#i had them on and was hit with thoughts of The Character

[pomefioredove]

Hello! I hope you feel better soon :) remember to drink lots of water!!

Could I request a one-shot with Idia, where reader brings him a meal they cooked themselves since he hasn't had much to eat in the past few days? (Sorry if this is too vague I've just been having thoughts of taking care of Idia)

no this is perfect! <3 actually just what I needed to write rn

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ you have that effect on him

type of post: fic characters: idia additional info: romantic or platonic, reader is gender neutral, reader is yuu, food, mentions of eating and not eating, depression👍, actually cute, reader is not there much sorry,,,

One breath in. One breath out.

Idia has been counting the snicks and scorches on the ceiling all weekend.

They're mostly his. Haywire robots and Ortho mishaps, which he always takes the blame for. One dark smudge is from his shoe, when there was a bug on the ceiling and his brother was out of the room.

Each like a star in his own sky, memories of the days he could get out of bed.

This is not one of them.

Nor was yesterday. Or the day before that.

Just one of those weeks.

One breath in, one breath out. Idia feels painfully aware of the rise and fall of his chest.

He'd sent Ortho on some pointless sidequest for the day. He needed to be alone- well, not really. He just didn't want his brother to worry about him.

He gives up sleep, and lies on his side instead, opening his phone to doomscroll again. The harsh blue light makes his eyes water in the dark of his room.

It feels like he's been locked in an unskippable cutscene all week.

What would you think of him if you could see him now?

He doesn't want to picture it. Idia feels pathetic enough as a cringey, awkward, social reject, even if you like him that way.

There's no going up. When he hits rock bottom, he starts digging.

Knock.

Idia cringes at the sound. He was hoping to be asleep before Ortho came back.

Knock, knock.

"Come in,"

But he doesn't. Idia finally looks up, at the door. Ortho will give the compulsory three knocks, then wait for a verbal command, and then come in. He was programmed that way. He usually talks, too.

But, nothing.

Not Ortho, then.

Idia cozies himself back up in bed, dressing himself in blankets as if they were... well, a shroud.

Another hour goes by. At nine PM sharp, Ortho's melodious knocks, his happy chiming, and the light from the hall follow.

"Find that thing?" Idia asks. He can't even remember what he asked Ortho to get.

"Yep! And guess what! You have a present!"

Psh. Wut? Idia looks up from his phone.

Ortho hovers to the edge of the bed and hands Idia something lukewarm, in a covered glass dish.

"Whatsit?"

His brother giggles. "Can't you guess? You don't even need a scanner for it!"

Idia can't help but crack a smile at that, and he slowly sits up. He peels off the lid of the dish. It's soup.

"Did you make this?" he asks, inspecting the lukewarm dish.

Ortho gives a negative chime. "It was by your door when I returned. Would you like me to heat it up for you?"

"Uh..." Idia hums. "...Yeah. That'd be good."

Within a few minutes, it's back in his lap, hot again. Idia cautiously takes a bite. It's rich, filling, and good, clearly homemade. Not some cheap junk out of a can. One spoonful is more filling than any of the garbage he'd eaten in the past week.

"Your hormonal levels and body language indicate that it's satisfactory. Do you know who left it?" Ortho asks.

Idia shrugs. "Someone came by earlier, but I didn't get the door. Who'd leave me a home cooked meal, anyway?"

He eats some more. It's hard not to enjoy himself, if only a little.

"Well..." Ortho says. "...I may have mentioned to the Prefect that you've been unwell."

Idia almost does a spit-take. "WHAT?! WHA- WH?! This is- th-"

"Calm, Idy! I just said you weren't feeling well! They must have thought you were sick!"

He almost collapses on his bed. His hands are shaking. How humiliating. And he already looked lame enough as it was.

One breath in, one breath out.

"They came all the way out here..." he mutters, stirring the soup around the dish.

"They must really care about you, Idy!"

Idia's face goes bright red. "Don't say it like that..." he mumbles.

But he'd be lying if he wasn't secretly hoping that was true. The thought of you having made something like this just because he felt bad... well... it's a nice one.

You care.

Idia makes a mental note to send you a DM later. As thanks. And to ask if you have any soup left. It's pretty good...

Maybe the promise of you coming over will motivate him to get out of bed.

You have that effect on him.

[maybanksmusings]

THE WALLS ; JJ MAYBANK

SYNOPSIS ; when an unknown face appears in the outer banks searching for a father she's never met, she's unaware of how her life is about to be completely turned upside down.

WARNINGS ; jjmaybank x routledge!oc, strong language, depictions of violence, afab!reader, sexual content, mentions of abuse, drug and alcohol consumption, strangers to lovers, fast burn to slow burn, canon adjacent, not proofread.

AUTHORS NOTE ; changes are being made! see this post to learn more. to me, this part seems a little like a filler, but i want to explore veronica as a character and develop each relationship with each character as something more than a side character, not just honing in on her relationship with jj, which of course is a huge part of the story also.

part one. part two. part three.

when veronica begins to stir, the sun had long set. there was no way of knowing how long the pair had been asleep, all she knew was the lights of the chateau were off and there was a bright pink post it note stuck to jj’s head.

‘gone fishin’. jb pissed.’

pope signed off on the note, a small smiley face drawn inside the o of his name. veronica knew the pouges hadn’t actually gone fishing, that is was some sort of code jj would decipher when he came to.

in this moment, veronica was content. wrapped in the arms of the most beautiful person she’d ever seen.

what could only be described as a war was ongoing in her head. she wasn’t exactly one to believe in love at first sight, she thought this entire ‘spark’ thing was something made up by male authors to keep women reading their shitty romance books to keep them hooked, waiting for it to happen to them.

but then she met jj, and he was like a magnet. every time veronica was in his presence she was mesmerised, whenever he was gone she felt like all the colour was drained from the world.

there was only two problems.

there was a maximum of forty eight hours that they knew each other, add to that he was her brothers best friend, then add to that said brother made it crystal clear that inter-group dating was not allowed.

oh, and then the whole ‘nobody knows i’m his sister but us’ thing.

“you’re staring, baby” jj mumbled, his voice low and tired as he stirred beneath her “can’t say i blame you”

with a sarcastic scoff, veronica sits upright in the hammock, her legs laid out across the blonds lap “just admiring the drool on your face”

“aren’t you funny.”

comfortable silence follows, jj crosses his arms behind his head and blinks the sleep out of his eyes. even though she was staring off into the water, veronica could feel jj’s eyes on her.

“can i help you?” veronica quipped, a teasing lilt to her words as she face the boy in question “use your words, you’ll get there.”

unexpectedly, jj sighs and lets his head fall back “what am i doing?”

veronica knows he didn’t intent for her to hear him, but she did. she would be lying if she said she wasn’t disappointed, but she was even more disappointed in herself at the pang of sadness that hit her.

before she can say, or do, anything, jj is sat up a little straighter and speaking again.

“listen, you’re a really cool girl,” he pauses, shaking his head and starting again “you’re hot as shit, damn it!”

barely, veronica manages to mask her giggle with a cough.

“don’t ask me how or why, but i gotta tell you i’m super into you.” he blurts out “yeah, makes no fuckin’ sense, we barely know each other, no pouge on pouge macking, you ain’t feeling me like that-“

her body is moving before her brain can even comprehend what she’s doing, chipped nail polish framing blond hair as she held his face in her hands and pressed their lips together.

then, her brain kicks in, and veronica jumps back like she’d just been burnt.

“fuck, jay i’m so sorry. i wasn’t thinking,”

seconds pass agonisingly slow and veronica can’t help but think about just how badly she had just fucked up.

but she doesn’t get to overthink for long.

a calloused hand tangled in long, brown hair. the other gripping her waist like it was a lifeline, helping her into his lap as his tongue makes its way into her mouth.

the kiss is messy, it’s desperate. like two people drowning, taking in the other like they were air. hands cling to whatever they can, afraid if they let go it would all be over.

any reservations veronica may have had about ‘the spark’ were discarded, undermined even, this wasn’t a spark, it was fireworks.

but fireworks don’t last forever, and when the sound of john b’s rickety van can be heard drawing closer. the newfound excitement being dulled by the shadow known as a protective older brother, a protective best friend.

by the time the missing pouges pour out of the twinkie, veronica and jj are in much less compromising positions, now sitting beside each other trading menial conversation about the earlier events of the day.

“welcome back to the land of the living,” kiara teases, a yellow vape coming up to her mouth as she took a hit “you two were out cold.”

instinctively, veronica’s hand shot out, wordlessly pleading for a hit of her vape. with a groan, kie handed it over.

veronica lets her head fall back against the hard oak of the tree behind her, relishing the feeling of her first hit of nicotine in two days. she had a vape when she left home, but it died before she even made it to the outer banks and being broke meant she couldn’t even go buy a replacement.

“you could’ve woke us up, y’know” jj defended, trying his hardest to act as if nothing happened, reminding himself to stop staring.

pope scoffs, not missing the longing stares sent the brunettes direction but purposefully ignoring them “we tried, it nearly cost us our lives.”

unamused, john b walks past the rest of the group in silence. when he gets to the door of the chateau he looks over his shoulder and nods for veronica to follow.

the girl is suddenly more attentive, climbing over the human embodiment of a golden retriever and padding her way into the house behind the older of the two.

“does the name redfield mean anything to you?” john b questions, passing a beer from the fridge and getting one for himself “like, the surname.”

veronica is quiet, her finger tracing the rim of the can as she goes through every crevice of her brain in search of any name even remotely close, there’s only one.

“chris redfield.” she answers with a nod, popping the tab of the can and taking a swig “but i don’t get how he’s involved.”

“why not? who is he!?”

“a video game character.”

with a huff of annoyance john b drags a chair across the kitchen to sit beside veronica, unscrewing his compass and placing it down on the table. the name ‘redfield’ is carved into the metal.

“we went back to the boat, found a motel key, whatever.” john b shrugs off the rest of their findings, more invested in whoever this redfield person was. “then i remembered when you showed me that note, the one in the compass. then i found this, figured you would know more than i do.”

veronica gently traced the carved metal, it was definitely their fathers scrawl, she’d memorised it from the note she read over and over and over.

it couldn’t be a coincidence, her fathers note asking her to meet, the matching compasses. now this?

“if i’m going to help you, i need to know..” she trailed off, biting at the edges of her nails as she wondered how to phrase her next question “does this have anything to do with dad dying?”

“he’s not dead.” john b’s voice is louder, stern. then his face softens and he tears his gaze away from the compass and to the floor “sorry, just, i know he’s out there. and this? this is proof.”

“john b, i get it.” the younger routledge speaks slowly, trying not to tread on any toes “you’re not the only one who wants him to be alive, that needs to see him. but i don’t see how this—”

“dad found the royal merchant. four hundred million dollars in gold, and he found it. he’s trying to tell us where to find it.”

veronica sighs, fingers rubbing at her tired eyes as she once again tried to think of any connection to any redfield. when it came to family, she only knew the bare minimum, her fathers name and her mothers maiden name.

what she did know, however, was the royal merchant. as a child her father sent her maps and books on birthdays and christmases without fail, until one day they stopped.

“you’ve got books and stuff, right?” she finally asked, not wanting to get either her or john b’s hopes up. a nagging feeling was telling her their dad was alive, but she knew he wouldn’t just up and abandon his son.

the walls of her fathers study feel like they’re closing in on her, john b let her inside and left her to it. veronicas hand ghosts over the framed maps and dusty books. blueprints of ships with her fathers messy scrawl written randomly around the paper.

there’s pictures of john b littered all over the office, all different life stages, a few feature jj and veronica can’t help but smile at the photo of two little boys holding a fish between them.

on the desk there’s a picture frame, immediately veronica recognises her mother, years younger and a gentle hand placed on her tummy. in the same frame, there’s an ultrasound that veronica almost bypassed as john b, but when she looked at the date it was a long time after he was born.

it was her ultrasound.

it was her in her moms tummy, framed and proudly placed right on her fathers desk.

everything comes back at once. finding the note, and in turn the years worth of letters her mother had hidden from her. the dateline special with john b pleading for information about his father, their father. the fight with her mother, packing a bag in the middle of the night and making her way to the address stored safely inside her compass.

the tears don’t register until they hit the glass of the frame, the last few weeks of pent up anger, sadness and hurt bubbling over from the flame that single photo sparked.

her dad loved her.

for years she’d heard about her absent father, then the absent father that passed when she was a baby. the father who didn’t want the responsibility of a child and ran away once he found out.

but the letters, the compass, this picture? john routledge loved the daughter he was forbidden from seeing, from the second he knew about her he loved her.

and now he was dead.

a sudden wave of anger rushes from her head to her toes, glass shattering when she throws the dusty old frame against the wall with a scream. papers fly and maps fall from the walls as she turns her fathers office into her own personal rage room.

the racket coming from the small room shakes the chateau, so it’s no surprise when the pouges come crashing through the door.

the pouges eyes briefly flash with fear when their eyes land on the destruction caused by the newest arrival, but it’s quickly replaced by a familiar sadness when veronica crumples to the ground, screaming as loud as her lungs would allow for them to get out.

they don’t know what’s wrong, but it doesn’t matter. veronica was now considered a friend, and they gathered that’s what she needed right about now.

jj is the first to enter, drawing closer slowly as if he were being cautious “it’s okay, ronnie.” he mutters softly, dodging shattered glass as he knelt beside her “we’re here, we got you.”

kiara, john b and pope are close behind, wrapping veronica in what could only be described as a group hug until her tears subsided.

taglist!

@ren-ni @marleymarleymarleymarley @miidollaasignnn @rainingcecilias @tanyaherondale @xspideyhollandx @sluterainterlude @loverofmarsss @xoxo-ada @gigistalked @genderlessmenance

[buckets-and-trees]

Red, White & True: Athens to Miami [6/?]

Characters/Pairings: Steve Rogers x curvy Millennial Female!Reader, Bucky Barnes Word Count: 7.5k Summary: How will finding out about Jeff affect your marriage? The situation also brings you both to consider how long you can keep going on playing Mr. and Mrs. Rogers to the public. Steve also questions whether upcoming campaign plans will help or hurt.

Content/Warnings: marriage of political convenience, slow burn

Notes: I left you with a bombshell at the end of the last chapter, but FEAR NOT because I drop you in immediately where we left off. This takes place in a post-Endgame scenario where Steve stays and generally most of TFATWS happened.

Previous Chapter | Series ↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

PREVIOUSLY... You take a steadying breath, then look up at Steve and say, “Jeff Connor is my former husband.”

[SEPTEMBER 28 - AFTERNOON CAMPAIGN FLIGHT FROM ATHENS TO MIAMI]

Some eyes had been on you, but now all of the staff turn to look at Steve to gage his reaction to this statement. His mouth is slightly open, a storm in his blue eyes, but he doesn’t say anything.

You consider him for another moment, then pull out your phone, scroll to Jeff’s name in your contacts, and hit the call button. As the call starts to connect, Bucky leans over to whisper something in Steve’s ear. Steve frowns and shakes his head. Bucky shares a glare with him, then gets up and leaves the staff cabin.

As your call rings through to Jeff, you also stand, but you leave the staff cabin in the other direction, passing through to the private area that only you and Steve have total access to - anyone else needing to knock or be invited in.

You’re about to close the door when Steve catches it and follows in behind you.

You two exchange a look, both of you evidently trying to give nothing away about what just happened, and then you turn away to look out the window just as Jeff picks up on the other end of the line, answering with your name in an urgent and concerned tone.

"Hey, Jeff," you respond, keeping your voice neutral despite the tension you feel. You can feel Steve's presence behind you, a silent but palpable force in the small cabin.

"I'm so sorry," Jeff's voice comes through the phone, sounding genuinely distressed. "I didn't mean for any of this to get into the press. I swear I had no idea."

You take a deep breath, willing yourself to stay calm. "What happened, Jeff?"

There's a sigh on the other end of the line. "I was at a barbecue at Mark and Sarah's last night. You remember them, right? From our old neighborhood?"

"Yeah, I remember," you say, a flood of memories from your previous life washing over you.

“I hadn’t heard from them in a couple of years, but they reached out, and I thought it would be nice to reconnect. Started talking to a new guy, I’d never met him before, figured it was one of their neighbors. He seemed nice enough, we got to talking about work, hobbies, life. I had no idea he was from TMZ and definitely didn’t know he was recording our conversation,” anger bleeds through the tail end of his explanation.

You sigh. You have no reason to doubt his story. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? No, I’m sorry! I was stupid saying anything to a stranger, and more stupid for even going to the party at all.”

“What? No, Jeff, I’m sorry because a choice I made is impacting your life. It’s not fair that you’re getting targeted by press, especially tabloids.”

Jeff is silent for a beat, and then he says. “He paid Mark and Sarah to get access to me.”

Your heart feels sick. “How did you-?”

“Lawyers from your campaign called me an hour and a half ago when TMZ put it up online to question me, they called back twenty minutes later with confirmation of the money trail.”

“I’m sorry,” you say again - because you are, and because you don’t know what else to say.

Jeff sighs heavily on the other end of the line. "Stop apologizing," he says, his voice soft but serious in his directive. "This isn't your fault."

You lean against the window, watching the clouds drift by below, a stark contrast to the turmoil you feel inside. "But it kind of is, Jeff. The press is only interested in you because we were married."

"That doesn't make it your fault," he insists. "The fact that some tabloid vultures want to profit off our past relationship isn't on you."

There's a moment of silence on the line, filled only by the faint hum of the plane's engines. You can feel Steve's presence behind you, a silent sentinel.

"You okay?" you ask finally.

"I'm... I'm mad. And disappointed - in myself and in them. I feel like an idiot. I should’ve known it was a weird time for them to reach out after not seeing them for so long."

"Jeff, you couldn't have known that. You assumed good intentions. It’s part of what makes you who you are.”

The words came so easily out of your mouth, but once they’ve been said, your chest aches, and part of you wishes you could take them back.

You don’t know what he’s thinking on the other end, but you know it can’t be easy for him either, because he only manages a small, “Thanks,” and then there’s another pregnant pause between you.

Jeff clears his throat, breaking the silence. "Did I mess anything up for the campaign? I know how important this is, and I'd hate to think I've caused any problems."

You shake your head, even though he can't see you. "No, Jeff. If anything, your comments were probably the best-case scenario. You were kind and respectful. It's hard for anyone to spin that negatively.”

There's a soft chuckle on the other end of the line. "Well, I guess all those years of you drilling the importance of tact into me finally paid off, huh?"

You can't help but smile. "You never needed me for that."

"You know," Jeff says, his voice taking on a thoughtful tone, "it's kind of amazing to see you in action like this. I mean, I always knew you were capable of great things, but if this works out, I can’t wait to see what you do in action as First Lady.”

“Thanks, Jeff,” you reply, a lump rising in your throat. “Listen, I better go.”

“Yeah, me, too,” he says. “Take care.”

“And you,” you reply. “Bye.”

You hang up the call, and for a moment, you just stand there, staring out the window at the clouds below. The weight of the conversation, of the past and present colliding, settles heavily on your shoulders.

Finally, you turn to face Steve. He's leaning against the cabin wall, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression unreadable. The silence between you is thick with unspoken questions and emotions.

