#it would be because he cares about him but he would never tell him that directly | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

chosolar · 1 day ago

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-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈ wanna be yours!

gojo satoru x shy!femreader

part 1

mdni please! there are sexual themes.

flirty!satoru did his best to respect your wishes but he was losing his mind. with each day passing where he didn't hear from you, his overthinking got worse. what happened for you to distance yourself from him seemingly out of nowhere?

flirty!satoru refused to go out of his penthouse unless it was severely urgent. he would get his groceries delivered or ask either suguru or shoko to buy it for it. The two tried their best to get him to at least walk around his complex but satoru would drag his body weight, making it difficult to even get him up. it got to a point where shoko threatened him that she was going to tell you how disgusting he was being. (as mean as it was, it sure got the job done)

flirty!satoru had his phone basically glued to his hand. constantly refreshing his feeds and checking everyone's stories to see if you would be there in the background. it was his only solace, seeing you happy even if he did feel like he was there was a boulder on his chest that made him feel suffocated.

flirty!satoru who sat up instantly the millisecond he got your text. it didn't matter that it was 2 in the morning, he was responding to your message ASAP.

hey satoru I hope you're doing well. is it alright if I call you? 2:33 am

he replied with a quick "yes of course", and he didn't care if he sounded desperate, because well, he was. he's been waiting for you to reach out ever since he got that text a few weeks ago.

his heart feels like it's going to burst out of his chest, each heartbeat thumps harder than the previous. he watches as his phone lights up with your contact photo and name, the ringtone blasting. within the second ring, he picks up, greeting you with a shaky voice.

"hi satoru," he hears your nervousness through the phone. your voice is nasally and he can make out the soft sniffling, but he stays quiet. "how have you been?"

satoru contemplated on what to say. should he be honest, or should he lie and say that he was doing well without you?

"better now that I can hear your voice." his heart rate sped up as he hears you soft laugh, "how about you?"

you sigh before you answer. "I'm in a dilemma to be honest."

"wanna tell me what it's about?" he urges, hoping he'll get the answer he's been looking for. satoru puts you on speaker and lets his phone drop onto his bed, his full undivided attention on you.

"well it's about you... kinda," you drift off before you continue. "the night before I sent you that text, I was working and someone asked me out."

satoru pleads in silence that this was not going where he thinks it's going. with this anxious feeling creeping up on him again, he doesn't say anything.

his uncommon reticence worries you but you carried on with the story.

"I didn't go out with him if that's what you're thinking of. I like you too much to do that. it just had me thinking because we spent months being more than friends, but am I the only one who feels that way?"

"no of course not!" satoru retorts, "I promise that it's not one-sided. why do you feel this way?"

it took you a few minutes to gather your thoughts, but satoru doesn't rush you. he hears a shaky exhale before you speak up, "I've noticed that you're flirty with everyone. you're not shy with touching other people and it just makes me feel like maybe it's wrong of me to feel special when I'm not the only one you've done these things with..."

flirty!satoru doesn't invalidate your feelings. he acknowledges each and every reason why you feel the way you do. satoru takes his time explaining that yes, he may be flirty and he's quite touchy, but it's different when it comes to you. the things he's done with you, he's never done with anyone else despite him having exes. although it's almost been a year since he's met you, the butterflies have never gone away and that each day his feelings grow.

flirty!satoru continues listing all the reasons why he loves likes you. he assures you that he may look like a fuckboy, he's far from it. he reminisces the time he had suguru psych him up to get your number because he's never had to ask for anyone's number (humble brag from him). he exhales a sigh of relief that the story earned a giggle from you.

flirty!satoru debates on telling you, but decided on keeping his plans of asking you out a secret. he wanted to prove to you that you're it for him and that there's no one else but you. satoru's big on actions speaking a lot more than words, so before he asks you out, he wants you to feel secure.

flirty!satoru posts you on his story constantly!!! whether you're out on a grocery run or a mini road trip for the long weekend, you can always count on satoru posting a soft launch story that has you in it. you don't know it, but satoru also has a secret instagram account, and the only thing he posts on it are pictures of you with the dates on it and a small paragraph of what you guys did that day. he likes to think it's modern-day scrapbooking.

flirty!satoru is obsessed with calling you nicknames, and as much as he loves saying your name - he will never not love calling you sweet nicknames like pretty girl, honey, or baby. satoru's fond of how your cheeks turn red and how you try to cover your face when he calls you any nicknames. it gives him cuteness aggression so bad, he ends up pinching your cheeks!

flirty!satoru can see how your eyes drift to look at his lips when you're talking to him face to face. you think you're so slick with it but satoru's quicker. whenever you do that little triangle trick you saw on tiktok, he leans in so he catches you by surprise. he observes with gleaming eyes as you back up to give yourself distance from him, but he just wraps his arms around you, pulling you towards him as he says, "hmm what was that baby?"

flirty!satoru has to hold himself back whenever he sees a customer come up to you and try to flirt with you. first and foremost, flirting is his thing! and second, he gets so jealous that sometimes he can't contain himself and ends up intervening. he'd make some stupid excuse to get you to leave like "hey I think someone clogged the toilet, can you check it please?" or something like that. you have to clean the stinky toilet but seeing satoru jealous is always a plus.

flirty!satoru is shocked when you made the first move and kissed him one night. it was the fact that you were sober too that surprised him even further. with you on top of him as he's sitting relaxed on the couch, his attention on the tv screen is stolen when you press your lips against his. the kiss, a seemingly innocent peck on the lips, turned into a heated make out session when satoru let go of his inhibitions. his hands roamed all over your body as his lips continue peppering kisses onto your cheeks, your jaw, and even down to your neck. satoru trails his hands from your body to hold your face gently so he can give you a final kiss before hugging you tightly.

flirty!satoru throws out all his ideas of asking you out, and opts for an intimate moment. on a cool wednesday night, he takes you back to his penthouse as per usual. he opens the door and waits to see your surprised face. he boasts that he decorated the place all by himself and even burned himself a few times with the hot glue gun to make the giant heart sign asking for you to be officially his (ngl it sounds like he's proposing but I mean who doesn't wanna marry satoru). obviously you said yes! let's just say that the heart balloons that were hanging and the flower petals scattered all over his living room were everywhere the morning after and cleaning it all up was tedious...... (but at least it was a fun night!)

flirtybf!satoru immediately changes all his profile pictures on every social media he has to pictures with you. his bio? your initials. his stories? all of you. he does not gaf he wants to show you off! the best part is satoru only follows a couple of people — you, suguru, shoko, and a few of his close relatives. satoru wants you to know that he only cares about you and only you. he never wants to and never will make you feel like you're in competition with anyone.

flirtybf!satoru is a no bs type of guy. now that your relationship was out in the open, you've gotten so many dms from other people trying to sabotage your relationship. satoru did not spend almost half a year proving his love to you for some jealous losers to try and break it, so he blocked the people who dmed you from his account and privated it.

flirtybf!satoru loves going on vacations with you, especially if it's a destination you've been telling him about. he'll almost always keep it a secret so that you don't have to worry your pretty little head about anything. costs, booking it off, transportation, he takes care of everything so the only thing you need to do is pack your bags. satoru loves how carefree you are when you're away from everyone else, and it's just the two of you in your own little world.

flirtybf!satoru is insatiable. his sex drive is so incredibly high, you wonder where his stamina comes from since he rarely did any sports. the first time you had sex, he wanted to take it slow because he wanted to savour the time with you. even though you were close when you two were just friends, having sex was a different level of intimacy. satoru wanted to show you that to him, this was not just a fuck that a one night stand will give you, no. it was making love, and he'll spend the whole night — dusk to dawn — just to show you how much he loves each and every part of you.

flirtybf!satoru started working out during his free time. he overheard you telling your friends that you love a man with a sleeper build, and well whatever his love wants, you will get. it doesn't take long until he starts seeing the fruits of his labor. he seldoms wear a shirt when he's home with just you, choosing to just wear a pair of sweatpants that he doesn't bother tying up so you can see the waistband of his calvin klein boxers. even though you two fuck often, he thinks it's so captivating that you still get bashful whenever he's being coy with you.

flirtybf!satoru loves talking about the future with you. he'll often ask you what kind of house you see yourself living in with him, and he'll make sure to get every little detail you're telling him. you've already moved into his penthouse after he begged for days for you to leave your apartment and just live with him. he takes notice of how you decorate and makes a mental note of it. satoru will make sure to say "when we have kids" or "when we're married", because he knows you're his endgame and he just can't wait for the day he's been looking forward to since he fell in love with you.

flirtybf!satoru surprises you with a trip to your dream vacation that you guys didn't get to go to before. the weather was horrendous, so the flight was cancelled but satoru booked another one closer to your birthday. he didn't tell you about it because he had a plan to make your birthday extra special. after you were done packing, he tells you that he'll meet you in the car. before satoru leaves the penthouse and locks the door, he double checks that the engagement ring is packed securely in his bag.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈

hi everyone! I hope this satisfies everyone's request for a part 2 ◡̈ ngl I had to use some moments with my boyfriend because my mind was blanking out and I am prayinggggg that this one is not a disappointment to you guys! again not proofread <3

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taglist:

@lvrndkoo @sorenflyinn @realalpacorn @ninani-nanina @msun1c0rn @ourfinalisation @rio-reid-whoreee @staarflowerr @leonesimp @okayiamkassandra @starpachinko @atashiboba @blueemochii @hawkswifie @secrtjncoblog @esperssox @smiling-16

a few of them did not show up so please let me know if you didn't get a notification ◡̈

#gojo satoru fluff #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #jjk fluff #jjk x reader #jjk headcanons #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen headcanons #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk fic #jjk drabbles #jujutsu kaisen drabble

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meudolls · 3 days ago

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synopsis: in which your childhood best friend tutors you for your math class & you can't seem to keep your eyes off of each other.

warnings: 18+, mdni. lowercase intended, math tutor!jake, student!reader, childhood friends to lovers (?), a bit of fluff, smut, fingering, both jake and reader are teasing each other, praise, mentions of blowjobs & penetration, use of the names "doll, good girl, princess"

wordcount: 1.5k words

when your grades began to slip in your college algebra class, you immediately knew who to go to – your childhood best friend, jake! he knew everything about math, and you were sure he would be happy to help, although you didn’t want to seem stupid around him; it was a bit embarrassing to be failing a level one class.

unsurprisingly, when you told him about your failing grade, his eyes widened. almost immediately, he asked a million questions. typical of jake.

“why didn’t you ask me for help sooner? you know i would’ve helped you!” he pouted, his features softening as he looked at you. you could’ve sworn he’d started to reach out to comfort you, but in the blink of an eye, he retracted his hand. sitting at your desk up in your bedroom, his deep brown eyes held focus on you, waiting for a response.

“i just…” you started, suddenly feeling ashamed. “i didn’t want you to think i was stupid…” you trailed on, your voice fading out at the end. you couldn’t even bear to look at him, your embarrassment getting the best of you.

“it’s a bit too late for that,” he joked, earning a giggle from you, and joining along.

“shut up, jaeyun.”

later, you established tutoring days that would work for both of your schedules. it was settled – jake would tutor you on tuesdays and thursdays, and would review with you on the days before your exams. admittedly, after the first few meetings, you already felt more confident enough in your ability to pass the class, meaning you would no longer need him – not that you would ever let him know that. you were enjoying the time you spent with him, the intimacy of him sitting close to you as he explained what to do, the feel of his breath fanning against the shell of your ear; you never wanted it to end.

you could get used to this.

jake could’ve sworn that every single time you’d met with him, your clothes would get more and more revealing. and each time, he struggled to keep his eyes off of you. so, imagine his surprise when you greeted him at the front door, wearing a short skirt and a low cut top that showed off your cleavage.

the boy tried to keep his jaw from going slack, thoughts of you instantly filling his mind. he wanted to fuck you right there, against the door, not caring about who saw. instead he smiled, boyish and elated. “ready for some studying?”

“mhm,” you hummed sweetly, returning the smile. you’d known him long enough to tell that what you were wearing was having an effect on him, regardless of how well he thought he was hiding it. if he was going to pretend, so were you.

following you up the stairs to your bedroom, jake cursed himself for his decision to wear gray sweatpants. one look up and he could see everything. he tried to focus his thoughts elsewhere, but how could he, when he could see up your skirt? he looked down at the stairs as he walked, ignoring how snug your pussy looked against your cotton underwear.

once you both reached your room and were settled in, your study session began. this one would be longer – you had an exam the next day. on the days where you had exams, jake would be harder on you, making sure to drill every bit of knowledge into that mind of yours. because of the length of the session (and because of how attractive he was), it was even harder than most days to pay attention.

but, today, you couldn’t focus. you couldn’t keep your eyes off of jake, who pretended to be oblivious to your eyes that were oh so clearly trained on him. your gaze continued to drop to his lips while you squeezed your thighs together. fuck, even hearing him talk was turning you on. to you, his voice felt like an invitation for you to sink down on your knees and take him down your throat. your eyes followed his hands as he flipped a page in your notes, reading them aloud.

“y/n? you okay?” he asked innocently, snapping you out of your stupor. his voice was laced with the slightest hint of desire. he tried to stop himself from looking anywhere but your face, albeit his gaze started to flicker to your lips, and how plump and soft they looked. in this moment, he would’ve traded the world to have them wrapped around his length.

“yeah! ’m fine,” you confessed, smiling coyly. “just got a little distracted… sorry.” as a result of being caught, you felt your face start to heat up. suddenly, everything felt hot, even the air around you. you sank your teeth into your lip, looking away.

jake smiled knowingly at you, putting his hand on your thigh as he tapped it lightly and causing you to meet his eyes once more. he could feel your warmth radiating through the cloth of your panties, and he wanted nothing more than to stuff you full, inching his fingers closer to the band of your panties.

“how about we play a game? maybe that’ll keep you engaged,” he suggests, the tone of his voice mischievous. you can already tell he’s up to something, but you decide to humor him anyway. maybe it’ll result in you getting what you want.

“what kind of game?”

to your surprise, he patted his lap, inviting you to sit in it. “c’mere.” you raise from your spot next to him, sitting in his lap and letting him rest his hands on your legs. he runs his hands along your soft skin, from your thighs to your knees. casual. almost as if he isn’t trying to tease you right now.

“you’re going to answer these questions, ‘kay?” he whispered against your ear, his breath tickling you. it takes every fiber of your being not to squirm under his touch. “if you get them right, i’ll reward you. if you don’t…” he trailed on, playing with the hem of your skirt. “you’ll see what happens…”

the heat in your face spreads to your ears. you turn your head to look at jake, giving him your full consent. “okay,” you smile.

“good girl,” he teased, still playing with the hem of your skirt. you both turn your focus to the papers in front of you as he started to review the questions you’d missed. to no one’s surprise, you get most of them right. jake already knows you no longer need him, but he can’t stop himself from coming back to you.

“someone’s been paying attention,” he quipped. “maybe you’re not as cockdrunk as i thought.”

after a few minutes, you could feel how hard he was against you. you held yourself back, trying as hard as you could not to grind back into him. jake continued your review, pretending to be oblivious to the growing wet spot forming on your panties. he feigns innocence, his hand dipping under your skirt and grazing the wet patch, gently circling his fingers around your clit. his breath got heavier in your ear, his grip around you now tight like a vice.

“jakey…” you moaned, calling out his name. “can we stop? need you, now…” you pleaded, grinding down into his palm.

