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miryum · 3 months ago

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☆ miryum's dc universe☆

Neighbour!Jason Todd who wasn’t home when you first moved in. If he was, he would’ve offered to help with the heavy furniture. Alfred raised a gentleman, of course. But no, he was off in a safe house, nursing a wound from last night's patrol. A bullet had grazed his side and it was leaving a nasty ache

Neighbour!Jason Todd who then didn’t mean to wake you when he crashed into his apartment that night, via window. How could he know that someone had just moved into the apartment next door and was startling at every bump in the night?

Neighbour!Jason Todd who was very surprised when he, still in his Red Hood gear, heard someone knock on the door soon after. A very sweet voice called out, “hello? I just want to check that you’re okay? I know it’s not my place and you might be a serial killer, but just wanted to make sure you’re not having a heart attack.”

Neighbour!Jason Todd who threw off his helmet and voice modulator before clearing his throat and calling out, “nope! No, I’m fine. Uh… thank you?”

Neighbour!Jason Todd who breathed a sigh of relief when the voice responded, “oh, okay. I- I’m sorry. Good night.”

Neighbour!Jason Todd who stood up, even though his bullet wound cried out against it. He wasn’t sure why he stood, for he could already hear your footsteps departing. His face twisted into one of confusion, both at his reaction, and the fact that someone had come to check up on him. The majority of his neighbours didn’t care

Neighbour!Jason Todd who next met you when he was going to get the mail. He saw you outside the lobby door, crouching down. His curiosity got the better of him and he stepped outside during dusk in Gotham, something no citizen should ever do

Neighbour!Jason Todd who found out that you were feeding the street cats. You were fucking feeding the street cats. There were at least six cats surrounding you, weaving in between your legs as you set down a bowl of milk and some cat food. He cleared his throat and you looked up at him, already smiling. How could someone in Gotham smile? At him? His long sleeves, while hiding his physical scars, surely couldn’t cover the anxiety and trauma embedded deep within him. “What… what are you doing?” he asked softly

Neighbour!Jason Todd who simply stared at you as you responded, “I’m feeding the cats.” After a pause, you added, “they were meowing at me when I came home from work so I picked up some cat food from the store and brought it back to them. Aren’t they just adorable?” You reached out to pet one who gladly turned on its belly for you

Neighbour!Jason Todd who asked, “you know, they do that to everyone? They’re smart enough to know a new face that’ll feed them.” And then he mentally kicked himself because now this girl thought he was pessimistic and didn’t feed the cats. Then you shrugged and everything seemed better. “Yeah, I know, but they look so hungry…” The way your lips tilted to the side made Jason want to stare at them forever

Neighbour!Jason Todd who almost offered to adopt the cats because that meant that you would come over to his apartment to see them

Neighbour!Jason Todd who then rubbed the back of his neck and announced, “my name is Jason.”

Neighbour!Jason Todd who melted when you laughed lightly and introduced yourself. He knew he had found the one

Neighbour!Jason Todd who then became much more aware of your presence in the apartment building. It wasn’t hard to piece together your routine (which you should think of changing regularly because it would be too easy for a criminal to figure it out) and if that meant Jason went to go on runs every now and then that coincided with your grocery trips, then it was a coincidence. He would grab his mail the same time you did. He would take more care to not make as much noise when he returned after vigilante nights, as to not wake you. It was the little things, he reasoned, that would make you notice him

Neighbour!Jason Todd who didn’t know what to do when the power went out. Of course, he had his survival kit ready and stocked with a flashlight, provisions, a blanket, a portable charger, and numerous weapons. He was ready to wait it out, but he didn’t know what to do when it came to you. Should he go over and check on you? Or would that seem like he thought you couldn’t handle yourself?

Neighbour!Jason Todd who didn’t have to worry for long because a soft, rapid knock came at the door. He wasn’t surprised when you were there, small flashlight in hand. “Does this happen often?” is the first thing you asked. Jason huffed a laugh and replied with his own question, “is this your first time in Gotham?”

Neighbour!Jason Todd who invited you into his apartment. He wasn’t sure whether or not to count this as a first date, but you were soon bundled in his blankets and asking questions about his personal life, so that was like a date, right? He hadn’t been on many and didn’t intend to now that he met you

Neighbour!Jason Todd who did not know what to do when you fell asleep on his couch. Holy shit. Fuck. What should he do? He didn’t want you to think he assaulted you while you were sleeping, so for a couple minutes he sat in his kitchen, watching you wearily and putting as much distance between the two of you as possible. But then he didn’t like the distance between you, so it was a real conundrum

Neighbour!Jason Todd who instead sat awkwardly on his ottoman, watching TV with the volume muted and subtitles on

Neighbour!Jason Todd who didn’t even leave for patrol when the other members of the Batfam asked for help. The blackout was causing Gotham to run wild, but Jason was content with locking the doors and making sure you were comfy

Neighbour!Jason Todd who was still sitting on that ottoman when you woke up in the morning. He carefully evaded your questions on whether he slept and instead decided to make you breakfast. When you complimented his breakfast over and over, joking how you would have to come over more often if it meant his cooking, Jason agreed maybe a bit too quickly

Neighbour!Jason Todd who was the neighbour you then called on if you had a package arriving during work hours and needed someone to sign it. He was the neighbour you didn’t mind seeing in the halls because a chat with him wasn’t seen as uncomfortable. He was the neighbour you asked to help repair the sink (you got a very lovely image of his shirt riding up as he laid underneath your sink and maybe it was because you were ovulating but oh god did you want to jump his bones). He was the neighbour who, when he found out you liked similar movies, stumbled over his words to invite you to watch them with him

Neighbour!Jason Todd who actually didn’t love the genre of movies you did, but would like them if it meant seeing you

Neighbour!Jason Todd who wasn’t sure what your relationship status was with him and it ate away at him almost every moment of the day. You were always in the back of his mind, always making his heart warm

Neighbour!Jason Todd who tried to coax you back to your apartment after you returned home one night, stumbling and intoxicated. But you didn’t want to. You were firmly standing in his doorway and kept blabbering about meaningless things. When he finally convinced you to rest on his couch, you declared, stumbling over your words, “see? This is why I like you Jason. You- you’re a- a very- You’re a very good person.” You then reached up and patted his cheek. “Love you, bye-bye.” And you promptly fell asleep

Neighbour!Jason Todd who was then in a state of shock of the next three hours

Neighbour!Jason Todd who ended up calling Alfred at four in the morning, prompting the older man to think the ex-Robin was kidnapped and needed help. As it turned out, Jason needed help, but with a girl; not a crime lord. Alfred sent Jason off with a few words of wisdom and luck, the most notable being, “Master Jason, if the girl does not return your feelings, then you can simply move out of your apartment and back into the Manor.” Jason thought that was a worse fate than you rejecting him

Neighbour!Jason Todd who was very patient the next morning, giving you painkillers and a large glass of water. When you remembered the previous night, mortified, he tried to calm you down, eyes worried that you would leave him. He wasn’t sure what he would do if you left his life

Neighbour!Jason Todd who, in a mess of panic and embarrassment, managed to blurt out, “no, wait! I- I want you to stay. Please. I know you didn’t mean your words last night, but I really like having you in my life. Can’t we… be friends?” It broke his heart to suggest it, but he’d be willing to keep that platonic bond if it didn’t drive you away

Neighbour!Jason Todd who waited, heart in his throat, when the seconds ticked by and you didn’t answer. “But I did mean them,” you finally whispered out. “I like you, Jason. And I wanna do something about that.”

Neighbour!Jason Todd who stammered and spluttered, “well, then, let’s do something.”

Neighbour!Jason Todd who took you out on dates every week and didn’t know what to do when you found the Red Hood gear in his closet when you were searching for a hoodie to steal

Neighbour!Jason Todd who wasn’t expecting you to laugh, of all things. “I guessed,” is all you said. And that’s when Jason kissed you for the first time

Neighbour!Jason Todd who became a staple in your life, not only because you two lived in the same building, but because of how amazing he was. There were no other words to describe it. It was like the man knew your needs before you did and fulfilled them just because he wanted to. He was the epitome of “princess treatment”

Neighbour!Jason Todd who was scared for you to sleep over for the first time because of his nightmares but found out that when your head was on his bicep (cutting off circulation to his fingers), and your body was tucked into his, hair messy and lips slightly parted, that he didn’t have nightmares. It was like you scared them all away, just by being there

Neighbour!Jason Todd who wanted you to sleep over much more frequently

Neighbour!Jason Todd who made it a habit to buy cat food at the grocery store because you still insisted on feeding those damn cats after months of living in Gotham. Nevermind that the cats had found which apartment you lived in and climbed up to the window via the fire escape. Nevermind that the cats realised that when you weren’t in your apartment, you were most likely in Jasons. And nevermind that he now had cats outside his window almost 24/7 that he begrudgingly fed because who was he if not subject to you or Damian’s rants about feeding the fucking cats

Neighbour!Jason Todd who just liked to touch you. He liked to be reminded that he was much bigger than you and his body could swallow yours up whilst cuddling on the couch. He liked to put his arm around your shoulder and trace patterns on your skin. He liked to hug you tightly from behind because it reminded him that you were there and you were his. He liked to do this in public too – not huge amounts of PDA, but a hand on the waist or slipped in your back pocket. A hand on the small of your back when crossing streets. Reaching out behind him to grab your hand while walking through large crowds

Neighbour!Jason Todd who, a year later, signed the lease to your apartment, so that now you were neighbours who shared a bed and a bathroom and a home

#miryum's dc universe #jason todd x reader #jason todd #jason todd x y/n #headcanon #neighbour au #we love jason todd #dc x reader #dcu #jason todd didn't die #damian wayne #alfred pennyworth

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flangore · 10 months ago

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❥ scarlet plumes

feat.: Valentino/f!reader

warnings: nsfw content, noncon, physical + psychological abuse, unhealthy relationships, violence, drugging, rough sex, choking, punishments, manipulation, Valentino is his own warning

You were not the type to get into trouble.

Being confrontational, at least attempting to have things go your way through protests and complaints, had never seemed worth it; not when the one you were up against was Valentino, who always got what he wanted in the end, one way or another.

All too often, you had seen the way he punished disobedient whores; all too often, you had watched the way they were still limping days after, bruises blooming on skin if they had been lucky, bullet wounds trying to heal, oozing blood, if they had been less so.

There was no reason to willingly go through the struggle of disobeying when simply giving in, caving to Val's wishes and orders, was so much easier.

When Valentino told you to bend over, you did so readily, spreading your thighs apart in offering; when Valentino ordered you down onto your knees, you went obediently, lips dropping open, praying he wasn't in a bad mood, unpredictable as his sudden bursts of anger often made him.

You were not the type to get into trouble, and yet you currently found yourself on the floor, crumpled in front of Valentino's boots, cheek warm and stinging.

“Now, why don't you tell me what happened, baby?” His tone was a low coo, almost gentle enough to soothe your sobs. “You've never acted out like this before. What happened to my well-behaved girl, hm?”

In your defense, it really hadn't been your fault — you hadn't meant to do it.

Your night shift had been supposed to be a simple session for a well-known client, consisting of some lap dancing and a blow job; that was what he had paid for, at least. Your surprise when he had begun ripping your skimpy panties off you, forcing your legs apart, hands greedy, mouth drooling, high on some drug, was therefore understandable in your eyes; as was the way you, in your shock, had lashed out, claws scratching at his chest in order to push him off you. A split second later, the side of your face had ached with pain, his flat palm having met your cheek before he had stormed out of the room, screaming and spitting.

Valentino had been with you after barely any time at all.

“I didn't—”, you choked out, voice trembling, “I didn't mean to do it, sir, I swear, he just startled me, and, I mean, he didn't pay for more, he wanted to —, he wanted to—”

One hand of his cupped your cheek, golden claw gently tracing over your jaw. Even with him crouched down in front of you, he seemed ridiculously tall. “Hey—, relax, sweetheart.” At an exhale, red smoke coiled around you, assaulting your senses. Instinctively, your raised shoulders fell as tension bled from your muscles. “I get it. I understand.”

With how utterly merciless Valentino was known to be, it took a few moments for you to actually understand the meaning of his words. Even then, you barely dared to let go of the dreadful fear curled in your stomach. “You do?”

“Of course I do”, he said, eyes half-lidded behind heart-shaped glasses. His voice was soft enough to cause more tears, now of relief, to drip down your cheeks. “You know, I was really surprised when that patron came up to me, demanding to have you fired, if not killed for your disobedience. You're usually such an obedient girl — I was wondering what actually happened. Good job for being honest with me.”

Hope bloomed in your chest, your eyes widening. Streaks of mascara and eyeshadow, black and colourful, ran down your wet cheeks. “So you're not upset with me?”

“Upset with you? Of course not, amorcito. You were scared, that's alright. It happens, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Your breath hitched in a stifled sob, lips, the gloss now smudged, curling up into a pitiful mockery of a smile. “Yeah. Thank you, Val.”

This could have gone much worse. Your hands were still shaking, anxiety thrumming underneath your skin, and yet Valentino didn't even seem particularly upset. Some higher being — whether that was Lucifer or God, you didn't really care — must have blessed you, somehow.

“Of course, baby.” The moment Valentino stood once more, he towered over you, his shadow swallowing you up. “Now, follow me, yeah?”

Your legs struggled to support your weight, knees feeling weak as you trailed behind him through corridors you didn't recognise. Your steps were unsure, the heels, ridiculously high, only adding to your troubles. You have half a mind to stop yourself from asking where you're going.

It's entirely unnecessary, either way.

You arrive but a moment later, the noise of a heavy door falling shut causing you to flinch; where Valentino was in front of you just a second ago, he was now behind you, a looming presence at your back.

It was a studio; not the fancy kind actual stars like Angel Dust filmed in, but a smaller one, the light bulb flickering, the sheets on the bed stained. Voxtech cameras were pointed at the mattress.

“Val—?”

“Bend over, baby.”

“You said you're not angry with me.” The words tumbled out of your mouth without your permission, a panicked high-pitched tone. “You said you're not—”

“And I'm not, as long as you hurry the fuck up and do what I tell you to.” His voice was sharp. Instinctively, you obeyed, bending over the edge of the bed, nausea churning in your stomach. “See, that guy you were a bitch to was a regular. Good money. I gotta show him you're sorry, sweetheart. You understand that, right?”

For a moment, you didn't get a word out, throat tight as tears spilled past your lashes. Eventually, you managed a shaky; “Yes, Valentino.”

“There we go. Knew you'd get why I have to do this.”

Large hands settled on your thighs, the touch making you flinch; his claws, all too sharp, teased at your skin, leaving faint scratch marks, before they prodded at your folds.

This, by now, should have been routine. It was; and yet, the idea of this being a punishment had you tensing, muscles locking up while Valentino thrust one claw into you, only to grunt, irritated.

“Ungrateful bitch”, he spat, one hand settling on your lower back, pinning you to the bed while another fumbled with his belt, metal clinking. “That's what I get for tryin' to be nice and preparing you — tightest cunt I've ever seen. Loosen the fuck up or deal with it.”

“I'm sorry.” Your voice shook, though the threat of violence, of pain, didn't help with relaxing in the slightest. Instead, you instinctively clenched around the digit, only to whimper when he yanked it back out.

“Sure doesn't seem like it.”

The fat head of his cock, pierced, the metal cold, pressed against you, then pushed inside; you were unable to stop yourself from letting out a pitiful noise, sounding more like a wounded animal than a practiced porn star.

Valentino didn't seem to mind it one bit.

Your vision blackened out for a moment when he bottomed out inside of you, the pain agonising. For a moment, you were certain he was tearing you from the inside out. His hips slapped against your plush ones, building up a steady rhythm; one set of his hands grabbed onto your hips, claws digging into your skin, using his grip for leverage to pull you back against him

“Some wetness would help us out here, y'know”, Valentino mumbled, complaining, bitching, like this was your fault. It probably was.

The only response you were able to come up with was a choked out sob, a dull ache steadily present in your abdomen, only interrupted by sharp stabbing pain whenever Valentino's tip hit an impossibly deep spot inside of you.

This couldn't have possibly gotten worse — or so you thought, tears dripping down your face, your claws ripping the sheets as you scrambled for purchase, only for it to get so much more agonising when, all of a sudden, his hand closed around your throat, squeezing.

You weren't able to breathe.

Instinctively, you clenched around him, thighs shaking. If he wasn't still holding you up, you would have collapsed.

“Fuck, you're so damn tight.” Valentino groaned, low and raspy. His tongue lapped at your neck, leaving trails of pink saliva to drip down your shoulders, your chest. “We could've had such a pleasant time together, baby, if only you hadn't been such a disobedient slut. Hate that you're making me do this.”

His pace was unforgiving, the metal of his belt buckle hitting your hip with every other thrust, surely leaving bruises. Not that it mattered — Valentino did provide you with full coverage makeup, after all.

Out of the corner of your eye, you focused on the red dots of the many cameras, blinking, recording. By now, numbness spread through you, a small blessing. You weren't certain just how long it went on; only that, eventually, Valentino came with a groan, filling you up, making you whimper.

When his grip on your throat loosened for a split second, allowing you to suck a burning breath into your lungs, it felt like Heaven.

“Use your words, baby. Talk to me.”

“Val, 'm sorry—”

“Yeah?”

“I'm sorry”, you repeated, the words barely audible through sobs, “I'm sorry, Val, I'm sorry—”

Suddenly, his hand, still on your throat, yanked your head up, his lips clashing against yours; the very moment you opened your mouth, pliant with submission, with exhaustion, smoke flooded it, you choking on it.

Your mind felt muddled, mouth dry even as saliva trickled out of your lips, jaw slack.

Faintly, you were able to feel his cum drip out of your cunt and down your thighs, sticky.

“Now”, Valentino said, voice a sultry purr, “Why don't you wait here, I'll send you your client and you apologise properly to him?”

Mind filled with scarlet plumes, you barely knew what you were agreeing to, nodding mindlessly. “Yes, Valentino.”

“That's what I like to hear. Good girl.”

When multiple pairs of footsteps echoed through the room, you, even in your hazy state, had the bad feeling that you were going to be having a long night.

i won't lie i didn't proofread this yet.. tomorrow... ALSO FIRST POST YIPPEEE

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foolinafable · 16 days ago

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squeeze you in

SYNOPSIS: Viktor barely has the time, but he makes it for you PAIRING: Viktor x reader WORDCOUNT: 5.2K TAGS: S1 Arcane, set around Act 1 and before Act 2, 5 year age gap, assuming arcane uses weekdays and seasons. Fem pronouns towards the end NOTES: spent all weekend writing this, hope you all enjoy. try not to mind any editing errors

This was decidedly a bad idea. Wandering the halls of the academy at night wasn’t dangerous, even with the recent attack from the undercity, that's if you could even really call it an attack. To you, it seems to be children getting involved in things they shouldn’t. You could remember them now, the swirls of brown, red and blue running along the roofs of Piltover after the explosion in the apartments of the academy. While many around you felt fear, all you saw were children. Sure, they looked only a few years your junior, but even Heimerdinger tells you that you are only on the cusp of adulthood, still shadowed by childish tendencies. You suppose that he is correct; twenty is only one year off nineteen, and that age is considered a teenager despite its adult allowances.

You take a deep breath as your hand curls around the handle to Heimerdinger's office, unsure as to why you feel so nervous. It’s not as if you're stealing anything but rather retrieving it. You had foolishly left behind your notebook during your meeting with him when it had been interrupted by the council having an impromptu meeting, something you are sure had something to do with Talis. You needed it for a meeting the next morning with another professor about your dissertation, your last piece of work as a student at the academy, and you couldn't go to the meeting without it. Least you look unprepared, surely your job offer as a researcher for the academy could be rescinded if you didn’t appear completely committed.

So, despite your better judgement, your anxiety outweighed it as usual as you slowly opened the door to the dean, your mentor's room. You crept inside, even though nobody was around, afraid even the slightest noise could get you caught snooping after hours. Quickly, you found your notebook on the chair. You had left it opposite Heimerdinger's desk; he preferred it when you told him of your research and studies without the aid of your writings, so you had placed it next to your body on the chair. You picked it up, signing in relief that this was as easy as you hoped, when another notebook caught your attention, one that certainly wasn't on the desk when you left. Curiousity about getting the better of you as you reach for it, opening it to the first page, eyes widening at the text ‘If found, please return to Jayce Talis'. Your mind quickly remembered an interaction you had overheard in this very office earlier that day.

You were walking the path towards Heimerdinger's office, only this time it was daytime, the sun was out despite the slight winter chill warming anyone in its path. You slowed as you got towards your mentor's office, frowning at the sound of voices coming from inside. Did you get the time wrong? You wondered, looking down at your watch, showing that you were, in fact, on time. Your hands are sweaty now, anxiety crawling at the idea of interrupting, deciding to stay outside for a few moments to calm down.

“Why can’t I read it?” An exacerbated voice rang out, his accent making your face feel hot

“That Talis’ work was dangerous; the explosions in the city were proof of that; you don’t need to be involved, Viktor”, Heimerdinger's voice rang out, proud as always

“I hardly see how simply reading what he was working on is such a bad thing. I thought the greatest scientific ventures were the ones that bent the rules of the institution.” The man Viktor, you assume, tries to manoeuvre the conversation to his favour, but Heimerdinger is seemingly having none of it. Moving closer to where you are by the door as if to get the boy out of his office, you quickly knock on the door, worried that he would open the door and see you eavesdropping. Both voices stop at the sound of the knock, and Heimerdinger quickly opens the door. You awkwardly smile at the dean, eyes rising to meet the amber ones of the other body occupying the room.

“Can I come back later?” You twiddle your fingers, nervousness wracking your body at interrupting whatever this is

“No, no, come in”, Heimerdinger exclaims, pulling you by the hand into his office, yelping at the sudden contact as he continues to speak. “We were done here anyways”, his eyes solely on Viktor, who seemed to have mellowed out your presence, quickly giving his goodbyes before leaving the room, closing it behind him.

So this was what the man was interested in, what he was forbidden from reading. You tap your fingers on the book cover before quickly placing your notebook on top of it, drawing your bottom lip into your mouth with your teeth as you quickly depart from the office, might as well make all your worries worthwhile.

—

It wasn’t until later the next day you saw the man you were looking for; it was early afternoon, and you were packing up after having lunch when a head of unruly brown hair caught your eye, sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, coffee in one hand sandwich in the other. Grabbing Jayces book, which you had procured the night before, you quickly made your way towards the man before you lost your cool. Unceremoniously dropping the book in front of the man whose eyes darted from you to the book, mouth opening and closing in clear shock.

“I hope whatever is in there is worth it,” you muttered, adjusting your bag on your shoulder before turning to leave.

“I-how?” Viktor called out, but you only replied with a cheeky smile, finger covering your mouth in secrecy as you walked away, thinking that to be the only interaction you would have with your mentor's other protege when his voice called out to you, not so far behind

“Wait”

You stood stock still as he approached quicker than you would’ve thought given his cane, but you suppose it was a silly thought that an ailment could stop a man on a mission. Once he catches up with you, he continues to walk, so you join him, slightly confused as to what he may now want.

“Have you read it?” he asks.

“It would be a lie to say I don't know of its content,” you replied, noticing his smile at your remark, eyes sparkling with wonder.

“What did you think?”

“I think...” You trail off, trying to come up with the right words as you both round a corner. “What he wants to do is revolutionary...” Your words scamper off slightly as you notice his eyes on the side of your face.

“But” he reads your mind.

“But”, you echo “I am unsure if he completely knows what he is doing or how he plans to do it”, trying to be as vague as possible due to the students scattered all around “I wrote some notes”, you gesture to the book “Things I thought could be helpful, I assume that's why you wanted it, to learn”

“And how did you get it?” he wonders aloud. “Last time I checked, Heimerdinger wasn't giving out illegal independent research to anyone”, he said with a smile on his face.

“Let's just say it certainly wasn't by asking nicely,” you tease, matching his grin with one of your own “Well, you should probably go read and hide that before Heimerdinger sends out a search party for it.”

“I probably should” Viktor smiles as he turns back the way the two of you came, the book held tightly in his unoccupied hand.

Continuing to walk the way you had been, you couldn’t help but feel relief at the fact that the book was now out of hands and the man, Viktor, seemed just as keen to keep this a secret as you did, even if you did spend all night essentially peer reviewing Jayce Talis’ work, unfortunately, your need to stay out of trouble with your superiors greatly outweighed your want to indulge in what he and assumedly Viktor was planning, you could only hope that your words you had spent all night working on where a help instead of a hindrance. You especially wanted to know how Viktor would take the words you wrote specifically for him at the front of the book:

‘The greatest scientific ventures are the ones that bend the rules of the institution’

—

One of the benefits of being the dean's newest protege was that the academy gave you your lab, a small space just for you, it even had your name on a metal plaque on the door, probably due to the academy's narcissism, thinking that they would keep you even after your graduation, not that they were wrong. A fact that slightly irritated you.

You didn’t usually get many visitors, just Heimerdinger, to see what you were working on, but those meetings were usually scheduled so he could ensure you were tallying in your lab and not at one of your usual haunts like the library. So you couldn’t help but jump at the sound of a knock on your door, eyebrows furrowed as you called out to whoever stood outside your door.

“Come in!”

Your confusion lingered as Viktor walked in. It had only been a few days since you’d given him Jayce’s book, and from what you had heard, the two were now employed to continue Jayce’s studies non-illegally this time, being funded by Councilwoman Medarda, which they have named ‘Hextech’

“You’re not an easy woman to get ahold of”, Viktor claims as he takes a seat at your desk “I have been stopping by your room for a few days, but you were never in”, he continues, eyes piercing as he takes in the view of you, stood by another desk filled with colanders and Bunsen burners

“You sound like Heimerdinger when you say that” You smiled slightly in truth, scoffing at the face he made, clearly not appreciative of your parallel “What?” you laugh “he has said similar things on various occasions”

“I understand why,” he remarked.

“I spend a lot of time in the library, researching. Especially at the moment with final deadlines coming in, as I’m sure you remember,” he hummed at your explanation “And it’s not as if I’m a professor with allocated office hours, I don't need to be here,” you tell him passively looking back at your work at the table, deciding to turn off the flame not going to get any worthwhile work done until he's gone.

“So what can I do for you?” you asked when the man still sat in silence, seemingly comfortable to just watch you work he blinked, taken away from wherever he went upon registering your words.

“Oh well, I just wanted to thank you, Jayce, as well, for getting his book and your notes, they were more than helpful with working through the kinks in his theory- instrumental really to the breakthrough”, he admitted somewhat bashfully, stumbling over his words a little not that you noticed nervousness crawling up your spine at his approval of your words.

“Oh, um, you're welcome. I mean, a fresh pair of eyes is always helpful..” you murmur, unsure of yourself now as he stares at you, not daring to make eye contact, knowing it will only make your nerves worse.

“We were wondering, Jayce and I, if you would read some of our other research in the future, help us out. We would give out any references in the future for any work you do after study” he speaks delicately, soft and slow and if worried, he would scare you off like a child being caught doing something they shouldn’t. Your heart seems to slow from its anxious thumping as you contemplate his offer.

“I don't see why not”, you ponder absentmindedly, but your mind is already made up.

“Really?” he asked, though he didn’t sound shocked, more like he was trying to egg more words out of you.