“You heard all of that, right?” you ask, knowing some of his senses are enhanced through the super soldier serum that changed his body eighty years ago.

He nods.

You sigh and take a seat on the arm rest of one of the chairs, no longer wanting to stand, but not wanting to be fully seated while he’s still standing. “I thought you knew about Jeff. It’s in my file.”

One of the first things meetings for you joining the campaign had been to sit down with Jake, the head of the campaign, Elsa the communications director, and your assistant Sophia, to review the opposition research file that had been compiled for you - everything that an opponent could potentially try to dig up from your past and attempt to attack you or the campaign with. Your marriage to Jeff had been part of that.

Steve's jaw clenches, and he looks away for a moment before meeting your eyes again. "I... I never read your file," he admits, his voice low and tinged with regret.

You had suspected as much given how he reacted to learning about Jeff, but the confession still hits you like a wave, leaving you momentarily speechless. A kaleidoscope of emotions swirls within you - surprise, confusion, a hint of hurt, and something else you can't quite name. The plane's engines hum in the background, filling the silence between you.

You study Steve's face, taking in the furrowed brow, the slight downturn of his lips. His blue eyes, usually so clear and determined, now hold a mix of guilt and uncertainty. It's a vulnerability you've rarely seen in him, and it catches you off guard.

"You never read it?" you question, your voice barely above a whisper. The implications of his admission begin to unfold in your mind, and it feels like pulling on a thread, unravelling a piece of what you thought had developed between you.”Why?”

"I trusted Pepper," he says softly.

The cabin suddenly feels smaller, the air thick with unspoken words and emotions. You open your mouth to respond, but before you can, there's a sharp knock on the cabin door.

“Come in,” Steve calls out.

The door swings open, revealing Bucky. His expression is a mix of concern and frustration as he strides into the cabin, a thick manila folder clutched in his metal hand. The soft whirring of the arm's plates adjusting is audible in the tense silence.

"You're an idiot, you know that?" Bucky says, his voice a low growl as he thrusts the folder at Steve. "I can't believe you never read this."

Steve takes the folder, his fingers curling around the edges. The weight of it seems to surprise him, and he glances down at it with a furrowed brow. "Buck, I-"

"Save it," Bucky cuts him off, running a hand through his long hair in exasperation and then turning to address you. "I just found out before you made your call that this punk never bothered to look at your file. I’m sorry, I didn’t raise him to be so inconsiderate.”

Steve scoffs, “Raise me? You’re only one year older than me!”

In other circumstances, you would laugh at this exchange, but in this moment you can’t, your mind absorbing each new and shifting moment.

Bucky rounds back on his best friend. “I read it, Steve. I read every damn page because I wanted to make sure you weren't getting played or walking into a situation you’d regret. But you? You just went along with it, no questions asked?"

Steve's jaw clenches, his grip on the folder tightening. "I trusted Pepper's judgment. She wouldn't put someone in this position if she didn't think they were right for it."

"Right for what?" Bucky challenges. "The campaign? Or you?"

The question hangs in the air, heavy with implication. You feel your heart rate quicken, very aware of your presence in this conversation about you.

Steve's eyes flick to you for a moment before returning to Bucky. "Both," he says quietly.

Bucky shakes his head, looks at you and gives barely a quarter of a smile - seemingly all he can manage, and then leaves the two of you alone again.

Steve's eyes meet yours, a mix of emotions swirling in their blue depths. "I trusted Pepper," he says softly, his voice tinged with a hint of regret. "When she told me about you, about this arrangement, I didn't want to reduce you to a file full of facts and figures. I wanted to get to know you as a person, not as a dossier."

He strides further into the cabin and takes a seat across from you. "I thought it would be more... genuine that way. To learn about you through our interactions, through the campaign, through..." he trails off, gesturing vaguely between the two of you.

“It has been. Even if we got a slow start.” Both of you know you had taken turns keeping your guards up at various points over the past four months. You slip down properly into your seat.

“We’ve been talking more with each other, about each other, though, so I have to ask… Is there a reason you’ve never brought up your divorce?”

You clasp your hands in your lap, but you continue to hold his gaze, even though your heart constricts painfully. “Aside from thinking you did know about him, it didn’t naturally come up, and I wasn’t eager to just drop one of the most painful pieces of my past into our conversations because it wasn’t a divorce.”

Steve’s brow furrows even more. It’s no wonder the man has developed so many worry lines.

“I was smitten from the moment I met him, and he loved me back the way you grow up dreaming about your future husband - only it was even better because it was real. Everything about it was so normal and real. We dated, we got married, he finished his residency and joined a good family practice. We bought a house. We stayed up late watching stupid movies or playing games or going to concerts on the weekends or just talking on the weekends. We started talking babies.”

You pause and look away.

“And then?”

You look back to Steve, and, eyes burning with tears you don’t want to cry, you say, “I didn’t exist for five years and he did.”

His face falls immediately.

You press on because this is like pressing on a wound when the skin has healed but the muscles are still sore beneath the surface.

“I reappeared in a house Jeff had sold. He was my first call, of course, and he still had the same number. He picked me upHe’d just been remarried for about a year, and they were four months along expecting their first child.”

You pause, letting the weight of your words settle in the cabin. Steve's face is a mix of shock and sympathy, his blue eyes wide as he processes what you've just revealed.

“It’s something like thirty percent of couples who were married before The Blip who have had to file for this new legal classification to end a marriage. They call it a cessation. An annulment legally voids a marriage as if it never happened, and divorce is too commonly associated with a negative ending, ergo new procedure and new language.”

Steve's face crumples with understanding and sympathy. He leans forward, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped tightly together. "I'm so sorry," he says softly. "I had no idea."

You nod, blinking back tears. "It's okay. I mean, it's not okay, but... it's been a few years now. I've had time to process it."

Steve's eyes search your face. "But it still hurts."

You let out a shaky breath. "It was surreal. Like waking up from a dream, only to find that the nightmare was real. Jeff was devastated too, in his own way. He'd mourned me, moved on, built a new life. And then suddenly I was back, throwing everything into chaos. We both knew we couldn't just pick up where we left off, but it was hard to let go of what we'd had."

Steve nods slowly, his eyes never leaving your face. "I can't even imagine what that must have been like for both of you."

"It was complicated," you say, your voice barely above a whisper. "We tried to be friends at first, but it was too painful. Too many memories, too much history. Eventually, we decided it was best to go our separate ways."

Steve reaches out hesitantly, his hand hovering near yours before he pulls it back. "That must have been incredibly difficult," he says softly.

You nod, swallowing hard. "It was. For a while, I felt like I was just going through the motions. Everything I had known, everything I had planned for my future, was gone in an instant."

"How did you move forward?" Steve asks, his voice gentle.

You take a deep breath. "Slowly. Day by day. I threw myself into work, into causes I cared about. I reconnected with old friends who had also returned, made new ones. And eventually," you pause, meeting Steve's eyes, "I started to feel like myself again.”

Steve nods, his eyes filled with understanding. "It's amazing how resilient we can be," he says softly. "How we can rebuild our lives from the ashes."

You smile faintly. "It's not always easy, but we find a way."

You can see how - though your experiences had been vastly different - you had each had to piece lives back together through loss and being pushed through time in ways you never could have dreamed.

A comfortable silence falls between you, broken only by the steady hum of the plane's engines. Outside the window, the sun is beginning to set, painting the sky in brilliant hues of orange and pink. The clouds below are bathed in golden light, creating an ethereal landscape that seems to stretch on forever.

Steve's gaze follows yours to the window, and for a moment, you both just watch the breathtaking view. When he turns back to you, his expression is thoughtful, almost hesitant.

"Can I ask you something?" he says, his voice low.

You nod, bracing yourself for whatever might come next.

Steve takes a deep breath, his eyes searching yours. "I know this might be presumptuous of me to ask, but you'll always love Jeff, won't you?"

You take in his earnest expression, the way his brow is slightly furrowed with concern. The cabin feels both impossibly small and infinitely vast in this moment, like you're suspended in time and space, just the two of you existing in this bubble of honesty. You consider Steve's question, feeling the weight of your history with Jeff, the joy and the pain, the love and the loss.

"Love is... complicated," you begin, your voice soft but steady. "Jeff was my first real love - the love that weathers storms kind of love. For a long time, he was my whole world. But the world changed. We both changed. And while there will always be a part of me that cares deeply for Jeff, that cherishes the memories we shared and the life we built together, it's more like..." you pause, searching for the right words.

"It's like loving a chapter of a book that's already been written?” Steve offers.

You nod, and your mind clicks, putting together that the two of you share this understanding, too.

You have Jeff and he had Peggy Carter.

“You can look back on it fondly, appreciate the story,” he continues, “but you can never go back.”

"Exactly," you say softly, meeting Steve's gaze. "It's a part of my past that shaped me, but it's not my present or my future."

Steve nods, his blue eyes filled with far too much understanding. "I know that feeling," he says, his voice barely above a whisper.

You both sit in silence for a moment, the weight of shared experiences hanging between you. The fading sunlight casts long shadows across the cabin, painting everything in warm, golden hues.

"Steve," you begin, your heart racing slightly, "I hope you know that despite how this arrangement started, I've come to care about you. Genuinely."

His eyes widen slightly, a mix of surprise and something else—hope, maybe—flickering across his face. "I care about you too," he says, his voice low and earnest, and he looks like he wants to say more, but you cut him off, knowing you need to say what’s been slowly rising to the surface in the back of your mind while the two of you have been alone in here.

“Steve, we have to tell the senior staff of the campaign about our arranged marriage. I don’t know if we go public, but we need to bring them in so it doesn’t get discovered by someone else and revealed in a blindside that no one is ready for. They were already pretty thrown off that you didn’t know about Jeff, and that’s something two people who actually dated - for any amount of time - would have known about each other before tying the knot, and we have got to be kidding ourselves if we think there aren’t other pieces that they think don’t quite fit together.”

Steve leans back fully in his seat and drops his head back, looking at the ceiling. “What, like how we didn’t sit together much before a few weeks ago? Them potentially overhearing any of our conversations where we’re clearly getting to know each other? Or, you know, not sharing a room the nights we stay in the same city and bouncing between the excuses of it being easier so we don’t wake the other one up if one of us has an earlier call time, one of us being too light of a sleeper, or that I don’t sleep as much with being a super soldier and don’t want to keep you up while I take phone calls or strategy meetings?”

You grimace. “Obviously Bucky and Sam know, but the only way the rest of them don’t already know is if they are far too busy doing their jobs from before dawn until after midnight and don’t specifically speak to anyone else on the campaign about the odd things that might raise a flag.”

Steve sighs heavily, running a hand over his beard. "You're right," he admits, his voice tinged with resignation. "We can't keep this up forever. The longer we wait, the worse it could be if it comes out."

You nod, feeling a mixture of relief and apprehension. "So, how do you want to do this? Call a meeting when we land in Miami?"

Steve shakes his head. "No, we need to do it now."

You raise an eyebrow. "Now? As in, on the plane?"

"Why not?" Steve says, a hint of determination creeping into his voice. "We've got the whole senior staff here. It's a controlled environment. No risk of being overheard by the wrong people."

“We should tell Jake first,” you say, standing up and smoothing down your clothes. "As campaign manager, we owe him the courtesy of finding out before the rest of the staff since he is their leader. Then we can work with him to figure out how to tell the rest of the senior staff and map strategy."

Steve nods in agreement, standing up as well. "You're right. Jake should know first." He takes a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. "Ready?"

You give a short nod, your heart racing.

Steve reaches for the cabin door, but pauses with his hand on the handle. He turns back to you, his blue eyes intense. "Whatever happens, we're in this together, okay?"

"Together," you agree softly, though there’s a piece of you that wonders how you ever thought any of this would truly work.

With that, Steve opens the door and you both step out into the main cabin. The staff members look up as you enter, curiosity and concern evident on their faces. You spot Jake near the front, poring over some documents.

"Jake," Steve calls out, his voice steady and authoritative. "We need to speak with you privately.”

Bucky glances glances at you, raising an eyebrow questioningly. You give him a small nod, and he seems to understand, settling back in his seat. Steve is already stepping back into the private cabin, Jake heading toward you, but your gaze lingers on Bucky for another moment. You never thought you would be at a point where Bucky would be supportive of your arranged marriage, let alone getting after Steve and siding with you on how things were between you.

As the three of you enter the private cabin, Jake's eyes flick between you and Steve, his expression carefully neutral. The air feels thick with tension as Steve closes the door behind you, sealing off the curious gazes of the staff outside.

Jake takes a seat, his posture relaxed but attentive. The setting sun casts long shadows across his face, highlighting the lines of experience etched there. You and Steve remain standing, unconsciously positioning yourselves as a united front.

Steve takes a deep breath, his shoulders squaring as if preparing for battle. "Jake, there's something we need to tell you about our relationship," he begins, his voice steady but with an undercurrent of tension. "The story about our whirlwind engagement... it's not entirely accurate."

Jake's expression remains impassive, his eyes moving between you and Steve as he listens.

Steve’s eyes meet your breifly before he continues. "Pepper did set us up, but it wasn't a typical matchmaking situation. It was... an arrangement."

The word hangs in the air, heavy with implication. Jake's expression remains unreadable, his eyes fixed on Steve.

"An arrangement," Steve repeats, his voice low and steady, "specifically designed to provide me with a wife who could potentially serve as First Lady. We met for the first time the day we got married. Everything since then - the public appearances, the interviews, the campaign trail - it's all been part of a carefully constructed narrative."

As Steve speaks, you find yourself transported back to those first awkward days. The stilted conversations, the hesitant touches, the constant awareness of the cameras and the expectations weighing on both of your shoulders.

You watch Jake carefully, searching for any sign of surprise or disappointment, but his years of political experience have clearly honed his ability to maintain a poker face. His fingers are steepled under his chin, his eyes never leaving Steve's face as he absorbs every word.

Steve's voice grows softer as he delves into the more personal aspects of your arrangement - the initial awkwardness, the gradual building of trust, the unexpected bond that has formed between you. You feel a lump forming in your throat as you listen to him describe your journey, realizing just how far you've come.

When Steve finally gets to the end, not going into details, but going right through pieces of the conversation you had about the misunderstanding with Jeff, not reading your dossier, and then talking through it together, both of you are quiet, waiting for Jake to process and respond.

He leans back in his seat, the leather creaking softly under his weight. For a moment, he simply looks at you both, his gaze moving between you and Steve with an unreadable intensity.

Then, to your utter astonishment, a small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "I know," he says quietly.

The words hang in the air, heavy with implication. Your jaw drops, your mind reeling from this revelation, and you can see Steve's eyes wide in surprise. The cabin suddenly feels smaller, more claustrophobic, as if the walls are closing in around you.

"You know?" Steve manages to choke out, his voice barely above a whisper.

Jake leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees, that small smile still playing at the corners of his mouth. "I've known from the beginning," he says, his voice low and steady. "In fact, I was the one who insisted on it."

Jake continues, his eyes moving between you and Steve. "When Pepper approached me about running this campaign, I knew it would be unlike anything we've ever seen before. A man out of time, a living legend, running for the highest office in the land." He pauses, his gaze settling on Steve. "I’ve made political miracles happen. I’ve done it many times in my career. But I knew I couldn’t make multiple miracles happen. Someone with a name but without much political background? Yes. A third party candidate? Yes. An unmarried man? Yes. All three? Not taking that chance. I told her I’d only take the campaign if she got you married off.”

You blink, no words coming to you. Steve huffs and widens his stance, putting his hands on his hips. His jaw clenches as he processes Jake's words. "So this whole thing... it was your idea?"

Jake nods, his expression serious. "Not the specifics, mind you. I didn't choose who you'd marry or how it would happen. I just laid out the necessity of it. Pepper handled the rest."

You find your voice, though it comes out quieter than you intended. "Why didn't you tell us you knew?"

"I wanted to see how you two would handle it. How you'd work together, how you'd present yourselves to the public and the staff. I needed to know if this arrangement could work, if you could sell it convincingly enough."

Steve's posture stiffens, his voice taking on an edge. "So we've been what, some kind of experiment to you?”

Jake holds up his hands in a placating gesture. "Not an experiment, Steve. A necessary political strategy. And I have to say, you've both exceeded my expectations."

You feel a mix of emotions swirling inside you - relief that Jake already knew, frustration at being kept in the dark, and a strange sense of pride at his last statement. "How have we exceeded your expectations?" you ask, genuinely curious.

Jake leans back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face. "At first, I was worried. You two were clearly uncomfortable around each other, and it showed. But over time, something changed. You started to gel, to work as a unit. The way you interact now, the little touches, the shared glances - it's become genuine."

Steve's posture relaxes slightly, but his voice is still tense when he speaks. "So what happens now? Do we tell the rest of the staff? The rest of America?”

Jake shakes his head, his expression turning serious. "In an ideal world, yes. But this isn't an ideal world. This is politics. And in politics, sometimes the truth can be more damaging than a carefully crafted narrative."

Steve's jaw clenches again, his discomfort with the situation evident. "I don't like lying to the American people," he says, his voice low.

Jake stands up, moving to face both of you directly. "It's not lying, Steve. It's... selective truth-telling. You two are married. It all moved really quickly. What started as an arrangement has become something more. And that's what we'll continue to present to the world - a strong partnership, a united front."

You feel a mix of relief and unease at his words. "But what about transparency? Isn't that what this campaign is supposed to be about?"

Jake raises an eyebrow, his expression softening slightly. "Transparency in governance, yes. But the intimate details of your personal life? Why should those be public knowledge if the broad strokes are there?"

He moves to the window, gazing out at the fading sunset.

"Look," Jake continues, his voice taking on a gentler tone, "nearly half of all marriages in America end in divorce. People change, circumstances change. What matters is how couples work through those changes together."

He turns back to face you and Steve, his eyes moving between you. "And let's not forget, arranged marriages are still a reality for many families in America. Immigrants from cultures where it's common, religious communities that practice it. The fact that you two have made it work, have grown together - that's actually a powerful narrative in itself."

You and Steve exchange a glance, both processing Jake's words. There's truth in what he's saying, even if it feels uncomfortable.

"So what do we tell the rest of the staff?" you ask, breaking the silence.

Jake considers for a moment. "Essential personnel only - so the directors and your right hands, though I imagine Bucky and Sam already know?” Steve nods and Jake continues. “We tell them the basics. That your relationship started unconventionally, that it was initially more of an arrangement than a romance. But we emphasize how you've grown together, how you've become a true partnership. We focus on the present and the future, not the past."

Steve nods slowly, his brow furrowed in thought. "And the public?"

"For now, nothing changes," Jake says firmly. "We continue with the narrative we've established. If questions arise, we address them honestly but carefully. We emphasize the same message. If people want to fight that, we point out a willingness to sacrifice, an ability to build meaningful relationships, there are a lot of ways we can go with it.”

You and Steve exchange a long look, a silent conversation passing between you. You have reservations, and so does he, but what Jake is saying makes the most sense. At least for now.

Steve takes a deep breath, his shoulders relaxing slightly. "I understand the strategy," he says, his voice low and steady. "And I agree that we shouldn't disrupt the campaign or put unnecessary pressure on our relationship by going public with every detail."

