#it’s not as cracking like it was back in 2012 but hey beats every other social media

[skee-dizzle]

It's my 2 year anniversary on Tumblr and I get no bitches!

[pocketfulofrogers]

To Outlive the Devil

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader

Summary: A good save and a case practically solved leads to intelligence almost losing one of their own. Can you get out before it’s too late?

Notes: Canon violence, nothing worse than a typically dark episode. This is a past and present cut together story and it’s just shy of 4k. 

Now

Your bleary eyes open up to a cold and damp bedroom. An abandoned… apartment? The peeling wallpaper had given way to yellow stained drywall. From the small window on your left, it appeared as if you were several stories in the air, but there were no distinguishable landmarks that told you if you were even still in Chicago.

As you begin to come to your senses more, you feel the thick rope tied around your wrists and ankles. The rough material burns against you skin and you notice you already have sores.

How long have I been here?

Your memory is fuzzy and your head throbbed violently. It isn’t until you shift uncomfortably that you realize it’s a heavy metal chair you’re tied to.

Slowly your body begins to pick up on the danger your muddled brain had managed to identify and your pulse begins to quicken. As much as you try, your heartbeat continues to pound in your head as you try to twist your arms free.

The pain that responds is only a small price to pay for even the chance of freedom. Desperately, you continue to twist and pull until one of the knots manages to loosen up enough for you to squeeze your hand out. It’s just a short sprint to the front door in front of you.

You will your frozen fingers to work faster as you pinch and tear at each knot and then internally scream at your stiff muscles to carry you forward just a little bit more.

When your hand reaches the doorknob and it isn’t locked, relief floods your system. But when you’re able to wrench the door open, the person behind the door barely registers in your mind before everything goes black once again.

Then

Jay leans against his fist on his desk and tries to keep his frustration at bay. They’d been at this for two days straight and had been on the case for the last three months. “That’s two bodies in as many weeks. Is no one else starting to think…”

“That maybe hunting Chicago’s very own Criminal Minds level serial killer couple is out of our depth?” You interrupt, tilting your head towards him. “Doubt it.”

In fact, over the last two weeks, it’s the only thing you could think about. A younger woman named Madison roped, at least you were hoping she wasn’t a willing participant, into a horrific and violent life by a man you had yet to learn the identity of. You’d spent many nights pacing your bedroom, ranting and theorizing to Jay when all he wanted was just a bit of sleep.

The further you dove into it, however, the less hopeful you became for a quick arrest.

Voight had about ripped your head off when you suggested passing the case to the FBI and got to hear the ‘this is our city’ speech once again. But the truth was you were running out of ideas, running out of leads to chase down the rabbit hole, and running out of time.

“I hate to say it, but Voight’s right.” Antonio almost looks pained, but he continues on before you can question him. “The first time these two surfaced five years ago, CPD went full force. They shut it all down, had every uniform pulling overtime, and tried to smoke them out. Instead, it scared them into hiding.”

“Five girls in three months, Dawson, they’re escalating.” You take a breath before looking him in the eyes. “I can’t keep notifying parents.” There’s a certain pang in your voice only those who have had to watch a parent’s life crumble around them can hear. Jay reaches out to squeeze your forearm for just a bit of comfort and you run your fingers over his.

It’s enough.

“Then we end this.” Voight’s eyeing you, sympathetic to where you’re coming from, but not willing to give up yet. ��Let’s find these monsters and make them pay.”

Pinching the bridge of your nose, you nod and turn to Adam. “Ok, let’s go over everything together, see if we can find something we missed.”

“Since it’s all we have, let’s revisit the address on Madison’s unemployment file.” Jay suggests.

Adam looks confused. “The house was condemned last year, torn down in the spring.”

“I know, but what about the name on the house, did anyone look into it?”

“Figured it was a stolen identity.” Kevin pipes up. “Clara Knight, died in 2012 of a heart attack at 66. No other properties in her name.”

“Knight?” Mouse perks up and starts shifting through his files. “I found a few erased emails from a Robert Knight, but I couldn’t find any relation or connection.”

Adam is already typing ferociously. “Got a death certificate for a Robert Knight, 68, died a few months ago. Seems like the guy barely existed.”

“Any children?”

“A daughter.” His face is grim. “Murdered in 99, she was 16.”

The hairs on the back of your neck prickle. “Pull up a picture of her.” You don’t need to see it to confirm what you already feared, but still the image of her face churns your stomach. A beautiful blonde girl with the hope of the whole world in her smile. “He’s been at this a lot longer than anyone thought.”

“Any property still in his name?” Voight asks.

Anxiety rippling through your chest, it feels like an eternity before Mouse nods. “His nephew Isaac put his house in Roseland on a tax form.”

Now

When you come to, the first thing you notice is that your restraints have been changed to zip ties and for a moment you’re concerned about your circulation. You’re worry is cut short by the cup of water on a table to your right, the plastic straw close enough for you to reach it.

The sudden realization of the searing pain in your throat and the cracked skin on your lips lets you know it’s probably been about two days. It’s the dryness of your tongue that overrides every single rational thought of concern that maybe the glass beside you isn’t safe to drink. But, fifteen minutes pass with no incident so whoever it is probably wants to keep you alive.

The thought sends ice down your back.

Alive for what?

“What do you want from me?” You scream into the empty apartment.

Then

“We need a vacation after this.” Jay declares as he leans the seat of the car back a little. “Somewhere warm with water so I can look at you in a tiny bathing suit all day.”

You roll your eyes, but he doesn’t miss the small smile you give before bringing the binoculars up again. “We’ll see what we can do about that.”

“Hey lovebirds.” Adam calls over the radio from the car down the street from yours. “Have you seen anything yet or are you too busy staring into each other’s eyes again?”

It’s Jay’s turn to roll his eyes. “Didn’t you just take your third piss break?”

“Hydration is very important.” He defends.

“I told him to wear the diapers.” Alvin adds. Adam tries to defend himself, but you can barely hear him over Kevin’s laughter next to him.

Just then, out of the corner of your eye, you see the movement of a curtain, the flash of blonde hair, and the air shifts. Jay immediately catches the tense set of your shoulders and starts asking questions.

“They’ve got a girl up there.” You tell him through gritted teeth.

“Are you sure? I didn’t see anything.”

You nod and get out of the car despite the hushed protests from Jay as he follows you. To do what? You weren’t sure yet but you had felt so powerless these last few months that maybe you weren’t being the most rational right now.

The curtain moves again and, rather than getting caught, you quickly spin around and push Jay against the car before crashing your lips to his. Other than a noise of shock sounding from the back of his throat, he doesn’t miss a beat.

“North corner window.” You mumble against his lips and slide your hands up his chest, tilting your head to the side to give him a better angle.

When he pulls away, he brings his phone up and looks you in the eye. “We’ve got confirmation on the nephew Isaac, but he’s got another girl up there. If we bust in, he might get spooked and hurt her.”

It’s quiet longer than either of you would like.

“What should we do, boss?” Adam asks for you.

“Do you think you can get in quietly?” Voight asks.

Jay waits for your nod. “We’re on it. Going silent.”

Picking the lock was nothing. Sneaking around a house you know nothing about except for a quick glance at a blueprint from 2005 was the difficult part. Jay splits the two of you up, sending you upstairs while he clears the lower level. Circumstance didn’t allow you the option to argue with him that splitting up in a situation like this is the worst thing to do.

He was your partner and it was your job to always have his back, as difficult as he makes it, but he’s rounded a corner into the living room before you get the chance to cuff him to you.

Your breath catches in your throat when a step on the stairs creak, but you keep moving until you find a girl in the second room you clear. She’s blind folded with on leg tied to the bed. She tenses when you approach, but relaxes once you’ve gotten close enough to whisper who you are.

“Tracey.” She says he name with a whimper and your heart breaks as you cut the rope and take off her blindfold.

When she sees you’re really who you say you are, she throws herself into your arms and begins to cry. There’s nothing more you want to do than to sit here and comfort her, but your ears picks up on a man’s voice you don’t recognize.

“Ok, Tracey, I know you’re so scared, and I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, but I need you to be brave a little longer.” You pull back and look her in the eyes. “My partner and I came in here alone. I need you to tell me where the man and woman who took you are.”

She nods. “I don’t know where she went, she left a while ago. He’s here, downstairs I think, in his office.”

There’s a crash downstairs, the sound of broken glass and your blood runs cold. Immediately, you look for any other way out, but there’s nothing. No balcony, no window, nothing. Voight’s on the radio already, but you silence him.

“Stay directly behind me.” There’s a kind of urgency in your voice that puts her even more on edge.

Creeping down the stairs, you can hear Jay struggling in the kitchen, but it sounds like he’s holding his own.

“Bringing the girl out.” You whisper into your radio and glance back at Tracey. “As soon as we get down, I want you to run to the door. Do not stop. When you get across the street there are people who will help you.” She nods but she looks terrified. “I swear I won’t let him get anywhere near you.”

It’s the door opening that alerts Isaac that something else is going on. You round the corner with your gun drawn and the scene before you makes your knees weak.

Jay is bruised and cut up, struggling against the man behind him, the arm around his neck, the gun pointed at his head.

“She said you were cops, but I told her she was paranoid.” Isaac snarls.

“Madison? Is she here?” You ask, your voice as level as your gun trained on his head. Voight is yelling over the radio, but you tune him out. “I’d love to meet her.”

He snickers and smiles wickedly. “Even if she could be caught, neither of you will be alive long enough to see it.”

He only manages a twitch before you pull the trigger and land a shot right between his eyes.

Jay falls forward, breathing heavy and you rush towards him. “Jay’s hurt!” You call out when the door is broken down. Adam kicks the gun away from the obviously dead suspect and you let them handle the scene.

“Where does it hurt? Did you get hit? I told you it was stupid to split us up! How’s your breathing?” Your hands are frantically searching every inch of his body. He has to grab your hand and grip it tight in his to stop the assault of questions rapid firing from your lips.

He sits up with a groan and kisses your knuckles when he sees the panic on your face. “I’m okay. Because of you it’s just a few cuts and bruises.” He manages a smile and you almost cry right there.

Voight places a hand on your shoulder. “Tracey is on her way to Med. Medics said she’s going to be okay. We’ve got another bus on the way for you. Nice work you two.”

Now

The creak from the front door opening pulls you from a daze and you wince at the sunlight flooding the room. A blonde woman stands before you with a duffle in her left hand and a gun in her right.

She tilts her head to the side. “You’re still alive. What a shame.”

You struggle to focus your eyes from the concussion you’re assuming she must’ve given you. “Maddison.” You croak out. “What are you doing?”

She drops the duffle next to you and grips your hair to pull your head back, pushing the barrel of the gun into your temple.

“I’m going to make you suffer.” She hisses and roughly lets you go. “I tried to warn him that you were watching us, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Isaac?”

“Don’t say his name!” She screams and the sound cracks through your skull. “He told me to get some supplies, but when I cam back, I watched from the back window as you murdered him.”

You shake your head and try to reason with her. “Maddison, he was hurting people. He was going to kill my partner.”

“Partner.” She repeats sarcastically. “You mean Jay Halstead, your boyfriend of 3 years?” Maddison moves in front of you to revel in the fear that has filled your eyes and smiles sinisterly. “Yeah, I know who he is.”

You start quickly, the panic in your voice betraying the training you were struggling to hold onto. “If you want to kill me fine, do it. But don’t hurt him, Maddison. Please, he’s done nothing.”

She tsks as she opens the duffle and begins to pull out long metal pieces until finally, a long-barreled shot gun. “Why would I kill you when the alternative is so much better?”

You begin to struggle against the restraints as your mind starts to put together scenario after scenario of awful images. Maddison pays no mind to you begging and pleading to see reason. Instead, she pauses from building some contraption to walk over to you and jam a needle in your neck.

When you come too again, she’s sat casually in front of you. “I thought hitting you in the head again might actually kill you, and that’s not what I’m going for, so… you’re welcome.”

You glance around again and notice the barrel of the shotgun behind you just to the left of your shoulder. “Yeah, thanks.” You deadpan looking back at her. “What’s with the ‘Saw’ set up?”

She raises a brow. “Hold onto that strength while you can.” She points out the wires and hooks running along the floor and ceiling to trace it back to the door in front of you. “I used to be a STEM major. Did you know that?” She doesn’t stop long enough for you to respond. “Turns out I still remember a few things.”

You stare past her towards the door and then look quickly back to the gun, beginning to piece together her plan.

“Yes.” She coos. “It’s exactly what you’re thinking. The first person that opens that door, if he happens to be the right height, will get a life ending shot to the face. And I’d like to ask you what the chances are that anyone other than your boyfriend will be the first through the door.”

None.

For the first time you feel utterly defeated, hopeless. Madison watches closely, soaking in every moment of your anguish.

“Now you’ll know what it feels like.”

Then

You phone buzzes for the fourth time in the last hour. “Yes?”

“He’s actually insufferable, where are you?” Will speaks quickly, his tone seeping in irritation.

You laugh. “April already sent me out to get him food because he was whining so much. I am in route with a burger and some other stuff from his favorite place. Should be there in 15.”

“Thank god.” He says quietly. “Would you give it a rest? She’s 15 out with enough food to hopefully put you in a coma so I don’t have to.” You laugh as Will continues to yell at his brother.

“I almost died! Where’s your compassion?” You hear Jay yell back and only laugh harder

“You have ONE bruised rib and a concussion. I’ve seen high school football players handle worse with less complaining!”

“If it’s not so bad, why won’t you let me leave?!”

“I’m stepping up the pace, be there soon.” You laugh and hang up.

The Chicago night was chilly, but something else causes the hairs on the back of your neck begin to prickle. You don’t stop walking, don’t even pause a single step. Instead, you glance in a shop window and catch the reflection of a woman, a flash of blonde, not too far behind you.

Casually, you switch the bag of food to your other hand, but before you’re able to grab your gun, there’s a pinch in your neck and everything goes black.

Now

Jay had forced his way back to work sooner than anyone recommended. You’d been missing for 5 days. Disappeared with no trace other than your cell phone and a bag of cold diner food spilt on the sidewalk. If it were up to him, he would’ve been at his desk the moment 30 minutes hit and you weren’t there.

Alvin called two hours later telling him what they found and Adam and Antonio had to physically restrain him, Will almost sedated him. Voight promised him that they’d find you, and Jay knew they’d do everything they could, but he needed to be a part of the search.

“Did she have any enemies?” Alvin asks and he doesn’t flinch when Jay begins to laugh sarcastically.

“Any enemies? Do you hear yourself? She had tons. We all do. But let’s stop pretending like her being taken the day we closed that case isn’t connected.”

Alvin tries to sympathize with him. “We have to ask. You know the drill.”

He throws his hands up in exasperation. “Are you seriously going to treat this like any other missing person? It’s Y/N, Al! Y/N!”

“We know.” Voight says from his office door. “I made a few calls, Jay, we know where she is.” For a fraction of a second, Jay is frozen, but the thought of what you could be going through right now moves him. He’s grabbed his jacket and is in the car before anyone else has moved.

“I thought only the CIA had access to things like that.” Adam whispers lowly in the car into Kevin’s ear.

He shrugs. “Do think it’s out of the question that he’d break several constitutional laws to save any one of us?”

Adam sits back in his seat with pursed lips, nodding.

You struggle against the restraints long after Madison leaves you with only a gag in your mouth. The multiple cars pulling up and all the people shouting told you that you were running out of time. As of this very moment, you were locked into your fate of watching the man you loved die.

This was not an option.

The hard plastic digs into your ankles and wrists, your movements quickening with each door you hear them break down. You try to scream, to warn whoever was on this floor that there was a danger they couldn’t possibly see, but your muffled cries wouldn’t carry.

Tears soak the bandana shoved in in your mouth and you try to scream again.

No! Stop! It isn’t safe!

You hear Voight’s voice a few doors down and begin to try and rock the chair back and forth. It was considered heavy for a good day, and today was not that. Having not eaten or really moved in so long had left you weak and foggy. The adrenaline coursing through you veins only aiding a little in your efforts.

The sound of the front door breaking down sends a jolt of energy through you and you send yourself flying in front of the gun just as the bedroom door opens.

Jay raises his weapon at the sound before his brain can register what has happened. His wide eyes find yours just before you’ve hit the ground.

“Y/N!” He screams and rushes towards you. Frantic, shaky hands move quickly to remove the bandana and zip ties before applying pressure to your shoulder. “I need a medic!” He calls franticly over his shoulder, but when he turns back to you, he has to shut down the thought that you might not make it that long.

“You found me.” You try to say, but instead sputter blood onto your cheek.

“Oh, God.” He gasps. “You’re okay, you’re going to be fine.” But the more he says, the less you hear him.

“I love you.” You try to reach out to his face and graze his cheek, but your fingers won’t cooperate and only leave smudges of blood across his skin.

When your breathing starts to quicken and become more raged, he knows time is running out. So, in defiance of the orders and suggestions coming in through his ear piece, he lifts you up to cradle you to him and runs.

**

An annoying, incessant beeping is the only thing you can hear, but when you move to reach for it, a shooting pain stops you cold. You groan softly and pry your eyes open only to see both Will and Antonio hovering too close to your face.

Will starts to wave a flashlight in your eyes and you push him away. “When was the last time you guys brushed your teeth?”

Antonio chuckles softly and places his hand atop your head, his thumb brushing softly. “We got her.” He says quietly. “She couldn’t help herself. She stayed close to the scene to see the fallout and Kim caught her.”

Will nods his head towards Jay who was sleeping soundly in what you had to imagine was a very uncomfortable position. “We’ve been keeping an eye on him as well as you. Do you want me to wake him?”

You look back over at him and smile before turning back. “Better not. These are the last few moments of peace I’ll get for the next year at least. You would think someone would be a little more grateful towards you for saving their life, but I can already hear how mad he’s going to be.” Only a small part of you is joking.

“Well, I’ll get shot next time and we’ll see how you feel.” Jay’s sleep riddled voice carries from the corner, but he hasn’t opened his eyes yet. “I’ll give you an hour.” He adds before settling back in.

Now that’s the love of my life.

[popculturebuffet]

Quick Thoughts: Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl Reveal Trailer and Initial Roster

Whelp I didn’t expect to be doing another one of these so soon but welcome to quick thoughts where I give well quick thoughts on stuff instead of the longer form reviews I usually do. 

So as longtime or even short time readers of this blog might know I love NIck. I don’t review shows from it as often as Disney or Cartoon Network, but it was still a beloved part of my childhood and still makes great shows today such as the Loud House, Harvey Beaks and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It’s horribly mismanaged, which is why two of those shows are no longer with us and the last of them is weirdly missing from this game, and have a long and storied history of screwing things over.. and i’m not exagerating when Mr. Enter, no matter your opinon of him now, did a whole marathon of every nicktoon almost every entry included the fact the show had been screwed over in some way. 

But as anyone who knows my history with Disney will tell you just because I don’t sugarcoat a brand I like’s fuckups dosen’t mean they aren’t near and dear to me at the same time. I”m a grown up: I can have complex emotions towards a chlidren’s tv network. So I love it’s varied shows some of whom (Avatar, Harvey beaks again, Danny Phantom, Hey Arnold) are among my all time faviorites. 

Now something readers of my blog probably WOUDLN’T know is I love Nintendo, they have their own fuckups like weird release strageies and never doing a remotely decent discount like the competition, but their still a company I love and since I only play handhelds most of the time are my primary source of good shit. So naturally Smash Bros is my faviorite franchise of theres. I love the idea of fighting games but often struggle with the combo heavy nature. So Smash Bros, having a roster of some of my faviorite characters ever, a plaformer style control scheme, and a deceptivley simple style that’s easy to learn and fun to master with the right character, is my shit. Sure I won’t rush out to buy every dlc character, but you better belivie I played the hell out of Ultimate, will likely go back to it again some day, and did buy Banjo and Kazooie because fuck yeah. 

So yeah I needed to talk about Nick making their own smash bros clone. When I heard the rumors I wasn’t sure, mostly because Rumors can be just that.. but nope this game is happening and i’m all on board for it. This isn’t Nick’s first crossover rodeo in recent memory either also making a pair of Kart Racing Games: one I KINDA wanted to play till I looked at the roster, had a good laugh and lost that i want, and the other I really want to play as it seems like the first game if it were you know an actual game with a decent track selection, a deep character roster and an actual love of it’s properties. 

So making their own Smash Bros was a logical step and one i’m here for. We haven’t had any of the big cartoon networks make one since well.. Cartoon Network, and Nick has just a deep a bench to pull from, one that will hopefully get CN to get their cast to throw hands once more. 

For now though the idea of the vast history of nick all throwing hands with each other is amazing. Look i’m honest with myself: this looks like a decent smash clone,functional but nothing specail, but with the expressive character animation and solid roster you need for a game like this. I know going in i’m not going ot get Smash Ultimate quality of brawler, but i’m probably going to have fun with it. 

The only downside I see so far is , like the Kart Racers, theyd idn’t seem to get ANY voice actors for this which smacks of laziness, especially since most of the voice actors for these characters are still active, and in some cases like Spongebob or Loud House are still working with you. So you have no real excuse for this, shame on you.

But yeah the game looks good.. despite the trailer being pretty bad. It’s just some generic music set to “LOOK WHO WE GOT”. And granted look who they got is really spiffy and i’ll be diving into that in a second, but it dosen’t give any of these characters a reall chance to show off how they play or how awesome they are. It’s just a bland montage of whose in the roster in the same 2 or 3 stages. And when you have 15 stages overall to show off that’s not excusable. Again i’m not expecting Smash level quality revelas, this game dosen’t have the marketing budget, but you have a really great concept and roster here, you coudl’ve revealed it better and this game better. The Kart Racers 2 Trailer was also mildly bland but it did show off the game better, showing off several tracks and how VASTLY improved the roster was, so you CAN make a good trailer you just didn’t. It felt like they thought the poitn of all the smash reveals trailers was here’s a character and missed all the style and substance to them. 

That being said while the trailer was weak.. it was boyed by the fact this roster is REALLY damn good. Let’s face it I woudln’t even be talking about this game if the roster wasn’t this minty but they clearly learned from Kart Racers not to half ass it and while they learned the long lessons from Smash in how to promote the fighters they have, they learned the right lessons in having a nice mix of crowd pleasing faviorites for kids and vetrans alike along with a few deep cuts for said longtime fans. And this is JUST the intitial reveal roster: Given the Box Art isn’t out yet, I feel there’s more to come, especially since despite being perfect for the game there’s no one from the Avatarverse yet, but I also feel that Nick is saving that for a second trailer to announce the release date. But I can and will go into who i’d LIKE on the roster in another one of these sometime soon. -

Spongebob, Patrick and Sandy (SpongeBob Squarepants): I’m getting these three out of the way as their essentially to this what Mario and Co were to smash: necessary and inevitible.  As for who was chosen.. it was as obvious as putting spongebob himself int he game. Sponebob is Nick’s mascot, Patrick is nearly as iconic and Sandy is well loved as well as the spongebob character most associated with buttkicking. Being an expert martial artist is both part of her character and a cerntral part of her character and relationship with Spongebob. So yeah not a lot ot say here: it was ineivible but I don’t mind at all having grown up with them and with my niece and nibling being huge fans. 

