#concerned care taker | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nereidprinc3ss · 1 month ago

Text

trolley problem

in which fem!reader has been gambling with her life and spencer reid is more than a little concerned

flangst, hurt/comfort warnings/tags: passive suicidal ideation from reader, she keeps risking her life, that really grinds Spencer’s gears, established relationship, existential dread, existential euphoria, lots of stuff about grief and death and self worth, not advocating for this, pretension from the author, blasphemy probably?, reader gets fuzzy from prescribed painkillers, arguing, hospital stuff, mention of sleep paralysis involving spiders, reader gets shot but she’s fineee, I pander to intro to philosophy takers, bau!reader, neurodivergent coded reader, if she’s not exactly like you I’m sorry, bean soup a/n: one day you’re in a writing slump literally the next you are in your notes app for six hours writing whatever the fuck this is but I think I love it even tho it’s weird and I hope u like it too!! btw this was gonna be called cotard's syndrome but then I never once talk abt cotard's but if u care that might be interesting context for the motif of not feeling human/alive, WC 3K

Spencer hasn’t spoken to you since the doctor left the room five minutes ago.

The air is antiseptic as you take it deep into the hollows of your lungs and trap it there for a moment, trying to optimize oxygen intake without actually having to breathe very often. Hospital smell is as universal as it is suffocating. It reeks of everything but death—flowers, blood, bleach, vomit. A humiliating, desperate scramble to defy the very thing that defines mortality. It’s pathetic. It reminds you of the worst instances of failure and loss and denial in your life. It curdles your blood. Literally rots you from the inside out.

You’ve had ample time to ponder that smell over the last few months because you keep ending up here, and some time ago you decided the institution of the hospital is inherently absurd. It’s stupid to think you could avoid the one absolute condition on your corporeal form: impermanence. It is the only thing that is promised, and people still waste their lives away running from it. It is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy.

So around the time you acknowledged that hospitals are simply monuments to the self-importance of man, you gave up on trying too hard to preserve yourself. You’ve seen death too much and too often. You’ve tried staving it off with prayer and the miracles of modern medicine, and it never matters in the end because it’s all magical thinking anyway. All the wallowing and the bargaining and pleading never got you anywhere.

You’ve accepted that from the moment you were born, you were marked for death.

But you’re not a complete nihilist. You’re not even totally resigned to the abject certainty of death—because you’ve found a loophole.

Everyone has as many chances at escaping death as other people are willing to offer them at the cost of their own lives. Not many people are willing to make that trade—someone else’s life for their own—but you’ve decided you are. Because if not you, then who?

It’s not that you don’t see the value in your own life, as Spencer keeps making it sound. It’s just the opposite. You understand that you’ve got an extremely valuable resource, and you don’t just have to sit on it. There are things you can do. Choices you can make. Ways to defy death.

Just… not yours.

Or maybe you’re just in deep denial.

Either way—this is a philosophy your boyfriend intentionally refuses to understand. He gets mad, or some kind of upset, every time you try to explain it. Usually he ends up leaving the room close to tears. You never feel good about it.

Right now he’s presumably trying to give you the silent treatment and not doing a very good job.

“Stop holding your breath. Why are you—stop that.”

Spencer’s frowning, skin sallow and milk-blue under fluorescent lighting. Purple seeps from around his eyes like spilled wine on a white table cloth. Your stomach turns.

“Sorry.”

He doesn’t tell you not to apologize. You don’t expect him to.

“Why are you doing that? Does something hurt?”

Other than your entire bicep being on fire due to the 9 millimeter Luger it recently came into contact with?

“Not really. I just don’t like the smell of hospitals.”

At that, he gets stony again. Like, Medusa stony. You feel a tightening in your chest that has nothing to do with a lack of air. His arms are crossed. A silk lined blazer drapes over your lap, and you wonder if he’s cold in just that white button up. It’s translucent in this light, like onion skin, or maybe something less organic—the folds and wrinkles look like fabric, but lots of things look like something they aren’t. In the Pietá, Jesus lounges dead on his mother’s lap, his cheek pressed to her arm like either of them have warm flesh, and her skirts drape from her knees and fall to the ground in delicate folds just like Spencer’s jacket and looking at pictures of it you swear you could find comfort there too—but if you wanted to make space for yourself next to Jesus you’d have to do it with a chisel and mallet. You’re starting to think that’s what it’s going to take with Spencer, as well.

“So stop walking into active gunfire. You’ll spend a lot less time here.”

Every deep sigh (of which there have been several) calcifies you further. Ironically, you never feel less alive than you do in a hospital.

“I didn’t walk into active g—”

“I’m not debating it with you. It’s not a discussion.”

“So you’re just going to be pissed at me for the rest of forever? I mean, if it’s not a discussion—what are you gonna do? Break up with me?”

You feel yourself dripping poison in the well. Even as you say it. As his head tilts toward you slowly and intently from his spot against the wall, and his warning gaze is cold and unforgiving and weighs 3.35 tons.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Talk?”

“Don’t try and manipulate me by implying that there are no options between permissiveness and dumping you!”

“I’m not manipulating you. And I don’t need your permission to do anything.”

The first part is an incredulous scoff as well as a blatant lie. You are manipulating him. Chisel and all. At least, you were trying to. It clearly doesn’t work very well. His jaw clenches.

“Is this worth it to you? Fighting with me like we’re children solely so you don’t have to take accountability?”

“Accountability for what? I made a choice. I don’t regret it. You’re upset because I did my job.”

A beat.

Silence always makes you feel the gravity of your words.

“Do you believe that?”

His voice softens so much, so quickly, it splinters down the middle.

You’ve never been known for your light touch. For someone who sees eviscerated bodies nearly every day, and prides herself on her evolved understanding of mortality, you often forget other people are not, in fact, impenetrable marble—they are flesh and blood and bone, and you’ve splattered yourself in the evidence of that.

“What?” You murmur. You easily turn timid, when you’re afraid you’ve been too heavy-handed. Spencer’s seen you sob over the birds who hit the windowpane and never reappeared from the shrubbery—their delicate wings, their little beaks—he didn’t mean to, Spencer, and now he’s dead! He’s seen you spend forty minutes catching a spider with a cup and an envelope rather than smush it, even though you have reoccurring episodes of sleep paralysis wherein a giant arachnid is sitting on your chest, hissing and clacking its pincers. He knows you are, at your core, kind and good.

It’s a little scary for someone to know that about you. It’s a little scary when you see your own vulnerability reflected in their eyes and the way they speak to you, the way you see it in him now.

“Do you believe that the choices you make regarding your safety don’t concern me at all?”

“They’re… my choices to make,” you whisper, but you’re less sure than you were a minute ago.

“I’m not talking about that—I’m talking about how it feels like you are trying to kill yourself every time we’re in the field.” His voice shakes. You swallow. “You have been hospitalized for four serious injuries sustained on the job in the past five months. Every time I bring it up, you—you talk about life like it’s optional for you. Like you’re not only willing to give it up but are actively looking to throw yourself in harm’s way every chance you get. You think that doesn’t terrify me?”

There’s a small chip in the paint on the wall next to him roughly the shape of Africa.

“It’s not like that. I’m… I’m just having an unlucky streak.”

He snaps.

“Luck isn’t going to get between you and a bullet. Ever.”

“It’s my job, Spencer.”

“No. It is a risk of the job. Not a defining feature or requirement. But you keep running toward gunfire like you have a quota to meet.”

“Spencer, I’m not doing it at you. I’m not trying to get myself hurt.”

“Well it doesn’t really feel like you’re trying to avoid it, either,” he shoots back immediately, and you feel the anguish radiating from him until it lodges in your own chest, like it was always yours. Maybe it was.

You want to make it better, but you don’t know how, and even if you did, he’s pushing off the wall and crossing the room toward the door.

“Where are you going?” You call, a little too desperately for your liking.

“You need to eat something.”

Which translates roughly to he’s pissed and upset and he needs to leave the room. You’ve done this song and dance before.

However, food and an absence of him are contenders for the absolute last two things you want right now.

“Spencer, please don’t—”

But the door is already whooshing closed.

You stare at the grey and white checkered floor. Light bounces off the waxen reflection—some sort of parallel universe you can’t reach, perhaps. The whole room is desaturated. A mechanical humming threatens to drive you insane. It doesn’t feel like a place for living humans. You’re not convinced you are one.

When he comes back, maybe ten minutes later, nothing’s moved at all. In fact you’re not even sure you’ve been breathing.

The door closes as quietly as it opens.

This time, wordlessly, Spencer comes to you. You see his shoes first—his serious adult shoes. You wish he was wearing his Converse.

Then you see the bottle of apple juice he’s cracking open for you. Blue lid. Same kind you always get.

“You didn’t bring food.”

“You wouldn’t have eaten it.”

Fair enough.

You take the bottle with your good arm and sip shallowly—all that adrenaline and the subsequent interpersonal strife has left you nauseous. The drink is too sweet. It clashes with the tang of metal in your mouth.

Still, you drink enough to satisfy him, and then you’re tossing his jacket aside before balancing the bottle between your thighs so you can screw the lid back on. He doesn’t go back to the couch or his spot on the wall.

Spencer doesn’t pull away when you lean into him, but it does take him a moment to reciprocate. You’re still grateful all the same when he cradles the back of your head to his stomach like you’re made of porcelain.

“I don’t think you understand how upset I am,” he says quietly.

Only Spencer Reid could be furious with you and still hold you like this.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur.

“That’s not good enough. You need to stop risking your life like that.”

He doesn’t get it. Your brows flutter as they try to furrow but even holding that expression saps you. Maybe the pain meds are finally kicking in.

“I just wanna help people.”

“That doesn’t explain to me or justify your urge to do it at the cost of your own life. We all want to help people, angel. The whole team. That’s why we do what we do. But we don’t run into shootouts. We don’t split off and provoke people with guns when we’re unarmed and unprepared.”

“But it worked. She got away.” You feel a spark of fulfillment at the memory of Gloria Sanchez in JJ’s arms just before the ambulance doors had slammed you into your first cage of the night.

“We don’t know if he was going to kill her. He might not’ve fired at all if you didn’t go running toward him. That wasn’t strategic, it was reckless and irresponsible and you know that. I know you do. So something else is going on.”

The pressure in your nose that usually precipitates tears comes as a surprise.

“I just—if that’s how I can save someone, why shouldn’t I, you know? Why do they have less of a right to live than I do just because they’ve been deprived of the choice? If I have a choice, and they don’t, I should choose to… to help them. That’s my job.”

For a long moment, you listen to your own breath, muffled by Spencer’s shirt, and the mechanical humming, and something dripping, and the low, buzzy chatter of nurses far down the hallway.

When Spencer next speaks you get the sense he’s holding a lot back. His voice is taut enough it wavers slightly. Taut enough that if he weren’t speaking so quietly he might be yelling. It’s like pinpricks all over your body—not enough to hurt, but enough to make sure you’re paying attention.

“You can’t help anyone if you’re dead. Do you understand me?”

And yes, in theory, you do. But that doesn’t negate your original point. It only takes one life or death moment for you to utilize the most valuable resource you have. What happens after is no longer your concern.

“On the psych evals you helped develop it asks if you think it’s appropriate to sacrifice the one to save the many. The answer is supposed to be no. If you say yes you get flagged. The FBI frowns upon… lever-pullers. And that’s exactly what I’m doing if I let one person die when I could’ve potentially saved them.”

“Protecting your own life is not pulling the lever. What you’re doing isn’t smart or morally righteous. You’re just throwing yourself across the tracks, too. If you were to fail a psych eval right now it would be because you’re passively suicidal. And you know what? The FBI also tends to frown upon self-immolative delusions of grandeur and girls who like to play sacrificial lamb.”

“’M not a… sacrificial lamb…”

“No,” Spencer agrees quietly, stroking your hair. “You’re not.”

And you can’t react to the fragility in his voice, or the content of his words, and the fact that when he says it he means something different—you can’t do anything about it. You can only catalogue it. You can only know that he loves you, and feel a little guilty about it.

Some time passes. You don’t know how long he remains standing so you can doze against him. He does not smell like the hospital. He’s the antidote for whatever grief they distill from widows and orphans before aerosolizing it through the whole place.

“Baby?” He asks eventually. You know the lilt of it. He’s been thinking.

“Hm?”

He hesitates.

“Can we talk about you maybe taking some time off of work?”

“You heard the boss,” you mumble. “I can’t come in for at least a week.”

“I mean beyond that.”

You intend to respond, but by the time you open your mouth you’ve lost the prompt in all the brain fog.

“You’re so comfy,” you murmur dreamily. “Thank you for being mad at me.”

If he responds, you miss it.

You’re imagining the bed waiting for you at home, once the doctor is done observing you—warm, neatly made. Blankets woven with soft fibers. A mattress that will sink under your weight. You think of Spencer, who’s shaping himself to you, Spencer, who intentionally inhales when you exhale at night to make room for the rise and fall of your chest against his. You think of the imprint of his buttons on your cheek. You are both flesh and blood and bone.

Strange, pill-induced half dreams and visions and memories take over. You’re in that alleyway again. That man fires. You don’t blink or scream or feel.

Just before the bullet makes contact you’re standing in front of the Pietá. It’s massive. Spencer is there, too, holding your hand.

You can’t actually see him, only, you know he’s there. You feel his warmth, his presence, when he leans over to whisper in your ear. The way you know him goes beyond sight.

The Pietá—meaning the pity, in English—is 6’7” and six feet wide. It weighs 6,700 pounds. Michelangelo had to quarry the block of marble himself. He was only 25 when he finished. The Basilica keeps it behind bulletproof glass.

Jesus and Mary behind bullet proof glass.

God. Who’d try to kill Jesus a third time? He’s already dead.

Besides—they’re both made of stone. Bullets would probably just ping right off of them. Or maybe they’d shatter just like you did.

Probably not though. You’re not actually made of marble. You’ve no idea what it feels like to be a statue and get shot at. You sure know how it feels as a human, though—and it feels like shit. You don’t really know why you keep doing it. None of your reasons are good enough for Spencer, and he’s, generally speaking, pretty smart about some things.

Maybe you’re tired of being human.

Maybe you’re tired of sleeping on your arm funny and waking up to a hand in your bed that doesn’t feel like yours and remembering all the hands you’ve held moments before they couldn’t hold yours back. Or tired of those moments where you are being held and it’s so unbelievably perfect and then someone has to let go, or when someone you love hugs you goodbye and you realize that there will always be a final I love you, or simply getting older and watching potential life paths fall away like rotten fruit to the ground. Maybe life is sometimes so good it hurts and you can’t bear it. So you tempt fate. You walk a tightrope because even if you fall and it can’t ever feel good again—at least it can’t hurt either. At least you won’t lose anymore.

And yet.

It does feel good, sometimes. Sort of often, actually. Even when it’s awful.

Dead Jesus and Mary, with their marble skin and their bulletproof glass and their holiness and their virginity and all the other things they have that you don’t. Nobody can hurt them anymore. Not ever.

