#he can’t connect to the handlers - can’t make his words match the things his body is doing - can’t figure out

[uefb]

Falling in love, again, with more OCs 🤷🏼

Yesterday my wife saw the color-coded post-it note tabs in one of my Fantastic Beast companion books and was like, “Can you make your next hyperfixation or special interest housekeeping?” and at first I almost walloped her, because rude, and then she quickly explained, “I’m just saying, in a perfect world where we could funnel your ridiculous ability to obtain and organize massive amounts of information into exactly what we needed, our house would be immaculate” and I was like “yes ma’am, and unfortunately they’re disorders for a reason”

We both had a good laugh. I then posted a fic I’d been working on, confident I’d be able to switch my brain back to another longtime interest (my research) after getting the current FB plot bunny out of my head…

And yet, less than 24 hours later, I’ve started another one. This is exhausting. Make it stop lmao. But 1969 Newt & his 18-year-old son are extremely humorous to me, so whatever

[wandas-sunshine]

A Soldier’s Spring - Chapter 2

Summary: She was one of Hydra’s secret weapons; a female winter soldier. And Bucky can’t let her go through what he did alone. Everything is coming back to her, and he’s the only one that can help her become human again.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Angst, short torture scene at the end

Word Count: 3342

Flashbacks are in italics

Previously on A Soldier’s Spring | Series Masterlist

Her head was spinning. She couldn’t stay in this town. It would be too obvious and she knew that they’d find her by the time the sun came up. She weaved her way through the city, leaving a wide perimeter around the rendezvous point. Her handling team would all be waiting there for her to return just like a perfectly trained puppy.

That’s just what she was, wasn’t it. Their perfect little guard dog. Some animal that they could order around and leave chained up when they were finished with her. One step out of line and she was punished. But not anymore. She wasn’t satisfied with being on a leash. She had a mind of her own. Didn’t she?

She sped her way around the town, past signs and storefronts, until she was even a little bit convinced that she’d put enough space between her and the Hydra agents who had brought her out to play. It had taken nearly an hour for her to be comfortable. She had found a small, quiet town. That didn’t seem to calm the uneasy feeling that was settling in her gut. Even if her instincts told her that this was her safest bet, she knew that quiet towns were good at spotting anything out of the ordinary.

It was well into the night, nearly midnight she figured. That left about 3 hours until her handlers would be looking for her. She hurried, eyeing rundown houses and family run businesses until she found one she could bother with. There were no cars in the drive, and no lights inside the house. It held a sizable shed. No visible security or particularly sturdy locks.

She quietly snapped the lock off the shed and guided her bike inside. There were a few tarps folded neatly on a shelf. She tugged one down, covering her bike in the front corner and tucking herslef behind it. The corner was cramped between the motorcycle and the other clutter that likely hadn’t been touched in ages. But it felt safe enough for her to quickly drift off to sleep. She was exhausted. Something she couldn’t remember really feeling in ages.

Bucky had returned to his home, relaxing on his bed with his journal. It was late enough in the day since Shuri had insisted on keeping him for breakfast. The sun was high in the sky, and he hadn’t gotten any more sleep in the lab, but he was much calmer now. Shuri had advised yoga or meditation. He went for a walk instead.

When the phone on his stand rang, he knew it could only be one person. Shuri had given him and Steve each specialized phones. She said they would be more secure than any that they could buy, and Bucky was learning to trust whatever the girl said. She truly had become a savior for him lately. It was hard to believe she was only 16.

“Hey, punk.” He greeted. Every time he picked up, he worried that it would be the police or some special agents that had finally managed to hunt Steve down. Or Sam calling to tell him that a mission had gone sideways. But his concern always eased at the sound of Steve on the other end.

“Hey, Buck. Thought I’d call and check in. Haven’t called in a few days.” Steve said cheerily. As hypocritical as it was, and really he did know it was, Bucky hated the way Steve was always fussing about him. Mostly he hated knowing exactly what he was worried about. It wasn’t some outside threat. Wakanda was the most secure place he could be. No, he was worried that Bucky would snap again, or that he wasn’t safe enough to be on his own. But he couldn’t be angry about it. He understood, even if it stung to have his scrawny best friend worrying about him and not the other way around. Truthfully, Bucky worried every day that he wasn’t safe enough to be alone with himself.

“Don’t go worrying about me. Shuri’s keeping a close eye on me. She has me keeping some journal.” He laughed and looked at the leather book sitting open in front of him. He’d only managed a few words this time around. His brain simply wouldn’t give anything up. “She says it’ll be good for me. Help work through the memories.”

Steve gave a short hum in response. He knew Bucky too well to think he believed it was doing any good. But he figured it would be a good enough start until he decided to open up and trust someone.

“How’s the arm coming?” Steve questioned hesitantly. The arm was a little bit of a touchy subject. It had been Bucky’s idea to remove the one Hydra had fitted him with. He insisted it was for safety purposes. Just in case anything went wrong, he’d said. Everyone else knew it was more than that. But Shuri had insisted on making him a new and improved prosthetic. She confided in Steve, told him she hoped connecting it to recovery instead of all the bad the other one had done might help him come to terms with it being a part of him and not Hydra.

“I don’t need it. I’m really getting the hang of this whole one arm thing.” Bucky hoped that he didn’t sound as disgusted as he felt. “How are you? Wherever you are. How’s the lead coming along?” If Steve recognized his blatant attempt at changing the subject,he didn’t say anything about it.

“It’s alright. Sam’s out here going crazy. Driving me crazy. I’m worried if we don’t finish up here soon, Nat’s gonna kill him.” Steve gave a fond laugh, and Bucky did too. “The lead didn’t give us much. But we may have found something.”

“Something like what?” He didn’t quite like the way Steve said that.

It was early when (Y/N) started awake. She whipped her head around in a frenzy until she registered her surroundings. Then she was paralyzed by the panic setting in. Unadulterated terror. She’d run away, she’d ruined whatever plans Hydra had for their next step. When they found her, they would have her head. Maybe literally. And that very well could be the best case scenario for her.

The door was busted open with a loud crack. Dim morning light streamed into the darkness that she’d come to find solace in. She scrambled as far into the shadows as she could, pressing her body tight against the wall. Her hand wrapped around the grip of her gun. With any luck, she’d go unnoticed and she could get a move on before her captors managed to catch her scent again.

But this was most definitely not her lucky day.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” A burly agent sing-songed as he ventured into her space. The words made her skin prickle. He stepped over discarded items littering the floor, shoving others out of his way without a care for any damage he did.

“We know you’re in there, пр��нцесса,” Another voice called from outside the door. This comment sent a wave of nausea through her. That name was the last straw. She was not their princess.

“Do you know anything about…” Steve hesitated as he read over the note Natasha had made under the Russian written in the file. “About a Кровавая принцесса?”

“Bloodred princess.” Bucky repeated back in English. “Where did you get that? The name.”

(Y/N) pressed herself lower to the ground. She could fight her way out of this if she could just get out into the open. Her brain felt too cluttered, but her body knew exactly what to do. She slipped silently towards the agent, pressed low into an army crawl. She stayed as far into shadow as she could. She wasn’t a big fan of being underfoot.

Taking him down was nearly too easy. One dash towards him and a well aimed swipe of his legs and he toppled to the ground, his head bashing against a plastic storage container on the way down. She weaved her limbs around him, her thighs pinning his arms to his sides and her arms wrapping tight around his neck to choke him. He fought as well as he could, but she was easily draining the fight from him. He wasn’t a match to her enhanced strength.

“There’s a ton of files and reports. People talk about an assassin, they call her the bloodred princess.” Steve explained. He could practically hear Bucky tensing. “There were some heavily protected files. Nat’s working on getting in, seeing what else their hiding about her.”

“She’s like me. Another Winter Soldier.” Bucky said finally. “She’s strong. Maybe stronger than I was.”

Once she was convinced he was unconscious, she eyed the contents of the shed desperately. Bungee cords. She could work with that. By the time the agent groggily came to, he was securely tied up. She headed for the door, doing her best to keep out of the light until the last minute. Who was to say how many agents were waiting for her with their weapons trained on the door.

“She was so strong when they started on her. Had a lot of fight in her. By the time they were finished, she wasn’t using it against them anymore.” There was an edge of anger in Bucky’s voice as he continued on.

Her next moves were a blur, like she wasn’t really controlling herself; She was on autopilot. She fought off the first two agents easily. They were reluctant to shoot. The last thing they needed was their weapon of mass destruction laid up with bullet wounds. She knocked their guns from their hands, sending them skittering a good distance out of reach. The first made a quick move to grab her from the front. She aimed a punch at his jaw. It landed hard, surely knocking some teeth loose and sending him to the ground in agony. 

As she landed a swift kick to his diaphragm, the second agent wrapped his arms around her. Her arms were pinned and he had her lifted off the ground enough that she couldn’t manage any traction. She growled in frustration, wiggling a bit before tossing her head back hard and fast. She felt it connect with his face. A dull throb ran through her head but she brushed it off entirely. The agent groaned, his grip slipping enough to let her drop to the ground and knock his feet from under him.

The third agent was moving towards her now, seeming to come out of his hesitant stupor. He wasn’t too good at hiding his fear of her. He was new, she was sure of it. The grounded agent reached for her legs and she simply kicked at his ribs hard enough to break them like twigs.

“Stay.” She warned darkly.

“Stand down, soldat.” The final handler commanded. (Y/N) scowled. She never wanted to hear that word again.

“I don’t want to fight anymore.” She carefully scooted around the agents still on the ground until she was safely out of reach. “I just wanna go. Please don’t make me hurt you. I just wanna go.” She pleaded.

“You knew her.” Steve commented. It wasn’t quite a question, more of an observation. Bucky sighed and shifted a little bit.

“I trained with her. They would pit us against each other.”

The agent stepped closer, and (Y/N) took a couple frantic steps back. She was getting awfully close to being cornered and she wasn’t liking the feeling.

“You know I can’t let you go.” He reminded her. “Just come with me and we can get you back in the right headspace.”

“This is the right headspace, (Y/N).” The voice was back again. Strong and sure, something she didn’t feel nearly enough in the moment. She knew that voice. “Get out.”

“No.” She shook her head. “No. I will not go back there. You-you’ll punish me and take it all away again. Everything in my head. I won’t.” She was panicked now. She needed out. Then she caught it, the subtle shift of his finger onto the trigger of his gun. She ripped her gun from its holster and fired two shots.

The first embedded in his shoulder and knocked his gun to the ground. The second hit his stomach. A panicked look crossed his face as he stumbled back and clutched the wound. She was sure that her expression matched his. She was shaking. She didn’t want to hurt him. He was only a kid…

“I don’t know what they did with her. I don’t remember much else. She was only a kid.” Bucky confessed with a frustrated sigh. He wanted to be more helpful. To Steve, and to that girl who had her life stolen away from her.

“Thank’s Buck,”

“Oh god. I’m so sorry.” She ran towards him and snatched his gun from the ground. “I’m so sorry.” She repeated before turning and bolting. She needed to put some space between them and her.

She had lost track of just how far she’d run. She finally came to a stop after...she thought maybe an hour? She could feel the adrenalin wearing off as she slowed to a brisk walk. They weren’t going to give up that easily which meant she needed to get out of the open. But hey, a life on the run was better than a lifetime as a murderer, wasn’t it?

“You’ve come so far, my darling child.” The voice murmured, edging into her mind. It was softer now, warmer. It wasn’t pushing her or urging her to protect herself anymore. It was a sound of pure comfort. “Just keep going, dearest. You aren’t out of the woods yet.”

She took a deep breath and blew it out sharp and hard. She had a tendency to do that when she needed to focus. Or she had…it had been some time since she’d taken on her own quirks. It was as if she was melting into someone she didn’t know. She wasn’t acting like herself. Or like Hydra’s toy rather.

She needed someplace to hunker down and come up with a real plan. A few minutes walking and she found a seedy motel. To any normal traveler, the ramshackle building would’ve been repulsive. But (Y/N) wasn’t picky. She waltzed through the door with her head held high, power radiating off of her.

Behind the counter, a young man, maybe 19, was playing on his phone. He didn’t bother looking up until the runaway assassin cleared her throat. He flicked his eyes up, then did a quick double take and straightened his posture.

“I need a room.” She demanded. She was truly a sight to behold. There she stood in all black with her hair messy and loose. She’d lost her mask at some point during the past few hours, but her pretty face did nothing to offset the threat of the weapons she carried with such grace, or the blood that she had been stained with during the fight. She looked absolutely stunning, and even more deadly.

The kid nodded and scrambled for one of the room keys hanging up behind him. He tossed it towards her and she catched it easily with a half-hearted ‘thanks’. She didn’t have any money to pay for the stay, but she highly doubted the kid would dare try kicking her out.

The room was less than great, but it had a bed and a shower, and (Y/N) had slept in much worse conditions. She locked the door, starting to strip herself of her weapons. Knives, guns, ammo, even a couple grenades. Everything was splayed out in front of her, and the longer she looked at it, the worse she felt. How did this happen to her, when did she become a monster? Was she always a killer?

She sunk to her knees and gave in to the waves of fear. Sobs shook her body as she let herself curl up against the side of the bed. Her life was never going to be normal. She hiccupped out another sob and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. She’d always be running, always looking over her shoulder. She’d always be alone. Nobody would stay with her. If not because of the atrocities she’d committed then because nobody would risk the danger of loving a criminal. Hydra would never let her go.

“Listen, Buck,” Steve started. “I know it’s a lot to ask. But this might be our last chance to finish off Hydra once and for all.” Bucky knew exactly what Steve was trying to ask of him. He’d never tell him just how much he was dreading the question. Life was just beginning to settle for him. He had a home away from all the danger. He had a bed, and food. He had more than one person that he was learning how to trust. But he had never let Steve down before, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now.

“If we can track down this girl, we’ll need you here. Will you come?” There was a long silence. Of course he’d come. But his worries were choking his throat. “You don’t have to say yes.” Steve added. It was enough to snap him out of his thoughts.

“If you can get me there, I’ll come.” He promised. And neither one of them knew if this would end the way they hoped, or much much worse.

She didn’t want this. She wanted to go home. She didn’t have any idea where she was or just how long she’d been there. They hadn’t let her sleep for more than a few moments. She was starving too, couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had something to drink. They dragged her out of the cell where they were holding her. Back towards the chair they’d strapped her to so many times that she’d lost count.

She screamed and squirmed, fighting to get away. But they were stronger than her to begin with, and she was just so weak. It hardly took any effort for the two men to strap her in again. She looked at them with wide eyes. They were bloodshot from the crying and tears welled in them once again.

“Please, no.” She sobbed weakly. “Please, I’ll do anything.”

“What is your name?” A man in a white lab coat questioned her. When she didn’t answer, a sharp smack stung against her cheek. She balled her hands into fists and clenched her jaw.

