#like oh wow i wonder why you a white person had more access to these sorts of dogs

[darkwood-sleddog]

i do thing it's mighty rich of that recent documentary on joe henderson to call him the "last arctic explorer" in relation to how he works his dogs when there are plenty of indigenous arctic mushers working their dogs in the traditional way without peddling inaccurate and often harmful breed mythology but that's just me.

[cjsinkythoughts]

FATWS One Shot #2 - The Beginning of a Family

Word Count: 1804

Warnings: Cursing, Mentions of Human Trafficking (once, it was a mission Reader did), Minor Character Injury

Setting/Characters: The first half-ish of The Avengers in 2012; Reader, Steve Rogers, Nick Fury, Natasha Romanoff, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Thor, Mentions of Loki, Phil Coulson, and Clint Barton, OC!Agent Anderson

A/N: Here’s One Shot Number 2! I was thinking of making it longer and adding the actual Battle of Manhattan, but I dunno if I’m gonna do that. I just wanted these to be One Shots of first meetings and other smaller events. I didn’t want to do scene-for-scene two parters. If you want me to, I can, I don’t mind doing it, I just wasn’t planning on it. I’ve kinda been slacking today, which is why I haven’t cranked out more than this one, but I’ll see if I can finish one more for tonight. Tomorrow’s another late night for me at work, BUT! Tomorrow night FATWS comes out! So I will be doing the next Episode! I also don’t have Friday off this week, so the Parts might bleed into Saturday, but they will come this weekend!

Reminder that this has nothing to do with FATWS the show, but I don’t have a title for my FATWS Series, which is what these are based off of, so this is what they’re called for now! If you have any ideas for names, feel free to send them in! I’m just too lazy to come up with something clever for the whole Series.

Thank you so much for reading! As always, not beta’d so please excuse any mistakes! Be kind to yourselves and others! Stay tuned and enjoy!

FATWS Masterlist

cjsinkythoughts Masterlist

You were exhausted, coming back from an assignment that lasted a little over two months. It’d been your first one since you were assigned to help Steve adjust, and you were guessing they’d keep you on desk duty for a few months before sending you back out again. Which frustrated you to no end.

But then you got back your personal cell phone from a fellow agent and, seeing you had a few  voicemails - which you never had - you flipped it on.

“Hi, Y/N.” Your lips turned up at the man you started growing close to over the past year. “I-I know you’re on a mission right now. I mean, you just left last week. Anyways, I just…I hope you’re doin’ okay. You probably won’t get this until later, but…still. I hope you’re safe. I, uh, I got that book. The one you were joking about me getting. The U.S. History for Dummies one. It goes farther back than I need to know, but I still read all of it. It helped. I wish you were here though. But I know you’re working. And that’s important. Um… I guess I’ll see you in a few months.”

The phone beeped before the next message played. “I took your advice. I got a sketchbook and some other stuff. There’s a ton of new supplies. I’m kinda excited to try them out. Maybe they’re not new but they’re more accessible now than they used to be. And I found a gym. In Brooklyn. It’s kinda run down - a hole in the wall type place - but they don’t do memberships and they don’t care how long you stay as long as you pay for your time. So that’s nice. I guess. Anyways…hi. I don’t think I said that earlier. It’s Steve, by the way. But you probably guessed that. Um…that’s all. I just wanted to let you know. Stay safe, honey. Abbyssinia.”

You listened to the next couple ones, all along the same lines. Steve telling you about his day; about the dog he was allowed to pet on his run or the different coffee he tried this morning at your previous suggestion. You snickered a little, shaking your head. You would never guessed that Hitler hitting, Nazi punching Captain America was so…soft. Cute.

His last voicemail was from earlier that morning, and it made her brow furrow. “Hey, honey. I, uh…God, I really wish you were here. I was told you’d be getting back last week, but then they said it might be another couple weeks because something happened? I hope nothing happened. Please be okay. I’ve really missed you. I know it’s only been a year, but…you’re the only familiar thing I have right now. I guess Fury was right to choose you since you were the first person I saw. There’s a, uh, problem. Fury’s got a mission for me. Some guy named Loki stole the Tesseract. Which was HYDRA’s secret weapon. That blue cube thing. I was just getting used to laptops and fast food and this…it’s just a lot. Overwhelming. You were always good at making things less intimidating. I’ve gotta go. Some SHIELD personnel are picking me up now. We’re going to…somewhere. I’m sure you would know, but they haven’t exactly told me. Hoping to see you soon, Y/N. Please be safe.”

You frowned at the information, looking up at one of your fellow agents, Anderson. “Hey.” He turned his head towards you from his conversation with the copilot. “Is something going on at HQ?”

“The Helicarrier.” Anderson corrected. “Fury just called it in. Something with the Tesseract. And some guy’s mind controlling people. He’s got Barton, apparently. The director is bringing a few people on board; Banner, Stark, Romanoff. Rogers, too, I heard. He wants you to be there ASAP, so we’re going there now.”

Letting out a sigh, you rubbed your eyes and nodded. “Alright. Let’s go see what’s going on.”

*************************

Fury met you as you walked off the jet, lugging your duffle bag over your shoulder. You were still in your clothes from the mission; a human trafficking ring in Guam. Dirty, torn up jeans along with a white tank top hugging your torso and a flannel, unbuttoned, over your shoulders. One of your sneakers had a hole in it, too, and you were walking with a slight limp from the dislocated kneecap you got a few days prior.

“Agent.” He nodded in greeting, passing you a file. “The others are waiting. We just brought in Loki.”

You chewed your cheek, narrowing your eyes as you scanned the information in the file. It had personal files of the others, but you didn’t need to look through those. You knew Natasha very well, considering she taught you half the things you know, along with Barton. You knew Stark - of course you did - especially after you helped set Natasha up to be his secretary a while back. Banner you were also knowledgeable about, seeing as you went undercover to find him when he first took off and had been part of the tracking team on him ever since. Thor you had learned about after his fiasco in New Mexico from Coulson. And, last but certainly not least, Steve Rogers, who you knew better than any file could explain.

“Walk me through this; Thor and Loki are the real Thor and Loki? Like, from Norse myths?”

“Apparently so. You know about the New Mexico incident with the two last year, don’t you?”

You nodded, pinching your lips together tightly. “Well, yeah, but I thought…I dunno. I guess it just didn’t click. So,” you tucked the file under your arm securely, raising an eyebrow at Fury. “We’re fighting a god? An actual god?”

“With an army of aliens.” He confirmed.

“Wonderful.” You huffed as the two of you turned a corner, making your way onto the bridge, just in time to hear Stark talking to Banner about him turning into the Hulk.

“Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube.” Fury butted in. You crossed your arms behind Fury, leaning on your good leg. “I was hoping you might join him. Before you do, this is-” 

“Y/N! You’re back!”

You shot a grin to the blonde, who perked up upon seeing you. “Hi, Steve. Just in time, too, huh.” You nudged Natasha slightly. “Hey, Nat. Sorry about Clint.”

She shrugged. “I’m just glad you’re here to help.”

“I’m sorry.” You looked over to find Banner frowning contemplatively at you. “Do I know you?”

You opened your mouth to answer, but Fury beat you to it. “Formalities later. Y/L/N, we’ll bring you up to speed-”

“I’ll get there, sir. How are you boys planning on tracking down the Tesseract?” You questioned, nodding in the two geniuses’ direction.

“I’d start with that stick of his.” Steve suggested, turning to look at the duo as well. “It may be magical but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon.”

“I don’t know about that, but it is powered by the Cube.” Fury stated. “And I’d like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.”

A tall, broad as hell blonde looked at Fury, confused. “Monkeys? I do not understand-”

“I do!” Steve jumped in, pointing at Thor, before leaning back in his seat at the silence that came after his exclamation. “I-I understood that reference.”

You chuckled and shook your head, winking at Steve when he smiled bashfully at you. As the two scientists - was Stark a scientist? - started heading out, Steve hopped up, padding over to you.

“You’re back early.”

“Late, technically.” You shrugged, letting him pull you in for a hug, your hand rubbing his back. “I got your calls.”

He pulled away, his ears turning red. “Oh, yeah. I, uhm-”

You sniggered. “It’s fine, Steve. You can call me whenever you need to. I’m just sorry I couldn’t answer you sooner.”

“You were working.” He shrugged half heartedly. “Did it go okay? Are you okay?”

“Yes, Steven. I’m fine.” You rolled your eyes just as a yawn threatened to escape your lips. “If not a little tired.” You tapped on the star against his chest. “Nice suit, by the way.”

“Ha ha.” He grinned, eyeing your own clothing. “You’re matching me.” He tugged on the red, white, and blue flannel hanging from your arms. “You also look like shit.”

You snorted. “Wow. What a gentleman. Let’s get this whole Loki situation over with so I can go to bed, yeah?”

He chuckled a little with a nod. “Sounds like a plan, honey.” The two of you started out of the bridge. “You should shower first, though.”

“You’re a bully, you know that?”

“I’m just sayin’!”

“I’m just sayin’!” You mocked with a huff. “Leave me be, Rogers.”

His laughter was cut short, making you look over at him curiously, only to find his slitted eyes studying your movements. “Why are you limping?”

“Relax, Captain. I just dislocated my knee. It’s fine. Shit happens on missions, you know that.”

“Is that why you came back late?”

Shaking your head, you lead him to one of the private rooms the Helicarrier had so you could shower and change. “No. I just needed a little more time. That’s all. Now let’s focus on the problem at hand. We can talk more later.”

He hesitated, leaning against the doorway and watching you set your bag on the small cot.  “Okay. As long as you’re alright.”

Your heart jumped a bit at the concern laced in his tone, the apprehension in those blue eyes - which you found out had some green in them - making your breath hitch slightly. “I am.” You spoke softly with a firm nod of your head, trying to assure him and his worries. “I promise.”

“I’m gonna go check on Banner and Stark, then. Come find me when you’re done.”

You cleared your throat to recover yourself, throwing him a cheeky grin. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

He rolled his eyes with a smile, before turning and walking out, leaving you alone and confused.

What was that? You’d never had that reaction to anything. Your heart doesn’t race whenever someone walks in the room. Not like it did with him. What the hell did that even mean?

You shook your head, clearing your throats. You didn’t have time to dwell on that now. You doubted it was anything more than a fluke. You were just tired and seeing someone familiar, who was genuinely excited to see you was like a breath of fresh air after your operation. That’s all. Yeah.

With that decided, you headed to the shower, head spinning with new thoughts of this problem with the God of Mischief and that stupid blue cube.

All Works Taglist (Open):

@happygoreading​ @bibliophilewednesday​

[inactiveanimeblog]

‘i get lonely when you’re not here.’

yandere ! tobirama x reader one shot

tw : abuse, mentions of non con, kidnapping, sex, swearing, obsession, yandere, alcohol

it’s been about a month and two weeks since tobirama has kidnapped you.

a month and two weeks since he took you from everything you’ve ever known. your family, your loved ones, your home.

a month and two weeks of you repeatedly getting fucked and beaten.

and it’s not even like you want the sex, he’s taken everything from you. even your precious virginity. he’s punished you over and over again ruthlessly when you break one of his stupid little ‘rules’ that he’s set for you, and there’s no escape from him. i mean, how could you even escape tobirama senju? he would find you in an instant and without a doubt, the punishment he would give you, would be far worse than any punishment he’s ever given you.

it’s truthfully the worst, you never imagined your life would take a turn so shitty like this. you always thought about having a happy life. a life with a significant other you’ve chosen and some delicate children, in a nice big beautiful home with a large yard where your kids could run around and play, and you could sun bathe while reading an interesting novel. however, any plans you had for a good life have been taken away and burned. you accepted your defeat.

so here you are, staying in his large house, waiting for tobirama to return home every night. which he does. and when he does, you already have dinner ready for him like you’re supposed to. and once he’s finished eating you set up a warm bath for him, which you are also forced to join in and bathe with him. washing his white hair for him, scrubbing his body, cleansing his face. it’s annoying, really. you wish you could wipe the smug look off his beautiful face. and yes he was a very attractive man, nonetheless his personality and abuse ruins it. maybe if he wasn’t like this you could fall in love with him, you could have seen a future with him. but he sabotaged himself by taking you from everything. you would never adore him or love him.

it’s been about a week since tobirama’s been home. which is weird, he didn’t inform you that he had to go somewhere for a while, and he usually comes home every single night. could he be dead? no.. that’s a dumb thought. tobirama dead? you don’t know anyone capable of killing him. but what you do know is, it’s been relaxing since he’s been gone. peacefully going to bed every night for the past seven days, not worried about his punishments or his forceful sex.

tonight was the seventh night he was gone, so here you were snooping around the house looking through his things, when all of a sudden you see a bottle on the top shelf in one of the kitchen cabinets. and what do you know? it’s a bottle of jack daniels. a full fucking bottle that you were gonna take swigs of tonight. you deserve it after what you’ve been putting up with.

now it’s 10 pm and you’re almost black out, sitting in the warm bed giggling to yourself that the rooms spinning. and.. you kinda feel lonely. you wonder, what would it be like if tobirama were here right now? would he be mad that you were drunk and discipline you? would he sit down and join you? your thoughts about him were racing, and you gotta admit. the alcohol was starting to get to you. you began to think about his touch, the hickeys and marks he would leave on your body. it sort of turned you on, heat pooling in your lower stomach as you stared off into space, lost in a deep trance. don’t even tell me you miss him right now? oh you do huh? well good news for you, because the front door just opened and tobirama’s about to enter the room.

“shit.” you whispered to yourself, taking one last sip of the bottle, and setting it down underneath the bed. you sat up straight and acted normal as if you weren’t absolutely obliterated.

oh come on y/n, did you really think you could hide that you were drunk? the room reeks of whiskey and you’re eyes are half lidded, cheeks are flushed, and you could barely speak a word of english.

the bedroom door opens and tobirama enters closing it behind him. his eyes staring you down as you blushed and shifted your body silently, keeping the eye contact with him.

“what the hell is that smell y/n?” he asked, his brows furrowing. he’s slowly walking over to the bed.

“i— i’m just, i don’t k-know what that smell is.” you hiccuped. okay, it was gonna be hard to hide the fact that you were drunk. but wow, has he always looked this sexy?

“don’t fucking tell me you’ve been drinking? where the fuck did you even get that liquor?” he barked. it’s taking everything out of him to hold himself back from ruining you.

“i— yes.. i’m sorry tobirama, i’m drunk. i found it in a cabinet.” you spoke, your voice barely above a whisper as you were scared shitless. but my god why does he look so good right now?

“so you broke a rule? you went through the house and took an item of mine and got drunk with it?” he was now very close to the bed, his eyes boring into yours.

“yes.” and that was it. tobirama pulled you by your ankle making you lay down, and getting on top of you, his body straddling yours, his hand takes ahold of your throat squeezing it, not so lightly. you let out a faint whimper.

“to— tobirama..” you try to say, wrapping both hands around his wrist trying to get him to let go, until you have this dirty little idea.

you look up at him with glossy eyes, the most innocent look on your face with the sluttiest thought in your mind. you would seduce him out of this punishment. your fingers tugged at his other hand bringing it closer to your face. he looked lost assorted with anger. you took his thumb and put it straight into your mouth, sucking on it and looking him right in his eyes.

“tobirama..” you say once more. “i want you so bad right now.”

he stares down at you, confused as ever. his grip on your throat loosens a tiny bit but he still keeps his hand wrapped around your neck. you take his thumb leaving little wet kisses on it. his cock starts to get hard, you can feel it stretching out his pants touching your bare thigh, and the butterflies arise to erupt in your stomach.

taking one of your legs you move it up and down underneath him. above your knee is grinding on his clothed dick as his eyes begin to fill with darkness, a hint of lust.

“what are you doing you little brat?” he spits, he notices himself getting weak in the knees, a new feeling for him.

“nothing. i— i just missed you while you were gone.” you lied. but it didn’t feel like a lie while you were drunk. “why would you leave for that long and not tell me? i get lonely, when you’re not here.”

you could almost here a gasp come from him but he quickly hides it with a small smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

“i always knew you were interested in me. you would attempt to conceal it with your pleas for me to not fuck you and your nasty fouled mouth comments. it’s like you enjoy when i punish you, you needy little slut. so incompetent.” he scoffs. his eyes staring deep into you as if he was looking into your soul. “however, what i do when i’m not here doesn’t concern you.”

yup, he’s delusional.

you blink innocently, continuing to move your leg up and down beneath him, your hands roam his body teasingly, proceeding into his shirt to touch his bare skin with your cold shaky fingers. making it known you’re ready for him to undress himself and you as well, you almost feel him shiver.

“i love it when you call me your little slut tobirama. i’m already so wet.” you whisper, flicking your eyes back and forth from his eyes to his slightly parted lips. you lean your head up slightly, kissing his chapped lips. it starts off with a little weak peck on the mouth before you move your head back down onto the pillow, and you both stare at each other intently for another couple of seconds.

“you make me fucking sick. you really disgust me.” he says, his voice low and throaty. he tightens his grip on your throat a second time before his lips crash hungrily on to yours, his tongue slips into your mouth as you allow it to and your passionate sweet kisses mix with his rough aggressive ones. this was the first time you guys shared a kiss where you actually kissed him back, and you gotta admit, he was a great kisser.

he leans back to take your oversized tee shirt off, slipping it through your arms with ease, leaving you only in your little panties. he takes a quick glimpse at your body before taking off his shirt and kissing your neck eagerly, grinding his hips into yours, dry humping you to feel some friction. you move your hips up and down to match his rhythm. it feels as though this alone could make you cum all over your panties. you’re letting out little moans in his ear while he leaves hickeys and bite marks on you, on top of the older ones that have faded.

when you’re drunk and you initiated this, it almost feels heavenly. it almost feels like you could do this with him all the time. if only, he didn’t treat you so wrongly, then this would be a normal feeling. but it’s not normal, at all. sex with tobirama was usually a punishment for you.

tobirama takes his hand and starts playing with your pussy through your undies, using two fingers to rub your clit, not roughly, not softly but the right amount of force.

“i— i need you tobirama, please make love to me.”

“be patient, y/n.” he takes your underwear and moves it to the side, so his fingers are accessible to your cunny. he enters two digits into you while you let out a soft moan in his ear.

he loves the pretty sound you made, your moan going straight to his dick and he doesn’t think he can hold back from fucking you much longer.

he continues to pump his fingers in and out of you, looking down at your pussy and his hand. your mouth is hanging agape, bottom lip quivering almost as you feel yourself about to be undone.

“please, please don’t stop i’m about to cum.” you say, his fingers are now starting to curve as you gasp, now looking at him in the eye.

“cum for me, cum on my fingers y/n.” he responds licking his bottom lip, your face contorts with pleasure and your legs start to shake as your body lets go, your orgasm washing over you.

“f-fuck tobirama!” you whimper as he continues to finger you, riding out your high. your cum coating his fingers.

he takes out his two fingers and enters them into you mouth.

“suck.” he says, his voice is commanding. you abide and wrap your lips around his fingers, tasting yourself and your cum. he takes out his fingers with a pop.

he begins to take off his pants and boxers as quickly as he can, more than ready to take you, being it’s been a week since he’s gotten to fuck you. sliding down his boxers and his very thick and long boner appears making you whimper at the sight.

tobirama rubs his shaft slowly before grabbing both of your legs and wrapping them around his torso. his dick taps at your entrance and he slowly inserts himself inside of you, while you give out a weak moan of pleasure.

“fuck y/n, so fucking tight.” he says, his dick slowly moving in and out of you before he picks up his pace, squeezing your thighs with his large calloused hands.

tobirama’s name spewed through your lips, in broken syllables as he continued to thrust in and out of you. your mouth hung open in a silent scream as his rutting became more aggressive. he moves down to kiss you and grab your throat again, squeezing it tightly, almost completely cutting off air.

“tobi— tobirama i can’t i— can’t.” you try and say through the kissing.

“shut the fuck up and take it you whore.” he says, leaning back slightly, his thumb pulls your bottom lip down and he spits straight into your mouth.

tobirama pulls out of you and grips one of your legs to turn you over, putting you in doggy position. he takes your hips, slightly raising them in the air, before he enters you once again. and you can feel him even more, his dick stuffing your tight cunt completely.

he shoves your head down in the pillow, harshly pulling you back and forth on his cock, while simultaneously ramming himself into you.

your heads spinning, still drunk as ever your body almost felt numb with pleasure. you’re letting out lewd squeals, and you start feeling more and more limp the more he fucks you. all you can hear in the room is his body slapping against your wet pussy, his balls hitting the back of your cunny with each thrust, his silent grunts, and your babbling and moans stifling into the pillow.

