#i do think her and six being forced to get along by the circumstances could make an interesting conflict for this very reason hence the AU | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

babymetaldoll · 2 months ago

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Are you mine? - Chapter six: "You killed my father, prepare to die."

Summary: It's a sad moment for the Reids: Gideon has been murdered. This is one of Spencer's darkest moments, but this time, he doesn't have to deal with it alone. Warnings: Cursing, Criminal Minds spoilers of season 10 Ep 13 "Nelson Sparrow." It's just sad, everything is sad. Word count: 8.405 words A/N: Hello!! So, who do you think Spencer felt about missing his daughter's first Halloween? I'm sure it was a low blow. What do you think their family disguise was about? I'm thinking Doctor Who, with Raven as a tiny Tardis.

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Spencer’s point of view

For a few months, things were normal for all of us. Well, as normal as they can be considering we worked at the BAU hunting serial killers week after week. (Y/N) and Kate got along incredibly well, and I could see how much she enjoyed spending time with her. She still missed Prentiss, but knowing she was just a phone call away made things easier this time.

Leaving our baby back home every time we had to go out of town for a case was still incredibly painful. Still, Sofia, Lu, Mikey, and Frank were always there with Raven, which helped us stay focused on work. Honestly, we wouldn’t be able to do it without them.

One thing made us incredibly miserable back then: We missed Raven’s first Halloween because we had to solve a case in San Diego. An unsub was kidnapping kids on October 31st, and though I knew our baby couldn’t go out trick and treating yet, it was heart-wrenching knowing we had missed her first Halloween. We had a family custom planned, and though we wore it the entire 1st of November as we stayed at home, carving pumpkins and watching the "Charlie Brown Halloween special" with her, it just wasn’t the same.

- “I wish we could promise her this is the only celebration we'll miss because of work.”- (Y/N) whispered as we cuddled in bed that night. - “But we both know that’d be a lie.”

- “I just hope next year things will be different.”- I whispered and kissed (Y/N)’s forehead as she snuggled closer.

- “I hope we don’t miss Christmas.”

We had some weird cases during that year. We even had a female unsub who ruined every fairy tale I read to my daughter. She was sure she was Cinderella and kept looking for her prince charming, killing every man who didn’t live up to her fantasy in the way. To catch her, I had to pretend to be a prince, carry one of her shoes like a crystal slipper, and nearly propose. That ended up being the only way she could go with us willingly.

I will never forget (Y/N)’s face as I approached the unsub in a cemetery, without any vest or gun. The whole idea was Hotch’s and I didn’t think it could work, but it turned out that that poor girl was so out of reality that she indeed thought I was her prince charming.

- “Not fair!”- my wife argued as we drove to the cemetery, where Garcia had located her and her newest victim.- “You are supposed to be my prince charming, no one else’s. And why did you take off your wedding right?”- and she pouted and whined, making me chuckle.

- “Come on, chipmunk! You know I am your and only yours. I’m just trying to get this unsub with the least use of force possible. And if she sees the ring she’ll know I’m lying.”

- “One weird movement and I’m gonna take her down.”- (Y/N) replied and I smiled, somehow proud of how jealous she was under the circumstances.

- “Do me a favor kids and stop being so freaking sweet when all of us can hear you.”- Rossi argued in my ear from the SUV right behind ours.

- “Never.”- my wife quickly replied from the back seat and I suppressed a chuckle.

- “Should I remind them I’m in the same car with them?”- JJ joked and (Y/N) smiled right away. It took some of the tension off, considering I knew my wife was upset I wasn’t wearing a vest to face the unsub. But I knew I didn’t need one, she had my back.

When we walked to the unsub, she had a pair of gardening scissors against her poor victim’s neck, and she was about to kill him, so I hurried and grabbed one of the evidence shoes we had from a bad and tried to get her attention, as (Y/N) hid behind a bush, pointing the unsub with a gun, and JJ did the same from behind a tree.

- “Excuse me. May I approach?”- I said, exactly as the Prince Charming did in the bedtime story I had read to Raven before we took off for that case.

- “Who are you? Go away!”- the unsub yelled back at me, and I walked slower, raising my hands, showing her I was not a threat.

- “Please, just give me the chance to speak. I've looked for so long.”

- “What? What are you talking about?”

- “I've searched this entire city trying to find the right person. Are you the right person?”- I made a short pause as I watched the guy she was about to kill move from her side. Her eyes were focused on me, so I continued speaking. -“The dance, the other evening. Do you remember?”

- “The dance?”- she stood up, dropped the weapon, and walked to me. She was indeed defenseless. Poor girl, she was actually sure she was Cinderella, and after knowing her background story, I could only hope she’d find help.

- “I met the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life. We danced the whole night, and then… She was gone. But she left this behind.”- I showed her the shoe and walked a few steps closer to her- “May I?”

And so, I kneeled before her and put on her shoe. She gasped and tears filled her eyes as she stared at me with a big smile and I kissed her hand, like Prince Charming usually does in books, to seal the deal.

- “I brought the carriage.”- it was the only way I could get her into the SUV and into custody.

- “You did?

- “It's waiting for us.”

She seemed so surprised and excited, I didn’t even have to push her, she held my arm as we started walking. I looked at my wife for a second, still hiding behind that bush, still pointing her gun at the unsub, and cut her a short smile, trying to help her relax, until she finally lowered the pistol and smiled back at me.

We had a bunch of crazy cases that year, but nothing, not even the hardest mysteries we’d had to crack, could have ever prepared me for that phone call and the drive in the middle of the night to Gideon’s cabin.

He was dead. Murdered. And it felt like a part of my chest was empty. He was the closest thing I've ever had to a father, and though we hadn’t talked in years after his departure from the FBI, I knew he was out there, being happy, living his life away from the murderers and cases.

But now he was gone, and we had to finish whoever had done that to him and make him pay.

(Y/N) held my hand the entire drive to his cabin, after dropping Raven with her mother. I didn’t speak much, and she didn’t push me either. I just let the tears fall from my eyes. When we got to the cabin, JJ, Hotch, Kate, and Rossi were already there. I couldn’t say a word as Gideon’s body lay on the ground, covered with a white sheet, like any other corpse we had seen at a crime scene before. Only this time, it was personal.

I tried not to cry, but my chin quivered and (Y/N) quickly held my hand tight. JJ looked at me with a sorry glance and I locked my eyes on the sheet on the floor, still trying to process the fact that it was Gideon’s corpse.

No one said a word for a few minutes. They were all broken hearted, just like me. The record player kept spinning, after playing the last song he ever heard. The chess board was untouched, waiting for him to come back and play. Garcia and Morgan walked in after a few minutes and stood next to us, also shocked and deeply affected.

- “Are you sure?”- Penelope asked Hotch, still not believing it was actually Gideon lying dead in front of us. Hotch nodded and kept his eyes on Garcia as he replied.

- “It’s Gideon.”

That was enough for me. I had to step out of that cabin. I couldn’t deal with that kind of grief. My wife walked behind me and hugged me as I finally broke in tears, and sobbed against her neck as he held me close to her.

- “It’s ok honey, let it all out.”- she whispered and caressed my hair as I cried my heart out. I couldn’t stop. I felt a hole had been dug in the middle of my chest. How could Gideon be dead? How? Who killed him? I needed to find that asshole and make him pay. I knew I was sad and emotional, but the need for revenge was growing fast inside me.

- “How could… who would…”

I couldn’t finish sentences as I cried and held (Y/N) closer to me. Closer as possible. You don’t expect your family to be murdered. And Gideon was like family to me. We hadn’t talked in over eight years, but he was still one of the most important people in my life. He helped me grow, and he taught me so much when I first joined the FBI. He trusted my intelligence, he got everybody to call me a doctor.

How does a guy so smart, so bright, get murdered? What happened? What went wrong? How couldn’t he notice something was going on? Gideon was a legend in the FBI, and to me, he was one of the smartest guys I had ever met. How could that have happened to him?

- “We are gonna solve this.”- my wife whispered and kept caressing my hair. - “We are gonna find out what happened and we are gonna catch whoever killed him.”

I couldn’t answer, all I managed to do was nod as a reply and felt (Y/N) holding me, trying to keep the pieces of my heart together.

JJ walked out of the cabin a few minutes later. She stared at me as I did my best to stop sobbing. I wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable in front of my friends and family- and that’s what the team had always been to me- but I knew I had to put my grief aside and start working as a profiler, ‘cos we needed to solve that case.

- “I am so sorry, Spence.”- JJ whispered and walked to me. (Y/N) unwrapped her arms from my body, making me shiver, missing her warmth immediately. JJ hugged me for a moment, but it wasn’t as comforting as (Y/N)’s arms. Not mean to compare, but it just didn’t do much for me. However, I hugged my friend tight and sighed, thinking it had to be hard for her as well. Gideon wasn’t just my team partner. It was everybody’s, and we were all grieving in the same way. I couldn’t be selfish, that wasn’t about me.

- “Do we know anything?”- (Y/N) whispered and JJ shook her head. She moved and hugged my wife for a moment and I cleared my throat, trying to compose myself.

- “Forensic are on their way to remove the body. Hotch is calling the family.”

And somehow that sentence hit me. It was hard for us to know Gideon had been murdered, but I couldn't even begin to imagine how his family was going to feel. He had a son named Stephen. They weren’t close, that I knew, but that doesn’t mean they hated each other. It’s hard having a family with the job we had. (Y/N) and I knew that very well now. It was double work being present at home and keeping what we saw at work out of the house. But giving our daughter the best we had was our priority. I never wanted her to feel she wasn’t as important as what we did for a living, because she is the world to us.

Morning came sooner than I expected. Somehow it felt like only minutes had passed since we arrived at that cabin. I had only been there once before, the day Gideon left the team and I found his letter for me, saying goodbye. The only memory I had of that place wasn’t better than that moment I was living.

(Y/N) talked with the team as she held my hand. She was the functional one in our relationship at that minute. She knew I needed time to process it all, and she let me. But never, not even once, did she stop holding my hand.

A team of criminalistic took Gideon’s body from his cabin and I just stood there, staring at the scene, unable to move. I couldn’t even say a word. I just glued my eyes to the ground, reliving all the memories I had with Jason in my mind over and over again. I remembered when I first joined the team and we had our first case. He picked me to be on the team even when I was still very young. I was the younger agent to join the BAU, and he trusted my knowledge and my abilities, even when I didn’t.

Gideon taught me about serial killers and how to catch them. He taught me about chess and life. He even tried to help me get a date with JJ back in the day.

- “Remember how much he hated us hanging out when I joined the team?”- (Y/N) whispered, reading my mind at the moment. It was the first thing she had said to me in at least half an hour and all I managed to do as a reply was to nod.

- “He once called me to his office and told me I was being selfish with the team, ‘cos the way I was influencing you was taking your mind from work, and that you were the smartest of us all.”- my wife confessed after over ten years. I remembered that day exactly, she had walked out of Gideon’s office nearly crying, and I gave her candies to cheer her up.

- “You never let that get in the way of our friendship and I think eventually he realized I was a good influence on you.”- (Y/N) whispered and turned to me. I looked at her puffy eyes and sighed, they were still sparkling, even with all the sadness I could read on them.

- “Though he never got you tickets to go to a concert with me.”- she teased and cut me a warm smile.

- “I love you.”- I replied and wrapped my arms around her. - “Thank you for supporting me.”

- “Always.”- she answered and kissed my lips sweetly. - “Hotch wanted us to go with Morgan and talk with the M.E. but if you don’t want to go…”

- “No, I have to.”- I quickly answered and wiped the few tears that had fallen from my eyes as I spoke.

- “You don’t have to do anything, honey.”

- “I owe it to Gideon. I have to help the team.”

The entire drive to the M.E. we were silent. We took our car and (Y/N) drove us there. Morgan was waiting for us right outside, standing next to his SUV.

- “How are you?”- he asked us and neither of us replied. I looked at him and felt him tapping on my back a few times- “Come on, kids.”- he whispered and walked with us inside. Neither of us wanted to be, that was a fact.

We walked the same halls we had been in a thousand times during the years, and we met with the same team we had worked with a million times. They all knew how hard that was for us, and they were kind enough to try to make it easier.

- “Out of respect, I kept him covered.”- the doctor said as we stood in front of Giden’s dead body.

- “Appreciate that.”- Morgan replied and I felt (Y/N)’s hand squeezing mine.

- “'Cause of death was hypovolemic shock due to ballistic trauma. Three points of entry: left shoulder, right abdominal wall, and right temporal.”- the doctor started and I felt sick immediately.

- “Did he suffer?”- Derek asked the question we were all thinking and I didn’t move my eyes from the sheet. It was slowly covering staining with blood.

- “Not for long, no.”- the forensic quickly responded and as she continued talking, Morgan turned and looked at me, not saying a word. - “His brain stopped working before he was able to process his last breath. After the final shot, he was gone within a fraction of a second.”

- “Would you excuse us, please?”- Morgan’s words sounded like a whisper in that room, and the doctor nodded.

- “Of course.”

- “Thank you.”- as soon as she was out of the room, Derek turned to me and the tears started to fall slowly from my eyes. (Y/N) rubbed my back and kissed my hand as she continued holding it.

- “Did you hear any of that, kid? He didn't suffer.”- I couldn’t even tell him I understood, ‘cos tears filled my eyes and I nearly started sobbing- “Listen to me. Listen to me. I know you are not alone, I know you have your wife to support you, but you two are not going through this on your own. Sometimes you two put up these walls and you block us out, and you can't do that, not right now.”

I know to this day that he was right. Before being in a relationship, me and (Y/N) would do that to the world. We had our own little bubble and we would live there, help each other, and never rely on anyone else. Like we did when she helped me get clean and sober. After we started dating, that bubble became more exclusive. The way we handled Prentiss’ death was just a glimpse of how we worked. We were a team of our own and we would leave everybody out.

- “We need you, kids. Gideon needs you. Both of you.”- Morgan finished his speech and hugged me tight. He looked at (Y/N) and hugged her too, as she tried her best not to cry and remain strong.

- “I'm going to step right out there, and when you two are ready… let's go get this son of a bitch.”

(Y/N)’s point of view

One of the scariest things about Gideon’s death was dealing with the awful truth: we were all potential victims. Yes, it wasn’t the first time we had to face that fact, but you usually forget it. You are under an incredible amount of stress, dealing with serial killers, trips, your daily routine, and taking care of your baby, your house, and your husband. And then this hits you: You can die. All of your team could be in danger. And there is nothing you can do to stop it.

Honestly, it’s nerve-wracking.

I had held Spencer’s hand since the second we got that phone call and I wasn’t planning on letting it go. I knew how hard that situation was for my husband and I was not going to let him go through it alone. Never.

Morgan left us alone with Gideon’s corpse and Spencer cried for a few seconds. I hugged him and let my own tears fall free as we simply stood in front of Gideon’s body. After a silence, filled with our sobs, I let my husband go and turned to the body.

- “So, as you may know, we got married.”- I started talking and felt Spencer’s hand holding mine tighter in a second. - “It’s been three years already, and we have a little girl. Her name is Raven. You would have loved her. She is so smart, like her dad.”

- “Like her mom.”- Spencer corrected me and I brushed the tears that kept falling down my face as I continued speaking.

- “She is going to be one year old in a few weeks, and we are planning a big party. She loves animals and bedtime stories. Spencer reads her for hours before putting her down to bed.”- my chin kept quivering as I spoke, but I continued fighting the tears and made a long pause, trying to recompose myself.

- “We miss you.”- Spencer whispered- “I miss you.”

His voice broke at the end of that last word, but after a few seconds, he continued talking.

- “I hope you are proud of the man I became, ‘cos you had a lot to do with who I am today. Every time I am scared and feel like quitting, I remember when you told me “We all have bad dreams. Everyone on the plane, who wouldn't? We hunt the worst of humanity, we see the depths of depravity, we dream of monsters.” And yet, you left us. I guess I understand why you did it. However, I don’t understand why you turned your back on us. Why didn’t you call? Why not send a letter after that goodbye? We were a family, or at least that's how I felt about you.”

My husband was opening his heart, and the only thing I could do was to hold his hand and encourage him to let it all out. That was the time to do it. The moment to start healing from any wound that the end of his relationship with Gideon left him.

- “I’m sorry you felt like you needed to leave us behind. There were so many times when I wished I could still talk to you. Ask you things, get your advice. It wasn’t just serial killers. You were my friend. And as you remember, I don’t have many friends. That hasn’t changed much.”

- “And I’m still a very bad influence for him”- I had to add and chuckled- “But I still try to make him eat his greens at every dinner.”

- “You force me.”- Spencer argued immediately and I nodded.

- “That remains the same, as you can notice.”- my words were a soft whisper as I moved closer to the table, Spencer holding still my hand. - “Thank you for everything, Gideon. I’m sorry things ended up like this. I wish you could have come to our wedding. I wish we could have had one last conversation, to know if you were ok. But I give you my word, we are gonna catch whoever did this to you, and we are making them pay.”

Spencer took a deep breath and didn’t say a word for a moment. I looked at him and cut him a short smile, caressing his hand with my thumb as I still held it tight.

- “Thank you, Gideon. I will always remember our conversations, all of them. You changed my life. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for you. I owe you so much…”- he sobbed for a moment, letting it all out. It broke my heart to see my husband so affected, but it was a good thing he was being open about his feelings. He wasn’t hiding how he felt, and between us that was a great improvement. He finally understood I didn’t need him to be perfect, I wanted him to be honest. That was it.

- “Goodbye, my friend.”- Spencer whispered, wiped the tears from his face, and sighed, looking at me.- “I’m ready. Let’s catch this guy.”

I cut him a short, warm smile and nodded. I gave him a Kleenex and ran my thumb across his cheek. When we walked out of there, Morgan was waiting for us. He didn’t say a word, he just looked at us and started walking. It was time to go back to the cabin and investigate this case as any other case. We had to be profilers.

Back at the cabin, JJ, Kate, and Penelope were going through some of Jason’s things, tracing his last steps. Spencer and I walked in and overheard the last part of their conversation, as Morgan followed us closely.

- “Ok, Gideon fueled up every 350 miles, he probably stopped at some diners along the way, 'cause, you know, the man could like live off of milkshakes.”- Pen rambled as she kept staring at the screen in front of her. - “Definitely he took his sweet time going down the coast, but booked it back from Jacksonville, and instead of coming here home to his cabin, he stayed one night in Roanoke.”

- “Why? It's only an hour away.”- Kate asked but her words were ignored ‘cause JJ noticed us and looked at my husband with the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen.

- “Spence?”

- "I just don't understand any of it anymore. I guess I'm just looking for it again, for the belief I had back in college, the belief I had when I first met Sarah and it all seemed so right."- Spencer quoted the letter Gideon had left him as he stared at a book with a picture of Sarah and her date of death.

- “That's beautiful.”- Kate whispered and looked at us, probably not knowing what else to say. - “Who's Sarah?”

- “Gideon's first love.”- I answered and looked around, still feeling wrong for snooping into someone else’s life. Someone who had taken us out of his life.

- “You're remembering the letter Gideon left you.”- JJ kept staring at Spencer and he nodded, avoiding eye contact with anyone in that room. He just stared at the book in his hands and continued talking.

- “I'm thinking maybe he rushed back and stayed in Roanoke because he was finally happy. What if he found someone like Sarah again?”- Spencer sighed and turned around. He wasn’t ready to be at that cabin again, neither of us was, but we had to start working. I started walking behind him, but Rossi stopped me before I walked out of the door.

- “Principessa, wait. Let Spencer deal with his emotions alone for a moment.”- I stood by the door and looked at my husband outside, just walking around, looking at his feet. - “How's the kid?- David asked Morgan, I guess I wasn’t supposed to hear 'cause he was whispering, but I was right there.

- “Not great. But he'll get his head back in the game.”

- “Come here”- Rossi said looking at me and I walked over, still trying to see what Spencer was doing.- “How are you doing?”

- “I’m… shocked, I guess.”- I murmured and felt his arm around me. - “What about you? He was your friend, you were the fathers of the BAU.”

- “We are going to find whoever did this, then and only then I’ll be able to deal with what happened.”

Rossi’s words sounded a lot like any FBI agent would react: logical. Somehow I felt I was never going to be able to react that way if someone I loved was involved in a case.

- “Rossi, this is crazy.”- Morgan started talking, still trying to wrap his head around what had happened- “Gideon and I used to walk around scenes like this all the time. He'd always say to me, "Morgan, I'm the unsub. How did I do it?"”

- “Well, first I shoot my target from a distance, wounding him. Then I move in for the kill.”- Rossi replied, keeping his head cold, and being a profiler on duty.

- “Gideon has the strength to shoot a few rounds into the door. But he misses.”- Derek walked to the door and stared at the scene. - “Because I've weakened his dominant hand. Gideon didn't have the strength to hold his gun steady.”

- “So, I stand over. I get off on this. My face is the last thing he'll see. And then I finish him.”- Rossi adds and stares at the blood stains on the carpet.

- “But wait a second.”- I finally interrupted them and looked at the room around me like a crime scene, and not Gideon’s living room.- “If most of the gun was from here to the door, why did Gideon shoot way over here to this wall? That makes no sense unless he did it on purpose.”

- “You are right, pretty girl. Shot's gotta mean something.”- Derek nodded and the three of us stared at the whole on the wooden wall. Rossi grabbed the painting that had fallen due to the gunshot: it was a creepy sparrow picture.

- “The devil is in the details.”- David said and sighed- “Do you mind if I take Boy Wonder with me for a ride?”

- “Of course”- I answered - “Just let me say goodbye.”

- “It’s just a ride, Bella.”- Rossi cut me a short smile, and I nodded.

- “I know.”

Spencer left with Rossi and I was left with the girls. The first thing Penelope asked was how Spencer was doing, and I simply shrugged and sighed.

- “As well as expected, I guess.”

- “Were he and Gideon close?”- Kate asked and I nodded thinking “close” wasn’t the word I would use to describe that relationship.

- “They had a friendship that was more like a father and son relationship. He took so much care of Spencer when he first joined the BAU, he was actually upset we were friends.”- I explained and both JJ and Penelope smiled, nodding, probably remembering how it used to be when Gideon worked with us.

- “Upset you were friends? Why?”- Callahan demanded to know.

- “Well, I was somehow… a bad influence for Spencer.”- I whispered and sighed.

- “You two once got to work drunk!”- JJ said and chuckled- “I still remember Gideon’s look when you two sat at the table wearing sunglasses.”

- “Drunk?!”- Kate nearly yelled, shocked. Morgan walked over and overheard the conversation, and of course, he had to add his 5 cents to the topic.

- “Little Ricky smelled like whisky and beer. It was one of the best BAU moments.”