Maybe that’s something you envy.

But you doubt they’ve ever been so terribly, wonderfully alive as you’ve been, or as comfortable as you are like this, leaning into Spencer’s warmth and his softness, in the hospital, or the Vatican, or your dreams. Your bicep was ruined but it’s healing. You are capable of ruin and rebirth in the same lifetime. In the same day, in the same hour.

You doubt that in 520 years, behind bulletproof glass and unyielding, eternally flawless skin, they’ve ever felt as invincible as you do now.

You doubt they ever could.

#spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfic

1K notes · View notes

opiopal · 5 months ago

Text

Imagine the demon brothers with an Mc who can’t help but overwork themselves finally crashing,(and fr studying like that one girl on tiktok that’s always pulling an all nighter for tests and finals)

It was finals at rad, and Mc CANNOT let themselves get anything less than perfect. They’re a straight A student both in the human realm and devildom, so there is no way a few measly tests were going to change that.

At this point the brothers have learned to stay out of Mc’s way, especially after pacts were formed. Trying to force Mc to take a break is impossible because they’ll order them away. They are so determined to be academically perfect in everything that they turn from their usual sweet and caring self to throwing heavy books to get people to leave them alone if necessary. Their determination really shines through when it comes to things like studying.

So now the best they can do is leave snacks and drinks and offer their company as Mc hunches over their desk surrounded by empty energy drink cans like some sort of gremlin.

Once finals were announced the brother knew they wouldn’t see much of Mc out of their room or the library until they were over, so once finals were done and Mc proudly had gotten a 100% on every single one of their tests, they were all ready to spend time with them!!!

But when the weekend came Mc didn’t come down for breakfast, or for any snacks, or lunch, and by the time dinner was approaching it got extremely concerning.

So of course they go and check up on Mc to make sure they didn’t die or anything, and not only was Mc completely fine, but they were completely passed out, face down on their bed, halfway falling off, RAD uniform still on, their left shoe handing off their heel with the other thrown to the side somewhere, hair a mess, and snoring like a lawn mower.

So, the brothers just go into full blown care taker mode after realizing that their human is this exhausted, Lucifer is able to wake them up, asmo runs them a bath and gives them a facial, scalp massage, mani pedi, and literally everything and anything that would relax them and loosen their muscles and joints. Beel and mammon go do a food run, they both make sure to get Mc’s favorite snacks, soda’s, and treats and Beel helps to carry everything back(while also resisting the VERY strong urge to eat it all.), satan probably sneaks a cat inside for Mc while everyone is rushing around, and to wrap it all up Belphie makes sure they comfortably get back to sleep with pleasant dreams.

Lucifer ends up getting Mc’s weekend extended after talking with Diavolo. of course Mc is told that it’s there’s sort of Devildom holiday, which is why there’s no school for a few extra days.

#obey me #obey me mc #obey me mammon #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me leviathan #obey me lucifer #obey me belphegor #obey me satan #obey me diavolo #obey me one master to rule them all #obey me fluff #obey me imagines

516 notes · View notes

aventurineswife · 1 month ago

Note

Gepard, Sampo, Aventurine and Ratio with a reader has alter ego, Veliona

Reader is based on honkai impact 3 Seele

Reader with an Alter Ego, Veliona

Summary: Living with an alter ego is a constant battle, especially when Veliona—the darker, more aggressive side—takes control. So, how would they react to when they learn about this alter ego of yours?

Tags: Gepard x Reader, Sampo x Reader, Aventurine x Reader, Ratio x Reader, Reader has an alter ego named Veliona, Fluff and Angst, Protective Gepard, Flirty Sampo, Risk Taker Aventurine, Logical Ratio, Dual Personality, Slow Burn Romance, Emotional Tension, Complex Relationships, Headcanons.

Warning: Emotional conflict, Tension between alter ego, Mild violence (Veliona’s aggressive tendencies), Angst and internal struggles, Fluff with undertones of conflict, Light psychological exploration (Veliona's nature).

A/N: Idk much about HI3 so I had search her up to understand the character better, I hope this is good enough, correct me if I wrote about her character wrong or something 🙏

(Keep those requests coming though!!)

Gepard Landau

Gepard is deeply committed to protecting those he cares about, so when he learns about Veliona, he’s conflicted. He respects the strength she brings, but he’s also concerned about the violent tendencies that come with it.

When Veliona surfaces during high-stress situations, Gepard tries to de-escalate her aggressive responses with reason and his composed demeanor. He believes in strategic defense rather than ruthless offense, often leading to tense but constructive disagreements.

Gepard sees both you and Veliona as individuals who need protection in different ways. He understands that Veliona feels the need to protect you, but he also recognizes that she, too, carries emotional burdens. Over time, he tries to shield both of you from external threats and Veliona’s own self-destructive tendencies.

Gepard’s honest and noble personality makes it difficult for Veliona to dislike him. She’s wary at first, interpreting his kindness as naivety, but his unshakable resolve slowly earns her respect. His genuine care for you starts to chip away at her initial distrust.

During fights, Veliona prefers brutal, direct methods while Gepard advocates for tactical defense. This can lead to friction in group dynamics, but Gepard will never resort to underhanded tactics or force, even if Veliona suggests it.

Gepard patiently navigates the duality of your personalities, understanding that there are times when Veliona needs to take control. He’ll step back if he feels it’s for the greater good, trusting your judgment but keeping a close watch to ensure things don’t spiral out of control.

Sampo Koski

Sampo is fascinated by the dynamic between you and Veliona. He sees Veliona’s aggressive nature as something he could exploit in a tricky situation, but he’s also wary of her unpredictability. His charm works on you, but Veliona isn’t so easily swayed.

Sampo loves teasing both you and Veliona, often saying things like, “Which one of you is in charge today?” to rile Veliona up. He gets a kick out of pushing her buttons but knows when to back off before things get too serious.

Veliona doesn’t trust Sampo as far as she can throw him. She’s constantly on guard around him, always expecting him to pull some trick. Her territorial nature makes her especially jealous when Sampo flirts with you, even if it’s in jest.

Whenever Veliona gets riled up and threatens violence, Sampo is quick to backtrack and use his silver tongue to de-escalate the situation. He’ll throw in a dramatic plea, like, “You wouldn’t hurt a poor, defenseless merchant, would you?” while always keeping an escape route in mind.

While Veliona doesn’t trust him, she recognizes that Sampo has his uses. In dangerous situations, his cunning helps you both out of tight spots. Still, Sampo has to walk a fine line to keep Veliona from turning on him.

Sampo occasionally tries to get close to you, but Veliona’s overprotectiveness always intervenes. He might enjoy the thrill of flirting with both you and danger, but deep down, he knows better than to push Veliona too far.

Aventurine

Aventurine views Veliona as a high-risk, high-reward factor. He’s intrigued by her ruthless nature and sees it as an advantage in “investment,” whether that be in battle or negotiations. Still, he approaches her cautiously, knowing she can turn volatile.

Aventurine appreciates strong-willed individuals, and Veliona’s no-nonsense approach grabs his attention. He often refers to her as an “ace up your sleeve” in dangerous situations, though he tries to stay on her good side with flattery.

Veliona is wary of Aventurine’s reckless, gambler-like mindset. She doesn’t like how often he throws you both into risky situations, believing that he’s too self-assured for his own good. The stakes may be high, but Veliona isn’t interested in gambling with your safety.

Aventurine enjoys the challenge of dealing with Veliona, seeing her aggression as a puzzle to solve rather than a direct threat. He’ll use charm and wit to try and outmaneuver her more violent tendencies, often treating it like a game.

Veliona wants control over situations, while Aventurine thrives on unpredictability. This can lead to heated arguments about the best course of action, with Aventurine often suggesting risky plays and Veliona countering with forceful, direct approaches.

Aventurine notices the moments when Veliona's tough exterior cracks, revealing her true attachment to you. He’ll occasionally try to reassure her in his own way, though his method is more focused on easing her insecurities with playful banter rather than direct comfort.

Dr. Veritas Ratio

Ratio approaches everything with intellect and strategy, so when he first encounters Veliona, her aggressive, instinct-driven nature baffles him. He’s fascinated by the duality of your personalities and tries to analyze Veliona’s behavior like a puzzle.

Ratio is intrigued by the psychological aspects of your alter ego. He often asks probing questions about Veliona’s nature, wanting to understand the connection between you two. This can annoy Veliona, who doesn’t appreciate being treated like a science project.

Veliona distrusts Ratio’s intellectual approach, seeing it as cold and detached. She’s particularly suspicious of his tendency to dissect situations logically, fearing that he might overlook your emotional well-being in favor of a calculated outcome.

Ratio isn’t bothered by Veliona’s violent tendencies, as he views them as just another set of variables to manage. However, he prefers more efficient, nonviolent solutions, often leading to arguments where Veliona suggests brute force, and Ratio counters with strategic alternatives.

Ratio recognizes Veliona’s fear of being viewed as a monster and occasionally addresses it in his analytical way. He’ll remind her that all entities have purpose and that her protective instincts, though aggressive, are vital. Veliona may not openly admit it, but she finds some comfort in his rational acknowledgment of her existence.

Ratio sees the partnership between you and Veliona as a unique balance of extremes—emotional intensity paired with calculated intellect. He quietly respects how Veliona is willing to do whatever it takes to protect you, though he often suggests more refined methods to avoid unnecessary chaos.

122 notes · View notes

miryum · 4 months ago

Text

"Negotiation"

Summary: Detective!Jason Todd x detective!Reader based on Jake and Amy's relationship

Series Warnings: Swearing, descriptions of violence (but nothing descriptive), guns and other police stuff

Series Masterlist

“L/n,” Wayne rapped his fist on Y/n’s desk urgently. “There was a botched B&E at a jewellery store on Benbrock that just turned into a hostage situation.” He sighed and said, “they want you to be the negotiator.”

Y/n gasped and let out a strangled noise of excitement. “Oh my God, my prayers have finally been answered!”

“You pray for a hostage situation?” Jason asked incredulously.

“Yes, I did.” Y/n turned to him, serious as stone. “Every single day.”

Jason frowned, more concerned for the hostages after they heard Y/n’s jokes than Y/n herself. He knew she could handle herself. ”I don't understand. Why isn't ESU handling this?”

“Apparently, the hostage-taker asked for Y/n by name.” Wayne raised a brow and stared down at his detective like she had an answer.

“Oh, it's getting even cooler!” Y/n hummed and contemplated, “man, I wonder who it is. Maybe it's the sister of someone I put away for life. Ooh! Or the identical twin of someone I put away for life. Ooh! Or the fraternal twin of-”

Captain Wayne cut off her tangent. “L/n! Just get down there! And take Drake with you.”

“You got it!” Y/n beamed and jumped up. “Yep, yep, yep.” She turned to Tim who had come to stand next to her. “How do I look? Police-y enough?” She waved him off before he could answer. “It doesn't matter. Let's go negotiate!”

When Tim and Y/n got the the jewellery store, the block was closed off and police cars were surrounding the building, sirens going on and off periodically. Y/n waltzed up to the area and pronounced, “don’t panic, everyone, I'm here.” An officer beckoned her over and Y/n introduced herself. “I'm Y/n L/n, the negotiator.”

The man stared at her, unimpressed. “So you're Y/n L/n?”

“The negotiator, yes. And… who are you?”

“Arnold Flass, ESU. This was my crime scene before you bozos got here.”

Tim sipped on his coffee before noting, “nice to meet you too, Arnold.”

“I've spent ten years as a negotiator and you just took my first hostage situation,” Arnold exclaimed. “All I've done up until now is talk jumpers off of rooftops.”

“Well, that must be satisfying in its own way, right?” Y/n offered. Tim walked off to talk to a more senior, professional officer.

Arnold scoffed. “Yeah, really satisfying saving a crazy person's life. Here's a little advice: I don't like you.”

“Not so much advice as a hurtful statement based on limited interaction,” Y/n muttered.

“He wants to talk to you,” Tim came back and motioned to Y/n.

Arnold rolled his eyes and ripped the label off his vest. He handed it to Y/n begrudgingly. “Get the hell in there.”

“Oh, it says ‘negotiator’ on it.” Y/n happily put it on and weaved through the crowd of officers and bystanders. She took a bullhorn from a cop and called into it, “this is Y/n L/n. I am unarmed and I'm approaching the building.” The door swung open ominously and Y/n glanced back at Tim. He gave her a nod of encouragement. “You wanted to talk to me?” Y/n stepped into the jewellery store, peeking around the corner.

“Keep those hands in the air,” a voice commanded. Then, in a lighter tone, the voice joked, “and wave 'em like you just don't care.”

“What?” Y/n’s brows furrowed, confused.

The hostage-taker finally came into view. “I'm just messing with you, L/n.” Roy Harper grinned. “Put your hands down, give me a hug, darling.”

“Roy!”

“Okay, so are we gonna talk about it?” Steph slipped into the seat next to Jason and leaned on his desk.

“Nope.”

“Todd, you frustrate me,” Damian said. Steph blinked at him, not realising he was listening in.

Jason’s chest clenched. “There is nothing we need to talk about.”

“I disagree,” Damian muttered.

“Listen,” Jason turned away from his computer and Steph knew that it was about to get real. “I just went out on another date with Rose. She’s a lovely girl and I was thinking of taking it to the next step. I’m planning on asking her to be my official girlfriend tomorrow night.”

Steph shook her head. “Yeah, that’s not gonna work. You see, my big plan in life is to push you and Y/n together so you can all be happy and possibly make even cuter babies.”

Jason blushed and swallowed thickly. “I’m not interested in L/n.”

Damian scoffed. “Brown, we have a lie detector at the precinct, correct?”

Steph grinned, eyes lighting up with mischief. “Hey…. Richard!” she called to Dick. “Wanna have a little fun?” Dick looked up, beaming impishly.

“I gotta admit, man,” Roy said, shrugging. “I thought you'd be more happy to see me. Why’re you being so weird?”

“Oh, I don't know.” Y/n pursed her lips together. “I didn't sleep well last night, so I’m just tired. Oh, and also, this is a hostage situation!”

“Wow!” Roy sucked in a dramatic breath. “It's like that.”

“Yes, it's like that. What the hell, man? You called me, remember? You promised me that you wouldn’t do anything to wind up in jail!” Y/n referenced the time when Roy called her in the middle of the night to promise to stop his life as a criminal.

“I didn’t! I work at Tiffany and Co. now.” He rested a proud hand on his chest. ”I sell luxury jewels to the rich and famous and I do it legally. Last week I sold a sapphire necklace to the dude who played Johnny in Hotel Transylvania.”

“You met Johnny?” Y/n exclaimed. “Was he cool? Does he actually like vampires in real life? Wait- no.” She caught herself. “We’re not chatting right now. You have three hostages.”

“You mean Pam and the two Bobs?” Roy looked at the three people on the floor, rope loosely tied around their wrists. “They’re not hostages. I prefer to call them ‘collateral friendships.’ I gave them each one hundred bucks out of my own pocket.”