“you want me, princess?” he teased, dancing along your clit. he moved your panties to the side, running a finger along your slit. the sensation caused you to nod, pushing back against him, making him groan in your ear. “you can be good for me and take my fingers first, then, right?” he whispered.

you nodded quickly, and with that, he pushed his middle finger inside of you, your pussy instantly covering his finger in your slick, causing him to groan. he began to finger you, adding another finger when you became comfortable enough. your head fell against his shoulder as you moaned against his neck, embarrassingly trying to hide your moans.

jake instantly caught onto this, clicking his tongue. “let me hear you, baby. don’t you want jakey to know how good he makes you feel?” hearing this, you moaned even louder. there was something so incredibly dirty about your childhood best friend calling himself by the innocent nickname you’d given him.

he hooked his fingers up against your walls, earning a mix of moans and whimpers. “there’s my girl,” he chuckled. you tightened around him, your walls fluttering and pulsating around his fingers. “gonna come for me, baby?”

you nodded quickly, unable to speak, let alone think at this moment. you thrashed around in his lap, the feel of it all suddenly too much for you. as you whined and whimpered, you came undone on his fingers. unfazed, jake continued to praise you, his fingers still pumping into you.

spent, you leaned your head against his shoulder. he removed his fingers, popping them into his mouth and tasting you. satisfied, he smiled. “finally got what you wanted, huh princess?”

#enhypen #enha #enhypen jake #jake enhypen #jake sim #sim jaeyun #enha x reader #enhypen x reader #enha smut #enhypen smut #enha fluff #enhypen fluff #jake sim x reader #sim jaeyun x reader #enhypen hard thoughts #enhypen hard hours #written by meudolls ❤︎#meudolls pick ꒱ྀི

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roosterforme · 3 days ago

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Aim for the Sky Part 34 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: Maverick makes time to have a conversation with Bradley, but you've already lost faith in him. Your words hurt him more than anything else could.

Warnings: Angst, adult language, body image, DILF Roo, pregnancy, jealousy

Length: 3500 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

Aim for the Sky masterlist. This was written to accompany my series Is It Working For You? along with a bunch of my one-shots and other series, but it can be read on its own! Check my masterlist for the reading order.

When the mattress dipped and you felt the bedding shift around your legs, you opened your eyes to find Bradley climbing out of bed. The room was still dark, but his face was illuminated by his phone screen. The baby was thumping against your tender insides, making you wince, and your husband was playing around on his phone in the middle of the night. Or texting someone.

"What are you doing?" you croaked. Bradley's gaze snapped toward your face, and he leaned down to pull the covers to your shoulder.

"Uh, I need to head to base a little early," he whispered, tracing your cheek with his thumb. "To meet with Mav."

"What time is it?" you asked, rolling toward him to see his phone.

"Almost six," he replied, kissing your forehead as he tipped his screen away. "I love you. Try to get some more sleep."

You swallowed hard, rolling away from him as he started pulling his uniform from the closet. The rustle of fabric set your nerves on edge, and you squeezed your eyes shut as he got dressed. Maybe he thought you fell asleep again, because he didn't say another word before he left the room. But you were pretty sure you heard him stop in Rose's nursery before leaving the house.

Now you were wide awake and alone. Your phone told you it was 5:28 which was completely absurd. Neither you nor Bradley ever got to base before 8:00 unless you were working your ass off on a project.

He used Maverick as his excuse which seemed ridiculous. Bradley wasn't in the middle of training for a special mission which would require extra hours before daylight. And he had to know Maverick would only cover for him for so long.

You sat up and laughed miserably. Your husband was lying to you. And you thought you knew what he was lying about. Tears filled your eyes as your hand rested on your belly where your younger daughter was moving around. Why was Bradley doing this to the three of you?

It wasn't like you couldn't tell how bad you looked at the moment. You knew it. You were bloated and chunky and broken out, but it was at least half his fault you were pregnant again in the first place. And you would make it a priority to get in shape after she was born. You would.

Your fingers were curled around the sheets, trying to keep yourself on your side of the bed, but you crawled toward Bradley's nightstand anyway. The lamp was too bright, taking your eyes a beat to adjust. You yanked the drawer open which offered almost no insight to anything except his Nugget Notebook with the pink and blue striped cover. But then you saw something underneath it.

You grabbed the second notebook, this one bright pink, and pulled it from the drawer. Only the first few pages were covered in his writing, but you soaked the words up greedily.

To my second daughter, you are the third love of my life. I realize that sounds a little unfair, like you're coming in third place, but I promise that's not that case. It's only because I met your mom and your sister first. You're not even here yet, but I already know I love you just as much as I love them. And I can't wait to meet you, too.

Before I get carried away, let me introduce myself. I'm your dad. It's my job to love you and take care of you. I'm not perfect, but I love you so much, I'll always try my best to be here for anything you need. To be honest, I never expected to have a family at all. And to be extra honest, you were a bit of a surprise. But a very good surprise. My favorite kind of surprise. I can't wait to teach you everything I know, which isn't much, but I do know how to love my three girls.

"How?" you gasped, dropping the notebook back into the drawer. You sobbed into Bradley's pillow, unable to make sense of this. How was the man who wrote notebook passages to his children the same man who was sneaking around behind your back. With Indigo. It simply did not make sense, but both versions of him seemed to exist at the same time. And somehow you were the one who was more at odds with yourself than he was with himself.

You could feel the love he had for his daughters. It was so obvious. He was so good with Rose, and he seemed excited about having two kids.

You weren't sure if you'd be able to kick him out. You didn't know if you could leave him. If push came to shove, you didn't know if you could be that strong. You wished he wasn't making you consider it at all.

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

"Oh, God."

Bradley was awake as soon as Maverick replied to his text at five in the morning. He'd barely been able to sleep anyway, but when Maverick told Bradley he was heading to Lemoore in a few hours for a meeting, he begged his godfather to meet with him first.

Now Bradley was sitting in his office in a silent building waiting for any help he could get. As far as he had worked out, Indigo had been devouring his extra attention for weeks for a less savory reason than he originally thought. All the times she invited him out for a drink left him shaking his head while he stared at the wedding photo perched in his desk.

He never tried to hide the fact that he was married. He fucking flaunted it. You were perfect; why wouldn't he? If someone else thought they had a gorgeous wife? Ha, Bradley could lay it down in spades. Someone else claimed their wife was smart? Well, his was a goddamn genius. Someone wanted to brag about their kids? All he had to do was pull up a photo of Rose, and he had everyone around him swooning.

He found it easier to make small talk about his family than anything else these days, and he was sure Indigo knew he was married before he even left Texas to fly back to San Diego. It still seemed unlikely she wanted to sleep with him, but he wasn't going to deny that Nat was usually right about these things.

"Oh, God," Bradley groaned for probably the tenth time since he woke up. He wanted to rewind and go back to Texas and never select Indigo in the first place.

But would that have been fair? To leave her behind when she was the best? When she was clearly one of the pilots who should be moving forward with new programs? It wasn't like she ever touched him. Other than persistently inviting him for drinks and showing up for all of his office hours, she never made an advance. But now he was uncomfortable. There was something about the way she always looked at him that.....yeah, Nat was right.

But if Bradley couldn't handle his first assignment in his new position, how was he supposed to prove he could do this going forward?

There was a knock on his already open door, and Maverick stood there looking perplexed. "Bradley? What did you need that couldn't wait until later this week?"

Bradley groaned again as he stood. "Can you shut the door?"

"Sure."

Maverick let it slip from his fingers, and Bradley waited until the echo of the door closing gave way to silence. He could feel his godfather's gaze on his face as his eyes closed. He swallowed hard, not wanting to waste the other man's time, but now that he was here, he felt so stupid.

"I need your help," Bradley rasped, voice hoarse as his eyes opened. "It's work related."

"Okay," Maverick replied, voice between a statement and a question. "What can I do?"

Bradley's fingers curled around the edge of his desk as he looked down at his phone sitting there. "Uh...Mav, this is embarrassing."

When Maverick took a step closer, he reached across the desk to cuff Bradley on the shoulder. "Just hit me with it."

Bradley took a long breath and let it out slowly. "There's another officer who... well, it's been brought to my attention that she..." He let go of his desk and rubbed his fingertips against his eyes. "There's a chance my wife thinks something's going on between me and another officer on base. One who reports to me."

Maverick's expression gave nothing away, but he shifted his weight from one foot to the other before taking a step away from Bradley. "To be clear, Bradley, are you asking me to help you hide an indiscretion from your wife?"

Bradley's head tilted slightly. "Huh?" he grunted, thoughts already swirling around his mind so rapidly, it took him a few seconds to catch up. "What the fuck, Mav? No!" he gasped. "An indiscretion?" He could barely even say the word as he shook his head. "No. God, no! Nothing happened! Nothing is ever going to happen!"

He realized he was shouting when Maverick's hands flew into the air in surrender. "Okay. Alright. I hear you loud and clear. I just needed to be sure I understand what we're dealing with here. Why don't you have a seat and explain everything to me?"

Bradley was raking his fingers through his hair as he dropped down into his chair. "It's Lieutenant Jeffries. Indigo." Her intense blue eyes filled his mind as he shook his head. "Phoenix and Hangman pointed out that she..." He paused and glanced at the ceiling. "This is so embarrassing, Mav, but they said it seems like she wants to sleep with me."

"Hmm."

When Maverick hummed and went silent, Bradley said, "I know how ridiculous it sounds."

"It doesn't," his godfather replied immediately. "This sort of thing happens sometimes. You said nothing happened? You should keep your distance moving forward, and if she contacts you outside of work or does anything inappropriate, we can write it up."

Bradley groaned miserably, unlocked his phone, and pushed it across the desk with his messages open. "She did text me outside of work."

While Maverick reached for the phone, he said, "Did you give her your number?"

"No. Why would I do that?" he replied. "But honestly, it's not hard to get access to that kind of information. I didn't think much of it the first time."

Maverick shrugged. "Well, what did she text-" His eyes grew wide when he looked down at the phone, his cheeks turning pink as he was surely looking at the photo that had been in Bradley's messages for less than twelve hours.

"Yeah," Bradley croaked. "She sent that last night."

"But she texted you before that. When you never explicitly gave her your number." Maverick looked up at him, shaking his head. "Bradley, what were you thinking? She seems to have some sort of agenda. You should have come to me immediately after the first message."

Bradley stood, stomach lurching. His marriage, career, and reputation were somehow all on the line, and he hadn't even done anything. He couldn't help but think of his parents and the fact that his dad probably never put his mom through this kind of shit when she was seven months postpartum.

"An agenda?" Bradley whispered. "Shit, Mav. This is the kind of thing that happens on carriers. Not on base. I thought this was something men did way more than women when they wanted to cheat."

Maverick handed his phone back across the desk with the photo of Indigo open. Bradley swiped out of the text thread immediately, sick to his stomach.

"You work in a high stakes field where women routinely outperform men. They are capable of anything you are."

"I know that!" Bradley snapped. "But I'm married! I'm not looking for that shit. I never let on that I was."

"Oh, you sweet summer child," Maverick sighed, checking his watch. "Literally," he added as he dug his own phone from his pocket. "If Lieutenant Jeffries is sending you photos and playing coy, she doesn't care about your wife."

Bradley winced. "Fuck."

"Yeah," Maverick grunted, taking a few steps toward the door. "And your wife is pregnant and vulnerable, and now I'm going to have to tell Admiral Simpson that I'll be late getting to Lemoore. Follow me. And bring your phone."

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

Bradley was late getting home. This was happening almost every night now, and you were hanging on by a thread as Rose screamed in your arms. She was fed, but she always seemed to prefer the way Bradley burped her over your technique.

"He's not here," you said through gritted teeth. "I don't know where he is or when he'll be back. I just need you to burp so you can go to sleep."

Your texts had gone unanswered. You weren't sure if Bradley had been in the cafeteria at lunchtime, because you hid in your office. Dinnertime had come and gone, and his cold plate of food was currently sitting on the kitchen counter.

"I don't know where he is," you repeated to your daughter while her younger sister did somersaults against your bladder. Rose's sobs finally started to taper off as you rubbed your hand firmly against her back. She finally burped, and that seemed to do the trick. Her fists curled up next to her face as she yawned. You barely had enough time to change her into a clean diaper and pajamas before her eyes were closed.

You were mentally, physically, and emotionally drained. You stood in her nursery, watching her sleep while you decided you needed to say something to your husband tonight. There was no way you could keep punishing yourself for not being enough. If he wanted someone else, you deserved to have him say it to your face.

But when you heard him open the front door thirty minutes later, your heart lurched into your stomach at the sight of him. You'd known how handsome he was since the day you met him, and he only seemed to get better looking with age. Each year added more silver to his hair and laugh lines to his face, but he was undeniably sexy.

Today, however, he looked exhausted, and your brain went wild with awful ideas. What had he gotten up to? Why was he so late? The top buttons of his uniform were undone, and his hair was mussed. He was staring down at his phone in his hand while you stood silently at the end of the hallway, terrified of what he was looking at.

Suddenly everything you'd been holding inside for weeks was bubbling up to the surface, and you were done holding it back. You cleared your throat, and his gaze snapped up to your face, phone hanging in his hand by his side.

"Hey, Sweetheart. Is Rosie already asleep?"

You nodded, taking each step slowly until you were standing right in front of him. When he reached for you, his fingers skimmed your shoulder before you pushed his hand away. Those beautiful, brown eyes you loved so much went wide, but he didn't look surprised. Not at all.

"Why are you so late?" you snapped. "And don't feed me some bullshit about office hours, because I know your schedule. Or, at least, I know what they are supposed to be."

Bradley licked his lips, gesturing between the two of you with his phone. "I had to take care of something important with Maverick."

You wanted to laugh in his face. "You're really going to use the same excuse as this morning? Another meeting with Maverick? What, one was at the crack of dawn and the other was after dinnertime? I've been texting you for hours, Bradley."

You watched his Adam's apple bob. "I didn't have my phone with me for part of the day."

"You have it now!" you laughed sardonically, pointing at his hand just in time to see his phone light up.

It was her. You saw her name there. Indigo. She was texting your husband well after work hours, and you could already feel the tears stinging your eyes.

You grabbed his phone before he seemed to realize what was happening. Your fingers shook as you entered his passcode to find it was still your birthday. He wasn't even trying to hide this from you. He wasn't trying to take his phone back. As you braced yourself for what you were about to see, you whispered, "What the fuck is going on with her?"

His brown eyes were so sincere, and once again, you couldn't understand how this was the same man who wrote journals for his unborn children. "Nothing," he replied, voice taking on a tone of defeated exhaustion. "There's nothing going on."

Your eyes dipped down to his phone to find not one, but two flirtatious selfies. One new one, and one that was sent last night while he was working out in the garage. Indigo's eyes stared back at you from the screen, mocking you, making a fool of your family.

You were crying. You didn't want Bradley to see you cry right now, but you couldn't stop. "This doesn't look like nothing. And you didn't tell her to stop."

Now he looked panicked, eyes wide as he saw the photo on his phone in your hand. "Okay, I know this looks bad, but I reported it, I swear! I've never been alone with her behind closed doors. You can call Mav!"

Violent sobs shook your body, and when Bradley slowly let his hand settle on your arm, you shook him free. "You expect me to believe nothing is going on? When you get home late every day? When she told me that it's no wonder you prefer her since I let myself go?" you gasped, swiping at your tears.

"What?" Bradley barked as you blindly handed his offending phone back to him. "She said that to you?"

You nodded miserably, taking a step away from him. "I don't want to know if you said that to her, or if she formed her own opinion after spending time with you. And I don't want to know if you're fucking her or just considering it. But I want you out of the house."

Bradley looked like you just slapped him. His mouth was hanging open, brow creased while you sobbed. "You want me out?" he whispered, hand going up to rake his fingers through his hair.

"Yes," you squeaked, trying to stay strong not just for yourself, but for your daughters as well. Every word hurt as you forced them out of your mouth, but you had to say them. "Go. Until I can talk to my parents about canceling the sale of their house. I'll transfer to Annapolis. Take the girls with me."