- “They called us at 3 in the morning, for Christ's sake!”- I argued and Pen giggled staring at me- “We had had a few drinks with some friends. It’s not like we were wasted.”

- “Jr. G man was so proud, though”- Garcia said - “I remember he told me he had so much fun that night, that your friends were the best, that everybody was nice to him. And that he even learned how to skateboard that night.” - I was about to add something to that memory, when JJ suddenly said.

- “Gideon really treated Spencer like a kid. Remember that birthday he gave Spence tickets to a football game, even when Spencer has never been a sports fan, so he could take me out on a date?”

Looking back at that moment, I think I should have noticed it was wrong that JJ kept bringing up every chance she could that she went out on a “date” with my husband. Penelope and Kate looked at me, waiting for my reaction, but I just shrugged and smiled.

- “He is screwed now, my family forces him to have football Sundays when we get together. And call me crazy, but I think he enjoys it.”

About two hours later, we got a call from Rossi and Spencer. They had a clue. Apparently, Gideon had been killed by an unsub they never caught in the area back in 1978.

- “The last thing Gideon did was to shoot a bird painting. I think he was trying to tell us that his killer is the same one from a case we worked on in 1978.”- Rossi said through the line.

- “So it was someone he locked up.”- Kate suggested, but the answer was no.

- “No, those murders went unsolved.”

- “So if this wasn't about revenge on Gideon if he didn't lock the guy up, then what was this?”- Morgan asked, looking confused.

- “We all knew Jason, he might have retired from the BAU, but there is no way he ever stopped working. I’m sure he was investigating that case if he never solved it back in the days.”- I said, thinking it was a very Gideon thing to do: retire to never ever retire indeed.

- “Exactly, maybe he went after Gideon because he was back on the case again.”- Rossi agreed with me.

- “The unsub was strangling 20-something brunettes.”- Spencer said through the line and I wished I could be with him, holding his hand. - “Garcia, were there any female bodies found in Roanoke County in the past few days?”

- “Let me check the crystal web ball.”- after a few seconds, Pen had the answer. - “Yes. An unidentified woman in her 50s was found in a shallow grave just outside of Salem.”

- “Was she strangled?”- Rossi asked right away.

- “That's the mystery. There was no foul play.”- Garcia answered shaking her head.

- “Was there a dead bird in her hand?”- Spencer asked and we all frowned, confused.

- “What? Eew. None of that fowl play either.”- Pen looked grossed

- “Hon, why the bird? Is that his signature?”- I asked.- “I’m guessing it wasn’t a random question.”

- “Yes, apparently, they were the unsub's obsession.”- Spencer answered.

- “So how did Gideon get back on the case?”- Kate questioned and looked at us - “I mean, he was retired, he should have been… bird watching. I don’t know.”

- “He saw the story in a national paper and it obviously piqued his interest.”- JJ suggested- “What are the chances that the same woods and the same ritual make headlines again?”

- “But the signature was missing.”- Kate pointed out.

- “It’s Gideon we are talking about. I think he knew something we haven’t discovered yet.”- I suggested and Hotch nodded. - “Or he had one hell of a hunch.”

- “That's why he drove to Roanoke. He needed to make sure it wasn't just a coincidence.”- Rossi supported my words through the line.

- “Well, clearly it wasn't.”- Morgan whispered.

- “And this woman would have been in her 20s back then. Age-wise, that's his type.”- Garcia pointed out and I nodded.

- “It's all there. He just connected the dots.”- I sighed and shook my head. - “If only he would have called us and asked for help.”

- “Don’t go there, principessa”- Rossi said from the other side of the line. - “What’s done it’s done. We can only try to help him finish what he needed to get done.”- I sighed one more time and nodded, which was incredibly stupid considering David couldn’t see me.

- “If she was a victim, then she was held captive for 37 years. Who knows what he did to her in all that time?”- Kate said and my mind went to a very dark place immediately. We needed to give that poor victim the justice she deserved as well.

- “What if he stopped killing because he found the victim he really wanted and held on to her?”- Spencer suggested.

- “Her recent death could have sent the unsub into a tailspin. He's probably gonna want to find someone new.”- Morgan added and we all nodded.

- “And if it's anything like what he did before, he may hunt and kill until he finds the right one.”- JJ added the part we knew but didn’t want to think of: that it might be the start of a new massacre.

- “We'll meet you in Roanoke, Dave.”- Hotch said and we all started walking outside. Only Garcia and JJ remained at the cabin, retracing Gideon’s last steps, while, Kate, Morgan, Hotch, and I got into an SUV and drove to town.

On our way over we kept talking on the phone with Rossi, Spencer Garcia, and JJ. When we got to Roanoke I was paired with Morgan, which was nice. He didn’t ask much about how I was feeling, we both focused on the case and tried our best to be professional and headed to the morgue to identify the victim’s body.

- “That ink's pretty faded.”- Derek pointed out staring at a butterfly tattoo on the victim’s ankle.

- “Yeah, she must have got that 40 years ago.”- I whispered and turned to the M.E - “What was the C.O.D.?”

- “Cancer.”- he answered with a troubled stare in his eyes. Clearly, something was bothering him.

- “Cancer?”- I questioned and he just nodded.

- “She was riddled with it. No evidence of tissue damage from chemo or radiation.”- the forensic started explaining- “At first I thought her severe muscle atrophy and bone loss was a side effect of the disease. And she clearly lost her appetite, because her stomach shrunk to half its size.”

- “You said at first you thought it was about the disease. What changed your mind?”- Morgan took the words from me as he looked at the M.E. waiting for an answer.

- “Well, I hadn't finished the exam when I explained all of this to the other one… what's his name?”- there was a brief silence after that question, Derek and I looked at each other immediately.

- “Gideon.”- I replied, trying to look like it wasn’t weird at all to talk about him like he hadn’t been just killed.

- “Yes, him. Now that I've had time to fully examine the body, it tells a different story. She's got ripped ligaments between her pelvic girdle and femur bone like her legs had been dislocated multiple times. She's got calluses like she was crawling around like a limp dog.”

Every word that explained the excruciating pain that poor woman had been through during all the years she had been held captive, hurt me. I can’t imagine how Gideon felt to know she had been alive all those years, waiting for someone to rescue her.

- “Have you ever seen that before?”- I dared to ask, though I imagined the answer.

- “Yes. On three young women many years ago.”

It was the same unsub.

Hotch, Spencer, and Rossi were waiting for us outside the morgue. My husband was holding a paper bag with a bagel and a hot cup of coffee.

- “You need some breakfast.”- he whispered as I smiled, blushing. Yes, I would still blush every time he made a sweet gesture like that. I hadn’t even finished opening the bag when JJ called and he put her on speaker.

- “Hey, Hotch, there's another missing woman. You need to get to the library on Third and Main right now.”

And off we were. At least I was finally with Spencer again.

Spencer’s point of view

That day was hard. Hard doesn’t even begin to explain it, but for the lack of a better word, let’s go with “hard.” Everything had been uphill. I even called Sofia and asked if I could video chat with my daughter as we drove back from talking with the victim’s mother. That was a balm for my soul. Finally being with my wife helped as well. I understand Rossi wanted to put an eye on me and talk about what was going on, but I really didn’t want to be apart from her that day. She was my happy place.

- “Today’s victim, Josie Behdart, 23, single, she walked to work. Local cops just found her cell phone in a trash can and, surprise, no cameras.”- Kate said as she and Hotch walked toward us at the library parking lot, holding a police file with all the info about the abduction.

- “And all the original reports confirm that each of the victims was taken within a mile of this library.”- our Unit Chief added.

- “Well, needless to say, this guy has a comfort zone to hunt”- (Y/N) pointed out and I nodded.

- “It hasn't changed since '78.”- Morgan added - “My guess is there's another significance to this location.”

- “A library could be an ideal hunting ground. A haven for the lonely. Let me check it out.”- I said and started walking. But before taking another step I turned around and looked at my wife. I didn’t even have to say a word, she was already walking behind me.

Honestly, it felt good to know she wasn’t going to leave my side. And no, that is not something I could ever take for granted.

- “You haven’t taken off your scarf.”- (Y/N) whispered as we walked to the main door of the library's old building.

- “I love this scarf, you gave it to me on January 16th, 2006, almost two months after we met.”- I pointed out and she smiled. Not your regular “that’s funny” smile, a hearty one. A “I love you smile.” I live for those smiles from her.

- “I know, honey. I remember that day too. But what I meant was it's not cold anymore, aren’t you warm?”

- “No, I’m ok. Have you talked with your mom?”

- “Yeah, she and Raven were out for a walk.”

- “Ok Reids. What are we looking for?”- Morgan showed up at our side and looked around. Kate followed him quickly and smiled at us as she said.

- “What? We weren’t going to miss a trip to the library, it’s where the cool kids hang out.”

It was obvious the team was now trying to put an eye on us, maybe even support us or cheer us up a little bit. And it was sweet, in a way. I knew we all loved each other, and we were there in good and bad.

- “Hope you are ok”- JJ texted me a few minutes later, proving my theory. It was nice to know we all had each other’s backs.

I didn’t have much time to reply to JJ’s text because we were pretty busy at the library. It was a small town and Gideon hadn’t gone undetected by the locals. Hotch and Rossi waited for us in a cafeteria, and as soon as we walked back in, we gave them the news.

- “The librarian remembers Gideon. He got a temporary card, checked out these books in the morning, and left them in the drop box on his drive home last night.”- I left the books on the table and moved a chair for my wife, as we all sat at the table with Hotch and Rossi.

- “He left the library and came here to read books.”- Callahan whispered sadly as he sat down, probably trying to see which one of the seats he had taken.

- “Yeah, that is just classic Gideon and classic profiling.”- (Y/N) added and kept her eyes on the book on the table. - “I don’t know why I find it comforting knowing exactly what he did that last day.”

- “He sat right here to let the unsub know he was watching.”- Morgan said, nodding.

- “But if Gideon was so sure he lured the right guy, why didn't he tell us?”- my wife questioned and looked at us. I couldn’t give him an answer, because I asked myself the same the entire day.

- “It's like the unsub was his white whale.”- Kate analyzed and her words made sense. - “He wanted to catch him on his own, and his last move was when the unsub targeted him.”

- “The age of the victims has stayed the same as the unsub has aged.”- Hotch pointed out. - “It speaks to his arrested development.”

- “So the question is what it's always been: Why them? Why now?”- Morgan commented and (Y/N) nodded.

- “Back to profiling one on one.”- and we all sighed - “Ok, give me those books, let’s see what Gideon was reading about.”

We all read for a while, I tried to do it as fast as possible, but I was having a hard time concentrating. The waitress brought us coffee, which we all gladly welcomed, and offered us pie. Hotch said no and I nearly pouted. I could have had some. I needed sugar to function.

- “This is it. Nelson's sparrow.”- Rossi pointed at a book after a while.- “It's what the unsub left in their hands because its behavior matched that of the insecure victims.”

- “So the unsub really knew his birds and where to find them.”- Morgan said, looking exhausted. I’m sure we all looked like that considering we hadn’t slept at all.

- “Is there some kind of bird lovers club in the area?”- Kate asked and (Y/N) grabbed her phone right away.

- “Let me call an expert. Hey Garcia, you are on speaker. Tell me, are there any nature centers or bird-watching chapters in the area?”

- “There's an old-timey bird-watching group called the Flappers, median age of like 89. They started in the sixties. Most of the members have gone extinct.”- Garcia announced in a matter of seconds.

- “And chances are the unsub and his victims weren't a part of that group, so where else would he meet them?”- Kate asked, as Aaron grabbed the picture of the unsub’s victim and showed it to us.

- “Tara was his ideal.”

- “What made her so special for him?”- (Y/N) asked, focusing on the image.

- “Tara's mother said she was broken.”- Rossi pointed out.

- “And he knew that because he spent more time watching her than the others.”- Hotch commented.

- “So he was basically a stalker. He was able to study her, not just glance as she passed by the window.”- (Y/N) said and I nodded along her words.

- “She was a few years out of high school when she disappeared. Maybe he knew her from there.”- Morgan analyzed, but it didn’t really make much sense.

- “She wasn't very social.”- I said, trying to connect their lives, with how they lived.

- “Well, neither was he, hon.”- (Y/N) said and rubbed my hand with her as she smiled at me for a moment.

- “They were both in their 20s when she was taken.”- Hotch pointed out. - “If they weren't friends in high school, maybe they worked together?”

- “Tara's mom said right out of school she bagged groceries.”- I added and Garcia replied in a matter of seconds.

- “I've got Tara working at Joe's on Main summer of '76 through '77.”

- “Are there any employees at Joe's supermarket who started in the seventies and are still there?”- Hotch asked and I raised an eyebrow.

- “You do realize you are asking for the impossible, right?”- (Y/N) whispered and our Unit Chief simply raised an eyebrow.

- “But I’m asking Garcia, I know she delivers.”

- “Well, that's nearly 40 years ago in a galaxy far, far away that wasn't using my magic binary boxes, but, yeah, the place is still family-owned and operated. Give me a hot minute.”

- “Thank you, Pen.”- (Y/N) said and I held her hand as she cut me a little smile.

- “Ok. Three of the people still working there are women. That leaves two males. There's a name I've heard before. Mallick.”- it took Garcia less than two minutes to gather the whole information. A new record.

- “Who?”- Hotch asked, confused.

- “Gertie Mallick was one of the founding members of the bird group. Died in 1974. Her next of kin was her nephew Donnie Mallick, who inherited her farm and... buys enough birdseed to let me know I should send you his address.”

We had a suspect and most likely, our Unsub. Gideon’s murderer.

As Hotch drove us to Mallick’s last known address in the middle of nowhere, I couldn’t stop analyzing his life. His mother gave birth to him at only fourteen, and at eighteen she was sent to a mental facility for schizophrenia, and her four-year-old son was sent to live with his only living kin, a 72-year-old wheelchair-bound Aunt Gertrude. A part of me pitied him. He never had a normal life, he had most likely inherited his mother’s condition. I could relate to the fear and the pain.

But he had killed Jason Gideon. My mentor, my biggest influence. I wanted to shoot the guy, I wanted to give Gideon peace and give some sense of what had happened.

That was until I heard his voice in the back of my head as I remembered one conversation we once shared when I still was struggling to pass my firearm qualification exam.

- “Hotch told me that when he came to the BAU, you told him he didn't need a gun to kill somebody?”- I questioned Gideon and he nodded.

- “The only truly effective weapon we have is our ability to do the one thing they can't.”

- “Which is what?”

- “Empathize. They dehumanize their victims, we humanize the killers.”

I took a deep breath and nodded to myself. I wasn’t going to let my emotions take the best of me that day.

When we got to the house, we divided, and luckily, (Y/N) stayed with me as we went through the back. The gunshot warned us in a matter of minutes, Rossi got the unsub. And he was dead. I thought I was gonna be relieved to see him there, but no. I just felt sad for him, for his life, and for the women he had tortured and killed. At least Gideon’s work was finished.

Did Mallick give a reason to Rossi to pull the trigger? I don’t know. But I know I’m glad it wasn’t me. I wanted to go home and still be myself. A good version of myself. One that could be Raven’s dad and (Y/N)’s husband.

I was gonna miss Gideon, always, but I knew I was never gonna be him, and that was a good thing.

Next chapter

Series' Masterlist - Author's masterlist

#spencer reid #criminal minds #babymetaldoll writes #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you

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xxwitchylanexx · 6 months ago

Text

Glories in Gunpowder and Parades- Cloud x Reader

Rebirth Retold Chapter 7

Spoilers for Junon chapter on rebirth but no important event spoilers

I really hate how they didn't put Reno in Junon in rebirth so I added him in a little. Next chapter will be a little shorter but will hopefully be up in the next week or so. Hope you enjoy!!

Minors DNI

Chapter 8

Masterlist

*~*

The day for Shinra’s inauguration parade had finally come. When you woke from a restful sleep that morning in Under Junon you could almost feel the restless chatter from the citizen under the plate. The elevator had double the amount of security it usually did so there was no way your comrades would be able to slip up undetected.

The six of you stood huddled outside the inn brainstorming a way to get inside the fortress. Barret, being himself, suggested you just storm the elevator and force your way in, and as you can imagine no one agreed with him. You were about to suggest a plan using morph materia when Priscilla, that ninja girl’s friend, approached the group with a solution.

It must have been your lucky day. If you were under any other circumstances you’d never have the chance to see tough guy Cloud sitting upon Mr. Dolphin’s back as the took a lap around the lagoon. You were wildly amused along with the rest of the gang. Tifa whooped and cheered him in front of you; waving her arms enthusiastically in the air, shouting ‘you can do it’ and so on. Your inner war with the brunette finally disbanded. The conversation with Cloud in the bar allowing you to let go of the unwanted festering feelings.

Aerith was beside you clapped excitedly at the show and giggling away at the way his spiky hair flattened against his face as the drooped under the weight of the water. Barret was yelling to get in with it just behind you, you swore he was only crabby because he secretly wanted to storm the elevator. Red sat the furthest away from the water his tail standing rigid in a hook, the flickering flame causing little red dots in your vision before you looked back to Cloud’s skillful performance.

In truth, you couldn’t take your eyes off him. Your e/c orbs dragged over the hard lines of his body that his wet clothing enhanced. His broad shoulders were deliciously on display, and the hard planes of muscle rippled along his back as he stroked through the water. Aerith nudged you in the soft spot between your hip and rips with her elbow leaning. She leaned in just close enough to whisper in your ear followed by a giggle at your expense. “You like what you see?” Your face flushed as you glared down at her, without any real heat. You watched your feet intently as you considered jumping into the sea yourself to cool you off.

You missed his final flourish trying to make a point that you weren’t ogling the man to Aerith. Moments after the rest of you rowed out to the boat he lowered, your makeshift elevator, and ascended into the winding halls of the Upper Junon fortress. Aerith volunteered to you to stay behind to wait for Cloud, another ploy to keep the two of you together. You grumbled about it but honestly at least you’d have a break from the perky girl’s pestering.

Five or six minutes later he emerged from the next room over. You waved your arm above your head lazily to capture his attention. You greeted him with a simple ‘hey’ as he approached you.

“Hey.” He shifted his weight from one side to the other.

“Thanks for the lift. They went this way.” You pointed your thumb behind to emphasize where the others went.

“Let’s get a move on.” You waved your arm to beckon him onward. With a huff at your insistence he trudged forward.

You kept your pace even and measured not too slow to lose him, but not fast enough to think you were eager. You didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention as you walked down the enemy’s halls. You eyed him up and down taking in the way his clothes and hair already appeared to be mostly dry already. The quiet was never uncomfortable around him, but you wouldn’t really be you if you didn’t poke some fun here and there. “So… do you ride on dolphins often, or are you just a natural?”

He faltered in his step before correcting the chip in his facade casting a glimpse over his shoulder before staring ahead once more. “It was…” He cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest. “Nothing to it.”

You rolled your eyes at his sense of bravado. “Always the showman.” At the end of the hallway the walls widened up into a square archway with subtle peeks of the great blue sky outdoors. “Up there.” As you neared the opening you could see your friends spread out along the steel platform gawking at the view.

You’ve seen The Sister Ray before but never this close, or from this angle. You leaned onto the metal fencing to get a good look you at it. You could see all the grooves and braces along its metal barrel looming out over the sea. The sun glared down onto its length making it hard to look at it long term, but it was a sight to behold. For a weapon of mass destruction, that is.

Cloud gripped at the railing next to you, leaning over it to look at the floor below. “Less security than I thought.”

“More worried about the parade?” Aerith asked from your side.

“Guess thing have changed.” You turned and leaned your back against the fence to see him properly. “They got higher priorities.” Barret replied.

“Personally, I think that’s a good thing.” Tifa said, and you’d have to agree. It was nice to see them focus more on spirit than war. Even if it was just to boost the newly appointed president’s ego.

Red padded up to side and sat back on his haunches rubbing against your leg in the process. “The city’s size on the other hand… the robed men won’t be easy to find.”

“Well they’re definitely not here.” Cloud concluded. “Let’s head into town.” He wasted no time as he started his climb up the number of staircases ahead of you, even taking two or three at a time. You waited for the others to go first except for Barret who insisted on taking the rear.

You climbed the steps just behind Aerith, the girl looking over her arm at you every so often. “Have you been here before?”

“A couple of times. Though I was only passing through.” You grabbed the smooth railing.

“Have you traveled a lot?” Tifa asked from her position a few steps higher than Aerith.

“Yeah, mostly just this continent and the next one over. Most of my clients don’t go farther than the saucer, though I have visited the ranches farther out.”

You weren’t sure what you were expecting the top floor to look like, but you hadn’t expected it to be out in the open. The roof was wide and flat. Long enough to fit multiple airstrips. A few planes were stationed here and there near with a few designated pilots expecting each air craft. The whole place was packed with soldiers all lined up in rows and columns for practice drills. Each commanding officer stood at the forefront of their squad to give out orders.

You realize that the parade was a huge televised event, however you found it pretty odd that not one trooper noticed your not so subtle group wandering around in a restricted area. Were they just negligent in their duties or was your group expected to be here you wondered.

“Any idea what that is?” Tifa inquired. You shifted to see what she was referring to. An aircraft, far larger than any plane, ship, or truck you’ve ever seen, sat proudly at the front of the airway. Its wings spread wide across the surface, and the Shinra logo painted along its massive side. The sheer strength in its propellers, as they rotated rapidly along its axis, disturbed the natural force of the wind around the airstrip. along with may elite forces gathered around it.

“The Highwind.” Cloud explained. “Shinra’s pride and joy. The fastest, most advanced, airship in the fleet.”

“That explains the elite troops.” You added as you counted five, no six elite security officers circling around the vessel.

“Screw the boat.” Barret said. “Let’s take that.” Tifa nudged his sides as if to say ‘shut up’.

“Less you got a trained crew and piloting skills we don’t know about… we’re stickin’ with the boat.”

“That’s too bad. Would’ve been perfect.” Tifa sighed, clearly disappointed. You shared her sentiment. You preferred to travel by plane a hell of a lot more than boat. Planes were faster and less shaky. The constant swaying and creaking of sea travel reeked havoc on your stomach.

“Beggars can’t be choosers.” Cloud replied, his statement the end of the conversation as the six of you searched for a way down to the city.

You admired the layout and design as you walked. Every path was lined with royal red runners with a simple pattern embroidered along the edges in gold. Flags, with the Shinra crest printed on each one, of the same color waved around in the breeze. An army of soldiers, regular foot soldiers that is, covered every inch of this place. You could hear the cheerful laughter, and the fumbling of their rifles as they practiced their drills. A few commanders were berating their officers for stupid mistakes, or tardiness, each one on the receiving end all just answered with ‘sir, yes, sir’. You don’t think you’d would ever make it in a job like this. Blindly following orders wasn’t your style, and the disrespect each one puts up with under the guise of ‘discipline’ pissed you off. Whether your rank is at the bottom or near the top no one has a right to disrespect another human being. You line of sight quickly shifted to the back of the person in front of you, now face to face with the dark fabric of Cloud’s at the base of his neck. At one time was Cloud at the bottom of he barrel too, or did he qualify to start higher on the totem pole? It was hard for you to picture him in a trooper’s uniform taking the verbal assault from a higher officer.

