#fucking knew Brooklyn wasn’t dead

[angst-is-love-angst-is-life]

WHY IS CHAOS THEORY SO MUCH CREEPIER THAN CAMP CRETACEOUS

I’M LEGIT GONNA HAVE NIGHTMARES AFTER EPISODE 5 WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHY DOES SHE LOOK LIKE THAT

Update: after revisting, “why does she look like that” isn’t the issue. It’s WHY DOES SHE M O V E LIKE THAT

[gutsby]

Benign

Pairing: Mob!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Marrying a former Soviet sleeper agent was your first mistake. Letting curiosity get the better of you and saying his trigger words before sex was your second.

Warnings: 18+. DUBCON - Bucky is partly brainwashed; R is reluctant at first. Reliving past trauma (i.e., grief, prior HYDRA captivity). Rough, unprotected p-in-v.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Marrying into the mob meant one of two things: turning a blind eye to your husband’s crimes or taking them up as your own. Most of the women who had gone before you chose the former, leading lives of willful ignorance while their spouses cut deals, shed blood, stole guns, and submitted only to the laws of secrecy and discretion.

You, unlike those wives, hadn’t had the luxury of choice.

Your life, unlike theirs, had been sold to a man you didn’t know, by a father you couldn’t stand, and now your dad was dead, and this man—your husband—was to blame.

The least Bucky could do was fuck you hard to say sorry.

But no, ever since the Winter Soldier had reared its ugly head that dreadful night in Madripoor two weeks prior, your husband hadn’t laid one finger on your body that was not soft, sweet, and sickeningly apologetic to you. He seemed almost scared to initiate sex, and when he did, couldn’t help but act like a touch might break you.

After all, one almost had. Those hands he’d hear you beg and plead to put on you now were the very same ones he’d used to kill dozens, if not hundreds, including blood of your own blood. To the world, Bucky’s reputation commanded fear. To his wife, now, he felt duly obliged to prove he was more—that you were safe with him, not from him. He’d carted you off to every GP, hematologist, nutritionist, and grief specialist lauded among Brooklyn’s elite to make that happen. Fast. Frankly, these days, the thought of fucking was the furthest thing from his mind.

Unbeknownst to Bucky, somewhere along the spectrum of grief, you’d already come to settle comfortably at the ‘Need-to-be-fucked-until-I-can-no-longer-think-or-feel’ phase, and every bone in your body was crying out for respite in the form of ruthless, mind-numbing sex. It didn’t make sense. You hardly knew what to do with it. You should have lashed out, shut down, cried rivers and lakes of tears for that integral part of family that had been lost, but for whatever reason, you had to go numb.

You wanted to do something really, really fucking dumb.

Remorseful as he was, Bucky and his explanations for who or what the Winter Soldier was had been sparse. He’d told you that he had once been held in captivity by HYDRA, had his brain re-wired some way to make him a merciless Soviet sleeper agent, and that the night in Madripoor was the first in ages he had been ‘activated.’ How did activation happen? Of course, he wouldn’t tell.

But Steve would.

Steve had told you everything you wanted to know about your soldat, describing in painstaking detail how he worked, trained, operated, and could be called to action. You were almost certain Rogers had said it all as a way to assure you that it wasn’t Bucky who’d killed your father—it was someone inside him. You were more than positive Steve had never intended for you to use his intel like this.

You hadn’t believed him. Couldn’t believe him. How the fuck could someone sever all ties to their conscious mind and just transform anew into a killer? You got to be hell-bent on knowing for certain whether it’d been Bucky or him, it, whatever the hell the Winter Solider was, and on knowing it now. If your husband was faking it all and simply using this persona to justify the killing, that would be it. Trust gone, marriage over. If he wasn’t, well…you hadn’t gotten that far into your own line of thinking.

“Tell me what you want, doll,” Bucky said, pulling you back to the present.

He shifted gently against you, cotton trousers raising the friction a little as he slotted between your legs. He was still dressed head-to-toe from his meeting that morning.

“I want you to fuck me. Make me cum. Please.”

You were bare, save for one small scrap of linen and lace that somehow passed as a nightie. Your gaze was soft.

Bucky didn’t want to say no, but he also felt too guilty to say yes. The way you were watching him now, eyes so helpless and pleading, body writhing for contact, he knew you didn’t want his touch so much as needed it. Desperately. Couldn’t bear to be burdened with grief so you brushed it aside, to the furthest recesses of your mind until all that was left was desire. Starvation, really.

He could satiate you for now, but that hunger might not ever leave. The corners of his lips twitched into a frown.

“Gentle?” he mumbled.

“Rough,” you countered.

“Baby—”

“I really don’t need another fucking lecture on death, Bucky. I know I’m not myself right now, but I can still make these decisions, okay? Don’t talk to me like I can’t.”

Anger flashed in your eyes for a second, then indignation, then nothing. Without much energy left, you pushed him away. Flopped back on the bed and, seeming to sink into yourself, heaved a low, feeble sigh.

“I know. Hey,” Bucky leaned over to press a touch to your tummy, and it made you want to hurl, “I’m sorry.”

You turned onto your side.

“You still don’t remember what happened?”

The question came suddenly, almost from somewhere outside your body, it seemed. For the hundredth time.

“No,” Bucky answered, for what felt like the thousandth.

“This Winter Soldier—”

“He isn’t me.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Couldn’t know. Wasn’t…programmed for it.”

Bucky was watching you now, eyes as contrite as they’d ever been while you rehashed this subject to the brink of tears. He never could stay composed when he saw you cry.

“Baby…” he started, arms reaching out for you.

Eyes still filling with tears, you shook your head and swatted him off. You sat up, and your brows pinched together in a look he couldn’t read. Contemplating.

At last, you made up your mind.

You would try something new—and really, really stupid:

“Zhelaniye.”

“What?”

Bucky’s own expression contorted with uncertainty.

“—semnadtsat, rzhaviy, rasvet—”

He heard that. He immediately wished he hadn’t.

“Wait—”

You were curious. You had no idea what you were doing.

“Baby, baby, stop—”

“—pech, devyat—”

You were speaking so fast, surely it wouldn’t work like that. Either way, he had to stop you. He seized your arms, giving a sharp, deliberate shake, pupils blown to the size of saucers in his eyes. There wasn’t much time.

“Don’t—”

“—adin—”

No time at all.

“—dothisdon’tfuckingdothishoneyplease.”

Losing himself already. Feeling it stir inside his mind.

“—dobroserdechniy—”

‘Kind-hearted.’ ‘Benign’. You truly had no clue what these words were liable to do, much less what they meant.

Having enunciated this last part, you swallowed. Took the tip of your tongue and rolled it left-to-right across the backs of your teeth, waiting for your speech to take effect like some magical performance before your eyes.

It hadn’t, it seemed. You blinked. He blinked. You sat in a protracted silence for what seemed like seventeen years, and presently, your stomach began to churn. Nothing happened—you’d been right about this fuckery all along.

Then you remembered one last word of the sequence.

Faintly, you said:

“Soldat.”

The man above you straightened. Sitting. Stiff. Still perched by your legs at a comfortable distance but regarding you now with a pointed stare. Expectancy made manifest in a simple, sharp glare from his eyes to yours.

“...Bucky?”

The look on his face grew even harder. For a time, he persisted in that strange and silent grimace, and just when you started to suspect he was faking this whole demeanor of deadened stoicism, you heard a voice. Clawing out of his throat but sounding nothing like him:

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

The words drove a fear to the greatest depths of your bones, and you hardly knew why. You stared back at the handsome, barren man still watching you with severity, and you couldn’t seem to find your husband anywhere.

“James?” You weren’t sure why you tried his name again. You just didn’t know what else to say.

The scowl seeped into his mouth, and he frowned.

“James,” he repeated, like the word was foreign to him.

You found yourself shuffling back on the bed just then—to what, you didn’t know. You just felt a gnawing need to put some space between you and this person, this glowering face, however you could. When he grabbed your ankle, you let out a startled sound, and when he followed you up on the bed, you did more than just whimper; you lifted your leg to knee him directly in the stomach. He caught it.

Then he stared again, expression bloodless and wan.

“You’re scaring me, Bucky.” Your voice trembled as you tried to free your leg from his fist—grip unusually strong.

The man paused another moment, if only to soak in your words and let his gaze trail over your face. Your exertions did not register. And, for the very first time, you felt as though you were something more like a plaything in your husband’s eyes—not a full-fledged human being but a system to be gamed. The feeling was so unsettling that you had to turn away.

Or try to, anyway.

Craning your neck just far enough to spy your phone on the nightstand, your first thought was Steve; he would know what to do. But before you could even think to twist and lift your body in that direction, you felt a hand yank you to the bed, flat on your back. You looked up at Bucky and found yourself caged between two arms. He lowered himself to his elbows, shifted his weight to one side, and seemed not to notice your movements at all when you tried to slide away. The man just splayed his hand across your stomach and pressed it firmly. Stay.

You weren’t one to shy away from a challenge—or keep hope alive against the odds. You put your hand over his.

“James—”

“Zhena.”

The abruptness of Bucky’s word stole the rest of yours. You cocked a brow and followed his gaze to your hand.

To the gaps between your fingers, then the touch that fanned across them to settle on one digit in particular.

Bucky thumbed at the diamond and smiled. He smiled.

“Zhena,” he repeated.

You blinked.

“I— you...gave me that, Bucky. You did.”

He hummed in acknowledgment.

Bucky stared at the ring for what could’ve been five seconds or several years, and then he did something unexpected. He shifted his touch to the bodice of your dress—again, if you could even call it that—and he began to tug at the satin bow situated between your breasts.

Of course, this nightie being designed for honeymoons and supremely easy access, it didn’t take much effort at all for the folds of your dress to come apart. Your breasts spilled out of the fabric without so much as a hint of protest, your torso was quick to become fully exposed, and suddenly, shortly, your hands were fumbling at your chest in an effort to regain some smidgen of modesty. Your husband just shook his head, following your hands.

“Moya zhena,” he said, a touch more emphasis and fervor to the first of the two words.

Now it was you who was shaking your head. Trying to pry his touch away as you slid up the bed. When he followed, you saw the icy expression had been supplanted by intrigue and, though you still felt ill at ease, you couldn’t deny you were curious to know what he was thinking. Who was thinking it? Soft, plush lips swiftly replaced his hands, and before you even knew what he was doing, Bucky, or someone, was latching onto your left breast. Using teeth to graze the hardened nub and send a ripple of thick, guilty pleasure coursing through you.

You whimpered. Bucky groaned.

Your fingers slotted through his hair with every intention of pushing him away, but when you tried, he just flicked his tongue and made another delicious sound against you.

You pushed with even more force, and he groaned again.

Not Bucky, not Bucky, not him, you have to—

“Stop!” you cried.

A set of soft, warm baby blues darted up to meet you.

Some flicker of recognition seemed to cross them, too.

“Honey?”

You almost lurched toward the sound. It was Bucky.

Suddenly, your hands were making fists in the collar of his crisp white button-up, and you were trying to yank him up. You murmured his name in disbelief, relief, and gathered him up in your arms to pull him in for a kiss.

The lips that met you were soft for a moment—just one.

Then the teeth reappeared. Harsh, jarring, biting. You jerked back at the sensation, and when you found his face again, it seemed your husband was lost to you all over. The eyes were attentive still—nowhere near as cold and aloof as they had been before—but they did not radiate the same warmth and admiration that Bucky’s always did. You almost couldn’t believe what you were seeing. He was gone, just like that, and there was nothing you could do to stop it from happening.

A broad palm cupped your cheek to bring you in for another kiss, and you weren’t sure if you should indulge. It didn’t seem you had much choice anyway, because the lips that were seeking yours were hungry. Starved. Searing into your mouth with a force you couldn’t refuse.

But something inside you wanted to find Bucky again.

Somewhere inside this stranger was lying dormant a trace of your husband; you’d seen it yourself, if only for a second. It made you curious. Where had he gone? What did he do when forced to retreat into this strange, preprogrammed being, and how could you get him back?

“Bucky,” you mumbled, more of a plea than a moan.

You were kissed harder than you had been in a long time. You didn’t have to think, or do, or breathe one puff of air that this man didn’t account for. His tongue wedged a gaping space in your wet, welcoming mouth for him to fill, and somehow, you didn’t feel the urge to protest. A familiarity in the way he kissed almost put you at ease, and when his body lifted slightly, yours lifted with it.

Before long, Bucky was sitting. Kneeling between your legs with an eye to your soft, shaking torso. You’d barely even come to notice just how hard you were breathing until you felt a palm on your stomach again. There was an oddly calming insinuation in that one simple touch.

And again, he smiled. Brighter than before.

“Nashe?” He sounded eager as he said it.

You peered up at him and raised an eyebrow in question. Perhaps you should’ve felt more exposed; after all, you were sitting half-naked with your husband’s assassin alter ego stroking your stomach and beaming over you, eyeing you expectantly, and you didn’t know what to say. Apart from the short set of words Steve had taught you, you were totally clueless to Russian, and you weren’t quite sure you were in a place to ask Bucky to translate.

When it seemed words might never come, the gleaming teeth above you were shrouded in a tighter, close-lipped smile, and Bucky nodded. Appearing to understand. Instead of forcing a response from you, he just let his hand migrate down your belly, fingers tracing the skin, then settle comfortably—momentarily—at the crest of your pubic bone. Then he pressed the heel of his palm into the place residing right below it, and without really meaning to, you moaned. A quiet maelstrom of pleasure circled low in your abdomen, threatening to draw noises from your throat you weren’t planning to make with every gentle gyration of Bucky’s lower hand.

You had to purse your lips to contain the sounds.

Again, he nodded.

“It’s okay,” he said, so quiet he almost couldn’t be heard.

He let the friction continue for a while like that: just palming you, watching you react to the simplest of motions against your swollen, aching clit and try not to writhe. At length, you squirmed a little bit. Bucky seemed to want to wait for something to happen, and when you bucked your hips, a look in his eye said that was enough.

He lowered himself between your legs. Shoulders bumping your thighs as he spread them apart, chest rising and falling in measured breaths, and lips smiling all the while. You sucked in a breath when his face came to rest just a few inches shy of your bare, aching warmth.

“Bucky?”

The man looked up at you and blinked.

“Yeah, honey?”

One thumb traced over the seam of your cunt, and your back nearly arched off the bed. There he was, again, gaze safe and secure to yours and hands moving in tandem as they always would. His tongue calmly followed suit. When you fisted his hair, he blinked once more and then directed his attention back to your wet, warm, velvety folds with a pointed look and a purpose.

The sound that escaped you next could hardly be classed as anything less than a scream, but the soft and unperturbed demeanor of the man between your legs showed he hadn’t noticed at all. He just sucked diligently—damn near dutifully—on your clit with a vigor you’d never felt, and when you yanked at his hair, he hummed.

It was like his lips had been trained for perfect suction; that was how well and thoroughly he descended upon your swollen little bud. An airtight kiss and a quick flick of his tongue, paired with his hot and heavy breaths fanning over your cunt, sent your senses into overdrive. Your toes curled inward, your throat let loose a gasp, and without fully realizing it, your walls were clamping down, pulsing and leaking out desire for more of this touch.

Then, without warning, Bucky brought a hand to the throbbing and slick cunt that was presently clenching around nothing, and he fed it two fingers. So forceful and deep he nearly buried his knuckles right along with them. Then he started scissoring those two fingers, sharply.

“Open, milaya,” he said. Again, it wasn’t entirely Bucky.

But you felt a faint remembrance there. You didn’t want him to stop. Maybe you were led astray by the gentle laps of his tongue or the prodding of his fingertips, or perhaps there was something stubbornly familiar about the way he was touching you now. You couldn’t tell.

All you knew was that both of your hands were holding tight to his head and begging him, wordlessly, for more.

Your moans rang all the way through the bedroom in your new, far-too-big penthouse apartment in Brooklyn, down the hall, reverberating through every inch of the space until all that could be heard were your sounds and his and the delectable little noises of your bodies working together. Bucky hadn’t even stirred to pleasure himself.

You wanted that part to change.

With your hip pinned to the mattress and Bucky’s tongue laving over your clit in ruthlessly quick movements, you probably would’ve liked to cum all over his mouth and fingers, but you wanted to see him pleased even more.

Just when he’d worked a third finger inside you and was driving you close to your peak, you pushed him away.

Bucky parted from your folds with a glistening chin and two furrowed eyebrows, clearly frustrated to have been torn from his mission before you reached completion, but you wouldn’t let that look linger for long. You used your leverage in his hair—however slight, comparatively, that grip might have been—to pull him up on the bed.

Bucky surprised you with just how swiftly he moved.

His steel-blue gaze was on yours in a second, equally penetrating and soft.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing—”

“My baby okay?”

He surprised you again; this time by how quick his demeanor was to shift the second he sensed something was wrong. Just like Bucky. It had to be him in there.

You nodded, still out of breath from the wonders he’d been working with his tongue. You squeezed his arm and tried to coax him toward you, to help him lower his body some, and when he seemed uncertain, you offered a smile. It’s okay to touch, you won’t break anything.

Bucky eyed you skeptically, but it was clear he was more wary of himself than of you. He glanced over your body, briefly to his, then slowly, apprehensively, sank down.

“Just fine,” you mumbled, hooking your legs around his back the second his chest was close enough to yours.

You felt an uptick in his heartbeat when your heels dug a little more firmly into the waistband of his pants. While your hands started working their way toward the front of that fabric, wedging clumsily between your bodies, his gaze flitted to yours, and his brows drew even tighter together. He didn’t try to stop you, but he certainly seemed confused as to why you wanted to include him so soon. Why you cared to show concern for him at all.

You noticed that then, and in just about every moment preceding, the man was taken aback by kindness.

Whether it was pulling him closer to you, tugging his pants down with a tender touch, running your fingers across the bulge in his boxers, or simply nodding your head and letting him know it was okay to touch you back, Bucky seemed unaccustomed to any care in this area.

When your fingers made it around his cock and started stroking him, gently, he just might’ve come apart.

His chest shuddered with the inhale of a short, strained breath, and his eyelids fluttered, as if meaning to close.

Bucky’s jaw clenched, and he started to shake his head.

“No, let me—”

“Let me,” you finished for him, wrist flicking back and forth quietly. You paused just to rub a quick touch between your folds, collect some arousal, then return to touching him when he met your eyes again and allowed you to continue. You skimmed his sensitive underside with your palm and let the warmth of him bleed into your fingertips as you worked him up to a comfortable pace.

Bucky rutted into your touch, probably harder than he meant to. Then he planted a hand beside your head and anchored his weight above you so that he was close enough to reach your lips—but he didn’t kiss you.

His expression hardened again, and he forcibly removed himself from the pulse of your fingers. He frowned.

“You want me to fuck you, no? Make you cum?”

He sounded irritated again.

Briefly, you recalled your words from earlier and nodded. It was true, you’d said it to him like that, and you’d meant it. You just couldn’t make sense of what he wanted now.

It seemed Bucky couldn’t wait to indulge you any longer. He fisted his cock in one hand, angled the head just outside of your cunt, and burst in with one thrust.

“Then let me,” he muttered, plunging down to the hilt.

The first go was rough, and the second was no kinder. Bucky’s face screwed up with indifference again, like he wanted to get something out of his brain and just do.

Like there was a task at hand that needed to be finished.

You couldn’t deny it felt fine at first. Fucking edifying after all those horrific thoughts had been eating away at your mind and rousing your own hunger for numbness. The drive of Bucky’s thick girth in and out, in and out repeatedly was no doubt capable of rendering you dumb. But being slammed into and taken so roughly was only good for you when you knew he was feeling good too.

This Bucky was back to being entirely flinty and lifeless—practically devoid of all emotion as he railed into you.

The back of your head was forced into the pillow with the weight of each thrust and Bucky’s thumb pushing into your chin—‘Better, milaya? Is this better for you?’—and frankly, you wanted to push him back and ask the same.

But you couldn’t. The pace he’d set was suffocating, and the stretch of his cock inside you was unusually tough.

Instead, you sank your nails into his arm and mumbled:

“Bucky.”

The man’s thrusts were both stabbing and rhythmic, sending a welt of pleasure blossoming up in your chest. You tried again:

“Bucky.”

He blinked.

And slowed.

“Bucky,” he mumbled back.

Seemingly mindless and mechanical, he snaked a hand behind your head to lift your face and tilt it toward the sight below: his cock splitting you open before him, parting your insides with an easy, welcome glide through the slick of your folds. You watched as your arousal enveloped him fully. Not a single inch of his rock-hard, throbbing shaft was spared; even his balls were soaked. They felt even heavier slapping your ass with each thrust.

“You remember?” you asked, hating how small you sounded.

The man’s nostrils flared, but he gave a curt nod. Expression taut and vigilant, as though anticipating something going wrong at any second. Still, he nodded.

“Years,” he answered.

“Years?”

Since he’d done this? Felt good? Become this way?

No, Bucky was activated in Madripoor just weeks ago. He didn’t look like he was ready to indulge in any ‘feel-good’ pleasure, and you weren’t sure when he’d last been with anyone else before you. Years could mean anything.

You chanced a few soft fingertips up to his cheeks, cupping either side of his clean-shaven face in an effort to anchor you both to one place. The pit of your stomach was reeling with warmth, and friction, and fullness. It took everything in you just to pull him in for a quick, grounding kiss before the feeling gave way to even more.

Bucky’s teeth nicked your bottom lip. He flinched back.

You ignored the sting and repeated his name, murmuring it carefully up to the seal of his mouth as if requesting entry with that word alone.

