#did i mention i got to hold a black widow on my trip??????

[creative-caramel-coffee]

The Bear || Chapter 1

Pairings: Wanda x R || avengers (platonic) x R

Word count: 3.3K

TW: alcohol, underaged drinking (mentioned)

Summary: You join your uncle tony in the avengers, it wasn’t your original plan but you never planned for your powers either so here you are. Now your at the avengers tower and falling for the girl of your dreams. With a haunting past and interesting abilities can you navigate your way through the challenges of being a hero? After a mission gone wrong and a cruel twist of fate the team starts digging for answers. Can tony keep them from finding out the truth?

A/n Whats this a series??? Insane right??? Also this is my longest posted fic yet :)

PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4 || PART 5 || PART 6 || PART 7

“Uncle Tony do we have to do this? I mean I’m not even that special.” You grumbled from the backseat.

“Yeah sure L/n because everyone can shapeshift and teleport”

“Yeah but that doesn’t mean I can fight.” You shot back

“You can turn into a literal bear if you want of we both know you can fight. With the right training.” He rolled his eyes.

“Are you sure. I mean I can take myself back right now.”

“No we’re five minutes away now just sit tight and look out the window or something.”

“Whatever” you grumbled pulling out your phone and mindlessly scrolling through instagram. After what felt more like five seconds happy pulled up and stopped the car opening the door for tony as you opened your own door and got out muttering something about being too rich for door handles. You stretched and popped your back making tony wince at the sound he hated.

“Let’s go glow stick enough trying to light up by breaking your back. I’ll take you to your room before I have you meet the team.” You dragged your feet as you followed him into the foyer of the avengers tower and watched as he pressed the button for the right floor.

“You Wanda and Natasha will be sharing a floor.”

“That’s the black widow and scarlet witch right?” You asked not being one to follow the news much.

“Yep. The redheads.” He winked knowing you were gay. You hid a blush and shoved him.

“Shut up uncle tones” you grinned. The lift pinged and tony began walking you down the hall. “This rooms Natasha this one’s Wanda’s” he said gesturing loosely at the closed doors. “And this one’s yours. I trust you can-“

“Get my own bags? sure pops.” You winked and with a small pop you vanished. Tony groaned hating when you did that.

He slumped slightly in the hall. “Jarvis please keep me updated on her position in the tower and alert me if she goes anywhere near the lab.” He grumbled. Nat’s door opened and she poked her head out frowning at tony.

“Tony what are you doing? Who are you talking to?”

“I was- never-mind I’ll explain at the meeting.” He said waving a hand and going back to the lift. Nat shrugged retreating back into her room.

With a pop you arrived back at the car and opened the boot pulling out your backpack and two suitcases before holding them all and teleporting you and your things back to your new room.

With a sigh you began unpacking knowing no matter how much you may avoid to you had to go back across the country to get the rest of your things. You stood, taking a deep breath and preparing for the long jump before disappearing with a pop.

Your head spun as you reappeared in your bedroom back home, hundred of miles away from the tower. You stumbled grabbing your box of art supplies you didn’t want to risk damaging on the long car trip. Sucking in another deep breath you teleported back. The dizziness was much worse now. Two big jumps without rest in close succession wasn’t good for you. Before you could fall over you set down the box on the floor and passed out onto the bed with a loud crash.

A few moments later Natasha entered the room looking at your unconscious form and bags around the room and frowning.

“What the hell” she muttered “Jarvis?”

“Yes Ms Romanoff.”

“Who is this?”

” Ms Y/n l/n is the niece of Tony stark.”

“Alright and what is she doing here?”

“Ms l/n’s uses to the avengers will be great thanks to her-“

“alright Jarvis that’s enough” tony said walking in the door after receiving an alert that his niece had passed out.

“Yes yes she’s my niece.”

“Tony she can’t-“

“Can’t be here. Sure she can, she’s here isn’t she? Pass me that backpack Romanoff”

He said gesturing to your small backpack by the desk. Natasha frowned and picked it up shoving it into Tony’s chest.

“Less attitude Romanoff” he grumbled.

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “What did Jarvis mean she has great value to the avengers?”

“Ask her yourself” he said pulling a small vile and a pack of gum from the front pocket. He broke the vial open and waved it under your nose. Your eyes screwed shut.

“Tony what the hell is going on?” Nat asked

You screwed up your face. “Tony” you whined “why couldn’t you let me sleep it off like normal” you whined eyes still shut.

“Sleep what off tony? what’s going on?” nat asked again.

Tony pulled a strip of gum from the pack and unwrapped it shoving it in your mouth.

“Chew. And I woke you up because you can’t meet the team if you’re unconscious idiot” he grumbled.

“Whatever. And those are for emergencies only.”

“Whatever i live with you now I’ll just make you more. Or make Bruce make you more.” He grumbled.

You cracked an eye open finally noticing nat who was stood watching unamused.

“Oh hi.” You said

“Hi?” Nat said sounding unsure.

“I’ll leave you two to it then.” Tony said winking at you and leaving before you could protest.

“Let’s try that again shall we?” You said standing up and brushing invisible dust from your clothes and extending a hand. “Pleasure to meet you, I’m Y/n, Y/n L/n” you said. Nat took your hand raising an eyebrow at your last name being different to Stark’s.

“Natasha but you can call me Nat.” She said her grip was firm and you could feel the callus’s of long days spent training on her palms.

“Well not the best first impression.” You chuckled putting the vile and pack of gum back into your backpack.

“What is that stuff?” Nat said raising a brow.

“Oh uncle tony makes it. Its energy gum a special type he made for me so i can recharge the battery after long jumps.” You said and Nat had about a thousand more questions.

“Long jumps?” She asked.

“Oh he didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“This.” You said disappearing with a pop and appearing behind her tapping her shoulder. Nat spun around.

“Super speed?” She asked.

“Nope.” You said popping the p. “Teleportation. And..” nat blinked and suddenly a bunny was sat by her feet.

“Shapeshifitng?” She said sounding impressed. With a pop you stood before her again.

“Yep” you smiled.

“Alright ill admit that’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah. Well I’m sure you have important things to do before the meeting this afternoon. Tony wants to introduce me to the team and i need to unpack.” You said wiping your hands on your paint stained jeans one of your nervous habits.

“Yeah. Well I’ll see you around L/n” she smiled and patted your shoulder before leaving and closing the door softly.

The day went quickly as you unpacked. The meeting was smooth with the team impressed and curious about your powers. You must have answered a hundred questions before tony stepped in. You shifted to about six different animals and teleported to get them all ice-cream from downtown as proof and just like that they all loved you. Apparently ice cream was a weak point for the group of earths mightiest hero’s. After the meeting was over you couldn’t help the fact your eyes lingered after the goddess you had come to know as Wanda. She was just so perfect. Her hips swished slightly as she walked away and you had to stop yourself from drooling. A crush was forming just like that. But you knew you had to pace yourself. You had plenty of people end things with you for being “too much” and you didn’t want another heartbreak.

As you walked back to your room you smiled to yourself. You grabbed your backpack and sketchbook and walked down to the grounds. Picking a tree and sitting under it. You opened your back and buried your nose in your sketchbook. So for the next few hours you sat trying to capture every last detail your brain could remember about Wanda’s face. After a few hours you had a beautiful drawing of the redhead and you smiled shutting. Putting on the finishing details you were so wrapped up in it you didn’t hear the footsteps approach until the person spoke to you.

“I was wondering where you had run off to.” Nat said sitting beside you. You quickly slammed the book shut but not before nat saw the picture. She grinned and raised a brow.

“Your an amazing artist.” She said and you flushed.

“Please don’t tell anyone.” You said.

“What that your a good artist?” She said grinning coyly

“No. About the drawing. You weren’t suppose to see that.” You said still bright red you slipped the sketchbook back into your backpack.

“My lips are sealed.” She said. “But before i say anything else. She single.” Nat winked before getting up and turning to leave.

“Nat?” You said and she turned around again.

“Yes?”

“Did you come to tell me something or just tease me?”

“Oh lunch is ready Wanda made a bit of a fancy meal for your arrival. Something tells me she likes you.” Nat winked and started to walk off. You hid your face in your hands. Grabbing your backpack before teleporting back to your room and dropping your bag on the bed before teleporting to the hall by the kitchen and strolling in.

“Something smells good.” You said and Wanda looked up and smiled.

“I just sent nat to get you.” She smiled. And you grinned as Nat walked in.

“Looks who’s here.” Wanda said pointing the spatula at you and smiling. Nat frowned at your cheeky grin.

“Must be a sixth sense” you said and winked at nat.

“Or you just teleported.” Tony said walking in and Wanda burst out laughing.

“Your no fun tones.” You fake glared at him.

“Bite me bear.” He said. Using your playful nickname for you. He loved bears and you often turned into one for him when he was drunk and sad so it became a name for you. Of course nobody would ever know that the great tony stark was cheered up by riding a big fluffy brown bear around his backyard in his late twenties. He couldn’t count the number of times he fell asleep running his hands through the fur of a sleeping bear cub in his lap. You brought him a comfort only family did. One he had failed to receive for years after his parent, your grandparents died. One you had also lost when your mother and father died also.

Wandas calls for lunch broke you from your thoughts as the boys all tumbled into the kitchen. You were introduce to the two girls you hadn’t seen before. Just getting back from their mission you learnt the blonde was Yelena, Natasha’s sister and Kate was Clint’s protege. You sat down feeling that maybe your family had grown a bit bigger. And maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Just a reminder your party is tonight to welcome you to the avengers.” Tony said slapping your back as he walked past to get his morning coffee.

“I heard the great tony Stark’s parties aren’t the same as they used to be. Hope I’m not disappointed.” You grinned taking another swig of your coffee.

Tony grumbled something about being domestic and you chuckled before going to your room to get ready for training.

It was about five when you finally decided on an outfit. The party starts at 7 so you had plenty of time. You had decided on a small sleek black dress that hugged all the right places. Sure you would have preferred a suit but you didn’t feel much like making a stir at your first party. After laying out the outfit you yawned not used to being awake so early in the mornings. Deciding you could take a quick nap you curled up and shut your eyes.

Incessant knocking woke you up with a start.

“Y/N the party started twenty minutes ago get your butt downstairs. Come on your making me look bad” Tony yelled with an almost whine in his voice and you jumped up. Fixing your hair into a fancy up-do and throwing on the dress and some makeup.

As you stepped into the room you realised it was one of Tony’s more calm parties. The avengers were sat around a table drinking and you grabbed yourself a martini before going to sit beside Natasha.

“Your going soft tones.” You grinned and he shot you a glare.

“Am not.”

“Its alright i kinda like domestic you.” You took a long swig from your drink feeling the alcohol go straight to your head.

“So y/n why do you call tony tones?” Wanda asked and you grinned lopsidedly as tony groaned knowing what was to come.

“Well witchy.” You grinned as you watched Wanda fight down a blush. “When my parents so kindly died.” Maybe the alcohol was doing a bit more than you thought. You missed the look of shock on the avengers faces as you continued. “Mr stark here.” You gestured loosely to him “adopted me. I was about sixteen and tones being the fun uncle let me go to his parties. When i was seventeen we were all hanging out, me and Tony’s street scum friends were drinking.”

“You let her drink at 17!!” Nat yelled and you shrugged.

“No point being rich if you don’t break a few laws I guess.” You grinned as tony covered his face with his fingers. “Tonys parties were a lot more wild back then and we had a little family legend me and the street scum.” You said affectionately. “They were my family. Anyways the legend was that if you got tony drunk enough his tone deafness goes away and his awful catawalling turns into the most angelic singing ever. So one night we tested it out and secured some strong liquor. I wont say if it was true or not but tony woke up in Mississippi with a hangover and no clothes.” You grinned and the avengers all started laughing.

“And where did you wake up y/n?” Nat said narrowing her eyes jokingly.

you blushed “w-well thats not important.” Tony seeing his chance to get back at you took it with a grin. “She woke up in Massachusetts with a hangover and a piercing.” You groaned.

“Where?” Wanda asked her curiosity peaking.

“Right here.” You said tapping the helix piercing you always loved but never had the confidence to get without the help of alcohol. “And before tony can convince you otherwise i alway wanted one so its not like i woke up with a piercing elsewhere.” You said pointing tony a sharp look. Tony choked on his drink. “Alright” tony said clapping his hands “change of subject.” And you burst out laughing knowing his piercing was rather … intimate.

“Oh i have plenty more stories of party animal tones over there.” You said tilting your drink in his direction “but I’m not nearly drunk enough yet for that.” You grinned taking a long sip.

“And you wont be tonight.” Nat said taking your drink from you carefully and setting it on the table “this isn’t that kind of party.” She smiled seeing you frown.

“Boring.” You yawned and slumped down the couch.

“So how did you get your powers if you don’t mind me asking?” Clint said eyeing your reaction closely.

“Oh you know, the usual.” You waved your hand dismissively dodging the question and changing topics. Nat and Clint exchanged looks not missing the way your shoulders hand tensed at the topic. Tony shot Clint a dark look telling him to drop it.

The night went well as you and the avengers chatted and shared stories. Nat was careful not to let you drink too much to keep you from embarrassing yourself on your first night. Taking it off you ever twenty minutes for a break. You let her for the most part. After about three hours the team was getting tired and you were mildly drunk despite Nat’s best efforts.

“Come on hot stuff i think its time i take you to bed.” Nat said playfully and your eyes widened. “Not like that.” She scoffed slapping your arm lightly.

“Goodnight everyone I’m taking this one to bed now.” Nat said jabbing a thumb at you and helping you to your feet as you swayed. Nat grumbled not ready for you to get a head injury walking back to your room she scooped you up with little effort. You squeaked slightly and threw you arms around her neck as she carried you bridal style into the elevator. Nat helped you back to your room handing you some of you pyjamas she found in a drawer she smiled at the matching snoopy pj shirt and fluffy pants. Handing them to you she turned her back as you changed. After the shuffling stopped she asked if you were done turning to find your shirt on backwards and a dopy grin on your face. Nat sighed. Turning your T-shirt around by guiding your arms back inside before helping you into bed. You looked adorable in your pjs and she helped take out your hair pins and used a wipe to clean off your makeup. After you were ready she placed a motherly kiss on your forehead and tucked you in. She sat with you until your soft snores filled the room and before she slipped out she put a bottle of pain meds and a glass of water on your bedside. She padded quietly down the hall to her room and slipped out of her fancy clothes changing quickly before getting into her own bed.

You were a puzzle, one she was determined to figure out. When she had heard you had lost your parents she felt almost a primal protection spark in her heart for you. It was almost maternal in nature as despite being almost 22 nat wanted nothing more than to mother you like a child. And it scared her. Yet she couldn’t seem to resist the urge to care for you. She thought you were sweet and she wanted to protect you.

Wanda however had different feelings. Since she had first laid eyes on you she was wrapped around your finger. You were perfect in her eyes. And the night of the party she was awake until the early hours thinking of every moment in great depth all over from the way the dress held you tight in all the right places to the way your grin became lopsided when you drank. All down to how nat had left with you in her arms and a feeling of jealousy sparked in her heart. She knew she had nothing to worry about. Nat was like a mother to all the younger avengers. Peter, Yelena and Kate were basically babied by her all the time. And she saw the love in her eyes for you the moment she met you. She knew you held a special place in Nat’s heart already but she couldn’t help but feel it should have been her who helped you to bed and cared for you. But she didn’t want to scare you away. She couldn’t live with herself if she blew her chance before it really even began.

MASTERLIST

[fantabulisticity]

The downside of my insect collecting hobby is that my room currently smells like dead bugs and isopropyl alcohol 😂

The upside? Look at this shit:

HOW COOL IS THAT????????

[cheelseaaaa]

Moment of Birth

Pairings: Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Summary: Being preggy is happy and all until the water breaks. Fortunately, the Black widow is here to save the day

Warnings: some swearing, grumpy reader, mention of sex

Word count: 717

A/N: I can’t still get over my little Romanoff family from my Christmas tales, English is not my first language.

Masterlist

⊱ ──────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ──────── ⊰

We all know that being pregnant is hard. And yet, you didn't know why you said yes when your wife asked you multiple times if you can carry the baby or if you can handle it. You just said yes.

Maybe it's because of the new experience of having a little human forming inside your belly. All you could think of that time is that you are going to carry your child. But you didn't think of the consequences.

The first months of pregnancy were stressful. A lot of things changed. Morning spent inside the bathroom because of your morning sickness, your cravings became bizarre and rare, your sense of smell became sensitive, hell you even threw all of Natasha's perfume and shampoo just because you found it unappealing to your nose.

And who would have thought that it's even harder on labour. “Natasha" you called out. You are supposed to prepare snacks for Natasha since she got back from a mission, but you felt a sting of pain in your belly.

“Natasha!” you called out louder, this time you heard Natasha hum. She's busy doing her mission reports.

You have had enough, your tummy is aching and your wife is not giving a damn thing about you, “NATASHA FUCKING ROMANOFF!” Natasha scrams off her seat at your sudden outburst, she even tosses the laptop on the couch just to get to you, knowing that you are one of a hella pregnant woman.

She found you holding on to the countertop breathing heavily, “Yes love?” she asked. She had an idea that this is just another craving. Since it has been always like that.

“I think my water just broke,” you said shaking. Natasha has been caught off guard not knowing what to do, does she need to carry you out? Or call an ambulance? Due to panic and excitement, she zones out. Making you mad. “The baby's coming out! Do somethin’!”

“What am I supposed to do?” She can't think straight, her heart is beating fast with the adrenaline rush. “Kiss the freakin’ floor!”

“Uh? You sure?” she asked wanting to confirm what you have just said.

“Of course, not! Bring me to the hospital because I need to let him out!” you said quickly making Natasha walk faster to you, she carries you until you reach the car.

Throughout the trip, you did nothing but shout at your wife about how painful you feel right now and how she won't be getting any sex forever. (Which we know that that is not true, let's be honest.)

———

“Miss, we need you to push.” The midwife said before returning her gaze to the baby that is coming out of your belly.

“We're not doing this ever again, Natalia!” you threaten, she's not scared. Not even an ounce, because she knows that you can't resist her.

“It's boy, Miss Romanoff.” the midwife said smiling, she handed you your child before stepping aside to give you a moment.

“He's pretty, just like you.” she cooed before touching the baby's hand. The baby's not crying, he is peacefully staring at you. You smiled at him before looking at your wife with a glare.

“We will never do this again. You will never get a chance to touch me again,” you said dead serious, she chuckles not taking your words seriously.

She knows how you want her; she knows. She knows how you crave for her; she knows.

Years after, you have three kids, Nathaniel and Naomi, the other one is inside your belly. She's right, you can't resist. You told her that you won't stop 'til you got a baby girl and on your second IVF, Naomi came. Now that you are in your third baby, a proof that you are not serious about what you've said when you gave birth to Nate.

“Ah, do you remember when you told me that we won't be having a second baby? But look at us now, we're having our third!” Natasha said while holding a cup of tea. You both are sitting on the porch, watching your kids play with Yelena and Fanny.

You look at her with a glare, “Shut up. We are not going to do this. Ever again.” you said sternly, Natasha only chuckle.

“Whatever you say, Mrs. Romanoff.”

⊱ ──────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ──────── ⊰

A/N: Should I start doing request or nah? Should I also make taglist? Feedback is very much appreciated. I am posting every Monday and Thursday

[christinebloodwrittings]

Please

Loki x FemReader

Warnings: Mentions of injuries and blood.

Y/n returned from a mission, closely being followed by a very worked up Captain America and Black Widow.

Y/n was beyond exhausted, bruises forming on her skin quickly, one of the enemy's shot rose her leg, so she was visibly limping and grunting in pain as she walked outside the elevator and into the compound's living room.

"You guys look like you had fun" Clint joked, getting groans and scoffs in return, only widow was grateful for his dull humor, seeing her friend made her feel better somehow, of course that didn't exactly made her physical condition any better.

All that Y/n wanted was to lay down and surrender to slumber and hope that the hurting would go away with a pill and the so craved rest.

But one certain god had other plans.

"Oh, already falling for me, mortal?" he snickered when he tripped her on purpose, just to catch her before hitting the ground.

Loki liked the game they had, when they pretended to be enemies and always be at each other's throats. The two actually got along pretty well, managing to establish a decent friendship, but Loki wanted more.

Y/n wasn't far behind, she wanted the god, perhaps as much as he wanted her, but he had chosen the worst moment to annoy her, since not only had she returned injured, but the base in which they infiltrated ended up destroyed, and she couldn't stop feeling like it was her fault.

"Come on Loki, not today" she tried to stand up straight, but he was certainly stronger, and giving that she was squirming under his touch, as usual, he continued on his game by pinning her to the nearest wall.

"Why not, pet? You know you love it" his velvet-like voice and the little purr his throat made sent shivers down her spine, must've been either that or her efforts to keep a cry of pain, since Loki had his hands right over her most recent bruises.

"Loki, not today" she said in a more stern tone, but he didn't cared, he spun her around, puling her back flush against his chest, her face slamming against the cold wall.

"You forget who I am, pet, do not test my patience, or I will not be nice with your punishment" he had always called her "pet" referring to it as a nickname, but that time it came out as a degradation.

She had enough, she was not having one more second of it. With her head she hit his chin, and when he was distracted she kicked him in the stomach, causing him to fall on his butt, his back against the opposite wall.

"I said, not today" she put everything in hiding the fact that she hit him with her injured leg, and the shiver that creeped on her spine when she felt the blood dripping down her thigh.

He looked up to her in shock, holding his stomach with one hand and his chin with the other. He had never seen her so mad before, he realized she was being serious, and as he watched her walk away, he felt his insides squirm, it was a mix between anger, confusion, pain, and concern.

But his pride got the best of him, and despite of how much he wanted to apologize, he only stood up and walked back to his room.

She, as much as it hurt, did not want to make the trip to the medical wing again, so she locked herself in her room instead and tried to heal her wounds on her own, failing miserably.

A feeling of nostalgia made her think of him. In the warmth she felt when he touched her, for whatever reason really. She liked having him close to her, and in that moment she needed him more than ever.

With tears streaming down her eyes, given the pain she felt when walking, the frustration at not knowing how to bandage her own wounds, and how much she needed a hug from the man she loved, she walked with difficulty to the second floor and taking a lot of courage she knocked at his door.

(Like for part 2)

[lazypeachsoul]

I wouldn't want to spend a minute lovin' anybody else.

Warnings: this fic has some sad moments and mentions of the blip. also kind of AU because I'm completely ignoring Natasha's canon end.

Word count: 4,2k (i got very carried away with this fic)

Summary: · Meeting the right person at the wrong time can be life changing when it doesn’t work out the way we desire. But if it's meant to be it will always happen, right?

A/N: This is my fic for the "Women of Marvel xReader Exchange" created by @marvelxreaderfanfictionfest . It was created for @im-holding-ontoyou and I hope you like it! gif by @natasharomanovgifs 🌼 ALSO; i haven't watched Black Widow yet so I'm sorry if something in this fic doesn't fit the new info we got about natasha.

Masterlist.

To be added to my taglist use this forms or write me an ask!

New York, 2015.

When you received the call from one of your bosses that you had a new case you would have never imagined how big that case would turn out to be.

You had been working for one of the most important law firms in New York for a year now, and you were getting kind of used to reading cases that would be narrated in the papers for months. Rich and entitled men, big divorces were they fight over who gets the yacht, one or two murder cases... if it revolved around the powerful people of New York city, your firm would get it.

When you got to the debriefing and were told that Tony Stark, one of the firm's most important clients, asked your team for assistance in the creation of some legislation with the newly created “Advanced Threat Containment Unit” you were more than surprised.

The events that the Avengers had caused (or saved us from, there were different opinions going around) in the small country of Sokovia were known all around the and it was only time before the most powerful officials asked for the regulation of ‘superhero activity’.

You weren’t important enough to actually attend the meetings that took place with the government, seeing as you had only passed your bar exam a little over a year prior, but you were deemed cheerful and nice enough to act as a nexus between the firm and the client.

For months you spent your days talking to Tony Stark and other members of The Avengers trying to explain what was being talked about. The first few meetings were a disaster, seeing as the mood was somber for the lives lost and nobody really understood your legal jargon. But slowly you started to transform your language and really tried to make the meetings as easy as possible for everyone present.

But who were you kidding, they really didn’t care about the meetings or the silly attorney being sent to explain something that was way above their paycheck. Well, at least Stark was gracious enough to set a coffee station with some pastries for the meeting. You were pouring the hot liquid into your to-go cup when your hand jerked and the hot liquid splashed your hand.

You could feel the sting of the burn but avoided further sudden movements trying not to make it worse. Before you could reach for a napkin to clean up the mess you made, a more dexterous and manicured hand reached for them and exchanged the hot cup in your hand for the bunch of papers.

“Careful, Stark always serves boiling coffee. I think it’s to mask that it’s not the best quality.”

You lifted your gaze from your hand and found a pair of deep green eyes gazing back. You would have thought that spending numerous meetings in the company of superheroes would make you less susceptible to their powerful auras, but being this close to Natasha Romanoff made your heart beat a bit faster.

“Yeah, I found out the hard way.” You joked, lifting your hand a bit. “You would guess one of the richest people in the world would actually serve good coffee...”

Seeing her crack a smile made you feel less tense. Sometimes you forget they are still normal people. Normal people who could kill you with their bare hands and had superhuman powers. She placed your cup on the food table, apparently not bothered by how hot it must have been, and pushed her hand in your direction.

“I’m Natasha Romanoff.” You wrapped your hand around hers and shook it, biting your tongue trying not to tell her of course you knew her name. “Sorry I didn’t introduce myself in earlier meetings, we were all trying to come to terms with what had happened.”

“No worries, I can only imagine how hard it must have been for all of you.” You nodded and tried to show her sympathy, trying to avoid thinking about all the lives affected by the fight. “Oh sorry, I’m-”

Natasha quickly cut you off, speaking your name before you could even say it. You could feel your cheeks get warmer at the idea that they actually knew who you were, and she probably could sense your mood change because she quickly explained.

“I know who you are, you send us at least two emails a week about these meetings and FRIDAY always announces you before you arrive.”

“Who announces me?” You asked curiously at the mention of a name you recognized.

“FRIDAY. It’s the name of Stark’s AI technology. It works all around the tower and it’s there to make life easier for everyone.” She explained pointing around at the speakers strategically placed around the room.

“Oh, I get emails from Friday sometimes. Most of them are asking me to translate or explain something about the debriefing because Mr.Stark is not interested in legal terms.” Both you and Natasha laughed at the thought.

But she quickly recomposed and tried to look serious again when she heard her teammates coming in to get ready for the meeting.

“I wanted to ask you about that. Do you think we could schedule a meeting so that you could explain some things about the legislation of the A.T.C.U.?” She spoke lower than she had when the two of you were alone and you wondered why she didn’t want her colleagues to know about the meeting.

“Ye-Yeah, of course I can.” You were confused but thought it would be in your best interest, and the firm’s, to say yes to the proposal. And a meeting with a very attractive and definitely interesting woman was not something that happened constantly for you.

“Great, thank you.” She smiled warmly and squeezed your hand that you hadn’t even realized was still wrapped around hers from the introduction. “I can promise you better coffee.”

You could only hum in response, still trying to piece together what she might want from the meeting. But your thoughts were quickly cut off when Stark entered the room and you moved to start the reunion.

During the entire meeting you could feel the dull pain in your hand from the scorching coffee and the feeling of a pair of green eyes watching your every move.

Vienna, 2016.

The situation had only gone downhill from the Battle of Sokovia. The public’s opinion on the Avengers was at an all-time-low and that made terrorist groups bold. They knew that if they struck and caused enough chaos, the blame would fall on the good guys that tried to stop them.

The only thing that seemed to be a stable thing in your life was Natasha. Well, as stable as dating a superhero might be. She was busy a lot, but you understood the importance of her job and you were quite busy too gaining importance within the law firm.

And even if sometimes terrorists and criminals got in the way you still found a moment to spend together, wrapped around each other without having to think about how messed up life was.

You thought Lagos was the blow that would make everything tumble, the Sokovia accords were unveiled and it broke the Avengers, and your girlfriend. You could feel how torn she was at her decision of some of her friends to oppose the signing and go on the run, and her own decision to subordinate to the United Nations mandate. But you realized how small that had been when king T’Chaka was killed at the UN.

You had been at the UN as part of the USA legal team that participated in the writing and monitoring of the accords. Your participation in the negotiations almost broke your relationship but you were able to recover once you explained your position and Natasha actually came to an understanding of it.

Natasha was also in Vienna when everything went down, you hadn’t managed to properly see her because she was one of the signers and they sat at the assembly while other guests sat at the amphitheater watching the retransmission.

You hadn’t been able to properly see her all day, seeing as she took a detour before flying to Austria. You were only able to communicate through texts where you tried to make the situation more comfortable for her and she promised a peaceful european trip to celebrate the signing.

When the bomb went off and all hell broke loose the first thing you tried to do was look for her, she was at the epicenter of the explosion and you just wanted to see if she was okay. You saw her from afar when you were being pushed to the outside of the building while they swiped the perimeter.

She sat with T’Challa before he jumped from the bench and stomped away. Natasha looked around and your gazes crossed, immediately melting away some of the worry. You tried to push your way through the crowd to get to her, but police and security didn’t budge.

You never took your eyes off of her, scared that if you did she would disappear. But she did move her gaze to her phone and the look that crossed her face when she heard the voice at the other side told you it was a very important call.

Once the call was over and she looked at you again you knew that would probably be the last time you would see her in some time. You hadn’t known Natasha as long as some of her colleagues had, but you could proudly say you could understand what she wanted to say with just a look. And the look on her face in that moment read close to a goodbye.

New York, 2018.

It had been two years since the fall of Helmut Zemo and part of the Avengers was still on the run. And it maybe wouldn’t have had that big of an impact on you if it wasn’t because Natasha had also been on the run for that long.

You had heard about what happened at the Leipzig airport and how Natasha had changed alliances to join Captain America’s fight. You had been heartbroken at the news knowing that any resemblance of normality that you still hope for was destroyed.

You had spent months wondering what had made her change her mind. Had she thought about your conversations about the accords? Had she even remembered you, waiting for her back in New York, when she decided to go on the run?

A part of you tried to convince you of how selfish thinking about that was, why would she think about you when the future of her team and friends was at stake? But also you were her girlfriend, she should have thought about the implications that might have had for you.

In those years you had mourned your relationship and after the grieving period you tried to rebuild your life. New friends, a new position and new chances to take. And it went okay...at least until someone opened their mouth to talk about superheroes or The Avengers. Years down the line and it was still on people’s minds.

On special occasions you would receive anonymous gifts at your office or your apartment. The first birthday after the war you sobbed for fifteen minutes when you saw the bunch of flowers. There was no name or indicative of who might have sent them, that was until you looked better at the card and saw the small red hourglass painted in the corner.

The gifts continued. Every case you won, promotion, birthday or holiday a bunch of flowers would be delivered to you with the same note.

In a way it gave you a sense of peace knowing she was okay and still thought of you. But the more you thought about it the angrier you got at how she had left you.

You didn’t expect a message from your boss to run to the Avengers compound and assess some situation between Coronel Rhodes and Thaddeus Ross. Although the team had crumbled, your company was still hired to legally represent the remaining members and moderate situations that might arise with the government.

You entered the compound expecting another bureaucratic complaint about their activity but you found a trickier situation. The meeting room was filled with people you thought you would never see again.

Captain Rogers was sitting on one of the chairs sporting a new look that made you almost not recognize him and a tense demeanor. Next to him was Sam Wilson, looking around at the smallest of movements and trying to assess the situation. Wanda Maximoff was standing on the furthest corner of the room playing with her rings, meanwhile Vision was apparently being checked out for a wound. What kind of wounds a synthezoid could get was beyond your understanding.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, I might have angered Secretary Ross during a meeting.” Rhodey came up to you with a nervous smile.

You had gotten closer to him thanks to your job seeing as he was the one doing the dirty superhero work.

“Yeah, I got that much from the text. Nothing new then.” You tried to joke to diffuse the tension in the room. “It would have been nice to know you had guests though.”

“We are not guests. Last time I checked this was our home too.”

That voice made your blood freeze. You should have expected her there, all her friends had returned and the chance of her being back too was almost 100%. But hearing her voice again after two years was not something you expected.

You bit your tongue before you could talk about how it’s not a home if you abandon it, but decided against it. This was a fight between them, not Natasha and you.

“I need you to work with the government to avoid this situation becoming a disaster.” Rhodey explained and you scoffed.

“Rhodey, I’m a lawyer not a politician. I have as much power in this as you might have.” You tried to lay your point across but it was difficult with all eyes on the interaction. “Hell, I have even less power than you do.”

“Then I need you to distract them enough to get them off our shoulders.” He pressed. “Something big is coming and we need all the strength we can get.”

You thought about it for a moment. If it was true that something big was coming, the Avengers were the best option to fight it.

“I’m in.” You scoffed at his smile and sat down in one of the chairs of the meeting room. “I’m not ready for the world to end yet.”