One of the Bobs spoke up. “Thanks again, Roy.”

The other Bob nodded his head in agreement. “You’re the man, Roy.”

Pam stuttered, “a-actually, I'd rather not be a hostage.”

“Pam hasn't come around to me yet.” Roy shrugged. “Tell her I'm a nice person, Y/n.”

“I'm so sorry,” Y/n said to Pam.

“Officer, are you friends with this criminal?” Pam asked, aghast.

Y/n’s nose scrunched up. “Not really…”

However, Roy replied at the same time, “absolutely, best friends.”

“It's a layered relationship, Pam,” Y/n defended.

“Best friends,” Roy corrected.

”Harper,” Y/n hissed, pulling him towards the door. “What is going on, dude?”

“This isn't my fault, darling!” Roy protested. “Two years ago before I went straight, I stole a big ruby from a drug dealer: Jack Napier.”

“Oh, no, Roy.” Y/n groaned. ”He's a bad guy.”

Roy whined, “I know! When I realised it was his jewel, I torched the briefcase it was in along with the drugs that were in there! Who the hell puts drugs and rubies in the same briefcase?!”

“Oh, no, Roy,” Y/n groaned in the same pitch as before. ”Briefcase drugs?”

“Millions of dollars of them! Napier just found out it was me. Said I had to do a job for him to pay off my debt.”

“But did you tell him you went straight? Did you tell him about Johnny?” Y/n asked desperately.

“I did. He said he didn’t watch Hotel Transylvania.”

“Oh, this guy is the worst.”

“I know.” Roy’s voice turned desperate and low. “L/n, he said he's gonna kill Lian if I don't do this job.”

Y/n’s eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open. “He can't do that. I won’t let him do that. The GCPD can help you guys. We can put you in witness protection!”

Roy shook his head. “I can’t mess up my daughter’s life ‘cause of my mistakes. That's why I'm here stealing this big ‘ole bag of rubies; to make up for the one I stole. Y/n, you know how dangerous this guy can be.” He took a breath. “I need you to help me save my daughter.”

“How can I help?” Y/n responded immediately.

“Easy. I have a plan that's good for everyone. All I need is for you to-”

“-let him go so he can arrange a drop with Napier.” Y/n explained Roy’s plan to Tim. “We arrest Napier, save Lian, Roy turns himself in, and why is that amazing, Tim?”

“Napier’s a huge crime boss,” Tim answered.

“Aaaand what else?”

“GCPD's been trying to get Napier for years.”

“And?”

“That's it.”

“Yeah, it is.” Y/n said, “so, since we all agree, I'll go tell Roy the plan is on.” She swung around to go back inside, but Arnold stopped her.

“No, we don't all agree. He's trapped and frantic. Everything he told you is a lie.”

“Why do you say he's lying?” Y/n asked.

Arnold frowned. “That's all negotiating is. Two liars lie until one liar stands too close to the window and gets shot in the head.”

Y/n scoffed loudly. “That can't be all negotiating is!” She noticed Tim’s head lolling to the side. “Timmy, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but have some more coffee.”

“It absolutely is. Now, get in there and coax him to a window.” Arnold pressed a button on his walkie talkie. “Snipers to one. The window plan is on. I repeat: The window plan is on.”

“No, no, no, no, no!” Y/n cried and tugged the walkie talkie away from Arnold. “Snipers to zero! Snipers take a nap. The nap plan is on. It's nap time, snipers!”

A couple minutes later, Y/n regretfully told Roy, “ESU won't take your deal. They think you're lying.”

“I'm not lying!” Roy gasped dramatically, offended. “I don't wanna be a criminal. I love my life as an average citizen. I voted for the first time this year! It was huge. Lian helped me fill in the little boxes. She chose Ed Breakfast for school board.”

“Who?”

“I don't know,” Roy muttered. “He had a funny name. He deserves a shot.”

“That's exactly why I voted for Stacy Ladle! Anyway, I'm sorry, but they're not cutting a deal.”

“So that's it?” Roy sighed. “I gotta turn myself in and let Napier kill Lian? You’ll take care of her, right?”

Y/n’s heart broke and she could feel a plan formulating in her mind. “Actually… there might be another way.”

“Alright, Todd.” Dick strutted in front of Jason. “We’re gonna do this one time and one time only. Do you have feelings for Y/n?”

“Are you shitting me?” Jason’s head fell into his hands. He was strapped to a lie detector test that Steph was currently monitoring. “We’re actually doing this?”

“Yep!” Dick said. “We have to know. Now, let’s go over the evidence.”

Damian wheeled in a large cork-board which was covered in index cards, push pins, and signature red string. The index cards said things like: ‘Halloween incident,’ ‘Valentine’s Day nicknames,’ ‘1000 pushups blanket,’ ‘googly eyes,’ ‘lack of dates,’ and more.

As Jason read over the cards, his face slowly got more and more red. Dick gleefully snapped a polaroid picture of Jason’s current face and secured it to the board, adding it as another factor of evidence.

Roy shouted from the doorway of the jewellery store. “I've taken your negotiator hostage! If you come in here, I will shoot her.”

Y/n wailed, “just do whatever he says! My life is in his hands! Please!”

Roy slammed the door behind them and then broke out in giggles. “That was so much fun!”

“Oh, man, you sounded really scary.” Y/n exhaled.

“No, no, it was all you. The tremble in your voice sold it. ‘Just do whatever he says.’” Roy mimicked Y/n’s panicked voice

“I mean, I just made that up. Ah, I was so in the moment.” Y/n silently praised herself on her acting skills.

“Darling, seriously? You are a great hostage,” Roy complimented.

“Aw, thanks, Harper. You're a great hostage-taker.”

Outside, Arnold was talking to Tim, lamenting, “I can't believe L/n got taken hostage. The good news is… I'm now the negotiator. Finally!” He slapped another marker labelled ‘negotiator’ on.

“Congratulations,” Tim said dryly.

“I've been waiting for this moment for so long!” Arnold exclaimed.

Roy’s voice from the bullhorn cut him off. “I'm ready to negotiate. But I'll only talk to Tim Drake.”

“That's me, Arnold.” Tim ripped Arnold’s label off and placed it on himself.

“Oh, come on!”

“Welcome, my man!” Roy waved to Tim when the latter entered the store. “I don’t think we’ve met before, have we? I’m Y/n’s bestie. I’m a hugger; bring it in.” He walked over to Tim with open arms.

Tim, however, yanked on one of those arms and looped it over Roy’s head, effectively holding him in place. “Roy Harper, you're under arrest.”

“Holy fuck, Tim’s strong?” Y/n mumbled. “But he’s so lanky and only runs on coffee. Wait, Tim, stop.”

“What's going on?” Tim grunted as he tried to place cuffs on Roy.

“Look, this is not really a hostage situation. I mean, Pam and the two Bobs are definitely being held against their will, but not for much longer.”

Roy spoke up, trying to be helpful. “Y/n’s helping me take down Napier.”

“We can't do it without you,” Y/n pleaded.

“Seriously, L/n?” Tim scoffed. “Isn’t this the guy that you and Cass tried to take down? The one you did a thousand push ups for?”

“You did a thousand push ups for me?” Roy cooed.

“Not important.”

“This is like that story my dad told me as a little kid. He used to quiz me on fables from different cultures.” Tim said, finally releasing Roy. “You're the frog and he's a scorpion. You're gonna help him across the river. In the end, he'll sting you. And then you'll both drown.”

“Geez, that's dark.” Y/n grimaced.

“Yeah, I’d never tell Lian that story,” Roy said.

“My parents didn't read to me at all,” Y/n commented. “I just watched cartoons ’till I fell asleep. Do you think that our childhoods shape the adults we become?” She hummed thoughtfully.

“They do,” Roy and Tim said at the same time.

“And cartoons shaped you into a naive little frog,” Tim said.

“Okay, first off,” Y/n held up a finger. “Little frogs are adorable, and second, he's not that kind of scorpion anymore.”

“I'm a changed bug,” Roy said.

“Actually, scorpions are arthropods.” Tim and Y/n spoke together. Tim looked at her, surprised. “What?” She shrugged. “I listened to the documentary you made us watch. Tim, I know he used to be a criminal and has fooled me in the past, and yes, he is currently engaged in criminal activity.”

“Innocent until proven guilty,” Roy reminded Tim. “But yes, I technically am robbing the store.”

“But, Tim, his daughter is in danger and we have to help her. He agreed to turn himself in when this is all over. Right, Roy?” Y/n scrutinised him.

“I promise.”

Tim sighed. “Cass warned me about him. But okay. What do you need from me?”

“We have an airtight plan.” Roy grinned. He poked the bullhorn out of the door and shouted, ”all we demand is pizza!”

“I’m in a relationship with Rose,” Jason insisted.

“You’re not answering the question!” Dick exclaimed, growing more frustrated.

“That’s because the question is stupid and doesn’t need to be answered!”

“Todd, you must have lost half your brain if you think you’re fooling us.” Damian didn’t look impressed.

“Jason,” Steph exhaled. “By not answering the question, you’re answering the question.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t make sense.” Jason shot back lamely.

“It’s okay to have feelings for L/n.” Steph said, oddly calmly. “You’re not admitting defeat.”

“No, I’m aware, but just…” he sighed heavily and stared down at the table. “What if she doesn’t like me back?”

Steph slowly shut off the computer and the lie detector. Damian had a rare look of sympathy glazing over his eyes. “But she does,” Dick said softly. “She’s told all of us herself. Right, guys?” he asked his friends.

“If I had a nickel…” Steph smiled and huffed, trailing off.

“She’s interrupted many movie nights with tangents of you,” Damian frowned at the fact. He had yet to finish The Gladiator because of Y/n.

“We'll be safe here,” Roy directed Y/n towards a small, neon-lit shop. Tim had provided them a distraction long enough for Roy and Y/n to sneak away. Tim said he would meet with them later. “I know the owner. He'd never turn me in.”

“Yeah,” Y/n nodded along knowingly. “I have the same relationship with the guy who runs this laser tag place I love. I- I mean, gun range.”

Roy chuckled. “L/n, why’re you lying to me, huh? I love laser tag! We gotta go sometime, darling.” He led her inside the place and to a back room which had a large screen and a karaoke machine plugged in and ready to go.

Y/n beamed. “I was hoping you'd say that. Alright, let's text Napier and set up the drop.”

“Okay, yeah. ‘Got the diamonds. Let's meet.’” He clicked his phone and the message was sent. “Done.”

“Okay, now we wait.” She clicked her tongue and hummed. “You know, it’s kinda weird, sitting silently in a private karaoke room, not singing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “But we're on a mission, so, you know, we gotta stay focused.”

“True, true, true, true, true, true.”

“So I wake in the morning and I step outside and I TAKE a deep breath and I GET! REAL! HIGH! And I scream at the top of my lungs ‘WHAT’S GOIN’ ON?’” Roy sang in a falsetto as Y/n accompanied him in a lower tone.

In the middle of the song, Roy’s phone dinged and he paused the song. “Ugh. It’s Napier.”

Y/n pouted in disappointment. “Yeah….”

“The drop is set for 5:00 p.m.” Roy informed her.

“Let's do this.”

“Totally. Although…” Roy shot Y/n a knowing look. “That is an hour and a half from now.”

“And the drop point is actually pretty close to here,” Y/n added.

“So..."

“DANCING QUEEN! YOUNG AND SWEET! ONLY SEVENTEEN OOOOOOOH…”

Tim walked into the room and slowly sipped on his coffee, looking more tired than ever.

“I feel more sympathy for our perps now.” Jason ripped the lie detector off himself.

“Can you please just admit that at some point, past or present, you’ve had feelings for Y/n L/n?” Dick begged. They had spent over three hours in the interrogation room, grilling Jason on his feelings and not getting any work done.

“If it makes you let me go, then yes.”

“I’ll take it!” Steph cried. “It’s close enough!”

“I still say I could’ve made fine use out of a pair of pliers.” Damian glared at Jason. Jason couldn’t help but shudder under his stare.

“Torture me all you want,” Jason said. “But I don’t like Y/n like that. She’s like a sister to me. We’ve worked together for over four years. I don’t love her romantically.”

If he had still been connected to the lie detector, its lines would’ve jumped widely.

Steph said quietly, “just know this: to remember is to love.”

Roy explained the plan to Tim and Y/n in the parking lot where Napier would meet them. “First, a jeweller will come out and inspect the rubies. Then, when he gives the okay, Napier will come and get them.”

“And then I'll take him down.” Y/n cracked her knuckles dramatically.

“Here we go,” Roy mumbled as an expensive car pulled up and a thin man got out. Harper, Drake, and L/n got out of Y/n’s old car and Roy greeted, “What's up, dude? Did anybody ever tell you that you look like the most interesting man in the world? You get that a lot?” After an awkward silence, Roy inhaled sharply. “Geez, I get it. We're not friends.”

The thin man held out his hand and Roy placed the sack of small rubies in it. The man inspected a random ruby and then nodded. Another man got out of the car and Roy said, “There he is. Napier! What's up, Mr. Napier? How’re you doing?” Napier’s car pulled away to give them some privacy.

“Shut up.” Napier licked his lips. “Give me the rubies.”

A new voice shouted from the other end of the parking lot. “L/N!”

Y/n cringed. “No, no, no, not now.”

Arnold yelled out, “I tracked your phone, idiot. I knew you were working with this criminal! You were gonna double cross us!”

Y/n’s head whipped back to Napier, but he was already running down the street, phone pressed to his ear, likely calling his driver.

Arnold gasped. “That's Napier. Harper wasn’t lying. Well, we gotta arrest him!” Arnold grabbed Y/n’s vest and pulled her back.

“Y/n, he's running!” Tim cried, already in pursuit of Napier.

“Lemme go!” Y/n tried to yank away.

“Only if I get the collar and one hundred percent of the credit.” Arnold growled.

“Are you negotiating right now?”

“Always.”

“Okay, that was actually a really cool line. Deal. Let’s do it.” She pointed harshly at Roy. “Stay. Here.”

“Okay.” Roy shrugged.

Y/n and Arnold ran off after Napier, catching up to Tim. “GCPD!” Tim shouted. “Stop and put your hands in the air!” Napier continued running and Tim groaned. “Why don’t they ever listen?”

“Drake,” Y/n swerved towards another street. “I’ll block him off!”

“Not without me, you won’t!” Arnold changed direction and sprinted after Y/n.

Napier’s eyes grew wide when he saw Y/n and Arnold appear ahead of him. He glanced over his shoulder and when he saw Tim, still in pursuit, he cried out in frustration. Y/n tackled him to the ground and threw handcuffs on him. After she was done Mirandizing him, she apologised to Arnold. “Sorry I ran out on you at the jewellery store. But I couldn't let this guy get away.”

“Look, I'm fine with it.” Arnold said. “Arresting Napier’s gonna get me a promotion and at the end of the day, that's what this is all about.”

Y/n squinted at him. “Right, that and getting a major drug lord off the streets.”

“Yeah, right. I don't care about that.”