It seemed to work. Bucky kissed you back with a gentle, albeit guarded, sort of tenderness that made him soften. His thrusts weren’t as rough and punishing as they were before. The dull, throbbing ache between your legs transformed into something sweeter, and your body no longer had to brace itself against strokes that, to you, were nearly bruising and, to Bucky, were just necessary.

For once, your husband let out a soft grunt of pleasure.

“They never let us,” Bucky said as his teeth grit together, “It’s been years.”

“Since what?”

The face above you tempered more—this time with a trace of sadness behind it. He continued to rut into you, but now his thrusts were sloppy, and it seemed as though he were battling against his own pleasure with every motion. He lowered one hand between your legs and began to thumb at your clit, gaze torn from yours.

“Close now?” he muttered.

Ignoring the question you’d asked.

“Years since what?” you pressed anyway. The tiny ripples preceding bliss had already begun to stir inside you, maddeningly, with every flick of his thumb, but your curiosity to know the whole truth was stronger still.

Bucky’s hips were moving at a feverish pace now; his free hand made a fist in the sheets beside your head, and his chest heaved with a series of short, ragged breaths that were no doubt meant to mask his moans as well. Notwithstanding the burn you felt between your legs—he really was much rougher and stronger now, you saw—you cupped his cheek again to tilt his face toward yours.

What you saw made your stomach drop.

Your heart clenched like a fist within the confines of your ribcage, and there it was—that terrible ache you felt each time you saw something awful materialize before you.

Bucky’s eyes were wet with tears. He wouldn’t blink.

He tilted his head into your touch, as if for support, but really, the weight of it signaled to you that he just wanted to feel you. Be assured that you were there. His big, broad arms seemed suddenly unable to hold his weight, and then he sank into your frame with a grunt and another stuttered breath. Like he was ready to collapse.

“Don’t leave again,” he said quietly.

The pain in your chest elevated, in bloom.

“Bucky I didn’t— wasn’t—” you started to say.

The friction between your bodies was almost too much to bear. You couldn’t be sure if you were talking to your husband, soldat, or some strange, inconceivable mixture of the two, but you could tell that this one was desperate.

Pleading.

“I can’t lose you again.”

The head of his cock grazed your most sensitive spot inside, and a whine seeped out through your teeth. Bucky’s whole body was blanketing yours, torso flush with your front and hips working an erratic cadence as he got a glimpse of release himself. He groaned out in pleasure and begged you to stay. You promised that you would. Your legs were still wound around his sides, but both of your bodies were slick with a sheen of sweat; it was hard to hang on. Bucky’s hair was wild and pushed back from his face, but his eyes were clear when they finally met yours, and you heard him mumble again, ‘Please stay.’

You didn’t know what else to say but okay, baby, I will.

You swore you would stay, and in between oaths, your mouth was consumed by a barrage of kisses—Bucky got to feast with a full set of teeth again, primal as ever—and then your climax hit. Euphoria washed over you whole with a force you weren’t expecting to feel, and you couldn’t help but cry out and whine as waves of pleasure coursed straight from the innermost depths of your core.

Bucky’s hips collided with yours in two more stuttered thrusts, and when he bottomed out at the last, you felt a heavy spurt of warmth. A groan coiling out of his chest. Muscles growing lax and two sturdy arms coming to bracket your head as your husband’s whole body weight went folding into yours. You kissed some more, in between frenzied intakes of breaths and steadying moments where you were simply trying to ground your body and get your heart to slow down to a normal rate.

You held each other in silence for a while. Bucky’s head fell next to yours on the pillow when the last of his spend had been emptied, but otherwise, he didn’t stir. At some point, his hands slid behind your back, and the second he hugged you to him, you felt secure in that embrace.

You were probably as far as you’d ever been from understanding who the fuck your husband was, but all it seemed you were capable of feeling for now was pity.

Pity for the years he’d lost to captivity; pity for what was little more than mere existence under HYDRA’s thumb; pity for all the things you still didn’t know about his past.

You held Bucky tighter, and, flooded with this strange, grating emotion and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness, you wished you could protect him, too.

“James?” you mumbled into his hair.

Bucky didn’t respond.

You squeezed his shoulder. Still nothing.

Against your better judgment, you tried to shift yourself underneath his body. You figured you wouldn’t make it far at all, but at least he would be aware that you were trying to get up. Maybe even start to move with you.

He didn’t.

It took everything in you just to wedge an elbow back, struggle to prop yourself up against his weight, and when you were about to let out a huff of an exasperated laugh and tell him, Bucky, you’re crushing me, honey, could you please ease up a little, your request was answered before the words could even leave your mouth.

At the sound of two new muffled voices carrying up from the living room and what appeared to be noises from shuffling feet, Bucky rose straight from the bed, off you.

Your gaze trailed his to the door, and you reached for him.

“Baby, it’s just—”

Bucky was back on his feet. Yanking his boxers and pants up his legs and buckling his belt in no time at all.

The movers. It’s just the movers bringing in furniture—

You moved your hand closer to your husband in the hopes of stalling his movements for half a second, but then a set of ruthless blue eyes had you pinned, quick:

“Stay.”

Your outstretched arm was taken up in a much stronger, stiffer one, and you were suddenly pulled over to Bucky.

But you knew from the eyes it wasn’t him at all.

And you weren’t so much being tugged toward him as you were being hauled to the floor. Thrown on your knees beside the bed, next to Bucky. He was about to leave.

Without thinking, you reached for one of the legs of his trousers and sank your nails into the fabric to hold him in place, to tell him again that there was nothing to see out there but the people you knew, no threat outside at all. But Bucky was deaf to your pleas, it seemed. He shrugged you off easily and made a move for his gun, expression blank, stolid, calm, hardened. Decided.

You tried to rise to your feet but were stopped.

“STAY,” Bucky boomed again, this time an order that he didn’t even deign to complete with a look your way.

If he had—if he even possessed the ability to consider anything but the immediate task at hand—he would’ve seen his own hand knock you to the floor to keep you from standing. Might’ve caught a glimpse of the instant your head struck the edge of the nightstand before you hit the ground. Could’ve even made out the first traces of blood that came trickling out from above your temple. Would’ve seen you cower back, viscerally, out of fear.

But holding the side of your head and watching him leave, grim realization twisted at the pit of your stomach, and you knew the man wouldn’t have stopped if he had.

If your soldat’s objective was to protect you from any harm lurking outside that door, real or illusory, nothing you were capable of doing now could stop that. At expense to yourself, at expense to him, at expense to whatever lives stood between the Winter Soldier and that unwavering, hardwired goal, he still would not ever stop.

Thinking of new, innocent lives in the balance, now, you scrambled for your phone the next second to call Steve.

You tried him once. Twice. A third time crawling on your knees, then standing, then staggering over to the door and pulling the phone from your ear just to send a string of texts to your friend while the thing continued to ring.

SOS

Need help

Pick up please

Bucky’s stuck and he’s

About to hurt people here

A crash sounded outside. You hurried to the door. Your hand closed around the knob and tried to turn it. The handle turned freely, but something behind it was refusing to let you leave the room. You pressed again.

“Bucky!”

Your cry was useless in the face of the barricade outside.

You pushed your shoulder and, behind it, the whole force of your weight against it anyway, trying to get out.

The line went dead. You tried again.

Now with your phone to one ear and the bedroom door taking the brunt of your hits from the other, bleeding side of your body, you scarcely heard much of anything else. The ring started. Stopped. Began again when you pressed a shaky finger to Steve’s contact name, and continued in a cycle for some time while you tried to force whatever was on the other side of the door away.

The second a voice broke through the haze of your frantic, half-crazed state of consciousness, you cried:

“STEVE!”

“Mrs. Barnes?”

You were shocked to hear a woman on the other end. Your pulse was still racing, shoulder aching from the impact of each desperate push you’d been forcing against the door, and then you stopped. Another loud something sounded down the hallway, further away, but you were too startled and unnerved to take any note of it.

You started to ask, ‘Where’s Steve?’ when the voice continued:

“This is Mrs. Barnes?”

“Yes,” you answered woodenly.

You held the phone as close to your ear as you could, but still, the woman’s words were coming in and out in bursts. You must’ve mistakenly accepted the call when trying to reach Steve—you couldn’t think right now; could barely retract the phone far enough to see a strange number displayed on the screen. You swallowed.

“—from Lenox Hill Hospital at Northwell Health—”

The high-rise medical center on the Upper East Side you’d visited that week. Bucky had wanted you tested for nutritional deficiencies and anemia, of all fucking things.

“—if you had a moment or two to chat and maybe—”

No, you needed Steve, not this outpatient courtesy call.

You would’ve liked to hang up. Should’ve hung up. In fact, your fingers were practically itching to hit the button the whole time the nurse was speaking to you, but something in you just couldn’t be persuaded to do it. It took several more seconds before your senses began to creep back, and by then, when you were about to drop the call, you heard a phrase that stopped you on a dime.

“—but the doctor advises prenatal vitamins—”

“What?” you snapped, far more harshly than you meant.

The nurse paused a beat, whether from incredulity at how rude you’d just sounded or to consider something. When she resumed, she sounded a little more guarded.

“Yes…Dr. Watkins did reach out to you about your bloodwork from your last visit, didn’t she? I thought—”

“No,” you said, rushed and painfully brusque, again. You tried to rein in your tone some before continuing, “She didn’t—didn’t reach out about anything. What vitamins?”

Another pause.

“Prenatals.”

You hated that she gave you another second to chew on that word before taking a breath and pressing on.

“I’m terribly, terribly sorry to be the one to spring that on you, Mrs. Barnes—I thought you knew…um—” The nurse was sheepish now, almost embarrassed to be speaking, “—you’re about…three weeks along in your pregnancy.”

Three weeks along.

Advised prenatal vitamins.

For the child growing inside of you.

A rivulet of blood trickled into your left eye.

Your whole body was apt to convulse, but it didn’t.

You hung up.

—

Taglist: (please lmk if I missed anyone! I can only tag 50 at a time so will continue in a separate post) @vicmc624 @she-could-never @mcira @kentokaze @identity2212 @unaxv, @buchi91, @ordelixx @stinkerbelle007 @opibarnes @wilsons-striped-ties @desigirlxx @pono-pura-vida @geminiflanagansblog @buggy14 @sky-full-0f-fl0wers @buckysdoll1520 @armystay89 @minimarvelingmarvel @kunakizen @ghostiebby06 @blackhawkfanatic @dameron-grantspector @sushiseoks @deansapplepie @mrsjoequinn @gyokujyn @lunaroserites @first-edition @kaybaby2494, @jaggedsi @excusememrbarnes @daisychainsoflove @mostlymarvelgirl @diannana @shawnberry @yujyujj @urmomsalex @mrs-bucky-barnes-73 @athenabarnes @christinabae @sluttylittlewaistenthusiast @wintrsoldrluvr @bethbunnyy @i-heart-smut @aagn360 @dahliawolfe @fantasyfootballchampion @lilyevanstan1325 @kandis-mom @thealyrs

[despairots]

━━━━━━━━ in another another dimension.

1610! miles morales x gn! spiderman! reader x 42! miles morales. angst, and sorta fluff?? also spoilers if u havent seen the movie yet, shit writing since i havent wrote in a long time 👎

where miles morales was your boyfriend and died in your dimension ‘cause you couldn’t save him in time after he was pushed off a building. where earth 1610 & earth 42, you’re dead ‘cause you got pushed off a building.

you couldn’t save him in time. by the time you saw his figure disappear from the ledge of the building, you were already frozen in spot, seeing as if the love of your life was gonna die and it was because of you.

even though you caught him by the chest with one of your webs, the recoil already impacted his head and back, causing him to die. you couldn’t apologize to him after the argument you two had.

“miles… i am so sorry. please wake up. wake the fuck up, miles! this isn’t funny. please tell me i’m dreaming, please tell me you’ll wake me up from a nightmare like before. please, i can’t lose you too…”

he always would wake you up and comfort you after a nightmare, he wouldn’t do that anymore. he would always whisper sweet things in your ear that always made you blush, he wouldn’t do that anymore.

nothing that was only exchanged between the two of you wouldn’t happen anymore, nothing. it was meaningless to you, you missed him. it was obvious to everyone.

your parents, friends, miles’s parents, classmates, teachers, schoolmates. they all knew how much you cherished eachother, how much you couldn’t keep living without eachother.

when he needed you the most, you weren’t there. you weren’t able to save him in time. maybe you could this time, saving him from a hundred other spider people.

EARLIER.

“this your friend, gwen?” a familiar voice was heard behind you making you quickly turn around, your spider sense going off. “miles?” “[name]?” the two of you spoke at the same time, jaw dropped and eyes widened.

“this was the surprise you meant, gwen.” all guilt that you thought you buried long time ago was to much to handle when you saw him, the same beauty that he had when you he died in your universe.

you couldn’t help but hug him tightly, face buried into his chest, he was always taller then you. miles jumped a little bit before hugging you back, his face buried on top of your hair.

you were restraining yourself for crying, small sniffles came from you as you could see gwen lightly smiling at the two of you. embarrassment was the only thing that made you pull away.

“sorry! i— um, have a miles morales in my dimension b - but he died.” you stumbled upon your words, blush on your cheek as miles blinked at you. “it’s fine. i have a you in my dimension but they — uh, died.”

miles nervously chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. it was awkward between the two of you, completely embarrassed that you hugged eachother even though you technically knew eachother too.

when you think about it, maybe you could save him this time… from millions of spider people and being thrown to his earth with him.

EARTH ???.

miles told you to wait in the living to talk to his mother, brooklyn was totally wrecked on his earth. spiderman was gone for just two days or maybe more and brooklyn looked like hell.

it didn’t feel right, you felt uneasy. it felt to surreal, to unrealistic in your opinion. you turned invisible when you saw mrs. morales, miles’ mother, walk out of his room, laughing.

he tried speaking to her before getting cut off by glitching, scaring you. ‘he’s in the wrong dimension.’ miles and you shared a look, signifying the look of terror.

‘the spider that bit him… it wasn’t from his dimension. miguel was right… he was never meant to be spiderman.’ the door creaked open, revealing the man who thought had died in miles’ dimension.

the two chattered, his uncle taking him to the roof as miles looked at you and gestured to follow him. it was shocking, to say the least, watching the two look at a mural.

your eyes widened at the art, instead of miles’ uncle dead, it was his dad and you. until then, you realized, you were always going to die in ever dimension but yours.

no matter how many times, no matter how many dimensions, the universes were working together to stop you and miles from every getting together.

that’s why miles died in yours, you dying in miles, and you dying in this world too. the universes never wanted you two to get together, maybe it was because of the saying:

in every other universe, gwen stacy falls for spiderman.

you were too lost in thought that you didn’t realize miles was knocked out until your spider senses tingled, reflexes making you dodged the incoming punch.

your hood (from your black sweater that you wore over your suit) flipped off, revealing the tight frown and scowl on your face. “what the f— miles…” you whispered the last part, seeing him on the floor.

something was poked into your neck, injecting you with something and forced you to sleep. losing authority over your body, you fell to the ground, unbothered by it.

your body didn’t touch the ground, that’s the thing, someone caught you in time. they cradled you softly in their arms, watching your eyes blink in and out if reality before completely closing.

aaron scoffed at his nephew, “that’s not the [name] you knew, they ain’t yours.” his nephew mumbled a yes, watching you sleep with the beauty you still had when you died.

your fingers were twitching, a small habit that you always had when sleeping. he missed you, he missed you so damn much.

and when he saw your face when your hood flipped over, he felt like he got a second chance to be with you.

but when he looked over at the other miles that was over his uncle’s shoulder, he felt hatred. he didn’t want to risk you to his other counterpart, he didn’t want to lose you, again.

and that was the same feeling 1610 miles felt, he didn’t want to lose you again. and for sure, you felt that way too.

[mayearies]

˚ʚ ©hiimayee ɞ˚

OPEN ARMS? …. miles g. morales ⟡

જ⁀➴ genre : angst | warnings : breakup, no happy ending, lengthy blurb

꒰ঌ ໒꒱ note! : yeah this made me cry if u cry sorrieee

miles knew you too well. you wanted him to choose a new path in life, and he thought different.

you liked to take him out on random dates sometimes. walks around brooklyn, stay up talking, but most of all—convincing him he doesn’t need to do this. he’s heard it a thousand times. he has to.

today was a bad day to catch him. and he would later come to you in the dead of night and find your endless persuasive ramblings being an earworm for him.

“ listen. i get your point, i seriously do. but can you shut up with the prowler shit. for five seconds.”

“ i’m sorry-”

“ i just- i dont wanna talk about it, okay?”

miles wasn’t like this all the time. in fact, he was rather sweet towards you. no matter how annoyed he was, he was usually nice. but he didn’t look recognizable to you anymore. he looked disappointed.

he didn’t hold your hand like he used to when you walked down the street, he was more distant. and you didn’t see him as much anymore.

the ringing of your protests against him were always in his ear, even if you weren’t speaking. thats just what made him more upset. but he didn’t know what to be upset at.

you walked slightly beside him. he would slow down if you trailed too far behind. you didn’t know if you should follow him back home. suddenly, he stopped. “ can i ask you somethin’?”

“ mhm.”

“ do you really think i’m a hero?”

you knew what he had to see. some die, some live, some injured. some of those he had to inflict. but he said he did it for the greater good. for you and brooklyn. “ …i don’t know.”

miles scoffed at your answer, kicking the rocks on the pavement. his sudden change startled you a bit. “ great answer. just absolutely amazing.”

now, there’s one thing here. he can be upset all he wants. but he shouldn’t gain an attitude.

“ you need to chill out-”

“ don’t tell me what to do, [name].”

he doesn’t use your first name a lot. what happened to nicknames? what happened to ‘ma?’ ‘darling?’ ‘amor?’ what happened to those? are they just lost to time now..?

his distance was bothering you. he just wasn’t miles anymore. you don’t know who this is. is this the prowler you’re talking to? you grabbed his wrist making him stumble back. “ i’m worried! i’m worried about you.”

“ well don’t.” snapping at you was something he never did. never once in his life. he would tell you to back off, yeah, but never like that before. “ i’m fine.”

“that’s bullshit!”

he was really trying not to snap at you right now. you were working his last nerve. he doesn’t want to argue. he just wants you to leave it alone and move on. as you always do.

he huffed before relaxing his expression. “ look. just don’t worry about me, alright?” he paused, “ you hear me? just stop.”

you felt unheard. you felt so ignored. " you're a fucking liar! do you expect me not to worry about you when you come to my window at three in the morning? covered in bruises?! is that how you wanna play this out!?"

miles’ expression turned stern. even as he began to shake a little. you couldn’t believe this was miles. “ you think i’m still your sweet boy ?? do you really think that !?"

he looked hurt, he wasn’t happy.

" …i-" you felt your heart shatter into a million pieces. he used to be so loving. so caring. it didnt feel like he was here at all. he just felt like a stranger. someone who walked all over your heart.

“ forget it-” silence filled the thick atmosphere again.

“ do you even think im alive, miles?"

miles stopped walking, he looked back quickly. he seemed confused.. and a little hurt. he saw you on the verge of crying. he would always say if he made you cry, he would never forgive himself for that.

" do you think im here? do you think i just-" your voice started breaking, " i just dont ever think about what you're going through? when i clean up your blood from my sheets? do you think i dont care?"

you cant avoid the inevitable, huh? yeah. he thought that too. he knew this would happen. “ because i assure you— i do care. i care more than- more than anyone else! anyone else that you know as a friend. thats why i ask. but you never tell me. never once. i do all of this for you, and i get nothing. miles.”

miles sighed, he had always felt this way—he didn’t deserve you. he knew he didn’t. you? he doesn’t know. it’s just hard for him to show how he really feels sometimes. “ ..please know i care.” he paused, wrapping his arms around you.

“ i really do. i hate to see you so worried about me.. and i hate that i have to put you through that.” he looked down over your shoulder, ashamed.

"then why? why, miles?"

miles paused for a minute, trying to find the right words. “ i have to do it.” he knew those weren’t the words you wanted to hear.

"for what sake!?"

" …i can’t just stand by..” miles sighed, his voice becoming weak. " i can’t."

you cried into his jacket as he rubbed your back. you knew a solution to this. you did, but it wouldn’t be pretty. it wouldn’t be anything considered nice.

pulling away, you stared at you feet. some tears still dripping to the pavement, "… maybe it isnt best… we see each other right now." your breath was shaky, and you could feel his demeanor change. "its just- you have a lot on your plate and… i dont wanna be involved in that."

miles was now silent, there didn’t seem to be anything he could say right now. he felt defeated, like there wasn’t anything he could do to change your mind. “ are you sure?”

you sighed lightly, “ no.”

you knew it had to happen. it was the only way to catch him a break. this was for him, not you. "you cant have it all, miles. i just wish we had better timing… you know?" you were on the verge of crying again.

miles was trying his best to keep you from crying. he knew that. he was lucky enough to even know you. he wish you met somewhere else. some other universe. “ no- please don’t cry. don’t do this to me.." he took his hand to yours, he really didn’t want this to be the last time you talked.

you had to let him go. you had to. it was for the greater good.

miles was still waiting with his hand in yours.. “ please. just tell me your not going to leave. im sorry." he said, he sounded.. really worried. he hated this.

"i just.. feel like i cant love you the same.."

miles had frozen, he didn’t know what to say. he felt like you were leaving forever. tears had started to form in his eyes, he was speechless. those were the words he’s always feared. the one thing he wanted to avoid.