87 Leo and 87 Mikey (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles): This one i’m mixed on. Not on the turtles being here: i’m a MASSIVE TMNT fan and i’td be stupid to leave them out since Nick Owns them, made the last two series, and they fit this kind of game like a glove, even having had their OWN smash clone to themselves once. 

No my issue is obviously in the version choseN: The 87 turtles. Again I have no beef with the guys themselves, I haven’t seen much of 87 but I want to and they look really gorgeous and nicely cartoony. It’s just a REALLY weird choice. The 87 turtles have never been on a nick network due to rights issues, have never been associated with nick, and aren’t the ones most kids of EITHER DEMO would be familiar with: Grown up fans of nicktoons from the 90′s like myself would be more familiar with 2003, and kids and teens from more recent eras would be more familiar with 2012 and rise, which REALLY should’ve been the rep. I mean their weird shame of rise bothers me enough on a good day but not using EITHER show you actually made bothers me, it bothers me a lot. I’ll still probably play Mikey, i’m not made of stone and as I said I have no beef with the 87 turtles, I just wish nick had used the others or hell just gone all lin and used one turtle from each cartoon. I mean if your going to use stuff you’ve barely aired why not give me some 2003 nostalgia too huh? Though it could just be that since, unlike the rise and 2012 turrtles the 87 turtles have the same body type and colors it was easier to just do all 4 and just give each unique facial expressions. Who knows... I knows it was probably that. 

Lincoln and Lucy Loud (The Loud House, Duh): Another pretty obvious one as The Loud House is currrently nick’s co-flagship show with spongebob. Still waiting for my diffrent world spinoff with Bobby and Lori guys. So yeah Lincoln isn’t a suprise and Lucy is only minorly one as it was a matter of “which sister”... and Lucy is one of the most popular. Neither really fit a combat setting.. but given this is a fun crossover game, that really dosen’t matter and in fact is kind of the fun: taking just the most insane matcchups imaginable and mashing them together. I mean this is a game where Lincoln and Lucy can beat up Leo and Mikey, why wouldn’t I want that kind of crack on my nintendo switch? I am hoping for Luna to make her way to the stage next as she was absent from Kart Racer 2 and would be really fun to play. Plus having ANOTHER bi fighter in the mix if korra gets in there would be awesome, let alone letting the two beat up or punch each other’s face. But again I could and probably will mak ea whole article about other possible fighters i’d want. 

The Plesant Suprises: Nigel Thornberry , Oblina and Powdered Toast Man (Wild Thronberries, Ahhh! Real MOnsters1 and Ren and Stimpy) : Yeah while only one of these cartoons was a faviorite as a kid (Wild Thornberries)... I have nothing but respect for these choices. One of the funnest things about Smash is while you can see some roster members coming sometimes you get utter curveballs like Mr. Game and Watch, Pirana Plant and MInecraft Guy. They also go for more cult franchises like SNK or Earthbound (the latter of which is fucking awesome localize mother 3 already dammit) too among the big heavies, making it feel like a true tapestry of Nintendo’s history. 

Nigel is the only one of these three that’s really obvious. He’s a meme, he was the best part of his show.. but it’s still just uniquely batshit to put NIGEL THRONBERRY in a fighting game. You better belivie he’ll be one of my mains. 

Oblina is more a suprise because I thought they’d go with Icket, but instead went wtih the character who was more popular and had a really unqiue and cool design, so i’m pleased as punch to have her. Finally while I don’t have any real attachment to ren and stimply apart from Log, and really it’s hard to gain any now knowing i’ts creator was a pedophile piece of shit, the franchise is still a cornerstone of nick history, the rest oc the crew didn’t abuse power or not make deadlines or be a com plete piece of shit, and powerded toast man is genuinely great. I”d love to see Really Big Man too, clash of the weird superheroes, I love me a weird as hell superhero. This also speaks promisingly that w’ell get some real weird curveballs to come and i’m here for it. 

The Rest: Helga, Zim, Danny and Reptar. (Hey Arnold, Invader Zim, Danny Phantom and Rugrats! ): Note i’m not lumping these together because their bad: their all graet nostalgic picks from timeless shows and with the rugreboot currently running on Paramount+, it’d be weird not to represent them. 

And since I brought it up reptar is a fun chocie, another oddball but one more understandable as no one wants to beat the shit out of a toddler. Or rather no one playing the game would care you could because it’s a silly fighting game and a 12 and 8 year old are also beat upable, but someone would probably throw a fit somewhere. Plus again it’s a game where you can have danny phantom fight reptar. Shut up and take my money. 

The rest are all great choices if ones I’m not suprised by: Hey Arnold’s an all time classic and being tough is a lot of Helga’s character, and again I can have her throw hands with nigel thornberry, reptar and a ninja turtle in the same match. Zim is another fan faviorite and fits the game like a glove and Danny Phantom is the one out of Nick’s three suprehero classics it actually still cares about so my boy getting in there isn’t a shocker, though his attacks lookw eird. Hopefully they green them up before the final prduct. 

So yeah overall it looks really promsing and really fun and i’ll probably check this game out if I get enough money when it comes out or more likely put it on my christmas list. But I will get it somehow this i swear.. speaking of which put manny in the roster dammit. If you liked this.. thing consider joining my patreon for a buck a month fo exclsuvie reviews and ot help me review tuca and bertie, amphibia and more as part of my memebership drive. 

[nights-legacy]

Swimmy Surprises-TMNT

-Reaction to S/O stripping down to go swimming while they’re on a hike.

 2012

Leo:

After Leo woke up from his coma, Y/N took it upon herself to help in his recovery. Even though he was at a point of frustration, she still helped. After the event with The Creep and their other adventures, he gets better but still needed to keep up his recovery. On a day where they were not really doing anything, Y/n suggested a slow hike. Leo agreed.

“You’re extra hyper today, babe.” Leo said as he watched Y/N skip ahead of him on the trail. She giggled and stopped. Turning her foot catch onto a root, resulting in her falling.

“Ah!” She landed and looked up at Leo pouting. He chuckled and made his way toward her. “That’s not funny. I could be seriously hurt!” She said crossing her arms.

“I’m sorry babe but you looked so cute, sitting there and pouting.” He lifted her up. “That I couldn’t help but chuckle. Are you alright?” She nodded and cracked a smile. They continued to walk until Leo stopped.

“What is it?” She looked around thinking there was some kind of threat nearby.

“A lake.” He said. “There’s a lake nearby. Somewhere in that direction.” He point just ahead of them and to the right. Y/N squealed and took off ahead. Leo chuckled and called for her to be careful before following after her at a steady pace.

“You know me. I’m always careful!” She called back. He broke through the tree line only to see Y/N Throwing off her over shirt. He smiled and leant back against a tree and watched as she took off her tank top and shorts as well. This was a normal thing for them. There were a couple of clean water spots in the sewers back home that she would randomly want go swimming in. So she would strip down to her underwear and ‘drag’ Leo with her.

“Enjoying the show, Leo?” He smirked. He pushed of the tree and walked toward the water as she walked in. “Swimming is great rehabilitation. Come on.” She waved him into the water.

“I don’t know.” He joked. She rolled her eyes.

“Please? We haven’t got to do much together for a while. I miss you.” She said softly. “And the guys shouldn’t bother us for a while either. So it can be just us.”

“Alright.” He said before taking off his gear and joining her in the water. She jumped happily. He made it to her and the water was up to their waists. He wrapped his arms around her and he set his forehead on hers.

“I was so scared when you wouldn’t wake up.” She whispered. He gulped and ran his hand through her hair.

“I’m here now. I’m okay.” He gave her a soft smile. She nodded, swallowing hard. “Come on. This may not be one of our swimming holes but I bet we could still have fun.” She smiled big and dove away from him. He followed her laughing.

Raph:

Y/N knew Raph needed a break. He not only had been worried immensely about Leo and had been holding the leader role while he was unconscious. Now that Leo was awake, he could step back. After he was turned back from the mutation with the Creep, her and Leo both agreed he needed a break and time where it was just them two.

“Come on Raph!” Y/N yelled. They were running through the woods, enjoying the nice day. The basically were playing Hide and Go seek tag. Except, Raph was playing more normally then he would with his brothers. Setting the ninja aside for a few hours.

“I’m gonna get ya’!” He yelled. He could hear her footsteps off in the distance. He took off in the direction he heard her. After a few minutes, he stopped because it went silent. He listened in and heard the faint sound of water.

“Hehe.” He heard a small giggle and walked that way. He stopped short after entering the clearing. There stood Y/N at the edge of the water shirtless and shoeless, working on the button of her pants.

“Y/N!” He yelped, surprised at her boldness. She looked up surprised at the outburst.

“What?” She asked innocently. She looked around, seeing the there was nothing wrong. “What’s wrong?”

“What are you doing taking all your clothes off?” He asked. This was unlike her, being so open. She normally is conservative in her clothing and actions. Never did anything to out there.

“Raph, it’s okay. No one’s out here.” She chuckled. Her jeans hit the ground. She walked up to him and closed his mouth. “It’s not like you haven’t seen me this bare before.” She joked before grabbing his hand. She pulled him forward.

“That’s true.” He stuttered. He followed her with tentative steps. He looked around, making sure no one was around. When he saw it was just them, he smirked. Her eyes widened.

“We never finished our game.” She bit her lip before running to the water. He was right behind before he tackled her into the water.

“Raph!” She screamed as they came back up. He laughed as he held her around the waist.

Donnie:

Donnie wanted to go survey the surrounding area of the farm in peace. So naturally he asked Y/N to go. She was excited and followed behind Donnie as he trekked through the woods. They were at it for a couple hours before Donnie completely stopped.

“Let’s take a break.” He said. Y/N groaned and dropped to the ground in dramatics. Donnie stood over her with an amused smile. “Are you having fun?”

“Yes.” She giggled and looked off to the side. She could barely see a glimmer of blue in the vegetation. “Donnie. I think there’s a lake. The rest there.” She got up and grabbed his hand. He followed her and saw she was right. He sat down as she ran to the water.

“Cute.” He muttered as he looked down at his findings. After a few minutes, he heard calling him again.

“Donnie, let’s go swimming!” He slowly tore his eyes away and looked up. Y/N stood there trying to dislodge her jeans from her ankles. He gulped and slowly got up.

“Wh-wh-what are you doing?” He stuttered. Y/N looked up at him and gulped. A blush came across her face as her shirt fell from her hand. She crossed her arms across her chest.

“I didn’t want to get all of my clothes wet so…” She smiled as he looked away and anywhere from her. They hadn’t done anything beyond making out so nothing where the clothes come off.

“Oh I see, umm. That makes sense…” He trailed off. Y/N took a big breath and walked over to him. She reached for his hand and his eyes snapped to look at her.

“It’s okay.” She soothed and tugged him forward. He tripped as he moved forward. He caught himself and chuckled nervously. He followed her to the water. He let go of her hand to take his gear off.

“Okay.” He said. She smiled and grabbed his hand again. This time, it was Donnie who led the way into the water.

Mikey:

The hike with Mikey was not planned in the least. Him and Y/N were in the yard training, dancing, and whatever else you could think of. His brothers and April were on the porch, relaxing. The hike only started when Mikey took off yelling ‘catch me!’ to his girlfriend as he entered the woods. She laughed and followed, hearing Leo yell for them to be careful and back before dark.

“Mikey! Slow down! I’m not a mad skills, quick, and slick ninja turtle, remember?” Y/N called out while stopping for a second to catch her breath. A thud next to her spooked her.

“Sorry, Y/N. Sometimes I forget.” Mikey sounded like a kicked puppy. Y/N smiled and hugged him.

“It’s okay, Mikey. I’m not upset. I just need to be able to catch my breath every now and again.” She told him. He hugged her back and she felt him smile against her hair.

“Come on. I saw neat looked lake from the tree tops.” He pulled away. He pulled her along at a moderate pace. “This way!” They ran for a bit before stopping. Mikey turned around, confused. “I swear it was this way.”

“Maybe it just seemed closer from up there.” Y/N said as she walked around, peeking through bushes. She moved some trees vines and saw water. “Mikey, I think I found it.” She yelled back. She ran through the vines and towards the water.

“Yeah buddy.” He said while running to the water. He kicked around and start skipping stones. Y/N smiled at her boyfriend. She looked around and saw that the beautiful oasis was totally secluded,

“Hey Mikey! How about we go swimming?” He whipped around to her, nodding his head rapidly. She laughed as he tripped out of the water to take off his gear. Y/N begins to take off her shorts and t-shirt.

“This is going to be sweet.” He exclaims. Y/N turned to look at him. He was bouncing in his spot. He looked at her excited. She shook her head chuckling. She tossed her shirt to the ground and kicked off her shoes.

“Are you coming?” She asked. He nodded and ran towards her. He picked her up and through her over his shoulder. He ran and jumped into the water without missing a beat.

“Ah! It’s cold!” She squeaked as she came to the surface. He came up a few seconds later. He grabbed her hips and pecked her lips. She chuckled and nuzzled his beak. “I’m surprised.”

“About what?” He asked curious.

“I stripped in front of you and you didn’t even comment. You didn’t even blush.”

“Come on, baby. It’s not like it’s the first time I have seen you in your underwear and bra before. So no reason to blush.” He said with a smirk. “Plus, who said anything about not commenting? You can’t read my thoughts.” He splashed her and dove away.

“Mikey!” She yelped and swam after her hyperactive turtle boyfriend.

[lokihzra]

My Heart’s On Fire For Your Love

Chapter 5: you're the sun and i'm the moon because when you rise i fall

May 16th, 2012

Loki was marching through the living room, on a mission clearly but Thor stops him, turning him around by his arm “brother you know you can not go back to Asgard” Thor reminds him in Norse, like it wasn’t overwhelming Lokis’s thoughts every day, he remembers the hatred in Odins eyes, but he doesn’t care.

“I want to go home Thor, I want to see mother, I need answers” Loki says desperately, making Thor frown and step closer only for Loki to step away.

”answers to what?” Loki’s expression hardens and Thor frowns even harder once he realizes “your blood family?”

Loki nods instantly. He wasn’t going to mention the soulmate thing, not to his brother. “ I need to know who I am ”

“you’re my brother” Thor says harshly “adopted and blood” Thor was so sure of it that Loki was envious, he wished he could still call himself Thor’s brother

“a cut and a sad excuse for a vow means nothing”

“Loki you can not go” Thor sighs “I’ll ask them to provide you with what you need, if you promise not to kill anyone while I’m gone” Thor sends him a look and Loki sighs while rolling his eyes.

He hates when Thor looks at him like that, like the older brother he tries so hard, and fails, to be “ I don’t like killing, i don’t find it enjoyable so remember that because next time I’ll throw you out the window too” Loki glares but it doesn’t affect Thor at all, not after a thousand years.

Thor nods “so do you agree?” he asks, switching back to english to hopefully distract Loki from him already inching towards the helipad.

“no” Loki spits instantly, Thor stopping dead in his tracks at Lokis cold tone “I need to do this on my own and it doesn’t involve you”

“brother-“

“you are gullible to their lies. I am not, you’ll take the first answer you get and I do not. Do you see the problem I’m having here?” Loki says quickly, not caring about the hurt in Thor’s eyes.

The hurt quickly shifts though “I don’t have a lie detector like you” Thor snarls

“no, you can control thunder and lightning, you’re the golden child , the firstborn and first picked” Loki saunters forward, Thor stands his ground “the stable brother, the kind brother, the one destined for the throne” Loki hisses quietly, centimetres between the brothers, so close that Loki can see the resolve breaking in thor’s head “the saviour of the nine realms , the hero” Thor’s gaze hardens, trying to hide his breath shaking and his fists clenching.

Loki asks lowly “and what am I?”

“my brot-“

Loki interrupts before he can even hear that bullshit again.“what more than that?”

“hey you guys-“ Natasha tries to interrupt as well but the brothers don’t hear her at all, they completely forgot about their audience.

“you are my brother”

“what more than that?” Loki roars and Thor flinches away from him, his breath getting caught in his throat at Loki’s sudden yelling.

“what do you want me to say Loki?”

Loki scans him for a moment “the truth”

Thor’s tongue starts moving without his permission, spitting out complete lies “you’re a frost giant, a monster loved by no one, a runt left to die, the bastard son of an affair, the outcast, the weird little brother, the pawn for war, the last choice, the villain” Thor tries so hard to stop himself literally slapping his hands over his mouth, biting his tongue but nothing works “the one born just to die”

The silence was suffocating, Thor felt like passing out as he sees Loki's eyes water over, Bruce and Steve staring in shock, Natasha and Tony looked like they were ready to freak out and Tony nearly does “what the fuck Thor?” Tony roars, but he blames it on his chest suddenly weighing a thousand pounds of pain, Loki’s pain.

”nonononono” Thor says quickly “he can make people lie or tell the truth, I didn’t- I don’t mean any of it- I did not want to say any of that-“

“I asked for the truth”

“that was your truth, not mine” Thor says without missing a beat “do it again and wish for my truth” Loki wants to, he really wants to know Thor’s true thoughts of him but he can’t bring himself to do it so instead he punches Thor in the face so hard that the skin over his knuckles break and a couple tiles of the marble floor crack with the force of Thor falling.

“what was that for?” Thor groans as he props himself up on his elbows, his cheek already bruising and turning a dark red.

“go to hel” Loki spits before walking away but as he walk by Thor the latter swings his arm and Loki falls flat on his face.

Tony flinches as his own ribs and head start throbbing in pain, the two men fighting on the floor distracting everyone from Tony holding his face in pain.

He can’t look up to watch as Thor hovers over Loki and starts throwing punches, he doesn’t need to look to know because he can feel it . “you guys-“ he stops as another hit causes a wave of pain to shoot through his nose.

“wait stop” Loki begs as he notices Tony hunched over but Thor doesn’t listen, hitting Loki again and making Tony groan in pain. “Thor fucking stop!” Loki yells as he catches Thors hands. “Tony?” Loki asks in concern as he watches the man stumble, catching himself against the couch and shaking his head lightly.

“I’m fine” Tony utters but his voice shakes as he blinks quickly, Loki’s concern morphs into guilt as Tony gulps and he fights to keep his eyes open.

“Tony?” Thor’s voice shakes as he quickly gets off of Loki and walks over to the billionaire. Good thing he does because Tony eyes close and he drops, Thor catching him just before he hits the ground.

“It appears that his heart is slowing down” JARVIS says and even he sounds concerned, without missing a beat Thor picks up Tony’s limp body walking by Loki and the other Avengers who are frozen in fear, but they quickly snap out of it and follow Thor into the elevator.

“JARVIS tell the doctor there’s an emergency” Natasha says and the last thing Loki hears before they disappear behind the elevator doors is JARVIS’ smart ass replying “I already have miss Romanoff”

Loki snaps out of it once he can hear the elevator head to one of the lower levels. He sighs loudly and he runs his hand through his hair, his heart beating 100 miles an hour the complete opposite of Tony’s condition and he immediately knows it’s the bond, the bond is doing something.

Maybe it’s from the fight, or maybe Tony’s mortal body is finally giving out. Either thought makes Loki sick.

“JARVIS I’m going to use my magic” he says and before the AI can reply he disappears in green and shows up on the medical floor, quickly heading down the hall and finding them in one of the rooms.

“what the fuck?” Clint whispers as the heart monitor Tony is connected to starts to beep slower when Loki walks in.

“Move” Loki demands pushing Steve aside and without hesitantly he hivers his hands over Tony’s chest, a green light extending from his hands and covering Tony like a blanket. He focuses as hard as he can, pushing back the that voice in his head screaming at him and only stops when the warmth running through his veins fades and he hears the heart monitor beeping steadier with every second.

You’re going to kill him.

“L, what does that stand for?” Clint asks with a frown as everyone looks at the mark on Tony’s wrist, Loki wants to fucking disappear but he just gave almost all his strength to Tony.

“Loki” Thor’s voice is low as he turns his attention to his brother sitting in the uncomfortable seat “that’s a soul mark” Thor states as he marches over to his brother and Loki doesn’t even bother reacting, he’s fucking tired. Thor stops in front of him and holds out a hand “I want to see your wrist”

“No” Loki spits and tucks his hand under his arm to protect his wrist

“give me your wrist” Thor demands lowly and when Loki starts to shake his head Thor grabs his arm. Loki pulls back making Thor step forward and Loki kicks him in the stomach so hard he hears Thor wheeze.

Instead of letting go Thor pulls Loki down with him, ignoring Steve and Bruce yelling at them to stop. Loki hits the ground with a thud and he feels his muscles ache as Thor pins his hands over his head “brother please don’t” Loki begs, too tired to fight back but of course Thor ignores him like he has for the past 1000 years and pulls his sleeve down revealing the mark.

Loki sighs as he sees Thor’s face drop, the colour draining from it and Loki closes his eyes. He pants as he catches his breath and he keeps his eyes closed because he’s fucking tired and he doesn’t want to see anyone’s reaction. Doesn’t want to see the disgust and fear.

“what the hell does this mean?” Loki hears Natasha ask from his left and even if he wanted to look at her he wouldn’t be able to, his eyes so heavy he would think there’s tiny mjolnirs holding them shut and he doesn’t feel a tear fall from his eye as he slips into darkness.

The first thing that clicked in his brain was that he needed water, his tongue was so dry, his lips cracked as he groaned and sat up only to freeze feeling all the tension in the room.

Loki was on the floor, Thor, Natasha and Steve standing near him while Bruce and Clint were standing at his bedside.

“nobody kissed me right?” he mutters only to have angry and shocked faces staring at him “what’d I do?”

Steve’s face turns cold “the mark on your wrist” Tony’s expression falls as he sees Steve look at his wrist, the mark hidden from their view thank jesus “why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“tell anyone what?” he asks innocently as he tears the wires off of his chest to avoid looking at anyone, he doesn’t want them to see his emotions.

“don’t do that not now Tony” Bruce nearly begs but Tony ignores him and jumps off the bed as he gets the last wire off, he couldn’t care for their worries or whatever they wanted to yell at him for.

“what happened?”

“your soulmate was draining your energy” Thor says lowly as he stares down at Loki.

“ah fuck” Tony grumbles and runs a hand down his face, his stomach churning and he has to repeat to himself don’t puke don’t puke don’t puke . Tony peeks through his fingers at Steve, Thor and Loki “so why is he conked out?” Tony asks, his hand dropping from his face and he ignores the pressure in his heart.

“He did something to help you” Thor says, still staring down at his brother.

