#hover in the sky and damage the team you have to be mobile no matter what

[lyriumsings]

idk why everyone acts like lifeweaver is such a bad team pick like idk maybe you’re just bad at supporting DJSJSJ

[tracybirds]

gumnut-logic replied to your post “okay I’m coming off of three days of nothing but writing physics...”

Well you know who I’d like a story about. :D How about we team up John and Virg and the case of the missing marshmallows. Other brothers optional, but there has to be at least one apple and Eos has to butt her head in at least once :D That sound like something?

@gumnut-logic This may be the most bizarre writing prompt I’ve attempted but I had a heck of a lot of fun with it!! I hope you enjoy it and I make no promises for consistent characterisation xD

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The sun was by no means high in the sky when the insistent beeping in Virgil’s ear broke through his slumber, but the early haze of morning had been burnt off in the crisp southern sun. He groaned and rolled over, dragging linen sheets up and over his head, reaching out a hand to grope at the accept call notification that shone bright in his eyes.

“Someone had better be dying,” he growled into the comm, his eyes still squeezed tightly shut in denial of the day. “I swear John, if this is your god-awful circadian sleep cycle alarm, I will revoke cheeseburger privileges on your supply lists.”

“Virgil,” hissed John. “Virgil, I need your help.”

That got his attention. He cracked one eye open and peered at the hologram through the sheet.

“Shit John,” he said, propping himself up on one elbow and pulling the comm closer so he could see his brother more clearly.

“John?” he said sharply when his brother didn’t respond. “What’s going on?”

“Okay, don’t panic,” said John, “but I think I need you up here, Virg. I’m either hallucinating, or maybe it’s my memory, but Virg, I can’t find the marshmallows.”

Virgil, who had leapt out of bed and was hurriedly pulling on a new pair of jeans at John’s words, paused. “The… marshmallows?” he replied weakly.

“You know the ones,” said John agitatedly. “You sent them up last week, and I put them away and they’ve vanished.”

Virgil could already feel a headache developing behind his eyes. “John, when did you last get some sleep?”

“Two hours ago,” said John. He looked past the Virgil at something beyond the holographic display and his holo drained of colour. “Virgil, I can hear Gordon.”

Virgil knew for a fact that whatever John was hearing, it was not their brother who had crashed on the couch immediately following their last mission, slept through a horror movie marathon, and more importantly, who Virgil could see at that very moment from his window, cheerfully chatting to someone on his own comm.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can, Johnny,” he said, hurrying down to the docking station where the space elevator was ready and waiting for him. “Tell EOS to put us in emergency shutdown until we get this sorted.”

***

John met him at the airlock. He was still looking pale and his eyes were slightly bloodshot as he floated in the microgravity. Virgil grimaced at the weightless feeling, the sensation automatically sending red alerts to his brain. It would never be the comfort to him that it was to John and it was a relief when his brother engaged the gravity ring.

“I may have overreacted,” said John sheepishly, leading him into the galley. “I mean, about the marshmallows that is.” He pressed on one of the walls and the pantry doors opened to reveal an decorated tin. He pulled it out and offered the homemade marshmallow to Virgil before replacing it in the pantry and shutting the door. “I swear I left these in my room, I can’t explain it.”

“Maybe you’re sleepwalking again?” suggested Virgil.

John huffed a laugh. “Have you seen the way I’m strapped to my bed at night? I guess it’s possible, but I doubt it. Besides,” he said, lowering his voice. “Between you and me, if I were, I’d never hear the end of it from EOS. She’s developing a sense of humour.”

“Oh,” said Virgil, staring at the fond, proud look on John’s face. “Uh, congratulations?”

“Thank you,” he said beaming. “It’s an important step in her development.”

“Right,” said Virgil. He still wasn’t quite sure how to approach John’s attachment to EOS, and as far as he knew, there was no book titled What to Expect When Your Brother Adopts A Formerly Evil AI But Evil Implies A Morality She Hasn’t Yet Developed And He Won’t Shut Up About It. He quickly changed the subject. “Let’s get you checked out.”

There was an infirmary on Thunderbird Five, tucked away between the observation deck and the gym, but John led him instead to his room. He sat down on the bed that was still pulled down from his previous sleep cycle, blankets awry and scattered around him. Virgil frowned as he squeezed into the precious remaining space and grabbed the medical equipment that John tossed him.

“So, aside from the marshmallows, what’s really been going on John?”

To his surprise, John flushed and tensed under his careful hands. “It’s hard to explain,” he murmured, allowing Virgil to check his vitals. “It doesn’t sound like much, but put all together…”

“Hey, no judgement here,” said Virgil with a gentle smile. “You’re talking to a guy who once spent three hours convinced he could talk to the giraffe outside his bedroom window.”

“Wasn’t that a palm tree?”

“Exactly.”

John laughed, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “It’s just lots of little things,” he said. “I think I’ve toasted a bagel and I hear the ding, but it turns out I never turned it on. I programme a game of handball and suddenly I’ve pulled up space invaders. Nothing’s happened during a mission, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“Hey, it’s okay Johnny,” said Virgil, laying a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “We’ll solve this. You got your sleep records around?”

“There’s nothing I can see in them,” said John, turning around to pull up the file on the holoscreen beside his bed. He froze, hand hovering in mid-air.

Virgil followed his gaze and his eyes widened. Sitting on the shelf that jutted out from the wall, serving as John’s bedside table, was a small decorated tin.

“Okay, you see that too right?” asked John, not yet daring to reach out and confirm his sanity.

“That’s your tin of marshmallow,” exclaimed Virgil in surprise. His words broached a boundary that John was holding himself back from crossing and he snatched up the tin and pulled the lid off in one movement.

“It is,” he said, staring at it. “I’m not crazy right, we left this in the galley?”

“You put it back in the pantry,” Virgil confirmed. “You don’t have two tins?”

Without looking back, John sprinted out of the room and Virgil raced after him. With trembling hands, he opened the pantry to reveal a red apple sitting in the place the marshmallow tin had sat not twenty minutes earlier.

