#his parents were too caught up in their own grief to be an example

[lover-of-mine]

Yk I'm always thinking about Buck Actually and the talk Buck has with Thomas and the whole "you don't find it, son, you make it" and the way Buck looked at Thomas dying right after Mitchell holding his hand and the way some part of Buck looked at them and connected love with death and now keeps trying to make something to the point that it would kill him. He heard that the type of love he wants comes from work and decided he needs wear himself down to get it and it's just devastating.

[twotangledsisters]

From all the characters in your tangled au what are your likes and dislikes of each character and why?

There's a lot of characters in my tangled AU XD

And the truth is... I don't really dislike any of them? If I disliked them I wouldn't write them... And if there's something I disliked in the show about how they were done, I try to fix that in the AU. Like the way Cass and Eugene's banter becomes more clearly a part of their friendship for example, or Calliope's insecurities being flashed out a bit more.

If by like and dislike you mean their strengths and weaknesses, here's a very quick list:

Rapunzel: Optimistic and creative. Naive and can be lead by her emotions.

Cassandra: Genius when it comes to law and battle. Terrible at changing her mind about stuff.

Eugene: Protective of his friends and family, skilled all thinks sneaking, fighting... Scared of magic.

Caine: Honest and amazing support. Anger issues.

Lance: Loving and supportive. Gets distracted easy, enjoys fun a bit too much.

Keira: Good fighter. Bad listened.

Catalina: Good listener and fighter. Bad at communicating her own needs.

Varian: Genius. Also still a kid, someone should be supervising him but nobody is smart enough to keep up so his bad decisions are everybody's issue.

Arianna: As close to a perfect parent as a human can be. Which makes the fact she cannot make everything good and perfect and happy for her kids hurt her a lot.

Frederic: Really good at ruling a kingdom through the chaos, be that grief or looming wars. Too protective of those he loves, not a great listened when caught up in this emotion.

Captain: Loyal and great at his job. Not a big fan of systems changing.

If you want me to expand any of these or mention another character, feel free to say! This a rapid fire off the top of my head list :D

[whumpster-fire]

Today in my journey of rereading the Redwall series: Salamandastron.

This is definitely another one in the "In a world where racism is objectively true" category. Look I know Urthstripe the Strong's overpowering anger towards vermin to the point of endangering himself and sometimes his allies is sort of portrayed as a character flaw, but when your narrative includes "one of the main good guys is openly speciesist to literal children that his adoptive daughter made friends with" (to the point of going "I almost wish they'd try something" and fantasizing out loud about the biggest guy in the hare army beating them to a pulp when they haven't even done anything at that point) and then this is shown to be the right decision with no other example of someone making a bad call like this, there is very much a moral of "Urthstripe is right, Vermin Are Evil. Even the children."

And... look. I am trying not to make every single vermin character my Poor Little Meow Meow and Klitch as written is basically Joffrey Baratheon with fur, but I am so fucking mad that Jacques refused to do any of the interesting things that could have been done with this character and just made him Ferahgo's sociopathic mini-me. Because there was so much potential here.

Like... imagine if Klitch and Goffa were genuinely trying to get away from Ferahgo's horde but Urthstripe ruined it by making it very clear he wasn't welcome in Salamandastron. And then after Urthstripe throws him out and Mara and Pikkle run away Klitch actually sees Mara as a kindred spirit and is like "Hey, your dad's a dick who tries to control your life and stops you from hanging out with creatures he doesn't approve of, my dad's a dick who tries to control my life and stops me from hanging out with creatures he doesn't approve of, we should team up and run away from our horrible parents together!"

And it's only when they get caught that he pivots to "Hello Father, I have successfully spied on the Badger Lord's mountain and I've brought you two hostages!" because the poor kid's panicking because he knows what his father does to deserters (and he picked the moment he did to try to ditch the Corpsemakers because as far as he knew Ferahgo's best trackers were out chasing Dingeye and Thura). He's been much too well trained at lying to protect himself for Mara or Pikkle to notice.

Also: Klitch trying to act casual about Goffa's death and dismiss him as just a dumb minion while internally losing it because his best friend was just killed right in front of him but he's afraid if he shows any sign of grief Ferahgo will use it against him.

Also Also: the wasted comedy potential of Klitch as a high-ranking general in the Corpsemakers who is only in charge of anything because of nepotism and everyone knows it including him. The troops under his command have absolutely no respect for him and only obey his orders because they're scared of Ferahgo. Klitch does not even want all this responsibility (especially because he's not actually given much freedom to make decisions himself: Ferahgo tends to veto or poke holes in any plan he makes whether it's good or not because Ferahgo is caught between trying to train his son to be an effective warlord and being paranoid about his army being more loyal to Klitch than him so he actively tries to engineer situations that will lose him the respect of the troops). Klitch would actually not be a bad tactician but he is also mutually unable to agree with his father on anything as a matter of principle, and is trying to find the precise level of fucking up that will let him weaponized-incompetence his way into not being put in charge of anything anymore without causing Ferahgo to actually murder or maim him.

...combined with the drama potential of him wanting to be the leader of his own army (because he's been raised in an environment where power means safety) but also feeling trapped because most of the Corpsemakers fucking hate him and if Ferahgo dies and he's "in charge" his only chance of survival is if there are so many creatures trying to assassinate him that they all trip over each other. The horde is going to rally around some other figure who will have Klitch disposed of ASAP even if he tries to abdicate, unless he overthrows his father / wins a major victory on his own in such spectacular fashion that he inherits Ferahgo's reputation for being Not To Be Messed With.

Bonus Points if he uses terrible non-waterproof rope on Sapwood and Oxeye on purpose because that's the kind of fuckup that might be that perfect balance (and also because he fucking hated them from the moment they stood guard outside and wants an excuse to have to kill the escaping hostages) but fucks it up for realsies when they actually manage to kill several beasts and escape.

Double Bonus Points if he gets voluntold to help his dad fight a duel against an angry badger lord despite knowing just how stupid that is, and figures out that he's basically there as a distraction so Ferahgo can stab Urthstripe in the eyes while he's busy curbstomping Klitch's head into pulp.

Triple Bonus Points if instead of Badtooth getting caught by Samkim, Mara, and Co, they run into Klitch, who is trying to make a break for it while the horde is distracted and copy the hares' driftwood escape. And who, after getting absolutely decked by Sapwood and informed that he's the hostage this time, completely loses his cool and begs them not to give him back to Ferahgo because he will definitely be literally skinned alive if Ferahgo finds out about this. Which is when at least one of the adults present is finally clued in that something is wrong if the little brat is more scared of his own father than of the numerous well armed creatures with good reasons to want him dead who are right in front of him.

[jamietarttownsmyheart]

idk if anyone’s said this yet but “midnight rain” by taylor swift is lowkey a colinjamie song. “he was sunshine” (colin) “i was midnight rain” (jamie)

YES YES YESSSSS OMG YES YOU GET IT

first, i wanna apologize, i took way longer answering this than i expected, real life caught up with me, but!! midnight rain and colinjamie!! you are SO correct anon.

(unrelated, you're on your own kid is a jamie song)

but back to midnight rain, i mean, im really interested in your thoughts anon! how are you interpreting it?

one way of looking at it i think could be a canon compliant au of sorts.

I was making my own name Chasing that fame He stayed the same All of me changed like midnight

like just this part? football is an escape for jamie, its a career for jamie, but its the same for colin!

but we can go deeper for both. jamie and football is complicated. for one, he loves it, he's amazing at it, he dominates, when he plays, he's jamie fucking tartt. but what is it really? he didn't grow up privileged, he didn't grow up in a stable environment. he grew up with a mom who wanted him to be happy and a father who did everything he could to make sure jamie wasn't. and its complicated because jamie playing football was what made him happy, and he wanted his mom to be proud of him. and then his dad comes back in the picture, and he wants jamie to play and jamie wants him to be proud but its a different want--its a want that one)every child has for their parent to be proud and 2)the hope that if james tartt sr is proud maybe he'll lay off.

football is something similar to colin. he loves it, but it also has brought him grief--after the team in Cardiff got relegated, he did face backlash from his family--like his grandmother for example. it also has the potential to bring more grief, as sports (and football) do tend to have a homophobic fanbase irl, and its been implied that colin is into men, and while a sexuality isnt confirmed, the implication that he is at least attracted to men is there (unless the grindr comment was incorporated as a joke, which, im hoping the writers didnt do it just for that) leading room for more pain.

there is also the third point--Jamie has the makings of being great, while Nate tells Colin that he does not. (chasing that fame/he stayed the same)

I think an au where fwb colinjamie happens pre-ted lasso's arrival is interesting, as one, it would be a secret, as both colinjamie have reasons for it to be, and two, you said midnight rain and now im thinking of the conversation of wanting to become official (albeit still secret) sort of contributing to the (he was sunshine/i was midnight rain) where they end things instead.

timeline-wise, it could be like:

jamie comes to richmond--jamiecolin fwb but end it after a month--jamie+keeley meet--rupert/rebecca divorce--ted lasso arrival.

except see, i dont want to go that route bc i dont want it to come off as keeley being the rebound. she is not. its so clear that keeley means something to jamie, and that she did when they were dating too, although jamie himself admits that while the feelinsg were real and there, he probably was not at the best mindset to act on/say the words/take accountability. that actually is true for jamie's season 1 arc--he has many moments in season 1 where you see the potential, to change, the want to change, and the way he actually does make attempts to be better. you see the softness his father tried to get rid of come out--but those moments are quickly overshadowed by jamie doubling down on "dominating" immediately after (or being sent back to man city right when he was trying and making progress and trusting--believing) because his father is very much still a heavily involved force in his life, and no one cares or knows.

so instead like. maybe theyre not fwb yet. maybe its an almost, but neither are ready to take things forward, so they stay friends-ish. maybe canon events happen as they do, but during s2, is when things get tricky.

timeline wise:

jamie comes back and is gradually accepted------jamiecolin fwb---james tartt sr----no weddings and a funeral--jamiecolin lets make it official convo but jamie asks for some time bc he wants to sift through his emotions, talk with his therapist, and give a proper response (he told keeley he loves her, and he did, he does, but that doesnt mean he's pursuing her, or wants to pursue her, he just wants her to know she meant something real, and now he wants to be able to give colin a real answer too, because he wants colin to be something real, colin is something real, he needs to know how to say it)---he loves colin omg he loves colin---tells colin----Richmond is promoted.

so all that^ but with jamie's internal monologue during his talks with his therapist its basically "he's sunshine and i'm midnight rain"

[rendevousz]

mum?

mother figure!nat x fem!teen!reader

avengers x reader

req by @teenwonder ; i absolutely love the entire teams adoration for reader skfksngnsf its so cute! could i please request one a little more nat based? maybe r treats and loves nat like a mom but nat hadn’t noticed that before, and the whole team is like listing examples of how and why 🥺🥺🥺

summary: the four times you needed nat and the one time she admits that she needed you too.

warnings: blood, a random attack out of nowhere because i'm not creative, inaccurate writing of medical situations because i have no idea how those things work, also let's just pretend bruce was around during iron man 2 when tony still had palladium in his arc reactor, also inaccurate descriptions of palladium effects bcs i just...don't know much about palladium pls forgive me thanks, and idk any hospitals in new york/manhattan or even the states LMAO so uh bear with this, and last but not least, my inability to write good endings

word count: 5426

notes: that's a long ass warning nevertheless pls do enjoy this fic <3

"i'm going now, bye!" you bid the team who were having breakfast together, walking out of the common area.

"bye, cupcake! don't get into trouble, don't do what i'd do and definitely don't do what i wouldn't do." tony advised and you rolled your eyes because tony says that to you every morning before you leave for school.

"wait, don't forget your lunch!" nat stands up from her seat and grabs your lunch that she had packed, from the kitchen island, bringing it over to you. "thanks, nat!" you grabbed it, giving her a quick peck on the cheek before leaving.

nat smiles at the action, turning around to walk back to her spot on the table, only to find the team staring back at her with knowing looks.

"what?"

"you know, you only need to sign a couple papers and the kid's all yours." tony states matter-of-factly. nat snaps her head towards the man, an incredulous look on her face. "what are you talking about?"

"we all see the longing looks on both your faces. she's dying for you to call her your daughter and you, her mother." clint explains and the others nodded in agreement.

"that's nonsense. she has wanda too," nat reasons, sitting back down. "i'm pretty sure she sees wanda as a sister considering how much she drags wanda with her whenever she's causing trouble around the tower." steve raises his brows at the redhead who was in denial.

"she sees you as her mother, nat. just accept it," wanda tells her, taking a sip from her glass. "really? name me one time she showed it." nat challenges them, not knowing that they've been watching your interactions with her for the longest time.

"you have no idea what you just got yourself into, romanoff," clint chuckles, cracking his neck and knuckles as if preparing for a fight.

"remember new mexico?" he smirks and nat only frowns, trying to remember.

i.

"no!" you screamed, dropping down to the ground. you didn't care that you scraped your knees doing that, the only thing that mattered was the overwhelming feeling of grief engulfing your whole being. tears streamed down your face as you looked at the debris on the ground, the remainder of what used to be standing in front of you; a building. blown up, now in ruins.

clint, bucky and steve watched you break down in front of them, their hearts breaking at the sight in front of them as well as the fact that their teammate had been caught up in the middle of the explosion.

"y/n/n? come on, tony's team called for back up. we gotta go," steve tried to get you to stand up, failing when you kept your ground. you screamed when he tried again and their hearts clenched at the heartbreaking sound.

"we can't just leave her! please, we have to find her," you cried, clinging onto steve's body as he ran his hand up and down your suit-cladded back to soothe you. "y/n/n, we can't. the whole place is in ruins now," he didn't want to say it but he had to. he had to in order to get you to leave. "she's gone."

"she can't be gone! she can't just leave us! we need her! i need her, stevie.." you cried into his chest and he had to control himself so he didn't cry right then and there too.

he looked up to see bucky looking at the two of you guiltily, tapping his wrist to indicate that they were running out of time. steve had no choice but to carry you in his arms, getting you to leave the site against your will. but you were too weak to fight back now. "what am i gonna do without her now, stevie?" you asked quietly.

"we're gonna be okay, y/n/n," he tells you, sitting you down on a chair and settling down next to you as clint flew the jet to your next location. the atmosphere was tense and you could tell everyone, too, was sad about this.

"what if we're not? what if we're not gonna be okay, stevie? i know i won't be." you wiped the tears streaming down your face despite the fact that your face still wasn't drying up any time soon.

"because nat wouldn't want to see us like this. she'll be angry if she sees that we're risking people's lives just because of her." he says truthfully.

"we're landing, guys." clint announces and the team prepared for another round of fighting. steve turns to you, wiping the tears on your face as he made you look up at him. "now let's save some people and make nat proud, yeah?"

you nod at him sadly, preparing your weapons. all of you got out the jet and the second battle of the day begun. boy, were these people unlucky because they were on the receiving end of your fury.

you were busy taking down a group of guards alone when you heard a familiar voice. "y/n, behind you!" and you turned just in time to take down a guard who was aiming at you.

you didn't even have time to register your shock of seeing the redhead because more guards came at you two. you guys fought alongside each other until all the men were taken down.

"nat?" you breathed out. "yes, bub?" she answers as you both carefully walked over the knocked out men. she was taken aback when you slammed into her, hugging her the tightest you ever did since you met her.

"please don't ever do that again." you mumbled into her chest. she was about to ask you what you meant when she heard you sniffling. figuring out it wasn't the appropriate moment to ask, she continued to just hug and comfort you in silence.

"wait, that was why she cried that day? because she thought i was in that building when it blew up?" nat asks after steve finished the story. "i never found out why because she never told me."

"yeah, you should've seen her when the building exploded. completely shattered my heart, dude." clint states, remembering the broken down state you were in that day.

"wait, did you guys not grief over my supposed death then?" nat glares at clint, bucky and steve. "in our defense, they were about to blow up about a hundred people, we didn't have much time to process the whole situation." clint tries to convince his best friend, only to receive a glare again from her.

"alright but just because she cried when she thought i was dead, doesn't mean she sees me as her mum. i'd cry too if any one of you guys died," she states, still in denial.

she did love you like how a mother would love her child. but she didn't want you to feel that she was forcing the title onto you. after all, you had so many other adults around you, who's to say that you saw someone else as a parent figure instead of her? she didn't want to make you uncomfortable.

"woman, are you serious?" sam exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air dramatically. "need i remind you that the girl sacrificed her life for you?"

ii.

"nat, watch out!" you stood right behind her where the man was about to attack her. you gave him a harsh kick to the head and that was all it took for the man to go unconscious.

the redhead turned around, not having enough time to comprehend what had happened before you dropped into her arms. you two were lucky the last of the men had already been taken out.

"bub? what's wrong?"

at this point, you were fully leaning against her. she was holding up your whole weight, hands wrapped around your middle to support you. that was when she felt it. the familiar thick substance on her fingers, leaking from the back of your suit.

her eyes widened, pulling one hand away from you to look at it. red. her breathing picked up as one of her hands felt around your back, finally feeling the handle of a knife sticking out from your back.

your eyes were already drooping by now and she lightly shook you awake, careful to not hurt you. she lowered you down and you were both sat on the floor now.

she presses a finger to her ear and you could hear her voice echo in your ear from your own comms. "can someone come please," she paused, exhaling shakily. "y/n's down."

if it had been any other person, she probably would be bringing them to the jet by now but it was you. she didn't know what came over her but when she saw that you were injured, it was like her whole body shut down. her knees felt weak and she couldn't bring herself to move.

"hey, hey, keep your eyes open. can you do that?" she asked gently and you nodded weakly. "bub, why did you do that?" she cried softly, moving your hair away from your face as you leaned sideways against her. the action caused your face to be smudged by your own blood from her hands but she didn't care as she caressed your cheek.

"he–he was gonna hurt you. i–i couldn't..." you paused a while, the pain getting too much for you to bear. "y/n, don't strain yourself. you need to stay awake," she tells you as tears streamed down her face.

"rather me than you," you whispered. nat's eyes widened at this. "don't say that, bub." she scolds gently.

you smiled weakly at her. "i've grown too dependent on you, nat. it's to the point that i," you coughed and nat worried that you were straining yourself but you continued. "that i'd rather die than live without you. you probably can go on with life without me but i can't without you. i need you, nat." your eyes closed and nat panics, shaking your body.

"y/n?! bub?! stay awake, please, they're coming!" nat cries out loud, holding onto your limp body.

"did we not agree to not mention that to me anymore?" nat glares at sam for bringing that up.

the night of that incident had been one of the worst nights for nat. she sat by your bed all night after you had been treated. she had been the first one you saw after you woke up. she had been the one you broke down in front of after you admitted the full reasoning behind your actions. she had been the one who opened her arms for you to make yourself at home in.

"i'm sorry but you must be blind if you can't see how really she sees you for the past years," bucky states. nat turns to him with a glare. "you don't know what you're talking about."

"oh really? who does she call whenever she has a really bad nightmare?" bucky questions rhetorically with his eyebrows raised.

iii.

"no, please, don't!" you begged, asleep and thrashing around in your bed. quiet whimpers turned into heavy breathing as you plead for your life in your nightmare. "please," you whispered, inhaling and exhaling harshly.

