#i do!!!

[airas-story]

Bitter Jealousy

Pepper hadn’t expected to feel jealous.

She had ended things with Tony. She was always the one to end things with Tony and had had a… certainty that if she was ever ready to try again, that he’d be there.

Something about Tony had simply seemed… inevitable.

This didn’t feel like inevitability.

Tony’s laugh could be heard, distinct in the hubbub of the gala where he was in conversation with a CEO on the list Pepper had given him to ‘make nice with’. Pepper watched as he smiled up at his date. Doctor Stephen Strange. Not his press smile, but his soft, genuine one that Pepper had always thought should be hoarded away so that the vultures couldn’t see it.

Tony had smiled at her like that. In a way that she thought he’d never smile at anyone else.

Pepper had treasured that smile.

Doctor Strange smiled back at Tony. Pepper didn’t know him well enough to know whether this was his press smile or not—if Doctor Strange even had one of those—but the way the skin around his eyes crinkled made her think it might be real.

Pepper looked away, focusing back on networking with the CEOs of several Big Pharma companies.

When she looked again, it was to find that Tony and Doctor Strange were on the dance floor. Tony’s arms were around Doctor Strange’s neck, Doctor Strange’s hands low on Tony’s back.

Tony and Doctor Strange were gathering looks, but neither man seemed to care. Tony was hardly unexpected in that, Tony never had cared. Doctor Strange… Pepper had looked into him, confident and cocky and invested in his appearance. Doctor Strange should care.

For one bitter moment, Pepper wished she’d never demanded Tony go to the hospital after his lab accident, minor as it’d been. Wished the hospital hadn’t tried to impress Tony with their very best. Wished that Doctor Strange hadn’t looked at Tony and seen past all of the bluster to the truth of who Tony was beneath it all.

But she had, the hospital had, Doctor Strange had. And now Tony was here with someone else.

Jealousy was a bitter thing. She was supposed to be better than that. She was supposed to be happy for Tony.

So why was it so hard?

A tap on her elbow drew her attention back to the world around her. She didn’t recognize the man who’d tapped, but she could guess, some CEO here to impress—though the firetruck red tie with darker red stripes was… an interesting choice at a black tie event. “I see you’re watching the dance floor,” he said smoothly. “Would you like to dance?”

It wasn’t the dance floor she’d been watching.

Still, she smiled, accepted.

The dance was uncomfortable the way so many of them were. Pepper escaped as soon and as graciously as she could, leaving talks of contracts and potential mergers—as though SI ever would—on the dance floor.

Tony and Doctor Strange were at the bar, now. As she watched, Doctor Strange stole the glass from Tony’s hand, throwing back the rest of the drink himself before sliding the glass away. Somehow she knew that that would be Tony’s last drink of the night. Tony looked more amused than offended.

She wasn’t surprised when Tony and Doctor Strange disappeared the moment it was acceptable—part of her was surprised Tony managed to last that long—and she wished she didn’t know what they were probably doing.

If it was just sex… Pepper could have handled that. But it wasn’t. She’d gone to the tower early one day, needing Tony to do something or other than she could no longer remember, and she’d found them sprawled out on the couch fast asleep, still dressed in their clothes from the day before, holograms projected in front of them where they’d been discussing something she hadn’t understood.

It would have been so much easier if it was just sex. 

Pepper left the gala not long after, herself, even though there were people still on her list to talk to.

Just… not tonight.

Tonight she could let herself hurt. Tomorrow… tomorrow she’d be happy for Tony. Tomorrow she’d figure out how to make the jealousy go away.

Tonight… Tonight she let herself wish that Doctor Strange and Tony had never met.

[breadandblankets]

Steph 🤝 Duke

nobody's robin

[raceweek]

williamsracing: Gotta love some pre-race Alex and Yuki content 🥰

[wiidoodles]

                                                         It was all for you, Vash.

[that-sunny-pup]

I like you! Let's be friends!!

*holds out hand for you to high five*

High five if you wanna be my friend.

(You're cool if you know the reference)

[he reaches out his paw and just gives a tiiiny little pap to your hand

WAHOO HIGHFIVE]

[telltale-apologist]

“is it possible for-“ does it happen in your system? your medically recognised system? that your therapist talks with you about? where the only reason youre not diagnosed is so that you can be a mother one day? yeah? okay so stop fakeclaiming yourself over it.

[darknessontheedgeoftowndyke]

Anyone know if I have Paramore tomorrow 🤭

[beeejayy]

Hate when people say milk is gross. "Oh who drinks milk???" "Oh I like ALMOND milk because milk is GROSS." FUCK YOU I'LL DRINK WHOLE MILK FROM THE GALLON

[cowardlycowboys]

I love Alex but stardew valley should let be a third with Kent and Jodi like I deserve that

[goatsghost]

i feel like it’s really interesting to see when fandom includes duke and cass in the batfamily and when they don’t. like. maybe i’ll understand not including them if you’ve only read a couple comics and aren’t really up to date on what the batfamily as a whole is up to. bc that was where i started before i actually started diving into comics, barely a year or two ago. but when you read wayne family adventures????

there’s absolutely no excuse for duke and cass to not be present in wayne family edits or headcanons or whatever. i’ve seen a good number of tiktoks that exclude duke as a “batboy” but the photos are literally all from bwfa. it’s made so obvious that duke is their brother and cass is their sister; at that point, it’s intentional

[praetorqueenreyna]

SURVEY IS CLOSED! PLAYING WITH DATA NOW!! EVERYBODY PRAY FOR ME!!!

[t-diggitydawg]

very hurt the NWSL is having the draft while i am working

[nikrei]

I keep seeing people use this image as a reaction to people's original posts:

Which I think is really incorrect, because with an original post they haven't come up to ur window, u've come up to their window.

So I made this, as a more accurate reaction for original posts:

[everythingwasnormalhere]

pls rb if you think cuddling doesn't have to be s3xual

im tryna prove a point to my bf's mother help me out