#it's once again father's day here where i live so self-reblog time it is

[mostly-marvel-musings]

Annoying Neighbour - Part 5

A/N: A bit of damage control? I think so. Leave a comment, like and reblog if you enjoyed reading!

Pairing: Single Dad! Tony Stark x Reader

Warning: 18+ hurt/comfort, bit of angst.

Word count: 3.1k

Annoying Neighbour Masterlist

…

It had been four days since you last saw your favorite father-daughter duo. These past few months had made you realize just how much you had gotten used to them, their banter, the laughs you shared with Morgan and Tony.

Tony Stark.

The man who made you feel things you had only read about in books. The man you slept with once, but it was enough to make you realize how much you belonged together.

But he was also the man who had kissed his ex-wife in his living room two days ago. Every time you began to miss him, the image of them kissing would promptly pop up in your brain, causing the anger and heartbreak to return.

There were several occasions where longing stares had been exchanged, once while Tony dropped Morgan off at school, another evening when you caught him staring at you while you watered your plants hanging on the porch, his eyes missing the spark that you adored so much. You were the one who decided on ending things and yet you found your self-restraint crumbling every time you saw the man.

Your Saturday began with you realizing you were running low on most of your groceries, so you made a list and decided to head out. Some gray clouds loomed in the sky outside, threatening rain and thunder. Perfect heartbreak weather, you thought with a wry smile.

The car right next to yours looked familiar as you got out of yours in the parking lot.

Tony was in the store too. Was it too late to back out? Maybe you could find another store that wasn’t so conveniently close to where you lived. Putting earphones on, you decided it was best if you kept your head down, got your stuff and head back home.

You just hoped and prayed to God it wasn’t going to be another awkward encounter with Pepper. Seeing that woman again with Tony would do you no good.

You were dumping things in your cart when right in front of you, you saw a commotion through your peripheral vision.

Sure enough, it was Tony and Morgan. He had her sitting on his shoulders while she picked out her favorite cereal box, throwing it in their cart and giggling. The sight automatically made you smile.

Someone cleared their throat behind you, making you turn to the source.

“They’re adorable, aren’t they?”

It was her.

Your heart dropped to your stomach, instantly making you regret your trip to the store. Of course she was still here. With her family. Shopping like normal families do, you thought bitterly.

“Y/N!”

You heard a little girl cry out, already knowing who it was before you heard her tiny feet run across the aisle to meet you.

“Hi Morgan! It’s good to see you.” you smiled down at the kid who hugged your legs as she usually did, Pepper watching the two of you interact with a frown on her face.

“Daddy it’s Y/N!” she called out, making your stomach flip as you turned to watch Tony striding towards you. He still looked too bloody handsome, though there were noticeable bags under his eyes, he looked tired, like he hadn’t been getting enough sleep. Pretty much how your state was as well.

“I’m getting late, I–I should get on with this.” you murmured, pushing your trolley ahead after waving them goodbye, wanting to be away from them.

Morgan stared between you and her father, for her, both of you seemed upset while Pepper - or what her Daddy mentioned to her earlier, her Mommy, remained quite happy.

“Why is Y/N sad, Daddy?” she asked, her voice full of worry as she grabbed Tony’s sleeve to get his attention.

“How about we pick out some ice-cream for you, honey? You like strawberry, don’t you?” Pepper piped cheerfully, dragging her away from Tony.

Driving home had been a task, yet again you had to keep your tears at bay as you unloaded the bags from your car. A million questions ran through your mind as you began organizing your pantry, you thought it’d be best to keep your overthinking brain busy.

It worked for some time. Until you heard their car pull up next door. The bottle of Merlot you’d purchased earlier suddenly seemed inviting.

.

Morgan spent her afternoon playing in the living room while her Daddy and Mommy spoke in the other room, she’d brought out her plane that whizzed by, flying outside Y/N’s window where it collided against the glass.

She saw Y/N crying in the kitchen, her face was sad which worried her a lot. It made her decide to bring it up with her Daddy later when Mommy was not around. He did not speak much around her, she had noticed.

Later that evening, Tony had finished reading a bedtime story to Morgan, who was far from sleepy.

“Why was Y/N sad today, Daddy?” she asked, the concern in her voice making Tony’s heart wrench.

“She looked okay to me. I don’t think she was sad, hon.” he shrugged, pulling the blankets up to her shoulders, hoping she would drop the subject.

“You are sad too.”

He sighed. His own child was too smart for her age, and too observant.

“Did you and Y/N fight? Was it because of me?” her voice went low, her big brown eyes that matched his so perfectly were now distressed.

“We did fight, sweetheart. Y/N is mad at me and she won’t talk. But not because of you. Never.” Tony hated how much this affected his kid, he never wanted it to get this far. With Pepper showing up, Morgan was more vulnerable than ever. She had questions that he did not have answers to.

“But she said she liked you.”

“Did she?” Tony chuckled as Morgan nodded fervently.

“I like her too, Maguna. I like her a lot. But she is very upset, I don’t know if she would talk to me.” he sighed, leaning his head against Morgan’s little shoulder.

“Did you say sorry, Daddy? You made my best friend cry. I saw her in her kitchen today.”

“Hey! I thought I was your best friend.”

Morgan narrowed her eyes at him in a way that confirmed any further argument would lead to a possible tantrum. Tony’s heart broke upon hearing you had cried, all because of him. All of this mess was upsetting too many people. And it all felt like it was his fault. Minus Pepper showing up unannounced, everything was his fault. He handled the situation terribly. And he was determined to do whatever it took to make things right.

“I will go to Y/N’s house and say sorry. I promise you. You’ll have your best friend back.”

“And stop growing up so soon. Off to sleep now, you little monster. I love you tons.” he kissed her forehead softly, turning her night lamp on after making sure she was tucked in.

“I love you three thousand.” His heart soared at her words, it felt like there was at least something he was doing right.

“Three thousand? Wow. Now go to sleep.”

“I want my best friend back!”

Her words made Tony chuckle, she knew him too well. Pepper had left for the night, much to his relief, she had been staying at a hotel nearby. Tony had called Rhodey over to stay, he needed all the help he could get with the whole situation.

Breaking the news of her mother suddenly showing up in their lives had been a task enough for Tony. A part of him was surprised with the way Morgan had handled the new information, then again, Morgan had always been way more mature than her age. He wanted to make sure she was okay, he also wanted to make sure you were too.

Seeing your kitchen light still on, Tony decided to take his chance. It was raining cats and dogs outside, but he’d make a run for it.

He had been late for making amends already, he was only hoping he had not been too late.

By the time he reached your front door, he was drenched.

The ringing of your doorbell pulled your attention from the mindless television that played that your eyes were glued to. Checking your phone it was close to midnight, and your third glass of wine was almost empty. You felt its warm buzz in your belly as you stood up to answer the door.

Thunder clapped outside as the door revealed a soaking wet Tony Stark, your heart leaping at the sight but your mind apprehensive.

“Tony.”

He still looked frickin gorgeous. You hated that. And you hated how your heart fluttered at the sight of him.

“Y/N. Can we talk? Please?” he wiped his face down with his hand, exhaling in relief when you left the door open for him as you turned your back to head back inside without answering.

He saw you were drinking wine in a coffee mug, a small smile appeared on his face recalling the day you walked in on him drinking the same on his porch.

“Wine in a coffee cup?”

Leaning against your kitchen counter, you let out a small sigh, holding your left hand up to reveal a medical tape covered wound.

“I broke the glasses during one of my cleaning sprees.” you explained, keeping your voice low and eyes trained on the floor.

“Y/N…”

“You kissed her, didn’t you?” you interrupted before he could begin, looking directly at him now, waiting for his answer. You saw guilt in his eyes, mixed with regret as he gave you a nod. Breaking your heart all over again.

“Actually she kissed me.”

“I didn’t see you pull away, Tony.”

He wiped his face with his hand, taking slow steps towards you, keeping a safe distance still.

“You also didn’t see me push her away, Y/N. Pepper kissed me on purpose, she loves creating a scene. Always has. Did I wish I had the power to take it all away? Yes. But I know I don’t.”

He saw a tear escape down your cheek, he had to stop himself from wiping it away. Crossing your arms over your chest, you took in a deep breath, steadying yourself.

“Why is she back, Tony? Are you getting back together?” your voice quaked but you still continued.

“No! Y/N, believe me when I say I want nothing to do with that woman. She says she wants to be a part of Morgan’s life again. That she regrets giving her up. It’s all lies. She was hopeful she’d have her position back in the company if she showed up under this guise.”

Tony leaned against the counter opposite you, his shoulders sagging.

“She can be very manipulative, used to getting her way. She has her lawyers all ready for battle.”

As you listened, the ice thawed little by little, watching Tony’s fingers fiddle with his sleeves, his foot tapping against the floor.

“What are you going to do?” you whispered, hands now by your sides as you gripped the counter behind you.

“I’m gonna fight. I won’t let her get her way this time, Morgan doesn’t deserve this. She never did. Neither do you. I’m so sorry, Y/N. I really am.” you believed he meant it. You could see it in his eyes.

“Ending things is easy, Y/N. Working things out and talking about it is difficult. I didn’t think you would choose the easy way out.”

“You think I chose the easy way out, Tony? I chose to protect myself from a heartbreak! That’s what I did.” you cried, your voice breaking in the end as you pointed your finger against his chest, breathing erratically.

“Do you really think this was a mistake? Us?”

You remained quiet, staring at your feet as tears pooled in your eyes once again before Tony held your hand in both his, tipping your chin to make you look at him.

“Answer me.” he whispered, his own eyes moist as you both stared at each other, hands clasped tight.

“I don’t regret kissing you or sleeping with you, Tony. No. I really thought we had something. I didn’t realize things could get this complicated. That was foolish on my part.”

“I was the fool for not handling things well, Y/N. And I am truly sorry. But I won’t let you slip away because of a bump in the road. We’re too good for that. I want to make us work. But I want to know that you want that too, sweetheart. Do you?”

His face was now inches apart, his eyes flicking down to your lips as he waited, and prayed to God you’d be willing to give this another chance. His heart grew hopeful as you moved closer, finally closing the distance between you two.

Thunder rumbled outside as you kissed Tony, lips molding against one another in a moment that took your breath away.

His arms came around you to pull you flush against his chest, tongue peaking between your lips to push past into your mouth. You let out a soft sigh at the taste of him, berries and coffee mixed with your wine.

A trail of discarded clothes along your stairs was laid out as Tony carried you to your bedroom, lips never leaving yours even for a second. Fingers gripping his wet hair, you let out a mewl as Tony’s kisses trailed down your body, finding himself between your legs.

Your head was spinning and body was alive under his touch, mouth falling open as he brushed his nose against your glistening core.

“Tony!” you moaned, feeling his tongue flat against your strip as he tasted you with urgency, his hands keeping your thighs parted for him.

You wanted him, all of him, around you, inside you, now and forever. You were out of breath by the time he was done, crawling up your body and resuming his kisses along your collarbone, paying attention to your breasts.

His erection poked at your inner thigh, waiting and longing to be inside you. He let out a shaky breath as you wrapped your hand around his length, guiding it towards your entrance.

A synchronized groan left your lips as he stretched you in one easy thrust, forehead resting against yours as he breathed you in. The impetuosity of the moment had you reach your climaxes in no time, his steady rhythm pushed you closer and closer to the edge. Your walls clenched around his cock desperately as you came, clinging onto him and effectively speeding up his orgasm.

“Oh Y/N..” Tony let out a grunt before you felt ropes of cum paint your walls, his breath hot against your flushed skin. The desire to keep him close made you wrap your legs around him tighter as you floated away in bliss.

.

“I hate to bring in this angle but it’s not just me who misses you terribly. My kid does too.”

A smile made its way on your face, allowing it to turn into a chuckle, you placed your hand under your chin as you gazed up at Tony.

“Did Morgan send you here?”

“She actually threw me out of my own house to apologize. Wouldn’t talk to me unless I bring her best friend back. I bribed her with juice pops. Didn’t work. And that’s usually a fail-safe way.” he stated, shaking his head fondly while you giggled, his hand traced your back soothingly, the other caressing your cheek.

“I have to go to Malibu for a few days, Y/N.” he added after a few moments of silence.

“Oh..when will you be back?” you frowned, idly tracing your fingers around the light dusting of hair on his chest as it rose and fell steadily.

“Couple of weeks, could be more. I just need to settle this drama with Pepper for good. She’s got her eye on Stark Industries and the head office is in Malibu. The board of directors and I need to have a sit down and discuss a few things.” he sighed, all this worrying had his frown lines deepen over. You couldn’t imagine the stress he was under, he didn’t talk about it to anyone but you understood.

Squeezing his hand in reassurance, you placed a kiss against his cheek, laying your head on his chest once again.

“I will try not to miss Morgan too much.” you teased.

“What about me?” he feigned hurt, giving your sides a little tickle.

“You? I guess you’re alright. For an annoying neighbor.” you murmured, giggling when he smacked your bum playfully.

.

A couple of weeks had turned to four. Tony kept you updated as best as he could, calling you over Facetime whenever he had time, the call evidently would be hijacked by Morgan who spoke to you whenever she had the chance.

Carrying your bowl of strawberries, you made yourself comfortable on the couch, holding your phone up as Morgan went on about her day.

“Everything okay, honey?” Tony’s voice came through from behind her.

“Yeah, why?”

“You look a little pale. Did you eat?”

You held up the bowl for him to see, making him frown slightly. You had never been one to keen on fruits. Watching you close your eyes and rest against the back of the couch only made his concern grow.

“Relax Tony. I’m only tired. I had a long day.”

As soon as you were done with the call, you felt a bit queasy. You had to rush to the toilet as bile rose up to your throat, making you throw up.

Could be the result of a bad choice of dinner you’d made last night, you thought. The desire to finish an entire pizza overtook you yesterday and you were surprised at your own appetite.

An alert from your phone made you check the notification, it was one of your apps that helped track your period. As you opened it, your mouth went dry.

You were very, very late.

[earth616variant]

the send-off | s.r; 1

summary | Being his best friend and assistant, Howard Stark asked you to be the first one to be tested on his time machine project. After some unexpected errors, you ended up stuck in the modern times of the 21st century. Where you meet the man you thought died years ago: Steve Rogers.

pairing/s | steve rogers x reader, avengers x reader

word count | 4.6k+

genres | angst, fluff, crack, time travel au, unrequited love au

warnings | mentions of death, maybe a little self deprecation

note | The first chapter is here! This is my first time writing here so I already apologize for any errors. I hope you enjoy reading it! Feedback and reblogs are very much appreciated. Thank you! :)

series masterlist | next chapter

"You cannot sacrifice a stray cat but you are willing to sacrifice me to your brainchild?"

For the last two days, Howard has been following you around like a tail. You tried to focus on your other projects. But your best friend has been pretty consistent with getting on your nerves and asking you to help with his new invention. This is nothing new as you are his assistant and you always lend a hand with his every creation. But this one is no easy task.

"I'm not sacrificing you–"

"Stark, you are asking me to be the first living being to try your time machine,” you told him, crossing your arms. “Do you even know how risky that is?"

Howard sighed and you can see how another idea got into his head, "I'll pay you higher clams. Higher than every man in this lab–"

"Wow, Howard. Money can surely make up for my possible death," you spoke deadpanned.

"You are not going to die! I am not going to screw up. I assure you...” He paused, making you finally look at him. “Y/N, you are the smartest person I know other than myself.”

You rolled your eyes as you tried not to smile at his slightly arrogant statement. Meanwhile, Howard smirked when he saw you biting your lower lip, an indication of you almost smiling. He continued,

“And you are the only one I trust in doing this project. You’re my best friend! I know that you know how important this project is for me. I am sure that you know the reason why I began working for this time machine.”

Setting your papers aside,  you paused and stared at him. You can easily read through his eyes and so he is. You two can even communicate through silent stares and nods. So even though he will not specify his top reason for constructing this time machine, you knew damn well why. He wanted to make some things right.

It took you a minute to speak once again, “Let me think about it more.”

Fortunately, Howard granted you your request to have more time to think. He said that you can leave the laboratory earlier than usual, even adding that you can have a few days off to fully think about it. Typically, you stay with him late since you really enjoy what you do and you don’t have any more things to do back at your spacious apartment. But here you are now, walking your way home, all alone as always.

It’s not like you were never alone before. Growing up, you were an only child. Your father died in the war when you were barely one while you lost your mom to some viral, infectious disease when you reached twelve. Your rich uncle, who was your only left family member, took you under his care until he died six years later. He left all of his inheritance to you and you only. You finished your studies with that, determined to find a career in the future instead of confining yourself to gender norms.

So, you did. You accepted an offer you received from Howard, whom you met and became friends with during college. He asked you to work with him as his assistant for every work he is planning to make in his new Stark Industries. He believed in your potential, unlike other geezers who underestimated you just because of your gender. Because of that, people often mistake the two of you as lovers but you two would always just laugh it off. Howard never seemed to commit while you never found yourself attracted to anyone.

Not until years ago. But that did not work out good too. Especially when you never really had a chance to express your feelings to that person. You think that it was too dramatic to say that the causes of having zero chances are timings and his death two years ago. But that was the truth.

“Good evening, Ms. Y/N!”

You were just opening your apartment with your keys when you heard that familiar, little voice behind you. You looked back and smiled as you spotted Donny with his mom, Susan.

“Oh, good evening, Donny!” you greeted with the same enthusiasm as him. You also smiled at his mother,  “Hi, Susan.”

“Papa rode the train today.” Donny randomly shared.

The six-year-old boy often tells a lot of stories whenever you see each other so you thought it was just one of those. You just responded, “Oh, really? Is he going somewhere?”

“Yeah, he said he’ll be back before I knew it.” he slowly frowned.

That’s when you noticed his tear-stained chubby cheeks and little puffed brown eyes. But Susan chuckled before explaining more, “Robert just got sent out of the city for the subject he’s writing for. This little cookie right here did not take it well.”

“Oh, that’s why…” you nodded your head.

“May I ask? Have you had your dinner already?” Susan asked.

You shook your head, “Ah, no. I just came from work. I don’t really plan on–”

“Mama is going to make Jell-O!” Donny interrupted with a smile back on his face.

“Yes. I’m actually making some meatloaf for tonight. I figured you would like to join us since you got home early and Robert is not coming home.”

It did not take you long to answer as you easily accept her offer, “Oh, that sounds good.”

“Yay!” The little boy squealed, even clapping his small hands.

“Great. Dinner will be prepared at six thirty. Please, don’t hesitate to knock.” she quipped before entering their apartment.

You went straight to your kitchen as soon as you got in your unit. Not wanting to go emptyhanded to Susan and Donny’s, you dug in your refrigerator to see what you can bring. Luckily, your eyes landed on the Tupperware of cookie dough you just made two days ago. You were bored then and decided to bake cookies. But just when you were done making the dough, Howard called for you in the lab. Now, you will finally have the chance to bake it. So you set it on the sheet pan in the oven for a good ten minutes. You were excited as it was your uncle’s recipe you decided to follow. Just before the clock strikes six thirty, you were already knocking at your neighbors with a glass container of chocolate chip cookies in your hands.

Susan welcomed you into their household. This is your first time going for dinner in their place even though you have known their small family ever since they moved in a year and a half ago. You are friends with the couple but you never had the time to accept their dinner invite before. She thanked you for the cookies and called her son as you two sat at the prepared dinner table. For the first time in years, you enjoyed dinner in a family-like setting. Donny filled the whole time with his wonderful stories, leaving no silence on the table as he munched on his meatloaf.

“Ms. Y/N, when I grow up, I’m going to be a teacher like you.” he babbles. 

You chuckled, “But Donny, I’m not a teacher.”

“What? But you are smart!” he frowned, shoulders slumped. “Papa said you work with one of the smartest men. What’s his name again– Oh, Howie Stank!”

He grinned like he was proud that he recalled the man’s name. While you and Susan laughed at his innocence.

“Baby, it’s Howard Stark.” his mom corrected him and Donny repeated it slower. Susan continued, “By the way, Ms. Y/N brought us something tonight.”

“What is it? What is it?” Donny asked while shifting excitedly on his chair.

You watched as Susan stood up and reached for the jar of cookies from the kitchen counter. Donny’s eyes were filled with delight as he saw it. He jumps from his seat.

“Cookies!”

But before she hands him a piece of your baked dessert, she uttered,  “Now, what are we going to say to Ms. Y/N?”

The kid ran to you and gave you the most adorable hug you’ve ever received, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Donny.” you smiled.

The night went on. Donny enjoyed the cookies while both you and Susan cleaned up. You insisted on washing the dishes but Susan told you that you can just help her with drying them off with a towel.

“You know, Donny is a real sunshine,” you told her.

Susan smiled at the compliment, “He is everyone’s sunshine. But I guess, you are his favorite. He cannot stop talking when you are around.”

“Oh, please!” you giggled. “Kids are always chatty.”

“And you are the only one who has the patience to sit through Donny’s tales. There was a time his dad even fell asleep while listening to him.” You two laughed.

“Where’s Robert off to anyway?” you asked as you wiped another plate.

“Oh, there’s this event in Manhattan that he was asked to write for. He told me it was an opening of a new business by a socialite there. I forgot the name. But I recalled he told me, it was one of Howard’s old flings.”

You chortled with that, “Oh, I won’t be able to name that socialite. Howard’s list of flings is already above my paygrade.”

“Well, maybe you can change–”

“Please, Susan. If this is another attempt to push my friendship with him further, I am taking back the cookies!” you joked. “We’re just friends and I am his assistant. I do like working with him but that’s it.”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It’s just that you two really work closely with each other. It’s hard not to make news about it. My apologies again.”

After finishing the chore, she offered you coffee before she prepare Donny to sleep. After that, you two continued chatting in their living room.

“But don’t you want to do more?” you asked her out of curiosity since you two went to topics about careers.

“I’m a fuddy-duddy, Y/N. Before I even married Robert, I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be a wife at home: cooking different foods, cleaning every corner of the house, and being with my baby for every hour of the day. I am happy I get to do it.” she shared, sipping on her cup. “But we wanted different things, right? I also feel happy seeing women who are in the workplace. Especially seeing career women who are also single.”

Your eyebrow raised, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t get me wrong.” She giggled. “I love everything I have and where I am now. But sometimes, I felt like I did it too early.”

You and Susan are both of the same age: twenty-nine, just one step forward to your thirties. Obviously, you two are on different life paths and goals. But you understand what she means.

“This may sound crazy. But if there’s this machine that would take me back to my younger days, I would definitely have to go dancing more in every place I was invited to, Maybe I would fool around more. I was too conscious before to enjoy everything that has been happening. It was my only regret.”

…if there’s this machine that would take me back to my younger days…

That one stuck in you, remembering Howard’s time machine and its purpose. You laid on your bed that night thinking of everything. You asked your best friend for free days to be really alone and have some peace as you went through the pros and cons of this project and you being the first person to try it. You fear what may happen as you will be the test trial. But at the same time, you cannot help but think that you don’t really have much to lose. Yeah, you have money and enough material things. But you are alone in life and you don’t have people to leave anymore unlike Susan with Donny and Robert.

After giving yourself exactly a week, you arrived at work with a clearer mind and decision. Howard was obviously jumpy when you walked into the laboratory mouth shut, wearing your usual work clothes. He tried to be patient as he waited for you to say a word or just a simple greeting. Instead, you turned around and directly locked eyes with him.

“You’re such a pain in the neck, Howard. You know that, right?”

His eyes slowly widened after a few seconds. “Is that your way of saying yes, Y/N?”

You sarcastically let out an exasperated sigh, “Yes. Let’s do this.”

Howard embraced you tightly while whispering endless gratitude. The machine was ninety-five percent done at that point. And instead of asking you to help him, he even gifted you more time on your own. But since it’s you, you still worked with him throughout the remaining process. The only change is you tried to bond more with the only people you bond with other than Howard. For a week, you had dinner with the Smiths, including Robert this time. You also had a picnic with Susan and Donny, where you shared with Susan what you had been planning to do. At first, she told you how equally scary and amazing that is. But in the end, she expressed her support. With Howard’s authorization, you invited the family to the day of the event. You even asked Robert to document everything.

“Okay, what do I need to do again?”

You stood on the platform of the device. You and Howard already went through the plan countless times. But It was unbearable to show unsureness with everything but there is still a big part of you who is confident with this test.

“Just take a shot. But don’t interact with anyone.” Howard handed you the latest model of the polaroid camera.

“Even to one person?”

“Even to one person.” He repeated as an answer.

“How long am I going to stay there?”

“Approximately ten seconds. So, just capture anything you see in front of you.”

“Where am I going again?”

“Same place as now. But seven days ago,” he replied. “Small steps. If that works, we’ll try going on further times and dates.”

You gulped, “Okay.”

Unconsciously, your response sounded like a stressed exhale. You have this weird feeling in your stomach and suddenly, your heart beats louder than anything else. Your hands were both sweaty and a little shaky as you try to compose yourself on the platform. Too distracted with your thoughts, you did not notice Howard walking up to you.

“Y/N, sweetheart…”

His warm hands moved up and down on the side of your arms in an attempt to calm your nerves. He can see that you are nervous even though you won’t say it.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine…” you stuttered, shaking your head. “Let’s just do this. It will do great. It will. It will, right?”

You asked your best friend, looking straight into his eyes. You were hoping for confirmation, an assurance rather. You are aware of how dangerous this is. There is no guarantee on what would be the result of this brand new time machine. You just want to help Howard with this by being the first living being to try this prototype. You are giving your full trust to him but hearing a positive answer from the main inventor himself might help you feel a little more relieved in doing this. Even though that answer can be a mix of lies.

“Of course. This one will be a big success, Y/N.” 

“Okay.” you sighed again. You and Howard shared a long, tight hug and you whispered something in his ear, “You better take me back. I have plans on Sunday.”

“For real?” he chuckled, whispering back.

“Some anchor clacker invited to a dance before he leaves on Monday.” you quipped since you tow both know that you don’t really go out on dates with anyone.

“Well, This fella must be an eager beaver. He managed to make you say yes to him.”

“Shut up.” 

You pushed him away as you laughed. Seeing you crack up even a little somehow gave assurance to both of you two. Before going back to the controls, you shared a simple smile and you nods at him. Looking around, you see Robert nodding at you. Susan and Donny waved at you from the viewing glass.

“Okay, on the count of three, you’ll go to another time. I will give you ten seconds to look around. Then, I will get you back. Understood?”

You nodded.

“Good luck, Y/N. 1… 2… 3…”

“Come on, people. Get up.” Tony clapped his hands as he stood up from the table. “Peter can do the dishes later.”

“But Mr. Stark, it’s not my schedule today–” Peter tried to save himself from the said chore but the older man shushed him off.

“Shh! Everyone in the hangar.”

Other avengers left the room like they were ordered to. Sam and Bucky were teasing the hell out of their youngest member, Peter. Wanda and Vision were having their own little world as they walked side by side. Bruce is already in the hangar as he also helped Tony with his new project. Leaving Clint, Natasha, and Steve at the dining table.

“What’s happening?” Steve asked. He was busy for the last four weeks due to solo missions that he did not get ahold of what others were doing.

Natasha answered, “Remember the blueprints he found months ago?”

Steve nods, picturing the time he saw Tony around the compound with a cardboard box, which has Howard’s name on it,  in his hands. He remembered smiling to himself that time because Tony looked like a little kid who found new toys to play with.  It was probably four months ago.

“He figured he will try to recreate one of his father’s works,”  Clint replied this time. “I think he chose to remake his dad’s time machine this time.”

“The time machine?” 

Steve’s eyebrows scrunched together as he repeated that. One of the biggest news he heard of ever since he went back from ice was Howard’s attempt at building a time machine back in 1947. Only a few people knew about it as it was kept almost a secret because of its unfortunate result. Although a little number of people only knew it, there are still rumors or theories about what happened. 

Natasha stood up, picked up her plate, and went straight to the sink. She continued talking, “Yeah, Bruce helped on improving some parts of it to avoid what happened a long time ago.”

“You know, to avoid what happened to…” Clint paused.

Steve cannot tell if Barton forgot the name of the last victim of the time machine or if he just doesn’t want to mention it around him. So, Steve decided to end his sentence.

“Y/N.”

He said it at the same second that Natasha just turned off the faucet, making the silence so loud between them three. What made Steve a little mad and confused about this whole time machine thing is how everyone who knows the result agreed to act like it didn’t happen. Like someone like you didn’t go missing. No one knows where you went and no one wants to talk about it. 

Steve tried to make a search by himself in his first few years back from the ice, hoping that one of the rumors was right. A rumor where it was said that you simply changed your name, not wanting to do anything with SSR or Howard Stark anymore, and moved somewhere else to live a simpler life. But that one failed too. He tried and tried. But it always ends up to one thing: nothing. You simply became the world’s biggest hidden mystery.

“Why don’t we go see what happens there?” Natasha broke the silence.

Clint nods and moved from his chair, “Yeah.”

But Steve remained seated in his seat, he was staring at the table. This was not the first time Natasha saw him like this after your name was mentioned. He often turned into a silent, staring-into-nothingness thinking machine when someone tagged your name into the conversation. It happened only a couple of times. Natasha tried to make him open up about it one time but God knows how long Steve takes before trusting someone with his thoughts.

“Steve?”

Steve finally blinked and meet their gaze, “You should go. I’ll just head straight to bed.”

He didn’t wait for their replies and simply left the kitchen shortly after washing his plate. Natasha followed him with her eyes as Steve walked to his room. Clint, on the other hand, shrugged it off and pulled her to the compound’s ample hangar.

Tony, being the most extra person that he is, even prepared decorations and chairs with safe feet away from the time machine he newly built. There’s even a handmade banner– probably made by Peter– that hung behind the machine. 

“Where’s the capsicle?” Tony asked them as they sat on the remaining vacant seats next to Pepper.

“Went to bed early,” Clint answered.

“What? Gosh, that old man–”

Natasha cuts him off before he starts his unnecessary rant, “Just show us your new project.”

“Okay, okay.” Tony rolled his eyes as he walks in front of his own version of a time machine based on his dad’s blueprint. “I’m going to skip any more introductions because I am so excited to show you guys this time machine. Sure, it had issues before. But Dr. Banner right here helped me to modify it. Hopefully, it will work well and this can be the first-ever working time machine ever!”

His enthusiasm was evident on his face. He continued, “So, here's how it will work. The time machine will be powered on and to avoid any living being disappearances like before, I’m going to place this camera on the platform. I’ll set it into timer mode. Bruce will quickly click the controls to send it out. When it gets to another timeline, it will just take a snap of whatever it sees. Then, we will immediately bring it back here.”

“How long will it stay to another time?” Sam asked in the background.

“Roughly five seconds only.” Bruce, who stood near the machine’s controls, replied. “This is literally our first test trial.”

“Any more questions?” Tony asked and everyone in the room just shook their heads. He smiled and stood next to the lever for power on. “By the way, there might be bright flashing light– Please accept the glasses that are being handed out by Ms. Potts.”

Pepper distributed dark shades from the prepared box to everyone. She later sat back down, wearing the same eyewear. The two scientists also wore them. Tony placed both his hands on the big lever next to the controls.

“Okay, let’s start. Switching on the time machine in 3… 2… 1…”

After pulling the heavy lever, a blinding, white light engulfed the whole room.

It was just a blink of an eye.

As you felt a different, cool blow of wind on your face, you slowly opened your eyes, immediately seeing a group of foreign people sitting in front of you. It worked. It worked! Your eyes widened as you realized it. But before you can even click the button on your camera. You realized another thing: everyone is looking at you. You are in a distant timeline and you can tell just based on their fashion. 

Dang nabbit, Y/N. You only have a few seconds. Just take a polaroid.

You clicked the shutter. Its small sound made everything more awkward against the quiet and seemingly shocked crowd. Then, you mentally count down to ten as you wanted to get back to Howard to show him the image.

Five.

“Hello?”

You cocked your head to the man who spoke on the side. He was in the controls with another guy who strangely looks like Howard. Were you in another universe? Was multiverse real? Although shocked, you didn’t react since your best friend advised you to don’t interact with anyone.

Four.

“Miss, can you hear us? Where were you from?”

This time, the Howard-looking guy with the weird goatee asked you the question. You remained quiet.

Three.

“I don’t think she can understand us.”

Two.

But then, someone stood up from the seated group of people. A bearded man with shoulder-length brown hair from the back. He removed his sunglasses and you squinted your eyes to identify him. His piercing steel blue eyes as wide as he spoke,

“Dr. Y/N?”

No. No. No! This cannot be real!

One.

“Sergeant Barnes?!”

You immediately covered your mouth as you unintentionally called his name at loud. Gasps and inaudible whispers followed.  You held the polaroid camera in your chest tighter when you see some of them standing. 

Why is he here? He fell from a train during a mission with the Howling Commandos a couple of years ago. Steve saw it himself.

“Wait, you are Dr. Y/N, Howard Stark’s assistant?!” A teenage boy asked and everyone turned to you, waiting for you to say something again.

You didn’t say anything. Instead, you took a step back when you noticed the time on your gold wristwatch. Suddenly, there is a drop in your stomach. You watch as the smaller hand ticks, indicating that a minute had passed.

Damn it. 

As if on cue, your camera spews a polaroid picture you took not long ago. Your heartbeats went faster and it was like you were drowning underwater. Sweats formed on your forehead. Your fingers shake. What is happening?

“I’m calling Cap.” you heard someone say and ran out of the room.

“C-Cap?” you stuttered, voice shaking. You prayed that they were talking about someone else as the only person you called Cap was already dead too. Out of desperation and fear, you looked at the two guys standing near what seems to be the controls. “Bring me back!”

You see them panicking as they click on the various buttons. The other one pulled down the large lever and everyone screamed as there were booming sounds and sparks everywhere. Your knees were on the ground as you smelled the smoke. You were starting to feel lightheaded. Your vision was slightly blurry but you can still see people leave the room.

“Oh my god. Let’s go.” A woman with long auburn hair walked to you. 

“But I–” you were pointing at the smoking time machine before another spark happened. 

“It’s fine, it’s fine. They’ll fix it. For now, we should go.” she replied and you accepted her hand.