Bradley closed the distance to you, tears already pooling in his eyes as he dropped to his knees. His lips found your belly, and you sobbed harder as he wrapped his hands around your hips. "No. You can't," he said so softly, you could barely hear him. When he looked up at your face, you almost believed he would never be capable of hurting you. "Baby Girl, you can't leave me. I need you. I need my girls."

When you stepped out of his grasp, his arms fell limply to his sides. You'd never seen him look so miserable before, and you had to stand firm instead of reaching for his hands.

"Find somewhere else to sleep."

The implications of your own words stung your heart, and you had to watch him slowly get to his feet. He kissed your forehead, and your eyes blurred with fresh tears when he went down the hallway to Rose's room. Less than a minute passed, but each second felt like a day. You had plenty of time to tell him the truth. That you didn't want him to leave. That you couldn't blame him for wanting someone else, and you still needed him as much as he said he needed you.

When he reappeared, you pressed your lips together even as he kissed your damp cheek. "I love you," he rasped. "I'm never going to stop loving you. I'll figure out some way to make you believe me."

You watched him retreat to the front door with his keys, shoulders sagging as he gave you one last lingering look before slipping out into the darkness.

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

Ouch. Ouch. Okay. I want BG to believe Roo beyond any doubt, and I think I know how to make that happen. Please stay tuned. Thanks @beyondthesefourwalls

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lurkinglurkerwholurks · 3 days ago

Text

Oh oh I can tell you how I handle this!

First, I must acknowledge that epithets are hard. When writing in a specific character's POV, you have to be careful about describing another character only using descriptors that they would use or it'll feel awkward and weird. (I don't generally think about my sister's height relative to mine and therefore wouldn't refer to her as "the tall one" or even "the taller one", for example, unless it's relevant in the moment. Talking? Not relevant. Her hitting her head on a ledge that I missed? Relevant. That wouldn't be true of someone I just met. If you're tall[er than me] I'm probably noticing it and don't have other ways to differentiate you from other strangers.)

Luckily, I don't usually have to resort to epithets in writing, because readers can generally follow pronouns and support way more proper name uses than you might expect! Pronouns by definition are placeholders for proper names. Where writing gets confusing is when it feels like the pronouns are floating free and unmatched. Reconnecting the proper noun and the pronoun is all you need to reset.

Within a paragraph, use a proper noun enough to be clear. Vague, I know, but it really is an art instead of a science and largely comes down to personal taste. Refining your personal taste can help a ton, and one way to do that is to look at works by people who you feel write these kinds of scenes clearly and cogently. I'm going to use my own writing as an example, just to make it easy for myself.

Structuring your writing so the subject is fairly consistent will help a ton, as will "checking in" with a proper noun when it feels like you've checked in on the other person more recently.

[alt: The muscles in Bruce’s face, Jason realized, were good at going completely still when surprised. That was useful. He had said intervened like Jason had done it on purpose, throwing himself into this nightmare to save Bruce instead of acting like a petulant, stomping child. He had just a moment to wonder if the look from Bruce was meant as gratitude or as an apology when Bruce turned his attention back to the others. “It should reverse in a few days.”]

In the snippet above, because I'm moving tightly between two he/him characters, I use their names just enough to stick into place who's being reference at any given point. If I had wanted to be extra careful, I could have changed "He had just a moment to wonder" to "Jason had just a moment to wonder."

Over multiple paragraphs, when you're sticking with one person, reconnecting (or what I mentally refer to as "checking in") can happen once a paragraph and really shouldn't be needed more than that.

[alt: He really didn’t have much of note to say. Dick narrated his way through the canned goods and the dry goods, making jokes about Wally’s Skittles stash and the cans of Spaghetti-Os Roy demanded be kept on hand but no one else ever touched. He talked about a TV show he had been watching and made a joke that elicited a hrmm from Bruce that would have been a laugh from anyone else. And the more he talked, the more he remembered little stories from his week that he had tucked away with a mental note to tell Bruce.

At last, though, Dick had finished his final story and let the call lapse into a pause that stretched into silence. He bit his bottom lip and fidgeted with the rolls of gauze, stacking them into pyramids outside the gutted medical kit. He could never tell with Bruce whether the silences were contented or an interrogation technique, the patience of an investigator applying pressure to a reluctant witness. In the end, it didn’t much matter.]

But really, truly, the TL;DR of it all is you don't need as many epithets as you think; as long as you don't go crazy with your subject and object switches and check in on your connections regularly, you can lean on pronouns way more than you think; and readers can handle way more uses of names than you might suspect.

Me writing a scene with two or more people of the same gender and trying not to get the readers confused, while also trying not to overuse the characters' names or epithets

#I don't know how coherent this is because it's HARD to explain something you know by feel #but man do I love proper noun and pronoun linkage #gbu Prof. Cheney you stuck with me for life #writing advice #fanfic writer problems

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wonderjanga · 2 days ago

Text

Billy’s Ideal Hero

Billy has had so so so many years to think about being the ideal hero. He’s finally come to the conclusion as to what being the ideal hero is.

It’s being super mysterious and suave. Mary thought him that last word.

Thankfully, he came to this conclusion before he started fully interacting with the public so no one needs to know about his normal, not hero-like self.

Billy didn’t realize how much of an impact this persona had on history and other heroes in general. The first time he found this out was, after the time bubble popped, when he was in DC because he needed to talk with some government people. On his way back to Fawcett, before he could leave the city, he spotted some kids bullying another, and he swiftly put a stop to it.

Marvel: *lands behind them with a smile* “I think it’d be wise for you boys to stop.”

Bullies: *turn and scream before running off*

Marvel: “Now then, are you alright?” *picks up some books on the ground*

Kid: *gobsmacked and takes the books back*

Marvel: *raises a brow but starts to float off the ground so he can fly off again*

Kid: “WAIT! WAIT! Are you the real deal?”

Marvel: “Yes? Why wouldn’t I be?”

Kid: “That’s… Awesome!”

The kid started yapping and yapping about something Billy didn’t entirely understand. The kid then shifted his books around so he could get to a history textbook.

Kid: *flips to a page* “This is you, right? You said this!” *shows it to Billy*

it was a black and white picture of him, making a speech in front of a crowd.

“It is a heroes job to protect anyone they can. Weak or strong, black or white, man or woman. It should not ever matter. If it does, you were simply never a hero in the first place.”

— Captain Marvel, circa 1949

It took every bone in Marvel’s body to not scrunch his face and look away and embarrassment because WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE’S IN THE TEXTBOOKS?! But alas, he has to remain that cool mysterious disposition.

The second time he realized the impact of this persona was when he was also in another city. Metropolis. See, he’d wanted to talk to this so called “Superman” but before he could, a giant foreign aircraft made itself known. Naturally, he went through the proper proceedings of telling the aircraft to leave and that it was in a foreign airspace. Instead of leaving it shot at him. None of its weird doohickies worked though. How humans have developed… Anyways, that ended up with him luring the ship to the middle of nowhere. After all, he would never fight it in a city. He’d have to be an idiot to do that.

He took care of the ship itself in a minute, his lightning frying it. Then he took care of the invaders inside. Turns out they were from a different planet. He took care of them in a couple minutes. In the end, he was covered in alien guts and picking it out of his suit and gloves.

After Marvel steps out of the ship…

Supes: *standing there confused as to why the aliens weren’t attacking and suddenly sees Marvel and stares*

Marvel: *stares back and stops picking alien intestine out of the hood of his cape* (idk I just like it whenever he has a hood on his cape. Think of the injustice version of him if you don’t know what I mean)

*silence*

Marvel: “I presume you’re Superman?” *steps forward, ignoring that he’s covered in blood because that wouldn’t be very mysterious or suave of him to acknowledge*

Supes: “Uh…” *looks behind Marvel and sees a bunch of dead aliens* “Yes?”

Marvel: “Wonderful!” *moves in front of Clark, takes off a glove (Yes he also wears gloves because I really like his injustice costume if you ignore all the black and replace it with either red or white) and holds out a hand for a shake* “It’s amazing to meet a new hero, let alone one from outside of Fawcett.”

Supes: “Really? It’s a pleasure to meet you too, sir.” *shakes his hand*

And it really was, even if Clark kept looking between Marvel and the aliens because he hadn’t heard a single sound of pain from the ship. That either meant Marvel did it quickly or he did it quietly. Clark wasn’t sure which was better. It was still a shock to see a revered hero, a hero Clark actually idolized, look like the person responsible for a massacre.

The two talked though and Clark wasn’t picking up any homicidalness so…? They actually managed to get smoothies after the Captain cleaned himself up with magic. Clark didn’t even know how they ended up in a smoothie joint. It’s just the other hero was so- so- so suave and mysterious. It reminded Clark a wee inseey weesy bit of Bruce. (Billy would internally cheer upon realizing that his persona was working) The other hero was also extremely easy to talk to and actually liked a lot of things Clark did, like reporting!

it almost made the kryptonian forget about the fact he was pretty sure the other man massacred a bunch of aliens. Almost. He brought it up to Batman immediately after their little little hangout session.

#billy batson #shazam #dc captain marvel #captain marvel dc #fawcett city #fawcett #fawcett comics

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formula-ghost · 2 days ago

Text

Wildflower (OP81 x fem!reader x LN4)

Chapter 3

CHAPTER SUMMARY: You’ve reached your breaking point with Oscar, but an unfortunate grand prix changes everything you thought you wanted.

WORD COUNT: 10.3k

WARNINGS: Conversations about sex and but no actual smut, degradation, angst. Mentions of cheating. Oscar is literally horrible. Mention of unhealthy family dynamics. Lots of cursing. Pain, so much pain. Mention of injury. I’m so sorry for all the emotional suffering this chapter will cause.

TAGLIST: @at-a-rax-ia @henna006 @linnygirl09 @cassielikereading @judelina @supertrashbread @fastandcurious16 @widow-cevans @czennieszn @irisesinthegarden @wierdflowerpower @sweetwh0re @reginalaufeyson-holmes @honethatty12 @suns3treading @obxstiles @mimiastroos @mrs-reeves-17 @milkysoop @amalialeclerc @starksztony @llando4norris @ginsengi @angxlzinthesky

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Accept message request from Lando_Norris?

Your fingers hovered over the “accept” button, nervous but curious. What would Lando ever want to talk to you about?

He had avoided you like the plague since that night in Italy, and you hardly blamed him. But as far as you knew, no one except you and Nicole knew that Lily was no longer in the picture; still, what would have changed to cause Lando Norris, of all people, to be messaging you at night?

“Who are you texting?”

You jumped, not having noticed that Oscar had turned over to face you, seemingly unable to sleep.

“No one,” you said. “Just scrolling.”

Oscar confirmed your suspicions. “I can’t sleep.”

“Me neither,” you said, short and annoyed.

Oscar didn’t respond, instead just moving on top of you, holding your chin in his hands to force you to look at him.

“You can’t even sleep until I fuck you like the little whore you are, huh?” He leaned down to kiss your neck, lips grazing over where only hours before he had left dark marks in the supple skin.

“Get off me, Oscar,” you said, and he immediately pulled back.

“You okay?” he asked.

You weren’t okay. In fact, you were furious. “You realize that you never even asked me if I was okay with you talking to me like that?”

The look in his eyes said only two words: Oh shit.

“YN, I… I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think of it like that. Shit, why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you to treat me with respect.”

“I thought you liked it?” he said, running his fingers through his hair out of nervousness.

You sat up, the anger burning within you. You hadn’t planned to confront Oscar so soon after what you had overheard, but now that you’d gotten started, there was no stopping you.

“That’s not the point. Maybe I’m tired of feeling like your personal sex toy, Oscar. Oh, but I forgot. My feelings aren’t your problem.”

Oscar exhaled angrily. “Is that really what this is about?”

You just looked at him, bewildered. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” you asked.

He began, “Look, I don’t know what you think you heard—”

“I heard you talking shit about me on the phone to your own mother.”

“It wasn’t like that, YN.”

“Then what was it like? What’s your excuse now?”

Oscar tried to begin, his mouth opening with no words coming out. He truly didn’t know what to say. “It’s been a hard time.”

“I know. I’m well aware, Oscar. Because I made your feelings my problem for years.”

“I know, and I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life—”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses anymore.”

“I’m not making excuses. I’m just trying to explain it to you.”

“Of course, you want to talk now that I won’t give you sex anymore,” you said, rolling your eyes.

“Oh my God,” Oscar huffed, and it took every ounce of your strength not to curse him out then and there. “You act like I’m some fucking villian. You can’t get mad at me for fucking you when you wanted this too.”

“But how do you know that, Oscar? How do you know what I want? Have you ever asked me what I want?” Tears began prickling at the edge of your eyes. “You haven’t, because you don’t care.”

Oscar looked at the wall, his jaw tense. “I’m not doing this right now.”

“Am I not even deserving of an honest conversation?” you said, the tears now flowing down your cheeks. It had been years since he’d seen you cry, but Oscar wouldn’t even look at you.

You got up from the bed and started changing from your pajamas to your regular clothes. “If you don’t want to talk, fine. I can’t make you. But I’m going home.”

“YN—”

“Leave me alone,” you said, grabbing your purse and exiting the bedroom. You heard him call for you again, but you ignored his pleas, walking ahead out of the apartment and to your car.

When you slid into the driver’s seat, you finally broke down, resting your head against the steering wheel. No thoughts went through your head. You weren’t much of a crier, so when you finally gave in, it was more of an act of your body giving up.

So you took a few minutes to compose yourself before driving the short distance home through the streets of Monaco, a place you’d grown to love. But his presence was everywhere. The car. The streets. Your apartment. Oscar was inescapable.

And when you felt your phone buzz as you sat with a cup of tea on the balcony an hour or so later, this reality was confirmed. He was calling.

You didn’t answer the first call, or the second. But by the third you knew that your only options were to turn your phone off, block him, or answer.

Well, what did you have to lose?

“What do you want?” you asked upon picking up the call.

“I’m sorry, YN. Can we talk?”

“Say whatever you’re going to say.”

He paused. “In person? I’m in the hallway.”

“I don’t know…”

“Please?” he asked. You sighed. Why could you never say no to this man?

“Fine. Give me a sec.” You hung up the call, took another deep breath, and opened the front door before immediately turning around to go back to your balcony. You couldn’t bear to look at him, and you welcomed the sound of the soft waves lapping at the harbor as a buffer.

He sat down beside you, and even before any words were said, you felt the tears returning. Something about this felt…final. And your intuition had hardly ever been wrong before.

“YN, I’m so sorry. When I get frustrated I say things I don’t mean. I was really out of line earlier.”

“Thank you,” you whispered, unable to truly accept his apology.

He continued, “And you’re right. I shouldn’t have just assumed that all the rough stuff was okay. And I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

You waited a moment for him to continue speaking, but he didn’t. “Is that all you have to say?”

“I just…don’t know what else you want me to say.” You looked over to him. His head was hung low, like a child in trouble at school. Not like a man who was taking accountability for his actions.

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

“What?” he asked.

You just stared at him for a moment, gathering the courage to ask your question.

“Did you talk to Lily like that?”

“Huh?” he echoed.

“Did you call her all those names? Degrade her?”

“Don’t ask me that.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s…personal. I don’t think Lily would appreciate me talking about it.”

“She didn’t appreciate me being in your life, either. But look how that turned out,” you said, the malice lingering on every word.

Your statement cut a little too deep for comfort. But Oscar finally relented, answering, “...I would, sometimes. She didn’t care for it. But I just…get frustrated a lot. It helps me get all that pent up energy out. Half the time I don’t even think about what I’m saying.”

You hummed. The implication of his words hung in the air; you were a relief for his frustration, a thoughtless passtime.

