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thetorchwoodarchive · 3 years ago

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[Image Description: a banner for the Across the Bay Crossover Fics You Didn’t See Coming fest, featuring beach signs on a tropical island, reading “Cardiff by the Sea”, the name of the fest, “authors”, “torchwood” (partially obscured), and “one shots” (partially obscured), and a warning sign where Myfanwy chases a swimmer]

ACROSS THE BAY: CROSSOVER FICS YOU DIDN’T SEE COMING MASTERPOST

Thank you everyone for submitting your crossover and fusion fic recommendations. Below are all submissions and some of our favorites!

Is it Insensitive for Me to Say by aliciajazmin (EstherJohnTosh | complete | 2441 | T)

Toshiko Sato and Esther Drummond absolutely will make fun of their boyfriend for deciding to attend an audition, while also attending said audition with him.

Crossover With: The Outer Worlds

Golden Apples and Norse Gods (Or How Ianto Got His Groove Back) by blackkat (JackIanto | complete | 1592 | G)

Ianto finds himself back from the dead and, apparently, in the position to double-cross a power-crazed Norse god intent on conquering the Earth by taking out a team of superheroes. Must be a Tuesday.

Crossover With: Avengers/MCU

The Magic of Torchwood by Bella the Strange (JackIanto, IantoJohn, JackOther, Non-Torchwood Ships | wip | 546,512 | T)

The Torchwood team have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Set between Adam and Reset. Rated T because of Jack Harkness, swearing, mature themes, slash etc… it’s Torchwood!

Crossover With: Harry Potter

Welcome to Torchwood by Jackdaw818 (Gen | complete | 1601 | T)

A strange creature behind the Ralphs, a break-in at the Museum of Forbidden Technologies, and visitors in Night Vale. Overall, a slightly unordinary day for Cecil Gershwin Palmer

Crossover With: Welcome to Night Vale

Torchwait for iiiiit by lady-demacabre (Gen | complete | 3k | K+)

When Shawn and Gus are called in on a case for an eccentric collector of alien objects, they get more than what they bargained for. One shot, Psych oriented.

Crossover With: Psych

Theme and Variations by nemo_baker (JackIanto, GwenRhys, OwenKatie | 5817 | T)

Time Agent Jack Harkness is sent back in time to solve the mystery of a mysterious train bombing. The problem is, he only has eight minutes to do it.

Written for Reel Torchwood screening 8 on Livejournal. Movie Prompt: Source Code (2011)

Crossover With: Source Code

Day Tripper by Croquemboucheballpit (Gement) (JackBessie the Third Doctor’s Car, Bessie the Third Doctor’s CarLightening McQueen (past) | complete | 2360 | M)

Bessie’s like any other companion: far from home, more than she appears, and always up for an adventure.

And Jack Harkness really will seduce anything that moves.

Crossover With: Pixar’s Cars

An American Volunteer by That_one_kid (SteveBucky, BuckyJackSteve | Complete | 4395 | T)

What if Captain Jack Harkness met Steve & Bucky during the war? What if he ran into them again, present day?

AKA

Captain Jack Harkness and his mission to seduce the two gorgeous, capable soldiers who keep running into him.

Crossover With: Captain America/MCU

Statement #0041708 - Future Sight by Jackdaw816 (Gen | complete | 1690 | T)

Statement of Lisa Hallett regarding a peculiar mirror found at a car boot sale

Crossover With: The Magnus Archives

(Un)Welcome Aboard by Jaune_Chat (Jack | Complete | 4,154 | T)

To make ends meet, Mal listens to a suggestion from Inara than he rent out the other shuttle. She has the perfect candidate, a charming Companion named Jack…

Crossover With: Firefly

Death and the Definitely-Not-A Maiden by Odsbodkins (JackIanto | Complete | 3,6K | PG-13)

When Jack dies, Death is there to meet him. Every time. Written in 2008 for the Doctor Who Crossover Ficathon. Takes in Torchwood to end S2, Doctor Who to end S3, Discworld to Soul Music.

Crossover With: Discworld

Remarkable by snowwhiteliar ( JackIanto, IantoLisa | Complete | 20.971 | PG-13)

Summary: Once upon a time, in a small village in a distant province of a peaceful kingdom, there lived a boy called Ianto

Crossover With: Fairy Tales

Got That Friday Feeling Again by NancyBrown (OwenOther, JackIanto, GwenRhys, GwenOwen | Complete | 18.3K | R)

HELP HELP HELP HELP

I AM TRAPPED IN A TIME BUBBLE

The magic marker all over the nice chintz wallpaper bled and smeared as Owen wrote in increasingly desperate lettering across the walls. Ls and Ps dragged down, wiggly at the end or drawn out in slashed strokes.

He ignored the pounding on the door frame. He’d shoved the wardrobe in front, which always kept Jack out for twenty three and a half minutes. He ignored the sweat and tears and snot dripping down his face, down his mouth. He ignored the high-pitched singing from his own throat, “If you want my future, forget my past,” chanted over and over.

HELP

Crossover With: Groundhog Day

Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional) (JackIanto, JennyVastra | Complete | 32591 | M)

Accidentally shot into the past by a time-travelling car, Ianto has to fix his own mistakes or he won't have a future to go back to.

Crossover With: Back to the Future

Truth, Justice by NancyBrown (SupermanOwen | complete | 414 | M)

The green shit does not work. Warnings: dubcon (AMTDI)

Crossover With: Justice League Unlimited/DCAU/Superman

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodies, or, A Humourous Interlude Between Epics by copperbadge (Gen | complete | 749 | T)

Ianto neglected to introduce himself as he informed the senior staff that Atlantis was now under the jurisdiction of Torchwood, whatever Torchwood is.

Crossover With: Stargate Atlantis

Never Have I Ever by st_aurafina (JackIanto, JackDoctor (past/implied), PepperTony (implied) | complete | 1714 | T)

Written for the prompt Ianto, Donna and Pepper end up at a secretaries'/assistants' conference and have a conversation about their bosses.

Crossover With: Ironman/MCU

Beware the Sparkles by elisi (JackIanto, JackEdwardBella | complete | 4793 | T)

It's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after. Oh and Jack has sex with sparkly vampires.

Crossover With: Twilight

The Death Note Discovery by KaibaGirl007 (JackIanto | complete | 18,992 | T)

“You’ve clearly just got a notebook belonging to some geek, a rather sick geek I’ll give you that, who likes to keep note of people’s deaths.” - Will the team resist the urge to use the Death Note or will one of them give into temptation?

Crossover With: Death Note

A Confluence of Personalities by galaxysoup (JackIanto | complete | 4839 | T)

Conner Kent’s body might be dead, but his soul has apparently decided to take the scenic route.

Crossover With: DC Comics/Young Justice Comics

Imposters Among Us by gwendolyncooper (JackIanto, GwenRhys | complete | 9117 | M)

The Torchwood team (+Rhys) are out for a night of fun when they end up on a spaceship with no power, no info, and no crew. Known only as THE SKELD, the team tries to fix the ship and figure out what happened to its previous occupants.

But something out there is killing them.

Something that may be someone they know.

Crossover With: Among Us

Traitors (Among Us) by princessoftheworlds (JackIanto | complete | 440 | G)

In a happy future, the team plays Among Us, and Ianto suffers.

Crossover With: Among US

Tagline: I saw the VIDEO. Got the CALL? What Next??? by BricklingGhost (TeamGwenee) (JackIanto, JackSamara | complete | 2424 | Not Rated)

'Tagline: I saw the VIDEO. Got the CALL? What Next???

Bollocks. That’s just a myth. Some git showing off and claiming to be the one person alive who Samara doesn’t bump off. He’ll be boasting that he’s been chosen to kill Voldemort next.'

When another unsuspecting victim falls foul of the cursed tape, he is pointed towards Captain Jack Harkness as his only hope for salvation.

Crossover With: The Ring

(My God, He Just) Came and Went by Brokenpitchpipe (SteveBucky | complete | 1591 | M)

It starts on a cold, snowy September night in 1916, on the day Winifred Barnes walks to Doris Lindow’s house to see her new telephone and catches the eye of a handsome young man on the other side of the street. He tips his hat as she sees him, and she flushes scarlet and nods in return.

And nine months later, a little baby boy screams his way into the world.

But that’s not when it starts. Not really.

Crossover With: Captain America/MCU

Beast Inside by Flamingbluepanda (JackIanto, OwenTosh, GwenRhys | complete | 26934 | M)

"Argue with anything else, but don’t argue with your own nature.” - Phillip Pullman

Inside us all, there is an animal that expresses our soul. How would the world change were those animals outside?

Crossover With: His Dark Materials

Rifts and Robots by Paycheckgurl (JackIanto | complete | 3021 | G)

Jack and Ianto’s date at the movies is interrupted by two robots with no theater etiquette.

Crossover With: Mystery Science Theater 3000

The Jack and Ianto Show by Paycheckgurl (JackIanto | WIP | 7392 | T)

Jack and Ianto are a regular couple, living a quiet life, and trying to fit into the quaint Village of West Castle. Sure they're keeping the secret that Jack is an immortal time traveler from the future, with a fantastical machine called a vortex manipulator that can manipulate time and space around them, but they have much more pressing concerns. Such as strict bosses and nosy neighbors. Everything is perfect, a dream come true.

And Jack is going to keep it that way.

Please Stand By...

Crossover With: WandaVision

Mutually Assured Uncooperation by princessoftheworlds (JackIanto, OwenTosh, MarthaMickey, FitzSimmons, LincolnDaisy (past) | complete | 31547 | T)

Aliens, time-travelling, resurrections. These are all experiences familiar to not just one but two top-secret organizations that have a hard time keeping a low-profile. Figures that they would encounter each other eventually.

Or: the five times that SHIELD and Torchwood had an encounter that neither were pleased with, and the one time they had to work together when two of their own were taken.

Or: There's Kree running amok in Cardiff, including a murdered one, and Torchwood is on the case, but so is SHIELD. Also, don't forget the memory-manipulating aliens there too!

Crossover With: Agents of Shield/MCU

all i know is (infatuations) by princessoftheworlds (JackIanto, JackJohn, OwenTosh, LisaIanto | complete | 439 | T)

Seventh-year Slytherin Ianto Jones handles a break up, getting a boyfriend, terrible emotional misunderstandings with his best friend Jack Harkness, being miserable, and reconciliation. (Not precisely in that order.)

Crossover With: Harry Potter

#torchwood #au:crossover #genre:crossover #event:across the bay crossover fest

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kiri-ah · 4 years ago

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File: Sector 5

Part of the Action Figure Collab hosted by @go-shotaro

Pairing: Kim Jungwoo x gn!reader (no pronouns mentioned for reader), low key Taeil x Sicheng if you squint

Themes: Dark Matter (TV Show) AU, Elite Dangerous (Video Game) AU, basically space stuff, gunfights, lasers, hackers, set in the future, spaceships, Star Wars is mentioned like twice, Sicheng is a jerk, Mark and Johnny are half-brothers

Warnings: Major character death, gunfights, blood, two swearwords, mentioned burials, mentioned black market

WC: 3.7k

Summary: In a galaxy divided into factions, war is rampant. The ship files that you’re searching for could solve all of your problems - if only you can get into the classified sector of the space station where they’re housed. With Jungwoo on one side and Taeil on the other, nothing can go wrong. Right?

Taglist: @allegxdly , @stayctday , @leelatte , @dundun-baby , @kunrengui

Author Note: Welcome to my first collab fic! This is also my first full-length fic on tumblr which is pretty cool. When I saw the concept for this collab I decided it was perfect for my first foray into working with other creators. In the process I made a lot of new friends and I had a lot of fun. Plus I’m pretty proud of this fic. Please enjoy File: Sector 5!

You walk as quickly as you can while still being discreet. There are a lot of people that you wouldn’t want to notice you here. Jungwoo and Taeil, following behind you, seem to have had the same thought. Taeil has a cap over his projector glasses, and Jungwoo has on a black too-big hoodie that hides his give-away physique. In your earpiece there’s silence, but that doesn’t bother you. Yangyang told you to reach out once you got to the section of the space station you need. You still have a few more obnoxiously crowded spaces to traverse before you arrive, so you focus on draining the urgency from your movements and walking like you belong here. Like you’re not about to break into a classified sector and commit a crime.

You make your way through the bar, the ship parts market, and the casino with minimal issues. You think you see a familiar face across the way in the market, but he turns away a second later and you breathe easy once again. If it was who you thought it was, you wouldn’t be alive anymore. Nakamoto Yuta is famed for his cruelty. You enter Sector 5 and speak quietly into your earpiece.

“Yang, we’re in sector five. Where do we go from here?”

“I’m getting your location still, hold on,” comes Yangyang’s voice into your ear.

“Take a left here, and then head down for a few hallways. This is one of the permanent sectors like ours, so you can use your gun now if need be and not worry about puncturing an outer wall.”

You take the left where he says to and continue down, checking to make sure that Jungwoo and Taeil are still behind you. They are, and so is another figure.

“Get over here,” you hiss, pulling them into a side hallway. The figure doesn’t appear to have seen you and passes by, turning down another hallway. You recognize the face of Xiao Dejun, an infamous criminal like yourself. You try not to think about what would have happened had he spotted you. You wouldn’t be dead, but you would probably wish you were.

“What happened?” asks Yangyang in your ear.

“Security,” you mutter.

“Oh.”

You pull Jungwoo and Taeil out and walk down the hallway until Yangyang tells you to stop by a door. “You guys will need to get through this door without my help,” he says. “Beyond it, I can only get high energy drain levels. Be careful.”

Taeil kneels by the card scanner and pulls out his tools. You and Jungwoo turn around, standing guard in case another member of security comes and you need to shoot them. Taeil carefully prys the backing panel off of the scanner and maneuvers until he can see the wires. He scoffs.

“For a high security organization, their security is terrible,” he mutters. He cuts the casing off of a wire and does something you can’t see with it, and the door slides open. You continue keeping watch as Taeil packs up his high-tech phillip’s head screwdriver and cleans up the casing. When you turn around, you’re speechless.

“We found the source of the energy drain,” Jungwoo says in a low voice. Before you is a room of lasers, the kind you thought only existed in old movies. They cross back and forth across the space like an absurd red spider web and fizzle oddly like Redstone in that old game Chenle likes. Minecraft, was it?

“What kind of black market did they get these on?”

Taeil shrugs and walks into the room. “Looks like we can get in,” he tells you. “The lasers are designed like shark teeth - easy to get in, not so easy to get out.” The analogy doesn’t help you feel any better about the situation, and you clutch at your gun.

“Can you turn them off?” Jungwoo asks Taeil, seemingly as nervous as you are.

“I can, but we don’t need to to get in. Let’s focus on that on our way out.”

You nod and walk in, spotting the pattern like Taeil did. “Maybe their security is just bad,” you say. “This is so easy.” You swing your right leg over the nearest laser and start your way across. You get a finger close to the laser and feel the heat emanating from it. You turn to warn Taeil and Jungwoo of this, only to find that they’re already in the maze themselves. You duck under the next beam of red and feel the heat on the back of your head from the proximity, then step easily over one that reminds you of a tripwire - right at ankle level. You hear Jungwoo and Taeil following behind you, Jungwoo struggling a bit because of his wide shoulders. At some points you have to turn around and help him since he can’t see where his biceps are about to brush one of the heated red lines. At least Sungchan isn’t on your team, he’s even larger than Jungwoo. Chenle and Hendery will have to help him or find another way in. You almost laugh at the thought before deciding that you rather like all of your teammates, actually, and you don’t like to think about them dying by heated laser. Each time you stop to help Jungwoo, Taeil reminds you that you need to hurry. You eventually just tell him to please be quiet, because some people are trying to focus here. He shuts up, thankfully.

When you reach the end of the room, you’re faced with another door. Taeil tampers with the wires and it too slides open. The hallway is paneled with light gray and the floor is tile reminiscent of a hotel lobby. Your guns are poised to fend off an attack as the door opens, but nobody is there. You lower them slowly and Jungwoo steps out into the hallway. There are footsteps fading away down to your right, but nobody is watching for you here. You look for the source of the footsteps and spot who you’re pretty sure are the team Johnny and Mark, orphan half-brothers notorious for their sudden team changes depending on the paycheck. They’re for sale to the highest bidder, and they don’t care who that is. Your guess is confirmed when the shorter man laughs - you’ve worked with Mark before, and that laugh is both contagious and unique.

When you refocus, Yangyang is back in your ear and instructing you to go the opposite way that the pair is walking. He says that the door at the end of this hallway is the one you want. Your shoes shuffle against the tile as you try to go quietly, with Jungwoo in front of you and Taeil nervously watching your backs. He isn’t as confident with a gun as you or Jungwoo, he prefers to work behind the scenes. The nature of this mission required a tech whiz on site, though, and he came reluctantly. He knows how important it is to steal the USB drive with ship plans on it. The newest fighter models will make or break the war for your faction, and you have reason to believe that those ships also have teleportation devices in the plans. Not just lightspeed travel, but all-out teleportation. You can only imagine that sort of power on your own ship, the Phoenix.

You walk all the way down the hallway and find the door that Yangyang has pointed out to you. Taeil once again gets down to open the wire panel and gasps in delight.

“Finally a good security system! Give me a moment.” His face disappears behind the stand housing the card reader and he hums as he fiddles with whatever has made him so happy. Even laying at an awkward angle, his voice is beautiful. You sometimes wonder why he became a technician for a faction like yours when he could be a singer for one of the more powerful factions that aren’t always at war. When confronted with this question, he would smile a little and tell whoever was asking that his one true love was testing security systems, no matter how much his voice delighted other people. He said with a dry laugh once that the selfishness of that reason made him perfect for the job. Part of you doubted that story, but everyone working for your faction had baggage. You didn’t need to pry into his.

Eventually there comes a pleased “aha!” from behind you, and Taeil reemerges. His face has a smudge on it that you wipe away with your thumb.

“Have fun?”

You ask the question sarcastically, but Taeil nods happily. “That’s what I like to do. The other systems were easier, I think this room must be important.”

“That’s what I said,” grumbles Yagyang in your ear.

The door slips open with some prodding and you walk into a lab with pristine white surfaces and surfaces that look as though they’ve never been used. In the middle is a silver table covered in instruments of some kind, although you don’t know what they would be used for. The walls are lined with diagnostic panels, and one is a window into a secret hangar you weren’t aware of. Inside is a ship that looks a lot like the X-Wings of the Star Wars franchise. The movies are still iconic today despite how obsolete they are, and everyone knows that the X-Wings were never recreated due to a problem with their size in relation to the way they were meant to work. It appears that whoever made this ship has been hiding their discovery.

“Y/N, focus,” Jungwoo whispers. You nod and turn away from the hangar, albeit reluctantly.

You look at the remaining two walls, both of which are shorter and lined with counters. Taeil is looking at one, and you walk over to the other. You find a monitor completely shut down and follow the cords down to discover that it isn’t plugged in. That’s a little strange. You look at the computer tower and find a USB drive, labeled “Schematics.” That’s even more strange. Why would they leave something so valuable lying around? Hiding in plain sight, perhaps? You plug the monitor in and turn it and the tower on, opening the USB files. You’re low on time, you know, but you have to make sure this is the right drive.

Once the files are loaded, you gasp. “You guys, look at this.” Jungwoo and Taeil stand and look over your shoulders as you scroll through page after page of exact instructions and diagrams for the X-Wing.

“They even stole the name from Star Wars,” Jungwoo scoffs. Taeil laughs lightly.

“These are the right files, we should get out of here.”

“Agreed,” you say. You pocket the USB drive and unplug the monitor again, making sure to leave minimal traces of your passing through. “Let’s go.”

Yangyang repeats the directions out of Sector 5, and you walk quickly. You make it to the laser room without incident and go back through the doorway. “Taeil,” you ask, “can we get out of here faster if you turn off the lasers, or if we just walk through like we did on the way on?”

“Definitely turning them off,” he assures you. “It’s too time consuming to worry about things like this when we need to be worrying about the USB being reported missing.” He settles down by a panel near the start of the lasers and peels off the cover where it looks like maintenance might be done. You only know this because he tells you happily that there might be an off switch.

“Aha! Found it!” he singsongs after a moment. The lasers go off a second later and you’re about to celebrate when a siren screeches from the ceiling.

“All units to Hall Sixteen!” A voice yells over an intercom that you hadn’t noticed. “Lasers have been disabled!”