“ please don’t leave me.. it’s just- i dont- i dont know what to do anymore. please. i love you.”

even after everything, you still believed he could figure it out. but you weren’t part of that equation at all. you could see his breath hitching softly as tears stained his face.

you cupped his face and smiled weakly at him. "… meet me in a year. just… find yourself before you find me. can you promise me that?"

your eyes looked pleading and caring. he shakily nodded his head which made you giggle a little. he seemed to have calmed down now, and was prepared for whatever the future has to hold. “ you’re a pretty crier, y’know?”

“ heh,” he sniffled, “ you never fail to make me smile.”

even with all his doubts, he still couldnt grasp how he met someone like you. you were his everything. everything he liked in one. he couldn’t ask for any less.

“i’ll be waiting for you with open arms, mamita.”

and he did. but you never came.

as i said before. you can’t avoid the inevitable, yeah?

afterwards note! : my layout will continue to be inconsistent thanks for asking

[more-sonorous]

safer than you thought (vaguely javey)

recent discussions about trans canon era davey have put my fingers to the keys, so have this little hurt/comfort piece of what might potentially be a larger work

tw/ accidental outing (handled very well), and also davey's inner monologue isn't the kindest to himself

.....

Full sprinting across the Brooklyn bridge was not on David’s bucket list when he’d gotten dressed that morning, and he mentally cursed himself for that as his anxious feet stumbled along behind Racetrack. David felt like a horse that’d just learned how to gallop, bolting along behind a stallion in its prime. Racer was fast and graceful as he ran, one hand wrapped around David’s wrist in a vice grip that was almost bruising. Each footfall was more certain than the last and Racer's long legs were a blur of motion, his trousers (an old pair of Jack’s) hanging well above his ankles, patchwork socks still slightly on display. The scuffed heels of his boots were all David could focus on as he prayed for the strength to continue this sprint without stumbling, hearing the pounding footsteps of the menacing boys fast on their tail.

Soon David could feel his own blood pumping through his face, hot and heavy, incessantly noisy whooshing coursing through his ears. He didn’t know up from down or left from right as he devolved into helpless anxiety, letting Racer tug him along and praying they’d lost their pursuers at some point.

The moment they crossed the bridge into Manhattan territory, Race stopped dead in his tracks and David stumbled forward, hands on his knees. This was decidedly not good. His bindings were practically digging into his skin, the tightly wound bandages constricting his chest from properly expanding. Sweat beaded on his brow as he gasped feebly for air, clutching the fabric of his trousers in a wild panic.

“Yeah, fuck you!” Racer shouted incoherently, waving his fists despite the lingering pubescent cracks in his voice and the fact that they’d lost their pursuers a quarter of a mile ago. “Fuck alla you! When I tell Spot about this, she’s gonna kill your sorry asses! She’s gonna skin you and turn you into goddamn leather wallets! You better turn around and run! Go fuck yourselves!”

Maybe David would have laughed if he had the breath to do so, but the August sun was beating down hard on his back and the extreme heat in his face and ears wasn’t doing him any favors when it came to the breathing department. His clothes seemed to cling to him with sweat and every time he tried to breathe, he felt like he only got halfway before his lungs stopped expanding, trapped in the vice grip of his bandages. 

“That’ll fuckin’ teach them to try an’ mug me at my own sellin’ spot.” Race griped, sharply turning his head to spit at the bridge disdainfully. Relaxed and easy as if he hadn’t just ran a mile at full speed, he turned on his heel and sauntered over to David with a bark of a laugh. “Geez, Jacobs, I didn’t figure you was so shitty at runnin’. C’mon, pick yourself up ‘n we’ll go back to the lodgings and getcha a nice glass of lukewarm water.”

David really did want to pick himself up, but the trouble was that he couldn’t exactly breathe. Black spots were starting to dot his vision. Distantly, he knew that panicking wouldn’t do him any good, but he could easily recognize his own hyperventilation. Short, shallow breaths weren’t drawing any air in and suddenly his clothes were suffocating, and a very loud part of his brain was convincing him that he was going to die. Maybe he was, because he surely couldn’t round a corner and take his binder off in front of Race. Then all of the newsboys would find out he'd been lying to them and he’d lose all of his friends only months after making them, and he’d be lonely and strange and outcast all over again, and his life would be miserable all because he couldn’t catch his goddamn breath after running over the Brooklyn bridge. Now he was really and truly spiraling, clutching at his chest and gagging around his own useless gasping.

Immediately, his blonde companion’s demeanor changed. “Shit. Oh, shit. Shit, something’s wrong, huh? Davey, buddy, you okay?”

Race’s concerned expression swam into view as he crouched in front of David, cupping his sweaty face in both rough hands. Racetrack didn’t cringe away even as he felt the searing heat and saw how red David surely was. Instead he only looked even more concerned, his street-smart brain noticing the signs of asphyxiation with remarkable ease.

“Yeah, you need’ta sit.” He grumbled, and David was flickering in and out of sensibility as Race gripped him by the arm and tugged him into a slim alleyway between two buildings, somehow both forcible and gentle as he pushed David to sit. It was only getting worse. David’s mind was starting to swim and begging him to breathe, but a childish part of him was screaming with panic and sending hot tears rolling down his cheeks. Distantly, he knew that his bandages weren’t really that tight. All of this was mental, but he’d started panicking and now he couldn’t stop. The slight inconvenience of tight binding had transformed into a murder weapon in his delirious mind. He was going to die. He was going to suffocate right here in an alleyway and it was all because he’d tied his bandages too tight this morning. Seventeen years ending in such a stupid way made him cry harder, which expelled more of his dwindling air and sent all attempts at rational thought spiraling out of his brain.

Black spots grew darker and the image of Racetrack warbled like bathwater being kicked by an overeager child. “Let’s getcha out of this tie, yeah? Can’t be doin’ you any favors.”

David scarcely registered the lithe fingers tugging at the tie done loosely round his neck, and he was barely an inch away from unconsciousness as nimble hands undid the buttons of his waistcoat with remarkable speed. Maybe, if David had been alert, he would’ve seen the slight panic on his friend’s face as he pushed open David’s shirt. He could’ve seen the tremble in Racetrack’s fingers as he laid a hand over David’s rapidly rising and falling chest, wondering why his efforts weren’t doing any good. He could’ve seen terror building in big blue eyes as Race stripped David from his shirt and then his undershirt, and maybe he could’ve seen the gentle, sweet understanding flash across his friend’s face in a split second if he’d been looking— but he wasn’t. 

“Alright,“ Racetrack murmured, intelligent eyes flicking over the tightly wrapped bandages concealing his friend’s freckled chest. “Alright, Dave, ‘m not gonna look. But I gotta get these off, I think they’re makin’ it hard for you to breathe.”

He carefully looped his arms around David and undid the tight knots holding the binding of bandages together, eyes resolutely focused on the brick wall behind them. With two short, calculated movements, Race tugged the bandages off entirely and draped David’s discarded shirt over his chest. He then carefully turned his back to the other boy, making sure no curious passersby decided to peek into the alleyway.

It was wonderful to draw in a thick breath of the hot summer air. David’s chest swelled with the intake and a soft wheeze escaped his lips, oxygen finally filling his deprived lungs. He drank up gasps of the stuff as the spots began to fade and he finally spiraled back into consciousness, deep breaths evening out to a normal pace after about five minutes. He was too sapped of energy to do anything but sit there and let tears leak down his cheeks, because yes he was alive, but Racetrack knew and he was probably going to tell everyone. David let out a pathetic sniffle at the thought.

This caught Race’s attention and he turned around, concern etched into his face. “Aw, shit, Dave, don’t cry. Don’t cry, man. C’mon, put your shirt on and we’ll head back to lodgings so you can lay down somewhere comfortable.”

Man. David only hiccuped harder, reaching for his discarded bandage. He was in far too deep.

Immediately, Race snatched the bandage up and stuffed it in his pocket. “No way I’m letting you put this back on. We got at least a mile before we get back and I don’t want you suffocating again.”

“Race, please.” He begged, despising the weak vulnerability of his watery voice. This was a new low point– letting a boy two years younger than him tell him what to do. “Race, come on, I– I can’t go back without it on! Please– everyone’s gonna know! I can’t Racer, I–”

“No, Dave. I’m sorry, but it’s for the best. You’ll be okay. I promise.. Most of the guys are prolly out scrounging up dinner, anyways.” Grim and stern all at once, Race climbed to his feet with one catlike movement and stalked over to the end of the alleyway, standing with his back turned as if keeping guard. 

David sobbed. He sobbed as he tugged his undershirt on and sobbed harder as he buttoned his shirt and shrugged his waistcoat over his shoulders. Everyone was going to find out when they saw the swell of his chest beneath his shirt. They were all going to recoil in disgust. He could envision it already. Sure, there were girl newsies, but there were no girl newsies that pretended to be men and lied about their gender and name for months on end just because it made them feel sickeningly good. To think he’d actually started feeling comfortable and happy– of course that was ripped away from him. Too exhausted to be mortified, he was near the point of wailing when Race’s rough hands tugged him to his feet. David really longed for Jack’s gentle touches and then mentally slapped himself for that thought.

“Davey. Davey, c’mon. You’re gonna suffocate yourself again if you cry like that.” Race patted his cheek like he was trying to be gentle but didn’t quite know how. He only thought of Jack, who knew exactly how David liked to be touched without being told. He wanted to scream. David only noticed that Race was unbuttoning his own light blue flannel once the blonde was already shrugging it off, draping it around David’s shoulders. The extra drapery essentially covered his chest area, and nothing looked amiss with the additional layer distracting the eyes. Race slung an arm around his shoulder. “Let’s go, bud. I’m thirsty as hell. Y’know– Spot’s a great kisser but she sure as hell ain’t a great hostess. You know what I hafta do to get a cuppa water ‘round those parts? Actually, you don’t want to know. Spotty’s a sick bastard. ‘S why I love her. Though, people say I’m a sick bastard too, so I guess we’re a match made in hell. Wait, do Jews believe in hell?”

David barely managed to shake his head ‘no’, unable to understand why Race wasn’t addressing the elephant in the room. 

“Hah, weird. Where are evil people s’posed to go? Eternal Jewish jail? Shit, ain’t that a concept…” And he continued to yammer on, keeping David securely under his arm as they walked. Race didn’t seem to care that David wasn’t looking or really listening as they trudged through the ridiculously hot streets. David sweated his ass off and simultaneously tugged Race’s flannel down against his shoulders, despite the fact it was making him sweat harder. He probably stunk. It was the most miserable he’d been since Jack screwed everyone over at the rally. 

Somehow Race didn’t ask one question about David’s secret. He didn’t inquire about his old name or why he’d been lying. There wasn’t even a subtle accusation or anything. Instead they just walked and Race talked on and on about other things, his voice loud and commanding and normal in the summer heat. When they reached the lodging house, David wasn’t quite crying anymore, but he was confused and tired and a step beyond upset.

Rave shepherded him into the bunk room, where Les instantly barreled towards them. “Crutchie and I sold two hundred papes today! Can you believe it, David, can you—“

“Christ, what happened to you, Dave?” Crutchie asked with palpable concern, crossing the room in a few short strides. He pressed the back of his hand to David’s forehead and winced— David was sure his face was red as a rose with a sheen of sweat to match. “You’re gonna catch a heat death, Davey— what’s the deal, Race? Gotta look after other fellas when you take ‘em to Brooklyn— Les, can you go fix your brother a glass of water?”

“Sure.” Les frowned up at David, his eyebrows furrowed in the adorable way they always did when he had a particularly puzzling problem to solve. 

Crutchie led David over to one of the bunks and David collapsed onto his stomach, gratefully burying his face in whomever’s pillow this was. Crutchie gently patted his back before he straightened to stand tall. “On second thought, I’m gonna go wet a rag. Gotta cool you down somehow.”

His crutch plunked against the ground, quieter and quieter until David couldn’t hear him anymore. The mattress sank near his feet as Race sat, quiet for a moment. Then he awkwardly patted the back of David’s calf. “I ain’t a snitch. Don’t let that keep you up at night.” 

David didn’t have the energy to react, but relief crashed into him. What had he done to deserve people like Race in his life? The newsies made him feel more whole than he’d ever felt. Being with them made the ever-present pit in his chest seem to lesson. Something within him was happy and crooning around these brash, loud, sort of disgusting boys. He wanted to cry all over again but couldn’t manage any tears, so he just breathed deeply and gratefully. Racetrack wasn’t going to tell. His secret was safe. 

Their careful calm shattered as a flurry of footsteps entered the room, alongside an unmistakable voice, laced with passionate fury. “What the hell did you do to him?”

Racetrack stood to meet Jack, who barreled straight past him and dropped to a crouch at David’s bedside. Crutchie and Les trailed in behind Jack, each respectively carrying a bowl of water and a rag or a cup of cool water. David didn’t think he could handle the full force of Jack’s attention in his current state. He gulped down the water, focusing on the soothing temperature of the liquid. Race scoffed loudly. “I didn’t do shit. Some Brooklyn boys tried to mug us while we was heading home and I think the heat and the panic made Dave sick. You gotta calm down, Jack, I kept your boy safe.”

Your boy. David resisted a self-deprecating laugh. David wasn’t Jack’s anything. Maybe a very close friend, but he wasn’t Jack’s boy. Katherine was Jack’s girl. Katherine and Jack were each other’s in general. David had resigned himself to a life of awkward spectating, watching them love each other with nothing but a deep longing for Jack and pure need in his chest.

He thought about how much he wanted Jack very frequently. At first he’d assumed he was jealous. Maybe he wanted to be like Jack– gorgeous, confident, brazen, so obviously settled in his own skin. Then as time passed and they grew closer, David realized that no he wasn’t jealous. He didn’t want to be as harsh as the other boy and he didn’t need that charisma. They were different people. Different boys. David wanted to be with Jack. He wanted to kiss him and admire him openly and cling to him like Katherine did in private spaces. Jack, with his expressive brown eyes and his gorgeous smile. Jack, who deserved someone better than David. Someone like Katherine, who was gorgeous and intelligent and normal. David was broken and strange. Jack, stunning and wonderful as he was, would never return David’s affections— even in a hypothetical world where he knew who David was at home, behind closed doors, forced into skirts and called a name that didn’t really feel like his. Jack still wouldn’t want that person.

Still, David often found himself wondering… if he’d met Jack before he cut his hair and changed his clothes, would he have had a chance? 

Such thoughts made him feel ill. He wanted Jack to want him as he was, with his cropped curls and his comfortable clothes and as David, not as anyone else. Though, that was entirely impossible. He buried his face in the fabric beneath him as his stomach clenched in tight misery. 

“I can keep myself safe. I’m not some child that needs looking after.” He grumbled into the fabric of the pillow, earning a little laugh of agreement from Racer. 

“Yeah, I know, but that don’t mean I don’t worry about you.” Jack murmured, quiet and gentle as he threaded his fingers through David’s hair and tilted his head back. David didn’t often like meeting people’s eyes but he met Jack’s and his breath seemed to slip away. ”Mierda, Dave. Look at you… rough day, huh?”

Crutchie wordlessly handed Jack the ratty old washcloth, Les trailing anxiously behind him, but it honestly felt like David and Jack were the only people in the room. David, trapped helplessly in Jack’s orbit, drawn in by his beauty and his impossible charisma.

He let out a huff of a laugh. “You could say so.”

“Well, that’s what happens when I’m not around.” Jack crooned jokingly, but David could hear the subtle notes of guilt in his voice. Of course Jack was blaming himself– he’d been working at The World three days a week, which was the whole reason why David went to sell at the Sheepshead tracks with Racer in the first place. 

Normally when Jack was out, David and Les sold by themselves just fine. However, some days Crutchie and Les liked to combine their powers of ‘crippled orphan boy’ and ‘tiny orphan boy’ to sell massive amounts of papers. David would’ve preferred selling alone, but then Race extended an invitation, and people didn’t tend to invite David anywhere before he met the newsies, so he took the offer with little consideration of doing otherwise. He could tell, just by the furrow in Jack’s perfect brow, that Jack was blaming himself.

David wasn’t having any of that and reached out to carefully run his fingers through Jack’s hair, brave enough to cup his cheek. “It’s not your fault. I can see you thinking it’s your fault, Jack. Stop it. Okay? Nothing bad happened. Race was smart and he made the smart decision to run, and I’m just… well, I’m not as fit as you all, so I got winded and overheated. Everything’s alright. You can calm that protective head of yours.”

Delusional as he was, David could’ve sworn Jack angled his head further into the touch, and a guilty little smile tilted his full lips. “Read me like one of your books didn’t you?”

“Yeah, well…” David stared at the dripping washcloth in Jack’s hand, and the little puddle on the floor beneath it. “You’ll want me on my back, I suppose?”

“I’ll have you any way, Davey-mine.” Jack winked, and David felt like his whole head was resetting.

It just wasn’t fair. Jack had no right to flirt with him like that, like it was nothing, like it wasn’t ripping David apart piece by piece and forcing him to rethink how he wanted to put himself together. He wanted Jack so, so badly. It was almost ridiculous. 

Race and Crutchie cackled and David took Jack’s cap off his head to whack him with it as he rolled over, making sure Race’s shirt sat baggy over his chest. Jack only winked again and caught David’s hand in his own, threading their fingers together. “Jack Kelly, you are ridiculous.” 

“What are you laughing at?” Les whined, big brown eyes darting between all of the older boys. “Come on, guys, what does that mean? What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, Lessy.” He sighed deeply and motioned his little brother over just as Jack carefully dropped David’s hand. He threaded his tanned fingers through dark curls to push David’s hair away from his forehead, replacing it with the damp cloth. David hummed thankfully at the cool touch and let his eyes flutter shut, wrapping his free arm around Les.

“You’re sweaty. And red.” Les remarked, carefully re-adjusting Race’s shirt to cover a bit more of his older brother’s chest. David’s heart swelled. 

David cracked an eye open and glared at his sibling, who was smiling an innocent grin, freckled cheeks turning his eyes into crescent moons. “Thank you for telling me, Les-kah.” 

The younger boy positively beamed. “You’re welcome. Hey- are you gonna be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” David soothed, giving his little hand a squeeze. Les squeezed right back. “Just need to cool down, then we can go home. Ima will save us some dinner.”

“Okay.” Les glanced at the door. “So… I can go play marbles?”

He couldn’t stop his own laugh. “Yes, go play marbles.”

“Your brother’s in good hands.” Jack remarked simply, resting one of his warm hands on David’s shoulder. Normally David would absolutely melt at the touch, but all he felt was a spike of panic because Jack’s thumb was so close to something it shouldn’t be close to. David’s heart ran a mile a minute against his chest as Les pressed a kiss to his cheek and bolted off. Crutchie took his seat at the end of the bed as Jack dragged a thumb over the collar of the blue flannel draped over David. “Maybe we oughta get you out of these shirts–”

“No!”

“Wh– you’re gonna sweat to death. You got like, four layers on.” Jack argued, hand darting towards David’s buttons. David deftly slapped his hand away and Jack recoiled in shock, eyebrows shooting up because David never got rough with him like that. He was already feeling guilty. “Alright, I’m confused.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with a modest man, I always say.” Race responded easily, patting David’s ankle. “If he don’t wanna get naked for you, Kelly, y’can’t make him. You got Katherine for that, remember?”

Crutchie grinned. “Yeah, you at least gotta end things nice and easy with her before you ask Davey to go nude for you.”

Jack’s cheeks seemed to darken beneath his tan and the great, charismatic strike leader floundered for a fleeting moment before he stepped back into his easy personality and rolled his eyes. “That ain’t what I mean and you know it. Dave–”

“I’ll be fine with my clothes on. Really, Jack.” He tried to make himself sound relaxed and easy, but he was a notoriously terrible liar and Jack almost definitely heard the nerves twinging his tone. Thankfully he didn’t press– just sighed and flipped the washcloth over. 

David tried to ignore his sudden guilt for keeping such a secret from these people. Part of him was curling up in shame, telling him that none of his friends knew who he was. But this was who he really was, wasn’t it? When he was selling papers, dressed in trousers with short hair, that was the most comfortable he’d ever felt. They knew the real him. They just… well, they didn’t know the version of him that society said he was supposed to be, and that was still something that caused David a wild amount of guilt.

Jack began carefully dabbing the rag over his cheeks and David felt his own eyes fluttering shut, one hand coming up to loosely wrap around Jack’s wrist. Race carefully patted David’s ankle and got to his feet, just as Crutchie spoke. “We’ll leave you two to it. Let us know if you need anything, Jack.”

“Sure, Crutch.” He murmured distractedly, and David could feel Jack’s eyes on him like a searing brand. He wanted to disappear into the fabric of the uncomfortably stiff bunk beneath him, and that discomfort didn’t go away until he felt Jack’s gaze fall away.

He’d probably have to tell Jack what Race found out eventually, though the idea of doing so made him sick to his stomach. Thankfully Jack wasn’t speaking or trying to start some pointless conversation. He just occasionally passed the rag over David’s cooling cheeks, maybe re-situating it over his forehead. After what felt like eternity but could’ve been only fifteen minutes, David felt himself starting to give in to his own exhaustion as the rag grew warmer and warmer. Jack removed it entirely to re-dip it in the water, and as David was finally falling asleep, he could’ve sworn he felt a pair of lips ghost against his forehead. Maybe. 

But that would be ridiculous. Jack wouldn’t. Or at least David assumed as much. 