You nod, feeling a sense of relief wash over you. "I agree," you say softly. "What we have... It's complicated and it's evolving, but it's ours.”

“Good,” Jake says. Then his expression shifts, an eagerness in his eyes. "Now that we've cleared the air, I have some news for you," he says, his voice taking on a tone of barely contained enthusiasm.

You and Steve exchange a curious glance, the tension from your previous conversation slowly dissipating.

"Elsa and her team have been working on getting a high-profile interview scheduled for the two of you?" Jake begins, pacing the small cabin with an energy that seems to electrify the air around him.

Steve nods, his brow furrowing slightly. "Yes, I remember you mentioning it a few days ago."

Jake's face breaks into a wide grin, his eyes sparkling with triumph. "Well, I'm pleased to announce that we've secured what might just be the most coveted interview slot in America."

[SEPTEMBER 28 - EVENING DRIVE FROM THE RALLY BACK TO THE MIAMI AIRPORT]

“I don’t like it,” Steve says as soon as the partition between the front and back of the SUV has closed and your privacy is in place. He had also quickly jumped in the vehicle after you and shut the door to prevent anyone else joining you on the way to the airport.

You let out as small of an exasperated sigh as you can manage.

“Like it or not, it’s what’s happening,” you respond.

The the ninety-minute flight time from Athens to Miami (thanks to an airliner boosted with Stark technology) had not been enough time to tell the senior staff about your marriage, do the final logistics review for Miami, and discuss a potential strategy adjustment for the coming days given the revelation about your marriage and the ramp up to the game-changing interview coming up, so while Steve had been on stage, you had been finalizing the itinerary with Jake, Elsa, Bucky, and Pepper, who weighed in over the phone.

“I don’t think it’s the right time for you to head off to the other side of the country.”

You frown at him. “Steve, we all signed off on this plan two days ago! Zoey and I are expected to show up for this string of women-targeted events from San Diego to Seattle, and it would be horrible to cancel now.”

Steve opens his mouth, but you cut him off. “Plus, Helen Santos has agreed to appear at some of those stops with us. This will be huge for the women’s vote on the West Coast.”

Steve's jaw clenches and the breaks between Miami streetlights cast intermittent shadows across his face. "I understand the political value," he says, his voice low and tense. "But after everything that's happened today, I don't think we should be apart right now."

You feel a mix of frustration and warmth in your chest at his concern. "Steve," you say, your voice softer now, "we can't change our entire campaign strategy every time something unexpected happens. That's not how this works."

“Isn’t it?” he asks. "We adjust strategy every day, and this isn't just 'something unexpected.' This is about us, about our relationship. We just told the senior staff about our arrangement. Don't you think we need some time to process that together?"

You lean back in your seat, considering his words. "I get it. Today has been intense for us both. But the West Coast tour has been planned and the advance teams have been preparing everything and rallying people to come. We’ve spent money on ad buys and billboards. Canceling now would raise more questions than we want to deal with."

He sighs heavily, running a hand over his beard. "I know you're right. I just... I worry about you being so far away, especially now."

"Maybe this is exactly what we need right now," you say softly, your voice barely above a whisper.

Steve's brow furrows, his blue eyes searching your face. "What do you mean?"

You take a deep breath, gathering your thoughts. "Think about it, Steve. Since this whole thing started, we've been living this performance, day in and day out, sometimes together, sometimes apart. You got talked into marrying me, Sam had to lecture you and Bucky to start giving me a real chance,” Steve opens his mouth but you put up a hand, “I overheard him in Cleveland. And, yes, ultimately it was good for us to talk about Jeff today, but it has me thinking about a lot of things.”

“Like what?” he asks earnestly, reaching for your hand.

You look down and squeeze it in return.

"Like why I agreed to this in the first place," you say softly. "When Pepper approached me with this idea, part of me thought it was crazy. But another part... another part of me saw it as an opportunity."

Steve's thumb traces gentle circles on the back of your hand, encouraging you to continue.

"After Jeff, after losing everything I had built and dreamed of I was terrified of caring that deeply again. Of investing so much of myself in another person, only to have it all ripped away." Your voice catches slightly, and you swallow hard before continuing. "This arrangement it felt safe, in a way. Detached. A way to move forward without risking my heart again.

“I knew you were a good guy, Steve. One of the best. Everyone knows that. Captain America, the hero who sacrificed everything to save the world. I wasn't worried about an arranged marriage with you because I knew it would be good companionship, doing important work for others. We'd be partners in a noble cause, working to make the world better."

You pause, looking out the window at the Miami streets passing by, the neon lights of the city blurring into streaks of color. When you turn back to Steve, his blue eyes are fixed on you, intense and attentive.

"But then something changed," you continue, your voice soft. "You started to open up, to let me see beyond the shield, beyond the legend. I saw your kindness, your humor, your vulnerability. The way you care so deeply about everything and everyone around you. But I don’t want either of us getting swept up into something just because we’re in this weird life that is the campaign where every minute is compressed and there are scores people around us in addition to the thousands of people we’re meeting every day and a hundred reporters and falling into each other would just be too easy while we play these parts.”

You leave off there, your heart pounding, unsure of what to say next, but sure that you said what you needed to say, even if you don’t know what is means even in your own mind and heart yet. But you know the thoughts and feelings are there.

“Where does that leave us then?” Steve questions after a few moments. “I don’t want us to take a step back.”

Your throat aches yet again with tears that want to come but that you don’t want to shed. “I don’t either,” you finally say. “I don’t feel like it’s a step back, maybe just a step sideways, needing to find more secure footing.”

The electric sound of the partition lowering a few inches interrupts the two of you.

“Captain and Mrs. Rogers, we’re about three minutes out from the airport,” the driver says, and Steve thanks him as he rolls the partition back up.

“It’s only a week,” you reassure him.

Steve sighs. “The whole point of schedule this split in our appearances together precisely at this point was to get the public primed in the idea that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder,’” he says. “Maybe it’ll work for us.”

You don’t need to grow fonder of him. “Maybe it will clear our hearts more than anything.”

“I guess we’ll see,” he says. Then he turns and looks out the window on his side.

You continue holding hands the last few minutes, but sit in silence.

[SEPTEMBER 28 - LATE EVENING - MIAMI AIRPORT]

The campaign staff swarms around you and Steve as soon as you exit the SUV. The private hangar buzzes with activity as luggage is loaded and last-minute preparations are made. You feel a twinge of anxiety as you realize this is where you and Steve will part ways for the next week.

"Mrs. Rogers, your flight to San Diego is on schedule. Wheels up in 30 minutes," Sophia, your assistant, informs you as she hands you a folder. "I've updated your briefing materials for tomorrow's events."

You nod, taking the folder and trying to focus on Sophia's words even as your mind lingers on the conversation with Steve in the car. The weight of your discussion, of the revelations and uncertainties, sits heavy in your chest.

As Sophia briefs you on the details, you can't help but glance over at Steve. He's surrounded by his own team, nodding seriously as they discuss something. His eyes meet yours for a moment, and you feel a jolt of electricity pass between you. There's so much left unsaid, so many emotions swirling just beneath the surface.

"Mrs. Rogers?" Sophia's voice snaps you back to attention. "Did you hear what I said about the event with Zoey Young and Helen Santos tomorrow afternoon?"

"I'm sorry, Sophia. Could you repeat that?" you ask, forcing yourself to focus.

As Sophia goes over the details again, you see Steve making his way over to you. Your heart rate picks up slightly as he approaches.

"Can I have a moment?" he asks, his voice low.

Sophia nods and steps away, giving you some privacy. You turn to face Steve, acutely aware of the bustling activity around you.

"I just wanted to say," Steve begins, then pauses, running a hand through his hair. "Be safe out there, okay? And if you need anything…”

“You, too,” you offer back.

Bucky approaches out of nowhere, “Sorry, wheels up in ten for us, Steve, but you can take a few more minutes if you sprint to the plane.”

Bucky squeezes your shoulder briefly. “You take care.”

You nod and smile as warmly as you can.

Alone in the sea of people again, you and Steve stall to savor a few final moments, but the uncertainty of how you’ll part is palpable.

“I meant what I said in the car about not wanting it to be a step back for us either,” you start. “I thought I’d have Sophia connect with Bucky about finding thirty minutes a day in our schedules for us to jump on a call together.”

“I think that sounds good,” Steve agrees.

Quiet falls between you two again. Your heart beats hard in your chest because now that it’s time for you to split up and board two separate planes and it was you who insisted it’s what you needed, in the final moments part of you is wavering.

Then Steve moves half a step closer and takes both of your hands in his. His touch is warm, familiar, and you feel a flutter in your chest as he looks into your eyes with an intensity that makes the bustling airport hangar fade away.

"Before you go," Steve says, his voice low and urgent, "there's something I need you to know."

You nod, your heart continuing to pound in your chest, the nearness of him both comforting and electrifying.

"I know Pepper told you I was reluctant to agree to this. She had an easier time convincing me to run than to get married. But the logical points checked out, and since I was already in, I knew I had to be all in, and I trusted Pep.”

You remember your own early conversations with Pepper, the careful way she had explained Steve's hesitation. At the time, you had assumed it was about understanding that Steve needed to become a more conventional candidate with marriage helping that.

Steve's eyes search yours, his voice softening as he continues, "But I gave her that trust because she agreed to make her choice based on the one condition I wanted her to agree to: pick someone she could see me marrying if I weren't running for President. That’s the real reason I never read your file."

Your breath catches in your throat, the weight of his words settling over you.

"When I first met you," Steve says, his thumbs tracing gentle circles on the backs of your hands, "I understood why Pepper chose you. You were kind, intelligent, passionate about making a difference. But I was still guarded, still unsure about this whole arrangement."

He takes a deep breath, his blue eyes never leaving yours. "As I got to know you, as we spent time together, I questioned myself, not knowing how to move forward since I’d faltered in the beginning, but then we started to really make something of this. I don’t know what this is yet or what will happen to us, but I think it’s something good.”

“Steve, I-”

He leans in and kisses your cheek, lingering, and your eyes flutter closed in that moment. You inhale the mix of his cologne with his natural scent, feel the warmth of his cheek against yours, the light scratch of his beard, and you want time to stop right there.

When he pulls back, there’s a serene smile on his face. “I’ll see you in Brooklyn, Mrs. Rogers.”

next part: coming 12/6

Before anyone gets carried away: THERE WILL NOT BE ANY ROMANTIC OR LUSTFUL CHAOS WITH BUCKY. Purely platonic. But now that you're one of his people, you're one of his people, and he's disappointed/annoyed with Steve, so he's in your corner on this day.

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

I do not do tag lists, but FOLLOW @buckets-and-stories and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS to be updated any time I publish a new work!

[bueckersbitch]

Grace and Grit

chapter one: faltering control

𐙚 characters: hopkins!paige x oc

𐙚 warnings: none

𐙚 authors note: it’s me again! this chapter really feels like a filler…. but i promise the buildup will be worth it once the story picks up. pls have faith in me! this is all fiction, enjoy!!!!

Blaire found herself in a clean routine the last few weeks in preparation for company showcase, wake up, work out, get ready, scheduled three hour pointe private, five hour practice, repeat. Sure, it’s exhausting, but she found it hard to even imagine a world where she doesn't dance, considering she's been doing it her whole life. She knows that she didn’t need distractions at this time, her dad’s voice echoing in her head about needing to put her main focus on dance and school to ensure a remarkable future, words from a phone call, always away on work trips. But she couldn’t help it when a certain blonde waltzed into her life. Running into her at her dance studio, her second home? It almost felt like she was supposed to be in her life, a sign from the universe.

So Blaire sits, breaking her perfect routine, a quiet lunch at panera before heading back to her studio. She should be reviewing videos from her instructor, improving her technique. Instead, she feels her fingers drawn to her contact, hitting the facetime button, ringing twice before she’s greeted with a sweaty Paige, surely from training. “Hey, you on lunch break?” Blaire feels a smile creep up onto her face, Paige already knowing her curated routine, “You know it, how’s training going?” Staring at the mac and cheese bowl that sat in front of her, she decides to prop her phone up on her water cup. Paige shuffles around on the other side before propping her phone up on the bench, dribbling the basketball between her legs, “Yeah just the same boring stuff, been working on shooting threes, how’s practice treating you?” Blaire’s gaze softens, having been only talking to Paige for about a week now, but feeling the sense of genuinity, always checking up on those around her. They talk for a little before they both have to go back to the reality of rigorous training. Blaire’s top of her car down as Gracie Abrams blares through the car speakers, the warm sun beating down on her tanned skin, ballet bun pulling her thoughts together, she had her whole life planned out in front of her, get an offer from Juilliard, move to New York, chase her dreams that she has had for the last seventeen years of her life. She pulls into her studio parking lot, grabbing her dance bag, locking her car door, walking up a few stairs before opening the door to her studio, greeting the girls while tying up her pointe shoes, tired, but ready for the last three hours of practice.

Sighing, she comes down from the pointed arabesque, a long practice finally over. Creaking open the double doors to the dancers den. There she sits, all six feet of her, on her phone, waiting. Blaires throat clears, the sound capturing Paige's attention, her eyes reaching Blaire's, that same infectious smile spreading across her face from when the two first met. “Paige? Why are you here?” Sure, it was a nice surprise, but why was she here? Paige stands up, before pulling her in for a hug, hands around her waist, grabbing onto her sides, as her head lays on top of Blaire’s dark hair, Blaire falters, the action of Paige hugging her surprising, but not unwelcome. “Wanted to see my favorite girl, is that okay?” Paige unwraps her arms from Blaire’s waist, Blaire unwrapping hers from around Paige’s neck, smiling, “Don’t know, I think your three pointers could use some work” Blaire responds. Paige’s eyes go wide, “Oh you did not!” Shoving Blaire’s shoulder, the two laugh, earning looks from those around them. “Soooo ice cream? On me?” This time it’s Blaire’s eyes that go wide, dragging Paige out of the dance studio.

Blaire slips into the passenger side of Paige’s red Cadillac, the door being closed by Paige after. Swinging around to the other side, she gets into the driver's seat, ducking her head as she does so. Starting the car and turning the air on, she takes Blaire’s hand and looks at her nails, a simple long almond french that accentuates her delicate hands, before holding their hands together on the middle console. Blaire feels a rush of excitement fuel her body, her heart pounding at her chest, she feels out of control, something that is foreign to her, consistently knowing the feeling of commanding attention of those in her studio, and at school. Her busy schedule left no time for her to pour her time into someone else. She feels heat rush to her cheeks, the action making her feel embarrassed, as she felt inexperienced in this department. Paige, ever the noticer, softly says, “I can actually see the wheels turning in your head, whatcha thinking about?” Blaire feels herself take a breath, one she didn't know she was shielding herself from, “Nothing, just not used to this kind of stuff” observing the shocked look on Paige’s face. If she felt embarrassed before, that was nothing compared to what she was feeling right now. “Say something? Please?” Blaire uncomfortably says, Paige’s eyes flutter, before realizing Blaire was awaiting her response, words registering in her brain. “No it's nothing, just, really? A pretty girl like you? Not used to this stuff?” Eyes widened with uncertainty, challenging Blaire’s soft gaze, the dark haired girl simply nods, the nickname clearing her mind. Paige smiles, cocking her head to the side, responding with a simple “okay” before pulling out of the parking lot, hands still interlocked.

[admirationandromantics]

Halloween Party

Yes, this is a Josh x reader bit where Josh is dressed as a pharaoh (please imagine Rami Malek in NATM), because that's the outfit I went with. This also takes place in an au where the lodge drama never happened, so don't worry about that. Reminding everyone that my blog is 18+ and so is this post.

This was made possible by a request I got, so thank you so much and please don't stop sending in requests.

Word count: 3,3 k (unedited!)

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“Sit still!” Ashley scolds as she draws my eyeliner. 

“Sorry!” I apologise, trying my best to hold my breath. Normally, I can do my own, but for tonight’s halloween party I needed a few extra details. I was dressed as no other person than Cleopatra herself. I thought about getting a wig, but Jess found some beautiful golden pearls to put in my hair instead. I loved them, feeling like royalty. I was adorned with gold, my head, hair, neck, arms and hands. A white loose dress was draped around me, leaving the midst open, so it looked like a two-piece. I loved it, even though I personally didn’t look like her, you could not mistake me for anyone else. 

“Aaaand there!” Ashley exclaims, pulling away and giving me time to breathe. She was dressed as Elizabeth Bennet. It may be hard to see if one hasn't read the book or seen any of the films, but she had put her hair up and covered it in white pearls. She was wearing a beautiful dress, though it only went a little below her thighs and not completely down. She was beautiful. I knew she’d planned on this for a long time, so I made some calls to Josh, forcing him to make Chris watch the movie. He didn’t even need to put the idea in his hand. Chris saw himself in the character, loving him and the simplicity of the costume. Yes, this was a set-up, and we made it happen. Maybe the love birds would finally take the hint and get down to business. We can only hope. 

I get up, looking at myself in the mirror. I was afraid that I would not look like myself, but that didn’t happen. I still look like me, as well as the queen. 

We make our way over to the Washington house, and it feels bigger than ever, even when it is filled to the brim with people. Ashley grabs my hand, leading me inside. We press past people, occasionally giving them a small ‘sorry’ or ‘excuse me’. Ashley knows where to go, and she’s quick to get me into the kitchen. We both make eye contact with Sam, who’s sitting on the counter, talking to a dashing-looking Chris. Ashley stops in her tracks, but I force her with me despite her protests. Luckily, she stops trashing as we get closer, probably to avoid a scene. 

“Hey guys!” I greet, finally getting up beside them. 

“Hey-” Chris starts, and his eyes flow to Ash, looking her up and down. They stand there for a while, gawking at each other, both of their faces blushed and bothered. I sit beside Sam, enjoying the show as they start asking questions. I turn to her, trying to figure out her costume. 

She’s wearing a completely black outfit, a gadget belt and beside her is a mask. She must be a spy of some sort. 

“Don’t you look pretty” she compliments, and I smile. 

“You’re quite spyci yourself” I give back, hoping she got the joke. She did, and starts laughing, hitting my arm and leaning down to the drinks. 

“Good one, want anything to drink?” 

“Please” I urge, looking around for anything. She mixes some different things, eventually handing me a red cup. I take a sip, grimaging of the strong content. 

“What is this?”

“Everything”

“You gave me everything?”

“You can’t throw it out, drink it quickly so you can’t taste it” she challenges, and I take it. I put the cup back up to my lips, taking a deep breath to get ready, before chugging it all down. The taste is awful, but the aftertaste is worse, and she quickly hands me a glass of water to get it all down. 

“I’m never taking a drink from you again” I comment. 

“Oh please, of course you’re gonna”

I look at her and she’s trying to hold in her laughter. Ashley and Chris are finally done with their talking, and walk over to us. 

“I was about to say-” Chris starts, and I hold my breath. Please don’t figure out the plan. 

“Are you coupling with Josh tonight?”

I look at him, confused. I hadn’t seen Josh tonight. Yet. 

“No? What, is he also Cleopatra or something?”

“Well no”

“Is he Caesar?” I ask, still confused. 