“Shit,” Jungwoo and Taeil say in unison.

“Let’s go!” you yell. There’s no point in being quiet now. You hear the clomping of boots down the hall and yelling from both ends of the laser room. Hall Sixteen.

You run out towards the exit and find yourself facing Xiao Dejun and another man you don’t know. They both have guns and are shooting the moment you get within range. You shoot back, missing Dejun by inches.

“Sicheng?” cries Taeil from beside you. He lowers his gun slightly. “I thought you were dead!” He runs towards the man, completely ignoring the battle around him. Dejun shoots at him but misses. Jungwoo hits him in return, a nonlethal hit to the arm. It’s enough to make him take pause though, and long enough for you to see with crystal clarity as the other man - Sicheng - raises his gun and shoots Taeil in the chest. Taeil doesn’t even have his gun up, and the shot tears right through his body. He collapses into the fall, blood spouting from the wound. It looks like Sicheng hit his heart.

Someone is screaming, and you realize it’s you. You feel your nose start to burn and your eyes brim suddenly with tears. Not Taeil! you want to scream. Taeil can’t be dead! Your body reacts faster than your brain, and you shoot Sicheng in the gut as he stares at Taeil’s body, looking almost shocked. Then you rush forward and kick the wound, making sure it hurts.

“You asshole!” you cry. “You killed Taeil!” You dodge another bullet from Dejun (it hits Sicheng in the upper stomach, and you have just enough brain space left to be smug) and spot Johnny and Mark behind Jungwoo. You scream and point, not even having words. Thankfully Jungwoo understands and spins to meet them. You shoot at Dejun, wasting bullets. One hits his left shoulder, and another hits a rib. You hear it crack. He writhes out of the way of the rest. You kick his gun hand to disarm him and knee him in the balls, a simple solution to his frustrating ability to avoid bullets. Having properly taken care of him, you turn to face Johnny and Mark.

They have Jungwoo cornered, and he’s desperately dancing out of the way of more bullets. He already has red spreading across his right side. It looks like just a graze, but it could have easily been far worse. You pick up Dejun’s gun and use it to shoot the back of Johnny’s thigh. He crumbles to the floor, blood already gushing angrily out of the wound. Mark turns to him, worried, and somewhere in the back of your mind you realize that’s sort of sweet before you shoot Mark too. He doesn’t deserve to die any more than Taeil did, and you liked working with him, but he’s the enemy right now. He needs to go down. You take aim and shoot him in the side, which is the best place you can hit at this angle. He looks almost surprised at the intrusion. You turn away. Jungwoo runs up behind you.

“Taeil?” you ask, looking down at his body. “Are you in there?” You reach down to feel his pulse, except there isn’t one. His neck is already cooling where he lays, a surprised look still painted across his features.

“Y/N, we have to go,” Jungwoo says.

“We have to bury him!” you screech. You didn’t even know your voice could sound like this. You suppose you’ve never lost someone as important as Taeil before, though.

“We’ll come back for him as soon as we get the USB back to home base,” Jungwoo mutters. “Come on.” He tugs on your arm, and you follow him, letting the tears flow. Jonny shoots one last time at you, but misses. Of everyone who could have died, it had to be Taeil. Precious Taeil with his lovely voice and sweet temperament, the person everyone went to if they needed someone to chill with. He would never again hear you complain about uncertain futures or how you missed your home planet. He would never again hug you or make you smile or gift your ears with his sweet tunes.

“We’ll come back,” you repeat, nose stuffing up. “We’ll come back.”

You leave Sector 5, only meeting one more person. Jungwoo shoots whoever it is before you even register their presence. Thank goodness that one of you has their head still on right. Getting back inconspicuously is a little harder with bloodstains on Jungwoo’s side, but you somehow manage to avoid everyone you don’t want to see. You sneak in the back way to your building and get up to Doyoung’s office. He’s the leader of your little group, so he’s the one you take the info to.

When you knock, he invites you in, and you enter the room. You’re never quite sure if he’ll be happy to see you, so you walk in with some trepidation. Thankfully he has one of his beautiful smiles on and welcomes you in.

“What did you get?” he asks.

“A USB Drive, it has files for new ships,” you tell him. “ Exactly what we were looking for.”

“Where are Jung-”

Doyoung gets cut off by a voice coming through the radio on his desk. “Sir! Doyoung, sir?”

Doyoung holds up a finger to you and presses the talk button. “Yes Yangyang?”

“Is Y/N with you yet, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Y/N,” Yangyang says, “he doesn’t know yet what happened.” Doyoung looks at you, eyes questioning.

“Okay Yang,” you say. “I’ll- I’ll tell him.”

“Okay. That’s all, sir.”

Doyoung looks at you across the desk and narrows his eyes. “What happened?”

“We got in without incident,” you say. “There was a laser maze, but we got through okay. We didn't get caught on the way in and found a lab. That’s where we found the drive. I made sure these were the right files, and then we left. Taeil-” You cut yourself off, tears threatening again.

“Taeil turned off the lasers so we could get out, but it activated some sort of security system. Some men came to kill us and Taeil recognized one. I think his name was ‘Sicheng.’ Taeil-” You take another deep breath. “He ran toward the man, gun down, like he thought the man wouldn’t hurt him. But Sicheng… He killed Taeil. Shot him in the heart.”

The tears are flowing freely down your cheeks now, and you make no move to get rid of them. Doyoung looks shaken for the first time since you’ve known him, and he stands up. He walks around the desk to hug you, mindless of the blood on your clothes.

“We’ll give him the hero’s burial he deserves,” he murmurs. “In the meantime, you should go and put the drive with our other ship plans.

You nod in the affirmative and leave his office. The file storage room is just down the hall. Your surroundings are a bit blurry from the tears in your eyes, but you make it fine. Yangyang is already there, and he pats you on the back as you plug the USB drive into its designated spot. It has a blood spot on the label and you sort of smile at the irony. You won, but at what cost?

A moment later the entire course lights up. “The Red Team wins!” proclaims a voice from the speakers. You feel the character you were playing melt off as your laser tag gun powers off. The dryness in your throat and the tears on your face fade away with the persona you became for the game. You high-five Yangyang and run to get Taeil from where he lays on the other side of the course, still playing dead. You run into Johnny on the way. “Good game,” he says, bumping your fist. “Hitting my thigh patch was a fantastic idea! You’re a really good shot.”

“Thank you. Your team owes us pizza,” you remind him smugly.

“I know.” He throws you a playful glare on the way past. “We’re going to the fifth floor dorms once everyone’s rounded up. I think Lucas and Jeno tied up Sungchan, Hendery, and Chenle, so I’m going to get them.”

“Sounds good. We’re gonna go get Taeil, Sicheng, and Xiaojun.”

“Okay. Meet you at the entrance!”

He walks off and Yangyang follows you to Sector 5.

“You did an amazing job acting!” he says. “It really helped me get into my role.”

“I thought I would actually cry when Taeil fake died,” you tell him. “He actually looked dead.”

“Well I couldn’t see, obviously, but after you guys left he just sat and hummed. It was hilarious. In one channel, you’re screaming your revenge and sobbing, and in the other, Taeil is humming Baekhyun-sunbaemin.”

Taeil meets you at the beginning of the laser hall. “That was so much fun,” he enthuses.

“Yeah it was,” you agree. “You did a great job with the puzzles!” You’re referring to the puzzles that kept Sector 5 locked. Supposedly they were hard enough to keep intruders out, but Taeil had gotten in pretty easily.

He smiles. “Thank you. You did a great job kneeing Xiaojun in the nuts, he was out for a solid minute.”

“ I didn’t hurt him too much, did I?”

“Nah, he’ll recover. He might want to punch you or something though, I don’t think he was acting with that part.”

“Oh.”

You walk back to the entrance with everyone in the group and do a quick headcount. Twenty-three men. Okay, you’re good to go.

You pile into multiple vans out front where their managers sit, bored. They congratulate the winning team and drive you to the dorms, where you all squeeze into the 5th floor apartment and Johnny orders pizza for everyone. You’re very glad that you don’t have to pay for all of the food for twenty-four people.

“We should do that again some time!” Mark suggests as you’re eating. There’s a resounding cry of agreement as everyone lifts their pizza slices to the idea.

You’re totally going to do that again.

End.

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honey-dewey · 4 years ago

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Migraine Drabbles!

This is dedicated to my sibling @mccall-me-maurice. Said sibling A) gets really bad headaches, and B) when we were playing Taboo, knew me well enough to shout out “Pedro Pascal!” for the word Actor. I almost said Sexy, but that’s okay I guess. Also, said sibling reads all the shit I write. I did not know that. I do not know how to feel about that. I am so sorry you are experiencing my thirst Mack.

Taglist: @phoenixhalliwell

Din Djairn:

“What do you need from me?”

Din’s not the best at migraines. Sure he gets them sometimes, but only when his HUD’s on the fritz. But he knows well enough how to care for someone with a migraine. The Crest is full of dark nooks and crannies and he makes you lie down in one. He’ll bring medicine, but if that doesn’t help, he’ll let you sleep in his pitch black and completely silent bunk. Occasionally, he’ll bring you some caf because he read somewhere that caffeine is good for migraines. If you’re feeling well enough, he’ll cuddle you too.

Marcus Moreno:

“Oh darling, it’s okay.”

Marcus was a whole hero, he knows what migraine pain is. He doesn’t get them anymore, but he did. When you get one, he’s all over you, ushering you into the guest bedroom and pulling the curtains tight. He’ll text Missy and let her know you’re sleeping, and leave you with a cup of coke and some pills. He’s got the good shit, the prescription strength stuff that actually works. If you’re still in pain, he’ll simply lay there with you, cuddling. He knows that pain, and he knows what it’s like to suffer it alone.

Max Phillips:

“Doll, what’s wrong?”

Max’s first idea is to Turn you. When you refuse that, he takes to the internet. He offers you his room because it’s window-less, and then just leaves. If he’s out of the house, it’s guaranteed to be silent. He comes back eventually, bringing pills, caffeine, and a confused Evan. Evan walks him through migraine relief and then scoots, leaving Max to lay beside you. He’s surprisingly tender, and his night vision means he can read in the darkness while you nap. Of course, he does still offer to Turn you, because your pain would go away.

Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales:

“Keep it down, everything hurts.”

Boy oh boy if anyone understands, it’s Frankie. He gets chronic migraines too, so when yours happen at the same time, the entire house is completely dark, there’s two cups of coke on the bedside table, and you and Frankie will lay there in bed together, just waiting for the pain to go away. If he doesn't have a migraine, he’ll leave you the hell alone so you can rest. He’s not going to bother you and potentially make it worse. He will do chores very quietly, just to ease your mind as you recover.

Jack ‘Whiskey” Daniels:

“Baby doll, I gottchu.”

Jack may not be the best with migraines, but Ginger is! When you admit you get them frequently, Jack requests that Ginger teach him everything she knows. He’s ready for when your next migraine strikes. Taking you to his office, he’ll let you lie on the couch with a thick blanket, blackout curtains, a coke, and complete silence. He’ll work in the background, and while his gentle humming of various Dolly Parton songs doesn’t help, it makes you happy. Once he’s done with the work, he’ll lay with you, massaging the sore spots and finally helping.

Ezra:

“Songbird, would you like a drink?”

Another man who actually gets migraines! After the Green, he gets terrible headaches, and when he meets you, he finally feels some sort of kinship. That kinship leads to you both knowing each other’s cures. Despite having one hand, Ezra gives very good head massages, and he’s actually capable of shutting up if he has to, and you know the exact amount of pain pills Ezra needs to take (it’s 5). But when you both have migraines, yeah, Cee’s doing the housework and making sure you both sleep. She’s surprisingly responsible about that stuff.

Shane ‘Dio’ Morrissey:

“You’re not feeling well?”

Ah, the epitome of clueless but loving. He has no idea what to do, but his room has blackout curtains, would that help? He doesn’t do medication, so he’ll run out to grab some if you want it. Coke? He probably has a can or two. He loves you so much, and he hates seeing you in pain, so he’ll do anything. After a while, he gets it on lock. He’ll even not smoke when you’re around because he knows it can trigger headaches. His cold ass hands are also super nice pressed against your temples.

Javier Peña:

“Cariño, please let me help.”

He feels so hopeless! He can’t do anything for your head and he hates being so useless. But he does what he can, drawing the curtains and forcing you to rest in Steve’s apartment because Javi’s smells strongly of cigarettes. He’ll come over, sitting on the bed with your head in his lap, trying anything he can think of to help. His hands are super warm, so he’ll resort to a cold towel. He’s hesitant about giving you coffee, so he makes caffeinated tea. Pills don’t do much, but he’ll make you take them anyway.

Maxwell Lord:

“A migraine? Okay, what do you want?”

Max gets headaches sometimes, and he just doesn’t understand, so he’ll give you some pills and tell you to relax a bit. When you puke from the pain, then he’s concerned. He’ll listen, setting you up in his room with a cold towel and a cup of water. He’ll find a nice tea and make you a cup, canceling every meeting he has for the rest of the day so he can relax with you. He’ll work at the desk in the room while you sleep, but if you insist, he’ll cuddle up.

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thewickedmerman · 4 years ago

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Zendaya STILL Can’t Act

First of all, I do NOT dislike Zendaya. She is a kind and genuine person that truly has a good heart and is the type of person that more celebrities should be like. I may not be a fan of her due to her not really being that talented, but I have a lot of respect for her as a person (Unless she does something in the future). So before any of you immature Zendaya fans come after me, just remember that you’re just making her look bad because you’re acting like a bunch of immature, annoying babies that can’t accept different opinions.

Anyway, just because she is a good person, that doesn’t mean she can’t be criticized for her work. I’m sorry, but she is NOT a good actress! Before any of you start bringing up her Emmy win, you realize that those don’t mean anything because they have been accused of being rigged and acting more as a popularity contest rather than a contest of TRUE talent, right? Some are even arguing that this year they were trying to avoid being accused of racism with the BLM movement by having most of the winners be black. I don’t agree with that because, apart from Zendaya, all the winners that are black truly did deserve their awards because they are amazingly talented people. However, if the Emmys were truly legit, Lana Parrilla would’ve been nominated and won an award for Best Supporting Actress in Once Upon a Time and Bella Thorne should’ve won an Emmy for her performance in the TV movie, Perfect High. Zendaya is a popular celebrity but popular doesn’t mean she has talent. It’s like how a lot of kids in school that are popular aren’t popular because they are a nice person that people like. Popularity isn’t always deserved. I mean, look at how Viola FREAKING Davis, the most talented actress EVER, didn’t get a nomination this year, despite receiving and winning a lot of Emmy’s over the years. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure colorism played a part there as well, but Zendaya is NO WHERE near the level of an Emmy worthy actress and did not deserve to win against the likes of the other nominations that are FAR more talented, versatile, and experienced.

However, let me explain the flaws of her acting. I’ll be fair and pretend that I acknowledge the bullshit argument that Disney Channel acting is supposed to over-the-top and bad as a “legit” argument, because critiquing that nonsense is a subject for another post on another day. Lets focus on her acting in things outside of Disney Channel. Well, her acting still sucks. While she was over-the-top in Disney Channel, she takes a new extreme by being absolutely emotionless. I know people are gonna say that her reason for acting like that in Euphoria and Spiderman is that it’s part of her character. Okay, while I think she still performs those type of characters poorly, I will be fair and accept that for now. However, what about her performance in something like The Greatest Showman?

What was her excuse in The Greatest Showman? She wasn’t playing a Daria knock-off or a drug addict there. She was playing a character that required a lot of emotion in order to make the audience feel for her struggle. I won’t mention how her being white passing (And YES, she is white passing because she’s going to be staring in a movie called A White Lie about a woman who was white passing and pretended to be white in order to attend college, so she admits she’s white passing) made her miscast for the part. I will just be talking about how bad her acting was. Ignoring the scene where she’s crying by Phillip’s bedside (Which admittedly was really good), her performance is always so wooden and emotionless. She goes around with a blank look on her face most of the time with the occasional smile and confused look on her face. Her line delivery is almost always so flat, she’s always monotone unless she’s singing, she sounds like she’s reading her lines off cue cards, and sometimes she says her lines in a hammy tone.

I’ll describe some examples of her bad acting in the movie, since I can’t show clips due to how Youtube is always taking videos down that are clips from movies. When she asks if they were all invited to see the Queen, she says it with absolutely no emotion. She comes off as though she doesn’t care and I don’t mean doesn’t care as in acting like she doesn’t care so that she doesn’t come off as vulnerable; it’s more like she just doesn’t care like how a kid in a school play just doesn’t care and is putting in no effort at all. And the way she makes a pause in the middle of the sentence makes it come off even worse. “Are we all... invited?” Come on! Put in some effort!

Another example being when Phillip touches her hand during Jenny Lind’s performance. Zendaya just has a blank look on her face and all she does is take a breath. This should be an emotional moment for Anne. The man she... loves? I mean, the character and the romance are so underwritten that it’s hard to tell how she feels about him at this point. Anyway, the man the loves finally does something to display his affection for her in public, so she should be having a surprised look on her face that grows into a smile and trying to hold back tears of joy. Unfortunately, all she’s doing is just acting the way she did before he touched her hand. We don’t see how she feels about finally holding his hand or even him touching her finger with his. At that moment, she should show some slight hope but also skepticism by brushing it off as him give trying to make her happy by doing the bare minimum, which would transition to emotional happiness as he holds her entire hand. But all we get is a slight deep breath and the same blank look she always had. When he took his hand away from her after people are whispering about them, this should be a moment where she looks shocked, as well as hurt that she let her guard down because she let him make her believe that he truly cared about her enough that there was a glimmer of hope for their love. But she just looks at him with a blank and emotionless look on her face. She’s not displaying all the many emotions that the character should be feeling. When she walks away, she doesn’t look hurt but rather looks like someone who just tooted a little. What made her or the director think she was doing a good job there? Where is the emotion? The complexity? The depth? She showed about as much emotion as the characters in that terrible “live-action” remake of The Lion King.

Another scene being where she’s at the theatre, which she ruined with her performance. The way she talks to the ticket man was so wooden and robotic. She should’ve came off as someone who was clearly trying not to be scared but you can tell that she is. Why? Because she is a black woman (Or rather is supposed to look like one) and is out of her element because someone that isn’t white wouldn’t normally be in a prestigious place like the theatre (Unless you were white passing like her, but the movie is still trying to ignore that she’s only slightly darker than Zac Efron). She should be frightening about how people will treat her but trying to be brave because of how she wants to experience this world that is like a fantasy in her mind. She’s just emotionless as always. When she sees Phillip, she should be shocked and upset because he tricked her but also is willing to be seen in public with her among all of the people from his high class world. But she just gives a blank look. When she’s looking up at the staircase leading to the theatre, she should be having a lot of emotions welling up because of how she always wanted to go to the theatre, most likely since she was a child. Now it was finally happening and what does she do? Just gives a blank expression again after biting her lips. That doesn’t come off as a young woman that is finally going to have an experience she’s always dreamed of happening. It comes off as being indifferent, especially with her monotone line delivery of “I’ve always wanted to go to the theatre.” SHOW SOME EMOTION! Imagine how bad a Cinderella movie would be if that was Cinderella’s reaction to being at the palace.

When she and Phillip run into his parents, she should be doing more than just having a blank expression on her face. She should be showing some fear because of how it felt like nothing could go wrong, but then it does. She’s being referred to as “the help” and being seen with her is considered a bigger disgrace than being associated with Barnum, who was considered to be trash to begin with. She is also giving up on her dream of going to the theatre by just leaving and doesn’t show any emotion. All of this should be having her full of emotions that she’s embarrassed that she let break through. She should be having a few tears escape, a quivering lip, and her voice whimpering and cracking as she’s running away after having a childhood dream crushed. What does she do instead? Just casually leave with a blank look on her face. She doesn’t even come off as someone trying to leave before someone sees her cry. It comes off more as just being indifferent and the speed she’s running isn’t out of desperation to leave because she was hurt but more like a “Oh! I didn’t realize how late it was. I gotta go before I’m late for being early to curfew.” It ruins the moment. She can’t even run properly in a scene! How bad at acting do you have to be to mess up running?

I won’t go into the problems of her acting in Rewrite the Stars because I covered that pretty well in my review of the movie, so I’ll just provide a link to it.

