#like unless its with someone who can practically read my mind like nick

[freebooter4ever]

I'm digging your Rami comments on his stretchin pics. I agree that his shorts could be shorter and his shirt could be... less bweh heh. Also I also agree on your other post about sexualities. I'm so mentally mussed and my libido is just like non-existant (somewhat due to meds). I'm pretty sure I'm some kinda ace with like bisexual leanings. Like, I'm waay more comfy with ladies but I just find men too attractive. But also, years of Customer Service makes me dislike everyone lol.

LOL at that last line there, i am so sorry my mystery friend. i lucked out in that the only customer service i ever did was in knitting stores, and while we did get some... uh... eccentrics... (read: scary) for the most part our shoppers were just really badass old ladies and middle aged women.

i had to go back and read my comments to remember what i said and yes i stand by the fact that it is already too hot to run w shirts.

i lean towards ace myself too, its hard to force reality into a clearly defined label. sometimes i worry that im just faking it all - nonbinary, bisexual, ace? i think thats why i try to hide it. and get really jealous of like the Janelle Monaes of the world who seem to know exactly who they are and what they want. I think thats one of the reasons i hero worship other people who have bisexual vibes but are quiet about it. makes me think of richard armitage - who like ever since his 'i dont know why women find my character hot in north and south he is an asshole for most the time' days i definitely got the queer vibes, and then with his jokey support of the thilbo fangirls in a way that felt so genuine, and THEN him finally announcing his sexuality publicly but it being a pretty quiet thing. i dunno, it was a nice reminder that even those in the public eye can live /in/ their idenity even if they dont vocalize it till much much later. there is so much shame surrounding 'hiding'. i wish society focused less on the 'why didn't you come out sooner' and more on the 'why didnt you feel SAFE enough to come out sooner?'

[daggerandrose]

Happy 28th! I’m making this the night before and crossing my fingers that Louis drops something today (a single, a doc, or even a selfie would be a blessing and I would lose my shit). In any case that he doesn’t... have some fics to read!

As always, please leave a kudos/comment on these as I know they fuel writers. Enjoy!

Love, Ever After, 20.7k, by @jacaranda-bloom

One would assume that the charismatic omega in charge of the local matchmaking service would have found a mate and settled down ages ago. His clients, in fact, are always a bit surprised when they come to learn that Louis is still single. But Louis doesn’t mind, not really. His standards are just high; he is happy holding out for his alpha, his soulmate, and chooses to not waste his time with anyone else, despite what his friends might think.

That is, until his best mate from uni drags him out of bed far too early on a Saturday morning after a night of drinking to go to a farmers market, of all places. It’s there that he proceeds to make an utter fool of himself in front of the hottest alpha he has ever laid eyes on. There’s truly no coming back from that, is there?

OR The one where omega Louis makes love matches, alpha Harry makes cheese, and meddling friends might finally make their dreams of finding their soulmate come true.

Like air to the fire I need you to breathe, 4.6k, by CuckooTrooke

"Your nest is very beautiful" Louis says in awe, feeling his chest bubble with love as he watches Harry preen at the compliment.

"You like it?" Harry asks shyly, picking up a lonely sock from the center of his nest and replaces it on the side of his nest. He looks at it thoughtfully until shaking his head at himself, picking up the sock again. Louis watches him at this important task, how the placement of the smallest things in his nest is so important.

"Of course I like it. It's very pretty" Louis praises. Louis was going to do this right. He was going to praise every little effort Harry had made and will still make with his nest, tell him how cozy and well put together it is. And practical, on top of everything. Despite of being situated in Louis’ closet. But it had so many blankets, duvets and pillows that Louis will happily make Harry fall apart in that nest when he goes into heat.

Well. He’ll try.

The thing is, Louis is sort of terrified.

OR

Harry is in preheat and Louis is nervous about his upcoming heat, fearing that he might not be able to fulfill his mate's needs. Lucky for him, Harry knows hot to push the right buttons to get him relaxed.

But If This Ends, 107k, by @absoloutenonsense

Harry’s life as a vampire is routine. He spends his years moving around from place to place, learning as much as he can, and falling in love whenever the universe sees fit. When he tries to move his casual relationship with Louis to something more, it all gets turned on its head. As they navigate confusing thoughts and complex emotions, Harry finds himself torn between the love he feels for Louis and everything he thought he knew.

Counterculture, 6k, by @sadaveniren

It all culminated to this: Harry in the middle of a crowded basement, music blasting from the live show on the far side, shirtless amongst alphas and omegas who all weren’t covering their scents. He took a deep breath of the heavy air and he felt alive.

across city skyline (and straight through my heart), 76.4k, by @halosboat

Louis Tomlinson meets Hollywood Heartthrob, Harry Styles when he walks into Louis' little bakery one day.

Immediately, Louis is charmed by him and Louis thinks Harry might feel the same way, given the fact that Harry has visited the bakery everyday since he'd come to town.

Until one day, Harry walks in with a boyfriend under his arm and a smile on his face.

The one where Louis owns a small bakery that's well known in his town and Harry Styles is an actor who comes to town to film a new movie. Louis is endeared by him, but that doesn’t seem to matter since Harry Styles is already taken.

When The Wolf Comes Out (like a bullet in the dark), 9.8k, by @londonfoginacup

"So Dad was a..." Harry rolls the word around on his tongue, trying it out. "A werewolf?"

"In a sense, you could say that," Anne says. "It's certainly a more correct term than that vampire myth." She looks to Nick. "Grimshaw. Would you please explain exactly what the Madness entails?"

Nick nods. Harry has never been on the receiving end of his business face before, and finds he's more than a little intimidated. “Right, well the first thing you need to know is that, except with freak mutations, the madness only actively infects one individual at a time. Since your grandfather’s death, your father has been dealing with it. Now that he’s gone, it’s presumably moved to you.”

Too Young To Know, 35.4k, by @2tiedships2

Louis blinked awake and quickly wiped the tears from his eyes. This was the second morning in a row he had woken up after dreaming about Harry.

“Babe, what’s wrong?” Eric asked as he held Louis tighter in his arms. Louis liked being the little spoon, except for when he’d rather be holding someone else. Which were the past two days.

Or the one where Harry doesn’t present as an alpha… until he does.

This Ain’t Red Wine, 9k, by LetTheMusicMoveYou

It’s not until he gets a whiff of the contents of his glass that Louis realizes his grave mistake.

That’s not red wine.

It’s blood.

It’s probably not the most rational, but his first thought is what people are going to think when they discover his body. On the list of stupidest ways for a human to die, accidentally turning up to a Vampire party has to be pretty high up there.

(Or the one where Human Louis accidentally finds himself at a Vampire only party which actually turns out to maybe not be the worst thing).

don’t want no other shade of blue, 43.2k, by @louisisworthit

“I know you’re putting on an act,” says Harry after a moment, and Louis scowls when he realises the prince is actually amused.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Louis.

“All I’ve heard over the past couple of years are rumours of Prince Louis’ kindness, and generosity, and oh, he’s so handsome I can barely pour his tea without shaking!” says Harry, putting on a silly, high-pitched voice for the last bit. Louis’ scowl deepens. “I would already know if you were just another selfish, bratty omega prince. You can’t fool me, darling, but I admire your efforts.”

“As you said,” Louis grits out, “those are only rumours. I assure you, I’m a terrible person.”

no good unless it’s real, 17k, by @fackinglouis

“Here,” Harry says, pulling a strap off his shoulder so he can dig his phone out of his bag. “We can get each other’s numbers.” Louis shakes his head. “I have the practice’s number already,” he tells him. “And my number is definitely on file somewhere.”

Harry pauses, smile quirking a bit as he stares at Louis. The sun is still in his eyes, though, with his sunglasses pushed up onto his head still, so Louis credits his funny face to that.

“I’m trying to give you my number, Louis,” Harry explains around a breathy laugh.

“Oh,” Louis blinks, processing that. He scratches his temple, moves a piece of longer fringe back behind his ear, and then nods. “Okay.”

Or: Louis is a very busy farmer who’s just trying to make it to his next nap and Harry’s the new hot vet that’s determined to infiltrate every area of his life.

shameless self-promo: take my hand, wreck my plans, 38.1k by me!

Louis meets the man in the center of the room, feeling every eye on him.

“Mr. H,” he whispers.

The man smiles brightly and laughs as if he can’t believe his eyes. “It’s you,” he says breathlessly. “I didn’t think I would see you again.”

“Nor I you, especially under these circumstances.”

“Even so,” Mr H says, his eyes bouncing from Louis’ eyes to his lips. “Will you do me a great honor and join me in leading the first … um…”

“Dance?”

Mr. H laughs and nods. “Yes, that’s the one.”

Louis bites his lips and doesn’t hesitate before whispering, “Yes.”

Mr. H beams and reaches for Louis’ hand. Sparks fly at the touch and a zing of excitement shoots through Louis’ body. His face heats up as he’s afraid his scent would give away his feelings towards the other man.

[sabraeal]

And Spring Became the Summer

[Read on AO3]

The very last of my follower fics for the 700 Followers gifts! This one was the bonus for making it to 750 before December, and I’m so glad I’ve FINALLY gotten this done...so I can do it all over again this year 🤣

The last term paper Mitsuhide writes for his undergraduate career he slips into a glossy plastic portfolio-- double-spaced and double-sided, graphs printed in full color-- and turns in personally.

It’s a wide-eyed TA that takes it, seated behind a desk that’s far too big for her. Or well, she’s not wide-eyed at first; instead she’s bent over her work, only glancing up absently to make sure she has it in hand. But a second one turns absence to alarm, eyes fixing to where he grips the plastic, and suddenly he’s all-too aware how easily how just one of his hands could swallow both of hers.

So is she; her eyes pulse wide, and then she’s tracing the line of his arm up and up doggedly, like as long as she just keeps going, she might hit the end of him. When she finally does, he offers her a sheepish smile, shoulders hunched lessen the blow.

She shrinks back, a mousey brown head peeking above an oversized university sweatshirt. So much for that.

“You could have emailed this,” she squeaks, plucking the plastic sleeve from his grip. “I mean, not that you can’t hand it in. It’s just, er...”

“No one does,” another adds, rolling across the floor with a level of curiosity that he’s pretty sure an in-person paper doesn’t warrant. When she measures him with her gaze, she enjoys every inch. “Pretty old fashioned, if you ask me.”

He recognizes both of them; their names had been on the syllabus at the beginning of the semester. He’d found them both on the department website, Amanda wearing the same Clarines sweatshirt she had on today, and Holly’s clearly from some beach vacation, cropped from the shoulders up.

(“Wouldn’t have pegged you for a stalker,” Obi says, hanging upside down from the armchair.

“I’m-- I’m not!” Mitsuhide sputters, heat creeping up his neck. One day, Obi would slip up and say these things in front of someone who mattered, someone with a much more rigid sense of humor than Professor Gazelt, or didn’t know to take every word of his with an ocean of salt like Dean Haruka, and then it would be him that got seated in front of a disciplinary committee. The last thing he needed to do before even finishing law school applications was explain his brother’s poor taste in jokes on the record. “It’s just...”

“That you’re compelled to look at cute girls on the university website?” he offers, so casual. “I could think of hotter majors, if you wanted. Psych seems like it’s the sort of place real tens might hand out, right? Maybe, uh, Education? Kindergarten teachers always are cute--”

“It’s polite,” Mitsuhide grits out, shoulders hunched up by his ears. “You should know everyone on staff in your department, just the way you should know everyone you work with. It’s the proper way to network.”

Obi watches him with wide eyes, like he’s some kind of zoo animal or-- or one of those really bad cooks on TV, the kind who tries to pan fry a chicken whole. “God, you don’t actually do that, do you?”

“It’s the secret to good business.” At least, that’s what his parents always told him.

“You must be...” Obi savors the moment, looking positively euphoric as he says, “Really fucking creepy at the department Christmas party.”)

“No one did,” says the first-- Amanda, graduate summa cum laude from Columbia-- tone aimed to shush. “I’m, uh, happy to take that, though.”

He gives her his most gracious smile. “Thank you.”

“No,” Holly-- Penn State, no honors-- mutters, casting him a speculative glance from the corner of her eyes. Hers go up and up too, but seem to come to a much more amicable conclusion. “Thank you.”

“Stop.” Amanda’s hands flex on the thin plastic; she has soft hands, a callus only on the knuckle of her middle finger, where a pen might rest. Like Shirayuki, only without the thousand nicks and cuts that dot her fingers, battle wounds from wrangling recalcitrant plants.

Her chin pulls up, set in a determined line as she says, “Congratulations on graduating.”

“Ah...” It’s a kind thought, and meant well, but knowing he’s about to spend the next three years earning the degree that counts softens the blow. “Thank you. I hope you have a nice, um, summer?”

“Definitely will be nicer not to grade papers,” Holly offers, immune to Amanda’s shushing. “Do you have pl--?”

“We should get back to grading,” Amanda says, just to the left of too loud. “Have a nice summer.”

Never repeat yourself, Mama always told him, it weakens your position.

You can never be too polite. That’s what Papa would say, when he thanked the cashier for a third time.

Mitsuhide winces; he’s always hated this, being stuck between his parents. It’s clearly time to leave. “Right. Bon été, Amanda.”

“Was that French,” he hears hissed the moment he’s stepped out the door; the same moment another voice says, “Did I tell him my name?”

He should have just emailed it. Mitsuhide can make any number of excuses about the joys of collating and color printing, about face-time and networking, but at the end of the day, he has to call a spade a spade: this has all been an excuse. A thin one too, to keep him out of the house. To put off what he knows need doing.

Mitsuhide steps into the cool air of the foyer, shivering as it catches the sweat that beaded at his hairline on the walk. His courage peaks as he stands there, right next to the shoe mat, grand stair stretching up before him, still in his oxfords--

And immediately effervesces when he catches sight of smooth, bare legs on the coffee table, fuzzy slippers worth more than his phone perched up on the mahogany. This is it, the moment of truth, fight or flight, and he-- he doesn’t know which way to run.

So he doesn’t. He’s drawn there with inexorable motion, a magnet to a lodestone, the hard soles of his shoes clacking against the wood the only thing keeping him grounded. It takes only a few steps before long, tanned legs lead up to sleep shorts; not the clingy kind that curve and cup, but the ones that hang like boxers around the tops of her thighs, rucking up as she moves. After that it’s a hoodie, worn loose and baggy, like it’s supposed to fit someone twice her size, its hood drawn tight against her face. Nothing...sexy, not the way Obi might say, with far too much eyebrows involved. But still, his mouth runs dry, tongue heavy behind his teeth.

How on earth is he going to do this?

“Kiki.” He speaks before he thinks, sinking down on the table. It creaks beneath him, ominous. “I owe you a date.”

“Oh shit.” Obi flops over on the recliner, wide gold eyes peeking over the arm. “Check out the balls on this kid.”

This is a terrible idea. He should have known not to do this in a-- a common room, one where other brothers might be hiding.

“Sorry,” he creaks, levering himself up. “I didn’t realize-- you’re clearly busy--”

“No.” Kiki’s lays her feet right on his thighs, pushing him down with a thump. “You were saying something important.”

He darts a glance to the shadow squirming obnoxiously on soft leather. “But Obi--”

“Obi,” she informs him, as imperious as any C-suite member, “can leave.”

Obi doesn’t so much bark out a laugh as honks it. “Not unless I got time to make popcorn.”

Her head doesn’t move an inch from where she’s got it, chin tilted up to meet his own gaze. Her eyes though, those slide pointedly away, fixed at their corners, radiating malice. Kiki is slow to speak, deliberate when she does, but her eyes-- well, there’s a wealth of words in every look, and right now they’re reading Obi the riot act.

It would have worked better if Obi wasn’t already so used hearing it.

“Ignore him,” Kiki decides, attention snapping back to him. “He’s furniture.”

“Oh, Ms Kiki,” Obi drawls, barreling towards a mistake, “you could sit on me any--”

“You were saying?” she says, every word iron. Obi takes the hint, for once.

“I, uh...well, you paid for a date,” Mitsuhide manages lamely, darting a worried look to where Obi lounges on the chair. “I mean, you paid a lot for a date. And I understand that you may have just wanted to donate to the frat, but if you wanted to--”

“I told you,” Kiki says, dry, toes flexing firmly on his knee. “I expect you to make it worth my while.”

“Ah, y-yeah.” Her saying that while looking at him like she did-- well, his brain had that queued up every time he blinks his eyes. Sometimes it changed venues, and there were some, uh, costume changes at times, but if he shut his eyes right now it’d spool up with perfect fidelity. “I thought it might, um, d-distract you if we tried before finals, but since you’ve finished-- we’ve finished--”

“As of twenty minutes ago,” Obi adds, so helpful.

“--I thought it might be a fun way to relax.” He’s honestly never felt less relaxed in his life just sitting here, contemplating it. Half of it he can chalk up to Obi, curled over the recliner like a gremlin, waiting to wreak his version of chaos the second he can weasel his fingers in, but the other--

Well, it’s hard to ask someone on a date when you know they’ve already got someone in mind for the position. Even if it’s just-- this. As friends.

His heart’s in his throat. At least, that’s what he thinks until Kiki’s mouth curves; then he knows it’s never been in his possession at all, but always utterly hers. “Sounds like fun.”

Tension rushes out of him on a sigh. “Ah, great. I though we might, er, go to Boston? You know,” he hurries to spit out, before any words can fall from her parted lips, “since there’s not much out here we haven’t seen.”

She hesitates. Of course she does. Boston’s practically her hometown, and he’s sitting here, thinking it’ll impress her. Like she hasn’t seen everything that’s worth seeing there twice over and in private. That she hasn’t just told him no outright is a testament to how well Mr Seiran’s raise her, and--

“Let’s make a day of it.”

Mitsuhide startles, nearly tipping off the table’s edge before he glances up, right into her row of perfectly straight teeth. Her mom’s smile, she always told him, but he’s only ever seen it on her. “I-- yes. That’s..good.”

Her lips curl, hiding her teeth. “Let me handle the accommodations.”

“Ah, no.” His head sweeps through big, nervous back-and-forths. “I couldn’t possibly ask you to--”

“You’re not,” Kiki informs him. “I’m telling you. I’ll handle accommodations. You’re seeing to the rest of the weekend, correct?”

“Y-yes.” He tries to fold his arms across his lap, but with her feet right on his thighs, it ends up with his hands covering her ankles. He expects her to move them, but instead her legs still, tendons relaxing under his palms. “That’s the plan, but, really--”

“It’s the least I can do.” She shifts her macbook off the couch’s arm, fingers already flying across the keyboard. “One night?”

“I...” He should decline. He should tell her that if she can drop a whole K on a date with him, he can shell out for one night at a hotel with a higher rating than a Holiday Inn.

But this is Kiki Seiran, heir to Seiran International. She’s not just used to five stars but the penthouse suite. He could book four star cheap on Hotwire, but imagining her in one of those suites, the sheets starched and thread count insufficient--

“Yeah,” he grunts, “one night’s fine.”

“Perfect.” Her teeth snap around the word. “Leave it to me.”

“So,” Obi starts before Mitsuhide’s even hit the last step. “We have a bet going on.”

He grimaces, shifting the duffel over his shoulder. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.”

‘Pretty sure’ turns to ‘certain’ once he catches Obi’s grin. “It’s about whether you’ll get your dick wet.”

“Sorry, not interested.” He heaves the bag beside the front door, brushing off his shorts. “Isn’t it too early for you to be up? I thought you didn’t know about the hours before ten.”

“I had motivation,” Obi assures him, slinking up beside him with a grin a mile wide. “You know, Shiira says that you won’t on the grounds that you’re a gentleman.”

More like the lady isn’t interested. “I already said I wasn’t--”

“Kai says you will,” he continues blithely, “and you’ll come back on time. Shuuka agrees, except that he thinks you’ll miss check out with all the boning down and won’t make it back until evening.”

“Isn’t this breaking the bylaws?” Mitsuhide grunts, slipping on his sneakers. “Don’t we have something about betting...?”

“For money,” Obi agrees. “Zen still wouldn’t put a bet down though.”

That’s assuring at least. “Of course n--”

“Shiira already took his.” Obi shakes his head. “And we wouldn’t allow him to say the same thing except that he thinks it’s because you’re and idiot.”

Well, that’s a little rich, coming from Zen. Mitsuhide was loath to remind anyone that besides Obi, he is the most experienced, but-- some people should be taking that into account. Even if nothing is going to happen.

“Don’t worry, Big Guy.” Obi claps him on the shoulder, smile somehow drifting towards kindly. “I gave you until Monday.”

“Obi--”

“And Kiki will walk in with a limp.”

“Obi, you know that’s not...” His breath hisses between his teeth. “That’s not what me and Kiki are like.”

“You keep thinking that, Big Guy, but--” he leans in, cupping a hand around his mouth-- “my original bet was gonna be Tuesday. Too bad Kiki had already taken it.”

Mitsuhide stares at him, slack-jawed. “W-what did you just--?”

“I should have known, you’re already here.”

His head jerks up, right to the top of the grand stair, the beginning of a quick glance-- but it’s no use. There’s no possible way he could make his eyes focus anywhere but on Kiki, not when she’s wearing-- when she’s--

“Ooh.” Obi’s mouth curls, matching Kiki’s knowing smirk. “Is that a skirt?”

It is. And not-- not her field hockey kit, mid-thigh with shorts beneath, but and actual skirt, one that floats just above her knees, gauzy and floral. A single flash of leg tells him there’s nothing else beneath. Ah, well, besides the obvious. Mitsuhide swallows hard, mouth dry.

She raises a brow, hand trailing sinuously down the banister beside her. “It is a date, isn’t it?”

Her heels clack when she takes the last step into the foyer, clack because it’s the cork of her wedges that hits the floor first, because-- nom de Dieu-- she’s wearing shoes that tilt her a few inches close to him. Close enough that he could just bend at the neck and--

“Ah,” he coughs, fingers clenching in his shirt. “You might be a little overdressed. At least for this first part.”

Both her brows raise now. “Am I?”

“God,” Obi mutters at his shoulder, head buried in his hands. “You could at least say she looks nice.”

Well, when he’s right, he’s right.

“You look, ah, great though,” Mitsuhide hurries to add. “Beautiful.”

Kiki, to his surprise, beams. “Well, I brought a few outfits. I’ll change at the hotel.”

“Ah, sure.” He scoops up his duffel, holding out a hand for her bag as she passes. “You’re ready to go?”

Her mouth quirks at a corner. “As I’ll ever be.”

He hums, uncertain, suddenly left-footed with her so close. They should leave, but that involves a number a movements he’s suddenly stymied by.

Thankfully, Obi opens the door, practically shoving him onto the porch. “All right kids, be safe now.”

“Obi...”

“Don’t worry,” Kiki drawls, sashaying over the threshold. “I packed plenty of condoms.”

The door cuts off Obi’s laugh, but Mitsuhide can’t escape the pounding of his heart.

“You know,” he sighs, trailing after her, “you’re only encouraging him when you say things like that.”

“Oh that’s too bad,” she hums, floating past. “I was trying to encourage you.”

[aelaer]

First: welcome home & I hope you get the sleep you need to get back into your routines! Second: it's Feb. 2, a significant day to our beloved Stephen Strange. I know you're exhausted right now, and the timing is poor--but perhaps when you're up to, you could write a little one-shot about his feelings all these years later (is it 2022 or 2023?) on the anniversary of the accident that changed his life forever. Can't think of anyone better suited to write it! xx

This was sent a year ago but last month I planned to have it out for Feb 2nd, hah.

For canon, he comes back in 2023 in what I think was likely after Feb 2nd, so realistically he can address the anniversary again in 2024. It'd feel like only 3 years for him while, in actuality, it'd been 8. But when it comes to his experienced time versus actual passing time, Stephen's pretty messed up without the Decimation already (I'm not sure how I feel about the name of the "Blip" yet.)

The prompter also requested first person after I asked for more details, and I haven't ever written Stephen in first person so I thought I'd give it a go. I know first person isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if you're willing to give it a shot, call me very obliged.

Warning for canon compliance :P

——————

Staring Back In Time Rating: G (well, other than language)

An entry from the memoirs of Doctor Stephen Strange, Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, during his time as the Master of the New York Sanctum, several months after the Battle of Earth against Thanos:

February 2, 2024

Calendars don't mean as much as they used to. Once upon a time my life was ruled by the calendar. Consultation here, surgery there, society dinner over the weekend. Dates were important and generally set without change once marked down.

It doesn't work that way as a sorcerer. I keep a schedule, of course, one that marks down classes with apprentices and adepts and meetings with other Masters, never mind all the business outside of Kamar-Taj. But I learned early on that these set times shifted occasionally to accommodate the emergencies that the order often had to quash down, and it became obvious that as a Master, my schedule was more of a hopeful guideline than anything set in stone. Flexibility was a necessity.

Ever since my return to the living, keeping anything resembling a set schedule has been more of a laughable dream. Earth being the center of two universe-changing, Infinity Stone-powered events in a matter of hours did serious damage to the fabric woven about reality across the planet, and the Masters of the Mystic Arts are going to be dealing with the multidimensional repercussions for years to come. Nothing is predictable in my day-to-day anymore.

My relationship with time was fucked the moment I confronted Dormammu, so I can't say it's a large surprise that calendars have become mostly irrelevant.

If someone had told me that I, Doctor Stephen Strange, a man of order and precision, would learn to live with such unpredictability, I would have laughed in their face. But I'm not the man I once was (and thank God for that; that man was a dick). However, it's also because of this change that I didn't realize the day until it was nearly done.

I was reviewing my schedule for tomorrow, which I had set up on Google Calendar (Google had, naturally, survived the Decimation just fine, but like most other non-vital services, had many of their upcoming products delayed for years. But their email and calendar services continue to work great). Tomorrow's a Saturday, which means nothing in my world. My work continues on. The threats on our reality care little for weekends or holidays.

Still, it was only during this review, shortly before I planned to retire for the night, that I realized that today is February 2nd.

I won't ever forget the day, of course. It was both three years ago and eight years ago—or perhaps many lifetimes ago would be a more accurate description, though I lost track of time in both of my major journeys with the Time Stone. One day I'll write about them. Not now, but one day. Both memories are still too fresh.

The memory of the day of the accident, though? It feels both like yesterday and centuries ago. Some parts of the day are engraved in my memory like a film. I remember the last surgery down to the individual conversations. Christine's "thank you". Nick's watch. The cling of the bullet as I dropped it onto the tray.

I can remember my last conversation with Billy, too, in the car. Every damned word. But the drive itself is fuzzy, even in my head with my memory. I remember it began to rain during the drive, not beforehand, and I know the road was narrow and two-laned. I know I avoided a direct route to avoid traffic, driving first into Jersey before heading north and crossing the river again. But the rest is forgotten to time, or perhaps to trauma.

I was told that Billy was the first to call 9-1-1 as he heard the tearing of metal and shattering of glass before the connection was lost. The driver I hit—I learned much later that she escaped with only minor injuries—called a couple minutes later. But it was out in the mountains, dark, and raining. It took them hours to find me and extract me from the car.

Funny. Never thought I'd ever write about one of the worst days of my life like this. But I was told early on that personal journals were encouraged for all who stay in Kamar-Taj. Something about its therapeutic benefits was mentioned at some point. I only picked up the practice once I learned that each gifted journal was inaccessible to others until the time of their death, and after I mastered the art of enchanting a pen to write the words I spoke. Unfortunately this journal appeared to others after the Decimation, but Wong has reassured me that no one read it and it has since disappeared again from public view. 

Still, the point is that, one day, someone just might read this—account of a man who was part of an effort to save the universe. And it is difficult for a reader to judge my actions if they don't know how I was the one who ruined my life. My driving was reckless and stupid. I was running a little late, but it wouldn't have mattered in the long run had I been fifteen, twenty minutes, thirty minutes late. Not really.

Then again, I suppose it would have. I certainly wouldn't be here right now.

One could say that the accident and everything that has followed is some sort of penance for my hubris as a surgeon. I enjoy my newer abilities—quite a bit—but the responsibility that has come with them has not come without its own hardships and sacrifices. Perhaps the worst of the sacrifices were the ones I was unable to prevent others from performing, all for the sake of the universe.

Those sacrifices were made willingly, but I cannot help but feel responsible for them, regardless. 

During my first winter again returned to the living, when the days grew colder and my hands ached in the bad weather, and the only thoughts to accompany the pain were bitter, another thought was born. I was tempted, for the first time in a long time, to give it all up, restore my fine motor skills with channeled magic, and go back to the world I once knew, for a life much, much easier than this one is now. Even with all the troubles that had cropped up as people tried to reorganize a world that doubled in size overnight, it was miles away from the difficulties we were facing in Kamar-Taj.

Their sacrifices—the fates I pushed so many people towards—quelled the idea quickly. It did little to ease the physical pain or sting of guilt, but it lifted the temptation. And ever since that day, I have considered the situation and I don't think I will ever be tempted by the idea of giving up my duties for an easier, pain-free life again.

And I suppose that counts for something.

——————

(Hey look, my interest in geography's leaked again.)

I've always wondered where Stephen actually crashed mostly because New York City is *flat* and those mountains were *very much not flat*. I figured out the bridge that he crossed to get out of the city (there are like, 21 bridges that lead out of Manhattan) was the George Washington Bridge, and it leads to New Jersey—but that's not necessarily useful because it can quickly turn back into New York state if you turn north. We also know he crashed down into a body of water, which *might* be the Hudson, but also might not, but that the body of water is to his left, which narrows it down a bit. But again, not much. And the site of his crash is so dark in the videos and screenshots that I can barely tell what's on it. It looks like a bridge and some industrial building, so the Hudson's a good guess, but otherwise? Well, basically I turned on the topography part of Google maps and started searching.

The 202 on the east side of the river just north of Peekskill (again in New York) matches the movie road's windiness, height, and closeness to the river, and even has a bridge that could be just to the north of the crash site. Unfortunately the railing's off and there's no industrial building thingy by the bridge. It also makes the route out of the city via George Washington Bridge make no sense. Like the Stark Industries area in LA in the films, it's probably a completely fictional landscape.

But as I wasn't able to find a better locale that was still close enough to NYC to direct an emergency helicopter to, my headcanon for this scene is that he left via George Washington bridge to avoid some major traffic or something, crossed the river via the 287 a bit further up north to get back to the east side of the river, then went up the 9 to the 202. Unless someone who lives in the area can find the actual road he was driving (if it's real), this is what I'm gonna go with. (And if someone DOES please let me knowwwww). Funny enough, I don't see him getting led to *his* hospital totally unrealistic, because he'd need a very talented orthopedic surgeon with a specialty in hands to come in, and generally speaking a patient can be helicoptered to another hospital where such a surgeon is available. If Stephen is working at the Metro-General, it's likely they can afford a large cast of talented surgeons. So I don't think Nick was necessarily the lead surgeon in his case, just one of many necessary surgeons.