What really didn’t make sense to you was why was every individual was okay with being treated this way. Why was it worth it to lay their lives down for a company that was willing to throw those very lives away to make money or regain control or simply to make a statement. You couldn’t possibly believe the salary was good considering all the officials of the company were scheming assholes. Did they truly think Shinra was a just employer or was it fear?

Cloud approached a terminal amongst a few consoles along a large wall and typed in a bunch of stuff like it was second nature. Once it lurched forward you realized the platform everyone was on was an elevator that led to the city. You stared at the terminal dumbfounded that it was so easily accessible. Sure, a soldier probably has access to most things in every facility, but can you imagine the sheer arrogance they have not to change any codes or procedures. Especially since they are highly aware that one left their employment, and is actively working against them. In your opinion that was a huge security liability.

“So Cloud, what can you tell us about Junon?” Aerith asked as the elevator churned downwards.

“It’s a key military outpost with its own offshore reactor. A critical line of defense against any seaborne assault. When needed, it can transform into an armed fortress. It’s strategic location, along with its air and seaport, make it second only to Midgar as the company’s most vital city.” He listed off the facts as if he was reading a menu.

“Huh, neat. Any good restaurants? Sights to see?” she asked.

“Uh.. maybe? I dunno.” You smiled. Of course he’d never sightsee. All business, this one.

“Ah, right. You’re not the touristy type.” She shuffled from one foot to the other as she looked out to what was beneath you.

“If you’re looking for great landscapes, you’ll like the bridge.” You answered in his stead, everyone turning to look at you while you talked. “Otherwise the main drag has lots of different stalls and vendors.”

“It’s so cool you know this stuff.” Aerith gushed.

You shrugged, “I pass through here often.”

Barret grunted from his corner of the elevator. “Hey just to be clear, you do realize we’re not here on vacation, right?”

“Of course I do!” Aerith huffed, annoyed he even thought she was slacking off. “Hey, look! What’s that about?”

You shuffled closer to the railing between where she was and where Cloud was settled in the corner, and peered over the ledge. The sharp instructions you overhead making more sense now that you were looking at the squad lined up beneath you. It didn’t pertain to you nor did interest you so you straightened once again and wait for the lift to finally reach the bottom. The elevator began to grind against the track as it came to a stop, and you all quickly shuffled off.

“Those troopers looked pretty psyched for the parade, huh?” Tifa pointed out.

“More like eager to prance around for their new paymaster.” Barret quipped. “Now I know what y’all are gonna say, but I gotta ask.”

“What?” Cloud asked flatly.

“If Rufus is in town, are we really gonna let this opportunity pass us by? Hell, I’m not sayin’ we kill the man- but we oughta at least give him a talkin’ to. Rough him up a little maybe, y’know?”

“Actually,” Aerith spoke up, “I’m gonna have to agree. First the turks say, ‘Do whatever-we’re not after you.’ but then Cloud’s biker buddy rolls up and says he is. We gotta straighten this out.” You recalled her discussion with Tifa on the way to Crow’s Nest pertaining this topic. It was a valid concern, though you wondered if Rufus cared about her at all. I mean think about it; they were following the robes too there’s no denying that. You had a hunch that it might be Hojo that wanted her back so desperately.

“Okay, but how?” Tifa asked, one hand perched on her hip. “We can’t just walk up to the president in the street.” That’s true. This group didn’t exactly blend in with a crowd.

Perhaps you could, but you weren’t so eager to paint a target on your back as well. After all you’d be on your own again eventually. “Or maybe we can.” Cloud said.

Barret bounced on his heels as he practically skipped closer. “We bust up his parade!”

Cloud pushed him back. “No, that’s how we die in a hail of bullets like a bunch if dumbasses. The city is crawling with Shinra’s troopers.” He paused before continuing. “We join the parade. Hide in plain sight. Get in, get close, get answers.”

“Seriously?” Tifa asked.

He between Aerith and Tifa. “Sure.”

“Wow, that’s good!” Aerith said with her finger pressed to her cheek.

“No argument here.” Barret crossed his arms, or well arm and his newest attachment.

“Barret, Red you guys find a route to the port; see what security is like. And keep an eye out for the black robes while you’re at it. Y/n, since they’re not looking for you, why don’t you try to get information in town.”

You nodded in agreement while Barret bullied himself into Cloud space once again. “Now hold up!”

“Fatigues won’t be enough to disguise you two.”

“True enough.” Red agreed.

Barret resigned with a mumbled ‘shuddup’ as Cloud looked over to you once again. “See you in a bit. I gotta go find a uniform.” You gave him a half hearted wave as he walked off with the other two. Aerith playfully pushing him on the arm and Tifa following after with her arm clasped behind her back. Barret and Red also quickly faded into the crowd of pedestrians wandering the great streets of the bustling city, leaving you there all alone.

*~*

The upper city Junon was generally a quiet and peaceful town to visit, though not everyone has had the privilege to see it. First and fore most Junon was a military outpost, like Cloud had said, so it had a smaller population than most places in Gaia. It’s residents made up of mostly army staff, researchers, sailors, and airmen to employ Shinra’s monopoly of transportation. Any others that wished to visit the city or sail to the next continent had to shell out a hefty sum for tickets and a permit to proceed through the fortress. However today, the narrow streets and winding alleys were jam packed festive tourists and plastered in tacky patriotic propaganda.

Royal red pennants, emblazoned with the Shinra crest, flapped with every salty sea breeze, identical banners hung at the entrance to nearly every establishment you’ve seen so far, signs and posters were on display across every billboard in town, and every single shop (conveniently owned by Shinra affiliates) had some kind of a promotions, featuring the guest of honor, to sucker their consumers into thinking they were getting a decent purchase or rate for their hotel accommodations. You’ve nearly spent half the day weaving through waves of frolicking tourists between the pop up stores and street attractions, and shrugging off the sloppy drunks trying to pick up anyone willing to go back to their room.

Everywhere you looked there was something special for the occasion: colorful face paint adorning the faces of passerby, life size Rufus Shinra cutouts around every corner, signed autograph cards from the open stalls along the streets, vouchers you could win in a raffle for a tour of the Shinra building in Midgar, and the list went on and on. If you hadn’t been given a task you’d have holed yourself up by now to escape the frivolity of the entire celebration. Nothing like an inauguration of a communist to really get people going.

Not that you’ve learned anything useful. The docks were off limit for the time being and even if you wanted to sneak in, every nook and cranny was heavily guarded. Even cruise ticket holders were restricted until after the ceremony. The few troopers that were actually on duty were unwilling to share anything of value. They just urged you to find a spot along the parade route or settle somewhere with a TV to watch the televised program with promises that you would see the president present the award to the best preforming squad.

With no leads elsewhere, you found yourself at a quiet little food truck along the seawall. It was old and clunky but disguised as ‘Rufus’s favorite street meat’ as if anyone would actually believe that the president himself waltz along the streets looking for foot cart dishes. The gaudy decor draped across it’s flat surfaces did succeed in matching the excitement of the event. Honestly you’d think it came right from the train graveyard in the slums. The spinning hot dog on the roof swiveled around slowly as it played some distorted whimsical tune like the vehicle had spent a lot of time under water. Red and gold garland wrapped around the top concealing little bullet holes along the roof. An oversized banner, as tall as you, was plastered over the window hiding the cracks in the glass that advertised their signature rainbow slushies and a ‘Rufus dog’, which was just a fancy hot dog with Rufus Shinra’s, or so they claim, favorite toppings.

Your stomach growled as an array of delicious smells wafting through the air from the surrounding stalls assaulted your nostrils. After a small debate on whether this place would kill you or not you caved and got into line just behind the one other customer. As you waited a steady trail of people trailed behind you all creating a wall from your position to the small stage where an event was about to begin.

Honestly, you should’ve known better than trying to find the attraction. You perched on the tops of your toes trying to see over the wave of celebrators, your balance near perfect, but your reaction time delayed. You heard the girl sniffling long before you saw her backing up your way and before your flats of your feet touched the ground again it was too late to get step out of her path.

So there you are being pushed backwards, your arms out to catch your upper body as your ass landed harshly against the pavement, and that wasn’t even the worst part. You only seen a brief flash of color and a plastic cup before you squeezed your eyes shut and prepared for the chilly beverages to splatter across your face before soaking into your clothes. You swallowed the shriek that caught in your throat on contact, and a shiver rippled down your spine as you exhaled deeply through your nose and slowly rose to your feet wiping some of the frozen slush off your chest.

“OHMYGODS! OHMYGODS!” Her hands frantically waving in front of her, her bracelet clinking against itself as she moved. “I am SOO sorry! I wasn’t looking. I am so so sorry.” You wiped a bit of the melting slush from your cheek before studying your assailant.

Her rose hair was what stood out to you first. Each lock curled in a perfect ringlet and framing her face nicely. Then there were her eyes: oval pools of grey, wide in shock and glassy with unshed tears. Once perfectly applied makeup now streaked towards the corners like she’d been wiping the few drops that made it past her lash line. She was shorter than you by a few inches and her frame was small, and lithe. Her shoulders were curled inward, and hands clenched around the once full beverages and trembled at her sides.

She swiped furiously the new tears that slipped free. “I have a room a-at the hotel across the street if you want to freshen up and change. I-I really really am sorry.” Her head hung in shame. Her bottom lip shook between her teeth.

“It’s okay. It was an accident.” You leaned down to peer at her face. “I actually don’t have anything else to wear. I’m just passing through.” She lifted her head, just slightly, to meet your eyes. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll dry. Besides, it looks like you have somewhere else to be.”

She straightened entirely, the tension between the blades of her shoulders easing, before dropping the plastic cups to clatter on the pavement and swiftly grabbing your hand to tug you along behind her. “Don’t you worry! I have extras!” Your dominant hand twisted behind your back to grab the hilt of your weapon as your limbic system trying to trigger the part of your brain into into fight mode. She must’ve seen you reaching for it cause she released your wrist as if you’re skin burned her. She hugged her arms weekly one palm rubbing at her bicep. “Sorry… I’m not trying to kidnap you. I mean look at you,” she gestured at all of you, “I hardly doubt I’d even be a threat to you.” You loosened your hold on the sword and let your arm fall back to your side. “Look,” she said. “I was stood up. I’m not busy. So please let me at least give you something to wear.”

“Well,” your nose wrinkled in disgust at the overly sweet smell permeating your clothes. “I do hate wet clothes.” You shrugged. Her despondent aura quickly transformed into something much lighter and outgoing. Her smile nearly stretched from ear to ear, her pearly white teeth capable of brightening a cloudy sky, as she bounced on the balls of her feet.

“Okay, this way.” Without wasting another second, she resumed her quick pace through the crowd, this time with you close behind. As she led you she babbled on about how she’s from Kalm, and came to see the parade before she traveled to Costa Del Sol tomorrow for a new job. You nodded along as you took mental notes on noticeable landmarks to find your way back later. Your ears trained on any distressing sounds while half heartedly listening to this woman’s story.

You marveled at the size and clarity of the glass doors of whatever hotel she brought you too, stretching at least fifteen feet taller than you. Large glass windows were on either side of the door and you nearly gasped when you turned. In the center of the lobby surrounded by curved wooden benches sat a proud replica of the Sister Ray. The thing was enormous! Nearly the size of an actual tank, and you couldn’t help but wonder if it was a functioning model.

The young woman zig zagged through the lingering guests trying to check in. Once again, you quickly scanned for possible exits and dangers that may be lurking in the dim corners. Just because you weren’t a fugitive like your companions didn’t mean you were safe. Anyone could have seen you with them, and it only took one onlooker to put you in danger. Caution and contingency plans are essential.

You gripped onto one of the railings as the two of you set walked up the stairs. She told you about the guy she was suppose to meet. They had met at the gate of the city when they were waited to acquired a travel permit. They hit it off, and had a lot in common so thinking that that might have been the beginning of something she asked if he wanted to meet up later. He seemed to be on the same page and agreed telling her to meet him at the seaway. He never turned up. She waited a couple hours after the time they agreed on before she finally gave up and quite literally stumbled into you. She feet came to a stop in front of room 304 and she quickly produced a keycard and held it to the sensor before she pushed the door open, and pulled you in behind her with a ‘tada!’.

“I’m Riza, by the way.” She waved her hand towards the extravagant king size bed, a silent invitation to make yourself comfortable. You ran your hands along the smooth red silk as she trotted over to the closet. Your eyes skimmed along the beautifully detailed painting of the flora and fauna of Junon that used to grow around the area before moving on to the pristinely crafted golden sconces and wooden paneled walls. The place was certainly one of the higher tier hotels in the city. You could only imagine the small fortune one must have to stay here. “I hope a sundress is okay. I packed for the beach.” Riza called out to you from the other side of the closet doors.

“Anything is fine. I really appreciate it.” Riza stepped back and closed the door, returning with a lovely blue chiffon fabric folded over her forearm.

“I think this one will look amazing on you. Go try it on!” She practically shoved the material into your hands before you awkwardly shuffled into the bathroom just behind her. “Feel free to use the hairbrush, make up, or well anything!”

“Thank you!” You called over your shoulder before shutting the door with a click and locking the door behind you. You blew a lock of hair out of your face as you stared at your reflection. You looked like you’d just robbed a circus with the various colors staining your clothes.

Some purple and blue tones had dried on your face, and most of your hair had escaped the tight braid you had put it in. You reached behind you to pull the tie free only to discover that it was no longer there. It must've fallen off when you fell earlier. You sighed. You hoped Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith were faring better than you.

Fifteen minutes later you emerged from the bathroom in a simple pale blue off the shoulder sundress with sheer batwing sleeves that flowed till just above your elbows round the entire breast line which accented the are nicely making your s/c really glow. The high waist pinched just at the divot between your ribs and hips then the sheer material cascaded around your calves in a tent silhouette. The lining under the flowy fabric was short and fitted to your form and stopped mid thigh. You brushed out the snarls at the ends of your hair prior to tucking a few locks behind your ears. You normally didn’t let it free, being mid back length it often got in your way, but you'd manage for now. You clipped and fastened the leather strap of your equipment at the waist line and fidgeted with a skirt for a moment before speaking up. “It fits great. Are you sure this is okay? We probably won’t meet again so I won’t be able to return it.”

She did a lap around you to take in every detail of your appearance, her irises dragging from head to toe, before she leaned against a cabinet near the bed. “Girl, don’t worry about it. It looks WAY better on you than me. Though it’d be better without that bag and sword.” She pointed at your equipment that you had secured it to its proper place.

You ignored the statement, not one to forego safety for fashion. “Look, I hate to just change and run, but I do have somewhere to be.”

“No worries! Sorry again.”

You stuffed your wet clothes into your pack and slipped your socks and boots back on before saying your goodbyes. “It was nice to meet you Riza. Good luck on your new position, and enjoy the beach.” You reached to pull the door open before you paused and turned to address her one more time. “That guy, by the way, is an idiot. You’re a gorgeous girl and I don’t come across truly kind people anymore. Don't settle for someone who doesn’t deserve you.”

You opened the door and slipped back into the hallway before she could respond. Each footstep muffled against the carpeted halls as you weaved yourself back into the bustling streets.

*~*

Time was running out and you still hadn’t learned anything that might have given your group an edge. You spent another hour and a half soaking in the whispered rumors, but none knew anything of value. What you needed was to find a middle to high level employee off duty and relaxing, preferably a man so you could charm some info right out of him, but you would settle for anyone at this point. Now if you a valuable employee that had time to spare where would you kill time?

In the barracks you chatted with a nice drill sergeant that showed you some of the routines they planned to perform so maybe Cloud could use that to come up with a better one. You ran into a middle class manager that you learned was leaving for vacation tomorrow since the cruise ships weren’t leaving the harbor until tomorrow. So that really put a wrench in making a getaway plan. You did run into a rather interesting establishment that you swore that bald turk escaped into, but you weren’t granted access unless you shave your head. A bald bar? Really? Eventually you happened by a lounge that looked promising.

The le Sourie, the brick side of the building read. You admired the large purple flowers that decorated the floor to ceiling entrance. The were even more impressive when you realized they were real and well maintained. Definitely a costly expense in this region. Two men stood guard on either side of the tinted glass door, one broad and nearly six feet tall and the other more lanky and around five-two-the second holding a clipboard and scanning what you guessed was a list. You readied your permit, ready to show them and possibly flirt your way in when the second man eyed you up and down before nodding to the towering man who firmly grabbed the handle and pulled it open for you. You weren’t naive you knew you were conventionally attractive, but you were surprised that they were so willing to let any and all beautiful women pass through.

You were immediately bathed in a faint blue light as you walked in. You looked up briefly to see the flower shape light fixtures above you before following the walkway illuminated by more blue faintly glowing floor runners on each side of the deep dark wooden planks. It was a beautiful place: smooth and sleek features, both table and booth seating arrangements, the counter at the bar was up a platform. A TV was mounted on each wall so everyone could view the parade, or there were two or three private booths with a partition to make it feel secluded- VIP section you imagine. Most tables were occupied with patrons engaged in intimate conversations whereas the bar was mostly open.

You took a seat on one of the plush bar stools toward the end of the counter closest to a screen and signaled for the bartender. You gazed at the long list of assorted liquors and asked the woman for something sweet and would go down easy. You didn’t often partake in drinking. You preferred to stay sharp, usually only participating when you're accompanying a client or target. You tended to be looser, and you certainly made seducing a target easier if you arent attracted to them. Your eyes flicked to the screen while the server went to make your poison of choice. You were quickly uninterested as soon as you seen the reporter interviewing a foot soldier. Nothing of interest.

You turned your attention to the far wall, looking for the source of music you kept hearing, where they had a small group of musicians playing. You’ve always had a love for the piano and you played a bit yourself from time to time though that night with Cloud was the first time you played in a few years. Time truly did get away from you when you stayed so busy. The instruments all harmonized nicely with the clean notes of the piano to the smooth brassy tones of the sax. You were a bit surprised that they had a full drum set in such a compact space, but the musician played in a way that was soft and gave the piece a nice low beat.

You sipped at your drink and eyes slowly trailed back to the TV. The reporter was still interviewing the same soldiers about their upcoming performance. They were asking if the troop could share some of the moves they were going to do when the low timbre of someone familiar filtered through the speakers, and shot of excitement rippled down your spine. Your eyes were now glued to the screen above you looking for him. You nearly gave up, convinced you were hearing things, until the camera honed in on the newest soldier in the interview and those bold blue eyes stared back at you through the screen. You’d know those eyes anywhere. A breathy laugh emanated from your mouth as his signature features show through his clever disguise. He looked uncomfortable under the reporter’s attention and stumbled at her aggressive questioning.

“How do you plan to set your team from the rest?” She asked as she shoved the microphone to his face.

“We… Uh…” He snaked his hand behind his head to scratch at his neck, something you’ve come to notice he does when he’s nervous, but the hand fell back to his side when the tips felt the metal of the helmet. Curious that his was different than the rest if them.

“Whoa… Right!” An eager trooper beside him came forward. “I see what you mean, captain.” Oh… Captain? You smiled. That’s cute. “We can’t go spilling our secrets to anyone who asks- especially on camera!”

His flustered and stuttering nervousness changed into the more stern and brusk part of him that was familiar to you. Confident, like he’s done this many many times before. “Break time’s over, people. The parade’s about to begin. Follow me!”

All the troopers jumped to attention before yelling out “Sir!” and the whole group, Cloud included, rushed out of whatever building they had been in. The camera followed after them for a moment before the camera swiveled and then cut off all together and the station switched into some Shinra infomercial.

You shook your head. He always seemed to tell everyone to lay low and out of sight so why was it that he was always the one to somehow stand out the most? You knew they were going to join the parade, but you hadn’t expected to get himself promoted.

“What’s a cute girl like you, doing in a bar, all alone?” You turned to look at the man who slid into the stool next to you. His wild flaming red spikes tied in a low pony was the first thing to catch your eye. The looks looked soft to the touch the front of it pushed up out of his face by the pair of black goggles he wore along his hairline. Then it was his eyes. The turquoise orbs crackled with sparks of mischief that reminded you of a strikes of lightning on a stormy day. You didn’t miss the underlying fire that smoldered back at you just waiting for a chance to light you up.

You made a show of raking your eyes over his slanted brows and further down to his sharp straight nose. You let a small coy smile spread before bringing your bottom lip between your teeth as your eyes settled on his cocky smirk across one half of his mouth. His tidy black suit, if not a little unprofessional, was left open to reveal the toned muscle on his chest underneath. A turk, and one that hadn’t met you in the mines. You could work with this.

“Shouldn’t you be on duty today?” you asked as you turned in your chair to face him. You propped your elbow onto the bar, delicately set your chin into your palm, and crossed one leg over the other which cause the edge of your dress drag down to your thigh.

“Man, I wish.” He sprawled out on the chair with his upper body angled towards you. “Bosses got me on vacation instead of chasing bad guys.” he took a swig from his own drink before signally the bartender for another round.

“Ah, that’s too bad.” You said with faux sympathy. “Would’ve loved to see you in action.” your sultry tone felt foreign on your tongue. You polished off your own drink needing a boost of liquid courage to rid yourself of the get over the tension. You hadn’t needed to do this since you left Midgar, and the fact that it comes so easy to you was unsettling. He drug his chair closer to yours, the legs scratching against the floor, as the bartender brought over the next round. You acted surprised when they set a second one down in front of you too. “Oh, thank you.”

“Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be buying her own drinks. Names Reno.” He stood on the bottom rungs of the stool to look down the bar then returned to his seat. He leaned close enough to your ear that you could feel the hot breath fan over the appendage as he spoke. “And between you and me, I heard that terrorist group’s in town. ‘M pretty pissed not to be chasing after ’em.” You twirled a lock of hair around your index finger as you listened to every syllable he said every once in a while flicking your eyes down to his parted lips. He leaned back, but only a little. “But, don’t worry! I may be takin’ a breather but I’ll protect you.”

“I must be lucky.” You took another sip. “Tell me though, why are you spending your vacation in a bar? A man in your position must be able to go wherever.”

He put one arm on the bar right next to yours, the light skin contact making your skin crawl, and the other on one of the rungs of the stool behind you. You scootched to the edge of your seat just enough that he thought you were interested. Conveniently from this angle you could see all the way to his belt buckle, and you noted the bandages wrapped around his defined abs. So out on injury then. “Heading to Costa Del Sol tomorrow.”