His mouth dropped open in confusion but before he could comment, John’s face had contorted in sudden frustration and he snatched the apple up and brandished it at Virgil.

“These are real,” he said. “Tell me these are real Virgil, I keep finding these all over the damn place.” With that, he threw the apple at the wall and Virgil winced as it bounced and rolled onto the floor between them, battered and bruised.

“Where are they coming from?” he asked Virgil desperately. “There weren’t any apples sent up on the last delivery, I’d have seen them on the supply list.”

“There’s something strange going on here,” said Virgil, looking suspiciously around them. “The good news is, it’s probably not hallucinations or your memory failing you.”

“Then what is it?” John cried.

At that, a ghostly laugh floated into the galley from the corridor beyond. A very familiar laugh.

“Gordon,” called Virgil angrily. He didn’t know why and he didn’t know how, but suddenly he was certain Gordon was the mastermind behind these events.

“Gordon’s on down on Tracy Island,” snapped John. “I looked into that already.”

A loud thud on the galley doors made them both jump and they rushed through the automatic doors to see another apple rolling away from them. Another echoing laugh drew them down the corridor, following a trail of red fruit and mockery into the module room, the globe spinning in the centre of the room and the communications array glowing dimly.

“Good morning, John,” came EOS’s bright voice. “Good morning, Virgil Tracy.”

“EOS,” gasped John. “I need a scan done, tracking all human presences on Thunderbird Five.”

“There are two humans present on Thunderbird Five.”

“Where’s Gordon?” demanded Virgil.

“Gordon Tracy is on Tracy Island,” said EOS automatically, pulling up a camera feed to show them Gordon cheerfully trying to dunk Alan in the pool.

She laughed brightly as Alan dragged Gordon under the water and he emerged spluttering with a wide grin on his face.

“This is fun, John,” she said happily. “Can I try this in the future?”

“Absolutely not, you’ll damage your hard drive,” he said with a fond smile. “And since your hard drive is my home, I will not let you take the risk.”

“You could get a mobile array built for me which could experience this in my stead,” she persisted hopefully. “I could merge our data following the experience and undergo recombination of our memories.”

“I am not getting you an android for Christmas if that’s what you’re asking,” said John, absently and EOS laughed again.

There was something in the cadence of her laugh that tugged at Virgil’s memory and he stared at EOS as he tried to unravel the sound.

“EOS,” he said slowly. “Have you asked John about the new book he’s reading?”

EOS tilted her camera array to one side and Virgil had to suppress a laugh of his own when he saw John do the same thing.

“John hasn’t mentioned this.”

“No I haven’t,” said John, looking bewildered. “Tell her Virgil, it’s a good one.”

“It’s on anti-gravity,” he said with a grin. “It’s apparently impossible to put down.”

There was a beat of silence and suddenly he heard it again, her laugh following the intervals of his younger brother’s, so open and cheerful and so very different to John’s huffing chuckle.

“It was you,” he concluded.

EOS gasped and swung her array around to look at John and his reaction.

“What?” asked John. “What was EOS?”

“The marshmallows, the space invaders, the apples. John, it’s been EOS all along, I guarantee she’s been talking to Gordon.”

That pealing laughter rang out again, this time mixed with Gordon’s own familiar laugh echoing around the room.

“I have,” she said happily. “John, he’s taught me so much about humour, you’d be so proud.”

John looked a little shellshocked.

“All this time?” he asked weakly. “EOS, I thought I was losing my mind.”

“Isn’t it funny, John!”

“No! EOS,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I mean, now I know they were pranks, this all makes a lot more sense, but…”

“What John is trying to say,” said Virgil, jumping in, “is that pranks are a very particular branch of advanced humour.”

“Yes, thank you,” said John, waving towards him. “Perhaps, we can work our way up to pranks. There’s very specific pranking algorithms that need to observed for maximum impact. Search parameter “prank wars” for examples.”

Virgil snorted. Leave it to John to immediately teach his daughter the importance of retaliation. He would let that piece of information make its way to Scott on its own.

“You going to be alright now?” he asked in an undertone.

“Yeah,” said John, shaking his head as EOS pulled up video after video on the screens surrounding them, alternating between laughter and critique. “Oh man though, a prank war? Gordon’s going to regret teaching her anything in a few weeks, I can promise you that much.”

“I’ll see myself out,” said Virgil with a grin. “Have fun wrangling my niece.”

John waved him off and Virgil left, still thinking fondly of EOS throwing herself into the world of humour with all the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old child. There was no book titled What To Expect When You Adopt An AI, but Virgil was confident that they’d be there to help him muddle through.

[whitewolfbumble]

Behind Enemy Lines - Part One of Two (Bucky x Reader)

Summary: Bucky was trapped in a locked down facility, the very one you were home grown in. Now you were back and to get him out you had to battle criminals, your past, and your fears to do it. Alive, preferably, but there was no promise of that.

Prompt: “What are you doing here?”

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Language, violence/blood, death, angst, kissing because let’s balance that angst lol

Word Count: About 6k

A/N: This is heavily inspired by The Raid so we’re talking action and fighting here (I do LOVE me a badass female lead, so this shouldn’t be a surprise). I do not normally go this action intense, so this was a fun experiment! Let me know if the page breaks don’t show up on mobile and I’ll see what I can do. This was written for @sweetboybucky 1K Writing Challenge! Congrats darling!! Hoping you like some action and angst in your fics??

MY MASTERLIST // SEND ME A REQUEST

The outdoors looked still as green leafy trees stood tall and motionless, a sheet of grey clouds covering the sky, not a drop of blue in it. From your position inside you couldn’t hear anything out there- not a single bird chirp- and the quiet was deafening.

You gripped the railing tighter, hating the stillness of everything around you as you buzzed with restless energy. You saw your face reflected in the floor to ceiling kitchen windows, contorted into an expression of shaky anger. If only to hide the worry that had taken root somewhere deep in your chest, growing and spreading like weeds. You were beginning to wonder if it would sprout out from your skin for everyone to see.