[w33nies]

Qué Maravilla CH.12 - 'Something Wicked This Way Comes'

Previous Chapter Next Chapter Miguel O'hara x SpiderReaderrating: E for Everyone bby warnings: Aplogies in advance for this shit is long as fuck. I didn't know where to cut it because I have attachment issues. angst, bad words + proofreader? I hardly know her summary: exposition + you and Miguel angst because I need to make things harder for everyone because I like drama

----- Ch.12 - Something Wicked This Way Comes -----

It was concerning to Miguel how easy it was to travel undetected in the subway station of Brooklyn,New York on Earth-42. There was an abundance of dark corners and corridors to hide in thanks to the faulty, neglected overhead lighting. Every officer he passed was either on their phone, passed out, or blatantly disinterested in his presence.  Even shamelessly sticking to the side of train cart windows would only be met with brief disinterested glances from the passengers before they nonchalantly resumed whatever business had them preoccupied prior. It was…disorienting to say the least. To be in a world where crime was so ingrained in its foundation the sight of random masked vigilantes climbing walls and swinging mere feet above peoples head raised zero concern. 

It wasn’t all rough though. By his side through it all as his anchor in this sea of uncertainty… 

... Was you.

Just your mere presence was enough to keep him sane. That compounded with the high of your recent kiss and newly realized mutual attraction between the two of you. His elation was bordering on giddiness. He found himself meticulously crafting his every movement. Taking grace with each jump and flip, making sure he gracefully stuck each landing solely  because he knew you were watching (though probably only through your peripheral vision).

After what felt like hours of searching and a slew of dead ends, the two of you eventually reach a dark corridor blocked by a metal gate with an ‘AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY ’ sign (which you climb over without hesitation). At the end of the long hallway lies a large switch on the wall. You pull it downwards to be greeted with dim flickering lights accompanied by loud buzzing sounds that come from its archaic wiring. You blink your eyes to adjust to your surroundings. This tall room is large and bare save for the graffiti covering almost every square inch of the walls. It's only contents being five archways all pointing in different directions. Whatever is on the other side is completely obscured by the darkness each corridor holds. 

“Hmm….Alright.” Miguels claps hands together, turning his head to ponder each identical archway. “How should we do this?  Stick together? Or divide and conquer?” 

You both take a moment to contemplate individually before responding in unison. 

“Divide and conquer” you say at the same time Miguel concludes “Stick together.” His response leaves you frowning with confusion. 

“Stick together? We’ll find him a lot faster if we split up.” 

Miguel snorts, leaning down to bring his face closer to yours. “Would you really tell me where he is if you found him first?”  

“I mean, I would eventually-” 

“-That’s what I’m getting at Mi Amor.” His mask dissipates to show his face. You move to remove yours as well. He gently grabs you by the sides of your arms, rubbing his hand up and soothing methodical strokes. 

“As much as I love you, I know you and I know that once you see something you think is wrong, you’ll do anything and everything to make it right. No matter what I or anyone else tells you… But this time, doing the right thing is the wrong thing to do. Which is why I can’t afford to let you out of my sight.”

You heard his criticisms, but you didn’t hear him. Not after the first several words. “Did you just tell me that you love me?” 

“AHH! Uhhh-NO!”  Miguel retracts his hands quickly, his arms hovering in front of his chest  like limp T-rex arms.

“I MEAN YES! I’m sorry it just kind of came out! I mean- I didn’t mean to just spring that on you- You don’t have to say it back. ” Every square inch of his face is red with blush. His holographic mask moves to obscure his face again. 

“One second thought, you’re right. Let’s divide and conquer.” He turns around hastily, picking a random corridor to speed walk towards. 

You stifle a laugh as you chase after him. Stopping him with a hand on his broad shoulder. 

“Why do you think I wouldn’t want to?

“...Why do you think I wouldn’t want you to do what?” 

“Hear you tell me you love me.” 

His mask immediately retracts, showing his astonished expression. “Are you serious?” 

“Yeah. ” 

“You don’t think I’m weird for saying it so soon?” 

“No. Not at all.” 

“So…” his pointer fingers draw circles around one another, “...does that mean you love me too?” 

“I mean yeah why wouldn’t I-” 

Miguel interrupts you by sweeping you off the ground in a massive hug, leaving you with your feet dangling off the ground. Your hands are caught between both of your bodies, pressed firmly against his chest. Now it was your turn to be embarrassed. You were almost certain that he could feel the burning heat radiating off your face. 

“Miguel what!-”

“-¡Gracias a dios!” His muffled voice reverberates through your shoulder that his face muzzled in. “I never thought I would ever hear you say that.” 

Again, he wants to say but he manages to filter himself in time. 

“Well I love you Miguel.” You attempt to hug him back, but with your arms caught up in his bear hug you opt to place a small kiss on his jaw. He perks his head up and responds by smashing his lips touch-starved against yours.

“Miguel-” you mutter against his mouth. 

He breaks the kiss with an exhale so your foreheads rest against one another. “Yes mi vida.” 

“Do you think you can put me down now?” 

“Right! Sorry!” He gently lowers you to the ground, coyly rubbing the back of his neck  “I got so excited I just couldn’t help it.” 

You move to rub imaginary dust off his shoulders, mostly as an excuse to touch him again. “When this is all settled maybe we can-” 

A familiar frequency buzzes in your ears, subtle, like TV static coming from another room. The accompanying intense pulling sensation on the back of your head that causes you to immediately turn around to face the source. You find yourself staring down the darkness of the furthermost left archway. 

“What’s wrong?” Miguel looks at you, then towards the hallway. “Spider sense?” 

You whip your head back towards him, “You can tell?” 

He gives a single nod, “Mmmhmm.” 

“How?”

“You just always...I don’t know. You just kinda freeze up for a second and your eyes just-” he makes a  popping motion with his hands and widens his eyes “-Kind of like a dog.” 

You gingerly touch your face self consciously.

“I mean that in a cute way!” 

 “Really?” 

“Uh Huh.” He sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, “I anticipate incoming attacks by watching you…sometimes” 

You flash a teasing smile, “Is that's why you always keep me around?” 

“Among other things,” he mumbles with a smug look of his own, He steps closer, sliding his hand to hold you by the waist. 

“If you got the sense then he’s definitely in there and we can’t afford to waste anymore time.” he places a small peck on your forehead. “We’re almost done here cariño.” 

His hand lingers as he pulls away. He nods towards the arch, beckoning you to follow as he urgently jogs to its opening. You reluctantly trail behind, your feet weighed down by dread mixed with a twinge of guilt. You had a good guess of what lay on the other side or rather who. Whatever love he felt for you would surely be put to the test soon enough. It left you worrying as you tugged your mask back over your head. 

 ‘Is this as good as it was going to get?’

You finally reach the end of the tunnel. On the other side sits a vast lab that looks like it’s been freshly run through by a tornado. Your pulse quickens when your eyes land on what seems to be Miles. The disappointment is immediate upon your realization that it’s the Earth-42 variant. The Miles you’re looking for is nowhere to be seen. Under normal circumstances this would be cause for alarm, though you find yourself fixed on the silent standoff between Miguel and the other spiders.

 His gaze is vicious, slowly shifting his head to make eye contact with each perceived traitor. From Hobie, to Pavitir, to Margo, to a long sustained glare towards Gwen, to Noir, to Penni, to Porker, and then finally to Peter. 

You remove your mask and give a small awkwards wave with it in your hand

“Hey y’all.” 

“Hey,” all spiders greet you distractedly and unenthusiastically in unison, all without ever taking their eyes off the distressed man. 

You had never seen Miguel so upset, which was saying a lot. His face was stained red with anger, his scowl was somehow even deeper than usual. Each moment of silence only worked to intensify animosity written on his face. It was like watching the water boiling in a lidded pot, knowing it could blow at any moment.

Oh boy, Here it comes. 

“Well?” Miguel speaks with a shrug. “Anyone want to tell me what’s going on here?

All spiders erupt at once. 

‘Sightseeing! It was an accident! We got lost? I Just wanted to take the scenic route. I heard there was a good kabob place down the street! For the pub of course! We’re just broadening our horizons!’

They all look at each other in panic before attempting to correct with wildly different answers.  

‘It was an accident! We took the scenic route? I was trying to study my colors! There’s a guy here who owes me fifty bucks. A spiritual retreat. Collecting signatures for a petition. What they said! ’

“Uh Huh.” Miguel raises a single brow in skepticism, hands now placed on his hips. 

“Guess I’m going to have to go down the line then.” He singles out Gwen, pointing a finger in her direction. 

“What are you doing here, specifically ?” 

The girl squares her shoulders and returns his glare. “Fixing this mess. I’m getting Miles back home. We all are.” 

He narrows his eyes in a scrutinizing fashion, “You mean you want to help him destroy the fabric of space and time.” 

“Saving his father isn’t going to do that! Canons don't mean anything! I know that for a fact-”

 “-Aye dios mio, esta mierda otra vez.”  Miguel mumbles to himself while massaging his aching temples. The kind of ache that felt like a knife scraping at your skull from the inside, “You’ve gotta be kidding me! Is that why you’re all here?” 

“Can you at least let me finish!?”

 “Don’t tell me you all actually believe this nonsense!?” He looks wildly from person to person, flailing his arms in frustration looking for another person to interrogate before deciding on the father with his baby strapped to the front of his body. 

 “You too, Peter? After everything we’ve been through.” 

“Sue me,” Peter shrugs, “I just don’t think the kid deserves to be stranded in an alternate dimension where his atoms are probably gonna…” - he does little jazz hands while trying to find the words- “...I don’t know, maybe fry themselves to oblivion?”

“And you didn’t think to come to me? You thought the best course of action was rubbing elbows with the enemy.” Miguel aims a nod in Gwen’s direction, she scoffs at the gesture. 

Peter shifts his weight from one foot to the other, patting the baby’s tummy to calm her stirring. A soothing tactic, though mainly for him. 

“I just-” 

Peter pauses, turning to look at his comrades. Peter Porker, Spider-Noir, and Penni each returning with vacant, unreadable stares. Margo is biting down on her fist, shrinking into herself. Pavitir's hands are on his hips and Hobie's are crossed. Finally, he sees Gwen. It hurts more to look at her. The look on her face just made him feel… guilty. He turns away shamefully. 

“-It’s not about the canon” 

Gwen lets out a defeated tisk. Pavitr sighs.  Hobie simply shakes his head. 

Peter can feel a collective disappointment without looking at them. He turns only his head to the side, speaking more so to his peers than his boss“...Not for me at least…” 

“You’re not answering the question and on top of that you’re sneaking around behind my back. What do you think I’m trying to do here? It’s not like I’m gonna kill the kid.” 

All the spiders (including yourself) murmur skeptically amongst themselves. 

‘Could’ve fooled me,’ Noir mumbles just a bit too loud. 

“Oooh.  I get it now,” Miguel chuckles sardonically, waving his finger up and down. “You all think I’m a horrible person. That’s what this is! Forget the fact that I gave you all the gift of dimensional travel. That I saved all of your dimensions. That I’m busting my ass to save yours,” he snaps his head at Pavitir.  “Because I’m the only one here that’s willing to do what I have to do. That’s why none  of you even bothered to call me or send me a-” 

Wait a minute…

 Just a little over an hour ago, when you were preoccupied with your web watch Peter had messaged you. What did it say? Something like, ‘Whatever happens we’ll make it work’ What work? You said it was nothing and he trusted you. 

You wouldn’t lie to him… would you?

He slowly twists to face you.  “That message…The one Peter sent you…Did you know?” 

“Miguel-” 

“-Please don’t fucking lie to me.” He inches closer, his large frame towering over you. His mask vanishes, deep crimson eyes staring pleadingly into yours. His is but a low whisper. 

“Did you know?” 

You eventually relent under his harsh gaze, looking away shamefully.

“...Yeah… I did.”

An apology sat on the tip of your tongue, but you didn’t dare let it slip. As bad as you felt for hurting him, you were not sorry. It was a horrible thing to violate his trust, but you only did it because you had to. 

Not that it made it any easier to watch his heartbreak in real time. The plausible deniability quickly gives way to solemn acceptance. Miguel turns away abruptly like a wounded animal. 

He should’ve known it was all too good to be true. 

He immediately turns  attention to the contraption on his wrist. 

“Layla!” 

The virtual assistant materializes with a stretch and a yawn. “Finally! Was starting to think you forgot about me.” When she finally looks up to assess her surroundings, she hums with content.

“Ooooo, Look at this party goin’ on over here.”  

Miguel ignores her invitation for banter. “I need you to get a hold of Jessica.” 

“Okay.” She teleports back towards his wrist, which now projects a call screen with Jessica Drew’s name and face. It rings several times before emitting a ‘Caller Unavailable' message large enough for the entire room to see

Layla peers at the denied call notification from above his shoulder. “Oooooooo,” she instigates, like a child about to tattle. “Thaaat’s no bueno, huh?” 

“Great.” He raises his hands exhaustedly, landing on his thighs with a slap. “Isn’t that just amazing?” 

He attempts to call her again. Nothing. He dials Ben Riley, it doesn’t even ring. He calls other spiders. Still nothing. Even lego spiderman seems preoccupied to pick up. Over and over again he’s met with the same piece of sepia toned holographic text. After his patience runs out he begins pacing and mumbling angrily to himself. 

“Ya know, they’ve probably set their watches to stealth mode.” Layla attempts to reassure, “You did dispatch everyone on patrol. They’re probably just caught up with Spot or…something.” 

Miguel continues to pace distractedly through her pixelated form. She reappears again on the side lines, now a part of the nervous glances being exchanged between all the spectors in the room.  

It’s Jonathon Ohnn, the scientist, who eventually tries to break the silence. Ohnn loudly clears his throat.

 “So…uhhh… are we gonna-” 

Miguel grabs a nearby chair and hurls it against the wall dangerously close to his head 

Jonathan ducks with a yelp, hands covering his head. “-Jeez Louise! Alright then! I’m sorry!”  

Margo and Pavitir elbow each other in disbelief, “Yooooo!”  Just as you shout “Miguel!”  While Peter yelps, “Dude!”  And Penni sighs “Okaaay then.” And Noir goes “Easy there Daddy-O!” And Proker mumbles “Okay. That’s fine.” And Hobie mutters “Here we go.” 

“Damn, what the desk do?” Miles asks with a thumb pointed at the discarded chair.

Miguel just stands there. His shoulders rising up and down in cadence with his empathic breathing. “What the hell is going on!? Where is everyone!?” 

“Uh, Miguel.” Layla whispers in his ear. He keeps ranting despite her.

“What am I? Chopped fucking liver?” He smacks the back of his hand in the other repeatedly for emphasis. “Have you all lost your goddamn minds? Like I don’t have enough on my plate as it is-” 

“Miguel.” Layla raises her voice above his vicious rambles

“What.” 

The A.I clears her pixelated throat. Uncomfortable with the added attention she had initially tried to circumvent. “Have you taken your -uh- medicine recently?”

“Excuse me?” 

“Have you taken your medicine?” She repeats more matter of factly. “I know you can get a bit tense when-”

“Tense!? Do I look tense to you!?”

Layla doesn’t respond. Instead she puts her hands on her hips and shoots him a look. Physically embodiment of “Do I really need to answer that?” 

“Don’t patronize me.” He waves away at her form, only for her to reappear a few inches further out of  reach. This time her arms are crossed and she holds her chin in the air knowingly. 

“When was your last dose Miguel?” 

“Ugh, Who cares-” 

“- Who cares?” she jabs an accusing finger in his direction. “You can’t even remember can you? That’s a bad sign pal.” 

“Oh my god. Who’s side are you on!?”

“Yours! Why do you think I’m  trying to help you!” 

“You’re not helping mierda. What's the point of an assistant that makes everything worse?” 

“Woooah.” Everyone bellows in tandem offense on Layla’s behalf 

You step in front of the man to command his attention. “Miguel I understand you’re upset-”

“-I’m not upset! Stop saying I’m upset.”

You and Layla share a brief look before responding together. 

 “...Riiight.” 

“You guys telling me I’m upset is what’s making me upset!” Spit flies from his mouth as he hollers. Miguel’s hands are shaking. His scleras are a shade of red on par with his pupils.  A single vein can be seen protruding from his forehead. You couldn’t if what you were witnessing was simply unwarranted rage or symptoms of withdrawals. Probably both.

“So…you are upset,” Margo concludes.

“Are you listening? I just said I’m not.” 

“Well, you said it’s making you upset,” Penni adds. “Which means technically you are, at least to some degree, a bit upse-” 

Miguel picks up another chair and slams it vehemently and throws it towards Penni. Her humanoid robot seems to act on her behalf, catching the projectile in midair with her not so much as raising an eyebrow. The girl just sighs, reclining in the cockpit of the robot with her cheek resting on her palm. 

“-Never mind. Just keep doing that I guess.” Penni mumbles under her breath. 

The girl shoots Peter a desperate look, ‘Help us out here maybe?’

He sighs, moving to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Look man-” 

“-Don’t.” Miguel swats his arm away, “I’ve had just about enough of you today.” 

Peter raises his hands in defeat, walking to the other end of the room with a look on his face that says ‘Welp I tried.’

“Did you mean anything you said?” Miguel turns to you, not doing anything to disguise the hurt in his voice.

 “Everything we talked about, was it all just to let my guard down?” he throws his arm towards the others in a sweeping gesture. “To get in my head? To bring my guard down so you all could gang up on me?

“Miguel. ” You instinctively reach out to touch him but then stop yourself, quickly returning your arm back to your side.  “You know that’s not true.” 

“How am I supposed to believe you when you just lied to me?” 

You physically recoil at the assertion. “That’s only because you lied to me too!” 

“That was different!” 

“Oh so it’s okay when you do it!?” You couldn’t help but raise your voice. 

It was as if your rose colored lenses had been ripped from your eyes.  Was this really the same Miguel that sweeped you into his arms moments ago and whispered sweet nothings into your ear? This anger, this bitterness, the hypocrisy. It was incredibly disillusioning. You had never seen such an aggressive pendulum shift in temperment before, not even in an nemesis or anomaly. 

You felt like a fool. If the tender moments you shared together were the true Miguel , so was this. The Miguel spitting and shouting in your face while throwing furniture at innocent bystanders. This was all the true Miguel O’Hara, and you weren’t sure you liked what you saw. 

The epiphany hit you like a punch to the stomach. 

What did you ever see in him?

“I only did it because I lov-” he winces at his Freudian slip, “-Because I care about you. Meanwhile you lied so you can sneak around with Peter.” 

Peter erupts before you can argue. “Woah, dude!” He covers his baby’s ears as if he just said a curse word. “When you say it like that you’re making it sound like I’m having an affair.”

“Yeah! Don’t forget us too!” Hobie jokes, raising his hand in the air like an earnest student during roll call. 

“Oh my…” Jonathan stammers,  “...Why do I feel like we’re interrupting something?’ 

“Oh we definitely are.” In contrast to Jonathons discomfort, Miles crosses his arms and reclines against the wall, thoroughly amused. “This is better than those novelas my mom makes me watch.” 

Sniffling noises can be heard by the group. Everyone turns to look and see Pavitr wiping his teary eyes. 

“The heartbreak. The betrayal. Oh. It’s just like Laila and Manju.” 

“Uh, Who?” Margo asks, confused. 

Pavitir rolls his eyes “It’s like Romeo and Juliet.” 

“Ooooh,” they all erupt in understanding, like they had just solved a difficult math problem

Pavitir mumbles something under his breath about “westerners” and “the failure of public education.” 

Layla brings their attention back to the squabble at hand. “Yeah Mig, Even I have to say that’s quite a reach.” 

Miguel laughs angrily. “You think I’m going to listen to you?” 

“I’m just saying, the only reason this is escalating is because of you.” 

“Because of me!?” he points to everyone in the lab.“You all betrayed me!” 

“Me? Betrayed you? Really Miguel?” Layla rebukes, uncharacteristically impassioned. 

“First of all, All I said that you’re due for an injection. That’s it. Second, instead of freaking out, why don’t you just -I don’t know- talk to them.” 

“What do you think I’m doing, Layla.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. His migraine now screams at him for some desperately needed relief. “Aye dios Mio, remind me to reboot you when this is all over.” 

All spiders react in shock once more. 

“Oh what!? She just has a bunch of lines of ones and zeros. Who cares?” 

Everyone reacts in even louder shock.

“Wow. Okay. I’m only letting that slide because I know you’re…” Layla twirls around her hand before the words arrive “...Under a lot of stress. But look at this…” 

Layla pulls up various holographic screens. Loaded with charts, figures, and calculations “...Do you see these numbers? It’s about a 50/50 chance that the multiverse can sustain itself through changes like this.” 

Miguels doesn’t say anything, his mean mug just frowns at the various screens flying around him. The glow of endless, ever changing formulas and passages lightly coat his face

“Look, I’m not saying it’s a good idea. I’m not even saying I agree with it but like-” Layla turns to you, “-Come on, tell him what you told me.” 

“I already did.” You say with a sigh and shake of your head. 

“Really?” Layla turns to Miguel, “Dude, can we be for real for a second? This info is kinda a game changer to everything we thought we knew-” 

“You mean what we do know. What I know from personal experience mind you.” He opens his mouth to speak, but pauses. His face taking on an air of confusion. 

“What a minute… You two talked about this?” 

“Well yeah?” You respond, the answer being seemingly apparent.  “You locked me up at HQ for like an hour. What was I supposed to do, take up knitting? 

“It would be awkward if we didn’t talk honestly,” Layla concurs. 

“So you ‘talked’ and yet you didn’t notice they escaped?” 

You and Layla looked at each other nervously, now realizing the hole you both dug yourselves into.

“Well it’s not like we talked the whole time-” 

“-But surely you would’ve noticed something eventually, Layla. “ He steps toward her menacingly scowl on full display.

 “Layla…” 

The avatar gulps nervously,“...Miguel…” 

“...You didn’t let them go did you?” 