Your knees were weak as you stood up, almost falling again. But another woman stood next to you holding you up by the waist. They assist you, walking you out.

“A-Am I dead?” 

Your feeble voice whispered. But they didn’t seem to hear you. Incoming heavy footsteps were heard.

“Where is she?”

That voice was like a snap in your brain. Like memories played in your head the moment you heard that deep voice. You know that voice. God, you missed that voice. You felt like crying with all the overwhelming emotions mixing in your system. But instead, you gulped and collected all the remaining sanity in you to look up to the guy coming. 

“S-Steve?!” 

You called his name so frail but it didn’t hide the fact that you were surprised to see him. You see his lips move but you cannot hear anything anymore as everything turned dark.

THE SEND-OFF TAGLIST [open. please make sure your account can be mentioned :)]

@supraveng @yourallihave @et-homephone @sunflower-golden-vol6 @curi0usc4t @caitlyn-who @bitchy-bi-trash @therealwritersblog @stilltoomuchafangirl @emievns @sshina555 @blinkszamsstuff @tokaixi @saviorcomplexrry @matisse556 @ragingsammie @gitasor

[mysticalrambling]

Ending It All (Alternate Ending)

A/N: This is an alternate ending for those who wanted the reader and Chris to end up back together, This series have officially come to an end so thank you so much for all your support guys. I am open to blurb requests and I would love it if you send some requests. I’ll be happy to write about them. Love you guys🤍

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Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Chris Evans Fan fiction (Fan fiction Masterlist)

Summary: You break up with Tom because the kids call him dad and you just didn’t want anyone to take Chris’s place. Chris comes over and you both confess that you still love each other. You get back together and the kids are really happy about it.

Warnings: Angst and fluff.

._._._._.

“Hey. What happened?” Chris asked as soon as you opened the door with tears running down her face.

“I’m sorry for calling you at this time. It’s just- I just-” Unable to continue your sentence, you buried your face in your hands and let out a gut wrenching sob.

“Come here, darling.” Gently taking you in to his arms, he led you to the couch. Once you calmed down a little, he spoke again. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I broke up with Tom.”

“Why?”

The whole day was still running through your mind like it was still happening. Tom had come to your house to take you and the kids to dinner. You had been dating for almost a year now and it had been baby steps. You still had feelings for Chris and even though you wanted to move on, you couldn’t. He was still the love of your life and you were afraid that he might always be.

You liked Tom but you didn’t know if you would ever love him. He was a really nice person with a great personality but he might not be the one for you. However, there was always a chance that if you spend more time with you would fall in love with him. Your kids loved him and he would be a perfect life partner. At least, that’s how you kept convincing yourself to be in that relationship.

“Darling, you need to tell me. I’m worried here.” The little frown on his forehead told you how concerned he actually was.

“Mia called him daddy. I couldn’t-” Hearing your daughter address Tom with that word tore your heart apart. No one deserved that title more than your ex husband. He may have not wanted you but he was a damn good father to your children.

“Uh, okay. It’s okay. I could have talked to Mia about it.”

“It’s not that. I don’t want my children to ever assume that they have another father.”

Chris was shocked at your outburst. He thought that you were moving on and he knew that the children liked Tom. There was a possibility that they would start addressing Tom as dad and he had come to terms with it. It was all his fault so he was ready to face the karma.

“Just take a deep breath and tell me what you are feeling right now.”

Wiping the tears away, you spoke with a slightly broken voice. “I don’t want my children to have another father. Hell, I don’t want another man or husband in my life.”

“(Y/N), it’s okay if you’re not ready right now.” Even though it had been almost three years till your divorce, he understood that you might not be ready to move on. He was not so he knew how you must be feeling.

“That’s just the point. I don’t want anyone else.”

“’kay.” Chris was confused as to where this was going and he didn’t want to assume anything.

“God, I’m so pathetic.”

“Hey, hey.” Making you face her, he talked in a soothing voice. “You can be honest with me.”

“You don’t want me and I am still pining over you.”

“(Y/N), I-”

“I don’t have any self respect because I still want to be in your life. I still love you even though three years have passed by.”

Still sitting on his knees on the floor, he saw you pacing around the living room. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. You still wanted him. You still wanted to be with him after all the things he had done. After all the crap he put you through. This all felt like dream.

You were still blabbering and Chris just got up from his place and kissed you. Startled, you didn’t respond at first but then you closed your eyes and responded. This was what you were talking about. The kiss was magical and no one made you feel like that.

“Listen, darling. I love you too and I regret tearing us apart from the moment I did it. I was a fool for ever thinking that I could ever live without you. I just want my family back.”

With tears in your eyes, you smiled at him. “We’re going to take this slow but we can tell the kids tomorrow that we’re getting back together.” You wanted to work on your relationship and not just dive back in. You wanted to do it right this time.

“Whatever you say darlin’.” Pecking you on your lips, he mumbled against your lips. “Want to kiss the children goodbye.”

“You can sleep with me but nothing else.”

“I promise.”

“Let’s go to our kids now.”

Walking up to their joined room, you both leaned down and kissed Jace and Mia on their foreheads one by one. Chris picked up their pillows from the floor and raised their heads to place it underneath them. You covered them with their blankets and gently closed their bedroom door.

You slept peacefully that night with your lover’s arms wrapped around you. It was the best sleep that you had in the past three years. You knew that everything was going to be okay and you were going to be happy. Your family was finally going to be okay.

“Mommy! Daddy! You’re both here!” Two excited voices woke you both up from your sleep and simultaneous jumping on the bed.

“Guys, stop.” Chris got up and took them both in his lap. “Inner voices.”

“Sorry, daddy.”

“I want some cuddles now.” Both the kids snuggled in to their father’s chest and laid back down with him. This was your family’s routine every morning before the divorce and your chest was bursting out of happiness when you saw the routine in place. “Get in here, (Y/N). The hug is incomplete without you.”

“Okay but just for ten minutes and then we’ll have breakfast.”

“Okay, mommy.” The collective response from all three of them made you laugh out loud and you playfully hit your husband’s chest.

“Love you guys.” Murmuring the sentence emotionally, he tightened his arms around his little family.

He never thought that he would get you all back. He thought he had lost you all and he would be left alone. But you are giving him a chance and he was so lucky to have you. He was okay with taking things slow because he knew there were many things that needed to be worked out. However, you all were together right now and that’s what matters.

“We love you too.” You all kissed him one by one and just laid there in each other’s arms. It was blissful and everything was going to be okay.

Hope you guys enjoyed it!!

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A/N: I loved writing this series so much. It might be one of my best works yet so hope you guys love it. Tell me how you feel about this series.Once again,  I’m open to requests. 

Taglist: @peculiarpenman, @kalopsia-flaneur, @justile, @iguessweallcrazyithinktho, @jessyballet, @caanyoonmoon, @coldmuffinpartycloud, @marvelfansworld, @agnesk, @lauracontisstuff, @deepintothenature, @xcaptain-winterx, @nostxlgia18, @sophiaedits, @luckyladycreator2, @mrspeacem1nusone 

Like, comment and reblog.

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[hobipaint]

A Story Told On Sand

summary: The setting sun gives time for Jungkook to cherish his family.

↳ pairing: jungkook x reader

↳ genres: fluff, like so much fluff, established relationship, slice of life au.

↳ word count: 1.4K

↳ disclaimers: none.

a/n: A completely self indulgent Jungkook fluff drabble written at two at night haha,, I was really going through it. Written for the @bangtanwritingbingo prompt no. 14 - watching sunsets/sunrises, and for @btscreatorscorner June workshop- writing from a member's POV! a massive thank you to @jikookiekosmos for making the banner for me😭 and a massive thank you to @vaekth and @joonscore for bearing with me because I just kept talking on and on about this in your dms lol.

Jungkook leaned back, eyes shutting close as he felt the breeze kiss over every inch of his skin. The warm sunset was only just spreading across the sky, a bright yellow turning to a scarlet - as if the sun was blushing at the idea of leaving the sky, it's lover. 

"It's nice," You sighed, hands resting over his as you looked at the sunset. 

Jungkook looked at you, smiling, and hummed in agreement. "I like this scenario, you know. A sunset, the kids are playing in the sand, and your hand in mine. My day is coming to a good end." 

You turned to face him just as he lifted your joined hands to his mouth to leave a small kiss. You smiled, with your other hand coming up to pull your hair to the side, and Jungkook remembered why he fell in love with you all over again. He looked at you, your eyes sparkling in the deep orange of the sunset, keeping his eyes locked with yours as he pulled you closer. 

Kissing you never got old. 

His lips softly settled on yours, the feeling of them feeling right. Your scent- an unlikely mix of mint, from his perfume, and chocolate, from baking with the kids earlier today- filled his surroundings - and he didn't want anything more. His hand clasped yours, thumb tracing small universes over the back of your hand - universes where it was only you, him and your family. You other hand languidly traced up his arm, curling behind the nape of his neck to pull him closer. He felt you smile, nearly giggle, and it was only seconds before the two of you pulled away and just laughed. It felt good to be here. It felt good to be with you. 

The setting sun cast beautiful spells over the waves that were splashing and playing around in the sea, washing them in shades of burnt red and gentle yellows. The glimmering swell of water that leaped over the sand had your children squealing in delight, running away from the wave. You waved them over, watching as they ran helter skelter to collect their sand toys before running the two of you. 

Jungkook spread his arms out as his daughter ran to her father, not minding the sand that stuck to her body as she leaped on him - squealing in happiness at being reunited with her partner in crime. You reached over to ruffle her hair, eyes crinkling as your son walked over and buried his face in your lap, finally exhausted with the events of the day. 

It was a vacation for you and him - time to spend with family. There were so many highs and so many lows in your daily lives that it was exhausting, even if you loved your work - and you both needed that break, even if it was only for a weekend. Now, as he watched the waves crash into each other and then end in bubbles, he felt that peace he had wanted. 

"Tomorrow, we will go back to the city. Right, dad?" Your daughter sat up and spoke to Jungkook, his hand coming up to caress the hair that flew wildly behind her, settling it behind her ear. "Yes, my bunny. We're going back tomorrow." 

"Good!" She beamed at him, and Jungkook felt his heart swell. She took his palm, and he couldn't help but be amazed at how wonderfully she had grown up - he remembered when he would walk her around with her clinging onto his pinky finger only, and now her hand fit in the palm of his hand, big enough to clutch his hand and swing it while playing games. "I wanted to show you a drawing I had made for you and mommy." 

You turned towards your daughter while petting your son's head, fingertips gently untangling the heap of curls in his hair as he slept soundly. "What drawing, baby?" 

"I made a big girl drawing. Teacher had said it was really good!" Your daughter beamed, missing incisors displayed in a beautiful smile that strangely reminded Jungkook of your own -upper lip quirking in a way that he thought only you could, till his daughter first beamed at him. The thought made him smile.

"Really? I can't wait to see it then, bub. We'll pin it on the fridge too!" You cheered for her, her eyes widening in happiness and surprise at the sudden announcement. She jumped onto both of you, nearly knocking her brother off his mother's lap as she squealed again, screaming to the waves in the distance about how she loved her family. "We will be here forever!" she said, happily clapping.

After a few more moments of excited babbling - including a certain confession she had received from a classmate ("I promised not to tell anyone, but I didn't want to hide it from you! He said he loved me!") Jungkook's shocked exclamation at his baby getting confessions, you laughing, and her defending her 'friend', she was peacefully dosing on Jungkook's lap. His hand went to softly pat her hair, humming a soft lullaby - the same one he had sung to her for years- for all the times she wouldn't sleep at night. 

Eight years, and she still paraded up to him at night to demand the lullaby, and Jungkook would simply cherish that time as he would caress her head, wishing her sweet dreams and tucking the blanket in. "It's to keep the monsters away, " he'd hear her murmur everytime, and he'd smile before returning to his wife and son in the next room, softly patting his son's cheek, kissing his wife good night, and falling asleep. 

Looking at you now - your eyes paying attention to the two year old that had curled up in your lap - he held back the sudden urge to shout in happiness like his daughter had. That's what he felt. Overwhelmed with happiness. He didn't believe that he actually got to live with this euphoria in his life. One look at the three of you made him feel so proud, so responsible, and so loved - he simply couldn't put it all into words. 

Your head came to rest on his shoulder, and Jungkook leaned his head over yours, hands finding each other. You squeezed his hand tightly, and sighed - and he understood you. This silence, this time - it all meant so much for the two of you. 

"Once we go back, we're probably not getting time like this again, are we?" You whispered, letting the words fly away with the breeze. 

"Maybe. Who knows, I'll whisk you away on a getaway next week?" He smiled, and though he couldn't see you, he knew you were smiling, too. 

"Maybe? What about our daughter's annual day, mister? Forgot so soon?" You laughed as you spoke, punching his arm playfully. "I guess my husband is turning old already." 

"Hey!" Jungkook said, trying to fake his anger even if he couldn't take the smile off his face. "I remembered it, of course I remember! I had to learn the ballet routine as well!" You laughed again, the sound familiar and known to him- his heart beating a happy beat. "I twisted round and round, over and over, and nearly ripped my pants."

"Mmmm, and I didn't see you complaining after this baby appreciated you." Jungkook watched you caress your daughter's hair, then her cheek, and settle on the sand. "You went for it all the way." 

"I would always go all the way for her. And for this pumpkin too." He pointed at his son, and you giggled. "And for you too. You're my world, you know that?" 

You raised your head to face him, Jungkook almost complaining at the loss of your body heat right near him. "And you're mine. You, and our kids. You're all my everything." 

Jungkook's eyes softened, pulling you closer for you to rest your head on him again. You leaned against his chest, and Jungkook bent down to kiss the top of your head before leaning back to bade goodbye to the sun. 

"I think sunsets look the prettiest, don't they?" You marvelled at the sky, lush shades of warm orange letting hints of blue peak through as the sky prepared for nightfall. 

I think everything looks prettier when it's with you, Jungkook wanted to say, but he lets the babble of the returning seagulls fill the space. His hands wrap around you, letting his eyes look to the sky once again, awed by everything around him now. This was all he needed. 

"I love you," he murmured, pressing another kiss to his lover as the sun set upon the evening. 

a/n: I'm not really sure if this would be drabble length or fic length, but I'd like to think of it as a drabble. Writing this was really warm and comforting for me, so I hope that it gave you a similar feeling. I'd love to hear any feedback you have either as a comment, reblog, or as an ask! Thank you so much for giving your time to my work 💞 love, hazel 🤗

masterlist

[withluvgen]

Just Friends

Suna Rintarou X Reader 

After overhearing Suna and the others talk about his feelings for Y/N, she’s hoping that they’d be more than just friends. But things aren’t always easy are they?

Warnings: ANGST! Language.

WC: 1915

A/N: It has been so long since I posted something but I finally found the time to finish this! Anyway, here’s more angst I guess??

Likes, Comments, and Reblogs are appreciated!!  💖

The thought of transferring to a different school was absolutely a horrible idea. You dreaded even thinking about it, but it wasn’t your choice to begin with. Your father landed a promotion which meant a relocation to Hyogo. You hated the thought of leaving Tokyo, you had to leave everything behind and adjust to a whole new environment. It worried you, just what type of students were you going to meet there?

Being a transfer student meant you had to at least spend an entire year in any club the school has, and luckily for you the volleyball team was looking for a new manager. That’s where you met the other second years of the team. From the moment you met the trio that was the Miya twins and Suna, you knew that maybe transferring to Inarizaki wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

No, it wasn’t a bad idea...it was a terrible one. How were you supposed to know that you’d develop feelings for the middle blocker? Of course he appeared emotionless and often stirred a little drama or chaos with the twins, but underneath all that was a sweet and caring Suna Rintarou that you had the chance to know on an entirely different level. You easily became close friends with him and much to everyone’s surprise he let down all his walls for you. Atsumu would often tease the two of you but Suna would just brush it off as you two just being friends. FRIENDS. That was all you two were. Or maybe there was still some hope for you…

“Oi, Suna.” Atsumu says as he places the net where it should be. Suna only hums in response before the setter continues. “Ya sure ya don’t like y/n? We all see the way ya look at her ya know.”

“No.” Suna responds bluntly. His back facing the door, not seeing your figure hiding behind it. You bit your lower lip at his response, but you were used to it at this point. He always just ends up saying that you were just a friend to him. 

“Ya sure about that? I mean ya spend a lot of time with her and you treat her differently than all the other girls who want yer attention.” Osamu says as he sets the pole down. 

“Yeah. I don’t like her like that. We’re friends. We’re just friends.”

“Who are ya trying to convince us or yourself?” Osamu teases.

“Shut up.” 

“So if ya say yer just friends then it’ll be fine for ya if someone else asked her out?” Atsumu asked, glancing over at his twin who was leaning by the volleyball poles that he just returned. Suna sighs before he opens his mouth again to speak. 

“Honestly, I wouldn't care.” He answers but Atsumu didn’t miss the way Suna’s jaw clenched at the thought of someone else dating you.

“I don’t believe ya! Just be honest with us for once! We’re your best bros!” Atsumu exclaims. 

“Okay fine, you want me to be honest? Then sure I’ll be honest. But never say that again. It’s…”

“Disgusting? Cringey? Absolutely stupid?” Osamu chimes in before he notices you standing by the door. Atsumu brushes his twin off and urges the middle blocker to continue.

“I’ll admit that I...I think… I may have feelings for someone.” Suna says as he shoves his hands in his shorts. Something he usually did that you thought was cute.You were about to leave when Atsumu opens the door wide, revealing you from your hiding spot.

“Ya heard all that, Y/N?” Atsumu teases as pulls you inside.

“Oh...I...uh… no? Maybe?” You were panicking internally, trying to think of an excuse after being caught eavesdropping. “Okay, look, I just wanted to check if everything was back where they should be but it looked like you boys were having a serious conversation. I didn’t want to intrude.” 

“How much of that did you hear?” Suna asks, eyeing your clearly flustered appearance. 

“Only the last part.” You lie. “I didn’t know you were capable of actually liking someone, Rin.” 

“Oh but y/n, what if it’s you that he likes?” Atsumu teases again, earning a glare from both Suna and Osamu. You give out a fake laugh as a response. 

“Highly unlikely. He’s the one who always says that we’re just friends.” you turn to leave the room with the rest of the boys in tow. Unbeknownst to the group, Suna was relieved that you didn’t find out about his feelings. You did deserve a proper confession after all.

__

A week has passed since that day, and Suna has been acting like nothing happened. To be fair, he does think that you didn’t hear much of their conversation. He still acted the same towards you. Always bringing you your favorite drink for lunch. Always walking you home after practice since you did live a few streets away from each other. You didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but he always stayed to hang out in your place for a while before he went home. It was nice having him around, you thought. 

If only he would confess his feelings, and you’d do the same. Wait what was stopping you from telling him how you feel? After hearing him almost admit to liking you, you had a chance. Right? 

You both were hanging out by the gym for lunch. He brought you your favorite drink as per usual, and you brought some of his favorite snacks with you. You were used to this dynamic of yours by now. He’d pick you up from your shared classroom with Osamu, to take you elsewhere to eat lunch with him without the twins bothering you. There were already rumours circulating the school about the two of you dating, but Suna always dismissed them saying how you were just friends. 

There it was again. That word you’re starting to hate so much now. But despite being just friends, you enjoyed being with him like this. It was moments like this where you can see how he’s being his authentic self. 

 “Hey so you remember the other day in the gym?” Suna starts as he takes a sip from your drink. You pout at him but he just looks away. “When you heard me say that I like someone?”

“Yeah, I do. It was a little vague but I don’t want to pry.” You say staring at the grass on the ground. Heat rising in your cheeks as you feel your heart beating in your chest. Was he about to confess?

“I know. About that...I’ve been thinking this through and I just didn’t want to say anything until I was absolutely sure about how I felt.” He was nervous. Oh god why was he nervous, now you’re feeling nervous. Was he really about to tell you how he feels? 

“Go on, Rin. You can tell me.” You encourage him a bit.

“I know that. It’s just that I don’t want to ruin things between us, but I think I like y-” He stopped talking to take a deep breath before he continued. “I think I like Yui.” 

“Oh Rin, I like y-” you stop yourself at the realization of what he said. You felt your heart drop to your stomach, or was that just your heart breaking? You just couldn’t tell anymore. “Did you just say, Yui? As in Yui, the girl from your class who called me a bitch the first time I met her because she thought I was flirting with Samu?” 

“Yeah. That Yui.” Suna says bashfully. It was uncharacteristic of him to be like this, and yet even with your heart breaking at the revelation, you still found him adorable. God what was wrong with you?

And as if the gods knew how you were feeling the school bell rang alerting you both that lunch break was over. Without a word you got up and went straight to your classroom with Suna. As soon as you got back to your seat next to the gray-haired twin, he noticed how somber you looked. 

“Ya okay?” Osamu asks as he offers you a piece of candy. 

“No.” You answer as you lay your head down on your desk. 

“Well, if ya want to talk about it I’m here.” He says as he reaches for your hand to give it a light squeeze. 

“Thanks, ‘Samu.” You look over at him and notice how he was still holding your hand. He lets go as soon as your eyes land on his, causing a light tint of pink to appear on his cheeks. 

“Sorry. ’bout that.” He apologizes before motioning for you to speak, but before you could say anything your teacher comes in. 

You didn’t have the chance to talk to Samu during classes, and you honestly didn’t feel like talking to anyone at this point. You did just get your heart ripped out. But unfortunately it was time for club activities, which meant having to go to the gym and facing the very reason of your heart being ripped out. 

Before you could even dart out of the classroom, Samu held your wrist and pulled you towards the clubroom. You tried to protest, but it was no use because of how tight his grip was. 

“Okay, talk.” Samu says, looking down at you. “You’ve been out of it since Lunch. Did something happen with Suna?”

With the mention of his name you felt the tears you’ve been trying hard to suppress all afternoon threaten to spill. You took a deep breath before explaining to Samu what happened. Instantly he had his arms around you as he pulled you into his chest, running a hand across your back trying to soothe you.

__

After lunch Suna made his way back to his class, slumping at his desk. Why didn’t he just admit how he feels? Why did he chicken out? He felt so stupid. He knew he hurt you, the look on your face after he said that he liked Yui said everything. 

What was he even thinking? He didn’t even like Yui as a friend so how could he ever have romantic feelings for her? He just panicked at the moment, thinking that you wouldn’t feel the same way and that he’ll lose you in his life. Suna knew he fucked up and he had to make this right with you. He had to apologize and tell you how he really feels. As soon as the bell rings he’s going to run to the clubroom and confess his feelings for you. 

Big mistake. This was all a big mistake. As soon as he rounds the corner to the clubroom, he sees you wrapped in Samu’s arms. He stopped in his tracks and hid behind the wall before either of you saw him. Was this what Atsumu meant when he asked if it was alright if someone else asked you out? His best friend and the girl he was in love with, together. Was this how you felt when he said he liked Yui? 

Suna didn’t know what to feel. His heart was tightening in his chest as he took a peek at you and Samu again. He definitely fucked up. If only he just admitted his feelings instead of constantly denying them. If only he just said that he didn’t want to be just friends. 

Hope you liked this. Thanks for reading! 

I would really appreciate it if you’d reblog this! 

xoxo,

Gen

[rae-gar-targaryen]

alight with the lights out | diego hargreeves x reader [tua]

A/N: Thank you for all of your interest after I posted the teaser! It was VERY surprising and humbling; I’ve NEVER had so many people ask for a tag before. I only ask that if you asked for a tag, you interact with this fic SOMEHOW. And go find another story you love and REBLOG IT! LET THAT WRITER KNOW YOU LOVE THEM!

I’ll be honest, I’m very nervous about this one. I’m not sure if it turned out as good on paper as it did in my head. Please let me know what you liked and what you didn’t!

Pairing: Diego Hargreeves x vigilante, powered!Reader; this one may read a bit more like an OC because I’ve given the reader backstory, powers. She’s (you’re) a vigilante who regularly runs into Diego. I keep the physical description vague, so I hope you can still imagine yourself! 

Warnings: Language; who doesn’t love getting a little sweary? Violence, fighting, references to a shitty childhood, and separately, implied sexual assault (nothing graphic, I promise); angst and angsty dialogue; SMUT-- 18+ ONLY PLEASE; lots of cocktease dialogue, fingering, pierced nipples (the reader’s not Diego’s-- sorry), biting, rough sex, choking. Romance is its own warning. Fluff.

Word Count: 12.1k of sexy, self-righteous vigilantism, half-baked metaphor and of course, at least one literary reference. 

Summary: Diego Hargreeves, aka The Kraken, is secure about few things in life; one of those things being his vigilantism. He’s a hero. Until he meets a fighter who shares the same hobby, albeit with different methodologies. Diego isn’t quite as certain about her, but her mysterious abilities make him think he and his siblings aren’t the only ones in this world with power. If only she and Diego could just stay out of each others’ hair. It’s a good, old-fashioned ENEMIES TO LOVERS, lads!

Link to my playlist of songs that inspired this fic: here

NOT MY GIF

----

You wouldn't hurt anyone who didn't deserve it. That was rule number one. Hell, if you could get away with it at all, you wouldn’t hurt anyone. 

But Mr. Adler hated children. And he had made it his mission to not understand you. To regard you with the utmost disdain. And unfortunately for you, Mr. Adler had married your mother when you were six years old. 

You had never known another father. Your mother refused to talk about the circumstances of your birth, or of the man who had supposedly been responsible. The lack of identity loomed like a large question mark over certain portions of your life. 

And Mr. Adler, that loud, controlling lout, was not about to fill that void. 

When you were in elementary school, you began to feel like you were different from the other children. Watching them carry about their days with their steel-pressed pop culture lunch boxes and not a care in the world. While you sensed your music teacher’s sadness when her cat had died. You could feel every anxiety that passed through your classmates on the day of a spelling test. You didn’t know why you could feel these things. You just could.

Prominently above them all, you could feel Mr. Adler’s hatred for you, like a thick, toxic wall every time you passed through your front door and into what was supposed to be your sanctuary. 

He shouted at you for inane things, like the pantry door being left open, or the fact that your mother was tired after cooking dinner, insisting you never did enough to help. As a child of eight, what did he expect you to do? You kept your room clean, cleared and set the table, helped your mom water the plants in her garden. What more could Adler want from you?

Still, Mr. Adler’s hate for you colored your every interaction with him, the world you saw him through tinged with an orange-red lens of rage. 

You had never tried expanding upon your grasp of others’ feelings until you had witnessed a boy in your class push your pigtailed classmate, Annabelle, down on the playground. Anna’s shock, fear and sadness had bitten into you from the other side of the sandbox like an unwelcome spider bite, sudden and itchy. 

It didn’t sit right with you. To you, how was this boy any different from Adler? Reigning terror over someone else just because he thought he could. You’d recognize that red-orange tinge in another person anywhere. 

You stood, marching over to the boy, gripping his wrist firmly in your stubby, grubby fingers. Quick as a flash, you were met with every emotion this boy had ever felt -- annoyance at Anna (she wouldn’t share her toys. How selfish, the boy had thought); anger (how dare you grab him!); and finally, prominently, fear. 

Fear looked different for everyone, you had noticed. For some, like this boy, it was an ugly green, so like jealousy. For others, like Adler when he’d been drinking, it was an inky black you could drown in. Fear was clearly the strongest. You knew that now.

You gripped the boy’s fear in your own mind, pushing it to the forefront until he began to cry, his eyes welling with the sudden fear he couldn’t understand. 

“You won’t do that again,” you said. Turning to Anna, you offered a hand to help her up, but she just shook her head, pigtails flying, and scampered away from you. 

Your teachers were clearly afraid of you after that. Could sense that something wasn’t right. Anna? You thought she’d be grateful ... but the chilly pale yellow of her fear, and everyone else’s, followed you wherever you went. 

Fine, you thought. If they wouldn’t be grateful for what you could do, you may as well help yourself. 

From then on, you exploited your teachers’ happiness -- pop quizzes became less frequent. Everytime they wanted to scold you for incomplete homework, they were left grasping at straws and with the daze of an emotion they couldn’t name. 

Adler hated you for it. 

“I knew there was something wrong with you,” he sneered over your mother’s weeping objections. “I don’t know what it is, but I know there’s something.” 

Once you reached 18, you left for the neighboring bustling metropolis and didn’t look back. The world was full of people like Adler, like the boy in the sandbox, like your teachers, who tried to use their own fear to feed their hate, to exploit others. To exercise false power over them. 

Well, you wouldn’t have it. If it meant a few of those assholes got hurt, well, so be it. 

You lived like that for years. Until --

---

"I hope you choke on it," you hissed, watching the smoky black tendrils slither their way around the man, constricting -- bringing him to his knees, hacking and gasping. "I see your fear, I feel it all. You deserve this, you know you do," you lectured, advancing toward the man, your hands raised. 

He was seconds away, you knew it-- and then one more scumbag would be off the streets for good ...

Things were going your way, you were in your favorite position in an altercation-- you know, the one where you had the upper hand? Everything was coming up you, until--

Your ears were met with a whizzing noise mere seconds before a sharp, shiny something nicked your cheek and lodged into the wooden beam just past you. 

Your gaze left the piteous man before you long enough to see what looked like a small, but dangerously sharp, knife embedded in the beam. You reached up and plucked it from its resting place, spinning it in your palm before catching the hilt in a clutching grip. You turned to see where it had come from, your eyes catching a dark blur flipping from the fire escape of the opposite building, before said blur landed at your feet.

Standing at his full height, the blur-- no, the Kraken himself-- towered above you.

You had to admit, the stories didn't do him justice. Standing before you in head-to-toe black and a harness replete with shimmering, twinkling edges and danger, you could've sworn he was your knight in shining leather. His cropped hair and facial scars gave him the air that he was every bit as sharp and deadly as the many blades that adorned his body. His oilslick eyes so like mirthless pits of danger, daring to suck you beneath their surface. He was, in a word, imposing.

Regarding you from behind his Venetian domino mask, he spoke, "Miss I'm gonna need you to drop the knife and let this man go."

You snorted.

"You're joking, right?" Not giving him a chance to respond, you chuckled as you swung at him with the hand still holding what you now knew to be his blade. 

You'd give credit where it was due, Diego Hargreeves, aka Number Two, aka the Kraken, was every bit as fast as they'd said. In this regard, the stories and Umbrella Academy-related media hadn't been wrong. 

Diego dodged your swing, bending his body back before twirling around to strike at your torso, like a snake, with his heavy, hammered fist.

The hit knocked the wind out of you, effectively breaking your concentration, and, devastatingly, your connection with the previously fear-choked man cowering in the alley behind you. As you recovered from Diego's hit and swung around to check your quarry, you could only watch as he shook himself from your fear-induced trance.

He scraped and scrabbled to get up off his knees as Diego shouted at him to "Go, just get out of here!"

You snarled and swung a well-aimed high kick at Diego's head, connecting with just enough of his jaw to drop him. As soon as your proverbial window opened, you turned from Diego to run after the man. But even grounded from a blow, Diego was formidable. He shot his arm out and snagged your ankle, yanking you to the ground. 

The gritty pavement scraped your palms as you attempted to catch yourself on your way down, growling as you glanced up to see that loathsome cockroach of a man slip out of the alley, huffing as his bloated legs carried himself far away from you. 

You tossed a glance over your shoulder to see Diego righting himself as he stood up, looking down at you before shrugging, offering you his hand.

"Not a chance," you scoffed, knocking his hand away. You rolled slightly back, arched up, and used your hands to help you spring as you lept to your feet in one smooth movement. You landed with a thud of your boots, your feet spread apart, and arms raised in a boxer's stance. 

Diego had the decency to look slightly surprised at your obviously-dangerous athleticism. He shook himself slightly as he regarded you. 

Besides, he thought, taking in your stature, it's not as though you were any match for him. No way.

"Why would you get in my way, Umbrella douche?" You bit out harshly, glaring daggers at the knife-wielding Kraken.

"Come on, hot stuff," Diego shrugged. "If you know who I am, you gotta know it's not like I can just let you mug that man with … well, whatever you were doing to him." What he had seen you do in the alley seemed to be catching up with him as he cocked his head and queried, "What exactly were you doing to him, by the way? I mean, other than hurting a civilian?"

"A civilian?" You spat. "You don't know what you're talking about, do-gooder. If you knew what he was, you wouldn't be defending him so staunchly." 

“And what was he?” Diego pressed. 

“That dickless fuckhead would-be-rapist isn’t worth the shit on your shoe,” you snarled. “And you let him get away. Nice job, hero,” you sing-songed the last word mockingly, taking advantage of Diego’s lowered guard to level a swinging hit to his nose. 

Your punch landed with a satisfying crack, Diego stumbling back, shaking his head. 

“What in the ever-loving FUCK is wrong with you, lady?” Diego shouted. 

“Take your hits like a big boy. Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of ‘Big Deal?’ ” you asked, advancing toward Diego, fists raised. 

“Honey, my reputation precedes me for a reason,” Diego quipped back, blocking your next swing and making one of his own toward your gut. 

The two of you sparred in the alleyway, whirling and spinning in a very violent dance between two unwilling partners -- Diego, clearly pulling his punches, while you were obviously preoccupied with your rage at your escaped quarry. 

Diego flipped and spun and swung his fists with a speed that bordered on unnatural. His jabs and kicks annoyingly landed, as you were really only able to block just about every other hit. Fuck him for being so fast. 

So it was true, you thought, the superpower hype was real. Well, two could play that game. 

At Diego’s next hit, you caught his fist, allowing the contact to create the connection you needed, feeling for Diego and any underlying emotion that would be his undoing, before latching onto your favorite-- past the overstuffed confidence, you tasted simmering rage. Beyond that? A tiny prickle of … was that??…Ah, yes, the stinging, burns-so-good zip of lust... File that one away for later … and beneath it all lay Diego’s stammering, stuttering, suffocating fear. 

You dug your proverbial claws into it once you found it, bringing it to the surface, manifesting it into your signature smoky tendrils. 

Drag them down with their own fear. 

