be killed by Combustion Man." You stated.

"That makes sense..." Katara nodded slowly but earth bender was still not having it.

"Still. It's risky to let you go, you're coming with us." She announced and began to walk away. Sokka grabbed your elbow and began to lead you behind her.

Zuko wasn't moving for a moment, watching the scene unfold like it was a movie. "Zuko...are you coming?" The Avatar asked. Zuko nodded slowly began to follow.

The earth bender, who you learned was called Toph made you a makeshift cell in their campsite. Rolling your eyes as you watched them enter their tents to go to bed, you sunk down and sat on the ground.

You started to drift off to sleep until you heard the door of your cell open. Slowly opening your eyes, you look up to see Zuko.

Your lips part in surprise as you slowly stand up to stare at him.

"What do you want?" You finally gained the courage to speak to him.

The Zuko in front of you is a different one than the one you left. The broken Zuko. The Zuko you hurt. Now, all you see are his golden eyes pouring into yours, mixed with anger and determination.

"Why are you here?" he asked, his tone was serious.

"Your friends put me in here! I don't wanna stay in this dumb cell—"

"No. Why are you here?!" He almost yelled at you, but he kept his voice low enough so he wouldn't wake the others.

"I don't know what you mean—"

"Bull Shit." Zuko interrupted but moved closer to you. "I don't know what you want me to say—"

"Do you still hate me?" His question caught you off guard. Unlike last time, there was no sadness in his voice, now, it felt like he was challenging you.

"Zuko—"

"Did you come here to protect me? I know you knew about Combustion Man." You looked away, refusing to meet his eyes. You didn't know why you were being so difficult. It wasn't like Ozai or Azula were here. But you felt immense guilt for what you said to him, you didn't deserve him.

"When you broke up with me...there was something else right? You were just saying all of those things to protect me?!" Zuko was angry. He had every right to be, for you to just show up here, and not even telling him the real reason why you came.

"I'm not stupid, alright? I know combustion man is an assassin under my father! I know he was here to kill me...and after everything, you show up out of nowhere...I know you were here for me!" He was yelling now but you refused to budge.

"You made me think all this time you hated me! I thought the person I loved the most in this world hated me! For months I couldn't get you out of my head and it was torture seeing you around the palace looking like you didn't care! And you won't even tell me the real reason why you're here?" You looked at him in shock but still refused to speak and he shouted in frustration.

"Y/N...tell me right now why you're here—"

"Yes. I still hate you." Was all you said. You didn't though. You loved him. You were so proud of him for finally standing up to his father and carving his own destiny, but you didn't want to cause him anymore pain. You wanted him to continue being the man he was meant to be...even without you. You felt like you would bring him down, that you didn't deserve Zuko. You wanted to leave, to finally leave him, for good.

"No you don't." His voice was hard and his eyes didn't leave yours. "Zuko, what do you want from me?" You asked and he sighed.

"Do you really hate me?" He asked once more but he took a step closer to you and you backed away.

"YES! God, Zuko I don't know how many times I have to tell you! I hate—"

Before you could finish, Zuko's lips were on yours. Your eyes widened in surprise but as soon as his arms snaked around your waist, you melted around him.

You missed this. The feeling of his lips on yours. His touch. The way he clung to you like his life depended on it.

"No you don't." Was all he said when he pulled away. You were out of breath, and you looked up at him. The hard expression he had was replaced with tender eyes and you felt tears forming.

"H-how'd you know?" Your voice cracked as Zuko began to gently wipe the tears on your face.

"Your eyes tell." Was all he said and before you could speak, his lips were on yours again.

[autocon23]

Fanfic Advent Calendar 2021 - Dec. 17th

Christmas Cookie Fairy - Daryl x Reader (fluff/smut)

Character A can't travel to see their family on Christmas, so they incite their grumpy loner neighborhood Character B.

Fanfic Advent Calendar Masterlist

Who’d have thought that even with the zombie apocalypse going on outside the walls of the suburbia neighborhood turned sanctuary, the people of Alexandria were still able to celebrate Christmas?

You surely didn’t.

You were actually an original member of the neighborhood before the Turn. You’d just moved into you new house when the dead rose and started to eat people. The military had turned your neighborhood into a safe zone. The metal walls were hastily put up with the help of Deanna’s husband Reg and a few of the other refugees at the start of it kept your little pocket of the world safe from the horrors outside of your neighborhood. You still remember seeing people being attacked by the dead when you were leaving with some groceries you just got.

You had seen news reports about it, but you didn’t think it was real or at least that it was contained. It had to be if it was being reported. Though, a part of you was always suspicious about how quick all this happened, but without a way to investigate your suspicions will remain as such.

But you decided to not focus on that.

You knew that there were still lots of people out there that didn’t have a safe space to live like you and the other Alexandrians. So when Aaron brought up the idea of having people go out to recruit, you jumped at the chance. You also would help with run teams. However, after seeing how Aiden and Nick did their runs, you decided to do your own kind of runs. Your father taught you how to shoot and had you developed a love of martial arts and parkour when you were a kid. In college, you decided to pick up archery as well. You kinda fell off of it after you graduated, but you still had your bow and some arrows from when you practiced still in your possession when the world went tits up.

So you would go out on your own runs or go on the occasional recruiting trip just to get out of Alexandria. You were grateful to have a safe space, but between Deanna not taking what you said about Aiden seriously and Pete’s drunken abuse towards his wife, you needed the space. Being outside the walls at least reminded you that the picturesque neighborhood wasn’t how the rest of the world looked. Then, before you knew it, two years flew by.

You weren’t in Alexandria when Aaron and Eric brought back this new group. It was a group of 14 people. They were put in two empty houses that were on the same street as you. Specifically, they were right across the street from you. So when you walked to your house after coming back from your own run a couple days after they arrived, you were surprised to see them.

Several of them stood on the front porch of the house directly across from yours. They watched you like hawks as you walked to your house. You watched them as well, though not out of suspicion. More of surprise. Then, again, you don’t really talk to Deanna or her family so you didn’t talk to Spencer when he opened up the gate for you. You might’ve also had your headphones in to listen to some music so that you could have an excuse to not talk to him as you unloaded the car you drove of some addition supplies for Olivia to add to her inventory.

You didn’t pay them any more attention then you felt you should give them other than a wave and a tired grin. They obviously weren’t bad people otherwise Aaron and Eric wouldn’t have thought it was a good idea to bring them. Not to mention, you were exhausted. Plus, it was late afternoon and you just wanted to take a nap.

Which is why you dropped your bag on your front porch and decided to just lie on your porch now that you were some place you felt was safe. Your hand shot up to the couch on your porch and took the pillow off of it so you could rest your head on it instead. You could practically feel the confused gazes of the people across the street. A while later, you felt someone kick her leg. A tired groan was heard from you in response.

“I’m currently unavailable right now, please leave a name, number, and a short message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible,” you were able to slur out in your half-tired, half-delirious state. You hadn’t slept for the last three days because you got caught between a small herd and a weird group of people with W’s carved on their foreheads. You weren’t planning to die anytime soon.

“Long day,” came an unfamiliar voice.

You manage to turn your head and force open an eye to see a man holding a baby. He looked amused by your earlier answer, but you could see the concern in his eyes.

“Something like that,” you said as you manage to roll onto your back and sit up with a groan, “haven’t slept in three days. Got caught between walkers and people trying to make me become one.”

The stranger straightened up and his eyes hardened slightly. “They follow you?”

You shook your head. “No, I’m pretty good a slipping away,” you assure him with a tired grin, “it’s pretty easy to lose people if you’re able to parkour to safety.” You held out a hand. “I’m Y/N.”

“Rick,” he introduces, “this is my daughter, Judith.”

You smile at the kid. “You guys were definitely not here before I left,” you pointed out, “when did you show up?”

“Aaron brought us here about two days ago,” Rick answered. He motions to his group and starts listing them out. Each member waving as they were introduced, except one. Rick said his name was Daryl. He was a dirty looking man with piercing blue eyes. A crossbow in his lap as he sat on the porch steps. His fingers working over the strings of the weapon almost hypnotizing you with their dexterity.

Down girl.

“In the words of the great Bruce Willis, welcome to the party, pal,” you greet as you drop back onto the porch. Your head missing the pillow entirely and the thunk of your head hitting the porch being heard across the street. “Ow.”

“You need any help,” Rick asked. An amused eyebrow raised as he watched you rub the back of your head.

“Nah,” you say, “I usually do this after a long run anyway. Decompress before I go pretend with the rest of the neighborhood that there aren’t fucking zombies roaming around.” You flash Rick another tired grin. “It’s nice meeting you and your group. It’s nice to have new faces around.”

After that, you found yourself glued to the new group. Other than Aaron and Eric, you were the only one who could interact with Rick’s group (his family, he’d corrected you one morning) without being regarded with suspicion. Well, from everyone except Daryl. He regarded anyone outside the group with suspicion. You didn’t blame him. After everything that happened with Pete and the Wolves and Aiden, it’s a miracle that he doesn’t just tell you to go away.

However, while he doesn’t say anything to you, he doesn’t act nice around you. If anything, among the three of you, he seemed to disliked you the most. You weren’t entirely sure why, though. You’d asked Rick and Carol about it one day, wanting to know if you’d done something to offend the man. They just exchanged knowing looks and told you to not worry about it. So you didn’t.

At least, you tried not to.

You did everything you could to try and get on Daryl’s good side. If you were on runs together, you listened to instructions perfectly and made sure to watch his back whenever the two of you were paired up. If you two happened to cross paths when you both were outside the walls, you’d off one of the homemade granola bars you had to make sure that he’d eaten. He wouldn’t take them and instead just sneered at you before disappearing into the woods. If you were in Alexandria, you tried to be friendly. You’d smile and wave at him, but you wouldn’t approach since you knew that he was wary of everyone so you decided to just keep your distance until he showed that you could approach. You were always big about respecting people’s boundaries. He’d only glare at you. What few conversations you had that included him would turn into him just being rude to you.

At some point, you just stopped trying. If a run was planned and you found that he was on it, you’d instead go on solo runs like you did when Aiden was in charge of the run team. You grew up in the Northern Virginia/DC area. You lived here your whole life, you knew all sorts of places that could have stuff you could bring back to the community. You shared a bunch of places with Rick so that he could have teams go there themselves when he asked about all the places you’d gone to. When he asked if Daryl could go on some of those solo runs you liked to do, you turned him down.

“I like my space,” you simply said.

So, Rick let it be.

Now as the weather got colder, you knew the holidays were around the corner. Sometime after Rick’s group joined Alexandria, they were quick to learn that you were the only one in the community who kept track of the dates. You had created a calendar when you realized that this was going to be a permanent situation. So you grabbed a thick notebook and turned it into a calendar. Each page a different month and extended up several years. You were meticulous with it and made sure to always know how many days you were gone from the community so you could still keep track of the date.

When Daryl learned of this, he simply scoffed at it and even mocked you. What you did to get on this man’s bad side, you still have no idea. And at this point? You simply did not care. As each day that the holidays rolled closer, you actually started to get pissed at the redneck hunter. The last time he spoke to you, he made some rude comment to you when he overheard you telling Aaron that you were counting down the days til Christmas. You were just so fed up with him and his behavior towards you that you snapped at the man. You called him out, loudly too, about his behavior towards you and that you had done absolutely nothing to deserve that and if he kept talking to you like this, then you’d resort to breaking his stupid nose. Externally, you were fuming. Your face red in anger. Internally, you were taking special pride at the surprise, nervous look on the man’s face. Then, you stormed off and did everything you could to straight up avoid the man.

There was a reason for your increased agitation though.

The holidays were important to you. You came from a large tight-knit family. Your immediate family, your relatives, and a few close family friends. You were all close knit. All year, you’d have family gatherings and outings and dinners. The holidays were always a big event for you. You loved your family and always looked forward to the time you were going to spend with them. Christmas wasn’t just a single day of the year. It was a month long event for your family. Making cookies, decorating everyone’s houses and trees. Volunteering at local charities, like the soup kitchen or putting winter bundles together for the homeless. Ski trips, snowball fights, and building snowmen. Caroling almost every night during the week leading up to Christmas. Christmas Day was a big event as well. Filled with exchanging gifts, drinking, eating, music, and dancing. So much happened in the month of December for you and your family and you loved it all.

But you were the only one in your family who was left.

When you last spoke of your father, he told you that he was being evacuated to the safe zone her neighborhood was being turned into. He said that he had the family and could confirm that they were all coming. You made sure that you had everything you needed to make them staying with you until they could get settled in some of the other houses in Alexandria.

Except the convoy who was supposed to bring them never arrived.

You waited three days before you grabbed a bag and your bow and walked out the gates of Alexandria. Deanna tried to talk you out of it, but you told her that, good or bad, you needed to know what happened to the convoy. You needed to know if maybe they’d been delayed or redirected. Anything to let you believe they were still alive.

You weren’t happy with what you’d found.

The convoy got held up in a traffic jam caused by abandoned cars. There were bodies of soldier everywhere. Shell casings from spent bullets and bodies strewn about. Even though, you had an idea about what happened, you couldn’t leave it. Not yet. You combed through every inch of the convoy and each vehicle broke your heart because in each one was someone you knew in it. Dead, either a corpse or a walker.

It broke your heart as you stabbed your knife into the head of each member of your family with your father being last.

Since then, the holidays were always toughest for you. You went from being in a large tight-knit family to being truly on your own. You felt stranded and December became a month that broke hurt you. But you wouldn’t let it destroy you.

So, you decided one night into the month that you would honor them instead.

So, for the last two Christmas’, you would hit places you were sure would have the supplies you needed to make the various Christmas cookies your family would make. Recipes that had been passed down your family for generations. They were all simple recipes and could be made in bulk. So you got a bunch of tins and cooking supplies and would work the days leading up to Christmas making cookies. Then, you’d divide them into different tins and leave them on the doorsteps of the occupied houses in Alexandria. You always left them out in the open so everyone could see them as soon as they left their houses. You’d watch from your window as you saw people opening the tins and seeing the cookies. Their faces lighting up at the sight of the sweet treats made you feel warm and you knew you were going to continue this new tradition you made.

So through the month of November, you were often outside of the community searching for supplies. You’d found abandoned farms that grew the wheat that would be turned to flower. You found abandoned bakeries with most of their baking supplies in stock and in good condition (you would usually show back up in a truck whenever you found that amount of baking supplies so Alexandria will always be able to make bread at least).