“(Y/N). My name is (Y/N) (Y/L/N).” Seemingly satisfied with her answer, the man gave a nod. The two metal pieces moved towards her head again and she found a new strength to fight. She couldn’t take it. Not again. Her desperate pleas were cut off by an agonized scream.

She screamed until her throat was raw. She couldn’t think straight with the pulses of electricity assaulting her brain. When they stopped she slowly pried her eyes open. Her mind couldn’t put thoughts together, couldn’t bring herself to fight properly, she just squirmed weakly. And then they were repeating those words again.

Парк...

Восемь...

What did they even mean?

Сгореть...

Семнадцать...

Was that...was that Russian?

Сломана...

Гавань...

She felt strange.

Открыть...

Отказ...

Like she couldn’t think. Couldn’t focus.

Отказ...

Делить…

The man in the white coat stepped closer and leaned in towards her face. Her eyes were glazed over, distant. He took this as a good sign. There was no emotion held in them.

“How are you feeling, soldat?” He asked. Her eyes slowly drifted until they landed on him. It appeared to be a struggle for her to focus.

“Where am I?” She asked in a near whisper, tugging at her restraints. This clearly pleased him, a wicked grin creeping onto his face.

“This is a start. Once more.” He ordered.

Next Episode

@dragonofthenorth0726​ @nightshade7117​ @believeitseeitdoit​ @stuckyandsciencebros​ @this-is-mycrisis​ @xmtd5​ @someonekeepstakingmyusernames​ @greeniemoon​ @wayward-student-philosopher​ @messedupmyfuckinglife​ @yourwonderbelle​ @booboobella01​ @kpoplover1306-depressedgirl315​ @silver-winter-wolf​​

[always5hineee]

Profit Margin- Chapter 7: Scrutiny

Chapter warnings: Mild language and mild themes

Word count: 1581  

-----

       When the doors revealed the room behind them, she was actually quite surprised. Of course, she was expecting it to be elegant to an extent, but it was particularly... well, different. Rather than red carpets and mahogany finish, everything was very modern. The floor was black tiles, which matched with most of the furniture. All the sleek surfaces, most notably the desk, were this same tile-esque texture, while the chairs were a more velvety black with silver accents and support.

       There were blackout curtains on the window, although they were drawn back to allow light into the room. She would have tried to look out and see where they were, but the windows were clearly blinded. Still, based on the color of the light, it may have been close to midday, although she couldn't tell if it was morning or afternoon. It felt a bit weird to be so dressed up in the middle of the day, but there wasn't much she could do about it.

       There were a few black doors on each side of the room, although it was unclear if they were Kun's private rooms, storage, passages, or holding cells. Honestly, they could be anything. Kun and another man were conversing at the back of the space near the main desk, and it was only as he saw her and gestured to the others that she realized just how many people were in the room.

       Xiaojun and YangYang appeared from the corners, moving to shut the curtains and send the room into darkness. Hendery appeared behind her and Lucas, startling her as he slammed the deadbolt shut.

       "Hey, honey." He muttered, passing her with a smirk. "Love the dress." She felt something brush the back of her leg, and she chose to ignore it as disgust rose in her throat. "Put on a good show, okay?" Lucas obviously heard him, but chose to do nothing. She didn't know if he chose to out of respect or necessity, but nonetheless, it rubbed her the wrong way. At this, she began to see some new faces as well.

       Lurking a few feet behind Kun was a thinner man, slightly shorter than the leader, clearly not any sort of client. The most unsettling thing about him were the two giant automatic weapons on his hips. Who was it? Some sort of grunt? No, that didn't make sense. Then... Before she could figure it out, though, Lucas reached behind her to mess with a dial on the wall. With that, the lights on the ceiling shifted on, providing a soft, warm light. It was then that she saw the mystery man's face.

       Ten. Ten from WayV. Yet another one of her idols, perfect image shattered in her mind. He was carrying guns, and she assumed that he knew how to use them. Would there be no end to this? The only one she hadn't seen yet was... was WinWin. Please don't let him be involved... She practically prayed. If there could only be one at this point, she'd be happy. Please...

       "Let's get started." Kun spoke out, voice achingly familiar and yet completely foreign to her. He had not made eye contact with her since she arrived. Maybe he thought he was above it. Surprisingly, they didn't stay in the current room, but rather she was led by Lucas into one of the adjoining doors. The lighting matched the open room, indicating that they were connected. There were no windows, and a small auditorium's worth of seats- maybe fifty? At the front of all of it, there was a very short black stage- a glorified stair, if anything. Lucas brought her in, leading her to the front and up onto the step, leaning down to mutter in her ear.

       "Are you going to stay up here, or do we have to restrain you?" She didn't know whether it was meant to be threatening or just come off that way, but she shook her head quickly.

       "I'll stay." He nodded as if to tell her that she made the right decision. And with that, the man left her in the light, alone. She hadn't realized just how good a job his large frame had been doing of providing her a sick sense of comfort. Now, she had no shield, no body beside her. He took a seat in the second row, along with Xiaojun and YangYang. Ten and Henry sat to Kun's left in the front row, the client to the right. He was dressed in a simple black tuxedo, hat, and shades, clearly trying to mask his identity. That being said, she could tell he was older, maybe mid forties or fifties.

       "She's quite submissive." The man commented, noting the lack of chains or ropes. "Or at least easily manipulated. That's generally good in such a purchase." This remark caused a flare of anger in her chest. Who was he to judge her character so quickly? She wanted to call back, but her eyes shifted to Lucas. He was giving her a warning stare. Gritting her teeth, she held her tongue.

       "She's quite young, although not suspiciously so." Kun began explaining. "Her birth name is Y/N. You are obviously free to change it, and we do recommend it for safety reasons. I'll remind you of your non-disclosure agreement and the consequences if you put our business in jeopardy." The man seemed to clearly understand this. "The rest is clear, as she's standing in front of you. I trust height, race, figure, and etcetera are all to your approval?" The man stood, gesturing forward.

       "May I?"

       "Of course." She shrank back as both Kun and the client approached her. She felt both of their eyes on her body, judging her worth by every inch. It was disgusting. He reached forward to grab her wrists, holding them above her head.

       "Hmm. Not perfect, but I suppose that's to be expected. Definitely one of the better I've seen though. Quite redeemable, considering you've only offered one, today." She tried not to whimper as she saw his other hand draw back, reaching for her midsection. This was going to be awful.

       At some point, though, his hand stopped. Daring to look down, she saw that another's had gotten in his way. Glancing to the right, she saw the thin frame from earlier up close. How had Ten gotten up here so fast? And more importantly, why?

       "We politely request that you don't overly handle the goods until the exchange paperwork is in order." He said smoothly. At this, the client let go of her wrists as well, letting her now-sore arms drop slowly.

       "Yes, of course, my apologies." He continued looking her over, but refrained from touching her. "You know, it would be much easier to calculate my offer if my understanding of the subject was more... complete."

       "You know by now that we only take offers in this state. I can guarantee you that her skin, birthmark, health, and scarring situation is exactly how we described to you in your inquiry. We have a business guarantee, after all." Kun reassured him. She silently found herself sighing as the relief of not being derobed put her at ease.

       "Alright, I'll gibe you forty-five thousand for her." Kun's eyes shifted to her's for the very first time that day, and then back to the client. She had no idea what she saw in that moment. It filled her with both fear and peace, yet spoke no words. She couldn't read him at all.

       "That's ridiculously low."

       "I disagree, I think it's appropriate, especially for a customer of my particular statistics. In addition, I don't seem to see your financial handler anywhere, so who are you to-"

       "WinWin is unfortunately caught up in preliminary promotional photoshoots with 127. He'll be back for our performance tomorrow. That being said, I am more than confident in my abilities as a business man, and in turn, I am telling you that you are completely out of your lane."

       "Fifty thousand."

       "Too low." The client began to look exasperated at this point.

       "What do you want from me? How much can you possibly think-"

       "A heart can sell for close to one million dollars alone."

       "You know I'm not in the organ trafficking business."

       "Regardless."

       "You know that fifty thousand is standard for a human being sold whole."

       "Yes, but I'm considering the demand. I could dismember her myself and make close to forty million from the parts alone."

       "I definitely can't offer you forty million for one bitch."

       "I'll ask that you speak respectfully in the presence of a woman. I'm not asking for forty million. Let's say... five hundred thousand."

       "That's ridiculous!" The man exclaimed. "I'll go up to one hundred thousand, and that is my final offer!" Kun shook his head, almost mockingly, clicking his tongue in turn.

       "Abhorrent. I'm telling you my price." The man moved forward quickly, seething at this point.

       "You think that you can just bring me here, offer me one product, and then dare-" He lifted his hands as if to strike a blow. Kun didn't move in inch. Suddenly, she heard a few loud bangs, followed by a harsh cry. Screaming, she dropped to her knees, covering her ears with her arms in terror. She saw a heavy black boot step in front of her, the smoking tip of a gun just barely in her line of sight.

Go to Chapter 8

[sunkissedpages]

We’re Only Kidding Ourselves- Part Eighteen || Tom Holland x Reader

A/N: take a shot every time you see the word neck I’m just kidding please don’t you’ll die of alcohol poisoning I can’t have blood on my hands

Prompt: Enemies to lovers au (from @marvelellie‘s 1k writing challenge!!)

Summary: You work as a production assistant for the Spider-Man: Far From Home crew, or rather as Tom Holland’s handler. The two of you don’t get along very well to say the least, but you won’t quit and he can’t fire you so you’re stuck with each other.

Warnings: swearing, mentions of previous smut, use of the word buckwild

What I listened to while writing: the fire alarm from the building over also Hannah Montana

Word Count: 3k

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine| Part Ten | Part Eleven | Part Twelve | Part Thirteen | Part Fourteen | Part Fifteen | Part Sixteen | Part Seventeen

The first thing you noticed when you woke up was that you couldn’t feel your left arm. The second was that you were completely naked. Suddenly everything that had happened last night came rushing back and feelings of longing, regret, and nausea hit you all at once, making you want to close your eyes and pretend none of it had ever happened. But it had. And soon enough Tom would wake up too and you’d have to face the reality of it together, like adults.

But for now, you could process alone. As for your arm, it was being crushed under Tom, who you could only assume was also completely naked under the sheets that were pooled around his waist. You wiggled your fingers slowly underneath him, trying to regain feeling. You didn’t want to wake him, but you needed your arm back. Agonizingly, you pulled your arm from underneath him inch by inch so that you wouldn’t disturb him, before finally rolling over and sitting up.

You bit your lip to stop yourself from gasping out. Your arm wasn’t the only thing that was sore. Your thighs, shoulders, and core all ached as you moved, serving as a reminder of the night before. Had it really been that long? You tried to count back the months in your head. The last time you’d had sex was well before you’d started this job, so apparently yes, it really had been that long. 

A chill ran through your body, making you shiver as you sat on the edge of the bed. You hadn’t realized how warm Tom was until you weren’t touching him anymore. You wanted nothing more but to crawl back under the covers and curl up next to him for the rest of the morning, but you had to be out of this room and at the airport in a matter of hours. 

With a sigh you pushed yourself off the bed and made your way to the bathroom. You did a double take at your reflection in the mirror. You were almost unrecognizable. Your hair was a complete mess, and not in the sensual, post-sex way that everyone else’s seemed to be after getting laid. And as you should have expected, extremely noticeable red and purple marks of varying sizes were littered across your neck and collarbone. 

“What the fuck, Tom, are you a fucking vampire?” you muttered to yourself, poking at the hickeys. They were going to be a bitch to cover up. If you had known how visible they’d be, you would have stopped him. Who were you kidding, no you wouldn’t have. He was too fucking good with his mouth. You bit back another curse. That was a matter for later.

At the present moment you had to focus on washing the chlorine and sweat out of your hair. You turned on the shower and let it warm up before getting in. Once you were in the shower you stood frozen under the water with the realization that no amount of scrubbing was going to wash away the night before. 

Tom was awake but still in bed when you came out of the bathroom wrapped in nothing but a towel. He didn’t even pretend not to enjoy the view, but didn’t say anything to you until you started gathering your clothes in your arms to take back to the bathroom to change.

“You know you don’t have to-“ he paused when you whipped your head towards him. “I mean, doesn’t it seem a bit redundant?” 

You rolled your eyes and dropped the towel right there as if to prove a point. Tom raised his eyebrows, but didn’t look away. You were too tired to feel self-conscious. Tom had already seen you in your most vulnerable state already anyway.

He watched on lazily as you dressed, a soft smile tugging at his lips as you nearly tripped over your sweatpants. 

“Just to be clear,” you said, as you pulled a t-shirt over your head, your voice coming out hoarser than you expected, “what happened last night isn’t happening again. It was a one time thing.”

If you hadn’t known better you might have thought Tom looked a little deflated. But whatever you thought you saw was gone instantly. If you had blinked you would have missed it.

“I believe that’s how one-night stands work, love,” he quipped.

Of course. You’d known him for so long you kicked yourself for thinking any different. Tom wasn’t one to double dip.

“Right.” 

You were the one who made yourself clear about the situation. It was a mistake. It was a moment of weakness. It wasn’t happening again. So why did Tom confirming the fact that you were nothing more than a fling to him make your heart contract in your chest? Maybe because the words you said to each other, the hushed whispers in your ear had led you to believe differently. But Tom told girls what they wanted to hear, and that’s why fell to their knees, quite literally, for him (aside from all the obvious reasons of course).

You turned around to look at your reflection in the mirror next to the television. The hickeys only looked worse after your shower and were peeking out from behind the collar of your shirt in a pattern winding up to your jaw.

“Christ, Tom,” you exclaimed in a hushed whisper. You met his eyes in the mirror. 

“What?”

“You realize anyone with eyes is going to take one look at me and know exactly what happened?’

He squinted at where you were pointing to on your neck and smirked. “You weren’t complaining last night.”

“I was a little preoccupied,” you mumbled under your breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Tom sat up a little more in bed and examined his arms and chest. “What’s the damage on me?”

You crossed the room and climbed back onto the bed next to him to get a better look. There was a few bruises along his hips and chest, but whether they were from stunts or from last night, you weren’t sure. You hadn’t been as generous with your mouth as he had, so there was little evidence you had ever touched him at all, save one small hickey on the place where his jaw met his neck. 

“You’ve just got the one,” you assured him and put a finger to where the bruise had blossomed overnight. He groaned at the pressure and you yanked your hand back, folding it with the other in your lap instead.

“I don’t suppose I can convince you to wear a turtleneck?’ Tom asked with a lopsided grin.

“I will if you will,” you agreed. “We could match.”

“As inconspicuous as that would be, I think you’ll be fine with a hoodie and some makeup.”

“I forgot you’re an expert on the subject,” you said, only half joking. 

Tom gave you a smile that didn’t reach his eyes and shrugged. “What can I say?”