“If you can find me, that is” You smile, the nerves falling away from you as he laughs a little

“I’ll go tell Jayce the good news; he's going to be over the moon. You didn’t hear it from me, but he has always wanted to work with you. He said something about loving your approach in an article about the arcane:” You looked at the man again, but he simply walked out of the room, not sparing you another word. You had honestly forgotten that your last article had been published, and the fact that academics that you knew had read it and enjoyed it made a smile appear on your face, maybe this was going to be better than you had thought.

—

A routine had been established this past few months, as winter made way for spring, you had found yourself in a comfortable pattern with the boys.

Once a week, on a Wednesday, you would spend the entire day in your lab working, and at some point, Jayce or Viktor would drop by with some work for you to look through and maybe a comment or two on things you had written the week before. These meetings were usually brief as they quickly needed to get back to work, so you would spend hours going through papers, tweaking diagrams, and sometimes even trekking to the library for a book that might help them. It wouldn’t be until the sun had made way for the moon in the sky that you would be done, taking the work down several corridors and stairs to get to their workspace, where they would still be working to drop them off. The two would then call it time for a break, so the three of you would scamper your way to the cafeteria for a change of scenery while you all ate the food you packed for lunch but had yet to get to.

Today, however, Viktor seemed hellbent on breaking the schedule the three of you had unknowingly created. He had appeared at your lab, maybe a little earlier than he or Jayce usually decided to grace you with their presences, but it was of no matter to you, honestly, the earlier, the better, as it meant you may finish earlier than the hour of the wolf. He did bring a stack of papers with him, but instead of dropping them at your desk, sharing a few complimentary words, and then leaving, he dropped the work at your desk and then sat himself in the new chair he and Jayce had procured that was placed on the other side of your desk so they would have somewhere to sit, not that either of them had used it up until now.

“You alright?” you ask, grabbing the top paper from the pile, you could immediately tell this was Jayce’s as the handwriting is much neater and the use of a very inky pen you quickly grabbed your pink pen and started to read the words on the page only to look up and give the man a sarcastic glower at his lack of words to which he simply smiled, not even the slightest bit disheartened by your look.

“Jayce is off for the day, something to do with his sponsorship with the Kirammans. Told me to take the day off” he shuffled in the chair, attempting to get comfy as his hand grabbed at your notebook, deciding that he would read through some of your work for once

“And you have decided to spend your time here? Doing more work?” you questioned, though not paying the man much attention, mumbling to yourself on the words on the page, completely unphased by Viktor’s lack of decorum, it’s not as if it’s the first time he got bored and decided to read it. “Would mixing it with metal only make it more unstable?” you mutter, not expecting an answer “As an alloy, maybe, or would that make it worse..” you tap the pen on your cheek in thought before scrambling to write your thoughts in the margins of Jayce’s research

“I don’t see reading through your essays and research papers as work”, he admits, a shameless smile gracing his face as he watched you mumble to yourself “More of a palate cleanser, really”

“I just thought that a rest day was supposed to be resting, like having time away from work?” you tried to put the idea of leaving and maybe getting some sleep into the man’s head, his eyebags were becoming a permanent feature on his face like a shadow he cannot be rid of.

“Quite hypocritical, don’t you think?” a teasing look on his face at your words “Is today not also your day off?” he questioned even though he knew the answer. You simply rolled your eyes, trying to smile as he barked out a laugh.

While today was your break from lessons, it had quickly become anything but a rest day after you took the boys up on their offer, there was no way that you could complete your last year's work and help them if you didn’t give up your rest day- so undoubtedly you were a hypocrite, much to your chagrin.

“Just because I give up my days off to help you doesn’t mean you need to do the same,” you tell him, not wanting the man to feel obligated to help you.

“Maybe I want to?”

Well, you can’t argue with that.

The two of them work on your rather small desk with an ease you wouldn’t expect, but you find yourself very comfortable working alongside him and somehow, the work seems to go by faster.

Maybe it was because you wouldn’t need to spend countless hours trying to figure out what chicken scratch either of them had written on your own. Instead, a second pair of eyes, Viktor’s eyes, made the process go by much faster, albeit with some laughter at what on earth either of them had written. You had even managed a trip to the library, something you rarely had time for, usually going to pick up books for the boys the day after, or Jayce would go the day after with a slip of paper. Not only did you and Viktor have the time to pick up some books, but you also went through and verified if they could have something useful inside.

The sun was still shining bright in the sky when you and Viktor had dropped everything off at his lab, still a few hours left of the day. It was an uncharacteristically nice day outside, certainly warmer than you would’ve expected from the spring in Piltover, so the two of you decided to eat your packed lunches outside on a bench within the academy grounds, both too tired to bother going exploring the city for somewhere nicer.

“Now you have helped me, do you think I could convince you to go home and get some sleep, the bags under your eyes are also large enough to be considered their entities” You smiled, laughing quietly at the man sitting next to you as he coughed back his food, clearly not expecting your smartmouth

“As if you’re one to talk”, he quipped as you let out a shocked gasp, though quickly matching his smile

“How about I promise to go back to my apartments and take a breather if you go to yours?” you propositioned. Honestly, some time in bed sounded heavenly

“Only if I walk you back, I don’t want you to sneak back to your office, I hear you can often find yourself in places you aren’t supposed to”, he joked

“It’s a deal then” Both of you chose not to comment on the matching grins on your faces.

—

When Heimerdinger said your last year of study would be the hardest, you believed him. But never did you imagine you could be so swamped.

This past week, you had corralled a table in the library to yourself, spending more time sitting in the uncomfortable seat than anywhere else. It was deadline season, and to say it was hitting you hard was an understatement. No matter how well prepared you thought you were, the workload was unimaginable, leaving you with barely enough time to sleep or eat. Jayce had joked that during his last year, he essentially became a book within the library, and while it was funny at the time now, you understood why, feeling more and more like an encyclopedia by the day.

Luckily for you, your self-imprisonment was soon coming to an end; all you needed to do was read through your coursework one more time, and it would all be done, your last piece of work as a student of the academy. You would dwell on its bittersweetness another time as you read through another paragraph, completely absorbed in your work, completely missing the familiar sounds of footsteps and the tapping of a cane coming your way.

“I swear I need to get a tracker on you” Your head shot up at the sound of Viktor’s voice

“I’m not that hard to find”, you complain as he sits himself down in the chair closest to yours, cane leaning against the table

“I don’t think you get much of a say on the matter, your not the one who has to aimlessly wander around the academy”

“Whatever”, you glower, attempting to get back to your reading when his hand reaches out to grab yours. you jolt, looking up as he intertwines your fingers

“How are you doing be honest” he holds eye contact as his thumb rubs at your index fingers, stopping just after he knuckle before traveling back up

You smile “I’m drowning”

he hums “I can tell” You slump rather unceremoniously into your chair, eyes closed as he continues to rub affectionately at your knuckle, a half-hearted attempt to seep all the tension away from you “Have you got much more to do?” he questions voice soft

“No, just need to read through it once more, then it should be good to submit” You let out a large breath of annoyance, wishing you were finished, wanting nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep

“Then you’re done?” he probes

“Completly done, well, until my contract starts as a researcher in the summer”, you clarify, eyes opening slightly, not missing the slight smile on his face, looking down when you heard a rustling of papers only to see Viktor’s non-occupied hand grabbing at your work.

“Take a break; I’ll give it the last read-through. Knowing you, it’s already perfect.” his soft yet stern voice didn’t leave much room for argument, so you closed your eyes again, only for a moment letting the constant feel of his thumb lull you into a calm you had never known.

It was only, however, when you heard the unmistakable voice of Jayce that your eyes opened again, you sent a sheepish smile his way at the admittance that you had, in fact, fallen asleep, trying not to laugh too loudly at his remarks on how much Viktor must have been boring you, if only he knew.

—

Since you had officially handed in all your work and your classes had finished, you now found yourself with a lot of free time, a prospect Viktor and Jayce very much enjoyed. Coming every morning to your door to walk you to their lab for a day of work. Not that you minded, but before Hextech, your plans for the summer would’ve been reading or doing whatever Heimerdinger would see as befitting, so the work was beneficial to you, stopping you from going extensional on what it is you want to dedicate your academic life to, especially since you had no ideas, other than those to help the boys revolutionalise hextech, their current program with the hexgates you were sure was due a breakthrough any day.

You found yourself sat at Jayces desk, him gone for the afternoon schmoozing with some counsellors to try and get as much funding off them as he could. You found yourself tapping along to the melody of the song Viktor had put on, the only time you could have music was when Jayce was out, as he claimed it was too stimulating for him. Working exactly where the man had left off, creating a small prototype of the hexgate, one of many that were to be used in tests planned for later in the week. You barely batted an eye as Viktor appeared next to you, used to him appearing closer than most would

“It’s looking good”, he gestured to the model in your hand you simply hummed in response, adding the final gear, shoulders slumping when you put it down.

“How many do we need again?” you ask, hands rubbing at the tension in your neck from huddling to get a good look at what you were doing.

“Too many”, you groaned at his sheepish admittance. It was silent for a moment or so before he spoke again, an unknown quality to his voice that made you look up at him in confusion.

“Jayce and I were thinking..” he trailed off slightly

“Oh no”, you joked, smiling when you caught the amusement now on his face

“I know, how scary”, he smirked “Anyway, as you’re coming back as a scientist for the academy, we thought, why not make your place with us permanent.”

“Really?” you questioned, do they honestly want you to help them all the time with the work that could improve lives and be the history pages?

“I don’t think we’d be able to function without you now” he admitted

“I’d love to,” you tell him smiling

“Good”, the relief flooded the man “Because we already asked and got the go-ahead from Heimerdinger”, he confessed

“That confident?” you teased

“Obviously”

—

You thought you had done a good job at pretending that today was just any other day, but clearly, as Viktor sat next to you with a cupcake with a candle in it - you had been wrong.

“How did you know today was my birthday? I didn’t tell anyone?” you asked, astonished.

“Heimerdinger told me”, he revealed after you stared at him, clearly pleased with himself

“How does that end up in conversation?” you wonder

“Don’t be so nosey”, he teases, hand coming to grab at your nose

“Says the one who went to our mentor to ask about my personal life”, you accused, but the large smile on your face showed no malice in your words

“Touche”, he forfeited this round, lighting the candle on the cake before pushing it back into your face you simply sent him a look of victory before blowing out the candle, he quickly disposed of the candle before giving you the cake to eat

“Got any big plans for twenty-one?” he wondered aloud

“Work with you” You shrugged your shoulders, laughing lightly as you dug into your birthday cake

“A noble pursuit, I’m sure” It was silent for a short while as you finished your cake, but you didn’t make a move to speak, knowing the look on his face, he wasn’t done “Not going out celebrating? With a boyfriend, maybe?”

“No, no boyfriend, never had the time for any of that. Heimerdinger told me that when a woman dedicates her life to academia, she does not bother dreaming of a family or a relationship, and I agree not many would be able to handle it. Why do you ask?” you admit

“Don’t want to be stepping on anyone’s toes is all”, he speaks nonachanlty despite his words being anything but

“Well, your not”, you promise, lacing a hand with his

“Good” he brings your hand up his lips

—

You both had way too much stuff. The prospect of moving in together while still exciting the amount of work you had left made you gnaw at your bottom lip. You had a lot of help from Jayce and a rather reluctant Caitlyn to get the boxes into your and Viktor’s new home, and while she commented on its quaintness, it was certainly bigger than anywhere the two of you had ever dreamt of living in

“A family home”, Heimerdinger had teased the two of you when you told him, and you suppose he was right. You didn’t think much about the two spare rooms when you had purchased the house, thinking they would probably be offices, but Viktor absolute reluctance and disdain at your idea to turn one of the rooms into a library after looking at the sheer amount of books the two of you owned made you think differently, it wouldn’t take a smart man to know what he wanted to do with them.

“Stop that” Viktor pulled your bottom lip away from your teeth, an annoyed glint in his eyes, clearly thinking about how many times he had told you those same words you simply kissed his thumb, making him smile at your affection

“There’s so much to do”, you inwardly groaned as you rested your head on his shoulder, making sure not to put too much of your weight on him

“We have the week; don’t need to do it all tonight”, he reminds you, giving a kiss on the top of your head

“Come on, I’ve already started in our room” You straighten up and follow him into your room looking at the picture frames he had already put around the room, one was placed on his bedside table, a photo Jayce had taken at your graduation with your cap and gown arms warped around Viktor a huge smile, all teeth as you look at the camera while Viktor is smiling proudly looking at you, smiling at the photo you move on to the frame he placed on the dresser, a piece of paper framed within it your hands grip the frame looking at the familiar words you had written:

‘The greatest scientific ventures are the ones that bend the rules of the institution’

You turned to the man who was busying himself with a box filled with jumpers you had never seen him wear

“You kept this?” you smile as he turns around, noticing his bashful expression at being caught.

“You holding it, arent you?” he asked, trying to drive the conversation

“Why,” you asked, not giving up so easily even as he caressed your face in an attempt to distract you groaning, he relented, he could not give you what you wanted, ever so spoiled by him you were

“At first, it was to remind me that it was all worth it”

“At first?” you echo

“Then I kept it because it reminded me of you, of the future I want us to have, and that will only be possible if I kept working, even if it means going beyond the council and what they want.”

“I was only shadowing your view, what you had said to Heimerdinger, something I wasn’t even supposed to hear”, you remind him.

“Well, I’m glad you did”, he admits “And I’m even more glad that you stole Jayces book because bending the rules is what brought us together”, his hand not on his cane gripped at your hip.

“I’m glad I did, too”, you confirm your words with a kiss.

#viktor arcane x reader #viktor x you #viktor arcane #viktor x reader #viktor league of legends #arcane x reader #arcane

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osarina · 2 months ago

Text

ᡣ𐭩 AND WHEN I'M BACK IN YOKOHAMA

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: with the team sent to escort you back to the port mafia headquarters obliterated, you're on your own in a war-torn yokohama. or, well, you are until mori sends out the infamous double black to retrieve you... you almost wish he would've let you suffer out there alone.

wordcount: 10k; sfw; fem!reader, pm!reader, mentions of mafia business

AUTHOR'S NOTES: at last, we get the first meeting between pm!reader & double black. keep your eye out for two other cameos in this fic ;) i can't remember if dazai and chuuya got their moniker before or during the dragon's head conflict and i dont feel like going to go figure it out so for the sake of my sanity, their little duo started rising in infamy just before the conflict broke out.

“Oh, this is the worst,” you complain quietly, arms wrapped around your waist as you look up and down the abandoned street.

The city looks nothing short of apocalyptic with dead bodies littering the ground and buildings caved in. You can’t help but want to blow up at Mori for calling you back to Yokohama with all of this happening. The “elite squad” he had sent to ensure you arrived at the Port Mafia base safely had been all but decimated by an ability user with a penchant for arson—you only survived by the skin of your teeth, running as fast as you could down vaguely familiar alleys until you finally lost him.

You pull out your phone, trying to see if you can call Mori but only fall further into despair when you find that you have no cell service and your phone is nearly dead.

Tucking your phone back in your pocket, you let out a shaky breath as you begin to make your way down the street again, trying to figure out where exactly you are so you can get to the base as soon as possible. It’s only a matter of time before that pyromaniac finds you and your ability isn’t exactly built for self-defense or combat—you’re not sure if you can get yours activated before you’re roasted to death by the man.

You swallow thickly, anxiety beginning to spread through you as you make your way through rubble down the street. What happened? It’s all too reminiscent of that day eight years ago when Mori found you, the death and destruction as far as the eye could see—it drags up emotions you’ve long since repressed and now is not the time for it.

You’d been unable to get answers out of Mori’s men before the ability user attacked your convoy, but it seems as if the city has become a warzone—but over what? How hasn’t it reached the news outlets yet? And who are the combatants? Obviously, the Port Mafia is one of them, and you can guess that Mori called you back to Yokohama because the war isn’t falling in their favor, but who the hell is strong enough to compete with the Port Mafia, and why?

You sigh, kicking absently at a small rock as you continue down the street.

You should have been briefed. You don’t know why you weren’t briefed before being called back to the city. Frustrated, you turn down a somewhat familiar alley and lean against the wall, resting your head back against the bricks. You need to figure out what’s going on, but more importantly, you need to figure out where the hell you are so you can get back into safe territory.

You peek your head out to peer around the road—not a soul in sight in the streets, but… your gaze flickers up to the buildings, sliding from window to window until you catch sight of a figure peeking from between the blinds down to where you’re standing in the alleyway. Instantly, they let the blinds fall shut and throw themselves back indoors, but it’s too late—you’ve already spotted them.

You let out a breath of relief, looking both ways to make sure the fire manipulator hasn’t caught up to you yet before darting across the street to the building. It’s an apartment complex—the door leading into it has been half knocked off its hinges, so it’s easy to push it open and step inside.

The whole hallway has been ravaged, doors on the lower floors kicked in to reveal trashed rooms. You have to be careful not to step on glass as you make your way to the stairwell, Third floor, fifth window from the right. Most of the doors on the third floor aren’t quite as done in as the ones on the first, but only one has light peeking out from the crack.

You exhale, letting your eyes slide shut briefly before you raise your fist to knock on the door. “Excuse me! Would you mind answering a few questions? … I just arrived in the area, got caught in the crossfire of some battle, I would really appreciate the help, if you can spare any.” You’re careful to keep your voice light, gentle, and you’re even more careful to make sure your expression is smooth and unassuming when you hear the lock click open.

“You picked a god-awful time to come to Yokohama, child.” You hear an older woman speaking on the other side of the door; she doesn’t open it yet, but now that it’s cracked, you think your ability will work quickly to make her at ease. “Not one of ‘em Strain decoys, are you?”

The fact that you have no idea what she means by that is infuriating, a reminder that Mori didn’t even bother to warn you about anything before dragging you back here, but you don’t let your frustration seep onto your face.

Strain… Strain… That Australian organization? What the hell are they doing in Yokohama? Why have you been kept so in the dark?

“No ma’am, unfortunately, I don’t even know what you mean by that,” you admit, and when you hear the woman let out a heavy sigh, you know that you’ve won, sending up a silent prayer of thanks as she opens the door to let you in. “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

The woman only grumbles, but her eyes are gentle and her wrinkled face is soft as she ushers you into the room, shutting the door behind you and locking it. She’s not alone in the apartment, you notice—there’s a teen boy around your age lingering in the hallway, blonde hair cut short and glasses hanging off the bridge of his nose as he studies you with a frown.

“What are you doing out here on your own, girl?” the elderly woman asks as she wobbles after you into the main room of the apartment, ushering you to sit down. “Doppo, go get the poor girl some water. Stop acting like a lump, boy.”

The boy looks disgruntled but nods, scampering off into the kitchen as the woman turns her attention back toward you. “Well? Don’t you know? Yokohama’s no place for tourists lately. Where are your parents?”

Your smile falters, mind racing as you try to pick your words carefully. “My father is the one who told me to come back to the city. I was… not made aware of the circumstances I would be arriving in.”

“Men,” the elderly woman spits out, looking up as the boy, Doppo, returns with two glasses of water, handing one to you and one to the woman. “Take notes, boy, you better not end up like one of those useless wastes of air or I’ll put you down myself, understand?”

“Yes, granny,” the boy replies, and though he still looks distinctly aggrieved, you can’t help but feel amused by the fact that he immediately pulls out a notebook to take notes.

“Would you mind telling me what exactly… happened to the city?” you ask after a moment, taking a sip of the cool water and trying to make yourself a bit more comfortable on the sofa. “I haven’t seen anything on the news about this.”

The woman scoffs, waving her hand. “Of course not, big whigs think that they can keep it all on the low and get it under control before the incident makes it across seas,” she says roughly. “Gang wars broke out after some bastard with a lot of money died. Came in from all over to try to get their hands on the money. Whole city’s being torn apart.”

Interesting, you think to yourself, mind racing as you put together the few puzzle pieces you’ve been given. How many factions are already here? Who are they? Why did Mori call you back here if it’s already escalated this much? Your ability might be key in intel gathering and negotiations, but you’d be useless in combat.

“Our ward is under the control of some organization called the Strain,” the boy tells you. “They’ve been targeting civilians. They-”

Doppo grimaces and looks away, an angry expression crossing his face and you watch as the elderly woman reaches out to squeeze his forearm before looking back over to you. “Boy’s mother was killed by them the night the conflict broke out. I’ve been looking after him since.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” you say quietly, but he only averts his gaze from you, looking down at the ground.

Strain. You were right. You’ve heard a lot of them. They originated in the Australian underground, but they spread rapidly throughout the world—footholds in every major country, stakes in every major world event. Brutal and ambitious, you suppose you’re not surprised they came here if there’s as much money up for grabs as the woman assumes.

“What ward are you trying to get to, girl?” the woman asks you. “It’s not safe out there on your own. There are no rules or laws anymore, whole city is anarchic. You go out there on your own and you’ll be picked off by Strain.”

“I need to get to my father,” you tell her as you shake your head. The Port Mafia must be in an especially precarious position if Mori is bringing you back after the conflict has escalated this much—your heart rate spikes as worst-case scenarios start to fly through your head, wondering if they’ve been backed into a corner, forced into a position where their only option is negotiations for surrender. Logically, you know Mori would never let that happen, but it doesn’t quell the rising fear. “He’s in Naka-ku.”

You just need to know what ward you’re in and-

“You’re in Kanagawa-ku right now, you’ll never make it through it and Nishi-ku—and Naka-ku is the heart of the conflict,” the woman says as she clicks her tongue. “Stay here. You’ll be safer.”

“I need to get to my father,” you repeat again, “but thank you, really, for the offer and concern… and for helping me figure out what’s going on. I appreciate it.”

You rise to your feet to leave, and instantly, the boy is on his feet, nearly knocking over the woman’s cup of water and promptly getting whacked with a rag in response. The boy winces but takes a few steps toward you, undeterred.

“You can’t go out there,” he says, green eyes pleading for you to listen. “Just stay. Once everything’s calmed down, we can help you find your father.”

“I can’t stay,” you say quietly, wondering if Doppo’s desperation for you to stay is a result of your ability messing with his head or if he really does just have that big of a heart. You think as a thank you for their help, that you’ll ensure that Yokohama will become Strain’s grave.

The old woman makes another disparaging comment about ungrateful fathers before nodding at you. “Good luck, girl, be careful out there.”

You make it approximately seven blocks before the ability user that you thought you lost catches up to you. You think that if you die here, you’re going to spend the entire rest of Mori’s life terrorizing him as a ghost. You grimace as a wave of flames sweeps above you, you can feel the heat against the top of your head from where you’re using an abandoned car to shield you from the man, but you know it’s only a matter of time before he gets to you.

Shit, you sigh, eyes flitting around the street trying to figure out if there’s anywhere you can dart to, but the only other rubble you could hide behind is a tipped-over dumpster in an alley twenty yards away—you’ll never make it that far without something to shield you from the flames.

You blame Mori. Again. He should’ve warned you about what you’re walking into, and he should’ve sent more than just a group of second-rate losers to pick you up from the station knowing how bad the city is. Now, you’re going to get roasted alive by some psychotic pyromaniac when you should be back in Kyoto dealing with the more pleasant parts of business—wining and dining elites to strike deals and expand the Mafia’s influence throughout all of the societal spheres of Japan.

You grimace as you steady your gun in front of you, using the broken side-view mirror of the car you’re hiding behind to try to figure out where the ability user is because if you can get one good shot off you’d at least have enough time to make a break for it. You just need to focus—the Colonel didn’t put you through all of that firearms training just for you to choke up when you actually need to use it.

Your gaze tracks the man as soon as he comes within view of the mirror. You breathe in and out steadily—once, twice, three times. He’s fumbling with a walkie-talkie, distracted, and you don’t hesitate before taking the given chance. You twist into a kneeling position to face where he’s standing, raising both arms as you aim the gun in his direction; he catches your movement from the corner of his eye, expression shifting into one of anger, but you fire off three bullets before he can retaliate.

Or so you thought.

Your lips part in shock as the man whips a fireball in your direction before he hits the ground—even if you do evade it in time, it’s stronger than the rest he’s been throwing at you, it’ll blow right through the car you’re using as a barrier.

“Shit,” you breathe out, trying to take a step back but your ankle catches on a stray piece of rubble. You hit the ground hard, pain shooting up your leg and as you brace yourself for the flames, you squeeze your eyes shut.

But the agony of burning to death never comes.

Your eyes fly back open when you see someone standing between you and the fireball, the flames fizzling out and dying before they can touch him. They disappear, unable to get past him to you, and your eyes widen in shock. Who on earth… He looks over his shoulder at you, dark-hair flopping in his visible eye—he’s pretty, you think absently, even if a quarter of his face is covered in bandages. You blame your thoughts on the fact that you’re still a bit stunned and confused.

Then he opens his mouth.

“You must be the precious cargo,” he grins. “We’re here to rescue you.”

“Cargo?” You gape, offended. “Did you just call me cargo?”

“Precious cargo,” he corrects, eye turning up in amusement before he focuses his attention back to the ability user who had attacked you. “Go handle that, pipsqueak. Make yourself useful for once.”

“Shut your damn mouth, bastard,” another male voice spits from behind you, voice riddled with irritation and anger.

You look behind you to see another boy around your age with orange hair and mismatched eyes. He’s dressed more casually than the dark-haired boy, who’s wearing a black suit and tie beneath his long coat. He barely spares you a look as he steps forward, and you watch as his entire body glows red before he flies forward so fast that your eyes can’t even keep up with him.

The gravity manipulator. You’ve heard of him through Kouyou—not much, but enough to know he’s probably the strongest ability users to exist in the eastern hemisphere. Does that mean…

The dark-haired boy turns his attention to you, smile widening as he leans over you. He looks unbearably amused at your predicament, and you find yourself growing more and more incensed by the second.

“Dazai Osamu,” he greets. “You got a name, precious cargo?”

Oh.

You recognize the name instantly, eyes narrowing, and as if he can sense your sudden change in demeanor, his smile starts to fall. Dazai Osamu. The Demon Prodigy. The Port Mafia’s Black Wraith. Mori brought him in two years ago, if the rumors you’ve heard hold any truth to them—after he sent you away to Kyoto with Kitada Usurai, one of the previous boss’s executives.

You always wondered if the reason Mori never brought you back had something to do with his new protege—whether it was because he didn’t need you in Yokohama anymore now that he had “the Demon Prodigy” to be his heir or it was because he just didn’t want the two of you interacting. You never really minded; you like being in Kyoto and you like not having to be at the heart of every gang conflict that takes place in Yokohama but you can’t help the bitterness that rises now that your eyes have settled on the boy that took your place.

Before you can answer him, Dazai abruptly goes careening over to the left, hitting the ground hard. The orange-haired boy is standing where he once was, leg extended, and you realize that he must’ve kicked him away.

“Stay there and die, won’t you?” he snaps, and you glance behind him, trying to figure out if he had already taken care of the ability user that had been hunting you down. Your lips part when you see him crumpled in a pile of rubble, unmoving. “Nakahara Chuuya. You can call me Chuuya. You hurt?”

He extends his hand to you, and you take it gratefully, giving him your name and letting him help you to your feet. You stumble a bit, your left ankle buckling under your weight, and Chuuya wraps an arm around your waist to steady you.