You looked back up at him through your lashes, and tilted your head slightly. “Why not today?” You asked hoping he’d provide an alternative to the closed port.

“Coulda, but only the Shinra-8 is sailing today. I’m waiting for the Shinra-10. Private cabins.” He winked. “Sure could use some company.” The hand behind you coming up to smooth along the skin of your exposed thigh.

You let out a breathy sigh to mask the repulsion that coursed through you. Despite the urge to break his hand you returned the gesture by running your hand down the length of his arm in response. “Perhaps I’ll see you on the ship.” Your gaze flicked towards the door for a second, to search for thee streak that you caught in your peripheral, before quickly taking a second glance. The blood pounding in your ears droned out whatever Reno was saying as you looked the shadows outside the window. Even under that red dingy helmet you’d know Cloud Strife anywhere.

Your heart stopped, if only for a moment, when your hazy eyes met his. Unlike any other time he’s looked at you his harsh stare was molten, hardened, and angry. Maybe it was the two cocktails coursing through your blood or just the desire you kept locked away, but right then and there you wished it was him touching you right now. Your core throbbing at the mere idea of his bare hands sliding up your thigh and under your dress. How you wished for his skin to press against yours.

His expression was blank, guarded, but his hands clenched into fists at his sides. You didn’t want to turn your attention back to the Turk next to you, but you had a job to do. You only hoped he’d understand what he saw was a ruse, but you wouldn’t blame him if he was angry. You had just joined the group and now your practically in the lap of his enemy. You peered up at Reno through the fallen locks of your bangs, batting your lashes a few times to make you seem daft, before taking a long look at the palm on your thigh.

“What wrong, princess?” Of course he’d notice, he was a Turk after all. You learned enough you supposed.

“Nothing. I just saw the friend I was meeting.” You retreated from his hold and smoothed down your dress. You wanted to clear up the misunderstanding before the parade started. “Thank you so much for the drink, Reno, and hopefully, I’ll see you tomorrow.” You gave his arm one more lingering touch before you turned from him and sauntered towards the exit.

“Hey! What’s your name?” He called after you.

You offered no answer. Your only farewell was the wave over your shoulder as he was, without a doubt, watching you leave. Your hands trembled slightly in anticipation, but not nervous and more importantly not afraid as you set your sights on one man. Yeah, it’s definitely the alcohol.

*~*

Cloud was electrified the moment he saw you sitting there. He wasn’t even sure he was breathing. The world around him suddenly didn’t seem to matter as he shamelessly drank you in. It never occurred to him that you could look so delicate, so lady-like, after reveling in the way you struck down fiend after fiend without hesitation. The smooth skin of your shoulders captivated him, and his heart nearly burst through his chest as his eyes dipped lower down your chest. Heat surged through him as all the blood once again rushed to his dick. One smooth leg, all the way up to your thigh, on display through the slit of this new sundress. He barely registered the was the pale blue of the dress complemented your skin tone.

Then he realized exactly what he was watching. It was like someone poured ice water down his back in the middle of summer and lit a fire hotter than Ifrit’s flame deep in his belly. He jaw clenched together as he ground his teeth almost painfully as that asshole touched you so brazenly the way he should be touching you. He was really pissed he hadn’t killed him back in Midgar.

However, it was the way your hand trailed down his bicep and settled gently against his forearm, that turned the rage into nausea. The taste of bile on his tongue growing sharper as your lashes fluttered as he talked to you. His hands clench at the way you laughed at whatever ridiculous thing he said. The whole encounter set of a cocktail of emotions in the pit of his stomach that Cloud didn’t have the tools to deal with so instead he focused on the blood lust that clouded his brain. His posture became rigid as he tried to keep himself on this side of the glass as Reno leaned into you, the gap between the two of you becoming way to slim for his liking.

Part of him knew there must be a logical explanation; you didn’t seem like the type to go finding guys in bars let alone that fucker. He wanted to look away, but he was physically unable to tear his eyes away. He wished to be anywhere but here. Maybe the Gods took pity on him, or maybe you had a sixth sense that told you when he stared at you for to long because the moment your eyes met his across the building and through the glass Cloud couldn’t breathe.

His heart pounded relentlessly against his ribcage at the prospect of being caught, and for a moment the only thing he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears. He couldn't grasp the initial plea your eyes conveyed, but moments after they lit up in recognition before glazing over in a heated stare. The heat returned between his legs like molten lava. His entire body lurched forward towards you, wanting nothing than to be slotted between your thighs, before he caught himself, and when you finally looked away he hightailed it out of there.

What the hell was that? He hadn’t done anything wrong so why the hell did he feel guilty? He fucking knew why he just didn't want to acknowledge the hardness between his legs that twitched to life under your sweltering e/c orbs like some kind of closet pervert. A tiny part of him, perhaps the debauchee that kept surfacing, swelled with a pinch of pride and a dash of smugness. You hadn’t looked at Reno like that.

He stomped down the stairs to the main road where he left Tifa and Aerith behind. He chose to ignore their inquiries, instead he stalked across the road to put as much distance between you and him as possible. He was ready to get this shit over with.

He nearly made it to the troops of Midgar’s Seventh Infantry before he heard his name echo above the useless chatter of the far too crowded street. He thinks that he’d always hear your voice calling out to him no matter the distance much like Aerith could hear the Planet. His feet faltered for a moment as he debated if he was going to ignore you or not, but he just didn’t have it in him to walk away from you.

He stopped and glanced over his shoulder and sure as shit there you were chasing after him with your skirt clenched in one hand to keep yourself from tripping over it as you ran after him.

“Told you it involved her.” Aerith said under her breath, his enhanced hearing picking it up despite her efforts to keep quiet.

“Guess I owe you.” Tifa replied.

“Shut up.” He snapped. He stalked towards you to meet you in the middle, leaving the two gossiping girls at the edge of the road.

“Hey.” You took in a few deep breaths. “Nice uniform, captain.”

He groaned. He had somehow forgotten that detail in the last past few minutes. “How’d you-”

“I seen your interview. You play the part well. And you two-” you peered around him. “Look fantastic.”

His eyes narrowed as he studied you as you appeared to be normal not like you had just shared- well whatever that was. “You’re one to talk, y/n.” Aerith said.

“Really, y/n, you look stunning.” Tifa chimed in. He thought so too. He suddenly felt shy with you next to him like this.

“Yeah, well long, story. Anyway, after you the parade find the Shinra-8. It’s the only boat leaving port today, and it leaves soon after the event. It’s the perfect getaway.”

“Got it!” Aerith said. The girls looked towards the main drag when the rest of the squadron all called out for their captain as they finally spotted Cloud’s helmet in the crowd. “Oh! They’re coming this way!”

You looked up at him with those big shining eyes of yours, “Out of time it looks like.”

“We’ll go stall.” Tifa said with a wink before Aerith grabbed her arm and dragged Tifa along with her as she went to distract the incoming hoards of men.

“Uh, thanks.” He said lamely as he scratched at the hairs along his nape.

“The turks know you’re here.” So you did know who Reno was. The residual flickers of fire in his gut subsided when he understood the nature of your encounter. “So be careful, okay?”

“No promises.”

The corner of your mouth quirked upwards, as you peered up at him through your lashes. The strands behind your ears fell around your jawline before you tucked it away once more. His pulse thumped rhymically in his throat as the silence stretched between you. Should he say anything? Should he ask you about what happened? You chewed on your lower lip, perhaps in the same internal battle as him, as the two of you just looked at one another before your eyes settled on his neckline.

You hands reach out for him. Your fingers moving slowly towards his collar pausing to give him time to back away if he so desired. Every instinct told him do so, but there was an ache in the hollow gut that yearned for your touch. He nearly flinched as the tips of your fingers ghosted along his neck, but forced his body to relax under the warm pads of your fingertips. It was brief, no longer than a second or two while you straightened the collar of his uniform, but it was enough for an army of goosebumps to erupt across his sensitive flesh. “Good luck out there. I’ll be watching.”

He swallowed thickly around the thump that formed in the back of his throat and nodded dumbly in confirmation. You smoothed your hands down his shoulders and onto his upper chest before withdrawing from him completely. You jutted your thumb behind you to signal your departure as you stepped backwards into the crowd once again. He heaved in relief when he watched your figured trailing away from the bar.

“You’re right, Aerith. He’s totally in love with her.” He groaned. Just what he needed; another thorn in his side to poke, prodd, and tease.

“Let’s go.” He redirected. “We have a parade to win.”

#ff7 rebirth #fluff #ff7 cloud x reader #cloud strife x reader #eventual smut #ff7 fanfic #slow burn #slight reno x reader #cloud x reader #cloud strife #cloud is jealous #brief mention of sa #reader is smooth #mutual attraction #reader wants cloud bad #reader is hot #cloud wants her bad #its cool its mutual #spice

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anyoldfandom · 1 year ago

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Unpopular opinion perhaps but idt Circe and Rex are a good couple and hear me out. This is not Circe hate I fucking love Circe. She's my girlie. I will jokingly call her Rex's goth gf but like...their dynamic is kinda not great.

Starting with Rex he is extremely codependent with people. Not in an only bad way - he just wants to solve people's problems bc that's what he's used to based on his circumstances. He's the Cure, the specialest guy in his world and everyone knows it even as he doesn't want to be. But he is so used to not just being reliable, but relying on others if he thinks he can't handle something - which isn't often bc he's 15-17 and forced into a hero complex, but it happens. He's used to Six and Holiday saving his ass and having to work with other people. He's also very people-oriented, craving deep connections and willing to open up to anyone.

And in contrast, we have Circe. She is clearly very independent, likes solving issues on her own and hates swallowing her pride, which is fine bc she's ALSO 15-17 and traumatized and manipulated by VK a lot. VK outright said she was in a terrible place when he found her and I don't doubt it, bc that's his MO, playing off of people's desperation. She was a manipulated, discriminated against and traumatized teenager who I want to make abdolutely clear I do not blame for her actions. Girlie clearly has a lot to work through.

But ultimately, I think this makes Circe and Rex a bad romantic couple. Their romantic moments read to me more like kids with no experience dating rather than a deep connection. When they fight, it's always really, really bad, and usually Rex is feeling the brunt of the argument - which again, is not a dunk on Circe. Rex has had emotional support for as long as he can remember with Holix, while it's clear while VK was around the Pack did Not get along. But it's just...shitty for him. He has to consistently be the bigger person which, if he was another character with another backstory willingly and consistently engaging with her it wouldn't be that bad. Noah, for example, could probably handle it better than Rex and be able to better communicate that hey, this isn't fair to lash out at him and that's something to work on. (Again, not a dunk on Circe - people can have negative traits that are not their fault that they still need to rectify to be fair for others. Also, it just flat-out makes her a more interesting character.)

But Rex? Rex is the hero. He's the savior, because that's all he remembers. He's the guy who has to show empathy, has to give other EVOs that aren't blatantly evil second chances, because he's used to no one else doing it. So to me, it just...makes for a bad dynamic for both of them. Rex takes too much shit from Circe bc he wants to help her, and then oversteps her boundaries with what she wants to deal with alone and upsets her more. Circe feels like she's being pitied or talked down to by Rex, and then she either lashes out or gets cold.

I think, honestly, that if they weren't traumabonded...they wouldn't even be that close. Their personalities don't mesh - they could be good friends, but surface level friends. People who talk about their interests or only hang out in friend groups, and that would be fine. But in a romantic relationship, it just...doesn't work.

#genrex #generator rex #For anyone wondering too I like Rex and Annie or Rex and Skwydd better #Rex and Skywdd is just a better version of Rex and Circe bc Skywdd is used to relying on others and will happily lean on Rex #And Annie and Rex are just fucking adorable like. Come on. I am more a fan of Rex with stoic bitches but also they are SO cute #Swap Circe and Annie's roles with Rex and it'd be so fun.

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chickenmetenders · 1 year ago

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"Sometimes a family can be two men and the two guys they abducted."

Assorted headcanons for the MAMIYA DDD Family ending [spoilers abound!!]

Here's a compilation/archive of messages I posted in the MAMIYA fan Discord about a continuation of the Family ending in Keito's route. In my version, Ryou also gets taken into the family along with Osamu, Satoru, and Keito. I call them KORS for short.

This is absolutely not serious or angsty in anyway, because I was writing this as aftercare for Minato's route lmao. I've sorted through my many messages and did some reorganizing, so they're grouped by topic. (Bolded names: indicates a comment from a server member)

Keito's New Family!!

For the first two months of living together keito is terrified, but ryou being 7 gets over the whole thing in like one month. Like this is just his new normal

Keito starts getting over it (stockholm syndrome starts setting in) once he sees satoru teaching ryou how to make takoyaki

You know i think crab takoyaki could work. I dont like crab but crab meat isnt that far off from octopus

Even after Keito gets over the whole kidnapping thing, he still takes a while to acclimate to his new "family". Like satoru osamu and ryou get used to the family situation pretty quickly (because they are not close to their birth families) but keito is very close to his family so he has to grapple with the cognitive dissonance for a good while

By six months time, he's used to their living circumstances and has affection for the three of them, but in his mind theyre housemates, not family. Like when someone asks about keito's family, his mind still immediately goes to his parents

It probably takes a year or so for keito to finally think of them as his family

(Staring at the words i have written) this is not found family, this is forced family

Gizzia: It's found as in Satoru and Osamu found them and kept them Me: OSAMU DIDNT EVEN FIND HIM, KEITO WENT /TO/ HIM!!!

The Mamiyas

Idk how the family thing is going to go. Like theyre changing their legal last name to mamiya???

Scanning over japanese name change procedures and thinking maybe not<3 i think japanese bureaucracy might be worse than american

Maybe its possible that satoru adopts ryou and osamu into his family registry so everyone thinks theyre a gay couple with a child, but then theyd still be samejimas

(It would be better of them to be samejimas instead of arisugawas because satoru owns all the houses. Obviously)

And then keito would be. Well they can't adopt him too because keito's dad is literally satoru's boss

Samejima could fake keito's death and keep him away from his family? BUT I FEEL LIKE THEYD BE FOUND OUT PRETTY QUICKLY IF KEITO WAS LIVING WITH SATORU

Well maybe its a non-legally binding family where satoru and osamu are back to living together again, satoru has pulled strings to get ryou adopted by osamu, and then he twists keitos arm into moving in with them as roommates

(Or keito moves in of his own volition, with his main motivation being that hes SUPER CONCERNED ABOUT LEAVING RYOU IN THERE)

Satoru and Osamu

Would osamu and satoru still be fighting at this point. I think the years apart would have calmed them down a little

Instead of punching satoru, osamu just slaps his a-- you know what never mind. Actually i think they would just verbally argue but without much bite. Because theyre family now

Vaguely remembering that bit in arisus route where osamu was like "we were partners in crime and i was even thinking about asking her to marry me" well osamu you have a new mamiya who you have committed several crimes with so what will you do now.

[Editing note: I want it noted that my brain short-circuited when Satoru was like "I feel like a newly wed bride". why did he say that]

General KORS Family Fluff

Osamu is the one who picks ryou up from school most of the time because he works from home but the first time keito does it ryou is just so happy. Ryou thinks keito is the coolest

Satoru is the one who teaches ryou how to cook so when hes older ryou ends up with really weird culinary skills. He does not know how to fry an egg sunny side up but he can whip up hollandaise sauce like its nothing

Satoru starts ryou in some kind of martial arts class and osamu hates it because ryou keeps trying to show osamu his skills (ie punching him in the leg)

Keito is still playing in a college lacrosse club and the whole family comes to watch his games. When ryou cant see over the crowd (i dont know what lacrosse games look like sowwy) satoru puts him on his shoulders

Osamu and keito take turns reading ryou his bedtime stories. Sometimes when they both have time they both read to him. Osamu is really good at the evil monster voices and robot voices, and keito is better than him at doing female voices

Despite being shorter than keito, satoru cannot fit into his jackets and coats because his shoulders are just to broad. He can fit into some of osamus longer coats because osamu likes buying clothes a size or two too big. Few of their clothes are viable hand me downs for ryou because he grows up short

Wait. But maybe ryou would grow up to be taller in this scenario because keito makes sure he drinks his milk. So maybe he would fit in their clothes

Satoru's Parental Tendencies (& other adults in Ryou's life)

(Growing realization) i think after keito and ryou move out for work/college, satoru would have the worst empty nest syndrome imaginable

(Assuming osamu satoru or keito doesn't set their house on fire with everyone inside in five years time)

Satoru ends up like a clingy overbearing mother who gets really upset when keito wants to move out for his Vaguely Defined Future Career and only calms down once osamu is like "uhhh dude chill" and keito promises to facetime every day

(I just think this is really funny because keito has his own family who is alive and who he is on good terms with but his actual mom puts up way less of a fuss than satoru)

After that satoru starts redirecting all his attention and affection towards ryou and is just overall insufferable

Ryou: im thinking about going to kyoto for college Satoru: absolutely not you will choose a school in tokyo and you will live in this house

Satoru is the strict parent who is prone to hysterics and osamu is the laissez faire parent who has to console his wife (i am of course delusional). Its like a sitcom

Keito rounds off ryou's Trio of Adult Figures as the unconditionally supportive older brother so i think between the three of them, ryou grows up to be pretty okay??? As okay as you can be when youre a member of the Mamiya family ig

They all frequently go to dinner at the suou's too so ryou is decently close to keitos parents

New Car!!

Anyway. If they all moved in together, satoru would have to buy a new car

Now i think a honda accord would be a good car for a family of four, but it might be a bit cramped if two of them are over 6ft tall, so it might be better if they had an suv

And also satoru loves his foreign cars so he wouldn't buy honda anyway

Okay so the volkswagon touareg could be a good option because it is a luxury suv from germany. However pre 2006 this suv was REALLY big so i dont think it would fit very well in the streets of japan

Cheese: samejima also is really big and doenst fit well in the streets of japan

Suvs werent as big of a thing in 2003, so maybe satoru would go for a sedan anyway... If satoru's going to gravitate towards european luxury brands, then the mercedes benz s class would be perfect for him. Its about the same size as a honda accord

Phle: [the Mercedes Benz S Class was] like literally my old car, it was a 2003 model too

During my playthrough of DDD, the KORS family au helped keep me sane. I think it's a neat idea. i think if it actually happened (and Osamu and Satoru took Ryou in as well) they would've started murdering people within the year, but this isn't about that!! If I wanted insane angst, I would replay DDD Keito/Ryou.

I kind of want to write some sort of fic about this weird family... But after playing EX, my brain has contacted the natsumiya virus and I haven't been able to stop thinking about that. So we'll see lol. I might archive some of my AU twitter threads for that ship onto tumblr, too, because I'm pretty fond of what I wrote.

Wow, this is the first time I've made a post like this on tumblr since I left in 2019! Writing longform is pretty fun.

#mamiya vn #hcs #mine

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thornfield13713 · 2 years ago

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Okay, thinking about Deep Roads logistics. An infantryman can, according to A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry here, carry about ten days’ worth of food on their person. A waggon of food per company of 30 men doubles this distance, but this has diminishing return, as waggons have to be pulled by something, and whatever animal is being used for the purpose will also need to eat something, as will the waggon’s driver. Failing this, you can bring a pack animal - the Romans often had a mule for every six-to-eight men, and in Orzammar in particular it probably wouldn’t be hard to hire a bronto - but it, too, will consume food as you travel, and will also need to be led or otherwise controlled in a party where the prospect of attack is ever-present and every member of the group will need to be able to fight at a moment’s notice. Although, assuming it remains untainted, and you are willing to lose whatever it was carrying that you cannot take with you, the pack animal can then be slaughtered as an additional source of food once the utility of bringing it along is outweighed by how much of your resources it is consuming.

Within the Deep Roads, the main potential sources of food appear to be: deep mushrooms, deepstalkers, giant spiders and feral brontos. However, any food one finds in the Deep Roads carries the inherent risk of the darkspawn taint. For a company of already-Tainted Wardens, this may not pose much of a problem. For anyone else, you run the risk of ending up like poor Ruck.

So, let’s break down the likeliest logistical situations for the first two games’ expeditions into the Deep Roads (I have not played The Descent, as I find it very, very hard to play Inquisition for more than five minutes without wandering off to do something more enjoyable. Like cleaning the sink. Or doing laundry. Or even working on my thesis.)

A Paragon of Her Kind

The Wardens are explicitly the only group in Thedas that ventures into the Deep Roads without a company at their back, which may mean they habitually make shorter lunges, as we’re never given the option of bringing along a waggon with food. On the other hand, Paragon of Her Kind appears to take place over an extended period - I’d put it at at least a month below the surface. Branka and her people seem to have been there for quite a while, but also to have taken long enough getting there that Laryn’s transformation into a broodmother appears relatively recent and Hespith is not yet transformed, maybe because they were a much larger group and thus by necessity travelled far more slowly, and also maybe because they did not, at first, have any clear idea where they could find the Anvil. Then again, those are exceptional circumstances, so...could go either way. And Ortan Thaig and Caridin’s Cross both feature enough deepstalkers, deep mushrooms and uncorrupted giant spiders (eating the corrupted ones seems like a sure way to end up with Ruck problems) to maybe replenish the rations it took to get that far, even if the Warden members of the party can eat the darkspawn dead at need.

So, let’s start by examining the party. I , personally, tend to organise my party for the Deep Roads as follows: Shale and Oghren for plot-relevance reasons, and then one other. This one other is not usually Alistair, as most of my Wardens want to leave someone behind to deal with the new king of Orzammar if it comes to a vote before they return or if they are killed in the attempt to find Branka. In this case, limiting the size of the party makes sense - the larger the group, the more people there are to feed, the harder it will become to feed them, especially as opportunities for forage in the Deep Roads will be extremely limited, and success and survival are far from certain, adding an impetus to leave a force behind to complete the group’s objectives even if the party sent into the Deep Roads is lost. Bringing Shale along, in and of itself, changes the calculus marvellously, as Shale is immensely strong, made of rock, and thus can both carry far more food and water than anyone else could ever hope to and doesn’t need to eat or drink anything herself. Getting her to agree to carry supplies she personally does not need is another question entirely, but most of my Wardens get along with her well enough that they might be able to talk her into it. She probably cannot carry as much as a full waggon of food, but assuming she can carry as much as two ordinary people (and this may be lowballing my estimate) and does not need to eat any of it, that’s still another twenty days of food for one person - another six days divided up among three companions. So, already, we’ve got half that month covered, assuming nobody loses their supply. The Warden has an advantage neither of the remaining two companions have, in that they can eat things no matter how Tainted they are. They probably aren’t going to like it very much, but this means that their reliance on the rations the group is able to carry with them is much-reduced, and ideally they would be primarily subsisting on what forage can be found within the tunnels, thus freeing up most of their ten days’ worth of food for their remaining companions. So, in an ideal situation with plenty of deep mushrooms, deepstalkers, giant spiders, feral brontos and the occasional cheeky nibble on a darkspawn corpse, that means that Oghren and the remaining companion now have twenty-five days’ worth of food apiece in rations alone, just from their ten days’ worth of food they carry themselves, the twenty days’ worth carried by Shale, and splitting the Warden’s ten days of food carried between them.