The meeting went on for a while. You called bosses, government officials and everyone that would listen to your distractions. You sent emails that would flood their inboxes for days so that they couldn’t read any news that might reach them about what the superheroes had in mind.

It was late at night when a cup of steaming liquid was placed next to you. You looked at it and saw that it was some kind of herbal tea, probably made to relax the drinker. You followed the hand that was still holding the mug until you reached Natasha’s face.

You had done your best to ignore her looming presence in the room but now there was no distraction. Looking at her you could see tiredness in her face. She was platinum blonde now, a look that weirdly suited her, but her face still looked as welcoming to you as it always did.

You tried to stop the flashbacks to the last time you saw it in person in Vienna, but they kept replaying in your head until her voice broke you out of the loop.

“I thought you might need it, I remember how nervous calls used to make you.”

She was smiling but you could tell it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Yeah, I guess I got over it since I got my promotion. Now I spend a long portion of my day making calls.”

She hummed and sat down next two you, but leaving a chair in between you as a safe space.

“I read about it in an article, I sent you flowers to celebrate.”

“I got them. And the Christmas ones. On my birthday too.” You enumerated the times you had gotten the plants in the past two years. “You must have spent an awful amount of money buying me so many flowers.”

“You deserved it, you still do.” She shrugged and that’s when you noticed she had her own mug of warm tea in her other hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to celebrate with you.”

You laughed into your mug sarcastically. Out of everything you expected her to say this wasn’t one of them.

“Did you really? Because you didn’t seem to consider me much when you went on the run for two years.”

Natasha paled when she heard your tone. She probably wasn’t used to situations like these but you weren’t going to let her go without an apology at least.

“I was trying to do the best for-”

“-for the world. I get it, Natasha, I do.” You tried to contain your emotions but it was getting harder with every word. “Relationships are supposed to be teamwork. I know you are always too busy playing heroes and I never judged you for that, I just wish you would have trusted me enough to tell me before you disappeared.”

She was silent and knowing Natasha it’s because she was probably overwhelmed with the display of feelings. But she needed to hear how bad you had felt.

After minutes of waiting for an answer from her and getting nothing but sighs you shook your head and looked back at the computer screen.

“I guess it was a case of the right person, wrong time.” You shrugged trying to find distraction in the flurry of letters in your email inbox. “Or at least it was for me.”

She got up from her seat without a word and you grew exasperated. Why had she even approached you if then she wasn’t willing to have an adult, two sided conversation? She was almost at the door when you heard her voice again.

“Please never doubt how much I love you. I made some bad choices but dating you was not one of them.”

New York, 2024.

Time apparently flies by when you are erased from the face of the earth. One day you are in your office working late and the next you appear five years in the future with no recollection of what might have happened.

You were taken by authorities to impromptu camps and one by one examined to check your identities. The entire thing seemed to be something out of one of the dystopian novels you used to read as a teenager.

When it was your turn you gave them all the information you had on what had happened. You had given them your name and personal information and apparently had been a very searched person because the computer started beeping as soon as your name was introduced in the database.

You were moved to a secluded part of the camp and kept in an isolated room for god knows how long. Your stomach was in knots during the entire situation and you could feel the cold sweat on you. That mixed with the metallic taste on your tongue you knew this time your anxiety was justified. You were almost dizzy because of how hard you were thinking about the entire situation and trying to make sense of it.

When you heard the door of the room open you jumped up, discarding on the floor a makeshift blanket that had been placed on your shoulders when you got there. Your legs almost gave out at the movement and your heart felt like it was going to burst out.

The door opened enough for you to see who had been searching for you. Natasha stepped through the door still dressed in her tactic gear and with tiredness written all over her face. But that feeling seemed to almost disappear when she finally saw you.

With quick movements she stepped into the room and wrapped her arms around you tightly. For some reason that action was the trigger that you needed to let all your emotions consume you.

You started sobbing uncontrollably at the unknown. You didn’t understand what happened or how you are here, but feeling her embrace helped you feel safe in a way. It had been years since you last hugged her but it still felt as good as back in 2015.

You could hear Natasha’s soothing shushes in between your sobs and you moved to hold her tighter.

“You are here. I can’t believe I found you again.” She spoke softly and you didn’t know if she was speaking to you or herself. “It’s okay darling. I’m here and I’m not letting you go again. I promise.”

And with that promise a ray of hope made way between all the fear you felt.

Missouri, 2025.

Soft music could be heard all around the ground floor of the house. The soft beat was upbeat enough to get the morning started but not enough to be overwhelming if you had just woken up. You were sitting on the kitchen island looking at the news on your phone and having breakfast.

Mornings were usually very calm around the homestead and you couldn’ be more thankful for that. It allowed you to silently prepare your breakfast and coffee and get a headstart on Natasha’s breakfast too.

Since she had retired, Natasha had discovered a newfound love for sleeping in and you didn’t dare to take that away from her. She deserved it from all the work she had done in her life.

You, meanwhile, tried to get up early to scroll through the cases that you got in your new and smaller job and schedule meetings or emails.

It was a Saturday so work wasn’t a thing and you could actually enjoy your toast and coffee in peace. Or at least until a pair of arms wrapped themselves around your middle and pulled you back against Natasha.

“Good morning baby, how did you sleep?”

“Like a baby.” You could feel her smile when she kissed your cheek from behind. “You weren’t there when I woke up though.”

You shrugged before moving to get a bite out of your toast. Natasha tried to do the same but you quickly moved it away from her with a smile. She tried again and you moved as fast as your reflexes allowed you.

“C’mon baby, give me a bite” “No, it’s my toast. You can make your own.” “But it tastes better when you make it.” “No it doesn’t, don’t be lazy.”

The playful fight continued for a few moments until she got close enough to get a small bit but you moved it again.

“Don’t make me bite you, darling.”

You chuckled at her threat and plopped the remaining toast on the plate in front of you. Breakfast didn’t matter much anymore. You threw yourself into her arms and pressed your lips against hers. It wasn’t a slow and sensual kiss, it was closer to how small kids smooch their parents. But you knew it would convey your love more deeply.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Nat.” You spoke against her lips and squaked when you felt her playfully nip at your bottom lip.

“Is now a good time?”

That question had become recurring in your household, a nod to the phrase you said when you found eachother again after being separated the first time.

“I couldn’t think of a more perfect time.”

And you couldn’t. The rest of your life spent in a homestead with your girlfriend and whatever life might bring? It sounded absolutely delightful.

Taglist: @tagehaya @flyforeverfree @rooskaya-yelena @evalynanne @insanitybyanothername @princessayveke @yelenabelovasgf @kyli314

[avengerscompound]

Small Gods: Patience - 1

Patience:  A Black Widow Fanfic

Patience Masterlist | More Small Gods

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Natasha Romanoff x F!Reader

Rating: E

Word Count:  1611

Warnings: Language, guns, (smut, angst, and canon typical violence on series)

Synopsis: Every day Natasha prays for more patience to deal with a litany of things from waiting for her target to make a move - to not yelling at Clint for putting empty milk containers back in the fridge.

When her prayers are answered, Natasha finds that having patience is easy, holding on to it is a little harder.

A/N: Reader is a minor god.

IF YOU WISH TO BE TAGGED IN THE REMAINDER OF THIS SERIES, EITHER ADD YOURSELF TO THE TAGLIST OR SEND ME A MESSAGE

Chapter 1

Natasha stood on the edge of the building watching the chaos break out below her.  The team was supposed to be infiltrating a new underground crime group to figure out where a drop-off was happening.  They’d had men on a street corner no one had managed to clock, and it had just happened to be the one Steve was observing, and they’d spotted him.  That had made the whole crew antsy and then they’d wanted to change locations for the meet.  That had meant a sudden scramble to relocate everyone, so they could keep monitoring the situation.  Tony had nearly been spotted as they did and ended up having to leave the area completely so it looked like another normal New York City Iron Man sighting.  To top that off, Sharon’s comms had just stopped working completely and so no one had any idea what the group was actually saying.  It had been a series of fuck-ups and she knew she would have to get down into the mess soon the way things were going, but she was waiting to see if Clint could salvage it as he bumbled along the street acting stupid so that he could ‘accidentally bumped into his old friends Sharon’ and get some ears back on the scene.

“God, grant me patience,” she sighed.  It was a prayer that had become commonplace for her.  She’d use it when she was on an undercover mission where she had to pretend to be much less intelligent than she was.  She used it when she helped patch up Clint’s cuts after he’d spent a whole day being incredibly agile and dexterous, only to trip over his doormat and land face-first into a cactus he didn’t even know he owned.  She used it when Tony went on one of his rambling stories that she already knew.  She used it when she had to watch Steve jump off yet another stupidly high point for no reason other than he had to be their first.

“I’m not sure, Natalia,” a voice coming from way too closer said.  “I’m not sure that’s what you actually want.”

She spun around, quickly assuming a defensive position.  You stood at the corner of the building, completely relaxed.  You had dark sunglasses on and what looked like a faux leather jacket and large black boots.  You were leaning against the wall slightly and twirling a lollipop in your mouth, and despite the fact that on just about anyone else she’d think they were trying too hard, you seemed effortlessly cool.

“Who are you?”  Natasha snarled.

“Patience,” you said simply.

“Don’t tell me to be patient when you’ve just snuck up on me in the middle of a mission.  Tell me what you want, or I’ll send that piece of candy through the back of your throat.”

You laughed and held up your hands. “Okay, killer,” you teased.  “Relax.  I wasn’t telling you what to do.  I was saying that’s who I am.”

Natasha quirked her eyebrow at you.  “So your name is Patience, and you sit around waiting for people to pray for patience and you pop out thinking it’s a funny joke?  You know how close to death you just came right now?  I’m in the middle of something.  Go away before you get someone hurt.”

Natasha spun back to look down at Sharon who was now talking to Clint.  She saw the quick sleight of hand as they exchanged mic packs.

“Patience isn’t my name,” you laughed.

Natasha rolled her eyes, hoping to cling on to the last remaining patience she had rather than breaking your neck. That would just lead to a lot of paperwork.  “You said it was.”

“No,” you said, straightening up and reaching into your inner jacket pocket.

Natasha pulled her gun and pointed at you.  “Don’t even think about it.”

You pulled your hand out with a business card pinched between your thumb and index finger.  You raised your hands and flicked the card up so it was held between your index and middle finger.  “I said I was patience,” you said, taking a few steps toward her.  Natasha’s fingers twitched on the trigger finger as she tried to read your intention.  “You’ve been praying to me a lot lately.  I thought I’d show up.  But - you’re obviously not ready yet.”  You offered the card to Natasha and she took it without taking her eyes off you.  “Now… count to two hundred, and then go down the fire escape.  Agent Carter will be fine until then, and that will get you there exactly when you need to be.”

“What?”  Natasha asked, now completely confused.

“Just a suggestion,” you answered and casually strode off to the stairwell, leaving Natasha alone on the roof, completely perplexed over what had just happened.  She looked down at the business card.  Embossed in gold on the glossy black card were your name, address, and phone number.  There was no mention of a job or business or even the word patience that you had kept bringing up.

Natasha furrowed her brow and tucked the card into her pocket.  She wasn’t a trusting person by nature, but she had enough experience with magic to know not to completely ignore what you said.  She counted to two hundred as she paid close attention to what was happening in the street.  As she carefully made her way down to the fire escape, there was a commotion and Sharon drew her gun.  People scattered as a large van pulled up and armed men spilled out.

Natasha cursed under her breath as the street broke out in utter chaos.

“How did you even get there so fast?”  Sharon asked.

Thanks to your warning, Natasha had gotten there at the perfect time to take out most of the gunmen before they’d even shouldered their weapons.  In the end, while the plan hadn’t exactly gone how everyone had wanted it, and they still needed to actually find where they were operating from, they had made a lot of arrests, and thanks to Natasha, lots of innocent lives had been saved from being caught in the crossfire.

“There was this woman…”  Natasha started, not quite sure how to explain your strange appearance and departure from the rooftop.

“Oohhh…” Clint teased.  “Nat got the hots for some hot Chiquita.”

“Gross, Clint,” Natasha snarked.  “Don’t be a letch.”  Clint held up his hands in surrender and Natasha let out a long breath.  “It was weird though.”

“How was it weird?”  Steve said, sitting forward in his chair.  “Anything we need to worry about?”

Natasha shrugged.  “I don’t know - maybe,” she said.  “She said she was patience.”

Clint snorted.  “You definitely need to find her then,” he teased. Natasha swatted him on the back of the head.  “See,” he complained, rubbing his head.

“So her name was Patience?”  Steve said, opening up a drop-down screen above the coffee table.  “FRIDAY, do we have any record of a Patience as a member of any known criminal organizations.”

“Her name wasn’t Patience,” Natasha said, pulling the card out of her pocket and handing it to Steve.  “She said she was patience.”

“What does that mean?”  Steve asked, typing the details into the computer.

Natasha shrugged.  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Tony chuckled.  “I like the idea of anthropomorphic adjectives walking around.”

“Patience is a noun, Tony,” Bruce scolded.  “And so is Tony.”

“You know what I mean,” Tony said, waving his hands around.  “You can feel patient, you can’t feel Tony.”  He paused for a moment.  “Not unless you asked nicely.”

“Maybe she’s some kind of god,” Clint said.  Everyone turned to him and Natasha raised her eyebrow.  Sometimes Clint would say things that were so simple and so profoundly intelligent that she wasn’t sure if he just blindly stumbled into the answer or he was an actual genius.

“Is that a thing?”  Sam asked.  “Just random gods of emotions?”

Natasha shrugged.  “I have no idea.  It’s a pity Thor isn’t here, we could ask him.  But she did say I’d been praying to her.”

Clint snorted.  “Sounds about right.”

“But Thor’s not a real god, is he?”  Steve said.  “Wasn’t the theory that he’s just an alien that lives a long time and humans just decided he was a god?”

“The dude makes lightning, Cap,” Sam teased.  “Maybe he’s not the only place it comes from, but he can definitely create it and control it.  Why can’t there be the equivalent for something like patience.”

Clint snatched the card from Steve and shoved it into Natasha’s hands.  “I say you call her.”

“You just want Nat to stop smacking you on the back of the head,” Bucky snorted.

“No, I want to see my best friend get laid,” Clint said, folding his arms across his broad chest.  “I bet someone who can command patience would be great at sex.”

“And…?”  Bucky pressed.

“And I don’t want to get clocked on the back of the head anymore,” Clint muttered.

Everyone laughed and Natasha looked down at the card, spinning it around in her hand.

“You look like you’re considering it, Red,” Tony mused.  “What was she like?”

“Cryptic,” Natasha replied.  “Cool.”

“Was she hot?”  Clint asked.

“I think so,” Natasha said.

“So call her,” Sharon shrugged.  “She helped me out.  She can’t be all that bad.”

Natasha nodded.  “At the very least I might get some answers.”

“And who knows, Nat,” Clint said.  “Maybe she’ll be able to teach you a trick or two.”

Natasha bit the inside of her cheek trying not to laugh, and wishing she had a little bit of that patience right now.

// NEXT

[redspiderling]

MCU Breakdown: Black Widow, Part 1

I can’t believe this is happening 😭

First of all, congratulations to all of you who’ve been here all these years. We got it. We begged for years, and it’s finally here.

For once I wasn't dreading revisiting this film to write down what I got from it. I felt more like I might not do it justice. This film is so special to me, but here it is, the MCU Breakdown of Black Widow, part 1 (of who knows how many).

I remember back when I started running this blog and talking about a hypothetical Black Widow movie that had never been announced, always "yeah, we would be happy to do it, maybe, someday in the future", and arguing that it would be important for women and girls, no matter its content. I'm so glad we got it like this. So, so glad.

The rest under the cut.

Let's start with some technical details. The film has a lot of setups and callbacks, nothing is done in chance. For example, I love how the light, and the sounds we hear when we first, and last, see Natasha in the film, are the same. We greet her in bright -birds cheeping- morning light, while she's riding her bike home, to her family

and we leave her in bright -birds cheeping- morning light, while she's riding her bike home, to her family (I'm using the term family very liberally here in reference to the Avengers for the sake of the movie, bear with me, you know how I feel about those dudes).

It's signifying new beginnings, each time, not endings. Notice how, what we see is natural light, which makes this scene pop out, and look more real because the light is coming from the sun, and isn’t artificially made on VFX software. You will notice the stark differences in colours and lighting when the emotions and the atmosphere change in this film, because there is a visual language being employed here, the director has a story to say, and she uses all the tools she has to tell it. The light is exactly the same in those 2 scenes, because Cate wants us to make that connection, even if we make it unconsciously.

Natasha is placed in such a positive way, both at the start and the end of the film. There's this discussion about how "real" their little family was, but it was the characters that muddled up that image. The reality of their lives in Ohio is presented in a happy way, that had deep rivers under the surface, for sure. This wasn't accidental, for a lot of reasons.

First of all, if you take it the literal way, they were spies, and had to present themselves as normal. If you take it the allegorical way, any girl could fall victim to trafficking, and if you take it the character way, both Scarlett and Cate wanted to showcase that Natasha is human. They also wanted to give her something that wasn't always dripping with pain and sadness. They were both parts of her life, yes, but there was also joy, and light, and once upon a time she had been a kid, playing with her sister.

Also, and this has been mentioned before but it bears repeating: I love the actress they chose for young Natasha, and I love how they presented her character. She's allowed to be a young teenage girl. She's not sexualised. She's at that gangly stage between childhood and adulthood, and there's nothing sexual about it, no provocative clothing, no excessive makeup. She's a kid.

Plus, I know Cate said the actress already had her hair dyed blue and they just decided to let her have it, but I think it works well for Natasha's character. That small act of defiance, even that early on, against the system that wanted to break her. Also, the film gives us such great character moments, because they let the camera roll and don't rush through scenes, look at Natasha looking at Melina comforting Yelena. We can see the pain, the fear, where she knows that this isn't going to last, and wonders about what will become of them once their lives begin to unravel.

We also get to see the joy on her face, the wonder of discovering the world, how often do you get to see Marvel characters do this, just live in the moment?

Bioluminescence: the production and emission of light by a living organism. Or how Natasha is a bright light, that shines from within. Not my words, Cate Shortland's words. I felt it when I was watching this scene, but it was lovely to have it verified in one of her interviews. I wish I could meet her, and tell her that everything she wanted to put on screen came through, incandescent and crystal clear. Fireflies are a symbol for Natasha, as a bright light that shines from within, and never dies.

Small details that I love, the magnet on the fridge: Don't forget, above a picture of Natasha. LIKE WE EVER COULD, CATE.

We have another setup here, where the family gathers up to have dinner together. Even the sitting arrangement is the same as later on in the film.

Notice also how both young, and adult version of Natasha, communicate so well with Melina, just with their eyes. It doesn't necessary show a deep history between them, but it does show a bone deep level of understanding. Not just of their current circumstance, but of their future, and of what it will do to them. Melina knows what's coming and she's says it "I'm sorry", but they're both resigned to their fate, Melina because she doesn't see a way out, and Natasha because, well, here she's a kid, and therefore is powerless.

The dynamics between Yelena and Alexei is so different. Yelena is young and doesn't understand, so they're speaking about completely different things. "I don't have my shoes" is what she says, and it's heartbreaking in its innocence, as Alexei is loading his gun and reading himself for battle. We can still see that he's not indifferent to her, telling her she can have "fruit loops in the car". He's not a monster, he just doesn't have a choice (or at least, he thinks he doesn't).

Also, notice how the camera angles are employed here: Natasha and Melina look each other eye to eye, Yelena looks up to Alexei, Alexei looks down on her, there is an imbalance of power and understanding in the second set of images, and the camera tells us that.

Melina doesn't let Natasha take the photo album. For one thing, it's certain that Natasha wouldn't be able to keep it. For another, Melina wanted the memories, and probably didn't want anyone else to realise/think that they cared about their little family unit.

There's just a lot of thought that's been put in the details of the script, to show us their bond, their attempts to hide it, to show the characters' personality in everything around them (notice the plants that are ever present in Melina's home, in Ohio and later in Saint Petersburg). She might seem cold, she has been through a lot, but she cares. And that care has brought her pain. And we have to see that pain, because we get the quiet moments like this one, where she stands alone in an empty home knowing that part of her life is over, never to return.

The mission, is the last thing Melina asks about. The last thing Alexei mentions, the last thing either of them cares about. First, she refused to accept that they had completed the mission and were now hunted, then she accepted it and they loaded their family in the car, and then she asked about the leaked files.

Also, notice how that shot is framed. Both images silhouetted by the light because it’s the moment and the prop smack down in the middle of the frame that’s important, now what they’re going through, emotionally, they’re not themselves in that moment, they’re nameless, tools of the trade, expendable in front of that tiny floppy disk.

Yelena is singing while the rest are plunging in despair, but still humour her and play her song.

I found this shot a bit... Jarring. I get it that for American audiences this would show that they're actually leaving "home" behind, but for the rest of us... Eeeh, I'll give it a pass because it is an American production and this is just something to be expected. I mean, Yelena's song was American Pie. We get it, you still love America, just because you're making a film about Russian spies doesn't mean you're a commie Marvel, it's ok.

But in any case, the setup for the action scene here was excellent. Happy, familiar music playing, car is on the main road, car goes off the main road familiar music gets toned down and eventually completely lost in the darkness.

Yelena knows what to do, we see it, so that we know that this 6 year old girl who holds her stuffed animal and walks barefoot has practiced for this moment.

By the way, Natasha did take another item with her along with the photobooth pictures (it also looks like a photo album with Disney princesses on it), it didn't survive the trip. We are informed of this for a very specific reason: Melina didn’t ask Natasha not to take the photo album out of malice, or just because she wanted to keep it for herself. She knew it wouldn’t survive the trip in Natasha’s hands. We also get a close shot of the image strip (and we get it again, during the credits), because it will be important, later on.

Bet y'all also forgot you were watching a superhero movie until this happened? That wasn't accidental, they wanted us to see them as normal people, this is the moment when that ends.

Natasha saved her family, even though she was a terrified kid.

I know that they did the huge titles thing to connect this film to Civil War but... Listen, Civil War needed the huge titles because that script and the way that movie was directed was a complete disaster. We needed to know where the characters were each time with huge ass title because there was NO OTHER WAY TO TELL. Between complete lack of a timeline, and the fact that you couldn't even tell what time of the day it was due to the horrible lighting, you definitely couldn't tell what the location was because it was irrelevant to the plot like, 90% of the time. Not to mention the title cards in Civil War were usually followed by dimly lit grey corridors so, yeah, give us a title so we know at least where they are, generally.

This film. Didn't Need That. For the most part anyway, there are 2 locations where the titles worked. First one was Ohio, the other I'll reveal later.

But here. Guys, they're Russian spies escaping from the US on a small plane... Where else would they go if not to Cuba?!?! This is the Black Widow movie paying for the sins of Civil War, in a small way in this instance.

Yelena tells Melina that pain only makes you stronger, Natasha cries, and they setup my heartbreak for later.

Natasha protecting Yelena, terrified, and staring men down the barrel of her gun anyway. Such a badass and heartbreaking callback.

Notice how this scene makes us look at how men view this. There's an allegory here as well, but I'll address what's actually happening in the film:

Dreykov notices Natasha's natural instinct to protect herself and her sister, and all he sees is something he can use. A tool for violence, instead of sex, in this case. But the implication is there. Not a person, or a terrified girl, just an object to be used by men.

So glad that piece of shit got blown up and never mentioned again. Any man looking for exposition on Dreykov to feel the "loss" when the villain is gone: Fuck you. Go get some therapy.

Moving on from that piece of shit, difference between Melina and Alexei: Melina apologised. Alexei lied, but he also tried to give them hope. We can see the devastation, because the soldiers never thought of them as girls like he did, and didn't blink before drugging them and taking them away.

Yet another setup, of Natasha and Yelena, drugged and powerless as they are taken away. Because it wasn't enough that they were kids, they took away all their choices, and rendered them unconscious.

What can I possibly say about this credits scene.

It's very real, probably the realest minutes in the entire MCU, and it's merciless. They don't try to sugar-coat what's happening, and there are no jokes to diffuse the drama. These are girls being trafficked from all over the world. I don't know about you but I felt the switch from true parallel to real life traffic victims like this shot that looks like footage from Interpol

to Red Room victims as being a clear shift, and I was actually grateful for it. Because here I could put my back against the fact that the red room wasn't real, otherwise I would have broken down before the credit sequence even ended.

It was a stroke of genius to create an introduction to this entire world like that. We rarely see credit sequences anymore and it's a shame, because when they're well done they tell stories in and of themselves, and this is one of the best I've seen.

Even the villain is set up here. He's pointing at girls and saying "that one, and her", like he's picking pigs for slaughter. How much more setup than that do you need, to want to murder that man dead? Not any more, that was enough.

Nobody speak to me I’m crying.

Subtle, but there. Trafficking (and traffickers) exists because it IS being tolerated by governments around the world.

Unnecessary title aside, who else says Natasha looks at herself in the mirror hear and repeats "pain only makes you stronger", as she's being hunted away from yet another family.

Then she's saying it again because it bears repeating and Natasha has been through A Lot these past few years. I love how unfiltered our first image of her is. After all she's been through, we basically see her stripped of all her tricks in a moment where she’s alone with herself and her thoughts(something we later learn she tries not to do much), and she's just a woman having a tiny breakdown in a semi-public bathroom. Again, human.

This is where I will leave you for this first part. Hey, I got through the intro, I count that as a win given just how long this breakdown has already been. If you’ve gotten this far, thank you for reading, come yell at me in my inbox whenever, see you for the next one xo

[lockefanfic]

Business Trip: Pt 42 - Plan

From the moment she stepped into the car you knew what Minatozaki Sana wanted.

You couldn’t say you were surprised - not given her open and declared desire for you. Nor could you really blame her, given the circumstances - you were both young and just so happened to be well-dressed and in a fancy car; not to mention being on the verge of yet another important operation. The adrenaline was high. So was the sexual tension.

She was wearing a short, black velvet dress that looked more like an elongated blazer than anything else. It left her long, creamy legs bare, making it difficult for you to keep your eyes on the road - especially when she began to touch herself.

Again - you weren’t surprised. You had assumed she would make her move at some point later in the evening, perhaps afterward, perhaps even at the cocktail party itself. She wasn’t one to hold back. She wasn’t one to give a damn about slipping a finger beneath the tiny black shorts she wore under her dress, even as she sat in the passenger seat of a car driving through the busier streets of downtown Tokyo.

When you pull up to a stop light you knew that was when she would try to take the next step. You knew she would try and steal your attention away from the ridiculously expensive high performance car you were driving through one of the world’s most beautiful cities. You knew she didn’t care about the cocktail party, or looking for leads on Seulgi and Yeri. You knew Minatozaki Sana well enough to know that she wasn’t going to stop until she got what she wanted, and what she wanted right now was you.

You knew what she was doing, could see her legs squirm and writhe softly in your peripheral vision. But it wasn’t until she let the first soft gasp of pleasure escape her lips that you took your first glance over at her.

Those long, perfectly sculpted legs of hers quivered slightly under your gaze, sending delicious looking shocks of movement through those full, round thighs of hers. She was wearing black lace gloves when she stepped into the car, but one of them was on the floor now, her naked right hand busy between her legs.

Your gaze travels up her body, past the gleaming gold buckle of the wide belt at her waist and the black blazer wrapped tightly around the curves of her chest, past the thick black choker over her long, graceful throat - until you reach her face. 

Sana always had full command over her expressions. She could look like she stepped out of an anime one moment and then suddenly become a sultry seductress the next - a switch to be flipped at her whim. You found her adorable and cute most of the time, although admittedly, so were most of the girls in your life, to one degree or another.

It was in her sultrier moments that Sana’s facial expressions were unmatched. When she was seducing you, during foreplay, and especially during sex itself - sex turned Minatozaki Sana’s face into one of the beautiful sights on Earth. Mouth slightly open to gasp or moan or shriek; eyes half-lidded, sometimes shutting in the deepest throes of pleasure; full cheeks flushed and rosy, like a visual representation or indicator of the pleasure coursing through her veins. No one else came close. No one else could even try.

She catches your eyes and holds your gaze. You couldn’t have looked away even if you wanted to. 

The gasps leaving her full lips quickly turn into soft moans as her fingers slip even deeper into the flesh between her thighs. After fucking herself with her own fingers for a few long seconds, she lets them slip out of her, shiny and glistening in the dark interior of the car. She slowly begins to circle her clit with her slick middle finger. Her other hand, still gloved in thin black lace, reaches over the centre console and to the belt at your waist.

The stoplight turns green. You press down the gas pedal. So does Sana.

Her right hand works with remarkable, impressive dexterity at your belt, quickly undoing the buckle. She pulls down the zipper - almost scarily quick - and she quickly slips her slim, still gloved hand into your boxers. 

You gasp. Sana moans. Her fingers slip once more inside herself.

You sigh as she touches your rapidly hardening shaft, the sensation of the thin black lace against your cock a new and novel sensation. Her slim fingers give your cock a few rubs over its top before sliding her fingers under it and pumping it slowly. She wastes no time. Your cock, quickly stiffened to full attention, seems to share in her eagerness.

Sana pauses her handjob for only a moment to pull your boxers down, roughly, as though she were angered that the cloth had the gall to keep her from what she wanted. Your cock springs free. An airy gasp of need leaves Sana’s throat at the sight of it, as though she were seeing it for the first time.

Her gloved hand returns to it, her grip warm and tight. 

“Please,” she says, her first word to you that evening. It is light and desperate and needy. “Pull over. I need you now.”

Lesser men might have found as secluded a spot as was possible in the bustling downtown core of Tokyo so that they could give Sana what she so desperately desired. An especially reckless man would have pulled over right at that moment and let the mewling young woman have her way with them, right there in a flashy car next to a busy sidewalk.

But you were not such a man. You weren’t some stranger to Minatozaki Sana, new and unwise to her wiles and her plans. You had history with this woman. Her history with you and your work was deep and tumultuous, but it was the way she projected one image to her colleagues and the general public whilst wearing another one behind the scenes that frustrated you the most. 

There was no better example of these masks than the way she treated Momo; ostensibly appearing utterly devoted to their friendship but in reality only insofar as it did not relate to you - when it did, the fangs came out, even if the older Japanese woman had no idea she was being bitten. It angered you, the way she treated Momo. It infuriated you.

But she was also a top tier member of your team - smart, reliable, and dependable. She was friendly, bubbly, always enthusiastic and eager for a good time shared with friends. And that was saying nothing about her beauty - cute and adorable one moment, sultry and sexy the next. Sublime from head to toe. Minatozaki Sana was as close to perfect as was seemingly possible. 

She was a beautiful spider in a perfect web. It was easy to get caught up in the complex, sticky strands she was continually weaving. Everyone else saw only the brilliant, shiny strands of diamond-laced silk and thought it a beautiful work of art even as they found themselves caught up in its strings. Only you knew of the venom she was hiding beneath it all.

She was simultaneously someone you wanted and someone you wanted to keep away. She was attractive and repulsive, soothing and vexing, good and evil all at the same time. She loved you and she hated you and she wanted you for herself and no one else; a part of you wanted the same.

And it made you want to see her work for what she wanted.

“No,” you say, softly - and Sana’s grip tightens around your cock.

“What?” she gasps, “please… I need it, I need you, please-”

“No, Sana.”

“Why not!?” she cries, the words sounding more like a plea than a demand. “I need you… oh! I need you inside me, right now oh god please, oh god, oh god-”

“No,” you repeat, even as the pumping of the mewling Japanese girl’s hand on your cock and the quick movements of her own hand between her legs intensifies.

“Why, please, fuck, oh fuck, I need your cock in me, I’ve been such a good girl, fuck I need you to fuck me right now, make me take your cock oh god-”

“Not until you make yourself cum first,” you state, plainly, as though you were giving her a new assignment at work. 

It doesn’t take her long to follow your order. She must have been right on the edge. Your demand must have thrown her over it.

“I, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck I need you so bad, I need your cock in me I need it fucking my wet little pussy oh god I’m so wet for you, so wet and tight oh god oh god oh god fuck!---”

When she orgasms the sound she releases fills the small cabin of the Ferrari with a wordless, beautiful sound that comes close to music - light and airy, high and low notes, a song sung by a siren who had achieved, at least temporarily, a respite from the need that had been building in her body.

But as her song ends its last notes turn into notes of longing. The respite was temporary. The need remained, and she needed to fill it.

“Are you done?” you ask, as nonchalantly as you could. You shift gears. You change lanes. You do your best to ignore the woman a foot away from you, still trying to find her way out of her post-orgasm haze, her hand still wrapped around your hard, leaking cock.

“No,” she answers.

She unbuckles her belt, and with the grace of a black widow gliding along the intricate diamond strands of its web, she leans over the centre console, grasps your cock with her right hand, and takes you into her mouth.

The feel of her hot, wet mouth and that skilled, quick tongue on your shaft causes a spasm of pleasure to shoot up your spine - and it causes your foot to involuntarily straighten on the pedal, sending the car speeding down the thankfully mostly empty street.