How embarrassing, you think, thanking him quietly before easing his arm away, standing on your own even with the pain in your ankle, not wanting to come across as weak. You make your way over to where the ability user is crumpled on the ground, kneeling in the rubble next to him. You lift your fingers to his neck to see if he’s still hanging on, but there’s no pulse.

You click your tongue, having been hoping you’d be able to take him back to the base for questioning, but instead, you let your fingers drift to the symbol embroidered on his jacket and then to the two bars embroidered onto his bicep.

Strain.

The old lady and her grandson hadn’t been lying.

“You recognize the symbol?” Chuuya asks, wandering over to stand next to where you’re kneeling on the ground.

You frown instantly. “You don’t?” you ask dubiously, eyes narrowing again as Chuuya bristles at your comment.

“The conflict only just started a few days ago,” he says defensively. “We don’t have intel on all of the organizations that have showed up in the city. There are dozens of them. We’ve been more focused on trying to keep the civilians out of the crossfires at this point.”

A mighty fine job they’ve been doing at that, you think sarcastically, mind drawing back to the boy and old woman that helped you earlier and all of the destroyed buildings. You keep the thought to yourself, not too keen on antagonizing one of the people sent to get you out of this hellhole.

“That’s why he brought me back here then,” you mutter more to yourself than anyone else, rolling your eyes as you grab the ability user’s walkie-talkie and rise to your feet. “He’s a member of Strain—one of their lower-ranked ability users, if the lines on his coat are accurate. From what I’ve gathered, they control Kanagawa-ku and Nishi-ku. We should get out of the open before their stronger ability users show up.”

“I can take them,” Chuuya says confidently, looking unperturbed by your comment.

“I’m sure you can,” you say dryly, “but how skilled are you at using nonlethal force against strong opponents?”

Chuuya only squints at you, which is as much of an answer as you need.

“If we want actual, useful intel, we’ll have to capture one of their higher-ranked ability users alive. I can get the information out of them, I just need the opportunity to use my ability.” You rise back to your feet, gaze shifting around the street to try to figure out where you should hide out for the night. “Plus, night is falling, and rumor has it, Strain has an ability user that’s particularly adept with umbrakinetic abilities and I would rather not run into him. I am already tired and wounded, and I don’t know how your gravity would interact with an element unaffected by gravitational forces so we can’t rely on your brute force.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have attitude?” Chuuya scowls, disgruntled by your blunt commentary, and you roll your eyes.

“No, actually,” you say, giving him a thin smile. “In fact, I’ve been told I’m quite pleasant. I’m just in a bad mood because I didn’t realize Mori would be having me return to a warzone when he called me back to Yokohama. I would’ve appreciated a bit of a head’s up.”

Your gaze drifts back to Dazai as you speak, curious, but the boy is already looking at you, a frown on his lips and visible eye sharp. As soon as he notices that you caught him staring, his face smoothes out and he cocks his head to the side, questioning, eye too black and too empty.

Your gaze slides away from him onto what seems like another residential building behind him.

“We’ll stay there for the night.”

You wake up with a pain in your back and a headache. The fact that your ankle doesn’t hurt as badly is only a minimal consolation as you push yourself into a sitting position and rub your forehead, disoriented and confused, trying to remember where you are and why you’re sleeping on a rickety bed.

Your gaze catches sight of a head of orange hair lying in the opposite direction of you, pillow at the foot of the bed and curled close to the edge of the mattress as if trying to stay as far away as possible from you.

That’s right. You’re back in Yokohama. Mori called you back to help with this conflict. Sent the gravity manipulator and the Demon Prodigy after you to make sure you got back to the base. Your eyes linger on Nakahara Chuuya for a moment, watching the way his chest rises and falls, soft puffs of air escaping his lips—he’s fast asleep, dead to the world. So, you let your gaze drift across the room; it’s dark, no lights on in fear of drawing unwanted attention from Strain scouts if they see any sign of life in one of the abandoned buildings. You can only hardly catch sight of Dazai Osamu sitting near a cracked open window, one knee tucked to his chest while the other hangs loosely at his side as he looks outside and smokes a cigarette.

There’s an indecipherable expression on his face—a heavy look in his eyes and a downturn curve to his lips. You watch him curiously for a moment.

You’ve heard a lot about Dazai Osamu’s feats while stationed in Kyoto: ruthless, terrifyingly intelligent, willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. It took only a year of him being a member of the Mafia for him to be given control of Mori’s personal covert ops unit, and he’s been producing staggering results since. He’s the one who takes charge of eliminating organizations that you deem unworthy of associating with the Mafia but too problematic to keep around, the one who’s been opening up new distribution and trade channels for you to make use of in negotiations and acquisitions.

You suppose you’ve been working closely with him for a while now, even if the two of you have never interacted until now.

Still, the rumors that have spread about the boy are nothing to scoff at. The head of the Mafia’s interrogation unit—they say no one lasts more than five minutes in the same room with him before cracking. You’ve heard through the grapevine that the lower-ranked mafiosos are more terrified of him than any of the executives—see him as heartless and calculating, willing to sacrifice any one of them if it means furthering the Mafia’s interests. He only views people as tools, there’s no room in his black heart for meaningful relationships. No one trusts him and the longer he works for the Mafia, the darker and more unfathomable he becomes, even in the eyes of others entrenched in the dark—people keep far out of reach of him unless they have a death wish.

You study him carefully from where you’re sitting; he still hangs his jacket over his shoulders, like some sort of barrier from the rest of the world. His expression now is a far cry from the smile that had been on his face when you first saw him; his eye black and eerily still as he stares out the window, void of the gleam that had been in it before he noticed your reaction to his name.

You slide out of bed as quietly as you can, making your way over to where he’s sitting—he doesn’t even notice your approach until he catches sight of your reflection in the window, but even then, he doesn’t turn to look at you, only tracking you through the glass until you come to sit on the windowsill across from him. You tilt your head to the side as you observe him, pulling your knees to your chest.

“You shouldn’t sit at the window,” you finally say. “Someone could spot you.”

His eye is so black right now; you almost feel uncomfortable beneath his stare but you only raise your eyebrows. His gaze pointedly trails down to where you’d joined him and the corner of your lip quirks up.

“Fair enough,” you say and then hold your hand out, silently requesting for him to pass the cigarette over to you. Dazai stares at your hand for a moment and just when you’re about to draw your hand back, he finally reaches out to let you take it from him. Your fingers brush his as you take it between your index and middle fingers, the contact causing a spark to run up your forearm. You lift the cigarette to your lips and take a long drag, tilting your head back against the wall before you tell him, “You should go get some rest. I’ll take watch the next few hours.”

“Not tired,” he replies after a few seconds of silence. His voice is just as cold as the expression on his face, no hint of the playfulness from earlier in the day.

You hum, trying to decide what to say because he’s clearly unhappy and you have a feeling it has to do with how you reacted to hearing his name earlier, so you decide to be upfront, not in the mood for word games.

“I think you’re unhappy with me because of how I reacted to hearing your name,” you say, laying out the issue. His gaze snaps up to you, sharp and narrowed, lips parting to deny the allegation but you don’t let him. “I was only surprised. I didn’t mean to make it seem like I have a bad opinion of you.”

“No?” Dazai asks, a sardonic lilt to his voice, goading more than anything else but you don’t fall for the trap.

With your legs brushing, you can’t feel the familiar warmth of your ability circling through you and emanating around you, everything feels cold and empty instead, as if a part of you was sucked into a vacuum in space—the rumors must be true about him being a nullifier. You’ve never had to interact with people without your ability as a fail safe, it’s constantly active despite trying to learn how to turn it off. It’s useful though, it ensures that even if you mess up, the people around you are comfortable enough and amiable enough to not notice. They trust you without you even needing to do anything, adore you just because of the pleasant feelings your ability induces in them.

This is… different.

And you don’t think in a bad way. You’ve always wondered what it would be like to interact with people without your ability interfering, it’s why you tried so hard to figure out if you could turn it off. And… it's nice talking to someone who’s not automatically endeared to you by your ability, who you can have normal conversation with without having to wonder if they’re only talking to you because you’re messing with their minds. Even nicer than you used to imagine.

“No,” you confirm. “I’m curious about you.”

The corners of Dazai’s lips turn down even more, brows furrowing at the comment. “Why?”

“You’re not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“A monster,” you say the word absently, watching as Dazai goes rigid at it, staring you down. “A demon. It’s what everyone calls you, at least.”

“... and what makes you think I’m not one?” he finally asks, jaw tight.

Your lips curl into an easy smile again. “If you were a monster, you wouldn’t have been so bothered by the idea of me not liking you. The desire to be liked is an exceedingly human trait.”

Even under the dim moonlight, you can see the way Dazai’s cheeks burn a rosy color at your words. He suddenly looks years younger as he fumbles for words, gaze averting from you back to the window, but his reflection betrays him.

“I was not bothered by the idea of you not liking me,” he protests, defensiveness creeping into his tone as he snatches his cigarette right back from your hand as if to make a point, giving you a glare from the corner of his eye. “I was not.”

“You were also very clearly put off by the fact that I had no issue with Chuuya,” you note, biting back a laugh at the squeak-like protest that slips from his lips and the mortified expression that follows. “Jealousy, another exceedingly human trait.”

“I was not jealous,” he cries out, a bit too loud because from where he’s sleeping on the bed, Chuuya grumbles out a ‘shut the fuck up’ in his sleep. “I was not jealous.”

“It’s okay if you were,” you say, instead of indulging in his denial. “I’m not judging you.”

“I wasn’t,” Dazai hisses, more insistent now. “I don’t care if you like me or not.”

“Well, I do like you,” you tell him��honest, you’re having fun teasing him.

“You don’t even know me,” Dazai scoffs, cheeks still pink as he pointedly turns his face away from you. “You can’t like me.”

“I want to know you,” you say, tilting your head to the side as you observe him. You like observing things—it’s the easiest way of gathering information. You keep quiet, you don’t draw more attention to yourself than necessary. It’s how you’ve been able to thrive alone in Kyoto even with so many vultures circling you. “I don’t know many other people my age… none, really.”

Something strange crosses Dazai’s expression. Longing but hesitant. Wistful but reluctant, like he should know better but just can’t help himself from wanting. You’re good at reading people, you pride yourself on it; it’s another reason why you’ve been able to succeed in Kyoto alone. Dazai is difficult—he covers half of his face and he’s quick to school the other half when he slips up, but you’re observant. It’s what you’re best at.

You wonder, maybe, if Dazai has his own vultures. You think he must, he’s young—like you—and it’s probably why he uses his reputation as a shield and wears his long black coat like armor in the same way you use honeyed words and wear a saccharine smile. So, the thought must be scary to him as much as it must be appealing—the desire to have someone see him put against the fear of actually being seen as he is.

You know it better than anyone.

“Well, you can’t have Chuuya. Chuuya is my dog,” Dazai says firmly, raising his chin. “He follows my orders.”

You raise your eyebrows. “Your dog?” you ask dryly.

“My dog,” Dazai confirms, seemingly quite proud of himself. “I won a bet, and now Chuuya is my dog for life.”

“Must have been quite the bet,” you drawl, watching as Dazai brightens a bit at the topic.

“We had a contest to see who could figure out the culprit of one of our missions faster. I won, of course, because Chuuya is slow and dumb like a slug. A slug. Chuuya is a slug,” Dazai cackles, dark eye shining as his lips curl up into a wide smile, clapping his hands together. “I’m much better than Chuuya, you see. He’s a brute. He’s never had to learn to be smart or cunning because of his ability, so he just punches things around until he gets what he wants. Plus, he’s small—and if that’s not bad enough, he is more arrogant than his tiny body can hold. That’s why he’s my dog. He can’t do anything without his master’s orders.”

Dazai is not subtle in dragging Chuuya down to boast about himself, puffing out his chest like some prideful bird and lifting his chin as he speaks. You think that if Chuuya was awake to hear this, Dazai would find himself tossed right out of the window to fall two stories to the ground, but the other boy is asleep, blissfully unaware of Dazai’s rampage of insults.

“What happened during the mission?” you ask curiously, a bit interested to know what’s all been happening in Yokohama while you’ve been gone.

Dazai looks surprised as if he didn’t expect you to encourage his yapping. Then, he lights up again. “I’ll tell you all about it…”

You wonder, maybe, if the rumors of his solidarity and inability to form meaningful relationships might not have stemmed from his own volition. Rather, you think they’ve been enforced by the people around him who refuse to give him the time of day in fear of his reputation, because right now in front of you isn’t some twisted and unfathomable wraith of the Mafia.

All you see is a boy the same age as you eager to have someone new to talk to.

He talks all night.

From the moment you sat there with him at two or three in the morning until dawn, you don’t think he shut his mouth once. You hardly spoke more than a handful of times, content to just lean your head against the window and listen to him go on about all of the missions he’s had since joining the Mafia a year ago—most of them involved Chuuya, and he certainly made a show of explaining in each one why the mission would have failed without Dazai there to guide it along.

“See. This is why he’s my dog.”

It’s not until Chuuya finally starts stirring as the sun crosses the horizon does he finally quiet down, seemingly not keen on getting himself launched out a window if the other boy happens to hear one of the unsavory stories Dazai’s telling you.

Then again, his first words are pretty much asking for it.

“About time you woke up, slug,” Dazai says cheerfully when Chuuya groans and rolls over, clearly starting to wake up. His dark eye gleams as he waits for Chuuya’s explosive reaction to the new nickname.

“Hah?! What did you just call me, bastard?” Chuuya snaps, although he’s quite slow in pushing himself out of bed, sleepy and disoriented, gaze swiveling around to try to land on Dazai.

“Huh,” you say, more to yourself than them. “He is quite sluggish in waking up.”

“What?!” Chuuya demands, head snapping toward you.

On the other side of the window bench, Dazai snickers, looking mighty pleased with himself. He looks a lot more his age now, the tenseness in his shoulders has dissipated in the hours he spent talking to you, the tightness in his face has smoothed out. His eye is a lot wider and a lot brighter, the corner of his lip twitching as he waits to see what Chuuya’s going to do next. He sits closer to you now too—or, not closer, really, but he’s extended his legs out a bit as the night drew on until they were all but entangled with yours.

“You’re a slug, Chuuya,” Dazai jeers. “A slug. Because you’re small and slow. Aren’t I so brilliant?”

“I’m going to toss your shitty ass out the window,” Chuuya booms, throwing himself out of bed and darting over to Dazai, who evades Chuuya’s punch by diving off of the window bench, nearly taking you right with him considering his legs were stuffed between yours. “Get back here, you asshole.”

Dazai’s out of the room in an instant and Chuuya is chasing after him, spitting out curses and threats. You sit there for a moment, blinking, trying to wrap your mind around what just happened before just deciding to shake your head and rise to your feet. You stretch, body a bit sore from sitting in the same place for hours and tired from the little amount of sleep you got last night.

You’re ready to get back to headquarters. You want to sleep in an actual bed and you want to drag Mori for his incompetence and nearly getting you killed. You miss Elise too, even if you don’t really like what she’s become. You’re just happy to not be alone anymore—being in Kyoto was… stressful, at best, and downright agonizing, at worst. You couldn’t trust anyone, not even your ability was enough to protect you there, you had no friends, you were lonely and constantly looking over your shoulder because you had no one to watch your back—even the other members of the Mafia in Kyoto with you would’ve turned against you at any given chance if it meant they could drag themselves higher up the hierarchy.

You yawn as you leave the room, hearing the distant sounds of Chuuya kicking Dazai’s shit in. You make your way to the front of the building you guys had camped the night out, intent on getting a breath of fresh air before waiting for them to stop fucking around but you hardly get more than half a step out of the door before you’re pushed back hard against a nearby wall.

Your eyes widen when a figure manifests in front of you, particles of shadows knitting together to form a young man who seems to be a few years older than you. You barely withhold a sigh, realizing that despite all attempts to avoid him, you still managed to stumble right into the hands of Strain’s shadow manipulator—literally.

“I didn’t expect the cargo we got intel on to be a girl,” he says coolly. “I almost didn’t believe it when Anderson reported it to me. Though I haven’t heard from him in hours, I assume that’s your doing.”

“You know,” you say lightly, “this is the second time in less than twelve hours that I’ve been called cargo. I think I like it even less coming from you.”

Though you’ve heard a lot about the shadow manipulator, you didn’t know what he looked like before now—he’s quick and elusive, and those who do manage to catch sight of him are killed by him soon after.. He’s not much older than you, though—two years max—handsome enough, pale blonde hair and green eyes with tan, freckled skin.

Your lips curve up into a small smile. “Are you going to kill me or are you going to stand here with your hand around my neck? … Just so you know, I’m not into that.”

You watch as—just as you expect—he frowns deeply and takes a step back. He watches you carefully, brows knit together, and you let your ability work. Invisible threads wind around his limbs, curling up his neck twisting into his ears and nose and mouth, they curl up to his brain and take root, leaving him vulnerable to however you plan to use your ability.

You still have to be careful. You have to be subtle. Your ability is useful but it has its drawbacks—the biggest being that if you’re too sudden with it, the person you’re targeting can realize that you’re messing with their head and pull themselves out of it. That would be the worst case scenario because 1) they’d realize you have an ability and 2) you’d be in trouble.

So you resign to just tilting your head to the side as you smile—some emotions are fickle, positive ones like love and happiness, especially among people like you who don’t often feel those emotions. Negative emotions are easier in that once you send someone into a spiral of fear, paranoia or rage, it’s almost impossible for them to draw themselves out, but they’ll inevitably realize that you had done something to their head, which is not an option because your ability needs to remain a secret.

So you decide to just rely on the passive form of your ability, watching as he falls victim to it, shoulders slumping and muscles relaxing as he eyes you curiously. Your ability is non-combatant, yes, but as soon as combat is over, it comes out to play.

He’d made a fatal mistake when he chose not to snap your neck.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” you say conversationally, hands behind your back as you tilt your head to the side. “They say you’re one of the strongest ability users in the world right now.”

“I didn’t expect you to be a kid,” he says with a frown. “You’re what? Fourteen?”

You blanche. “I’m sixteen,” you protest, forgetting to keep up appearances as you stare at him, aghast. “I do not look fourteen.”

He makes a face as if he disagrees and then shrugs.

Your eyes bulge. “I do not,” you repeat angrily. “I’m sixteen.”

“Whatever you say,” he says, amused. “I’m not in the business of killing kids though, so I guess I have to take you in. What a bother.”

Your eye twitches. You’d rather die than be taken hostage by Strain and you don’t know where your shitty escorts are so you settle for antagonizing him as a means to stall.

“You’re a high-ranking member of Strain, how are you going to sit here and tell me you’re not in the business of killing kids?” you sneer. “Your organization has been the cause of more child deaths than any other in the world.”

His eyes turn to slits as he stares at you. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says coldly. “I put a stop to all of the rings in Australia myself.”

“And what? You think Strain is willing to just take those losses?” you say, an amused laugh bubbling in the back of your throat when anger flashes through his eyes. Your gaze flits down to the five lines embroidered on his jacket. “For an executive, you must not be kept in the loop by the rest of your comrades. The moment you dismantled the rings in Australia, they turned to strike a deal with Bunin—what do you think your branch in Russia does there? They’re helping Bunin expand his trafficking rings through the East and Strain cuts twenty percent of the profit.”

His hand snaps forward to grab your collar, yanking you toward him. “How would you even know that?” he spits, but from the conflict thinly veiled behind his eyes, you know that your words have taken root.

You raise your eyebrows as you look up at him, a bit too close for comfort.

“How did you know I was coming back to Yokohama?” you counter instead. He lets you go immediately, withdrawing with a closed-off expression. “Come on, we’ve both been betrayed in some manner—you by your organization, me by someone within mine. I almost burned to death because of them and you… you’ve been working for an organization that’s been lying to you for years. Let’s help each other.”

“I don’t even know if what you’re saying is the truth,” he replies tightly. “I don’t-”

“Then go find out,” you say with an idle smile, “and when you realize I’m telling the truth, well… your ability is quite handy, I’m sure you’ll be able to find me again.”

He stares at you for a moment, expression indecipherable, but after a few long seconds, he disappears in the same swirl of darkness that he appeared in and you can finally relax. You let out a heavy sigh as your shoulders slump, lifting your hand to your neck, wincing at the tenderness.

You doubt that will be enough. You’ve heard rumors that he’s Yakuza-born—only ended up with Strain after Mishima’s Sun and Steel went to war with their syndicate—loyalty is always core to those types, runs through their blood—but at least you’ve planted the seeds, and when he inevitably finds out you’re telling the truth, he’ll come crawling back for more information.

And hopefully some information for you in return.

Your gaze flits to the side when you hear a crash from your left, seeing Nakahara Chuuya fly out of the building, hands glowing red and eyes wide and wild, trying to seek out a man who’s already long gone.

You roll your eyes. “He’s already gone. Thanks for the help, O’Great Protectors,” you say sarcastically. “Really, you guys are amazing at your job.”

Chuuya has the decency to look ashamed, face flushing as red as his hair as he deactivates his ability and looks away from you. “Who the hell was that?”

“Itou Asahi,” you say absently. “Strain’s shadow manipulator—one of the strongest ability users in the eastern hemisphere right now. Mori brought him up a few times wanting me to recruit him. I didn't think I’d get the chance considering we’re aligned with the Sun and Steel and he hates them, but I might have an opening.”

Your look over to Dazai, who only frowns at your words, gaze trained on you with an unreadable look in his eyes.

“You’re hurt,” he says, brows furrowed, and you realize he’s looking at your neck.

You drop your hand from where you’d been brushing your fingers against the sensitive skin, feeling distinctly too seen under Dazai’s heavy gaze. You don’t know why you feel a bit flustered, but you do and you definitely don’t like it.

“I’m fine,” you say, shaking your head. “Can we head back to headquarters now?”

Dazai frowns like he’s about to protest, but Chuuya nods before he can.

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Headquarters is less than a mile away now. The streets that three of you are walking down are safe—none of the organizations have made it this far into the heart of Port Mafia territory—and yet for some reason, Dazai still feels incredibly troubled.

He hasn’t even been able to join in on you and Chuuya’s conversation. He’s had ample opportunity to considering how much Chuuya is embarrassing himself by trying to act smart, but instead he finds himself trailing behind the two of you, an outsider, too lost in his own thoughts to even think of trying to make a snide comment.

Why is he so troubled?

Dazai isn’t sure and that troubles him too.

He’s always been very in tune with himself. His emotions, his motives, his wants and needs—they’re few and far between, yes, but Dazai has never struggled to pinpoint them at any point in his life.

He was sad when his ability manifested and his siblings no longer wanted anything to do with him. His ability made them uncomfortable, made them feel empty because it deprived them of their own abilities. They said it was unnatural, and they said he must be unnatural too because why else would he develop such a terrible ability? Dazai couldn’t really blame them, his ability made him feel empty too—he theorizes that when it doesn’t have an ability to suck up into the black hole, it starts devouring anything else it can get its hands on, like his emotions, because he stopped feeling much at all after it manifested.

When he was twelve, he wanted to learn how to play the piano to impress his mother, though he never got the chance to show her because she was killed soon after. He hasn’t wanted much of anything since then.

When he was fourteen, his grandfather started pitting him, his siblings and his cousins against each other. His older brother drew the first blood against one of his cousins, and it was a bloodbath from there on out. With both of his parents dead and his siblings and cousins trying to kill one another to be named his grandfather’s heir, Dazai didn’t have much reason to live himself, and he definitely didn’t want to be killed by one of his siblings or cousins.

So, he thought the next logical step was to die, so he tried to kill himself.

He failed, obviously, and ended up with none other than Mori. He still hasn’t found much of a reason to keep living. Chuuya is around, he supposes, and he’s entertaining enough to mess with—it’s enough to keep Dazai going for now—and you claim to want to know him, so Dazai is interested in seeing how that plays out, but that’s beyond the point.

The point is that Dazai knows what Dazai wants. Dazai knows what Dazai needs. Dazai knows what Dazai feels. And Dazai currently cannot figure out why Dazai is troubled, so something is certainly wrong and he needs to figure out what it is.

He hears you laugh at something that Chuuya said and barely stops himself from rolling his eyes. Nothing Chuuya says is ever that funny, so you must just be being polite, but it’s still annoying. Mostly due to the fact that Dazai can’t call it out because he doesn’t even know what was said because he wasn’t paying attention courtesy of his current dilemma.

He withholds a sigh as his gaze drops to your neck, eyes focusing in on the dark bruises lining your neck—the fingerprints of that ability user form Strain that attacked you when he and Chuuya weren’t around—and his irritation spikes yet again.

At once, a lightbulb goes off in his head.

That’s what’s troubling him. He’s found himself looking back at the marks on your neck on more than one occasion, and each time, it’s triggered his displeasure. He’s not sure why it took him so long to put it together, but now lies a new issue: why is it triggering his displeasure?

He squints as he stares at you hard, willing the answer to come to him. There must be a logical reason for it, he just needs to figure out what it is. He can see you looking at him from the corner of your eye, probably wondering why he’s staring at you so intensely, but Dazai just can’t rip his gaze away, fully intent on figuring out what his problem is right now.

Casualties are expected in this line of work. Dazai has never been one to think twice when people are hurt or killed in the line of action—he’s lost many subordinates to ensure the success of a mission and has even put his own life on the line if it meant that it bettered his chances of succeeding. So he should by no means be bothered by the prospect of you being wounded, especially considering he barely knows you.

“I want to know you.”

Dazai blinks as your words suddenly ring through his head again, startled by his own thoughts. His brows furrow even deeper because no, that can’t possibly be the reason why. He supposes it might be influencing it a bit because people who want to know him are few and far between, so the thought of meeting someone who actually gives him the time of day and almost losing them right away is unfortunate. It makes sense that it’s making him more irritable, especially when it’s something he’s curious to see play out and it’s something that could’ve been easily prevented.

Oh, he realizes, suddenly satisfied as he comes to an answer that he can quickly accept, disregarding everything else.

That’s the issue—it was preventable.

Dazai should’ve seen it coming and he should’ve been quick to take the necessary steps to avoid it. What he was feeling was irritability at himself, not at the fact that you got hurt. It wouldn’t make sense because Dazai doesn’t know you and even if he did know you, casualties are expected in this line of work. But you’re his assignment—his and Chuuya’s—Dazai has never failed an assignment before, much less with Chuuya, and he’d come this close because he’d recklessly let down his guard in enemy territory.

It makes sense.

Much more than any of the other absurd explanations he’d been considering do at least.

This time when Chuuya makes a stupid comment, Dazai chimes in with some very necessary commentary, giving you a simpering smile and a wink before dancing out of the way of Chuuya’s much anticipated roundhouse.

Still, Dazai finds the troubled feeling returning again when his gaze drifts back down to the marks on your neck as he passes by the two of you with flourished spin, antagonizing Chuuya just to entertain himself with how red his face gets in embarrassment.

But his gaze darts back up to your face quickly and he shakes off the unwelcome feeling, another quip on the tip of his tongue that abruptly dies when he sees your hand pressed to your mouth as you try to hide your amusement from Chuuya. Your eyes are turned up and your smothered giggles are just barely audible, the mid-morning sun casts an ethereal glow over your face and for a moment, Dazai is entirely stunned by the sight. He nearly trips over his own foot, and since he’s unsteady on his feet, he can’t avoid the way Chuuya predictably transitions from a roundhouse into a back kick.