For the first time since you’ve known her Layla is at a loss for words. No witty remark or flashy comeback to mask the ‘deer in headlights’ look plastered on her face. 

“Pfff!Ha! No! That’s crazy!” she stammers unconvincingly. “Why would I do something like that? HA HA HA. Good one Migs!”

Layla playfully punches Miguel's shoulder with her mini hands. It does nothing to erase the scowl on his face. 

The A.I rocks back and forth on her heels. “Well, it’s been real! It really has. But I-I gotta go crunch some numbers- And take inventory and, uh, see if the plumbing is working and- uh- yeah. All super important stuff!” 

“Layla-” 

The A.I she blips away instantly, before Miguel can finish his thought. 

Miguel lets out a low groan, his gaze fixed towards the ceiling. “I have to do everything by myself don’t I?” he mumbles. 

“Not everything is about you mate, ” Hobie half shouts. Miguel’s head snaps in his direction. 

“Don’t you even start with me!��� he snarls. “It’s bad enough I got to deal with insubordination now I have to deal with your smartass too?” 

“And you’ve just proved my point.” 

Miguel bares his claws, his fangs also on full display. “You think this is funny?”

“Nope. I don’t.” The young man affirms with a cross of his arms, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Well, except the bit where you and Layla go into it. That gave me a bit of a laugh.” 

Miguel instantly lunges toward the young man. Leaping through the air with a rageful snarl and extended claws. Hobie calmly reaches for the guitar on his back, plucking the strings and twisting the tuning pegs as if he had all the time in the world. Once he’s satisfied, he takes a pick from his pocket and raises his arm with a dramatic flourish posed to deliver a powerful sound wave. 

 All the gathering of information, snooping around and tech swiping had brought Hobie Brown to this moment. The moment when he would finally stick it to the man. A big F’ off to this dictator, this tyrant. All his deporting of anomalies, the brainwashing It was all like a bad religion. He widens his stance the more Miguel closes the gap. All he had to do now was  time it right. 

This is it. Here it comes… 

Hobie gets ready to deliver a deafening strum, but is blocked by a blur of green and purple who swipes away at the oncoming hulking figure. Sending the large man stumbling back a few feet. 

Even Hobie can’t hide the shock on his face. 

“Uh, big stepper?” Hobie leans forward to whisper into Miles’-42 ear. The sudden sensation of causes the boy's entire body to stiffen. “Waaat are you doing???”

“Saving you from a violent attack.” he mutters, never taking his eyes off Miguel. “You’re welcome.” 

“And I appreciate bruv, I really do… but you kinda stole my thunder there.” 

The boy scoffs. “Next time, it’s pronounced thank you.”

“Awwwww. Que lindo,” Miguel laughs condescendingly, massaging his chin which suffered the brunt of the blow. “Looks like you got yourself a little guard dog.” 

“HA.” Miles yelps at his weak attempt to provoke him. “I don’t just bark.This perro bites.”

“Look kid, This doesn’t concern you. Just stand aside and I promise you won’t get hurt, okay?”

Miles jolts his fist, activating his metal talons with high pitched whir and purple light. “Don’t call me kid.” 

“God. What are you, in love with him or something?” Miguel barks with laughter, holding his stomach.

“Qué vergüenza” he sighs, whipping a tear from his eye. “You’re so wrapped behind his finger you can’t tell that he’s using you.” 

“Oi,” Hobie frowns, his colorful aura desaturates to black and white “Can it, you geezer.” 

“But it’s true isn’t Hobie.” Miguel bridges the gap, completely overlooking Miles to sneer down at Hobie. 

“You’re shifty, dishonest, and pride yourself on your lack of consistency.” he jabs a finger in his face, gesturing towards his ever changing magazine-esque aura. 

“Look at you! You can’t even decide how to present yourself. Let alone what you believe.” Miles puffs his chest as a barrier and raises his chin to command his attention. 

“Woah, down boy.” Miguel points a finger to Miles, but speaks to Hobie. 

 “Maybe it’s you invest in a muzzle for your bitc-” 

Miles lunges forward without a second though. He aims to swipe his sharp claws at his face, Miguel's recoils at the last second. The man swipes back in retaliation. Earning a clean cut on the boy's eyebrow. Miles stumbles back in dismay, gingerly touches the cut with the cool metal that covers his hands, pulling them back to find fresh blood coating his fingers. 

With a yell, the boy recklessly leaps toward the large man with the added momentum of his pneumonic shoes. Just as he is about to make contact with his face, Miguel grabs his wrist. He attempts to punch with the other, but Miguel grabs hold of it as well. 

‘Shit.’

“Watch yourself niño. You obviously don’t know what you’re doing! ” Miguel growls in the boy's face. Miles attempts to wriggle his hands free, but is caught firmly in his grasp.

Miles is barely able to spit out a sentence whilst fighting a losing battle  “You- Know nothing About- Me.” 

“Again Miguel? Really?” Peter shouts, leading the charge alongside Gwen to go and subdue the mad man. 

“Okay this is getting ridiculous,” Noir says as he follows suit with everyone else, though it only takes you, Noir, Gwen and Peter to successfully pry him off the boy. 

 “I bet he hasn’t even told you the truth about his powers!” Miguel roars as he  thrashes against his human restrains like a rabid animal. “The spider that bit him was supposed to bite someone else! Someone from here!”

“So?” Miles manages to sputter through deep breaths. “I know all of that already.” 

“That person was you.” Miguel's arm breaks free to jab a finger at the boy before quickly being snatched again by Spider-Noir. 

“If it wasn’t for him, your father would still be alive. He took him from you. He took everything from you.”

Miles makes his way towards the man so that they are face to face. Miguel jolts forward though is kept in check by his detainers. 

“Stop lying.”

“Ask anyone here,” the man  suddenly stops fighting, panting to catch his breath.  “They’ll tell you it’s true.”

Miles looks around at the spiders widely scanning each of their faces, expecting a rebuttal or condemnation. No one says a word until he finally turns to  Hobie. 

“...Yeah. It is,” the young man relents with a sigh. “But it’s not the way he’s making it seem.” 

“What?” Miles suddenly felt exposed. Raw almost.  “What do you mean?” 

“It was an accident,” Gwen pipes up immediately. “It's just- your spider was sent to his dimension because of the collider from there. I know how it sounds, but he never meant to take it from you. I swear. ” 

Miles isn’t sure why he even asked. He couldn’t hear a single word they said. His gaze fixed directly at the man who dropped this bomb of information on him. The blood from his cut begins dripping from his forehead into his face, forcing him to wink profusely to get the blood out of his eye.

“My dad… Is it supposed to be alive?” He still finds himself fighting for enough air for his lungs. 

“Yes he is,’Miguel doubles down.  “Your life was never supposed to look like this. Everything you’ve been through, this reality you live, is all his fault.  Think about it, he ruined everything. Your family. Your future. And look at what he left you. A shell of a city. An absolute dump.”

“...Ruined me?” Miles-42 repeats the words to himself slowly. As if trying them on like a pair of shoes that don’t fit. “There’s nothing ruined about me… or Brooklyn for that matter.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Miguel snarls, almost animalistic. “Look around you. You genuinely think this place is worth saving?”

Miles seethes silently. He could get over attacks on his character, but to insult Brookyln? His home? The place that housed all his friends and family. It was exactly the things distant relatives and everyone upstate said about this place. Barbaric, dirty, unsalvageable. Funny how it was always the outsiders looking in that would tell him how he should feel about a place they hardly stepped foot in. They refused to see what he saw. The different cultures that resided just a stone throw away from one another. The artistic prowess in every piece of graffiti that littered the sides of subway trains. The man who was always giving free beef patties to any hungry inner city kid that stepped in his bodega. His roommate who played violin for senior citizens at the retirement home. The lady who knits blankets for the homeless. His mother, who refused to leave despite being overworked and underpaid at the hospital because she knew how much people desperately need the care. Despite having every reason to be nasty and bitter like he was, the people always found a way. Sure, maybe it was impossible to love unless you came from it, but that’s why they would never see all the roses that grew from the cracks of the concrete. 

He would make them see. He would make everyone see. Brooklyn wasn’t a lost cause, more like a success in progress. 

It would’ve been a great thing to say out loud, but the words were lost to his mounting frustrations. Especially with his mind moving at a mile per minute. All he could string together in defense was…

“You’re wrong.” 

Could you tell he got an A in AP Literature?

Miguel scoffs, “If that’s what you need to believe in order to like yourself, then sure. ”

Miles recognized this type of argument.  The excessive need to get the last word, the attempt to turn everyone against each other when he was out of aces. This man was lashing out like a wild animal being backed into a corner. 

The boy smiles to himself. It was almost too easy to the point he almost felt bad. Dare he exploit it? Dare he expose such blatant insecurity compounded with delirium?Dare he resort to such low blows? 

Yes. Yes he does. 

The boy  simply shrugs. “ You would know all about that wouldn’t you?”

The man rushes towards Miles, taking advantage of the lowered guard of his captors. He propels himself with his hands planted on the ground like an apex predator. His claws leave deep indents in the ground. Miles lunges as well, fist raised high in the air ready to deliver a violent jab. Miguel bares his claws once more, ready to put this stubborn boy in his place once and for all. And this time he was going for a K.O. 

Miguel balls his hand into a fist and aims it straight for his jaw, only for it to be halted in its tracks by unseen force. His eyes waver to his hand and find it caught in a web.

“What the-” 

Before he can fully turn around and see the culprit, he suffers a brutal blow to his face by some invisible force accompanied by a… floating dog? Miles wastes no time, immediately punching the man square in the face before finishing with an uppercut. The blow causes him to stagger back, chin pointed towards the ceiling, before going limp and falling backwards towards the floor. He would’ve suffered a serious concussion on impact if it wasn’t for you catching him at the last second. Your hands cushion his head before it violently smacks the floor.  

The hero rescinds his camouflage, revealing a certain black and red clad superhero. Holding a wounded dalmatian and a briefcase shoddily webbed to his back. 

 “Miles!” many of the spiders exclaim ecstatically 

“About time mate,” Hobie jostles the teen playfully by his shoulders. 

Everyone rushes towards the boy, minus Miguel, who is slowly recovering from the barrage of attacks. 

“Boy, am I glad to see you kid,” Peter half jogs to the boy, arms outstretched for a hug. 

Gwen leads the pack, her face plastered with concern. “Miles are you okay-”

Miles defensively sticks his free arm out in front of him, stopping the crowd in their tracks.  

“Uh absolutely not.” He instinctively tucks the dog further under his arm like a baby. “Y'all can stay the hell away from me.”

“Um, Is this what I think it is?” Jonathon points to the case on his back, 

“Yes sir.” Miles turns around to give the scientist a better look. “Hold on let me-” 

He attempts to pry it off with one hand, but is only after being assisted by Miles-42 is he able to remove the box . The prowler and the scientist both open the case to view its contents. Jonathon smiles. Miles frowns. 

“Dude. There's only three of each in here.” 

“I know. I couldn’t carry them all and this little guy here.” He readjusts the pup in his arm to show him off, “So I just grabbed a few of each.” 

“You had time to bring a dog, but you couldn’t grab another case?” 

Offended, Miles-1610 covers the puppies ears. One floppy ear  is covered by his hand while the other is placed close to his chest. “Uh, it’s pronounced thank you.”

“HAH! Get ‘em! ” Hobie barks from behind the crowd 

“Thanks or whatever.” Miles- 42 mumbles under his breath.

An unsure voice speaks up. “Um… Miles?” 

The teen groans, turning begrudgingly to be met with Gwen’s sorry gaze. Just as he opens his mouth to tell her off, he pauses. 

“Hold up, is that my jacket?”

Gwen looks down at  the coat flustered. She then quickly takes it off , holding it out for him to take. “Oh! Yeah, I’m sorry.” 

“Why were you wearing my jacket?” he snatches it away aggressively, slinging it over his shoulder.  “Are you insane?”

“I know! I’m sorry!” she blurts out clumsily.  “I was looking for you so I stopped by your apartment but you weren’t there and then I saw your parents and they were so worried and- I don’t know- I just thought I should say something-” 

“-You what!?!” Miles' voice crack echoes within the dome ceiling. Miles-42 quickly clasps his hand over his mouth to mask his giggles. “How could that possibly be a good idea!?” 

“I don’t know! I just wanted to tell them-” 

“-Tell them what?” Anger is bubbling inside him like the lid to a boiling pot. He’s not sure if he’ll regret what he is about to say, but to be honest, he doesn’t care. She forfeited the right when she lied and abandoned him. 

“My parents don’t even like you! And I’m starting to realize they weren’t wrong to think that way.” 

“Don’t you think I know!?” Gwen exclaims, her outburst takes Miles by surprise.  “If it was the other way around I would feel the exact same way. I’m not here to ask you to forgive me. I know that we are way past that. Miles you have every right to be mad at me. I just want to help you fix this. Please just- at least let me help you fix this,” her voice trembles as she grovels. “And then I promise, you will never see me again.” 

“Screw see you again, I don’t want to see you now! How do I know what you’re saying right now isn’t just another lie-” 

Miles’s frenzy is cut short by the trembling feeling against his arms. He looks down to see the puppy he had all but forgot he was holding. The poor thing whimpered into his chest, undoubtedly shaken by his sudden temper. He offers his apologies in hushed tones and soothing strokes, but the whining persists. 

Gwen sighs, beginning a soothing rhythm of deep breaths. She closes her eyes, focusing purely on the cadence of her inhales and exhales. She intentionally exaggerated each gasp just enough so that they were audible to the boy and the dog across from her. Just enough for the rhythm to reach.

She never changed rhythms when around Miles, she never needed to, even now. Though she would give anything to remedy his frustration, she knew she deserved it. But this rhythm wasn’t for him. 

It only takes a few breaths for the room to reach equilibrium. Shortly after, the puppy stops crying. 

She opens her eyes to Miles cheek placed gingerly on its head, stroking its back with an apologetic frown on his face. 

“When my dad found out I was a spider woman, he tried to arrest me.” Miles shows no reaction, though he stops petting the dog and lifts his head to face her. As if to decide whether or not he was going to allow himself to believe her story.

 “The only reason I got away was because of Jess… and Miguel.” She gestures to the disgraced man, currently disabled by delirium and a gnarly headache. 

“I stayed because I felt like I had to. Because I had nowhere else to go, but also because I felt like I owed them so much. But then I got kicked out and honestly? That’s probably the best thing that could’ve happened to me,” Gwen chuckles bleakly. 

“My dad quit being captain. I didn’t even think that was possible before. I thought…The reason I never cared about that canon personally was because I thought I had already lost him. Going home made me realize… I never did. We don’t have to. Why should we lose the people we love just to be like everyone else? Or in order to be spiderman and women. Anyone can wear that mask. Anyone.” She holds both biceps with her hands, hugging herself to soothe. 

“And it’s stupid to say there’s only one way to live in order to be who we want to be.” 

Miles stares at the ground as he digests her testimony. “I’m happy for you Gwen, I really am, but I don’t need your help or anybody’s. I can do both, and I can do it without you guys.” The young man solemnly shakes his head. 

“Sorry, I just… I just don’t know how to trust you guys anymore.” 

It didn’t feel good to Miles to deny Gwen, but it just wasn’t the same anymore. He wasn’t sure if they could ever get back to the way things were before. He hated himself for letting himself be obsessed with her. That he was going to devote his future to a niche science just to find his way back to her and his other friends. A courtesy they obviously didn’t extend to him when given the chance. 

It really made him wonder. Did she lose herself in the wrong crowd or did he never know her the way he thought he did. Was it the idea of her? Was it the thought of having someone to love?

“If I may, दोस्त.” 

Miles snaps his head upwards to see Pavitir Prabhakbar. He walks forward calmly with his hands clasped behind his back. His head is bowed slightly. 

“I get where you’re coming from Miles. I always thought being spiderman was an easy job. Up until yesterday I was always able to save everyone. I always found a way. Having to choose between Gayatri and Inspector Singh… It was scary.  That was the first time I ever felt completely… helpless. And out of everyone, you were the only one willing to save him. I’m in debt to you Miles. More than you’ll ever know. That’s why I’m here. ” 

Miguel slowly begins to rise with a groan, attempting to rub away the pain from his forehead and the grogginess from his eyes (thanks withdrawals). 

“Uggh. What the-” 

 Without breaking eye contact, Pavitr and Miles immediately shoot webs in his direction. Tethering the man to the ground in a position akin to a track runner in position for a race. 

“Hey!-”

Pavitr shoots a final web at his mouth, muffling his protests.   

“I have no doubt in my mind that you can do both Miles.but you can’t do it alone.” Pavitr strides forward to briefly place his hand on his shoulder. 

 “You’re the one who taught me that.” 

A small smile forms on Miles’ lips, “Thank you Pav.” 

“Anytime.” The young boy gives one last shake of his shoulder before retreating back to the sidelines. 

Miles pouts as a question forms in his head. 

“...My parents…” 

Gwen's head whips back to see Miles. He doesn’t return her gaze, staring off into the distance as he absentmindedly pets the puppy. 

“...What did they say?” 

It takes Gwen a second to realize that the question was for her. She stumbles and stammers before a complete sentence escapes her lips. 

“I told them that it wasn’t your fault, that it was mine. And that I was going to find you and bring you home. They’re worried about you. They wanted me to tell you that they love you.”

Bites his lips as his brow furrows, deep with thought. “That’s it?” 

 “That and something about…five months?”

Miles' face scrunches, perplexed.  “Five months? What- Oh, right” he chuckles. 

He then gives a shaky sigh, dragging his free hand down the side of his face. “I don’t know man-” 

“-Miles, she’s the reason we’re all here.” Peter Parker speaks up, the baby gurgles happily as if to concur his statement. 

Miles looks around everyone for confirmation. He’s met nods and hums of agreement, even from Hobie. 

“She was the first to find out where you were.” Peter places a hand on Miles' shoulder. He hastily takes a step back, swatting his hand away. 

Peter is taken aback for just a moment, before raising his palms in surrender and taking a few steps back to give him space. 

“You know, when I’m out there doing spider-man stuff -getting knocked around like a rag doll and whatever- I find it hard to care about saving the whole entire world. I mean- I do! But everytime I try to think of everyone that’s counting on me, it’s just so… scary I guess. So whenever I work I start to think about one person. One person to do it all for. And now, thanks to you, not only do I finally have her back in my life I’ve got another one.” Peter tickles Mayday under her armpits as he speaks, the child laughs loudly.

“Look, I’m going to be honest with you, kid. I’m not sure which side I fall on this whole thing, but I’m here-we’re here because we care about you Miles.”

Miles looks around to each face in the room, scrutinizing each spider. 

“Fine.” Miles eventually relents. There are several sighs of relief. 

“Just to be clear, the only people I trust here are you… ” he points to Hobie,

 “...you…” then to Pavitir, 

“...you…” then to Spider-Byte,

“annnd….you.” then finally to Peter Porker

The pigs hands clasp over his mouth as he gasps.  “Really?” 

“Well yeah,” the teen shrugs nonchalantly.  “I didn’t see you in the mob chasing me through that tower-” 

In the blink of an eye Porker rushes toward Miles embracing his leg while crying into his calf 

“You- Have- No Idea- How Much- That means to me.” Porker musters through choked sobs. 

Miles replies stunned. “Uh, Yeah. Don’t sweat it man.” 

“You- don’t- understand.” Porker looks up at Miles streams of tears spilling from his comically large eyes, “They- They said you hated me!” 

 “Stop lying!” Margo says, while Peter shouts “Drama Queen!”, and Penni goes “What are you talking about? " and Noir concludes with  “Literally nobody said that.” 

“See? Look at how they treat me!” Porker wails before continuing to cry into Miles' leg. 

At a loss, Miles resolves to awkwardly pat the pig on his head. “Um, There there-”

‘Look out,’ the voice in his head whispers urgently. 

Miles dives to the side just in time to avoid Miguel's attempt to leap on top of him. He twirls around to let his back take the brunt of the impact, protecting the dog he held in his arms. Porker has long since leaped back to the sidelines. 

“Here hold this.” Miles shoves the puppy, now swaddled in his jacket, into Jonathon’s arms. Immediately having to leap into the air to dodge the fist Miguel attempted to slam on top of his head. Again dangerously close to Jonathon

“Oh- Okay then.” Jonathan holds the puppy with two hands. 

The battle ensues. Miguel mainly on the offensive, throwing things and delivering blows. Miles on the defensive, dodging and hiding all while trying to get through to him. 

“How can you tell me what I’m doing is wrong? Spider man's job is to save everyone!”

“Don’t be an idiot! I’ve been through the same thing! If you do this there will be nothing left to save!” 

 “How is that the same!?” Miles narrowly dodges the bright red webs, sticking to the wall as refuge. “You swapped places with a dead version of yourself. I’m not doing any of that! I’m making sure he doesn’t die to begin with.”

Miguel’s response comes in the form of a hand on the boy’s throat, his giant fist being enough to encase his whole neck. Miles shoots a web at Miguel’s forehead and yanks it down causing the two to head butt one another. Miguel recoils in pain, letting go of the boy’s throat. Miles is also reeling from the impact. 

Miles-42 wastes no time. Racing towards the large man and leaping atop him for an impromptu wrestling match. 

“Dude! Now!” The Prowler yells, his helmet giving his voice its titular robotic tone. 

“Oi! Miles! Catch!” Hobie hurls a small object in the air in Miles’s direction.  At first he’s not sure what it is, it isn’t until it’s closer that Miles can see the device clearly. 

A watch. He was finally going to get his own watch. 