“He does this, Y/N.” Steve continued. “He needs his space, you can’t take it personally.”

“But why aren’t you more worried here?” you asked again, questioning how his best friend could be so ambivalent.

Bucky had left, needing time after a particularly bad mission, and of course the team had let him go. It wasn’t exactly an unusual thing for the brooding, damaged member of the team to need some space alone to come back to himself. Sometimes when he fought he went on a kind of Winter Soldier autopilot, slipping into that person he was working so hard to leave behind. The trauma of that hit him hard sometimes. It wasn’t a comfortable shell to slip back into or out of certainly.

And Steve was right, you shouldn’t take it so personally. But no communication- no calls, no texts, nothing- for over two weeks left you on edge of an anxious void, threatening to swallow you whole if you didn’t figure this out.

“Because he’s been gone for over a month before,” Steve said, one hand on his hip and one on the coffee mug, continuing reasonably. “He leaves when he needs to, and shows up when he’s ready. We can’t force him otherwise, and moreover shouldn’t. This healing is his process. And I trust him, Y/N. You should too.”

Your cheeks grew hot as your breath huffed out.

“Fine,” you said, trying to smile in amiable agreeance as you turned away from the window, but it fell decidedly flat. “I’ll drop it. For now, Boy Scout.”

You set off from the kitchen, Steve looking as though he was going to push the topic before just letting you go. You waited until you were out of view before your face fell into an expression of mixed frustration and anxiousness.

This wasn’t about fucking trust here. You trusted Bucky with your life, with your secrets, with everything. In a way that no one else around here did. When he came on the team you were practically the one to bring him around to being with other people again. He was a wall of silence back in those days, so you filled it with talk of the team members lives and eventually of yours. He got to know them all through you, allowing himself to open up little by little to the group. You revealed more of your life than you had told anyone else over the course of your time together.

Including your past. Because he would understand, at least partially.

Even though the majority of the team didn’t know about your backstory- and may never know the full extent if you had your say in the matter- Bucky did.

Details like the fact that this bad mission you had all been on two weeks prior was only a city away from where you were held captive. Where you were made all those years ago.

Storming into your room with thoughts of Bucky and your past swirling, you immediately walked across to your bed, pulling up your duffel from under it. You stilled, looking at its contents with hands on your hips as you mentally debated what you were thinking of doing here.

“Fuck it.” you muttered and walked to your closet, ripping off your sweater and pulling on your leather form-fitting stealth jacket.

You grabbed the duffel on your way out without looking, determination in your eyes.

You were going to find him. And he better not be anywhere near that base.

The apartment building looked decrepit. It was several stories, which would be mostly abandoned but a few floors. Black sludge had dripped down from the windows, staining the peeling stucco. The first floor around the building was painted a fading red, like it was trying to hide blood stains. Set on garbage strewn concrete and set against a grey sky, this place was a complete fucking hole. And if your memory was correct, it would be just the same inside.

You swallowed hard, clutching the handle of your knife sheathed at your thigh a little tighter. You knew your memory was right. It had not been enough years of distance between you and this place to forget a single detail unfortunately.

Your surveillance spot from across the barren courtyard was hidden enough, but still you felt the need to move or do something.

The search for Bucky had come up empty, and you had found yourself back here of all hellscapes you could visit. You wouldn’t give up looking for him, and the pit in you stomach was telling you he was close. Along with others from your past.

Pushing that thought out, you sprinted lithely towards the building, staying quiet against the concrete wall. You slipped in through the wide open gate, footsteps silent, breath held in your chest.

There would be one civilian-looking guard around the west side at the back alley way.

Because there would be no trouble getting into the building. They almost welcomed it.

Getting out though? Easy, if you didn’t care whether you lived or died. But if you wanted out alive, it was next to impossible.

Nonetheless, you took out your gun and kept moving closer, holding it tight as you ran to the back alley.

Beads of sweat dripped down your temple, the hot humid building on the wrong side of suffocating.

Your gun was pointed out, eyes sharp and fierce as you planted one foot in front of the other carefully.

This place was mostly people choosing to be here. They were those on the fringes of society, drugged up most of the time, ignoring the horrible and hateful things done here. The people who ran this place gave them drugs and kept them in a state of dependance in order to manipulate and control them. It was sick.

Some others, like you had been, weren’t so lucky. You were trapped in the upper levels, chained and experimented on, forced to fight for sport or whatever else the scum you were rented too wanted from you.

And now you were back here alone like a fucking idiot.

You hadn’t told but a couple people on the team about your past (and only minimally, besides Bucky) because you had never wanted to come back here. If you had revealed your history, they would have burst in with guns and plucky attitudes blazing. You just couldn’t handle that, for more than just one reason.

But here you were, waltzing in on a fucking hunch and fucking alone.

You heard the muffled sounds of obnoxious game shows behind some chipped wooden apartment doors as you walked steadily by. Or yelling. Or pounding house music. Or silence.

The smell here was one of urine and trash and cigarettes, remnants of the three all lining the hallway. You kept your disgusted eyes on the elevator across the way, knowing this wasn’t going to be the hardest part. But you still had to make it alive through it, which wasn’t a guarantee.

Those on this floor may be pretty common criminals compared to your elite abilities, but that was part of the deal of living here. Residence of this place were fucking loyal and would fuck you up in large numbers if you were stupid enough to trespass on this fortress. The lower levels were pretty basic, the upper levels were a nightmare.

As you got to the end of the first floor, your hand hovered above the black elevator button a moment. Looking to the ceiling, you heard it.

Muffled voices. That telltale elevator ding. A little yellow light signalling it was on its way to you.

Faster than your eyes could follow you were running to your right, crashing through a door into the dark echoing stairwell. You slammed your back against the door to stop its squeaking as you listened, breath heaving.

You heard it, people exiting the elevator, walking down the hall with harsh laughter and slurred speech.

Who the fuck gets drunk this early in the morning?, you thought to yourself, though you wouldn’t exactly turn down a shot of rye right now...

Giving yourself a moment to suck in as much oxygen as you could, you started moving again. Looking up, you could see right up to the top levels, this dark stairwell one huge, rectangular concrete spiral up.