“Um, no”

“Then I think we’re not matching” 

“If you say so” he ends, putting his cup up to his face. I see a little smile on the edge of his lips, and when I look at Ashley, she puts her hand in front of her mouth, as if hiding something. Sam looks around, and hits my arm. 

“Well, I at least see one Greek over there” she points, and I follow her gaze. I see a guy, wearing something white with a belt and a gold olive-branch crown. He looked like one of those ancient Greek gods. And he looked really good, arms complimenting his costume perfectly. He was standing with Mike and Emily, who was wearing a couples costume. Batman and Batwoman. Fits them both quite well. 

“Hey!” Josh’s voice sounds, and I hear small snickers coming from Chris and Ashley. Sam puts her hand over her mouth, turning away so I can’t see her face. I look over, seeing Josh wearing a gorgeous pharaoh costume. He has a shoulder cape, large golden headwear and jewels. His stomach is exposed, and I can’t stop myself from looking at it, seeing the curves of what seems like vague, hidden muscles. 

He stops in his tracks, looking me up and down and pointing. 

“Copycat” he accuses in a funny tone, and I roll my eyes. 

“Are you Cleopatra?” I ask teasingly. 

“No, but… wait” he starts, his eyes glued to the gold pearls fastened in my loose hair. He turn over to Chris, pointing directly at him. 

“You planned this!” 

My eyes widen, and I look over at the culprit. 

“Hey, you can’t accuse us when you did the same!” Chris shouts back. Sam almost falls over from laughing. 

“You guys planned this?” I ask, wondering how the hell they managed that. 

“But this was my idea” both Josh and I say in unison, and we both look at each other. Everytime I look at him, my eyes wander to his neck, his exposed skin, and I can’t stop staring. Ashley is quick to answer our statement. 

“Remember that documentary I got you to watch some time ago? Well, Chris also showed Josh a movie… One thing led to another…” she trails off, and I manage to break out of my trance. 

“And your reasoning?” I continue. Sam’s still laughing, hanging onto me for dear life and drying away a tear. 

“Maybe we wanted you two to connect a little” Chris says, still proud of their accomplishment. I look over at Josh, who rolls his eyes at him. I get a slight pain in my chest. Hurt? Maybe. I’ve liked Josh for quite some time, and we’re friends, flirting friends, but he never takes the step it needs. I try to put all the signs out, and I know almost everybody knows at this point, but he still doesn’t do anything. I can’t imagine him wanting anything, as he’s never made moves other than his continuous normal flirting. Ashley has told me that he flirts differently with me, as if there’s something behind it, but I’ve never noticed. 

“Well” I start, getting off the counter. “I guess you failed” 

They all stop in their tracks, Josh looking at me surprisingly. 

“I see a Greek god over there who would probably be delighted by my presence, so I’ll bid you farewell” I point at the guy, who’s still making small talk with the others. I start walking, but Josh is quick to pull my arm, leading me a little away from the others. 

“Hey, you know, it’s just fun. Especially when you look like that” he says, whispering close to my face in quite a seductive tone. The previous alcohol is starting to make its way to my head, and I feel my cheeks redden from the closeness. Still, I feel a bit mad. Why would they do this when he’s never made anything clear for me. For him, this is just fun, a fun coincidence and a chance to tease me, but for me, it’s humiliating. As if I’m about to show how desperate I am for him. 

“No it’s not, you’ve made it clear where you stand when it comes to me, and I’ve made my bed with it” I snap back, surprised by my own tone. His emotions switch, a mix of confusion and then, realisation. He gets it, that it’s not fun to joke about my feelings when I feel this way about him. 

“Okay, listen, this is not about that” he starts, but I put up my finger, stopping him. 

“Josh, I’m getting over you, and we can go back to normal after that, but don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be”

“No, no, no, I need you to listen to me” he says, but I get out of his grip, walking over to the guy. 

I touch his shoulder, making him turn around. The others notice, and Mike makes a whistling sound. 

“Well, hello there” I start, looking up at him through my eyelashes. He’s quite tall, and his bushy brown hair matches the gold on his head completely. He looks me up and down, staring a bit before answering. 

“Well, if it isn’t the queen herself” he murmurs in a slightly suggestive tone. 

It doesn’t take long for us to make conversation. He’s in some of Mike’s classes, and usually hang out and study together. I expected him to be kind of playboy-ish, because of his friend group, but seemed genuine and kind. I was actually kind of smitten, and it felt good to be enhanced with someone who seemed to have a genuine interest in me as well. 

The whole night we talked, danced and drank, sharing stories and talking about ourselves. As for now, we’re sitting on the sofa, his arm laid out on the cushion behind me. I turn a little, seeing Sam smiling at me, and Chris and Ashley in deep conversation. Beside them is known pharaoh leaning against the wall, cup to his face, staring intently. My cheeks automatically flush a little, and I turn back to the god beside me. 

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asks, and I’m a little shocked by his suddenness. I smile. 

“We can go to a place which is a little more secluded” I try, giving him a teasing tone. His face lights up, and I feel something flutter in my chest. Butterflies. I take his hand, leading him through the crowd of people and up some stairs. The hallway here is empty, and he doesn’t waste time, pushing me against the wall and kissing me. I return it, but the butterflies don't grow. I feel content at best, a little excited, but not much. The sound of footsteps make both of us turn, his hands moving away from my body. Beside us stands Josh, a concerned look on his face. 

“Something has happened with Ashley, I’ll tell you everything, but you need to come with me” he says in a serious tone. My heart immediately falls, and I get scared. The guy comes forwards, whispering in my ear. 

“I’ll let you two talk, just ask Mike for my number” and he walks down again, giving a slight nod to Josh when passing. It doesn’t seem like Ashley to do something stupid, but I still take both of Josh’s hands in mine, urging him to tell me more. 

“Come on” he says, going further into the hallway, locking up the door which seems to be his room. 

“But, what about Ashley, what happened? Josh, tell me” I urge, the sinking feeling growing larger. He takes my hand, dragging me into the room, closing the door behind us. 

“You happened” he whispers, before slamming me against the door with brute force. Harder and quicker than the other guy. He goes on top of me, pins me with my hands over my head. Capturing my lips on his, he eats me up. It’s passionate, hard. My pulse shoots through the roof, and I can feel his rapid heartbeat on my chest. 

I push him off me, harshly. 

“Josh, what the hell?” I ask, body still hot and aching for his touch. 

“Ashley is okay” he answers, though not really an answer. 

“I think I got it” I snap back, like it wasn’t fucking obvious from what just happened. I continue, not bothering to wait for his explanation. 

“You flirt with me, all the time, I give you all the hints, everything. Even our friends contribute, which, for me, is fucking humiliating because you don’t do shit!” I scold. The building tension in my body finally giving out. My breath is out of order, but I can’t regulate it at this time, emotions coming over me. 

“Then, when I finally decide to move on, to take a step away, you barge in, giving me some fake excuse and take me into your room and…” I don’t know how to continue. I’ve wanted this for so long, wanted him, but not like this. I want something real, not just some jealousy-fuck which will make him feel better about himself, encouraging his complexity. 

“I don’t want this” I blurt out, but he’s still silent, standing away from me. 

“I’ve always wanted something real, a connection and a relationship. I’m not interested in a one-time-fuck with you because of your insecurity issues” I continue, feeling some type of relief wash over me. He looks in my eyes with an expression I can't decipher. Longing? Regret? Anxiety? I take hold of the door handle, making my way out when I feel his hand on my wrist. 

“Will you finally let me talk before you barge out?” he asks, a vulnerable tone to his normally flirty and funny voice. My heart breaks a little for how out of character he makes himself. I turn back to him, sitting down on his bed. He sits down beside me, not bothering to look me in the eyes. 

“I’m sorry” he starts, taking my hand in his yet again, rubbing small circles over my knuckles. 

“I’ve been scared, you know, from all of this. Walking around the bush, never actually doing anything. I thought it would just happen naturally at some point”

“It rarely does-” I try, but he stops me. 

“And seeing you finally pull out it, the situation I mean, just made me realise that we can’t keep going like this, and if I truly want something to happen, I have to take the step” 

I look down, suddenly aware that our knees are touching. 

“I don’t want to be just another fuck for you Josh”

“You could never be that” 

I look up, seeing his eyes are already on me. He made the move before, maybe it’s my time now. I lean towards him, hand cupping his cheek and kiss him. It’s light, careful, and not at all rough. He deepens it, taking my hand from his face and around his neck. He takes hold of my thighs, getting me on top of him. Both of my hands start wandering through his hair, and one his arms goes to the back of my head, pulling me in tighter. I take off his crown, surprised by the weight of it and carefully put it on the nightstand. His hands wander to my exposed waist, fingers seeping under the fabric. 

Though our breathing is heavy, it’s still safe, comforting. I manage to completely relax in his arms, thriving from his touch. He moves his lips, kissing down my jaw and on my neck. I let out involuntary sweet sighs, and can feel him smirk against my skin. He starts biting and sucking, making me moan. There’ll definitely be dark marks on me tomorrow. I feel his bulge growing underneath me, and if as on command, I start grinding on him. He loses his rhythm, interrupting his assault on my neck with whines and groans. I take the opportunity to kiss down his neck, using my fingers to untie the cape, letting it fall off his shoulders. His upper body is stunning, and I stroke my fingers over every part of him, making him whimper. I try to memorise everything, his neck with my lips and his chest and shoulders with my arms. 

“Fuck, at this pace-” he starts, but is interrupted by a moan as I cup his bulge. 

He immediately grabs hand, pulling himself off my face and staring into my eyes. There’s something dark and sinister in them, and I feel myself get wetter from just the look. He turns us around, my back hitting the mattress harshly, losing my breath. He goes over me, kissing my neck and collar while untying my dress, leaving it on the floor. The only things left are my underwear, a matching set of white cotton lace to match the costume. His eyes fill with awe as he drags his hands over, fingers glazing the edge of the cotton. 

“Fucking hell” he whispers, hands going to my back and unclasping my bra. He immediately goes for the kill, leaning over me, pressing, grinding, holding and squeezing. A gasp escapes my lips to begin with, but it is soon followed by sounds I can’t control as his knee rubs my clit. 

“Josh I-” I begin, my warmth building up, getting all flustered and hot. 

“God, you’re beautiful” he whispers, leaving sweet kisses on my neck. He stands up, and the sudden lack of his warmth gets to me. I sit up on the bed, watching as he painfully slowly takes off his garments. It falls to his feet, leaving a sight of his bare naked body. I bite my bottom lip, seeing how huge he is. 

“You’re not wearing underwear” I say, a bit shocked and surprised. 

“Gotta stay true to the character, no?” he teases, leaning over me once again. His lips find mine as his cock rubs gently over my folds, coating itself in my spilled juices. 

“Do you want this?” he whispers against my ear, his hot breath going down my neck. 

“Yes Josh” 

“Tell me how much you want it” “Please, I need you” 

I feel him push himself into me, filling me up and exhaling. 

“I love it when you beg for me” 

His praise goes straight to the core, and I moan out as he starts moving inside me. He leans on his arms, one going down to rub my clit, making me throw my head back in pleasure. He uses the opportunity to attack my neck, leaving bites and marks down to my chest. 

His pace quickens, and the sounds he makes turns me more and more on. I wouldn’t be surprised it was all sloppy and dripping right now. The knot in my stomach tightens, and I give a cry as pleasure washes over me. He keeps pumping, riding me through the orgasm before finally coming himself. He buries himself deep inside with a last thrust, and I feel him twitch and coat me. He falls down beside me, body sweaty and exhausted. I lean over, kissing him on his lips, and he returns it, draping his arm around me. I pull the covers over us, the coldness of the room finally reaching my sweaty skin. 

“You’re breathtaking” I whisper, and he laughs, pulling me closer in his embrace. 

“And you’re gorgeous” he says, drawing small patterns on my stomach with his fingers. I can still hear the loudness of the music and people’s voices from downstairs. 

“Should we go back down?”

“No, stay here” he pleads, holding me harder, scared that I’m gonna go. 

“Okay” I whisper back, leaning fully into him, and slowly falling asleep.

[strawberry-halla]

now im probably the many few people who actually agreed with the way bioware handled varric’s death and here’s why:

varric has been one of the most prominent dragon age characters since dragon age 2’s release. he’s basically the mascot (well, i think solas has stolen this role now but i digress), the character everybody loves! varric has been there since almost the beginning, over 10 years of our favorite dwarf.

this is the thing that hangs people up on his death in veilguard. why did they do it? why did it happen? what was bioware thinking? well i’m not expert but i think i have a pretty good idea.

varric has always been the friend who supports you no matter what, the one to pull you away from the heavy decisions the player makes to make you laugh or try to see the bright side. he made the player feel good and your character feel good, no matter who you’re playing as.

we saw this lovable dwarf go through so much tragedy in every media possible. he was dealt a bad hand at every corner but the good parts were the friends he made along the way. even if they did something bad in the end (anders and solas), varric still sees the person they were underneath everything.

so yes i think his choice to talk to solas, only to end up dying, was how it was going to end for him. varric cares so much about his friends and eventually, one of them was going to fuck that up. he got lucky so many times, escaping death at every turn. if varric would have went home to kirkwall as viscount for the rest of his days, i don’t think that would be a good end for him.

it’s a pretty thought to have, but it’s just NOT varric. he wanted to help the inquisition and he wanted to help save/stop solas because he knew him. they were friends. good ones. so of course it makes sense varric is the one to go after him.

now i think it would have been worse if varric was dead from the start of veilguard (well, he is but we don’t know that yet) because it definitely doesn’t ease the player into the reality of it. so making him a figment of solas’s blood magic on rook was a very clever way to ease them and us into accepting his death. i cannot think of a better way if i tried.

varric’s relationship with rook was so important. he was basically a mentor, a father figure for some. his role in veilguard is not a waste. rook as a character needed their mentor to ease them into this leadership. i think it would have been incredibly jarring to just have rook suddenly know how to lead the veilguard without having someone to talk to about their struggles. solas would have worked fine, but his role as the antagonist for most of the game would have made a really unrealistic connection.

and yes. i know varric’s memory is being manipulated by solas’s hand, but solas himself says that varric would never say anything to rook that they already didn’t know from him. varric’s guidance was still at play here, not solas. he just kept up the illusion varric was still alive to make sure rook would succeed. it’s incredibly shitty of him to goad this at rook, but he was never entirely wrong that rook had varric to help them. they did have varric, even when he wasn’t there. varric’s lessons and memory alone were enough.

and when rook and the player finally come to this realization in the regret prison, it just hits you all at once. i cried for about two hours once the scene ended. i had to pause my game, get up, and walk away. it was like losing a best friend. and i know how silly it sounds to mourn the loss of a video game character, but varric was more than that to many. to me. i just needed a bit to recover from the realization.

varric made a choice. one that got him killed. but he knew that it was the right one to make. solas regrets what he did to varric. he even says if he could, he wouldn’t have done it. it was an accident. a horrible accident that doesn’t justify what solas did. there is no glory in needless death. but this isn’t about solas.

varric in all his goodness as a person FORGAVE solas for this. he knew solas was still good. deep, deep down. that solas ‘wants to be the hero’ and would tear himself apart to make things better. i don’t know about you but it’s incredibly insane that someone forgives their murderer. especially varric! who said in inquisition: ‘nobody forgives someone for killing you!’ like it came full circle.

varric’s death was necessary for us and for solas’s story. i know it sounds incredibly silly to us that one character’s redemption is another’s downfall, but isn’t that how things work sometimes? you don’t have to like it or agree with it, but that’s just one thing i find so fascinating about dragon age’s characters and how they interact with one another throughout the series.

there’s an incredible post by @/corseque that explains the parallels between varric and solas that really ties this all together. please go read it if you haven’t!

i’m so so glad we had so many good memories of varric and his legacy will forever live on in-universe and amongst fans. now’s the time to make new ones with our new favorites, shall we? and we can still honor varric’s memory by writing stories, of course.

[nattule29]

unfinished Yasammy family drawing (AUGH I wanted to finish this so badly but I couldn’t bring myself to do it)

Not official info but what I got so far info on this au below

Okay, in this Au yasammy has 3 kids

Their older daughter named Coraline that I’m open to change (Aka if anyone has name suggestions im open) she has a lot of phobias but she’s probably the bravest person you’ll know. She’s the only not into a sport athletic person in the house hold and is always left to babysit her many many cousins (Sammys side) and her two twin siblings, which in her opinion is a sport alone. Other wise she’s an indoor person. She’s really social which is something she easily picked up from Sammy and her likes to sit down and simply draw or read from Yaz.

Erm but what’s a character without a little angst. (not on purpose) she tends to be left out on family time because her interest are so different from everyone else. She doesn’t mean to be the lone wolf but she can’t help but hate snuggling up or learning how to lasso, running, cooking, ect. Being the oldest ofc she has more responsibilities and tends to take that a little too seriously and unintentionally putting herself under a lot of stress. She always feels bad when she sees her mom’s sad faces when they see her by herself not wanting to participate in what the rest of them do so she forces herself to do them which just drains her and on some occasions gets her hurt.

The twins are inspired off angel and rebel and I want their names to be a twist of the name meaning like how an oc of mine is named Atharva which means Knowledgable or Knowledge of God. I haven’t found a name like that for the two yet so for now I’ll call them angle and rebel (calling them this might stick if I can’t find them a different meaning name) Rebel is the only boy in the family and is something kinda sweet that Dahlia (dahlia is a benrius kid if you didn’t know) and him can bond over. THEY ARE BFFS FOR LIFEEeEeEe- it’s kinda funny how Sammy and Ben had originally tried to pair angel and Dahlia together, both being girls that were around a the same age, but they did not hit off or exactly get along especially with their opposite like personality’s (Ben and Sammy were crossing their fingers for a opposite attract sort of friendship) ofc angel and dahlia were both friends but somehow rebel and dahlia would always be closer which is fine by angel.

btw the kicker in the photo is angel. Even with the name meaning angel and a name meaning rebel they don’t live up to it. Angel is most definitely the rebel and rebel is most definitely the angel.

Somthing I have thought about a lot though is rebels relationship and how they would be that duo. They both got each other’s back in a “they asked for no pickles” way but it applies to both of them

I don’t expect anyone to read all this but if you did you’re a real one and angel is going to gift you a hand full of moss each day <3

[tio-trile]

I need to know, how the crew reacted to the Nublar 6 new designs? Did you laugh? Felt like something was off? Did you all liked their new design? Had to have your own time to be used to it?

Yes I'm asking specially bc of Kenji's chin (why is it so Chad like? Lol)

I think overall the reception was positive -- also keep in mind not all of the crew on Chaos Theory have worked on Camp Cretaceous (there are even people who have never watched Camp Cretaceous. Not naming names.), so to some, these aren't grown-up versions of existing characters, but new characters. For the crew that knew their old designs the reception was also generally positive I think; Big Ben was the biggest (heh) hit that we all thought was hilarious, and all-pink-themed Brooklynn getting a pixie cut and also death was also exciting to see.