Do we want to headcanon in a beast of burden, most probably a bronto? Now we’re in business - brontos appear to be loosely modelled after rhinos, and a rhino can carry 900lbs or more on its back without difficulty. Given that most of the guides I’ve found suggest you can get 4500 calories - just below the highest estimate for how much food was needed per day for soldiers in WWI - from two and a half pounds of food, this is just overkill, giving you a solid 360 days worth of food for one infantryman - 120 days spread across three. Better and better, brontos ‘require remarkably little sustenance, consuming organic material from water, fungus and even rocks’ according to Brother Genitivi. I am going to go out on a limb and say that they’re probably the principal beasts of burden used by the Legion of the Dead, who according to some of Sigrun’s lines live their whole lives in the Deep Roads after they join, only occasionally and briefly returning to Orzammar. Honestly, the biggest issue with bringing along a bronto would be the difficulty of keeping it from running or wandering off - or even outright charging - when attacked by darkspawn. This is a serious problem, as the group is small, and every member of it will need to fight whenever attacked by darkspawn, which happens a lot. Deputising someone to look after the bronto and prevent it from wandering off in Battle is a serious loss to the party, and one that may outweigh the utility of the bronto, given that, as per the first part of this discussion, the group is...actually pretty well set-up for extended Deep Roads travel without one. That said, as the Warden would not know how long the journey would take when leaving Orzammar, I could see a cautious Warden, or one with a good grounding in tactics and logistics - the sort of education either a Cousland or an Aeducan would probably have received - taking the extra precaution of securing one.

A Golem’s Memories

Once again, the logistics of the Deep Roads provide a good solid reason to have a small party, and having Shale along - as is actually obligatory in this case rather than just a good idea for plot-progression reasons - does relieve some of the burden of logistics. And this is a rather shorter journey, to boot - Cadash Thaig appears to be not very much past Ortan Thaig, which is...you know what, assuming a month underground for Paragon of Her Kind, I’m going to say that’s maybe a three-week round trip for the Warden and friends, who are, unlike Branka, travelling in a small unit, without more than maybe-one-if-you-want-to-headcanon-that beasts of burden, not being slowed down by all the many, many things that can lead to armies or large groups in the field moving slowly. Again, assuming ten days’ food apiece plus six days extra from Shale...that’s two-thirds of the trip covered even if the Warden eats all their own rations. If they are, once again, going for the ‘Wardens can eat anything they like no matter how tainted’ strategy, we rise once again to twenty-five days apiece - more than enough for everyone to be able to stay fed for the duration with minimal risk of contracting the Taint from bad food.

Last of the Legion

So, logistically, this one is starting off from a very different place. In Paragon of Her Kind, the Wardens are planning on an extended delve into the Deep Roads with no clear idea of how long it’ll take or even, really, where they are meant to be going beyond Ortan Thaig. And they were doing it with the backing of a powerful lord, one of the two candidates to become King of Orzammar, which meant that they could probably get a bit of extra support in getting provisioned for the Deep Roads. For this one, the Wardens only really know that there’s a weird chasm full of darkspawn that might be their breeding ground, and it’s an open question how long they were expecting it to take. A cautious commander might decide to have everyone carry full packs anyway, so everyone has the standard ten days’ worth of rations that an infantryman can carry (and if Justice is brought along, we also have one party member who does not need to eat, but can carry the standard ten days’ rations, to be split three ways among his companions), but a more impulsive, less cautious Warden might well decide to prioritise speed or assume that they’ll be able to forage for extra food in the field. Furthermore, it’s a much, much shorter trip. The lack of a camp mechanic in Awakening leads me to suspect that nowhere in Amaranthine is more than a day’s journey from the Vigil, and none of the main quests take more than...maybe a couple of days at a stretch. I’d say Last of the Legion has the most justification to be an extended period, as they are exploring an entire lost dwarven thaig, but even then, ‘extended period’ in this case means ‘maybe a week at a stretch’ and more probably not more than three or four days. Added to which, everyone on this mission except, at this point, Sigrun is a Grey Warden, and can thus eat darkspawn dead or corrupted spiders if they need to.

...honestly, unless someone loses their pack somehow, I’m going to say this one isn’t even a challenge logistically. The biggest issue is if Sigrun has lost her supplies and, if so, how far this is going to cut into the Wardens’ own supplies, and that is very much going to come down to the Warden-Commander’s own preparations - if everyone has their ten days’ supply, feeding Sigrun should fit in without much difficulty. My Wardens all tend towards the more prepared side, either because they just went through a whole entire Blight and are thus very used to things taking a lot longer than they should, or in the case of Warden-Commander Andras because she’s spent most of her career in the Deep Roads and is very used to preparing for every contingency. However, other people’s Wardens might prepare differently.

Golems of Amgarrak

...this one drives me up the wall. We don’t know how deep Amgarrak lies! How far from Orzammar is it - far enough they had to spend an entire expedition looking for it, but given how dangerous the Deep Roads are, that could be anything from a week to a year! I tend to give it a month or so, similar to Paragon of Her Kind, since it’s a similar lost research lab, and because that gives enough time, between travelling to Orzammar, doing a few diplomatic errands for the Wardens there (this is, for instance, probably when that feast is held in memory of the defenders of Kal’Hirol), travelling to Amgarrak, completing the DLC and then getting back, for whoever you left in charge back at the Vigil to carry out the campaign of fuck-ups that end with Anders and Justice fleeing to Kirkwall. The actual DLC itself...I would put as taking place over...not more than a day or so. Amgarrak isn’t actually that big - it’s a research laboratory, not a full thaig. I am a little bewildered about where the researchers were sleeping back when this place was active, but then, it seems to be in a larger thaig patterned after the Ortan thaig we saw in Origins, so...apparently the researchers did not live on-site. Probably a good call. Furthermore, the place is incredibly dangerous, and I’m pretty sure if the party had stopped to sleep even once, they’d have been in for it, because the Harvester can clearly be seen wandering about outside the forge at various points throughout the DLC. Sure, it’s not attacking yet, but...it probably would’ve done the moment any invaders were vulnerable to it.

There’s no sign that Jerrik and the Warden are travelling with a larger party at the start of the DLC, so only the two of them need to be provisioned - really, only Jerrik, since the Warden can still eat tainted food. And this time, we don’t need to headcanon in a bronto, because there’s one there already in Snug, Jerrik’s bronto companion. So, see my previous calculations for the fact that...actually, these two are doing fine logistically. Snug can probably carry enough food to feed the pair of them with no need for darkspawn semi-cannibalism, and enough left over to get them and Brogan home at the end of the DLC. And given how marvellously efficient the bronto species is about food - seriously, how the fuck the Shaperate managed to selectively breed a rhino-sized species to need that little food is a question and a half all on its own - Snug’s own food requirements are going to be pretty minimal. All told, logistically this holds up all ‘round.

I am a little bewildered about the previous Amgarrak expedition, which...one would expect to be a bit larger, and have brontos of their own who are now either dead or have turned feral...but eh, not like we see much of it except the bloody, ruined corpses of those involved, so...let’s just assume a reasonable-sized company with a few brontos to carry supplies.

The Deep Roads Expedition

...oh, boy.

Origins was relatively straightforward, logistics-wise. This one...is less so.

Let’s start with the size of the group. Now, Origins tells us that the Wardens are the only people who’ll enter the Deep Roads without a company behind them. Bartrand’s expedition has...well, in-game, we’re shown a total of ten people - Bartrand, Varric, Hawke, two more of Hawke’s companions, Bodahn and Sandal, a pair of background NPC hired muscle and a single advance scout who gets beaten up by Bartrand. No pack animals, no waggons, no supplies of any kind. The Primeval Thaig is, according to Bartrand’s dialogue, ‘a week below the surface’. So, assume maybe a two-week round trip, plus or minus a few days on the site itself collecting whatever treasures might remain. Three weeks, if you want to round up. Added to which, everyone on this expedition is vulnerable to the Taint except Anders, and that’s only if you bring him along, so no darkspawn-cannibalism for anyone except perhaps him.

Thankfully, DA2 gives us an out in the form of Varric’s narration: we are not witnessing the events as they happened, but hearing a retelling of the events by a man with no real interest in the rest of the expedition beyond his brother’s betrayal, and for whom this was some years ago, filtered through the perceptions of a Chantry Seeker who...also isn’t overwhelmingly interested in anyone on this expedition outside Hawke and their companions. So, what would be a more plausible makeup for Bartrand’s expedition?

Assuming that that thing about only the Wardens going into the Deep Roads without a company behind them still holds true...you need a company. In military terms, a company is defined as between eighty and two hundred and fifty soldiers according to Wikipedia. The National Army Museum defines this rather more narrowly as between a hundred and a hundred and fifty men, but this is specific to the modern British army, and is not a universal rule. In this case, I’d skew towards the lower number - maybe 80-100 men including Bartrand, Varric, Hawke, and Hawke’s remaining two companions. Maybe also assume three bronto-drawn waggons for additional food - that is, roughly one for each thirty men - that were presumably left behind under guard from some of the remaining men when the Deep Roads were blocked, as getting waggons through the side-passages would be difficult work, and this diversion doesn’t appear to take much more than a day. The waggons, once what food was in them was consumed, could also be used to transport treasure up to the surface, although there is no mention made in-game of Bartrand retrieving anything but the red lyrium idol. Precisely what happened to the remaining members of the Expedition is...probably best not thought of. Bodahn and Sandal appear to have survived and made it back to Kirkwall, at the very least. My assumption, since Bartrand talks about not splitting the rewards of the expedition three ways, is that everyone except Hawke and Varric is here for a set wage per day, with the profits of the expedition being split between the partners who funded the expedition. As such, he might not have thought it was worth his time to kill off wage workers who couldn’t claim a share in the proceeds from the sale of the idol.

Now, onto the tricky part - survival in the deeps for Hawke and company after Varric has abandoned them to die. Assuming everyone at the start of all this had their ten days’ worth of food being transported on their person, it has taken them a week to reach the Primeval Thaig, so that leaves them with three days of food apiece - assuming that they were carrying that food when they were trapped within the vault, which may or may not have been the case - a soldier’s pack is heavy, and once a base camp was established they may well have chosen to leave their packs there until the retreat. According to Varric, it takes five days after being sealed in the vault to get back to where they started, by which I think he means where they found the passage that got them to the Primeval Thaig, given his next words are that it should take maybe a week to reach the surface. And, if Hawke’s sibling is present, Varric makes a joking reference to ‘those deep mushrooms we found’, indicating they’ve been able to find or been forced to find some sort of forage along the way. If the latter, this doesn’t really help with ‘did they have food supplies with them at the start’, given that it’s been a five-day journey and they wouldn’t have had more than three days’ worth of provisions on them at the start. So, yeah, food is going to have been very nearly a constant concern during this part of the journey, particularly if Hawke’s sibling and Anders are both present, and thus we need to add a day or two for them to find the Wardens and save their sibling’s life. Food could be stretched out longer through careful rationing, but that will also likely lead to tempers fraying and arguments, which are an excellent source of drama, and even once they’ve got back to where they started, there’s still a week left before they return to the surface with constant worries about starvation and Tainted food or water. An excellent survival horror narrative, if anyone wants to write it.

Legacy

Logistically, this one is much more like Last of the Legion - nobody is actually planning on a trip into the Deep Roads, nobody is expecting it, and this isn’t a group of trained and prepared Wardens, it’s Hawke and friends, so there’s no guarantee they’re carrying any great quantity of food. In fact, they probably aren’t - they were here to rough up some Carta dwarves until they quit with the murder attempts, not deal with all this bullshit. So, yeah, this is another one where food is going to be a worry. However, also like Last of the Legion, it’s a lot shorter than the previous Deep Roads trip - maybe three days? Don’t think you could do it in one, but two or three sounds reasonable. Added to which, there are plenty of deepstalkers, deep mushrooms and uncorrupted spiders. Nobody is going to be having a very nice time...but foraging is at least a reasonable option, and you can have up to two Grey Wardens in your immediate party, which also broadens foraging options.

#dragon age #the deep roads #logistics

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amythystraine · 2 years ago

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Six Misconceptions About Witches

1. Witches always wear black.

Granted, black is a staple color in my closet, but not for any witchly reason. I like basic black because it goes with everything, it feels right when I wear it, my jewelry looks good against it, and it’s a good basic “color” for me. I know plenty of witches who virtually never wear black, but prance about the world in pretty pastels of pink and lavender, blues and greens, and other very unwitchly colors.

2. Witches sacrifice human infants.

Really?…Really. Pleeeeze– I birthed seven babies in my lifetime, and I have yet to sacrifice nary a one. I’ve grounded a few, preached at a couple, pulled my hair out over another, and puzzled over them all. But sacrifice them? Not yet (she says mischievously).

It should also be noted, under this “sacrificial” theme, that witches do not sacrifice animals. On the contrary, some of the most enthusiastic animal rights activists will be found in the pagan community. We tend to honor the animal kingdom, to consider animals our brethren, creatures that we have the pleasure of sharing the Earth with. We embrace their energy, learn from their inherent goddess given wisdom and instincts, and feel humbled when they allow us into their circle of trust.

3. Witches cast spells.

Not necessarily. Some do, and others don’t. It depends upon what road you take within this widely divergent spiritual path. My “thing” is divination, clairvoyance, psychism; at it’s very basic– the tarot. I have cast spells, lots in the beginning, but fewer and fewer as I was shown by the Goddess my true path on this journey, my unique gift. And besides, as magickal practitioners will tell you, casting spells– casting them correctly– is time consuming and a heck of a lot of work. You have to put some effort into it, as in anything, to get the most out of it. I have grown lazy in my impending old-age.

4. Witches are in league with and worship the Devil.

Really…no, this time I mean Reeeaaally! The Devil (or Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer, etc.) did not arrive on the horizon of civilization until Christianity came along and needed a Fall Guy. It’s rather insulting that they invent this despicable character, and then they accuse us of playing with him. They can keep him…the gods and goddesses of the world-wide pantheons are so much more interesting and desirable, awe inspiring, beautiful, and magickal.

5. Witches curse people.

Well, I’ll give you this one. Some witches do, or have, or if they haven’t, they still have the ability and the power to do so. However, most witches– and I know a few– would not even consider doing such a thing, under any circumstances. And here’s something else to think about, scary and true…Anyone who has ever deliberately wished something bad on someone has thrown a curse, whether they are a witch or not. The universe hears you, and it’s constantly moving energy according to your wishes and desires. My grandmother told me once: “Be careful what you wish on others.” And she also expanded on this thought by adding, “What you wish on someone else will come back on you.” (She was a woman ahead of her time.)

6. Witches are ugly old hags?

Well, umm, I hope not. If this is true, I’m screwed. Witches are people of all ages, sizes, ethnicities, and nationalities. They live in the world in the same capacity as every other human being. They inhabit the work force and a normal healthy place in society. A witch could be any person that you’ve ever met in the course of your life, under the most ordinary mundane of circumstances, and you never even realized it…think about this. With all that said, as a woman standing in the middle of my 60th decade, I’m more than ready to embrace the Crone, or the Hag, in all her glory. I’m ready to move beyond youthful vanity and revel in the aspect of me that is the most important…what I am, who I am, from the heart.

[Source: this was originally posted at my blog, Magickal Connections, January 2015]

#witches #pagans #stereoptypes #heathens.#wiccans #witchylady

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thebluelemontree · 2 years ago

Note

Do you think Arys Oakheart had the necessary skill and temperament to be an effective Lord Commander of the Kingsguard? Meaning both in general as well as the present circumstances in Kings Landing

No. Not at all. Arys's personality is very go-along-to-get-along. Skillwise, he's good enough of a knight to be given a white cloak. He's handsome and polite, so he lends that polish and social grace to the rougher elements of the kingsguard roster. He's sufficiently obedient by Joffrey and Cersei's standards but doesn't have the spine or heartlessness to be the kind of tool they prefer. He follows Joffrey's cue and laughs along at Barristan Selmy's disgrace, but he also feels kinda bad about hitting Sansa. Bad enough to muster a little protest, but not bad enough that would risk being disciplined by refusing. So he splits the difference by not hitting her as hard as everyone else. Little by little, small compromises in values lead to becoming compromised. In under six months, Arys is seduced by Arianne Martell and turns rogue against King Tommen when he is persuaded to support Myrcella's claim to the Iron Throne. His whole chapter as The Soiled Knight has him torn apart by his conflicting desires to both wear the white cloak with honor and tear it and its burdens off. It was easier before to wear the cloak when he merely needed to obey the decisions of others, but now that he's far away in a foreign court and forced to make decisions for himself, not so much. What he discovers about himself in Dorne is that he chooses his lover over his kingsguard vows more and more. When Arianne suggests he could have both her and his white cloak under Queen Myrcella... it just feels wrong. So wrong, and yet it would also resolve this terrible conflict within himself, wouldn't it? Oh boy... I don't think you can call any of this leadership material by any standard. The man is dying for someone to provide him an escape hatch from being made to choose. There is a lot of irony to being named Oakheart as if his character and his sense of honor were as strong and stalwart as the mighty tree itself. I will give Arys this: he is far more self-reflective than Barristan Selmy about who and what he has served and more honest about what his own failings have led to. He knows he doesn't have the mettle for what a kingsguard is supposed to stand for, and never did. He was built for a simpler man's life and it's tragic that wasn't his fate. There is no way for him to live as a kingsguard without his heart letting him down at every turn and making him feel soiled and unworthy. He can't make his feelings for Arianne stop. They've awakened in him a longing for a life he can't have. He can't renounce the cloak without shame and disgrace either. When things come to a head, he sees only one escape hatch, one choice, available to him to resolve this crisis and regain his sense of honor and self-worth:

We are taken, ser,��Arianne might have called out. Your death will not free us. If you love your princess, yield. But when she tried to speak, the words caught in her throat.

Ser Arys Oakheart gave her one last longing look, then put his golden spurs into his horse and charged. -- The Queenmaker, AFFC.

Ugh. I feel sad now. No, he's not a leader. He was misplaced in the kingsguard. He's a mostly decent, but entirely too passive man who was unfortunate enough to serve bad rulers and was ill-equipped to stand up for himself or others. He was built for love, not duty. And he was harder on himself than anyone else was, and it broke him.

#valyrianscrolls #arys oakheart #arianne martell #the kingsguard #the white cloak #asoiaf meta #asoiaf #my meta

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years ago

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Prompt: Something causes Lan Qiren to just SNAP, go absolutely fucking feral, and run off to become a rogue cultivator.

Beautifully Spent

- Chapter 1 -

aka Five Times Lan Qiren Left The Lan Sect Behind

“It is your duty, Qiren.”

“Is it?” Lan Qiren asked coldly. “I believe you’re thinking of my brother. You might remember him – the sect leader?”

He’d never spoken that coldly to anyone, least of all an honored elder, one of his own teachers, but he had no choice.

Ever since he was young, Lan Qiren wanted to become a traveling musician - to wander the world freely, without the burdens that would fall on his older brother, the prospective sect leader. Even as he got older, he'd never quite let go of that ambition, refining it until it had become not only a dream but a plan.

He would see that plan come to fruition, no matter what it took.

His teacher looked at him helplessly. “What’s gotten into you?” he asked. “You know your brother has chosen seclusion –”

“I know that in the eyes of the sect I have never been a quarter the man he is,” Lan Qiren said quietly. “I know that in each instance that we have argued, you have all taken his side. I know that I was asked, time and time again, to yield – because he is the elder, because he is the heir, because he is the more talented of us two. I have always yielded, because I am a filial son, a good brother, and I love my sect. I have always yielded.”

His teacher cast his eyes down to the ground.

An acknowledgement of guilt.

“I will not yield this time,” Lan Qiren said simply. “This is the rest of my life, honored teacher. This is my entire life. For once, let himbe the one to yield – to do his duty to his sect, as he was always meant to.”

“But –”

“I have always been here for him.” Lan Qiren did not allow him to interrupt. “I have been his scapegoat when things have not gone his way, I have been his pawn in political games, I have even been his punching bag when he needed to vent his irrational anger. Everything he has had the freedom to do, he has done because he has had me here. If I were not here, would he be able to go into seclusion?”

His teacher was silent.

“He would not,” Lan Qiren concluded. “To go into seclusion when you are the only option to lead the sect is to be an unfilial descendant of our ancestors. And so, if I am not here, he would be obligated to live up to his duties.”

“His heart has just been broken. Do you have no empathy for him?”

“As much as I do for the woman who was forced by circumstances to agree to marry him, and no more.”

“Qiren…”

“Think of it as me being dead, honored teacher,” Lan Qiren said, and ignored his teacher’s flinch at such inauspicious words. “Do you need me to remove my forehead ribbon before I go?”

“Qiren! Of course not!”

“Ask my brother,” Lan Qiren said dryly. “He will have the final word, as usual, and he does not like not getting his way.”

He left that day, his head held high.

He did his best not to think of his brother, who had, in his own way, wanted freedom, too.

Lan Qiren travelled, after that. It was just as he’d always planned it: quiet nights along forest paths, visits to small towns in out-of-the-way corners of the world – inquiring and then solving any issues they had that required a cultivator, and playing for them when no such issues remained. He had anticipated hardship, knowing himself to be a rich young master who’d never really faced the world; he hadn’t anticipated kindness: a few married women in one town taking the time to show him how to do laundry, giggling at him all the while, a group of young woodcutters in the next the best way to forage and cook food when one was hungry, a merchant and his wife teaching him how to bargain to avoid getting cheated…in time, through the generosity and enthusiasm of others, he learned all the skills he needed.

He refused payment for night-hunts – amazingly, his sect did not cut him off as he’d almost expected them to, and he was still able to collect his usual allowance – but accepted it for his music, and from his place behind his guqin he watched, quiet and content, as life swirled around him in all its myriad forms.

In between music and night-hunts, he idly taught some skills to the children in the towns he passed through – the vast majority were common people, completely lacking in cultivation skills, but his sect’s rules and the philosophy behind them were applicable in far more situations than that, and basic martial skills in even more. Whenever he stayed somewhere for more than a few days, he added in lessons in basic literacy, mostly because the idea of not having books at hand was abhorrent to him; the parents involved were generally more grateful that he was keeping their children out of trouble than especially interested in what he was teaching them, but it’d never hurt anyone to know a little bit of reading.