It all seems to happen in slow motion. Miles leaping in the air, one hand outstretched like a baseball player. The watch being mere millimeters away from his fingertips. The premature celebration from all the onlookers. The dropped jaws as Miguel breaks free from the Prowlers clutches and tackles Miles just before he can close a fist around the object. 

Miles groans as his ribs smack the ground. The watch slips through his fingertips and rolls across the room until its path is intercepted by a pair of black boots. His slow eyes trail upwards to get a better look at the wearer. 

His heart stops and his blood runs cold.

‘Oh no.’ 

‘Oh no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.’ 

The woman in the boots and white black coat bends down to pick up the contraption, holding it up high above her face. She pushes the goggles off her eyes and atop her head of thick, curly hair. She rotates the watch in her fingers, squinting her eyes as she holds it up to the light. 

“My, my…” she whispers to herself in astonishment, paying no mind to the others in the room, who watch stupefied. 

“Dr. Octavious!” The scientist pipes up with glee, totally oblivious to the atmosphere. “Thank goodness you’re here!” His outburst shocks her from her stupor, she finally scans the room as if just realizing their presence

“Ahh. Hello Jonathon...” Dr. Octavious turns to face the crowd, eyeing each stranger with lingering suspicion. 

 “...And friends…” she adds through gritted teeth, her sternness poorly masked with chuckle and a half hearted smile. 

“Well, it appears we have some catching up to do Mr.Ohnn.”

A/N:  I used google translate for the languages so sorry if it's hot shit. If you made it this far ur the best. Thanks for reading <3!

[vesearlee]

They had many titles: Bastards of Brooklyn, The Pack — though, when it came down to it, they were a pride of beasts behind the wheel, and when their prey was targeted, there was no hope in hell to outwit, or outrun. That pride of lions had a king who was cunning, ruthless, and he had you in his sights.

⠈⠂⠄⠄ 𝑪𝑶𝑳𝑳𝑬𝑪𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵 𝑷𝑨𝑰𝑹𝑰𝑵𝑮 ❯❯❯ Street Racer!Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

⠈⠂⠄⠄ 𝑪𝑶𝑳𝑳𝑬𝑪𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵 𝑷𝑳𝑨𝒀𝑳𝑰𝑺𝑻 ❯❯❯ 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄

⠈⠂⠄⠄ 𝑨𝑹𝑪𝑯𝑰𝑽𝑬 𝑶𝑭 𝑶𝑼𝑹 𝑶𝑾𝑵 ❯❯❯ 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄

𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐥𝐲𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

— 𝐀 = angst — 𝐖 = whump — 𝐈 = sick fic — 𝐃 = dark — 𝐃² = dead dove — 𝐏 = poly — 𝐊 = kid fic — 𝐅 = fluff — 𝐒 = smut

All entries are in timeline order — this is subject to change as I add any inclusive works for this collection.

❯❯❯ 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 — 𝐅 Coming to a meet alone might have been a bad idea, so it’s a good thing your knight in shining armour is always there to rescue you — but what happens when he takes it a step too far?

You could only hope that he leaves them still breathing, whether that’s through a tube, or of their own volition.

❯❯❯ 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 — 𝐅 There were never any words adequate enough to describe the feeling of being behind the wheel and tearing down the street, becoming one with a machine — it was addicting.

Tonight, you would get a taste.

❯❯❯ 𝐋𝐮𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 — 𝐅 Bucky was nothing if he wasn’t dramatic or pulling off one hell of a stunt, but this one by far shattered any limit you thought he wouldn’t break — you just had to hold the fuck on.

❯❯❯ 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐟 — 𝐅 + 𝐒 Stress relief came in many forms, and for Bucky? You knew just how to maximise the relief and get his mind entirely off the troubles of his racing career, you just needed to carry out your plan — subtly, of course.

❯❯❯ 𝐂𝐚𝐫 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄ by @smutconnoisseur

[light-wayland]

"well, their exile was supposed to be a punishment, so it had to suck at least a bit..."

Before we started talking about it I thought their punishment was kind of a joke because seriously, they get to run an Institute, a thing a lot of Shadowhunters dream of. (It still is a joke I mean, what the fuck, who's the one who came to this decision, was it the entire Clave?)

But yeah, they're sent to New York to run an Institute. An Institute whose heads they personally killed two years prior. An Institute leading the Conclave that probably hates them because A) they killed the Whitelaws and B) who knows how many of their friends and relatives died in the Uprising. Most of the Shadowhunters in the Conclave are probably not really willing to take their orders. They can count on no support from The Clave or Idris. The Inquisitor, who is supposed to be their advisor, is Imogen Herondale, the mother of their dead friend who blames them for his death and Céline's death and the death of her unborn grandchild and also loathes the Circle.

In addition, there's the Downworld, who's understandably both afraid and furious with them. The High Warlock of Brooklyn has a very personal beef with them. The largest vampire clan in New York is led by Camille Belcourt who is difficult at the best of times. The Seelies doubly so. We don't know who ran the New York pack, possibly Kito or Véronique whom we don't know anything about but I do not imagine them as very happy after the whole... incident that killed the Whitelaws, seeing as there were werewolves involved (and a child left blind, fuck you Valentine).

Add to it that they cannot leave unless is for official business, they live in the house of the people they murdered and wherever they go, there's someone more or less openly hostile. They're grappling with the recent loss, death of their friends, the betrayal of Valentine leaving them behind to "burn himself alive," and, quite likely, the burgeoning guilt of what they've done. They have to raise a child, ideally not at all like they were raised and they have no idea how to do that. They have another child on the way or already born. We don't know about their families but I imagine most would've cut contact with them.

New York would've been a right mess for years and, frankly, it's a miracle Robert/Maryse/Hodge didn't kill themselves - and I am willing to bet that it's largely because of the stigma Shadowhunters have about it too.

Back to the original point though: it is hysterical that the Clave has given them a mentally and emotionally tormenting punishment on what was, more than likely, a fucking accident.

who made that decision is something explained contradictory in the books. we know there was votes involved (as we know patrick and jia voted favorably for a lighter punishment) and that imogen was involved but wasn’t happy with how it turned out.

robert's parents died in the year of the uprising. we don't know how related to the uprising their death was, as i wish we knew. he certainly had feelings about that, but unfortunately we don't know anything about maryse's

i don't think it was necessarily an accident. for the punishment to be accepted, all the difficulty included would have to be considered, so the fact that they would have no allies in ny to conspire with would be taken in consideration. they were supposed to be uncomfortable there.

also, michael was considered to be alive. the punishment was deliberately forcing robert a continent away from his parabatai and having his bond forcefully weakened in the exile ritual. separating parabatai in any way is very frowned upon so of course this was something considered

about not commiting suicide, i don't think it's that surprising. well, suicide is not the answer people usually go for! that usually has to be caused by severe mental illness, and shadowhunters are not like mundanes,

thinking about robert's character, i wondered how suicidal thoughts that he used to have when he was 12-13 years old didn't persist, and i then something clicked when i realized why: at that time, his reality was of being a shadowhunter who wouldn’t/couldn't follow his purpose as a shadowhunter, and that was killing him inside. after he met michael, he found his purpose again, because he found out he could still train to be a shadowhunter with his best friend/parabatai at his side.

so for shadowhunters, their shadowhunter mission is connected to their will to live. something that can break that is extreme grief/heartbreak over their loved ones, as shadowhunters seem to feel very, very intensely about their dear ones (i have been thinking about this because i want to explore that in my fic!) but robert and maryse weren't at that stage: they were building their own family and as heads of the ny institute they still got the chance to follow their purpose as shadowhunters. we (mundanes) don't have anything of the sort. except maybe for very devoted believers of their religions (i don't mean violent fanatics, but actually people with extremely strong faith), something that in the real world many consider to be unhealthy and that can be broken via trauma or other means

i think the theme of shadowhunter purpose was more well present in tmi/tid/tfsa than in later books. it seems to be far more vague now, as we have the cohort who is a giant number of people who abandoned their duty of protecting mundanes

now, the same can't really be said about hodge. he was a prisioner, and couldn’t get outside to fight anything, but that never had been his way of doing things, he was more interested in research and knowledge and he had the job to use that being a tutor. i would say it was being unable to cherish any sort of relationship with people outside the institute that was the most harmful, as humans are not supposed to be lonely like that. but even people who live completely alone have will to survive

[fleurieds]

*  ｡  ◜ 𝙎𝙊𝙈𝙀𝙏𝙃𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙏𝙃𝘼𝙏 𝙄𝙎 𝙇𝙊𝙑𝙀𝘿 𝙄𝙎 𝙉𝙀𝙑𝙀𝙍 𝙇𝙊𝙎𝙏.

full name: esme valentine faceclaim: madelyn cline age: twenty-five nickname(s): ez occupation: writer for rolling stones magazine & podcast host neighborhood: cardinal hills hometown: brooklyn, new  york pronouns: she / her gender: cisfemale sexual orientation: bisexual

𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐄𝐒𝐌𝐄

( drugs, child neglect, overdose, car accident, death. ) esme valentine’s existence was a result of a drunken one night stand between her groupie mother and her rockstar father. esme’s mother, emma, had spent her early adult life in the sixties on the road with multiple different bands and artists chasing a high she was addicted to — sex & drugs. she met esme’s father, keaton, a world-famous musician with multiple grammy’s and platinum-selling albums under his belt ( think kurt cobain iconic ) at a show one night in atlanta, georgia and the two got together after his performance. the next morning when she awoke in their hotel room, he was already gone and on the way to the next leg of his tour. unfortunately, her nineteen-year-old mother hadn’t found out she was pregnant until three months later when one of her friends got her a pregnancy test after she’d spent the morning on a tour bus throwing up. even though she wasn’t stable emotionally or financially, she decided to keep esme and decided to keep her existence a secret from keaton as well. while esme should have been enrolled in kindergarten by the time she was five, she actually spent her childhood years on the road with whatever band her mother was hanging out with at the time, surrounded by men and women that were complete strangers to her. due to her addiction to cocaine and heroin, emma would often leave esme alone for days at a time with friends; no food or water or comfort given to her during that time. the times that she was around, esme wish she wouldn’t be as she was always with men who reeked of booze and who she would watch inject her mother with whatever drug of choice was wanted that night. child services were called when esme was six and her mother had no choice but to put her groupie lifestyle on hold. she got a part-time job as a waitress and they rented a sketchy one-bedroom apartment in downtown new york while esme went to school. her mother was honestly… a horrible and really messed up woman. by the time she was nine emma would often make comments that her daughter was trying to steal whatever boyfriend she was with a time ( srsly.. she was fucked up ) and anything she would say to her would be taken the wrong way. she lived in that hell up until she was twelve and after coming home from school one day, esme found her mother on the bathroom floor dead from an overdose. that’s when keaton was finally notified he had a daughter. her dad who was on the road in europe when child services called put everything on hold to come to meet her and the two bonded instantly. he decided to cancel the rest of his shows that year so that he could make sure to get everything she needed and to spend time with the daughter he never knew he had. her life was quite stable after that point, her dad was always involved and took care of her as a parent should. like her father, esme fell in love with music and when she graduated high school, she published a blog that reviewed and interviewed upcoming musicians across the globe. her content was a hit and gained a big following by the time she was twenty and eventually got her hired as a writer rolling stones. soon after she started a podcast and her career took off. her father died tragically in a car accident about three years ago and to say esme was devastated was an understatement. she kinda went through a dark patch but luckily her friends were there for her during that time. she moved to blue harbour with her best friend  ( she lived in europe from age 12-24 ) and while her father left her millions of dollars in her name, she hasn’t touched a penny of it.

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

esme is kind of a firecracker, tbh? but she’s really approachable and people seem to be drawn by her presence when she’s around. it’s one of the reasons her blog & articles are such a success, people want to talk to her and feel comfortable in doing so. due to her mother’s toxicity, she really tries to stay away from the party scene ( which isn’t easy due to her job ) and to those involved with hard drugs. her ex-boyfriend of three years was a huge dick, cheated on her a bunch of times and treated her like shit, so she’s quite… reserved on that front. like she’s totally fine with one night stands and meaningless flings but if the guy starts showing signs that they’re really into her… she’ll bounce DGHDGH. although deep down, i really think she wants to find her soulmate and someone who will fight for her, you know? her friends are her favorite people in the world and she’ll do just about anything for them. also a lil bit of a tomboy tbh!

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

platonic soulmate/best friend. gimme a best friend who’s honestly her ride or die. they could of either known each other in new york when they were kids or met europe. they would have moved here together. they know everything about each other and would do anything for one another.

will they won’t they. these two have crazy chemistry and are really close friends and everyone thinks they’re gonna end up together but… will they?

close friends, confidants, one night stand, wingman/wingwoman, crush, unrequited crush, good influence, etc.

[vodkababy]

pretty when you cry🕯 ·˚ ༘₊· ͟͟͞͞꒰➳

mike wheeler x fem! reader

angst (?) 🫡 [ inspo : pretty when you cry by lana del rey ]

age pairings; between 14-15 ༊*·˚

💋 warnings: douche mike, cheating

୨⎯ . ♡ . ⎯୧

y/n l/n.

the girl who i loved the most. she moved here to hawkins from brooklyn. and the first when i caught her eyes, i knew that i wasn’t in love with el anymore. sure she had all those powers but, what else? this girl was heaven. she was an angel. every time the pretty stars shine, i always feel like they shine for her. she’s the girl i dream of.

“you’re my girl.”

“you make me feel like your whole world.” she giggles. i loved her laugh. i loved everything about her. her eyes, her hair, her body. all of her.

we were young and in love. she loved me, i loved her. she didn’t know i was with el. she knew el, she was a part of our little friend group. i just never tried to be affectionate with el whenever she was there. and when she knew about it, she was upset. i didn’t mean to upset her, but she wouldn’t stop crying.

i didn’t get why she wouldn’t stop crying. was she jealous of el? did she feel bad for el? her tears were like gold. she was beautiful whenever she cried.

“you’re pretty when you cry.”

when y/n died, 1985. from the starcourt mall incident. i was feeling the worst pain in my life. worse than almost getting killed by a demogorgon, or a mind flayer. this was worse.

i felt sadness pool into my life. like i stopped caring. i stopped caring about el. i stopped caring about my friends. and i didn’t plan to show that, so i didn’t. i pretended that i was still the mike that the party was best friends with.

el and the byers’ moved to california. el sent me letters, i felt loved. but i didn’t love her anymore. she doesn’t know that. whenever i write back to her, i leave it with “from, mike.” i know that i seem like a total bitch right now, but trust me, thats how i really feel.

my mind flashed back when i wrote a letter for her trying to apologize.

“all those special times i spent with you, my love.”

“they don’t mean shit. compared to all or any drugs.”

“i’m sorry y/n. i love you.”

ever since y/n died, i started to change.

i started to act different. that’s how lucas says it. lucas got into the basketball team and, he started hanging with the basketball douchebags. like jason carver, mckinney, andy, and the other dudes. dustin and i? stayed loyal to dnd. every time, all i think about is y/n.

i swore to wait for her. when i’m gone. when i’m gone, i’ll be with her. she’s the death of me. my love.

୨⎯ " ♡ " ⎯୧

it was summer of 1986, i came to california to visit el and the byers. i had a gut feeling that i wasn’t supposed to be here, right after telling myself that i wasn’t in love with el. not now.

“mike!” el’s coming. i forced myself to hug her. to kiss her. it wasn’t the same anymore. i didn’t feel the same for her anymore. all of us, we weren’t the same after y/n’s death.

when we were at the roller skating rink, el hit a girl. with a rollerskate. will and i were terrified, i feel terrible for the girl, blood was scattered, trickling down her face.

we were home at the byers’ house. the tension at dinner was fucking terrible. i was outside to get some air walking to another random neighborhood where my legs led me to. just when i saw a familiar girl faced backwards by someone’s house’s window. she— she reminded me of y/n. the hair. the eyes, the eyes i loved. her body language. it was all the same. the way she walked. i saw her calling someone, the way she was holding her hip and it would turn to the left when she was holding on to her telephone.

she turned to the window and i saw her. the girl that i loved. but she’s dead. wasn’t she?

her eyes caught mine and she put the phone down. the way i knew her eyes were watering. she was starting to turn red. she went downstairs and opened the door. there she was. y/n. my y/n.

“mike.. i’m— what are you doing here.“

“i thought you were dead gone. you’re—you’re real.”

“i’m sorry. i had to, i couldn’t risk getting hurt anymore.

“hurt? why would you get hurt.”

why would she be hurt? was there anything to hurt her? she was looking into my eyes with sadness. she was starting to cry. tears of heaven were sliding down her rosy cheeks. eyes puffy, her long lashes dampened.

“you. you guys. every year, we all get hurt. because of that— that girl!”

“it’s her fault! not mine, y/n. you could have just told me. you could’ve just said that you were leaving than— than just faking a death!”

i was crying. not tears of joy after seeing her, not tears of sadness, nor tears of anger after she faked her death. i just cried.

“y/n, every thing changed when you left. even us. every one of us in the party. i felt like i wanted to jump off a cliff y/n. i felt terrible.”

“mike, i’m sorry. i loved you i know, i still do. i couldn’t help it. that damn eleven was getting us all tracked with every thing we do, every fucking summer! every fucking time mike, someone dies.”

she needed me. i needed her. she still loved me. i still loved her. but she wouldn’t accept the feelings she still had for me. we weren’t meant to be, were we?

“mike, just stop. please. i’m— m’ leaving.”

“th-there. you’re leaving. and you leave me again. what— what is it that you want, what is it that you need for yourself y/n? tell me. just tell me!”

“you know what. i can’t. i— i can’t do it. i love you y/n. i still do. i always have. i’m sorry. i love you y/n.”

“i love you too mike.”

she kissed me. that kiss that i’ve been longing for, for so long. our salty tears mixing. she was still pretty when she cried. it was just 1 year, but it felt like 10. but she left me, again. it was hard not having her. it was hard not having my pretty girl by my side,

my y/n.

୨⎯ . ♡ . ⎯୧

thinkin ab a part two 🫣

[fandom-chic]

The Time We Lost: Chapter 1

Summary: 40 years have passed since you saw Soldier Boy. Yet here he was at your door. With so many things having changed, will you two be able to withstand the modern world?

Pairing: Soldier Boy x Y/N

A/N: Hello everyone, and welcome back! Here is the first part of the sequel to Happy Little Family. Let me know what you think of the direction and if this interests you. Reviews are welcome.

He was a ghost. Maybe even a demon. Yet all you knew was that he wasn’t standing before you. That was impossible. He had been dead for 40 years. That was a fact. 

But then he spoke, “Y/N,” That’s when he pulled you into his arms. “I’m home.” The ghostly apparition was solid. Its arms wrapped around you, locking into the familiar places you had before been accustomed to. Even the scent matched perfectly. 

“No.” You whispered. There was no way. This was some kind of mind fuck. A cruel prank by the Gods. But when your eyes met his, your hand instinctively reached out to touch his cheek. You knew. He saw the recognition in your eyes. 

“It’s me, baby,” His rough voice broke you, and you fell into a heap in his arms. It was him. He was home. Your Soldier Boy had finally come home. His hand rubs up and down your back as you cry into his shoulder. 

“I-I-I… I thought you were d-dead.” You stutter between sobs. One of his hands comes up, and his fingers get tangled in your gray hair. 

“I know.” You take your head off of his shoulder and pull his face into your hands.

“Never leave again.” This time you see the semblance of a tear in his eye. It is immediately wiped away as he gives a sad smile.

“I never will.” That’s when you pull his lips to yours. He tasted the same. His lips were the same softness that you dreamt of every night. You waited forty years to kiss your husband again. If you knew that night in 1985 would be the last for more than half of your lifetime, you would have held him tight and never let him go. 

That was when you hear a grunt from behind Ben. You pull away from him, and you finally notice two men standing behind him. One reminded you of the only human in a Muppet movie. He had a kind smile. The other was something entirely different. This man exuded a kind of danger and darkness that you had stayed away from for years.

“Oy, you gonna introduce us?” The second man asked. There was a moment of annoyance on Ben’s face before he turned around.

“Butcher, Hughie, meet my wife, Y/N.” You give a curt smile.

“Wife?” The one you presume to be Hughie questions. “I thought that was all a PR stunt from the 80s?” You wanted to cackle at the boy’s naivety, but how could he know?

“That’s a long story, but yes, she’s my wife.” His wife. You missed being called that.

“So you really are an old lady fucker aren’t you?” Butcher smirked at his own joke. Before you could retort, the sound of skin hitting skin reverberated through your yard. Butcher was holding his face as Ben’s fist unfurled.

“Say that shit again, and you’re fucking dead.” You knew you didn’t have to say anything at this point, but you might as well. 

“Tea, anyone?” 

Once everyone had a mug of tea in their hands, you let the questioning officially begin. You first answered Hughie’s questions about the realities of your relationship with Ben. You smiled to yourself, recounting the few weeks of bliss you had shared while trying to gloss over the traumas as quickly as possible. The story eventually got to the part where Ben was no longer a part of it, and he perked up, wanting to know what happened next. 

“And Jamie was born four months after Ben left.” You finished, taking a sip of your green tea.

“So where is he now?” Hughie asked, curious about the lore around your months with Ben. You smile, knowing he was expecting something Supe-like of him, especially since he was Soldier Boy’s son.

“He’s a firefighter in Brooklyn.” You place your mug down, “The whole Supe thing wasn’t quite for him.” You look at Ben to see how he took that reality, but his face said nothing as he gazed into the abyss of your living room. 

“Firefighter, eh? What a way to have supe abilities without being an absolute cunt.” You couldn't help but snicker at Butcher’s comment. 

“You can say that I raised him right.” 