Diego’s eyes widened as he looked down to see his legs wrapped in what looked like snakes. Suddenly, his worst memories of fearful days under his father’s tyrannical reign were the only things in his brain. The shouting proclamation his own inadequacies in his father’s too-posh voice pounded within his skull. It was all he could think about -- Your presence before him seemed to dwindle, he couldn’t focus on you, try as he might-- when he was overcome with the feelings of every bad memory he had ever suffered through bearing down on him like the crushing weight of the ocean, pulling him under with the riptide of his own panic and inadequacies.

What the fuck was this shit? 

He pushed through his sudden indifference toward you to regard you, the woman stood before him. Diego’s fist clenched as he took in your own grip clutching around his wrist. Your eyes were closed as your face was screwed up in concentration. 

Repulsive. You were repulsive, he suddenly thought. How could he have cared so much about hurting you when his own terror and agitation sat heavy on his tongue, like ugly curdled cream?

But he hadn’t always felt this way-- not his usual modus operandi, was it? So what was this? Was this-- you?? Was this what you had done to that man?

Diego began to dredge himself through his own agitation, past his father’s lilting abuse… through the mire of never-quite-being-enough against Luther... dragging his proverbial feet through a bog of his own self-hatred. Just long enough to wrench his wrist from your grip, grabbing you by the shoulders and spinning around, slamming you probably a little too hard into the wall behind him. Your eyes snapped open as your head made a minor thwack off the  alleyway-- you had just enough time to tilt your head to the left as Diego brought one of his knives down, driving it into the wall a sliver from the space your face had previously occupied. 

Diego bore his weight on his toes, leaning his imposing height into and over you, panting and snorting heavily through his nose. You looked at his eyes behind his mask-- hardened flints of pissed-off-superhero glared back at you.

“W-wh-What the F-f-UCK was that?” Diego spit, lip curling over his teeth in a gruesome snarl. 

A fleeting flicker of shame passed through you. He hadn’t really done anything to deserve that, had he? Before you shook yourself out of it-- No! He let that rat-faced motherfucker get away! 

You fixed your face into an impassive mask of your own before you chirped, annoyingly, “What was what?” 

Diego chuckled mirthlessly, shaking his head.  “Nuh-uh. How did you do that?” Diego pressed, leaning even closer to you, if that were possible.

“Do what?” you chimed innocently, tilting your chin up, eyes meeting Diego’s from beneath your lashes. Maintaining your feigned ignorance.

“Don’t do that,” Diego snarled. “Don’t play dumb. I think we both know at this point-- you’re alot of things, and dumb isn’t one of them.” 

“You’d know all about playing dumb, wouldn’t you, pretty boy? Or for you, is it not really playing?” You reached up and ran a finger along his sharp jaw before tweaking his chin and dropping your hand back to your side. You sighed at Diego’s stone face. Honestly, it was so boring when they didn’t bite back.

“I don’t know what to tell you, cutie pie. I can’t help it. People are just drawn to me,” you quirked an eyebrow. “Or repulsed by me. I really haven’t decided.” You fluttered your eyelashes at him, ever the pretty picture. 

Diego leaned further into you, pressing your back further and further into the wall. All the while, his leather-gloved grip creaked around the handle of the knife he’d plunged into the wall next to your head as he gripped it tighter. 

“Huh,” he mused, scoffing at you lightly. “Ya know something, doll? I just don’t fuckin’ buy it.” 

“Babe, if you wanted to play bad cop, all you had to do was ask,” you smirked as the stone face slid from his features and gave way to "surprised face."

“Honestly, honey,” you slinked up Diego’s body, propping yourself onto your toes and brushing his lips ever-so-lightly with your own as you spoke into his mouth, “Did you really think you and your reject siblings were the only ones in this whole wide world with a little … taste … of power?” you purred. 

Ah, you thought, and there it was. 

The warming, zinging hum that your ability recognized as Diego’s lust crept through your fingertips that were currently resting on his chin. You were sure if you took the time to analyze exactly who was feeling what, that this feeling of craving wouldn’t be as one-sided as you’d otherwise have hoped. Diego was, you had to admit, very pretty -- for a man. 

The swirling galaxies in his midnight eyes regarded you with confusionangerwant.  Had you really just -- kinda kissed him?

You took advantage of Diego’s surprised state to knock his grip from your shoulder and shove -- hard. Diego toppled back, and you took off as fast as your enhanced body would carry you, cutting down the alley and away from your fascinatingly frustrating new rival. 

Diego took in your retreating form from his final resting place in the disgusting alley’s concrete. Slamming his fist into the rough-gravel ground, groaning out his frustration and anger.

You were gone. 

What were you? 

Were you really like him? Like the others?

---

Diego shuffled into Hargreeves Manor, determined to see who else was around. Surely they, or Pogo, would know if there were others like them out there. Had he been the only one to run into one? Was it all a hoax?

As he wandered into the cavernous, but simultaneously stuffy, living room, sure enough-- there was Klaus, sprawled across the couch, arm slung over his face in a restless nap. 

“Klaus!” Diego barked, startling the spindly man from his perch on the couch and onto the floor. 

Klaus looked balefully up at his brother from his spot on the carpet. “Jeeeesus, Diego, really? What do you want that made that necessary,” Klaus grumbled.

“Have you seen Pogo?” 

“I haven’t seen anything but the back of my eyelids for the last several hours, thank you very much,” Klaus replied, “Although, I did have a very good dream about running into an old friend of mine in the grocery store. He was always so convinced he was straight. But I think the rest of my dream calls bullshit.” Klaus chuckled to himself. 

“Yeah, whatever, man. I need to talk to Pogo,” Diego stressed, turning to leave the living room.

“Well, wait, wait, wait. What is so important?” Klaus queried, clambering up and lumbering across the room to catch Diego’s arm.

Diego sighed, facing his brother. 

“Do you think … Do you think we’re the only ones like us?” He asked.

“Well, there’s no one like you, brother,” Klaus chuckled, taking on a rumbling, Diego-esque mocking tone, “I’m Number Two!” He cackled to himself for a moment before coming back to himself with a sigh. “And honestly, we all know I’m an original. So I’m not sure I take your meaning.” 

“I mean… it couldn’t just be the seven of us, right? There’s a lot of other people in the world… it just makes sense others could do things like what we can?” Diego pressed.

Klaus started. He had never seen this look in his brother’s eye before. The unhinged mania of a fight? Sure. Crushing doubt? Obviously. But not this … fierce certainty buried beneath a question. This was new for Diego. He must be serious. 

Klaus blinked, regarding his brother, before slowly nodding. “I mean… sure… theoretically, there could be others. But I don’t know any. Why? Did you find someone?” 

Diego drew in a breath, unsure of how much he wanted to reveal to Klaus. After all, you were his nemesis. His pain in the ass. His whatever you were. 

Diego crossed the room again, back to the couch Klaus had previously occupied, before sitting down in a creak of leather and clink of blades still strapped to his harness. Propping his elbows on his thighs, he placed his head in his hands. 

“I don’t know. I think so? I found her while I was out patrolling, and I … I don’t really know how to describe what I saw.” 

Klaus placed himself next to his erstwhile sibling, tucking his feet beneath himself as he sat, reaching up to pat Diego on the shoulder.

“There, there, big guy. Just… tell me what happened,” Klaus crooned.

Diego launched into the story of finding you in the alley, choking the man with your smoke without even laying a hand on him. He described to Klaus how the two of you had fought, and how you had called the man a “would-be-rapist” before knocking Diego to the ground and making your getaway. 

“Well, she sounds hot.” 

“Helpful, Klaus,” Diego deadpanned. 

“Oh, isn’t it obvious, sweet Dee?” Klaus chimed at the end of Diego’s story. At his brother’s nonplussed look, Klaus continued. “She’s just like you! She likes to put on her Batman underoos and fight crime,” he chuckled. “Even if she is like… us… she clearly can do something different. But I think the most telling thing is how obviously into her you are.” 

Diego sputtered, “Wh-what?? I am not into that … psycho. Whatever she can do, that’s all I want to figure out.” 

“The lady doth protest too much,” Klaus sing-songed. “Whatever you say, brother. But I think the only way you’ll really figure it out is if you run into her again. I mean, we know dad had his secrets. If he knew about other powered children, don’t you think the Umbrella Academy would’ve been a lot bigger? The world is a big place. I’m sure there’s more out there, but, um… we just didn’t know about it until now?” 

Diego sighed deeply. “Oh, joy,” he muttered. Ignoring the tinge of excitement that passed through him at Klaus’s suggestion he seek you out. 

Klaus clapped his hands joyously, cuffing Diego’s shoulder, shaking him. 

“A nemesis, Diego! How sexy! How exciting!” 

---

Your encounter with one of the Umbrella Academy had left you slightly shaken, to say the least. You were so careful when you went out. No one missed those assholes you took care of. Honestly, you were doing the city a favor. 

Patrolling on any given night would yield one or two men who were plotting something less than savory. And all it took was a brush of skin to determine their true intentions. 

You sighed angrily, ripping off your bodysuit and stomping across your apartment to your shower, yanking back the curtain and twisting the knob forcefully. 

Hot water began to pour from the showerhead, steam filling your bathroom. You regarded your reflection in your bathroom mirror, a distinctly palmlike-bruise adorned your shoulder from where Diego had clutched it, not to mention the scrapes that lined your body from your repeated meetings with the concrete during your sparring. 

You met your own eyes in your reflection, regarding yourself as balefulness gave way to venom. 

Honestly, that toadlike little nobody had deserved what you were about to do to him. You had watched him from the back of the bar as he had annoyingly pressed his presence onto a poor girl who was just trying to enjoy her drink. Her drink that the toad had slipped something in when he thought she wasn’t looking. He even went so far as to grab her wrist with his stubby little hands. That was the final straw. 

You steeled yourself, letting the lustful, rowdy feeling of the other bar patrons that permeated the air like thick smoke take you over. Putting on your best, beguiling smile, you crossed the room and brushed your hand over the man’s bare arm, letting him feel the tingling want that you had absorbed. Simultaneously, you felt everything of his disgusting intent-- the hateful, possessive desire for the girl, the hurt he intended to inflict to trample his own inadequacies and sadness. 

Oh, yeah, you were right about this asshole. 

He looked up at you, disgusting gaze lingering on you, before forgetting all about his intended prey, pushing back from his barstool and venturing behind you out into the alley. 

The rest, as they say, is history. And an annoying vigilante type who had an ass that just wouldn’t quit once encased in black leather just had to rain on your proverbial pain parade. 

Diego Hargreeves… Of course you knew who he was. Everyone knew about the Umbrella kids. And you knew the man once-dubbed The Kraken was still doing his best Caped Crusader (sans cape) and kicking ass by night. Annoyingly self-righteous, really, you thought. Choosing ever-so-delicately to ignore the hypocrisy laden in your thought. Is that not, in effect, what you were doing? Albeit with a little more emotional manipulation and bloodshed. 

As you thought of Diego, your fingers traced the slim, sharp cut his knife had made in your cheek as it surged past you. 

You let the remnants of Diego’s rage that you had felt overtake you, amplified by your own, as you slammed your fist into the small mirror over your sink, letting the shards clatter to the ground around your feet.

Payback was a bitch, and so were you. You didn’t know if Diego Hargreeves was a praying man, but he had better hope to whatever deity would listen that he didn’t run into you again.

You wouldn’t be so kind twice, you told yourself, climbing into your shower and letting the blood and grit from your body swirl down the drain. 

---

As luck wouldn’t have it, your gods were decidedly not on your side. And clearly whatever deity you had mentally implored Diego to pray to was on vacation. 

Because you ran into that maddeningly beautiful dipshit, several times over the following weeks. He would do his best to bust up your party, stopping you from exacting your special brand of vengeance. You’d exchange a few quips and blows before running off before he could ask you the question you knew was burning in his mind. 

You managed to evade prolonged encounters with Diego until about another two weeks later. Too soon, honestly. 

Or not soon enough? God, your inner voice was desperate and annoying. 

You encountered Diego again while you were propped against the wall of a seedy dive on the other edge of town, assessing each person as they passed. While your power worked best if you could touch, some feelings were perfectly easy to pick up from a distance. 

So far, nothing. Just a few gross, horny bikers and depressive barflies. It was a maddeningly slow night. And you doubted you were needed here. 

Just as you were about to call it and head to another hotspot, a familiar prickle passed through you. You glanced up, across the street. 

Sure enough, on the neighboring rooftop, perched Diego Hargreeves in the flesh, surveying you like some kind of Great Value Nightwing. 

You sighed, pushing off the wall and crossing the street. Diego watched as you clambered up the fire escape to meet him on the rooftop. 

“Of course you would be here,” you chastised. “Are you fucking following me? I’ve been a good girl. Haven’t killed anyone in a week. I promise!” You held up your hands in mock surrender, coming to stand in front of Diego’s gloriously firm, leather-clad figure. 

“If you say so, Princess. Maybe I’m just here for a drink?” Diego cocked his head toward the shitty bar whose entrance you were haunting mere moments ago. 

“Doubtful, Underoos. I think…” you trailed off, circling Diego, tapping your finger to your chin in a pondering gesture. “I think you’re babysitting me. Making sure I don’t do your job for you and clean up the streets too well.” 

You ceased your vulture-like circling, coming to stand before Diego. His eyes bore into your own, once again partially obscured behind that stupid mask. As if you didn’t know what he looked like without it. Your eyes weren’t deceiving you when you saw Diego’s eyes flash a quick up-down of your body before resuming his stern visage. 

Oh good, you thought. You recognized the latent feelings buried beneath Diego’s anger. A new one brushed over you-- confusion… He still hadn’t figured you, or, more than likely, your power, out…

You weren’t left in suspense too long. 

“Tell me about what you can do,” Diego pressed, advancing toward you. You took a step back to maintain some distance… best if you can perpetuate some veil of advantage. 

“Ah, ah, ah, baby. It doesn’t work like that,” you chided. “You think I’m just going to spill all of my secrets because why? You’re cute? Try again. Ask nicely,” you smirked, pushing your lips into a tantalizing pout.

Diego rolled his eyes. You weren’t going to play fair? Fine, neither was he. Honestly, his fuse was too-fuckin-short for your shit. He wanted answers, even if he had to beat them out of you. Quick as a flash, he strode toward you, jumping into a flip and kicking you down to the ground upon his landing. 

You looked up at him, standing over your body as it lay on the gravelled rooftop, bringing your hand up to touch your jaw, where his boot had collided with your face not moments ago. 

You grinned widely, savagely, around bloodied teeth and split lips. "So that’s how we’re going to play? Do your worst, Big Deal. I like when it hurts."

With that, you swung your leg at Diego’s, causing him to topple beside you, where you promptly rolled over, coming to straddle his hips, bringing your hands to his wrists, the direct contact allowing you to bring his fear to the forefront. 

Just as you were about to choke him with the smoke of his own fear, Diego surged upright, his arms breaking free from the grip of your wrists, his own hands coming to close around your throat. He squeezed insistently, enough to break your concentration-- the smoke dissipating as soon as it had come. With that, he had managed to roll the two of you over, you flat on your back as one of his thighs came to rest between yours. 

You gasped, looking up at Diego with fiery shock looming in your eyes. 

“Wow,” you rasped, “I told you before-- if you wanted to play bad cop, all you had to do was ask.” 

Diego removed one hand from your throat, bringing it to his own head and ripping off his flimsy excuse for a mask. He regarded you with nacreous, tarpit eyes that glowed and glittered with the streetlights, his breath coming in ragged, uneven puffs through his sinfully full lips. His cropped hair was glistening with sweat borne equally from the heat of the night and your encounter. 

“Baby, I think you owe me an explanation first,” He pressed, squeezing your throat lightly, free hand pulling a knife from his harness that he spun in his fingers while gazing down at you. 

You whined, rolling your hips against where his thigh rested between your legs. 

“This would be so much more fun if you’d just do things my way,” you pouted at Diego. 

“Maybe I would, if you would bother to tell me what your way is,” Diego retorted.

“I could tell you, or I could show you,” you purred, rolling your hips again. “I’m all about more fun.” 

Diego sighed. The familiar buzz of lust radiating from your skin-- or was it his own-- that always seemed to hang over your encounters was pressingly prevalent and it was all he could do to not just give in. He gritted his teeth, and shook his head. 

“No. Come on. I know what you’re doing… whatever it is. Just … tell me what it is you can do. Tell me why you’re hurting those people,” he implored.

You scoffed, rolling your eyes, using your free hands to knock his grip from your throat and coming to a sitting position, as Diego remained crouched over you. 

“All you hero-types. You’re no fun. You want to know what I can do? That pleasant little hum you feel? That’s you. Well, it’s me. But it’s you. I don’t make anyone feel what they don’t already… but I can use it against them. That first night at the bar? That,” you shuddered, “That rat was going to force himself on some poor girl. I could feel his every feeling as he was preying on her. I had to stop it. It’s simple, honeybunch. I do what you do, but better. I’ll make them choke in it, their own fear, their self-hatred, their inadequacy, their lust, I’ll drown them in it, and they’ll thank me for it. Because I’m nothing if not merciful,” you gritted out. 

Diego’s mind reeled, jaw slack from your confession. He knew it! You were an empath, an enhanced emotional manipulator. Except you seemed to be able to manifest emotions into something tangible, something harmful. 

Suddenly, the weight of your confession seemed to crush Diego, you had exploited every feeling of his during your encounters to gain an upper hand. And he hadn’t truly known about it until now. 

You felt the surge of his rage, his disgust, his fear with you before he could say it-- 

“You c-can’t-- you can’t do that,” Diego said. “Kililng people who haven’t even done anything yet? It’s w-wrong. Y-you’re w-wro-wrong,” He stuttered out, clearly distressed, but advancing even further into your space.

“As opposed to you?” You bit out. “You wait until someone’s already hurting or hurt someone else to do something. How are you any better? Who are you to judge me,” you spit through gritted teeth. 

“You’re a killer,” Diego pressed, pushing back from you and coming to stand.

“Sticks and stones. So are you. But I don’t hate you for it,” you snarled, jumping into a standing position, squaring your shoulders before Diego’s imposing form. 

“You could always work with me,” Diego offered, “ We could take what you can do and just… re-tool it a bit.” 

You ground out a harsh laugh. 

“Unlikely, you absolutely patronizing dick. You don’t want anything to do with me other than to change me, control me. You’re just like them.” 

With that, you unleashed a slew and flurry of attacks on Diego, swinging your hips around to level a kick at his gut, knocking him to his knees, where your arm was ready to strike a heavy blow against his cheek, your rage fueling the unnatural strength behind the hit. 

Diego sprawled against the concrete of the rooftop, half conscious after blows you’d dealt him. 

You stood over Diego now, looking down at his prone form. 

“I would never want anyone who only means to stifle me. To take me apart until there’s nothing left. Never.” You spit a glob of bloodied saliva at Diego’s feet, leaving him in his semi-conscious, battered state-- the guilt only slightly prickling you. 

His fear-- choking on half-gasped words from behind the tremulous task of tripping over his own tongue-- followed you like a stuttering stormcloud. It stung. Knowing that he was afraid of you.

---

Okay. The guilt was more than slight. 

All he had wanted to do was help, right? 

Years alone with your power, the sting of Adler’s rejection as a child, it all weighed down on you like the crushing magnitude of Atlas. You didn’t really want to hurt him. 

You sighed, resolute. You just needed to make sure.

With that, you headed out in the storm. Headed toward Diego. 

---

The rain pounded on the walls of the Fighting Lion, plunking heavily like half-hewn nails tossed onto the small window in Diego’s back bedroom. He could hear as it landed on the brick, the wet stone and stormy atmosphere making the air thick with the scent of sagebrush and rain. 

A kind of whoosh passed through the room, prompting him to turn from where he was folding his laundry on the bed to see you propped against the door, legs crossed at the ankles, looking every bit as if you belonged. 

“Wow, Big Deal. Nice digs,” you said as you sauntered in the room, staring at the case at the foot of the bed that was full of Diego’s knives. “Not what I’d expect coming from a dude who hails from the city’s biggest mansion. But still -- homey.” 

Diego ignored the jab about his upbringing in favor of the real question.

“How did you get in here?” He asked, seemingly --and to you, maddeningly-- disinterested in your presence as he continued stacking his paired socks into their rightful place in his bureau. 

“Uh, have you seen this place? It’s not exactly rigged with ‘Entrapment’ levels of security,” you snarked, folding your arms across your chest.

“Does that make you a cat burglar? Are you Catherine Zeta-Jones in this scenario?” Diego glanced at you from his socks, cocking a strong eyebrow. 

“If you want me to be, sweetie,” you shrugged. “But, uh -- and don’t take this the wrong way, Diego, but you don’t exactly have anything I’d want to steal.” 

“Then I’ll amend the question. What are you doing here?” Diego asked, finally turning to fully face you, taking in your form as you stood by his bed. The sight causing a pleasantly-unpleasant little something to prickle across his skin. 

No, no, it’s not like that, he chided himself. Besides. You were an absolutely monumental pain in his ass. And his head. And basically every other body part of his you came in contact with. Nope, nope... Don’t think about her body parts “coming into contact” with anything of yours, he scolded. 

“Aw, well now, Big Deal. Maybe I just missed you?” You mused. 

“Doubtful. Did you come back to kick my ass with your freaky little homicidal chokehold some more?” Diego snapped.

Ouch. Maybe you had gone too far in your last little encounter. After all, wasn't that why you were there? To check on your favorite knife-wielding antagonist? To make sure you hadn't actually hurt him?

But what came out instead was--

"Is there any other kind of chokehold?" You hummed, arching your brow. 

Before he could stop himself, Diego retorted, “Based on our last meeting, I think you know there is." 

Momentarily stunned into silence, feeling the heat rush to your cheeks at the memory of his hands on your throat, you dropped your arms from where they were crossed at your chest down to your sides, hands flexing nervously. You chuckled.

"Heh. As tempting as that offer is, pretty boy, I only came to make sure I didn't ring your bell too bad."

Diego leaned against his dresser, tilting his head back and looking down his perfect, strong nose at you. 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I must be going fuckin' deaf. Did you just say you slunk in here with your little kitten tail between your legs to say you were sorry?" Diego snorted, obviously pleased with himself as he saw the obvious fluster cross your face.

Okay, now he was pissing you off. You came here with good will and he sasses you? Two can play at that, as you two so often do...

"You must be fuckin' deaf, dipshit. I didn't say I was here to say I was sorry. I did say I wanted to make sure I didn't kick your sorry ass into oblivion. Which, you're obviously fine, so I'll just be going." You crossed Diego's room, breezing for the door.

Honestly, why did you think this was a good idea? Stupid, stupid, stupid…

Diego caught your arm as you passed him in your hurried attempt at an exit. You gave a half-hearted tug to pull your arm from Diego's grip, surprised to find how firm it was. You turned your head to meet Diego's gaze, throat closing around your sudden nerves. Diego's eyes were molten, boring into you with quizzical questions and low-burning heat. His grip on your arm afforded you an insight into the unique blend that was his confusion and simmering passion.

"What are you doing?" You asked.

"Come on," Diego drawled. "You clearly know what I'm feeling. But I have no idea what you're feeling. You have me at a disadvantage. I don't like it."

"Every time we meet, I have you at a disadvantage," you snarked. At the brief hurt that flashed across Diego's face, you sighed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I meant what I said when I told you I was coming to check on you … I just--" 

You looked down at your feet, the laces in your boots suddenly incredibly interesting to you. Diego's other hand gently gripped your chin, his thumb pressing into its apex, fingers curled beneath your jaw.

"D-don't do that-- keep going. Tell me what you're feeling for once," Diego implored, eyes meeting yours once more, lips ever-so-close to yours. “Please,” he added, softly.

Had your heart been thudding like this the whole time?? Was your jacket always this hot? All you could hear was the pounding sheet of rain, pressing itself into your brain, growing fuzzier. Diego's proximity to your person was decidedly distracting. Wholeheartedly overwhelming. 

Could he really not tell what you were thinking? You were certain at this point it must be written all over your face. Were you not being obvious?? Your burning ardor for him creeping through every inch of your person, drowning your intentions and better sensibilities in anything and everything Diego Hargreeves. You swallowed the lump in your throat before speaking.

"I'm feeling-- was feeling … guilty. The last time I saw you.. I h-hit you...  pretty hard. So, you win. I guess I am here to tell you I'm sorry." You brushed your fingers softly over the bruise that adorned his prominent, proud cheekbone. "I… I just wanted you to be okay. Because I think you were just trying to help. And that's stupid. It's stupid. I'm sorry," you hurriedly stammered. 

Diego relinquished his grip on your arm, allowing his hand to travel down your side until it met your waist. He cocked his head and studied your eyes with his own mercurial ones-- searching for any hint of mistruth in your confession, but seemingly finding none. 

After all, he too knew the honesty behind words that struggled to come out.

"You were… worried about me? You?"

"Let's not make a big thing of this, big boy. You're obviously fine. I shouldn't have come… An honest mistake. Won’t happen again," you started to turn your head, breaking his gaze. 

But Diego's grip on your chin firmed, forcing you to look at him again before surging forward and crushing his lips to yours. 

And, oh, this was bliss-- you were just sure of it. Your yearning manifested itself in the hand you had placed on Diego's cheek, cupping your hands to the sides of his face before dragging them back to thread through the closely-cropped hair at the nape of his neck, then passing your hands up through his longer hair toward the top of his head and tugging. You took advantage of the gasp Diego elicited at that sensation, sweeping your tongue into his mouth. 

Your shared lust bled through your connected skin, hands on faces and elsewhere…  washing over you both like warm static, a pleasant buzz akin to drinking just a little too much champagne. 

Diego’s hands tugged at the hem of your rain-dampened hoodie, tugging it over your head. Your newly-exposed skin prickled with goosebumps at the sudden chill. You had run over here in the rain, after all. Diego’s darkened, honeyed gaze reverently took in your form. 

Never one to waste an opportunity, you took the break in action as your chance to respond in kind-- peeling his skin-tight black crewneck shirt from his own gloriously-sculpted body. 

The two of you stood, staring at each other’s exposed torsos, ragged breaths dragging through the air of passion so-stifling the room like incense you’ve left burning for too long. 

Diego stared at your chest, breasts heaving from behind the scrap of lace that constituted your bralette-- were those piercings that made your nipples poke so prominently through the lace? WIth this realization, Diego felt himself harden. He lunged for you with a growl, scooping you by the waist and dropping you with a bounce onto his bed. 

His mouth latched onto your throat, sucking insistently while his powerful hands rested at the edges of the delicate lace trim of your bra, passing almost reverently across your ribcage. 

You gasped as he brushed a thumb over your nipple, feeling yourself growing wet beneath your leggings. You hmm’d a whine as Diego’s mouth found that spot on your throat, his thumb still rolling circles over your nipple. 

“D-Diego,” you gasped, sucking in air like you’d never properly breathed before.

“Yeah, baby?” 

“Take it off,” you glanced down at the scrap of lace that adorned your chest. “Please,” you intoned, sweetly. 

“Since you asked so nicely,” Diego said,” creeping his fingers beneath the lace to lift it off your skin. Suddenly, with that preternatural speed he’d come to recognize as a gift of those who were enhanced, like himself, you seized his wrist and squeezed. 

“It wasn’t meant to be nice,” you ground out. “Take. It. Off. Now.” 

With that, you released his wrist, and Diego gripped the lace where it rested beneath your breasts with this two hands and tugged, ripping your bralette cleanly in two, exposing your tits to his roving gaze. 

“There you go, Big Deal,” you preened in satisfaction, taking your own hands from where they had previously been resting along his strong abdomen, trailing them down to the top of his jeans. You popped the button on his fly and began tugging his zipper down, before Diego caught your hand as quickly as you had just done to him. 

“I’ve got this, baby,” Diego assured. 

With that, he brought his mouth down to your left breast, swirling his tongue around your nipple, taking the hand still clutching your wrist and planting it above your head. He released your wrist, trailing his hand, down your side until it met the waistband of your leggings. He pressed his fingers beneath the waistband, raking his fingers under your panties, to where you wanted him most. 

As he dragged a finger through your wetness, you gasped out a keening sigh. Diego’s long fingers working magic against your center, rubbing up and down your slit before pressing one, long finger inside. He lifted his mouth from your breast, pressing it to yours to swallow your moan with a searing kiss.

After a few more moments, Diego slid his finger from your center, retracting his hand from your pants, his other hand coming to meet it, peeling your leggings and panties from you in one fluid motion. You lifted and wiggled your hips to assist him. As soon as the leggings were free from your legs, you wasted no time in wrapping your bare legs around Diego’s waist, locking your ankles behind him and pulling him to you, dragging your hands up his neck and into his hair, hissing in pained pleasure as you rolled your hips against Diego’s still denim-clad hardness. 

Diego groaned as he felt your hardened nipples press against his chest, the microscopic bite of cold from your piercings as they touched his warm skin made him sigh.

The room felt like it was bordering on a hundred degrees, the previously champagne-drunk feeling of your shared lust now replaced with a frantic urge to taste and mark every inch of the other as their own. 

As you continued to grind your hips into Diego, he kissed you deeply, tongue sliding into your mouth, running along your own tongue and teeth, tasting every bit of your want for him as he succumbed to the heated buzz of the room. 

Your power had its benefits, he reasoned, if it meant this would feel so… resplendent. 

The mutuality of your shared passion was enough to do you in. You couldn’t be imagining that Diego wanted you as much as you wanted him. If that wasn’t the case, you both wouldn’t be burning like this, writhing atop his bed with pent-up passion and aggression. 

Diego broke his hands from where they had previously been digging bruises into your hips, coming up onto his knees to start shucking his own jeans and underwear off. 

And oh, he thought, you were a vision. As he looked at you while he stripped himself, he was overcome. Your half-lidded gaze swimming with hazy, unfulfilled promises, swirling lazily like the drizzle of sinfully sweet syrup over something forbidden. Your lips were flushed, swollen and lightly bruised from the punishing pace of your shared kisses. Your wickedly luscious curves and the glimmering slick between your thighs on display for only him. In this moment, he felt he could die under whatever your power would dish out, if it meant he died feeling like this. 

Now bared to you in his entirety, Diego positioned himself once more between your legs, his impressive length sliding to where he had guided it along your opening. 

You tossed your head back, eyes closed at the glorious feeling of his skin finally meeting yours where you wanted it most… but, still, it wasn’t enough. 

“Di- eh - go,” you panted, your glimmering gaze meeting his lustrously darkened one. “P-please, I need it. I need you,” you cried piteously, clutching his shoulders and grinding your hips once more against him.

Diego chuckled, only to happy to oblige. With a guiding hand and a smooth flex-and-thrust of his hips, Diego entered you with a powerful, needed thrust. You cried out, sound going straight to his cock, twitching from its rightful place inside of you. 

“There, now, baby,” Diego crooned, bringing his mouth back to yours and humming into your open lips. “Doesn’t that feel ... So. Much. Better?” He punctuated each of his last few words with hard, firm thrusts of his hips. 

You nodded, eagerly fusing your mouths together, rolling your hips in kind to meet Diego’s sweet, but punishing thrusts. 

“After all that shit you pulled with me,” DIego ground out, “It’s nice to know-- this is what you really wanted. Fuck--” he broke off as you clenched around him just right. “This is what you needed.” 

You whined your assent, keening and high-pitched. 

“Mmmm, I want y-you, as much as you want me,” you gasped out, Diego’s brutal thrusting brushing your clit with his pubic bone, bringing you ever closer, closer, closer to that teetering edge. You lifted yourself up to balance on one hand and meet Diego’s face where he was hovering above you, your sweat-slicked bodies pressing into one another with a delicious, filthy heat. You looked into his eyes, your jaw slack with the stupidly good feeling of everything he was doing to you. 

You turned your head to face his sculpted shoulder, and grazed your teeth there, biting into the apex of his arm. Diego hissed, obviously pleased with the feeling, bringing his hand to your neck, fingers wrapping around your throat and tearing your teeth away from his shoulder, guiding your mouth back to his with the pads of his fingers lightly pressing into your airway.

You gasped, the combined feeling of his kiss, his pressing, insistent touch, and his cock inside you brushing repeatedly against that spot of your inner walls causing you to clench, crying out your sudden, gushing release. 

Diego guided your head back to his pillow, clenching his fist, the same battered-knuckled boxer’s fist that had previously clutched your throat, now clutched around his bedframe as he hammered his final thrusts, pounding into you until he met his release, groaning as he came down from his sudden, bursting high. 

He sighed into your neck, the lovingly sticky heat of your sweaty bodies pressed together as he eased himself from you, pulling you into his side.

You sighed in contentment. 

Was everything Diego Hargreeves did punctuated with such beautiful, forthright power?

---

You both lie in the after, bodies pressed firmly together. It would have been romantically intimate had the primary motivator not been the lack of space on Diego's too-small mattress squeezed along the wall in his room. 

Nevertheless, you lie there in complete contentment, basking in the afterglow and Diego's delightfully even, rhythmic breathing.

Said lothario had his head turned into your cheek, nose brushing against your hair. His arm around you, curling you to him and trailing his fingers up and down your side at a slow, steady pace.

Why couldn't it always be like this? 

After all, fire doused with water still burns brightly at one time, but loses its penchant for destruction, tampered in cool, calming depths and leaving behind cooling steam. So, too, had you and Diego drawn a peaceable, but joyfully sweaty truce. 

In that moment, you could see yourself loving him. You know he'd let you, if you gave him enough time and enough of yourself. The man had not had enough love given to him in his life-- he fought for it, tooth and nail. And had come up woefully empty, like clutching at soft sand that slips through your fingers. He'd had the love of his siblings, sure. But this was -- understandably-- different. You recognized a chasm in him that you often thought you'd never mend within yourself. 

But he was so deserving of love. Whereas you? Well, the jury was still out. 

When you think of Diego, you couldn't help but think of strength. Assuredness. Agility. His aura burned red in your deeper sentiments. Power. You do associate his memory with annoyance, sure, but also a biting wit that he so-oft concealed. And an endearing sentimentality. And an iron will suffused with stubbornness.  

You had gleaned some of this from your foray into exploring his emotions, sure. But you don't use your power at every turn. The rest of it was every impression Diego had devastatingly left you with. You had learned so much of him, you yearned to share a piece of yourself, similarly eager for acceptance. Which then prompted you to share--

“You know,” you piped up in the dark, “You remind me a bit of the main character of my favorite books series-- Ever hear of ‘The Dark Tower?’ You know, the legendary Gunslinger?” 