“i’m gonna cum and you’re gonna take all of it.” he groans feeling his near coming. you clench around him involuntarily when you hear those words. he lets out a loud moan when you do and his cum spurts out of his dick and inside of you.

“fuck y/n, i’m cumming— i’m cumming. take all of it you incompetent little bitch.”

you start to sob into the pillow while he finishes up ravishing you. his pace slowing down before he’s fully out of you, falling over to the space next to yours.

you lie there next to him, trying to process what just happened. you already knew you would regret this in the morning, letting him fuck you willingly. but for right now all you can think about is how achy you feel.

“y/n, come here. come cuddle with me.” he says grabbing onto you and holding him tight to his sweaty glistening body. you both lay there, sleep about to take over your intoxicated self. he stares up at the ceiling, breathing heavily thrilled that you were finally ‘opening’ up to him.

[championofsanghelios]

Watch Dogs Legion - "M"

This was written by me, remember. So expect the usual errors, typos and word bugs (bzz.) --- [11.11.2029] [THE EARLS FORTUNE] [2044 HOURS] --- "...that's not my point!" Jackson says as he pushes the door open, his waterproof dripping wet from the rain that was lashing down outside. "You need to stop being so reckless, and actually consider the risks to yourself...as well as others."

"There's no fun in being careful!" Wrench replies, following him in. He was absolutely soaked through, but didn't seem to care. "It takes away the unpredictability...which is what I love about those Ops. Just showing up with my Lady Smash and some home made explosives...it's great!"

"That's another thing I need to talk to you about." Jackson pulls off his waterproof, draping it over one of the radiators near the wall. "There's breaking things, then there's vaporizing them..."

Connie comes out of the back room, letting out a laugh when she sees them both. "Well Well, you two took your time getting back."

"Only because this one here decided an Albion Comms Tower needed to be demolished." Jackson says, moving past her into the backroom where he locates a towel to dry his hair. "I'm yet to figure out how he wasn't caught or killed."

"You're making a name for yourself, Reggie." Connie says, moving around to the other side of the bar. "Not entirely sure if it's a good one, but...a name nonetheless."

"Yeah well, I'm just prepared to do whatever is necessary to take this city back." Wrench shrugs, gladly accepting the beer she places on the bar for him. "If that involves blowing up Albion property or smashing up Blume server stacks with my hammer, so fucking be it."

"It's dangerous." Jackson appears from the backroom, tossing the towel at him. "You better change that sweater by the way. You'll catch a chill."

"What are you my mother!?" Wrench let's out a modulated grunt, pulling up his mask slightly and downing about half of the beer he'd been handed. "Give me a break, we made it back okay!"

"And what happens if you end up getting arrested, or seriously wounded?" Jackson asks, opting for a bottle of water instead of anything alcoholic.

"Oh no." Wrench shakes his head placing his bottle down on the bars surface, his exposed mouth smirking. "There's no injuries with me. Either I get the job done, or die trying."

"You genuinely don't care if you live or die?" Jackson asks, giving him a look. "Seriously?"

"I don't have this for nothing." Wrench points at the anarchy symbol on his neck. "I don't live by rules, that includes the ones to do with life and death."

Jackson is about to say something when the door pushes open and Aiden comes in, feeling about as miserable as he looked. He was wet, but not in the same way the two of them were, something else had happened to him. "Wow! What happened to you!"

"I fell in the Thames." Aiden grumbles, shaking the water from the sleeves of his overcoat. "...actually I dove in there after some thugs caught me stalking them."

"Oh that reminds me!" Connie suddenly pipes up, her hand tapping Wrench's right forearm. "There was a bloke in here earlier on. He was asking for you."

"A bloke?" Wrench replies, questions marks lighting up his askew mask. He downs more of his beer. "Who was it?"

"No idea." Connie shakes her head, smiling. She reaches under the bar, taking out a small piece of white card paper. "But he was lovely, all charms...asked me to pass this onto you."

Wrench eyes the card for a second, opting to pull off his mask entirely. He takes a hold of it, turning it around. Someone had written a note in red-ink.

YOU NEED TO ANSWER YOUR PHONE, MAN ALSO THE WEATHER HERE IS NUTS!!! SEND ME A MESSAGE WHEN YOU GET THIS oh...and thank Connie for the free cookies. - M

He suddenly let's out a cough as he chokes on the beer he's drinking. Lifting the card up. "...motherfucker!"

"What?" Jackson stops trying to wrestle his Uncle out of his coat. "What is it?"

"I'll be right back." Wrench says, leaving his beer and his mask at the bar. He heads out into the rain, ignorant to the fact that it was making him wetter than he already was.

Taking his out his phone, he swipes up the contacts tab, scrolling down until he finds the right number. He thumbs it, his Optik lighting up and dialling.

After a tone or two, he hears a click.

"You took your time." Marcus' voice was something that he would never ever tire of hearing, especially now, especially after all of the shit he'd been through the last year or two. "I was wondering if Connie would get that to you."

"You're here." is all Wrench can say, unsure of what he should do now. Part of him wanted to jump for joy, another wanted to cry. "...you're actually here. In London."

"Yeah, I guess I couldn't just sit there in SF and let you have all the fun." Marcus chuckles. "...that little job we did together a few months back reminded me of how much I enjoyed having you around."

"Where are you right now?" Wrench asks, reaching up this face, rubbing at it. "Are you nearby?"

"Why?" Marcus asks, a smile evident in his voice. "You that desperate to see me?"

"Yes." Wrench admits it there and then. In truth there hadn't been anything he wanted to do more than see him again. "...It was the same for me. I didn't realise how much fun I used to have with you until you found me through, Jordi."

He moves over to one of the benches, sitting down on it. All around him, London was going about it's business, people were walking past, umbrellas in hand, hoods covering their heads. Looking out across Parliament Green, he sighs.

"I hear you've been having some fun outwith our little shared Op." Marcus says. "Something about killing Nigel Cass?"

"He had it coming." Wrench snorts bitterly, shaking his head. "Fuckin' maniac thought he could subvert justice and launch a coup...which reminds me, I've got to introduce you to the Dick."

"The Dick?" he hears the Hipster's confusion. "Who's that? Dusan's cousin?"

"Might as well be." the Anarchist nods, smiling to himself. "His name is Richard Malik...and he's a massive prick...but he's been useful to us."

"Wait...is that the same Richard Malik who was appointed Director of SIRS, only to be exposed literally 2 days later?" Marcus asks.

"That's the one." Wrench nods, sitting forwards. Staring at the concrete between his shoes. "I should send you the vids from when Bagley used his own FILAMENT against him."

"FILAMENT?"

"...what were his exact words?" Wrench's eyes narrow. "It's like...Nudle, but with instant access to all information about every person in the UK...basically George Orwell's wet dream."

The laugh that Marcus let's out is cathartic, such a delightfully bright noise, and one he could never get enough of. One he hoped he would hear more of soon.

It's short lived though, as a whole load of other feelings come to the surface in the pause that follows. He deflates a little. "I've missed having you around, M."

"I know." Marcus replies.

"So where are you?" Wrench asks. "Are you coming back this way? Or am I going to have to find you?"

He gets no response to those questions. His eyes narrow slightly. "M?"

Suddenly there's a movement in his peripherals, at which point a hand appears, holding his mask. He looks at it for a second, almost stunned.

"You're making a habit of leaving that thing lying around..." Marcus says, having just sat down next to him. "...am I gonna have to retrieve it for you every time you misplace it?"

Wrench doesn't move, he just sits there, frozen in place. Marcus had aged, much like himself, but not in the way he was expecting. He still looked pretty much the same as he always had, spare the scruff around his face and neck, which had turned into a full beard...and a little tinge of silver hair on his fringe.

Something shifts inside him at that moment, a tightness in his core that he wasn't even aware of unravels. A laughs bubbles out of him, one that turns to a sob half-way, and without so much as a word he puts an arm around him and pulls him into a hug, hiding his face in his shoulder.

"Huh." Marcus says, placing the mask onto his lap and closing the hug. "Of all the reactions I was ready for...this wasn't one of them."

"Shut up." Wrench says, his voice muffled by his shoulder. "Just-...Just shut up."

Marcus laughs out loud again.

. . .

[chancelloramidala]

Staring at the Sun ➤ Evan Buckley

Chapter One: You’re Fucking Joking.

Warnings: shooting, gunshot, blood, hospitals

Masterlist

Injuries on the job, especially as a firefighter, was nothing new. You had to be ready to endure whatever came at you, it was apart of the job description to be frank. But nothing could prepare Marceline Pierce for getting fucking shot, not once, but twice. The first bullet hit her in the thigh, luckily barely missing her femoral artery and stayed lodged in there, while the second on swiped clean through her left abdomen.

The call was to an cocaine overdose at a suburban mansion, and whilst everyone else was helping the victim, Marceline and Buck searched the rest of the house for the person who dialed 9-1-1. They made the stupid decision to split up so they could more ground because when I tell you the mansion was huge, it was. That’s when Marceline found who they were looking for in the bathroom.

It was a white male, early thirties and completely coked up by the smudged white lines on the marbled counter along with the white power covering his nose. He looked severely disheveled and was waving a gun around, muttering to himself and pacing back and forth. Marceline tried to talk the guy down, keeping her hands up to show that no she wasn’t a threat but didn’t keep her guard down. If worse came to worse, she was going to try and take the gun.

After that, everything was kind of... hard for her to remember if you could believe it. There were certain things she could remember, like how she was carefully walking towards the guy, Johnny that was his name, when Buck suddenly entered the room in search for Marceline. Johnny then pointed to gun at Buck, the last person, she wanted to be near a fucking gun.

So she acted on instinct, her mind yelling at her to make sure Buck was safe. Marceline charged towards Johnny, and when her hands were wrapped around his wrists, it went off and her left thigh was on fire. But it didn’t matter, Buck was still in danger. She groaned, biting through the pain as she staggering towards Johnny when he shot at her again but this time aiming for her side.

That’s when she finally fell, sort of slow-mo like as she bled onto the tiled floors.

Bobby was suddenly hovering over her, so was Chimney. Talking was hard at the time, so she just stared blankly at her Captain as one of the paramedics tried to stabilize her for transport. Buck was suddenly there too, he looked angry and seemed to be shouting but to be honest, Marceline couldn’t hear what he was saying.

But... where was Johnny?

Was the gun away?

Was Buck safe now?

Her mind was spinning.

She was then inside of the ambulance, Bobby beside her and holding her hand as he and Chimeny told her to stay awake. And Marceline tried, she really did. 

But, fuck, her eyes were heavy, almost as if someone put bricks on them.

So against her Captain’s orders, she slept.

Later, much later, Marceline woke up in a hospital room to the beeping of machines she was hooked up on and a cartoon playing incessantly on the shitty TV. Sitting beside her was her best friend, roommate, and ex-girlfriend Nicolette Bishop.

Apparently, she’s been out for four days from a medically induced coma after the shooting incident. Her team has been visiting since then, leaving small gifts and reading to her until she woke up. Even Nic’s daughter, Gemma came to visit a few times and proof of that was her poorly painted toenails and drawings left by her bedside.

Even though she was glad to be alive, Marceline couldn’t help but wonder if Buck was okay. Her chest was tight with anxiety at that thought.

Were her efforts in vain?

Did she really get fucking shot for nothing?

“No, Buck’s fine.” Nic told her as she fluffed Marceline’s pillow for the hundredth time that hour. “He visited you while you were out, just talking about random things, I didn’t really hear him.”

She relaxed at that, inwardly smiling at the fact that he was here when she was asleep.

The doctor said she’d be out of commission for at least a month and a half to heal properly and then another for physical therapy and check-ups.

Marceline fucking hated that. She verbalized that to her doctor, who wasn’t surprised and just shrugged before leaving.

What was she supposed to do till then? Sit her ass on the couch in front of the television and watch shitty reality TV? Plus, she knew Nic was going to baby the hell out of her till she could walk by herself.

But Nic wasn’t the only person ready to help Marceline.

By the time Marceline was released from the hospital, the 118 had already prepared a schedule where they’d take turns to spend the afternoon with her when they had the days off.

The last thing she wanted as her team to step into her home, one of the few places where she could separate her work life with her home life. But it’s not like she was able to have a say in any of this.

Nic was absolutely thrilled for the extra help, knowing that she’d be a little preoccupied from her job as a caretaker to take anymore personal days off, when only the month before Gemma was sick with a stomach bug.

For the next two months and a half, Marceline was bombarded by Bobby’s cooking, Chimney’s horrible jokes, and Hen’s warm hugs. As for Buck? Well he visited a little less than the rest of them, continuously thanking her for basically saving his life. The poor woman didn’t know how to respond to this, only lamely shrugging and picking at her nails while saying, “I just did what anyone else would do...” for the one’s they love...

In between those heartfelt visits, Athena Grant came by to give her a stern talking to about charging at someone with a loaded weapon. For as long as Marceline could remember, Athena was the mother-figure she never had growing up in the foster system and always fretted when she did something a little too reckless on the job.

“What the hell were you thinking? That druggie had a gun pointing at you, Marceline! You’re obviously not bulletproof!” Athena would go on a tangent, wagging her finger at the younger woman. 

“But he pointed the gun at Buck too, Athena!” Marceline shot back with a type of ferocity that the cop never saw before. “I...I didn’t think at the time, I know that but... I didn’t care what happened to me.” she chewed at her lower lip as she stared at the older woman. “Buck was in danger, I just- I had to- I would never forgive myself if something-” happened to him.

Marceline broke down, her hands now shaking as tears spilled out of her eyes. She broke eye contact with Athena, covering her face with her shaky hands to hid how embarrassed and vulnerable she felt in this moment.

Athena watched the young woman that she considered one of her own as she was struck with a realization. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you sweetheart?”

Marceline whimpered, curling herself in a ball that wouldn’t break her stitches.

“Oh, baby,” Athena sat down next to her and wrapped her arms around the weeping woman before pulling her into a side hug. “I’m sorry for giving you a hard time, I was just worried about you.” she placed a kiss to Marceline’s hair. “But I understand. We do crazy things for the people we love.”

Marceline was finally cleared to go back to work in the next two weeks. Her confession was only known to Athena and Nic (the latter only learning this piece of information months beforehand with a drunk Marceline going on and on about why she loves Buck), and was never spoken about again.

But after her sort of near death situation, Marceline decided that she should tell Buck how she feels. Even if he was a self-diagnosed sex addict. It didn’t matter. Life was too short to have any regrets, right?

Marceline came to her first day back with anxiety settling in her bloodstream, her blue duffel bag hung over her shoulder. She was glad that there was no one greeting her or anything, it was as if she never got shot. All she wanted was to get back to work and have everything go by smoothly. Then she walked over to her locker, “PIERCE” written in neat, bold handwriting and stuffed her things inside.

“Mars, come up, breakfast is getting cold!” Bobby shouted over the railing.

She grinned. God, she missed Bobby’s cooking. Not that she didn’t have constant access to it because there were literally tons of leftovers currently sitting in her fridge, but it was different when Bobby cooked at the fire station. Now, it was actually a home cooked meal.

“Alright, Bobby, hold on,” she yelled back at him before ascending up the stairs, holding the railing because wow did these steps get bigger somehow?

And as she finally reached the top steps, she almost immediately wanted to turn around run away.

“Welcome back, Marceline!” everyone cheered and smiled excitedly underneath a large, brightly colored banner hung up above.

Fuck, this is not what she wanted. “Oh gosh,” she started, her hand finding it’s way into her hair. “You guys really didn’t have to-”

“Ba-ba-ba,” Chimney shook his head and stepped forward before slinging his arm around her shoulder. “Yes we did, we’ve missed your brooding presence inside the truck and had to celebrate your return.”

"Look, we know you didn’t want a big welcome back kind of party, so it’s just us, some cake, and pure vibes.” Hen looked at Marceline thoughtfully with a small smile.

It really was just Bobby, Hen, Chimney, and Athena. The presence of Buck was missing, but that wasn’t too surprising, he tended to be late to almost everything.

Bobby then held up a cake with a bright smile. “It’s ice cream cake, your favorite.”

Yes, ice cream cake is indeed Marceline’s favorite. And, yes, she really did not want to make a big deal about her return... but the hopeful and expecting looks on her teams faces made her throw away her previous reservations.

“Alright, fine.” she sighed before playfully shoving Chimney’s arm off of her shoulder. “I guess, I’ll enjoy myself until we have a call.”

“Ah, that’s the spirit!” Athena smiled and clapped her hands together. “Okay, here are the plates and the utensils-”

“Hey guys, sorry for being late,” Buck’s voice filled the air and Marceline almost instantly whipped around with a dumbest smile on her face. “But I wanted to bring Abby,”

Abby? Who the fuck was Abby?

Marceline’s smile wavered at the sight of a redheaded woman who was at least double her own age standing behind Buck. With closer inspection, they were holding hands.

Oh...

“That’s alright Buck, c’mon and get some cake before Marceline eats the whole thing,” Bobby smiled at the other man and waved the couple over.

"Well, I felt a little silly coming here without anything so I brought brownies,” Abby smiled lightly, holding up store-bought brownies as she walked over.

“All food is welcomed,” Athena replied in kind to her before sneaking at glance at Marceline who stood scarily still and was obviously biting back a few emotions.

Abby nodded and placed the brownies on the table as she took a plate that Buck handed her before turning her attention to Marceline. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Abby, I’ve heard great things about you”

Marceline hated how almost on sight she hated Abby’s guts. And it was over a stupid fucking reason, a boy. God, way to be less of a fucking feminist, Marceline.

So she put on one of her best “this is fine, I’m perfectly okay” which meant a tight smile plastered on her face and shoved every dark and ugly emotion she had into the deepest parts of her soul.

You could do this, you can fake being nice and perfectly okay, you’ve done this your whole life.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Abby, I’m Marceline,”

@skyslowalking​ & @beelarson 4 u darlings <3​

[razorblade180-heated]

Nice Guys Finish Last

[NSFW]

Weiss stands anxiously outside of Winter’s room, knocking on the door. It’s pretty late at night but she hopes her sister is up. There’s something she needs to get off of her chest. Several minutes pass before Winter opens the door. Her hair is a little messy and her body is covered by a silk robe.

Winter:Weiss? It’s almost midnight.

Weiss:I know, and I’m sorry if you were sleeping but I have a confession. Jaune and I are....sorta together. Sorry I hid that from you.

Winter:What!?

Weiss:Now I know what you’re thinking, but believe me when I say he’s more than he appears to be. Sure he’s a regular person, but what’s wrong with that. Simple isn’t boring. It’s refreshing when everything in my life feels so detached from the norm!

Winter:Weiss-

Weiss:I understand you probably need convincing so do what you must, but it won’t change my mind. I’ll date him even if you disapprove! That being said, please support my decision. I don’t want-

Winter:Weiss!!!

The younger sister jumps from the shout. Winter stares into her eyes with such neutrality that it’s impossible to gauge the situation she’s in. Weiss watches Winter slowly grab the door and open it wider. Weiss assumed it was an invitation in. That was until she saw a shirtless, no pants wearing Marrow a few feet behind Winter. Fortunately he was wearing boxers but that didn’t stop Weiss from turning red. His hair was weighed down from dampness and sweat glistened off his bruised, miltary trained body. Weiss refused to check out his package and slowly turned back to her blushing sister. Now that Weiss was looking closely, Winter had a few bruises too.

Winter:There’s nothing with a nice, normal guy. Congratulation.

Weiss:....

Winter:What?

Weiss:Isn’t this against some kind of code?

Winter:One, he doesn’t report to me. Two, there’s nobody in my room right now, understand? You woke your big sister up from sleeping. Also number three, no one will believe you anyways.

Marrow:I barely believe it.

Weiss:I....wow. No offense but, why him?

Winter:He makes me laugh. I bet you understand that feeling in regards to Jaune, right? *smiles*

Weiss:Yeah, I do. Well I guess I’ll let you get back to....is it racist to doggystyle?

Marrow:In this situation? No.

Weiss:Ah, think I learned too much just now. Have a nice night.

Winter:You too.

The door closed quickly and Weiss just stood there, rationalizing the events that just took place. That was interrupted by the flirtatious giggling. Not only did she not know Winter could giggle, but knowing why she was giggling made Weiss move as fast as Ruby. Better to leave before she hears something she really wants no business hearing. She left not a moment too soon.