You’d made cookies two years in a row and nobody in the community had actually figured out who made the cookies. You were pretty good about keeping the supplies you used a secret. While you knew that you should hand over all food that you find, you didn’t want people to know it was you. You did this because you wanted to do something nice for everyone. To make living in this zombie filled world of theirs a little more bearable. Even if it’s just for a single day. You didn’t want people to know because you didn’t want recognition or thanks. You just wanted smiles.

So, Daryl being an ass to you during what is already a stressful and emotionally draining month was just the icing on the cake and you were done with his shit and you were done being nice to him.

So, when he decided to follow you when you went on your next solo run, you were pretty pissed.

“Why are you following me again,” you ask angrily.

“Cuz Rick asked me to make sure ya got back alright,” the aggravating man in question answered a few paces behind you.

“Bullshit,” you snarl whirling on him, “I’ve been out on solo runs since before you even left Georgia and I did just fine. I don’t need a babysitter.” Then, you turned away and took off. The man cursing under his breath and ran after you in an effort to keep up.

He was doing pretty good until he got to the small town you were already heading too. You were able to then parkour your way through town and eventually ditch the hunter. You smirked when you realized that you’d lost him. “Try and find me now, asshole,” you huffed and then continued walking.

What you didn’t realize is that Daryl actually just didn’t bother trying to copy you and just followed you from the ground.

The man watched as you pulled out a map and look around to check street signs. It didn’t take him long for him to realize that you actually had a map of the town itself. He remembered Carol talking to you and hearing you admit that you have a collection of maps of the state, the surrounding states, and DC itself and that you use a phone/address book to look up specific places whenever you want to go on runs. It’s how you were able to find a lot of the supplies and resources that you’d brought back. Daryl also remembered Rick asking Aaron about what you’d bring back and it had gained Rick’s attention that you usually brought back food from places you raided. Not the pre-made packaged or canned goods, but straight up flour and other supplies used for baking.

Alexandria’s unusually large supply of flour and other baking goods made a lot more sense now.

Aaron also said that with the increased baking supplies being brought in, someone had been using it to make Christmas cookies. The person responsible for it would leave tins filled with cookies on the front door steps Christmas Eve. No one knew who it was or at least coming forward to claim credit. When Rick asked if it was you, Aaron said that a lot of people believed that it was you, but you denied the claims and said that you woke up to find a tin of cookies too. The belief that it was you was thrown out the window when someone saw that you had a tin of cookies sitting on your door step the next year.

Rick had actually asked Daryl to look after you simply because he was actually curious if it was you and wanted to make sure that you weren’t planning something despite giving out cookies two years in a row.

Daryl thinks he just wanted to get cookies from you directly in exchange for his silence or at least wanted to know if it was in fact you.

He didn’t care.

Daryl would’ve turned this down, but he accepted it anyway. After your outburst at him about how he’d been treating you, Daryl realized that you were right. He was being a right asshole to you, but it wasn’t without reason.

He liked you.

As ridiculous as it sounded, Daryl Dixon genuinely liked you. But you weren’t part of the group, so he didn’t trust you. When you started to be considered as one, he made it a point of avoiding you. After all, who would want to be with him? Surely not you. You were far too pretty and clean and smelled nice. You were friendly and kind and had a smile that could rival sunshine. So Daryl decided that he was going to keep his distance and make it a point of being rude to you to keep you at arms length.

Too bad it seemed to be working too well.

You no longer smiled at him or greeted him if you saw him out. You wouldn’t go on runs if he was coming along. He’d asked Rick to see if you’d let him go with you on solo runs and he remembered hearing you turning Rick down. He heard you say that you liked your space, but the redneck knew it was because you wanted nothing to do with him. Whenever you crossed paths with him in the woods outside of the community, instead of offering him a granola bar like you usually did, you simply turned around and went the opposite way he was going.

Then, Daryl made the mistake of mocking you for talking about Christmas. The way you blew up at him. Even though he knew he was being yelled at by you, he couldn’t help but think how hot you looked all pissed off at him and how cute your nose looked when it was all scrunched up with anger after you finished shouting at him. Though, that didn’t take away the vitriol in the things you said to him after you called him out on it.

Daryl won’t admit it out loud, but that time stung a little.

After you had left him standing there gobsmacked, Aaron pulled him aside and explained to him about your family. How all this had been so tough on you because you’re so used to being around your family and now you were alone. It’s especially worse for you when it gets around Christmas time. The ridiculously patient man explained to Daryl that you become pretty reclusive during the winter season because you missed your family so much.

So to make up for being an asshole, Daryl decided to start looking out for you. He’d be around whenever you were out and about. If you went on runs, he’d make sure to not let anyone know he was going until they were leaving and he’d join the caravan on his bike. Then, he’d have himself paired up with you so he could watch your back for a change.

He had to admit you have a very nice ass now that he was finally paying the right kind of attention to you.

You, of course, were displeased with this sudden change. You just can’t seem to wrap your head around this man. One minute, he’s doing everything he can to avoid you and have you deterred from seeking his company. Now that you’ve stopped trying to gain his approval, he now seems to be trying to get yours.

It drove you nuts and now he is slowly following you around this abandoned town while you’re on your solo run. Daryl decided that he was going to have to make it up to you for being an ass. What better way than making sure you got back doing whatever it is you’re trying to do on your solo run.

After another few minutes of walking down a street, you came to a stop at store that used to be a bakery. You pulled out your knife and rapped the window to the little bakery. You watch the window as two walkers press against the other side of the glass. You sigh and hope that the people they used to be died quickly and didn’t ruin whatever goods might still be inside. You opened the door to the bakery and then quickly moved back. When the dead came out to go after you, you were quick to take them out. You laid their bodies out next to each other and rested their hands on their stomachs like one would see bodies that are in caskets at funerals.

After that, you went inside. Your gaze slowly searching for more walkers. When you saw none in the front of the store, you head towards the back. You thoroughly search the bakery for anymore walkers. When you found that there were none, you sighed in relief and put away your knife after giving it a quick cleaning. You search through the bakery and smile widely. This place hadn’t been raided yet. If you can get a truck working, you could load it up and take the baking goods here back to Alexandria. You smiled even wider when you found a few of the ingredients that you specifically needed to make your Christmas cookies. You took off your bag and hid it behind the counter in a little cabinet. Just as you were about to leave to search for a vehicle, you see Daryl walk in.

You huffed at the sight of him. “Was kinda hoping that you wouldn’t find me until I was ready to leave,” you grumble to him as you cross your arms.

“Just ‘cuz I didn’t do any of those fancy ninja moves of yours, don’ mean I can’t find ya,” the redneck shoots back.

You roll your eyes at him. “Well, you found me,” you say as he move to pass him, “now fuck off.”

He grabs your arm. “Where’s your bag,” he asked.

“I hid it in one of the cabinets,” you answer as you yank your arm out of his grasp, “this place is practically untouched. I’m hoping to find a truck or a van I can use to take everything back to Alexandria. Most of the stuff that’s left are shelf-stable. Dry and canned goods. Will make this winter a lot easier to deal with and have us go through a lot of our canned goods slower.”

“Fine,” he said. He had an impressed look on his face. “Let’s go find one.” Then, he moves past you to walk out the bakery.

You grumble, but follow. An hour later, you manage to get a cube van working and even get a few canisters of gas together to help the trip. Whatever left over will be given over to Rick and Daryl so they can distribute it amongst the other cars used for runs and back up generators for when the solar panels get temporarily knocked out.

Daryl helped you load up every bag and can you two can grab. During it, he notices that you take some of the items that you found and put them in your bag. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew that if he asked now when you don’t like him, then he won’t get an answer. So he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to get on your nerves anymore than he already has by forcing himself on your solo run.

The two of you ride back into Alexandria in silence. You had a pissed off look on your face the entire time despite people praising the two of you for finding much needed supplies. You simply gave Olivia a piece of paper that listed everything in the truck, grabbed your bag, and hoofed it back to your place. You wanted to put distance between you and Daryl and you know he won’t go in your house.

Daryl could only watch as you left him there.

Rick moves to stand by him. “So, how’d it go,” he asked.

“She wasn’t happy I tagged along.”

“Well, I did warn you that she wouldn’t be,” the former deputy said, “you have been an ass to her the entire time that you’ve known each other. Did you really think that if you went along with her anyway despite telling you “no” would fix that?”

“Not really,” the redneck admits, “but I thought it would’ve been a good place to start.” A thoughtful frown formed on his face as he watched you disappear into your house.

Rick tilted his head curiously. “What did you see?”

“She didn’t give Olivia everything she found,” Daryl admits to him, “she’s got a bunch of stuff from the bakery in her bag. She didn’t even mention it.”

That raised Rick’s eyebrows. “Do you think it’s something to be concerned,” he asked.

“Nah, I don’t,” Daryl said, “I’m just curious ‘bout what she’s gonna do with it.”

“Probably cook with it,” Rick suggested, “it is food that she found.”

“Hmm.”

So now Daryl was curious.

The rest of November and the first two weeks of December go by with Daryl spying on you. He’d sometimes walk by the back of your house to peek in your window to see if he could see what you were doing with the baked items. He didn’t see much, except one time.

He saw you taking stock of what you had. A worn out binder in your hands as you carefully calculated exactly what you needed for whatever you had planned. He was especially surprise to see you checking out the chocolate bars you had. He knew he saw a bunch go into the pantry, but you had quite a few in your possession as well.

Maybe if he’s nicer to you, you’ll let him swipe a bar to give to Carl and Judith.

Or maybe to Carol so she could cook something with it.

Then, it was a few days before Christmas. You had gone on a run before and had been gone until the evening. Daryl only knew you were back when he saw you go into your house with boxes in your arms when he opened his window for a smoke. He thought you would’ve gone to bed right after, but instead, you stayed up. Daryl stayed up and watched as the lights of your kitchen remained on until the early morning. Now he was really curious as to what you were up to.

The next day, Rick had planned a run to a clinic. Apparently, Denise had informed him while you were gone that medicine for the flu was very low and if not replenished soon, would be terrible for the community when it made it’s next wave. So, Rick planned it that night. Then, that morning, he went around grabbing who he needed, which included you and Daryl. You tried to back out of it. Citing that you’d just came back late the previous night from your own run, but Rick insisted that you join. So you did.

But it just seemed to just go down hill for you then.

First, you get stuck sitting next to Daryl, the one man that you’d been avoiding. Then, you fell out of the car in your scramble to get away from him. Daryl might’ve been a little insulted by that, but he kept a button on it. He did kind’ve deserved her avoidance. Even worse, she’d gotten hurt on the run. She sprained her wrist. She landed on it funny when Daryl plowed into her to keep a piece of ceiling from crushing her. Other than that, the run went smoothly.

Rick had you taken straight to the infirmary and Denise told you to keep your wrist in a brace and to not do anything strenuous with it. Daryl had watched from the entryway of the door and could see that when Denise turned away from you, you had a sad, broken look on your face. He wasn’t sure why you were upset over your wrist. It was just sprained and would be fine in like a week. He tried to ask, but you left for your house as soon as Denise cleared you.

Daryl followed you to your house and saw you go in. The door slamming shut behind you. He peeked through a window and saw you go straight for your kitchen. He watches as you carefully pull out a bowl of….

….cookie dough?!?!

That’s what you were making all last night? Cookie dough? He went to a different window that had a better view of your kitchen and saw that your fridge had several more large bowls of cookie dough. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say there was enough for the whole…..community……

Oh.

Oh.

Now he understood.

Daryl left the window and walked up to your front door, knocking on it hard. A minute later, you open it up and give him a confused look. Then, you frowned.

“What,” you grouched, “here to tell me how much of a fuck-up I am for getting hurt? Or that I should pay more attention so that you don’t have to save my useless ass?”

Oh, those stung.

“I…uh…..I kinda figured out why you’re upset about your wrist being sprained,” he said, plainly. Nervously. You blink at him. He clears his throat. “I, uh, noticed that you took some of the baking goods at the bakery a while back, but didn’t give them to Olivia. I also saw you come back yesterday evening and didn’t go to bed until the early morning…..and then I kinda saw you pull the cookie dough out of your fridge and watched you try to roll it out.”

Your lips thinned. “So?”

“So I know that you’re the one who leaves the Christmas tins with all the cookies in them,” Daryl said awkwardly, “and since your wrist is sprained….it means that you can’t make them by yourself this year.”

“What do you want, Daryl?”

“I…I was wondering if you’d let me help,” he asked.

“Let you help,” you echo back. He nodded. You sigh. “I think we need a discussion first before we do that.” You move to the side and motion him to enter. “Get your ass in here before all the heat leaves my house.” The redneck is quick to enter and looks at you as you close the door after him.

“So can I help,” he asks.

“Why do you want to help, Daryl,” you ask back, “is it so you can ruin them? Make me feel even worse than I already do?”

He shook his head. “No, it’s—”

“Then, what the hell is going on with you,” you snap at him, “the entire time I’ve known you, you’ve been nothing but an ass to me and for no reason. I actually went to fucking Carol and Rick and asked them if I did something wrong. All they told me was to not worry about it. Then, after I finally tell you to fuck off and go out of my way to avoid you, you start to follow me? You put yourself on runs that I’m on and you’re constantly following me and now I find out that you’re watching me through my window like some kind of town pervert.”

“It wasn’t like that,” the archer argues at that, but you stop him before he says anything else.

“Now, you suddenly want to help me with something that you just found out about,” you continue. A frustrated huff slips past your lips as you glare up at the man. “Seriously, what the fuck is up with you? I just don’t get you.”

Daryl grimaces. You’re right. He knows you’re right. You know that he knows that you’re right. He sighs as he rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “It’s…it’s cause I like ya,” he admits in a shy, quiet voice.

You blink up at him in surprise at his confession. Then, shook your head. “Wait wait wait wait wait,” you say with a wave of your hands, “you mean to tell me that the entire time, you actually like me and that is why you were an asshole to me?” Daryl grimaces again and slowly nods his head. “Daryl, what the fuck? Dude, that’s-that’s not okay. You can’t do that to people. Why would you do that to people that you like? That’s terrible.”

The redneck looks away shamefully. “I’m sorry,” he says softly.

You walk closer to him and cup his cheek, then slowly turned his head back to you so he could face you. “Daryl, why would you do that?”