“Please, please make sure you cover yours up too,” you begged, already imagining the headlines that would be all over social media if anyone got a picture of the rosy mark on his neck. Or god forbid, if anyone saw them on both of you and connected the dots. 

“I’m not an idiot, y/n.”

You made a face and Tom picked up a pillow from beside him and chucked it at you in retaliation. 

You caught it easily it back at him with more force, hitting him square in the face. “Come on, get up. We have to be at the airport in an hour.”

“I’m up, I’m up,” he insisted with hands up in surrender and stood from the bed.

You watched him stretch as the sunlight streaming in from the window struck his figure and made his curls look nearly golden. He caught your eye and flexed his abs at you with a smirk. You couldn't deny the heat that rushed to your cheeks or the impulse to lick your lips, but you only rolled your eyes at him and tossed a random pair of his pants from the floor over to him. 

You tried your hand at covering your hickeys with some foundation and concealer, but makeup had never been your specialty. Your complexion came out looking rough and uneven, but you planned to wear Harrison’s sweatshirt anyway, as Tom had advised, so you hoped nobody would look too closely.

Suddenly, your phone on the counter buzzed with texts from Harrison and Harry simultaneously. It hadn’t stopped going off since you woke up this morning, but you’d been ignoring it until now. A quick glance at the notifications told you that no one had heard from Tom all morning and they were getting worried You popped your head out of the bathroom to see him shoving clothes into a suitcase haphazardly, still only wearing pants.

“Why do you have to make my job so difficult?” you asked pointedly. 

He looked up with a glare. “Can you be more specific?”

“You haven’t been answering your phone. Can you just let someone know you’re alive?”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

You turned back around, trying to fight the familiar annoyance bubbling in your chest as you shoved all your makeup and toiletries into your makeup bag. Why had you let him fool you into bed? Stupid fucking charm. Stupid fucking arms. Stupid fucking accent, and sharp tongue, and pretty eyes fuck. You felt tears welling up in your eyes and gripped the counter forcefully. Sleeping with your boss had been a mistake, but it had happened. And you were going to have to get over it. 

You took a deep breath and grabbed your bag to pack and ran smack into Tom who was coming into the bathroom right as you were leaving. His expression softened when he saw the tears in your eyes.

“Hey,” he said, hesitantly bringing a hand up to your face and then running a thumb along your cheek, collecting tears that had already started to fall, “are you okay?”

“I will be.” You weren’t sure if you were telling him or yourself what you needed to hear, but you set your jaw and pushed past him all the same.

You had to be downstairs any minute now. Everything of yours was packed and Tom was... mostly packed. You did one last survey of the room for anything of yours and saw that you had only missed a few hair ties before you were satisfied. You thought you were ready to go before you realized you still needed to find Harrison’s sweatshirt. 

With a groan you tipped your suitcase back onto the floor and unzipped it. It was a mess inside since you weren’t the neatest packer either, and you had no idea where it could be. Harrison would kill you if you lost it, but you were sure it was in there somewhere, you just weren’t sure where.

“Whoa, whoa, what are you looking for?” Tom asked when he came back out from the bathroom and saw you digging through your suitcase like a madwoman. 

“Harrison’s sweatshirt!” you exclaimed as if it should be obvious.

It’s probably all the way at the bottom,” he reasoned. “Don’t worry, you have it.”

“No I need it,” you sighed. “I’m not supposed to show my face, remember? Much less my neck.” You glanced up at Tom who looked all too amused. “This is your fault.”

“Y/n, you’re acting like someone died, it’s just a jumper.” He stepped over your suitcase to grab something off the armchair and tossed it down to you. “Here just wear this one.”

You picked it up from your lap and unfolded what turned out to be a dark blue hoodie you didn’t recognize. 

“Is this-”

“It’s mine,” he said casually. “Just wear it until we get to New York and you can find Harrison’s again.”

“Are you sure?:

He nodded. “As much as I’d like for everyone to see my handiwork I think you oughtta stay out of trouble for now.” Tom didn’t know how right he was. 

“What about you?”

He stepped back over you and picked up a similar looking black hoodie from the ground and flashed it to you. “Perks of packing at the last minute.”

You caved and shrugged the hoodie on. It was smaller than Harrison’s, but softer on the inside, and it would work just as well. “Thanks Tom.”

“Don’t mention it.” He pulled his hood up over his head and leaned over to you to do the same. “Looks like we ended up matching anyway.”

You were only two minutes behind schedule once Tom was all packed and you took your last look at the hotel room the two of you had shared for the past few weeks. You didn’t know if you expected to feel sentimental, but all you could feel was relief over the fact that you were leaving and flicked it off from the doorway. Tom laughed and did the same before holding the door open and stumbling into the hallway behind you with all of his stuff.

Even though you both had all of your luggage to carry with you Tom challenged you to a race down the hallway. There was an attempt, but you were still so sore you had to do a weird sidestep thing to keep up. 

“Why are you walking like that?” Tom hissed.

“Why do you think?” you hissed back. 

“Oh shit,” he chuckled “my bad.”

You cringed with both pain, and regret. “Yeah. Your bad.”

He had slowed down for you, but he couldn’t wipe the shit-eating grin off his face. Boy sure did have a lot of pride in his abilities, and you wished you could take him down a peg, but you couldn’t.

“You lost it, didn’t you?” Was the first thing Harrison said when he saw you in a sweatshirt that wasn’t his. 

“No, I promise I didn’t. It’s just-”

“At the bottom of her suitcase,” Tom finished, coming up behind you. 

Harrison looked back at you for confirmation. “Something like that.”

“Thought you said you didn’t have one of your own,” Haz reminded you with a smile, pulling at one of the strings around your neck teasingly. “You know I still would’ve lent you mine, you didn’t have to lie.”

Tom didn’t give you a chance to explain. “It’s mine, mate.”

“Oh.” He let the string fall back onto your chest and pursed his lips. 

You wanted to elbow Tom in the ribs, but you had to pretend like it wasn’t a big deal. “He saw me looking through my suitcase in the middle of the hallway and offered me his.”

“Ah,” he nodded. “Well for what it’s worth, I think you look better in yellow.”

You offered him a small smile before he gathered his things to load on the boat and left you standing with Tom. 

“What the fuck?” you demanded. 

“I should be asking you the same thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you said there wasn’t anything going on with my mate.”

“There isn’t,” you growled.

Tom picked up the same string Harrison had been toying with. “Then why is this such a big deal?”

You paused for a second before snatching it out of his grasp. “You don’t get to do this to me,” you bit out and walked away towards the boat as Harrison had. You heard Tom call after you, but you didn’t turn around. You didn’t care if it was your job to stay with him right now, you needed some space.

The airport was completely compromised, of course. You had no idea how long people had been waiting for the cast to fly out of Italy, but it had to have been days, and they were gambling too, since pretty much everyone but Tom had already left. They couldn’t have known he’d fly out through the same airport, but apparently it was a chance they were willing to take.

Tom was gracious, of course. He stopped to take some pictures and sign merch despite security’s urgency to get him to his gate. You thought that he was being a little more generous than usual to spite you as well, since you’d specifically told him to be in and out.

Harrison and Harry had been flagged down to take some photos as well from fans who had spotted them and were desperate to have any piece of Tom, even if those pieces were people. You could tell they were both flattered, but a little flustered. They agreed to go over though and were nice enough to pose with the teenagers for a few pictures before scrambling to the other side of the walkway to where you were.

You couldn’t imagine ever being a part of his life, being so recognizable for nothing more than having a connection to Tom. Harrison was an actor, but Harry wanted to do film just like you and he was constantly in the spotlight because his brother was Spider-man. You were more than happy to stand on the sidelines and be an onlooker, someone who got glimpses of the lifestyle, but never had to partake.

Tom was talking to some kids now, and you were about to tell him to wrap it up when he did something that stopped you dead in your tracks. As he was smiling for a young boy’s selfie, he pulled his hood down and ran a hand through his hair. For a split second it was quiet. Then it was absolute chaos. You couldn’t tell if the fans were going buckwild over his hair, or the fact that he had a giant hickey on his neck. There was a strong possibility of both. You couldn’t hear anything over the screaming, but you thought you saw him mouth something at you.

“Jesus, where do you reckon he got that from?” Harrison asked you, but you were frozen to the spot. You didn’t trust yourself to speak.

“This is going to be  PR nightmare,” Harry groaned. “Mum and dad are going to kill him. God, why does he have to be such a showoff?”

“I think you mean why does he have to be such a dick,” you spat angrily, crossing your arms over your chest. 

Tom’s eyes searched the crowd once more, looking for someone through the masses of people until he finally met your gaze. You stared straight at him with murder in your eyes and watched in disbelief as he winked at you.

4am uploads aka on-brand :) lmk what you guys thought I always appreciate feedback!!

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[baronvontribble]

okay. alright. i’m doing it. here’s a list of AUs that i have toyed with for the robot and marshmallow, none of which have solid titles (and i will answer questions about any of them):

the big story: the one for publishing, so far. both the most finished and the oldest original story. Adam is a runaway police robot who comes to a group of sympathetic humans to find a new body and a new life as a free man. Ted is part of that group and ends up helping him. goes HARD into the AI minutiae and modern concepts about robotics in a five-minutes-into-the-future setting. tackles mental illness, disability, and is generally super soft and low-key.

team winions: workshopped but not written. still nailing certain things down. basically Ted’s the main support on an esports team and Adam is his newly traded-in DPS/lane partner/AD carry. over the course of a season they do the cute bonding thing, and they and the rest of their misfit team eventually secure a finals win for an NA region that’s pretty much never won anything before that. oh, and this one has art! i mean it’s an old art from when i was first thinking of having Adam be on another team instead of a new trade to the one Ted’s on, but STILL AN ART.

(the one who gets traded away is Owen; Rani swaps to top lane, and Angie and Malak stay in the same positions.)

post-apocalyptica: this was an idea for a platformer. basically, the world has ended. Ted wakes up from complete stasis in a hospital after a few hundred years - healed of whatever it was that got him into stasis in the first place - to find that no one’s left but robots (not androids, though) and a voice on a headset. the voice guides him through the ruins of the city to find meds and possibly other survivors (a thing the voice doesn’t recommend). but when he finds those survivors, he finds out that they were woken up too. by the same voice. every single one of them rejected it once they found out what it’d done, and now they’re fighting the robots to ‘take back the city’.

the voice expects Ted to join them at that point, but he doesn’t. instead he asks where the voice is broadcasting from. then he goes all the way to the top of a ruined skyscraper, and on the very top floor he finds Adam hooked up to a bank of servers. this is the last android, trapped by the limitations of his own memory-bloat, kept functional by a mess of wires that connect him to his own massive server room of a brain. upon seeing this, Ted sits down, unpacks his lunch and his meds, and settles in to try and make the guy a little less lonely.

space, idea 1: one of two different ideas that i’ve considered the two goobers for in the same universe; at this point i’ve decided that if Ted gets one, then someone else will have to get the other, because I want to reuse my goddamn space universe. barring that, i could use another idea for a framing device, but i’ll talk about that later. for now, we will say Ted is in training to become a human partner for a ship pilot AI. or was. he’s being threatened with getting kicked out.

why? who knows. it’s Ted. that is not the point. the point is that he is given an opportunity to redeem himself by joining an experimental program that will give him telekinetic powers via alien spores, but to harness them he has to have nanotech and an AI implanted into his nervous system to monitor and regulate the bits of his brain that will spontaneously burst into irreparable cancer the moment he starts the treatment. the cancer is the flipside of a radical regenerative ability that the spores also cause.

Adam is the AI, one of many. he doesn’t want to be there. none of them do. it’s a last resort assignment given to AIs that are about to be sent to run remote He3 scoops out in the sticks. Ted is also one of many humans and most of them are pseudo-dropouts for one reason or another just like he is. very few of them are well-adjusted, and the usual anime training school shenanigans ensue.

but then a dark thing happens. a test subject who was thought dead seemingly comes back and starts killing the AIs, which can potentially kill the people who really need them in their brains. panic ensues; the leader of the program tries for as long as he can to cover it up because it’s a skeleton in his closet, specifically, but eventually it comes back to bite him and everyone else on the station. so it’s up to Ted and Adam and their friend-group to save the day and get everyone who’s still alive off the station in one piece.

space, idea 2: Adam is a freshly minted AI who has a problem: he goes through partners like other people go through shoes. technically he has the right to refuse anyone for any reason, but his handlers think it’s getting a little ridiculous that he’s refused so many. it’s also expensive to keep trying to match him up with people again and again, and no algorithm can really predict the personality profiles that’ll end up being compatible with him since so many have proven not to be.

then Ted stumbles into his airlock, and he gets An Idea: the human can’t act in ways that are incompatible if his good word is the only thing keeping them from getting arrested. so, he takes advantage of the opportunity and says he wants this one as his partner. this one that’s an actual criminal.

his handlers give up, and this is how the story begins. i don’t know where it will go from there. maybe i’ll use my conspiracy plot where Zach’s trying to start a galactic civil war and they uncover his machinations together. or maybe i’ll use the Fermi paradox plot where they’re scouting and they find a Pioneer-level probe out in space only to find its planet of origin completely dead except for a lone caretaker AI overseeing the stored memories and personalities of a million long-forgotten souls. it’s the kind of setup that can go anywhere.

the framing device: but then there’s this. this thing i thought of to tie them all together. if i start with the last and write the rest, then this would be the thing that let me keep writing AUs with abandon: the VR idea. set in my space universe, it would be a procedurally generated full-immersion VR experience compatible with both humans and AIs that allowed them to live fully fleshed-out alternate stories for themselves, either alone or with others. the stories would follow narratives, have plots, have stakes; the promise is that you can spend your time in the sim being the storybook version of yourself.

now, there are settings. when you go in you can tweak the realism, set up what tags and genres you feel like going for, how much drama you want, how much violence you’re feeling up to seeing or experiencing. and all of it is safe, controlled, and probably really expensive. but it’s supposedly the best vacation your credits can buy you without having to go offworld, so it’s an immediate sensation in-universe.

this would be how i’d tie it all together. and i could use it for multiple character pairings. i could even reuse characters if i said it stored imprints of previous users or had stock characters. but for Ted and Adam? they’d use it as a way to meet and fall in love and be with each other in a thousand timelines across a thousand different worlds, and they’d never get tired of it.

anyway, yeah. those are just the ORIGINAL ones. i’d write them in WoW or Shadowrun or Divinity: Original Sin or Dragon Age or Mass Effect or Stardew Valley or Slime Rancher or Cyberpunk or DnD or Fallout or Starcraft or Overwatch or ANY universe if i thought i could get away with it. these boys will always jump into any AU i dip my toes into, and be the first to volunteer themselves for any plot i come up with. if i bring one, the other is coming too in one form or another. that’s just how they are.

now you all know why i never get anything done that doesn’t have them in it.

[wonderlandmind4]

The Winter Soldier: A Ghost Story- Chp5

Pairing: Winter Soldier x OFC

Summary: Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists. The ones who do call him the Winter Soldier. He’s a ghost story. So why does he keep coming back?

