#natasha roman off

[profoundwebhead]

hey marvel tumblr

is this an unpopular opinion?

Infinity War is a better movie than Endgame.

[zoesshortstories]

All's Fair (part one)

Natasha Romanoff x Avenger!fem!reader

Words: 2.0k, probably going to have two more parts! Would write more if requested!

TW: slight discussion of reader's body and a body positive/neutral mindset

Seeing Earth through the window of your ship always took your breath away. Since you weren’t in open space while Earth was still in sight when you left four months ago, you couldn’t see it. But you made sure you couldn’t miss it this time. It only took an hour to make it to the United States, and half an hour from there to make it to the Avengers compound. 

Bruce called Steve from the comms console of the ship. He cleared you for landing and you found an empty dock. 

Seeing most of the Avengers standing at the waiting area was a shock to you and then you reminded yourself they were probably here from Bruce. You hadn’t known them that long before you went on your first mission, which was supposed to be only two weeks. It ended up being four months. 

Of course you already knew Steve; he was the one who had picked you for your promotion to Avenger. That and your water bending powers pretty much sealed the deal. And you knew Scott too. You had babysat his daughter through high school and a little bit in college when you were home. He was the one who wrote your recommendation for your application to SHIELDs Academy. Special forces, even. 

You had started regular training and “team bonding” with the Avengers in the week you were there before you left, but the team bonding felt more like team integration. 

Tony had reached out while you were on your mission, and in the long stretches between planets in search of the device, you had gotten to know each other. He was impressed by your academic resume but your comms thread turned into space memes not even a month into it. Nat you hadn’t even met at all. She was on an undercover recon mission for a month when you joined the team and neither of you had reached out to the other. All you knew was her reputation. 

Last but not least, you knew Bruce. You knew him pretty well, as he did you. There were typically at least three days in between planets where you could coast on autopilot after setting the route. You liked to read books you brought on your Kindle and he liked drawing up scientific theories. That’s not true, but he wished it was. He did draw up quite a few, but most of the time when he wasn’t actively working he was meditating or journaling. Or talking to you. After four long months on that mission you had talked about everything as mundane as favorite colors and first memories to deep questions like what happens after death and your respective nightmares. It wasn’t uncommon to wake up from a good sleep because the other was murmuring (or screaming) in their bunk. It was nice to wake him up and offer him some hot chocolate or coffee, as he often did for you. 

The door opened down and you stepped out with your duffle to walk down the path to the compound. The mid-December air was crisp and sharp against your face and bare arms. You had forgotten about local weather because it didn’t really matter when you were coming home. So unfortunately you were just wearing an athletic navy tank top and reflective but dark utility pants. You folded your arms over your stomach and shook in your place, shaking out each of your legs. In doing so you unknowingly pressed your boobs up against themselves and you were showing a considerable amount more cleavage than you had planned on. 

You ran back on to the ship to grab one of the bright green fur coats from planet Oregazze 4 and put it on. You followed the team, who had started walking without you, down the path. It wasn’t bad walking alone. It gave you the time to look around and really take it all in. The way Steve relaxed more when walking next to Natasha or Bucky, how Tony spoke with his hands and his watch flashed around. Natasha slowed down to walk in step with you. 

“Hi I’m Y/N Y/L/N” you said and stuck our your hand. She shook it. 

She said “I know who you are” with a friendly smile at the same time as you said: “I don’t think we’ve met yet” 

You exhaled through your nose, amused. 

“Well I’m Natasha” She said. 

“ I know who you are” you said in the same way, smiling a little. 

“So” she continued, clearing her throat. From what you could tell, something in her wanted to continue talking to you but she didn’t know what to say. “That coat is…” 

She trailed off and you jumped in. “Really something, right? We each got one on Oregazze 4 because that planet was way colder than we anticipated.” 

From there the conversation turned more natural and flowing when she shared a story about buying a really ugly coat on a mission just to keep eyes on her mark. You both let it drift whichever way it wanted after that and before and you were halfway back to the compound and in the middle of discussing your favorite breakfast foods (your was a bagel with peanut butter and hers was a granola bar with fruit) when the Sky clapped loud with thunder followed shortly by a strike of lightening. You both mutually took a step closer to each other as you watched the wind whip the leaves of the trees. Then came the downpour of rain. It was hard and sharp and pounding all around you. She started to jog towards the compound and you followed suit. 

Inside with everyone else you remember you had water powers. Well, after Bruce mentioned them. 

“Y/N, care to help us out here?” He asked and you nodded. You took in a breath and then with a slight flick of your hand you pulled the water off of everyone and into a huge blob in the middle. Another flick and you directed it towards the door, and just for fun you had an arm shape out of it and freeze so that it could open the door itself. You let it splat onto the already soaked concrete and the door closed on its own. 

The team was shocked silent. You already knew Steve had read your file and resume, he was the one who made the final decision on who could be promoted to this level. You smiled weakly as everyone stared at you. This was just plain uncomfortable. 

“Uh thanks” He said and the group started to disperse. 

“Welcome,” you told him and headed towards Bruce. You took your mission log journals out of your bags and followed him through the long, sterile hallways to the business side of the compound. In the middle it was a busy headquarters. And from the headquarters each department had its own section. There was a wing for desk duty and retired agents, a corporate and government wing, there was the department for new cadets and recruits, there was the average agents quarters, and then the Avengers portion. Of course there were also doors where you didn’t know what was behind them. But as you opened the glass ones from the Avengers hallway and into the lobby of headquarters, you felt at peace when it closed and you heard the lock click behind you. 

The meeting took hours. You pulled your knees into yourself in a spinning chair next to Bruce and talked through everything that happened, all the intel you gained, and put the device in the box. Then you had to digitalize every journal into electronic files (which was stupid because if told, you would’ve just made them like that in the first place). It was eleven o’clock when you made it back to the Avengers general living room. 