When you didn’t respond, he got nervous. “Did I…hurt you?”

“Not physically, no,” you answered, your eyes never moving from the sight of the harbor in the distance. “But I don’t think you really care.”

“Of course I care.”

“No, you don’t.” Your lip quivered. You tried to swallow the tears that came up, but you couldn’t.

“No, don’t cry,” Oscar said, reaching out to embrace you, but you avoided him, getting up to lean on the railing. He followed you, this time not offering any comforting touch.

“What the fuck are we doing, Oscar?” you said, barely able to get the words out. He grasped for words but wasn’t able to find them before the flood of emotions spilled from you.

You began, “I used to think that the fabric of our lives was…like, sewn together. Like we were destined to always be in each other's lives. But ever since the breakup I’m so afraid that everyone who ever warned me about you was right. I feel like all these years you’ve just been using me, stringing me along so you could have someone there when things don’t work out. Like I’m just your backup plan. Like I’m not even good enough for you to treat me like a human being.”

“You really feel like I’m using you?” Oscar asked, his surprise horrifically genuine. “Was I just using you when I went out of my way to call you every week for 4 years when I was away in school, even during exams and races? When I got you this place because I wanted to live close to my best friend?” His tone went from gentle to frenzied—not angry, but desperate, like he couldn’t even fathom it. “I mean, YN, what, did you want me to cheat on my girlfriend with you?”

You looked up at him, and he realized again that he had messed up again.

“No, that’s not what I wanted. I’d never do that to Lily because you know it’s been done to me.”

“I know, and was I not there for you when you needed me?” In a way, Oscar was right. When you had broken things off with your unfaithful ex, Oscar was the first to your rescue, staying with you for days while you could barely even function. “YN, what else do you want from me?”

“I want you to be honest about what’s going on between us.”

“We’re…. hooking up, I don’t know.”

“Is that all I am to you, a hookup? A friend with benefits?” Your soft tears became full on sobs now. “Oscar, I am in love with you! You are the love of my life. And you can’t tell me that you haven’t known exactly how I felt, for years now.”

“Of course I knew,” he whispered.

“Then why would you do this to me? Why would you take advantage of me like this?”

Oscar had started crying now, too.

“I don’t know. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“This isn’t fair, Oscar.”

“I’m sorry.”

A thick silence fell over the balcony. You knew that the conversation should be over now. There was nothing else you needed to say. But you couldn’t stop yourself from continuing the pointless hurt.

“Do you even love me?”

“Don’t—”

“Can you even look me in the fucking eyes and tell me that you don’t love me?”

“YN—”

You didn’t even let him complete his sentence, instead walking back into your apartment and slamming our now cold mug into the sink. “Just go,” you said, your voice stern.

“YN, please—” Oscar said, following you inside the apartment.

“Go!”

“You want the truth?” Oscar said, raising his voice to you for the first time since you’d ever known him. His eyes now flooded with tears, staining his cheeks. His hair was tousled, his under eye bags puffy and pronounced. He looked like a mess.

“All I’ve ever wanted is the truth.”

“The truth,” he began, swallowing, his voice cracking as he spoke. “The truth is that I’ve been in love with you since we were sixteen.”

“No—”

“Yes, YN,” he said, his voice raising again.

“No, fuck you, Oscar, that’s not true!” You were both sobbing messes now.

“Yes it is,” he begged, his voice ragged.

“Then why would you do this?”

“Because…” he paused, taking a deep breath and sniffling, trying to regain his composure. “Because we were best friends, and you lived with us, and I was so scared of fucking things up.”

“So you went and just found a girlfriend instead?”

“No, it…” he looked away from you and took a sharp exhale. “It wasn’t as simple as that. You…” He let out a frustrated sigh. “It was just…complicated. You were the girl who lived with us, like another sister, I mean, I couldn’t have feelings for you of all people. So I was so scared.”

He looked at the wall, scarating his neck, and continued. “And when I met Lily, it was all just…simple. Everyone liked her, she was nice, she’s smart. When I brought her home she fit right in, the fans loved her. She was everything I needed her to be, y’know?” He exhaled.

His gaze fell to the floor and lingered as he continued. “I didn’t love her at first. I mean, I liked her, she was great, but it was more about just…filling a need, I guess. But I did fall in love with her later. I tried to love her with my whole heart, I really did. I thought that what I felt for you would just go away but obviously it didn’t. And then she fucking left me. As she should, honestly.”

Oscar nervously looked around the room until he could no longer avoid your piercing gaze, face frozen in disbelief.

“You’re horrible, Oscar.”

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“You used me. You used Lily. And all of this from the very beginning was about… my family? I’m sorry you all had to take me in because no one else would. I’m sorry I didn’t go to a fancy boarding school in London. I’m sorry that my parents are two pieces of shit that didn't want to take care of me when I was a literal child.”

“It’s not that—”

“But it is. That’s what you said.”

“It’s not you, YN. I mean, it was, but we’re not kids anymore. I love you. It was just… awful circumstances.”

“And now? What’s your excuse? I cut off my parents. And Lily fucking left you. So why are you just using me now?”

“It’s just too much right now. The breakup, the championship…I know if I try, I’ll just fuck it up. I lost Lily, I can’t lose you too.”

“Why? Because then you’ll have no one to warm your bed when you’re sad?”

“You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone that you thought you’d spend the rest of your life with!”

“You’re right, I don’t. Because the person I want to spend the rest of my life with is you, Oscar. But you don’t want me. You never have. I’m your backup plan until something better comes along. That’s all I’ve ever been. I’m not good enough for you, you don’t love me. I don’t even know who you are any more.”

“You said I was the love of your life,” Oscar said, his voice lowered now.

“You are. But I’m not yours. I don’t care what you say you feel. If you really love someone, you don’t treat them like that.”

“I’m so sorry. That’s all I can say.”

You let out a shaky breath, exhausted of all energy from the fighting. You didn’t even have it in you to be angry anymore.

“We shouldn’t do this. We should just go our separate ways and be done with it.”

“No, YN—”

“You have a championship to focus on, don’t you?” you said.

“You’re my best friend,” he said through his tears. “I need you.”

“I’ll finish out my employment contract through the end of the season. You can sell the apartment. I’ll pay back Mum for anything she had to spend on me when we were younger.”

“YN, please,” he begged.

“Don’t, Oscar,” you said, your voice soft now. “Just let me go.”

“Can I kiss you?”

The correct answer should be no. You should have told him to get the fuck out of your apartment and never come back. But it was Oscar.

You didn’t answer him, instead just walking up to him and embracing him, letting him hold you in his strong arms as his lips met yours one last time. His lips were salty with tears, but for once his touch was soft and gentle.

When you pulled away, he stayed close to you, pressing his forehead down to yours. “I love you,” he whispered.

“Go home. You’ve got a flight to catch in the morning.”

You could call in sick to the United States Grand Prix in Miami; Oscar could not.

Well, theoretically, he could. God knows the reserve drivers would be happy to take his place and show off in front of the teams that were always scouring for new blood. But he couldn’t back down now. Not with a trophy looming so ominously over his head.

And especially not in Miami. Everyone hated Miami. Everyone except Lando, that is.

And as Oscar mindlessly paced the paddock back and forth, praying to God that no journalists would pester him for an interview, he couldn’t escape the reminder of his teammate’s victory.

“Well, things seem to be heating up here in Miami! The race continues between McLaren teammates Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in this early battle for the World Driver’s Championship. Piastri is putting in a valiant effort, but who can forget Lando Norris’ first victory here last year? It’s incredible to see how far he has come in such a short amount of time—”

He really needed to stop walking past the commentator’s box.

This is usually when Oscar would try to find you in the paddock, or send you a text from halfway across the world. But he couldn’t do that anymore; you hadn’t quite barred him from communication, but what could he say?

He just needed to focus. Perform. Drown himself in the work. That’s what he told himself as he made his way back to the McLaren garage, away from the prying eyes of the media and the haunting words of the commentators. That’s what he told himself as he slipped on a set of headphones and nodded along as his race engineer spoke, acting as if he was paying attention.

That’s what he told himself as he climbed into the car, took a deep breath, and pressed his foot to the gas.

Thousands of miles away, in Monaco, you were supposed to be having dinner. Actually, you were supposed to be in Miami, taking photos of Oscar in all his glory.

But you couldn’t face him. You couldn’t eat. You couldn’t even sleep.

In the corner of your living room sat a box with Oscar’s old stuff in it. You stared at it as if it had the eyes to stare back. Your hand mindlessly swirled your fork around your remaining food, now cold and mostly uneaten.

Why did this feel like a breakup?

You wanted to scream, but you’d already gotten noise complaints from the fight days prior. So instead, your apartment was deadly quiet.

You sighed, moving to your bedroom and collapsing in the soft covers, having decided to give up and indulge yourself with a night of bed rotting. But even your bed felt empty. The sheets held a faint trace of Oscar’s scent. It would come out with a simple wash, but laundry was the furthest thing from your mind right now.

You needed a distraction. You grabbed your phone and immediately went to social media to mindlessly scroll.

But in your notifications was one you had nearly forgotten about: that message request from Lando.

You opened it without even thinking, unfortunately sending the read receipt even though you weren’t in the mood to talk to anyone right now.

Hey, not to be weird but do you know if anything’s going on with Oscar? He’s been acting odd recently.

You groaned in frustration. You couldn’t escape your best friend.

The message was sent a while ago—when the pair were in Bahrain, actually. You should have just deleted it and acted as if you never saw it. But you felt horribly awkward leaving Lando on read.

Yeah, he and Lily broke up :(

Was the frown really necessary? Should you say more? You didn’t have the energy to think, sending the message without much fanfare. You locked your phone and put it back on your nightstand.

But only a few moments later, it buzzed. Another message from Lando.

But…Lando was in Miami? At the circuit? He should be driving, not texting you. You opened your phone and clicked on the notification.

Damn, that’s rough. I thought they were endgame. You in the paddock?

You raised an eyebrow. Why would Lando Norris, of all people, want to know where you are?

No, I’m back in Monaco.

Another nearly instant reply. Ah, I was hoping to make a cameo on Oscar’s Instagram haha. You’ll be at Imola though?

This whole interaction felt…weird.

I will! I’ll be sure to get some good team shots lol

You tried to match his energy with your reply, but you couldn’t shake the odd feeling that this wasn’t right. But as you finally did put your phone down and retire for the night, your mind kept racing, coming to wildly different conclusions.

Maybe Lando did want to be friends. Maybe, now that Lily was out of the picture, he felt more comfortable around you. Maybe he was just trying to smooth things over with Oscar in the championship battle. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Or maybe you were so used to Oscar’s lying and manipulation that you couldn’t imagine someone talking to you just for the sake of friendship.

You huffed to yourself as the thought crossed your mind. You pulled your blanket up and buried yourself in it, as if the thoughts were something physical you could hide from. You fell into a tense sleep.

Oscar couldn’t sleep, though. He could barely sleep back when he had you at his beck and call, let alone when you all weren’t speaking to each other.

How had he fucked up so badly? He brought his hands to his face and roughly exhaled. Like you, he had resigned himself to spend his night scrolling, until he too noticed an unanswered message.

Except it wasn’t from Lando. It was from Lily. As if things couldn’t get any worse.

She was brief and to the point.

I just wanted to let you know I’ll be at Imola for a company event. I doubt we’ll run into each other. Hope you and YN are well.

Her words stung. The professionalism where there once was warmth and love. The perfectly petty dig at him and you, assuming that he had already moved on (though, she wasn’t exactly wrong).

He wanted to throw his phone off his hotel room balcony. From the slight crack in the blinds, he could see palm trees, and the ocean far off in the distance. And he knew that back in Monaco, you’d be staring at the same moon, hearing the water in the distance as it lulled you to sleep. The miles between you during race weekends had always been numerous, but the distance wasn't—not until now, at least.

He slammed his phone on the nightstand and took yet another sleeping pill.

It was going to be a horrible week.

And, unfortunately, the morning wasn’t much better. Another oh so friendly interaction with his teammate.

“Hey, Oscar, wait up,” the Brit called, jogging to catch Oscar as they both entered the paddock. Oscar slowed his pace but didn’t stop, hopeful that this would be a clear sign that he wasn’t here for conversation.

When he did catch up, Oscar just gave Lando a small nod as a greeting.

“Hey, I, uh, heard about you and Lily. I’m so sorry, mate.”

Oscar turned, making a confused and irritated face. “Who told you?”

“YN. Well, I asked her if you were okay.”

The Aussie made a small grumbling noise.

“I was just worried, you know. You just seemed like you were going through some stuff. You know I’m always here if you need me, right?”

“I need to beat you,” Oscar said, but his words had no bite to them. There was no snappy anger anymore, just exhaustion.

“Of course,” Lando said, smiling, as if he thought his teammate’s championship ambitions were nothing more than comic relief. “But for real, man, I’m sorry and I’m here for you.”

“Thanks,” Oscar said, though he didn’t really mean it. He just wanted to be alone.

In Monaco, you were breaking your first cardinal rule of a breakup (even a friendship breakup) and turning on your TV to watch Oscar drive.

You had managed to go without watching the free practices and even quali, but you couldn’t bring yourself to not watch the Grand Prix.

And it was good that you tuned in, because he won.

You nearly threw your phone across the room when he finally passed the checkered flag. You had been practically holding your breath since he secured the lead in a masterfully timed pit stop mid race, beating out Max Verstappen to bring home his second win of the season.

So, maybe he wouldn’t hate Miami as much anymore.

Your phone—secured now on your nightstand to prevent any race-related breakage—loomed in the distance as you debated sending him a congrats text. It wasn’t like you all had gone through a true breakup; you weren’t even together. But you knew you couldn’t let yourself end up in his bed again. You knew that he was a broken man, and you couldn’t fix him.

So your friendship had come to occupy this odd liminal space in which neither of you knew exactly where you stood. At some point, this would have to be discussed, but clearly neither of you had learned your lesson on healthy communication.

You wanted to tell your best friend that you were proud of him. Was that such a bad thing?

It wouldn’t be, if you could ignore that voice now echoing in your mind.

Since when are her feelings my problem?

You nearly gagged at the thought. Yeah, you weren’t texting him.

And back in Miami, Oscar anxiously awaited a text that would never come.

“Oscar, mate, quit staring at your phone and let’s celebrate!” Lando teased, patting his teammate on the back.

Oscar just sighed, opening his phone again to find no messages from you.

“She’s not coming back,” Lando said. “So either you get drunk enough to call her, or you get drunk enough to find someone to replace her. Either way, you’re getting drunk tonight.”

“Really, Lando?”

“She destroyed a five year relationship over some stupid shit, and you just won another grand prix. So yes, I think you should get fucked up with me tonight!”

“Don’t talk about Lily like that, mate. And besides, I’m not even waiting on her.”

Lando raised an eyebrow. “Then who are you waiting on?”

Oscar’s defenses were wearing down, even while sober. “You know who.”

“And you still want me to believe that you two aren’t hooking up?”

“It’s…complicated.”

“Spill.”

Under normal circumstances, Oscar was never the type to discuss his personal life at work, much less with his rival for the championship. But as the plan of going out was abandoned in favor of a nice bottle of Cuban rum ordered to the room, Oscar found himself spilling his secrets like a teenage girl at a sleepover.

“And then I just…” he hiccuped, “I told her everything. And she didn’t believe me, and I don’t blame her, but it fucking hurt, you know? And we were just screaming at each other, she said we should go our separate ways. What am I supposed to say to that? And I still haven’t heard from her, but her and Lily are gonna be at Imola. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.”

“Mate,” Lando said, slurring his words, “You fucked this up worse than I fucked up the championship last year.”