“Didn’t think you’d like me if you got to know me,” he admits, “I’m just some no-good, dirty, stupid redneck from some backwater town in Georgia. I’m nothing special and I knew you’d see it if I tried to talk to ya.”

“How do you know I wouldn’t like you if you never gave me the chance to do so in the first place, Daryl,” you argue against his logic. You can see that he’s trying to find ways to justify it. It seemed pretty clear to you that what he said was something he’d heard about himself for a long time. Probably his entire life with how wary he is in letting anyone get close to him. “Not to mention, how can you believe that? You’re like the exact opposite of that. You know, when you aren’t being a grade-A asshole to me.”

“I’m sorry,” is all he could say.

You lower your hand and sigh heavily. “How about this,” you say, “let’s start fresh.” You take a step back and hold out your good hand. “Hi, I’m Y/N.” You give him a small smile as you look up at him.

Daryl blinks at you stupidly. His gaze going from your face to your hand then back to your face. Were you serious? “Just like that,” he asks hesitantly.

“Just like that,” you say.

Okay.

The redneck takes your hand in his and gives it a firm shake. “‘m Daryl,” he says shyly.

Your smile grows a fraction. “Wanna help me make some cookies,” you ask. He nods. “Good, because I need someone with strong muscles to roll out the dough. You also can’t tell anyone, other wise it ruins the surprise.”

That ends up becoming the official start of your friendship.

For the next few days, Daryl would sneak out of the house he stayed with his family early in the morning and help you bake cookies all the way to the late evening. He always made sure that he was clean and he allowed you to put a headband on his head to keep his bangs out of his eyes so he could see the dough better. His family was curious about where he was disappearing all day, but he said that he was doing something and that he promised to not tell anyone.

In that time, Daryl got to know you. Really know you. And you did the same. You found that you two got along really well despite the different upbringings you two had. Daryl couldn’t help but smile the whole time that he was with you during your secret cookie making time.

Then, came Christmas Eve.

The last batch of cookies had been made and left out to cool. You pulled out the cookie tins you used to give them a proper cleaning since they’d been hidden away and collecting dust. The first Christmas that you did this, you left out a note that asked everyone who received a tin to put them out on their doorstep a week after Christmas and they will be collected so they could be used again the next year. The community was excited to do so. Some kids even tried to stay up late to see who took the tins, but either you did something to distract them or parents would usher the kids away so you could snatch the tins before they could notice you were there.

Daryl watched as you counted out the cookies for each tin with a curious look on his face. “So, how come you do this,” he asked.

You stop to look at him, then a sad look forms on your face as you look back at the tins. “Christmas time was a big time for my family,” you confess, “it wasn’t just some holiday. It was a month long affair for my family. We’d go do all sorts of things together from caroling to helping out at the local charities. We’d help decorate each other’s houses and make cookies. After Christmas, we’d all load up to head to ski lodges my family owned and we’d celebrate the rest of the year there. Dad and I would even go out of state for illegal fireworks to set off on New Year’s Eve.” A watery grin was on your face now as you thought of those wonderful holiday times. “It was always one big affair. It was fun. It was loud. It was crazy. It didn’t matter how stressful you’d feel, you were always left feeling satisfied and happy and whole during it.” You sniff as you quickly wipe away a few tears that leaked out. “Losing my family hurt a lot. I’m….I’m so used to being surrounded by my loved ones and now….”

“Now they’re gone,” he says.

You nod. “And I’m here,” you continue, “alone. It hurts the most when the holidays roll around. I feel so empty and hollow. Like there’s a whole where all my family used to be and I hate it. I can’t help, but cry each time I think about it.” You sniff again. “But then I remembered that I’m not the only one who lost people. Lost family and friends. So, I decided to make my family Christmas cookies to share with everyone. The recipes are simple and I can make a lot of them without eating too much of what’s already in the pantry.”

“Unless you get your own,” Daryl points out.

You smile at that. “Unless I get my own.”

“How come you didn’t tell anyone it was you,” he asked.

You shrugged. “I didn’t care for the praise,” you admit, “I just liked seeing their faces light up when they realized that they got a tin of cookies. I mean really? Who wouldn’t be happy to receive cookies on Christmas Day?” You sigh. “I….I just wanted to do something nice for people, you know? Just do a little something that for a moment, just a moment, they don’t have to think about the world the way that it is now. That they don’t have to think about the dead roaming outside the walls of our community. About the people who have become dangerous and cruel. About whether we’ll have enough for the winter or not. Though I will admit, if I felt that we didn’t have enough for winter, I wouldn’t have made the cookies.”

“So, that’s why you always go on so many runs,” Daryl hums.

You smile. “Yup.” You shoot him a grin. “Now, get over here and help me pack away these cookies,” you order, “at midnight, we’re going to sneak around the neighborhood and drop these off at doorsteps. I need to get all these done now. Anybody in your group have any allergies? I’ve got peanut butter cookies and I don’t want to set off an allergic reaction.”

Daryl shook his head as he puts the divided batches of cookies in their respective tins. “No,” he said, “I would’ve thought Eugene would’ve had something weird, but no one in our group has allergies.”

“That’s good,” you say, “it’d be a pretty sucky Christmas if you couldn’t have cookies.”

Daryl chuckled softly. “Yeah, it would.”

When midnight struck, the two of you were quick to sneak out the back door of your house. Each of you carrying a couple tins in your arms. You made sure to tell him to start at the furthest houses away so that way they couldn’t figure out that it was you if someone saw one of them. You even made sure that you both wore all black so I would be harder to see in the night. Almost as if the universe was on your side, it was a cloudy night with a full moon. You weren’t sure if you should consider it luck or the universe trying to make fun of you.

You decided to not go to deep down that rabbit hole for now.

When you got everyone else, you each made sure that a tin of cookies was left on your porch and Daryl’s. Can’t let it be obvious who the Christmas Cookie Fairy is you’d joke. Before Daryl leaves to go into his house, you gently take his arm.

“Sneak back here tomorrow night,” you whisper to him, “I’ll have a special treat for you.”

That morning, people waking up would jump out of their beds to check their front porches. Like the last two years, a tin box filled to the brim with Christmas cookies would be waiting for them on their doorstep. Daryl watched in silent amusement over his family’s elation to getting a box. A little note attached to it that wished them a merry Christmas, told them what kind of cookies are inside (Glenn started crying at the mention of there being peanut butter cookies), and to leave their tins, preferably clean, on their front doorstep a week later to be collected for next year.

“Oh God,” Maggie moaned happily as she ate a cookie, “these are so good.”

Rick, after stuffing a couple into his mouth, leaned closer to Daryl. “This wouldn’t happen to involve your disappearing act for the last few days,” he asked, “or Y/N’s?”

“Nope,” Daryl simply said before sipping his coffee, “got nothing to do with that.”

Rick gave him a look that said he didn’t believe him, but left the redneck alone to snag another cookie from the rapidly dwindling pile.

The rest of the day was a nice affair. The community came together to make a large Christmas dinner. Everyone tasked with either helping set up or making the meal itself. Carol organized the group that volunteered to cook and whipped up a delicious Christmas dinner. While Rick and Michonne got people to help move the pews in Gabriel’s church so that tables could be placed for everyone to sit and enjoy the meal. The food was set up buffet style and somehow nobody noticed another tray of Christmas cookies appearing in the dessert section with a little note telling people to only take two.

Daryl made sure to guard the cookies so that everyone would get two cookies as instructed.

After that, the tables were cleared away and music started to play. People started to drink the booze a run team had collected specifically for tonight. There was also dancing. They gathered in the middle of the room to dance and sing every song they knew that came on. You were among the dancing crowd. Your face tinged red from the alcohol and a bit of sweat from the dancing you’d done.

Soon it was late.

Some people stayed to keep drinking and sharing stories. Others decided to go home to sleep off the booze. As you pass Daryl on your way out, you gently grab his arm. “Come to my place when you’re finished,” you whisper to him, “but don’t keep me waiting too long other wise I can’t give you your special treat.” Then, you were gone.

Daryl gulped. What did you mean by special treat?

He decided to head to your house to find out. As he walked up the steps of your front porch, he sees movement in the corner of his eye towards his house. He turns his head slowly to see Carol standing there with a cheeky grin on her face.

“Finally getting into the holiday spirit, huh, Pookie,” the gray-haired woman teased. Her eyebrows wiggling suggestively.

Daryl’s face flushed red. “Shut up,” he hissed in a low voice. She laughed and went inside, while he hurried up your steps and knocked on the door.

It opens to reveal you in some comfortable pajamas. For some reason, he thought they would look better on your floor.

Wait…

What?

“Come on in,” you tell him, moving away from the door, “it’s almost ready.” Daryl enters and closes the door behind him. He follows you to your kitchen and sees a little pot on your stove. A familiar scent in the air.

“Hot cocoa,” he asks, “ya made me hot cocoa?”

You smile shyly. “You helped me out big time, so I thought I’d let you in on a little secret I keep to myself,” you tell him, “I always make hot chocolate on Christmas. Since the stuff needed is so rare now, I get a little protective and greedy about it. I don’t tell anyone that I have what I need to make it.” You blush. “But I thought, since you kept my Christmas cookie thing a secret, maybe I share this one too. So, do you want some?”

Daryl smiled softly. “Yeah.”

You pour the hot drink into two mugs and give him one. His smile grows when he sees that the mugs are Christmas mugs too. The two of you sit on the plush rug in the nest of pillows and blankets with the roaring fire in your fireplace keeping the room warm. Propped up on pillows, the two enjoy the hot cocoa and the comfortable silence between you.

When you both were done, you continued sitting there and enjoying each other’s company. Occasionally, you’d exchange glances. Unsure of what you two should do next. You decided to be the bold one.

You got up and straddled his lap.

The man under you tensing and staring up at you wide-eyed. Your face is red as you blushed over your own boldness. Probably a side effect from the alcohol you had at the Christmas party. A few seconds go by before Daryl makes his move by gently placing his hands on your hips. Your boldness fading away to uncertainty and shyness.

Then, Daryl kissed you.

His lips were surprisingly soft against yours as you melted into him. His hand finding itself in your hair, gripping it tight. Your hands roaming over his chest, his shoulders, his neck, his hair, his arms. His tongue poked out and you parted your lips so it could slip in. He tasted of chocolate and whiskey and cigarettes.

And you couldn’t get enough of it.

Before long, your roaming hands started to pull insistently at his clothes. “Off,” you’d whisper and he’d comply. He’d take his clothes off while also helping you out of yours.

You’d find yourself under him in the little nest you two had make in front of the fireplace. You gasped as his lips wrapped around the nipple of your breast. His other hand fondling the other as he circled his tongue over the sensitive nub. You let out a hiss when you feel his teeth against it after. Your hands grip his hair as you arch your back into his touch. The rough calluses of his hands driving you wild as you feel them glide over your skin.

When Daryl felt he paid adequate attention to your breasts, he started to kiss down your stomach. Your breath catching as you realize what he was about to do. He bypasses your center so that he could spread your legs and press biting kisses to the insides of your thighs. Each nip getting closer and closer to your heated core.

A gasp slips past your lips when you feel him lick a wet stripe up your core. His lips wrapping around your clit and sucked hard. Your hands reach for his hair again as you writhe under his ministrations. Moaning gasps of his name and praises escape your lips as the man shows you exactly what he’s capable of with that devious tongue of his. Then, you feel his fingers enter you. The same thick, dexterous fingers you remember watching work on his crossbow the first time you saw him. He thrusted them into you a few times before curling them just so to find that spot in you that has your thighs quake and make you moan even louder.

If porn stars could hear the sounds he was ripping out of you…….

You were so lost in what Daryl was doing to you that your climax hit you hard. So much harder than you’re used to. Your back arched sharply as you let out a cry. Your thighs try to close around his head, but Daryl is able to keep them open while still working you over. Your fingers grip painfully tight in his hair, though he didn’t seem to mind. His tongue and fingers still working in tandem to work you through your orgasm. You feel like a melted puddle. All warm and tingly as you come back down from your high.

Daryl gives one last kiss to your clit, then trails his lips and tongue back up your stomach. When he reaches the valley of your breasts, he drags his tongue from between them, up your chest, over your collarbone, and along your neck before latching on to a pulse point to suck a dark bruise into your skin. Your hands and his resume their roaming over each other. You could feel the heavy weight of his cock on your stomach as he leaves your neck to seal your lips with his in a searing kiss. You could feel his throbbing length leak on you as he settles himself between your legs.

You reach a hand down to wrap around his cock. You give him a few strokes that has him leaving your lips to bury his face in the crook of your neck, panting heavily. His own mind slowly getting lost in the haze of pleasure and lust. He stops you when you try to slip further under him to give his cock some extra special attention.

“Ya don’t have to,” he says softly.

You press a gentle kiss to his lips. “But what if I want to,” you ask.

He growls against your lips and pins you to the floor. “Can do that another time then,” he grunts. You felt elated at the news.

There’s gonna be a next time?

You didn’t get to ponder that statement further when your breath caught itself in your throat again at the feel of the head of his cock brush where you wanted him most. Your eyes met and you could see the hesitancy in those gorgeous baby blues of his. The silent question in the air as he stared down at you as he waited at your threshold.

“Do you want this,” he asked hesitantly. An awkward tension surrounding him.

So much so that you couldn’t help the chuckle that slipped past you lips. “Dude, you just ate me out like I was the last meal you were ever going to have,” you remind him, “if I didn’t want you, then I wouldn’t have kissed you.” You watch with amusement as his face flushes red when he realizes that you were right. You were, mostly, sober. You don’t really drink, honestly. You hadn’t had more than two drinks at the party. Still seeing his hesitancy, you smiled softly at him. Then, you leaned up so you could press a sweet, chaste kiss to his lips. “Take me,” you whisper, “I’m yours.”

That spurs him.

His lips press against yours with a sense of urgency that wasn’t there before. His cock presses in. A breathy moan escapes you as you lean your head back. The man’s lips pressing loving kisses to your throat and collarbone as he slowly sinks into your velvety heat until your hips meet. You shudder under him as you pant heavily. Holy shit, you took all of him. He felt so big and thick in your hand. You didn’t think you’d be able to take him. Though, there was still a burning inside you that let you know that your body needed a moment to get used to his size.