You headed down another hallway but it was less sterile than the last. Tony had made sure it was wooden floors with crown molding around the doorways and on the ceiling. The plaster walls were painted a warm, homey egg shell color. Everyone had their own room at the compound, but most people had their own apartment or house for when they wanted to spend time there. You had your own apartment but you didn’t want to drive all the way there now. 

In your room you found your duffle bag already sitting on your bed. There was a vase of fresh flowers on the nightstand and a welcome note from Natasha that quite literally just said “welcome. -Nat”. Before you closed your door behind you, you waved goodnight to Bruce. You couldn’t fall asleep. You tossed and turned and gave up all together. Next you tried to read but none of your books could hold your attention. 

“Screw this” you though and pulled the covers off of yourself. You pressed your bare feet into the cold wooden floor and left your room altogether. In the kitchen you took out ingredient after ingredient, making sure you had enough. Just as you started to mix together the batter, a silhouette appeared in the hallway. You looked at them and they took a few steps more into the light. Natasha smiled back when you smiled at her and took a few strides to close the gap between herself and the other side of the kitchen island. 

“Watcha making?” She asked. 

“Muffins. Do you know if we have muffin wrappers? I don’t necessarily need them but they would be nice.” You said and Natasha fished them out of a drawer for you. She placed them in your upturned palm but let her hand linger before pulling it back. You finished putting the muffins in their tins silently. You worked like a well oiled machine but you had really only known her for a day. For every tin she oiled you put the batter in and you sprinkled them with sugar before you put them in the oven. 

You sat back and hopped up on the counter, unafraid that your thighs spread out where you sat but the part off the counter didn’t. Natasha, who leaned against the counter with her forearms, looked at you. She stared at you. You pretended not to notice even though you felt like you were burning everywhere she looked. Despite your best efforts, you were softly blushing. 

Her eyes started at your torso and worked themselves up to your hair. You looked away when you thought she was staring at your chest and tried not to be self conscious about how low cut your tank top was. Or how it hung tight at the arms but crinkled in on itself at your waist, giving the impression of a curve you had gone years fine without. You, thinking you were going to sleep, had taken all of your minimal makeup off before you climbed into bed. 

Your lips fell open slightly as you kept your eyes trained to the wall clock when Natasha looked at your face. It wasn’t long, probably around three seconds, which you should’ve known from looking at the clock, before you looked at her too. You looked straight to her eyes because she was looking at yours. The twitch of upward motion in the corners of her lips was enough to keep your vision and focus trained on her. Neither of you said anything out loud and you didn’t need to. The silence wasn’t quiet, really, because of how loud your thoughts were. Because of how loud your heart was beating in your chest. 

Minutes later the clicking timer dinged and Natasha pushed herself forward off of the counter. She continued walking towards the the hallway where she came from (not the same hallway as your room) and you watched her walk away. The content swing of her hips led her to the doorway, where she turned to say goodnight and instead saw you checking out her ass. 

“Only fair.” She said with a shrug over her shoulder and a wink. “Goodnight, Y/N” 

It was most definitely a good night.

[xox-little-troublemaker-xox]

Did you miss us?

Pairings: Wanda x reader , Natasha x reader , yelena x reader

Words: 1,319

Warnings: 18+ Dark Themes, blood,knife kink ,magic use, restraints,Cheating, slight CNC, Use of Toys, Mommy/Daddy Kink, Orgasm Control?, Strap On Sex, Oral (R,W,N receiving) Semi public Sex, Kidnapping? Language Warning , Dom! WandaNat, Sub! Reader …… if missed any let me know

This is my first ever time writing a fic so I’m sorry if bad or terribly written I also terrible at proof reading so I’m sorry for any spelling mistake or grammatical errors forgive me please . Also would like to give thanks and credit to @yelenasdiary for helping with this

I woke up from a cozy nap on the sofa with my beautiful girlfriend Yelena , her arms wrapped round my waist she was still peacefully sleeping . So I carefully wiggled out of her grasp and replaced myself with pillow so I wouldn’t disturb her sleep and decided I would go out on nightly walk while she sleeps I went up stairs and got dressed and headed for the front door.

The crisp cold weather hit me like a slap in the face as I made my way to forest. Walking in the dark gloomy woods during winter sounded like great Idea till I found myself being thrown on the ground head hitting one the massive tree roots. I got up trying to see what just happened with throbbing pain coursing through my veins up to point of impact of my head vision slightly blurred. For as far as my fuzzy head could see there was nothing so I tried walking back to try get some help so I could get to a hospital. each step I took I could hear the echoing sound of another this caused panic to hit me like a brick and trying to move as quick as possible but also as quite as possible so I could to not alert the other person in the forest of my where bouts.

I got to point where I could see specks of light and roads poking through the trees, I got excited and celebrated in my head that I was so close to safety. just as I was about to get through the last of the trees , I was grabbed by my legs and dragged back. I must have hit my head again because when I opened my eyes, I was tied to a tree blood slightly pouring out over the ropes I could hear the sound of crackling fire behind me. I turned my head as far as I could to see a roaring bright orange fire inching towards me that's when it hit the smell of petrol around me it was extremely potent right where the ropes were tied round me. As much as it hurt me, I moved as much as I could to try and escape but the more I moved the more friction I was creating between the tree and the rope.

The rope set on fire due to the friction I was creating which burned some of the rope causing it to rip a part and me being able to slowly wriggle my way out the ropes and fall to floor due to my body being so weak from exhaustion and blood loss. As I was getting up from the ground I got lifted up and thrown back into the the tree. The weird thing is I couldn’t see no one anywhere that’s when I realised the red that was swirling round my waist “ Wanda” I tried to scream with most the energy I had left in my body that’s when I heard two faint sadistic laughs in the distance heading towards me I couldn’t figure out who the second person was till a familiar knife came flying towards my head it just skimmed the side of my face that’s when I look and realised it’s one Natasha signature knives .