The two drivers laughed—otherwise, they’d have to cry at the peril poor Oscar had put himself in.

But the time flew by, and soon enough Oscar found himself on a flight to Italy, which he secretly prayed would crash so that he could avoid this entire charade.

Of course, on all your respective flights, the feeling was mutual; neither you, Oscar, nor Lily really wanted to be there. But duty called, and you were nothing if not professional.

It was an odd place to be; on one hand, you loved this job. It was fun getting to explore the world with your best friend and get paid to take pictures and make silly videos. The electric atmosphere of the paddock was one that had always felt like home, like you belonged there.

On the other hand, every time you thought about seeing Oscar again, you wanted to puke.

Thankfully, when you did inevitably see him again, your lunch did not resurface. You operated like a robot; no banter, no friendliness, just stark professionalism.

And Oscar didn’t know what was worse; not having you there, or seeing you act like a stranger.

The one silver lining, at least, was that Lily was nowhere to be found. He couldn’t handle those emotions too.

So, again and again throughout the weekend, he repeated that manta to himself: Just focus on work. Just focus on work.

He said it to himself one last time before he hopped in the car for qualifying. Just focus.

But he just couldn't. From the seat of his car, the chaos of the pit lane and the gaggles of photographers were just blurs, unidentifiable blobs. I had always comforted him to think that one of those was you, watching him. Now it was haunting.

And somewhere, buried away in the paddock, Lily was there. Oscar could imagine it; her polished and professional demeanor, almost perfect, as she schmoozed up to that one executive from the company that he swore always had a thing for her.

He wanted to scream. Instead, he had to pull the car into the garage as the session was stopped due to an accident. It was raining heavily. Extra caution was advised, his engineer explained, but Oscar couldn’t focus. Not because of his thoughts—although, those certainly didn’t help—but rather because of what he saw across the garage.

You were chatting with Lando.

“Hey, YN!” Lando greeted as he hopped out of his car, seeing you in the back of the garage taking photos. “It’s nice to see you.”

“You too,” you said, though it wasn’t particularly true.

“Looks like we’re going to be a while,” he said looking over his shoulder at the storm brewing in the distance, “want to walk the paddock with me and get some candids?”

“Sure,” you agreed, though the request confused you.

The two of you left the garage and Oscar felt like punching the wall.

At first you walked in silence, your only emitted sound being the soft click of your camera. It was kind of pointless, though, since you were supposed to be getting shots of Oscar. You knew this. Lando knew this too.

“Can I ask you something, Lando?”

“Yeah?”

“Is there any reason that you’ve been pretty…friendly lately?” you asked, controlling your tone so it came off as genuinely curious rather than suspicious.

“Honestly,” he laughed, scratching the back of his neck with nervousness, “I felt really bad about everything that happened on the trip. I was afraid I might’ve scared you off.”

Well, that didn’t make much sense. Lando was the one who had been avoiding you since the trip. But, after dealing with Oscar, you had simply accepted that men in general made no sense.

“You didn’t,” you said. “And, I mean, the only reason we ended up like that is because Lily was trying to get rid of me. But, you see how that worked out.”

“Really? She didn’t have the balls to tell you to leave her man alone?”

“Not until after you left,” you said, exhaling in exhaustion.

“Damn,” he said, looking away from you. You snapped a few photos of his candid side profile, admiring how the light hit his curls just right. “You know, the only reason I ran off in the club that night like that was because I didn’t want to get involved in all that? I mean, I wasn’t about to steal Oscar’s side chick.” He laughed. “But from what I hear, things have changed?”

You laughed. “Oscar’s side chick?”

Lando raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t sleeping together?”

“Why do you want to know?” you laughed. Was Lando…flirting with you? No. He couldn’t be. He was Lando Norris, the most notorious playboy of the 2025 grid.

“Aw, c’mon. I want to know the drama!” he teased, flashing his boyish smile.

“Well, what if I want to know your drama?” you teased back, taking the opportunity to snap a few photos of him as you continued walking.

“Psh, I’ve got no drama. Just keeping to myself, trying to win.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“You’re avoiding the question, YN,” he said, smirking. Holy shit, he was flirting with you. But did you really mind? It felt nice to have that playful banter, to see a man who wanted that back and forth more than he just wanted your body. What was wrong with having a little fun?

You sighed and told him the most technical version of the truth. “Oscar never cheated. But you really thought I was sleeping with Oscar and you didn’t say anything to Lily?”

“Wasn’t my business. Besides, I thought it was pretty obvious.” His comment left a bit of a sour taste in your mouth, especially knowing the fears that Lily had confessed to you so long ago.

“No, I wouldn’t do that to Lily,” you said, and it was true. After all, you were both women.

“And what about Oscar?”

You rolled your eyes. Having a nice conversation with Lando helped you remember how not nice your time with Oscar had been recently. “Oh, fuck him,” you said weakly.

“Well, did you?”

You paused, unsure of whether or not to confess. “I already told you that he didn’t cheat. Is what, or who, I do in my spare time really any of your business?” you playfully teased.

His lips curled upwards. “I like to know what I’m getting myself into.”

The double entendre wasn't missed on you. You glanced over your shoulder, scanning the crowds to ensure that no one was paying too close attention. “You don’t have to worry about me and Oscar. But you know I run his social media, right? So I see all the gossip pages, all the shit you get yourself into. It’s a bold claim to say you’ve got no drama.”

“Oh, darling, they don’t even know the half of it,” he smirked. You all had turned around by now, walking back in the direction of the paddock. The crows were thinner now.

He continued, “But what about you, huh? You’re all bored with Oscar and now you want some real fun?” He let out a small laugh. “No, you’re not like that. Too much of a good girl.”

“You think I’m too good? I’m here flirting with my best friend’s rival for the championship.”

“Are we flirting, is that was this is?” he asked, as if he didn’t know exactly what he was doing. “I thought we were just having a pleasant conversation, catching up on the gossip.” Unbeknownst to you, Lando had gotten all the gossip from Oscar after their drunken celebration in Miami. But he wanted to see exactly how much you’d reveal to him.

“Well, sure then. I’m sure you get tired of race talk all day, anyway.”

“You say that like you think race talk is boring. But I’ve seen you at enough races to know better. Don’t play coy, you love it, don’t you? You know more about racing than most of the drivers’ girlfriends.”

It kind of unnerved you, the way Lando knew exactly how to push your buttons. The subtle you’re not like the other girls implication; both you knew it wasn’t a compliment, but rather a statement meant to rile you up and see how you’d react. And it worked.

Your voice lowered, steady yet quieter. “It’s a bit sexist to assume that women don’t know anything about racing. And knowing more about racing doesn’t make me any better than anyone else.”

“I never said that, love.”

“Hmm, but you thought it.”

“Are you in my head now?” You playfully rolled your eyes. “So tell me about all the race talk between you and Oscar.”

“Is that a euphemism for something?” you chuckled.

“D’you want it to be?” he smirked. “No, no, really. Tell me what groundbreaking F1 opinions are inside that pretty little head of yours.” Yeah, he was definitely flirting with you.

“I’ve got nothing groundbreaking,” you said as your smile loosened, contemplating how you wanted to arrange your words. “I think Oscar has a good shot at winning the WDC this year, if he can get out of his own head.”

“And what about me?”

“I think you’ll give him a run for his money. But you care too much about what random people on the internet think,” you said, ending the statement with that on the nose jest.

“You’re probably right,” he smiled. “God, you sounded like my PR manager for a sec there.”

“Not exactly dirty talk, is it?” you joked.

You arrived back at the McLaren garage. Lando walked in first, seeing that Oscar’s back was to you, and positioned himself so that when Oscar looked around, he’d see him instead of you. You were none the wiser.

He leaned down to whisper in your ear. “You still haven’t answered my question. How was he?” Lando’s face was plastered with a mischievous grin.

You playfully hit his shoulder. “Don’t ask me that!” you cooed, though you didn’t mind his closeness, the warmth of his breath on your ear.

Oscar didn’t like it, though. And when he turned around and saw your back to him, Lando leaned down next to you, and smirking, he wanted to run him over with his car.

Lando looked up for only a split second, but his eyes met Oscar’s, as if to acknowledge what he was doing. Or, as if to say, yes, I’m doing this, and you can’t stop me.

Oscar couldn’t handle the audacity of watching Lando flirt with you in front of his own eyes. Thankfully, you were tapped on the shoulder by none other than the new guy, who had broken his extremely expensive camera, and you were called away to help him figure it out.

Oscar crossed the garage to face Lando, never breaking his line of sight.

“Oh hey, mate, what’s up?” Lando asked, innocently.

“Why are you talking to YN?”

“Oh, she wanted to take some photos—”

“Don’t talk to YN,” Oscar said, his voice plain but stern.

“Mate, we were just having a chat. It wasn’t like that. Don’t be so paranoid.”

“I’m serious,” Oscar reiterated. “Don’t cross that line, Lando.”

“Okay, my bad,” Lando said, nervously laughing and carelessly throwing his hands in the air. Oscar still wouldn’t shift his gaze, even as both drivers were called to get back in their cars to resume the qualifying session.

There was something up about Lando, he could tell. But it’d have to wait. Now, he had a pole to get.

Well, he tried, but only managed to come in fourth. Lando got pole. Of fucking course.

Another sleepless night passed with no messages from you.

And the next morning, there you were as usual, staring at him only through the eye of your camera lens.

But then, across the garage, you had no problem chatting it up with Lando. He threw you a glimpse of his award winning smirk and Oscar felt violent. He didn’t like this. Not one bit.

You were doing it to spite him, that was obvious. You’d never be interested in a guy like Lando; too much of a playboy. And honestly, Oscar knew deep down that he deserved this. But it still made him sick to his stomach.

The feeling only dissipated when it was replaced by that primitive need within him to win. The lights before him went out and reason gave way to instinct.

Lando bottled the pole, losing the lead to Max after the first corner. Oscar fell back one place, narrowly avoiding a collision between Charles and Lewis, before overtaking them as they struggled to reorient their cars.

So it was just him, Max, and Lando. He could do this.

His body moved automatically. He could hear the roar of the engines, the chattering of the radio, and the screaming of the fans in the distance, but in his mind all was quiet. Laps blurred as he sped along the track, pushing inch by inch closer to overtaking Max.

Eventually he did, getting DRS and flying past the Redbull driver, pushing hard to get a good lead over him.

All that was left now was his own teammate.

“Okay Oscar, you’ve got enough space between you and Verstappen,” his race engineer said.

“I want to overtake.”

“A 1-2 is our goal right now—”

“Then he can be 2nd. I want to win.”

Silence befell the radio channel for a moment.

His engineer returned. “Okay. Papaya rules.”

Papaya rules. The phrase that haunted his dreams.

There was really no need to use the coded language anymore. The world knew what it meant—race, but keep it clean. Put the team above yourself. Don’t do anything reckless.

But Oscar was sick of being the good teammate, the one who always let Lando win for the sake of the team. He was tired of being gifted wins. Team orders were bullshit. This wasn’t about McLaren anymore. This was about his pride. This was everything.

So he pushed harder than he should have. He was wearing his tires out, he knew, but Lando just coasted along, as if nothing was amiss. As if his teammate wasn’t out for blood and gaining on him with every lap.

Lando glanced in his mirrors and saw Oscar behind him.

“Oscar’s getting close,” he said to his engineer.

“We told him papaya rules. Remember, our goal here is a 1-2.”

“He’s gonna wear out his tires.”

“Let’s just focus on keeping P1.”

But Lando knew it wasn’t that simple. This was no longer impersonal racing, just the best of the best competing against each other because it was in their nature to do so.

No, this was personal now.

Lando rounded the corner, feeling Oscar hot on his heels, but managed to defend his position. He knew that with DRS enabled at the next stretch, he wouldn’t be able to hold him off.

But in front of him, he was already close to lapping the backmarkers of the grid.

Oscar could see them in the distance; the familiar teal of Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin, and an even more familiar fumble as he drove erratically due to some mechanical issue with the car.

Lando slowed down, but Oscar couldn’t react. He swerved, hitting the barrier.

Back in the garage, the breath left your lungs.

You couldn’t resist the temptation of watching. You’d slid the headset on after Oscar had driven off, and you’d planned to leave before he got back to the garage and discovered that you’d ever been there. No harm, no foul. The allure of the purring engines and adrenaline-fueled racing was just too much to resist.

But now, hearing the violent scrape of carbon fiber against metal as Oscar’s car screeched along the barriers, your heart sunk into your chest.

“Are you alright, Oscar?” you heard his race engineer ask, his voice filling your ears.

But the silence afterwards was deafening.

“Oscar, can you hear us? Are you alright?”

All that came through was a metallic gargle of noise, a sign that the radio had been damaged in the impact. There was no way to know if Oscar was hurt or not.

A hush fell on the track as the safety car was brought out. Lando had effectively secured his win, with so few laps remaining.

Your eyes were glued to the screen, praying to whatever God would listen that Oscar would be okay. You watched as the marshalls rushed to the site of the car, huddling around the lump of broken parts that stood still on the sidelines.

Because of the force of the crash, the medical car had been deployed as well. You were frozen in place.

You had never been much of a believer in God, but all you could do now was beg.

Please, God. Please let him be okay. If he’s okay I can forgive everything he’s ever done. If he’s okay I will never let him out of my life ever again. Please, God, please let him be safe.

You chanted the prayer over and over again to yourself as the seconds ticked by like hours.

Finally, after an agonizingly long wait, you saw the marshalls carrying along an orange-clad form into the medical car.

You didn’t even think. You just reacted, taking off your headset and booking it towards the medical tent.

You weren’t the only one there, though. The tent was already swarmed with media, all craning their necks to see Oscar. You pushed your way through to the front, only to be stopped by security, since you had your media pass instead of your usual VIP pass as one of Oscar’s friends.

You panicked—to the eyes of security, you were just another reporter who was rudely trying to cut through the crowd to get to the injured driver.

“Please let me by,” you pleaded. “I know Oscar—”

“You can wait at the media tent.”

“C’mon—”

“Ma’am, we need you to leave.” You groaned, and you were about to leave before you heard the voice of your savior from out of nowhere.

“Hey!” he called. You turned your head to see who it was—the familiar, friendly face of Zak Brown.

He was on the other side of the barrier, but Oscar was still nowhere to be found.

“Oh, YN, am I glad to see you!” He turned to the security officer. “Let her in.”

“Sir, media personnel are not authorized—”

“She’s VIP, not media.”

“Sir—”

“Do you know who I am?” he said, an unusual sternness in his tone. The security officer glanced down at his pass and silently let you through.

“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Zak said, his boyish grin returning as he patted you on the back and led you along to the private area where they’d be bringing Oscar any second now.

You sighed as he pulled the medical curtain closed.

“Boy, was that a nasty crash,” he said.

“Is he okay?”

“Well, he’s alive. That’s as far as I know.”

Your heart sank again. But as if on cue, you heard the rumble of camera shutters and reporters chattering outside the tent as the marshals escorted Oscar into the tent. When he came up, the room was flooded with medical personnel, pushing you and Zak back to the edge of the curtained-off room.

A nurse rushed in. “Who’s his emergency contact?” she asked Zak.

“Her,” he said, gesturing to you. You were confused. Since when had Oscar made you his emergency contact?

“Stay here,” the nurse instructed, but even if you wanted to, you couldn’t move an inch. You resumed your prayers as Zak blabbered on and on, mainly to himself. One thing that you’d learned very quickly about Zak Brown once Oscar had gotten to McLaren is that he really liked to yap.

As the doctors and nurses filtered in and out of the room, you caught a brief glimpse of Oscar in the hospital bed, his eyes rolled back into his head, slumped over into his shoulder.

You wanted to wail.