He goes flying backward, all breath pushed from his lungs as takes the kick to the gut and hits the concrete hard a few feet away. He should be disgruntled, or he should at the very least retaliate with another mocking jibe, but instead, he finds his gaze fixed on you, watching as you finally burst into laughter, unable to contain it with the sight of Dazai sprawled out on the ground looking like a clown.

His heart rate spikes and Dazai’s hand flies to his chest, alarmed—becomes even more so when it doesn’t settle down. He rips his gaze from you to stare down at the ground, forcibly calming his heart and only when he’s sure that he’s got it under control, he looks back up.

Immediately, he loses control over it again, and this time it feels even more erratic, each thump resonating through his ears as you approach him, giggles quieting as you hold out your hand to help him up.

For a horrifying second, Dazai thinks he might have a heart attack and that would be a lame way to go. Luckily, or maybe unluckily, he does not have a heart attack, although that means he’s probably going to have to go to Mori when he gets back to the base—death may have been more preferable to that.

Great, he thinks bitterly, not only has he had to deal with Chuuya for over twenty-four now, but now he’s going to have to go see Mori and figure out what the hell is wrong with him. Or you. He wonders if maybe you have an ability that’s somehow affecting him, that would be a serious issue for future missions that the two of you might be paired for.

But it must be that—it’s the most logical explanation.

What a mess the past day has been, but…

Dazai thinks it might’ve been worth the trouble, eyes lingering on you for a few moments longer before he takes your hand, taking note of the odd jolt that runs up his arm as soon as your fingers wrap around his hand to help him up.

He doesn’t notice that even with your fingers locked with his, his heart still beats out of his chest.

“Don’t tell me you’re over here reminiscing.”

You roll your eyes before looking over your shoulder to focus your gaze on an achingly familiar face. Chuuya drops lightly to the ground behind you, using gravity to soften his fall as he approaches you.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you reply, folding your arms over your chest as a smile curves to your lips. “I was waiting for you.”

“D’aw, did ya miss me?” he asks with a sharp smile.

You have a retort ready to fly from your lips, but instead of speaking it, you sigh and let your gaze drift across the street in Kanagawa-ku that you’re standing in. Even after all of these years, the ground and buildings are still charred where that ability user had attacked you—faded now, of course, but you can still make out the faint remnants of the attacks.

Maybe you are reminiscing, you think to yourself, a heavy feeling settling over you. If you close your eyes, you can almost picture the rubble you were hiding behind, the jolt of fear you’d felt when you realized you wouldn’t be able to dodge the next attack, and then him.

And then Dazai.

“I did,” you admit, dragging your eyes from the ground to look back at Chuuya, whose smile falters a bit before softening.

“I can’t believe Mori had you abroad for three years,” he sighs, reaching out to squeeze your wrist. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Let’s head back to headquarters and have a drink. We can put on a movie.”

“Not one of your shitty horror movies,” you laugh, knocking your shoulder into his. You lean into him a bit as he wraps an arm around your shoulders, keeping it draped around you as the two of you start to make your way back to the base.

You hesitate—and Chuuya can feel your hesitation from the way he glances down at you, concerned. He frowns and asks, “What’s up?”

You let out a puff of air and then speak up reluctantly, “Have you… heard from him? Of him?”

You hate the twinge of hope that’s audible in your voice, despite how hard you tried to rid yourself of it. You hate even more the sympathetic look that Chuuya casts you; he knows who you’re talking about instantly—of course, he does, there’s only one person it could be—his lashes lower and his arm drops back to his side.

“I saw him,” Chuuya says after a few moments. Your eyes widen as your head snaps toward him, waiting for him to continue. “... Met him. He’s part of the Armed Detective Agency now. Got himself captured by us to try to get information to help his new protege.”

“Oh.”

Your throat feels tight. Too tight. Swollen. Your eyes sting painfully and you have to force yourself to take a deep breath. The Armed Detective Agency. New protege. You don’t know if you feel bitter or relieved. Bitter because he’s found a place somewhere without you, relieved because he’s alive and okay.

His defection still doesn’t even feel real after four years, it’s not like you’ve been in Yokohama long enough to fully process it, but god… you could still imagine him coming up behind the two of you with a snide comment to antagonize Chuuya, eyes trained on you to watch the way you laugh at Chuuya’s reaction. The wistfulness hits you so hard that it almost knocks the air from your lungs—not for the first time since he left, you yearn, you miss him, you want him, and now that you’re finally back in Yokohama after so many years abroad, it’s all the more intense.

How unfair, you think, nails biting into your palms as you stare ahead.

“Do you think he’s replaced us?” You try to keep your voice light, but you think you fail.

Chuuya lets out a bark of laughter. “He can certainly try.”

Your lips curl up at Chuuya’s words, gaze flickering down to the ground. “Yeah, you’re right,” you agree quietly before asking, “Did he seem… okay?”

Chuuya rolls his eyes. “I’m not talking about that shithead anymore,” he tells you. “I’m sure he’ll come looking for you now that you’re back. Let’s go home now, yeah?”

The thought of Dazai coming to look for you makes your stomach twist with anxiety; after so many years apart, you just don’t know what to expect… but you suppose you’ve never really known what to expect from him, so you’ll just handle him the same way you always have. Except maybe not as kindly.

But you don’t have to worry about that yet. Instead, you smile and bump shoulders with Chuuya again.

“Yeah, let’s go home.”

#dazai x reader #dazai x you #dazai osamu x reader #dazai osamu x you #bsd x reader #bsd x you #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungo stray dogs x you

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zvdvdlvr · 5 months ago

Text

to the heart

cred: @/cafekitsune

Being John’s wifewho is a badass cook and finally meets the team!!

Your mother always said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Being married to the one and only John Price could only further confirm her statement.

John was a military captain- forming, training, and leading men and women into missions that could very well take their lives. As well as gain muscle and a family, military folk also gained an iron stomach. At least in John’s case.

The way he casually scooped up half the lasgma in the big pan made you wonder how he had survived off of packaged meals. John just shoveled down mouthful by mouthful as you eargerly awaited his reaction. Making something John wouldn’t like is borderline impossible, but you wanted to make only the best for the man that protected you and your loved ones in ways you couldn’t even imagine.

When John finally asked you if you’d be open to meeting the men he unofficially adopted, you were immediately filled with a mix of excitement and anxiety. Your husband had refrained from the gory details of the missions he preformed but entertained you with stories of his team goofing off or doing something impressive (John was more proud of those men then he let on and you could tell). He had told you that the way he had described your cooking had the men salivating.

You had decided to make a classic meal on the evening they were to dine with you. A simple but tasty spaghetti and meatballs dish. For the side- recipe you’d seen from Instagram- you cooked up a dozen fluffy pull-apart garlic/cheese/butter muffins (all dishes were John approved, of course, he’s eaten everything you’ve made). You debated a salad, but figured you’d just offer instead of set out a bowl in case they didn’t want any lettuce or anything.

John pulled you out of the kitchen when he heard the sound of an engine come closer to your secluded country-side home. “They already love you with the way I talk about you, love. Don’t worry your pretty little head,” he murmured, pressing a sweet kiss to your forhead as he les you out to the porch.

Eventually you found out John was exactly right. You greeted everyone with a hug- which was surprising to you that Simon seemed to melt into you like he hadn’t felt a good hug in years because, according to the stories John told you, Simon was anti-touch. Kyle was a sweet young man and you could tell how mich he admired John. Johnny was a handful, you observed. He immediately started taking cracks at Simon after he pulled away from the bone-breaking hug he gave you and recieved a sharp punch to the shoulder.

“Plates and bowls are right there. Silverware’s on the table,” you said, gesturing to the respective items. “Come on, J,” you said, urging your husband up from his spot at the table.

John carried your plate and his in one hand and weapped his hand around your waist with the other. “Are you doing alright so far, love?”

You nodded with a bright smile. You easily got along with John’s teammates and they seemed to get along with you. And you could only hope that they liked the food you made.

Luckily for you, though, you didn’t have to wait long for your answer.

You were sitting down in your seat beside John when you heard a noise that sounded like a gasp and a whimper.

Two spots to your left, the fork in Johnny’s hands shook as he chewed.

“Is- Are you okay?” You asked skeptically. You’d avoided using any foods you’d known they were allergic to, so what was the problem? Did he not like it? Did the spaghetti go bad? Were the meatballs moldy? Did you add the wrong spices to the pull-apart muffins?

“Lass… I need you to send me ma this recipe. I don’t- this is- serve this at my funeral, cap, bury me in this,” he babbled as he shoved forkfuls of noodles into his mouth.

You breathed a sigh of relief, incredibly grateful for Johnny’s compliment and reaction. You looked at Simon and Kyle. To your surprise they too practically licked their playe xlean before bouncing back up to get an even bigger heap of spaghetti.

John watched you through moist eyes and soft smile. The way you fawned over his team like a mother duckling made his heart race in ways he didn’t know was possible for a man his age. He didn’t have to tell you how much he cared for Simon, Kyle, and Johnny. You knew because you always knew- even when John couldn’t form the words to say anything. Seeing you all interact made his heart swell. John felt complete; pure, even. At times he wasn’t sure if he deserved this small but solid family, but he knew he would fight tooth and nail to protect each and every one of you.

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marauroon · 7 months ago

Note

hello !!! can i request a right person, wrong time with siri? maybe they broke up because of the war... and the reason is because siri doesn't want to put the reader into danger and then they meet again, all grown up and they still have feelings for each other and Siri has to grovel to win reader back again? And it ends with a happy ending (please) (Siri was the one who broke the relationship and reader was really hurt) it's very long yet vauge 😅

A CALL TO ARMS — S.BLACK

sirius black was the love of your life, and you were his. but sometimes higher priorities—and deep-seeded anxiety—can get in the way. but the invisible string of fate always brings people back together.

cw — fem!reader, details of the first wizard of war, reader and sirius have a messy and complicated relationship, harsh arguments, character death mentions, happy ending

sirius black x reader || hurt/comfort || 6.2k || requests open!!

a/n — let’s just pretend sirius doesn’t get avada’d like three weeks after this fic ends

The war put a strain on everybody. Some people had to leave their families to join the fight, some had to hide away to protect themselves from the Death Eaters.

Some didn’t have a family, anyone to worry about them coming home at the end of the day.

They threw themselves into it the hardest.

Then there was you and Sirius, a pair of outcasts who found solitude in each other. A pair who paid no greater devotion than protecting the people that you cared about from the ravages of Voldemort’s uprising.

You were barely eighteen when you both joined the Order, fresh out of Hogwarts and straight into the line of fire after the group had been offered a spot in Voldemort’s army and refused, leaving every one of you with a target on your back.

By the time you were twenty it almost seemed fruitless, with James and Lily being sent into hiding to protect them and their son under Dumbledore’s direct orders under fear for their continued safety and a Fidelius Charm placed over them to keep them safe. Sirius denied being their secret keeper with the explanation of it being too obvious a choice. What a mistake that was.

Then order members started dying.

And it all began to fall apart.

The brass framed picture in the entrance of the Black family home offered Sirius no empathy as he escaped the bitterness that October was serving him, the laughing faces of his friends and self-proclaimed family only serving to make his already dwindling morale dampen further.

Twenty-two people in the picture. And how many remained? Fourteen. In the span of five months.

It was Dorcus and Marlene that really did him over, and he could barely so much as glance in the direction of their hopeful smiles without feeling like he was going to throw up.

The trudging of his feet up the wooden stairs was proof enough of his arrival for any present members of the Order to hear, too fatigued and all together bleak at the continued state he was living in to announce his presence verbally.

“Sirius, sweetheart, you’re home thank goodness,” Not even the warmth of your arms around him or the relief in your voice as you pulled his head into your shoulder could satiate him anymore.

You shouldn’t have to be relieved that he walked through the door.

You shouldn’t have to hug him like it’s your final goodbye every time he leaves.

Every time you leave.

You didn’t deserve that. And neither did he.

“Godric you’re freezing, come and sit down,” You pull Sirius into his childhood bedroom with all of the care of a feather floating on a pool of water, squeezing his hands in yours like you’re trying to transfer your own heat to him.

He follows you with no real resistance, though he doesn’t make any move by himself, and you have to push his shoulders down to get him to sit in front of the lit fireplace that would hopefully quell the chill echoing across his skin.

You help him remove his coat with a sigh, dark frown lines marking your features as you take a seat beside him and rest the side of your head against his shoulder, your hand gently tracing over his to capture his palm in your own. He doesn’t return the small squeeze of your fingers.

You can’t blame him for being so dismal, the situation was something that nobody could make it through without a gargantuan crack in their emotional shield, but seeing Sirius display his almost funereal sentiment so fervently without so much as a hint of a mask was devastating.

Displaying even the tiniest glimmer of hopefulness was what allowed the Order to survive for so long, and Sirius couldn’t even muster that.

“Harry said his first word today,” You try to keep the conversation positive, ignore the downfall of everything around you and keep focusing on the small wins. “Dada of course, apparently Lily was pretty miffed,” You punctuate your sentence with a small laugh, although it’s more pathetic than genuine and even you can tell you’re doing a horrible job of trying to uplift Sirius’ spirit.

“They sent over a picture, Remus has it if you’d like to see—”

“Just stop.” Sirius shakes his head sharply, pulling his hand from yours and standing with his back to you.

“Sirius—”

“I don’t know why you keep trying to pretend that everything’s okay, it’s not. Our friends are dying and you’re acting like its completely fine.” There’s more malice in his voice than he’s intending, and logically you know that he doesn’t really mean to get so angry at you. It wasn’t you that was the problem, it was the world in which you were living.

But logic can often times get overridden by other facets.

“I am trying to stop anyone else from dying.” Your words are more desperate than harsh, and they’re not laced in anger like Sirius’ are, but they carry just the same amount of conviction. “If we lose hope then we may as well just hand ourselves over…”

There’s a stuttered exhale as you trail off, and Sirius swears he hears your voice crack as you try to take his hand in yours again. “I can’t bear to see you like this…”

“You should leave the Order.”

You’re almost not sure you heard him.

“What?”

“You don’t belong here, you’re not fit for this,” He sounds almost resigned, and his shoulders drop just enough that you’re not sure he really believes what he’s saying. “You should leave before you get hurt.”

There’s a moment where all you can really do is let out a breath of astonishment, and then there’s an overwhelming need to defend yourself against Sirius’ accusation. “I am perfectly fit for this, Dumbledore agreed that—”

“Well I don’t agree with it!” He cuts you off harshly, turning around so that you can see the anguish that’s drenching his features. “People are dying, our friends are dying, and you are on the goddamn list of whose next.”

He takes your upper arms in his hand and shakes you like it’s going to make you see his point, practically shouting at you as he desperately tries to get you to see his point of view. “You are a brilliant witch, and you are in so much danger that it makes me want to rip my heart out so I don’t have to worry about you any more—”

His rant doesn’t stop once his hands halt, and they stay gripped uncomfortably tight around your biceps to the point where you’re sure it’ll bruise. “Dorcus died because she was brilliant, Marlene died because her father was a muggle, you are like the two of them wrapped up in a package practically serving yourself up to the Death Eaters every time you step out of this goddamn house and I cannot take it anymore.”

Sirius practically pants as his yelling comes to a halt, and he almost immediately regrets getting riled up as he sees the reflection of the fireplace in your glassed over eyes.

“I love you. I love you so much and I can’t live like this anymore.” His hands move from your arms to cup the sides of your face, and you flinch at the contact like you’re afraid he’s going to hurt you.

It breaks Sirius’ heart.

“The Order is falling apart love… I don’t want you to be here when it collapses,”

You pull his hands from your face with yours at his wrists, shaking your head as you blink through clouds of tears. “I’m not leaving the Order, Sirius. You really think I would abandon my friends like that? My family? You?”

“Then I’ll make one of the hard choices for you,” Sirius lets his hands fall to his sides on your prompting, taking a step back from you to hide them in the pockets of his jeans. “I’m breaking up with you.”

“What—” There’s nothing but absolute betrayal written across your face, and Sirius almost breaks down immediately. “Sirius—”

“If you want to stay here and watch shit hit the fan then be my guest, but I will not put myself through watching your downfall.” He doesn’t give you the courtesy of replying before opening and slamming the door behind him as he leaves, but you’re not sure you’d be able to articulate anything even if he did, your only response being the start of a sob that echoes off of the empty walls and back into your ears to amplify your own anguish.

You move your belongings out of his room that same evening, taking refuge under Remus’ open arms as you cried yourself into an uneasy slumber, so emotionally exhausted that you could barely formulate any sense of coherency.

Lily and James died two days later.

The news hit you like a truck when Dumbledore relayed it to you, and whilst most of the Order were left in a blanket of shock, Sirius took off in a rage before he could even finish his sentence.

It was enough for you to push the grief aside to not cost you any more.

“Sirius wait—” You weave your way through the others and past Dumbledore to rush after him, the first words either of you had spoken in the other’s direction since the argument. “Where on earth do you think you’re going the Death Eaters might still be there—”

“I hope they are.” Sirius’ tone drips with venom as he pulls his motorcycle helmet from the coat rack at the front door, and you just barely catch his wrist before he has the chance to leave.

“You’re going on a suicide mission—”

“They murdered my brother, I have nothing to lose.” He again leaves the conversation with a slammed door, and you don’t know whether the possibility of his death or the fact that he’d seemingly accepted it hurt you more.

He had nothing to lose.

It was the biggest insult he could’ve possibly left you with.

And it’s all he did leave you with.

For twelve years.

You grieved the loss of Sirius like you did James and Lily, like he too had entered into an early grave of which he would never return. Azkaban may as well have been.

You were angry at first, disgustingly loathing the thought of what those twelve poor muggles had to endure as their final moments. You were less empathetic towards Peter’s fate, although your grief for him was replaced with a deep-seeded betrayal that sunk into your muscles all the same.

Then it settled into an uneven weight in the bottom of your chest, something that you carried with you from that point onward.

You moved out of England soon after, with nothing but a silent vow to Remus that if Voldemort were to ever return, that you’d be there, a final standing against the allegiance that stole your life from you.

You couldn’t stay there anymore, every street of London reminded you of him, of them, of all the people that you lost and how the prime years of your young adulthood were unceremoniously ripped from you under the false belief that you could actually make a difference.

As weeks turned into months, and then into years, there were days that passed where you didn’t think of what happened, of how your previous life had fallen apart and left you as a shell of yourself, and eventually, you managed to pick up the pieces and live your life like it hadn’t happened.

Apart from a single shard of your heart that had lodged itself at 12 Grimmauld Place, underneath the black silk sheets you and Sirius once shared.

You were thirty three when a letter from R.J.Lupin was sent through the letterbox of your house, and it was like those twelve years of growth and acceptance disappeared in an instant.

—

‘I hope this letter finds you well, I know I promised to contact you only for something of the upmost urgence regarding the resurgence of you know who, but I believe this is appropriately important.

Wormtail is alive. He was the one who caused those muggles to die without reason. Which leaves no question of Padfoot’s innocence.

I don’t know if you have kept up with the wizarding news, but he escaped from Azkaban, and is in a safe and secure location known only by the Order.

I understand if this news is too much for you to digest, but he has asked me personally for your consideration in returning to the place where everything began.

Yours sincerely,

R.J.Lupin’

—

The aftermath of your reading was a mess of shallow breaths and an elevated heart rate.

Panic.

You hadn’t felt so horrible since the day that James and Lily had died, the day one of your closest friends betrayed you and the love of your life was taken away presumably to never be seen again.

And now he was just out there? You were just adjusting to living without him, and now he was being thrust back into your life by his own doing.

He threw you away right before your house of cards toppled, and now he was trying to worm his way back into your life?

It took you almost three weeks of staring at the sheet of parchment before you made a decision, and it ended with the letter going up in flames and you watching on with a sunken expression, no tears left to cry over the man who’d ruined you.

All of those months where you’d pondered, where you’d asked yourself over and over again what might’ve happened if you’d have just not spoken to Sirius that day, if you’d just let him rest like he’d obviously wanted rather than try pathetically to lift his mood.

If it might’ve meant he would regard you as something to live for and stop him from blindly running off to avenge James and Lily without a second thought.

All of it went straight down the drain. Because you could have him back if you wanted. But you didn’t. You didn’t want to go back and see him again because the minute his name invaded your mind all you could think about was that god awful argument and it’s aftermath.

And it ripped you apart every single time.

—

“She’s not coming Pads…” Remus’ hand on Sirius’ shoulder was almost apprehensive as he gave it a soft squeeze.

It was almost three months of having to watch Sirius treat the front door like it was his lifeline, his head turning at the smallest creak of the wood in the fruitless hope that when it opened you would be on the other side.

“I know…” Sirius lets out a small, pathetic laugh as he rakes his fingers through his hair, his facade of indifference threatening to break with every breath he took. “Can’t blame me for trying though right?” His voice betrays his devastation, tone wavering and quiet, cracking when he tries to push it to sound more convicting.

“Pads…”

“I’m fine,” Sirius shakes his head with a dismissive hand, clearing his throat and blinking away the starts of tears from the corners of his eyes. “I’m gonna go get some sleep, gonna need all I can get if we’re gonna fight these sons of bitches hey?” Sirius nudges Remus with his elbow as he plays a characature of his former self, although it’s poorly executed at best.

“Yeah…” Remus consciously suppresses a sympathetic sigh that tries to escape his mouth, pressing his lips together. “Goodnight Pads,”

“G’night Moony,”

—

There’s eighteen months of radio silence before another letter is slotted through your door, and you have half the mind to burn it on sight when the familiar red seal is left face up on your patio tiling, but the handwriting on the back wasn’t Remus’, and it was definitely not Sirius’ either.

The scrawl of your address was almost unmistakably Dumbledore’s, and you were left in an emotional state of uneven limbo as you debated why he of all people would be personally sending you a letter.

Logically, you already knew the reason, but your brain chose to ignore that logic as you ripped the envelope open, only for that denial to be thrown right back at your face once the seal of the Order inked itself into the folded parchment.

You didn’t even need to read the letter to know what was inside it.

Three words.

Invitatio ad arma.

A call to arms.

You barely remember packing your bags, leaving the sense of normalcy you’d built over the past fourteen years to throw yourself back into the line of fire and more devastatingly, right back to Sirius Black.

The train ride to England almost felt like a fever dream, your body left in a state of dissociation where you couldn’t discern whether your actions were real or just a part of some vivid nightmare that you couldn’t wake from no matter how much you tossed and turned.

And by the time you reached the front door of number 12 Grimmauld Place it felt like you were right back where you started, just barely twenty one thrust into a war that could leave you in your grave at any unfortunate minute.

It felt almost foreign to you as you entered, the hallways that once proved to be your substitute home reduced to unfamiliar sights covered in dust and peeling wallpaper. There was no brass lamps to warm the sight, no picture of your closest friends on the wall, not even the mirror that had been hung beside the door had survived, reduced to a half shattered mess that hadn’t been replaced under higher priorities.

“Oh—” The slightly surprised sentiment draws you away from your almost depressing nostalgia, drawn instead towards an almost perfect capture of teenage James Potter, down to the slanted circular glasses sat over his nose bridge.

It’s enough for you to genuinely consider for a second that you’d actually stepped back in time, right into your graduation year when you were all so young and full of hope.

But it couldn’t be James. As much as your heart desperately wished it was.

“You’re another member of the original Order of the Phoenix right?” The boy takes a few steps towards you, wonder still lingering in his eyes despite the film of knowledge that cloud them. Knowledge of just how unfortunately dark the world actually is. “It’s nice to meet you, I’m—”

”Harry…” Your interruption is barely more than a breath of air as you take in the sight of one of your closest friend’s child, a child that he never got to see grow into an almost perfect replica of himself. “You look just like your father…”

There’s a mix of shock and a small amount of sadness in his expression at your statement, and it’s enough for the glimpses of Lily to shine through in his demeanour. “Thank you,”

It’s enough for your eyes to well with tears, and you blink them away with a small clearing of your throat to regain your composure in front of the boy. He didn’t need to see you cry over the fact that he looked like one of your dead friends with the personality of another. That wasn’t fair.

“It’s nice to finally meet you Harry, properly,” You extend your hand almost hesitantly as you introduce yourself, and he takes it graciously in his own with a small sympathetic smile. Being proxy comforted by a teenager, how pathetic.

“It’s nice to meet you too, my parents have good friends,” You give the boy a small nod with a small, sad smile, and he mirrors it himself in turn.

“I’m so sorry, you didn’t deserve any of this,” You let your hand rest on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly in a terrible attempt at consoling the sadness riddling his expression. “You’re just a boy Harry,”

“I know,” He gives a small sigh and a more confident smile, sympathy lingering in the creases of his cheeks in a perfectly Lily fashion. “I’m sorry for your loss too, I know they probably meant a great deal to you,”

“They still do, that’s why I’m here,”

“Thank you,” He sounds more confident in his thanks this time, more determined, and the remnants of his parents continue to show on full display as his focus returns to the reason you’d arrived here in the first place. “We’re about to sit down for dinner, join us?”

“I’ll be there shortly,” You give Harry a small nod and another small squeeze of his shoulder before excusing yourself up the stairs to leave your belongings.

—

“Good evening everyone,” Your voice is taught and awkwardly flat as you push open the door to the dining room, and you stand there with your hands wrung together behind your back as your eyes flicker over the room.

There are so many people that the table is almost entirely too crowded, and a mix of familiar and unfamiliar faces in your presence, although those who do recognise you leave their seats almost immediately to greet you properly.

“It’s good to see you,” Remus reaches you first, wrapping you in a secure hug that you happily return with your own.

“It’s good to see you too, Remus, it’s been too long,”

“Welcome back, we need all of the human shields we can get,” Mad Eye’s reuinionative statement is much less heart felt, but you give him a small laugh and a “Thank you,” nonetheless.

Then there was Sirius. Stood at his chair, not daring to walk into your little bubble under fear of whatever consequences that might come from it.

He looked almost as you remembered him, but he was leaner, more gaunt, his hair more unruly and his skin even more paper-white than the almost impossibly pale complexion of his teenage years.

He was still Sirius, but he was different, and it took less than half a second of eye contact for him to realise that you were different too.

“Welcome back,” His voice is hesitant, almost catching in his throat as his brain catches up to the fact that you’re stood in front of him, less than ten feet away after all of those years he’d spent desperately dreaming of what it would feel like to have you in his arms again.

Now you were here. And you were a stranger.

“Thank you,”

Dinner progresses pretty much how you expected, a mix of awkwardly introducing yourself to the Order’s new members and horrifically failing at avoiding eye contact with Sirius from across the table.

Then the topic of interest moves to the Order’s plans, and things seem to spin into a downwards spiral all too quickly.

“We don’t have enough members to reliably be able to pull this off,” The argument was entirely valid from a logical standpoint, a weakness that quite a few of the Order seemed to have choice opinions about.

“Yeah well we’re not getting any new members are we?” Sirius leans back in his chair exasperatedly. “With the way Fudge is portraying Dumbledore and the lack of official credibility, we’re on our own here, there’s no use in waiting around,”

“I’m inclined to agree, we all know you know who isn’t going to waste any time,

“It’s reckless,” You shake your head with furrowed eyebrows. “We not ready to face something like that head on.”

“We’re never going to be ready,” Sirius shakes his head with a sigh. “We have to take action before he has the chance to build himself back to where he was all those years ago.”