That’s when the pair came into my eye view. I was bought to the floor still being restricted by Wanda magic. After sitting there unable to move while they talked for what felt like forever they approached me Natasha spoke first “hi y/n my love” said in a sickly sweet tone Wanda spoke next “we missed you” Natasha approaches me bringing a knife to my throat and whispers in my ear and says “did you miss us kotenok” I’d be lying if I said that didn’t send heat straight to my core . She licked and nibbled my ear and my face Betrayed me it’s was flushed bright red I could feel the smirk plastered on her face . She began kissing my neck and said “tell me you don’t want us and I will stop” when I didn’t respond she bit my neck slightly causing me to moan and scream “ YES PLEASE DON’T STOP” that’s when I found my self flipped on to my back my clothes magicked of by Wanda and Natasha eating me out as If I was her last meal I could see Wanda slowly massaging her clit to the display in front of her seeing her like that turned me on more .

In between moans I begged for Natasha to keep going and Wanda to come over “ Wanda please” but my pls fell on deaf ears “that’s not my name kotenok” I knew what she wanted to hear and it wasn’t till Natasha sucked my clit harshly that I ended up giving in “ MOMMY PLEASE” this was like music to Wanda ears because that’s when she sat her self on my face and said “ you don’t get to cum till I do “ I begin bucking my hips against Natasha face and she can tell I’m getting close so she stops completely and the whine I let out into Wanda pussy earned me a slapped to the thigh from Natasha “ mommy said no cumming till she does so none of that get back to work” she said as i now feel her on my thigh she started riding my thigh spreading her wetness. I was going whine again till I felt her shove 2 fingers into my tight hole causing me to flex my thigh arch my back and moan send vibrations through Wanda which ended in Natasha to moan as well and Wanda to cum on my tongue “OH GOOD FUCKING GIRL” Wanda screamed.

Wanda climbed off my face only to magic her favourite vibe to and strap it against my clit. Natasha got off my thigh and took Wanda original space on my face. With Natasha on my face I couldn’t see what wanda was doing , she hadn’t turned the vibe on so I was suspicious to what she was going to do was I just going to be left on the edge?! Of the blissful finish line I was waiting to go over . I had all these silent questions till I felt something poking at my entrance then entering me. I knew just by the feeling it was Wandas favourite strap, she ended up bottoming me out which caused me to moan loud sending vibrations into Natasha. When she felt I had enough time to adjust she turned the vibe on and began to thrust into me at an unforgiving peace I didn’t take me long to be right at the edge again moaning away into Natasha pussy causing her to fall over the edge.

Natasha climbed of me and began using her knife to lighting carve the initials N and W into my stomach this turned me on so much more adding to my arousal . With the vibrations and wanda brutal peace I was getting lost in pleasure and they both could tell I was close with the arching my back they simultaneously said “ cum for us pretty girl” and with that I let go. After I had cummed Wanda used her magic to clean us all up and clothe us all. I tried to get up but my legs were like jelly Natasha saw this and laughed “mommy fuck you that good?” She said with smirk plastered on her face . I eye rolled her at that comment and with full attitude said “whatever” that was a mistake on my part because I was then thrown over her shoulder and she spanked me and said “what was that slut had something to say” I stayed quiet after that I knew better then to speak up again.

@whorecollector69 here’s your fic

[five-bi-five-mind]

One-Shots:

Meeting the Family nsfw

[velunas]

MARVEL MASTERLIST

STEVE ROGERS

nothing yet...

TONY STARK

nothing yet...

THOR

nothing yet...

BRUCE BANNER

nothing yet...

BUCKY BARNES

(sm!au) golden hour [discontinued!]

(drabble) bucky breeding you

SAM WILSON

nothing yet..

PETER PARKER

noting yet...

NATASHA ROMANOFF

nothing yet...

WANDA MAXIMOFF

nothing yet...

CAROL DANVERS

nothing yet...

[rootedinrevisions]

To the Sky and Back

SUMMARY: After a falling-out with Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, reader tries to piece her life back together, avoiding every place and routine that reminds her of him. But when Bradley faces a high-risk mission, a visit from Natasha "Phoenix" shatters her fragile peace, forcing her to confront the depth of her feelings. With Bradley’s life hanging in the balance, she must decide whether to risk her heart again and let him know just how much he means to her before it's too late. A story of love, loss, and second chances, To the Sky and Back explores the courage it takes to hold on to what truly matters.

A/N: This was a combination of two different asks that I received! One was requested for the prompt and then the other was requesting some angst with Bradley where the angst is a little more prolonged. Thanks to both of the people who sent the request for this in! Hope you enjoy it!

PROMPT: "I'm sorry I'm not the person you want me to be."

WARNINGS/TAGS: Angst. Some more angst. And then some fluff.

WORD COUNT: 7.4K

TAG LIST: IN COMMENTS

If you would like to be added to any of my Tag Lists please feel free to comment, send an ask, or send a DM and I'll be happy to get you added! Below are the fandoms I currently write for.

Glen Powell: Himself (RPF), Characters He's Played

Twisters: Tyler Owens, Boone, Scott, Javi

Top Gun: Maverick: Rooster, Hangman, Bob

Marvel/MCU: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers

WWE/Wrestling: Cody Rhodes, Corey Graves, Damian Priest, Drew McIntyre, Finn Balor, Jimmy Uso, Jey Uso, Kevin Owens, L.A. Knight, Pat McAfee, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins (if there is someone you're thinking of from WWE and they aren't on the list feel free to ask! There are so many guys on the roster that these were the ones that came to mind.)