Warnings: Mentions of blood, language. 

Important Note: This story is a lot darker than anything I have ever wrote with the themes in it. Please proceed with caution during those moments. Everything in this story is a connection. (translations not from google)

Words: 3.7k

March 19th, 2012 12:05am

An irritate huff breaks the chilly quiet of the night. The Soldier stumbles into a wall, leaning his weight on it as he presses his metal fingers roughly against his temple. That sharp pain zings through his head again as he rapidly blinks away the image of green eyes. Grinding his teeth, he clenches his fist slamming it into the concrete wall. It cracks under the weight of the metal, pieces of rubble sprinkling to the ground.

He has successfully completed the mission; one Hydra traitor down. The success does not change the obvious fact that the man had been waiting for the Soldier. The man was prepared and slightly quicker. Slightly. It was enough for that damn bullet to lodge in his shoulder.

Shaking his head roughly, the Soldier grips at his hair, the mask clutched between his fingers of his flesh hand. Why had he remembered the building that was no longer a rendezvous point? Why did he recognize the fifth-floor window? It was all a blur to him, images twisting in his brain in a chaotic whirl. The carousel of colors halts abruptly, landing on shades of green.

Enough of this. The Soldier gathers his bearings, grits his teeth and straightens up. He squeezes the hard material of the mask in his hand before he lifts it to his face. The moment the temple tip touches his skin, he pauses. He doesn’t feel the hard press of plastic. He doesn’t see the pitch-black road ahead of him. He doesn’t smell the wet pavement, the trees in the distance, nor the lingering metallic scent of blood.

The plastic of his mask fades into something softer, warmer. The press of textured cotton, of warm fingertips just grazing along bloodied skin. It’s something he can’t ever remember feeling.

Gentle?

The shades of green in his mind morphs into the shape of eyes. Eyes that stared at him wide with fear, yet with an underlying but a strange emotion he can’t recall ever seeing before.

Concern?

The smell of sharp sweat and copper blood fades into an aromatic scent of wildflowers, overtaken by the earthy tone of ripe grapes and spices. The Soldier doesn’t think he has smelled anything like it before. It wasn’t the dark drink that stained the floor, it wasn’t the sweat on his skin, the blood on his vest. It was something else entirely.

Sweet?

Her. It’s the woman he sees in his mind. The gentle touch of her dressings, the concern in her jade colored eyes, the sweetness lingering on her body. Who was she? Who is she? A former handler? A scientist? Doctor?

His head twitches. No. No handler has ever showed him what she had tonight. It was foreign, not proper protocol for the people who surrounded him before and after missions. She was different. She was afraid, yet threatening, if pathetically so.

He does remember the involuntary pull of his mouth when the woman held up a device; it was comical. Watching her try to defend herself with a piece of plastic. When she had gotten ahold of the knife he threw, brandishing his own weapon at him, he felt a spike of intrigue in his chest. She wasn’t stupid. She knew how to defend herself. It sparked a vaguely familiar tickle in his mind. The woman had only turned her back to him once, clearly knowing it wasn’t the smartest thing to do.

He recalls her clearly. Startled with his intrusion, frozen in a spout of terror, bare torso with the blue lace undergarment, on display. He had assessed her quickly when she entered the room after his eyes adjusted to the light. The woman wasn’t too thin, he could see that from the subtle toned muscles in her arms, when her legs shifted.

It has been too long since the Soldier had viewed a female openly like that. The curves of her body, the set in her jaw, the trembling of her fingers, the rise and fall of her breath expanding her cheat and lean stomach.

Her skin was marked, a map of freckles on his inner arm inked together to match a constellation. When she turned, her spine revealed scripted words along the length, and a sketched small bird on her left shoulder. A little dove. It was the sickly display of discoloration on the right set of her ribs that did not match the permanent ink. A mark stating injury, a reminder of pain, hurt. The sight made his chest tighten, made something hot curl in his gut.

The Soldier replaces his mask, fastening the rubber ends behind his head. The mission is finished, the incident in the once vacant building, over. He continues, heading toward the area he hid his motorcycle at. Once he finds it, tearing off the dry brush he used to disguise it, he mounts the seat, kicking the stand back.

A distorted image abruptly flashes through the forefront of his mind. His body goes rigid as the pictures piece itself together. A black cat with a scarred leg. A man attacking a woman, the man shoving the woman, the woman’s right side connecting with unforgiving granite.

Track and report mission. It was during that night where he viewed the disturbance from across the way. The Soldier makes the connection; the woman from that night and the woman cleaning his wounds are the same. He recognized that fifth floor window. He remembered.

He winces as the throbbing pain makes itself know in his temples. The imaged fades almost as quickly as it came. His breath escapes in short pants as he gathers himself once more.

“What the hell,” He grumbles, rubbing his hand across his forehead.

With the movement he’s reminded of his wound burning in his shoulder. The wrappings. The dressings around his shoulder the gentle woman provided him. He quickly unfastens the vest, finds the material, ripping it off with one tugging jerk. He disposes of the stained gauze and tape on the side of the road, kicking as much dirt as he can on it. They cannot find the wrappings of his wound, it would raise suspicions. They might come looking for the kind woman who helped the Soldier. He briefly touches his left hand to the bullet hole.

Starting the engine of the bike with more strength than it requires, the Soldier shakes his head once more. Simultaneously, he wants to rid the images yet hold onto the gentle caress of the woman’s touch just a little longer. He doesn’t recall ever having kindness shown to him. He is the Soldier, their Asset.

He drives back to the base. The ever-growing dread of what awaits him settles in his chest. No kindness for the Soldier.

*

“Sometimes I wonder why we even use it.”

“The job gets done, shapes the course for the next path. Who cares if the Asset is injured in the process?”

“What’s the next mission?”

“The Congressman. It’s been a week since the last recon.”

“And the boss? What are his orders?”

“The Asset has only been out of Cryo for several hours. The absolute longest without a wipe is eight days before the memories begin to leak through. Unless it’s mission critical, the boss doesn’t allow for missions longer than a week.”

“This plan with the Congressman could go on for weeks on end. How is it-“

“The set up has already begun behind the scenes. That reporter wasn’t placed there by accident.”

“Ahh, feed the sleeping monster, so to speak.”

“Exactly.”

The voice pass by the room, however the next set of footsteps grow closer. Bernstein hears them coming, hurriedly replacing the wires and closing out the coding box on the computer screen. He turns in his chair just in time to see the door open, the Soldier entering with two armed guards behind him.

“Agent Bernstein prep him but wait on the wipe. The dog got itself injured,” A dark mocking chuckle escapes the burly Handler stepping into the room. “The doctor is on his way.”

He jumps into action, knowing better to follow orders quickly than to linger. He waits for the Soldier to settle in the seat, his dark hair obstructing the right side of his face. Since the doctors aren’t present in the room, it’s his job to place the small Electroencephalogram pads against the man’s temples to monitor recent brain activity. He moves to do just take, cautiously pushing aside the Soldier’s hair.

Agent Bernstein pauses. There’s a five-inch cut breaking the skin on the man’s forehead, a trickle of blood has dried on his skin. It’s not the discovery of the cut itself that made Bernstein stop short. It’s the two strips of butterfly band-aids holding the cut together that do.

He hasn’t been a part of Hydra for long, but he’s positive the Soldier has never returned with bandages place neatly and carefully over his cuts. Bernstein swallows thickly, coming to a quick realization. Someone spotted the Soldier. Someone found him, someone had the nerves of steel to get close enough to take care of the cut.

Upon a closer look at the Soldier’s bare torso, a small gaping bullet hole displays itself on his shoulder. This too, looks like it’s been cleaned, no recent streams of blood, or even dried flakes. He swears the tiny gray markings over his shoulder are from the residue of medical tape.

Without even thinking about it, Bernstein hurriedly removes the strips from the Soldier’s forehead, wincing slightly as the movement tugs the cut back open. Steely blue, murderous eyes snap to his face before they drop to see the strips Bernstein holds between his fingers.

His heart races in fear, thinking the man will lash out, grab him by the neck and throw him across the room like he’s seen before. Instead, the Soldier reacts queerly. His jaw shifts, his eyes close briefly, his nostrils flaring.

All signs the Agent takes as the Soldier forgetting about the strips. He shoves the band-aids inside his lab coat pocket as the Soldier eyes land on him once more. The menacing stare is back, a silent threat. Bernstein remains quiet, finally placing the pads against each temple.

That’s when the doctor’s step in, and Bernstein steps back, turning towards the computers. His mind is racing as he brings up the tampered system, pondering who in their right mind would take pity on the poor man in the chair, and dress his wounds. How did they even meet in the first place? Before or after the confirmed murder of a former agent?

Whoever it may be, the optimistic part of Bernstein’s brain hopes this person will continue to help the Soldier. Maybe, just maybe, they can save this controlled, tortured man’s soul.

With that in mind, he turns on the machine with the go ahead, praying that his secret, risky decoding of the system will work.

*

The night stretches on, minutes pass by as Ophelia stands frozen in her room. Silence fills her ears, listening to any little noise she might pick up. She has been staring at the window for god knows how long now, utterly and completely bewildered, now that her adrenaline has worn off and her “good Samaritan” trait is over.

There was a stranger in her home. A dangerous, threatening stranger, who broke into her apartment and decided to bleed out in her bathtub. He could have easily thrown that knife through her chest, could have easily killed her and no one would know until Monday. He had plenty of opportunity to harm her, given how close and vulnerable she had made herself.

She had been shirtless; bra and bruises on display. For some reason, that’s the thought that snaps Ophelia out of her shell-shocked brain. She shoves her fingers through her hair, her body still trembling slightly.

No, that strange man dressed in black with that weird muzzle mask did not kill her, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to continue standing there waiting for him to double back. Ophelia quickly locks the latch of the window, then moves to grab her duffel bag from her closet. She stuffs in the first pair of leggings and t-shirt she can find, grabs her phone charger before realizing she clearly doesn’t need it, then heads to the bathroom.

There she stops dead once more, the wide streak and splattered bits of blood vividly standing out against the white porcelain of the tub. It’s a morbid kind of display, one she doesn’t want to focus on too much. Forcing herself to move again, she turns on the shower, hoping most of the spray will wash away the evidence.

Evidence. Shit! What if that man committed a crime and she just- no. No. She’s not going to think about it. She just needs to get out of her home, since it no longer feels safe. Not with her ex finding her, and then this crazy incident.

Ophelia grabs what she needs, shoving it into the bag. She turns off the water after adjusting the spray to rinse all the blood away. She figures she’ll just deep clean tomorrow, given that she doesn’t want to sleep here tonight.

Finally, she grabs Binks, who mewls in protest, storms through her living room to grab her purse and keys and heads out the door. She locks it, a nagging voice in the back of her telling her it’s useless to do so anyway.

Her cat squirms in her arm as she hurriedly runs down the five flights of stairs. Forgetting all about how exhausted she was just an hour ago, she makes it to her car parked just several feet away. Binks nearly scratches her as she dumps him in the passenger seat, clearly distress by her actions.

Ophelia drives for five minutes before she even realizes she doesn’t know where she’s going. She can’t drive to her sister’s, given that Saige is an overnight in-house nurse. She doesn’t want to worry or stress her father out this late at night. Then it clicks. She knows who to go to.

She’s not completely rude, has enough awareness to find a payphone and call before she arrives. She’s given consent, and Ophelia parks her car in the driveway of the small suburban home. She takes her bag, and Binks, glaring annoyingly at her, and runs up to the door. She knocks five times.

The door opens to reveal Carter’s concerned face, his shoulders shagging when he sees her. He quickly lets her in, opening his mouth to ask.

“Bathroom?” Ophelia asks before he can say anything. “Binks’ is stressed enough.”

“Cat room, remember?” Carter reminds her kindly, pointing down the hall. “Sweeney is in there, but they like each other.”

She nods, scratching behind her cat’s ears to calm him.

Once she returns, Ophelia collapses on the couch. She remains still for just a moment, before she shoots back up, pacing. She can feel Carter’s eyes on her, his worry palpable. His husband suddenly comes out of the kitchen, a steaming mug in his hand and passes it to Ophelia.

“Thanks, Jeremy,” She mumbles, halting her steps. The warmth of the mug helps relax her. “I’m so sorry to barge like this on you guys.”

“Please, Fawkes,” Carter scoffs, “You aren’t a burden.”

“I just-“ She sighs, bringing the mug of tea closer to her, inhaling the scent. “I don’t want to stay at my place tonight.”

It’s not that she’s scared per say, more like she doesn’t know who else could just break in. Maybe the man with the weapons and muzzle and those piercing blue eyes will return. She mentally shakes her head. She can’t seem to get the man’s eyes out of her mind. They were the least dangerous thing about him.

“Is this…” Jeremy speaks up quietly, “about Isaac?”

Ophelia, about to take a sip from the tea, freezes. “What?”

“About his release?”

Fear clenches her heart, and she absolutely hates that her body still reacts like that. Slowly, she carefully lowers the mug, placing it on the coffee table. Her ribs throb at her side, bringing her hand up to holding them.

“What?” Her voice sounds breathless in her ears. “He-he’s out of jail?”

“This evening,” Carter answers cautiously, meeting his husband’s eyes briefly. “Jere saw him leaving the courthouse after work.”

Ophelia stares absently at the wall behind them. Her skin prickles hotly, her blood beginning to rush in her ears. She doesn’t understand how, why. The police filed it as domestic violence with a deadly weapon, as Ophelia defending herself from her crazy ex. They promised her she didn’t have to testify, and he would be processed and locked up for good. What a bunch of bullshit.

“Hey, honey, why don’t you sit down,” Carter gentle coaxes. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine,” Is her autopilot response. When she shakes herself back, she’s now on the couch. “Really, Carter. I’m fine, thank you. I just, was caught off guard. I-“

Ophelia pauses. They’re going to ask questions if it wasn’t Isaac she was running from, then who? Right. She can’t drag them into the events of what happened tonight.

“I didn’t want to believe it, but yes,” She lies smoothly, leaning forward to grab the mug once more. She takes a long drink, the tea still warm enough to slight sting her throat. “Um, you if you both don’t mind, I’m exhausted.”

“Oh course! How rude of us,” Jeremy chirps, slightly smacking Carter on the arm. “The guest room is ready for you. Sleep in as long as you’d like tomorrow.”

She nods as Jeremy hurries away, muttering about doubling checking the towels in the bathroom. Carter moves next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. It clicks then, that she never told him what happened a week ago. She winces at the realization that she didn’t hide it as well as she thought.

“How did you know?” Ophelia whispers, gripping the mug.

Carter exhales slowly. “Lipstick can’t hide a cut, sweetheart.”

Fantastic. Maybe her expertise of covering up those marks has gotten rusty. Isn’t that a fucked up thing to be annoyed by.