Diego scoffed at that.

“Guns are for pussies, real men throw knives,” he stated primly, but still unable to conceal the smile in his voice.

“That sounds a little rehearsed, Big Deal. But I’ll let it slide. Besides, you don’t know what you’re missing,” you acquiesced, turning your head to face him, your noses brushing.

“Yeah, sorry, I’m not into all that bookworm stuff. Cuz, ya know, I’m not a fuckin’ virgin,” he chuckled. Obviously pleased with his middle school-grade burn. 

You met his eyes, yours widening in mock surprise. “Oh no?” you gasped. “Well, then why do you dress like one?”

Honestly, it had to be some kind of world record, how fast Diego’s face fell.

"I'm kidding, big boy. You know I dig the black leather," you crooned. Ever eager to smooth the waters of this moment, of his now furrowed brow, back to the placid lake it had been.

"You're goddamn right, you do," Diego chuffed, his grin now prominent in his voice.

You looked at him, your eyes travelling between his shining, ochre eyes and his full lips.

"I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye. 

“I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind.

"I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart," you recited.

Diego regarded you for a moment before brushing his lips across yours, kissing you warmly.

"What was that?" He asked.

"'The Dark Tower,'" you replied. "What? I like to read. You really do remind me of him. Surly, but just. Lost, but ever-searching. Pinpoint accuracy. Deadly. But hasn't lost hope." 

Diego kissed you again, running his hand down your body beneath the covers to grip your bum and roll your body over his, urging you to tarry with him on another burning exploration of one another's bodies.

Yes, you think, sighing as Diego's teeth graze that spot on your neck, his warm palm on your breast. You could easily fall in love with him… if you let yourself. You were probably more than halfway in love with him already.

Oh, no.

---

You awoke to the early-morning sun peeking weakly behind the remnants of fat, overstuffed rainclouds from the night before, purpling the sky as sunlight met grey. 

You took in Diego’s, sweet sleeping form-- his long lashes fringing his sweetly-closed eyes, his cropped hair mussed from a night of tugging, rolling, writhing. He breathed deeply, evenly, peaceably, as evidenced by the repetitive motion of his muscled torso, his long-fingered hands resting along his stomach. 

You couldn’t do this. Couldn’t taint someone so noble and beautiful with your special brand of poisonous manipulation. 

You couldn’t stop yourself as you spoke softly to the sleeping man beside you, coming to sit on the edge of his bed and brushing one hand through his soft hair. 

“You wanted to know about my power? It’s a curse. You think I want this? This? It’s isolation, Diego-- it’s eternal damnation. I shouldn’t be able to do what I can do …  No one should. It’s not a gift, it’s a curse. And it dooms me to a life alone,” your voice cracks as your breath catches in your throat, hitching over tears that were now, suddenly pooling in your eyes. “There’s no trust. It’s what I … It’s what I deserve.” 

With that, you left Diego’s room. Leaving him to wake alone to a cold one-half of his bed, fingers clutching over air and the warm memories of the night before. He blinked in confusion, the sting of your rejection settling beneath his skin. 

---

When you saw Diego again, it was nearly a month after your last… encounter. The sharp knife of anxiety and longing you so regularly felt in yourself since that day, you recognized immediately as emanating from Diego as you watched him limp away from what you assumed was a particularly nasty fight. 

“Big Deal!” You shouted across the street and through the darkness. 

Diego’s head whipped up, head turning to the direction of your voice, before meeting your gaze. He shook his head, looked away, and kept walking. Away from you. 

Ouch. 

Honestly, you could understand why he would. You had done the same to him a month ago. Walked away. But the pinging sting of his rejection dug at you, like glass into the thin skin between your knuckles. 

All you had ever wanted was for other people to understand. But mostly, now, you realized… You really only cared that Diego understood. 

You took off after him, enhanced speed helping you catch up to his limping form outside of a boarded-up, long-closed bar. 

“Diego!” You called, stopping in front of him, causing him to halt.

“What could you possibly want with me, after all this time?” Diego spit.

“I.. I deserve that, Big Deal. I do,” you glanced at your boots, scuffing the toe into the pavement. “Please, just… hear me out?” 

You looked up at Diego. Really looked at him. His beautiful, tawny skin damp with sweat from a fight, his usually bright and mischievous eyes sunken under the weight of tired bags that sat beneath them. He looked drawn, more exhausted than you remember. You caught sight of a particularly nasty, jagged cut on the side of his neck that had clearly only recently stopped bleeding, the splotching clot like a raised, splintering cut from a large cat’s claws. A particularly nasty bruise was already forming around his left eye and onto his beautifully-sculpted, prominent cheek. 

You rushed to meet him, your fingers coming to brush along his cheeks, mindful of the bruise. He closed his eyes at your touch, lashes fanning downward in defeat. 

“Who hurt you? What did they do, Big Deal? Who the fuck did this? If anyone hurt you, I would make them hurt. I’ll make them pay”

Diego dropped the knife you now noticed was previously-clutched in his right hand, bringing his hand to meet your wrist. 

“Don’t do that,” he whispered.

“Don’t do what? Kill the fucker who hurt you? Fine, I’ll just break their knees--” you started, before Diego shushed you.

“No,” he said, “Shut the fuck up. D- Don’t act like you give a shit. Someone who gives a shit wouldn’t bounce for a fuckin’ month. Not after a night like that.” 

Your hand left Diego’s face. 

“I… I deserve that,” you said. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” And with that, you plopped yourself onto the pavement, sitting on the sidewalk at Diego’s feet. Annoying? Sure. Dramatic? Sure. But if something is stupid and it works, then it isn’t stupid. 

Diego sighed at you, rolling his eyes before coming to sit beside you, gasping out in pain and clutching an obviously bruised rib or two on his way down. 

“Fine. Tell me what the fuck happened. Why’d you go?”

“Diego--” you started… “I-- I can’t be with someone when I’m like this. It never works,” you confessed. 

“Like what?” He pressed, bringing his hand to your knee. 

“I’m-- I’m a monster,” you cried. “Adler knew it. Everyone I meet knows it. It’s only a matter of time before you know it too. I just… I don’t know how to stop.” The tears you thought you could hold at bay were now creeping up and causing your throat to close around your words of contrition. 

“You’re not--” Diego began, but you silenced him with a harsh wave of your hand. 

“You don't understand. You wanted to know how it works? I’ll tell you. The power works based on the other's emotion, sure. I amplify what they feel. Cripple them with it, even. But that's not all… it only works, really works, if it's something I can draw on. They feel what I want them to feel-- because I feel it too …" you admitted. “Everything I ever do to someone else I can only do because I know how it feels. If I want someone to hurt, they’ll hurt… I -- I don’t want to do that to you, too.” 

“You won’t. Not with me,” Diego pressed. 

“And how can you be sure? Even now, I feel how pissed you are at me for leaving. It’s humming beneath your skin. I can feel it.” 

Diego nodded, picking up the knife he had previously dropped and beginning to spin it around in his hand. 

“I know it because I felt it. When we were together,” he sighed. “We both, we both can do these things. Anyone else would piss themselves if it was turned against them. But you look the danger of what I am in the face, and you laugh. When we’re together, we’re matched. The way that room felt? I know what that was.” 

You sat, stunned at Diego’s read of the situation. 

“I take back what I said the first night we met,” you said. At the question in his eyes, you continued, “You’re not dumb. That was… that was… something. But I know how to flex my power. I know what fells all men. Fear is a powerful emotion." 

Diego smiled at you. 

“I hate to break it to you, princess, but I’m not scared of you. I know you think I am, but I’m not. And you know what's even stronger than fear? Love."

You looked at Diego, blinked. He blinked back. You then turned your head with a mocking, retching, gag.

"Jesus, Big Deal. They teach you ‘Hokey Catchphrases 101’ at Dysfunctional Superhero Camp?"

“Hey,” he jostled your shoulder with his. “You know I’m right.” 

You stood, offering Diego your hand.

“Come on, big boy. Walk me home?” 

Diego acquiesced, coming to stand with a stifled grunt. 

“You’re lucky I heal quickly.” 

With that, the two of you walked down the street. You matched Diego’s stride, mindful of his injuries. As you walked side-by-side, your fingers brushed. Before you could stop yourself or think better of it, you took Diego’s hand. 

When you reached your door, you turned to Diego, fiddling with your keys. 

“Everyone’s distinct, you know? Everyone feels differently. Wears their hearts on their sleeve, so to speak. But with everyone, it’s a different emotion. Some flaunt pride. Some are more passive. Do you want to know what I feel when I see you?” 

Diego glanced down to where your hands were still joined. He brought them up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to your knuckles. 

“I want whatever you’ll tell me. You’re such an open book,” he admitted sarcastically. You rolled your eyes.

“Come on, I’m being serious here. You feel... you feel...” 

At Diego’s urging look, you continued. 

"You feel like warmth. Like I could wrap myself in you and never feel the biting cold of my heart again. And when you're not around? The absence of you is worse than any feeling I could ever exploit. I hate it when you aren't here."

Diego stared at you in silence for a moment, before he spoke, “I really think you should open the door now and let me take you inside.” 

You smiled, pleased that your honest confession had gone over well, the smile morphing into a smirk. 

“As you wish, Big Deal.”

And in the morning? Well, In the morning, you and Diego were still wrapped up in one another. 

You looked into Diego’s swimming, honey-and-tar eyes, tracing your palms down the sides of his jaw and cupping his cheeks as you told him, “You have my whole heart. It’s yours -- crush it, hold it, bury it in whatever you feel ... Do whatever you want with it, I don’t care. Just say you want it-- that you want me.” 

“I want you.” With that, he kissed you deeply.

---

You were a master of emotional manipulation. To do that, you had to have a decent handle on your own emotions. For years, you’d rested on your own laurels of your mastery of self, indulging only in the most passing of forays into others’ feelings for the sake of your own.

So why on Earth were you so fucking nervous? Why couldn’t you get it under control?

Yet, here you were, hand in Diego’s, fingers laced, on your way to Hargreeves Manor to meet his siblings, months after your mutual confessions of want. The two of you had been inseparable. 

Diego clearly sensed your unease, because he turned to you, squeezing your fingers in his own, planting a sweet kiss to your forehead. 

“They’ll like you,” he promised. 

“How can you be so sure?” You worried, trying to keep all of them straight in your mind based on Diego’s stories, anecdotes and descriptions. 

“Because I like you, and they love to annoy me. So they’ll definitely want to buddy up,” he chuckled with a shrug. “Baby, you’ll be fine.”

With that, you found yourself standing in the ornate living room with five nonplussed persons who introduced themselves to you one by one.

As the largest of the group approached you, you beat him to the punch.

“You must be Luther,” you said, pumping your arm in a handshake where his hand comically dwarfed yours. 

Luther blinked. “How did you know?” 

"Easy,” you said, “You look like a 'Number One.’ " 

Luther straightened, obviously pleased. "Important?" he asked.

"Self-important."

This caused the lithe one with the smudged eyeliner who had introduced himself with a wink as, “Klaus, darling,” to howl with laughter. 

“She’s fuckin’ got your number, Luther,” he gasped out between his chuckles. He turned to the seemingly-empty air beside himself and said, “I know! She is fun!” 

The group found itself sitting around the living room on the various, overstuffed furnishings, in a fun little Q-and-A circle, which was only getting easier all the time, as you found the Hargreeves siblings’ obvious bond to be so endearing. The glamorous one you knew to be Allison had queried about your power, curious as to how you and Diego had met. 

Diego had recounted your first meeting to the group, and proffered an explanation of your powers with, "She takes the idea of 'wrapped up in your emotions' and makes it literal."

“And how did this come about?” Klaus queried, gesturing his long fingers between you and Diego. “It’s not like that first meeting was full of warm-and fuzzies.”

“I don’t know … We’ve …  run into each other a few times,” you offer with a shrug and a shy grin. 

Klaus clapped his hands, a large grin adorning his face.

“Oh-ho! I like this. Diego’s girlfriend beats the shit out of him on the regular!” Klaus happily sang to the massive living room. “Or is that how you two, you know, keep it exciting?” he intoned to Diego in what must have been the world’s loudest and worst attempt at a whisper.

“She does not beat the shit out of me,” Diego protested, rolling his eyes at his brother’s swaggering antics.

“Right, right, you beat the shit out of each other. Honestly, I get it. Kinda hot. No judgment from me, you crazy kids,” Klaus smiled and held up his hands in surrender, flashing you the “Hello” and “Goodbye” on his palms. “Diego told me about you the day after you first met. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it myself when I’m ever-so-alone at night,” he added with a wink. 

All you could do was chuckle. Who couldn’t love Klaus Hargreeves? 

After that, the questioning from the gathered siblings dissipated into a casual little party, with people pairing off to speak in groups of just them, and with drinks from the open bar being passed around amongst the siblings. Even Five. If you were honest, it was strange to see a thirteen-year-old boy drink frozen margaritas. But you’d had to remind yourself that he was actually older than all of you. Honestly, you’d tried not to think about it too hard. 

In between drinks, you found yourself engaged in silly banter with Klaus and Vanya, laughing at Klaus’s stories of eating bagels from dumpsters and his bantering memories with their brother Ben. You responded in kind with stories of your own-- making your elementary school teachers believe they’d had crushes on one another by exploiting their repressed desires, making your classmates piss themselves every Halloween with some prank or another ...

While Vanya was a bit more reserved with her amusement, you’d caught a smile playing at her lips. Klaus outright howled. 

“Oh, you truly belong here, don’t you? Reggie would’ve haaaated you,” he gestured at the stern portrait of their father. “Which means you’re absolutely perfect for our dear Diego,” Klaus proclaimed, lacing his fingers through your own. 

With that, Klaus turned to you with a conspiratorial giggle and hmm'd into your ear, "You know what they say, peaches. 'A scrub is a guy who thinks he's fly.' And if we're being honest, Diego deeeeeeefinitely thinks he's fly." 

You laughed, choking on your sip of margarita. You’d never felt a kind of discordant unity like this one. 

With Diego’s family… with Diego, you felt like you truly did belong.

As you and Diego lay together in bed after the day with his family, he’d asked if you felt comfortable.

“Of course, love.” You pressed a small kiss to the tip of Diego’s nose, nuzzling your own against his. “They were wonderful. You’re wonderful. Thank you for sharing all of this with me.”

Diego gazed lovingly at you, eyes, a deep, endless pit of an eclipse, brimming with golden honey streaks of mischief. 

“I can’t wait to share everything with you,” he whispered, pressing a kiss into your shoulder and settling beside you comfortably. 

Ah. So that’s what that warm, soft, cotton-y, cloud-like feeling you had begun to experience since you’d began your relationship with Diego was ... Comfort. Funny how it blended so seamlessly into the burning, cinnamon-tinged, blooming one you’d come to recognize as his love.

---

Tagging: @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa @winters-buck @qveenbvtch @forever-rogue @ali-cide @fleetwoodmactshirt @stellarkyun @zeldasayer @ayeayecaptaingally @nappingtopknot @holographic-carmen @mandaloriane @pascalplease @phoenixhalliwell @white-wolf-buckaroo @melon-eyes @pancakepike @noturjacky @johnc0nstantine @amarachoren @outrebanx @yespolkadotkitty @agentpike @cryptkeepersoul @netflixandzayn @deadpoolcouldshootme @manchuria @flhorah @halerune @spideymanreads @athousandbuckys @imagining-constantly @dovesgrangers @ravenoussss @pyrosag @rzrcrst​ 

[bakugohoex]

can you please write a fic where youre aizawas' wife and you're pregnant with twins, and while he's in the middle of teaching at UA you go into labor and you call him, and he leaves in the middle of their class, (the class dosen't know he's married and obviously dosen't know he's about to become a father) and the class thinks that something's seriously wrong because they saw panic on his face for a slight second when he got the call, so they end up following him to the hospital only to see him sniling and holding two newborn babies that look just like him and the woman who is on the hospital bed (you) and theyre in shock when they find out that you're his wife and those are his kids, but what shocks them most is the big smile on his face when he was holding his babies 🥺 idk i thought it would be cute

“did he steal two babies?”

pairing: shouta aizawa x female reader

cw: language, fluff

word count: 3000+

a/n: i live for domestic one shots, i might write some more depending on how i’m feeling, hope you guys like this have a happy new years eve people, the stupid tags arent working so if you could reblog it it would mean a lot 

summary: in which you’re aizawa’s secret wife, aizawa gets a call in the middle of class that you’re going into labor and eventually leaves, the class being noisy pricks follows him to a hospital, feeling worried they continue to follow until they see him holding two babies with a smile at his new family

↞ back to my hero academia masterlist

Eight months, eight full fucking months of carrying Aizawa’s little spawns. Having spent your last term of pregnancy on bed rest, it had been the worst term ever, you would rather have taken the puking up last nights dinner then staying in bed. Even Aizawa had gotten annoyed with how frustrated you had got, you craved how he could get up and leave for work. You hadn’t gone into work since your maternity leave started and you were annoyed, being a pro hero it had been worse.

As soon as you told the agency you were pregnant, you were desk bound, unable to go on patrols. It was fucking annoying and you hated every second of it, and all Aizawa could do was smirk at your frustration. “I’m due any day now, just leave work and stay with me.” You plead grabbing the material from his neck, you wanted him to hold you. You already felt gross staying in bed 24/7 but now you didn’t have your husband beside you 24/7.

“Kitten, this is my last day, I’ll spend the rest of the pregnancy with you.” You were grouchy letting go of him and turning your head to face away for him. “Y/n.”

He tried to gain your attention but ignored him, “you should’ve gotten pregnant as well you’d understand.”

He raised an eyebrow, shaking his head as he crept his arms around your body, his hand resting on the baby bump. You shuffled closer to his body, before turning your head to see him softly rubbing back and forth across the bump.

“Be patient, my love.” It was a whisper which brought you comfort.

“If you’re not home by 4pm then I’m locking you out of the house.” You threaten.

He looks down at you with your fiery eyes, “sure you are.” He kisses the top of your head; you pout wanting a proper kiss. He looks at how perfect you looked with his babies, when you both found out you were having twins, the small apartment you had called home since dating. Had gone and a house in the country close enough to UA and still for you to do pro hero work was where the both of you had situated.

Your relationship have been very secretive, a small wedding ceremony which had been perfect with your family and friends. Of course people had noticed you had gone MIA but one day you’d come out and tell the world how you and Aizawa were an inseparable family.

He moved to capture your lips, grabbing his face you wanted to just drag him back to bed. But he quickly moved out of your grip, “patience Y/n.”

“Shouta.” You whine like a child would.

“Seems like ill be raising three babies now.” He mocked putting the scarf around his yellow goggles.

“I hope you break your goggles.” You huff again, he doesn’t speak only kissing your temple after the small peck he had given to your lips.

He starts to walk out the bedroom, your wedding photo situated on the cabinet. You were perfect back then and now with his kids inside of you, you became somehow even more perfect. He had never thought that the woman he had met all those years ago, who had showed of her quirk to the whole world would be the one he fell in love with.

He looked back at you, you were grumpy due to hormones but once the babies were out you knew you’d go back to being yourself (and both of you could fuck properly, but that was just a bonus.)

“Make sure to walk around the house.” He warns.

It was your turn to raise an eyebrow, “and what if I don’t, will you come home early?” Your extra clinginess melted his insides, he knew how bored your loud self was and being cooped up inside had took a toll on you.

“I’ll come home early.” The sound of your squeal lifted his spirits, it was adorable, and he loved how easily your mood changed. Your face was full, and you had something to look forward too as he left the room.

The day for Aizawa had been smooth sailing, having asked to leave at 2pm and being able to, he had been with the students whilst they were training. He could imagine teaching his kids everything to do with this world, he couldn’t wait for his own leave, to spend time with his future babies but also with his loving wife.

The sound of Bakugo shouting was something else he had gotten used to; how could a 16-year-old boy be louder than the babies he had heard on those stupid pregnancy videos you made him watch. You had shown him a woman giving birth and to say it was the weirdest thing he’s ever seen; he’d happily watch stuff go inside of you but the other way round was another issue.

He stood watching over them, they had gotten a lot stronger in the months and the events that had occurred. It was another reason for the secrecy, having to hide your relationship to prevent disaster from happening. He watched the time tick away; another two more hours and he could leave and spend the rest of the trimester with you.

The sound of running caught his ears, he looked up and saw Principle Nezu walking towards him. “Agh Aizawa, we got a call from your wife’s mother.”

He hadn’t checked his phone, but if your mother had been calling it must’ve been something serious, the class had noticed the principle and had gotten quiet even Bakugo who wanted to know why the principle was here.

“Finally, you answered, she’s going into labour.” He heard on the other liner, he was in shock, his phone dropping to the side.

“Sh…She what?” It was early, of course you both knew about early pregnancies but this he had just spoken you a couple hours ago and now here you were about to go into labour.

“In labour, her water broke whilst I came to see her.” He could hear you screaming on the other side, how you must’ve been in pain, he knew you had been dilated a couple days ago but this, this was sooner than he had expected.

Nezu got the hint that something had happened and so had the class, a flash of worry across Aizawa’s face. “We’ll send the students back to the dorms.” He was calm and Aizawa quickly rushed out of the gym, leaving nothing else to say. He needed to make it to the hospital as quick as he could, in an instant he called your mother.

“Is she okay?” He had ran outside going to his car to quickly rush to the hospital.

He heard screaming which he assumed was you, “she’s grouchy…”

Before he could hear the rest of what your mother said, he heard you shout, “if that’s my idiot of a husband tell him to get to the fucking hospital.” It was a wail and he regretted not taking the day off.

“Y/n.” Her mother scowled, “we’re at the hospital, I’ll text you the room.” Is all her mother said before hanging up. Aizawa was stressed to say the least but what he hadn’t seen through the chaos was class 1A following him.

The class had seen the worry and panic before he jolted out of the room, “you all are dismissed for the day.” Nezu spoke before leaving.

“What do you think happened?” Momo questioned worried.

“He seemed in a hurry; it was probably something important.” Kirishima retorted back.

The class watched him on the phone the question of ‘is she okay?’ being heard. “Who do you think he’s talking about?” Mina asked.

“Why do you lot care so much?” Bakugo angrily said pissed that training had been cut early.

“He’s our teacher, what if something bad happened Kacchan.” Midoriya answered but it just fuelled Bakugo’s anger.

“We should follow him.” Denki suggested. “It might be serious and if people need help, we can help.”

They nodded, all assuming it had something to do with hero work, seeing Aizawa in his car, they started to follow him on foot, “we should’ve taken one of the buses.” Bakugo scowled following.

“We cant drive.” Kirishima muttered back.

Bakugo huffed following them all on the long walk, it was easy enough to keep following due to the mass traffic occurring. Aizawa having got the room number, he didn’t care for his surroundings, his eyes fixated on the road.

He finally saw the sign for the hospital and breathed out hoping you hadn’t gotten into labour yet. “Why is he at a hospital?” Ururaka questioned, “do you think someone got hurt?”

“Maybe we should go back.” Momo said not wanting to intrude on something that could have no villainous intent.

“Shut up extra’s, we’re already here.” Bakugo muttered walking to the entrance, they all followed the angry boy who glared at the children coming out of that ward.

“When did you care about the injured?” Kirishima questioned the blond.

“I don’t, you dragged me with you so now we’re staying.” For one thing the boy was persistent.

Across the hospital, Aizawa had ran to the room and saw your eyes filled with fury, your mother holding your hand as he could see how much pain you were in. “Look what the cat dragged in.” You scowled in pain.

“You can take over now.” Is all her mother said, going outside and waiting. He took her place and in an instance your hands had grabbed his.

“You must be the husband, I’ll be helping your wife, can you wear these?” The doctor spoke passing the blue overall type to keep his clothes covered, Aizawa obliged still holding your hand. “Mrs Aizawa you’re about 9cm dilated once you get to 10cm I’m going to tell you to push, okay?”

You were breathless and felt dreary, it would’ve been fine if it wasn’t for the fact you were having twins. You knew you’d go through even more pain then normal and in that moment felt scared.

“Hey kitten, look at me, you’ll do amazing.” Aizawa tried to be encouraging but even he was scared for all three of you.

“It hurts.” You tried to hide the tears, but it mixed in with the sweat.

“I know kitten, but you can grab onto me as hard as you want.” He smiles moving the strands of hair away from your sweaty forehead.

“10cm’s.” One of the nurses spoke out, the doctor nodded before looking at the angry you and calm husband.

“Mrs Aizawa you need to start pushing.” The pain was excruciating, you tried to push your grip on Aizawa’s hands becoming tighter. It was the worst pain you’d gone through and you’d been stabbed before.

Aizawa gave words of encouragement but all you wanted to do was tell him to shut up, tears cascaded down your face whilst pushing. “I see a head.” The doctor spoke, “keep pushing.”

You pushed a long with what the nurses had told you, in time to make sure you weren’t just randomly pushing. Aizawa was the first to see it, first to see the baby come out, it was quiet before wailing out loud, it was his turn to cry. The baby being placed on your chest before the doctor continued, “one more push, let’s get the other one out.”

You felt the first baby on your ski grabbing your neck as you kept on pushing, “I don’t want too.” You cried out but seeing Aizawa and how he looked at the baby on your chest you knew you needed too.

“Come on kitten, one more push.” He spoke a loud, you suppresses the tears before feeling another hard push come and the head of another baby erupt out of you. The doctor but the second baby on your chest, both their crying having stopped.

They stayed on you, you let go of Aizawas hand as the doctor told him he could cut the umbilical cord, he happily obliged before looking at the two babies that you both had created. They were smaller then normal and there eyes were tightly shut clinging onto their new mother.

“We need to weigh and clean them.” The doctor spoke as two nurses took the babies ready to put tags on them, the oldest had been a boy and the youngest a girl. You missed there touch and hold wanting to hold them again but watching them being taken out.

“We did it.” You spoke sleepily as you felt yourself being cleaned up and ready to be moved into another room.

“Yeah, we did.” Aizawa spoke going in to kiss your temple, “we’re parents.”

Tears brimmed his eyes; this normal dry flat facial features had become happier and all he could think about was how you looked with his two children. How he had gotten a family that he had never expected to have had.

Being moved to a different room, Aizawa followed sitting on the chair beside you. You saw the two babies come back to you both, in an instance they were placed back into your arms. “You can hold them?”

You had seen Aizawa’s hesitance to even touch the babies, but he knew how to do it and with ease they both were situated in his arms. You could hear your mother outside, she seemed to be talking to some people, but you ignored it watching at how Aizawa’s eyes welled up at the two babies.

“Where are my grandchildren?” Your mother spoke a loud before having heart eyes at how Aizawa was holding your babies.

“Mum, please be quieter.”

“Hey, I had to handle your screams, let me be happy, they look adorable with their father.” She spoke moving to the bed.

“They really do.” You both watched him look at the two children, a tear falling from his face.

Your mother turned back to you and she smiled at you, “I’m proud of you.” You give a nod holding her hand before she speaks, “have you two got any na…”

Before she could continue you hear the door open with the doctor coming in, “it seems you two have more visitors.”

You were both confused on the matter, nobody really knew you had gone into pregnancy except your parents and his and your father was still at work whilst his parents were out of town. It was unexpected but your eyes widen when you see the group of 16-year olds.

“They were wondering around the hospital.” The doctor speaks, Aizawa hadn’t noticed his students, but you and your mother had.

The kids were in shock at seeing a pro hero in a hospital bed but there eyes went to Aizawa’s he had been looking at his babies, unaware of his surroundings.

Nobody spoke instead just watching Aizawa interact with the two new-born babies, a smile placed on his normal flat self. “Did he steal two babies?” You hear one of them whisper, you instantly begin to speak after that.

“Shouta.” You whisper.

“Yeah.” He was so out of dazed but once he turns to face them all, he’s in shock as well.

“I’ll leave you to handle this.” Your mother leaves not wanting to have to explain this scenario.

Aizawa was still in shock, you reach out for one of the babies, he passes you the youngest, who starts to grab at your fingers. He sits holding the boy, before the class start cascading you both in questions.

“Are they yours?”, “How do you know Pro Hero Y/n?”, “Who is she to you?”

Aizawa looks at them and then at his family, you nod a sign that he could tell them everything, “This is my wife, and these are our new kids.”

It was a simple but effective, the class in shock that there homeroom teacher who seemed to be detached had you the loving pro hero as a wife, but even more now had two kids.

“Congratulations.” They all spoke a loud. It was rehearsed and you could tell that it all came out due to shock.

“What are you doing here anyway, I thought we said go back to the dorms.” Aizawa scowled.

“Baby, it’s fine, it’s good they found out anyway, since you wont be teaching them for a bit.” You calmed the man down.

He shakes his head at how easily you calmed him down, “you’re an amazing pro hero.” Midoriya spoke a loud, you thanked him before they didn’t know what else to say.

“I’ll go call Nezu, he can get you back to UA.” Aizawa muttered handing you the other child as he left the room.

“You married Aizawa.” Mina spoke a loud everybody looked at her, “what? We were all thinking it?”

You laugh looking at them all, “yes I did.”

“And you slept with him.” Mina continued with ever more eyes growing wider.

You continued to laugh, “that is how I got pregnant.”

“What are their names?” Ururaka asked coming towards the two kids.

You sat upright, letting them have a closer look, they all came forward even Bakugo who saw children as devils spawn. They were fresh out and anew, so pure and innocent as they tugged onto your hair.

“We haven’t decided yet.” You said looking at the two kids, you notice Aizawa at the door looking at the class as they surrounded you and the babies. The way they were quieter than they had ever been around two new-borns, they spent time asking questions and looking at the two babies. Before being dragged back to UA, all smiling happily at having spent the afternoon with two new-borns.

“They look like you.” You mutter sleepily, the two babies being put to sleep on the other sides of the room. “We made them.”

“I love you.” He whispers kissing you softly, you kiss back, happily at the new family you had and Aizawa finally realised what his happiness was. You and your two babies were all he ever needed now.

i’d really appreciate if you guys could leave a like, reblog or comment, thanks x

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[mandoalorian]

I Believe In Love [Maxwell Lord x F!Reader] — Eleven: Love - SMUT

Summary: When you find your calling to leave Themyscira, you venture out to the World of Man with intentions of helping and healing a very specific person’s relationship with his son. You’ve heard his voice before, but only in dreams. You’ve felt his pain and anguish and you’ve never been able to relate to anything more. But things don’t come easy for you, and they certainly don’t come easy for him either. [This series contains spoilers for WW84 and is my interpretation of what happens after the movie ends].

Warnings: 18+ smut, unprotected p in v, cunningless, tit play, breeding kink, mentions of pregnancy, cursing, food and drink mention, emotional because we’re nearing the end, a family being brought together and our favourite soft, sad dad loving his son and, well… you.

Word count: 4300>

REBLOGS APPRECIATED.

Masterlist 

Previous - Chapter Eleven - Next

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Just entering Black Gold Cooperative again, when you thought the previous night would be your last, drew tears to your eyes. This extensive size office was the place you’d first journeyed too upon venturing to the world of man. The building meant more to you than you had first realised, and it held so many amazing memories of self discovery. Your eyes flicked between the velvet sofa where you had once slept on, and the plants that peppered each corner of the lobby. They were vibrant and filled with life, symbolic of new beginnings. Now, the only magic in the air was love. You could feel it, Maxwell could feel it, and from the way Alistair perked up as you sneaked up behind him, he could feel it too. Love truly was the most powerful thing.

Seeing the way Alistair ran into his father’s arms, and the way he squeezed Max so tight -- like he was afraid to let him go, was enough to make your heart melt into your chest. “Daddy! You’re back!” he exclaimed excitedly. “Did you win?” He asked, his dark brown eyes glittering with hope. Alistair tugged on Max’s dark blonde shaggy hair as he waited for a reply.

“Yeah buddy, I won,” Max chuckled breathlessly. With those two words of affirmation, Alistair burst into tears. You took a step back as you watched the interaction, sensing how high the emotion was. You knew that Max had waited for this day to come for a long time. “No no, don’t cry. You should be happy.” Max cooed apologetically, his eyes widening as he tried his hardest to comfort his son. You were no longer a Goddess, and you had been stripped of your powers, but you could still feel the compassion between them both. And it was beautiful.

“I am happy,” Alistair choked out in between sobs, pulling back to look at his father. Max wiped away Alistair’s tears and offered him a weak smile.  “This is all I’ve ever wanted.” Alistair confessed, nuzzling his face into his father’s chest.

Max sniffed and pressed a kiss to his son’s forehead. “I’m going to redeem myself for everything, Ali. I know… I know I’ve done terrible things and made big mistakes, and I really am a pretty messed up loser but--”

“No,” Alistair cut him off, his tone chaste. “Daddy, you’re a winner. Thank you for fighting for me.”

“Always,” Maxwell hummed, picking up Alistair and cradling him in his arms. “Let’s go home.”

***

Maxwell drove, and Alistair insisted that you sit in the back of the car with him. You obliged, unable to ever refuse the bright eyed little boy. Alistair’s small, clammy hands squeezed yours and he watched intently as you gazed out the window, entranced by all the things you passed. There was still a lot you had to get used to, but it brought you comfort knowing that now, at least you had the time. There was no pressure to return back to Themyscira. D.C. was your home. Wherever Alistair and Max was, you were home.

Alistair nuzzled his head into you and closed his eyes, feeling completely content with your company. “I like your new outfit.” he hummed, his fingers tracing your glimmering gold belt.

“You do?” you asked curiously, and felt Alistair nod against you. “You know Ali, I sorta prefer the normal clothes.” you shrugged, and caught Maxwell smiling in the reflection of the rear view mirror.

“I like this,” Alistair admitted. “You look like a superhero. Like… from my comic books.”

“You don’t need a fancy costume to be a hero, Alistair,” you said, tapping his chin so he looked up at you. “Your dad is proof of that.”

***

Maxwell dropped his keys on the side table by the front door when the three of you returned home. “Are you guys hungry?” he questioned, scratching the back of his head. After a day in court, he’d worked up quite the appetite, he must admit.

Alistair grinned and nodded his head. “Starving! Can we get pizza? Please daddy, oh please can we get pizza?” 