The Hard Deck hummed with its usual Friday night energy. Glasses clinked, laughter rose in waves, and the jukebox crooned an old Tom Petty song. You sat at the bar, absentmindedly tracing the condensation ring your drink had left on the wooden surface. It had been four months since you’d seen Bradley Bradshaw—four long months of waiting, wondering, and overthinking. You couldn’t decide if the knot in your stomach was from excitement or the growing anxiety about what, exactly, you and Bradley were.

Your heart jolted when you heard it—the unmistakable low rumble of the Bronco’s engine pulling into the parking lot. Your pulse quickened, and you felt every nerve in your body go on high alert. Turning toward the door, you saw him.

There he was. Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, in all his casual, rugged glory. Light wash jeans clung perfectly to his long legs, paired with a simple white undershirt under an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt. His aviators, always a part of his signature look, were perched on his face, but as he stepped inside, he slid them off, tucking them into his shirt pocket. The room seemed to dim around him, your focus narrowing solely to the man you’d spent countless nights thinking about.

His eyes scanned the bar, and the moment they found yours, a lazy, lopsided grin spread across his face. He didn’t break eye contact as he ordered his beer from Penny. Then, beer in hand, he made his way to you.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he said smoothly, his voice low and warm, like a melody you’d missed without realizing it.

A soft laugh escaped your lips as you slid off the stool, your arms wrapping around him instinctively. The tension of the last four months melted—if only for a second—as he looped an arm over your shoulders and pulled you in. He smelled of salt and sunscreen, the lingering scents of the ocean clinging to him.

“Missed you, sweets,” he murmured near your ear.

Your throat tightened at his words, but you forced yourself to play it cool, smiling up at him. “Missed you too.”

For a moment, you were lost in the way he looked at you, the warmth in his hazel eyes making your chest ache. But then, with a slight squeeze of your shoulder, he pulled away.

“I should go say hi to the gang,” he said, gesturing toward the pool table where Phoenix, Bob, and Coyote were gathered. “You don’t mind, right?”

“Of course not,” you replied quickly, shaking your head. “Go catch up.”

He gave you another of his disarming smiles before walking off, his long strides carrying him toward his friends. You watched him go, heart sinking slightly as you turned back to the bar. 

The reality of your situation hit you again: you didn’t know where you stood with him, and the months apart hadn’t brought any clarity.

The laughter from his group reached your ears, and you sipped your drink to distract yourself. You wanted to be happy just to see him again, to feel his arm around you, to hear him call you “sweets.” But in the pit of your stomach, the question gnawed at you: What are we?

The night had deepened, and the cool ocean breeze filtered into the bar as the laughter and music continued around you. Bradley had been with his friends for most of the night, his easy smile and quiet laugh lighting up the group. You didn’t begrudge him the time to reconnect, but your heart weighed heavier with every passing minute. You couldn’t wait any longer.

When he came back to the bar to grab another beer, you saw your chance. Before he could return to the others, you touched his arm, stopping him.

“Bradley,” you said softly, your voice almost drowned out by the jukebox. His hazel eyes met yours, warm but questioning. “Can we talk? Just for a minute.”

His brows knitted slightly, but he nodded. “Yeah, of course. What’s up?”

You gestured toward the patio doors. He hesitated for a beat, then set his beer down and followed you outside. The night outside was quieter than inside the bar, the faint crash of waves filling the space between you. 

Bradley leaned casually against the patio railing, but there was tension in his shoulders that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He seemed almost hesitant as he met your gaze.

“What’s on your mind, sweets?” he asked, his voice warm, though a flicker of unease crossed his features.

You exhaled deeply, gathering the courage to say the words that had been circling in your mind for months. “I need to talk about us, Bradley. I need to know what we’re doing.”

His expression faltered, confusion laced with discomfort. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” You took a shaky breath, trying to steady yourself. “We’ve been doing this for a year. And I’ve been happy—really happy—with you. But I can’t keep pretending I’m okay with not knowing where I stand. I need to know if this is going somewhere.”

He shifted his weight, dragging a hand through his hair. “I didn’t think we needed to put a label on it,” he said, his tone measured. “I thought we were good.”

“That’s the problem,” you replied, your voice trembling slightly. “I might have been okay with that before, but I’m not anymore. I want more, Bradley. I want to be yours, and I want you to be mine. Officially. Exclusively.”

He frowned, the lines on his forehead deepening as he crossed his arms. “I don’t see why we can’t just keep things the way they are. I like what we have. It works.”

“Does it work for you? Because it’s starting to tear me apart,” you shot back, your voice louder now. “I’ve spent the last four months not knowing if I was the person you missed or just someone to pass the time with when you’re here.”

Bradley’s head snapped up, his hazel eyes burning with something between guilt and frustration. “You think I don’t miss you?” he asked sharply. “You think I don’t care about you?”

“I don’t know what to think, Bradley!” you admitted, throwing your hands up. “You never tell me how you feel, and you keep everything so damn vague. I don’t even know if you’ve been with anyone else, because we’ve never talked about it!”

His jaw tightened, and he stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I haven’t been with anyone else. It’s only been you.”

The sincerity in his voice made your chest ache, but it didn’t ease the tension coiled tightly inside you. “Then why can’t you just say it? Why can’t you call me your girlfriend?”

“Because it scares the hell out of me!” he snapped, his voice breaking slightly. He turned away, bracing himself against the railing. “I’ve seen what this life does to people. My dad left my mom behind, and it destroyed her. I can’t—” He exhaled roughly, his broad shoulders rising and falling. “I can’t do that to someone. To you.”