“So, he’s ok?” It came out as a meek sputter from his mouth, but you knew it was Ben. Not the Ben you remembered from years ago, but it was still him. You place a hand on top of his.

“He’s ok.” You squeeze his hand at this. You knew that’s what he needed to hear at that moment. 

“When can we see him?” Ben asks, almost sounding like a child asking to see Santa for the first time.

“Let’s talk about this later.” You say, knowing this was a more intimate conversation. “Now, I must ask, why are you both with Ben?” Butcher and Hughie give each other a knowing look before going into detail about their goal to take down Vought (which you knew had to be in vain), unearthing Ben from Russia, his revenge on Payback, and his request to come to see you. 

“I knew that once they were all gone, I had to come to see my girl.” You stared in shock at your cup. You knew what Ben was capable of and the violence he could commit, but this was something you weren’t prepared for.

“But Ben, people died-”

“Those weren’t people; those were fucking monsters.” He cuts you off, gripping his mug harder in his hand. You notice a crack appear and know that this conversation would also continue in private as well. Although Butcher is a dark man, you could sense a sort of kindness under that exterior, one that led him to say:

“Alright now, why don’t we let these two get some alone time? Hughie?” At that, the two of them make their way to the front porch. You two were alone at last. The door is barely shut before you hear Ben ask:

“When can I see my son?” You sigh, letting your fingers run up the side of your cup.

“Ben, it’s tough to get him over here. Especially when-”

“He doesn’t have to come here. We can go to him.” You couldn’t tell if his voice was excited or just truly curious about his boy. Your hand moves to grasp his and squeeze. Ben looks down at your hand on top of his. 

“We’ll see what we can do.” 

“I don’t know what that shit means, but I want to see him as soon as fucking possible.” He moves his hand out from under yours. “Why don’t you want to see him?” The question you didn’t want to get, but here it was. You try to reach for him again, soothe him, but he rises from his spot at the table. You stay seated.

“I’m not saying that at all.” You retort.

“Then why are you avoiding my questions? You do realize I have never met my fucking son, right?” His face is turning red as his voice starts to rise in volume.

“You don’t think I know that?” It was your turn to get out of your chair. “You do realize I had to parent a supe baby all by myself. Every day I not only had to try not to get accidentally torn apart by my kid, but I also had my emotions drained right out of me. Do you want to know why? Because he wanted a Dad.” 

“You don’t think I wanted to be there?” This time he was pointing his finger in your face, “You think I wanted to spend my time trapped by a bunch of fucking Russians getting the shit beat out of me?” You felt a tear well into your eye. You knew it wasn’t fair of you to blame him for being gone, but how could you not? All the years of loneliness seemed to be making themselves known. 

You are about to apologize and give some sort of explanation to Ben, but the aches returned. They do that at the worst times. They start at your feet and go up your body, enrapturing you to a cocoon of pain. When it reaches your eyes, you feel your vision blacken, and your feet go out beneath you. Before you are taken into blackness, you feel two strong arms catch you. Then you’re gone.

Hours must have passed when you woke up in your bed. You looked outside to see the sun had set. You sit up and yawn before hearing the TV on in your living room. You get up and wrap a cardigan around yourself to see who is still awake. You’re happy to see Ben watching reruns of MASH. You smile to yourself as you watch him. He turns to you and returns the smile.

“Did you know there’s a whole channel to the good stuff?” He motions toward the MeTV logo. You laugh and take a seat next to him.

“Just wait until 2 AM. That’s when they play Star Trek.” He raises his eyebrows at that, liking the sound of that. A beat passes before you say what’s on your mind. “We’ll head into the city tomorrow.” He turns toward you.

“Are you sure? That was-”

“It’s fine. We’ll head out in the morning.” You get up and make your way back to your bedroom, leaving Ben in the light of the TV screen.

[xxshewritesinblacknwhitexx]

Imagine Meeting Peggy

Imagine Steve taking you to finally meet Peggy for the first time.

Steve Rogers x Fury!Reader

WARNINGS: slight smut, angst, insecure reader

SET DURING: After Age of Ultron and Before Civil War

BETA’D: @titty-teetee

Your toes curled, as your body tensed, exploding with intense pleasure coursing through your veins. Your vision turned white, forcing you to see stars.

Steve finally released his climax, shuddering against you, before he finally rolled off to the side and collapsed next to you. The two of you laid there trying to catch your breath.

Sweat clung to you like second skin, soaking through the cotton t-shirt you were currently wearing. You squeezed your legs together, trying to alleviate the aftershocks of your orgasm, the sensations still running through your system.

“You alright?” Steve breathed, looking over at you.

“I’m getting there.” You giggled softly with your eyes closed, as you began to feel your body grow heavy with exhaustion. “Talk about a homecoming.”

You heard Steve chuckle deeply, before feeling him grab your hand. You opened your eyes just in time to see him place a soft kiss to the back of it, and then lay it against his bare chest, that was coated with a light sheen of sweat.

You and Steve had been living together for almost two years now in that brownstone in Brooklyn, and your relationship was as normal as it could be for a former SHIELD agent turned Avenger and your super soldier enhanced boyfriend.

Since Ultron, business had almost seemed to slow down a bit. The Avengers were being called on less, and things were fairly quiet at the moment. You all still had your missions both together and separate; Steve being on the hunt for Brock Rumlow and you were taking on smaller, home base missions since your secret search for the Winter Soldier went cold. Although you two spent time apart, it did make the coming home amazing. Not to mention that sex with a super enhanced partner was out of this fucking world.

You and Steve were getting a hang of this whole relationship thing. You had dated quite a few guys in the past, but no one like Steve. He was still old school when it came to courting you. He’d never show up without bringing you fresh lilies; your favorite flower. He would show you around Brooklyn; the places he used to go to when he was a boy. Or he’d just take you on his motorcycle across the Brooklyn Bridge at night to watch the stars. He was the perfect gentleman.

Steve was actually the first guy you really felt this deeply for, that it kind of scared you at times. Although things were definitely going better than you could imagine so far, it hadn’t stopped you from waiting for the other shoe to drop.

There were things about Steve’s past that he still refused to share with you, and that’s what worried you the most.

And speaking of your super soldier...

You watched him through hooded eyelids, as he pulled on his boxer briefs and stood from your king sized bed.

”Going somewhere?” You questioned, still trying to catch your breath, feeling the edges of your brand new relaxed hair, start to curl again.

Steve was now making his way around your bedroom, shoving things into a duffel bag.

“I have to catch a flight in a couple of hours.”

You quickly sat up, looking at your boyfriend confused. “Wait? You’re leaving again?”

“Yeah,” he tossed the bag on the bed, explaining, “I’ll be back in like a day or two.”

“Steve, you just got back last night. Is it another mission? Avenger stuff?” You rambled, trying to figure out why your boyfriend would be leaving after not even spending a full 24 hours at home with you.

Steve shook his head, throwing a few more items into the duffel and zipped it up. “No, this is something a little personal.”

And now you were really confused. “Personal?” You waited a bit, allowing him to elaborate on this personal business he had, but after nearly 20 seconds of dead silence you knew he wasn’t going to explain further. So, you thought you’d coax him yourself. “You care to share with the rest of the class?”

He chuckled, walking over to you and kissing your temple. “Trust me, doll, this is something you don’t want to know about.”

And that didn’t settle well with you.

You watched as he made his way over to your master bathroom, before stopping in his tracks. His shoulders slumped, and he then turned to face you, leaning against the frame of the bathroom door. He had a look of guilt across his face.

What could he be feeling guilty about?

“Come with me.” He offered.

You blinked several times, making sure you heard what you heard. “What?”

“Come with me tonight. It’s better that I show you anyway.” He sounded so sincere, but you weren’t sure what your answer would be. “So, whadda you say?” He reached his hand out toward you.

You took in a deep breath, contemplating on what you should do. But the answer came to you quickly, as you reluctantly stood to your feet and walked over to him. He smiled softly, pulling you into his arms and kissing your lips, before the two of you walked into the bathroom together.

Holding your shaking hand, Steve walked you into what you now knew was a hospice located in Washington, DC. You kept trying to rack your brain about this personal business Steve had until the moment you stepped through the door.

It was the other shoe, and it dropped hard.

You had never mentioned it, even after your father insisted that you should. You tried to justify that you could live your life without it ever being brought up ever again. Or you always believe that if Steve brought it up, that he would tell you in his own way. But it never happened, and it also never stopped it from burning a hole in your mind from time to time.

“Wait here.” Steve told you, as the two of you stopped outside of a room. He gave your hand a small squeeze, leaning down to kiss your cheek.

All you could do was nod, watching him walk into the room. You leaned up against the wall, to keep your legs from going out and to possibly eavesdrop.

“...and how’s my best girl doing?”

The words you heard Steve utter on the other side of the wall, cut through you like a knife. You knew they shouldn’t have, but they did.

You could barely hear anyone in the room other than Steve’s voice.

“...there’s someone I want you to meet. She’s real special to me.”

Was the last thing you heard when Steve appeared at the doorway, eyes shining down at you. He grabbed your hand in his, once more, giving it another squeeze. You wanted to run at this moment, because you knew exactly what was going to happen, but your legs reluctantly betrayed you, and you started following your boyfriend.

When you walked into the room, and Steve stepped out of the way, you finally saw her.

She was weak and frail, but the woman you knew so little of was beautiful and strong. She was the first woman to ever defy the odds of being the first woman SHIELD agent. She paved the way for women like you, your mom, Nat, and Agent Hill.

Her eyes were the most familiar. No matter how much she had aged over the years, physically, her eyes were still the same. Dark, mysterious, and full of hope. Those eyes had been haunting you ever since you and Steve nearly got blown to smithereens by corrupt SHIELD agents, nearly four years ago.

Those eyes belonged to none other than Margaret Carter, or so you knew her as Agent Peggy Carter.

A woman who’s memory you had been afraid of for years.

Only she wasn’t a memory.

She was here.

Right now.

In the present.

Staring back at you.

“Y/N, this is Peggy. Peggy, this is Y/N, my girlfriend.” Steve said, introducing the two of you.

You smiled shyly, giving the elderly woman in front of you a wave. While on the inside you were dying.

“Oh, Steven, she’s beautiful.” Peggy managed to muster out in her current state.

“I told you.” Steve smiled, placing his hand on your lower back.

“Come.” She was barely able to lift her hand to beckon you over. “Come, sit. A bit of a girl’s chat, yeah?”

Again, all you could do was nod, as Steve guided you to a vacant chair next to Peggy’s bed. A chair that you knew that Steve had occupied before.

To say you were nervous was an understatement. Here you were sitting next to the woman of whom the man you love, had loved, or still loved. You weren’t quite sure of that anymore.

Steve explained to you about her growing Alzheimers, which was now beginning to worsen with each passing day. She remembered Steve, but five minutes into the conversation, she would be shocked and surprised to see that he made it out of the ice alive. He had to explain to her who you were, and each time she took you with kindness. No bitterness or resentment. She would comment every single time that Steve looked happy with you, and you had a certain glow that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Then, five minutes later, like an eraser to a chalkboard, her mind would be wiped clean.

“So,” Steve began nervously, hands shoved into his pockets.

You both were now standing outside the facility, as visiting hours were over.

You didn’t know how you were going to handle this conversation. You were both upset and relieved. Relieved that Steve finally opened up about Peggy, but upset that it took him this long and hadn’t even bothered to tell you she was at least alive in the first place.

“How long’ve you been coming here?”

He looked off to the side, avoiding eye contact with you. “Since I found out she was still alive.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Honestly?” He finally looked at you. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react. Every time’s Peggy’s name was mentioned, in any capacity, I could see how it would hurt you, and I didn’t want you to go through that.”

You folded your arms, across your chest. “I’m a big girl, Steve. You should have told me. I had to hear it from my father.”

His head snapped back, looking at you surprised. “Your father? Fury told you? When?”

“When I woke up, after Ultron.”

Now his hands were placed on his hips. “You mean to tell me that you’ve known for almost two years, and you didn’t say anything?”

“You’ve known longer than that and you never said shit to me.” You argued back. It was the audacity of him that had you reeling right now. “For the last two years, I have been patiently waiting for you to come clean, Steve. Why now?”

Steve waited a few seconds, sighing, and looking down at his shuffling feet. “She’s dying. They told me she doesn’t have much longer to go.”

You didn’t know why, but that made you even more angry. He waited until the possibility of Peggy’s death to tell you that she was even alive. You couldn’t deal with this. At least not right now.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” this time it was you who tried to avoid Steve’s gaze, “but I need to be alone right now to process all of this.” You immediately turned and started walking away from him, ignoring his calls, as the tears fell from your eyes.

TAGS: If you wanna be tagged, please Tag yourself.

[inexorcble]

tewwor​:

✧･ﾟ open | mutuals & non-mutuals | located at the shitty motel ‘on the road’ ･ﾟ✧

Customer service has never fucking ever been a forte of his. Wouldn’t dream of feigning otherwise, even if the wellbeing of ‘his own’ business was on the line. Technically a hand-me-down place of employment but there’s hardly any use in beating that dead horse. Case in point, the magnificent attitude expressed the second someone walked in that rust dusted door.  

“Don’t care for chit-chat, tit-for-tat, or any-of-thats— tell me why you’ve come bargin’ in or you’re working the next shift in five with one of those Mary Janes on.” Spoiler alert — there aren’t any actual Mary Janes, but rather a revolting selection of the most hideous Hawaiian shirts available in the west coast. 

How she ended up in the middle of nowhere (aka not a city with a single juice bar) and working at a shitty motel was anyone’s guess. Lavender wasn’t a follower. She was chaos incarnate, she was an unstoppable force, she was... delivering toilet paper to someone who complained about it being one-ply.

“I’m going to murder the old couple in Room 4.” She stood in front of the desk, refusing to be ignored. Lavender knew one of the reasons she found herself in a formless shift with cheap Walmart leggings. It was the bloodbath she caused in Brooklyn and the insatiable rage that scared even her, a supposedly soulless vampire. Where better to hide out than with someone whose very existence didn’t make her blind with hunger?

“I need a week off or your motel is going to be on the next episode of Dateline.” A week off to do what, exactly? Unleash her blood-lust of course.

[georgiapeach30513]

Bucky and Brooklyn telling Josh that Bucky is his dad, please and thank you

Ooh…I am going to add this in, but Brooklyn also has to come back from her break…she was very overwhelmed when she left, and knew that Joshua would be in good hands with Sarah.

🖤🖤🖤🖤

I Wanted Him Too

Summary:  Bucky wants to tell Joshua

Pairings:  Bucky X Brooklyn!Reader

Rating:  angsty

Warnings: mild language, 18+ ONLY

Word Count:  1K

Desperate Lives AU Masterlist

Bucky & Brooklyn Masterlist

You stand outside of the door, almost refusing to go in, knowing that Bucky has to still be there.  You weren’t prepared for that confession.  Weren’t ready to hear that you were the reason that he couldn’t commit.  When he was your reason.  Six years, almost seven if you think about the pregnancy.  Six years you spent hiding from him, because you couldn’t face him, and he had been feeling the same.

With a deep breath, you open the door, and it’s too quiet, “Joshie!”

“They’re not here.”

You walk around the corner to see Bucky sitting on the couch.  His eyes finally look up at you, and you’re ready to leave all over again.  Turning around because you don’t want to be alone with him, “Brooklyn, stop running.”

“Where’s my son?” you ask, but still refuse to look at him.

“Our son is out with Sarah.  She took him to the movies and is going to the park, so we can talk.”

“Don’t go throwing around the ‘our son’, Bucky.  He’s my son.  He doesn’t even know who you are.”

Bucky stands and scoffs, walking into the kitchen to grab a glass a water.  “And who’s fault is that?  You took him away from me.  For six years you asked my best friend to lie to me about him.  And you never thought I deserved the right to know about him.  I lost six years with him, and you still want to keep him from me.”

“Who was it that apparently wanted to have something real with me, but still had all these other girls on the side?  I told you, I didn’t want to be a burden to you.”

“There wasn’t other girls,” you let out an exasperated sigh.  “There wasn’t.  Not after that night with Steve.  I was too afraid to let you know that I wanted to be with you, so Steve,” you spin around and glare at him, “I’m sorry.  I should have been honest.  There was only you after that night.  Remember how we got careless?”

“Yeah, I got a son out of that.”

“I stopped trying to be careful, because if you got pregnant, you would stay...with me.”

Your eyes look all along his face, getting a deep urge to smack him, but you turn and walk away instead.  “I wanted him.”

“And I wanted you, Bucky.  You fucking lied to me about your feelings.  You were purposefully telling me about all these other women, when there wasn’t any.  And now you’re telling me you got sloppy to try and trap me?  How do you want me to feel?  You just told me earlier today that you couldn’t fully commit to your girlfriend because of me.  How am I supposed to process that?”

Bucky can only stand there staring at you.  His feet shuffle around, “I can’t change it.  We both screwed up, but I wanted him.  I want...I want to be in his life.  I want him to know who I am.  He has my dog tags in his backpack.  Did you just tell him I was dead?” it had never crossed your mind to tell Joshua that Bucky was dead.  You just would avoid anything about having to meet him.  “He’s my son.”

“Stop.”

“Brooklyn, Joshua is my son.  You named him after me.  Gave him my last name.  Why would you do that if you didn’t want me in his life?”

“Mama?” your body freezes when you hear his sweet voice, Sarah trying to pull him back out the door, and trying to talk to him, but his eyes are only on you.  “Bucky is James?”

“Buddy, let me explain,” he finally looks up at Bucky, and then back at you.  “Yes, Bucky is James.”

“He’s my dad?” you whisper out a yes baby, and his face scrunches up in both anger and confusion.  “Nana, did you know?” she gives the confused little boy a nod.  His eyes look down to the floor, trying to think as much as his little brain can handle.  You’re unsure what to even do besides give him a moment.  “How come you didn’t want to see me?”

Bucky takes one look at your trembling lip, and squats down to Joshua’s level, “I wasn’t ready to be a dad.  Your mom...she gave me time.”

“Why, why did you not tell me yesterday?  I showed you your dog tags that Uncle Steve gave me.  I like you, and you didn’t tell me.”

“I was scared.  But you’re a cool kid.  I want to spend more time with you,” Joshua walks over to you, and holds up his hands.  Leaning over a big you go to pick him up, and he lays his head on your chest.  His eyes never leave Bucky as he tries to process everything that had happened.  You give a silent thanks to Bucky, because he didn’t have to lie.  Didn’t have to offer up that explanation.

He took the fall for your reasonings.  Made sure that Joshua wouldn’t hate you, but took the chance in that anger towards him.  You hope that he wants to not only want to be in his life, but makes the time to have regular visits with him.  “You...you’re going to see me all the time?”

“As much as I can.  I live in Boston.  So it’s not a quick trip here.  But we can talk on the phone, but...I want to be your dad.”

“Okay.  I need a nap though,” with a wiggle on of your arms, he walks into his room, closing the door.

You look up at Bucky with so many things to say, and none of the words to say it, “He’s probably going to play with his LEGO blocks.  He doesn’t really nap.  It’s his way of thinking.  Thank you for what you said though.”

“I meant what I said, Brook, I want to be in his life.  I wanted him, too.”

Masterlist

[hellcab]

@heavensxstray / @villains4hire

{ Roth tensed up. His eyes grew nervous, consumed with dread. He crossed his arms, pulling his arms tight. He wanted so much to leave right now, to just go. But something kept him in that booth. Maybe, Roth wanted to drain out his misery. Tell about his painful memory. }

{ Grasping the coffee cup, Roth took his morning “communion”. The bitter drink served little comfort. He started building his courage to speak. }

“It was February. I was . . . walking home from work. I was going into work tomorrow. I was done. Finished.”

{ Roth remembered Yellow. That old, familiar color, along with the black and white checker patterns. Yellow Cab was the only job he could even get. The only one he could hold down long enough. Still though, the job was Hell. Dehumanizing. Roth felt more isolated than ever. Little has changed. }

“I was behind on rent. Drowning in debt . . . with no relief. No religion. No nobody special. I was alone and miserable. So y’know, I started feeling tempted. The bridge was not far away.”

{ He took The Brooklyn Bridge every day to work and home. He never thought that place would be his finale. His final night on Earth. He never imagined the kind of terror that waited. Roth forced out some small, weary laughter. }

“I must’ve stood on that bridge for hours. Snow on my shoulders. Just peering out across the Hudson. Just contemplating what would get me first. The cold or the fall.”

{ It was abundantly clear why Roth was on that bridge. He came there to die. But for some reason, Roth never jumped. }

“-But he was there. I think he was always there. Waiting for someone, anyone, to cross that bridge.”

{ Roth’s voice started growing fearful. Even after all these years, that man struck fear in his heart. The Enigma Killer, the man who could never be caught. Then again, with how severe his crimes where, Roth doubted he was even human. He committed a string of murders from Quebec to New Jersey. Roth was his last and finale kill. But nobody knew that, since Roth was declared a "suicide victim". }

“He attacked. Wrapping wire around my throat. We struggled back and forth. Finally, I managed to break free. Land some punches and kicks. I was winning . . . despite how fucking miserable I was. I wanted to fucking live. I  . . . . I lost though.”

{ Roth hanged his head low, he remembering how the fall felt. How slow everything was and yet, how quick. He remembered tumbling further and further down. Down towards the icy waters below. To drown. }

“Threw me over. I landed below  . . . but I wasn’t dead. I drowned in the river. I died . . . . then I ended up here . . .”

[prurientpuddlejumper]

Te Amo

Rafael Barba x Reader

A direct follow-up to Broken Air Conditioning (though like all parts in this series, it can be read as a oneshot). Months after a brutal sexual assault at the hands of a former defendant, Barba is still struggling to recover emotionally.