“so you’re just going to leave him on the floor?” Tony hisses as he moves to help Loki “jesus you guys are assholes” he doesn’t know why he wants to help Loki, he likes helping people but this person is Loki.

Loki did help him though. Cared for him while everyone else didn’t, while they were sound asleep. Tony probably woke Loki up that night- No, Thor said that Loki sleeps during the day but, he hasn’t been, he’s been up and walking around.

“he didn’t tell-“ Steve tries to justify leaving Loki passed out on the floor like some lowlife drunk.

“I didn’t tell you either!” Tony roars making Steve and Natasha freeze, Thor looks impressed while Clint and Bruce look afraid?

Tony lets out a huff and walks over to Loki “Thor help me” Tony demands as he pulls Loki up by his arms and Loki's head falls back, Tony winces at the crack he hears but quickly forgets about it as Thor instantly is behind Loki, tucking his hands under Loki's arms and pulling him up to his feet.

“so what’d he do to help me?” Tony asks as he stands up. God Loki would not stop helping him and for what? What did Loki want?

Thor moves to one side so Tony could support the other as they bring Loki over to Tony’s previous spot on the gurney “probably gave you some of his strength, he passed out before I could ask”

Tony can’t help but ask “that isn’t dangerous?” it would fucking suck if Loki kicked the bucket before Tony could repay him for the help.

“it depends on how much of his strength he gave you”

“well how much?”

“never got to ask him” Bruce says as he moves out of the way, he did not want to be in Tony’s way when he was pissed off.

Tony groans as they finally get Loki on the gurney “all of you act like this is nothing” Tony grumbles.

“What?”

“my soul is going to bond with his and what happens if we don’t fall in love?” Tony asks nobody as he fixes Loki’s leg so it’s not hanging off the bed.

“No one knows” Thor says. How bad could it be? Thor has never heard of anyone dying because they don’t love their soulmate. But then again Thor has also never heard of soulmates that didn’t love each other.

“One of us will die” Tony says lowly “I almost just did and it’s only been three weeks so what happens in three months?”

“don’t talk like that” Steve spits.

“it’s not that hard to figure out cap”

“we’ll find a-“

“ It's our souls Rogers” Tony repeats slowly to get it into Steve's thick head “you wanna make a cure for soulmates? they can’t even cure HIV, how would you cure this?” fuck, Thor and Loki don’t even know what else the bond will do so how in the fuck are they supposed to whip up a cure for this? Tony could barely stop himself from dying a couple years ago.

“Tony” Steve breathes out, obviously not wanting Tony to think like that.

“just forget about it” Tony grumbles as he walks out the door. His mind set on a drink so he goes upstairs and drinks until he can’t anymore.

He was going to die anyways.

It’s what you have wanted for years. At least this way you’ll have a meaningful death.

[ear-monstrosities]

should've stayed, were there signs I ignored? (can I help you not to hurt anymore?) 1/1

Summary: Beca visits Chloe one last time

Rating: M

Notes: Title from One More Light- Linkin Park. SPOILER*** TW: Suicide TW: Car crash. first oneshot and its really fuckin sad, hope you enjoy :)

Read below or on AO3

REBLOG IF YOU ENJOY

****

Beca’s beaten up car pulled to a whining stop on the gravel road. The fragments crunched under the weight of her tires. She took in a deep, steadying breath and slowly got out of the car. She didn’t move for several minutes. Of course, she knew exactly where to go, but this was the first time she had seen her grave since she died. The old, dead grass crunched under her feet as she slowly walked up to the seemingly untouched headstone. She crouched down and ran her fingers along the smooth grooves in the stone.

”Hey Chlo” Beca started. “I brought some flowers for you. I also have the yellow cup with me. You know this is the first time I’ve been up here since... it happened. Don’t think that I love you any less because I couldn’t come up here. No, I just physically couldn’t. Couldn’t get out of bed. Couldn’t move. I was broken. It’s not your fault though. It’s mine.”

”I should’ve talked to you more. I should’ve paid attention to the little things. I should’ve loved you better than I did. Maybe then you would still be here. Maybe I should’ve done a better job to care for you. I could’ve stopped this. I never should’ve left you that day. I should’ve stayed home. Maybe we could watch a movie. Twilight marathon? I know how much you loved that movie. Maybe Harry Potter. I don’t know, it would’ve been your choice. I would’ve fallen asleep after about an hour anyways. No biggie.”

”Anyways, back on track. I just came to tell you how much I love and miss you. You know I never thought the afterlife was real. I thought we just died and that’s that. But if it gives me something to hold onto, I’m gonna believe today. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, Chloe. I still remember the first day.”

-2012-

 ”Hi, any interest in joining our a capella group?” The redhead smiled and handed Beca a flyer.

 ”Oh right, this is like a thing now” Beca stated, warily watching the girl across from her.

-Present Day-

Beca chuckled, a short, dry laugh. “I kinda regret acting like that, but 18 year old me was a bit of a bitch. Of course, you knew that, but you still put up with me. Of course you did. You’re Chloe. Chloe Beale. You’ll always be Beale to me. You put up with my shit when no one else did. I never realized how great you were to me until you left. I still remember every time we went out for ice cream at 2 am. I still remember the innocent touches in Bellas rehearsal. I remember it all. How could I forget?”

-2013-

 ”Beca, please?” Chloe drew out the ‘e’ and pouted.

 ”Alright, alright, fine. I’ll take you to go get ice cream.” Beca relented and Chloe wrapped her in a bear hug.

 ...

 “What kind do you want, Chlo?” Chloe stared at the case for a solid 3 minutes before finally shouting “Cookie dough!” Beca laughed and bought it for her.

 ”Gimme bite” Chloe demanded after they sat down.

 ”Why’d you make me buy Cookie Dough if you wanted my Cherry Blitz?” Beca mock glared as she gave her a bite.

 ”Tastes better from yours”

-Present Day-

”God Chlo, you never ate it all but ended up eating half of mine.” Beca laughed, a loud, boisterous sound. “You always took mine, even if you hated the flavor, you took it.”

”I think what I loved most about you is that you had such a big heart. You could absolutely hate someone, but give them a second chance because you thought they deserved it. I guess I’m kinda lucky there, ain’t I. You took so many chances on me, and I never took a chance on you. I did not once ask if you were truly doing okay. Feeling okay. I didn’t. I never checked up on you, and I should have. I should’ve given you the world, and I would’ve, but I never did. I thought you were happy Chlo-“ Her voice cracked and she paused for a few minutes.

”I thought you were happy all the time. You pretended you were. For me, you pretended. I should’ve made it clear you didn’t have to.” She looked up at the setting sun and let a tear run down her cheek.

”Guess it’s getting pretty late, huh. Well now for the real reason I’m here, how about it.” Beca took a deep breath.

”I guess I never told you this because I was afraid it’d change everything, but now it’s too late, and I have to say it now. I was- am- in love with you, Chloe. I always have been. Always will be. I should’ve told you before. I never did though, and I will always carry that with me. Chloe you were it for me. You were my person. My one and only. I will never stop loving you, and I will always be there for you, no matter what. I had the chance to save you from drowning, and I didn’t. I let you sink. I never had the chance to give you my air. So if this is the last you ever hear from me, know I love you so much. With every fiber of my being, I love you. I think I’ll play our song one more time”

Beca began to sing, tapping rhythms with the famous yellow cup effortlessly. She eased through every verse, never missing a beat. On the last word, she sobbed, a loud, crushing noise in the silent area.

Beca once again ran her fingers over the smooth stone divots, tracing the name of her love. She stood up, waved at the stone, brushed the dirt off her jeans, and started the trek back to her car. 

When she got there, she noticed her window was cracked open just an inch and a small ladybug flew onto her steering wheel. Beca smiled and sobbed at the same time.

“I see you, Chloe. I see you” She spoke to the ladybug. She carefully put the ladybug on her finger and let her fly away. Eventually, she composed herself enough to drive and got into her car. While starting the car, she noticed a small CD case in her passenger seat that she had gotten from Chloe the day she passed. A suicide note, of sorts.

She began to pull out of the cemetery and onto the busy road as she put the CD in and pressed play. She heard a whirring noise, and a distinct sob before choked words came out of her speaker.

 ”I love you too, Beca.”

Beca was too distracted by the scratchy voice that came from the radio to notice the other car come flying down the wrong lane, it's tires screeching as the driver tried to stop.

She didn’t notice the glass shards fly from her windshield and into her neck, slicing the delicate skin that rests there.

She didn’t notice the hard plastic pin the lower half of her body, the strong bones crushed effortlessly under the car’s weight.

Never heard the scream of the other driver as they jumped out at the last minute.

She didn’t notice any of it.

The only thing going through her head were the words that had swept through her car merely seconds before.

 “I love you too, Beca”

Beca’s eyes fluttered shut seconds before she took her last gasping breath.

 I’m coming home Chlo.

 I’m coming home.

[jubilantwriter]

Jaspvid Week 2020:  Day 1 - Alone Together

(AO3)    (ff.net)

They Got the Year Wrong, 2012 was Actually Supposed to be 2020

Summary:  Moments of peace are rare and few in between, but when they chance upon it, David finds that even when they should be relaxing, little thoughts and memories bubble up whether they want them to or not.  But that’s okay, he thinks.  As long as they face it together, they’ll be fine.

Word Count: 2299

The leaves crunch underneath their feet as they walk.  All around them, the forest sways with the wind as autumn graces their presence with the soft rustle of falling leaves.  Red and orange drift lazily around them as the light gently beams through the branches of the trees that surround them.

It's peaceful, he thinks to himself, his raggedy bandanna pulled up over the lower half of his face as Jasper hums next to him.

"Hey, Davey."  David turns to glance at his partner, the brunette never faltering in his steps as they continue down an unseen path.  "Remember when we were younger?"

Sounds of laughter echo in his mind as bright, young boys raced each other through trees just like these ones.  But the leaves were green then, weren't they?  So full of life and damp with the recent rain as their sneakers would slip and skid on the grass and mud, getting dirt all over their clothes and each other.

A problem for later, they had decided.  They can deal with their angry mothers later.

But for now.  Now was precious.

So very precious.

"...Yeah."  He steps closer to Jasper, the back of his hand brushing against Jasper's own idle one.  Without missing a beat, Jasper laces their fingers together and swings their joined hands between them.  It's enough to make David laugh as he continues the momentum between them.  "What about it?"

"Remember when we used to think that the forest was a magical place?"  There's a smile on Jasper's face, so real and genuine that David finds it hard to look away.  "When every pond we found, every wack looking mushroom, every little secret we thought was known only to us was proof that there was something else hidden in the forest.  Like fairies, or gnomes, or secret doorways into other worlds."

"Hmm..."  David looks up to the sky, now hidden behind the cover of tree tops as another leaf flutters towards them.  He opens his palm to catch it, but it just grazes his thumb as it continues its fall to the ground.  "Yeah, of course I do.  Why?"  Jasper doesn't respond at first.  Instead, his blue eyes focus on something in the distance, eyebrows furrowed together as a look of concentration settles on his face.  It gives David the incentive to look around them once more, this time his anxiety spiking as he focuses less on Jasper, and more on their surroundings.

Did he miss something?

He listens to the quiet of the forest, but only their footsteps answer him.

His eyes scan their surroundings, thinking maybe he's missed a sign somewhere.  A sign of life asides their own.  Asides from the trees that still stand here after all this time.   Asides from the still noises of nature that dare continue to exist under the weight of destruction that tried to wipe out humanity.

And what remains of humanity...

He tugs his bandanna up higher, ears searching for a sound that can give him a hint of what Jasper's already been aware of.

And that's when he hears it. 

The faint sound of trickling water.  No... not a trickling.  A... steady stream?  A rush of water?

"...A river."  Jasper answers his thoughts with a rush of glee.  With a tug on his hand as his only warning, Jasper pulls David along as they run towards the sound.  

A river.

When was the last time they found a river?

Feet dipped into cool water, the sight of tiny fish swimming past as they laughed and splashed water playfully at each other, the cool, gentle breeze ruffling their hair as they tousled and fell against each other, chests heaving as they caught their breaths and realized for the first time that they could see the world in each other's eyes-

He bumps into Jasper as the brunette comes to a halt.  That wonderful, sweet smile is back on his face as he turns to David.

"A river!"

And oh, how his eyes sparkle like the gleaming waters themselves, so full of depth and warmth and swirling with a love that hasn't faded since they first met each other as children.

"Yeah," he giggles, setting his backpack down on the ground without much prompting.  "A river!"  

And just like when they were young boys, naive and innocent to the world around them, they drop their things and take off their worn boots.  Once upon a time, Jasper would have groaned at the sight of such tattered things, clinging to his feet like a memory that refuses to go away.  But now, he tenderly removes them like a precious memory he holds onto desperately.  

It makes sense, David thinks.

Those were the last things given to him before his mom left them.

Jasper's thumb brushes the sides of the boots before he sets them down carefully next to David's pair.  Together, they roll the cuffs of their jeans up and dip their feet into the river with a satisfying sigh.

Peaceful.

That's what David thinks as he hums an old tune into the open air.  Jasper joins in, as David knows he would, and they create a soft duet of a song that once belonged to a single singer.  

As David closes his eyes, he feels that familiar brush of fingertips ever so carefully touch his, as if asking once again if it was alright for Jasper to take his hand.  The answer is always the same - slowly, ever so slowly, he relishes every movement, every brush and stroke of their fingers as he laces his with Jasper's, their fingers slotting together as naturally as the sunlight that streams through the cracks of the leaves above them.

Jasper's humming hitches ever so slightly, just enough that David knows with a smile that his boyfriend has a blush dusting his cheeks.  Even after all they've been through, Jasper still has a bit of shyness left in him to be a little surprised every time David returns his small affections.  He squeezes Jasper's hand just to hear that little hitch again.

David's mind wanders a bit before realizing that Jasper never answered his question from before.  He nudges the man beside him, getting a rather sleepy sounding hum in response.

"You never answered my question."

"Which was?"

"Why?"  He opens his eyes again to turn towards Jasper.  "Why bring that up?"  Jasper takes a moment to think as he recalls their previous conversation.

"I dunno.  I mean, we're in the area."  Jasper shrugs like it means nothing, but David knows better.  

"...Do you still think the forest is magical?"

For a moment, silence reigns between them.  

Nature has taken... a different turn to how they used to think of it as children.  What was now a roaring love that David held has simmered down to a respectful sort of distanced admiration, something Jasper still doesn't understand given what happened after the world had its overdue strike back.  Natural disasters are bound to happen.  Natural disasters in succession... one after another, without relenting, without mercy, without fail.

That surely made humanity's opinion of nature fall quite a bit.

Strange then, that they can only find solace and safety among nature once again.  He wonders when he'll see the wildlife again, from where they must be hiding in safety until they know it's okay to come out.  It's hard not to notice the lack of fish swimming past their feet as he waits for Jasper's response.  He watches as Jasper's chest rises in tempo with his breathing, a sight he never thought would be so comforting until he learned that it could be taken for granted.  He counts each rise and fall as Jasper thinks.  

"...Only when I'm with you."  Jasper reaches out to cup his cheek, the warmth of his palm bleeding through the bandanna as David leans into his touch.  The brush of Jasper's thumb is soft as it strokes just beneath his eye, and David wishes for a moment that he could lower the bandanna enough to kiss the hand that holds him tenderly.

But he keeps it on, for Jasper's sake.  Even now, he can see that familiar guilt settling in his eyes.  

It wasn't his fault.

Jasper can't protect him from everything.

But... the scars remain as a reminder regardless.

So he does his best to protect Jasper in his own way.  The bandanna stays on, even as it muffles his voice and stifles his breathing.  If he can keep Jasper from seeing those three ragged lines, keep his childhood best friend from seeing the scars that haunt him still in dreams where they drip with blood, he hopes that it'll provide enough time for Jasper to heal from that awful experience.

Still, even as he hides the reality from the brunette, he feels Jasper tug lightly on the yellow bandanna.

"...May I?"  Even though Jasper is the one who wants to see what lies beneath, the hesitancy is still evident with each little twitch of those fingers that tug on David's bandanna.

"Are you sure?"  David's hand rests on Jasper's as he provides an out.  

Jasper's taken the out plenty of times in the past.

And with how his hand trembles against his own, he's sure that Jasper will take it again.  But instead, the brunette squeezes his eyes shut.  Swallows as David watches his Adam's apple bob.  When his eyes open, the determination nearly overshadows his uncertainty and anxiety.

"...Yeah."

His fingers tug at the edges of David's bandanna again, and this time, David lets him pull it down.

The scars don't hurt him anymore.  They've long past gotten over the stage of scabbing over and healing.  When they took turns keeping watch, David would take off his bandanna to air out his wound.

Because all wounds need to be aired out to heal, right?

That's what must be going through Jasper's mind as his thumb gently brushes the scars that are etched into his face, leading down from his left ear and ending near the corner of his mouth, straying just a bit by his chin.  Soon, two more fingers join in Jasper's tender stroking as his fingertips feel the marks left behind by an aggressor they'd rather not remember.  Jasper's thumb traces over David's lip, before dipping down to his chin.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, just as soft as the wind that brushes against them.

"Don't be," David responds, his hand reaching forward to cup that familiar face.  Jasper's eyes, David had realized in the past, are a shade of blue that gets too sad too often.  He's always wanted to change that fact.  Fill this kind man with an amount of love that could drown out the sadness.  But in the world they live in, perhaps such a task may be impossible to accomplish.

Still, he wants to try.  And he'll never stop trying.

"I was supposed to protect you."

"And you did.  I'm alive, aren't I?"

"I could have done better."

"Shhh."  David pulls Jasper forward and presses his forehead against his.  "You did what you could, and that was more than enough."

"Was it?"

"Could have been worse.  I could have died instead."

"Don't say that."

"It's true though."

"Doesn't mean I want you to say it."

"Then that's the last time I'll say it."  

The gentle rush of the river fills up the silence between them.

And then.

"Hey."

"Hm?"

Jasper closes the distance between them, pressing his lips softly against David's.  David leans in, relishing the feeling of chapped lips against chapped lips.  He fights the urge to chase after Jasper's kiss as the brunette pulls away, and instead lets himself drown in Jasper's gaze, eyes bluer than the ocean they've long since left behind.  Jasper's thumb returns to tracing his lip as he smiles once more.

"I think you're pretty radical."

And David laughs, no longer muffled by his bandanna.

"I think you're pretty radical too."

Jasper's gaze softens.

"I love you."

"I love you too, Jasp."

"I should tell you that more."

"You don't have to.  I know."

Every tender touch.  Every sweet embrace.  Every little movement that Jasper makes.

Of course he would know.

"Is it enough though?"

"Having you around is more than enough for me."

"...I love you."

"I love you too.  You know that, right?"

"Always."

David leans in to press another kiss against Jasper's waiting lips.  Just as soft.  Just as tender.

And they don't need any more than that.

Eventually, they'll need to part for air.

Eventually, they'll need to get up.

Eventually, they'll need to continue their walk.  Continue their task of finding a place to settle down, to rest their weary feet in the comfort of safety as society begins to regain its bearings to start anew.  Maybe they'll be able to live with people again, learning to trust and open up again without that undercurrent of tension and suspicion that seems to lie unspoken in each of their actions and glances.  Or maybe they'll continue to live in solitude, away from what remains of humanity until the earth heals, and people heal, and they heal.

Perhaps it's too early to say.  After all, the scars are still fresh, and they need time to get used to the sight of them.  And they have all the time in the world now to decide on what to do.

So for now, David decides to chase after a pair of chapped lips, pressing closer as they both memorize the feel and warmth of each other's touch once again.  For the now is precious.

So very precious.

And for now, the bandanna will rest against his neck.  Wounds need to be aired out to heal.  And heal they will.

For as long as they have each other.

...They'll be okay.

[ancientwastedlores]

The Support System (Ch: 6)

SUMMARY: The Avengers have managed to collect all the infinity stones across the universe, and are currently keeping them in far corners of the world, only for research and to see if they can improve the planet and its people. Reader is a researcher with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, as well as a field agent. Loki is currently serving time for his actions in New York City in 2012.

A/N: Find this chapter on AO3 here. This chapter is mostly soft Loki and some badass Y/N. 

AO3: The Support System Tumblr:  Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5 

Warnings: N/A Audience: general.

______________________________________________________________

CHAPTER 6:

It’s very obvious to the rest of the Avengers that Loki only started watching Doctor Who with you so he’d get to spend the night in your bed. You know it too, but understand that he would spend it in anybody else’s room but his, because being alone at night haunts him. If someone else wanted to something about it, they would, and if they don’t, they don’t get to give their opinion about it.

And they know you aren’t about to listen either, so they keep shut.

The rest of the week passes like usual, with Loki sleeping in your bed and Tony playing concerned father and quippy teen at the same time. Then arrives the morning when you have to leave.

You wake up and don’t find Loki next to you as usual. You take advantage of the space and stretch, moaning loudly. You feel like you’ve cracked every single joint in your body, and sit up. You keep sitting, making a mental list of the things you need to prepare before leaving.

The dealers were expected at the secret venue at 7 in the evening, but Tony, being Tony, insisted the team get there a full 12 hours earlier. Natasha rolled her eyes and tried to convince Tony that two hours would be enough, but he wouldn’t budge.

The cars would leave at 6 AM. You look at clock and see you have a full hour before leaving.

 The door opens, and Loki enters with a tray.

‘What! Aww, Loki’ you laugh. ‘I thought you could use a breakfast in bed before heading out’ he grins as he walks to your bed, ‘I made it myself’ he exclaims proudly, placing the tray on your lap.

Well, there was no doubt about that. It was a plate full of fruits, a bowl of cornflakes, and some toasted bread. You were looking forward to digging into some pancakes and bacon before heading out to a gruelling mission, but the excitement in his eyes makes you abandon the thought completely.

You smile and ask him to sit and share the food. He obliges.

‘So you’re coming round to the idea of me going’ you tease. ‘What’s the matter, find another Doctor Who fan?’

He looks severely offended and you immediately regret saying it. ‘I was only joking. Thank you for doing this, it’s lovely’.

His expression softens, and then he reaches into his pocket.

‘I know you’ll be fine, but I did take the liberty of an extra precaution’ he produces a small rectangular object, no larger than a fingernail. It’s silver, and has odd markings on it that glow green, and attached to a chain.

You start to protest because amulets are absolutely the kind of thing you’re against, when he clutches your arm. ‘Please’ he pleads. ‘It makes no difference to you, since you don’t believe in it, but for my peace of mind?’

‘Loki, if I wear that, and something does happen, you’ll blame yourself for the amulet not working properly’. ‘No, I promise, quite the opposite…’ he unclasps the chain, ‘I’ll know I did everything I could, and you died because you did something stupid’.

You laugh. ‘Fair enough. You promise you won’t start beating yourself up?’