My Review of The Greatest Showman

She may be able to get away with this when she’s in Spiderman and Euphoria, but that doesn’t work for every character. It shows that she is really a one trick pony when it comes to acting. She’s not versatile and doesn’t have a wide range. Her acting is just going around with a blank look on her face with a monotone delivery, even when it doesn’t work for the scene. Until she can prove she can act outside of the types of characters she plays in Spiderman and Euphoria (And even then I think she plays the deadpan character type very poorly), she still isn’t a good actress. Maybe she’ll be able to prove herself in her movie A White Lie. I want her to improve and I wanted to love her in Euphoria but she just felt more like she was going through the motions. Playing a deadpan character isn’t as easy as people think. You need to be able to have just the right amount of being emotionless and still deliver the dry wit with a bit of smugness and sass instead of just being bored. A deadpan character is a lot more complex a character to pull off than people think. You need more than just being emotionless, monotone, and breathing to pull it off. The body language matters, which Zendaya doesn’t try to add to her characters and is just her going through the motions instead of becoming the character. In Spiderman she comes off as a stoner rather than a Daria type character, which you’d think would work in Euphoria but she really doesn’t portray that. And her eyes don’t portray Michelle as snarky, smart, introverted, or skeptical but rather just either having her eyes look relaxed or squinting like the sun is in her eyes. She feels more stiff and wooden than is necessary for the character. The emotional scenes feel half-assed. The door scene made me cringe because her voice was more whiny than desperate and and her face when she was begging felt more like she was constipated or something. I actually kind of laughed at how insanely flat her performance was in that scene, despite people praising it.

Something that is critical with a deadpan character is that, while they do have to be limited in their facial expressions, they still need to have their eyes be able to portray something. For example, Daria Morgendorffer’s eyes always showed how annoyed she was with the stupidity of her surroundings and wanted nothing to do with it (I can relate) and Raven from Teen Titans had her eyes show how she has a snarky nature and can’t express her emotions like others because her powers are dangerously driven by emotions, as well as her having a bit of mystery behind her that we learn more about in season 4. And before you say that they are animated characters so it’s easier to have them appear like that, there are actresses that manage to do that as well. Lana Parrilla managed to portray that as The Evil Queen/season 1 Mayor Mills where her facial emotions were more reserved but she managed to show how menacing she was with the look of her eyes. She made you happy that looks couldn’t kill. There was also Danai Gurira’s performance as Michonne from The Walking Dead (A show that I am NOT a fan of AT ALL) where the character had a deadpan attitude but also managed to show how serious she is with her eyes and body language instead of just having a vacant look in her eyes and uninspired body language like Zendaya did in Euphoria.

Before you say she is playing a drug addict and that’s how they act, first of all, I’ve sadly had some drug addict family members and they still didn’t have a vacant look in their eyes like she did. Her eyes were just wide open and relaxed rather than in a daze from the drugs. Secondly, and I know I shouldn’t be comparing them, but Bella Thorne has played a drug addict in Perfect High and on the show Tales in the episode “XO Tour Lif3” where she managed to come off as a genuine addict that is in a daze but still comes off as human. You can see her struggles and emotional turmoil in her facial expressions, voice, and body language that make it more believable that her character felt that she needed to turn to drugs for comfort and escape from her issues. When her character is high or drunk, she is so convincing to the point that it is flawless. Zendaya’s performance in Euphoria is just so hallow and lifeless. It also really makes me sad that Zendaya got an Emmy win at her age when Bella, who has been busting her ass in the acting business MUCH longer than Zendaya (Who didn’t start acting seriously until Shake it Up) and has dreamed of winning Oscars and Emmys, despite people saying that she would never make it as an actress because of her dyslexia and has to work extra hard just to be able to read a damn script doesn’t have even one Emmy nomination (Let alone a win). Bella is the one who has been acting since she was six-years-old! She has even shown she can play the deadpan character better in her movies Amityville: The Awakening (Mediocre movie, though) and I Still See You than Zendaya ever did in Euphoria and the Spiderman movies.

Anyway, I gave Euphoria a chance and viewed it with an open-mind that REALLY wanted to like Zendaya’s performance but she fell flat and showed that acting isn’t her strong suit. If she gets better in the future, that’s great and I wish her all the luck in the world. But I’m tired of her getting praise that isn’t deserved or earned, especially when there are actresses that are far more deserving and have worked a lot longer and harder than her but still don’t get their recognition. She has a good singing voice, is decent at modeling, and her strong suit is dancing but she’s not phenomenal at any of these things. She doesn’t deserve to be called a Queen when she doesn’t have the talent that is required to earn that title. Maybe she’d be at her best if she was exclusively a talkshow host. People mainly love her for her personality and having her own talkshow would be able to make that aspect of her truly shine.

I have also learned, thanks to following the AWESOME @angelicdiamondbabys that Zendaya’s new role in a movie called Dune was something that is based in Middle Eastern culture. So not only is Zendaya contributing to gingerism by taking redhead roles (Gingerism is a thing and it even a problem with white people that are non-redheads, so look up gingerism and educate yourselves) and taking the role of a full-blooded black woman in The Greatest Showman, but NOW she is taking roles from Middle Eastern actresses? But of course people are sitting on this because it’s Zendaya and people fancast her as every brown character even if it’s not racially correct! I don’t know much about Dune or the situation, so I can’t really say anything about that. But still, this might show that Zendaya isn’t as nice and mature as she appears to be. However, I still can’t say much on this.

And before you say that I’m a white guy, so I can’t have an opinion on Zendaya or call me a racist, my new friend angelicadiamondbabys is a full-blooded black woman who also shares my views on Zendaya. So take a look at her page and be warned, she is brutally honest, which makes her awesome, so if you don’t have a thick skin, be warned lol.

This is just my opinion. Be respectful.

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violetrose-art · 3 years ago

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Sleeping Beauty Headcannons, Theories, and Ideas

This is just a list of the theories, headcannons, and ideas I came up with for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. I might add more later on, so watch out

-Fairies like Maleficent, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather have much longer life spans than humans, basically immortal. But fairies aren’t gods by any means; they can still get sick and get hurt and die

-Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather are all sisters

-King Stefan and King Hubert have been best friends since their younger years. They first met at a royal ball when they were young princes; they were very bored and weren’t having a good time so they went off to explore the castle on their own and they immediately hit it off and became friends

-Merryweather may be the youngest out of her sisters, but she’s also the smartest and the toughest

-Prince Phillip’s mother was a wise and fair queen named Stella, but she passed away from a terrible sickness when Phillip was about three or four years old

-Hubert and Stella met and fell in love in their teen years and she fell in love with him for his big heart and funny nature

-Before she became the Mistress of All Evil, Maleficent was born to two other dark fairies. Her parents’ names were Lazarus Thornheart and Quintessa

-Maleficent grew up with her mother and father in an elegant house in the forest

-When she was younger, Maleficent used to be very close with her father, so she was something of a daddy’s girl and Lazarus loved his daughter with every fiber of his being… until the day he disappeared when she was rather young and she never saw him again

-As a young girl whenever Maleficent felt angry, sad, or scared, Lazarus would take his daughter into his embrace and they would dance and sing together until Maleficent was happy again

-Maleficent’s scepter can change its form depending on whoever holds it

-During the solar eclipse when Diablo was freed from his stone prison, he discovered Maleficent’s remains. He was devastated, but then he saw her scepter lying next to her. Thinking fast, he took it and with a wave of the scepter, Diablo was able to bring his mistress back from the grave

-When Maleficent came back, she turned everyone in the kingdom, except Princess Aurora, to stone

-After her family, friends, and everyone else the kingdom turned to stone, Aurora was heartbroken. But then she decided she wasn’t going to sit idly by anymore and she was finally going to do something about it. She decided to go to the Forbidden Mountain by herself and try to negotiate with Maleficent. Aurora offered her own life in exchange for the freedom of her people, but as much as she wanted to, Maleficent couldn’t turn her to stone. Because of the three Good Fairies casting a spell to protect the Princess when she was a baby, the Dark Fairy was unable to curse her now… but she could grant her a wish. So Aurora came up with a plan. She wished for Maleficent to place her in an eternal sleep and in exchange, she would set everybody in the kingdom free. Unaware of Aurora’s trick, Maleficent gladly granted the Princess’s wish… only to be thwarted by Prince Phillip once again

-When she was younger, Maleficent inherited her scepter from her father. After Lazarus died, he left his scepter, his old castle on the Forbidden Mountain, and his collection of numerous books and scrolls to his daughter… and Quintessa didn’t really like that

-Maleficent discovered Diablo as a fledgling alone in the forest. His mother and father had run afoul of one of King Stefan’s hunting parties and met their untimely demise. Maleficent took him under her protection, gave him the name Diablo, and cared for him until he was old enough to fly. The raven was so grateful towards her that he remained as her familiar and faithfully serves her to this day

-Around the time King Stefan and Queen Leah were about to be married, Merryweather was tasked to deliver a wedding an invitation to Maleficent. When she delivered the invitation to the castle, a couple of mischievous goons stole the invitation and scampered off with it

-When Maleficent was in her teen years, she wanted to go out and explore, but Quintessa wanted her daughter to stay in and study magic. Maleficent was bored, of course, but sometimes she would sneak out in the dead of night and run off with the one friend she had and they would go play jokes and tricks on humans

-Queen Stella died of a disease known as Specter Haze… a disease that Maleficent had created herself

-When she was around sixteen years old, Maleficent had fallen for a handsome troll named Grumio. He may have been good looking on the outside, but in reality, he was brutish, selfish, territorial, vain, arrogant, mean-spirited, manipulative, and boorish and he was only interested in Maleficent’s rare beauty, not for who she really was. He was able to forge a shallow relationship with Maleficent and she thought that relationship was full of love. But that was wishful thinking. Grumio was growing bored of Maleficent and he started seeing a beautiful female elf by the name of Lolita behind Maleficent’s back and when she found out… she was certainly not happy. When Maleficent told her mother what happened, Quintessa merely told her, “That’s what you get for pursuing love. Love is weakness and it’s about time you learn that.” Feeling even more betrayed than ever, she ran away into the forest with tears of anger and sadness in her eyes

-The Three Good Fairies knew Maleficent when they were younger, but because of her dark practices and interest in black magic, they refused to associate themselves with her

-Maleficent had one friend in her childhood: a fairy by the name of Henbane. Henbane always had an affinity for all different kinds of poison, especially in plants and minerals. When they were young, Henbane and Maleficent were almost inseparable… until they reached their late teens. Henbane grew jealous of not only Maleficent's magical capabilities, but also her relationship with Grumio. The two fairies had a falling out about it and they decided that they shouldn’t be friends anymore

-When Maleficent was all alone and at her lowest point, she decided that she wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her again. So she travelled to Bald Mountain and took an oath to the Black God, Chernabog, and that was how she became the Mistress of All Evil

-After she gained her dark powers and new title, Maleficent ventured back home to confront the ones who had betrayed her: Henbane, Quintessa, and Grumio

-When Maleficent found Henbane, she confronted her one last time and said to her, “You were never really my friend. You just wanted to keep me subdued so I wouldn’t be better than you. Well, you’ve been in my way long enough and I say it’s about time you were dealt with.” And with a wave of her scepter, Maleficent transformed her old friend into a henbane plant and she promptly squashed it underneath her feet

-Next, she confronted Grumio and Lolita; she found them kissing near a large pile of stones and boulders. She told him that he had lied to her and betrayed her and with a simple dismissive wave, Lolita and Grumio instantly turned to dust. But before he died, Grumio sneered at Maleficent and said, “I hate fairies”. And after the spell was cast, a gust of wind blew the piles of dust away

-And finally, Maleficent confronted her mother. Quintessa was shocked to see her daughter in such a way and she demanded to know what she was doing. Maleficent merely said, “You may be my mother, but you never really loved me. All you ever did was hurt me… and now you must pay for that.” She grabbed Quintessa by the hair, dragged her outside, conjured up a large wooden stake, a pile of sticks and dry leaves, and some rope, and tied her mother to the stake. And with that, Maleficent set the sticks and leaves under Quintessa on fire and Quintessa was immediately engulfed in flames, screaming and crying out in agony as she was burned to a crisp. Maleficent only watched with a calm smile on her face, ignoring her mother’s pleas for help

-Many years before Maleficent was born, Lazarus and Quintessa used to live on a magical island called the Isle of Avalon where fairies of all kinds lived in harmony and peace… until they were both banished along with the rest of the dark fairies by Queen Mab when she discovered they were planning to overthrow her, take over, and rebuild the Isle in their image

-Before the day Aurora was born, Stefan and Leah were visited by the Greek Goddess of the Dawn and she told the royal couple that their child will be destined for great things

This is all I’ve got so far, but feel free to tell me what you think and tell me which one is your favorite

#sleeping beauty #Disney Sleeping Beauty

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derivativealigner · 4 years ago

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I rewatched the second season of South Park and took so many notes that I had to split them into two parts. Like seriously, I took so. many. notes. And pictures this time. I started rewatching just in case I’d find some cool little facts to sprinkle into my fanfic but I went way too far and now there’s a million facts under this cut (including gay stan, a domestic violence psa, and craig fucking dying)

Stan doesn’t like hospitals, he finds them gross and he gets sick 🤮. Also the hospital in South Park is called Hell’s Pass hospital. Early seasons have the name as Hells Pass but it gets fixed later

Cartman has to sing all of Come Sailing Away by Styx if he hears a part of it. After he says this, Kyle sings the first part and Cartman has to sing the rest. Kyle does it again later, which is kinda mean

Cartman’s mom tries to abort Cartman, who is an eight-year-old child and thus cannot be legally aborted. Later, after she slept with Bill Clinton to change the law and make 40th trimester abortions legal, it turns out she meant adoption

Kenny sacrifices himself to turn on the generator to the hospital and save Dr. Mephesto’s life along with others. He says “I’ll fucking do it” then does it and dies, absolute legend

Cartman gets way too into his deputy role. He goes undercover, pretends to be a prostitute, says “Respect my authoritah!” a lot and beats people up with his police stick

Kenny’s brother first appears when Cartman responds to a call about a disturbance at Kenny’s house. Apparently there are like 10 adult family members in the house at that time. Kenny’s dad has a black eye because Kenny’s mom punched him. She says he can’t hold a job

Token sits in the classroom in season 2

Cartman starts hating hippies in this season, like a lot

Chef tells the boys that the right time to do drugs is in college

Ike’s name is Ike Moisha Broflovski and he was born in 1996, making him 2 years old in 1998 when this season aired

This is probably obvious but yeah Kyle and Ike are circumcised

Kyle says family isn’t just blood, it’s who you care about, and he says “That’s why you guys are more than just friends, you’re my family. Except for Cartman.”

Craig’s finally sitting in the classroom in S02E04

None of the boys like dodgeball

Clyde gets a dodgeball to the face and he cries :( and he’s the only one who cries by the way

Pip throws a dodgeball in Kyle’s face and breaks Kyle’s nose

When Kyle’s mom tells the boys about conjoined twin myslexia (which isn’t a real term) and says anyone might’ve absorbed their dead twin in the womb, Stan and Cartman run away screaming but Kenny and Kyle stay to listen. Kenny even leans in to look at the book “Freaks A-Z!” that Mrs. Broflovski is reading from, and when she leaves, Kyle grimaces and Kenny laughs

Stan’s mom (Sharon) calls Kyle’s mom (Sheila) when Stan is all freaked out and trying to put an icepick through his brain, and Sharon tells Sheila to get run over by a truck. Sharon is pretty mean in these early episodes

Mr. Broflovski doesn’t really listen to what Mrs. Broflovski is saying, bad husband >:(

South Park’s team is always called South Park Cows no matter the sport

The school nurse, Nurse Gollum, went to Colorado State University

I just realized Butters exists. I think he appeared before S02E05 but I didn’t notice but yeah he’s there with the dodgeball team, injured

Here’s a picture to make up for my disgusting anti-Butters bias

Kenny’s dodgeball uniform number is 69 obviously. Kyle is 7, Stan is 4, Cartman is 325

Sheila smacks Gerald in the face so hard he falls off his chair, lots of violence perpetrated by women in this show. Remember, don’t do domestic violence no matter your gender, it’s not cool

I realized after this whole Butters thing that I should’ve made more notes about Pip, so I’ll make a note about his anger issues now. When people call him French, he gets angry and throws dodgeballs at them

The boys launch a jelly roll at Ms. Crabtree and make her crash the bus. They do it just for fun

The kids somehow go to China in the school bus

Cartman references Moby Dick, but he probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about

Kevin Stoley gets named in S02E05 and has his first speaking role when he says he has Chinese parents and after Cartman hears it he immediately says something racist. smh cartman, what a problematic fave

Cartman says “I love you guys 😊” but Stan and Kyle just stare at him and he goes 😐 “Eh, screw you guys 😠”

If Jimbo and Ned really fought in Vietnam, they youngest they could’ve been in 1998 is early forties, which means in the latest seasons they would be early sixties. Btw they met in Vietman

Jesus and Pals is a recurring TV show in seasons 1 and 2. Jesus just kind of lives in South Park

I just remembered that Terrance and Phillip are really old in canon, it’s so weird, like how can South Park canon still be changing, it’s been 20 years

Also the early seasons are casually racist who knew

Kenny flashes his ass on a tape the boys send to Jimbo and Ned’s TV show, which airs and at least 12 people see Kenny’s bare naked ass

Cartman really doesn’t like hippies in these early seasons. He throws a chair at Ned and yells, “Take that, hippie!” (Ned is in a catatonic state and did nothing to provoke this)

Jimbo and Ned live together I guess. Jimbo’s gonna take Ned home and show him some hardcore porn to snap him out of his catatonic state, good husband unlike Gerald Broflovski

Saddam Hussein is in hell and has a Canadian accent and is Satan’s lover in S02E06, I guess he died in Canada in the first episode this season but I wasn’t paying much attention since that’s the Terrance and Phillip episode that pissed a bunch of people off in 1998 because the audience wanted to know who Cartman’s dad is instead. It was kind of a boring episode so I understand why everyone was pissed, but it is funny that Matt and Trey did that so I’m not mad about it

Aww look at them!!! We’ve got background Style, the vaguest inkling of Crenny, and Cartman/Cake

I’d take more screenshots but it’s a pain since I’m watching legally and stupid legal websites block screenshots so I have to find youtube videos instead ughhhh piracy is the answer kids

Apparently there’s a huge waterfall and canyon somewhere close to South Park, maybe? At least in Stan’s dream

Mary Kay Bergman was an incredible voice actor. How the hell did she voice all the moms, Wendy, Shelly, principle Victoria, the mayor, Nurse Gollum, and fucking Ms. Crabtree??? Holy shit what a queen

Kenny has some feelings about death. He reimagines the episode where death boops him to death and in his version, he beats death the fuck up, then has ice cream and is happy 😊 But again, this is in Stan’s dream

S02E07 kind of establishes that nobody remembers Kenny dying because when Cartman tells a story where Kenny dies, Kyle questions how Kenny could’ve died then when he also died just a few hours ago when a giant monster took him

rip craig, he falls out the bus and into a canyon

But it’s okay because it was all Stan’s dream so everything in the episode is questionable. Everything after this is no longer a dream

Pip’s parents are dead and he has to go to summer school while everyone else is having a nice summer break

Officer Barbrady and the mayor are having sexual relations, I’m sure this is the most interesting note I’ve made so far. Idk I’m just writing everything down, this is how I enjoy things, I have no off switch

Ew summer bus stop, cursed

Kyle casually sings little tunes every once in a while, how cute

This is pretty obvious but Kenny likes dirty jokes, he laughs when Cartman innocently says he loves Chef’s salty chocolate balls (which are chocolate candy). Nobody else laughs

Cartman says “Screw you guys, I’m going home” or variations of it a lot in this season

So Stan throws up when he likes someone, right? Well, he’s watching an indie movie about two gay cowboys who start making out and he throws up, which is either a terrible homophobic joke or confirmation that Stan’s a little gay. I know which one I prefer

Kyle says Mr. Hankey is his best friend after Stan. Like I know it’s definitely canon that Stan and Kyle are best friends but it’s still nice to see confirmation, it’s very precious. Also Kyle is best friends with literal shit, so cute 😊

Kenny deaths:

S02E02 Kenny sacrifices himself by connecting a generator wire, which electrocutes him but brings power back to a hospital

S02E03 A tree falls on Kenny and crushes him

S02E04 Kenny falls in a grave and the gravestone falls on him

S02E05 The Chinese dodgeball team throws a ball at Kenny and he gets splattered against a wall

S02E06 Two guys pull on Kenny and tear him in half, as in one has the head and one has the legs

S02E07 A big scary monster plucks Kenny out of the school bus and carries him away. Also in Cartman’s fake memory of Fonzi jumping over cars, the motorcycle hits Kenny and crushes him against a brick wall. Kenny gets smashed against walls a lot, doesn’t he?