You cruise for a few blocks, uncaring now of ensuring you were on the correct path to your destination - caring only about making sure the car wasn’t swerving into other lanes or crashing headlong into a wall or tree. To say it was difficult, given the bobbing of the young woman’s head on your cock as she took you in and out of her mouth, was an understatement. It was dangerous and reckless - and ridiculously arousing.

When you mercifully reach the next stop light you let a long sigh escape your mouth. To the driver in the car next to you you must have looked like some tired young executive eager to get home after a long day’s work. Your sighs of pleasure could have been mistaken for sighs of weariness, your expressions of bliss for those of exhaustion. 

You let your eyes drift closed for just a second as Sana’s tongue works its magic in your lap, swirling around and under your head, just the way she knew you liked.

Pedestrians cross the street, mere feet from you, each of them seemingly unaware of the lewd act taking place in the seat of the expensive red car they were passing. Were they to look closer they would have only seen a young man at the driver’s seat, sighing at the prospect of waiting another few minutes for the light to turn green again.

Inside the car, your sign turns into a groan. Her head keeps bobbing. Her tongue keeps working.

“Fuck, Sana,” you hiss, not quite able to finish the sentence. 

If she heard you, she must have ignored it. Or maybe she did, because her only response to your expletive is to redouble her efforts. Her hand, still slick with her own juices, joins the party. She fondles your balls with wet fingertips, teasing and cradling them.

The light turns green. The car gathers speed. So does Sana.

You last only another block before you begin looking for an alleyway or parking spot. You were well and truly trapped in her web, now. The black widow claims another victim, and was now merely waiting for the right moment to finish it off.

You find a dark alley, as hidden as could be from the main, bustling street you were currently on. You throw the car into park. 

Sana lets your cock slip out of her mouth. In a frenzied rush she strips the black shorts off her hips and kicks off the black heels she is wearing. She quickly undoes the belt at her waist before sliding over the center console and straddling you in the small, cramped driver’s seat.

She unbuttons her blazer. No bra, no panties. Only her.

Eyes glazed over with need and lust, she reaches between you to point the tip of your slick cock at her dripping folds. She dips her hips, takes you inside her, and you both feel the air rush from your lungs.

Ferraris, it appeared, prioritized performance and speed on the road over a comfortable sexual experience. Who would have thought? But not that you gave a damn, not that you cared as Sana ground herself against your hips, taking your cock in and out of her wet, hot, slick pussy as fast and as quick as she could given the cramped space of the sports car’s cabin.

No build up, no slow ramping of speed or intensity in her movements. From the second you are inside her she is riding you as though her life depended on it, fucking herself on your cock with smooth, fast movements, as though reaching a mutual orgasm was the only goal she had ever wanted in her life.

She crushes your lips with hers in a frenzied kiss, caring little for subtlety or affection. She wanted her tongue in your mouth and yours in hers. Nothing else mattered, not your comfort nor any last shreds of resistance in your mind about the propriety of what you were doing. 

The fangs were in. The venom was spreading.

You slip your hands into her open blazer, eager to partake in the wonders of her beautiful, perfect body. Your questing fingers quickly find her round, soft breasts, squeezing them none too gently, extracting some measure of revenge for the liberties she was taking with you. She responds with a deep, needy moan straight into your mouth, her tongue following closely behind as it continues its duel with yours.

You find and pinch both of her taut, tight nipples. You continue to squeeze her breasts roughly, enjoying the feel of the warm mounds of flesh filling your palm and the little gasps of pleasure and pain that escape her lips because of it. Her nails dig painfully into the back of your scalp and the nape of your neck. Her pussy tightens and pulsates. She moans. You sigh. The response of your bodies is to seek more and more - always more.

Sana finally releases your mouth as your cock reaches a new depth inside her. She lets out a long, loud moan directly into your ear. You couldn’t have cared less if people walked in from the street and watched you two fucking. She could have opened the car’s quickly steaming windows to scream out her pleasures directly into the alleyway for all of Tokyo to hear, and you wouldn’t have given a damn about it.

She straightens her torso as best she could - she wanted to give you a show, wanted to put her body on display for you, as if you weren’t already completely and utterly enraptured by it, weren’t already rendered completely helpless by the silken strands of her web and the poison in her bite. 

Your hands push the blazer from her shoulders, exposing more of her body to your hungry eyes. Perfect, creamy vanilla skin; round, bouncing breasts; full, thick thighs flexing with effort as she rides you faster and harder with each bounce of that perfect body. She was beauty and perfection and lust incarnate. 

You knew she wasn’t good for you. You knew you had to struggle and fight your way out of the sticky, entangling strands of her web before it was too late and escape was no longer a possibility. You knew the pleasure she had injected into your veins was in reality a form of venom - a venom that bent you to her will and made you powerless to fight her charms. You knew you had to fight it. 

But it was so easy to let go, so easy to lose yourself in the pleasure and the beautiful silken strands of her web, so easy to give in to her charms and indulge in her body - so easy to let the black widow have her way, just one last time. You could stop her the next time she tried, surely. One more time couldn’t hurt. How could you resist, how could you stop, when you were already as far as you were? Just one more time, one last time, then you would stop her, set her straight and tell her to stop playing her games. One last time...

She nears her peak first - mercifully, because you weren’t sure how much longer you could hold on.

“Oh fuck I’m gonna cum all over your fucking cock oh god oh god-” she hisses, the filthy words escaping her mouth in a breathy hiss. Her pace, bouncing up and down and grinding forward and backward - doesn’t stop or slow down. It increases. It speeds up. She rides you harder and harder, her softly bouncing breasts and warm thighs and tight, slick pussy beckoning you to join her in bliss.

“Oh fuck, god I’m so close, you’re so big in me, you’re stretching out my pussy so much oh fuck, oh fuck, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum oh god cum with me cum inside me please oh god fill me up, fill my pussy with your cum, oh god, oh!!-”

The filth coming out of her mouth is interrupted by your hand at her throat. You start with a soft grip, your fingers wrapping around the black lace choker she wore - but when the startled look in her eyes is quickly replaced by perverse pleasure, you find your grip slowly tightening around her windpipe. Not nearly enough to keep her from breathing - but enough to cause her pussy to tighten even more around your thrusting cock as its owner is aroused even further by the imagined threat of losing consciousness.

It said a lot about Sana, you thought, that she was so much into choking - particularly when she was nearing orgasm. It was probably the same reason she loved having sex in public, if your previous liaisons at her apartment, the resort in Hawaii and in a public washroom in Seoul were any indicator. She loved playing dangerously. And a dark part of her loved and craved the possibility of being caught doing it.

That was what turned her on the most - the possibility that others might see how wanton and lustful she really was under the friendly and adorable facade she usually wore. It was why she was always ramping up the intensity of your sessions, choosing ever more public and ever more dangerous times to seduce you. The threat of that side of her being revealed to others, others who only knew the cute, bubbly side of her - it aroused her like nothing else ever could.

She orgasms with a strangled cry that barely leaves her constrained throat - and you follow her willingly. The feel of her body tightening and pulsating around you suddenly becomes too much for you to handle, and your cock spasms as it sends thick streams of hot warm cum deep into the slick walls of her pussy.

The feel of you cumming at the same time as her - the feel of your pulsating cock spurting hot semen inside her body to splash wetly against the walls of her pussy - intensifies and multiplies the pleasure overtaking Sana’s body. For a moment she blacks out. Your grip around her throat tightens involuntarily as you cum, and her moans are cut short in a frightening gasp. Her mouth is held open in a wordless, soundless ‘o’, her eyes shut unwillingly. For a moment you thought you’d hurt her, caused her to pass out. Her body trembles at the pleasure. You feel your body do the same.

For long glorious seconds only the feeling of Sana’s body wrapped around you is all that exists in the world. When it is over Sana slumps onto your chest, sapped, at least temporarily, of the energy she usually possessed in limitless supply.

For a single, dark moment you consider walking away from it all - quitting on the operation and your job and all your other responsibilities. You consider taking her back to your hotel room and spending the rest of your life happily entangled in her web, doing nothing more than fucking and indulging in every single one of her whims. Perhaps those two things were one and the same.

But something deep inside you convinces you to fight her venom. The realities and responsibilities of the world return, unwelcomed, to your mind. Even as she is no more than a sweaty, breathless body atop yours, you realize that every time you gave in to her whims you risked becoming ever more entangled in her web. You had to fight back, had to resist the spider’s bite while you still could.

But each time she bit her fangs dug just a bit deeper, and her venom became just a little harder to fight.

--

It took Sana a while to find the black lace glove she had torn off her hand before she started to touch herself. It was a dark alleyway and the Ferrari didn’t have any cabin lights that could help, so you ended up having to use your phone’s flash to help her locate it.

“Yatta!” she exclaims upon finding the elusive glove. She slips it back on her hand with a wide smile at you, her eyes large and bright, like some character in an anime or manga.

She did so with her blazer still open, revealing plenty of the creamy curves of her breasts - in addition to the fact that the sinful evidence of your recently sated lust was still warm and wet between her thighs.

But such was the dichotomy that was at the core of Minatozaki Sana. She was at once both an angel and a devil, and sometimes she wore the clothes of one while in the world of the other.

“Sana,” you begin, wanting to finally begin a conversation.

“Yes?” she asks, her tone innocent, even if she replied whilst tucking her breasts back into her black blazer and buttoning it up.

“We need to talk. About-”

“Let me guess,” she interrupts, letting out a sigh and turning her head quickly to get rid of a lock of messy hair that had fallen into her eyes. “This is about why I’m here, and not Momo or Mina?”

“Well, yes,” you reply, caught somewhat off guard by her forthrightness. 

“You’re wondering what underhanded scheme I’m pulling, and what I had to do behind the scenes to make sure Momo is at the airport and Mina is busy with an unexpected phone call, leaving me the only option to come with you?”

“Yes,” you admit. Momo had left for the airport an hour or two ago for some business related reason, and Mina was busy with a legal matter that had arisen with JYP’s legal department in Europe.

Sana finally finishes buttoning up her blazer. She brushes stray locks of hair aside and smooths down her clothing, trying to make it look like she didn’t just have rushed, dirty sex in the driver’s seat of a car mere minutes before.

“I’ll let her explain to you herself,” she says with a soft sigh. She reaches for her purse and retrieves her phone, dials a number, and passes it to you. The screen indicates that it is Momo she is dialling.

“Go ahead,” she says, a sad look in her eyes, “talk to her.”

You take the phone, not quite sure what this was leading up to.

“Hello?” comes Momo’s voice on the other end.

“Momo? It’s me.”

“Oh, hey. They just touched down. We should be there on time. Has Sana filled you in on the plan?”

You look over at Sana, but she is looking out the window, seemingly avoiding your eyes. You cannot see much of her face, but from what you could tell from her body language she seemed a little upset - and perhaps a little hurt.

“She was just about to. Do you wanna start?”

“Sure...” Momo says, a little confused by what was going on on your end. “Anyway, I’ll meet you guys at the venue for the fundraiser. I’ll be bringing guests. We have intel that a very important potential target for us will be there…”

Momo goes over the outline of the plan with you in deep detail - it takes almost half an hour for you and her to hash out the specifics. When you end the call, you hand the phone back to Sana, who takes it and shoves it back in her bag. There is still a look of hurt disappointment on her features.

“Someday I hope you’ll start to trust me,” she says, a hint of sadness in her voice.

---

It wasn’t difficult to differentiate the legitimate attendees from the gangsters.

Everyone was dressed to the nines, but the gangsters each stood out, in their own way. Some were covered in intricate, detailed tattoos; others wore expensive silks and furs; some seemed to carry an entire small country’s gross domestic product in jewelry on their fingers, ears, and necks. They had a swagger, a confidence to them that the other law-abiding attendees did not have.

It also helped that they all seemed to congregate on the second floor of the swanky restaurant that had served as the fundraiser’s venue. A particularly scary looking bouncer stood at the only visible set of stairs to and from the balcony, arms crossed over his large barrel chest, looking a bit like a miniboss that had to be fought before one gained entrance into the final dungeon.

“At least it’s easy to see where we need to go,” Sana remarks, taking a couple of champagne flutes from the tray of a nearby server and passing one to you. 

You had arrived at the party a half hour or so earlier and you had both made attempts to make small talk with fellow attendees, hoping to find a lead on Seulgi and Yeri - it was clear, however, that there wasn’t anyone on the ground floor who might have known anything about the two fugitives.

“Yeah. That dude at the stairs might be a problem, though,” you reply, taking a sip.

“It shouldn’t be too hard to distract him. Follow my lead.”

“Wait, Sana. There must be another way up there. Maybe we can go around back and-”

Minatozaki Sana was having none of it, though, and before you knew it she had already looped her arm in yours and had begun dragging you towards the stairs.

“Wait here,” she says to you under her breath as you both near the guard, who was momentarily distracted by something else in the crowd.

You watch, curious, as Sana begins to walk towards the guard. Almost immediately her entire demeanor changes - gone was the thoughtful, determined colleague of a moment ago. Now she was all sexiness and allure, taking care to accentuate every single step of her long, perfect legs with a generous swing of her hips. She casually brushes her hair over her shoulder. On her face is the look of slight annoyance that fashion models wore on runways. It was a determined look. A look of a woman who knew precisely what she was doing.

Until she tripped over her feet a few metres from the guard.

“Eeek!” she shrieks as she falls to the floor, looking a bit like she’d just been shot by an unseen cartoon supervillain. The flute of champagne in her hands crashes to the floor, the loud crack of the glass breaking attracting the attention of every pair of eyes in the vicinity.

The guard at the stairs immediately moves to help her, seeming genuinely concerned and perhaps feeling a little lucky at the prospect of helping a gorgeous young woman in distress. You smile, slyly, as you slip past him and up the stairs. 

You make eye contact with Sana before you head up the stairs. She shoots you a wink before immediately making as big of a scene as she could.

---

Finding the target was simple. It wasn’t hard. In a group of loud, raucous type-A personalities, she was at the centre of it all. The queen bee atop her hive of drones. Despite the dangerous and intimidating auras of those around her, it was obvious at first glance who was in charge.

Roseanne Park - better known simply as Rose to those in her line of work - looked for the most part like any other high-class, well-dressed attendee at the cocktail party. She was young and beautiful, with a lithe build and cute, innocent-looking features. In her sparkly, short pink dress she looked much like any other girl in her twenties, out at a club looking for a good time.

But as you stood there and watched her interactions with those around her, you saw past that. There were glimpses here and there, in the glares she gave others when they weren’t looking, or in the obviously forced and faked reactions she gave to the underlings that buzzed around her, trying to gain her approval. Glimpses of who she really was. Glimpses of the danger that lurked just beneath the surface, less of a bee and more of a shark that was quickly growing tired of the small fish that circled her, oblivious to the danger she posed to them.

Momo had told you they had intel Rose would be here. As one of the members of Blackpink, you knew she would have the best chance of knowing anything about Seulgi and Yeri.

Your approach to her corner booth, where she sat with a half dozen of her underlings, is blocked by a man that you took to probably be her bodyguard. If they had ever decided to make a live action movie out of Overwatch, you’d found their Hanzo right here. 

He raises his right hand to your chest to physically block you from moving any further.

“I’d like to speak with Miss Park,” you state, as strongly and firmly as you could. This was the type of guy who could smell weakness. You knew if you wanted to have a shot with speaking to Rose that you had to get past him first, and he was unlikely to let you pass if he was even slightly suspicious of your intentions.

“Is she expecting you?”

“No. But she’ll want to hear what I have to say. I’m from JYP.”

Hanzo narrows his eyes as he searches for a sign of weakness in yours. You feel your inner self wither under his gaze, but you somehow keep up the front long enough for him to feel satisfied that you weren’t a threat to his boss.

“Wait,” he states. An order, and not at all a request.

Hanzo walks over to Rose’s booth and steps past the loud, raucous drones to whisper into her ear. Her gaze finds and settles on you as Hanzo informs her of your presence and intentions.

The girl takes a sip of the glass at the table. For a brief moment, there is a wicked flash in her eyes, like that of a shark that had finally found worthy prey. She says something softly to Hanzo, who returns to you a moment later.

“Your phone,” he states. Again, not a request - a demand that implied there was no choice in the matter.

You slip your phone from the inner pocket of your blazer. 

As you do, you make note of the text message from Momo that informed you that she had arrived with the guests. 

Clearing it from your lock screen, you hand the phone to Hanzo and he inspects it briefly before he motions with his head for you to follow him towards the booth.

“All of you, out,” Rose states as you approach, words firm and direct, eyes locked on you and not even bothering to care about the inconvenience of her underlings. Another order. In this world, it seemed, nothing was ever merely a request.

The drones get up and leave, brooking no questions. Each of them gives you a dirty look on the way out, unhappy with being so rudely interrupted. Rose’s eyes remain locked on you.

“Come, sit,” she says, her charming tone and Australian accent lending her words a soft, inviting tone, even if there was an underlying venom to it all.

You take a seat next to her. Hanzo leaves your phone on the table, face down, before giving Rose a short bow of respect and returning to his post.

“I’m told you’re from JYP,” Rose begins, taking another sip from the glass at the table. She crosses her long, thin legs in front of you, slowly, turning her body to ensure you could see her every action. She holds the glass in her lap, ensuring she is pushing her small, cute breasts together with her upper arms. There is a sly smile on her lips that reminds you, strangely, of Sana’s.

“I am. And I’ve heard things about you.”

“Is that so?” she answers, pretending to be at least a little surprised. “And what exactly have you heard about little old me?”

“I’ve heard of your work with Blackpink. And your involvement with Red Velvet.”

At the mention of Red Velvet a slight, barely noticeable change appears in her face. It is small and fleeting - but unmistakable. 

“I’m not quite sure I follow,” she lies, “I don’t have any involvement in that world.”

“That’s too bad, because if you were at all interested in that world I would have something to offer you.”

“And what might that be?”

“I’m relatively high up at JYP,” you state, looking off into the distance where the cocktail party was still in full swing, trying your best to appear nonchalant. “I could, much to my dismay, become the victim of a hack into my phone that could then give you access to all of our servers and the company secrets within them.”

Rose sets the glass back on the table. Her smile widens slightly. You’d gained her attention, it seemed.

“And in return, what would you want from me?”

“We’re tracking two fugitives from Korea - former members of Red Velvet. Boss says I have a promotion waiting if I bring them in. I’m sure either you or people you know have either found them or know where they are.”

“It’s your lucky day, I think,” she answers with a small chuckle. “I happen to know exactly where they are - or rather, my girls in Blackpink do.”

“Then I think we can arrange something,” you answer. “You give me Seulgi and Yeri, I give you access to the JYP servers.”

“We could,” she says, her gaze finally leaving you and returning to the half-empty glass of amber liquid at her table. “Or we could take you and your date and force that information out of you both.”

She motions with her head towards her bodyguard - who is holding Sana in front of him with a firm grip on her upper arms. Sana struggles against his grip, but it was obvious there was no way she was going to escape his clutches.

Rose chuckles. It is a laugh with little mirth, and plenty of implied threat.

“This is quite hilarious, I must say - did you really think you two could waltz in here, two complete strangers, and start sniffing around hoping to find Seulgi and Yeri? Did you really think we didn’t know who you were the second you stepped through that door?”

The conversation had taken a turn for the worse - but you were still confident in the evening’s plan.

“Alright, there’s no need for this. Let her go, she’s just a date. She’s not involved in any of this.”

Rose smiles to herself, and then at Hanzo.

“You and the boys go have fun with her,” she hisses, all trace of humor leaving her face in an instant to be replaced with a dark and sinister smile. “Just make sure no one can find what’s left of her afterward.”

Hanzo begins to drag Sana away, but the loud jingle that leaves your phone stops him from going any further.

“Ah, right on time,” you say, picking up your phone from the table where Hanzo had placed it. You bring the phone to your ear.

“Ah, yes, Officer Miyawaki. We’re upstairs, on the second floor. Corner booth. Yes, she’s here. Pink dress. See you soon. Okay. Bye.”

Rose and Hanzo are struck in momentary confusion. 

“Officer?” Rose repeats, “What the hell is-”

The sound of a loud commotion erupting from the stairs to the second floor interrupts her mid-sentence. You smile as you watch three women approach the booth. Hanzo releases Sana to confront them - and as she catches your eyes Sana lets a smile appear on her lips as well.

At the head of the group of three is Sakura Miyawaki - following her are Nayeon and one other woman you didn’t know. As Hanzo raises his hand to stop her, just as he did with you, Sakura bats it away sharply with the back of her hand. The bodyguard looks stunned, as though suddenly not knowing quite what to do, his tough front having no effect on the tiny but determined woman confronting him. Hands on her hips, Sakura speaks sternly with a raised voice in Japanese, and while you couldn’t understand what she was saying, the fact that the man quickly backs away sheepishly implies that whatever she said had certainly put him in his place.

Sakura approaches the booth with a look of serious determination on her cute features - a look you had not known she was even capable of.

“My name is Officer Miyawaki Sakura, Tokyo PD. Are you Roseanne Park?” she questions, firmly.

“Y-yes,” Rose answers. The haughty, confident demeanor of the young woman had begun to crack in the face of this unexpected turn of events. “But you can’t do anything to me here. I haven’t committed any crimes in this country.”

Satisfied that you’d led her to the right person, Sakura turns to let a second woman approach the table - a tall, beautiful young woman who looked to be of mixed descent. While dressed in casual clothes, the holstered pistol at her waist and the credentials she flashes from a folded leather wallet soon make it clear who she was, even before she introduced herself.

“Roseanne Park, I’m Staff Sergeant Somi Douma of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I’m here on behalf of the governments of Canada and the Kingdom of the Netherlands to place you under arrest for the crimes of invasion of privacy, illegal surveillance with intent to blackmail, and willful, malicious, and repeated harassment of individuals.”

“The Netherlands? Canada? What are you talking about-”

“We have evidence of you committing crimes in both countries. Please stand.”

Rose hesitantly stands on shaky legs, but the look of shock on her face remains, even as Officer Douma approaches her, gathers her hands behind her back, and places handcuffs on them. She begins to read the confused young woman her rights as she leads her out of the restaurant, Officer Miyawaki leading them both and clearing a path through the look of confused attendees.

A wide smile on your face, you rise and give Sana and Nayeon high fives as you leave the booth.

You briefly think about giving the confused and shamed Hanzo a cheeky one-liner on your way out, but you settle instead for raising your palm to his chest, just as he did to you - before turning it into a patronizing pat on the shoulder before you walk away.

---

You had to admit that you felt more than a little proud of your role in capturing the first of the four members of Blackpink. You smile widely as you watch the still-protesting Rose being forced into the back of a waiting police cruiser by Officer Douma, before she herself gets into the passenger seat. Sakura takes the wheel, and the car heads off, presumably to the Tokyo PD central precinct.

You meet with the rest of the team in the parking lot of the restaurant - along with a former colleague.

“Boss!” Park Choa says, her face gleaming and bright in the dark Tokyo evening. She rushes towards you and envelops you in a hug, wrapping her arms around you and squeezing tightly. You reciprocate, happy to be near her once more.

“This wouldn’t have happened without you,” you say when you finally part.

“Oh, I didn’t do much. It was getting pretty lonely in Europe... but I heard about how you got involved with Blackpink, and after I heard that one of them was wanted in the Netherlands, I thought JYP might want to know. After we found out Rose was here in Japan, JYP put this plan together. Mina was happy to take care of the legal issues and ensure the right authorities were informed,” she says with a nod towards Mina, who had met her at the airport. “JYP was the real brains behind this operation.”

“But how was Canada involved? That officer was a Canadian,” Jihyo asks.

“Rose was the one who harassed and threatened Wendy’s family in Canada in order to blackmail Irene into doing their bidding,” Momo explains, “and she’s wanted there too. I guess Rose was in charge of all the overseas intimidation and threatening that Blackpink was behind. She just hid behind the fact that she didn’t actually commit any crimes in Korea or Japan.”

“Officer Miyawaki has assured us that we’ll have time to question Rose about Seulgi and Yeri,” Nayeon notes. “It will be a matter of time before we crack her and she squeals about where we can find the rest of Blackpink, too.”

“Well, tonight sounds like a win,” you state, finding agreement in the smiling faces of the girls around you. “I think we deserve to celebrate.”

The girls cheer loudly before starting to find cabs that would take them downtown to party the night away. As they leave the parking lot, Momo grabs you by the arm and leads you quietly towards the black sedan that she had used to pick up Choa from the airport. Nayeon  waits nearby, an unreadable expression on her face, as though she were anxious to see your reaction to what Momo had to show you.

“We have one more guest tonight,” Momo says. “You’re probably wondering how we knew that Rose would be at this party.”

“Now that I think of it, yeah,” you admit.

Momo gives you a slim smile before opening the rear door to the sedan.

In the backseat is Irene, her face bandaged, hands handcuffed in front of her. There is a determined look on her battered features.

“She’s volunteered to help us find the rest of them, too,” Momo states.

--

Author’s Note: Happy New Year!

The plot thickens! I had to think long and hard about how I wanted this chapter to go. I was tired of the OC being constantly screwed over and backstabbed so I wanted him to have an active role in actually getting a win lol.

[carelessannie]

lookin for love (in all the wrong places)

chapter five

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four

In CA:CW Steve kicks Spider-Man in the chest, awakening a soul deep bond and sending Peter into his first heat, before running away to Wakanda.

The soul bond, omegaverse, Spidershield angsty romance everyone needs.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Peter Parker Chapters: 5/ Chapter word count: 6.5K Fic Rating: E Warnings: mild violence and implied sex trafficking, extreme levels of fluff Read it here on AO3 Title is from this song by Johnny Lee

Steve

The ferry docks in the Åland Islands for a few hours overnight, allowing the two of them to sleep in shifts to be safe. After dinner, they had swept the ship for suspicious persons and bugs, tagging three places around their hallway with ears to keep an eye out for possible threats.

Even with the precautions, Steve feels on edge as they sail in the morning. Neither he nor Natasha get more than a few hours of sleep, and once the sun rises, they decide to spend the rest of the journey on the upper deck. Separating for the duration of the trip, Steve takes the helm while Natasha lounges closer to the stern.

There’s no attack, no threat to be concerned about— so when the ferry docks a few hours later, the two of them are already seated in their car and driving down the off-ramp. Steve takes the wheel first, while Natasha guides him East, following the sun until it sits high in the sky.

They stop at the border to Russia and switch vehicles, easily slipping through as the newly-mated Alpha and Omega couple on their Russian passports.

And if Natasha bats her eyes and gets them a free passage to St. Petersburg, Steve isn’t complaining.

It’s as they’re driving away that Natasha flinches at something one of the border police says under their breath, and Steve raises his eyebrow in question as he steers to merge back onto the highway. If Natasha is showing her reactions, it has to be important.

“They thought…” she pauses, chewing on her lower lip, before starting over, “When they reviewed our documents, they thought you might be my... trophy Alpha.”

“Okay,” Steve says slowly, furrowing his eyebrows, “Is that bad for us?” He doesn’t quite understand what the issue is, or why Natasha might be anxious. The two men— Betas, probably— had given them a suspicious onceover, but otherwise let them travel in peace.

Natasha makes a frustrated noise, “I’m not translating it right. They think you’re my stud— that I brought you in from America or England to… breed.”

Horrified, Steve almost swerves the car off the road. “What— does that happen often?”

“Often enough that they may call it in. It’s not illegal, technically, but if they catch wind of possible trafficking…”

“Oh,” Steve checks the rearview mirror, suddenly all too aware of the surrounding cars and trucks. “What’s our move, Nat? Do you think they’ll actually come after us?”

She shakes her head again, “Best to get to St. Petersburg. We can call Tony from there, and switch out cars. If someone’s on our tail, they’re bound to know where we’re headed anyways. Stark can get us new documents by the time we reach the base.”

“Fine. I assume you know your way around the city?”

“Steve,” Natasha coos, “haven’t I taught you not to ask questions you already know the answer to?”

He shoots her a grin, “Good, then you’re in charge of ditching our ride. I’ll make a few calls.”

“Teamwork makes the dream work,” Natasha murmurs as she reclines in the seat, shifting to give herself a good view of both side mirrors while still seeing clearly out the front windshield. She crosses her feet at the ankle and pulls down the lid of a carefully worn baseball cap. If Steve didn’t know better, he would assume she fell asleep in the passenger seat.

They spend the last two hours of the drive in a tense silence, both of them on high alert. Steve knows from experience that Hydra likes to hide in plain sight— so he scans license plates, calculates distances, and carefully surveys the people in each car, looking for anything out of the ordinary. So far, nothing.

That changes when they enter the city.

Immediately, both of them sit up straighter, scanning the surrounding lanes for a threat.

“Do you—”

“Yes, stay alert,” Natasha hisses. Her hands are digging rapidly through her backpack until they pull out their last international phone. In one swift motion, she destroys it on the dashboard, lowering the window to sprinkle pieces onto the highway, sure to be crushed further by oncoming vehicles.

Steve changes lanes, inching closer to the quickly passing exit ramps. He doesn’t see a suspicious car— no black sedans, no tinted windows— but the feeling of being watched is undeniable.

“Exit here.”

Natasha’s voice is flat, and if Steve wasn’t listening for it, he would have missed the direction. Instead, he steps on the gas and throws the car into the right lane, barely avoiding the traffic cones as he speeds down the single exit ramp.

“Slower,” Natasha is reaching behind him as he merges back into traffic, this time heading West into the heart of the city. “When we get into the city, look for a coffee shop. You’re going to drop me off. Drive around the corner and watch for me— I’ll order you a drink inside and pretend I’m grabbing an item from my car. Instead, you will switch places with me, and sit outdoors drinking what I order. Keep your eyes up, run if you need to. I’ll rendezvous within an hour. Got it?”

“Got it,” Steve confirms, already slowing down as they breach the populated city limits. It isn’t long until he’s pulling up to a small café and Natasha is sauntering down the sidewalk, drawing any nearby attention to herself as he swings the car around back.

Traffic is thick, stifling, and he’s grateful to have the intel portion of this operation. Within five minutes, Natasha is in his rearview mirror, and he steps out of the vehicle to offer her the wheel.

He pulls his own hat lower to shield his face before slipping into the coffee shop, sidestepping immediately and settling into a corner table. There are three other patrons, all scattered throughout the space and engaged in the work in front of them. No threats yet.

“Peter?” a heavily accented voice calls, and Steve has to stop himself from flinching. It’s a common name— he needs to get himself under control. The voice calls out, “Peter?” once more, just as a tall, well-built man strides through the door, walking up the counter and picking up the drink.

The man turns around, “Huh. Didn’t know you were goin’ by Peter these days.”

“Sam,” Steve breathes, meeting his friends’ eyes with a shocked smile. He jumps to his feet and pulls the other man into a hug. It’s shakey— both of them chuckling and holding on tight— but the embrace is warm and feels like home.

“The hell are you doing here?” Steve grabs his arm, steering them both outside and towards the patio. “Not that I’m not grateful to see you, but… how did you find us?”

Sam shoots him a disbelieving look, placing the coffee cup between them before reclining back in his seat, “I got a tip a few days ago— something about Hydra and a base nearby. Stark got me a ride over yesterday and said I could plan on intercepting you here.”

Something in his face turns thoughtful, “You seriously didn’t see Redwing on the way in?”

“Uh,” Steve sorts through the details of their fast paced cut into the city, but can’t remember Sam’s drone being anywhere in sight.

Sam chuckles, “I followed you from the moment you entered the city— c’mon, you can’t tell me you didn’t see him, not with the way you were driving.”

“Dammit, Sam,” Steve curses. “We thought…” and then he laughs, slumping back into the patio chair and scrubbing his face. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

Sam spreads his arms wide, and gives Steve his widest, most charming smile, “Takes one to know one, Cap.”

There’s a beat of silence as Steve sips his drink— it’s perfect, not that he expected anything less from Natasha. Sam looks good, if not a bit tired. The smile on his face is practiced, and Steve knows it’s more for his sake than anything. They’ve never lied to each other, never had the opportunity to, so if Sam is appearing strained and weary, Steve knows he’s supposed to notice.

“Decide not to take a pardon, then?” Steve hedges, watching as Sam raises an eyebrow in amusement.

“No, Steve,” he looks out into traffic, carefully thoughtful, “it’s been a rough few months since Germany, but Sharon and I have been doing some ground work wherever King T’Challa is willing to send us. There’s a lot of shit going down, and— up until now— the only goal I really had was finding you again.”

A rush of guilt hits Steve in the chest, and he winces, “Look, I’m sorry for leaving you—”

“Hey, no— don’t do that,” Sam dismisses him, waving away the apology with one hand, “I knew you had to go to Wakanda, I had other shit that needed to get done.”

“Still, you deserved a better friend than that.”

Sam laughs, but the sound lacks any real joy, “I think we all deserved better than we got.”

There’s not much to say after, and Steve takes a long pull of his drink, trying discreetly to check his watch. Forty minutes until Natasha returns.

And speaking of, “So where did the Widow herself head off to?” Sam asks, checking his own watch. “Thought I’d catch both of you here.”

“Switching out cars. We assumed Hydra was tracking us into the city,” Steve narrows his eyes across the table, and it makes Sam laugh again.