When we first saw the designs, they were William Nichols's 2D drawings, and we (storyboard artists) were working off of the character designs for quite a while before we actually saw the 3D models -- and there are definitely slight differences between the 3D models and the 2D designs. Kenji's chin didn't stand out to us in the design drawings -- but we did make comments about it in early animation we got back, particularly in season 1 episode 5 lol. But that's nothing in the designs that genuinely bothered us, otherwise we would have reported them to the team along with several things that did get reported, such as Ben's eye color and Ben's FIERY RED LIPS at the start of the show. (Why is it always Ben)

[artbyblastweave]

One of your posts had a rec list of zombie media, and one of them was Savageland. Watched it. Even knowing there were zombies involved it’s good. Even better, actually, because you the audience know that there’s something wrong but the characters don’t, or at least they don’t know what you know.

11/10. One of those movies that you have to go sit and think about for a while. I really liked the way it’s presented, the pseudo-documentary style. Also. So much going on. And it really hits because yeah, this feels terrifyingly plausible to happen. And even though it is a zombie story, it’s also got a lot more going on. Just. There’s so much to say about it. It’s a horror story. It’s political commentary. I don’t even know where to start.

Thanks for the rec! I feel like you’re the person for Good Zombie Media, and this is definitely one.

You're welcome! I've had this sense, and a longer post on the topic, that there's this loose trinity of themes from which zombie fiction can draw horror. There's the fear of societal inadequacy, the classic romero anxienty that our society simply isn't capable of rising to the challenge of something sufficiently disruptive, be that zombies or anything else. There's fear of sickness- the horror of being a zombie, of the indignity and helplessness of being reduced to something so base, so at odds with your current desires and morality, or alternatively something so inept- a creature that's basically less capable and competent than a human in every way despite going through the motions. And lastly there's the very straightforward fear of violence- what if there were a bunch of mindlessly-violent human-but-not-quite monsters running around killing the shit out of everything they see? What if all your neighbors all decided at once to try and kill you for no discernible reason? People don't normally do that! That'd be fucked up!

I think that these things can push and pull on each other, fighting for space. For a long time I thought that "fear of societal inadequacy" was fighting for space with "fear of violence," because the more effective a threat you make your zombies, the less meaningful it is when society can't react effectively to them. In the original Dawn of the Dead the fact that zombies are such an underwhelming threat if you've got your shit together is why the authority's dysfunctional response can provide meaningful criticism of our society. In the remake- they're hyperdurable beserkers with a short incubation period and they run at full speed! It doesn't say anything in particular if the army has trouble with that! So more of the horror ends up concentrated in the thing itself, the incongruous violence the zombies enact. Anyway, the long story short is that Savageland convinced me that actually, with proper framing, there's no contradiction whatsoever between a narrative about societal dysfunction in the face of crisis, and a narrative about scary-as-fuck implacable uncanny-valley killing machines.

Go watch this movie

[hyperfix-wip]

Webbed Together

Pairing: Hobie Brown x Fem!Reader/ Spider-Punk x Fem!Reader

Word count: 4.9k

Author's Note: When you're still a little hungover and you force yourself to push through writing your new chapter because your brain was suddenly hit with motivation 🫠 I'd like to thank @pinksugarscrub for beta reading and editing the hell out of this chapter for me! Credit goes to @the-kr8tor for their original characters Ramona and Billie. Also, I am not an expert on poker, so if any poker players have any comments about the accuracy of the game itself, please let me know! 🤣

Tags: Parent Trap!AU, Dad!Hobie AU, Twin!AU, Billie and Ramona!AU, Older!Hobie, Mom!Reader, Older!Reader

Chapter 5: Poker Face

<<< Chapter 4 Chapter 6>>>

SLAP!

Five cards smack against the plastic round table, and more groans and murmurs erupt from the crowd around Benny as he eagerly wraps his arms around the pile of bills, coins and other trinkets in the middle of the table.

“Looks like it’s my game again,” he taunts with a snicker while slowly raking the pot towards himself. “I thought for sure you guys were trying to win this round.”

Three older kids sitting on the round table with him only glare at him, one of them tossing their hand on the table with a disgruntled huff and another opens his wallet, instantly deflating at the sight of it being empty.

“ ‘m out.”

“Me too.”

“Damn it, I don’t have any more money either…”

“Oh c’mon!” Benny taunts the kids as they push themselves off their seats and return into the waves of kids surrounding them. “I thought you guys were gonna beat me! What happened to that, huh?”

The crowd surrounding him continues to mumble and shuffle around him, as if wary of being the next victim of his little game. Benny merely rolls his eyes in response and crosses his arms while slumping against the plastic backrest of the bench. “Fine, whatever. I got other people over here who can replace you guys. Any takers?”

“Mind if I take a whack at it?”

The crowd instantly turns to a British girl’s voice ringing in the back, and the sea of kids slowly part in confusion and intrigue while Billie slowly walks through and approaches the roundtable with Annie and Ramona peeking behind her. Billie’s signature cat-like smile curls up on her lips as she flops down on the plastic bench in front of Benny, and Ramona and Annie follow suit as they sit down at the remaining empty spots. Benny’s eyes light up while a cheeky grin of his own curls up on his face.

“Brown! Where’ve you been?” Benny calls out with an obnoxious laugh. “You just up and left during our volleyball game, what gives?”

Billie shrugs in response, but her lazy smile grows slightly strained the more she listens to him. “A mate o’ mine got ‘urt, ‘member? Got hit in the head during the game, and ‘nother mate and I helped him to the infirmary.”

Benny’s face scrunches up in confusion as he picks up the cards off the table and starts to straighten them up into a deck. “You mean that one dork with the trumpet? He really must suck at sports if he couldn’t dodge that, huh?”

Ramona instantly bristles and turns her eyes to Benny, her eyes sharpening into a hard glare. “That dork you’re talking about is still in the infirmary because of you–”

Billie quickly grabs Ramona’s shoulder before she could continue, and Ramona turns her glare to her double’s sympathetic eyes for a moment before quietly relenting and sinking down her seat with an annoyed sulk. Billie then glances back over to Benny, her impish smile faltering into a lopsided one while propping her elbow on the table.

“I’ll admit, Arnie might not look like the sporty type,” Billie replies with a neutral tone despite her carefree smile not reaching her eyes, “but that don’ mean you can hit ‘em and leave a big knot on ‘is head li’ tha’.”

“But you gotta admit, it was kinda hilarious,” Benny snickers while quickly shuffling the cards before his eyes drift back to a disgruntled Ramona. “...y’know, I didn’t know you had a sister, Brown. You got that opposite twin thing going on here–”

“Not sisters,” Both Billie and Ramona cut him off. Benny stares at them in befuddlement before glancing over at an unbothered Annie. She then narrows her eyes at him before turning her nose from him with a huff.

“...okay?” Benny finally shrugs before he starts to pass cards around one by one, slightly unnerved by the three girls giving him the cold shoulder in varying degrees, before all four of them have their hands. “Whatever, I guess. I’m getting kinda bored with five-card, so we’re gonna go with Texas Hold’em. You three okay with that?”

Billie rolls her eyes as she reaches into her pocket and pulls out her beaten up studded wallet and opens it up. “Whatever works, I can play either. Limit or no limit?”

“No limit, but everybody’s only been betting money,” Benny replies with a bored groan while lifting his cards by the corner slightly, a small smirk curling up on his lips before he lets the cards go flat on the table and looks up at Billie.

Benny then glances over at Ramona, who furrows her brows while darting her eyes around the table with a wavering frown. His eyes instantly light up at the flicker of weakness.

“Hey, uh… not-spiky Brown?”

Ramona instantly drops the uncertainty on her face before she looks at him with an irritated deadpan.

“When are you putting in your bet?”

“...what?”

Billie leans towards Ramona’s side and gently taps at the middle of the table. “Just drop half of what I put on the table,” Billie whispers to her double, “And every round we start after you basically put in half of what I put before we start.”

“...oh, like that small blind, big blind thing you and Annie were talking about earlier?”

“Yep, exactly.”

“But how come you’re the one putting in more money?”

“Bloke’s the dealer, and whoever is in the left of him is the small blind, and the one after is the big blind–”

“Okay, wait, hold up–” Benny barks up a laugh of disbelief as Ramona nods along to Billie’s explanation. “You sure you wanna let the newbie play in the game? She’ll probably lose all of her money if she’s not careful…not like I’m gonna stop her though.”

Ramona narrows her eyes at Benny again before she tosses two quarters from her coin pouch and glances down to peek at her hand with a slight frown. “I get the gist of it, like the hand rankings and all. It’s just… I only watched my mom play poker sometimes.”

A wicked gleam shines on Benny’s eyes as the crowd around the players start to boo and laugh, but Billie instantly slams her fist against the plastic table and glares around the crowd until they quiet down to disgruntled groans.

“If you get the basics of it, you should be okay,” Annie reassures Ramona. “Just gotta play a few rounds to get it, y’know?”

“She’ll probably lose all of her money before she finally gets it though,” Benny mutters under his breath with a quiet snicker. Billie is uncharacteristically unbothered by Benny’s snide comments as she clears her throat and glances up from her cards.

“C’mon, girlies,” Billie sighs with a scrunched up nose and a slight pout. “Le’s jus’ start the game. He ain’t worth getting miffed over.”

Annie rolls her eyes with a huff before she tosses a dollar onto the table, starting the first round. “Fine, call. Are we just gonna play until someone wins the whole pot, or is there a set amount of rounds?”

“We keep going until one of us wins the whole pot,” Benny snickers as he tosses two dollars onto the table. Ramona hesitantly glances back down at her hand before sighing and tossing her cards to the middle of the table. Billie rolls her eyes soon after, “Jus’ hurry up ‘n drop the flops.”

Benny flips three cards onto the table– seven of hearts, six of clubs, four of clubs. “Don’t be like that, Brown. It’s just a game, remember?”

Billie’s eye twitches slightly as she tosses another bill to match Benny’s play. “Games should be fun, Benny. ’s not fun for e’ryone if you’ve been trash-talkin’ the whole time.”

Benny rolls his eyes while Annie clicks her tongue and folds, tossing her cards towards the middle of the table. 

“Why’re you being sensitive, Brown?” he snorts before dropping another two bills onto the table and flipping another card, four of hearts. “It’s not like it’s actually hurting anybody.”

“Somebody did end up getting hurt, though,” Annie grumbles while pushing her glasses up. Billie gently nudges Annie’s foot with her own underneath the table. Annie glances up with a quirked eyebrow, but as soon as Annie meets Billie’s sympathetic smile, Annie hesitates before sighing and crossing her arms against her chest.

Billie’s soft eyes drop to a bored deadpan while she instantly tosses three bills onto the growing pot. “I ain’t bein’ sensitive,” Billie retorts as she pulls out more crumbled bills and dumping out a stream of coins onto the table. “I jus’ don’ like arseholes."

“If you’re gonna call me an asshole, at least say it right,” Benny rolls his eyes as he matches Billie’s bet and flips the last card for the round, eight of spades. “You probably shouldn’t bet so much on the first round.” Benny then flips his hand, revealing a four and a nine of diamonds. His mouth curls up into a smug smirk. “Three of a kind. Not the best hand, but it works out just fine for me.”

Billie only gives a lazy smile and tilts her head before she slowly reveals her own hand.  “Straight– three, four, five, six, seven. Not the best hand, but it got the job done.”

Benny shrugs while Billie gathers the pot for the round. “Not bad, not bad. It’s just the first round, though. We have a long way to go before this game finishes.” 

Benny’s eyes then dart between the disgruntled Annie and the pensive Ramona before adding “Well, it might finish a little faster if it’s only Brown and me playing to win.”

Annie’s jaw instantly clenches at the taunt, and Ramona’s eyes sharpen. A smug grin curls up on Benny’s face once he sees the reactions he wanted.

“C’mon, it’s just for fun,” Benny snickers while quickly passing the next hands. “You guys don’t need to get your panties in a twist.”

Annie’s face pinches up in disgust as she subtly glances at her hand before tossing two dollars and a couple quarters to raise the bet. “Beating you would probably be worth it, with or without you having to do anything the winner says.”

“That’s if you girls can beat me,” Benny scoffs before matching Annie. “I mean, besides Brown, you two would probably back out before we get to higher stakes.”

Ramona rolls her eyes. “Don’t get too cocky now.”

Three new cards get flipped onto the middle of the table– jack of hearts, ten of clubs, four of clubs.

“I only needed one round to know how you guys work,” Benny taunts with a shit-eating grin while he sets the deck of cards down. “You–” he points at Ramona– “are just a newbie, so you’ll get lost the further we play. Redhead on my right–” his finger darts to Annie– “gets annoyed easily, so she’ll probably get triggered into making bigger bets than she’ll bargain for. And Brown?”

Billie tosses a couple more bills and quarters, raising the bet for the pot. Benny only snorts in amusement in response. “She’s a little more aggressive with her play, taking more risks and relying more on luck than anything.”

As soon as Annie knocks twice on the table, Benny tosses some more bills, raising the bet even higher. “But sometimes luck isn’t enough to win.”

Ramona’s face pinches up at the higher bet in hesitation before tossing some bills, and Benny snickers as he flips the next card onto the table– six of spades.

Billie, however, slowly sucks on her teeth out of boredom as she matches Benny’s bet. “I dunno,” Billie shrugs, her nimble fingers tapping on the plastic surface while continuing to stare Benny down, “Dad’s always says I was his lucky poppet. Things jus’ work out for me in th’ end.”

“Oh god,” Benny rolls his eyes as he flips a jack of spades onto the table, “are you that much of a daddy’s girl? That’s such a lame thing your dad would call you–”

SLAM!

All eyes turn to Billie as her fist trembles a bit against the table. Her eyes stare daggers at the boy in front of her and her mouth curls into a scowl. The crowd behind her backs away from the quick outburst.

“Shut yer trap,” Billie nearly snarls at Benny. “My dad's not lame.”

Annie’s eyes widen at her friend before one of her hands reaches out to gently unfurl Billie’s fist. At the same time, Ramona’s own eyes turn cold as she stares down an unapologetic Benny.

Benny holds his hands up in surrender, but a wicked gleam glints in his eye. “Noted. No bringing up dads.”

“You suck, y’know that?” Annie mutters under her breath, flipping her hand of a four of hearts and an eight of diamonds out in the open.

Benny only smirks before he flips his own cards– a ten of hearts and a four of diamonds– and his grin grows even more as Billie clicks her tongue and tosses her cards to the middle. “Don’t hate the player, hate the game–”

A hand quietly cuts him off when it props itself on Benny’s left arm, and he glances up in confusion, only for his eyes to meet Ramona holding up her hand in the air.  One of the cards was a jack of diamonds.

“Three of a kind,” Ramona echoes Benny’s words before tossing her hand down onto the plastic table. “Not the best hand, but it works out just fine for me.”

Benny’s face drops as Ramona gently nudges his arm away from the cash on the table with a straight face before pushing it towards herself, all the while the crowd surrounding the four players murmur in waves.

“Benny lost two rounds in a row?”

“Newbie just basically stole his thunder–”

“Guess karma just bit him in the butt–”

Annie stares straight at Ramona in disbelief while Billie sends a sideways glance to her double with a slight smirk on her lips. “Nice one, Mon-mon…”

A small frown surfaces on Benny’s face for the first time, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes, before he slowly grabs the cards off the table and shuffles them into the deck.

“Beginner’s luck,” he grumbles under his breath while Ramona carefully flattens out some of the crumbled bills in front of her. “We still got the rest of the game here…”

—

The game continues on, the series of rounds quickly drawing more eyes onto the table. Shuffling, dealing, drawing, money betting, cards tossing. First Benny rakes in the pot, then Billie, then Benny, then Annie– the pot keeps shifting back and forth between the players, their money growing and depleting with each play, tension gradually growing on the table with many taunts from Benny and retorts from the girls, each word growing more charged than the last.

The crowd shuffles and grows more invested in the game, each round pulling more spectators than potential players as everyone watches over the four players like vultures. A young boy with a slight bump on his forehead struggles to maneuver himself through the waves of kids, confusion flooding into his eyes before he finally pushes himself into the middle, coming face to face with his three new friends pushing stacks of coins and bills into the middle of the growing pot one by one against the smug lone boy in the game.

Arnold turns his head to a shorter boy looking over Billie’s shoulder, gasping at the growing pot as Billie flicks her wrist and lets a stack of dollar bills flutter to the middle of the table.

“Hey,” Arnold quietly taps the boy’s shoulder with a frown, “what the heck’s going on?”

The boy glances at Arnold with an irritated huff, his eyes briefly darting to the large knot on Arnold’s head, before shaking his head and turning his attention back to the game. “The older guy Benny said that whoever beats him in a game of poker can get whatever they want from him, and these three girls jumped into the game. They lasted way longer than any of the other kids who played him, so right now everybody is just waiting to see who’ll win in the end.”

Arnold’s eyes almost bulge out of his sockets as he looks back at the game, a sense of dread pooling in his stomach, before he frantically shuffles himself and mutters his apologies until he approaches Ramona from behind.

“Ramona!”

Ramona looks over her shoulder with a puzzled furrow to her brows before her eyes widen with shock. “Arnold? What’re you doing here?”

The rest of the players look up from the sudden interruption, Annie glancing up from her hand before doing a double take and Billie giving a brief unbothered smile and wave to Arnold, before a loud snort breaks through the quiet murmurs of the crowd. All three of the girls turn their sharpened glares at the snickering Benny while he points at the bump on Arnold’s head.

“Oh my god, what happened to your head, dude? It looks like something’s gonna pop outta there!”

Benny cackles a little more while the crowd slowly backs away from the three girls glaring daggers at him.

“You did that, you little dipshi–”

“Annie, wait–”

“What? Don’t try to give him a pass, Arnie! That was mean, and you know it!”

“Annie, Benny’s just bein’ an arse–”

“You’re just gonna let this slide, Bills?! He’s been talking crap nonstop the whole game–”

“He’s doin’ tha’ to trip all o’ us up–”

“Gotta be kidding– Ramona, help me out here?”

Ramona continues to send an icy glare at Benny as she crosses her arms against her chest. “He’s gonna keep talking crap no matter what. The only reason we all jumped in in the first place is to beat him and get him to apologize to Arnold.”

A scoff slips through Benny’s lips as his eyes land on Ramona’s. “Try saying that when you quit folding and win some more rounds–”

“Benny,” Billie cuts him off with a curt voice. “How ‘bout you win a couple more rounds agains’ me ‘stead of pickin’ on Mon-mon? ‘M sure you still wanna win back some of the cash you lost.”

Benny’s smug smirk drops into a slight scowl once he turns his attention to the British girl in front of him, his jaw slightly clenched as his hand grabs a handful of his winnings.

“I still have some cash on me.”

“Then you bette’ get ‘em ready, ‘cuz I ain’t leavin’ ‘til I win th’ whole t’ing.”

Sparks crackle in the air as the two stare each other down across the table, and Arnold nervously looks between Ramona and Annie to stop Billie, only for the two other girls to glare at Benny too.

Benny lets out another scoff before a smirk grows on his face. “How about this? Since everybody’s itching to win, how about we make things interesting.”

He then tosses the last of his money into the pot before flipping the last card onto the plastic table top.

“Since everybody’s practically tapped out on their cash, we’ll add something else to the pot. I’m already betting myself doing something for you guys, so you three gotta add something too. And if you guys lose, not only do I take everything, you guys also have to do a punishment that I choose.” All three of the girls hesitate at the new stakes, making Benny snicker with a sly smirk. “Unless you girls are fine with giving up all of your money to me, but you’re already in too deep.”