S02E08 Flashback: Baby Kenny has a firecracker and it explodes, sprinkling little baby Kenny parts everywhere. Later in the episode, current day Kenny dies when a giant firework snake bumps him off a stage and under a fence, which then crushes him.

S02E09 Kenny is playing with a yoyo outside a movie theatre when a bunch of people come outside and trample him to death. They say “Oh my God, I found a penny!” and “You bastard!”

I’ll post part 2 of season 2 in a couple days. I’m having way more fun writing these stupid notes than I thought I would (also gnomes is coming up soon and i am fucking ready for tweek)

#south park #sp rewatch #i thought i made way too many notes last time #oh boy #also sorry for my anti butters bias showing #i completely forgot to take notes about him until episode 5 #oops

19 notes · View notes

kashimos-hajime · 5 years ago

Text

wake me up | amaranthine (4/6) | b.b.

summary: A mended heart is stronger every time it breaks.

WARNINGS: swearing, angst, fluff and tenderness, painful treatment practices, blood, tony’s a cute baby, implications of smut :^) pairing: bucky barnes x fem!reader word count: 9.2k

a/n: written for @the-omni-princess for her writing challenge and inspired by @the-darklings who writes such heart-wrenching scenes concerning john and vipress (my WIFE) and also by the film marriage story. vibe song is the cover of wake me up by fleurie and tommee lee profitt.

amaranthine masterlist

So wake me up when it's all over When I'm wiser and I'm older All this time I was finding myself And I didn't know I was lost You wake, lurching forward as your hand flies to your breast. Cloth meets your palm and you swallow the foul taste in your mouth, sweat dappling your skin and gathering in your throat and underneath your arms and breasts. The figments of your nightmares disappear like ashes in the wind, and you try to catch your breath, your mind reeling. You don’t recall walking back to bed, nor dressing the wound on your chest.

You’d been too exhausted to do anything more but tape some gauze to your chest and settle in the chair in case Bucky needed something

Bucky.

Your heart wilts at the mere thought of him, and everything inside you empties out when you look around your room in your base. He must’ve been the one to bring you here. Has he gone?

Pushing yourself up, you swing your legs carefully off the bed and lean over to turn on the lamp. The light shining on your clock shows a bitter 4 AM, and you sigh, rubbing at your face. Saturday morning and you’re up at 4 AM.

Saturday. You roll the word over in your head, nearly groaning once you’ve realized what you promised to do. Howard could not have chosen a worse weekend for you to look after his son, but you are not about to let Tony down, and although you want nothing more than to throw yourself into bed, sleep off yesterday and today and every other day until your chest doesn’t feel like a massive bruise, you get up.

You have a call to make.

Standing in the corner store, you scour the aisles for cans. If you’re staying in the safe house, you’ll need to stock up once again. You pluck a can of tomato paste and add it to your basket where pasta, soup, bread, eggs, milk and meat already lay. Medical supplies await you in the backroom, and you debate the possibility of making two trips to save your right side some grief. No. It’ll be a waste of time, you chide yourself. You pay these agents for a reason.

The bell above the door chimes and you freeze.

“Sir, we’re not open yet.” The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who’d been waiting in the backroom comes out and you shift closer to the shelves, your hand reaching for the heaviest can in your basket.

“The Doctor asked me to meet her here.”

Edwin. A wave of relief rushes through you show yourself to both the agent and Edwin, who soaks in your appearance carefully. His eyes flutter from your face, ragged and pale, to the white blouse you’ve pulled on. Beneath it, you know he can see the white bandages still wrapped firmly to your chest. You wonder if he can smell the sewage clinging onto your skin. You’ve grown so used to it by now that you can hardly tell if you reek.

Your eyes meet his, and you swallow with a sigh.

You walk forward to set down the basket on the counter, tilting your head to the agent to signal for him to begin packing it up for you, and Edwin sighs, adjusting the child in his arms. Leaning slightly against the counter, you look out the windows, at the very beginnings of dawn. It’ll be a few hours yet before the sun rises, and you can hardly believe a day has passed. It feels like only hours ago you hauled a broken soldier back to the safe house.

“I wasn’t aware there was another S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house in Brooklyn,” Edwin begins softly, and your lips press together in a grim smile.

“There isn’t. This one’s mine. Howard insisted on keeping agents posted just in case trouble arose.” Your eyes flicker back to Edwin, and then to Tony. “How is he?”

“Running a slight fever, although he’s been sleeping like a rock through the night. He was quite excited to hear he would be spending time with you, although I assume you’re not quite up to the task?” Edwin’s head tilts and you smile weakly. “I can always stay home, Doctor.”

“No, Edwin, I promised. I—” You throw your arm up, letting it fall without a care. Shaking your head, you try to search for the words— “I need something to go right. The past twenty-four hours… I can’t stay in that place with him.” You feel strangely numb to saying the words and he reaches forward to touch your hand on the countertop. You let him do so, twisting your hand to offer your palm. His fingers grasp yours firmly as if silently telling you you can do this and you bow your head.

“Who, ma’am?”

“Someone… someone I thought was dead. I can’t tell you, I’m so sorry.” You raise your head wretchedly to your friend, and his eyes, warm and comforting, soothe an icy wave that crawls down your spine. “Ghosts make terrible friends.”

“You needn’t explain it to me.”

“Doctor.” The agent returns with your bag, his figure looming at the door to the backroom and you glance at the darkness, your fingers numb as you remember jumping into the sewers with a bleeding man behind you. You stare at him for a moment, taking a deep breath as you try to fortify yourself. He might be awake by now, or maybe he’s gone.

He’d been fast asleep when you’d checked on him this morning, and the absolute agony that had torn through your soul had blinded you, to see him sleeping so peacefully between sheets that never had his name marked into them.

You know when he leaves—and he will, you know it is inevitable that everyone will leave—you’ll never be able to sleep in that bed again.

“Ma’am.”

You blink, and the agent’s eyebrows are furrowed together as he stares back, too respectful to break the contest.

“You should go,” Edwin’s gentle voice snags your attention and you turn back to him, lost. “Even ghosts get lonely.”

You reach for Tony and take him with your left arm. His tiny arms latch around your neck and you let out a tiny breath at the familiar weight that settles on you. Tony’s gentle breaths puff against your ear and you kiss his cheek. “He’s asleep, Edwin. I’m sure I can afford a few more minutes of life unhaunted.” Although you mean it to be teasing and a forced smile does make its way onto your face, you see the concern etched onto Edwin’s face and know you need to face the reality of your situation. In the quiet morning, you can pretend you did not find the man you’ve fallen in love with an odd thirty years ago. In the quiet mornings, you can pretend you did not defile your sanctuary, bringing him there.

“I wasn’t talking about him.”

I’m. Not. Lonely. A stiff lump sits in your throat and your smile falls off like a bird shot mid flight. Tightening your grip on Tony, you clench your jaw and walk around the counter towards the agent. He hands you the supplies and you sling it onto your right shoulder with a slight grunt. Staring at the darkness before you, you give yourself a moment to remember why you have lived all these years. Before you descend down into the pathway that will lead you back to your past, you turn back to Edwin.

“Good morning, Mr. Jarvis, and have a good day.”

“And you as well, Doctor.”

Kissing Tony goodnight, or good morning, you pull back from the old crib and retreat to the door, turning off the lights and closing the door until it is barely open an inch. Your stomach grumbles, but you keep your hand on the knob, just listening to his tiny breaths fill the room before you tear yourself away.

The first thing you did as a founder of S.H.I.E.L.D. was buy this building, and you’ve spent decades, walking through the building that has changed tenants more times than you can count. No matter what, you always leave one loft empty. You don’t care what Howard or Peggy say about letting go. Ever since Mama Barnes passed, you don’t have the heart to fill up a place where you’ve found pieces of Bucky with those who might wash him away.

You’d planned to visit yesterday for his birthday. Instead, you hide away in the safe house you had built right beneath the building with the man you’ve been grieving over sleeping just at the end of the hallway.

Grabbing your medicinal bag from your room, you head to the kitchen and sit down, digging out some supplies for you to properly take care of your wound. You peel off your shirt, the lights casting your skin in an oily gold as you carefully begin to undo the bandages around your chest.

Does he remember who I am? Your thoughts grow torrential as the silence of the safe house grows unnerving. Or does he only know me as a past mission, if even that? Did H.Y.D.R.A. wipe his mind so completely that he can never come back to me? Will he stay if given the chance? Who does he work for? H.Y.D.R.A. is nothing but ashes now. The KGB? The Soviet Union? The thought makes you nauseous. Or perhaps he works for anyone willing to pay.

You still remember that night in 1949. Only two days prior, an attempt on your life had sent Colonel Phillips to issue an entourage that would follow you and check your home every night before you entered, and you’d been at your wit’s end. You could not fathom why an attempt on your life had to be made, when there were others—Howard, Peggy, the Colonel—who were more important to S.H.I.E.L.D. than you ever could be.

You are just a doctor, after all, and yet someone wanted to kill you.

And he had been standing there, black mask muzzling him like some dog, dark iron wire hair that separated him from your world, and those eyes that screamed of a caged animal. Eyes you would never forget as he grabbed you with an unseen speed and threw you onto your bed. Eyes that caused you to recognize him twenty years later, still feeling the rush of wind as the knife dug into the mattress beside your ear.

The only reason you still live is the fact that the super-soldier serum had given your leg enough muscle to launch him through the window and gave you enough time to hide away here. In this safe house.

You blink and glance at your chest, at the red hole that has closed on your back but still gapes on your chest, and sigh. Too many attempts on your life have been made and only his eyes have been burned into your head. You close your eyes for a moment, a knot in the middle of your head causing an ache that begins to throb as you try to focus. You know you must get some sleep. Your body protests as you grab the bottle of iodine from your bag and a towel.

Stuffing the towel into your mouth, you feel your gag reflex revolt at the intrusion and your whole stomach convulses painfully. The dryness of the cloth causes tears to spring into your eyes as it continues to poke at the back of your throat, and you twist off the cap of the bottle, your lungs struggling to prepare themselves for the searing pain that is about to seep into your bones. You grab onto the edge of the chair, trying to steel yourself.

This is the life you chose, a voice inside your head chastises just as you raise the bottle to your chest.

You tip iodine into the hole a bullet left in you and the pain—agony in its ripest form—rips you into pieces. Your nerves sing as they are burned alive, and your flesh recoils as iodine and alcohol slosh through your blood. Your teeth clenched around the towel, a muffled scream tears its way through your throat as you continue to pour a steady, small stream onto the gunshot wound. Your eyes squeezed shut, hot tears begin to race over your sweating skin as your back arches off the chair, head tossed back in torture.

The pain begins to dull into a pulsing fire as it drips down your chest, and you slam the bottle back onto the table, letting out a ragged groan as you thread the needle with practiced fingers. Pushing yourself up and leaning heavily into the chair, you begin the heartrending chore of sewing your flesh back together, and you begin to feel strangely numb to it all. You weave the needle through your skin and muscle, and you don’t feel any of it. Perhaps it is the fire of iodine that has made you numb or the exhaustion adding to the adrenaline that is no doubt pumping through your body, but you just sew mechanically until it is done, tying a knot with one hand and snipping the excess thread within minutes.

Perhaps being a doctor is good for one thing after all.

Covering the wound again, you get up and clean off the iodine that’s dripped down your body and the table with the towel from your mouth, the pain slowly draining away. You carefully slip into the blouse, your stomach grumbling once again, and you decide despite the hour, you need to eat.

Besides the groceries you’d just retrieved from the store, you rifle through the shelves for whatever you can scrape together, and you nearly grin at the ingredients. It’s a tired almost-smile that barely makes its way into your cheeks, but you just want to forget all that’s happened.

You turn the radio on the countertop, and pull flour, sugar, eggs, and milk onto your workspace as some tune begins to fill the empty air. Softly, it weaves into your ears and you let out a relieved sigh.

Waffles and bacon—Mama Barnes always said it was her boy’s favourite.

As you set your plate of waffles and bacon down and head to grab your hot cup of coffee, you hear a door from the end of the wall open with a subtle click. Ignoring the sound, you take a long pull, letting the black coffee run through your chilly blood before setting it down next to your plate. You hear his footsteps come down the hallway as you go to grab another plate. He lingers by the door and you set down the second plate before turning around to finally notice him.

His hair is wild around his face, and he looks around blearily, a softness to his usually hard eyes. He’s mainly exposed from the chest up, save for the thing he carries. A red and yellow thing you recognize as your godson.

Of course Tony sneaks out of his bed.

You let out a short breath of disbelief, eyebrows knitting together at the tender way the soldier carries the two-year old. Like a fragile sack of potatoes, or perhaps a regular sack of potatoes. He no doubt looks awkward and you approach him to save him.

“May I?” you begin quietly and he nods with a small swallow. His eyes search your face for a moment, and you take Tony from the man’s arms. “I’m sorry if he woke you.”

“He didn’t,” is the curt response you receive. Your soft smile doesn't falter as you settle the boy in your arms and turn to the table.

“Help yourself to breakfast, and the coffee.” You move to walk past him, your head ducked against Tony’s cheek, but a warm hand touches your wrist tentatively and you whirl around, your heart lurching into your throat.

“I wanted to speak to you,” he begins, eyes wide as he soaks in the wariness that must be on display on your own face. “If that would be alright with you.”

“Of course.” You swallow down the knot. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“You don’t need to call me that,” you say. Not so seriously. Never as a show of power imbalance. We are equals, you and I. He does not hear your thoughts and he does not reply. He pulls his hand away and walks to the table, and you watch him go with a quaint sensation of something falling in your chest.

You walk down the hall and put Tony to bed, and you nearly smile at how he seems to wriggle in his sleep back towards you.

“Stay in bed this time, Tony. No wandering back into my room. A guest is staying there,” you whisper against his forehead and he rolls away from your lips just as you press a little kiss against his temple. Smiling to yourself, you pull back and shut the door this time with a soft click.

Returning to the kitchen, you notice him sitting at the table, poking at the plate with a fork and you grab yourself another set of cutlery, sitting down across from him with a quirk of your lip. Despite the slight unease coiling in your gut, you want him to speak to you first—to open up. You want to know everything you’ve missed.

“How’s your gunshot?” he asks, peering up at you through strands of his hair. You perk up, forcing the smile into your cheeks.

“Healing. How are you feeling? You took a hell of a beating,” you return and he experimentally shifts in his seat with a slight shrug. “I want to check on your stitches again later.”

“What happened? Where are we?” You notice he doesn’t touch the food and you pick up your own cutlery. Perhaps if you show that it’s okay… that he’s safe… he will follow suit to do however he pleases. You cut the waffle and place it into your mouth, testing your own cooking skills with a pleased result. Swallowing, you watch as he stops poking at the food on his plate and begins to eat.

“After we left the cemetery, you were barely conscious from blood loss and pain. We managed to hide in an alleyway before I found a manhole into the sewers and I brought us here. It’s my own safe house; barely anyone knows about it.”

“You trust me enough to bring me here?”

“What other choice did I have? I couldn’t let you die.” Your eyes fall to the greasy bacon on your plate and you fill your mouth to avoid talking any more. Bucky stares at you for a moment and you feel the weight of his gaze rest on your shoulders before he looks down. The scrape of his fork against the porcelain fills the silence and you try to figure out how to even broach the subject. You feel empty, as if everything you knew has been scooped out of you and replaced with sand.

You’re not hungry anymore.

“You should’ve.” You have no answer to the vileness in his voice—the hatred you don’t understand the meaning of. “I remember you,” he continues, dangerously quiet. “I tried to kill you in 1949.”

“Yes, well, seems something’s not letting you pull the final trigger,” you reply. You sip on your coffee and he watches you with an emotion you cannot quite decipher. It makes you squirm—it makes you sick. “Is that all you know me from?”

“You said my name is Bucky.”

“It is.” You set your cup down. You can do this. “Your name is James Buchunan Barnes. Your best friend’s name was Steve and you were a Sergeant of the 107th. You moved to Brooklyn when you were three, to the building right above us.” You see him look up at the concrete ceiling, and your lips barely pull into a smile. “Your sister moved back to Shelbyville after the war.”

“Sister?”

“Rebecca. You had three siblings. She’s the last one left.” Your voice has grown hushed as you watch his mechanical arm set down the knife he used to tear apart his waffle. It’s half-eaten and the bacon is all gone, so you don’t know if it means he’s full or if he just doesn’t like waffles anymore. The thought makes you sad. “Your parents, your other siblings—they died in transit to the safe house where Rebecca lives.”

“I killed them,” he whispers and your head jerks up, eyebrows furrowing together as a harsh breath is drawn between your lips. Your stomach twists as he meets your eyes and you see the frantic, muzzled animal within the blue of his irises. “They made me kill them.” He glances down at his plate again, blinking. “I’m not hungry. I’m sorry, I…”

“No, it’s alright.” You stand up too quickly, too sharply that the chair scrapes against the floor, causing both of you to flinch. You bite down on your lip to stop yourself from letting the stinging in your eyes blur your vision as you grab the plates and head to the sink. With your back to him, you turn on the sink to hide the sound of your shuddering sigh. “You should rest,” you add louder, praying your voice does not shake. “I can come to you later.”

You listen to him go and wait until the door to your room clicks shut.

You resist the urge to throw the porcelain plate and watch ti shatter against the wall.

When you think you’ve managed to fill the hole inside you with something other than sand (broken pieces of your heart fit better, even if the cracks reach your skin), you knock on the door.

“Bucky, may I come in?” In your hand weighs the medicinal bag you don’t remember feeling so heavy. A soft ‘yes’ on the other side prompts you to twist the knob and enter and you see him standing there, just staring at himself in the floor length mirror. He’s much more muscular than you remember, lean and toned in his back and shoulders, his arm enough to snap you in two. His mechanical arm moves like his flesh one, wrapped around his bandaged chest, and glints in the warm lamplight. Dark hair falls over his face and it’s a gut punch to the system. Disastrously handsome, and all too damaged, there is barely half of him left for you to hold.

Heat surges through your body. You haven’t quite seen Bucky like this in a while, and before, well, before it was life and death. Now…

“Do you want me to sit on the bed?” he asks, watching your reflection. You nod and he walks back onto the corner of the bed, sinking into the mattress. You perch down behind him and you notice he doesn’t tear his eyes away from his mirror image.

“I’m unwrapping the bandages now,” you begin and he nods. He still smells like sewer and you’re surprised Tony hadn’t cried at the smell, and there’s something cold about his skin as you unwind the white cloth. You try your best not to stare at the lines in his back, at the scarring that twists into his shoulder, but your eyes can’t help but stray. The bandages fall away and you’re greeted by the sight of healing red marks. The stitches are already dissolving and you smile at the bruising that mars his back. It means he’s healing.

“Who are you?” he asks in the quiet, startling you out of your thoughts. His healing factor is much faster than yours and you wonder how many doses it took for him to heal from gunshot wounds overnight. Gently pressing onto a yellow-green mark on his shoulder blade, you feel him tense up.

“I’m the Head of Developmental Medicine and Science,” you say, just as soft. “Although, I suppose whoever sent you already knew that because of what Howard is trying to concoct.”

“Who are you to me?”

Your throat cinches shut, and you paste on a smile just in time for him to turn around to look at you. Tormented, his eyes are hooded by his sagging eyebrows and you see how tired he is, how guilty. You don’t know how you are supposed to answer such a question.

“Shouldn’t you know?” you tease weakly. “You heard me in the cemetery, all weepy about it.” He stares at you for a moment and then turns back to his reflection. A bruise begins to form in your throat as you hold back the stinging in your eyes. This is the man you loved, broken apart like he was nothing and made to believe it, and now... now you can’t even be honest with him. Your fingers gently trail up his back, to his shoulder and you feel his breath hitch. You run your fingers reverently over the scarring twisting into his shoulder and he shivers. “Does it hurt when I do this?” Your fingers dig into the soft flesh and he sucks in a sharp breath.