But it was only a few minutes before everyone began to filter out of the room, creating enough space for you to finally see your friend. And when you did lay eyes on him, it wasn’t nearly as bad as you feared.

His eyes were closed; an attempt to rest, rather than a state of unconsciousness.

A nurse at his bedside turned to you. “Don’t worry. He’s going to be fine. We’re going to sedate him and transport him to a hospital, but he’s not gravely injured. He just needs some tests done that we can’t do here.”

You nodded along, not once taking your eyes off Oscar.

“And, yes, you are his emergency contact, so we’ll need you to come with us. He’s authorized you to make decisions in the event that he's unable to. But that is unlikely, of course.”

“Is he…?” you asked, gesturing towards him.

“He’s still a little shaken up. The best thing right now is to get him into a calmer environment.”

You nodded. “I’ll make sure that new guy doesn’t lose all your stuff,” Zak quipped, and you threw a smile out towards him. “I’ll meet you all there when we’ve wrapped up here.”

Ah yes, the grand prix was likely still going on outside, and Lando would have to climb the podium and take his P1 trophy home.

But as you sat in a hospital room in Italy next to your best friend, the podium was the last thing on your mind.

Oscar was still completely out of it. The doctors had come and gone, confirming that all of his tests had come back normal. No broken bones, no concussion, nothing major. Just a shit ton of bruises and a shock to the system that left him too exhausted to stay awake for more than 15 minutes at a time.

Outside, the sun was setting, but you couldn’t sit still. You held Oscar’s limp hand in your own, tracing patterns into the cold skin. You hadn’t held his hand since you were kids—no, Oscar had held your hands above your head as he pinned you to the wall only weeks ago.

You flung the memory away. Now wasn’t the time. Besides, you promise you’d forgive all that.

Either way, you couldn’t focus on that now. Oscar’s eyelashes were fluttering open, his eyes squinting at the fluorescent light above him.

“Osc!” you said, truthfully too energetic for the occasion. You dropped his hand, got up, and turned off the overhead light, leaving only the swiftly fading daylight from outside the window to illuminate the room.

He groaned as you sat back down, but still mumbled a small thanks.

“Where am I?” he asked, bringing his hand up to rub his eyes.

“A hospital in Imola.”

“Shit,” he sighed.

“Yeah. You had a pretty bad crash.”

“I remember that,” he said, his throat dry and cracked. He took a sip of water. “Lando brake checked me.”

“Is that what happened? I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Yeah. Fucker,” he cursed, his voice dripping with contempt. You didn’t know what to say.

“How are you feeling?” you finally said, tired of the lingering tension.

“Awful. Everything hurts.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m just glad you’re here,” he said, reaching for his call button to request painkillers. “I’ve missed you.”

It was bold, doing this when he knew you couldn’t exactly be cruel to him. So, instead, you were honest.

“I’ve missed you too. I’m just glad you’re okay,” you said, reaching forward to smooth his hair away from his sweat-stained forehead. Your touch felt better than any painkiller. “We were really scared.”

“Nah, you’re not getting rid of me anytime soon,” he joked as the nurse arrived and wordlessly administered his meds. He let out a sigh as he felt the painkillers enter his system. “I run on pure spite. A little wall isn’t gonna take me out.”

You gave him a small smile. “You didn’t say anything after the crash,” you said, your voice just a quivering whisper, giving away the true depths of your fear.

“I had the wind knocked out of me. And then, everything just went black, I was fading in and out.”

“I was praying you’d be okay. It was so scary.”

“Hey, I’m okay. A little busted up, but I wasn't exactly a looker anyway, huh?” he joked, a feeble attempt to make you laugh. You sniffled and smiled.

He continued, “Can I use my near-death experience as an excuse for us to make up?”

Your smile dropped and you bit your lip. “Osc…”

“I just want my friend back,” he said, cutting you off. “Look, I can’t be the boyfriend you deserve. Not right now, at least. And I think, after all the shit I did, you wouldn’t want me to anyway. But I miss my friend.”

“I miss my friend, too.”

Your heart to heart was interrupted by a knock at the door. The same nurse from before poked her head in. “Excuse me?” she asked in an Italian accent, and you looked up. “There is a visitor asking to be let in. She said her name is Lily?”

You couldn’t help the face you made. What on God’s green Earth was Lily doing in Imola?

“Um, yeah, let her in,” Oscar said. He didn’t react, though you scooted away and sat at the edge of your seat, ready to leave at any second. “Stay,” he whispered to you, and you did.

A few moments later, you saw her walk in, and the atmosphere was thick.

“Hi Oscar,” she exhaled, grateful to see him okay. He greeted her back, but she didn’t even look at you. You got up to give them a moment, but Oscar reached out and grabbed your wrist. “Don’t go,” he said, and the look in his eyes was impossible to refuse. You tentatively sat back down.

“How are you feeling?” Lily asked, and the two exchanged pleasant conversation back and forth. You wanted nothing more than to jump out of the window that now showed the sunset over the trees. Normal visiting hours would be ending soon.

“Well, I just wanted to make sure that you were okay,” she said, getting up to leave. “I’m glad you’re doing well. You too, YN,” she added on the end, but you didn’t believe it. You gave her a flat but polite smile.

“Actually, YN, could we have a word?” she asked, cocking her head in the direction of the hallway.

The look on Oscar’s face told you that this was a horrible idea. But one of you was confined to a hospital bed, and the other wasn’t. You ignored him and followed Lily into the deserted hallway.

She turned to you, voice full of venom. “How long have you been sleeping with Oscar?”

“What?”

“You heard me,” she said, plain as day.

“I’ve told you before, Oscar never cheated on you.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

You turned your head in confusion. “What are you getting at?”

Lily angrily sighed. “You think that you can just waltz around the paddock talking shit about me with Lando, and that I’m not going to hear about it?”

Had Lily been at the paddock? Or even worse: had she somehow heard you?

“Well, if you actually heard my conversation with Lando, you’ll know that I stood up for you.”

“I thought you were a girl’s girl,” she said, deflecting from your defense.

“I am.”

“Then why were you in bed with my boyfriend 4 days after we broke up?”

“Your ex boyfriend,” you said, meeting her level of venom. “You left him.”

“I just thought, after all that talk, you’d have the decency not to prove me right.”

“Lily, I was honest with you. If you’re mad at Oscar, don’t take it out on me. He’s the one who suggested it. I told him it was a bad idea.”

“But you did it anyway.”

“And I felt horrible about it. So I stopped.” Your voice was sharp. “Who told you any of this?”

“It doesn't matter. I hope you’re happy.”

“I hope you are, too. Genuinely.” You lacked the words to say what you really wanted to. He treats both of us like shit. He used us. I am not your enemy. She wouldn’t want to hear it anyway. She wordlessly walked away, scoffing and mumbling to herself.

You didn’t say anything either as you walked back into the hospital room and slumped in the chair.

“I’m guessing that didn’t go well?” Oscar said.

“Nope.”

“Well, we were in the middle of something…”

Oh, right. The conversation where Oscar was trying to get back in your pants.

“I’m not going to fuck you, Oscar.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“We can let anything lead to that. Not again.”

“I understand,” he said. “I just want my friend back in my life. Like all of that never happened.”

“Could we even do that?” you asked. It felt like a line had been crossed, moving your friendship in a way that couldn’t be undone.

“I promise. And I know my word doesn’t mean much, but really, I promise. Never again.”

Haven't you promised that you’d forgive him?

“Okay,” you said, “Okay.”

Oscar smiled at you, showing off his bunny teeth. You still loved him. You couldn’t help it. But true to form, you could never stay away.

“Oh, and by the way, congrats on Miami.”

You fell asleep in the chair, having refused to leave Oscar’s side. He’d be discharged in the morning to make his flight back to Monaco, though it was questionable whether or not he’d be able to race in the iconic Grand Prix.

True to his word, though, Oscar got one final set of visitors in the dead of night.

The first was Zak Brown.

“Oscar!” Zak yelled, before Oscar shushed and pointed to your sleeping form. You stirred but didn’t fully wake, and Zak placed his hand over his mouth and raised his eyebrows as Oscar let out a quiet laugh.

“Hey Zak,” he said, his voice hushed.

“Glad to see you’re doing better.”

“Yeah, I made it,” he mused. “Hey, what did the FIA say?” Oscar’s phone had died since you had fallen asleep, and his charger had been left at the track.

Thankfully, Zak had brought his (and your) belongings, and he placed the bag at the foot of the hospital bed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the penalty, from the crash?”

“No one got a penalty.”

“But, Lando brake checked me.”

“Lando barely avoided a crash with Stroll.”

“I know, but he didn’t swerve, he slowed down. He had room to swerve, I didn’t. How did no one get a penalty?”

“That's just racing.”

“He intentionally slowed down to stop me!”

“Oscar, I highly doubt that that’s what happened. It was a crowded track, and you all had to react in a split second. These things happen, you know this.”

Oscar wasn’t at all pleased with this answer, and it was worsened by the appearance of his second visitor: Lando himself.

“Ah, there’s our grand prix winner!” Zak said, giving him a hearty pat on the back.

Lando smiled, and Oscar wanted to throw up.

“Had to bring it home for the team,” he said, smiling at Zak. “You doing alright, mate?” he asked.

Oscar was already tired of people asking him how he was feeling. “I’m fine,” he said.

“Lando gave Stroll an earful after the race.”

“Oh yeah, probably getting fined for that one…”

“Why? I didn’t crash because of Stroll. You brake checked me.” The pain was making Oscar more irritable. He’d need another dose of meds soon.

“No, Stroll was driving like an idiot out there, I had to slow down.”

“No, you had to move. You’re not stupid. You just didn’t want me to overtake, didn’t you?”

“Okay, boys, let’s save this for the track,” Zak interjected. Oscar just grumbled. “I’ll meet you outside, yeah?” he said to Lando, who nodded but stayed behind.

The Brit glanced at you, still fast asleep in the chair by Oscar’s bedside. “D’you tire out your babysitter?” he smiled.

But Oscar was relentless. “Don’t talk about her.”

“I thought you all weren’t on speaking terms?”

“Lando, mind your business.”

“I don’t know what your problem is, mate.”

“You think I don’t know what you’re up to.”

“I’m not up to anything. I’m just trying to be a good teammate. Jesus, Osc, they should check that you didn’t hit your head too hard, you’re so paranoid.”

Truthfully, Oscar was bluffing. He had a horrible feeling about his teammate, but no evidence to back it up. But his intuition was hardly ever wrong.

“I ran into Lily after you left,” Lando said. “I hope you don’t mind, but I told her you were here.” His tone of voice was so gentle that Oscar began to wonder if maybe he was being too paranoid.

“Yeah, she came by earlier.”

Lando’s eyes glanced back to your sleeping form, and Oscar felt his anger rise again. He didn’t even want Lando to look in your direction, let alone be speaking to you.

“Your heart rate is up,” Lando said, gesturing to the monitor that now showed the physical effects of Oscar’s anger.

“Look, Lando,” Oscar said, shifting to sit up in bed. “Stop acting like we’re friends. Stop talking to YN, stop trying to play this buddy-buddy game. We’re here to beat each other.”

“I was just trying to be kind, but I guess if you really don’t want to be friends, I can’t make you.”

“I’m serious. Leave YN alone. Don’t even go there.”

“She’s an adult.”

“And she’s mine.”

Lando laughed. “Seriously? That’s not exactly what she told me.”

The monitor beeped again as Oscar’s heart rate continued to rise. “I don’t care what she told you.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Try it. See what happens.”

A nurse gently knocked on the door, and Oscar was grateful for the distraction and relief of pain meds.

“Well,” Lando said, leaning on the door, “I guess I’ll see you all in Monaco.”

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ignoringmyexams · 2 days ago

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jason is in the kitchen after patrol the night before halloween, wondering if he should get some takeaway, when his phone rings.

"who the hell calls this late at night? its 4am.."

its your name. he picks up at once.

"hey, you awake? can i come over?" , by the tone in your voice, it seems like you wont take no for an answer.

"it doesnt matter" you continue, "im already standing outside of your door"

this is the only safehouses you know about, and jason has been careful to make you think that he lives there all the time. usually he wouldnt risk you seeing his red hood gear, but at 4am, he thought it was safe to head here, as it was his nearest and largest apartment. he really didnt want to run 10 minutes through the cold and rainy october night to get to the next safehouse, and so now he finds himself rushing to hide his gear someplace you wont find it.

"uh, sure, just wait and ill let you in" he manages to stammer out, feeling nervous not only because he didnt want you to find out his secret identity. he never thought he would end up in this situation that night he met you at that dive bar on the outskirts of crime alley. you were so obviously out of place there, hanging out with your friends, anybody could see that you were students from gotham university, on the hunt for a cheap beer. he and roy had quickly stepped in under the guise of being friendly drunks, to protect you from the leer of some of gothams underbelly.

since then, youd kept coming to the dive bar, and jason kept coming to look out for you. after a while he just accepted that youd managed to work your way into his life, and now hed drive halfway across the city to meet you for lunch after your lectures. at some point, he noticed that his gaze seemed to linger longer that it had used to, and by now he had realized that he was mad about you. something he hoped you still were oblivious to.

"i promise you, you wont regret it. ive brought takeaway!" you chirped back at him.

jason lets you in, and hungrily takes the bag from you. by now youve learned that dumplings are a quick way to get him to do your bidding.

"shouldnt you be sleeping right now? i remember you saying that you have an early lecture tomorrow, or, today i guess." jason asked you. in fact he knew you had an early lecture, because he had your schedule memorized by now, to be able to suprise you with lunch. at this point his brain blocked out other dates and appointments to be able to remember more about you, someting that got him in trouble with bruce every time he forgot training sessions, or family meetings.

you were sat on the sofa, taking up as much space as you possibly could, something you did every time you came over. jason watched as your face turned deadly serious.

"jason, what im about to tell you cant leave this room. you have to promise me."

"of course" he reassured, worried now, "you can tell me everything",

"you sure?" you shot back, "i dont want this to change our relationship, or the way you view me, ok? im still the same person ive always been."

now he was really worried.

"im batman." you said with a completely straight face. "vengeance never sleeps, and so neither can i."

he looked at you with the most deadpan expression he could manage at that point. you held out in silence for what seemed an impressive amount of time before you cracked.

"its true" you wheezed out, "my friends want me to be batman at the halloween party tomorrow, but the costume hasnt arrived yet. and so ive got to use last years costume instead."

the infamous costume of halloween last year. the one jason never got to see you in, as he didnt know you at the time. he hasnt even seen a picture, but the thought that you own it is enough to drive him crazy.

"and so i wondered", you continued, "if i, pretty pleeeasee, could borrow your leather jacket, you know, the one that maches red hoods perfectly?"

now usually, jason would have said no. no one touches that jacket. but its you. and jason was also invited to said halloween party. and if youre going to make him socialize, he might as well have something to look at while doing it. and so he throws the jacket at you.

"try it on", and you do.

although jason is taller and broader than you, you still have some muscle on you, that fills out the arms and shoulders of the jacket in a way that makes it look just oversized instead of akward.

jason almost wants you to keep it. the smile he receives when he lets you borrow it is all he can think of the rest of that night, as he eats the dumplings you left for him.