FRIDAY, noticing the amount of distress you were in, alerted the closest person to your room, that being bucky who was returning from a late night trip to the kitchen for some water.

he quickly went into your room, only to see you shivering and thrashing around in your bed. "doll?" he approaches slowly, finding you still asleep, though sweating a lot. nightmare, he realised.

"doll? wake up," he gently shakes you and you immediately jolt awake, breathing heavily as you register what was going on. "it's okay, it was just a nightmare," he soothes you, holding you close as one hand rubbed up and down your back while the other held your head to his chest.

none of that helped as you were still in the same state as you were when you woke up. "are you okay?" he asks, worried. "nat... i need nat.. please i need her," you whimpered, shaking in his hold. you were having trouble breathing.

"FRIDAY, get romanoff."

within minutes, nat arrived, looking panicked and disheveled like she had just woken up, which she just did. "what's wrong?" she asks bucky, approaching you two.

"she was having a nightmare and woke up and i think she's having a panic attack. she asked for you," he informs her and immediately moves away when she approaches, so that she could take his place.

"bub? it's me," you look up to meet natasha's pretty green eyes. "you're okay, bub. can you tell me five thing you can see?"

you looked away from her eyes, looking around your room. "i–i see my book on my nightstand, my lamp, my jacket on the chair, my laptop and the painting on the wall." you told her after some difficulties.

"good, that's good. four things you can feel?"

"i feel the socks on my feet, my fluffy blanket, the pillow i'm leaning on and your hands around me."

she smiles softly at you. "three things you can hear?"

"i hear your voice. a–and the faint noise from the ac and i can also hear bucky's breathing." you look up at the man and he smiles sheepishly at you, standing around awkwardly. you gave him a small smile back.

"two things you can smell?"

"i can smell my own shampoo..and my room's air freshener." you told her more calmly now, feeling the panic attack already going away.

"one thing you want to taste?"

"i wanna taste wanda's blueberry pancakes." you pout and the two adults couldn't help but chuckle. "you can have them in the morning. right now you need to sleep so you can have the energy to devour them tomorrow, okay?" you nod at the woman as she tucks you in.

not long after, you fell asleep. she then presses a kiss to your forehead before leaving with a less worried bucky now. and sure enough, the next morning, wanda made you blueberry pancakes.

"okay, so what? we all need someone to help us through panic attacks?" nat rolls her eyes. "did you miss the part where i came in and tried to help but she specifically asked for you? she needed you, nat."

"guys, i... i love her with my whole heart but she has all of us. i don't wanna make her feel like she's restricted to only one of us. you all love her too," nat reasons.

"yes but she doesn't have anyone to call her mum and frankly, i think you'd be perfect for it." wanda encourages the older woman.

"i—" before she could continue, her phone rang loudly and she thanked whoever it was that called her because now she didn't have to make up excuses about her doubt of becoming your official mother.

iv.

she looks down at the caller id, sighing when it was you, meaning the team had more against her now. of course she didn't mind you calling her, you could call her when she'd be asleep after a mission and she'd still pick up with a smile on her face. but it was the fact that the whole team could see how she softened when she realised it was you who called that bothered her. she really didn't want them to let her have hopes that you'd accept her as your mother.

"bub?" she said into the phone and half the team smirked at her while the other half gave her knowing smiles. "aren't you supposed to be on your way to school?"

"yeah but uh are you busy right now? i um, i need you."

nat immediately stands up, worry etched onto her face and the team frowned at this. "what happened? are you okay?"

"you know how i told happy i wanted to walk to school today? yeah, i just remembered why i don't walk to school anymore."

"what do you mean? what happened? are you hurt? did someone hurt you?" she bombards you with questions out of worry. at this point, the team had also stopped their chatter and teasing looks, equally worried for your well-being.

"yeah, i am. wait, maybe not. i mean, i was just being dramatic but uh, i tripped on who-knows-what and now i have a sprained ankle. i can't walk now so i'm standing in an alley right now so i'm not in the way of people. can you come get me?"

nat sighs in relief, thankful that it wasn't anything that she was thinking of. "you are unbelievable, y/n." she chuckles in disbelief at your clumsiness. "can you tell me where you are? i'll come get you now. i'll have the school know you're not coming today." you told her your location and she immediately leaves after telling the team what happened to you.

you were expecting nat to call again, to tell you she was around the corner but instead you heard a whoosh of air beside your head, followed by a crack sound. your head followed the sound, eyes widening when you saw that a dart had struck the wall beside your head. you looked ahead, trying to see where that came from.

if it hadn't been for your fast reflexes being an avenger for the past few years, you probably wouldn't have ducked in time when another dart came flying right for your head. "what the hell?" you grunted, staying low but still looking around for the source. you squinted when you looked up, the sun blazing but you managed to catch a glimpse of a man on a rooftop nearby. he had blonde hair and was dressed in all black, donning a same coloured mask that covered the bottom half of his face.

"you had one job! how could you miss her twice?!" the blonde hears his colleague hiss in his ear through the earpiece. "i'm sorry! i'm no hawkeye, how was i supposed to get her in one try?!" he scolds back.

"you didn't even get her in two!"

"shut up and just let me work! you're distracting me!"

"hurry because i see the redheaded one nearing the alley. boss'll kill us if he finds out we didn't get her in her vulnerable state."

"i'm trying, i'm trying!" the blonde closes one eye, his sight now locked on your crouched state. he saw you move once you saw him and he cursed under his breath, his weapon following your movements. "she's moving!"

"just take the shot and be done with it! you have to go now!"

and shoot he did. after he shot the dart gun, he immediately fled but it wasn't like you were going to be able to chase him down or anything. a scream left your lips as a dart pierced through your skin, right under your shoulder.

you dropped down to the ground, right in the middle of the alleyway. you cried when you felt the burn in your flesh. you had been stabbed multiple times before with much bigger objects so why did this feel different?

"y/n?! is that you?!" you heard nat's voice yell from a small distance away. "i'm here," you croaked out, feeling your body grow weaker at an alarming rate.

"oh my god, bub, why are you on the ground? it's dirty, c'mon let's get you up. which foot did you sprain?" she places both her hands under your arms, pulling you up on your feet before accidentally dropping you back when you let out a shriek, crying out in pain.

"oh my god, did i hit your ankle? are you okay?" nat assumed that your tear-stained face was because of your sprained ankle but then you wheezed, your eyes drooping the longer she stood there.

your right hand slowly reached across your left shoulder, the butt of the dart sticking out of your skin now in between your shaking fingers. nat's eyes followed your hand movement's, a gasp leaving her lips.

"y/n, what happened?!" she panicked but before she could even get an answer from you, you had already blacked out. her eyes widened, knowing it was the dart because why else would you pass out that quick from a simple penetration in the shoulder. you had dealt with much worse than that and she knew your tolerance level.

she took off your bag, careful to not move the dart. she then placed her hands under your knees and behind your back, easily picking your unconscious body up and rushing back to the tower.

when she arrived, she was met with many confused yet concerned looks from the tower staff, seeing the black widow, rushing in with the youngest avenger unconscious in her arms. they had seen you leave the tower for school about half an hour ago so they knew something must've happened on the way.

"get bruce in the hospital wing. tell him it's urgent." she tells the woman working the front desk, hurrying into the elevator and telling FRIDAY to get her to the floor she so desperately wanted to arrive at quicker. black lines appeared on the left side of your neck, slowly spreading to the right side and she assumed it was from that damned dart in your left shoulder.

"natasha! what's wrong? they said it was an emergency," the doctor spoke in a panicked voice when nat entered, immediately going quiet when he saw you in her arms, neck lined with seemingly black veins.

nat laid you down on the surgery table, frown growing when black lines steadily spread to your arms now. though she was too worried to think, she managed to at least tell bruce what was outwardly wrong with you.

"dart. left shoulder." she blurted, incapable of forming proper sentences now that she had seen more of you. the black lining your skin got her speechless and anxious. bruce got ready with medical gloves, removing the dart from your flesh before analysing the pattern of your skin. it looked familiar.

"FRIDAY, get tony down here. it's urgent."

"bruce, please, what's wrong with her?" she cried, tears now freely streaming down her face. she didn't cry much in front of anyone but when it came to you, you always managed to get her to do just that.

"hey, what's going on? FRIDAY said there was an emergency here, who's hurt?" nat heard tony's panicked voice but she didn't make an effort to reply. her gaze was fixed on only you.

tony's jaw dropped, frowning when he saw you on the bed, upper body covered in black lines. "what the hell happened?!"

tony stepped beside bruce, taking a closer look at your skin. his frown deepened. "wait, it looks like.."

"yeah, looks exactly like when you had palladium instead of vibranium in your arc reactor."

"does that mean—"

"palladium's been running through her veins for about twenty minutes now. FRIDAY, how high is her blood toxicity level?" bruce asks, sampling a drop of your blood from when he took out the dart.

"53% and it is still steadily increasing."

"tony, at the rate it's going, if she's not treated in the next fifteen minutes or so, she'll.." bruce pauses, not wanting to say it out loud.

"no, she just needs lithium dioxide. that's how fury and i cured your palladium poisoning, tony." nat finally speaks.

"SHIELD probably has them but they're all the way in dc. they're not gonna reach here in time," tony states solemnly, reaching over to move your hair out of your face, looking down at you sadly.

but he was immediately pulled aside, nat grabbing his collar and looking him straight in the eyes. "you have your stupid iron suits that can probably travel faster than the speed of sound if you try. you can go down there yourself and get the damn thing. i swear to god, tony, i'm literally going to destroy those stupid suits myself if you don't put them to good use." nat threatens, glaring at the billionaire.

tony's eyes widened, the genius having not thought about nat's idea yet. "yeah, yeah, you're right, i'll go now."

he left immediately and nat approached your bed hesitantly, not wanting to see the black lines making home on the skin on your upper body. "do you think tony'll make it back in time?" she sniffles and bruce's worried frown on his face softened. "of course he will. he won't let anything happen to y/n. we won't let anything happen to y/n." he assured her.

there was nothing they could do now but wait for tony to come back with the lithium dioxide. nat sat beside your bed, hands gingerly grasping one of your own. despite the black staining it, nat held it to her face and her tears rolled past the back of your hand.

bruce decided to give her some privacy, opting to inform the whole team of the situation instead of standing around idly.

nat pulled your hand away from her face, rubbing her thumb over the back of it, crying even more at the sight in front of her. "y/n, please. i've never told you this but i need you." she pauses, breathing in shakily. "i've always needed you and i'll always need you. you can't leave me, please. you said i could go on with life without you but you're so wrong, y/n. you're the reason i'm still here and you're the reason i still want to be here. if you're not here then it's as if i have no reason, no purpose. i need you, y/n. so much more than i'd like to admit. heck, probably much more than you need me. so please, don't leave me. i can't do this without you." nat sobs out, watching the patterns on your skin spreading and growing bolder.

at this point, the whole team had now gathered outside of the room, watching nat cry over you. they wanted so bad to get a closer look at their beloved baby avenger but they respected nat and instead, waited for her to finish talking to you. once she stood up and looked around, bruce knew she was done so he entered, followed by the team.

"status, FRIDAY?" bruce asks, sampling a bit of your blood again. "blood toxicity at 96% now."

the team looked your unconscious body in apprehension, some crying and some worried out of their minds.

"goddamnit! where the hell is stark?!" nat growled. her eyes were now puffy after having spent the last half an hour crying. the team had never seen her lose her cool like this but they figured why.

as if on cue, tony's iron man suit crashed through the windows of the room but he couldn't care less. his main priority was to get to you quickly. in his hand was a silver briefcase that he passed to bruce.

bruce opened the case before wasting no time in plunging the syringe containing lithium dioxide, your supposed cure, into you. immediately, the black patterns on your skin started disappearing. it was slow but noticeable. it started from the tips of your fingers, going up towards your neck.

everyone sighed in relief, and to tony's surprise, nat hugged him tightly. "thank you. you have no idea how much this means to me." she whispers. tony pats her back gently. "hey, i care about her too, okay? of course i'd do this for her. any one of us would."

nat smiles at him when she let him go, turning back to you and almost crying out in joy when your skin had finally turned back to normal. she let the medical assistants set your bed up and handle your sprained ankle before going back to sit by you. the team left her alone with you once again.

it was only about an hour later did you wake up, squinting when bright lights shone down on you. you moved around but you felt hands around your left and you heard a familiar voice.

"and remember when you dragged wanda to pull that prank on me with you and after you did, i grounded you like i was your mum or something?" you hear her chuckle, still not noticing that you've woken up.

"i didn't mind, though. frankly, i don't think i would ever mind if you continued acting like my mother or something," you spoke and she immediately tore her gaze from your hands, looking at you, now wide awake.

"bub!" she hugs you so tightly you didn't think you could breathe. you still returned the hug though, laughing. "i was worried you might still have some palladium in your bloodstream."

"wait, palladium?" you asked her in shock. "yeah, the dart that got you in that alley, it contained palladium. it's highly toxic so we used lithium dioxide to counter it. speaking of the dart, i'm going to find out who did this to you and they're never going to see the light of day for putting us through all of this." nat says, disturbingly calm.

"yeah...you do that," you tell her, slightly scared. "but palladium? in my blood? how cool is that? i had literal metal in my blood! i could've become like tony but like...palladium woman or something." you said excitedly.

"you do know we already have metal in our blood, right bub?" nat questions in amusement. "oh." you say dumbly. "and palladium don't belong in our body and you literally almost died because of it." your mouth opened but no words came out.

"speaking of, can you please not do that again? i really thought i was gonna lose you." she whispers, stroking your hair. "oh yeah, of course. i'll just announce to the whole world to not target the youngest avenger," you joke, smile dropping when nat gave you a stern look.

"nat, being part of the avengers at my age undoubtedly means i'll be a target for the bad people out there, but i don't care because while i get to kick ass, i know all of you have my back when it's my ass that's kicked. and i think that's the best part of being an avenger; the sense of security i get having you amazing people as my teammates." you tell her honestly and she smiles softly.

"oh come here you," she pulls you in for another hug but this time it's better because you could still breathe. you make yourself comfortable, snuggling into her.

"did you mean it?" she asked and you look up at her in confusion. "mean what?"

"when you said you wouldn't mind me acting like your mother."

"of course i do, you're like the mother i never had. i wouldn't even mind you being my actual mother." you say without a second thought, eyes widening when you realised what you had said. you swore under your breath, knowing you've just made it awkward between you two.

"i– really?" despite the teams efforts to make her see the truth, it was much more meaningful when she heard you say it yourself. "y–yeah.." you admit sheepishly.

"then you wouldn't mind if i actually adopted you?" she asks carefully, gauging your reaction. your jaw dropped, eyes going wide once again. "are you serious?!"

"yeah." she smiles at you fondly. "no! of course i won't mind!" you hug her tightly, tears forming in your eyes. you had gone all your life without parents so this was a huge thing for you. not only were you going to finally have a mother, but the most amazing woman you knew was going to be your mother.

"mum?" you tested the title, smiling when she acknowledged it. you were now crying in joy.

"hey, don't cry." she soothes you, running a hand up and down your back. "no, no, i'm just so happy. this is the best day of my life." you tell her. "me too, bub."

you stayed in her arms until you fell back asleep, nat tucking you in before going back to sit down on the chair. she looked down at you fondly.

sure, she was scared of the big step she was about to take with you but she had you with her and she knew that was enough. "i love you, y/n." she whispers, planting a kiss on the side of your head.

taglist <3

@amourtentiaa @rqmanoff @abitofeverythinggg @andreasworlsboring101 @cay-writes-fan-fiction514 @teenwonder @sevenmorningstars @fleurlovesbucky

[classicschronicles]

Hi lovelies,

Today I thought I would write about the story of the Trojan prince Ganymede, yet another one of Zeus’ lovers. However, before I get into it, I should warn you that this story mentions r4pe and p3dophi1ia.

“Zeus carried off golden-haired Ganymede because of his beauty, to be amongst the Deathless Ones and pour drink for the gods in the house of Zeus- a wonder to see,- honoured by all the immortals as he draws the red nectar from the golden bowl.”

Ganymede was a stunning, young Trojan prince famed for his beauty. He was the son of king Tros of Dardania, after whom Troy was named, and was abducted and carried off to heaven by Zeus, who disguised himself in the shape of an eagle, where he was appointed the cup-bearer of the gods. Ganymede was often portrayed as the god of homosexual love and can be seen to appear as a playmate of both Eros and Hymenaios.

To compensate Ganymede’s father, Zeus offered him the best horse possible and him that his son would become the immortal cupbearer of the gods. Tros was happy to hear of his son’s honourable position and accepted the gift with thanks. The gods were happy with the arrival of Ganymede on Olympus, barring Hera who felt extreme jealousy (which is fair enough given her husband’s proclivity for infidelity).

Whilst the story is heralded as a great example of homosexuality in the ancient world, I think it is important to remember that, as is the case with most ancient stories of homosexuality, this shouldn’t be glorified to fit a narrative and we should acknowledge the lack of consent given by the younger homosexual ‘lover’ (see Erastes and Eromenos).

Ganymede’s myth was especially popular amongst the Greeks and Romans, with the first mention of him being found in Homer’s Iliad (8th century BC). But many other authors talk about Ganymede and his beauty too, including Euripides, Virgil, Ovid, and Apollodorus. Once again, as is the case with most ancient myths, there is no one set storyline and so whilst many agree on the overall details of his storyline, the smaller details are often argued over. Although, all sources agree that he was very young and so incredibly beautiful that even the gods couldn’t resist him.

All sources also agree that it was Zeus, as is usually the case with myths related to r4pe, who abducted the young Ganymede and brought him to Olympus. Once in Olympus, Ganymede was given an offer, to become the cupbearer of the gods and in return be made immortal, blessed with eternal youth.

Those of you paying closer attention may wonder about Ganymedes’s parents and how worried they were over the abduction of their son. A Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite narrates the following:

“But grief that could not be soothed filled the heart of Tros; for he knew not whither the heaven-sent whirlwind had caught up his dear son, so that he mourned him always, unceasingly, until Zeus pitied him and gave him high-stepping horses such as carry the immortals as recompense for the slayer of Argus, told him all, and how his son would be deathless and un-ageing, even as the gods.”

According to the myth, Zeus (only after letting Tros grieve for a while) tells him about his son’s new position and gifts him two ‘high-stepping’ horses. Although to a modern audience it seems an unfathomable concept that anyone accepts two horses for the loss of a son, we must also consider the historical context of the myth. Written in a time where everyone was deeply religious and everyday life and religion were inextricable, allowing something to happen if was the will of the gods- no matter whether you agreed or not- was just the way it was and no one would’ve questioned it for fear of angering the gods. And so Tros accepting his son’s new fate was merely a sign of his divine acceptance.

As I mentioned earlier, Hera was wildly jealous (as is completely understandable). Zeus is well known for his affairs, but Ganymede was his own unique case. Not many of Zeus’ lovers were chosen to live on Olympus, and so this really angered Hera- some contemporary sources even going as far as to say that his ascension to heaven was ‘against the will of Hera’. In Virgil’s Aeneid, he lists the bringing of Ganymede into Olympus as one of the reasons Hera was so angry towards the city of Troy and therefore determined to hinder Aeneas. But what a lot of sources seem to forget to add, was that the previous cupbearer of the gods was the daughter of Hera- Hebe- and so her being replaced by Ganymede was not only Zeus cheating on Hera but also cheating the daughter of her position. Hera’s anger is described in detail in Nonus Dionysaica.