‘I swear on my honour’ he says, putting the chain around your neck. You tuck the amulet under your shirt, knowing if Natasha and Clint ever saw it, they would never let you live it down. You talk for a while longer while finishing up your breakfast, and then Loki leaves so you can change.

xx 

‘Good luck, kiddo’ Tony slaps your arm. ‘Give ‘em hell’. ‘Thank you’ you give Tony a small salute before getting into the car with Maria Hill, Clint, Natasha, and Sam Wilson.

xx

T-3 hours to the expected time of arrival of the dealers. You’re leading a group of ten agents, and everyone is already in position. You’re sitting, leaning against the wall with your group, circling a finger over your bullet proof vest which hides the amulet Loki gave you.

Ridiculous, you think. But nice. You smile.

‘What is it?’ an agent asks, seeing your smile.  ‘What? Nothing. Shush’ you say.

Natasha’s voice comes on the earpiece: ‘If anyone tells Tony this, they’re fired, but the convoy is here’.

You smile, knowing Tony would gloat for ages if anyone told him the convoy reached earlier than expected.

‘Alright gang, up up’ you stand up, and help a few up since they’re carrying heavy guns. ‘Look sharp, and if you find something weird, for god’s sake, don’t touch it. We got Thor for that’.

You put your helmet on and take a deep breath, waiting for instructions.

 You hear the dealers come in, boxes being dragged across the floor, clicks of guns and clanging of metals.

‘Where’s the Vibranium?’ a voice comes. Someone mumbles something in another language.

‘He’s saying there’s another truck coming’ Natasha’s voice comes. ‘Nobody move until every single one of them is in the room and the door is shut’.

You nod at the rest of your team to ask if they understand. They nod back.

You return your eyes to the group that has just entered. You look up, just to scope the room, and spot a figure move.  

‘Yo’ you whisper as low as you can, ‘did anyone see that?’ ‘What the hell is that’ Clint’s voice comes over the ear piece. ‘Oh, if that is who I think it is…’ Sam’s voice comes. ‘Ssshh’ you hiss. ‘Wait’. ‘Did you just shush me, don’t ever…’ ‘Ssshhh!!' you, Clint, and Nat say in unison. 

It’s a grave situation, but you can’t stop yourself smiling before returning your attention to the back of the room. The tall figure is still moving, shooting something that makes no noise.

‘For god’s sake’ you hear Sam’s disgusted voice. ‘It’s the spider kid’.

You inwardly groan. You thought Tony would have told him to stay away.

‘Tell me he isn’t our responsibility, please’ Sam says. ‘If you want to die at Tony’s hands, sure’ you say. ‘Stark put a comms system in his suit, someone tell Stark to get him out’. ‘We aren’t carrying cell phones. And we don’t know how he got in in the first place’ Nat says. ‘Let it just play out’.

You sigh.

You wait a while longer, and the ‘other’ truck arrives. After all the contents are loaded in the room, there’s a spat about payment, and then the truck guys clear off. The one you assume is the leader shuts the doors and walks over to one of the crates with a crowbar.

‘Hold it…’ Nat says.

You stretch an arm out to inform your team to stay as well.

You quickly glance back up, the figure is no longer on the roof. You dread that he’ll announce his presence at the wrong time.

And he does.

‘Anything here for me?’ you hear Peter shout. The dealers all cock their guns and turn around to point it at him. ‘NOW’ Nat shouts over the comms.

You put your arm down and your team moves out, guns pointed at the dealers. From the right, Clint’s team enters. From the left, Natasha’s. Thor is on the balcony-like structure upstairs, looking over the whole congregation. Maria and Sam come from the North side. You have them surrounded.

‘Whoa, no way, you guys came!’ Peter exclaims. ‘Get outta here, kid’ you yell. ‘No way, let me help, I can help’.

You roll your eyes.

‘Ay, what the hell is going on’ one of the men say. ‘Put your weapons down’ Nat shouts. ‘Turn over everything you have’. ‘Yeah, that’s not happening’ the man laughs, removing a cylindrical object and throwing it on the ground, creating a force field around his own group, also trapping Peter.

You look up at Thor. He’s already swinging his hammer and aiming it at the force field; it hits its mark and the shield breaks so your team can move in.  

A fight ensues, with you managing to dodge most of the attacks, while also grabbing onto some of the new tech the dealers have left lying around to use it.

‘This is so cool!’ Peter yells, swinging from wall to wall, pinning dealers to the walls with his webs. Okay, maybe he is helping a little.

 You manage to get every single one of them, either knocked out or pinned to the wall. Sam celebrates by slyly putting some of the new guns in his holster. You laugh and yell that you can see him, and he yells back ‘You see NOTHING’.

Peter is just gushing over what just happened. ‘I didn’t know you guys were coming, this is so cool, I’ve always wanted to be part of a strike team!’ ‘Peter…’ you start. ‘And, and look at this gear, wow can I try that gun, I swear I’ll be careful…’

You take off your helmet. ‘PETER’.

‘Oh’

He sees your face. ‘Oh h-hey I didn’t know it was you, hi’.

You sigh, remembering his crush on you. ‘You’re in way over your head’. ‘Mr. Stark says the same thing, you know, I’m much more capable…’ ‘Thank you for your help’ you say sternly. ‘I’ll inform Mr. Stark you did a great job today. But you have to go now’.

His eyes twinkle. ‘You’ll tell him I did good? Will you tell me what he says? Do you have my number? You can just text me what he says…’

‘Peter, honey, Tony has your number’. ‘RIGHT. Yes, he does. Okay. Bye!’ he shoots a web to the ceiling and goes out of the broken skylight you hadn’t noticed before.

Everyone else is putting weapons back in crates, while the Avengers are talking at the middle of the room. You walk over to them. ‘Hey’.

‘How’d you get him to leave’ Sam asks. ‘I just said he did good’ you shrug. ‘We’re sure these guys haven’t made any calls?’

Clint holds up a little device. ‘Blocks out any outgoing and incoming calls within a 2km radius’ he grins.

xx

Stark’s trucks arrive and the men get out to help load the crates in. Natasha and Hill oversee the operation, while Sam and Thor are in some conversation, and Clint helps you aid the wounded S.H.I.E.L.D agents.

While you bandage a woman’s arm, Clint walks over to borrow a pair of scissors. You hand it to him, and kneels down next to you.

‘Blink twice if you need help’ he says. ‘Excuse me?’ ‘You and Loki’. You sigh, frustrated. ‘We’re friends’. ‘I’ve been under his control. It’s easy to not understand the difference’. ‘Clint, he doesn’t have any way of controlling me, okay?’ ‘You just look badly beat up’.

You finish bandaging the woman and she thanks you. You smile at her and stand up. ‘I appreciate your concern, I really do. And thank you for asking. But there really is nothing to worry about. I decided to give him a chance, and I think all of you should too’ you pat him on the back and walk towards where the trucks are.

‘Hey, the last of the crates are loaded, I’m just calling Stark’ Hill informs you. You nod and she leaves, her phone in hand. ‘Off to Dubai, then. It’s a long ass flight’ Nat says. ‘When are we leaving? I hope we land at night, it’s beautiful’ you say, remembering your time there ‘I think we can manage that’ she grins.

After the driver calls something out to her in Russian, she responds and hits the side of the truck next to her twice. The engines start and the line of trucks head out to the Avengers Tower.

‘We follow through; can you get the team into the cars?’

You nod and rush back in, ‘Ya’ll got five minutes, get your asses in those cars’ you call out. ‘Anyone who needs medical attention, yell’.

One person from the corner of the room yells.

You turn to Natasha. ‘I’ll take him to the Tower and drop him off, get a new guy, and meet you at the jet’. ‘You sure?’ ‘Yeah. Save me a good window seat’. ‘You got it’ she smiles and sits in the car.

The rest of the group files in, and you’re left with a large black BMW. You haven’t driven in a while, but the car has sirens, so you hope people will just get out of your way. ‘Okay mate, what’s your name’ you ask, as you pick him up. ‘Paul’ he chokes out. ‘Paul. Well, Paul, have you ever been inside the Avengers Tower?’

He shakes his head.

‘You’re in for the pampering of your life, if you manage to stay with me till the ride there, Paul’ you help him into the backseat of the car, and buckle him in. You run to the drivers’ side, get in, and flip the sirens on, driving at top speed to the Avengers Tower.

You make a call while rushing through the streets of New York. Over the bluetooth - ‘Hello?’ ‘Tony! Okay, I’m bringing over Paul, he was hurt badly in the fight…’ ‘Yup, Nat told me, med crew is already at reception’. ‘Excellent, I also need you to keep a S.H.I.E.L.D agent ready for me to take as a replacement’. ‘Also downstairs waiting, with full gear’. You just love this man. ‘You’re awesome, Stark’. ‘I know, kid. See you soon’ he hangs up.

You pull up to the entrance of the tower and the med crew rushes to help Paul out of your backseat, which is covered in blood.

Fortunately, Tony also has another car waiting for you.

This man is on another level, you think, chuckling.

‘Take care Paul!’ you yell. He gives you a thumbs up.

The new recruit comes up to you. ‘Hi, I’m Sean’ ‘Hello, Sean. Get in, we’ll talk’

He gets into the new car and you’re about to get in as well when you hear your name called out and turn around. It’s Loki.

‘Hi! I have to leave…’ He comes up to you and gives you a hug. ‘I forgot to give you a hug before you leave’ he holds you tight. ‘Oh’… you smile against his chest and hug him back. You’ve removed your bullet proof vest now, so it’s just a shirt. Loki can feel the amulet through it, that’s how tight he’s hugging you. ‘Take care’ he says, and lets go.

You grin and turn to get into the passenger side, then shut the door. Off to Dubai, then.

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Feedback and requests welcome :) <3 Thanks for reading! 

[crewhonk]

...Of The Line (1)

A series collaboration with @nomadsgrogers where she writes for Giovanna as the reader! We’re just projecting onto our writing, its FINE

Series Summary: Steve watches YN Banner grow up before his eyes– from a shy, dorky sixteen-year-old to a fierce, brilliant woman who never fails to keep him on his toes. He knows that she’s untouchable, but that doesn’t stop him from being completely wrapped around her finger for the rest of his long life.

Series Warnings: Mutual Pining, age gap, gun use, these two are idiots– seriously they’re so dumb, slow burn, injuries

Pairings: eventual Steve Rogers X Banner!Reader, eventual Buky Barnes X OC!Stark

Chapter Summary: YN says goodbye to her best friends and watches as the events of The Winter Soldier go down. YN visits her best people in the hospital. 

Words: 4.1K

@nomadsgrogers version >> (” Till the End...”) Introduction

“... Of The Line” Masterlist

_________________

2014, two years later

Eventually, Giovanna had left to join Natasha and Steve in their work with SHEILD in Washington about a year after Natasha and Steve had initially left. They had come back for a short reprieve from work and were set off to go work to save lives again— 361 kilometres away. Giovanna had called it her first real mission as an Avenger while both YN and Tony had called it bullshit and begged her to stay. YN was never much for goodbyes— moped around for days until she found herself showered and in the lab. A bad habit that Giovanna critiqued her about.

“You really don’t have to leave, you know.” YN frowned, pulling her best friend into a hug and burying her face into her neck. Giovanna drew circles between the middle of her shoulder blades and stayed silent until YN pulled away and wiped her nose with her sleeve. Natasha joined the group of girls and pulled YN under her wing, kissing her temple and hugging her close. Nat had since bonded with the two younger women, now on the cusp of nineteen, taking them under her wing and training them when she could— watching movies and laughing long into the night when she was able.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna come with us?” Natasha’s suave, carefully selected speech patterns disappeared around the two girls— something that rarely ever happened. “I could really use a hand keeping Captain Bad Idea in line,” Natasha smirked and YN rolled her eyes and laughed, refusing to let the sudden heat blossoming on her face stop her from functioning like it usually did.

Steve Rogers had grown on her— he had become something less like a celebrity crush in 2012 to something deeper. Her adoration for the man had rooted in her lungs, constricting her breathing until it seemed she would never be able to breathe again.

Not to be dramatic.

But it was true that the two had become closer. They trained together, ate together, watched shitty 80’s movies until the crack of dawn and then crashed on separate end of the same couch together. They kept touching to a minimal— an unspoken rule between the two which only caused for a rock in the progress of relationship building. Both, as the team knew, were very needy with touch and it only seeded the idea that the other person felt no real romantic interest in the other. That, and Steve’s consistent fear of making her crumble under his hands— young and fragile and too good for him.

YN’s eyes flickered over to where Steve was chatting with Tony and Bruce softly, allowed her eyes to rake over his appearance once, very quickly and then smiled back to her girls.

“I think you’ll be fine. You got Blind Enthusiasm over there to help you.” She nodded her chin towards Giovanna who seemed affronted at her statement.

“Hey! I’m not Blind Enthusiasm. Maybe Sassy Regret.” Giovanna pulled both Natasha and YN into her arms and squeezed them both close. Their foreheads touched for a few seconds before she pulled away and let her hand rest on YN’s cheek.

“Don’t blow anything up while I’m gone,” Giovanna warned.

“It’s no fun without you.” YN winked back, finishing their classic statement goodbye— uttered mostly when one left for coffee runs or actually went to bed at a time which humans usually did.

“Wanna say goodbye to him?” Natasha’s eyes flicked over to Steve who was watching them. YN’s eyes locked with his own and she shot Steve a small smile, raising her hand and giving a shy wave. Giovanna scoffed quietly to herself, toeing the ground with her sneakers at the innocent move.

Behind closed doors, YN rarely had a filter on the topic of Steve Rogers. Hashing out everything she wanted him to do to her and everything she wanted to do to him, sometimes in such great detail even Natasha, when she was able to join, would blush. Now, in the midst of that same man, YN was reduced to a blushing, quiet sixteen-year-old version of herself.

YN was like a pit bull raised in a good family— her bark was most certainly worse than her bite.

“Nah. We already said goodbye.” YN smiled, looking away from Steve who seemed to be less than keen on doing the same. Giovanna and Natasha’s identical smirks dropped at the very same time.

“Okay, great. We’re going to have a FaceTime session tonight and you’re going to spill everything.”

“Everything?”

“Every. Single. Thing.”

______________________

The tower was lonely without the chaos that ensued during the previous three and a half years, all due to the rapidly advancing education that was YN Banner and Giovanna Stark’s life. There were no crashes from the lab on the 52nd floor, as YN was played out on the couch, uninspired and bored out of her mind at one in the morning. She had been throwing up a stress ball into the air, catching it all the while glaring at the holograms on the table in front of her. When the hologram flickered for the third time in ten seconds she growled and threw the stress ball at it, eyes flashing neon green only briefly.

“Woah! Squish, you okay?” Bruce exclaimed, walking around the table and rubbing the spot on his forehead where the ball had collided. YN muttered an apology as her dad sat down next to her, watching the diagram of a blood cell rotate in front of them.

“Been better.” She mumbled, taking the stress ball back from her father and digging her nails into it. Both Bruce and Big Guy took notice, and they were equally concerned.

“What’s goin’ on?” He tried. He was usually wonderful at this father-ing schtick but ever since he had left when she was only sixteen, she had become increasingly independent. Now almost twenty, she was a full adult and Bruce had no idea where he belonged anymore.

“I just— God. I want to think I’m a grown up. I want to think I’m independent from other people and can function without another person but I don’t think I can do that. I’ve always had you and when I didn’t I’ve always had Gio and Natasha and Steve and Tony. I’m no good alone.” YN ranted, tears welling in her eyes and Bruce could feel his heart melting and breaking both at the same time.

“You don’t have to be alone, you know. Humans are social creatures. We don’t do well alone. We’re meant to be in packs and we’re meant to have those social bonds. Independence for us in the wild usually means death— in modern times it just sometimes means everything short of that.” Bruce hummed and he wrapped his arm around his baby girls shoulders. She sniffed into his neck and wiped tears away from her eyes.

“But Gio’s independent. So are Steve and Natasha and I don’t get why I can’t be like that.” Her voice was thick as she spoke.

“Because you’re you. You don’t have to be like them. There’s no shame in leaning on people, you know.” He mumbled and Big Guy seemed to agree, chest rumbling in agreement. There was as silence before YN’s quiet voice rang out loud and clear.

“You’re not goin’ anywhere, right, Papa?”

Bruce’s heart skipped a beat and he pulled her closer, squishing her to his chest and blinking back tears.

“I’ll stay right here just as long as you want me to, okay?”

“Okay.”

Another Pause.

“Wanna help me try to figure out our blood?”

____________________

It was a week before ‘Tonights’ FaceTime could take place, as both Natasha and Giovanna had been swept up in the life and work of SHEILD. It was seven at night when YN’s phone rang by her side, laptop on her lap in bed playing “The 100”. The phone chimed, and YN in all of her excitement nearly launched her computer from her legs in her hurry to answer it.

“Hi!” She said excitedly, shutting her laptop and pulling her covers closer to her chest. On her screen were her best friends, faces squished together and smiling so widely. The flush on Giovanna’s cheeks was a telltale sign they were at least a glass and a half into their wine.

“Baby girl!” Giovanna almost squealed, and YN’s heart clenched. Oh, how she had missed the Stark energy because sure, Tony had it all but there was nothing like seeing it in jammed into a 5’3 Italian firecracker of a girl.

“How’s Washington? Oh my gosh, have you met Obama yet? What about Michelle? Are her arms as magnificent as they look in pictures?” YN rushed, and the two girls laughed.

“Washington is good! It’s too vanilla for my taste.” Giovanna replied and Natasha said something about how it was because the sewer rats were the closest things she ever got to owning a pet.

“No, we haven’t met any of the Obama’s either.” Natasha quelled YN’s thirst for the First Family and YN sat back in mock disappointment.

“Well, then what’re you even doing there?” The others laughed at her response before they both lost their excited exterior. It would never fail to impress YN how in sync Giovanna and Natasha were at almost all times.

“So, don’t think we forgot, little lamb.” Natasha chastised and YN rolled her eyes, before getting up and grabbing a bottle of wine from her wine cooler hidden in the back of her closet. No way was she explaining her and Steve’s goodbye while sober. No, ma’am.

She raised the bottle to her lips and wiped her hand across her mouth.

“What d’you wanna know?” YN resigned herself to what she could picture as hours worth of interrogation.

“Everything.”

____________________

It was the night before the team was about to leave for Washington. Giovanna had already left the common room under the guise of packing, allowing for Steve and YN to have a few hours to themselves under the glow of the city lights streaming through the windows and the television.

Steve could feel his hands clamming up. Sure, he had been alone with YN countless times before, but it was only on his visit back did he notice that YN had grown up. Long gone were her puberty curves. There was that same trademark Banner softness to her, but he didn’t miss the way that her shirt clung to rigid muscle when she was straining herself in the gym. He didn’t miss the lines of her calf and thigh muscles whenever she wore those tight black shorts that made his head spin. He didn’t miss the curl of her wild hair or how her eyes seemed to droop in a way that made his heart stutter whenever she looked at him.

He had been alone with YN before, countless times. She never failed to make him feel like a 16-year-old kid in Brooklyn, though.

“You know, I’m really gonna miss nights like these.” She said, curling into the cushion of the couch and pulling her blanket to her chin— comfort habit, he had learned.

“Whatd’ya mean?” He asked, suddenly not at all interested in the movie playing in front of them. He knew this was an iconic 90’s movie but he couldn’t care less about anything that didn’t involve YN.

“You and me all curled up. I mean, come on. Showing movies to Captain America for the first time?” She giggled sleepily at his eye roll.

“As if I care about it, honestly.” He mirrored her position, facing her and leaning on the back of the couch.

“Why don’t you care about it? Clueless is one of the best movies out there.” YN tried to sound offended, but she couldn’t find it in herself to sound anything but nervous and breathy. Steve’s eyes were drooping, fighting hard to stay awake and watching her with a softness he rarely showed anyone. In some wild, delusional state, she could almost believe what Giovanna and Natasha told her— that he could come to love someone like her.

“Not my type.” He muttered, forcing himself to keep his hands from reaching out and placing them on her bare arms. God, all he wanted to do was run the back of his knuckles over her skin. Wanted to make goosebumps erupt all over her body. Wanted to make her suck in a breath and look at him through those innocent, peering eyes.

Steve kept his hands to himself.

“What is your type?” She whispered, and his heart climbed violently up his throat. He coughed once to get it back to where it belonged and when that didn’t work, he pulled away farther from her. He couldn’t— she was too young and good and pure and everything he would ruin.

He wouldn’t ruin YN Banner.

“We should get you to bed, okay, Sugar?” He said, glancing absently at the time before rising slowly to his feet. He wanted nothing more than to curl up against her, soak her in enough for him to survive the next few months away. He stopped himself, however, filling his arms with blankets and pillows and waiting for her to stand and join him.

She almost looked disappointed he didn’t help her. Definitely looked disappointed he was ending the night.

She only nodded, however, and wrapped her blanket around her shoulders like a cape, following him to the elevator in silence and riding up in silence. Only speaking again when they reached her floor. She stepped out, turning around and placing her hand on the door so it wouldn’t close on her. She was quiet for a time, trying her very best to memorize the way blue skin had found a home in the inner corners of his eyes. How the left side of his nose was just a little crooked. Remember the cleft of his chin and the swell of his bottom lip. She sniffed and nodded and stepped back.

“I’ll miss you, grandpa. Don’t know who I’ll make old people jokes about anymore.” She forced a playful smile over her tired face and he mirrored it.

They were both so close, but so, so far away.

“I’ll miss you, Sweetheart. Don’t know who’s gonna make you get to bed in time for your afternoon nap.”

“Guess you’ll have to come back soon, then.”

Then, the elevator door slid shut with a quiet ‘ding’.

______________________

YN had thought them to be dead. Nick, Steve, Natasha, and Giovanna killed in a gun battle in the middle of Washington. She had thought them dead until she got the call. It was Tony who called, half out of his mind with worry but voice dripping with relief.

“They’re alive, YN. News— look at the news.” She listened to her uncle, ran down the hall of her floor to the common room with television in it and flicked on the channel. Sure, Tony may have been only five floors away, but she was suddenly very familiar with the feeling of her legs and arms and heart going numb.

The flashing red at the bottom screen told her this was live. Large hellicarriers armed to the teeth were falling on Washington, a collection of live footage from the news crews and videos from Twitter streaming on the screen, and YN cried out when a rather shaky video caught sight of Giovanna, fighting, yelling, bleeding through her uniform but alive. YN let out a dry sob and leaned forward on her knees, putting her head in her hands and crying into them despite the lack of tears streaming from her eyes.

Then, when she looked back, she saw him. Angry, and scared and like Giovanna, bleeding but very much alive. He looked to be running— chasing after someone who was singlehandedly taking out an entire SHEILD battalion.

She didn’t care. Her guys were alive.