Daryl stays still to give your pussy a chance to adjust around him. You feel his shaky breaths against your skin as he uses all his self-control to not just pull his hips back so he could slam back home into you. He was going to love you right. When you felt the burning ache fade away, you let Daryl know it was okay to move. You felt his hands grip your hips tight and then move his hips. Pulling out, then slamming back in. You moaned again. Your arms wrapping around his shoulders. One hand gripping his back and the other gripping his hair as you held on for dear life.

His hips slammed home as you writhed against him. You moaned his name, then whimpered when he pinched a nipple teasingly. He was loving you right, but you wanted more. You’ve seen him fight. You’ve seen him angry. You could feel his muscles against you. Could feel the weight of him pressed against you. You wanted more.

“Harder,” you moan.

He growls into your neck, “you asked for it.” And then he picks up the pace. His hips moving faster and harder against yours. A vicious curse slips past your lips as you bit at his neck. He felt so good in you, on top of you. Then, he stops and pulls out.

You whine as you blink up at him. “Something wrong,” you gasped, “why’d you stop?”

He doesn’t answer. Just gives you that stupidly cocky smirk of his. Then, you’re suddenly flipped onto your stomach and his hands yank your hips up so that your on your knees. You scramble to get up on your hands, but his hand buries itself into your hair and forces your head back down. You won’t lie, but you felt even more aroused. It had been a long while since you’d been with another. Even longer that you found someone to bed that would manhandle you like this.

Fuck, did you hit the jackpot somehow.

Daryl pushes your knees out a little wider, then slowly drags his hand down your spine towards your ass. You shudder under his touch. The head of his cock ghosting against the wet lips of your cunt. You try to push your hips towards it to get him back inside you, but Daryl stops you with a growl. His grip on your hair tightening even more causing you to moan. You liked that.

“Tell me to stop if it’s too much,” he warns.

Then, he slams back home into you.

You let out a cry that devolves into moaning as he fucks you at a rougher, harder pace than before. The hand on your hip gripping you so tight you can feel his dull nails digging in as he used the leverage to force your hips to meet his when he thrusted into you. Your hands scramble for purchase before getting a handful of the blankets you were lying on top of in an effort to ground yourself. His balls slapping against your clit with every smack of his hips hitting against yours. Fuck, did you feel full. You could tell that you were close. Daryl could tell too with how much your walls were spasming and clenching around him.

“I’m close,” you whimper.

Daryl smirks down at you and leans over you. His hand leaving your hair to slip between your thighs to rub your clit harshly. You shriek out a curse as the added sensation drives you wild before you finally fell over the edge with a sob. Daryl curses under his breath as he feels your walls clench tightly around him. He slows down and keeps rubbing your clit to keep your high going. When he feels you relax, he carefully pulls out of you. His cock now resting against the curve of your ass. He wraps his hand around his length and works himself to his own impending orgasm. A few strokes later, you feel him shoot his load over your ass and lower back. A groan slipping past his lips as he came.

You two stayed like that. Him keeping you pinned under him as you both pant heavily. Your bodies shiny with a faint sheen of sweat from what you just did and the fire that was still going. Daryl felt a twinge of prideful satisfaction as he watched the mess he made slowly drip further down your back. He finally releases you to stand up. Your hips dropping to the ground as you groan. You were thoroughly fucked and riding the aftershocks of your climax. You felt tingly and calm and was a moment away from drifting off to sleep right there.

Daryl walks off to the bathroom to snag a warm, wet cloth. He gives himself a quick clean up before cleaning the cloth and walks back to you with it. He kneels down next to you and cleans you with a gentle tenderness that you didn’t think the man was capable of possessing. Not after how he rearranged your insides a moment ago.

You found it very sexy that he was very good at switching between the two.

Daryl throws the cloth in the direction of the bathroom, then looks down at you. “You wanna stay here or move to your room,” he asks.

“Which ever one you want,” you hum, giving him a sleepy grin, “so long as you’re still around for a possible second round.” He cocks an eyebrow. You managed to roll onto your back. The room still warm despite the fire dying. “You fuck a girl that good and you don’t think there’s gonna be a round two,” you ask him, raising an eyebrow back at him.

Daryl rolls his eyes at you, then he picks you up bridal style. You weren’t expecting it, but you wrapped your arms around his neck all the same. You rested your head on his shoulder and gave instructions on where your room is located in a tired voice. By the time he gets to your room, you’re practically asleep. He’s careful as he slips you under the covers. As he goes to leave, your hand reaches out and takes his, stopping him.

“Stay,” you murmur.

“You sure,” he asks, hesitantly.

“In the words of the great Ricardo Montalban,” you tiredly say, “baby, it’s cold outside.”

Daryl snorts, but does as asked. You scoot over so that he could have room to lay next to you. You tiredly snuggle up to him and he wraps his arms around you in turn. He was stayed awake as he watched you finally drift away. A small, content smile on his face.

I had a lot of fun writing this. I can't wait to do the next advent calendar event!!

Love you!!! 💜💜💜

Fanfic Advent Calendar Writer Tags:

@lilythemadqueen @phoenixblack89 @attentionplease @sunflxwerbullet @twdeadfanfic @azanoni @bakerstreethound @shawtygonemad @ddixons-angel @beatleszeppelin @victoriaholmeswriting @rattlerinthewheel @klinenovakwinchester

[roniscloud]

lhs - runnin’

lee heeseung [a. + f. 4700 words] runnin’

to you

you came up on some new

i know i shouldn’t feel blue

‘cause i was runnin’ out of time for you

synopsis: you met heeseung in your freshman year of college and immediately hit it off. you’ve made it to your third year and when everyone including yourselves thought that you were each other’s endgame, the devastation when you two split was immeasurable. you both know there’s still love between you. this break allows you both to realize new things. can you two find your ways back to each other? will this be the final goodbye?

genre + tropes: angst. fluff. comedy. college!au. establishedrelationship!au. exes!au.

warnings: fem reader. swearing. arguing. nosy friends. cold heeseung and cold reader. drifting relationship. interventions. slight suggestive themes but it’s only mentioned like once. they both pine over each other. mentions of alcohol and binge drinking. maybe not a happy ending. if you choose to see it that way. whoops. appearances of the rest of enha plus txt yeonjun and soobin.

i.  the break

“so this is how it’s gonna end? i thought we were doing fine.”

heeseung erupts into an even angrier fit, “are you kidding me? we are not fucking fine. in what world is this fine? tell me!”

you scoff from where you stand cross-armed on the other side of the bedroom. “well, can you really blame me? it’s hard to see if there’s something wrong if we never see each other.”

“exactly my point! we don’t see each other.”

the two of you have been at each other’s throats since heeseung showed up at your apartment. you have no idea how long ago that was or when the argument started. all you remember is coming up to him when he arrived, wanting to actually spend some time with him. instead he shrugged you off and ignored you, blaming the fatigue. the rest has been a blur. one of you made an offhand comment and now here you are: frustrated and in another fight.

a quick recap: you two met at a mutual friend’s party. you thought that each other was attractive and he ended up asking you out. from there you kept going out, fell in love, dated, and everyone thought you were perfect together. three years later and it’s getting tiring. life has been draining trying to balance it all.

“and who’s fault is that?”

annoyed, he snaps back, “oh please, you can not put the blame solely on me.”

“bullshit. i sure can when i’m the only one making an effort here. i’ve actually been trying to save us. you, on the other hand…” you pause again, rolling your eyes, “well, we both know just how much you care.”

his jaw drops, defensively he spits back, “are you genuinely implying that i don’t care about you? about us? that’s rich.”

you move to sit on the edge of the bed, staring at a single spot on the floor. you can see the shadow of heeseing pacing back and forth. you sit there, not looking at each other. the only sounds to be heard are his footsteps and the heavy sighs from you. you think back to the last several weeks. you recall each of the times you have been able to see each other. there’s no substance, nothing memorable. the only thing that comes to mind is that you always end up not talking at all or arguing.

just like right now.

“be real, heesung. when was the last time we went on a date? when was the last time you stayed the night without it ending up with you just knocking out? when was the last time we actually sat down and had a conversation? be honest because i will. i can’t remember.”

“and yet you thought we were fine?”

“well it’s better to believe a good lie than face the hurtful truth. i’m trying to save this relationship. i’m trying all the fucking time and you don’t do shit.”

he spits back frustrated, “well maybe that’s because there’s nothing to be saved.”

“are you kidding me right now? am i supposed to be scared? you tell me that there’s nothing to be saved and expect me to just give up?”

“sorry but i’m not running from this anymore.”

“you’re not sorry and we both know it.” you push yourself back up to stand, resting your hands on your hips, “you can’t say you’re sorry and expect me to forgive you. that’s not how this works.”

“this isn’t what i wanted to happen. this isn’t how it was supposed to go.”

“then make it work.”

“i- i can’t,” he holds his hands over his face, running one through his hair, “it’s too much.”

“so what? what do you mean?”

he finally stops. he takes a deep breath and lets it all out, “i just can’t see this working anymore, at least not like this.”

ii. week one

you thought this would be more difficult. that this would be the hardest pill to swallow. the first week apart may actually be the easiest. nothing has really changed. that’s probably because you haven’t told anyone that you two are no longer together. perhaps the time that you didn’t spend with each other before the break up had trained you for this.

life goes on, with or without heeseung. that’s what you keep telling yourself. you choose to get caught up with your life. you have other priorities. it’s not a crime to focus on yourself for the first time in three years.

heeseung feels the same. he doesn’t see any point on dwelling on the breakup. sure, he was the one who made the decision. he’s the one who put it out there. he’s the one who ended it and the one who is taking responsibility.

lucky for both of you, you don’t have any courses together and your schedules don’t really coincide. there’s no chance at any awkward run-ins. there is this weird, tiny feeling though. there’s this small inkling of something missing. you both suppress it. i mean, hell, the breakup just happened.

iii. scheming

meanwhile, your friends have all seemed to notice that the two of you are off. they aren’t sure what it is. they get that you two have had some time apart, but you’re both adults with lives. you have your own classes, jobs, other friends, and such. no one mentions it because they don’t think it’s their business.

but come on… there’s no way they won’t get to the bottom of it. our resident gossips, sunoo and sunghoon, team up and make it their mission to snoop around. of course, they take precautions to not get caught. the scheming duo find out nothing, to no avail.

now the gang of the scheming duo plus jay, jake, and niki have convened in the common room of jungwon’s dorm building. the 02z are all playing billiards in one corner. sunoo battles jungwon in a game of ping pong. the youngest of the group sits by himself on one of the couches, contemplating if he should speak up. they’ve been in a heated discussion as they try to figure out what exactly has been irking them.

riki, against his own conscience, speaks up to the five. he has this gut feeling and innocently wants to voice his opinion. “what if,” the young boy start out while gauging the faces of the others, “now don’t get mad and just hear me out.” he stops again, taking his time to make eye contact with each of the older boys, waiting until they all nod, “what if… they broke up?”

the group of friends all exchange glances with each other before breaking out into laughter. jay composes himself a bit, still chuckling when he says, “seriously? you think they broke up? heeseung and y/n? yeah, no way.”

sunoo leans onto the ping pong table and eggs him on, “they are literally soulmates.”

jungwon sets his racket down and goes to plop himself next to riki on the couch, “there is no way in hell the two of them split.”

iv. breaking news

“yeah, we split.” plain and simple. three words that crushed the poor hearts of jake and jungwon. he broke the news over brunch. he sensed their curiosity when they deliberately never brought you up. 

“good joke there, dude. almost had me for a second.” jake says, awkwardly with a forced laugh.

the youngest of the three chiming in and agreeing, “yeah, that’s really funny.” a silence hits the booth. “you are joking… right?”

the oldest then looks back and forth between the two, tilting his head to one side like a confused pup. he doesn’t see why they think he would joke and simply replies, “nope. you guys haven’t asked so i’m guessing you tried to snoop around and pick up on my cues. i’m also guessing sunoo’s behind this whole operation.”

“ok wait,” jake interjects, “what do you mean you broke up? you can’t just break up.”

jungwon agrees, “he’s right. you two are just playing a prank on us.”

“guys, i’m serious. y/n and i are no longer together.” the two just freeze, jaws dropped, eyes wide. “besides, it’s better this way.”

v. bad timing

meanwhile the remaining four members of their friend group have met up in the campus library in an attempted study session. so far, they’ve just gone back to gossiping and slacking off. the boys all find themselves teetering on the verge of sleep. that is until sunghoon catches you walking in. immediately going to softly pat the others back awake, they all look up confused. trying to stay subtle, hoon jerks his head to the side in your direction.

you make your way to one of the shelves, searching high and low for a book you need for your literature class. sneaking up behind you comes choi yeonjun, the library aid and a friend of yours. 

“need any help?”

“no thanks, i’m good jun.” you give him a polite smile.

unbeknownst to both of you, the failure of a study group has creeped to a closer table. they knew that you two were friends but they still can’t help but eavesdrop. “will you two please shut up so we can hear them?” the annoyed face evident on sunghoon’s face at the bickering of sunoo and niki. he turns to see jay, snacking and not paying attention. he rolls his eyes at the group, his gaze then catching yeonjun leading you out of the shelves. quickly shushing the three and nodding his head in your direction again, they finally get the hint.

yeonjun steps in front of you, “so you know my friend soobin, right?”

“soobin… as in choi soobin?”

yeonjun flashes his bright smile, “that’s the one.”

“yeah i know him. we had a stats class together a while back. he definitely taught me a few tricks around a calculator.” you laugh with him, “he’s super sweet, and needless to say cute too.”

“well, am i glad to hear that! long story short, he’s kinda been crushing on you lately and wants to know if you’re free. he mentioned your shared class before but he said he never got your number.”

“since you have mine already, go ahead and give it to him. tell him i’m free whenever he is.”

yeonjun raises his eyebrows at your boldness, “will do. i just wanted to ask you first before i gave it to him because… y’know…”

“no worries, i completely understand.”

he gives a quick goodbye before going back to his desk. storming quickly, four faces appear in front of you, all a combination of confusion, shock, and anger. 

sunoo starts, “um… y/n. why are you telling yeonjun to give your number to another guy?”

“yeah, are you cheating on heeseung?” his partner in crime, sunghoon, joins in.

you pause and scan their faces. your face dawns an equally as confused expression. “how can i cheat on someone who isn’t my boyfriend?”

four jaws simultaneously drop. riki’s being the first to close and answer a bit hushed, “i knew it.”

jay turns to him in disbelief, “not the time, niki!”

“did heeseung not tell you guys?” you ask them slowly. “i assumed he would be the one to let you all know.”