“Ophelia, get out of your head,” Her friend coaxes firmly. “He’s not going to hurt you anymore. We won’t let that happened. Didn’t you file a restraining order?”

“That doesn’t do anything to stop anyone, Carter,” She responds. She shakes her, considering his words. He’s right. She shouldn’t be in her head, and Isaac will not get near her. She hopes, bitterly.

Abruptly, Ophelia smiles at him. “But you’re right. He won’t get near me. Let’s just drop it.” She stands, taking one last sip of the tea, thankful of its calming effect. “I’m just going to sleep now.”

“Yeah,” Carter says with a frown, taking the mug when she hands it to him.

“Thank you again, Carter. I really appreciate this.”

Then she leans over to give him a brief hug. He returns the favor. She’s halfway to the hall when he stops her.

“Why did you call from a payphone?” He inquires curiously.

Ophelia can’t stop her spine from going rigid. Flashes of those blue eyes, vacant and curious, of the red staining the tub, of the knife shattering her phone, zing through her mind. She turns, nonchalantly waving her hand.

“Dropped it from the fire escape. Landed face down and shattered. Completely ruined,” She smile, as if it’s no big deal.

“Klutz,” Carter chuckles.

Ophelia nods, bids goodnight, then collects Binks to go into the guest room.

*

Sleeping in did not happen for Ophelia. In fact, sleeping didn’t really happen at all. She could barely close her eyes, and when she did, she didn’t see the knife or guns that mysterious man had. Instead, she saw the familiar fist of her ex, saw the rage in his eyes, the snarl on his lips.

The one time she did drift off, she dreamt of blood-stained fingers, gleaming metal, a plastic muzzle. In her dream, nightmare, she had been staring at herself in the mirror of her bathroom, that black muzzle over her own face. She tried to rip it off, screaming behind it to get it off. She had looked back at the mirror and standing behind her was the man with the blue eyes.

The color resembles more like frosted ice in her dream, as they stared back at her. Slowly, the expression in his eyes turned dark, before his metal arm shot out. Just as he was about to grab her neck, Ophelia woke with a start, sweating damping her hair.

She opted to turn on the TV instead, Binks snoozing with his paws up in the air next to her. She finds an old comedic movie, watching it until she drifts off to sleep once more towards the end.

March 19th, 2012 8:45am

When Ophelia wakes up, it’s with the groggy sense of her not sleeping well, despite the two hours she did get. She forces herself up, carful not to disturb her sleeping cat, and takes a shower. The hot water stings her skin, but she stares at the floor, wondering if she had rinsed all the blood off her own.

A delicious smell of varies breakfast foods greets her as she entered the kitchen. Bacon, French toast, eggs, fruits and muffins are all sitting on the table in the dining room. A full pot of coffee is already brewed, and there’s syrup, whipped cream and powdered sugar on the table as well.

“Christ,” Ophelia says as a greeting, “is this what you wake up to everyday, Hines? If so, I’m moving in.”

Carter bristles happily, unwrapping himself from Jeremy’s back as his husband continues to cook. He grabs the pot of coffee, filling up the three mugs set aside.

“Most days,” Carter beams. “He is a chef after all.”

“Gotta come here more often,” She mumbles, gratefully taking the mug he slides over. She takes a seat at the table. “Jeremy, you didn’t have to do this.”

“First of all, missy, I thought you were sleeping in,” He responds. “Second, the perfect was to distress is a hearty breakfast.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” She shrugs, spooning on eggs, bacon and toast onto her plate. “No, it wasn’t the bed. I just couldn’t seem to is all.”

She misses the shared look the men give each other. She bites into the French toast, moaning dramatically. “Jeremy, will you marry me?”

“Of course, darling.”

“Both of you get out,” Carter mockingly pouts. “Too early for this.”

For the next hour, Ophelia forgets why she’s there in the first place. The mysterious man with the captivating eyes, silenced behind a mask.

***********************************************

Previous  Chapter six: coming soon

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[tisfan]

Discover your Soul

Title: Discover your Soul Collaborator: @tisfan Link: AO3 Square Filled: I3 -- Character is a Soldier Ship: Tony/Bucky Rating: teen Major Tags: soulmate AU, red string AU, fix it fic, not Civil War compliant Summary: Magic exists. Ask anyone with a soul mate string and they’ll tell you.

Curses exist, too. Word Count: 2,220 Created for @mcukinkbingo

Before you find your soul mate, you must first discover your soul. – Charles F. Glassman

Magic exists.

Ask anyone with a soul mate string and they’ll tell you. Magic moved the world to give them their perfect match, their mate, the person for whom they will live and die, the person that completes them and fills them up with love.

Curses exist, too.

Ask Maria Stark, whose only son was brought in to the world, barely breathing. Anthony Edward Stark almost died in his first few minutes, choking and spluttering. He uttered one mournful wail, not a baby’s indignation of leaving the womb and entering the cold, cruel world, but an old soul’s dismay.

His string, bound to him as such things were, was broken.

Less than a foot below his hand, his string ended in a puff of broken threads.

And it was bleeding.

No one had ever seen such a thing before. On the rare, and tragic states of soulmates having died before they could meet, the string was still there, indicating the broken bond, but it was black and ashy. The remaining partner would wrap it around their finger as they aged and it would slowly shrivel up and die. In some cases, a new string formed later, as their mate was reborn in a younger body.

This one, Tony’s string, bleed. Constantly, at first.

The hospital kept the baby in the infant care ward for almost a month. The blood loss affected the baby; he was weak and small and didn’t cry.

Eventually, they let him go home with his parents.

The wound clotted, but it never closed, never scarred over. The string remained brilliant red, tracing the line from the heart directly out through his finger, just like it was supposed to. It didn’t always bleed, as he got older, but if he was sad, or upset, sometimes the cut would reopen and he’d find himself with blood on his jeans, or on his desk, or eventually in his workshop.

Tony never took very good care of his hands. What was the point? People always looked at him, looked down at that loose, dangling thread, and viewed him as some sort of pariah.

Someone, maybe, whose soulmate had rejected him, sight unseen? No one knew, and the speculation was wild and varied.

Hard to maintain friendships, when people wondered. Harder, when his father was ashamed of the bleeding string, and the fact that everyone knew about it.

Tony decided he didn’t care and he made friends with the robots he built from kits and from people he met on the internet, where no one knew about his famous father or his infamous bleeding soul string.

The first time he kissed a classmate, the string practically hemorrhaged, spraying the unfortunate crush with blood.

Tony didn’t get a lot of kisses, after that story spread around.

He changed schools constantly to get away from rumors and speculations.

It didn’t help.

(more below the cut)

The first person he met who didn’t care was an upperclassman, his first year at MIT, named James Rhodes.

Rhodes and Tony.

Who became Rhodey and Tones, swapping the last letters of their names in an affectionate gesture that warmed Tony profoundly. He’d never really known the affection of friends, so he cherished the one he’d made.

The string never bled when Rhodey was around, either.

“Maybe something’s just wrong with your mate,” Rhodey speculated, and his speculation wasn’t cruel or unkind, just curious. And in some manner, reassuring. “Maybe they’re sick, or they get hurt a lot. It ain’t like this sort of thing is well studied, or nothin’. It’s all about faith and fate, and those things don’t hold up under a microscope.”

Tony wondered what his string looked like under a microscope.

Nothing, as it turned out. The string didn’t exist in the same time/space as things like photography and microanalysis, and Tony ended up getting a second master’s thesis out of speculative fate physics, while he was putting in the effort for mechanical engineering anyway.

Tony combined the two projects for his first doctorate, theoretical fate physics, and actually invented an entirely new manner of photogenesis that captured the essences of fate strings. Just after his nineteenth birthday, Tony made the front cover of Time magazine for the first verifiable picture of a fate string.

He looked, he decided, like a baby in the picture and he started frantically cultivating a beard.

Beards were wise, right? Inscrutable. Certainly not an object of pity.

Also, hot. Beards were hot.

Later, much, much later, Tony will remember the only time his fate string didn’t hurt. It wasn’t a bad pain so much as just a constant ache. If he wasn’t paying attention, he’d find himself rubbing at his finger, massaging the joint. He stopped doing that after he developed a flesh colored band to hide the string and control the bleeding.

Mostly.

And then, not quite a week before Christmas, his hand stopped hurting.

He didn’t know what to do with that information. It had never not ached before. Sometimes he could ignore it, but whenever he was paying attention, the pain was right there.

And suddenly it wasn’t.

He ripped the band off to study the pathetic length of psychic ribbon. It was throbbing; the end curling like a snake. Twitching.

The end swelled, like it was filling with blood, and then dropped, added another ten, twelve, inches to the length, until it was resting on the ground, straining.

What the hell?

He watched it, fascinated. Petted the string, poked at it. Took a photograph with his special camera.

Four hours later, the police came to tell him his parents were dead.

Six hours after that, the string bled feverishly, a stomach-turning spray of arterial blood. Tony cleaned it up, wrapped his finger. Pretended it hadn’t happened.

What the hell was a mate supposed to do for him now, anyway?

Coincidence, he told himself with a shiver.

Mourning, terrified, alone, he deleted the picture.

The Soldier sat in the chair.

He didn’t struggle. He never struggled anymore.

The string was wrapped around his wrist, several times. It had leaked out of the metal arm shortly after the Soldier had been awakened from cryo.

He didn’t try to hide it. He never tried to hide things anymore.

“Good job, soldier,” his handler said.

The soldier didn’t answer, he just waited.

“Keep him up a few weeks, I want him around for the testing.”

“You got it, sir,” one of the techs said.

“And cauterize that thing, before it bleeds everywhere.”

There was pain, when they burned the string. There was always pain. But the Soldier didn’t care about that.

Tony’s string started growing again, in the year after the Fall of SHIELD.

He couldn’t figure out why.

His own ground breaking research aside, no one still really studied the fate threads, or soul mates, or the properties therin. He was, his critics said sometimes, killing the magic.

“Magic that can’t withstand a little examination might deserve to be killed,” he snarled in response to that.

It still didn’t lead to another person, trailing along behind him for several yards like a sad kite. Useless, and he was tripping over it. There was, however, too much on Iron Man’s docket for him to actually get really into detail with his soul string. He wrapped it tightly around his wrist and ignored it as best he could.

First, arrangements had to be made for world security. Without SHIELD, without Nick Fury, there was a lot of burdens falling around, uncaught.

Then there was Ultron.

And Sokovia.

And…

The string kept growing. Twined around Tony’s wrist, up to his elbow, he ended up bundling it around his chest just to keep it out of the way.

Why was it so damn disorderly, too? Other people’s strings sort of melted away into some ethereal plane when they weren’t directly connected to the soulmate. They didn’t tumble all over the floor like a sulky yo-yo.

In fact, most people’s strings were well nigh invisible unless the person was within grabbing distance of their mates. Or, at least, from an outsider’s appearance. For each individual, they could see their string, winding off into the distance, in the direction of their other half.

Nice thought, Tony snorted, tucking an extra bit of loop into his pocket.

Secretary Ross was breathing down Tony’s neck and while he was beginning to wonder if he could, actually, strangle the man to death it it, he decided not to risk it. Not today.

“Of course you can quote me,” Tony raged into the phone. “I’m saying it, aren’t I? There will be consequences.”

God damn it, Steve.

That had been a refrain for a while now, and Tony was tired of it.

Having to send out his best friend to arrest his old man’s best friend? Officially, Tony didn’t have anything like that sort of authority, which is why Rhodey was doing it. And because Tony really, really didn’t want to arrest Steve. Things were going to shit without it.

There was something oddly compelling about the video feed.

Cap’s old friend, Barnes, having done a stint in the Russian military, or whatever. Gorgeous, sulky, long tangled hair and unshaven face, he stared up at the hidden camera like he knew it was there.

“This is what I was saying about making it worse, Steve,” Nat was complaining to Cap as they were being processed.

“At least he’s alive,” Steve said, staring back at his old friend. “What’s going to happen to him now?”

“We’ll get him help, of course,” Tony said, because that was only fair. “He’s… uh. He’s bleeding.”

There was a wet, smacking sound from under Tony’s clothing, like he’d stepped on a ziplock bag and blown the seal.

A rush of heat and wet seeped down his side.

Son of a bitch, so am I.

Tony bunched his fist up, as if he could stop his fate string from bleeding from sheer force of will. Why now, he wondered. Totally, epically bad timing.

The string was squirming, writhing, wriggling against him like it was trying to get away.

Barnes’ gaze went from the camera, over to where he couldn’t possibly see Tony trying to tip his body away so that no one noticed the wet spot on his pants, or the way blood was gushing into his shoe.

Fuck. I need to get out of here.

“I need to get out of here,” Barnes echoed, his voice a dark tremor against the air. Tony whirled, took a few steps, heedless of the bloody footprint he was leaving behind.

Look at him, trapped like an animal, Tony thought, his chest squeezing in sudden sympathy. Barnes wasn’t struggling with the restraints, but he was leaning in Tony’s direction, like steel drawn to a powerful magnet.

“Trapped, like an animal,” Barnes agreed.

Can you hear me?

There was blood pooling at the base of the restraint room, brilliant and red. Someone should die from that much blood loss.

“I hear you.”

Holy fuck.

“Stark, what are you doing--”

Tony took another few steps, then another, and his string unraveled from his belly, slithered out from under the hem of his shirt.

Touched that pool of blood under Barnes.

The world exploded in light.

The Soldier was on guard.

No one had told him that, no one had given him orders. They didn’t need to. He knew it, bone deep, blood deep.

The puddle had turned into coils and coils of string, tangling between him and the man. From the line in his heart, through the artificial arm, down his wires and servos, out the finger, and into knots and tangles, draped all over him, and then reaching for… Tony.

He’d broken out of the holding cell; nothing like that could contain him for long unless he wanted to be contained. Tony, Tony, Tony. Tony was clinging to him, sobbing with broken-hearted relief.

The Soldier knew something about that, too.

“What’s going to happen now?”

That was Steve. The Soldier knew him. A little.

Not like he knew the sobbing man in his arms. That song, he’d been denied well and too long.

Tony wiped his face, presenting his red rimmed eyes unashamed.

“I expect I’m going to be writing a new paper of fate strings physics,” Tony said.

“I meant, to Bucky.”

The Soldier bared his teeth at that name; Bucky came with knives and poisons. That name was pain. It wasn’t… safe to say.

Bucky? Tony’s voice was in his head.

It was. Who he was.

“We’ll figure it out, Cap,” Tony said. “By the book.”

“I don’t think you’re gonna like that book, Tony,” Steve said.

“Well, I’ve rewritten the book before,” Tony said. “With less solid information to go on. So… sit back, and watch me work. Don’t worry. I’ll…”

Tony stared at Bucky, his entire heart in his eyes. “I’ll take care of him.”

“And what about you?”