Tears stung your eyes, but you refused to let them fall. “You think you’re protecting me by keeping me at arm’s length? You think it doesn’t hurt to feel like I’m asking for too much just to be something more to you?”

He turned back to you, his hazel eyes filled with regret. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I’m not the person you want me to be.”

His words cut deep, and a tear slipped down your cheek before you could stop it. You swiped at it angrily, stepping back. “I’m sorry, too. Because I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep pretending this is enough.”

“Wait,” he said quickly, reaching for your hand. “Don’t go. Please. We can talk about this—figure something out.”

You shook your head, pulling your hand away. “We’ve been ‘figuring it out’ for a year, Bradley. I can’t keep waiting for you to decide I’m worth the risk.”

“Don’t say that,” he said, his voice breaking. He stepped closer, desperation flickering in his eyes. “You are worth it—I just—”

“You just don’t know if you’re ready to admit it,” you finished for him, your voice trembling. “And I can’t keep waiting for you to be ready.”

The silence between you was deafening. He looked at you like he wanted to say something—anything—that would make you stay, but the words never came.

Finally, you turned and walked away, tears blurring your vision. 

“Wait!” Bradley called after you, his voice raw. “Let me at least drive you home. Please.”

You stopped but didn’t turn back. 

“No,” you said firmly, your voice barely above a whisper. “Don’t follow me, Bradley.”

As you reached the parking lot, Jake Seresin stood leaning against his truck, his arms crossed as he watched the scene unfold. When your tear-streaked face came into view, his expression softened.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice low.

“Can you drive me home?” you asked, wiping at your cheeks. “Just drop me off and come back.”

Jake nodded, his usual cocky demeanor nowhere in sight. He opened the passenger door for you without a word, and you climbed in.

As Jake’s truck rumbled to life, you glanced back. Bradley stood on the patio, his hands on his hips, his face a mix of heartbreak and confusion. The sight of him cracked something deep inside you, but you forced yourself to look away as Jake pulled out of the parking lot.

The weight of what had just happened settled heavily on your chest, and for the first time in months, you felt the full brunt of the unknown you’d been living with.

The hum of Jake’s truck filled the silence as you stared out the passenger window, the cool night air brushing against your face from the barely cracked window. You gave him quiet directions when needed, your voice soft and distant. Jake didn’t press, didn’t ask what had happened right away, and for that, you were grateful.

But the silence couldn’t last forever.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked finally, his voice even but cautious.

You shook your head, your eyes still fixed on the darkened streets. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

Jake glanced at you briefly, the furrow of his brow barely visible in the dim light of the dashboard. “Doesn’t seem like nothing,” he said carefully. “You looked pretty torn up back there.”

Your jaw tightened, and you exhaled sharply through your nose. “I’m fine,” you said, though the crack in your voice betrayed you.

Jake didn’t push, but he wasn’t ready to let the conversation drop entirely. After a moment, he said, “You know, Rooster talked about you while we were deployed.”

Your head turned sharply toward him, your stomach twisting. “What?”

“Yeah,” Jake said casually, his hands steady on the wheel. “Nothing too specific, but… you came up. Enough to know you were on his mind.”

The words stung more than they soothed. If you’d been on his mind, if he’d thought about you during those long months apart, then why couldn’t he just give you what you needed? Why couldn’t he make things official?

“Great,” you muttered, crossing your arms. “That makes it so much better.”

Jake glanced at you again, his lips pressing into a thin line. “Look, I’m just saying… the guy cares about you. He might not say it the way you want, but he does.”

You let out a bitter laugh, shaking your head. “Caring about someone isn’t enough if you can’t show it. If he cared, he wouldn’t make me feel like I’m asking for too much just to have some clarity.”

Jake didn’t have a response for that, and the silence returned, heavy and thick.

A few minutes later, he pulled up in front of your place. The truck idled quietly as you unbuckled your seatbelt and reached for the door handle. “Thanks for the ride,” you said, your voice softer now.

“Anytime,” he replied, his tone sincere. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

You nodded, though the tightness in your chest said otherwise. “Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

Jake didn’t look entirely convinced, but he didn’t argue. “I’ll wait till you’re inside,” he said, his voice firm but kind.

You gave him a small, grateful smile before stepping out of the truck. The cool night air hit your face, grounding you for a moment as you made your way to your front door. You fumbled with your keys, finally unlocking the door and stepping inside.

As you turned to shut the door, you glanced back at Jake. He gave you a short nod before driving off, his truck disappearing into the night.

The quiet of your home wrapped around you as you leaned against the door, your chest tightening with the weight of everything that had happened.

For the first time in a long time, you felt completely alone.

The silence of your home was interrupted by the sharp buzz of your phone on the counter where you’d dropped it. You hesitated before picking it up, already guessing who it might be.

The screen lit up with Bradley’s name. The first message was simple, almost hesitant.

Bradley: Just let me know when you’re home safe.

You stared at it for a moment, your chest tightening. A second buzz followed.

Bradley: Can we talk? Please?

Then another.

Bradley: I shouldn’t have said what I did. I just—I didn’t know how to handle it.

And another.

Bradley: You can put the label on it. Whatever you want. I don’t care. Just… don’t shut me out.

You swallowed hard, the lump in your throat growing with each buzz. His words were frantic, almost desperate, but that only made the ache in your chest deepen.

He didn’t want the label because he wanted it. He wanted it because he thought it would keep you from walking away. That wasn’t what you’d asked for. You wanted him to want you, fully and without hesitation. But this? This was him trying to patch things up without really understanding what had broken.

The phone buzzed again, another message lighting up the screen.

Bradley: I care about you. You know that, right?

You sat down on the edge of the couch, the weight of everything settling heavily on your shoulders. Your thumb hovered over the screen, debating whether to respond.