“that you two broke up?!” sunoo asks angrily, being shushed by yeonjun from the counter. giving an apologetic smile then tuning back into your conversation, “what do you mean you two broke up?”

“we just… broke up. that’s it. end of story. now if you’ll excuse me, i have to actually study.”

they watch you check out the book you came in for originally and walk out the doors, unsure of what to do next.

vi. the intervention

arranging your monthly movie night was not exactly the easiest task given the tensions surrounding two people in your group. so the only logical solution that they all could think of was to simply not to tell one of you that the other was coming over. a fool-proof plan.

in the dorm of the 02z, you did not expect to see heeseung when you walked in.

he gets up from his spot on the couch, “what the hell is going on here?”

“yeah, an explanation would be nice.” you cross your arms as you glare at the younger boys.

niki, trying to act as mediator gestures for both of you two sit on the loveseat—the same loveseat that was always reserved for the two of you before. “this is an intervention.”

after the confession of their intentions, everyone goes quiet. not a single word is spoken for several minutes, no one knowing how to start. after much internal contemplation, jungwon finally attempts to start. “we brought you two here today because- you know what, i can’t do this.” he stops and cuts himself off, burying his face in his hands.

sunoo sits next to him with his arms crossed. “how dare you two? our parents gets divorced and we don’t even get a notice.” it was common for them to refer to you and heeseung as the parents of the group, being the oldest. although something about sunoo still calling you by that nickname stings, him shaking his head to display his disappointment making you feel guilty. 

you see heeseung out of the corner of your eye avoiding looking up to your friends. “look, i don’t see the big deal. we broke up. that happens when relationships don’t work out.”

sunghoon quickly intervenes, “how can you say it isn’t a big deal? you’re letting three years go to waste and that’s all you can say? that’s what happens.” he scoffs at how shameless you come off.

“well, would you rather us stay together even when we were unhappy?” their reactions were a mix of shouts, the words yes, of course not, and duh all blending into each other.

that’s what brought your ex boyfriend out of his daze. “y/n has a point. we broke up and it’s over. we were no longer happy and i don’t see the point in bringing it up again either. it’s in the past. let it go.” he says rather coldly and sternly. him actually saying it and acknowledging it caused that weird feeling to come back. his body language is off, too. your years together has taught you enough about heeseung to know when he’s upset, especially with himself.

jake takes his turn, looking down at his fidgeting hands and muttering sadly, “but you promised each other forever.”

that prompts you and heeseung to glance at each other quickly, making eye contact and it lingering for a couple of seconds. you look away first, not noticing that his stare doesn’t leave you.”some promises just can’t be kept.” your response then making him turn away.

“bullshit.” it’s the first word uttered by jay this entire time. “neither of you are the type to break promises.”

“some things can’t be helped,” heeseung defends.

jay, getting angrier, asks his friend, “did you know that she’s already going on a date? yeah, that guy, soobin. i’m pretty sure you know who he is. your ex,” he makes sure to stress the last word with a certain degree of annoyance, “thinks he’s cute.”

emotionless, heeseung answers back, “good for her, then.”

you were sure that you were over him, that’s why you said yes to the date. but something about him not caring leaves you feeling odd.

jungwon stops your train of thought, “no, you’re supposed to be upset. you’re supposed to get jealous and confess you still want to be with her. you’re supposed to fight for her and be together.”

another quick glance between the two of you, lasting longer than the previous one. no words are said on his end, but you know exactly what he’s trying to say. “he doesn’t have to fight when i’m the one who ended it.” you knew him. you knew he couldn’t admit to the others his decision. after all, he wants to be a good role model even in his darkest times. he couldn’t crush their idea of love and you did what you had to do. you lied for his sake—and maybe even yours.

vii. him

two months have passed since the breakup. there’s tension amongst the friend group, the six not wanting to pick sides between you and heeseung. they’re constantly going back and forth, like they’re walking on eggshells as to not bring up something that only happened with the other.

to get your mind off everything, you’ve found comfort in soobin. well, more accurately you’ve found comfort in between his sheets, or wherever you two decide for it to go down. that’s not to say the dates aren’t great. you’re not official and you both know that. your latest date, however, couldn’t help but feel weird.

the date was going pretty well. don’t get me wrong—soobin is a great guy. he’s sweet, caring, funny, and handsome. you have a lot in common like your taste in drinks and movies. maybe if you had met him first, you would’ve dated him… but you didn’t meet him first. you met heeseung first, and soobin isn’t heeseung.

you found yourself drifting from the conversation now and then, thinking about how heeseung would’ve been at that moment. you think back to his habits, particularly the way he raises his eyebrows whenever he’s excited or talking about something he’s passionate about. you always found it endearing. over the course of dinner, you are able to notice that soobin has some cute habits too, like him covering his face when he gets shy or puffing out his cheeks. but it still isn’t the same.

“you two deserve each other.”

soobin catches your attention again with that comment. “what?”

“you and heeseung. i know that look. don’t try to lie to me.”

“look, heeseung is my past, and i want it to stay that way.”

“do you really want it to stay that way, or are you just afraid of what could happen if you let him back into your present?”

you give him a teasing glare, “don’t get all philosophical with me. i just don’t think he and i can go back to how we were before.”

“what’s so bad about you two changing? obviously if it didn’t work out, you shouldn’t try to be what you were before.”

“can’t i just try with you?”

“as much as i would love for you to give me that chance, i can’t do that to you or to myself. it’s not fair.”

you hesitantly ask him, “but is it worth it?”

“that’s not my decision to make.”

viii. her

now that you’re virtually not in his life, he seems to be looking for you everywhere. actually… rather than going out of his way to look for you, everything just reminds him of you. the jingles of the commercials you always sang along to, your favorite songs on the radio, the reruns of 90’s shows you always binged. hell, even when he was making ramen, he was reminded of how you would make his favorite for him every time he was stressed over an exam. he was sitting in the back of the lecture hall, trying so hard to stay awake for his 3 hour long class with the most boring professor on campus. he fought the urge to text you since it felt like second nature to rely on you to help cheer him up.

there was a particular night when it really hit him. reality smacked him in the face late one evening. heeseung was bored out of his mind, laying alone in bed, aimlessly browsing netflix to find something to watch. he thinks to himself y/n would’ve slammed this laptop closed and talked all night about random and obscure topics. he laughs to himself, reliving the memories. right then, it’s obvious. he misses her.

ix. promises

the rain hitting your bedroom window had no help on your already gloomy mood. what did help was the bottle of soju- well more realistically, four bottles of soju. it was all the liquid courage you needed to call heeseung at three in the morning. 

you sat drowsily on the rug of your living room, your phone on speaker and placed in front of you as you stared out the dewy glass. you heard the phone ring seven times, ready to hang up until you heard his groggy voice come out from the other end. “hello? y/n, why are you up?”

you laugh softly and ask him, sounding loopy, “why are you up?”

“because you’re calling me. would you like to give me a reason why, and are you drunk?”

“maybe. anyways, you know… i was thinking. we broke a lot of promises and it hurts. i have to know that we’re not bad people. i have to keep at least one, right?”

heeseung groans but lets you ramble, knowing that you won’t stop until you’ve said it all, “go on…”

“we made a promise that if something was going on, if we were in a dark place, that we would talk to someone. well, if you couldn’t tell by now, i’m not in the best place. the first person i thought to talk to was you.”

“why me?”

“shhh… don’t ask questions. i know you’re tired so just stay on the phone and let me talk. ok?”

he goes quiet for a bit, sighing, “ok.”

“i miss you. i do. i don’t expect you to miss me but i just want to say it,” pausing to hiccup, “soobin helped me realize some things, saying some crap like we deserve each other.” you chuckle as you recall his words, “maybe he said it because bad people deserve bad people. maybe he said it because in our own fucked up lives, we’re the only ones who can understand each other. i did a lot of thinking and i’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t. because if we stay together, we can’t move on. we can’t grow. we can’t become good people, no matter how much we want it. that’s life. sometimes, no matter how much we want something, no matter how much we wish on stars or pray, some things just aren’t meant to be.”

“y/n, get some rest…”

“wait, i’m not done. you already can tell i’ve been drinking and to be honest i have been, for a while. i do it,” starting to choke up and sniffle, “because it helps me forget. even if it’s just for a minute that i can forget what happened, i’ll drink as much as it takes. i’ll grow out of it, eventually. i know i will, but for now… i have to do what i have to do. i’m sure you can relate.” you laugh again, getting more drowsy. you bring your legs up, hugging your knees. faintly, the sounds of heeseung’s snores play from your phone. you smile to yourself, “i wish you were here, singing me a lullaby. i don’t know when you fell asleep but goodnight. take care of yourself.”

cuddled up in his bed, heeseung hears you hang up. he lets you believe he didn’t hear what you said. he knows the reality of it all and the weight that you both are carrying. knowing that you won’t check your phone for the rest of the night, he sends you a quick text: bookstore, saturday, noon. goodnight.

as he turns off his phone to try to fall back asleep, he sees his reflection in the black screen. he sees his puffy, red eyes and his tear-stained cheeks. the end of it all is coming and finally, you two are ready for it.

x. love song

seeing him in person is a good idea. clearing the air, letting it all out, getting closure. all good ideas, you hope. walking into the bookstore was a weird feeling. when you spot him sitting by the window, you quietly make your way over. he looks up at your new presence, his feet shuffling out of nervousness. you notice the glass of pear juice on the small coffee table in front of him, already half empty.

“hi,” he says like a whisper.

“hi,” you awkwardly respond. it’s unlike the two of you to not know how to start a conversation. you make your way onto the cushioned seat, letting yourself get comfortable to help ease the tension. you each avoid the other’s gaze, not knowing how to begin. you sigh and finally ask, “how have you been?”

“busy,” he says as he nods, “finally took up actual music lessons. thought it would be better to have someone who’s played piano and guitar professionally instead of trying to teach myself.”

you softly giggle, “that’s good. you’ve always loved music.”

“yeah… how about you?”

“same, busy. i got the t.a position i applied for like forever ago.”

“congrats! you still looking to become a teacher?”

“well, generally yeah. i was having my doubts before but i just fell back into it. finally being able to be there, present, and guiding others… that’s what i want.” you sit there across from him, watching him and taking it all in. the man in front of you is heeseung, but not the heeseung you knew. no, this is the better version of him. the version of him where he can focus on himself. the version of heeseung that’s glowing and happy and ready to take on the world. “so, look. there’s no easy or delicate way to put it but i think there are things we both need to get off our chests.”

“agreed. since it all happened—the fights, the breakups, the ambush interventions—we haven’t actually talked.”

“those interventions… they were silly but the guys did help me realize some things. we’re growing up. sure, i thought we had this plan of us graduating, getting married, having a family, settling down, growing old. we both wanted that type of life. sadly, it’s not what happened and we have to live with it.”

he lets out a chuckle, “heeseung and y/n: meant for each other and meant to be.”

“but not meant to last. what a bittersweet and poetic ending."

“it’s like people always say: right person, wrong time.”

“you know… you used to tell me that our love song was the soundtrack to the best life you could live.” you reach out and take his hand in yours, “i just,” pausing to take a deep breath and compose yourself, “i just want you to know… that if anything happens-”

he cuts you off with a quiet gasp, whispering your name with a shaky voice, “don’t.”

you shake your head and gently squeeze his hand, “if anything happens… if in the end, we don’t find our way back and it isn’t us, don’t think we ended on a bad note.” you drop your head as you chuckle lightly before continuing, “cause you were always on key.” you give him a small grin, trying your hardest to not make things worse by crying. “we were just playing different tunes.”

he pulls you in closer to him, placing his hands softly on your cheeks. “i always hated seeing you cry,” he says as he wipes away the tears on your face, not bothering about his own. he wraps his arms around you, holding you close for the last time. 

you stay there in his warmth, hearing him sniffle as he tries to hold back the falling tears. when you pull away, you tell him “i will always love you. maybe not in the way i thought i would but it’s still there.”

“maybe in our next life, it’ll be the right time.” with that, he leaves a kiss on your forehead, leaves the bookstore, and leaves your life. your duet that worked in perfect harmony now playing a beautiful cadence—two wandering artists, free to fill your own wretched worlds with new melodies, the bliss and tranquility of it all. the hope that maybe one day, you’ll be in each other’s lives again is enough.

[cjjohansson]

NONE OF THIS WAS MEANT TO HAPPEN- PART 2

NATASHA ROMANOFF x BLACKWIDOW!READER

SUMMARY; After being apprehended by the Avengers and growing closer to Natasha, you let slip a secret she didn't know you knew. What happens when she realises you know the truth?

WARNINGS; mentions of abuse, swearing, previous suicide attempt, self harm, self doubt, mental health, smoking, drinking. sad natasha.

-PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION-

WORD COUNT; 4.5K

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“So you’re telling me Yelena lied?”

Natasha didn’t expect this. She hadn't heard that name for a while now, not since destroying the Red Room herself with the help from her but since then nothing but radio silence. She thought Yelena was too busy still trying to free other widows but she knew from finding you and helping you Yelena hadn't finished her mission yet. But she was confused at how you knew Yelena and still had her in your mind even through the torture of the mind control and manipulating you had experienced. She continued staring at you, she didn't know what to do or say to you.

“So was she lying or not Natasha?” your voice came through her ears making her refocus. Your voice sounded desperate to know the truth, you needed to know the truth.

“I don't know what you’re talking about y/n.” Nat knew she should tell the truth, why was she still hiding this part of her past from you, no one knew about the help she had received when destroying the red room but no one knew her as well as you. Only knowing each other for this short amount of time you both opened up in different ways, it was freeing for Natasha to see someone who went through the same pain as she did and it helped guide her in helping you. Knowing if she could help you it’d help herself, she still saw all the red in her ledger but she was determined to wipe it in hopes she could help you wipe yours. She knew how you felt about the terrible things you did under control and for all the years up until now. She knew you shared the same pain. Apart from you only had Natasha. Slowly growing more open with the team but Natasha had you AND the team, the team she had grown so close with over the years to now finally call her family. But still the lie fell from her lips like it was a simple song.

“You’re lying, I know you're lying and I don't understand why it's me Natasha!” your voice only grew louder the more frustrated you got.