“Hmph,” Maxwell grumbled, displaying a faux annoyance before bursting into an adorable grin. “I suppose so. Since it’s a day to celebrate.” 

“Yay!” Alistair cheered, running into the living room and jumping on the sofa. By the sounds of it, he’d found the remote control for the television and turned on one of his favourite kiddie TV shows.

Walking over to the telephone, Maxwell caught a glimpse of his reflection in one of the many mirrors in the hallway and frowned. He was happy, but Gods did he still look a mess. The blonde in his hair was rapidly fading out and he was in desperate need of a trim. He’d been neglecting his biotin supplements and forgetting to moisturize, and oh, his tired eyes. You caught him hyper analyzing his appearance and approached him from behind. Pressing a kiss into his shoulder and wrapping an arm around his waist, you sighed.

“What are you thinking about?” you wondered out loud.

Maxwell swallowed. “I just… I’m not the man I once was,” he ran his fingers through his hair and gestured down to the power suit that he’d worn to court. “I’m not Max Lord anymore. Not this… big oil tycoon businessman. Not on TV anymore. This whole thing is a facade. It’s not me. And everytime I look at myself… I’m reminded of all the mistakes that I made,” he admitted quietly before taking a shaky exhale. “It’s fine,” he quickly backtracked. “Guess I’ll just have to suck it up.”

“The worst part is over, Max. And you’re a survivor,” you told him, taking his hand. “The world can forgive you, but it means nothing if you can’t forgive yourself. You need to learn to love yourself.”

“Will you help me?” Maxwell asked quietly, a nervous tone prominent in his voice.

You offered him a warm smile. “That’s why I’m here,” you reminded him sweetly. “To help.”

Maxwell turned around to face you fully and placed a hand on your cheek. You swore, in that moment and under his touch, that you had forgotten how to breathe. Max might not have been able to see it, but he truly was so beautiful. The gold in his former life may have been gilded, but the gold in his heart was pure and authentic. And now, it was all yours.

Maxwell pulled his tie off his neck and shuffled out of his suit jacket. “I think it might be time for me to hang up this tie for good.” Maxwell sighed sadly, running the patterned silk material between his fingers.

“Do you want to?”

Maxwell paused for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve worked so hard to get here… I just can’t give Black Gold up.”

“Then don’t.” you whispered, shuffling your body into his. He snaked an arm around you and sighed even louder.

“It’s not that easy, darling. I don’t have the money to keep it going.” 

“I won’t let you give up on your lifelong dream, so… we’ll figure something out. Maybe you’ll have to downsize. If oil isn’t making you any money then maybe… you might have to specialise in something else. If the past week has proved anything it’s that all our problems can be figured out through the power of love. And you have that. Right here,” you maneuvered his hand and placed it on your heart before pointing your free hand into the living room at Alistair. The door stood slightly ajar. “And right there.”

Maxwell smiled. “There’s a thing, here. In the world of man…” you could tell he was about to start rambling about Goodness know what. He looked up slightly, avoiding your eye contact as he talked. “Where two people… love each other, a lot. And so they make a promise to dedicate themselves to one another. Asking you to be my girlfriend sounds a little childish,” Maxwell chuckled softly and your eyes widened when you realised where he was going with this. “But I guess… if you wanted…”

“I do!” You said quickly, cutting him off before he could even finish.

“You do?” Maxwell asked, truly stunned that you had agreed so fast. He couldn’t believe someone as magnificent as you would love him back, let alone want to be with him. He never thought he was deserving of love, especially after everything that had happened. If Maxwell had never met you, he would’ve been certain that he’d grow old, cold and alone. 

“I do.” you confirmed, grinning and pressing your lips into his.

The genuine smile that was on his face when he pulled away was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen. More beautiful than the sands and oceans on Themyscira. More beautiful than the landmarks and caves in Athens. It differed to his television smile. This was one hundred percent authentic. This was Maxwell Lorenzano. “I’m going to change into my pajamas,” you announced. “And I’ll bring Ali upstairs with me and have him get ready for bed.”

“Okay,” Max acknowledged, still grinning. “I’ll set the dining room table for the pizza.”

You guided Alistair upstairs and followed him into his bedroom. You sat down on his bed, and pulled him down to sit next to you. “I told you I had a gift for you, from Athens.” you smiled and watched as Alistair’s eyes lit up with excitement.

“Yes!” Alistair cried out, bouncing up and down.

You detached the lasso of Hestia from your tunic and placed the rope gently in his hands. “This is my lasso of truth. Remember that one night when I met Julianna and Theodore, and I came to visit you? And I showed you how it worked? Do you remember?”

Alistair nodded slowly. “Yes. You told me the lasso wasn’t powered by you. It was powered by the truth.” 

“That’s right,” you confirmed, your heart swelling at how Alistair had retained that piece of information. “The lasso is important to me because it was a gift from my mother. And now, I’m passing it down to you. I didn’t get this in Athens, but it is from Athens originally. I hope my lasso will be a constant reminder for you to always tell the truth, and always see the good in people.”

Alistair’s jaw was agape and he was struck with awe as his fingers traced the magical rope. “I love it…” he whispered.

“I’m glad,” you smiled. “It’s very powerful Ali. Who knows, one day you might be able to use it.”

“And I can be a superhero just like you…” Alistair grinned before biting his lip. “And just like my daddy.”

“Exactly. Just like your daddy. C’mon now, I want you to go brush your teeth and get ready for bed. Then we can go order our pizza, okay?”

Before you left his bedroom, Alistair called your name. You sensed hesitancy in his voice, almost like he was nervous. “Can I… can I try out the lasso... on you? Maybe?”

You wanted to ask him why the child might possibly want to do that, but then you realised, he was probably just curious. So, you obliged, and held out your wrist. Remembering how you’d shown him before, Alistair wrapped the rope around your arm and took a deep breath.

“Do you love my daddy?” Alistair asked, after taking a deep breath.

“Yes.”

“Will you promise not to leave him, ever?” 

“I promise.”

“Would you mind if… if… I called you mommy?”

You felt warm tears prick the corners of his eyes. A mother. It’s everything you had always wanted to be. You were the goddess of home and hearth. The urge to one day have a family was in your nature.

“I’d love that, Ali.” you admitted.

Alistair pulled the rope from your wrist and enveloped you into a tight hug. “Okay. Because I love you mommy.”

“I love you too.”

***

“What do you want?” Maxwell asked his son, pen in hand. He’d been scribbling down the order, the businessman in him wanting to have everything planned out before he made the phone call.

“Pineapple pizza! The biggest one!” Alistair exclaimed gleefully, stretching out his arms. You couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ali, you won’t eat it all,” Maxwell frowned. You nudged him, as if to say, ‘let him have this’. “Okay,” Max sighed. “The biggest pineapple pizza. And what do you want?” he asked, turning to you this time. You furrowed your eyebrows together, taking another look at the menu that had been passed around the dining room table.

“How do I know what’s good?”

“Well, not pineapple.” Maxwell grumbled. 

Alistair gasped, unable to believe the words that had just left his father’s lips. “Don’t listen to him,” Alistair said, grabbing your hand. “Daddy is wrong. Pineapple pizza is so delicious. Will you try some of mine?”

You squeezed the little boy’s hand. “Sure,” you agreed. Maxwell swore his heart melted everytime he witnessed interaction between you and his son. It was so pure, it was like you and Alistair had known each other forever. Granted, you’d known the little boy longer than you knew Maxwell. The day you woke up in the park felt like yesterday. “What do you like, Max?” you quizzed, eventually giving up on the menu. 

“Pepperoni, I guess. I don’t eat pizza much.” He admitted sheepishly. Before you could reply, Alistair’s voice made you jump up in shock.

“Boring!” He called out. Max shot him a playful glare and you rolled your eyes. 

“Don’t be rude!” Maxwell chastised, wiggling his index finger, and you couldn’t hide the smile on your face.

“He’s like you,” you pointed out. “Always has something to say.”

“My son.” Maxwell declared proudly, pulling Alistair into his lap and ruffling his dark hair.

Just like Max had anticipated, Alistair couldn’t eat the large pineapple pizza. In fact, he’d fallen asleep on the sofa after only two slices, a Star Wars blanket draped over him and a stuffed toy curled tight into his chest.

“Alistair asked me if it would be alright if he called me mommy,” you admitted quietly as Maxwell gathered the plates and empty glasses. His head snapped to face you the second the words left your lips. “I told him yes. But I figured… maybe you should have some say in it? I don’t know.”

“It means a lot to me that Ali can put his faith in you, and that he sees you as his mother. But this is a big deal. Family is for life and I don’t… he’s already lost one mother. I don’t want him to lose you too. So of course, it’s fine by me. As long as you promise to always be a mother to him, no matter what.”

“Always,” you whispered in reassurance, cupping Maxwell’s cheek and gazing into his dark eyes. “I promise.”

“I believe you,” Maxwell replied, kissing you on the forehead. “I should take him to bed.”

“Let me handle it,” you replied, stretching before leaning down to pick up the sleeping boy and cradling him in your arms. Clearly, somewhere down the line, you had forgotten you had been stripped of your powers and you were now a mortal. You let out a yelp. Once able to carry Alistair easily, you were now struggling. You wobbled slightly and Max hurried to your side to hold you and help you keep your balance.

“You okay?” Max asked, quirking an eyebrow. “He’s heavier than he looks.” you gasped, already a little breathless.

“Wanna trade?” he quizzed, raising a plate.

You mumbled a ‘yes’ and passed Alistair over to his father. “I’ll do the dishes and meet you upstairs.”

***

Max was still with Alistair by the time you had finished up the dishes and headed to the bedroom. You sat by the dressing table, brushing out your hair, and looked at the pile of discarded armour sat in the corner of the room. Maybe one day it would come of use, but for now, this was it. This was the start of a new life where you didn’t need no Amazonian armour. With Maxwell and Alistair, you had all the protection you could ever need.

“Hi,” Maxwell whispered, padding into the bedroom. You turned to face him and smiled. “I’m glad to be home… now… with you. Glad this is all over.”

He placed his hands on your shoulders and began to rub them affectionately. “Me too.” you replied warmly, leaning into his touch and nuzzling your head into his chest. You closed your eyes in contentment. Every second you spent with Max, you spent wishing it would last forever. Although you knew better than to make a wish.

“Are you tired?” Max pondered, smoothing out your hair and admiring your face.

Pushing back your hair and admiring your beauty was up there with one of his most favourite things to do. Your eyes looked like home, your lips tasted like home. You were home.

“Mm, no, not really…” you confessed, staring at the image of both you and Max in the reflection of the dressing table mirror. But Max’s gaze was fixated only on you. “Actually. I had an idea, since you know, we’re celebrating and all,” you confessed after a brief moment of comfortable silence. Maxwell raised a curious eyebrow and waited for you to continue. “Remember our first night back in Athens when we…” you trailed off and glanced over towards the bed.

“Yeah.” Max answered, already breathless from the thought.

“I liked it a lot.” You admitted bashfully as you reminisced on your first time with Maxwell.

“Me too.” he agreed.

“So do you want to do it again…?”

Max didn’t reply with words, but instead he pulled you up from the stool that you were sitting on and twirled you around so you were facing him. He crashed his lips onto yours and let his large hands freely roam your back, desperate to feel every inch of your body. He’d been waiting to do this again.

Without breaking away from the kiss, you pushed him towards his bed and climbed on top of him. You straddled his hips and began to run your hands over his chest, leaning over and kissing along his jaw and down his neck. Feeling his cock already hot and heavy, he cursed under his breath, dipping his hand under the hem of your silk nightgown and smirking upon finding that you weren’t wearing any underwear. He slowly slid his thick fingers between your folds, causing you to gasp at the sudden bolt of pleasure that ran through you. His thumb began to circle your clit and you dug your fingers into his shoulders as he worked at your bundle of nerves.

He loved to look at you and watch as your face twisted in pleasure. He liked to know you were feeling good. His fingers were like magic, and he truly had a golden touch.

“Want you to cum on my fingers, okay?” Max asked, increasing the speed. You tried to push out a word but just came out as a mangled moan. You nodded your head, feeling your cunt desperately clench around nothing and your thighs tighten as you neared orgasm. 

When you came undone, Max’s dark eyes gleamed with desire and pride. He pulled his fingers from under your nightgown and placed them on his tongue, sucking your arousal from his own digits.

“You taste amazing baby,” He praised, unable to contain his smile. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” You replied back with a smile.

Both you and Max made your way over to the bed, stripping yourself out of your clothes and intertwining your bodies together. 

“I don’t ever want this moment to end.” you confessed with a shaky exhale as Maxwell squeezed your breasts, peppering kisses down the valley of your chest.

“It doesn’t have to, princess, we have the rest of our lives to spend together.”

There it was again. The dumb nickname he’d called you from the day you first met. You’d insist that you weren’t a princess, and by no means royalty, but to Maxwell, you were. You were his princess. A rose stuck amongst a bush of thorns. You were the epitome of hope, beauty and love. And you were all his.

So the nickname grew on you, and you’d come to like it.

You felt the tip of Maxwell’s cock tease against your entrance as he swiftly rubbed his length up and down, between your glistening wet folds. By the time he pushed himself inside of you, just the scrunched up look on his face was enough to make your stomach erupt into butterflies. The crinkle in between his eyebrows and the way his perfect lips parted into an ‘o’ shape as your walls clamped around him.

“Fuck, you-you’re so tight,” He gasped, the Adams apple in his neck prevailing as he tried to swallow away his desire. “Always so tight. So per-perfect. Good girl. Such a go-good girl.” he praised, a small strand of dark blonde hair falling out of place and crossing his forehead.

You shuddered at his words.

“Look at me,” you begged, and he obliged, his chocolate coloured eyes snapping open. Despite the glaze of lust that seemed to cloud his vision, he was able to fixate on you, spending a few moments adoring your face -- the face he fell in love with -- as he remained seated deep inside you. He was stretching you open and Gods, it felt delicious, but you needed more. You desperately needed more. “Move, please.” you whimpered, bringing your hands up to cup his face.

Maxwell began to rock his hips into yours, his cock hitting that sweet spot inside of you with every thrust. He leaned over you and pressed his forehead against yours as he picked up his speed. “Don’t be too loud,” he warned quietly, his warm breath fanning over your ear.

It wasn’t long before he felt his cock twitch inside of you. “Shit,” he moaned, squeezing your shoulder to signify that he was close. “Neither of us are protected-- fuck, I need, I need to pull out.” 

“Mm, no, no Max. Keep going. Don’t stop.” You begged, your fingers tugging on the hair at the nape of his neck.

“You could get pregnant.” he rasped out, suddenly remembering you were now a mortal.

“Would it really be so bad?” you asked, and your question alone was enough to throw Maxwell over the edge.

Would it really be so bad?

You had a point. Max had never imagined having any more kids. Hell, he’d never really planned on having Alistair. But times had changed, and he was so in love with you. He figured -- maybe kids were something he could give another go at. Little mini you’s running around the house would simply be so adorable. And who better to have children with, than the goddess of home and hearth? Having a family was written in your destiny. It was always meant to be. Given the time and the place, the prospect of having kids, getting you pregnant… it just felt right.

The start of a new life… both figuratively and literally.

Of course he was certain that this was what you wanted, and evidently, you wanted it to. But the idea of seeing you swole and round, carrying his children… well that was a whole different thing.

“Fuck princess, you’re gonna look so good carrying my baby.” Maxwell grounded, nuzzling his head into the crook of your neck.

You felt your orgasm wash over you, and your walls clamp around his cock. That was enough to push him over the edge.

Maxwell came inside of you, and he made sure to cum deep, too. Once he’d regained his breath, he grabbed two pillows from his side of the bed and propped them under your butt so the lower half of your body was higher than your upper half.

“What are you doing?” you giggled.

“Making sure not a drop of it goes to waste,” Maxwell replied as he pressed sloppy kisses along your inner thighs.

And when he caught a glimpse of his seed beginning to spill out of you, he plunged his index finger and pushed it back in. 

“I love you so much.” You whispered as Maxwell smoothed out your hair and kissed your lips.

“I love you too, darling. And I can’t wait to embark on this new life together.”

You pondered for a moment, relishing in the comfortable silence before you brought your index finger and pointed it towards Maxwell. “Life is good, but it can be better.”

Maxwell was trying his damn hardest to fight the grin that was edging to cross his lips. How could one person be so adorable?

“It can always be better.” he whispered, bringing his hand down to your stomach and kissing you again.

———————————————

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I Believe In Love taglist : (tagged in replies!)

[butwhatifidothis]

Tumblr is starting to VERY MUCH dislike how long the other reblog chain is getting, so this will be Reblog Chain 2 of my jotting down notes of this fic. Here is the first reblog chain for Chapters 1-20

But it appears as though I was correct in sleeping off Chapter 20, because Chapter 21 is. Hm. bad. Very. Not good.

Chapter 21:

Transcript under the cut:

Chapter 21: It's Called Scars so it Gonna Be Ass

- To be blunt, the constant need to reaffirm that yes, Edelgard went through terrible experimentation and that yes, they were very horrific, is tiring. This is chapter 21. The experiments occurred in chapter 2. Every single chapter between now and then have, at some point, mentioned that INDEED, Edelgard DID in fact go through horrific trauma. It is tiring to the reader to constantly have to reread the same thing - we know it happened. We know it was terrible. There's no need to constantly say so; we already understand as readers.

- "Every time the spark of life broke through Byleth’s blank face, it brought a flickering hope to the Flame Emperor’s heart." ->

- Firstly: Awkward use of the Flame Emperor epithet (its usage is on and off with how appropriate its been - this is off).

- Secondly: Once again, Byleth's face was rarely if ever blank. She was never the Ashen Demon, as even the last chapter showcased. The author is mistaking reservation with emotionlessness, which is simply wrong

- "There had been so many empty days and nights, without friendship, love or joy. With nothing to hope for, except someday, the peace of the grave." -> Suicidal tendencies: another trait that Edelgard doesn't have... (strikes against canon: 89)

- ...but Dimitri does. Counter: 12

- "Dimitri, too, was troubled by the thought, grasping the side of his head and frowning. As the spasm passed, he turned to Edelgard and smiled warmly." -> It seems a little callous to so casually toss Dimitri's symptoms into his interactions with others when such things simply don't occur in the canon interactions. It's not impossible, or strictly against canon, but it does not feel natural; it's more as though the author is shining bright neon signs that say DIMITRI HAS MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES than a genuine attempt at writing Dimitri's mental health issues. This is not the first time this sort of seemingly thoughtless showcasing of symptoms has happened (Noted separately: Dimitri having drastic mood swings)

- "No, this world must be ruled by humans…not cruel gods who ignored the prayers of little girls." -> This statement follows Edelgard internally chastising the actions of not gods, but the Children of the Goddess. This is a weaselly attempt at dodging Edelgard's racist beliefs that Nabateans should not be allowed positions of power by shifting the belief to apply to miscellaneous gods instead. While not inaccurate per se - she does also canonically believe that gods should have no power in human affairs - it is not honest

- "Byleth nodded with childlike simplicity. “We should all try to get along.”" -> Again describing Byleth as childlike and/or innocent. Counter: 3

- For those curious: yes, the rat scene is implemented, yes it is sloppy, yes it is out of character for Claude - so much so that it is being noted separately - and yes it is forced to all hell

- What will be noted here, however, is that this is yet another instance of a man being demeaned/humiliated for the honor of a woman. See quote: "Byleth was on him in an instant, a tempest forming in the sea of her blue eyes. “That isn’t funny.” She crossed her arms sternly. “Jokes are about bringing people together...about making them smile. Right now, the only person laughing is you.”" with Claude reacting awkwardly. Once again, Man Bad Woman Good

- In a showcasing of a complete lack of self-awareness within the fic: "“Maybe if you’d have taught the Deer instead…but since you seem to have no ambitions outside of cleaning up Edelgard’s messes…”" -> This is Claude being portrayed as the bad guy, not the one being completely and utterly right

- " She slapped Edelgard on the back, and smiled heartily. “I agree, Dimitri!” Edelgard grimaced, trying to hide the fact her teacher had just struck the wound she had received during the mock battle." -> As well as where undoubtedly countless scars would be, yes? Scars that still cause Edelgard pain? In fact, Edelgard has been slapped on the back by Byleth and Jeralt numerous times before, and yet expresses no pain or discomfort.

- Another thing, that I had not noted though ought to have: Edelgard, a victim of sexual assault (in this fic), rarely seems to mind people touching her. She gets a little surprised if someone tries to get her attention with touch, yes, but Byleth's constant unprompted and random touching of Edelgard is never said to do anything but bring warmth and joy and comfort to Edelgard. It seems as though Edelgard suffering through sexual assault is just another source of trauma for the author to dump onto her for nothing more than pity points

- This is incredibly harsh to say, yes, and I would usually refrain from attributing such harshness onto a piece of text, but remember that Edelgard's scars only cause her pain when it's convenient, that she only experiences headaches when it's convenient, that she experiences PTSD episodes (when Claude mentions the rat) when it's convenient (note that in this fic he does it outside of battle, where her getting triggered wouldn't compromise her chances at victory). Edelgard not being touch averse and being a victim of sexual assault are not inherently something bad - survivors react to trauma differently, after all - but it is another in a steadily longer line of instances where Edelgard is simply given trauma for the sake of making her pitiable to the reader and the love interest, not something that Edelgard genuinely has to struggle with.

- "As Claude and Dimitri looked at their classmate expectantly, Edelgard was wracked with another bout of guilt. Deep in her soul, the princess knew these peaceful days would end soon. When that happened, no feast or vows of friendship could make up for the chaos and horror she would unleash. It would be better to pull away, close off her heart, rather than fuel the flames of her inevitable betrayal." -> Aka, "Feel bad for me, I feel guilty for planning to cause the death and ruination of countless innocents' lives all because I convinced myself that my way is the only way to get things done my way without ever actually trying to see if more peaceful ways could have worked. I'm going to orphan children, force families to fight each other, have the land be rampaged by banditry, and overall bring chaos onto these days that I ADMIT ARE PEACEFUL all because I feel that my way would be better. Wah wah pity me but I don't wanna be pitied I promise wah wah."

- "Byleth shrugged with a characteristic blend of innocence and spirit. “I guess I just like winning.” She began to blush and grabbed Edelgard’s hand. "It's so exciting! I’ve never had anyone other than Papa to celebrate with before!”" -> Byleth = innocent/childlike. Counter: 4

- The fic likes to reaffirm again and again that Byleth is "now" only acting like this due to Edelgard's presence in her life. Note also these statements written previously: "Every day, [Edelgard] was watching the person she loved grow and change. Become who she always was supposed to be." This, perhaps unintentionally, again enforces the "Lesbian Love is Pure and Innocent" trope; these wlw are only allowed to be their good girl, innocent selves - who they were always supposed to be - due to the pure lesbian love they have found with one another

- Count Bergliez didn't know of the experiments initially, but he eventually found out and did nothing to stop them, fleeing from a young and tortured El who was pleading for him to save her - Unnecessarily painting Count Bergliez as a spineless coward too afraid of Duke Aegir to save a child in pain

- Once again, a man fails to save a woman and further traumatizes her

- It should be noted that Bergliez is fearful not for his own life, but for that of his children, who were the ones Duke Aegir threatened. He, very similar to Ionius, cannot save Edelgard, except Bergliez (unlike Ionius) has a tangible, physical, explainable reason as to why he couldn't, and yet it is him who is painted as the bad guy, not Ionius. He is worthy of Edelgard's scorn and hatred, but Ionius only receives a begrudging feeling of betrayal from Edelgard that she feels guilty for harboring, even though he failed her far more than Bergliez failed her.

- "Daughters must always be loyal to their fathers" trope

- "No decent person thought the things Edelgard did. Just as her body had been twisted and shattered by the experiments, her mind bore terrible scars. Scars that the monster kept hidden, so she could walk in the world of men." -> Dehumanizing oneself as a monster as well as having violent thoughts (that specifically stem from trauma) one feels guilty for harboring are not traits Edelgard shows in canon... (strikes against canon, 90, 91)

- ...but Dimitri does. Counter: 13, 14

- "world of men?" Did the author perhaps mean "world of man," as in mankind? Keep note of

- The reason as to why Bergliez is said to have witnessed young El's tortured state and did nothing to help her is revealed: in canon, he dislikes her. It is blatantly and objectively said that he and Edelgard share a mutual displeasure in the other's company. What this fic had him do will be used as an excuse as to why he doesn't hate her, since no one is allowed to dislike Edelgard on the "good" side

- Edelgard, upon being asked if revenge is the reason she is doing what she's doing (reuniting Fodlan): "“No.” Edelgard put her hand to her chin thoughtfully. “I think for a long time, it was…but after a while, I realized that revenge wouldn’t satisfy me.” She looked at the blue sky above. “After you go through that much suffering…when you beg for help, day after day, and no one cares...you realize that nothing will ever truly make you feel safe again. The only thing I want is for this madness to end.”" -> This is internally inconsistent. See chapter 15 note: ""You know why they created me in the first place.” / “To reunite Fódlan,” spat Hubert. “It was all my father talked about.” / “And I will give it to them. "" This directly connects Edelgard's want to reunite Fodlan to the wants of her tormenters (as this states she is doing it out of spite). Note how Hubert spits at the idea of reuniting Fodlan, and how it was all his father - portrayed as a villain - talked about. This is not what this Edelgard wants, at least not of her own independent want. Earlier in this very chapter, Edelgard internally states a want to hurt Bergliez for leaving her behind. To say that she now no longer thinks vengeance would satisfy her, or that none of the reason that she is doing everything she does is out of a want for revenge, is ridiculous

- Edelgard to Bergliez, upon being asked what will happen to him and his family should Edelgard rise to power: "“All those who distinguish themselves will be rewarded. Given your history, I have little doubt you will be among them.” She nervously played with her white gloves. “All I ask is that when I seize back control of the throne, I can count on the military’s support.”" -> Yes, all who distinguish themselves to Edelgard, for Edelgard's cause, that Edelgard can see and/or know of. How likely is it that a poor farmer who is exceptional at fighting will actually be noticed by Edelgard and be given the credit he deserves, when others who may not be as meritable but do have some merit have the connections to show themselves directly in front of Edelgard? What means will Edelgard give the poor soldiers (that she or Byleth aren't already friends with, notably Dorothea and Leonie) that will allow them to be able to be seen by her and have their merits recognized? Edelgard is the one who says who gains power after all, so it is her they must prove themselves to, but how can they realistically do that?

- What about professions that are not immediately beneficial to Edelgard's cause, such as the arts? How will they fare in Edelgard's society, when their works and talents yield no tangible, objective results (such as, say, farming)?

- Something the fic will address?

- Edelgard does not nervously do anything in front of those she is trying to negotiate with in canon, not even Thales. Strikes against canon: 92

- "[Bergliez] could only laugh in response. “I think we’re going to get along rather well, my lady…and the other?”" -> Except Bergliez and Edelgard don't get along well, ever. Pre ts they are stated to dislike each other, which continues even onto post ts with Bergliez being the only noble Edelgard couldn't bring to heel. Strikes against canon: 93

- As predicted: No one is allowed to dislike Edelgard on the "good" side

- Literally forgot Hubert was with Edelgard and Bergliez lmao

- Ionius tried to consolidate power to be rid of the consort system due to his unending love for Anselma -> A ridiculous idea, plain and simple. Ionius was Emperor. If he wished to be rid of the consort system there was no need for him to try and take away all power from the other Imperial houses.

- If Ionius truly loved Anselma, why did he allow her to be exiled from the Empire? Why didn't he step in and use his influence as Emperor to help her?

- Edelgard, when she is Emperor - passed down a supposedly empty crown, at that - showcases the all-encompassing power the title of Emperor truly holds to one willing to use that power. That Ionius supposedly wanted to do all of these reforms and yet nothing at all was done, ever (save for ruining Houses Hrym and Ordelia, something even this fic has as canon), if Ionius did want to make these reforms, means that he was too spineless and cowardly to truly go through with trying to pass them. This again unintentionally showcases how awful a ruler and weak-willed a person Ionius was when he had power when trying to paint him in this righteous light.

- Lambert was stated to be trying to pass reforms before he died in canon, not Ionius. From parents to the children, the author is attributing traits from Lambert onto Ionius just as he (author's confirmed gender is male) attributes traits from Dimitri onto Edelgard

- " Her father and mother…she had thought their romance a fairy tale-a story from her father to make a motherless child feel valued. But…they truly had loved each other." -> Edelgard does believe Ionius when he told her of the story of when he and Anselma (supposedly) met each other. There is nothing to indicate that Edelgard thought it to be a lie: in fact, in canon: "But I choose to believe there was genuine love between them." Strikes against canon: 94

- It seems as though finally, after around 18 chapters, Edelgard's scars will finally cause her genuine inconvenience due to her complex about them as well as her trust issues. She has a gash on her back from the Battle of Eagle and Lion, but will not have it treated if Manuela isn't the healer, and yet the woman is occupied dealing with the rest of the students who were injured. How will this fic deal with this?

- Ingrid, referring to her and Sylvain: ""We just switched from Felix lecturing us all day to listening to Edelgard moralizing, didn’t we?"" -> The author is trying to compare a childhood friend whose friends have had years to get used to their barbed tongue to a stranger that directly insults the dreams of one of them. Something which Ingrid canonically hates having be done to her, even from Felix, a childhood friend. Once again, Ingrid being so casual about Edelgard being so disrespectful of her dreams is out of character. Strikes against canon: 95

- "Sylvain shook his head knowingly, ignoring Felix’s truly alarming scowl. “You should have seen his face, Edelgard. Dimitri would go on and on about this girl he met when he was a kid…and Felix would complain about her for hours!” He looked at Felix and smiled. “For all his whining about the “Boar,” nobody loves Dimitri more than him.”" -> Oh? A romantic gay male relationship presenting itself within the fic?

- Another vision of SS experienced by Edelgard. Word from a nameless guard: "The woman, Byleth, leading their forces... She’s not human! She killed half my battalion with one swing of that sword of hers. She didn’t speak, she didn’t shout, she didn’t even change her expression!” The panicked man was teetering on the edge of hysteria. “All those people rallying around her, and it’s like she doesn’t care at all. Like she's a walking corpse!"" -> Obviously saying that Byleth becomes the Ashen Demon if not allowed to be with Edelgard.

- Unintentional statement: Byleth can't be the pure innocent (lesbian) woman without Edelgard's (lesbian) love granting her purity, reverting her to a monstrous, corrupt demon incapable of humanity

- See chapter 20 note: "Implying that choosing SS - aka, choosing the Nabateans - makes Byleth less human. Intentional?" Confirmed to be intentional. Also false: in canon, even when accounting for CF's lesser chapter count, Byleth emotes far more on SS than on CF, which matches with CF having Edelgard call Byleth detached in their A support. Strikes against canon: 96

- The same nameless soldier, same context: "And those Faerghus kids…” / Edelgard leaned forward in her chair. “Ingrid…Sylvain…what of them?” / “They…they were animals. Screaming and ranting about revenge for the King.” -> Is the author really demonizing Sylvain and Ingrid for (potentially!) being mad at Edelgard for murdering one of their childhood friends? Is that really the depths the Edelgard worship will sink to, that friends becoming enraged at a friend's unjust murder from a warlord is being portrayed as something sad for the warlord? Just what else should Edelgard be pitied for?

- "The scared girl desperately tried to drown out the thoughts that reverberated incessantly. / They’re going to despise us…it’s destiny. And how could they not? If we were truly good, the Goddess would have saved us…protected us. But She didn’t. The Goddess took Mother. She took our family. And soon, She’ll take everything else we love. She hates us. / It’s what we deserve." - Now confirmed that Edelgard hears multiple voices in her head tormenting her. That trait that, once again, Edelgard does not have... (Strikes against canon: 97)

- ...but Dimitri does. This is the third time this chapter that this has happened, and far from the only chapter to display such baffling characterization of Edelgard via Dimitri's traits. It is nonsensical.

- " Why had [Edelgard] even been born at all? Nonexistence would have been preferable to watching every faint dream be dashed, to suffering alone over and over. She was just…so tired of being alive." -> Once. Again. Suicidal tendencies/thoughts is not a trait Edelgard shows in canon... (Strikes against canon: 98)

- ...but Dimitri does. The fourth! The fourth time in one chapter the author desperately wanted to just write Dimitri!

- If the fic wanted to take Edelgard in a different direction than canon does and has her display some of these traits, it would be more passable, but this fic is under the delusion that it is in any way following canon closely, especially in regards to Edelgard, and so this can only be seen as a desperate attempt from the author to have Edelgard be sympathetic by donning the skin of an actually sympathetic character such as Dimitri

- "Edelgard looked at herself in the mirror. The back of her academy uniform was stained red, the rhythmic, soft dripping of blood assaulting the princess’ ears." -> And no one commented on this? No one was worried? Not Ingrid, Sylvain, and Felix, who were sitting right by her? Not Lysithea, who saw her take the blow to her back and never get it healed? Not Dimitri, who delivered the blow? It just so happened that literally no one at all noticed this?

- Byleth literally slapped Edelgard on the back earlier? Wouldn't her hand come back red with blood if it were seeping through the uniform?