“Sirius is right, we need to do something,” Sirius gestures towards Harry’s response like it’s the final nail in the coffin against your reasoning.

“Harry, sweetheart, I appreciate your enthusiasm but you don’t know the extent of what we’re dealing with,” Your voice is as gentle as it is assertive, not wanting to put him down too much but also wanting to make sure he understood the true extent of what was going on.

“He killed my friend in front of me—”

“And he’s killed dozens of ours,” You shake your head softly but firmly. “Jumping in without a plan is only going to make things worse, trust me.”

He seems more than a little shot down, but he gives you a small nod of understanding nonetheless as he backs down from his standing.

Sirius doesn’t pay you the same mind.

“So you’re suggesting we just wait in hiding for what, forever? We need to act,”

“The last time you ‘acted’, Sirius, you spent twelve years in Azkaban for it.” Your rebuttal holds none of the softness that was present when you were talking to Harry, and you can see it eroding the calcified shield behind Sirius’s eyes.

“That wasn’t my fault,” Sirius presses his teeth together to keep himself from raising his voice, his back straightening alongside his defensiveness. “At least I’m trying to do something, if you don’t want to contribute maybe you shouldn’t be a part of the Order at all,”

“I will not have this argument with you again Sirius!” His chastation seems to finally get under your skin as you rise yourself from your chair with your hands on the dining table, ignorantly ignoring the uncomfortable gazes of everyone else present as you’re forced back into that evening fourteen years go all over again.

“Okay, I think it’s time we called it a night,” Remus, seemingly the only normally functioning person at the table, rises from his chair slowly, taking your shoulders in his hands to guide you away from the group and calm you down.

“Yes right you are Remus,” Molly stands up with a nod that’s almost too enthusiastic clasping her hands together. “Off to bed, all of you,”

You can practically hear the lingering exasperation in Remus’ breathing as he leads you up the stairs and into the room he was staying in, and the second he shut the door behind you you knew what you were in for.

“You need to speak to him.”

“I know,”

“Properly.”

“I know,”

You’re sure the sigh you let out echoes across the house’s first floor, and it’s enough for Remus’ eyes to shift into displaying a concerning amount of sympathy in your direction.

“He misses you, you know,” Remus takes a seat on the edge of his bed with a soft sigh. “He said the thought of seeing you again was the only thing that got him through Azkaban,”

“Yeah well he wouldn’t’ve gone there in the first place if he hadn’t’ve been such a hot-headed twat,” You wouldn’t lie that Remus’ statement didn’t hit you a little where it hurt, but the lingering anger towards Sirius’ situation was clearly still more forefront in your mind.

“It’s a carried trait in all of us ’m‘fraid,” Remus tilts his head knowingly, and you have half the mind to roll your eyes at the clear implication of what he’s saying.

But he isn’t wrong, not really.

“You know where to find him,”

There’s a small moment of silence, then a sigh. “Do I have to?”

“The longer you wait the worse it’ll be,”

Sometimes you hate how logical Remus can be.

With another sigh and a loll of your head, you reluctantly stuff your hands in your pockets and turn towards the bedroom door, muttering a soft—and only half genuine—“thanks,” in his direction as you leave.

The wooden door that barricaded you from the former love of your life felt more like steel than anything else. Tall, dark, and intimidating to the point where you couldn’t even consciously lift your hand to knock against it under the blood rushing behind your ears from how fast your heart was pounding in your ribcage.

It really shouldn’t be so scary, you’d spent weeks, months in that room when you’d originally joined the Order, yet now it felt entirely foreign to you.

Maybe it was the fact that the wood was slowly rotting away with how unkept it was. Maybe it was the knowledge of what—who—was on the other side of it. Or maybe, your mind was just so completely and utterly fucked that the idea of confronting the consequences of your own actions was more nerve-wracking than the idea of standing face to face in a death match with Voldemort himself.

You stand there staring dumbly at the door for almost two minutes, and when it opens your eyes widen like it’s a new form of magic that you’d never encountered.

Sirius halts halfway out the door, arm stretched straight with the doorknob still in hand as his face seems to go through an insurmountable number of emotions in the half-second it takes for him to realise you’re there.

You don’t say anything as you make eye-contact, head immediately ducking downward and stepping aside so that he can leave without you blocking his path, but he just stays there, staring at you like you had been the door, and it was becoming increasingly uncomfortable by the second.

You clear your throat with a feigned cough, pursing your lips together with a muttered “excuse me,” as you turn around to leave, but Sirius catches your wrist in his hand before you even manage to take the first step.

“Wait—” He loosens his grasp almost immediately after he feels a resistance, but his eyes convey just how determined he was to keep you where you were. “Let’s talk, please?”

There’s a hint of desperation in his tone, and you almost crumble on that alone, but you manage to maintain your composure with a small shake of your head and a gentle pull of your wrist from his hand. “I don’t think it’s worth it Sirius, not anymore,”

“Don’t say that, we can fix this,” Sirius mirrors your head shake with his own. “You just need to talk to me,”

“I tried talking to you Sirius, and look where it got us,” You gesture between the two of you with exasperation in your tone.

There’s a small pause where the two of you share and almost identical mask of composure over your agony.

“It just wasn’t meant to be, that’s it,”

“That’s not true,” Sirius shakes his head again, more confidently this time, and his inky black curls bounce against his shoulders like they’re trying to torment you with the memories of your fingers raking through them. “We can fix this, us, we just have to try,”

“I don’t want to argue with you anymore,” You lower your gaze away from his so you don’t have to see the heartbreak in his irises. “Especially not over this…”

“Then don’t, let’s work this out properly, like adults,” He reaches out his hand cautiously towards yours, and you flinch away as your fingers make contact. “Please,”

“Sirius…”

“I’m sorry.” Sirius lets out a heavy, pathetic breath as he retreats his hand to run it through his hair. “I am so sorry. I made the biggest mistake of my life and it cost me the person that I love more than life and I have suffered the consequences of it every day for the last fourteen years.”

Sirius lets his hands fall to his side with a start, voice beginning to tremble under the strain of his emotions as he desperately tries to voice everything that he’d bottled up over the last decade and a half before you leave him to rot in his own depression again. “I spent every hour in Azkaban imagining what it would be like to see you again, to hear your voice, to hold you and tell you that you’re the one thing in this goddamn hell that we live in that actually makes anything worth fighting for,”

The breaths between his words are shallow and weak, and your expression starts to blur as his eyes glass over with the beginnings of tears. “I love you so much, and I’m so— sorry that you had to live through everything I forced on you and I just—“ He takes a sharp, stuttering breath in. “—I need you to know that I will spend the rest of my life devoted to you, to correcting what I’ve done even if you don’t so much as spare me a glance,”

He’s not sure when the tears started running over his eyelids, but he can feel them fall in drops to dapple the ivory skin of his fingers. “And if I die tomorrow, I’ll take whatever punishment hell has to give me so that you can rest easy,”

The end of his rant is echoed by laboured breathing and a horrific attempt at muffling a sob that leaves his throat, bouncing off the walls of the hallway to settle into your muscles as you stand stationary in an astonished silence.

You’re not sure what to say. You’re not sure there’s anything you can say. How on earth are you supposed to respond to something like that? Something so desperate and raw and real?

Sirius Black, after fourteen years of radio silence, still loved you like you’d never parted.

“Sirius…”

And you’d be absolutely damned if you weren’t the same.

“I forgive you…”

It’s like a tsunami of relief ravages Sirius’ body at your words, barely a whisper escaping your mouth but invading his ear canals like a nuclear explosion, and it’s enough for that sliver of composure remaining to erode under the waves of his tears until he’s sobbing into his hands, hunched over with trembling shoulders as he lets everything go all at once.

“I’m so sorry—“

His final apology is doused in so much heartbreak it might as well rip your heart right out of your chest, and your at his side almost immediately, gently pulling his hand from his face to pull his head into your shoulder with a soft shush of consolation.

He clings to you like it’s the last time he’ll ever get the chance to, tears damping the shoulder of your shirt and his arms wrapped so tightly around your torso you’re not sure he intends to ever let go. You’re not sure you’d complain if he didn’t.

That familiar musky scent of cigarettes and faux leather hits your nose once he’s close enough, and that’s where you break too, silent tears streaming down your face as you bury your nose in his hair.

You’re eternally grateful that everyone on this floor of the house is already asleep, either that or just polite enough not to interrupt the two of you out in the hallway, because the state the both of you were in was definitely not meant to be seen by other people.

A desolate, broken side to the two of you only trusted in the company of the other.

“Stay with me tonight, please…” His plea is barely more than a mutter against your shoulder, and you’re sure he wouldn’t even have to ask to know what your answer would be.

And so you find yourself back where you started, tangled up underneath the silky black sheets of Sirius’ bed in the warmth of his embrace, that tiny shard of your heart finally recovered and back in it’s rightful place.

Right where you belong.

#marauders #marauders fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #sirius black x reader #sirius black #sirius black angst #asks 🪶

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embbarnes · 2 months ago

Text

Cut Your Hair.

summary: You help Bucky cut his hair.

warnings: Comfort | Mentions PTSD & past trauma | Post!Endgame

a/n: I wanted to write a blurb exploring the emotions around his hair for fun. I imagine this time frame is after Endgame, you are living in his apartment in NY. I used a lot of symbolism because I love to include it in fics. Anywayy unedited, so ignore mistakes. wc: 2.3k

You returned to your apartment after a particularly fruitful grocery shopping trip, managing to get all the necessary items for your planned dinner. New York had been experiencing a notable shortage of certain food products recently, so you felt especially fortunate to have acquired all the ingredients on your list. The scarcity had made simple shopping trips feel like treasure hunts, with each found item a small victory.

As you entered the living space, your arms laden with bags full of your culinary prizes, you called out, "Bucky? I'm back!" Your voice carried a mix of excitement about your successful foraging and the slight strain of carrying multiple heavy bags. With a relieved huff, you practically dropped your burdens onto the kitchen counter, the plastic rustling as it settled. You looked forward to telling him of your success, but you hadn’t heard him reply.

The apartment remained eerily quiet in response to your call. The silence was unusual and slightly unsettling, given that Bucky was typically quick to greet you upon your return. Your brow furrowed in confusion and a hint of concern as you scanned the room, anxiety began to creep its way through your body while an assortment of negative thoughts flooded your mind. "Bucky?" you called out again, your voice tinged with a note of uncertainty.

Still, nothing.

Now you started to worry.

You cautiously maneuvered around the counter, your footsteps deliberately quiet as you navigated through the dimly lit living space. The short hallway stretched before you, leading to the bathroom and one of the bedrooms. Your heart raced with each step, the silence of the apartment amplifying every small sound. As you approached, a sliver of light caught your eye - the bathroom door was slightly ajar, a warm glow spilling out into the darkened corridor. A wave of relief washed over you, causing your tense muscles to relax ever so slightly. You exhaled deeply, your hand instinctively moving to your chest as if to calm your pounding heart.

"Bucky," you called out, your voice a mixture of relief and lingering apprehension, "Shit... you really scared me there." The words hung in the air, met only by an eerie silence. Seconds ticked by, and still, there was no response from behind the partially open door. A creeping sense of unease began to settle in the pit of your stomach as you stood there, waiting for a reply that didn't come.

"James?" Your voice quivered with concern as you gently rapped your knuckles against the door. Hesitantly, you pushed it open, the hinges creaking softly. The sight that greeted you made your heart ache in your chest. There he stood, hunched over the bathroom sink, his posture a blatant portrait of distress. His hands, knuckles white with tension, gripped the edges of the ceramic basin as if it were a lifeline. You worried his metal hand would break the fragile ceramic but it looked like he had more self control for the moment. Bucky's head hung low, curtained by the long strands of his hair that fell forward, obscuring his face from view. The absence of his shirt revealed the taut muscles of his back, adorned with long scars, each one rigid and fairly faded, but still there.

No matter what he did to try to scrap them away, they were still there.

Your eyes were drawn to his hair, the ends were jagged and uneven, as though hacked at in a moment of impulse or desperation. Littering the bottom of the sink were the casualties of this impromptu haircut: dark locks intermingled with the gleam of small fabric scissors, splayed against the white porcelain. The air hung heavy with an unspoken tension, leaving you frozen in the doorway, unsure of how to proceed.

"Bucky...what did you do?" You inquired softly, your voice barely above a whisper. Your hand moved with cautious deliberation, gently alighting on his shoulder. The moment your fingers made contact, you felt his muscles tense beneath your touch, a reflexive response to the unexpected contact. However, within seconds, the tension melted away as he seemed to recognize you.

Silence hung heavy in the air for what felt like an eternity. Bucky remained motionless, his gaze fixed downward, avoiding eye contact, but eventually he lifted his head ever so slightly. His icy eyes, brimming with an unspoken emotion, met yours in the reflection of the mirror before you. He looked so distressed, his face splotchy and flushed with an angry red, eyes were puffy and swollen from the tears had been running down his face before you came in. His bottom lip protruded slightly in a dejected pout, completing the picture of a man clearly grappling with some internal turmoil.

"What happened?" You prompted again, you kept your voice low and patient. Your words came out as a soothing murmur, not wanting to cause any distress to him, since he was clearly struggling. You felt his body tremble under your hand, your heart broke seeing him like this.

"Don't..." he began, his voice trembling with apprehension. He paused, swallowing hard as if to gather courage before continuing, "Don't be mad..." The words escaped his lips in a barely audible whisper, laden with fear. His entire demeanor spoke volumes, suggesting he was terrified of your potential reaction to something he had done or was about to reveal.

You felt your brow furrow involuntarily as you processed his words, your eyes instinctively seeking out his face once more. The fear etched across his features only deepened your concern.

"Why would I be angry?" you asked, your tone soft and reassuring. "You haven't done anything." Your words were meant to soothe, to dispel the cloud of anxiety that seemed to envelop him. However, your attempt at comfort appeared to have little effect.

He shook his head vigorously in response, the sudden movement causing several stray locks of hair to cascade from his head, pieces he had evidently cut himself - some still clinging stubbornly to his remaining hair.

"Because you cut your hair?" you asked, your voice a mixture of concern and curiosity. The question hung in the air, heavy with unspoken emotions.

He nodded weakly, sniffling to clear his nose. The gesture was small, but it spoke volumes about his emotional state. You sighed softly, the sound barely audible in the quiet room. You reached up and ran your fingers through his still long, but much shorter locks, noting how they now only reached his jaw in some spots, and past his shoulders in others. The texture was different, unfamiliar from the choppy cuts he gave to his hair, clearly indicating his anger towards it.

"You've let it grow out a bit," you observed, your tone careful and neutral. Your fingers continued their soothing motion, offering comfort without words. After a moment of contemplation, you spoke again, your voice soft and reassuring. "I'm not mad, you know. It’s your body, you can do whatever you want with yourself, remember?" You paused, considering your next words carefully. "Do you want some help with it? Maybe we could style it together, find a look you really love, instead of letting you stay like this."

He remained silent for a beat, contemplating your words with a furrowed brow. The weight of his long, unkempt hair seemed to press down on him, both physically and emotionally. An overwhelming desire to rid himself of this burden consumed his thoughts. He yearned to feel the liberating sensation of shorter hair, to shed the heaviness that had settled upon him like a thick, suffocating blanket. In his mind, cutting his hair felt liberating. He had been stripped of all bodily autonomy for so long, this was something he wanted to do. For himself.

His head inclined, giving a sharp nod. "Yes...yes, please..." he replied with a soft rasp, "Cut it all."

You were certainly no professional hairdresser, but with the assistance of a few hastily searched tutorial videos on YouTube, you managed to grasp the basic concepts and techniques. The shorter hairstyle he wanted alleviated a lot of pressure you had to make it perfect, so a quick cut and shave would be easy compared to any sort of specific styling. As he settled into the chair you pulled into the bathroom, you grabbed the scissors and let out a deep breath to calm yourself.

Carefully, you began the process of trimming away at his dark, lustrous locks, cutting the long pieces away with scissors first before you'd clean it with a buzzer. Each calculated snip was made carefully, regularly checking in with him to make sure he was still doing fine. You found yourself completely engrossed in the task, paying close attention to maintain an even trim.

The freshly cut strands danced through the air for a brief moment before gently descending to the cool tile floor of the bathroom. Upon contact with the ground, the severed locks curled and twisted, creating an abstract pattern around his feet. The contrast of the dark hair against the light-colored tiles made your heart throb, the meaning behind cutting his hair away was much deeper than any outside eye could comprehend.

You didn't notice his tears at first, but as more of his hair fell away, the evidence of his emotional turmoil became undeniable. His shoulders quivered beneath the weight of his feelings, the internal struggle becoming more visible to you. You maintained your composure, focusing on the task at hand, your fingers steady as they continued to work through his locks. Dark tear trails etched paths down his cheeks, struggling with handling it all on his own.

When you finally reached for the electric clippers, the soft click as you turned them on echoed in the silence of the bathroom. He closed his eyes then, a gesture of surrender or perhaps trust, allowing you to proceed with this final, most drastic stage of the cut. The gentle vibration of the buzzer filled the air, a constant, reassuring hum that seemed to ground you both in the present moment. Bucky gave the occasional sniffle, the emotional undertones of this act filled both of you.

With a final buzz, you switched off the clippers and gently placed them in the sink. Your fingers glided through his freshly trimmed hair, feeling the soft, short strands beneath your touch. The cut was perfect - a smile played on your lips as you admired your handiwork, you were proud of yourself. "Wow..." you breathed, your voice barely above a whisper, "You look just like that old photograph I have of you. It's like stepping back in time." Your words were soft and full of gentle admiration. Softly, you encouraged him to open his eyes, eager to see his reaction to his new look.

"What do you think, sergeant?" you asked, your voice tinged with anticipation as you waited for him to fully take in his reflection. As he gazed into the mirror, a profound sense of unfamiliarity washed over him. The face staring back was simultaneously familiar and foreign, he didn’t react like you expected but honestly…what did you expect? He looked disoriented and unsettled by his own reflection.

It felt so... strange, almost surreal. The sensation was akin to looking at a photograph of a long-lost relative, recognizing traces of familiarity but ultimately confronting the reality of a stranger. It felt like he were dreaming, seeing a resemblance of the man he once was - a version of himself that now seemed to belong to a distant, unreachable past.

The realization that this former self was now forever out of reach hit him with unexpected force. He knew he’d never be the person he was again, but seeing himself like this just…felt so sudden. Bucky felt the sick twinge of grief, as if he just lost a dear friend or a beloved family member, but the person he was mourning was his former self.

He had once cherished his former self, but that version of Bucky had long since vanished. HYDRA, black tendrils wrapped around him with its insidious grasp, had extinguished his essence, snuffing out his very being like a feeble, flickering ember desperately clinging to life in the face of an unforgiving winter storm.

Bucky found himself irrevocably altered. No longer was he the vibrant, spirited individual of his past, now reduced to nothing more than a charred remnant of his former self - a piece of blackened charcoal, devoid of the warmth and light that had once defined him. The flames of his identity, once burning bright with passion and purpose, had been mercilessly extinguished, leaving behind only the cold, lifeless ashes of who he used to be.

The cold consumed him, trapping him in a relentless, chilling embrace. Cryo never truly left him, the sensation continued to maintain its icy hold on him, refusing to let go. But, you...you were what he needed more than anything else in the world. You taught him what it was like to have a gentle touch, to be loved and cared for no matter what he did in his past.

You were patient.

You were loving.

You were nurturing.

You helped him throughout his long and dreary recovery, standing by his side throughout every visit to the doctor or hospital, the endless nights where he couldn’t sleep, the panic attacks that left his throat raw and eyes burning. When the days seemed darkest for him, you were there to thaw the ice that had frozen him for so long.

Winter slowly began to surrender to the bloom of spring, and you were the greatest force of nature he knew.

Bucky's voice emerged as a soft whisper after several minutes spent silently staring at his reflection in the mirror, the steady stream of tears cascading down his face had been completely unnoticed to him. You gently wiped the tears away, your thumbs tenderly brushing against his cheekbones as you dried them with care and affection.

“It’s perfect..”

Thanks for reading. -em 🌿

Dividers by @/strangergraphics | Cover images from Pinterest

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes one shot #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes fanfic #the winter soldier #the winter soldier x reader #the winter soldier x you #winter soldier #winter soldier x reader #winter soldier x you #james buchanan barnes #james buchanan barnes x you #james buchanan barnes x reader #james buchanan bucky barnes #emwrites🌿

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darlingsblackbook · 1 month ago

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Right Next Door

Simon Riley x Reader

Summary : Your mysterious neighbour helps you out when a date goes wrong, what happens when you try to befriend him?

Warnings : Creepy guy, Simon Riley, Delusion

°•♡○° Masterlist °•♡•°

The air was biting cold as I climbed the steps to my apartment building, my heart pounding as I tried to maintain a polite smile. The date had been a disappointment from the start, but I’d wanted to see it through, thinking maybe I was just nervous.

Yet, every attempt to cut the night short had fallen on deaf ears, and now he was right behind me, insisting on escorting me all the way for my own 'safety'.

I fumbled with my bag, pretending to search for my keys. “Thanks for the evening,” I said, hoping he’d take the hint and turn around.

“Oh, don’t thank me yet.” He laughed, sidling a little too close, his shoulder brushing mine. “The night doesn’t have to end here, you know. Let’s go to yours for a nightcap.”

I forced a laugh, swallowing down the anxiety building up. “I… don’t think that’s a good idea.”

His face shifted, a flicker of annoyance crossing his expression. “Come on,” he murmured, edging closer, his hand reaching to touch my arm. “We had a nice time. You can’t tell me you didn’t feel it too.”

I forced myself to meet his gaze, my voice firm. “I’m just… not interested in taking things further tonight, maybe another day.”

His smile faltered, frustration creeping into his tone. “What’s the problem? You were all smiles back there. Now you're not interested?"

I tried to step back, but he mirrored my movements, closing the space between us as I reached my door and closing in on me. "You know it's not fair to lead a guy on, right?"

My fingers finally found the keys and I gripped it tightly between my fingers, trying to resist the urge to ram it into his eyeball.

He trespassed the line even further as he leaned in, his gross breath burning against my cheek. "Just one kiss,” he muttered, his hand pressing against the doorframe to cage me in.

Panic flared as I shook my head. “Please, I’d rather you didn’t. I just… don’t feel that way.”

His expression darkened, eyes narrowing as he leaned even closer. “Teasing me all night just to leave me hanging, huh? That’s how you get your fun?”

I felt the words stick in my throat, my pulse racing. His voice grew harsher, thick with frustration as he got angrier. “You think you’re too good for me? That it?”

I barely had a second to process his words when a shadow appeared in the hallway, and I felt a wave of relief and fear as I recognized my neighbor—Simon Riley.

The big guy who had moved here a few months ago, aside of the few times we passed each other in the hallways, I rarely saw him. He was always quiet, I've never heard him talk and not a peep of noise was heared through the walls.

Something about his size and the dark clothing he always wore ( and the usual grumpy expression on his face ) had, for some reason, caught my eye. Maybe it had something to do with all the books I read with the typical older grumpy man and the sweet sunshine girl trope.

That trope was unfortunately a guilty pleasure of mine, having always wanted to feel safe, protected and taken care of by someone. Someone in whose presence I could just turn my brain off without a worry and know I'll be fine

Maybe those desires were born from my feelings of loneliness and my hard time in making friends. Maybe, it was because I wanted someone to love and accept me as I am and see me as me and still fully and wholly love me.

Sometimes, when I would just think and daydream of having such man, I couldn't help the flashes of my neighbours face in my mind. I wanted to actually love and be loved so badly instead of just imagining it, so I had decided to go out for the first time in a very long time, unfortunately I just ended up putting myself in this situation.

But, as I saw Simon standing in the doorway of his flat, right next to mine. His presence as imposing as ever, I was immediately swarmed by images of being wrapped up and safe in those tree trunk arms- ( valid )

His gaze was calm, but the tension radiating off him was anything but. He took a step forward, his voice low and laced with quiet authority that made my brain tingly in all the right ways.

“I think you’ve overstayed your welcome,” he said, voice gruff and cold. “Leave.”

My date turned, his confidence faltering for the first time, though he tried to laugh it off. “And who are you, her guard dog?”

Simon’s jaw clenched, and he took another slow step toward him. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll walk away. Now.”

The guy scoffed, glancing at me as if I would defend him, but I could only stare, feeling my pulse in my throat as Simon’s presence loomed, unyielding and almost terrifying in its intensity.

“Fine,” the man muttered, backing away with a huff. “Good luck with that one. She’s just a tease anyway.” He threw a final look over his shoulder, muttering curses under his breath as he disappeared down the stairwell.

I let out a shaky breath, the tension in my body finally loosening. My eyes met Simon’s, and for a moment, I was acutely aware of how close he still stood, the quiet strength and warmth radiating off him.

“Thank you,” I murmured, voice barely above a whisper.

Simon’s gaze flicked over me, taking in my tense posture, the unsteady breaths. “Get inside,” he said softly, his tone softer but still firm. He didn’t move, just kept watching, waiting until I stepped back into my flat.

I wanted to say more—to thank him properly, to explain—but my voice failed me. I just nodded, stepping back into my apartment as he remained outside, a silent sentinel. As I closed the door behind me, I felt the echo of his presence linger, leaving me wondering who Simon Riley really was behind the walls he kept so carefully constructed.

°•♡•°

I leaned against my door, heart still racing from the confrontation with my date. What just happened?

I pressed my palms to my cheeks, feeling the heat rising in them, embarrassment crashing over me in waves. I wanted to scream at myself for letting things get so out of hand.

Why hadn’t I been firmer?

My date’s cruel words echoed in my mind. “Teasing me all night…” Had I really been that confusing?

I knew I had always had a hard time speaking to people, but I did not think I had been teasing or anything alike at all. In fact, I was pretty sure I was keeping my distance the whole night.

I sank down to the floor, knees pulled to my chest, wishing I could disappear. It wasn’t the first time I had been made to feel this way, but it hurt more than usual. I hated that I had let him walk me to my door, thinking it would be harmless, but now, all I felt was a sense of violation mixed with anger.

But as I replayed the events of the night, my thoughts drifted to Simon. The way he had stepped in, fierce and unwavering, how his presence had made me feel safer. His intense gaze, the way he commanded attention without even trying, sent a flutter through my chest. Why did he even care?

In the days that followed, I found myself stealing glances at Simon whenever I heard him in the hallway or caught sight of him through the window. He always seemed so focused, moving with purpose and intensity that made my heart race. He was intimidating but also…protective. I couldn’t help but admire the way he carried himself, confident and strong, making it hard to believe he even lived next door to me.

I found myself thinking about him more than I wanted to admit. What was it about him? There was something in the way he furrowed his brow when he was deep in thought, or how his lips curled slightly when he was amused, that made my heart skip a beat.

I’d catch myself daydreaming about what it would be like to get to know him, to see the softer side that lay beneath his tough exterior.

But would he even be interested in someone like me?

One evening, as I sat at my kitchen table, the smell of cookies wafting through the air, I decided I needed to make a move. Maybe a little gesture would help break the ice. I figured I’d bring him a treat and see how he responded. I hesitated, biting my lip as I gathered my courage, reminding myself that it was just cookies, not a marriage proposal.