[crystalessenceswrites]

Burden of the Survivors- Chapter Two

Burden of the Survivors

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!reader Rating: T (at the moment- subject to change) Warnings: swearing, canon-typical violence *no spoilers- takes place in Season 1 timeline* Summary: Mando works alone- except for when the absolutely can’t. There are few people Din trusts – trusts as in he doesn’t expect a viroblade in the back the second he’s turned around. She’s one of them. Just as cautious and nearly as tight lipped about her past as he is, Din doesn’t mind her around too much. A/N: My inspiration is a fickle thing, I’ve been swinging back and forth between Shadows and BotS for a few weeks now. Finally got enough to sit down and finish this chapter, so cheers to that.

[Masterlist] [Chapter One] [Chapter Two] [Chapter Three] Cross-posted to AO3

Chapter Two

When Vero found you, you were nothing but a pickpocket on the lower-level streets of Coruscant-the byproduct of the horrors of the Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire. You were nearing sixteen and beginning to lose your touch. When you were younger-and smaller-it was easier to weave through crowds and avoid attention. Puberty and a growth spurt made it much more difficult for the teenage you to blend in. You made it work, you had to if you wanted to get by, but it took twice as much work to get folks to look the other way. Ever observant Vero caught on quick but said you had potential, just not as a street thief. The alabaster skinned theelin approached you with a job, a job that paid more than you could scrounge up in two weeks selling your stolen treasures. All you had to do was deliver a small parcel to a pilot friend of his at a docking station a few levels up without getting caught by the city guard before the pilot was scheduled to leave in two hours. It seemed easy enough and you desperately needed the credits. The last thing on your mind was what was in the package you carried. You knew better than to stick your nose where it did not belong, especially when you were getting paid. That decision changed your life.

The job was a test to see if you were capable and trustworthy enough to bring on for a real job as a runner, and you passed with flying colors. Vero took you under his wing and had you running smuggled goods and other products all over Coruscant. It was a reckless job, you knew that-even as a child-but it kept a roof over your head and food in your belly at a time in your life when you had forgotten what that was like. You were one of many street kids on Coruscant that had to turn to life in the underworld to get by, but you thank the Maker you ended up with the one crew on Coruscant that had some small sense of morals.

Vero worked for Shan Tillis, who had grown up on the streets of Corellia himself. Shan was sympathetic, smuggling had been his way out of the gutter, and he offered you that same opportunity. It had not taken long for Shan and the others to realize you were too smart and too quick on your feet to just move goods, that you and your brain could be used elsewhere. So, they taught you. Kom and Redarr, Shan’s lead muscle heads, taught you how to fight and how to fight dirty. Sola bought you your first proper viroblade (you’d nicked one years ago but it was made for hands much larger than yours so you’d always been rather clumsy with it) and taught you every trick in the book she knew, every weak spot on the body, how to wound but not kill and where to bleed someone out the fastest. Her lessons were always your favorite. Tala taught you how to pilot every kind of ship you could get your hands on, and how to hotwire a landspeeder- Vero was not thrilled when he discovered that lesson had been performed on his precious baby.

Everything that made you into the infamous bounty hunter you were now had been taught to you by that crew. Every cautious tick had been drilled into you by Kom and Vero. Redarr had schooled you on blasters, made you practice in-between jobs on how to take them apart and put them back together with your eyes closed. Zena taught you how to read people and how to know when a deal was about to go south.

Shan imparted you with the most practical wisdom of them all. How to know when you’re fucked.

This job seems pretty fucked to you.

The Mandalorian is silent as the two of you settle on the ridge above the compound. Scope out, he looks over the cluster of buildings. Even from a distance you’ve already counted ten nikto out and about, and you can safely assume they’re all heavily armed.

You tighten the various straps and holsters on your person before slipping your tactical mask into place. The contraption covers the lower half of your face and has always been more for the intimidation factor than much else. Redarr had gifted it to you all those years ago as more of joke than practical gear but you’d grown attached. Between the mask and its voice modulator, your hood and dark, nondescript clothes you could remained relatively anonymous when you wanted to, which was most of the time.

“If we come along the east side I think I can make it up to the roof without being seen, provide you with a little more cover.” You did always prefer the higher ground.

Mando nods, continuing to scan the scene, “there’s two on the northwest corner you’ll have to manage.”

Your scoff crackles through the modulator, “they won’t be an issue.”

He grunts before his head snaps back towards the edge of the compound, “shit. Bounty droid.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” You whip out your own scope, focusing in on where Mando was watching. Sure enough, you spot an IG unit bounty droid making its way up to the group of nikto lingering outside.

“Subparagraph 16 of the Bondsman Guild Protocol Waiver compels you to immediately produce said asset.”

You roll your eyes as the shooting starts. Droids had to have figured out by now it was never that easy. If it was, anyone with a blaster could join the guild.

The droid has a handle on the gunfight, but you groan as you watch the compound go into lockdown, all the blast doors slam shut before the last shot is fired.

“Droids.” Mando snaps as he stands, one hand clenched around the hilt of a blaster.

You jump up, following behind him. Again, with the acting first, thinking second.

As you approach the encampment Mando jerks his head up, “you take the topside.”

“Gladly.”

You scramble up the side of the building with relative ease, there are plenty of odd pipes and vents that make convenient grips as you haul yourself and up over the lip of the roof. When the droid had ruined any chance at a surprise attack, you’d lost sight of the two guards on the roof. You keep your rifle aimed in their last known direction as you settle onto your stomach, ready to cover Mando as needed.

“Subparagraph 16 of the Bondsman Guild Protocol Waiver compels you to immediately produce said asset,” the droid repeats.

Maker they really have no learning curve.

“IG unit! Stand down!”

The bounty droid has split second reaction times, shooting at what you can safely assume is Mando when he groans from somewhere down below and out of view. “We’re in the Guild!”

“So I suggest you stand down before you take a bolt to the brains, droid.”

Your quip draws the droid’s attention to your vantage point on the roof.

“You are Guild members? I thought I was the only one on assignment.”

“That makes two of us,” Mando grumbles. “So much for the element of surprise.”

That was a kriffing understatement.

“Sadly, I must ask for your fob. I have already issued the writ of seizure. The bounty is mine.”

“Unless I’m mistaken, you are, as of yet, empty-handed.”

“This is true.”

You have to restrain your eye rolling to keep monitoring the roofline.

“I have a suggestion.”

“Proceed.”

“We split the reward.”

How many people was he going to offer to share your credits with? This was beginning to get out of hand.

“This is acceptable.”

Well considering how much Mando hated droid he at least knew how to manage them considerably well.

“Great. Now let’s regroup, out of harm’s way, and form a plan.”

You were sorely doubting that the droid was capable of forming a decent plan or following whatever you and Mando came up with, but it was worth a shot considering the situation had become even more fucked thanks to him.

“I will of course receive the reputation merits associated with the mission.”

“Is this really the time?” You shout down at the pair.

Mando seems to have the same idea, “can we talk about this later?”

“I require an answer if I am to proceed-”

An orange head pops into view on the roof across from you, “we’ve got company!”

The nikto takes a shot at the droid, “oh, no. Alert. Alert. Alert.”

Whole lot of help this one was. You land a headshot just as the doors of the compound slide open, more soldiers swarming out, blasters drawn.

“Let’s go!” Mando dives for cover and the droid follows after.

Your spot affords you a decent line of sight into the courtyard but there’s more of them then you thought there would be out in the middle of nowhere guarding who knows what you were after. It takes you picking off three of them before they realize you’re shooting at them from above. There’s a flurry of shouting and pointing in your direction and Mando makes a run for the main set of blast doors at the back of the courtyard. You were going to have friends on the roof soon. Lucky you.

Rolling back you jump to your feet, taking a couple pot shots into the courtyard as you make for the far end of the roof. The droid is a decent shot, covering Mando’s mad dash while you focus on the nikto popping up across the roof. One hauls himself over the edge to your left, making a swipe at yours leg with his blaster. The loud crunch of your boot to his skull cuts through the blaster fire around you as the body falls into courtyard. Gross. Two more appear out of thin air, their shots barely missing your head. Losing your blaster you duck and roll, knocking both over as you draw a viroblade from your thigh holster. Neither have time to react before you’re on them, each taking one clean slice to the neck.

Mando and the IG unit have made it to the main door as you duck behind some ventilation equipment at the northwest corner of the building. You appear to have control of the roof for now, but you can see the soldiers in the courtyard beginning to regroup. They have Mando and the bounty droid pinned. Shit. You can hear Mando’s modulated shouts from below but you can’t quite make out what he’s going on about. Hopefully he’s chewing out the dumbass droid who go you into this mess.

The IG unit steps out again, laying out a spread of blaster fire that doesn’t seem to do much. The nikto have plenty of coverage behind debris and the series of pillars lining the courtyard. Their numbers also seem to be steadily growing. Just how many of them were set up out here? Who needed this many bodyguards? It was nearly a small army. The IG unit cannot keep up with the incoming blaster fire, even with your help from above.

Your stomach drops as you catch sight of another incoming nikto on a hover blaster at the encampment entrance. You were all fucked. All you can do is hope Mando’s found good cover down there as you drop to your stomach, bracing behind the ventilation unit. The nikto lets it rip, covering the area with a spray of bolts. Most sound like they’re striking below you, focused on where you assume Mando and the droid are hiding.

Then as suddenly as it started the gun stops. Poking your head out you watch as the nikto is flung backwards and Mando yanks the blaster to him. You thank the Maker for whatever good fortune he earned for that to work. It takes only moments for Mando to swing the blaster around and mow down the rest of the small army.

“Well done,” the IG unit cuts through the eerie silence following the blaster fire. “I will disengage self-destruct initiative.”

“Wait, you guys can self-destruct?” Seemed a bit counterintuitive.

Mando’s visor snaps to where you’re hanging over the edge of the roof, looking for a spot to climb down. He wordlessly offers you a hand and you toss your pack and blaster down to him. Its not too high up so you simply ease over the edge and drop to the ground, ignoring the harsh jolt to your knees.

“Manufactures protocol dictates I cannot be captured; thus I have a self-destruct initiative.”

So the droid could have killed you all if had deemed the situation too risky. Great. You’re glad you hadn’t been aware of that during the shootout.

Mando helps the droid back to its feet. “You know, you’re not so bad. For a droid.”

Had hell frozen over? Mando was as droid adverse as they got, and now he was complimenting one? The universe must be ending.

“Agreed.”

“That blaster hit looks nasty. You okay?”

“Running a quick diagnostic… it has missed my central wiring harness.”

“Is that good?”

“Yes.”

Mando glances back to you, “good?”

“Never better,” you grin. This could have gone significantly worse, so you had no room to complain at the moment.

“Well, now we just need to get the door open.”

The way Mando’s helmet whips back to the large blaster makes you groan. There were easier, less messy ways to go about things. You don’t attempt to talk the hunter out of it, he most likely wouldn’t listen to you anyways. It almost looks like he has fun shooting out the blast door until in collapses inwards.

You all take tentative steps inside the compound. One head appears around a far corner to the right. Mando’s quick draw has him downed before anyone blinks. “Anyone else?”

As if any survivors were going to offer themselves up to be shot.

“I’ll clear the west side,” you offer and Mando nods before heading off with the bounty droid in the opposite direction.

An unnerving silence settles over you as you stalk down the halls of the mysterious compound. The small army camped here had been prepared and well supplied. There are crates upon crates of food stuffs, weapons and ammunition. Some places are nearly packed floor to ceiling with it. What exactly was going on out here? How did they get all this out here in the middle of nowhere?

You worry your necklace pendant with one hand, an unconscious gesture you have yet to train yourself out of. Something was not right about this job, or at least more than normal. Over the years your own morals had morphed to accommodate your line of work. You worked for the guild and were often paid by unsavory individuals, but that was what you did to survive, and you refused to let that get to you. This however was picking at an old wound, long forgotten.

Another shot echoes through the compound and you find yourself racing back towards Mando and the droid, blaster held at the ready. Swinging around a corner you find Mando standing over a small floating pod, the bounty droid smoking out of its “head” on the floor. Maybe he didn’t want to split the bounty after all.

“Mando?” Your voice seems to cut through whatever trance the hunter was under, head snapping back towards you. “What happened?”

His shoulders drop, the tension seeming to fall away at your appearance. “He was going to kill the bounty.”

“I thought you said the client specified they wanted it alive if at all possible.”

Mando nods, “they did say that.”

That gnawing sense of dreads returns. Stepping up next to Mando you glance down into the pod-which appears to be functioning as some kind of traveling pram-and are greeted with wide dark eyes and pointy green ears.

Oh Maker no…

[hoe-doroki]

impetus

A part of the ‘A Spare Heart’ series.

pairing: eventual Shouto x Reader later in the series

wc: 2.1k

genre: friendship

warnings: consensual use of Brainwashing and...subspace vibes?

summary: Ever since Shinsou found out what your quirk was, the two of you have been each other’s best friends and confidantes. But when he turns a casual training session into a tease over your supposed crush on someone in your class, that trust might just break.

a/n: It’s helpful, though not necessary, to have read Hollow Victory before this one, or at least its second chapter in order to understand the reader’s quirk. There are also references to an unpublished, upcoming story.

edit: I no longer write x reader but here’s my old masterlist - mobile | desktop

It was the wilderness of the U.A. campus, the part of the woods where you couldn’t even see the tall buildings, hear the constant explosions from the training grounds. You were walking around aimlessly, doing figure eights through the trees, touching your fingers through some of the low hanging branches, rocking a few steps up on your tip toes and then falling back to rock on your heels. It was drifting, completely meaningless as you focused on the subtle feeling of cutting through the air with every step, how your arms so gently swung in tandem with your legs—all the things you never usually thought about while walking.

“Now raise one foot to walk over the tree root. Okay, walk the same path again.”

Your body went where you were told, your toe lifting just over the gnarly root bursting through the grass, blond on top from where a lawn mower had nicked it. But still, it brought the big tree that was shading you water and security in the ground, no matter how many times its top was shaved off by mechanized blades.

“Walk it exactly ten times.”

Your body continued on the same path, just wide and winding enough not to be dizzying as Shinsou controlled your movements. It was nice to be completely out of control, for someone else to take the mechanisms of your body making all the decisions while your core kept you breathing, your heart beating. It was a shame people feared Shinsou’s quirk, avoiding any question he asked them with suspicious silence. There was nothing more freeing for you than this. And he got to work on the nuances of his quirk.

“You know, I feel I should tell you that I’m the reason Midoriya and them found out about you.”

It took a few seconds for his words to register as something other than a command. They pulled you out of your mindless, almost meditative space. You probably would have given a soft “Hmm?” if you could have, but, of course, you couldn’t speak.

“Technically, Google is what told them about you, but I’m the one who told them they should do it. Even though any idiot should be able to Google something.”

The path he had laid for you had you conveniently facing almost entirely away from him. You couldn’t move your neck or even your eyes, so as you walked, they stayed perfectly forward, in line with your spine and your chest and the heels of your slightly turned out feet. So you couldn’t see his body language or even if he was looking at you.

“So I just wanted to say I’m sorry, I guess. Even though all that I knew I found from the internet, I shouldn’t have told them anything. It wasn’t my business. Keep walking, but you can speak.”

The sudden control over your jaw, tongue, lips didn’t feel any different than the lack of it had felt a moment before. From past experience, you knew that if you’d been fighting the control, you would have just felt a distinct drop in tension from those areas, but you hadn’t been fighting. “Have you been thinking about this since July?”

“I guess so. I thought about it a bit while you were gone over summer break.”

“I wish you would have told me,” you said, also wishing your eyebrows could curl up in sympathy, but your face was fully blank except for your lips. Not that he was probably looking at you anyway.

“Because I’m not mad. Telling them to Google me isn’t exactly a betrayal.”

“I know, so I didn’t feel especially bad but still. It’s better for you to know.”

“I agree. Thanks for telling me.”

“Close your eyes and walk the same path.”

Your eyes shut instantly, but it felt like you’d lost control of your limbs—ridiculous since you weren’t controlling them in the first place. But there was a spilling of your equilibrium, your center of gravity swaying from side to side as your body suddenly forgot the path it had wrought for the last few minutes.

“Freeze!” Shinsou yelled suddenly and your whole body stiffened, just as your lifted right toes tapped something hard on the ground. “Open your eyes.”

Your slightly downward gaze spotted your slightly elevated foot just about to tip over the root cutting through your path. You’d been about to eat shit.

“Put your foot down and stand tall.”

You did, you shoulders rolled back in slightly better posture than you usually took. You’d learned good posture in the ballet classes your parents had put you in as a youth, but, as you were in the middle of your teenage years, you’d taken on the slump that all your peers adopted, the adolescent hunch of lackadaisy. Even though the fellow teenagers you were surrounded by were the most passionate people you’d ever met.

Shinsou stepped into your line of sight, an awkward smile on his face. “I guess that one didn’t work.”

You tried to speak, but his command to freeze must have canceled out his previous command enabling your speech. Then, all at once, you felt the hold on your tongue, the commanded posture release and your shoulders slumped. You were back to yourself again.

“Seems that walking with your eyes closed can’t work when you need your eyes to walk,” you said.

Shinsou shrugged. “It’s good to know. Ready to start again?”

You shook out your limbs a little. Nothing felt too stiff, since even with Shinsou brainwashing you, you would still walk with your normal gait unless he directed otherwise. But still, a little wiggle felt good, and when you were done, you stepped over the root you’d almost tripped over and nodded at him. “Yes.”

At your response, you felt Shinsou take gentle hold over your body again and he told you to walk the same path as before. Your body did, taking up the figure eight around the trees once again. It seemed that since your brain still knew what the path was, it didn’t matter that he’d dropped control of you in between commands. You felt yourself relaxing again, falling easier into the meditative place this practice took you to every time you and Shinsou did it. You heard birds chirping, leaves rustling, and wind whistling. Aside from the path ahead, there was nothing else to think about.

“Go confess your love to Todoroki-san.”

Your relaxation broke in an instant as suddenly all corners of your body flexed and failed against Shinsou’s hold on you. A scream of refute pealed from your mind, but it failed to make it past your lips as that old tension locked your jaw back up again. Your body began walking mechanically toward the 2-A dorms. You had no idea if that’s where Todoroki really was, but it must have been your subconscious’s assumption, as it was the first guess off the top of your head as well. But God, you hoped he was at the gym or the library…anywhere but where your footsteps were taking you.

Suddenly, the connection broke. The remains of your ended scream bled off your lips as a breathy “No!” squeezed out of your tense vocal folds. You spun around toward Shinsou, whose shoulders bounced up and down a couple times in a silent laugh that he was obviously trying to hide on his face. Then he put his hands up in an expression of false apology.

“Hey, you don’t think I’d actually make you do that, would you?”

“I’m not sure,” you growled. “Maybe it’s your idea of a funny joke.”

“No, this is my idea of a funny joke,” Shinsou corrected. “No harm, no foul.”

But as your face grew hot, you could feel the harm. Why had he even thought of that as something to do? Where was the comedy? What was the joke?

“I have every right to use my quirk on you now. Maybe you’ll feel some shame.”

“I’m sure I would feel ashamed,” Shinsou agreed. “But this was just practice, in case I really need to do this some day.”

You squinted at him. “Is that supposed to be a joke too?”

Shinsou seemed to catch onto your bewilderment and his head tilted to the side a crude imitation of sympathy on his face. “What, did you think I didn’t know?”

“What exactly do you think you know?” you asked, knowing exactly what he thought he knew. “I’m not in love with Todoroki-kun.”

“Well, maybe not love, but you certainly like him a lot, yes? C’mon, Y/N-chan, this isn’t news,” he said. “You talk about him…not infrequently.”

“He’s one of my best friends,” you explained, your heart beating quickly. You weren’t sure if it was remnants of the panic Shinsou’s command had sent through your mind latently hitting your bloodstream or what, but the heat in your face was spreading down your neck rapidly. “Of course I talk about him.”

You really didn’t understand Shinsou’s angle here. You probably talked about him with Todoroki as much as you talked about Todoroki to him, and Todoroki had never leveled this kind of accusation on you before. Not that you could imagine him doing so. But still, even if you imbued him with a feeling of truthfulness or if Shinsou brainwashed him the way he’d just done to you, you couldn’t imagine that kind of trash falling out of Todoroki’s mouth.

“You…” Shinsou blinked. “You don’t know. Or you’re in denial?”

“Look, as the person who’s kind of the expert on feelings here, hear me when I say this,” you started, referencing your quirk. “It’s possible for you to intuit a feeling that I’m unaware that I’m feeling. But it’s not likely. If I don’t know that I’m feeling it—as a person pretty goddamn in touch with my emotions—then it’s probably not there.”

Shinsou’s heavy lids were hanging tensely over his eyes. They were as squinted as ever, but there was a pinch to them as he continued to size you up. “Says the girl who had a childhood where kids teased you about being able to make people fall in love with her. The girl who had people run away from her, scared that she would do just that. Might that also be a girl who would be scared to fall in love with someone for real?”

The muscles around your lips tightened. “Sounds like you might be projecting a bit, Shinsou-kun.”

“Or empathizing,” he stated. “I thought that’s what we did for each other.”

If you refuted that line, then this would feel like a real fight. A breakup between friends. And your friendship was not what you were trying to stake this argument on, so you took a breath before you could tell him to eff right off or something similarly stupid, trying to get back a bit of that zen energy you’d felt while he’d been commanding your body to walk in lazy circles.

“Okay. I admit that I wouldn’t want to fall in love here,” you said. “Japan isn’t permanent for me, and I don’t think anyone I’ve met here would be willing to leave. So having anything more serious than a fling would be stupid.”

“So…you want to have a fling with Todoroki-san?”

“No!” you exclaimed. “That would be stupid too!”

“Fine!” Shinsou agreed, hands up. “I didn’t think so. But just…sometimes the things we want are what make us honest,” he said and he must have been thinking about his dream of being a hero. “And sometimes the things we want blind us to the thing next to it.”

You frowned, the profundity Shinsou had tried to create in the statement pissing you off a bit. His words were simple enough obvious even, so it almost felt like an insult for him to say them like they never would have occurred to you.

Still, you were suddenly aware of a light simmering in your body, new and uncomfortable. Unnamable. When warming a pot of water, the water might be boiling for minutes before you noticed the soft popping, the light roiling of the bubbles. But once you heard it, the sound was going to stay in your ears, urging you to action. It was telling you to dump in the noodles, pour the water over a tea bag, lower the temperature on the stove. The bubbling was the indication, but you had to be the impetus. Otherwise, all that potential would take its time bubbling away, disappearing slowly into vapors you’d never see, and, eventually, you’d be left with no water at all.

[arcticdementor]

Some rambling, poorly-organized thoughts on state structures

On the recent nationalism and nations discussion, I don't want to give the wrong impression of my views, lest I seem like some sort of dedicated supporter of homogenous ethnostates.

After all, I've repeatedly said that it seems like practically nobody actually believes in Westphalian sovereignty anymore.

I get that nationalism creates a lot of problems, particularly in the wake of the breakup — or especially, carving up by outsiders — of a multiethnic, multicultural empire. The nigh-impossibility of fitting political borders to the human geography (thus usually leading the human geography to be forcibly transformed to match the political borders instead).

I mean, just earlier this month, when reading about the "highest" High German dialects, I wiki-walked my way into reading about the mess that was post WWI South Tyrol — a mess created by Woodrow Wilson's hard-on for "national self-determination" (and ignorance of the actual demography) — how one guy (Ettore Tolomei) created Italian place names to replace all the Austrian ones, and how its (Austro-Bavarian) German-speaking majority eventually faced the choice of either forced Italianization under the Fascists or relocation to Nazi Germany.

Or this recent thread at the Motte about the history of the Balkans from a couple of natives thereof, with, again, plenty of blame for Woodrow Wilson's dismantlement of the Habsburg domains.

Plus, I've seen plenty of people, left and right, argue that much of the problems of the Middle East are due to how the Western powers, and particularly Britain, carved up the failing Ottoman Empire (and yes, for many of the left-leaning ones, the creation of the modern state of Israel is at or near the top of that list).

One can also see all the messes in the former Soviet Union — Moldova, Transnistria, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, the Donets Basin, Nagorno-Karabakh, et cetera — as a similar "breakup of an empire" mess.

On the other hand, though, I also recall people once arguing that one of the major harms European colonialism inflicted upon Africa in "the scramble" was carving out territories and drawing up borders willy-nilly, without concern for the existing ethnic, linguistic, and cultural groupings — causing some groups who identified as one people to be split apart in some cases, and in others causing differing groups with historical animosities to be forced together. And further, that "fixing" this would involve African nations reorganizing themselves along ethno-religio-cultural-linguistic lines. (I have a further aside on this I may write-up later.)

And multi-ethnic empires have their own issues. Sure, some have allowed the constituent ethnic groups a fair amount of autonomy, such as the Ottoman "millet" system. But others, not so much — look at what happened to Gaulish and the other continental Celtic languages under Roman rule; or "Hanification" in China.

In multi-ethnic empires, there's always one central, ruling ethicity — usually the one that founded it. And there's a general extractive flow of wealth from the periphery to the core, and from subject peoples to the ruling people (when this flow reverses, and the ostensible rulers are instead paying the other peoples, is often when the Empire begins failing — note that it was the Turkish national movement that ultimately overthrew the Sultan). Plus, said rulers often play the subject peoples against each other.

In short, nationalist states have some problems, empires have some different problems.

Someone in one of the reply chains also made reference to Medieval kingdoms; particularly, to the idea that a ruler was "King of France" — because that's where the bulk of the territory he held was located — rather than "King of the French" — ruler of a specific people. The kind of thing that led to situations like the Spanish Netherlands, Norman Sicily, the King of England also being the Elector of Hanover, the kings of Sweden and Poland each claiming to be the rightful monarch of both territories, and so on.

Despite that, there's much to favor in such a thing. But, as so many people keep reminding me when I bring up my monarchist views, this was the product of a number of specific preconditions. First, the utter disintegration of the western Roman Empire, leaving mostly just hyper-local identities — particularly once the Germanic migrations stopped, and the Franks and Goths assimilated to their local subjects.

Second, that the kings, particularly at the start of any given dynasty, and even sometimes well into the Early Modern period, were basically warlords — I recall reading one historian refer to Gustavus Adolphus as "the worst kind of sociopath," and another argue that the life story of Henry VII is, in its broad strokes, basically the same as any number of Latin American dictators. Look at Clovis I, Harald Hardrata, or William the Conqueror, or…

Third, this state of affairs was also a product of the comparative weakness of those kings. Because, for quite some time, pretty much any local baron who owned a castle was a power to be reckoned with, and kings were often more "first among equals" with these lords — see King John, the Magna Carta, the Barons' War, and so on. This was a product of the military technologies of the time; effective war-fighting was by highly-trained, heavily-equipped elite cavalry — knights — who were expensive… but not so expensive that local lords couldn't afford to maintain an effective retinue of them. Defensive fortifications like castles were highly effective, and slow and costly to besiege.

Then cannons and early firearms came along, which actually served to centralize power — kings were able to use them to take more power and authority from the aristocracy, leading to the replacement of decentralized feudal structures with royal absolutism (and a growing central bureaucracy to run and manage said centralized government). Then later firearms made the average commoner with little training into an effective war-fighter — thus "the Age of the Gun" and resulting democratization of the centralized state.

I'll admit, it's hard to see a pathway back to that sort of mid-level balance — where neither the numbers of the common masses nor the deep pockets of a centralized state provide much advantage in war over a localized petty elite. The "Age of the Gun" may have ended, but our current military modes (with multi-million-dollar equipment) again favor the centralized state — either a nation-state or an empire — over both local authority and the common citizen. Some argue that 4th-generation warfare might see a return of "people power" (though I have my doubts); and I've seen others debate how expensive effective autonomous weapons of a coming "Age of the Drone" might prove, and thus what scale of political organization it favors.

Then there's the city-state, which has even more local autonomy, and which seems to be in many ways a preferable manner of organization. But the problem there, is that they almost always run afoul of the economies of scale in war-fighting. There's a reason those feudal barons, for all their power, ended up pledging fealty to one king or another, and even in the modern era, unless you either have somehow obtained WMDs with an effective long-distance delivery system, or are under the protective aegis of a larger polity with such, a lone city-state is just too easy to push around militarily, if not de-facto conquer.

Sure, Nick Land argued that while nuclear-tipped ICBMs will remain out of reach for microstates, we can expect city-states to proliferate again once DNA technologies mean they can have a WMD deterrent in the form of "$1000 smallpox" or other bioweapons. I don't suppose I have to tell you, particularly now, why having hundreds of labs around the world manufacturing and storing virulent and deadly man-made plagues does not sound like a good idea to me.

Going all the way back to Westphalia, again, I'd like to note that the key principle there was not anything about nationalism directly, but about religion — ending the generations of bloody post-Reformation wars with the "truce" principle of cuius regio, eius religio. That the religion of each state was the business of its government and its government only, and that it's no longer a ruler's place to intervene in a neighboring ruler's territory to rescue the souls of his subjects from vile heresy with fire and sword.

There's a certain echo of this in the proposals of certain libertarian, ex-libertarian, and libertarian-adjacent left-wing people of a loose confederation of microstates wherein, in an example of exit-over-voice, people are free to relocate so as to sort themselves on ideological (compare to religious) lines. Friedman's seasteads, Yarvin's "patchwork," and Alexander's "archipelago" all come to mind as core examples. But these have a number of issues. First, the ways in which they presuppose a level of mobility, of ability and willingness to relocate, that I find unrealistic to expect from much of the population. I note here that it seems to be a very specific sort of person who recommends this sort of solution.

Second, it very much requires a Westphalian live-and-let-live, what happens in the patch next door is none of my business no matter how wrong I believe it to be, attitude. But replace "one true faith" with "universal human rights" and saving souls from heresy with "humanitarian intervention," and we see that, like I said before, such a spirit is quite dead — "all it takes for evil to triumph…", "an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere", et cetera. Like we saw with Libya, unless you have the WMD-MAD means to prevent it, expect the superpower to enact "regime change" on you if your way of life somehow offends their particular "universal" orthodoxy.

TL;DR: nation-state, empire, feudal kingdom, city-states, patchwork — it's trade-offs all around.