** The scene that follows the previous note is too long to quote, despite how truly terrible it is. Long quotes, even extremely long quotes, have been presented in these notes before, but the length this quotation would be if the full extent of it were written here would be a mess, and quite frankly, at that point it would do one better to simply go to the fanfiction itself and read the text from there. With the context received from these notes, if one wishes to see the words for themselves, go to chapter 21 of The Emperor and the Goddess, enter Ctrl + F (or Find in Page on mobile devices), and enter the phrase "Byleth crossed her arms, clearly frustrated" verbatim. The following note will not be quoting the entire scene from the fic (merely summarizing it), though context is needed to understand how truly bad the scene is. **

- To have hope in this fic performing anything correctly is proving to be a fool's dream, for it has yet to do anything right; that includes the aforementioned gash upon Edelgard's back. As stated, it did not draw the attention of those who were sitting around her nor did it draw the attention of the one who witnessed the injury itself, nor of the one who delivered the injury itself, so no one commented on the gaping, bleeding wound Edelgard was "hiding" from everyone as she turned her (bleeding) back to them and left for the baths to clean up (it must be heavily stressed: immediately after leaving it is revealed that the blood is seeping through her uniform). As she was washing - naked, of course - Byleth just so happened to step into the baths with only a towel wrapped around her "for modesty," much to the horror of Edelgard, for she does not want Byleth seeing her scarred body. A slight argument arises between the two over Edelgard getting her injuries checked, before Byleth warns Edelgard that she will go to Rhea and force her to go to the infirmary should Edelgard continue to refuse treatment, which drives Edelgard past the brink. She raises her arms from the bathwater and presents her scars (""Fine!... If you want to see so badly, here!""), to the horror of Byleth ("Byleth Eisner was not a woman given to strong emotional reactions, but she staggered back, hands over her mouth."). Edelgard cries in hysteria, fear of her beloved teacher running away in disgust over her ugly, mutilated body overwhelming her. But Byleth, childlike in her innocence, shared that she too is scarred in strange ways, and that she too is scared of failing those around her - that she has no ambitions save to help and protect those around her. Byleth reveals that it is Edelgard whom Byleth looks up to for always being so strong and always moving forward, and shows that without Edelgard Byleth wouldn't know how to handle the pressure everyone else puts on her. The exchange ends with Byleth reassuring Edelgard that she is beautiful and not the monster she thinks she is.

- There is no nice way of putting this: this is a classic example of how not to write someone opening up to another about something. Edelgard views herself as weak, ugly, repulsive, a monster, shameful, but it is Byleth's love and affection that gives her comfort and warmth, that gives her hope of something more. It forces Byleth to behave wildly out of character (the author can try to excuse this with "well she wouldn't normally behave like this!" all he wants, it doesn't matter when it goes against the base, canonical Byleth. Strikes against canon: 99) in order for Edelgard's scarred body to be seen as something that is repulsive, that is ugly, that is stained, so much so that the pure, childlike, innocent Byleth couldn't stand to see something so tainted. And yet it is that same pure, childlike, innocent Byleth's pure, innocent, childlike love that pushes away the pain of Edelgard's scars for just that moment. Other characters become suddenly blind and/or forgetful of Edelgard's obvious, bleeding wound so that it is Byleth who can be the one to save Edelgard with her pure, innocent, childlike presence and her pure, innocent, childlike uncertainty about her own insecurities (but only when it is convenient for Edelgard, as even Byleth didn't noticed the gaping, bleeding wound until she was alone with Edelgard where no one could interrupt their bonding moment). This scene is inorganic and forced, ham-fisting Edelgard and Byleth in the same room - the wash room, where both are either naked or nearly naked - so that Byleth is the one to find Edelgard, no one else. No one was worried enough about the sudden exit Edelgard took from the conversation she was having to follow her and make sure she was alright, and Byleth just so happened to enter the baths right after Edelgard. The scene is, to be frank, insulting.

- There have been a couple of joking references to a book titled Stones to Abigail in these notes, but in all seriousness, this scene plays unsettlingly similar to a scene in said book, where a scarred girl who is naked reveals her "ugly" and "revolting" scarred body to the love interest, who goes on to soothe and comfort the naked girl as best they can. The resemblance is uncanny

- Byleth described as childlike/innocent. Counter: 5

- Edelgard, in canon, never expresses feeling herself to be ugly, or repulsive, or a monster. Strikes against canon: 100

- Again, Edelgard's scars are only important when they are convenient - this time, in helping develop the romantic relationship between her and Byleth

- There are ways in which scars can be utilized without being problematic, but certainly not when this much focus is placed on them and yet they are only truly present when they cannot hinder Edelgard.

- Perhaps particularly insulting is this phrase from Edelgard: "Did she actually love Byleth at all, or just being saved by her?" Yes, Edelgard, you do simply want to be saved by Byleth, because that is precisely what the narrative has been drilling into the reader's heads ever since Byleth showed herself. Byleth is Edelgard's light, Byleth is Edelgard's hope, Byleth gives Edelgard back her humanity, Byleth is Edelgard's one source of joy, Byleth is Edelgard's entire life, and nothing, absolutely nothing in this fic has shown this to ever be a bad thing. This dependence on Byleth to bring Edelgard joy at the near complete expense of everyone else has been propped up as something romantic, and yet it's now, 21 chapters and over 85K+ words in, that we're supposed to believe that this was actually Edelgard being unhealthy? Even though the author himself said that this was what he enjoyed about their relationship, how much they found each other in each other? Even though we see what the author thinks would happen to the two of them should they separate - Edelgard, lonely and afraid without her beloved teach, and Byleth, the Ashen Demon who cares for nothing without her beloved student - in her visions of SS? This is a joke

- It cannot be overstated that Byleth came to the bathhouses completely independently of Edelgard. She did not come to specifically see her because she followed her out of worry for Edelgard due to her injury - she only knows that Edelgard's injured in the first place due to seeing bloody bandages that Edelgard removed in the bathhouse, before Byleth arrived.

- Author's notes: "On Bergliez, we find out very little in-game, but he 1) offers himself for execution so his men can go free in SS and 2) seems to be actually competent at his job. I thought a nuanced portrayal was more interesting, since I've been writing Aegir as the absolute worst person in the world." -> Note: this is what the author believes to be a nuanced take on someone. Someone who likes Edelgard entirely and does nearly whatever they can to help her, but they did one thing that's morally gray (leaving a child behind to save his own children from the same fate) that is portrayed as objectively bad, so now they are nuanced. While perhaps this sort of character would be truly nuanced in better hands, as it is with his actions being portrayed as something that is obviously so completely and utterly wrong and him someone who deserves complete and utter condemnation - and yet Ionius, who does far worse for far less understandable reasons, gets a comparative slap on the wrist - it causes confusion as to Edelgard's lines. Bergliez seeing her the one time and never helping her is enough for her to want to hurt him as she was hurt, but her father repeatedly coming to and "being forced" to watch her actively be tortured and doing nothing does little to invoke similar depths of resentment? Even granting the idea that "she gives more slack to her father," Ionius is objectively and far worse than Bergliez, down to doing hard things to protect their children, and yet it is only Bergliez who is shined in this unpleasant a light

- To be clear, Bergliez's decision was not a good one, but understandable. It is a gray decision to make. But notice how he is called "gray" and "nuanced" and yet Ionius is nearly completely innocent, as described by the author himself, despite their being no given explaination as to why "he was a figurehead" should be a good enough reason to wash him literally standing there and watching as his children - some of whom aren't even teens yet - get slowly tortured and killed.

- "There are many localization changes I understand (Byleth wanting to get drunk after the battle is one of them), but Treehouse's decision to remove Ionius' entire reason for power centralization (eliminating the consorts) was a big, big mistake." -> Given the history of this author's grasp on the Japanese language, this needs to be checked, as he cannot be trusted as a source as to whether this is true

******* Notes of Claude mischaracterization: Chapter 21, section 1, paragraphs 1, 21 & 23, 27 *******

[holylulusworld]

I still cry

Summary: A break-up sometimes leads to worse things than heartbreak.

Pairing: former Dean x Reader; Dean x Lisa

Characters: Bobby Singer, OFC Judith, Sam Winchester

Warnings: angst, heartbreak, a break-up, abandonment, low self-esteem, tears, mentions of demons, a little Lisa hate (sorry), no happy ending, sorry, not sorry

A/N: Written for @katehuntington​​​‘s 1K Celebration (Congratulations!). My song was ‘I still cry’ by Ilse DeLange. I used the song for inspiration and some of the lyrics (in Italics). The song originally is for a passed loves-one, but I decided to use it to describe the heartbreak and pain the reader feels after she got left behind.

A/N2: For my story, Sam came back with an intact soul.

Three months after he left, … 

“How was your weekend, Y/N?” your colleague asks, watching you fold another paper flower for the upcoming school festival. 

You like to keep your hands busy to stop thinking about the love you lost. All the flowers you tried to grow in the backyard died. It’s like no one wants to stay with or stay alive around you.

“Fine,” you reply, eyes dropping to your phone once again. Since he left the night Sam jumped into the pit you always hoped Dean will answer one of your calls or at least send you a message, explaining why you weren’t enough. “I tried to renovate my bedroom.”

“That’s nice,” you hate the pity in your much younger colleague’s eyes. It’s the same look people give you any time their eyes land on you – or at least you think they can see the heartbreak you went through over the last months. “If you need help, just tell us so, Y/N. You are new to the team, but we like you.”

“I will think about it, Judith. Thank you,” how you hate that you sound like a broken record. 

I’m fine. No, I don’t need your help. Please don’t ask about Dean. Hunting is over for me. Just don’t ask…

I still cry sometimes when I remember you

I still cry sometimes when I hear your name

I said goodbye and I know you're alright now

But when the leaves start falling down I still cry

Six months after he left, … 

“Kiddo, I’ve missed you,” Bobby chuckles, standing in front of your door. “Did you think you can just push me away and an old geezer like me gives up that easily?”

You huff but for a moment, you smile. “I’ve missed you too, Bobby,” you throw yourself into your friends’ arms. Ashamed you didn’t call him back you sniff silently. “I’m sorry, I just needed some time to figure things out.”

“So, you’re out of business?” watching you shake your head Bobby sighs deeply. He wishes you would’ve stayed out of the hunting business and find happiness and a nice man staying by your side. “I thought you wanted out.”

“I was – for a while at least,” choking out the words you grasp Bobby’s hand to lead him into your house. “Problem is that the monsters and demons didn’t get the memo. One day I prepare a school festival and the next I find myself surrounded by demons. I had no choice but to leave.”

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” Bobby takes the beer you offer, grumbling as he would’ve like to see you fall in love and become a mother one day. “Did he call?”

“Please don’t ask,” you plea, not meeting Bobby’s gaze. You’re too ashamed you still hope Dean will return to you. Even though, you know better. 

“Y/N,” Bobby sighs deeply, eyes sadden at the mere sight of you. Thinner than usual, eyes missing the light you sit in front of your godfather. “I shouldn’t have asked, kiddo.”

“I don’t want to sound pathetic but talking about him makes things worse. I had hoped he would explain why,” sitting on the worn-out couch in your living room you slump into yourself. “I guess that I never was enough. You know, she’s a pretty thing, has a house, a son, and a normal life to offer. And I heard yoga-instructors are bendable.”

“Did you see her – them?” you nod, eyes not meeting Bobby’s. “Oh, Y/N,” my friend, the father I never had sniffs. “Why didn’t you tell him not to go? I know you wanted Dean to have a normal life but hurting yourself shouldn’t be part of the deal.”

“I knew only one of us will make it out alive, Bobby,” you give your friend a sad smile, shrugging when he gets up to look out of the window. “I wanted Dean to be happy. If he’s happy with someone else, I’m happy for him.”

“Your selflessness borders on stupidity!” Bobby grunts. “That boy should be here, with you Y/N. Lisa seems to be a nice girl, but she’s not you.”

“EXACTLY, Bobby,” jumping up you try to explain to Bobby why you knew Dean would leave you sooner or later. “I knew Dean will leave me, Bobby. I wanted to keep a tiny piece of dignity. In the end, he would’ve kept his promise to Sam and get out of this life, but not with me by his side.”

“How’d you know, kiddo? Maybe Dean would’ve stayed by your side and you could be happy,” your friend cries. “Jesus, I can’t believe you broke your own heart.”

“I did it to protect myself, Bobby. I heard Dean call her, okay,” sniffing you join Bobby to look out of the window. “The night after Sam jumped into the pit, Dean called Lisa asking if he can come around.”

“OH,” eyes squinting toward the old car in your ramp Bobby tries to figure out how to help you. “What happened that night? Dean refused to answer my calls so…”

“It’s a blur, Bobby,” you close your eyes, try to recall the night Dean left but all you remember are the tears running down your face when you ran after his car. The rain washing your tears away – but not the pain.

It's just that I recall September

It's just that I still hear your song

It's just I can't seem to remember

Forever more those days are gone

“Dean didn’t fight for me, that’s what happened. I told him that I heard every word and he just stood there, his keys in his hand. I saw a hint of guilt in his eyes, but this wasn’t enough to stay with me,” blinking the tears away you clutch your hand to your chest. “I told Dean to go and live the life Sam wanted him to live.”

“And he did? Just like that?” nodding you turn your back toward the window, closing your eyes for a moment. “Not even a call for almost six months?”

“No call. No message. No number he sent me in case of emergency,” it’s a matter-of-fact Dean cut you out of his life. “You know, sometimes it feels normal that he’s not with me anymore and other days, I only need to remember his name and break down, crying like a stupid baby.”

“Heartbreak is never easy, kiddo.”

“Never said so, Bobby. Honestly, it feels worse than heartbreak. I know he’s out there, living his best life but to me, it feels like he died. I guess, my heart tries to cope with the loss this way. It tells me he’s gone, even though, Dean is with her.”

“Do you like to live here?” Bobby clears his throat, wrapping one arm around your shoulders. “You can always come with me, leave this shitty town behind and be my eyes and ears. Y/N, I don’t want you to be gone one day too. I’m too old to lose my kids.”

“I could come with you,” being alone with a broken heart and your self-doubts won’t do any good. “I don’t have much to pack.”

“I got a nice guest room, kiddo. If Dean doesn’t care about you, I do,” the bitterness behind Bobby’s words brings you to tears. “I thought I know the boy better…”

I still cry sometimes when I remember you

I still cry sometimes when I hear your name

I said goodbye and I know you're alright now

But when the leaves start falling down I still cry

Almost six months later, …

It’s half a year later that Sam, Dean, and Lisa step into Bobby’s house, bringing fresh tears and more heartbreak to you.

“Sammy,” the only person you greet is Sam, your best friend who magically got resurrected. “I didn’t want to believe the rumors.”

“Same,” arms wrapped tightly around you Sam watches his brother look at you. Dean tried to make you talk to him for half a day, but you just walked away, refusing to even face the man breaking your heart so easily. “I thought he would stay with you.”

“No, Sammy. Why would a man stay with someone like me if he can have yoga barbie?” you whisper, not wanting Lisa to hear. “He deserves someone who got no clue where he’s coming from and all the shit happening in his life.”

“Still-“ Bobby is the one breaking the awkward moment.

“We got a job to do, kiddo. If you want to, you can sit this one out,” nodding you look up at Sam, giving him a sad smile. 

“I will help Rufus meanwhile. You can call me when he’s gone back to his apple pie life, Bobby,” patting Sam’s chest you give your friend a soft smile. “And you’ll have a lot to explain, Mr. Winchester. I hope you will stick around so we can catch up with our shitty lives.”

You are gone before Dean gets the chance to say a word to you. He walks out of Bobby’s house to watch you drive away.

His eyes fill with tears and even when your car is long gone, leaving a cloud of dust behind, he stands outside, wondering how his life would’ve been with you by his side…

I still cry sometimes when I remember you

I still cry sometimes when I hear your name

I said goodbye and I know you're alright now

But when the leaves start falling down I still cry

But when the leaves start falling down I still cry

>> Part 2

Tags in reblog.

[anjuschiffer]

[Mutuals]

Some more self-indulgent writing! Mainly because of a post @zestyzealot reblogged a while back and inspired this piece. 

(This is the post I’m referring to!)

Enjoy!

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P.Tag: @theatreandcomicfreak @damianette-is-life @toodaloo-kangaroo @elijahcrevan

Tag: @polyvirnl

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Context: There’s no miraculouses. None. Nada. But the Bats still exist. Marinette uses her time to expand her brand MDC

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AO3

-----

Marinette huffed as she placed the last crystal bead onto the hem of the black skirt in her hands. 

Bringing it to eye level, a wide smile graced her lips, a smile breaking as Marinette giggled to herself as she watched her vision become reality.

Finally! After four long and exhausting days, it was done. When she started on Monday night, Marinette wondered if this project would get in the way of her weekly sleepover with Alya. Thank God it didn’t.

Placing the skirt on her bed, Marinette smiled as she took a picture of her latest piece for her new collection: 12 o’ clock.

That’s when the hatch on her floor opened up with a creak, Marinette watching as her father poked his head into her room. Why was he here?

“Marinette, there’s someone here looking for you.” He said, giving a side glance down below. “Please tell me he’s just a school friend and not another boy you asked to model for you.”

“Dad, I already told you, Luka is Juleka’s older brother, he- wait, he? It’s not Alya?” Marinette asked, wondering where her best friend was at. 

Yes, Alya gave her a heads up that she was running late for their sleepover, but she wasn’t downstairs yet? And her father had said ‘he’ instead of a guy friend’s name, so… who exactly was waiting for her downstairs? 

Because despite only saying the name once, her father tended to commit to memory the names of all of her male friends. “What does he look like?” 

“Well, he’s a bit on the short side,” Tom started, “has green eyes, tanned, wearing a turtleneck with some of those suit pants-”

“Slacks.” Marinette helped.

“Those,” Tom corrected himself, “and he has a dog with him.” Tom ended, watching as Marinette mumbled to herself.

Marinette didn’t know anyone with a dog, nonetheless with that type of fashion, causing Marinette to start pacing around her room, racking up some idea as to who it was that was in the living room. “He called the dog Titus, if memory serves me correctly. Or if I heard correctly for that matter.”

That caused Mari to stop in her tracks.

A turtleneck with slacks, a Great Dane named Titus, tanned skin...emerald eyes.

“No. Way.” Marinette quickly motioned her father to go down the ladder, quickly following him into the living room, her eyes widening upon seeing her theory be true.

There, standing inside the Dupain-Cheng living room was Damian Wayne with his dog, Titus.

“Took you long enough.” Damian said, adjusting the duffel bag on his shoulder. Titus wagged his tail as he saw his boy open the bag and give him his toy. 

Just then, the door swung open, Alya panting as she dropped to the floor as soon as she walked in.

“Girl, you wouldn’t believe who I just saw! There, as soon as I turned the corner of where I lived, I saw the Damian Wayne with his dog, and- why is he in your living room?” 

“Seeing as you finally caught up,” Damian said, walking over to Alya, handing her a heavy plastic bag. “Take care of Titus while we’re out.”

“We?” “We?” “We?!”  Alya, Tom and Marinette spoke at the same time, although Marinette’s came out as a squeak.

“Did you forget what you told me?” Damian waved his phone that was in his hand. Marinette watched as he showed her a tweet...her tweet in particular, Marinette now going into a state of panic. “You invited me to egg-” Marinette screamed, her cheeks flushed in embarrassment as she lowered his phone and dragged him out the apartment, leaving behind a confused Tom and a giddy Alya. 

———

“You actually read that?” Marinette asked once more, covering her cheeks as they walked towards the park square. 

“I did.” Damian hummed as he adjusted the egg cartoons under his arm, a dangerous twinkle in his emerald eyes. 

Marinette let out a silent screech, confusing Damian. “Did you think I wouldn’t read it?” When he saw her nod, he sighed. “I read every comment left under any post I write. Sure, I don’t respond to any of them, but your comment… seemed… interesting.”

Marinette wanted to disappear into a black hole. Damian actually read that stupid comment she had left under his post. 

It was a post from earlier that week - a picture Damian had uploaded from the recent animal shelter he was volunteering at (as well as funding). 

Another post about an animal up for adoption, this time, a hamster named Louis. 

Marinette was scrolling through the comments under the post after retweeting it, when a particular one caught her attention.

-

<3 ACNH is Life <3 @eliza_beth 

Replying to @Real_BloodSon I have a pet chicken and just wanted to ask if the candle method is a good method to check for egg development.  If so, then are they safe to eat? If not, what’s a better method?

-

Everyone knew Damian loved to offer help when it came to animals -as it was no secret- but something stupid inside of Marinette thought she should do the only logical thing in her mind.

She commented on it.

-

Deadlines Are Approaching @a_mari_not_bug

Replying to @eliza_beth and @Real_BloodSon If it turns out that it is a good method, can I have some eggs? I’ve been wanting to egg someone's house as of late. @Real_BloodSon care to join?

-

Marinette didn’t think he would actually read it, let alone actually come. Wait…

Damian lives in the US, not France, unlike her. 

So how did he know where she lived, let alone reside?

“How did you know where I live?” Marinette asked, realizing they were finally at the park, right across from the targeted house, not even realizing that she had brought him over to the house in question.

Damian blinked, setting the cartons down onto the bench.

“Tsurugi told me.”

“You know Tsurugi. As in Kagami Tsurugi?” Marinette asked, wondering where he had met her friend. 

Damian nodded.

“We met during the semifinals for the international fencing competition.” 

Oh. So that’s how they knew each other. 

Damian let a smirk grace his lips. “Obviously, I won.” 

Marinette simply looked at him in awe, causing Damian’s ego to soar more. Of course, that didn’t overcome the other feeling he had inside his chest.

After all, there was no way he was going to tell her that he has been following her account for quite a while. 

So using the amounts of aesthetic pictures, selfies, bakery promos and mini photo shoots, it didn’t take long for Damian to pinpoint where she lived. 

That’s not following Damian. It’s called stalking. 

Okay Drake, but in his defense:

1- it was his side account that he uses for his own personal interests.

Damian didn’t exactly like having thousands of people following him because he was a Wayne. He wanted to be followed for being Damian. 

2- he had been following her for quite a while.

Two solid years to be exact. 

After exchanging social media accounts with Kagami, Marinette was one of the few people Twitter recommended to follow.

Marinette peaked his curiosity when Kagami mentioned Marinette being the person behind her “lucky” fencing bag. (Although, she didn’t want to admit that she used it as a luck charm.) It was an all black duffel bag, enchanting golden embroidery that collected to a single dragon. 

Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Kagami had provided. A girl in her grade from her school in France, who designed the most intricate designs Damian had seen. (Yes, he has seen all of her sketches and final products of the things she had designed…yes it did involve scrolling through her photos and accidentally liking all of them as he went…)

3- it was too late to press that “follow” button when he already kinda didn’t do it as soon as she followed his own account. 

When he finally noticed that she did already follow him, he didn’t know what to do. Should he follow her back? 

“Not yet.” Dick had told him. But just how long did he have to wait? He was stupid for listening to Dick’s advice and he definitely wasn’t going to follow her back now. Or should he?

“So,” Marinette started again, looking around the area, scanning to see that no one saw them. “Have you ever done this before?”

“As in egging a house?” Damian watched as Marinette nodded, wondering if this was her first time doing this. “No, but it shouldn’t be any different than throwing snowballs.” Damian compared, remembering last year’s winter. 

Jon had managed to convince the Wayne’s and the Kent’s to do a snowball fight. 

The Wayne’s obviously won. 

“Guess you have a point.” Marinette replied, attempting to vision Damian’s analogy. She picked up an egg and looked at it and then at the window of the person who had been causing her turmoil these past few days. “Are you… are you sure you want to go with this?”

“Aren’t you?” Damian asked, awaiting Marinette’s signal. He had perfectly balanced a dozen eggs into the nook of his arm, one being juggled in his other hand. 

He was ready and from the twinkle in his eyes, eager to throw. 

Marinette found herself smiling, letting out a laugh as she grabbed a few eggs herself and balanced them in her hand. 

“Between you and I, I've been dreaming of doing this for the longest.” Marinette said with the biggest grin Damian had seen her with that night. “Ready?”

“Always.” Damian replied, mirroring her grin as the two looked at the target, Marinette throwing the first attack.

-

Bonus: 

Marinette hummed as she doodled in her sketchbook, her mind wandering to last night’s events. 

She hadn’t known how much stress she had built up thanks to Lila and her constant need to be the attention of everything. 

The messes Marinette had to clean up due to Lila causing disorder during class and after class, all because of Lila and her gazillion and one ‘medical’ problems.

Marinette didn’t realize how emerged she was towards throwing eggs -with great accuracy- towards Lila’s bedroom window until she threw her last egg.

She remembered how satisfying it was to have thrown all of those eggs at the window, that glee when Damian smiled at her. 

How happy she was when Damian complimented her for her graceful and precise throws despite the low lightning of the park lights. 

Marinette placed her pencil down as she finished adding some last minute touches to the coat she had finished designing when Alya slammed her hands in front of her. Marinette quickly looked up at her friend, tilting her head when she was met with twinkling eyes.

“Did you hear what happened to Lila last night?” Alya whispered, causing Marinette to quickly tense. 

“N-no? What happened?” Marinette asked, closing her sketchbook. 

“Her house got egged. Well, her bedroom window did.” Alya corrected herself, watching as Marinette let out a gasp.

“No way! Poor Lila.” Marinette looked over to Lila, watching as she was surrounded by their classmates to gather to listen to her woeful story. “Who would ever do such a thing?”

“Beats me.” Alya said, looking at Marinette, a faint smile on her lips. “You and Damian wouldn’t happen to have been involved-”

“Us?” Marinette instigated, causing Alya to lean forward. “You think Damian and I would do something that stupid and not think of the consequences that awaited us? No way.” Marinette denied, causing Alya to sigh.

“Should’ve known you wouldn’t be up to it. Only you would step down after overthinking about the consequences.” Alya said as she patted her head before taking a few steps from Marinette. “Not like anyone would know who it was since the security cameras of the area seemed to have gone off at that time, strangely enough. Maybe if I hear what Lila has to say about the event, I’ll get some hints as to who it was.”

With that, Alya left to go and listen to Lila, leaving Marinette by herself.

Finally alone, Marinette let out a sigh, feeling her back relax. She felt as a smile rose to her face. 

Giddily, she took out her phone to send Damian a text when a Twitter notification caught her attention. 

She quickly checked it, her smile growing even more. She went back to sending Damian a text.

You bugged the cameras last night?

Damian: A necessary precaution. 

Marinette giggled at his response.

Also, I saw you started following me. Now we’re mutuals! 

Damian liked your message.

Damian: It was only a matter of time, seeing as we egged your enemy’s home.

More like someone I dislike.

Damian: Same thing. 

Damian: Query. Would you like to join Titus and I for a walk at the park? 

Sure! Class ends at 3. Meet you then?

Damian: Titus and I would await you then.

Marinette grinned as she placed her phone away as the school bell rang, signaling the beginning of class. 

She couldn’t wait to spend time with her newfound friend! Who knows what mischief awaited the two!

[iliveiloveiwrite]

Long Lost Love // Part One (D.M.)

Summary: Two piles of twelve letters, hidden away in the bottom of a trunk, browning with age. Twenty-four letters in total, all addressed to him. 

A/N: This is my entry into @teheharrypotter‘s two weeks of angst! I just really want to take a moment and say that I am so proud of this fic and how it has come out, like ridiculously proud of it. I would really appreciate some feedback on this - reblogs and comments are so important. There is going to be a second part where all the love letters will be compiled into one long post. However, I think not giving too much away only adds to the suspense and angst. Also, the ending... I love it and I think you’ll all hate me for it.

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Fem!Reader

Warnings: this is a lot of angst combined with hurt/comfort but there’s a lot of growth in Draco (I think?)

Word count: 5.4k

It had been fifteen years since the end of the second wizarding war; it had been fifteen years of healing and working on himself, of repenting for his family’s crimes during the war. Draco Malfoy had aged in that time; his hair had grown past his shoulders, tied back with a black leather hair tie, and there were lines on his face that had not been there when he was an eighteen year old running away from the castle he classed as his home.

He had lived a lifetime in those fifteen years. He had seen the world before training as a Healer; working his way up the ranks to become head of the emergency department of the only wizarding hospital within Britain. He had trained Healer after Healer; many of them going off to establish clinics in their own community, all of them sending cards at Christmas, regaling him of their successes.

Draco had lived a lifetime. He lost his father first. Lucius had never truly recovered from his time in Azkaban, and though Draco had tried his hardest to form some semblance of a relationship with his father, Lucius had remained cruel until the end. Truthfully, Draco doesn’t want to think about what it was that killed him in the end. Whether it was the spite that had poisoned him for years, or whether it was something else. Draco doesn’t dwell on it; instead, he leaves white roses on his father’s grave every Sunday like any loving son would.

Narcissa hadn’t lasted long after Lucius passed. She had been distraught. Whilst Lucius was not a doting father, he was a doting husband and he adored Narcissa until his very last breath on this earth. To Draco, her tears started that day and didn’t stop until she passed away in her asleep. Her heart, the coroner said. She had died of a broken heart.

A feeling Draco knew only too well.

Despite achieving so much and traveling so far, he had only ever been in love once. There had only ever been one moment in his whole life that had been filled with the kind of love read about in books, sang about in songs, and played out in films. Draco had fallen in love with you when he was sixteen years old and entering what would be the darkest period of his life. To him, you had been the light in the dark. The answer to his constantly asked question: will there ever be a happy ending?

Nothing had ever happened; nothing could happen. You were the epitome of goodness; the very incarnate of its definition, and he… he was the opposite. In those days, his self-hatred ran so deep that he would argue he was the Hades of the story. Doomed forever to the underworld only to fall in love with the Goddess of Spring and hope for retribution that would never come.

However, in this version of their well-told myth, Hades and Persephone never fall into a relationship. In this version of events, feelings were known and reciprocated, but letters that pleaded for a chance either never arrived or were never answered.

So for fifteen years, Draco Malfoy has been working hard on repairing his family’s tattered reputation whilst coping with the depth-defying grief that comes with losing both parents within the span of a year as well as never truly dealing with the heart wrenching grief that accompanies a relationship that was never given the chance to bloom.

--------

It was a bright, clear day in the middle of March when Draco decided to clean out the attic. He had woken with the urge to clean; with the urge to organise his life and start to work through the piles of his parent’s belongings. He hadn’t been able to touch them in the beginning; the most he had been able to do was relocate everything to the attic and then shove the very thought to the back of his mind where it began to fester like an open wound.

Bright and clear was the day when Draco chose to enter the long forgotten attic in the Manor. Bright and clear was the day when he had to hold a handkerchief to his face to stave off the inevitable sneezes from the dust floating in the air.

Looking around the old and dusty attic, Draco takes in the first of the mess. Trunks line the wall; some ancient – locks worn down with time, almost rusted from their exile to the attic; others are much newer such as his parent’s belongings. Their trunks remain almost new; their initials still painted onto the lids in bright gold paint.

The majority of the morning is spent creating two piles; one to be thrown away, one to be donated. Expensive gowns and suits were to be donated. Anything that reminded Draco of his allegiance in the Second Wizarding War was to be thrown.

As he goes through the belongings of not just his parent’s, but also his grandparents, Draco begins to feel conflicted. With each addition to the bin pile, he feels lighter, he feels one less burden. However, he cannot help the guilt that unfurls in his stomach as he thinks of his mother’s kind face and her forever painted red lip.

By the time Draco makes it to his mother’s final trunk, he feels as if he has been in battle once more. Weariness hangs heavy over in shoulders, settling in his bones. His body slumped, not just from the tiredness from lifting heavy trunks and boxes, but from the emotional weight of memories freshly unleashed upon him.

Draco’s movements are slower as he opens the lid to this final trunk. He thinks back to the day he filled it; piling his mother’s correspondence and personal effects in here – separate from the clothes he knew he would one day get rid of. He slides his hands over the emerald green lid – a Slytherin till the day she died, Draco thinks as he smiles to himself.

At some point, he lets a few tears fall. It’s the sight of Narcissa’s handwriting, he realises. He hadn’t seen it in so long – not having received a birthday card or a Christmas present this year due to her death. Seeing her strong cursive brought tears to his eyes; he remembers being a child, sitting by her desk, watching her write away and wondering who on earth she could be talking to. If Draco focuses hard enough, he swears he can still smell the fresh ink drying on the parchment and the melted wax being pressed with Narcissa’s signet ring.

At the bottom of the trunk, Draco notices a latch. Frowning, he flips it open to reveal a false bottom hidden away. Uneasiness spreads through him, turning his stomach to lead as he reaches inside to feel two distinct piles.

The uneasiness turns to heavy anguish when Draco realises just what he is holding in his hands.

------

Two piles of twelve letters, hidden away in the bottom of a trunk, browning with age.

Twenty-four letters in total, all addressed to him.

They now sit on his kitchen counter; the ageing paper a stark contrast to the obsidian black of his counter top. Draco leans back in his chair, huffing out a long sigh, running a hand down his face as he does so. It had been fifteen years, but he would recognise your handwriting anywhere.

It had been fifteen years and he hadn’t had any contact with you. He wondered for so long why his letters had gone unanswered to the point where he stopped writing altogether, feeling the keen sting of rejection.

Fifteen years and he now had his answer.

Hidden away in a trunk; squirreled away in the hopes that he would never find them. The hope that he would forget about you and move on. He never had; he just kept his feelings silent, caging them up in his heart along with everything else he kept from his parents.

Anger surges through him. The first emotion he has felt since he opened that damned trunk.

He lets out a choked scream; the intensity of his anger surprising him as he slams a fist onto the counter top, wincing slightly from the pain now radiating up his right arm.

How dare they, he roars. How dare they keep this from him? How dare they keep you from him? Did you not fit their ideal – a pureblood from a well off family? Did you not meet their needs visually? Your hair perfect, your face just the same.

There was no good reason he could think of. Draco pads over to the bar, tucked away in the corner of the kitchen. There, he pours himself a knuckle’s length of the amber liquid, knocking it back with a hiss. The whiskey burns as it goes down; burns just like his emotions, like his anger.

Draco’s lip curls in distaste as he hears his father’s voice: a distraction, Draco, that’s all.

Lucius Malfoy had never uttered such words in Draco’s presence, but Draco was well aware of his father’s distaste of you.

Reading over his home address once again, Draco is hit with a sense of helplessness. He doesn’t know where to go from or what to do. He reads over your home address, neatly written in the top left hand corner of the envelope.

Sighing, he runs a hand down his face, still uncertain what his next move is going to be. He runs through the options in his head once, and out loud after.

To no-one in particular, he argues:

“I could reply. I could write a letter back, apologising for the absence of replies with a brief sentence or two about meeting up after so much time has passed.”

Draco waves that option away; his tongue too tied up to even think about coherently writing a letter out now. He moves onto option two:

“I could show up. I could apparate to the address right now, knock on the door and ask to speak to them.”

He shakes his head; immediately ridding himself of the idea. For starters, what if you had moved, and he finds himself knocking on the door of an unknown family? However, what if you still live there, and you answer the door? What is Draco to say to you then after such a long time apart?