After baking, I carefully placed the cookies in a small tin and knocked on his door, my heart pounding. I waited, second-guessing myself. What if he thought I was a silly little girl for doing this?

When the door opened, Simon stood there, dressed in his usual casual attire, the warmth of the lights behind him casting shadows across his face. “Yeah?” he asked, his deep voice grounding me despite the chaos in my head.

“Um, I made some cookies,” I stammered, holding out the tin. “I thought you might like some.”

He glanced at the tin, then back to me, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said, though he accepted it without hesitation. The briefest smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, and for a moment, I felt a flutter of hope.

“I just wanted to thank you for helping me the other night,” I added quickly, my cheeks warming under his gaze. “You really saved me.”

He nodded, but the moment felt fleeting, like catching smoke in my hands. “No problem,” he said, his voice steady. “Just doing what I had to.”

And just like that, he closed the door, leaving me standing in the hallway, heart racing, filled with a mixture of elation and disappointment.

Was that all?

I turned to leave, feeling a knot of longing tightening in my chest. I wanted more than just a quick exchange; I wanted to be seen by him.

In the following days, I couldn’t help but keep an eye out for him. Each time I spotted Simon in the hallway, my heart raced, a blend of hope and anxiety filling me. I’d muster the courage to say something, anything, to bridge the gap between us.

“Hey, Simon,” I’d manage, my voice barely above a whisper as I tried to catch his eye. He’d glance my way, a quick nod, but his focus would shift immediately, and I’d feel that familiar pang of rejection in my chest.

Days turned into weeks, and I found myself trying harder to initiate conversations. I would catch him on his way to the gym or returning from work. Each time, I’d greet him, my heart pounding, and every time, he’d respond with a grunt or a nod. I wanted to learn more about him, to break through the walls he had built around himself, but he always seemed to have somewhere to be.

One afternoon, I spotted him in the hallway, leaning against the wall, scrolling through his phone. My pulse quickened, and I took a deep breath. “Hey, Simon! How was your day?” I asked, attempting to sound casual.

He looked up, a flicker of surprise crossing his features before he replied, “Fine.” He didn’t elaborate, and I felt a heaviness settle in my stomach.

“Just…fine?” I pressed, hoping to elicit more. “Did you have a busy week?”

He sighed, shoving his phone into his pocket. “You could say that.”

I bit my lip, trying to think of something else to say, but the silence stretched awkwardly between us. “Well, if you ever want to talk or hang out, you can—”

“I’m not looking for friends,” he cut in, his tone sharper than I expected. “I did what I had to out of duty. Don’t think about it too much.”

The words hit me like a punch to the gut. I could only stare at him, my heart sinking as his gaze shifted, avoiding mine. “It’s nothing personal,” he added, but it felt cold, devoid of the warmth I’d hoped for.

“I understand,” I managed, my voice barely above a whisper. My hands trembled slightly, and I fought back tears as I watched him step past me, leaving me standing there, shattered.

I felt the weight of his dismissal settle heavily on my shoulders, a reminder of how invisible I really was to him. My heart ached, not just from his words but from the reality that I would never be more than an afterthought to Simon Riley.

As I stepped into my flat, the door closing behind me, I sank down against it, tears slipping down my cheeks. I had wanted to be seen, to have someone recognize my worth, but instead, I was left with the painful truth: Simon didn’t want me around, and that stung more than I could express.

Each encounter with him became a reminder of my own insecurities, and the ache in my chest grew heavier with each passing day. I felt lost in the maze of my feelings for him, unable to reconcile the admiration I felt with the reality of his indifference.

All I wanted was a connection, but somehow, it felt as if I was always reaching for something just out of my grasp, destined to remain alone while he moved on, unbothered by my existence.

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keepingitformyself · 11 days ago

Text

especially for tender ones like us

A/N: hehehehehehehehehehehehe synopsis: humor, anxiety, and the salvation of love.

pairings: natasha romanoff x reader

genre: fluff.

warnings: no?

MASTERLIST

please do not repost my work anywhere for any reason at all. if you do see this happen to any of my stories, please let me know. thank you x.

natasha tries not to stumble over her words when she suggests staying in, instead of going out. she does not mean to, but she does.

how could she not? could you really blame her for wanting a quiet night? something that isn’t so public. she wanted to see you, of course, but she wanted to see you in a space you could be comfortable in, without any of the outside world and free from any distractions.

you listen intently through the other line, you fight the giggle at catching her little stutter. she can’t see, but you smile widely at the whole thing.

“yeah, we can stay in. i can cook us dinner,” you nod. natasha’s shoulders drop in a quiet sense of relief at your words. her lips curl into a smile. “i’d like that. i can’t wait.”

although this would only be the fourth time you had met up together, to natasha, it felt like the first every single time.

you continue talking for a little while more. natasha shares details about her day, work, and what she ate during lunch. she tells you how on her way to grab her usual coffee order, an americano, she decided she’d switch her order to a matcha latte after having had you recommend it to her. she tells you,

“it was good, but not nearly enough caffeine for me to keep up with,” she said, her tone light but teasing. and while it hadn’t become her new favorite drink, just knowing she’d tried it for you was more than enough. her words sent your thoughts spiraling, a warmth blooming in your chest. you were certain that if she were standing next to you, you wouldn’t hesitate to kiss her right then and there.

but you can’t do that so instead, you just fall back on your bed like a high schooler talking to her crush.

when you finally do meet up the following evening, natasha is buzzing with nerves she doesn't understand. she has taken down whole regimes and has fought aliens from space, yet she seems to draw the line when it comes to facing you.

she knocks on your door, her other arm clutching a brown bag containing wine and flowers. a reasonable offering if you’re having dinner with someone you want to impress.

when you answer the door, you're wearing a cream-colored knit sweater.

“i thought i heard pacing out there.” you joke.

natasha’s cheeks flush as she tries—and ultimately fails—to fight the smile tugging at her lips. “i wasn’t pacing,” she says, though the slight crack in her voice gives her away.

you step aside and invite her in, and neither of you acknowledges the quiet intimacy of the moment. it feels like more than just dinner, more than just a simple evening in your apartment.

you’re about to cook for her, and somehow, that feels monumental.

natasha’s nerves are a mess, though she can’t quite figure out why—or maybe she can. maybe it’s the way your presence makes her feel unsteady, as though the ground beneath her shifts whenever you’re near.

but natasha doesn’t want to be nervous.

she saw once—a penguin mistaking a sleeping walrus for a rock. the penguin had been caught completely off guard when the walrus stirred, nearly crushing it before it scurried away just in time.

natasha had found it funny at the time, the way surprises can sneak up on you. but now, thinking about it, it doesn’t feel so funny. it feels… unnerving.

surprises are bad for the heart, she thinks. she’s been taught her whole life to avoid them, to anticipate every possibility before it unfolds.

but knowing too much, being too prepared—that can hurt, too.

her thoughts are interrupted by your laughter, light and unburdened, as you guide her toward the kitchen. your smile is so easy, so genuine, and she can’t help but feel how good it is to exist in this space with you.

she offers to help you cook, but you shoo her away instead. you make her watch.

she sits there, with her hands on her lap, and just stares. and she can’t help the look of longing on her face. the kind of thing that suggests she wouldn’t mind this being a constant.

you made pasta for the evening. nothing too spectacular, but natasha had treated it like you were a top chef and had spent hours crafting everything with your bare hands.

and then once you’ve plated food for you both and you’ve gotten down to a few bites, you notice the small sigh natasha lets out. the flutter of her eyes as she takes in the meal.

you smile at her reaction as you move some of the food with your fork.

“do you like it?”

she looks at you, mid-chew, her mouth stuffed with the food, but she manages a smile.

“yeah, uh, yes it’s good. it’s so good,” she says, hand over her mouth.

you continue eating, talking about everything and anything. the night was filled with small moments that would bleed into much deeper ones. you laughed, she smiled, you smiled, she laughed. the kind of things one feels they become when around those who make you tender.

and you don’t know how or when but you try not to notice how little by little natasha seems to retract a little.

you decide maybe she needs a small moment for herself and start cleaning up the table. she offers to help, but you wave her off, insisting she relaxes.

she tries to, but realistically, natasha doesn’t know how to relax. so she sits back and stares at you like she isn’t sure what to do with herself. she isn’t used to this at all. spaces like this–warm, cozy, comfortable.

the impending guilt comes. it’s all so layered. she feels so much at once. the nervousness, the anxiety, the fear of loss, the fear of not being present enough.

natasha doesn’t know how to be here without sacrificing so much.

after a while, natasha speaks up.

“i should probably get going.” her voice too casual to sound like she meant it. she tries not to notice the look of disappointment on your face when you turn around to face her.

“you don’t have to.” you find yourself saying, not wanting her to leave.

she hums, something that says she’s already made up her mind. she gets up and gathers her things.

you follow her to the door, or at least try to—but you pause at the end of the hall when you see her linger near the door, uncomfortably. unsure if she should leave.

you call her out on it. “you can stay longer if you want.”

natasha wrestles with herself because she really wants to. she looks at the door as if it’d answer for her.

you’re letting her know.

natasha feels awkward, clammy hands. she doesn't know what she’s doing. and it’s hard to think of anything else when your eyes are screaming, don't actually leave, at her.

you look at her carefully, trying to see if you can find any clear indication of what she may be feeling, but it isn’t hard to figure out the redhead in front of you.

you’ve noted quite quickly how easy it comes for her walls to lower when you’re around. and if there’s anything you’ve learned from that, it’s that natasha romanoff isn’t the trained killer everyone thinks she is.

sure we all have certain versions we show to certain people. but the natasha you know is anything but rough-edged. the natasha you’ve come to know is actually quite the opposite of what everyone else perceives.

she’s tender, in her own silent way. too afraid to ever let too much slip away that she’s so painfully aware of everything around her.

natasha is tenderness wrapped in quiet strength, a paradox of someone who feels deeply but guards herself fiercely. she sees the world clearly—the beauty and the harm—and carries that weight like a constant ache.

like she knows the world hurts more for those most aware of hurt.

her tenderness isn’t soft; it’s sharp, vigilant, always bracing for the pain that comes with letting others in. you can see it in the flicker of her gaze, the way she hesitates as if expecting the world to hurt her.

and yet, she doesn’t harden. she holds onto that fragile, open part of herself, even when it would be easier not to. it’s beautiful and a little heartbreaking.

natasha looks up at you, then back down at her hands. just above a whisper, she says,

“i don't know what i’m doing.”

“that’s the most fun part.” you joke. she smiles, she doesn’t know how to say she wants more time.

how could she say she feels greedy at this moment? she wants to protect being here with you. we have such little time, she thinks.

bashfully, she steps closer to you, “i don't want to go.” she says.

“then don’t.” and natasha almost complies. instead, she takes a step closer, her hand lifting towards your cheek. she’s so close now.

she kisses you, soft, and shy, but you make her feel sure when your arm circles her neck, deepening the kiss altogether. when she pulls back, her forehead rests against yours, she lets out a shaky breath.

“maybe i’ll forget my scarf,” she murmured, a small smile tugging at her lips.

“please do,” you replied. please leave your scarf, please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of leaving. please always come back. “that way you’ll have to come back later for it.”

and just like that, her quiet uncertainty washes away.

she takes her scarf off and drops it near the door. you follow her actions, you smile, amusement in your eyes.

later that night, when natasha gets home, she texts you.

i forgot my scarf.

you reply, you’ll have to come get it then.

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #black widow #black widow x reader #marvel #natasha romanoff imagine

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anticipatecrime · 1 year ago

Note

Hello! I was wondering if you wrote for Johnnie Guilbert? If so, I was gonna request Dating Headcannons for him :D !! ( Only if you’re comfortable, ofc! )

𝙙𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙣𝙨 | johnnie guilbert

a/n: yes i love him <3 take some little dating headcanons, (sorry its short)

•you either meet johnnie from my digital escape, which was a collabrative youtube channel with alternative people

•or he first sees you on omegle while streaming for the first time, shocked to see a punk person

•he gives you his instagram that day after talking with you for sometime and you start dming

•he was quite awkward and shy when you first started talking and calling on the phone, not used to this

•it took a long time of being friends with johnnie for him to ask you out, but you were okay with that because it was worth it

•after my digital escape you didn’t continue with having a social media presence other than instagram

•he never made it a thing to announce it to his viewers, he just kind of included you in videos, and people understood you were together

•at the start of your relationship, he never wanted to be touchy in public or do pda but the more he fell in love with you he didnt care about other peoples opinions

•he would definitely hold your hand, and kiss your cheek, but the rest was private

•would never admit it, but he was a hopeless romantic which means he would always be trying his best for you, and wanting to be near you

•when filming for his youtube or his friends, he would always invite you along, and it was beneficial for both of you, it helped his anxiety and it made you feel included

•he would deal with constant looks and sometimes laughter when he would go outside or go on omegle, but he would never let it get to him, just turning it into a joke

•but when people would comment on your looks, he’d be more harsher and protective

•after a long day of filming, he would collapse into your arms, and cuddle with you, saying he wishes he could just stay there forever

•you would totally go on late night walks or adventures with him to seven eleven

•date wise, he would always get creative and find stuff to do with you

•you both liked going to a different cafe every week or so, ordering something new and just enjoying your time together since you were both busy working most days

•but he still loved just watching netflix on the couch with you, having a night in

•eventually you found a show you both loved, and now you wait to watch it together every friday evening

•he wasn’t one for outside activities, but you encouraged him to go hiking and rock climbing with you and he began to like it.. other than being sweaty and the mosquitoes

•you guys would totally share music, make playlists for eachother and johnnie would eventually encourage you to start singing because your voice was one of his favourite sounds

•he would take you to his favourite bands concerts and gigs, and you would do the same, him loving all of the music you listen to

•as a tattoo artist, you would totally design tattoos for him, and find ideas for his merch line

•he was never one to take things super seriously, but when it came to your relationship, and thinking about the future, it was always thought through

•when you got a cat, he was googling everything to do with the breed, the best food it should eat, healthcare information, which may seem normal, but tell that to the 11 pages of cat research on your living room coffee table

•when you got your first apartment together, no longer having to be in the same space as his roommates, it was such a relief

•he would wait by the door, with your cat, longing for you to come home from the tattoo parlour, and when you did he would be all over you

•i dont care what anyone says, he would be so clingy, just loving your presence

•his love languages are definitely quality time and physical touch. acts of service is up there though

•he loved feeling appreciated

•he would be the sweetest and just the perfect person to be in a relationship with.

#johnnie guilbert #johnnieguilbert #johnnie guilbert headcanons #johnnie guilbert x reader #my digital escape #mydigitalescape #jake webber #yung scuff #anticipatecrime

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silliewrites · 3 months ago

Text

If I could save time in a bottle...

summary: [Platonic Logan Howlett x gn!reader/ famillial dynamics} After the passing of your parent figure some years ago, your friend Wade comes back from a deadly mission with a replica of him. You also soon learn that someone that is definitely not Wade has something to do with the mess that is currently the resting place of that loved one. Finally, you and the ‘worst’ Wolverine find you are on the road to healing together.

wc: 3.4k

warnings: angst and comfort, grief, strong language, brief mention of child death (in worst! Logan's universe), spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine as well as Logan (2017), the bye bye bye scene is treated as grave desecration (which i mean,it is… but reader is naturally gonna see nothing humorous about it)

a/n: This is a bit of a mess because I never write, yet I have so many feelings and thoughts I had to do something with them. Not having seen a platonic fic of this kind anywhere I guess I had to make one. Also..I did some basic research on the general deadpool canon yet..I’m not entirely informed, having not watched deadpool 2… let’s hope for the best

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

You used to be the youngest student in the X mansion back in the day, just a child having mutated under life altering circumstances, the usual.

It was Logan who found you. He was your rock during and after the traumatizing event of your mutation, taking you in and placing you in the arms of the X-men and thanks to him they became your family.

You saw him no less than as a father. Despite his brooding, harsh exterior it was never difficult for you to see that he cared.

He never shot you down when you knocked on his door in the middle of the night, sobbing after another brutal nightmare. He took you seriously when you talked about your fears and worries. He saved you and helped you stand on your feet more times than you could count.

Seeing death and bad things happen to your family of mutants always hurt viciously but when Logan died it felt like something you would never get over.

With your abilities generally under control, you chose to avoid actively partaking in X men work (Not that you refused your assistance, if someone called for you specifically. It had better be very urgent though.)

So you tried to find a rhythm of what resembled a normal life for the most part, a decent job and some good friends. That was what he would have wanted, no, said he wanted for you.

You kept ties with Laura too, having bonded over your shared grief, the man having died in her arms after all. She was some years younger than you and you were happy to consider her a good friend, the younger sibling type.

Some years ago she had disappeared, causing you yet another source of anxiety. Turns out she herself had been banished to the Void. The relief you felt when Wade came back from that limbo hell while managing to bring her back too, was immense. You have never hugged anyone tighter than Laura the day you saw her again.

Speaking of Wade, through this and that, you had also become acquaintances. He had needed your assistance when he was forming his X force crew and you had hesitantly accepted, making it clear that this would be an one-time thing.

He seemed to be a "Wolverine fanboy" in his own words which caused him to bombard you with childish questions about him until you very firmly made him aware of your boundaries. There was a time and place to talk about Logan.

When that shitshow was over with, you did not mind him considering you your friend. Sure, he was a bit much for you, not a huge fan of his 'humor' but seeing him in moderation was not unpleasant…Alright, maybe you did enjoy his company and friendship, it was as simple as that.

After a chat with him, you learned that the rent in his apartment building was relatively cheap for New York standards, so when it was time to move out of your previous place, that was where you went.

Then the damn timeline thing happened. You were pretty confused as to how exactly the events played out, not being involved, thankfully. But the crazy fucker did it, he saved the universe from extinction apparently. And not exactly by himself.

Logan was there. Not your Logan but apparently a variant of him was necessary to pull the mission off.

And now that version of him was Wade's roommate. Great. Perfect. Definitely something easy for you to process in the days to come.

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

You first saw them after the mission on your way to catch a cab to the airport. It was that time of the trimester when you were to visit him. Bleak yet you longed to see him and speak to him, even if he was resting under the earth.

Wade had the decency to explain everything to you once it was decided that Logan’s variant would be staying. He knew that you never really stopped grieving and you appreciated the warning that basically an almost exact replica of your dead father figure would now roam around your earth.

Almost exact, because according to Wade, this Logan was more of a dick, more crude and erratic, apparently rendered by his extra layers of grief and hatred. Partially understandable but you would not accept that as an excuse if he said something cruel in front of you, you would probably introduce him to your interesting mutative abilities. You let Wade know so that he could warn mr stick-up-his-ass. Wade more than happy to accept, still assured you that with the life or death mission being over, Logan was attempting to be more approachable.

The feelings this new reality brewed in you were..mixed, to say the least.

You made eye contact with Wade from across the street and of course he shot up from the bench he was sitting on, dropping his half eaten sandwich to the ground, moving his arms vigorously in the air, catching not only your attention but any other passerby's.

Even though your stomach turned at having to face the him, you wanted to check up on Wade after all this madness he went through. And on his friend as well, you supposed.

You looked both ways before passing the street and before you knew it, Wade’s arms wrapped around your neck. You patted his back with one hand, unable to help the choking sounds that left you.

“It’s so good to see you, my little honey pumpkin bear!” He squealed excitedly while squeezing the dear life out of you. He really thought he’d never see his friends again, huh.

“Oof, yeah Wade, it’s really nice to see you too, please just-” You broke free of his hold and held an arm’s distance between the two of you. You patted his arm and gave him a small but genuine smile. “Really glad you’re ok. Not that I expected anything le-”

Your words slowly died out when your gaze met Logan’s. He was sitting on the bench observing the interaction silently. He looked just like you remembered him, minus some differences. Well, obviously he was supposed to be the same person yet..he was not.

He looked up at you, brows furrowed while his eyes scanned through your face before flashing with what seemed like recognition (Not that you knew what it was he was seeing) He seemed tense and his mouth gaped before he turned his attention to the ground.

Wade naturally noticed the uncomfortable tension between the two of you and he decided to chime in quickly.

“Ah, yes this is the Wolverine I had to kidnap to help me with the time ripper bullshit and oh boy, did he deliver!”

You kept your eyes on the Variant, forcing yourself into a polite smile (that resembled more of an awkward line) and you extended your hand to him, causing him to lift his gaze at you again.

“Nice to meet you...Logan. Thank you for your help with unscrewing our timeline” You said as pleasantly as you could and he took your hand after a moment of hesitation, shaking it with a gentle firm and a silent nod.

His presence..It made your stomach turn. Feeling the threat of your vision getting watery, you quickly averted your gaze away from the two, as subtle as you could manage.

“I..Wade, m’ sorry, would love to sit a bit more but I have to go-”

“Hey wait, tomorrow we’ll be having a get-together to celebrate the un-fuckery of the universe, a partEy if you will! Everyone will be there, Al will be making that terrible casserole you really like also!”

You gave him a melancholic smile, genuinely sad you would not be able to attend. Logan’s variant was back to looking at the ground.

“Ah, I’m sorry, I won’t make it, I’m afraid. I’m going to the airport right now actually, will be off for the next three days. Gotta see someone..”

“Ooooh” Wade whistled while wiggling his brows “and is that someone maybe a super hot sexy mysterious boyfriend? Or girlfriend? Or theyfriend? Or-”

“Heh, nope. Nothing like that unfortunately.”

“Sure, sure, keep your secrets, you ankle biter, but promise to pass by the apartment once you’re back, we gotta catch up!”

You nodded. “Of course. See you then.”

Two days later you found yourself back in New York in a rush, in front of Wade’s apartment door, ready to invent a way that would actually exterminate him.

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

Nothing prepared you for the mess you saw in what was supposed to be Logan’s resting place.

The snow had ceased completely. With a simple look his grave was undug and the makeshift X was missing. When you approached, the little fresh snow that had fallen last night was covering various types of debris. Some type of fight had taken place and someone had collected the bodies in a rush yet they did not bother with what you spotted after closer inspection and some digging with your hands.

Metallic looking appendages…These were…

You looked inside the open grave. The snow had barely covered the remains in there and it was obvious they were not even half of what they were supposed to be.

You suppressed the violent urge to vomit. Someone had taken him out, violated his remains and as if in a haste, threw them back in.

You dug through the snow with bare hands around the grave. A fragment here. A fragment there. The spine. What was left of the cranium. White hot rage.

You called Laura with shaking hands. Offended would be an understatement for how she sounded, as well, unaware of who could have possibly caused this. Why were you even calling her, poor girl was in the void for a while now, what could she possibly do or know?

You hung up with the intention of looking through the situation a bit more and catching her up later.

While trying to stay calm and focusing all your mental energy on collecting, wiping and gently placing the remains back in the hole, it clicked.

Wade.

From the few words you two had exchanged ever since he was back, you gathered he turned every stone to find “a Wolverine” to assist him. Yet you could not imagine what the everloving fuck would he defile your Wolverine’s grave for and what caused him to spread his bones all over like fucking confetti.

You would not stand for this. Just because Wade saved the stupid timeline, he did not automatically become immune to the most extraordinary ass whooping of the century. If he had something to do with this, you would not forgive him easily, if at all

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

After taking a deep breath, you rang the bell. Tapping your foot on the ground, you heard some mumbling and shuffling before the door opened.

Wade made a surprised expression that resembled a caricature.

“Sweet baby cakes! You're back already? Come on in, I was just thinking about starting a gossip girl marathon. Again!”

Wade's cheerful expression fell almost immediately when you stayed still for a moment too long, not responding.

Althea did not seem to be home. Good.

Wade's expression morphed into one of concern.

“Pumpkin, is everything-”

“Wade. Guess where I just came back from.”

You took a slow step forward, dropping you backpack to the floor.

“Erm..a male stripclub full of hot babes?”

“North Dakota.”

“Don't you say! Did North Dakota had any good male strip-” He stopped himself before realization hit him. “And..may I ask..what was it you were doing in North-”

“You know very well what.”

Wade put his hands in front of him defensively and closed the door. “Hey Pumpkin, why don't you just sit so that we can-”

“Shut. Up.” You whispered.

“When I got to his grave, someone had completely messed it up. Signs of fighting around. Do you happen to have anything to do with that?” You said in a dangerously low voice, eyes glued on him.

Wade, whose mouth formed into an awkward line, clearly not having a reasonably enough excuse to give you.

“Er, you see, um remember when I was looking for a Logan, well I started my search with the OG, you know, just to make sure he was dead dead and unfortunately he was and um then you see err the TVA showed up and um-”

He stopped when you put your hands on your face, squeezing it while a muffled screech of rage escaped you.

“You motherfucking, with no semblance of decency, insensitive prick. You defiled Logan's remains and used them as a shield, throwing them around like toys? And you have the nerve to come back home and look me in the eye after the fact? To look Laura in the eye? Do you not have any fucking shame? Am I simply an afterthought to you?”

Silence. You could not see through the tears. With shaky hands you pulled out of your pocket a tiny clothed item and you carefully unwrapped the cover to reveal a small metallic fragment.

“You may think everything's a fucking game but that man was my family, and worst part is you know this very damn well! How dare you!”

“You have every right to be angry, just let me-”

You grabbed the first object you could reach, which was a half empty bottle of liquor and threw it across the room, causing it to smash angrily on the wall of the living room. Wade winced slightly before groaning in frustration.

With that, a bedroom shot open and an alarmed Logan variant made an appearance, claws already out.

“What the fuck is hap-”

He stopped in his tracks seeing it was just you. He probably had already heard your yelling earlier yet it did not answer any questions about what was going on.

“What the hell, kid?” he said with a subtle hint of alarm.

You take a step towards him, looking up at his face, paying no mind to his blades that were now retreating back inside. God, how it hurt to stare right into his features. Feeling a wave of nausea, you picked up your bag and turned your back to the two men.

“Wait, can't we just talk about this?” Wade said

“No, you ruined my week enough” You mumbled bitterly before exiting his apartment. Week, more like, year.

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

The roof of the building was pretty nice, you always preferred it when you wanted some time to yourself outside the walls of your apartment. You rarely ever saw any other tenant there, especially in the late afternoons.

This is where you found yourself that night, elbows supported on the railing, observing the busy street from above while sipping on bad beer.

How you wished he was there right now. How you wished for one more simple moment with him, where you could just be in his presence once again, chat about nonsense or simply sit in comfortable silence next to him.

What would he think of you as the person you were trying to become? Would he be proud of you?

How you wished he would put his hand on your shoulder comfortingly right now.

You missed him. So much.

A high pitched creak came from the direction of the heavy door behind you, causing you to jump a little and instinctively wipe the fresh tears that you just then realized were running down your face.

“Sorry, kid, did I scare you? They mustn't have oiled this door in fucking ever..” There was Logan, the new one. Whatever entity was reading your thoughts a moment prior must be finding your misery hilarious.

“Hope I’m not bothering you”

“No, no. I don’t own the rooftop..” You mumbled softly, turning your attention back on the street, trying to ignore the feeling of clear tension he brought with him. You swore to God, if he was about to make a crass comment..

He came to stand next to you, mimicking the position of your elbows on the railing. He himself was holding a glass, filled with one most likely alcoholic liquid.

“That asshole told me everything about the grave thing. If I were you, I would have torn him apart.”