“There Hera sat, looking furious even upon the shield, and showing in her mien how jealously filled her soul; for she was pointing a finger at the boy, to show goddess Pallas who sat next to her how an oxherd Ganymede walked amongst the stars to pour out their wine, the sweet nectar of Olympus, and there he was handing the cups which were the lot of virgin Hebe.”

One more thing that I wanted to talk about was Ganymede’s age. Even though his age is never explicitly stated, ancient sources imply that he was young- being an adolescent or even younger. Because of this, his story has huge importance in not only understanding ancient homosexuality but also the dark traditions of Ancient Greek pederasty (thinly veiled p3dophi1ia). However, we must also recognise that there were many Ancient Greeks- take Plato- who argued that the creation of Ganymede’s myth was used to justify the immorality of p3dophi1ia and that not everyone agreed with the practice.

Within art, the depictions of Ganymede’s age vary a lot, from adolescent, to baby, to toddler. If you want some good depictions to look at I recommended checking out Rembrandt’s Abduction of Ganymede (1635), Nicolaes van Helt Stockade’s Jupiter and Ganymede (1660), Le Sueur’s The Abduction of Ganymede (1650), and Antonio da Correggio’s Ganymede Abducted by the Eagle (1531).

Anyways, I hope you all learnt something about the story of Ganymede and (ew) Zeus. Enjoy your weekend!

~Z

[liloelsagranger]

Night shift - finally a new Rocketshipping-fanfiction

My dear friends,

it’s been a while since I last posted an entry. Let me tell you why and what, besides Covid-19, made me pause from publishing fanfictions over the last couple of months. Of course, Switzerland was very affected by the pandemic and still is today. We had numerous lock-downs or as Swiss people call it “slow downs”. My mother got very sick last year, I almost lost her. The doctors said she would only live two or three more days, but my mom is a fighter. She had to stay at the hospital for months, she endured countless medical examinations, had to take meds and slowly learned to live again. I’m so proud of my mother that she was strong and determined to get better. When she turned back home, I started to take care of her and I hate to leave her on her own, even if we’re talking about half an hour or less. Right now, she’s doing quite good, actually, we’re on vacation and she makes a great effort to participate in life in Italy. She’s my role-model! She will never be the same as before, but she won’t give up, she wakes up every morning to make progress. I prayed for her and her well-being, I prayed every single night she might get another chance and now we’re here at the beach and dining in fancy restaurants. It’s been a horrible year for everyone, a year full of sorrow, tears and desperation, a year where I was constantly afraid, the hospital would call me with some bad news, but she did it! She survived and she fights for her life! So proud! Good news is: I passed my doctoral exams and I’m officially allowed to call myself Dr. phil. des. Melanie C. but that won’t ever stop me from loving Team Rocket so here it is - a brand new Rocketshipping-fanfiction for you guys. LOVE YOU! Night shift

Chapter 1:

It was past ten o’clock when that miserable looking guy entered the diner. He inconspicuously sat down in the farthest corner of the café and immediately hid his face behind the menu card. Nevertheless, Jessie the waitress could make out the pathetic expression on his face, how he was cowering like a whipped dog. She had seen quite a bit in this diner. Drunks, thugs, addicts and other needy people who asked for a sympathetic ear, compassion and understanding, but that guy was different. He suffered terribly, but did not dare to communicate, instead he hid from the world so as not to attract attention and quietly endure his fate. Jessie had to do something about it. Of course, she didn’t want to play the Good Samaritan. She knew the tricks of the men who entered this diner. Most of the time, they told the waitress tall tales, hoping to be comforted, whatever they meant by that. But this young man did not make a shady impressionHe was well dressed, looked well-groomed, and Jessie was especially struck by his bright emerald green eyes, the only thing in his face that had not yet been veiled by grief and sorrow. She decided to do something about his displeasure.

“Did you have a rough day?” she asked while disinfecting the table.

He looked briefly into her eyes and nodded. “That’s one way to put it,” he answered, the gaze immediately lowered again.

This would be a taciturn conversation, but Jessie didn’t give up easily, she was a natural at making even rocks talk.

“Listen! No matter what happened, I’ve seen or heard some things. If I can help you in any way, my name is Jessie and I’m in charge of this table today. Let me just get the gum out from under your seat and get you a cold drink. What would you like?” She pulled a spatula from her apron and rubbed away the remains of the spoiled brats that marred her diner.

‘Wow,’ the young man thought to himself. ‘A strong, self-confident woman who lends a hand herself and who’s not above cleaning up dirt.’ Their eyes met briefly, and he forced a wry smile.

“You know, kid. You can’t rely on anyone. If you want to get everything done, do it yourself and don’t trust anyone. This world doesn’t give you anything for granted!” She briefly wiped the back of his chair before disappearing behind the counter and pouring the young man an ice-cold Coke.

“I have rarely seen you so concerned about a customer. Normally you show yourself aloof and only take the order, so as not to get involved in embarrassing conversations. Must be a really great pike, this pathetic creature in the far corner. Could it be that you’ve got a tiny crush on this guy?” For Eddy, teasing his best friend was the greatest pleasure. He didn’t know her like that. Jessie usually resisted any kind of small talk. This was due to her dark past, when she had repeatedly fallen for advances from men who were never looking for a steady relationship, but for a quick fix. Eddy had witnessed this bad time of his friend, how her heart was broken, how she was badly played with, and how she was simply dropped like a hot potato. Jack was the worst example of them all. While Jessie was already hearing the wedding bells ringing, he was making love to the women of the Strip and deceiving Jessie night after night with other broads. Jessie was devastated when she found out Jack was cheating on her. She was furious, not even at her lying boyfriend, but at herself for having been so stupid as to trust a man.

Jessie gave Eddy a light pat on the head. “Don’t be silly! That time is over. I can take care of myself, I don’t need male support for that. I’m a big girl, I make my own dough, and I keep my head above water pretty well. No, not a chance, I’ve sworn off flirting.” Nevertheless, she caught herself as her gaze wandered to the young man in the corner. “Oh yes, this time is definitely over,” Eddy smirked.

“Jessie, could you bring us a side of fries, please?” Misty’s order echoed throughout the hall. The twenty-year old waved her hands. She was used to speaking loudly, almost shouting, to attract guests to her daily water Pokémon show. Sometimes she walked up and down the streets of the Strip all day in the blazing hot sun, trying to win people for her underwater attraction. As an excellent student, she could have taught at any college, but she had decided early on to get into show business and make her living doing what she really loved, joined by Dewgong and Starmie. Her parents had not agreed with this decision at all, it was wasted talent, they had claimed, and had summarily turned Misty out the door. Since then, she had been struggling through life on her own, but could always count on Jess, the diner and her two best friends, Ash and Brock, young people who were also not favoured by fate.

“Temper your voice, twerp!” Jessie couldn’t help but grin. She spread the ketchup bottles around the table, hoping Ash wouldn’t spill on himself and the diner again. His constant companion Pikachu immediately hopped on his shoulder, grabbed a fry and popped it in his mouth. Ash and his Pokémon were carnies. He had trained his friend well and attracted many spectators with his performance. Most of them felt sorry for the guy and tipped generously. That’s why Ash was able to invite his friends to the diner every night, a place that gave them hope where they could experience security. They were convinced that nothing would ever disturb this idyll and that fate, for better or worse, had taken its course.

“Who’s that guy over there?” Brock wanted to know. He had barely sold chocolate and roses tonight. The others held back, but they were certain that their friend was just too pushy with women and that’s why he only collected rejections instead of green bills.

“I’ve never seen him here before. Must be from another area. I can’t tell you for the life of me why he’s wearing a suit at theses temperatures, he looks pretty pathetic to me anyways,” Jessie replied.

“Maybe his car has stalled,” Ash suggested, “and now he was forced to wander through the desert until the tasty aromas from your diner brought him back from his delirium.”

“Or,” Brock interfered, “he had to flee his own wedding because his wife is a real pain in the ass, unlike our sweet Misty,” Brock oohed at his friend. “Forget it, Brock! You and me, this will never happen!” She gave him a gentle poke.

“Enough now with your naïve speculations! Just let him enjoy his drink. We’re closing soon, so get going,” Jessie dismissed their absurd ideas with a wave of her hand, but at this point no one knew how right Brock was.

Dark thoughts hunted the young man. He knew what he would face at home if he was late. Beatings, torture, rebuke, harassment, were just a few words to describe his failed relationship. Unconsciously, he stroked his scarred arms.

“Can I get you something to eat?” Jessie pulled him out of the maelstrom of bad thoughts, of course she had noticed the wounds, but maybe he had gotten those injuries at work. The young man rummaged some coins out of his pants and let them jingle on the table. “Is that enough for a cheese sandwich?” Jessie hated small change, but she would make an exception for him. A friendly smile, a quick nod, and she passed on the order.

“Something’s wrong with this guy,” she whispered to Eddy. “He’s scarred, bruised and pays with penny coins. Possibly a vagrant.” Eddy couldn’t help but grin. “That guy’s been keeping you busy all night, Jess. What’s the matter with you? Are you getting weak?”

The young man could not overhear the conversation between the waiters, but he was sure they were talking about him. He sure made a rather frightening impression, but that was a private matter and not something you shared with a waitress in a diner.

His gaze drifted to the daily paper, which had two faces emblazoned on it: Butch and Cassidy. He had never heard of this odd couple, but according to the news, theses two were causing quite a stir and were terrifying the Strip.

“Oh, so you’ve already spotted them, those two knuckleheads! They keep the Strip in suspense, and heads roll when the taxes don’t add up,” Jessie served him the cheese sandwich and gave him a slight smile.

“Can I get you anything else?” He thanked her and took a hearty bite of his dinner.

The last half hour flew by and the remaining guests left the diner to spend the night on the Strip, as very few had a roof over their heads. Jessie set about cleaning up and Eddy checked the register.

The young man stood up and made his way towards the door. But before he left the diner, he glanced back at Jessie for a moment. A sigh escaped him. What if…?

Jessie returned his gaze and watched him go until the young man disappeared. She walked right up to his table and found a little note on the receipt.

“Thanks for treating me like a human being, James.” 

[redrobin-detective]

Starlit Vigil

Dannymay Day 4: Stars _____________________________

Everything has a story to it, a tale interwoven into it’s very being from it’s birth to it’s death. Sometimes the mystery of the story is as much a story in and of itself. 

Scientists and researchers can’t say when the constellation first appeared in the night sky. It could be seen above Antarctica, near where the edge of the continent meets the Indian Ocean. It confounded a great many people as stars simply didn’t appear out of nowhere. But these did, slowly over the course of several decades sometimes years apart but two appeared within hours of each other. Each new star, eight in total, had a glistening, almost unnatural twinkle to them. The constellation was named Mnemosyne after the Grecian goddess of memory and the stars eight of her nine daughters, better known as the Muses. 

You’ve always had your eyes turned towards the stars and Mnemosyne in particular had always captured your attention. You can’t really explain what it is about those stars that speak to you. Maybe it’s sheer impossibility of their existence. Perhaps it’s the particular beauty of these stars, sometimes appearing to shift in shape and change colors. Or it could be the story behind the stars, the mystery that couldn’t be solved and so imagination filled in the holes left behind.

They say there was a great king, hundreds of years ago. A king who was powerful and kind and helped create the world as we know it. The land of the dead exists and certain people can interact with those beyond it. Technology and understanding have advanced dramatically and, while no life would ever be perfect, there was a general sense of peace that could felt in this world and the next. This king loved our world so much it’s said he plucked the greatest jewels he could find and placed them in the stars where he could watch over and cherish them forever. It’s a sentiment you can understand. 

You study astronomy in school and when you’re given a chance to travel to the Antarctic Circle to study Mnemosyne, you can’t say yes fast enough. The bitter cold and isolation is a small price to pay to see your favorite constellation up close. Maybe when you see it with your own eyes, you can unravel some of the questions people have been asking over the years. Why the goddess of Memory? Why are the stars named after the Muses but missing the muse of astronomy, Urania? What is the true story behind the supernaturally bright stars that appeared out of nowhere?

It’s hard to sleep during the day, partially because it goes against your normal circadian rhythm but you’re also too excited for night to come. For the stars to come out. You bundle up in the warmest clothes, pack your cameras and notebooks and throw the highest quality telescope you can carry over your shoulder. Arriving at the best site for star gazing, you are so delighted by the clear skies and sparkling stars that it takes you an extra moment to realize that you’re not alone.

At first, you think it’s one of the many researchers conducting studies at the pole but it’s soon apparent that this is someone new. Their hair is stark white, almost appearing one with the blustering wind as it’s blown around. You can’t see what they’re wearing because a thick white cape covers them entirely; it has the consistency of freshly fallen snow. Atop their head floats a crown made of pure, crystalline ice. Your eyes widen behind your protective goggles. The existence of ghosts was common knowledge by now but it’s another thing to see one up close. You turn to leave, before the spirit notices you.

“Don’t leave,” he says quietly but despite the roaring of the wind, you can hear him perfectly clear. “You came to watch the stars too, I don’t mind. Mnemosyne is my favorite.”

“Mine too,” you say back without even thinking. “I would love to know their stories.” The ghost turns to smile at you and his eyes are a bright, glowing green without any pupils or sclera. 

“Come, I’ll tell you about them.” You know you shouldn’t. While most spirits aren’t malicious, this one exudes a power you can’t even imagine. But you find yourself stepping closer anyway. You want to hear the stories of the stars and his smile is the warmest thing you’ll find for miles. Somehow you know this ghost won’t harm you. He points up at Mnemosyne and your twin gazes stare up in wonder. 

“They say souls and stars are made of the same ingredients. When I was a boy, I loved this thought. There was something comforting in knowing that, no matter where I went, that I could carry the stars within me,” the ghost explains, looking at you joyfully. 

“But unlike stars, souls are mortal, impermanent,” he says, his smile turning sad. “So I thought, why not put a soul into a star? Then it could last for eons.” He turns back to the stars with a melancholic expression. “Danielle was the first, my little sister. She was always fragile and after only a decade of life, one day she just broke. Her core was too damaged to become a full ghost so I offered her another way to live on. I took the brightness of her smile and made it into a star, into Euterpe. She was the muse of lyrics and poetry, they say she was the ‘bringer of delight’. It suited Danielle.”

“My enemy died next,” the ghost continues. “He hurt me and, moreover, hurt the ones I loved. But he was the only one who truly understood me. His existence comforted me no matter how much bad blood existed between us. His life was full of misfortune, most of it self-inflicted but his fear of death pulled on my heart. My last move in our battle was to make him a star as well, Melpomene, the muse of tragedy. I put him far away from Danielle, I think he’d hurt her.”

“My parents passed a few decades later,” the ghost whispers. “Mom went first, in her sleep. Dad always followed her example so it wasn’t a surprise when Dad followed her in death before the day was done. They were scientists, I think but they loved me very much. Things were tense, I remember being afraid for some reason but their deaths pained me. They were too fulfilled to become ghosts. I grabbed bits of their essence before it dissipated and made the stars Polyhymnia and Terpsichore, the muses of hymns and dance respectively. They were a perfect couple, partners in everything. A song and a dance, always in time with each other.”

The wind rustles the ghost’s cape, he clutches it as if he is cold. You cannot tear your eyes from the the soft grief on his face. 

“Valerie went next, some sort of illness; I can’t remember the details,” the ghost frowned. “She had no desire to become a ghost, no matter how much I asked her to stay. I am King of All Ghosts and yet I got on my knees and begged for some part of her to keep with me. In the end, I stole a bit of her fading spirit and crafted Calliope, the assertive muse, the author of epic poetry. She shines so brightly up there like she had in life.”

“Jasmine died peacefully in her sleep like our mother. She was always protecting me, even in death. Her devotion to knowledge and my wellbeing kept her by my side for many years but it wasn’t enough to last forever. When her spirit was nothing more than wisps, I took her core and placed Clio with the rest of our family. The muse of history, the proclaimer of great deeds fit my older sister well.”

“Tucker and Sam stayed with me the longest. Tucker went first, a quick death from an aged body followed by years as the playful spirit I always knew him as. Sam, my life and my love, passed the same and was my queen in death as she’d been in life. But love can delay death but not deny it and their spirits needed to move on. I kissed them both, my soulmates and made them into stars. Thalia, the muse of comedy and idyllic poems for the light Tucker brought to me. Erato for Sam, muse of love and its poetry for all that she inspired and gave me.”

You see glowing tears running down his face, he holds his hands out to the night sky. His fingers are curved as if wanting to reach and tenderly brush the faces of people long gone. Only they’re not gone completely. You look at the stars with a newfound appreciation. They are no longer pinpricks of long dead light but people who lived and died and yet still lived on in such beauty. If you look closely, you can almost see them. Brushes of red hair, dark rugged skin, the glint of glasses, a flash of amethyst eyes. 

“There’s no Urania,” you say quietly, the wind tossing them. 

“Not yet,” he says longingly, “but soon. The Zone and the Earth are at peace, they won’t need my protection for much longer. When that happens, my spirit will leave this world and join my loved ones in the stars as Urania.” This ghost has been dead for longer than you’ve been alive, longer than many of your most recent ancestors. But his love can still be felt, still burns high above in the sky for everyone to see. What better eternity is there?

“May I tell their story?” You ask and he only nods in response, not taking his eyes off Mnemosyne. You get the feeling he has forgotten about you, caught up in the light of his loved ones shining down on him, waiting. All at once, you realize how late it is, how cold. You leave to return to the research shelter, to write the history of the miracle constellation. 

The stars made out of souls, crafted by love.

Twelve years later, you are not surprised when you look up and see a ninth star in the constellation of Mnemosyne. It glows brightly, twinkling with the other muses as if in conversation. You can only smile through your tears, so profoundly happy that Urania’s lonely vigil is finally over and they have assumed their rightful place among the stars. 

[sirikenobi12]

Dear Mr. Filoni: About Qui-Gon Jinn

Mr. Filoni, I know you are pretty much the undisputed Padawan of George Lucas, but like many students they can sometimes misunderstand their teachings or interpret things from a certain point of view. While I won’t deny you are a brilliant creator who have brought us some amazing Star Wars content you said something a little while back about Qui-Gon Jinn that I think is rather nearsighted and in my opinion incorrect.

“And with the death of Qui-Gon Jinn, Anakin loses the father figure who truly could have understood him – and maybe prevented what was to come.”

This implies several things, the first is that Anakin never had a father figure in his life. Or, rather that he lost the father figure he truly needed. In many ways this is implying that if someone grows up without a father (or a traditional father figure) then they are missing out or won’t have a stable childhood. What about all the people who are raised by single mothers or grandparents or aunts/uncles or by their older siblings? 

Pixar’s Onward is a great example of finding a father figure through an older brother, it highlights that just because Ian never had a chance to meet his father didn’t mean that he lost out on a father figure in his brother Barley. 

“I never had a dad, but I always had you.”

Saying that Anakin lost the father figure who truly could have understood him also just spits in the face of a young man who also lost his father figure in that moment and gave up everything to raise Anakin. 