The sounds of giggling had stopped as Winter’s lips pressed against Marrow’s. The loose fabric that draped over her body slid back down to the ground where it was before Weiss’s intrusion. The older Schnee welcomes the feeling of her secret lover’s hands squeezing her ass while her tongue hungrily explored Marrow’s mouth. His hands turned her body around and playfully pushed her back to the bed.

Winter laughed seductively at Marrow’s eagerness. “Relax, we won’t get interrupted this time. She got down on her hands and knees, dipping her upper body and wiggling her ass to him. Winter looked over her shoulder, blush deep on her face. She was glad to Marrow’s boxers were already off and the feeling of his aching cock already pressing into her pussy. The way it rubbed up and down her slit and hit against her clit was more than enough for Winter to push her hips backwards to get what she clearly wanted. “Don’t you dare tease me.” She moaned. A hand grabbed her waist and jerked her back hard, spearing herself onto Marrow’s six inched cock in one go. “Ahhh! Ffffmmmmm~”

It felt like tension left her body. Weiss might’ve joked about it but doggie was Winter’s weakness. As easy as it would be to straddle Marrow and make him obsessively moan her name as she rocked his dick and make him fall victim to worshiping her sexy body, Winter wanted to be the one screaming. Marrow’s second hand finally grabbed her waist and the young man’s hips started to crash into the cushion that was Winter’s ass. Running juices from her entrance made access to her womb extra easy, as well as coated her in thighs and a thick shaft with creamy discharge. Winter felt Marrow hunch over body while maintaining his jackhammer-like thrust; his hands moved to her sizable breasts and began kneading them like dough.

“Aaaahhh~ Yessss! Just like that!” The overwhelming pleasure made Winter drop her head down and let her body simply experience Marrow. She could feel her own pussy quiver and cling to him with every thrust that threatened to make her scream. Still, Winter had some pride. If it wasn’t for that, then she’d confess to feeling like a bitch in heat, lusting to be filled. As much as she wanted to fully express those feelings, Winter just couldn’t bring herself to act like that completely. Not like Marrow didn’t realize the sentiment with how much she was moaning. His fingers clamped down on her erect nipples and Winter felt her entire body tense. Sharp inhales were sucked through her teeth and she knew Marrow could feel just how tight she had gotten around his swelling cock.

“Oh? You like it when I touch you roughly? How naughty for a specialist.”

“Shut up!” Winter mewled. Trying to look imposing in this situation was impossible, yet she tried anyways. She could hear Marrow chuckle huskily at her. “You’re..ah! The worst!” She whined. Her body finally gave out and Winter came, hard. The stern woman bit down on her sheets and wailed as her orgasm drowned her in pressure. She could feel Marrow quickly pull out from behind her, then paint her backside with his searing hot seed. The two breathed heavily, remaining in their lustful position the entire time. Winter looked back to see Marrow catching his breath as he stared at body. “Enjoying the view?”

“It’s the best in Atlas. How could I not?” Marrow half joked. He doubt he’d see a sight better than this. “Ready for round two?”

“Only if you can handle it.”

“Winter....” Marrow slid back into herb and reached for her arms, pulling them back and leaving her nothing to gain leverage. “Let me show you what it means to really fuck like an animal. Tonight I’m in heat, and you’re my bitch.”

Winter could feel the blood rush to her face and her body respond to the crude statement by gripping down on his shaft harder. Pride crumbled away as Winter bit her lip in anticipation. “Fuck me like a bitch then.” A sudden and strong thrust of Marrow’s hips into her made Winter yelp. Again and again he pounded into her and made her ass shake from the impact. Winter could already feel her knees buckle and orgasm build up inside herself. This was gonna be a long night for her. Briefly, Winter couldn’t help but wonder, were all nice boys like this in bed? Surly her sister wouldn’t be a person to go for this type of rough intimacy.

xxxx

“Aaah! Harder baby!” Weiss moaned, letting her petite frame become over taken by Jaune’s hands as leaned back into is lap; begging for his lips to grace her neck as he continued to thrust straight up into her heated core. “Gods, you feel so good!” She brought his hand downward to her clit and he began to rub it for his princess. Weiss couldn’t stop from squirming and panting from the pleasure of being played with so hard. Her left boob was trapped by Jaune’s calloused hand and his head rose from her neck to nibble on her ear. All of this was mere icing on the cake to go with the feeling of being split apart a throbbing cock that made Weiss thankful to be her size. It felt as if she was gonna split apart with how full he made her .

Jaune listened to the moans and cries of his girlfriend, who was far more excited than usual. “What’s got you so pent tonight? He grunted as his pace picked up. A jerk move on his part. Jaune knew Weiss wouldn’t be able to answer. All she could do is lay on his body and pant like a dog as her pussy took a pounding. Her beautiful eyes were shut tight and face was beat red, still Jaune was in love with her beauty and stole her lips. Something Weiss loved. She happily returned the same frenzy of emotion as they stole lustful moans and grunts from one another. Weiss pulled Jaune’s head further down into the lip lock and her toes began to curl. Any thoughts she had left her mind in a haze of white as her body gave way to the pleasure. Jaune thrusted four more times into her before Weiss’s grip around him became too much to deny. Reaching is own orgasm by the feeling of Weiss’s soaked walls squeezing as much seed out of him and into her body.

Their bodies slowly rocked to draw out the pleasure as they kissed for several more seconds. Finally, Weiss removed her lips from Jaune’s and allowed air back into her body. A faint ache in her body set in as she felt Jaune slide out of her. “Winter...approves...” Weiss huffed. She had no strength to continue the story, choosing to lay peacefully in her boyfriend’s arms instead.

Jaune had zero complaints. He too leaned back to rest on the backboard of the bed. “That’s...good. Funny, who would’ve thought she’d be okay with a guy like me?”

Weiss said nothing, only silently snickered to herself. Tomorrow she would tell him just how okay a guy like him was. He’d be the only person to believe a story like that.

[senacal]

Dr. Charles Xavier (Pt. 1)

Request: Requested by @saltysebastianstan

Pairing: Charles Xavier x Fem!Reader

Part 2

Prompt: Could you please do a Charles Xavier x female reader, where Charles has been asked to do a lecture about mutation at your non-mutant university, and let’s say he takes a liking to you due to your knowledge/interest rather than the other girls.

OH MY GOD, YOU COULD TURN THIS INTO A SERIES... IMAGINE

Warnings: None that I come to mind.

Author’s note: I am going to do my very best to fulfill this request because I love it, and I love Charles, and this is the first Charles Xavier’s request I have had, so I hope I do well. I have been thinking of this all week, and I did some research about a mutation to accurately portray a sort of understanding about the subject lol Xx.

Requests are open! 

(Gif not mine)

For a whole week, (Y/N)’s nerves were on fire. She knew she was excited, why wouldn’t she be when her dreams were about to come true? But she didn’t understand why she was so nervous. The whole week she couldn’t sit still. (Y/N) was continually shaking her leg, fiddling with whatever was in her hands, or drumming her fingers. (Y/N) just wanted to make sure that she had everything she needed before the most important day of her life happened. What day would that be? Well, her university, (Uni of your choice), had recently booked Dr. Charles Xavier, the current expert on Mutations to give a lecture, and (Y/N) was excited because she had a keen interest on the field. 

(Y/N) knew there were people out there with unique abilities, sure she wasn’t one of those people, but it was okay because she didn’t think she’d be able to handle the responsibility and stress of continually having to hide who she was. The reason she knew about these unique individuals was that she had met a mutant when she was a young girl. Instead of being afraid, she was intrigued. It was fascinating seeing the way the mutant maneuvered to keep themselves hidden from prying eyes, though it didn’t seem to work since (Y/N) caught sight of them. Regardless, ever since her encounter with that mutant, she had been obsessed with learning more about them. 

With her limited access to mutant knowledge, she was only able to find a few things out about their biology. It wasn’t too different from human biology, but the added X-Gene made a mutant, a mutant. So it was a dream come true when she learned that Dr. Charles Xavier would be giving a lecture about mutations. Perhaps her excitement was transferring into anxiety. Dr. Xavier, as the guest lecturer, was possibly her only shot at comprehending her preferred subject to the full extent. Perhaps it was the fear that she would never be able to turn her major into an actual career. Her family was always telling her to change her field of study to the point that (Y/N) had told them a little white lie. She may have added a minor in medicine, but she didn’t give up her interest in mutation. It was enough to appease her family, and she continued to learn about mutation under their noses. It was a win-win situation. 

So here she sat in the lecture hall, awaiting Dr. Xavier’s arrival. She was tapping her pen against her notebook, absentmindedly looking around the room. She made sure to get a good seat where she could both see and hear him. She also made sure she had extra pens in case her current one crapped out on her. 

The room was already starting to fill with a big crowd, and the lecture wasn’t due to begin for ten minutes. (Y/N) went from tapping her pen to shaking her leg. She bit the tip of the pen and glanced at the people around her. They were talking animatedly about their daily lives, who was screwing who, who was a bitch, or who was a total hottie. (Y/N) sometimes found herself wanting to fit in among them, but then again, most of these girls were sorority sisters who only cared about partying. Don’t get her wrong, they were beautiful girls, and they all had their strengths, but they were rather dense when it came to their social lives. 

(Y/N) huffed out a small breath as she looked down at her notebook. There were various pages filled with notes of her own, but she was opened to a blank page so she could compare her notes to the brilliant mind of Charles Xavier. (Y/N) dated the page at the top right corner to pass a fraction of the time. 

“Excuse me, may I have your attention please?” 

(Y/N) looked up to the podium to see the Dean calling everyone’s attention. She glanced at the clock to see that the lecture would begin soon. (Y/N) inhaled anxiously and exhaled softly. She faced the front, eager for the start of the speech. 

“Wonderful, wow, I wasn’t expecting such a big turn out,” The Dean spoke with a slight chuckle. “Well, as you all know, Dr. Charles Xavier will be joining us shortly to inform us all on Mutations. As usual, be respectful, no talking unless addressed, and don’t hesitate to ask questions.” The Dean looked off the side of the stage, “Very well, everybody, welcome Dr. Xavier.”

The crowd clapped as none other than Charles Xavier walked on stage. He had a broad smile plastered on his lips, and he waved to the masses.

“Wow, when Dr. Gregory said a big turn out, I believe he was downplaying it just a little. Welcome, thank you all for joining me today,” Charles cleared his throat, “Now, I know many of you are probably wondering why I’ve taken an interest in such a broad subject, mutations can be anything. From the color of your eyes to the dimples in your cheeks. And, of course, physical modifications,” Charles’ gaze scanned the crowds, “The answer to that is simple. I find it fascinating,” He smiled.

(Y/N) couldn’t help but let out a small laugh, ‘That makes two of us.’

Throughout the lecture, (Y/N) noticed that Charles was looking around the room as if he was looking for someone. It was a possibility that he was only surveying the crowd, but it was almost too constant for that. He had to be looking for someone, but who? (Y/N) shrugged off the thought and instead chose to focus on his words.

“Of course, this leads us to the homo superior, distinguished from their possession of the X-Gene. Now, this gene, placed on the twenty-third chromosome in a person’s DNA, allows for the greatest mutation experienced in reality.” 

(Y/N) scratched down notes as quickly as she could, ‘If that’s the case, would that make the father a deciding factor for its inheritance or the mother?’

“Despite the thought of the mother carrying the child with an X-Gene, the X-gene is transferred from the father. It’s almost like the father is the deciding factor in both sex and mutant status,” Charles spoke as if he heard (Y/N)’s question, which was ridiculous unless he did hear her thoughts. 

Once the lecture was over, (Y/N) couldn’t help but feel accomplished. She had learned a lot more that day than any other. As a bonus, (Y/N)’s questions seemed to be answered even though she hadn’t asked any out loud. It was the best day of her life, just as she had predicted. (Y/N) stayed in her seat, scanning the notes she jotted down; she made small annotations next to the one’s that she would cross-reference with her own. Absorbed in her mind, (Y/N) didn’t notice the approaching figure or the lingering girls next to her.

‘Now that I’ve distinguished that the father is the deciding factor in passing on the X-Gene, perhaps it’d be easier to determine their birth rate. I don’t believe pregnant mutants have a reliable doctor to ease them through their pregnancy.’ (Y/N) bit the tip of her pen, ‘I think I know what I want to practice now.’ She couldn’t help but feel giddy. It turned out her added major in medicine wouldn’t be a waste after all. She’d learn all she could about practicing medicine and mutants so she could help bring them into the world. 

“Dr. Xavier! You’re British, right?” 

(Y/N) looked up from her notes and noticed the blonde girl sitting next to her became engaged in a dull conversation with Charles. She couldn’t help but raise her brows at the poor attempt at flirting. It was pretty apparent that he was British, what with the accent and all. 

“Uh, yes, I am,” Charles glanced in (Y/N)’s direction as if he were hoping she’d save him from the conversation.

“That’s so cool, I’ve always wanted to go to England, but then I thought Paris would be a better destination, you know?” The blonde girl shrugged, “Have you been to Paris?”

“I have actually. I’ve given plenty of lectures in the city quite a few times. How did you find the lecture? Did you enjoy it?” Charles asked in the hope of engaging in a conversation about his work.

“Oh, I got lost after you mentioned something about the mRNA or whatever, but I liked hearing you talk.” 

(Y/N) laughed to herself, ‘At least she admitted it.’

‘Indeed, but I’d much rather have a competent conversation about my lecture rather than the expenses of Paris.’

(Y/N) frowned and looked up when she heard Charles’ voice in her head. ‘What the fuck?’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to invade your mind, but I don’t think I can continue to converse with this poor girl.’ 

(Y/N) shook her head, her eyes wide. “Dr. Xavier?”

Charles looked at her, relief evident in his expression, “Yes, Ms…”

“(Your Full Name), I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?”

“Of course! I’d be happy to answer any questions you have.” Charles politely excused himself from the girl with whom he’d been conversing. 

(Y/N) packed her notes and utensils, “So, you’re a telepath?”

Charles shrugged as if to say ‘guilty.’ 

“So, I have to ask, your lecture, were you basing your responses from the questions I was thinking?” (Y/N) wondered. 

“Partly, yes. It was a first that someone’s questions were loud enough for me to hear without meaning to,” Charles shoved his hands in his pockets, “I was pleasantly surprised, of course, even more now that I’ve placed a beautiful face to the beautiful voice.”

(Y?N) nodded, “Does that line work at all?” She stood from her seat so that she could look at him without tilting her head too much. 

“I beg your pardon?” Charles caught off guard, shifted where he stood. 

(Y/N) huffed an amused breath, “I appreciate the compliment, Professor Xavier, but I’m only interested in what you have to say about mutants and mutation.”

“Why is that?” Charles asked.

“Just like you said, it’s fascinating.” (Y/N) winked at him, “now that I’ve saved you from your conversation, I’ll be on my way. I’ve got a class in an hour.” (Y/N) waved and left Charles, where he stood. 

“Charles, did she just brush you off?” Raven asked from behind him. 

“I… I think so.” Instead of being offended, Charles bored a smile.

“I have to get her number because that was the best thing I have seen all week,” Raven boasted.

Charles rolled his eyes, “Oh, shut it, Raven.”

“C’mon, you can’t tell me that you don’t want her number either,” Raven stepped next to Charles and rested her arm on his shoulder.

“Of course I do. If you had heard the questions (Y/N) was asking, you’d be just as intrigued.” Charles brushed off Raven’s arm, “Let’s go now; I’m ready to head home.”

Raven raised her brows, “What, no parties?”

“No, I’m not really in the mood.” Charles shrugged.

“Wow, I have to mark this day down for the history books. Charles Xavier doesn’t want to go to a college party!” Raven clutched her heart, “I never thought I’d see the day.”

Charles rolled his eyes. He walked away from her, intending to go to his car.

“Charles, just one party, please?” Raven begged as she skipped to catch up with him.

“What for? You never want to go to parties.” Charles scoffed.

“Because, I want to get drunk,” Raven grinned.

“That makes the two of us,” He conceded, “Fine. We’ll go to a party, but then we are going home.”

“Deal,” Raven beamed. She just hoped that girl would be there and knowing Charles; he was thinking the same thing.

[imaginapalminthemorning]

When the chips are down

In which Remus somehow convinces the boys to play strip poker, which devolves into some serious gay panic for Roman.

Pairings: prinxiety, some intrulogical

Warnings: mild nudity? I guess? I mean it’s strip poker what do you expect is gonna happen

“I swear to god Logan and Remus are cheating.”

“Now Virgil, what would make you think that?”

“Because you’ve won six times and Remus is half naked.”

“I assure you those two facts have absolutely nothing in common,” Logan’s face remained as stoic as ever while he dealt out the cards. “Perhaps Remus just likes to lose.”

“Well I don’t doubt that,” Virgil glanced over at the side in question, who sat across the circle, bouncing giddily in place. Black and green clothes lay scattered about his person, and the only things left on his body were his black tights and knee-high boots.

As for the rest of the group, Logan faired the best, missing only his signature tie. Janus was in second place, having taken off his shoes and cape, but otherwise remaining fully clothed. Roman had lost his shoes, sash and coat, leaving him to sit in a white undershirt and black pants. Virgil himself had had to take off his trusty jacket, along with his shoes and watch (which Janus argued, but Logan allowed). They had been playing for a few hours now, and were all nearing the end of their attention spans (Patton, having opted not to play, had wandered off to bed awhile ago, and left the five of them on the floor of the living room).

“All I’m saying is, I think you have a certain incentive to win,” Virgil commented, “seeing as the winner gets to choose who the loser is.”

“Pure coincidence,” Logan’s expression remained unchanged, but a soft blush spread across his cheeks and gave him away. It was no secret that he and Remus had been spending more and more time together, but of course Logan would ever admit to anything serious.  

“Speaking of winning, I believe I win this round, fellas,” Janus spoke up as the cards were laid out in the circle.

“How the hell did you get three kings?” Virgil said, incredulous.

“Luck of the draw, my dear,” the snake said with a sly smile, “although I’m afraid it’s turned out rather poorly for you.”

“You son of a...” Virgil’s voice trailed off and he shook his head. He took a moment to look about his person, trying to find the smallest garment to remove.

“Don’t try to worm you’re way out of this one, Virgy,” Remus giggled, “that shirt’s coming off whether you like it or not.”

“Fine,” Virgil replied with an exasperated smile. The others watched as he gracefully lifted the shirt up over his head and off in one smooth motion.

And Roman immediately realized that this was a problem.

See, Roman knew that Virgil was strong. He had once lifted the entire kitchen table and thrown it across the room, in an attempt to kill one of Remus’s more... disturbing creations. He also regularly picked up Logan and carried him to his room, as the logical side would often fall asleep at his desk working long into the night. But Roman had always attributed this ability to Virgil’s role as Anxiety— the very personification of fight-or-flight ought to be quite strong and fast, don’t you think? And under that baggy jacket, Roman had always pictured Virgil to be rather scrawny.

But Virgil was not.

Virgil’s body was toned and sculpted to perfection. His soft, pale skin stretched taught over his broad shoulders, his wide chest, and his perfectly cut abs. His biceps bulged as he lifted his arms over his head to remove the ripped purple shirt that had so perfectly hidden his beautiful torso. Roman could see every muscle pull and relax as he moved with quiet grace. He was a marble sculpture with a black fringe haircut. An edgy masterpiece. An emo Adonis.

And Roman was so incredibly gay.

“You gonna be ok there, Romantico?” Janus jeered at the prince.

“Wh- What?”

Janus teased some more, “Seriously, you’d think you never saw a man take his shirt off before.”

“I don’t— I don’t know what you’re talking about—” Roman stammered.

“It means your gay is showing, broseph,” Remus blurted out, “and I’m bored. I’m calling it a night, boys. Logan, you wanna help me bring all these clothes back to my room?”

Logan’s cheeks flared pink once more, “If you need my assistance.”

“Oh, I do,” Remus replied rather suggestively, and the two sides headed off down the hall.

“Well, that’s my cue to leave,” Janus stated matter-of-factly, and walked off to his own room. Roman realized all too quickly what they had done, and turned to see Virgil staring inquisitively at him. His head was cocked ever so slightly to the left, the way it always did when he was deciding something, and that always sent Roman’s heart into overdrive. Roman barely squeaked out a “goodnight” before gathering his clothes and rushing into his room.