[iplaymatchmaker]

Hi, can I ask for a match up request for Ikevamp! I'm bi, female (she/her) sagittarius sun, virgo rising, libra moon, ENFT. I'm 5'2, chubby/curvy w/ great boobs, I have longer  brunette hair w/ peekaboo highlights (they've been every color, but currently pink), brown eyes, glasses/contacts, 7 piercings & 26 tattoos. I'm very empathetic (sometimes to a fault) and have sever anxiety and depression. It takes me awhile to warm up around new people and be myself. I often feel intimidated in big social settings, such as parties, and often use alcohol for some liquid courage to help me let loose and be me in those situations. I've suffered some emotional and mental abuse at the hands of a step parent which has left me with some trauma and triggers; people raising their voice at me or making quick movements toward me or in my direction usually result in me crying and secluding myself for awhile. Oh and I have daddy issues, thanks absent father. That said I also don't do great with authority, I hate being told what to do, and I hate being told no. I can put up with a lot of shit, but eventually it usually becomes a 'straw that broke the camels back' situation and I fly off the handle and then break down. I am also extremely generous and do all I can to help my friends and family when they need it. I have some self confidence issues from weight gain, and I usually feel my best when I'm dolled up with my makeup on and hair done, usually with a dress and heels. I'm a Ravenclaw thats hates to read, but I love learning & know tons of trivia; like I know so many random facts about so many things from history, to movies, to graveyards, and much more. I often correct people on things, which some perceive as me belittling them, but its never my intention I'm just trying to share my knowledge and trying to help them. I am very creative I love crafting; resin art, macrame, cross stich, those are just some of my favorite things to do art wise, I also enjoy coloring books. I love to laugh and think I'm pretty funny, I usually have a dark sense of humor, if you don't like humor we won't vibe together, and if you can't make me laugh we will not be a good relationship match. I like to go to the bar and do karaoke, it's one thing I've learned I'mvery good at. It took me about 2 years, but I've since learned to be confident with my singing and now its one of my favorite things to do. I drink, obviously, gin and tonic is my favorite. I also smoke, I love my hookah, and I've had my medical card for about a year and it's done wonders for my insomnia and cramps. For about 2 years I've been getting severe cramps and stomach pains, and after 5 er trips in a month they didn't find anything, its still a mystery but at least the bud helps the pain. l'm very into the witchy aesthetic; my style is either very Stevie Nicks, pinup, or 2009 emo/scene depending on the day. I collect animal skulls and bone, taxidermy, crystals, and plants; I also practice the craft & love to make spell jars for people. I love tarot and really enjoy doing it. I live for Halloween & enjoy all things macabre! My favorite show is That 70's Show and if I could live in a replica of the Forman's house that would be my dream. I am also very sex positive and rather adventurous in bed. I'm a brat and a voyeur, I'll get down with just about anything. My love language is giving and receiving gifts. I put alot of thought into holidays like Christmas, I plan months in advance to make sure I get everyone the perfect gift; but I also will sometimes see something that just reminds me of someone and have to get it for them. That is all I can think of right now to add about myself. And I feel I don't connect with Vincent at all, so I'd really rather not be paired with him. And for the prompts I'd love 4 and/or 10. Thank you so much in advance, totally appreciate you doing these, sorry it got long..

 Hello, thank you so much for requesting! 🥰 I did your ikevamp matchup first but the ikerev one is on its way. Sorry if I got something wrong, I tried to implement as much of the information as I could. I really hope you enjoy this! Also, I’m sorry to hear about your cramps, i hope you will find a permanent solution soon! Stay healthy and have an amazing day!❤

I match you with

Napoleon!

I went back and forth a bit but I ended up going with our lovely monsieur de Wahaha.

 You two would be a great match considering you both appreciate a good sense of humor. I can see you trying to out-joke each other and ending up doubled over laughing, inevitably calling it a truce.

 Whenever you’re feeling down, he tries to subtly lift you spirits without asking for explanations, unless you’re willing to give them.

  He is also very thoughtful and cares about other people so you two would totally vibe! You appreciate what he does for the children and even tune in to help sometimes, as long as it doesn’t involve fencing. 

  He is very interested in hearing about your interests and any fun fact you have to give him since he’s also eager to learn and teach new things.

 He tries to involve himself in your hobbies to understand you better. Your love for witchy related activities is a part of you that he finds very intriguing.  He’s so fascinated that he asks you to do tarots for him!

  Another thing that you have discovered is that when he’s being stubborn about waking up all it takes is for you to sing to him for his eyes to open in awe, skipping on his usual morning kiss until you’re both properly awake!

  When your first birthday with him rolled around he tried his best to come up with an amazing gift for you, wanting to make sure his love for you is clear. In the end when you unwrapped his gift you found a knitted scarf, dark purple with what tried to be stars scattered throughout. He told you he had observed you very closely while you were working on your own knitting in an attempt to figure out how to do it properly, seemingly very proud despite the garment’s wonky appearance.

 Prompt 4: Meet Cute:

You were deeply invested in your current project, knitting away when you noticed the children on the other side of the fountain, chatting around a man who seemed to be trying to explain a math problem to them. You were about to leave, opting to stay away from the loud crowd when you noticed a man sitting a few feet away from you, his head bowed and his eyes closed. You couldn’t help but put down your supplies and walk over to him, nudging his shoulder.

“Sir, are you okay?” it didn’t take more to wake him up, considering his current position. He flashed you a smile like he hadn’t just been sleeping sitting up.

“I must have fallen asleep. Thank you for waking me, Madame.” Something was odd about him and you couldn’t help but smile back at him.

 He asked you about the project you were working on after noticing the supplies next to you, not paying any mind to the sun slowly setting as you explained. You couldn’t help but  crack a smile every time his curious eyes melted into confusion, urging you to continue explaining.

When he informed you it was time for the both of you to return home- not forgetting to offer walking you back- you made mental note to visit the fountain more often.

 Prompt 10: Admission of feelings

It had been a few months since that first day you found him sleeping on the fountain. You had continued visiting him when he was giving lessons to the children, observing him closely as he taught them about a variety of things.

One of those days while you were observing his lesson, you spoke up before you could think better of it, correcting one of his statements. He seemed surprised at first, but quickly recovered, urging you to continue on with a smile on his face. Despite your worries he pulled you aside, after handing the children over to Isaac, to thank you for correcting him.

You continued to help him after that, often tuning in to help with lessons. It became a sort of routine for you. It took a while, but eventually you two started meeting outside of the impromptu classes, going for walks and the occasional dinner. He seemed increasingly interested in hearing about you.

As you two got to know each other better, he eventually discovered of your love for tarot cards. It took you by surprise when he asked you for a reading. His next words were even more surprising.

“I hope you see yourself in my future.” You didn’t understand what he meant at first, starring at him in confusion for a solid few minutes. He smiled awkwardly before continuing his thoughts, making his intentions clear.

“What I’m saying is I’d like us to be more than friends. I want to keep discovering more about you, if that’s alright with you.” After the initial shock, you nodded, smiling widely at him, your hand reaching for his. When the waiter arrived, asking if you were ready to order, blushing furiously when he realized what had transpired, you both burst into laughter, happiness bursting out of the both of you.

[set-phasers-to-whump]

we are, we are, we’re gonna be alright

fandom: grimm

whumpee: nick burkhardt

hi this is a completely self-indulgent fic which i wrote for Me but like if you wanna read it go right ahead!! it’s some nick/hank bc. where the Fuck is the content for that. but it’s mostly in the second chapter while the first is more whump focused. anyway i hope u like this!! (title from afterlife by ingrid michaelson)

Chapter 1

Nick and Hank sprint through the halls of an abandoned apartment building, chasing down their suspect. He shoves over a piece of metal shelving, kicks an old ratty couch cushion at them, skids around corners, and jumps over junk with the practiced ease of someone who’s been living here for a while. 

Nick leaps over the shelving, and Hank slides under it. They both step out of the way of the cushion, doing their best to keep up with the suspect, who, unfortunately, has the advantage at the moment. 

They reach the opening of a perpendicular hallway. The suspect rushes down it, and Nick and Hank split up, Hank turning after him and Nick continuing straight on, in the hopes of trapping him between the two of them.

Nick races along, grateful for the lack of obstacles being pushed in his way. He sidesteps a cinder block - and his leg drops straight through the floor with a cracking sound. He collapses for a second, collects his bearings, then pulls his leg back out of the floor, feeling it twinge slightly as it scrapes the rough edges of broken wood. He pays it no mind, and gets back to his feet quickly, taking off running again. 

Sure enough, he spots their suspect at the end of the hall, hurrying off to the left. He doesn’t see Hank following close behind, though, so he speeds up even more, feeling like his feet barely even touch the ground. 

He catches their suspect in a matter of seconds, tackling him to the ground (there was that strange sensation in his leg again). They scuffle for a minute, but Nick quickly gains the upper hand. He’s about to cuff the man when Hank comes running up, breathless. 

“Nice catch,” he says, as Nick clicks the cuffs on. “Bastard threw a metal chair at me.”

Nick nods, then stands, pulling the suspect to his feet. He has to pause a second as his leg starts to hurt - that’s the adrenaline starting to wear off, he knows. He ignores it as best as he can, hoping it’s not hurt too bad. The two start walking back down the hallway, Hank pushing the suspect along, Nick lagging a little behind.

“You okay?” Hank asks. Nick knows he’s limping, and he can feel now that something is definitely wrong. Nevertheless, he says, “I’m fine,” and wonders if Hank believes him at all. 

They’re not more than halfway out of the building when Nick’s leg gives out from under him, and he collapses to the ground. 

“Nick!” Hank fairly shouts, stopping in his tracks. “Nick, what’s wrong?”

Nick grimaces, just barely biting back a groan of pain. “Think...I might’ve hurt my leg,” he confesses, taking a steadying breath that trembles on the exhale.

“How bad?”

Nick shrugs, not wanting to say quite possibly broken. “Not too bad.” He shuts his eyes against a wave of pain. “Don’t know if I can walk all the way out of here, though.”

Hank thinks for a moment. There’s no service in this building, and Nick is insisting he’s not hurt that bad. While Hank doesn’t believe that line for a second, he also knows there’s little point in arguing. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he decides. “I’ll go put Mr. Downey here in the car, you wait right here.”

True to his word, Hank is back in slightly over sixty seconds. Nick knows because he’d counted. Anything to distract him from just how bad his leg is hurting. Broken, he thinks. Great. 

Hank gives him a hand up, pulling Nick’s arm over his shoulders and starting off at a very slow walk. 

Nick sucks in a deep breath as his hurt leg touches lightly against the ground. Hank notices, but Nick doesn’t tell him to go slower, or stop, or do anything as reasonable as pick him up and relieve the pressure on his leg, so, naturally, Hank takes matters (and Nick) into his own hands, picking him up as carefully and gently as he can, trying not to touch his hurt leg and make it worse while also supporting it enough so that it doesn’t move around too much. 

It’s a testament to how much Nick must be hurting that he doesn’t even protest beyond a quiet, “hey-” which is cut off by a sigh of relief when his injured leg is relieved of its duties.

Hank walks as evenly as he possibly can out to the car, and deposits Nick into his spot in the passenger seat. He apologizes to the suspect for the delay, not really meaning it since it was chasing him that got Nick into this situation in the first place. 

That done, he asks Nick if he wants him to call an ambulance as soon as they get back to service. Nick, predictably, shakes his head no. 

“Just get us back to the station first. Drop Downey off, and then maybe we can drive there.”

Hank doesn’t argue, just glad he won’t have to force Nick to the hospital against his will.

The ride back to the police station is dead quiet. Hank hates the silence, but doesn’t dare break it. When they arrive, he wordlessly removes Downey from the backseat and maneuvers him towards the front doors. 

Meanwhile, Nick leans his head against the cool glass of the window. Thus far, he’s done a pretty good job of sucking it up. He’s scarcely made a sound. But his leg hurts. He’s sure it’s not the worst pain he’s experienced, overall, but at the moment, semantics like that do absolutely nothing. It hurts now, and it hurts a lot, as though it’s on fire, a feeling only reinforced by the hot tears that have begun to run down his face. He takes a shuddering breath, fogging up the glass, and hopes that Hank will be back soon.

Hank throws open his door about five minutes later, having passed Downey off to Wu practically as soon as he’d seen the man. He owes him a box of donuts and a week’s worth of paperwork, but honestly, he’d have agreed to just about anything if it would have gotten him out of there and back to Nick.

Who looks absolutely miserable. He’s crying, on its own a rare sight, and seems barely aware of that fact. Some of the color has drained from his face, and, now that Hank really looks, his leg is definitely broken. He has a pretty good idea of what that feels like, and he’s amazed (but not entirely surprised) that Nick is keeping it together this well. 

It can’t hurt to ask one more time, he reasons, and once again poses the ambulance question. They are sitting right outside a police station, after all. Nick only shakes his head, and he looks so pained and so sad that Hank doesn’t even care. He thinks he’d probably drive to Canada right now, if that was what Nick wanted. 

—

Hank parks as close as he can to the Emergency entrance of the hospital. “We’re gonna have to walk,” he warns. “Unless you-”

“I know,” Nick says, and before Hank can stop him, he’s unbuckling his seatbelt and stepping out of the car. 

Hank rushes around to the passenger side just as Nick takes a step. His leg folds up under him, and Hank grabs him, wrapping arms around him and pulling him close to prevent him from collapsing to the ground for the second time today.

Nick’s hands latch onto Hank’s jacket automatically, like he’s trying to hold himself up by that force alone. Hank feels them shaking through the fabric. 

“I could run inside and see if they have a wheelchair,” Hank offers. Nick shakes his head, face pressed firmly into Hank’s shoulder. 

“We have to get there somehow, man,” Hank points out.

Nick shrugs halfheartedly, not moving. Hank gets the message that he knows Nick is far too...Nick to actually say out loud, and picks him up again, being, if it’s possible, even more careful than before. Nick still makes a terribly fragile pained noise anyway. It’s the first real sound he’s made, and Hank mentally shudders to think how bad the pain must be for Nick to just let it out. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Hank says, over and over, walking slowly up to the entrance. “You’re okay, it’ll be fine.” Nick only grabs his jacket tighter in response.

As soon as they get inside, Hank gently deposits Nick on one of the waiting-room chairs. He joins the thankfully-short line of people at the desk, and explains their whole situation as quickly and clearly as he can to the person behind it, who hands him a clipboard of papers to fill out, promising they’ll get Nick in as soon as they can.

Hank sinks down into the chair next to Nick, who is staring intently at the floor, leg held out at an angle like he doesn’t know what to do with it, clearly not having heard a word of that conversation. 

“They’ll see you as soon as they can,” he repeats, and he begins to fill out Nick’s paperwork while Nick himself continues staring at the floor. Hank generously pretends not to notice the tears that are once again tracking their way down his face. 

—

About fifteen minutes later, Hank is flipping idly through a magazine while Nick is back being examined. He hates not having any idea what’s going on, and the front-desk person had apologized profusely but insisted that Hank wasn’t allowed back with him. He knows, logically, that Nick will be fine, but he can’t stand not knowing for certain.

It’s perhaps half an hour later when a nurse pushes Nick out into the waiting room. She gives Hank a warm smile and hands him a small paper bag, explaining the painkillers it contains. She disappears for a second and comes back with a pair of crutches, which Hank also takes. 

“He’s been given a mild sedative,” she explains to Hank, who is looking at Nick, who is looking at absolutely nothing. “He had a displaced fracture, which means that the pieces of bone on either side of the break were misaligned. We performed a minor nonsurgical procedure to realign them, but it can be painful, hence the sedative. It’ll wear off in a few hours, and he’ll probably sleep for most of that.”

Hank thanks her, gives Nick the bag (at least he’s aware enough to grab it), places the crutches across the armrests of the hospital wheelchair, and heads back to the car. It could have been worse, he thinks to himself. At least he didn’t need surgery.

Chapter 2

Hank drives the two of them back to his house, practically without thinking. If Nick minds this, he doesn’t speak up about it. Not that he’s doing much speaking up about anything. In fact, Hank realizes, he’s sleeping, his cheek pressed against the window, breath fogging up the glass. He looks utterly exhausted, and if he were anyone else, Hank might tack on cute, but it’s Nick so he can’t. He just gives him a little smile (which he obviously can’t see) and shakes his head fondly. 

By the time he pulls to a stop at his house, Nick has woken up and is, predictably, insisting he’ll be able to make it inside using his brand-new crutches. 

It’s not a very far walk, so Hank somewhat reluctantly hands Nick the crutches, watching critically as he attempts to balance. Surprisingly, he manages to make it to the front door, which Hank has already unlocked, seeing as how he’d reached it a full minute before Nick and his crutches. 

Hank ushers Nick inside, directing him to his bedroom and not giving him a chance to protest. Nick, thankfully, is out of it enough to not question Hank’s decision, and he promptly flops himself down on the bed. 

And then nearly falls off when the weight of his cast, hanging off the bed, pulls him down. Hank pushes him back onto the bed and heads to the closet to grab another blanket. 

He’s gone for scarcely twenty seconds, but when he returns, Nick is already asleep again, head turned so his face is pressed into the pillow. Hank gently drapes the blanket over him, smoothing it out and tucking it in slightly in a way he never would if he thought there was any chance of Nick waking up and asking him what the hell he was doing. 

--

Two hours later, Hank is stretched out on the couch, watching a wildlife documentary and eating a slice of his favorite pizza (he’s earned it, he thinks). He’s wondering whether he should go check on Nick again when a quiet noise from his bedroom makes up his mind for him. 

Hank stands in the doorway of his bedroom, watching as Nick slowly wakes up, looking around in confusion and mild alarm when he doesn’t immediately recognize where he is. 

“How you feeling?” Hank asks from his position in the doorway. 

Nick blinks at him a few times, processing, before he asks, “why’m I here?”

Hank shrugs. “You broke your leg,” he offers. 

“Oh. Yeah,” Nick agrees. He reaches down a hand to touch his leg. “I don’t remember getting this,” he says, as his fingers brush against plaster. 

“You were pretty out of it already, and they gave you a sedative.”

“Why?”

Hank tells him. Nick winces. “Glad I don’t remember it,” he decides. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost seven-thirty,” Hank says. “I didn’t think you’d be hungry, but there’s a couple slices of pizza if you want them.”

Nick shakes his head. “I’m good.”

“You wanna come sit on the couch?” 

The moment the question leaves Hank’s mouth, he’s kicking himself. No, he doesn’t want to. His leg is broken, he doesn’t want to move. 

“Yeah, that sounds nice.”

Oh. “Okay,” he says, and hands Nick his crutches.

Several minutes later, they’re both on the couch, and another wildlife documentary is playing on the TV. Nick’s broken leg has been stretched carefully out onto the coffee table, and he won’t say that it hurts, but it hurts. 

Hank knows, of course, and he wordlessly hands Nick two of the pills that the nurse had given him, along with a glass of water. 

Nick stares at him for a moment. What do you expect me to do with these, he seems to say. 

“I know it hurts, man. Just take them.”

Nick heaves a sigh, but accepts the offerings. He swallows the pills and makes a face. 

“Was that really that bad?” Hank asks teasingly. 

Nick shrugs, looking suddenly morose. “No,” he admits, but the tone of his voice tells Hank there’s something else on his mind. 

He doesn’t push, though. Just moves a tiny bit closer and shifts his legs up onto the table to join Nick’s. 

Nick falls asleep yet again shortly thereafter, his head dropping to the side in a way Hank knows will make his neck ache when he wakes up. He frets for a moment over what to do before deciding fuck it, and carefully rearranging Nick so he is lying across the couch, his leg propped up by a small stack of pillows. He grabs the blanket from the bed, refills the glass of water, and sets out two more pain pills on the table. 

He stares at his sleeping best friend for a moment, simultaneously trying to encourage and stop himself. Before he gives it too much thought, he thinks, oh what the hell, and bends down to press a light kiss to Nick’s forehead. 

It’s ridiculously soft and gentle and it makes his face heat up the second he pulls away, but he looks down for just a second and swears he sees the faintest of smiles wash over Nick’s features. 

It’s gone in a second, but it’s there, and Hank smiles in response, feeling strangely happy despite the day’s events. He collapses into a chair, intent on keeping watch over Nick until the morning. 

—

They both wake up the next morning sore and hurting - Hank from falling asleep in his chair, and Nick for obvious reasons. There’s a quiet second where they both just look at each other - clothes wrinkled from sleep, the book Hank had been reading splayed across his lap, a crease on Nick’s face from where it had been pressed into a pillow. 

What I wouldn’t give for this to be my every morning, Hank thinks, as Nick pushes himself up on his elbows. His arm slips out from under him, and Hank reaches out instinctively, helping him up. 

Nick turns and looks at him, his face unreadable but soft in the early-morning glow that pours through the windows. He smiles, a soft, still sleepy, slightly pained smile, and presses his forehead against Hank’s. “Thanks,” he says, so soft it could hardly even be called a whisper. 

“Anything,” Hank tells him, and maybe that’s too much, but he means it, and then Nick is kissing him, soft and quick, a little unsure and tasting of morning breath and absolutely perfect. 

Hank pulls away first, blinking in mild surprise. “Thanks,” he says, and then thinks to himself, could you have said anything dumber?

Nick grins, a full-on smile with not a trace of pain in it. “Anything.”

hi yeah this might have been ooc but i don’t care i love them and i wanted to make this Soft so i did and nobody can stop me....anyway if you read this i love you (and also you are now legally obligated to drop me an ask saying if you think i should re-dye my hair to dark brown/black before senior pictures or not)

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 22: catching up with some old friends

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

At the end of August, a hand-drawn - some of the graphite or charcoal or whatever it is that smears off onto Apollo’s hands when he opens the envelope - invitation arrives at the Wright Anything Agency. Addressed to Mr Justice, Ms Trucy, and Mr Wright, it cordially welcomes them over to Deauxnim Studios on Saturday. “Guess Larry finally found a place he wanted to get settled,” Phoenix says, picking up the envelope and turning it over. “He’s been bouncing around for a while.”

He passes the envelope back to Apollo, and on the back side of it, a scribble on the flap in a childish, spiky scrawl, very different than Vera’s writing, reads, V. says your new lawyer can come too, forgot about her. 

“Better not let Athena see that.” Phoenix chuckles. “She’d hate to think she’s forgettable, even to a girl she’s never met.”

Apollo and Trucy arrive first on Saturday, after grabbing ramen for lunch somewhere that isn’t Eldoon’s, leaving Apollo with a strange guilty feeling that he isn’t patronizing Salt Hell. It’s a weird thing to think. Like he’s grown attached to that place, whether he wanted to or not.

He spent the morning, before he left his apartment, arguing with himself about whether or not he needed to bring iron with him. He doesn’t want to hurt Vera by accident, but he’s wandering into an unknown household of Mr Wright’s acquaintance, and that gives him a real sense of fear. Like sure, he’s met Larry before, but the guy accidentally became a witch. Doesn’t really inspire much confidence. And Apollo can’t even ask Clay’s opinion, because he never told Clay that Vera is a changeling, and he doesn’t want to get into that. In the end, he decides that he’ll be careful, but it’s better to take precautions, and slipped the iron ring onto his finger. 

No one answers the door but Trucy tests the handle, finds it unlocked, and bounds right in. Apollo decides that he can’t really be faulted if he’s following her to keep her out of trouble, and heads in after. “Helloooo!” she calls, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Vera! Uncle Larry! We’re here for the artists’ loft grand tour!”

Apollo wouldn’t call it a loft, but the fact that it’s an artist den is obvious. On the wall right in front of them there’s a half-finished mural of a snowy landscape. To the left, canvases and poster boards spill out through a doorway, resting on the floor and propped up against the walls, depicting landscapes and fruit bowls, the Steel Samurai, a portrait of Vera with her face divided down the center as human and fae both, and one that is just splotches of blue like someone dipped a sponge and threw it. They pick their way carefully between the canvasses and enter the room, brimming with more paintings and charcoal sketches. There’s one of an orca leaping out of the water; another depicts a demon that, all considered, appears a bit like Tenma Taro would it drawn by someone who got a third-hand description. It doesn’t have arms, simply wings where its arms would be that have talons at the joint, and the drawn tongue reaches halfway down its chest, while its head lacks its weird batlike ears. But it’s definitely Tenma Taro, enough to send a shudder through him. 

A year ago, examining the paintings to find that someone he never met had been following along to every case Apollo defended, and an accompanying feeling nothing short of horror in discovering it. This time, this is - she is - a friend keeping up with what’s going on even when they haven’t spoken in months. It’s nice to know. 

Footsteps hurry down the hall. “Hey, Vera!” Trucy says, and did she say it before or after Vera actually appears in the doorway to let them know that it’s her and not Larry? “We arrive! Good to see you!”

Vera looks better than Apollo remembers last, bright-eyed and not as pale as she used to be. Written in her face, the color in her cheeks and the curve of a smile, is that she is not a scared shut-in anymore. She explains that she lives here now, got her father’s house sold to escape the trauma associated with it - well, she doesn’t say the latter clause of that statement but they all know it well enough - and Larry bought this place and she’s subletting a room from him. “Though I asked him a month ago how much it would be and how to pay him and he said he’d get back to me and hasn’t.” Vera frowns at the wall. There’s a framed photo of her and her father hanging there. “I should probably remind him.”

“God, I wish my landlord would forget to collect,” Apollo mutters.

Trucy laughs. “I think that’s Polly telling you not to remind him,” she says. 

“I’m a lawyer,” Apollo says. “I would never say that.”

The three of them stop in front of a painting of a weird-looking but familiar dog and in silence, stare at it. Loud, exuberant knocking on the door heralds Athena’s arrival. “I’m not late, am I?” she asks. “I know the rule is that you’re not late unless you get here after Mr Wright, but that’s for work and not social events, right?” Apollo shrugs. Athena thrusts her hand out toward Vera. “Hi! I’m Athena Cykes, the new lawyer at the Wright Anything Agency! Nice to meet you!”

“Uh - h-hi.” Vera hesitates a moment and then shakes her hand. “I’m Vera Misham. Nice to meet you.”

“Trucy and Apollo said you were a client of theirs - oh! Did you paint all these?”

The panic in Vera’s eyes subsides. Wondering what all they’ve told Athena about her, why she was their client or whatever else. But Athena’s asking about her artwork now, and Vera is good about talking about her art, so she waves Athena back into the room they were just in and shows her the sketch of the orca. Trucy circles around the desk at the wall, and after a minute calls over, “Hey, Vera, who’s this?” She waves a large photograph of a woman, standing in the snow, her black hair tightly twisted on top of her head, her tired lined face wearing a knowing smile. Apollo would swear she’s familiar. When Apollo goes over to the desk, he sees a few pieces of scrap paper with hasty sketches trying to copy the woman’s face, pushed to the edge and onto the floor. 

“That’s Mr Larry’s mentor,” Vera says. “Ms Elise. She’s the one who began the Deauxnim name. I wanted to paint a portrait of her, as a gift for him, but I haven’t figured her face out yet. I—”

“Is that guests I hear?”

Vera snatches the photo from Trucy and shoves it and the loose papers in between the pages of a sketchbook. Larry leans up against the doorway. “Long time no see, Trucy!”

“Uncle Larry!” She charges him and nearly knocks him over. “Yeah, it’s been practically forever! Since like, since we saw Gourdy!”

“Who’s Gourdy?” Athena asks. 

“You’ll see,” Trucy says with a grin. Apollo sighs and resolves to find some sort of excuse to miss this event this upcoming December. Clay will be in space then, and Apollo is going to use that time to sleep in and not be heckled for it. 

“Apollo, hi,” Larry says, now that he’s gotten his wind back from taking a magician to the stomach. “And Athena, hey, nice to meet you, I’ve heard all about you.” He extends a hand for her to shake by resting his elbow on Trucy’s head. “That you’re the crazy kid who helped Nick out with his first case back.”

“Did you get to meet the orca?” Vera asks. “How do you defend an orca? I followed in the news as best I could, but I still don’t really understand.”

“Well! Let me tell you.” Athena, thrilled to have someone new to regale with her tales of penguins and orcas from the aquarium, immediately launches into it. Apollo still doesn’t know how much of her telling is exaggeration. When he and Trucy had questions about the investigations, Athena was always quick to be the one to answer, and Phoenix and Pearl left her to it. Was the penguin as finicky as she said, and so freely allowed to roam the aquarium when it would be very easy to consequently steal the penguin - probably. Apollo will believe anything, when it comes to their cases and clients. 

“I’m never gonna live this one down, am I?” Phoenix appears behind them, from the entryway, and Athena and Vera both jump. 

“What, you just barge in and don’t even knock?” Larry asks. “Rude! What kind of guest are you, Nick?” Phoenix grins, and that’s the weird thing that has struck Apollo the few other times he’s seen Phoenix and Larry together. That Phoenix almost reminds him of Clay, then, now, whenever it isn’t Larry reminding him of Clay. The way they gleefully give each other shit. The strength of that many years between them. 

“You defended an orca in court, Boss,” Athena says. “You are not going to live it down.”

“You co-counseled the defense of an orca!”

Larry takes them back to the sitting room - he and Phoenix bickering about whether or not his decor and entire vibe is pretentious - and pretentious is not the word coming to mind for Apollo. Now he feels the artist loft thing, mismatched furniture and clashing decor. A polished wooden table has a lace tablecloth and six all-slightly-different wicker chairs, while the couch makes him think of the Victorian era. A candelabra with lightbulbs sits on the end table. Landscapes and watercolor illustrations hang on the walls, and in between two of them hang a deformed analogue clock that looks like that famous melty-clocks painting. There are three pedestals around the room, like what a museum would keep vases on. Two of them do have vases, one empty and one filled with some wilted flowers, and the third has a small statue, about a foot tall, that again looks like another famous painting, the distorted face of the screaming man on the bridge. 

“When’d you get back into metalworking?” Phoenix asks, eyeing the statue and then the clock.

“Oh, nah, that’s just way old stuff I had boxed up and finally had some space for,” Larry says. “Clock’s ancient, you’d been talking to me about some course you were taking where Dalí kept coming up. Other one’s a vent piece - last metalwork I did after the Thinkers.”

“Don’t tell me it’s a clock too,” Phoenix says.

Larry, halfway into the next room - from what Apollo can see, it might be a kitchen - leans back out. “Dunno, why don’t you try it and find out?”

Phoenix watches him leave and then turns back to the statue. He casually hefts it in one hand, bouncing it a little to test the weight, and then he grabs the head and twists it to the side. A scream emerges from it. Not a very convincing one, with the canned sound of being recorded on a device with not great quality, and made by someone who is trying not to disturb the neighboring apartments - but the suddenness of the sound still makes Apollo jump, and Athena and Trucy both scream in tandem with it. 

With a heavy clonk, Phoenix sets it back in its place. He sighs, but with a smile visibly threatening to break through. “Real cute,” he says to Larry, who returns with a shiny, fancy metal tray of plastic containers of store-bought cookies. Why did Apollo think that the aesthetic clash would subside. “The Scream. Absolutely hilarious.”

“Hey man, it’s an accurate representation of my mental state at the time.” Larry sets the tray down on the table and gestures to them all to sit down. “I thought about giving it to you as a representation of how you probably felt too, and then I thought that might be—”

“Poor taste, yeah,” Phoenix interrupts.