You got up to the second floor, then the third, then the fourth.

You ducked and slammed down against the far wall as you heard a door and voices enter, just a floor below you. Cautiously you waited for what felt like minutes as their voices were carried lower, obviously taking the stairs to the first floor. You waited longer than strictly necessary, waiting until their loud voices were completely silent, probably out of the building by now.

You sighed with relief, about to get up when you saw it.

A person. A small one.

He couldn’t have been more than eight years old, wearing a hand-me-down yellow raincoat, looking down to you from the level just above you. Your heart lurched as you sprung up, leaping onto the concrete ledge, then launching clean across the four story drop to the upper level, gripping the small bottom ledge before pulling yourself up and over to to the boy.

But it was too late.

Mid jump you heard his voice positively screech out one word, echoing through the whole complex no doubt:

“INTRUDER!”

You tackled him to the ground easily, hand over his mouth, body pinning him. But there was no point. The damage was done.

This would be a fight for your life from here on out.

You waited, holding down the squirming boy, wide eyes darting around as you tried to make a decision. You had time, you could bolt out and maybe make it through the lower levels okay. Maybe there weren’t too many people home right now. Maybe there were all too drunk or fucked up to put up much of a threat.

But a single, ear piercing buzz rang out. You clasped your hands over your ears, giving the boy room to bolt, not that it mattered now. The siren lasted for thirty long seconds. And it signalled everyone in the building that someone was here. Someone that needed to be killed and brought to the head piece of shit that ran this place for a reward. Drugs, free rent, whatever they wanted.

And with that, your decision was made. They knew you were here. Bucky would know you were here. And you wouldn’t leave until you got him out.

“Fuck them,” you hissed standing up, angry eyes cast upward to the top level, ready for battle.

“She’s here,” said the man clad in an unbuttoned thin linen shirt, bare beer belly hanging out over his beige shorts. “Our little princess is back.”

Within the black room the only light was the greenish glow of twenty small security monitors. The two other men there watched as the man in charged tapped on one of the screens. Your fuzzy figure walking down a corridor, eyes determined and sweat dripping.

“Bring her to me,” he continued, leaning back. “Don’t let her get to the other Avenger. They are both are mine now.”

Silently the two of them walked out, down towards you.

“Okay, sixteen men outside the door.”

And some familiar faces. Which would be dying to get their hands on me again.

You stopped that line of thinking, heel of your palms pushing against your temples while your soul and body raged against the flashes of images from your past that popped up.

“Sixteen, sixteen, sixteen…” you repeated to yourself with the sound of their machetes hacking at the wooden door.

You were barricaded in a one room apartment, one mattress in the corner with burnt spoons and lighters strewed about, kitchen bare on the other side and nothing much else to speak of. The dirty faded colours and sulphuric smell was lost on you while your mind raced, thinking about nothing and everything. You ignored the blood dripping down a large gash in your arm, the booming shouts and lewd calls of the man desperate to get in and fuck you up.

But you’d fuck them up first if you had any say in the matter.

You gritted your teeth, stilling yourself and looking to the door, eyebrows pulled together and eyes fuming. Blood pooled and dripped off your knuckles as your fist clenched tightly.

You took and deep breath through your teeth, spinning on your heels. You ran to the kitchen, opened up a cabinet and grabbed onto a tank that you knew would be there. You wretched it free with a high-pitched whizzing sound. You opened the fridge door, pulled out the wired shelves and few remaining condiments there and hucked the stove propane tank in with a slam of the door. You then ripped the fridge cord out from the wall and grabbed on the ancient and heavy fridge, pushing it with all your strength.

It was a clean shot straight across the room from the fridge to the front door. You grunted and heaved the stupid thing right up to it, leaving a small gap.

A silver jagged machete hacked through the door, hoots and hollers sounding deafening as the men’s mouths foamed at the thought of bringing you down. You reached into your pocket, pulling out a lighter. You took another breath in through your teeth, decidedly not thinking through what you were about to do, for your own sanity.

The only thing you thought of was “get to the bathroom” on repeat, which was directly behind you.

Slipping in your hand with the lighter, you wedged it between the fridge and door, and lit it up.

There was a second or two delay, enough for you to turn and run, but there was no way to avoid this blast.

A high and low pitched shriek boomed in the small apartment, feeling like your eardrums were blown out as the force hit you like a concrete wall, sending you flying into the bathroom. A red explosion blasted out, send the fridge careening back across the apartment and out a window, and aimed the bulked of the force down the hall where the men where.

You coughed, bent over the tub, dust thick in the air and debris falling down around you. You moved off to sit sprawled out on the floor, ears ringing and head too dazed to string a word together. You pushed your nails into the cracked ceramic floor, trying to get yourself to move, to get up.

Gritted flakes of concrete and drywall scratched under foot as you stood, stumbling to the door frame for support. Looking out the explosion had blasted massive holes to the apartments above and below, splintered wooden floor and crumbled ceiling leaving them wide open.

You waved a hand in front of your face, brushing the dust away, then the smell. Like a mixture of chemicals and barbeque, you looked briefly down the hall. You weren’t sure if it was worse that you could barely tell the pile of red chunks plastered everywhere were once people.

You grimaced, turning back to the hole in the ceiling. A pipe partially hung down from it, and you quickly touched it, making sure it wasn’t hot. You grabbed on and gave a tug, but the thing stayed still. With both hands you hoisted yourself up, getting to the next floor.

One floor closer to him.

“Fuck!” you yelled, snapping the arm of one guy, dropping him like a stone and dodging as another came at you.

You kicked in his knee, causing the man to scream, while you punched him in the gut, another to his inner elbow to block his punch, then his head. You grabbed onto either side of his head, slamming it down over your knee before crushing it against the concrete wall one, two, three times. He slumped to the floor unconscious.

You turned around breathing heavily, adrenaline flooding you as you took in the scene down the hall. Twelve more bloody men strewn about on this floor, apartment doors kicked in, dead silent. You were nothing if not efficient, but you had a long way to go.