Roman slammed the door behind him and leaned against it, breathing out a long sigh. Why did he have to act so foolish? Why couldn’t he be calm and collected around Virgil? And why couldn’t the others just stay out of it? It was hard enough to hide his feelings without them calling him out on it.

Gathering himself, Roman pushed away from the door and began to get ready for bed. As he did, his mind continually wandered back to the picture of Virgil’s body, like a broken record. Why did he try to hide his feelings? There was nothing wrong with them. But every time he thought about confessing, and how Virgil might react, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. It wasn’t so much the fear of rejection, as it was the fear of change. He very much enjoyed the relationship they had, and didn’t want to risk putting it in danger. Whether Virgil accepted it or not, a confession would change everything, and there would be no going back. And that scared Roman more than even the most ferocious beast he could think of.

Roman was so lost in thought that the knock on the door barely registered on his consciousness. “Come in,” he mumbled as he laid his pajamas out on his bed. It wasn’t until he heard the door shut behind him that he realized there was someone else in the room. He turned and, much to his surprise, found Virgil standing in front of the closed door.

Now, something that you might not know about Virgil, but is rather important to note: Virgil does not like closed doors. There must always be some way for him to escape, some opening for him to run through should some catastrophe arise. He never entered a room with no exit, and he never kept his back to a door or window. Even the door to his room was kept slightly ajar at all times, for easy access. Roman knew this about Virgil, and thus went out of his way to never stand between him and an exit point. So when he saw Virgil standing there, with his back to the door, which he himself had shut tight, Roman was understandably concerned.

“Virgil? Is... everything alright?”

“You left me to clean up the cards by myself,” Virgil spoke in a tone that Roman couldn’t quite read. Was he angry? He didn’t look angry; but then, Roman couldn’t quite read his expression either. It seemed to be a mixture of determination and... what was that... hunger?

“I’m sorry,” Roman said uneasily. Virgil had put his shirt back on, but his jacket was missing. This caused Roman to be even more concerned. Virgil only ever took off his jacket when he was ready for a fight. Roman gulped. What had he done wrong?

“You should be,” Virgil began to advance towards Roman. Roman backed up against the bed and briefly wondered where he had put his sword. But he didn’t want to hurt Virgil; it’s fine. Whatever was about to happen, he could take it.

And then suddenly Virgil’s face was an inch from his, and he realized that look wasn’t hunger at all.

Roman had often wondered what a kiss from Virgil would be like. He had always pictured them close together; perhaps on the couch, having just finished a movie. Virgil would be curled into Roman’s side, and he would look up at Roman with his beautiful brown eyes, and Roman would put a hand against his cheek. He always thought it would be soft, quiet, and still— a gentle touch of the lips, a moment to sit and breathe in each other’s scent, and then a quiet parting as they lean back to look into each other’s eyes once more.

This was nothing like that. In this moment, with Virgil’s lipped pressed firmly on Roman’s, his arms wrapped around the creative side to hold him in place, Roman had never felt so much passion in his life. He all but melted into Virgil’s arms, soaking in his heat, his own hands searching for the body that lay hidden beneath that purple shirt, but remained imprinted in Roman’s mind forever. He could feel Virgil’s heart beating as fast as his own, their breaths matching up in perfect harmony, their hands brushing over each other’s arms and back in an attempt to memorize every curve and groove. Finally, after an eternity crammed into a millisecond, they parted.

“...Wow,” Roman said breathlessly, “That, uh... that is not what I expected.”

“I know,” Virgil laughed softly, and Roman’s heart screamed. It was the sweetest, most genuine sound he had ever heard.

Virgil blushed and looked down at his feet. “I’ve kind of been waiting for you to make the first move. I mean, I kind of assumed you would,” he looked back up and smiled, “but I guess I just got tired of waiting.”

“How did you know—”

“—That you liked me?”

Roman nodded.

Virgil let out another small laugh. “You have a terrible poker face.”

[rainydaydream-gal18]

Steve Rogers x Reader: The Nutcracker (AU) Part 1

[Author’s Note:  Sooooo I started this story last year and never got around to finishing it, so I ended up taking the parts I’d written off tumblr.  This time, I finally wrote an end to this story and felt like it’d be a nice thing to post around the holidays.

It’s an Avengers fanfic, but it’s the story of the Nutcracker (more like the Barbie one where the reader is not a little girl lol)

Warning, these are long]

   With a sigh, you watched the clock tick from a spot on the floral-patterned couch as you fiddled with a pencil and blank sheet of paper and thought of something to draw.  Your younger brother busied himself playing with the action figures your grandparents got him as a Christmas Eve present.  He was so spoiled it drove you crazy.  It seemed he got everything he wanted at the drop of a hat.  Grandparents are supposed to spoil you a little, but it felt like everyone took part in spoiling him.  Meanwhile, you worked hard and tried to earn what you wanted on your own.

      Your grandfather entered the sitting room, pocket watch in hand.  “Your Aunt Lily has arrived,” he announced.  “Why don’t you kids help her with the bags?”

     He was so cute.  To him, the two of you would always be “kids.”  You immediately got off the couch to help, but paused.

    “_(brother’s name),” you called to your brother.  He glanced up from his action figures.  “Are you going to help?”

    He resumed moving the action figures around.  “I’ll be there in a minute.”  Translation in little brother language: Never.

   Sensing your irritation, your grandpa nodded.  “I appreciate you helping out, Gumdrop.  Thank you.”

    You couldn’t be upset anyway because Aunt Lily was here!  She was definitely the cool aunt that took you out shopping and encouraged you to be yourself.  You had actually formed a friendship as you grew more mature.  Only problem is, she was almost constantly trying to interest you with a guy.  Every Christmas it was the same thing; her gesturing to handsome strangers and giving you suggestive looks.  Still, she was very fun to be around.

    “____________!” she greeted as you emerged from the hallway into your grandparents’ kitchen where some of the relatives gathered to welcome her.  “There’s my favorite niece!  Merry Christmas.”

    “Merry Christmas!” You said with a laugh as she pulled you into a big hug.  After a long squeeze, Aunt Lily released you.  “How was the trip?”

    “It was good!  Long, but good.”

    “Awesome,” you nodded.  “Let me help you with your things.”

   “You’re such a sweetheart,” she grinned.  “There are a few goodies in the trunk of my car if you don’t mind grabbing them for me.  Thank you so much!”  You grinned back and headed to the front door to slide on your boots.  A part of you hated stepping out into the snowy afternoon.  The icy winds chilled you to the bone instantly, but seeing everything clad in sparkling white was worth it.  You folded your arms and hurried past the dozen cars belonging to other relatives until you reached Aunt Lily’s.  After retrieving the big Christmas bags and a suitcase, you locked the car and went inside.

   “I think that’s everything,” you stated, kicking the snow off your boots at the doormat.  Some snow may have gotten on your Captain America socks.  Ugh.

   “Thank you again!”  Aunt Lily took a few bags off your hands.  As you helped her put gifts under the tree, you both got caught up.  She told you about her most recent road trip, the hotel she stayed at and even the celebrity she ran into, while you listed in wonder.  In turn, you told her about college and all the latest friend group drama.  After everything was unpacked, Aunt Lily reached under the tree and picked out a wrapped gift.  “This,” she began, handing it to you, “is for you.  An early Christmas gift from me.”

   “Oh,” you smiled.  “Thank you!”  You in turn grabbed a particular gift from under the tree and handed it to her.  “This is for you!”

    She gave you a kiss on the cheek.  “You’re such a sweetie.”

    After unloading the remaining things from her car, you found a quiet place away from the family hustle and bustle to open your gift from her.  Your brother came running into the room.

   “Look what Aunt Lily got me!”  He held up a box of building blocks set.  The picture on the front of the box showed what the finished product would look like.  This one resembled superhero compound, complete with the heroes in figurine form.  “What did you get, ___________?” He asked as he climbed over into your personal space.  But of course, he couldn’t leave you in peace for five minutes.

   You rolled your eyes.  “I don’t know yet, bro, I haven’t had the chance to open it yet.”

   “Oh,” he shrugged.  “Well then, carry on.”

   With a few rips, you tore through the wrapping paper like you had when you were a kid just for fun.  As soon as you saw the red, white, and blue shield you gasped.  

   It was a Captain America themed nutcracker!  He was so adorable too!  His outfit was red-white, and blue, and sort of looked more like the usual princely garb a nutcracker would wear instead of his usual costume, but he held the shield in one hand.

   “Oh wow!  This is so neat!”  You exclaimed.  

   “I’m so glad you like it,” Aunt Lily said.  She had entered the room to watch your reaction.  It was no secret that you went crazy for this sort of thing.  You were a total geek when it came to Marvel movies as well as Marvel-related merch, and you were proud.

   “I wanna see!”  Your brother whined as he struggled to reach for it.

   “__(brother’s name)__,” Aunt Lily scolded.  “That is ____________’s.  I got you something of your own.  Why don’t you go put it together?”

   He immediately became preoccupied with his own project, and you mouthed the words “thank you” to your aunt.  A dazzling smile played on her lips in response.  She was the coolest.

   The whole family squeezed into your grandparents’ dining room for dinner. It was a lively meal with people chatting and catching up.  Some relatives lived far away and could only visit a few times a year, so this was kind of a big deal.  You were asked a million questions about college, your part-time job, and friends. You filled everyone in on the deets about classes and the part-time job you got working at the local bookstore.

   “We’re so proud of you,” Aunt Lily said, and you couldn’t help but grin back. That was always nice to hear.

   “This one is so smart.  Always has her nose in a book, whether it is for school or just because she enjoys reading,” your mother said.  You blushed at the attention.

   “That’s good,” your grandma said.  “Keep it up.  Keep learning.”

   A few conversations later, the family went to their rooms to get changed into pajamas for the evening.  There would be a Christmas movie or two in the living room shortly.  Since your brother was the youngest in the family, he got to pick the movie.  The two of you exchanged knowing looks, and he chose Polar Express.

   “Yesss!” you gave him a big hug.

   As much as the two of you could be annoyed with each other, he was still your brother.  Both of you sat next to each other in pajamas and shared a bowl of popcorn as your grandpa tried to figure out how to work the DVD player.  Technology had developed to the point where any movie could be accessed digitally in an instant, and he was still trying to understand how DVD players worked.  You felt bad, but you and your brother tried to hold back giggles.

   At the start of the movie, you were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.  As it progressed though, you began to feel tired. Before you knew it, you were drifting off to sleep.

   - - - - 

   “I’m sorry, __________,” someone sobbed.  You were awake instantly, blinking your eyes open.  The living room was empty.  It was after midnight, and everyone must have gone to bed already. The TV was off, but a cozy fire warmed the room with a dim light from the fireplace.  You rubbed your eyes and focused on your brother who stood in front of you, crying.

   “What?  What’s wrong?” you asked with a sigh.

   “I...I didn’t mean to do it.  I just wanted to play…”

   Your eyes went from his teary eyes to what he held in his hand.  It was your Captain America nutcracker.  His arm had been twisted at an odd angle.  Your brother held the shield, which had broken off, in his other hand.  Your first instinct was to get angry.

   “What did you do?” you demanded.  “You shouldn’t have been playing with him in the first place. Aunt Lily gave him to me.  You got your own present!”            

   “I know, I’m sorry,” he cried.  “I didn’t mean to break him.”

   You sighed again.  It was apparent he really felt bad, and you knew he would never have broken something of yours on purpose.

   “It’s okay,” you said finally.  “Well, it’s not okay, but I forgive you.  Thank you for coming to me instead of trying to hide it.”

   Relief washed over his face that you weren’t going to freak out on him, but he still showed signs of guilt.  “I can get you a new one.”

   “No, no, that’s okay.  This one is special from Aunt Lily, and I’m not going to give up on him just because he had a little rough patch.”  You gently took the nutcracker from your brother.  “You don’t give up on people just because they’re broken.”  

   You focused your attention on the Captain America nutcracker in hand.  He still needed a little fixing.  Your brother went and fetched some glue from the miscellaneous drawer in the kitchen. You used a ribbon from the package Aunt Lily gave your earlier to make a sort of temporary sling to keep the nutcracker’s arm in place.  You looked into his painted blue eyes and smiled.  They seemed to sparkle now.  Perhaps they had always been this bright, and you just hadn’t noticed before.

   Your brother returned with the glue, and helped you reattached the shield. He did a good job.

   “There,” you said.  “He’s looking pretty good.”

   “Yeah, he is.”  Your brother agreed.  Then, he wiggled his eyebrows.  “Good enough to kiss?”

   You gave him a look.

   “What?  I heard you talking to your friend on the phone once.  I know you think Captain America is ‘hawt,’ so don’t even deny it.”

   You rolled your eyes and grabbed the nearest couch pillow to fling at his face. “Alright, you just ruined the brother-sister bonding moment.”

   He stuck his tongue out at you.

   “What are you, two years old?” You threw another couch pillow.  “Anyway, it’s late.  I’m going back to sleep.”  You gathered the pillows again and fluffed them up before lying back down on the couch.  “I think I’ll stay out here and enjoy the fire.”

   “Okay, I’m going to my room,” your brother said.  “Goodnight, thanks for not killing me.”

   “Goodnight,” you opened a sleepy eye to watch him leave the room.  Then, you chuckled.  “Oy, I’m tired…”

               - - - -

   Crash.  You were ripped from a cozy, deep slumber to the sound of glass shattering.  A loud bang sounded.  More glass shattered.  You would have blamed your grandparents’ cat if it weren’t for the fact that they haven’t had a cat in years.

   That’s when you really woke up.  Fear gripped you as the sounds came from behind the couch, near the Christmas tree. It had to be an intruder.  But what the hay were they doing near the tree? Stealing presents?  A part of you was scared to look.  Still, you slowly and quietly poked your head up just enough to peek over the back of the couch.

   What you saw amazed and horrified you.

   Your Captain America nutcracker was launching his shield at what looked like a miniature Chitauri.

   “What the actual heck?” you whispered.

   The Chitauri was decapitated, but another leapt out from behind the Christmas tree.  The nutcracker charged at him and engaged in hand-to-hand combat.   More jumped in, and he fought them off skillfully.  But he didn’t seem to notice another sneaking up behind him.

   You weren’t sure what came over you.  Whether this was a dream or not, you did not want to see Captain America get mauled by one of those creepy things.  You hurried around the couch.

   “Watch out!” you called out, and fortunately, you reached him in time. Without thinking, you stomped your foot. Ew.  There might be creepy chitauri gunk under your slipper now…

   Your nutcracker looked up at you, his painted blue eyes seemingly sparkled more now.

   “Thanks,” he said.

   “No problem…” You managed a smile and a shrug.  This was crazy.  It had to be a dream.

   He seemed to sense your unease.  “This must be strange for you,” he said as he resumed fighting oncoming enemies.  “I will explain soon.”

   “Sure,” you nodded, biting your lip as you noticed a particularly large group of chitauri crowding around your feet.  It was no trouble.  A few swift kicks sent them all flying.  

   “Hm, darling,” a strangely familiar voice spoke.  “This isn’t going to work…I cannot afford any flaws in my plan.”

   “Loki?” you said in disbelief.  “But it’s been years since the first Avengers came out…Why are you still the bad guy?”

   He emerged from behind the tree, a little shorter than your Captain America nutcracker, except he had used his illusion abilities to look like a mouse. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.  “However, I do know that you are getting in the way.  You’re too tall, I’d rather you be small…” He waved his scepter, and suddenly everything around you began to grow.  

   Or rather, it was you who was shrinking.  

   The chitauri that were coming at your feet so pitifully became more of a threat as you reached their eye level.  You squeaked as they crowded you, one grabbing your arm.  Just then, a few of them roared and began to back off.

   Your nutcracker came barreling into the mob, quickly wrapping a wooden arm around you and pulling you from the danger.

   “Y-you rescued me,” you gasped.  “Thank you!”

   “Of course,” he replied.  “But don’t thank me yet, _________.”  He released you, but kept holding your hand as he raced away.  “We’ve got to get out of here and back to the Kingdom.”

   “What?”

   “Yes, to find the Sugarplum Princess.  She’s the only one who can change you back and rescue us all from the Wannabe Mouse King.”

   “Oh, goodie.”  You clung to him as he leaped up onto a tree branch.  “And how do we find this Sugar Pear-“

      “Sugarplum Princess,” he corrected gently.  “And I’m not sure.”  The two of you became the climb up the tree.  You had done some tree-climbing as a kid, but this was something else.  

      You wondered why the heck the two of you were climbing the tree if you needed to get back to this “Kingdom.”  Your nutcracker remained at your side, ensuring you didn’t fall whenever your foot slipped on a branch.

   “We have to get to the star of the tree,” he said, as if reading your thoughts.  “It’s our way out.”

   Behind you, a few chitauri-minions began climbing too.  The Mouse King with Loki’s voice shouted commands and threats to them as you and the nutcracker managed to reach the top.

   The star looked so big and bright to you in this size.  Was it just you, or….was it glowing brighter?

   Nutcracker-Steve ushered you closer to the star.  He took your hand in his and touched it to the star.  With that, there was a flash of light, a sensation of falling, and suddenly you felt chilly.

   Opening your eyes, you saw a blanket of white stretching out miles and miles before you.  Snowy mountains stood strong and beautiful to the left of the scene, and a frozen lake far on the right.

   “W-where are we?  This does not look like my grandparents’ living room.”

   “This is the Kingdom,” Steve said.  “This is what I’m fighting to protect.  The Mouse King desperately wants to rule over this place and its people, but we can’t let that happen.  I’ve already wandered so far off track.”

   You had to admit it was beautiful here.  Everything was coated in sparkling light, resembling Narnia when the Pevensie children first arrived.  Only you got here through a tree star, not a wardrobe.  And it was still night here.

   “So, what do we do?” you asked, hugging yourself to try and retain some warmth. Steve’s painted eyes seemed to soften sympathetically.

   “I’m sorry about the cold.  Well, I’m sorry about all of this, actually.”

   “It’s fine. You can’t really help it.” Your breath rose up in a cloud through the air with each word.

   “I’ll tell you what,” he said, running a wooden hand down your arm in a pointless attempt to warm you.  “We’ll head to the nearest town for some warm clothes and supplies.  Then we need to find out where the Sugarplum Princess is.”

   “Sure, it seems I don’t have much choice.  I might freeze to death otherwise,” you mumbled.  Steve attached his shield to his back and began trekking through the snow.  You followed in his footsteps, hoping to avoid getting lots of snow in your slippers. Unfortunately, it was inevitable. Before long, snow had gotten into your slippers and melted around your feet, making them ice-cold.  The snow began to pick up, and it seemed to become a blizzard.

   “The Mouse King knows we’re here,” Steve shouted to you.  “He’s trying to make things more difficult.”

   “But of course he has ice powers,” you complained, teeth chattering.

   Not much longer after that, you saw a warm light in the distance.  It glowed faintly through the intense snowfall. The sight of it alone made you think of warm blankets and clothes, sitting comfortable and dry by a fireplace. Oh, you hoped they’d be welcoming.

   “Almost there, _________,” Steve told you.  “We’re almost there.  Hang in there.”

PART 2

[radbeetle]

|Call to Arms|

wow these screenshots are so old. do you know why i’ve been sitting on them for so long? because i wanted to finish the writing about this mission before I posted them

AND I DID. Check it out on AO3 or under the readmore.

“These robots were assaulted by institute synths.”

Katherine scrunched up her face and shielded her eyes as she looked up at Danse , who insisted on keeping his headlamp on.

“Um, sorry, I - I gotta ask… what are… synths?” and what’s the institute, for that matter, she thought to herself, but one question at a time.

“Technological abominations created by the institute, and let loose to run rampant throughout the commonwealth.” Danse’s voice was heavy with disgust, even through the buzzy modulation of his power armor.

“Danse. That’s… I get that you don’t like them, but what are they?” Katherine pleaded. “Just… in simple terms? Please?”

He scoffed. “I would have thought you familiar with them. Most in the Commonwealth seem to be.”

Katherine deflated, shoulders sinking. “Well… just… I’m out of the loop. Let’s leave it at that.”

The blank stare of the T-60’s helmet concealed Danse’s puzzlement. Regardless, he provided explanation. “Robots, built in the shape of man. A mannequin brought to life by machinery. They’re a mockery of humankind at best, and a blight upon this world at worst.”