When he happened upon a place already governed by another sect, he did not take particular care either to avoid or to approach them; if they happened to meet, and to invite him to stay with them, he would. Lao Nie tracked him down six times for that very purpose, citing increasingly less plausible excuses, before Lan Qiren finally agreed to make the Unclean Realm a regular stop on his travels just to make him stop; in contrast, Cangse Sanren just showed up at the camp he had made for himself one day, her husband as always by her side, and simply refused to leave for the next three months.

He did not visit the Cloud Recesses.

Not when he heard about how his brother had, however reluctantly, come out from seclusion and begun to do the work of sect leader, and do it well, the Lan sect prospering under his leadership as they had always expected to. Not when he got news that his nephew was born; not when he heard that one nephew had become two. Not even when he heard that his brother’s wife had died, though the thought of that miserable woman’s self-inflicted fate had moved him enough to write a letter of condolence to his brother – their first contact in seven years.

Lan Qiren did not expect anything to come of that impulse, though perhaps he should have known better: it wasn’t more than a week later that he received a letter in return, the heavy formal parchment used by the Lan sect as familiar to him as the back of his hand, his brother’s equally formal calligraphy very nearly as familiar.

The words on it weren’t familiar at all.

I have made a terrible mistake, his brother wrote. I need your help.

Lan Qiren was perhaps not especially filial to his sect, having abandoned it as readily as he did – but despite everything, he did love his brother.

He went home.

“Lan Huan, courtesy name Xichen,” his brother said, nodding at the small child, pudgy and fat and adorable, quivering like a pudding even as he tried to force a smile onto his face, clutching onto a baby only a few months old, the little one strangely solemn despite the inexpert manhandling. “Lan Zhan, courtesy name Wangji.”

Lan Qiren was not as shy as he used to be, and he had gotten better at dealing with children. He knelt down until he was level with them, though he did not force himself to adopt any expression that did not come naturally. “Hello,” he said. “I’m your uncle.”

“Hello, uncle,” Lan Xichen said.

Lan Qiren held out a hand and waited, even as his brother took his leave, busier than ever. It took a little while, but Lan Xichen eventually put his own hand in his, and walked with him; after a little while, he even entrusted him with little Lan Wangji, fussing until Lan Qiren had tucked him into the corner of his arm in a manner he found appropriate.

By the time his brother found them again, Lan Xichen was chattering on and on about his xiao lessons, while Lan Qiren nodded along and added his own observations – he was decently skilled at the xiao himself; while it was not his preferred instrument, there were times when it was easier to carry than a guqin, and he had had time, when he was younger, to indulge himself in learning more than one instrument.

When Lan Xichen saw his father, he fell silent at once. He did not hide behind Lan Qiren’s robes, though Lan Qiren half-thought he wanted to – his little hand trembled in Lan Qiren’s palm.

“Would you like to take your brother back?” Lan Qiren asked him. Lan Wangji was a good baby, crying only a few times, each time responding well and easily to the usual things a child his age wanted – milk, a burp, attention. Moreover, Lan Xichen was good with him, thoughtful and careful; Lan Qiren had no concerns entrusting the baby to him, and Lan Xichen brightened a little when he realized that, nodding happily and taking Lan Wangji, pausing only a moment to glance worriedly at his father before scurrying off.

Lan Qiren looked at his brother.

“He’s afraid of me,” his brother said. “You can tell, can’t you?”

A blind man could tell. Lan Qiren said nothing.

“Wangji cries whenever I hold him, too, even though he almost never cries the rest of the time. He’s not even a year old, and he already knows.”

“Knows?”

His brother looked out into the horizon. His hands were behind his back, clasped in a formal pose. “That I’ll ruin them, too.”

Lan Qiren put his own hands behind his back as well. After a few moments, he said, “You care for them both. That’s not nothing.”

Their own father hadn’t managed even that. He had treated Lan Qiren with utter indifference, while treasuring his eldest beyond the point of reason, encouraging him to always think only of himself; the seeds of their estrangement were planted long before either of them knew it, each of them learning different lessons from their father’s mismanagement – Lan Qiren how to be inferior and doubt himself, his brother to be self-absorbed and careless with the feelings of others; Lan Qiren to bend himself to the point of breaking, his brother to refuse to bend at all.

It had served neither of them well.

“I don’t know what love is, except possession,” his brother said. “Xichen torments himself to try to live up to my expectations, and all I’ve managed to teach him, other than fear, is how to say yes to everything just to make people go away. I find myself falling into the habit of thinking of him as an extension of myself, which is still more than I can do with Wangji, who doesn’t even cry like a regular child should…” He paused. “You didn’t cry much as a child either.”

Lan Qiren glanced at his brother, surprised. He hadn’t known his brother had paid enough attention to him back then to even notice.

His brother smiled thinly. “Our family is known for its quiet children, did you know? I hadn’t, but they told me after Wangji was born. Apparently, there’s a few in every generation: a little slow, a little strange, with minds that don’t work quite the same way as the rest of us. The ones that don’t like to look you in the eye – sometimes they learn to speak, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they’re brilliant. As babies, they’re generally a little too quiet. There were three in our father’s generation, but in ours there was only you. And now, there’s Wangji…”

He shook his head.

“I wronged you before, Qiren. I don’t want to do it again – I don’t want to know what sort of father I’d be to a child like you. I’m not willing to risk waiting to find out, either.”

When Lan Qiren left the Cloud Recesses, he took with him a qiankun pouch weighed down with more money than he’d ever had in his life, two children, one smiling happily as the other burbled quietly, and his brother’s trust.

He had no idea what to do with any of it.

#mdzs #lan qiren #my fic #my fics #not set in the same universe as spilled pearls #but will probably make the most sense if you've read that first #beautifully spent

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wolferine · 3 years ago

Text

Unforgivable - Part 2

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Summary: When the reader loses their temper, it causes them to commit an act they can never take back...

Warnings: Violence, blood, torture, death

Word count: 2372

Part 1

Tags: @yeetus-thyself @phoenixofash @lilclownx @yeeterthekeeper @alessiapn @diaryoflife

AN: Please read to the end before you come after me. :)

Everything is a blur. The last thing you remember is cradling Natasha in your lap and seeing the pain of betrayal in her eyes. You did this to her. You couldn’t control your anger and now she had a bullet—shot out of your gun—in her back. You hurt her and there was no way you could ever forgive yourself for that.

You finally let Tony get close enough to take care of her, because you realized you don’t deserve her anymore.

You run away from the Avengers Tower, your leg slowing you down, but you don’t care. Each step feels like a knife rubbing against your bone, but even that’s not enough to distract you from the pain in your chest. It feels like someone has torn you open, ripped your heart out of your ribcage, and thrown it into a bonfire.

But you have no one to blame than yourself.

Tears stream down your face as you stumble through the streets, eventually finding some privacy in a nearby forest. Your sobs echo through the trees as you crawl hand over hand, your uniform shredding open on bushes and branches. The trickle of a creek calls to you and you dunk your bloody hands in the freezing water, desperate to wash yourself of your failures.

You can’t believe what you’ve done.

The scene of Natasha falling to the floor plays over and over in your head and you would pay anything to unsee it. You curl into a ball, wiping your nose on your knees. You deserve all the pain and misery for your actions. You’re so caught up in your head, thinking about all the ways you can punish yourself, that you don’t notice the group of men sneaking up on you from behind.

“Over there! Over there!”

“By the creek, see?”

“Wait—that’s an Avenger?”

“Looks like someone had a bad day.”

“Hey, Y/N.”

At the sound of your name, you finally lift your head, only for the butt of a shotgun to slam into your face. Your nose breaks and blood fills your mouth. You turn away, not even interested in protecting yourself. If they killed you, you would thank them.

“Aw, come on. At least give us a reaction,” someone says.

The shotgun butt smashes against the back of your head and you wouldn’t be surprised if it cracked your skull. Someone kicks your leg where you were shot, and you bite your lip to hold back a scream.

“Well, this is anti-climactic.”

“Hey, if it makes our job easier, I’m not gonna complain.”

“I still think Hammer’s weird for wanting Y/N over the other Avengers.”

“Given the circumstances, he couldn’t really be picky—”

“Stop standing around and get to it!” someone yells.

The men surround you, punching and kicking every inch of you. The bulletproof vest of your uniform does little to lessen the impact of their blows. You feel bruises forming along your ribs and your rattling teeth bite your lips bloody. It doesn’t take long for you to black out and the peace is blissful.

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

Sometime later—you have no idea how long—you jolt awake, finding yourself strapped to a metal chair in the middle of a dark, concrete room. A man in glasses and a gray suit with white gloves stands in front of you.

“Hello, I’m Justin Hammer,” he says, offering a hand, then withdrawing when he realizes your arms are tied to the chair. “Sorry, force of habit.”

You stare at him. Your tongue pokes around the inside of your mouth and you notice some teeth are missing. There is a painful crick in your neck every time you try moving your head and every breath you take feels like a razor blade scraping the inside of your lungs.

“You’ve probably never heard of me, but I’m very familiar with you and your work with the Avengers. But the reason I have you here today is to talk about this man.” Hammer pulls out a folded photograph from his pocket and shows it to you.

It’s Tony Stark, but you have no desire to even think of that man anymore.

“Your best friend, right?” Hammer teases and you curl your lip at him. “What’s wrong? He’s the one who got you a spot on the team, isn’t he?” You look away from him. “I heard what he did to your girl,” he continues. “That must’ve felt like the betrayal of the century.”

“What?” you ask, confused as to what he’s referring to.

“I heard about what happened at the Avengers Tower. So tragic.” Hammer crumples Tony’s photograph and drops it on the floor. “Romanoff didn’t deserve that.”

“W-What are you talking about? Is she okay?” Your bottom lip quivers in fear.

Hammer kneels in front of you. “She’s dead, Y/N.”

“No, no…” You feel like he’s punched you right through the chest. “T-That’s not possible.”

“I’m sorry. I know she meant a lot to you.” Hammer stands again.

“How do you even know what happened at the Tower?” Given its security, there was no way news like that reached the public. At least not the truth of it. Maybe Hammer was just trying to mess with you.

Hammer motions behind him and a blonde woman steps forward from the shadows. Her face jolts your memory, but you don’t remember exactly where from.

“Recognize her?” Hammer asks. “She actually works for me, but she’s been pretending to be a SHIELD agent for some time now. She was right outside the door when your little spat with Stark went down.” Your mind flashes back to when you returned from the mission with Natasha. On your way to the private Avengers’ quarters, you remember passing the same blonde woman right outside the door.

“She heard everything that happened inside,” Hammer says as the blonde woman retreats into the darkness again.

“N-Natasha’s…She’s…She’s not dead,” you stammer.

Hammer shakes his head. “She went into surgery after Stark shot her, but due to the placement of the bullet, there were some complications and she coded on the table. They couldn’t revive her. That part was all over the news.”

You feel so sick you want to vomit. “I…I killed her?”

“No. You didn’t kill her. Tony Stark killed her.”

You start gasping for air, only worsening the pain in your chest. “No—But—He—I’m the one who pulled the trigger—”

“But you weren’t aiming for her. You were aiming for Stark, and he’s the one who deflected the bullet into her,” Hammer says. “He’s also the one who sent you two on that mission to begin with, wasn’t he? The reason you lost your cool and pulled your gun out? Think, Y/N. All of this is Stark’s fault.”

But the sadness of thinking you’ve killed Natasha is too overwhelming. You can’t focus on anything but your own guilt. You will burn in hell for this and you won’t even mind.

“Listen to me, Y/N!” Hammer snaps, striking you across the face. His rings cut into your cheek and blood fills your mouth. “I hate Stark just as much as you do. He’s been my business rival for years and I need someone to help me take him down. Who better than you, a former friend of his, who knows how to hit him where it hurts?”

You start crying at the thought of having to exist in a world without Natasha Romanoff.

Hammer tries getting your attention by slapping you again, but you’re unresponsive. You’re too lost in your grief to process anything he’s saying, and eventually he gives up, promising to come back another time to reveal his master plan to you.

It takes an entire month before he can even communicate with you. Your depression is all-consuming and their threats on your life have no effect. They’re startled to learn you actually enjoy the torture because you believe you deserve it after what you did to Natasha. But Hammer is relentless and finally figures out how to manipulate you into his bidding.

Six months after your capture and the accident, you finally crack. Your agony and pain turns into pure rage and hatred for Tony Stark. You can’t bring Natasha back, but you can get revenge on the man who took her life. After training with Hammer’s technology, which is almost as advanced as Tony’s, you’re deemed ready to be let out in the real world. Hammer personally asks for your help to kill Tony Stark, and it’s an offer you accept gladly.

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

Three months after the accident…

Natasha wakes up and looks to her right, disappointed to see the bed still empty. She’s tricked herself into believing that one day you’ll show up, ready to pick up the pieces and continue where you left off. But nothing has been the same since you left.

She sits up and turns the lights on. She scoots to the edge of the bed and carefully lifts her body into the wheelchair parked there.

The bullet had struck her lumbar spine, shattering her L1 vertebrae and paralyzing her from the waist down. Tony requested help from the best doctors he knew, but even the greatest modern advancements couldn’t repair her spine. He had personally designed her wheelchair, and she knows she should be grateful to still be alive, but she’s never felt so helpless and alone.

After the accident, you ran off and no one could locate you. Secretly, she held onto the hope you would return one day, but she knows your guilt and shame are keeping you away. She wants to tell you that it wasn’t your fault and that she doesn’t hate you, but you’re not even giving her that chance.

Tony made the public announcement that Black Widow had retired from the Avengers. No one knew she had been paralyzed, nor that you had unofficially resigned from the team. Without you, without Black Widow, Natasha didn’t know who she was anymore.

She leaves her bedroom and goes into the kitchen. Tony arranged most of the food and dishes down to her new height but she feels like she’ll never adjust to not being able to stand anymore. She locates a bowl and a box of cereal and rolls over to the table. She chokes down dry Cheerios and pours her second bowlful when Tony walks in.

“Thank God you’re finally up,” he says. “When you’re done, I have something to show you.”

“Y/N?” She perks up.

“Uh…no…”

Natasha knows Tony blames himself just as much as she does for her accident, but it wasn’t his fault either. She wrestled between anger and guilt, sometimes blaming you, sometimes blaming him. But in the end, it’s easier to blame herself. She should have stopped you the moment you took out your gun, regardless of whether or not you pushed her. But she got so caught up in the moment she froze, and now she was paralyzed and you were gone.

“Just come down to my workshop, okay?” Tony disappears again.

With nothing better to do, Natasha takes the elevator down to Tony’s workshop. She doesn’t visit often, but when she does, she’s always impressed by his latest inventions and gadgets. She rolls down the aisle of old Iron Man suits displayed in glass cases, admiring the subtle differences in each one.

“Where are you, Tony?” she calls.

“Over here!” He waves her down from the other end. “I’ve been working on this for a while, and I know it’s a little premature, but I couldn’t help myself.” Tony stands next to another Iron Man suit, but it doesn’t quite look like it will fit him.

The suit is curved to fit a woman, black and red instead of Tony’s iconic red and gold. Natasha sees a red hourglass emblazoned on the belt buckle.

“What…What is this, Tony?” she asks, tears in her eyes.

“It’s an Iron Widow suit,” he says. “Or, whatever you want to call it. You’ll have to get in and test it out for yourself, but it’ll allow you to walk again and…be an Avenger again.”

Natasha wishes she could throw herself into his arms, but pulls him down to her level instead. “Thank you,” she whispers, wiping her face. She never thought she would be able to serve as an Avenger again, but she’ll take the opportunity if it means taking her mind off recent events.

“Ready to try it out?” Tony presses a button on the side of the suit and the suit opens up, bending into a crouched position so Natasha can get in it like a chair.

She smiles for the first time since the accident.

“I am.”

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

Six months after the accident…

Natasha is in the gym, lifting dumbbells on a bench when Tony walks in. Although she now has a legitimate excuse for skipping leg day for the rest of her life, she now has to make sure her upper body is twice as strong to make up for it.

“Look who decided to slide through my DMs this morning,” Tony says, shoving his phone in her face.

Midnight. Central Park Carousel. Come alone.

The text was from you.

“Oh, my God,” Natasha says, setting the weights down. You haven’t even texted her since the accident, and she’s a little hurt you didn’t reach out to her first. “What’s this about?”

“I have no idea.” Tony shrugs. “I know it says for me to go alone, but since it’s from Y/N, I wanted to ask if you wanted to tag along.”

“Of course.” In a way, Natasha feels like the text is really meant for her. Central Park was where you had asked her to be your girlfriend. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

“I’ll need you to be on your A-game. We have no idea what Y/N’s been up to these past six months. I don’t know if you’re gonna like what we find,” Tony says.

Natasha has spent countless nights wondering where you’ve been and what you’re doing. Now she has the chance to find out. “It’s going to be okay, Tony,” she says.

He shakes his head. “Just so you know, I’m praying more for you than me right now.”

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

Click here for Part 3!

AN: I never went to medical school, so forgive my medical inaccuracies.

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff fanfic #black widow #black widow fanfiction #marvel imagine #natasha x reader

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autisticandroids · 3 years ago

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Oh patron saint of mpreg, tell us, what is the absolute gold standard canon divergent mpreg scenario with Cas and Dean?

so for me the gold standard is for cas to get pregnant due to some kind of magical or metaphysical situation that dean at least does not perceive as sex. bonus points is cas is hesitant about it but refuses to explain why (because he doesn't know how dean will deal with the concept of himself being able to potentially get cas pregnant), so dean is like "we're doing it anyway" and then they do it and then cas doesn't tell anyone that he is pregnant until circumstances force the information out of him. and then dean has to deal with the fact that 1) cas can get pregnant, 2) cas is pregnant, 3) it's his, and he does so pretty poorly.

the rest is under a cut because this post is over 2.5k words long.

my favorite times for this to happen are at the end of season nine, just before dean dies and gets demonized in do you believe in miracles, and at the start of season twelve, just before sam and dean go to jail, because the pining in both those scenarios is delicious but it is so much more powerful if cas is also pregnant, and never even told dean. double points if the truth somehow comes out while they're separated so when dean comes back it's like. yeah cas is pregnant. it's yours. welcome home dean now you have to coddle cas' emotions because he thought he would have to raise your baby alone.

the season twelve scenario is particularly delicious because 1) we can have lucifer slut shaming cas in front of crowley in rock never dies, so crowley knows before dean, and 2) much more importantly, mary is there, and i am obsessed with like. okay. several things.

- the idea of mary getting all baby fever because she misses her boys and this is like. a baby she can take care of because she never got to take care of sam

- the idea of dean working through some of his parentification trauma by coparenting a child with the parent whose place he felt he had to take

- the idea of mary coming in and projecting her insane 1980s gender roles all over cas, suddenly treating him like a woman, stripping him of agency, etc. and like. dean would also do this even though he's not from the eighties, but mary would do it double strength, and they would reinforce each other, it would be a nightmare

- also mary trying to relate to cas on the Travails Of Motherhood etc. and cas being like ?????????? like i cannot stress enough that the weird gender roles she projects onto cas are also standards that she held herself to back when she was a Wife And Mother. while cas is like mary i am not a human woman and also i don't see what "having to look pretty for my man when i'm all baby bloaty" has to do with anything. that's not something i feel like i have to do

oh and 3) could you imagine lily sunder has some regrets if cas was pregnant? unfathomable episode. like ishim and mirabel's reaction but ALSO lily's. and it would fix the number one issue i have with lily sunder, which is that the resolution of the moral dilemma is "well AKSHUALLY the kid was human and not a nephilim so killing it was bad" rather than "it was bad to kill lily's baby, full stop." like ishim's cover up and using the machinery of power to manipulate the truth is very compelling, but the fact that it results in the moral essentially being "it would have been okay if the kid had been a nephilim" suuuuuucks.

basically, there's a reason i have two entire mpreg aus set in season twelve.

and then the delicious part in the season nine version is like. one, dean is away for much longer and he could be anywhere. also he's a demon and he's cheating on cas with crowley. and then even when cas gets him back he's still cursed with the mark, so we can get all weepy over that. you know. i'm the one who's going to have to watch you murder the world and i'm eight months pregnant. etc etc.

but the other thing that's juicy about this version is that cas is still semi-involved with the other angels at this point, like he's roadtripping around with hannah and they're trying to get heaven under control, so carrying a nephil is going to really affect those relationships. so he's going to be probably disliked by the other angels, and there are MANY opportunities for slut-shaming, but at the same time, the other "outcast" type angels might respect him for violating heaven's dictates.

and then of course there's his grace vampirism victorian wasting disease. in canon he's perfectly happy to let himself die, but if he were having dean's baby he would absolutely not do that, that's dean's baby he's endangering there. so of course there's the terrible guilt of having to kill other angels so he can live, plus potentially preparing to die shortly after childbirth so he doesn't have to keep killing. delicious.

and on top of all this cas can get slutshamed by metatron in, depending on when exactly he gets knocked up, meta fiction, stairway to heaven, and do you believe in miracles. plus stairway to heaven would be insane like all the angels would know that cas is pregnant. they would see it in his grace. like cas' angel army would just. know that he was pregnant with a nephil, and have to accept that because he's their leader. in love with humanity indeed.

i'm trying to think of other good times for this drama with cas getting secretly pregnant through a nonsexual interaction to take place. it would be great in season six. like: he's doing a blasphemy with his body but at the same time he's this big important rebel leader so they can't say shit about him, and also he's pregnant while fighting these big important battles (fun and sexy), AND this is like, hot on the heels of the realization that something about his feelings for dean is untoward, expands beyond the bounds of ordinary friendship and camaraderie. like he realizes that, and maybe even that he has sexual feelings for dean, and then he gets immediately knocked up. stunning.

it would ALSO be extremely fun for it to be some kind of... i don't know, magical longer gestation times, whatever, but for cas to have gotten pregnant sometime in s5 and only realized during the Year Of Lisa. LOVE to watch a man rake leaves while both metaphorically carrying the taint of taboo sexual feelings for him and literally carrying his child.

but the thing about season six is, first of all, cas isn't really... envisioning a future with dean. not the way he does in the later seasons. like does he fantasize about a future with dean? yes. like. he really did watch that motherfucker rake leaves. but it's only fantasy. he expected to never speak to dean again after swan song until dean prayed to him in the third man. he's obsessed with dean, but it's distant. remote.

like, we talk about cas babytrapping dean in the later seasons with jack, and he absolutely does, and he would do it even more if dean got him literally pregnant, but that babytrap is about... how do i put this. it's about winning dean's affection. late seasons cas knows that he's going to die by dean's side. the difference that babytrapping dean makes is that maybe it will get dean to be nice to him in the mean time, instead of discarding him like so much toilet paper.