You had managed a few more floors since the siren, now ending up on the eighth. You were losing count of the bodies at this point, but definitely not the floor number.

Shaking your head slightly and trying to knock out the dazed feeling coursing through you, you pulled a hand across your face. In trying to swipe away the sweat you ended up wiping away blood. You temple was bleed steadily, head wounds always gushing the worst though your adrenaline was pumping way too much to feel any pain yet.

You stepped over the man at your feet and looked to the elevator, desperate to just press a button and have it take you to where you wanted to go. But it had been shut off long ago, and would most definitely be a trap if you could take it anyways.

You breathed, rounding the corner back to the stairwell. You had been weaponless for some time, your guns and knives being stolen away during fights. Under normal circumstances you would have been practically disgusted in yourself to lose your weapons like that, but you were in you own version of hell fighting through an entire building alone and outnumbered a hundred to one. So you gave yourself some slack here.

Rounding the corner you cautiously slid against the wall, hand reaching out to grab the handle…

The door burst open slamming against your hand and something unbreakable hit you square in the face, blood spurting from you and blinding you. Stumbling back you ran down the hall, angry yells of men fast on your heels.

You threw yourself into an apartment then threw yourself through a window into a fire escape. Bullets immediately sounded from outside across the building, bricks exploding around your face as snipers tried to shoot you down. Wildly you ducked and climbed up to the next floor, breaking and tumbling through that window as deafening shoots rang all around you.

You looked around the relative safety of the apartment, lucky for once that no one was home, and shot up to unbolt to the door, trying to ignore the little piece of glass embedded in your hands as you did.

You ran out and sprinted down the hall, blood dripping into your eyes, hands bleeding, heart racing. But you didn’t get far.

At the end, three men were stopped waiting. You chest heaved, trying to get oxygen into your veins as again you would have to demand more from your body than it wanted to give.

The four of you stood motionless for a moment, a stand still like cowboys at high noon, each waiting for the other to pull a trigger. Your eyes cast down to the lengthy machete one of them had, blade scraping along the floor.

So you tensed yourself and set off with a yell, refusing to let three men beat you when the last fifty did not.

You met full force the first man, blocking the swing of his knife with one arm before elbowing him hard in the ribs, then neck, then face in seconds sending him down to the ground. Another came a step behind him and you spun to avoid his attack, elbow nailing him in the spine as he tumbled with his own momentum behind you.

The third man you grabbed the shoulder of, throwing and pinning him against the wall and elbowing him hard in the neck. You heard one man get up behind you and your foot kicked out, hitting him square in the groin, stomach, then face. You kneed the one you were pinning and sent him back as a machete came at you forcing your head to go stretching back, just narrowly missing it.

You deflected, grabbed the man’s arm and using the momentum to force the machete through a door, gripping the man’s wrist while you kneed his stomach then punched him in the face and he went down to the ground.

A battle cry sounded behind you and you were pushed back harshly and slammed to the ground, someone’s thighs encasing your ribcage. He entwined his fingers together holding them above his head to hammer down on you but your hand went to his throat, chopping it hard before punching him and sending him off of you.

You were about to stab into the man’s chest but a hand grabbed your left ankle, wretching you back down the hall as you clutched at nothing to try and stop it.

“Take her leg!” the man yelled to another beside him, pulling out his machete.

Your eyes flashed wide before swinging your right leg around connecting hard to both of their faces. You kicked until you felt a release on your ankle, then your foot was replaced by your fists, flying back between either man and unrelenting until neither man was moving. You weren’t even sure they were breathing by the time you were done.

The hall was suddenly dead silent and you scrambled to your feet and back away from them.

You were buzzed with adrenaline and overwhelmed by numbness when hands grabbed your shoulders, retching you back into an empty apartment.

You were thrown down across the floor, tumbling to a stop. You sprung up as fast as you could, ready to launch at your next attacker, when you caught sight of him and stopped dead.

Everything in you was stilled, head ringing at the sudden quiet shock.

The man in front of you looked so much like you, the resemblance was unmistakable. The same coloured eyes and hair, same nose, but with a squared jaw and about half a foot taller than you.

“...Ward?” you whispered, heart not knowing what to do or feel.

“Hey sis,” the man whispered back. You were expecting a grim smile, but nothing came. “Now what in hell are you doing back here?”

You swallowed, wanting to close the distance to either hug him or ring your brother’s stupid neck. You had imagined this reunion a thousand times, always different, always stopped short in your mind. It was a reunion you never really wanted, because you never planned on being back here, and you knew Ward would never leave.

Your brother, the only family member in this world alive, was the other reason for not coming back. For not letting the Avengers clean out this place. For not calling them in to help you now. Because you knew if there was a fight, your stupid brother, as one of two right hand men here, would find a way to get himself killed. You might not agree with his life choice, but you couldn’t have that on your conscience. You never had anything when you were little. Only him. And even now you couldn’t give him up. You just wouldn’t.

“Took out the cameras down here for you, no one will know about this family get together.”

You were still stunned and he managed to smirk at you, familiar eyes a little mischievous.

“Consider it a birthday present,” To which you pulled a face. “I know, I know, it’s nowhere near your actual birthday, but I have a few to catch up on, don’t I.”

You snorted, rubbing your face with a weary smile. God, you had missed your stupid brother.

“Now, you can do me a favour,” he said, stepping forward. “ And get the fuck out of here. Now. I don’t want you in a fucking body bag, Y/N.”

“I can’t,” you admitted, determination shining in your eyes as the pair of you stood across this small dark apartment, reminiscent of stolen moment from the old days together. “You know why I’m here. You know I can’t leave without him. He’s my friend, Ward.”

“Oh, so you’ll come into fucking Hades for him, but not me?” he shot back at you.

That was all the confirmation you needed. Bucky was here. Holy shit, your skin was practically on fire at the news and your head reeled, gut instinct never proving you wrong.

You took a beat before continuing, not wanting to give away the fact that you really didn’t know for sure Bucky was here before strolling in. That would earn some ridicule. But your determination increased ten fold, and you knew you would be getting out of here. And with Bucky in tow.