________________________

The quinjet ride to Washington was only half an hour, but both YN and Tony could have sworn it would have been easier to walk themselves. The jet landed on the roof of the hospital and she sprinted side by side with Tony down the stairs, bursting through the doors of the VIP section the hospital had closed off.

Large men in combat greens were lining the hallways, guns on their shoulders and there was an eerie silence in the hallway.

“Ms. Stark is in room 567, Captain Rogers is in the room next to her— 569.” The nurse, nervous and excited at the sight of the Tony Stark in her own hospital making her voice higher than usual.

“I need— I’m sorry.” He whispered once they got to the rooms and YN rolled her eyes, pushing him towards his daughters' room.

“Go, we got all day. I’m gonna go see Steve.” YN tried to ignore the way Tony’s worried eyes gave away to something almost teasing, and she turned around to the room 569, knocking on the ajar door and smiling at the man in the room.

He was sitting next to an unconscious Steve. His dark skin and dark eyes stunned her— a man of genuine beauty was protecting Steve. He looked at her, eyes intense and guarding.

“Who’re you?” His voice was suave and the gap in his teeth was charming. YN tried to fight back the urge to walk over and tell him just who she was— he obviously cared much for Steve. The bags under his eyes and the stains on his shirt were dead giveaways that he hadn’t left the hospital in a few days.

“YN Banner. Who are you?” Her voice was strong, and her gaze landed on Steve who looked very much worse for wear. A large gash that was deep enough to require stitches extended from the corner of his mouth to his earlobe, a black and green and red bruise on his opposite cheek let her know that the bone underneath his skin must have been completely shattered. The hospital gown he was wearing was pulled to the side to show more blossoming bruises and YN coughed, trying to rid her throat of the sudden lump that had taken root there.

The man made a noise of surprise and joy, a wide smile blossoming over his face before he stood and extended a hand.

“Sam Wilson. Wow, the famous YN Banner. Steve and Giovanna never shut up about you this whole week, it’s nice to put a face to the name. Nice to meet you, Steve’s girlfriend, YN Banner.” He smirked and his smile grew at the way she spluttered in surprise.

“I’m— we’re not— I’m not—“ She rushed, cheeks flaming to the tips of her ears. Sam laughed and stepped closer, moving to walk by her and out of the room, knowing she would want some alone time.

“He said the same thing when Gio and Natasha called him your boyfriend. Got more red, though.” And with that, and a clap on the shoulder, Sam walked out of the room.

YN’s gaze drifted back to Steve, and she pressed the backs of her cold hands to her face to try to quell the blush that seemed to have found a home there. She walked over to his side, pulling a chair to his bedside and reaching out, hesitating only slightly before wrapping both of her hands around his much larger one. The knuckles were bruised and bloody, clean stitches already looking to have been removed and she rested her cheek on them, looking at Steve’s face.

It was only a half an hour before his hand twitched in hers, and he grunted at the pain he felt immediately upon waking. He cracked his eyes open slowly, crusted closed with tears and other sleep residue and felt someone's hands tighten around his own.

YN was there, eyes tired but relieved and Steve’s heart rate monitor picked up when she smiled at him, softly.

“Hey,” She whispered over the music from the speaker Sam had brought in. Her tightened her grip on his hands and rested her lips on his fingers— not kissing them, but resting there and Steve cursed the machine beeping continuously and irregularly beside him.

“Hi,” His voice was raspy from the fight and smoke and water they had to pump from his lungs and the breathing tube from the surgeries he had received.

“Whose idea was it to take down SHIELD?” She asked, corners of her lips turning up. She already knew the answer, but it would be nice to have the opportunity to make fun of the man in front of her.

“Gio’s?” He tried and YN laughed against his hand, breath drifting over his knuckles and making the pink of blush creep up his neck. God, how the hell did someone as good as her make him so unbearably nervous. She had gotten even more beautiful in the four months they hadn’t seen each other.

“Nice try, Captain Bad Idea.” YN teased, and she pulled one hand from his grip to brush the back of her fingers against his forehead and his eyes fluttered shut briefly at her touch. To anyone looking into the room, they looked like a couple— two people so in love and so worried for each other, and both Steve and YN knew this, neither too keen on ruining the illusion. They only wanted to stay in this little moment for a few minutes longer— for as long as it took for reality to pull them away from each other once more.

____________________

Soon, Tony interrupted their moment outside of reality, needing to discuss and make plans for the future of the team and whoever remained of SHEILD.

“I’ll be back. Can you eat anything yet?”

“I think so,” His voice was quiet and he really, truly, desperately didn’t want you to leave— didn’t want to let you go already.

“Okay, I’ll find something good.” YN stood, squeezing his hand once before pulling away slowly and Tony raised an eyebrow at the way Steve almost seemed to reach after it, wanting her to come back so soon.

YN didn’t hear the way Tony teased Steve, comments of ‘gramps’ and ‘you know she’s too smart for you, right?’ Followed quickly by Steve telling him to shove it somewhere the sun didn’t shine. Instead, she walked over to the next room and didn’t even bother knocking before walking in and crossing her arms, glaring at her best friend who looked a little worse for wear.

“You look like shit, babe,” Giovanna said with a wicked grin.

“You’re one to talk. Really? Taking down secret government Nazi’s? Without me? How dare you.” YN dropped her stern act and padded over to Giovanna’s bed, lifting the blankets and curling under them, resting her head on her best friends shoulder.

“Sorry about that.” Giovanna shifted slightly and moved to face YN, glad she had chosen to invade her bed on this side, as she didn’t need to lay on the stab wound she had received only hours before.

“I told you not to die.” YN chastised lightly, and Giovanna patted her shoulder.

“I didn’t— I just got stabbed lightly by sex on legs.” She said and YN looked at her sharply.

“Excuse me?”

And then, Giovanna launched into a story of a man-- the Winter Soldier-- dressed in all black, hair hanging around his face which was, apparently, sculpted by Hades himself.

“And the best part,” Giovanna continued, pausing for dramatic effect. “It was Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier is Bucky Barnes!”

YN’s heart dropped to her stomach and she could feel the blood leave her face.

“What? Steve didn’t say anything about— oh, my God.” YN whispered, and she barely had time to even worry about Steve before Giovanna made a noise in the back of her throat.

“Oh, so you saw your favourite Beefcake before your best friend?” Giovanna teased, relishing in the way YN looked as if she wished the ground would swallow her whole.

“I— you were— Tony needed to see you.” YN stuttered and Giovanna rolled her eyes, squeezing YN closer to her. God, she missed her bumbling, pining, lovestruck best friend.

“Suuuure.”

______________________________

Tags (open, send an ask): @i-am-always-famished / @filia-sapientiae / @somekryptonitewriting / @fashionlive15 / @godlymissbalor / @fanfictionjunkie1112 / @nerdy-bookworm-1998 / @songforhema / @army-crawl-andersen / @buckybarneshairpullingkink / @shynara51

[s-horne]

13. National Apple Pie Day

(some circa 2012 avengers-living-together-in-stark-tower fluff for y’all)

Tony padded down the hallway, his toes curling in at the cold. Some distant part of his brain muttered at him for forgetting to put socks on yet again, but he ignored it in favour of getting to the kitchen where the coffee was kept. If he couldn’t sleep, then he might as well keep himself awake with caffeine.

It wasn’t until he had poured himself a mug of steaming coffee into a frankly hideous cup from Clint and taken a long, much-needed sip that Tony realised he wasn’t alone in the kitchen. He let out a startled cry when he saw the other person, throwing his hand up to clutch at his chest as the other held his mug far away from himself in an effort not to douse his bare feet with coffee.

“Good God, Rogers,” Tony said, breathless, when he had recovered a little. “How long have you been there?”

“I did say hello when you walked in,” Steve said, a tiny smile playing around his lips. He was hunched in on himself at the very end of the dining table, his hands curled around a mug that didn’t smell like coffee. On his face was an expression that Tony hated to see, but one that tended to come out when Steve was a little tired or had a lot on his mind. Unfortunately, it was also one that Tony was seeing more and more lately.

The aliens of the world – or not their world, actually, that was kind of the point – weren’t giving them much of a break and as the weather turned colder, Steve’s memories of the ice were flashing up more often. Add in his apparent inability to sleep and it was no wonder that Steve’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Well, you could have said it a little louder,” Tony retorted, peeling himself off the counter and slinking over to the table. He threw himself down onto one of the chairs and made to tuck his legs up underneath himself. Taking another sip of his drink, Tony was too focused on the feeling of the hot liquid warming him from the inside and far too tired to actually coordinate his legs and he caught his knee on the table leg.

He let out a loud curse at the sharp stab of pain and his arm jerked in reaction, spilling hot coffee all over the table. “Oh, shit!”

“Oh my, Tony!”

There was suddenly a wet cloth on Tony’s hand, dabbing at his burnt skin in a soothing, circular motion, and Tony looked up in surprise. He blinked once, twice, a daze falling over him from the lack of sleep and the sharp sting of hot coffee.

“God, only you could do this,” Steve muttered under his breath, though there was definitely a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah, well,” Tony shrugged and waited until Steve lifted his eyes to lock their gazes, “your fault.”

Steve’s smile only grew and he dropped his gaze again, swiping the cloth one last time before throwing it down on the table. “Of course it was. It always is, isn’t it?”

Tony huffed and lifted his now half-empty mug up to his lips when Steve stepped away again, taking a long sip and sighing at the taste. He wriggled his fingers and was pleased to feel that the skin didn’t feel tight or look too red – all thanks to Steve. Of course.

“Thank you,” he said softly, not expecting or waiting for an answer. Tony shifted a little on the chair to shove his toes under his thighs, eyes shifting over to look at Steve. “So, what’s got you up so late? Too many twitter arguments to win? Too many peas under the mattress?”

“Oh.” Steve winced as he flicked the kettle back on and leant against the counter, ankles crossed. “Not your best.”

Tony rolled his eyes and scrubbed his hand over his face. “I know, I know. I need some sleep. But once I’ve gotten that, you better watch out.”

Steve laughed and cracked his knuckles, rolling his head from side to side. “I almost look forward to it.” He stifled a yawn behind his hand and shuffled hesitantly, awkwardly, on the floor. “Hey, you’re not going back to bed any time soon, are you?”

Tony drained his mug and shook his head, scratching his stomach absentmindedly. “Nope. Don’t fancy staring at my ceiling for another three hours. Why? Got a job for me?”

“I do,” Steve replied, turning to grab a teabag when the kettle flicked off with a low whistle. “A top secret one, at that. It needs one of our best guys on it, I’ll have you know.”

Steve filled his mug to the top, twisting to grab Tony’s from him for a refill as well.

“I’m intrigued.”

Steve smiled again, this one a little warmer and it flickered in his eyes with a little more life. “Well, before Sam left for the weekend, he wanted to hone his baking skills. Bucky thought it would be funny for the two of them to cook up an apple pie in my honour. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of eating it in front of them, but every time I open the damn fridge it taunts me.”

Tony laughed and reached out his hand to accept his mug back, breathing in the warm steam. “Sounds like my kind of mission. But, the most serious question, ice cream or custard?”

That seemed to stump Steve for a moment and he looked to be deep in thought as he stirred his tea. “Hm. Well, I’m not sure what’s in the freezer ice-cream wise, but I know we have whipped cream. Real stuff as well, not that shit that Clint has.”

“Ugh, I know. That stuff sucks. I’ve tried throwing it out, but he seems to have a standing order for it. I’m pretty sure he has Jarvis wrapped around his finger to help him, the traitor.”

Steve chuckled a little and tapped his spoon on the side of his mug before throwing it in the general direction of the sink. “Alright. Two slices of apple pie with real whipped cream. Sound good?”

Tony took a long sip of his drink, fanning his mouth when it burnt his tongue, and nodded. “And don’t skimp on the slices. I don’t think I ate dinner.”

“Of course you didn't. Well, we have a whole pie in here and I’m not inclined to share it with anyone else.”

“Oh yeah?” Tony looked up and held Steve’s gaze, heart beating wildly in his chest. He was so tired that he almost felt drunk. If what he was about to do next all blew up in his face, then at least he could blame it on that. “What makes me so special then?”

“You’ve got a spark,” Steve said after a beat. “A warmth.”

In an instant, the whole atmosphere changed. There was a weird sort of excitement building, fizzing in the air. He felt like he was floating, as though he was in a dream.

“Oh yeah?”

“Hm. I kind of like it. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before.”

Tony lifted his mug to his lips again, still holding Steve’s gaze searchingly. “No,” he said finally, for once not in the mood to make a joke. “I don’t expect you have.”

They stayed there for a long moment before Steve dragged his eyes away as he turned and opened the fridge. He fished out the pie and made short work of finding plates and utensils before starting to carve.

“Gotta say,” he commented absentmindedly as he fiddled with getting the soggy slices onto plates, “I don’t know how this is going to taste.”

Tony cleared his throat, not sure whether he was glad for the subject change or not. “Well, I think I have more faith in Sam than I would Bucky.”

Steve snorted. “Obviously.”

They lapsed into silence again, the only sound a quiet murmur of thanks when Steve handed over a loaded plate. Tony dropped his eyes to the slice of admittedly impressive-looking pie, stabbing a soft piece apple on his fork.

“So,” he started, swiping the fruit through the sheer mountain of cream drowning the dessert, “if I were to ask you out for a real piece of pie, – in a restaurant, you know? The full deal and everything, – what would you say?”

Steve swallowed the mouthful he had just taken and looked over to Tony, face blissfully gentle. “I’m pretty sure I’d say ‘yes’.”

[mikrowrites]

all hail the magic man

•part six•

Doctor Strange x Apprentice!OC(platonic)

Charlie ran into the Sanctum, eyes wide with desperation as the portal closed behind her. She was met with overwhelming silence, causing her heart to drop further with every beat.

“Wong?” Charlie gasped out, looking around wildly. “Wong?!”

“Charlotte!”

She whipped her head around to see the top of the staircase, ignoring the pain. Wong stood at the top, his usually stoic face contorted in despair and relief.

Charlie let her face crumple, tears mixing with dried blood as they cascaded down her face, the girl sinking to her knees. Wong raced down the stairs, his eyes analyzing the girl for injuries. His hands rested on either side of her face as he obsevered her blood-crusted nose. The bridge of it was misshaped, purple and yellow.

Wong began casting a spell to fix it, gently wiping the blood away. Anybody who knew Stephen knew Charlie was his soft spot, but they’d be surprised to see that it was more so the case for Wong.

“They-they just—“ Charie stuttered over her tears. “—disintegrated... B-Bucky and Wanda a-and so many people... he-he did it.”

Wong finished healing her nose, pulling the girl in as she sobbed into his robes. After a few minutes Charlie pulled back, wiping the dried blood and tears from her face.

She spent a couple days at the Sanctum before Bruce began blowing up her phone. Charlie packed her robes and a few extra sling rings, donning a tee shirt and jeans.

Funny. That’s how that fateful day had started.

Charlie approached Wong in the library. He had definitely seen better days, but hadn’t they all?

“I need to go back to uh... to the compound. They’re trying to find Tony and where Tony is Stephen is, so um... I need to be there.” Charlie murmured.

Wong nodded in understanding, the two sharing a knowing look.

“Bring him back when you return.”

- - - - - -

A couple weeks had passed. Charlie has been scouring Stephen’s books for a tracking spell to cover such a wide range. She had been aided by Carol Danvers, who had arrived a few days after the snap. She was finally able to pinpoint a location and had set off to find them.

Charlie sat on the steps of the compound, shivering against the cool breeze that spread across the landscape. Her eyes were trained on the sky, her foot anxiously tapping on the concrete.

She felt a piece of fabric, looking to see an oversized sweatshirt over her shoulders and Steve Rogers giving her a sympathetic smile.

Charlie chuckled. “I know it’s late. Tell me to go back inside, I’ll catch a cold.”

The super soldier sighed, sitting next to her. “Nah. You wouldn’t listen anyways.”

Charlie smirked, turning back towards the sky. “If he’s not with Tony... I don’t know what to do. Besides Wong... he’s like the only family I have left.”

“He’ll be there. I promise.” Steve responded smoothly, clasping his hands together in front of him.

“It’s funny... if he was snapped... he would’ve gone out being disappointed in me.” Charlie laughed brokenly.

“If Strange is the man you’ve described to all of us, that’s just not true.” Steve turned to Charlie. “I promise you.”

The two were snapped back to reality by a strong gust of wind, Carol bringing a ship down to land in the grass before the compound. Charlie and Steve sprung up, Steve running ahead.

Charlie grinned, pulling her arms through the sweatshirt sleeves and running after him. She ran up to Tony, who was being helped down from the ship by Steve. Charlie kept looking over Tony’s shoulder, waiting to catch a glimpse of Stephen’s red cloak.

“Kid...” Tony croaked, causing Charlie to turn to him. Her grin slowly began to subside as her joy and relief was exchanged with confusion and terror.

“Kid, I’m sorry... he’s gone.”

- - - - - -

Five Years Later...

Steve and Tony drove through the Honduran streets, an air of tension strong between the two men. The car stopped in front of a concrete building, the two stepping out, thanking, and paying the driver. A wooden board above the door read “La Clinica de La Ceiba”, the two stepping inside.

A soft spoken American nurse greeted them, gesturing to an outside playground. Steve and Tony exchanged a look, both of them approaching the area.

Several kids ran around screaming with laughter, some in wrist casts or bandages around their heads, some with facemasks or crutches. Their attention was held by a grand display of orange sparks and sigils, entrancing them all in wonder.

And in the middle crouched a woman.

She was taller, leaner. Her hair was choppy and short, and eyes a brilliant green. She donned a pair of scuffed military combat boots, an olive scrub shirt, and khaki cargo pants.

And her smile, though wide and beaming, was broken.

Charlotte Lynn Greyson overjoyed the kids with the Mystic Arts, hoping to take away as much suffering as possible.

She had been thrown into a crisis, five years ago, her life coming to a halt. What was she supposed to do? So she poured herself into studying, Wong teaching her the Mystic Arts until two years later, when she was declared a Master of the Mystic Arts.

Charlie then set off on a quest to help people. Do what Stephen would’ve done. First Mexico, then parts of Finland. She helped a bit in Norway in New Asgard, before she got a call from Honduras, where she had spent the past two years volunteering at a hospital in La Ceiba.

The nurses called the children back inside, Charlie dispersing the sparks and smiling fondly at them as the left. She turned to see the two familiar men, her smile fading into a thin line.

“Hey kiddo.” Tony softly called. The woman ran her fingers through her hair, approaching the two Avengers.

“Tony. Steve.” Charlie smiled slightly, nodding. “Long time no see.”

“Charlie.” Steve nodded back.

“Thought you’d need some recovery time from O’ Canada.” Tony smirked, referring to when the man had the “genius” idea to take Charlie to Toronto for her nineteenth birthday and order five tequila poppers.

Charlie snorted before pulling Tony into a hug. “Yeah, almost a year of recovery time, you asshole.” They both pulled away, Charlie sharing a firm handshake with Steve. “So... what’re you guys doing here? Not that it’s not nice to see you, but cmon. This isn’t your vibe.”

Steve inhaled deeply. “We figured it out. Time travel.”

Charlie tensed, narrowing her eyes. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I cracked it. We found a way to fix something. And we need you.” Tony begged.

Charlie frowned to herself, biting her lip.

“Charlie, no one knows more about time travel than you right now. And Wong’s got his hands full in Nepal right now.” Tony continued.

She nodded, sighing. “Too busy or not interested?” Charlie smirked at the two, before walking away, poking her head into the clinica and shouting something in Spanish. She then walked back over creating a portal of orange sparks.

“What are you two grandpas waiting for?”

- - - - - -

A few weeks passed and soon enough Charlie was standing on a platform with the other remaining Avengers, clad in protective suits, as they all reviewed their tasks. Bruce (or the Hulk? The whole situation was just confusing to Charlie) walked up to stand next to her, the two sparing a glance to each other.

The reflective mirrors gleamed as the ground opened up underneath them, swallowing them into the quantum void. Charlie narrowed her eyes, following Steve and Tony as themselves, Scott, and Bruce as well branched off into a separate dimension together. As they reached their step-off point.

Charlie remembered that day very well. The day she first met the Ancient One.

New York, 2012.

- - - - - -

A/N: a little background: I actually went on a two-month long mission relief trip to Honduras a month and a half ago and worked in schools and clinics (in La Ceiba too for a couple days) and based a lot of this off working in a clinica there! The American nurse? Yeah, dat me :)

Taglist: @knightofreaders @imabookworm31 @lizlil @viarogers

[i-am-beyoutiful]

Family Over Story: The Shield Brings The Sword

Here is the next chapter of Family Over Story!! I do want to apologize for the wait on this chapter. WrestleMania hangover hit me hard but I am back. Hopefully you won’t have to wait this long again. Anyways, in this chapter, we hop back in time to TLC 2012 and the shields first match!! I hope you enjoy!!

Read on AO3 

“YOU’RE BEING RIDICULOUS!!!” 

“I’M BEING RIDICULOUS?? I’M BEING YOUR MOTHER!! IF I DON”T WANT YOU OUT THERE, ITS NOT HAPPENING!! AND BECAUSE I AM YOU’RE BOSS, YOU WON’T BE GOING OUT THERE!!” 

A high pitched scream traveled thru the door and the four men standing outside of the makeshift office winced at the volume. Tonight was TLC and for the members of the Shield, it was their first match. Not just any match, a TLC match. For weeks the quartet had been doing backstage segments and appearing out of nowhere to beat the crap outta everyone and anyone that got in their way. The siblings were told two weeks ago that they would have their first match on the main roster but to know that it was gonna be a TLC match on PPV sent them over the moon. They all knew they had to leave everything out in the ring. 

Cecily had been yapping about all the cool things they could do in this type of match. All the spots they could do together. Saying Cecily was geeked would be an understatement. Damage, down in NXT, was know for brawling. Hitting hard, fast and with a vengeance. No one messed with Damage unless you wanted a one way ticket to pain. Cecily changed the game and she planned to keep that going with this TLC match. Which lead to the screaming match that the men of the McMahon-Levesque family were hiding from. A first draft for what creative wanted the Shield to do during the match passed across Hunter’s desk and Stephanie happened to see it. To say Stephanie was horrified would be an understatement. 

Stephanie had her husband take out any spot that would put her daughter in any harm period. Hunter tried to change her mind but she was immovable. When the four siblings arrived at the arena and got the word from Road Dogg, informing them of the situation, the boys could barely keep up with their sisters steps. They got there just in time to see their dad pushed out the room and the door slammed in their faces. 

More screams traveled through the door and Roman rolled his eyes

“Dad, What could Cecily possibly be mad about? It’s not like there won’t be more matches for her to participate in.” Roman mentions. 

“I don’t think its the fact that she won’t be in this match. It’s what creative had signed up for her.” Hunter shook his head, “Seth was gonna be in harms way and she was gonna take chair shots for him then eat a table spot.” 