Y/n stared at him, wide-eyed before brushing him off. “Whatever. Let's bring in Roy Harper.” She left Napier with Tim and ran back to the parking lot. Finding it empty, she cried, “Oh, fucking hell! Where is he? Roy? Roy?!”

Arnold saddled up behind her. “Don't worry. We'll get him. At least we have Napier and the rubies.”

Y/n simply shouted, “Roy!”

“Why are you still calling for him?”

“ROY!”

Arnold realised, “oh my God, he has the rubies, doesn't he?”

“Roy!” Y/n quickly composed her wits and muttered to herself, “I'm sure Harper didn't run off with the rubies. I bet he's looking for me right now. You know what, I bet he's worried that I’m in trouble!” She frantically pulled out her phone. “I'll just call him and put his mind at ease.”

Arnold raised a brow. “Lady, he's already gone.” He placed a hand on Y/n’s shoulder and Y/n pushed him off, giving him an icy glare. “He's not gonna picking up.” Y/n’s jaw clenched at Arnold’s words.

Suddenly, Roy’s voice filtered through her phone and she breathed a sigh of relief. “What's up, L/n?”

“Ha!” Y/n pointed a victorious finger at Arnold. “He did pick up. In your-”

“This is goodbye forever,” Roy cut her off.

“No!” Y/n stomped her foot. “I can't believe you deceived me. I can't believe you used my love for Lian against me.”

“I love that you love her.”

“Of course I do! She’s the living embodiment of the reminder that childhood innocence never dies.”

“Amen,” he agreed. “But, I wasn't lying though. Napier was gonna hurt her and you saved her life. Buuuut then I was all alone with the rubies and next thing I know, I'm hotwiring a car and driving away.

”But I thought you liked being a good citizen? You voted Ed Breakfast for school board!” Y/n whined.

“And he immediately had a sex scandal.” Roy reminded her. “It was very disillusioning.”

“Understandable. Our democracy is crumbling. But, Roy, this is not what we’re talking about. They could take my badge!”

“Tim was right.” Roy smiled faintly. “I'm a scorpion. I thought you knew me better by now. I'm sorry I can't be the man you want me to be.”

“Damn it, stop being so romantic.” Y/n choked on her words and begged, “now turn around and come back to me, you fool?” The line clicked and she called, “hello? Hello? He's gone…. He broke my heart.” Tim walked up behind her as her lip quivered theatrically. She turned towards her fellow detective and hugged him tightly. “Now you tell me everything's gonna be okay, Timmy boy!”

“Everything's gonna be okay,” Tim reassured monotonously.

“You don't know that, Tim!”

“I just got off the phone with the brass,” Captain Wayne said to Y/n. “It doesn't look good. They're still trying to decide on a punishment for your actions.”

Y/n sniffed and asked meekly, “Did you tell them I feel so bad I have a tummy ache?”

“I did. They were unaffected.”

“Are you sure it’s not cramps?” Jason pushed a box of chocolate towards his coworker. “It is your time of the month.”

Y/n grimaced in disgust. “It’s creepy that you know that.”

“Not really,” Tim said. “You, Steph, and Cass have all synced up. We all know when to have desserts in our desks.”

“I think even Kori is synced up to you guys,” Dick added. “Somehow.”

“So no.” Damian spoke up. “In this instance, Todd isn’t creepy.”

Y/n looked up at Wayne as if to ask his opinion on this matter. All he said is, “I have no comment to add in this conversation. Back to the topic at hand, the brass said they could’ve justified your tactics if you'd gotten Napier and the rubies, but as things stand, there are no rubies.” He sighed and said, “you're looking at a suspension, maybe worse. Unless you can track down Harper and recover those rubies.”

“Can they wait twelve months?” Y/n asked hopefully. “I usually run into him about once a year.” Her eyes caught on something on her desk. “Wait a minute. What doth we have here?”

Y/n walked into the karaoke place and looked around hesitantly. “I've got this coupon for a private room?”

“Yep,” a worker said. “Right this way. We already have a song cued up for you.”

The screen blinked on as soon as the worker left the room and a large picture of Roy Harper with Lian on his hip showed up.

Y/n shook her head and muttered, “Harper.”

“What's up, L/n?” the recording asked happily. “Thank you so much for coming. So, I thought about it and I think I did you dirty. I never meant to cause you any trouble.”

“Yeah, well, you caused me a lot.” Y/n kicked at something at her feet.

Roy chuckled and said, “you're talking to a pre-recorded video, but it's cool. I know what you're saying. I hear you in my heart,” he said emphatically.

Y/n rolled her eyes. “What am I doing here?” she asked herself.

“I feel the same way,” the recorded Roy placed a hand to his heart. “You’re my best friend too.” He nodded thoughtfully and said, “look, I'm not coming back. We started a new life here in San Diego.” He jostled Lian who was giggling on his hip.

Y/n shook her head, grinning. “It’s stupid telling me where you are.”

“Come on, darling, I’m not in damn San Diego.” Roy laughed loudly. “Everybody knows that place sucks! But, I got you a little something as a going away gift. It's on the table next to you.”

Y/n opened the small velvet sack and gasped. “The rubies. Yes! I- I can’t believe you actually brought them back…”

“The rubies!” Roy cried from the screen.

Y/n let out a lighthearted laugh. “Yeah, you mistimed that one.”

“No, you're the best. Look, even though I am a scorpion, I will never drown your adorable little frog ass. So that's all I gotta say.” He glanced down at Lian who was smiling happily, staring at something in the distance. “I'm sure I'll see you again at some point,” Roy said, his eyes softening. “But for now, that coupon you got there, that's for a full hour in a private room. So…”

“Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia, let me go! BeeLZEbub has a devil put aside for meeee… for meeee! For meEEEEEEEEEE!” Lian sang along as Roy and Y/n banged their heads to the music.

#title of your sex tape #jason todd x reader #jason todd #dc x reader #dcu #detectives au #b99 #b99/dcu #slow burn

141 notes · View notes

jm-2406 · 8 months ago

Text

Summary - Tommy Shelby has been slowly drifting away from his only son after losing his wife. You are a nurse specialising in children's wards. When Frances comes running to the hospital with little Charlie in her arms, you decide to give a piece of mind to the bigshot gangster.

Words - 1.5k

Note - this is silly. I wrote it in less than one hour. It features an OOC Tommy Shelby and a daring reader who doesn't fear him like others.

Tommy Shelby, MP OBE was not used to getting calls between meetings, especially from his loyal housekeeper who knew when not to bother him. He was busy dealing with some important people, drowning himself in work like he usually did after Grace passed away. It was not that he didn't care for his son but sometimes looking at him was too difficult for him, the little boy had so much of Grace in him. So imagine his surprise when instead of Frances it was someone else on the other side of the telephone.

"Mr Shelby, I'm not Frances. My name is (Y/N) and I'd like to let you know that your son is not well. You should come as soon as possible to the hospital." You informed him without any hesitation, the concern for Charlie made your nervousness take a back seat plus not looking directly at his blue eyes also helped in retaining your confidence.

"What happened to him?" His lazy drawl came as a reply. "Well if you insist…" You tried to stall, tried to get under his skin so that he'd come to see his son but his silence made you speak up. "Mr. Shelby, I understand that you are grieving but so is your son. He was having a nightmare and needed someone to hold him close, to soothe him. I'd say he needed his father, not his nanny or Frances. Help yourself and your son by being there for him." Without thinking about the consequences, you pour your heart out and immediately hang up.

• • •

It has been a few days since the incident. You were worrying about Charlie and went to meet him directly at 'Arrow House'. [Yes, you are daring and a risk taker]. You knocked gently, arranging the basket of freshly baked cookies for the three-year-old cherub in your arms.

"Who are you?" A deep male voice caught your attention. Looking up, your breath got caught in your throat. Standing in front of you was the man of the house himself, Thomas Shelby. "What are you doing here?" You questioned foolishly instead. In your defence, you did not know that he'd be home at eleven o'clock since it was a Tuesday. He merely raised his eyebrow at your remark.

“If you didn't know Miss, this is my house. I live here.” Your cheeks reddened and you turned around to escape when a high-pitched voice stopped you. "(Y/N)" shouted Charlie. "Call her inside daddy. She's my friend." He said - more like ordered - his father who complied with a small "as you say, son." You felt a sense of comfort seeing the father and son interacting almost normally after that phone call incident.

Nervously, you stepped inside and Frances immediately took your coat as well as the basket of cookies. Charlie ran inside to get his colouring pages and asked you to wait for him. You were looking here and there, avoiding the dark-haired man but he had other plans.

"Thank you," Tommy said. You furrowed your brows in confusion. He cleared his throat and elaborated. "For making me realise that I was unknowingly neglecting my son, pushing him away from me. I love him, I really do. Thank you for making us come closer." He was not a man of words, especially praises but something about you got him talking, was it your kind nature, your non-judgemental eyes or your stern yet concerned voice when you called him that day that made him open up to you, he didn't know… but that is a topic for later.

"You're welcome, Mr Shelby. Charles is a sweet boy. I wish well for him." You blushed, no one had said such kind words to you. "How about you join us for dinner? Charlie would like that." Tommy said unexpectedly. Just as you were about to deny it, considering it rude to intrude, Charlie came running to you asking you to stay and colour with him. You couldn't say no to that adorable face.

And that's how you spent the evening, laughing and enjoying the company of two Shelby men, happier than ever.

• • •

[PART - 2]

It has been almost half a year since that evening you spent in the company of the Shelby men and you couldn't help but feel lucky. Everything went uphill after that, luckily.

You found out that you and Tommy had a lot in common which was surprising in itself. You both were mostly emotionally detached but were willing to cross any line if it meant saving your family, you both liked to read though Tommy was secretive about it for reasons you still didn't know, and nothing could surpass the love you had for horses, those strong yet gentle beasts were the only faithful friend you had… except for each other.

While your thoughts started to roam in dangerous territory, you were still unsure of Tommy's feelings on the matter. You have heard that the man was ruthless and incapable of feeling affection but you saw a side of him that was hidden from the world, his gentle and loving sight, his respectful side… you were certain that what you felt for him may not be love but it wasn't anything less. You decided to ignore this newfound feeling, unsure of what he felt.

The sudden knock on your door pulled you out of your thoughts. "What-?" You were confused about finding a drunk Tommy Shelby on your doorstep. "(Y/N) How are you my angel?" He continued to stare at you making you realise that this was an actual question and not a rhetorical one. "I - uhh - I am fine Tommy. What are you doing here at midnight?" You pulled him inside.

The sight of a drunk Tommy Shelby lying on your cheap broken sofa with the bottle of Irish whiskey clasped in his hand was unusually tempting and soft, as he gazed up at you with his bright blue eyes.

"Charlie loves you (Y/N). Did you know he was calling for you earlier today?" He whispered and gulped the remaining of the whiskey immediately after.

"No Tommy. I am sorry. I was busy today." Your heart broke hearing about the little boy calling for you and not finding you by his side. "Yeah. Being a lifesaver is not easy, eh?" He said rhetorically this time, placing his hands on your waist. The cool of his hands seeping through the thin material of your nightgown.

"I asked him to be a well-behaved little boy and I'll bring you to him… maybe permanently what say?"

You gasped hearing his words, not knowing what he was suggesting. "Tommy… you're drunk. We'll talk about it in the morning if you still remember what you said." You pushed him to your bedroom, tucking him in like you'd do for Charlie. taking the spare pillow and blanket, you laid down on the sofa.

• • •

"You alright Mr Shelby?" You asked giving him a painkiller. He looked at you with wide eyes, just like Charlie would… The resemblance between them always melted your heart.

He cleared his throat before addressing you. "(Y/N) about last night - uhh - I meant what - what I said." You gawked at him, The Tommy Shelby stuttering in front of you. You were definitely special to him.

"I - you mean - what exactly did you mean by 'permanently' last night?" Your cheeks reddened, little hair on your neck stood as you awaited his answer.

"I didn't plan for this to happen so spontaneously but we gotta do what we gotta do right?" He paused and you held your breath for his next words. "I'm not good with words so beware. Miss (Y/N) (Y/L/N) I am grateful for your help in more than one of my life problems. My son loves you and calls out for you all the time, I adore you and your strength. Will you do the honour of making me the luckiest man in Birmingham by marrying me?" Tommy pulled out a small jewellery box from his coat pocket and held before you a simple but elegant and beautiful princess-cut diamond ring.

You sobbed. "Is that even a question?" You nodded, unable to speak as he placed the ring on your finger. You jumped up, unable to control your excitement and hugged him with all your might. And for the first time in many years, Tommy Shelby was finally feeling peace. He felt a wave of hope… for himself and your future together.

• • •

#tommy shelby x reader #thomas shelby #peaky blinders #cillian murphy x reader #tommy shelby #fanfic #𝐣 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐬

229 notes · View notes

katsu28 · 1 year ago

Note

☕️ steve harrington and "you called me your friend." "was i not supposed to say that?" "you really think i'm just your friend? after these last few weeks?"

anna u have singlehandedly pulled me out of my steve slump with this request thank you i love you <3

steve harrington x reader, 1.8k, join the celebration!

“Steve, we’re gonna be late for the movie.”

“Who cares?” Steve’s voice was muffled from where his face was buried in your neck pressing kisses to it. You gave the hair at the back of his head a gentle tug, making him retreat to meet your gaze. His eyes were darker than usual in the backseat of his car, hair mussed, lips kiss-swollen. You were sure you looked the same.

“Uh, the ticket taker, probably?”

Steve huffed overdramatically, licking his lips. “We don’t have to watch the movie, y’know. We could always just stay here, doing what we’ve been doing. Doing some more stuff, preferably with less clothes…” You shot him an unimpressed look and he sighed, letting you climb off his lap and out of the car swiftly.

He followed rather begrudgingly, straightening out his wrinkled clothes the best he could, taming his hair back into the artfully messy appearance he’d styled it in before your hands had been through it. “Do I look okay?”

“Cute as usual, but you got a little something right there, pretty boy,” You said fondly, reaching out and swiping a smudge of your lipstick off the corner of his mouth. Steve’s eyes tracked your hand, not realizing he was leaning into your touch until your knuckles brushed against his cheekbone softly. He cleared his throat suddenly and you retreated, dropping your hand back down to your side. “How ‘bout me?”

“Beautiful as always.” He laced his fingers through yours, bringing you forward to dot a few kisses against your hairline before tugging you into step with him towards the movie theater.

The smell of popcorn hit you the moment you entered, the thought of a mountain of the buttery snack in a bucket giving you a little extra pep in your step and Steve noticed, because he gave your hand a squeeze.

A voice calling Steve’s name from behind the two of you made you both turn around. A boy and a girl were making their way towards you hand in hand, the girl’s free hand raised in a wave.

From beside you, Steve beamed. “Hey guys! Didn’t know you were gonna be here tonight.”

“Oh, Nance wanted to watch Labyrinth again.” The boy tipped his head towards his movie partner—girlfriend, you assumed. He looked at you, offering you a small but warm smile. “What about you guys?”