Billie instantly bristles from Benny’s taunt, her hand itching to curl into a fist again. She knows the little bastard is just trying to trigger them, she knows that, but the idea of him suggesting this, whether a bluff or not, doesn’t sit well in her stomach. Billie gives a sideways glance to Annie, who has the same unsure frown as she glances back at Billie. For a moment, both girls wonder if they should risk it.

A small clatter suddenly breaks through the silence, and everyone turns to a reluctant Ramona as she slowly puts her mp3 player on top of the pot.

“Ramona?” Arnold quickly grabs her shoulders with wide eyes. “What’re you doing? I thought you said your mom gave you that–”

“I-it’s fine,” Ramona quietly reassures him with a slight smile, “it’s just music. I-I can just wait it out until camp’s over…” Despite her calm demeanor, her long fingers anxiously fidget and pick at her cuticles to avoid reaching for the small device back. Ramona’s gapped teeth slowly worries her bottom lip, and a slight ringing slowly creeps up in her ears the longer she looks down at the pot.

Billie instantly notices, her brows furrowing more as she glances up to Ramona struggling not to regret her decision, before letting out a loud sigh and reaching behind her neck. Her hands slowly pull away with an end of a red braided string in each before the rest of the necklace slides out from the hem of her shirt. A black plastic pick with some scratches hangs in the middle before Billie carefully coils it down on top of the pot with a determined face.

“My lucky pick. If Mon-mon’s willing to bet on it, then I should too…”

Ramona stares up at Billie with a flicker of shock and relief, a slight smile curling up on her lips, before glancing over at Annie as she hesitantly puts a small beaded bracelet onto the table.

“Y’know, you guys could’ve put a shoe or something in the pot,” Annie mutters with a sheepish pout. “Didn’t think you guys were gonna go with the dramatic movie moment on me…”

“Eh,” Billie shrugs with a lopsided grin, “ ‘m willin’ to put my quids in for this.”

Arnold continues to stare at his friends with bewilderment, his face pinching up with a worried look, before Ramona gently taps him in the arm with an encouraging smile.

“Don’t worry, you’re our friend. This is the least we could do.”

Arnold stares down at his friend with a flicker of awe and gratitude in his eyes, but a loud scoff instantly breaks the sentimental moment.

“Are we done with the cringey waterworks?” Benny huffs with an unimpressed frown as he crosses his arms. “We still have a game to play.”

All eyes turn to Benny, all three of the girls staring him down with a deadpan.

“Can you not read the room?” Annie rolls her eyes before glancing down at the last set of community cards on the table.

Ten of clubs. Three of hearts. Jack of clubs. Eight of spades. Queen of hearts.

With a deep sigh, Annie quickly flips her hand– eight of hearts and an eight of diamonds.

Billie quietly follows suit with her hand– king of hearts and ace of diamonds– before glancing back up at Benny with a slight smirk. “A three of a kind ‘n a straight. You gotta admit, ‘s a hard matchup, innit? Maybe I’ll have you on your hands and knees in front of everybody while you apologize to poor Arnie or sumt’in’.”

Benny nods along with a slight pout as he stares at their hands on the table. “Wow, Brown, you guys are good…”

Billie’s face falters from the sarcasm in his voice before Benny flips his hand with a flick of a wrist.  A king of hearts and an ace of diamonds.

“But not good enough to beat a flush, huh?”

Benny then looks up at the quiet Ramona as she glances down at her hand with a pensive frown, and a wicked grin curls up on his lips. “What’s wrong, newbie? Is your hand not good enough? Are you too scared to show your cards and admit defeat?”

Ramona looks up at the gloating Benny with a slightly bored stare before looking away and grabbing her mp3 player. Benny’s face drops in confusion before he angrily reaches for her hand and tightly grips it.

“Hey, what’re you doing?! Can’t you see I won–”

“Y’know,” Ramona calmly cuts Benny off, “every time I watched my mom play poker with my uncle, she’d always give me the same advice. She’d tell me to play only a few hands, to only take risks on hands that give me a strong gut feeling.”

Everyone’s eyes are on Ramona, confused mutters and intrigued chatters slowly surrounding the table. Benny snorts as he tries to yank the mp3 player out of her hand.

“Okay, what does your mom have anything to do with this–”

“My mom also told me to always keep my cool and to only bet high when it matters most.”

Ramona slowly flips her cards with her free hand, and waves of gasps as chatters instantly erupt in the crowd. Annie’s eyes almost break through her glasses, Arnold’s jaw drops, and Billie lets out a loud laugh of disbelief as she grabs her necklace back.

“Bloody hell, Mon-mon…”

The last person to look down on Ramona’s hand was Benny, and his face slowly pales once his eyes land on the king of clubs and the ace of clubs.

“I’m not sure how strong a flush is,” Ramona shrugs as she continues to stare at Benny with a small smile, “but I’m pretty sure it’s not as strong as a royal flush, right?” She then pulls her hand back out of his grip before sliding her mp3 player back in her pocket and turning her head to Billie and Annie. “We should probably split the pot between the three of us. I’d feel bad taking your guys' money.”

Ramona then turns back to the stunned Benny before crossing her arms against her chest. “Now, I’m not gonna make you get on your hands and knees in front of everybody–”

“Wha– Mon-mon, why?!”

“But I do want you to apologize to Arnold,” Ramona continues on, ignoring Billie’s protest. “Not only that, but I want you to apologize to everybody you made fun of. The way you talk to people is not cool, and people aren’t going to want to hang out with you if you keep being mean to them.”

Benny slowly lifts his eyes from the winning hand to Ramona, still astounded by the unexpected turn of events, before his face slowly flushes into a deep scowl and he angrily tackles Ramona down to the dirt ground.

“You cheated!” Benny roars at a screaming Ramona, struggling to pin her down while Ramona shoves her hand against his face to get off her. “You cheated! There’s no way you’d get a royal flush–”

“Mon-mon!” Billie yells out before jumping on top of Benny and wrapping her arms around his neck to yank him off. “Arnie! Annie! Get a counselor now!”

The crowd of kids scream and cheer around the fight breaking out in front of their eyes. Arnold hesitates and takes a step forward towards his fighting friends, worry and fear plaguing his eyes, but Annie quickly grabs his arm and tugs him away.

“Arnie, c’mon! We gotta get them help!”

Arnold stumbles behind Annie as she pulls him away, and he looks over his shoulder to the fight with dread in his eyes before relenting and quickly following the short redhead.

More whoops and clamors of ‘fight!’ echo around the three kids, dirt flying and clinging to their clothes the more they wrestle each other. Ramona screams and writhes underneath the stockier Benny, yelping out in pain when his hand grabs a handful of her dark coils and harshly yanks them.

“You cheated! You definitely cheated–”

“I didn’t cheat!” Ramona cries out while tears well up in her eyes from pain. “Get off me! I didn’t cheat!”

“Get off her, you stupid sod!” Billie screams as she kicks against the back of Benny’s legs, and Benny yells out in response before attempting to throw her off his back. Billie wraps her arms around his neck tighter in a vice grip while she throws her head back with as much of her weight as possible to pull him off Ramona.

Ramona cries out more as Benny yanks her hair again before she starts slapping her hands against his arms and tries to kick him off. “Get the hell off me, you asshole!”

Her palms sting with each slap, her scalp pricking from each tug and her eyes flooding with tears, until her hand accidentally slaps Benny in the middle of his face. A scream of pain erupts from Benny, and Billie finally yanks him off and throws him down onto the ground with her. Billie and Benny quickly roll around the dirt, Benny struggling to push her off and Billie refusing to let him near Ramona again, before a piercing whistle breaks through the screams of the crowd.

“WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON HERE?!”

The crows instantly disperses in a bedlam as an elderly woman rushes up to them with Arnie and Annie right behind her. A brief moment of relief flickers in Ramona’s eyes as Billie gets shoved off Benny with an ‘oof’, but that flicker quickly disappears when Benny gets up and runs over to her with tears in his eyes.

“Grandma!” Benny cries out to the counselor, and the rest of the kids’ faces grow pale.

“Grandma?” Ramona echoes with dread as everyone stares at the blubbering Benny hugging his grandmother, and Billie drops her head with a defeated groan.

“Ah shite.”

----

British Phrase of the Chapter:

Quids in - Someone who's "quids in" has invested in an opportunity which is probably going to benefit them massively.

https://www.businessinsider.com/british-slang-that-will-confuse-anybody-who-didnt-grow-up-in-the-uk-2017-11#quids-in-66

[alexas-fandom-and-random-blog]

More thoughts about Striker and Bitzo parallels and oppression:

For starters I saw the "Bombproof Vet after trial" scribble later cause others pointed in out

and holy shit it legit got me in the feels! So sweet!🥺 I'm so happy they show he loves his horse! I would go absolutely feral if they tried to give him the complete Stella treatment and make him irredeemable in every way. That would be so cartoonishly evil! Not to mention boring.😒

Anyways I get prompted to rant a bit cause I had to roll my eyes in some fandom takes I saw going "See! See! He sides with royals! He's a fake bitch and everything he said about Stolas was hypocritical"

Which some are in good fun🤭 but I'd like take it as serious character study for a moment and say ...honey no. Not like that.

Striker can totally be hypocritical about his stance with class issues without devalueing his beef against royals.

He's an opportunist in core while taking pleasure by being nasty to his enemies and no shit his priorities would be in self-preservation.

He's not villainous just for shits and giggles though. It has to do about survival too. Being frustrated with unfair treatment doesn't make you a fighter for justice and a class hero and I have no clue why the fandom wanted to make that comparison so badly!

I like Striker's character that way I hope it remains as such and gets explored further 🙏 Makes him such an interesting foil to the narrative and to Blitzo.

And honestly speaking of, it's true that Blitzo's speech was better suited there for him at the moment to put his foot down while his life was in danger and stick to his stance and even his half cooked morals about lower class demons.

Which they are worthy of respect to have developed at this point, considering how selfish he himself has been in the past and how little access he's had to education, opportunities and society as a whole limiting his view of how everything really functions.

Still it's not like he started his company with noble intentions to save impkind. He wanted to rise above his limitations sure and was also frustrated by his status as in imp but growing into a spokesperson for them at the moment also happened to align with his own self preservation. He wasn't rallying anyone for an uprising or anything even if it is a naturally progressed spark in that direction and acceptance of that role might come later.

In the end the difference of between Striker's and Blitzo's approach is that Blitzo came to care about other people and be willing to be sacrificed for them while Striker is trying to uplift himself fist and foremost by any means necessary.

And that is good writing for character development! Even if the writing in general often fumbles and messes these core points by making some out of place jokes in between emotional moments making you question if the care Blitzo claims to have for his found family is legit.

But that's like a personal issue I have with the joke structure being hit and miss imo. Humor is subjective and the lot.🤷

That's all.

[ripplestitchskein]

Now that we’re almost done I’ve kind of solidified some of my season 3 theories based on the story beats they’ve hit so far and what was setup from what I think of as the point where they really thought about the plot and started laying things out.

One thing I think will come from Blitzo’s new fame is that people from his past, like Cash and Barbie are going to come out of the woodwork seeking money predominately.

Definitely think Season 3 is going to include a lot of substance abuse issues and potentially someone from Blitzo’s family as the antagonist, probably Cash with Barbie and Stolas probably paralleling each other in Blitzo’s life. In order to help Stolas he needs to learn from where he went wrong with Barbie and reconcile with her while trying to get Stolas help with his own issues.

Stolas of course will be dealing with living life as a normal guy and the situation with Octavia. He is going to spiral, hard and it may end things with him and Blitz temporarily or they may weather it but I expect it to be messssy.

I expect Andrelphus to maybe be done next episode but Stella will still potentially be a threat, although I change my mind on this. They haven’t really set Stella up as a credible threat on her own, she’s too stupid and not in a she could be faking it way?

Andrelphus could get more powerful and be an overarching big bad fighting on the front lines of the class war for the ruling class or he could slink under ground to pop up like Striker does.

Vassago, since he’s very much in entertainment based on design and abilities and enthusiasm for Stolas singing. I actually see as handling PR for both Stolas and Blitz? Stolas needs an image overhaul and Blitz is going to crumble under the pressure of this much fame, guaranteed. I could also see him maybe investigating and trying to help from a legal standpoint.

I feel like they have to do something with Ozzie and Fizz, the characters are too popular to not have at least one feature episode. I was disappointed by the lack of Mammon and Ozzie follow up, I feel like they setup something in the musical special we still need paid off and don’t have time for this season but haven’t had any momentum on and the trial was a great opportunity to fit that in if they were pursuing it so we’ll see on that.

I think Moxxie will have a bigger role. t seems like this season was more Millie focused but Mastermind really focused on Moxxie and it seemed almost like they are passing the narrative baton there,

Loona I think will be the bridge that holds Octavia/Stolas/Blitz together. Her outreach and relationship to Octavia was established for a reason in Seeing Stars and now she’s the only non hostile link between them. It will also touch in her issues with accepting family, bringing one together, helping to build it.

[ismyteadoneyet]

I took a break from the more serious piece with the throne and all to draw this quicker, silly thing because they have started airing Hallmark movies on TV and I was possessed by the Christmas Spirit :')

There's also a short lil drabble thingy underneath the 'Keep Reading', bcs I couldn't help myself 😭😭 If Tracy won't let her characters have some Silly Time™, I WILL. 😭😭😭

The snowball soars through the air in a high arch, and lands with a wet, satisfying "fwump".

Loud cheers and "woo"s chorus from the other team, and it takes everything in me to hold back my own laughter at the sight. Nick seems to fight just as hard to do the same.

"...Aaand Miss Chen hits the bullseye! Another point for team...what was your name, again?" Valec calls from the sidelines with his, by now, classic announcer-voice, acting judge for today's match.

Classic, because this is the third snowball fight we've had since the snow first fell, and our team has been losing every single one so far. Sel has been too busy dodging the snowballs to realize that he has been our opponents' only target, despite there being three people on our team.

Alice turns to Valec with a wide grin and high-fives William. Lark is doubled over behind them, laughing.

"Team Victory," She reminds him gleefully, and Valec nods with a snap of his fingers. More so to jab another thumb into Sel's side than actually needing the reminder.

Mariah sits at his side, trying to hide her own snicker behind a steaming cup of hot cocoa. She caught onto our pact halfway through the first game, and is now just as eager as the rest of us to see how long it takes the Kingsmage to notice.

"One more point to team Victory! Making the current score.... 5-2, their favor."

Sel tries to wipe the already melting snow off his cheek before it runs down under the collar of his coat. With a wet flick of his gloved hand, he uncovers the scowl underneath.

"What kind of defense are you two supposed to be if you are not defending the whole team?"

"I thought you were behind me, I swear," I say, but can't seem to disguise my lie well enough, because Sel's mouth curves further downwards even before I finish. "You know, behind the shield."

"What's the matter, Kingsmage? Lost yer spark?" Lark taunts from where he now stands straighter, only barely holding it together.

Sel spins around to face the other Merlin with a sneer before shaking more snow out of his hair. "Douglas, you better sleep with one eye open unless you like your dreams of 'White Christmases' very vivid," He growls, and the scheming smirk across his lips makes me certain that the threat of taking the snowball fight off-court and into Larkin's bedroom is a very real one.

He barks out a sarcastic laugh in return, but can't quite seem to keep the amused glint out of his eye, "I sure would like to see ye get 'merry and bright', Kane."

With another flick of Sel's wrist, aether flows to his hands as if he were to craft his usual staff, but instead forms something resembling a lacrosse racket, solid like a shovel. He twirls it in his hand once before bending down to scoop up fresh snow, muttering, more to himself than to the other Merlin;

"Oh, I'll show you 'merry and bright', you-"

"Would you look at that!" William cuts in, making all our heads turn to him.

He looks up at the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun, before taking a step back towards the wall of snow shielding us from Volition.

"Oh, shit!"

Nick understands faster than I do, and casts a new aether shield and grabs my arm in one swift movement. He pulls me along, laughing all the while. "Get down!"

Sel is frozen in place, shovel-racket still mid-scoop, and completely alone on our side of the battlefield. He doesn't bother looking at either of us, but his narrowed eyes and shift in his jaw makes the betrayal apparent.

William reaches out a hand to the wall and shoves it right into the snow. With no visible effort, he lifts up a chunk nearly as big as himself, easily balancing it in one hand. He slowly turns to the Kingsmage with a smirk, promise of perfect aim in his eyes and voice both;

"Midday, is it not?"

[tink2kagome]

Yandere Christmas Day 1: First Christmas in Captivity (The First Year Squad)

Thank you for letting me participate @yanderecrazysie

TW: choking, mentions of choking, Yandere, mentions of captivity

All characters are aged up over 18

The leather bite of the collar against your throat had you gasping. Someone was pulling it so hard, you couldn’t force out any real words…but you fought harder–as if you could stop your worst nightmare from coming true.

Drunken howls and maniacal laughter mocked your efforts. You looked behind to see who held your leash. Ironically, it was Jack. He at least had the decency to look somewhat shamed at what his mates were doing. But not shamed enough to loosen his grip. 

“You aren’t going to want to miss this ________.” Your gaze swung back to Ace who held a baseball bat aloft, swaying on his feet, his eyes hazy from the eggnog. You lost your breathe as he took a swing at the mirror–the mirror that was supposed to be your way home. But he stopped just short of hitting the glass. You knew he was taunting you. Making you suffer. Suffer like how he thought he was suffering.

You weren’t sure how you missed it all this time: the furtive glances, the longing gazes, and reaching hands. But now it was all so clear. Somehow your closest compatriots were obsessed with you and had finally snapped. It all started a few hours before when you’d run into Deuce and Ace and told them the good news: Crowley had secured a way back to your world. You invited them and anyone else to drinks at Ramshackle in celebration as you packed a few keepsakes. Deuce had brought Jack while Ace wrangled Epel who pulled Sebek along. You all drank and were merry You never expected them all to share a look before Deuce apologized and squeezed your neck, his calloused fingers tenderly but firmly cutting off your air. 

You woke up in the mirror chamber, collared and hands bound behind your back along with your ankles. The rough rope burned as you writhed, but none of your captors seemed to care. Ace and Deuce must have recruited Jack, Epel, and Sebek to help with their scheme. 

“Why?” You’d asked, not yet broken.

“This is for your own good ____________,” Deuce tried to reassure, but Ace had cut in cruelly, “You don’t get to worm your way in our hearts and just leave. Especially not on Christmas.”

Christmas. It was an unfamiliar holiday to you and your world, something Twisted Wonderland celebrated. Apparently it was about joy, goodwill, and peace on earth. You’d even enjoyed the thought of the celebrations before the chance to go home loomed. What a joke. 

Now, Ace stood before the mirror taking practice swings. Deuce stood look out. Jack kept you docile. Epel and Sebek waited, grim faced.

“Stop taunting ‘em Ace.” Epel slurred his words and wobbled. “Just get it over with so we can go home and kick off the first night of Christmas.”

“If you aren’t going to do it, I will.” Sebek’s voice still boomed despite the subdued resignation. 