“Damn, well... can’t say I’m sorry. Stark wanted me to keep a low profile until we crossed paths, and…” Sam sits up taller and leans across the table, forcing Steve to meet his eyes, “he mentioned something about keeping you stable.”

“God dammit—”

“Language.”

“Shut up, Sam,” Steve huffs, scrubbing his face with one hand, “why can’t Tony keep shit to himself.”

“Something I shouldn’t know about?”

Sam’s always been good at coaxing answers out of him, and Steve curses the other Alpha mentally for it. Why does he always attract friends who know him better than he knows himself?

“I found my soulmate, Sam.”

Jerking forward, the other Alpha’s eyes grow wide as his hands come down, hard, on the table. “Shit, Steve. When on earth did you have time—”

“I didn’t, Sam. That’s the thing. Fuck—”

He feels rage flow through his body for the first time in ages, and Steve’s hit with a flash of their bonding moment, marred by fear and devastation from his young Omega. He closes his eyes, remembering the residual pain from each heat. Scared and empty and alone.

There’s a hand on his arm, but Steve shakes it off, “Remember the kid Stark brought to Germany? Spider-man?”

“Sure, Bucky and I fought the kid, and he stuck us to the floor.”

“I fought him, too,” Steve sighs, rolling up the sleeve over his left arm to show the bright red and irritated word etched into his skin, “and I kicked him right in the chest.”

Sam doesn’t reach forward to touch. He barely gives it a glance, reaching over to roll up his own sleeve. Steve has to stop himself from growling in sympathy— the writing is black, smudged and illegible.

“Sam…”

With a sad smile, Sam rolls his shirt back in place, “It was years ago— and we bonded in combat. I got a few years with him on active duty, and then I felt when he was shot out of the sky.”

Sam meets his eyes, “Fucked me up good for a few years.”

“I had no idea.”

“I’m better now, sure. Wouldn’t show you if I wasn’t. Just letting you know, whatever you’re going through with this kid— because obviously you’re not with him now— that you’ve gotta value whatever time you get. In our line of business? I’m grateful I got years instead of moments, you know?”

Something clenches in his chest. Steve feels tears prick his eyes. He has to look away, afraid of the suddenly all too real possibility of crying in public. Quickly, he covers it up with a swig of cooling coffee, letting the emotions wash away alongside the bitter, familiar taste.

“I’ve never even met the kid, Sam. All I know is that he’s an Omega, and he has a strong bond with Tony.” Steve sighs, checking his watch again, “We were supposed to be extracted in Oslo, but got the tip instead. I’ll head home to him after we take care of the threat here.”

He can tell Sam disapproves of this choice, but the other Alpha just shakes his head, nodding to draw Steve’s attention back to the street, “Looks like our ride is here,” he chuckles just as a beat up Jeep swerves across traffic, coming to an abrupt stop in front of them.

The window rolls down, and Natasha makes a show of lowering her sunglasses, “Pickin’ up strays, Rogers?”

Both of them stand and approach the car, and Sam smiles as he takes the backseat, “Good to see you too, Romanoff.”

“I hope you brought your uniform,” she muses, swerving back into traffic once both of them are buckled in, “we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

---

Peter

I think you’d hate my friends, Alpha. I don’t know, maybe not. I think you’d like that they wanna take care of me, even if they’re both little pieces of shit. I bet a visit from Captain America would shut them up. Or… Are you still Captain America, Steve?

Just as Peter finishes the line, the main cafeteria doors slam open. Both of his friends— MJ and Ned— have their arms in the air, gesturing animatedly.

“There you are!”

It’s as if he summoned them. Damn Spidey-senses, never working when he needs them to.

Peter squirms in his seat, “Hey, guys…” he checks his exits, noting quick escape routes. Sure, he’s never actually needed to run from his friends, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. “What’s up?”

Ned scoots into the bench next to him, pressing in close and draping an arm over Peter’s shoulders. MJ takes a seat on Peter’s other side, and both of them give Peter award-winning smiles— terrifying, really. Matching smiles only usually mean one thing.

“Can’t we just hang anymore, Parker?” MJ rolls her eyes, taking a discreet look at the pages in front of Peter on the table.

He quickly closes his notebook, “Sure, sure. I mean, we can hang— we hang all the time,” Peter catches them exchanging a glance, and sighs, “is there something you want? I’m trying to get homework done before practice.”

With a shake to his shoulders, Ned chuckles nervously, “No, no… we’re just looking out— ow!”

Peter looks down. MJ definitely kicked him.

“— I mean, we’re just wondering…”

“You wanna go to a Halloween party, Peter?” MJ cuts in, flicking at Ned’s arm where it’s still draped around his shoulder. Her face is open, fairly honest, and it catches Peter off guard.

“When’s Halloween?” he asks, thankful when Ned pulls his arm back.

The two of them exchange another look, “Uh…” Ned clears his throat, “it’s today, Peter. Today’s Halloween.”

“Oh.” Peter peeks into his folders to check the date on today’s homework, and sure enough, October Thirtyfirst is printed clearly across every page. Huh. He’s usually great at remembering holidays like this. “I wonder why May didn’t say anything…”

“Because,” MJ grabs his backpack, starting to shove notebooks and textbooks back inside, “we asked her to keep it a surprise. And your mom, too. We just didn’t think you were enough of a dumbass to miss the whole holiday.”

“Honestly, Peter, I don’t get how clueless you can be.”

He just nods along, letting the two of them pull him out of the cafeteria and walk towards the carpool lane. Maybe some part of him wanted them to find him today— who knows? Several other, better, hiding spots come to mind, but Peter doesn’t have it in him to protest.

A night off sounds like too much fun.

His mood immediately improves when they step outside. Parked closest to them, dark and intimidating on the curb, is one of Mr. Stark’s cars.

Happy is standing outside, holding the back door open, “Hey, kid. C’mon— haven’t got all day.”

“Oh!” Peter turns to his friends, both of their expressions smug and satisfied, “Please tell me the party’s at the compound? Oh god, I literally have nothing to wear. I have no idea—”

“We’ve got it taken care of,” MJ pushes him from behind, and Ned laughs, motioning for Peter to get in the car first.

“How did you—” Peter slides into the back seat, freezing when he sees who’s waiting for him, “Mama!”

Mr. Stark smiles— wide and genuine— and opens his arms wide. “Hey, kid. Surprise?”

Peter melts into the older Omega’s arms and squirms to get closer, ignoring how his friends laugh and tease him as he does so. Mr. Stark ruffles his hair, and rearranges them as the car starts moving. Ducking under his arm, Peter settles into Mr. Stark’s side and lets his eyes slip shut with the steady movement and noise of chatter in the background.

“You have a good day, Pete?”

He looks up to Mr. Stark and smiles, “It was okay, a lot better now. Did you help plan this?”

“What do you think, bambino? These friends of yours are… passionate.”

The description makes Peter chuckle. He’s fully aware just how passionate his friends can be. They are digging through the amenities stored in hidden compartments, and somehow both end up with a can of soda and several boxes of candy.

Peter ignores them in favor of burying himself into the warmth of Mr. Stark’s scent. There are lazy, calloused fingers in his hair, and he relaxes even more— a pleased purr building effortlessly from his chest.

When they eventually pull up to the compound, Ned and MJ are out in a shot— barreling through the doors and screaming into the empty halls.

Before Peter can leave the car, Mr. Stark grabs his shoulders and turns them to face each other, staring intentionally into his eyes. “If you don’t want to do this, Peter, we don’t have to? I have about fifty people coming over for a costume party, but I can cancel it and we can spend the night just us, if you’d like?”

He takes a moment to actually think it over. His skin is crawling, eyes already heavy with exhaustion. The thought of socializing with more than a few people is turning his stomach, and he looks into Mr. Stark’s eyes with a helpless grimace, “I guess I wouldn’t mind a party…”

“But you’d rather not?” Mr. Stark guesses, giving him a knowing smirk. Peter scrunches up his nose and shakes his head, and gets a chuckle in response, “Alright bambino, let me make a few calls. Why don’t you go inside and coral the animals.”

Peter laughs and leans in to give Mr. Stark a quick peck on the cheek, “Okay, Mama. Don’t work too hard.”

He catches a glimpse of Mr. Stark’s embarrassed flush before hopping out of the car, skipping towards the compound joyfully. Now that the threat of social interaction is out of the way, Peter feels excited about Halloween and the evening ahead of them.

“Ned?” He calls out, “MJ? Where are you guys?”

“Try the Eastern living room, Peter,” Friday’s voice rings out in the hallway, and Peter turns around to race down the corridor in the opposite direction, still calling out their names.

“In here, Pete!” Ned hollers.

When he turns the corner, Peter comes face to face with the classiest Halloween party room he’s ever seen. Every wall is covered in glass decorations, backlit with soft lights in various colors. An entire section of the room has been converted to a wardrobe, and both of his friends are rifling through the options.

Peter gravitates towards them, pushing aside different dresses and masks, “What’s…”

“Look, Pete— I’m you!” MJ has a Spider-man mask pulled down over her face as she laughs, pretending to shoot webs from her wrists, “bet I’d be a kick-ass Spider-man.”

He just shakes his head, “I bet you would, MJ.”

“What about me?”

Both of them turn to look at Ned as he wobbles over, legs and arms shoved haphazardly into the wrong end of a Spider-man onesie. His face is so confident as he stands in the middle of the room, and Peter can’t help the cackle that bursts out of his mouth, bringing tears to his eyes as he keels over in laughter.

“Where did… what did…” he can barely breathe, and looking up again at Ned is just a mistake.

MJ isn’t any better. She tears off the mask and coughs loudly, falling to the floor in a heap, “Ned! Where did you find that?”

“What?” Ned whines, striking a pose that sends them back into a fit of hysterics, “I don’t get how you can fight bad guys in this Peter— I feel too sexy for crime right now.”

“Please!” Peter begs as he wipes away tears, “mercy!”

“What’s all the— oh mother of god,” Mr. Stark’s voice rings out in the room, and it sends all three teenagers back into peels of laughter. He stands at the entrance to the living room with his arms crossed and an indulgent smile stretched across his face, and Peter lets himself roll on the floor and laugh and laugh and laugh.

Peter turns onto his back and lets the tears flow. They drench his cheeks and drip onto the rug, creating small spots on both sides of his head. It feels good— freeing. His next inhale is deep, his mind clears completely, and Peter realizes this is the first time he’s laughed in months. That every time he’s cried in the past few weeks has been full of devastation and sorrow.

Their combined scents slowly fill the room and bind them together as the evening progresses, each of them relaxing further and further into the moment. By the time the sun’s setting, Ms. Potts and Aunt May arrive with delivery, and the small group of them curl up on the couches to watch a Halloween movie.

Mr. Stark and Pepper take the love seat, and— with one last, longing gaze at the small spot in between them— Peter settles into a lump of blankets and pillows on the far end of the longer couch. He keeps a good distance between himself and his friends at the other end, but he can tell that there’s some awkward tension in the room as the movie starts to play.

He tries to ignore it, but Aunt May keeps giving him a look from her seat on a nearby chair.

“What?” he hisses at her, pouting a bit when she smirks.

May points at the loveseat and whispers, “You should sit with them. I know you wanna.”

“Stop!” Peter shakes his head in denial, “I’m not going to—”

“Hey, pup!” Mr. Stark calls from across the room, and Peter flushes. He knows the nickname is aimed at him.

Peter pulls the blankets up around his face, “Yes, Mama?”

There’s a snort from the MJ-Ned-shaped-lump, but it’s ignored. Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts exchange a few hushed words before motioning for him to join them, “Come on over, Peter,” Pepper says with a confident smile, “plenty of room to join us.”

He’s up and out of the seat before he even processes moving.

At different points in his life, Peter has imagined how it might feel to curl up, safe and warm, between his parents. Never, in a million years, did he think he would get to experience that.

But the space between Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts feels like home. Scents like home. It’s sweet and warm in a way Aunt May’s Beta scent has never been. Peter has never scented Ms. Potts up close, but he’s not surprised when her scent has him immediately relaxing, melting back into the couch cushions.

The only Alpha he’s ever been close to is MJ, and her scent is terrifying .

Pepper lifts her arm and gives him a small smile, “You comfortable, Peter?”

Words won’t come, his senses are on overload. He feels a hand on his shoulder as Mr. Stark moves him, turning him bodily to lay across their laps with his feet in Pepper’s lap, head on Mr. Stark’s shoulder.

“Just relax, bambino,” Mr. Stark whispers, scratching at the baby hairs behind Peter’s ear, “we’ve got you.”

He lets his eyes close slowly. Both of them are scent-marking him subtly— squeezing his arms and legs, kissing his hair, and laying a blanket over him sometime later. The movie passes by completely unnoticed, and Peter dozes comfortably.

Why can’t every night be like tonight?

As the thrill of the night is fading away, Peter hears Mr. Stark offer his friends a ride back to the city. The two of them are fading as well, and it doesn’t take much convincing to get them out the door and into a waiting car.

May kisses him on the head before she leaves, “Sure you don’t want me to stay, Pete?”

“M’sure,” he murmurs, blinking up at her lazily, “you have work in the morning, right?”

“Yeah, champ. I do. You okay staying the night here, or do you want to head back with me?”

Peter looks back at Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts with a hopeful smile. Both of them laugh, and Mr. Stark waves his hand dismissively, “You know you’re always wanted here, Pete.”

“By both of us,” Pepper adds, squeezing his leg where her hand is resting.

“Alright, alright, I can take a hint,” May chuckles. She leans in for another kiss and Mr. Stark gets up to walk her out, leaving Peter and Pepper together on the couch.

He looks up at her. Everything about Pepper screams an intimidating mix of composure and warmth. Now that Mr. Stark is gone, he can separate their scents— and something about her distinct Alpha scent has him ducking his head, shy and submissive.

There’s a light touch on his arm, “Don’t hide from me, Peter,” her grin is soft and reassuring, “if you feel uncomfortable with me like this, you don’t have to stay— you know that, right?”

Her eyes are kind and not at all judgemental. He believes her doubtlessly.

“We haven’t spent much time together, have we?” Peter asks, hesitantly.

Pepper shakes her head, strawberry hair sweeping gracefully over her shoulder, “No, I don’t think so. Tony does come home smelling of you often, though.”

“Oh!” Peter sniffs his shirt, grimacing, “sorry about that, he helps me…”

“No, don’t worry, Peter,” she places a hand on his shoulder again, “I just meant that I’m familiar with your scent already. Tony even puts some of your items in our nest— I know he wants me to get used to our scents together.”

“Why… why would he do that?”

“Oh, Peter,” Pepper sighs. She shakes her head and leans back against the cushions, “we’re gone on you Peter. We really want to adopt you… at least informally.”

“She’s right.”

Mr. Stark’s voice is loud in the living room as he makes his way back to the couch. With a little bit of maneuvering, Peter is stuck in between them again, and this time he’s resting against Pepper’s chest. Her arms easily settle next to him on the sofa, aware of his space and cautious not to close him in.

“We have a secret plot to adopt and steal you away, kid,” Mr. Stark smirks and kicks his legs up, sipping on a drink as they settle together. “I just needed to get proper approval beforehand, you know?”

Peter hums, and he knows his own scent has gone sweet in satisfaction. The thought of being adopted— having a mom and dad, Alpha and Omega— is overwhelming.

“You promise?” Peter whispers. Part of him is scared of the possible rejection, even though he knows Mr. Stark rarely lies to him.

“Of course, bambino— whatever you want.”

As they cuddle together on the couch, trading hushed stories and sweet laughter, Peter has a thought.

It’s not the most responsible thought he’s ever had. If Mr. Stark digs too deep, he’ll chalk it up to being a teenager, being emotional, being an Omega.

“Mama?” Peter stares up at Mr. Stark with his best puppy-dog expression, and pouts his bottom lip, “Can I ask a favor?”

“I’m suspicious already, but sure— what is it?”

Pepper chuckles behind him, and Peter reaches down to hold her hand for comfort, “Can you get my letters to Steve?”

With a loud cough, Mr. Stark chokes on his drink and sputters. His hands fly up and wave around frantically, possibly looking for something to anchor him. Peter curls further into the shield of Pepper’s body and lets her deal with the aftermath— patting Mr. Stark’s back and criticizing him for being so dramatic.

“In what—“ Mr. Stark starts, coughing hard, “In what universe would that be a good idea, Peter?”

“I... I didn’t...”

“Actually,” Pepper interrupts, interlacing their fingers together, “I think that might be a good idea.”

Mr. Stark looks betrayed, affronted. Peter turns to smile up at her, “Really? You think so?”

“Once your hormones are stable, why not?” Pepper asks, kicking at Mr. Stark when her Omega makes a disappointed face, “It might be helpful for your Alpha to hear from you.”

“Get his head on straight,” Mr. Stark grumbles. His hands are clenched, and he refuses to look at them.

There’s a beat of silence where Peter just stares at Mr. Stark, hoping for an answer. He knows it’s a big favor to ask— but if anyone can get it done, he knows Tony Stark can.

“Fine.”

---

Hi Steven Grant Rogers, God. Would you make me take your name? I really hate that. Maybe I’ll ask you to take my name instead. Mr. Stark said I could send you one letter every month, and that if you respond, I can have that letter back. I hope you respond. Uh... I’m not sure what else to say. My name is Peter and I’m in high school. I know that makes things hard for you, being old as dirt, but I hope when we meet that it won’t be too awkward. I hope you stay safe. I’m finally on suppressants and doing better than I was before. Your words on my arm barely hurt anymore. Okay. That’s all for now. Yours, Peter Benjamin Parker Oh! PS I’ve sent a little sample of what I scent like. Mama said that you would like that.

Tag list (let me know if you’d like to be added or removed): @purplefreakwolffish @instantsharkskeletonpizza @justslightlycrazy @angelstarker @femmeparker @starkeraddictbaby @starkentrprises @snowstark @sarcastich

[cosmic-goddess-leo]

The Boss

Bodyguard!Kuroo Tetsuro x Reader Mafia AU

Summary: The Violet Syndicate is plunged into chaos when the head of the family is killed in a mysterious accident. Amidst the whirlwind of suspicion and deception that follows this tragedy, Kuroo Tetsuro only knows one thing: Keep her safe.

Wordcount: 10k... my longest one ever lmaooo

Warnings: Mentions of death, violence, blood, SMUT

Author’s Note: Here it is, 1 of 6 of the oneshots I’ve written to celebrate my 1k follower milestone! Thank you all so much for all your support, and I hope you enjoy!

Kuroo Tetsuro was no fool.

He was sure the rest of the family was aware of this, after all he had been a part of it for 5 years after The Violet Syndicate acquired property, guns, money and men when they branched out to Tokyo.

But part of the syndicate having been formed in Miyagi meant the family factions based there were typically weary of those from the Tokyo based factions. It didn’t mean trouble for Kuroo and the rest of the Tokyo faction at the time of the acquisition, and things had run smoothly for the past five years.

All that of course came to an end when Akaashi, the Tokyo faction’s overseer, received a call, informing him that the head of the family had been in an accident.

Kuroo, being a bodyguard for the boss whenever he had business in Tokyo, of course insisted on accompanying Akaashi on the long trip to Miyagi to represent the Tokyo faction. But it was less out of obligation for his employer and more out of concern for his pregnant wife.

Again. Kuroo Tetsuro was no fool.

He knew if some type of power-grab was being made for the seat at the head of the family, she and her unborn child would be targets as well. Though the bodyguards from the Miyagi faction were reliable, he knew that the boss would always come before the outsider he married.

That night was by far one of the longest nights of Kuroo’s life. He listened for hours on end as Akaashi and Bokuto argued with Semi and Daichi on whether or not an investigation into the accident was necessary.

Not once did he leave his post further down the hall, guarding (Y/n)’s hospital room. It gave him some comfort knowing he wouldn’t have to rely on someone from the other faction to keep her safe.

But that comfort could only do so much as one of the doctors who was operating on the boss left his room. Kuroo didn’t have to be within earshot to know what had happened. The sullen look on the doc’s face said it all.

He wanted to push the doctor away when he approached (Y/n)’s room. Wanted to send him on his way and tell her the news himself. But the cold look Akaashi sent him, similar to the one he received earlier when he attempted to see if (Y/n) was awake, forced Kuroo to step aside and let the doctor in.

Kuroo felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach and his hands clenched into fists as a cry of despair echoed out past the door and into the silent hallway. The violent and pained howling only grew louder as the doctor retreated from the room.

He wanted more than anything to run in and hold her close. Let her cry into his shoulder, claw at his shirt and scream until her voice gave out and her throat was raw. Anything to let her know she wasn’t alone. But a simple glance at his superior kept him cemented in place.

For now all he could do was listen as she wailed into the night.

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“Is that what you’re wearing?”

The familiar voice pulled Kuroo out of his thoughts, forcing his gaze to shift from his dress shoes to Akaashi. The superior raised an eyebrow at the taller man.

“I had to get dressed too quickly... I didn’t think it looked that bad.” Kuroo murmured, the lack of sleep he was currently suffering from evident in his voice.

Akaashi’s steely gaze softened, only for a moment, as he glanced from the bodyguard to the door he was leaning beside. “You know you can take some time to get some sleep, eat a proper meal... put on something more formal. The Miyagi guards can keep watch over her just fine-”

“I’m never leaving her with those fucking bumpkins again.” Kuroo snapped, a sudden rush of anger passing through his veins at the mere suggestion. He quickly checked himself, offering Akaashi an apologetic look.

“I understand that you’re weary of their job performance... especially after the accident... But we’re all still family, even if Ushijima is dead... And I expect you to act like it.” Akaashi hissed.

Kuroo shifted his gaze back to his feet that were now shuffling in discomfort. “I can’t just leave her with them... you know they’ve never liked her, this is the perfect excuse to boot her out of the organization.”

“She’ll have nothing to do with the organization or its affairs unless Ushijima's will states otherwise.” Akaashi countered. “If she’s lucky she’ll be able to move back to Tokyo and live off a monthly stipend from the syndicate. Hell, maybe she could get remarried, have a family of her own...”

“That’d be nice... wouldn’t it?” Kuroo inquired, eyes still refusing to meet Akaashi’s.

“It would...” Akaashi slowly nodded, his voice becoming hushed as he heard the familiar click of (Y/n)’s heels approaching the bedroom door. “There’s nothing left tying her to this family now...”

Kuroo internally flinched at the implication behind Akaashi’s words, but those thoughts were cut short as the bedroom door opened, revealing the woman they had been discussing.

She was clad in all black clothing that her once swollen belly hadn’t allowed her to wear just a couple weeks prior. Nothing too revealing or tight of course, this was a funeral after all.

(Y/n) adjusted the black glasses resting on the bridge of her nose, hoping to keep her puffy and tired eyes hidden.

“M’am,” Akaashi addressed her, bowing slightly before straightening his posture. “The car’s out front waiting for you.”

(Y/n) gave him a curt nod in response before walking past him and down the nearby staircase with the two men hot on her tail. The three were greeted at the foot of the staircase by Semi, who quickly wrapped an arm around (Y/n)’s shoulders as he gave her a comforting smile.

“Thank you so much, gentleman. I think my men and I can take it from here-”

“I see no harm in them accompanying me on the ride to the cemetery, Semi.” (Y/n) spoke up, her voice meek but still loud enough for Kuroo and Akaashi to hear despite the distance Semi had attempted to put between them.

His smile faltered, but he nodded in understanding before continuing on his way to the car with the others.

The ride to the cemetery involved more talking than Kuroo would have preferred. He could tell by the look on (Y/n)’s face that she was tired of hearing Akaashi and Semi arguing over the accident. He couldn’t say he blamed her. If he had to sit and relive the accident that took his spouse and his baby over and over again he wouldn’t be in the best headspace either.

But, much to Kuroo’s sadness, (Y/n) only stayed quiet and let them continue their argument all the way to the burial.

He allowed Semi to help her out of the car before taking her himself and helping her walk to the spot where the family had already been gathering. Kuroo ignored the looks they both received, his hold on (Y/n) tightening as they got closer to the group.

She sat in the front row of foldable chairs, Kuroo at her left and Semi at her right. (Y/n) had already burst into a fit of sobs on the walk there, now she was trying to stifle her cries as she stared at the wooden box suspended above the 6 foot deep hole in the ground.

Kuroo couldn’t help but shoot a sideways glance at Semi as he rested one hand on the grieving widow’s knee while the other plucked a tissue from a nearby tissue box and held it out to her. She quickly snatched it from him and made no move to remove his hand despite the way her body visibly tensed at his touch.

Semi was Ushijima’s consigliere, his right hand man. The person Ushijima trusted most with (Y/n)’s wellbeing before and after his death. So why did the look the silver-haired man gave (Y/n) send a chill down Kuroo’s spine?

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(Y/n) sat quietly on her own in the foyer of the large mansion as the rest of the family from the syndicate chattered and socialized. She was used to the house being full like this, Ushijima usually had large group meetings like this when he had business to attend to.

She usually kept to herself, staying in their bedroom or going for a walk in the garden whenever the family was there. Now she was in the thick of all this commotion, her husband in the ground.

A glass of whiskey held in her face pulled her back into the present. She glanced up and was met with a small smile from Kuroo.

“Neat. Like you like it...” he mumbled, swirling the contents of the small glass before she took it.

She thanked him quietly, adjusting her sunglasses once more before taking a sip. The smaller woman winced at the burn, earning a soft chuckle from Kuroo as he sat beside her.

“Never something you get used to, huh?” he mumbled, smiling softly as she shook her head in response.

“Not at all...” she mused before taking another sip.

He caught a glimpse of a hint of a smile playing on her lips, and as she opened her mouth to speak she was interrupted by Semi.

“We’re ready to begin the reading of the will... M’am.” Semi announced, casting a glance towards (Y/n) that had her tensing in her seat. He then looked to Goshiki, then Tenou, then Shirabu, then Reon. Each of the men set aside their glasses and made their way up the stairs to the study where Ushijima’s and (Y/n)’s attorney had set up shop to read through the will.

Kuroo lightly nudged (Y/n)’s shoulder when she didn’t make a move to stand.

“I don’t want to go up there... I’m sure Semi will take care of everything and-”

“M’am, you need to be up there... I’m sure Semi would make sure you’re taken care of, but you need to make sure you get what Ushijima left to you.” Kuroo’s tone was firm but gentle. “This is the last bit of syndicate business you’ll ever have to deal with...”

(Y/n) nodded slightly before throwing back the last of her whiskey. She grunted, handed the empty glass to Kuroo, then reluctantly stood up and followed Semi up the stairs.

It felt like about 15 minutes had passed when the sound of the study door slamming open, silencing the mafiosos downstairs. The aura in the room drastically shifted as Goshiki stormed down the stairs and out of the front door of the mansion, Tendou hot on his heels.

All eyes turned to Reon and Shirabu, both sporting expressions of shock as they slowly left the study and joined the others downstairs.

Semi was next. He was trying and failing to mask the emotions running through his head as he approached Kuroo, Akaashi and Bokuto, who had gathered in one corner of the room away from the members of the Miyagi faction.

“The boss would like to meet us in the office in five minutes...” he said, silver-haired man’s tone hushed.

Akaashi raised an eyebrow at that. “The boss?”

As if on cue, the familiar sound of (Y/n)’s heels clicking echoed downstairs, followed by the attorney’s heavy footsteps. No one was subtle about clambering to the stairs to peek and see what was going on.

(Y/n) had slowly made her way past the stairwell, ignoring the looks she received when she stopped at the door of the study. Her grip on the sunglasses in her hands was enough to snap them in half.

She reached a hand out to the doorknob before visibly hesitating. She took a deep breath before firmly grabbing the knob, turning it, and stepping into the office.

(Y/n) approached the leather chair that sat behind the large mahogany desk towards the back of the room. She trailed her fingers over the arm of the chair, eyes glued to the space her husband once occupied. Some of his documents were scattered around the desk from the last time he had been there. The room as a whole had been untouched since the accident.

With another deep breath, she turned her back to the floor-to-ceiling length windows that spanned the entire back wall of the study and sat in the chair. She remained stiff for a moment before slowly easing into the large piece of furniture.

The meeting that followed was as standard as things could be right now. (Y/n), mainly asking Semi and Akaashi a lot of questions with Kuroo and Bokuto both wondering why they had been asked to sit in on the meeting.

Eventually, (Y/n) sent Semi away, asking him to get to work on informing their ‘business partners’ on the change in leadership the syndicate was experiencing. The second he left the room, (Y/n)’s calm, cool exterior went out the window as she deflated and held her head in her hands.

“What the fuck, man! That damn idiot! I hate this!” she exclaimed, causing the three men in the room to practically jump out of their skin. This had to be the loudest any of them had ever heard her speak.

“Um... Semi, m’am?” Bokuto asked, tilting his head in confusion.

“No! Toshi! That asshole, why did he do this to me?! He knew Goshiki wanted the position but he left it to me! This is so him! Throwing me to the fucking wolves then fucking leaving me to fucking deal with it all fucking fuck fuck!”

Kuroo’s eyes shifted uncomfortably between Akaashi and Bokuto, who looked just as shaken up by the rambling as he was.

(Y/n) ended the mini rant, exhaling deeply and slumping back into the chair. “Fuck my life!”

The three men remained quiet for a good minute until Akaashi cleared his throat and spoke up.

“Well maybe he wanted you to learn the business and take care of yourself rather than have to rely on a stipend from the syndicate-”

“I already know all there is to know, Toshi has been teaching me everything about the business since we got married. I just didn’t think he’d ever give it to me, especially when there’s Goshiki or Semi.” (Y/n) explained, eyes narrowed at a framed photo of her and Wakatoshi at the corner of his desk before flipping it face down.

“Wait what? Then what was all that crap we sat through these past 15 minutes?” Kuroo asked, raising an eyebrow at the woman fuming behind the desk.

“I don’t need Semi catching on, he’s pissed enough as it is!” she sighed exasperatedly.

Silence bloomed between the group until a deep chuckle erupted from the area Kuroo was occupying. (Y/n) cocked an eyebrow at him, jaw tightening as he erupted into a full on fit of laughter.

He soon composed himself before running a hand through his hair and holding his head. “So I suppose this means we may have a war on our hands then? You don’t even trust your own consigliere, or your husband’s most trusted men... This will be fun.”

“N-now now let’s not get too hasty,” Akaashi sputtered, “We don’t know anything about what happened that night, it would be unfair to draw baseless conclusions about who was involved-”

“Exactly,” (Y/n) interrupted, shifting her steel gaze from Kuroo to Akaashi. “Which is why you’re going to look into what happened that night.”

Akaashi seemed taken aback by this, something his new employer quickly picked up on.

“I need someone trustworthy to head this investigation, and I need them to do it quickly and quietly. Can I trust you with this?” She asked.

Akaashi quickly regained his composure and nodded, “Of course, m’am.”

“Wait a minute wait a minute, if there’s a possibility our boss is in danger shouldn’t we get her out of this house?” Bokuto spoke up, gaining the attention of the other three. “We don’t know where Daichi and his faction’s loyalties lie, but we know for a fact Ushijima’s old crew side with Goshiki’s non-existent claim over the business... And we’re in their territory. They could easily overtake us and get to (Y/n) if they wanted to.”

Akaashi seemed to ponder this for a moment before looking from Bokuto to Kuroo. “Would we be able to extract her and get her to the Tokyo residence tonight?”

“We could but it would be suspicious as hell.” Kuroo replied, scratching at the back of his head.

“We stay in Miyagi for as long as we safely can.” (Y/n) spoke up, tone firm. “There is work to be done here anyway... Once that work is finished we can leave to the Tokyo residence without drawing any attention to us.”

She cast her eyes back to Kuroo. “In the meantime, I want Kenma on surveillance for this residence. As well as all your men keeping an eye on the rest of the Miyagi faction... And you don’t leave my side until we’re back in Tokyo. Understood?”

Kuroo didn’t miss the way her voice wavered at that list bit. He gave her a curt nod, “Of course, m’am...”

(Y/n) seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at that, her eyes locked with his for a moment until he forced them away. They seemed to linger over her wedding ring as she continued speaking. “Bokuto. You’re not to leave Akaashi’s side over the course of his investigation... Nobody goes anywhere alone. I don’t want to take any risks.”

“Yes m’am. Anything else?” Bokuto asked, earning a small head-shake in response.

“No...” (Y/n) mumbled before catching herself and speaking in her firm tone once again. “No, you’re both dismissed.”

Kuroo half expected (Y/n) to deflate or collapse onto the desk once Bokuto and Akaashi left the room, closing the door to the office behind them. To his surprise, and glee, she stayed sitting straight, this new aura of authority never leaving her once the other men had left.

It was a good look on her. This power. She had always been so meek, reserved, in the background while her husband was in the spotlight. Now she took his place at center stage and he was captivated.

He hadn’t realized he had been smiling until (Y/n) pointed it out, her own half-amused expression painting her features. “What’s that smile for...?”

Kuroo shook his head slightly, fingers absentmindedly fiddling with the buttons on the sleeve of his button-up shirt. “Just thinking of how much things have changed so quickly... namely you.”

(Y/n) quirked an eyebrow at this, urging him to elaborate before standing to pour herself a drink from the whiskey decanter that sat on the nearby bookshelf. His amber eyes watched her closely as she filled a second glass, presumably for him.