Let’s unpack that a little bit. Imagine if you will you’re twenty-five years old, you’ve worked your ENTIRE life for a particular goal which is to be a Jedi Knight, traveling the galaxy doing the most good that you can while discovering who you are on your own. Then maybe down the road when you are ready to settle down and possibly train/raise an apprentice you’ll take one on. Suddenly the only father you’ve ever known pushes you aside for a child he’s just met (without even discussing it with you first) and then uses his last words to push this child on you, making him your responsibility, thus shattering your chance at the freedom of a true Knighthood. 

By all rights Obi-Wan could’ve given Anakin’s training over to the Council, the boy was in no way his responsibility. Much like an adult sibling doesn’t have to take on the responsibility of raising their minor siblings if their parents die, they could give the children over to the state and have a chance at a normal young adulthood instead of being thrust into being a parent before they are ready. But, Obi-Wan didn’t do that because he A.) Respected/loved Qui-Gon too much not to fulfill his final wishes, and B.) Knew it would be better for Anakin to take the boy under his wing. 

I will say this until I am blue in the face: OBI-WAN WAS A FATHER TO ANAKIN!! 

In fact, in Episode 2 Anakin refers to him as a father/father figure multiple times and it is clear their relationship while Anakin was a Padawan was that of a Father/Son. It isn’t until Anakin is knighted and they are peers that you see their relationship shift to that of brothers.  

Am I saying that Obi-Wan didn’t make mistakes when raising Anakin? Absolutely not, but would I argue that Anakin was missing out on a father figure because Qui-Gon died? No, I would not. 

The second part of that quote claims that Qui-Gon Jinn could’ve been someone who understood Anakin and might’ve been able to prevent what was to come. I 100% believe that would not have happened, while I think Qui-Gon Jinn is a very interesting character there is no indication in either canon or legends that he would’ve been a good influence on Anakin. In fact, quite the opposite. Here are the top ten reasons Qui-Gon would’ve been a terrible father influence for Anakin: 

1. Qui-Gon Jinn thinks the rules don’t apply to him: While many fans applaud Qui-Gon (including apparently you, Mr. Filoni) for going against the Jedi Council and being a “Maverick” I would argue that more often than not it was to his or his mission’s detriment. This is not to advocate that the Council was 100% correct or that Jedi shouldn’t question things, but there is a difference between questioning authority figures and flat out being obstinate. This is something Anakin excels at even with being raised by the rule abiding Kenobi, imagine how bad it would’ve been had Jinn raised him.

2. Qui-Gon Jinn was selfish: There are several examples of Qui-Gon using the guise of “the will of the Force” in order to get his way. Are we honestly supposed to believe that somehow this one man was more in tune with the Force than any other Jedi (including 12 powerful Jedi who were on the Council)?? And, if he truly believed in following the will of the Force then why did he constantly bend the rules to make sure the “Force” went his way - an example of this is had he actually believed it was the will of the Force that he free Anakin, he wouldn’t have had to make the chance cube go the way he wanted it to go. He flat out cheated so he could get his way.  

3. Qui-Gon was dangerously reckless: Many Jedi are reckless, even Obi-Wan said to Yoda in ESB “so was I if you’ll remember”. But Qui-Gon was reckless in ways that was pretty astounding. For example, EVERYONE told him that his plan to get off of Tatooine was dangerous and frankly stupid. Couldn’t they have just sold the Naboo ship and then purchased a clunker that would get them to Coruscant? Honestly, that would’ve probably hidden them better from the Trade Federation in the long run...but no, he instead decided the best course of action was to put a slave child in mortal danger, thus also placing all of their lives in the hands of a boy who had NEVER won a race before. Now, it ended up working in his favor, but even still those few days spent fixing up Anakin’s pod and then the race itself delayed the Queen from getting to Coruscant which meant more people died on Naboo all because Qui-Gon refused to see any other solutions. 

4. Qui-Gon was often a bully: our Maverick had no problems throwing his weight around to get what he wanted. The Council meeting with Anakin is a perfect example, he didn’t get the answer he wanted. So he put his hands on his hips and refused to leave the room until the Council caved to his demands. Another example of this is in Claudia Grey’s Master & Apprentice where he refuses to do his duty as a Jedi and fulfill the mission simply because he had a vision. He doesn’t discuss this with the Council or with Obi-Wan beforehand, he just decides for himself this is how it’s going to be and then throws a hissy-fit when he doesn't get his way. Or how about he is the one who cheated to get his way in winning Anakin and when Watto calls him out he threatens to get the Hutts involved? He just bullies his way to getting what he wanted.

  5. Qui-Gon never saw the bigger picture: Master Jinn’s whole thing is to focus on the here and the now, and while that’s great advice (especially for Obi-Wan who often looks too far a head) it also means that Qui-Gon often misses the big picture. An example of this is in the book Master & Apprentice where he wants to free the slaves on Pijal’s moon, but Yoda has to remind him that there is a bigger picture and they can only act if it’s in their mandate. He says this not because the Council doesn’t want to free slaves, but because there are incredibly complex consequences and if they were to just do whatever they wanted/could do as Jedi it would cause all kinds of issues for others and while he could maybe free a handful of slaves now it would cause countless others to suffer in the long run. But, Qui-Gon wouldn’t accept this, because he refused to see the bigger picture - he refused to look at anything except what was right in front of him.

6. Qui-Gon has a history of failing his Apprentices: Now, I know this isn’t Canon at the moment, but by the time we make it to TPM Qui-Gon has already done severe damage to 2 former Padawans, and is in danger of having history repeat itself. Xanatos was his second Apprentice right before Obi-Wan, and this Padawan was extremely powerful and Qui-Gon insisted he be trained, but the boy fell to the darkside because he had been too old to start training and had a healthy attachment to his family (sound familiar?). Qui-Gon was so devastated by his fall that he went back and reputed his first apprentice, Feemor, claiming he was such a failure of a Master that there is no way his first apprentice should’ve been knighted. He basically in his grief pushed aside an apprentice who while on paper wasn’t anything special, but was kind and dutiful and a true Jedi (sound familiar?). He then begrudgingly takes on Obi-Wan (only after 12 year old Obi-Wan offers to kill himself to save others) and then time and time again tries to basically pawn off Obi-Wan onto someone else (even as far into their relationship as the Master & Apprentice book). Then, when it finally looks like the Kenobi/Jinn team have figured out how to work well together Qui-Gon has to literally be reminded that his Obi-Wan even exists because Qui-Gon is so blinded by Anakin’s power!! How in any way does this seem like a better father figure option for the emotionally needy Anakin?

7. Qui-Gon Jinn has a history of Attachments: The specific example I have is again from Legends, but it shows how Qui-Gon allowed attachments to become dangerous. He had a childhood friend who he fell in love with, they decided that they could handle being committed to each other as well as the Order so they “pledged themselves” to one another (my guess is basically this is like a Jedi marriage so to speak). Sounds beautiful right, and it is, but...But his love interest Tahl was injured on a war torn planet where the children are so sick of their parents' civil war that they form a third army and go to war against the adults. Tahl is caught in the middle of this and is gravely injured. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are sent to rescue her, and Obi-Wan is sickened by the sight of children fighting and wants to stay and help, but Qui-Gon is so blinded by his attachment for Tahl that he for the first time EVER actually follows his mandate and tells Obi-Wan that they weren’t sent there to help the children, but to rescue Tahl. Obi-Wan who is only 13 doesn’t understand so instead of taking the time to really explain it, Qui-Gon just LEAVES his young apprentice behind on a war torn planet. Now, I’ll admit that Qui-Gon did give Obi-Wan a choice, to come back to Coruscant or to stay and fight, thus leaving the Jedi Order and Obi-Wan did make the choice to stay. But, it was Qui-Gon’s responsibility as the teacher to fully explain the situation to Obi-Wan and let him know that they could do more good if they were to go back to the Council and the Senate and try to return with supplies and reinforcements. But no, Qui-Gon just yelled at him, disregarded his feelings and told him their mission was to rescue Tahl. He didn’t bother using this as a teaching moment for Obi-Wan because he was so concerned about his attachment. And then later when Tahl actually died, Qui-Gon nearly fell to the dark side and it was Obi-Wan who saved him.  And then Qui-Gon went on to decide that because of the pain that had been inflicted by losing Tahl he’d basically give Obi-Wan an ultimatum when it came to the woman he loved (and basically downplayed it as nothing but a crush). Now, say what you want about how Obi-Wan handled Anakin/Padme’s relationship - maybe pretending it wasn’t happening instead of confronting Anakin about it wasn’t a healthy/smart choice, but at least he didn’t downplay it and make it look like Anakin’s feelings weren’t real or valid.

8. Qui-Gon refused to apologize: There are several examples where Qui-Gon refuses to accept any responsibilities and won’t apologize. One such point is in TPM where he basically traded his current Padawan in for a newer/shinier model in front of the entire Council (which if this alone isn’t enough cause to prove the man wasn’t the best father figure…) he then refused to even approach Obi-Wan about it, in fact the twenty five year old Apprentice who had just been tossed aside for a supposed prophecy came and apologized to Qui-Gon!! Another example is back in the Jedi Apprentice books where Qui-Gon leaves Obi-Wan on the war torn planet (as mentioned in #7) it is up to Obi-Wan to make it up to Qui-Gon and prove his worth once again. I’m not certain given Anakin’s tendency to need constant affirmations that this would’ve been a good combination.

9. Qui-Gon was manipulative: Oftentimes we see Qui-Gon manipulating people to get his way (I’m not talking about Jedi Mind Tricks). In TPM he manipulates Watto to win Anakin’s freedom, he even manipulates Obi-Wan into taking on the burden of training Anakin by making it his dying wish. He is not above manipulation if he gets his desired result. We see Anakin does the same thing, so one could argue Qui-Gon would’ve only encouraged this behavior.

10. Qui-Gon cared more about the prophecy than the boy: I’m not saying that Qui-Gon didn’t care about people, or even Anakin, in fact he was a very compassionate character. But, all of his arguments to have Anakin be trained was that he is “the Chosen One” not once does he talk about how the boy needs training simply because it’d be dangerous to leave such raw power alone in the galaxy without training, or that it would be the right thing to do. He doesn’t ever talk about how learning to be a Jedi would actually benefit the boy. Every single time he brings up Anakin needing training is because of the prophecy. Now, as far as it looks in both canon and legends Obi-Wan tried incredibly hard to not bring up the prophecy to Anakin (except on Mustafar), Obi-Wan would bring it up to Mace/Yoda but that was about it. Obi-Wan wasn’t blinded by the prophecy because until ROTS it didn’t really appear that he even believed in it - he believed in Anakin for who he was as a person. Something we just didn’t see with Qui-Gon.

Now, Qui-Gon has a lot of great qualities, I am not denying that, but to say that he would’ve been the father figure Anakin needed is just misguided. If you believe in the idea that there is a will of the Force one could argue that Obi-Wan training Anakin was that will, otherwise Qui-Gon wouldn’t have died. 

Also, Mr. Filoni, why is it that Anakin supposedly suffered because he didn’t have a father figure yet you turned around and gave Ahsoka a brother, not a father? Are you suggesting Ahsoka suffered as well because she didn’t have a father figure? Or, was Obi-Wan by this time finally “old” enough to be considered a father figure? 

This idea that Qui-Gon Jinn would’ve been the fix it to Anakin’s issues is just silly and once again places the blame of the Jedi’s destruction in the hands of the Council and specifically Obi-Wan, thus not forcing Anakin to be held responsible for any of his actions. 

I’m sorry, but it’s not a theory I buy due to a lack of evidence. 

[the-slytherin-writer-12]

Best Daughter Ever: Chapter 1 “I am Iron Man” pt 1

A/N: this story is kind of going to be an AU. There are specific things that will happen in this story that aren’t canon and there are things that won’t happen that are canon. For example, in the future Steve is going to be closer to Tony and Y/N than in the canon MCU. I hope all of this makes sense. Also, let me know if you would like to be included in my taglist. 

Word count: 3,652

General Masterlist

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2008

Y/N sat in the living room of the Malibu house. Her dad was supposed to be on a plane to Afghanistan for a weapons presentation. But, being Tony Stark, he was in his lab working on his hot rod. 

Taking over Stark Industries had definitely been hard on Tony back when he was 21. But getting married at 30 and having a kid at 30 was stressful as well. Not to mention that his wife died and he was a single parent. Tony had lost himself in grief and stress. He gambled, he drank, and he spent a lot of his time in his garage. But he did make sure to spend time with his daughter. 

Pepper just walked in with the clothes of some woman that spent the night. Y/N figured it was a friend of her dad’s, but she wasn’t so sure about the ‘friend’ part because she was wearing her dad’s shirt from last night with nothing under it but her undergarments. As to not get in trouble for eavesdropping, she placed some wireless headphones on and played ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ on her StarkTablet. 

“I’ve got your clothes here. They’ve been dry-cleaned and pressed, and there’s a car waiting for you outside that will take you anywhere you’d like to go,” Pepper spoke professionally. Anyone looking at her, whether they knew her or not, could tell that she was uncomfortable. 

The lady walked forward. 

“You must be the famous Pepper Potts,” she spoke. Pepper smiled and clasped her hands together. 

“Indeed I am.”

“After all these years, Tony still has you picking up his laundry?” The woman jabbed. Pepper looked shocked but quickly recovered.

“I do anything and everything Mr. Stark requires, including, occasionally, taking out the trash. Will that be all?” she asked sweetly. The woman looked taken aback but cleared her throat, turned around, and walked away. 

Y/N looked up from her tablet and met Pepper’s smirk. 

“How’d I do?” Pepper asked. Y/N looked back down and shrugged. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Auntie Pep,” The little girl said, looking back up and flashing her a charming Stark smile and batted her eyelashes. Pepper chuckled and held a hand out to the little Stark. 

“You are your father’s daughter. Come on. Let’s go get your dad,” she laughed. Y/N took off her headphones and set them down along with the tablet. She got off the couch and took Pepper’s hand. 

As the two were walking down the stairs, Pepper got a phone call. Y/N chuckled as she heard Tony’s music blasting throughout the garage. 

Pepper punched in her access code and walked in, making J.A.R.V.I.S pause the music that was blasting. 

“Please don’t turn down my music,” Tony said, not looking up from what he was working on. 

“Come, on Daddy. That song wasn’t even good,” Y/N said, letting go of Pepper’s hand and walking over to her dad. Tony turned around and smiled at his daughter, hoisting her up to sit in his lap with an exaggerated grunt. 

“When did you get so big, missy?” He teased. Y/N giggled and playfully hit her dad on her shoulder, causing him to gasp and feign hurt. 

“You’re supposed to be halfway around the world right now,” Pepper said, after putting her phone away. 

“How’d she take it?” 

“Like a champ,” responded Pepper. Tony lifted up a cover of some sort that went on his car. Y/N watched in admiration as her dad fixed the old car. 

“Why are you trying to hustle me out of here?”

“Your flight was scheduled to leave an hour and a half ago,” Pepper said exasperatedly. Tony put the cover he was looking at down beside him and looked back at the car motor. He pointed out quietly what was what to Y/N who nodded and listened with intrigued eyes.

“That’s funny, I thought that with it being my plane and all, that it would just wait for me to get there,” Tony remarked Y/N giggled, which caused Tony to look at her and smile again. He kissed her cheek, making her squirm away because his goatee was scratchy.

“Don’t encourage him!” Pepper playfully snapped. This caused Y/N to giggle again, but she nodded nonetheless. “Tony, I need to speak to you about a couple of things before I get you out of the door.”

“I mean, doesn’t it kind of defeat the whole purpose of having your own plane if it departs before you arrive?” Tony continued, setting Y/N down and standing up from his stool.

The two adults continued to talk about business stuff while Y/N walked around her dad’s shop. She knew her way around it, but it still amazed her each time. Her father truly was a genius. 

As she walked to a metal table, she sat down on a stool. 

“Hello, Miss Stark,” J.A.R.V. I.S spoke. 

“Hello, JARVIS,” the little girl replied softly. 

She listened in on her dad’s conversation, something about buying something unnecessary. 

“I’m allowed to have plans on my birthday,” Pepper said. 

“Oh! Daddy it’s Pepper’s birthday!” Y/N called out cheekily. Tony rolled his eyes at his daughter but smiled. 

“I caught that,” he said. “I knew it was. Already?”

“Yeah. Isn’t that strange? It’s the same day as last year,” Pepper said teasingly. Tony looked at her adoringly. 

“Get yourself something nice from me,” he said softly. Pepper smirked. 

“I already did.”

“And?”

“Oh, it was very nice. Very tasteful. Thank you, mister Stark,” Pepper said, smiling. Tony smiled bacl. 

“You’re welcom, Miss Potts,” Tony replied. Y/N coughed. 

“Daddy, don’t you have a plan to catch for halfway around the world?” Y/N teased, breaking the silence. 

Tony turned to his daughter and stalked toward her playfully. 

“Are you trying to get rid of my, princess?” He asked, getting closer. Y/N squealed and got off the stool, running away from him. 

Tony let out a playful roar and caught up to her, picking her up from behind and blowing raspberries on her neck. Y/N squealed as he did so, squirming. 

“Daddy, stop!” 

“Never!” 

--------------------------------------------------------

As the two Starks drove down the highway towards the airport, metal music blasted. Tony never liked going anywhere without his daughter, considering that’s how his wife ended up dead. But, there was no possible way that he was taking his daughter to Afghanistan. 

Speeding into the airport with Happy behind them, Tony came to a screeching halt. Y/N looked up at the plan and saw Rhodey standing at the top of the stairs. 

“Hey, Uncle Rhodey!” Y/N screamed from the passenger side of the car. Rhoday chuckled and waved back. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said.

Tony got out, laughing. 

“You’re good. Oh, I thought I lost you back there,” he called out to Happy as he got out of the car. Happy opened the trunk to the black car and got Tony’s lugage out. 

“You did, sir. I had to cut across Mullahound,” Happy said dryly. Tony nodded and walked around to where Y/N stood in front of the Audi. He crouched down and took his daughter’s hands. 

“Alright, baby. I’ve got to go,” He said, looking into her e/c eyes. Y/N pouted. 

“Do you have to?” she whined. Tony raised his hand and brushed her curly, brown hair out of the way from where the wind had blown it in her face. 

“Yeah I do. How else am i going to buy you everything?” He aske dsmiling. The girl pouted but nodded. “ I love you, so much.” He said, kissing her forehead, then pulling her into a hug. 

“I love you too, daddy,” she said into his shoulder. 

After a few minutes, Tony pulled back. 

“I’ve got to go now. Aunt Pepper will be there when you go to bed and Happy will stay at the house until she gets there. Be good for them,” Tony instructed. Y/N nodded. Tony placed one last kiss on her forhead and stood up. She watched as he walked to the stairs leading up to the plane. 

“What is wrong with you?’ Rhodey asked. Tony looked up there and shrugged. 

“What?”

“Three hours,” Rhodey deadpaned. 

“I got caught doing a piece for Vanity Fair,” Tony said as he climbed up the stairs, Happy trailing behind him. 

“For three hours For three hours you got me standing here,” Rhodey said. Tony walked past him and into the plane. 

“Waiting on you now.”

-----------------------------------------------------

 Y/N sat in her bed, waiting on Pepper. She was watching TV when pepper walked in, tears running down her face. 