“You chose to stay, Ward,” you continued, a warning in your voice. No one would keep you from your mission. From your Bucky now. “You can leave any time. You never once tried. You never once wanted too. So no, believe it or not, I’m not going after a lost cause like you.”

“He’s not worth it, Y/N. Whatever he is to you.” Now it was his time to speak with a warning. “The Boss wants you, Y/N. Badly. As long as you are in this building, he will send everything he’s got after you.”

“Well, I’ve done pretty well so far.” you shrugged, ignoring the sheer amount of blood and gashes and cuts covering you. “And I’m sure you’ve helped…?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Ganked a number on the way down here. All blamed on you, of course.”

“Of course.” you agreed somewhat good-naturedly. But his face got darker.

“Y/N… You need to leave him behind. I mean it.”

“No,” you said just as resolute as before. “So tell me where he is, and I’ll stand a better chance.”

“Y/N.” Ward growled.

“He’s my friend, Ward.” you seethed, done with wasting time like this. “So get on board with this or back the fuck off.”

“Yeah, maybe he’s your friend but I’m your fucking family!” he snapped back.

“I don’t think you can play that card, asshole!” you yelled.

“Because you refused to stay and learn your fucking place?! If you hadn’t tried to break out every fucking day you wouldn’t have been punished every fucking day! The biggest fucking idiot I ever met was you. You obviously still hold that title, coming back now.”

“Oh fuck,” you laughed, humourlessly. You forgot how much of a prick your brother could be. “Yeah, you go right on thinking that. You go right on thinking that your fucking boss cares at all for you, you fucking moron. Because I would have, Ward. I would have acted like a true family to you. I would have been enough. If you had only gotten out with me, we could have had lived together, as a family, outside of these cursed fucking walls!”

You clenched and unclenched your fists, blooding pumping out of the glass cuts, eyes closed for a minute while you tried to calm down.

This was how it always had been with you two. Just two people, too different from each other. Loving and hating each other, able to swing each other’s mood to the opposite end of the spectrum with a couple choice words.

“So as usual, we do our own thing,” he concluded tersely, clearly not happy about it. “You burst in and out, and I stay behind.”

“Only works if I’m alive at the end of this.” you reminded him grimly.

Another beat passed before he rolled his eyes slightly and responded.

“Fourteenth floor,” he sighed. “Fifth room on the right, there’s no way you’ll miss him.”

His eyes held something in them at those words. You didn’t ask what, because you didn’t want to know. You just knew from that look that Bucky didn’t have a lot of time left. Not that either of you had much time since the second you walked into this building.

So you ignored the foreboding in them, shifting on your feet a little.

“I missed you, you know.” you said quietly, gaze locked to his.

“No, I don’t think you did.” he said, holding your stare. “I think you’ve spent every minute trying to forget this place. And me along with it.”

That should have hurt more than it did. But he wasn’t wrong. That’s exactly what you had done, and you assumed he had tried the same.

“Well,” you started after a moment. “See you in another twenty years?”

“Yeah sis, sure.”

And just a simple as that, your explosive family reunion was over, Ward leaving with a nod goodbye before slinking out.

Ward couldn’t take out every camera or every man between you and Bucky, but he warned you and could signal to the others that certain floor were cleared, leaving space for you to enter. You figured some security feeds must have been altered to protect Ward from getting caught, but that was his responsibility. Getting to Bucky was yours. Ward’s neck was on the line for this if his boss found out, but yours had been on the line since you stepped in. And he was right, he had missed his fair share of birthdays, so this was payback.

And, by some miracle, you made it to floor fourteen.

You had fucking done it.

You counted the doors as you snuck along the wall, the almost black corridor ominous as the dirty light bulbs flickered. You wanted to bolt, to rush in and finally see Bucky again and make this all worth it. Fighting every impulse in your body you remained slow and careful, watching out for any sign of trouble.

But as you got closer, you could hear him. Yelling moans floated and cracked eerily through the silence and flickered in time with the lights.

Bucky!, you almost whined in your head, face crumpled as you took measured steps towards his screams.

A rusted metal door with a scratched in number five eventually met you, the grimey little window too thick with dirt to see properly in.

Carefully you turned the handle, the door instantly creaking loud enough to echo down the long hall.

You were met with an equally dark room, and one Bucky Barnes.

He was strung up with chains tied tightly around his wrists, giving just enough space for his tip toes to touch the floor but not much else. A hand crank was behind him and beside that was a large box with a bunch of wires. They were clamped to his metal arm, sending shocks through his body every few seconds and making the light flicker as it electrocuted him with a crackling buzz of sound drown out by his screams.

“Bucky!” you called, letting the door slam as his wide blood-red and ice blue eyes stared at you, distant with untold days of pain coursing through him.

You ran to the torture devices, unplugging everything you could, shocks to you be damned. You turned and watch his body slump as you cranked the lever to give the chains slack.

He ended up on his knees hunched over, sweat drenched hair looking black in the dark room.

You pulled off the chains from his wrists and slid around in front of him, hands hovering over his arm and face while he tried to catch his haggard breath.

“Oh Bucky,” you whispered to him, pained. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

He was shaking with the strained effort of staying in chains so long, face crumpled and drawn into a white palour.

You knew what this was like, you remembered it as clear as day. They would have beaten him and whipped him with those chains first, red welts and purple bruises under his clothes or around split skin where the metal was wielded too harshly. They wouldn’t have fed him or let him rest. They would have isolated him and humiliated him, all in an effort to break him down.

You knew because that was exactly what they did with you countless times.

Sometime they had harsher punishments and threw you at some sadist client to inflict whatever tortuous hell they wanted on and in your flesh. But usually it was this, in one of these rooms, for days on end. Then once this part was over you’d be given a sip of water and thrown into a cage match to fight while betting, despicable men watched and jeered.