#jason todd #dcu #batman #dick grayson #batfamily #bruce wayne #tim drake #fanfic #the red hood #red hood #nightwing #red robin #robin #jason todd x reader #jason todd x you

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gffa · 2 days ago

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If you ever asked me, "How do you reconcile reading romantic fic for Obi-Wan with that he's one of the Ultimate Jedi characters?" I would tell you that it's actually pretty easy! Option 1: As long as their commitment to their duty is the highest priority in their life, I don't see that as a conflict with a Jedi having a romantic relationship and I think you can make a solid case for this with Obi-Wan knowing about Anakin's relationship with Padme and never telling him to stop it unless Anakin is verging on becoming deeply unbalanced over it. Obi-Wan explicitly says romantic feelings are natural and it's not like they're not allowed. Supplementary material straight up is fine with Jedi in relationships as long as they remain true to their vows. Option 2: I have zero trouble seeing Obi-Wan willing to leave the Jedi Order and not even just because he said he would twice in main canon (The Phantom Menace and The Clone Wars) and another time in supplementary canon (Obi-Wan & Anakin), but because he loves and respects the Jedi Order so much! Obi-Wan is a true believer in the Jedi way, so much that if he felt his relationship with someone else would become more of a priority, he would respectfully take his leave, because he understands that the way the Force works in the worldbuilding of Star Wars means he has to have his emotional shit on lock if he's going to be acting with the Force. He loves the Jedi way enough and believes in it enough that he would follow another path rather than half-ass the one he cares so deeply for. Obi-Wan as a Jedi is central to his character, but I genuinely don't see it as a roadblock to shipping him with characters if I want to! And that same feeling applies to just about every other Jedi character I love!

#lumi.txt #star wars #obi wan kenobi #jedi order #meta

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thecranberriesslut · 9 hours ago

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Fawn and the wolf

Summary: You're the smallest one on the team, and you have the compulsive need to prove yourself to Ghost... but have you chewed off more than you can swallow?

Pairing: Simon!Ghost Riley x Fem!Reader 'Bambi'

Warnings: Unspecified age gap, but implied that it's large, Power imbalance (military superior and soldier), DubCon, Degradation, Forcefulness, Smut, Dirty themes, Dirty talk, Dead Dove Do Not Eat, Unsafe use of a gun... Read at your own risk

Wc: 4k

Notes: I have never written cod smut before and I know nothing about military stuff so bare with me, also this is way darker than my previous pieces, just a heads up. I love your notes in the comments so tell me what you think! also note that Bambi is a nickname.

You stretch your arms, extending them in front of your chest, rolling your wrists around. The smell of coffee invades your every sense—on early mornings like these on base, the cheap coffee your superiors buy for the worn down common room is like your own personal brand of cocaine, the only thing that wakes you up after sleeping too little.

The physical aspects of military training are tough. They were almost a deal-breaker for you when you first came here... but over time, they had gotten easier. You had grown to enjoy the burn of a long run or the sting of a cold shower after extensive muscle training. After a while, feeling and seeing the results became almost addictive—but that didn't take away from the fact that most days, you were almost too tired to function. Most of the required workouts you were forced to endure were designed for men twice your size, and frankly, you found it a bit sexist. Why couldn't your superior adjust them to fit you better? It would take him a maximum of 20 minutes. You had come to the conclusion that he was a sadistic asshole who enjoyed torturing you every single day with insane workouts.

You hear the coffee drip slowly into the pot. You're too tired to fully open your eyes—even putting on gear this morning had felt like an impossible task. But here you were, awake (barely), in gear, and ready to start training in a couple of minutes. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, you have the huge coffee mug in your hands—burning hot, probably making the skin beneath it fiery red, but you are too exhausted to care.

You barely have time to swallow your first sip of the steaming, bitter, brown liquid when the door to the common room opens forcefully. Like instinct, you are up and alert—you can't show weakness here. You're already considered the runt of your entire team, being the youngest and also a woman. You turn around, ready to greet whoever it is with the alertness and determination of a starving fox during winter, hunting for the last rabbit left in the forest.

"Mornin', Bambi." Ghost said, his voice hoarse—but his manner alert and assertive, like always.

Bambi is your nickname on base, given to you by squadmates the first week you arrived. You liked to think it was because you were pretty like a fawn, but obviously, it was given to you for more degrading purposes. Everyone on your team thought of you as inexperienced, naive, and wide-eyed. But everyone had their own slightly degrading nickname, even your commander, Ghost. His real name was Simon Riley, but he was given the name Ghost because he stood out and had a tendency to move around quietly, like a ghost, not to mention his patent skull hood, a tactic to scare or to hide? No one knew.

"Good morning, sir," You said, trying to sound as awake as possible, waiting for the tension in the room to cool off before taking another careful sip of your coffee.

Ghost walks over to the coffee maker nonchalantly and pours himself a tall cup of coffee. You are surprised that he would even need caffeine—he's like a machine, inhuman—you've never seen him show any signs of weakness, and the manner in which he leads the team is brutal. He doesn't care if you're too tired to do push-ups; he will make you do them. Sometimes you consider the possibility that he just has no human emotions, or that he's a robot or something. Regardless of all this, you often find yourself with a compulsive need to make him happy. It's like you have to prove yourself to him constantly. You rarely complain to him about the difficult exercises he puts your team through, although you want to.

You've never been the kind of girl that just sits there quietly and lets everyone walk all over her. No—you’re the kind of girl who used to stand up for her friends in elementary school when the boys would pull their hair. You're the kind of girl that couldn't be mistaken for a doormat because you make your opinions known. If you weren't so fiery, you would never make it in the squad. Your squadmates are like brothers to you. You play rough—but when it comes to Ghost, you find that all your outward confidence just crumbles in his vicinity, and you become this pathetic rookie he can treat however he wants to. Although, you find that the same happens to most of the men on your team. Ghost is eerily calm; he radiates this quiet, overpowering energy, like a psychological horror film. And it makes everyone below him obey his commands like dogs. But it also makes you crave his approval. He never yells at you, but he never praises you either—it makes you almost obsessively try to get a reaction out of him with your good work on the exercises.

“We're doing the shooting range and combat alone today. Don't be late.” And with that, he's out of the door, leaving behind nothing but an empty coffee mug and a slight lingering smell of smoky cologne.

As you stand anxiously at the metal door of the gun range, it's like your body is stopping you from going in. You can feel the harsh cargo pants rubbing against your legs in an annoying manner, and your shirt feels too tight around your armpits—also, the coffee you drank did nothing but replace your tiredness with urgent nervousness. You've never trained with Ghost alone, but last week you were sick, so this morning you had to wake up before the sun to play catch-up with him. You are a great shooter, it's in your blood… but you have a gnawing feeling that being so close to Ghost will mess with your aim, and you will disappoint him.

You swallow the lump in your throat and force your hand to go up to the door handle. As you push open the heavy door, the lighting inside the gun range is dim—you can barely make out Ghost's silhouette, standing near the guns. You step inside carefully, as if you need to be quiet. But the gun range was far from housing; it stood alone on the other side of the base, with only woods surrounding it—you're also pretty sure it's soundproof, but not entirely sure. The range smells like mold and gunpowder, it's oddly comforting.

“Are you just going to stand there or come in?” Ghost says in a low voice, sounding indifferent—but nonetheless intimidating. You make your way inside and close the door behind you.

“Lock it.” He commands, not even trying to phrase it as a question, just a blunt order. You feel a little confused as to why he would want you to lock the door, but alas, you twist the lock until it clicks, and walk over to Ghost wearily.

“No lights?” You ask, trying to calm your nerves by talking, your hands finding the hem of your shirt and fidgeting with it.

“Burnt fuse. I expect you have no trouble shooting in the dark, rookie?” He says—it sounds like a snarky remark. You're annoyed at his tone. Obviously, you find it hard to shoot in the dark—but you can't tell him that. He'd paint you as weak and incapable.

“No problem.” You gear up, putting on hearing protectors and safety goggles. You take a gun, a simple, sleek Beretta 91, and you point it at the cardboard target ahead, waiting for Ghost to give you the okay to shoot. You are faced with silence. As you turn to look at Ghost, you see him standing next to you with a wide stance, his arms crossed over his chest, the sleeves of his black t-shirt tightening and showing off his muscles. He stares you down intensely.

“What are you doing wrong?” He asks, sounding annoyed, like you should know all this by now—although you haven't even trained shooting much.

“I—I don't know.” You hesitate, checking that the gun safety is off, your gear is on, and that you're facing the right way—you look at Ghost, confused.

“Your stance is all wrong, Bambi.” Without giving you a second to react, he moves behind you and guides your hands to the correct position. He kicks your legs farther apart and taps your thigh to signal you to move your foot slightly to the left. The gesture has nothing inherently sexual to it, but it makes a knot start to form in your lower stomach.

Ghost isn't a bad-looking man, or at least his body isn't—no one on your team has ever seen his face. He hides behind his signature skull balaclava daily, only revealing his dark brown eyes, and you presume he only takes it off to sleep and shower… if then. He has the type of body that any respectable captain would be expected to have—he's all muscle and mass. Not only that, but he's tall and broad, and if he was anyone else, you'd be trying to flirt with him every time you saw him… but even attempting to flirt with a higher-up is highly frowned upon here—you would both get fired. Also, it's not so difficult to push aside your feelings for someone who makes you train until failure every single day and rules your unit with an iron fist.

“Shoot.” Ghost orders, keeping his hold on your upper arms, directing the gun to hit the target right in the chest. He's standing so close to you that you can feel the heat radiating off him—he towers over you, and being caged in his hold like this sort of makes you feel safe. The feeling doesn't last long when he removes his hands from yours and steps back, resuming his position as the judgy officer watching you train intently.

“Now try it by yourself. Less than seven points, and you get punished.” He says, his voice dark and determined. He looks at you through narrow eyes, and his stance remains official and intimidating. It's not even his worst request—last night, he punished your fellow teammate with 100 push-ups for laughing during training. If he made you do that many push-ups right now, you would probably collapse—you needed to get this.

With nervous, shaky hands, you point the barrel of the pistol the same way as last time, you gather all your courage, only able to think of one thing— one hundred push-ups, before sunrise. Or maybe he'll make you do something worse, 200 burpees… 150 pull-ups. You shake off the distracting thoughts and by some miracle, you pull the trigger-- the bullet hits the very corner of the cardboard target, and you visibly cringe at the sight. You got zero points… you curse yourself in your mind, how could you be this bad, now he's going to make you do so many push-ups. Slowly, you turn to look at Ghost— he doesn't look disappointed, his position remains calm and collected, and that's what scares you the most.

“Get on your knees.” He says, darkly, you think it's a joke at first, but his eyes remain serious. Your eyes widen as you try to process the words that just came out of his mouth.

“Now.” He adds, when you don't move. Maybe it's just your dirty mind… maybe he meant nothing crude with it, maybe it's a new form of punishment in your squad. So you put the gun down on the cold metal desk, and slowly, anxiously, you start to lower yourself onto your knees. Ghost remains cool, his gaze following yours, as you fall lower and lower, until your knees hit the ground. He takes a couple of steps closer to you, forcing you to be face to face with his crotch. He picks up the gun from the desk, and your mouth goes dry when you try to focus, to hear the safety click on, but it never does. He crouches down slightly, and brings the barrel to your chin, lifting your chin up, and straining your neck as you're forced to look up at him.

“Do you think I haven't noticed the way you look at me when I teach combat?” He asks, his voice remaining low and calm. You're shaking, with nervousness or anticipation— you're not entirely sure.

“I— ” You begin your sentence, but are quick to notice that no other words are coming out— you wonder what he'll do to you… he might send you home, or hurt you.

“I know all the others think you're this naive little Bambi, but I see through that— you're a fucking slut.” He puts emphasis on the word slut, and the contrast between his collected voice, and the crude words, makes the knot in your lower stomach tighten, and worsens the heat between your thighs.

“And you think I don't hear you in the common room, complaining to the others about my training methods—it's like you're begging to be put in your place.”

“I haven't sai-” You begin frantically explaining, but quickly stop as he hits the gun against your chin, a clear sign to remind you who's in control.

“I suggest you shut the fuck up.” He stares into your eyes with the intensity of a hungry wolf. You expect that sort of raw intensity from him, but you are never prepared for it. You can see the conflict in his mind, in his eyes—you can almost feel what he's thinking. Furthermore, you can sense the war going on in his head; you are fighting the exact same one in yours.

“You know—in war, the good people get eaten.” He starts, enigmatically.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what happens to the smart people?” He asks, almost expecting you to give the wrong answer, his demeanor remaining slightly degrading.

“They survive?” You ask, unsure of what he's trying to say.

“They go bad.”

You look at him, confused. His words sound almost apocalyptic. You're trying to figure out what he means by them… does he mean that he's gone bad? Maybe that you should go bad? What does going bad even mean?

“Which one are you, little Bambi?”

“Smart.”

“Wrong answer.” He throws the gun on the floor, the safety remaining off, but you have no time to think about gun safety right now— as he begins to forcefully unbuckle his black, leather belt, you can't help but feel all your senses heightened, intensely pumping through your body. You can feel the heat rising up your chest, over your throat, into your cheeks and ears, turning them undoubtably red. You can hear the broken clock on the wall tick sporadically, in a completely unorganized manner. The sound of his belt buckle flying open almost hurts your ears. You imagine this is what rabbits feel, in that small window of time, right before they get eaten, when they feel the fox's eyes on them, lurking somewhere in the dangerous night. You look up into his eyes, pleading with your gaze, but you are met with a look that could almost be mixed up with sympathy. He looks like a disappointed teacher, handing you a test with a failed grade, knowing that he's the one who failed you, but displays a fake, degrading sympathy in his eyes.

He takes his cock out of his black cargo pants, it looks almost intimidating. You can't see his mouth, but you swear he's smiling a sadistic smile under his mask. He wraps his big, warm hand, into your hair, where your occiput meets the back of your neck, and he pulls your head back— the motion stings, but it brings your attention to him, away from your thoughts. When he sees you've returned from inside your head, to the current moment, he pushes your head forward. Instinctively, you open your mouth, almost inviting him in— he stuffs his rock-hard cock into your mouth, with little regard for your feelings.

“See, you're too good for war, Bambi.” He remarks, his voice soft, you can feel the patronizing tone pierce through you and hit the warm spot between your legs like lighting. You try to answer him, but your mouth lets out a small, pathetic moan, as he pushes himself further into your throat, making your eyes tear up.

“A smart girl would've never come into a dark shooting range with a dangerous man. You're too good, and you're too dumb— that's why you get eaten alive.” His words remain condescending, degrading, but his voice keeps a calm, soft tone, which contrary to what you'd hope it would do, turns you on like nothing you've ever experienced before.

Finally, he pulls you off his cock. You gasp for air, confused as to why he would stop before he finished— but it gives you an eerie sensation that there's more to come. And while you wish you could hate this, while you wish you could call him an absolute creep and report him to someone… you were smart. You had come into this dark room with this dangerous man, with full awareness and a calculated plan. You saw how he looked at your pleading eyes when he made you train until failure. Furthermore, you saw the bulge in his pants when in late night combat sessions he got you under him, and you looked like a scared rabbit. When you started in his unit, a while ago— you gathered that the best way to survive, was to play into the naive role, in reality, you were exceptionally smart, top of your class. But they didn't need to know that. Every single time Ghost talked down on you, you felt like you had the control, you'd made the decision to act dumb, to get him to lose control ever so slightly, because he gave into his anger.

Much to your avail, he turns around, going to fetch something out of the gun range closet. Dumb move, because when he was turned away from you, you grabbed the gun off the floor, making a quick, uncalculated move. As he turns around, he sees you nowhere, despite being a tough military officer, he feels a slight eeriness about not seeing you… like in horror movies, when the innocent kid starts acting odd and eventually kills everyone. He stands still, looking around the pitch black room as best as he can, until he feels the cold nozzle of a pistol on his mid back. He turns to face you, with a blank expression, and you see the rope in his hands.

“The smart people go bad, no?” You smile a wicked grin, you have the control now… and you want him to know it.

“Drop the rope and get on the floor.”

