#i've called seven places today and have no hard answers

[the-mighty-glow-cloud]

trying to find a new apartment bc they're raising my rent and i found some bigger places that cost less but wough. this is a fucking miserable process

[miela]

Shattered Memories • Chapter VIII: Lovers at The Gala • {Peter Parker x Stark!Reader}

Chapter Genre: Comical Fluff, AND LOTS OF FLUFF Chapter Warnings: it's a long boi, Extra: this chapter is for the genshin stans and swifties, if you know then you know. I've been excited about this chapter since the prologue I am losing my mind. I wanted to do two chapters this week because chapter viii and ix are my favorites so you're getting one today and one on friday. Word Count: 6.6k

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It was the big day of The Stark Charity Gala. It was being held in the Empire State Building which was no surprise because the theme was Gilded Age, mixed with Art Deco and Art Nouveau elements, according to Miles’ knowledge from being an art student. When Peter brought it up to you and what your inspiration for it was, your answer was nothing short of what he was expecting from you.

“Art Deco and Art Nouveau are eras that disagreed with each other. So I’m forcing them to get along,” you explained. “I added the gilded age theme to it because I’d like to think it’s the company’s own personal gilded age.”

Creative as always, Peter thought.

Peter arrived with his friends in Harry’s limo around seven thirty, a half hour after the gala started. Gwen and Miles both went with the color red for their outfits. Cindy went with a light blue and Harry and Peter went with regular black tuxedos and a pop of color for their pocket squares. Pavitr was meeting them there with Gayatri, who was also invited to attend. 

Before they walked into the area where the gala was being held, Harry stopped them.

“Now, there will probably…no…there will be celebrities and highly influential people here,” Harry began. “So don’t act a fool about it.”

“Get your head out of your ass, Harry,” Gwen started with squinted eyes. “We’re friends with you and Peter’s girlfriend is (Y/N) freaking Stark, who’s hosting this thing by the way. So you don’t have to worry about your pretty little rich boy head.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Peter sighed. 

“Yeah, but she’s the love of your life so what’s the actual difference here?” 

“One, Gwen, fuck you,” Harry stated with a playful look on his face. “And two, Gwen has a point.”

Peter groaned. “Please, don’t embarrass me tonight. I can’t make a proper move when I’m worried all you are gonna be lurking around the corner just to get the chance to bully me in front of the girl I like. I’m just asking for this one night.”

His friends could see the desperation on his face because they all nodded in understanding. 

“No worries, Parker,” Gwen started. 

“Yeah,” Miles agreed. “We’re rooting for you.”

“If you need a nudge or something,” Cindy added.  “Come find one of us. We can help rather than hinder this time.” She looked at Gwen and Harry with a hard look and they threw their hands up in defense and surrender.

“Thank you,” Peter sighed again as they arrived by the door. 

“Ready?” Harry asked and they all nodded before he led them inside. 

The room was decorated to the nines as were the people. There were geometric elements of Art Deco matched with the floral designs and organic shapes of Art Nouveau. There was gold everywhere mixed in with the Stark Industries brand colors. The men all wore tuxedos of different types while the women wore formal gowns. It reminded Peter of a high-class prom or something. He and his friends gawked at lavishness. It was like they walked into a royal fairytale minus the electro-swing music playing in the background which brought a roaring 20s vibe.

The only thing that broke their trance was Pavitr calling out to them. They looked over to see him and Gayatri matching in Indian formal wear in shades of purple. They hurried over and greeted the rest of the group.

“Isn’t this place amazing?” Gayatri asked. “I wasn’t expecting it to be this nice.”

“That’s what happens when you have someone from our generation running things,” Cindy smiled. “She knows what style is.”

Peter smiled softly and looked around to see if he could find you but there was no sign of you yet. He didn’t even see Nika, who was one of the last people he would want to see right now. He debated texting you but he didn’t want to seem desperate either. He chewed on his bottom lip nervously.

“Peter!” He heard a voice from behind and he whipped around with his eyebrows raised. 

He saw Celina wearing a sparkly silver dress waving at him. She was there with Ned and MJ. Ned was wearing a Tux with a silver sparkly bow tie and a sparkly pocket square to match. MJ was wearing a green dress with geometric lines on the upper part of her dress and flowing silk on the bottom half. Peter waved back with a smile which caused Celina to pull the other two over with her as they struggled to keep up with her excitement. Celina wrapped her arms around Peter and instinctively Peter hugged back.

“It’s good to see you again!” Celina chimed when she pulled back and then looked at Ned and MJ. “This is the guy I was telling you about!”

“Oh yeah, we know him,” MJ spoke. “Always ordered the lamest type of coffee when you came into the cafe. You know, I was tempted to add vanilla or something just to give your life a bit of razzle dazzle or something but legally I couldn’t do that.”

Peter smiled in response. Typical Michelle Jones-Watson Communication.

“Jeez, M,” Celina put her hands on her hips and stood in contrapposto as she looked at the tall woman. “Way to greet him.”

“What?” MJ asked.

“Anyways,” Celina said, turning back to Peter. “This weirdo is MJ. And this precious guy here is Ned.” She hugged his arm and he smiled and kissed her temple.

I know. “Nice to meet you, both. Officially.”

“You too,” Ned smiled back. “You know, (Y/N) talks about you a lot. I feel like we all know you already.” 

“Oh my god, Celina?” Cindy popped up from behind Peter. 

“Cindy?!” Celina beamed.

The two girls squealed and hugged each other. 

“You can speak now!” Cindy exclaimed and Peter mentally facepalmed himself for not mentioning it to her sooner. 

MJ’s phone sounded and she checked it and sighed. “Our girl is running late, but she’ll be here in a few.” She put her phone away. “Good, we have time to interrogate you.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Ned suggested. “How about we just get to know him without you grilling him.”

“Well, I didn’t mean literally,” MJ responded. “I know he’s harmless. Gayatri knows him from Pavitr.”

“MJ!” Gayatri exclaimed as if on cue. 

“That’s my cue. You boys play nice now,” and with that, she walked over to Peter’s friend group to say hello to Gayatri and Pavitr. 

It was just Peter and Ned left and they looked at each other awkwardly. 

“Hey, wanna find a table?” Ned asked, pointing over to one of the clothes tables.

“Yeah, sure!” Peter responded. 

After a bit of socializing, Celina invited everyone to sit together which turned out to be the greatest idea. Celina and Cindy were bonding and catching up, Miles, Gwen, Pavitr and Gayatri were talking about MIT culture and Harry and MJ were talking about something Peter couldn’t figure out, but Harry got a smile out of her a few times which seemed like a good sign. His friends were all together and it made him really happy. Especially now that he could see his old friends too. He talked to Ned about MIT, answered questions about himself when Ned asked, and ended up in a deep and intriguing conversation about Star Wars.

He found out why the entire group was here in the first place. Gwen and Miles were there to represent Brooklyn Visions Academy Star Alumni, Pavitr and Gayatri were there to represent Horizon High Star Alumni, Cindy and a girl named Jessica Drew were there to represent Midtown Tech Star Alumni, and Ned and MJ were there to represent MIT Stellar Students. Celina was Neds plus one which made both of your and Peter's friends groups there at the Gala.

“You know, I know I like, just only met you,” Ned started with a smile. “But I feel like I’ve known you my whole life. Is that weird? I dunno. Maybe I’ll take a page out of Celina’s book and say it’s a sign that you’re good for (Y/N).”

Peter’s heart swelled at his words. “S’not weird. I mean I still think it’s weird that you think anyone is better than Obi-Wan Kenobi, but that’s none of my business.” He smirked, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.

“Dude!” Ned exclaimed with a laugh. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I did not say that!” 

“You implied it,” Peter sang playfully.

“Nuh-uh! Obi-Wan is way cool! He’s the strongest force user! The one you should argue with is your Sith sympathizer girlfriend who still has a major crush on Anakin Skywalker even though he went through with order 66. And called Darth Vader, Darth Daddy,” 

“Ugh,” Peter winced. “Don’t remind me.”

They laughed softly for a moment before Gwen interjected.

“Hey!” She whined. “He gets to call her your girlfriend but I don’t?”

“He gets a pass because he’s not trying to put bets on my decisions like it’s a dating sim.”

Gwen stuck her tongue out at him again before there was a rush of commotion outside of the main entryway. They all looked over curiously.

“She’s here,” MJ stated. “God, she’s gonna hate all this attention.”

Peter’s senses started buzzing which confirmed MJ’s claims about you being here. He stood up at the feeling as his excitement to see you was rising. The reporters outside got louder as the outside door opened and you walked in. Peter could feel you getting closer as his senses focused on you. 

When you entered the room, Peter froze.

There you were, in a golden gown that complimented your upper body in ways that Peter wasn’t used to or prepared for. The tattoo on your arm was in full view and the blue of roses complemented the gold of your dress. Your makeup was made up of golden glitter on your eyelids and soft colors that went well with your skin tone. 

Peter wished he was sitting down because he was sure his legs were going to give out on him. Celina was right. If he was busy today with work, he would’ve risked it all just to be here to see you. He thanked the universe that the stars aligned in his favor.

You looked heavenly. 

When you spotted him your face lit up and you smiled at him and started to make a beeline towards him. He watched you the entire time.

“Peter, hey,” You smiled. 

He could smell your soft-scented perfume as you approached him and it relaxed him and he sighed softly in satisfaction, but his eyes never left you and his heart still raced.

He felt like he was in the presence of a Goddess. 

“H-” He cleared his throat before he squeaked again. “Hey, (Y/N)...”

“Snap out of it before you drool all over that tux,” Nika, who wore a green gown that was a similar color to MJ’s, said from beside you guys. 

Peter looked at her surprised that he didn’t notice her. Nika looked at you and held up a black box for you to take. “You left this in the limo. I swear you would lose your head from your shoulders without me.”

You take it with a sheepish look on your face. “Thank you.”

Nika smiled and then turned to greet your friends. You and Peter looked back at each other and you handed him the box. 

“For you.” 

He looked at you wondrously as he opened it. It was a bowtie and a pocket square that matched your dress. 

“Celina made the dress,” you explained as your face burned. “She thought it would be nice if we matched.”

Peter smiled and nodded as he took off the bowtie and took out the pocket square that he was already wearing. “Thanks.”

“Here, allow me,” you stated as you took out the golden bowtie from the box and began tying it around his collar. He watched you the entire time.

There were so many things he wanted to say but his brain was so scrambled that he could only muster up a “Did you get here okay?”  

“Yeah,” you replied as you worked on the pocket square softly. “Traffic was backed up to hell, but we managed.”

When you finished with the pocket square, you patted the pocket area with your hand twice. “There you go.” You smiled up at him meeting his eyes. 

He blushed. “Thank you.”

You smile bigger in response. “Welp, I got a speech to go make and then socialize with the pretentious assholes and organizations that are actually nice. Give me like an hour? Then I’m all yours.”

“No, yeah, yeah!” Peter nodded rapidly and cleared his throat while glancing at the ground for a second before meeting your gaze again and giving you a soft smile. “Go get ‘em, Tiger.” 

 After a while, Peter went upstairs where it was less crowded. For a while he watched you go from person to person from the balcony with a glass of sweet wine in his hand that he sipped on. He then watched what his friends were doing. He noticed that Harry and MJ were spending a lot of time together talking. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her smile like that before. He raised his eyebrow wondrously at her out-of-character reactions to Harry. Did she just giggle? Peter blinked rapidly.

Peter sensed you approaching him. 

“Hey there, Stranger,” you smiled and leaned backward on the balcony next to him. 

Peter looked at you with a small smile on his face. “Hey there, beautiful.”

Your face burned and your eyes averted away shyly at the unexpected compliment. “Stop,” you said sheepishly with no real conviction behind your words as you smiled down at the ground and tried to compose yourself. 

Peter's smile widened. “I would apologize, but I’m not sorry.”

You pressed your lips together and turned to face the same way he was. Your shoulder pressed against his. Two can play that game, Parker. “Keep it up and I might leave this circus early and take you with me.” 

“But Celina worked so hard on that phenomenal dress, and Harry got this tux sized for me. It would be a shame to let it go to waste,” Peter smirked. “Plus, Nika would murder us both if you left early with me.”

“I’m sure there’s a secluded room we can go to.” You argued playfully. “It wouldn’t be hard to… share our secrets there.”

Peter snorted. “How romantic. I hate to inform you that I’m not that kind of guy.”

“Even better,” you smiled and took the glass of wine from his hand and took a sip out of it while looking directly into his dark brown eyes. 

Peter looked back into your eyes deeply. He wanted to kiss you right then and there.

But of course, there was an interruption. Like always. 

“So this is the famous Peter Parker,” He heard a man’s voice say. “Right here in the flesh.”

You audibly sigh and roll your eyes as you look at Sam who was standing with Bucky both dressed in tux with serious looks on their faces but mischief in their eyes.

“Hello, Sam.” You said with not much enthusiasm in your voice. “And Bucky.”

Bucky squinted at the two of you and you both prayed to any higher being that they didn’t hear your flirtatious conversation.

Peter cleared his throat to make sure his voice didn’t embarrass him again. “Captain Wilson. Sergeant Barnes,” he addressed them politely. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Sam hummed and looked at the two of you. 

“Well, this was fun but there are some people I would like to introduce Peter to so if you wouldn’t mind-” As you spoke you took Peter’s hand and started to pull him away but were stopped when you felt a tug on your hand. 

You turned to see Peter standing there and Sam and Bucky each had a hand on his shoulder. Their grips were gentle but firm and it sent a chill down Peter’s spine. Despite his senses telling him that they weren’t going to do anything, it didn’t mean they weren’t going to say anything. Especially when they’re like older brother figures to you. You gave Peter an apologetic look as Bucky put his arm around Peter’s shoulder.

“We’re concerned for you,” Bucky stated. 

You sighed deeply. “He’s harmless, guys. I made sur-”

“Oh no, not you,” Sam interrupted and pointed at Peter. “You, my friend.”

“M-me?” Peter asked in confusion.

“Oh yeah,” Bucky added. “She’s kind of obsessed with you. I would be careful.”

You crossed your arms and huffed. “You guys aren’t funny-”

“She’s been researching you,” Sam interjected.

“Investigating, if you will.” 

“We know about you more than we should,” Sam gave Peter a warning look. 

Peter from each man as they spoke and you pouted and rolled your eyes. “Stop.”

“Hey, just trying to help a brother out,” Sam threw a hand up in defense. “Your ass is a little crazy.”

“I am not crazy,” you argued. “Now give him back.”

“Oof! You hear that, Buck?”

“Yep!” Bucky chimed. “Possessive as hell.”

“Stop making me look bad!”

“You’re doing that all on your own.”

Peter couldn’t take it anymore and he busted out in giggles and all three of you looked at him wondrously. 

“I know she’s been doing that,” Peter smiled smugly, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked at you. “She just couldn’t help but fall for my charm and cute face.”

You deadpanned so hard. “You know what, never mind. Keep him.” you downed the wine, forced the glass into Bucky’s free hand, turned around, and walked away.

“Wait, (Y/N)-” Peter called. “I was joking!”

“Mhm, sure,” Peter could hear the smile in your voice. “Go be cute and cocky somewhere else with your new bros.”

Peter tried to pull from their grip to go after you, but Bucky kept his firm metal hold on him. Peter looked at him wondrously. 

Bucky gave him a thin-lipped smile. “Take care of her, yeah? Otherwise, you’ll have to deal with us in the not-so-subtle way, Spiderman.”

Peter nodded. “I promise.”

Bucky and Sam let go of Peter and he instantly ran after you picking you up from behind and twirling you around for a moment as you squealed and laughed. 

“Gotcha,” Peter sang. 

“Caught right in your web,” you smiled. “Poetic isn’t it?”

Peter snorted and set you down. “I feel like I should apologize to you about them.”

It was your turn to snort. “Please, I would apologize for them but they are two grown-ass men who can do it themselves. No worries though. I’ll be a brat about it for a few days until they do.”

Peter laughed. 

“Speaking of poems,” you said looking at the time. “I should get ready to give my speech and do the rest of my mingling so I can get that out of the way.”

Peter smiled at you. “Okay. I’ll probably go bully Harry with Gwen.”

You giggled. “You saw him with Michelle too?”

“Yeah.” And I would bully her too if circumstances were different.

“Have fun,” you said.

“Good luck,” He replied. 

After your speech, you mingled more. One guy got a little handsy with you than you or Peter liked but you handled it with grace. And by grace, Peter meant you took the guy's hand by the wrist and nearly broke it as you told him off. After that Peter lost you in the crowd. He couldn’t find you and he couldn’t sense you. It worried him. He asked his friends and your friends if they had seen you. They haven’t and you weren’t answering your texts from anyone. It worried him more.

He spotted the table where Pepper, Happy and Morgan were sitting and decided that was his next best option, even if Happy was giving him suspicious looks all evening. So he walked over to them with sweaty hands and a racing mind.

“Um…Hello,” Peter said sheepishly. 

Pepper looked up at him. Happy never stopped looking at him. Morgan didn’t acknowledge him.

“Uh…you haven’t seen (Y/N) anywhere, have you?” He asked, rubbing the back of his head. “I’m Peter. Peter Parker.”

“Oh!” Pepper chimed. “She was going to introduce us to you later but fate has other plans I guess.” She smiled as she stood up and went by him. “It’s nice to meet you.”

She held out her hand and Peter shook it politely. “It’s nice to meet you too, Mrs. Stark.”

Pepper wore a blue gown with her hair in a low bun. Morgan wore a pink dress with a black leather jacket that Peter recognized as the very first one that Tony had gotten for you. Happy wore a regular suit. 

“She left like fifteen minutes ago,” Morgan stated. “Typical.”

Pepper gave Morgan a warning look and then looked back at Peter. “She didn’t leave. She stepped out for a moment. She doesn’t do well in crowds for very long.”

Peter was surprised that Happy wasn’t with you, but then again he wasn’t surprised because you hated having a bodyguard with you at all times when you can take care of yourself just fine. 

Peter nodded knowingly in response. 

“She’ll be back in a bit,” Pepper continued. “She let Morgan use her phone.”

He looked to see the preteen girl playing a game on your phone aggressively. 

Ah. “Okay. Thank you.” 

“Aw, man!” Morgan exclaimed. “I died!”

She pouted the same way you did. Her bottom lip sticking out and furrowed brows and it made Peter chuckle softly.

“What game are you playing?” Peter asked.

Morgan looked up at him. “Genshin Impact.”

Peter hummed in amusement. “May I?”

She eyed him with hesitation and then handed him the phone. He took it and then sat in the chair next to her. He looked at the screen and blinked rapidly.

“Dude,” he started. “You’re still in Inazuma? When did you start playing?”

“Like a month ago,” Morgan replied sheepishly. “But I used to play on (Y/N)’s account but I got tired of her zooming through the storyline and I was left with only her story quests and world quests. Of course, she would leave the boring parts to me.”

Peter snorted and analyzed the mission Morgan was struggling with. “You’re fighting Raiden Shogun. Saving Thoma right?”

Morgan nodded. 

“So the goal isn’t to beat her. She’s an Archon it’s impossible to do so,” Peter explained like the geek he is. “And she deactivates your bursts and skills so you’re kind of stuck and rendered useless. The goal is to bring her down to seventy-five percent health and run and dodge when she activates the Vision Hunt Decree. You only need to survive for forty-five seconds after that and you’re all good.” 

Morgan looked at him with wide eyes. “Really?”

“Mhm!” Peter smiled. “Here let me equip you with the right things. Especially with the team you have.”

After clicking around and setting up Morgan’s teams for success, he handed the phone back to her. “If you lose you can kick my butt.”

She took the phone and gave him a tight-lipped smile as she started the mission again. Peter watched her the whole time and was her second pair of eyes. She was able to pass the quest with flying colors.

“Yes!” Morgan cheered and looked up at Peter with a sparkle in her eye. “Thank you so much, Peter!”

“Good job!” Peter chuckled softly and held up his hand for a high five and Morgan smacked the palm of her hand onto his.

He looked up to see Pepper smiling at the two of them and Happy's face was softer than it had been all night. Peter gave them a thin-lipped smile in response. There was still no sign of you. 

“You should go find, (Y/N),” Morgan stated, not taking her eyes off the screen. “I think I got it from here. Oh! But give me your UID and we can be friends on here!”

Peter smiled, gave her his UID, and then he got up. “I’ll bring her back safely.”

“Thank you,” Pepper replied. 

Peter walked out and into the cool New York City air. He glanced around to see if he could spot you but there was no sign of you but he could faintly sense you. Which brought him some relief and comfort. 

"If you're looking for her, she's on the roof." 

Peter whipped around to see Nika leaning up on the wall looking at the roof of a building that was across the street. 

"The roof?"

"Yeah,” Nika replied. “She can only take so much of the public eye, public speeches, and networking before it gets too much for her. So she needs a break from it all for a bit so she can come back down and do it all over again. It took her two months of practicing her speech for the expo before she felt ready. In fact, I don't think she ever was ready for that speech."

Peter chuckled softly and said softly to himself. “Yeah, she’s always been that way.”

Nika hummed in response. 

Peter looked up at the sign of the place that you were on top of. It was a cute cafe with globe lights on strings and plants on the roof of it. He imagined it was a quiet place which is why you choose there to go.

“I’m out here as her lookout,” Nika continued. “Decided to give Happy a break and actually enjoy himself for once.”

Peter hummed amused. “How nice of you.”

“He’s probably shitting himself worried right now,” Nika grinned. “I may be a small girl but I can take down a super soldier like Sargent Barnes any day. I’m more than capable.”

“I believe you,” Peter agreed. “You kinda scare me.”

“Good.”

Peter smiled at Nika and she smiled back.

"Well, what are you waiting for?”’ She chuckled. “Go to her. Be an Avenger Boy and save the day.” She waved him off. “Shoo shoo!"

Peter laughed. “You’re not gonna kick my ass for being a distraction?”

“Nah,” Nika let out a deep breath. “She could use a little…or a lot…of distraction right now. Play your cards right and you might get completely on my good side.”

“Good to know,” Peter smiled and began walking towards the building. 

“You can web up there you know,” Nika commented which made Peter stop in his tracks and turn on his heels to look at her.

“You know?” He replied but it came out more like a statement.

Nika tapped her temple. “I know a lot of things. It’s kind of my job. Didn’t take me long to figure it out.”

Peter nodded in response.

“If anyone sees you, I’ll gaslight them.”

Peter laughed. “No worries, I’m careful.”

Nika nodded and gave him a salute of good luck. He was pleasantly surprised by Nika’s friendly behavior. He half expected her to rip his head off for trying to bother him but she encouraged him. And what was he gonna do, say no? Of course not.