But you didn’t. Not to this. Not to him trying to fix things for the wrong reasons.

Instead, you set the phone down on the coffee table, face down, and leaned back, closing your eyes. If he really wanted to know you were home safe, he could ask Jake. The thought was petty, maybe even cruel, but right now, you don’t have the energy to be the bigger person.

You needed space. Time to think. And if Bradley wanted to prove he cared, he’d have to do more than send a flurry of panicked texts.

Your bedroom was dark except for the soft glow of a streetlight filtering through the curtains. You kicked the door shut behind you, your chest heaving with the weight of unshed tears.

Stripping off the shirt and jeans you’d worn to the bar, you rifled through your drawer for something comfortable. You yanked out a pair of sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt, tugging it over your head in a rush to get comfortable.

The scent hit you before the realization. That faint mix of salt air, pine, and his cologne.

Your heart plummeted.

It was his shirt.

You froze, staring down at the faded Navy insignia printed across the chest. A lump rose in your throat, thick and unrelenting. Without thinking, you ripped it off, balling it up in your fists.

The scream tore from your throat, raw and full of anguish as you hurled the shirt across the room. It smacked against the wall and slid to the floor like it had no right to exist, like it hadn’t just unraveled you completely.

"I hate you," you whispered, your voice trembling as you sank to your knees. "I hate you, Bradley Bradshaw."

But even as the words spilled from your lips, you knew they weren’t true.

You hated the way he made you feel. The way he held you so close but never close enough. You hated the way he smiled at you, like you were the only person in the room, and the way your heart betrayed you by falling for him.

You hated that you weren’t enough for him.

Tears streamed down your face as you pressed your palms into the carpet, curling over yourself. He wouldn’t put a label on it to protect you, but what good did that do now? You were already in too deep. The dates, the late-night conversations, the stolen kisses, and the nights spent tangled in his sheets—none of it had been casual for you.

God, you were in love with him.

The sob broke free before you could stop it, wracking your body as you crawled onto your bed. You grabbed your pillow, clutching it against your chest as if it could anchor you, and let the tears fall.

It hurt. It hurt because the label didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Whether he called you his girlfriend or not, it wouldn’t stop the fear you felt every time he flew. It wouldn’t protect you from heartbreak if he didn’t come back.

And yet, the label was everything. Because it meant he chose you. It meant he wasn’t holding back, wasn’t keeping you at arm’s length because of his own fear.

The pillow muffled your cries as you curled into the fetal position, trembling from the force of your grief. You hated him, but only because you loved him so much more.

The light from the morning sun filtered through the blinds, casting warm, golden hues across the room. You woke with a start, blinking against the brightness, your head heavy from the weight of last night’s tears. It took a moment for your eyes to adjust, the remnants of your sobs still echoing in your mind, the sting in your throat lingering.

You sat up slowly, the tightness in your chest reminding you of how broken you had felt when you finally gave in to the exhaustion and let sleep claim you. You hadn’t expected to wake up with this much pain still sitting in your bones. The weight of everything felt heavier today, more unbearable.

Then you heard it.

A knock.

A sharp, insistent pound against your front door.

You flinched, the sound jerking you from your thoughts. Your gaze flicked to the alarm clock on your nightstand. Barely eight in the morning. Who would be knocking at your door this early? You pulled the blanket off your body and swung your legs over the side of the bed, feeling the dull ache in your limbs from the previous night’s emotional rollercoaster.

With trepidation, you padded down the hallway, the floorboards creaking beneath your feet. Your mind raced with thoughts of what could be waiting for you on the other side of the door.

You reached for the handle, taking a deep breath before opening it.

And there he was.

Bradley Bradshaw.

Standing there, one hand raised in the midst of another knock, his eyes wide, full of uncertainty and something else. Something deeper. His jaw tightened when he saw you, and for a moment, neither of you moved, the air between you thick with the unspoken.

He was still in the clothes he’d worn to the bar last night, like he hadn’t bothered going home first. His expression was a mixture of regret and frustration, but there was something else too—guilt, maybe. Or maybe it was just that damned vulnerability that had always been so hard to read with him.

“Hey,” Bradley’s voice was softer than you expected, rough around the edges, like he’d barely slept.

You didn’t respond right away, your eyes flicking over his face, searching for something. What did he expect from you right now?

You weren’t sure you even had the energy to be angry with him. The night before had drained you, and the last thing you wanted was to face him again.

“I… uh, I wanted to talk.” His voice cracked, and it sent a shiver down your spine.

You stood there, frozen, still not sure if you were ready to hear what he had to say. Last night had hurt too much, and you weren’t sure if you were willing to put yourself through more of it.

But, against your better judgment, your mouth opened. “About what?” You didn’t mean for it to come out like that, but the words slipped from your lips, laced with a bitter edge.

Bradley shifted his weight, his eyes dropping to the ground for a brief moment before meeting yours again. There was something desperate in his gaze now, something that mirrored the pain you’d felt last night.

“I screwed up. I know I did.” He spoke like he hadn’t planned the words but they’d come out anyway, raw and real. “I just… I didn’t think you’d want a label, but I get it now. I see that I’ve been messing this up for both of us.”

Your chest tightened. The familiar ache in your heart was back, that throbbing reminder of how close you were to breaking. He was standing there, telling you everything you needed to hear, but it didn’t change the fact that it was too late.

“I didn’t want to pressure you into something you didn’t want, but if I’m being honest… I don’t want to lose you.” His voice softened, and there was a flicker of something that could almost be called regret. But the words didn’t feel right. They didn’t feel like they were coming from the heart. They felt like something he was saying out of guilt.

The silence stretched between you. You could hear your heartbeat in your ears, feel the weight of the decision that had to be made in the pit of your stomach.