“WHAT!” Seth shot up from the floor in surprise. “And you said no! Dad, Cece lived for that stuff down in NXT. Taking a couple chair shots is nothing to her!” Seth exclaimed.

“Trust me, I know and I was all for it. This is all your mom. She was appalled and put a stop to it.” Hunter held his hands up. Dean got ready to respond but the door slammed open. Cecily walked out, taking heavy breaths, looking every bit of pissed. Seth tried to say something but was cut off by Cecily’s finger. She just shakes her head. 

“I’m gonna go get my make-up done because we have a segment to film. I’ll find you after.” Cecily took off towards the makeup chairs. All the men staring at the retreating figure of the female Shield member. Dean got a good look at her face and Cecily looked devastated. He could see his brothers on the verge of going after Cecily which would just end in a even bigger explosion. 

Dean slapped Seth’s shoulder, “Hey let’s go get changed. We probably got some lines to memorize.” Dean leads his older brothers away and gives his dad a nod. Hunter sighs again before stepping back into the office to face the storm that is his angry wife. 

Damage was arguing with her Shield brother, Seth Rollins.

“THERE IS NO WAY I’M DOING THAT!!”

“LOOK, YOU COULD GET HURT! DO YOU WANT THAT?”

“OHHH SO SUDDENLY ITS OK FOR YOU TO GET HURT!!”

“YEAH BECAUSE I’M AN ACTUAL WRESTLER!!” 

“YOU MOTHER-” Before Damage could finish, the hand belonging to Dean Ambrose clamped over her mouth, muffling the words she was saying. Damage shook Dean’s hand off and went to leap at Seth but Roman interrupted. Stepping between Seth and Damage doing well to make sure his brother wasn’t hurt before the fight they had tonight. Seth and Damage were glaring daggers at each other, ignoring their fellow Shield members. 

“What the hell is going on? Tonight is not the night for in fighting. We have bigger fish to fry.” Roman glances between them trying to gauge what could possibly be causing this commotion. 

“Seth has ordered me to stay back stage while you guys go fight Ryback and Team Hell No. Tell HIM that’s not happening!” Dean and Roman glance at each other.

“Weeeellll??” Dean began and shrugged his shoulders. Damage turned to her brother in shock. 

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME DEAN!!!!! Out of all of you, you’re the one to tell me no!?” Damage shook her head in disbelief and turned to Roman pleading with him. He was her last hope of changing hers brothers minds.  

“Come on, Roman! Make some sense please? I can help you guys out there.” Damage got her answer in Roman’s silence and she was taken aback. 

“Wow. I guess all the times you said I’m just as much apart of the Shield as you are was a lie.” Damage, hurt by her brothers distrust, started to walk away but was grabbed by the elbow, stopping her in her tracks. Damage ripped her arms out of her brothers grip. She walked out of frame, her brothers staring in concern after her. 

Right before the Pre show ends, a clip plays showing Damage fixing her boots. To her left, the locker room door opens with a creek. Damage stops and sits up. 

“Whoever it is, I don’t want to talk.” Damage goes back to her shoes when three people walk in. 

“I said I don’t want to talk,” She stands and faces her brothers, “Especially not to anyone who doesn’t trust me.” Seth rolls his eyes, already tired of his partners dramatics. 

“Oh get over it Damage!! Its not about us trusting you.” Damage interrupts, enraged at her brothers response. 

“NOT ABOUT TRUST!?!?! Of course it’s about trust. You don’t trust me to go out their and do anything and everything to make sure to Shield come out of TLC with a win. You don’t trust me to have chair cracked over my back. You don’t trust me to crash thru tables. You don’t trust me to take a ladder to the stomach and you guys trained me!” Damage breaths are coming out rapidly, her anger working her up. “If you expect to stand back here and watch as my brothers go to war in TLC match like any of these other good for nothing Divas,” She holds her hands up to pause, “Except for Naomi, Katilyn and AJ Lee, Natalya and Beth Phoenix.” The crowd laughs at Damage’s own interruption. 

Damage’s breathing calms down. She drops onto the bench below her and crosses her arms, “I will not be made to feel invalid.” 

Dean drops into the seat next to her and shakes Damage’s shoulder grabbing her attention. 

“You are not invalid. You are a valued member of this brotherhood. You’re the only women we could tolerate. And trust us, none of the divas back here could pull off the Shield fare like you can.” Dean and Damage share a smile before he continues. “Now the reason we don’t want you out with us isn’t because we don’t believe you can’t take a hit. You’ve taken plenty and you’ve stood tall after. We don’t want you out their because we would have to watch you take those shots for us when you don’t have to. Seeing you do that may take our focus away from the match. And I know, for you, its important that we win. Its all you’ve been harping on for weeks leading up to tonight.” Damage laughs a little before Dean embraces her. Roman speaks up, finishing off his brothers speech. 

“We gon go out there and we gonna beat the absolute crap outta Team Hell No and their little sidekick and show them why we are the Shield from injustice. Now lets do this!!” Dean stands and the boys join fists. Damage looks at all them and stands. 

“You all take care of business tonight. And If anything and I mean anything happens out there no one is gonna be able to stop me. I’m running down there, chair in hand, and I’m swinging until something breaks. Its just a matter of timing if its the chair or someone’s back” All the boys nod with a smile and Damage thrusts her fist into the empty space waiting for her.

“You gonna be okay, Cece?” The boys just got the ten minute warning and they were heading up top for their entrance. Dean and Seth were already heading up but Roman stopped to check on his sister once again before leaving the locker room. Cecily hasn’t said a word since they finished filming. She hadn’t even reacted to all the matches playing out on screen. All her brothers were concerned but they had more important things to worry about. Going into a TLC match needed all their focus. Cece shrugged off all their questions. Telling them to direct their concerns on not getting hurt out there.

Cecily turned to her brother, a half hearted smile painting her face. 

“Go kick some ass.” Roman nods and closes the door behind him. 

Cecily continued to sit in the locker room watching the end of Kofi versus Wade Barrett when her mother walked in. Stephanie tried to speak but Cecily evacuated the space before she could get a word in. Cecily was walking thru the hallways and she ran into her Dad. He placed a hand on her shoulder as she was passing. He leaned closer to her ear and whispered. 

“Hey have you spoken to mother?” 

“Naw she entered the room and I left. I’m trying to find a monitor so I can watch my brothers match.” Cecily tried to exit the situation but Hunter stops her again. 

“Dad, I don’t feel like doing this right now.” Cecily rolls her eyes. 

Hunter drags her forward, back toward the shared locker room, “You don’t but I do.” The two reach the door. Hunter holds it open and just waits for Cecily to enter. She huffs angrily but enters the room to face her mother watching the beginning stages of her sons match in bated breath. Stephanie glances over at her daughter and her husband. 

“Sweetheart, can’t this wait until after our sons match?” Stephanie proposes but Hunter cuts her off. 

“No it can’t. Now Cece could you please explain to your mother why you’re mad.” Hunter hands the floor over to Cecily. Their oldest daughter looks around the room, anywhere but her mothers face. 

“She doesn’t trust me.” Cecily finally blurts out and Stephanie is taken aback. 

“Cece! When have I ever said I don’t trust you?” Stephanie asks. 

Cecily rolls her eyes again, “You may not say it but you show it. You never let me pick my own clothes for events. I had to basically wrestle you into letting me dress like an actual Shield member and not a normal diva valet. You don’t even let me drive on the road and tonight was the last straw. I’m a trained professional wrestler, mom, and tonight you basically showed me that you don’t trust my training to be able to go out there and take a table spot and couple chairs to the back.” Cecily eyes bored into her mothers before looking away, directing her gaze back to the floor. 

“Sweetheart, I didn’t know you felt that way. I only said no because its your first big match on the roster and I already have to watch my boys put their bodies thru this.” As if on que, on the tv, Seth and Dean get planted onto an awaiting ladder and everyone in the locker room winced. Stephanie points at the monitor, “I knew I was gonna have to accept this but it never crossed my mind that I would have to watch you do that.” 

Cecily sighs and grabs her mothers hand, “Yes but mom think about how I would be changing the game. The divas didn’t do brawls but I did. The divas don’t fight like the boys but I do. No one expected me to be taking the same shots as the boys down in NXT but I did. Mom the people have been clamoring for a change in the divas.They want wrestlers. They want the women and men to be treated equally and I could have been the start of that, tonight. Mom this can’t happen again. I want to go out there and prove to everyone that I belong in the Shield. That I’m not just a diva but you have to trust me.” Stephanie pulled Cecily into a hug, smiling at her husband. 

“I trust you Cecily. I won’t like seeing you do this but I trust you.” Stephanie and Cecily pull away with smile. Hunter smiles as well.

“Now that that’s covered I’m gonna run back to gorilla and make everything is going okay. Love you both.” And with that Hunter runs out of the room. 

“Love you too.” The girls call back then they settle in their seats to watch the rest of the match. 

“FUCK!!! My everything hurts!!” Dean exclaims while his mother checks on him and his brothers in the trainers room. The family was waiting for the trainers to come back. Cecily laughs at her brothers comment. 

“That’s what happens when you have a TLC match, Dean. But other than the obvious pain you’re all in, How was it?” Cecily asks. 

“It was awesome!!” 

“That crowd was electric.” 

“They couldn’t get enough of us.” Cecily smiled. 

“Yeah I bet they couldn’t! Seth that table spot towards the end was SICK!!” The sibling continued to talk and harp on about all the cool stuff they did in the match.The boys wishing Cecily would have been out there with them. Cecily recounting all the things they did like it didn’t just happen. Stephanie and Hunter watched the scene in amusement. 

“How did you deal with seeing Cece do all those brawls in NXT?” Stephanie asked. 

“Oh I didn’t. Most of the time, I had someone else watch them to make sure no one got hurt.” The two parents laugh. Hunter shook his head in amusement, “You know I was terrified for Cecily when she brought up her and Saraya having a real brawl backstage. But I saw the look in Cece’s eyes. It was the same look my parents tell me I had when I told them I wanted to be wrestler. She believed this was her path and I gave her the ball to run with, no matter how much I didn’t want to see her do that stuff.”

Stephanie grabs her husbands hand and kisses it. 

“Then I guess we’ll suffer together?” 

“You bet we will.” They both smile again before joining in on the conversation their oldest kids were having. The family sharing this moment together. 

[foxposters781]

FTL: Faster Than Light + Soundtrack Crack

FTL: Faster Than Light PC Game Free Download Cracked in Direct Link and Torrent. FTL: Faster Than Light is a Real-Time Strategy game with a turn-based.

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Ftl Faster Than Light Soundtrack

FTL: Faster Than Light - Vinyl Edition soundtrack from 2012, composed by Ben Prunty. Released by iam8bit in 2016 containing music from FTL: Faster Than Light (2012). FTL: Faster Than Light. So I wanted to reflect that in the music. I took the melody from Space Cruise and rearranged it in a minor key and it turned out awesome.

FTL: Faster Than Light PC Game Overview:

FTL: Faster Than Light is developed by Subset Games and published by Subset Games. It was released in 14 Sep, 2012.

****New Content Available**** The free expansion, FTL: Advanced Edition, is available now! Content additions include: new alien race, events, weapons, playable ships, drones, and more! Also adds additional musical tracks by Ben Prunty, and events by Tom Jubert and guest writer Chris Avellone. If you already own FTL it should update the new content automatically. Advanced Edition is included free for anyone who purchases the game from this point forward. ************************

In FTL you experience the atmosphere of running a spaceship trying to save the galaxy. It’s a dangerous mission, with every encounter presenting a unique challenge with multiple solutions. What will you do if a heavy missile barrage shuts down your shields? Reroute all power to the engines in an attempt to escape, power up additional weapons to blow your enemy out of the sky, or take the fight to them with a boarding party? This “spaceship simulation roguelike-like” allows you to take your ship and crew on an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy filled with glory and bitter defeat.

Features:

Complex Strategic Gameplay – Give orders to your crew, manage ship power distribution and choose weapon targets in the heat of battle.

Play at Your Own Speed – Pause the game mid-combat to evaluate your strategy and give orders.

Unique Lifeforms and Technology – Upgrade your ship and unlock new ones with the help of six diverse alien races.

Be the Captain You Want – Hundreds of text based encounters will force you to make tough decisions.

Randomized Galaxy – Each play-through will feature different enemies, events, and results to your decisions. No two play-throughs will be quite the same.

No Second Chances! – Permadeath means when you die, there’s no coming back. The constant threat of defeat adds importance and tension to every action.

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Posted 2019-08-30, evaluated by the judges panel

Sir_NutS (Paul Michael Molina), hits us again, this time with a mellower, downtempo synth jam featuring warm, pitch-drifting, melting synths & dusty beats, arranging Ben Prunty's title theme from FTL:

Ftl: Faster Than Light + Soundtrack Crackle

'I figured you guys were getting tired of the endless flood of synthwave remixes from me, so I guess something different is appropiate. I went into this one trying to do something warm, lo-fi/analog-sounding, and also unlike most of my remixes, not in your face all the time. So this is much mellower and more deliberate in pacing than my usual stuff. FTL is a great game, and Ben Prunty made a soundtrack for it that fits perfectly. I spent hundreds of hours playing this, and the soundtrack stuck with me, so it was only a matter of time before I tackled it.

Ftl: Faster Than Light + Soundtrack Crackling

Ftl Faster Than Light Ost

I hope everyone enjoys this one, I like the results, and I'm happy that I went into sorta unknown territory and came back with something alright to show.'

Groovy vibe/aesthetic shift for Mike; I can never really get too much of his particular flavor of synthwave, but this is lower-fi, mellow, & comparatively stripped down, and right from those introductory, drifting/melting chords, you know it's gonna be good. Vaporwave? Retrowave? Something-wave.. judges were unanimous; Rexy provided a great breakdown & analysis:

'Structure-wise, it's one run-through of the source but with a whole bunch of modifications. The backing melody's irregular syncopation from 0:48, the little melody flourishes in the first half (0:36, 1:46, the sine pluck at 1:58) and the source arpeggio changed into a filter-heavy sequence (1:06) all stuck out. The additional synth solo in the 1:23 section also added some much-needed warmth in the lower end. And the square legato synth at 2:50 is all original despite having a similar tone and rhythm to a left-panned synth later on in the source. It's a sign that you knew the BGM inside and out and achieved a compelling arrangement while still respecting the qualities of Ben Prunty's composition.

Ftl Faster Than Light Cheats

Seriously, I got nothing else to say - great job, hey ho, front page, let's go.'

Ftl Faster Than Light Soundtrack

I got nothing else to say, either; Ben's score to FTL really resonated with fans & fit the game like a glove, and Mike's taken that & given it a watery, warm, & well-textured makeover. Great stuff - enjoy!

― djpretzel

[lokihzra]

My Heart’s On Fire For Your Love

Chapter 3

Thor falls to his knees in front of his brother, his heartbeat picking up with every sharp inhale Loki takes. “Loki hey look at me” Thor demands through the lump in his throat as he gently lifts Loki’s face to look at him “you’re okay, we’re in New York” he says as soft as he can, keeping his touch gentle and pleading, hoping Loki can see the worry and pain in his eyes.

“no I-I” Loki stops and gulps to try and ease the lump in his throat attempting to suffocate him “I don’t know what’s happening” he mumbles and tries to look back down at the floor.

Thor pulls his head back up and Loki couldn’t tell if he wanted to pull away or lean into Thor’s touch “breathe Loki, keep your eyes on me”

“I can’t-“ he breaks off into sharp gasps and leans forward until his head hits Thor’s shoulder “make it stop” the gasps burned his lungs but his head hurt more.

worthless, useless, nothing, a monster. Who can love a monster?

Especially a fallen jotun runt.

“Loki please breathe” Thor begs, tears welling up in his own eyes. Helpless, the weight in his heart screams at him to do something but he can’t. Thor isn’t skilled with a Seidr so no matter how bad he wanted to, he couldn’t help his brother.

“Please make it stop” Loki sobs and his stomach drops as he remembers the darkness, the endless silence “Thor please” he begs, pressing his face farther into thor’s shoulder, his hands gripping Thors sweater so hard that Loki swears he feels one of his nails crack.

Thor starts softly shushing him and Loki feels his hand rubbing his back gently, his other hand playing with his hair and he only notices that it calms him down near ten minutes later when his lungs stopped burning and that dull throbbing started pounding at the back of his eyes.

“what do you need?” Thor asks quietly, not moving to pull away.

Loki gulps, trying to ignore the embarrassment as he pulls back “I don’t know why that-“

“you want to rest? you look like you need it” Thor smiles softly making Loki’s nose sting.

“okay”

“Sir, Mr. Rhodes was already on his way here”

Tony sighs but it just gets caught in his throat “wher-where is he?” he says quickly.

“he’s just parked”

“he has a damn suit-oh god” Tony falls back on his ass and brings his knees up to his chin.

“he’s in the elevator”

Tony nods to himself as he grips the table and pulls himself up to his feet. He stumbles and hits his hip against the table so hard he knows there will be a bruise but he doesn’t care because he hears the door slide open.

He turns around to see Rhodey rushing over to him and Tony stumbles over to him, Rhodey catching him before he could trip over his own foot. “Hey man what happened?” Rhodey asks softly as he lowers them to the ground.

“Loki-I-” Tony buries his face in Rhodeys shoulder, his hands holding onto Rhodeys jacket like his life depended on it “me and Loki-“

“You and Loki what? fought?” he asks quietly as he rubs Tony’s back, drawing patterns and words into it.

“no-we-opposite”

“you guys hooked up?” Rhodey nearly yells.

“no-he’s my-“

“okay Tony calm down just breathe, copy my breathing” Rhodey demands and he doesn’t breathe louder on purpose, It helped Tony a lot more when he had to strain to focus, when he blocked everything out to focus on one thing.

And it worked. The pounding in his head got quieter as he strained to listen to Rhodeys even breaths and mimic them. Tony loved Rhodey with all his damn heart, if it wasn’t for Rhodey, Tony probably would have died by 22 and Tony never ever expresses how much Rhodey means to him and he hates it because he got it from Howard.

“you okay now?” Rhodey breaks him from his thoughts, the hand on his back slowing to a halt.

“I love you, you know that?”

“shut up”

“No i really do Rhodes, I would die for you man”

“you’ll die for anyone Tony”

“not true”

“well if you love me so much tell me what happened”

“um” Tony pauses to try and think of how the hell he tells his best friend that soulmates are real and he knows because his soulmate is upstairs right now and it just so happens to be the man who attacked the very city they’re in at the moment “maybe another time buddy”

Tony starts to get up but Rhodey pulls him back down to the floor “I’m your best friend douche bag, tell me”

“do you believe in soulmates?”

“sometimes” Rhodey says with a shrug but continues when Tony raises a brow “I thought you and Pepper were soulmates”

“yeah well she’s not and my soulmate is a guy”

Rhodeys face falls but he quickly breaks off into a quiet laugh “you’re telling me soulmates are real?”

“the city was attacked by aliens five days ago and this, you don’t believe?”

“okay fine keep talking” Rhodey demands as he focuses his attention on Tony.

“nevermind I shouldn’t-“

“Tony tony I’m listening so tell me please” Rhodey nearly begs.

Tony rambles to hopefully avoid the subject but Rhodey knows him. Rhodey knows that this is what he does.“apparently soulmates are rare. Like extinct rare and I don’t really know the purpose but-“

Rhodey interrupts him “Tony”

Tony stops with a huff and as he opened his mouth to say the words, he suddenly couldn’t. “Tony?” he sighs before lifting his sleeve and revealing the L on his wrist, the black marking standing out against his tan skin like an emo at Disney land.

Tony watches as Rhodey frowns at it before his face drops “am I being punk’d?”

“fuck” Tony says harshly as he pulls his sleeve back down “see?” he quickly gets up and walks over to his desk “this is why I don’t want to tell anybody”

“do you love him?” Rhodey asks and Tony stops abruptly.

“no” he says without missing a beat and he turns around to face Rhodey in case the latter doesn’t believe him.

“well then you’ll be okay” Rhodey says reassuringly.

It doesn’t work thought because Rhodey can’t hide his concern from Tony, not after 12 years of being bestfriends. “Thor said something about a bond becoming complete-the fuck does that mean Rhodey?” Tony asks quickly, his heart beating faster than his tongue moves.

“Call Loki down here”

“what? no-“

“I can’t answer your questions only he can”

“Sir it seems that Mr. Odinson is not functional enough to come down here”

He groans before mumbling “and why not?” secretly hoping that JARVIS never heard.

“he’s suffering from a migraine ” JARVIS informs him and Tony sighs in relief before something catches his attention.

“Aliens can get headaches?”

“technically sir he is Asgardian, A god, not an alien, they have the same physiology but they’re only denser so yes Asgardians can get headaches”

“diseases?”

“no sir, their density makes it near impossible for diseases to survive off of their body, it would take nearly a million years for any disease to affect them”

“hm” Tony shrugs “won’t have to use a condom.

“Tony!” Rhodey scolds as he watches Tony walk to the door.

“i’m kidding sourpatch”

May 9th, 2012

“we ordered supper, it’s on the counter” Natasha nods towards the several takeout plates on the counter.

“didn’t know what you guys wanted so I just ordered almost everything” Tony says through a mouthful of food.

Loki frowns down at the meat and vegetables mixed together, with rice or noodles, a bowl of soup and small balls covered in a red sauce. “what is this?”

“Chinese food” Clint says through his mouthful of food

“Why are you here and why are you all dirty?”

“While you guys were destroying the training room we were out cleaning your mess” Steve states

Loki frowns and it disappears before anyone could even notice it. His eyebrows are furrowed and his fists clenched together as he walks over to the giant windows. Thor and Tony silently watching as Loki scans the wreck of the city below him.

Suddenly Tony’s throat closes up, his eyes filling with tears and the weight in his heart makes him literally stop breathing for a moment. He freezes before harshly putting his plate down and watching as Loki is staring down at the city.

Loki's fists are clenched so tight that his arms tremble along with his tense jaw, shaking, trying to form words as he scans the debris littering the streets and buildings. Broken windows and signs, craters from explosions and some buildings had holes in them that was at least 4 stories big.

He blinks quickly to make the tears go away before he holds his palms out, parallel to the window in front of him and his guilt doesn’t fade as the warmth travels through his veins. The warm green light of his magic absorbing the mess; garbage, debris, glass and metal all disappearing from the streets and buildings. He couldn’t fix the buildings or signs, not until he got more of his strength back but this was enough for now.

He couldn't fix broken families and give children their parents back.

He’ll do better.

He’ll make up for it, somehow.

“how many people?” he asks quietly, staying in his spot “how many people did I kill?”

“one hundred and ninety three” Steve states and Loki couldn’t hold in his shaky exhale.