 He went into the Alley of the building and webbed himself up after making sure the coast was clear. He saw you on the other side leaning over the ledge looking up at a billboard with Tony Stark and the Iron Man suit on it. The Billboard read “Gone but never forgotten.”

He took a deep preparation breath and walked over to you. You sensed him, looked back at him, and smiled softly.

"Sorry,” you stated.  “I'm a horrible date."

"You're not," he smiled back with a chuckle and leaned next to you much like how you did with him earlier.

You both turned and looked at the billboard again both of your are hit with waves of emotions and Peter couldn’t tell if he was feeling it from you or if you were feeling it from him, but the comfort of each other’s company kept your feelings in check as you guys silently bonded over the absence of Tony Stark in your lives. 

Peter remembered all his moments with Tony and how much he learned from him. He remembers sitting in the workshop with him while Tony worked on his Spider suit and he, himself, worked on his web shooters. 

He remembers a specific day…

You ran up behind Peter, wrapped your arms around his torso, and gave him a peck on the cheek with a giggle. He blushed with a smile and turned his head to look at you and kiss your forehead. You would be spending the day with Natasha and Wanda.

“Heading out?” He asked you softly.

“Yep,” you replied. “I’ll buy you something.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Let her do it,” Tony said from across the table. “She’s gonna do it anyway. It’s like her dream to be your sugar mama.”

Peter chuckled nervously, unsure if Tony was being serious or not. You rolled your eyes.

“Bye, Darling.” You pecked Peter’s lips and he pecked yours back before you went over to your dad and kissed his temple. “Goodbye, Father.”

“Goodbye Daughter,” Tony replied. “Have fun, be safe, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, and definitely don’t do anything I would do.”

You made a pfft sound. “Yeah right,” you replied as you walked away.  “Love you,” you sang.

“Love you,” Tony replied as you disappeared up the staircase. 

Peter watched you the entire time with nothing but love in his eyes. Tony eyed him when he noticed him not focusing on his web slinging gizmo. 

“Y’know, kid,” Tony started as Peter turned to him rapidly from being knocked from his gazing and daydreaming of you. “There’s this thing called a camera. It’s on your phone. Ever heard of it? If you take a picture it will last longer.”

Peter snorted with a smile and went back to upgrading his gadget. “S’not the same, sir.”

Tony sighed and rolled his eyes. “You kids are weird. But I’d take weird over anything else.”

Peter inserted the web fluid into his web shooter and then set it down looking up at Tony. 

Mr. Stark?”

“That’s me,” Tony sang.

“I think I’m in love with (Y/N),” Peter said and Tony stopped what he was doing and looked up at him again. “But ... .I don’t know how to express that to her in a way she deserves.”

Tony’s face softened and he set the suit down on the table and turned completely to Peter listening to him.

Peter continued. “I don’t know much about romance…only what they show in movies and what Aunt May has told me but this is my first relationship and I’m hoping for it to be my one and only relationship for the rest of my life. Is that weird? That’s weird isn’t it?” Peter sighed nervously. “I just…I don’t wanna mess it up. I want to find a way to show her how much I love her. Something that she can hold or look at for when we aren’t by each other but I also know she’s not materialistic and she prefers experiences over items. I dunno…maybe I’m overthinking it.”

Tony pressed his lips together and let out a deep breath. “You got a heart of gold, Peter. It pairs well with her heart of Iron. I’m sure whatever you come up with she will love because it came from you and you specifically. That’s all she needs.”

Peter let out a sigh.

“You know I never visited his grave,” you stated softly and Peter looked at you. “I’m afraid of how I’ll react.” You look down at your tattoo and trace your fingers over the arc reactors. “I never expected to take over the stark throne so soon…the same age my dad took over. If I go visit his grave, that’s just a reminder of what wasn’t supposed to be.”

Peter listened to you.

“Kinda shitty of me isn’t it?” You started. “Won’t take on the role of Iron Hero, won’t go visit his grave, can’t hold an event without running away and leaving my date behind. Some legacy I am.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Peter said, turning to you and seeing your eyes glossed over. “That’s not shitty. That’s called being human. You have the right to feel however you feel about it. He was more than just your dad but the person you confided in the most. No one blames you for feeling this way.”

You looked at him and smiled. “Thanks.”

Peter pressed his lips together and lifted himself from the ledge and took out his phone, opening up his preferred music app. You watched him as he set his phone down as the song played. It was one of your favorites, Lover by Taylor Swift. 

He holds out his hand to you with a smile. "Dance with me?" 

You smiled and took his hand. And he walked you closer towards the center of the roof. You wrapped your arms around his neck and clasped your hands together as his hands made their way to your hips. Your senses bloomed at the contact as you guys looked at each other with burning faces that kept you warm from the cool autumn air.

"You look pretty tonight," he stated. "Not that you don't look pretty any other time."

“Thank you,” you giggled. "You should see me when I wake up in the morning. Puffy-faced, looking scary and pissed off."

Peter chuckled softly remembering how you were in the mornings during their time at the Avengers Compound. You always looked like you were ready to fight someone at any moment even if you woke up in a good mood. You got teased for it often. 

"Well, you clean up nicely," he smiled.

"So do you," you smiled. "You look handsome. Not that you don't look handsome any other time."

“Thanks, I woke up like this.”

You playfully hit his arm and he laughed in response with your giggles. 

“You’re conceited today,” you commented. 

“Confident,” he corrected.

You squinted your eyes and hummed in doubt. “Conceited,” you argued. “But I kinda like it.”

He hummed in response and looked into your eyes meeting your gaze. 

You get lost looking deeply into the darkness of his irises. He has such pretty brown eyes. He looked back into your eyes deeply also getting lost in your wonderous orbs. You guys felt the pull stronger than ever before. You glanced down at his lips and Peter stopped moving as he focused completely on you. Like the rest of the world didn’t exist. His senses were all on you.

It was his turn to glance down at your lips as he pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth like he was debating on something before making a decision. Pavitr’s words rang in his mind. 

This is it. The moment.

You both lean in. It’s happening. The moment you and your senses have been waiting for. Oh my fucking god, it’s happening. You close your eyes. 

Your lips met his softly.

Your senses jolted and in a quick moment your body went cold and an implosion of warmth flowed through you and. your senses lost control of themselves. Your heart raced in your chest and your brain focused on Peter and only Peter. 

It was like something clicked.

You didn't realize that you had stopped dancing. You didn't know when his arm wrapped around your waist to pull you closer and you didn't know how your hand ended up gripping his hair. You didn't feel the moment when his tongue swiped across your lips and you opened your mouth to invite him in. 

He tasted of strawberry candy wine and mint and paradise. 

It was like your senses remembered him even though your memory was still hazy but in that moment, it was like it was only you two in the world.

His kiss reminded you of your first kiss. 

His hold reminded you of your first dance.

His gentleness reminded you of him.

The Faceless Boy.

You forgot to breathe and your hands slowly moved to his shoulders and you pulled back reluctantly and he chased your lips as if you two were a magnetic force not meant to part. You looked at each other with hooded eyes, slightly heavy breathing and racing hearts.

Before you could think your mouth spoke.

"My sweet boy…" you said barely a whisper.

Before Peter could react you both were interrupted.

"Let's go, Parker!!" 

Peter jumped as did you and quickly looked over with wide eyes. You stopped his hand from activating his web shooter and accidentally webbing someone off the roof. 

Then he groaned softly and he winced and threw his head back in defeat.

His friends and your friends were together cheering and clapping. As Gwen and Harry started chanting the intro to Blitzkrieg Bop.

"Hey, ho! Let's go!" Echoed through the night sky as Cindy and Celina threw finger hearts at the both of you and joined in the chant. Nika was there with her phone out recording the whole ordeal with a mischievous smile on her face.

You couldn't help but snort and hide your face in Peter's shoulder as you shook from giggles of embarrassment, while Peter pouted at his friends in particular. You lifted your head with your lips pressed together sheepishly looking at him.

"We have a fan base."

He looked back at you with an apologetic look. "I'm so, so, so sorry about this…"

"Don't be. I'm pretty sure it was Nika's idea." 

You both glanced over at them again. As they all started cheering “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

I think I’m going to enter my villain arc, Peter thought, being unserious. I asked for one night.

"Let's give them a show?" You asked. 

Peter decided that if this is what fate had in store for you both, he wasn’t going to let it ruin the moment. So he smirked at you and dipped you causing you to squeal softly and your leg to lift. He caught the bottom of your thigh in his hand as he pressed his lips to yours again and you lay a hand on his cheek while the other gripped onto his shoulder. 

The feeling was electrifying and your friends cheered and clapped louder.

Later that night you arrived back at home with Pepper and Morgan. You say goodnight to them as you go to your room and close the door. You lean back on your door and sigh happily. 

You and Peter finally kissed. And it was twice and it was perfect. 

You bite your lip while smiling ear to ear. You felt like a teenage girl again crushing…probably on Peter Parker, to be honest.

You pull out your phone and text Peter.

I'm home. 

Me too. 

You smile and touch your lips softly. You could feel his kiss on your lips still and it sent a warmth throughout your body. You were knocked out  of your thoughts when your phone sounded.

I had fun tonight 😊

Me too ☺️

Your face burned and you giggled.

Sweet dreams, Peter Parker ♥️

Sweet dreams, (Y/N) Stark ♥️

Your heart fluttered the entire time you got ready for bed. And when you dreamt of the Faceless Boy you imagined Peter's face and when you woke up the next morning, it was with grace. There was no cold sweat and there was no pain. Only a happy heart, clear mind and a smile on your lips where you still felt the ghost of Peter's soft lips.

~

Tags:

@chrisevans-realwife @riordanness @peterdarlingg @thecrystalclarity @brckenmemories @paleprincesssxo @blackcanary130 @kindlover @i-have-no-life-charlie @melodicheauxxlovesfood

[rollercoasterwords]

one and seven for the ask game!! 🫶🏼🫶🏼

hi lia <3 <3

Have you pulled inspiration from media sources other than the property your fic is related to (a plot point from a TV show that has nothing to do with the characters/setting of the fic, a line from a book, etc.)? If so, for which story? Why did you find that media source compelling?

absolutely yes! i mean fic in particular is extremely derivative but honestly all writing is derivative...i am always pulling inspiration from other stories i've loved which have stuck w me <3 gonna focus on wfrau in particular just to avoid this answer getting too long + bc that's what i've been writing most recently but. i've pulled inspiration from the animorphs series bc there are lots of fun ethical dilemmas brought up throughout that stuck w me after reading it; a particular scene from the anime 'banana fish' influenced james's story, though i can't say much more abt that without risking spoilers for the anime...if you've seen it you'll probably know which scene it influence tho lol. the crypt ch was influenced by book 4 of the fablehaven series which i read growing up as a kid--i loved book 4 bc it involved the main characters going on a mission into this underground treasure vault and having to fight past different traps to deeper down...so fun <3 the idea to write a werewolf fighting ring au in the first place came from me remembering a book i'd read as a kid called 'the abused werewolf rescue group,' though i couldn't actually tell you anything abt the plot anymore...and i'm sure there are a thousand other bits & pieces of media that have been floating around in my brain as i've written but those r the main ones coming to mind rn!

7. Share a line or paragraph you’ve written that you don’t think will ever actually be posted in anything! (Or, if you don’t hoard cut sentences and passages like I do, share anything you want that has yet to see the light of day!)

ugh see i really should save my writing better...generally w the way i write i'm not usually cutting entire scenes but it has happened once or twice & i've just. deleted it...

i can share a snippet of a pandalily time war au that i wrote about 2 pages of like 2 years ago but don't think i'll ever return to/complete so it will likely never see the light of day...here u go:

The low chatter—that is something that does not change. Gather enough people into a room, call it a party, close your eyes and it could be 1992 in Los Angeles or 761 in Koumbi Saleh or 1674 in Beijing. Humans will buzz like insects no matter what time you put them in, forever and ever and ever. Sometimes Lily wishes that they still existed; she scrubs the thought from her hard drive before her programming reads it as a virus. Humans do exist, forever. One only has to choose the right time.

This time, she is drinking wine. She is wandering through bodies, smiling and feeling the way it shapes her face. She steps past the marble columns, onto the terrace, under the moonlight that kisses her eyelids so gently when she closes them. She can feel the light, you know. That’s something she can do.

“Red suits you.”

The person beside her is a woman, today, or something like it. She wears the same clothing, white sweep of cloth, though she’s never quite able to get the same softness. It drapes willowy, slow-moving, with fingers that gnarl like roots.

“I’m too tired to kill you tonight,” Lily says, biting through the Latin with her canines like rich meat. “Go somewhere else.”

The woman smiles, slow and creeping, a lichen on the bark of a tree.

“Another place?”

“Another time.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I like the wine.”

She isn’t drinking any. She watches the cup in Lily’s hands. When Lily takes a sip, the woman’s tongue darts out to wet her lips, pink and human.

“They have wine later,” Lily tells her, “And before.”

“Not like here,” the woman says, “Not like tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight.”

“And what makes it different tonight?”

The woman smiles. She is standing so very close. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

fic writer ask game

[gavinisqueer]

I've posted a new fic! (Finally!)

Summary: Gavin has a secret - he wasn't born an alpha. For years he's kept it under wraps, but when his suppressants start to fail and he goes into heat, he has no choice but to tell Nines the truth. However, the two of them learn that Gavin's body has changed in the years he's been living as an alpha…

-

The very first thing Nines learned when he joined the DPD was to watch out for Detective Reed. This was a warning given to him first by Connor, his predecessor, who had already had several poor encounters with the alpha in just his first week there, and then by Hank, who backed up his partner’s sentiment. A third warning came a few minutes later from Captain Fowler himself, just before calling said human into his office and assigning the two of them as partners.

That was seven months ago, and while they’d had their differences, especially in the beginning, Nines and Gavin had grown to tolerate and then to like each other. They worked well together, Nines speeding up investigations with his advanced analysis abilities while Gavin handled talking to the witnesses and victims. Occasionally he cracked a difficult case with a ‘gut feeling’ an android had no hope of replicating - Nines couldn’t comprehend it, but more often than not the detective ended up being right.

Today, the detective wasn’t offering any such insights. They’d arrived at the scene and Nines had immediately gotten to work scanning the environment and piecing together the clues he found, but Gavin lagged in joining him. Usually Gavin would be right behind him, almost making it a game to figure things out before the android, but this time he was distracted.

“Is everything alright, Detective?” Nines asked as he rose from a crouch, red painting two of his fingers. He placed them in his mouth as he waited for an answer, getting the DNA profile of the victim in his HUD. Gerald Huntings, alpha, 38, with a long arrest history of red ice distribution. It wasn’t hard to imagine what might have done him in; an exchange gone wrong or a rivalry taken to the extreme, most likely.

“Huh?” Gavin looked over, Nines’ question taking a moment to sink in. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just this damn heat getting to me.” He pulled at his collar, regretting not leaving his leather jacket in the car. Like hell was he going to take it off in a place like this unless he wanted to be taking home the whole crime scene on his clothes.

“…Detective, the temperature has not changed since we left the station.” Nines frowned. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

“Seriously?” It had been mildly warm that morning, nowhere near as hot as Gavin was feeling right now. “Fuck, maybe I’m getting sick, then.” Concerned, Nines offered to test him for a fever, but Gavin shook his head. “Let’s just finish up here first, if I’m not feeling better then I’ll call off the rest of the day.”

Nines wasn’t sure that was the best plan, but he knew how stubborn the alpha could be when it came to their work. He’d get Gavin’s cooperation much more easily if he wasn’t simultaneously trying to pull him away from the case. “I should have all the evidence logged within ten minutes. If you want to get some air, I can meet you outside when I’m done.”

The human looked like he was going to argue, but then something came over his face, and he mumbled, “Y-Yeah, I think I will.” He turned to leave, only to run smack into someone else coming in.

“Watch it, kid.” Hank stood in the doorway, Connor visible over his shoulder in the hall. Gavin bristled at being called ‘kid’, but he didn’t get a chance to snap back. The lieutenant’s nose curled as he looked down at the younger alpha, catching a familiar scent coming off him. “Christ, Reed, what the hell are you doing here smelling like that?”

Gavin’s face reddened. “It’s just sweat, old man, I’ve smelled worse on you,” he defended himself. He could feel his shirt clinging to his back, and he knew when he got home he was going to strip himself of his clothes and immediately hop into a cold shower.

“No, it’s not that.” Connor stepped around Hank, but stayed near him and the door. “You smell like rut, Gavin.” Designed after omegas, Connor had the strongest sense of smell out of anyone in the room. If he smelled rut, then there was no doubt that’s what it was. “And it’s strong. You shouldn’t have even come in today if you’re this close.”

“What? No.” Gavin shook his head. There was no way. “I’m on suppressants. I haven’t had a cycle in years.”

“Suppressants have been known to fail after prolonged use.” After hearing Connor say that Gavin was in rut, Nines abandoned his investigation and joined the group standing by the exit. His own sense of smell was dulled in comparison to his predecessor, stronger than a human beta but not approaching that of an alpha. Only now that the others had pointed it out could he detect a hint of something in Gavin’s scent that wasn’t usually there. “I think Connor’s assessment is most likely correct. We should get you home.”

Gavin knew he was right, but he still weakly protested, “But the case-”

“Connor and I can wrap things up,” Hank interrupted him. “Go home, Reed, before you stink up the whole house.”

A hand pressed into Gavin’s back, Nines giving him a gentle push forward. Gavin reluctantly gave in, letting the android guide him out of the room. Hank and Connor moved out of their way, but as they passed, a whiff of the omega’s scent hit him like a smack to the face. He’d never liked Connor, and that extended to his scent - he smelled artificial and too sweet for Gavin’s tastes. But this time, those things didn’t bother him at all. The sweetness was enticing, and the faint plastic that underlay every android’s scent faded into the background.

Gavin didn’t realise that he had stopped walking, or that he was staring at Connor, until a deep growl filled the room and shook him out of his stupor. Hank glared at him, bringing a protective arm in front of the omega to put himself between Connor and the rut-addled alpha. Gavin was a good man even if he was a pain in the ass, but that didn’t mean he could be trusted to control himself when he was like this.

For the same reason, Nines grabbed onto the hood of Gavin’s jacket in case he needed to hold the man back. Thankfully, it wasn’t necessary. The shock of realising he’d been ready to jump Connor, of all people, had Gavin eager to get out as soon as possible. As he rushed out the door, Nines at his heels, Hank called after them, “Make sure he doesn’t drive himself home!”

There was no argument from Gavin about that. As stubborn as he could be, even he recognized that he shouldn’t be in control of a vehicle right now. He let Nines guide him out of the house and to his car, getting into the passenger side and immediately yanking off his jacket and throwing it into the back seat. Nines got in beside him, taking the keys and starting the car.

It was usually Gavin who started up the conversations they had when driving, but today he was quiet, sitting with his forehead pressed to the window, the coolness of it providing him with only slight relief to the fire raging in his body.

How long had it been since he’d last felt like this? It must have been ten years ago at least that he’d started the suppressants. Sure, he knew they wouldn’t last forever, but the thought of what would happen if he took a break like the directions recommended made him feel sick. He’d pushed it, more than he should have, and now he was going to be hit with the consequences of his actions - the story of his life, basically.

If he had been any normal alpha, this wouldn’t be such a big deal. A week of dealing with his rampant hormones and he’d be good as new and back to work. But Gavin wasn’t a normal alpha, despite what he projected to everyone around him. Few people at work knew that before he’d ever joined the DPD, Gavin Reed had once been an omega. He was more open about being a trans man, sharing the fact with a few people he was close to, but being trans-secondary wasn��t nearly as accepted by society yet, so he’d kept that part of himself a secret ever since leaving home all those years ago.

That meant Gavin was the only one who knew that what was happening to his body wasn’t a rut - it was a heat.

- Read the rest on AO3!

[george-havo]

Day 002, salvage ship The Wretched, Flight Engineer George Havo reporting. Yesterday, I ate through all of the food I had stashed in the engine room (peanut butter crackers only last so long), so I decided to start today with a task I've been dreading: removing the bodies from the mess hall. Honestly, I probably would have put this off longer if I wasn't starving. It was hard to not think about their deaths while I carried the bodies to the airlock. Karl was holding a pink teddy bear, darkened by blood. The bear's name was Pinkie, named and gifted to him by his daughter. His daughter is seven, now. I'll need to find a way to explain her father's death to her. I tried to not look at the other bodies much. I set them down in a row, April, then Daisuke, then Karl. If I had been among the dead, I would have been second, after April. They didn't look peaceful. I tried to cross their legs, but their stiffening joints didn't allow it. I did manage to tuck Pinkie into Karl's arms. The line of bodies, placed like Barbies against the steel wall of the airlock, were witness to a long period of my daydreaming. I stood next to the door, unwilling to go inside the ship and begin the eject sequence. I thought about the funeral speeches I'd have to give, about the nice things I'd have to say to their loved ones. I realized that I didn't consider this a funeral, that I couldn't bring myself to eject them. If—when—I am rescued, there will be a proper funeral for them. I cannot provide them that, not here. Not in the black of space. I decided to depressurize the airlock to preserve their bodies, but I couldn't bring myself to jettison my crewmates. After my disquieting morning, I threw myself into more technical tasks. I did a few diagnostics and poked around the engine room more. After our altercation with the alien, everything is pretty shaken up, and me living in the space for the past few days hasn't helped the organization. Despite the disorganization, I did some important things. The most important—drumroll, please—: I fixed the distress beacon! No telling when anyone will pick the signal up, but at least it's out there. The less positive development is that I no longer have a backup generator. I was trying to repair the beacon, and I ended up overtaxing the main generator and toasting the circuitry. I replaced the boards with ones from the backup, but no longer having a backup bothers me. I hope someone answers the distress call before I find out what it's like to have no electricity in space. It's almost time for me to sleep. Last night, I had a dream about the alien. When it attacked, I didn't get a full view of it. I just saw smooth black tentacles. In my dream, the thing wasn't gross; it doesn't shine like a cockroach or leave slime. It was just quiet and smooth. And, last night, I watched it kill my crewmates, over and over. I know I'm in a bad situation—objectively, nobody envies where I am right now—but it's a bit stupid how my mind makes up a horrific version of an event I didn't see happen. Let's hope my dreams are better tonight. George Havo of the Wretched, signing off.

[agirlwhoisaphantom]

Champagne & Sunshine - Bucky Barnes x Reader

18+

Summary: Since the day that you and Bucky confessed your feelings for one another. You both can’t keep your hands to yourselves.