He imagines the situation; forces himself into shoes that he could possibly be wearing in the near future. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Not a word, not a whisper, not an apology.

So he ignores option two.

Draco knows its cowardice that drives him to the third option, but to go fifteen years without a reply to a letter declaring love… it is too long of a time to expect any form of forgiveness, and he supposes that is what he is most afraid of. Draco’s terrified of not being worthy enough for your forgiveness.

So he goes with option three:

Do nothing.

------

Draco does the only thing that makes sense.

He takes the letters to work.

Draco slides the letters into his satchel, latching the buckle afterwards and taking a deep breath. Already, Draco feels the twenty four envelopes burning a hole through the soft, worn leather of his bag.

Their presence continues to haunt him: placing his bag in his locker and grabbing his lab coat, walking towards the admit desk where Martha – the head nurse – smiles at him before handing him a cup of coffee.

The emergency room is swamped. It is full to capacity with even more waiting in triage. They work as hard and as fast as they can, but it takes time to cure burns from potions and injuries from spells gone wrong.

It gets to the point where Draco needs to take a step back. He has to take a step back and re-evaluate. His personal life is shot; the love he had found at sixteen a dead end until this last weekend. His professional life is all that he has going for him, but on days like this, when he isn’t feeling entirely himself for the shock from the weekend, Draco does find himself being short with patients.

He escapes to the break room; the familiar bitter scent of coffee already relaxing the tense muscles in his shoulders. He settles into a chair at the rickety table, head in his hands as he takes a deep breath.

Draco represses the urge to cry. He pushes it down; deep, deep down inside him where he can deal with it another day. At this moment, all he wants is a hug from his mother and the age old promise that everything is going to be okay. It’s her fault’ it is Narcissa’s fault that he is like this.

That he is a husk of a man.

He feels like a therapist’s wet dream. Blaming his mother, his parents as the source of his problems, but he cannot help imagining how different his life would be if those letters had been delivered to his hands.

He would be with you. He would have given it all up for you.

His lineage; his inheritance; his name; the pureblood mania that infected his parents.

He would give it all up for you.

Fifteen years later and he would still give up every aspect of his life, every part of him that makes him him.

Draco would drop it all in a heartbeat for you.

“What’s gotten into you?” A feminine voice questions. Draco turns in his seat to see his closest friend and confidant, Alexandria Delphi, leaning against the door with a smile on her face.

He cannot help the smile that grows on his face at her presence. He shrugs, hoping he appears nonchalant, “What do you mean?”

Alexandria pushes herself off the door, coming to sit next to Draco at the old rickety table that has been at home in the break room since before time itself. She raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow at his obvious aversion. She gestures to his entire being, “I mean this. You’ve been off all day – not as attentive to patients, not your usual flirtatious self with the nurses which I know they are missing very much. What’s gotten into you, Draco?”

Draco sighs, knowing very well he could never hide anything from her. Alexandria and Draco had known each other since their first year of training; an unlikely friendship forming between them, but a friendship nonetheless. Thirteen years later, they had been working in the emergency department of St Mungo’s the longest – second only to Martha, the Head Nurse.

“I was cleaning out the attic over the weekend. Getting rid of some of my parent’s things.”

Alexandria frowns, reaching for Draco’s hand over the table. “You should have called me. I would have come and helped you; you shouldn’t have had to that alone.”

“I know,” Draco starts, running a hand down his face, “I know you would have but I think I needed to do it alone.”

Alexandria nods, releasing his hand at last and bringing it to the coffee mug sitting in front of her. Draco smiles at her before standing, opening his locker and grabbing the letters that call to him from his bag.

Sitting back down, he slides the two piles of letters in Alexandria’s direction, all the while saying, “I found these in my mother’s trunk. It had a false bottom, and they were sitting there.”

Her deep brown eyes widen, “How scandalous! They’re addressed to you?”

Draco nods, “When I was at Hogwarts, there was a girl.”

“Isn’t there always?” Alexandria quips, rolling her eyes at the dramatics of her colleague.

“Anyway,” Draco comments pointedly, “I was in love, or at least, I was as much in love as you can be when you’re sixteen years old. I still am, I think.

“Anyway, my parents didn’t approve of her; they never would so when war started brewing and I went home, I never imagined I would get letters. I never got letters. Turns out, she had been sending me letters all along and my parents had kept them hidden until now.”

“Bastards,” Alexandria spits; furious at people long dead.

“What do you think I should do?” Draco asks earnestly, his eyes never leaving the pile of letters.

“Have you read them?” Alexandria asks; her eyes fixed on the two sets of letters placed between them on the rickety table.

He shakes his head, refusing to meet Alexandria’s eyes, “I think I’m too scared.”

Alexandria smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She sighs, “You aren’t going to know what to do until you read them. Reading the letters should give you the answer you are looking for.”

“When did you get so wise?”

“When you made me Attending,” She quips, yet there is still no heart behind it – none of her usual heat that tends to come out when Draco baits her slightly. She shakes her head, standing from her seat with her coffee in her hand, “I want to see you back out there soon. I don’t care whether you’re the head of the department.”

He raise an eyebrow at her in challenge; she simply smirks. He shakes his head at her antics, already rising from his seat, “I’m on my way.”

“Good, I have plenty of patients for you to see.”

Draco doesn’t reply, he watches her leave with a fond smile on his face.

Alexandria leaves the break room. She leaves as it is the only way that Draco will not see the sorrow and the longing reflected in her eyes. Alexandria doesn’t let him see the jealousy over the letters; the very emotion gnawing away at the ever growing pit in her stomach, only making it deeper as she replays the story of Draco’s first and only love.

She remembers when she used to look forward to coming into work; to help those in need and be a source of comfort for those she couldn’t help. Now, she struggles to make it through the door with the knowledge that she has been in love with the same man for years and nothing had happened.

That’s the thing about loving someone who doesn’t love you back – it turns you into a ghost of your former self.

------

Draco finds himself reaching for the first letter in the pile on a Friday night in the middle of April. If he had to be honest with himself, it had taken him a whole month to work up the nerve to read them. Draco had come home after the conversation with Alexandria and dropped the letters on the side table where they have taunted him ever since.

He knows he isn’t in the right frame of mind to be reading them; a bad shift with too many deaths combined with the two half full tumblers of whiskey consumed creates the equation of self-destruction. However, Draco reminds himself, he’s had fifteen years of internal self-destruction – what’s one more night when you tear yourself down so regularly despite the accolades attached to your name?

Draco hesitates, holding the first of the twenty four letters in his hand. He hesitates; unsure as to whether he is ready to read the handwriting of someone whose notes through class not only made him happy, but hopeful.

Releasing a shuddering breath, he tears open the seal and begins to read.

------

The letters are not long. They aren’t pages and pages of eloquent syntax over your feelings for the blonde haired, cocky teenager he once was. The closer he gets to the end of the pile, the less is written as if you had grown tired of such an act and not getting a reply.

Draco keeps his favourite close to him. It’s tucked away in his inner coat pocket, on the left hand side close to his heart.

The letter has been with him a month now. A month of one letter being read and reread too many times a day; to the point where Draco is reciting it in his sleep. It’s creased beyond recognition, but he still takes the risk every day to take it out and read it.

He misses you. He misses you. He misses you.

Now, Draco unfolds the paper. He unfolds the paper and reads the opening line: do you remember that night in the greenhouse? Writes your neat handwriting; the letters perfectly formed on the now browning parchment.

How could he forget? Draco closes his eyes, letting himself fall into the memory perfumed with compost and night blooming evening primrose.

*****

“Name two purposes of Valerian Root.”

“To help someone sleep as well as to ease anxiety.”

“Very good,” You laugh, moving quietly between the rows and rows of plants. You turn to him suddenly, “What is one danger of Black Henbane?”

Draco pauses, eyes already searching for papery flower with spidery black veins. He finds it nestled towards the back of the greenhouse, hidden away from sight and away from the wandering hands of children. Draco follows you closely; remaining near you as he says, “As a member of the nightshade family, the plant can be toxic if used in large quantities.”

The sight of your smile takes his breath away. You rush to him; toothy grin and loud laughter as you nod your head. “Madame Pomfrey was right,” You splutter, “You’re going to make an incredible Healer, Draco Malfoy.”

He doesn’t need to see the blush to know it’s there; he can feel the heat creeping its way up his neck to his cheeks. “I don’t think I’ll get there if I don’t have you.”

A satisfied smile replaces the happy grin that was on your face only moments ago. It was as if you were waiting for those words to fall from his lips; the reassurance within those words spreading over your worry like a balm over a wound.

How many more nights would they get like this? How many more nights would they have together?

Somewhat foolishly, Draco hopes he has forever. He hopes he has an eternity and a day with you, but he can feel the changes in the air, and he knows it isn’t good. Draco can see the tension at home; more and more people arriving, each just as secretive as the last, and Draco suddenly knows he only has a short amount of time before he’s inducted into the same fanatic group as his parents.

He’s on limited days with you so he’ll take the nights.

He’ll take all the nights.

-------

The shoebox had remained untouched under his bed for years now. Draco had shoved it there in a fit of anger and despair and he hadn’t looked since.

Reaching for it now, Draco represses the growing anger directed at his parents. He ignores the growing resentment surrounding the fact that they hid your letters for years and never thought to whisper a word of it – not even on their death beds.

The shoebox has aged; not unlike himself, he thinks as he wipes the dust from the top. The thick layer drawing a sneeze from him before he can open the box.

It doesn’t matter how many years it has laid unwanted under his bed; it doesn’t matter how long it has remained there, untouched and not thought of – Draco, to this day, can still recount for every little thing in there.

Notes that have now turned brown with age; old photos where youthful faces glance up at him; a chocolate bar wrapper from Honeyduke’s.

They each line the bottom of the shoebox. Draco’s memories of you out there for him to finally confront, to see. He sinks down onto his childhood bed; almost blinded by the force of the wave of nostalgia washing over him, threatening to drown him with the strength of his memories.

The memories hadn’t plagued him for some time though you played on his mind constantly – even more so since the letters.

They’re silly memories, but memories, nonetheless. Ones that he adores; ones that he cherishes.

It was the letters that triggered this. The letters that have brought the ghosts back from where they had been hidden, haunting him quietly until now.

Draco runs a hand through the trinkets in the box. He smiles at them, thinking of Hogsmeade and how he had surprised you with a bar of your favourite chocolate. The grin on your face worth all the jibes from Crabbe and Goyle when he got back to the Slytherin common room that evening.

Draco falls back onto his childhood bed with a huff.

He has a decision to make, and he doesn’t know where to begin. He has a decision to make, and he doesn’t have the guidance he so desperately needs.

Draco wants to see you; he needs to see you, but what if you don’t want to see him?

----

“I heard you handed in your notice,” Draco states as a way of breaking the ice.

Her notice of leave had landed in his hands not even three hours ago. He had spent the time since in a panic; rushing about the hospital to find Alexandria and to question her, to find out why she would leave after so long.

Why she would leave him.

Alexandria nods, “I have. I leave in two weeks.”

“Why?” Draco all but demands, “You love this place.”

“You’re right,” Alexandria sighs, “I do.”

“Then why are you leaving?”

“Because I can’t do this anymore, Draco. I can’t sit here and listen to you talk about those letters and sigh dreamily, or date someone else. I can’t do it,” Her voice breaks, “So I won’t. I want a fresh start, so I’m going to get one.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“If I had known…”

“What? You’d have loved me?” Alexandria laughs mirthlessly, “Love me, Draco! Love me.”

“I can’t,” He whispers; the words the death knell to any scrap of friendship remaining.

Tears fall down her face, “And that’s why I have to go.”

She presses a kiss to his cheek; lingering for longer than what was probably good for her. When she pulls away, she can see the wetness of her tears on Draco’s cheek. “I hope you find her, Draco. You deserve a love story.”

-----

The cottage is small, but it is perfect. Ivy covered walls with a neat front garden; every inch showing the love and attention being paid to it. From the red roses that makes Draco think of his beloved mother to the intense scent of lavender that reminds Draco of the perfume you wore through Hogwarts. Looking up at the cottage, Draco realises that he had never seen a house look so much like a home.

He pauses at the gate; eyes focused on the bricks of the cottage and nowhere else. He doesn’t let the hope grow; he doesn’t let himself dream of what could happen. He’s thankful he has made it this far.

That he’s made it back to you.

The black gate creaks when Draco pushes it open. He winces at the noise, praying it doesn’t give him away and that you answer the door unexpectedly.

He needs this.

He needs the time.

It’s been fifteen years and since he found your letters months ago, he thought he would be ready by the time he found you.

Now Draco is thinking, perhaps he isn’t ready.

Will he ever be ready? He asks himself. Will he ever be ready to confront the very person he has been in love with since he was sixteen years old?

Draco doesn’t know; he doesn’t think he’ll ever know until he steps through the gate.

Draco’s hands shake as he rushes down the well-worn footpath to your dark brown front door. His hands continue to shake as he raises a single fist to knock on the door, three times.

He’s about to turn away; he’s about to walk away and never enter your life again. He will go away and never think of you again; of what could have been.

But then the lock clicks, and the handle moves.

“Hello?” A sweet voice calls out; your voice calls out.

“(Y/N)…” He breathes, and suddenly his nerves are gone and so is his worry. Suddenly, Draco is back at Hogwarts, the feel of your hand in his as he presses you into walls and steals kisses behind statues. He’s back to being sixteen years old and feeling the unrelenting agony of teenage love for the first time along with the merciless fear to do with the rising tensions.

“Draco,” You whisper, bringing a hand up to your mouth. Shock reflects in your eyes; your eyes that show no signs of aging other than the lines that are now forming in the corners.

Draco can’t help himself; he runs his eyes over your body, taking in the changes that becoming an adult has brought. It means nothing; he would love you regardless, but he cannot seem to help himself from drinking it all in.

From the realisation that he in fact stood in front of you.

You are there, and he is here with you.

“How have you been?” He asks; more out of politeness than anything else.

You shift awkwardly, “I’ve been good, Draco. How have you been?”

Draco nods, “I’ve been good too. I know you’re probably wondering why I’m here.”

You laugh, tucking yourself slightly behind the door, “That did cross my mind.”

He smiles; a large grin that he hasn’t felt on his face in a long, long time. Less than five minutes with you, and you’re already bringing out a side of him that Draco had long thought was extinct. He reaches into his coat, grabbing some of the letters that he keeps there. He holds them out to you, “I’ve only just found them.”

Audibly gasping, you instinctively reach for the letters. Your fingers brush Draco’s and he swears his heart skips a beat at the small touch. “I sent these years ago.”

Draco closes his eyes, “I know, and I cannot apologise enough to you for how long it has taken. I thought a reply in person would be better.”

Tears line your eyes as your fingers brush the worn paper; the crease marks more than evident from where Draco has folded and refolded the letter to read. “I always wondered what had happened…” You trail off, lifting your gaze from the letters to meet his eyes.

“My parents,” He whispers; voice pained. He takes a moment to collect himself, but you put a hand up to stop from saying anything else.

“I understand. You don’t need to explain more, Draco.”

“Thank you,” He replies, smiling softly. Then he launches into his tale, “I was cleaning out their belongings; cleaning in general really when I found a false bottom in my mother’s trunk. When I took it out, I found your letters… and I read them and reread them. I practically memorised them. I don’t think there are enough words in the English language to convey just how sorry I am.”

“Draco…”

“No, let me say this… please,” He whispers, adding on the last word for politeness. You fall silent, your eyes begging him not to say out loud what you know he is going to confess.

“Until the last star fades and we succumb to darkness, I shall love you. I have always loved you; from being a scared teenager to being a just as scared adult. My feelings haven’t changed. I’ve thought of nothing but you for fifteen years,” He pauses, drawing in a shuddering breath, “I love you.”

Silence falls over you both. Draco’s heart pounds in his chest as he watches the emotions flicker over your face in a pace he didn’t think was humanly possible. Acceptance, happiness, relief and then finally, sadness.

He furrows his brows; surely this would be a happy event no? Draco has tracked you down after a fifteen year absence. He has found his one true love at last, and now he stands before you wondering the cause of such sadness on your face and in your eyes.

“Draco…” You trail off, holding up your left hand, “I’m married.”

******

General (HP) taglist: @chaotic-fae-queen​ @theweasleysredhair​ @harrypotter289​ @kalimagik​ @heloisedaphnebrightmore​ @nebulablakemurphy​ @figlia--della--luna​ @idont-knowrn​ @lunalovegxxd​ @big-galaxy-chaos​ @black-lake-confessions @annasofiaearlobe​ @imboredandneedalife​ @levylovegood​ @mytreec​ @haphazardhufflepuff​ @teheharrypotter​ @chaoticgirl04​ @accio-rogers​ @starlightweasley​ @dreaming-about-fanfictions​ @lestersglitterglue​ @msmimimerton​ @obx-beach​ @izzytheninja​ @slytherinprincess03​ @bbeauttyybbx​ @acciotwinz​ @kashishwrites​ @slytherinsunrise​ @kylosleftbuttcheek​ @remmyswritings​ @they-write-once-in-a-blue-moon​ @ria-rests-here​ @superbturtlemakerathlete​ @inglourious-imagines​ @ithilwen-lionheart​ @now-its-time-for-a-breakdown​ @ilovejjmaybank​ @phuvioqhile​ @moatsnow​ @storyisnotover​

Draco Malfoy taglist: @the--queen-of-hell​ @obxmxybxnk​ @obx-beach​ @sycathorn-slush​ @dracomalfoyswifey​ @kashishwrites​ @justmesadgirl​ @detroitobsessed​ @reaganwonders​ @aspiringsloth20​ @just-a-belgian-girl​ @lahoete​ @minty-malfoy​ @fallinallinmendes​ @ravenclawbitch426​ @ochrythum​ @beiahadid​ @gryffindors-weasley​ @dracosathenaeum​

[imagineredwood]

Educating the fandom + nonexamples + history of tone policing POC

There seems to have been a lot of growth and self reflection that has gone on in the last day maybe two. That’s an amazing thing. We love to see it. That’s what we wanted from the beginning. Now, I’m not trying to stir up the pot again, but there are just a few more things I want to go over that have come to my attention after the fact especially since various people have reached out to me wanting examples on how to approach these types of situations. I also want to lay out exactly why some of us may not be as willing to continue educating in the future due to how things happened.

So lets start from the beginning. The very first time I ever mentioned the fact that Papi is a term of endearment on this blog was a literal four years ago. Someone asked if I would call someone daddy sexually and I talk about how they may perceive it as being sexual if I were to say papi because that’s just something that I say, but it’s a term of endearment.  You can find that post here

I mentioned it again two years ago on a post here when someone asked how the Mayans would feel being called Papi and then again in that same year 2018 which you can find here 

Then once more a year ago regarding Coco being called papi that you can find here 

So this is not something new. I’ve been fighting against this for years, its just that in the last month or so I’ve grown tired. Nearly five years of trying to explain and and teach and educate and reason and nothing changes. The only reason I believe it changed now is because I had to be forceful and direct about it and other Latinas fought with me. Now, I’ve spoken about the papi thing various times this week, but yesterday and the way before was where it got the most air time because other Latinx people in this fandom opened up to me about the way that it’s affecting their personal lives. 

Here’s the thing: google is free. Media in the form of books, podcasts, films and more that detail the Latinx Diaspora, can be accessed for free. Educating yourself can be done for free. It is not our responsibility nor any other POC’s responsibility to educate the masses. If we do, its because we want to make a difference. So counting on us to teach you right from wrong is a lot to ask and we shouldn’t have to carry that weight, but willingly some of us do. We don’t have to but we do, because we want to try and make our spaces better places. Regardless, if you say that you don’t know and someone enlightens you, the ball is in your court. I made posts going over why calling Latin men either real or fictional papi is problematic, cringy, and inappropriate at on the 8th, 9th, and 10th. Three days in a row. Then yesterday at 10pm I went over it again by reblogging another post. At around 12 am this is a tag on a picture of Clayton

Again, portraying papi as meaning daddy in a sexual sense. Around 10-20 minutes later, someone politely tried to correct her and give her the benefit of the doubt that maybe she just didn’t know, even though we know she did, and this is the response

So right there she ignored education once more and then deadass went out of her way to find a gif (ironically of a Latinx woman who is from PR and also uses it as a term of endearment) to use the word out of spite and say that us speaking out about fetishization of our people is “stupid as fuck”. A slap to the face. But that’s not all. When approached again when she’s had time to think and acknowledge the issue, here’s the response:

Why try to guilt trip and reverse psychology? No one said not to write, we said stop writing fetishizing work. And when the guilt tripping doesn’t work, that’s when the vilifying and demonizing starts:

“Attack” “being attacked” anytime POC stand up for themselves after being ignored, suddenly were painted as mean, aggressive, attacking, etc. Pay attention to the language used. Now who got reckless at the mouth first? Because it wasn’t us. Then there’s this:

Says she doesn’t get the issue and then later proceeds to explain that she can’t call her own father daddy because of how sexualized the word daddy is. So she does understand but it suddenly doesn’t compute when the word is now spanish...🤔

We all tried to teach her but because we’re Latinas, it was attacking when we did it and enlightening when someone not Latinx but Spanish did (and I’m thankful that you did sweetpea!) Another reason why it’s important for those not in the Latinx community to help us out in addressing these issues. Plenty of people will disregard Latinos yet listen to people outside of the community and respect them but not us 🤷🏻‍♀️

Apologizes to someone who explained to her what she did wrong but doesn’t apologize to the people she ridiculed, disregarded and tried to vilify.

All in all I just want this to be a learning curve. More of y’all than I was expecting came to our defense and not only held it down for us but used your own voices and platforms to make sure that ours were heard. That’s an ally, and we’re thankful for y’all more than I think y’all realize 🙏🏼🤍

@likedovesinthewnd @awildcur

[elizabeethan]

Spaces Between Us Chapter 13: You & I

The hardships of real life separated them six years ago, and Emma has been struggling to put that fact behind her ever since. But then, only after she’s convinced herself that she’s moved on and that her new life is enough, Killian Jones comes back.

A Captain Swan Modern AU

Complete

As my grandma used to say,"theyah." (she meant "there" and she would brush her hands together, but she had a very heavy a Maine accent) 

Thank you to everyone who read this, and to everyone who commented, left kudos, liked it, reblogged it, sent flails.... you're the best!!

Thank you, as usual, to my beta and friend @the-darkdragonfly​, and to @donteattheappleshook​ and @xhookswenchx​ for listening to my ramblings and helping me figure out the plot to this <3

Read the Rest

Read on Ao3

Read my Other Stuff

~~~~

His warm fingers tickle her awake, dancing delicately over the skin of her waist and making her giggle before she hisses at the bright sunlight stinging her eyes. “It’s too early for all that.” 

 “No it isn’t,” he argues, kissing a hot trail down her neck until his lips reach her breast. She swears she was wearing a shirt when she went to bed… “We’ve got to get up soon anyway.” 

 “Then why are you initiating what you're initiating?” 

 “I can be quick.” 

 She snorts, reaching her fingers into his thick hair and letting out an appreciative sound as he flicks his tongue over her nipple. “I’m sure you can.” 

 “Let me do my work in peace, please,” he chastises playfully as he drags his mouth down her stomach, tucking his fingers into the hem of her underwear and tugging them down her thighs. 

 “If you insist,” she sighs, letting her head fall back against the pillow and grounding herself as she scratches her fingers against his scalp. 

He certainly does take his work seriously, succeeding in his promise to be quick and getting her ready for him in just a matter of minutes. She pulls on his hair a bit harder and he lifts his head, looking up at her with shiny lips and a glint in his eyes before he wipes his chin and crawls up her body slowly, peppering kisses along the way. “Already?” he asks when he reaches her ear, and she giggles. 

 “You promised to be quick, I thought you’d be pleased to know that you delivered.” 

 “Oh, I’m very pleased. If there’s one thing parenthood has taught me, it's how to get my lady love off in a jiffy.” 

 “Shut up,” she laughs, though the sound is cut off quickly when he plunges himself into her, nearly to the hilt before he pulls back out and slides in again, slowly this time. She groans in appreciation for the way he stretches her, hitting everywhere just right as he sets a steady pace. 

 “I love you,” he whispers against the shell of her ear, tracing his tongue over the sensitive skin just below. “So much.”

 “I love you, too,” she whispers back breathlessly, then with a moan, “don’t stop.” 

 “You like it like this?” he asks, biting her skin and pushing into her at just the right angle. 

 She whimpers and nods, her nails clawing at his back. She’s so close already, his mouth bringing her halfway there before they’d even started, and when he reaches his fingers between them where she needs him the most, she cries out again. 

 “There,” she begs, her legs shaking as she holds him in place. “Oh, fuck, right there.” 

 When he whispers, “come for me,” with his tone commanding and gentle, there's little she can do but obey him. 

 He’s heavy on top of her, her chest heaving beneath him, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. She loves being here with him more than just about anything. The way he kisses her cheek over and over while they catch their breath makes her heart flutter more. 

 “You don’t actually have to go, right?” she asks jokingly as she runs her fingers up and down his back. “You’re actually just going to work? Won’t Will be mad if you miss a day, Mr. Mechanic?”

 With a laugh and another kiss to her cheek at the charming nickname she gave him when his friend hired him to work in his garage, he answers, “I bloody well better go. I promised Ruby I’d be there and I certainly don't want to be on her bad side.” She giggles, though he continues, “and I want to watch that bastard get exactly what he deserves.” 

 She nods, letting out a long, steady breath. Walsh’s trial is today, and while Killian isn’t allowed to testify because of his relationship with the victim-- her-- Ruby has a lot to say about that evening. At first, there was talk of Killian being unfit to serve and having made irresponsible choices because of his emotional connection with Emma. But after Ruby’s accounts of that night and the body camera footage, it was clear that he acted as appropriately as he ever has. Walsh shot first, and the sheriff responded using non-lethal force. And besides, Killian left the force on his own accord, anyway. 

 At first, she was almost angry that he’d lived. Part of her wanted the surgeons to let him die; another part of her wanted Killian to have taken a better shot. But he was shot himself, so the fact that he got him in the shoulder was pretty damn good. Plus, Walsh will never be able to fully use his arm again. 

 And… he’s probably going to jail for a long time. Which would be cool, considering the amount of times he’s been beaten up already.

 “There’s too much going on in there,” he murmurs, kissing her temple. “Tell me what you’re thinking?” 

 With a shrug, she says, “just thinking about what happened. It’s been a long eight months.” 

 He hums. “Aye, it has. Hasn’t been so bad, though.” 

 “No,” she agrees softly. “But I’ll be glad when this whole trial thing is over. Maybe we can finally leave this place.” 

 “Are you implying that you aren’t a fan of my apartment?” he asks through feigned offence. “I find it to be quite quaint.” 

 “Oh, it’s quaint,” she giggles. “I just feel bad making Henry sleep in a closet.” 

 “It’s not a closet! I pay extra for two bedrooms!”

 With a soft smile, she cups his cheek in her palm and says, “I’m sorry, my love, but that is a walk-in closet.” 

 He rolls his eyes, then rolls off of her and offers her his hand to hoist her off the bed. “Soon we can get him a nice big bedroom, promise. Once the trial’s over, there’s nothing holding us here.” 

 It’s true. While they haven’t fully talked about where they’ll end up when all is said and done, Walsh signed the divorce papers from his cell a few weeks ago. And with the pre-nup null and void, Emma took her half of his fortune and donated it to an organization that supports victims of domestic violence and their children. 

 “Henry’s appointment is at ten, right?” 

 “Yeah,” she nods. Starting him up with Archie has been a blessing. Emma had a lot of fears that he would handle the transitions with difficulty, but with Dr. Hopper’s help, he’s been well adjusted, and she couldn’t be prouder. 

 They struggled with how to tell him about his father, but she never wants to lie to him. They moved out of their old house with haste, grabbing everything they could as quickly as possible so that Emma wouldn’t have to be there for a second longer than she had to. And while Henry was confused, he didn’t seem overly upset. He enjoyed living with the sheriff for a few days, even creating a comfortable nook for Abby, before they sat him down and told him everything. 

 When Emma told her son that the man who’s been in his life all along isn’t actually his father, she thought he would be upset. In reality, though, he simply shrugged and asked if Killian’s house had macaroni and cheese. 

 When Emma told her son who his real father is, a few days after they moved in with him for both safety and stability, he cheered and gave Killian the biggest hug she’s ever seen him give anyone. 

 She still can’t think about that day without crying. 

 “So Sherrie is actually my dad?” 

 Emma nods. “Yes, baby. I’m sorry that this is so confusing.” 

 He ignores her sentiment and asks, “and I can call him daddy?” 

 “You can call him anything you want.” 

 Turning towards Killian, he asks again, “can I call you daddy?” 

 The look on his face is so heartbreaking that Emma’s tears flow freely. Killian looks up at his son, meeting his eyes with glassy ones, and nods. “I’d love that.” 

 “Have you got one as well?” he asks, shaking her from her memories as she wipes away a rogue tear.

 “Wednesday. You’re okay to watch Henry in the morning, right?” 

 “It’s not exactly babysitting, Swan,” he reminds her gently, and she grins at the name he uses and the fact that it’s finally her name again. 

 “I know, but…” 

 “Go and see Ingrid on Wednesday, love. I’m glad you’re still finding it beneficial to talk with her.” 

 Honestly, finding a therapist who happens to have experience working with victims of domestic violence in this small town was a surprise to Emma, but she’s found her work with Ingrid to be invaluable. While she’s known all along that what happened wasn’t her fault, and that she shouldn’t feel guilty about what she and her son went through for all those years, it’s been helpful to hear that from a professional as well. Ingrid reminded her that, while the physical abuse happened only near the end of their relationship, Emma was being emotionally abused the entire time she knew Walsh. She was trapped from the moment she met him, little by little being gaslighted until she believed that she would have nothing if she left him. As hard as it was for her to see how toxic he was at first, it was even harder to imagine leaving when she thought he had so much power over her.

 The guilt that came with finding out she put herself and her child through that for nothing was unmatched. Her feelings and thoughts about herself as a mother, about how she failed to protect her son, are something she’s been battling for months and will likely never be able to fully let go of. Finding out that Killian is Henry’s father gave her the freedom to leave, but it also gave her the most traumatic experience of her life and brought endless feelings of self-hatred, and that’s something she’s been working on coming to terms with, slowly but surely. 

 “Alright,” she agrees, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips as she walks past him towards the bathroom. 

 “I’ll go give him his nebulizer while you get ready.” 

 Stopping short in her path to the shower, she turns to him and smiles. “I love you.” 

 Returning her smile with his own, he says, “I love you, too, Swan.” 

 In eight months, he’s become more of a father than Walsh was Henry’s entire life. 

 ~~~~

 As he watches Walsh being escorted into the courtroom, donning his orange jumpsuit and shackles, Killian is reminded of the last time he saw the man who almost took everything from him. It was months ago, once he was finally transferred to the Storybrooke Sheriff’s Department’s jail cell. He was still clearly favoring his left arm, his right shoulder completely out of commission as a result of Killian’s rather good shot, and he felt a sick sense of accomplishment seeing the monster struggling to get comfortable on the firm cot with the sling wrapped around him. 

 “Need something?” he’d asked, although he wasn’t too chuffed to give the bastard anything that would take away his obvious malaise. 

 He scoffed and responded, “yeah, my pain meds would be nice. Are you always in the business of torture?”

 “Aye,” Killian responded without thinking, then he stood up and walked to Walsh’s cell, keys in hand. “I suppose I am. But I really only focus on torturing the absolute most wretched inmates. Like you.” 

 Walsh shook his head and laughed, but Killian didn’t miss the look of fear in his eyes as he inserted the key and swung the cell door open, shutting it behind him. “Talk about protect and serve.” 

 Killian hummed in response and nodded as well as he moved to stand over Walsh’s cot, staring down into his eyes with anger, the strength of which he won’t ever feel again. “The fact is, mate, I couldn’t care less about my duties as the sheriff. Not when the safety and happiness of my son and the woman I love are on the line.” Walsh laughed once more and rolled his eyes, so Killian moved quickly to thrust his open hand down upon his neck, pressing just hard enough to make the animal’s eye pop from his head. “You threatened them. You tried to kill her. You neglected the child you thought was yours for his entire life. You are garbage; a waste of oxygen. Trust me when I tell you that I will do everything in my power to ensure that you never live to see the light of day. You will never take a breath outside of a barbed wire fence. You will never eat anything but the slop they feed you. You will never experience pleasure for as long as you live. And I promise you, you will live for decades in an iron cage, right where you belong.” 

 He was quiet for a moment as his cheeks started to turn red and his eyes grew wider, before he finally gruffed, “I can’t breathe.” 

 “Perfect,” Killian responded. “Then you know exactly how she felt. Count yourself lucky that I’m not going to try and shoot you again.” 