“Yeah, so I had that in a box for a decade, and honestly probably gonna put it back because imagine like, an earthquake hits in the middle of the night and it falls over and just screams.”

“You could probably have it put in a gallery as a piece of performance art, or something,” Phoenix says. “Have it set just precariously enough, and cue screaming.”

“I don’t think I understand art,” Athena says, grabbing two cookies. “I mean, I get it, but also don’t at all.”

“That’s not about the art,” Phoenix says. “That’s just Larry.”

Larry slaps Phoenix’s hand as he reaches for a cookie. “You can’t be rude to me in my own house! My own house in which I have so graciously invited you!”

“I think Vera invited us, actually,” Trucy says. Larry rolls his eyes. 

“Yes, I wanted to tell you all,” Vera says, and the silent scuffle between Phoenix and Larry ceases immediately. Trucy sets the screaming statue back in its place with a guilty look, having been about to unleash it on the unexpected audience of everyone but Apollo who wasn’t looking in her direction. “I’m going to be published!”

“Woohoo!” Trucy throws her arms around Vera’s shoulders and hugs her from behind. “Look at you go!”

Vera’s cheeks start to turn pink, and then in the center there’s a growing bluish tint. “Nice work, kiddo,” Phoenix says. “When’s the book come out?” His eyes flicker toward Larry. Had they talked about this before, that Phoenix, specifically, knew there was a book? - Or maybe he just knows Larry’s career enough to expect, of course it’s a book. 

“Um.” Vera thinks for a moment. Trucy flings herself into the chair next to Vera that she had previously abandoned. “The beginning of November. Advance copies were just sent out and we got ours last week.”

“Can we see?” Apollo asks. “Or is that trade secrets?”

Vera drums her fingers on her cheek. “I suppose we could show you. If I know where we put it?”

“Somewhere beneath five sketchbooks, probably,” Larry says. “I’ll go take a look in a bit.”

“So you write children’s books, right?” Athena asks. “That’s what Mr Wright said. Write or illustrate? And-or?”

“Vera came up with this idea, I wrote it, and she did all the illustrations,” Larry explains. 

“I kept thinking about everything you said about names, that one time, Trucy,” Vera says quietly, and though all of them can hear her, and Athena especially looks interested as the only one of them who wasn’t here before, who is shut out of this particular shared history, but even she doesn’t say anything. “So,” Vera continues, a bit louder, “I’ll be a published illustrator under the name ‘Verity Deauxnim’.”

“That’s a good name!” Trucy says brightly. “Verity Deauxnim! A real solid sounding stage name! Or whatever it is for authors. Nom de plume? That always makes me picture just like, a really bushy mustache. Get mustache glasses for your author portraits!”

“You know—” Larry begins, and Phoenix groans and places his head on the table. “Hey! Nick! Why’s your daughter more supportive than you are? It’s not a bad idea!”

“It’s a silly idea,” Phoenix says. He lifts his head. “But I’m glad to hear you’ve got that figured out, Vera. It’s not gonna lead you wrong, picking up the Deauxnim name for yourself.”

“It’s already done so much work saving Uncle Larry from the worst surname known to the world,” Trucy says.

“Yeah, was a whole real tragedy that I wouldn’t be known as ‘Larry Butz, the guy who was on trial one time for murder and did nothing else good ever’. Except like, that time I was the Steel Samurai on stage, that was pretty cool, even if I’d thought I was signing up for tech crew.”

This is the man who accidentally became a witch, isn’t it? That tracks. “What’s the book about?” Apollo asks. 

Larry ends up answering first, Vera wide-eyed startled at being asked a question while she was trying to eat. “It’s an Ugly Duckling-type story, with the vaguest amount of actual animal research.”

“How vague is vague?” Phoenix asks.

“I’m a storyteller, Nick! I can’t be getting, like, neurotic about having all real true facts in there if it’s gonna get in the way of telling a good story, you know?”

“I feel like that’s how all of our witnesses treat their testimonies,” Apollo says. Athena shrieks with laughter and drops her cookie onto the table. Phoenix is silently and pointedly conveying something to Larry with just eyebrow movements and grimaces. Larry is pointedly ignoring it. 

“Fortunately,” he says, pointedly, so that his ignoring Phoenix has looped all the way back around to Phoenix obviously having his attention, “Deauxnim picture books are not witness testimonies! And if we want to fudge it when we’re talking about ducks, that is our right!”

“Then don’t leave us hanging,” Phoenix drawls. “I’ve learned more about orcas than I ever wanted to, so what’s this about ducks, besides the ugly one?”

“I can’t believe you didn’t want to know about orcas,” Athena says. “What’s not to love about orcas?”

“There’s a kind of duck that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, like the cuckoo bird,” Vera says. “But the baby duck is nicer than the cuckoo babies because it doesn’t, um… throw the other eggs out of the nest once it hatches.”

“Ah,” Trucy says faintly.

“That would not make a great children’s story, I don’t think,” Apollo says. The secret extra-dark Ugly Duckling tale. Maybe even, if Apollo really thinks about it, that’d be the kind of shitty story that Datz would tell them. The interloper successfully makes it in to toss aside the ones who are supposed to be there; the usurper wins. That’s the kind of shitty story they lived.

“That’s why we didn’t do cuckoos,” Vera says. “That’s why it’s the duck that - that ends up put into a family where it wouldn’t naturally belong. The actual ducks in real life realize, because that’s part of, um, how they are, and they leave right away. But that’s not exactly what the story is. We stretch it a little. Like Mr Larry said.”

It should have hit him sooner, the reason that Vera had the idea for an Ugly Duckling story - the child of a different species dropped in a nest and left there to figure it all out for herself. It makes so much sense from that perspective. The swan that doesn’t know it’s a swan and thinks itself an odd duck is a just changeling.

“So then you got to draw a lot of fluffy cute ducks?” Athena asks. “I’d have gone with penguins, myself, but I see the appeal.”

“You said you got to meet a penguin at the aquarium, right?”

“Yes, but she hated me.” Athena still sounds like she’s about to start wailing when she talks about it.

When the familiar tune of a cartoon theme song starts up, Apollo figures it’s Trucy fiddling with something else. “Is that the Steel Samurai?” Vera asks. 

“Yeah.” Phoenix pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Ringtone. Friend of mine won’t let me change it. Ah, hello, what’s up?” He doesn’t look concerned when he answers, but he starts to frown, slowly, his eyebrows creasing together, and everyone else at the table glances at each other. Phoenix turns around in his chair so that his elbows rest on the back of it, a finger pressed against his free ear to shut them out even though no one is talking. “You don’t remember? That - no, yeah, I can - yeah. I can just meet you there.” His chair scrapes on the floor when he pushes himself out from the table. Athena winces. Phoenix doesn’t move for another moment after he pulls the phone away from his ear, a blank stare fixed on it. “Sorry,” he says, finally standing and pushing the chair back in to the table. “I’ve got to go. Friend’s having an - issue.”

“What’ve They done now?” Larry asks, with such particular emphasis that even though he doesn’t name them Fair Folk or fae, they all know. 

“Oh, for once it isn’t them,” Phoenix says, much lighter than Larry did, like they could be just any group of human friends. 

“Then tell Edgey I say hi.”

“I have human friends other than Edgeworth, you dick.”

“Name three.” Larry looks very smug. 

“Gumshoe, Franziska, and - Ema. Notice I’m not including you.”

“Is this what people mean when they say ‘male bonding’?” Athena asks. “Is that what this is?”

“Something like that,” Apollo says. He thinks of Clay, again, Clay needling him this morning that almost all of Apollo’s social life is now based around his job. (Apollo can’t leave the Agency. Apollo would have one friend left.)

“Yeah, I noticed when I had to find out from Edgey that you got your badge back and were off to court for an orca! You couldn’t even give me a call for that, huh?”

“I was busy with, you know, defending and being in court.” Phoenix claps a hand down on Vera’s shoulder. “Sorry I’ve gotta run out on you like this. But it’s good to see you again, glad you’re doing well. And I can’t wait for the book, too.”

“O-oh.” The poor girl sometimes looks so shocked whenever Phoenix talks to her so casually, so supportively. Like after she ruined his career she doesn’t understand how he can be so happy about hers. Even if he did set her up with it. “Thank you.”

“I guess I’ll go look around for our advance copy,” Larry says, watching Phoenix leave. “A sneak peak for everyone who’s staying here.” Phoenix flips him off over his shoulder, without turning around. “Not in front of the children!” Larry yells, standing himself. “And Nick, yo, next time I wanna hear about your stupid court stunts from you and not Edgey.” Larry turns, disappearing from the room the other way. “You kids hang out and talk about memes or whatever kids talk about.”

“Did you hear who Daddy was talking to?” Trucy asks Athena.

“I don’t listen in on phone calls unless it’s like, a case, usually,” Athena says, which is a statement with a lot of qualifiers there. Leaving her bases open while not technically lying, so no tells for Apollo or Trucy to call her on. 

“Ugh.” Trucy slumps and her head falls back against the chair. “What good are cool powers if you can’t help me pry into my dad’s private life with them?”

Vera coughs softly, a gentle nudge to the nosy gang to, ideally, stop being so damn nosy. Trucy stands up and goes to sound the screaming statue again, startling no one because she’s snickering the whole time too. “If this weren’t so heavy I’d use it in a magic show,” she says. “Watch as the beautiful, talented magician pulls the mysterious screaming statue out of her Magic Panties!”

“Really would prefer not to,” Apollo says.

“Coward,” Trucy says. 

“How is the magic show going, Trucy?” Vera asks. “Have you made any progress on finding a venue to perform in?”

Trucy catches them all up on her latest exploits in her attempts to become a professional stage magician. She’s convinced, utterly, that while the era of magicians on tv saw its heyday decades ago, she’s going to be the one to bring it back, and without “cheating” by using her real magic. “Like if I wanted to use real magic, I’d set up a shop on the streetcorner peddling suspicious plants as having come straight from the realm of the Fair Folk themselves, and then when angry repeat customers come back, I use Mr Hat to distract them and make off with their wallets!”

“Trucy, that’s how you get arrested on theft and drug dealing charges,” Apollo says. “I don’t want to have to deal with that.”

“Oh, yeah,” Trucy says. “I guess selling random plants would be suspicious. Someone at my school tried to sell kale pretending it was weed, once.”

“Sometimes I get sad that I missed out on all those stupid weird high school experiences that people get to have,” Athena says. “I mean, sure, I get weird court stories, and I don’t regret the path I’ve taken at all! But sometimes I just feel - I don’t know, something, about missing out on those regular growing-up experiences.”

Apollo opens his mouth to say that there’s really nothing Athena missed, because grade school and secondary school sucked, and everyone’s “funny high school stories” are just them repressing the rest of it that sucked, but Vera speaks first and says, “I do too, actually.”

“Oh?” Athena asks. She probably figured there was something more going on in Vera’s story when they mentioned that she’s a former client of Apollo’s, but being a nineteen-year-old professional is Athena’s normal. Though there’s higher odds of it in artistic fields than law, probably.

“I was homeschooled,” Vera says. “By my father. I… I didn’t really go out much.”

Athena nods sympathetically. She sits with her chin resting in her palm for a while, as Trucy spins a few more stories of what’s happened at school lately - repeatedly assuring Apollo that she and Jinxie stay far to the sidelines of it - looking at Vera. After a few minutes of this, Vera seems to notice, casting a quizzical glance at Athena. “Something about you reminds me of a friend I had when I was little, before I moved away,” Athena explains. “I can’t put my finger on it.”

“It wouldn’t have been me,” Vera says. “I didn’t have any friends when I was little.”

“Oh, that’s not what I meant,” Athena says. “I had only the one friend back then - I was a real shut-in, actually, myself. Her name’s Juniper. She was a real quiet, sensitive type, didn’t have any other friends like me, didn’t go out much at all. Not really an artist, other than a couple years ago she said that she’d taken up knitting, but there’s just - a certain je ne sais quoi.”

“Oh,” Vera says. She starts picking at her nails, which now appear to be whiter and pointier than they were before. Another slip, from wondering, perhaps, if the similarity Athena sees is just in personality, or something she doesn’t realize she’s picked up on. Do the inner voices of human and fae sound different? Is that something Athena can notice - something she even knows she notices?

“Found it!” Larry reenters the room, waving the book around a little too much for Apollo to get a good look at the cover yet. “It was on the unused sketchbook shelf.”

Vera nods in understanding. Athena doesn’t follow so easily. “You have a shelf full of unused sketchbooks? How many do you need at one time?”

“Different kinds of paper work better with different materials,” Vera explains. “So when there’s a sale, we stock up.”

“Part of being a writer is having a lot of cool notebooks that you never actually plan on using,” Larry says, which is coming close to almost offering an explanation, but a much worse one than Vera’s. He sits back down at the table with them. “So doing traditional art is also a lot like that, except I do eventually use the sketchbooks. Mostly.”

“Oh, so it’s like how Mr Wright never uses all the law books we have in the office, right?” Athena asks. 

Trucy takes the book from Larry and drags her chair around the table to squish herself in between Apollo and Athena, so they can all read from the same angle. Vera is chewing on her nails now, watching them with apprehension for any reaction, though they’ve barely even considered the cover yet. “That’s exactly what it’s like, I think,” Trucy says.

-

The lights in the office are off, though the door to the back room is open, and Phoenix always closes that one before he leaves. Though, he figures, if she’s gotten here before him, it’s not like she would actually have need to turn the lights on. That’s the thing about being blind - the dark isn’t any different than the way it usually is. 

He finds Thalassa sitting next to his desk, leaning up against the side with her knees pulled up to her chest and her head rested against them. Phoenix scuffs his feet noisily across the carpet and her head turns, just slightly, while keeping her face buried. She knows he’s there and doesn’t want to acknowledge him. He lowers himself to the floor across from her and rests his back against Apollo’s desk, and he waits in the dim light that Mia has only partially switched on. 

“I almost forgot.” Thalassa raises her head, and because Phoenix doesn’t have his magatama on his person - he left it in his desk, next to her soul - she looks perfect, statuesque and glamorous, not a wrinkle or hair out of place. Perfect enough that she’s wholly unnatural, armored as she is in glamour to become something cold and stony. “I almost forgot everything.” Her hands, clutched tightly in her lap, unfold from around her mitamah, deep blue like a twilight sky. “I left myself a memo that should I find myself slipping, I was to call you for help - but I thought it was just that, slipping somewhat, and the most I would forget was your office address or phone number, not why it even was that you were the one who could help me at all.”

“And it wasn’t,” Phoenix says. 

She nods. “It was everything. About you, about my children, about everything from when I came to this office after the trial. And then everything before I was shot. I was left again with that darkness, and Borginia, and the two trials here.” The duration between losing her life, and finding her soul. 

“Do you think, because of the length of time you’ve not been around it?” Phoenix asks. “Or perhaps distance - but you’ve stayed in LA this whole time, right?”

She regards him for several second; blind though he knows she is, her Sight remains, and with that she can pinpoint his own Sighted eyes. Just hovering ominously above a necklace-shaped noose. A bit weird, no doubt, and Phoenix doesn’t have to doubt because Godot told him it was weird in a stronger term than weird. (Speaking of weird, there’s something thematically to contemplate that magic gone wrong, the fae crossed, so often deprives humans of their eyes, even when they are left with Sight. Ema would tell him that two isn’t a large enough sample size to draw any actual conclusions, scientifically, but for his purposes, Phoenix is going to ahead anyway.)

“Not quite,” she admits. “I did return to Borginia for a short time. I wondered, as I did, if I could uncover some connection or reason as to why it was there I was sent following my death.” Her tone is so casual, so calm, that it’s uncomfortable. This huge blank in her past, why she was there at all, and she speaks of it like it’s no concern to her. “And more than that, there were some last affairs of Lamiroir’s to put in order - Lamiroir, the duo, Machi and I, I mean. He can never return to Borginia, and so there is nothing more there for me.”

“Shit, yeah, the smuggling charges, that’s…” Machi, fifteen years old, functionally exiled from his homeland, sitting in jail knowing he won’t even have a foundation to build off of when he gets out, because Borginia’s draconian cocoon-smuggling laws are a sword over his head for the rest of his days. “I hope they didn’t give you any trouble over it.”

“Thankfully, they seemed satisfied that I truly had no part in what Machi and Daryan did,” she answers. “Or - considering that the country has been in an uproar since last year, with a very long debate about what we owe the rest of the world when something so dangerous could also save lives - perhaps the customs officers were very tired of talking about cocoons.” She smiles faintly. “Perhaps Borginia will have its own legal reforms, as you are striving for here.”

Nothing like a high-profile celebrity case to catch the public’s eye, if the lawyer on defense doesn’t fuck it all up.

“So it could have been the distance that you traveled that caused this problem,” Phoenix says. “Or the combination of time and distance, or just time.” And with magic, nothing ever easy. “But either of those could be dealt with,” he adds. “You could drop by the office more to - to refresh your memory. Could say hi to the kids, too.”

He means - or, if she had asked, he would have said he meant - she could say hello as Lamiroir. The kids helped her out by defending Machi, and they still, quite regularly, listen to her music. (The only place where their musical tastes converge, really.) But she decides what he means without asking, and with a curl of her lip, hiking her shoulders up, she says, “I will not reenter my children’s lives while there is a chance that I will only cause them further grief.”

She reaches up and runs her hand up along the desk, finding its edge to hold on to and pull herself up to her feet. For a moment Phoenix fears that she will leave the conversation on that note and walk out, but she seats herself delicately on his desk, her hands primly folded in her lap and one leg crossed over the other at the knee. As classically poised as she ever is, and Phoenix is glad she’s decided to stick around. Maybe Mia would stop her, but Phoenix knows he wouldn’t have gotten on his feet in time. Why did his bones stop being able to take any kind of pressure as soon as he hit thirty? Why do humans live at all; merely to suffer back pain?

But he doesn’t really like carrying on this conversation with Thalassa looking down on him, either, and with a groan he drags himself upright and sinks into Athena’s chair. “Perhaps placing my soul back in the hollow it was carved out of will simply drop me down into the grave I so narrowly escaped all those years ago,” she continues bitterly. “Or perhaps one day my memory will have regressed to the point that I will only be Lamiroir the amnesiac even while I sit with my soul held in my hands.”

“But we don’t really even know that will happen,” Phoenix says. “I very much doubt that will happen.”

“Do you,” she says curtly. “Pray tell, how? Even I do not know - could there have been some other spell cast by Magnifi to keep me alive, or was my soul’s separation all that was necessary? Can you tell me that? Can your friends know unless they have bought the souls of some unlucky damned humans and then watched them die, as an experiment?”

Pearl is the one researching how to set this right. Neither she, Maya, nor Iris knew when he first asked, but Phoenix isn’t the type to give up on someone, and Pearl has a vested interest in becoming as powerful as she possibly can to support Maya, so she won’t be giving up, either. As far as Phoenix knows, anyway, there have been no souls experimentally bartered about. And Pearl had agreed that if anyone was likely to know the nuances of these particular magics and how to help her, it would be them, that faraway hidden place that the Winter fae branched from thousands of years ago. She and Maya just - couldn’t divine where in the world that is, that one final Court they know nothing about, know no one who has ever been.

No one besides Thalassa.

“Fine,” he says. “Yes, we’re still trying to figure it out - yes, we don’t know that it won’t, but we don’t know that it will, either. And say, for argument’s sake” - because that’s what lawyers do, argue, and a smile twitches onto her lips - “that you were actually to die or have your memory wither away. That you think that may happen. Shouldn’t you meet your children now, tell them the truth, while you can? They deserve to know, at the very least, that they’re siblings.”

Her smile vanishes; her brows furrow. “Then if I am dead or in essence lost, you of course may tell them.”

Of course, she says, after she has not made that obvious. It would not have truly shocked him if she’s instead said that she would bury her childrens’ relationship with her. “And when they ask how I found out and how long I’ve known? Why I hid it for that long? Do you think they won’t hate me if they know that I knew you, and kept the chance for them to ever meet their mother from them? It’s not like I can lie to them about anything!” There’s nothing satisfying about making a point that shuts her up. Both sides of this argument are the the losing ones. “Do you think that either of them would simply not care about what happens to their mother?” 

Trucy is hurting, daily, ever since she learned the truth of her grandfather’s magic; she doesn’t hide it with a smile at home. She wants to be a stage magician because that’s the kind of magic that will only make people happy, will never hurt anyone. And Apollo’s never talked to Phoenix about it, but Trucy informs him that there were several foster homes in the picture, none ever stayed in the picture, and that Apollo always changes the subject (“Conspicuously,” she says, over dinner, no idea that she’s talking about her half-brother, “changes the subject. Polly’s really bad at lying.”) if she asks him about family.

“I do not know,” she says. “You are the one who knows them—”

“And I know they would care! That they’d want to know you!”

Thalassa goes quiet. She presses her fist against her mouth and closes her eyes, inhaling loudly and exhaling even louder. “This is precisely the trouble, that you are the one who knows them.” She lowers her hand, curls it tight around her other hand and her mitamah. “You, you reckless, stubborn, fool of a man! What may I expect from you next as you think you may - go about trying to set this right? To save me - do I wait for you to bargain away your own soul to your fae friends, so that they may better understand, because their help you ask of them has a price? Or do I let you search for the Summer Court and their reserves of knowledge - so that you may die there, as Jove did, seeking something from them that they will never offer you?”

“What was Jove looking for?” Phoenix asks. It’s a new piece of an older story, that at the end of last year (one of the few times they communicated between October and now) he’d asked for clarification on two points. First, if she knew where the Summer Court was, and when she shut him down she preempted his second and third questions, too: no, she would absolutely not tell him where the Summer Court is, and yes, Jove had died there. She hadn’t then said that he was looking for something. 

A sharp, searing pain bursts through his chest, launching his heart up into his throat where it pounds with the staccato rap of anxiety. It echoes in his head the same way, thumping at the forefront of his skull, not quite painful but nonetheless a weight all the way down behind his eyes, settling in with conflicted feelings; exhaustion wants them to close and burning wants them to leak. He wants to run, he wants to hide, there’s no fight in his instincts, only flight and freeze, and a powerful cold seeps down his skin, from across his shoulders down his arms. Shuddering, he crosses his arms together tightly, as though the gesture will form a physical barrier that will spare him from the ice in Thalassa’s eyes.

It’s her, he realizes, belatedly. It’s just glamour, just manipulated perception. Just, hell of a word to use when she’s decided that rather than project her stony detachment, beauty that refuses to show an emotion behind it, she’ll put the fear of god in him instead. Fear of her. “You’d rather I not ask that question,” he says. 

“Forgive me, I did not mean to be so emotional,” she says, and that would, genuinely, be comical. Her face had not changed at all, not a quiver at the corner of her mouth or between her brow. The only sign of her emotionality is what she made Phoenix feel. She squeezes her eyes shut, pressing her hands together in front of her mouth, taking a few silent seconds to recenter herself. The pressure in Phoenix’s chest loosens. She’d probably understand if he went to grab the magatama, stop her from doing this to him again. “But understand this, in everything of yourself that you risk for my sake, every time you dig for something new and dangerous - my children know you.” Implying that he’d have something else to want to research in the Summer Court, were she to say more. She’s not that good at deterring curiosity. “It would be much more painful to them if they were to lose you, than if I were to wither away.” 

Implied: the cynical weighing of lives to determine which one of them it’s better to save. Implied: we can’t both come through this in one piece. It’s the calculations that Rimes and Prosecutor Blackquill made and tried to toss on Phoenix: Sasha or the orca, you can’t save them both. 

And how, again, did that trial work out?

“Fortunately,” Phoenix says, “it’s far from guaranteed that those are our only two options. In fact, I’d say that it’s very unlikely.”

“You could have been a Gramarye,” Thalassa says. “Because there is one thing besides magic that the men of this name are skilled at, and that is pulling unearned confidence out of their asses.”

“Ah,” Phoenix says, with the vague sensation of being smacked in the face. “We could call it optimism. That might be nice.”

“Of course,” she says, not sarcastic but instead sounding pitying, and that might be worse. “I admire the faith that you hold, truly, I do.” Which is why she just called it overconfidence, no doubt. “But this way you stick your neck out for others means that it is your neck on the line.” She touches her fingertips to the base of her neck, her blue, blue eyes fixed on one of the few aspects of him that she can see. Funny, that; she doesn’t know what color his eyes are beneath the Sight or the way his hair refuses any and all attempts to flatten it or the shape of his face, but she knows the worst moments of his life, his greatest enemies, secrets that he never intends to share. On the other side, to balance their scales, he knew her before she remembered her. 

“I fear where it ends,” she says finally. “Because you and I are not lucky people, darling.”

Both so unlucky that it almost doubles around - that it’s frankly a miracle they’re alive. “Yeah,” he says. “But you don’t know me at all if you think I’m just going to give up on someone.”

[batwake]

Come In From The Cold - chapter three + epilogue

chapter one - chapter two

pairing: clint barton/bucky barnes

ao3 link

It rains.

It rains and it rains and it rains.

The first person they try to send in gets his neck broken. The second and third have their own guns turned against them. The fourth calls out a woman’s name as his head connects with the doorframe. They don’t send any more for a while after that.

There are no windows, but the rain can be heard loud and clear. Which means it’s close. To what, it’s unknown. The surface, if the cell is underground. Some sort of window, if it isn’t. Close to going crazy, close to escape, to a man dressed in purple, to a house.

The fifth person they send is not taken down so easily.

Dodge. Dodge. Punch, miss. Dive, go for the legs. Go for my legs, someone had said. Jump back up, punch when he isn’t expecting—

The man goes down, does not get back up.

The Winter Soldier sits on the floor, and does not feel like he has won.

-

When Clint was a kid, he and Barney used to play a game.

It was like hide and seek. When dad gets home from the bar, you hide. When you wake up at three am and hear him yelling at mom, you seek. Clint isn’t allowed to step between Barney and dad, but can between dad and mom. Don’t talk to dad unless he talks to you first.

The rules of the game went out the window once dad hit Clint’s head too hard and they couldn’t afford hearing aids. Barney stood up for Clint when he hadn’t before, talking to dad out of turn when Clint couldn’t hear him. Shoving him roughly and telling him make everything something to hit with. And hit them until they stop.

Barney hadn’t been a good brother.

But he wasn’t a bad one, either.

So Clint picks up the phone and calls.

~

It rains well into the night, long after Nick Fury has vacated the premises with the barest promise to let Clint know if they learn anything else.

Kate arrives sometime after three am, finding Clint sitting on the floor of his living room, all of the furniture pushed up against the far wall and the carpet rolled up. Clint isn’t dancing, though. Piles of paper sit on the floor around him, all from an overflowing file that Fury had left. It mostly incomprehensible, and what Clint can actually make out doesn’t make sense. There’s a form that appears to be from the army, the name James Buchanan Barnes at the top, and a photo showing a younger and clean cut Bucky dressed in fancy army greens. Another photo is attached to what looks like an essay written in Russian, and has Bucky in a more familiar form, with his long hair and unshaved face. He looks dead, almost, skin tinted blue as he sits in what can only be some sort of freezer. There are other photos, of brain scans and dog tags and chairs that look like the kind of thing an evil dentist would have. Clint can’t make sense of it all. Some pages are written in English and appear to be American, while others must be Russian. 

He hadn’t been able to explain much over the phone, but she looks understanding as she toes over the papers to kneel next to Clint, who is shaking. Kate wraps her arms around him delicately, not paying any attention to her soaking wet rain coat or the papers around them. Clint presses his face into her neck and lets himself cry, her soothing hands pressed to the back of his head. For a fleeting moment, he is reminded of his mother.

“It’ll all be okay,” Kate assures him, snapping Clint out of the fog he had been in. Kate is Kate, and never anyone else. She presses their foreheads together, her wet hair falling into Clint’s face. “We’ll figure it out.”

“We’re calling in the reinforcements,” someone says. Clint’s head snaps up, looking over Kate’s shoulder to see a tall, blonde man standing awkwardly in the doorway. He looks sheepishly between Clint and Kate, like he feels bad for ruining their moment. “Uh, sorry.”

It dawns on Clint exactly who this is. “Katie, were you ever going to tell me that you know Captain America?”

Kate’s hand, which has moved to Clint’s shoulder, tightens its grip. “I ran into him in the stairwell. So somehow he knows where you live.”

Captain America shuffles. He is not at all like the warrior Clint has been picturing. He seems awkward, and carries himself like he isn’t totally sure what to do with his body. Steve is what Bucky had called him. His best friend.

“Bucky told you,” Clint realizes after a beat of silence while Steve searches for his words.

“For emergencies!” Steve hurries out. “I think this is as emergency as it gets.”

Clint presses both of his hands to the wood floor, trying to steady himself. Kate lowers herself so she is sitting beside him, shrugging off her coat and tossing it to the couch a few feet away. She remains close to Clint, their knees and shoulders bumping. Her worried eyes connect with Clint’s as she cuts off Steve’s continued awkward and panicked rambling. “The Captain said that he can help.”

Somewhere between the stairs and Clint’s apartment Kate and Steve had realized who the other was and were planning something. “Reinforcements,” Clint echoes from earlier.

Steve presses forward until he stands at the edge of the circle of papers that Clint has made, glancing over them. He doesn’t look surprised at what he sees. It makes Clint wonder how much of this Steve understands. “We, some of the other fighters and I, can help.”

“I don’t understand.”

Steve crouches down and picks up a few of the papers, looking over them. “Has Bucky told you anything? About his past.”

Clint shakes his head.

“I don’t believe the government, or whoever has Bucky, is planning on killing him anytime soon.”

“But Fury said—”

“Fury is holding his cards close to his chest,” Steve says, passing a paper over to Kate, who holds it in front of both of them. The paper has clearly been kept over years, maybe decades, the edges folding in and the page turning brown instead of white. That’s not what surprises Clint, as most of the papers around them are older than Kate. The page contains a list of some sort, a straight line of black going down the page next to a seperate list of years. The only thing besides the years that isn’t blacked out is one name at the bottom. James Buchanan Barnes sits next to the years 1963-2010. “You’ve heard of the Winter Soldier.”

“That’s Bucky,” Kate says.

Clint looks up. “There were—”

“Others,” Steve finishes, nodding. “Before Bucky. But he was the best.”

“The best at what?” asks Kate, practically reading Clint’s mind.

“The Winter Soldier was an assassin for a nazi organization called Hydra,” Steve explains delicately, sorting through all of the papers closest to him. He appears to know what they all mean. “Hydra got its start in the second World War, and like an infection, it continued to grow even after. They lurked in the shadows and started to gain a cult-like following. Bucky joined the army in ‘61, and well, died during a mission in ‘62. But he hadn't, not in the way it counts. He had been taken into captivity by Hydra and became a brainwashed killing machine who didn’t even know his own name.”