“This is my friend, Y/N. Y/N, this is Nance and Jonathan.” He introduced you so nonchalantly you almost scoffed. If Steve still considered you just a friend after all the time you’d been spending with each other and all the things you’d been doing with each other lately, then you’d hate to see what he did with his other friends. “We were just gonna catch that new Matthew Broderick movie, see if it’s any good. You seen it yet?”

“Not yet, I was gonna see if Will wanted to watch it with me. Seems like something he’d find funny.” Jonathan shrugged. His gaze just so happened to wander down to yours and Steve’s joined hands, but if it surprised him, he kept his composure, opting for a sharp nod. “Well, we won’t hold you. See you Friday, Steve? Hellfire’s meeting at our house this time and my mom’s making pot roast, so you’d better bring your appetite when you come pick up Dustin and the others.”

“When do I not?”

“Reliable as ever, Steve.” Nancy joked. “It was nice to see you again, and really nice to meet you, Y/N.”

You smiled at her as best you could, saying a soft goodbye before they made their way past the two of you.

“You okay? Kinda looks like you just got sucker punched.” Okay, so maybe your poker face wasn’t great. Steve looked genuinely concerned for your well-being, and you hated how it sent your stomach into a whirl. “Are you sick? Fuck, I knew Mike’s nasty cough would rub off on me, that little shit! I can take you home if you want, don’t worry about the movie.”

“I don’t want to go home, Steve.”

“We can always catch it another day, it’s gonna be here for a month at least, we—” He’d already started to guide you back towards the entrance, but you stopped him with a palm across his chest.

“Steve, stop. I’m not sick.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

You shook your head. “It’s nothing. It’s dumb.”

“No it's not. Something’s bothering you, c’mere,” He said gently, gesturing for the two of you to step to the side, out of the way so you could talk somewhat in private. “What’s going on?”

“You called me your friend.” You said quietly, trying to ignore the ugly knot in your stomach. It seemed so stupid now, getting all worked up over something as silly as a single word, but you couldn't lie to yourself. Or Steve for that matter.

It did feel like you’d gotten sucker punched.

Steve shot a confused look at you, tilting his head. “Was I not supposed to say that?”

“You really think I’m just your friend? After these last few weeks?”

“I thought—hold on, we were on the same page about this, weren’t we? No labels, no defining anything, just you and me.”

“Well yeah, but that was before you used your stupid charm on me and made me like you and your stupid hair more than I should.” You were more angry at yourself than anything. You should’ve known Steve didn’t feel the same way about you as you did about him, but you’d stupidly given yourself an ounce too much of hope.

Never mind the days you’d spent together wrapped up in each other’s embrace, talking about anything and everything until the sun set and your eyes grew heavy. Never mind the being on the phone with each other until dawn poked its head above the horizon, the kissing and the holding hands and the sipping coffee silently in the morning until one of you woke up just enough to fold the other into their embrace.

All of that meant nothing, because you and Steve were just friends.

“My charm? What are you—what are you talking about, my charm?”

“You seriously don’t know what I mean?”

“Does it look like I do?” He shot back, then winced. “Sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so sharp.”

“You got me flowers last week, Steve!”

“Yeah, ‘cause they were nice and I thought you’d like them!” He exclaimed, gesticulating wildly. You just stared at him, waiting for him to realize your point. When he did, his mouth dropped into a silent ‘oh’. “I—I didn’t mean—”

This was your worst fear—the reason why you didn’t want to bring it up at all. You had a good thing going with Steve, and now you’d just lost it. “Just forget I said anything, okay?”

“No. No, stay. Please. Talk to me, I wanna talk about this.” He insisted, nodding fiercely. His hands came to plant themselves on your shoulders, then retreated a split second later, like he didn’t know what to do with them anymore. Not even twenty minutes ago, he’d had no problem touching you.

You hated how things were already changing between the two of you. All because you’d gotten your feelings hurt about something small.

“I like you, Steve! There it is. I like you, and I don’t know what to do about it because I don’t know what you want from me.” You blurted, voice strained with emotion. You squeezed your eyes shut, digging the heels of your palms against them tightly for a few seconds before refocusing on Steve, who just looked stunned. “Am I just someone you fill your time with because you’re bored, or is this thing between us going somewhere? ‘Cause if it’s not, I’d like to know now. Before I fall for you any more than I already have.”

As much as you swore to yourself you weren’t going to cry, you could feel the tears welling in your eyes. You bit down hard on your bottom lip to quell them, and Steve noticed. His expression softened like butter and he reached out, rubbing a gentle hand down your arm.

“Hey, I—I’m sorry. I didn’t know you felt that way, I swear.” Steve’s voice was soft. Comforting. You could tell what you’d just confessed was really eating away at him. That was another thing you liked about Steve. Whenever you told him something, he always took it seriously. “Guess we do kinda need to talk about the elephant in the room.”

“By all means, you first.” You muttered, folding your arms over your chest. Steve inhaled a sharp breath, letting it out as a heavy exhale through his mouth.

“I don’t exactly have the best track record with girls. I’m sure you’ve heard about what I was like in high school. I was a dick, plain and simple. I did things I’m not proud of, and I hurt people, but I swear on my life, I’m not that person anymore. I’m not…him anymore.” He looked almost upset with the way his jaw clenched, brow furrowing deeply at the mention of his past.

You’d heard plenty about the high and mighty King Steve, and part of you didn’t want to believe it. This was the same Steve who helped old ladies carry their groceries and always played basketball with the neighborhood kids when they needed another player.

“I guess I just didn’t wanna say the wrong thing and jinx what we’ve got going here, because I…I want this to go somewhere. I really like you too, Y/N. And I know it’s only been a few weeks but I—” Steve cut himself off with a short chuckle, raking a hand through his hair and bunching it at the nape of his neck before letting the strands fall back into place.

His expression was cynical, like he was positive you were about to reject him and leave him here in this dim parking lot and never talk to him again. You weren’t going to, obviously, but Steve was a worst case scenario kind of guy. “I think I’m already falling in love with you.”

“You’ve sure got a shitty way of showing it, Harrington.” You huffed, but there was no real anger behind your words. In fact, you were looking at him quite fondly, and the way you bumped your shoulder against his seemed promising.

“Believe me, I know that already. Workin’ on it everyday, though.” He shook his head with another chuckle. Even you cracked a tiny smile at that, sniffling slightly. “Can we start over?”

“I’d like that very much.”

“Yeah?” He perked up, looking pleased. You nodded and he beamed even brighter, sticking his hand out for you to shake. “Hi. I’m Steve, I think you're amazing, and I wanted to know if you’d like to watch a movie with me.”

follow @katsu-library to be notified when i post new fics :)

#kait's 2k!#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington one shot #steve harrington fic #steve harrington imagine

531 notes · View notes

rebeliz7 · 1 year ago

Text

MONSTER

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Underworld!Reader

Word Count: 5375

…

“You’re a monster!”

The words seem to echo in your head, as your wife clearly debates whether or not she should take them back. Not that you think she would, not after what happened--not after what she saw you doing.

All the anger you were feeling just seconds ago evaporates, leaving only hurt in its wake. You can’t believe she’d scream that at you, not even while the two of you were fighting.

The fight is over now, not that you can even remember what you were fighting about in the first place. At this point you two could have been yelling spiteful things at each other because of the phone charger, because that’s who you’ve become.

It doesn’t take much to ignite a fight nowadays, anyways.

You’re a monster.

The venom in her voice, the way she spit the words at you--the moment is replaying in a loop in your head now.

Finally, you manage to look away from her eyes and leave the room.

She doesn’t stop you.

…

“You good?” Bucky asks you when you join the team in the conference room, which is where your feet took you automatically. He seems to be the only one who notices, or cares.

The world seems to tilt on you, as you remember that it’s the middle of the day, and you went to your floor earlier to get your wife--because there’s a mission and she wasn’t here for the debriefing.

She was on the phone when you entered your shared bedroom, but she ended the call as soon as you closed the door behind you. You asked her who she was talking to, and she exploded.

You’re a monster.

You can’t believe she’d say that. Not after everything she knows.

“I’m fine.” You reply, as you take a seat.

He takes your response the same way all of them do, not completely uninterested but keeping a safe distance from you.

They’ve never seen you as more than an ally, and Natasha’s wife. They’ve never really accepted you, and although you all live under the same roof, they’ve never concerned themselves with making you feel at home.

You don’t belong here, you never really have.

You’d keep your distance too, you think. They know who you are after all--what you are, you don’t blame them.

Natasha enters the conference room, and her mood seems to invade every single corner of it. There’s no mistaking her attitude, and the anger that threatens to eat her away every time she’s forced to be in the same room as you.

It wasn’t always like this--she loved you, you’re sure she did. But things have changed, and everything she once loved about you, now seems to have pushed her away.

“Any takers?” Tony asks, and you finally look up. The map behind him shows a Hydra base with almost every single corner secured.

It’s a dangerous mission, no one is eager to go because as important as it is to retrieve a nuclear weapon Hydra is threatening to use against the people in London if they don’t get what they want, everyone in this team has something to live for, even you.

But your life, your existence is slightly different than theirs is. Maybe your time is up.

Your father warned you though, he warned you that if you left home then he wouldn’t be able to protect you from these situations. Mortality is--not something you understand completely. You didn’t care at the time, you were in love and to be with Natasha you needed to be on earth and not--you needed to be on this mortal realm because she’s human.

The room grows quieter the longer the seconds drag on, and with a sinking feeling in your gut, you decide to take this one. You don’t know what will happen, but if you leave now you think it’ll give the people who loved you and still do a little bit of peace.

“I’ll do it.” You speak, and your wife’s eyes are suddenly on you.

“What?” She asks, growls, but you don’t look at her. This is not the right place, and maybe these people are nothing more than a working team to you, but you’re far from letting them see what a wreckage your marriage has turned into.

You left everything to be here, everything.

“Me too,” Bucky says, but you don’t look at him either.

“No, you’re not.” Steve tells him.

“It’s too dangerous.” Wanda’s hand is on Bucky’s arm, her concern clear. “We should plan better. Go all in, or none at all.”

The last time Wanda fought Hydra, they hit her with a powerful weapon meant to disable her powers. She was unconscious for two days, and now she’s not eager to ever face Hydra again.

“Let’s think about this for a second.” Sam joins in the conversation, and in the blink of an eye you have a room full of people hellbent on keeping Bucky out of this mission.

The more they raise their voice, you wonder, where was this concern when you initially offered yourself for this mission?

You’re not close to any of them, you’ve never been good at making friends, but it still hurts.

It hurts, because they know about your father’s warning. They know you can die here too.

Natasha tries to touch your hand, and her words replay in your mind again. You move your hand away and stand up, only to walk towards Stark in the front of the room.

“When do I have to leave?” You ask him, and he’s uncomfortable as he hands you a tablet, holding all the details of the mission.

“In an hour.” He clears his throat, looks into your eyes and looks away just as fast.

“Okay.”

Natasha’s eyes are glued on you as you leave the room, but she doesn’t try to stop you. No one else seems to notice your departure.

…

This time you go straight to daycare. Your daughter runs to your open arms the moment she spots you, and everything else loses importance, even if for a couple of minutes.

“It’s so cold, mommy.” Elizabeth squeezes you in her arms, and you rub her back soothingly. It’s snowing outside, but the temperature is comfortable in the room, which makes you smile because Beth has always been a bit too dramatic for her own good.

“I know, princess.” You put her down, and let her guide you towards her desk in the middle of the room.

“Look at my unicorn, mommy.” She shows you a drawing, and the next couple of minutes you spend them with her.

At one point you watch Tony walking in as well, and picking up Morgan before leaving with her.

You’re a monster.

The words continue to replay in your head, making you feel hurt all over again. You’ve always thought that Natasha was the only person who didn’t see you like that.

You were wrong though. The only person who doesn’t see you like that is this little girl, your kid.

When you leave daycare, you’re not exactly feeling better but at least you do it with the knowledge that someone cares about you, Elizabeth cares and even if you don’t come back you’ll still have a way to take care of her.

…

“Barnes is going with you.” Natasha tells you the moment you step inside your bedroom, where she’s been waiting, apparently.

You stop moving just inside the room, looking at her and her tensed posture. It wasn’t always like this, she loved you.

She used to love you.

“The things I did before--” you start and she growls in annoyance.

“Not this again.” She interrupts you.

“I thought you knew me. I thought you knew I’m not an actual monster. I left everything for us.”

“Yeah, well.” She swallows, and her eyes find yours with only a little bit of insecurity in them. “Maybe I don’t really know you. Maybe we really did rush into this. And maybe you can't fight whatever it is that lives within you.”

Those words steal your breath away completely. This, she says, referring to your marriage, your family and the little girl you two adopted two years ago.

She says it as if she doesn’t remember all you gave up to be with her. Not that you blame her, she never asked you to give up anything, you made that decision on your own.

The pain in your gut seems to spread to every inch of your body, and you wonder if she knows what she’s doing to you, or if she even cares anymore.

You father warned you, of course. He told you all about humans, but you fell for Natasha and he saw it too. There was no stopping you.

“You don’t love me anymore.” You speak, and she doesn’t look away when she answers.

“Love is for children.” She spits out, and you try to swallow down your heartbreak.

“Okay.” You nod, and she sighs.

“Okay? Do you get what I’m trying to say?” She asks, and although you’re one step away from breaking down, you still meet her anger with your own.

“You’re ending our marriage. I’m not an idiot.”

“You don’t care to know why?” She asks.

“You already told me.” You answer as you pick up your bag from the closet. “I’m a monster, right?”

…

Everything goes sideways as soon as you and Barnes touch ground. You’re both hit with darts, and neither one of you has the time to even speak through your coms before you fall unconscious. They were waiting for you.

You wake up on the ground of a flying cargo jet. Your mouth is covered with duct tape, and there are ropes tied tightly around your wrists and ankles. You try to locate Barnes without alerting the couple of masked guards sitting a few feet away from you, but as far as you can tell he’s not here.

You have two options, you can get out of these ropes and kill everyone on this jet but there’s no guarantee that the pilot will take you to your real destination. Or, you can pretend to be unconscious and let them believe they’ve captured you.

“How are we gonna do this?” You hear one of the men ask.

“We’re not doing it. They’ll make the Winter Soldier do it. Hydra’s name won’t even come up.”

“It’ll be the end of the Avengers.”

They continue to talk, but you barely listen anymore. They’re gonna program Barnes to do their dirty work, which means that your mission just got more complicated than it initially was.

You’ll have to stop a nuclear attack, and rescue Barnes on the way too.

…

You don’t know where you land, but it’s hours after you heard the guards talk. The jet lands on an underground facility, and you’re carried inside a large cell made of glass walls.

With no way to communicate with base, you sit up as the ropes around your wrist and ankles burn in flames at your will.

You’re about to open up a portal on the thick glass wall to your right, when the air stills and time itself comes to a stop.

You feel the atmosphere thickening before a portal opens up on the floor a few feet away from you, and your father emerges from it.