Katherine bit her tongue, and suppressed her curiosity. As much as she wanted to know more, it was obvious Danse was biased. “I guess things have come a long way from the Mr. Handy, huh.” There was still a little bit of awe in her voice - she very much wanted to see these synths. Truly humanoid robots had always been a lofty goal of the industry… she had heard of RobCo’s Assaultrons, but they were still miles away.

Danse scoffed. “Unfortunately. Keep your eyes open as we move deeper into the facility. It’s highly likely that the Institute’s forces still have a presence here.” The paladin was already moving on, and Katherine was quick to follow.

“Mmm-hmm.” She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Part of her was brimming with curiosity about these synths… and part of her knew that if they could take down those protectrons, they could take down her.

“This place has really been trashed, huh? What do you think it was like back in the day?”

“Filled with men making poor decisions, I’m certain.”

Katherine pressed her lips. So much for small talk. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before the hallways opened up into another room. Two dust coated windows framed a sliding door, which Danse was quick to investigate.

“This is the way forwards, but it seems to be locked tight. There’s no apparent way to open it from here.”

Katherine straightened up, and holstered her 10mm. “Oh, if there’s no visible controls on the door, they’re likely wired into a local terminal. It’s technically required for them have a way to bypass the lock through the hardware, in case of emergency, but they never make it easy. Security stuff. Uh…” she trailed off for a moment, glancing around the room. There were a few desks still standing on the opposite wall, terminals still intact. “Um, give me a moment.” She kicked a toppled chair away from the desk, and bent over the keyboard. “Mmm, this one’s still logged in. I guess there’s not really time to properly disconnect from your workstation when they’re bombing the city.” she muttered as she scrolled through the inbox.

“Any luck over there?” Danse inquired.

“I’ve got access to the internal mail system, uh, lots of reminders about security protocols and - ah-heh. Automated password change reminder. Looks like it’s for the lab access?” Katherine had a gnawing feeling in her gut that she was over-explaining things. Surely the paladin didn’t care about the specifics.

“That’s where we’re headed.”

“Great, yeah, uh.” She scanned the room again and scampered to the other still functional terminal. “Let’s hope…” she trailed off.

Danse took a few steps away from the laboratory door, turning to watch Katherine with mild curiosity, hidden behind the power armor helmet. She seemed quite at home amongst the terminals and technology. An unusual trait, compared to most of the wastelanders he met. Though he was initially skeptical of her claim to being a Vault Dweller - the Brotherhood had no record of a Vault 111, after all - he wondered if perhaps there was some truth to her statement.

“Hey!” Kate’s head popped up over the top of the terminal. “Got it.”

“Excellent. Let’s not waste any more time. If you could open the door?”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah.” A swift keystroke and the door opened with the whnk-hsss of pneumatics.

Paladin Danse formed around, set once again to lead the way onward, through the facility - but the incandescent blue laser bolt that buzzed his power armor brought those plans to a standstill.

“Hostile detected.” The matter-of-fact statement and computerized voice carried no overt aggression, a sharp contrast to the flurry of laser fire passing through the now opened doorway.

“Synths! Take cover!”

Katherine didn’t need to be told - she dove for cover behind a fallen file cabinet the instant she caught sight of the laser’s flash. Her grip tightened around her pistol as she heard Danse shout - a cautious glimpse revealed that the synths - that’s what he said they were? - were prioritizing the Paladin as a target, paying no attention to her. She wasn’t sure if they had even noticed her.

A dozen thoughts all raced through her head, tangling together as she stared at the machines. Mannequins was the comparison Danse had drawn. He wasn’t too far off. They were battered, damaged, rubber skin torn to reveal steel skeletons and plastic components. Only a moment had passed before one of them turned its gaze to Kate. The faint yellow glow of its eyes and the exposed grimace of its metal skull was an eerie sight - and one that quickly exploded in a shower of sparks and shrapnel.

Danse had taken it out with a single headshot.

The moment was enough to jolt her back into action, and she followed up by returning fire. Her 10mm pistol wasn’t nearly as effective as the AER-9 laser rifle Danse carried, but it did the job.

“Hmph. Sent them to the scrap heap.” He noted the laser weaponry carried by the synths, and had a realization. He glanced at the pistol carried by his current associate, and offered her the backup laser rifle he had brought. “Take this. I’m certain there’ll be more of them, and they’ll be carrying microfusion cells. Energy will be more effective than a weapon of a ballistic nature.” The Paladin tossed the rifle towards Katherine, who caught it with a startled yelp. She turned the weapon over in her hands. She had a passing familiarity with the AER-9 - though she had never personally handled one, she understood the basic mechanisms, and microfusion cells were something she was well acquainted with.

She fastened her 10mm pistol to her belt and kept the laser in hand. Danse had already stepped over the smoldering wrecks of the synths, but her curiosity was too strong. She stopped in the middle of the room, and crouched down over one of the robots.

They had been shooting at me only minutes ago, she thought, and there was still part of her that was worried they might spring back to life. Yet despite that lurking fear, she had to get a closer look.

The situation struck her as a little morbid, perhaps. Moreso than examining a broken-down Mr. Handy, at least.

It was the faces, she thought. The eyes.

The Institute. That’s where Danse said they had come from. Katherine had seen how the world was torn apart, still ruined from the bombs dropped so long ago. But it seemed that somewhere out there, something had not just survived, but thrived. Moved on past the limits of the world she knew, developed things that General Atomics could only have dreamed of.

A weight settled somewhere deep in her chest as she turned one over. An aching sort of sadness.

She didn’t have a chance to process those feelings, to figure out the why behind them.

“What are you doing? Hurry up. We can’t waste any more time.” Danse snapped, irritated by what he saw as Kate’s dawdling.

“Oh.” Katherine’s response was quiet. She got to her feet, gaze lingering on the remains of the synths, before turning away to follow Danse once again, through the ruins of ArcJet.

Katherine was worn down by the repeated encounters with the institute synths - after the first firefight she stuck closer than ever to the paladin - and stayed behind him, too. The power armor could take a laser much better than she could.

She was sure Danse was scowling at her cowardice, under his helmet.

“This way leads to the engine core. We’ll have to pass through here to reach the location where they’ve likely stored the transmitter.”

Danse looked back to find Kate dragging her fingers through the dust on a long abandoned desk, staring at a box of long faded files and folders.

“Everything here stopped so suddenly… how many people do you think made it out?”

He hesitated. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“When… the bombs dropped.” Katherine clarified, her voice tinged with sadness.

Danse cocked his head. “I couldn’t tell you, and I doubt anyone in the commonwealth has that information, given how many years have passed since those events.” He scoffed. “Regardless, I would suggest against concerning yourself with the people of the past. Their actions brought the war upon themselves.”

Her only response to Danse’s declaration was to go very quiet.

The elevator ride that took them to the engine core was awkward; Katherine pressed herself into the back corner of the car and wondered how much a suit of T-60 power armor weighed. Every time the elevator creaked, or groaned, she flinched. The thought that it had gone two centuries without maintenance scared her.

Kate’s knuckles went white as she clutched the pitted railing, just leaning barely enough over to stare down to the depths of the room. Her eyes followed the length of the rocket booster back up, and turned to look back at Danse, whose attention was drawn upwards, assessing the staircase - and the massive gap where it had broken away over the past two centuries.

It wasn’t filling Katherine with confidence, that was for sure.

–

It was only a short few flights to the floor of the test chamber, thankfully. The ash crunched under Katherine’s feet, and she walked a line around the edge of the room, idly looking over the footprints she left.

Danse placed an armored hand on the cowl of the engine, which had laid dormant for over two centuries. He wondered briefly if the brotherhood would have a use for it.

Maybe if it were smaller. As it stood, there was no way to transport the thing.

“See if you can find a way to turn the power back on. Perhaps redirect it from other parts of the facility.”

“Yeah - yeah sure.” There were only two ways out of the room, aside from the stairs. An elevator, unpowered and unusable, and a set of heavy steel double doors, halfway open and leading to what looked like a maintenance hall, judging by the wires and pipes running along the concrete. Seemed promising - or so she hoped.

There was a… she supposed it was some sort of control room, judging by all the consoles and buttons present, but she didn’t pay much attention to it - another doorway at the rear of the room exposed a fusion generator, and that was much more promising when it came to potential power systems.

Not just one fusion generator, but two - and a terminal at the back of the room. She nudged the chair away from the desk, wheels leaving a trail in the dust. As she settled in, Kate’s fingers ran across the terminal keys. There was no elaborate security down here in the depths. It didn’t surprise her. But it did make her current task easier - and she was glad. She tapped her way through various options, scanning every choice and setting .

Ah. There we go. Auxiliary power. A few confirmations and…

She could hear the power systems coming to life in the walls around her, the faint buzz of electricity through wires, and the hum of mechanical systems powering up. That should have done it, if everything was still connected.

The fusion generators she had passed has turned quiet, and her gaze lingered on the fusion core left inside. Well… if that was no longer connected, no longer needed.

Push, turn, and a click as it disconnected, slipped into her pocket on the way out.

It was the sound of gunfire that made Katherine snap to attention once again. Or, more accurately, laser fire. Flashes of blue and red through the reinforced glass window of the control room.

The paladin’s shouts confirmed her assumption.

“Synths!”

She froze up, eyes darting across the room, tracking the barrage of blue bolts in front of her.

It felt like hours before Danse called out again, directed at her. “Do something, Vance! Don’t just - urgh - stand there!”

It was enough to jolt her into action.

She slammed her open palm down on the big red button on the console in front of her.

The sounds of laser fire weren’t enough to obscure the pre-recorded countdown that initiated.

“Command accepted. Test fire commencing in five… four…”

Katherine’s heart was doing backflips in her chest. “Test fi- oh god oh no job on that’s not -” She pounded on the window. “Danse!”

“Three… two…”

Danse didn’t have time to muster a response, under the onslaught of synths.“

"One. Engine firing.”

The roar of the engine was deafening, and Katherine’s immediate reaction was to cover her ears. The sound was matched in intensity by the engine’s output - even here behind the safety of the blast shield, she still felt the wave of heat.

Danse dropped to one knee, arm raised to shield his face. The steel of his power armor picked up a faint red glow around the edges under the engine’s flames.

The synths weren’t nearly as durable. Any of them immediately under the test engine were swiftly reduced to ash, and those with a little more distance crumpled to the floor within moments.

“Test firing completed with an efficiency rating of ninety-six point seven percent.”

Katherine was already at the blast doors by the time they swung open. Her footsteps crackled in the ash as she ran to Danse.

He hadn’t moved since going down, and that made her fearful.

But as she approached, he groaned, reaching for the laser rifle he had dropped.

“Danse? Oh my god I’m - shit, shit I’m sorry I didn’t know - I didn’t think - *are you okay?!” She was on the verge of panic.

“I’m fine.” Danse grunted, getting to his feet with a little more effort than usual.“Thanks to my power armor. Without it I would have fared no better than those damn synths.”

Katherine reached a hand out, a gesture of support, but as she placed it on his arm…

“Ouch!” She yelped, flinching backwards. The metal still held quite a bit of heat. She shook her hand - that was gonna leave a mark.

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Maybe it wasn’t the wisest decision, but the results are acceptable enough.” The paladin gestured toward the elevator, where the call buttons were now lit up. “I strongly suggest we keep moving on. I don’t know how many more synths are in this building, or if they’re on their way to us again, and I’d rather not stand around to learn the answer.”

Perhaps it was more of a command than a suggestion, as he didn’t wait for a reply before heading towards the elevator.

“Um…” Kate hurried after him, still worried, though now for a different reason. “How much does that power armor weigh…? Is that going to be within the weight limit? I don’t - that elevator is two hundred years old and I know it hasn’t had regular maintenance, what if it -”

Danse turned around to look at Katherine. Even with his helmet obscuring his expression, she could sense his disapproval.

“Sorry.” She offered lamely, before going quiet and squeezing into the elevator car beside him.

It was a tight fit.

“All the information I’ve gathered indicates that the deep range transmitter is most likely stored in this control room,” Danse explained, “and there’s almost no evidence of scavenger activity in these parts of the facility.”

“What about the synths?”

“They arrived not long before we did, from the looks of things. If the deep range transmitter isn’t in the control room, one of the synths may have taken it. If that’s the case, we should hope they haven’t yet left the facility - if they’re still here, recovering the transmitter will be a simple task.”

“… more gunfights?”

“Very likely.”

Katherine clutched her laser rifle just a little tighter as they made their way towards the control room.

She was very conscious of her choice to keep behind Danse. The power armor protected him - and anyone behind him.

The tinny statement of “Hostile detected.” was the first sign of synths ahead, followed by the pchew of laser fire overhead.

“Contact!” Danse was the superior marksman between them and was quick to take out a trio of synths. They crumpled to the ground in rapid succession, and the third found its plastic skin burnt to ash as it fell.

Katherine was quick to offer fire against the last two synths as Danse reloaded - though none of her shots missed, she was far less accurate. It took more than twice as many shots for her to take them down.

“Well done.”

“Oh - um. Thank- thank you.” She never was great at handling praise, and was quick to scamper off in search of the transmitter, investigating the destroyed synths while Danse searched the room.

A few recovered microfusion cells found their way into her pockets, before a larger item caught her eye. She nudged the synth aside with her boot, uncovering… well, she wasn’t certain it was the deep range transmitter but it did have the look of a very complicated and very expensive piece of technology.

Katherine made her way back to Danse with the device slung under her arm. “Hey - I found this and um. Is this what you’re after?”

“That would be it, yes. Excellent! And it doesn’t appear to have sustained any damage.”

“Yeah, that’s good news.”

“There should be a way to exit the facility from here, so there won’t be any need to backtrack. Follow me.”

Danse wasn’t one to loiter - Katherine found it hard to keep up with him.

“… oh, another elevator.”

The service elevator led to an exit behind the ArcJet building, up a hill, sheltered inside a concrete structure. The commonwealth was quiet - there were no signs of any synths lingering outside. They were both equally relieved by this.

Danse took a few steps past the aged, rusting fence, and turned back to face Katherine. With his rifle holstered he reached up to remove his helmet, tucking it under one arm as he spoke. “well, I’m certain that could have gone smoother, but mission accomplished.”

Kate winced. She really had no frame of reference here. “I’m - I’m sorry. I didn’t…” She trailed off, deflating.

“While the operation was flawed, your contributions were still invaluable. Without your assistance I would certainly have been overwhelmed on multiple occasions. I’m not certain I could have retrieved the transmitter on my own.”

“Oh…!” There was surprise in Kate’s exclamation. She shuffled her feet a bit, awkward. “I’m… glad to hear that. I think.”

The paladin continued onward. “With that said, I believe we have two important matters to discuss. First and foremost is the deep range transmitter. If you’ll hand it to me, I’d like to compensate you for your assistance during this operation.”

“Yeah, yeah okay, here, this is, um. This is yours.” Kate offered Danse the device, which was swiftly packed away and secured.

He unholstered the rifle at his side, presenting it to Katherine. “Here. You clearly have an aptitude with technology - and with energy weapons. I think you’ll benefit from this; It’s my own personal modification to the standard issue AER9 laser rifle.”

“…really? Don’t you need this?” Katherine gingerly accepted the weapon, scanning it. She could see evidence of tinkering - and, of course, the brotherhood’s symbol stencilled along the barrel. She ran a thumb across the paint.

“It’s not the only weapon at my disposal. Besides, I believe in paying my debts.”

“Well then… thank you.”

“You’re welcome, civilian. Now, onto the second matter.”

Kate bit her tongue, unsure of what to expect.

“I wanted to make you a proposal. We had a lot thrown at us back there, and for the most part, you handled yourself exceptionally.”

She found herself wanting to disagree, but said nothing.

“Our op could have ended in disaster, but your determination kept that from happening. I believe that with a bit of training, you could be a valuable asset to the Brotherhood.”

“Erm.” Was she being recruited? She would have flunked out of the pre-war military almost instantly.

“The way I see it, you’ve got a choice. You could spend the rest of your life wandering the commonwealth, scrounging for supplies and trading your skills for a meager reward. Or, you could join the Brotherhood of Steel and make your mark on the world.” Danse shifted his weight, grip tightening on the helmet he still held.

“So, what do you say?”

Kate bit her lip. “The Brotherhood of Steel, huh? You guys are… aren’t you military?”

“Essentially, yes.”

Her hesitation was obvious. “Is this something I can think about? I don’t think I know enough here to, uh. to make a decision so quickly.”

“Of course. It’s a big decision. The offer still stands, and when you’ve made up your mind, you know where to find me.” Danse took a moment to put his helmet on once again, and his voice crackled out from within. “With all that said, I need to return to the police station. The deep range transmitter ought to be installed sooner, rather than later, so we can get in contact with the rest of the Brotherhood. Thank you again for your assistance, Vance. I wish you the best.”

Katherine found herself staring after Danse as he turned and left, heavy footsteps echoing off the hills around them. She shook her head as if to clear it. This whole thing had taken her off track, and she sighed. She had always been praised for her willingness to help, but so often that kept her away from her own tasks.

She certainly wasn’t going to make it to Diamond City today, she realized - the sky was still light, but she knew that wasn’t going to last much longer.

There weren’t enough hours in the day. That had been true two hundred years ago, and it was still true now.

She wasn’t looking forward to setting up camp for the night.

[sanstropfremir]

it’s the episode 8 review!!! how many episodes is this show supposed to even be?

the stages from the episode feel like such a grab bag.... i still don’t understand why they didn’t put all the skill stages together, and then did the normal two episodes of the third round. i guess it makes sense that they didn’t want to have six stages in one episode and then three in the other two, but eh. 

feeling kinda average on these as a whole, there’s a lot of good elements going on here but probably because of my own preferences (i don’t listen to ballads or blackpink) none of them really hit all the buttons. hopefully this will be a shorter review because i'm only going to do a quick rundown of the vocal stages; i dont really have that much to say about them because they are (intentionally) not very stage picture focused. i'll do the normal stage breakdowns for the other two though, even though i won’t rank them because we still need to see the other four!

vocal stages

sf9 + tbz + ikon

not much to say here other than wow, that’s RED. glad to see some more specific use of spotlighting and i always love when they light things on fire. i do wish they had fill lit with a brighter amber so we could actually get a bit more detail on their faces, especially because there’s six of them. i appreciated the simple blocking and only using one of the ‘stages,’ this stage didn’t need to be anything complicated and it wasn’t. i don’t love spinning camera shots because they make me a bit ill, and i'll forgive the constant cutting because it's a vocal stage and there isn’t any other real movement that we should be paying attention to. not my favourite of the two, i found it visually a bit too repetitive and complex at the same time. always love a crushed velvet suit though, so bonus points for that.

atz + skz + btob

i was braced for the worst and i dont know what kind of miracle happened but it was listenable! like i said, not a ballad fan but i could listen to eunkwang all day. i love a good plinth for a ballad stage, they’re one of my favourite devices in kpop design and i especially love it with a good groundlevel fog. glad they kept it black and white for the first half of the stage, it was in line with the blooming flower projections, and it made a very clear colour arc. they kept the visuals clean and simple with very little blocking at all, a very smart choice for this stage. not sure why they decided it would be the chanel time stage, which i disapprove of because i don’t like chanel, but i do love eunkwang’s shirt with the cameo buttons and the massive turnback cuffs, very 17th and also 19th century. i know they never do it because they dont read on stage normally but yes absolutely more thin chain pendant chokers on men, thank you! i also liked that there was emphasis on a more traditional lighting scheme, there weren't any crazy concert effects, just some good directional beam spotlights and the rear stacks in the climax. 

third round stages

ikon

costume

the first look for them is definitely my fabourite of theirs so far. there’s enough variation in the jackets that the base layer of tshirt and jeans don’t look too repetitive. and i do love a good statement jacket. my favourite is probably donghyuk’s because i'm a sucker for fringe always.

i don’t like the backup dancers costumes, but given the way i’ve reacted to every other all black outfit for this entire show i don’t think anyone was surprised about that. these ones particularly irk me because they’re very matte; there's pretty much no texture or pattern differentials to define the shape of the limb, which makes them disappear when theyre all grouped together (mostly on the women). i think they probably were intending to make a statement/emphasis on the hands because of the sleeve cutoff point, but there were so many arm movements that were just totally missed because the costumes were just black voids. most egregious parts are here, with the female dancers up center. i can barely tell what the movements are unless i’m paying specific attention to them because there's so many black shapes. maybe it was the point for it to be an indiscernable writhing mass, but it wasn’t my vibe.

don’t love this styling on lisa. i hate peeptoe shoes in general but peeptoe boots are the worst offenders. they make you look like you have duck feet, no matter who you are. especially with a flat cutout like that. a universally unflattering shoe, and i would know, i worked in a shoe store for two years. this whole look is just pg-13 rihanna cfda awards 2014 and really nobody should try to run up against rihanna.

also i have to mention this because it’s actually really bothering me, but lisa’s backup dancers are serving very allgemeine ss looks and i do not like it. generally when we see ‘military’ uniforms in kpop theyre usually modelled off older styles (pre wwii) of western uniforms that usually aren’t in circulation, and they’re usually non-matching and embellished in ways that are deliberately not military. i know logically that it's a budget constraint+they’re backup dancers+current trend thing but the clean lines with only button detailing and the all black and that specific harness shape? it hit my brain the wrong way. i mean, technically those uniforms are designer because hugo boss did them, but the uh..... girlboss move didn’t land for me.

this is my PERSONAL OPINION please for the love of all that is holy do not come yelling at me about this. it’s all under a cut, you chose to read the post.

set

very glad to see some busy kitschy sets! this is a massive build, since there’s essentially three full sets here: the temple, the jungle, and the first tiny room. and all of them are very heavily decorated. 

the starting room is just five walls on casters (wheels), that have been set into place with the cameraman and ikon inside at the start, and then once they exit the walls can be easily struck and rolled off set. simple, smart, and convenient!

i missed it the first couple times around but glitching out the projections in the temple for a split second was a neat little trick.

the silver and polygonal nature of the tiger/panther/cat(?) head is a bit disconnected from the gold and the aesthetic of the rest of the stage for me. the difference between the original room set and the jungle tracks, but the cat head isnt able to make the same leap for me. i'm also not a fan of mixing metals so maybe that’s why.

the tiger/panther/cat(?) head is a fun physical transitional device; i'm a big fan of tunnels and small transitory spaces like that and if they’re well dressed like this one they do so much for establishing place and mood.

i'm very sure i’ve seen this style of polygonal animal head with laser eyes before....i cannot for the life of me remember where or for what. i know wang yibo did a panther stage for sdc3 that had a human formation panther with green laser eyes, i wonder if i'm just crossing wires.