Bucky didn’t have to say anything. He pulled Tony closer and glared. Unarmed, held at gunpoint, the Soldier radiated threat and everyone took a hesitant step back. Message received.

“I think we got it, snowflake,” Tony said. “You can just… relax now. We’re going to fix this mess.”

“I know.”

[andinewton]

Second Chances - Avengers Redemption Series - Part One - Chapter 42

Characters:  Loki, Maia Tomson (OFC), Sigyn, pretty much everyone from the MCU appears at some point, including some special appearances by members of the X-Men!

Pairings: Loki x Maia Tomson, Loki x Sigyn,

Warnings:  Smut, so much smut, violence, swearing; listen, it’s NSFW and 18+, just bear that in mind!

Word Count: 179105

Summary: Loki has been handed over to The Avengers to pay penance for his past crimes, underpowered and underwhelmed by his post he is assigned a new ‘guide to Midgard’ by his superiors and is more than a little surprised when a petite freckled, redhead is waiting in the conference room, not at all like the previous handlers he has been assigned, who quit after a very short time with the snarky god. Maia Tomson is a trained literature teacher and counsellor, maybe not someone you would have picked out to be a guide to the God of Mischief but her mentor, Charles Xavier, knows she likes a challenge, and when The Avengers ask him to recommend someone she is top of his list. Surprised by the assignment, Maia takes it on, promising to do her best, but was not counting on a mutual attraction with her charge.

Join Loki on a journey to discover that his heart is not as frozen as he believes it to be, an adventure spanning almost a millennia of love gained and lost and rediscovered in the most unlikely of places…

Master List

I’m just enjoying sharing Tom gifs at this point, if I can’t find one to match!

Chapter 42

Summary:  Loki has a solution to one of their problems.

'Your power is increasing, we will have to work on your control.' Loki said as he brought Maia a hot chocolate on the couch. He had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and removed her shoes, her hands and feet still painfully cold. She felt drained, emotionally and physically, and he was right; she had felt out of control and she had seen enough kids overwhelmed by their powers to know it could be a problem. 'That would be good.' She said quietly as he sat beside her. 'Maybe Charles can offer some advice.' 'Perhaps, but as it is sorcery it may not respond as a mutation does.' She nodded. 'I remember how I used to do it, how it felt as Sigyn, but it's different.' 'Can you describe how it differs?'

She thought for a moment. 'The sorcery, the tricks, that was like a hum I could feel, just waiting for me to instruct it. My power on its own before, I had it locked down in a mental box, but it always pushed, trying to make me lose the control over it, and when I did free it, it was like an explosion. Now I feel like I'm stuck somewhere in between. I can feel the power humming but I don't know how to connect to it, and it knows how to unlock the box instead of me. It, it's going to sound weird.' 'We all need weird sometimes, beloved.' He pressed the back of his fingers to her nose and she knew he was seeing if she was warming any. It was still chill to the touch. She sighed. 'It's like the sorcery can control it and it's using my emotions as a guide.' 'That is less weird than you would imagine. Drink up, sweet, you are still like ice.' He wrapped his arm around her, rubbing her to help her warm up. 'If you hold Asgardian sorcery yet you are, genetically speaking, a human, it may be a conflict between the two. I believe we should, for now, think less on your mutation and more on the inability of your body to understand what it needs to when utilising sorcery. It is no wonder you cannot make sense of it, if your mind cannot fathom what it contains.' 'How do we get it to understand?' 'Practice, dear heart.' He kissed her temple. 'You have something of an advantage that you have the memory of when you were my fair Sigyn to call upon to aid you. We can use that.' 'You always make things sound so easy.' 'You always worried too much.' 'I worried the perfect amount for the wife of the God of Mischief.' 'And you will again, no doubt.' She stared into her mug for a moment, needing to say something that was a little off topic but she felt the need to get it off her chest. 'Loki, what are we doing?' 'I'm trying to warm you, love.' She turned and looked at him. 'Apart from that. I mean, is this something you want? I know who I am and who I was,' she put her mug on the table, 'and being together again, it means the world to me, because you do, but I'm human and you're virtually immortal. If it will save you hurting again in the long run I don't hold you to anything. I don't hold you to our vows.' Loki watched and listened as she gave him the opportunity to step away, to stop him from losing her again, even though that was exactly what she was offering. His Sigyn, his Maia, she was always so selfless. 'Beloved, worry not. I would trade nothing in these nine realms for what we have. I would burn worlds for just one more day, one more hour with you. You have made me realise there may be hope for me, that my frozen heart can love and be loved, and that happiness, my happiness, lays within my grasp once more. The way you rekindle emotions I thought long dead with the simplest of gestures astounds me, and I would have you as my wife in a million lifetimes.' Maia swallowed the lump in her throat at the raw affection in his words. 'A simple "No, you're stuck with me." would have done.' She said quietly. 'But it would not have raised the colour to your cheek, or the softness to your gaze.' He stroked her skin with his knuckles. 'I would wed you again, with your permission, and make the life we lost, to have all the things we missed the opportunity for.' 'Like children?' She asked, knowing he had already mentioned the possibility. 'To see you swollen with our child would fulfil the final desire I hold.' He kissed her. 'But I shall rush you neither to marriage or a family. You have had many changes in the last week, a new life to adjust to, but I do have one request.' 'What?' 'Stay with me. Think not on returning to Xavier's, your place is beside me, as mine is beside you. If not on the team, if not as my guide, then as my wife.' She leant in and kissed him. She knew she didn't want to leave him, and she had wanted a new challenge, she just got more than she bargained for. 'Yes.' 'Yes?' He checked. 'Yes, I'll marry you again. Yes, I'll stay with you.' Relief flooded him and he pulled her to him for a slow, deep kiss, and when they parted he left next to no space between them. 'Precious girl, you have made me the happiest man in all the nine realms. And worry not for your mortality. I have a plan.' 'That isn't always a good thing. I remember some of your simple plans going very awry, let alone the tricky ones.' 'This is virtually foolproof.' 'It's the virtually part that worries me. What are you going to do?' 'I will send word to Idunn.' 'The Golden Apples?' Maia leaned back in surprise. 'Odin won't agree to giving an apple to a mortal and you know it.' 'This doesn't concern the Allfather. Idunn owes me a debt and for you I shall claim it.' Maia, or rather Sigyn, remembered Idunn, the Goddess of Mortality. Her orchard housed the tree that grew the Golden Apples that granted Asgardians their vigour, youth and near immortality, and only Idunn could pick them. The daughter of Freya she was tall, beautiful and skilled with many weapons, taking her job of tending the tree very seriously. 'You've really thought this through.' 'I shan't lose you again, my heart, no more missions without me by your side.' He raised her hands and peppered kisses over her knuckles. Maia smiled softly, thinking of the supposedly straightforward mission she had been on as Sigyn. The ambush that had gone catastrophically wrong. 'I don't think I'd be trusted with another mission, after the last one.' 'Good. You are still cold, sweet. Finish your chocolate and I shall set up a movie. You deserve to relax, until we must dress for our date.' 'You're changing the subject.' She said as he got up and collected the multi remote. 'Am I?' He smiled at her with exaggerated innocence in his eyes. 'You are. How will you get word to Idunn, first off?' 'I shall ask Thor.' 'He'll get sick of being your messenger boy.' 'Then I shall suggest it coincide with one of his return visits. He supports us, dove, he always has.' Maia nodded. Thor had noticed his brother's feelings for Sigyn had changed almost before Loki did, and had encouraged them together, arranging for the three of them to socialise then backing out with some excuse, or simply arriving so late it was not worth him being there. 'Okay, we know Thor will do it. What about how Idunn owes you? What exactly did you do for her?' She narrowed her eyes at him. 'Such scepticism, petal. Do I taste jealousy in the air?' 'More suspicion than jealousy. I remember only too well what some would ask for in return of a favour at a later date.' She shuddered as she remembered some of the offers she had had from various court members. It was clandestine and underhanded and while some were easy to fulfil, some ran into the personal and perverted. 'My sweet, Maia, worried for my virtue.' He smiled as he turned on the TV. 'You haven't been virtuous for a long time.' She side eyed him before picking her cup up again. 'Not in most respects, but my dignity remains intact however, where Idunn is concerned. Some time back storm giants stole her supply of apples. Thor and I retrieved them.' 'Okay, that's not so bad.' 'You and your rampant imagination.' He chuckled. 'You always liked that.' 'And I cannot wait to see what else you can come up with, but for now you need to rest before tonight, and I would like to see what Mr McFly got up to in the future.' They settled in and after a very short while Maia moved to lay with her head in Loki's lap, the blanket spread over her. Loki played with her hair, watching her eyes grow heavier instead of the movie, until she drifted off into a light doze. He was content, perhaps for the first time in years, and it was all because fate had returned her to him.

Chapter 43

[geminioriginalsimagines]

Sweet Dreams (Chapter One)

He sat cradled by two loving arms, his head on her chest listening to the soft thrum of her heartbeat. The first woman he’d ever loved. She sang a soft, gentle song. He never knew of the meaning but it was their song. The one she’d sing to him when he was feeling discouraged. His hands wrapped tight under his body as his mother patted his back and soothed him with her soft voice.

She bathed him in love and the song went in time with her heartbeat. The one he’d connected to in the womb with his sister. There was something about sleeping on his mother’s chest that calmed him and put him right to sleep. It was there he’d like to stay for the rest of his life.

After sitting, there was defeaning silence. His mother still rocked back and forth, but there was no heartbeat, no singing. No song to keep him anchored. Something was wrong. The six year old looked around with panic filling his large blue eyes. His mother never noticed him. She kept mouthing words which he guess was the song that he couldn’t hear anymore.

His small hands started to vibrate and there was a noise. A sweet noise he was glad to hear. Until he realized it was somebody bad. Somebody angry with him. “Where is the little shit?” A deep voice called. It was distant, a voice who hadn’t talked to him lovingly since he was born. “Well?” But there was no physical body to match the voice.

Kai felt relief when he couldn’t hear the man anymore. The man that was supposed to be his father. Until he was lifted, taken from his mother. He was suffocating, choking and grasping at his neck where his father held him by the front of the shirt with angry fists. The collar of his little shirt dug unforgivingly into his throat. “D-Dad? I c-can’t-” He couldn’t hear anything anymore. All he could hear now was his breathing fading, he was flatlining. He could hear his blood rushing to his ears.

“Get off of me! Don’t touch me!” It was dark. “Help me!” Tears streaked his cheeks. “Get off of me!” He wailed. Hands pulled him back, back to earth. Back to his Hell on earth. Except these hands were gentle, they were loving. They reminded him of his mother’s hands. The ones he hadn’t felt in so long. So everything was okay for a while. There was a soft voice in his ear, but the voice was disconnected. He couldn’t see them.

Something was cold. It was a shock to his already hot system. “You’re okay.” The voice repeated. The wonderful voice that pulled him right out of his hell everytime he was pushed back in. “You’re okay.” Kai thought maybe it was an angel. He didn’t deserve an angel. But the angel kept repeating itself. “You’re okay.”

His body jolted upright except this time he was conscious and in control. Those hands were pulling him in again and he gave up, letting the pull him back to her chest. “B-Britt-” Her hands were all over his shoulders with a damp cloth on his forehead. She told him to ‘shhh’ and she just ran her fingers through his hair and rested her chin on top of his head.

Britt found herself the next morning with sleep in her eyes and a robe wrapped around her frame. She hadn’t slept at all, she was always too concerned about Kai. Ever since he got out of Hell…something stuck with him. He had dreams, nightmares, terrors. Whatever they were they stuck with him and Britt could always hear him in the next room over. So she’d rescue him from the terrible dreams.

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t have a slight crush on the Heretic. But her brother Matt forbid it. He’d debunked her reasons why very quickly. “No way, Britt. We lost Vick, Mom…I-I can’t lose you to him. We’ve already lost so much because of him. Do me a solid, stay away from him. Okay?” She remembered she promised but…her reasons were good. He needed help, the Heretic himself needed help.

“Good morning, Britt.” The girl was unaware of another presence behind her. She was startled and jumped about a foot off of the ground and then turned to meet her brother. He was ready for the day as the sheriff. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Look I’ve gotta run. Kai’s sleeping. If anyone comes looking for him don’t give him up okay? Remember what I said though, you can’t trust him as far as you can throw him. So just keep him at a distance, he’s unstable right now.” Britt listened to Matt drone on and on with a lecture but she wasn’t even thinking.

Her mind brought her back to the issue at hand. Or…her issue at hand. The one where Kai kept her up at night and she never got any sleep because she was holding a twenty something year old in her arms. “Yeah yeah.” Was all she replied with. Matt kissed her forehead and patted her shoulder. She turned to watch him grab his keys and leave. “Bye.” She whispered to herself when the door clicked behind him.

Now back to making breakfast. Or sleeping on the sofa. Sleep sounded good. Her legs carried her to the sofa where she curled up and rested her head against the arm and closed her eyes. Britt didn’t realize she had been asleep for so long until something was poking her. Something made of wood? At first she swatted at it, but the poking continued. Britt rubbed her eyes and looked at her shoulder where the poking resided. A meter stick?

She traced the tool all the way up to the handler. Kai stopped poking her. “I thought you were dead or something. The least you could do is snore.” There was a moment of silence until Britt ignored him and tried to sleep again. So the poking continued. “Hey kid. Listen to me. You fell asleep at like eight and now its past noon.”

“So?” Britt swatted at the tool again. Boy was she having enough of this. “Get that thing off of me, Kai. Leave me alone. I’d like to sleep my whole life away.”

“People in Hell want ice water too…wait. I made a reference. You like it?” He laughed, open mouthed, showing teeth. Smiling so wide his eyes closed. Britt only rolled her eyes and sat up. There was no way he was going to leave her alone. “I can confirm. I’m guilty of begging Cade for a nice glass of ice water.” He whistled, long and drawn out. “Boy was it hot down there, baby.”

Britt propped her arm up against the arm of the sofa and listened in and out of the conversation. “What do you want to do today? I’m free. I don’t have a master plan.” Kai noticed Britt was completely exhausted. This was unlike her. So out of curiousity, he reached in to poke her with the meter stick but she quickly swatted it before he could touch her with it. “Look you guys got me out of hell and I’d like to just go out.”

“Or you can just sit here and relax?” Kai didn’t like her tone. “Why don’t you redeem yourself. Beg Damon to forgive you? Say you’re sorry to the rest of my friends and that includes my brother.” She suggested. But Kai didn’t understand redemption.

“The deed is done Sweetheart.” Was all he replied with and started swinging the stick back and forth. “Come out with me.”

Britt refused which made a certain fire inside of Kai light up. He always got his way, but she was something else. And she really did confuse him with feelings, was he angry or did he want to laugh? “Go out with me.” He said behind gritted teeth and fisted the stick in his hand, the wood was nothing compared to him and cracked in half. Kai realized what he did and looked down at his hand where he had inflicted splinters on himself.