Word Count: 3875

Warnings: Right off the bat smut, things occur in the hot hub, unprotected sex, [nicknames: good girl, bunny] cream pie, teasing, nipple play, uuhhh let me know if I'm missing anything.

Author’s Note: It's been a hot minute that I've written any sort of smut, but gosh it feels good to be back after a while.

reblogs/feedback/likes are greatly appreciated & highly encouraged! But please, DO NOT repost/steal ANY of my fics!

Bucky groaned quietly into your ear as he rocked his hips against yours in a slow head motion that made your entire body get filled with chills from head to toe. You hooked your legs over his hips, pulling him closer to your body every chance you could. With every thrust he would make, you would dig your nails dipper onto his back, leaving scratches on him.

His lips pressed against yours, tongue slipping past your lips, dominating each of your senses. You whine into his kiss, letting him that you are nearly close to your peak.

Both of you were now close. A small smirk formed on Bucky’s face as his lips were against yours. He found it fascinating the way you trembled underneath him. You both hit your peak at the same time. Shockwaves were going all over your bodies as you moaned each other’s names repeatedly.

He gets off of you and lays right next to you. You both were heavy breathing and trying to get your composer together.

“Wow,” you both said at the same time. Making you both chuckle as well.

Bucky grabs the duvet and pulls them up over your body. You turn to your side placing your head onto Bucky’s chest. “Round Two, Bunny?” Bucky said quietly as his hand traced the curves from your thigh to your stomach.

You rapidly get on top of him. You began to kiss his neck slowly, cooing against his skin.

As you were rocking your hips against his friction, The phone started to ring. You two completely ignored it the first time.

“Fuck” Bucky groaned. It rang a couple of more times. He got rapidly irritated with the number of times they called him. He was annoyed that people were interrupting him and you. But he knew if he ignored it, they would be rushing to his apartment.

Bucky places his hands on your hips, and as much as he wanted you to continue, he shifted your body off him. You laid right next to him. He gets up and hands you his shirt and your lacey panties so you can put them on. He sits down and grabs his phone. He grunts to see that he had seven missed calls from Steve and Tony.

Bucky answers Steve’s call, “what is i-?“ As his back faces towards you, you run your fingers on his back, tracing his skin and his spine.

“Do you know what time it is?” Steve interrupted him. Even though Steve wasn’t on speakerphone, he was loud enough for you to hear him.

“It’s 7 am. What’s wrong with that?” Bucky rolled his eyes and tried not to sound annoyed. He grabs your hand and places your palm facing upwards, and starts to trace the lines of your hands with his metal hand.

“It’s Peter’s Birthday Trip to the cabin today. We are supposed to leave right now.” Steve took a big breath, and he didn’t want to raise his voice anymore if Peter was around. He didn’t want to ruin the surprise.

Bucky’s eyes widen as he checks the date on his phone. He looks at you and notices that you have the same reaction he had. “We will be there in a couple of minutes. We are still packing.” Lucky enough, most of your stuff was at Bucky’s apartment so that packing wouldn’t be so difficult. Either way, we were only going to be staying for a couple of days.

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Tell her I said hi.” Steve proceeds to hang up the call.

As Bucky was getting up, you notice the scratches that you left on his back. His backfilled with red marks and some of them were deep enough. A little bit of blood was coming out. “oops,” you whispered to yourself.

You were loud enough that Bucky could hear. “You should see your thighs, Doll,” he chuckled as he licks his lips, and his eyes were digesting how beautifully you looked without clothes.

Walking into the bathroom, you notice all the hickey’s that Bucky left on your inner thigh “Bucky! How am I going to swim with these?” you yelled at him as you smirked a little. You didn’t want him to know that. In reality, you didn’t care that you had them on you. It just showed who you belonged to, even though it had been clear to everyone.

“Damn, looks like you won’t be going swimming.” You could hear laughter come from the bedroom. “Either way, I don’t want anyone to look at what’s mine.” He said louder as he walked back and forth to the bedroom, grabbing things that he believed you both would need.

You walk out of the bathroom with a small bag full of items such as your and Bucky’s toothbrush, shampoo, anything from the bathroom you thought would be important.

Walking into the bedroom, Bucky already had your bags and his bags already prepared. He dressed up, and all you needed was to grab a pair of pants and shoes.

Walking towards Bucky’s direction, you intentionally bump into him. He grabs your wrist and rapidly turns you towards him. He places his hand on your chin tilting your head a bit upwards. “Bunny, Don’t forget who you belong to. You are mine, as I am yours.” He leaned in and whispered into your ear.

Moving your hair to the other side. Bucky kisses the back of your ear towards your neck. “Bucky, we have to go.” Trying not to lose focus. Every kiss that he gave you made you want to melt in his arms. He made you feel like no other. He gave you those stupid butterflies in your stomach that was in the children’s book.

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

For the first half of the drive, you were wide awake, observing how beautiful the view was outside of the car window. This wasn’t your first time going to Tony’s Cabin, but you had to go there every time. You didn’t have the chance to look around and view how amazedly it was.

Whenever you would go on road trips with Bucky, he would let you connect your phone to his stereo to blast your favorite songs. He didn’t care what music was planning in the background. No matter what, he was going to end up enjoying it.

You both were only a couple more miles to getting to the Cabin. Bucky wanted to make sure that other people were there, not only you and him being their firsts. He points to his backpack that was on the back of your seat. Bucky turns down the music “Doll, can you grab my phone? It’s my backpack in the front pocket.”

Unbuckling your seat belt, you get up and shift your body in between your seat and Bucky’s seat. You start to look into Bucky’s bag, and you can’t find it. It wasn’t in the front pocket nor the other ones. “I can’t find it.”

“check again it should be in there somewhere.”

“Bucky, I still can’t find it.” You wanted to dump his backpack on the backseats and pick up the mess later. You were getting frustrated that you couldn’t find his phone. While your legs were still on the console. The instant the light turned red, you could feel Bucky reach in between your legs and starts to shuffle around his backpack. Pulling his phone out, he also removes his hand from in between your legs.

What he just did left you startled. At the moment, you wanted to freeze, but you couldn’t. You went back to sitting down. He hands you his phone “call Steve and tell him we are on our way.”

The last couple of miles you had left to drive, you decided to nap, even if it was two more hours. You wanted to take advantage of it.

When you woke up from your nap and noticed that a lake and beautiful trees surrounded it, the grass was green. Everything was so bright and beautiful. If you could pick anywhere to live, it would be right here.

You were still trying to wake up when you notice that Bucky got out of the car and started to walk towards your side to open the door. He grabs your hand as you get out.

Walking towards the porch, you notice Sam and Steve talking. You were unsure what they were talking about, but you probably knew since Peter wasn’t on the lot just yet.

Sam and Steve get up and walk towards you and Bucky. Sam offers a bottle of water to Bucky; meanwhile, Steve hugs you.

“So Buck, can you keep it in your pants for a couple of days?” Steve raises his eyebrow and has a serious look on his face as he crosses his arms. Bucky chokes on the water that he was drinking. Bucky placed his hand over his mouth, trying to cover the smirk he had on his face. He knew damn well that he wasn’t going to and didn’t plan to.

Sam looks over at Steve with a mischievous smile “he does have a point. Peter doesn’t need a live demonstration of Sex Ed.”

That grin Bucky had disappeared instantly and just glared at Steve and Sam. Meanwhile, on the other hand, you could feel your cheeks turn into a rosy color, and you were pulling on the sleeves of your shirt. “weren’t you in Peter’s school teaching videos, 'so your body is changing, believe me, I know how that feels' ” Bucky said in his Steve impression voice.

“You are always going to hold that over my head, aren’t you, Bucky.” Steve rolled his eyes and started to walk into the Cabin. “Stop corrupting her. She was an innocent person before you came into her life.”

Bucky chuckled when he heard him say that you were innocent. Nothing about you was innocent, and that’s something that Bucky liked about you. To him, you were a book full of secrets, and he wanted to know everything about you, from your darkest secrets to your sweetest ones. “I mean, you could hear her when she-“ you hit his lower stomach, making him groan a little at how hard you hit him, “never mind.”

You started to move your bags onto the room that you and Bucky were staying in. But every time that you went for your suitcases, Bucky would grab them out of your hand. He insisted that he would take care of grabbing your things and taking them to the room. He didn’t want you to lift any of your fingers.

It didn’t take long for everyone else to come to the Cabin. Luckily, you and Natasha had an hour to decorate before Peter came. The guys oversaw taking care of the outside decorations. Meanwhile, the girls are in charge of the inside décor.

“How is it dating, Capsicle over there?” you were way too focused on writing a poster for Peter saying ‘happy birthday Pete’ when your focus is disturbed by Natasha going in front of you. She had a smirk on her face and motions her head towards the window, where Bucky and Sam were tackling each other, and Steve had his hand placed on his face and shaking his head.

Looking out of the window, you had a smile on your face. “It’s not so bad. I’m happy with him.” You turn your head facing Nat now. Ever since you got with Bucky, you seemed so much happier, and you glowed on your face.

“We always knew you two were going to end up together. I mean the way you both look at each other. There was always something.” Nat teased you as she grabbed the pen on the table to help you finish the poster.

What she said made you think of all the memories you had shared with Bucky. Looking back at the memories, there were hints that you both liked each other. From the way he would always go above and beyond to make sure you were okay to when he would make you laugh over something dumb. “Yeah. I guess there was.” You chuckled at the statement she said.

The moment that you finished the poster, you were starving. You went to the kitchen to grab yourself something to eat and drink. Going near the cabinet, you stood on your tiptoes, reaching over your head to grab a glass “of course, Stark would keep his cup this high.” You whispered to yourself. You couldn’t help but let out a little gasp as you felt someone place their hand on your waist.

“It’s me, don’t worry,” Bucky said in a deep raspy voice as he reaches over you to grab the cup for you. When he set down the cup, he kissed you on the top of your head. Bucky moved away from you as he walked towards the fridge to pull out the filtered water pitcher. Placing it next to the cup he just got out. “Did Nat give you any trouble?” he asked as he was pouring water into your cup.

You shook your head and rolled your eyes “no, she didn’t, Bucky. I promise you.” You chuckled as you took a sip from the glass of water.

He leans in forward to you. “I have something in surprise for you.” He whispered into your ear as he grabs your hair, putting it on to the side. Tilting your head to the side, you slowly closed your eyes, and a smirk formed on your face. “Before you ask, Doll.” With his metal hand, he places the back of his index finger against your skin, moving it from your shoulder to your neck to tracing your jaw until it got to the other side of your face. With his index finger, he tilts your face towards his direction, making eye contact with you. “I’m not telling you what it is.” He licks his lips as his eyes move up and down your face.

The moment that Peter got there, everyone celebrated his birthday. You and Bucky didn’t spend much time together. That didn’t matter. You knew once the sun was down, your hands were going to be all over him.

Later that day, you receive a text message from Bucky

5:38 pm Meet me by the Lake at 1 am, wear the suit that I packed for you, and don't be late.

When the night arrived, everyone was asleep. You found it odd because everyone would usually stay up late when it came to parties like this. But you knew that tomorrow was going to be a busy day.

Looking inside of your bag, you find the swimsuit that Bucky got for you. It was a two-piece baby blue bikini. Putting it on you, you looked at yourself in the mirror, and you noticed how well it fitted you. You placed your hair in a messy bun and proceeded to grab Bucky's jacket and wrapped yourself in it. It was getting chilly and going outside in a bikini. You knew you were going to be cold.

As you started to walk to the Lake, you feel arms wrap around you. This made you instantly turn around and face Bucky. He leans in and gives you a brief kiss. "Let's go somewhere else." He grabs your hand and starts to pull you towards the cabin once again. But he went around it where there was a hot tub.

The many times you were in that cabin, you never knew that it had a hot tub. So, it took you by surprise when Bucky took you there. He first gets in the hot tub and helps you get in by handing you his hand so you had somewhere to lean on.

Getting into the water, it felt nice feeling the warm hot water against your skin. The first thing you did was splash water at him. Bucky raises his left eyebrow and has a sly smirk on his face as he splashed water towards you. This made you chuckle a little bit. "Doll, be quiet. You don't want us to get caught, do you?" Bucky told you as he moved across the water so he can get closer to you. He was resting his knees at the bottom of the hot tub so he would be at eye level with you.

You shooked your head as you matched the same look Bucky was giving you. "you are going to be the reason why we get caught," you mimicked his voice as you scrunched your nose.

Bucky said nothing. Instead, he grabbed your waist and brought you closer until he was sitting on the other side and you were on his lap. He started at you with a smile on his face as he looked into your eyes. The blue lights of the water made you even glow more than before. After being away from him for hours, craving him all day, now you were able to wrap yourself around him.

You couldn't help yourself but giggle. You felt safe now being in his arms. You wrap your arms around his neck, moving in closer to him, your forehead almost touching his. Bucky tilts his head upwards and moves in closer to you. His lips were pressed against yours, his hands moving from your waist to your ass. He pulls you in closer against him. His tongue was slipping into your mouth, more desperate than usual because it had been all day since he hasn't felt your touch.

You let out a small noise. Your eyebrows were knitted together as you feel him growing hard underneath you. "you know how badly I've been craving to do this to you." He says in a deep raspy voice. His metal hand travels through your body until he goes and finds the hook of your bikini, playfully tugging it. "All fucking day, Bunny." He muttered, his lips moving from towards your neck.

Bucky teased you, licking you from your collarbone to the back of your ear. You nodded at the statement he said. You were craving him as much as he was craving you. You let out a small little noise of pleasure at the way he was holding you, talking to you, and kissing you.

"Then shown me, Bunny. How badly have you been craving this? Cause. I. Don't. Believe. You," he whispered into your ear. Bucky moved the sides of your bikini top, his metal hand going inside the material, exposing your breasts. Your nipples hardened from being exposed to the cold hair. Bucky took this as an opportunity to places his lips around it, tongue running along your skin.

You placed one of your hands on the ledge of the hot tub. Bucky hummed against your skin, sucking your nipple before pulling away. Meanwhile, your other hand went to his neck, gently digging your fingers onto his skin. His hand cupped your breast, and his metal thumb replaced his mouth, running along with the sensitive nipple as his lips move towards your neck "can you be a good girl and stay quiet for me?" You nodded briefly as quietly moaned as he gently pinched your nipple.

Bucky's hand travels from your breast to the material of your bikini. Ripping them on one of the sides. Meanwhile, one of your hands was removing his swim shorts. You could feel his cock against your ass, teasing himself with the feeling. He wanted you to take control of what can happen next. He moves both of his hands onto your hips.

Your heart was pounding. Something about being secretive and not getting caught made you want to get caught. You cautiously raised yourself from his lap, wrapping yourself around Bucky. You moved a couple of times, making it easier to line up along the head of his cock.

Bucky watched you closely, staring at the way you were taking control over him, especially as you sat down on his lap. "fuuuuuc-" he whispered as he wrapped his arms tightly around your waist, placing his mouth against your shoulder to keep him from moaning out loud. Bucky's hand went up to your mouth, covering it in case if you were going to make any sounds. "You are so perfect for me, Bunny." He rambled in your ear, trying his best not to moan at the feelings the way that you were clenching around him.

He then began carefully guiding you up and down on top of him, so he could appreciate how incredible it felt. But he couldn't help himself as he felt your thighs quiver and heard a whine. Bucky began by grabbing your hips and pushing you so that you were bouncing on top of him, absorbing all of him as he stretched you out, hitting all the walls you needed him to strike, especially from his perspective.

Bucky brought his free hand down between your legs as he stated this, effortlessly finding your clit. He started rubbing in slow but rapid circles, his jaw clenching as he noticed how quickly you clenched around him.

His fingers on your clit sent shockwaves through your entire body. With the climax nearing, you let out a muffled whimper against his palm, your rhythm of riding him becoming sloppier.

He stared down at how beautiful you were, your ass bouncing against his legs, and he inadvertently squeezed the grasp on your face, making you gasp in delight. "I'd like for you to cum for me," Bucky asked, his fingers speeding up on your clit, in a trembling voice.

You didn't need to be reminded; you wouldn't have been able to hold it in for much longer regardless. You paid close attention to every aspect. The way he squeezed your face, the feel of his fingers on your clit.

Bucky's brows wrinkled, his lips pursed in concentration as he tried not to gasp out loud at the sensation. Your pulsating muscles were working his cock in the nicest way possible since you were so tight around him. He had no idea what was going on until it was too late. Bucky came inside of you, his free hand pushing your hips down on top of him, keeping you there as he stuffed you with himself. He bit down on your shoulder, muffling to himself.

"Fuck." He muttered, shifting his head away from your shoulder and tilting his head back. His moist chest heaved up and down frantically, attempting to catch his breath. When he took his hand away from your mouth, it instantly went to your waist, bringing you close to him.

You leaned against his chest, your hands on his wrapped-around-you arms. You wanted to stay like this forever.

It was already getting late, and you two needed to wake up early. Walking inside of the cabin, you and Bucky were carefully trying to make any noise. Luckily the room you both were staying in was on the first floor.

The instant that you and Bucky got into the room, you went straight to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a long day for the both of you.

[rebeccccccaaa]

ʜᴏʟᴅ ᴀ ʟᴏᴠᴇʀ ᴄʟᴏsᴇ

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ғʀᴀᴛ ʙᴏʏ!sᴛᴇᴠᴇ ʀᴏɢᴇʀs x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: you and steve hooked up once and neither of you can forget that night

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢs: smut 18+ minors dni plz, kinda rough? but of course major fluffy aftercare from soft boi stevie, bit of inexperienced reader and insecure reader

(accidentally written unprotected sex but this is fanfiction lmao plz be safe irl)

ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀ’s ɴᴏᴛᴇs: ive never participated in a challenge before and i think @honeysucklesteve is just the sweetest so hope you like it el! And congrats on 4k :T

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“And the interesting thing about that, mind I add…” the words of your professor falling short because you can’t shake the feeling of his eyes looking at you.

You kept your head low fighting the urge within you not to look back. A couple nights ago you landed yourself in the bed of the infamous frat president Steve Rogers and to make matters worse, you both major in American Studies meaning you share all of your classes.

You didn’t have much experience with guys in high school so it wasn’t surprising when you had the same experience in college. What was surprising was the fact you spent a night in the arms of one of the most handsome men you’ve ever laid your eyes on. Steve Rogers was a huge catch. Teachers loved him, girls chased him,and guys wanted to be him.

You remember that night so vividly.

The way his hands fit so perfectly on your hips. The way his lips felt so hot against your own burning skin; and moved perfectly against yours. The things he whispered in your ear. They way he held you close when you fell asleep in his arms. The way you hated yourself the next morning when you snuck out. The way your tummy flutters simply because he’s looking at you right now.

You breathed out shakily before turning your head to find his eyes with yours; he looked away the moment you did shyly, very unlike him. Fuck he was gonna be the death of you.

“And that should be the end of the lecture. I’m gonna go ahead let you guys go a little early. Have a good weekend everyone and make sure to check your emails,” the professor gathered his things and left.

You packed your things quickly trying your best to avoid his gaze that you knew was still on you. Steve packed quickly too before walking hot on your tail, just about to call your name until…

“Hey, Y/n,” Bucky called out.

“Oh, hey Buck.”

“It’s the weekend and as usual the guys and I want to party tonight. But the dean said one more noise complaint about our house and we get on academic probation so we’re asking a couple of people who might wanna come to the club with us.”

Behind Bucky you could see Steve walking towards you two and your stomach sank. Bucky and Steve were best friends and you don’t know if Steve told him that you guys slept together last weekend. What if something happens again tonight if you say yes. Why are you even thinking that something could happen again? Steve Rogers is way out of your league it was a miracle that you landed a chance to be his bed warmer in the first place.

“I’ll see you for lunch, man,” Steve said to Bucky patting his best friend's shoulders. His eyes lingering with yours until you had to pull away.

“I don’t think I should,” you told him, walking towards the door.

“Come on, Nat told me you're quite the party animal and you left early last week I didn’t get to see you in action,” Bucky chuckled, walking with you. You didn’t leave early…

“Buck,” you looked at him.

“Please?” he asked. You exhaled sharply rolling your eyes before walking away to your next class.

“Is that a yes?” he shouted, making you turn around with a cheeky grin. You got to your next class and noticed Steve sitting in a new seat today, particularly the one next to the seat you usually sit in. None of his housemates or regular friends took this specific lecture so he usually sat in the very back corner alone. But today here he is.

His head snapped up when you entered the room. You hesitantly sat down next to him still avoiding his eyes. You set up your laptop on the small table as did Steve; both your eyes glancing at each other quite awkwardly until Steve finally interrupts the silence.

“You coming tonight?” he whispered.

“What’s in it for me if I do?” you said playfully.

“A repeat of the best night you’ve ever had,” he said cheekily.

“Oh, really,” you chuckled sarcastically as he nodded with an overly proud smirk.

“Probably not,” you answer his question.

“Seriously? Why not? I can pick you up,” he said.

“Steve,” you warned.

“What? Afraid you won’t be able to resist me?”

“You’re so full of it,” you said, making you both laugh.

“You were full of my dick last week,” he whispered.

“Steve!” you punched his side making him laugh hard enough for other students to take notice of your ruckus.

“Welcome class, we’ll begin the lecture in one minute. I’m just gonna pull it up on the projector,” the professor said rushing in.

“Please come tonight,” he whispered.

“Why are you obsessed with me?” you joked.

“Fuck off,” he chuckled.

“If I say ok, will you shut up for the rest of the lecture?”

“Maybe,” he grinned.

“Then maybe I’ll come,” you smirked.

Throughout the lecture Steve paid absolutely no attention whatsoever. Steve had been thinking about that night just as much as you had. The way your neck craned to the side a bit, reminding him of when he littered marks and bruises all over last week. The way you subtly bit your lip in concentration but all that clouded his mind was lust remembering how you looked so pretty from above when he was settled between your legs.

He wanted you again so badly. He wasn't going to lie, it sort of hurt him when he woke up and you weren't there. He thought maybe there was something between you two, god knows the tension was overwhelming that night. You weren't the most frisky woman he'd been with but you were sweet; slight innocence with your intimacy. He craved you.

Steve leaned towards you, his fingers twiddling with yours. You tried your best to ignore his advances despite how much you equally craved him. He ran his nose along your cheek and jaw and your breathing quickened inhumanly.

"What are you doing?" you whispered.

"Nothing, just relax," he responded. As much as he wanted to drag you out of class and fuck you so good, he knew you'd rip him a new one if he did. No matter how he'd make you feel.

"No, we're in the middle of a lecture," you argued.

"I'm not doing anything," he said humorously, you were not humored though.