“How is that possible—” Kate starts.

“Bucky hadn’t been the first Winter Soldier, but he was the last. Up until then no other Winter Soldier had acted positively to the serum, or finished the training, or died not too long after they started active duty. But Bucky lasted. For forty seven years.”

“Wait,” Clint chokes out, but Steve continues.

“When they found my body in 2008, I joined SHIELD as Captain America and became an agent. I helped take down Hydra, saved Bucky, and then SHIELD shut down, never to be heard from again.”

They must be wearing twin faces of shock. Kate speaks first while Clint tries not to hyperventilate. “You’re the real Captain America? The one from those war posters in the 60s?”

“Yes.”

Kate presses a hand to her forehead. “Jesus Christ.”

This explains everything that was odd about Bucky, Clint thinks. The arm, the languages. His off days where it’s like he accidentally entered factory reset mode. For nearly fifty years, Bucky had been nothing more than a machine, an asset. Now, he was out of his time, his brain working like a fork in a blender, and was in an underground fighting ring because he had no other options. I don’t even technically exist, he had said. And then, you don’t know what I’ve done.

And now he’s gone.

Clint, suddenly steady and sober, stares at Steve. “You said you don’t think they want to kill him. What does any of this have to do with that?”

Steve manages to hold his gaze. “Hydra wouldn’t kill their greatest weapon.”

Beside Clint, Kate startles, leaning forward. “You’re not saying—”

“I believe Hydra has infiltrated the government, and is very likely the root of the accords.”

~

Steve leaves at 5am and promises to return in a few hours. He doesn’t explain where he is going.

Clint has about as much faith in him as he does with Nick Fury at this point, but lets him leave all the same. What more could he lose?

He looks warily at Kate over his coffee. She looks more put together than he does, and that’s saying something. Her hair sits high on her head in a sloppy bun, likely still wet from the rain, and makeup is smeared down her face. It looks like she’s wearing pajamas, with sweatpants tucked into her rain boots and a t-shirt she probably stole from Clint.

“I’m sorry for dragging you into this,” Clint whispers after a long stretch of silence.

Kate frowns at him. “Don’t be sorry, dumbass.”

“I just—“

“You didn’t just anything, okay?” Kate reaches across the table and grabs his hand. “I’ve got your back and you’ve got mine, right Hawkeye?”

Clint sniffs, looking down at their hands. His chest tightens and constricts. “I don’t know what we’re getting into, here.” Steve talked of reinforcements and Hydra with some sort of optimism, like the fight isn’t over yet.

Like there’s still hope.

“It’s not like we did back then, either,” says Kate. “I didn’t expect to become your sidekick when you broke into my house.”

“You’re not my sidekick, Katie.”

She looks away, her gaze far off. “You got that right.”

More silence falls. Clint tries to keep his shit together, forcing himself to drink more coffee. Kate leaves the kitchen to take Lucky outside as the clock on the microwave approaches 6am.

She returns, hair once again wet and drooping sadly to one side of her head. Lucky shakes the water off right next to Clint, then wanders back into the living room to go back to sleep on the couch that is still pressed up against the wall. Clint is reading Barney’s letter again.

“I wouldn’t mind, you know.”

Clint looks up as she sits down, shedding her coat once more. Kate motions to the letter. “You could leave. I wouldn’t mind.”

He stares at her. “I would mind.” Clint couldn’t imagine a world where he didn’t see Katie every day. He needs her to tell him when he’s being stupid, or take care of him when he’s sick. No one makes mac n’ cheese quite like she does, or rolls their eyes so hard it must give them a headache. No one to hold his hand or hug him in exactly the right way or share his bed after long nights. The only other person who could ever come close won’t be coming home anytime soon.

“You deserve to be somewhere with Bucky where you can both exist. You have the opportunity, don’t you want to go before it’s too late?”

“It’s already too late.”

“You heard what Steve said!”

Clint rubs his face, releasing a breath that sends a shake through his body. The truth is that he doesn’t want to get his hopes up. What if they do something, something crazy and stupid and definitely illegal and Clint spends the rest of his sad life in a prison, or worse. All for a ghost.

But doesn’t Bucky deserve that? The fighting chance? The what if?

Clint doesn’t even know how long it’s been since Bucky was taken into custody. Had Fury waited? Or was Clint the first to get the news? There were too many variables, none of it made sense—

“What if I don’t deserve it?” asks Clint after a while. Kate’s face softens as she lifts herself from the chair and rounds the table, wrapping her arms around Clint’s shoulders.

“You, Clint Barton,” she whispers to his hair, “deserve a happy ending most of all.”

~

By 11am, Steve still has not returned. Clint paces worriedly around the apartment, takes two showers, digs through the duffel bag holding all of their supplies, takes out his hearing aids, and sits stock still in the middle of all of Bucky’s papers. Knowing what he now knows about the Winter Soldier, some things click into place. There’s a pack of papers connected by a ring at the corner that’s just full of names and dates, a few censored here and there. Victims, Clint realizes, enemies of Hydra that the Winter Soldier targeted. There are thousands of names.

Clint’s stomach stirs uncomfortably. He sets the packet down and moves to stand, feeling ready for this third shower, when Kate, sitting on the couch, looks over at the front door. Clint follows her gaze, but doesn’t see anything. He looks back over at her as she signs wait, her palms up towards her and fingers wiggling. She is up and moving to the door before Clint can respond.

As she opens the door Clint lets himself slide back onto the floor, his feet tucked underneath him. Kate is stepping back and letting Steve in quickly, followed by two women. Kate is talking hurriedly to them, her mouth moving too quickly to read and her eyes looking between their new arrivals. Clint looks back down at the papers, too tired to get up and sort things out.

A pillow hits the side of his head. When he looks up, Kate is looking at him expectantly, Steve looks awkward, and the women are hard to read. Tall dark and beautiful has her arms folded and a blank expression on her face. The second, with defined muscles and big curly hair, looks like she’s judging Clint. Kate, looking small between the two women, runs her pointer finger across her forehead then places her right hand over her left and wiggles her fingers. After a pause and a glance to the second woman, she slots her fingers together and keeps her thumbs pointed up, moving her hands around in a circle.

Ah. So Steve really had called in the reinforcements, whatever that means. Clint was having a hard time keeping up.

The Black Widow says something, and Miss America begins to respond, but Kate cuts her off and starts to rattle on about whatever it is.

Clint lets out a long exhale, stands, carefully steps over all of the papers, pushes past Steve, heading into the bathroom.

His head hurts.

~

His heart hurts.

This is what’s on his mind after the third shower, staring at his reflection in the cracked mirror. His blonde hair is disheveled despite being fresh from a shower, and his eyes are red and rimmed with heavy bags. It’s been less than twenty four hour since he’s seen Fury, but it feels like several lifetimes. From finding out that your sort-of boyfriend is as good as dead, to hearing that he used to work for a nazi organization and grew up in the 50s, everything was starting to pile up on Clint’s shoulders.

Clint was starting to feel very, very overwhelmed.

There was hope, supposedly, for Bucky. Steve seemed to think so.

What had Barney said, when they were kids?

Make everything something to hit with, and hit them until they stop.

Clint lets out a long sigh, slipping in his hearing aids and pulling on a t-shirt and sweatpants that don’t fit him right, but are better than nothing.

“Alright,” Clint says as he enter the kitchen. Kate pauses mid coffee pour, her eyebrows raising and disappearing behind her bangs. She scrambles as the mug overflows and spills onto the table, swearing loudly. “How are we doing this?”

-

It can’t tell exactly how much time passes.

Sometimes they say the words, sometimes they don’t.

Either way, everything is foggy. It fades in and out, having lost the energy to fight long ago. There are flashes of, of things, of people and places and sounds. A dark and old apartment filled with nothing except a mattress and some boxes fades into a pleasant living room with pictures of fuzzy faces and a tv that just shows static, a low voice saying something about dancing and arrows and haircuts.

It shakes its head, trying to clear its brain of the fog, the concrete floor coming into focus for a moment underneath it before turning into an ugly green carpet that smells like rosemary and home. This time a woman’s voice is singing something high and sweet that makes it long to crawl into her arms and fall asleep.

It screams, loud enough that it pulls it out of the mist, banging the metal fist onto the floor. It screams so loud that it is sure someone will come to shut it up, to put a bullet in its head to get it over with.

But no one does.

~

There is a time when they try to activate The Asset, but when they say the words, all it can do is bring two fingers to its chin and make a motion pulling them down and away from its face until they inject something that forces it back into the fog.

~

Bucky thinks a lot about the choices he’s made up to this point.

There was a walk home, from, somewhere, he doesn’t remember. An alleyway, a man with a badge and a uniform and a gun that didn’t fire real bullets. Someone in a pristine lab coat saying the words, but, no, that doesn’t make sense, Hydra went down in—

You spend the better part of your life double and triple checking locks, looking underneath beds, taking the long way home, and obsessively honing your self defence skills, and where does that get you?

He’s clearly in a cell of some sort, but whether or not this is the sort of treatment that enhanced people usually get upon arrest is unclear. Instead of bars there is a heavy metal door, and there is no window or bed. All he has is the light in the ceiling and the occasional grunt that comes through the door. He’s pretty sure he had killed the first few people they sent in, but he had been in full Winter Soldier mode, so he’s not totally sure. Whoever had activated him hadn’t known how to turn it off, so he spent some time in an odd state of limbo where he was activated with no purpose, turning him into a foggy mess that didn’t know who to kill or who to trust. Eventually he ran out of steam and they started trying different things on him, like saying the code words and injecting him with something that makes him become loose and pliant, or, once, knocks him straight out.

He wishes they’d just kill him already. Isn’t that what they do to enhanced anyway?

Whoever is running this operation clearly doesn’t understand how the Winter Soldier works. They’re trying to figure that out, what gets him going and what stops it, and just what his limits are. Why had he been arrested just to become a test subject, left to practically rot away in this fucking cell? Or why hasn’t he been killed?

Bucky thumps his head uselessly against the door. He wonders if anyone outside it can hear him.

He shouldn’t have joined the fucking army.

-

Natasha Romanov takes her coffee black. America Chavez likes hers with only a little milk and cinnamon. Kate, per usual, makes hers with lots of milk and sugar. Steve Rogers does not drink coffee, but somehow finds bags of tea hidden in Clint’s cupboards and drinks that instead.

They all manage to fit in Clint’s kitchen. Kate, America, Steve, and Natasha at the table and Clint on the counter, Lucky underneath the table at Kate’s feet. They’re going on thirty hours of whatever it is they’re doing, talking, planning, something. They walk back and forth between the kitchen and the living room every once in a while, looking for something, anything, they can use to figure out exactly what it is that they’re going to do.

Steve explains that he had to visit the facility and steal some files, which is how he figured out how to contact Natasha and America.

“Fury doesn’t know you’re here?” asks Kate.

He takes a long sip of his tea and shakes his head. Steve looks over at Clint on the counter, then says, “I worry that he wouldn’t think it would be worth it. This isn’t the first fighter that’s been arrested, and it will hardly be the last.”

Clint forces himself to look up at the ceiling rather than at Steve’s sad face. Seventy five arrow holes in the kitchen, and twenty two are on the ceiling. He counts them now, each one a tap on the counter.

One, two, three, four…

“There’s not much we can do without the resources at the facility,” Natasha points out. “The combined forces of Stark’s tech and Fury’s information would do us wonders.”

America wanders out of her chair, bringing her mug with her into the living room. “I don’t get how Fury got our information. I certainly didn’t give it to him.” She moves along the edge of papers that Clint has created. They’ve hardly made a dent, even if they’ve already moved a decent amount of papers into the room. Pages that appear to be health updates with locations blacked out, or army files that declare Sergeant James Barnes KIA.

“Why don’t we just get in and get into Stark’s shit then?” Kate keeps her eyes on America through the doorway, her hands nervously fiddling with her own mug.

...fifteen, sixteen, seventeen...

“You’ve seen the security at the damn place, it’s nearly impossible to get in without being detected, much less get in and get out undetected,” Natasha says plainly, as if it’s obvious.

...nineteen, twenty, twenty one…

“There are twenty two points of entry, fifteen exits,” America calls from the living room. “I don’t see why we can’t shut a few down for a little while.”

Clint looks away from the ceiling, over at Kate. She’s looking back at him, and without missing a beat, raises a hand to point at him, then moves her hand down away from her chin. He just nods, hopping off the counter and moving into the living room, where America is crouched over one of the pages.

“There’s nothing we can do that Stark wouldn’t notice immediately,” says Steve.

There’s a paper that America is holding. Every single word is censored, except for a single photo in the top right corner of an empty street.

“Why don’t we just ask him?”

Clint can practically hear all of the heads turning towards him. Steve starts, “Ask—”

“Stark.”

Heavy silence. Lucky’s panting fills it. Then,

“That could—”

“He wouldn’t—”

Steve and Natasha start to talk over each other, Steve adamantly refusing to believe that Tony would help while Natasha makes a case for Clint. America looks over at Clint and gives him a lopsided smile. “They’ll never give in to each other, they’re both too stubborn.”

Clint thinks back to the time he watched Captain America tapout during a fight with Black Widow. “I’m not so sure.”

The paper America was holding lands back on top of something about a man named Helmut Zemo. Clint’s looked at it already, anyway.

“Stark seems like the type of guy who would get a kick out of helping our wayward cause,” Clint continues, moving back into the kitchen and taking the seat that America has abandoned. He takes a drink from Kate’s cup even if he prefers his coffee black. He’s starting to feel like he needs a nap. A nap and a house far, far away from Bed Stuy. “So, why don’t we just ask him. Walk right up to that tower of his, knock on the door, and ask.”

Waving a hand, Kate comes to his defense. “He has a point.”

Natasha raises her eyebrows smugly at Steve. He looks at her for a long minute, some sort of internal turmoil, before he dips his head and says, “fine.”

From inside the living room, America tosses a fist in the air. “Now we’re cooking.”

And with that, Clint stands, leaving the kitchen, walking through the living room, and retreating to his lonely room. He doesn’t need to look to know Lucky has followed, jumping onto the bed and looking up at Clint sadly, as if he is wondering where their third party is.

Clint crouches at the edge of the bed where Lucky lies, his one eye trained on Clint. He runs a hand through Lucky’s fur and rubs behind his ear, his tongue falling out the side of his mouth with a low huff. “I miss him, too,” Clint whispers. He feels like crying but can’t, his body tired of it. Lucky sits up enough press his nose into Clint’s eye, then his tongue against his cheek, as if sensing the imaginary tears that are falling. “We’ll get him back,” Clint promises, to Lucky and to himself, petting the dog once more before removing his hearing aids and crawling into bed, wondering if it truly smells like Bucky, or if he is imagining it.

When Kate slips in beside him, sometime later, Clint realizes that he couldn’t live without Bucky as much as he could not live without Kate.

~

Clint is sitting on a roof somewhere, a younger, clean cut Bucky Barnes beside him. His hair is cut to army regulation but still styled immaculately, and is donned in the same fancy greens Clint had seen in the picture earlier, but the sniper rifle in his hands suggests that he’s in combat . When Clint looks down he sees his bow in his hands, a single arrow sitting innocently on the ledge of the building that they are on.

There’s a cityscape in front of them, but it fades in and out, too hard to make out any details.

“Where are we?” asks Clint, his voice sounding muted and warbled, even in his own head. The young Bucky beside him looks through the scope on his rifle.

“A mission, of course.” He certainly sounds like the Bucky that Clint knows, but there is a smirk in his voice, a hint of playfulness and youth. “Didn’t you read my file?”

Clint startles, grabbing the arrow from the ledge and looking over the edge of the building. Something finally comes into focus, a single door on a building across the street. There are no people on the foggy streets, no one to enter the building and no one to leave it. When Clint looks over at Bucky, he is no longer looking through the rifle and is instead sitting back, his feet kicked up with his arms raised behind his head, all too relaxed.

“A mission,” Clint repeats. With one arrow? “I don’t—”

“Hush,” says Bucky suddenly, sitting up and looking through the scope. Clint looks too, then stands suddenly, shocked at what he sees.

Bucky, the version that Clint knows with long hair and a scruffy face and a metal arm, walks out of the building. He’s nearly moving in slow motion, face blank as he moves forward. He’s dressed all in black, with weapons strapped across his body, and Clint realizes that he’s looking at the Winter Soldier.

Young Bucky pulls Clint back down by his sleeve. “You’ll blow our cover,” he hisses, face twisted into something angry and unrecognizable. “Aren’t you going to take the shot?”

Clint means to grab at Young Bucky’s shoulder, but his hand goes right through him. “I can’t,” Clint pleads, looking into the cold blue eyes of the young man that Clint doesn’t know at all. “He’s still in there.” Bucky rolls his eyes, huffing and lifting his rifle.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” he mutters, looking down the scope just for a moment before pulling the trigger.

There is a shot that rings through the air and Clint shouts, throwing out his arm, but he is falling suddenly, over the edge and away from the Bucky that Clint doesn’t know.

He wakes up before he can hit the ground.

~

For a moment Clint just feels someone beside him, and wonders if the last day and a half have been a dream. But Kate’s hair is longer and darker than Bucky’s, splayed out on the pillow beside her head. Lucky is sitting patiently by the door, looking back and forth between the bed and the door, his mouth hanging open.

Clint lets out a long breath that he didn’t know he had been holding, his heart beat steadying into something that makes it easier for him to set his feet on the carpet, put his hearing aids in, and open the door. It’s only once Lucky is rushing out of the bedroom and to the front door that Clint notices the sound of incessant knocking.

It’s hard to say how much time has passed since Clint abandoned the others for his bedroom, but sunlight is spilling through the curtains when it had been dark when he fell asleep, so something tells him it hasn’t been an absurdly long time. Natasha and America being sprawled over the furniture that's crowded together adds to the theory. Steve is nowhere to be seen.

“Wha—”

Tony Stark is already rambling as he steps through the open door and around Clint. “About damn time,” Tony is saying, carrying a cardboard box filled with electronics, “I’ve been knocking for, what, ten minutes?”

“You know I’m deaf right—”

“And at this time of day, no less” he continues, stepping into the kitchen and setting the box on the table. “This isn’t usually the sort of thing I’d do but Stars and Stripes put on his puppy face begged for my assistance.”

Clint stares at Tony. He hadn’t really expected him to be on their side, much less randomly show up to his apartment. “Where’s Steve?” asks Clint skeptically.

Tony waves a hand, pulling out a device that looks like a miniature satellite. “Has to check in with some official government people every morning since he’s on the enhanced list.”

“So that's where he went yesterday morning. He wasn’t just getting…” Clint pauses, looking awkwardly at Tony. “Things.”

“I am well aware that the star spangled man with a plan snuck into the facility.” Clint doesn’t get the reference, but Tony is continuing before he can even ask. “That man doesn’t have an ounce of stealth in that ridiculous body.”

The sound of Tony taking everything out of the box and rambling on about Steve taking what doesn’t belong to him finally wake someone else up, a disheveled Natasha stepping into the kitchen. She takes one look at Stark, heaves a long sigh, then moves to the counter to begin making more coffee. “You miss me, Miss Romanov?” Tony says, raising his eyebrows at her back. Clint takes the seat next to Tony, glancing over all of the equipment he has taken out. Several computers, the thing that’s shaped like a satellite, and a pile of things that just look like junk to Clint.

“Do you think you can find him?” asks Clint.

Shrugging, Tony grabs a cord from one of the computers and reaches around Natasha to plug it in next to the coffee machine. She glares at him as he responds, “Not sure. We tried to put a tracker in that arm of his forever ago, but he destroyed it as soon as he was out of my sight. He would never be found if he didn’t want to.”

Clint thinks back to that first night they met, when he had found one of the fifteen exits from the facility and Bucky had stopped to question him. They had fumbled around each other, neither one of them knowing exactly what to do. Bucky had been pissed off and worried that Clint was going to turn him in, and Clint had been afraid and flustered.

That was months ago.

Look at us now, Clint thinks, rubbing his forehead and glancing over at Tony. Nothing remains of Bucky in the apartment, nothing except that stupid fucking file. No pictures, because Bucky refused to take them. No notes, no traces, nothing to be found, just like Tony says.

“Is it a lost cause?”

Stark looks up, studying Clint. He takes him in, the whole mess of him. Clint can’t tell if there is pity hidden in his gaze.

“Be honest,” continues Clint.

He rubs his facial hair, glancing back down at his unfinished computer setup, then up at the ceiling, before Tony finally settles on Clint again. Over his shoulder, Natasha’s eyes flick around Tony’s person, the shoulders, his hands and feet, analyzing his body language. Finally, Tony says, “I think I can find him. Whether or not he’ll be sane isn’t something I can guarantee.”

That’s enough for Clint. Hope, something he had been trying to shove away, starts to bubble in his chest. Tony Stark, of all people, was giving him hope.

Clint leans back in his chair, letting the feeling settle and his shoulders loosen. Tony was going to find Bucky, they were going to come up with a plan. And then what?

Barney didn’t answer the phone when Clint called hours ago, and had not called back. Clint hadn’t left a message, either, but he didn’t even know what to say. There was promise of a house, a haven far away from New York. Big open fields for Lucky, places for targets for him and Kate. A home for Bucky where he would never have to worry about what may be hiding around the corner. “I’ll be right back,” Clint mutters while Tony takes a breath from talking to Natasha as she sits down. He can feel her careful gaze on him as he reenters the living room and goes back into his bedroom.

Kate is still asleep. He doesn’t bother waking her as he sits on the edge of the bed, digging around the blankets and looking for his cell phone. It’s nearly dead, so he plugs it into the wall and leans in close as he punches in the numbers he has memorized at this point.

It rings for a few seconds. Clint’s leg bounces nervously.

“Y’ello?”

Pause. Clint didn’t think he’d get this far.

“Barney?”

“...Clint?”

He has to mentally slap himself. “Yeah, yeah it’s me. I called earlier, but…”

“Jesus Christ Clint, what time is it over there?”

Clint glances at the clock. 6:38am. “Early. Been a long few days.”

There’s some noise on the other side of the phone, like a gust of wind is blowing past Barney. It’s loud, enough so that it makes Clint pull his ear away from the phone for a moment.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” says Barney. He doesn’t sound sorry, but continues, “so are you calling me this early in the morning just to say hi?”

Clint rolls his eyes. “You know why I’m calling.”

“No need to get snarky. You’re talking to your brother for the first time in years and this is the thanks I get?”

“Barney, please. I told you I’ve had a long few days.”

Another stretch of silence. More wind hits Barney’s phone, but nothing loud enough to hurt. He finally says, “well, it’s like I said. It’s yours if you want it.”

He wants it. So desperately, so much that he can feel it in his bones. Clint grabs a fistful of the blanket and closes his eyes, trying to ground himself. If they can just get Bucky, Stark could figure out how to get them there—

“I need some details, first.”

“Three bedrooms, two baths, two floors. A basement for… storage, if you need that. A barn full of junk. All furnished, mostly old stuff that we found for sale around the area. In Ireland, on land built for farming, though I can’t imagine that interests you or your lady.”

Clint looks over at where Kate is on the bed, one arm tossed over her eyes and the other outstretched towards him. He delicately picks up her hand as Barney tells him all about the place they could run away to. She doesn’t want that, he recalls, and sucks in a tight breath. He, Bucky, and Lucky, in a farmhouse in Ireland, both of them away from their best friends.

“She won’t be coming,” says Clint, can practically feel the sadness dripping in his voice. She has a life here, in school, with friends and America Chavez.

“Bad breakup making you wanna run away?”

“What? No! She’s my best friend, and she has a life outside of me.”

“Doesn’t matter to me. So, I’ll mail you the address—”

“There’s not really time for that. If this all goes well, I’ll be there in a few days.”

Another sound on Barney’s end, not wind this time, and not very loud. Clint suspects that Barney accidentally knocked something over. “What the fuck are you getting yourself into?”

“I’ll explain another time.”

“Does this have anything to do with work?”

“No. Well, maybe. In a roundabout way.”

Barney sounds a little out of breath, his voice louder and probably closer to the receiver. “I swear to God, Clint, be careful.” That wasn’t how he expected the sentence to end, but Barney is continuing before Clint can get a word in. “I’m a shitty brother but that doesn't mean I want you dead. Do you know what you’re getting into?”

“Careful, Barn.”

“Do you?” Barney says, more forceful this time. 

Does he? Clint doesn’t know. Tony’s working on locating Bucky. Where they go from there is to be determined. He’s holding on to that hope, that they can figure this out, and maybe live to tell the tale. “It’s like, ah, hide and seek,” Clint breathes. “We’re seeking, right now. Hiding is... well, it’s somewhere down the line.”

For as stupid as Clint once considered Barney, he seems to understand. “Don’t hit so hard that it becomes an issue.”

“I’m going to try not to.”

After a few seconds, Barney questions, “is it worth it, Clint?”

Clint answers without hesitation. “Yes.”

“Well then, I’ll take your word for it. You got an email or something? I can figure out how to get that address to you without… You know.”

He lists off an email that he stopped checking years ago, the hope that had been sitting in his chest shifting into something more like desire. Clint is no longer just hoping for the best— action is settling into his bones and muscles and blood, ready to do this, whatever this is.

“I gotta go, Clint.”

“Alright.”

Barney hesitates, says, “good luck,” and hangs up.

That checks out with how he remembers Barney. Clint exhales, setting his phone on the nightstand and shifting so he lies next to Kate. Her arm is resting across her chest and her eyes are open, trained on the ceiling. Their hands are still linked. His hands are big and scarred, while hers are thin and delicate, the nails painted purple.

“Did you hear very much?”

Kate stares up at the ceiling, waving a hand. “A little.” She sniffs, finally rolling onto her side to look at him. “Enough.”

The silence that settles between them is comfortable, but can hardly be considered silence. Tony can be heard talking in the other room, occasionally America, apparently awake, or Natasha butting in. 

“I’ll miss you,” Kate says lightly, blue eyes searching Clint’s face.

“I’m not…” Clint means to finish with leaving yet, but he chokes on his words. Clearing his throat and knocking their foreheads together, he whispers instead, “I don’t want to leave you.”

“You’re running away from this stupid country with the guy you’re head over heels for, you shouldn’t be thinking of me.” Her voice doesn’t waver as she says it, but for a moment Clint can see through the chinks in her well built armour, the way her eyes flicker with worry and her lips pressing firmly together.

“You know I love you, right Katie?” It’s not the first time he’s ever said it, not by a long shot, but he feels the need to remind her, suddenly.

Kate reaches forward with her left hand, the one not holding Clint’s, brushing back his hair with a delicate touch. “If you love something, let it go, right?”

Clint scoffs through a smile, pressing his hand into her face and twisting so he’s on his back, looking up at the ceiling. Kate shifts beside him, leaning her head on his shoulder. Their hands do not separate even once.

Sixteen arrow holes in the ceiling. He doesn’t bother counting them.

“For what it’s worth, I love you too.”

It’s worth everything.

He has nothing to say to that, so they slip into quiet once more. Clint thinks of the Bucky shaped hole in his heart, of the love that was, is, blossoming there, and where they will go after this whole thing blows over, assuming it does. When they find where Bucky is being kept, when they come up with a plan, when they break him out of there, when, when, when…

Just as Clint starts to think in if, there is a knock at the door. Kate lifts up her head, most of her hair stuck to the side of her face. Clint busies himself with pulling the hairs away carefully as Kate calls, “what?”

Steve says something behind the door that is muffled enough for Clint not to catch it, but Kate does. She presses her hand to her forehead and closes her eyes, shouting back, “alright, we’ll be back out in a second.” Clint follows when she sits up, pressing her mouth to the back of Clint’s hand. “Stark got everything set up, time to get to work.”

Clint just nods, watching as she slips out of bed, their hands coming apart at long last. Their fingers fall away from each other without any attention or fanfare. Clint wonders if maybe there should have been.

~

They all look like shit, Clint notes once they gather in the kitchen. Tony takes up most of the table space, so Kate, Natasha, and America sit further back in their chairs with matching perplexed looks, coffee cups held close to their chests. Steve leans in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, letting Clint take a spot on the counter. What surface Tony hasn’t taken over is covered in papers that Tony and Steve have deemed important, or, rather, readable, snippets of information slipping through the cracks here and there.

They’re going to run out of coffee soon.

“If your theory is true, that Hydra is running the government and started the accords, that still doesn’t tell us where they could have a base.” Tony rubs his forehead, looking over his computer at Steve. “Who's to say they’re not just keeping him in a police station?”

“They wouldn’t do that, not with…” A dangerous weapon. “Not with Bucky.”

“It’s been two days,” Natasha points out, “why are we assuming they’re even in this country?”

“Hydra wouldn’t risk getting him out of the country, not yet at least,” Steve swears, looking confident.

Clint can feel his heart beat in his ears. “It’s not like the police have a missing persons case on their hands,” he says, bitterly. “No one except us knew he existed.”

“And Hydra, apparently,” America interjects, looking pointedly at Steve from behind her mug. “We’re working off a lot of assumptions, maybe he’s just arrested and sitting in a jail somewhere?”

“That’s what Fury seemed to think,” Clint recalls. Fury had said something about death’s row and government custody. At that point, Bucky is as good as dead.

He didn’t know what was worse— the thought of Bucky arrested, a death sentence awaiting him, or having Hydra in control, turning him back into the Winter Soldier.  

“What I don’t understand,” says Kate, “is why Hydra, an organization that you supposedly brought down,” she points at Steve, not unacccusingly but not mean either, “suddenly reappears ten years later with a personal vendetta out for enhanced people.”

Steve opens his mouth, but Natasha cuts in before he can say anything. “‘Cut off one head, two more will take its place’,” she recites, ignoring everyone’s watchful gaze. “That’s Hydra’s slogan. They’re based on the principle that it’s impossible to get rid of them all.”

“Like the worst case of bedbugs you’ve ever seen,” replies Tony. Clint can’t tell how seriously he’s taking the situation.

Natasha twists in her chair to look at Steve, ignoring Tony’s comment. “Ten years ago, you wiped out most of Hydra, when you pulled Bucky out of the brainwashing. A few years later, the accords are put in place, and SHIELD, the government organization in charge of handling the enhanced, whose poster boy is their worst enemy, and his best friend is Hydra’s greatest weapon, goes down with the ship. Hydra, who has infiltrated our government, uses the accords to start taking down its greatest threats.”

“But that’s me,” Steve says, visibly confused. “I was just put on the watch list, not put in a prison or killed like they do with nearly everyone else.”

The pieces start to fall into place in Clint’s brain. “They didn’t execute or imprison Steve because they knew that he would know Bucky’s whereabouts.”