He’s wearing a black suit, three piece, and a large coat hanging from his shoulders. He has a cigar between his teeth, and fire burning in his eyes.

“My kid.” He grins, while you sit back down on the iron bench the guards left you.

“Father.” You incline your head in respect, and he sighs before shaking his foot to get rid of a few little lingering flames.

“This is the end of your journey,” he says without sugarcoating anything, while walking closer and sitting next to you. “As a mortal, of course.”

“Of course,” you agree with unmasked sadness. “How will it happen?”

You refuse to look at him just yet, but he still offers you a cigar and you take it.

It was your thing back at home, he’d come to see you and offer you a cigar and you’d talk for hours. You’d join him at court, and he’d offer you a cigar while you two listened to his advisors talk for hours. You’d look for him down at the pits, and he’d always offer you a cigar while you waited for the boatkeeper to count his coins.

It’s sort of poetic that he’s come all the way up with one, to warn you one more time.

“They’re gonna torture you for a couple of hours, and you’ll let it happen because the longer they interrogate you the longer your ‘friends’ have to get here.”

“Will they get here in time?” You ask him, as he lights up your cigar and he watches until you take a long drag.

“Yes.”

You’ve never died before, your siblings have and even your father experienced it once . You’re scared, and he sees it.

“They won’t save you, it’ll be too late for that but they’ll save the other one, and they’ll stop the nuclear attack too.”

A part of you wants to ask him to intervene, but you know you can’t. He’ll punish you for asking, and he won’t lift a finger to intervene. He respects the law, he abides by it and anyone who’s ever dared to cross him is still paying for it and will continue to pay for it until the end of times.

“What if I attack first?” You ask, and he takes a deep breath. The room is filled with smoke, the taste of the cigar has lost its appeal on your tongue but you still take another drag.

Among his many qualities, your father can see what will happen according to a multitude of choices a person can make in a split second, so you know he’ll tell you the truth.

“Chaos will erupt. They shoot the other guy in the face first, and then they release the nuclear weapon. London is wiped off, the Avengers find you to be the only survivor on this base but it wouldn’t matter either way.”

“They’ll blame me.” You conclude, and he nudges your shoulder with his affectionately.

“They’ll blame you.”

Time goes by with the two of you smoking your cigars, and no talk.

You were almost on your way to attack this base, his showing up at that exact second was not a coincidence. He’s come to ask you to make the right choice.

It’s not common for him to have a say in these types of things, so you know it means more than he’s letting on. He has a chance to make something right, you both do.

“You will still be able to see your daughter,” he tells you. “I’ll make sure of it.”

When he meets your stare the fire in his eyes is burning brightly, a beautiful contrast to his skin. The dimples on his cheeks are prominent as he grins at you, and you know the same dimples appear on your face as you smile back.

Your mother always said that the reason why he loved you the most out of all their children, is because you’re his spitting image. You always argued that the truth couldn’t be further from her statement, since out of all your siblings you’re the only one sane enough.

But you know it’s the truth, he’s always loved the way you smile and those dimples reminded him that you’re his daughter. The first time he saw your eyes burning like his do, he laughed so loud that even the souls in the Styx River peaked out to marvel at the sound of it.

He was an angel once, after all, and the sound of his laughter remains to be the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.

When you finish your cigar he promptly stands up, and you do too.

“Your mother misses you,” he says just as a portal opens up on the floor and you catch sight of the raging flames that surround it.

The thought of your mother makes you smile, you miss her too.

“Well, you can tell her I’ll be home for dinner.” You smile, although a treacherous tear rolls down your cheek. Your father is quick to wipe it off for you, the back of his fingers graze your cheek as he smiles too.

“She knows.” He sighs, and the flame in his eyes dissipates and leaves in its wake the saddest look that you’ve ever seen on your father’s face.

“I’m sorry you had to learn about humans this way.” He says, and the sorrow of his soul spreads all over you and even home, it seems. The flames of his open portal evaporate, and smoke rises up from it.

“I imagine there’s no other way to learn this lesson.” You swallow with difficulty and he kisses your temple, his hands cupping your face.

“I’ll see you home, kid.” He smiles. “That dog of yours has been missing you.”

You chuckle, as you picture the faces of your three headed dog howling into the dark skies, begging for your return. He always tended to be a bit dramatic.

“Thank you, dad.” You tell him as he begins his descent, and he smiles one last time before he’s gone.

…

They do come for you, they take you to an interrogation room where they begin by hitting you. They move you into a different glass room, and you can see them trying to reprogram Barnes in the next room too.

It’s not an easy task, since he had all his triggers removed when he was in Wakanda. They try and they try, and they attempt to punch the answer to his resistance out of you but you give them none.

Barnes looks at you, but he’s too weak and he still has his metal arm. That’s how you realize how the team will find you, the arm has a tracer. Stark installed it a couple of weeks ago, Barnes wasn’t happy about it but it’s paying off either way.

Hours go by, and by then they’ve pulled out seven of your finger nails with tweezers. The pain is the worst, the pain still shocks you, and makes you feel smaller than you really are.

You don’t feel any pain at home, pain is not something made for your kind. Pain is human, and you remind yourself that you chose this and endure it.

Weakness doesn’t embrace you, it’s not natural for you to feel tired, let alone weak in the face of trouble. Which is the reason why your capturers continue to beat you, and cut you and even shoot you.

By the time you hear a commotion, your head feels funny and your vision is blurry. They hit you in the head a lot, and the gunshots on your abdomen are already taking your life away. This body is human after all.

You see the Captain going for Barnes, and Barnes collapsing in his arms. The glass around you shatters and Wanda’s powers swirl all around you, before Natasha falls on her knees next to you.

She’s talking, her lips are moving and tears begin to roll down her face the moment she blinks.

She yells something over her shoulder, more people gather around you and Natasha is touching you, but you can’t feel it.

I still love you, you want to tell her.

I will always love you.

She’s crying as she holds you, her sobs make her body shake as she speaks, but you can’t feel her touch and you can’t listen to a word she’s saying.

You’re a monster.

The memory flashes through your mind, hurting you even worse than all the wounds that are killing this human part of you do.

She saw you capturing two rogue demons yesterday. They were hard to find, and ever harder to apprehend. They laughed at you, and you had to remind them who you are.

You’ve never shown Natasha that side of you, not willingly anyway. She knows who you are, she knows the things that you do or used to do, because of being who you are.

She also knows that you left everything for her, everything. You left your home, and stopped answering your father’s call for her.

Your father warned you, of course. He said that loving someone like you wouldn’t be easy, and he was right. She was always going to see who you really are in your eyes, there’s no escaping it, there never really was.

Now she cries, brokenly and desperately as you die.

…

Your mother welcomes you back with nothing but joy. She’s prepared a feast for your arrival, and your siblings are eager to hear about the way you were tortured.

Nothing compares to the things you see down here, of course, but it’s still entertaining for all of you.

You go back to being who you were before you met Natasha, and you visit your daughter regularly although not wearing the same face twice. She’s growing into a beautiful young woman, brave and clever like her mother.

Natasha doesn’t forget you, and she mourns your death for years. She regrets calling you a monster, not that it makes a difference after you’re gone.

She tries to move on a couple of times, but nothing lasts.

As for you, you never really move on from them, not even after their mortal time is up and they’re forever gone.

…

#natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff

494 notes · View notes

niabang · 7 months ago

Text

Club Sessions

Pairings: Bangchan × fem reader

Word count: 1.4k

Summary: Your boyfriend decided it would be fun to see how long you could hold up with a vibrator in you for the entire day.

Warnings: Smut included (MINORS DNI.), soft dom chan, sub reader, use of sex toys, semi public sex?, edging/overstim, unprotected sex (I'm sure y'all don't want babies)

You and your boyfriend were what people would call adventurous, risk takers, and maybe even crazy.

You couldn't disagree with them though because you were out in public, a club to be precise, with a vibrator deep in your pussy, and your boyfriend was constantly playing with the controls making you drop down at different intervals.

How did you get here? Well, it started as kind of a "punishment" for you being too feisty earlier today, and you had it in you all morning while doing your chores.

You were also very stubborn and told chan that you'd be able to take it just to get a reaction out of him, and you got what you wanted when he suggested that you keep it in for the whole day.

"But aren't we going out today?" You asked your boyfriend.

"What difference does that make?" He replied to your question with a question.

"Aren't people gonna know?" You asked.

"How would they know? Is this you trying to say you can't take it?" He knew exactly how to make you agree with him.

"I don't know how many times I'm going to tell you that I can take it, Chan." You said in a bit of a rude tone, and he turned up the settings just to make you eat your words.

"Okay, then be quiet and take it like a good girl." He said and placed a kiss on your forehead, then went to go do whatever he was doing.

Your boyfriend left the vibrator in the same setting for a while, and that made you think he had forgotten about you.

Just as you were celebrating internally, he turned the setting up as if he knew and you started having trouble standing.

He took it back to the lowest setting after a while and called you upstairs, where he told you to get on the bed.

You got so happy because you thought he was finally going to give in and fuck you.

You were so pathetic. You moaned just from him spreading your legs, and all this man did was take out the vibrator.

He was insane. Your pussy was pulsing and clenching around nothing and he didn't seem to care.

"Don't wanna wear you out too much before we leave." He said as he took it out of you.

Your boyfriend might have been mean, but he wasn't evil.

You both started getting ready to leave, and he called you to his work desk when you were fully dressed.

"Baby, can you come here for me." He said, tapping his desk.

When you sat down, you guys had a mini make-out sesh to prep you for the vibrator.

"Are you ready?" He asked you.

You nodded your head, and he proceeded to put it in you.

"I'm not going to turn it on till we get there, okay?" He said while you guys were in the car.

He actually stayed true to his words and turned it on just as you were getting out of the car.

You almost fell, and you heard him laugh from the front seat.

You were so not going to survive this.

You both went out with friends and naturally split into groups of men and women, so everyone was doing their own thing.

You were having a drink and a conversation with your girls when you felt the setting go a bit higher, and you almost choked.

"Y/n, are you okay?" Your friend Melanie asked you, looking concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Drink almost went down the wrong pipe, that's all." You reassured your friend.

You looked around the crowd of people in search of your boyfriend, and you caught him laughing and drinking with his friends well aware of the suffering he was causing you.

Time passed, and chan was going up and down with the controls, which made you lie to your girls and tell them you were beginning to get a slight tummy ache.

You managed to keep on dancing, but it seemed chan wasn't too happy with that because he turned it up to the highest setting, and this time, he left it there.

"Oh my God." You said, and you had to squat because you really couldn't take it anymore. So much for all your smack talk.

Tears were beginning to well up in your eyes.

"Y/n, are you sure you're okay?" Your friend Melanie asked you again.

You shook your head in a no motion, and the next thing you knew, Melanie was going to get chan for you.

The next thing you felt were two strong hands picking you off the floor, and you knew it was Chan.

"Let's go." He said into your ear and dragged you along with him.

That was how you ended up in the bathrooms.

"Oh, baby, don't cry." He said as he placed you on the counter and wiped your tears.

"Do you want me to take it out?" He asked you sounding concerned, but you knew it was all fake. He loved seeing you suffer.

You nodded your head and at your signal chan reached under the black mini dress you were wearing, slid your panties to the side, and then took the vibrator out, making you moan.

"Chan, please." You said after he put the vibrator in his pocket and was about to leave.

"Please, what?" He asked you.

"I need you." You replied.

"Okay, baby, let's get back home first."

"No Chan please I need you now." You whined.

"But we can't go here, baby someone might walk in." He said while leaving kisses all over your neck.

He was getting you too riled up for someone who was disagreeing.

"It doesn't matter." You told him.

"Oh, you naughty girl. Come here." You finally got what you wanted as chan wrapped a hand around your throat and started kissing you hungrily. You couldn't help but moan.

He brought you down from the counter and helped you take off your panties.

"Baby, I'm going to need you to be quiet for me, okay?" He parted your lips, scrunched your underwear, and then put it into your mouth to act as a gag.

He then turned you around and bent you over the counter. He rolled your dress up so your ass and cunt were exposed to him and you heard him groan.

He gave himself a few pumps and told you he was going to be fast.

It was almost as if you weren't stretched out and violently edged for hours because all chan could talk about was how tight you were and how well you wrapped around his cock.

Chan was moving in and out of you fast and hard, and he just knew how to hit that spot.

The panty he shoved in your mouth was practically useless because he had to use one hand to cover your mouth, too.

It wasn't your fault he was a literal sex god.

Chan let you cum so easily he probably felt bad about edging you for so long. Your legs were shaking at your release, and he took your panties out of your mouth and put them in his pocket.

He pulled your dress down and wiped your tears. Plus, a kiss on your forehead. He always gave you kisses whenever you guys were done.

"Let's go home." He said to you.

"What about our friends?" You asked him because it'd be rude to leave without letting them know.

"We'll tell them that you got sick, let's go." You both made your way to the car.

There was just something about chan. He always made sure you finished first or together. He didn't bother if he didn't get to. He always said he was happy as long as you did.

"Chan, you didn't finish." You said as you buckled your seat belt.

"It's fine. I'm good as long as you're good." He said while starting the engine.

"Use me." You said to him.

"Huh?" He asked you.

"Fuck me the way you want to and use me to cum." You told him meaning every bit of it.

"Fuck." Chan said and took off his seat belt.

Thank God it was late in the night, and your windows were tinted.

246 notes · View notes

bloatedandalone04 · 1 year ago

Text

He’s Got My Name

➪the one where everything a.j. does, he does for you.

Warnings: spoilers for takers 2010, once again - no one will read this, swearing, heists, robbing of a bank, mentions of guns, kissing, brief angst if you squint, mentions of cancer, reader is very ill, alcohol consumption, smoking, mentions of blood, pda, indication of smut

Word Count: 3.8k

Do not repost this anywhere, reblogs are fine♡

“Alright, sweetheart, it’s your turn,” John’s voice sounded throughout your ear piece. You quickly pulled open the door to the stairwell and made your way up to the floor that held a plethora of offices. “You remember what to say?”

“Of course,” you state quietly as you confidently walk down the rows of desks. The employees even didn’t give you a second glance as you passed by them and towards one of the empty cubicles. Your skirt and suit jacket made you look like you actually worked here, as did your heels and high bun. After glancing around at the few employees that were near, you pick up the phone from the desk and bring it to your ear that didn’t have the earpiece.

You dial the number and wait a few seconds before you hear a voice answer, “News 14 hotline,”

“Hi, yes, I’m from the FedCal bank, downtown LA,” you say quickly in a panicked voice, making the pitch sound a bit higher for good measure. “There’s a robbery in progress.”

“Are they still in the bank?”

“Yes,” you answer sharply and make eye contact with a man across the room who was also on the phone. He gives you a concerned look, and you knew you had to wrap this up. “They’re a few floors above mine.”

The person was in the middle of asking another question when you hung up, dropped the phone back down onto the desk and stood up straight. Smoothing out your jacket, you stride back over to the door, smiling brightly at the few employees who looked up at you.