“Auntie Pep? What’s wrong?” The little girl asked. Pepper walked over and sat down beside the young Stark. 

“Sweetie. Um, your father. He, uh, he went miss..missing in Afghanistan. There was a bombing and he was kidnapped, they suspect,” Pepper choked out. Tears sprung in Y/N’s eyes. 

“Daddy’s missing?” she asked in a small voice. Pepper nodded, wiping her tears off and sniffling. Tears began to make their way down Y/N’s face. 

“Yes, sweetheart. He is. You’re going to stay with Uncle Rhodey until they find him. It shouldn’t be long.’

But it was long. It was three months. Three, long months without her father. She cried herself to sleep everynight for the first month. Then, for the next too, she barely slept. 

All Rhodey could do was watch helplessly as his goddaughter lost sleep and missed her dad. He did everything he could to make her feel better. They even started staying at the Malibu house just so she could sleep in his bed.  While she waited on her father, Y/N was no longer the happy little girl that she used to be.

As news reports told about the accident, they let it slip that the famous Tony Stark had a daughter. This caused for Rhodey to basically place her under a lockdown, barely leaving the house. 

When they got news that Tony was found, Y/N burst out into tears. Rhodey cradled the girl in his arms as he thanked whoever was out there that Tony was alive. 

Y/N went to the airport and waited with Pepper and Happy, since Rhodey was the one to go get him. When the gate let down on the back of the plane, Rhodey was helping Tony up from a wheelchair. His arm was in a sling and he was holding Rhodey’s hand as they walked down the ramp. Y/N began crying as she let go of Pepper’s hand. 

“DADDY!” The little girl screamed. She waited until the two best friends were off the ramp to run to him. Tony’s face broke out into a smile at the sight of his beautiful little girl. 

Tony, with the help of Rhodey, kneeled on the ground and Y/N launched herself at her dad. She was mindful of his hurt arm. She cried in his suit jacket as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Tony got chocked up as he wrapped his good arm around her. She smelt like home. Oh, how he missed her.

“Hey, princess. It’s alright. I’m right here,” he whispered into her hair. Pulling back, he admired her. While stuck in the cave, he didn’t know if he was going to see her ever again. 

“What happened?” Y/N asked, sniffling. She then felt a hard thing under his shirt, right in the middle of his chest. She tilted her head to the side and placed a hand on the hard piece of metal. Tony smiled and shook his head. 

“I got caught by some bad guys. But I’m Tony Stark, so I found a way out of there. And about this thing, some scrap pieces of metal got stuck in my chest and thus was the only way to keep me alive. Its a tinier version of the arc reactor at lab,” he explained. The little girl just hugged him again. Tony stood up, bringing her with him. He settled her on his hip and walked towards Pepper. 

“Hmm. Your eyes are red. A few tears for your long lost boss?” Tony asked the woman. Pepper smiled. 

“Tears of joy. I hate job hunting,” she replied. Tony’s lip quirked up at the corners and walked past her and to his car. 

“Yeah, vacation’s over.”

Sitting in the car, Tony set Y/N beside him, allowing her to curl up into his left side. Tony wrapped his arm around her and kissed her hair. 

“Where to, sir?” Happy asked from the driver’s seat. 

“Take us to the hospital, please, Happy.”

“No.” Tony said. 

“No? Tony you have to go-”

“No is a complete answer.’

“-to the hospital. A doctor has to-”

“I don’t have to do anything.”

“- look at you.” Pepper finished. 

“I’ve been in captivity for three months. There are three things I want to do; I want an American cheeseburger. I want to hold my daughter, and the other…”

“That’s enough of that.” 

“...is not what you think. I want you to call for a press conference now.” Tony finished. Pepper looked at him.

“Call for a press conference?” she asked. 

“Yeah. Hogan, drive.” 

“What on earth for?”

“Cheeseburger first.”

After stopping at Burger King for three cheeseburgers, they made it to Stark Industries. Reporters and workers were lined up outside the door. Obie was waiting on them opening the door for Tony as they pulled up. 

“There he is. Ah. Tony,” he said, pulling Tony into a hug when he stepped out of the car. Tony wiped his mouth and hugged him back, Y/N getting out behind him. “We were gonna meet you at the hospital.”

“No, I’m fine,” Tony replied, throwing his napkin in the car. Happy walked around the car and held the Burger King bag out for Tony, who reached in and pulled out his second cheeseburger. 

Pepper walked over and motioned for her to follow her dad, who was talking to Obie about having to get a cheeseburger. 

Once they arrived in the press conference room, applause immediately sounded as Tony walked into the room. He had just finished his burger, meaning he was still chewing. 

Tony stopped for a moment, turning around and looking for his daughter. She was watching him from beside Pepper. With a jerk of his head, the little girl walked to her dad with a huge smile on her face. Tony grabbed her hand, smiling down at her. 

The two walked in between reporters who were desperate for news.  Arriving at the platform, Obie stepped behind the microphone and quieted the reporters down. Tony just sat down on the steps in front of the stand, allowing Y/N to sit beside him. He wrapped his arm around her, tucking her into his side. 

“Hey, would it be alright if everyone just sat down?” He asked,pulling out a cheeseburger from his suit pocket. “Why don’t you just sit down? That way you can see me and I can… a little less formal and..” 

Everyone sat down, including Obie who sat beside Tony. Tony looked over to Obie and muttered a ‘good to see you.’

“I never got to say goodbye to my father.” Tony started. Y/N made a shocked face and looked up at him. Tony just glanced down at her and smiled. “There were questions I would’ve asked him. I would’ve asked him how he felt about what this company did. If he was conflicted, if he ever had any doubts. Or maybe he was every inch the man we all remember from the newsreels.” 

Flashes were going off as he spoke. Y/N wondered why she was talking about her grandfather, he never talked about him. Especially to the public. 

“I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend and protect them. And I saw that I.. had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability.” Tony explained. A young reporter raised his hand on the front row. 

“Mr. Stark.” He said. Tony looked at him and nodded. 

“Hey, Ben”

“What happened over there?”

There was a beat of silence before Tony got up, Y/N scrambling up with him and taking his hand. 

“I-I had my eyes opened. I cam to realize that I have more to offer thus world than just things that blow up,” he said, a hint of anger in his voice. He walked around to platform and stood behind the microphone. “And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark International-” 

This caused an uproar of noise. The reporters were talking over each other to get his attention. Y/N shrunk into her father’s side, not liking the loud noises.

“-until such a time as I can decide what the future of the company will be,” He finished. Obie grabbed him by the shoulders and talked over Tony through the microphone. 

Tony picked his daughter up and placed her on his hip, stepping back in front of the microphone. 

“I don’t want my daughter to grow up in a world with violence. I understand that violence is inevitable, but I will do the best i can to keep her away from it all. Manufacturing weapons is not doing that,” Tony explained, effectively quieting the reporters. He walked down the steps, ignoring the reporters clamoring. He kissed Y/N’s head, allowing her to tuck her head into the crook of his neck. 

“What we can take away from this is that, Tony is back. And healthier than ever.”

-----------------------------------------------------

Tony wanted to go to the lab at Stark Industries. So, Happy drove him there and Y/N waited in the car, watching as Obie drove up on a Segway. He looked unhappy and walked in, leaving Happy to deal with the Segway. 

Y/N took out her Starktablet from her bag she takes with her everywhere, and pulled up a movie. She had recently been exposed to the Harry Potter series, obviously she read the books first. Taking out her earphones, she pulled up the 3rd movie, Prisoner of Azkaban.

Arriving home, Tony immediately went downstairs. Y/N sighed and went to her room, wishing her would watch a movie with her and cuddle. 

A few hours later, J.A.R.V.I.S announced that her father requested her in the lab. She paused her movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and got up. Dumbledore had just walked into the room, screaming at Harry for ‘putting his name in the Goblet of Fire.”

When she got there, she saw that Dum-E and the other robots had cleared some room and placed a metal table-like thing in the room, along with some monitors that looked suspiciously like an EKG monitor. 

“Alright, princess. I need you to help me with something,” he said, turning her attention to him. She gasped as she walked over to her father, looking at the reactor in her dads chest. Reaching out, she brushed her fingers against the cool metal. She grinned up at her dad.

“This is so cool,” she whispered excitedly. Tony grinned down at her and laughed. Dum-E brought over what looked like a better version of the reactor.

“You really are my daughter. Ok. I need your help. I need to swap this old one out for the new one,” he explained, holding up the new arc reactor. Y/N nodded and shook her hands out. “Ah, no. You have to be careful. There is an exposed wire under this device that is touching is making contact with the socket wall and causing a short,” he explained, taking out the old reactor. Y/N watched closley as he pulled it out, exposing a wire attached to it that went deep into his chest cavity. 

“Ok. I’m assuming you want me to get the wire, pull it out, and then reconnect the new reactor?’

Tony grinned at her proudly and nodded. 

“Exactly. But be careful, if you touch the sides with the wire or pull out the magnet,  I could go into cardiac arrest,” he said nonchalantly. Y/N gawked at him.

“Ok.. Grey’s Anatomy don’t fail me now,” she whispered. Tony chuckled. 

Y/N reached into the hole and searched around for the wire. 

“Wh-what is this in  here? Is that discharge?” she exclaimed.

“Yes it is. Just get the wire.” 

Y/N searched for the wire until she found it. She carefully pulled it out, being sure not to touch the sides. 

“Ok. Ok. Good now just don’t-”

She pulled out the magnet. 

“-pull out the magnet. Ok. It’s ok.”

The EKG started flat-lining, making her panic, She really wanted to page Dr. Yang, and charge to 200. Maybe even page Dr. Shepard just to be safe.  But, her dad seemed fine. 

“Daddy you’re going into cardiac arrest though!”

“I know. Just put the new reactor in, attaching the wires to the base plate,” he said, handing her the new reactor. She reached in, and attached the wires to the base plate like her said. He exclaimed when she did, making the heart monitors come back and set them at a steady rhythm. 

Y/N breathed a sigh of relief and she dropped her head onto her dad’s chest. She then playfully swatted it.

“You can’t give me a heart attack at 8, daddy,” Y/n scolded. Tony laughed and ran his hand over her hair. She lifted her head and look at her dad. Tony sat up and kissed her forehead. 

“I love you, princess.”

“I love you too, Daddy.” she says, then glances at the old reactor. “What are you going to do with the old reactor?” 

Tony glanced her her, then turned back to whatever he was doing with Dum-E. 

“Throw it away. Incinerate it,” he said without any care. Y/N frowned and furrowed her eyebrows. 

“You don’t want to keep it?”

“Nope,” came his response. Y/N grabbed it and looked at it. 

“Well, I’m keeping it. Now, can you come watch some movies with me? You literally just got back from a foreign country where you were kept as a hostage,” she deadpanned. Tony chuckled, but tossed a shirt on and grabbed her hand. 

“Yes, let’s go. What are we watching?”

Taglist:

@bxtchboy69​

[lover-of-mine]

Okey I loved you mega about how Eddie feel first and then this line happened “Well, Buck will never figure it out on his own. “ and know is haunting me ! Because is so true even if buck suspected he will do his best to ignore the possibility of it ,he would be so adjusted so used to feel the way he does to Eddie that he doesn’t realize is more than a friendship is his home and safety line and what that means and it truly makes me wonder what type of slap would be needed for him to finally realize and be like oh and also i believe it would be a “oh fuck “ kind of situation he would absolutely panic about it and try to avoid because is Eddie and he is constant and there’s no way he is risking that , is just so ahhhhh so many things about them that make me insane

Meta in question

No but like I have a whole list of reasons as to why Buck will never look too closely at his relationship with Eddie going from he is bad with emotions (he is okay? he's good with easily identifiable ones, and he's loud about them the rest, not so much) to his abandonment issues make him scared to want too much from any situation in case he reads it wrong. Buck never had a stable person he could rely on no matter what before Eddie and I think he genuinely thinks that what they have is a really strong friendship because he has nothing to compare it with. I have no idea what it would take for Buck to go "oh shit" sometimes I think it would literally take someone saying the words "you're in love with Eddie" or "Buck, Eddie is in love with you" for him to stop and look at it. Because Buck never had an example of what love looks like. His parents were too caught up on their grief, Maddie and Doug is its own can of worms, he didn't have a serious relationship up until he was 26 and before that he kept searching for connection through sex and he held on with all he had to the first woman who he felt was seeing something more on him. And Eddie is the one person he loves who never left him. Even during the lawsuit, Buck left Eddie not the other way around. When Eddie left the 118 he made an effort to ensure Buck knew he was leaving the job not him. And the thing I love the most about the A fell first B fell harder trope, is when A is settled into their feelings for so long thinking they can't be reciprocated that they are better managing them while B is vibrating out of their skin because of how intense everything is once it hits them. And I think that would be Buck. I think the second Buck realizes there's something more between them there would be no containing it. He would lose it a little. But he would also panic. Losing Eddie means losing Christopher and that's the worst case scenario Buck would definitely jump to. That Eddie would hate him, want space, never want to see him again, keep Buck away from him and Chris, and all that catastrophizing Buck does. Because he would also automatically assume Eddie can never feel the same even though Eddie has been waiting for Buck to catch up for years.

It's also part of why I want to Buck to start their relationship if we ever get to that point. I think he needs to identify his feelings and trust Eddie is gonna be there with him and just do something about it. Because he never went for love on his own and it would be good for him, to be the one pursuing someone. Also because Eddie is absolutely ready to take the secret of how much he loves Buck to his grave (kinda poetic kinda tragic that Eddie settled into that state of mind after a conversation in a cemetery) and he will definitely not do anything about it no matter what.

[ssa-pretty-boy]

Fika

Fika: (Swedish origin) a moment to slow down and appreciate the good things in life

Summary: When Spencer Reid works a rough case there’s only two people in the whole world that can make him feel better.

Word Count: 3.3k

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Warnings: brief mention of case details (the usually criminal minds type stuff), implied death of a child (not Spencer and reader’s), other than that its fluffy 

——

The case had been brutal, a grueling two weeks only made worse by the scorching heat of the Arizona sun. To be fair, all cases involving children weighed heavily on the team’s shoulders and hearts. But when presented with a mop of curls and pair of big brown eyes so breathtakingly similar to the ones he held so dear to his heart, it was safe to say Spencer Reid was unraveling at the seams. When he closed his eyes all he could see was that little girl’s face. All he could hear was her mother’s sobbing, a heartbreaking wail that rattled through his very soul, as J.J. delivered the horrendous news that they had been too late. They had caught the sick bastard and he would never see the light of day again but that didn’t erase the fact that their baby wasn’t coming home. 

Later that night they had stumbled on to the jet, all bleary eyes and bruised bodies. ‘Exhausted’ didn’t even begin to cover they way they all felt. Rossi and Emily were asleep before take off and Morgan was nearly there ten minutes into the flight. Hotch was quietly doing paper work specifically to avoid sleep and the horrible dreams he knew this case was going to bring him. J.J. was FaceTiming Will and their boys, assuring them she would be home soon with new a baseball cap for each of them. 

All the while Spencer didn’t know what to do with himself. He tried to read first but when the words of his favorite book failed to bring him any solace he tried to sleep. When he proved too fitful and the leather seat too stiff, he decided to try watching a film on his iPad. After a solid twenty minutes of not even hearing what the actors were saying he gave up on the film too, shucking his headphones off and stuffing them back into his satchel. Knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the board and it’s pieces, he didn’t even bother pulling the tiny chess board out of his bag. With a defeated groan he leaned his head against the seat and tried to go to sleep for the second time. Just as the cool tendrils of unconsciousness started weaving around him, he felt more than heard someone settle into the seat next to him.

“How are you holding up?” J.J.’s voice was soft and tender, a tone she probably used to sooth Henry and Micheal when they were upset. Normally the motherly tone would grate on Spencer’s nerves but truth be told, at the moment he welcomed its comforting cadence. She watched as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in this throat and he was quiet long enough that she thought he was attempting to ignore her. After a few heartbeats, his eyes opened and his head lulled to the side so that he could look at her. 

“They just looked so much alike J.J.,” similar to her own, his words were quiet but his voice wavered and cracked like all the grief and anxiety from the past two weeks were just now starting to bubble to the surface. J.J. attempted, and failed, to keep her face poised and collected. They all noticed the uncanny resemblance between Julia Hodges and Amelia Reid almost as quickly as Spencer did himself. He had managed to keep a calm front for the sake of the parents but he felt like there was something burrowing in his chest and attempting to rip him apart. He just simply could not stop imagining his family in place of their’s.

“There was this one case we worked a few years ago in Milwaukee,” she paused, trying to collect her racing thoughts before continuing, “It was a trafficking ring that we stumbled on. We thought it was just a kidnapping until we got there. The little boy looked so much like Henry; they even sounded the same.”

“I remember him,” Spencer’s voice was still a quiet rasp, “His name was Oliver Moore and he was five years old. Like Henry.”

His friend nodded slowly, her focus had turned to the table in front of them, her fingers absentmindedly tracing patterns onto its wooden surface. Even with that case being far behind them, it had been almost ten years ago now she realized, she still had nightmares about it. Unlike Julia Hodges though, they had gotten to Oliver Moore just in the nick of time it had seemed. But the conditions they had found him in... J.J. didn’t even know how to put it into words. 

She nodded her head, blonde hair sliding over her shoulders and shrouding her face. “I kept in touch with his mother for a while. I just couldn’t let it go. How much he reminded me of Henry, I mean. I still have nightmares sometimes that it was Henry in his place.” Brushing her hair back behind her ears, she turned her attention back to Spencer then with eyes glassy but a small smile on her lips. “There are just some cases that you can’t shake. They feel sticky and slimy and even though we catch the bad guys and sometimes we’re able to save the people they were trying to hurt, it still feels like there’s this stain on your heart. And after a while its like all you can see in the world is the darkness and death. You just need to go home and hold her, Spencer. Love on her and kiss her and hug her. It will remind you that there are still good things in life, that there is still some innocence out there.” 

He tried to smile but he knew it looked more like a grimace twisted on his face. J.J. gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze before standing and going back to her original seat beside Derek. This time when Spencer tried to fall asleep he succeeded. 

——

Six hours and forty seven minutes later, he was pulling into his driveway with the nagging thought that sometimes he hated his job. He loathed having to be away this long. Truly, he really did. It made him feel like he never saw his family anymore, like he was missing all the important milestones in his daughter’s life. Like her fourth birthday party for example. There were still some balloons tied the the mailbox at the end of the drive and what looked like confetti and streamers all over the porch. He had called that morning to wish her a happy birthday and assured her he was going to bring a special surprise home for her but it did nothing to combat the guilt eating at his stomach for not actually being there.  

He tugged a hand through his already unruly hair and let out a deep sigh as he climbed out of the car. As quietly as he could, he unlocked the door and walked inside the dark house, quick to disarm the alarm as to not wake his sleeping wife and daughter with its insistent beeping. With a somewhat renewed energy at the thought of seeing his favorite girls, he bounded up the stairs two at a time, carefully minding the extra creaky ones, then padding down the hall to his daughter’s bedroom. Eternally grateful for the well oiled hinges of the door, Spencer pushed on the white wood and Amelia’s bedroom door swung open silently. The covers were rumpled and pushed back but there was no curly headed little girl amongst them. For a harrowing second, Spencer felt his heart seize in his chest, his grip on the doorknob turning his knuckles bone white. But then he saw her slumped into her beanbag chair beside the tall white bookshelf, her favorite book opened on her lap. He couldn’t help the smile that split his face as he entered the room and scooped her up into his arms, the book falling to the carpeted floor with a soft ‘thud’. 