"Steve," you scolded when he pressed a faint kiss under your ear.

You knew a guy like Steve was horny practically twenty-four seven, but you didn't take him to be quite clingy. Especially with someone like you. His arm wrapped under yours. His other resting on your thigh. His head tucked in the crook of your neck. It wasn't particularly sexual, but it was intimate. Something normal to couples, and you two were not a couple.

"Please come tonight," he whispered, “If not I’ll come over.”

"Ugh fine," you grunted, your voice breaking into a giggle because you did somewhat enjoy this unfamiliar attention.

Steve continued to sit next to you during the rest of your classes for the day absent mindedly teasing you, playing with your fingers, twirling your hair between his fingers, leaning his head on your shoulder while he held your hand. Like geez, take a girl out already.

By the time you got back to your shared apartment with two of your closest friends you felt conflicted. Why the sudden shift in Steve? You two weren't exactly best friends before, just two people who shared classes and accidentally slept with each during a drunken night at a frat party.

"Hey, everything ok?" Wanda asked you noticing your inner battle.

"Uh, yeah. Kinda. No," you said defeatedly making the girls chuckle.

"What happened?" Nat asked.

"That guy, that I… you know."

"Fucked?"

"Nat!" you said embarrassed.

"Go on," Wanda encouraged.

"Well, I never told you guys but the guy was Steve," you said shyly.

"What!" the girls exclaimed simultaneously.

"You're lying," Nat laughed.

"You really went from zero to a hundred," Wanda giggled.

"Guys stop," you whined.

"All day today, he's been like super clingy. Holding my hand and pretending he's like my boyfriend."

"Wait, I thought you liked him?" Nat asked, confused.

"I mean I do, but it's sudden and I'm pretty sure it's only because he wants to get in my pants again, you know?" you rationed.

"Awe, I don't think that's true. I've known Steve for a bit and yeah he sleeps around sometimes but he's not a giant dick. Doing that would be way too shallow, especially for Steve," Nat said.

“Yeah but don’t you think it’s weird?” you asked.

“Look did Bucky ask you about tonight?” Nat asked.

“Yeah, he did- how do you know that?” you asked, confused.

“Oh- Uh,” Nat paused.

“She asked Buck to invite you,” Wanda snickered.

“Why?” you asked.

“Well, you never go out with us and the last time you did we thought you just went home but apparently you were getting laid,” Nat cackled.

“Oh my- shut up,” you huffed before storming off to your room.

“Wait! Can you at least come with us tonight?” Wanda followed you.

“No,” you giggled.

“Please!” both girls said at the same time. As you closed your door with a grin on your face not responding.

Hours later you laid on your bed lowly listening to the soft rumbling chaos from your comedic roommates. You stayed in your not so sexy undergarments and not so sexy sweatpants along with a hoodie you stole from your brother before you moved.

You ate the junk you’ve stocked up on the past few weeks feeling a bit glum. It’s not that you didn’t necessarily want to go, you would love to spend another night in that gorgeous man’s arms but there’s absolutely no way Steve is gonna want you the way you’d like him too. Not sober.

There was a subtle knock on your door and you called out knowing the girls were probably ready to leave.

"How do we look?" Nat asked, walking into your room with Wanda.

"Wow, you guys look hot," you said sitting up.

"You think Vis would like this or is it too much?" Wanda asked sheepishly, she's had a crush on the foreign exchange student Vis for the longest time and had yet to make a move.

"I think someone's gonna have a lucky night," you wiggled your brows suggestively, making her roll her eyes and blush.

"What about you, still chasing Bryce?" you turned to Nat looked extra sexy tonight.

"His name is Bruce," she rolled her eyes.

"And yes, I am," she chuckled.

"You're so weird," you giggled, Bruce didn't seem to particularly be Nat's type but hey, no judgement.

"I heard he's got like a monster cock," you said.

"Shut up," she pushed you playfully.

“It’s always the nerds,” Wanda giggled.

"Anyways, are you sure you don't want to come?" Wanda asked sincerely.

"I'm sure," you smiled.

"Steve's gonna miss you," Nat teased.

"Yeah, I doubt that."

"Well, stay safe, cutie," the girls waved heading to the Uber that waited outside for them.

"You too!"

You sighed before grabbing more snacks to stuff your face with. A couple hours went by of sitting around watching nonsense on TV for a bit. You ate dinner that was far from fine dining but it was available before slouching on your bed until the late hours of the night.

You were practically falling asleep, tired and dry eyes glued to the screen of your small TV when you got a knock at the front door. You check the clock by your bed wondering if maybe either of the girls left their keys, but it wasn’t even midnight yet.

You clutched your phone walking hastily to the front door as quietly as possible creeping up to the peehole to see who would be your unexpected guest.

“What the hell are you doing here?” you swung the door open.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Steve retorted.

“My jamas,” you rolled eyes stepping to side to let him in.

“Seriously what are you doing here?”

“I told you earlier, you didn’t come tonight so I came to you,” he said, taking his jacket off.

“Seriously?” you tried not to smile, but the action gave you butterflies.

“You promised to come. I missed you,” he said walking up to you.

“You’re so full of shit,” you giggled, staring at his devilishly handsome grin.

“Come on, whatcha doing?” he said, grabbing your hand and taking you to the room. You three had a fairly small apartment and your light was obviously the only one on in the whole apartment making it easy for him.

“Well, before you rudely invaded my home, I was stuffing my face with all kinds of junk watching TV,” you said to him making him scowl playfully at you.

“Well, then let’s finish the rest of your junk food then,” he said laying on your bed. You still couldn’t wrap your head around the sudden shift in attention. Steve was a guy who could have anyone and he’s chasing you for some reason.

You weren’t a blonde bombshell with a perfect hourglass figure that made guys want you left and right. You had flaws that drew people away and you don’t think Steve remembers that night like you do. What if he hates your body? What if he thinks you're annoying and suddenly leaves?

“Everything alright?” Steve asked you.

“Uh, sorta,” you answered honestly.

“Come here, talk to me,” he said, opening his arms. You couldn't help your eyes narrowing at him.

“What?”

“Do you even remember anything from that night?” you whispered.

“Where’s this coming from?” he asked.

“Steve, come on,” you chuckled.

“What?”

“Do you just wanna fuck now? Make it quick so you can go back to the party-”

“Woah, who said anything about fucking?” he stood up towering over you making you suddenly feel really small and shy.

“I mean that’s why you’re here, right?”

“I came because I told you if you didn't go out with us that I was gonna hang with you. I didn’t say anything about sleeping with you. If you really want I can go home but I wanted to hang out with you,” he said sincerely.

“Oh, I- uh,” you stuttered; well now you feel like a dick.

“We can just sit and keep watching TV until you want to go to sleep and I can head out,” he said, sitting back down on your bed. You sat beside him carefully watching his movements. He kept his eyes trained on the TV for a bit before locking his eyes with yours. You turned away quickly hearing him chuckle before sudden movement escalated behind.

Steve grabbed you from behind gently and leaned back so you laid on his chest. You could feel the hard plains of muscles on your back. And the way his strong wrapped perfectly around your waist, it felt heavenly.

Steve’s jaw tightened from the hypnotizing scent of your shampoo. He remembered it from that night not long ago and he couldn’t get it out of his head.

He wasn't going to lie, since that night all he could think about was how smooth your skin was under his fingertips. How pretty you sounded when he was settled between your legs. How good it felt when your fingers carded through his hair. He wanted you so bad.

He wanted to wake you up between your thighs again. Ravish you once more before breakfast, hell eat you for breakfast. But when you weren't there sleeping as peacefully beside him like the night before, his heart tugged. Did he say something wrong? Did he do something wrong? What if he hurt you?

He gave you space, clearly evident you hadn't wanted to talk to him but those few days went by and the same lingering stares and shy glances came back again and he craved you in his arms again.

When Nat asked him and Bucky to invite you again out to party, he really wanted to be with you that night even if you didn't end the night naked in each other's arms, just being around you was enough for him. Fortunately here he is with you, with arms wrapped around your waist and Steve couldn’t be happier.

You looked so fucking adorable to wearing sweats and a hoodie; he wishes it was one of his own. You had fluffy socks on too that had dog faces on them and he swears his heart melted. What you two were watching was making you laugh and each chuckle or giggle that came from you was like music to his ears.

He couldn’t help himself when his lips pressed against the top of your head. Your body momentarily froze before relaxing again in his arms. Your arms laid over his and tightened so you could cuddle into him even more. Your eyes felt heavy and the feeling of Steve’s lips slowly reaching your neck didn’t help you want to sleep.

When his cool lips grazed your burning skin, you could feel your skin burst into chills. You practically shuddered in his arms and your face grew hot when you did. It all becomes suddenly overwhelming and you jump off on his lap turning to him with a distressed expression.

“What happened? Did I do something wrong?” Steve said worriedly.

“You did just want to sleep with me,” you mumbled tears forming in your eyes.

“What! No, that’s not it,” he panicked; using you was the last thing he wanted you to think he was doing, and wanted in general.

“Then what’s going with you? Ever since we fucked you’re suddenly attached to me, putting your hands all over me, pretending like you're my boyfriend! And I don’t understand why,” you said frustrated.

“I feel like your just using me or something-”

“That is the last thing I want,” he interrupted, his voice low.

“Then why are you doing this; Steve you could have anybody and for some fucking sick reason you keeping mocking me. Making me think I have a chance.”

“And you don’t think you do?” he asked, heart broken, making you scoff and turn away.

“Look, fine I’ll admit that maybe before that night I wouldn’t have made a move; but I’m gonna admit that I haven’t not felt something for you before,” he said, getting closer to you.

“What?”

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since we met. And that night didn’t do shit to help me get over you,” he chuckled.

You crawled to him carefully looking into his eyes for any sign that he was being untruthful; you cupped his face gently.

“Are you drunk?” you whispered.

“Not one bit.”

You pressed your lips to his feverishly and Steve nearly moaned at the feeling. His hands grasped your waist firmly pulling you to sit comfortably on his lap. His hands crept under your hoodie holding you close.

Your hands rested on his broad shoulders holding yourself up as slowly leaned back onto your pillows. Your cold hands cupped his face as you deepened the kiss and his hand went to rest on your bottom.

With this new found position, his chest pressed against yours, his hips grinded up allowing you to feel all of him. Every pushing second you grew needier and whiny, practically clawing at his shirt to feel his skin.

"So needy already. And I've hardly touched you," he chuckled lowly in your ear.

He sat up nonetheless and stripped his shirt revealing his gorgeous physique that kept you up at night and infiltrated your dirtiest dreams. You brushed your hands all over his chest with your bottom lip between your teeth; Steve smirking slightly proud of the effect he had on you simply by having his shirt off.

"Come on, pretty girl. I wanna see you too," he's whispered before kissing you softly.

"Wait, I don't…" you didn't particularly feel very sexy and instantly became insecure about your body compared to Steve's.

"It's ok, we can cuddle," he smiled.

"Well, if I'm being honest I do want you. It's just, I just ate all this junk food and I'm not wearing anything sexy. I didn't shave and-"

"Hey, I don't care. You don't need to impress me or wear anything special for me. I just want you to look pretty sitting on my face and make pretty sounds telling me how I'm gonna make you feel."

Your body trembled at his words, arousal instantly flooding from you. His nose brushed against your cheek dragging along to your jawline before pressing kisses gingerly to your jaw and neck. His hands slowly lifted your hoodie and you raised your hands letting him remove your hoodie.

Your shoulders caved in out of habit, being topless in front of handsome men wasn't normally on your schedule; but the look in Steve's eyes, the look on his face holding a hungry and adorning expression made you more comfortable, reaching out to cup his face kissing him deeply.

You sighed breathlessly into the kiss as Steve's hands rubbed your sides. You pulled away momentarily only to put your lips on Steve's neck. Steve felt himself growing harder and needier to see you, feel you, pleasure you.

"Pretty girl, I need you. Lemme taste you, please," he whined.

He picked you up and laid down on your back to pull your sweatpants down your legs. You lifted your hips for him and he smiled cheekily at you biting his lip. Steve lifted your leg kissing the inside of your calf staring at with those hungry eyes.

"I still wanna see you sitting on my face, pretty girl," Steve said, pulling to him.

"Are you sure? I don't wanna crush you or anything," you whispered, making Steve chuckle.

Steve laid down assuring you that he wanted this and grabbed your hand helping you straddle his face. When you did Steve kissed the inside of your thighs playfully nipping and marking the sensitive skin making you gasp.

Steve wrapped his hands around your thighs bringing your center impossibly close to him, finally licking a long and wet stripe up your slit. Your moans were soft at first but when Steve started circling his tongue around your clit, you could help getting louder and bucking your hips grinding on his face.

Steve’s eyes were close relishing in your sex. You combed your fingers through his hair and Steve moaned loudly against your pussy. He dipped his tongue past your folds and that along with the vibrations from his beautiful moans, you head threw back moaning in pure ecstasy, moaning so loud your neighbors were definitely going to file a complaint.

“Fuck, Steve. Your mouth feels so good; shit!” you whined.

His tongue circled your clit again quicker this time and you bucked your hips, tightening your stomach and squeezing your legs as you approached your high. Steve kneaded the soft flesh of your ass lapping up everything you gave him.

Steve crawled from under you as you held onto the headboard, still standing on your knees, trying to catch your breath. Steve came up behind you rubbing your hips softly, kissing the back of your neck softly. He quickly rid the remaining of his clothes he still wore, his painfully hard cock slapping against his stomach desperate for some sort of attention.

You breathe softly, hyper focused on the cum that slipped down your inner thighs. Your legs lightly trembled from just his mouth you couldn’t wait to feel what his cock would feel like, filling you up like it was only a week ago. Steve sat beside you looking at you with a soft smile on his face, his hand softly rubbing the back of your legs and your bottom too.

He reached around to grab your hip and slowly turned you around settling you between his legs; your back pressed against his chest as it was only moments before, more innocently than now. His lips sucked and kissed your neck as his hands cupped and kneaded the soft flesh of your breasts.

Your hands rested over his own and your hips squirmed a bit for eagerness. The low growl from Steve because your hips grinded against his cock was incredibly arousing.

“Such an eager little slut ain't cha’,” he grabbed your hair.

“Fuck,” you mumbled as he pushed you forward on your hands and knees.

“Want me to fuck you? Remind you how I felt buried so fucking deep inside you? God, I think about you every fucking night; how perfect you were wrapped around me, how beautiful you sounded underneath me,” he whispered huskily in your ear making you shudder.

“Stevie, please,” you whimpered.

His hands rubbed up and down your back as he chuckled darkly.

“Oh, I’ve been waiting to take care of you again, pretty girl,” he kissed your back softly.

He wrapped his hand around his cock slowly and languidly pumping it. He couldn’t help but tease slightly circled his tip along your entrance pulling desperate whines from you. He finally reached his own breaking point, unable to stand not being able to feel you so he pushed his hips forward moaning loudly at how tight you felt around him.

“So good, pretty girl,” he moaned.

“Fuck, Stevie. Filling me up so good; you’re so big,” you sighed.

“Damn right, pretty girl. Taking my cock so well. Fucking made for me,” he grunted.

His snapped in and out increasingly quicker with each thrust; the vulgar sounds of his movements and skin slapping against each other echoed loudly in the room. Harmonizing with both your pleasurable moans.

Chasing both your releases, Steve’s hips jerked rougher and harder in and out of you making you practically shriek at the feeling. He leaned forward wrapping his hand around your throat before pulling you flush against his chest.

“Such pretty baby,” he bit your ear.

“Fuck! Stevie I need to come,” you whined.

“Yeah, you want to come all over my cock? Make a fucking mess?” he growled.

“Please!”

“Hold on, pretty girl. I’m almost there,” he sighed, throwing his head back and closing his eyes in pleasure.

You whined and whimpered, tears brimming your eyes from that overwhelming feeling. You couldn’t help but clench hard around his cock desperately holding back for your release.

“Fuck, do that again, pretty girl,” Steve gasped.

“God, yes. I’m close, pretty girl. You ready to come?” he pulled your head back to look at your face.

Tears fell inelegantly down your cheeks, sweat lined your forehead, your chest moved rapidly up and down; to Steve, you looked ethereal.

“Please,” you whimpered.

“Let go, pretty girl. I gotcha,” he whispered against your lips.

Your eyes rolled back as your body shook against Steve’s, releasing onto his dick profoundly. Steve swallowed your louds moans, roughly pressing his lips to yours, moaning himself. You clenched hard around Steve one last time feeling his throbbing cock shoot hot ribbons of cum, coating your walls.

When you eased your way slowly down from your high, Steve laid you down gently pulling out to see his cum mixed with yours spilling from you. You looked so fucked out breathing heavily, whimpering at the loss of Steve inside you. He wanted to, but held back from taking you again. But not wanting to hurt you, he treaded towards the bathroom and turned on the water to run you two a hot bath. He picked you up gently pressing kisses all over your face and neck before planting one delicious kiss on your lips; your hands reaching around his neck to deepen it if that was even possible.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, coating your arms with soap to wash you. You laid against him with your eyes closed desperately trying not to fall asleep in his arms.

“I didn’t hurt you?” he asked softly.

“Mh-m,” you shook your head slightly with a blissful smile on your face.

“Good,” he wrapped his arms around you tightly, kissing you passionately.

“Thank you,” you mumbled, barely audibly.

“For coming to hang out with me tonight,” you chuckled. Your eyes felt too heavy, simply remembering the way he carried you carefully back to your bed and held for the rest of the night.

ᴛᴀɢʟɪsᴛ: (For all my work)

@mathletemadison​

@buckybarnes101​

@l-sofiamia-l

@pluto-grl

@partr1dge

@stefans-wife

@cordeliaswhore

@fleurlovesbucky

@wandanatasha0720

[parcequecestnotreprojeeeet]

Here is chapter 2

18+ warning

I tried my best to do a medium rare steak but I'm a new chef so I'm learning

The plane journey was smooth, although every second had felt like a year to him. He had ended up sitting next to a younger couple on the plane. Both had come to Lagos to visit family members who had just welcomed their newborn son into the world.

Manu spoke with them briefly about this, about how exciting it was to meet their new family member. While speaking about this ,the couple mentioned how they never Desired to have children as to them their own happiness was each other and that as lovely as children were it just wasn't for them. This made Manu think abit, and after sharing a few laughs and jokes they went on to just sitting and enjoying the remainder of the flight.

Manu thought a bit about Brigitte about how they weren't ever destined to have children, how even when they both brought it up to have that conversation it was always a no from both of them.

Eveyone else always said to them something on the lines off "but you might change your mind" or "you can always adopt" but they never liked these answers and it was now nice for him to hear something different, from people like minded to him.

Not having children wasn't a bad thing, it was just a choice on how to live ones life.

Finally the plane landed, and Manu exited into the french passport control.

As he thought earlier Paris international was so much more busier then Lagos

There was a lot of people here , picking their luggage and then going on with their days being met by their family members on the other side.

Manu knew he wouldn't be met with anyone today, but he couldn't wait to get home. Get home to Brigitte.

He finally was free of the airport security and luggage pick up and he waited out on the taxi rank, his taxi was soon to be here for sure he thought.

He opened his phone again and saw a response from Brigitte to his message about landing

"Cherie get here as fast as you can, I can't wait to see your face again xxx" he blushed

He couldn't wait either, and now there was still more time to waste as the taxi he ordered had not turned up.

He paced up and down the taxi rank before trying to attempt to make a call.

No answer

"Merde" he shouted

Why couldn't it just be easy, why did he have to wait even longer to see the women he loved

He waited 6 months now he had to wait more

A guy stood a bit further down starts to enter his taxi before stopping and hollering at him.

"Would you like to share a taxi? I don't know where you are going but if it's the samish way we can share if you like"

Manu jumped at the chance he didn't care if he had to pay for an extra journey, the man's journey and seven others he was getting to Brigitte and it was going to be now.

The taxi was long , but eventually he made it to his home. It didn't feel like home anymore with being away so long it's hard to understand something as what it use to be but as soon as he stepped out of the taxi and saw Brigittes face behind the curtain of the window

All his emotions came at once

He raced to the door, fumbling to open it

His hands wouldn't work on pushing the door everything sort of elapsed into each other

The door swung open and there she was

She was so beautiful, so ever so beautiful

It was like he was viewing her for the first time like a model that just came out of the catwalk completely in the best dressed clothes and best look and your heart melts thinking about how beautiful she is. This was real he was living it

Her smile beamed

And his even more

His hands flew off the door he was half holding and straight into her waist.

He pulled her into him, their warmths becoming one. His hands were gently places on the upper part of her back and he pulled her more into his chest.

They embraced for so long but he wasn't going to let go off her.

They parted slightly apart so they could look into each others eyes

"I've missed you so much my love" she whispers

And he smiles before kissing the top of her lip

"I've missed you more then anything in this world" he says heart beating and the heat from him firing up inside

He cocks his head to the right and she meets his lips with hers, they are so warm, so tender. He feels a million lights flash inside him

He can barely breath and by the sounds of it neither can she.

Their lips touch and touch again, and they slip their tongues together to become one. The racing off both their chests ignights and they can feel each other. Hands fly around each other's heads. Hair entangled within each of their hands.

His nose is acorss the side of her face, hers is gently nudged into his.

They move in time with each other, each kiss more passionate then the last, they fight for each other in their mouths, moving closer and closer pushing harder and harder.

Manu slowly opens his right eye , to check she's ok, that she's enjoying exactly what he is. Her eyes are closed shut enjoying, savorying every moment of him. He shuts his eyes again to enjoy this moment.

It goes on for a short while before they both part softly and slowly to look again into each others eyes

"I want you"

Manu demands and he wraps his arms now underneath her and pulls her up on to his waist. She wraps her arms round his soft neck and he starts to carry her through the hallway.

They wrap lips again and Manu can barely contain himself as he carries her, he can't stop thinking about her , about having her all to himself again. He been wanting to see her again , to laugh with her, to love her and make love to her all over again. Now he was here , now it was all real and it was bittersweet.

He carries her into their living room, it's small for what they got. A large sofa sits in the middle, a couple stands around it, tv in front mounted on the wall. Some book stands around the room indicate their love for books. As he carries her in he accidentally knocks into it.

Bri makes a audible noise and instantly Manu pulls back from kissing her

"Are you ok?" He says worriedly "I didn't mean to be so forceful then"

She smiles at him and shakes her head before pulling him back in for more.

He makes it eventually after navigating the room holding her. And finds the sofa, once there he lightly puts her down and grabs both of her legs and pushes them towards the floor. He leans over her with his hands at the top of the sofa.