but season six cas doesn't think of it like that. if he were gonna babytrap dean, it would be in the more traditional sense of forcing dean to stay with him in order to raise their child together. and he would never do that. he wants dean to have a happy future, which in his mind does not include him. like, compare here "he's retired and he's to stay that way" in the man who would be king, where cas assumes that dean is happy without him and expects him to live out his days peacefully without ever seeing him again, to "i'm the one who's going to have to watch you murder the world" in the prisoner, where cas assumes that he will be by dean's side for centuries.

but anyway, the other, much more important problem with season six is that cas has a war to fight. like, in the later seasons, cas really has nothing. even when he's on tenuous good terms with the angels, he doesn't really have a home with them. the winchesters are his family, and he'd give up anything for them. he has nothing in his life. he's at rock bottom, and this becomes truer the further along you go. late seasons cas has nothing he would prioritize over serving the winchesters, and he would be happy dropping anything he was involved in to have and raise dean's baby. parenting would give him a purpose that he no longer has, because everything else has been stripped from him.

but in season six cas has a life outside of them. like yes, he has a war to fight, but he also has a place in heaven, with the other angels. he belongs somewhere, he has solid connections to the outside world. even if he didn't have a war to fight, i don't know how excited he would be to have and raise a baby (even dean's baby) because he simply has other things he could be doing. he's involved in the world beyond the winchesters.

like, the reason cas wants to be a parent is that he is totally alone and totally purposeless. having a child gives him both a reason for being and someone who will always love him and who he can care for. if he doesn't have that hole in his life he might not be so eager to fill it with a baby.

for all these reasons, this plotline really doesn't work in season six, because you simply cannot justify cas not getting an abortion, unless you do something nasty like make angel abortion impossible, which i don't love.

you COULD somehow put the impregnation just at the end of season six, maybe just before the man who would be king, such that cas doesn't realize he's pregnant until he's already godstiel. you guys are unfortunately very aware of how obsessed i am with pregnant godstiel.

actually, @jeanne-de-valois has a concept of like. a single, madness fueled midnight hookup immediately pre-tmwwbk (or maybe even during, but prior to the superman mistake), where cas is simultaneously so stressed from being stretched so thin from the war and the lying and the shady dealings, and so high on being The Big Man In Heaven, that he's bold and out of his mind enough to actually come onto dean, like he just appears one night in dean's bedroom and is like, fuck me, and dean is like 👁👄👁 okay. so they have one single adrenaline and madness fueled hookup, and then everything immediately goes to shit.

and i think that's a great place for cas to get pregnant, and then he doesn't realize until he's become god, or maybe he does and he's just like "i'll deal with it later," either way godstiel is like oh? i carry dean's heir inside me? i will have dean's baby. i will have dean's baby it is my right and also my boon to him and also a symbol of my great and magnanimous love for humanity. and also maybe i will put giant paintings of myself pregnant with his child up in churches. what about that. which would be fun. don't know when he would give birth though. actually it would be insane if he gave birth as emmanuel and was just like. raising dean's nephil when dean found him again. nuts. but it just doesn't really have the same flavor as late seasons mpreg. doesn't compel me nearly as much. like the symbolism of godstiel being pregnant with dean's child is fun and sexy but them actually raising the kid afterwards doesn't compel me nearly as much, so it's better to leave literal mpreg to the later seasons and let godstiel mpreg reside in symbolism and fantasy.

or maybe the fetus gets stolen by the leviathans when cas walks into the lake and dean has to battle his leviathanated nephil daughter as the main villain of s7. like she's dick roman's secret weapon. i think that would be fun, actually. kind of an emma situation but drawn out over the whole season. and he thinks cas is dead for most of it so she's all he's got left of cas and a mess cas left for him to clean up. big sexy.

and as a bonus, i will also tell you the best time, imo, for dean to get pregnant: near the end of season eight. possibly a single, tragic farewell fuck in sacrifice when cas is planning to lock himself away in heaven and they're never gonna see each other again. and this impregnates dean with cas' nephil.

but then cas is human. and he can't do anything about it. like generally if they managed to get dean pregnant somehow, cas would immediately talk him into an abortion (which wouldn't be too hard; dean's natural white midwestern man who doesn't vote aversion to abortion would be at war with the horror of being pregnant, and the horror would win), or might not even inform dean that he's pregnant, and just quietly end the pregnancy without dean's knowledge, because cas would never put dean through that. but if cas is human, he can't do that. and furthermore, that nephil is the last evidence of his angelic nature that persists. it's the last of what he used to be, the last of his grace. and there's something absolutely delectable about that.

then of course dean would have to leave the bunker if he was pregnant with a nephil, because angels would be after him, and he wouldn't want to lead them to gadreel, so i am imagining dean discovering that he's pregnant and then showing up in a panic at the gas n sip like "actually cas i'm also out of the bunker will you go on the run with me?" and then they go on the run and have to live in motels again and cas gets to live with take care of dean who is pregnant with his child which is essentially his dream, and he doesn't have to feel guilty because he's no longer capable of giving dean an abortion so he doesn't feel obligated to get him to have one. ideally cas gets re-angeled just in time to give dean an angelic c-section. or maybe they rely on a normal human c-section in a hospital and cas stays human and they are two humans raising their nephil, which is also fun to me.

#spn #asks #anonymous #mpregpocalypse

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rhysanoodle · 3 years ago

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Between Light and Shadow

(Banner by the lovely @sncinder 💕)

Elriel’s story after ACOSF

Word Count: 2053

AO3

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Three days later, Azriel was frustrated.

He had gone to every single point on the map, but he had been unable to deduce anything of significance. Perhaps Elain’s magic had truly been fuzzied by whatever shielding Koschei had in place, because if these locations held any hints as to how to enter his stronghold, Azriel surely couldn’t detect them.

Which aggravated him to no end.

As he touched down in Velaris that evening, he headed straight for the riverfront estate, needing to debrief with Rhys as soon as possible so he could blow off some steam.

He supposed he shouldn’t have been shocked that the entirety of their family was gathered in the dining room for dinner, but what he was surprised about was the presence of Lucien and Vassa. And not only their presence, but also … Vassa was sitting with Elain. And the two of them were getting on thick as thieves.

Rhys had mentioned that Elain would be provided company in his absence, but … This was not what Azriel thought he had meant. He had expected one of her sisters to step in, but clearly some bond was forming between the Seer and the Human Queen which had not been there the last time he had observed them together.

We need to talk, he sent down that lingering thread Rhys left open for him.

His High Lord looked up from his meal, a glass of wine dangling in his hand. He gave a nod and excused himself from the table, ruffling Nyx’s hair as the infant grabbed futilely for his father, breaking down into a series of sobs before Feyre shushed him.

That boy was attached. He always loved to be held, something which Azriel was slowly warming to, but Rhys gave into him most of all. Which in turn made Nyx a blubbering mess whenever they had to be separated.

Azriel didn’t know how the two did it. Children had always been some vague, far off concept for him. Something his future mate might want. But now that one of his family had finally brought a child into the circle, Azriel wasn’t sure he was ready, even after almost six centuries.

“What did you find?” Rhys asked, shutting his office door to give them some privacy.

“Whole fat lot of nothing,” Azriel grumbled. He should have been able to find more. If anyone could, it would be him.

“Easy. This isn’t your fault,” Rhys soothed him, and Azriel fortified his mental defenses.

“How is it that he can obscure so much from even my shadows?”

“You do remember that this is a death-god we’re talking about, right?” Rhys’s eyes glimmered subtly. “I know that we’re under a lot of pressure to find him quickly, but it makes sense that his defenses are difficult to crack.”

“Do you think Elain can do it?” Azriel finally voiced aloud his other concern. That all of this was for nothing. That they would be forced into such close quarters, endure all of the pain which came along with it, only to fail in the end. Vassa would return to her master, and they would fall apart again. He didn’t think Elain would continue to take his peace offering if they parted ways under such stressful circumstances.

“I think if anyone can, it is Elain,” Rhys replied carefully. “I also think we have a tendency to underestimate her. It is clear that she has power, though she is loath to use it when unnecessary. But the Cauldron gave her at least one gift. Who’s to say that she doesn’t have more? Or that it will not guide her in her scrying?”

“But you always have one of us monitoring her.”

“Though she might be powerful, she is untrained,” Rhys responded. “You were in the room when Nesta scried on the Mask. Koschei may not be a Cauldron-forged object, but he surely has tricks up his sleeve. I’ll be damned if Elain falls into some sort of trap without being given a way out.”

“And have you told her this?” Perhaps, Azriel thought, it would lessen her resentment of him being there. Perhaps, they could at the very least bond over the fact that he was there not only to gather information straight from the source but also to protect her.

“No, and you’re not to tell her either.” Rhys picked a piece of lint off his jacket. “If she’s frustrated with her circumstances then perhaps that will fuel her will to produce results. Subconsciously of course. It’s not like I don’t think she’s trying her hardest. It’s just that with whatever wards Koschei has, we need any edge we can find.

“What happens when Elain finds out? Are you not at least a little bit worried that you keep everything from her?” Because it was not just this. Elain had had no say when Rhys had ordered Azriel to stay away from her in the first place. Nevermind all the other things they had shielded her from over the years.

“No.” Rhys bared his teeth at Azriel’s assumption. “She won’t find out, and even if she did, she’d surely understand why we had to keep these things quiet. It’s for her safety, hers and the court’s. She is wise enough to grasp this.”

“For someone who has warned us not to underestimate her, you seem to be doing a great job of it yourself,” Azriel retorted, perhaps a bit unwisely, but his brother’s behavior was fraying his last remaining nerve.

“We’re done here,” Rhys replied icily. “Report back here tomorrow to resume her training.”

Azriel fought against his wings flaring at the cool dismissal. He suspected that Elain was not a fan of having every decision made without her consent, yet he was bound to follow orders from his High Lord. It chafed on every raw edge of him.

He could have simply winnowed back home but instead he walked out, passing the dining room on his way to the front door.

Elain looked up from her meal with a question in her eyes, and Azriel shook his head almost imperceptibly. No, he had nothing. No, he wouldn’t be debriefing her tonight. No, he wasn’t allowed to stay. Perhaps she would pick up on at least one of the things he wished to convey to her.

Once outside, he shot into the sky and spirited himself to his bed. Nightmares chased him from sleep during the precious little he was able to manage in the first place.

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

Elain tossed and turned in bed. Azriel had left tonight with nary a word after speaking with Rhys. She couldn’t help but wonder why.

Rhys had returned to the dining room a minute later, under a decent guise at regaining his composure, but Elain could still tell something was off. His smiles sometimes didn’t quite meet his eyes, and she couldn’t help but feel like something said between the two males had sparked an argument. One that wasn’t merely easily soothed over with drink and merriment.

Interesting.

So interesting in fact that she asked Azriel about it the next afternoon.

“What happened between you and Rhys last night?” she asked, taking a casual sip of her tea.

“I reported in, and then I left.” Azriel tried to shrug nonchalantly, but his shoulders were tense, giving away that something was indeed amiss, as she had expected.

“Then why did Rhys seem so on edge all night? And why didn’t you join everyone for dinner?”

“He didn’t like what he heard.”

“Rhys hears things which don’t agree with him every damn day. What was different about whatever you told him?”

“Cauldron, how am I supposed to know?” If Elain didn’t know any better, she would say Azriel was very, very close to snapping at her, something he had never once done in all her years of knowing him.

She decided to let it slide. For now. But her curiosity would not be completely stifled. “So you truly found nothing?”

Azriel shifted in his seat. “Not a thing. I’m not sure if those points on the map weren’t important or if Koschei is so cloaked that even my shadows can’t suss out whatever he’s hiding there. I—”

“It’s not your fault. Either I got it wrong, or like you said, he’s too cloaked in mist and shadow. I'm even struggling to get a read on him, and I’ve got powers given to me by the Cauldron.”

“This is my job,” Azriel practically growled.

“You’ve said that before. It doesn’t change the fact that certain things are out of your control. You’ve been doing this for centuries. Surely this can’t be the first time you haven’t seen immediate results. Why is it bugging you so much now?”

“Shouldn’t you be scrying?” Another deflection. Elain clearly wasn’t going to get anything else useful out of him in this mood. She would just have to attack it again at a later date.

“Fine. Perhaps whatever I see today will actually be useful.”

She’d meant it to sting. Though whether it was targeted at herself or Azriel, Elain was unsure. They were both failing in their own ways. Two sides of a deeply flawed coin.

Azriel stiffened but said no more before beginning to leaf through his reports.

Elain closed her eyes, ignoring the shuffling sounds coming from the spymaster’s direction and stilled her mind, giving herself over to wherever the visions were willing to take her.

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

“Sweet, fertile thing. Cauldron-blessed creature. Why are you spying on me?”

The voice was honeyed yet rotten, echoing. Not Koschei. No, Elain had practically been inside Koschei’s head last week. This was something wholly different.

And the creature. As Elain’s vision came into focus, she beheld the insipid being. It was tall, slender and ghastly white. Its body was completely bare and bald with the exception of multiple claw marks trailing scars down its chest.

It was staring straight at her, as if completely aware of her. How was that possible?

“Oh, come now, don’t be scared.” The creature smiled, its widened maw baring rows upon rows of jagged teeth.

Elain tried to run but found that she couldn’t move, couldn’t even speak. She had never felt so … trapped by a vision. She found herself tunneling within, trying to find her way back into her own body.

“Tsk tsk,” the creature stirred, overly long fingers rubbing together as he drank her in. “I am not your enemy. You did not come seeking me, but I have found you. I have some information which may be of use to you. Come see me.” And it was then that Elain realized that, no, its voice was not echoing. Its voice was a multitude.

She gazed around, doing her best to gauge its surroundings, but was met with only ruddy stone.

“Until we meet again,” the creature murmured.

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

Elain found herself jerked back into her body, shivering. Nobody had ever been able to see her when she had scryed before, nobody had ever acknowledged her. She had been under the assumption that she was a bystander, a nonentity merely peering into their lives, but what if … what if Koschei was also aware of her presence? What if he sensed every single attempt she had made in the past weeks and was sitting back in his lair laughing at her weak intrusions. Had he sent her those random locations in which Azriel had come up empty handed?

“What is it?” Was that an edge of panic in Azriel’s voice?

Elain struggled to find her own voice, the feeling of being trapped in her own body, in her own mind too fresh. Too … reminiscent of another night on which she’d had no control over what happened to her.

Elain shook her head, unable to stop staring at her own trembling hands, and Azriel was on her in an instant. “Elain, what did you see?” he demanded, and his sudden nearness, the heat radiating off his body only mere inches from her own, thawed something inside her.

“Something spoke to me. It seemed to know what I was doing, what I sought,” she croaked, and Azriel’s face blanched.

He shot up from his position next to her, and gestured towards the door. “Come on. We’re going to see Rhys.”

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

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#elriel #elain archeron #azriel #a court of thorns and roses #acotar #acomaf #acowar #acofas #acosf #fanfic #my fic #between light and shadow

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buckybarnesowl · 3 years ago

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To Serve and Protect - Chapter 7

Pairing: AU!Bucky x F!Reader

Series summary: James Buchanan Barnes, Bucky for short, is an ex-cop turned social worker, forced to resign after witnessing a violent police brutality incident. Y/N is coming to terms with the fact that she is stuck in an abusive relationship. Bucky’s unsure why he’s so drawn to protect Y/N. All he knows is he’ll do whatever it takes.

Series warnings: emotional and physical abuse by intimate partner, non-con, sexual violence and dorogatory slur against sex workers (sex work is work!), panic attacks, nightmares, general mental health struggles. Be safe and please heed all of the individual chapter warnings.

Rating: 18+ Minors DNI! Graphic sexual violence, abuse, some mild smut eventually; you have been warned.

A/N: This one gets a bit angsty. Hold tight! We’re on the home stretch now; one more chapter + epilogue left after this. Thanks to everyone for reading, liking, commenting, and reblogging.

Chapter 7 warnings: intimate partner physical and verbal abuse; violence (one punch); anxiety

Chapter 7 word count: 3.1K

Previous chapter | Next chapter | Series Masterlist

At Y/N’s request, Bucky agreed that they’d go to the bar together slightly earlier than the time they gave Wanda and Sam. She wanted time to prepare.

Bucky had already met Wanda once, albeit not under the best circumstances. And the friend had already expressed her support of the relationship to Y/N countless times over, with a particular favouring of his “fine ass” as Wanda called it. No, Y/N’s nervousness stemmed from meeting Sam. She knew Bucky had explained the situation from the beginning and was anticipating judgement of being that girl. Damaged goods with a cube van full of past relationship baggage.

They sat at their table in the stereotypical hipster microbrewery: white walls, concrete floors, varnished wooden tables and counters, exposed wood beams. Bucky had his arm around Y/N as he attempted to soothe her anxieties under the glow of the Edison bulbs.

“Sam’s going to love you. In fact I think he already does. He told me last week he’s never seen me this happy,” he encouraged, pressing a kiss into her temple.

Y/N couldn’t help but smile at the admission. “So you’re happy? With me?” she asked bashfully, looking at Bucky from the side of her eyes as she found his other hand and placed it on her thigh.

“Yeah, I really am,” he said with a confidence he’d never felt. Not until he’d met Y/N.

It had been nearly six months since their eyes had met for the first time in the waiting area of the centre. Y/N, the girl that made his heart beat faster. That made him fumble over his words. That made him want to keep going to therapy so he could be stronger for her. That made him wake up early every day just so he could send a good morning message before she’d awake because he wanted her to start her day knowing she was the first thing he thought about.

He pulled her closer and placed a soft peck to her cheek. Not fully satisfied, she turned her head to find his lips. All of her nerves dissipated as their mouths connected like two pieces of a puzzle. Just as she began running her tongue along his teeth, they heard someone clear their throat.

“I know you two are still in the honeymoon stage, but I was sort of hoping to actually get to know Y/N tonight,” Sam teased as he took a seat across from the couple.

“Oh my god,” Y/N muttered under her breath, all of her nervousness flooding back and setting her face ablaze.

Sam laughed as Bucky and Y/N untangled themselves from each other.

“Sam, this is Y/N. Y/N this is Sam,” Bucky gestured between the two of them, rolling his eyes at his friend.

“Sorry, I’m just messing with you two,” Sam said, noticing her discomfort. He extended his hand across the table, “I’m so glad to finally meet the person who’s put a perma-smile on my best friend’s face.”

Y/N shook his hand, relaxing a bit at Sam’s genuine introduction. “I’m really happy to meet you too,” she smiled shyly. “He’s told me a lot about you.”

Just then Y/N saw Wanda enter the bar from behind Sam and waved the grinning redhead over. That grin morphed into shock when she arrived at the table.

“No fucking way! Sammy? Bucky was your buddy?” Wanda yelled.

“Shit, Y/N is your friend…” The gears started turning, only taking him a few seconds for the realization to hit. “That means… shit, that’s why you texted me way back.” The realization slipped out before he registered he’d said it aloud.

“What the fuck is going on, Wanda?” Y/N asked, heart pounding, breath quickening as she heard the man she just met refer to the very past that had birthed her fears about this night.

“Y/N, this is my friend Sam. The one that works at the V.A. that I text for resources. Hun, I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

“Wait, you two know each other?” Bucky looked at Sam, his brow furrowing in confusion.

“Yeah, Wanda is one of the few friends from highschool I kept in touch with. A while back she reached out asking for some recommendations on where to go for domestic abuse issues. I gave her the link to your organization, and didn’t press further. I never said anything to you because she didn’t give me any details and, well confidentiality obviously. I didn’t want to jeopardize anything on the off chance you ended up on the case… Man, I never put two and two together.”

Wanda took the remaining seat next to Sam, across from her friend who was looking more and more panicked as the conversation continued.

“Y/N, hun, just breathe. Everyone here is on your team. We’re all here for you. No one is judging you, and we’re not going to talk about this anymore. Right, boys?”

“As usual, she’s 100% right. Really sorry for putting you on the spot, Y/N.” Sam attempted to gather every inch of softness and comfort he could muster, putting it all into the apologetic look he offered to the woman he’d just met and humiliated.

“Sweetheart, Wanda is completely right. We’re all just here to meet and hang out and you have absolutely nothing to worry about.” Bucky raised his and Y/N’s clasped hands from where they’d been resting on her thigh and pressed his lips into her knuckles.

Sighing deeply, Y/N closed her eyes to compose herself. She opened them and smiled genuinely, deciding to embrace her dirty laundry being aired out on a Saturday night in a dimly lit bar.

“Well, I was definitely going to wait to pull the abusive ex-boyfriend suitcase out for show and tell until at least the third or fourth hangout. But I guess it’s better that it’s out of the way now.”

Everyone laughed, the tension alleviated by Y/N’s quick wit.

The four fell into easy conversation after that. At first it was mostly Sam and Wanda bonding over how hilarious it had been to watch the two stumble over their feelings for one another during the first months. Their venting shifted into stories of their respective friends, recounting comedic events that only slightly embarrassed the couple. Mostly, both Bucky and Y/N reveled in learning more about each other as their fingers were intertwined under the table, Bucky’s thumb rubbing the back of Y/N’s hand affectionately.

After a pause in the conversation, the four agreed it was time for another round of drinks. Y/N announced she had to use the washroom and excused herself. Her cheeks were warm and ached from laughing as she walked through the bar and into the hallway towards the ladies room at the very end.

She grinned at herself in the mirror as she washed her hands, her stomach fluttering with an eagerness to return to the group. To Bucky. The night was going so much better than she had anticipated. Stepping out of the washroom she turned into the dark hall towards the loud hum of Saturday night. The wind was suddenly knocked out of her as her back slammed into the wall, a forearm pressing against her chest holding her down as the elbow dug into her bicep. A rough hand completely covered her mouth and another clenched the wrist of her other arm.

“You lying whore, you were fucking him. I fucking knew it,” Brock seethed as he pressed himself into Y/N. “Don’t you dare fucking make a sound. You’re going to hear what I have to say, you little bitch. You’re going to pay for what you and your War Amp boytoy did to me. Do you know the firm fucking fired me? I lost my goddamn career because of you, because that fucking dickwad can’t take a little jab to the chin…”

Brock continued to rage while Y/N’s body refused to move. Muscle memory from three years of conditioning. All the blood drained from her face. Her ears buzzed. She couldn’t shift her eyes away from the blazing dark pools that bore into her as he spewed his hate and beer-soaked breath over her face.

It was as if time simultaneously sped up and stood still. Like a fever dream where everything felt too big and Y/N was trying to scream but no sound came out, her body cursed by slow motion movement while everything else sped around her. She prayed that someone, anyone would come down the hall. Doesn’t someone need to fucking pee?! But no one came and Brock started pressing his whole body onto her.