“I still remember holding Yelena the day you managed to escape the Red Room, I remember her crying and having to keep her quiet at night so no one saw her and thought she was weak! She constantly fell asleep holding the only memory she had left of you. But it all stopped months after I was taken from her in my sleep being transferred to a new location! I remember mouthing to her ‘it’ll be ok, we will find eachother again’ but after that nothing. I cannot even remember how long ago that was now Natasha, the years after being put through the mind control barely anything feels real. It was all confusing at the time trying to work out who this girl was that I kept seeing in my dreams and anytime I asked them it would only end in a beating. I knew not to ask anymore. But I remember being sent on this mission to kill you Natasha! I remember after I finally woke up again and saw your face that this person in front of me will help because my friend never gave up hope in you! It was like all I could see was Yelena and this random blue haired girl!”

“I'm not lying. I don't know who or what you're talking about!” another lie, slipping past her lips like it was nothing. Her lies only fueled you with more anger and frustration. Her face just stayed staring at you like she was trying to burn the lie into your head. You thought you knew her, but the person who was standing in front of you now lying was most definitely not the same person you shared a kiss with only moments ago.

“You said I could trust you Natasha. You might be able to get away with lying to the team but you're forgetting we were taught to lie by the same people. I can see straight through you.” your voice hit back at her laced with venom, she could see the disappointment in your eyes. You slowly turned to leave, you couldn't stand here with her right now knowing she was lying. How could she lie to you after everything she has helped you with over the last few months. You thought you loved her, you thought she might have loved you. You got off the bed and walked towards the door, you couldn't be here right now.

“Y/n/n wait.” she grabbed your wrist, stopping you from reaching the door, the same wrist that was littered in a big scar from the time you woke up. Her touch burnt, all she received from you was a flinch and you pulling your wrist from her touch.

“Don't you dare fucking touch me Natalia! Only moments ago I thought I finally had someone I could trust, someone who would keep me safe. But now all I see is the Black fucking Widow stood infront of me. So no Natalia, I won't wait. I won't stand here while you lie to me straight through your teeth. I wont stand here while you tell me you don't know who or what i’m talking about when I held that some person for months through her fucking tears because her so called sister left without her! I picked up the pieces you fucking ruined and now you expect me to stand here and think that you're telling me the truth and Yelena lied all those years? You expect me to think the voice in my head the day I woke up after I slit my wrist wide open telling me to trust you is fucking lying? Because if it was lying I wish, I fucking wish I let myself bleed out right then and there.” You knew you hit her then, like your voice was so loud filling the room like it was pounding in her ears. She knew you were right that it wasn’t her standing in front of you but was the Black Widow trying to manipulate her targets for information. Before she could even reply, the sound of the door slamming brought her back to focus. She quickly wiped her cheek as she felt the tears slowly falling from her eyes, not even remembering when she had started crying. Why did she lie? Why did she ruin the chances of you? Ruining your trust like it didn't take so much time to try and gain it? What had she done? Her and Yelena were ok now, they had worked on their differences and she had apologised for what had happened all the years ago but why wouldn't she tell you that? She knew Yelena held a grudge and hated her for leaving without her when they finally saw each other again but that wasn't the case now. Everything was different now and the main difference was Natasha finally realising that maybe she was falling for you and she had ruined all her chances in that becoming a reality. She needed to give you space, she knew that if she was to chase you now it would only make you more angry, she knew she needed to figure out how to talk to you and explain why she had done what she had done, until then she couldn't risk seeing you.

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It had been a week since your argument with Natasha. Nothing made sense to you. It was driving you crazy at how she lied to you like you were nothing to her, like you weren't the person she had spent nights laughing with over stupid movies and also crying too when talking about each other's pasts. You had only slept once since then, a few hours after your argument, you had finally made your way back to your room knowing she would have left. You felt exhausted, only moments before your argument you had woken up from a terrible nightmare to then being in the comfort of her arms, to then kissing her to then shouting. It was like the only thing your body wanted to do was sleep right then and there. When you woke up hours later looking at your clock did you see the time read 4am, you had slept for 12 hours and by that point you understood why.

-flashback-

You steadily got out of your bed still feeling disgusted from being in your gym clothes from the day before everything happened, you made your way to the shower knowing you needed to rid all this grime off of yourself. You stood still in the shower letting the water fall off your shoulders like it was the first time you had ever seen water before it felt relaxing. Letting yourself get lost in the feeling of it but still your mind grew to the thought of what it would be like if Natasha was standing behind you right now washing your hair, touching you so delicately like you could break from any sudden movement. It felt too overwhelming. You crumbled to your knees like your body could no longer hold your weight anymore, your tears getting lost within the water that was over your face. It felt like you couldn't breathe, you were trapped in a place with nobody you could trust. Your mind grew dark so quickly, like the only way to get out of this place was to reopen that wrist but she still lingered in your mind, the thought of her finding you on this shower floor was breaking you even more. Why were you still feeling this sympathy for her after everything that had happened. You couldn't do this you needed to get rid of this feeling inside, it felt like your body was on fire, you felt scared and it was something you hadn't felt for a few months now, you had felt safe in her presence to now feeling as if you would leave this room and pass out, you needed it gone. You scrambled up from your feet in a hurry trying to find anything in your bathroom for a release, you remembered Natasha had made sure anything you could hurt yourself with had been removed from your pending room after your incident. There was nothing in here you could even butter bread with, it only made you feel more anger towards her. You stopped looking, taking a deep breath and staring at yourself in the mirror, wiping your hand over the mirror to see yourself clearer due to the fog clinging to it. And that's when you realised this would do. Bringing your clenched fist up to pound into the mirror sending shards flying everywhere, thank god for your enhancements you thought, that brought a light chuckle out of you. Frantically picking a big enough shard off the floor and moving yourself to sit on the toilet you knew this would help. Blood came seeping out of each cut, dripping down your leg and running onto the floor, you knew you'd done enough. The pain you felt inside had felt like it had disappeared more and more after every cut. You moved back into the shower preparing yourself for the sharp stings of pain that would soon follow, washing yourself quickly and exiting your bathroom, closing the door and leaving it shut. You knew you’d had to clean up later but for now you dragged yourself back to your bed in hopes to sleep more even though you knew you wouldn’t.

-end flashback-

You sat on the balcony of the compound still trying to work out how and why this had happened, you hadn't seen her for a week, you knew people had grown suspicious as to why you weren't joint at her hip and instead was constantly wrapped in a blanket on the balcony. The only person to come over and talk to you was Wanda, you would never say much. Only asking her if she could get you some cigarettes from the shop and some vodka, you knew if she said no you could always just ask FRIDAY to get some delivered, but she always came back hours later with the two things you'd asked her for, you always sent her the softest smile with a quiet thank you and she would leave after that. You wondered if she knew she was feeding into your new addictions and a way to stop the pain coming forward. You wondered if you were taking advantage of her but still you never wondered to ask.

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You brought the cigarette up to your lips lighting it quickly, the feeling burning your throat and lungs as you slowly inhale the toxic chemicals it gives out, you had never smoked before this whole thing with Natasha, it wasn't until you had seen someone smoking in a movie did you grow curious of whole thing but now look, it was like you was a natural. Cigarette in one hand, half a bottle of vodka in the other, that is all you've done all week. You only moved from this spot to go to the toilet, not even bothering with food. It wasn't healthy and you knew that, you also knew this was a pathetic way of coping from everything with Natasha but it was helping.

A small cough is what brought you out of your train of thoughts, you looked up towards the door seeing her standing there. You hated how the first thing you thought was how beautiful she looked with the moonlight shining in just the right way. It made her eyes even more beautiful than they already were, you threw your head back to look at the trees across from you, no you needed to be angry at her.

“Smoking isn’t good for you, you know.” you wanted to chuckle at her but the hurt seeping through your veins was too much to deal with, gulping down the growing lump in your throat you continued smoking while staring. She sighed moving to sit opposite you so she constricted your view. You now sit facing her staring into her beautiful emerald orbs hoping the tears don't start to fall.

“I’m sorry” watching her slowly lowering her head after her words, her hands running through her hair, you're sure you heard a slight sniffle but you continued to stare, not caring to reply.

“Please say something, anything” she sounded so vulnerable, so small but you needed an explanation not just an apology. You go to speak but your tears are already threatening to fall so you turn your head to the side gulping down some vodka to ignore the pain.

“I'm not good at apologising, I'm even worse at talking about my past. I did lie. But I shouldn't have. I lied because I didn't want to remember what I did to her back then, the things I did in general back then.” you finally turned to look at her again slowly nodding for her to continue.

“Me and Yelena, we…errrr...we had a mission when we were young. Acting as sisters with two other agents as our parents. It was nice, you know, acting normal. I went from being in the Red Room, to a normal life. To then just be taken back away again. But it was different for her, I tried to not let them take her, she was too young, but like they said, I was younger…” she stayed staring down at her feet, you could tell it was a lot for her to be doing this, you were thankful she was opening up telling you the truth but you could see her discomfort seeping through. Holding out the bottle of vodka for her to take she brought her head up slowly looking at you and then to the bottle. She let out a light chuckle moving to accept the bottle from you and taking a drink. She gave it back, wiping the few tears that had escaped, you thought she was done talking until she sighed and carried on.

“I held her as they took us to the Red Room again, well me again, not her. It was terrifying. I just held her trying to shield her from seeing anything and everything, she just clung to me, sobbing. We were so young and I knew what was going to happen to her and there was nothing more I could do. I knew as soon as we were there she'd be taken from me and I'd never see her again. But I did see her, of course you know I did. It was quick stares walking past each other or it was me looking for her subtly when we would be eating, I couldn't protect her anymore. We could only protect ourselves. Any signs of love, affection or even friendship were frowned upon. How could I comfort her or look after her when everything I wanted to do I would have been punished for? That would have scared her even more. So I kept to myself.”

You didn't know how to react or what to do, the woman who was so continuously strong no matter what was thrown at her was sitting in front of you sobbing, it broke your heart and you knew it was breaking hers.

“Tasha, it's ok. Please.” you couldn't watch her cry anymore but you knew there was so much more she needed to say.

“No, y/n I...I need to do this.” you gave her a small nod, urging her to continue as you swallowed your own tears.

“She got out about 7 months ago too. Things happened and well me, her and our parents, Alexei and Melina. We took down Dreykov, we took down the main Red Room. I found out about all of these other widows that were placed all around the world being controlled. Yelena had this antidote that managed to break widows out of mind control, she found out the hard way what it was but we managed to save the widows that were at that Red Room. We only had one dose left, so with the help from Melina and Alexei they created more so they could go and save all the girls that were left. When you showed up I knew that clearly she hadn't finished the whole mission yet but I knew that 4 months wasn't a lot of time to do that hence why she hadn't reached you yet. I hadn't been in contact with any of them since then, I tried to get in touch but I never received anything back even up until two weeks ago.” she had stopped crying now, she looked more comfortable talking, it released this ache in your heart knowing she was becoming ok. You just wanted to hug her, so you did. You moved quickly, cigarettes and bottle of vodka long forgotten about and settled on her lap. She tensed slightly when you first sat down but soon enough you felt her relax, you just couldn't stop looking at her. Her eyes glassy from the tears she had shed, the light smell of the vodka she had drunk coming out from her lips as she breathed slowly. You just forgot everything that had happened in the past week. You cupped her face making sure all of her attention was on you, leaning in slowly to finally connect your lips in a gentle kiss. You finally moved away when you felt tears dripping down your cheeks, not evening knowing if they were yours or hers. Her hand came to settle on your cheek wiping away the tears that had fallen, the smallest of a smile on her face.

“I went to find them this week.” her words shocking you, making you shake your head confused. She laughed lightly at your reaction.

“Arguing with you just made me realise that I had no clue what was going on, I just left them with this information and took off, so I went to Melinas where I knew one of them would be and saw them there. That's why I had been gone all week.”

You felt relief when something rolled through you, although all this week you had been trying to avoid her, every time you moved from the balcony to the toilets you hoped she would pop out of nowhere. It wasn't until the third day you thought she was actively trying to avoid you too, it's what made you grow more angry. Thinking she just upped and left without a word but you now knew she didn't and suddenly all this anger and pain you felt towards her through the week was gone off your shoulders, but you now hated yourself for the way you reacted, the way you screamed and shouted at her for lying when now you understood why she done what she done out of fear of remembering. You hated yourself for the way you threw yourself into hurting yourself along with smoking and drinking. The guilt settled in your chest, it felt like it was too much to handle once again and you couldn't stop the tears from crashing down, a painful sob falling out of you as you suddenly felt like you could feel your thighs starting to tear and bleed again, like you could feel your throat burning from the bottles of vodka you had consumed and your lungs feeling as if they were suffocating from all the cigarettes you managed to smoke in such a short time.

Natasha reacted quickly, holding you tighter as you tucked yourself into the crook of her neck, a death grip on the back of her shirt as if, if you were to let go, this would all be a dream and she would disappear.

“Hey, hey, hey. Shhh it's ok, you're ok, I’m ok. We are ok. I'm here. I'm sorry for what happened and I'm sorry for leaving without explaining. I'm just so sorry.” her words were meant to be comforting but it only made you sob more.

“The things I did when you were gone Tasha, I overreacted. I'm sorry for everything I said that day of our argument. I understand everything now I do and I'm so grateful for you telling me and I'm so happy Yelena is safe. I'm so sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry.” your voice muffled as you sobbed into her neck only made her grow nervous. No one had said anything about you all week when she called to check in on everyone.

“y/n, what happened?” She spoke so softly, one hand stroking small circles at the bottom of your back and the other hand moving to the side of your hair to move your head up so you were looking at her. It made the words you were trying to say even harder seeing how much her eyes showed her concern and worry.

“M...my...my bathroom, I...I...I ruined it, haven't been in my room since you left. I've stayed out here just smoking and drinking Tasha. I felt so angry and hurt and I hate what I did because now I understand why and what happened and I just overreacted so much and all I've done is cause myself pain and I know you don't want to know or even think that but I have. I hurt myself Tasha, I broke my mirror to do it, gosh thats so fucking stupid and it was only the one time and that doesn't make that ok I know that but it hurts so much. I feel like I'm suffocating, this guilt is too much. You've come back to explain and now here I sit crying and making it sound like everything I did this week was your fault but it wasn't. I'm sorry.” you rambled on continuing to sob, her eyes now just looked so sad, it broke you but you couldn't stop the ‘I’m sorrys’ from falling off your lips but she still stayed stroking your back, leaning your foreheads together telling you over and over that it was ok and she forgave you.