“Nah, nah. I got this. Excuse me for wanting to savor the moment and really hit home how unkind it was to even consider leaving.”

You garble your response, the leash being pulled too tight. 

“Yeah I thought you’d say that, ______”. 

And then he smashed the mirror. Glass showered. Your heart stopped and your body went cold. It was over. 

But before you had a chance to mourn, Ace had the butt of the bat jutted under your chin and lifted your wet eyes to meet his crazed ones. “And if you so much as even think of looking in another mirror…” He let the threat trail off. 

Then Epel was in front of you, pushing the bat away. “Merry Christmas, honey!” A chorus of joyous “Merry Christmas”es responded. When you said nothing back, Sebek pushed his way to you and squeezed your cheeks in his huge palm. “What do we say, darling?” Another unspoken threat. 

The grip on the leash and collar loosened just enough for you to pant out a weak “M-merry Christmas.”

[papercranepoets]

“Hermione…” Ron squeezed her shoulder. She looked up and noticed both Harry and Ron staring, waiting for a response.

“Oh, well Harry I’m really not sure about this potions book or you sidling up to Slughorn,” she sighed. Harry would continue to use this old annotated potions books even though she had a gut feeling it was bad for him. Harry was getting worse as the year went on. She even suspected he was sneaking drinks to cope with the stress of everything.

Harry and Ron exchanged looks.

“I’ll support you always Harry… perhaps you can use this potions book as a tool to get yourself invited to a Slug party or something. Then you can press him about the memory,” Hermione’s eyes darted to the time charm she cast above the fire. 10:35pm. Shit. She was anxious to get going, but had already alerted Malfoy she would be late with her newly discovered messaging spell.

“I have to do it, Hermione. I need to find out everything I can to help us defeat Voldemort,” Harry was fierce in his delivery, “I need to protect everyone I love. Him and his cronies will take and take and take until he is stopped.”

Ron interjected, “Mate. You’re not alone in this.”

Harry put his hand in his face and Hermione moved to embrace him. He had lost so, so much. All because an evil psychopath was after him. When she really thought about it she was angry with all of the adults around her who allowed for Harry to take on so much responsibility for this. Why was Dumbledore even tasking him with this. However harmless Slughorn was, he thought Tom was his star student. That was a serious lack of awareness and misjudgement of character. He should have seen through the manipulation.

Harry huffed drawing Hermione away from her thoughts, “Malfoy is up to something this year. Dumbledore trusts Snape. Snape protects Malfoy.”

“Harry!” Hermione chastised.

“Mione I don’t understand why you’re always defending him,” Ron raised his voice. He would become agitated soon, “he’s a piece of shite who thinks you’re nothing but dirt on his dragon hide shoes.”

Hermione suppressed the urge to berate Ron, but he just loved to bring up how purebloods thought nothing of her… it felt as if he was trying to say he was one of the good ones. Instead she rolled her eyes, “he’s nothing but a pissy daddy’s boy. He doesn’t scare me and he shouldn’t scare either of you. It’s honestly embarrassing how much time you both spend thinking about him.”

Harry and Ron gave each other another look, and she almost saw red.

“Stop that! You’re paranoid about an asshole who cares only for how neat his $4,000 galleon suit is just to walk around a literal school yard!” They shouldn’t underestimate him… she knew he was dangerous, but she also didn’t need them looking at him too much. She could worry about that.

“Fine. Whatever Mione,” typically Ron didn’t avoid a fight, but they had just seemingly recovered from their last.

Harry remained quiet, studying Hermione. Gods, he better not be suspicious of me, too.

“Alright, Hermione… Ron. I’m going to focus on Slughorn for now,” Harry seemed to be battling an unspoken war in his head, “night.”

Harry made to stand up and Hermione glanced at the time charm. 10:50. Ron scooted closer, slipping his hand to her neck.

“Ron… I’m not in the mood. Not after all of that nonsense about Malfoy,” Hermione snapped, backing away from him and hitting her back on the arm of the couch.

Ron narrowed his eyes, “Why do you care??”

“BECAUSE! You are constantly reminding me of my place in this fucking world!” It was a half truth, but now she was fucking mad.

“You’re twisting my words. Gods, Hermione. What is wrong with you lately?” Ron snapped, making to stand up.

“You will NOT tower over me, Ronald!” she shouted, not caring to cast a muffliato, “why can’t we go one day without fighting?!”

Hermione grabbed her bag and started half running to the common room door, desperate to escape. Desperate to see Malfoy. Anxious and excited.

“Where are you always running of to, Hermione?” Ron asked, pain hidden in his anger.

This stopped Hermione in her tracks. Does he know something?

“I just like to wander and clear my mind,” she didn’t even turn around.

“That’s horseshit and we both know it,” his tone was even. That terrified her. She should turn around to smooth things over.

Instead, “what’s horseshit is that we both pretend this relationship makes us happy, Ron.”

“Can’t even look at me when you say something like that?”

She shook her head and threw open the entrance, eager to get far, far from Ron.

Hermione paced the library after hours needing time to clear her head after a row with Ron.

“Well, well, well… what do we have here?”

Hermione’s eyes snapped towards the uppity, sharp sounding voice.

“Shut up, Malfoy. Let’s not pretend you don’t know why I’m here.”

Malfoy smirked, looking her up and down slowly. Then he was crowding her space, grabbing her arms and pushing her against the table.

“Weasel couldn’t get you there??” He sneered grabbing her chin.

“I’m not here to talk.” Hermione stared into his icy eyes trying not to think about his other hand digging into her hip.

“Not here to talk. Is that right, Granger?” He hoisted her onto the table and stepped between her. Leaning into her neck, Granger fluttered her eyes closed. Now it was time for some relief.

Malfoy chuckled breathing onto her neck and swiping her mane away. No kiss came. “What if I wanted to talk?” He breathed into her.

Grabbing his shirt and pulling him closer, Hermione tried to shut him up. For gods sake, why was he not just kissing her already!?

He nuzzled his nose into her neck and chuckled again before pushing away.

“What the hell!?” Hermione was enraged. From Ron to Malfoy and his snooty, rich, asshole, strikingly handsome self, men were really pissing her off tonight.

She met his eyes, red painting her cheeks in embarrassment. Malfoy was already staring at her, eyes dark and predatory.

“First you want to talk and now you’re barely even breathing. Gods, you’re so fucking moody and weird sometimes?”

His nostrils flared as he looked at Hermione sprawled on the table. He looked like he could avara her on the spot. Her eyes widened as she straightened up.

“Stop using me every time you have a little fight with your boyfriend.” His jaw ticked. Was he actually pissed off? “Better, yet. Stop talking to me altogether until you’ve fixed that situation.”

Hermione’s brows stitched together, “fixed the situation? What…”

“Oh, please, don’t play fucking dumb. You’re much brighter than this.” Malfoy scoffed, “maybe we can resume this and move our little library rendezvous to something more comfortable. Dump your little weasel and we’ll talk.”

“I…” Hermione was completely bewildered.

“No.” He breathed sharply, “Send me a note when you decide what to do.”

And with that he was half way down the aisle.

Hermione didn’t realize she was holding her breath… so much for clearing her mind.

[amethystarachnid]

Snowed In  – You and your chosen character are stuck in a cozy cabin together as a blizzard hits. Perfect for slow-burn romance or confessions by the fireplace!

WITH TONY AND FEM READER????? THIS IS SO HIM 😻

A BLIZZARD FOR TWO

⤷ ANTHONY “TONY” E. STARK

ᯓ★ Pairing: Anthony “Tony” E. Stark x fem!reader

ᯓ★ Genre: romance, fluff

ᯓ★ Request from: MARVEL Holiday special

ᯓ★ Story type: one shot

ᯓ★ Word count: 6k

ᯓ★ Summary: You and Tony are preparing the mountain cabin for the team's arrival since you all will celebrate Christmas together but when a blizzard hits and the heating system stops working you are left with nothing to do but cuddle up hoping to warm each other up.

ᯓ★ TW(s): snow blizzard

ᯓ★ with this my first MARVEL Holiday season on this blog officially starts!! Hope you'll like it! <3

ᯓ★ My Masterlist

ᯓ★ MARVEL Holiday Special

ᯓ★ MARVEL Multiverse - choose an AU, pair it with your favorite character and make a request!

ᯓ★ Songs & Superheroes tales - The Game (to make a request, follow the rules on the link!)

ᯓ★ MARVEL Bingo

ᯓ★ English isn’t my first language

The faint hum of Tony's voice breaks the quiet of the cabin as he rummages through a box of decorations. "Tell me, Y/N, how did I get roped into this festive horror show again? Oh, that’s right—you batted your eyes and said please. My one weakness."

You roll your eyes, trying to untangle the knot of Christmas lights in your lap. "Because someone thought having a team Christmas would be 'good for morale.' Your words, Stark, not mine."

"Yes, but I pictured a swanky tower party with catered food, not being snowed in on a mountain like the setup for a bad Hallmark movie." He pulls out a garish reindeer ornament and holds it up, mock horror etched on his face. "Please tell me this doesn’t go on the tree."

You snatch it from his hand, laughing despite yourself. "It’s tradition! You’re not putting it back in the box. And don’t knock Hallmark movies—they have charm."

"Charm. Right. That’s what we’re calling terrible plots and questionable acting now." Tony smirks, but there’s warmth in his tone. You’re used to his quips by now; they’re practically his love language.

The two of you have been in this cabin for two days, preparing it for the Avengers to arrive for Christmas. It’s nestled high in the mountains, the perfect snowy escape—or so Tony had declared when he offered it up for the festivities. Secretly, you’d been excited at the prospect of spending some quiet time with him.

Now, though, the snowstorm raging outside the frosted windows is threatening to upend everything.

You glance at the window, concern creeping into your voice. "The forecast said light snow. This isn’t light snow."

Tony glances up from his task, his brow furrowing. "I’ll check the weather system." He strides to a sleek tablet propped on the counter, his confident air slipping into one of mild annoyance as he swipes at the screen. "Great. It’s official—we’re in a blizzard. Power grid’s holding, but the roads? Not so much. Guess we’re not getting a visit from the Ghosts of Christmas Avengers anytime soon."

"How bad is it?"

"Put it this way, unless one of them suddenly develops teleportation powers, we’re on our own for a while." He pauses, turning to you with a raised brow. "Hope you’re not sick of me yet, because we might be playing snowed-in buddy comedy for the foreseeable future."

You sigh, though you’re secretly thrilled to have more time with him. "Could be worse. At least we have power and food. And… each other?"

Tony smirks, walking over to you with his hands in his pockets. "Was that a declaration of friendship, Y/N? Be still, my heart. Someone fetch the smelling salts."

"Don’t push it." You throw a tangle of lights at him, which he dodges with ease, grinning like a kid.

The hours pass in a cozy haze. You string up lights, bicker over where the tree should go, and argue about how to best arrange the stockings on the mantle. When you complain about the uneven hooks, Tony disappears into the workshop he’s rigged in the cabin’s basement and reemerges an hour later with custom-engineered ones.

"Ta-da. Now no one has to suffer the tragedy of crooked stockings."

"You’re insufferable," you say, but your smile betrays you.

Later, as the storm howls outside, the two of you settle on the couch with mugs of hot chocolate. The fire crackles in the hearth, bathing the room in a warm glow. Tony sits closer than he needs to, his shoulder brushing yours.

"Hey, Y/N," he says after a moment, his voice quieter now. "This isn’t the worst way to spend Christmas, you know. Being stuck here. With you."

Your heart does a little flip, and you laugh nervously to cover it. "Is that your way of saying you’re having fun?"

"Don’t ruin it. I’m trying to be heartfelt here." He nudges you, a teasing smile on his lips, but there’s something genuine in his eyes.

You hold his gaze for a beat longer than you mean to, and for a moment, the blizzard outside feels like it’s miles away.

You’re woken up by the cold. Not the cozy, crackling-fire type of cold you’ve come to associate with this mountain retreat, but the teeth-chattering, toes-numbing kind of chill that has you pulling your blanket tighter around you, to no avail.

The fire in the living room must’ve gone out. You glance at the clock on the bedside table, its faint glow illuminating the late hour. A shiver runs down your spine as you sit up, and your breath puffs visibly in the icy air.

This can’t be right.

You throw on a thick sweater over your pajamas and venture into the hallway, the wood floors frigid beneath your socks. Tony’s door is closed, but you can hear him stirring inside. The sound of a door creaking open confirms your suspicions—he’s awake, too.

“Don’t tell me,” his voice grumbles from the shadowy doorway, “you’re freezing your ass off, too.”

“No, I woke up because I missed your charming personality,” you deadpan, hugging yourself for warmth.

Tony steps into the hallway, looking far too alert for someone who’s just woken up. His sweatpants and hoodie combo is decidedly less polished than his usual suits, but somehow, the sight of him like this—a little disheveled, a little more human—makes your heart do a somersault.

He raises an eyebrow at your shivering form. “You look like a popsicle.”

“You’re one to talk. Your nose is red.”

“Touché.”

The two of you head to the thermostat in the living room. Tony fiddles with it for a few minutes, muttering under his breath about shoddy wiring and questionable designs. Finally, he steps back with a sigh, rubbing his hands together.

“Bad news,” he says, his tone as flat as his next quip. “The heating system is toast. And unless you know how to jury-rig a thermal reactor in the middle of the night, we’re stuck like this until morning.”

You groan, rubbing your arms. “Can’t you fix it now?”

He gives you an incredulous look. “I could, but it would involve tearing apart half the basement with tools I don’t have. Also, I’m not exactly thrilled about freezing to death in the process. I’ll handle it first thing tomorrow, promise.”

“Great,” you mutter, already dreading the long night ahead. “Guess I’ll just wear every piece of clothing I packed and hope for the best.”

Tony smirks, but there’s a flicker of concern in his eyes. “Or,” he says, dragging out the word, “you could come sleep in my room. You know, for the sake of body heat and survival. I’ll even keep the innuendos to a minimum. Scout’s honor.”

Your heart skips a beat, though you’re quick to mask it with a skeptical look. “That’s your grand solution? Sharing a bed?”

He shrugs, his casual tone doing little to hide the faint awkwardness behind his suggestion. “Hey, I didn’t say it wouldn’t be weird. But it beats waking up as human icicles. Besides, I’m a gentleman.”

The idea of sharing a bed with Tony Stark—the man who drives you up the wall and makes your heart race in equal measure—feels both mortifying and strangely comforting. After a moment of hesitation, you sigh.

“Fine,” you say, trying to sound nonchalant. “But if you hog the blankets, I’m kicking you out.”

He grins, clearly pleased with himself. “Deal.”

You don’t know why you thought it would be easier.

The bed in Tony’s room is plenty big, but it might as well be a shoebox for how self-conscious you feel. The two of you lie stiffly on opposite sides, a careful expanse of space between you.

“I can feel the awkwardness radiating off you,” Tony says after a few minutes, his voice low and teasing.

You turn your head to glare at him, though the dark hides most of your expression. “I’m not awkward. I’m cold. And trying to sleep.”

“Right. Because you’re the picture of relaxation right now.”

“Tony.”

He chuckles softly, and the sound sends an unexpected warmth through your chest. “Alright, alright. I’ll shut up. Sweet dreams, Y/N.”

“Goodnight, Tony.”

At some point during the night, the distance between you disappears.

When you wake up, the first thing you notice is warmth—a stark contrast to the freezing air that had plagued the cabin earlier. The second thing you notice is that the warmth is coming from Tony.

Your breath catches as you realize his arm is draped across your waist, his body pressed against your side. And then there’s his face, nestled comfortably against your chest, his soft, even breaths tickling your skin through your sweater.

For a moment, you’re too stunned to move.

You’d expected this to be awkward, sure, but you’d figured you’d be the one clinging to him in your sleep, not the other way around. Yet here he is, looking almost serene in his slumber, his usual sharp edges softened by the quiet vulnerability of sleep.

You’re torn between amusement and something far more dangerous—a deep, fluttering ache in your chest.

As carefully as you can, you shift slightly, trying to get a better look at his face without waking him. His features are relaxed, his lips slightly parted, and you realize with a pang that he looks younger like this.

“Morning,” comes his groggy voice, startling you out of your thoughts.

Your eyes snap to his, which are barely open but sparkling with something teasing. He doesn’t move, though, his head still resting against you as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Tony,” you say, your voice hushed. “What are you doing?”

“Sleeping,” he mumbles, his tone sleep-roughened and shamelessly smug. “You make a surprisingly good pillow, by the way.”

Heat rushes to your face, but you’re too flustered to push him away. “You’re the one who—”

“Cuddled up to you in my sleep?” He finally lifts his head, though his arm stays firmly around your waist. “Can you blame me? You’re warm. And soft.”

“Tony!”

He chuckles, sitting up slightly and running a hand through his hair. “Relax, Y/N. No need to get all flustered. I’m just stating facts.”

Your glare has no real heat to it, especially when he flashes you that disarming grin of his. “You could’ve just stayed on your side of the bed.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

You groan, flopping back against the pillow. “You’re impossible.”

“And yet, here we are.” He stretches lazily, looking far too pleased with himself. “Tell you what—since I was the offending party, I’ll make breakfast. Pancakes sound good?”

“You’re bribing me with pancakes?”

“Is it working?”

You sigh, unable to fight the smile tugging at your lips. “Fine. But they’d better be good.”

“Please. Have you met me?”

As Tony slides out of bed and heads for the kitchen, you can’t help but feel that, despite the cold, being stuck here with him might not be so bad after all.

The day begins innocently enough.

Tony, true to his word, makes breakfast. You’re surprised he even knows how to cook pancakes, let alone make them taste this good. He doesn’t hesitate to point this out repeatedly.

“See? Stark doesn’t just do genius billionaire playboy philanthropist. I also do chef extraordinaire,” he says, flipping a golden pancake onto a plate with a dramatic flourish.

You snort, reaching for the syrup. “Congratulations, Tony. You’ve mastered the art of boxed pancake mix.”

He winks, sliding into the chair across from you. “Don’t act like you’re not impressed.”

It’s easy, the banter. Comfortable, even. But under the surface, there’s an unmistakable tension that wasn’t there before.

You’re hyper-aware of every movement, every glance. The way Tony’s hand brushes yours when he passes you a fork sends a jolt up your arm. The casual way he leans back in his chair, his hoodie riding up just enough to reveal a sliver of skin at his hip, has your cheeks heating before you can stop yourself.

And then there’s the way he looks at you.

You catch him watching you a second too long when you’re licking syrup off your fork. His gaze lingers, his expression unreadable but undeniably intense, and it sends a shiver down your spine that has nothing to do with the cold.

“Something on my face?” you ask, trying to sound breezy.

“Just admiring the view,” he replies, so smoothly it feels like a challenge.

The tension only builds as the day goes on.

The blizzard outside continues its relentless assault on the cabin, trapping you in a snow-globe world of swirling white. The two of you decide to tackle the Christmas decorations to pass the time, but the close proximity and the shared task only seem to make things worse.

“Hold that steady,” you say, stretching to hook the garland onto a nail above the fireplace.

Tony stands behind you, one hand braced on the ladder you’re perched on, the other holding the trailing end of the garland. He’s close—too close. You can feel the heat of his body against your legs, his steadying grip firm but gentle.