You opened your mouth to say something—anything—but nothing came out. It was all too much, too soon.

Bradley stepped closer, closing the space between you, his expression pleading now, vulnerable in a way that made your chest ache. 

“I want this with you, I do. But I—” He stopped himself, breathing out like the words were caught in his throat.

You looked at him, really looked at him. You could see the cracks in his façade, the uncertainty that was so unlike the confident man you knew. But even with that vulnerability laid bare, you couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all just words.

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore, Bradley,” you whispered, shaking your head slowly. “I don’t want to be some maybe or could be. I need to know where I stand.”

Bradley’s face fell, his lips parting as if he were about to say something else. But nothing came. He just stood there, looking at you like he was piecing together what he should say next.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, and for the first time, you saw the true weight of regret in his eyes.

You bit your lip, trying to hold back the emotions that threatened to spill over again. “I don’t think you are, Brad. Not really.”

The air between you both thickened, and you couldn’t take it anymore. Without another word, you stepped back, closing the door gently in his face.

You leaned against the wood, closing your eyes as you heard his footsteps retreat, his presence now a memory.

You were alone again.

And maybe that was how it was always meant to be.

* * * * *

The days dragged on in a haze of quiet frustration and longing. Each morning you woke, the weight of the night’s emotional unraveling clung to you like a second skin. The sun would shine through your window, the world would move forward, but you felt paralyzed by your own hurt, by the thought of Bradley, by the pain of what could have been and what never would be.

You tried to get yourself back on track. You tried to act normal, to resume your routine, but everything seemed to remind you of him. His absence was like a wound that wouldn’t heal, reopening with every corner you turned.

The grocery store was the first hurdle. You knew Bradley went every Monday, and it used to be something the two of you did together. It felt like some unspoken tradition, something that was both ordinary and deeply comforting. But now, it just felt like a reminder of everything that had gone wrong. So you avoided it, switching your shopping day to Tuesday. Even though you knew he wouldn’t be there, the thought of running into him in that same mundane space, where everything felt like a memory, was too much to bear.

The Hard Deck was the next obstacle. The bar where you’d spent so many nights with him, the place where you laughed, argued, and shared quiet moments between chaos. You knew there was more than a 50% chance Bradley was there any given night. The bar, the music, the dim lighting that you once enjoyed felt suffocating now. You could hear his laugh in your mind, could see the glint of his eyes as he grinned across the room. But you refused to risk seeing him, to risk letting the pieces of your heart shatter again. Even when you drove by a few nights, when his Bronco wasn’t parked in its usual spot, you still didn’t stop. What if he had caught a ride? What if he was inside, and you just didn’t know? You couldn’t take the chance. Not when every interaction with him had the potential to destroy you further.

And the texts… the texts never stopped.

At first, they were constant—his messages coming in one after the other, in a rhythm that mirrored his thinking. Morning, noon, and night. He texted like he couldn’t bear the thought of you not knowing what he was doing, where he was. He sent them as soon as he woke up, like he needed to remind you that he was still thinking about you, even if he hadn’t quite figured it out himself. Those morning messages were the hardest to read, because you knew he hadn’t forgotten you. He was still holding on in his own way, but that didn’t change the fact that he hadn’t fought for you when it mattered.

And then came the late-night ones. The ones that were sent in the early hours, long after the world had gone quiet. You would wonder if he was sober when he wrote them, or if he had been drinking, a little too far into his own thoughts and regrets. Those messages were the ones that made your heart ache because they felt like half-baked apologies, like words spoken too late. They didn’t fix anything, they just twisted the knife.

But the ones that hurt the most were always in the middle of the day. The ones sent out of habit, when he was about to head into the sky, the ones that used to bring you a sense of safety, a quiet assurance that no matter what, Bradley always had a way of telling you what he was doing. “Hey, I’m headed up. I’ll be in the air for a couple hours, but I’ll let you know when I’m back on the ground.” It was something that had become routine between the two of you. You never asked for it, but you always appreciated it.

Now, those messages made your stomach drop. You hated the anxiety that came with the first text, the one that told you he was headed into the sky. And you hated the sense of relief you felt when the second one came, telling you he was safely back on the ground. It was stupid. It was pathetic. But no matter how much you tried, you couldn’t stop caring. You couldn’t stop the gnawing feeling in your chest, the pull of wanting to make sure he was okay.

And that’s what drove you mad.

You hated that you still cared. You hated that despite everything, despite his distance and his indecision, you couldn’t make yourself stop thinking about him. You couldn’t make yourself forget Bradley Bradshaw.

Even as you tried to rebuild your life, to find new routines, new places, new things to focus on, it all felt like an illusion. Nothing felt normal anymore. Your world had become a strange, hollow echo of what it used to be. And no matter how hard you tried to avoid him, to erase the pieces of him from your day-to-day life, you couldn’t escape the truth.

You were still in love with him. And you were still waiting for him to make a decision.

But you knew you couldn’t wait forever.

You just didn’t know how to stop.

* * * * *

Two months had passed since that early morning when Bradley stood at your door, and in that time, you’d learned to carry on without him. It wasn’t easy—some days were harder than others—but you were slowly learning how to exist without waiting for his texts, without hoping for him to just show up at your door again.

You still thought about him. Not every day anymore, but almost. And that, you decided, was progress. It didn’t feel like much, but it was something. There were days when the memories of his laugh, the warmth of his hand in yours, didn’t sting quite as badly. And then, there were days like today, when the past came rushing back to you in a way you couldn’t avoid.

It was just a knock on your front door. You weren’t expecting anyone, and yet, when you heard it, you knew something was about to change.

When you opened the door, there she was—Natasha "Phoenix," standing in front of you. Her usual confident demeanor was a little softer today, like she was carrying something heavy that she didn’t want to talk about.