She can't control her self and continues to grab his neck kissing him softly across his neck, and up towards his ears.

He lets out an audible moan and she vocies her own too.

"Here? Or upstairs" he whispers

She pulls away from kissing his neck and looks down towards his belt

"Do you think you can carry me up those stairs at this rate" she gives him a wink and a cute giggle and brushes her hair back with a finger

He laughs and with a sudden movement picks her back up.

"You underestimate me Cheri" he laughs as he holds her again, the kisses flood out again and agian before they end up switching sides.

She pushes him back and he falls against the sofa

He's in absolutely euthoria now and nothing is stopping him from showing it he looks up at Brigitte and they share love within their eyes

They both know they won't make it to the bedroom.

She starts to undo the buttons on her white t shirt, his hands straddle her waist, he watches as she teases taking each button off.

They giggle and laugh about where it's all going.

But they continue

Button by button eventually her shirt flies off and she's left stood in her bra.

He starts to undo his own shirt but she insists on doing it instead. She straddles between his legs and moves her hands across his chest to his buttons. He can smell her perfume, did she put it on just before he thought or did she always smell like that. What ever it was it was unbelievably tempting to just take all of her clothes off now and get too it but he was being as patient as he can be this was what he really wanted, love between the women he adores so much and her she was.

She undoes his shirt and kisses his neck before making her way down his very (hairy ;) ) chest, she kisses his nipples and he makes an audible moan again, almost a grunt as she continues to go further further down.

She reaches his belt and starts to undo that they both lock eyes. He starts to use his hands to do some work on her shoulders. She loves it when he does this he remembers that. His hands move across the top of her shoulders and back down to the upper arm. She pulls him closer and they lock lips. Pushing deep into each others mouths. He's shaking now , he can't take much more , he wants her, she wants him, but he really wants her now and his body breaths heavily and he's panting to keep up with the breathing motion.

They take the remainder of their clothes off and lay naked on the sofa, Manu sat down with Brigitte on top his legs perched there. Bodies racing, hearts beating. They had been kissing for ages but at the same time it felt like seconds.

Manu wondered if he had forgotten everything and wouldn't be able to deliver, he was over thinking now , it had been so long, it had been 6 months, what if what she wanted had changed, what if she didn't like when he kissed her belly button slowly, or if she didn't like when he put his hands over her feet when he could, what if she didn't like any of that and now it was something else.

As he was thinking this, Brigitte had moved to get on top of him, their bodies so electric with warmth, her heart he could feel a mile away and every inch of them connected now.

"Cherie!" He whispered anxiously, "Cherie wait one ... moment" he repeated and she stopped to look at him

His heart was now fully beating, she was wrapped around him but had gently gotten off before anything could happen , she looked slightly stunned but very concerned

"Everything ok" she asked putting her hand on his chest to feel his heart beating

He took a deep breath one that was very obviously a long time and thought about what to say what to do , had he just blown this , it was like it was their first time again and he had no idea what to say , whta to do.

"Sorry my love , sorry I didn't mean ... I didn't mean to worry you... I .... I really have wanted this for so long and now ....don't listen to me ...I'm just being stupid.... I'm" she interrupts him

"Shhhhh I know what you mean, it's been a long time Manu but my love for you is still the same and if not better now we are here"

She starts to lean closer into him and brushes her face agaisnt his. She then takes his nose and brushes her nose against his.

" We don't have to do this right now, we can try some other time, we can go and do something together, maybe we can make some food I want to see the stuff you learnt in Nigeria" she says and laughs before leaning her head into his chest

"What ever you want my love Ill always be yours"

He stays quite for just a second before nudging her and taking her face into his hands

"I love you more then anything in this entire world, and if I wanted anything more then just you I would be lying, I could go across this whole earth and find everything and everyone I ever wanted and I would still be sad that it's not you, if your not there I don't want a life worth it, from this day out I don't ever want to be far from you" he spoke lovelingly into her ear and they kiss again once more, this time it starts slow almost as if they are testing ecah other , making sure each of them are ok, they delve deeper into each others mouths and as soon as they both understand that they want the same

They push hard on the peddles

The sofa made numerous nosies as their bodies became one once more, they panted, groaned and moaned in unison and in a almost musical rehearsal sort of way.

The night was still young and there was lots of more stuff they were planning on doing

But for now they both had each other, their souls both one tonight and for a long long time

They both finally felt relaxed.

I hope that was medium rare for you ❤️ let me know what you think ❤️

Come fast guys, chapter two is up!!!!

To me, you did it perfectly! It’s like I was reading it and thinking “yes, I think that’s exactly how Emmanuel would react yes yes”! And really like how you described things and make us almost visualize it in our heads! It’s sentimental and hot at the same time, like Emmanuel and Brigitte are. Absolutely love it ❤️ Thank you so much ❤️ You definitely CANNOT stop! And We WON’T let you stop now hahaha ❤️❤️❤️

[krakenartificer]

When I got my ADHD diagnosis, I looked at the questions on the screening form and thought, "If this result comes back positive, then I'm definitely not the only person in my family who has it." Questions like

"Have difficulty finishing one activity before starting another one" and

"I finish others' sentences before they can finish it themselves" and

"have trouble staying on one topic when talking"

...I thought were just weird quirks of my family, but no. When I got my results, I contacted my cousin, and she contacted her sisters and mother, and .. .. yeah. Basically everyone in my dad's side of the family is ADHD.

Now there are some problems with that, obviously, (getting family reunions to stick to a schedule is lol no) but there are some really fantastic perks. For one thing, no one in that family minds if I interrupt them while they're talking ... everyone's happy to keep 3 conversations going at the same time .... and no one minds if you fidget constantly.

But the best perk -- at least that I've found so far -- is that all of our parents have coping mechanisms, and passed them on to us. When I found myself unable to handle tasks with more than one step, my father didn't say "WTF are you talking about? It's easy! Just do the thing! Stop being lazy!" No, he could relate completely, and he sat down and taught me how to handle that.

So today, I'm going to pass on to you the coping mechanism my dad taught me for handling the "cannot put tasks in order / cannot get started / forget what I'm doing" problem. You'll need to adjust it for your own needs and your own struggles, but hopefully it'll be helpful in setting up your own process.

I'm going to walk through it with a big project I'm doing at work, just to have a concrete example. That will make some of the discussion specific to computer programming and technical writing, but I do the same thing for all my projects, so hopefully it'll be generalizable.

So to set the stage:

I was supposed to modify this piece of code -- we'll call it "Rosetta" -- to make it handle call data as well as what it was already doing. I did that.... but we now need the code to be able to handle calls (if that's wanted) but also to be able to handle NOT having calls (if THAT'S wanted).

Which is just .... ugh. So much. SOOOOOOOO much.

So. Break it down.

Step one is to get some recording mechanism - pen and paper, whiteboard, blank computer document, whatever

(Technically, this is a different coping strategy, so we'll just take a quick detour: WRITE THINGS DOWN. Your brain is shit at remembering things, and anyway you've already got limits on your working memory; why would you choose to tie up some of that limited resource in something that could be accomplished with literal stone-age technology? Don't even try to remember things. WRITE THEM DOWN.)

I like sticky notes: they're readily available in all offices, they're pretty cheap, and (most importantly) they can be rearranged if it turns out that I forgot a step or put the steps in the wrong order (which, like, let's be honest, I am definitely going to do). But they kill trees and create unnecessary methane emissions, so I've recently switched over to using virtual sticky notes. That's the format I'm going to use for this example, but you can use anything that meets your purposes.

So, you've got something to write with, you're ready to start.

The first question is: what are you trying to accomplish here? What would "done" look like? What is our goal?

I need to end up with a version of Rosetta that will make the correct results if you don't want calls, and will also make the correct results if you do.

The goal here is that you end up with a statement that you can definitively say (a) Yes this is what I wanted or (b)No this is not right because _______

In this case, in order to do that, I'll need to define "correct results" for both call- and non-call versions. But if I have that nailed down, then this statement meets that criterion: I'll be able to say "Yes, this is what I wanted: see, it makes the correct result for calls, and it makes the correct result for not-calls". Or else I'll be able to say, "No, this is wrong: see, it makes the correct result for calls, but on not-calls it does X and we wanted Y."

I have a clear, definitive standard about what I need to do and whether or not I've done it.

But there was a prerequisite there: I need to define "correct results".

So that goes on a sticky note: Create test that will compare my results to existing call!Rosetta-results and to existing not-call!Rosetta-results.

[ID: Two blue boxes, one on top of the other. The top one says in white text "Create test to compare my results to call!results" The bottom one says "Create test to compare my results to not-call!results"] OK. So now we know what we want. The second question is: what do we need to do in order to get that? Here's where the sticky-note recording system really shines, because you don't have to answer this question sequentially. You just start writing down every single thing that is not the way you want it to end up.

I need it to remove commas in the python script, not the bash script

I need to delete the first part of the get_runs() function, which doesn't do anything

I need to delete the rest of the parameters passed to build_query_script() function, because runs encompasses all the others

while we're on that subject, runs doesn't even need the group_variable, so let's pull that out of the parameter document

we also have a dmf defined, which the bash script demands but doesn't use; let's change that demand

since we're changing the structure of the parameter document, we don't need to pull new metrics for each run, so let's move that outside of the runs() loop and only run once

right now the parameter document is ALMOST but not quite "one row per template". Make it so it's actually one row per template.

among other things, that's going to require making it possible for a template to be followed by nothing at all, since it's the assumption that a template will have a metrics block after it that makes it not quite one row per template. So make it possible to publish a template with a null block

the other thing that's weirdly hard-coded is the definition of what a block looks like. Would it make more sense to separate that out into an input file, like the parameters document? On the one hand, that would make it much more flexible; on the other hand, that's another piece that can break. Don't know. Put a question mark on it.

etc

Here's what it looks like at the end of this step:

[ID: A black and white background showing many boxes in two different shades of blue, all with white text. Some of the boxes are overlapping each other.]

As you can see, at this phase you don't need to worry about any of the following:

ordering the tasks. Just stick 'em right on top of each other for now

how you're going to do any of this. Right now we just need to know what, not how

sticking to only one project. As I was working on this, it occurred to me that this whole process would have been a heck of a lot easier if someone had just made a user manual for this, and since I have to go through all the code line-by-line anyway, I might as well write up the documentation while I'm at it. (To help out future-me, if nothing else.) So I put those tasks on another color of sticky note.

making notes that make any ***ing sense to anyone else. This process is for you, and only you need to understand what you're talking about it. Phrase it in ways that make sense to your brain, and to hell with anyone else.

on that topic, also don't worry about making steps that are "too small" or "too dumb" to write down. This is for you. If "save document" feels like a step to you, then write it down.

You also don't need to get every single step involved in the project right now. Get as many as you can, to be sure, but the process is designed on the assumption that you ARE going to forget important steps, and is designed to handle that.

When you can't think of any more steps, then the third question is: what order does it make sense to do these in? Are there any steps that would be easier if you did another step first? Are there any that literally cannot be done unless another step is complete?

This is also a good place to group steps if they fit together nicely. When I used physical sticky notes, I used two different sizes; digitally I can of course make them whatever size I want.

So I have several documentation steps that (a) do need to be written to make sense to other people and (b) I really need to know what's going on before I can do that. I could write them now, but if I did, I'd just end up re-writing them based on things that change as I'm coding. So we'll move those to the end:

[ID: Three dark blue boxes with white text. They read "Create step-by-step instructions for creating your own metric agg", "Create step-by-step instructions for modifying a metric", "Create step-by-step instructions for modifying a query."]

These parts, though -- if I had all the variable structures written down, I could look at them while I'm coding. Then I won't have to keep scrolling back and forth in the code, trying to remember if it's an array or a dictionary while also trying to remember what part of the code I was working on. Brilliant. Move that to the front.

[ID: Seven dark blue boxes with white text, three large, four small. The first one is large and says "Write up explanation of how Rosetta works." The second one is large and says "Document structure of all variables." Attached to that one are four smaller boxes that say "All_blocks", "Runs", "metric", "New_block". The third large one says "Document what qb_parameters.csv contains"]

Also, while I'm at it, I should get the list of variables I need to document -- then I won't have to keep scrolling to find them. Make those sub-steps.

I definitely keep needing to look up what's in the parameters document, so I should write that down, too. For the user manual I also should write down what's in the metric document, but I don't need that for myself, so I can send that to the end.

[ID: The same three dark blue boxes from two screenshots ago (create step-by-step instructions for metric agg, modifying a metric, and modifying a query), now with another dark blue box in front of them with white text that says "Document what granular_metrics.tsv contains."]

These five are all small steps, and are all related in that they don't actually (hopefully) change the functionality of the code; they're just stuff left over from prior versions of this code. So we can lump them all together.

[ID: Five light blue boxes with white text that say "Delete first part of get_runs()", "Have build_query_script only receive the "run" parameter" "Delete dmf" "Move metrics=get_metrics() outside build_all_blocks (all the way up to the top level?" "Delete group_variable from qp_parameters"]

My brain likes this better, so that I can keep track of fewer "main steps", but that's just a peculiarity of me -- you should lump and split however you prefer to make this process easier for you.

[ID: The same five boxes from the prior screenshot, now all made smaller and attached to a larger box that says "Remove Legacy Code"]

Keep going, step by step, sticky by sticky, until you've got them in order. If -- while you're doing this -- you remember another thing you need to do, write it on a sticky and slap it on the pile; you don't have to stop what you're doing to deal with it, because it's written down and it's on the pile and it will get processed; you can just keep working on the thing you're on right now.

[ID: All the same boxes from the first screenshot, now in a neat row. Some of the original boxes have been grouped together. The ones that were said to be at the beginning of the process are on the left and the ones that were said to be at the end are on the right.]

Step four: for the love of all that's holy, SAVE THIS LIST.

Write it on your cubicle whiteboard where it won't be erased

write it on a piece of paper and tape it to the office wall

send an email to yourself

take a picture with your phone

I don't care but save it.

When I used physical sticky notes, I kept them all on the hood of my cubicle's shelf. Now, as you can see, I use Powerpoint, which is irritating af but does allow me to keep everything in a single document, which I can write down the path of.

[ID: White text on a black background says "open ~/Documents/Rosetta\ Modifications\ and \Documentation.pptx" The next line says "Notes in Rocketbook pg 10-12, 16" The next line says "Turn that into documentation that can be used for making modifications."]

And now (finally) you can answer the question "How would I even get started on that?" You look at the first thing on the list, and you treat it as its own project. You can hyperfocus on this step and completely forget about everything else this project requires, because everything you need to remember for the rest of it is written down.

If, as you're working a step, you think of something else you need to do for the big project, write it on a sticky and slap it on the pile. Don't even worry about trying to order it or identify sub-steps; as long as it's not blocking the thing you need to work on right now, you don't have to care. Just stick that bugger anywhere at all on the list, and go back to what you were doing. When you un-hyperfocus and come back to look at your list, there'll be a big sticky note stuck sideways across all the rest of the steps, and you'll remember to file and order it then.

Other benefits of this system

1) The first question really helps with unclear directions from your boss. You can take whatever they told you to do, and translate it into a requirement that is clearly either met or not-met, and then run it back by the boss.

If they say, "No, no, we want ______" then phew! You just saved a huge miscommunication and weeks of wasted work! What a good employee you are! What an excellent team player with strong communication skills!

If they say "Yes, that's what I want," then you know -- for sure -- what it is you're trying to accomplish. Your anxiety is reduced, and your boss thinks you're super-conscientious.

(And if your boss is a jerk who likes to move the goalposts and blame it on their subordinates, then have this conversation over email, so you can show it to their boss or to HR should it become necessary.)

2) Having this project map means that when you spend an hour staring at the requirements and trying to figure out how to get started (which, let's be honest, you were definitely going to do anyway) ... When your boss/coworker comes by and says, "How's it going?" Instead of having to say "I haven't even started 😞" You can say, "Pretty well! I've got all the steps mapped out and am getting ready to start on implementation!" and show them your list, and they think you're very organized and meticulous. 3) Sometimes, especially in corporate jobs, you and your coworkers will run into a problem that's too big for even Neurotypicals to hold all in their heads. At that point, the NTs will be completely lost -- they've never had to develop a way to handle projects they can't just look at and know how to get started. So then you pipe up in the meeting and say, "OK, well, what exactly are we trying to accomplish?" and everybody at the conference table looks at you like you're a goddamned genius and you don't have to tell them that you use this exact same process to remember how to make a sandwich 😅

4) Having this project map makes it so much easier to stop work and then start it up again later, but this post is already really really really long, so I'm going to address that in a separate (really really long) post.

[shegatsby]

Coffee Shop

Summary; As a university student in London you were just trying to get to know the city, the beautiful places etc. and a certain gentleman caught your eye.

Warnings; Yeap this is it guys. THE END.

Words; 820

A/N; Hi guys, I've got the flu and its bad. I'm recovering at the moment, I wanted to finish the series here because ✨its mental illness for me✨ I'm not fine. Whatever, I will be fine in time, sorry for any typos, enjoy! Gif isn't mine, peace out!

Chapter Seven, Final Chapter

On your way home you cried a lot, you didn't care about the stares you got. What hurt you the most was that woman calling you an ''ugly bitch'' you never stuck on comments like that before but maybe today wasn't the day for you or whatever, you couldn't stop the tears.

Going home felt like took you forever, as soon as you shut your door you released the breath you were holding. Today was something else, first you had a perfect time with ''Sir Thomas William Hiddleston'' later shit went crazy and no one likes to be played.

You sat on your chouch, you didn't know what to do when a call came from Tom, you were surprised because you thought that he flirted with you couple of times, played you and then he is done.

Curiosity got the best of you, you answered the call.

''Y/N, I can explain everything, please allow me to talk to you in person. I can come to your place or, or we can meet at our café. I just need to-''

His voice sounded worried, or maybe he is just a good actor?

''Tom, you are hurting my ear. I will send you the address, yes we should talk about this face to face.'' You tried to sound cold and not caring, after a pause Tom replied, ''Thank you for giving me a chance.''

''This is not a chance Tom. Don't get your hopes up. See you soon.''

You changed your clothes quickly, washed your face with cold, almost freezing water to wake up, you still felt numb. After texting him your address he arrived like 30min later.

When you answered the door Tom was there with a bouquet of flowers and chocalate. ''Hi.'' His smile almost made you forget everything, almost. You moved out of his way and he walked in.

He saw the boxes you haven't opened yet, you were right , this doesn't seem like a home. ''Thank you for letting me come to your house Y/N. These are for you.'' You took the gifts, flowers smelled fresh and heavenly.

He watched you put the flowers in a vase and por water. You opened the chocalate box and started to eat, ''Sit.'' you said firmly, you had the control and you liked it. He sat like a good boy he is, you sat next to him, turned to him quickly ''Explain.''

He exhaled deeply, ''I've meant to tell you who I am but I enjoyed our time together so much that I didn't want to spoil it.''

You were still eating and listening to him, he continued while your intense gaze made him shift on his seat.

''Today we had such a great time, thank you. I was going to tell you but my fans did it before I could. I'm so sorry, I've never tried to mock you or use you. I would never do that to someone, I do understand why you left in anger. You don't have to contact me ever again. I have to tell you-'' he stopped for a second, thought about what he wants to say,

''that I would love to spend more time with you, get to know you better.'' he bit his lower lip, it was a nervous gesture.

''Wow!'' You said mouth full, ''This is bussin!'' and you licked your chocalate covered fingers, you caught his eyes watching your every move.

''Tom, since we are being honest... that fan of yours called me ''ugly bitch'' if I will be exposed to things like that everytime we go out...'' you had to gather your courage to speak again, ''I can't see you anymore. I'm sorry but I've worked so hard to love myself and mentally healthy, I can't go back to that dark place again. I will not tolerate any kind of bullshit.''

It was true, you were bullied for years and had family issues so you went to see a therapist for a long ass time. I'm sorry Y/N, I didn't hear what she said. I am terribly sorry for that. I cannot assure you whether you won't face things like this or not but I can assure you that I will be on your side.'' He held your hand, when you looked at his puppy eyes you believed every word he uttered.

''Okay.'' You simply said because you were afraid that your voice would shake.

''So,'' he began slowly, ''Am I forgiven?'' he rubbed the back of your hand gently, lovingly.

''Yeap. I already forgave you when you showed up with the gifts but I wanted to make you suffer.''

He wasn't nervous anymore, ''Love to get punished.'' he could feel the flush creeping up his cheeks. He pulled you close to him for a hug, a deep and long hug.

Both of you had no idea where this will lead you.. an honest friendship? or a romantic relationship?

Tag List;

@lokistoriesblog

@chwlogy

@thatdamnflamingo

@salempoe

@help-i-need-a-social-life

@allthecraftandthings

@wizardcherryblossom

@fire-in-her-veinz

@anna-kims

@vampire7595

@prettylittlepluviophile

@ca-loki

@buendiabebeta

@countessofkrolock

[openheart12]

Conflict of Interest

A/N: best title I've come up with I think lmao, also the “bibbidi-bobbidi-boo” was too good not to add

Summary: 3 times Michelle was sent out into the field, 3 times Tony worried about her. 

WC: 2,757

Michelle had been at CTU for six months now and during that time, her and Tony had become increasingly closer. She was friends with a majority of her coworkers but she was the closest to Tony. They spent upwards of fourteen hours together per day, afterall.

She had settled into work quite easily, the first couple of weeks were an adjustment but after that, she quickly became a huge asset to CTU. She did her job and she did it admirably.

She found that she enjoyed Tony’s company, some would say too much, but seeing him as she walked through the front doors of CTU, it was the highlight of her morning every morning. He was always there waiting for her at seven o’clock. It had quickly become a routine they both enjoyed.

But today, as she walked through the doors with an extra bounce in her step, she was disappointed to find that Tony wasn’t there like usual. She figured that today of all days that he would be waiting for her.

It was her first day in the field.

George Mason had come to her with her very first field assignment a few weeks ago and she was both nervous and excited. She would be going undercover as a bar patron to see what kind of intel she could gather. The terrorist they were after, Omar Hakim, was expected to be at a meeting taking place somewhere in the bar.

On the way to her desk, out of the corner of her eye, she caught Tony and George undeniably arguing up in his office. As she put her things away, Tony stormed down the stairs and went straight to his desk.

After getting settled in, Michelle walked over to his desk. “You okay?” She asked softly.

“Fine,” he answered shortly, not even glancing up.

She didn’t dwell on it however, she had a job to do. She pushed all distractions out of her mind and focused on the task at hand.

She was about to get into one of CTU’s SUVs when she saw Tony jogging towards her as her stomach did a small flip.