You could hear the faint sounds of the guys upstairs as they robbed the place, and you all but slammed the door behind you once you were back in the stairwell. As you hopped down the stairs, you reached into your pocket when you felt your phone begin to vibrate. “Yes, my love?” You answer as you reach down to rid your feet of the heels, holding both of them in one hand as you continue to descend.

“Angel,” A.J.’s voice rang through the phone and had you grinning to yourself. “Did you call the hotline?”

“I did,” you confirm as you neared the bottom floor, holding the phone away from you as a cough raked through your body. After swallowing the small amount of blood that pooled in your mouth, you bring it back to you. “They should be here any minute now.”

“Perfect,” he said. “You’re perfect.”

“So I’ve heard,” you tease as you enter the lobby of the bank, swinging your heels in your hand. You got a few odd looks as you walked along the marbled floor in your bare feet, but your lack of shoes would be the last thing on their mind once they found out what was happening just a few floors above them.

“Alright, get out of there, pretty girl,” A.J. said and you could just picture him blowing out the smoke from his cigarette. “Don’t get caught up when the cops arrive.”

“I won’t,” you promise and stick to it as you push open the front entrance of the bank and step out onto the sidewalk. “Be careful.”

“I will,” came his reply and you grinned when you noticed someone on the phone across the street, panic evident on their face as they were undoubtedly talking to the police and reporting the robbery. When you hear the unmistakable sound of a helicopter approaching, you knew he had to go. “I’ll see you later, baby.”

“See you soon,” you say and end the call, reaching up to let your hair down. Turning the corner just in time to see the news chopper fly over the roof of the bank, you knew it was only a matter of seconds before A.J. began to play his role of an injured security guard in order to secure their ride out of there.

Hours go by since the robbery, and after blowing up the news helicopter and parting ways, the group reunited a few hours later at the club they frequented. A.J. fell back against the leather armchair as John announced that Ghost was back and out of jail. “So I walk into my house and he’s standing there, drinking my whiskey. I was going to shoot him in the back of his head,”

“You should’ve,” Jake says as he hands A.J. a tall glass of bourbon. “The guy’s been out twenty four hours and already wants to do a job. He’s crazy.”

“Or he’s got huge balls,” Jesse offers from his spot on the stool.

“Yeah, Ghost doesn’t play when it comes to money,” John adds, glancing over at Gordon. “He’s too smart for that.”

“The bastard’s not that smart,” A.J. rasps as he drinks the bourbon. “He’s clever, not smart.”

As the five of them conversed about the return of their former member, Rachel entered the room in a small black dress, looking nothing short of beautiful, but she wasn’t who A.J. was waiting for.

Rachel smiled at the guys before sitting on Jake’s lap, and he grinned at the way his best friend got all flustered around his new fiancée. It was the same way A.J. acted around you when you first got engaged a few months back, and it was still how he acted now.

He just couldn’t get enough of you. And that was obvious as his face lit up under the blue lights when he saw you enter the room a few seconds later. You were wearing a silver dress that sparkled under the LED lights and the slit in the fabric had him biting down hard on his lip as he caught sight of the exposed skin of your leg and a bit of your thigh.

“Hi, boys,” you greet, purposely looking at everyone else other than A.J.

Tease.

“Hey, sweetheart,” John said back as you smiled at him.

“Another successful heist?” You ask, already knowing the answer as you step further into the room.

“You know it,” A.J. answers and you finally meet his eye. He looked so unbelievably fine in this lighting, and you held back a moan when beckoned you over to him with a curl of his finger. “C’mere, baby.”

You didn’t need to be told twice.

You were crossing the room within seconds and sitting down on his lap, your legs draped over his thighs as he placed his free hand on your lower back. His lips attach to your neck as your arm wraps around his shoulder, your left hand coming to rest on his chest. Your big engagement ring was on full display and it sparkled under the blue lights of the VIP room. “I missed you today,” you said, already breathless at the feeling of his lips on your neck.

“Mmm,” he hummed and brushed his nose against yours, turning your head so you were facing him. He kissed you softly, a groan leaving the back of his throat as he pulled you tighter against him. While you were a bit shy at first about kissing him like this in public, A.J. couldn’t care less, and he proved that by guiding you into countless makeout sessions that took place in front of the guys or just in the general public. After two and a half years, you grew to love engaging in PDA with him. “I missed you.”

You adjusted his bowtie as the other four guys fell into a conversation you couldn’t be bothered to listen in on, and neither could A.J. You were on his lap and wearing the most sinful dress he had ever seen on you, and he’s seen you in a lot of sinful dresses, how could he focus on anything else?

“I hear you blew up the chopper after hijacking it,” you trail off, your mouth directly next to his ear as you two fell into your own little world.

A.J. ran his hand up and down your hip, running his nose along your jaw as he nodded. “I did,”

You hummed and leaned closer to him. “I wish I could’ve been there to see that,” you whisper and make your voice as seductive as possible. You trace the skin below his ear with your tongue and feel the grunt that vibrated against his chest. “You know how sexy I find it when you do stuff like that.”

“I do,” he said and allowed your hand to grip the side of his face and turn his head so you could press your lips to his in a searing kiss. You run your tongue along his lower lip before his mouth opens and it brushes against his. He noisily breaks the kiss and you reach up to fix his hat that had become crooked during the whole event. “I wish you were there, too, baby, but this one was a bit too risky for you to have been able to stay. I would’ve loved to have had you on my lap while we were in the air, just like this, but I didn’t even like having you in the building with everything that’s going on right now.”

You shake your head and trace your index finger over the maze of freckles on his face. “You don’t need to worry about me,”

He gives you a pointed look and you sigh, eyeing the half empty glass in his hand.

You reached for it, but he was quicker and held it far away from you, his hand moving to tightly grip your waist in a warning. “C’mon,” you whine, giving him your best puppy dog eyes. “Just a sip.”

While they usually worked on him, nothing you could ever do would get him to allow you to drink even a drop of alcohol. “Not a chance, pretty girl,”

You huffed and slumped against him, watching him down the rest of the bourbon before he set the glass on the table next to the chair.

“Don’t get all upset with me,” he says once he sat back against the chair, his hand resuming its movement on your hip. His lips were glistening with remnants of the booze and you eyed them with a sense of want.

And he knew that.

With a sigh, he uses his now free hand to brush away the fallen strands of hair from your face. “Alright,” he murmured, watching the way your eyes lit up. He was never good at denying you completely of the things you desired. “Have your taste.”

Once again, you didn’t need to be told twice.

You lean in and eagerly press your lips to his, your tongue shooting out to run along his bourbon coated mouth. This way you weren’t actually consuming the drink, but you were getting the faintest taste of it.

The kiss quickly heats up, and you were mainly licking his lips at this point. Once you are satisfied you pull away and press your forehead against his, knocking his hat out of place again. “Mm,” you hummed as you ran your tongue over your own lips, and A.J. held back a moan at the sight. “Thank you.”

He just grabbed his hat and tossed it next to the glass on the table. A.J. took your hand in his, his thumb turning the ring on your finger a few times as you snuggled up against him. “How are you feeling today?” He asked quietly so the others wouldn’t hear.

You lace your fingers with his and bring your joined hands up to your mouth to be able to press a kiss to the back of his. “I’m fine, Jay, really,” you tell him, glancing into his worry filled eyes. “It’s a better day today. It’s good.”

He wasn’t sure if he should believe your words, but you never gave him a reason to worry about you ever being untruthful to him, so he accepted your answer and pulled you even closer to him, suddenly wanting to take you back home and end the night early.

And he would’ve done that, except when you excused yourself a few minutes later and he was met with the sight of Ghost, he knew his night had just begun.

A.J.’s body was covered in a thin layer of sweat, as was yours, and he was struggling to hold himself above you while he got you to yet another release.

It was nearing four in the morning, and a few minutes after he brought you to your peak, he was there as well and was finally able to collapse on the bed next to you. He falls onto his back and glances at out the window, the still open blinds doing nothing to keep out the four am moon. If your shared apartment was on one of the lower floors of the building, A.J. would’ve put the time aside to close the blinds and shield your body from any prying eyes, but seeing as it was on the thirteenth floor out of twenty, he didn’t feel the need.

He huffs out uneven breaths, his arm blindly wrapping around your waist when he feels you move to lay your head on his bare chest.

He had a long day, and it was nearing the end, with a new day just a few hours from now. After another successful heist, counting just how much money they received from said heist, finding out about a former ally being released from prison, and being roped into another job from said ally, he was finally able to end his day in the way he had grown so accustomed to.

A.J. loved spending hours on end with you wrapped up in the sheets, and that was before he allowed body to fully relax and welcome sleep to take over. As cliché as it sounded, your bodies really did fit so well together. He couldn’t remember the last time he had let himself fall this deeply for someone, in fact, he was sure he had never felt the things he did with you before.

Long story short; you had become his entire world just five months into the relationship. You were everything to him.

Once his breathing went back to normal, A.J. turned his head and ran his fingers through your hair, which was a bit damp from sweat. Your eyes were already on him, and he couldn’t help himself as he leaned down to press what felt like the millionth kiss of the night to your lips.

He sighed when he pulled away. “I should tell you before you find out from someone else,” he began.

You lifted your head so it was resting higher on his shoulder now. “Tell me what?”

A.J. ran his free hand through his messy, post-sex hair. “Ghost is out now,” he says and you furrow your brows. “Let him out this morning.”

You bit down on your kiss swollen lip. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Because he was released during the heist. I didn’t find out about it until a few hours ago,” he explained, running his fingers up and down your bare back. “He showed up at the club tonight.”

You prop yourself up on your elbow. “He did?” You ask and he nods. “Where was I?”

“Bathroom,” he hummed, his eyes flickering all over your face. He wanted to tell you how beautiful you looked, but held off as it wasn’t really the time to get into that right now. Damn Ghost. Still, he asked, “You took your meds, right? After you had that bourbon?”

You scoffed. “I didn’t even get a fair taste of it,”

“But you still thanked me for it,” he grinned and you rolled your eyes. “You took them, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you confirmed and tangled your legs with his. “What did Ghost want? When he came to the club?”

A.J. sighed again. “He wants us to help him do a job,”

“A job? He hasn’t even been out for a day yet,”

“Yeah, well, no one ever accused him of being smart,”

You laughed quietly, your hand tracing over the ink on his left arm. Underneath the faded Yak, in much more vibrant and fresher ink, was your first and middle name. It was in a cursive font, and the two names were spaced out enough that it wrapped around half of his bicep, and could be easily read to anyone who looked at him head on. “Can I ask you to promise me something?”

“You know you can, pretty girl,” he answered quietly.

“Don’t do anything too reckless, please,” you mumbled against the side of his neck. “You never do more than one job a year, let alone one right after the other. Just, please, be careful. Nothing too crazy, please.”

A.J. laughed, but not in a mocking way. He couldn’t deny the warm feeling that took over his body at your undying concern for him, despite him doing this kind of work for many years now. He was a rookie at it during the early years, but now he was more experienced, and he had you to come home to. “You worried about me, pretty girl?”

“I always am,” you reply and watch his mouth open, but you cut him off before he could even say anything, “And, yeah, I know you’ll always come back to me and I know about the risks and blah blah blah. Still doesn’t change anything.”

A.J. laughed again, rolling you onto your back and hovering over you once more. “I appreciate your concern, baby. And I love you for it,” he leaned down to press a lingering kiss to your lips, and you held back the tiny moan that threatened to escape. “And I promise I won’t do anything too reckless or crazy this time around. I’ve got you to come back to, remember?”

Once A.J. finished explaining Ghost’s plan to you, you shake your head and look up from your place on the ottoman. “I don’t like it,” you say and lift your head to meet his eyes. “I don’t like it at all. It seems like he’s making you guys do all the work while he gets the easy job.”

A.J. nods, lifting his hand in a form of gesture to his words, “Well, he was in jail, baby,” he points out. “It makes sense that he’d want to be more careful this time around.”

“Still,” you mumble. “I don’t like him getting you to do his dirty work. This was his idea, right? He came up with it? So why isn’t he more involved in it? Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to be more active in this? He knows you guys have already done your job for the year. I mean, he came up with the rule to never do more than one heist a year.”

“Yeah, well, if Ghost needs money, then he’s getting money,” he muttered. “And with the amount he says are in these trucks, I’m not opposed to going all in on this one.”

You raise a brow and fold your arms across your chest. “How much did he say is in them?”

He met your eye as he said, “Twenty million,”

Your eyes widen and you blow out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “Jesus,”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m not jumping at the idea of turning this one down,”

Nodding, you play with your ring. “I get it, really, I do,” you start, trying to figure out how to voice your concerns about the whole thing. “But why do you need that much money? You got a lot from the bank yesterday, isn’t that more than enough to get you through the year?”

“It is,” he agreed and brought the whiskey glass up to his lips. “Well over being more than enough to get us through the year.”

Your heart swelled when he corrected your mistake of not including yourself in your prior question. “Then why are you so adamant on doing this job? You know you don’t owe him anything, right? Ghost got himself into prison, not you or the other guys.”

“I know, pretty girl, and that’s not why I’m doing this,” he finished the drink and set the glass down on the mini bar you and he had in the living room of your apartment. “Think about it. Twenty million? Think about how much that will help with your medication and treatment and bills. I’ve saved up most of the cost, but with this, you could be cancer free by the end of the year.”

You winced at that, hating the fact that he was doing this for you, to make sure you get the treatment you were required to have to save your life. You were already two surgeries in, and well over a hundred thousand dollars in medical bills, but this was too much.

It was a risky job, and you had an awful feeling about all of it. “You can’t do this for me, A.J.,” you begged, staring up at him.

He just gave you a look that left no room for arguments. “I can,” he said and you felt so small under his gaze. “And I am. If it means getting you back into that hospital for what could be your final few months of treatment, then I’m doing it. No questions.”

“A.J., think about this,” you pleaded. “You don’t need to do this for me. You can’t.”

“I need you,” he grunted, running his hand through his hair. His hat had been discarded a little while ago, but his hair was still a bit messy from it. “I’m not doing this without you.”

“Doing what?” You asked desperately.

“Living,” he answered like it was the easiest question he had ever been asked during the twenty nine years of his life. “You’re sick, and the meds aren’t working. Not as much as the surgery will. This will save you, don’t you get that?”

You shook your head and looked down at the floor, unsure of what to say.

A.J. stepped towards you and crouched down, taking your hands in his. “You won’t have to be in pain anymore, and we can finally continue our lives together, debt and cancer free. Don’t you want that?”

You furrowed your brows. “Of course I want that,”

He nodded and laced your fingers together. “Then that’s it,” he stated. “I’m doing this job, and I’m getting you the money that is needed to keep you in my life.”

You wanted to fight him on this some more, but you knew his mind was made up. And it had been since the minute Ghost told him about the plan.

So, instead of fighting him, you wrap your arms around his neck and press your lips to his. He stands up with you in his arms, his lips meshing against yours in a needy kiss. “I love you,” you murmur against his mouth. “I love you so much.”