“If I hold it any steadier, I’ll be up there with you,” he quips, but his voice is lower than usual, rough around the edges.

You glance down at him, your breath catching when you find him looking up at you. His gaze flickers over your face, your lips, and for a moment, the world seems to hold its breath.

“You’re staring again,” you say softly, trying to mask the tremor in your voice.

He doesn’t look away. “Maybe I like what I see.”

The words hang between you, heavy and electric.

You clear your throat, breaking the spell. “Help me down?”

Tony steps back just enough to give you space, his hands reaching for your waist as you climb off the ladder. The contact is brief but searing, his fingers warm and sure against your sides.

“Safe and sound,” he murmurs, his lips quirking into a small, almost teasing smile. But there’s something deeper in his eyes—something unspoken and magnetic that leaves you reeling.

Later, you find yourself in the kitchen, attempting to bake cookies while Tony works on fixing the heating system in the basement. The storm hasn’t let up, but you’ve managed to distract yourself with the comforting rhythm of measuring and mixing.

That is, until Tony walks in, covered in a fine layer of grease and looking far too good for someone who’s just crawled out from under a broken furnace.

“Good news,” he says, wiping his hands on a rag. “The heating should be up and running in about an hour. You’re welcome.”

“Thanks, Stark,” you reply, focusing on the dough in front of you. It’s safer than looking at him, with his tousled hair and smug grin.

He leans against the counter, watching you with that same unreadable expression he’s been wearing all day. “So, what are we making?”

“Cookies. If you’re nice, I’ll let you have one.”

He smirks, stepping closer—too close. His hand brushes yours as he reaches for a stray chocolate chip, and the simple touch sends your pulse racing.

“I’m always nice,” he says, popping the chip into his mouth.

You scoff, turning to glare at him, only to realize just how close he is. Close enough that you can see the faint stubble on his jaw, the flecks of gold in his brown eyes. Close enough that if you leaned in just a fraction—

The thought sends your heart into overdrive, and you step back hastily, almost knocking over the bowl of dough in the process.

“Careful, Y/N,” he says, his voice low and teasing. “Wouldn’t want to make a mess.”

“I’m fine,” you reply, a little too quickly.

His grin widens, like he knows exactly what effect he’s having on you.

By the time evening rolls around, the tension has reached a boiling point.

The two of you sit by the fire, which is now roaring cheerfully thanks to Tony’s earlier handiwork. The heat is a welcome reprieve from the chill, but it does little to ease the restless energy between you.

Tony lounges on the couch, his arm draped over the backrest, his legs stretched out in a way that’s both casual and entirely too appealing. You sit on the opposite end, clutching a mug of hot chocolate like it’s a lifeline.

“So,” he says, breaking the comfortable silence. “Did today live up to your Christmas expectations?”

You glance at him, raising an eyebrow. “You mean the part where the heating broke, or the part where we almost froze to death?”

He chuckles, the sound warm and rich. “Come on, admit it. You had fun.”

You roll your eyes, but a smile tugs at your lips. “Maybe a little.”

The smile he gives you in return is softer this time, almost disarming. He shifts slightly, turning to face you more fully.

“Can I ask you something, Y/N?”

His tone is different now—serious, but not heavy.

“Sure,” you say, your heart pounding for reasons you don’t fully understand.

He hesitates for a moment, as if weighing his words. “Do you ever wonder… what this would be like? Us, I mean. If we weren’t—”

“Complicated?” you finish for him, your voice barely above a whisper.

His gaze locks with yours, and the intensity in his eyes makes it hard to breathe. “Yeah. Complicated.”

The air between you crackles with something unspoken, something that’s been simmering all day—or maybe longer.

Your pulse quickens, and for a fleeting moment, you think he might close the distance between you. But then he leans back, breaking the moment with a small, self-deprecating laugh.

“Never mind,” he says, his voice lighter now. “Forget I said anything.”

But you can’t forget. And judging by the way he looks at you—like he’s trying not to let himself hope—you don’t think he can, either.

The rest of the evening passes in a blur of half-hearted conversation and stolen glances, the unspoken tension between you lingering like the warmth of the fire. You can’t help but wonder how much longer you can keep pretending you don’t feel it, too.

The fire crackles softly, its glow painting the room in shades of gold and amber. The storm outside is still raging, but in the warmth of the cabin, the rest of the world feels miles away.

You’re sitting on the floor in front of the hearth, a blanket draped over your legs and a mug of tea cooling in your hands. Tony sits beside you, close enough that his knee brushes yours whenever he shifts. It’s a quiet moment, comfortable and calm, but your mind is anything but.

You can’t stop replaying his words from earlier, the way his voice had softened, the way his gaze had lingered.

“Do you ever wonder what this would be like?”

The question has been burning in the back of your mind all day, and you can’t let it go. Not when every glance, every touch, seems to hint at something unspoken between you.

You glance at him, taking in the way the firelight dances across his features. His usual sharpness is softened by the flickering glow, and the sight tugs at something deep inside you.

Before you can stop yourself, the words tumble out.

“Tony.”

He looks at you, his brow quirking in that familiar way. “What’s up, Y/N? You’ve got that look.”

You set your mug down, your fingers fidgeting with the edge of the blanket. “Earlier… when you asked me about ‘us.’ What did you mean by that?”

Tony freezes, his easy smile faltering for just a moment before he schools his expression into something more neutral. He leans back slightly, resting his arm on the hearth’s edge, and you can tell he’s stalling.

“Ah, so we’re revisiting that, huh?” he says, his tone light but not quite as casual as he wants it to be. “I was hoping we could just let that one slide into the ‘awkward but forgettable’ category.”

“Tony.” You give him a look, one that says you’re not letting him off the hook.

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Alright, fine. You want the truth? I was trying to ask if… if you’ve ever thought about what it’d be like if things between us weren’t so, you know—”

“Complicated,” you finish for him, your voice softer this time.

He nods, his gaze dropping to the floor. “Yeah. Complicated.”

You wait, giving him the space to continue.

“It’s just…” He hesitates, his hand gesturing vaguely as he searches for the right words. “We’re friends, and that’s great. I mean, you’re one of the best people I’ve ever had in my life, and I’m not exactly drowning in great people. But sometimes I wonder if maybe…”

He trails off, his voice fading into the quiet crackle of the fire. When he finally looks at you again, there’s something raw in his eyes, something unguarded that makes your heart ache.

“Maybe what?” you prompt, barely above a whisper.

He laughs softly, though there’s no humor in it. “Maybe I want more. But that’s crazy, right? Because you’re you, and I’m me, and I don’t want to screw this up.”

Your breath catches, and for a moment, you’re not sure if your heart is pounding from his words or the way he’s looking at you—like you’re the only thing in the world that matters.

“Tony…” you begin, but he cuts you off with a self-deprecating smile.

“Forget it. I’m rambling. You don’t have to—”

Before he can finish, you lean in and kiss him.

It’s sudden, impulsive, and entirely out of character for you, but you can’t stop yourself. Not when his words are still echoing in your ears, not when the thought of him doubting how much you care makes your chest ache.

For a split second, he freezes, his breath catching against your lips. And then he’s kissing you back, his hand coming up to cup your cheek as he tilts his head to deepen the kiss.

The world around you fades away—the fire, the storm, everything. All that exists is the press of his lips against yours, the warmth of his hand on your skin, the way he leans into you like he’s afraid you might disappear.

When you finally pull back, both of you are breathing hard, your foreheads resting against each other. His eyes search yours, his expression a mix of wonder and disbelief.

“Wow,” he murmurs, his voice soft but filled with awe. “So, uh… not crazy, then?”

You laugh, your hand brushing against his where it rests on your cheek. “Not crazy. Not even a little.”

A slow, genuine smile spreads across his face, and for the first time all day, the tension between you melts away, replaced by something deeper, something undeniable.

“Well,” he says, his tone shifting back to that familiar, teasing lilt, “if I’d known that’s what it would take to shut me up, I would’ve started rambling sooner.”

You roll your eyes, but you can’t stop the smile tugging at your lips. “Don’t push your luck, Stark.”

“Too late,” he replies, his grin widening.

And as the fire crackles beside you and the storm rages on outside, you realize you’ve never felt warmer in your life.

Night settles over the cabin with a heavy quiet, the kind that amplifies the faint creaks of the wooden beams and the low howl of the wind outside. The fire in the hearth has burned down to embers, but it doesn’t matter much; the heating system is working again—or so Tony assures you.

You stand in the hallway, awkwardly lingering by your bedroom door while Tony scratches the back of his neck, his usual confidence somewhat muted. It’s strange to think how much has changed in a single day.

“We’re really doing this, huh?” he says, his tone teasing but his eyes searching yours.

You smile softly. “Yeah. We are.”

A small, crooked grin tugs at his lips, and for a moment, you think he’s about to say something else. But then he steps back, gesturing toward his room.

“Alright, then. Goodnight, Y/N,” he says, his voice lighter now, though there’s a flicker of hesitation beneath it.

“Goodnight, Tony,” you reply, your heart squeezing as you watch him retreat down the hall.

Half an hour later, you’re shivering again.

The blankets piled on your bed offer little relief against the creeping chill seeping into the cabin. You groan, pulling the covers tighter around you, but it’s no use.

How is this possible? you think. The heating system was fine earlier. Tony said it was fine.

As if summoned by your thoughts, a soft knock sounds at your door.

“Y/N?” Tony’s voice comes through, low and hesitant.

You sit up, wrapping the blanket around your shoulders. “Come in.”

The door creaks open, and Tony steps inside, his hands shoved into the pockets of his sweatpants. His hair is slightly mussed, like he’s been lying down, but there’s an odd mix of sheepishness and mischief in his expression that immediately puts you on alert.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, though you already have a sinking suspicion.

He clears his throat, leaning casually against the doorframe. “So, uh… funny story. The heating system’s on the fritz again.”

You stare at him, raising an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Yup. Totally busted. Must’ve been a loose wire or, uh, something technical,” he says, waving a hand vaguely.

You narrow your eyes. “Something technical, huh?”

His gaze shifts, landing on anything in the room that isn’t you. “Yeah. Technical stuff. Very complicated. I’d explain it, but you’d probably get bored.”

You don’t respond right away, letting the silence stretch just long enough for him to start fidgeting. And that’s when it happens—his carefully crafted nonchalance slips.

“I mean, it’s not like I turned it off or anything,” he says quickly, then freezes, his eyes widening as if he can’t believe the words that just came out of his mouth.

You blink, processing his slip. “Wait. You turned it off?”

“No,” he says immediately, his voice rising a pitch. Then, realizing how unconvincing that sounds, he sighs and drags a hand down his face. “Okay, fine. Yes. I turned it off. But I had a good reason!”

You cross your arms, the blanket slipping slightly from your shoulders. “This should be good. Let’s hear it.”

He hesitates, his usual quick wit seemingly failing him for once. “I just… Look, it’s freezing, okay? And I thought maybe—”

“You thought maybe you’d use the cold as an excuse to come sleep with me?” you finish for him, unable to keep the amusement out of your voice.

Tony’s cheeks flush, and he looks away, muttering, “It sounds worse when you say it like that.”

Despite the chill in the air, warmth blooms in your chest at the thought of him going to such ridiculous lengths just to be close to you.

“You know,” you say, stepping closer, “you didn’t need an excuse.”

His head snaps back to you, his expression shifting from embarrassed to surprised. “I didn’t?”

You shake your head, a soft smile tugging at your lips. “No, Tony. You could’ve just said you didn’t want to sleep alone.”

His mouth opens, then closes, and for once, he seems genuinely at a loss for words.

“Come on,” you say, taking his hand and pulling him toward the bed. “If you’re going to sneak your way into my room, at least do it properly.”

He lets out a laugh—half-relieved, half-something else—and follows you without protest.

As soon as the two of you settle under the covers, the warmth is immediate and all-encompassing. It’s not just the shared body heat; it’s the presence of him beside you, the sense of safety and comfort that comes with it.

Tony lies on his back at first, staring up at the ceiling like he’s trying to play it cool. But it doesn’t last long.

Within moments, he shifts closer, his arm brushing yours. Then he turns onto his side, facing you, his expression unusually soft.

“Is this okay?” he asks, his voice quieter now, almost uncertain.

You nod, your heart fluttering. “Yeah. It’s okay.”

His lips curve into a small smile, and before you can say anything else, he moves again—settling himself with his head resting on your chest.

The action is so uncharacteristic, so unexpectedly vulnerable, that you’re momentarily stunned. But then he lets out a contented sigh, his breath warm against your sweater, and you realize how natural it feels.

“Comfy?” you ask, your voice tinged with amusement.

“Very,” he murmurs, his eyes already half-closed.

You chuckle softly, threading your fingers through his hair on instinct. His reaction is immediate; he leans into your touch, a quiet hum of approval escaping him.

“Not bad,” he says, his voice muffled against you. “You’ve got a real talent for this, Y/N.”

“For what? Letting you use me as a pillow?”

“Exactly. A-plus performance. Five stars. Would recommend.”

You roll your eyes, but you can’t help the smile that spreads across your face. As ridiculous as he is, there’s something incredibly endearing about seeing him like this—unguarded, content, and completely at ease.

Minutes pass, the firelight casting soft shadows across the room. Your hand continues its slow, gentle movements through his hair, and you feel him relax further, his breathing evening out.

“Hey, Y/N?” he murmurs, his voice drowsy but sincere.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

He tilts his head slightly, just enough to meet your eyes. “For letting me in. For this.”

Your chest tightens, and you brush a strand of hair from his forehead. “Anytime, Tony.”

He smiles, the kind of smile that feels like it’s just for you, and you realize in that moment that you’ve never been more certain about anything in your life.

As his eyes drift shut and his breathing slows, you press a soft kiss to the top of his head, letting the warmth of the fire and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat lull you to sleep.

Morning arrives quietly. The faint light of dawn filters through the curtains, soft and golden, painting the room in gentle hues. The cabin is silent save for the occasional creak of wood adjusting to the temperature. It’s a peace you don’t often experience, and for a moment, you let yourself bask in it.

Then you become acutely aware of the weight pressing against you.

Tony’s face is buried against your chest, his arms wrapped securely around your waist, his body molded to yours like he’s been glued there. He’s still asleep, his breathing deep and even, but every now and then, he nuzzles closer, a contented sigh escaping him.

You’re torn between laughing at how clingy he is and feeling ridiculously fond of the man currently using you as his personal pillow.

With a small smile, you reach for your phone on the nightstand, careful not to disturb him too much. The screen lights up, and you blink against the brightness as you read the messages that came in during the night.

The blizzard is over.

The team is on their way, currently en route on a Quinjet and expected to arrive in a few hours. Relief washes over you; as much as you’ve enjoyed this unexpected time alone with Tony, you know everyone will be eager to celebrate Christmas together.

You glance down at him, his dark lashes resting against his cheek, his lips slightly parted. He looks peaceful, younger almost, like the weight of the world isn’t constantly pressing down on him.

“Tony,” you say softly, brushing a hand over his shoulder. “Wake up.”

He groans in response, burrowing further into you.

“Come on,” you coax, trying to suppress your amusement. “The others are on their way. We should get up and make sure the cabin’s ready for them.”

“Don’t care,” he mumbles, his voice muffled against your chest.

You laugh, nudging him gently. “Tony, come on. You’ll care when Steve gets here and starts giving you his disappointed dad look because we’re not ready.”

He shifts slightly, cracking one eye open to peer at you. “Let him look. I’m busy.”

“Busy?” you repeat, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Busy doing this.”

As if to prove his point, he tightens his hold on you and nuzzles his face even deeper against your chest, his breath warm against your skin. His arms are firm around your waist, and despite the fact that you’re trying to wake him up, there’s a traitorous part of you that doesn’t want him to let go.

“Tony,” you say, your voice firmer this time, though it’s hard to sound authoritative when he’s acting so endearing.

“Shh,” he murmurs, his lips brushing against the fabric of your shirt as he speaks. “I’m comfortable. You’re comfortable. No reason to ruin a good thing.”

You roll your eyes, though the fond smile on your face betrays you. “The team is literally flying here right now. They’ll be here in a few hours.”

“Plenty of time,” he counters, his voice still heavy with sleep.

“Tony,” you say again, but before you can finish, he tilts his head up slightly, meeting your gaze with a lopsided grin.

“What?” he asks innocently, though the mischievous glint in his eyes tells you he knows exactly what he’s doing.

“You’re impossible,” you mutter, though there’s no real heat in your words.

“And yet, here you are, cuddling me anyway,” he quips, looking far too pleased with himself.

Before you can come up with a retort, he leans back down, resting his head against your chest again. His voice is quieter now, almost shy as he adds, “I don’t wanna get up yet.”

Your heart softens at his admission, and you find yourself relenting.

“Fine,” you say, running a hand through his hair. “But only for a few more minutes. Then we really need to get moving.”

He hums in response, his eyes slipping shut once more as he leans into your touch. You feel his breathing even out again, and for a moment, you let yourself relax, enjoying the quiet intimacy of the moment.

When you finally manage to coax Tony out of bed, it’s a slow, reluctant process.

He clings to you the entire time, draping an arm over your shoulder as you sit up, resting his chin on your head while you stretch. Even when you stand, he follows you, keeping one hand on your waist as though afraid you’ll suddenly disappear.

“Are you always this clingy in the morning?” you tease, glancing at him over your shoulder.

He grins, unrepentant. “Only when I’ve got something worth clinging to.”

You roll your eyes, though your cheeks flush at the compliment. “Come on, Romeo. We’ve got work to do.”

He groans but doesn’t let go as you make your way to the kitchen. You try to shoo him off, insisting you can handle things just fine on your own, but he refuses to budge, staying close as you start preparing breakfast.

“Tony,” you say, exasperated but laughing, “I need both hands to crack these eggs.”

“You’ve got two hands,” he replies, leaning against the counter with a smug smirk. “Mine are free. Put me to work.”

You shake your head, handing him a whisk. “Fine. You can whisk. But don’t make a mess.”

He salutes you dramatically. “Yes, ma’am.”

By the time the Quinjet lands outside, the cabin is spotless, breakfast is ready, and you’ve managed to coax Tony into releasing you—though not without a fair amount of grumbling on his part.

The team files in, shaking off snow and shedding coats as they greet you warmly.

Steve glances between you and Tony, his brows furrowing slightly. “Everything okay here? You guys managed alright during the storm?”

You exchange a glance with Tony, his expression betraying nothing but smug satisfaction.

“Oh, we managed,” you say, biting back a smile.

Steve eyes you both suspiciously, but before he can press further, Natasha strides in, sniffing the air.

“Did you guys actually cook breakfast?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Tony whisked,” you say, and he preens like it’s the highest praise he’s ever received.

“I whisked,” he repeats proudly.

Natasha snorts, muttering something under her breath about miracles, and the conversation shifts as the team settles in.

Throughout the morning, Tony stays close—always within arm’s reach, always finding some excuse to brush against you or nudge your shoulder. It’s subtle enough that no one seems to notice, but you’re keenly aware of it, and the warmth it brings stays with you long after the blizzard is nothing more than a memory.

It’s going to be a very merry Christmas indeed.

stop guys I love Christmas so much