“Hey,” he said, stopping in front of her.

“Hi.”

“Look, I’m, ugh, sorry about earlier. For being short with you. I’m just worried because it’s your first time in the field and I just wanna make sure you’re still okay going through with it still.” He scratched his neck as he talked, a sign he was nervous.

She couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face even as much as she tried to contain it. “I’ll be fine, Tony. Plus, you’ll be running tactical so I have nothing to worry about.” She had forgotten the clothes she was dressed in and a blush rose to her cheeks when his eyes scanned over her. She was wearing a short skirt and a tank top that left very little to the imagination paired with some of the highest heels she had ever worn.

“You look… wow.” ‘Smooth,’ he thought to himself as he averted his eyes back to her.

“Thanks.”

“We’re leaving,” someone in the SUV called, breaking their moment.

“Be careful,” he said softly.

“I will,” she smiled before getting in the car.

After going through the intel one last time, they arrived at a dimly lit bar. She placed the earpiece on and tested it to make sure it worked. Everyone at CTU would be listening in and scanning the room for surveillance and not to mention all the agents outside.

Making her way in, she went up the bar first, scanning the room for any trace of Hakim. A man took a seat beside her, groping her ass as he did so. She realized that it was Hakim himself.

“What’s a pretty girl like yourself doing here all alone?” He asked, his words slurring.

“I could ask you the same,” she flashed a smile, her fingers dancing along his arm. Tony scoffed on the other line, receiving some glances in his direction.

“No boyfriend?”

“No boyfriend,” she agreed.

“I find that hard to believe, beautiful. I mean, what possible reason could that be for? Are you bad in bed? The beautiful ones always are,” he smirked, wrapping his fingers across her waist and pulling her closer to him. “Why don’t we test it out?” He stood abruptly, all but dragging her towards the bathroom.

She was panicking because she couldn’t fight back and risk her cover being blown. But the closer they got to the bathroom, the faster her heart started racing.

“Move in, now!” Tony ordered across the coms.

He roughly pushed her up against the door, his hand inching closer to the hem of her skirt. His other hand wrapped in her hair, ripping out her earpiece in the process and it fell on the floor.

“What the fuck?” He bent down, picking it up and inspecting it. “Fucking bitch,” he yelled, shoving her to the ground. He started kicking her repeatedly, he picked up and slammed her against the tile wall, her head making a sickening sound.

Just then, the CTU agents stormed in and apprehended him as one of them called a medic before everything went black for Michelle.

She woke up to the humming of the machines and a weight on her leg. Her head was throbbing and the light hurt her eyes but she forced them open. Once her eyes adjusted to the light, she found Tony laying at the foot of the bed, his head on her legs.

“Tony?” She asked quietly and he jerked awake.

“Hey, how you feeling?” He asked, taking her hand in his.

“Like I was run over by a bus,” she joked. “Where are we?”

“CTU medical, they brought you here after-” he trailed off. “I’ll get the doctor so they can talk to you.”

He came back a few minutes later with the doctor right behind him.

“Ms. Dessler, you have a mild concussion. You have a couple stitches behind your head due to the blow you received. I already talked to Mr. Mason so you have the next week to rest. I want to see you for a follow-up next week to check on you, but other than that, you’re good to go. We wanna keep you overnight for observation just to make sure everything is good before you get discharged tomorrow. Do you have any questions?”

“I’m good, thank you.”

“Let me or the nurse know if you have any questions. Have a good night,” he smiled before leaving her and Tony alone.

“How long have you been here?” “Not long,” he lied, which she saw right through.

“Tony.”

“A couple hours isn’t really that long, Michelle.”

“Thank you for being here,” she told him honestly.

“Of course, I would say anytime, but I really hope this doesn’t happen again,” he teased softly.

“That makes two of us.”

~~~~~~~~

Michelle only went into the field when completely necessary, she was an asset behind the computer running tactical, but she was one hell of a field agent. She had trained for field ops shortly after starting CTU, it was required since she was third in command at the time if an event was ever to arise, she could be utilized.

Tony had ensured she stayed in the building whenever he could. He couldn’t stand the thought of her being in danger and even after three years of being at CTU, she had only gone out in the field a handful of times.

But today he was adding to that.

Jack had come to him with some intel they just received regarding a potential threat at LAX and he needed Michelle to go into the field with him. As director, he was needed at CTU to run the operation and he tried fighting Jack on the decision, he tried taking her place but Jack didn’t budge.

“Tony, it’s her job. Don’t make me get Chapelle involved,” he threatened. They didn’t have time to waste and just because Tony and Michelle were married, it didn’t change anything. They knew what they were signing up for when they started dating.

“Fine,” he relented, dialing her extension.

“Dessler,” she answered and as he looked down, he saw her hands flying across her keyboard.

“Hey, it’s me. Can I see you up here for a sec?”

“Yeah, just give me a minute.”

“I’ll be in the locker room, I’ll brief her on the way to the airport.” Jack said, but Tony’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Tony? Did you hear me?”

“Yeah,” he snapped out of it just in time to see Michelle stand up from her station and make her way upstairs to his office.

“You know I’ll do everything to ensure her safety,” Jack added softly.

“I know, thanks.”

Jack walked out of his office, smiling at Michelle as he passed her on the way to change.

“Hey, you needed to see me?” Michelle asked and after noticing the look on her face, decided to tease him. “Oh no, are you firing me?” She said with a grin, but when he didn’t say anything, she knew something wasn’t right. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re needed in the field.” She immediately understood why he was acting like this. He was worried. “There’s been a threat at the airport and Jack needs you,” he continued.

“Tony, I’ll be fine,” she tried to reassure him.

“I know… I just don’t like you being in the field.”

“I know, I don’t like you out there either, but it’s our job.”

“You’re right,” he agreed.

“Of course I am,” she teased with a smile.

“See, now I could fire you for that.” He mirrored her smile.

“You love me too much to do that.”

“I do,” he confirmed with a small laugh before turning serious again. “Jack’s waiting for you, he’ll brief you on the way.” He paused a moment before speaking, “be careful.”

“I will,” she smiled and squeezed his arm reassuringly before going to get changed. He watched her walk down the stairs as an uneasy feeling came over him, but he shook it off.

After Michelle and the team arrived at the airport, they received information that it was an anthrax attack. He immediately called her to tell her.

“Dessler,” she answered.

“It’s anthrax, a person in a black hoodie and jeans walked in twenty minutes ago with a briefcase, we think it's our guy.”

“I need a perimeter on the outside, no one in or out until we get it secured.” “Already done. Michelle, you have to be extra careful.”

“I know and I will be. I gotta go, I’ll call you with any updates.”

Hours had passed by without any word from her. He and the rest of CTU were glued to their monitors and Tony had been on the phone with someone on Michelle’s team.

“Where the hell is she?” He asked, running a hand through his already messy hair.

“We don’t know, sir. She went in and hasn’t come out yet.”

“Where is Bauer?”

“He went inside with her.”

“Dammit,” he cursed.

“Hey, Tony,” Adam, a new hire called, “I have Ms. Dessler on line two.”

He breathed out a sigh of relief. “Patch her through. Where the hell have you been?” He asked, picking up the phone. She knew he was worried, but she hated when he treated her differently, especially when she was sent into the field. “I’m doing my job, Tony. We got the guy. I have to debrief and then I’ll be on my way back to CTU.”

“Michelle-” “I gotta go, I’ll see you soon.”

Almost an hour later, Tony had received numerous calls on Michelle’s good work from Division. He was in the middle of a call with Brad Hammond when he saw her walking up the steps to his office.

“Yeah, Brad, I’ll let her know. Thanks,” he said, hanging up just as she walked through the door. “Hey,” he said softly.

“Hey.” She took a seat on the couch.

“I’m sorry,” he said, walking over to the couch and crouching down in front of her. “I just worry about you.”

“I know, but I’m good at my job, Tony.” “I know. I’ve been hearing all about how good you are. I just got off the phone with Brad when you walked in.”

“Really?” She asked with a small smile.

“Yeah, he was so glad that he even gave us the next couple days off.

~~~~~~~~

It was the day from hell and his painkillers were starting to wear off. He and Michelle had been at each other's throats since he got back from the hospital and after she had found out he was lying to her for months. He saw her in field clothes and walking towards him.

“What the hell is this?” He asked.

“Ryan assigned me to head the team that’s going to the hotel.” He noticed Ryan right behind her and turned his attention to him. “Ryan, this is-”

“I don’t wanna hear it. As the head of CTU, you have an obligation to stay at the center of information. Michelle has more hours of disaster-control simulation than anyone else on staff. Not to mention her practical experience from the DC anthrax outbreak. Michelle will lead the team, Gael will second. You’ll be in constant communication, pass on any guidance you can based on intel that comes in.” He said before walking away.

“They’re waiting for me,” she said, about to walk away.

“Michelle, I don’t care what Ryan says. I can get somebody from Division to take your place.”

“No. He’s right. I should be the one to go.”

“Alright. Then you let me know the second you get your people set, alright?”

She nodded her head before walking away.

Upon arriving at the hotel, she disobeyed his direct orders and went in anyway. Where the cordilla virus was released into the air that would kill almost every single person in there. This was a phone call she was dreading to make, but Alvers said there were eleven other vials out there.

“Are you inside?” He asked in disbelief, his stomach sinking.

“Yeah…”

“What the hell, Michelle? NHS will be there soon and when they do, put on a hazmat suit. There might be a chance that you weren’t close enough when it went off.”

Her heart clenched at the hope he was clinging onto. “If I’ve been infected, there’s nothing anyone can do.”

After a couple grueling hours, Michelle finally received her test results and bibbidi-bobbidi-boo they were negative.

Just as things were starting to look up for them, en route to NHS headquarters, their van was run off the road as men in ski masks and guns swarmed in. They shot the driver first and when they opened the back doors, they shot the other two survivors before tying a piece of fabric around her face to prevent her from speaking.

“Not bad, Almeida,” one of the men murmured.

Hours passed and she was trying to figure out a way to escape or to contact CTU. She just hoped Tony hadn’t done anything stupid like gone along with whatever Saunders had asked of him.

When she got patched through to Jack and heard Tony yelling at him, her heart felt constricted. But ultimately, she couldn’t risk the virals getting out, not after everything she saw at the hotel. So she let herself get caught. The only hope she had was knowing that Jack was involved, Tony didn’t risk himself.

It wasn’t until she got back to CTU she learned the truth; he had intentionally let Saunders escape. She couldn’t blame him, it was an impossible choice. And her pleas to Brad were futile.

Then they dragged him out in handcuffs, their goodbye was still burned into her mind and she had no energy left. They wouldn’t even tell her where they were taking him. After today, all she wanted was him and they took him away, even after everything else he accomplished during the day.

Tony sat in the jail cell, hoping Michelle was okay. He couldn’t imagine how she was feeling after the day she had. He didn’t care what happened to him as long as she was okay. He wanted to see for his own eyes, check on her because the pit in his stomach was only growing.

After the day from hell they both had, it was only getting worse and there was nothing he could do to help her and it killed him.

[qianoir]

IT3D 2 - Galaga vs. ET

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: college students!WayV x Chinese fem!reader

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: non-idol au, college au

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 18+ (Do not interact if you are under 18)

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: heavy cursing (censored), mentions of sex, nudity, love octogon, foreign humor, overbearing parents

♡ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2.2k

𝐓𝐚𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭: @eggbutnotyolk @d1nne @fanficbitchwhowriteskpop @staysstrays

Preview < 1 < 2 < 3

Your stomach started to churn during the lesson so you pulled out a handful of white rabbit candy from the front pocket of your bag. There was more candy than school supplies in your bag so you generously handed a few each to Xiaojun and Kun, whose empty tummies thanked you greatly. The professor soon closed the lecture and the three of you headed out together.

"I don't suppose either of you guys have dance next?" You ask the two boys with a slight laugh.

Both shook their heads. Kun pulled out his schedule, "I have biology." Xiaojun was searching for something or someone behind you as he spoke, "My next class isn't until 2. I'm gonna go try to find one of my other friends. I'll see you guys later?" Kun and you farewelled Xiaojun’s take off.

"Come on, I'll walk you to the dance studio." Kun offered his arm, which you accepted. "You know where dance class is, but you aren't in it?" Kun shook his head, "One of my friends takes dance, as well. He got so lost this morning, I had to help him find the hall."

"Wow I wish I had a friend like you four hours ago.." You told him, remembering Xuejiao and her useless a.ss. Kun smiled, "He should still be in there. He has like 3 dance classes mixed in his schedule." You took note of this and unlinked your arm from Kun's as he delivered you to the dance hall. "Thank you for walking me."

"No problem. I'll catch you around. Good luck!" Kun waved good-bye as you walked into the studio. Immediately, you were hit with shocking sound waves and saw a few very skilled dancers performing some contemporary urban routine. You walked along the far wall to the back corner of the room to put your stuff down then unpacked your dance clothes and walked into the dressing rooms.

Dressing rooms in China are usually very strictly organized to separate genders. The room you walked into did not clearly decipher what gender it was made for, so you could only hope you chose the correct one. You turned a corner housing unoccupied lockers and.. a man fully clothed in ballet attire.. thankfully. The beautiful Asian man looked up from fixing his tights.

"I'm so sorry I thought this was the women's dressing room!" You stuttered, blushing in uncomfy embarrassment.

The man chuckled at you and stood up straight. "You're fine. Everything on this campus is co-ed." He said with a small eye roll. "Oh.. that's a little.. discomforting.." You said, dragging your eyes to the floor to avoid staring at the beautiful man's beautiful body.

He pointed to your dance clothes. "You're taking ballet?" You nodded. "So am I. The class is about to start.. you should get ready quickly." He walked past you, out into the studio.

The strange encounter gave you chills. You wondered if he was the friend Kun mentioned. After all, he was the fourth Asian guy you had seen today. Am I just like a magnet for cute Asian boys?

Taking his advice, you quickly got dressed and slipped out into the dance room where the instructor was already giving his new term speech. You tried to attract as little attention as possible as you walked to sit in an empty space on the floor, which was a little further ahead from the boy you previously met.

"So enough about myself, let's go around the room and have each of you introduce yourself and tell us about your dance background. Starting with blondie over there." The instructor points to a pretty girl with dyed blonde hair.

"Hi, I'm Hyo Yeon Kim, I'm from Incheon, South Korea and I have been dancing mainly hip hop since I was seven years old."

The class claps and this continues for every student. Then it's his turn. He sits up straight and waves around the room as he introduces himself.

"Hi, I'm Sicheng Dong. I'm from Wenzhou, China and I have specialized in traditional Chinese dance since I was 10 years old."

So Sicheng is his name..

Suddenly, the studio door bursts open with a petite Asian boy panting like he just ran the Great Wall.

"S.. sorry.. I'm late.. I slept through the alarms.. I never set." The boy fixes his dance clothes which were thrown carelessly over his body.

"That's ok, son. Come in and introduce yourself and tell us about your dance history." The instructor motions for him to join the group. The boy suddenly has so much energy and brightly greets us, waving his hand high in the air.

"Hi everyone!! My name is Chittaphon “Ten" Leechaiyapornkul! I'm from Bangkok, Thailand and I have been dancing since the womb!!" Everyone laughs at his personality, except Sicheng, who just rolls his eyes, but still smiles at the bubbly boy. Ten takes a seat on the floor next to Sicheng who offers him a hi-five. I guess all the Asians keep it tight here, huh?

"We're almost done, you there, go ahead." The instructor points to you and you straighten your spine before speaking.

"Hi, I'm Y/N. I'm from Hong Kong and I have been dancing contemporary ballet since I was eight years old."

"Very good, Y/N. I think you will fit in nicely with our ballet class." The instructor nods at you before addressing the whole class, "Right, so we will continue to get into actual dancing in the next class. Thank you all for showing up, even if not on time." Everyone turns to Ten who just smiles cheekily in return. "Class dismissed."

You pick yourself up from the floor and decide to wait until everyone has changed to change yourself, since the idea of co-ed dressing rooms still doesn't sit well in your mind. While you wait in the corner, Ten and Sicheng walk towards you.

“Y/N, right?" Ten asks. "Yes, that's me." You smile. "We should hang out sometime! We have a whole clique of native Chinese friends you could be a part of."

"Actually I think I may have already met some of them. Do you know Dejun Xiao and Kun Qian?"

Ten nods enthusiastically. "Wow small world! I'll add you to a group chat with all of us. Give me your phone!" Ten takes your phone from your hands and starts typing your number on his own. The device is suddenly buzzing with new message notifications as it is returned to your hands.

"I can't be late to my next class- we can meet up later! See you, Y/N!!” Ten rushes out of the studio, leaving you and Sicheng alone in the corner.

"Sorry if he scared you. He can be a bit hyper." Sicheng says with a small grin. You wave him off, "It's fine. You should go change now."

"Are you waiting for me to change so you can be alone in the dressing room?" You stay silent. "If you've been taking dance classes since you were eight, you should learn that going out of your comfort zone is essential." Sicheng teases, but offers another option, "There is a better place to change if you're that uncomfortable with it, come on."

Sicheng leads you into the dressing room where you are met with various colors of boobs and a.ss cracks. You just look up and let Sicheng guide the rest of the way. You hear him giggle at your flushed face. You arrive at a spatial closet that is filled with hi-tech film equipment. "This is one of the theatre storage closets. Xiaojun and I hang out here a lot."

Sicheng looks around the room while you stand there, bag in hand and ready to change. His eyes land on you awaiting awkwardly in front of him and he realizes, "Oh sorry! I'll leave you to change." Sicheng apologizes and rushes out of the closet. You laugh at the quirkiness of the cute boy and start getting dressed up again.

Walking out of the storage closet, you see Sicheng waiting in the empty dressing room. He holds up your schedule as he notices you coming out. "You dropped this and I couldn't help but see you're free for a couple of hours. I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch with me and the rest of the guys in the group chat Ten added you to? My treat." He says, handing back your schedule.

You stuff the paper back into your bag, "I would love to."

"Awesome. Let's go."

The two of you walked around the campus and met up with five other Asian guys by the sculpted fountains, three of them being Xiaojun, Kun, and Ten. Xiaojun and Kun noticed you immediately. "Hey nice to see you again. I see you've met Winwin and Ten." You look at Xiaojun confused. "Winwin?"

"That's my nickname." Sicheng blushes. "You can call me 'Win.' It sounds manlier." He puffs his chest a little.

“Y/N, this is Lucas and Hendery. Hendery is from Macau and Lucas is from Hong Kong, like you!" Kun introduced you and Lucas gave you a hi-five, "Waaah what's up, little Hong Konger!?" You laugh as his hi-five pulls you into a bro-hug, where your face painfully smacks into his hard chest. "It's been a while since I've met someone from my hometown. What are you doing in America?" Lucas asked you.

"My parents wanted me to attend an Ivy League to become the best doctor in Hong Kong, so here I am with painful irony." You answered. "Cool, cool. I'm studying animal biology. I love animals, especially puppies."

"You are a puppy!" Ten calls out and everyone agrees. "We actually have a dog and two cats hidden in our dorm, but don't tell the DA." Lucas puts a finger to his lips.

"GUYS LOOK WHAT I JUST SCORED! THEY'RE GIVING OUT FREE CONDOMS!!"

The annoying, orange-haired, Taiwanese kid from your chem class ran to all of you with like 20 unopened condoms in his hands. All of the guys facepalmed and you just rolled your eyes at more of his immature behavior. Yangyang’s eyes fell on you and hid all of the condoms behind his back as he screeched, "What the hell guys!? Why did you invite a chick to hang out with us?? We can't have a girl knowing our manly secrets!"

"B!tch, you and I both know those aren't going to fit your 5’8” a.ss." You motioned to the golden X-tra large rubbers hiding behind his back. The guys except Yangyang laughed when his face started turning red, proving the accuracy of your assumptions.

"You two know each other?" Asked Xiaojun. "We have a.. history." Yangyang narrowed his eyes at you, stuffing the condoms into his backpack without breaking visual contact. "Get over yourself. We only met this morning." You scoffed. The young boy stuck his tongue out at me like he had done once before.

"Let's go eat. I'm starving." Hendery groans.

The group walks to the dining hall where different restaurants are catered to the students and staff. It was decided to eat at a Hawaiian rooftop grill. You sat near the edge with a great view of Manhattan. Winwin sat on your right with Lucas and Kun next to him. Xiaojun sat across from you with Hendery and Yangyang on his side, and Ten at the front of the long table. You looked over the menu placed in your hands.

"Get whatever you want, ok?" Win told you and you complied with thanks. The guys ordered a bunch of food for the table as well as for themselves; you ordered a simple ahi tuna poke bowl.

Upon the food’s arrival, Kun starts a conversation. "How is everyone's first day going?"

"My professor hit my wrist with a ruler because I said Galaga sucked." Yangyang answered. "You had it coming. You think ET: The Video Game should have made a comeback." Xiaojun attacked.

"None of you fools gave ET a chance." Yangyang crossed his arms and looked away.

"My calc professor ate an egg and bacon biscuit from Tim Hortons, then fell asleep." Win said as he stuffed his cheeks with macaroni salad.

"Did he ever wake up?" You wheezed and asked him.

"No."

"Hendery what's on your neck?"

"He got that good-good on the first day- my man!" Yangyang said with his cheeks full.

"Some kid in my aerophysics class launched a bottle rocket into my neck. It really hurts." Hendery replied, rubbing the sore area.

"D.amn."

...

"This dude in my psych class kinda packing no homo." Everyone groaned at Xiaojun’s comment, Ten just smiled and beamed him up.

Everyone finished eating and you offered to pay for yourself, but Winwin wouldn't allow it. You all walked back to the fountains you had met up. Yangyang, Hendery, and Kun left for their next class together. "What do you have next?" Win asked you. "I have biology." You replied.

"Oh you're with us!" You looked over at Lucas and Ten. Turning back to Winwin, "I'll see you later. Maybe we could have a movie night sometime this week, just you and me?" He proposed. "Sure. That sounds fun. Also thank you for buying me lunch, it was yummy." Win smiled at you. "No problem. I'll text you tonight." You nodded and parted ways with the lovely boy who walked with Xiaojun- the other lovely boy.

You walked off with the three Chinese boys, not looking forward to biology, but glad to spend the hour with your cool new friends.

To be continued…

*DA = dorm advisor

𝘲𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘪𝘳

[writteninkat]

iv - carnival tickets

word count: 2,246

warnings: mentions of blood and dead animals

"I'ma break you off, let me be your motivation"

index

Today was the day you and the rest of class 1A can finally try out their hero costumes. You smiled, looking at yourself in the mirror, giving yourself butterflies as you do so.