“I’m sure you already know this isn’t possible by any means”

Logan huffed. “Oh, believe me, I do. I’ve tried at least three times”

You gave a noncommittal nod, trying not to focus too much the gruff voice you always found so comforting.

“...You know..You existed in my timeline too” He mumbled before gulping a generous sip of his drink.

That made you look up at him, surprised. “I…did?”

“Oh, yes you did. Lively little brat you were.” He said with a laugh you could only describe as melancholic. He said it like it hurt.

“You went through so much for a child. And you did cry quite often ‘cause of it, yet you were still so..” He seized, taking a heavy breath and emptying his glass. “So full of life. A good kid.” The city lights reflecting on his eyes, making it easier for you to see how watery they were.

“I..assume I…”

You were interrupted by another one of those devastating low laughs that made your heart ache.

“Yeah. You were among them. Those fuckers did not even spare a fucking child. I was the one who got you with the X-men and it ended in..” He hissed through his teeth and half closed mouth. He took a moment to collect himself and breathed out.

“I’m so sorry, Logan.” You whispered genuinely. You didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t be, …sorry, didn't mean to make it about myself.”

“You didn’t, really!”

A moment of awkward silence before you decided to share your piece.

“My Logan, er, you..I suppose it’s more or less the same as it was in your world but..you were like a…You were the closest I ever felt to a parent. I grew up because of you and..yeah, when I was around 17, you died.” It was almost funny how much you oversimplified those statements but it was the best you could manage at the given moment.

He nodded, listening intently.

“I’m sure that..If he saw how you grew into who you are today, doing your own thing, in spite of the mutation shit and all…he wouldn’t change a thing about how all these fucking events went down..”

“You..think so?”

He chuckled, giving you a small smile, tired but genuine.

“Hell, I know so.” he said. You could tell. You could tell that he desperately wished this was how the events played out in his own world, with the other you alive and a bright future ahead of them.

You hesitated for a moment, not sure if what you were about to say would be too much for him. Then again, it was him who approached you with this vulnerable conversation.

“For what it's worth I would… they would want you to keep on living. Not forget them, not at all. Just..be. Be a person. Make friends and..live.”

He looked you in the eye for a second, before averting your gaze and looking anywhere but you. This was hard for him. But he was trying.

He patted your back firmly. “Thanks, kid.” It was a very simple thing you told him yet you could not possibly know what it meant to him.

You thought that maybe you got what you wished for. Not exactly and certainly not ideally. But you and this Logan had something in common. Maybe, you could help and comfort each other in a way nobody else possibly could.

“Y’ know..I'm glad you got to stay, Logan.”

A smile. “I'm glad to be here, kiddo.”

A pause.

“How long do you think I should make Wade do my laundry for? Y'know. For retribution?”

“Oh, six months at least, bub..”

You stayed for a couple hours chatting above the restless city, topics including but not limited to work, university and acquaintances.

Your pain was soothed a tiny bit and you hoped Logan's was too. You had a lot of time ahead of you to work on that further, after all.

#deadpool and wolverine #deadpool 3 #wolverine x reader #platonic!reader #logan howlett x reader #worst!wolverine x reader #worst!wolverine #x men

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waywardxrhea · 3 months ago

Text

Seeing Other People - Matt Murdock

pairing: Matt Murdock x fem!reader (descriptor of hair being long enough to run hands through and comb)

Your insecurities from the past come back to haunt you as you grapple with the paranoia that creeps into your mind when Matt suddenly starts ducking out on dates.

word count: 7,247

content: hurt/comfort, angst, anxiety, insecurity, panic attacks, language, mention of guns.

dividers by: @firefly-graphics

now playing: Seeing Other People by Francis Karel and Maddie Zahm

"i've been seeing other people, all my ex's undertones / assuming i'll catch you in a lie, afraid to read what's on your phone / 'cause when i was seeing other people, i'm not the only one that they took home / now i don't trust so easily, even when i know you're not cheating / i'm the one who's seeing other people in you"

You had finished with your hair and makeup for your date with Matt half an hour ago and were patiently waiting for his call. He would always call to tell you he was on his way to whisk you away from your apartment for the evening, which was something you appreciated rather than being caught half ready. It had been a long week. You were looking forward to getting to relax into conversation with Matt and eventually into his strong arms by the end of the night. Matt had usually ended your dates either in his bedroom or on the couch cuddling, and those times were ones you cherished with your whole being. You would never take them for granted. The moments of intimacy were ones you looked forward to more than anything and were something you were desperately craving after the hellish week you’d had at work.

Getting lost in your thoughts of cuddling Matt, you nearly didn’t hear your phone ringing quietly beside you on the couch. When it finally registered in your ears, you fumbled to pick it up before it hung itself up, answering with a quick, “Matt! Hey!”

“Hey sweetheart,” came Matt’s voice which you noted sounded a bit more gruff than usual. You heard a rustling in the background of the call as he continued with, “I, uh… I hate to tell you this but I have to cancel tonight’s date. I’m really sorry. Something came up with work that really needs my attention. Can we rain check?”

“Oh,” you said, feeling your body deflate into the couch cushion. Shaking away your suddenly spiking anxiety, you forced a chipperness into your voice as you told him, “That’s fine! I hope everything is okay. If I can help in any way just let me know, yeah?”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he told you, a sense of relief evident in his tone.

There was a heavy thud on the other side of the line and your eyebrows furrowed together as you asked, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Just dropped my briefcase, that’s all,” Matt told you. “Client seemed really anxious to speak with us as soon as possible, so I’m more clumsy than usual getting ready to head out.”

“Oh, I see. I’ll let you go then,” you said, in a quieter tone than you intended. “I love you. Talk later?”

“Talk later. I love you too,” he replied.

Matt hung up shortly after and tossed his phone onto his leather couch as he dashed up the stairs. He had suited up in his Daredevil suit in record time while he was on the phone with you. While he hated to cancel another date on you, there was a growing drug gang that he needed to stop before they took over the city. From the rumors he had heard, they were serious business and weren’t afraid to kill for territory. Having killers on his streets was the last thing he wanted. If the streets weren’t safe, then you weren't safe and your safety was not something he was willing to risk.

The crisp air of the city hit Matt as he bolted out of the rooftop access door. He tried to shove down his feelings of guilt surrounding canceling the date as he focused on the sounds of the city around him, trying to find one voice in particular. The voice he had overheard on his way to pick up lunch for himself, Foggy, and Karen the day before. He found it after a few moments, but before he could take off toward where the meeting was taking place, he hesitated. The hesitation was caused by hearing the soft sound of your crying in your apartment a couple blocks down. The sound tugged on Matt’s heartstrings and by instinct his body began gravitating toward your place to provide you comfort, but the sound of a cocking gun tore his ears away from your cries. Within an instant, Matt was on the move, vaulting across rooftops and traversing metal fire escapes to get to the meeting spot. He was racing to get there before the shot rang and a life was taken.

Back in your apartment, the mental turmoil you were experiencing was like a hurricane blowing through your mind with no end in sight. Your hands shook and your heart pounded in your ears as your breathing became shallow and tears blurred your vision. Old memories bombarded your mind, and you were sent back to a headspace that you never wanted to experience again. But, despite your best efforts, you have been… Over the last month or so your mind had slipped into old habits and you had begun to doubt your place in Matt’s life. Canceled plans led to harsh memories that you have tried to leave in your past. But, as you had started to feel more distance growing between yourself and Matt, you couldn’t help but have flashes of memories you thought you had shoved into the ‘forgotten’ box in your mind.

Without your permission, your emotions began to take over and you couldn’t escape the flurry of old memories intruding into your previously peaceful headspace. It was a dizzying feeling as you were bombarded with the memories of harshly spoken words and insults thrown in your direction. No matter how hard you tried to push the memories back they kept coming and soon you felt like you were thrown into the midst of an emotional storm that was pelting you from all sides. Tears began to freefall and test the integrity of your makeup, and you did your best to simply stay afloat as you attempted to find the eye of the storm within your mind. It took longer than you would have liked to admit, but after a few minutes of being bumped around by your painful past, you finally were able to center yourself and take the deep, calming breaths that would slow your heart rate.

As your body began to escape the unnecessary fight or flight mode the phone call with Matt had sent you into, you tried to rationalize his words now that your anxiety had had its turn at ravaging your body. You told yourself that the gruffness in his voice was likely from annoyance with the last minute client call. That the rustling in the background was simply him changing out of his jeans and henley and into a suit to meet with the client. That he truly had dropped his briefcase in his rush to make it to the meeting. There was no reason for you to think that he was with someone else when he called you. It was just fear and anxiety trying to make you self-sabotage. Again.

Taking one more deep breath, you stood up on shaking legs and made your way to the bathroom to remove your makeup. When you looked up at yourself you cringed when you saw how bloodshot your eyes had become from your crying. There were trails nearly barren of makeup that the tears left behind, but much to your surprise your eye makeup had held true to its promise of being waterproof. Your hair on the other hand was a different story. You had a bad habit of running your hands through it when you were stressed, so naturally after a breakdown like that it looked like a rat’s nest… Not wanting to look at yourself in that state any longer, you rid yourself of the makeup and combed through your hair so it wouldn’t be a tangled mess anymore.

As you did this though, you realized that the clothes you had put on for your date were suddenly obnoxious and irritating, causing your heart rate to spike with more anxiety with every move you made. So you quickly took them off and threw on a comfortable and ridiculously soft t-shirt and pajama pants in their wake. Your irritated senses were soothed once you were rid of all the nuisances and you made your way into the kitchen to make yourself a quick and comforting dish for dinner.

With your food balanced carefully on the armrest of the couch while you settled in, you decided to binge British baking shows in order to keep your mind off of things. The soothing accents and descriptions of baked goods would be a welcome distraction. You avoided thinking about the steady ache in your heart caused by the growing number of canceled dates, the descriptions of recipes and the monotonous routines falling like a warm blanket over your mind. They would also help in your attempt to fend off the old memories threatening to take hold of your thoughts once more. While it wasn’t the perfect solution to your problems, it was the best one you had. And, for now, it would have to do.

A week later you waited with bated breath, your heart pounding against your ribs, as the minutes ticked by before Matt would pick you up for your rain-check date. There was less effort put into your hair and makeup for the outing, your anxiety telling you the effort would be for naught, but you still deemed yourself presentable enough to feign confidence being next to someone as attractive as Matt. A sense of relief washed over you when you heard a gentle knock on your door. You let out a deep sigh, a smile painting your lips, as you made your way to the door.

When you opened the door, your heart skipped a beat like it always did when you saw Matt’s charming smile. He stood patiently in the hallway, waiting to take you on your date. “Hey, sweetheart,” Matt said before pulling you in for a kiss.

“Hey yourself,” you told him when he pulled away a few moments later. “How was work?”

“It was good. Got through the toughest part of the paperwork for the latest client,” he told you as you took your keys out of your purse to lock the door behind you. You wrapped your hand around his bicep and began leading him down the hall, the steady tapping of his cane a soothing and familiar rhythm as you walked. “We’re hoping that we could get the opposition to go in with a deal so it doesn’t have to go to court, but it’s looking like this is more complicated than we anticipated. The client is really worried about having to make an appearance, so it’s taking a lot of convincing from Karen to not just drop the case altogether.”

“Oh, that sounds tough, I’m sorry,” you told him as you hit the button to summon the elevator. Matt shrugged in response. It was simply something that came with the job and they were dealing.

“How was work for you?” Matt asked as the two of you stepped into the elevator.

“It was fine. Nothing too crazy,” you replied. “I wish people in this city were a bit kinder, but…”

“Are you okay?” Matt asked quietly, the elevator coming to a stop at the bottom floor.

“I’ll be fine. It’s nothing. Really. I just need to get tougher skin, that’s all,” you told him quickly, trying to brush away his concern. It really wasn’t that big of a deal. Some customers just felt entitled to scream at you and come up with…colorful insults to hurl your way in response to you just doing your job. Matt had bigger fish to fry than that. He was under a lot of stress with this case, it sounded like, and you didn’t want your problems to needlessly occupy his mind.

“Where did you wanna go for dinner?” you asked as the two of you pushed through the front door. The usual sounds of the city bounced around you. Honking cars, scattered conversations, the usual hustle and bustle of good ‘ol New York. It was noisy, but it was home.

“I chose last time, did you have anything in mind?” Matt asked after a few moments of silence. He wondered why you were brushing off his attempts at conversation. He could tell that the question had caused a pang of anxiety to rise in you and he could smell the salt of tears building behind your eyes, but still you pushed the subject away. Why? You were usually fairly vocal about how work was, but lately you had started to close yourself off. It made Matt start to wonder what had set you off… Maybe your supervisor left or something like that. He would try and get to the bottom of that later.

His mind was dragged back into the conversation as you timidly said, “I don’t really have a preference, it’s whatever you wanna do.” You cleared your throat and asked, “What about that scratch made pizza place you mentioned wanting to try? I looked into it and they make their dough and sauce in house every day. They seem to get as many locally sourced meats as possible, too. I think they may actually get some of it from Foggy’s family.”

“That sounds great, lead the way,” Matt replied with a brief laugh. He felt the air shift around you as you nodded and pulled out your phone with your free hand, followed shortly by the quiet electronic voice of the GPS guiding you to your destination.

Matt couldn’t help the small smile that made its way onto his lips as he followed you to the restaurant. The two of you had been together for a while now, his enhanced senses still not something you were aware of, yet you took everything that they affected into consideration. When Matt had mentioned off handedly that the cotton in your sheets felt scratchy on his skin, you had switched to silk and satin ones instead. When you noticed that your lotions and perfumes were too strong for him and gave him headaches, you took to using more toned down and natural scents. You started making meals with organic and fresh ingredients and going to restaurants that did the same because he mentioned one time that processed foods didn’t agree with him. During your time together you had done everything you could to make sure Matt was comfortable even without really knowing why. A warm smile tugged on his lips as he reminisced on how grateful he truly was to you.

Matt had attempted to do the same for you in any way that he could without revealing too much about his abilities. He would swing by a small florist stand and get you flowers when he knew you were having a bad day. He would surprise you with the lunch you had been telling your coworkers you had been craving. He would offer you massages when he could practically feel the tension in your muscles after work. The one thing he couldn’t do was ask why you had been crying so much lately in the safety of your own apartment, tucked away from him and everyone else in the world. He wanted to offer you solace and a place to be vulnerable, but you had never been open in that aspect of your emotions. Well, that and the fact that most of the time when he heard your cries he was in his Daredevil suit and couldn’t just waltz right into your apartment to offer you the comfort you needed. The love you deserved.

When the pair of you neared the pizza place, Matt deeply inhaled the scent of all the fresh ingredients and he sent a smile your way as he told you, “Great choice, sweetheart.”

“Oh, thanks!” you stuttered out, a light blush dusting your cheeks in response to his praise.

The pizza was as amazing as you had expected. The ingredients were all fresh and proved to be the winning combination they were advertised to be. Between bites of pizza, the two of you opted to play a game where you people watched and described passersby to Matt and asked what he thought their story was. As usual, you were floored when Matt would tell you what he thought with a small smirk teasing his lips. When they would walk by, he’d be right on the money. You couldn’t help the school-girl-like laugh that escaped your lips at his latest feat as you asked, “How do you do that?”

“Thanks, in part, to you,” Matt told you with a fond smile on his lips. While that was in fact a little white lie, Matt never missed an opportunity to compliment you and your people skills. “You’re very good at describing people and their mannerisms. It helps me decide if they’re a tourist, a local, a business person, or whatever else.”

“Okay, let’s go again, there’s this man-” you started to say but cut yourself off when you saw Matt’s eyebrows furrow behind his red lenses and he began fishing around in his coat pockets for something. “Everything all right?” you asked timidly, your hands dropping down into your lap to mess with the hem of your shirt.

“Just getting a call,” he told you off handedly as he finally found the flip phone in a pocket and answered it with a quick, “Yeah?” Matt’s eyes closed and you saw the muscles in his jaw working as he ground his teeth together in response to whatever was being said to him on the other line. “Yeah. Give me twenty minutes-” A frustrated sigh heaved from his chest and Matt ran a hand over the stubble growing on his chin before he relented, saying, “Fine. Ten minutes, then I’ll be there,” before hanging up.

You were thankful that he wasn’t able to see the disappointed look on your face. When he hung up the phone mere moments later, you probably looked like a wounded puppy. You forced down the steadily growing feeling of heartbreak as you attempted to casually ask, “You gotta get going?”

Matt sported a painful expression on his face, his unseeing gaze concentrated somewhere on your upper chest while he closed his eyes yet again as he nodded. He got up from his seat and fished his wallet out from his pocket, feeling around for the properly folded bills to pay for the meal and dessert if you wanted. Placing the bills on the table and a kiss on your temple, Matt apologized before unfolding his cane and practically sprinting out of the pizzeria.

The call was from one of Mahoney’s men who was deep undercover in the drug gang he had been trying to take down, and if the intel was right, Matt would be able to take down the growing syndicate that night if he hurried. They were growing more and more brazen as time went on, and even with the threat of Daredevil, the man in charge was committed to getting what he wanted. If that meant killing, then so be it. So, he needed to be stopped. Matt’s senses became laser focused on monitoring where he knew their hideout was. He turned into an unoccupied alleyway before tossing his cane away and vaulting himself onto fire escapes. He needed to get to his suit before he could take down the head of the operation.

Once he was out of sight, a deep sigh left your chest along with a quiet sob that you couldn’t hold back. Not wanting more tears to break free, you closed your eyes and tried to focus on literally anything else besides the growing pain in your chest. You tried to breathe as normally as you could, but it was hard as you felt your throat getting tighter with emotion by the second. Your head snapped to attention as a woman to your left asked, “Can I interest you in some dessert, angiolo?”

“Oh, I-” you started to say as you looked into the small Italian woman’s warm eyes, your voice trembling against your will in the process.

“I’ll get you dessert,” she said with finality, giving you a pat on the back and heading off toward the kitchen. You were left slightly bewildered in her wake, the shock of the strange encounter pulling you out of your heartbreak for a few moments.

The truth of the matter was that she had watched as Matt left in a haste and saw your reaction - how your shoulders hunched inward and you looked smaller as your leg began to anxiously bounce. She returned a few minutes later with a small to-go box filled with cannolis and you thanked her graciously as you handed her the money Matt had given you to pay for the meal. She gave you a warm smile, taking the money graciously, then you headed out of the restaurant.

As you walked back to your apartment, the weight of everything began to rest heavily on your shoulders again. You wanted nothing more than to curl up on your couch with a cup of soothing tea and ignore the world for a while. You buried your emotions as best you could as you headed to the nearest bodega that sold your favorite tea. While searching the aisles, your body went into auto-pilot mode as you made your selection. Your mind pestered you with something that had been bothering you since Matt got that phone call at the restaurant. The phone he answered wasn’t his usual cell phone. His normal phone was a touchscreen one that called out the name of whoever was calling him. This one was a flip phone that didn’t seem to have any of his accommodations. You had seen him put his other phone in his pocket before you left the apartment, so you knew he had that one on him, so why-

“Hey!” came Karen’s chipper voice after she called out your name in greeting.

You tried to subtly wipe away the tears that had begun leaking out of your eyes before forcing a smile onto your face as you turned toward the blonde and said, “Hey! What are you doing here?”

A look you couldn’t quite gauge flitted across Karen’s features before she huffed out a quiet laugh and said, “Oh, you know me, just working late at the office. We ran out of coffee this morning, and I am in desperate need, so I just came here to grab some.” When she said this, you finally noticed the tub of ground coffee she had in her arms as she added, “I’ll have to grab some from the coffee shop for Matt in the morning, but for now this’ll do for me.”

“O-of course,” you said with a small nod. Matt couldn’t stand the taste of pre-ground coffee from the bodega, preferring the freshly ground stuff from the local coffee shops. It was something you had noted early on in your relationship and made sure to get for him weekly to bring to the office. He was always so busy between cases, so it was the least you could do to supply him with the much needed caffeine. But as you stared at the container in Karen’s hands, you felt a pang of guilt hit you as you remembered that you forgot to grab him any this week.

Karen’s soft voice once again broke you out of your head as she asked, “Hey, I uh… I could use the company, do you want to head over to the office with me for a bit? We haven’t hung out in a while.” She motioned toward the box in your hand as she finished with, “We have plenty of hot water to make your tea with, and I think there’s still some honey from when we closed Mrs. Cabrera’s case.”

“Oh, sure,” you found yourself saying before you could fully process it. The people pleaser in you didn’t want to say no, so you paid for your goods and followed her to the offices of Nelson, Murdock, and Page while you tried not to drown in the sea of anxiety that was engulfing you.

On the way there, you nodded at the right places and gave a few affirmatives as Karen talked to you about their latest cases, but you couldn’t help your mind from wandering back to worrying. When the two of you arrived in the office, you let your body take control to begin steeping the tea while Karen began preparing the pot for her coffee. Who had Matt been on the phone with? They were certainly pressuring him to be on time to whatever meeting they were having. Whoever it was obviously was important to him, or maybe you were vastly overestimating your value in his life. Maybe-

“Everything okay?”

That was the first thing you heard Karen ask when your mind finally remembered that you weren’t alone. Pushing down the feeling of embarrassment at being caught lost in your own thoughts, you quickly nodded and forced a smile onto your lips as you said, “Yeah! Of course!” You placed the little box from the restaurant down on the counter and opened it as you asked, “How do you feel about cannolis? There are a lot more in here than I thought and I’ll never be able to eat all of them!”

“Oh, sure…” Karen said slowly, her eyebrows furrowing together as she pondered why you’d changed the subject so quickly.

After savoring the taste of the dessert, you offered Karen another fake smile before asking, “So, these last few cases have been keeping the three of you pretty busy huh? Matt’s been exhausted lately. He told me he’s been getting home pretty late every night after meeting with clients.”

While Karen responded with something about a new client not wanting to go to court and that’s why she was there so late, your mind began wandering again. Was it a client who had called Matt at dinner? He left in such a hurry… You didn’t think that he would answer a client in the way he did though. And there was still the thing about the phone… Did Karen know about who he might be-

Your name being called out again cut through your racing thoughts and you jumped at the sudden intrusion, causing hot tea to spill onto the hand holding the cup. “Shit!” you whispered urgently as you began flicking your hand around to rid yourself of the burning liquid quickly before more of it scalded your skin.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you!” Karen said, her hand covering her mouth for a moment in shock before she began frantically looking around for something to help you with.

“No, no, it’s not your fault. It’s mine. I’m sorry. I should really get going. I didn’t mean to interrupt your work. I’m sorry,” you told her quickly while holding back more tears. “Keep the cannolis. They should still be good in the morning.”

“Are you sure? I can see if there’s any aloe or something,” she told you as she dug through her purse.

“Don’t worry about me,” you told her before quickly turning toward the office door and heading out, offering a courteous goodnight before your departure. You just needed to be alone. You could deal with the burn when you got to your apartment, but right now you didn’t need to be in Karen’s company. You were self aware enough to know that just one more thing would’ve set you off into a total mental breakdown…

The next morning after getting Matt some fresh coffee from a local shop near the firm, Karen made her way into the office. “Morning Karen!” Foggy greeted her as she started putting her things down on her desk.

“Morning, Fog! Have a good night?” she asked.

“I did! Marci and I had some pizza then zonked out in front of the TV for a while.. It was great!” he replied, the smile on his face cluing to Karen that what he recounted wasn’t all that had happened, but she kept her smirk to herself as she told him that she was happy he had a good night.

She dropped the bag of coffee by the coffee maker before heading over to Matt’s office. She knocked on the doorframe to get his attention. “Hey. I got you some coffee from the shop down the street. You look like you need it.”

Matt rubbed his temples and nodded, telling her, “Long night. Worked with Mahoney’s guy to take down that drug gang I’ve been after. Didn’t get back to the apartment until around three…” As Matt followed Karen to the coffee station, a familiar floral scent hit his nose which prompted him to ask, “Was she here last night?”

Karen asked your name in a question and got the affirmative, so she told him, “Yeah. She seemed upset when I ran into her at the bodega getting coffee, so I invited her back here to talk. She seemed super distracted, though. When I called her name to get her attention, she spilled her tea and burned her hand. Then she bolted.”

Upon hearing this, Matt sighed and ran a hand over the lower half of his face which prompted Karen to ask, “What did you do?” Right as she did though, a memory hit her and she gasped quietly before saying, “You had a date planned last night… You two were on a date when you had to go take care of that drug gang, weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Matt admitted quietly, guilt laced in his voice and seeping into his mind.

“Oh, Matt…” she whispered sympathetically. She took a sip of her coffee before telling him, “You know…every time I asked her how she was or tried to offer help, she deflected pretty quickly. She was also super distracted and zoned out a lot. I know that look, Matt. There’s something that’s eating her alive and she’s suffering in silence. She’s not accepting help from her friends.” She placed her cup down on the counter and crossed her arms as she said pointedly, “I think you need to talk to her, Matt.”

“Karen, I-” Matt tried but was interrupted.

“Talk to her,” Karen said with a finality in her tone as a quiet knock sounded through the office, indicating that their first client of the day had arrived.

By the time midday had rolled around, Matt had called you and got your voicemail since you were at work. He opted to go ahead and leave the voicemail, telling you, “Hey sweetheart. Karen told me what happened last night. I realized that there’s something we’ve been needing to talk about. I’ll be over at around seven tonight. See you then.”

By the time you had gotten the opportunity to check your voicemail, you were already back at your apartment after work. A quick glance at your clock told you it was nearly a quarter till seven. When you heard the words there’s something we’ve been needing to talk about from Matt, your heart dropped. Fear and panic began to fill your whole body, gripping your throat in a tight vice.

This was it. This was surely the end of the most wonderful relationship you’d had in years. All because you were too afraid to talk about your feelings. You had overcorrected because of your insecurities from the past and that ran Matt off. Because you were too afraid to accept help from others and he got tired of it. Because he found someone else who was willing to be open and honest with him about everything. Because he found someone better than you. More secure in themself. Less anxious. Someone without a past that haunted them like yours did…

You barely made it to the couch in your living area before collapsing as you were consumed with your brutal thoughts of insecurity and anticipatory grief about the end of you and Matt. The room felt like it was spinning and closing in on you simultaneously. You were left clutching your knees to your chest as you tried to hold onto some semblance of self. You were failing miserably. Shallow gasps of air were all you could manage through your tightening throat. Your heart pounded in your ears. Tears flowed down your cheeks. All encompassing doom clouded the edges of your mind. This was it.

Matt was so exhausted after a long day at the firm, following his even longer night out as Daredevil, that he felt like his enhanced senses were drowning him. Everything was too overwhelming, too distracting, too much. So, he concentrated inward and focused on his own heartbeat to drown out everything else bombarding his senses. He also focused on the flowers in his hand that he had bought for you. The bouquet of roses reminded him of your shampoo, subtle and floral. It put a small smile on his lips as he made his way to your apartment.

Getting lost in concentrating on the smell of the roses and the steady beat of his own heart, Matt didn’t even tune into your apartment until he was right outside of it about to raise his hand to knock. And that’s when he sensed it. Your rapid heart rate and breathing. Fear. Panic. And you were on the other side of a locked door.

Knowing that there was a roof access door nearby and no one else in the hallway, Matt dropped his cane as well as the roses and bolted toward it, desperate to get to you. The chill of the night hit him as he navigated the familiar rooftop and then down to the fire escape outside of your window. Luckily you had left your window unlocked, so Matt threw it open and crawled through before making his way over to your shaking form on the couch.