“No.” You catch sight of his reflection, and you watch as his eyes flutter shut. Shuffling closer towards him, you place a gentle hand on his other shoulder, the smooth expanse of his skin frigid against your searing palm. “It… it feels good.”

“I’ve tended to more war veterans than I can count,” you whisper gently, eyes focusing on your work. His metal hand clenches and then relaxes as you find a knot of tension hiding between his joints. “I’ve treated amputated sites where the patients complain of phantom pain or tension they can’t quite relieve.” You gently dig your thumb underneath his collarbone and he lets out a soft sigh. You wonder if he knows what tenderness is, what love and comfort is. Has H.Y.D.R.A. purged that from his mind the way they killed his memory of you?

Your shattered heart crumbles at the way he falls apart in your hands.

He seems to melt into you and you peer at his reflection with a bleeding heart. “Don’t stop, please.” His own ice blue gaze stares at you, wary still, but he is no longer stiff. “You’re an angel.” He says it like he’s never known it before, the word a stranger on his tongue. You shatter at the word.

You want to tell him you’ve loved him far longer than you’ve not. You want to tell him you love him, and you have loved him, and you will love him every day, and that has never changed and will never change.

Instead, you say, “You’re not the Devil, you know,” as he stares at you with glass eyes. Your hand trembles against his shoulder, and you feel tremendously fragile. Biting your lip, you try not to tell yourself that everything is okay, knowing he’s alive.

“I loved you,” he murmurs lowly, “didn’t I?” His flesh hand catches yours and you press your lips together, determined not to lose yourself before him but you know he’s recovering more of his memory the longer you stay in his presence. You tell yourself you can take it if he doesn’t quite remember you—you stay in hopes that he does. “Angel. That’s what I called you. And I loved you more than anything.”

Something explodes in your chest, and you cannot take it, knowing he does remember you. You are washed in shame, in if I tried harder, I could’ve found you sooner and saved you, and it burns to touch him.

“Excuse me.” You rip yourself away just as the searing in your eyes grows to be too much. That isn’t your Bucky. Not anymore, a patronizing voice in your ear whispers. The words are cruel, but the lashes your mind inflicts on itself are cruler. “I…”

You cannot bring yourself to finish the sentence. You are out the door before he can tell you to stay.

Hot water pellets your skin harshly as you let out a sob. You barely have enough air to breathe as you lean against the tile and try to soothe the fire that burns between your ears. Burning tears race over your cheeks as you let out another cry, your hand slapped over your mouth in a piss poor attempt to muffle your want to scream.

Eyes shut against the bullet rain, you wish the shower can wash away more than just the smell of sewage. You want to slip into the drain and leave. You want to feel more than just hollow. Your chest heaving, you try to ignore how your lungs gasp and struggle, how much it feels like drowning and there’s no way to know which way is to the surface, and how you feel like you’re in shambles.

Sobbing into your palm, it is cathartic to just scream it out. Although the hiss of the shower is not enough to mask your sobs, you feel the tension in your back unwind as you wail loud enough for it to echo back at you. Soaked to the core, pulsing and cold, you want to feel something—anything other than pain and hollowness.

What if I punch my hand through the wall? Blister myself in this hellfire? Ask him to kill me. Put an end to this misery.

How have you spiralled.

The curtain rattles against the pole as it is pulled back but you don’t even flinch at the light that streams into your dark little cell. You’d heard him for the past five minutes, pacing outside the bathroom, and now you stare at him through the tangled mess of his dark hair. He’s wearing an A-shirt you left out for him and his tac pants, the smell of antiseptic and cold winter rushing into your stall. His blue eyes shadowed, his gaze drills into yours and you swallow your tears down, your breath still shuddering in your throat as your lips part.

“What do you want?” Your voice, throaty and deep, sounds unrecognizable to you, and he merely stares for a moment. What more can you take from me? What more will I give you?

“I loved you,” he whispers and you push off the tiled wall, staring at him through the stream of steaming water. “I think I still do.”

All breath leaves your body and your knees nearly give in as you blink tears out of your eyes.

“Bucky.” The name barely flutters past your tongue and you want to say this is not love, you don’t remember me, I don’t want you to, it aches, can’t you see me dying every second you look at me? but you can barely regain your wits before he cups your face and his mouth is hard on yours. You stumble back into the wall and the cool tile against your back causes your mouth to open wider underneath his burning mouth. Every touch sets you on fire, and you can feel the ice of his metal arm gliding down your side as you wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him closer. You don’t care about the pain from the stitches in your chest or from the jagged remains of your heart digging into your ribs.

Strength surrounds you as he pulls back before you drown in his smell, and you nearly gasp for air. His whispered apologies gloss over your skin and your chest heaves against his as you tell him ‘It’s okay. It’s okay.’ The thick heat of him clouds your vision as his lips brush against yours, catching and gliding reverently as he breathes, his nose tracing through the tears on your cheeks, his eyes closed.

You pull your hands back to cup his face and he lets out a tremendous sigh, his shoulders sinking as his head drops to your collarbone. Raking your fingers through his hair with one hand, your other travels down the expanse of his back, feeling him breathe, beating, alive.

You can’t quite feel it yet.

“I’m sorry. Forgive me,” he whispers against your skin. He braces himself against the wall with his metal arm, his flesh one wrapped tight around your waist and you let out a soft sob as he rests his head against your collarbone. Raising your chin, you hold him to your chest and a quiet fills the shower. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” you murmur into his ear. “That wasn’t you. This… this is.” His arm tightens and you let out a sigh at the closeness you’ve only experienced in your best nightmares. You don’t want to wake up. You never do. “This is you, Bucky. Everything you say now, it’s you.” You gently rake your fingers through his hair and your lips find the cord in his neck. Brushing tender kisses up to his ear, you press your cheek into his shoulder.

“I love you,” he breathes and you can see the moment the world seems to lift off his shoulders. “You are chaos to my thoughts and… and I love you.” Pulling back, he stares at you with a wonder, a light you haven’t seen since 1945. The image of a boy soldier before you causes your lips to pull into the shakiest smile and you let out a laugh, pressing a desperate kiss against his mouth.

He kisses you back with a tenderness that seals the cracks in you, and you continue to laugh at the brightness in your chest. For a moment, the man you love is not some nameless face burdened with a trauma you cannot even begin to imagine, but Bucky, the Sergeant in the hospital bed.

“So do you remember?” you ask against his hungry mouth, and at last, a hesitant smile presses against your skin. “Do you remember how much I love you?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten,” he whispers. “It was just buried beneath so much crap they thought I’d never see the light of day again, but I have.” His metal fingers brush away the tears that dot at your cheeks, and you nearly shiver in his arms. Your eyes dart to his pink lips to the warmth in his blue eyes and you close your eyes. “Thank you.”

“If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.” Your nose brushes against his as you hold his forehead against yours. His soaked shirt clings to his chest as you grab at his A-shirt’s hem, pulling up. You don’t know what rules your head, but it is most certainly nothing sane and everything wild.

“Angel—” Just the name, the name you haven’t heard in so long, sends shockwaves through your system and you let out a breath, eyebrows knitting together. In his arms, you feel nearly whole, as if he is the glue that holds you together. Without him, you are nothing more than pieces.

“There’s been no one else,” you promise. “No one besides you. Please.” Your voice softens as the shower begins to run cold and you tremble as he pulls back to stare into your eyes. He searches for hesitation, for the possibility of regret, but you merely touch his cheek and nod. The fire that has been extinguished for near twenty years ignite at the gentlest swipe of his fingers along your waist. “Please.”

“We never…” His words fade as you kiss him warmly. His eyes close and he chases your lips even after you pull away.

“I know we promised that our life will start after the war. But the war is over and life has swept us both away. It was always you. Please let me choose you.” You finally manage to pull his shirt off, letting it drop by your feet and you loop your arms around his neck. You wait in bated breath for his response.

He answers by shoving you against the wall and kissing you as if you are a feast and he is the hungriest man on the planet.

His mouth press against the plane of your shoulder, and you let out a soft sigh as he runs a hand down your stomach. You are sore in places you didn’t know existed, and somehow, your arms ache as you reach to turn the clock. In the time between you’ve stumbled into bed with a man back from the dead to now, hours have passed.

“What time is it?” he asks quietly, and you turn back to him with a serene smile. This could’ve been my every morning, you realize dully and your smile shrinks as you brush hair out of his face. He still smiles as if there is someone who will shoot him if he shows any joy, but there is a true light to it. You kiss him quickly, rolling over in his arms.

“Nine.”

“That late, huh?”

“I suppose.” Pulling him close, you sneak a kiss against the corner of his mouth. His hand settles on your waist delicately and you smile, simply embracing him tightly. You feel his heart thud against your ear and you want to sob your eyes out. A thickness in your chest makes you sigh and you close your eyes, squeezing him closer.

“I’m here,” he whispers into your hair. “I’m here.”

“Good.” You tilt your head up to kiss his chin and he grins. “I’ve got to get out of bed and start my day.”

“Hard to believe it’s just getting started,” he whispers and you laugh, kissing the corner of his mouth and detaching yourself from his arms. Scampering over to the dresser, you feel his gaze weigh on your back as you pull out another set of men’s clothes for him and set it on the dresser before slipping a silk gown over your own body. Turning, you roll your eyes when you see Bucky confirming your suspicions. You jerk your head in a gesture to tell him to get dressed and scowl playfully when he doesn’t move. “Are you going to get up at all today?”

“I’m just admiring an angel,” he retorts, and your heart splits painfully. It’s so Bucky of him to say that you want to throw up. “I hope you plan to stay here. It’s not safe for you outside.”

“If you mean my bedroom, no. The safe house, yes. I’m not an idiot.” He finally gets up and you take a moment to admire his sculpted muscles before reminding yourself of the day ahead of you. Phone to S.H.I.E.L.D., to Howard, inform them of what has happened. It’s hard to imagine a world of duties outside of this blissful room. “I’m going to cook breakfast after I wake up Tony. I’d like it if you joined me.”

He sets his hand on top of the pile of clothes, flipping through to find briefs before pulling them on and you lean against the counter with a slight pout. He barely glances at you, his expression hard, and your eyebrows knit together.

“Were my waffles so horrendous?” you ask, keeping your tone light as you rest your chin on your arms and try to catch a glimpse of his face. “Bucky—”

“I can’t stay here.”

“What?” The word pushes its way out of your mouth unbidden and you straighten up, your fingers scratching along the wood of the dresser as he unfolds the A-shirt against his chest. “But—”

“It’s not safe. You know that.” He pulls the white shirt over his head and you pull back, blinking. Wrapping your arms around yourself, you don’t even know what to say to the bluntness in his voice. The clock ticks in the silence as he stares at you for a moment and then turns away, running his hands through his hair. “They’re probably looking for me already, and if they crack down on this safe house, neither you nor Tony is gonna make it out of here alive.”

“Right,” you intone lifelessly, broken-hearted, lost, and you scream at yourself for being so incredibly stupid. Of course you can’t have it easy, you can’t have it peaceful, you can’t have it go right. Resting your forehead against your palm, you smile bitterly to yourself. “Right, how can I forget.”

“Angel—” His arms float around your body as if he wants to touch you but you jerk back, eyes darting to meet his—knife points, razor sharp.

“They’ll find you. You think I don’t know that?” The way he stares at you, looks at you, softly and with too much tenderness your battered heart cannot take it, makes you want to wretch. “You think I don’t want to pretend that I can keep you safe?” Your voice, bitter and frosted, punches through the air. “I’ve just found you again.”

“My handlers are dangerous.” He looks ashamed for the things he cannot control and he shakes his head, grabbing the pair of trousers from the pile. “More dangerous than you can imagine. All they have to say are the words and you won’t be able to stop me.”

“Then let me help you,” you whisper. You reach for his arm. His blue eyes dart to yours and you see the fear. The fear you cannot begin to comprehend. “Let S.H.I.E.L.D. help you. We can move to another safe house and figure out how to reverse the programming—”

“I can’t. They’ll kill you if they find me anywhere but with them.”

“Fuck, well, I’m not about to let you walk back into the arms of the people who took you away from me!”

“Let them! Let them take me!” He spits the words in your face and you flinch back at the wolf that seeps into his cold eyes. His lips twisted in a snarl, he throws off your hand. “I don’t fucking deserve to be saved.”

“Bucky—”

“You don’t know what I’ve done. I- I don’t deserve to be saved.” You nearly laugh at how you’re back in this situation again. At this stupid back and forth between the two of you. The place has changed but the people stay the same, apparently, and you want to slap sense into him, and erase the glossiness from his eyes. When he blinks, the beginnings of tears bead and you wish to kiss them away.

“You do. You do deserved to be saved. And I just… I want you to stay. We can have the life we want, can’t we?”

He stares at you wretchedly and you know that you can’t. Not when there are still people out there who want the both of you dead.

“You and I both know that’s not possible so stop trying to fool yourself. You’re much smarter than that.”

The tears come easier this time and you stare at him with glassy, blurry eyes. With every second that passes, you think you might die from the pain, but you don’t. You never do.

A mended heart is stronger every time it breaks.

“So, that’s it?” You’re just going to leave?” Your anger unleashed, your words burn hotter than magma, hotter than hell, hotter than hate. You think of all you’ve been through in the past day: tears, pain, pleasure, soul-splitting agony. You hate him. “You’re not even going to try to make it work? Were you just going to disappear if I hadn’t woken up? Did you confront me just to take me into bed because you should’ve killed me instead if that was your intention.”

“I want to keep you safe.” He is begging for you to stop but you are too furious with how hopeful you’ve allowed yourself to become in his presence. How deeply in love you’ve been reminded you are. How the moment he leaves, he will take your happiness with him. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not true.”

“Then what is? That you love me? Because the Bucky I knew wouldn’t just leave me here alone without a fight, stuck somewhere where I can’t follow him; stuck here, so bloody unhappy, so fucking empty that I don’t even know who I am! I wish you never fucking woke up and just pulled the trigger. I really wish you did because, at least, I wouldn’t be here again letting you rip me apart at the seams. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you with every cell of my being and I hope I never see you again!”

Your heart beats in your throat, a deep pulse that you want to swallow as he stares at you, eyes wide. You suck in a shuddering breath, nails scratching at your scalp. Grasping fistfuls of your hair, you let out a soft cry, the simmering heat in your eyes too much and you shut them tight, falling to your knees. Keening over, you let out a deep, low, note of pain and your face floods with heat. You breathe in a lungful of hot air as hands gently clasp your shoulders and you lash out, letting out a feral scream.

“Let me go! I fucking hate you!” You thrash in his arms but he merely wraps you in his embrace, squeezing you gently as you let out a desperate cry and you feel the sobs pushing their way up your throat. Pushing his chest, you hear him grunt as he falls back on his bottom and your shoulders shake as another sob wracks through your body. He presses his cheek against your wet one and you feel the fight leave you, at the warmth that begins to sink into your bones, the fatigue of the last twenty-seven hours catching up to you. He holds your head to his shoulder, your whole body pressed against his in an effort to prevent you from harming him or yourself and the sanity chains back the monster H.Y.D.R.A. stuffed into you, the one you’ve managed to cage until him. Something about him makes you go feral, wild with love. You could kill on it—you have.

“Shhhh,” he murmurs into your ear, voice dulcet, low in his chest and you open your eyes blearily as he strokes your back. Your fists relax and you let out a whimper as he gently brushes a kiss against your neck. You realize dazedly that you’re sitting square on his lap, your legs wrapped tightly around his waist, and you pull back, blinking fresh tears down your face. Somehow, it is your nature to be as close to him as possible. To hold onto him as tight as you can.

“It’s alright,” he whispers, eyes warm and tender as he takes care of your new tears as well. He wipes away every droplet with a care you recognize and you sniff as he smiles. The smile reminds you of the moon, beautiful, mellow, all too kind and brilliant. “Maybe one day, hm? Maybe we’ll have a chance one day.”

You sniff again, wiping at your face furiously with the heel of your hand and try to stop yourself from breaking again as he brushes a slick strand of hair out of your face, behind your ear. He tilts his head just so, still with that lunar smile.

“I’m supposed to be helping you,” you whisper and he chuckles, the sound filling your chest as his hand on your back runs up the length of your spine. “Helping you fix whatever’s in your head.”

“That’ll have to wait.” You lean into his palm cupping your cheek, sliding your hand atop his and his smile melts. “I would stay if I had any choice, you know that.”

“I do.” You throw your arms around his neck, hugging him tightly and your eyes close. “Stay for breakfast. Just for a moment longer.”

“Okay.” He buries himself closer into your neck. You clutch onto him tighter. “Okay.”

“What do you want to do now, hm?” You pick Tony up from his seat and he presses his chubby cheek against yours as you mouth a ‘thank you’ to Bucky who collects the plates and takes them to the sink. He gives you a slight smile as you walk down the hall. Tony squirms and you set him down, letting him run on ahead. He runs down the halls, into your room that you’ve left to Bucky, and you smile to yourself.

Jogging after the boy, you catch him just in time for him to try and climb into bed. You hoist him up, kissing his hair affectionately before planting a hand on your hip.

“Book!” He claps his hands and you frown thoughtfully, threading your fingers through his downy hair. “Book!”

“You want me to read to you?” you ask rhetorically. “What books do I have in here?” You run through a list in your head as you set the pillows up around him. You’ve got adult literature to keep yourself occupied, but you haven’t been here with Tony since he’s been a few months old. His exceptional memory and intellect means he remembers what you’ve read to him to a certain extent and he won’t want you reading books composed of pictures.

You don’t think you can take on a displeased Tony today.

“I’ve got… letters. Correspondence I never had the chance to return.” You finally give up, perching on the edge of the bed. Tony lunges onto his stomach, landing on one of the pillows with a playful smile and you grimace to yourself. “Do you want me to read to you boring letters?”

“Letters?” You nearly jump. Bucky’s the only person who’s ever managed to sneak up on you, and although you should be more aware, you know he does it when he wants to be unnoticeable. You turn to the door to see him there in white and beige, a far cry from the black death that had followed you days before, and blink. He looks so soft here, with his hair tucked behind his ears and a gentle smile etched onto his face.

“Yes. Just… work letters.”

Your heat nearly explodes as he walks in. You can’t tell him his letters are what you’re talking about, tucked in a small box here so no history museum or organization can take them. You’re not about to be made into some commodity and you’re not about to be spun into some tragic love story that has ended in sorrow.

You want to believe that that is not how it will end.

“Well, it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?”

“I shouldn’t.” You feel Tony tug on your sleeve and you see him with his huge doe eyes staring at you impatiently, his lips twisted in a huge pout. Your heart wrenches and you kiss his forehead, scooting back so he can crawl into your lap. You pick him up and he snuggles up against your chest as Bucky crosses his arms, thoroughly enamored by the two-year old. You sigh in defeat. “In the room you carried me to, there’s a box on the dresser. Inside are the letters.”

Bucky stares at you for a moment, and you only give him a sad smile. He goes to get the box.

Paper is sprawled across the bed. You are on your back, arms wrapped around Tony who rests like a tiny sack of potatoes on your chest. The tiny boy’s hands wipe at the tears that continue to drip down your cheeks, an innocent task that makes you smile, but you can’t help the few tears that slip away from your control. As Tony continues to try to fix the tears and fight off the yawn that’s been dogging at him for the past five minutes, you press a long kiss to his forehead, eyes closing. Your hand cradles the back of his head, and he rests his head on your sternum, a tiny little thing you can’t help but feel so much love for. He snuggles underneath your chin and you smile, grateful for this boy who has made this easier.

“This isn’t something you can fix, Tony,” you whisper, eyes opening, and he raises his head against your palm. His eyes search yours and you wonder if, to the extent he can, understands. “I hope you’ll never understand.” You urge his head back down against your chest and run your other hand up and down his back. “Time for a nap,” Tony wiggles for a moment more before finding a position comfortable enough to fall asleep in and you breathe in deeply at the tiny weight on your chest.

“Fuck,” Bucky whispers and you open your eyes. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Watch your language,” you murmur without heart. The mattress dips beside you and Bucky crawls up the bed, his hands full of letters in his own writing. He shuffles through them, eyes scanning each one and then looks at you with wet eyes. “I told you I didn’t want to read them.”