She was the first one to make a move. “Are you okay?” Panic filled her voice and her eyes. “Come with me. Let me take care of it. You’re not healing and you’re bleeding.” Kai’s feet carried him to the dining table where Britt pushed him down by the shoulders and lay his hand on its backside against the table. “Keep it there. Let me clean it.”

Kai swallowed the lump in his throat. When she touched his hand it took everything in him not to dig his teeth into her throat. Or was that what he really wanted to do? Maybe her caring for him reminded him a lot like his mother. He tried to look anywhere else but the girl cleaning his hand. “I’m finished.” Britt wiped her hands. Kai held his hand up, it looked good as new. No marks, no blood. “In this house, you’re not always going to get what you want, Kai. I don’t do what a man tells me to do. And if you want me to do what you tell me to, then breaking my brother’s meter stick is not the way to go. This is what I meant, redeeming yourself. Try to be decent for a little while.”

She left him after the mini lecture. Kai thought he did nothing wrong. If she had just gotten ready to go out like he wanted, he wouldn’t be in this confusing whirlwind of emotions.

Britt cursed her crush on Kai. He’d gotten her up and out of the house like he wanted. She was pretty sure he didn’t care where they went so they walked through the town at their own pace. Britt watched Kai’s nostrils flare and take in the sweet scent of Mystic Falls. “Enjoying nature?”

“No I’m looking to siphon something.” Of course he was. That made Britt’s smile drop. Kai was never going to change the way he was. Making him not so good boyfriend material. That was the problem with her crush. She knew he’d crush her heart if he got the chance. Matt was right about Kai, she couldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. “i should probably mention that I’m on a mission while I’m here.” He purposely walked into her to throw her off track.

After collecting herself from her stumble, she peered up at him. “Oh yeah? And what is that?”

“Well you mentioned redeeming myself. I guess I’m willing to try.” He was lying. “Ooo you didn’t feed into that at all did you? I’m kidding. It wasn’t funny was it?” Britt just clamped her mouth shut and shook her head. “Wanna watch me feed?” He suggested after a moment of silence. It was random and disturbing.

“No!” Britt pushed herself away from him and was speed walking toward The Grill. Kai was trying to keep up with her. “You’re disgusting.”

“Your point is?” He finally reached her and grabbed her arm. She whipped around to meet him, coming eye level with his blue eyes when he ducked slightly. They were so close, their noses almost touching. Britt couldn’t help but stare at his lips and then back up to his eyes. His laugh caught her off guard. “Oh boy, did you want me to kiss you or something?”

He was teasing her and he was out of her face real fast. “N-no.” Britt weakly defended herself and covered her torso with her arms. Her insecurity was showing. “Just let me eat with my friends in peace.”

“Wait, Britt-” Kai’s mouth formed a line when Britt swung the door open and left him standing on the sidewalk alone. He ducked his head, there was a weight dragging him down. Something internal. He was pretty sure he was sick. He moved his gaze to the right slightly and looked through the clear windows of The Grill. Britt took her coat off and swung it over the back of the chair she was sitting in. A waitress collected her order and she sat inside, all alone.

She lied to him. Britt wasn’t meeting friends there to eat. She needed an excuse to get away from him. The feeling dragged him down further and it was almost as bad as the arms pulling him back through Hell in his sleep. he couldn’t move but his heels burned to meet her inside. Britt was his only company and she was all he had, he had to appreciate it more. But what did he do? He creeped through the window and watched her wait for her food, looking awkard because she was alone.

Somebody was behind him. But it wasn’t a threat. They weren’t a threat. Not to him, at least yet. “Who gave you permission to babysit little Donovan?” Kai knew it was Damon. “I suggest you stop creeping and get to work on my girlfriend.”

“For the last time Damon, I won’t get to work on Elena. That’s disgusting-” Kai was pretty sure his jaw was dislocated. Damon had punched him so hard he stumbled back into the window a bit. “Wow, you’re angry. Does someone need a hug?” Kai was disoriented but still managed to mock pout Damon.

“The clock is ticking, Parker. I’m getting what I want and when I do I’m sending you back to Cade.” The elder threatened.

“Mmmm, no wonder why Elena loved you. You have such a way with words. Girls like her love a man who tells her what to do huh?” Kai taunted. Damon growled and curled his fist, ready to swing again. But Kai thought of Britt. How not even he could get her to do something for him. “Oh wow that hurt your feelings. But I must warn you, I feed off of that. And its delicious knowing you live with that pain, Damon Salvatore.” They were face to face, eye to eye. Almost touching noses.

Damon scowled and backed away, leaving Kai to wipe his own blood off of his jaw. He had to admit, the vampire got him pretty good. He’d better wipe it up quickly because if Britt saw him, he’d have to deal with her cleaning him again. Kai took another look across the street where Damon was heading toward the center of town and took a deep breath. One day…one day they’d go head to head.

[harrisxbby-blog]

ненормальный

It didn’t really hit him until the laptop closed that what he’d thought was an easy out for Justin was actually very true. Panic lurked just behind every heartbeat, his body had tensed for a fight his conscious mind didn’t know they were about to happen on, and his breaths came short and fast. There were words going on around him, but they were impossible to make out through the rushing in his ears. He knew where he was and what was happening — he was safe, on a couch, those touches were coming from Justin, his voice and Casey’s were dancing above his head somewhere, they were in Paris. Things were fine.

But the itchy restless desperation wasn’t letting up.

His skin was beginning to crawl and he had the endlessly frustrating urge to be alone fighting with the urge to never let go of Justin ever again. A few key words pierced through the fog descending on his brain (leave, groceries, wanna come), forcing his gaze to snap up to Casey’s before switching to Justin’s. There he found himself pausing, because everything in him was screaming that he didn’t want to go but he knew his fiancee. Justin needed a physical task to keep his mind busy. He couldn’t sit still long enough to read, or be soothed by a long playlist, and Harris knew without a doubt that if he so much as hesitated that Justin wouldn’t go.

So he resisted the call of his body demanding retreat, even held out against the impulse to curl in defensively on himself, and just stretched up to press a kiss on Justin’s cheek and get close enough to talk without feeling overheard or judged by Casey.

“I can’t go right now. But you go with Casey. You need to go as much as I need to stay and that’s okay. We both deal differently and I’ll be safe right here waiting for you to come back, yeah? You won’t be gone long. I won’t even have time to miss ya.”

Dropping his head onto Justin’s shoulder, he cuddled close for a few moments, but made it clear that if Justin didn’t willingly walk out the door, he’d do his best to push him out. Things had been strained between Justin and Casey and granted Harris’ probable irrational distrust of Casey wasn’t doing them any favors, but if this year had taught him anything �� it was that being alone was the worst feeling in the world.

Every human needed connections, needed friends, needed family — and Justin was no exception to that.

Neither was Casey.

So he’d push and quell the shaking, ignore his brain, smile and tease and pass every one of Justin’s are you sure I can leave you alone mini-tests to give them both that.

Eventually, Justin agreed and after a bit more teeth-pulling over a grocery list and a few concerned glances passed around over his continuing disinterest in all things edible, the boys went on their way. Harris followed them out via the patio, lingering outside just long enough to blow a kiss and wave before retreating inside before they were even fully out of sight.

Trying to avoid notice and eye contact, he silently made his way back to their room, curling up on the made bed with his hood up and earbuds in. It was only in moments like this - alone and protected by his favorite comforts that he would let himself feel. Raw and uncensored.

To his own surprise, it wasn’t the basement that bubbled up, nor the horror that follows finding yourself an actual killer, not even grief — not today.

It seemed talking about friends and old times had made him nostalgic.

Today was about his mother.

Dimly, he’d come to the realization that this was the longest he’d gone ever not talking to her and it didn’t feel right. No matter how many times his brain tried to tell him he was a fool, she was no mother, his heart still cried out for her.

For so long, she’d been his candle in the dark. Ellie’d been his world, but she didn’t know. She didn’t know the parts of Harris that’d grown broken and dark under an impossible-to-beat hatred. She’d never sat on a wordless phone call, exchanging nothing but choked breaths and coughed swallows in a shared bout of grief. She’d never known the pure joy of a perfectly done routine done only for the joy of dancing.

So much of who he was had been Noémi’s influence. She picked him up, brushed him off, encouraged him to keep his head up, to keep being who he was, who was the only gentle touch he’d known… he could have been a bully. Or worse festered with more anger than he’d known what to do with and become an arsonist or worse.

But she instilled compassion, empathy, sensitivity in him and he’d never resented those parts of himself.

How could he now?

He could almost feel more than hear footsteps coming his way and wanted to roll his back to the door to hide the evidence of water on his cheeks, but he couldn’t make himself. Not yet. What if it wasn’t who he thought it was? What if they grabbed him?

So he just stayed put, giving his current handler a moment to make his assessment, but when they didn’t immediately turn and walk away, he glanced up. It’d been pretty blatantly obvious even to him that he was being monitored and not only in Justin’s absence. And to be fair, he couldn’t blame them. His mind was a minefield, his childhood questionable, and his coping strategies non-existent; he was quite literally the walking definition of ‘a danger to himself’. His only issue was constantly asking himself why did no one else see that Justin could use the same monitoring?

That’s mostly why he agreed on Liz flying out here.

There may be hope in the distant future for a mending or at least a peace between Dairen and Justin but it was not now. Justin’d not take kindly to the same kind of dynamic that had Harris allowing Dairen to see the most vulnerable parts of himself.

Not yet.

But he was just as troubled as Harris was — it just manifested in different ways. The nightmares, the violent outbursts, the hot and cold he ran with Casey and even his family.

He was just as much a danger to himself as Harris was. Only Harris had no idea how to help him. Not when Justin’s mind was wired not only differently but almost entirely opposite of his own and especially not when his own was so compromised.

But for now he just gave the man in the door a faint smile hoping to signal that he wasn’t ready for any kind of interaction just yet and looked away. His body remained alert, not completely trusting that he wouldn’t attempt to rush in or try to grab him or something else equally as irrationally, but after a moment, the footsteps turned and faded.

There’d probably be coffee the next time. A tissue. An awkward shoulder pat or two and despite his current low, the thought did tug a small genuine feeling of something warm in his chest.

He was still cared for.

Though…was that part of her plan?

Nausea made him bolt upright on the bed, thoughts beginning to race, unable to resist connecting a newly seen pattern.

She’d never left Piers. She’d never admitted his crimes. Not to any concerned parent, neighbor, teacher — but then she flies to Hawaii. She meets Dairen. She meets a man who puts Harris’ best interests in front of peace, money, … all of it. A man who offered --insisted -- to keep him protected despite his father’s wishes.

Then she buckled.

She sealed Harris’ trust and hope with that man.

His mind was a mess of rage, of helplessness, of that sickening guilty feeling after you realize you’ve been played, of disbelief, denial.

This was the one thing he’d been holding on to.

Had it been part of her plan all along?

Shoving off the bed, he started to pace, trying to keep time with his dueling thoughts. Each time he found support, he tried to pick it apart, only to fail again and again.

Time passed. He lost track.

But eventually he boiled over and recklessly charge out of the bedroom, on a mission, checking the bedrooms, the kitchen, the living room, before opening the patio door and meeting Dairen’s gaze head on.

“Where is she.” he demanded. Or at least, as much as one could ‘demand’ when your body was battling rage, grief, exhaustion, and a shit-ton of crying. Belatedly he realized that was entirely vague and needed clarification. “My mom. Where is she? I need to talk to her. I need…I need answers. I can’t trust the answers but if I have them then at least I can make the choice then whether or not to believe it, but I can’t —my head. It’s driving me more insane and none of us can afford that so just please. Can I write a letter? Talk on the phone? Bloody Skype. I don’t care. I just…I need to know.”

Feeling embarrassingly young and heartbroken, he deflated a little, wrapping his arms around himself and falling a step or two back. “I need to know what was real. If there’s fucking anything…like did she chose you? Was this all part of her grand design? I’m like a mouse who doesn’t know he’s in a maze despite the amount of times he’s run into a fucking wall. Jesus.”

It was all so clear now. Dairen sure was head of the agency, a real tough guy, a real useful guy — who also had a giant fucking void from the son he failed and a desperate need for redemption.

Harris had a giant fucking void from the father he never had and desperately needed to be saved.

What a fucking match made in heaven weren’t they?

How could he have been such an idiot?

He was so fucking weak. Pathetic. Stupid.

Piers, Marty -- they’d been right all along. They’d seen him for the mouse he was and taunted him. He’d been so fucking naive. 

“It all...she...what do you do? What would you do? If you were here, right now, standing in my shoes. It’s all lies and deceit and betrayals and not real and I ... I am not okay. Please, don’t call Justin. Don’t tell him. I’ll be fine. I won’t -- I won’t do anything. I won’t worry him more. But it’s all - I’m all - forget it. Sorry. Stupid, it’s stupid. I’m - I’m sorry. Forget it. Dumb stupid naive...I don’t learn. Talking to her won’t fix any of this. Just gives her another chance to say what I want to hear and I’ll buy it ‘cause I’m desperate for .... fuck.”

He just wanted his Mom back. And she knew it.

“Now’d be a good time for Vlad to go childproof or mental-patient-proof anywhere I’d have access to.” he said dully, backing up until he hit the glass off the door and wedging himself between it and the wall as he folded down to his knees. “Just let me know when I can go lay down again.” 

[trilotechcorp]

New Post has been published on PBA-Live

New Post has been published on http://pba-live.com/4x4-smbs-chase-for-perpetual-trophy-or-ginebras-shot-at-history/

4×4: SMB’s chase for Perpetual Trophy or Ginebra’s shot at history?

On one hand, there’s the defending champion San Miguel Beermen seeking a third straight All Filipino crown to cement their legacy with the Perpetual Trophy. At the other end are the Brgy. Ginebra Kings who defied tremendous odds, surviving four do-or-die games to reach the Finals for the second straight conference and bidding to become the lowest seed to win a championship.

Someone’s gotta give and our four PBA panelists will help us break down this series with four burning questions that could somehow paint us a picture on what’s about to go down.

1. Should Tim Cone continue to gamble with JDV especially with SMB parading a healthy JMF?

Jason Mercene (FOX Sports PBA beat reporter): I think there’s room to sit out JDV for the first couple of games. Hearing how head coach Tim Cone and JDV himself described how painful he took those anesthetic shots (cue horror: long needles) pre-game and during halftime in the Star series just to play could pose a serious threat on his career in the long run. Yes, undermanned could be an understatement for Ginebra down low with three-time MVP JMF bringing in damage for San Miguel but you can’t just gamble the future of a versatile (and great) guy like JDV, who’s a certified championship piece (exhibit A: 7 titles) for head coach Tim Cone for years. Ginebra can just hope bringing JDV in for Game 3, in what many predicted to be a full seven-game series, would spark the turning point of their title bid.