He was about to say something but Clints cold tone made his brain short circuit “cleaning up the mess won’t do anything”

Lokis guilt completely fades morphing into anger as he scans the avengers in the living room. “I accept you all for who you are even when you can’t find even a shred of humanity to accept me. Natasha’s ledger is worse than mine, Thor waged war on Jötunheim out of anger, he wasn’t mind controlled, tortured and forced like I was ” Loki snarls but he continues before Thor can ask questions “Clint you had a secret family, Bruce killed his abusive alcoholic father” Loki stops quickly, his gaze softening as he looks at the tense scientist “I’m not judging you for that I would have done the same thing. Tony is an alcoholic who made weapons and Steve claims to be a self-sacrificing hero yet he has 90 years to prove that”

The room is silent as every word sinks into their bones. Every word was true and none of them could deny that not even to themselves, Tony never ever denied who he was but that doesn’t stop the anger from boiling his blood and organs.

“I’m not the only one with mistakes or a past, I’m not the only one who lies about who I am and I know that, so degrade me all you want but don’t throw it in my face” Loki deadpans “because I promise you Barton, I will win at that game every time” he says lowly.

“shut the fuck up”

“pardon?” Loki glares and Tony feels another wave of that hot red rage setting in his bones.

“shut the fuck up, you’re pissing me off”

Loki scoffs, folding his arms and barking out a laugh “I’m pissing you-“ he stops abruptly, his face dropping as he suddenly marches into the elevator, leaving everyone shocked.

Except for Tony, as fast as the anger came it transformed into fear as soon as-

As soon as Loki wasn't angry anymore.

[spectrumscribe]

Three times Leo was there for his brothers (and the time when they were there for him.)

commissioned by a lovely fan, a TMNT 2012 AU where Leo actually acts like a good older brother and is there for his siblings when they need him. (and in turn, his brothers are there for him when he needs them.)

AO3 version.

Leo finds Mikey, some days after their misadventure in Dimension-X, staring upwards at the night sky with an oddly contemplative expression.

Usually, Mikey would be the first to have gone inside Murakami’s. He’d even broken off from patrol earlier and said he’d meet them here. Leo’s brother never misses a chance to snag the bulk of their order, or at least be the one to make his order first. Sitting outside on a clear night, perched on the edge of the roof and absolutely quiet, is out of the ordinary for Mikey’s behavior. He doesn’t even have his headphones on at the moment.

Of course… Mikey has been a little off in general the last while, in small moments here and there. But none of them have been too big- just Mikey being quiet for a while, or staring at everyone during training for a few more seconds than he normally would. Leo hasn’t worried, not until now.

Food is important to Mikey, since it can sometimes be hard to get good sorts on the table and their ingredients often end up limited to non-perishables. Mikey holding off getting food that’s fresh and hot and made by someone who accepts them for who they are is definitively weird.

So Leo, changing course from beating Raph and Donnie down to Murakami’s, hops up to the roof in silent bounds. Mikey still hears him, somehow, and twitches all over; turning his head and casting a guarded look over his shoulder at Leo’s feet hitting the rooftop.

When Mikey sees its just Leo, he relaxes subtly and returns to looking up at the sky. Leo frowns, because that’s new, too. Out of all of them, Mikey used to have the hardest time keeping track of his surroundings when he zoned out. Leo dislikes that he can’t remember when that stopped being a thing.

“Hey,” Leo says, walking over towards his brother. “How come you’re not inside already? You ditched us like, a full hour ago.”

Mikey shrugs, keeping his eyes on the dim stars of the NYC skyline. “Dunno, just thought I’d wait for you guys or something. It’s not so bad just hanging out, you know?”

Maybe so, but coming from his brother, who some nights can’t sit still even if and when his life depended on it, it sounds out of character. Leo sits down on the ledge with Mikey, hanging his legs over free air and knowing they’re both hidden by the glare of the sign below them.

Leo looks up at the sky Mikey is so intent on studying, picking out what faint constellations will show. He used to dream about going up there someday, meeting aliens and having his own space cruiser- until he figured out that turtles aren’t really allowed to do that, and lightspeed travel hasn’t been invented yet. The thought is still nice, though. The idea of populated worlds out there and the potential of contacting them.

“The stars are nice tonight,” Leo offers casually, finding the big dipper. Mikey hums in agreement.

“Yeah, they’re pretty,” He replies. Then he adds, “Dimension-X didn’t have a night sky. Or a real sky at all, actually.”

Leo glances over at Mikey. His little brother isn’t looking anywhere but upwards, still with that weird contemplativeness.

“…yeah, I noticed something like that,” Leo says slowly, watching Mikey. “Though I guess I wasn’t there long enough to know if it had a nighttime.”

“It doesn’t,” Mikey says. “It’s bright as hell all day every day. And pretty much everything is the sky? I- I wandered pretty far, a few times. Hopped downwards on those island thingies as far as I could. I don’t think they have solid land there. Just… sky.”

Leo notices that the more Mikey talks, the farther off his gaze gets. He touches Mikey’s shoulder and his brother blinks, coming back to himself. Mikey turns his head towards Leo, questioning.

“Are you okay?” Leo asks, feeling a squirm of worry in his gut. Mikey, as far as he knows, hasn’t actually… talked to any of them about Dimension-X, or anything he experienced there. There wasn’t time when they were rescuing him, and Mikey didn’t seem like he had anything to say other than how cool it’d been, knowing what was what when no one else did.

“Who, me? Yeah, I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?” Mikey asks, eyes leaving Leo’s and looking away again. Avoiding eye contact is a classic trick Mikey pulls when he’s hiding something, so Leo pushes.

“Mikey, is there something that happened in Dimension-X you didn’t tell us about? You’ve been acting weird lately, and…” Leo puts a hand on Mikey’s, curling his fingers under his brother’s. “you’re kind of worrying me right now, honestly. Is there something you wanna talk about?”

Mikey looks down at their hands, and then back up at the sky. “It’s just…” His mouth goes tight around the edges. “D-X kinda felt endless sometimes, and there wasn’t ever really somewhere I could stay more than a few hours? I mean, half of the time it was really fucking cool- way more interesting than runnin’ the same patrol route the millionth time, right? But it… never stopped?” Mikey turns his hand over in Leo’s, not holding on, but not pulling away, either. “I got energy to burn, man, but… sometimes felt like you guys weren’t ever gonna get there. It got tiring, some days.”

Mikey’s eyes don’t stray from the sky the whole time he speaks, and stay there even after he stops. Leo’s squirm of worry becomes a weight of concern in his chest, and his eyes skitter across Mikey’s hand and arm.

There are scars there that hadn’t been, prior to Dimension-X. Some still partly pink, others healed over completely and silver-green, now. That’s at least two months of healing right there, if not more. There’s one right along Mikey’s jaw, straying a little too close to his throat for comfort, and that. That makes Leo feel unsettled all the way through.

Leo looks at Mikey, and finally, it slots into place why Mikey seems off in moments and a little more than different in others. Because he is. Mikey is different. There’s time between them now; time that felt like mere minutes to Leo, but were months for Mikey.

Without anyone to see and share it, Mikey grew up a little more without Leo or any of their brothers. And he spent that whole time wondering if anyone was ever going to come find him.

Leo grips his little brother’s hand- and Mikey is his little brother, whether he’s a few months older than Leo or not- and it draws Mikey’s attention back to him.

“We were coming to find you the second you went through the portal, Mikey,” Leo says, trying to be firm and feeling a little off-kilter as he does. “It’s the time dilation’s fault. We were always going to get you out of there, okay?”

Leo will die before he ever leaves one of his brothers behind; he knows that as clearly and intrinsically as he knows any one of them could die each night they go out. A few seconds or a few years- it doesn’t matter. Leo would have gone to find Mikey, no matter how long it took. He would have found his brother and brought him home.

He wishes all the jargon of physics and alter-dimensions hadn’t made it take so long, this time around. For Mikey’s sake.

Mikey squeezes Leo’s hand, tight and reassuring.

“I know,” Mikey says, and smiles like he wasn’t alone for all that time; bright as before Dimension-X, scars or no. “Loneliness just makes you think dumb things sometimes. I knew you guys would show up eventually, whenever you got your lazy butts in gear.”

The humor doesn’t completely cover the vulnerability there, and that hurts Leo, somewhere deep inside. That even for a second, Mikey might of have doubted his own family would rescue him.

So Leo draws Mikey close, and hugs him; tucking Mikey up against himself and trying to undo those months of loneliness with a single gesture.

“We wouldn’t have left you there, I swear,” Leo whispers, repeating his first word’s meanings. Mikey has to know that, he has to.

Mikey’s arms come up around Leo’s shell, clutching him back with a sudden grip.

“I know,” Mikey whispers back, small and young. “I know. Thanks.”

Leo keeps hugging Mikey until his brother draws away, covering the emotional moment with a joke about all their food being nicked by Raph and Donnie before they even get a crack at it. Leo lets Mikey go only because he knows his brother isn’t going anywhere far.

He makes a silent promise to hug his brother more often, and to spend time with Mikey that’s not just patrol and training.

Leo grabs Mikey’s shoulders as they head into the restaurant; giving his brother an affectionate noogie as Raph and Donnie tease them about missing the chance to weigh in on the order. Mikey fends Leo off as their brothers welcome them, and Leo makes sure Mikey gets sat right between Donnie and Raph; safe and happy and back where he belongs.

 --/--

 Months later, Leo wakes up and finds again he’s missed Mikey growing up a little more. He’s missed all of his brothers growing up a little more, and their friends as well.

The world kept moving along while he was in his coma, and for the first while Leo just doesn’t know what to do with that. New York is sealed off from the rest of the world, their father is missing, possibly dead, and Leo-

Leo can’t walk at the moment. Not on his own.

He can’t lead while his legs give out under him without warning, and his voice sometimes cracks and won’t come back for hours. Leo is healing, but as he is… he can’t be the leader of his team. Who can follow a leader that can’t even walk with his own strength?

Donnie, who is gaunt and exhausted in little ways, tells him it’ll take time. That Leo needs to be patient and let them take care of him. Leo wants to fight that, protest and keep trying to force himself back to wellness, but he reluctantly agrees in the end to take it easy. If only because he can see in Donnie’s eyes, every time they sit down for daily physical therapy, that Leo’s brother blames himself, for whatever reason, that Leo isn’t at full health already.

Leo lets Donnie fuss about treatments, trying to ease that guilt, and swallows his wounded pride that he’s so useless like this.

He’s always been the leader, always been someone to depend on. He’d always tried his best to be that, and because of a failure and trauma that’s left him crippled, he can’t be anymore. Not for a long while yet.

It hurts, having to admit he’s not fit to lead at the moment. It hurts worse that he feels like he’s let down his team, his family, and will keep letting them down so long as he’s stuck with crutches and a gravelly voice.

Nothing he can do about that, though. Not as he is.

So Leo rises in the mornings, and helps Mikey prepare at least a little of the breakfast for Casey and April before they go to their part-time jobs. He washes dishes as long as his leg will hold out, and then he goes to find wherever Donnie’s collapsed this time. Leo sets a mug of hot coffee beside Donnie’s slumped form at his desk, wakes him gently, and obediently follows Donnie through therapy exercises once he’s fully conscious again. Lunch is just the four of them, Leo and his brothers, and he attempts to help coach them all through training when April gets home. He can’t join in more than gentle stretches on the sidelines, unfortunately.

It’s not much, but he tries to keep positive. Leo can’t be a leader right now, but he can at least be a brother.

Though he wonders. While he was in his coma, who’d been leading in his place? Who’s still leading in his place, while he finishes healing? He doesn’t doubt that they can all handle themselves on their own, his family, but this many people can’t be coordinated effectively without at least one person guiding. Someone has to have been doing that for things to be running this smoothly.

It takes an embarrassingly long time to notice who has been and still is leading in his place. Leo blames the fact that he’s still only a week and a half out of his coma.

Its little things that, in the end, tip him off. Maybe his brother doesn’t even notice he’s doing it, since unlike a year prior, Raph isn’t advertising his spot at the helm of their team.

Leo knew it’d been Raph who’d sat beside his bedside every day and nearly every night, monitoring his condition in case it took a turn for the worse, or for the better. But he hadn’t known until he really looked that Raph has been doing much more than just playing sentry.

It’s in how Raph is just present, even just in the periphery. Sometimes closer in, talking low and steady to whomever he’s with at the moment. Grounding, solidly there. Finishing the dishes Leo can’t and not saying a word about it, putting away leftover food before Mikey can even reach for the saranwrap and playing any videogame their brother wants; leaving a blanket on Donnie’s shoulders when he finally collapses from lack of sleep and putting a plate of food within reach during the day, encouraging April with curt words as she builds strength and stamina in training and watching her so she doesn’t get hurt; catching Casey’s attention before he can think too hard about his missing family and never leaving him or any of them truly alone.

Being there for them all.

Leo’s missed a lot, including Raph maturing enough to be capable of holding the fort down like this. In a way he still feels ashamed he was gone so long, that he’s still unable to be a dependable support, but more so he’s proud.

Maybe a year ago, he would have felt jealous that Raph is holding a position Leo always has. Now though… maybe he’s matured some, too.

Not more than a day after he arrives to that conclusion, Leo finds Raph sitting by himself on the back porch steps. It’s late at night, and as much as Leo would rather be asleep, the taint of nightmares is already too much for him to handle. So he chose to come outside; see the clear night sky and remind himself he’s not alone in that construction site anymore.

The unexpected company isn’t unwelcome. Seeing his family, talking and interacting with them, it makes it all the easier to wash away the residual terror of a bad dream. As his crutches’ thuds against the wood draw Raph’s attention, Leo sees in his brother’s expression that company to him might not be so unwelcome either.

Raph’s mask is hanging around his neck, and even with just the dim porchlight to see by, Leo notes there are dark circles under his brother’s eyes. None of them sleep too well anymore, but the dark shade of Raph’s bags is a little worse than normal. Leo wonders if Raph has also been suffering nightmares. He wouldn’t blame his brother for it.

“Evening,” Leo croaks, then wincing at his voice’s struggle. He clears it discreetly as he can. “You mind if I join you?”

Raph nods mutely. Leo sits down as his brother moves over on the step; easing his bad leg out and sighing under his breath at being off his feet.

“Is it bothering you?” Raph asks, eyeing the leg as Leo rubs his knee. “You want me to get your pain meds?”

Leo waves him off. “No, no it’s fine. I already had my dose at dinner.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. I’m okay.”

“…hrm,” is all Raph replies with. Leo ignores his brother’s disbelief and looks out at the wide lawn of the farmhouse. The trees in the distance are a formless bulk of black, full of far off animal noises. The sky above them is not full of stars, but certainly peppered with a gracious amount.

It’s beautiful, and nothing like they’ve ever gotten to see in the city or sewers. Even with the circumstances, Leo feels lucky to be here. He’s never seen so much green in his life, or stars.

Towards the edge of the wide lawn, the lights of the barn are still on, spilling through the cracks that riddle it. Leo doesn’t even have to guess why, though he does wonder why Raph is out here so late.

“Are you waiting on Donnie for something?” Leo asks Raph. He shrugs.

“No,” Raph replies, and then pauses. “Well, sort of. He’s been at it since early morning. He’s gonna fall asleep sooner or later.”

Leo then sees the blanket on Raph’s lap, mostly concealed by his arms as he leans on it. Leo smiles fondly.

“You’re tucking him in?” Leo says, keeping a laugh out of his hoarse voice. “Why not just get him into an actual bed, jeez.”

Raph rolls his eyes. “’cause then he’d wake up and go “oh no my science experiments shit” and find caffeine to inject himself with. Which would put us at square one again. Trust me, this is the only way he’ll get sleep these days. I had Mikey hide the coffeemaker halfway through the afternoon today; he can’t last much longer.”

Leo does laugh at that, because it’s true. The only way to get Donnie to rest up is to let him wind down, and then keep him asleep as long as possible. Leo’s noticed though that that habit of Donnie’s is much worse now. Usually, he’d only do it during really stressful periods of time.

Leo supposes this still counts as that, their situation being stuck on the farm and Leo stuck with his bum leg. They can’t leave until he’s fully healed.

The fact that he’s causing Donnie this stress, even just indirectly, is an unpleasant one that sits sickly in Leo’s stomach. He moves away from it by focusing on what Raph is doing right now, which is a considerably nicer thing to think on.

“Do you do this every night?” Leo asks softly, though he has his own suspicions already.

“…no,” Raph says, a beat too late to be believable. Leo gives his brother a look, and points at his eyes.

“The bags say otherwise.”

Raph frowns/grimaces, which is his default expression whenever he doesn’t know how to respond. Or how to admit he’s having feelings.

“Sometimes.” Raph allows, and Leo rolls his eyes. “Just when I got time.”

“Well, we definitely have plenty of that,” Leo says wryly, rubbing his sore leg again. “That’s good, though. Good that you’re keeping an eye on him. Donnie always runs himself into the ground when he’s left to his own devices,” Leo shakes his head. “Don’t know what we’d do without you right now, bro.”

“Hn, you’d get by, somehow,” Raph says curtly. “You’re all not that stupid.”

“You sure? ‘cause last I looked, you’ve been doing a lot around here lately,” Leo smiles, feeling that gentle touch of pride in his chest again. “I actually wanted to say thanks for that, properly. The way things are… I can’t do much for anyone. So, thanks for filling for me. Makes it easier for me to rest up knowing you’ve got things under control.”

He expects Raph to preen, or at least puff up a little under the praise, but his brother just hunches his shoulders and won’t look at him.

“I’m not… actually doing anything, though,” Raph says, eyes on the treeline instead of Leo. “I mean- come on. Anyone can do this stuff. The others… they got something to contribute. Donnie- Donnie saved your life, and Mike’s the only one who can actually cook anything decent, and April and Casey are the ones doing the real work bringing money in and keepin’ the lights on. I can’t do any of that, all I’ve been doing is-”

“Holding down the fort,” Leo interrupts, not letting Raph keep on. He lowers his voice, making it gentler. “I’ve only been awake a little over a week, Raph, but I can already see how much you do. You’re their rock. You’re always there when they need you, no matter what time of day. Being that for them… that’s more than enough, especially considering I can’t even try to be that right now.”

Raph sits silent, still not looking at him. Leo reaches out, putting a hand on Raph’s shoulder, drawing his brother’s attention onto him. Raph finally meets his eyes, and Leo smiles warmly.

“You kept them together, Raph,” Leo says sincerely. “and you’re still keeping them together. I can’t even imagine how hard that’s been- I know it would have been so, so difficult for me to watch one of you go through what- what I did.” Phantom pain laces through him, and then fades. Leo doesn’t dwell on that nightmare longer than a second. “You might not think so, but you’ve done amazing. And I’m really proud of you for that.”

Raph stares at him for a long moment, and then lets out a small chuckle. He scrubs roughly at his nose, covering a soft sniffle, and turns away again. “Shut up, you sound like Sensei. It’s weird for my brother to say that.”

“I am basically your older brother though, so. Not so weird,” Leo points out, teasing just a little.

“None of us knows who’s actually older,” Raph says in a mumble, a fight they’ve all had multiple times over the years. Tonight though, it doesn’t become that. It’s just a welcome familiarity.

Leo gently moves himself closer to Raph, getting close enough he can sling an arm around his brother’s wide shoulders and give him a sideways hug. It only takes a second for Raph’s to wind around the back of Leo’s shell, hugging back.

“Dunno how you do this stuff all the time,” Raph says with a tired huff. “It’s exhausting being the responsible one.”

“After years of practice dealing with you assholes, I got the hang of it,” Leo replies, only fondness in his words.

“Yeah, well. Good to have you back, then,” Raph says, clearing his throat. It hardly hides the emotion there. “I was getting bored of being the stick in the mud anyway.”

Leo laughs quietly, feeling touched. “Good to be back.”

Raph hugs Leo to his side a moment longer, and then lets go. He doesn’t make any move to put space back between them after that. So they sit in relative silence on the steps, waiting for Donnie to finally be ready to sleep, and remain shoulder to shoulder the whole while.

After everything they’ve both been through the last months, it’s a welcome lull of peace.

 --/--

 Peace never seems to last long for them, not with how many enemies they’ve made and how often they get themselves into trouble. Leo regrets that this case happens to be caused by both at the same time; an enemy… coming from inside of them.

He’s failed a number of times over the years. Failed to have the strength to stop Shredder in that construction site that still haunts his nightmares, failed to stop him again from murdering Splinter at the worst possible time, and failed to save an entire world from oblivion. Thankfully, that was all undone for the most part, even if he still carries thick scarring up and down his leg and around his throat.

Donnie’s death was undone, too, but not really. Something like that can’t be taken back, not completely. An experience that traumatic doesn’t go away; Leo knows that too well.

Leo failed to see one of his team members, one of his family members, falling under the influence of something horrible, and both Donnie and April paid for it. Leo’s been on the receiving end of near death more than once, but never at the hands of one of their own. He can’t imagine being hurt like that, or hurting like that.

April says she’s fine, that she just needs time to recover, but the hollowness to her is clear as she leaves. Like a shell of herself, emptied out of what makes her shine so bright. A part of Leo wants to reach out and pull her back into his home- which hers too, after all this time- but he knows she won’t be open to comfort. Not yet. Maybe not for a while.

And besides. There’s a larger part of him that’s instinctively defensive. Defensive of his family, as much as April is a part of that. She’s still his friend, and he knows this wasn’t her fault, that they were the ones who hadn’t seen she wasn’t herself the past weeks-

But she hurt his brother. And that’s not something he can forgive easily.

They all need time apart, he thinks. Their whole team. When the wounds are less fresh, they’ll talk about it. Try to mend things between them all; give apologies for mistakes and figure out where they go from there. For now though, they go their separate ways.

In the end, Leo and his brothers do the same. Drifting to their individual rooms for restless sleep now that the immediate drama is over. Casey limped off into the early dawn not long after April did, and Splinter has already turned off his light by the time Leo and his siblings are closing their doors. Donnie shuts his first; making his point again that he’s not in the headspace to interact with anyone, much as they’ve all tried to.

Leo respects that sometimes, especially when bad things happen, you need time to collect yourself. He has moments like that still, more often now days when Karai wears the Kuro Kabuto around her base, less often than the months after his coma. He’ll give Donnie space until he’s ready to talk.

Though he should have expected, Donnie will never be ready to talk. The four of them are all repeat offenders for internalizing things and avoiding actual confrontation; Leo should have known that Donnie would lock himself inside his lab and skirt the subject of temporarily dying like it’s the plague.

Leo is familiar with bad coping mechanisms, and his family has rarely let him get away with them for long. Donnie was there for him after the fall of New York. Leo in turn is going to be there for him now.

And maybe Donnie wants that, however much he’s been shutting them out, because the lab doors aren’t locked when Leo tries to open them a week after the Za’naron Incident.

Donnie is bent over a lab table in the middle of the room, hunched around some fiddly bit of technology connected to… something. It’s in too many pieces for Leo to even try to figure out its purpose or use.