He hugged her tightly to his chest, swaying back and forth ever so slightly. When everyone found out that Y/N was pregnant, the other parents on his team had told him that there was nothing compared to the love he would feel for his child. Spencer never doubted that he would love his children, not even for a fraction of a second. But what he felt on the day Amelia was born, and every day after, was like nothing he had ever experienced before. A tiny hand came up to rest on his cheek, pulling him away from this thoughts, and he turned his head to find a pair of sleepy brown eyes looking up at him. “Missed you daddy,” she yawned, her eyes already fluttering shut again. 

He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and whispered against her hair, “I missed you too angel. So much.” She smelt like her mother’s shampoo he noted with a smile. He carried her back to her bed and tucked her in the way she liked before placing another kiss on her forehead. 

Just down the hall his own bedroom door was already opened, a soft yellow light spilling out into the hallway. Y/N must have waited up for him. Or tried to he realized with a small laugh as he saw her sitting almost exactly like their daughter had been just moments ago. With a book splayed open in her lap and her reading glasses slipping down her nose as her head lulled to the side, she was slumped against the headboard fast asleep. Spencer sat down at the foot of their bed and took his shoes off, tossing them in the general direction of their shared closet. Deciding to forego showering and brushing his teeth, he dressed for bed quickly and moved to turn off Y/N’s bedside lamp. Careful to note what page she was on, he slipped the book from her hands and moved it to the nightstand before reaching for her glasses. 

She stirred then at the feeling of his hands near her face, she jumped slightly as her eyes slowly blinked open and a drowsy grin pulling at her lips when she realized it was him. “You’re home,” she rasped, her voice raw from sleep and the day of wrangling a house full of four year olds. Cupping her cheeks in his hands, he leaned down to press a soft kiss to her mouth. “I’m home,” he repeated with a smile, feeling the weight of anxiety slowly start ease from his chest. “How was the ballerina dinosaur party?” He didn’t even try to ask that with a straight face, every time he even thought ‘ballerina dinosaur party’ he practically erupted into a fit of giggles. But his daughter had gotten her stubbornness honestly and was determined that was to be the theme of her birthday party.

——

“Mia, have you thought about what kind of birthday party you would like to have?” He asked her as he flipped her pancakes on the hot griddle. When he didn’t get a response, he turned to look her to see she was staring rather intensely at the stack of coloring books in front of her on the kitchen table. She mumbled something then shook her head, curls bouncing at her shoulders and her little eyebrows drawing together in what her mother called her ‘baby genius face’. Spencer couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of him, “What are you thinking so hard about, baby?”

Amelia turned that precious little pout towards him then. “Don’t laugh at me, daddy. S’not nice.”

Spencer clamped his mouth shut, having to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing again. Y/N strolled into the kitchen then with a brush, some hair ties and a spray bottle in her hands. “Yeah, daddy. S’not nice,” she echoed, turning to stick her tongue out at at Spencer before she set to work pulling Amelia’s hair into two little buns on the top of her head.

“Thank you, mama,” Mia said, flashing her mother a toothy grin. 

“You’re welcome, sweet girl.” Y/N squished Mia’s cheeks and kissed her nose, earning a sweet peel of laughter. Spencer smiled at his girls as he plated the last of the pancakes and covered them in syrup. Y/N gaped at the plate when he set it in front of their daughter. Amelia, the resident sugar addict, on the other hand was practically drooling over it. “You,” she said, poking Spencer’s chest with her pointer finger, “are handling the sugar rush that’s going to give her.”

Spencer gave her a bashful smile and raised his hands in front of him, “You know all she has to do is look at me and I give her anything she wants. She could have asked for ice cream and I probably would have agreed. So really its your fault for asking me to make breakfast.”

With a playful slap to his chest she pushed past him to grab the other two plates sitting on the counter behind him. “For the love of god, Spencer Reid please do not give our daughter ice cream for breakfast. Ever.”

He laughed as he sat down in his designated seat across from his wife, and dug into his own stack of pancakes. They ate in silence for a few minutes before Amelia gasped, her fork clanging against her plate as she dropped it into the sticky sweet syrup. She was practically bouncing in her seat as she looked at her parents with wide, excited eyes. “I know what kind of birthday I wanna have!”

Clearly amused, Spencer set his own fork down and smiled at his mini me. “And what have you come up with, Mia?”

Her smile widened as she looked between her mother and father. “A ballerina dinosaur party!” The pure glee and excitement was practically radiating from her as she started clapping her sticky hands together, thrilled to no end with her clever solution to the ballerina versus dinosaur party dilemma. 

“Well then, daddy and I will make that happen for you.” Y/N laughed and extended her hand out for Amelia to high five, she was clearly just as excited. Amelia slapped her mother’s hand before jumping out of her chair and running excitedly into her play room. Seconds later she came back into the kitchen, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “May I be excused, please?” 

Immensely proud that the manners they were drilling into her were clearly sticking, Y/N beamed at Amelia before throwing her a wink. “Nice manners, sister! And yes you may. Go wash your hands before you play though.”

Amelia was racing off again then, calling out a muffled “thank you for breakfast!” as she washed her hands. Spencer was silent while Y/N stacked their plates and carried them to the sink. “What’s going on in that head of your’s, doc?”

“Ballerina dinosaurs-” was all he could say before Y/N cut him off.

“Are you really about to go tell that excited little girl that she can’t have a ballerina dinosaur birthday party for some scientific reason you’re about to pull out of your ass?” Knowing damn well that he wasn’t going to tell that sweet little face ‘no’ for anything in the world, she was smirking and leaning against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed over her chest.

Sliding down in his chair, he crossed his own arms and huffed out ‘no’. Y/N laughed and came around the table to sit in his lap, his arms instinctively wrapping around her waist and her’s going around his neck. 

“How did she come up with that?” he wondered aloud. She might have only been three but they could already tell that she was following in her father’s footsteps, well on her way to becoming a child protege much like he was. But every ounce of her creativity came from her mother.

 ——

That earned him a soft laugh and a even softer, “It was really fun. We missed you though.” She took his hand in her’s and brought it up to press kisses against his knuckles. “How bad was it, Spence?”

He had spared her most of the nitty gritty details but for the most part she knew what happened. Talking it out with a third party frequently helped him, so her lending a listening ear wasn’t anything new to their relationship. The smile instantly dropped from his face and his shoulders sagged again. “Bad. Really bad,” he whispered as he stood and made his way around to his side of the bed. Y/N settled down into the covers and held her arms open to him. Spencer all but dove into her, burying his head into the crook of her neck and wrapping his arms around her as best he could given the way there were laying. They were quiet for a moment, the only sounds were the white noise maker that could just barely be heard from Amelia’s room and Spencer’s sniffles. Soft lips pressed a kiss to his temple and her hands started running through his hair, making sure to scratch his scalp the way she knew he found soothing. “Do you want to tell me about it, baby?” 

He tensed in her arms but relaxed again after a heartbeat, breathing deeply against her neck. It poured out of him in a rush, in all the nasty detail he’d spared her from over the phone. Y/N’s breath hitched and her arms tightened around him when he told her how much Amelia resembled Julia Hodges, and she was immensely grateful he hadn’t told her about that part until now. “I just,” he started again after a long pause, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you and Mia.”

“Oh, Spence,” she cooed, trying desperately not to let her voice crack. “We’re okay, baby. We’re okay.”

“Can we throw her another birthday party? Just something small with the team maybe? I really hate that I missed it,” his voice was small, almost as if he was afraid she’d say no.

“Of course we can,” she laughed softly, “I’ll call everyone tomorrow and set something up.”

He smiled and lifted his head to press a sweet kiss to her mouth. A sweet kiss that quickly melted into something more as he settled between her thighs and his hands slowly slipped under the sweatshirt she was wearing. The pair were so caught up in each other that they failed to hear the soft patter of tiny feet running down the hall. The door slowly creaked open and a tiny little girl appeared, her pajamas rumpled and eyes wide. They jerked apart as Amelia called out to them. “Mama? Daddy?”

Y/N was shoving Spencer’s hands away, trying not to laugh as his fingers ghosted against her sides. “What’s wrong baby?”

“I had a bad dream,” she mumbled softly, looking down at her bare feet. “Can I sleep in your bed?”

Spencer smiled at her as he patted the space between him and his wife. Quick little feet made a mad dash for the bed and she pulled herself up with a quiet ‘umph’. Amelia burrowed under the covers, snuggled comfortably between her two favorite people in the whole world. Y/N wrapped Amelia up in her arms and Spencer turned toward them and threw his arm over them, his hand a comforting weight on his wife’s hip. Just as sleep had started to claim him, he felt Amelia start to squirm.

“Daddy?” she whispered softly into the dark room.

“Yes princess?” His voice already turning gravelly, his tired eyes opening to see his wife smiling at him over the top of Mia’s head. Both of them already knew what she wanted before she even voiced her request. And she sounded so hopeful that he didn’t dare deny her when she asked softly, “Will you tell me a story?”

He smiled and pulled his girls closer to him. “A long time ago,” Spencer started, his voice soft, “there was a dinosaur who loved to dance…”

[foreverwcnter]

cardigan / p.p

pairing: peter parker x stark!reader

summary: “you thought i was dead?” after you go missing with no leads to what happened, you are presumed dead and peter writes letters addressed to you, to help with his grief

word count: 3k

requested: no

warnings: semi character death, heartbreaking angst :( , fluff

a/n: this is for @ariistotles​ lovely writing challenge! i am using prompt 9 for my fic and i hope you guys enjoy!

two days. forty-eight hours. two thousand eighty minutes. one hundred seventy-two thousand, eight hundred seconds. that’s how long you had been missing. the team of avengers, including desperate peter parker sat around a table, staring at the very little evidence they had of your disappearance. it was only two nights ago when you and peter had been cuddled in bed and you had left to go home. 

evidently, you never returned home. 

peter ran his hands through his hair with frustration, eyes bloodshot red from crying. he was terrified and guilty, knowing if he had just walked you home, he wouldn’t be staring at the picture of you on the screen in front of him.

“we have no leads,” sam wilson stated,” the only evidence is this cardigan.”  

peter knew you were wearing it when you left. he recognized the cute patches of stars scattered on the knitted sleeves and the oversized buttons along the ends. it was always so big on you, he didn’t think you would have bought it from that thrift store, but the moment you laid eyes on it, you fell in love with it. you had fixed up the holes and messed up seams, it looked like something someone would shove under a bed. but you took it into your care.

“she was wearing that after she left my apartment,” peter explained, voice cracking. the entire time he had been silent as they investigated your disappearance. “she almost forgot it but i reminded her.” 

peter took a glance at the cardigan, instantly taking notice of the blood-stained sleeves. 

“we have to find her,” he finally added, one tear slipping down his cheek. tony hadn’t spoken at all, and peter knew why. peter understood what it felt like to lose someone. there was a chance you’d be found again, but it was slim. you were just gone. 

the next few days were hell for peter. they hadn’t found anything and all he wanted to believe was that you were at least alive. everyone around him seemed to be giving up already. peter had even overheard tony talking with the other avengers, thinking that you weren’t alive and he’d have to plan a funeral. peter refused to give up, he couldn’t believe the idea that you were dead. there was only a glimmer of hope left in some of the avengers. every day that passed, the more likely it was that you were dead. it wasn’t until two months of searching, they finally gave in.

tony kept the funeral private. it took everything in peter to just crawl out of bed that early morning and may had to help him tie the tie for his suit. his hands trembled too much to get it straight. he didn’t want to believe you were gone, but by this point, he was giving up himself. everything at the funeral was dark, the opposite of what you were like. you always had the brightest of smiles, your hair would always smell like fresh daisies from a meadow. everyone who gathered around was silent, staring at an empty casket, watching it get lowered into the ground. 

peter found himself alone after the casket was six feet under and collapsed to his knees in front of the gravestone. tears openly fell down his face, as he stared at the name written on the stone. y/n stark. he wanted to stop making events like this so familiar. first his parents, then uncle ben. now you. the love of his life, the person he dreamed of marrying. some people see this as an unattainable fantasy because when you are young, they assume you know nothing. but peter was sure. you were supposed to be the one. his endgame. but you were gone. 

a hand tapped his shoulder revealing the familiar face of tony stark. seeing him made peter fall apart as tony pulled him into a tight embrace. peter finally let it all out. with his shoulders shaking with sobs and soft cries leaving his breathless lips, peter parker was finally showing his grief. 

grief was a fickle thing. it constantly changed. peter had been in such disbelief for the past months you were gone, but now he was trying to bargain with what happened. he gave his suit back to tony, he moved on from being spider-man, and tried living normally. he was trying to change himself for you. but it was hard. it took every amount of effort to bring himself out of his bedroom. the only thing that kept him going was the desire to do things you would want him to do. it didn’t take long for aunt may to take peter to a therapist. they could help him sort out the pain he was holding onto.

“tell me about her.”

“y/n was the perfect example of joy,” peter admitted with a desolate tone. “she was always looking to help anyone before herself. something she got from her dad. her hair always smelled amazing, like a garden almost. she liked to braid it, and stick flowers in it. y/n got the idea from tangled…” he paused, staring at the ground. he had planned a date before you went missing. he was going to take you to a lantern festival. where you could recreate the scene from tangled. peter knew how happy it would have made you. but you were gone. you’d never see the lanterns, you’d never live that dream.

“she had a cardigan… something she found at a thrift store, on the ground without a price tag. it had holes in the sleeves and she chose to patch them up with little stars. it was always too big on her, y/n always wore it with everything. i never saw her without it. she once forgot it when we left for a road trip, made me turn around to go get it for her but i was happy to,” a rare smile came onto peter’s face as he thought about the dimples on your cheek when he had put the cardigan around you. the smile faded,” it was the only thing they found when she went missing. it had blood on it and i know something bad happened.”

“i couldn’t stop it. i couldn’t save her.”

the woman in the chair across from him said nothing, just stared at peter as he avoided her gaze. after a couple moments, she began speaking,” you need to figure out a way to say goodbye to y/n. i understand how hard that may seem, but there are ways. i want you to write letters addressed to her. just start with something normal, you don’t have to address her death in the letter, just make it between you and her. the more you write these. the easier it’ll get to let go. “

peter stared at a blank piece of paper for hours that night. he didn’t know how to start. every time he picked up the pen his hand started shaking and he was too scared to write your name. with a frustrated groan, he jumped onto his bed, face buried in his hands. normally, peter would go to you to talk out his stress, to feel your arms around him but he couldn’t have that now. 

that’s when he took notice of your cardigan hung on the corner of his bed frame. he took it into his hands, letting out a sigh. it was the only thing he had left out you. the only part of you that was left behind. so peter put it around himself, pulling his arms into the sleeves. it felt like you had your arms around him again and gave him the boost he had been looking for. 

so he wrote:

my love y/n,  

i don’t want to talk about you being gone yet, just let me have this moment to tell you the things i didn’t say. you were perfect. you are still perfect. i know that sees unbelievable to you, but every moment i shared with you, i cherished like a child would cherish a new toy. 

except i never grew tired of you. you always came with new surprises. whether it was the time i thought you had never watched star wars and you admitted to being one of the biggest star wars nerds there is or the time i caught you crying to rom coms when we were friends, wishing you had that kind of romance. you were a hopeless romantic. mj said you were always looking for a disney prince of your own. i hope i was good enough to earn that title. i hope i gave you your dream love story. because every moment i spent with you was something exhilarating and i ever wanted to pass it up. 

 i just hope i was enough for you.

peter knew the letter was short, but he couldn’t bear to finish. tears marked the page with scratched out words and messy handwriting. he was supposed to write a letter every day. every day until he was able to say one word. goodbye. 

slowly he started getting there. very slowly. 

every day he wrote a new letter. they consistently got longer, but there were days it got short. he tried his best to avoid talking about you being gone. sometimes the letters were simple, saying i went to the grocery store for the first time in awhile. i saw your favorite snack and ended up buying it. i never liked it until now. i guess you influenced me so much.

there were harder days though. these days the paper would be stained with tears and may would come into his room and would find him crying. those letters always had the words “i miss you” and questioned why you had to go so soon. 

there was only one thing he always did when he was writing these letters. he was always wearing your cardigan. he even began wearing it just around the house or to school. may never failed to notice and would wash it for him to wear the next day when peter forgot. having the cardigan around him made him feel comfortable and safe. almost like you were right with him. he even wore it to his second visit with the therapist, four months after your disappearance 

“it’s getting easier to write the letters,” the brunette boy admitted, fiddling with the ends of the sleeves. “i’ve wrote so many already. it’s almost like i can still talk to her, even when she’s gone.” 

the woman smiled. “that’s good peter.”

“but remember, the goal isn’t to hold on, you have to let go. you have to say goodbye.” 

peter hated the sound of it. he couldn’t imagine a life without you in it, he couldn’t imagine moving on from you because every day he still missed you more than anything. 

it took another six months for him to finally write a final letter. ten months after you had disappeared.

my love, y/n, 

this isn’t an easy one to write. these past few months have been hell but i’ve rolled with the punches. i just left flowers at your gravestone. chrysanthemums, your favorites. it’s always been hard seeing your name on that stone and not seeing you next to me.

i miss every inch of you, y/n. i miss the feeling of your lips on mine and the tender kisses you’d press on my neck. i miss watching you fall asleep, i miss running my hand over your back while you snored. i miss seeing your beautiful face, the one that never failed to make me smile. every time i see a star wars movie come on, i’m reminded of your constant rants about padmé and anakin’s romance and how badass all the women of star wars are. i even still think about the day i met you. we were just kids, and you pushed over some other little kids for me. i think that was the day i knew you were important. it only just now dawned on me.

and the best part about you was when i felt like an old cardigan, under someone’s bed, you put me on and said i was your favorite. just like the one you used to always wear.

but i think the one thing i miss the most is just your voice. you always talked me to sleep on rough nights. it’s the same voice that got me through the trials of being a hero, the one that comforted me after hard patrols and nightmares. it was the one that sang ‘i can see the light’ from the lantern scene from tangled everytime we watched it. it’s the one i miss the most and i’d do anything to hear it again, y/n. 

but for now, it’s your turn to listen to me. and listen closely. i love you. you were my soulmate and i still think you are. i loved you then. i love you now. and i’ll love you forever. we’ll see each other again, because you always come back to me. you’re my angel. my love. my dream. my soulmate. my darling. the love of my life. we’re meant to be together. i know one day we’ll find each other. and when we do… i’ll never let go of you again. 

y/n stark, just do me a favor. keep on being you. wherever you are. i’ll keep on being me. i’ll carry on for you.

so now i just have to say one more word. one more word that isn’t forever because i know i’ll be with you. you’ll come back to me. i’ll come back to you. because loving you is like being drunk under a streetlight. it’s the thrill of living life and some kind of light near you. even without the light being right beside you. being in love with you is the best thing that has ever happened to me. 

so here it is, y/n. here it is.

goodb- 

peter was interrupted as he wrote, a hard knock from the door of the apartment. for a second, he waited, but it came again. it sounded urgent by how heavy it was and how frantically the person was knocking. he stumbled out of the chair, leaving the open letter on his desk as he fumbled with the lock. once it opened, peter had begun thinking he was dreaming.

because the person standing in front of the door, was you. 

with his jaw slacking, peter rubbed his eyes trying to process what was in front of him. and to think he was about to write the word goodbye, and here you were, back from the dead. his eyes watered slightly as he opened his mouth to speak but no words came. he couldn’t comprehend the fact you were alive. “ y/n… no… how? how are you here? you were dead… this can’t be real.” everything hit him like an oncoming train, he was convinced he was dreaming or hallucinating. was this a test? was this testing him to see if he was actually prepared to say goodbye?