OH nevermind it’s because it looks like the witcher medallion. wires were definitely crossed.

lighting

using purple/teal lighting for the jungle was a smart choice because purple is the direct compliment to the gold and also is much more flattering on humans than green. green is one of the colours that humans can see the most variations in, so when something is green when it's not supposed to be (like human skin), we register that very quickly and associate it with unease and sickness. you know how old fluorescent lights have that greenish tinge that kinda makes you feel ill? it's your cone cells and your brain recognizing that you’re looking at things that are not supposed to be green.

very clean colour arc, i love to see it.

sound

it’s.....fine? i don’t listen to blackpink and have no opinions on their music other than it's not my type. i dont really know what the thematic connection to the visuals is, which is not strictly necessary in a lot of cases, but i don’t particularly care for the conflation of ‘savage’ and a (presumably) precolonial religion that’s assembled from stereotypes of real colonized cultures. you can come at me about how ‘it's not that deep’ all you want but i am here specifically doing an in depth analysis, and i gotta point it out. i'm not here to pass judgement on you if you didn’t realize or don’t care or whatever, i'm just saying that it's important to consume content with a critical eye. what you do with that information is your own personal choice, but you should be aware of it at least. 

staging

they took a big risk eating popcorn right before singing, and we definitely got some residual mouth noises of them trying to clean out their teeth. eating on stage is difficult in general because you have to make sure it's not going to dry out the performers mouths, because they dont have access to water and it takes WAY longer to chew and swallow something than you would expect. there’s a LOT of testing that goes into making stage food and guaranteed it’s not made out of what it looks like or what its supposed to be; i worked on a production of amadeus were we did literal weeks of testing amalgams of different desserts to make sure that salieri could actually eat the ones onstage without totally drying him out, because fun fact about that show, salieri doesnt leave stage like, at all, so there was no way to get him water. poor bloke.

i thought the blocking of this was really smart. the long take from the ‘normal’ room and transition into the jungle was super slick, even if that weird circle the camera did while pointed up at the ceiling was unnecessary and pointless.

bobby’s ‘acting’ was extremely funny and that’s the only way people are allowed to act surprised now. edvard munsch scream style only.

the pacing is a bit off and this time it wasn’t mnet’s editing that fucked it up. as fun as it is to have a feature, clearly she wasn’t allowed within proximity of the rest of them for covid or other yg related reasons, but it made for some extremely long transitions, especially the one out of her verse. it kills the momentum of the stage in that beat, even though they manage to pick it up after.

this is a very simple little narrative arc that’s easy to follow and doesn’t require any extra explaining. which is exactly the kind of arc that groups should be doing at this stage in the game. this is a good formic step up for ikon!

i thought the turning off of the monitor at the end was fun and a good callback to them watching the videos at the beginning of the stage. a nice clean way to make it circular.

skz

costume

FINALLY something different on the skz boys! these were mostly fun eboy looks for them, and i like it on the basis that it's not the same as the last set of costumes.

bang chan out there with his thigh OUT and a (fake) bridge piercing? LOVE to see it. great work.

(copy-paste every thing i’ve said about backup dancers wearing all black)

the backup dancers that were dressed as bystanders/extras were great! they should have kept that with all of them because it would have given a little more shape to the choreography and establishing what function the backup dancers were supposed to have.

set

that is meant to be a giant rice cooker on stage, right? i think so because it's a god’s menu mashup? if that's not a rice cooker i have NO idea what its supposed to be

there’s only two large setpieces here, which was a smart way to go. i LOVE the subway car doubling as the truck, even if the truck itself makes no narrative sense. what a fun way to double the use of a single big piece. you’ll be able to see the way it moves in the full cam but it splits down the centre and there entrance doors at the back with attached stairs that bang chan and the dancers use to climb up.

lighting

not a whole lot happening here. i like the cool white leds in the subway car and the contrast with the more warm tones of the outside, which is good atmospheric establishment, but i can't discern a visible arc. 

not a fan of these projections; they’re in line with what we’ve seen from skz so far, which is: extremely literal. i dont think they’re that distracting, but they’re not to my personal taste. they really should have kept the comic panel theme that they did for changbin’s first verse, because that was inventive and fun to watch! and a great atmospheric indicator! i would love to see a bit more experimental projection use but it's hard when they don’t have a lot of time to build these stages and the lighting team is definitely working remotely.

sound

i love that they made the choice to do some actual talking, it’s a good gimmick and it works for the deadpool/comic book/fourth wall break theme, but australian accents take me the fuck out i am so sorry i cannot listen to either felix or bang chan speak english without laughing uncontrollably. 

i don’t like this arrangement but i'm not surprised about that, given my predilections. i'm also tired of skz shouting STRAY KIDS in every performance they do. i know on music shows it's probably more relevant and yea producers tags are a thing but we’ve been watching this show for nearly two months at this point. we know who you are, you can stop yelling. be more creative with it!

staging

my biggest issue with this stage is that it doesn’t have a payoff. there is an arc here: they’re stealing the truck, but why are they stealing the truck? who are they stealing it from? who are they fighting against? it's kind of important in a stage where the theme is stealing and fighting someone that you tell us who that is. in both of ateez’s previous stages were they were both stealing (rhythm ta) and fighting (wonderland), they made sure to show us who the villain was. there needs to be tension for a big blowup climax to actually pay off. whether it be against a a balloon arm kraken or a fascist government. this stage could have reached that next step if they’d just done a little bit more exposition. 

there were a lot of fun choreo moments here, and this is probably my favourite choreo of theirs so far. i thought the whole first bit in the subway car was excellent and a very fun play on those viral videos that we used to see roll around every so often of dancers doing routines in subway cars.

did it need the guns? not in the slightest. more on this point later. i could talk more about weapons and weight here, but i’ve done that several times already.

like with the tbz game of thrones stages, theyre relying a little too much on the audience's preconceptions of the source material in order to carry the theme. the guns are there because deadpool likes guns, but they don’t actually use the guns for anything? the most we get of the stealing segment is felix and the safe, which admittedly is a great bit with him leaping over and under the ‘laser’ lines (theyre likely led strips). because comic books are by nature procedural and deeply tied to narrative, it's unsatisfying when there’s no tension and no payoff.

HOW did we manage to get two stages that are blackpink covers with remote/tv static gimmick and durags? i know the slot machine of kpop tropes is not very big but surely the probability of hitting triple sevens on this one was pretty low. i’m pretty meh on both of these stages overall. skz was unsatisfying but i loved the choreo in the subway bit so that bumped it up a little ahead of ikon’s in my personal preferences, but i'm reserving my actual rankings for next week. assuming we get the other four stages next week and they dont do something stupid and only show two. which they very well might. i’ve stopped trying to understand why mnet does things the way that they do. 

as always the ask box is open, drop your comments/questions/personal opinions, i love to hear ‘em! but don’t be rude just because some of this is touchier subject material.

[cowboypossume]

so i reread keeper of the lost cities and here’s my fresh input:

a note before we begin: you know how people fake throw up at things on tik tok? this book is the reason i now unironically do that.

dex and fitz really have the enemies to lovers troupe going for them and i’m ok with it. i really am.

so do sophie and biana at the beginning but it fizzes out so a better description is enimies to friends to lovers

marhella and stina give me such power top energy i cannot express how much i think that contributes to people not liking them

speaking of stina i wish sophie didn’t just immediately hop onto the bandwagon of “oh she’s evil” without investing further, especially with how much she is written as a ‘good’ person (which i can and will defend to the day i die that good people don’t exist but that’s for a different day).

there’s way too much heteronormativity and Patriarchical Ideas mushed into the book. like three hole pages of a 488 page book of teenagers being like “oooooo girls like guys and guys like girls” only for della to join in. not to mention the amount of times keefe is the reason for those ideas because he’s teasing like “oh fitz has a girlfriend”

keefe and fitz didn’t have as many bonding moments™️ in this book as i remember, but they stil know each other really well, have comfortability around each other, and would make a 10/10 best friends to lovers troupe.

oh my god s o many crushes i swear. like two teenagers of the opposite gender really can’t not like each other apperantly

i miss read a line and really thought there was cannon sexism for me to do a whole ass rant about in the notes part of my analyzation but n o p e

but we do have classism, sexist stereotypes, and the fact that there’s been SO many characters who’ve spoken and ✨🌺far too many of them are white🌺✨

oh also: no ones disabled. which annoys me because their society is described as ‘euptopic’ almost implying that it’s something that makes people problematic, which,,,, no

ok a side note on the society, i understand that the story’s message (kinda) is that things that seem perfect are probably deeply flawed, but something tergan said stuck with me. on a page i can’t remember at the moment he says something like “[the black swan exists] in a society that doesn’t have rebels”, which it suck with me bc that’s boarderline dystopic if it’s not there already. it’s one thing for laws not to be broken, but when you think your society is so perfect despite it having obvious flaws and you think that no one rebels, then i really hate to break it to you, you have a massive rebellion about to occur; it’s just scented as foul under your resplendent nose.

please stop flirting. i get its part of teenagers being teens but i swear if i read “s/he realeased a breath” or “their heart fluttered” or literally ANYTHING like that god no.

yall. i missed dex. he actually has more role in this book than ‘you can gadget and we need one’ and oh boy i really missed him. he’s a BEAN and deserves better.

hole’s said everyone deserves better and i absolutely agree so we’re adding that note here.

if you do what i did and read this book out loud to one of your best friends who has no clue anything about this weird fandom and give fitz a really deep voice for no reason it’s comdy GOLD.

i really think i’m reading too much into this point but iggy seems,,,, symbolic to me?

like ok with humans, sophie didn’t ‘fit in’, right? like she grew up hearing things like “why can’t you be normal like your sister” (which i can do a whole other rant about how that will affect her for the rest of her life just a s k)

not to mention looking really different from her family and graduating high school at age twelve 

but you know who never judged her?

m a r t y

so anyway sophie meets this teal-eyed, movie star smiled wonder boy who takes away her entire knowledge of everything she’s known while taking away her family too

and it turns out even in a place of weirdos she still manages to be the exception to everything

and she doesn’t have the comfort to hear what people are really thinking about her anymore (which as i said before say the word and i’ll deadass write a whole speech about how everything she heard will completely fuck up every relationship she has) which unfortunately means that she grew used to confirming people didn’t like her but now she doesn’t have that

she has to adapt to this new space and feel like she’s always felt, like an outcast in a place that was accepting, but yet again, she the exception to everything

but about halfway through the book she starts to become more comfortable around grady and edaline and that’s when iggy comes in

she finds him while cleaning garbage, and grady compliments her. they have a bonding moment and it’s because of this t h i n g. and then sophie actually feels proud not only does she take up a room, but she did something

and her new parents are proud of her

so she finally feels like she BELONGS because she helped out at the place where she lives/they work

to me it seems iggy is kinda a manifesto of the world building and character development that happens in this book

i think the plot/character arc is fixated a little too much on how different sophie is. like, i get it, she’s exception to everything, but the plot really didn’t need her to be that quirky. yes, she’s different, but there’s a lot more to the plot and her character than how different she is.

also, i had to reread pages a lot bc i needed an exact paragraph number and,,,, it’s really paced like a fanfic

some questions i have about the society is:

it’s established that they use books, physical papers, etc., and the only thing i remember about trees is the speech alden gave her about how she doesn’t know the name of their most popular tree, and the fact that people become trees when they die. even then i don’t think the second one is in this book. never o n c e do i remember something about planting trees that aren’t dead elf’s, so do they feel the affects of deforestation and that jazz?? like if they use trees, will they run out of them? can they??? and do they use the coffins of elf’s for paper??

this is more of a rant than a question, but here it goes anyway. in foxfire, students have a testing system very similar to the one in america: a huge test at the end of the year determines the future of a student. that in of itself doesn’t sound too drastic, right? well,,,,, not necessarily. several studies have shown that tests in general, but especially these types, don’t work. despite how good or bad of a teacher i think my past and current teachers have been, every single one of them hates this system that we have in place. they know it’s an unfair assessment that does it’s damnist to make you fail, and they’re trying so hard to denounce it. however, that doesn’t happen at all in the lost cities. in fact, most of the teachers pride themselves on failing students. so if elf’s are in such an advanced society, why do tests still exist? especially in an environment where the consequences are far greater than just staying back a grade. 

so sophie’s figuring out that major problems exist in the world the elf’s created, right? i wonder if more society structured problems exist more than ‘oh bad people do things and the law justifies which is what’. like, as i’ve previously stated, there’s sexist stereotypes presented (like girls like dresses and guys don’t), but does sexism still exist? does racism exist? it’s established that poverty isn’t a thing because of the fund elf’s have at birth and their limited usage of money (which if you understand please explain bc i don’t really get how they buy stuff but still don’t use money) but if someone gets shipped off to exile, do they lose their money? is it possible for elf’s to starve to death because they can’t afford food? do they pay for food?? if they did starve who would they call? because someone on this website, who’s post i tried to find but i couldn’t so if y’all know what i’m talking about please link it, brought up a good point that elwin is a school physician, he shouldn’t be dealing with the near-death experiences sophie has, so who would they turn to? especially if they don’t have access to foxfire because they got exciled??

is therapy a thing in this world? sophie and dex could really benefit from it, yet mental health has only been brought up when someone went insane, which REALLY shows how little they think about it.

that perfectly transitions into my next point: sophie and dex’s trauma. i really don’t get the vibe that there was much thought going into their kidnapping, other than sophie needed something to trigger her inflecting ability and establish the black swan are on the good side, which really sucks because wow trauma doesn’t happen lightly. and the fact that it happened seems rushed to me, but i’ll come back to that. but anyway, their trauma doesn’t get developed that deeply in this book because it wasn’t given the space to. they were beaten, tortured, starved, gagged, and who even knows what else for t e n d a y s, only for them to find them again, repeat the process, but someone saves them and dumps them into an illegal city and they both nearly die from dehydration, coldness, and lack of concentration, and you’re telling me after three days of conscious of bed rest sophie wants to get her failing out of school over with? ma’am, it takes more time than that to adjust to THAT alone, not to mention the realization that “hey your entire life is fake because people genetically altered you to be their weapon in a war so much bigger than yourself” that was recently dumped on her. like,,,, you really expect me to think that three days is what made her feel prepared and CONFIDENT? no sir. i don’t buy it.

coming back to it being rushed: the book starts out slow and then really hits the ground running and doesn’t stop. so much more stuff happens in the second half of the book than the first and it never gets fully developed it feels like. in the first half sophie moves away but gets a new family and struggles a bit but adapts, fires maybe but hey don’t worry about it, dex hates fitz, fitz is ✨d r e a m y ✨ but our main girl doesn’t like him like that, right?, stina’s a bitch, and sophie is a quirky girl and telepath but can’t tell anyone. pretty basic stuff, not too plot intensive. the second half though: sophie almost fails her midterms but doesn’t, grady and elaine want to unadopt her (which that’s never really explained as to why they do that but ok) fires exist in san degio but they’re fine but they’re actually a rebel elf so..., sophie accidentally breaks a law but it was an accident so it’s fine, update on the fires: sophie burns herself trying to get the evidence that it’s a rebel elf and it works, she’s the moon lark and basically a weapon bc no one knows her well enough to evaluate her safety, sophie and dex get kidnapped but fitz can now transmit to her and she has two new abilities so it’s all good, trauma doesn’t exist except for nightmare you can fix with sedatives, sophie doesn’t fail out of school, and yayyy her family doesn’t want her remove their adoption. there’s probably a lot more that i missed, it’s just that’s a LOT of stuff crammed into a little bit further than the second half of the book that really could have been devolped or explore further instead of forcing into less than 244 pages, ya know?

fitz’s eyes are mentioned seven times, the first time being on page TWO of the novel

his smile is mentioned three times

alden says “no reason to worry” five times, he writes it once, and sophie points out he says it a lot so he chances it slightly to something like ‘don’t stress about it’ so i didn’t count those though i should have

speaking of alden, in this book he’s absolutely creepy, but something that stands out to me is how much he calls sophie girl. i didn’t count it, but he said “that’s a good girl” to sophie too many times for it to be normal especially when you consider how he doesn’t do it to anyone else.

i kinda forgot i was annotating for sophie’s anxious habit of pulling out her eyelashes so i got she did it twice, but i highly doubt that number

but i will keep adding to this when i actually do the words with my annotations.

[soyeahitsmiddleearth]

Multi-Dimensional pt. 1

The Company x Reader

I would love more parts of this tbh. But I would also love a scenario just like this but involving The Company??? Maybe? If you feel up to it. __In reference to the fellowship one I recently posted.

Living on a farm kinda far from other people was a very conscious decision. 

It’s not like you just up and left and decided to do it on a whim or anything, this was calculated carefully and planned accordingly. 

There are two very important reasons why you chose to live a bit further from the neighborhoods, semi-rural if you will, and these two reasons include; A. your desire to have as many animals as you want, and B. not wanting to deal with BS constantly in a crowded neighborhood or apartment complex. 

It’s not that you dislike people or anything like that (though you do like animals more), but being surrounded by them 24/7 isn’t something you much like. 

Now one may wonder; how do you manage to afford an updated country house with multiple animals as well as yummy home-cooked meals and other leisure’s? 

Well, the answer to that is quite simple. 

Not all of the animals are actually yours. 

You’re an animal sitter/trainer. And not just any animal sitter, but one with a degree and huge amounts of land and access to numerous pet care supplies. You have a friend, a very good friend, who owns a share of a large scale farm and pet care grocery chain, so you literally get everything for either half the price or literally free. And your rates as a pet sitter with a degree and previous experience are freaking massive. 

Like, up to $25/hour maximum, massive. For multiple days, and sometimes a week. 

Saying you’re loaded is an overstatement, but  very  well off suffices. 

Anyways, you live pretty simply. You take care of your animals, go out around the city and have someone watch the house, eat some good dinner, and just… relax. 

It’s never lonely when you’ve got so many excellent animals to keep you company, or at least, not really. Sometimes you do wish you had someone else to share your life with, someone to talk about things with (who will actually respond) and to hold you and tell you everything’s okay when things are going bad…

Damn you want a boyfriend, one that’s the complete opposite of your last one.

“Maybe he was the best I could do…” You grumble, then slap the sides of your face, “No… no, don’t think that. If I’m meant to be in a relationship, my future love will simply teleport into my living room *I stole this from a funny tweet* . Otherwise, I will remain single. Like my dogs, kinda…” You grumbled to yourself last night before you went to bed. 