He crosses the room with a calm stride, approaching the table with as little intention to startle as possible. Not that its needed; his brother doesn’t even notice him directly on the other side of the table. Donnie only looks up when Leo clears his throat; eyes hidden by his black goggles and a distinct bleariness to his, “-whuh?”

Leo holds out one of the two cups of tea he’s brought. Donnie doesn’t need any more caffeine than he’s already doped himself on.

“Hi,” Leo says, smiling comfortingly. “feel like talking?”

Even with the goggles in place, Leo can see Donnie blink in confusion.

“’bout what?” He asks with a slight slur, scrutinizing Leo. The amount of sleep deprivation he must have hit by now is really starting to show. Leo sighs.

“You’re the genius here, Donnie. You know what about.”

A grimace tugs at Donnie’s mouth.

“And if I don’t want to?”

“Then I give a sternly disapproving glare and ask again later.”

“…and if I say I don’t want to, again?”

“Rinse and repeat.” Leo won’t stop coming back until they do this, just like his brothers didn’t stop until he actually talked about what happened in that construction site with the Shredder.

Talking about things like that hurts, but sometimes you need to hurt a little more before it gets better. Leo knows that. Donnie knows that, too.

Which is likely why Donnie sighs, putting down the soldering iron in his hands and pushing up his goggles to rub his eyes. They’ve got dark bags under them, and Leo ventures Donnie has scarcely gotten a full day’s sleep all week.

“Okay, let’s talk,” Donnie says quietly and holds out his hand for the tea. Leo gently presses it into his grasp, pulling up a seat to the table.

It’s probably only because Donnie’s been worn down over a whole week by all of them, trying at different times to get him to talk about his recent trauma, that Leo gets him to talk at all. It’s slow going, words coming in soft fits as Donnie fidgets with his tea and tools both. Leo is patient though, listening all the way through about Donnie’s early suspicions about April’s mental sanctity. Like he should have, right back at the beginning when Donnie first starting voicing concerns.

This could have been prevented. That is a stark and painful regret in Leo’s mind. But it wasn’t, so now they just have to pick up the pieces and put them back together best they can.

Leo doesn’t want this to have lasting damage on Donnie, or April, or their friendship. It probably will anyways. That may be the saddest fallout of this whole mess.

Leo listens to Donnie talk about how he started noticing irregularities in April’s behavior, little ticks that appeared or disappeared, and how he’d seen the obsessiveness she started about the crystal. Leo listens to his brother talk about the few times he tried to confront her about it, to try mitigating a possible disaster he suspected was budding, and how April had shut him out time and again. Leo has to hold his cup a little tighter when Donnie gets to the part that no one listened to him, and how that led to the Incident happening.

His voice gets very, very quiet as he talks about the moment he’d been suspended in the air. Leo hadn’t been able to hear anything of the exchange between April and his brother from below, but the conversation has clearly left its mark on Donnie.

It’s hard to listen to. There’s a long pause of silence when Donnie trails off, full of regrets and still sharply fresh memories.

“…I know it wasn’t her,” Donnie says eventually, voice nearly whisper quiet, “but I just… can’t get my head around the fact she. She knew me, still. At the last second, she talked to me. And then…” He swallows. “still did it anyway.”

Donnie’s eyes lift from his hands around his tea, giving Leo a look of guilt and deep pain. “Does it… does it make me a bad person?” He asks, voice wavering. “To feel mad at her for that, even though it’s not her fault?”

Leo tries to find something wise to say, something to heal that hurt with a single sentence, but he comes up empty. All he can say is, “No. No I don’t think it does. I think that’s… normal to feel.”

Donnie closes his eyes, takes a slow, shuddering breath, and opens his eyes again. They’re glossy under the lab lights, but Leo doesn’t say anything about that.

“It’s not her fault,” Donnie says again, like he’s been saying since the night happened. His voice is hoarse as he does. “I should have done something sooner. It’s not her fault this happened.”

“It’s not yours either,” Leo says gently, even as Donnie looks away from him. “We should have listened- all of us should have listened. You knew something was wrong and we ignored it. It’s not her fault, and it’s not yours. Okay? You did your best, Donnie.” His brother still won’t look at him, and the way Donnie’s jaw clenches is painful to watch.

“It wasn’t enough,” Donnie whispers tightly, eyes hard and bright. “It wasn’t enough and she. She.”

Killed me, hangs in the air. Bitter and heavy as it’d been the first night after.

“…she wouldn’t hurt you on purpose, Donnie. Not in her right mind,” Leo says, and it makes Donnie take a harsh breath in. “April wouldn’t do that to any of us. I’ve… talked with her, a few times. She feels awful about this. But it’s neither of your faults. It’s Za’naron’s, okay? Don’t take blame for something you shouldn’t.”

Donnie shakes his head mutely, and they lapse into silence again. The longer it stretches, the worse Leo feels about having nothing to really fix this. He understands now how Donnie must have felt, the months it took for Leo to recover from his coma. The wanting to say a few words and make his brother feel better, to understand it’s not his fault, that April wouldn’t hurt him on purpose, that he shouldn’t feel so badly for resenting her just a little for doing so…

That brings a thought to Leo’s mind. Accidental hurts.

“…Karai’s rebuilding the Foot clan,” Leo says, which is enough a topic change that Donnie finally looks at him again.

“…so?” Donnie asks. “She’s been doing that for months.”

Leo nods once. “She wears the Kuro Kabuto most nights, too.”

Donnie keeps giving him a look of blank confusion, obviously wondering why Leo’s brought this up right now. Leo keeps talking. “She uses his throne, too, you know. You’ve seen her in it. And they kept the same uniform dress code for the Foot soldiers. Even the same insignia.”

Donnie clearly doesn’t see Leo’s point yet. “And?”

“She’s taking his place, Donnie,” Leo says plainly. The shadowy form of Shredder looming over him plays in his memory, like it often does on bad nights. “He’s still out there, and she’s already decided she wants to put things back to how they’d been before. Except she’s the master of the clan this time around.” He laughs without humor. “It’s a little hard to see her walking around with that helmet on, you know?”

Donnie keeps staring in confusion until finally, it clicks.

“Oh. Oh, Leo,” Donnie’s expression morphs into sympathy. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I didn’t even- I never even thought of that. God.”

Leo nods, giving a wry smile. “I haven’t said anything, and I don’t plan to, but it’s… difficult to swallow. Spending years trying to dismantle the Foot and its control of New York, and having our own sister start building it right back up.” He gives himself a small shake, brushing off the old and new nightmares that follow him. “Look. Point is, Karai doesn’t even know she’s doing it and I doubt she’d mean to give me flashbacks on bad nights. And I know it’s not the same thing- not anywhere near the same thing, but… I just want you to know. I kind of get it. What it feels like to get hurt unintentionally by someone you care about.”

Donnie looks at him for a long moment, and then smiles wetly.

“It sucks a lot, doesn’t it?” He says, and then covers his mouth; hunching on himself. Leo is already coming around the table when Donnie let out the first muffled cry.

Leo is taller than his brother like this, him standing and Donnie sitting. He takes advantage of it to tuck his brother’s head under his chin while he hugs Donnie; holding onto his brother until he can pull himself back together. Donnie clutches Leo tightly, and barely lets out any sound as his breathing falters, then unsteadily continues. Growing stronger with each intake.

It won’t fix anything immediately, but it’s a good step towards fixing things eventually.

It’s as much a comfort to Donnie as it is to Leo; holding onto each other like this. Donnie had been outside anyone’s reach for help that night, but he’s here now. Tangible and alive.

A long time ago, Leo told himself he’d die before he let one of his brothers do so. He failed that promise. He makes a new one that he will never, ever, fail like this again. He couldn’t take the experience twice, he just couldn’t.

When Leo and Donnie finally emerge from the lab, cups empty and hearts at least a fraction lighter, they’re welcomed back by Raph and Mikey, who are none too subtly waiting on the couches for them. They take Donnie and set him in the middle of everything, surrounded on all sides by sympathy, comfort, and listening ears.

Donnie’s voice doesn’t waver so badly, now. Encircled and protected. It’s a small victory, but Leo will take it.

It’s not fixed with a single evening of sharing empathy, the broken and battered state of Donnie and April, of their relationship and minds, but it’s a start. And they- the two of them, Leo, their whole family- are all willing to work towards the better future lying ahead.

It’s Leo’s job, officially and unofficially, to make sure his brothers are okay. They’re not little kids anymore, but that doesn’t mean the gut reaction to keep them safe, to make them happy, has gone away. And so long as Leo has them by his side, it never will.

 --/--

 He fails his promise a second time.

Splinter dies, and Leo.

He.

Becomes lost.

The night it happens, everything burns. He cuts away the drowning grief and turns his blades on the source. He marches them into battle and refuses to let himself stop moving, one foot in front of the other, his bad leg be damned- until it’s over.

And then it is, and he.

He doesn’t know what to do.

Leo washes off the spray of mutant green blood on his hands, cleans his swords and gear, and then just. Sits. Stops thinking.

He sinks. Silently. Into himself, his mind, the black ocean that’d claimed him on and off, after the Shredder broke him the first time. He sinks, and he can’t even wonder if he’s drowning. He just knows he is.

Leo has always guided his brothers, but he has always been guided in turn. By their father, by the only source of parental love they’ve ever had. The first person to ever love them. Shells and all, unconditionally.

And now Splinter is gone, and Leo. Leo needs to.

Lead them. Protect them. His brothers, he has to keep them safe in place of their father. That’s his job. But.

He can’t. Not like this.

There’s no do-over this time. No time travel, no psychic power. Just. Finality.

Leo feels like he’s dying as he kneels in front of the dojo tree. He almost wishes he was. It would be escape from a grief that’s swallowing him up and leaving nothing behind. Only emptiness.

He doesn’t know which way to go, how to move forwards. Leo’s eyes burn, like he’s been trying to do to everything poisoning him through. It hurts, but not nearly as much as his heart does. Splinter is dead. He’s dead and never coming back. There’s no one left to lead him, no one left to tell Leo that it will be alright, even in the worst moments when he’s too weak to say it himself. How could he move forwards from this, how could he ever move past it-

How is he supposed to-

-live like this, missing such a huge chunk of himself and- and-

-he’s all alone, in charge and bearing a mantle that’s still decades too big for him to hope to handle. He’s not ready, he can’t be the Sensei, he doesn’t want to be a Sensei, he just wants to be a son and be held, be quieted and told it’s okay, it’ll all be okay, eventually, don’t worry, you’re not-

“-alone, Leo,” Mikey whispers, arms tight around Leo’s back. His voice is hoarse, but firm. “You got us. It’s gonna be okay, you got us. We got you.”

Leo comes back from the suffocating depths, where his worst fears and memories hold him in night terrors and flashbacks, and takes in a shuddering breath. His face is wet, and everything hurts, but Mikey is here. He’s not alone.

A second set, stronger and broader, wrap around them both from the side. Raph’s forehead is laid on Leo’s shoulder, hiding the struggle Raph hates to show, but comforting. Saying he’s here, too, for Leo. On the opposite side, the way only lanky arms can, Donnie encircles all three of them in his grasp. Adding his tireless support, the way he always gives it whenever one of them is in need. Leo is wrapped up in a group hug and he’s no longer alone.

He was never alone. He’ll never be alone.

Not so long as he has his brothers.

Leo sobs hoarsely, but he doesn’t fall any further. He’s drawn up and away, kept from the ocean of despair by three pairs of arms that would never leave him there. Supporting and grounding, keeping him present and together. Holding onto him until he can hold himself up again.

And they need him, too. They’re broken, but they’re together. Their father is gone but they’re all still here, the four of them. Like it’s always been.

Leo raises his hands, gripping Donnie and Raph and Mikey’s arms, and holds onto them just as tightly.

Leo can’t be their Sensei, no matter what their father wanted, but he. He can be this. He can be their brother.

And maybe that’s enough.

 --/--

 They move forwards. They move on. They mend the hole that Splinter left, but they don’t close it over. It’s there, and always will be, but it fades to an old scar like the many others covering their bodies. It becomes bearable.

Leo leans on his brothers until he can stand again, and then they walk forwards together. Supporting and being supported.

Their father is gone, but like they always have, right from the start.

They have each other. They have their brothers.

For Leo, that will always be enough.

Commission info & Kofi link.

[seven-oomen]

Till the end of the line - chapter one

“I’m sorry, Mister Stark.”

The words echoed through his mind even to this day. It was crazy how much four little words could change one’s life forever, but truth be told, he didn’t mind as much anymore. He had in the beginning, he’d screamed and shouted, cursed the poor doctor, JARVIS and Aunt Peggy with every fiber of his being. All of that was in the past now, things had smoothed over with time.

He heard the rhythmic tapping of shoes on the floor, of footsteps, echoing closer. His head pounded and his whole body felt alight with flames of pain. What the hell had happened? The last thing he remembered was Rogers slamming his shield down on the arc reactor. After that everything had gone black.

Tony could feel cold concrete under his fingers, a slight draft of wind ran over him as a metal door in the distance creaked open. Was he in a prison of some kind? He tried moving his legs but gave up as pain further assaulted his senses. Sharp pains and the unmistakable sound of bones grinding together as he moved told him all he needed to know. His legs were probably broken. Which made escaping on his own near impossible.

“Where’s Stark?” A familiar voice growled from a short distance away. He couldn’t say for sure just how far.

“In his cell, sir.”

Ah, so he was in a prison. And a rather lousy one at that. If he had the strength, he would’ve tried to open his eyes to look at his approaching captor. But it felt like someone had glued his eyes shut, he groaned softly and tried again only to discover the glare of the too bright lights in his cell. It made his head thud and pulse, the room spun and he spilled the contents of his stomach onto the concrete floor below his head. As if his current position wasn’t awful enough.

He heard the door to his cell open, the soft scuffle of someone coming in. A hand grabbed his shirt and hauled him off the floor, dragging him partly through his own vomit. The stress and pain slowly overtook his mind until he finally descended into darkness.

*

May 29, 1970

“Harrold, darling, straighten out your tie.” Margaret gently fussed over her eleven-year-old son, barely paying attention to the hustle and bustle of the mansion’s staff around them.

“Peg, just leave it be.” Daniel chuckled, guiding his wife and children through the foyer and into the sitting room. “I’m sure Howard won’t notice a crooked tie or a crinkled skirt. The man has more important things on his mind today.”

Peggy sighed but took her Omega’s advice to heart, allowing her mate to guide her onto a two-seater while their son and daughter chased one another through the sitting room.

“Harry, Suzy, settle down, please. No running through the house.” Danny scolded softly. It was unlikely that the two whirlwinds would actually settle down at his words, they hardly ever did.

“You can’t catch me, Harry!” Suzy giggled as she ran across the room and slid right between the legs of one of the maids, creating a bit of wind that lifted the poor woman’s skirt up to her knees. The maid startled with a short high pitched scream and ran off while ranting a stream of curses in Italian.

Peggy gasped and stood up quickly, her Alpha voice sharp in the murmur of the room. “Suzan!”

But Suzan wasn’t listening to either of her parents and kept running, turning quickly she ran towards the sitting room’s entryway to the foyer, nearly barreling into someone.

“Now what’s all that-” Howard Stark walked into the room, gently rocking a small white bundle in his arms. Years of action had given him quick reflexes and he easily avoided a collision between himself and the two hyperactive children. “Woah! Hey, settle down you damn scamps. Don’t wanna hurt your little godbrother, now do you?”

Suzy gasped and clapped at the sight of a tiny fist freeing itself from the white bundle. She watched in awe as Howard walked over to the two-seater and smiled down at the tiny cooing bundle in his arms. Her brother, on the other hand, didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm. But he would come around. Harry always did after a short while.

“Meet your godson, Peg.” Howard carefully placed the little bundle in Peggy’s arms and took a step back to watch his close friend and her mate fawn over Howard’s newborn son.

Peggy’s smile lit up the room as she looked down at the infant in her arms. The little baby boy yawned and blinked up at his aunt with his honey brown eyes. Such a precious little thing already and he was only an hour old. The little boy looked so much like Howard, though his face was a little rounder and the doe-like eyes were clearly Maria’s. He had a full head of black hair already, still baby soft like silk, as newborn babies tended to have.

“Howard he’s perfect,” Peggy whispered, carefully passing the baby to her mate when Daniel reached for their godson. She looked up at her old friend and for a moment she could’ve sworn she saw a flicker of disappointment in his eyes.

It made her frown.

Was Howard not happy with his newborn son?

“I suppose he is,” Howard said though she doubted he actually meant it.

“What’s his name?” She silently thanked Daniel for his quick thinking and smiled at her mate. A chuckle escaped her, for Daniel hadn’t looked up. He was completely enraptured with the little baby in his arms.

“Anthony Edward Stark.”

“I’m gonna call him Tony,” Suzy announced as she crawled onto the two seater next to her father. Her little girl tried to peer over the white blanket Tony was wrapped up in to get a better look at her godbrother.

“That’s a good nickname honey.” Daniel smiled. He carefully tucked down the blanket a little to allow both his pups to get a better look at Tony. “Little Tony Stark. He’s gonna be a great Omega someday.”

And suddenly it all clicked.

*

September 2016

The first thing he heard when he came to was the sound of water dripping down on concrete. Slow and steady as if someone had left the faucet on just enough to let it drip continuously. To be honest it was rather distracting. He was trying to concentrate here..

Light assaulted his eyes as he tried to take a look at his surroundings. He quickly closed them and groaned at the pounding headache that washed over him. Hot pains surged through his body and en-wrapped his mind, it made it hard to focus on his surroundings. Which was strange, he usually was quite good at ignoring his pain in general. So whoever had gotten to him, had gotten to him good to make the pain stand out like this.

It couldn’t just be from Rogers and Barnes beating him. Yeah, that had hurt like a bitch, but more emotionally than physically. Although he was fairly sure he had a few cracked ribs and one hell of a contusion on his chest to show for it. Sure Rogers and Barnes had done a number on him, but he was fairly sure they hadn’t rendered him immobile. Someone else was responsible for his broken legs.

He struggled lightly and gasped at the pain that shot up his legs. His wrists were bound together over his head and he was suspended by his arms. His lower legs seemed to rest partially on the ground, making the bones grind lightly with every movement he made.

A loud noise of metal scraping on concrete brought him out of his train of thought. He ground his teeth on instinct as if it would protect his brain from the assault. It didn’t, but he wasn’t about to argue with his own body.

“Mister Stark, how the mighty have fallen.”

A chill went down his spine at the sound of that voice. Nausea threatened to overtake him. He knew that voice, but it couldn’t be him. There wasn’t much of a lost love between them, no, but the man wouldn’t betray him like this. He’d even signed those damn accords to keep the man from going after his former teammates.

“Ross…” His own voice sounded raspy and barely audible. A very stark contrast to his usual deep but clear sound.

“Indeed.” Ross chuckled, was this all just one sick and twisted game to him?

“Why?” God his throat hurt, and all he could taste at the moment was metal. Blood. Was that the dripping sound he heard?

“Because you and your little friends are a pain in the ass, Stark. And since Rogers and his little band of misfits are beyond our reach, we’ll have to make do with you.”

“What?” What did he mean by that? Where the hell had Steve gone off to that Ross couldn’t reach him at. He was missing something here.

“You didn’t hear?” Ross smiled, like a psychopath looking down at his next victim. That was honestly the most accurate description he could think of. “The good captain is in Wakanda, with his little Alpha bitch and your little assassin friend.”

No. No, that couldn’t be right... T’Challa wouldn’t let cap into his country, not after everything that had happened… right? He looked up at Ross, brow furrowed and squinting against the single light source directly above him. “You’re lying..”

Ross let out a soft laugh.

“You keep thinking that, Tony.” The general turned on his heel and signaled the single guard in the darkest corner of the small room. “Deal with him.”

The guard stepped forward. The man towered over him, even if Tony would have been standing on his own two feet. The guard's face was covered by a gray skull-like mask, but those eyes seemed so eerily familiar. Had he seen this man before?

A blow to his temple made him black out and the room darkened once more.

*

December 25th, 2012

It was the twin’s tenth birthday today. Six months after the battle of New York. They were sitting in the living room on the twenty-third floor of the Avengers tower. Tony’s private lab was on this level, as well as the living quarters of his children. It was one of the few floors that had been left undamaged by the battle of New York. Thank Thor for small miracles.

“What’s a soul mate?” Oliver asked him quite out of the blue.

Tony took a moment to think about it and paused the movie they were watching.

“Well, it’s like a best friend but more. It’s the one person in the world that knows you better than anyone else.”

He looked at his oldest child, a small smile worked its way onto his face. “A soul mate is someone who makes you a better person.”

Though that didn’t seem quite right, so he elaborated. “Actually they don’t make you a better person you do that yourself.”

“How?” Oliver frowned and curled up against his side.

“Because they inspire you,” Tony answered.

“Do you have a soul mate?” Oliver looked up at him with curious eyes, the little boy seemed genuinely interested in his answer.

“I do, I have two and one day you’ll meet them. You and your sisters.” At least, Tony hoped they would. He didn’t want to hide his children, but for now, it was for their own safety.

“Will they love you?” Oliver asked, voice soft and insecure.

“I think they already do, somewhere in their hearts. Because a soul mate is someone you carry with you forever.”

“Will they love me?” His son’s voice trembled and he looked down at his hands.

He gently lifted Ollie’s chin with his finger. “Yeah, one of them is your father, Oliver. And I know he’ll love you the moment he lays eyes on you. And Thea’s father will love her too.”

“What about Yalina?”

The question took him off guard for a moment and he had to take a breath. “Well, her father died. But if he was here, he’d love her very much.”

“Is that a soulmate thing? Knowing your pup when you see them?” Oliver seemed a little reassured, the pup sat up a little straighter and looked up at his Omega father.

Tony nodded. “Yes, yeah it is. An Alpha soul mate will know when a pup is his by his Omega soul mate. It’s biology.”

“Wait, so Yalina’s father wouldn’t know she was his pup?” Oliver asked.

The older Omega shook his head. “Not unless I told him.”

“Oh…” Oliver paused, “So tell me more about soul mates, papa.”

“It’s the one person or two, that know you better than anyone else does. That accepts you for who you are when no one else will.” Tony threaded his fingers through Ollie’s hair and carefully brushed it to the side.

“And no matter what happens you’ll always love them. Nothing can ever change that.”

Oliver nodded. “So it’s love forever and ever?”

“That’s right, Ollie.” Tony smiled.

“I want to meet my daddy and Thea’s daddy.” Oliver grinned and cuddled closer to his papa, he found comfort in Tony’s warmth.

“One day you will, little one. One day you will.” Tony whispered into his son’s hair.

“I love you, papa.” The little boy’s eyes slowly closed as sleep washed over him.

Tony pressed a kiss to his little boy’s head. “I love you too, mio piccolo Olivo.”