Your sobs finally slowly subsided, the exhaustion finally settling in after the week that had gone by so slowly, it consumed you. But Natasha never let up her continuous flow of ‘its oks’ and never failed to tell you ‘I’m here’ until you finally settled in silence. The silence felt comfortable between you, even though the past hour or maybe even longer held so much pain for the both of you. Your grib finally loosens on her t-shirt, moving to sit up straight to look at her.

“Я люблю вас” she blurts out in a hurry, you stayed staring at her in shock. You made no move to reply or even hug her or kiss her, it made her grow nervous. You felt her tense underneath you straight after it came flying out of her mouth.

“It's fine, you don’t need to...umpth” you cut her off short pulling her into an intense kiss, moving to straddle her lap, she moaned softly into you, making you melt. Even through the gentleness it still felt so rough and aggressive, neither of you pulling away until air became a problem.

“я люблю тебя больше моя Наталья”

-⧗-ⴵ-⧗-ⴵ-⧗-ⴵ-⧗-ⴵ-⧗-ⴵ-⧗-ⴵ-⧗-ⴵ-⧗-ⴵ-⧗-ⴵ-⧗-ⴵ-⧗-ⴵ-⧗-ⴵ-⧗-

The night seemed to flow so much more calmly after your late night confessions. You both moved to Natashas suite in hopes of getting some more privacy. Your night consisted of movies playing in the background as you both consumed each other with so much love and affection. You knew for sure that no one could ever love you or care for you the way this woman could. It overfilled your heart with so much joy, that even after these years where she was in pain and she blamed herself and the word for everything that had happened to her, that she could still love and feel so deeply. How she could still love you with so much passion in such a short amount of time, when you both grew up being told that it would make you vulnerable and that it was for children.

You knew the way you grew up was terrible and traumatic but in this moment, laying in Natashas arms sharing the smallest of kisses, giggles erupting from both of you, kind words whispered as if anything louder would ruin the moment, you were somewhat grateful that somehow no matter where this life was suppose to take you or what was meant to happen with you, you had never been so happy to have failed your mission against Natasha Romanoff, because right now who knows where you would be or what you was doing. You managed to be so lucky that this woman still accepted you with open arms and made herself vulnerable and somewhere fall in love with you that nothing from your past mattered in this moment. All that mattered was the love you were sharing and the love you can only hope to continue to share into the future.

Maybe ‘None Of This Was Meant To Happen’ but god was you so incredibly happy that it did.

[the-iceni-bitch]

No Scrubs

Well a scrub checkin' me, but his game is kinda weak

And I know that he cannot approach me

'Cause I'm looking like class and he's looking like trash

Can't get wit' a deadbeat ass

Pairing: Steve Rogers x fem!Reader

Words: 3.1k

Summary: You try to keep Steve from dying of boredom at an Avengers charity gala.

Warnings: explicit language, explicit sexual content (oral sex (f receiving), fingering, unprotected vaginal sex, squirting, public sex), little bit of a fight, SMUT!!! 18+ ONLY!!!!!

A/N: My official entry for @cockslut-padalecki’s “Not My Ninth” challenge!! My prompt was No Scrubs by TLC and Charity Gala. I picked our boy Steve for this one, but like post Avengers pre Winter Soldier Steve. Also, is Thor the best wingman? I feel like I’ve been using him in this role a lot. Happy 9K babe!

Check out my masterlist and join my taglist if you want!

Steve had never felt so uncomfortable in his life.

He hated talking about himself normally, and having to parade around in front of a bunch of rich people was a special kind of torture. But Tony was insistent that the whole team had to be there, and it was for a good cause so he couldn’t say no without being a complete asshole.

He downed the rest of his champagne as some other billionaire asked him the same damn question about how different things were for him now, how much he must miss the 40s, like the war was some golden age of Americana. He just smiled and gave the same polite answers he’d been giving all night, wishing he was able to get drunk. Maybe Thor had snuck in some mead, that could usually do the trick.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt, Captain Rogers, but Mr. Stark sent me to come find you. Something about the silent auction.”

Steve felt his face relax as he turned to look at you, his breath coming out in a deep sigh. You looked amazing in your silver gown, all shimmery and gauzy.

“Sorry folks, duty calls.” He said with a shrug as he followed you away from the stuffed suits. “What does Tony want? I don’t have anything to do with the auction.”

“Yeah, I know, but your jaw was clenched so hard I was worried you were gonna snap something, so I figured I’d come rescue you.” You said, grinning over your shoulder at him.

“God, you’re the best.” He sighed, following you to the bar and leaning against it as you ordered yourself a cocktail.

“I know, right? You want anything?”

“Not unless Thor snuck anything in. It’s only been an hour and I’m this close to ramming my head through a wall.”

“Sorry Cap, I hate these things too but it comes with the territory.” You said with a shrug, sipping on your Manhattan as you turned to face him. “Now, lets go find our Asgardian friend. As your handler, I can’t have you destroying property out of boredom, and I’m pretty sure I saw that giant sipping from a contraband flask a little earlier.”

He grinned as he moved to follow you, weaving through the crowd as you expertly turned away the whales that kept trying to approach him. You were his fifth handler since the battle of New York, and the only one that had lasted longer than a week. Mostly because you didn’t actually try to handle him, just let him be Steve and deal with any PR fallout that came with that. It helped that you had an easygoing nature that he found endearing, and you could always make him laugh. The fight you’d gotten into with Tony about changing his suit had really done it for him though, he hadn’t seen anyone make Stark back down so fast.

“Odinson!” You shouted, beaming once you found the massive blonde. He’d been cornered by a group of old blue hairs who were tittering and trying to touch his biceps. “Sorry ladies, the god of thunder is needed elsewhere, auction business.”

They all made sounds of disappointment as you extracted the relieved looking god from the group of old biddies, pulling him away towards one of the empty corners of the ballroom.

“What is this auction you speak of?” Thor asked once the three of you were separated from the crowd.

“A clever ruse, my good friend.” You said with a smirk. “You’re welcome by the way. The Captain here is on the verge of committing violent acts out of boredom, and expressed a desire to get drunk.”

“Yes, thank you Y/N.” He said with a grin. “I don’t think I can help the Captain with his problem though, maybe he should head to the bar.”

“Oh, you can’t help?” You said cocking your eyebrow at him before shoving your hand inside his tux jacket and pulling out a silver flask. “What’s this then?”

Steve chuckled as Thor tried to stammer out a reply as you just shook your head and tutted at him, handing Steve the flask.

“Listen, just be a good boy and share. Now, I need to go to the ladies room but if any of these rich assholes tries to come bother you again, just start talking about the horrors of war, and get graphic. They hate that shit.”

Steve handed Thor back the flask after taking a sip, already staring to feel a bit of a tingle in his fingers.

“That woman is not to be trifled with.” Thor said appreciatively as he took a swig, handing it back to Steve. “Have you slept with her yet?”

Steve choked on the mead, his eyes bugging out of his head as he tried to cough up a lung and Thor clapped him on the back, scolding him for wasting good liquor.

“Jesus, Thor! What are you talking about? I don’t want to sleep with Y/N!”

“Oh my god, you midgardians and your hang ups. Your hormones spike every time your around her, it’s very distracting.”

“What?!?! How do you know that?” Steve loosened his tie a bit as he felt himself starting to warm up, telling himself it was just from the booze.

“I’m not just the god of thunder, I’m a fertility god.” He said with a grin. “And every time you two are near each other, it’s like being around a couple of rabbits in the spring.”

“Oh god, please stop.” Steve said as he ran his hand over his face in embarrassment.

“No you stop. We’re in a hotel, just get a room and , what’s the phrase I’m looking for ‘fuck her brains out’.”

“Jesus Christ, who taught you that? Never mind, I know it was Tony.” He said, waving a dismissive hand at Thor as he gave him a wicked grin.

“Oh no.” Thor said suddenly, looking over Steve’s shoulder towards the ballroom.

“What now?” Steve said with a heavy sigh, turning to follow his line of sight to where you were standing, talking to an unsteady looking man in a sloppy tux. “Rumlow.”

“Yes, apparently your STRIKE team leader has been sniffing after your handler for months.” Thor narrated, leaning against one of the columns and taking another pull from the flask. “She’s always rebuffed him, though. I don’t think he’s ever tried when he’s drunk before. Wait, Rogers!”

Steve ignored him as he strode towards you, growling under his breath and loosening his tie even more as he watched Rumlow wrap his hand around your bicep and yank you towards him. Steve was close enough to see you roll your eyes, but couldn’t hear what you said to the man as he wrapped his other arm around your waist and smashed his mouth against yours.

“Hey!” Steve shouted, his brow furrowed as Brock pulled his face away from yours to see what the interruption was about.

You took your chance and head butted him, a curse leaving his mouth in a hiss as he released you. You gripped his left wrist around his thumb and drew it back hard, smirking when you felt a snap at the same time you drove you fist into his ribs.

Steve had to pull you off him as you started beating him with your clutch, opening it up at the same time to search for your brass knuckles.

“You don’t fucking touch me, you goddamn sloppy deadbeat motherfucker!” You screamed as Steve carried you away from the main floor, your limbs flailing as you tried to charge back at Rumlow. “Learn to tie a fucking tie you cocksucking son of a bitch.”

Steve did his best not to crack up at the shocked looks the blue bloods were giving you, a chorus of offended gasps following the two of you as you released a steady stream of profanity. He pushed open the doors to the balcony with one hand as he kept his other hand wrapped tightly around your waist as you were still trying to squirm free.

“Damn it, put me down Rogers! I’ll kick your ass too!” You hissed, turning to swat at his chest.

“Okay, okay, Jesus Christ!” He said as you started to kick him, catching him in the shins a couple of times. “Ow.”

“You’re fine.” You said with a shrug, taking a couple deep breaths to calm down.

“Yeah, well Rumlow definitely isn’t. Who gave you brass knuckles?” He said, pulling the weapon out of your clutch.

“Nat did. And it’s not like I even got to use them on that asshole.”

“Yeah but you would’ve.” He said, shaking his head as he handed them back to you. “He didn’t hurt you did he?”

You just snorted as you shoved the knuckles back into your clutch, leaning your back against the railing.

“Good.” He mumbled, suddenly not knowing what to say to you.

You somehow looked even better after your altercation. Your hair was a wild tangle now, loose strands blowing in the breeze. Your lips were swollen from the unwanted kiss, and Steve could feel the heat coming off you as your chest heaved with deep breaths. He hissed through his teeth when he noticed the torn skin on your knuckles.

“Shit, Y/N, you’re bleeding.” He growled, grabbing your hand to inspect the damage.

“Huh, guess so.” You said, watching him through your lashes as he brought your hand closer to his face.

You felt your breath hitch as he ran his thumb over the back of your hand softly, his brow still furrowed with worry. Maybe it was just the adrenaline from the fight, but all you could think about just then was sucking on his thick fingers.

“Y/N?”

“Hmm?” You must have zoned out for a second.

“You sure you’re ok?”

“I’m great.” You said, your voice a little squeakier than you would’ve liked.

He took a step closer to you and you gasped, suddenly feeling very light headed as you felt a rush of slick flood your panties. His hand left yours and moved to cup your cheek, his thumb tugging at your bottom lip where you had it pressed between your teeth.

“I think I’m gonna kiss you now.” He muttered, his eyes boring into yours, pupils blown wide with lust.

“Good.” You whispered.

His mouth devoured yours, his teeth pulling your lips open so he could slip his tongue inside, curling it against yours as he wrapped his arm around your waist and pressed you against him. You moaned as you felt his cock hardening against your abdomen, your pussy throbbing with need as he ground himself into you.

He started to sink to his knees and you followed him, your mouth still pressed to his desperately. His hand moved from your waist to dig under your skirt and he let out a growl when he brushed his fingers against your core, pressing them against the soaked silk of your panties.

“Fuck, I wanna taste you so bad.” He grumbled, his lips still pressed to yours. “Wanna see if you taste as good as you smell.”

“Oh god, Steve.” You moaned as he hooked his fingers through the side of your panties and ripped them off you, the elastic snapping against your skin and a shove going up your spine as the night air cooled the wetness between your thighs. “Do it.”

He grinned and gave you a quick peck on the lips before he started to move his mouth down your throat. His hand between your legs started rubbing you in big slow circles as he laid you down, putting just enough pressure on you that you were quickly turning into a wriggling mess.

“Hold still, honey.” He ordered, pulling the sleeves of your dress down just enough that your breasts could pop out, your nipples pebbling in the chilly air. “I’m gonna take my time with you.”

“Fuck.” You moaned as he dragged his tongue over your nipple in a heavy stripe before flicking it softly. Your hands dug in his hair as he sucked and licked at it, just barely brushing it with his teeth until it was raised to an overly sensitive peak before he moved to the other nipple and repeated the process, making you whine.

Once he was satisfied with his work, he pressed a soft kiss to each breast before moving his face between your legs. His hand was making soft wet sounds now as he kept rubbing your sex, and he groaned when he removed it to take a good look at you.

“Fuck if that ain’t the prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen.” He murmured as his lips brushed over your inner thigh.

Your cunt was pulsing with need under his gaze, your plump folds swollen and flushed with heat as he watched you clench around nothing. Everything between your legs was coated in a thick layer of your arousal, and he bit his lip as he watched even more leak out of you.

“I bet I could make you cum with almost nothing, sweetheart.” He teased as he nipped at the soft skin of your inner thighs, inching closer to your pussy before moving away again.

“Steve, please!” You whined, trying to arch your back into his face as you tugged on his hair.

He just grinned before pressing his tongue over your pussy and swirling it through your folds. He had to press his palms down on your hips to keep your body from curling back on itself as he ran his tongue over your sex, lapping at your pussy like his was the first meal he’d had in weeks.

“God you taste so good.” He murmured as he gazed at you through his lashes. “Like fucking peaches.”

You sobbed as he thrust his tongue inside you at the same time his lips wrapped around your swollen clit, making you come immediately. He curled his tongue inside you as your release flowed into his mouth, moaning into your pussy as you spasmed against his face.

Your breath was coming in ragged gasps as you came down, your muscles still twitching randomly as aftershocks shook through your abdomen. He grinned as he sat up over you, undoing his tie before moving to take off his belt as you writhed underneath his gaze. Your brain finally reset and you sat up between Steve’s legs, nuzzling yourself into his neck as you worked to unbutton his shirt.