“Yeah, well, apparently I need to learn the lesson of listening to you again,” he whispers and you laugh to yourself, the heel of your palm digging into your eyes. He has read every single one aloud, enough anguish in his voice to kill the strongest man three times over, and yet here he is, reading them again.

Is this torture? Is that all this love is?

“I love you,” you whisper, eyes closed, the heel of your hand plugging one of them, and you can feel his presence like you’re attuned to him, only him. “I love you more than anything.” His fingers brush against your tear-wet jaw, his other hand delicately wrapping around your wrist to pull your hand away from your face. You open your eyes just in time for his lips to meet yours and you gasp in pain as you taste the salt of his own tears in your mouth. Your heart feels like it’s tearing itself in two, your organs collapsing, your lungs failing, and here he is, kissing you, keeping you alive for moments longer. The heat of him, the smell of sweat and breakfast clinging to his skin, overwhelms you and you let out a small cry when he pulls away. Something dies in you the instant his lips leave yours.

“I love you.” Kissing each tear off your cheek, he whispers it over and over again until you’re sure it is engraved into your skin, and a wave of exhaustion crashes down on your head as you manage to snag a fistful of his shirt before he can pull away again. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“Stay,” you plead. His cheek presses against yours, and you feel his hand, cold, metal, just as alive as yours, lay on top of yours on Tony’s back. “Just until I fall asleep. I can’t… I can’t watch you go.”

“Okay,” he whispers, and he sets the letters aside. Laying down beside you, he slides an arm around the both of you, and tangles your legs with his. You turn onto your side, your forehead pressing against his, and you let out one last confession, one last proclamation with your eyes closed and sleep at your door.

Tony is sound asleep between the two of you, so unaware of the agony that cracks the air. You know Bucky looks at you as you whisper ‘I love you.’ With his thumb against your jaw, the tender press of his lips against your forehead, you want to believe this can be forever.

You cannot bear to look at the devastation in his eyes. You know when you open your eyes again, he will be gone.

381 notes · View notes

starkmaiden · 5 years ago

Text

did you know that hawks and wolves mate for life?

Ladyhawke is one of my favorite movies. It’s got everything I need. Sword fights, star crossed lovers, Baby Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Brodrick occasionally trying a British accent, and a ridiculously amazingly bad-good soundtrack. Best of all for me personally, it has Rutgar Hauer, who is one of my favorite actors ever and I love him so much and I miss him every day.

Now Ladyhawke is the story of baby faced Matthew Broderick as the young thief who helps star-crossed cursed lover, Navarre and Isabeau, break their curse whether he wants to or not. There’s also the evil bishop who cursed them, an evil captain of the guard foil, and a drunk monk. Also Alfred Molina, who despite having seen this movie more times than I’ll admit I keep forgetting is in this movie. It is one of the more quintessential 80’s fantasy movies I’ve ever seen, and if you haven’t seen it, I hope I managed to convince you with my terrible summary that doesn’t explain the movie at all.

You’re probably wondering why I’m talking about it, and how this means anything regarding Jonsa at all. Now if you’re in the Jonsa Book Club then you’ve probably skipped down to the main part because you know where I’m going with this. Ladyhawke is one of my favorite movies, but it’s also one of the favorites of George RR Martin. In his words it is “Not only one of the greatest fantasy films ever made (ignore that bloody soundtrack please), but one of the great romances as well.”

And yeah, it’s got Jonsa to it. Or well Jonsa has Ladyhawke in it.

There’s the aforementioned star-crossed lovers, Navarre and Isabeau. Navarre cursed to be a human during the day, and a wolf at night; and Isabeau, cursed to be only a human at night and a hawk during the day. Heck, I named this entire thing after one of my favorite Navarre lines. Because originally this was called “Jonsa but every time it’s Ladyhawke George giggles like a schoolgirl”. Let’s break it down. Go easy on me I’ve never done this before.

Wolf Imagery in Navarre and Jon

Now I’m focusing on the male leads for this section. Navarre is Rutger Hauer’s character, so even if I was using the show in any way for this Kit Harington could never match up. Because like I mentioned above, Rutger Hauer is one of my favorite actors. I actually started the notes for this meta-thing in August, only to stop it because watching Ladyhawke in the wake of his death made me sad for awhile. But I’m tangenting.

In Ladyhawke, Navarre is a disgraced former captain of the guard now on the run and looking for his revenge against the evil Bishop. In ASOIAF, Jon is a quickly advancing member of the Night’s Watch. Both characters are both inversions of the Black Knight trope, and that trope played straight through. They look like the standard black knight from the outside; good fighter, infrequent smiles, on the edge of society, and of course dressed in all black all the time. But ultimately they’re both subversions of this trope. Navarre is the hero of the story, and the most noble character in it. Jon, despite his own increasing moral ambiguity, as of the last time we see him is one of the more noble characters of the series. They also both keep bird companions. Navarre travelling with Ladyhawke, and Jon’s possession of the Lord Commander’s raven in later books. Which doesn’t fit wholy into the black knight trope but is an aesthetic similarity.

There’s also their swords to look at. Navarre has his family’s ancestral sword and it holds a lot of value to him. It’s been in his family for generations, and holds a lot of value to him. It also looks dope as hell. What does that sound like but Longclaw. The Mormont’s family sword, that Jon now holds and something that he takes a lot of pride in. And also it is dope as hell. They’re even a little visually similar, stuck somewhere between one handed and two handed, with large ornamental pommel.

A more mild example being how others see them. Navarre’s former men, even when they fight him, still hold a certain level of respect for him. Similar to Jon, and the people he interacts with. They’re also both defenders of the more innocent against their friends or former friends. As shown with their defense of Mouse and Sam.

The most obvious connection was saved for last. Seeing as both Jon and Navarre are literal wolves. Jon by warging into his wolf, Ghost, mostly in those dreams that go on while he closes his eyes. Navarre by transforming into a wolf, from dusk to dawn. They also both tend to lose themselves when they’re in their wolves, forgetting they’re humans while in them and such.

Bird Imagery in Isabeau and Sansa

The Ladyhawke and the Little Bird. They match. Done.

Okay, serious. Minor point, Sansa is reported to have flown away from the danger in King’s Landing and Isabeau literally flies away from danger in the movie. Foreshadowing? Probably not. But I digress.

Another fun fact, Isabeau and Sansa have similar family stories. They lost their fathers (and presumably Isabeau’s mother even though she is not mentioned) and through events end up in the custody of a family member. Isabeau’s cousin, and Sansa’s aunt Lysa. Actually, on my first watch I had to go back and rewatch the scene because I did mishear it and thought Imperius said that Isabeau fell in love with her cousin Anyway. It’s through this that they come into contact with both the hero of the story and the villain.

Let’s continue with the obvious, Sansa and Isabeau. Isabeau is played the very lovely Michelle Pfieffer, while Sansa is portrayed by the beautiful Sophie Turner in the adaptation. Both are known in story for their beauty. It is the first thing people say about them. They also both have these like piercing blue eyes like the sea after a storm. It’s this beauty that brings them to the attention to their main villain, Littlefinger and the Bishop. Which will be covered in the next part...spoilers.

Sansa and Isabeau are also associated with wolves. Sansa has Lady for as short a time as she did. And if you believe theories may or may not find another with a close connection to Jon *cough, cough*. Isabeau is followed and protected by Navarre’s wolf form.

The two also have a similar sad air about them. Isabeau gets the amazing exchange, MOUSE: “Are you flesh or are you a spirit?” ISABEAU: “I am sorrow.” Now Sansa, Sansa has plenty of sad quotes, but the one I decided on for this is: “It was as if she has become a ghost, dead before her time.” They have tragic ways of expressing their sadness.

The biggest would be the most obvious thing. Isabeau is the titular Ladyhawke. The hawks specifically used were red-tailed hawks. Easy to train which is why they’re used in a lot of movies, but they’re also common for falcony a hobby Sansa has shown interest in the books proper. More than Sansa’s connection as a little bird, which I’m going to gloss over right now with only the fact their abusers want to keep them as helpless caged birds. Sansa is also associated in later books with the falcon of House Arryn. Which like the hawk, is a prey of prey known for being fierce but graceful.

Final note, Sansa and Isabeau also bought trust someone with their most secret secrets. Imperious and Dontos both being drunks who tell (albeit accidentally in Imperious’ case) their superiors about the ladies’ plans. This ends up being bad for them, and it is what causes trouble for them. Isabeau, ending up cursed, and Sansa, ended up a fugitive living under Littlefinger.

Littlefinger and the Bishop

The Bishop of Aquila is the primary villain of Ladyhawke. The one who cursed Navarre and Isabeau when the latter doesn’t return his obsession. Littlefinger is Littlefinger, probably the closest thing to a human overarching villain until Dany fully takes that position. He had an obsession with Catelyn Stark, that transferred to Sansa when Catelyn became confirmed untouchable by way of being dead. You can see where I’m going here. They’re the ones who provide the hero girl with all to a lot of her bird imagery. Since they really made her that way.

They’re also a visual difference between that our villains have from our heroes. As I rambled above, Navarre and Jon are the guys dressed all in black trope, very pale, tragic. The Bishop on the other hand is a pure example of the “light is not good” trope. He’s only ever seen wearing those white bishop robe things. Which also puts him at contrast with Littlefinger, who unlike in the adaption where he only wears those dark medieval trench coat things that cover all the skin, chooses to wear literally every color he can get his hands on which is nearly every one.

Like Littlefinger, the Bishop in Ladyhawke is an evil man in a corrupt position. Using his underlings like the captain of the guard to do his dirty work for him while he remains clean on the outside, similar to Littlefinger’s relationships with Lothor Brune and them Kettleblacks.

They’re also both the instigators of the entire plots of their stories. The Bishop is the one who curses the couple, the one who arrests Mouse, sells his soul to hell, all that culminate in his death. Littlefinger throws the entire continent into chaos in hopes that the shuffle of power will put him on top and get him the object of desire. Ladyhawke’s plot wouldn’t exist without the bishop, and the entire story of ASOIAF would be different without Littlefinger.

Random Conclusions I’m About To Jump On

Phillipe the Mouse is the POV character of Ladyhawke I mentioned a few times over the course of this thing. There is also Ser Shadrich, the Mad Mouse, currently being all ambiguous in Sansa’s TWOW Alayne chapter. What do they have in common? Well it depends on if you believe what I believe which is 1) Sansa is the Girl in Grey (obviously), and 2) that Ser Shadrich’s appearance in Sansa’s storyline is going to spell trouble for her in the books to come. The tentative connection being that the Mouse’s involvement in the story is what brings our lovers (Navarre and Isabeau) and our could be lovers (Jon and Sansa) back together again.

Actual Conclusion

Endings are hard, so I’m not writing one. I should do this again with another one of my favorite movies, but they don’t really have George connections.

In the reverse, Navarre and Sansa both have the wolf connection to match with. And Isabeau is the Ladyhawke to Jon’s Crow.

Also, if Jon and Sansa’s reunion includes any variation of the phrase, “You’ve cut your hair” I will spontaneously combust.

#the endless winter of my asoiaf reread #jonsa #jon x sansa #book jonsa #jonsa book club #jonsa meta #ladyhawke #grrm

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killerwhitequeen-blog · 6 years ago

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Black Cloud (Ben Hardy!Roger Taylor x reader)

Anonymous asked: Hi! I aw that requests are open and was wondering if you could do a Roger Taylor one where the reader has amnesia and they are on a relationship and the reader doesn't remember. It can be angsty or fluffy, completely up to you!

A/N: I decided to go with both angsty and fluffy, hope you all enjoy, feel free to give criticism. Tbh this one is sad gamer hours so have fun with that

Warnings: Parent Death (brief mention), drunk driving, swearing.

The day had been off to a bad start for Roger, with Freddie making him redo his perfected drum solo a multitude of times, the skin on his snare tearing, having an argument with Brian over how convoluted his songs were and of course, not being able to see you.

You were stuck in work that day, with people you disliked and customers you detested, on your feet, for eight hours straight. Breathing out a sigh you cracked your neck, letting the vertebrae down your spine pop with it, feeling an instant release from some of works tensions.

You didn't know what would happen later but you had a sinking feeling in your chest whenever you thought about the walk home. Roger was unable to pick you up that day, busy with prior engagements, like the trip to the pub the band had been promising Fred for months. You understood completely and were actually looking forward to a nice quiet walk home before settling on the settee with a cuppa and watching mindless drivel on the TV before a good, deserved nights rest. But the storm cloud brewing in your stomach would not calm, it could not be satiated until the deed was done.

You called the boys before you left work that night, wanting to hear Rogers voice before he became mindlessly drunk, the phone picked up on the second ring.

“Yuh huh?” you heard Roger moan down the phone, obviously annoyed that he was the one to have to pick it up.

“Oh what a lovely way to greet your girlfriend Roger, really something to write home to mum about” you said sarcasm practically dripping from your voice.

“(Y/N) Fuck, I'm so glad you called, I've had the worst day imaginable... but you know what would make it better?” you could nearly hear him wiggling his eyebrows through the phone, making you giggle.

“No Roger, look, I only called to say, I'm leaving work now to try and get back home before it gets dark”

“Okay sweetheart, do you want to say hi to the guys before you go? We all miss you terribly” you laughed at his horrible attempt at a posh accent before giving your affirmation.

“SAY HI TO (Y/N)!” You heard Roger call through the studio and suddenly harsh footsteps were heard from the other end of the line.

“HI” all three boys shouted at once making the phone to your ear rattle slightly from the sheer force of the vibrations.

“Hiya boys” you paused for one second before saying “now ive really got to go Rog, I love you all and Ill see you soon, love you the most Rog, see you tonight right? No sleepovers at Brians, I dont care how drunk you get, I want to see you tonight”

“Bye (Y/N)” the lads yelled, rattling the poor landline once again.

“Bye love, I promise I'll see you later, I love you more than anything princess, bye” he mumbled so the others wouldnt hear him.

“bye” you said, putting down the handset and reaching for your bag, the sinking feeling in your gut getting worse by the minute.

You decided to take the front door out of work rather than the side, opting for visibility on the main road rather than taking the scenic route back to your flat. First mistake. You decided to look to the ground whilst walking. Second mistake. One minute you heard gravel crunching beneath your feet and in a split second you heard nothing but a blood curdling scream that you realised was ripping though your own throat. All you could see was black, the dark was so dark you could hear it, maybe even taste it but you weren't sure if that was the dark or the taste of your own blood filling your mouth.

You awoke in a sterile room, that looked like it had been scrubbed floor to ceiling so many times the plaster was ready to fall off of the foundation. You went to cough, suddenly aware of the thick tube that had been shoved down your throat, you gagged around it, throat closing up in protest to the intruder before you felt it being pulled out by the gentle hand of who you assumed to be the nurse but when you looked up you saw a man with a mop of blonde hair and striking, crystal eyes. Dressed in a simple blue linen shirt that was half buttoned and tight black trousers.

He looked at you as if you had just created the world and given it to him on a silver platter.

“You're awake! They said you wouldn't wake up for another two days at least. I missed you so bad princess” he exclaimed, grabbing your hand and just as his lips where about to graze your knuckles, you screamed. And you screamed bloody murder, it go so high to the point where you were pretty sure only dogs could hear you.

Your eyes darted around the room looking for something to throw at the man in front of you, before landing on the bed pan on your bedside table. Gripping it tightly in the hand that wasn't hooked up to any machines, you swung for the stranger in front of you. Or who you at least thought was a stranger.

“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME YOU CREEP” you screeched, your throat sore and scratchy, whether that was from the tubing or the screaming, you were unaware, but you knew that you wanted this man far away from you, you were only 18 and this guy looked around 30, if not slightly younger, but still weird.

“(Y/N) darling what's wrong?” he looked so hurt by what you said, you almost felt bad for the guy.

“I DON'T KNOW YOU! WHY ARE YOU HERE?” you saw the sheer pain flash in his eyes before he slumped into the chair beside you, looking as if the world you had given him was burning and crumbling before his eyes.

A dazed nurse walked over to you, so you assumed it was the small hours of the morning. “What seems to be the problem Mr . Taylor?” she asked the man sat in the chair next to you and all he did was point at you before his features broke completely tears tearing down his face at an alarming rate.

“I don't know who that is” you whispered to the woman, afraid to upset the man more though you did not know why you worried, or why your heart ached for him in the way it. A sinking feeling filling your stomach like a dark storm cloud stretching throughout your insides.

“Thats your boyfriend miss (Y/L/N)” she said to you “I'll call for the doctor” she mumbles to the sad stranger.

When the doctor finally come into the room you had been sitting with the man for around fifteen minutes, him weeping into his hands, looking up at you every once in a while just for you to stare blankly into his crystalline eyes making him sob even more. The doctor checked you over, shining lights in your eyes and all other kinds of bullshit you didn't take the time to remember, you were too busy trying to memorise “Mr . Taylor's” face .

“Roger” the doctor said in order to stir the man too deep in sadness to think of much else. “She has amnesia, it should begin to pass in a few weeks but you're going to have to help jog her memory. You can take her home now, make sure to bring her in weekly for a check up on her stitches okay?”

“uh... yeah definitely, I definitely will thank you doctor Phillips.”

The doctor turned to you and started unhooking you from the machines before helping you to your feet.

“Thank you” you mutter, an unexplained guilt still filling you whilst thinking of the sad stranger.

You let 'Roger' lead you out of the hospital and into his car, Wheel in the sky by journey playing faintly through the radio and you could've sworn you had deja vu of a moment just like this from a few years ago, a man with a blurry face sat in the drivers side singing his heart out and you told him you loved him. The memory was gone as soon as it appeared and your head spun from the concentration needed just to look around the car.

By the time you were at Rogers flat, his tears had dried but he was still snuffling his nose as if in an attempt to suck the emotion back into his body. “well we're home (Y/N)”

“I don't know this place” was all you could weakly whisper in response before stepping out of the car and towards the towering block of flats in front of you.

Stepping into the cramped flat you're hit with a wave of nostalgia, making you weak in the knees, Roger holds you up by your arm pits and leads you over to the sofa in the centre of the room allowing you too fall back onto it.

“You alright love? Do you need anything? Water? Crackers? Cheese on toast? Say the word and im on it okay? Just ask”

“Tell me about “us”” you say gesturing over the 'us' with air quotes and pointing to the seat at your side.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything Roger” that was the fist time you had said his name since the incident and just hearing it made him smile radiantly, the sun should've been ashamed to shine compared to the glowing smile of the man next to you.

“Well, I'll start with what actually happened a week ago eh?” you nodded at this suggestion.

You were walking home from work alone, I couldn't come to pick you up, and you were all alone. You were just walking on a clear patch of pavement when a driver swerved due to being drunk at the wheel. Majority of the blow hit a lamppost next to you but you also took some of the brunt, you were knocked out cold (Y/N), christ as soon as I found out I ran to the hospital to see you but they said they had to induce a temporary coma due to blood on the brain. I didn't know how long I could last without you princess, you keep me level headed and I love you for that... we all do; me, Brian, Fred, Deaky especially. I need you with me always my love you keep me sane.

“I'm so sorry I wasn't there when it happened baby, I'm so fucking sorry” you sighed and took his hand

“I might not remember you right now, but I know that what happened was not your fault and you have nothing to be sorry for” you said with a conviction which your voice had not had yet that day, you knew this man was good inside and out.

That week people came to the flat to visit you, never remembering peoples faces had a tendency to make them cry. Roger continued to tell you stories throughout the time some beginning to jog memories like the angelic car moment.

We had our first kiss the first time we met, it was at a shitty uni new years party, at least it was shitty unil I saw you. You took my breath away angel, when you spoke you had the voice of a songbird, and your body... fuck it was difficult not to just ask you for a cheeky shag to be completely honest. It reached midnight and I saw you stood alone so I took my chance and asked if I could kiss you. You had been drinking beer and I could still taste it on your tongue it was heavenly. That's when I decided I wanted to take you out, do things properly date.

Roger broke the news to you that you were in fact twenty-seven and not eighteen like you though you were. He broke the news to you that your mother had died a few years prior of breast cancer. He told you how much he loved you and slowly but surely you returning to normal, remembering small details as he told a story, even the mundane ones where you would be reading in one corner of the flat with him writing songs in the other, staring at each other every once in a while eyes just filled to the brim with love.

He reminded you of all the arguments.

All the love.

The first time you told him you loved him.