Tony stops typing, sitting straight and stock still as he stares at Clint. “Are you saying—”

“Bucky is the reason for the accords.” Clint’s voice sounds so quiet in his own head that he’s not sure anyone else hears it. There is a moment, just a millisecond for the pin to drop. Everyone runs the revelation over in their heads, and then, movement. Steve presses a hand to his face and promptly turns away and out of the room. Natasha manages to find a spot on the table for his coffee, moving swiftly after him. Tony leans back in his chair, a perplexed look gracing his features, speechless for maybe the first time ever. America presses her fingers to her temples and squeezes her eyes shut. Kate, her mouth hanging open, looks worriedly at Clint.

Clint cannot find it within himself to feel anything.

~

“You call that a shot?” Bucky laughs, leaning over the ledge to look down at the busy street. A group of pigeons investigate the apple slice that Clint just threw at them, pecking at it incessantly.

“Oh please, that was perfect and you know it.” Clint reaches for the plate of sliced apples that sits on the ground between them, grabbing and slipping one into his mouth this time, instead of down onto the street for the pigeons. “I’d like to see you do better.”

Bucky raises his eyebrows and gives Clint a sly smirk. “Pick a target, baby, I’ll hit it every time.”

The smirk slips into a warm laugh as Clint shoves at his shoulder. “Shut up.” His teasing tone can’t hide the pink of his cheeks. Clint doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to that, to Bucky. Still, he leans forward and to the side a little, enough to press their shoulders together. “That brick, the one that’s lighter than all the other ones.” Clint points to the building next door, stretching his arm across Bucky’s body. Sure enough, there is a pink brick amongst dark red ones. “Think you could hit that with your eyes closed?”

A scoff slips out of Bucky’s mouth, close to Clint’s ear. They’re nearly on top of each other, now, comfortable and knowing. “Obviously.”

Bucky grabs one of the apple slices, breaking it in half. He holds the piece in his right hand, shifting his shoulder back and raising his arm. Clint, on his left side, hovers close, pressing his mouth to the soft bit of skin behind Bucky’s ear. He stills, arm still in the air but not stiff like he’s tense. Just unmoving.

“Aren’t you going to take the shot?” Clint teases.

Their lips connect in a second, Bucky’s arm lowering and wrapping around Clint’s neck, placing him nicely in the crook of his elbow. “I can’t,” Bucky jokes, pulling away for a moment to look into Clint’s eyes. Blue meets blue, warm and inviting. “Not with you there, asshole.”

They both taste like apples, but that’s no surprise, mouths slipping together once again. “Fine, I’ll do it,” says Clint between their breaths, left hand moving up to Bucky’s hand that’s still holding the apple piece, reaching around him and tossing the slice without bothering to look. Bucky turns his head just as the apple connects with the pink brick and falls into a garbage can below.

Bucky laughs, something high and sweet, his hand at the back of Clint’s neck pressing into his hair and bringing their mouths together once more. Clint loses himself in Bucky’s touch, in the warm hand on the back of his head and the nudge of his nose against Clint’s cheek. He throws an arm out, holding onto the ledge of the building so he does not slip any further into Bucky than he already has.

Clint would not mind hitting the ground, if this is what falling feels like.

~

New York feels oddly quiet and lonely.

It’s nearing 8am, meaning the streets will start to get busy as people begin their commute to work, but for now, there isn’t much more than a dozen cars on the street at a time and one or two people leaving buildings. 

Clint rests his elbows on the ledge, both of his legs tucked up underneath him. The rain stopped sometime while he was asleep, he thinks, leaving behind a cloudy sky and the murky sort of heat that warns of the summer to come. Nothing like summer in Bed Stuy, Clint thinks bitterly, when the air conditioning in his apartment doesn’t work and all the tenants of the building gather up here on the roof to grill food and pretend that the world isn’t falling apart around them.

Maybe he’s just being pessimistic.

He groans, loudly enough to startle a pigeon that had settled a few feet away, digging the palms of his hands into his eyes so hard he sees white spots. Clint should have known that it was too good to last. He shouldn’t have gotten so attached, he shouldn’t have kissed him, he shouldn’t have taken Bucky out for a beer, he shouldn’t have let Kate take him to the Initiative. There were so many moments, so many times where if it had stopped, they would not be where they are now. Bucky would not be in the hands of Hydra, or the government, or whoever, and Clint would not be sitting by himself on the roof of his building, thinking about this.

Yet, he wouldn’t take any of it back. Every touch, every kiss, was worth it.

“God,” Clint mutters, pulling his hands away from his face and staring up at the grey clouds, squinting and focusing on the flickering spots that remain. “This is the worst.”

“I’m sorry,” calls someone. Clint whips around, one hand going to touch a hearing aid as he stares at Steve.

“Not very many people can sneak up on me,” he says bitterly, thinking of how often Bucky did and turning back to look over the ledge. Steve must take that as an invitation to approach, stopping next to Clint but not sitting down. “Stark said you’re not stealthy.”

“Tony doesn’t know me very well.”

Clint looks up and over at Steve, raising his eyebrows. Steve returns the gaze, no pity in his eyes. He repeats, “I’m sorry.”

Sniffing, Clint wipes at his face and averts his eyes. “You lost him too.”

Steve apparently has nothing to say to that, moving on. “He doesn’t like to talk about you, you know.” Clint doesn’t. “You’re like something sacred to him.”

He’s careful with his words, saying doesn’t instead of didn’t, clinging to hope like Clint clings to their memories. Clint doesn’t know what to say to him, so lets his words settle in his brain. Something sacred. His mouth tastes like apples.

“But, he had said that you guys were planning on… running away together.”

Clint scoffs. Hopeful is the word that comes to mind. They were hopeful, that they’d figure out a way to get Bucky out of the country and to Barney’s house. Hopeful and blissfully falling in love.

The ground doesn’t feel so nice.

“And Kate had said, that you’d do it, if you figured out how.”

So that’s where he’s going with this.

Clint rubs his face and speaks into his hands instead of Steve. “I don’t know how much faith I have in myself to get us there.”

“You’re not alone in this. Tony’s going to track him down, America, Nat, and I are some of the best hand to hand fighters in the Initiative that aren’t Bucky, and, well, you know Kate. You don’t need me to tell you that she has your six.”

When Clint looks over at Steve once more, his hand is extended. “What about you?” Clint asks, once he has had a moment to stare at the hand. “We make it out of this, we get Bucky and I to Europe. What do the rest of you guys do?”

Steve doesn’t lower his hand, but looks pensive before he answers. “Take down a regime, expose Hydra for everything that they are and what they’ve done to this country. Maybe go on vacation.”

With that, Clint take’s Steve’s hand, pulling himself up until they’re eye to eye. “I think we’ve earned one, Captain.”

~

It takes three days.

Clint receives an email on the second day from a user that is just a string of letters and numbers, the contents of the email just names of books, which Clint pieces together to be the coordinates for the house once he searches for them online and does some digging. Tony stays in the apartment for the most part, sending Kate or America to his tower to get something if he needs it. Steve leaves every morning and always returns around noon, ready to help Clint and Natasha sort through all of Bucky’s files. One night, the same day Barney emails, the three fighters and Tony have to go to the facility to participate in the Initiative, returning battered and bruised but with duffels and backpacks containing tactical gear, jumping back into it without another word. They found a system that works, all the way up until the point that Stark makes the call. 

Apparently Tony had been digging through the government’s data files, how he got access to those Clint doesn’t know, when he had found a secure folder hidden in another series of folders. Natasha had left that morning with Steve, so they aren’t around when Tony finally says, “I think I found it.”

America, who was sitting beside Stark, bolts up and out of her chair so quickly that she becomes a blur of red, white, and blue, the papers on the counter going flying. Clint scrambles to catch them as Kate hurries over to Tony as well. “Found what,” America says, leaning over Tony’s shoulder to look at the screen.

“Evidence of Hydra in the United States government, what do you think?” Tony looks up and over the computer to focus on Clint, who has very purposefully been keeping his movements to fix the papers on the counter controlled and calm. “If I can get into this, I can figure out where he is, or find someone who does, at least.”

Slowly, Clint meets his gaze. “Are you one hundred percent positive?”

Be honest, Clint had said four days ago, when Tony first arrived. He looks the same way he had then, rubbing his facial hair pensively, looking anywhere but at Clint, then settling on him. “If this file is what I think it is, and if it contains the information that I hope it will… then, yes. One hundred percent.”

Over Tony’s shoulder, Kate’s face slips into something like relief. Whether it’s for Clint or just for the fact that the whole ordeal will be over soon, he can’t tell for sure.

America nudges Tony. “Well, get at it Stark, we’re don’t exactly have a ton of time.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Steve and Nat to get back?” Kate asks, eyes moving between Tony and Clint.

“Yes, let’s.” Tony pushes his chair away from the table, stretching as he stands. “First, nap, then I’ll expose our corrupt government and a nazi organization.” He waves a finger at Clint as he moves into the living room. “And hopefully save your boyfriend along the way.”

With that, Tony promptly walks to the couch, which is back in the middle of the room where it belongs, and crashes.

Kate lowers herself into the chair next to America, crossing one leg over the other and leaning an elbow on the table. “He’s certainly nothing like I expected him to be,” she notes.

“You get used to him,” replies America, shooting Kate a look. It’s Clint’s turn to look between them, raising his eyebrows. Catching Kate’s eye, he signs cute, a smile tugging at his lips. She glares at him, raising her hand and pulling all of her fingers together in front of her mouth, telling him to shut up. Her cheeks are a suspicious shade of pink.

It’s only 8am so Clint tries to busy himself while they wait for Natasha and Steve to return. The sink is leaking again so he fixes it while Kate and America chat at the table. The sink doesn’t take very long so he takes Lucky on a walk, one of the few times he has bothered leaving the apartment, but he’s back before ten, so he sits by himself on the roof and tries not to think about Bucky.

When that doesn’t work he heads back to the apartment, Kate and America still at the table, unmoved. He walks right past them, through the living room and into his bedroom, stopping at the foot of his bed and crouching to grab the duffel bag from where it sits underneath the bed. The contents rattle as he sets it on the bed, pulling out his bow and an arrow.

He crawls on top of the unmade bed, settling on his back in the middle, face up towards the ceiling. Counting to sixteen over and over, Clint begins to lose track of time. The bow in one hand and the arrow in the other.

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…

Clint twists his body and raises the bow, pulling back his arm holding the air, pressing uncomfortably into the mattress, taking the shot.

Seventeen arrow holes in the ceiling of the bedroom.

The arrow sticks in the ceiling, reverbing a few times before coming to a stop. Clint stares at it, sighing as he lays back down fully on the bed, lying on his stomach and shoving his face into the pillow.

Just as he begins to relax, his heartbeat slowing down and thoughts turning to a more manageable topic (whether or not he should do laundry), Kate calls his name. Rolling over and bringing his pillow with him, Clint tosses his arms across it to press it further into his face. It does a decent job at muffling the frustrated scream that falls out of his mouth.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t make him feel any better.

Slowly pulling himself up, Clint starts to feel as if he had been sleeping for twenty hours, rather than lying down and staring at the ceiling for forty minutes. He stands on the bed, pulling the arrow from the ceiling before jumping down and putting the arrow and the duffel back where they belong, under the bed.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Natasha says as Clint steps out of the room. It takes him a moment to realize that she isn’t talking to him, but rather to Stark, who is still laying on the couch, but his eyes are open and squinting at the redhead leaning over the back and staring down at him. Steve is beside her, but isn’t looking at Tony. He talks over his shoulder to Kate in the kitchen, a slight frown gracing his features.

If they heard Clint in the bedroom they don’t say anything as he moves into the kitchen. The clock on the microwave says it’s 11:12am, so Steve and Natasha are back earlier than usual.

“Have you told them yet?” asks Clint as he grabs the bag of bread from where it sits on top of the fridge.

“Well,” America starts.

“Told us what?” Steve cuts in abruptly, bringing an end to he and Kate’s conversation.

Tony appears from behind the couch, tossing his legs over the side and standing. “Hold your horses, soldier.” He takes a long, agonizing moment to stretch, his back popping audibly. Clint puts the bread in the toaster just as Tony finishes, continuing, “I may have found some Hydra files while perusing through Government and old SHIELD files. Give me a little while to get into them, and I can hopefully find your guy in a few hours.”

The frown that Steve had been wearing slips into something akin to determination. “And you were taking a nap?” he says, mostly joking. Tony shoot him a look, stepping around him and into the kitchen. The toaster ticks away.

Natasha trails behind Tony as he steps into the kitchen and sits in his usual spot. Steve stares at her back, watching her movements carefully. She leans over Stark as he sits down and opens all of his computers, eyes trained on the screen directly in front of him. Kate huffs, standing and stepping into Clint’s space, squinting her eyes as she looks through him. There’s nothing she can’t see and doesn’t know already, so he just raises his eyebrows at her and grabs the toast when it pops up. She points at him, taps her right pointer finger to the left with a slight shake of the head, moves her thumb from underneath her chin to underneath her hand, hooks her finger and moves it away from her hand, then points at herself. You cannot hide from me.

“Yeah, yeah,” Clint mutters, stepping around her and getting into the fridge. “I know.”

Toast with jam tastes good when you’ve hardly eaten in five days.

Tony glances up at the five of them. “I’d suggest making some plans, if you haven’t already. As soon as I open this thing, I imagine it won’t be long before they figure out someone is snooping where they shouldn’t be.”

They all look at each other, as if waiting for someone to move first. Then, they’re all moving, Natasha stepping away from Tony and beginning to dig through one of the drawers. America appears next to Kate and drags her away towards the living room, followed closely by Steve. 

Clint shoves the rest of the toast into his mouth, barely tasting it as he chews and swallows. He opens the drawer closes to him, pulling out a pen and notepad. Natasha takes it when he passes it to her, looking at him, not through him like Kate did, but certainly strongly and intensely enough to make his stomach stir. When she breaks her stare, stepping around him and into the living room, he feels inclined to join.

~

By 4pm, they have a plan.

By 6, a location.

Tony finds documents detailing a complicated route to a maximum security prison in Connecticut. Google says that when the accords came into place they transferred civilian prisoners elsewhere, renovating the prison for enhanced. It was mysteriously never filled and disappeared into history, replaced instead by the more practical Raft (Clint had always believed the Raft to be a myth. Steve confirms that its existence is very, very real). There has supposedly been activity around the old prison; lights on around the area, trucks that move from the location to the city at routine times, and people decked out in gear hovering around the place. Tony matches this convoy to the one talked about in the Hydra files, used for transporting The Asset. No one has to speak up or check the files to know that that is referring to Bucky.

From there they break, agreeing to meet at Stark Tower in an hour and a half. Kate stays with Clint, and Tony takes Lucky, promising to take good care of him in the short amount of time he will be away from them. 

Kate comes out of the bedroom donned in her purple jumpsuit, sans shoes and some clothes tossed over her shoulder, tugging at the belt around her hips, possibly fitting more snug than it had years ago. “You know, I had hoped that the first time I put this thing on it would be in better circumstances. And that maybe I’d have lost weight.”

“We’re not as spry as we used to be,” says Clint, stretching and cracking his back. He digs around in the duffel bag, finding and passing Kate her gloves. She stuffs them into the top of the suit, where her arm meets her chest, part of them poking out of the hole on her shoulder. Her hair falls across one side of her shoulder, pushed back by the purple headband. Clint feels about six years younger, for a moment, watching Kate reach around him to dig around in the bag. They’ve done this, get ready to do something heroic and dangerous, thousands of times.

“It’s probably too dark for these, right?” She holds up the purple sunglasses, the small smile she saves for Clint gracing her mouth. “What about you?”

Clint’s own pair are in her other hand. “Too dark,” he agrees, but takes them and slips them into his quiver, which sits in the bottom of the bag next to hers. They can’t take them out, not yet.

The sound of the chair beside him scraping against the floor forces him to look over at her. She pokes his chest, right at the midpoint of the arrow as it starts to point down. “Are you ready, Hawkeye?”

He meets her eye. “Are you ready, Hawkeye?”

“Clint.”

“I don’t know, ready for what?”

“For… all of it. The fight. Seeing Bucky. Running away.”

Clint taps his hand on his thigh to keep it from shaking. “Do you think I should pack another bag, or something?”

She snorts. “A duffel bag full of pointy sticks from the paleolithic era is hardly enough to run away—” Kate cuts herself off, exhaling and looking at the clock on the microwave. “If you see Bucky, like that, you know what to do. You won’t freeze?”

“No.” His voice wavers as he says it.

Kate pats his face affectionately despite the wary look on her face. “I’ll take good care of the apartment. I’ll write, or call, whatever we can do...” She stands, suddenly, stepping out of the kitchen and into the living room. When she returns, not long after, her hands are full of picture frames. A small pile of sticky notes sit on top.

Gingerly, she sets them into the bag, between their arrows and quivers. Clint stands, pulling her into his arms and pressing his mouth to the side of her face. It feels final, even though they have a few hours left.

Ten minutes later, they have t-shirts and jeans thrown over their tactical gear, Clint’s hands stuffed in his jacket pockets and the duffel bag hanging from Kate’s shoulder. The keys are in her hand as he takes one last glance around the apartment. The crack in the mirror, the remaining sticky notes on the nightstand, three hundred and twenty eight arrow holes. Old furniture that has somehow remained comfortable, and a TV that's broken too many times. “Don’t redecorate too much,” Clint chokes out as Kate locks the door behind them.

She bumps his shoulder with her own. “I told you I’ll take good care of it.”

Clint smiles at her, his first one in hours, and knows that she will.

-

A far away sound wakes Bucky up.

It’s not close, not yet, at least. But it was loud enough to startle Bucky’s well trained ears. He pulls himself up from the floor, stumbling to the door until he can steady himself by pressing his hands against it. Hair hangs in front of his eyes as he focuses on what may lie beyond the walls of this cell. Sounds, loud sounds, yelling, maybe, or screaming? The haze in his mind begins to clear, his left hand scratching hard enough at the door to leave scrapes, but nothing substantial enough to get him out. He groans, shoving his shoulder against the door. There isn’t much strength left in him, it’s been a while since they’ve fed him but longer since they’ve activated him.

The screech of the metal hand on the door almost masks another sound coming from outside the door. This one is close, and repeated, over and over and over, getting louder—

Bucky takes a long, staggered step back as the familiar sound of metal creaking fills his ears, the door swinging open. It’s not one of the usual agents they send in like he expects. A small, balding man rushes in, his white labcoat stained with blood on his arms. Another explosion comes from somewhere, louder now that the door is open and close enough that the walls shakes and dust falls from the ceiling. Bucky is startled enough to not immediately attack the scientist or rush around him to the door, but barely has a chance to step forward before the man is speaking.

“Желание, cемнадцать—”

A scream slips past Bucky’s mouth, his hands immediately covering his ears instead of to the neck of the scientist like he wishes he could do. Not again, I’m too tired—

“—oдин, tоварный вагон,” finishes the scientist.

“готов соблюдать,” responds The Asset, its’ hands falling to its’ sides.

The scientist just manages to get out the word kill before an arrow pierces his skull, his body collapsing pathetically to the floor. The Asset barely spares a glance at the body as it steps over it.

Past the doorway and in the hallway, a man stands nearly up against the wall, his arm drawn back and an arrow pointed at The Asset. Blood runs down one side of his face, soaking his blonde hair. The Asset can’t find any other external injuries, so it goes for the hands first, lunging forward to knock over the man and grab at the fingers with the metal hand.

He’s a surprisingly good fighter, though, taking The Asset by surprise. “Bucky!” he says through gritted teeth, grabbing The Asset’s flesh hand and shoving it away, rolling until he is on top, a knee pressed to The Asset’s gut. It’s only incapacitated for a moment or two, something in its brain stuttering before it can reach up and grasp the side of the man’s head, the bloodied side, digging its’ fingers into whatever it finds there. The man shouts, the hand that had been holding The Asset’s neck automatically going to grasp at it’s wrist, tugging it away until something small, purple, and bloody goes with it. The hearing aid lands on the floor a few feet away from them.

Kill echoes through The Asset’s mind as its bloodied hand moves back and around the man while he is distracted, grabbing an arrow from the quiver on his back and pulling it from the sheath.

The man takes one look at the arrow that The Asset has pulled, his eyes widening as he drops the bow and tugs out the other hearing aid just as The Asset registers the light click that the arrow emits before it explodes.

It doesn’t explode, it realizes, not really, but the sound it makes is so loud that The Asset’s eyes roll back into its head, hands going back to its ears as they had before, why had I been doing that in the first place is Clint okay—

The man’s face appears in The Asset’s line of sight from where it lies prone on the floor, ringing so loud in its ears that it could be vibrating. His mouth moves, but The Asset can’t hear it. Kill uttered again, but when The Asset lifts its metal hand it makes no move to attack, lightly brushing the back of it against the man’s neck. The Asset expects him to smile, for some reason, something soft and warm and saved only for him, but he doesn’t. Instead he grabs the bow from where he had dropped it nearby, retrieves his hearing aids, stuffing them into a pocket, then hauls The Asset up. Again, it moves to kill, like it had been told, but it just presses two fingers to its chin, pulling them down.

He holds up the hand that is holding loosely to the bow and isn’t holding up The Asset, moving his hand up and down like he’s knocking on a door, then repeats the move that The Asset had done. Yes, cute.

Kill, The Asset tries to form the words in its mouth but can’t, and its metal hand isn’t moving like how it wants. The man isn’t paying enough attention to it as he forces them around a corner, promptly dropping The Asset and raising his bow towards something it cannot see as its head connects with the floor.

~

The next thing Bucky knows, he’s leaning against Clint’s shoulder, face pressed to his back. They’re outside, he thinks, up against a wall as Clint looks around a corner, an arrow notched but not drawn back. “Clint,” he mutters, lips pressed to the leathery fabric of Clint’s shirt. Bucky’s mouth tastes like copper and his ears are ringing, distant sounds of an alarm and yelling muffled like there is cotton stuffed in there. Despite all of that, the worst feeling is that of his head, like someone had taken a fork and had mashed to their heart’s content. “Clint,” Bucky repeats, with more force, his bloodstained right hand pressing at Clint’s side.

Clint leans, just a little, into Bucky’s touch, but does not acknowledge his voice. The last he had known, Bucky was in a hazy Winter Soldier mode, the sonic arrow throwing him into a state of disrepair. Bucky tries to roll his head to the side, just a little, to get a better look at Clint’s face, but he’s a good few inches taller than Bucky is, so it’s a harder feat than it should be. Blood is running down the side of his head that Bucky is on, from a cut or gash that must be hidden in his blonde hair. His cheekbone is bruised, and there’s a cut on his lip, but other than that…

There’s blood, dry and crusted over on the skin behind Clint’s ear, but no familiar purple block underneath the crimson. “Oh,” Bucky groans, feeling stupid. The hand that was pressed to Clint’s side creeps up to the shoulder that Bucky isn’t leaning on. In morse, Bucky taps, H-E-R-E.

Without missing a beat, Clint’s head whips around, eyes brightening. He pushes them away from the corner, closer to the middle of the wall. “Christ,” he breathes, strong hands clutching at Bucky’s shoulders, then up to his neck and face. Bucky tries not to collapse when his grip loosens, but focuses on Clint’s slightly muffled words. “I thought I had lost you.” His voice is slightly warped, as he struggles to hear his own voice.

“I’m harder to get rid of than this,” Bucky says weakly. His throat feels like sandpaper as he speaks, and wonders if Clint can even hear him. Both of his hands hold up their thumbs, moving down and out towards Clint, then two fingers posed like a claw connecting with his fist. Try hard.

That’s enough for Clint, his shoulders hunching to lean down to press his mouth to the side of Bucky’s head. It doesn’t last long before he pulls away, and Clint’s stubble scratches the side of his face, but Bucky relishes in it. The first real, loving touch he’s felt in… who knows how long.

Clint seems to force himself to turn away, back to where he had been before Bucky woke up. “I’m waiting for a signal from Kate or America, that’ll decide the route we take. Steve—”

“Steve,” Bucky sighs, but Clint continues without pause.

“—and Nat will meet us somewhere out there,” he motions to what looks like some sort of courtyard, agents and vehicles rushing between buildings, foolishly ignoring the wall where they hide, “to provide backup and distraction. Then... through the woods, meetup with Stark. I’ll explain once we’re there.”

Bucky doesn’t bother responding, knowing he wouldn’t hear. Instead he focuses on something else, forces his thoughts away while Clint waits for the signal. Nat is a name he doesn’t recognize, but America must be referring to Miss America. And Stark, as in Tony? Tony Stark? Helping them? He can’t imagine he and Steve ever getting along long enough for them to come up with an escape plan, yet…

Something lights up the sky above the base. It takes Bucky a moment to realize that it’s a bright, glimmering star.

Clint doesn’t have to look twice, reaching back and finding one of Bucky’s hands before breaking off into a sprint, right into the courtyard where their enemies wait. It’s not long before they stop paying attention to the giant star in the sky and instead turn their focus to the man running through them with their prisoner. Clint’s no good with just one hand, Bucky realizes, wiggling his fingers until Clint gets the hint and lets go, knocking an arrow and letting it fly, a small explosion lighting up trucks not too far away. Bucky grabs a gun from someone as they pass, remembering how to use it without a second thought as he shoots a man between the eyes. There is no satisfaction as he pulls the trigger.

They stop abruptly at a tall fence, their backs up against it as more men flood out from the east building.

“Hydra,” Clint says, loudly so both of them can hear it.

“That makes sense,” Bucky mutters, mostly to himself. He’d be dead by now, if he had been actually arrested. Or worse, rotting away in the raft. Clint, despite the impending doom in front of them, wears a stoic expression.

This, Bucky knows, is better than both Hydra and the American government combined. They gave a valiant effort.

“Anytime now, please.” Clint’s eyes are turned up towards the prison watch towers, looking at something Bucky can’t focus on.

Bucky opens his mouth to say something, but before he can stumble through some sort of apology that Clint won’t even hear, a heavy clang ceases most of the action in front of them. He drops his gun as he automatically raises his metal arm to catch the shield as it rikoshet’s off of the side of the closest Hydra agent’s head.

“For once I’m glad to see you throwing this.” Bucky doesn’t need to look to know Steve has landed beside them. Clint continues shooting, either ignoring Steve’s new presence or not noticing him. They fall into each other’s arms, Steve letting out a quiet “Buck.”

The stupid Captain America uniform feels like it always does, smelling like sweat and blood and smoke, feeling rough on Bucky’s face. Yet it feels soft, compared to everything else he’s felt in… however long he’s been here. Feels like how it did in the 60s during the war, how it felt when they fought on a highway, then a helicarrier, and then in a glorified boxing ring. Bucky breathes it in, relishes in the familiarness.

“Hate to interrupt boys, but you need to get moving.”

Bucky looks up at the voice behind Steve. The Black Widow is shooting at agents and the tires of cars, a gun in each hand, sparing quick glances over at them between fires.

“Nat,” Bucky realizes.

“Natasha, actually,” she muses, all too casual for the situation. Steve looks at her, pulling away but still holding Bucky steady. Natasha doesn’t look at them, even though she has the opportunity to as she reloads one of her guns. It seems intentional. “Clint, take Bucky out of here and get to the rendezvous point, we’ll meet you there.”

“He can’t hear you,” he says, wincing as Steve reaches around him to cover them with the shield. The agents or whoever they are are getting closer, and there’s only four of them, Bucky weakened and Clint without his ears. Whey they haven’t just tossed a grenade at them is anyone’s guess. “He seemed to think that this was the best route, that America had somehow—”

The fence rattles behind them. Bucky is the only one who turns and looks, startled by the glowing hands and eyes that await him. America’s face is lit up with the glow from her hands and her jacket, red lips quirked up in a smile. “Hey, soldier.”

Beside America, Kate is knocking an arrow and shooting it between the holes in the fence. One of the watchtowers explodes.

“Took you long enough,” Steve grits out. The explosion forces Clint to turn his head and look at everyone who has joined them, though he doesn’t seem surprised.

“We got a little caught up,” calls Kate. There is an ugly gash across her nose, another next to her lip. One of the metal loops in the fence breaks under America’s glowing pull, others following suit. She successfully pulls apart the fence and creates a chink large enough for them to fit through, stepping back as the light fades from her person.

“Vamos,” America hisses. Natasha is the first one in, followed by Bucky, who grabs the back of Clint’s shirt, Steve bringing up the rear, covering their six. Once past the fence they start running, apparently knowing which routes to take. There are others, following them, but Natasha and Clint tag team in taking them down, running as they shoot. The woods are thick and dark, the only light coming from the moon poking through the treetops and America’s glowing fists as she occasionally sends a blast behind them.

Bucky stumbles. Steve is quick to catch him by the shoulders, forcing him to keep moving.

There comes a point when the shooting stops, all of the lackeys dead or giving up, and the trees start to thin until they come to a clearing, slowing to a walk. A quinjet sits there, turned off and non threatening. Natasha and Steve get to it first, Clint slowing to match Bucky’s staggering pace, wrapping an arm around his waist. His expression is stony as he gets a long, good look at Bucky’s face, possibly his first since… before.

It’s enough to stop Clint in his tracks, pressing a dirty hand to the side of Bucky’s face. It feels like earlier, he thinks. But the danger has passed. At least for a little while.

Clint’s eyes are soft as he looks at Bucky. “I had…” he trails off, stuttering, mouth moving uselessly. The hand holding Bucky’s side tightens, speaking the words that Clint cannot. Bucky lets his own hands slip up to the back of Clint’s head, pulling him down and pressing their mouths together at long last.

“It’s okay,” Bucky breathes into Clint’s mouth when they separate. “I love you.”

It feels good to say it aloud, even if Bucky isn’t totally sure Clint can hear it. He repeats the words, over and over, liking the way they feel in his mouth. Like a breath of fresh air, or a weight lifted off his shoulders that had never really been a weight in the first place. A comfortable presence, a source of light in the growing darkness.

He must know, or sense it somehow. Clint is laughing, despite the situation, pulling Bucky flush against his chest into a hug. He doesn’t say anything, just presses his cold nose to the side of Bucky’s head.

It’s enough.

“Come on, kids! We’re running on borrowed time,” Tony calls from the open door to the quinjet.

They kiss once more before Bucky grab’s Clint’s bicep and hurries them into the back of the quinjet. The others are all strapped in along the walls already, Natasha and Steve on one side, Kate and America on the other. Most surprising, Lucky sits in the copilot seat beside Tony, his head tipped back and his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Clint lets go of Bucky when he steps forward, sitting down beside Kate and digging around the bag at his feet.

Lucky pants happily when Bucky rubs behind his ear. “I missed you too, buddy.”

Tony taps some buttons on his dashboard. “We got a three hour ride ahead of us, my robo-friend. You may want to get caught up.”

He’s right, Bucky hates to admit, returning to the cockpit and placing himself delicately next to Clint. His whole body aches, even the shitty seating in the quinjet feels comfortable. The jets rumble beneath them as Bucky buckles his seatbelt.