You thought he'd resist, that he'd fight the gun off your hands— but he just lays down on the cold concrete, and supports his head on his hands, and smiles at you, a smile proposing a challenge. You keep the gun in your hand, as you make your way on top of him, straddling him.

“What's your big, smart plan now, Bambi?” He says, with an annoying amount of confidence painting his words.

You bend down on top of him, and push your lips against his, like you want to devour him. His lips feel surprisingly soft, and you can still taste the faint residue of coffee and cigarettes on his tongue. He doesn't fight for dominance, instead, he sort of submits to the kiss, letting you take the lead. You feel like you've won the game, until his hips come crashing into yours, his bulge pressing against your most sensitive spot. His mouth opens and leaves his ever so slightly, and you don't notice the gun falling out of your hand. With the newly gained advantage, Ghost pushes his tongue into your mouth, starting the long overdue war for dominance. You try to fight it, trying to gain back the small amount of control you crave— but he turns you around with ease, until he has you on your back. He's straddling you with knees on both sides of you, and his hands holding your arms tightly on both sides of your head. You're trapped again.

He doesn't waste time taunting you, he's done playing the game. Hastily, his hands leave their bruising grip on your wrists and find the button of your pants. He moves quickly and removes your pants with a sense of urgency— you don't try to stop him, you leave your hands laying where he's been holding them, and you let him remove your pants, and then your underwear. His finger finds a spot very close to your most sensitive one, but it doesn't hit the spot you need it to. He continues this torture for a while, until he stops completely and looks at you.

“No attempts to stop this? No fighting?” He questions. You never took him for this clueless. You move your hand to his, and grab it, bringing his entire hand to your throbbing center, and forcing him to please you. With a breathy voice, you say.

“Just shut the fuck up and fuck me.”

He doesn't need another word from you, as he spreads your thighs open with force, and pushes himself into you— giving you no time to get used to his size. With no warning, he starts pumping into you relentlessly, keeping up a torturous pace you thought was only possible in porn. When you open your mouth slightly, to complain or to moan, you're not sure. He stops you, wrapping his veiny hand around your throat, in an attempt to show you who's actually in control. It only makes you wetter, you like having him so desperate for control, that he would choke his own soldier— you think it only makes him seem weaker. When he loses himself like this, it's you that gains the upper hand.

“You're never telling anyone about this.” He says, through desperate pants. His hand on your throat tightens ever so slightly.

“Wouldn't want you to get fired, perv.” You shoot him a snarky remark, trying to sound confident— but the whimpers in between every word make you sound more like a pathetic adolescent. His lips latch onto your neck, biting it so intensely, his sharp canine teeth pull a little blood. You love the contrast between pain and pleasure, and feel your orgasm building up. He can feel it too.

“Try to make a smart comment now, I dare you.” He bullies, and you try to say something smart, or just something, anything— but what comes out of your mouth is a deep guttural, animalistic moan, as your orgasm washes over you.

He begins to laugh in a low tone, in between groans, as he pulls out of you, and releases his cum onto your lower stomach. It would feel degrading and dehumanizing, if you weren't just fucked out of your mind. With a weak, breathy voice, you manage to say.

“I hate you.”

He laughs.

“Sure seems like it, Bambi.”

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linkcharacter · 1 day ago

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Love the difference from how Jimmy rejects the pills aggressively while it’s implied in canon Curly just tries to keep his mouth closed rather than hurt anyone. I also love how Curly thanks Jimmy for letting him help vs Jimmy complaining that he had to in canon despite never really being an asked more than once and talks down to Curly.

It’s an interesting difference in how they both take the duty from Anya where Curly is def trying to salivate her of having to take care of Jimmy due to every pre-crash and the guilt but also because that is his friend still. Just comparing it to Jimmy who only does it cause he needs to feel useful and asserting himself as more capable than Anya.

I know you likely wanna keep it vague or open to interpretation but since Curly acknowledged the pills aren’t doing much for Jimmy do you think he’s genuinely doing it just cause it does something even if little for Jimmy or to ease his mind? Sort of like how the crew mainly gives Curly his pills to keep him quiet and more so how Jimmy does it cause Curly’s sobs def mess with his crippling repressed feelings of guilt.

Very interesting how it differs. Also love how you still didn’t show the actual feeding of the pill

Oh yes the differences :) The whole time I was making the comic the 2nd audio of Jimmy feeding Curly the pills kept spinning in my brain. And yes, I didn't show the actual pill feeding, the game doesn't show it visually, so I didn't think there was a reason to do it here.

You are correct, I would like to keep it vague. It's interesting how you interpreted Curly's comment on the pills as just him thinking they aren't doing much for Jimmy, and I'm not saying it's wrong, but I see (and put) a couple of different meanings for his thoughts' text, all of which are valid, this one included.

As to why Curly gives him the pills, I'd say it can be both reasons at once. Curly does want to help, but he also wants to feel like he's helping. The thing about Curly is that he prioritizes doing what his own sense of righteousness dictates as doing the right thing, whether or not it's a smart or a helpful decision or not. Like how he decided to tell the crew about them losing their jobs. It wasn't a smart nor a productive decision, all it did was make the crew stressed and brought the morale down for the rest of the 8 months they were supposed to haul. But it was what Curly saw as 'what a good person would do', 'what a friend would do', that he "can't keep this form them all" because it gnawed on his conscience. He didn't consider consequences of telling upsetting news to his crew, or if he did, they didn't outweigh the importance to do right by his crew to Curly. To him it was the 'less scummy' way to go about it, the one that didn't leave Curly feeling like a bad person for "deceiving" his friends. But he means well at the end of the day too, he doesn't want his friends to feel betrayed, feel like they've been kept in the dark. He doesn't want to use his special treatment as a Captain while his subordinates are worse off than him.

And here with Jimmy, Curly wants to do his best to ease whatever pain his friend is in, but he also doesn't want to force him into anything because that would make Curly feel like he's undermining Jimmy's autonomy, whether or not Jimmy by himself would make a decision on medical treatment that was 'best for him', and whether or not the pills do jack shit at all. Curly tries to do good by everyone, because he genuinely wants to help and because he feels that doing a helpful thing is what he 'should' do. Curly's a complicated guy and it all comes down to what you personally consider as 'genuine want to help' and whether or not, to you, the actions a person takes matter more than the intentions behind them.

Thank you for your comments, as always very discussion engaging, I love it!!

#ah how i love curly mouthwashing #jimblasted au #chat should I start tagging my essays because I feel like I should #asks #mouthwashing #curly mouthwashing

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legalandnotease · 8 hours ago

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OK, you got me started.

Maybe you didn't know that. Maybe you honestly had no idea that you were saying something that is a direct attack against people who have gone through the exact mental illnesses Tony had and recognize his struggles as their own.

I have PTSD and depression and let me tell you something straight from the start.

Tony Stark does not represent me or anybody like me. Lose this ridiculous idea that Tony Stark has PTSD. He doesn't. He displays zero symptoms of PTSD.

He has anxiety at best, and is probably a narcissist. Yes, his actions and behaviour are very consistent with Covert Narcissism.

His "fear of loss" is the fear of abandonment, of no longer being able to control those around him.

His "my way or the highway" mentality, his inability to listen to or trust others, his paranoia and inability to accept responsibility.

All are massively consistent with narcissism.

...and before the Tony fans shriek, guess what the main cause of narcissism is? Childhood neglect. QUELLE SURPRISE! That said... His daddy being nasty to him does not absolve him being outright abusive to others. That is the excuse real life abusers use btw.

Whatever he has though: let us stop right now blaming mental health for Tony Stark's shitty actions. The idea that "trauma" absolves him is a harmful and dangerous idea which perpetuates negative stereotypes about mental health.

The sheer amount destructive and harmful things Tony does which cause mass death is what prevents him from being "representation" for mental health.

If Tony was anybody else... nobody would be saying he should not take responsibility for things which actively hurt and killed others because *muh trauma*.

Name a time when Tony was in a safe place to heal. I'll wait.

Every time he retired. He retires MULTIPLE times in between moves. Between Iron Man II and Avengers?

2 years.

Between Avengers and Age of Ultron

3 years.

Between AoU and Civil War

1 year

Between CW and IW

2 years

Between CW and Endgame

5 years.

That is a total of 13 years. Tony had 13 years of relative peace and quiet in which to get some self care and healing.

Compare that to Bucky who is confirmed as having PTSD and gets the sum total of 2 years to recover from 70 years of torture abuse, brain damage, trauma guilt and self-hatred. With NO support network. Unlike Tony, who had various people to support him. And Bucky has to contend with a fuckton of victim-blaming that Tony never did.

You literally just ignored the first part of OP's post, in which they noted that people constantly ignore Wanda's and Bruce's parts in Ultron.

These are excuses designed to absolve Tony of his responsibility for Ultron. Wanda did not mind control him: she gave him a vision.A vision he did not have to act opon. He chose to.

Tony was acting of his own free will and with his own agency the entire time. So was Bruce. This is why people blame Tony.

Unlike say,,,, hmmm I dunno Bucky who was literally mind controlled and had the very capacity for free choice and agency taken away from him, who was literally forced and tortured into doing things.... Tony was making a choice

(But isn't it WEIRD how people- usually Tony Fans) still insist on blaming an actual mind control and torture victim for his actions on the ground that "his body did it" - whilst trying to absolve the guy who was not mind controlled and had full bodily autonomy because "muh good intentions" and "muh trauma"

Yes, that's called victim-blaming.

You ignored how OP pointed out that the illegal arms dealing was Stane's actions, not Tony's, and that Tony shut it down as soon as he learned of it, saying "there are lines we don't cross.

Except... that's not what happened. Tony ran the company for 17 years as an adult. In all that time you're telling me he didn't notice his own stock going missing? He didn't notice the protests against his weapons being used on civilians in places like Sokovia?

The fact that it was only when he realized they were being used on *American soldiers* that he considered the line to have been crossed speaks volumes about Tony.

If he took drugs that were stopping him from doing his job as a CEO that is on him, not anybody else. Just like if somebody took drugs and decided to drive a car, you would not blame the car or the drugs.

Would Wanda not have attacked Tony's mind, then?

Since Tony was alreasdy planning to build Ultron even before he met Wanda, this bascailly makes no difference, but carry on.

Would Nick Fury and Black Widow have suddenly left him alone? Would he not have been dying from palladium poisoning?

How are Nick Fury and Natasha responsible for the stupid and reckless things Tony did when he thought he was dying. Did they make him do them? No. Thought not.

Would he have been able to suddenly change the route his company was taking without his friends turning their backs on him (which they did at first) and Stane trying to kill him?

Actually, yes. He's was the CEO, for goodness sake. He was also a grown-ass 38-year-old man, not a little kid.

You know he could in that capacity just fire Stane right? Right? As soon as he had evidence for his activities he could fire him on the spot? That's what CEOs can do? He could fire the whole Board of Directors if he wanted to.

But even if! Even if he went to therapy! Do you think therapy is a magical cure-all? Do you think people who go to therapy for PTSD suddenly don't have panic attacks anymore? That they don't get triggered, or fall back into their personal hells, or have days where they regress to who they'd been before therapy because healing isn't a straight line?

OK. Let;s talk about PTSD triggers.

People who are triggered may go into "fight or flight" mode. They may freeze. They may lash out. They may start having flashbacks. They may become depressed. They may become withdrawn.

What they do not do is take a highly dangerous object and use it to build abother hightly dangerous object despite warnings that it might be dangerous.

What they do not do is attack helpless unarmed people for 10 minutes with multiple weapons, pinning them against walls and attempting to blow their heads off.

What they do not do is ignore clear evidence for **years** of theft in their company, and ignore evidece their stock is falling into the wrong hands.

Nothing *repeat* NOTHING Tony does in the movies can be put down to him just being triggered. Blaming PTSD for Tony's violent and deliberately reckless actions is vile.

Honestly, shame on you for talking about therapy as if it's the cure-all for the world, as if every single problem life throws at people becomes butterflies and rainbows the instant a person talks to a professional about it all. As if Tony was The Main Problem of the MCU, and his capital sin was in not booking an appointment with a psychologist.

No, SHAME ON YOU.

People already think mental illness is an excuse for bad behaviour and Tony Stans are making this far worse with using conditions like mine as an excuse for everything Tony does.

Whether it be sexually harassing women

Building a murderbot

grooming and blackmailing a teenager,

or trying to murder an abuse victim in cold blood because he was upset about his disgusting daddy being killed.

How many people here, in real life, have mocked and derided Tony Stark as a character because he's a cis straight rich white man?

Let me tell you this right now.

Nobody would make excuses for Tony's actions the way they do if he was not a rich white male.

Just like in real life Tony can get away with things that anybody else would be thrown in jail for because he has money and connections.

Do you really think that poor people can get away with murder like Tony on the ground of abuse or trauma? No. They can't. They also can't get support or therapy. THEY will be persecuted and prosecuted, even for things they were driven to by desperation.

I am going to compare him to Bucky Barnes, fandom's favourite punchbag again because it illustrates this well.

One is working- class from a poor immigrant background who never had the power to say "no" or refuse to do what the high-ups told him. He was conscripted into into the army: if he refused to join up he'd have been imprisoned or worse.

He gets captured, experimented on, tortured, mutilated it, has his "brain put into a blender" and is forced to kill against his will?

What is the reaction? "He's still to blame. He chose to join up, he chose to go on that mission.... he could have escaped, he could have said no...."

Or "his body did it" as is the favourite excuse of Tony fans who want to entirely ignore the fact he had no control, autonomy or choice.

The other is a rich, priveleged guy with inherited money who had the best of everything. He is fully able to tell the government to go screw themselves, to refuse to do what he is told, and to buy his way out of any trouble he might get into.

He *chooses* to to drug himself into oblivion and drink himself silly when there are other options available. He chooses to do reckless things. He chooses to ignore the problems in his company. He chooses to go along with it because alternative is too hard.

He chooses to break multiple laws because his girlfriend is kidnapped. He chooses to mess with a highly dangerous supernatural artefact because he fears loss. He chooses to ignore advice, and people die. Over and over and over again because of his reckless actions and bad choices.

The reaction? "Its not his fault, he was manipulated" "its not his fault, he meant well!" "its not his fault, he's just trying to protect the people he loved"/

Its not about shaming: it is just a simple fact that rich white people can and do get away with the most henious things imaginable because of who they are. If Tony was poor like Bucky or black or Asian he would not be able to.

everyone always focuses on Sokovia and Ultron and Tony's involvement but no one ever thinks about how Bruce was also involved completely because they're both scientists. no one thinks about Wanda purposefully going in and digging in Tony's head, amplifying his PTSD and putting visions of all his friends dead in his head with the intent of making Tony create Ultron

Everyone always focuses on blaming Tony for the bomb that killed Wanda's parents but no one thinks about Tony being so shit faced he couldn't see straight at that time bec he was so deep in self-medicating his trauma that he could not even run his company and that it was Obidiah Stane that was the one in charge of the company and illegally selling the weapons that killed her parents

Everyone focuses on Tony selling weapons in the first movie but no one thinks about how it was Howard Starks company and that Tony was groomed from birth to run it and that he had tried multiple times to make something else of the company but was constantly shut down with guilt tripping until he was kidnapped and he forced the manufacturing to end

Everyone focuses on Tony being "conceited" and "arrogant" and not "caring about anyone but himself" but no one thinks about how every single action he makes in his movies are about protecting the people he loves and cares for. His biggest fear is his friends- not himself- dying. he goes into every battle he's in fully prepared to die and does make the sacrifice play many many times

everyone always focuses on what Tony did wrong, but no one thinks about how much he has grown and how he spends every single waking moment trying to be a better and better man who cares so deeply about everyone and is trying to protect everyone the only way he knows how- and that is with the brain and intellect that had been the only thing about Tony that was ever praised about

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