Enzo Flojo (hoopnut blog): Hardly any choice for coach Tim. He will really need someone to match up with JMF in terms of sheer size, and outside of Japeth Aguilar, JDV is the only healthy guy on his roster remotely approximating the Kraken’s height and girth. It would have certainly been quite challenging to contain the reigning MVP had Greg Slaughter been healthy, but even more so now that Ginebra will rely mainly on any combination of Japeth, JDV, Aljon Mariano, Jervy Cruz, and Dave Marcelo up front. I suspect coach Tim will probably focus on ball denial against JMF or really crowding him in the paint and gambling on SMB’s outside shooting. Either way, life is going to be extra tough for Ginebra’s bigs.

Rolly Mendoza (hoopnut blog): If JDV can play, he should play even with limited minutes. He is a big body who has 6 fouls that can be used to harass and bother JMF. Devance can also give breaks to their bigs. Aside from that, JDV is also someone who can produce points and make plays. It would be a big disadvantage for Ginebra if JDV doesn’t play especially since Greg Slaughter is still injured. Perhaps 20 minutes or less would be ideal for JDV. Every little thing will help against SMB.

Angel Velasco (kili kili shot blog): Depends entirely on how healthy JDV is; he says that he doesn’t mind taking the pre-game shots and that he is feeling a lot better so that’s good news for Ginebra. We all saw how valuable JDV was in helping turn the Star-Ginebra series around; his length on defense that helped set their pick-and-roll jam/ trap for Paul Lee and his IQ on offense as L.A. Tenorio’s chief “reset the offense” partner.

2. Should Leo Austria continue to live and die with his starters?

Jason: Playoffs, especially in a championship series, is for players who know how to win ball games and the core of JMF, Santos, Lassiter, Cabagnot, and Ross are exactly that type of guys. They are not 2-time Philippine Cup defending champion for nothing and head coach Leo Austria, well uhh, has proven himself as an able handler of their minutes and their egos (remember Petronovela?) as well. His basketball approach may be old-school but it’s a winning formula altogether so I expect Austria to stick to that while daring his counterparts to make their calculated adjustments. Can his idol and the winningest coach in the league Tim Cone expose him? We’ll see.

Enzo: The Beermen have the deepest roster in the league. Their second or even some of their third stringers can be bona fide starters on other PBA clubs. Coach Leo, however, has cleverly trusted his starting unit for much of the playoffs up until this point. I think this is a ploy for coach Leo to play his relatively fresh reserves and tap into his team’s inherent depth. I expect that his main five guys (JMF, Arwind, Alex, Marcio, and Ross) will still get a lion’s share of the minutes, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have “magic hugot” players in pretty much every game. Guys like RR Garcia, Gabby Espinas, and even Ronald Tubid can put up big numbers on occasion, and coach Leo surely wouldn’t mind having them explode in the Finals.

Rolly: Well, playing with a short rotation and giving a lot of minutes to his starters brought SMB to their third straight Philippine Cup Finals. There’s no point changing a winning formula/strategy this late in the conference. This is how Coach Leo uses his guys and this is how they respond and play. It also helps that the Beermen have the best starting 5.

Angel: Yes, definitely. Though a little rest wouldn’t hurt every now and then. They’ve won big with this same rotation, so why change it?

3. Who are the X-Factors for each team?

Jason: For Ginebra, with JDV doubtful to play as of the moment, Ginebra’s next man up philosophy will bank on Jervy Cruz anew. Cruz gave the Gin Kings a huge lift in the Star series and I don’t expect him to slow down. While he’s relatively undersized against JMF, Cruz can make up for that with his reliable perimeter jumpers and King Tiger-like hustle. Honorable mentions: Scottie Thompson and Kevin Ferrer, how much youth impact can they inject in the series against a champion team full of veterans?

For SMB, you can’t just poke the bear like Chris Ross. With his vastly-improved shooting, Ginebra can’t overlook Ross as SMB’s weakest point in offense. Honorable mention: Entire bench. When the demand calls for back-up, who’s ready to step up?

Enzo: For Ginebra, their wingmen will have to really step up. Japeth, LA, and Sol will all get their numbers, sure, but guys like Scottie Thompson, Chris Ellis, Kevin Ferrer, and Mariano will all have to contribute heavily for the Gin Kings to pull off a monumental upset against SMB. Unlike Ginebra’s series against Meralco where the Bolts had just a few reliable stars, this series will have SMB throwing their chock-full of top-level talent at the Gin Kings. Coach Tim is maybe the most brilliant tactician to ever grace the PBA, but even his acumen may not be enough on its own to scale the SMB mountain.

For the Beermen, they will have to click on all cylinders. On paper, they are the best team in the PBA, and they have pretty much proven it so far, though they were severely tested by TNT in the semis. Had the Ka Tropa paraded full rosters in Games 6 and 7, who knows, right? Right now, with a third straight PBA Philippine Cup within their reach, the Beermen cannot afford to relax. Their main stars — JMF, Arwind, Alex, Marcio, and Ross – all must be at their very best. They cannot afford to give Ginebra any edge in this series, as the Kings have shown how even the smallest degree of momentum can push them to play beyond their own capabilities. SMB has to strike fast and strike hard.

Rolly: For Ginebra, it has to be Sol Mercado. He was arguably their best player against the Hotshots and this was evident when he was named Best Player of the Game twice. He averaged 13.4 points, 3.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.0 steal versus the Hotshots. He also connected on 10 threes which tied him with Tenorio for most threes on his team. Truly, Mercado delivered all-around games for most of the semis. Additionally, his defense wasn’t all bad. He helped limit Paul Lee during the latter portions of the series. Sol should see some time defending all of SMB’s perimeter players.

For SMB, it has to be Arwind Santos. In their 4 wins during the semis, Santos averaged 16.3 points and 9.0 rebounds. He also turned in two amazing performances during games 6 and 7 where he scored 21 and 22 points, respectively. Moreover, Santos was named the Best Player in Game 6 where SMB avoided elimination. Aside from scoring, his defense will also be tested by Japeth Aguilar and the aggressive duo from UST, Kevin Ferrer and Aljon Mariano.

Angel: R.R. Garcia needs to step up and go back to his UAAP MVP ways. Ginebra will try its best to turn this into another low-scoring, fugly basketball match, so it’s up to Garcia to make sure that the tempo favors SMB when he comes in.

Sol Mercado will be needed to perform at a high level once more on both ends. Alex Cabagnot’s career has been given new life now that he has shifted to shooting guard full-time. Ginebra will need Mercado to play honest defense on Cabagnot AND score on the opposite end to attack, what I feel, is the SMB’s starting unit’s weakest link defensively.

4. Who will win it all and in how many games?

Jason: Game 7. San Miguel is bringing home their very own Perpetual Trophy. But at the back of my mind, I hope to see a Beeracle version of Ginebra, but compare to SMB’s Philippine Cup title run last season, there’s no need to coin a word for the feat. Just call it Never Say Die.

Enzo: I admire Ginebra’s heart. For the second conference in a row, they have reached the Finals sans arguably their best player, Greg Slaughter. Unlike their match up with Meralco in the 2016 Govs’ Cup, however, Ginebra will be facing a much stronger foe in SMB. It’s never wise to bet against coach Tim, but SMB’s depth and their championship experience in this particular conference may just be a little too much for the Kings to overcome.

Rolly: This is definitely a tough call. Both teams matchup well with each other. I’ve gone against Ginebra twice already during the playoffs, and I’ve been burned twice. Hence, I won’t make the same mistake thrice. I’m picking Ginebra in 7. I believe they mean business and they’re the hungrier team.

Angel: Gut feel: Ginebra. Five or seven.

Source: http://www.foxsportsasia.com/en-ph/basketball/news/detail/item626574/4×4-smbs-chase-perpetual-trophy-ginebras-shot-history/

[always5hineee]

Profit Margin- Chapter 8: Cage the Elephant

Chapter warnings: Mild language and mild themes

Word count: 1581  

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       When the doors revealed the room behind them, she was actually quite surprised. Of course, she was expecting it to be elegant to an extent, but it was particularly... well, different. Rather than red carpets and mahogany finish, everything was very modern. The floor was black tiles, which matched with most of the furniture. All the sleek surfaces, most notably the desk, were this same tile-esque texture, while the chairs were a more velvety black with silver accents and support.

       There were blackout curtains on the window, although they were drawn back to allow light into the room. She would have tried to look out and see where they were, but the windows were clearly blinded. Still, based on the color of the light, it may have been close to midday, although she couldn't tell if it was morning or afternoon. It felt a bit weird to be so dressed up in the middle of the day, but there wasn't much she could do about it.

       There were a few black doors on each side of the room, although it was unclear if they were Kun's private rooms, storage, passages, or holding cells. Honestly, they could be anything. Kun and another man were conversing at the back of the space near the main desk, and it was only as he saw her and gestured to the others that she realized just how many people were in the room.

       Xiaojun and YangYang appeared from the corners, moving to shut the curtains and send the room into darkness. Hendery appeared behind her and Lucas, startling her as he slammed the deadbolt shut.

       "Hey, honey." He muttered, passing her with a smirk. "Love the dress." She felt something brush the back of her leg, and she chose to ignore it as disgust rose in her throat. "Put on a good show, okay?" Lucas obviously heard him, but chose to do nothing. She didn't know if he chose to out of respect or necessity, but nonetheless, it rubbed her the wrong way. At this, she began to see some new faces as well.

       Lurking a few feet behind Kun was a thinner man, slightly shorter than the leader, clearly not any sort of client. The most unsettling thing about him were the two giant automatic weapons on his hips. Who was it? Some sort of grunt? No, that didn't make sense. Then... Before she could figure it out, though, Lucas reached behind her to mess with a dial on the wall. With that, the lights on the ceiling shifted on, providing a soft, warm light. It was then that she saw the mystery man's face.

       Ten. Ten from WayV. Yet another one of her idols, perfect image shattered in her mind. He was carrying guns, and she assumed that he knew how to use them. Would there be no end to this? The only one she hadn't seen yet was... was WinWin. Please don't let him be involved... She practically prayed. If there could only be one at this point, she'd be happy. Please...

       "Let's get started." Kun spoke out, voice achingly familiar and yet completely foreign to her. He had not made eye contact with her since she arrived. Maybe he thought he was above it. Surprisingly, they didn't stay in the current room, but rather she was led by Lucas into one of the adjoining doors. The lighting matched the open room, indicating that they were connected. There were no windows, and a small auditorium's worth of seats- maybe fifty? At the front of all of it, there was a very short black stage- a glorified stair, if anything. Lucas brought her in, leading her to the front and up onto the step, leaning down to mutter in her ear.

       "Are you going to stay up here, or do we have to restrain you?" She didn't know whether it was meant to be threatening or just come off that way, but she shook her head quickly.

       "I'll stay." He nodded as if to tell her that she made the right decision. And with that, the man left her in the light, alone. She hadn't realized just how good a job his large frame had been doing of providing her a sick sense of comfort. Now, she had no shield, no body beside her. He took a seat in the second row, along with Xiaojun and YangYang. Ten and Hendery sat to Kun's left in the front row, the client to the right. He was dressed in a simple black tuxedo, hat, and shades, clearly trying to mask his identity. That being said, she could tell he was older, maybe mid forties or fifties.

       "She's quite submissive." The man commented, noting the lack of chains or ropes. "Or at least easily manipulated. That's generally good in such a purchase." This remark caused a flare of anger in her chest. Who was he to judge her character so quickly? She wanted to call back, but her eyes shifted to Lucas. He was giving her a warning stare. Gritting her teeth, she held her tongue.

       "She's quite young, although not suspiciously so." Kun began explaining. "Her birth name is Y/N. You are obviously free to change it, and we do recommend it for safety reasons. I'll remind you of your non-disclosure agreement and the consequences if you put our business in jeopardy." The man seemed to clearly understand this. "The rest is clear, as she's standing in front of you. I trust height, race, figure, and etcetera are all to your approval?" The man stood, gesturing forward.

       "May I?"

       "Of course." She shrank back as both Kun and the client approached her. She felt both of their eyes on her body, judging her worth by every inch. It was disgusting. He reached forward to grab her wrists, holding them above her head.

       "Hmm. Not perfect, but I suppose that's to be expected. Definitely one of the better I've seen though. Quite redeemable, considering you've only offered one, today." She tried not to whimper as she saw his other hand draw back, reaching for her midsection. This was going to be awful.

       At some point, though, his hand stopped. Daring to look down, she saw that another's had gotten in his way. Glancing to the right, she saw the thin frame from earlier up close. How had Ten gotten up here so fast? And more importantly, why?

       "We politely request that you don't overly handle the goods until the exchange paperwork is in order." He said smoothly. At this, the client let go of her wrists as well, letting her now-sore arms drop slowly.

       "Yes, of course, my apologies." He continued looking her over, but refrained from touching her. "You know, it would be much easier to calculate my offer if my understanding of the subject was more... complete."

       "You know by now that we only take offers in this state. I can guarantee you that her skin, birthmark, health, and scarring situation is exactly how we described to you in your inquiry. We have a business guarantee, after all." Kun reassured him. She silently found herself sighing as the relief of not being derobed put her at ease.

       "Alright, I'll gibe you forty-five thousand for her." Kun's eyes shifted to her's for the very first time that day, and then back to the client. She had no idea what she saw in that moment. It filled her with both fear and peace, yet spoke no words. She couldn't read him at all.

       "That's ridiculously low."

       "I disagree, I think it's appropriate, especially for a customer of my particular statistics. In addition, I don't seem to see your financial handler anywhere, so who are you to-"

       "WinWin is unfortunately caught up in preliminary promotional photoshoots with 127. He'll be back for our performance tomorrow. That being said, I am more than confident in my abilities as a business man, and in turn, I am telling you that you are completely out of your lane."

       "Fifty thousand."

       "Too low." The client began to look exasperated at this point.

       "What do you want from me? How much can you possibly think-"

       "A heart can sell for close to one million dollars alone."

       "You know I'm not in the organ trafficking business."

       "Regardless."

       "You know that fifty thousand is standard for a human being sold whole."

       "Yes, but I'm considering the demand. I could dismember her myself and make close to forty million from the parts alone."

       "I definitely can't offer you forty million for one bitch."

       "I'll ask that you speak respectfully in the presence of a woman. I'm not asking for forty million. Let's say... five hundred thousand."

       "That's ridiculous!" The man exclaimed. "I'll go up to one hundred thousand, and that is my final offer!" Kun shook his head, almost mockingly, clicking his tongue in turn.

       "Abhorrent. I'm telling you my price." The man moved forward quickly, seething at this point.

       "You think that you can just bring me here, offer me one product, and then dare-" He lifted his hands as if to strike a blow. Kun didn't move in inch. Suddenly, she heard a few loud bangs, followed by a harsh cry. Screaming, she dropped to her knees, covering her ears with her arms in terror. She saw a heavy black boot step in front of her, the smoking tip of a gun just barely in her line of sight.

Go to Chapter 9