It had been a long time since you were that child, angry and beaten and hardened to life by the torment of an underworld like this one. But seeing Bucky like this- in your shoes- you felt both simultaneously responsible for it and somehow like you were that child again. Like this was all your fault. Like you were where he knelt now, broken and hurting.

You felt the hunger in your stomach, the thirst, the welts, the electric shock, the pain of it all like they had just done it to you all over again.

You choked out a groan turned whimper in your throat, pressing your sweaty and bleeding forehead to his sweaty and bleeding forehead.

“I’m so…” you breathed, words catching. “I’m just so sorry.”

You kissed him on the cheek once, lips pushing into his heated skin, needing in that moment to connect with him and take away that pain. But the moment your lips lifted off from him it didn’t feel like enough. You leaned in slightly again and kissed him once more on the cheek. Then one more time.

Your lips found their way to the side of his nose, the corner of his eyes, down his jawline and up to his forehead. It started quick and light, but with every kiss you made it a little longer. Then a little longer still.

Eyes closed you didn’t see him lean up and connect his lips to yours until you felt it, warm and comforting and desperate for affection. Affection you were desperate to give him and feel from him. Your eyes stayed closed as you inhaled and drank in the feeling of his lips on yours, moving and answering your need for him.

He broke that kiss, lips and face a breath away from yours, watching his pale eyes focus on yours. A feather light touch from his fingers trailed along your cheek, like he was making sure you were here and you were real. The touch answered his question, reality seeping into his mind again now that the pain was diminished.

“Y/N…” he whispered, hoarse and barely sounding like himself at all. “What… What are you doing here?”

Blue eyes gazed at you looking concerned and subtly stunned, like he was just understanding what your being here meant. Like he had thought you would never come to save him. You understood it all too well why he must have thought that way. But he had underestimated exactly what he meant to you.

“I’m taking you home, Bucky.” you whispered, forehead and heaving chest to his. “We’re going home.”

The easy part was over. You were here, you were with him, you were both alive. Now, the hard part. You somehow had to get out, and alive, preferably. Try as you might, you doubted you would be able to do so without running into the man who did this to Bucky. The man running this place and who still ran your nightmares.

Somehow, you found the strength to stand and pulled Bucky up with you. 

It was now or never, and there was no where to go but down.

PART TWO OF TWO

A/N: Thanks for reading babes! Let me know what you thought!

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Bucky Barnes Tags: @bexboo616 @kaaatniss

[bosstoaster]

26. Shiro. Angst, if you want. It feels like it could work well with super hurt/out of it angst. And I clearly hate happiness.

It’s the 1000 Followers Special!  Based on these prompts.  Don’t want to see all 35 of these?  Block ‘1000 Followers Special’.  Can’t read on mobile?  These will slowly be posted to AO3 starting in a few days as ‘Hold Up Half the Sky’.  A huge thank you to Xagrok for the beta’ing!

As time went on, it became more and more common for Shiro to let his guard down.  It took weeks for him to even doze with the door open, much less with another living being in the room.  Even the mice moving around could wake him on a bad day.  Or he’d let the responsible leader thing drop for a few seconds, cracking a dark joke or goofing off with the rest of them.

Those were the times Pidge liked best.  She understood and respected the need to be their commander some of the time, especially during missions or training.  There was the big picture they needed to be focused on, and Shiro seemed to make it his personal goal to make sure they were always moving toward that.

But Pidge didn’t really want to be a military unit.  Yes, it had its uses, and she couldn’t deny the effectiveness of the hierarchy in the field.  It had its place, but it wasn’t what made Pidge stick around.  Some days, the urge to give it all up and go searching for her family was still strong.  It wasn’t Voltron or the universe that made her stay.  It was the times they were a different kind of family that kept her around.

(Read More Below)

Which was why Pidge maybe didn’t take Shiro’s wariness very seriously.  Mind, she got why, because Shiro had been vulnerable in the worst way possible.  But he was downright afraid of it, acting like he’d let them down each time he managed to nod off during a movie.  As if by closing his eyes for too long he’d put them all in terrible danger.

Some of Shiro’s thoughts weren’t always rational, after all.  And he’d never hurt anyone, no matter how often it happened.

So when Shiro dropped off on the couch, sprawled out with his bowl of snacks balancing on his chest, Pidge didn’t think anything of it.  She was used to working through his snores, and even if not, she didn’t mind the sound.  It was audible proof of his trust in them and his relaxation.  So Pidge didn’t even pause the project she was working on, continuing to sketch out vague schematics for bots she probably wouldn’t build.  Most of them were fantasy, based on pure laziness, like one that would carry her around if she felt like it.  Just to see what she could come up with for that.

Pidge also didn’t think twice about reaching over to steal from the bowl, because she was hungry and Shiro wasn’t eating it anyway, and those weird meaty-tasting cereal thingies were so weird she kept wanting to try them and make sure they still tasted like beef.

Except Shiro must not have been as out as she thought, because when Pidge’s hand touched the bowl, his eyes snapped open.

Before Pidge could react to that, even just to open her mouth to apologize, Shiro grabbed onto her arm and pulled, dragging her completely off balance with the pain and force of it.  Rolling with the sudden momentum, Shiro rolled them both to the floor, Pidge taking the weight of him in the fall.  He twisted her arm up with a yank that threatened to rip it from the socket, and the Galra arm activated with a dangerous buzz, pressed against her throat.  His eyes were locked on her but unfocused, and his lips pulled back into a snarl.

In less than a second, Pidge had gone from relaxing with Shiro to bruised, winded and threatened with a deadly weapon.

“Shiro?” She managed, instinctively pushing herself away from the heat of the arm.  Sweat was already breaking out, and her breath came fast as all her instincts screamed to get away.  “Shiro!”

Finally, his gaze cleared, and Shiro yanked himself away like he was the one in danger of getting burned.  He scrambled away on his hands, until there was at least a few feet between them.  “Pidge?  Oh, god, I’m so sorry-”

“I’m sorry, I was just reaching for the snacks, I didn’t think-”

“-I shouldn’t have fallen asleep here. What was I thinking?-”

“-of course you would react like that with food, I didn’t mean to disturb you-”

“-I could have killed you!”