The first time he said it back, nearly six months later.

He hid nothing from you and it worked wonders.

One morning you woke on the bed with Roger not lying beside you, confused you stepped out of bed, before remembering your accident, the amnesia, the pain you put roger theough.

“Babe?” you called as you stepped through the flat towards the sofa and when Roger looked at you, he already knew you remembered, there was no slightly vacant look behind your eyes. You had returned to him, his baby had returned to him and he could hope for nothing more.

He jumped off the sofa wrapping his arms securely around you and holding you tightly, he wasn't going no lose you again not now, not ever.

“(Y/N) I was working up the courage to do this before the accident, looking for the perfect time but I've now realised there is no perfect time there is only the now and we're lucky if we get that so (Y/N) (Y/M/N) (Y/L/N) will you marry me gorgeous”

You gasped softly at the look of adoration of Rogers face as he held and you nodded, holding an onslaught of tears.

“Yes, Rog, a thousand times yes”

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welllpthisishappening · 6 years ago

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The Period of the Long Change (8/15)

It’s quick. One second she’s standing there and everything is fine and then Emma looks up and it’s not. It’s awful. And the lights are too bright and there are too many rooms and too many opinions and her phone won’t stop ringing because everything seems to be changing all at once. She’s never been great at coping with change. But, maybe, if she can just figure it out and stay right where she is, with Killian Jones, captain of the New York Rangers, at her side, it’ll be alright.

It’s slow. One second he’s standing there and everything is fine and then Killian’s breath catches and it’s not. It’s terrifying. And the noises are too loud and there are too many questions and he can’t find the right answers to any of them, not sure how to cope with everything changing all at once. That’s never really been his forte. But, maybe, if he can just figure it out and stay right where he is, with Emma Swan, director of New York Rangers community relations, at his side, it’ll be alright.

It’s another season and another challenge and Emma and Killian are both struggling to get over the boards.

Rating: Mature Word Count: 8K’ish. AN: I am very grateful that you guys are still here and clicking and reading and saying nice things. It is very nice. Here are some overly interfering friends and an exceptionally cute baby.

Also on Ao3 and FF.net and Tumblr if that’s your jam.

“He should have shot there.”

Peggy squirmed against his side, dangerously close to the ribs that weren’t broken, but just a little bruised and it had taken far more than it should have for Emma to agree to leaving her in the apartment that morning.

Three days after the fight and another overnight hospital visit, and Killian was still a little sore and a little black and blue and he had a press conference that afternoon.

They were calling it that.

Officially.

Or, whatever.

He’d only been kind of listening when Ruby told him the details and where he had to be and when he had to be there because it was slightly difficult to hear over the ringing in his ears.

The rest of the season.

And maybe longer.

His face hurt like hell.

And Emma hadn’t said much in the last seventy-two hours, just quiet words and deft nods and she kept holding onto Peggy like some kind of stabilizing anchor against several thousand waves of overwhelming uncertainty.

That was way too dramatic. It would have been a good headline though. Maybe he’d mention that to the reporters at the press conference.

Ruby would hate that.

That might be, like, sixty-two percent of the reason he’d do it.

“Da, da, da, da, da,” Peggy shouted, and Killian nearly dropped the tablet he was holding. They’d been watching film, dissecting plays that were, quite honestly, pretty bad because the Rangers had lost again on Monday and Killian refused to believe it had anything to do with the fight he’d started during the Rangers practice on Saturday, but Arthur had bumped Husinger to third line and the internet had, collectively, lost its mind.

He might have looked.

He might have done that before he and Peggy started watching film.

And she started muttering sounds that actually sounded like words.

Words that sounded a hell of a lot like a name for him.

“You trying to get my attention, little love?” Killian asked. A tiny fist collided with the front of his t-shirt, hardly enough to even register as much of anything, but he’d been sleeping like shit again and Emma kept pacing in the kitchen and, presumably, her office and Phillip’s ceremony was tomorrow night.

So, really, Killian figured it almost made sense that getting punched in the metaphorical emotional gut by his daughter was more than enough reason for whatever was happening to his pulse and he wanted to talk to Emma.

They hadn't been avoiding each other – not really. They lived in the same apartment and slept in the same bed, but it felt like several walls and a few NHL-size hockey rinks between them and she still hadn’t said anything about this job.

They hadn’t said anything about what would happen if he didn’t play again.

Or he couldn’t play again.

“I wasn’t trying to ignore you,” Killian continued, staring at green eyes and hair that was almost alarmingly similar to his. Except the curls. She’d have exceptionally curly hair. “I was just..thinking, you know?” Peggy twisted in his hold, toes colliding with a different ACE bandage that Emma had wrapped that morning because there’s no point in not knowing how to do this and he might have fallen a little more in love with her again in that moment. Which was almost as absurd a thought as the whole waves thing from before, but Killian was, maybe, dealing with the end of a career and his wife was, admittedly, very stubborn.

And determined to make sure he didn’t walk too much.

He loved her an absolutely ridiculous amount.

More than hockey.

He needed to tell her that.

He should have told her that already.

“Yeah, I know thinking’s not as fun as the game, is it?” Killian asked, sliding a bit further down the couch and that actually helped him breathe easier. He wasn’t sure how that happened, but he wasn’t going to complain, Peggy tucked snug against his chest with her fingers gripping the front of his t-shirt. “Ok, see, watch this part.”

He nodded towards the screen and Peggy’s eyes moved, flashing to the replay and the team film he probably wasn’t supposed to have because there was more than just the end of his career on the line.

Maybe.

There were probably more tests and another string of doctor’s appointments, but Regina had never glared as intently as she had when she stalked into the hospital room on Saturday night and immediately cursed out every decision he’d ever made.

Killian deserved that.

He shouldn’t have hit Husinger.

He kind of wanted to hit Husinger again.

Peggy made another noise, not quite a da but possibly a bit of a screech and Will checked the guy in Philadelphia especially hard. “That’s not the part I was talking about,” Killian muttered.

It took some finangling to rewind, but none of his ribs cracked in the process and that felt like a victory. The pillow under his back was helping.

He assumed.

“This,” he said, free hand tracing over Peggy’s back and she wasn’t watching the game anymore. She was a baby. Her lack of attention span was understandable. “Here,” Killian said, tapping lightly against a tiny t-shirt and she actually hummed in response. “You know you might be the smartest baby in the world. Don’t tell your brother that.”

She didn’t respond.

Figured. “Ok,” Killian muttered, moving Peggy slightly until she was propped up against his bicep staring at the tablet resting against the back of the couch. “See...right….here.”

Will was standing at the blue line, working point on a power play that looked like especially horrible garbage in the last two weeks, but Killian didn’t really have a leg to stand on in that particular argument and he wasn’t supposed to be watching film.

Robin sent it.

“Watch Phillip,” Killian said, tapping his thumb against the white jersey standing in front of the net. Peggy gurgled. They needed to eat. “Ok, see, Pegs, he’s trying to screen the goalie, right? But he’s not getting his angles right. He’s too close to the paint and he’s making himself smaller. It’s easy to see around him.” Peggy fidgeted, a knee in his side that didn’t feel particularly pleasant, and maybe none of them had been sleeping. Eat and nap and, hopefully, show up for his own press conference at the right time.

“I know, it’s incredibly frustrating,” Killian grinned. He brushed his lips over the top of her hair, and he couldn’t stop moving his hand, over her and tracing against team-branded merch and tiny limbs that were deceptively strong. He still hadn’t seen her pull herself up or weeble around, but he lived in potentially misplaced hope and that should probably be the subhead to his personal life story.

He was on a roll.

The reporters at the presser wouldn’t even have to do any work.

“Rook still hasn’t quite figured out how to position himself there,” Killian said, voice betraying him because that was his spot and his power play and his team and he was definitely the one who needed the nap. “But if he did, he would have been able to block the goalie from seeing that Robin was wide open. And he should have shot as soon as the puck landed on his stick. But our power play is incredibly bad now. So that didn’t happen and we lost another game. And Arthur broke another whiteboard. See? Right here.”

He hit the table again, pausing the stupid thing in the process and they both made a noise that was mostly just general frustration with the state of the entire world. “That’s not what I was trying to do. You know that too, right?”

“Da, da, da, da, da,” Peggy yelled, the sound echoing off the walls of the otherwise empty apartment and, possibly, Killian’s brain and he didn’t think before tossing the tablet on the table next to them.

“You’re absolutely right. We don’t need to watch anymore of that game. They all look terrible anyway, no one knows how to screen the goalie.”

He knew he was babbling – talking about goalie screens and slap shots like it didn’t physically pain him to even think any of those words, but Killian was drifting dangerously close to several metaphorical edges and the ends of a few other ropes and Peggy climbed back onto his chest without any prompting.

He wished Emma was there to see that.

He had no idea where his phone was. He should have taken a picture or something. God, he should have talked to Emma. Preferably before beating the shit out of Husinger.

He was absolutely going to get fined.

And he was absolutely convinced the only reason Regina hadn’t stormed into the apartment and told him just that was because Robin had stopped her. And because he was scared she’d find out he was still sending Killian game film.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he mumbled, smiling to himself when Peggy burrowed against him. That felt oddly familiar too. “We’ll sleep and then we’ll eat, huh? And probably make Lucas really mad when we inevitably show up late to the presser.” “Da!” “I know, sweetheart, I know. We won’t think about the presser at all. Although,” he added softly, fingers drifting over her back and her breath was warm even through his shirt. The pillow underneath him was actually pretty comfortable. That was probably a sign. He really hoped that was a sign. “You know, if we get to this presser a little earlier, we might be able to hang out with Mom. Or, at least, see Mom for a few minutes. That’d be kind of good, right?”

She didn’t answer. She was thirteen months old. And well on her way to a mid-afternoon nap.

Killian’s smile settled on his face easily, something calming what might have been several hurricanes and frayed ropes and he’d clearly lost his mind. He was going to have to tell Phillip how to screen a goddamn goalie.

“What if we got Mom some hot chocolate before we left?” Killian asked, speaking more to the air around him than his daughter because Peggy was absolutely asleep already. “Yeah, yeah, that’s a good idea. We’re going to do that.”

He took a deep breath, sliding further down the couch and that was clearly what he was missing because the pillow moved with him, landing on some previously undiscovered section of incredibly sore body and Killian nearly laughed with how absurdly comfortable he was.

His fingers stilled on Peggy’s back, palm flat against t-shirt and skin and his neck didn’t entirely appreciate when he moved to kiss the top of her head, but his neck could, honestly, fuck off and he closed his eyes with the smile still on his face.

Killian didn’t remember falling asleep, seemed to settle into the state almost too easily, which was probably another sign, but he’d had more than enough of those in the last two weeks, and he jerked up when the first knock came.

His neck didn’t appreciate that either.

He hadn’t been to PT in days. There was probably a whole new slate of things he wasn’t allowed to do.

Killian blinked blearily, sleep lingering on the edge of his consciousness and Peggy stirred against him. “Shh, it’s ok,” he mumbled, but that was a battle he was never going to win. Her chin was shaking already. “No, no, no, c’mon, Pegs, we were doing good. We were sleeping. It’s probably a very aggressive mailman.” That was the worst lie he’d told in the last two weeks and three days.

That was the worst lie he’d ever told.

They knocked again.

Killian sighed, but was drifting closer to a groan with every passing second – knocking coming quicker and more impatient and there might have been a few kicks in there as well. And possibly a shoulder or two. Maybe a hip.

Peggy started crying.

“We’re going to murder all of them, huh?” Killian asked, staring at the baby clawing at his t-shirt. “And we really shouldn’t be endorsing murder, should we? Not quite super dad, status is it?” “KJ,” Anna shouted from behind the door. His eyes closed again, frustration slinking down his spine and colliding with exhaustion and disappointment and a general sense of anxiety that had been at the crux of his state of being since he got hit in New Jersey. “We can hear you talking to the baby in there. You are not fooling anyone.” “You guys woke both me and that baby up, so you don’t get to claim any conversational superiority.” “None of that made sense! And how do you know that there are more people out here than me? You do not have x-ray vision.” “That’s true,” he admitted, still sitting on the couch and trying to quiet Peggy was a lot more difficult when he was also screaming across the apartment. “But I don’t think you have quite that many limbs either, Banana, so it’d probably be pretty difficult for you to hit the door that much on your own.”

Anna didn’t say anything. Killian grinned at Peggy. “Totally got her on that one,” he mumbled.

“I heard that too,” Anna yelled, kicking at the door and the laugh that came with it was decidedly deeper than her voice.

“That was actually pretty good,” Will said, probably shrugging and Anna stopped kicking the door for a moment. She was kicking him in the shins. “God, shit, I am on your side in this argument, little Vankald, you can’t attack your own teammates.”

“Shut up, Scarlet. He wasn’t supposed to know we were doing this.” Killian scoffed, some his frustration evolving into acceptance and it was really only a matter of time. He was getting tired of waiting for Regina’s glares anyway. “How many of them do you think are out there?” he asked Peggy, slinging his legs back onto the floor and the tablet had turned itself off at some point.

He’d probably forgotten to charge it.

“We did call,” Robin yelled. “Several times, in fact.” “Were you the one checking the door, Locksley? You’re old, you shouldn’t be doing that when you’ve got a game tomorrow night.” “Shut up, Cap. Where’s you’re phone?” “I can’t answer the question if I actually do shut up, you realize that, right?” “Open the goddamn door.” “I mean, not with that attitude.” “KJ,” Anna whined, a dull thud against the door that was most likely her entire body. Her kicks sounded a little lackadaisical. “You’re making this really difficult.” “You woke us up, Banana,” he argued. He stood up, despite the desire to tell however many of them were standing in the hallway to fuck off, and Peggy clung to his side when he moved across the living room.

Killian blinked when he opened the door, not entirely surprised to find them all there, but still a little overwhelmed by the whole lot of them – head to toe team apparel and they were probably blowing off walk-through and they were all going to go bankrupt from the fines.

Anna crossed her arms when Killian didn’t immediately invite them in, likely documenting his distinct lack of manners so she could tattle on him to Mrs. Vankald like they were twelve years old again. Robin’s eyes darted across him, checking for new bumps or bruises or contusions, as Regina glared with a power that could only be described as harrowing. Ariel was already tugging on the front of his shirt, clicking her tongue because it probably wasn’t clean enough or was prone to irritating his skin and Killian swatted her hand when she didn’t stop immediately.

Will chuckled under his breath, hooking his chin over Anna’s shoulder and there was a phone in his hand, a flash of blonde hair and dark curls that were almost too similar to Peggy’s to be entirely comfortable and they’d brought in reinforcements.

“Where’s Lucas?” Killian asked, and he cursed when Anna kicked him in the ankle. “Banana, if you do that again, you will never be allowed in this apartment for the rest of your life. You understand? I don’t care how much my kids like you.”

Liam laughed in Colorado. “That’s a real empty threat, little brother. Plus, Anna would absolutely steal your kids. She’s a kid thief.” “Oh my God,” Anna groaned. “That’s not true. KJ, I’m not trying to steal your children. Jeez, Liam. That’s mean. Honestly. That’s what that is.” Elsa clicked her tongue, an ehhh that drew another laugh out of Will and maybe they could just stage the whole intervention in the hallway. It might end quicker that way. “You got something to add, El?” Will asked lightly, holding the phone up so Anna could scowl at it. “I’m just saying,” Elsa started, “Anna was kind of super into Lizzie and the twins too. She’s baby obsessed.”

“And,” Ariel added. “She sent Dylan more gifts than, like, anyone else we knew. It was super nice, but it was a lot.” “Are you trying to tell me that I’m not super into your kids now?” Anna challenged, and Killian pressed his mouth into Peggy’s shoulder so he wouldn’t laugh too loud. “That’s also rude. I’m the best aunt any of these kids could ask for.” “Eh,” Will mumbled, yelping when Anna’s toe collided with his shin again.

Ariel sounded like she was growling. “Can we not resort to violence? Please? I already have enough to worry about with Cap and the other asshole.” “Is that what we’re officially calling him?” Robin asked.

“You not like that?” He shrugged, and Killian muttered several words against the side of Peggy’s head. She was starting to feel heavier than usual. “It’s just not really all that creative,” Robin said. “Feels too on the nose.” “Yeah, the next time you guys come up with tabloid-worthy nicknames for people, you should really get more creative,” Killian murmured. He didn’t lift his head up.

“Thin ice, Cap,” Ariel warned. “Thin ice.” “That was even less clever.”

Anna was still kicking at Will, and this whole thing was treading dangerously close to farce. He had hot chocolate to buy.

“Shit, little Vankald,” Will gasped, jumping back from another attack. “Are you made of steel? You should be studied.” “I’m definitely the best fighter in this family, so I would consider your next words very carefully, Scarlet.” “I mean that’s definitely true,” Liam agreed. “You ever see Killian try and throw a right hook? It’s embarrassing.” He grinned when Anna’s head whipped towards him, still scowling and a little annoyed and no one had answered Killian’s question. They must have bribed the doorman.

“Liam offered to send the guy a signed puck,” Robin explained, one side of his mouth tugging up. Killian’s jaw dropped slightly. “Apparently the guy is a not-so-secret Jones brother aficionado and--” “--His words too, Cap,” Will added. “We’re thinking about making him an official member of the group. We don’t have an aficionado. Makes us sound more professional, don’t you think?”

Killian tilted his head. Liam was hysterical. “What the hell does that even mean?” “It means your doorman is obsessed with you,” Regina answered easily, eyes darting away from the phone she’d pulled out at some point. “So you should probably get that checked out. He was very easy to bribe.”

“You been bribing a lot of people recently, Gina?” “We’ll get to that part eventually.” “What does that mean?” He didn’t expect her to smile. It was disconcerting. He wished she’d glare some more. That was definitely why she smiled.

“That’s point number six on the intervention schedule,” she said. Killian’s eyes bugged.

“How many points are there?” “It’s kind of a fluid thing,” Anna shrugged. “We came up with ten to start with, but that’s not set in stone or anything. We don’t want to be locked into anything if things don’t play out the way we think they’re supposed to be playing out.” “Speak English, Banana.” She glowered, expression going dark which was almost strange to see, but at this point Killian was almost ready for anything and he knew the intervention was coming.

In surround sound. With a schedule. Of the fluid variety.

“It depends on how difficult you’re going to be, KJ,” Elsa added. “But Pegs is here and we weren’t entirely counting on that, so I think now Scarlet has to take all the curse words out of his speech.” “You wrote a speech?” Killian asked.

Will shrugged. “More like a...proclamation. Of your previously mentioned stupidity.” “Yuh huh.” “I’ll work around the curses, but I want it taken into account that I’m now speaking on the fly and cannot be held accountable for any scathing examinations of your character I decide to make in the moment.” “What he’s saying is he should come with a parental advisory warning,” Liam chipped in. “Although I did read it when they were coming back from Philly and some of it did tug at several different heart strings.” “Ah, shit, Liam, I sent you that in confidence.” “You sent Liam an e-mail on the bus?” Robin balked, and Killian was seriously debating closing the door on all of them. He’d call Elsa after to apologize. “How did I not notice that?” “Is Locksley stealing your armrest now too?” Killian asked softly, and he wasn’t sure who was laughing louder in Colorado.

“Nah,” Will shook his head. “I was sitting with Rook and Locksley claimed a whole row to himself because he’s old and needed to, quoting, stretch his legs.” Liam was definitely laughing louder.

“It’s a two-hour bus ride, Locksley,” Liam yelled, Elsa trying to quiet him and muttering about staying on track.

“Yeah, and I had to stretch out my calf because I took that puck to the back of my leg in the third when someone didn’t get back on defense in time.” “I refused to accept the blame for that before and I refuse to accept it now,” Will said. He was supporting most of Anna’s weight now, her hair half over his shoulder and some of it brushing against his arm and they’d definitely blown off the walk-through.

“That’s because you don’t want to acknowledge that you shouldn’t have been that high up in the zone. You’re trying to score and that’s not your game.” “He’s got a point,” Liam mumbled. Will forced the phone into Anna’s hand. “Well done, Liam,” she sighed. “This was not part of any schedule for telling you you’re the world’s biggest idiot, KJ. Do not judge our schedule by whatever this has dissolved into.” “Oh I’m not,” Killian promised, hitching up Peggy when one of her hands found the back of his hair. “I’m judging it for the rest of the shit you just said, but certainly not for its state of current dissolving or whatever.” “You don’t understand enough science to make those kinds of jokes.” “I’ll ask Mary Margaret after tomorrow’s game.” “She teaches English, KJ,” Elsa said.