“I remember the day you and Ushijima were married... it was the first time we met.” He trailed off, searching (Y/n)’s eyes as she stood before him and handed him the glass. “You were so young... Sure we were the same age, but you just seemed so much younger... maybe it was your innocence.

You had these doe eyes that told everyone everything they needed to know: You had no idea what you were getting yourself into... Sometimes I wonder if Ushijima ever told you before the wedding or not, but I know he wasn’t the kind of man to keep something so important from his bride... Whatever the case was, you were trembling at that altar. And now here you are... All his power and you’re taking to it naturally... no more doe eyes.”

(Y/n) was now leaning against the desk, still looming in front of Kuroo as she sipped at the dark alcohol in her glass, ignoring the burn and focusing on the intensity of his eyes. “You know my husband really liked you...” she said, taking another sip before setting the glass on the desk beside her.

Kuroo cocked a brow at her as she pushed herself off the desk and approached him, heels clicking slowly against the hardwood floors. “He thought you were a good man... he trusted you with both our lives and saw you as one of his most capable men.”

(Y/n) stood beside the chair the larger man was currently occupying. She placed her smaller hand on his shoulder, her touch gentle until she suddenly squeezed at him roughly.

Kuroo looked at her in pure shock, wincing in pain as she kept an iron grip on him. “But if you ever talk down to me like that again, I’m going to cut your eyes out.” she threatened through her gritted teeth.

The bodyguard knew he should have felt fear. Or shame. Or perhaps even anger at the fact he had been threatened. But he would be lying if he said the deadly look in (Y/n)’s eyes, the tightness of her jaw, Hell, even her words themselves... didn’t make his blood deliciously hot and his heart pump faster.

Her touch was like electricity. (Y/n) seemed to feel the sparks as well, pulling her hand from his shoulder and returning to the desk to retrieve her glass of whiskey. “Am I clear, Tetsuro?”

Kuroo felt another jolt of electricity flow through him at the utterance of his name. He couldn’t help the way his lips twitched into a slight smirk before he spoke. “Transparently, m’am...”

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“I was very saddened to hear about Ushijima’s death... he was a good man. But you can understand that I’m in a precarious situation given that I’m suddenly being asked to trust the protection of a woman that I don’t know.”

Kuroo couldn’t help but glance at (Y/n) for a reaction to those words. The newly crowned boss had been on edge for those past two weeks, he figured comments like that would have her snapping at them the way she had snapped at him weeks prior.

But she only gave the older man a reassuring smile as she crossed her legs, a very subtle way of showing more of her legs as her pencil skirt rode higher up her thighs. Kuroo felt his lips quirk into a slight smirk at the sight.

“I completely understand your concerns, Ukai.” (Y/n) cooed, smoothing out her skirt to draw attention to the garment. “But rest assured that my late husband’s advisors are monitoring the business and its affairs closely as I take on his responsibilities. Everything will remain stable through this change in leadership.”

Kuroo wasn’t wrong when he said (Y/n) was taking to this position; Her tone was cool, eyes locked on the other man’s as she spoke with authority. He was sure she could sell a glass of water to a drowning man if she needed to.

“Well... as long as the cost of protection remains the same and my day to day won’t be affected, this won’t be a problem at all.” The shop owner smiled, quite obviously drinking in the sight of the younger woman’s exposed skin until she stood from her seat.

“Wonderful. It was a pleasure meeting with you. Feel free to reach out should you need anything from the family.” (Y/n) said, a sickly sweet but somehow genuine looking smile painting her features as Ukai clambered out of his seat to bow respectfully to her.

The two said their goodbyes, Kuroo remaining silent as he followed close behind (Y/n) on her way out of the store. He took note of the way she suddenly tensed and shivered as they left the small shop, the autumn air seeping through the business formal clothing she had chosen for the day.

“M’am, we’ve visited quite a few of our partners today. I think it’s within reason to call it a day and get out of the cold, don’t you?” He asked, cocking a brow at her.

(Y/n) sighed softly, rubbing at her hands as she gave the bodyguard a small nod. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to go home and pick up where we left off tomorrow... and preferably in some climate appropriate clothing.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself, m’am.” Kuroo said, receiving no response as he led (Y/n) to their car and opened the backseat door for her. He climbed in once she was settled and instructed the driver to take them home.

The ride was completely silent as the two refused to make eye contact with one another. A more adequate way of describing it would be that the two glanced at the other on more than one occasion, always looking away before they could notice.

Their eyes finally locked, only for the car to abruptly stop as the driver apologized.

Kuroo looked at the heavy traffic blocking their route home, eyebrows knitting together in confusion at the congested street. It was nowhere near rush hour and this side of town was never so busy.

Just as (Y/n) began to voice those same concerns, Kuroo caught sight of a figure moving through the traffic... no. Three. Instincts kicked in within the blink of an eye, and before he really knew what was happening he was tackling (Y/n) onto her seat.

“DOWN!”

Gunshots. Breaking glass. Screaming. A symphony that rang in Kuroo’s ears as he shielded (Y/n)’s smaller body with his. Her head was buried in his chest, muffling her cries of fear as bullet after bullet pelted the car and whizzed overhead.

Soon enough the gunfire subsided, leaving the two to catch their breath in the backseat of the luxury vehicle. Kuroo slowly lifted his head, glancing out the shattered windshield before looking down at the woman he was protecting.

She clung to his button-up shirt like if she dared let go he would fade away. Her chest heaved up and down as she looked up at him frantically, confused and scared, desperate to be back home and away from the madness.

He cupped her cheek, soothingly brushing his thumb over her flushed skin. “Wait here.”

Before (Y/n) could object, Kuroo was opening the door and crawling past her body, exiting the car with his pistol at the ready.

She wanted to yell for him, beg him not to leave her and to just hold her until it was over. That was the old (Y/n). The (Y/n) who had a husband to go into the world for her, deal with the ugly bits of humanity to take care of her and their child.

The piece of her that wanted to cling to her old life with Wakatoshi is what kept her curled up in the car, sobbing wildly as she waited for Kuroo to return. Despite knowing Toshi had always kept a sidearm hidden under the cushions of the backseat, she made no move to grab it.

(Y/n) could hear a few shots firing, the sounds of a scuffle then more shots. Then a heavy silence hung in the air, causing her to fear the worst. The quiet was followed by the sound of footsteps trudging towards the opened car door.

She covered her ears and curled up further into herself, shaking with fear as the footsteps grew closer and closer. “Oh dear god please. Please don’t. Please...” she whimpered barely loud enough for anyone but herself to hear.

Two rough hands took hold of her wrists, forcing a scream from her throat as they pulled her towards the door. (Y/n) fought against them for a moment, sobbing uncontrollably until she heard the man’s voice.

She could barely make out the words Kuroo spoke, her ears ringing as she finally allowed him to pull her from the car and to stand on her two feet. (Y/n) was sure it had something to do with having to move, but just as she was finally processing what was happening, Kuroo had lifted her off her feet and began running away from what remained of their car.

-----------------------------------------------------------

(Y/n) sat motionless in her office, deaf to the bickering currently going on around her. It was the usual suspects; Akaashi and Semi argued relentlessly over what to do about the attempt on her life, talking over one another while Kuroo stood silently by her side, nursing a headache.

“We’re taking her back to Tokyo! She’s not safe here-”

“If she leaves it will be showing weakness!” Semi barked over Akaashi. “She needs to stay here and face this head on while we look into who was behind the attack!”

Akaashi’s icy eyes narrowed at the other, “You could easily investigate what happened while we take her to Tokyo...”

“That’s so typical of you... Can’t leave that city that reeks of piss and shit for too long! You think you’re too good for Miyagi-”

“QUIET!”

The three men froze at the sound of (Y/n)’s voice and turned to find her practically shaking in her seat. “I’m not sure if this is clear... but I want whoever did this dead. And I mean seriously fucking dead!” (Y/n) jabbed her finger past the bickering men, pointing at the wall beside them. “Their heads mounted on my wall kinda fucking dead!”

Kuroo bit back a laugh, glancing between Akaashi and Semi’s shocked expressions.

“M’am, we’ll take care of it the second we learn who was behind this-”

“Then get the hell out of my office and find out who did it!” (Y/n) snapped, glaring at Semi and effectively silencing him. “Play dumb all you want but I know we have little rats all over Miyagi, one of them is bound to squeal if you ask the right questions.”

“I suggest we take you back to Tokyo while Semi conducts his investigation.” Akaashi spoke up, the glare he received from his employer doing little to rattle him.

“Figured as much but I’m not leaving. Semi’s right that it will show weakness. We have more than enough guards to watch the house while he gets to work.”

Akaashi opened his mouth to argue only for Semi to cut him off, “I’ll get to it right away m’am. In the meantime keep your head down.” He approached (Y/n), placing his hand over her clenched fist that rested atop her desk. “This will all be over soon...”

Kuroo’s expression soured as (Y/n) made no move to pull her hand from Semi’s. He watched him closely as he and Akaashi left the room, leaving Kuroo and (Y/n) in silence.

He moved around the desk, sitting in one of the armchairs and gaining the confidence to speak. “Are you actually comfortable staying in Miyagi...?” Kuroo was met with silence, prompting him to continue. “All you have to do is say the word, and I’ll drive you back home to Tokyo myself...”

(Y/n) seemed to ponder his words as she looked him over, “A 3 hour drive in the middle of the night... sounds like a bit much, doesn’t it?”

Kuroo chuckled lightly at that, relaxing into the chair as he ran a hand through his hair. “Not for you, M’am... Hell I’d drive you all the way across Japan if it made you feel safer tonight...”

(Y/n)’s lips twitched into a small smile until she processed just how tired Kuroo looked. She felt a twinge of guilt, despite knowing full well it was his job to stay with her. She could have requested a different body guard to take his place so he could rest.

He caught on to her shift in demeanor, tilting his head at her. “Are you alright...?”

“About as good as someone who almost died today can be... you should get some rest.” (Y/n) said, standing from her seat and prompting Kuroo to do the same.

“I don’t want to leave your side... I’ll be alright, m’am.” He assured, only for (y/n) to turn to him and take his hands in hers.

“You’ve done so much for me today... please get some rest. I’ll call one of the other men from your team to watch my door tonight. Just please... rest.” (Y/n) pleased, tone gentle but firm as she squeezed his hands.

Kuroo felt warmth bloom in his chest at the feeling of her hands in his, but just as quickly as this feeling came it had left. (Y/n) released his hands, silently leaving him as she hastily made her way to her room.

-----------------------------------------------------------

(Y/n) didn’t know what time it was when she woke to a cool breeze slipping through her open window. She knew it was late, and judging by how low the moon was in the sky she hadn’t been sleeping long.

She sighed as she turned to lay on her side, staring at the empty spot in bed beside her. Absentmindedly reaching out, her fingers grazed over the sheets, missing the warmth of the man who once occupied that side of the king size bed.

Warmth. That was what made her realize just how cold the room was. Along with the fact that she hadn’t left her window open that night.

Just as she made a move to sit up and yell for her guard, an unseen attacker wrapped a silk tie around her throat, causing her screams to die down in her throat.

(Y/n) struggled to fight against her assailant, wheezing for air as they kneeled on the bed beside her and pulled her onto her knees. Her body was now flush against theirs, thrashing for freedom while the attacker only pulled harder on the tie, further constricting her windpipe.

For a moment, (Y/n) was ready to let this happen. She was that scared little woman all over again, waiting for Wakatoshi to run in and save her from the dark. No. It had to be Kuroo. Kuroo would have to be the one to save her now.

But as her vision began to blur, she quickly realized no one was coming for her.

In that instant, the old (Y/n) was gone. Finally.

She used the last bit of her strength to reach up behind her and claw at her attacker’s face. Her nails dug into the fabric of a ski-mask until they found purchase in the eyehole of the mask.

The man suddenly screamed and grunted in pain as (Y/n) scratched at his eye, the feeling of warm liquid running down her arm telling her she had done a number on him. She took the opportunity to elbow him in the ribs and knock him off the bed.

She coughed as she struggled to catch her breath, using what little oxygen she had to let out a blood curdling scream. (Y/n)’s chest heaved as she weakly crawled to the other side of the bed, groaning in anguish as she heard the door to the bedroom rattling against the hinges. It was painfully clear now that the assassin had blocked the door.

She could hear Yamamoto’s frantic voice on the other side of the door, soon followed by Kuroo’s then Akaashi’s. It was hard to understand what they were saying as another surge of adrenaline flowed through her veins at the feeling of the man grabbing her by her ankle and pulling her to the edge of the bed.

Another scream escaped her lips as she kicked at the assassin, trying and failing to hit his bad eye until she glanced at him over her shoulder. her heel connected with his eye, sending him backwards with another cry of pain.

(Y/n) pulled herself to the other side of the bed, digging into Wakatoshi’s nightstand. Her movements became frantic as she heard the bed springs creak under the weight of her attacker.

Just as the bed dipped beside her, she found the revolver her husband had kept in the nightstand. In a blur (Y/n) had pulled back the hammer of the gun just as the man yanked her by her shoulder to face him.

Kuroo felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach as he heard 6 gunshots echo from the bedroom. Bokuto had just begun ramming his shoulder into the door seconds prior, hoping that his weight would be able to break it open.

“Step aside!” Akaashi called out, approaching the door with an ax he had found in the gardening shed outside. He began hacking at the door, grunting with each hit until there was a hole big enough to reach through and remove whatever was blocking the door.

Kuroo flung open the door, rushing into the bedroom with Akaashi, Bokuto and Yamamoto by his side, each with their weapons raised and at the ready. The found (Y/n) curled up on the floor beside the bed, hugging her knees as she stared at the bullet-ridden body sprawled out across the mattress.

Kuroo ran to her side, cupping her cheek as he looked her over for any injuries, relieved to find none other than her bruising throat.

“Lets find out who this fucking dirtbag is.” Bokuto growled, yanking the ski-mask off the assassin.

The sound of the ax falling out of Akaashi’s hands and clattering loudly to the floor drew (Y/n)’s attention away from Kuroo and to the corpse. Kuroo turned his head as well, eyes going wide as his hands flew to cover (Y/n)’s eyes, but it was too late.

She had already looked into Semi’s lifeless but familiar brown eyes before Kuroo had a chance to shield her from the sight.

(Y/n) began screaming wildly and thrashing against his hold, sobs scratching at her already raw throat. Kuroo stood up, holding (Y/n) tightly as she went limp against him and wailed in despair. He uncovered her eyes to adjust his hold on her and keep her from falling, guilt forcing her to stare wide eyed at Semi’s now pale body.

Her screams continued to echo through the house until Kuroo managed to get her in the backseat of one of the cars in the garage, driving off with her in the direction of Tokyo and not bothering to look back.

-----------------------------------------------------------

(Y/n) stared blankly at the red liquid collected in the palm of her hand. A drop of water fell from a strand of her soaked hair and into the small pool of bloody water now rippling in her cupped hand.

A larger hand gently took hold of her wrist, extending her limb slightly and exposing the blood soaked skin of her forearm. (Y/n) further curled in on herself, bringing her knees tighter against her chest as a loofa gently brushed over her skin, leaving light red suds in their wake.

(Y/n) chewed at her lip, the slow ministrations pulling her from her haze as she cast a glance Kuroo’s way. He was kneeled beside the tub, eyes heavy with fatigue and squinting at harsh bathroom light.

He had rolled the sleeves of his thermal up to his elbows so as to prevent them from getting wet as he gently scrubbed her arms and torso of Semi’s blood. She had hardly moved since she stopped wailing on the drive from Miyagi, something told Kuroo if he even tried leaving her in the tub unsupervised she would slip under the water without realizing it.

It wasn’t part of the plan to start washing her, but the way she had just sat frozen in the bath, staring at the crimson clouds swirling in the water tugged at his chest and brought him to his knees beside her.

(Y/n) seemed unfazed as he ran the loofa over her chest, shivering at his touch only for a moment before returning to her motionless state. She rinsed off once the remainder of the blood had been scrubbed away, stepping onto the fluffy bath mat with Kuroo’s assistance.

Once she was dried and dressed comfortably, she allowed Kuroo to lead her to the bedroom. He checked the windows and shut the curtains as (Y/n) flopped onto the large bed behind him, releasing a breath she didn’t know she had been holding the second she felt the down comforter cradling her body.

“I’ll be right outside the door.” Kuroo mumbled, stepping towards the door only for (Y/n) to lightly take hold of his wrist.

“Please don’t go...” she said, voice hoarse barely above a whisper.

Kuroo couldn’t identify the whirlwind of emotions swirling in (Y/n)’s eyes. He could see the grief and shock from what had just transpired hours before, along with fatigue from barely sleeping a wink during the drive. But there was something lingering deeper. Maybe it was... no. It couldn’t be.

Kuroo wordlessly crawled into the bed, thankful he had put on comfortable sweats just before the incident. He laid rather stiffly on his back, his heartbeat thrumming in his ears when he felt (Y/n) move an arm over his waist. Despite his best efforts to calm himself, he only felt his heart pound faster as (Y/n) rested her head on his chest.

Her warmth slowly eased him to relax into the mattress, sleep slowly consuming him as he took in the sweet scent of her shampoo. His chest slowly rose and fell with each breath, only for it to tighten at the feeling of nails gently raking under his shirt and up his stomach.

It had to be his imagination, an inkling of a dream that he was slowly slipping into. Despite how incredibly real it felt, it had to be a dream.

The plush lips slowly working against his jaw, however, were not a dream.

Kuroo couldn’t help but shoot up in bed, cheeks flushing as he looked down at (Y/n), the unknown emotion in her eyes now painfully clear to him. “M’am-”

“It’s alright, no one has to know. Please...” (Y/n) murmured, lightly gripping the hem of his shirt as she sat up beside him.

Kuroo almost choked, fingers twitching at his sides as he struggled to think up a response. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to...

“(Y/n)...” he sighed, gently taking hold of her hands and bringing them to his chest. “Sex won’t make you feel better...”

(Y/n) bit her lip as her chest ached at his words, suddenly feeling foolish as she pulled her hands from him and looked down at her lap. “I just wanted to feel something good... for the first time in weeks.”

“When you’re in the right state of mind... we can try it.” he sighed, finding it increasingly difficult to take his eyes off her. “Right now I can stay with you, comfort you, hold you as much as you need... I just wouldn’t feel right doing anything else...”

(Y/n) stayed silent for a moment, internally screaming at herself to say something, anything to ease this tension. All she could do was wordlessly move her arms back around Kuroo’s waist and rest her head on his chest as he laid back, pulling the comforter over their bodies.

She stared at Kuroo’s chest, cheeks burning from embarrassment. It wasn’t until Kuroo began gently stroking her head that she relaxed against him as she had earlier. His thick fingers slowly worked against her scalp, pulling a content sigh from her lips as she began dozing off.

A small ‘thank you’ slipped past her lips before she finally fell into a dreamless sleep. Before she was completely overcome by slumber she felt a pair of warm lips press to her head.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The fact that the Tokyo faction hadn’t completely pulled out of Miyagi had (Y/n) more on edge than usual. She understood that Akaashi would have to do damage control, and that he would need a sizable group of guards there to keep him safe as he did so, but that didn’t make (Y/n) any less nervous about the situation.

According to Akaashi’s regular updates, Ushijima’s core group were up in arms about the turn of events. Some were in shock, evidently unaware of his turn away from the organization. Others had apparently seen it coming but elected to say nothing.

Meanwhile Daichi’s men were thrown for a loop by all of this, none of them having been in close with the late consigliere. That at least meant none of them worked with him on this plot against (Y/n)’s life.

It had been a week since (Y/n) and Kuroo left Miyagi. Since then only a handful of Kuroo’s men had returned to keep watch over the Tokyo residence. Kuroo would have been upset by this if they weren’t on their home turf, somewhere they knew like the back of their hand.

Over the course of that week, Kuroo seldom let (Y/n) out of his sight. He did what he could to ease (Y/n)’s nerves, well what he could do while basically keeping her under house arrest.

Whenever she wasn’t mulling over her work, he was dragging her out of her office to keep her occupied in other areas of the house. They quickly learned the kitchen was no place for them when they almost set it on fire their first night after they arrived.

They ordered a lot of takeout, eating in the house’s small theater room rather than the dining room and watching whatever movies they could find online or in Wakatoshi’s old dvd collection.

The two were settled in their usual chairs, a box of pizza set on the armrests between them as their movie selection for the night filled the silence between the two.

“You think that actually works?” Kuroo asked mid-bite, eyes never leaving the projector screen as he spoke.

“What works?” (Y/n) quirked a brow at him.

“The crying technique.” he responded, motioning to the screen with his free hand as the two teens practiced making themselves fake cry.

(Y/n) snorted as she bit into her pizza, whining softly as it lightly burned the roof of her mouth. “I ‘unno, never had to fake cry before...”

Kuroo snorted back, handing her an unopened can of soda to cool her mouth. “I’m not saying you have, I’m just asking if you think it works.”

She thanked him before quickly gulping down the soda and setting the can aside. “We can always try it if you’re that curious.” He couldn’t help but roll his eyes, but before he knew it (Y/n) was pausing the movie and turning to face him. “Cmon, since you’re so interested let’s try!”

“Noooo nononono, we don’t have to do that-”

“As your boss I am now ordering you to find out if the crying technique works with me!” (Y/n) giggled, tugging on his wrist to face her.

He could tell by the look in her eyes she wasn’t going to let up. Rather than argue he faced (Y/n) and huffed dramatically as he looked her over. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

(Y/n) smiled excitedly, bouncing lightly before composing herself. “Okay... tiny gulps of air. Ready?” The small nod she received from Kuroo signaled her to begin.

Her chest began to heave up and down rapidly as she started taking shallow breaths, eyes closing until she heard Kuroo snickering behind the palm of his hand. (Y/n)’s cheeks grew hot as she lightly smacked his arm, causing his laughter to grow in volume. “I’m not gonna do it if you’re gonna laugh at me!” she whined.

“Sorry sorry!” he smiled, raising his hands in mock surrender. “Taking it seriously now! This is very serious!” He chuckled, quickly composing himself.

“Good! Because this is serious! Now breathe!” (Y/n) playfully scolded, cracking a small smile before she started taking her shallow breaths. Kuroo followed her lead, fighting back a smile as they continued their antics.

(Y/n) let out a small whimper, the lack of air now pulling small noises from her parted lips that now actually made it harder for Kuroo to breathe. “I-Is it working?” she breathed.

Kuroo quickly shook his head, watching her closely as she stared at the ceiling, refusing to meet his eyes. “I can’t tell with you looking to the heavens like that, you cheater.” he said, moving closer to her as he continued taking his small gulps of air.

His close proximity forced (Y/n) to finally look at him, lips quivering at the intensity of his eyes. Their breaths mingling as their chests heaved in unison.

Kuroo couldn’t stop himself from glancing at (Y/n)’s lips, something that didn’t go unnoticed by her. He couldn’t deny he was satisfied she had seen it. Especially now that he saw her looking down at his.

His fingers twitched, longing to cup the back of her neck and hold her against him. Longing to taste her lips, but unwilling to cross that line unless she was ready.

Before he could further question himself, (Y/n) slowly took his cheeks between her hands, pulling him close enough to where their lips were barely touching. Kuroo exhaled shakily, the realization that she was waiting on him to close the gap sparking a burn deep in his chest.

He took a deep breath before finally smashing his lips against hers, drawing a moan from her as she returned the kiss with the same amount of passion. (Y/n)’s hands trailed down to his chest, gripping at his shirt as Kuroo cupped the back of her neck and deepened the kiss.

Kuroo was about to maneuver (Y/n) past the armrest to sit in his lap, the need to feel her body against his overwhelming his senses until the sound of the theater room doors opening forced them apart.

They were both very grateful at the height of the chairs, had they been shorter they would have definitely been caught. God, it was enough to make Kuroo feel like he was back in high school, having to sneak around with his crush or else he’d get grounded.

(Y/n) stood up from her chair, quickly composing herself when she recognized Akaashi standing at the door, clutching a file folder to his chest. The look in his eyes had (Y/n) completely forgetting her small tryst with Kuroo and rushing to get to her office with Akaashi.

“An autopsy showed that your driver that night had ingested a large amount of diazepam earlier that night... something none of his medical records show he had never been prescribed.” Akaashi explained, watching intently as (Y/n) paged through the numerous reports and documents he had collected over the course of his investigation.

Kuroo read what he could over (Y/n)’s shoulder, occasionally glancing between the papers and Akaashi as the man spoke.

“Meanwhile... Semi had been prescribed diazepam about three months prior to the accident. One thorough search of his residence later and...” Akaashi trailed off before pulling a sealed bag from his large briefcase and setting it onto the desk. Inside the bag was a half-full bottle of pills, labeled with Semi’s information as well as the name of the medication.

(Y/n) breathed shakily as she set the files down, forcing herself to look at Akaashi through the tears in her eyes.

“It’s evident that he drugged your driver earlier that night, knowing the heavy dosage would cause him to pass out at the wheel. Resulting in the accident... And since you didn’t die in the crash, he took action to remedy that when he knew for certain you’d be home.”

“So the ambush, he orchestrated that to make sure she’d be at the residence where he could try and...” Kuroo trailed off, earning a nod in response from Akaashi.

“Some quick hacking from Kenma showed a banking transaction between Semi and the three hitmen took place a few days before the attack... I’m sure he hoped they would get the job done before he ever had to intervene.” Akaashi explained, taking the file from (Y/n) as she handed it off to him.

She held her head in her hand for a moment, sighing deeply as she processed the information that Akaashi had gathered for her. She wound a hand through her hair, brushing it out of her face before she sat up to meet his eyes once more. “And the others...? Did they have a hand in any of this?”

Akaashi slowly shook his head as he placed the evidence back in his briefcase. “It doesn’t appear so... however I think it would behoove us to bring them here and interrogate them with you present.”

“Good. Send for them tomorrow. I want this over and done with.” (Y/n) declared, earning a bow from Akaashi. “I’ll leave you and Kuroo to discuss the security protocols for tomorrow. For now I need to rest. Thank you for your hard work.”

Kuroo silently watched her leave the room and was immediately met with a glare from Akaashi. “Did you fuck her?”

The bodyguard practically choked at the question, “What?! No! What the Hell is wrong with you?!”

“I’m not fucking stupid, I saw the way you two freaked out when I walked into that room. You’ve been alone with her a week and you’re telling me nothing’s happened?” the smaller man snapped.

“Nothing. Happened. And even if it did we have more important things to worry about than who she’s sleeping with right now.” Kuroo sneered, narrowing his eyes at Akaashi.

“That may be true, but we can’t risk giving anyone in the organization any reason to try and undermine her right now. You can both do what you like, but wait until this matter is settled... understood?”

Kuroo rolled his eyes at that, crossing his arms as he leaned against the desk. “Whatever you say...”

-----------------------------------------------------------

Kuroo had gotten a surprising amount of sleep that night considering the last minute preparations he had to take care of for the meeting set to take place that day. He was grateful for the small break he had gotten from his suits that week he was alone with (Y/n), but that only meant having to wear them once again felt constricting as fuck.

He adjusted his tie for the umpteenth time that afternoon, waiting patiently with Bokuto and Akaashi for (Y/n) and their ‘guests’ to arrive. Just as he began to wonder if (Y/n) had slept in, the door to the office creaked open, revealing a very professional, very sexy looking (Y/n) at the door.

She wore a form fitting blouse black blouse and a tight, black pencil skirt with tiny white polka dots and a small slit at the back. Her red-bottom Prada heels clicked against the hardwood as she approached her desk, seemingly unaware of the way the three men were staring at her.

“Is everything ready for our visitors?” She asked, smoothly sitting in her chair as she glanced between the three.

Akaashi quickly cleared his throat, causing Kuroo to realize she was primarily addressing him. “Yes, m’am. My men are all in place and Kenma is closely monitoring the residence’s cameras in case of any attack.”

(Y/n) gave him a small nod, glancing Akaashi’s way. “Do we have an ETA?”

“Approximately 30 minutes...” He replied, glancing at his watch.

“Good. You and Bokuto wait downstairs to receive them. Kuroo and I have some matters to discuss.”

Kuroo felt his heart jump into his throat, the sideways glance Akaashi sent him going completely unnoticed before he and Bokuto left.

(Y/n) beckoned him to approach the desk and he wordlessly obeyed, standing from his chair and moving around the desk to stand before her. “Is everything alright...?” he asked, the air around them thick with tension.

He watched intently as she licked her lips, her head slowly shaking in response. “No... I need you...”

Kuroo almost pounced on her in that moment, aching to touch her but showing restraint. “Is this what you want...? It isn’t the grief or the shock or anything else?”

(Y/n) quickly shook her head once more as she stood and gripped the lapels on his suit. “It’s none of that. I want you. I need you. I need you to fuck me and fill me before I deal with this bullshit. If you want the same thing, take me.”

He eagerly leaned in and kissed her hard, with just as much passion as he had the night before. Now there was no pesky armrest separating the two as they ground against one another.

A squeal of surprise escaped her lips as (Y/n) was lifted off her feet and rested on the edge of the desk. Kuroo gripped the hem of her skirt and bunched it up around her hips, revealing her lace underwear to him and pulling a deep moan from his throat.

He settled between her legs, hips grinding against hers as he greedily tasted her lips. (Y/n) hastily unbuttoned his shirt, exposing his toned chest and allowing her nails to drag down his bare skin.

Kuroo moaned against her lips, the pain mixing with pleasure as he ground his erection against her heat. He carefully started unbuttoning her shirt and littered her cleavage with hot kisses once he caught sight of her lace bra.

(Y/n) wound her hands into his hair, whining desperately as she struggled to get off her panties. Kuroo couldn’t help but chuckle as he assisted her, tugging off the soaked material and shoving them in his pocket. As much as he wanted to tease her and take his time with her, he knew they didn’t have very long.

He hastily undid his belt and his slacks, letting the material pool at his feet as he fisted his cock, lips quirking into a cocky smirk at the way (Y/n) stared at his length.

Kuroo gripped (Y/n)’s hip with one hand, using the other to guide the tip of his cock into (Y/n)’s entrance. He searched her eyes for any hint of hesitation or reluctance, but only melted when he saw the lust burning in her half-lidded eyes.

He fully entered her with a slow and deep thrust, unable to keep himself from moaning at the feeling of her tight pussy gripping his cock. (Y/n) whined and bucked her hips weakly in hopes of gaining some form of friction, earning a breathy chuckle from her lover before he answered her prayers.

Kuroo’s thrusts were quick and deliberate, the head of his cock pounding into her sweet spot once he found it. (Y/n) roughly took her lip between her teeth, trying to keep her moans quiet as ecstasy and pleasure rippled through her veins.

It worked to keep her quiet until Kuroo pulled her legs to wrap around his hips, somehow fucking her even deeper and harder. A small shriek almost escaped (Y/n)’s parted lips, but Kuroo quickly captured it in a heated kiss. Their lips and teeth and tongues clashed as their pleasure overtook them, orgasms approaching fast as he bucked wildly into her.

With one last snap of his hips, (Y/n) was pushed over the edge and moaning wantonly into the kiss as her orgasm washed over her. Kuroo reluctantly parted from the kiss, hissing as her pussy clamped down on him and soaked him with her juices.

“Tell me where, baby...” he groaned, thrusts getting sloppier by the second as he felt himself reaching his peak.

(Y/n) breathed hard and tugged roughly at Kuroo’s messy hair, back arching at the overstimulation. “I-inside. Please, inside...”

Kuroo felt his cock twitch at her words, unable to stop himself from finally cumming and painting her walls white. He hid his face in the crook of her neck to stifle his moans and groans. (Y/n) sighed happily at the feeling of his warmth inside of her.

A knock at the door cut their post-coital bliss short and sent them scrambling to tidy up and re-dress. Kuroo quickly helped clean up her smeared lipstick and dabbed the sweat from her forehead before drying his own.

Once they were both sure they were freshened up, Kuroo went to open the office door. He was quickly stopped as (Y/n) took his hand and turned him to face her, pressing one last kiss to his lips before she sat back in her chair.

Kuroo couldn’t help but chuckle before he opened the door, noting the knowing expressions on Akaashi’s and Bokuto’s faces. Akaashi was red with anger, whereas Bokuto was grinning smugly at the taller man.

“If you’re both finished...” Akaashi sighed, repressing his anger. “They’re here...”

Kuroo glanced behind them at the nervous looking group of men before he smirked and moved aside for them to enter.

The men shuffled into the room, each taking a seat in the office and flinching slightly as Kuroo shut the door behind them. He moved to (Y/n)’s side, looking over the group with (Y/n), unable to keep himself from smiling as she spoke.

“So... shall we?”