“you thought i was dead?” 

this was what brought peter back to reality. he fell to his knees so fast in front of you, the tears falling down without a doubt as sobs left his thin lips, the ones you used to kiss. everything from the past few months came pouring out. “you were dead. everyone gave up and i didn’t want to but i did. i gave up, i failed you. i did the one thing you told me not to do because i was weak. and i couldn’t hold myself together at your funeral…” you knelt down as he sobbed and choked out every word, pulling him to your chest. “i wanted you to be the one to help me, but you weren’t there. you weren’t here to hug me before and i tried holding on for you. i tried and i thought i was never going to get over it and move on and i never did. i never did, y/n ,because i love you and you are the only person who will be constant in my life even if you were to fall out of love.”

“and i wrote you letters. i wrote you so many letters. i was writing one… just before you came… it was the last one, y/n, the one where i was going to say goodbye and now here you are,” peter’s arms wrapped around your waist pulling you closer.

“you don’t have to say goodbye anymore, pete,” you whispered, pressing a kiss to the side of his head before he finally got a clear look at you. you looked no different than before. you had a a few bruises here and there, but you were alive. peter couldn’t believe just how much time passed and you were still the embodiment of beauty in his eyes. 

a smile formed on his face, a dimple showing on his cheek,”i knew you’d come back to me.” 

with that, he pressed his lips against yours, a hand moving up to cup your cheek as yours moved to his hair, running your hands through the messy brown curls. your lips were soft, just like they used to be and they tasted just like your favorite cherry chapstick that you used to always use. peter relished in the tender moment, butterflies coming alive in his stomach as he pressed his other hand on the small of your back. you both pulled away gently, eyes still closed with foreheads resting against each other.

“i love you,” you said gently, pressing a kiss to the tip of peter’s nose.

he returned it with his own, murmuring,” i love you more.” 

his heart fluttered in the comfortable silence and the air still held the same amount of love and adoration for each other as it did before. peter never wanted to give it up and he never wanted to let it go. with the cardigan still wrapped around his shoulders and your arms around him, for the first time in months, peter finally remembered how it feels to be secure and safe. 

you both finally stood up, fingers interlocked and right before you both headed inside, you glanced at peter and asked with a laugh:

“is that my cardigan?”

permanent taglist — @ariistotles​  @saturnpeter​ @skymoonandstardust​ @hey-its-grey​ @pufflypuffle​ @uglypastels​ @learning-howto-be-myselfx3​ @simi11​ @abby-blxck​ @pxterbpxrker​ @euphoricmads​ @neverlandparker​ @fairytaleparker​ @dahliaspidey​ @thegirlwiththeimpala​ @pterprkr​ @cosmicholland​ @theamazingtomholland​ @xoxohollands​ @screamholland​ @beiroviski​ @sunflowerhollands​

peter parker taglist — @myslightobsessions​

[headcans-oneshots-and-stuff]

Really gone...

Warning: Again, super angsty, I believe that you will cry or at least will wanna cry. Sorry already Word count: ~1.5k Summary: Bruce was gone, not leaving a body or any way to bring him back, and you are left to pick up the pieces Pairing: Batman x Batmom

Requested by a rosey Anon: Okay, here’s my super sad request... okay so Batman dies while in Gotham (so the league doesn’t know) and the bat fam has covered it up so no one knows. And so at the next league meeting, one of the kids shows up (cause they are the new Batman you can pick who) and their all like what the heck who is this dude and they question him and he’s like ‘you don’t know? He’s dead’ and if you want you can add in a funeral part where all the kids are theRe edit: the reader would be the batmom

It felt wrong. So incredibly wrong. To see his suit filled by someone who’s not him..made the entire thing too real. He was gone. Really gone. It had happened before, but never like this, never without a corpse to bury. It had a certain feel of finality to it. At first, when after a week - that you had spent trying to keep the family together and help them grief, barely eating, and the nights crying for hours at pictures and memoried of Bruce, before sleeping for one or two hours - the league had notified you of a mission for your late husband you had wanted to just ignore it, but Dick had convinced you that that wasn’t what Bruce had wanted and that he’d go instead of him. You had agreed and even said that you would come along, thinking that it could take your mind off thing, but as soon as you saw your oldest son standing there in the suit you couldn’t go on anymore and broke down. You were more than glad that none of your other children were in the cave, you didn’t want them to see how broken you were, how his loss affected you. You wanted to be strong for them, but at the realization of the situation, you couldn’t be strong in front of Dick. But he understood, for a few minutes he held you as you sobbed at the feeling of emptiness in your heart and your life while soothing you before he told you to take the day off from everything and stay home. He told you that he’d take care of the mission on his own and be back in time for the public funeral the next day. The funeral. You had forgotten about that. Or did you just not want to be aware of it? It was unimportant as you knew that it had to be done. Even if the casket would be empty and public would never know that his end was in no way caused by a surprising stroke, it still had to be done. It would explain why the family would keep out of the media for a while until you were ready to fully take over Wayne inc. with help of Tim and things would change into a state that was supposed to be normal again. Even if it never truly would be normal again. Your heart would never heal. No one would ever fill the empty space that was left in your soul. While you went back upstairs to drown yourself in the sheets of your bed that you hadn’t changed since he had died - the smell making you feel like he’d come back any minute take you in his arms and tell you that it was all just a nightmare - before you had to put your brave mask back on and console your other children, Dick went to the Cave’s own Zeta-tube and took a deep breath, trying to bury his own grief not only over the loss of his adopted father but also over his mother who was so visibly suffering. He had to go through with this now, he’d get this mission over with and then he’d come back and help you through the funeral. It wouldn’t be okay, but it would be manageable. “Justice league headquarters,” he gave the voice command before the blinding light enveloped him. “Batman, there you-” a voice that he immediately recognized as Clark’s echoed through the room, but immediately stopped as soon as the transport was finished. He guessed that Clark realized that he wasn’t Bruce. A quick look around the room showed that it was only the inner circle of the league: Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow and of course Superman. “What are you doing here? Where’s Bruce?” Superman asked immediately and narrowed his brows. The others also inspected him with wary eyes. Luckily for all of them, they all knew about Bruce’s real identity and his family. Dick had to swallow the lump in his throat. He wasn’t ready for this, but he should’ve guessed that it would happen. He had to tell the truth. Clark would know if he’d lie and to be quiet honest, he didn’t have the energy to lie right now. “He-” he tried to start but stopped himself with a sigh and the suit felt incredibly heavy all of the sudden. The way that Dick avoided their eyes and looked down at the floor was enough for the others to realize what exactly he was going at. “No,” Green Arrow - Oliver - breathed out and his shoulders fell, the look of shock and agony mirroring on all the other faces too. “What- What happened?” Diana asked and Dick noticed the way her hands were clenched together so tight that her knuckles were completely white. “I-I don’t know-” Dick sat down at the desk on the chair that was usually his dad’s and rubbed his eyes over the mask, “-I wasn’t there, none of us where. Only Y/H/N… They were on a mission, but she came back alone, she wasn’t able to tell us what exactly happened yet. We just know that he’s gone… and that it seems like he won’t come back.” A silence filled the room. They all knew how in love you and Bruce had always been, you were always the picture-perfect example that a relationship between two vigilantes could work. No matter what, you stuck together and supported each other. They couldn’t even imagine how much it must have affected you. “We’re so sorry,” Hal muttered and the others nodded in agreeance, they all knew how it felt like to lose someone so important and they all felt the stinging in they hearts themselves. “I think you should go back home, they need you right now, this mission isn’t as important, we can handle it,” Clark mumbled and lais his hand comfortingly onto Dick’s shoulder.

Dick had come home just as you finally made your way out of your bedroom to have lunch with your family. He caught you in the hallway and told you that it was okay, that you didn’t have to force yourself to put up a facade, that all your children were old enough to realize that you needed some time too. He said that he’d take care of his siblings as the oldest brother and that you could try to just concentrate on yourself for the night. The next time you came out of your room was the next noon when you had to get ready for the funeral. You gave yourself a last once over in the mirror. To be honest, you couldn’t care less what you looked like. It was your husbands funeral for god’s sake, but the media would be in the area - like they always were - and the last thing you needed right now was to be on every drama-channel in existence. You just wanted to get through with it. Once you were sure that there was nothing about you that could provoke a reason for the paparazzi to rip you apart, you made your way to the foyer where your family was already waiting. Normally you would be delighted to see all of your children, Alfred and Kate on one spot, but the occasion made it tear at your already fragile heartstrings. They were all dressed in black suits and in Babara, Cass and Stephanie’s case dresses. “Miss Wayne-” Alfred focused the attention of the room on you and you were happy that the black veil that was accessorizing your head hid your eyes well enough for them to not immediately see the despair in your eyes, “- Are you ready?” You took a deep breath and nodded your head as you arrived at the bottom of the stairs, a small trace of something similar to happiness filled you when Damian immediately hurried over to you and took your hand in his, clutching it like you could fade away any seconds. “Very well, if you’d follow me,” Alfred’s voice was so void of emotions. It was unusual. The way to the cemetery that was attached to the grounds of Wayne Manor, the place was Bruce’s parents were buried and where he’d soon join them, was silent and if it would have started to rain you wouldn’t have budged an eye. This was Gotham for you. Behind the fence, you could see the flashes of cameras and news-trucks, but that wasn’t what caught your attention. It was a small group of people standing off-side. You immediately recognized them. The tall woman dressed in a dark-red pants-suit, the man with his wife and son and all the other people. They were your friends, his friends. They were there to pay their respects and let you know that they were there for you. And at that point, you realized it, with your family beside you and your team near you, just because you were lonely, didn’t mean you were alone. And just because he wasn’t there anymore, didn’t mean that Bruce was truly gone. He was still in your heart, he was still in the hearts of the people who loved him. And that had to be enough because you knew that you would never get more than that again.

[thefanficmonster]

Promise

Anthony (The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope) x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Death scenes, Grief, Housefire, Angst, Swearing

Genre: Angst, Romance

Summary: Sneaked glances and pass-by smiles are often times the start of the most beautiful of love stories. Sadly, many of those stories end too quickly, too soon for the souls in love to be able to enjoy them. This is the story of Y/N and Anthony. The love story that started with a promise and ended in flames.

Requested by @niksoiio Hi dear! Thank you so much for your wonderful request! I apologize for taking so long, but here it finally is! I know how excited you were for this fic, so I hope it fulfills your expectations and doesn’t let you down! Please enjoy! Love, Vy ❤

Never is a love story as pure as one long awaited to commence. The souls patiently waiting to intertwine, the emotions dying to shine through more than just glances and secret smiles. Feelings to mix, collide and dance together, creating a symphony of a lifetime. The symphony of love that lives beyond the end of the very souls that sparked it.

This is a love story, a story of loss, and a clear example, proof that a love simply doesn’t die. It’s an everlasting flame - burning brighter than the one that attempted to destroy it.

                                                              ~~~

“You seem restless tonight.“ Anthony walks into the living room, placing a cup of hot cocoa on the coffee table in front of Y/N who’s reading the back cover of the book he has been keeping himself busy with lately. 

Y/N has been Tanya’s friend since they met in middle school. When their friendship carried over into high school, that’s when her and Tanya’s adoptive brother Anthony met. They instantly became friends, sharing their love for thrillers and murder mysteries, similar taste in music and relatively similar personalities - the quiet peacemakers. The lovers, not fighters. Well, not fighters unless necessary. They are both protectors with many people they care about and would do anything to keep them safe. The two of them are pretty similar that way. 

Very compatible, as some would say. Tanya being the first to notice the connection between two of the closest people in her life. Knowing the shyness of the two and their self-doubt, she chose not to speak up about it until spoken to, expecting them to take ages to finally see what’s been going on between them. Guess she wasn’t far from the truth.

On this night Y/N and Tanya were supposed to spend their time studying together for the last exam of the semester before Christmas break began. They have agreed to meet at the Clarke house at six PM in the afternoon which has long passed and Tanya is still yet to return from the date she went on with her boyfriend Vince. She promised Y/N she’d make it home by six, but now it’s eight and there’s no sign of her whatsoever. A snowstorm started slowly taking over the town approximately two hours ago, probably the reason behind her friend’s absence, but to Y/N’s dismay, also the reason she’d have to spend the night at the Clarke household because her parents wouldn’t be able to collect her in this weather, especially not with the run-down car they drive.

“Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She nods in gratitude at the boy who sits down on the couch next to her as she takes the mug containing the hot beverage with as firm of a grip as she can muster with her shaky hands. 

She has indeed been restless since she arrived. Walking into the house, apart from Anthony who had let her in, the first person she saw was the youngest member of the family - Megan. The little girl has never done anything to her in particular, but there has always been something about her that has unnerved Y/N. Something in her eyes and demeanor, how empty and hollow her gaze was, almost like she was looking through people and objects instead of at them. The smile she sent her as a greeting sent chills down her spine, leaving her hands and knees shaky and her body jittery as if the house was colder than the outdoors. The thought that she’d have to sleep in this house made her stomach clench with discomfort, a sickening feeling of wrong taking over her mind and body.

“Maybe it’s the exam. You know, if Tanya doesn’t make it, I can help you. It’s not a difficult subject, after all.“ Anthony attempts to reassure her, giving her a sympathetic look as he takes a sip of his own cup.

She gives him a soft smile and another nod of appreciation for his offer, “No, it’s not that. Or at least I think it isn’t. Exams don’t make me nervous until after I’ve finished them, if that makes sense.” She giggles weakly, basking in the warmth of the porcelain cup in her ice cold hands. It doesn’t have much of an effect though - instead of warming up her skin, her hands are basically cooling the drink and she still feels as tense and endangered as ever. “But a study partner could be pretty useful, thank you.”

After finishing the rather disappointing movie they found on TV as well as their drinks, they make their way to Anthony’s room to actually get some studying done because, judging by the nearing of nine PM and the constant lack of her friend, she wouldn’t be returning on time. Anne attempts to offer them before they go, an offer which they turn down in favor of making the most of the time they have left before their brains would require rest for the day.

“You see, I get that it’s far less complicated than it seems, but I’m terrible at paying attention in classes, let alone at taking notes.“ Y/N admits while they take a short ten minute break between note-reading and revising the chapters they’ll have an exam on the following day.

Anthony’s eyebrows furrow, “Why’s that? I mean, the professor isn’t boring. Not to me, at least.“

She shakes her head, “No, no, far from it. The rare time’s I’ve managed to focus I quite enjoyed the lectures. But I tend to get too stuck inside my head to hear anything else. My brain gets overwhelmed by the future, by what’s gonna happen five minutes, five days or maybe even five years from the present moment. I sometimes get so lost in those thoughts that I end up...this is gonna sound weird, but I feel like I end up living them.” Somewhere along the lines she could no longer hold his gaze, embarrassed and afraid of how his opinion of her might change with this newly revealed information.

However, much to her surprise, when her eyes meet his again he’s looking at her with nothing but intrigue and child-like curiosity. No amusement or humor or mocking, just wondering, hoping to find out more. Little does she know, that’s how he always looks at her when she is facing the other way. “That’s so interesting. I guess the real question is: Do the things you imagine ever end up coming true?” It was said with a lighthearted smile with the intention of easing the tension in her, calming her nerves, but he had unintentionally struck a chord.

She nods her head, her eyes widening slightly, “Well that’s the weirdest part - they do. Almost all the time unless I do something to prevent it. It freaks me out every time.” An aura of fear surrounds and inhabits her as her gaze wanders away from his again, this time subconsciously, “It scares me so much, Anthony. I know something’s terribly wrong with me. I’m a freak of nature or...I don’t even know what. I just know it’s bad. And I probably shouldn’t have told you all of this cause you now won’t ever look at me the same, you will avoid me. Call me crazy behind my back. I see why but-...”

Before the petrified girl could continue rambling, Anthony takes hold of her hands, firm and comforting. The sudden, unexpected contact of their hands silences her, freezing her eyes on his as she breathes heavily in hopes to stabilize her rapid heart and far worse shakiness. With his hands holding hers, she feels protected, guarded from whatever the future may hold and from the very fact that she could probably find out if she tried. For once though, she doesn’t feel like she has to. She doesn’t need to see what will happen and prepare, she trusts it won’t be so bad as long as she has this boy holding her by the hands, looking at her with such softness in his green orbs staring back at her.

“But that’s all nonsense, Y/N. I’d never say something behind your back, especially not something meanspirited or ill-willed. You...“ he trails off, hesitating for just a moment longer, deciding against prolonging this grey area his feelings have been locked in for far too long as it is, “You are very important to me, more than you know. I could never see you as anything but amazing, mesmerizing. You’re you, Y/N. And that’s why....“ Hesitation and doubt make one final attempt at beating his courage bloody. Much like last time, they fail and Anthony carries on, “That’s the reason I’ve fallen in love with you, Y/N. Quirks, oddities, they are all beautiful cause they are yours. And I love them cause they make you who you are.“

He has somehow managed to turn the tables on her, leaving her to be the speechless one despite her having just revealed her freaky ‘abilities’ to him. What looks like a fiasco in her mind he’s made seem like a perfectly put together kaleidoscope. Like every piece of her shattered courage and bravery is back in it’s spot. Although he’s somewhat managed to put her together, she’s still a long way from being whole, which is why words have failed her now. She hasn’t felt so complete in so long, and now the final piece missing is that response that just refuses to leave her chest.

Seeing her stunned as she is, Anthony feels the need to apologize, justify his out-of-the-blue confession that startled her so much, “I know I should’ve you sooner, or at least picked a better moment but-...”

It’s her turn to cut him off though her method is much more efficient - silencing him by pressing her lips against his.   Though caught off-guard, Anthony is quick to respond to it, kissing her back with the same amount of love she’s put in on her end.

“Hey, Y/N, I’m so sor- WHOA!“ The two pull apart at the sound of the familiar female voice that has suddenly filled the room. Tanya has picked the worst of moments to be coming home, and she’s more than aware of it. Despite feeling guilty for interrupting her brother and best friend’s moment, she’s also glad she didn’t miss it. After all, she’s been watching the two suffer in silence, pining for each other since the start of their high school freshmen year and even now that they’re in college. They’ve been quiet about their feelings for more than four years and she can’t be happier to finally see the prophecy fulfilled. “You know how long I’ve been waiting for you two to finally succumb to your hearts and turn those lame brains you have off?! Oh this is a relief like no other.” The older girl laughs, pleased with the outcome of four years of looking on at two very important people in her life adoring one another and not saying a word. Needless to say, she’s proud of them.

“Do you know what knocking is, Tanya?“ Anthony is the first to recover from the initial shock of his sister’s appearance.