“You back, honey?” He chuckled as you ran your teeth over his collarbone, dipping your hands under his shirt to press against his chest. “I was a little worried.”

“You’ll find I’m extremely resilient, Steve.” You murmured before sinking your teeth into his pec as you started to undo his fly.

“Shit, good to know.” He groaned as you drew his cock out of his pants and gave it a squeeze.

He gripped your chin and drew your face up to his, raising you up to your knees as he gave you a soft kiss. You moved his cock in your hand to line him up with your entrance, teasing his tip against your folds. Steve wrapped his hands around your waist and lifted you a bit higher before slowly drawing you down onto his length.

You let out a thin keen as he stretched you open, relishing the sting as your cunt fluttered around him, adjusting to his girth. He rested his forehead against yours as he started moving his hips at a languorous pace.

“Fuck, you feel so good.” He muttered against your lips before moving to bury his face in your shoulder. “So tight and warm and soft.”

You gripped the hair at the base of his neck tightly as his hips started moving faster, slapping against yours. You felt yourself clench around him as he ground against your clit, making you gasp.

“Shit, Steve! Right there!”

“Jesus, already?” He murmured, running his lips over your throat.

“Just... fuck, you’re so big, Steve. Oh my god, I’m cumming.”

He hooked a hand under your ass to keep you from collapsing as your entire body arched violently, almost bending backwards on itself as you swallowed a scream. Your cunt fluttered and spasmed around him as he lifted you to wrap around him, his breath hot against your neck.

“Holy shit honey.” He muttered as he pulled you down against him, making you whimper. “You ok?”

“I’m great. Don’t you fucking stop.” You said, tilting his head back so you could press your mouth to his.

He grinned against your lips as he fucked his hips up into you, keeping his eyes locked on yours as his cock dragged over every inch of you, nudging against your cervix and making your breath hitch.

“Right there?” He asked as you dug your nails into his scalp and bit at his lips.

“Fuck, oh goddamn it, Steve.”

You shrieked into his mouth as you came apart, your muscles seizing as your pussy strangled his cock. His hips stuttered and you were suddenly flooded with warmth, his spend sitting into you and coating your canal in thick white ropes. He sat back on his heels and pulled out of you, and you shuddered as your release squirted all over the front of his pants.

“Shit, did you just squirt honey?” He asked, giving you an appreciative glance as he started to tuck himself back in and button his shirt up.

“I think so. Fuck, that’s never happened before.” You said with a shrug.

“Well, damn baby.” He said as he stood up, offering you a hand to help you to your feet.

“Shit, we’ve gotta go back in there.” You said, running your hand over your face. “Oh my god, Stark is going to kill us. Hold on and give me a second to think.”

Steve just leaned back on the railing and gave a satisfied smile as he watched you pace back and forth, wringing your hands.

“Ok I think I’ve got it, just one second.”

You went to the door and opened it a crack, popping your head through, jumping when you found Thor leaning against the wall right there.

“Hey, Thor. What’s up buddy?”

“Just keeping the other guests from wandering out and seeing you and the Captain humping like rabbits.”

“Appreciate it. We need a distraction though, cuz we’re both a little messy, and I don’t really feel like explaining that to everyone.”

“Got it, what if I blow out the lights in that chandelier?”

“I think that’ll probably work.” You said, giving him a nod before turning back to Steve. “Alright Rogers, we’re making a run for the elevator. Thor, blow it.”

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[lovelacefc7723]

It's everybody's fault and nobody's fault. If we want to look at this tournament from a objective and rational point of view, we probably should say that this team arrived unprepared, those players didn't just forget how to be the fucking best in the world in 2 years, they just hadn't been prepared to face the development many teams actually had. They knew USWNT, USWNT didn't know them. Many players surely underperformed, in particular in my opinion Megan Rapinoe, Abby Dahlkemper, Sam Mewis and today Rose Lavelle too, while others I think didn't even have the chance to find a continuity. Tobin Heath never played winger or any kind of attacking role, she wasn't perfect but she was everywhere trying to cover all the holes on the field. And you can't sacrifice Tobin Heath as a damned martyr like this after an injury. Christen Press should have been THE leader of the offense line and she almost never played 90 minutes, and never with the same people. Alex Morgan paradoxically almost played better for Orlando Pride, with more runs and more movement, she just waited there. But just like Press she didn't even have consistency. Carli Lloyd was just at the finish line.

I don't understand the tactics. I tried to. I tried to imagine some greater plan, I thought they could find themselves again soon enough to turn this tournament around but they couldn't. And they couldn't also because sadly Vlatko didn't know how to manage this group. The way he changed every single line-up (I know turn-over is vital when you play every 2/3 days but you also need stability), they way he handled substitutions, changing all together the forwards and never giving a chance to create something stable with Tobin & Christen on the wings and Carli/Alex in the middle was absolutely absurd to me. He brought Macario, he could have used her as a wild card, she could have helped the midfield having more depth and freeing Tobin but he never considered the option. It was too wrong.

And beyond everything, it's absolutely not a ONE player's fault. Not Tierna's, certainly not AD's, not Rapinoe's and not Tobin's (definitely not Tobin's), they won together, they lost together.

But after all of this, the thing I can't get over is that THIS TEAM deserved better and despite everything, I'm still damn proud of them. The USWNT taught me a LOT, they showed me another way to love and live football, they showed me how football could actually be a mean and not only an end, they forged women's football more and better than anyone else and I can't stand seeing how all the world was just waiting for them to fall.

Many times I don't agree with Carli Lloyd, I don't share her opinions and I don't like her thoughts. But seeing her today sprinting by herself after the game and sobbing after the end was just heartbreaking because it was like seeing a pillar falling down. Seeing Rapinoe crying and maybe realizing that her and Carli's time is over was unbearable. Seeing Lindsey seeking comfort in Tobin and Christen's arms was just terrible.

USWNT has a new era in front of them, an era that needs to begin with new forces and still some veterans, but an era of change inevitably. But I want this team to be remembered just like the 99ers because what they did for women's football is just as much remarkable and groundbreaking.

Personally I have to admit that I just hope Tobin Heath will play at least for another World Cup, I believe she has it in her but I don't know if she wants to. She isn't scared of retirement but I am. She meant too much.

And in the end, I'm not even American but this team is one of the things I feel most close to me in my life. So today we face the loss, tomorrow we go after the bronze medal and the day after that we start again and we work to show the world who the fucking champions are.

[robinofgothamcity]

♡ prompt: a baby appears into your timeline to reveal an unexpected surprise.

♡ pairing: Bart Allen (Impulse) x fem reader

♡ note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes / for OBVIOUS reasons, it’s altered when it comes to the canon universe because we all know legitimate canon wouldn’t work for this....pain. also!! please if any of you are interested in more characters with prompt, let me know!! 

both you and Bart weren’t together. not in the slightest. at the very least, both of you had flirted with each other, PLAYFULLY and all things considered, Bart liked to talk to girls when he had the chance. he was very much like Wally in that sense. 

since you weren’t exactly the type to try to flirt with every person with a pulse like Bart did, you really only playfully ‘flirted’ with Jaime, Gar, and sometimes Robin when you were feeling extra confident. 

the lair was extra dead tonight with only you, Bart, and Gar sitting down and watching whatever was on TV. you had you legs kicked up on Gar as Bart was reaching over to your lap to grab the popcorn that you were holding. 

“the lair being this dead seems unnaturally calm,” you told the two boys. they nodded in agreement but before you could even take another breathe, all of your eyes were averted to the large blue orb that was suddenly in the room. Bart grabbed his gear from behind the couch and Gar immediately transformed. you grabbed the pocket knife from your pocket and held it in a very similar Michael Meyers pose, “what the hell is happening,” you heard Gar whisper. 

as all of you were ready to attack, all of you saw a baby, no older than ten months pop out. your instincts immediately jumped to grab the infant before it fell on the ground. you looked to the boys with wide eyes before staring back down to the baby, “oh, hi baby,” you whispered as it let out a cry. 

“that’s a baby!” Gar screamed, not knowing what to do. both you and Bart looked at him like he was an idiot, “of course it is! what else would it be?” you retorted, not in the mood to hear his slight stupidity while a child was wailing. 

you grabbed the blanket you were using a while ago and wrapped it around her like your sister had taught you. having a niece you guessed at its perks as the baby immediately calmed down, “call someone!” you whispered to the two, “Nightwing, Megan, fucking hell, even the Bat if you can!” 

both Gar and Bart ran to the nearest COMM link and rang for anyone in the Justice League or your leaders. as Gar was standing behind you, admiring the tiny baby, he looked at her before looking at you and Bart, “huh, she kinda looks like if she was some kind of combination of the two of you,” Gar said off-handedly. 

you and Bart looked at each other before laughing hysterically. a kid? with Bart no less? that sounded like some kind of joke if you’ve ever heard one. Bart sat down next to you and peeked at the hair, “he does have that Allen red hair though,” you stared at him before smacking the back of his head. 

it didn’t take long before Nightwing, Robin, and Batman ran into the lair. whatever distress signal Gar or Bart let out must’ve worked because you had never saw any of the three get here as fast as they just did. you looked to Nightwing and Batman while showing them the sleeping baby. 

“the three of us were just watching a movie when a blue orb came literally out of nowhere and the baby popped out. we swear we didn’t do ANYTHING,” you explained through nervousness. Batman hummed, seeing how calm the baby was, “kinda looks like the two of you,” Nightwing said out of curiosity. 

“THAT’S WHAT I SAID!” Gar yelled, “it has her hair but Bart’s hair color.” you sighed out of annoyance as Nightwing agreed. Batman on the other hand looked at you and back to Bart who was eerily quiet for someone who talked A LOT. 

he gave Dick a look as if the two of communicating telepathically. on instant, Dick looked to the three of you, “what did we say about leaving stray cups around,” Nightwing told the three of you. you sighed, “sorry, we didn’t have time to pick up,” you said grabbing your pink Solo cup and tossing it in the trash. 

“we’ll see what we can do to get the child back where it belongs,” Batman said giving you a look, “the baby hasn’t given you any trouble, right? come with me and bring the child. we can run a DNA sample and see if he has any connections to any of the members whether it’s in the league or among the team,” he asked. 

discreetly, Tim had gotten a cotton swab and took the spit from the residue on the solo cup and put it in his small pocket before following all of you. you felt the baby stir in your arms and as she opened her eyes, you smiled down at it. you had no idea where these maternal instincts came from but oddly enough, you had this mother bear protectiveness over her. 

you waited for something that had to be brought by Nightwing to the lair and during that time, you played with the baby, who Bart decided to call Autumn for the time being. Nightwing came back a bit later and gave whatever he brought to Nightwing as he watched you and Bart play with the girl. 

while the two of you wanted to hand the baby over to Gar, Megan, Zatanna, hell even Robin, she immediately refused and let out a blaring cry whenever you or Bart let her go. everyone immediately handed her back to you or Bart as soon as she started crying and almost as quickly as she started crying, she stopped when you or Bart held her. 

“do you think I can go feed her? she’s probably hungry,” you told Nightwing. he nodded as you got up with the baby and grabbed her by the arms, holding them high in the air so she could use her legs to walk without falling, “she seems like a great mom,” Nightwing said. 

without a thought or even a second heart beat, Bart nodded in agreement as he watched you walk out. Bart wanted to follow you but didn’t want to seem like he was overwhelming you so he stayed with the Bats and Gar. 

not even realizing, he had fallen asleep against the wall as DNA results pinged up on Tim’s screen. the baby had the closest match to your DNA and using the spit from the previous DNA testing Bart had done on Bart, both of your photos showed up as the parents. Tim got Dick’s and Bruce’s attention without trying to make a scene. 

Dick laughed because of course the two of you were the parents. no wonder Autumn didn’t want anyone to hold her except for the two of you. as Dick looked down to look at Bart, he saw that he had finally woken up. Tim signaled that he was in the kitchen, trying to make Autumn laugh. 

“ironic how that works out,” Gar said. Nightwing and Batman agreed as he told Nightwing to be the one to break the news to the two of you. Gar wanted to hear what you both said when he told you and Tim tagged along as a result. 

as they all entered the kitchen, they heard ‘Killer Queen’ by Queen playing from your phone as you and Bart were playing with Autumn. “hey, did the results come back? I bet 50 bucks it was Megan’s and Connor’s!” you said. 

Nightwing handed you the papers in a manila folder. you couldn’t help but laugh at how eerily reminiscent this was to a Maury TV show segment. you opened the folder to see your team photo right along Barts as the arrows pointed to the Autumn. 

out of sheer shock, you dropped the folder on the floor as you felt like the wind was knocked out of you. Bart looked at the ground to see what the results were but he, unlike you, laughed. you had given Nightwing the baby to hold before grabbing the folder. 

“congrats?” Gar said awkwardly, “you’re parents!” 

before you could respond to his witty comments, you saw the same blue orb enter the lair again. you stared at the orb as two people walked out, arguing with each other at the top of their lungs. you grabbed the baby from Nightwing and held it tightly against your chest as Bart went into defense mode and jumped in front of the two of you. 

“i think it’s the two of you from the future,” Robin said as eerily similar version of the two of you walked into view. future you immediately sighed in relief as she saw you holding the baby, “so she did get sent to the past,” future you said. 

you looked yourself, “so, I’m assuming bird boy here did his little magic and figured out both of you were the parents?” you said. you nodded as older Bart chuckled and stood next to his younger self, “how did we get together?” he asked himself. 

“what’s the date?” he asked. Nightwing gave him the date and Bart laughed, “you’ll see in a few weeks actually. word of advice, don’t piss her off while she’s pregnant. I learned this the hard way,” Bart warned. older you smiled at you as you stood next to Bart, “we gotta go back to our timeline. the twins are killing me and she’s getting restless,” you said. 

“TWINS?” all of you screamed at the sudden confession. older you smacked yourself as Bart warned you about spoilers, “twins....” you murmured to yourself as your older versions walked back into the orb and waved all of you off. 

Nightwing had told Gar and Tim to leave the two of you alone so you could process what you had just found out. you looked too Bart who was scratching the back of his head, “we have kids together, huh?” you told Bart, “three kids at that,” he replied. 

you gave Bart a smile, “whenever you’re done flirting with every girl on the planet, you know where you can find me,” you told him, giving Bart a wink before walking back into the kitchen, “no fair! you flirt with Jaime all the time!” he retorted as he walked into the kitchen.