You were alone in the apartment and there weren't any unfamiliar smells in the space, so he knew there was no immediate danger that set you off. He wrapped you in his arms and rubbed your back as he mumbled, “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” you choked out as you burrowed into his chest.

“Sorry for what?” Matt asked before kissing your temple.

“For not being enough,” you replied, your voice breaking as a fresh batch of tears rolled down your flushed cheeks. Before Matt could even respond to that, you found yourself rambling, telling him, “I thought that if I didn’t bother you with all the shit in my head, then maybe I wouldn’t run you off… I thought that the more of me you saw, the less of me you’d like. But… I still managed to mess everything up… Like I always do…” You huffed out a humorless laugh before saying, “I get it if there’s someone else. I wouldn’t wanna be with me, either…”

Matt felt his heart shatter as the words fell out of you in a grief-filled torrent. Tears began to sting the backs of his eyes. He knew he couldn’t lose himself in his guilt for making you feel this way, though, so he focused back on you. “Hey, hey, just breathe. Breathe with me, sweetheart,” Matt mumbled as he pulled you closer.

Matt ran his hand up and down your back and told you to breathe in and out with the soothing strokes. You tried, but with the amount of anxiety still filling your body and clutching at your throat, it felt like an impossible task. Matt didn’t give up though, and on top of the slow and soothing patterns he ran up and down your back, he began to mumble sweet nothings into your ear that reassured you that you were safe. That you were with him. That everything would be okay. These reassurances weren’t just for you though. They were for him as he too tried to calm down his own racing mind.

After a few minutes, Matt finally got your heart rate and breathing back down to a normal enough pace. When he was sure you were calmed down enough to talk, he tentatively asked, “What makes you think there’s someone else? I promise there’s only you, sweetheart. I’ve never had a partner as kind and caring and accommodating as you. I would be a fool to mess that up.”

“It’s just…” you whispered, a quiet sob tumbling off your lips before you took a deep and shaky breath. “The canceled dates. The bolting in the middle of the one last night. The mysterious flip phone you used yesterday. The background noise on the call last week. Telling me you’ve been getting home in the ungodly hours of the night.” You swallowed hard before pushing through by confessing, “My last relationship… It ended because he was cheating. When I first got suspicious though he made me feel like the bad guy for bringing it up. The things he said were extremely harsh and I guess… I guess my mind never got past that. Now I stuff down all of my own emotions to make sure others are happy and not bothered by my feelings. And over the last month, I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve been doing some of the same things he did, and… Gosh, I should shut up. I'm really sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. Just forget I said anything. I’m sorry…”

More tears began falling from your eyes and you attempted to get up from the couch. You desperately needed to put some separation between you and Matt. You felt like you were just digging a hole you couldn’t get out of. But instead of letting you hide away from him again, his strong arms pulled you impossibly closer and kept you right where you were. “Don’t apologize. Please,” he whispered, his voice breaking with emotion. “He sounds like a controlling prick and I’m sorry that such a caring person ever had to deal with that… You don’t deserve to feel like you can’t talk about your feelings. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that way.”

“It’s not you, it’s just…trauma,” you told him as your exhausted body relaxed into his embrace. With your senses finally easing after being stretched so thin, you were able to make some sense of the current situation. Looking over at the door to the hallway, you furrowed your eyebrows together as you asked, “Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“How did you get into my apartment?” You hadn’t found the time to get a spare key made to give to him, and you knew that you had locked it on your way in, so how…? You felt Matt’s muscles tense and in response your heart sped up as your anxiety started to settle back in.

In his rush to get to you to provide you with the comfort you needed, Matt didn’t even think about how he would explain how he got into the apartment. After his conversation with Karen that morning, he had thought long and hard about the possibility of telling you the truth about what he did at night, but he didn’t think the conversation would lead here. It seemed like there was no way to avoid it now…

There was a long moment of silence before Matt gave into the inevitable and asked, “Do you want to know the real reason why I stay out so late and have been so exhausted lately? Why I’ve had to cancel dates?”

Confusion filled your mind when he asked the questions. Why was Matt asking that in response to your wondering how he got into your apartment? Surely your apartment manager had nothing to do with- You stopped your spiraling thoughts before they could get out of control and nodded, telling him, “I do.”

Another long pause filled the air before Matt said in a barely audible whisper, “I’m Daredevil…” Your breath hitched in your throat for a moment before you laughed quietly and threw your arms around him in a tight embrace. Matt froze for a second before returning your hug as he asked, “You’re not… I don’t know… Mad? Shocked? Upset? Wanting to run away?”

“I’m just happy you aren’t cheating on me,” you told him, a genuine laugh falling from your lips before you could stop it. You pulled away and kissed his cheek before you said, “No wonder Daredevil’s seemed to take an interest in me getting home safe when I’m out late.”

“Oh, so you noticed, huh?” Matt asked with a quiet chuckle leaving his lips.

“Especially after that group of assholes tried to touch me when I was heading home after Laura’s birthday party,” you noted, a small smile pulling the corners of your lips up.

“Yeah, I may have gone a bit overboard with that one,” he said sheepishly. He cleared his throat and told you, “There was this drug gang that was starting to gain ground over the last few weeks. That’s why I’ve been skipping out on dates here lately. I wanted to keep you and the rest of Hell’s Kitchen safe.”

“Did you deal with them?” you asked.

“Last night, yeah,” he replied. “That was Mahoney’s UC calling me on my emergency burner that Foggy has aptly called my ‘Devil Signal,’” he said, ending his statement with a chuckle and shake of his head.

“So, Foggy knows?”

“And Karen,” he said. “You took it a lot better than they did.”

“Well, that’s because it doesn’t change anything between us,” you told him. “Clearly, I’ve been dealing with your Daredevil schedule since we started dating. The only reason it was bothering me lately was because of my own insecurity. It hasn’t caused any problems, so why would it change anything now?”

“God, I love you,” Matt whispered before pulling you into a gentle kiss.

“I love you too,” you told him as you rested your forehead on his.

You were quiet for a few moments, letting the peace of the moment soothe your swirling mind, before you pulled away and said cautiously, “I do have a question though… Considering what you do as Daredevil, are you really…?”

“Blind? Yes,” he told you. “My other senses are enhanced, though, so I’m able to navigate the world easily. I’m able to hear what other people can’t. That’s how I get to stuff before the cops do.” He rubbed your back as he admitted quietly, “I could hear you having a panic attack in here, so I… I came in through the window.”

“You could…? How?” you asked, feeling your heart jump into your throat.

“Your heart rate just sped up when I told you that,” he told you with a ghost of a smile on his lips. “I’m able to hear people’s heart and respiratory rate. I can also smell cortisol levels and adrenaline. All of that was off the charts when I got here so I broke in so I could comfort you,” he said, his smile evident in his voice as he finished the sentence.

“Oh… This is going to be a learning curve,” you breathed, suddenly feeling very aware of everything your body was doing at the moment.

“And I’ll be here for you every step of the way,” Matt told you before pulling you in for another tender kiss. “Promise me you’ll tell me about whatever’s on your mind from now on?”

“Promise,” you agreed, and Matt could tell by the steady beat of your heart that you were telling the truth.

a/n: this was basically a way for me to process some personal shit (excuse the lore lmao) because writing is my way of dealing with things!

special thanks to @sunflowersandsapphires for helping me process my thoughts and make my ideas into a story as well as to @a-leg-without-fear @dorothleah and @shouldbestudying41 for beta reading and providing edits! i love you all!

#matt murdock #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock hurt/comfort #matt murdock angst #daredevil #daredevil x reader #daredevil angst #daredevil hurt/comfort

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midnightsnyx · 2 months ago

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girl at home | mat barzal | part 11

pairing: mat barzal x reader

warning: alcohol and angst word count: 1288k (sorry)

authors note: i can't wait for nora to break everyone's heart in this chapter :) :) :) anyway im so sorry this is short and 100% a filler chapter but I need it to be able to write what will happen next. pls comment even if it’s constructive criticism because comments feed my writing soul 🩵 big big thanks to @justonemorewallflower for editing this!!

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The aftermath of her is interesting, to say the least. Training camp is creeping up and soon, Mat will have to return to New York. The two of you had a long but enlightening conversation shortly after his breakdown at your apartment. You had woken up the next morning to Nora’s foot digging into your kidney and Mat’s feet near your face but all the discomfort evaporated when the three of you made breakfast together.

For the first time since Mat found out about Nora, you didn’t have anxiety or dread hanging over your shoulders. You weren’t worrying about other people's opinions or how Mat is adjusting or crazy girlfriends. You’re finally able to focus on trying to figure out how exactly to make this work.

Mat on the other hand, is doing everything he can to try and make up for everything but he’s going a tad overboard.

“She does not need a kitten, Mathew,” you say firmly, refusing to look at his phone that has a picture of a kitten.

“C’mon, look at that cute little fluffy baby,” he says, trying to push the phone closer to you. “It’ll teach her responsibility!”

“She’s six,” you remind him, picking up a blanket off the couch and folding it. Mat’s been sleeping at your apartment but on the couch, much to Nora’s dismay. She assumes now that Mat isn’t dating anyone, you and Mat will get back together. The look of relief on her face when Mat told her Calista wasn’t going to be around anymore made you want to cry. You hadn’t truly understood just how much Mat’s toxic relationship was affecting Nora.

However, her insistence that you and Mat get married now is getting a bit out of hand.

“We should talk about it,” he says quietly, snapping you out of your thoughts.

He’s not talking about the kitten now. He’s referring to what kind of living situation you’re going to have come hockey season.

“Yeah,” you sigh, placing the final blanket on the pile and turning to face him. He looks unsure, eyes darting around the room and looking everywhere except at you.

It’s unusual to see him unsure about himself. The Mat you knew when you were young was confident and rarely doubted anything.

The past two months changed that, Nora changed it.

“I know you said that you don’t want to move-”

“Mat,”

“-but what if we just do weekends?”

You give him a dry look. “Weekends? You want me and Nora to fly to New York every weekend? What are we, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift?”

“If you’d told me about her in the first place, this wouldn’t be an issue!” He snaps, and you flinch because he’s right. If you had listened to what everyone was telling you seven years ago, and told Mat about Nora, you wouldn’t be in this situation. You had your reasons though, and you’ll stand by them.

“You’re never going to forgive me for that, are you?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know how I can.”

. . .

Bringing up the news that Mat has to go back to New York soon does not go over well with Nora. You’ve seen her throw tantrums before, but this is next level. She locks herself in her bedroom and refuses to come out, demanding for grandma Nadia to come to your apartment, which is an easy fix. One phone call and she’s at the front door.

Nora opens her bedroom door when she hears Nadia’s voice, but still looks suspicious when she opens it enough for her to squeeze through. They’re in her room for about fifteen minutes before they both come out, Nadia looking exasperated but somber at the same time.

They stand in front of you and Mat, Nora staring at the floor and Nadia looking at the two of you.

“Nora would like to ask the New York Islanders owners to relocate to British Columbia,” she says, pressing her lips together. You can’t tell if she’s trying not to laugh or not to cry.

Mat kneels down so he’s at Nora’s height and hesitantly takes her hands in his. “We can definitely write them a letter peanut, but that’s a lot easier said than done.”

She’s looking at the ground still but you can see teardrops hitting the floor and your heart breaks even more, if possible.

“Why?” She sniffles and Mat gives you a desperate look. You’ve been a mom for six years, he hasn’t even been a dad for 2 months.

“Nora,” you say softly but firm enough that she looks up at you. “I explained how hockey works, remember?”

“Yeah,” she mumbles, sniffling. “But maybe if we explain, they’ll change it.”

You kneel down so you’re at her level and wipe her face. “They won’t, baby.”

She starts sobbing when you say that, throwing one arm around you and one around Mat. You keep yourself from breaking down but you can hear Nadia sniffing quietly and Mat’s shoulders are shaking.

All you wanted was for Nora to know Mat and his family but nothing has worked out the way you planned. You have no idea how it got to this point and you’re not sure if it’s going to be able to be fixed.

. . .

“What are you wishing for this year?” You asked Nora before she blew out the candles for her fifth birthday.

She tapped her chin a few times before grinning. “A daddy!”

Nobody else heard her and she was too distracted to see the heartbroken look on your face.

. . .

“Figure anything out yet?” Marlee asks, putting a glass of wine in front of you.

After taking a sip of your wine, you shake your head. “Nope. I can’t uproot Nora’s life, and Mat has to go back to New York.”

He’s been trying to spend as much time with her the past few days after her breakdown. They’re at the Barzal household tonight so you’re at Marlee’s, trying to forget for a while. You have no idea what to do and it’s killing you. Nora has been quiet and distant, and you don’t know what to read of that. Part of you wonders if she wants to move to New York with Mat, but deep down you know your daughter and if you just take her away from everybody and everything she knows, it won’t end well.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Marlee says, being completely unhelpful. You know she can’t solve your problems but you thought she would at least have some advice.

“You got nothing?” You ask dryly.

She sighs, looking up at the ceiling before turning her gaze to you. “Look, moving to New York? Probably a bad idea, but is it worth trying? Maybe.”

You narrow your eyes at her. “How many glasses of wine have you had?”

“This is my first, thank you very much,” she sniffs.

“But you’re suggesting I move Nora to New York?” You ask incredulously. This is completely out of character for Marlee. She’s usually the one who thinks things through.

“A trial,” she says. “Try moving to New York with Mat. The worst that will happen is you and Nora coming home.”

Even though she’s saying this nonchalantly, she’s staring into her wine glass thoughtfully. You know she wouldn’t have suggested it if she hadn’t thought it through.

The idea of moving is daunting and you’re not sure if you will even be able to go through with it. She’s right though, you could do a trial before Nora starts school. See how life in New York with Mat would be. If it would work.

“You really think it could work?” You ask quietly.

“You won’t know until you try.”

tag list: @literatureluster @dasiysthings @fallinallincurls @diary-of-jj @heatherawoowoo @lovinbarzal

@whatthepuckisgoingon @teapartydreams @alilstressyandlotdepressy @keiva1000 @hischiershoe @bellstwd @alwaysclassyeagle @brrbrina @nonsensical-nonsence @love-like-woaah @swift-sos @barzygirl13 @ilyrafe @samanthasgone @mariamuses @feminieun @abeautifulcherryblossom @ya-pucking-nerd @bborra

if you wanna be added or taken off the list, let me know please! or if i missed you!!

#allies writing #hockey imagines #nhl fanfiction #hockey fanfiction #nhl imagines #hockey imagine #mat barzal x reader #mat barzal imagine #mathew barzal x reader

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foxtrot91 · 2 months ago

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brave

It’s been six months since Buck and Tommy had their first disastrous date, and it’s not a coincidence that Buck chose Micelli’s for their date tonight. The last week has been rough for them both, and Buck thinks that maybe revisiting where they started could do them both some good. It’s a reminder, if nothing else, that they weathered one storm and they can weather this one too.

It had started with an offhand comment, and before either of them knew it, it had snowballed into their first actual fight. Buck has had arguments with girlfriends before, but something about this one felt different, it felt real, like the stakes were somehow higher than they were in his previous relationships. Eventually, when it was clear that they weren’t getting anywhere, Buck had taken off and found himself at Eddie’s with a pack of beer and a bag of Eddie’s favourite Doritos.

“I just don’t get what his problem is,” Buck says, and then cracks open a bottle. “It’s like he saw the-the lease renewal papers he just – he just…”

“Just?” Eddie prompts, stuffing his face with chips. Buck decides against telling him about the crumbs and Dorito dust stuck in his moustache, figuring he’ll discover it eventually and in the meantime, Buck can quietly laugh about it without Eddie knowing. He deserves some form of entertainment after the night he’s had.

“He asked me to move in with him,” Buck grumbles before grabbing his own handful of chips just to have something to do with his hands. He ignores the way Eddie’s eyes go wide at the admission. “It was out of nowhere a-and I don’t know what to do with that, Eddie. I-I panicked and I said some things I probably shouldn’t have… and then I took off.”

“If you’re not ready to move in with him then just say that,” Eddie says, as if it was that simple. It wasn’t that simple, was the thing, and Buck doesn’t know how to articulate that to his best friend, let alone to Tommy. Buck must take too long to respond because when Eddie continues, he’s looking at Buck with a thoughtful, borderline suspicious expression. “Unless… you’re not-not ready?”

Tapping his knuckles on the wood of Eddie’s table, Buck looks everywhere but Eddie as he gathers his thoughts.

“I-I shouldn’t be ready, right? I mean, we’ve only been together for six months, that’s way too soon.”

“So, it’s not that you’re not ready, but that you think that you shouldn’t be ready?” Buck nods, feeling a little helpless as Eddie looks at him like he’s an idiot, and Buck sighs in frustration. “Okay, I don’t get it. What is this about? Because if you’re ready, and Tommy’s ready, then I’m not sure I see the what the problem is.”

“I just-it just…” Buck pauses, forcing himself to take a breath before continuing. “It came out of nowhere and it just seemed so sudden and I…”

It doesn’t matter that he can’t seem to get the words out, because Eddie has a look of understanding dawning on his face as if he’s suddenly just realized what this is about and Buck lets out a sigh of relief. He can always trust Eddie to understand what’s going on with Buck, if no one else.

“Taylor,” Eddie says, before taking a long draw from his beer.

“Taylor,” Buck repeats in agreement. When Tommy had asked if he’d like to move in, Buck had felt a sudden rush of excitement and he’d almost, almost agreed without thinking. But that excitement had quickly changed into the sharp sting of anxiety as he’d thought about how quickly he and Taylor had jumped into that milestone, and then how quickly it had all fallen apart. Standing there, looking at Tommy, he hadn’t been able to stop worrying that they had an expiration date, and that this move would be the first step towards the end just like it had been with Taylor.

“Listen,” Eddie starts, and Buck knows that tone, it’s the same tone he used when telling Buck not to give up on something before he’d even known what it was before encouraging him to call Tommy. “You and Tommy are not you and Taylor, not even close. And if you’re really not ready for that step then that’s okay, and you need to tell Tommy that. I’m sure he’d understand. But if you are, and you’re just not letting yourself because of a previous bad experience then you need to figure out how to let that go before it hurts something that could be really good for you.”

He’s right, and Buck knows he’s right. He and Tommy have been doing so well together and Buck hates to admit that there’s been this part of him all along that’s just been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Tommy to come to the decision that maybe they’re just better off as friends. “You don’t think it’s too soon?” Buck asks quietly into his drink.

“I think that what’s too soon for some people is just right for others, and only you and Tommy get to decide what’s right for the two of you.” He’s speaking from experience, and Buck experiences a sudden pang of guilt at the reminder of Marisol and what led to Eddie blowing up his life.

Agreeing to give it some more thought, Buck decides to change the topic as a bit of sadness creeps over Eddie’s face. Without another word, Buck moves their location to the living room and puts on one of the telenovelas Eddie likes, and they both settle in for the night.

Eventually, Buck and Tommy had spoken, and had agreed to table talks of moving in together for the time being. Tommy hadn’t understood why Buck had reacted the way he had, and Buck wasn’t sure how to explain that thoughts of moving in together exhilarated and terrified him at the same time. He especially didn’t know how to explain that it’s thoughts of his ex-girlfriend that have him feeling so anxious.

But now that some distance has been put between the fight, and Buck’s had some time to think things through, he knows what he wants. And while things still weren’t quite back to normal between them, Tommy having pulled back slightly since the argument, they’re still them and Buck wants to celebrate that.

“Brings back memories,” Tommy quips once they’re settled into their table. When Buck made the reservation, he’d specifically requested this table, wanting to recreate their original date as much as possible. Hopefully with a much different ending this time.

“Yeah, uh, that’s why I chose it, actually.” Buck feels his face heat slightly at the admission as he glances up at Tommy. He hates that Tommy still looks a little guarded around him, hopes that he can erase that look with what he plans to say. “I thought maybe we could, I-I don’t know, paint over the old memories with new ones?”

That gets him a fond smile before Tommy looks down at the menu, shaking his head before he looks back up. “You’re adorable,” he says, voice soft and fond and Evan feels himself relax slightly at the glimpse of warmth there.

“You said that last time.”

“I meant it then, too.” Another smile, and Buck feels himself melt a little more.

The waiter appears then, and they put in their orders. Instead of sharing a pizza this time they order individually; Buck orders himself the gnocchi, and Tommy choosing the Chicken Parmigiana. Conversation is light as they wait for their food, Bobby is finally back in the captain’s seat which means that Buck is happy to talk about the goings on at the 118 and Tommy is always happy to listen. Tommy tells him about his last shift in turn, about the helicopter rescue of the missing hiker that could’ve gone wrong but didn’t thanks to Tommy and Lucy’s quick thinking, and for the first time since their fight, Buck feel sat peace.

This is what he wants, he thinks as their food arrives, him and Tommy. Whether they’re at a fancy restaurant or lazing about on Tommy’s couch, Tommy is where he feels content and happiest. There’s only two other people who’ve ever made him feel truly at ease and one of them is his sister, and the other is Eddie, and that he gets to count Tommy among that group fills him with so much warmth Buck thinks he could burst with it.

Only you and Tommy get to decide what’s right.

Eddie’s words come back to him as silence settles over the table while they dig into their food. He’s right, six months, twelve months, whatever, they’re all just arbitrary numbers and Buck is tired of letting his past dictate what feels right, right now. They’re nearly finished their meals when Buck sets down his fork with a soft clink, deciding it’s now or never.

“Tommy I uh, I wanted to-”

“—Wait, let… let me go first Evan,” Tommy says, cutting Buck off. “Look, last week I put you on the spot and that wasn’t right.”

“No, Tommy, I-”

Tommy raises a hand, as though silently asking Buck to let him finish and Buck’s mouth snaps closed. “It wasn’t fair to you, is what I’m trying to say, and neither was my reaction when you weren’t ready for that conversation.” He lets out a weary sigh and Buck wants nothing more than to reach across the table and pull him in for a tight hug, but he can tell Tommy has more he wants to say and thinks that maybe he wasn’t the only one who has been stewing on the events of last week. “When I saw that your lease renewal was coming up I just – I knew that I didn’t want to have to wait another year for you to move in with me. I got ahead of myself, and when you didn’t seem on board, I let myself get in my head about it, and I took it out on you and I shouldn’t have.” Tommy pauses there and takes a sip of his wine before continuing. “You’re incredible, Evan, and I think I just got so caught up in how quickly we’ve tackled every other stage of this relationship that I assumed this would be the same, but it’s okay if it’s not. I love you, and you needing more time before we consider that step doesn’t change that, okay?”

Once finished, Tommy reaches across the table to cover Buck’s hand in his own and Buck feels himself let out a long, steady breath. There’s so many different things flying through his head that he struggles to grasp onto one coherent thought. Eventually, he’s able to settle on the one that matters most, which is that he loves this man, quickly followed by the fact that he’d almost said yes that night, before he’d let his fear get the better of him.

“I didn’t renew my lease,” Buck blurts out, knowing that he should’ve started with literally anything else but that’s what came out and he can’t exactly take it back now.

“Evan,” Tommy says, eyes wide, and a memory of Tommy saying his name in that exact same tone flashes through Buck’s memory, only that time they’d been outside and Buck had gotten Tommy’s coffee order wrong.

“I um, I wanted to say yes, when you asked,” Buck starts, picking up the fork that he’d previously put down and fiddling with it as nervous energy rushes through him. “I was going to, a-and then, well, I got in my head a little too? The last person I moved in with, it um, it fell apart, and we’d moved in sort of early in the relationship and I just… I got scared.” He’s talking to his plate now, face heating as he feels Tommy’s hand squeeze over his. “I love you,” he says, turning his hand palm up underneath Tommy’s and squeezing back. “I loved her too, o-or I thought I did, at least, and it still fell apart. I just didn’t want that to happen with you.”

“Evan,” Tommy says again, slightly breathy as he looks at Buck with a warmth that Buck sometimes thinks is reserved just for him.

“But I-I realized that I can’t let that stop me from having what I want now, and what I want, Tommy, is to be with you.”

“Evan, are you sure?” Tommy asks, sounding a little disbelieving, and Buck can’t exactly blame him after the abrupt one-eighty he’s done.

“Yes, I am, i-if the offer is still on the table.” He really hopes it is because he wasn’t lying about choosing not to renew his lease. He could probably talk to the landlord if needed, they have a good relationship, and Buck is sure he’d prefer to keep things as is over having to search for a new tenant. But still, he’s really hoping he won’t need to do that.

“Of course it’s still on the table,” Tommy says emphatically, looking a little dazed.

Before Buck can answer they’re interrupted by their waiter checking in on them and offering dessert. Neither of them has to think very long about it before they’re ordering a slice of carrot cake to share. He feels giddy as they exchange excited glances over their shared cake.

“So, about my couch…” Buck says when they’re about halfway through their cake, trailing off as he lets the sentence hang there. They’d been discussing the finer points of Buck moving in with Tommy but had yet to address furniture.

“I seem to recall you making a big deal in the past about my couch being your favourite,” Tommy responds with a grin. “But-” he interrupts Buck before he can retort, holding up a hand, “as you already know, I have been working on finishing the basement. If you bring your set over, then that just means we won’t need to buy new furniture. Win-win.”

“I like the way you think,” Buck agrees. Grinning, Buck takes another bite of cake, not missing the way Tommy eyes his mouth as he slides the spoon out from between his lips.

Tommy takes a bite of his own, and then gives a mournful look to the near empty plate. “We should have ordered two slices,” he says with a mournful sigh.

Laughing, Buck pushes the plate towards Tommy, offering him the last of it. “We could always just order another to go,” he suggests. “There was an apple spice cake that sounded really good.”

Tommy seems to seriously consider it as he savours the last bite of their shared carrot cake before he shakes his head and looks up at Buck. “Mm, no, I think I’m going to be hungry for something else when we get home.”

Buck feels his breath hitch at the low tone coupled with the sudden heat of Tommy’s gaze. And well, Buck can definitely get on board with that, is always up for it the second Tommy so much as looks in his direction. But still- “Tommy Kinard? Turning down cake? It’s like I don’t even know you,” he teases, unable to help himself.

“Baby,” he says, voice husky as he leans forward over the table, “I think you’ve misunderstood. No one said anything about turning down cake. I’ve just decided I want an entirely different variety… one not offered on restaurant menus.” He gives Buck a wink before he sits back and flags down their waiter for their check and Buck… Buck thinks he’s going to have trouble walking out of this restaurant without embarrassing himself. Tommy eyes him as he pays the bill, the corner of his mouth lifting in a smug smirk as he stands from his seat. “You coming, babe?”

Not yet, he thinks, but definitely later. “I um, yeah, yes,” he says before clumsily getting out of his seat, hip knocking into the sharp corner of the table. Tommy’s laugh fills the space between them and Buck wishes he could bottle it because it’s quickly becoming his favourite sound.

As they leave the restaurant he looks over at Tommy, who’s grinning back at him and has the realization that he gets to have this. The laughter and the belonging and the bone deep love that he feels, he gets to have it, it’s his to keep if he’s brave enough to take it.

Standing next to Tommy, it’s easy to feel brave.

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#bucktommy #tevan #kinkley #fox writes #unbeta'd #just a quick little fic i wrote tonight #based on info we've gotten from interviews

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