“Only in theory. Not in practice.“ She replies sarcastically, giving a pleased smile that speaks volumes of how her spirits have been lifted all thanks to them. “I’ll go downstairs, pretend I didn’t see what I saw, make myself a cup of tea to warm up and when I come back I want to see that you two have pulled yourselves together. Your faces are burning red.” She instructs, backing out of the room but not before fixing them a narrow-eyed warning look.

She wasn’t wrong - they are indeed blushing a deep red and all they can do is smile when they look at each other, giggling a tiny bit.

Suddenly, Y/N’s eyes widen as though she has just remembered something of great importance. “Wait.” She mutters, more to herself than to Anthony. Her hand swiftly slides the ring off the middle finger of her left hand and offers it to Anthony, “Here.” The boy takes it hesitantly, turning it between his fingers as gently and cautiously as he can as though the ring would crack if his grip became any firmer. “By taking in, you’re making a statement, a promise. A promise that you won’t change your mind about me...about us by tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or by next week.” She’s unable to look at him yet again, instead focusing on her fidgeting hands rested in her lap.

After a brief moment of contemplating, Anthony hands her back the ring, “I don’t need to make a promise, I know I won’t change my mind. You could look into the future and see for yourself too.” He tells her reassuringly, a sweet smile on his face to show the lightheartedness of what he’s said, afraid it might be offensive to her if he didn’t clarify.

She shakes her head, “For once in my life I don’t want spoilers for the future. I’ll just let it play out. I’ll see it when it happens.” She pushes the ring back to him, “But I still want you to keep this. A reminder, if not a promise. A reminder that I promise to love you for a very long time.”

A warmth spreads throughout his chest, the wholesomeness of the moment having reached to his heart and soul. He curls his fingers over the ring protectively, “Alright, I’ll take it. As a promise that I too promise to love you for even longer.”

The strings of emotion connecting them are slowly being pulled, bringing them closer once again. They both lean in, ready to feel that incredible magic of a love-filled kiss another time.

“Consider this me knocking! My hands are kinda full so just open the door if I can come in!“ Lips less then an inch apart, they’re interrupted by the shout coming from the other side of the bedroom door.

The young pair laugh, accepting that their moment will have to be postponed before Anthony goes to let his sister, who’s carrying a cup of tea and some snacks, in. All Y/N can think about is how much happiness she’s found so unexpectedly, in a place she was all but willing to stay at. Life is full of surprises and unforeseen moments, so many things one can never predict. And even though Y/N can predict them, now she’d rather not. She now understands the importance of surprises in life and she wants to cherish them properly.

                                                            *  *  *

Flames, fear, screams, shouts, cries. All painted on the backs of her eyelids. The mortifying images playing out in front of her jolt her awake.

A nightmare, it’s just a nightmare, she tells herself.

But upon opening her eyes she is met by the misty darkness of the smoke-filled room her and her best friend are currently in. 

A nightmare that she could’ve predicted and warned the others about.

“Y/N, get out of the window! I need to find Megan!“ Tanya tells her urgently, ushering her towards the windowsill, “Go! Anthony will catch you!“

Looking down at the snow*covered yard below, she sees Anthony’s figure, motioning for her to jump. She can barely hear him over the ringing and thumping in her head but she trusts him. She believes she’ll be ok if she chooses to rely on him. So, following both his and his sister’s instructions, she jumps, falling into his arms. For a few moments it’s all blank around her and in her head. She wonders if it’s just the feeling of the fall or the fact that she could’ve died so easily. Or maybe the close proximity to Anthony. Either way his whisper wakes her up from the blank trance she has fallen into.

“It’s ok, I got you.“ He steadies Y/N on her shaky feet, taking her head and leading her to the front of the house.

The next few minutes are a show of nothing but horror and pain. Her and Anthony witness it together, unable to do anything but look on as ever member of the Clarke family, one by one, has life escaping their bodies in the most brutal of ways: Tanya and Megan never made it out of the house; Mr. Clarke was caught under the fallen ceiling in the living room and Dennis was the worst, having impaled himself on the fence below the attic window.

They saw it all happen. They couldn’t do anything. Fear-ridden, powerless and helpless, frozen in their spots by the horrifying scenes playing out in front of them.  With tears brimming her eyes and blurring her vision and her knees almost completely giving out, Y/N felt a little bit of her die with each member of the family. A large chunk of her died along with them. She can only imagine how Anthony feels.

“Mom...“ The distressed boy mutters, “Mom’s still in there! Mom!“ Before she could stop him, he’s running towards what used to be the front door of the house and into the burning hallway.

Y/N’s heart drops, adrenaline and the primal instinct to save the person she loves kicking in bringing her legs to life, carrying her forward. “Anthony no!” A loud cry of desperation leaves her aching chest.

She too enters the hallway, surrounded by the overwhelming heat that feels like it’s burning her skin off. She doesn’t dwell on that though, instead she lunges forward, hands grabbing at Anthony’s arm with all her might and yanking him back with as much strength as she has left. Thankfully, it’s enough to send the boy stumbling back, falling on the snow out in the yard, falling to safety just in time.

Just when the ceiling in the hallway collapses. Directly on top of Y/N.

Like the last breath had been drawn out of Anthony’s lungs. Like his last hope had just been shredded to pieces.

Like his life ended along with her, his heart severed and plucked out of his chest, thrown into the flames.

He bows his head, uncontrollable cries leaving his body, each feeling like a punch to the gut - oh so painful and oh so dreadful. As though his very soul is draining from his body with each scream of agony. Then he spots the shimmer in the snow, the twinkle in his darkened vision.

The promise ring that had fallen out of his pocket, its smooth, gleaming surface unharmed, reflecting the raging flames in front of him. Its statement, its meaning standing stronger than ever - an everlasting love. A brightly burning flame ignited by two souls so adored by each other. And even though one of the flames that started the fire has been extinguished, the fire of love hasn’t wavered.

The ring is sending him a message:

This is far from the end of his love. Far from the end of hers either. When two souls intertwine the way theirs have, the bond cannot be broken.

                                                            *  *  *

Half a century has passed and Anthony has never missed the day - each year gracing the town of Little Hope with his presence to commemorate his late family and loved one, bringing a flower to each of their graves.

Survivor’s guilt still haunts him. That night’s events still keep him up at night and the images still seep into his dreams. However, now he has a way to cope with it. He writes. He writes in a diary but in such a way that it’s composed of letters. Letters addressed to different members of his family though the majority are love letters for Y/N. He tells her about his day, how he wishes she were by his side, how he whishes they had more time or acted on their feeling sooner.

How he loves her even more now, how they have remained connected.

“Funny how we haven’t run into each other before. Fifty years and this is the first time I’m seeing you here.“ The deep male voice startles him, “I knew we’d run into each other eventually.“

It’s Vince, Tanya’s boyfriend - the person who’s been placing the flowers Anthony find on Tanya’s grave every year. He always assumed it was him, another man forever in love with the soul that is left to linger after its body vanished. Another man chained by a memory, one he wouldn’t escape even if he could. He still loves Tanya, no doubt about it, and he wishes to never stop loving her. Him and Anthony are rather similar that way.

“Though it was you. No one else knows Tanya’s favorite flowers.“ Anthony motions to the bouquet of white flowers in Vince’s hands, “Surprised you’re still here.“ He knows it’s not the wisest thing to say to a man who’s suffering down the same road of guilt and grief - the road only lit by the everlasting love that has remained in his heart as well as Vince’s.

“Surprised you haven’t stopped coming around.“ He replies though they both know what’s insinuated - they understand why neither of them can let go. They’re bound to bodiless souls that reside here. They are both more than determined to stay as close as possible to those souls they are so hopelessly in love with.  Vince’s eyes trail down to Anthony’s hand which is holding the bouquet he was going to place on his sister’s grave. He catches the glint of a ring on his finger, “You’re married?”

The promise ring. He’s chosen to wear it in place of a wedding ring. It is not only a way to cope but it’s exactly what him and Y/N agreed on all those years ago - a reminder that they’ll love each other for a very long time. For forever.

“Yes. I’m married.“

He indeed is - to Y/N and the memory of her. To her soul that his will forever be connected to.

@artlovingbre  @sparrow-gg  @megandaisy9

[raeality]

Star Wars WLW Week | Day 4

Day 4 Prompt: Courtship Rituals

Otherwise known as "How To Court An Alderaanian"

Amilyn Holdo gets a lesson in Alderaanian courtship traditions. (~2200 words)

Amilyn is enjoying Aldera’s open-air market with the rest of her Pathfinding class. Leia’s mother, Queen Breha, had suggested they all do a little shopping before eating dinner in the palace that evening, and Amilyn is taking full advantage. She’s already purchased a new fuchsia scarf to wear at said dinner. But mostly it’s nice to wander through the stalls without a mission in mind. Alderaan is a beautiful planet, and its people seem to enjoy creating beautiful things. Amilyn truly loves beautiful things.

She runs into Kier Domadi at a stall featuring a long table crowded with carvings that look to be made out of real wood.

“Kier, what are these?” she asks the native Alderaanian.

He glances between Amilyn and the table. “You’ve never heard of lovespoons? They’re a treasured Alderaanian tradition.”

“These are spoons?”

Amilyn picks up one of the intricately carved wooden objects. There is a shallow depression at one end that could be spoon-like, but because most of the object is a long series of interlocking symbols that have nothing to do with silverware, Amilyn doubt it’s ever being used at a dinner table.

Kier smiles gently at her. He’s a nice boy, but usually a little too academic-minded for Amilyn’s liking. It does make him the right person to ask questions of at least.

“Most people hang theirs as decoration,” Kier explains in his future historian’s voice. “Traditionally, demonstrating both your skill in woodcarving and the dedication of time it takes to make such an object were necessary elements in Alderaanian courtship.”

Amilyn raises her eyebrows at him. “And what about these days? Does anyone still gift these?” There’s an interesting idea taking shape in the back of her mind.

Kier tips his head to one side. “There are dedicated artisans who make them now,” he says, gesturing to the owner of the stall. “And some people continue to purchase them to give to their beloved. Most married couples on Alderaan have at least one lovespoon hanging on their wall. In fact, I can show you a rather famous example in the palace later. The queen keeps the lovespoon the viceroy gave her when they were courting displayed in their throne room.”

Amilyn turns the lovespoon over in her hands, examining the way the polished wood flows from one symbol to the next without a hint of joinery. It would probably take a long time to learn the skill to make something like this.

“Thanks, Kier,” she says, setting the spoon back down on the table. She’s not interested in buying one, but knowing that Leia’s parents have one displayed in a prominent place is making her interesting idea a lot more compelling.

~

Amilyn is right. It takes a long time before she’s skilled enough to carve a lovespoon of her own.

She immediately finds a teacher back on Gatalenta to teach her the basics, and she takes to making practice pieces with every spare moment she can find. The problem is, she doesn’t have many spare moments. At first, Pathfinding and the Apprentice Legislature take up most of her attention. That’s not the worst because at least she gets to be with Leia while she’s doing those things. They grow ever closer as friends, and Amilyn tries not to pay attention to the way Leia looks at Kier whenever they’re all together.

But then Leia tells Amilyn all about the rebellion now forming against the Empire. And the pair find themselves on a mission to the Paucris System. They manage to warn the rebels gathered there of the Empire’s interest in their location just in time for them to evacuate. But neither of them can save Kier Domadi, that noble fool, who’d come to rescue Leia and ended up caught in the rebel station’s self-destruction wave. Amilyn is sad to lose a friend, and sadder still for Leia who is obviously devastated by Kier’s death. So Amilyn is the one who pilots them all back to Alderaan and keeps the Empire from figuring out just how entangled they are with the rebel cause.

Amilyn is also the one Leia leans on while she’s grieving. So she sets her carving aside to focus on teaching Leia skyfaring and eventually letting her know that it’s okay to smile and laugh again. By the time Leia is formally invested as Alderaan’s crown princess, she and Amilyn are spending nearly all of their free time together.

Once Leia teaches Amilyn how to drive a speeder on Coruscant, all bets on either of them actually being in their city apartments at night are off. They explore as much of Coruscant as they can while the Apprentice Legislature is in session. And Amilyn keeps trying to indicate her more-than-friendship feelings to Leia, but she’s more than a little scared of losing Leia’s actual friendship if those feelings aren’t returned.

And then, one night the two of them make a ridiculous bet. And in the chaotic aftermath of its execution, Leia asks Amilyn to kiss her.

So Amilyn starts carving again. She’s just starting to get competent enough to plan the actual design for a real lovespoon when things with the rebellion get serious. Leia moves on from the Apprentice Legislature so she can take over as Imperial Senator for her father. Amilyn can’t do the same for Gatalenta, but Leia helps her become a civil minister in the Alliance Civil Government. It’s important work obviously, helping to bring the Galactic Republic back from the ashes the Empire scattered across the galaxy. But it means she and Leia hardly have time for each other anymore as their duties pull them to separate star systems more and more.

Amilyn’s heart breaks when she hears about the destruction of Alderaan. She races to be by Leia’s side on Yavin 4, but their reunion is temporary. Leia makes it a mission to save the Alderaanians who were off-world when their home planet was destroyed, and Alliance High Command assigns Amilyn back to her ministerial duties. After a clever idea she had when the ship she was on is caught in a Star Destroyer’s tractor beam, Amilyn is promoted to captain in the Alliance Fleet and her life changes yet again.

She tries to keep tabs on Leia, but the princess of Alderaan is often deep undercover, or otherwise involved with Alliance High Command. They manage to send each other messages on occasion, but Amilyn feels Leia growing distant in more ways than one. She’s seen the smuggler at Leia’s side with the blaster at his hip and a glint in his eyes. Han Solo is the opposite of Kier Domadi in almost every way, but Amilyn feels the same desire not to pay attention when she sees Leia looking at him.

Eventually, Amilyn puts her carving tools away for good. She spends the ensuing decades focused on helping the Alliance and then the New Republic once the Empire has truly fallen. She watches from a respectful distance as Leia marries her smuggler and then has a son with him. But Leia still invites her over and introduces her to little Ben as “Aunt Amilyn.” Their friendship never quite recovers to what it was when they were girls together, but Amilyn isn’t surprised. For her part, she knows that she’ll always be in love with Leia. That alone puts a certain distance between them that can probably never be breached. But Amilyn is glad to have Leia back in her life in whatever capacity she can.

And when a new power in the form of the First Order rises and Leia asks for Amilyn’s help once again, Amilyn is only too ready to join General Organa’s Resistance. She’s put in charge of the Resistance Fleet as a Vice Admiral and she takes to her new command with pleasure.

But Amilyn notices a difference in Leia. And eventually she gets the truth out of her old friend. Her son, Ben, has fallen to the dark side of the Force. And Han is gone; their marriage dissolved in all but name.

Amilyn feels terrible when she pulls out the box with the half-carved lovespoon inside it, the dim hope that has remained in her heart after all of these years trying to flare back to life within her. She looks at the rough shape for a long time. Her fingers ache for the handles of her carving tools, and she can almost smell the peels of exposed wood as they curl back and then drop to the floor.

She shakes her head and puts the box away again.

~

“Amilyn, what is this?”

Amilyn turns from the pot of Gatalentan tea she’s brewing to see Leia holding up her failed attempt at a lovespoon.

“Ah… That.” Amilyn brings the pot over to the small table in her ready room and pours a glass of tea for Leia and herself. “I didn’t realize generals had permission to snoop through vice admiral’s belongings.” She says it lightly so Leia will know she’s teasing, but Leia still blushes.

“The box was unlatched, and I was curious,” she admits. She settles herself in a chair and reaches for her glass. She inhales the steam with a smile. “I do love this tea.”

Amilyn smiles back at her. “You always did,” she says. She takes a sip of her own tea before running a fingertip over her unfinished carving. “I’ve carried this all over the galaxy with me, you know, but I never have gotten the chance to finish it.”

“You made this?” Leia looks at it again with something like awe in her dark eyes.

Amilyn hums. “I did. And even though it’s not finished, maybe you can guess what it’s supposed to be?”

Leia sets her glass down and picks up the carving. She turns it over and over in her hands. Amilyn tries not to thrill at the way Leia’s fingers glide lovingly over the turns in the wood as though it’s a living thing she has to be gentle with. Finally, Leia holds it out in front of her, taking it in at one glance. She tilts her head.

“I’m not sure,” she admits.

Amilyn steeples her fingers beneath her chin. “The first time I saw one, I didn’t know what it was either,” she says. “I had to get Kier Domadi to explain it to me.”

Leia sucks in a startled breath. Amilyn winces. She shouldn’t have dropped Kier’s name like that without warning. Even decades later, his absence is a grief to them both.

But a moment later, Leia is staring wide-eyed at Amilyn, clutching the carving close to her chest.

“Amilyn,” she says as though she can’t believe the words that are coming out of her mouth. “Is this an Alderaanian lovespoon?”

Amilyn shrugs and gives the princess half a smile. “It was supposed to be. Once upon a time. Like I said, I never have gotten the chance to finish it.”

Leia touches the carving again, and Amilyn sees the moment she starts to understand the symbols Amilyn has been trying to bring out of the wood. The shapes are rudimentary, but identifiable: starships and speeders, a crown and a sword for Leia, twists like skyfaring silks and flames for Amilyn, and at the end where it all comes together is a shallow spoon-like curve in the shape of a heart.

“When did you start this…?” Leia breathes, not quite looking at Amilyn.

Amilyn’s heart is beating faster, and she tries to will it to slow down. She shrugs again, and takes another sip of her tea. “Right after Kier told me about the tradition,” she says. “I knew it would take some time to learn how to carve, so I spent a long time practicing before I started that piece. And of course I never had enough time to work on this one, so I couldn’t ever finish it. And if I couldn’t finish it, I couldn’t tell you…”

“Oh, Amilyn.” And Leia is staring at her now with unshed tears shining in her eyes.

Amilyn’s breath catches in her throat. Leia lays the carving down on the table between them and reaches for Amilyn’s hands. Their fingers intertwine easily, Amilyn’s slender and trembling where Leia’s are sure and strong.

“My dear,” Leia whispers, caressing the backs of Amilyn’s hands with her thumbs. “I’m not sure I deserve your love.”

“And yet you’ve always had it,” Amilyn whispers back. She can feel her own tears gathering in her eyes and she blinks them away furiously. “I have loved you all these long years, Leia, and I will continue to love you until the day that I die.”

“May the Force grant that day is long from now,” Leia says with a tremulous smile. “Amilyn, my dear, dear friend.” And she lifts Amilyn’s hands in hers so that she can kiss the tips of her fingers with soft lips. “Be patient with me if you still can. Stars know I love you too, but my heart has been so bruised…”

“I know,” Amilyn murmurs. “I know it has.”

Leia releases one of her hands to touch the lovespoon again. “May I have this in the spirit with which it was originally intended?” she asks a little shyly.

Amilyn blinks back more tears. “Are you saying you’d like me to court you, Your Highness?”

Leia dips her head and smiles. Her fingers tighten around Amilyn’s as she nods. “Yes.”

And Amilyn thinks she can fly forever on that word alone.

(Author's Note: Lovespoons are a Welsh tradition that I co-opted for this fic. If you want to read a bit more about them, the Wikipedia link is below.)