***

The waitress had brought the four pints to the table minutes ago and Y/N was still not back from the washroom.

“I’m going to go relieve myself. And make sure Y/N hasn’t fallen in,” Bucky announced, trying to hide his concern.

She’d been gone for nearly ten minutes and he was starting to worry. Maybe she had gotten overwhelmed by all of the stories. She had been so nervous about the evening. Sam and Wanda were deep in reminiscing about their high school escapades and only nodded as they continued their trip down memory lane together.

As soon as Bucky turned down the hall his police training kicked into gear. Without a word or even a breath, Bucky sprinted to the end of the dark corridor. He grabbed Brock by the collar and yanked him off of Y/N towards the direction of the bar. Then turning on the balls of his feet, Bucky’s fist connected with Brock’s cheek so hard the hefty man was knocked onto the concrete floor, sliding towards the opening of the hall. The bar’s bouncer appeared an instant later as Bucky turned back to console Y/N.

“Are you hurt? Did he hurt you? Fuck sweetheart, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. Fuck, I’m so sorry. Can I hug y—” but Y/N was already burrowing herself into his chest, trying to hide in his protective hold as he responded by wrapping his arms around her. Her entire body trembled. He rubbed comforting circles on Y/N’s back while she sobbed uncontrollably. Still in action mode, Bucky quickly explained to the bouncer the restraining order against Brock and how Bucky had found him holding Y/N against the wall on his way to the men’s room.

“Well, thanks for doing my job, man,” the bouncer nodded in appreciation, quickly understanding the situation. “I’ll hold onto him while we wait for the cops. I’ll make the call. You want some privacy, you can take this room here,” he said as he punched a code on the pad next to the handle. It opened into what looked like a staff room. Then the beefy security turned around, lifted Brock off the ground with one arm, and dragged him into another code-protected room.

“He’s gone now. It’s over, sweetheart. You’re safe. I’ve got you.” Bucky cooed into Y/N’s hair as the heavy door clicked behind them. With his arms holding her tight again, he pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I’m going to call Sam and Wanda and get them to come meet us in here, ok?” Bucky only felt the shaking of Y/N’s shoulders as she continued to bawl into his chest.

“Oh my god, what the fuck happened?” Wanda asked as soon as the two friends entered the room. She placed a hand on Y/N’s back, searching Bucky’s face for answers.

He explained the scene he’d found and how they were now waiting for the police to arrive. He added that it was necessary because of the restraining order—he had felt Y/N tense when the police were mentioned.

“Jesus fucking christ, I wish I’d been there with you,” Sam teemed, grindind a fist into the palm of hand.

“Bucky got him pretty good,” Y/N piped up quietly, sniffling as she finally pulled away from his comforting hold.

“Fucking right I did,” he said stoicly, trying to maintain a calm demeanor for Y/N but boiling on the inside.

Wanda pulled her friend into her arms, now that she was out of Bucky’s arms. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, hun.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t any of your faults. Please. I’m sorry for ruining the night.”

Wanda pushed her friend out of the hug and placed her hands on her shoulders.

“Don’t you dare try and blame yourself for the actions of that fucking asshole. He deserves to be in jail as far as I’m concerned. I know, I know, you don’t want to go through that. But fuck, Y/N, none of this is your fault. You hear me? None of it.” Wanda pulled her friend back into her arms.

“She’s right, again,” Bucky agreed. “This isn’t even remotely close to being your fault. Please don’t let your thoughts go there.”

“Guys like that can’t help themselves,” Sam chimed in. “I’ve seen my share of anger management issues at the V.A.. This is not on you, Y/N. Not even a little bit. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve had one of the best nights out in a while and this in no way ruins that for me.”

Y/N sniffled in her friend's embrace, then pulled away to wipe her face and take Bucky’s hand again. “Thanks. All of you. I’m s—” she stopped herself from apologizing and sighed before continuing. “I appreciate you being here for me.”

“Always,” Wanda said and the two men hummed in agreement.

The police had arrived shortly after. With some pressure from Bucky, they allowed Y/N to make her statement with all of them there as support. He knew how officers can twist these types of situations. Then they took Bucky’s statement before leaving the staff room to find the bouncer and Brock. After interviewing the two men and calling into the precinct to get background on Y/N’s file, the officers returned to the group to let them know they were free to go. They were clearly turning a blind eye to Bucky’s assault of Brock, likely as a result of the damning statement Y/N had given detailing their relationship when filing for the restraining order.

Y/N had asked if she could stay with Bucky for the night when he’d started ordering a Lyft to take her home. She didn’t want to be alone. Sam had offered Wanda a ride home. The four said their goodbyes outside of the bar, wrapping Y/N in a group hug as she had been incapable of letting go of Bucky once the police had showed up. The Lyft appeared and they parted ways.

“Oh my god, Bucky your hand!” Y/N exclaimed when he handed her a glass of water after they returned to his apartment. She’d been so caught up in the aftermath she hadn’t noticed his swollen knuckles on his flesh hand that were already turning purple.

“Do you have an ice pack?” She asked, placing the water on the coffee table before frantically getting up from the couch and b-lining towards the freezer.

“Yeah, should be in the door,” he said sheepishly as he took a seat on the sofa.

“Here. Christ, I’m so sorry about all of this,” she groaned, handing him the cold pack before slumping down next to him.

“Nope. Nuh uh. What did we say about apologizing for things that aren’t your fault?” he asked sweetly. Y/N rolled her eyes and exhaled forcefully through her nose.

“Fine. But I’m still sorry. Not in a it’s-my-fault way, but in a I-have-compassion-for-your-injured-hand way.” She said, flashing him a sympathetic smile.

Then she got a quizzical look in her eye, “Why didn't you use the metal arm?”

“Well, I don't always think of it immediately. I'm right-handed,” he chuckled, adjusting the ice pack over the back of his hand.

“Makes sense,” she murmured, leaning her head onto his shoulder. She was completely drained, no longer able to process the anxious thoughts that tried to seep into her psyche. She could deal with those tomorrow. For now all she wanted was to curl up in Bucky’s bed, his arms wrapped around her, and Alpine at their feet.

Seemingly able to read her mind, Bucky turned to Y/N—still resting on him—and pressed a kiss into the side of her forehead. “Let’s go to bed,” he whispered. She nodded and forced herself to get up, then helped him do the same when he reached out his metal hand. The two worked through their respective bedtime routines within minutes, both eager to be in each other’s arms.

Y/N’s back was pressed against Bucky’s chest, his prosthetic draped around her waist, his hand clasped in hers. “Sweet dreams, sweetheart. Wake me up if you need anything, ok?” Y/N hummed in response, the pull of sleep already sending her adrift. He kissed the back of her head and then closed his eyes to join her.

Daylight was barely breaking when Y/N roused. As consciousness came, it brought the full weight of the previous night's events crashing down on her. The brain was a muscle, and Y/N’s had been easily reminded of the three years Brock had invested in her emotional conditioning. Her thoughts spiraled and she unraveled as Bucky slept peacefully next to her.

This is too much. Too much drama. There’s no way he signed up for this. He’s just taking care of me because he’s a social worker and that’s what he does. He doesn’t know how to tell me this is too much. Fuck, this is too much. I don’t deserve him. I don’t deserve this. It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have filed for the restraining order. None of this would have happened if I’d just kept to myself. If I’d just walked away and let it all go. I should never have gotten Bucky involved in this. He doesn’t deserve this. He deserves better. Fuck, I’m such an idiot. How could I do this to him. He’s so sweet and I’m just a fucking mess. Fuck.

With the stealth of a wild feline, Y/N maneuvered her body away from Bucky and out of the bed. He stirred slightly when Alpine lazily sauntered up to take Y/N’s warmed spot next to her owner, but the man remained asleep. Y/N let out a silent sigh of relief as she gathered her clothes and left the bedroom. She got dressed in the living room as tears streaked her cheeks. Then grabbing a scrap piece of paper, she left the note on the counter before she exited the apartment.

When Bucky awoke to Alpine instead of Y/N curled up against him, a flutter of panic spread through his chest. He quelled it quickly with a few long breaths, assuring himself she was just on the couch with coffee already made. Pulling on a sweatshirt and pajama bottoms, he exited the bedroom to an empty apartment. Dread returned, this time in a wave that threatened to replace all of the air in his lungs with a suffocating void as he read her note on the counter.

You shouldn’t have to deal with this. You deserve better.

Thank you for everything.

I’m sorry.

-Y/N

Next chapter | Series Masterlist

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky x female reader #james bucky barnes #bucky angst #bucky fluff #james buchanan barnes #bucky x y/n #bucky fanfic #marvel au #soft bucky #feminist bucky #bucky au #bucky and reader #wanda maximoff #sam wilson #brock rumlow

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leviackermansbrat · 3 years ago

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Til Death Do us Part - Prologue

Maki x Fem! Reader Series Masterlist

Synopsis: After a trip to Megumi's Elementary school, Gojo senses an immense amount of cursed energy. What he didn't expect however, was for it to come from an innocent six year old girl.

Prologue

"Nothing lasts forever"

Gojo Satoru strolled through parking lot of Tohoku Primary School in search of a dark-haired young boy whom he was assigned to relocate along with his older sister. They were to be shipped off to the Zenin clan, but the higher ups at Jujutsu tech had something else in store for the pair, specifically Megumi. It was decided that when he turned of age that he would enroll in Jujutsu Tech Academy to train in order to become a great sorcerer.

As Gojo neared the building, he sensed a strong level of cursed energy. It seemed to be a grade 3- no, a grade 2 curse. Now on high alert, Gojo casually walked up to the children pickup area to see Megumi and one other young girl. He wasn't the best at parenting, so obviously Gojo mistook the time to pick Megumi up to be two hours after the original pickup time. If Nanami heard of this he would surely scold Gojo, so he decided to keep it to himself.

"Gojo-sensei, what are you doing here? And why are you so late?" a young Fushiguro inquired. Gojo sheepishly shrugged and smile, making sure to keep his guard up.

"That's no concern of yours, why don't you come over here so we can have a little chat?" Gojo asked, motioning for Megumi to come over to him.

Megumi grumbled but complied, already tired of the eccentric man's energy. Once Megumi neared Gojo, he pulled him aside and discreetly pointed at the small girl sitting on the bench drawing in her notebook.

"What's her name?" Gojo whispered into Megumi's ear.

The student in question was Megumi's best friend, a girl with h/l h/c hair and smooth s/c skin. She was perched on a bench, drawing in a notepad presumably waiting for her parents who, like Gojo were irresponsible enough to leave their child in a primary school lobby for two hours after the last school bell rang.

At first, Megumi was suspicious but he chalked it up to Gojo just being Gojo, so without any complaints, he told Gojo the girl's name.

"She's Y/n L/n and a friend of mine. Don't be a weirdo about it," Megumi stated, making Gojo deflate.

He didn't dwell on Megumi's comment and instead Gojo narrowed his eyes at the little girl, feeling the cursed energy pour out of her without even the slightest attempt to mask it. He would have to exorcise the curse inside of her, but it seemed to have a certain familiarity about it.

Deciding to do things his own way, Gojo smiles and walks up to the girl.

"Hi Y/n-chan! Sorry I'm so late but Fushiguro-kun's parents asked me to bring you back to his house because your parents are away at the moment. My name is Gojo and I'm Megumi's older brother!" Gojo chirped.

Megumi was getting tired of Gojo's stunts, wondering what he wanted with his friend anyways.

"Do you really think she's going to fall for that? You look like a creepy guy with a white van trying to lure kids in with candy," Megumi remarked.

Gojo instantly burst into tears and pulled Megumi into a hug, ruffling his hair the way he hates it.

"Fushiguro-kun you first graders are so brutal! I can't believe you would say such a thing," Gojo wailed, making Megumi scowl.

He pushed himself away from Gojo and looked at Y/n expecting her to instantly see that it was all a ruse and that the blindfolded white-haired man could not be trusted under any circumstance.

Y/n looked between the two for a second, Gojo with an overly forced smile and Megumi with a look of disdain on his face, and then smiled to herself.

"Okay!" Y/n exclaims, knowing that she could trust her friend Megumi.

Just as Megumi is about to say something to deter Y/n from tagging along, Gojo cover's Megumi's mouth and pushes him out the door, Y/n tagging along behind them.

As they pile into the car, Gojo quickly locks the doors and begins driving to Jujutsu Tech. There was no need to pick up Megumi's sister, as she has already been relocated to her new primary school. Time passes and Y/n talks to Megumi until she grows tired.

After Y/n falls asleep, Megumi becomes more anxious by the minute. He wonders why Gojo looked so concerned when he spotted her, but tried to play it off. He wondered why he was lying to her. He wondered what Gojo planned to do with her. But Megumi's parents trusted Gojo, so he didn't delve too deep into his anxiety. The only thing actively bothering him was how Y/n's parents were going to feel after going to pick up their daughter and realizing she's not there and was taken by some strange man.

"What are you going to do with her?" Megumi asks, finally building up the courage to do so.

Gojo looks in the rearview mirror at the sleeping girl and sighs.

"This girl is a special case. A miracle, even. At first, I recognized the cursed energy that surrounded her as something familiar and powerful, but it's more than that. If I'm correct, this girl is the vessel to a sealed Reina, former queen of the curses," Gojo answered.

Megumi only knew a few things about curses and sorcerers, so he wasn't too sure what everything meant, but he knew for a fact that it couldn't be good. Was he could to lose his first and only friend?

The thought terrified Megumi, but instead of speaking up he stayed quiet as Gojo drove far away from the lives they once knew.

"Megumi, one thing you will learn in life, is that absolutely nothing lasts forever. Why? Because humans are greedy, and everybody wants to rule the world."

A/N

So I know it's off to a slow start, but the time skip is the next chapter and we get to meet the second years! Of course there will be flashbacks and stuff, but for now Y/n's past will remain a mystery. Comment pls! It keeps me motivated to write!

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marvelsdc22 · 4 years ago

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Welcome To Wonderland

Intro: Hello, lovelies!! I hope you guys are having a good day/night!! This idea came up while I was listening to this song and wouldn’t go away till I wrote it!! Hope you guys enjoy!!

Note: Hades!reader x Persephone!Natasha. For the past three years, you and Natasha had not been on the best of terms, what else would you expect when you force someone to stay somewhere they don’t want to be? After a certain encounter, will Natasha see you in a new light?

Word Count: 1943

Being the god(dess) of the Underworld, you saw a lot of people enter, people who cry about ending up here, thinking that there was only one part to it, not the vast world that it really was, you saw people who killed others, people who lived calm and quiet lives, people who saved others, and it was up to you to decide where they all went, it was a stressful job really, but you had no choice in the matter.

Just like Natasha had no choice but to stay down here with you until spring time, she despised you, no matter how much you tried to make her comfortable and happy down here, this will be her third year being down here with you and she never went a day without reminding you how much she hated it here “Can spring come any faster?” She asked as she walked into your study, you sitting in your lounge chair and reading a book, you looking over and watching as she took a seat at your desk.

“I can’t make time go faster, Natasha” you said with a sigh, marking your book before closing it and sitting up, swinging your legs over the side and leaning forward against your legs, your white button-ups sleeves rolled up over your elbows, your blue vest holding your tie securely against your chest, your black pants clean and wrinkle free with a belt securing them over your hips, you black shoes shined to the point you could see your reflection in them, your hair falling from the ponytail you had it in, some only being kept back by your horns while the rest fell into your face.

Natasha glared at you and opened her mouth to say something when Steve walked in, him being in charge of the front gate “Y/N, we need you up front” he said, looking at you and you raised an eyebrow as you stood up, brushing the imaginary dust off your pants “I’ll be there shortly” you told him, watching as he nodded before heading out then looking at Natasha, who stood from her chair, brushing down her long red dress, you catching a glimpse of the red heels she was wearing and her red hair up in an elegant bun “You’re coming with?” You asked, a little shocked since she had never come up to the gate with you before “It’s better than being stuck here” she said sharply, heading out of the room and you sighed before you followed her.

The walk to the gate was tense and quiet, you glanced at Natasha who was walking beside you, her not even sparing a glance at you which hurt, sure you kind of forced her into this and you honestly felt bad for it, but you had fallen for her, despite her anger and you just wanted to make her feel welcome and happy, but it seemed all you got was anger and resentment from her “What’s the situation?” You asked, looking at Clint who helped Steve up front, patting Cerberus as you walked up and looking over where Clint was pointing.

Looking at what he was pointing to broke your heart “How old?” You asked, knowing the child couldn’t be older than six or seven “Five years old… Cancer” Clint said solemnly, looking at the child then you and you nodded, glancing at Natasha who looked sadly at the child before she looked at you, wondering what you would do “I’ll talk to him” you said, giving Clint a smile before squeezing Natasha’s arm which she allowed before going over to the small boy.

Welcome to Wonderland, we've got it all

Potions and pastries that make you grow tall

Forests and cottages, castles and cards that can talk

You kneeled down in front of the child and offer him a smile “Hey there” you said, watching as he looked at you, fear and confusion obvious in his expression as he clutched the small teddy bear in his arms, tears streaming down his face “My name’s Y/N, what’s yours?” You asked softly, feeling Natasha’s eyes on you as you listened to the boy “Jason… Where am I?” He asked softly, looking at you with wide, tearful eyes “Well Jason… You’re in wonderland” you said, knowing it was a lie but you couldn’t exactly tell a kid that they were in the Underworld.

The two of you talked for a moment, you asking him what all he enjoyed doing and what his bears name was when you realized he was staring at something over your shoulder, you turning and seeing his eyes set on Cerberus, which made you smile just a little bit more “Would you like to meet him? I promise he’s nice” you said, offering your arms out to the boy and waiting for him to get a secure grip around your neck before you stood up, holding him securely to you as you headed over to Cerberus.

Welcome to Wonderland, look where you're at

Maddest of hatters, the Cheshire Cat

Magical cabins and lovely white rabbits with clocks

Dancing through a dream underneath the stars

Laughing 'til the morning comes

Everyone that leaves has a heavy heart

Oh, Wonderland I love

Once you got up to Cerberus, you watched as Jason reached up and all three heads bent down, wanting his attention “Easy, one at a time!” You laughed, watching as Jason grinned and squealed as the three heads fought for his attention, licking his hand as they traded off and you smiling as he had his fill of dog love “Shall I give you a tour?” You asked, looking at him and watching as he pouted “You can see Cerberus whenever you’d like” you promised, making a mental note to let Tony, who was in charge of Elysium, know that the young boy could go see Cerberus with Thor as his guide, knowing Thor would take good care of him.

“Come on, I think you’ll like this next place” you promised, turning and heading into the gate, Natasha watching as you passed her, smiling slightly at you since she had never seen this side of you, you had always been rude and mean or uncaring, but this side of you? This side of you she loved and she wanted to see this side of you more, following you closely as you headed for Elysium, stopping every so often to point out some big part of the world.

Stopping at the River of Styx, you gave Wanda a small wave, her being in charge of getting places where they needed to go on a boat “This lovely lady will be taking us to our final stop” you said, setting the boy down and laughing as he gripped your horns, letting him do so for a moment before you kneeled down in front of him “Would you like your own set?” You asked him, giving him a smile and laughing when he nodded his head enthusiastically before you pointed at his head, muttering something under your breath before a small pair of horns appeared on his head “There you go, now let's get on, shall we?” You asked, helping him first before you offered your hand to Natasha, her taking it as you helped her up into the boat with a small wink.

Welcome to Wonderland, I'll be your guide

Holding your hand under sapphire skies

Let's go exploring or we could just go for a walk

Once you got to Elysium, you hopped out of the boat first before helping everyone else off, taking Jason’s hand as you led him up to the gates “And this is our last stop” you told him, watching as he stared at the place in awe before he felt you stop, causing him to turn around and look at you with a small pout “Hey, I’ll be back” you promised him, kneeling down in front of him “Tony here will take good care of you here” you said, gesturing to Tony who gave the kid a small smile and a wave.

“Promise you’ll come see me?” Jason asked and you smiled, reaching out and patting his head gently “Of course” you said, giving him a smile and then laughing some when he rushed forward and crushed you in a hug “I’ll see you soon, Jason” you promised, wrapping your arms around him and giving him a small squeeze before you released him, watching as he went over to Tony, who took his hand and led him through the gate, turning and looking at Natasha “We should head back” you said, walking with her back to the boat.

Welcome to Wonderland, where should we go

There's a tea party along down the road

Make an appearance and maybe they'll sing us a song

Dancing through a dream underneath the stars

Laughing 'til the morning comes

Everyone that leaves has a heavy heart

Oh, Wonderland I love

Once you guys got back to your palace, you headed for your study, hearing Natasha’s heels clicking on the floor behind you and turning to look at her after you got into the study “Did you need something?” You asked, looking at her and slipping your hands into your pockets, watching as she tried to form words “How often does that happen?” She finally asked, watching as you sighed and looked down at your feet “More often than I like” you said, looking back at her “Usually it’s not by this… Too many times has it been worse circumstances” you said, leaving that to her imagination since some were too terrible to talk about.

You watched as she shifted from foot to foot, waiting for her to say something and when she didn’t, you scoffed “Was there anything else you needed or-” you said, getting cut off when she rushed forward and kissed you, your hands staying in your pockets for a moment before you pulled them out, placing one hand on her waist while the other cupped the side of her face, green meeting Y/E/C when she pulled back to look at you “What you did-” “Was my job” you said, trying to just cover up the fact that she saw your soft side “No, it was more than that and you know it” she said, resting her hands on your biceps as she stared at you.

Nothing around here is quite as it seems

Not sure if anything's real or a dream

And the only thing sure from the start

Is the song that's inside of your heart

Don't let it leave

If this was a dream, then at least I've got

Memories for when morning comes

Now that I must leave with a heavy heart

Oh, Wonderland I love

A few hours later, the two of you rested under a thin sheet, the windows open even though there was nothing but heat out there, you both didn’t care, Natasha resting her head on your chest while you had one arm wrapped around her “I’m sorry you’re stuck with me” you said softly, your free arm covering your eyes and feeling her shift in your grip before you felt her tugging your arm gently away from your face, looking at you straight in the eye “No, you’re stuck with me” she said, looking at you and you couldn’t help but laugh before you gently grabbed her chin and kissed her “We’re stuck with each other then” you said between kisses, rolling her over onto her back, the two of you taking all the time you need to, you did have until next spring.

Permanent Taglist: @rianncreates / @natasha-danvers / @hopingforbarnes / @xxxtwilightaxelxxx / @venablemayfairgoode / @mmmmokdok

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Endnote: I hope you guys enjoyed!! If you’d like to be added to a Taglist, shoot me a DM or an Ask!! I hope you guys have a good day/night!! :)

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