 He released his forceful grip, shoving Walsh down onto the cot as he took in a forceful breath, before he turned and locked the cell, walking back to his desk and collecting his things. When his shift ended, Killian Jones walked out of the Storybrooke Sheriff’s Department precinct for the final time. 

 ~~~~

 Henry’s birthday is definitely cause for celebration. He’s turning six. It’s the first time Killian will be able to celebrate his son’s birthday. He’s finally with his Emma, with nothing stopping them from being happy together. There’s a lot for his family to be happy about. 

 “Daddy!” Henry calls as he sprints at full speed towards his father. “Daddy, can I have cake yet?” 

 “No, not yet. You haven’t even touched your lunch. And don’t let your mother see you running wild like that.”

 His more intensive therapies have been working as well as they can, but they know they have to be careful to avoid another serious attack-- one that might not end as well as the last had. Killian only just became a part of his son’s life. He doesn’t intend to lose him. 

 “But it’s my birthday,” he complains, rolling his eyes and giving him a look that could rival his mother’s. 

 “Your birthday isn’t until Monday.”

 “Well, it’s my tarty.” 

 “Your party.” 

 “I think I wanna ask mommy.” 

 Killian chuckles. “If mommy doesn’t tell you to wait until after lunch, I’ll give you five dollars.” 

 His eyes light up and widen immediately, cloudy gray perfectly complimenting the black pupils as he turns from him and runs straight for the door. He watches from the deck as Henry begs and pleads with his mother, giving her his best bambi eyes, before he sees her nod, the lad jumping for joy and shrinking excitedly. He runs towards the sliding door and pounds his fists against it, shouting through the glass, “you owe me five dollars!”

 With a sigh, Killian brushes past his son, ruffling his hair just a bit, before he wraps both arms around Emma’s waist, pulling her in for a hug from behind. “You really got me there, Swan.” 

 “Did I?” she asks. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

 She leans back into his chest, turning her head so that she can press a soft kiss to his jaw. “No? Are you telling me our son didn’t inform you of my poorly-made offer?” 

 With a giggle, she answers, “of course he did. That’s what you get for trying to negotiate with our six year old.” 

 He squeezes her a bit tighter, reveling in their loneliness in the kitchen. “He’s still five,” he reminds her, content to never let him grow up.

 “Yes,” she hums. “And what a big difference the two days will make.” 

 He pushes his lips against her cheek and says, “I’m afraid he’s getting too old. We’ll have to return him soon.” 

 “And what,” she laughs, “trade him in for a newer model?” 

 “Aye, that’s the price of fatherhood most men aren’t willing to pay. But I’m not like those other men.” 

 She doesn’t need to be facing him for him to know that she rolls her eyes. “You are absolutely ridiculous.” 

 “--ly in love with you,” he corrects. She does spin around now, turning to face him and burying her face in his neck as her arms hold him in her iron grip. “What is it?” he whispers into her hair more seriously. 

 “Nothing,” she responds softly. “I’m just… happy. It still surprises me sometimes. That we’re here and celebrating our son’s birthday together; that nothing’s stopping us.” 

 “Aye, love, me too,” he agrees, running his hands up and down along the contours of her spine. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.” 

 “You won’t ever have to,” she reminds him with a smile as she pulls away just enough to look at him. “We won.” 

 He grins down at her, running his thumb along her cheek as he holds her jaw with his palm. With her ex-husband being found guilty on all charges, his life sentence without the possibility for parole means they’ll never be apart again. “Yes, my love,” he says, leaning down to kiss her chastely. “Let’s simply avoid the scorned husbands and attempts on both of our lives in the future, aye?”

 She agrees with a nod. “Yes, that sounds like a good plan. Fucking idiot got exactly what he deserved, though.” 

 He laughs and says, “as eloquently put as always. I couldn’t agree more.” 

 As it turns out, the prosecution lawyer was very experienced and was able to use Walsh’s statements of intent to kill his wife, as well as the loaded gun pointed directly at her and at the sheriff, to prove two counts of attempted second degree murder, plus assault with a deadly weapon, plus domestic violence, plus election fraud, plus embezzelment. Suffice it to say, Walsh won’t be seeing much daylight for quite some time. 

 Of course, the honorable man in Killian almost thought that sending his mistress’s husband to jail for life as a means to be with her was taking the cheap way out, but he got over those feelings very quickly. It’s not about Killian being with Emma, after all. Not really. 

 As their son laughs raucously on the swing set with his cousin, he sees exactly what it’s about. 

 “I suppose we should do the cake,” Emma finally sighs, lifting her head 

 “I suppose,” he concedes, squeezing her tighter in his hold and pressing a kiss to her temple. 

 ~~~~

 The afternoon rolls into evening, everyone finding a lawn chair or chaise lounge to relax in as David starts a fire and Mary Margaret prepares for an outdoor movie. Honestly, Killian’s son is spoiled with the grandeur of his sixth birthday party, with the giant white screen and the projector displaying The Good Dinosaur for all the children to enjoy. 

 Emma sighs happily as she leans back against Killian’s chest, taking his wrists in her hands and pulling his arms around her middle. She feels warm against him as the fire heats her skin and her sweatshirt, and he can’t get enough of the feeling of the weight of her body pressed to his own. 

 “I love you,” she finally whispers into the dark as the movie starts, the sounds enough to drown out her voice so that only Killian can hear.

 “I love you, too,” he agrees softly, sentimentally, squeezing her just a bit tighter. “More than just about anything.” 

 “Just about?” 

 He hums out a laugh and nods. “I’m afraid I love our son just a tiny bit more than you. That’s normal, right?” 

 “Yes,” she agrees softly, turning to face him and pressing a kiss to his neck. “I’m afraid I love our kids more than you, too.” 

 He smiles and laughs lightly against her, returning her soft kiss with one of his own as he sighs and looks on at their son happily enjoying his special day. “Wait,” he says as it finally dawns on him; the specific wording she chose and the coy smile she dons through a giggle. “Kids?” 

 She hums in agreement, nodding against his chest and pulling his arms tighter around herself until his palm is pressed to her stomach. “I found out this morning.” 

 “Emma,” he breathes, unable to comprehend her meaning. 

 “I was thinking if it’s a boy, we could name him after your brother. At least his middle name. Thoughts?” 

 “Emma,” he tries again, separating his arms and pulling away only far enough to help her turn towards him. “Are you…” 

 “Shh,” she insists, pressing her finger to his lips and grinning at him and she turns to face him head on. Then she whispers, “it’s a secret. I’m pregnant.” 

 He can’t breathe, a shocked sound coming out of his mouth as he leans towards her and captures her lips in his. She grins against him, holding onto the neck of his sweatshirt to pull him impossibly closer to herself. “You’re sure?” 

 “I’ll call the doctor on Monday to make an appointment, but I took three tests. All positive.” 

 “Fuck,” he breathes almost silently, trying hard not to alert those around them of their shift in mood but finding it near impossible. “Fuck, I love you. I thought…” 

 She shakes her head, cradling the back of his neck in her hands as she answers his silent question. “I probably never would’ve been ready,” she explains. They’ve talked about it in passing, and she’s insisted that her last pregnancy was difficult and that she’s still recovering from the trauma she’s endured and is therefore unable to consider the possibility of having another child. “If I had a say, I probably would’ve kept putting it off,” she whispers. “But… surprise.” She shrugs and grins at him.

 He kisses her, because he can think of no other way to express his feelings towards her than to show her what she means to him. There are no words to tell her exactly what she’s given him, not just now, but every second he’s known her. No words, except, “marry me.” 

 She giggles breathlessly, the air escaping her lips hitting the tip of his nose as she gasps, “what?” 

 With a grin, he responds more seriously, “marry me. Please.” He clears his throat and tries again. “Emma Swan-- love of my life, mother of my children-- will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” 

 “You’re serious?” she breathes softly, careful not to alert the other parents present of the sudden shift between them. “You know I just got divorced, like, two months ago.” 

 “Aye, but I should've asked you to marry me seven years ago. The divorce is merely semantics.” 

 She laughs breathlessly again, disbelievingly, and nods her head before pulling him close to her. “Yes,” she whispers against him before pressing a passionate, if not also chaste, kiss to his lips. He can tell that she wants to deepen it, perhaps she wants to take him inside and show him how excited she is, but they're at their son’s birthday party and they have to keep things G-Rated. PG; nothing higher. “Yes,” she says again. Then once more, “yes, I’ll marry you.” 

 Andrew Liam Jones was born seven months later. He was monitored closely throughout Emma’s pregnancy to ensure proper development of his lungs, and when he was born, he screamed like a banshee to alert his parents of his healthy arrival. He weighed seven pounds, three ounces, and was twenty-one inches long. His big brother, newly renamed Henry David Jones following an amendment to his birth certificate, refused to leave the baby’s side until he fell asleep, needing to be carried out of the maternity suite by his uncle while his parents took in the bliss and terror of having a new life to care for. 

 Emma and Killian were married two months after the arrival of their second child, the small ceremony taking place on the secluded, rocky beach in Storybrooke, Maine. At first, Killian wanted to remove his family from the hellish town that nearly stole his life away from him, but she disagreed. This was where they were reunited. This was where they found each other again. This was where she found herself again. It’s where her children were born and raised. So, when she finds a beautiful, blue victorian style home on the outskirts of town and cries at how perfect it is for their family, at how close she would be to her sister, they place an offer. And they win. 

 They won when they found each other again and they know that they will never lose at anything ever again so long as they have each other. 

~~~~

~~~~

Tagging: @courtorderedcake @kmomof4 @stahlop @klynn-stormz @laschatzi @emelizabeth88 @lfh1226-linda @kday426 @elisethewritingbeast @timeless-love-story @captain-emmajones @gingerpolyglot @ebcaver @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook @superchocovian @itsfabianadocarmo @tiganasummertree @gingerchangeling @jrob64 @onceratheart18 @xhookswenchx @winterbaby89 @swampmedusa @ultraluckycatnd @dancingnancyy @love-with-you-i-have-everything @shireness-says @snowbellewells​ @hollyethecurious @ouatpost @daxx04 @the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook​ @therooksshiningknight @eeteeaytay​ @xsajx​ @itsfridaysomewhere​ @alexa-fangirl-forever​ @jonesfandomfanatic​ @wefoundloveunderthelight​ @qualitycoffeethings​ @rapunzelsghosts​ @spaceconveyor

[kalimagik]

You Are My Home

Ron Weasley x Reader

Word Count: 3.8k

Warnings: Abusive father, alcoholism 

A/N: This lil fic was requested by @obsessedwithrandomthings <3 Congrats on 300 love! The prompts were “kiss me” and “you make me feel safe.” My requests are OPEN! and there is a prompt list somewhere on my dash if you’d like to request something. I was planning on posting this 2 hours ago, but tumblr got annoying and deleted it from my queue. So reblog, comment, like, all that fun stuff pleasssse! Feedback always welcome! Happy reading! 

Not my GIF - credit to owner

Summers at the Burrow were always crazy, but relaxing at the same time. Molly gave her children chores each day, but there was plenty of time for playing quidditch, pranking, and roaming around the muggle village nearby.

While Hogwarts brought excitement and adventure, the Burrow brought time for rejuvenation, well that was when the twins weren’t picking on Ron. But, it was home. It was where he felt the most comfortable, especially when Harry and Hermione were around. Yep, summers at the Burrow were the best place for a kid to grow up.

*Knock, knock, knock*

Being the last one awake, Ron slid off the couch and crept to the door. Ron glanced at the real clock on his way through the kitchen, which read 11:30. Who could be knocking this late at night?

Ron swung the door open to come face to face with Y/N L/N. She was definitely more Ginny’s friend than his, but she was always kind to him and vice versa. And, if he was being honest, he always did have a crush on her. She was so full of life and brightened the lives of everyone who knew her.

“Uhhh, hi. I’m sorry. I was hoping to catch Ginny. But now that I’m realizing what time it is, I realize that that was a silly notion.”

Y/N wouldn’t meet Ron’s eyes, but he could hear the shakiness and uneven vibrato in her voice. When she sniffled, he knew that she had been crying.

“I should go,” she whispered, turning from Ron.

“No, wait. Why don’t you come in. It’s late. I don’t even know how you got here, but it probably wasn’t easy.”

Y/N just nodded and stepped through the doorway. She stood in the kitchen, looking like she didn’t really know what to do, but Ron watched as she timidly wiped her eyes. He knew she was trying to hide whatever she was feeling.

“Are you okay?” Ron blurted out. He couldn’t stand seeing her hear like this.

“I don’t want to bother you with it. Would it be okay if I just waited down here for Ginny? You don’t have to wait up with me, I can just sleep on the couch.”

“No, you can sleep in my room. I’ll sleep on the couch.” If she didn’t want to talk to him, that was fine, but there was no way that he was letting her sleep on that lumpy couch in the living room.

“I don’t want to put you out.” This was not her, not at all.

“You won’t be. I’m sure of it. You may just have to mind the ghoul in the attic,” Ron warned with an airy chuckle. “I’m the room on the top floor. You can’t go any further. Go ahead up. There are t-shirts in the top drawer, you can use one of those for bed.”

Y/N just nodded before turning to walk up the stairs. Before she could get out of Ron’s sight, she paused and looked back at him. “Thank you, Ron,” she said quietly. Even though there weren’t many words, Ron knew that his actions meant the world to her, he could just feel it.

Once he was sure that Y/N was in bed, Ron got comfortable on the couch or as comfortable as he could. He stared at the ceiling wondering why Y/N had just shown up like that. Molly would have no problem with her being there, but it was still strange.

Ron woke up to Ginny, Fred, and George standing over him.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Fred grinned.

“Fall asleep dreaming about a mermaid?” George teased.

“Shove off,” Ron groaned as he rolled over.

“Why are you down here anyways?” Ginny questioned.

At that, Ron shot up, Y/N. “Gin, I think you might want to go up to my room.”

“I’m NOT dealing with the Ghoul again, Ronald.”

“No, no, no. I didn’t sleep down here because of a ghoul. Y/N showed up late last night. She seemed upset. I told her to sleep in my room.” Ginny was out of the room before Ron could even finish his sentence. Her footsteps pounded loudly on the steps. If anyone was still sleeping in the house, they weren’t anymore.

“What do you think that was about?” George wondered out loud.

“Girls are strange beings…” Fred followed, shaking his head.

Ron followed the twins into the kitchen for breakfast, constantly looking at the stairs for Ginny and Y/N’s feet. Breakfast was filled with jokes from the twins and Percy telling them off.

“MUUUUM!” Ginny called from up the stairs, maybe about halfway up.

Ron watched intently for any sign as Molly rushed up the stairs. She didn’t even question it. She had to know that Y/N was in the house by now. Why was he feeling so uneasy about this? Playing with his eggs until Molly emerged again.

“Well dears, it seems that we will be having a guest for the next few weeks,” Molly smiled as she pulled out another plate and set of utensils. “Ronald, you could have woken me up when she arrived last night,” Molly informed him.

“Sorry. You went up so long before she got here,” Ron tried to explain.

“Wittle Ronnikins gave his room up to the pretty girl,” Fred mocked.

“She needed it. You don’t get it.” Ron spat back at him. Ron didn’t know why, but he felt the need to protect her. He needed to pave the path for everything to be alright with her.

“Good morning again,” Ginny said, announcing her re-arrival downstairs.

Ron whipped around fast enough to see Y/N coming down the stairs behind Ginny, smiling timidly at the family she knew so well. This just so wasn’t like her.

“How’d you sleep?” he found himself asking in spite of himself. Maybe he should have just kept quiet.

“Well, thank you. But you can have your bed back. I’m going to stay in with Ginny.” She smiled at him, well what seemed like a genuine smile. Maybe last night was just a fluke and she would be her normal self by this afternoon.

“Y/N, dear. Have some breakfast. I will send an owl to Arthur and tell him to pick up your things.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Weasley.” Something still seemed off about her. Ron looked up slightly, but not enough for his brothers to catch him. He watched her slowly eat the food placed in front of her. He watched the twinge of pain shoot across her face when she turned too quickly to respond to something Percy said. He watched her.

He watched and noticed things in the weeks following the night of her arrival too. She was happier each day, growing more comfortable and relaxed in a way that someone could only do at the Burrow. Ron started spending more time with her too. She would offer to help them all with their chores and some days Ron got lucky. She’d help him all day. She was her playful self. Spraying water at him while they tended to the garden, keeping the clippers out of his reach. It was all the Y/N he was used too.

Ron even got to spend some late nights talking to her. Like him, she was a night owl. She’d stay up until she was practically falling asleep next to him on the couch or outside on the grass. She was at her cutest when she was tired, giggling and trying to keep her eyes open for as long as possible. Ron just adored it.

It was another one of those nights when just Ron and Y/N were still awake with everyone else asleep. Ron sat with his back against the couch and bum on the floor. Y/N had been sitting next to him until she became more tired. She slid towards the floor and laid her head on Ron’s lap, looking up at him.

“You’re beautiful,” he blurted out before he knew what had possessed him. It was just those eyes…Those sleepy, sparkling, beautiful eyes.

“Thank you, Ronald,” Y/N smiled, not really processing what he said.

“Can I ask you something?” Ron continued, not minding that she hadn’t said anything more.

“If you want to ask if you can have a rematch on the quidditch pitch tomorrow, the answer is yes,” she giggled.

“I will take you up on that,” Ron grinned, “but that wasn’t what I was going to ask.”

“Okay, shoot,” Y/N responded as she adjusted on his lap.

“I’ve been wondering this for a while, but when you came here a month or so ago, you were crying. You weren’t yourself. I don’t want to pry or push you, but what was wrong?” Ron felt the confidence leave him as he asked the question. Maybe he should let the reason stay her secret.

Y/N tensed, he could feel it. She was thinking and then sat up, criss cross applesauce, now facing Ron. “I guess I do owe you an explanation, you were so kind to not push me then. I would still be wondering too if I was you.” She rambled. She was still beautiful when she rambled.

“I knew that the Burrow was a safe place. Ginny has always been like a sister to me. I couldn’t be at home anymore. M-my, my dad, he- he drinks…a lot. It’s just me and him at home usually. Mum died when I was little, but I-I think you knew that. Anyways, that’s too much information.”

Y/N took a deep breath before she continued. “So, he drinks. And it just got out of hand that night. I hide it well, bu-but he can hurt me. He doesn’t always use his hands. Sometimes it's with magic, but I was hiding in my room that night. I swear he loves me. He’s my father. I just remind him of mum and it sets him off- I guess? I don’t know. I shouldn’t defend him.” She shook her head as she looked at her hands in her lap.

Ron just took in her words and the grace that she had while telling him her story. How could she be so calm? He felt the rage begin to rise in his chest. No one- No One, should ever want to do anything to harm Y/N. His fists clenched against his sides, but he tried to hide it, even though it could be read clearly across his face.

“But, I managed to get away and grabbed a broom and this is the first place I thought of. Before I knew it, I was at your door and knocking.”

Ron nodded to show he understood and was listening, but he was boiling over.

“I told Ginny the next morning and insisted I tell your mum, even though I didn’t want to. When your mum found out the basis of my situation, she essentially ordered me to stay with you all. I couldn’t say no, but I’m happy she did. This has been one of the best summer holidays I have ever had.” A smile crossed her lips as she thought of the weeks that she had spent in the Burrow.

“You can stay here as long as you want.” Ron told her, straight faced. He didn’t want that man coming anywhere near her again, whether or not he was her father.

“Thanks, Ron. Your mum said the same thing. I like it here…a lot.”

“You can stay here forever even. All school holidays, summer holidays, all of them.”

“I have to go back at some point, Ron.”

“No you don’t,” Ron argued. “You never have too.”

“Okay.” Her words didn’t seem like an agreement, but an understanding. “I’m going to go to bed now, okay? Thank you for listening.” As she stood up, she leaned down to kiss Ron’s cheek. “Good night,” she said softly as she made her way upstairs to Ginny’s room.

Ron sat in the stillness of the living room. He slowly lifted his hand to his cheek. It burned with the blush left from her kiss.

Growing used to the routine with Y/N at the house, Ron adjusted his own to spend even more time with her. Some would even argue that she was starting to spend more time with Ron than with Ginny. They were growing closer and closer and Ron felt like he may combust if his feelings for her grew any larger. He was falling, falling harder than he could ever imagine. His crush was so much more than a crush on the happy, free-spirited girl that was friends with Ginny. He loved that version of her, but also the her he got to know in the evenings and the her that could let loose like no one was watching. He loved all of her.

Then, one morning he woke up later than usual. He’d been kept awake by the soft explosions from the twins’ room and the thoughts about Y/N swirling in his head. When he came down the stairs, Y/N’s bags were all packed at the door.

“What’s going on? Are we going somewhere?” Ron asked as he rubbed his eyes.

“Y/N’s going home.” Ginny replied with a straight face and angry eyes watching the front door closely.

“She’s what? Where is she?”

“Her dad showed up early this morning demanding to see her.” Ginny spit out. Ron could tell she was infuriated.

“Where is she?”

“Outside. He wanted to talk to her.”

“Did anything seem off about him?” Ron’s mind began racing. What if he did something to her? Ron had to be there to protect her.

He flew through the door that Ginny had been watching so intently. He ignored his sister as she called saying that Y/N’s father said not to follow. He tore through the garden that he had tended to so many times with her and past the Weasley’s makeshift quidditch pitch. He ran all the way to the edge of the trees on the property. The moment Y/N spoke, he could pick her voice out of the normal outside noises.

“No. I want to stay here, Dad. Please!”

“You’re coming home. I need your help around the house. You cannot just skirt your responsibilities.” He growled at her.

“I don’t understand. You don’t have to worry about me when I’m here. They’ll take care of me…” she tried to explain.

“I can take care of you just fine. You don’t need to be playing make believe here.”

“Dad. No.” She was standing her ground and Ron was proud of her, he thought maybe he could just watch from a distance just in case. But when he looked at Y/N’s father, something seemed off. He was staggering and stumbling at only 11 o’clock in the morning.

“You are coming home with me, Y/N.” Her dad grabbed her arm harshly.

“Okay, fine, fine,” she conceded. Even from a distance, Ron could see the confidence fade in her eyes just to be replaced by fear. “Just let me go get my stuff.”  

“No, we are going now. You humiliated me by having Arthur Weasley show up at MY house to collect your things.”

“Please, dad. My school things are in there. I need them to do my summer work.” Her words became more urgent as though she was trying to calm him down and be reasonable.

“WE ARE GOING NOW!” Y/N tried to pull away, but his grasp was too tight on her wrist. Ron couldn’t take it anymore.

“Let her go!” he yelled.

“This doesn’t concern you,” Y/N’s dad spat in Ron’s direction.

“Ron, it’s really okay,” Y/N said, but her eyes pleaded for help.

“I said, let her go.” Ron repeated, closing the distance between him and Y/N.

“She’s my daughter, under the age of 17, and I can do with her as I please.”

Ron’s eyes flickered to where Y/N’s father held her arm. It seemed to be getting tighter. His nails were practically breaking her flesh.

“Dad, that hurts,” she spoke softly to him, but his grip didn’t loosen. Ron could see the pain emanating in her eyes.

“She said she wants to stay here.” Ron gritted through his teeth, losing his cool.

“Let’s go, Y/N.” Her father yanked her arm so hard that Ron was sure her arm would pop out of her socket.

The tears swelled up in her eyes as she held back her audible cries. “Let her go.” Ron was giving her dad one last chance before…

Once Ron spoke, Y/N’s dad only pulled harder. Ron leaped forward, fist aimed at the man holding onto Y/N. He hit him square in the jaw. When Y/N’s dad recoiled, he lost his grip on Y/N, allowing her to break free.

“Are you okay?” he asked, rushing to her side.

“Yeah, just a little sore,” she lied. Ron stood up beside her to face her dad. The man stood a few inches shorter than Ron, so he had to look up to meet Ron’s fiery stare.

“You need to leave now.” Ron spoke as calmly as he could.

By this point, the commotion had drawn the attention of his family inside. Fred, George, and Arthur Weasley were all running to where Ron stood, Ginny running next to Y/N, helping her up.

“Take Y/N back inside, Gin.” Ron said, not breaking eye contact with her father.

“You can’t just hide my daughter from me.” He dared to speak.

“I’m not hiding her. I’m keeping her safe from you now.” Ron was determined to win this one.

“Mr. L/N. Please leave our property,” Mr. Weasley spoke sternly.

Realizing he was outnumbered, Y/N’s father apparated on the spot. Ron turned instantly to go back to the house and check on her. She had been hurt and he just knew it.

“Gin? Ginny?!” Ron called once he was in the house.  

He could hear her soft sniffles and Ginny calmly repeating that she would be okay. He turned into the living room to see Y/N on the couch with Ginny holding her arm and his mum fussing over her. As annoying as her fussing could be to him sometimes, he was never more grateful to have her here taking care of Y/N.

Ron could see the silent tears streaming down her face. His heart ached at the sight, she should never ever cry.

“Y/N? Are you okay?” Ron kept his distance, wanting to be respectful of the people buzzing around her.

“She will be alright,” Molly smiled at the girl, standing up. “Just needs some rest, that’s all.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Weasley,” Y/N whispered, not really making eye contact with anyone around her. Ron could tell that she was embarrassed by the whole situation even though she didn’t need to be.

“Why don’t you come rest in my room,” Ginny offered, being the type of friend that knew Y/N wouldn’t want to be the center of attention all day because of this.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

Ron couldn’t stop pacing around the ground floor. Not even the twins could bring themselves to tease him over his concern, they were concerned too. Y/N took her meals in Ginny’s room with Ginny and Arthur watched the yard, making sure that her father didn’t return.

The family went up to bed with an uneasiness in the air. Ron walked so slowly past Ginny’s room, hoping to maybe catch Y/N going to the bathroom or something, but he didn’t. So, now he lied awake in his bed, listening to the ghoul make a ruckus in the attic.

When the soft knock echoed off his door, Ron flew to answer it. Y/N stood there, small and shivering. “Can I come in?” she asked quietly.

“Yes, yes, of course.” Ron opened the door wider when he realized she hadn’t been up here since the first night she arrived. Y/N stood in the middle of the room, looking utterly unsure about what to do now.

“You want to sit down?” Ron asked motioning to his bed as he took a seat on the floor.

“I don’t want to put you out.” How was she still so polite and thoughtful?

“Sit, Y/N.” Ron offered softly, not wanting to push too hard.

“I just wanted to thank you, for coming out earlier to help me.”

Ron couldn’t stop himself as he grabbed her hand to reassure her that he was there. “You don’t have to go home ever again…”

“I’ve been home, Ron. For months. A home is a place where you are supposed to feel safe and loved and warm.” She looked up from the floor to look at him for the first time since she entered the room. Oh, how beautiful she was. “You make me feel safe, you are my home. And somehow when I was out there today, I just knew you would come…”

She sank onto the floor next to him and all Ron wanted to do was close the space, but he wanted to make sure that she was comfortable above all else. “The Burrow was a safe haven for me,” she continued, “but you, you made every second here amazing. And it may be silly, but I’ve had this crush on you forever.” Y/N broke eye contact as she spoke the words, slightly embarrassed to be telling him this way, but nevertheless she kept going. She wasn’t going to be scared of this anymore. “But, I can’t help but feel like it’s become more than a crush. I-I think I love you, Ron and I just have this feeling that you might feel that same way?”

The words evaded him. How could he express just how much she meant to him?

“Kiss me” was all he managed. The most beautiful smile he had ever seen spread across her face as she leaned forward into him. Ron couldn’t stop himself from pulling her lips to his to close the space faster. He swore he felt sparks as the kiss deepened and became more passionate. This was it. Ron knew that she was it for him.

When they finally pulled apart for air, he studied her beautiful face so closely that he could see every freckle, every line, and every blemish, but even those were beautiful. “I can be your home as long as you need me too,” he spoke against her lips.

“How does forever sound?” she whispered, closing the gap one more time.

-

Y/N never did have to go back to her father, Ron made sure of that. Ginny was more than happy to let her best friend share her room and keep her things there, but really she snuck up to Ron’s room almost every time they were back at the Burrow.

Forever can seem like an awfully long time, but whenever Ron held her in his arms, forever felt like something he could definitely do, especially for her.

[arcadialedger]

How Catra and Zuko have been saving me lately: A (sort of) meta

A very long, personal post under the cut. This is really important to me, and I could really use some support, so if you could take the time to read and reblog that would be greatly appreciated. I just want to reach out.

Once again, please PLEASE read. I really need help.

Recently, I’ve found myself desperately latching onto the characters of Zuko and Catra, as many have in the past. To put it simply, I’m in one of the most difficult times of my life right now.

I’m transferring colleges because I was doxed by an online hate mob (long story) , and in general because I just didn’t belong at my old school. I went to three different high schools, moved around a whole bunch, and I don’t really belong anywhere. All of my friends are far away, my parents are busy working and I’m alone.

I just feel like I’m wandering aimlessly in darkness, unloved and unsure where to go. I’m faced with making a huge decision about my future with this transfer, and I’m terrified. Terrified I won’t make the right choice, and terrified it won’t be the newfound happiness I so desperately need it to be. But most of all, I’m terrified of being unwanted and alone again, wherever I go.

I’m used to not being wanted. I’m 4’10, not thin, and have been tossed aside because of my appearance my entire life. I’m 20 years old and haven’t been kissed (how pathetic is that). I moved schools and stayed in my room depressed because I never got to lay down roots and establish a foundation. Hell, I never even got to live as a teenager. I’m just behind and broken.

I was hoping Tumblr would be my place, where I could write and analyze and showcase my talents. Be wanted for once. For a while, it looked like it might be. Then a friend blocked me and made a callout post, due to me having a different opinion on a sensitive matter, and a domino effect began. I lost more friends and half of the fandom we’re both in blocked me seemingly at their word. I had featured this friend on an episode of my podcast at, had many fond memories chatting with them, and even bought a zine to support them. The loss hurt, and I was cut off from one of the few things I had. It was all taken away from me. My growth halted as I dealt with months of online abuse: including death threats, suicide baiting (these people knowing I’ve struggled with being suicidal), aphobic slurs (knowing I’m ace), mocking and editing images of my face. My Twitter was hacked, I lost podcast deals with creatives who my friends who blocked me and started all of this went on to interview because of said hacking, and I was threatened to be doxed. I suffered blow after blow while the people who hurt me grew and were rewarded, allowed a place here, and this continues to this day. The damage remains. I have to self reblog a whole bunch to get my content remotely seen in the algorithm.

Because my entire life, it feels I’ve never been allowed a win. I’ve never been allowed to have and keep anything good. I’m short and ugly, talentless with nothing to give to the world, my family has no money so I haven’t gotten to travel or experience a lot of things. I’ve spent my entire life envious of the “hot skinny girls” who’ve been wanted and dating since high school, who live in McMansions and get to go on vacations.

When I work to make good content on Tumblr and build a following talking about what I’m passionate about? It’s taken from me. When I work hard to get into my old college’s honors program and earn a trip to Greece which I could otherwise never afford, a global pandemic comes along and makes sure I don’t get that kind of positive experience in life.

I’m used to it all, being worn down and unwanted and losing. I’ve gone my entire life behind, lesser, and not enough.

And that’s why I’m so scared. I have a big decision to make, I’m at my own crossroads, and I desperately need all of this to come together for me this year. I’ve gone so long without happiness and love. I need this to be the light at the end of the tunnel, newfound happiness. I need to find newfound happiness. All I want is to escape the darkness, find peace of mind and function day to day doing the things I love without being stressed.

So when I see Zuko— so angry at the world for being given the short stick, abused, and never making things easy, and Catra— driven mad by comparison and feeling as though the world takes away everything from her? Gosh, I feel it so hard.

Because that’s just what I do. I get angry at the world for making things so hard for me. I compare. I feel like the world just takes and takes and never gives me a win. And so I’m never happy. I feel their pain and loneliness so deeply, and I’m terrified that I’m the villain because of it. I cry at the anguish and self loathing in their eyes because I have been there. I AM there. 

Like Zuko comparing to Azula, I feel lesser because the world has constantly told me I am so. I feel cheated and given the short end of the stick, as though life has it out for me. I get angry and lash out from my pain.I’m desperate for validation from people who can never give it to me. I’m so scarred from my past, I can’t believe I have a future. 

Like Catra, I’m always left behind. I’m lonely and driven mad by the unfairness of the world. It takes and takes until I’ve lost it all, but it never gives. I’m so afraid of losing anyone and anything else, I refuse to let anyone in. Because why would I deserve love? There’s nobody who wants me, no purpose for me on this world. I’m nothing, just constantly chasing an impossible goal of perfection to justify my existence. 

“You drive them away, wildcat”

Yeah, I know their hurt. I know what it all feels like. To be that broken, that insecure, that left behind and unwanted. The punching bag of fate. These characters suffering is so much of my own.

And that’s why they’re the only thing to give me hope.

Seeing them be where I am now, and where they end up, I allow myself to believe that maybe, just maybe, that can be my future. That I’ll get a happy ending. It gives me the courage to believe that what I’m so desperately striving for can happen. 

Zuko standing up to his father and forging his own path in life, which leads him to a better place as he finds his destiny and happiness after so many years of torment. We both have scars-- if he can overcome his, why can’t I?

Catra, after so many years of struggle, taking agency over her life back from those to abused her, and finally learning to accept the love of those around her. Opening up to pain and rejection and ultimately being forgiven. Catra felt so lonely, unable to see the love around her-- maybe I’ve been doing the same thing. Maybe I’ll find the strength to take my life into my own hands and find my own love.

It’s so empowering, a flicker of light in what feels like eternal darkness. I am so worn out and broken. I’ve never had love, or learned to love myself. In the real world, it is find to find hope.

It is only in these characters, who have felt my pain and found their way to a better place, that I find comfort.

I am one of so many who have been touched by these characters arcs, and they are one of the purest examples of why stories are important. Why the emotions narrative can evoke are important. It is not only escapism, it opens up a door to critical self introspection that can make a real difference in our lives. It holds up a black mirror of our lives, providing an outside view of our deepest, darkest emotions and struggles which can be so hard to understand when they’re inside. 

These characters, and their stories: insecurity, abuse, doubt, comparison, chasing validation, just wanting to find your purpose in life and happiness-- they are the stories of life, stripped down to it’s rawest emotions. 

There is power in redemption. There is power in rising from the bottom. 

As I said in my last post about Catra and Zuko:

“Their stories: being angry at the world, driven mad by comparison and a need for validation, making wrong choices, processing trauma, needing help but being too scared to open up and accept it, feeling as though they don’t deserve love or forgiveness, fighting to restore and maintain valued relationships, convincing themselves they’ve lost it all, feeling conflicted or confused, realizing what they thought they wanted isn’t fulfilling and hasn’t brought happiness, escaping years of mental conditioning which told them they were worthless, not seeing the love they have right before them, constantly fighting uphill for a life which seems to throw everything it can at them… Well, isn’t that just the most human story of all? And so their redemptions give us hope.”

I have been so lost and lonely for so long, and now I’m at a crossroads. I’m so scared to believe that this change, this new path, can lead to a better place, but these characters? They give me strength to. They give me faith.

This has been a rambling post of feelings, and I am thankful to anyone who has read this far. I’m just so tired of feeling this way, and needed to reach out and share this. If you are also feeling this way, know you are not alone. You are so very far from alone.

I just really don’t want to feel unwanted and unloved, like I don’t belong, anymore. I want to have a place here. I probably sound desperate because I feel that way. I don’t know how else to cry out for help other than sharing this.

 If anyone wants to message or send asks about this, please feel free to do so. I want, and very much need, to talk.