-----------------------------------------------------------

Tag List: @iwaxme​ @vventure​ @ochacostrange​ @yams046​ @the-broken-halo-writer​ @tokyoghoose​ @madireyn​ @global---weaboo​ @achoohq​ @daiseukis​ @bb-noya​ @lydzisanerd​ @gemini-writes​

[lemonpeter]

Thanksgiving for Dummies

I wrote this all today in between cooking my own meal, so I’m sorry if there are any weird grammar or spelling errors lol but I don’t think there are any. I hope everyone enjoys and (those who celebrate) have a happy thanksgiving 💕

Warnings: none! Just a little slice of life thanksgiving fic, all fluff and domesticity

Tagging those who commented and encouraged me to write this: @thethaliastxrk @starkerscoop @thatrandomsomnia @the-mad-starker @unsettledink @bongbubbles

————

“Peter, where did the-“

“Have you seen where-“

They both stopped, laughing to themselves. It hasn’t been the first time that afternoon that they’d started talking over each other.

“You first,” Tony offered, leaning against the counter and smiling at his husband.

Peter laughed, glancing over the counter and seemingly endless rows of ingredients. “I can’t find the chicken stock. I swear I just had it.”

The older man glanced around, humming softly to himself. He grabbed a carton and dangled it in front of Peter. “Here you go, honey. Working on the gravy?”

Nodding, Peter started measuring out the stock after taking it from Tony and adding it into a bowl. “Yep. Wanted to use some of the turkey drippings but someone threw them out,” he commented dryly.

Tony made an offended noise, bumping him with his hip. “I didn’t know I was supposed to keep the greasy pan! I was trying to be helpful by washing up!”

Obviously not really mad, Peter smiled at him fondly. “You are being helpful. But if you want to be more helpful you’ll get started on shredding the cheese.”

“I was about to! That was what I needed to ask, I cant find the cheese grater.”

Peter glanced around, pointing to the edge of the other counter as he continued making his gravy. “Right there, Tones. You might need to put your glasses on,” he told him teasingly.

Tony grabbed the grater, glaring playfully at the younger man. “Not happening. I can see just fine. Those are just...for precaution.”

“Whatever you say, baby.”

Tony stuck his tongue out at him before grabbing the blocks of extra sharp cheddar and gruyere he was supposed to grate. It was an annoying job, but at least it didn’t take too long.

Before long he had a bowl piled high with shredded cheese and then went ahead and got some water on to boil for the pasta.

Peter had finished his gravy and set it to the side since it was complete. He’d started on the sweet potato casserole and the pumpkin pie simultaneously, expression focused and scrunched up.

Tony couldn’t help but smile as he looked to his husband. Peter was always so precious when he got focused on something, completely sucked in until it was done. It was just cute. But as far as Tony was concerned, everything that Peter did was cute.

A couple minutes passed and he was snapped out of his gazing when the other man turned to look at him.

“You told Steve to bring the rolls, right? Because it’s too late to start anything from scratch and we’re both occupied here so we can’t go buy anything.”

Tony watched the worried crease form between his partner’s brows as the younger man stressed. Even though everything was going to go perfectly. “I did. He and Barnes are covering bread, Nat has green beans, Thor is bringing something I’ve never heard of, Sam said something about cookies....” he listed off people who were supposed to be bringing things, trying to soothe Peter.

“What about Rhodey? Don’t tell me you forgot to invite him.”

“Calm down, honey. Sourpuss told me that he’s bringing a pie.”

Peter nodded slowly, relaxing and he took in and mentally sorted through all that Tony told him. “Okay. What about Clint?”

“With his own family tonight.”

“And Bruce?”

“He’s on that trip I mentioned the other day. It’s like you don’t even listen to me.”

Peter chose to ignore that comment, trying to see if they missed anyone else. “Wanda? Is she coming with-“

“She’s with the Barton’s. And Scott is with his family. Seriously, it’s okay. Everyone was invited. And all the food will be here. You have nothing to worry about,” he assured him.

The younger man nodded slowly, hands nervously brushing down the front of his apron. It was dusted with flour that had come off of his hands in the other times he’d done the exact motion.

Tony went to him, pulling him close and gently kissing his forehead. “Everything is going to be perfect. I promise. You’re so amazing, handling so much of this. It’s going to go well. You don’t need to worry, honey.”

Peter nodded again, trying to believe what he was hearing. But the soft kiss definitely helped him calm down a bit. “Thank you, Tony. Thank you. I love you. I just worry....this is our first thanksgiving that we’re, yknow-“ he held up his left hand, ring glinting under the bright lights of their kitchen. “So I need it to be perfect for that. But we’re also hosting everyone.”

His husband smiled affectionately, nodding as he talked. “I know. I know. But I promise you that everything will be perfect. Everyone is going to love it. And I’ve already loved preparing it with you. I love you too.”

That seemed to calm the younger man slightly, a smile on his face. “Okay. Thank you, Tones. Now- help me get the sauce for the mac and cheese finished, please. We have three pans of it to make.”

———

Just over an hour later, everything was done.

The rest of the team started filing in, handing their side dish offerings to Peter.

Team. Well, they were more than that. Especially considering the day. They were family.

Steve was up to help set the table while everyone else settled in. He raised an eyebrow at the sheer number of dishes he saw in the kitchen when he went in to get the plates an silverware, but he didn’t comment. He knew it would all get eaten. A group of super soldiers and powered people in general, a huge meal would be needed and definitely appreciated.

So he set the table for everyone, rolling his eyes when Tony sarcastically remarked about having to do everything after he accidentally put the knives on the wrong side. “So sorry, I’ve never had to set the table for someone so finicky about their manners.”

Tony pursed his lips, shaking his head. “It’s not for me. It’s for Peter. I’m just making sure everything is precise, down to the utensils.”

Steve glanced to the kitchen where Peter was still frantically perfecting everything. Then he nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No problem. Just making sure absolutely everything is right.”

Natasha watched them from her seat, expression amused. She was really excited and happy that she had been invited, but wasn’t going to show everything. “Peter, come on,” she called. “Everything is amazing. Come sit your ass down so we can eat and bother you with questions about holiday plans.”

A laugh was heard from the kitchen as Peter emerged with the turkey. Well, the first one. Tony had to grab the other. “Just trying to get everything on the table, ‘Tasha. Give me a moment. I thought you were the patient one.”

“I’m eyeing that bird, all patience is gone. I’m starving and everything here smells incredible. Hurry up,” she joked.

Peter set down the turkey he was carrying, Tony following suit soon after.

Then everyone was seated.

Tony hummed, grabbing Peter’s hand quickly. “Thank you for joining us tonight. You know you guys are so much more than a team to us. You’re our family.”

Everyone murmured in agreement, except Natasha who glanced up. She was holding back tears, because the great black widow never cried.

Everyone noticed. But they wouldn’t mention it.

Instead the dug in, each of them taking heaping plates and complimenting Peter and Tony on their successful gathering.

Peter was grinning ear to ear, cheeks flushed. He was proud. And so incredibly happy.

He had been so worried about everything being perfect. But all he needed for perfection was his family. And his wonderful husband.

“Happy thanksgiving,” he murmured, meeting Tony’s eyes.

“Happy thanksgiving, honey. You did good.”

“I know,” Peter said cheekily, looking around the table.

[afictionaladventure16]

Remember Me (Bucky Barnes x Natasha Romanoff x Daughter!Reader)

Chapter 13

Remember Me Masterlist

Previously on Remember Me... 

Word Count: 2,461

Warnings: Uhhhhhhhhh violence?? 

A/N: Thank you @rae-is-typing​ for editing this fic! Sorry to my readers for taking so long to post! I know this chapter has been long-awaited but with the whole thing with COVID-19, life has been crazy. This transition from face-to-face to online classes has got me stress so this fic has been in my docs for a while waiting to be edited! So I hope you all enjoy this chapter! We are close to the end! I hope to get the next chapters edited with some free time I have tomorrow! Feedback is appreciated! Love you all and stay safe! Wash your hands!  

Fury watched as Natasha’s eyes never left the pages in front of her, tears spilling like an uncontrollable waterfall. Bucky’s arm found its way around her waist, pulling her in for a comforting embrace. Fury wasn’t sure if he was doing it just for her or for the both of them. 

 “She’s been working undercover with Alexei Sokolov, who you both know as Alexei Jones. They have been working for Zemo in his new project,” Fury continued as he let out a shaky sigh. 

“She’s alive,” Natasha sobs out. “And she’s been in our lives, she’s been…”

 “I know this may be hard to hear, but she may be there when we arrive and you both need to know that she won’t remember you. She’s been wiped many times,” Bucky winced. He had yet to say anything, his mind was still wrapping itself around the fact that his daughter was indeed alive. Yet, the thought of his daughter enduring the same pain he had gone through was everything he had feared. “She’s also been injected with multiple serums. Her powers aren’t known to the full extent, we don’t know what we are facing when we see her and I need you both to be fully prepared.” Natasha glanced over at Bucky who’s tears had yet to spill. Their daughter was alive, they had found her and they were going to save her. “I need you both to focus on getting your daughter while the team recovers intel, can you do that?” Natasha intertwined her hand with Bucky’s, gently squeezing it. His eyes flit up to hers. She gave him a smile as a tear fell down from her eye; she wasn’t going to give up anytime soon and Bucky knew that. They needed each other more than ever.

Fury knew he was asking for a lot from the parents, but he had to make sure this mission didn’t go south. “I need to know that you guys understand.” 

Natasha looked over at Fury, “We understand. The team will recover intel while Bucky and I focus on Y/N.” 

Fury nods. “There is a high chance that she will be with Zemo,” he glances over at Bucky, his metal hand clenched into a fist at the mention of that name. “Do whatever it takes to get her out of there.” Fury clears his throat. “That’s an order.” The director walked away, leaving the couple to themselves for a bit. 

“She’s alive,” Bucky choked out. “Our baby girl is alive,” he let out a soft sob as he leaned his head against Natasha’s shoulder. Natasha raised her hand, placing it in Bucky’s hair as sobs escaped her mouth. 

“She’s been in our lives this whole time,” she choked out. Bucky lifted his head from Natasha’s shoulder, his vibranium hand finding its way towards her cheek, his thumb rubbing away a tear that has drifted down to her chin. “If I had known,” she began. 

Bucky shook his head, “we would have never known,” he whispered. “It’s been years since we saw her and we both knew we didn’t know what we were searching for,” He admitted. His eyes searching hers, for hope and love. It was a quick search because it didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. “There were times where I searched for five years olds because I wasn’t sure what they had done to her.” 

Natasha let out a soft chuckle, unsure as to why she found humor in his confession, but it wasn’t just his confession. It was hers as well. Natasha was guilty of it. She had searched for a five-year-old, even though it’d been more than ten years since they took you from the. But in Natasha’s world… In Bucky’s world too. They didn’t know what to search for. 

“Let’s go get our daughter back,” Natasha said as she wiped away the last of her tears. Bucky gave her a smile before quickly pressing his lips with hers. 

“Let’s go,” he said as he stood up. 

~

“I don’t understand why we’re here,” you stated as you walked into the building alongside Alexei. He had been silent the whole trip, you were not sure if it was because of the argument last night or because he was nervous. “I don’t need another training session,” you began to say, feeling your heartbeat thump harder against your chest with every breath you took. “I-i think I can handle my powers fairly well, Alexei.” 

Alexei gave you a glance, a hint of hope in his eyes. You weren’t sure if it was his way of saying that everything was going to be alright or not, but you were holding on to it. Although you may hold a grudge against Alexei, you may question if he actually cared for you. The moments he showed any amount of thoughtfulness towards you made you feel as though he cared, even now. You let out a deep breath, making a mental note to apologize to Alexei later for last night. 

“There they are,” a guard said as he spotted the two of you walking down the hall. “He’s been waiting for you both.” The guard opened the door to reveal a couple of doctors near an all too familiar chair. 

Your eyes widened as the memories surfaced. Your heartbeat began to quicken, you stepped back but couldn’t go any further. Your back hit a solid mass. Whipping around, you noticed the guard staring down at you. You step back towards Alexei. 

“It’s about time you two made it,” Zemo commented as he appeared from a different side of the room. “I was beginning to think that my assumptions were right and you grew soft on me,” Zemo peered over at Alexei. 

Alexei lowered his head, “I am loyal to Hydra, sir, I would never.” 

Zemo scoffed at Alexei’s comment, he had no solid proof to not believe the man. He didn’t want to make a mistake of losing a good soldier, even with all his questionable actions. “I fear that our mission has been compromised. Someone has given valuable information to the Avengers, information that can ruin everything.” Zemo’s eyes directed towards Alexei,  a small smirk playing on Zemo’s lips. “Alexei, won’t you humor me and give me a mission report?” Alexei nervously looked over at you, trying to find the words to say, a small stammer escaping his lips. His heart began to race, how could Zemo had figured him out? He had been so careful to not mess things up. “Or maybe we should have our lovely Widow’s Bite to tell us?”  

“No!” Alexei yelled, he quickly stood in front of you. “I-I mean, I’m the one overseeing her, shouldn’t I be the one to give you the mission report?” Alexei stammered. 

“It’s too late, Alexei, why don’t you just go and work on some files?” Alexei’s eyes glanced over at you, you gave him a knowing nod before Alexei let out a soft sigh. He made his way out of the room. “That’s a good boy,” Zemo commented with a smirk on his lips. Alexei shot daggers into the back of Zemo’s head with his eyes before walking out of the room.

~ 

Alexei walked down the empty hallway, his mind racing. He tried his best to remain a cool posture on the outside, but it was hard when all he could do was panic. He didn’t have the time to talk to you or to even try to stir the way of your thoughts, maybe give him some more time for his plan to work the way he had thought it out in his head. 

“Dammit!” He muttered to himself as he continued down his path. He felt a sharp pain on the back of his head and in an instant, everything turned black. 

Bucky stepped back from his spot in the corner of the hallway. He glanced down towards Alexei as he laid unconscious on the floor. Part of Bucky wanted to tear the man into pieces, ignorant of the damage Alexei had caused his daughter, yet again, Bucky didn’t know if this man that laid in front of him was going through the same thing that he had. Bucky wasn’t sure if this man was guilty of the crimes he had imagined in his head. For once the term “shoot now, ask questions later” didn’t apply to Bucky, he had questions he needed answers to and that meant keeping Alexei alive. 

“Here,” Natasha stated. “This room is empty, with no surveillance.” Bucky gave her a nod before dragging Alexei’s body into the room. 

“Steve, what’s your status?” Bucky held his finger up to the comm in his ear, watching as Natasha tied Alexei’s hands and feet together before leaning him up against the wall. 

“We’re making our way inside,” Steve responded. 

“We don’t have long,” Bucky informed Natasha. 

“Time for a wake-up call?” Natasha asked, a smirk forming on her lips. Bucky let out a small chuckle as he watched Natasha slap the man, who was unconscious, on the face. He woke up with a jolt, taking in his surroundings, his mouth moved but no words came out. “Don’t even try to talk your way out of this, Alexei.” 

He let out a heavy sigh “This isn’t how I wanted you both to find out,” he confessed. 

“What do you mean?” Natasha questioned. 

“How did you want us to find out?” Bucky asked as his eyebrows perched. 

“One question at a time,” Alexei said with a soft chuckle. 

Bucky wasn’t having it, his hands meeting Alexei’s through, applying pressure. “You think this is funny?” 

Alexei choked for air, “N-no” Bucky quickly let go. Alexei caught his breath, “I had a plan,” his voice strained.

 “What plan?” Natasha asked further. 

Alexei glanced at Natasha, her tight lips and narrowed eyes. Alexei wouldn’t say it out loud, but he was deathly afraid of Natasha, maybe even more than Bucky. He knew all about Natasha’s background and how she became one of the top assassins. 

“What plan?” Bucky pressed. 

Alexei cleared his throat, “When I took this mission, I didn’t think anything of it. I thought it’d be this simple escorting mission. Escort Widow’s Bite to get some intel and that’s it. That’s how I treated it anyway.” Alexei’s eyes danced from one parent to the other, their eyes still as hard as rocks. “That was until I began to notice what Zemo had done to her. It started off small like she would question why children would play hide-and-seek, and I knew, what I was doing was wrong. So, one day Zemo wanted us back for a mission report, or so we thought, it was his way to get her to the base so he could mistreat her. He even enhanced her…” Alexei’s voice began to break, the memory of seeing your unconscious body that day resurfaced. “Said I should thank him, that bastard. That day, I found her files, and I started my plan to help her escape from Zemos grip.” 

Bucky crouched down, meeting Alexei’s eye level, his eyes searching Alexei’s for the lie that he couldn’t hear in his voice. “How can we believe you?” Bucky’s hoarse voice sent daggers into Alexei, did they not hear the emotion in his voice? Had they gone deaf? Alexei let out a soft sigh, trying his best to understand the situation the couple had gone through. 

“I know a code that will bring your daughter’s memories back, now it’s only up to you to put your trust in me. Otherwise, I doubt there is hope you will ever get her back.” 

“Liar,” Natasha snarled. “We will find a way. We found a way with Bucky, we will do the same with her.” 

Bucky eyes continued to search Alexei’s. Everything within him was telling him to trust this man, trust the man that could potentially lead them to their death? Bucky knew what this man may have gone through, the torture he had endured, but why change? What led Alexei to change for the better? Bucky didn’t know, but what he did know was that his gut was telling him to listen to Alexei. 

“He’s not lying,” Bucky glanced over at Natasha. She looked at him with disbelief in her eyes, she couldn’t wrap her mind around what Bucky had just said. “I think we should trust him.” 

“Trust him? God knows what he has done to our daughter, Bucky!” 

“I didn’t do anything to her, you can trust me! I would kill myself before even thinking of laying a hand on your daughter,” Alexei exclaimed. 

“How can we believe you!?” Natasha yelled with rage in her voice. 

“Because I was in your shoes once!” Alexei confessed. “I had a wife and a daughter and I did everything in my power to protect them, but I couldn’t. Trust me, Natasha, when I say that I never hurt your daughter and all I want is to reunite the three of you.” Natasha stood there dumbfounded, unsure whether to believe the man that was in front of her, but she was all too familiar with the pain in his voice. “If you untie me, I can lead you back to where she is, I can say the code and your daughter will remember who you both are.” 

Natasha looked over at Bucky, he gave her a small nod. She let out a sigh before walking over to Alexei and untying him. “Don’t make me regret this,” she whispered to him. 

“You won’t.” 

Alexei massaged his wrists before getting off the floor. “Alright, what’s the plan?” Bucky asked. Bucky held onto his weapon tightly, in case Alexei tried anything. 

“I will use one of you as bait. Zemo has been questioning my loyalty to him for quite some time now, so bringing one of you in will show him that I’m still loyal.” 

“What about the other?” Natasha questioned. 

“Your highly-trained assassins, you can sneak around without being heard. These vents,” Alexei said pointing towards the vents. “You will be able to follow me through there, they lead towards the hallway and into the room where your daughter is in. Once we know Zemo has taken the bait, the one who is in the vents can drop down and ambush Zemo.” 

Natasha sighs, “Alright, who are you taking in as bait?” Bucky and Alexei glanced over at Natasha, “Seriously? Me?” 

“Come on, Doll, you know it has to be you.” 

“That’s sexist.” 

“Zemo knows I can’t take down the Winter Soldier, but he’d be convinced if I was able to capture you,” Alexei explained. 

Natasha sighed, knowing very well that they were right. “Fine, but no one hears about this. Especially Sam.”

Permanent Taglist (CLOSED): @unapologeticallymimi   @glitterquadricorn @lady-of-lies  @cassmoreiraxo @just4muggles @mellorine-paprika  @agirlruinedbybands @yougottalovefandoms @avngrsinitiative @lizlil @otomefan @dejaazaro @culturebay @kpopishilarious @fireproof-heaven @iloveyouthreethousand-o6  @weappreciatepower @whereyoustand  @white-wolf-buckaroo @spider-woman22 @coffee-habit @supernaturallover2002​ @barnes-parker​ @myinternetissoslow​  @celyndavies​ @xzowiex​ @ximaginx​ @wooshytooshy​ @ellaorelizabeth​ @rororo06​  @chloe-geoghegan1​ @hdthdthdt​ @sophie-barnes26​ @thamuddagirl​ @scarletmeii​ @ssebstann​ @fangirl31415​ @thepeggyann​ @lauren-novak​ @reerrrrskillz​ @snarky--starky​

Remember Me Taglist (CLOSED): @thomasthetankson​ @s-p-a-c-e-g-a-l​ @thatsuperherosidekick​ @bethany-z​ @mottergirl99​ @all-fandomthings​ @shikshinkwon​ @majorlyextra​ @werenotloverss​ @delicatefirespyplaid​ @sweetcarolinestudies​ @lazyoswald​

@fabinaforever11​ @eclipwzee​ @whitelotus13 @yourwonderbelle​ @blackbannerx @hollandsaetre​ @hailqueenconquer​ @mellxander1993​ @iwamaye2​ @cookies186​ @tywys​ @princessizzy36​ @boney-and-skinny​ @fmb158581​ @vapingisntmything​ @widowbitessting​ @marvelsswansong​ @stat89posts​ @abswritesfandoms​ @feminist-fan-girl​

@royale-trash-slytherin​ @jupiterspoet @blancastans​ @brckenmemories​ @lovefairytailforever​ @witch-of-letters​ @rdjparker @sebastiansmadden @benhardyseyes @sakourim​ @fools-fallforyou​

Bucky Barnes Taglist: @multifandomwriter121​ @charismas-world​ @marrgaux @biss-stuff​ @fortunatelynerdylight​ @deephideoutmilkshake​ @acalmandquietplace​ @sleepylunarwolf​ @alicat-life @captaiinameriicasass @noobmaster63​  @pleasantlysecretdream​ @xiumin-girl99​ @thejourneyneverendsx​ @thewintersoldier1124​ @scarletmeii​ @imjusthereforsupernatural​  @latsyrc85x @dyckvindyck @dumblani​ @vapingisntmything​ @viarogers​ @supermoonchildbroski @beepbeepmarie​  @notice-me-tc​ @cooflix @hollandsaetre​ @infinity-saga​ @marvelsexlol

Natasha Romanoff Taglist:  @sleepylunarwolf​ @alicat-life @Noobmaster63 @Ballerboobitch @kayleigh2703 @xiumin-girl99 @adriennechavez​ @becauseilovebooks​ @supermoonchildbroski @beepbeepmarie @the-lady-cersei-lannister @hollandsaetre @infinity-saga @marvelsexlol @fortunatelynerdylight​ @thesuitelifeofafangirl​ @ima-gi--na-tion​

[taliaquinn]

Why Me!? Chapter 20

Authors Note:                                                                                                So hey guys!! A lot of you figured out my mini-Easter egg when I mentioned New York City. Kudos to you smarties. Let me tell you my tag list is open, because I adore you guys a lot.

“So where's Dick and Cass?” Marinette asked wondering where Dick disappeared off to. He was SUPPOSED to be there on the plane with them. However, once they arrived at the airfield Dick was nowhere to be found. 

Flinching Tim looked up from the business files in his hands. 

Hey while he was gonna be in New York City he may as well look into future business partners and get some more jobs in Gotham. 

“Well uh, Dick he uh decided to stay..home because….” side-eyeing Jason he quickly elbowed him.

Startled while reading his book he took a quick second to decide on a good cover story “because…his ribs still hurt and you know what Bruce is like all overprotective and stuff…so shes babysitting him....” Ugh Tim and Him were going to have to practice on coming up with good cover stories. The whole Keeping the family secret from the family was getting really annoying.

“That sucks, this is my first trip to New York City,” Oblivious to the awful cover stories Marinette continued sketching. She did plan for her class to have a field trip to New York City to tour around. But all those plans went down the drain once she left. Oh well, there loss.  “I'm even going to meet up with my friend Chloe at the hotel!!!” Marinette said excitedly. Chloe sent her an email a day ago about her vacation plans, (her revenge plans too). Marinette was over the moon when she found out that she was going to be there for the Stark Gala too!!!!

Mr.Wayne, her dad, even extended the trip a few days and got her a room, aka suite so Chloe could stay with Marinette more. 

Chloe of course was curious as to who exactly these relatives were. I mean come on they booked a suite at a five-star hotel, in New York City, for Marinette and a Friend.

 Marinette promised to explain everything to her when they were together. 

“She's….the Mayor's daughter right???” Jason asked, trying to change the topic.

Unbeknownst to Marinette, Jason and Dick, before Bruce and Dick fought anyways, convinced Bruce to get Marinette her own suite, so she could do the babysitting job without distractions. It was pretty easy to guilt-trip Bruce once they pulled the “Daughter who you never knew about” card. Guilt-tripping works.

At Marinette's excited nod he added “She’s frikin loaded right?”

“Jason, you realize we’re on a private jet, on our way to New York City, to stay in a five star hotel, to attend the Stark Gala?” Tim teased, flipping through business papers. Bleugh Lex Corp that's a definite pass on that business offer.

“ Yeah right, you guys are attending the Gala” Jason rebutted “I have my own stuff to do Timmers”.  

“Stuff” meaning a top-secret joint mission with Captain Rogers and Black Widow. Working together to take down a drug trafficking ring located in the heart of the city. Working with the Avengers every now and then exhilarating for Jason. Sure the Avengers worked more closely with the Government but they didn't have a universal; “No-Kill” rule.

Which was why Bruce hated joint-missions with the Avengers.

Extra icing on the cake for Jason.

“Excuses” Tim mumbled, upset that Bruce was forcing him to sit the mission out. Something about him being “overworked” pfft. He wasn't drinking coffee that much.

“Speaking of the gala, Marinette you have your dress ready?” He asked. Knowing that Marinette decided to make her own dress for the gala. 

“Yep finished the detailing last night, and have my jewelry and shoes ready,'' Marinette said, patting her suitcase. Mr.Wayne was nice enough to buy her a bunch of fabric and also gifted her a necklace and bracelet to match. He also gave her earrings but she opted out of them since she learned her lesson about taking off her Miraculous. Thank you very much.

“What's with the armbands?” Jason asked, seeing Marinette pack them earlier. He assumed they had something to do with her “babysitting” job. 

“Oh they were Alexei’s, they match with that I'm wearing”

“Your biological mom?”

“Yep, gotta ask Mr. Wayne more about her, I was only barely able to pry so much from my mom” Her mom would get too emotional sometimes when Marinette asked too many questions.  Eventually, she just gave up asking.

“Ha Mr. Wayne, you do know that annoys Bruce to no end right?” Tim joked, seeing Bruce's face of frustration every time Marinette refers to him as Mr. Wayne.

“I do, it's just…” she was still struggling with her Biological parents and having a bunch of siblings suddenly “Too awkward for me to call him anything else”

“Jesus you sound like Peter” he scoffed. 

“Who's Peter?” She asked with a slight scrunch of her eyes. That oddly reminded both Tim and Jason about Bruce. Bruce would scrunch his eyes whenever asking a question sometimes.

“Oh trust me you'll meet him soon” Jason answered going back to his book.

Dick was right the whole Wayne vs. Stark rivalry would be a perfect distraction. Oh if only Tim had his Camera.

......……

They finally landed, and soon Bruce was helping everyone off and into a car and heading towards their hotel. Once at their hotel, Bruce checked their bags in. Jason stayed behind to “rest” while everyone went to Stark Tower.

“Wait so Tony Stark is the one who is Throwing the Gala?” Marinette asked curiously inside the car.

 “Yep he’s throwing the gala to raise funds for hospitals and clinics all located around the world” Rolling his eyes Tim continued “Well that's the official reason anyway, right now he wants to out-do Bruce's Charity Gala from a few months ago” 

“As if that will ever happen” Bruce added. Ha, Stark wished he could outmatch his Galas.

“Talk about rich people's problems” she sighed.

“You're not wrong, One more thing, watch out Tony might try to take you as his own”

“What!?” Marinette squeaked out

Soon they arrived and made their way towards the suites. The elevators swished open to a smiling Pepper Potts and pouting Tony Stark.

“Pep, you see this? Bruce managed to get another one, you know what's the score now? 7-4” Tony complained once he saw Marinette. Bruce only glared back.

Ignoring them Tim stepped off and made a beeline towards Pepper and hugged her careful to squeeze her too tight

“Congratulations Pepper,” Tim said.

“Oh Thank you, Tim. It's great to see you after so long” Pepper said, hugging him back. She glanced around and noticed that a certain Red Hood was missing

“Where's Jason?” she asked frowning

“Unfortunately he stayed behind at the hotel to rest” he answered rolling his eyes. “But I brought someone better,” he said, reaching and pulling a startled Marinette forward.

“Meet Marinette Dupain Cheng,”

“Eeeep, uh Hi, I'm uh Mari-Marinette, but youalreadyknewthat, uh Hi” Marinette stuttered out. 

Completely starstruck at meeting The Pepper Potts. CEO of Stark Industries and Style Icon. Oh god, she wished she brought her sketchbook. Maybe she can do a quick sketch on a napkin

Pepper couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the Stuttering French girl, reminded of another awkward teenager. Hopefully, Tony doesn't try and claim this one. She was pretty sure that Bruce wouldn’t appreciate that at all, judging by the way Bruce was eyeing Tony.

“Brucie dear you adopted another one!?’ Tony teased Bruce swinging his arm around his shoulder

“She's my daughter Stark,” Bruce responded, glaring at Stark  “also what are you pouting about?  I hear you're going to have a baby soon congratulations Pepper by the way”.

“Brucie, you have your gaggle of children. I deserve one too!!” Tony complained, wrapping his arm around his Pregnant Wife's shoulder. Trying, yet failing, to conceal his excitement at getting another kid.

He turned to greet Marinette when suddenly his eyes went wide. Marinette only stared back.  A sudden staring match between her and Mr.Stark was happening apparently. What was Marinette's life? She remembered once being a normal girl. Maybe she should just blink.

“Wait HOLD UP!!!” Tony exclaimed suddenly ending the staring match, looking back and forth between Bruce and Marinette squinting.  “Are you sure this adorable child is your child?” 

“Oh for the love of go- yes I’m sure Stark” Bruce sighed exasperatedly. “Why does everyone ask me that”

“Cause she's adorable, sweet, and all Sunshiney, and well you’re….you” Tim answered. 

“Bingo, Don't worry Bruce I got a Sunshiney child too, matter of fact here he comes now” Tony comforted.

“OhmygoshMr.StarkI’msosorry” a soot-covered Peter apologized running up to him. 

“There was a fire in the lab,dummytriedtoextinguishitbutthemhesprayedhimself,

“Kid, Bruce Wayne is he-” Tony tried to cut in

“soIhadtoputoutthefireandcleanDummyUp”

Rolling his eyes he grabbed Peter's shoulders and twisted him towards everyone else

“Oh...uh Hi?” Peter squeaked out looking like a deer caught in headlights at seeing the three guests

“Hiya Peter,” Tim chirped excitedly standing next to Marinette who was awkwardly waving hello.

“Hi, Tim” Peter answered relieved. Thank god Tim, fellow tech geek, was here. He doubted he could handle Bruce Wayne on his own.

‘Anyways Brucie you remember my sunshiney kid, Peter, right?” gripping Peter's shoulders from walking towards Wayne. Nu-uh he wasn't going to risk losing Peter to Wayne.

“Mr. Stark I'm not your kid, I still live with Aunt May. I'm your inte-”

“Hush kid“ Tony ordered covering Peter's Mouth.

Marinette sent a silent prayer.  Bruce now had his hands protectively on her and Tims shoulders while Mr. Stark was doing the same to Peter. She would need a miracle to be able to survive this trip.

College Francis Dupont                                                                            Paris, France                                                                                                      2 p.m

“NINO!!!”  Nino couldn’t help but flinch, he’s been trying his best to avoid Alya all day. 

Luckily the breakup happened on Friday so he had the weekend to put himself together thanks to friends and icecream, lots of ice cream.

Surprisingly Chloe was the first to approach him after the breakup. After her, Aurore and Kagami came over to comfort him. They brought him some chocolate filled pastries. After a few hours of comfort, he received a phone call from an unknown number. When he picked up it was the voice of the sweetest girl on earth that greeted him.

“Hey Nino”

“Marinette,” Nino breathed out left speechless “Why, why are you even calling me?” 

“Don't be ridiculous Nino, I still consider you my friend, and right now my friend just got out of a toxic relationship” Marinette answered, yep she was happy for Nino when she heard that he broke up with Alya. Finally. “How are you”

“Who even told you?” he asked, still trying to get over the shock.

Releasing a slight giggle she replied “Chloe”

Nino couldn’t help but laugh through slightly watering eyes “Of Course”

At the reminder of Marinette, Nino mustered up the courage necessary and turned to face his ex.

Be brave Be Brave Be Brave B-

“Nino wanna explain to me why you’ve been ignoring me and Adrien since last week!!??” Alya yelled.

Channel your inner Chloe Bourgeois, he reminded himself. “We broke up, remember? I didn't want to hear your excuses”. That was all Alya ever did, make excuses. 

“Excuses?” screeching Alya took a step forward closer to Nino, instead of staying there took a step back trying to keep his distance away from him “Yes, excuses you always try to act like you never did anything wrong, or not even bother to apologize” “No I don’t” 

“You're doing it right now, jeez why do I even bother Marinette warned me” 

“Marinette” she spat out. Of course. She’s the entire reason why she lost Nino. Well, she wasn't going to let her win. She was determined to get Nino Back.