Maybe you shouldn’t have said that, because when you wake up that next morning in your pile of fur (2 dogs and 3 cats) and head downstairs to begin your morning feeding ritual, you’re met with the sight of 14 dudes sprawled about in your immaculate living room, getting mud on your carpet and… are those weapons?

Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

If this was meant to be a robbery attempt, then they butchered it horribly. 

You turn and go into your kitchen and put multiple kettles on the stove, intending to just make… all of the tea in your cupboard. 

When your two puppies came trotting down the stairs after you, you walk about out of the kitchen and watch them, and the moment they catch wind of the pile of men in your house they are on alert. You attempt to stop them from running over, but they are already sniffing around them and pawing at their faces curiously before you can so much as call their names. 

“Good God, why can’t I just have a normal day?” You mumble to yourself, inching over slowly when your fluffy brown and white floofer Yeti, literally, sits on a very small blond man. And then you realize, they’re all kinda small. Or short, thicc👌if you may, since they are more buff and not fat (not all of them at least). 

Your other dog, Copper, continues to sniff around (ever the paranoid pup, good boy) but eventually goes back to you instead of trying to suffocate that blond dude. 

When you’re sure they’re still out-cold, you return to the kitchen and scrounge up 14 mugs and glass cups and get the tea steeping, sighing as you search your cupboard for something to put out. Damn it if they were planning on robbing you at… ax-point, then you’re going to be so freaking hospitable and generous that they’ll regret even thinking of it (realistically you’re not worried because Yeti and Copper can definitely eat them whole).

Eventually, you find some platters leftover from a party you were invited to a few days ago (you got to keep the leftovers), so you bring them out to the coffee table near where they’re hanging out and just set it out, then return to the kitchen in shifts and bring the mugs out two or three at a time (three if you’re feeling especially daring). Pretty soon everything is out, so you then decide to take the weapons you have immediate access to and hide them.

Of course, your definition of ‘hiding them’ is putting them all on your love seat and covering it with a blanket. 

You assume they probably have more hidden in various places on their bodies and under their clothes, but you’re not gonna even consider taking those. 

Once you’re 100% done with your anti-robbery check-list, you lay down on your couch with your feet facing them and begin to read the book you left on your coffee table the night before. 

Right when you begin to wonder if any of them are even alive, some begin to groan and move around sluggishly. 

You hear a couple worried 'Bilbo?’s’ and someone say either 'kill’ or 'Kili’, so you get up and retreat to your kitchen in case they get violent. 

Someone screams muffled-ly and you assume the blond guy has awakened. 

As soon as the guy screams most of them jump to their feet and begin to look around wildly, and you duck beneath the counter and peek out from the side nervously. 

“Where is my ax!?” Someone yells with an accent. 

“What in Mahal is sitting on Bilbo?!” Another yells. 

“Master Baggins!" 

"Is that food?" 

Everything goes quiet when someone yells about the food, and then there’s some shuffling and rustling of plastic and Yeti comes trotting into the kitchen. A triumphant smirk settles on your face, and you slowly stand and see that they’re all standing and looking down at the coffee table.

"Is this for us?” The small blond man who Yeti seemed to like, asks. 

You decide now is the time for your dramatic entrance. “Yes, it’s for you.”

At the sound of your voice, they all whirl around and look at you with wide eyes, pushing the same small blond behind them as they reach for the hidden weapons you knew they had. 

You don’t say anything.

“You didn’t even search us properly!” One of the taller brown-haired ones exclaims, oh he’s kinda cute, with a smug smirk on his face. 

Okay, wow that’s insulting. He’s definitely insinuating that you’re dumb, definitely. “Excuse me, I know very well that you had stuff in your clothes, but I didn’t much like the idea of invading your personal space." 

Now you get confused looks and no response. 

"Besides, I took all your big weapons and I know that they must’ve meant something to you. I’ll hold them hostage if you try to rob me." 

More confused looks, then a raven-haired guy, the one who pushed the blond behind them, speaks up, "Where are our weapons?" 

You resist the urge to look over at the horribly hidden pile of swords, daggers, single bow, and axes under the blanket on your love seat and state, "I’ve hidden them somewhere you’ll never find them!” You yell, “You can tear this house apart brick by brick and you’ll still never find them! I’ve put them somewhere so-”

“It’s under that blanket, isn’t it?” A blond guy with a braided mustache asks. 

You take a pause and look over to exactly where he’s talking about. 

It’s completely silent for about 30 seconds until you realize you should probably deny it.

“…No."  

Yeah, there’s literally the hilt of a blade and the bow sticking out from under it. 

Some of them seem more amused than alert now, and you realize you’ve succeeded in making them see you as not a threat. 

You clear your throat awkwardly, and look away from the blanket, "L-Lets not read too much into that. What’s really important here is that you are literally the worst robbers I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.” You glare at the lot of them before a big smile suddenly spreads across your face, “Oh! I got you snacks by the way, and my name is Y/N.”

A couple of them exchange weird looks, probably because you’re totally psyching them out, and you can tell they’re beginning to question your sanity. And that’s where they go wrong, because once they know your name and grow attached, then there’s no way they’ll be able to hurt or rob you. 

The raven-haired dude, he seems to be the leader of this operation, steps forward, “We are no robbers.” Is all he says as if that clears everything up. 

“Um, then why are you in the middle of my house? Seems pretty robber-y from where I’m standing." 

He purses his lips and looks at you intensely as if he’s trying to stare you into submission, but you will not be intimidated.

"No excuse, then?” You ask.

He sighs quietly when he realizes, ultimately, that you’ve got a point. “Truthfully, I have no memory of how we got to be here.” The half-man pauses to collect his thoughts, then continues, “I don’t know where we are, nor do any of us. This place is foreign and everything is odd… and new." 

You tap your foot a couple of times and cross your arms over your chest, not really believing it but also not-not believing it since they are rather peculiar. 

"If you’re not robbers then tell me something only a not robber would say!” Getting them to underestimate you is key. 

You get more weird looks and some of them actually laugh, bingo, before the same guy speaks again, “We… we’re not going to rob you?" 

For a few moments, you pretend to deliberate over what he said, then nod, "Well damn, why didn’t you say so before?” Some tense shoulders relax, then you continue, “Anywaaayyys, I made tea and that blond fellow in the back looks kinda skinny so help yourselves to the platters I’ve set out. Oh, yes, also I hope none of you are afraid of dogs, cats, snakes, turtles, or small rodents because they’re literally everywhere." 

"Are you not being too hasty in accepting us into your home?” The black-haired dude asks slowly, looking around at the rest of the people around him. 

Yes, he has a point you know, but there’s something that tugs at your heartstrings when you look at this disheveled group of short men. Their eyes are sunken and tired with bags big enough to cost you extra on a flight, they are dirty and some of them a bit bloody, they look so hungry, and there’s just a horrible exhausted and negative haze settled over the lot of them. They just look so damn pathetic and sad, and god that small blond and the brown-haired pretty guy look like sad little puppies- 

It then occurs to you that they are, essentially, strays, and that thought softens your hard outer-shell. 

You have to help them.

You let a smaller smile upturn the corners of your lips as you say a bit quieter and more serious, “Maybe I am. I don’t know who you are or if you’re telling me the truth, but even I can see that something isn’t right here. You all look tired and hungry, a-and if I turn you away knowing something’s wrong, what kind of person does that make me?”

You’ve done it plenty of times with dogs and feral cats before, and they can be just as dangerous. 

It seems that they’re all listening to what you have to say, so you go on, “I have the means to help and Yeti has taken to your blond man-child,” you gesture to your fluffy boy who is pawing at said guy in search of head pats, “And… something in my heart is telling me that I shouldn’t send you away.” You tap your fingers against your elbow a couple times, then say softly, “Please don’t make me regret it…" 

There are a few moments of silence before the person you were talking to responds again, "We will try to cause no trouble for you." 

You nod your head and turn to go back into the kitchen, whistling for Yeti and Copper to come follow you. "I’m going to be out for 10 minutes, don’t cause trouble.” Leaving them by themselves is the ultimate test of how trustworthy they are, and you’ll only be just outside feeding the animals so you can hear everything. 

“We won’t." 

You’ll have to see. 

[luckycheesefoodie321]

Soooooo... Couples therapy didn’t go well for SamBucky... TFATWS THOUGHTS (long post + spoilers)

Ok. Ok some depth to dude in a suit.

Not a bad guy. But the good guy Erskine always hoped for???

Mmmmmm some parallels between Sam and dude in a suit. Nervous to fill that suit.

“You’re not Captain America”

Aww they referenced his song

“Punch your way out of problems” hmm

Well yknow this is very early Captain America when Erskine gets killed and all Steve could do was be a figurehead of the war and put on shows...so interesting parallels

Bucky finds outtttt and he’s probably gonna deck Sam for giving up the shield

Ahhhhhh I knew it. Boi believed in what Steve believed. And seeing the shield being touted by some other guy gotta hurt.

Wait. But how did Bucky know Sam was gonna be there. Is he even allowed on this base??? Who gave him access???

Bucky my love you can’t help but latch onto the only friend you have huh? Wanna protect the dude that Steve believed could take up the mantle.

Instant chemistry on screen I adore this.

Dear god the sexual tension

Awwww “DONT call me Buck. Only Steve can call me Buck” WHATS THE BET BY THE END HES CALLING HIM BUCK OR THERES A CALL BACK WHERE SAM CALLS HIM BUCK AND BUCKY SAYS STILL CANT CALL ME THAT

Ahahahhahha what happened to the cool guy who caught Caps shield??

Cant even jump out of plane with no parachute. No wonder you didn’t get chosen to be Captain America XD (I kid. Don’t come for me)

Yknow what glad they showed them putting in those ear pieces. Every time they do that, the nonsense of every single Avengers movie and Civil War gets whittled down a little bit more

Sam we need a brooding non blinking dude or else who else will be your comedy prop

That was a flirty smile. Stop flirting Sam you’re on a mission.

Also love that Bucky is kinda caught up in saying all the cheesy sort of “casual” mission banter lines

Wait is that his new hero name orrrr? Bc he’s trying not to be the Winter Soldier anymore..

Their ongoing banter is really refreshing when before in other MCU movies (and this is very back to classics) there was time for maybe one quirky line mid action and the rest is just serious on a mission mode unless Tony was around

Bucky running oh my god I forgot

We had the whole running scene in Civil War too XD

Oop she’s not a hostage

Bucky has to love redwing in future right? (Sike they kill Redwing)

Oooh Sam got the hero music playing!!!

I was wrong. Dude in a suit got CAPS MUSIC????

Oh damn roll through the grass guys take it easy XD

I’m sorry subtitler what are you doing. “Captain America”???

Ok but that tracking shot of them just walking and bantering is great

This is a fun shot oh my god

BIG THREE

Baby there is a bit of difference to Steve jumping on a grenade pre-serum no protective gear of any kind using HIMSELF as a shield and expecting to blow up but hoping to save everyone else in the process... vs you knowing you can get out of it unscathed despite intentions being similar

Not a bad guy but not the “good man” just yet. But hey am appreciating his character depth.

Wow love that they’ve pointed out Bucky’s staring XD

But also this guy was raised up by the government. Steve was the embodiment of freedom.

“Battlestar??? Fuck yo nickname!” Hahahahaha

Oof John really just said they were his wingmen huh

Sam was right tho. I can get behind what dude in a suit is going for but he just has to end it poorly

So Super Soldiers came back as a plot point after the tease that was Civil War huh?

Wait wait so Sharon is still an enemy of state???

Nice. (I don’t remember what this was for)

Wow. And now we see the reality. Bucky, albeit pardoned, was considered a war criminal.

But they still think Sam is the aggressor in a situation where, I think, he would be justifiably upset. A hero, a black hero, was erased from the history books, effectively.

Racial profiling doesn’t stop. They see colour first and person second. And it was only after they realised who Sam was that they apologised. Actually even worse, it took Bucky reminding him to realise who they were.

How goddamn messed up.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmn ok dude in a suit you are overstepping boundaries here.

Bucky definitely needs the therapy, and while I would like him to have more freedom, it should not be on your authority????

Oooh tell em Doctor Raynor.

COUPLES THERAPY TIME

Ooooooh gazing hell yeah time to fall in love lads

Hahahhahahah their legs oh my god

Bucky’s “ha I won” look

Awww no Bucky really believed in Sam because it meant hope for him too I cant

I was rooting for this guy but he is getting on my nerves SNATCH THAT SHIELD OFFA HIS BACK

Yo but I feel bad for the Flag Smashers a lil? Their cause isn’t bad. Their target is governments, corruption etc. but idk we’ll see how things play out.

Jfc Zeno chill out. This music tf.

SHUT THE FUCK UP HOE THATS IT

—-

So we finally have some Falcon and The Winter Soldier bonding action, we love to see it.

Clearly they’re not best of pals, nor do they have Steve as their mediator... gotta navigate their relationship together, and once they nab a bad guy together for the first time, they’ll have better bond and it’ll be nice.

That said, gotta appreciate Bucky was actually more honest with Sam present. So that was some progress.

I am still neutral about Dude in a Suit... he’s not Captain America but idk if he’s earned me calling him just John and he’s not the USAgent yet?? Is that his name??

I can see where his motivations are coming from but he is really buying into this government mandated position that was only possible because Sam gave up the shield, when we’ve looked at him by himself wanting to live up to expectations... but dude is just coming off as a leech??? And I do hope he has a moment where he realises that, despite being the perfect soldier, there is someone who is more of a “good man” that Steve was, that Erskine wanted to take on the power...

And yknow the meeting with Isaiah does set up the very real concept that POC figures of significance are forced to remain in the shadows, or are straight up erased by a white-dominant society that wants to present a specific type of person as a hero for the masses to look up to...

Which is why I found the convo with that kid calling Sam “Black Falcon” interesting. The dad, who told the kid to call him that, might’ve wanted that distinction. In a society that continues to vilify and destroy their “racial minorities”, having a black hero like Falcon (and Black Panther and War Marchine) is important... and that idea leads into Sam’s outrage about Isaiah being unknown for so long... (as a non-American, non-black but POC woman, these are just some thoughts I have)

But yeah. Behind this very MCU veneer, we have some real character-led drama coming through and I’m all for it!

[airi-p4]

Last Chance - Chapter 6

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 AO3

______________________________

Chloe’s POV

This is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous! I spent months- more than a year trying to make Luka mine and only mine and all it's needed is a simple email from the stupid Dupain-Cheng to make it all go down the drain.

Only two months until the Wedding! Two months!! Could she wait at least until after the honeymoon? Maybe I could have gotten pregnant and made it harder for Luka to dump me? Not that I want a baby, ewww, but what other option I have to keep the man I love by my side? I would do anything for him!

Well, it's not like me for things to go according to plan, isn't it? I was supposed to take revenge on Luka, not falling this hard for him! No wonder Marinette is helplessly attracted to him, he's so damn hot. And handsome. And sexy. And yet a sweetheart. No, that last one is not the image that makes a rockstar sell. Good thing I'm his stylist- I get to enjoy him from closer than anyone. And that body… those eyes… and wow, the eyeliner is the final touch that makes me go totally head over heels for him. Goodbye to my original plans- I had to make him mine.

And I was so close too! If it wasn't for that ridiculous Dupain-Cheng... How can she not be content with Adrien? Hello? He’s perfection itself! But no! Ridiculous Marinette Dupain-Cheng thinks not even perfection is good enough for her. She wants Luka now instead of him. Like, seriously? Are you kidding me!? Utterly ridiculous!

You want the man, you fight for him. I'm not letting him go without a fight, no matter what his feelings are! I love him and I don’t care if the designer wannabe does too. He has to be MINE.

And hey! My plan worked for a while! I avoided Luka finding out about Marinette and Adrien's break up, and he even proposed to me after I dropped some hints! Not bad, huh? You can clap. C'mon, give me an applause! Don't I deserve it? Aren’t I amazing? Heh. Of course I am!

Too bad that stupid woman had to interfere with my happiness. So annoying!

As soon as Adrien told me about Marinette's change of feelings I knew my man returning to the woman he had never forgotten was bound to happen. I had to avoid it at all costs!

What if it made Marinette unhappy? Not my problem.

What if Marinette's unhappiness made Luka unhappy? It should be fine as long as he doesn't find out about her unhappiness, shouldn't it? But I still want Luka to be happy… But I'd prefer it to be with me!

That's why I'm ready to give it my all. I want to turn the balance to my side. I want him to love me the most! Am I asking for too much?

But I made the mistake of not deleting that email account. How stupid of me...

I never expect it to be this troublesome, to be honest. As soon as I saw those messages I knew everything was over for me. Still gotta fight- giving up is not my style- but I was at disadvantage.

And I'm angry that I can't hide the truth from him when he looks at me with those trusting eyes. And things are over as soon as he finds out my darkest secrets.

But I tell you: I’m not going down without a fight.

I contacted the Miraculous team and prepared to go to Tibet. "You're amazing…" he said, and he kissed me. Hell, I could fly every time he does that. What has LOVE converted me into? I’m so hopeless around him… Geez.

Later, the talk during our flight was not pleasant, but not unexpected either: he has made up his mind and I'm out of the picture. He seems hurt to know I failed him. Why did I have to tell him my original plans knowing he would hate me afterwards? He has this absolute power over me… I can't deny him anything. I had tried to avoid the talk by asking him to sleep but it didn't really work.

I can’t accept our relationship coming to an end. Not like this.

My heart is totally broken. Nothing I’ve ever felt can compare to this pain. Not even my own mother’s rejection as a child. Not even Adrien's rejection. Nothing.

At Adrien's plane I can't stop drinking alcohol and crying. I'm clearly the ridiculous one, aren’t I? I don't want Luka to go. I'm happy about his casual touches- his habits . They give me security and hope. How can he be so handsome and cute at the same time? Ugh… It’s ridiculous how I keep falling for him everytime he looks at me, even after he has practically dumped me. I'm going crazy, this is insane. It can't be normal…

And finally, we meet with the ridiculous Dupain-Cheng. She could have chosen a less difficult place to access if she planned to go back to the Miraculous box anyway! I hate dark and cold places. Disgusting . I wanted to complain as soon as we reached there but Luka shushed me before I could put those thoughts into words. That’s my man: he knows me well…  

But then MY FIANCEE seems to forget about me as soon as he sees the ridiculous Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Well, I'm not forgetting YOU (or better said- US), even if you do, my love! And I want to stay close to him as long as I can. I want him to look only at me. His attention. I want to be his only one.

That's the reason I keep grabbing his jacket and surrounding him with my arms. My gosh, I love hugging him… So calm, so comfortable, so warm… Not that I would admit it out loud in front of others, but I feel safe with him. How can he do it? Totally ridiculous…

Ugh… I’m sick of being in this cave already. Can’t we just take Marinette down already and leave? Continue our lives as they were going? Forget this happened and keep living? Who cares about Marinette, anyway? She decided to throw away everything she had because she was a COWARD, involving MY MAN, Adrikins, those two useless friends and even an old man who can’t even walk properly on his own feet. Can’t we go back home already? I just want to cuddle with Luka and get our Wedding Ceremony prepared. I just want to be forever happy with the man I love!

Is that asking too much? Am I too selfish?

I don’t think so! But the despicable Dupain-Cheng and her ridiculous wind and flames seem to have a different opinion. Using a forbidden power because she’s scared of fighting me for my man’s love.

Can she be more ridiculous?

Apparently yes.  

She's not even the one controlling her body when using that power- pathetic.

And I'm sorry baby, Adrikins, but you're being useless against Marinette. But don’t worry. I'm the best when the power of 'subjection' is needed. Just watch! Learn from the great Queen Bee!

And hey! It worked! I made it to her rolling on the floor behind her, where the wind isn’t as strong, grabbing her ankle. Not bad, huh? But did this girl really need all the fire? Ouch! It hurts, you know!? I’m going to make her pay for it if it leaves any scar on my pure beautiful white skin!

Pfff… The girl didn’t even notice me, how silly…! She clearly has only eyes for ‘ her boys’ . Too bad for her is precisely that attention what made her fall.

My win. Her loss. She can get lost.  

Oh, I even made it rhyme! Aren’t I amazing?

And here I have it: the black cat Miraculous, now in my hand. Huh, too easy! And next is time to get the earrings too… Ugh... I can notice those looks on my back... “What? Do I have to do everything alone here?” Useless ridiculous people...