“So,” Clint starts, his head tipped to the side as he inserts a different pair of hearing aids, these ones a normal tan color. One stands out amongst the blood behind his ear. “It’s been about five days, give or take.”

“It’s felt like way more,” he confesses, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. Bucky was barely functioning for most of it.

“What did they do to you?” Kate asks.

Bucky sucks in a shaky breath. “They activated me, struggled to figure out how to turn me off… No one seemed to really know how to properly handle me.”

Steve leans forward a bit, the straps of the seatbelt constricting against his chest. “They were supposed to be moving you soon, probably to someone with more expertise. We took down most of, if not all, of the agents who knew how you worked way back when.”

“Why now?”

“We don’t know what changed, but we discovered that Hydra has been hiding in our government, poisoning it, starting the accords as a way to get to you.”

“To me?”

Natasha nods grimly. She crosses her arms and looks downward, continuing, “they must’ve wanted you to take out other enhanced. A means to an end.”

“So now what?”

“The good news is that we can use this to put an end to the accords, at least within the next few years. I have some of the Hydra files.” Tony waves a hand high enough that Bucky can see it from where they sit. “Explaining the secret underground mutant fight club might be a bit harder to work around.”

Something nudges his thigh. Bucky looks over at Clint, whose gaze is unreadable. “Tony’s taking you and I to my brother’s house. Remember? The one we talked about?”

Bucky does remember. The place where the past doesn’t matter.

His gaze falls on Steve, who nods encouragingly. “You and Clint go to Ireland, live without worry. America, Kate, and Tony are going to work on bringing down the accords with Fury, back in New York.”

“What about you?” Bucky likes to think that his voice doesn’t waver as he says it.

“Nat and I have plans… elsewhere.”

There’s something Steve isn’t saying, but he also isn’t one to lie. Bucky trusts him.

They’re finally going to get their later, Bucky realizes, looking back over at Clint. His chest tightens at the sight of him, bloodied and bruised but smiling. There is no part of Bucky that doesn’t want to go with him, to wake up next to him every morning and waste their days together, with nothing to worry about except for a broken lightbulb, or when they need to get groceries next.

Bucky looks back at Steve, worriedly.

“I’ll be okay, Buck. It’s not the sixties, I can fend for myself these days.”

“And if you don’t think he can, rest easy knowing that I’ll keep him out of trouble,” Natasha adds, her sly smile somehow reassuring the unease settling in Bucky’s heart.

The hand on Bucky’s thigh shifts until it finds purchase in his own, their fingers intertwining. Clint looks at him like he’s worth it.

Maybe he is.

“Alright,” he starts, Clint’s mouth on his before he can even really begin.

~

The quinjet lands in what looks like a field, rolling hills surrounded by thick forests. A house sits in the middle of the peaceful land, an old barn sitting behind it. The place looks old and well-lived in, miscellaneous objects lying around on the porch and outside the barn. Bucky stands on the edge of the ramp, watching as the sun begins to creep over the trees. It’s earlier in Ireland than it is in Connecticut, and colder, yet not enough so for it to feel too bad yet.

Steve steps up from behind, squeezing Bucky’s shoulder affectionately. “You know, if someone told me sixty years ago that Bucky Barnes is settling down, I would’ve called them crazy.”

Bucky laughs lightly. “You and me both pal. And hey, you’ve got a lady of your own.”

“Miracle of miracles.”

They slot together once more, Steve’s arms wrapping around Bucky’s shoulders, his metal hand pressing at the small of Steve’s back. The hug lingers, not rushed as it had been when he first arrived in the courtyard of the Hydra prison, but they eventually pull away. “You take care of him,” says Steve. “I’ve been around him enough these past few days to know he needs you.”

Bucky steps off the ramp and onto the grass. He takes a moment to breathe in the fresh air, focusing on the feeling of the light breeze that pushes strands of his hair into his eyes. For nearly the first time in his life as Bucky Barnes, there are no towering buildings or honking cars to disturb the peace.

Kate and Clint talk a few feet away, near the wood fence and waist high grass, using a mixture of their voices and sign language, Lucky going back and forth between running around the two of them and trying to get into the house. Bucky feels a sudden sense of fondness. “I need him, too.”

Understanding, Steve nods. “I’ll write,” he promises.

Bucky takes a step, turning and walking backwards as he speaks to Steve. “Don’t do anything stupid!”

The smile on Steve’s face is golden. “How can I?” His voice is high and there is laughter bubbling beneath the surface. “You’re taking all the stupid with you!”

Conversation between Kate and Clint stops once Bucky reaches them. It doesn’t appear to be his fault, just the air of time running out. She stands on her toes, hands on either side of Clint’s head, pressing her lips to his forehead. “Your happy ending, Hawkeye.”

Clint’s hands hold onto her wrists as she settles back onto flat footing. “Now go get yours, Hawkeye.”

She smiles, up at Clint then over at Bucky. “Thank you,” Kate says earnestly. Bucky can’t tell which one of them she is referring to. “For everything.”

Lucky rushes over, licking her face when she crouches down to wrap her arms around his scruffy neck. “Good boy, good boy,” she mutters into his collar. Bucky only just catches it, meaning Clint probably didn’t.

With a final smile and a wave, she moves back up the hill, towards the quinjet where the others stand at the base of the ramp, watching. Bucky picks up the duffel bag from the ground, slinging it over his shoulder and averting his gaze. Clint takes his hand, tugging him along to follow Lucky to the porch.

“Are you worried?” Bucky asks. Clint glances over his shoulder at him, shrugging.

“No. Not anymore.”

They reach the porch and walk up the few steps, old wood creaking beneath them. Lucky waits patiently by the door.

Clint looks up and around the porch, at the peeling siding and broken light that hangs over them. Bucky looks behind him, at the quinjet as the jets start up. He feels inclined to wave, even if there are no windows they could see them from.

“Are you?”

He tears his eyes away from the quinjet as it takes off. Clint squeezes Bucky’s hand, his gaze careful and calculating.

“What?”

“Worried. Are you worried?”

When Bucky looks back over at where the quinjet was, where they had been standing less than two minutes ago, there is nothing there to show for it. Your past wouldn’t matter.

“No,” Bucky says, and means it.

That reassures Clint, settles and straightens his shoulders. “Good. Cause that was your last chance to run for the hills. Now you have to look at this ugly mug everyday.” He gives Bucky a goofy grin, showing off his slightly crooked teeth, bruised face, and heavy stubble. Despite that, Bucky knows that he is beautiful.

“Ah, it’s not so bad.”

Clint crouches, letting go of Bucky’s hand and pulling up one of the floorboards, finding a ring of keys. “Yeah, well, I love you too.” His tone is joking but his smile tells Bucky it reigns true. He straightens, pulling out a particular key and putting it into the lock, twisting and pushing as the door creaks open. Lucky doesn’t hesitate to slip inside and explore, Clint following soon after.

The entryway is visible, stairs leading up to the second level, open doors on either wall, one leading to a living room and kitchen, the other to a bedroom. A rug on the floor, picture frames containing photos that Bucky can’t make out from where he stands. A homey, warm and welcoming place. Bucky hasn’t been in one of those since before the war, not counting Clint’s apartment, which had a sense of a self made home, Clint and Kate adapting to the city life and crafting a place for themselves. This house was built to be a home, a real one, with a wife and kids and a dog.

Well, they have one of those things.

Clint reappears from the door to the right. “You coming?”

Pulling himself out of the fog, Bucky nods fervently. He takes a long stride forward, crossing the threshold, out of the cold and into their home, where Clint is waiting for him.

.Epilogue.

“We are not special.

We are not crap or trash, either.

We just are.

We just are, and what happens just happens.

And God says, “No, that’s not right.”

Yeah, well. Whatever. 

You can’t teach God anything.”

 —Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Bucky wakes slowly and languidly, letting his eyes adjust to the sunlight drifting through the crack in the curtains and to the hand that is wrapped around his neck.

It’s non-threatening, of course, Clint’s left arm tossed over Bucky’s chest and his hand caressing his neck lightly, thumb resting right underneath his jaw. Their legs are pressed together and Lucky is peacefully asleep on Clint’s side, unaware of Bucky slowly pulling himself out of bed.

Clint’s hand falls limply onto the bed once Bucky retreats. He places a long kiss to the side of Clint’s head, into his blonde hair near a scar that is just beginning to heal, then leaves the bedroom, beginning his usual morning routine. Shrug on clothes, head downstairs, add a few layers as the mornings grow colder, resist the instinct to wear a glove.

The sun is just beginning to rise and the cold morning air is leaving a dewey fog over the grass.

Lucky follows him out of the house, trailing behind while Bucky circles it a few times and checks for any signs of bugging or intrusion, in bushes and in the miscellaneous objects on the porch, his tail wagging all the same. He does his own business as Bucky counts all the things in the barn, firewood and targets and tools and other various machinery, returning when Bucky moves to go inside when he finds nothing amiss.

Inside, Bucky checks the windows, cabinets, smoke alarms, chairs, and pretty much everything else he can think of, satisfied when nothing unusual turns up. He digs around in the fridge, taking a moment to look at all the things they have hanging on it. A newspaper clipping with the headline ACCORDS THE RESULT OF NAZI INFULTRATION? VICE PRESIDENT PLEADS GUILTY! next to a postcard with Wish You Were Here! written over the New York skyline. It is signed xoxo Kate as she had once done with all of the sticky notes in Clint’s apartment (the ones that currently hang around the mirror in their bathroom), but is now accompanied by the neat signature of America Chavez. Steve and Nat write letters, but don’t disclose their location, though Bucky suspects they move around a lot, wary of the lasting effects of Hydra and the accords. Every once in a while Tony Stark calls the landline that’s connected to the wall and asks if their “tv” needs to be repaired or tuned up. Bucky always tells him no, he can do it himself, thank you.

Clint says that Tony is probably lonely, with the Initiative shut down. Bucky is inclined to agree.

A letter from Barney also hangs proudly on the fridge. A new one, written just a few weeks ago, the old one in a drawer somewhere where it will inevitably be forgotten. He details faking his death and running away from the tracksuit Draculas, living here with a woman named Simone and her kids, but moving recently after the boys grew up. He figured it was time to reconnect with his brother— but had not been anticipating a boyfriend instead of Kate. Either way, Barney signed the letter with a promise to write again.

Bucky’s not sure if he trusts Barney to follow up on that promise, but the house is nice and has felt more like home than the apartment he had in New York ever did.

He compensates Lucky by feeding him some leftover meatloaf and rubbing his belly affectionately, then leads them back upstairs where Clint still sleeps. He’s on his side now, his back to Bucky’s side of the bed and the window. The clock on the bedside table tells Bucky that he’s been gone for an hour and twenty eight minutes.

The routine gets shorter every day.

Carefully and quietly Bucky removes all of his layers, back down to his t-shirt and boxers again. Lucky hops up while Bucky slips back into the pleasantly warm bed, pressing his front to Clint’s back, cold nose at the nape of his neck.

“Jesus,” Clint breathes as he shudders, keeping his eyes closed but shifting so Bucky can fully wrap himself around him. “How’s the perimeter?” His voice is teasing, but mostly clouded with sleep.

“The same.” He presses his mouth close to Clint’s ear so he can hear him without the hearing aids. “Cold,” Bucky adds, his arm moving over Clint’s waist and finding his hands, the left arm moving up and under their pillows. “Autumn is almost here.”

Clint huffs, moving his head back slightly so it connects briefly with Bucky’s, then turns to look at him, their faces close. “We’ll be okay.”

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, KYLIE! You’ve been accepted for the role of NICK BOTTOM. Admin Julie: I was impressed with your app from the first word. Your voice for Nikolai is impeccable and incredibly succinct, as if I myself could hear him talking. Nik’s a tough one to pin down, given his lackadaisical view of the world and the war between the Montagues and Capulets, but you didn’t just pin him. You hit the nail on the head. I’m overjoyed and ecstatic, and simply cannot wait to see your Nikolai grace our dashboards!  Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Kylie

Age | 25

Preferred Pronouns | she/her

Activity Level | on a scale of 1-10 i would say i’m about a 6 or a 7!

Timezone | mst

IN CHARACTER

Character | Nick Bottom / Nikolai Borisov

What drew you to this character? |

What drew me to Nikolai initially was the sense of humor that I felt permeated his biography–I especially loved the line “Nikolai Borisov fell in with the wrong crowd with eyes wide open—waltzed right into hell and had the gall to call it toasty.” It told me that Nikolai posessed the ability to see the absurdity in the mob life–of pledging your life to a person who could give a damn wether you live or die, of taking yourself seriously enough to think that putting the lives of everyone in a city on the line for your own singular ambition is somehow in their best interests. I think humor is a large part of his character, but the longer I spent with him, trying to find his voice and being inside of his head, I came to realize that there was a dissonance between how he uses humor outwardly, and who he is internally. I think that the line that really sums it up for me is actually–”He is Frankenstein: a little mad, a little lonely, a man who dared to dream bigger than anyone else.” He wants to be around people, and he uses his humor to try and get people to like him, to decide that they want to be around him, but they have also never really understood him. I think he’s a lot like the fire he loves so much–a light in a city that thrives on darkness. But don’t be fooled, the light that he casts off is not divine in any sense of the world, its just as destructive as any good burn.

I also enjoyed the ways in which his particular form of intelligence set him apart from the others involved with the mobs—it takes real skill to be able to wire a bomb and place it in a location where it can do maximum damage, to be able to burn a building down to its foundations and avoid being caught, and Nikolai is good enough at what he does to be paid to do it by the most dangerous and important people in Verona. I was very interested in the ways that the chaos of his personality, of his habits, interact with his intelligence. It would be easy to underestimate him, to write him off as a little bit mad–but that would be a mistake, because there is always a method to his madness.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

LOOK WHO’S DIGGING THEIR OWN GRAVE

Nikolai doesn’t burn things out of anger—he does it because it brings him comfort, because in the cold where he was born you have to take warmth where you can get it, because fire is all he’s had throughout his entire life. I’d like to see him pushed, to see what exactly would cause him to think about why he does what he does—what would make him well and truly angry? Would that anger be enough to make him think twice about why he’s burning things? I’d like to see who or what he would allow to get that deep underneath his skin—would it be one of the Mobs? Would it be Pavel and his careless disregard for Nikolai’s hard work? Would it be damage to his reputation as a fireman?

ACTING OUT ALL THEIR FEARS

I’d love to dig more into Nikolai’s work with the mobs—what exactly are his parameters, what is he willing to do or not do? He’s chaotic and a little bit mad, but he’s not without pride—he thinks he’s the best fireman in the business and his work speaks to that. If he were given an opportunity to tie his allegiances to one side, would he take it? He values his independence and his ability to move around whenever he wants to highly, so whoever tried to buy his work on a more permanent basis would have to appeal to his vanity where his work is concerned. I’d also love to explore what exactly has kept him in Verona this long, when he would have normally probably moved on to a new place with new clientele.

THIS IS HOW IT FEELS TO TAKE A FALL

Nikolai has spent his entire life in motion, running from his work before he can be caught. It’s a dangerous game of inches and seconds and I’d love to play more with that—how long will it be before he spends too long admiring his work? I’d love to see how he would react if he couldn’t run fast enough, or if the person chasing him was as familiar with the back alleys of Verona as he is. What lengths would he go to to save his own skin, or would he simply bow out, knowing that every good show has to come to an end at one point or another? After all, if old Billy Shakes had kept writing after his number had been called, who’s to say that the stuff he wrote would have still been decent?  

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | of course!

IN DEPTH

What is your favorite place in Verona?

“Everyone in this town is so concerned with history.” Nikolai rolls his eyes, which are currently focused on a brown paper bag, nearly transparent with grease stains. He comes up with a fry which he unceremoniously shoves into his mouth, using his free hand to gesture wildly, with no real concern with what exactly he’s pointing at. “Over there is the bridge that His Holiness Pope Who Cares commissioned in 1189 B.C.E, in that museum you can see the dick picks that Leonardo Da Vinci painted and sent to Michelangelo’s house at three in the morning with a note asking if he was still up, and over there is the cathedral where Mario and Luigi pretended to care about religion, so that their dad wouldn’t get mad at them later.”

He pops another fry into his mouth and shrugs his shoulders as he brushes the salt off onto his jeans–denim with grease stains that could probably match the ones on the paper bag. “Where I’m from, in Russia, is the furthest North you can be without hitting the Arctic. There is no history there–the snow and ice get everything before it has a chance to acquire any kind of meaning. A building is just a building–none of it matters because you’re so concerned with surviving.” He shakes his head, and if anyone had been looking for it they would have seen his expression falter–the kind of melancholy that gets tinged with nostalgia and harder to explain the further you move away from it, the more you transform from the person in the memory. He’s quick to grin again, a little too sharp around the edges–a little too hungry, his father had once called it, after Nikolai had laughed at him when he’d asked about the black marks on his son’s hands. Wolfish.

“Anyway, that’s not what you asked, is it? My favorite places in Verona are the ones that don’t really fit–the abandoned warehouse next to the ornate cathedral. The street art on the side of a museum full of treasures. The shitty looking diner run by someone’s grandmother next to the Michelin star restaurant. The places that are never gonna end up in someone’s history book.”

What does your typical day look like?

Nikolai scoffs before he starts to cackle, a loud sound that draws the attention of people passing by—but come on, what a stupid question. Does he really look like the kind of guy who has days that are typical? He’s eating fast food on a park bench during the hours when other people are hard at work, his legs folded up underneath him. “Anyone who does enough of the same shit to have their days be considered typical is sad.”

He shrugs his shoulders, drapes an arm over the back of the bench. “I’m not going to daily yoga classes or brunch if that’s what you’re after. I go wherever the spirit moves me, whenever it moves me, and I’m rarely ever bored. Unless I’m on a job–” His grin turns into a kind of smirk, and he chuckles. “Then I have a routine. But those specifics are only obtainable by cash–and unless you’re hiding a hell of a lot in places that are hard to see? You’re not gonna get them.”

What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

He can remember every detail of that day with photographic clarity–the outfits of the people that had walked by on the street, the look on that smug bastard’s face and the shrieking of his laughter as he had hauled ass in the opposite direction, the way the ash had practically glittered in the sunlight. It would have been beautiful, had it not been three hours too early, had it not been everything he had built for himself that had gone up in gorgeous plumes of smoke and red-orange flames. It had been the first time he’d looked at a fire and felt something other than overwhelming sense of comfort, a sense of belonging in the world that could only come with leaving an irrevocable mark on the landscape. Instead he had looked at the smoldering remains of that particular building and felt fear–the fear that he would well and truly be on his own this time. That he would never feel warm again.

He blinks and tries to school his face into something unaffected, but he’s certain that he misses the mark–he’s never been good at judging where normal should be. “When you do what I do, you can’t really afford to make mistakes. One mistake and you’re a heap of ashes where a person used to be standing, y’know? But when I was starting out I made a lot of the typical rookie mistakes–I’d be surprised if I still had fingerprints.” He laughs again, and this time he feels it reach to the corners of his mouth.

What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

Nikolai shakes his head and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket, his left hand immediately finding the lighter that’s nestled securely in the fabric. His fingers move over the familiar outlines, the places where the finish is worn off from repeated handling–difficult begins and ends with this familiar weight in the palm of his hand. Difficult rarely ever stands up to the all consuming power of a good burn. “The job isn’t difficult–not when you’re good at it. The hardest part has been staying in one place for so long–normally I’d have left this place for somewhere new a hell of a long time ago.” He exhales, and tilts his face up towards the sky so that he can feel the warmth of the sun. It’s the boredom that worries him most of all, that makes him wonder when it will be time to leave Verona and her criminal underworld behind for good–it might be better for him to get gone before the place can drain the creativity from him permanently.

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

“It pays the bills.” He shrugs and grins–a slow reveal of teeth, too many teeth to be considered friendly or casual. “What do I care if they tear each other apart in the same of some bullshit history between them? The minute it dries up I’m out of here and onto the next batch of maniacs just like them.”

EXTRAS

pinterest board x

[avis-writeshq]

Conner Bailey x Reader: Author’s Block

Fan fiction from the series, ‘The Land of Stories’ by Chris Colfer. You don’t have to read the book to understand this fanfiction, but I totally recommend! Anyway, Conner is such a small bean so here ya go!

 Requested: No

Warnings: Really mild swearing. There is NO F BOMB.

Word count: 1,244

 Things you probably wanna know:

(Y/N): Your Name

(R/B/N): Random Boy’s Name

(N/N): Nick Name

 ***

You bit your lip, tapping your pencil at the edge of your desk as you stared at the blank paper in front of you. You were drawing a blank as you thought of all the ideas that you had thought of beforehand. You knew exactly what was going to happen, who the characters were going to be and when everybody dies. You just didn’t know where to start.

Ideas swirled around your head. Should you start with the main character waking up from a coma? No, that’s too boring. Maybe you should start with a battle? No, that doesn’t give enough introduction.

You groaned, slamming your head against the table. You had to get this story into the competition in two weeks; you obviously procrastinated.

“Hey (Y/N)! ... What’s wrong with you?”

A voice was sounded at the doorway and you recognised it immediately. You lifted your head up with a smile. “Hiya Conner! Nothing’s wrong with me! I’m just trying and failing to write a short story! Everything’s all fine and dandy!” Your eye twitched as you gave a very animated greeting.

“Let me guess... writer’s block?” He snickered.

The boy had light brown hair and sky blue eyes. He was taller than you by a lot. Like, he was really, really tall. You could remember the times when you were just a little taller than him. That’s when he had that super unplanned growth spurt. You were so surprised that you thought he convinced Alex to magic him taller.

“Anyway,” he continued, “you’ll build a bridge and get over that soon enough.”

That only made you more aggravated and you almost snapped a pencil. “But I don’t have time for that!”

He was silent for a moment before pulling you up from your chair. “Come on,” he said. “I’m going to help you.”

You rolled your eyes. “Uh huh, sure. What are you going to do? Get Red to tell me all about what happened in her life? Get me to write Trollbella a biography?”

It’s been about a year since you, Conner and Alex defeated the Literary Army. You haven’t been in the fairy-tale world for ages; heck, you wouldn’t be surprised if another war began to rage. The two of you were now seventeen, completing your eleventh grade and practically running on coffee.

“No,” Conner scoffed, “I’m not that mean. Trollbella would give me hell for it, anyway.”

“So where exactly are you taking me?” The two of you were outside your apartment building and he was definitely dragging you somewhere.

“My inspiration guild!” He paused. “You have a bike, right?” 

**

Less than half an hour later, the two were at a park nearing the centre of the city. It was a pretty but small park with a lake in the middle. Hanging over the lake was a beautiful willow that was surrounded by lush green grass. The grass was littered with small white flowers, too small to pick but beautiful all the same.

Beside the lake was a picnic area with tables and chairs; some even had built in chess boards.

“So this is where you get all your inspiration?” You took in your surroundings, a small smile gracing your features. “It’s pretty.”

He nodded in response. “It reminds me of the fairy village, actually. Whenever I get an author’s block, I come here to take a breather.”

The two of you parked your bikes before walking over to the benches. You plopped yourself down in front of a chess set. You let out a laugh. “I never really enjoyed chess.”

He chuckled, “me neither.”

 Silence crept its way and rested over you like a thick cloud. It was a good silence, though. Friendly and comfortable. It gave you the time to think about your story and how everything was going to unfold.

 Conner glanced over at you every so often, a find smile taking over his features. Over the past few years, he couldn’t help but feel attached to you. After all, you were kind, thoughtful and brave. Still, both of you knew that you were also reckless and stubborn. During the attack of the Literary Army, you would do everything in your power to protect your friends, even if that meant dying while you did. At some point, he was sure that you took an arrow for him, even if you refused to show the pain.

 However, these traits only made him more drawn to you. Even with those traits, you had a quiet demeanour and you didn’t talk unless it was necessary to do so. Often he found you lost in your own thoughts, sometimes against your own will. Sometimes he yearned to know what you were thinking about; he wondered if you ever thought about him. It was safe to say that he had the smallest crush on you. After all, the two of you were authors and were working with each other in order to exchange ideas.

 His quiet thoughts were interrupted when you yelled out in excitement.

“I got it!”

He almost fell off his chair in surprise. “Trying to kill me now, are we?”

You giggled. “Sorry. Anyway, I finally have an idea! And when I say ‘finally’ I really mean finally!”

“Would you mind sharing what you’re planning to write?” He raised an eyebrow with a small laugh.

“So, you know how I’m writing about how the girl is trapped in a house and she can’t get out? Okay, so the first thing I’m going to write is how she hears people talking around her. Obviously, she freaks and tries to kill those people, but whatever,” you grin. “Thanks, Conner!”

All was quiet apart from the occasional tweeting of birds. You bit your lip before breaking the silence. “Hey, Connor? I’ve been meaning to ask; how are you and Bree?”

He frowned. Oh yes, Bree Campbell, his friend from eighth grade and now ex-girlfriend. “Oh, Bree. We... broke up. About a month ago.” He must have caught your sympathetic look and he quickly covered it up. “We’re still on good terms, though. We agreed to be just friends.”

You nodded. “I see. If you don’t mind me asking, what happened? Every time I see you, you both look so happy.”

He awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. “It just didn’t feel right anymore. I guess we both liked someone else; continuing our relationship would be like lying to ourselves.” He turned to you, “what about you and (R/B/N)?”

“Oh, him?” You rolled your eyes. “I was only helping him get with the girl he likes. Now they’re a couple and I couldn’t be happier for him!” You smirked at him. “Why, jealous?”

In all honesty, he was, in fact, very jealous. He would always see the two of you together, laughing your butts off, and that sparked some kind of anger within him. He couldn’t help but blush at the accusation. “N-No...” he mentally punched himself for stuttering.

Your smirk widened but you didn’t pester about the subject any further. Instead, you gave him a loving side hug, his blush darkening. “Thanks, Conner, you’re the best.”

Let’s just say that Conner was a blushing mess when he got home.

 •Extended Scene•

“Conner, geez Louise, you’re super red! Are you sick?”

“I’m fine, Alex... it’s just a little warm in here.”

“Oh! YOU WERE WITH (Y/N) WEREN’T YOU?!”

“DAMMIT, ALEX, CAN’T KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT FOR ONE MINUTE, CAN YOU?!”

[unfortunate-stranger-losers]

Six Baudelaires AU, Part One {AO3} {Read from the Beginning}

Chapter Eleven → in which the Baudelaires meet their next Guardian

“Lousy Lane smells like shit.” Nick muttered to Solitude, who giggled. Klaus leaned over Violet to elbow him in the ribs, and Violet pushed him away, huffing in annoyance.

Poe’s car sped past the sickly gray fields surrounding the road of Lousy Lane, a handful of bitter apple trees dotting the field.

“Technically,” Violet said, staring over her brother’s shoulder and out the window, “It smells like horseradish.”

“I hope,” Mr Poe said, coughing slightly as they made a turn on the road, “That you will find the countryside a pleasant change.”

“Perhaps.” Lilac said, staring out the window blankly, only really paying attention to the landscape and the reflection of Sunny kicking her legs.

“I think you’ll like Dr Montgomery, too,” Poe said. “He has travelled a great deal, and I’m sure that means he has plenty of stories to tell.”

“Bax.” Solitude muttered, looking up at Nick, who still held her and had refused to let her out of his sight the last two days. She meant, “So long as this relative doesn’t try to kill us all.”

Nick nodded, and Klaus asked, “How is Dr Montgomery related to us?”

“Dr Montgomery is your father’s cousin’s wife’s brother.” Poe answered, after another cough. “He’s a scientist of some sort.”

“What should we call him?” Lilac asked.

“You should call him Dr Montgomery,” Poe replied, “Unless he tells you to call him by his last name, so you’ll call him Montgomery, or by his first name, in which case you’ll call him Montgomery.”

Nick instantly beamed. “His name is Montgomery Montgomery?”

Lilac shot Nick a glare, as Poe said, “Yes, and I’m sure he’s very sensitive about that, so don’t ridicule him.” He paused to cough, before saying, “‘Ridicule’ means ‘tease.’”

“We know what ‘ridicule’ means.” VIolet said.

“What sort of scientist is he?” Lilac asked, as Sunny pulled her older sister’s ribbon from her dress and started to gnaw on it; Lilac gently shoved her, and Sunny guiltily handed it back.

“I’m afraid I don’t know.” Poe admitted. “I’ve been too busy making arrangements for you six to make chit-chat. Oh, here we are!”

The siblings all looked out the windows, and after a pause, Nick said, “Well, Li, there’s your answer.”

As Poe’s car pulled up to the steep gravel driveway to the enormous stone house before them, they could see a vast, green lawn, covered in shrubs and hedges that had been trimmed to resemble long serpents. They seemed to lead to a maze slightly to the left, and as the children got out of the car, they all felt a bit nervous, as if the hedge animals were watching them. Solitude leaned over slightly, looking at the closest hedge, but Nick pulled her back.

They walked up to the house, and Poe, barely even glancing at the shrubs, said, “Now, Klaus, don’t ask too many questions right away. Nick, please be polite.”

“I am always polite, how dare you?” Nick said, and Klaus once again elbowed him in the ribs. “Fuck, Klaus!”

“Language!” Lilac snapped.

Nick flipped her off, which Poe thankfully didn’t see. “And someone, please make certain that the twins don’t bite him.”

“Why would we bite him?” Klaus asked blankly.

“Not you, the twins.”

“We’re the twins.” Nick sighed. “Soli and Sunny aren’t.”

“Of course you are.” Poe said. He stepped up to the door and rang a loud doorbell. The siblings all stiffened, and Nick hugged Solitude a bit more. Sunny leaned against Lilac’s shoulder, and Klaus grabbed onto Violet’s hand.

The door opened, and a tall, smiling man said, “Hello, hello, hello! You must be the Baudelaires!”

He stepped back so that they could enter the house, and they walked into a large, brightly-lit foyer. “This is perfect timing,” he said, grabbing a large dish that held several slices of cake, each put onto its own plate, “As I have just finished frosting this coconut cream cake. Go ahead, take a plate!”

The children all hesitated, looking to Lilac, who inspected the cake a moment, before taking one herself, grabbing a fork from the edge of the dish. Violet and Nick reached next, and then Klaus. Solitude took one plate, having to use both hands to hold it, and thus not taking a fork and simply leaning over and biting off a chunk, frosting getting onto her face.

“Doesn’t Sunny want a piece?” Dr Montgomery asked.

“Our sister prefers very hard foods.” Lilac replied, looking down at the infant, who was scanning the room.

“Very unusual for an infant,” Dr Montgomery said, “But not so much for many snakes. Perhaps Sunny would like a raw carrot?”