Oblivious to her anger, Nino explained. “Marinette warned me, as your ex-best friend she became well-acquainted with your “apologies”” 

“I don’t owe you an apology, you just overreacted” Adrien called her, and told her how Nino refused to talk to him and was instead talking to the class traitors “Matter of fact I’m here to give you a second chance, we can go and be a couple again and be happy”

“Yeah, sorry no dice,” He started to walk away doing his best to block out her screams. 

“NINO, DONT DO THIS!!!” 

A purple butterfly soon emerged from nowhere. Nino watched as it made its way towards Alya. Only one thought ran through his mind as he witnessed the butterfly merge with Alyas glasses and purple bubbles engulf Alya. 

Run.

Authors Message:                                                                                        Hope you guys enjoyed this extra long chapter. I can’t wait till I post the next chapter. Also I’m gonna start writing a series that focuses on Dick Grayson soon.  

I have part two of the Hamilton AU written out I just have to do this annoying thing called editing. Keep an eye out for that soon.

As Always stay Safe and Healthy Loves.

Taglist: (Still Open)

@purplesundaze @silvergold-swirl @k-poplunardreams @pepelachanel @laurcad123 @maribat-is-lifeblood @kass-is-weird @another-fan-of-anotherplan @damianette-is-life @amayakans @parallelparabox @miukiiu @valeks-princess @toodaloo-kangaroo @vixen-uchiha @thezestywalru @dreamykitty25 @pirats-pizzacanninibles @mochinek0 @shamefullove @mochegato @souleateralicestein @thestressmademedoit @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @aestheticnpoetic @flufflepuffle296@mysupporthyperfixations @itsmeevie01 @jeminiikrystal @iglowinggemma28 @whydoexamsexist @kuroko26 @animalgirl05 @susiej1118 @damianthebratboy @ccwkm6967 @valyui901601 @wannajointhecrabcult @thornalchemist23 @tazanna-blythe @rebecarojas07 @moonlightstar64 @chylou34

[thecandywrites]

Blood For Gold

So. I was SO INSPIRED by @kriskukko​ ‘s regency era orc art, please forgive me for taking it and putting it into the photo montage that I do for all my stories but I wanted everyone to see your amazing art and really get a visual sense of the story I want to tell. For more amazing orc and other fantasy beings in GORGEOUS period clothing- @kriskukko​ is where to go. They’re amazing. 

I’m a HUGE fan of Jane Austin in general and now with historical period dramas like Death Comes to Pemberley and Bridgerton, they need a fantasy twist with orcs, elves, trolls and of course mouras which are my own precious creation. Also because this is a fantasy period piece, I’m fudging and blurring the lines of historical accuracy just a wee bit. Regency Era- 1811-1820 ish. First Industrial Revolution- 1760-1840 and railways becoming a key transportation tool around this time as well. So we’re going with all three at the same time. 

Trains, Industrial Revolution, Regency, Nobility, Intrigue, Murder Mystery, Damsel in Distress, Mail Order Bride, Only One Bed but with a twist as Only One Train Cabin, all the clichés. ALL OF THEM. Enjoy. And I really hope @kriskukko​ enjoys this because this was written specifically for them. And it’s written as a reader insert. Hope that’s ok. If that’s annoying @kriskukko​, I can change that. Technically this will be female reader insert. 

Blood For Gold

Part 1

You were happily sitting on the train, in a private first class cabin suite, dressed in your mourning clothes, relieved that others took the hint and left you alone so you could travel in peace, reading one of your latest acquisitions from one of the more upscale and prominent bookstores in Kent since you were traveling from Kent back to London Towne. Normally you would never dream of traveling alone, but you did just give away your latest paid companion in marriage the day before to a man who would love her for the rest of her life so you found yourself feeling bittersweet at the loss of her company, both sad to lose such a close friend yet happy she would be happy. She was your third paid companion just this past year to do so. But you were far from begrudged. But now you would have to start the process all over again and have to take out an advertisement in the papers for a new paid companion and start anew. 

Then your thoughts were interrupted by the knock on the door by a station master since the train had stopped on its way into London, stopping in the industrial district. 

“Yes?” You asked as he came into your suite.   

“Begging your pardon Countess, but there are two first class gentlemen looking for a private cabin on their journey home and it’s a full train today and we’ve filled up all the other cabins, would it be a horrible inconvenience for them to share this one with you? We’d like to extend these certificates of first class cabins on future trips to you if you’d be willing to share yours with them.” He offered generously, holding them out to you hopefully. 

“Who are the gentlemen?” You asked curiously as you looked from his offering back to him. 

“Duke Damsey Voyambi and Count Javyn Jabire.” He answered. You didn’t know them personally but you knew of them. Men of both nobility and industry and supposedly of considerable wealth in this country. Although you did hear rumors of both gentlemen of being romantically attached to various debutants so you’d have to be careful to not let any rumors spring up. The last thing you needed was another scandal on your hands. 

“But of course, I would be happy to share my cabin with them.” You readily agreed before you took the ride certificates into your black laced gloved hand and put them away into your purse as the station master then happily left and returned with the gentlemen a moment later, they were exquisitely dressed but did smell like their factories, they must have been just checking in on their businesses. 

“Countess Morrigan, this is Duke Voyambi and this is Count Jabire.” The station master introduced as you stood to greet them formally. Duke Voyambi was orcish and the count was clearly troll, but you were moura, so it made little difference what they were. 

Mouras- ever since the moura plague over a hundred and fifty years ago that wiped out the heavenly moura population, leaving only the royal moura and mountain moura to live on since their own moura heritage was “diluted” by other races enough genetically to withstand the plague and live on- were now all born with golden yellow eyes, golden blonde hair and their moura collars and cloaks, instead of being actual objects containing magic and power were now reduced to looking like they were painted on the skin with gold glittering ink. It’s what made mouras stand out even more than they used to. Gone were the days of the real moura gifts but the breed’s legacy lived on. But you were of course in your mourning attire, mostly all black and covered up, the only moura trait giving you away were your gold eyes and little golden freckles on your cheeks and nose, otherwise you looked mostly human. 

“Pleasured to make your acquaintance Countess Morrigan. How do you do?” They bowed as you curtsied in kind. 

“Please, won’t you sit down gentlemen?” You invited as you gestured to the other bench before all three of you sat down again. 

“Thank you so much for having us Countess Morrigan, we’re much obliged.” Count Jabire thanked you earnestly. 

“Pleasure is all mine your graces, a journey is always more enjoyable when spent with amiable company.” You answered pleasantly. 

“So why are you travelling alone Young Countess?” Duke Voyambi asked curiously. 

“I believe you have me confused with the Young Countess Jane Morrigan, I am her late grandmother in law Audravienne Saharrazat Morrigan from Dorierra, I was married to the late Old Count Edward Morrigan.” You gently corrected, your r’s rolling while your moura accent flourished and furled with the pronunciation of your name, which both of them couldn’t help but raise their eyebrows at that revelation as they realized you were that Countess Morrigan. 

You were the reason every young man threw themselves into business if only to make enough money to afford a moura bride as beautiful and wonderful as you. To hear of the late Count Edward Morrigan’s death had many marking their calendars to mark when your mourning period would be over so they could pursue you themselves. Especially since after the death you weren’t immediately whisked away back to the moura stables of Dorierra but stayed in the country and it seemed to be in this moment that both actually took note of your mourning attire and seemed to connect the dots so to speak. 

“Oh, I do beg your pardon, again, so sorry for your loss, I believe the last time we were in the same room was actually your wedding to the Count only two years ago, forgive us for not recognizing you.” Count Jabire offered. 

“It’s alright, I did not recognize you either, that day was a bit of a blur for me and all the faces ran together having met so many people that day.” You admitted. 

Your wedding to the Count was attended by all of high society in this country, even the entire royal family attended, all of which you barely remembered because of the circumstances of your marrying the Count. It was all a blur for you and most of the first year of being married to him, you’d much prefer to forget and the circumstances of his passing had you feeling relieved you had only been married to him for a year. Much longer and it would have finished you for good. But you had settled into widowhood much easier than you had anticipated and it afforded for you to finally enjoy life again. Now that he was dead, you had a very charming and pleasant life, and one you would be loathed to lose. 

“Oh it’s perfectly alright, practically the whole country came for your wedding, it would be impossible for you to remember all of them, especially when all of them were practically strangers to you that day. And especially since you rarely come out into society since.” Duke Voyambi reasoned and all you could do was smile politely but it didn’t reach your eyes. 

Edward had been a widower, he was human and had married a human wife in his youth and used his family’s small and modest fortune and invested it into industry and investments, all of which paid off handsomely so that the Morrigans were one of the wealthiest nobles in all of England, if not most of Europe. Then Beatrice, Edward’s wife died, and in his old age, and now fully established wealth, Edward decided it was time for him to “buy” a moura bride, a tradition most kings partook in going back for a millennia since the moura stables were established specifically for that purpose. The moura estate of Doriera functioned like a racing horse stable. All brides were put on display and bought and sold or rented to the highest bidder, because since the plague, mouras were becoming even more rare and sought after and were the first to embrace the mail order bride system. Edward wanted a moura bride who was young and vibrant and entertaining to keep him company in his old age and give his last years a measure of happiness and pleasure. He had paid a fortune to the moura stable in Doriera for you since you had a pedigree that rivaled most ruling kings and gifts galore, not to mention were an outstanding beauty in your own right and Edward got what he paid for because you delivered on all accounts. 

Edward had been incredibly sweet, kind, thoughtful and generous as a husband when you first married him and treated you like the gem you were and in the beginning, you found much to appreciate and have affection for as he helped you to adjust to living in England, away from the moura stables and indulged you endlessly because he could afford to. He made sure you had a very generous allowance paid out weekly, wore splendid gowns and practically dripping in jewels at all times. You were his delight in his old age and he even had the good sense that it was all down in writing and was taken care of by his steward.

However six months into the marriage, he started to go completely senile, mistaking you for Beatrice and then getting so angry when you weren’t her and especially once the sun set every day, he became a different man, he grew incoherent, irritable and angry and even violent but then in the morning and during the day, he would come back to his senses and himself and would apologize and do everything he could to make amends and even hired special assistants to keep himself from hurting you further but even that only lasted a few months, the last three months of his life was spent having all sense leaving him and he became completely senile and deranged no matter the time of day and that’s when the abuses started happening, in his senility, he dismissed his helpers and Richard, his eldest son and heir, who was looking to save money, agreed with their dismissal, no matter your pleadings or theirs and even his steward plead with him but Richard and his family turned a blind eye to it since they viewed you as his paid caregiver and basically dumped him on you and left you all alone to deal with him and shut you and him up and away from society so they would not and could not see it for themselves while forbidding you from contacting the stables or anyone else about it to “preserve the family honor”. 

Then the “incident” happened and Edward unexpectedly passed. And it came as a relief to everyone else in the Morrigan family. Richard then fully inherited the estate and very quickly shipped you and all of your things off to live in London Towne as soon as you could be packed- to live in an exquisite and surprisingly luxurious townhouse in the fashionable side of town that was big enough to suit you just fine because you couldn’t return to the moura stables because ‘you were broken beyond repair’ by Edward’s and Richard’s treatment as judged by the stable masters who were beyond enraged at your treatment and thankfully Edward had written it into his will and specified the kind of living you would receive upon his death so that the rest of your life, until you chose to remarry someone of your choosing, would be in comfort and luxury and even accounted for inflation and unless Richard wanted to lose everything, he would be honoring his father’s wishes and pay out what you were definitely owed and had earned by enduring it, under the threat of the truth being discovered and him losing everything, including the family honor and estate and business to you, which the stable masters were more than ready and able to hire the best international lawyers who would make sure to hold the new Count Richard Morrigan to the very letter of the contract his father signed when he “bought” you from the stables which clearly stated, should you be damaged in any way, you would inherit all of Edward’s estate to “recoop” the damages inflicted on you personally which all moura contracts superseded all others in all courts worldwide. 

So that left Richard to pay for your silence and discretion on the matter, effectively doubling what his father had already set out in your material living agreement which you had the good sense to get down in writing and have the stable masters cosign it so that it accompanied the contract Edward signed which you kept a copy of in your possession and the stable masters also kept the original copy of and had it witnessed by the highest judges in the land, in private of course. Which for the price of your peace- and complete independent freedom from the Morrigan’s, you agreed to it since you could not return to the moura stables yourself. 

So you made peace with your circumstances and counted yourself fortunate to have the moura stables still backing you despite technically no longer being a part of them even though you knew that if this particular country were to ever become unsafe by either revolution or war, you were still welcome back to the stables under those conditions to simply preserve your bloodline, but little other circumstance garnered your return to them. 

Besides, you got to have the very same staff that served you at the Morrigan Estate named Broadcove follow you to your new townhouse- Mirador and they were ever so happy to follow you there because you were a good and fair mistress to them and took care of them exceedingly well and they made at least twice the money they would make at any other house and they were loyal to you to a fault. Even the steward followed you to Mirador because he knew his master had done you wrong. 

“How are you getting home to Broadcove?” Count Jabire asked curiously. 

“Oh since the Late Count Edward Morrigan passed and the New Count Richard Morrigan and his family has taken ownership of Broadcove, they thought it best I mourn in peace at a house of my own, so I have since moved to Mirador since the late Count’s passing.” You informed them. 

“Oh how kind and thoughtful of them.” Count Jabire noted and you fought not to snort a derisive laugh at that. It was never ‘thoughtful’ on their part. It was always just a business to them. 

“Yes, it’s been most helpful to me. It’s incredibly convenient to be in town and so close to so many amusements and diversions, it has helped me with my grief a great deal, especially since the living afforded to me by the late Count is generous enough for me to afford a paid companion so that I don’t get too lonely. My latest one was married only yesterday, Lady Bellum to Sir DeVaunce, you may have seen the announcement in the paper perhaps?” You readily agreed.

“Oh yes, yes of course.” Duke Voyambi readily agreed while Count Jabire nodded in agreement.  

“But now it seems I will have to take out another advertisement for another, since it’s obviously a little unseemly for a lady such as myself to travel alone, especially in this country.” You allowed as they nodded and gave each other a meaningful look. 

The rest of the ride was spent in pleasant conversation as all three of you got to become better acquainted. 

Duke Voyambi owned a soap company, making not just soap to wash the body, but laundry supplies as well which explained his own scent on his clothes smelled like he worked as a laundress. But he also employed a union of orcish workers. One of the few captains of industry that was for the union instead of against it, which you greatly respected because you could tell he was passionate about the betterment of orcs in general, from livelihood and wages, to education and living and working conditions and was incredibly safety conscious. 

Count Jabire on the other hand- he owned one of the many flour mills, using the river rushing through the feet of the bridge to run the giant wheels to make flour of various kinds. And it was why he smelled like a bakery and why the two of them together smelled- if anything- interesting. But they were clearly friends, and close ones at that and in conversation, they clearly played very well off each other and it was entertaining for you to sit and listen to them. You were almost saddened when your stop came and all three of you had to disembark. 

But at the same time, you were relieved to see Malcom, one of your manservants there to help you with your things and there with a carriage to take you home. 

“Till we see each other again gentlemen, may you both get home safely.” You offered the Duke and Count, curtseying again as they bowed and tipped their hats to you before you left to return to Mirador. 

“You have visitors waiting on you my Lady.” Malcolm informed you as he helped you into your carriage. 

“Who?” You asked. 

“Count and Countess Morrigan.” He answered before you groaned and made a whiney whimpering sound which brought a grin to Malcom’s face. 

“Why?” You asked. 

“Don’t know, but they came bearing gifts my Lady.” He answered. 

“Great, well, I suppose we shouldn’t keep them waiting any longer than they have to.” You urged him as he finished loading your things up and the driver drove the carriage home as you steeled yourself for whatever would find you once you came home. 

“Countess,” Richard and his wife Agnes greeted you as all three of you curtsied to each other respectfully. 

“Count, Countess.” You returned respectfully. 

“We trust your ride home from Kent was pleasant as always.” Richard urged with forced pleasantness. 

“It was,” you confirmed. 

“So what do I owe the pleasure of your presence your Graces?” You asked curiously. 

“Well since your mourning ends in a fortnight, we came to invite you to everything that will be happening shortly after, and since you will be out of mourning and even half mourning in a fortnight, you will need new clothes to stay with the fashions, we must get you out into society as soon as possible. Surely you long to see it and we brought all the invitations that we should all go to as a family.” Agnes insisted as cheerfully as she could muster as she presented you with a stack of invitations and you wanted to laugh scornfully in her face for her audacity. But decorum would not permit you to do so- so you simply smiled politely as you took them from her. 

“Of course.” You agreed as you started looking through them.  

“Well we must get you to the designer houses as soon as may be for they may need time to finish your gowns in time for all of these events. Take the next couple of days to rest and recoup from your journey from Kent, so on Wednesday perhaps, we should go, in the meantime, the stables have sent gifts to celebrate the event, and your servants have taken the trunks to your quarters for your inspection and we must inform you that you now have a dowry, should you chose to get remarried of fifty thousand pounds.” Agnes suggested. You were being paid thirty thousand pounds for your silence a year, since Edward afforded you fifteen thousand but Richard doubled it for your silance and discretion, but the Morrigan’s estate and business earned them hundreds of thousands of pounds a year which they were using to build an even bigger estate in the country along with a new townhouse in London that was going to rival any other as well, the new country estate was going to rival the Palace of Windsor or even Buckingham Palace. Which is how Edward could afford to give the stables two hundred a fifty thousand pounds to buy you outright from the stables but Edward, when he had not been senile insisted that you were worth every penny. But still, they always viewed you as a gold leech and they were obviously keen to get rid of you and have you ‘latch on’ to someone else. 

“Yes, Wednesday would be a good day for that, thank you.” You agreed, in a desperate attempt to get them out of your house so you wouldn’t have to put on this pretence any longer than you had to.

Mourning here lasted a year and a day for widows, the first six months were spent in deep or full mourning, where the widow would wear nothing but black, and the last six months were in half mourning where a little bit of subdued color was introduced back into the wardrobe, which seemed almost alien to you since mouras liked to dress in the brightest and most vibrant colors possible.

But you knew the sooner they could get you remarried after the mourning period- the better for them because they would no longer have to pay for your living arrangements and pay for your allowances. They were going to dump a fortune into getting your market ready and dump you on the first willing suitor who showed interest and they would try to induce you to remarry but you were determined that only the deepest and purist and most genuine love would ever induce you into matrimony now. 

If they only knew who you shared a train ride with- they would be going to the gentlemen directly to try to broker a deal behind your back as you wondered exactly what tricks they had up their sleeves to try to pawn you off. 

But you had tricks of your own. You just needed a little help...

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Hawkeye #1-4

September, 1983

Listen to the Mockingbird

Now for something completely different.

-OR- Further justifying why the posts are titled Essential Avengers when I’m just going to put a colon and then an Avengers to get Essential Avengers: Avengers. Its because sometimes its not Avengers!

Sometimes its Hawkeye.

Since I’m doing four issues in one post, I’m not going to go as in-depth as I usually do.

So, last times on Avengers as related to Hawkeye: Hawkeye was cut from the Avengers due to a limited roster. He eventually got a job as the security chief at Cross Technological Enterprises with the same lack of restraint that got him a job with the Avengers. He’s been doing that for a while, since pre-200. Recently the Avengers needed beef up their roster and Cap and Iron Man convinced him to rejoin, which Hawkeye has done while also keeping his security chief job.

During an Avengers mission TO RESCUE THE PRESIDENT, he broke his leg and was put on medical leave from the team. He got one of the CTE people to build him a rocket-sled that he could putt around in. Judging by the lack of cast, his leg is better but he’s still using the cool rocket-sled.

And that’s where we are. Hawkeye has a cool rocket-sled and is actually holding down an actual job at Cross Technological Enterprises. He’s seems to still be on leave from the team despite his leg being better.

The miniseries starts with Hawkeye congratulating himself on getting a cool rocket-sled, even though it cost all of his money.

Hawkeye: “���Bad guys beware -- Hawkeye’s in the air!’ Hmmm, not the worst slogan an aerial archer could have... but close.”

At least he’s self-aware. Some days that’s all you can ask of Hawkeye!

He spots three suspicious characters suspiciously sneaking and swoops down on the rocket-sled, taking them out with ease with his totally sweet trick arrows.

Hey, note to comic makers of our modern day. Trick arrows are sweet. I don’t need to see people getting shot in the eyes with arrows when I can see like a net arrow or whatever.

The three suspicious characters are actually CTE employees that Hawkeye asked to come in on their off time to help him get a hang of archering from the rocket-sled. Including the scientist, Jorge, who built it for him!

Wow, Hawkeye!

Jorge at least was happy to do build the thing because he feels like his talents are wasted at CTE and Hawkeye encourages him to go into business for himself.

Which is probably the kind of thing that’s going to get Hawkeye a reprimand but hey, good looking out, Hawkguy.

One of the other CTE employees asks why Hawkeye uses a bow and arrow instead of... a gun. Why not just shoot people with a gun.

Hawkeye: “The bow is quieter, more versatile, and in my hands the deadliest weapon in the state. Or hadn’t you noticed, Howie?”

He doesn’t mention that its also more believably non-lethal than if he were going around with a gun. Because Hawkeye says its the deadliest weapon in the state but he’s also a huge proponent of “superheroes don’t kill!”

But point being, you can buy a comic book guy pinning people to walls with arrows or using trick arrows or shooting weapons out of their hands without killing anyone way more than you could if Hawkeye was just using a magnum.

Also, this:

I believe he is literally flexing on that dude.

CTE’s new public relations lady Sheila Danning shows up for a date with Hawkeye because I guess there’s no rule about dating co-workers. Or at least if they’re not in the same department?

Having a woman showing positive attention to Hawkeye is his cue to have a little internal monologue that’s a little bit sad.

Hawkeye: Man, this is the life! A ridiculously high-paying job, a fast machine between my legs, and a foxy lady who’s nuts about me. What more could a guy want? Until Sheila came along, I thought I was put on this world for women to dump on. Women... like the Black Widow and Scarlet Witch. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t get them to care for me like I did for them. Sheila’s different. Even though we’ve been seeing each other for only a month, what we have is special, real, like nothing I’ve ever known.

I don’t want to ruin his good times but I will remind the audience that he once rage-quit the Avengers because Scarlet Witch didn’t want to kiss him.

Anyway, Hawkeye is pretty enamored. He’s even thinking maybe it’s time he settles down.

He takes her back to his place and they start dancing to some Mantovani as he recaps his entire backstory to her.

In fairness. In faiiiirness. She asked.

But you should know the drill. Clint and Barney ran away from the orphanage to join the circus. Swordsman saw potential in Clint and trained him in archery and Clint began seeing Swordsman as a father figure so threw himself into training in hopes that Swordsman would be proud of him.

Which is funny in an odd way because there’s some same-face going on and Swordsman looks just like Tony Stark!

I wonder if Clint ever slipped up and called Tony dad and had to cover it up by continuing into a daddio.

Anyway, he caught Swordsman with stolen money and Swordmaster left him in a broken heap and skipped town when Clint wouldn’t promise to keep quiet.

Later, he saw the adulation that Iron Man got when he flew over the circus and thought wait I can do that. Got a costume and tried to become a hero. Oops, tripped into being a supervillain and enemy of Iron Man. Annd then joined the Avengers.

Hawkeye: “I’ve done many a stint with my Avenging buddies, but I think I’m finally ready to wing it solo for good. Much as I like ‘em, they cramp my style a bit too much.”

Sheila: “Fascinating story, Clint. Looks like I’ve got a real self-made man. How about if I try to unmake you a little?”

And then they’re about to do sexy times when Clint’s emergency beeper goes off. Because somehow the emergency always knows when you’re horny or mid-ablution.

Hawkeye has to suit back up and head out back to work

Hah.

But anyway, he catches a lady in a very sleevesy costume prowling around and during some back and forth and further back and forth pinned you no pinned you action, she introduces herself as Mockingbird, an ex-shield agent and freelance crimebuster (I think that means superhero?).

Some underworld contacts of hers led her to investigate Cross Technological Enterprises under suspicion that CTE is manufacturing mass mind control technology right under a certain Avenger slash archer’s nose. I.e., Hawkeye.

She wants him to lead her to warehouse 10 but their conversation is interrupted by a security night shift who rush in and surround Mockingbird despite Hawkeye ordering prior to the action scene to let him handle it.

They cuff Mockingbird and take her away but oddly claim that they thought Hawkeye sent the signal for them to charge in.

Hawkeye is perplexed and vexed wondering if there’s anything to Mockingbird’s story. He doesn’t know the full extent of what CTE manufactures and there was some shady business in Marvel Fanfare #3 where a vice-president was using CTE facilities to manufacture a bomb.

Mockingbird’s story bugs him so much that he returns home to Sheila and tells her that there’s something he has to take care of and sends her home in a cab.

He returns to Cross on his sweet rocket-sled and investigates warehouse 10, finding it empty but with a lot of fresh tracks in the dust, like something was moved in only the past hour or so.

Also, a bunch of security staff show up and point guns at him.

That’s also a red flag.

When reminding them he’s their boss doesn’t settle them down, he rolls to the floor to shoot out the lights like a cool action guy and then starts taking them out in the dark just by shooting whenever he hears one of the idiots make a sound.

But one of the guards has Sheila hostage even though she was supposed to have gone home so Hawkeye has to surrender.

The guards toss him into a pit with Mockingbird. Just an oubliette that CTE has on premise, as ya do.

Hawkeye demands to speak with Sheila so he knows she’s alright and whoops she’s in on it.

Sheila Danning, heartbreaker: “Barton -- you stupid fool! Why did you have to be so conscientious? It was my job to keep you distracted so you’d have no time to notice the operation Cross had been contracted for -- a very costly, deadly operation.”

Hawkeye, heartbroken: “What are you talking about, Sheila? Are you saying they paid you to -- to --”

Sheila: “Yes, they paid me. I was pretty convincing, wasn’t I? You never had the slightest idea that I could sooner love a dog than a cornball Romeo with delusions of adequacy like you.”

Hawkeye: “You can’t mean that! They must’ve brainwashed you, poisoned your mind against me! Or -- or maybe you’re not Sheila at all, an imposter, or a robot -- !”

Sheila: “Don’t kid yourself, Barton. I’m the one and only. The woman who could barely keep from snickering when you told her your carnival story this evening.”

Ouch.

I like to mock Hawkeye because he deserves some light ribbing but ouch, she slipped a knife right between those ribbings.

That poor dolt was thinking about proposing and she was paid to distract him by feigning interest. Oof ouch.

Anyway, since CTE has suddenly become Bond-esque, they start dumping liquid industrial waste into the pit to drown and/or melt Hawkeye and Mockingbird.

The stuff is like acid but Hawkeye is kind of wallowing in being dumped and doesn’t care.

Hawkeye: “I ain’t moving. All my life I’ve been dumped on. I’m beginning to enjoy it.”

Mockingbird tells him that if he lets himself be melted by industrial waste because he feels sorry for himself, his ex wins. But that doesn’t move him so she has to mock him into action. This is what she was named for!

Mockingbird: “So this is what they taught you in the Avengers? What a bunch of jerks! They should see you now. I’ll bet you let them down in a pinch, too. Whenever your feelings get hurt.”

Hawkeye: “SHUT UP! I’m gonna get us out of here, lady. Then I’m going to kill Sheila for what she did to me. Then you’ll get yours, too.”

Mockingbird: “Sure, sure. Get us out first.”

Hah, I like Mockingbird.

And I like Hawkeye too. He makes good use of what he has to escape this Bond-esque trap. He doesn’t have his bow or his arrows but he keeps a fifty foot length of cord in his boot and spare arrowheads in his tunic. He calls his rocket-sled with the remote control, ties the cord to a spare rocket arrow-tip and rockets himself and Mockingbird out of the pit and up to his rocket-sled.

Then Hawkeye says he has to go attend some private business and Mockingbird is like cool, I’ll wait for you and hops onto a roof.

Hawkeye rams the rocket-sled through the window of Sheila Danning’s office and jump kicks the guards she has with her and confronts her.

Hawkeye: “You hurt me, Sheila... More than anything ever hurt in my life.”

Sheila: “Stay back, Hawkeye! I - I --”

Hawkeye: “I could kill you for what you did to me. But I won’t. I... can’t. I just don’t care anymore... about you or about whatever scheme Cross is up to! Give me my bow and quiver back and I’ll go.”

Tangentially, like an anime, his shirt is a lot flimsier than his pants and melted off in the acid while his pants are tattered but intact. If only they made shirts out of pants...

And if only they made any outfit out of lady outfit. Mockingbird’s outfit has a few holes and tatters but her whole top didn’t dissolve like Hawkeye’s did!

Sheila does give Hawkeye his archery stuff but warns him that he Knows Too Much and Cross will come after him.

Kind of a weird flex to pull on AN AVENGER WHO KNOWS THOR but you do you, Cross Technological Enterprises.

Hawkeye just takes off on his sweet rocket-sled without responding, zooming past where he left Mockingbird who has to jump onto the moving rocket-sled because he does not slow down for her.

Mockingbird: “Got your business taken care of, sport?”

Hawkeye, crying a little: “Shut up, just shut up. If you hadn’t shown up, none of this could have happened.”

Oof.

That’s the hurt speaking buddy. Ignorance wouldn’t have been bliss here because as soon as Cross didn’t need to distract you any longer, Sheila probably would have found some excuse to dump you.

Also, their scheme was asinine! They don’t have other facilities? Just build the mind control doohickey somewhere else instead of paying someone to distract Hawkeye with horny!

October, 1983

POINT BLANK!

So after having his heart broken and wallowing in some acid sludge in the last issue, Hawkeye is in a bad place. Emotionally. And also geographically.

He’s standing on some abandoned railroad tracks under the West Side Highway and shooting arrows at a bullseye he crudely drew on a cement block.

And Good Archer Hawkeye has not hit a single bullseye because of all the emotional turmoil. Also, since he’s shooting at concrete, he’s breaking all of his arrows.

He’s also wearing his no-shirt acid-tattered costume.

And he’s been here for 42 hours without sleeping, eating, or managing to hit a bullseye.

He’s in a bad place.

So he passes out and he’s eventually found by some random street toughs who recognize him as an Avenger (although they think his name is Nighthawk womp womp) and decide ‘hey lets kick his ass and do him a murder maybe.’

Hawkeye comes to, as one might when people are kicking them in the head, and manages to nail three bullseyes on the three toughs he didn’t kick unconscious.

Hawkeye: Three bullseyes. Two kayos. Five sleezos in dreamland. Thanks, creeps. You gave me a reason to go on living. I’m just not sure what it is!

But now Hawkeye is at a loss of what to actually do. He refuses to go to the Avengers for help because blah blah blah muh pride. He can’t go and “mooch” off of them. So he decides to go check out the apartment he had through Cross Technological Enterprises and see whether they’ve cleared him out or not.

They have.

Everything he had to his name except the clothes on his back and bow in his hand gone. Arrow-making tools and spare costumes gone too.

But he also finds Mockingbird waiting for him.

Mockingbird: “Hello, Hawk. Can I buy you some breakfast?”

Hawkeye: “MOCKINGBIRD! Lady, you’re not one of my favorite people, but I know a good offer when I hear one.”

A free breakfast is a free breakfast.

Mockingbird takes Hawkeye back to her apartment and apologizes for blowing up his life but also says that it would have happened eventually anyway even had she never come along.

Which, yeah, you can only pay a person to pretend to love someone they hate for so long before the mask slips.

She also offers to mend his costume. Not sure how she’s thinking. Its not torn. Its half gone.

Hawkeye says yeah sure but hey why don’t you narrate your ENTIRE BACKSTORY.

So Mockingbird introduces herself as Barbara Morse, Bobbi to her friends.

She was a biology whiz at Georgia Tech and went with her favorite professor when she signed on to a government project to recover the super-soldier serum that made Captain America so super.

SHIELD was one of the sponsors of the project so Bobbi got to know several SHIELD agents and realized ‘hey being a spy sounds AMAZING’ and signed up with SHIELD’s spy school.

She graduated top of her class and was sent on a mission to track down Ka-Zar who SHIELD wanted to hire.

Mockingbird: “I found the jungle man all right. Even got involved with him, if you know what I mean. But things never quite worked out between us.”

Oh my god, what a power move to brag about nailing discount-Tarzan while recapping your life story.

Later, she investigated SHIELD itself at the request of a Congressman under the identity as the Huntress. But not the crossbow one. But because of her actions, she gained the reputation as a traitor to SHIELD.

So she changed her name to Mockingbird and took the evidence of corrupt agents to Nick Fury. And got shot a couple times in the attempt.

She had to spend six months recovering and after turned down a SHIELD promotion to go solo.

Mockingbird: “Not that I had anything against S.H.I.E.L.D... I just got used to operating alone. It wasn’t long after I got back into circulation that I came across the lead that took me to Cross Tech and I bumped into you. So that’s my lifestory in a nutshell, Hawk.”

I don’t know why I thought Mockingbird debuted in this series because she has a lot of backstory here. She showed up in Astonishing Tales #6 unnamed, was introduced as Dr. Barbara Morse in Astonishing Tales #12, was introduced in her Huntress (but not that one) identity in Marvel Super Action #1, and even Mockingbird debuted in Marvel Team-Up #95! Geez, Bobbi!