“Chloe… Holy shit… You’re amazing…”

Heh. I love it when Luka compliments me. I could listen to him go on all night. So satisfying. And yet he wants to dump me to go to that useless Marinette’s arms? I love you baby, but you’ve got to be kidding me if you think she’s better than ME!

“Of course I am! Who do you think I am!? I was Queen Bee for a reason! And being useless it’s certainly not it. Unlike you all! Only now you notice how amazing am I!? And yet you want to dump me, baby!? Such a waste for you!”

“What?”

And the most ridiculous girl finally reacts. Everybody look stupid surrounding her in relief.

I’ve saved the day, you should be thankful! I’m the STAR from today’s mission! Where’s my recognition? Nothing? Baby? Not even a kiss? Really? Don’t I deserve at least some attention? Hello?

Do I really mean nothing to them now that Marinette is there? She’s the one who created all this trouble to start with! Why are you all giving her support and love? WHAT ABOUT ME!? No one cares about me!? I'm injured here! No one cares? What makes Marinette so special and me so ‘bad’ in comparison?

I’m sick of it. I hate that girl. I HATE HER.  

Seeing her cry or apologize makes me wanna puke. Now she wants to be pitiable? Excuse me, lady, but you got where you are because of your own bad decisions, don’t drag us in your drama any further, duh.

You could have had Luka but chose Adrien instead, and when you get tired of Adrien then you decide you want Luka back, when he’s about to MARRY me! And what’s worse: she’s not even planning to fight for the man she claims she ‘loves’ , but instead relies on magic to destroy the whole world.

Couldn’t she even come and fight me fair and square? No way I would lose in that case! But using the Miraculous is cheating. What do we call this?

Coward: YES. Selfish: YES. Kind person? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

And yet she’s the one being LOVED and I’m the one being HATED. I’m the one heart-broken here, you know? Do my feelings matter to anyone? Luka, baby, not even you? I’m still your fiancée, you know? The engagement ring is proof enough. Is this how I deserve to be treated?

Dumped. Ignored. Despised.

I’ve had enough.  

Marinette took everything I loved from me and yet she wanted to be evil? And when she’s already taken all I have left, then she goes after the only thing I really have: LUKA.

I’m furious. Enraged. Hurt.  

I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to vent all the hate I’ve been holding for years against her.

I’ll show you what being evil means, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.  

“Marinette, Marinette, Marinette! Always Marinette!! I’M SICK of you! First my mother’s attention, next my Miraculous, then Adrien and now Luka! You keep taking everything I love from me and you’re still the good one! The LOVED one! What about ME!? You already had Adrien, why do you need to take Luka away from me too!? I HATE YOU, MARINETTE! I REALLY HATE YOU!”

Yeah, don’t look at me so surprised. What do you expect!? My broken heart for free? NO- I’ll make you pay for that!

I told you: I’m not going down without a fight! Luka is all that matters to me and I’ll fight for him until the last consequences!

They're ridiculous if they think I'll give up on him so easily… You want to be evil, Marinette? Use the Miraculous for stealing my man from me? Very well, I'll show you what being evil means, Dupain-Cheng! I have the right tool on my hand… No- on my finger...

“You know what? I was an awesome superhero before you took away my Miraculous... But there’s something I’ve always been even better at: being a villain. Unlike you, Marinette, who aren’t fit to be evil, I’m the ideal candidate for it! Let me show you what being evil means… Plagg, transform me!”

Ah, a black cat leather suit. I bet it looks amazing on me. I wish I had a mirror to admire myself and my beauty… Oh, I’m sure you like it too, baby. I wish I had used it earlier… But the possibility of it triggering some memories of ‘Ladybug’ made me discard the idea. What a pity. Now the earrings and the absolute power while they’re still trying to cope with how surprised they are about me…

Wait, No. I’m not going to put myself at the same low level as that pitiful woman. And I don’t want to become ugly like she became. Eww. Let’s fight respecting the honor codes: Cat Queen vs Ladybug.

“Want to stop me? Well, that’s Ladybug’s job! Come on and fight me, Dupain-Cheng! Fair and square- no absolute power this time. YOU against ME. ...What? You thought I would give up so easily? I love Luka more than anything! I’m not giving him up like that!”

“Cataclysm!”

Ah, this feels good. I can’t wait to destroy her already… I’ll make her suffer for all the hate I’ve kept inside for so long!

Ah, I missed running with a miraculous suit on… So fast. So free. So close to destroying her!

Ah, not you! Luka, baby, you know I love you, but it’s not you who I wanna fight or destroy. You’re in the way. Why are you protecting someone that hurt you so much? Didn’t she break your heart? Why do you keep protecting and caring for her? It’s over! She dumped you! Let me take revenge for you too!

“Stop it, hon- Chloe”

“MOVE, my love”

“NO”

“I SAID MOVE!!”

“NO!! You don’t have to do this. I know you’re not evil anymore”

Not evil anymore, he says… How naive are you, love? I've decided to change as long as you were by my side. Being kind, being nice… it felt good, actually.

But you choose Marinette? Evil Chloe is back- easy as that.

“Then choose me! That’s all I’m asking! Stay with me! LOVE ME!”

I know my man is not stupid enough to not understand my feelings. Don’t disappoint me! I thought you knew better than that. I thought you knew all I want is your LOVE!

“Chloe… You know it doesn’t work like this…”

And at the end his answer remains the same… He chooses Marinette over me.

Like ALWAYS.  

Not that I hadn’t been warned, but this… It hurts… It hurts too much… All because of that stupid low class designer wannabee and her selfishness. I HATE her. And I despise Luka for loving her instead of me. You want to choose her? Accept your punishment, then!

“So you’ve really chosen her over me, huh? It really is hopeless then… Very well, In that case, I’ll destroy you. If you can’t be mine, you won’t be hers either!”

And what now? I really don’t want to destroy him. But rage is controlling me. How am I supposed to live without him? I’ve never loved anyone to this point. Hell, I’ve started to change completely for the first time after meeting with him! Not that I hadn’t tried before but he makes… things so easy…

But I’m hurt. VERY HURT. And angry. VERY ANGRY. And I want to DESTROY the source of my pain. And this man- MY MAN- is the source of it.

If I hadn’t met him…! If I hadn’t been so stupid for falling for him! If he wasn’t so stupidly sweet. And sexy. And cute. And PERFECT .

I hate feeling like this!

And I hate how he’s not moving a finger to try to defend himself from me. Does he think of me lightly? Or WEAK? Unable to be evil, maybe? What are you thinking, baby?

“NO! Don’t touch Luka!”

Ah, and here finally comes Ladybug… Great. I'd rather destroy her than Luka.

“Fight me. Fight for him if you really love him!”

Let the fight begin.

But she won’t shut up… Does she think words can stop me? Really...?

“STOP, Chloe! Don’t you love him? He’s your fiancée! How can you even think of destroying him! You’re heartless! You say I’m the loved one, but I’m not! I envy you! I’ve always been jealous of you!”

Hah. As if I would believe that! Let me enlighten you with the truth you keep denying...

“You’re talking no-sense, Dupain-Cheng! You could have become an Agreste, but you prefered to break his heart instead! You have talent too! And friends! Even Sabrina prefers you over me, now! And moreover, this man here- MY man- he may still be my finacée, but his heart has never belonged to me! You’re the one who won everything, threw it away, and still managed to win again! How do you expect me not to hate you!?”

Bull’s-eye. It’s time for you to open your eyes, Dupain-Cheng. Do you think you’re a good person? You’re NOT!

“I- I never planned to hurt Adrien… Feelings… don’t work like that…! Sometimes, we only notice how valuable something is after we’ve lost it… and that’s what happened to me…! I know I’m just selfish… I may have friends, and a successful job, but I don’t have what I want the most, because you have it…! Aren’t you the one who won!?”

WHAT. THE. HECK?

“ARE YOU NUTS!? How RIDICULOUS can you be!? Can’t you see how his feelings work!? Are you serious!? He rushed here for YOU . Gosh! I thought Adrien’s case was bad, but how blind can you be!?”

Her stupid answers only make me get even more angry. How the hell can she be so stupid? No stopping now. I’m going to destroy her. Preach .

“Ehem… Ladies… Why don't we stop this fight and-”

HUH!? Not now, Luka! This is between Marinette and me!

“Shut up! Don’t interrupt us!”

Oh… But maybe it’s my best way to destroy her… from the inside- from her LOVED ONE. And Luka is just quiet there, looking, analyzing how to make us stop.

Very well.  

I’ll make it stop.

Ah, too easy. Here he is: My man. Under my Cataclysm, just about to disappear. And I don’t want him gone. But I want Marinette to suffer just as much as I’m going to suffer from now on if these two get together. How do you expect me to endure it? I can’t.

Luka has to go.

And again, he’s not trying to fight back. Or protect himself. Or anything at all.

His blue eyes, deep and wide as the ocean keep staring at mine, and there’s only one coming from them: TRUST.

I see my own eyes reflected on his, and I notice something I wasn’t aware of: DOUBT. And my inner fears rise again: fear of becoming evil, regret of almost hurting the only man that has been willing to accept me as I am, sadness because I still wish for his happiness, even if it isn’t with me and embarrassment for failing him- his trust in me.

And I can’t keep fighting against these feelings anymore. I can’t keep fighting against his love for my rival. Their mutual love. Their happiness.  

I can’t keep becoming what I promised myself I would leave behind: my embarrassing and miserable past- the Chloe that hurt people with no regret, the Chloe that would do anything for selfish reasons only, the Chloe that bullied Luka’s sister and treated her best friend as a slave… The Chloe I’m ashamed of.

I’m sorry for disappointing you, Luka. I’m so sorry...

I promised Luka I would change. And I have to keep my promise, just like he has always been honest to me. I hate it, but I know it’s what I have to do. So ridiculous...

And Ladybug's yo-yo is already immobilizing me. No need, actually, but go on. I don’t care.

I can’t fight anymore. No need to stay transformed either.

It’s over. And I lost.  

See? Luka has too much power on me...

I gaze at Ladybug’s eyes to speak my regret. I’ve always admired Ladybug. I wanted to be like her. What happened to me? Deep down I know she’s the most impressive girl out there. I hate to admit it but who could hate Ladybug? No one. She’s simply the best. And I’m just a silly selfish woman scared of being alone.

“See? That’s how a villain acts. You’re a superhero, you could never be a proper villain. Stop acting dramatic over something you’ve never worked hard to get. Crying solves nothing. Waiting solves nothing. You have to fight for what you want”

Ah… I’m probably saying those words to myself. I don’t know. But I know I’m not wrong.

“I’m not-! Oh...”

Yeah… I know. The truth hurts. I want to cry too… I wish I were her… If I was her…

I’ll let her know so she stops doing stupid things from now on.

“You’re utterly ridiculous, Dupain-Cheng. You have everything I’ve always wanted and you thought your best option was to throw away the world's balance without even fighting or trying to win him back? You don’t know how Lucky you are…”

No… I’m aware it’s not a matter of luck, but my pride won’t let me say it out loud. Marinette has always been honest, pure, sincere. On the other hand, I've relied on lies and tricks to get Luka by my side. Of course I can't win against that…

Damn it. I hate crying in front of other people. So WEAK. So ridiculous.

And Luka’s hug only makes me weaker. I don’t want to let him go. Please… Please I want him to stay with me...!

But no- it can’t be.

I’ve already done my best and I lost. I have to give up. Move on…

Ah, I can hear Luka’s voice…

“Thank you, Chloe… You did this to save Marinette, don’t you? I know you wouldn’t have Cataclysmed me or anyone. I knew you had changed. You are a superhero, not a villain”

And his words finish me, regretting my actions, ashamed of who I am.

I thought I had changed too, but it seems I’m still putting myself first, even now.

But yes, his stupidity is contagious and I can’t hide how he's the reason I stopped my wrong-doings. In a direct and an indirect way. Not that I can admit it! I really don’t want to disappoint him any further. So I answer with a lie:

“I- I- Of course!”

Who am I kidding? No way he believes- NO WAY. Let me pass out already! His smile is too pure and bright.

Totally ridiculous.

And I’m still stunned when everyone returns to Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Master Fruit or whatever apologizes and tells her something I don’t even care about.

Can’t this girl stop crying already? She’s got what she wished for now. Can’t she see how happy and stupidly in love is my Luka looking at her? Is she never stopping to be ridiculous? Gosh… And now what? Only now you noticed our injuries? Hell, I’m the most injured one here and no one seems to care. Nevermind, I’m already used to it. Let me go back home already. The humidity of this place is destroying my hair.

Can’t you stop talking already? And there is Marinette with her speech…

"I, Marinette Dupain-Cheng renounce the box of the Miraculous and appoint Ad-"

WAIT, WHAT!?

NO NO NO! This is not how things are supposed to be done, Luka! You can’t just kiss her like that! And you have the guts to kiss her in front of me? At least you should have the decency to break-up with me first! I know I’ve already lost you- I’ve already resigned myself- but at least follow the proper order, damn it! I’m angry. Let me tell you!

“HOW YOU DARE, baby!? You’re ridiculous! We’re still engaged! How could you-!”

Huh? What is happening…? I’m so… sleepy…

Ploff

[peterspideyy]

chapter 5 - partners in crime

series masterlist

————

“hey tom, what’s up?”

“harrison, i need to ask you something...important.” tom spoke, through the phone. he hates hates that he’s even thinking this. but, your words can’t help him but wonder.

“okay, mate, go on.”

tom sighed heavily, “are you working for the red dragons.”

“what?!”

“i know it sounds stupid, but please tell me if you are.”

“tom, do you seriously think i would do this?”

“y/n said that-“

“oh, y/n said? so you suddenly believe your ex over your best friend?” harrison snapped.

“n-no that’s not what i meant-“

“no tom, i know what you meant. i-i have to go.” harrison mumbled, and before tom could reply, the call ended. tom’s eyes went wide as he thought him and harrison just fell apart, over what, a case? your predictions?

a small knock on his door, interrupted his thoughts as he lifted his head up to meet your eyes. he could feel his anger bubble up in him at the sight of you.

“what do you want?” tom growled, taking you by surprise.

“erm, i was wondering if your okay? i heard you talking to harrison.” you whispered, coming into his room, sitting on the bed away from him.

“yeah well thanks to you, harrison may not speak to me ever again.”

“thanks to me? tom, what else could i think? you know what i saw. and it looked pretty suspicious to me.” you replied, soon becoming angry. what right does he have to blame you? you were only doing your job.

“i know...i know, i’m sorry but i don’t want to loose harrison. he’s my best mate.”

you nodded your head, understanding what he meant. the amount of friends you’ve lost in the past, has been tough.

placing a hand on his shoulder, you gently rubbed it, calming his nerves. you didn’t even think about it, you just did. tom froze at your actions, looking at you before you pulled your hand away, once you realised what you were doing. the last time you did that, was when you were still together.

“erm,” tom coughed, “should we try and figure out who the mole is?”

you nodded, scared to speak. when you touched tom, you felt a spark. and it scared you. brushing it out of your mind, you followed tom into the living room to work out who the mole is.

hours passed, and you hadn’t got any closer to who the traitor was. you’ve probably been on hundreds and hundreds of websites, programmes, everything you could think off, and found nothing.

tom leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling, “shall we have a look at this again?”

you sighed, looking blankly at the computer screen, before you nodded.

“right, so the person must have database access to even get information for the red dragons. the only people who have access is you, me-“

“-it can’t be us-“ tom inturrupted.

“yeah exactly, carson, harrison-“

“-on the phone harrison seemed pretty upset that we thought it was him, and i trust him, so it’s not him-“

“-true, and that’s it.” you finished.

“no it’s not.”

you looked at him, “who have i missed?”

“peter.”

“peter?” you questioned. you weren’t completely sure on who peter was.

tom leaned over, typing on the computer before bringing a photo of peter up on the screen. you studied it, recognising the few times you saw him in corridors or in meetings, but never actually speaking to him.

“i’ve spoke to him a few times, but not a lot.” tom mumbled, looking at his fact file.

“could be a good cover up.” you shrugged. tom looked at you, clearly thinking how your initial thoughts are sometimes wrong.

before you could speak, your phone went. you glanced up at tom, before looking at your phone.

unknown

5 minutes. warehouse.

showing tom the text, he checked his phone to see if he got one, but he didn’t.

“is it the red dragons?”

before tom could answer, your phone went off again.

unknown

bring the husband.

you laughed, showing tom your phone again, before you both got ready. making sure your gun is filled and your badge is hidden, you both made your way to the apartment.

as you were walking across the street, tom wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you slightly towards his side. you glanced at him, confused.

“what are you doing?” you whispered.

“we’re supposed to be married, love. anyway, there’s probably cameras around, so act natural.” he replied, before leaning down to kiss your cheek quickly. you couldn’t help but blush at this action.

arriving at the door, tom knocked before stepping back, not letting go of your waist.

“i can protect myself y’know.” you whispered, looking around the area.

tom chucked slightly, “oh, i know you can.”

before you can come back with another remark, the door opened revealing one of the red dragons men. he looked at you both, before moving cautiously to the left, letting you both in.

“cheers mate.” tom spoke, patting the guys back. the man growled, making you giggle slightly. but, you stopped once he moved his blazer, so his gun was showing. tom gulped loudly, smiling awkwardly at the guy before walking you both into the meeting room, where you were a couple of days ago.

“ahh the lovely couple!” keith spoke, walking towards you both, before pulling you two into a hug. you couldn’t help but smile, once you felt tom’s hand on your waist tighten. keith pulled away, as did you and tom.

he walked away, going around a massive table which had a model of the building where the cemetery of cultures will be held. every corridor. every floor. where the cameras are. where guards will be. everything was on the model. things you won’t be able to get, without the fbi helping you. you glanced at tom who was already looking at you, thinking the exact same thing.

“how did you get all of this, y’know insight of the building?” you questioned.

keith snarled, “well, the fbi of course.”

you looked at all the men, “who from the fbi?”

“well,” he mumbled against your ear, making your breath hitch as you felt his gun against your waist, “i’ll have to kill you, if you knew.”

“back the fuck off.” tom growled. you know that tom was supposed to act like this, but his protectiveness was getting too real.

“calm down mate,” keith replied, putting his hands up while the other men laughed, “how long have you been married anyway?”

shit. that wasn’t on the case file.

“a-a long time. too hard to count.” tom laughed. good save.

keith nodded, while lighting a cigarette, “right. let’s start then.”

hours passed, and you all went through the plan. of course, you and tom recorded it secretly, to look back on and send to the fbi. well, those in the fbi you can trust.

you were both invited to an exclusive party with the red dragons, so of course you accepted. wearing a silk black dress, which had a cut in your leg, with natural makeup while tom wore a black and white suit, you both walked into the mansion, arms linked.

“you look gorgeous by the way.” tom whispered, in your ear, so only you could hear. you blushed, thanking yourself for putting blusher on to hide it.

“that’s only your case file talking.”

“no. i’m being completely serious. i forgot how beautiful you can be. n-not that your not beautiful anyway, it’s just when you get dressed up you look stunning, but you look stunning without dressing up though-“

you cut tom’s rambling off, with placing your finger on his lips, “stop rambling. i get that your complimenting me. you don’t look too bad yourself.”

tom smiled, stroking his hair back, which is what he does when he’s nervous. why were you both nervous?

you smiled back, letting your eyes wander around his face, while he did the same to yours. of course you’ve always found tom attractive, but now? in a suit? gosh, he was more gorgeous than you could remember. the light from the candles around you, captured his features perfectly. you saw how tom’s gaze dropped to your lips, making you shudder. leaning in, he began to close his eyes. god. what were you doing? do you want this?

fuck it.

grabbing his collar, you yanked his body towards you, causing your lips to meet passionately. tom was stiff to begin with, but soon moved in rhythm with yours. you felt his hands go to your waist, pulling you more towards him, while you stroked the hair on the back of his neck. the chatter and laughter around you, became silent. it was only you and tom. all your emotions and feelings, came rushing back through your body.

pulling away, your foreheads pressed together, you both breathed in and out heavily looking in each other’s eyes.

“wow.” tom mumbled. you nodded, as if the kiss took all your words away.

“t-tom.”

“shush,” he spoke, “we can talk about this later.”

before you could even reply, he walked away towards keith, grabbing you both a drink before winking at you across the room.

you love him.

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a/n- so a lot of things have happened in this chapter ahah. who do you think the mole is? should y/n and tom get back together, despite there past? let me know your thoughts :)

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