The force of the cry finally cut off Pidge’s rambles, and she stared at Shiro again, finally recognizing that while he was aware, he wasn’t all there.

“I could have- oh, god, I nearly- a-and I could have broken your ribs on the way down and I nearly ripped your throat open, I’m so sorry.  I didn’t- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”  Shiro’s hands slid into his hair, fingers clutching as tight as they could on the short strands.  Then his head came up, so sudden and desperate that Pidge flinched away from him.

The look at his face was nothing short of horrified.  

Pulling his legs in against his chest, Shiro took a deep breath.  It seemed to center him, somewhat, and Pidge could see the way he pulled his leadership persona back on.  “Do you need a pod?  I can call for Coran and Allura, they’ll be able to help you down.”

“I’m fine,” Pidge replied carefully, fingers brushing over her neck to be sure.  The hand had never actually touched her, just a display of deadly force.

A very effective one.  Pidge wasn’t going to be trying to take anything off Shiro’s plate for awhile.

But Shiro didn’t seem convinced.  He shook his head and stood, swaying visibly.  And if that wasn’t proof of how messed up he was right now, Pidge didn’t know what was.  “Your ribs might have been damaged from that fall.  Coran will be able to scan to tell us-”

“Shiro.  I’m fine.  It was like, two feet, and you’re heavy but you’re not that heavy.”  Pidge stood as well, hovering a few feet away.  She wasn’t sure what to do here, wasn’t good with people in the way someone like Hunk or Lance was.  Even Keith, with his longer relationship with Shiro, would have a better idea what to do to crack through this mania.

Or maybe he wouldn’t.  It wasn’t like Shiro had been this way before, probably.

When Pidge took a step forward, Shiro matched it in the opposite direction, leaning back from her like she was going to go after him with the bayard.  “It doesn’t hurt to get it checked out.”

Pidge narrowed her eyes.  “Why are you so determined to think I was hurt?  Or to get Coran and Allura here?”  

Shiro flinched.

He probably wanted supervision.  He probably wanted distance, someone to come in and take the situation out of his hands, to take care of her while he continued to freak out.

Well, tough shit.

“I’m not scared of you.”

Shiro froze, then he shot her a flat look.  “Of course not,” he said, and he didn’t sound like he believed her.  He sounded like he was placating her.  Pidge’s entire body locked up from the sudden swell of range.  How dare he be that condescending?  “But that doesn’t mean you’re not hurt, so-”

He was cut off when Pidge yanked a pillow off the couch and lobbed it at his head.  It bounced off harmlessly, and Shiro stared at her.  “I’m not scared of you. You haven’t done anything I haven’t seen you do on an enemy.  We always knew you could do that, and I should have known better.”

“You shouldn’t have to!” Shiro snapped back, finally engaging with her words, for the first time since he’d woken up.  “I shouldn’t put you in a position where you could have been killed!  There’s no excuse for your commanding officer pointing a weapon at you, ever.”

Pidge bared her teeth.  “You’re not just my commanding officer, so screw that.”

“That’s worse!”  Shiro snarled, leaning closer.  Pidge paused, because hearing Shiro shout like that was startling from sheer volume.  It was startling to realize how rarely he raised his voice outside of the comms.  “How many of you am I going to hurt?”

How many... members of the team?

Or members of her family?

Judging by the sudden slump of Shiro’s shoulders, probably the latter.

He took a deep breath, once again drawing himself in, pulling himself back.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Probably,” Pidge agreed, because denying it would only make him pull back harder.  “But you did anyway.  You didn’t hurt me.  You startled me, but you’ve thrown me harder in practice, honestly.  And you hurt Matt to save him.  So, net points here, you’re still in the green.”

Shiro glanced at her, a ghost of a smile pulling at his lips.  “Very utilitarian.”

“Someone has to balance out all your Kantian melodrama,” Pidge shot back.  This time, when she took a step forward, he didn’t back away.  “I’m okay.  You can check for yourself if you want.  I’m sorry for startling you.  But there are things you can’t help, and if you take this as a reason not to relax around us again, I’m going to jam that bowl of cereal on your stupid head.”

Shiro frowned.  “I think we’ve proven today what a bad idea that is.”

“I’m alive,” PIdge pointed out.  “You pinned me.  You recognized it was me quickly.  And, Shiro, you have every chance to do serious damage, and the worst you did was pin my arm.  Even when I startled you awake and went for your food, all you did was scare me.  You held back in a worst case scenario.  You didn’t hurt me.”

For the first time, something seemed to really connect.  Shiro’s eyes widened, and his hands worked by his side.  “I didn’t.”  It wasn’t a question, but Pidge nodded anyway.  “Oh.”

Good, he was finally getting it.  “At your core, you didn’t want to hurt me, so you didn’t.  You put me in a position where I couldn’t hurt you and you could scare me off.  That’s not the actions of someone fundamentally violent.”

Shiro seemed to rally, and his brow furrowed.  “Doesn’t mean I couldn’t have hurt you by accident.”

“Yeah, and you could accidentally knock me in the halls and crack my head on a wall,” Pidge pointed.  “Accidents are life.  And if you do that, or if you get me with the arm while you’re out of it, then I pre-emptively forgive you.”

Shaking his head, Shiro frowned.  “You can’t do that.”

Pidge just stared back, arms crossed.  “Try and stop me.  Now, will you be bothered if I hug you, right now?”

“You can’t want-”

“What I don’t want is for you to finish that very stupid sentence.”

Swallowing, Shiro nodded.  “Good call.  You-”  He stared at her in something like awe, then opened his arms.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Pidge stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug.  After a moment, he returned the gesture, cheek resting on top of her head.

There was a slight lie, there.  Pidge wasn’t afraid of him, but she had been afraid.  If being pinned like that showed up in her dreams tonight, it wouldn’t be a shock.

But Pidge could deal with that, if it meant Shiro didn’t stop acting like what he was: family.

Because that was the reason she stayed.  It was the reason they worked.  And Pidge was willing to bend the truth to keep it.