Annnnnd then Mockingbird realizes that Hawkeye fell asleep on her while she was recapping her entire life!

Bobbi doesn’t hold it against him, realizing how exhausted he must have been.

She tucks him in and heads off to go pick up some supplies to fix his costume.

Later, someone picks the locks to the apartment door and silently comes up and puts a gun to the sleeping Hawkeye’s head.

Perhaps it is instinct -- a survival sense honed in hundreds of life-and-death struggles... But somehow Clint Barton feels the cool gun metal at his temple, instantly recognizes it for what it is -- and reacts.

(We actually see a hint of this dingus at Hawkeye’s apartment when he meets Mockingbird there. Implying that he somehow followed them from there to Bobbi’s apartment. Somehow. Even though Hawkeye and Bobbi took Hawkeye’s sweet rocket-sled. Good tracking, this guy.)

Hawkeye manages to dive away from the guy’s gunfire and hide behind one of those tables that looks like a giant spool. He weirdly realizes that the assassin’s gun isn’t making any sound when he fires and the bullets aren’t making any noise when they hit.

He’s in a tough spot unable to reach his bow in time when Mockingbird comes back to save Hawkeye, flipping the assassin and telling Hawkeye to grab his gun.

The assassin jumps out the window rather than deal with the both of them (Bobbi speculates its because she’s not on his hit list).

Hawkeye tests the gun after and discovers that its not silenced which means that the silencer was all in the guy’s suit, muting all the sounds he makes.

He dubs the guy Silencer and he has a pretty neat gimmick but doesn’t seem to ever appear again after this issue.

Shame. Imagine this guy against Daredevil.

Anyway, Mockingbird also managed to make Hawkeye a new outfit while she was gone.

Mockingbird: “Here -- better put this on. Half-naked men with guns make it hard for me to concentrate.”

Hawkeye: “Sure.”

God. Hawkeye’s non-reaction to that blatant flirt makes me laugh. He may as well have Saitama meme’d.

So the new outfit.

The blue is a lot darker now. The dangly part of the tunic is a lot less dangly now. And the outfit has some asymmetrical sleeves. Also, its not entirely clear on this shot but the gloves are weird. They don’t cover the sides of his fingers. I don’t know if that’s an archery thing or what and I don’t know if that’s going to be a detail that lasts once other artists start drawing this costume.

All in all, not a bad looking new outfit. Its better than that time he didn’t wear pants.

Later that night, Hawkeye figures that they need to return to Cross and figure out who hired them to build that mind-control thing. But, they’ll need help getting back into Cross.

(Hey, I just realized. Hawkeye was double Cross’d by his employer. Hah.)

They go to visit Jorge Latham, the guy who built a sweet rocket-sled for Hawkeye so probably the guy he trusts the most now.

Jorge: “What happened to you, man? We got a memo two days ago that you were fired for incompetency, and I haven’t seen you since!”

Aw man, insult to injury! They told everyone that Hawkeye was fired because he sucked too hard!

Hawkeye tells Jorge the story, in brief, about how Cross is up to something, gets information on where the special projects are done, and tells Jorge to maybe get his resume in order in case he accidentally shuts the whole company down in the course of blowing this thing wide open.

Jorge is a lot more chill about learning he might be unemployed soon than I think a lot of other people would be. Although he had already expressed he wasn’t really satisfied in his job.

Hawkeye: “The info he gave us is going to save us a lot of hassle. Sure is good to have a few folks you can trust.”

Mockingbird: “You still don’t quite trust me, do you, Hawkeye? Even after I saved your life.”

Hawkeye: “No offense, lady. But it’s going to take me a while before I can fully trust any woman again.”

Geez, really hope that doesn’t last. He already teetered into disrespect of women without becoming a full-on misogynist.

Drink your respect women juice, Hawkeye.

The two return to Cross Technological Enterprises and Hawkeye uses his electronic security neutralizer arrowhead to neutralize the security on a window so they can jimmy it open and get inside.

.... Why do you need an electronic security neutralizer arrow? The way he uses it is tracing the circuit in the window and I don’t think you could shoot an arrow in a way that did that. And if you did shoot an arrow at a security system in a window, I think you’d break the window and set off the alarm?

What a mystery.

Hawkeye has never been in the special projects department but it doesn’t take a genius to find some filing cabinets.

Mockingbird: “Locked, of course. It also doesn’t take an electronic gizmo to open a locked file. Just a hairpin. See?”

Hawkeye: “Showoff.”

This would be banter if Hawkeye didn’t look so somber.

But Hawkeye gets to be useful too when he pulls out his....... penlight arrowhead?

WHY WOULD YOU EVER NEED TO FIRE A FLASHLIGHT? WHAT PURPOSE DOES THAT SERVE??

Mockingbird: “I just don’t know how I ever got along without you and your handy tools, Mr. H.”

DON’T ENCOURAGE HIM

The Silencer guy sneaks up on the duo as they’re snooping the files and something cues Hawkeye in to swivel around and fire an electro-stun arrow. Couldn’t have been a sound so lets say air flow?

The electro-stun doesn’t stun the Silencer so him and Hawkeye end up grappling right out the window. Because that’s the kind of life Hawkeye leads.

Luckily the rocket-sled (although he’s changed the name to sky-mobile by this point) was hovering right outside so the two wind up grappling on it as it rockets around the CTE compound.

The two wind up falling off the sky-mobile and onto a smokestack... God, its starting to be like one of those giant chicken fights...

Anyway, the Silencer catches the edge but Hawkeye misses and goes plummeting into a smokestack, hopefully not to find a Spider-Man skeleton.

The Silencer drops his guard to try to figure out how the heck he’s going to get down from here and Hawkeye reemerges, yanking the Silencer down and pulling himself back up.

Not sure if the implication is that Hawkeye killed him. Hawkeye is famously vehemently ‘Avengers don’t kill!’ and the Silencer isn’t confirmed dead but also never shows up again.

Hawkeye summons the sky-sled (the caption changed the name on me again) and rockets back to where he left Mockingbird and in the meantime she’s found all the information they need to find who hired Cross to build the thing.

Hawkeye: “Run into any trouble?”

Mockingbird: “Not really.”

Hah. Apparently she beat up a room full of guards while he was gone. Good on you, Mockingbird.

November, 1983

Beating the ODDS

Pretty neat cover.

Also, pretty neat logo. I didn’t mention it earlier but yeah you have a neat logo, Hawkeye.

Mockingbird and Hawkeye return to her apartment after breaking into Cross Technological last issue.

Something that they may have done well to ponder is whether maybe it wasn’t a safe HQ anymore if that Silencer guy was able to track them there.

What I’m getting at is that there are two more assassins - Oddball and Bombshell - watching from an adjacent rooftop as the heroes head inside.

And then the apartment explodes.

Hawkey and Mockingbird manage to escape the explosion though because Mockingbird never sweeps and noticed footprints in the dust and Hawkeye used a thermite-tipped bomb-sniffing arrow.

... Okay, that gimmick arrow is valid.

Mockingbird watches her apartment burn “in increasingly sullen fascination” for two hours before Hawkeye suggests maybe coming back after everything is cooled down.

Alas, the sky-mobile was destroyed in the explosion. Alas, alas, we barely knew ye and now you’re gone.

Mockingbird has an odd sense of what’s romantic because she decides that her apartment burning down and losing all of her possessions is.

Wow, she’s been friendly and flirty with Hawkeye but she’s downright into the lug. Right during the one period in his life when he wouldn’t enjoy that. How’s that for bad timing?

Also, someone is clearly shipping these two.

Mockingbird has assorted appearances before this miniseries so I wonder who got the idea to throw her together with Hawkeye. I’ve heard rumors that it was to copy the Green Arrow/Black Canary pairing. I don’t know if that’s true or just an assumption.

Anyway, Hawkeye also finds an 8-ball in the wreckage which is odd and a clue because Mockingbird didn’t have one of those.

The two heroes realize that Cross obviously sent more hitmen after them so they got to figure out this plot before they get got.

Mockingbird withdraws the rest of her money from an ATM (only $97. Freelance superheroing just doesn’t pay...) and Hawkeye insists on spending some of that money on some arrows since he’s down to his last one.

Mockingbird: “I thought you needed specially made arrows.”

Hawkeye: “My new modular arrowheads fit on any target arrow... get ‘em at any sporting-goods store.”

This issue is a gift.

And since they now don’t have enough money to take a cab to where they’re going, they get on the subway.

Where in one of those amazingly contrived comic coincidences, Steve Rogers Captain America happens to be riding the same car!

Cap recognizes that Hawkeye is on a mission and offers to drop everything to help him.

You’re a cool guy, Cap.

Hawkeye has concerns.

Hawkeye: Aw, no. Cap is Mr. Avengers himself. I know I’m at the end of my resources, maybe way out of my depth, but if I let Cap in on it, he’ll wind up running the show... and I’ll end up on the sidelines again, just like it was back in the Avengers.

Pride goeth before something, Hawks.

Although, knowing vaguely what I know is soon upcoming, its a very timely time for Hawkeye to worry about running the show.

Hawkeye: “Ah, it’s nothing I can’t handle, old timer. Just the same old bopping the bad guys stuff.”

Cap: “I read you, soldier. Anyway, you know how to reach me if you get in a jam.”

You’re a really cool guy, Cap.

Hawkeye and Mockingbird get off at the next stop and Mockingbird grills Hawkeye about the hunky stranger, recognizing that he was probably in the superhero biz. Adding some context to Hawkeye not wanting Cap involved perhaps. Although its still a lot of dumb pride.

Hawkeye: She meets Cap in his civvies and is bowled over. No wonder I always looked like a piker around him. You know, I never realized how second rate Cap makes me feel. I’ve just go to solve this whole mess on my own. If I don’t, I may never be able to stand on my own two feet.

Anyway, then an 8-ball rolls and bonks into Hawkeye’s feet and he sees one of the assassins lurking around the corner doing him a taunt.

This issue is a gift for out of context panels. I swear.

Hawkeye realizes Oddball is baiting him but also is the exact kind of impulsive person who takes the bait. So he runs off after Oddball.

Oddball is..... apparently a juggling based assassin. Dunno why that’s such a common thing in comics. But here we are. He’s a juggling based assassin.

Hawkeye runs on ahead after Oddball and Mockingbird gets ambushed by a nun as she follows.

Its that kind of book, I guess.

Also, the nun is the other assassin Bombshell.

She’s got a Black Widow style wrist launcher for incendiary charges.

Hawkeye and Oddball get into an archery vs juggling based standoff, yes really, and then Oddball jumps onto a subway train, further luring Hawkeye. Who should really know better but ignores the part of his brain that some call common sense.

Oddball, by the by, is somewhat of an oddball. He’s just giggling and joking his way through this mission to kill an Avenger. He’s definitely following the maxim that if you do what you love, you don’t kill for money a day of your life. Or something.

When he jumps on the train he goes with “We’re having fun now, all rightee! Care for another shot, sport? I’ll match my speed to yours anyday and twice on Sunday. Time’s up, gotta go. Ta-ta!”

Hawkeye jumps onto the back of a departing subway train to keep up the pursuit and you know what, he seems like he’s having a good time too?

Hawkeye: Man, there’s nothing like a good chase to make me feel great about myself again. Wonder if Oddball would consent to be my regular sparring partner? Cap’s got the Red Skull, Iron Man has the Mandarin. Me, I never had anybody all my own.

He must be feeling some chemistry with this dude if he wants to make him his archnemesis after only one fight.

Although after this

Hawkeye decides that Oddball is way too much to be his nemesis. He’s got standards, dammit!

Oddball runs off the train, pursued by archer.

Oddball: “I could pick him off any time I want. I know I can throw faster than he can shoot. But I’m having just plain too much fun to cut it short.”

Sure, guy.

Oddball and Hawkeye wind up having a stand-off in the rafters of the subway station because that’s the kind of guy Oddball is.

Hawkeye manages to pin the guy down with an arrow to his throat but while he’s been chasing an oddball, Mockingbird got her ass kicked by a bombshell.

So a distracted Hawkeye gets knocked out via bomb to the back of the head.

Bombshell catches Hawkeye as he falls from the rafters and Oddball wonders why not just let him die.

Bombshell: “I just got a call from [the boss]. He wants these two birds brought to him to use in some kind of experiment.”

And so the third issue ends with Hawkeye and Mockingbird being carried off to the perpetrators which saves some time but being brought in as prisoners is less than ideal.

Shoulda taken up Steve on his offer, Clint.

December, 1983

“TILL DEATH DO US PART...”

I guess Hawkeye fuckin’ dies.

He sure has a lot of friends but Johnny Storm looks like he’s annoyed that he has to attend. ‘What the heck, I barely knew the guy!’

Anyway, between issues, Oddball and Bombshell have dragged Hawkeye and Mockingbird to a place and strung them up on a thing.

The place is apparently a mortuary.

And they’ve been strung up for hours judging by how their limbs feel.

The man behind it all shows himself and guy knows how to make an impression.

Not necessarily a good one.

The cross shaped codpiece is killing me.

As is Oddball juggling in the background to remind us that he is a juggler.

Crossfire: “I am Crossfire -- master subversive, brainwasher, and entrepreneur.”

Credit where its due, that’s a funny line.

Crossfire: “In the typical fashion of someone who holds all the cards, I’m going to divulge to you more than you will need to know about me and my business...”

I want to question this but he’s too self-aware about how stupid it is. I have no room to operate here.

Here is something I WILL make fun of.

Crossfire’s real name is William Cross. He is related to the guy that founded Cross Technological Enterprises. So them screwing over Hawkeye was like a family activity.

But he’s using Cross in his codename. Like if Hawkeye was instead Bartonman. It’s a choice.

Anyway, Crossfire was a CIA agent but when he realized that his real interest lie in fomenting disorder for profit, he decided him and the CIA weren’t on the same path.

Which. Guy. Dude. Fella. No.

Crossfire also realized that superheroes would eventually get in his way so he decided that his first goal is to eliminate all costumed superheroes.

Moon Knight and the Thing thwarted a prototype over in Marvel Two-in-One #52 but Crossfire managed to get away to refine his plan.

(For bigger)

His plan is pretty ingenious actually.

He’s going to kill Hawkeye. So far so good. Then dump his body in Central Park where it will be easily found.

The Avengers will find out about his death and have a funeral for him. And Crossfire made sure they’ll use Restwell Funeral because it has the best name! But more seriously because its the funeral parlor the superheroes used for Whizzer’s funeral and because Crossfire will make sure every other mortuary is booked.

HE’S PLANNING EVERY ANGLE.

Then at the service, he’ll activate the Undertaker machine which will send a subliminal RAGE signal to all the superheroes and they’ll fight to the death.

Crossfire: “Yes, I fully expect my lovely chapel to be thoroughly demolished. Don’t worry -- insurance will cover it.”

This is such a hilariously mundane concern.

Anyway, probably the whole funeral party won’t kill each other but it’ll thin the numbers, the survivors will forever be traumatized at what they did, and the government will crack down on superheroes.

And as for why he chose Hawkeye?

Crossfire: “I would think it was obvious, Hawkeye. You are the weakest, most vulnerable known costumed crimefighter in town.”

Ouch.

There’s planning to kill a guy as part of a larger scheme to kill all his friends and then there’s just being hurtful.

Further insulting injury? Crossfire is not just going to kill them. He’s going to make Hawkeye and Mockingbird kill each other by testing the Undertaker device on them.

That settles it. This guy is a dick.

The Restwell mortuary has a super sealed room for testing the device. Twelve inch thick concrete and steel walls and a door sealed with electronic lock. It would take even the Hulk some effort and Hawkeye and Mockingbird don’t even have their weapons.

Plus, there’s three cameras watching the room and the Undertaker speakers are hidden and durable.

Alas, Crossfire wouldn’t make a good Bond villain. He’s too not leaving a blatant way out of his death trap out of arrogance.

Hawkeye and Mockingbird get up close with their backs to the camera so they can whisper and make a plan.

Unfortunately, they can’t really think of a plan other than ‘try to resist brainwashing I guess?’

Mockingbird knows some SHIELD techniques and Hawkeye just promises he’ll try really hard to resist.

Hawkeye: “I really don’t want to hurt you. In the last couple days, I’ve actually kind of started, well, liking you.”

Aw.

Aww.

But Crossfire is a dick still and activates THE UNDERTAKER right after they kiss.

They try to resist but yeah that plan wasn’t a plan and wasn’t even a concept. They start fighting to the death. Ironically, Bobbi “I know SHIELD techniques” Morse throws the first kick while Hawkeye is still trying to resist.

And Mockingbird is a lot better at martial arts than Hawkeye whose muscle memory keeps tripping him up into using a bow that he doesn’t actually have.

This issue is a gift.

But yeah, Mockingbird beats the crap out of Hawkeye. Not that he doesn’t get some hits in. He even manages to surprise Crossfire who was heavily betting on Mockingbird to easily trounce his ass.

Also, during the fighting, Mockingbird manages to kick one of the cameras, jarring it so it points at the ceiling.

And then double kicks Hawkeye in the dick.

Oof.

Watching two people fight to the death, Oddball has a question. How long does the brainwashing sound effect last after being turned off?

Crossfire decides hey actually that’s an interesting thought and turns off the machine to see. Plus, for dick reasons, giving them a brief respite will “make their plight all the more poignant.”

What a dick.

The brainwashing ends almost as soon as the sound does and the two heroes stop beating the crap out of each other to be disgusted by what they were doing.

In desperation, Hawkeye finally comes up with a plan.

It’s not a good plan but he had only a couple seconds and its impressive that he has a plan at all in that brief period of lucidity.

Hawkeye huddles into the corner that the jarred camera no longer covers and goes through his spare (mispelled as space for some reason, shrug) arrowheads and finds a hypersonic arrowhead.

And if he puts the arrowhead in his mouth and activates it, it will be really loud and drown out the ultrasound! Also, shooting hypersonic frequencies INSIDE HIS SKULL will probably be bad for his hearing but what can ya do.

Crossfire reactivates THE UNDERTAKER and Hawkeye activates the mouth arrowhead with his tongue. Which feels like a “dull knife lacerating [his] brain” but at least he doesn’t want to murder all the time.

That’s something!

(Also, it’s a neat touch but the EEEEEE of the hypersonic arrowhead covers the NNNN of the ultrasonic signal. Good SFXing.)

With his wits about him, he can actually beat Mockingbird by using his strength advantage, closing in, and not letting her use her fancier jumpy techniques.

After beating the shit out of Mockingbird and feeling like shit for having to do it, Hawkeye tosses her to misalign another camera, and then feigns that he collapses from exhaustion.

Crossfire thinks that there’s no way that Hawkeye could play dead under the effect of the RAGE NOISE so he’s really down. He sends Oddball and Bombshell to retrieve the two heroes to examine.

While being carried like a potato sack, Hawkeye grabs one of Oddball’s odd balls and knocks out the juggler and then bonks Bombshell unconscious as well before she has a chance to react.

Then, he runs to get Crossfire before the guy has a chance to figure out what’s going on.

Except, Crossfire has cameras all over the dang place and knows what happened and decides that Hawkeye is such a resourceful, worthy foe that he deserves to die by irony.

(Hawkeye has no idea what the guy is saying because he can’t hear a thing after sticking a hypersonic arrowhead in his mouth)

Crossfire tries to kill Hawkeye with his own bow but whoops, remember when Hawkeye was flexing on that guy earlier about his bowstring having an absurd draw weight?

Yeah.

The dingus got irony’d by his own ploy at irony.

Hawkeye ties up Crossfire, grabs his bow and arrows because they make him happy, and runs back to check on Mockingbird.

Hawkeye: “Mockingbird -- ? You with me, sweetheart? We won. I beat them. Every last bloody oen of them. Mock -- ?” She’s not breathing. I - I killed her...!

Mockingbird: “Those tears for me, sport? Aw, shucks.”

Even beaten to hell, Mockingbird gonna sass.

And then they kiss. Which strikes me as... not a good time for it? Her face is all bruised up and she’s got a little blood going on. Ah, whatever.

Awww.

An hour later, the police show up to arrest Crossfire, Oddball, and Bombshell. Presumably Mockingbird called them as Clint still cannot hear a single thing.

Which is unfortunate because Mockingbird comes over to talk and Hawkeye is like ‘geez what is she saying right now? I hope it’s not important’ and decides to get out of the conversation ASAP before she finds out he’s gone deaf and gasp pities him!

Mockingbird: “Look, I’m not much of a joiner or anything. But I must admit that the two of us made one heckuva team. I was thinking... maybe we ought to become an item, you know what I mean? After all, you are one of the cutest --”

Hawkeye: “Yeah, well, see you around then.”

Hawkeye, you absolute fool.

THANKFULLY

Thankfully, Mockingbird isn’t the type to just go ‘wow what a jerk’ without going and ripping a person a new asshole, verbally.

So she did do that. She ran after Hawkeye and ripped him a new asshole, verbally, forced him to explain himself, probably rolled her eyes, and then dragged him to get a hearing aid.

And one week later, they’re married and relaxing in a heart-shaped tub!

Wow, they operate fast!

I mean, in fairness, we knew Hawkeye was like that. He’d known Sheila Danning for like a month before he was contemplating marriage. And we can assume Mockingbird was like that too considering she knew Hawkeye like a minute before waggling her eyebrows and insinuating sex at him.

Mockingbird: “You owe me, pal. Sure, you saved my life. But what I’m going to do to your life is more than just a one-shot deal. I’m not just talking about helping you get a hearing aid. Or the blood test, or the license, or even arranging for a quaint little cottage in the woods. I’m talking about the rest of your life, and the difference having me around is going to make in it. Maybe eloping was my idea, but I’m going to see to it that for the rest of your life, you believe that it was the best idea you didn’t quite hear.”

Hawkeye: “I hear you, Mrs. Hawkeye. I hear you.”

Awwww. They’re a cute couple. And I do like their chemistry.

So that was the Hawkeye limited series. And it was pretty good!

It introduces some lasting changes like ‘being deaf’ and ‘being married’ to the character. Of course, because comics, both of those things will come and go. And in some cases come back. Lets enjoy them while they last.

Next time on liveblogging: something a little different.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because I just covered a miniseries. And then I had to redo the fourth issue in just an hour because tumblr didn’t save it. Please reward me. Also, like and reblog if you’d like to reblog.

[avengerscompound]

It’s You and Me - Chapter 15

It’s You and Me: A Hawkeye Fanfic

Series Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Clint Barton x  F!Reader

Word Count:  2165

Rating:  E

Warnings:  action, canon typical violence, mentions of past child sexual abuse

Synopsis: You and Clint Barton go way back.  Since you joined the circus as a child, he took it upon himself to keep you away from the people who really wanted to hurt you.  For years the two of you danced a line between dark and light.

When he chooses light the two of you go your separate ways.

Fifteen years later he tracks you down.  Those feelings the two of you shared never went away, but now he is not only an Avengers but a single father.  Can the two of you make it work after all this time when your lives have gone in such different directions?

A series told in flashbacks and current day.

Chapter 15: Now

“Alright, alright,” Clint said, holding his three kids at once.  “I’ll be back soon enough.  I promise.”

“We don’t want you to go,” Lila whined.

“I know, sweetheart,” Clint soothed.  “But there are a bunch of kids just like you that are in trouble right now, and I gotta go help them.�� We’ll be back in a day or two.  I promise.”

Clint’s words of reassurance seemed to only make the kids cling to him even tighter.  You couldn’t blame them really - if you’d had a parent that had given half a damn about you, and you knew how easy it was to lose that, you wouldn’t want to let them go either.

“I’ll protect him,” you said.  “Anyone who tries to hurt your dad will have to get through me first.”

“Yeah, and she’s really tough.  Plus your Auntie Nat will be there.  So will Auntie Wanda, and Uncle Steve,” Clint assured them.  “I’ll be home soon, and Ebony’s gonna take really good care of you.”

“That’s right,” Ebony agreed.  “I will.  Plus, because you’re dad’s not here, I can give you as much candy as I want.”

Cooper and Lila reluctantly pulled away but when Ebony went to take Nate, he wailed and clung to Clint.

“Come on now, bud,” Clint soothed.  “I need you to be super brave, and someone needs to take care of Jasper.  You know he likes you best.”

Nate looked up and furrowed his brow.  “Weally?”

“Yeah, really,” you agreed.  “I think he likes you even more than he likes me.”

Nate reluctantly let himself be taken by Ebony and Clint quickly kissed the kids goodbye.  “This is really just a ‘go-in and arrest them’ thing,” Clint said to Ebony.  It was something he’d already told her three times, but she let him repeat it.  “Couple of days max.  I’ll call if I can but you can always call Pepper for a status report if you need to.”

“I know, I know,” Ebony said.  “Get out.  I’ve got this.”

He smiled at her and patted Lucky before heading out with you.  “Fuck, that does not get easier.”

“Yeah, well, they’re worried about you,” you said, taking his hand as the two of you descended the stairs.

“It was better when Laura was alive,” he said.  “They never loved me leaving, but there’d just be some tears.  Not this ‘clinging to me’ thing.”

“Well,” you said.  “The older two have lost two parents now, right?  Probably they’ve started thinking they’ll lose everyone.”

Clint stopped dead in the stairwell and looked back up the stairs.  “Fuck,” he cursed.

You took a few more steps before the tug of his hand made you realize that he wasn’t walking with you anymore.  “What?  You didn’t realize that?”

“I mean -” he shrugged his shoulders and started walking again.  “I guess part of me did.  I knew it was separation anxiety because they’d lost her.  But I guess I didn’t think that this was becoming a theme for them.”

“You can stay behind if you want,” you said.  “I am sure the rest of us can handle it.”

Clint shook his head.  “No,” he said.  “As much as I hate it, Jacques was one of my father figures.  I hate him - and I also kind of love him.  I need to see this out to the end.”

You nodded.  You knew exactly how he felt.  This was a long time in the making and you wanted to be there to take him down so you could have closure too.

When the two of you stepped out onto the street a van pulled up beside you and the back door slid open.  You and Clint jumped in and squeezed into a chair next to Bucky.  “How far do we have to go?”  Clint asked.

“I’d say a three or four hour drive.  Depending on traffic,” Steve said.

“We’re not taking the Quinn?”

“We didn’t want to give them a chance to spot us coming,” Steve said.  “The whole reason Swordsman keeps getting away from us is because he’s always one step ahead.  Tony and Sam are going to fly in once we get there.”

Clint nodded and shifted in his chair, pushing you against Bucky a little more.  “Hey, bird,” Bucky snarked.  “Wanna not spread out so much, we have a long fuckin’ drive.”

“Yeah?”  Clint teased.  “How about I do this instead.”

He leaned into you like he was going to kiss you.  You burst out laughing and pulled away from him, pushing further against Bucky.  “Get off me, you idiot!”  You squealed.

“Steve, you think I can drive?”  Bucky deadpanned as he pushed you both off of him.

It was dark by the time the van pulled up down the street from the large, yet run-down Queen Anne house that stood at the top of the hill, and everyone in the van was getting antsy.  It was the kind of house that kids would say a witch owned.  The yard was overgrown and brown, and the paint was all peeling from the timber of the house.   There was a large, rusty gate out the front and the walls that surrounded it were starting to crumble.  Somehow, despite never really knowing Jacques to have lived in a house, this was exactly the kind of place you could see him in.

You stretched a little as you stepped out of the back of the van, and Steve gathered you all into a huddle.

“From what we can tell, his security is top of the line, so don’t let the appearance fool you,” Steve said.  “Tread lightly, stay in the shadow.  He has a good view of the entire area, and if he’s alerted they’re all going to run.  You four, he said pointing to you, Bucky, Natasha, and Clint split up.  I want you to enter unseen, and block off the exits.  The rest of us will follow on when you give the signal.  Wanda, do your best to keep track of who’s in the building so we don’t lose anyone.”

“Yes, sir,” Wanda said.

“We all know our jobs?”  Steve said.  When no one replied he nodded.  “Then let’s go.”

You pulled your mask down and followed Natasha, Bucky, and Clint up the hill, keeping low and to the shadows.  When the four of you reached the stone fence, Natasha waved you and Clint in one direction and she and Bucky went in the other.

When you reached about halfway down the wall, you found a tree that - while it didn’t hang over the fence - it was close enough that the two of you could jump over.  Clint gave you a lift into the tree and you pulled him up after you.  Without a word the two of you ran along the branch that got you closest to the wall, and when the branch began to sag, you leaped, somersaulting in the air and landing crouched on the ground.

Clint wasn’t far behind you, and when he was safely inside the walls, you split up.  Clint continued his trip around the building, while you went straight for it.

You reached a dying hedge near the house and crouched behind it as you surveyed the building.  There was a cellar door near you and a trellis that ran up the side of the tower.  You knew the likelihood that both were alarmed was pretty high if what Steve said was true.

Bucky’s voice came through your comms.  “Winter Soldier in position.  No indication they’ve seen us.”

“Black Widow in position,” Natasha responded. “Awaiting orders.”

“Sugar Snap in position,” you echoed, remaining hidden in your spot and gazing over the house, looking to see if anyone seemed clued into your position.  There was movement in the house, but nothing that seemed to indicate that anyone was alarmed.

“Hang on, hang on…” Clint said, slightly breathlessly.  “Okay, Hawkeye in position.”

“Alright, we’re at the gate,” Steve said.  “Tony?  Sam?  You ready?”

“When you are, Cap,” Sam responded.

“Yeah, hurry it along,” Tony added.  “I want to go back to binging the Mandalorian.”

“Alright, team one, enter the building,” Steve said.  “Get as far in as you can go before tripping the alarms.”

You took off from your hiding spot, scaling the lattice until you reached the top window on the tower.  Using your sword you forced the window open, immediately setting off the alarms.  You ignored them, jumping through the window.  There was no one in the room, but there were a lot of computers, and on the table were photos of girls in compromising positions.  Your blood boiled seeing them, remembering back to when it was you being manipulated by the man who had said you’d be safe.

The sound of running echoed in the hall outside and you pulled your sword, readying yourself as the door burst open.

Jacques Duquesne hadn’t changed a lot in the past 18 years.  He was older, yes.  But aside from a few more lines on his face, and grey in his hair, but he still looked as fit as he ever had.  “Well, well, well,” he said, stopping short in front of you and pulling his own sword from its sheath.  “You’re all grown up.  Zelda said you were working with the Avengers now.”

“That’s right,” you said.  “And you are now going to go to prison for a very long time.”

He raised his sword.  “That’s adorable.  You think you’re going to get payback for something you agreed to willingly?”

“I was a kid!”  You shouted and charged at him.

He deflected you easily.  Your rage getting the better of you.  You spun around and attacked him again, and he shoved you aside.

“You really are so cute, ma petite,” Jacques taunted.  “Barton taught you with the blade, but he never was as good as me.”

He swung at you and knocked the blade to the side, but he pushed back, shoving your blade against you.  He was stronger than you, and you couldn’t match the brute force he was putting behind the attack.  You flipped backward and he swung the blade at you.  You watched it in slow motion as the blade swung under you and put your foot on the flat of the blade, balancing on it even as it moved.  You flipped back again and kicked him in the jaw, sending him reeling.

As you landed on the ground - sword at the ready - Jacques recovered, wiping the blood from his lip.  “I’m going to make you pay for that, you little bitch.”

“Come get it,” you hissed.

He swung at you, and you countered.  He swung again quickly, and each strike he made, you parried.  He was stronger and the better swordsman, but you were more agile and your need to beat him was greater.  You started to back him out into the hall, adrenaline spurring you on even as your arm began to tire.

You reached the stairwell, and Jacques cried out and spun, a spray of blood splattering your face even before you were even sure what had happened.  Jaques tripped and stumbled down the stairs and as he dropped from your line of sight, you saw Clint with his bow drawn and everything clicked into place.  Clint had shot him.

You jumped down the stairs after the swordsman and knocked him from his feet.  He landed on his back, and the arrow that had punctured his shoulder, pushed through it more, making him cry out.  You kicked his sword away and held your blade to his throat.  “Goodbye, Jacques,” you said, looking down into his eyes - revenge the only thing driving you.

“Sugar!”  Clint yelled.

You turned and narrowed your eyes at him.  “Why shouldn’t I?”

Clint approached you slowly like you were a wild animal ready to lash out.  “Because… you are better than him.”  He put his hand on your arm and looked you in the eye.  You could hear fighting in the rest of the building and you were vaguely aware that Steve was standing at the bottom of the stairs with his shield at the ready.  “Don’t let him pull you down to his level.  Not again.”

You looked back down at Jacques.  He was breathing heavily, but smirking at you - daring you to do something.  You took a deep breath, weighing your options.  For a moment it felt like both things were happening at the same time.  You were killing him and you weren’t.  He was dead and he was alive.  Schroedinger’s cat in real-time.  You swung your sword away and Clint pulled you into his arms.  Steve moved quickly, pinning Jacques to the ground, putting him in handcuffs.

“You and me, sugar,” Clint whispered.

You nodded and sagged against him as the adrenaline left your system.  You knew he was right.  You’d separated before because you’d both chosen different paths.  Now, you were choosing the same one, and you wouldn’t let anything come between you again.

// NEXT