Warnings: Past sexual trauma, no smut, but NSFW. Fairly graphic in places (possibly the most explicit installment). Hurt/comfort, angst and fluff. Scars. A bit rambly but it is what it is.

4,600 words

February

Rafael Barba sat in a booth at Forlini’s, hand tightly clasping yours under the table. A pleasant bustle filled the air—that warm background hum of many people engaged in dinner conversation at their tables, waiters taking orders, forks clinking. His friend’s faces were smiling.

They felt far away.

He wished he never came.

When you and Barba disclosed your relationship, you put in for a transfer to a homicide unit in Brooklyn, and the 16th precinct planned a little going-away party in your honor. Then Barba announced he was taking an extended leave of absence from the DA’s office. The potential conflict of interest evaporated, and the party’s theme pivoted into a going-away for Barba.

You’re fine. Everything is fine. Just… be fine.

Barba’s neck felt hot and damp beneath the collar, and he’d long given up trying to force a smile from his drawn lips. Everyone was pretending this was a retirement party, but he knew what they were all thinking. What they were all wondering.

If he was OK.

It was so soon after his rape. Everyone anticipated the few weeks he’d taken to recover physically, and the month he’d spent working a lighter caseload, assisting the other ADAs. But he was supposed to be getting better, wasn’t he?

Running away was humiliating—letting everyone know, without saying a word, that he couldn’t handle it anymore. He pretended to be fine for as long as he could, pushing himself to take cases until he was vomiting in the office bathroom after looking at evidence for a crime Olivia asked him to prosecute.

Then he had no choice but to step away. It was the only way to spare himself the greater humiliation of having a meltdown in court.

You squeezed his hand and asked some asinine question about whether he liked his pasta, which he recognized as a subtle way of checking in. He hated that you noticed him tensing up, going quiet. He hated that he resented you for caring.

“Everything is great.” He squeezed your hand back.

At least he was spared the embarrassment of a trial. Jeremy Jones had been killed in the crossfire with police, and his two accomplices, Michael Lee Voight and Luther Penmark, plead guilty to avoid life sentences. Barba wouldn’t have to get up on the stand and publicly describe everything they had done to him.

There were details he didn’t want anyone to know about—even you. He rarely spoke about it. You knew enough from your involvement in the case: he’d been kidnapped, raped, and beaten over three days. You didn’t need to know any more than that. It was bad enough you’d seen him in that basement—though, in the fuzziness of his memory of being rescued, he knew your presence had made him feel safe. By then, he was delirious with dehydration and concussion, but when he squeezed your hand, there was a lingering feeling that he knew you would protect him.

Fin, Rollins, Carisi—he felt their eyes on the two of you and your cute will-they-or-won’t-they romance that finally blossomed so soon after he was found half-dead following a three-day search. They all wondered whether it was too soon. If you were fucking yet. How he could possibly stomach being intimate after an experience like that. How you could bear to stay with a man who can’t give you what you need.

It was none of their business, but they were all thinking it.

He was broken.

The restaurant booth was stuffy. He needed air.

***

“It’s only temporary,” he promised. Outside the restaurant, everyone bid their farewells as their breath hung in white clouds in the air.

“We all understand,” said Olivia, wrapping her arms around Barba’s shoulders. Three pats on the back, then a comforting press before releasing him. “But I hope you come back to us. You’re the best we’ve got.”

There was a fire in her eyes as she said it. She always pushed him like that, and you weren’t sure if you liked it. It was hard enough for him to admit he couldn’t look at those brutal pictures anymore, hear victims’ testimonies without shaking—that he’d be halfway to a panic attack every cross-examination. Admitting he could no longer handle the stress of prosecution in his current mental state was the hardest thing the relentlessly driven Rafael Barba ever had to do. Feeling pressured to take those cases again could overwhelm his sense of Catholic guilt and force him to do things before he was ready.

Then again, Barba was tough, and Liv knew him better than anybody. He didn’t like being babied. Maybe telling him to come back soon was her way of reassuring him that he wasn’t broken—that she knew he wasn’t weak.

***

June

A loud bang behind your apartment door hurried your steps as you dug the keys out of your pocket. It sounded like a struggle, and your detective instincts had your fingers poised over your gun holster, the hairs standing on the back of your neck as you opened the door smoothly and silently.

Barba was in the middle of the living room floor with the broken air conditioner, manual in one hand and a screwdriver in the other—though, at the moment, he was using the fist containing the screwdriver to punch the appliance in frustration. He jumped as your sudden entrance caught him by surprise. 

You let out a sigh, shoulders relaxing.

“Uh… old engineering trick,” he said sheepishly.

“Thanks, handyman.” You leaned down to peck him on the lips. “Hey, I’m going to get changed—come out for drinks with me and the squad!”

“No. I can’t.”

“We’re celebrating a big arrest today,” you smiled, but the brightness in his eyes at your return home vanished the more you tried to entice him.

“I’m not showing up to celebrate another case I had nothing to do with!”

You looked scolded.

“Sorry.” He restrained his frustrated tone. “But I can’t see them knowing you’re all out there saving lives, and I’m just…” A facial tic. “Anyway, I’m not done getting this goddamned machine to work!” He gave it another bang.

“Everyone misses you. And that AC unit is ten years old. I’ll just buy a new one.”

His tentative smile curved back into a scowl. “I can fix it. Just because it’s broken doesn’t mean it needs to be thrown out.”

“OK, OK! You’ve got this, Scotty!” You put your hands up in surrender before heading to the bedroom to change and lock up your sidearm.

What you found was an entire apartment that had been cleaned spic-and-span while you were at work. Barba was always tidy—one of the reasons you didn’t mind him practically moving in—but today, all the clutter was cleared, every table had been wiped down, the windows were washed, mirrors polished, and light fixtures dusted. There was a pine-fresh scent hanging in the air—he even mopped the floors.

“Keeping busy today?”

The bedroom door clicked shut behind him and he padded across the carpet, wiping sweat and a dusty smear from his face with a towel. “Just catching up on chores. Working on self-improvement.” He gave a swaggering smirk as he tossed the towel into the hamper and placed his hands on both of your hips. “I signed up for self-defense classes—it’s supposed to help with anxiety—and I was researching this new medication I’m going to ask my therapist about at our next session. At this rate, I’ll be back at the DA’s office in no time!”

“I see. And the air conditioner was the last beast to slay on your to-do list?”

“I wanted to have it running for when things get… steamy in here,” he said in a low purr, bringing your fingers to his lips to kiss them seductively.

You’d seen this behavior before in other survivors. You knew his manic zeal for self-improvement was a bubble that would shortly pop, but seeing him so upbeat made you get carried away in the current of his enthusiasm. “Oh? How steamy are things going to get?” You searched his beautiful green eyes as the tingle of his lips on your hand spread up your arm in a delightful shiver.

“Very,” he replied against your skin. “I’m ready now. Do you want to?”

His broad hand was warm at the small of your back, pulling you close against his stomach. You swallowed the “Are you sure?” at the tip of your tongue and just nodded, melting at his charm. He isn’t weak. If he thinks he’s ready, it would be cruel to tell him he’s not.

He started kissing your neck, stubble scraping at the delicate skin of your throat, his mouth hot as he let out a muffled moan. His fingers worked the buttons of your shirt to expose more flesh under your collar, working his way down your salty skin.

You drew a sharp breath through your teeth as he sucked at your collarbone, then released it slowly, languidly as a sigh.

“That feels good, Raf.”

Your breathy praise encouraged him to keep going. He didn’t know why he had the compulsion to mark you, but this time he sucked harder, nipping your skin possessively until you cried out, fingernails digging into his back through his t-shirt. His cock twitched inside his boxers. Then he soothed your neck with a gentle kiss.

But as he pulled his mouth away to admire his work, the dark, reddened mark glared accusations back at him.

He glanced down at the bruise on your arm. The bruise he’d given you when he lost control last night, thrashing through a violent nightmare. His stomach churned.

The skin on his forearm was unbroken and pale, but as he stared at it, purple and green bruises bloomed in the shape of fingers. Red burns swelled around his wrists from the handcuffs digging in.

In the present, those marks were long since healed, but a thin white scar remained on the underside of his right arm, where he’d raised it to shield himself. When Jeremy Jones told him not to struggle. “Any deeper, and it could be serious. You could bleed out if I slit open an artery. Just stay still and take it like a good bitch.” Underneath the shirt were more scars on his chest that would never fade away. He never took the shirt off anymore. Was only naked in the shower.

How did he plan to make love to you without letting you see them?

Jones enjoyed using the knife—seeing Barba flinch with pain, the terror in his eyes never knowing how deep he was going to cut. Since his time in prison, his methods for inflicting pain and humiliation had evolved from simple beatings and rape. With each slice and stab, Jones taunted that the next might be the last. He could plunge the blade deep between Barba’s ribs, and he would be helpless—bound and stripped—powerless to do anything but watch the blade sink in before he died.

By the end, Barba wished they would kill him. He didn’t feel human anymore.

“Raf? Rafa?” Your voice called to him, distant. Right beside him.

Shaking, he backed away. “S-sorry. Sorry.”

“Hey, it’s OK. It’s OK.”

It wasn’t.

Now that his world was more than a filthy basement, a stained cot, and constant terror… After he’d cleaned himself up, healed, put his suit back on… Now that he had you brightening his life, he was glad he survived. He thought his humanity was back. He thought he would get it all back, resume life as he knew it before. But what if he couldn’t be fixed?

“Look, he’s shaking like a chihuahua! It doesn’t matter if you live or die, now—you’ll always be our bitch. Your days as a fucking ADA are over.”

“Goddammit!” Barba yelled as his fist made contact with the wall. The drywall gave way before his knuckles did, leaving an ugly dent in your bedroom. Memories of his childhood apartment and the angry holes his father left behind flashed behind his eyes.

He looked over at you. Your eyes were wide. On top of everything, now he was scaring you. Dammit. He smiled, thin-lipped and taut, trying to show you he was calm. He was calm now. It was alright.

“Sorry. Fuck, I have to get my shit together. It’s been six months, and I swear I’m getting worse.”

“It’s OK.”

“Stop saying that!” he snapped. “It is not OK!”

You breathed deeply a few times, struggling to center yourself. Your eyes were shining with a wet film.

All his anger fell away instantly. He crossed the room to you, away from the broken wall, and cautiously held a hand out. “I’m sorry,” he croaked. “Do you want me to go? I… lo lamento, I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’ll fix the wall. I’m so sorry. God, I’m sorry I ruined your night. I… I’ll go—”

You pushed the remaining distance into his hand, and it wrapped instinctively around your waist. “Yeah. You will fix my wall,” you whispered. “But we’ll worry about that later. Just try to calm down and talk to me. I don’t know what to do.”

Focus on real things you can see. Breathe. Barba remembered the techniques his therapist had told him about. A tight fist was closing around his throat that he could barely breathe through. The edge of the bedspread. The blankets all folded and stored at the foot of the bed because it was too hot for anything but sheets. He wanted to crumble. To lash out and push you away. He was becoming his father. He was a worthless mess and he was becoming his father. Breathe. But spiraling deeper wasn’t going to help you—wasn’t going to make things right. Calm down and talk.

“It happened again.” He cleared his throat. The fans in the window. The fan by the door. “I keep remembering…” The texture of your hair under his palm. “Every damned time, I get pulled back there. I should be able to do this by now!”

“Recovery isn’t linear. There will be good days and bad days.”

“That’s… stupid. It isn’t fair. I am doing everything right. Everything my therapist tells me! I’m doing the work. I’m staying active, thinking positive, talking about my feelings. So why can’t I just… have sex with my partner?!”

A small laugh escaped your throat. You couldn’t help it. The frantic way his eyes bulged when he shouted the word “sex” reminded you of a hyperactive chipmunk, and made him look adorable. “It takes time. Just relax.”

“I don’t want to relax!” His voice rose to high, jittery, chipmunk whine.

“How many coffees did you drink today?”

“…Irrelevant.” His defiant scowl had a distinctly bashful I’ve-been-called-out edge.

“I know you’re driven, but you can’t put in overtime for healing. Go easy on yourself. Please?”

He sighed, holding you closer, and placed a kiss on top of your head. “I don’t know if I’m capable of that, cariño.”

You melted against his chest in the warmth of his embrace. “I’m sorry, Rafa,” you murmured. “I’m sorry you have to go through this. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault it’s taking a long time to recover. What you went through was…”

“It changed me. They took away my dignity, and I don’t know how to get it back.”

“They didn’t take anything from you,” you growled, grip around his back tightening protectively. “They’re the ones who lost their dignity by doing that to you.”

“But they did change me.” His hands came to your shoulders and peeled you away from his body. He was trembling again, though his eyes weren’t glazed over like before. He was still with you. “When we started dating, I told you that I wasn’t broken, but I am. They made sure I could never get over what they did. They made sure I’d never forget. That nobody would ever forget.”

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly into a flash of a crooked smile, almost lost in the quivering of his lips, then he turned and sat on the side of the bed, gesturing you to follow.

“I never wanted you to see…”

“What?”

He choked as he searched for a name to call it. The worst of what they had done. The lasting part. The final humiliation that would never go away—that ruined him for life. He didn’t want to describe it, to think of it as part of his body, but he needed to say something to prepare you.

“The scars.”

The mattress groaned as you sank down beside him. You’d been taking things slowly physically, if not emotionally. All the nights you cuddled in bed, falling asleep in each other’s arms, he always wore pajamas. You never showered together.

“Maybe what’s holding me back is knowing that they’re there.”

“Do you want to show me?” You searched his face carefully. It was such a fine line between doubting and pushing—believing in his strength without helping him break himself. “You don’t have to, but if you want to, I’m ready. It won’t change how I feel about you.”

“If we’re ever going to be together, I have to. You’re going to see it, and… it will be worse in the heat of the moment.”

It took him a long time to stand. Longer to undo his belt, fumbling at the buckle with shaking fingers as he faced away from you. Finally, he pulled down his boxers.

Pale scars crisscrossed his ass and thighs, as if someone had been carving away at them while they had him on his knees. It wasn’t just random cuts. Each slash formed crude but familiar shapes. Letters. MLV. LDP. JJ. You gasped as you recognized what they were.

Initials.

It was vulgar. A sickening form of tagging, juvenile in its cruelty. There were other words carved into his flesh, harder to make out, but you didn’t really want to know what they said, and Barba quickly pulled his pants back up, done with being on display.

Then you started shaking—a tremble that came from each muscle in your body pulling taut as it prepared to fight. Your vision flooded red. Blood pounded in your ears, red hot. “I’ll kill them. Fuck! I will fucking kill them!”

Barba’s cheeks and ears were blotchy with pink. He was silent and withdrawn as he sat back down next to you. Your anger wasn’t helping with his embarrassment—it wasn’t helping him at all.

“I’m sorry.” You put your arm around his waist gently, though you were still shaking. Without rage buoying your emotions, they began to sink. Helpless, hot tears rolled down your cheeks. There was no one to shoot, no one to fight, only the aftermath to piece back together. “I just… It’s such a cruel thing to do. I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t flinch or brush your hand off, but he was quiet. He shrugged in vague agreement. Yes, it was a cruel thing to do. Only a detective could have made such an astute observation. But even sarcasm died before reaching his tongue.

What did he need to hear right now? He was nervous, ashamed to show you this—he didn’t need you to confirm how tainted he already felt by railing about how awful it was. What did he need to hear?

“Te quiero, Raf,” you whispered, letting your head fall against his shoulder.

His head turned, and you strained your eyes up to meet his, looking down at you. His arm wrapped around the small of your back, thumb making small circles at your sides. “Y yo a ti.” He gave a thin smile and pressed his lips to your hair.

“What assholes,” you grumbled. “Dumb assholes, thinking that means anything. Thinking it would hurt you. But it’s just scars; it doesn’t change a thing. It doesn’t make you theirs, or change a thing about you. Idiots.”

It did hurt, and had altered something fundamental about him. The way he presented himself to the world was important, and now there were indelible marks he could only hide like a dirty secret, never erase. But the conviction—the fire—in your voice almost made him believe he was as unbreakable as that.

“They wanted me to remember who this ass belongs to.”

“Then it should have been my initials,” you scoffed. Your back went rigid and your hand clapped to your mouth the moment you heard yourself say it. “Sorry. Bad joke. terrible joke.”

A laugh that wasn’t quite a sob broke from his lips. It was sort of endearing. Tactless (how the hell were you allowed around special victims?), but kinder than disgust or breaking down crying. “It’s alright. I’d rather it belong to you.”

“Well, you belong to no one but yourself. Those men committed a crime. They did something awful, but they’re dead or in jail now. They won’t ever hurt you again. You’re home, and you’re safe. They don’t own anything about you.”

“I know that,” he sighed. “That’s not the issue. I had to quit my job. I can’t go two days without having a breakdown. And any time I take my clothes off… any time we get intimate, you’ll have to see that. That constant reminder that I was violated and too weak to defend myself. Fine!”—he caught the interruption forming on your lips—“Not weak, but it’s not exactly attractive looking at that, is it?”

Your grip around his waist tightened, but before you could answer, his shoulders rocked with cruel laughter.

“God, you must be tired of me breaking down in your arms. It’s all I ever do. You fell for ADA Barba—top-floor office, on track to be a state legislator or a judge—and ended up stuck with a pathetic wreck. Why do you even want me anymore?”

Finally, you turned, looked him in the eye, and cupped a hand to his warm, scratchy jaw. “You’re still Rafael Barba.”

He took in a shaking breath, not sure how to believe that. His emotions were raw and exposed after bearing his worst insecurities, and part of him wanted to crumple in on himself and hide—to push you away for good before you got sick of his inability to just get over it.

You took his hand and patted the mattress.

“Lay down with me?”

Barba nodded. You laid back on the pillows and gently tugged him down, so his head rested on your chest. Your arm circled around his shoulders, cradling him, and his leg curled over yours until he was comfortably nested against you. His hair was a little longer than it used to be, and softer against your lips now that he wasn’t as rigorous about styling it.

“First of all, I’ll never get tired of holding you like this,” you hummed, stroking lazy circles on his back. You could get lost in how warm it felt to be close to him, to care for him. Even his tears were warm, soaking through your shirt. “Second, this isn’t all you ever do. Remember we went to the Met last week? No breakdowns, just a beautiful day enjoying the museum air conditioning, then walking to the park in the sun. And you consulted for that environmental group.”

“Just a legal consultation. I didn’t take over a case.”

“But you were happy. You didn’t get stressed or let it consume your soul like you used to. You used to be such a workaholic. It’s OK to relax… to slow down a little. Just because you’re not ready to start sprinting full-tilt again doesn’t mean what you do doesn’t matter. You helped those people.”

He wove his fingers through yours as he thought about it. There were plenty of days when he didn’t have any issues. Days he could be out in a crowd and not feel claustrophobic. They tended to be the same days he didn’t push himself too hard, and it felt like he wasn’t making any progress. You wiggled your fingers, and he smiled at the sensation before squeezing them to stillness, brushing the back of your hand with his thumb. Still, if he took it easy, he probably could get back to work soon. There were always non-sexual crimes to prosecute.

It was hard to imagine being the same hawk in the courtroom he used to be, though.

Releasing your hand, he propped himself up slightly to look at you. “It’s just, if we started dating before… you would have gotten a better version of me. I wish I could have shown you…” He breathed out a rough, frustrated noise. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same.”

You sighed, fingertips tracing up the side of his face. “Maybe you’ll never be exactly the same again. Your life will always be divided into before and after. But you’re not broken, Rafael. And the person you are now isn’t inferior to who you were before. I fell for a smart, grouchy, sarcastic lawyer with a good heart, and you’re still all of those things. I love you, scars and all.”

His eyes widened, and for a moment, you were nervous you’d said something wrong. Then his tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he said, “I love you, too. Te amo, mi vida.”

You’d never said it before. Not like that. It had been there in a thousand other little ways, like reminding him to take his scarf when it was cold, or when he spent all afternoon cooking you the perfect dinner. The words had been on the tip of your tongue for a long time, waiting for him to go first.

You kissed him, and his lips moved pliantly against yours, smooth and slow. He still tasted salty with tears, and you felt a pang of guilt for saying it now of all times, instead of during a happy moment. But all the same, his fingers curved around the nape of your neck, and he moaned quietly as he deepened the kiss.

As your lips parted, you whispered it back, so he knew how completely you meant it. “Te amo.”

His smile was faint, the overall curve of his lips still heavy, but the corners began to pull up. His expression brightened shade by shade, like the sun slowly burning through the clouds.

“I love the person I’m dating, so I wish you’d start to like him, too.” You fixed him with a crooked little grin and patted his cheek, making him laugh softly.

“I’ll try,” he conceded.

“Good.”

“I just…” he glanced sideways toward the ceiling, an impish smile curling his lips, “I used to be really good at sex. I mean, I would have rocked your world.”

You snorted and slapped his chest playfully as he crooked an arm around your waist and pulled you on top of him. His green eyes were glinting as he held you and pressed his lips to yours.

“Well, if that’s not a recovery goal, I don’t know what is.”

“Are you late for the post-mortem? Don’t let me keep you any longer,” he said, though his hands on your sides were reluctant to let go. “Say hi to the gang for me.”

“Nah. I think I’ll stay home tonight,” you shrugged. “Why don’t we invite Liv for dinner tomorrow instead? You’re cooking.”

“Volunteering me?”

“Ropa vieja, por favor.”

“You’re doing the dishes,” he bargained.

“Deal.”

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