Regina glared at all of them. And pushed by Killian to walk through the half-open doorway. She didn’t stop walking until she almost ran into the coffee table and the dead tablet, arching an eyebrow when she turned back around.

Robin mumbled ah fuck under his breath.

“Maybe that will be point eleven on the conversation schedule,” Regina said. “So are we going to do this or not?” “If I tell you all to the get the hell out of my apartment is that going to make a difference?”

“Absolutely not. You planning on showing up to your presser late?” “Absolutely not.” “Yeah, you’re a terrible liar,” Regina said, tapping the toe of her shoe impatiently. “And you’re getting fined. Quite a bit, in fact.” Killian blinked – and he could almost feel the blood rushing out of his head, everything suddenly feeling far colder than it had a few minutes before. He licked his lips, breathing heavily with his mouth wide open and Peggy clearly did not appreciate how tightly he was holding her.

“Sorry, love,” he mumbled, pressing a kiss to the jut of her shoulder and the back of her head and he didn’t let go of her.

Regina’s eyebrow did not make sense at all.

“Ah, shit, Gina,” Will groaned, kicking the door closed behind them and Anna was already trying to find drinks for everyone. “We were going to work up to that. We all agreed.” “How much thought went into this, exactly?” Killian asked.

“Probably a lot more than you’re thinking.” “Why? And when did you start?” Will laughed at the questions, a little disbelief mixing into the sound and that wasn’t really fair. Killian knew why.

It was the same reason they’d tried to intervene before and why Anna showed up in New York and no one had told him about the Husinger story before it got published. Because it wasn’t just a team, it was more and it had been for years and would continue to be no matter what happened next and Killian should have told Emma about the headaches.

He hadn’t had a headache since the hospital.

Even after that asshole broke his face.

“You know why, Cap,” Will muttered, perched on the arm of the couch. “We all would have lined up to hit that asshole. Willingly. No one said a word to him when he got bumped.” “That was only one of the questions.” “Ah, yeah--” “--After Mary Margaret told Lucas that Emma had a difficult time standing up when Victor said you were done for the season,” Robin interrupted, voice gruffer than it had been in years and Killian had to swallow before he could bring himself to turn and look at him.

He’d seen that look, exactly, once before.

It had been weeks at that point, and Killian hadn’t moved an inch, sitting stock-still against the wall in his room, legs splayed out in front of him and a bandage around his hand that Mrs. Vankald had to change every morning.

He thought it was over then too, everything he’d ever worked for gone in a moment and an instance and he hadn’t gone to her funeral. He couldn’t go to her funeral. He couldn't get off the goddamn floor, sunlight streaming in through the window that Killian consistently found downright offensive.

And he hadn’t even tried to hide the bottle in his hand when he heard the footsteps, certain, eventually, Mr. and Mrs. Vankald would just have enough and he’d lose that too and he’d always been a melodramatic asshole.

Robin hadn’t said anything at first either, just stood in the doorway, staring straight ahead with a look that was equal parts pity and fury. Killian hadn’t entirely understood it at the time, couldn’t rationalize how one person could care that much, but the floorboards creaked when Robin walked into the room, yanking the bottle out of his hand and talking for sixteen minutes.

Straight.

He didn’t stop. He didn’t pause. He didn’t let Killian get a single word in.

Not that Killian would have had much to say.

So Robin kept talking and making that face and Ariel must have been lurking in the stairwell, because she appeared out of seemingly nowhere promising I can fix this and this isn’t the end and it wasn’t.

No matter what Killian believed.

They wouldn’t let it be.

God, now he was going to owe Ariel two life debts.

That was frustrating.

“Get your shit together, Cap,” Robin said sharply, and Killian’s knees bent like they’d been commanded too. He sunk into the corner of the couch, Peggy back on his chest and Anna curled against him and Ariel was biting her lip.

Regina was on her phone again.

“We agreed we’d work up to this, Locksley,” Elsa mumbled, but Killian had no idea who was holding Will’s phone now and it kind of sounded like he was being spoken to from several different clouds and Robin shook his head.

“Yeah, I know, but then he asked why and I’m kind of throwing the schedule out the window.” “It’s too cold for that,” Anna muttered. “Please don’t actually open the windows.” “Metaphorically.” “Ah, well that’s fine then.” Robin hummed, not taking his eyes away from Killian and he’d never been on trial, but it felt a bit like that and it had before and time was a circle or something.

“If you have something say, Locksley, you should probably just say it,” Killian muttered. He ignored whatever his body was doing, every one of his muscles tight with tension and anxiety and it was too much, was far too much trouble and far too much pressure and Peggy was half standing on his right thigh.

“I’ve got several things I want to say,” Robin growled. “But none of them are appropriate in front of other people and I really don’t want to end up punching you.” Killian blinked. That hadn’t happened when he hurt his hand.

“Damn, Robin,” Anna muttered.

Robin crossed his arms, inhaling deeply enough that his shoulders shifted with the force of it and Killian didn’t argue when Will pulled Peggy away from him. He wanted to. He wanted to scream and shout and go through his own schedule of all the reasons losing this game were absolutely terrifying, but losing everything else was absolutely worse and Robin hadn’t even had to say anything.

That didn’t stop him.

“You’re a goddamn idiot, you know that?”

Killian nodded. “Yes.”

“Wait, what?” “Got you on that one, didn’t I?” “You don’t get to be funny right now, Cap, I’m pissed at you. And worried. And mostly pissed. Because we’ve done this! We’ve had this conversation before and Ariel’s agreed to a reenactment if you want, but I think that’s also kind of dumb.” “Hey,” Ariel snapped. “I only said I’d do it as a last resort. I really don’t want to bother Mr. and Mrs. V.”

“We’re very responsible with our interventions,” Will muttered, bobbing up and down and he might have been humming in Peggy’s ear.

“Although Mom and Dad really wouldn’t mind,” Elsa reasoned. “They’d probably feed you all in the process.” “We are professionals, El. You think we’re not capable of feeding ourselves?” “I really doubt my mom would care, honestly. What year is that t-shirt you’re wearing from?” “That’s not important.” Elsa laughed, a resounding judgment that probably resulted in several laws in Colorado. Killian glanced back at Robin, sleeves still bunched around his arms and his own judgements radiating off him. He lifted his eyebrows in challenge, waiting for the list of warranted complaints and opinions and--

“You’ve got kids, Cap,” Robin said softly, and that had never been part of the pitch before. Anna might have gasped. That might have been Ariel. Or Elsa. Will was definitely singing under his breath. “One of which, while you were being a goddamn idiot and getting more tests and absolutely terrifying your wife, was trying to imitate your goal celebration outside a bagel place on 77th.” “Remind me to actually send that guy my stick,” Will mumbled in between lyrics and faces and Peggy laughed while trying to wrap her fingers around the collar of his vaguely ancient t-shirt.

“I did that already,” Regina promised. “He was very appreciative. He probably has twenty-thousand likes on several different social media platforms.” “Do you actually know how likes work, Gina?” Ariel asked, a smile on her face that felt decidedly out of place.

The pillow pressing into Killian’s back wasn’t quite as comfortable anymore.

Regina shrugged.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked sharply, and Will made a dismissive noise.

“Your kid’s got one hell of a wrister. He totally wrecked that window.” “You wrecked the windows of a bagel place.” “Obviously, try and keep up, Cap. But the guy was a big fan and happy with the stick. Or the promise of a stick. I really don’t remember signing that, Gina.” “Well, that seems like a you problem, doesn’t it?” Regina asked, fingers flying over her phone. “Can we keep this moving though because I don’t want to deal with the league fallout if Killian shows up to this presser late.” “Or the Ruby Lucas fallout,” Ariel mumbled. Anna laughed.

“That too.”

The room seemed to freeze, Anna’s laugh lingering in the suddenly stale around them, and he could hear Elsa’s quiet breathing over the phone. Killian waited three more seconds before he moved, sitting up straighter and rolling his shoulders and Robin didn’t flinch when he met his gaze.

“You’ve got other opinions, Locksley?” Killian asked. “Or just elongated ones about my kids?” “The kids are kind of the crux of it, actually.” “Don’t let me stop you then.” “You weren’t ever going to,” he said, not an admission, but a promise and Killian wanted to practice his wrister. “You know Matt thinks you’re the greatest person in the history of several different worlds and universes?” “That was redundant, wasn’t it?” “Do not interrupt me, Cap. I swear to God I’ll punch you right in your bruised ribs.”

Ariel winced, but Robin was on a roll and Killian’s eyes were going to permanently stay halfway up his forehead. “I get why you didn’t say anything about the hit,” he said. “You’re you and you’re a stubborn idiot and everything that happened with Liam is...ah, shit, sorry Liam, I almost forgot you were here.” “Don’t apologize to me,” Liam said, the connection shaky and he kind of sounded like a robot in Colorado. “Killian’s a goddamn idiot. That’s not something you mess around with.”

“I’m sitting right here,” Killian sighed. That was another battle he was never going to win.

Robin’s lips twitched. “A fact we’re well aware of, Cap. And one your kid is well aware of. And Emma. Especially Emma. You know how worried she’s been about Casino Night? She forgot to get Mr. and Mrs. V tickets.” “Wait, what?” “They’re going to watch Matt and Pegs,” Anna shrugged. “They honestly are not offended.” “And possibly celestial beings,” Will added.

“Can I get back to my rampage, please?” Robin asked loudly, and Liam might have snickered. Elsa tried to turn her laugh into a cough.

“You’re the one getting distracted,” Killian pointed out. Robin’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve got kids, Cap. Kids who, despite what you may think, do not give a single, Scarlet cover Pegs ears or something.” Will did as instructed, flashing a grin Killian’s direction. He rolled his eyes. “They do not give a single fuck what you do on the ice right now,” Robin continued. “Matt wants to be you because that’s all he knows, but he’d think the same exact thing if you were a goddamn...I don’t know, what’s a ridiculous job?” “Bank teller,” Anna shouted.

“Oh, a dog walker,” Ariel added.

“Museum curator,” Elsa grinned. “But only on Museum Mile.” “He’d have to go crosstown to get there, though.” “Ah, yeah, that’s true. It’s so obnoxious to get cross town. God, imagine that commute in the morning. It’d be killer.” “Alright, that’s more than enough,” Robin muttered, and it sounded a bit like disciplining Henry and Roland and Killian bit his lip. “The point, Cap, is none of it matters.” Killian tilted his head, the argument practically bubbling out of him, but Robin didn’t even let him open his mouth before he waved an impatient hand in his face. “God, you know that’s not what I meant. Of course it matters. And we all want to win too. We want to win for Matt and you and this stupid city with its horrendous crosstown traffic. But you don’t get to play with your own health in order to do that. You’ve got kids who idolize you and a teenager who, on Saturday night, tried really hard not to let either Gina or I realize that he was crying because he was so scared something had happened to you.” “What?” Killian rasped. His throat felt very dry. He kept blinking. Liam had walked out of the phone frame in Colorado.

God, Elsa was crying again.

Robin nodded. “We got back from the window incident and promising merch we had no right to give away. And Mary Margaret was talking to Ruby. That’s how we found out about the hallway. I’ve never...Mary Margaret looked far too pale and Ruby kept shouting no comment in her phone and they told us. Rol overheard because he’s clearly been taking supersonic hearing lessons from El and here we are.” “I resent that, Locksley,” Elsa yelled, but her voice shook on its way across the country.

“I think that just means you’re a superhero, El,” Will reasoned.

“Oh, I’ll take that then.” Killian’s throat was still doing something impossible, and they hadn’t even gotten to the fine part of the intervention. He held his arms out expectantly, not trusting himself to actually demand back his daughter, but they might have all been superheroes because Will moved immediately.

They all spent way too much time together.

“Mary Margaret looked pale?” he asked, Robin’s nod barely that. It was closer to a grunt.

“She told Lucas it was bad. She’s...she’s worried about Emma because Emma is so goddamn worried about you. Constantly. And then you went and did this stupid thing and she’s forgetting tickets and feeling guilty and--” “--None of this is her fault.” “You tell her that?” Killian didn’t answer. That was an answer.

“That’s the worst thing you’ve done yet, Cap,” Robin sighed, rocking back on his heels. “And I know how much your fine is for.”

“We ever going to talk about that? Because I really don’t want Lucas to yell at me for being late to this presser.” “Yeah, yeah, we’ll get there, but I’ve got one more point to make.” He took a deep breath, huffing it out like he’d been waiting for this moment or practicing for it, and Liam was pacing behind the couch in Colorado. Elsa had crossed her legs, elbows digging into her knees with her chin in her hands and Anna was identical a few inches away from Killian.

Will was back on the arm of the couch, Ariel’s head resting on the side of his thigh and tears obvious in her eyes.

And Killian was the world’s biggest idiot.

“It matters, Cap,” Robin said. “All of it. The career and the control and it’s been your team for years. We tried to tell you that wouldn’t change and it might have been a lie. Or, at least, wishful thinking. We can’t stop this guy or his ridiculously quick passes and Rook’s shit at trying to screen the goalie.” Will coughed pointedly, and Robin rolled his eyes. “That’s not the point,” he continued. “The point is we get it. We wouldn’t want to walk either, but this is your life, Cap and it’s pretty fucking great. Even without the game. You’ve got people you’ve got to think about. People who...write e-mails to Liam because they don’t want to scandalize your delicate sensibilities with unplanned speeches--” “--Oh my God,” Will grumbled. Ariel muttered several promises that it’s fine, Scarlet under her breath.

“Anyway,” Robin said pointedly. “This isn’t just about you, Cap. It might have been the last time, but this is...you’ve kids and a family and people who would beat up any asshole replacement without you even having to ask. And if you don’t show up in Emma’s office at some point before Casino Night promising several different worlds, I’ll tell Arthur he should suspend you for the entire first month of next season.”

“Seconded,” Anna and Will said at the same time.

Killian lifted his eyebrows even more. “You don’t know it’ll be next season.” “Please,” Robin scoffed. “Yes, I do. And I think you do too. You know who doesn’t? Emma.”

“It was bad, Cap,” Ariel whispered, tears on her cheeks and a quiver in her voice. “Victor said it might not...next season wasn’t certain and it was like...I don’t know. I could see it. She’d been trying to keep it together with Mattie and us and then it was like it all clicked and she was…” “Terrified,” Will finished harshly. “She’s been terrified, Killian.”

He swallowed, his own name sounding impossibly loud when it echoed between his ears. “A one-woman Emma Swan protection squad.” “I heard about A’s zamboni-murder threat, Cap. I could support that.” “The name thing didn’t last long.” “Yeah, it felt weird saying it, honestly.” Killian hummed, arms wrapped almost possessively around the baby in his arms and the whole thing was a goddamn disaster. He might have been a goddamn disaster.

He still had to answer questions.

Lots of questions.

“How big is the fine, Gina?” Killian asked, and if this were a normal conversation he would have appreciated her slight jump when he turned towards her.

“Not great.” “That’s not specific.” “Not great,” she repeated. “If you weren’t broken, you’d be suspended for two games. At least.” “Husinger wasn’t.” Regina glared at him. “That’s because you started punching him. There was video. The league’s already hiding from reporters wanting to know how no one caught your concussion before you passed on the ice. Remember when you passed out on the ice?” “Yes, Gina, I was there.” “I just wanted to make sure you remembered that it happened. When you passed out on the ice. On national TV. And Husinger got fined. Which is a blow to a kid still working on his AHL deal.” “But no suspension?” “No,” Regina said. “Because, as I said, you punched him first. So the league opted to leave it up to front office and front office desperately wants to win. No suspension. A stern talking to, a piece of duct tape over his mouth when it comes to the media, and that’s it.” Killian nodded, another string of words getting caught in his throat and the guilt in his stomach was decidedly uncomfortable.

“You ever go out on your date?” Liam asked pointedly, ignoring both Elsa and Anna when they checked their tongues simultaneously. It sounded like Mrs. Vankald. Killian didn’t mention that either.

“That’s a no, leader,” Will answered, standing back up and taking Peggy out of Killian’s arms. “And you’re going to be late, Cap. You think he should put on a tie, Gina?” Regina shook her head. “Team-branded.” “Yeah, yeah, that makes more sense.”

“Can I have my kid back now?” Killian asked, but the entire room rolled its eyes in response and that was almost impressive.

“Did we not mention that?” Anna asked. He shook his head. “We’re taking her.” “Phrase that differently, Anna,” Elsa mumbled.

Killian stuffed his hands in his pockets. “So the kidnapping threat was real, huh?” “No, no,” Anna promised. “Well...no, this is not kidnapping. You can’t bring a baby to a presser with you, KJ. So Scarlet and I are taking her and we’ll go pick up Matt and then we’re going to do something educational.” “It’s the library, Cap,” Will added. “We’re going to meet Belle at the library.”

Anna nodded, grinning like that settled that. It did. “Go get changed, KJ. Ruby will rip you apart if you mess up her presser.”

He did not, in fact, mess up the presser.

He showed up five minutes early, grinning at Ruby’s slightly stunned expression and stood at the podium and answered the questions and he was sure every single reporter gasped when he answered honestly.

Completely and totally.

The internet was going to lose its mind.

Again.

“How was that Lucas?” Killian asked, directing her out of the media room at the Garden and back towards a hallway he’d absolutely made out in before.

She shook her head slowly, something that felt like disbelief and awe rolling off her and Killian felt more normal than he had in months. “I can’t believe you did that, Cap,” she breathed.

“Can you not?” “Ah, I mean, I guess, but that’s…” Ruby exhaled, blinking and tugging her lips back behind her teeth. “Did she tell you about the job yet?” “Yeah. She deserves that.” “Of course she does. I’m not disagreeing with that, but that’s…” “You’ve got to finish a sentence, Lucas.” “Why would I do that when you’re suddenly so good at making proclamations on the record.”

Killian chuckled, resting his hands on her shoulders and she stuck her tongue out at him. “Professional,” he muttered. “And it wasn’t a proclamation. It was an answer. A real one. And Emma should be able to do whatever she wants. She’d make hockey the most popular sport in the entire goddamn world.” “Not disagreeing with that either.” “You’ve got to make your point then, Lucas, because…” He trailed off, eyes flitting towards the end of the hallway like Emma would suddenly appear there and he hadn’t been sure what her afternoon was like, was certain there were more meetings and probably placating Aurora for something, but he kind of hoped and he’d answered all the questions anyway.

“Take some of your own advice, Cap,” Ruby suggested, rapping her knuckles against his chest. “And go upstairs. Like two seconds ago.” He resisted the urge to salute, squeezing her shoulders and winking horribly enough that her laugh hung in the air when he jogged down the hallway.

And it might have been the longest elevator ride of Killian’s life, tapping an impatient rhythm on his thigh as he waited for the ding and the right floor and he flat out ran down the next hallway he was presented with.

She was sitting on the floor.

It was almost difficult to see her over all the stacks of paper around her, but he saw her hair, tugged up in a ponytail, but she’d missed one piece, a strand clinging to her neck like it was there specifically to taunt him.

David was a few feet away from her, leaning back on his hands with a smile on his face and his phone thrown haphazardly between them.

They were talking, but the words didn’t entirely register and it was a miracle he stayed upright.

Killian froze, half a foot over the threshold and mouth hanging open and he never really forgot he loved her, but sometimes he’d glance at Emma or watch her try and explain offsides to Matt or blow raspberries on Peggy’s cheek and it was like everything realigned and focused and it was difficult to remember a world that she wasn’t at center of.

Emma wiped her thumb under her eye.

And that did it.

“Swan,” he said softly, Emma’s body twisting quickly and she almost knocked over a stack of papers. His smile felt far too nervous, but it was there and her eyes were slightly red and maybe it was time to stage his own intervention.

“Hey,” she muttered. “You’re...I thought you’d still be downstairs.” “I wanted to be here before the presser, but, uh, some stuff happened and I’m--” “--Here now.” Killian nodded. “You have a couple minutes to talk, Swan?”

#cs ff #captain swan #captain swan ff #captain swan fic #cs fic #blue line change #i will be honest #when i first started plotting this story #the first scene i had thought of #like...visually #was robin yelling YOU'VE GOT KIDS CAP FIX YOUR LIFE #so here we are

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