He produced one from his pocket, and Sunny’s eyes lit up. “Uyuh,” she said, which meant, “That would be lovely.” She took the carrot, starting to gnaw on the edge.

“Dr Montgomery-” Violet began.

“Oh, please, none of that ‘Dr Montgomery’ stuff.” their new guardian said. “Call me Uncle Monty!”

Violet bit her lip, and Klaus said, “Um, what are you a scientist of?”

“Klaus,” Poe said with a disappointed tone, “Don’t ask him too many questions, now-”

“Oh, that’s quite alright!” Monty said with a grin towards Klaus. “Questions show an inquisitive mind. I’m a herpetologist, children, do you know what that means?”

“Well, ‘ologist’ means the ‘study of.’” Nick said carefully.

“Snakes!” Monty said excitedly. “I study snakes! I circle the globe looking for different reptiles to study here in my laboratory! Isn’t that interesting?”

“That does sound interesting.” Lilac said carefully. “Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Not if you know the facts.” Monty said. He turned towards Poe, and said, “Mr Poe, would you also like some cake?”

“Oh, no, I really must be going.” Poe said, before pulling out his handkerchief to cough into. “Remember, children, if you need to contact me, you can always call me at Mulctuary Money Management.”

“The children won’t be needing anything from you.” Monty said quickly. “The children are in my care, and I will be dedicating myself to their safety, comfort and happiness as enthusiastically as I dedicate myself to my studies.”

Suddenly, and very quickly, Klaus said, “Our parents’ fortune can’t be used until Lilac come of age.”

“Klaus!” Poe admonished. “Don’t be rude! Though, legally, he is correct.”

“I don’t give a fig about the Baudelaire fortune,” Monty said. “What with my salary from the Herpetological Society. Though, as a scientist, Klaus, I do admire your skepticism. It’s understandable after what you children have been through.”

“Ah, you must be referring to that unpleasantness with Count Olaf.” Poe said, before coughing into his handkerchief. “Well, that’s all over and done with, isn’t it? I’ll see myself out. Goodbye, children.”

“Goodbye, Mr Poe.” Lilac said.

“Sayonara.” Soli giggled, meaning, “Good riddance.”

“Yeet.” Sunny said.

Poe turned and left, and as the door closed behind him, Monty said, “I do hope you children will forgive me if I seemed rude to him, but frankly, that man ruffles my scales. ‘Unpleasantness with Count Olaf?’ He’s the one who put you with him in the first place! But it does not matter; you are safe now, children. Just like your parents would have wanted.”

The six siblings exchanged looks with each other, and Lilac said, “Dr Montgomery-”

“Monty, please.”

“Monty,” Lilac said, “Did you know our parents?”

Monty looked surprised. “Why, of course I did! Didn’t they ever tell you about me?”

The siblings shook their heads.

“Well, that is surprising.” he said. “We practically grew up together! Come with me, your rooms are upstairs.”

They followed him up a large staircase and as they did, he pointed to a photo on the wall. “See? There we are.”

The photo was only of a grand piano. “There’s no one in that picture.” Nick said.

“We’re locked inside the piano.” Monty said simply. “Oh, we were so young. Well, come along.”

The walls of Monty’s house were decorated with photos of reptiles of all sorts, and on the second floor, Monty showed them a large selection of rooms. “You may each have your own, if you like,” he said, “Or I have some guest rooms with double beds, if two of you would like to share.”

“We can choose our own rooms?” Nick asked, excited.

“Of course!”

“And we can each have our own?” Lilac asked.

“Yes, of course! Who would force you all to share a room in such a large house?”

“Count Olaf did.” Klaus said.

“Oh, right, of course.” Monty looked upset. “What a horrible man. Well, you children pick your rooms, and then meet me at the stairs, and I’ll show you my reptile room!”

Solitude looked up curiously. “Serpentium?” she asked, meaning, “What reptile room?”

“My sister would like to know what you mean.” Nick said quickly.

“Oh, well, you’ll see soon enough!” Monty said excitedly.

Hesitantly, the children nodded, and after he left, Nick said, “Do you think we can trust him?”

“He seems nice enough.” Violet said.

“I don’t like this.” Klaus said quietly. “Why wouldn’t our parents mention him to us if they knew him?”

Lilac pushed a braid behind her ear, and said, “Just… stick close to me, but… for now, I think we’ll be alright. Probably alright sleeping in separate rooms if you want.”

“I want to share with Nick.” Klaus said quickly. “I don’t like being alone.”

“And I want to stay with Soli.” Nick said.

“Same.” Soli nodded, cuddling up against her brother.

“Sunny can stay with me.” Lilac said. “Violet, you should probably get your own room, though. If we share a room, we might rip each other apart.”

“I guess.” Violet shrugged. “It’d be nice to have some space. And you guys won’t bug me about sleeping in.”

They smiled a little, and went to pick rooms close enough to each other.

“Are you children ready?” Monty asked excitedly, leading them down the staircase.

“I guess.” Lilac said. She glanced over at Klaus, who was now the one holding Sunny, still biting on the carrot.

“Now,” Monty said, as they approached a large door inbetween two staircases, covered in gears and complicated mechanics, “Baudelaires, I am about to show you one of the most important scientific collections in the history of the world! Spies and rivals in the world of herpetology would eat nine garter snakes to get a glimpse of the wonders inside this room. This door has been installed with a top-of-the-line security system.”

He hit a panel on it, and the gears started turning and whirring, a small bulb lighting up. Lilac and Violet, fascinated, stared at the door as Monty continued, “You  can’t get inside unless you have nineteen keys, three combinations, two fingerprints and one optical scan.”

Then, he smiled and said, “Or, as I share with my most trusted associates… by turning this doorknob right here.”

He pressed the panel again, and the gears stopped, and he simply turned the knob and opened the door. Nick let out a small laugh, while Klaus bit back a grin.

“This,” Monty said, opening the door wider so that the siblings could step inside, “Is the Reptile Room.”

Lilac stepped inside first, followed closely by Violet and Klaus. The second Nick entered, he glanced down at Solitude to see her eyes light up completely. The glass-walled room was filled, almost completely, with reptiles of all sorts, lined in different cages all across the room, some locked, some open. Violet stopped beside a glass cage with what looked like a winged toad, while Lilac stared at a lizard that looked vaguely like an owl. Klaus glanced between the animals for a bit, and then, excitedly, ran over to the far wall, which was covered top-to-bottom in books on reptiles.

“That’s a two-headed cobra!” Nick said, recognizing an animal. He ran over, and Soli put her hands against the glass, eyes wide.

“Well spotted!” Monty said, and then he held out his arm and, amazed, the children watched a lizard fly down from a perch on the ceiling and land on his hand. “And this is a Winged Lizard. You see its yellow belly? A sign of camouflage and cowardice.”

“Whoa.” Solitude said, eyes locked on the animal.

“Does this snake have three mouths?” Violet asked.

“It does indeed.” Monty nodded, smiling.

“Froggy!” Solitude called, and a small brown-green frog with what looked like a black mask marking hopped across a table, looking over at her. She leaned over, and it leapt into her hands, and she let out an excited squeal. “Froggy!”

“That is one of the smallest frogs in our collection.” Monty said. “But size is no guarantee of power, is it, Solitude? That frog is very long-living, can switch genders at will, and is incredibly adaptable. You can name them if you like.”

Solitude looked like Monty had just given her the world, and the tiny frog hopped onto her shoulder. She giggled as it curled up against her, as if preparing to fall asleep on her sleeve. “Babbitt!” she cried with delight. 

“This place is amazing.” Lilac said, looking up at the tall glass ceiling.

“Thank you.” Monty said. “It’s taken a lifetime to put together.”

“And we’re allowed to come inside?” Violet asked. “And read these books?”

“Allowed?” Monty repeated. “You are not simply allowed, you are implored to come in!”

“Dr Montgomery?” Klaus asked, his face suddenly falling into an expression of slight suspicion.

“Yes, my boy?”

“What’s under that cage? With the cloth on top of it?”

Monty’s eyes gleamed, and he said, “Good question! Come here, children, come here, and allow me to show you our newest addition.”

The children all followed Uncle Monty to the corner of the room, where a huge, towering cage sat, covered in a white sheet. Soli leaned over, almost falling out of Nick’s arms in an attempt to peer through it. Sunny leaned over, too, and Klaus, in annoyance, put her onto the ground.

“This, my dears,” Monty said. “Is a new snake which I brought over from my last journey. My assistant, Gustav, and I are the only people to have seen it. Next month, I will present it to the Herpetological Society as a new discovery.”

With a flourish, Monty grabbed the cloth, tossing it off the cage. Inside, the Baudelaires could see a large, black snake, that looked art them with emerald-green eyes. The snake uncoiled itself, moving closer, with Soli and Nick’s eyes glued to it in fascination. It was larger than any snake they’d ever seen before.

“I discovered it,” Monty said, “So I get to name it.”

“What’s it called?” Lilac called.

Uncle Monty smiled. “The Incredibly Deadly Viper.”

At that moment, the snake jumped forwards at the door of the cage, and when it flew open, before anybody could say or do anything, the Incredibly Deadly Viper fell onto the ground and bit Sunny right on the chin.

[helloiliketits]

There is only one Spiderman (Peter Parker x Reader)

Summary: Reader is just a normal kid. Like you and me. Friends with the one and only Pooter Porker Peter Parker and just really feisty and find it difficult to bolt away from danger. Which almost gives our little lovestruck Spider a heart attack more often than not.

(This has been in my drafts since last year so its outdated, also english is not my native language)

Reader: Of any color

Warnings: Just me kissing ass because I love you, some fluff, some angst but not too much because I dont play like that, also there are some vine references, and the words “b*tch”

(I listened to Tchaikovsky while writing this and honestly each piece syncs so well with this gif, bless the creator)

Sure, he may be a web slinging superhero on the side, but Peter Parker was still a little nerd and had crushes on cute people like everybody else.

Specially someone as cute as you. No one could resist you. Not even our cliche school bitch bully, Flash Thompson. You were a bit of an introvert and would rather spend your time reading fanfics on Tumblr and having some fun times with a few friends but you did have some sudden bursts of confidence here and there. 

It all started when you were new to the Midtown High School. Being a new student already gets you ton of attention. Pair that with your incredible personality and you might have just swallowed a magnet because of how much people are attracted to you. Whether you like it or not. You were practically the Ruby Rose of Midtown High. Everyone liked you instantly. Boys, girls, plants, even a god damn piece of paper would NOT politely detach itself from your shoe during Science class and you’re pretty sure you heard a girl in the room say “Me asf” while you tried to yank it off as the class just basked in your pure presence. You had people feeling ~some type of way~ okay?

So it comes as no surprise that Flash Thompson was equally attracted to you and wanted to date you even if it’s just for the rights to brag because *rolls eye* Flash. You on the other hand, had heard enough about his shenanigans through some of your friends and thought it was best to avoid him.

But isn’t fate a comical thing? You’re on your way to your next class and there he is, shoving our precious cinnamon roll, Peter into a locker while Ned watches anxiously. Sad to see his friend stuffed into a locker while also not wanting to go through the same thing. Peter just sighs and does nothing while Flash and his minions are tucking his legs into the tiny space of the locker which probably doesn’t even belong to Peter, judging from another kid standing next to the group of jocks, obviously not there to witness a "cool" fight but also not friends with Peter enough to care about his state right now. "Guys can't you stuff him in somebody else's locker?" the guy huffs, but generally does nothing to stop them. You guess it's because he doesn't want to get hip checked into the small space with Peter as if they're playing "seven minutes in heaven" (but it lasts as long as it takes for someone to finally rescue their asses). So, you decide to step in. "Flash!" you holler. That definitely gets his attention and he turns around quickly, running his palms through his hair to "style" it and leans against the now closed locker door, grinning. As if there isn’t a very antsy Peter Parker just inside, praying to whoever was listening, that he make it to AP Physics in time.

“Y/N!” he grins, opening his arms for a hug. “Cut the shit, Thompson of a bitch. Let that kid out,” you test. There’s a mix of “ooh”s and “aah”s from the students in the hallway as Flash’s smile falters for a brief second, obviously not used to being talked to like that, but he just crosses his arms over his chest, raising an eyebrow.

“Why don’t you run back to snow white, dwarf-o,” one of his friend teases but before you can get the “I am the perfect height to punch you in the nuts, and I will,” Flash collects his ‘bros’ with a “woah-woah, guys” and bangs on the locker twice and leaves with his group. But not before giving you a wink (which you scoff at).

The hustle and bustle of the hallway continues as the onlookers suddenly get hit with the reminder that they need to be in class. You do too. So, you rush to the locker and throw it open, to let a very confused Peter Parker out. You see that the inside of the locker is... well, hygienically challenged but that’s a teenage boy’s with god knows how many dirty socks and raunchy magazines buried inside so you avert your focus to his scrunched eyebrows and his mouth hanging open instead.

Don’t get him wrong, he’s very grateful but also slightly mad at you for being cute and nice! How dare you be so attractive!? God damn it, Y/N! Now his attraction has increased tenfold! He mutters a faint “Thanks”, flustered beyond his wits and you give him a kind smile that has his heart beating all the way up to his head. He’s damn near frozen.

.And now that’s the origin story of you two. Of course, Peter couldn’t keep his eyes and distance away from you and would “observe” you whenever you were in the room. 

Which was almost always. 

Because he followed you there. 

Which Ned states as “stalking” but Peter describes it as “checking her out up on her”.  [Yeah, ok, Pete!1!1!] 

Much to Peter’s delight, you guys practically lived in the same building so Peter had twelve hundred (and more) excuses to walk you home. Ofcourse, Spider duties remained but that was more of an after-school activity. And it’s not like the neighborhood was jam packed with crime 24x7. Sometimes his “job” required simply patrolling and the most action he saw was a woman dump a milkshake on her (no longer) boyfriend’s head.

One slightly unfortunate day, as you and Peter were trudging up the streets, complaining about school, a VERY clear, sharp scream of a woman echoed nearby! Now THAT’S a job for Spiderman! But, like, you were RIGHT there! So it’s not like he could rain drop, drop top, roll and whip out his spider suit in the middle of the street, kiss you on the cheek and zoom zoom away,

You both exchanged a brief, wide eyed gaze of absolute shock as you both ran in separate direction, wasting no time. By the time Spiderman had arrived to the scene, there was no woman but there was a homeless guy holding a knife towards none other than our lovely protagonist! (das you, bruh) 

“Go for it, shit! I’m a bad bitch, you can’t kill me!” You shout, as Spiderman skrrt skrrts his web and webs the bad guy to the wall before he can touch your spaghett, landing on his feet infront of you with HALF a mind to grab you by the shoulders and shake you like a drink being made by a barista, the other half of him wanted to reach out and absolutely fecken high five you! “Er, good job. Go home, it isn’t safe here” is all he can choke out in his fake “I came from the mid-west, howdy, I’m the man!” accent before catapulting himself off the alleyway [its always alleyways, God, they’re the hub for all bad shit! So predictable too! Take your mugging somewhere unexpected, man! Throw the heroes off guard! Do you even business, bro?]

Back in your apartment building, as you turn the corner practically skipping, a pair of surprisingly strong hands suddenly grab you and pull you so hard, that all your hair holds a Met Gala at the front of your face, curtaining your view from the one and only Peter Dorker, “Are you crazy! Why’d you do that!?” he yells at you

Completely not giving a feck about not giving out spoilers (*cough* tom *cough*) Why’d you do WHAT!? He wasn’t even there! What’s he talking about!

But right now all you’re focused on is the fact that this random ass bish is grabbing your shoulders like some fecken tentacle and- “You ran away! Someone had to do something!”

He barks, “WOMAN I WAS TRYIN  That’s Spiderman’s job! When you hear trouble, you turn and you run the other way! There’s people who will handle this kind of-”

But before he can get another lecture in, “I helped a lady today! There’s only ONE spiderman, Peter! And he can’t be there for us all the time! It’s NOT his duty- He is NOT obligated to cleanse the streets of Queens! Our work is NOT to turn the other way and hope somebody else does the dirty work! He’s here to HELP and we need to PARTICIPATE! We need to do OUR part WHEN we CAN!” you shout, face all red and sweaty, huffing out, trying not to crack into a smile, proud at yourSELF because damn, that speech was GOOD. You huff, contemplating if you should let him EAT it or just go to your room and head bang over the fact that you got noticed by Spiderman! 

Taking one last look at a very open mouthed Peter, you walk around him and into your apartment as he just stands there, frozen like a chicken pizza at Walgreens. 

He lets out a long, loud breath! How could you be so STUBBORN! This was for YOUR safety! Unless you’re on top of Nick Fury’s “to recruit into Avengers” list, you don’t just go bursting into alleyways in the name of saving people! That’s DANGEROUS! He can’t lose you to some heroic-shit-gone-wrong!

But Peter also felt RELIEVED! For the first time in YEARS, he felt content! You were right! There is only one Spiderman! And no he can’t be there to fight crime every second of the day! And while that ate Peter alive every waking moment of his life, he was also glad that there were good natured people like you in this world! Ones who stood up for somebody and didn’t wait for somebody else! He felt a lot better, realizing that he didn’t have to do this alone! He didn’t have to do it all! He wasn’t expected to do it all!

Peter walked to his apartment, head lowered, hiding his grin. God, he loved you!

[liamakorn]

Absolution (Part One)

A/N: Oh, boy howdy, it’s here. And it’s a two-parter!! Yas!! The second part is gonna take a little while to come out, considering my midterms are arriving and I need to prepare. But fear not! Soon, you’ll have all the John seed lovin’ I know you sinners want, trust me ;) But for now, enjoy this angst, and let me know what you think! Also, this deviates from the plot slightly, so...theres that XP 

Part 1 -Part 2 -Part 3

(Edit: AH! I forgot to tag @obscure-fae , sorry hun! Better late than never I suppose 😅)

Pairing: John Seed x OC (Not the Deputy) 

Warnings: Mentions of abuse and neglect, John’s in a cage, he’s a little shit. I think that’s it?? Some truly awful banter. Like, one swear? Also, I think maybe I wrote John just a tad out of character. Hope that’s cool. 

Word Count: 2,839 

Rating: PG-13 

Maggie paced across her darkened room, radio emitting a static shrill that she barely paid any mind to.

The news had just come in.

John Seed had been apprehended.

After all the pain he had caused. The death and destruction he had left in his wake. The people of Fall’s End had finally caught him. It was a bittersweet moment for her. While, yes, it was good that his reign of terror in Holland Valley was over, for now at least...he was in Fall’s End. Just a few buildings away.  

And it was Maggie’s job to watch him.

Now, that’s not to say she was alone in the task. Three people had been chosen by the Deputy to watch over the Herald. These three would take shifts, rotating every 8 hours or so. That in itself would be terrifying, but for Maggie, it was worse. Her shift ran from 10 pm to 5 am. Meaning, she’d be spending all night with a psychopath cult leader who carved people’s sins into their flesh. Exciting, I know.

She was still trying to unravel the knot that had settled in her stomach when she left her quarters, finally working up the courage to make her way across town to the Spread Eagle, a well-known bar in this part of Hope County. She smiled at Mary May, the owner of the establishment, and someone Maggie would consider almost a parental figure. Maggie opened her mouth to speak, before shutting it quickly, staring nervously at the door leading to the basement. Mary May nodded, blonde hair swishing with her head.

“He’s restrained, caged, and beaten to high hell. He can’t hurt ya past empty threats.”

The redhead sighed, biting her lip and hesitantly stepping towards the threshold. Moonlight slipped past the dusty windows, illuminating the glass Mary May held in her hand as she raised it in salute. Chuckling, Maggie took a deep breath and grabbed the doorknob, marching down the steps before she could change her mind. Waiting for her at the base of the stairs was Alice, a girl of barely 17, who looked about ready to keel over any second. Glancing at Maggie for barely a moment, Alice huffed a sigh of relief, dragging herself out of her chair and trudging to the door.

“Thank. God. I swear, I was about ready to die of absolute boredom. This guy never says anythin’, doesn't even try to escape so I can shoot ‘im!”

With another sigh she starts up the stairs, leaving Maggie to her shift.

“Have fun with doing nothin’.”

Well. This should be fun.

The walls were old, cracks littering the stone no matter where you looked. Most were tiny, barely perceivable unless you squinted. Others were practically the length of the room, suggesting it had been built before even Mary May was born. There were crates of varying sizes stacked against the left wall, probably holding alcohol of some sort, as well as smaller boxes of utensils, glasses, etc.  In one corner there were cleaning supplies, next to a door Maggie assumed to be a closet. In another corner, there were cans of food that had been there since god knows when, beside a row of mostly empty wine racks.

But the thing of interest rested against the far wall. A medium sized cage, one meant for that of a wolf or bear, was propped between the refrigerator and a stack of kegs, leaning precariously against the former. It appeared makeshift, as if it had been ripped apart and someone, probably Nick, taped it back together the best they could.

Inside the cage sat a man, hands tied behind his back, face bloodied and bruised, but still recognizable in its features. His shirt was torn, the scarified tattoo of ‘Sloth’ reading clear across his chest, along with several of his other tattoos. His brown hair was tousled haphazardly; the ends just barely managed to hang in front of his eyes. Oh, his eyes. While his face remained mostly clear of any wrinkles and blemishes - save for the contusions and visibly broken nose - his eyes seemed lined in a pain she couldn’t quite place, and, quite honestly, never wished to be acquainted. To her surprise, when Maggie looked into them, he was already staring back, a gleam in the striking blue depths. As if he was in control. As if she was the one locked in a cage.

Like an animal, ready to strike.

She couldn’t help the shiver that ran down her spine, peering at this man who had caused the misery of so many of her friends. She had never seen him face to face, and while, yes, he was definitely intimidating…

She never allowed herself to finish that thought, lifting her gaze to the chair she would be spending the next several hours sitting in. The thought made her skin itch, but she ignored that, squaring her shoulders and taking a seat, purposely not looking in John Seed’s direction. His gaze never faltered, following her movements with a frightening steadiness.The hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention.

This was going to be a long night.

----

It was about half an hour into her shift when Maggie began to fidget. An hour, and she started tapping her boot against the ground. At two hours, she was ready to bust out some jumping jacks, just to have something to do. And still, John hadn’t said a word. She now understood what Alice had meant. The silence was eating her alive.

“I hope you don't mind, I helped myself to your rifle.”

She spat out the words, anything to break the tension; but, even though she intended her tone to be snarky and hardened, her voice was soft and apprehensive, sentence expelled in a single breath. Glancing at the caged man, she was startled to find his gaze already on her, peering through the steel in a way that could only be described as predatory. This time, she didn’t break the connection, staring at him with just as much intensity. Slowly, like a cat, he smirked, tilting his head ever so slightly. While he didn’t verbally reply, Maggie cast her gaze down, playing absentmindedly with the cross dangling daintily from her neck.

“I will get out of here, you know. “

Starting, she almost didn’t realize the words came from him. His voice was rough, gritty from underuse. There still contained a certain charisma to it, though. A lilt that enticed you to listen, to hear more of what he had to say. Maggie got the impression he could talk his way out of pretty much anything if he really wanted to.

She raised her emerald eyes to his, confused by the casual note in his tone. He was very relaxed, she noted, for a prisoner with the hatred of an entire county on his shoulders.

“...no. You won't.”

A snort fell from his lips, as if her statement was preposterous.

“Of course I will. Tell me,”

He rose to his knees, leaning as close to her as his cage would permit.

“When a dragon says, that he is going to eat you... That he is going to swallow you and your entire village whole...what do you do? Do you try to reason with him? Do you brush his threats aside, denying he even has the ability to do so? Or do you run, plead for mercy, worship him in an effort to save your own skin? What do you do?”

Maggie paused, brows furrowing. Was this a trick question? What game was he playing at?

“...um…”

She shrugged slightly, licking her dry lips before answering.

“Offer it a banana instead?”

John faltered, smirk falling for a second. They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, and Maggie almost could’ve believed he hadn’t heard her.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, he cracked, a soft chuckle rumbling in his chest, before evolving into a full-on laugh that filled the room.  Maggie’s gaze darted away quickly. It took everything she had not to smile with him. And yet, it felt...oddly good...to have made the supposed sociopath laugh, to see under the intense facade he’d put up with the others. She tried not to look into it too much.

----

After a week of the same routine, Alice finally convinced Rook to switch her with someone else, claiming she would ‘literally shoot herself in the foot if she had to sit through one more shift with the silent psycho.’

Sighing lightly, Maggie shuffled down the creaky steps, her catnap doing nothing to relieve the exhaustion in her bones. She should’ve never agreed to the night shift.

Tom, Alice’s replacement, was definitely...different...than his predecessor. A burly, gargantuan of a man, he stood at least a foot, if not more, over Maggie’s meager frame. Not that it was hard to do. At 5’2”, it was rare anybody wasn’t taller than her.

Tom greeted her with a curt nod, back pin straight as always. He marched out of the room without so much as a word, brushing past Maggie, who gave him a mock salute. Once he was out of earshot, she scoffed, muttering to herself, “Does he ever relax?”

A light chuckle met her ears, followed by,

“Whoso pulleth out the stick from his ass, is rightwise king born”

A short giggle fell from her lips, trying, failing, to hide the smile on her cheeks. John always did this. Stayed quiet for the majority of the night, only to make quips and jokes that never failed to make her laugh, no matter how hard she tried not to. At first, it was annoying; but Maggie soon found herself enjoying these moments, looking forward to them, even. Which in itself was something that kept her awake, even as fatigue ached in her bones. The fact that maybe she was even beginning to care for John Seed was a thought she couldn’t quite comprehend.

Taking the seat she had become quite accustomed to, Maggie shifted, trying to get comfortable on the creaky wood of the chair. After a few minutes, she gave up, resigning herself to the dull pain in her back.

John hummed, looking at her carefully. She raised her brows, refusing to back down in this weird staring contest. She refused to acknowledge the fluttering in her stomach, instead focusing on the discomfort of her stool. When it seemed like he wouldn’t speak at all, he finally did, voice low and gravely.

“So...Maggie...what’s your story?”

Her forehead crinkled, the question catching her off guard.

“What?”

A wider, more genuine smile took to his lips, shoulders shrugging in nonchalance that was definitely fabricated.

“If I’m going to be locked in here for the rest of my days, I might as well learn the tale of my beautiful prison guard. So. What’s your story?”

Maggie tried to swallow the lump in her throat, unconsciously tugging on the ends of her hair. He was just goading her. She needed to calm down.  But he just called her beautiful.

Clearing her throat, Maggie paused, collecting her thoughts before speaking.

“Well…”

There was no point in lying now, was there? What was he going to do? Laugh at her?

Yeah, probably.

“Well. My name is Maggie Cartwright.”

John rolled his eyes, motioning, as well as he could, for her to go on. Of course. That was obvious. She squirmed in her seat, crossing her arms and examining the concrete beneath her boots.

“I...grew up in Ohio. Small town, nothin’ special there, except for a barbershop and a dusty old train station that hadn’t run in ages. Anything else even resembling civilization was at least an hour drive away, so people tended to just stay in their little corner, rarely interacting. Same went for my family, we...never really left the house. ‘Cept to go to church.”

He nodded, giving no more confirmation that he was listening than that slight inclination of his head. The words began to spill out of her mouth, eyes still fixated on a stain marring the rough stone underfoot.

“I had a brother, but...he left home when I was barely old enough to walk, so...it was always just me and my parents. My dad was a farmer, always out in the fields, or at the market, tryin’ to sell whatever we had to give; sometimes the clothes off our backs. Mama never worked a day in her life, but she took care of the house, made sure there was dinner ready by the time he came home. If it wasn’t...he’d get...angry.”

“Did he hurt you?”

The question jarred her from her daze, a shaky sigh heaving from her chest. Maggie finally looked back to the Herald, blinking a few times as his brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

“Not...necessarily. Of course, there was the occasional smack or punch. When Papa would drink a little too much, or had too long of a day. I’d leave something around the house, or forget to do a chore…”

She stared into her lap, fiddling with her necklace.

“But usually they would just...ignore me. Leave me to whatever it was that kept me entertained. Which wasn’t much, considering I was practically the only kid in town, everybody else moved away. So it was just me...alone.”

Maggie blinked back tears, clearing her throat roughly. She wasn’t even sure why she was telling him about this, or why it was affecting her so badly. She thought she’d gotten over all this but…

“It’s alright to cry, you know. To let all those feelings out, all that wrath.”

She snapped her gaze to his, shaking her head slowly.

“I’m not...I’m not angry, John.”

He gave her a tender smile, raising a brow.

“Yes, you are. I can hear it in your voice. You hated how your father treated you. How he treated your mother. You hated your brother, for leaving, for letting it happen, for abandoning you. You hate how they neglected you. How they overlooked you. Disregarded you. You hate them.”

Her denial died in her throat, the expression he wore making her heart flutter.

“You hate them, because you hated being alone.”

Releasing a shaky breath, she turned away, biting her lip to keep the tears from falling. She couldn’t stand him. That he was right.  Because she was angry, and she had hated them. But that fact that he knew that, that she was so easy to read, terrified her. How could she have been so naive as to have basically laid her heart right in the open for him to see? For him to manipulate?

“Maggie.”

She didn’t turn back, only gave a slight inclination of her head. John sighed, and though she couldn’t see his face, she could almost feel him staring at her, with those big blue eyes that haunted her very dreams.

“Maggie, I know it’s hard to admit to your anger. And I know you might be turning that wrath to me, because it’s the easiest solution, but I understand.”

Slowly, she twisted just slightly toward him, barely even breathing as she listened to what she knew, deep down, was him trying to convert her. To get on her good side so she’d confess.

It didn’t stop her from paying attention, hanging onto every word he spoke.

“I understand that pain. Of feeling abandoned, and alone, even in a place where you should feel the most love. I know how you feel, and I promise, you can be saved. I can help you manage that anger, come to terms with the ache that I know sits in your chest like a stone. I can save you.”

A soft sigh escaped her, head resting against the wall.

“The pain...does it ever go away?”

His breathing was light, the only sound in the otherwise silent room, save for her heartbeat pressing against her ears.

“...no. You just learn to make room for it.”

The worst part? She wanted to believe him. She wanted so badly to feel that absolution he preached about, wanted freedom from the constant twinge in her heart. Finally looking at him, Maggie could clearly see that same twinge in his own eyes, the seeming genuine nature of his claims. She knew better. Logically, Maggie could tell he was lying, anything to get him out of that cage, to recruit another faceless mask into his brother’s cult.

But she couldn’t help but feel that pull. That pull toward the dark and twisted, toward all she had been warned against. She knew he was lying, but her heart begged her to listen, to trust that he would absolve her of all she despised in herself.

And that was her truest fear in all of this. That was the one thing she had been dreading since the Deputy had assigned her this task.  He enraptured her in a way that she couldn’t explain...and Maggie was terrified.