Your hero costume was a simple black bodysuit type. Garters attacked to the clothing helped keep your thigh high boots up. The top covered your entire arms, hands and fingers- you designed it this way so your palms wouldn’t be littered with callouses given that you deal with weapons like swords and scythes every time you use your quirk.

The bodysuit is a title neck type that showed off your shoulders. Your costume is finished off with a full face black kitsune mask with glowing blue paint around the eyes, it makes up the whiskers as well as a little nose of a fox.

You keep it up on your head, not wanting to put it on unless you're engaging in combat.

You close your locker, joining the girls who are hyping each other up in what they’re wearing. You all step out of the changing area and you can’t help but feel giddy as you approach your teachers, excited with the activities for today.

Everyone begins freaking out at the site of All Might- which you don’t get at all. He’s blond, has a freakish smile and a built body. So what? “Who’s he?” You whisper at Mina who looks at you as if you’ve grown two heads.

“What?”

You sigh, “Who’s he? And why is everyone freaking out about him?” You ask again and Mina gives you that same look, but much worse. She’s acting as if you’ve just asked a very stupid question. “That’s All Might.” She answers, tone unusually calm and soft.

“I meat who is he?”

“The number one hero.”

You furrow your brows, gaze scanning the man who’s busy talking in front of the awestruck class. You tilt your head to the side, “That’s your number one pro hero?” You ask, pouting.

“You sound a lot of things- underwhelmed? Disappointed? Dissatisfied?” Bakugou says from behind you, the look in his eyes catching you off guard. You pause for a moment, choosing your words carefully to make sure you’re not offending anyone who’s within earshot.

“You look up to him?” You ask and he raises a brow at you as if you’ve just asked the most obvious question in all time. “He’s been my hero since forever. I look up to him more than anyone in the world. He’s my inspiration and the one of the biggest contributors to my dream go being a hero.” Your eyebrows lift in shock, you’ve never heard nor seen Bakugou respect a person so much. And by the looks of Mina, Kirishima and Denki, they haven’t seen this side of him either.

Your heart breaks as you return your gaze to the number one hero in front of you, smiling sadly. You don't know how or why, but your judgement tells you that the seven-footer man in front of you isn't all that powerful- not anymore at least.

"Here's the breakdown. There will be four teams of two- half of them will be heroes and the other half will be villains. The hero team can win in two ways; you can either capture the villains or retrieve the bomb. The villain team wins if the hero team is unable to do any of the tasks within the time limit." He explains quite clearly and thoroughly.

You feel your heart beat against your chest, you're feeling very giddy. Your excitement causes Bakugou's lips to twitch upwards, carving out a soft smile to which he hides almodt immediately so no one can see him.

All Might pulls out a draw lots box, letting fate decide which teams everyone belong to. You end up being teammates with Aoyama and Mina who you happily greet.

Everyone is asked to stay inside a monitoring room to watch and observe their classmates in battle. When All Might announces Bakugou and Izuku's team being up first, you don't think before walking up to the blond and placing a hand on his shoulder. He turns his head to the side, raising an expecting brow.

"Good luck out there." You smile softly to which he scoffs at. "I don't need luck to win." He punches his palm as he sets of his quirk, "I already know I will."

You roll your eyes, walking towards Izuku to wish him good kuck as well before following the class to the monitor room. Your eyes scan over the wall of monitors, finding it closely similar to the monitor room your house has back in the US.

As you watch Bakugou and Izuku in battle, it's clear to see that there's something going on between them. There seems to be a conflict between them that you can't quite point and as much as you wanted to ask Bakugou about it, you decided to wait until he'd tell you.

Why on earth do you think he'd tell you?

You shake your head and clear your stupid thoughts, stepping away into a corner and sitting down to mentally prepare yourself. As you try to meditate, you don't realise how much time has went by until you're being called by All Might for your turn.

You scan the room but don't spot an angry blond nor an angel look-a-like green haired boy. You pout, hoping to at least see thosep pretty vermilion eyes before the activity.

As you take your steps towards the building, a small smile stretches across your lips when you see Bakugou's familiar back towards you, only for it to smile when you see just how upset he looks like.

"C'mon, Y/n! We're the villains right now we can't be late!!" Mina calls out to you, waving her hand up. You look back at Bakugo one last time, your gazes catching each other before you step inside the building, pulling your mask down to cover your face.

"Hey Mina? Can you let me take charge of our group?" You ask as the three of you make your way towards the room where the fake bomb is. "Alright! We'll be at your command!" She salutes to you a little too enthusiastically to which you chuckle softly at, making sure to smile with your eyes to make sure she sees you're smiling despite the mask covering your face.

After All Might makes sure each teams' statuses are a go, he commences the activity. "Alright. What would you like for us to do, captain?" Mina asks. You stay quiet for a moment, summoning two katanas in each of your hands. You move them around, making sure your wrists are loose and flexible before actually using them.

"You guys can stay still and guard the bomb." You say, adjusting your gloves before turning around to face the only entrance and exit of the room. "I'll have to go and hunt me some heroes."

"It's been a few minutes since they started and when Y/n suddenly disappeared like that. What do you think the villains are planning?" Tsuyu asks, eyes on the screen as the class continues to search for you in every monitor in the wall, but to no avail.

"I've been seeing a few mice here and there. Do you think that's Koda's doing?" Kirishima asks, to which Denki asks back, "Are the mice you see dead or alive?"

Kirishima furrows his brows at the blond, about to explain how the mice are alive but stops himself when he looks back at the screen and sees the mice he was looking at just a few seconds ago was now dead, body sliced in half. He checks the other monitors as well and his confusion rises even more at the sight of multiple dead mice all over the floors.

"Time is ticking, heroes. You better get to the bomb or if this was a real life situation it'd have blown up by now." All Might says into the mic which puts pressure on the two boys.

The class watches in anticipation as the two steps into a wide and open room, somewhere similar to where Bakugou and Izuku were fighting in a while ago.

"No one's here." Sato states, turning around. "Then, there should only be one room left-"

"Leaving so soon, heroes?" You ask, body leaning on the closed door with one foot pressed on it and your arms crossed across your chest.

Sato and Koda raise their guards, stepping into a fighting stance as theylook at you with such focused eyes. You chuckle, "Your little friends running around the building were pretty hard to find. Not to mention there were quite a handful of them which caused me to reach my speed quirk's limit."

"So it was Y/n who sliced all those rats? But we didn't see her at all. There were no movements in any of the cameras." Sero points out, confusion evident in his face. "Well, she did use her speed quirk. And if what she stated was true, then she'll be no longer to use that quirk of hers, at least during this fight." Iida voices out.

"Two guys against one girl? Isn't that too unfair for her?" Mineta asks, receiving a growl from Bakugou. "If you think her being a girl puts her at a disadvantage you're wrong. If you wanna be a hero, it doesn't matter what your gender is, as long as you're strong."

Despite being in a foul mood, Bakugou still found himself wanting to fight for you. He didn't like the thought of people lookibg down at him, but he found it weird how he preferred it when people not look down at you instead.

"Come on boys. I'll keep this quick and short for you so we can end this activity already." Fingerless boxing gloves appear in each of your hands, they're black but with neon blue accents. You get into a fighting stance, "I really hate sweating."

Sato charges at you, throwing a naive punch at your way to which you dodge easily- scoffing. What was he trying to do, intimidate a little child? As you moved your body to the side, dodging his immature punch, you punch him in the gut, eyes on Koda as you do this.

You hear Sato wheeze before his body falls to the ground. You crack your knuckles, walking towards Koda who begins to panic, using his quirk to call in all sorts of birds and squirrels.

"Koda, this is as scary as being chased by a street gang of kittens." You say, stepping towards him. You step to his side, bringing your hand up to his forehead and flicking it, the contact causing him to tremble before losing consciousness.

Your mother's body guard taught you this- it was a skill he said that most assassins he worked with knows about. He never clearly explained to you how to do it, but as long as your opponent had the slightest bit of fear for you, it will end up working. For Koda's case, he looked like he was about to piss his pants, so it worked out a little too well for you.

"Y/n's team wins this round." All Might announces as the rest of class 1A stands behind him, unsure of what they had just seen.

As the day comes to an end, you learn from Kirishima and Mina that Bakugou has been feeling off since the fight lately. "We tried to stop him from leaving, but he just wouldn't listen. Izuku went and ran after him too. If you go now you should be able to catch up to the both of them." Urataka explains, setting the stack of books she's carrying on a desk.

You run out of the classroom, jumping down flights of stairs to get to the entrance of the highschool as quickly as possible. By the time your eyes finally caught sight of the two boys, they were already talking with each other.

"I wasn't hiding my quirk from you. It was given to me by someone else, recently."

You raise your brows, quickly hiding yourself from the both of them. You place a finger gently on your lips as you stared at the floor, listening as Izuku explained to Bakugou.

The next thing you know it, Bakugou was now yelling at the green haired boy. He sounded so upset, as if he wanted to cry. It was clear as day that the blond didn't like losing, not to anyone and especially not to Izuku.

You took a peak, eyes widening as you see Katsuki Bakugou looking so vulnerable with tears in the corners of his eyes, his brows knitted from being so upset with himself. He walks away, slouching as he wipes his tears with the back of his hand.

You step out of your hiding spot, Izuku's expression growing nervous when he sees you. "O-oh hey, hey Y/n! I didn't... ummm... did you..." He looks down, scratching the back of his head. "Did you hear something?"

You stare him down for a moment, unsure of what to answer before sighing. "I'm not going to say anything to anyone nor ask you about it. But I will tell you this." Your words causes Izuku to look up at you in anticipation. "The second you master that power of yours, you have to fight me with everything you've got. Alright?"

Bakugou grumbles to himself, kicking at a rock, watching as it rolls into a canal. He huffs, annoyed. "I'd tell you you look ugly when you're mad, but then I'd be telling you you look ugly everyday." You yell at him from behind, causing him to turn around.

"School isn't over yet." Bakugou furrows his brows as he watches you make your way towards him. "And yet here we are." You point out, smiling as you put your hands behind your back.

He sighs, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. "What do you want?"

You take out two pink carnival tickets from your pocket, shoving it at his face and waving it in front of him. "I've always went to this carnival with my mom back in the US and I'm feeling kind of homesick. I accidentally bought two tickets too so now you gotta go with me."

You begin to pull at him to which he pulls back, a bored expression resting on his adorable face.

Adorable?

"No." He grunts.

You smile at him, "I wasn't giving you a choice."

[moonsofmars-writes]

The seed of a promise

Fandom: 七つの大罪 - 鈴木央 | Nanatsu no Taizai | The Seven Deadly Sins - Suzuki Nakaba (Anime & Manga) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationships: Diane & Fairy King Harlequin Characters: Fairy King Harlequin, Diane, Ludociel, Gerheade, Helbram, Elaine Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, War, Death, Blood and Injury, Nothing is graphic, Minor Character Death, Non-Graphic Violence, Hopeful Ending, Pre-Relationship

Summary: In a world where the Holy War didn’t end with Elizabeth and Meliodas, where Mael never became Estarossa, a final battle has just been fought.

The Holy War is finally over.

As the victors gather and the vanquished are chased and finished, the young Fairy King tries to find a way to prevent yet another tragedy - and ends up finding an ally in an unexpected place.

Notes: I've been wondering for a while what would have happened if Gowther's plan hadn't worked and Demons and Goddesses had kept fighting and this is what I managed to come up with! Since it's me, King and Diane are also here - with a whole lot of drama.

Please, enjoy!

There is blood on his hands and his clothes, on his wings and his hair. It makes his jacket heavy and his skin unpleasantly slick. Harlequin can’t bring himself to care right now.

The battle is over, yet he keeps flying over the field, eyes darting from a corpse to the other, studying the survivors as they make their way through the craters and bodies that cover the ground. Most of them walk silently, looking around as if they just woke up from a dream; others are frantic and turn their heads left and right, calling out names and getting no answer.

Harlequin doesn’t call but still searches. The knot in his stomach starts loosening only when he finally catches a glimpse of Elaine on the ground, standing among some human soldiers, alive and apparently unarmed. He is too distant to see her expression when she looks up at him, but he can read her heart as she can read his and what he reads is relief and exhaustion and grief. Later, when they’ll be home, they’ll find each other to whisper words of loss and comfort, or maybe they’ll just rest together, shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand, as they did when they were younger. Right now, they both have other matters to take care of.

Minutes later, Helbram waves at him, a tired grin on his face. He is floating over the remains of a burned tree surrounded by a group of Fairies, to whom he soon returns to give orders. Harlequin doesn’t approach them and heads forward, feeling relieved that his best friend is fine. He knows he can leave this part to him; after all, Helbram has been his first in command for years. He knows perfectly how to handle the aftermath of a battle.

Gerheade is the next. His advisor looks tired, there is a cut on her cheek and bruises on her left arm, but the purple blood staining her dress isn’t hers. “We are still not sure about the number,” she says after a quick bow. They have done this countless times before, and she knows exactly what he wants to know. “For now, the reports indicate that more than five hundred have fallen. The wounded we have found are being taken care of by the Goddesses. I’ll personally check how many won’t be able to fly back on their own.”

Harlequin nods, clasping his hands behind his back. More than five hundred have died today. He expected a high number, considering that they have battled for hours; he still feels sick. More than five hundred Fairies won’t return to the Fairy King’s Forest alive, five hundred people who trusted him, followed him, and he failed to protect. Deep down, he knows it could have gone worse. If they had lost this battle, he doubts many would have left the field alive, and their home would have been next. Had they lost here, his entire Clan would have eventually been wiped away by the enemy.

Still. Five hundred. He swallows hard and sighs, “Give the order to gather the bodies. We are taking them home.”

Gerheade frowns, a question on her lips, but she holds it back when she meets his eyes. “As you wish, my king.” They have never collected such a large amount of bodies from the battlefield, and it will take hours to find them all and bring them back to the Fairy King’s Forest. It doesn’t matter. He couldn’t protect them, but this doesn’t mean he will abandon them. They deserve this, at least.

His next task is a little more bothersome but necessary. Tomorrow morning there will be an official meeting for the leaders of Stigma, but he doesn’t want to leave before checking on the Goddesses.

Read on AO3

As he flies, Harlequin’s gaze turns to the east. That’s where the Demons came from, where the Demon King opened a portal from the Demon Realm to bring most of his army to Britannia. He is fairly sure that the portal collapsed when the Demon King died, destroyed by the hand of the Supreme Deity; still, many Demons flew in that direction when they realized the battle was lost as if in a last attempt to save their life. That’s where the Goddesses warriors have followed them, too.

In the distance, Harlequin can see figures battling in the air, he can see smoke rising from the ground and flashes of light against the darkening blue of the sky. Inside, he feels nothing but exhaustion. Driven by the euphoria following their victory, some Fairies have tried to chase after the Demons too, yelling menaces and obscenities. He stopped them, of course. He has no rule over the other Clans, but he does over his people and he decided that today, no other Fairy will die and no other Fairy will kill.

Briefly, he wonders if there are still Giants standing with the Demons. So many kept fighting until the very end, even after their leader Matrona was killed, but it’s hard to believe that not even one gave up to fear and tried to save themselves at last. As he stares at the fight that still consumes in the distance, Harlequin feels as his bowels have turned into stone. Even if they had tried to escape, they are probably being killed right now. And all of that, because the Giant Clan chose to side with the Demons.

The thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, so he decides to push it away and focus on his task. There is nothing he can do for the Giants right now. And at least, even though he knows he is being selfish, he is relieved he doesn’t sense her power over there. Perhaps it’s because she is already dead, but right now, Harlequin allows himself to hope.

He finds Ludociel hovering high in the sky, giving orders to a small group of Goddesses. “Ah, Fairy King,” he welcomes him with his usual smile, gesturing at his soldiers to go. Some bow and fly away, others stay close, hands tight around their weapons, watching carefully their surroundings. Ludociel’s guards. Stigma’s victory has been overwhelming today, but they are obviously not going to let their guard down anytime soon.

Ludociel pays no attention to them as he turns towards Harlequin. There are stains of dirt and dry blood on his feathers, yet his cape is immaculate, so white it hurts his eyes; he probably changed it as soon as the battle was over. “I see your army is preparing to retreat.”

“My people need rest,” Harlequin says, eyes wandering over the few Goddesses around them, over their tattered clothes and bruised skin. “As does yours.”

“We will get to it,” Ludociel dismisses the problem with a wave of his hand. “As soon as our enemies are gone for good.”

There is something in his tone that makes Harlequin’s hands twitch. “Most of the Demon warriors have died today,” he says slowly, “The Demon King is gone. All his Commandments are gone.” He took some of them down himself. Even the Demon King’s son fell, overpowered by the magic of the Archangels. “Isn’t it enough?”

Ludociel hums. “The most of the work is done, undoubtedly. However, we can’t know for sure how many Demons are left in the Demon Realm unless we don’t verify.” His voice is sweet as honey, it clashes unpleasantly with the cold implication of his sentence.

“We both know that the ones left in the Demon Realm are mostly civilians, Ludociel. Will you slaughter them too? Even the ones who cannot fight? Even their children?”

There is a moment of pause, as Ludociel studies him, tilting his head, his expression unchanged. “We will do what’s necessary,” he finally says. “We don’t want anything like this to happen again, don’t we?”

It takes an effort not to react to the veiled threat in his words, but Harlequin knows this game well; he won’t offer Ludociel anything, especially not a sign of weakness. “What about the Giants?” He asks instead.

Ludociel paints regret in his expression like a skilful painter. “They will be taken care of too. They are traitors, and as such they will be considered.” He slightly shakes his head, “Such a shame, don’t you think?”

This time, Harlequin doesn't hold back. “I don’t think it’s wise to pursue them more. They have lost many lives today, and they lost their chief. They will not be a threat anytime soon.”

“Ah, still nostalgic of the times they were our allies, young king?”

“I just believe,” he answers coldly, “that the relationships among our Clans will run more smoothly if they’ll see us show mercy. The Giants they left behind today are but their youngsters and mothers with children - they knew this battle was decisive. Are you truly planning to exterminate them all?”

“What I’m planning to do is to find them and ensure that we won’t get another unpleasant surprise. Stigma will decide about their fate.” The Archangel shakes his head again, and this time a faint smile appears on his lips. “You are too young to remember clearly about their treason, I’m afraid. We won’t show their warriors more mercy than what they showed us, and about the others … there is time, now. The humans will want to have their say too.”

There is no point in discussing this now. Harlequin feels the gaze of the other Goddesses on him, the resolution radiating from Ludociel’s heart, and suddenly, he feels incredibly exhausted. “Very well,” is what he forces out of his mouth, “We will speak about this tomorrow.”

“Indeed,” Ludociel hums before looking away, as to imply that Harlequin is dismissed. Perhaps it’s the exhaustion, both physical and emotional, but this time his arrogance doesn’t touch the Fairy King. He leaves without another word and flies down, towards the scarred ground.

Giant, Fairy, Demon and Goddesses’ magic destroyed this plain. Rocky spurs rise wrapped in vines among still fuming craters, and wherever his eyes can reach hundreds, thousands of bodies are scattered. Harlequin would want to look away, for once. He is so tired of death.

And that’s exactly why he forces himself to keep looking. He is tired of death, and he won’t let anyone else die in this war if he can help it. He already looked before, but now he has to make sure that her body isn’t among the fallen. Could have she fled? It hurts to realize that he can’t be sure she didn’t. The person he needs right now, the person who could help him prevent another bloodshed, inhabits his memories as the ghost of a gentle child who offered him friendship when life was easier and Fairies and Giants were allies. Even though he has seen her later, again and again, on too many battlefields, the first image that comes to his mind when he thinks of her is from their past.

Eyes shining in the light of dusk, a finger raised to make a vow.

“We will be friends forever! Like Drole and Gloxinia!”

Warmth tinges his cheeks with red as he raises his finger too.

“We will. I promise!”

He is rewarded with a bright smile that outshines the sun itself.

The smile on Harlequin’s face is now bitter. It didn’t last long, their promise - the promise of two kids from two different clans that thought that war could never harm them. After all, Gloxinia used to tell him that the Fairies and the Giants had been close for centuries, that their bond would have never faded. He also used to smile and tell him not to worry about him when he left for a battle because he was the king of the Fairies and he would have always come back to his people.

Gloxinia had been wrong about many things.

They had died together, he and Drole, the king of Giants, during a battle so dreadful that Fairies and Goddesses still refused to talk about it. They had died and they had left their Clans in chaos, one lost without a guide and the other thrown in the hands of a young Fairy with too little knowledge of the world outside his forest. As new Fairy King, Harlequin had chosen to remain loyal to the Stigma and the Fairies had followed him, while the Giants had forged a new alliance, one with the monster who was able to defeat their king in combat. The Demon King himself. It was usual for the Giants to follow the strongest, but this didn’t make their betrayal less hurtful.

Harlequin had come to terms with it years before, but he had been unable to forget about his promise to the young Giant girl who had been his best friend when their Clans were allies and he was nothing more than a simple Fairy Gloxinia had taken under his wing. When he saw her again, after years of training and clashes, she was a warrior under the direct command of Matrona, and she danced ballets of death and destruction.

He could never bring himself to face her. He focused on other enemies, turning his back on her, hoping that she would do the same. Even though they had been enemies way longer than they had been friends, he couldn’t help but fear the day he would have found her dead body on the battlefield. She was a tie to a past he missed terribly, a tie he simply didn’t want to cut because once gone, it would have been lost forever.

Until now, she survived, and there is a part of him that refuses to give up just yet. It takes effort to use his magic after he used so much for the battle, but he grits his teeth and flies faster, trying to detect any sign of her power. Even a crumble would be enough, to at least tell him that she lives.

Long minutes later, as he flies over a small crater that seems to brim with corpses, he halts in mid-air; it wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t known what to look for, but there is a presence - distant, feeble, like a spark among ashes. Harlequin turns his head towards the wood that skirts the battlefield at North. It hasn’t been spared by the battle, not completely, but many trees are still standing. It wouldn’t be a bad place to hide.

After ensuring that no one is watching him, Harlequin flies lower, swerving among the debris, and fastly approaches the wood, following the trace of magic. It becomes stronger as he enters the tree lines, and with it, his heart pounds faster and his bowels knot. That’s when the traces of blood appear, with the obvious signs of someone passing among these branches, breaking the frail wood. From there, it’s not hard to find her.

When he finally sees her, she is lying with her back against a tree, the broken handle of a war hammer in her hand. Her eyes are on him as soon as he emerges from the branches, studying him from under dirty brown hair. Her expression hardens, but she stays still, waiting for him to reach her.