“I love you,” he said back and gently guided you towards the couch, letting his body hover over yours once you landed on the cushion with a soft thud.

Part 2

499 notes · View notes

whumperer-86 · 1 year ago

Text

Heartbeat Kdrama ep09 (heart attack)

48 notes · View notes

thechekhov · 4 months ago

Note

For your random animal survey thing, do you care at all about what animals the survey takers got? And if so is there somewhere specific we could/should send in this information? I got Pig, by the way.

I don't need to know anyone's individual results, nope! The idea was to get the reactions as survey results. That's really the important part.

Also, I know that website kinda sucks and doesn't have a lot of variation where animals are concerned.. I looked around and couldn't find anything better in terms of variety. :( there was a wikipedia portal with random animal pages but again, only 20 animals to choose from. This one at least had more than 100.

I also had no idea it would get 19k notes overnight while I was sleeping holy shit

#chekhov answers #it was supposed to be a little fun thing for a project I'm working on

60 notes · View notes

makingspiritualityreal · 6 months ago

Text

Sleeping Beauty - Why the Moon and the Feminine Debilitate in Vishakha Nakshatra

For the best understanding of my writing, I recommend that you watch the movie in question, even if you see it after having read my post I’m sure your experience will leave you enriched and with a greater sense of understanding of Vishakha Nakshatra energies.

Vishakha Nakshatra traditionally debilitates the Moon in the 4th pada of Scorpio if you use traditional Lahiri Ayanamsa. I don’t, as anyone who reads me knows about my endorsement of the Mula Galactic Center Ayanamsa, which places the entirety of Vishakha in Scorpio in our times, and I believe I can show you how this theme carries through the entirety of the Moon in this Nakshatra.

It is important to understand, that the struggle described here concerns women in particular. The reason why it’s so prominent in female charts, is that this Nakshatra's ruler is Jupiter and men are naturally more inclined to carry Jupiterian energy more gracefully, while women are fundamentally at odds with it. Men are designed to withstand pressure to protect the feminine, as it increases their Masculine polarity through giving them "a tough hide" over time. Women's Lunar energies however, react to being subjected to this energy with trauma, that they compensate heavily for to survive.

To an extent, the struggles described here can be relatable if you have any of your big 3 in Vishakha Nakshatra, but even with prominent Vishakha energy in your chart, the experience is not quite the same as having your Moon there, and your Sun there can actually become a positive placement over time. The Sun is born in Vishakha Nakshatra and this combo can turn out auspiciously due to the natural synergy of Solar energies in a female chart.

Let’s begin by describing the feminine qualities of planets - Venus and the Moon. The Moon is nurturing, adaptable, giving, caring, receptive, reciprocal. Venus is receptive but discerning, making her also a natural receiver and refiner, a strategic taker, who lays down and relaxes, while taking in only what’s best, ultimately spending oneself on what is worthy of one’s admiration. It is also a conqueror of the finest things, but it is never defensive, as it represents the sentiment of pride.

These feminine principles in theory should represent the apex of female behavior through those qualities. A woman is supposed to be proud, relaxed, discerning and freely respond to her environment. Her garden is supposed to grow and expand, nurture and be nurtured. And those qualities all fail in Vishakha Nakshatra due to its fundamental giving nature and Jupiter rulership, making it the gardener, not the object of worship.

Jupiter is giving and tolerant, Venus is taking and critical. The Moon adapts and attaches to its environment, Jupiter absorbs negativity from others to provide relief. What do we get as a result of this combo? A woman who can’t function in her basic feminine principle without a massive struggle.

Our Moon Nakshatra is what our earliest environment raised us to adapt to through our nurturing female figures. It is what we fundamentally have burned into our psyche and what we emulate as women. When your Moon as a woman is in Vishakha Nakshatra, you fundamentally have adapted to endlessly giving passes to other people as a result of your upbringing. You can see an example of that in the film, where Sleeping Beauty’s Mother calls her to get money out of her, despite her daughter struggling for basic survival financially. You can also see Sleeping Beauty working several jobs to carry that load and to fulfill everyone’s expectations of her, while they don’t treat her well and are never grateful for any of her sacrifices. Sleeping Beauty is willing to sacrifice all of her basic needs, just to satisfy a mother who drains her. As a result of such a conditioning, she grows into a pathological people pleaser, who can’t say no, even to her own detriment, and ends up putting herself in uncomfortable situations over and over, thinking that making a demand or advocating for her own well being is going to result in a punishment from her environment. We see this in the scene where she needs to rent a new apartment and ends up picking the first building on the flier, just to make things easier for the real estate agent, even though she can’t afford it and doesn’t enjoy it.

What is a Woman? A creature of delight and senses. Comfortable, open, giving, splendorous, cherished and protected. It radiates caring to others, because it feels effortlessly cared for. It expands, because it caries within so much comfort and abundance. But when the Moon is in Vishakha Nakshatra it gets none of those things. Instead, the feminine is neglected, spending itself for everyone else.

You can see that throughout the film as everyone, men and women, treats Sleeping Beauty instrumentally, to the point of subjecting her to a horrifying final experience of laying directly with death for the sake of someone else’s relief, someone avoiding responsibility for their own life and using the Vishakha woman for self gratification.

What is the tale of a Sleeping Beauty? A tale of a selective woman, patiently waiting forever if necessary, until the Prince with enough courage proves himself by rescuing her and showing initiative, and then promising to care for her for the rest of her days. Yet in the movie version, no prince is found and instead men use Sleeping Beauty to feel cared for, objectifying her and erasing her identity, which eventually leads her to snap. There is no Jupiterian Prince coming to save the Moon in Vishakha woman.

The Moon in Vishakha Nakshatra promises such a scenario in a woman’s chart, sentencing her to a very difficult fate.

There is a reason this Nakshatra is of an Out Caste. After suffering so much on the hands of so many people, Vishakha doesn’t really want to be part of them, finally embracing one’s freedom and individuality. And for that it is condemned, discarded and casted out the moment people can’t use it as their desired object. They only had any semblance of acceptance in slave roles to begin with, and that cannot be sustained, for the Moon is a Royal planet, of a "Queenly" nature according to Jyotish classics. A Royal planet will not accept a submissive role, Vishakha Nakshatra doesn’t want to offer natural, effortless splendor, so a Vishakha Moon becomes the queen of the wilderness, the queen of the outcasts and the downtrodden.

We don't see a continuation of this scenario in the movie, but if you follow Emily Browning's career she stars in roles, where a fight for her own freedom and agency leads to her own demise, as her feminine energy is oppressed for all attempts at self expression. This Nakshatra is the only one classified as Rakshasa, Demonic, among others of Jupiter rulership due to the struggles one must endure here just for the sake of their basic life. The sister Nakshatra of Punarvasu is of a Deva, Angelic nature, preoccupied with creativity and higher ideas, attracting a certain amount of divine sovereignty and protection. Purva Bhadrapada is of a Manushya, human temperament making them expert social climbers and using status and collective themes to buffer Jupiterian energies, despite that Nakshatra being such a testing point. But it is the Vishakha Nakshatra that is the rawest point of the Jupiterian soul, enduring the most negativity and hardship.

With the Moon in Vishakha, a woman's inner Queen needs to go through literal Hell to earn the right to live.

#astrology #venus #jupiter #vishakha #vedic astrology #vedic astro notes #vedic astro observations

103 notes · View notes

chaifootsteps · 6 months ago

Note

honestly even Stolas' song about how he's gonna fix things and everything is going to be better is very focused on himself

I swore I wouldn't dwell on the divorce So for my own health, I'll remind myself -> why would he think about the divorce anyway? he never loved Stella or felt bad about cheating on her, at least not anymore

I'll believe him and not the voice that says I'm not enough -> I just want someone to love me and fix my self esteem

Stolas' interlude section -> his life has been hard, brief acknowledgement that how he treated Blitzo was monstrous (which Stolas will forget by the end of the episode because his brain is apparently a sieve)

He's worthy of your love and trust -> these are the lyrics according to a transcript, so I'm choosing to read this as 'I can trust Blitzo enough to be vulnerable with him' and not 'he's worthy' as in Stolas is positioning himself like his love and trust is some great gift

on its own this isn't terrible - like it's fine for characters to have some introspection about their own feelings in a number like this. Problem is Stolas doesn't mention Blitzo's feelings at all until the last line

Will it please him or will I just be fucking it all up?

Like just a tweak would've gone so far here. Have him try to empathize with Blitzo's perspective or loneliness. Have him say more than just 'is he freely with me or no?' but have him reflect on how Blitzo must have felt if the answer is no and how he's gonna try and make it up to him. He doesn't consider giving Blitzo any space at all between ending the arrangement and springing a confession on him

The problem with Stolas in a relationship is that he's not a giver, he's a taker. In the arrangement he was concerned with making Blitzo do all the work of pleasing him and in the relationship he wants to have all he really wants is Blitzo to love and want him. He doesn't show much care for who Blitzo is as a person outside of thinking he's funny and liking how good he is in bed. He says it right there in the trailer 'I want someone to care, I want someone to want me'

And that's understandable but it's not enough to sustain a relationship. We've barely seen Stolas care about Blitzo's life at all outside him wishing Blitzo the best with the business. Meanwhile Blitzo has been very enmeshed with Stolas' life, given he's met Via more than once and helped bail Stolas out of a mess he created when she ran off

Yeah, I noticed this too, and it's all painfully true. Stolas's half of the duet contains a few token mentions of Blitzo's well-being and how Stolas will respect his choice whatever it is (that don't mean anything because he abandons them the second Blitzo rejects him) and beyond that, it's all just about Stolas's feelings, Stolas's fears, and how badly Stolas needs this to happen because he anticipates it will fix everything wrong in his life.

A character like that written in full awareness can be masterful (see Frollo, Hal from Megamind.) In Vivzie's hands, with all her sympathies resting squarely with Stolas, it's flat out dangerous.

#Anonymous #stolitz critical #stolas critical #viv stuff #actual blog post

56 notes · View notes

astrogurujimayanksblog · 8 days ago

Text

Mars in Houses: The Astrological Guide to Action and Energy

Mars, the planet of action, energy, and passion, plays a significant role in shaping our motivations, ambitions, and the ways we assert ourselves. Depending on its placement in the twelve houses of a natal chart, Mars reveals where our energy is most focused and how we handle challenges. Here, we delve into the dynamic influence of Mars in each house, offering insights into its impact on personality, relationships, career, and life choices.

Mars in the 1st House: The Dynamic Initiator

When Mars resides in the 1st house, individuals possess a bold and fearless personality. Their assertiveness and drive make them natural leaders who thrive in competitive environments. However, this placement can also make them impulsive, acting before considering consequences. Physically, they tend to have robust energy and stamina but are prone to accidents due to their recklessness. Learning patience and channeling energy into constructive outlets can enhance their life experiences.

Mars in the 2nd House: The Financial Risk-Taker

Mars in the 2nd house directs its fiery energy toward material possessions and financial matters. These individuals are often ambitious about earning and can engage in risk-taking behaviors when it comes to investments or business ventures. While their confidence can lead to significant gains, it may also result in disputes over money. Cultivating financial discipline and balancing spending habits are key to harnessing this placement’s potential.

Mars in the 3rd House: The Sharp Communicator

With Mars in the 3rd house, communication becomes a battlefield. These individuals have a quick wit and a sharp tongue, making them formidable debaters. However, their directness can sometimes come across as harsh or aggressive. This placement also fuels a desire for learning and exploration, often leading to frequent short trips. Caution is advised during travel, as impatience can result in mishaps.

Mars in the 4th House: The Domestic Commander

Mars in the 4th house brings intense energy to home and family life. These individuals often strive to take charge of their domestic environment, which can lead to power struggles with family members. While they are fiercely protective of their loved ones, their assertiveness might be perceived as domineering. Channeling this energy into creating a harmonious home environment can help mitigate conflicts.

Mars in the 5th House: The Passionate Creator

Creativity and romance are ignited when Mars occupies the 5th house. These individuals are enthusiastic about their pursuits, whether in love, hobbies, or creative endeavors. Their competitive streak may drive them to excel in sports or other recreational activities. However, their penchant for taking risks, whether in love or gambling, requires moderation to avoid potential pitfalls.

Mars in the 6th House: The Tireless Worker

Mars in the 6th house signifies a strong work ethic and a desire for productivity. These individuals are highly motivated employees or leaders who thrive on challenges in the workplace. However, conflicts with colleagues or health issues stemming from overwork and stress can be concerns. Incorporating regular relaxation and self-care routines is essential for long-term well-being.

Mars in the 7th House: The Energetic Partner

Partnerships, both personal and professional, are energized by Mars in the 7th house. These individuals are drawn to dynamic and assertive partners, often finding themselves in relationships filled with passion and occasional conflicts. While their competitive nature adds excitement to their unions, it can also lead to frequent disagreements. Finding balance and mutual respect is crucial for harmonious partnerships.

Mars in the 8th House: The Fearless Transformer

Mars in the 8th house imbues individuals with intense and transformative energy. They are drawn to exploring deep and complex areas of life, such as psychology, spirituality, or taboo subjects. This placement often brings a strong survival instinct, helping them navigate challenges. However, disputes over shared resources or inheritances may arise. Developing trust and open communication can help resolve conflicts.

Mars in the 9th House: The Adventurous Scholar

A love for adventure and learning characterizes Mars in the 9th house. These individuals are driven by a thirst for knowledge and often challenge conventional beliefs. Travel, both physical and intellectual, plays a significant role in their lives. While their enthusiasm is infectious, it’s important to temper impulsiveness, especially during travel or legal matters.

Mars in the 10th House: The Ambitious Leader

Mars in the 10th house highlights ambition and a strong desire for professional success. These individuals are natural leaders who thrive in competitive careers, such as business, engineering, or sports. However, conflicts with authority figures or overestimating their capabilities can hinder progress. Maintaining humility and building strong professional relationships are key to long-term success.

Mars in the 11th House: The Dynamic Networker

Friendships and social networks are energized by Mars in the 11th house. These individuals are highly motivated to connect with others and often take leadership roles in groups or organizations. However, their assertive and sometimes argumentative nature can lead to conflicts with friends. Choosing supportive and like-minded companions is essential for positive social experiences.

Mars in the 12th House: The Subtle Strategist

Mars in the 12th house operates behind the scenes, making these individuals introspective and strategic in their actions. They are often drawn to spiritual or humanitarian pursuits, channeling their energy into helping others. However, secrecy or suppressed anger can lead to inner turmoil. Regular introspection and open communication are essential for emotional balance.

Mars’s placement in the houses provides profound insights into how we assert ourselves, face challenges, and pursue our passions. By understanding and working with these energies, we can unlock our full potential and navigate life’s complexities with greater ease.

#zodic signs #astrogurujimayank #astrology #astrology blog #horoscopes #zodiac #12th house #astro tumblr #jyotish #sidereal astrology

45 notes · View notes