It’s not that bad, he thinks as he examines her injuries while slowly flying towards her. Her left leg seems to be broken and her face is scratched and swollen, and fresh blood soaks her clothes coming from dozens of cuts on her arms and shoulders, but she is a Giant and he saw Giants survive way worse than this. The thought doesn’t stop his heart from sinking in his gut. He can’t leave her like this.

He halts mere feet from her, distant enough not to make her feel threatened - or so he hopes - but close enough to speak with her. But as her violet eyes bury into his soul, he finds himself at a loss of words. Here is the child who used to play tag with him, who smiled when he gave her flowers and danced with him in the bright days of summer. Here is the child who told him she loathed violence so much she would have rather abandoned her own Clan than fight this war. The child who would have wanted to use her dance to build, rather than to destroy. He would have liked to live in a world where her wish had come true.

“Have you come to finish me?”

Her voice, weak but firm, feels cold as ice on his skin. His expression doesn’t change, though - he has been practising his self-control for too long to let it slip, how deep her words wound him.

Not once in the past years, when they saw each other on the battlefield, she has shown a sign of recognizing her childhood friend, and still now that they are finally facing each other, her expression is a mask of stone and mistrust. Has she really forgotten about him? Does she truly believe he would go after her just to kill her?

“I haven’t,” he hurries to answer as he lifts his hand; when the green light of Pollen Garden surrounds her, the Giant hisses and pulls back, pressing her back against the trunk, then freezes and watches with wide eyes as the luminescent pollen rains over her, closing her wounds and welding her bones. When she returns her gaze on him, it’s filled with wonder and confusion.

“The Goddesses are chasing the warriors who fled the battlefield,” Harlequin says, “but they won’t attack the Giants who didn’t participate, not today.” With another movement of his hand, his Spirit Spear disappears. “You should be able to come back to your home before them. Matrona is dead, but you were her second in command. They will follow you, and you have to take them away. Leave Megadozer and hide somewhere until the Goddesses and the Humans’ bloodthirst has quenched. This war lasted far too long and too many have been hurt. Even though I don’t think they all are willing to harm civilians, the situation could easily escalate, and I doubt that I … that anyone would be able to stop it.”

Her eyes darken but she nods. She knows as well they won’t make it easy for the Giants. Slowly, she stands, until her face is at the same level as his, her stare fixed on him. There’s a part of Harlequin that is tempted to use his heart reading powers to know what she is thinking now, but as usual, he suppresses it. Heart reading is as natural as breathing for him and helped him so many times, but it can be a double-edged sword. Besides, they aren’t fighting - it would be rude .

“Why are you doing this?”

He should expect her next question, but it still floors him, leaving him silent and still as he thinks about the right words to use.

“The Giants betrayed you,” she insists. “We killed so many among the Fairies. And yet you are here, helping me, giving me the chance to help my people. I want to know why.”

He hesitates another moment before speaking, staring back into her eyes. “I have never wanted to see the Giants annihilated, and I’m tired of slaughters. Our Clans hurt each other enough and you don’t pose a threat for us anymore. I hope that under your guidance, the Giants will follow a new path, one that will allow them to coexist with the other Clans again, once the wounds this war left will start to heal.”

“My guidance? Have you seen me?” He is taken aback by the bitterness in her voice. “There is so much blood on my hands. I’m no more than a murder, Fairy King. What makes you think that I will make the Giant follow the path of peace?”

“Because you never wanted this.” The words slip from his mouth before he can stop them, and they are met by shock flourishing on her face. With a sigh, Harlequin continues, folding his hands in front of him not to move them nervously. “You don’t take pleasure from fighting and killing, nor you have reasons to continue this war. We all have done what we had to, Diane, and we all will answer to the consequences by ourselves. But I believe that now that you have the chance to do what’s right, you will take it.”

She gasps at the mention of her name and watches him in awe. He expects her to question him now, to yell at him to get out of her head, as they all do when they think he is reading their hearts. But again, she surprises him. “You … you remember me,” she whispers, covering her mouth with a hand. “Don’t you, Harlequin?”

Breath stops in his throat. “I - of course I do, how could have I forgotten? You were my best friend.” He swallows, his hands clenching around each other. “I thought you didn’t remember me.”

“I thought you didn’t remember me!” She shakes her head, “I spent years stuck in Megadozer, training for the war, hoping that when they’d let me out, I could at least see you again. But the first time I met you on the battlefield, you didn’t even look at me. You never even tried to talk to me.”

“I kept my distance because I didn’t want us to be forced to fight. I couldn’t have brought myself to hurt you,” he admits.

“I couldn’t have either, I wouldn’t have. I thought you didn’t recognize me - or you simply didn’t remember me.”

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, “You didn’t say anything either. I thought it had simply been too long since we were friends. Besides, I ... changed quite a bit, since then.”

Diane raises a brown, examining him. “You’ll have to do way more than growing a pair of wings for me not to recognize you.”

Harlequin can’t stop an astounded laugh, “Is that so?”

“Absolutely,” she snorts. “Though … I didn’t expect the hair.” For the first time since forever, he sees her lips curve into a smile. It’s surprising, how much he missed it. “No,” she continues, shaking her head, “I was afraid of what would have happened if I had confronted you. It’s not just your appearance, your entire attitude changed since we were kids. I thought that even if I had reminded you about our friendship, I couldn’t be sure about your reaction. You could have not cared about it anyway.”

“Diane, I’m so sorry. If I had known, I …” Truth to be told, he isn’t sure what he would have done. Reconnected with her? While they were on the opposite sides of a war? There was no way it would have worked smoothly.

“I’m sorry too,” she says softly, “I’ve missed you.”

A shiver travels through his body. “And I, you.” There is so much he would want to ask, so much he would want to tell her. She is Diane, his best friend, yet she has changed so much and he thinks he would want to know better the person she became. But there is no time. The sun is going to set soon. “If you want to go home, you should go now,” he says quietly, “Before someone finds us.”

She heaves a sigh and nods, looking down. “I know,” she says as sadness obscures the light in her eyes. “They’ll be waiting for news.”

As are the Fairies he left in the safety of the Fairy King’s Forest. Harlequin will have to do the same himself, later; he will have to look at his people and tell them about the losses they suffered today. There have been so many battles in this bloody war, but this part never got easier. “I’m sorry,” he says again, even though he isn’t sure what he is apologizing for. “If things were different, I’d want you to come with me. I would be able to keep you safe in the Fairy Realm, not even the Supreme Deity can come there without my permission. But …”

“I can’t leave the others behind,” Diane finishes, shaking her head. “I’ll find a way to keep everyone safe. Thank you, Harlequin. I don’t know how I can ever repay you for this.”

“I do.”

Her stunned expression would be funny if it wasn’t for the way her body tenses and her hand clenches around the remains of her hammer. A few minutes of reconciliation can’t cancel years of war, he bitterly thinks as he hurries to explain, “I want things to change between our Clans. I know it will be difficult and things will probably never be like they were before, but I want us to stop fighting and to be on good terms, at least. And I hope you can help me with this.”

It takes her some moments to answer. “I’d like that, too,” she admits. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to change their minds. Giants are raised to be warriors, and fighting for our honour is supposed to be our reason to live. Some will want revenge. But … I’ll try to - I'll find a way. I won’t let them throw their lives away like this and I won’t let them stain their hands with blood”. Something new shines in her eyes when she looks at him, “I promise.”

“Thank you,” he answers, letting a relieved smile curve his lips. “And I promise you that I’ll do the same. No harm will come to you from my people, as long as I breathe.”

This is so different from the promise they made each other so long ago - for once, they do not seal it with their pinkies - yet he can’t help but feel a little bit nostalgic; there is something in Diane’s expression that makes him believe she feels it too. There is no time to evoke images of a past long gone, though, and so she nods and moves away, her walk as swift as before the battle.

Before she disappears between the trees, she turns around one last time to look at him. It’s hard to read the mix of emotion in her eyes, but despite the curiosity, Harlequin avoids reading her heart. He smiles, instead. And she smiles back, just for a moment.

Then, she is gone.

When Harlequin comes back to the battlefield, his Fairies have been gathered and are working on finding a way to bring the bodies of their fallen back home. Humans are going back to their settlement, and in the distance, he sees a few Goddesses preparing to return to the Celestial Realm. The air is still filled with anguish and mourning, but something else smoulders in the hearts of the survivors, a sense of excitement that Harlequin knows will rise to the surface tonight, when celebrations will be held all around Britannia. If just for a few hours, people will try to forget about what the future holds for them, to finally allow themselves to live free of the shadow of the war.

As he lands among the Fairies, as he solemnly nods to their tired bows, Harlequin wonders when he will be able to do the same. For others, the war is over, but he knows his allies too well to think the peace after this war will be easy. If Diane manages to hide her people away, Ludociel won’t be happy, nor will the human kings. They will want answers and will search the entire country for them.

But there is something that makes the morrow look a little bit easier; it’s the promise of a different future, the seed of an agreement he just planted alongside with a Giant girl.

So Harlequin holds his head up and breathes in deeply, feeling like part of the weight on his shoulders has been finally lifted; then, he gets ready to lead his people home.

[blueeyedheizer]

Alive Again - Billy/Four x reader

TW: Language, Blood

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

"Eight, I need a hand !"

"Well I'm kind of busy right now. Why don't you ask Five?" You spat, still keeping an eye on your target from behind your sniper rifle. Four groaned at your answer and you rolled your eyes, holding your weapon firmly.

"Come on Eight, now's not the time to be a little bitch! I need backup!"

"Fuck you, Four."

"For God's sake can you two shut up already? I feel like i'm working with actual children!" One barked from the other side of the mic, and you could tell he was definitely getting angry at your childish attitude. There wasn't a day where you and Four weren't fighting, and every mission ended with you two yelling at each other for the silliest reasons.

"Eight, you go help Four, end of discussion." One continued.

"I'm on the other side of the goddamn building, how the fuck am I supposed to make it without dying !" You yelled, clearly loosing your patience as well.

"Two's got you covered, you're not dying today, got it? Now get a hold of yourself and go!" You let out a loud sigh and checked your surroundings carefully before running reluctantly towards the opposite direction of your target. You hated being given a task out of nowhere. You weren't very self-assured so everything you did had to be planned or you just weren't ready for it. The thing is, One didn't seem to get it and that pissed you off more than anything.

Your race against time was abruptly interrupted as soon as you stepped inside one of the building's luxurious rooms; a guard bursted in the room at the same time as you and aimed his gun at you, his finger firmly placed around the trigger.

That's it. I'm dying today. You thought.

The guy took a step closer to you, the grip on his gun tighter than it was seconds ago making you hold your hands up in defense.

"Drop your gun." the man threatened and you shook your head no.

"I said drop your fucking gun!" before you could even process what was happening, a loud bang was heard and the man's dead body fell on the floor, making you scream. His head was half gone and he was already laying in a pool of his own blood. You let out a scream in horror. "Holy fucking shit!"

"You're welcome." Two said, exhaling a deep sigh of relief. "Almost missed him." She tried to joke, but you weren't in the mood for that. Without letting yourself think too much, you swallowed hard and started running as fast as you could. You were used to seeing dead people since you joined the Underground but it was never easy to witness. You might have been declared dead but your feelings definitely didn't die with that part of you.

"Why did I get myself into this?" you whispered to yourself before continuing your way to find Four. You couldn't help but have some regrets about joining the Underground. Watching your family mourn you at your own funeral was one of the hardest thing to do, and you often felt like all of this wasn't worth it. Most of your missions were complete disasters, and the fact that all of you were still alive to this day was a miracle.

xx

After running for what seemed an eternity, you finally reached the opposite side of the building where Four was supposed to be.

"Alright asshole, back to you. Where are you?" you called.

No answer

"Four! Do you copy?"

"Eight-." his mic was crackling. He was in trouble. Just by hearing him say your code name, you could tell he was breathless, almost struggling to speak. You let out a gasp when a bullet flew right next to you, and you rushed to the closest safe place you could find.

"Shit! Guys, I think I'm surrounded."

"Yeah, there's three guys hot on your heels, but I've got them in sight. They won't follow you for too long. Keep running." Seven answered and you nodded before going back to making your way inside the building. "Four i'm gonna need some indications. Where are you?"

Still no answer.

"Four?" Your heart began to race when you heard fighting sounds and screams of pain coming from your mic.

"Eight...please, help..."

"I'm on my way. But I need to know where you are. Give me a hint. Anything you can tell me."

"He's gonna kill me."

"Fuck's sake...Just hang on. I'm coming to you." The mic made another crackling sound and then went silent.

"Guys we've got a problem" Three interrupted.

"God, what now?" you answered, your heart beating faster with every passing second.

"The cops are everywhere, we have to go now. They'll be surrounding the whole building anytime from now." You started running faster, being careful to check if every corner around you was clear.

"Eight, you have to come back. We're running out of time." One said through the mic.

"No, fuck this. I'm not leaving anyone behind. Just go without me, we'll find a way to get back to you guys."

One let out a sigh and rubbed his face with his hands. He was definitely not approving your decision but chose to let you handle the situation anyway. "Alright. Good luck. Don't die."

You closed your eyes tightly, realizing what you were doing. You were walking right into the lion's den, and you got yourself into it on your own.

Quickly, you dashed behind a wall, hiding from any potential enemy. You tried to catch your breath but your bulletproof vest was making it harder. After a few seconds, you peeked around and made your way towards a corridor where you could hear punches being thrown along with some loud crashing.

xx

You finally found Four after what felt like an eternity. He was being beaten up horribly, and you could hardly believe the scene in front of you. Four looked completely helpless, the pain was so unbearable that he didn't even bother screaming for help. You immediately grabbed your gun and shot the guy on top of him, and you heart sank at the sight in front of you. Four's face was covered in bruises, and dried blood matted his hair against his forehead. You held out your hand for him to take and told the team you'd found him. One, Three and Seven were arguing on the other side, but you weren't listening.

"You good?"

Four groaned and grabbed your hand, standing up painfully. "Yeah."

"What the hell happened?"

"Since when do you care?" he spat and you scoffed, trying to hide how hurt you were after hearing those words.

"Yeah, whatever. Let's go. We're running out of time"

----

Back to the HQ, you were sitting in front of your trailer, watching as Five took care of Four's multiple bruises. You couldn't help but feel angry at the sight of them being together. Was it jealousy? No. It couldn't be. You let out an unintentional scoff when you heard her laugh at something Four had said.

"So....Have you two fucked yet?" Two asked, taking a long drag of her cigarette and getting you out of your thoughts. You choked on your drink, making her chuckle.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"Wha- Why on earth would I want to fuck him? I can't fucking stand him." you spat, throwing a cold glare towards his and Five's direction.

"Of course you don't. You just risked your life for someone you hate, nothing weird 'bout that. I would definitely do that too." Two answered as a smirk appeared on her face.

"Oh, fuck off Two. I don't like him. He's- he's selfish, self-centered, ungrateful and he's- he's....he's just a fucking asshole!" You yelled. Two was taken aback by your reaction, not expecting you to take her teasing so seriously. Everyone was looking at you, including Four and Five, and you'd never felt so exposed before. You could feel your cheeks began to burn so you shook your head and went inside your trailer, slamming the door shut behind you.

xx

You were laying on your bed when you got startled by the sound of your door opening. You sat up and groaned when your eyes met Four's.

"Haven't you heard of knocking? What do you want?" You got up from your bed and walked to the opposite direction of him, turning your back at him.

"Five told me I should say thank you for saving my life so, here I am." he was standing awkwardly in front of the door, his hand buried in his pockets. You scoffed.

"Yeah whatever. You're welcome, I guess. Now get out."

"What's your problem, Eight? Seriously. What's this all about?" he suddenly spat, making you turn around. "What did I ever do for you to hate me so much?" he added.

"What's my problem? I risked my fucking life for someone who wouldn't do the slightest for me, that's my goddamn problem !" you yelled, not even caring if the others could hear you. Tears were threatening to fall from your eyes but you fought hard to hold them back. Four stayed silent for a moment, not knowing what to say. He broke the silence after a few seconds.

"You know that's not true, Eight." his voice was soft. So much softer than it had been only a moment before, which only made you want to cry harder.

You scoffed again and shook your head. "Oh come on. You and I both know it's true."

"Eight, come on..." Four took a few steps towards you and reached for your arm but you pulled back quickly, as if his touch would burn your skin.

"Y/N."

"What?"

"My name. It's Y/N."

Four could see how sad and broken you were, and to his own surprise he found himself wishing he could make all your pain go away. You two just stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say. Four was obviously not expecting this when he walked into your trailer. He thought you'd be fighting again like you always did, but finding you so broken was the very last thing he expected to be confronted to. This time you were the first one to break the silence.

"I'm not the person I used to be." You confessed. "I can't even recognize myself and I don't know why I act the way I do." You choked out, as Four watched you with a sympathetic expression. "I'm so fucking pathetic I just-, I'm so sorry."

"Come here, Y/N." He opened his arms for you and you walked into them without hesitation, not caring about anything else at the moment. Him calling you by your real name was enough for you to let go and put all your bitterness aside. No one had ever held you since you joined the Underground, this being one year ago. But that's all you needed. To know that you were still a human being, worthy of being loved and cared about. You allowed yourself to sob against Four's shoulder, something you never thought you'd ever do.

"I just want to feel alive again."

[shadowfae]

There's gotta be people who lie in the middle ground between otherkin and copinglinkers, right?

This just reminds me of the "can people choose to be trans" discourse and personally I've never found the value in trying to find a clean dividing line between people who "choose" to be trans and people who "are" trans, like obviously some people feel dysphoria much more than others and it's important to recognize that, but that doesn't mean theres some "how miserable would you be if you were forced to be cis" test that can decide who is a Valid Trans Person or not. It feels to me like it might be the same with the broader otherkin spectrum, but admittedly I don't know much about the community?

That said, the otherkin community has been really cool and like, when I go digging in early internet history I often find beautifully preserved histories and narratives from otherkin blogs about communities and sites that people frequented. And that's something I'm forever grateful for. I'm glad that there are still folks out there who pass on that history and find value in those communities.

Okay so I waited until I’d officially gotten out of bed (yes, everything I’ve done today was on my phone in bed) to answer this properly.

The thing that I’ve never much mentioned in my place of this argument - and I feel that if I’m going to, I should have a few personal essays to publish first in order to make my point clearly - is that at least for me, my kintypes and my linktypes feel so different there is absolutely no way I could mistake them for each other.

That’s why I’m not calling whatever’s going on with the Xweetok stuff a linktype, because there’s no choice there, it’s just me getting hit in the face with Xweetok animality and trying to figure out what it all means.

My kintypes are intrinsic to my personality. If you leave me alone for a bit, or put me somewhere where I feel totally, completely safe, I go so feral it’s not even funny. I growl. I hiss. My ears, tail(s), and wings do all my body language for me. I walk as digitigrade as a human is capable of. I settle into the mentality of an animal, except for when I slide into dignity and divinity, or when you hand me a piece of technology and then I’m as gruff as a pirate and humming to lyrics nobody else can hear.

My linktypes? Something happens. Panic, anger, fear, terror. I am [insert linktype here], here is what it is correct for me to do, here is what I will do, I navigate my way out of it with grace, I handle it as my linktypes would. Things hurt and I settle into their skin, if only for a little while. When their skin is hard to settle it, I simply change it. Being Kiyoteru was a way for me to understand my own sexual awakening when I’d never been safe enough to recognize my own animality, until I fused it with Luteia kinfeels into the world’s worst coping mechanism (don’t do that, kids) and did some things I’m very much not proud of.

Being Yukari was an answer to dysphoria and social ostracization that served me for quite a long time, and that I no longer need, because I am slightly more comfortable in my own skin. It was a matter of personality and aeslinking: she was a moon-girl who liked warm tea on snowy days and pretty poetry and rabbits. I never had her connection to rabbits, they’re just pets to me, but when I needed it I could pretend to be near a bunny the way she probably was bunnyhearted, and I could be a moon-girl until the sun came up for me.

My kintypes are deeper than that. Ranisson and Pale do seem a matter of personality, being as they are the closest to human, except for all the places where their experiences built them from the ground up. As Pale I was a Devil without his powers that didn’t quite know it enough to stop reaching for more power. As Ranisson, I was a girl in a war that was going to end with everyone I cared about dead, and I almost didn’t care, because we’d all be in the hivemind and I’d never be alone again.

Kiyoteru and Yukari were not that way. They were blank canvases that I could change as I needed to, for the purposes of saving me from myself. Even if they’d had actual stories, even if they were more than pretty faces and aesthetics, I would have made them do as I pleased to get me through.

From the inside, linktypes and kintypes seem so fundamentally different to me that I honestly find it hard to see a middle ground there. I’m not everyone, for some there absolutely is a middle. For some, they really can just ignore their own nonhumanity and walk away unscathed. There will always be a gray area, a fringe case or seven, a middle ground where nobody can define where it stops. And I’m not going to be the one to lay down what that middle ground is, because it is antithetical to my entire existence and experience, and it’s something I will never understand for my own.

I insist that everyone be clear about the terms that fit them to the best of their ability because I don’t like being lied to, especially after I’ve placed my trust in people to tell the truth. I don’t trust a salesman, but I’ll try any answer on StackOverflow once. You give me an answer on SO to a complex problem that fucks up my computer, I’m going to be pissed. You lie to me knowingly about your nonhuman/fictional identity in our tags, I’m going to be pissed.

If people say “this is an identity and I don’t know how voluntary it is” I go “yeah okay fair enough.” If they say they’re one or the other, I say the same. If they say they’re one and their experiences match the other, I’ll point that out. If they proceed to insult me and tell me I’m a gatekeeper, I am going to be pissed.

And then if they proceed to throw death threats in my face, I will be furious. I think I have every right to be in that case, and I have no use for those who would side with that sort of person. That’s all anyone’s been asking. Be where you are but be honest about your experiences, and we’ll find a place for you. Even if you say “I’m a linker, but I feel better in this space for otherkin, are we cool with me being here?” the answer will be yes, and then we’ll probably bring you our questions about your experiences. That’s what we do. We ask about others’ experiences and we nitpick how they work because they’re fascinating.

We preserve our history because we have to know where we come from. We have to know we’re not alone. I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to read the history of the community they’re from. Now maybe it’s that I have no ties to my own heritage by blood, and those who do aren’t so interested, but if anything happened to our history I don’t know what I’d do. We need it to say no, if we’re crazy it’s not for this, that this is truly what we are, that we are not the first to have walked this path, and that those who came before us survived to tell the tale.

I am what I am. Everyone else is what they are. So long as people say that, then I have no issues with anyone about it.