"Hey," she said, her voice low but steady. "Can I come in?"

You nodded, stepping aside to let her in. Something about the way she stood at your door made your chest tighten. It wasn’t just the fact that it was her—it was what she was about to say. You didn’t know how you knew, but you did. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d felt this anxious.

The two of you made your way to the kitchen, where you offered her a drink. She politely declined, settling down at the table. You sat across from her, your hands fidgeting in your lap.

"Everything okay?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper. You weren’t sure why, but you already had a sinking feeling that you weren’t going to like what was coming.

She hesitated for a moment before speaking, her eyes meeting yours. "There’s a mission coming up. I can’t tell you much—it’s classified. But I wanted to let you know that Bradley might be flying it."

Your breath caught in your throat, your heart skipping a beat. You knew this was bad. You could feel it.

"Bradley’s been flying high-risk missions for years," Phoenix continued, her voice steady but firm, "but this one is different. This is the most dangerous mission he’ll have flown. The odds… they’re not good. It will take two miracles happening at the same time for him to get home safely."

You couldn’t breathe. You wanted to stop her, to tell her that you didn’t need to know all the details. But you couldn’t. The words had already come, and they were burning through you.

She leaned forward slightly, her eyes serious. "But there’s something else. Something I need to tell you, woman to woman."

You swallowed hard, trying to brace yourself, though you already felt like you were crumbling.

"Bradley hasn’t been flying with a clear head," Phoenix said, her voice dropping to a more quiet, urgent tone. "Not since the last mission. He’s been distracted, pulled in a thousand different directions. And if he doesn’t fly this one with a clear head… I don’t think he’ll make it back."

The words hit you like a physical blow, and you felt your chest tighten, the air suddenly impossible to breathe.

Bradley hadn’t been okay. He’d been struggling, and you hadn’t even known. You hadn’t been able to help him, to fix whatever had been broken inside of him. But this… this was worse than anything you had imagined.

You stared at Phoenix, your mind reeling. All you could think about was the possibility—the reality—that Bradley might not come home. You had never imagined a world where that could happen. Where you could lose him forever.

And then it hit you—the realization that it was never just about the label. It was about so much more. About how, no matter how much you wanted to be enough for him, you weren’t the one who had mattered enough to him for him to put everything aside, to fight for you. And that was painful. But the thought of him not coming home? That ripped you apart in ways you didn’t know you could be broken.

"Please," you said, the words breaking through the suffocating silence. "Please tell me he’s going to be okay."

Phoenix didn’t answer immediately, her gaze shifting away as if she was trying to find the right words, the right reassurance. But there was nothing she could say.

"I don’t know," she finally said, her voice so low you could barely hear her. "I wish I could tell you otherwise, but I’m not sure. I don’t know if he’s going to be okay."

The words hung in the air between you, suffocating you in their weight. And all you could do was sit there, trying to grasp onto the fragile threads of hope that felt so far out of reach.

It was the hardest thing you’d ever had to hear. The thought of him not coming home, of him being lost to the sky forever—it made your entire world feel like it was unraveling.

You thought you were past him. You thought you could move on, heal, and put him behind you. But now, all you could think about was the future, the one where you would never get to see him again.

It was too much to bear. And you hated it. You hated that you couldn’t walk away from him, that you couldn’t turn your back on the love you had for him—even if it was unspoken, even if it was unfinished. You hated that you couldn’t fix him, couldn’t make him see you the way you needed him to.

But worse than anything, you hated that you might never get the chance to tell him how much you loved him.

Phoenix’s voice cut through the overwhelming weight of your thoughts, pulling you back to the present. "They’re getting on the aircraft carrier at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow," she said, her words steady but carrying a weight you couldn’t ignore. "I’m not asking you to come. I’m not asking you to talk to him. That decision’s up to you."

You felt a lump rise in your throat, the tightness in your chest making it hard to breathe. She wasn’t asking you to go to him, but she wasn’t telling you not to, either. The choice was yours, but it felt more like a trap than an option.

For a moment, the only sound in the room was the quiet hum of the fridge in the corner. Phoenix didn’t seem to expect anything from you, but you could feel the gravity of the situation pulling you under. You didn’t know what you wanted, what you were supposed to want. All you knew was that Bradley was flying, and there was a real possibility he might not come back.

You swallowed, blinking back the tears that threatened to rise. "Thank you for telling me," you said quietly, your voice betraying the emotional weight you were carrying. "I—I don’t know what to do with this. But I appreciate you coming to me."

Phoenix gave you a nod, her face unreadable. "Just make sure you take care of yourself, alright? Whatever you decide."

You didn’t know what that meant. Taking care of yourself? How were you supposed to do that when the person who had occupied every corner of your mind was potentially flying into danger?

She stood up, her movements deliberate. "I’ll leave you to think about it," she said softly, her tone still serious but warm. "Take your time. But just know, whatever happens tomorrow, you’re not the only one who cares about him."

You nodded, not trusting your voice enough to say anything else.

She left then, and the silence in the room was deafening. The weight of her words, the knowledge of Bradley’s upcoming mission—it all settled like a stone in your stomach. You wanted to scream, wanted to run to him and beg him to stay, to take care of himself, to put everything on hold until he could figure it out. But you didn’t know if that would even make a difference. You didn’t know if anything would.

You sat there for a long while after Phoenix left, staring at the kitchen table as your mind raced, desperately trying to put the pieces together. Could you let him go again? Could you really do it?

Your phone sat on the counter, and you found yourself staring at it, knowing the texts from Bradley would come soon. They always did. But you didn’t reach for it. Not yet. You couldn’t bring yourself to open that door again, to let him back into your heart when you were still so unsure of everything—of what he felt, of what you felt, of whether or not he’d make it home.

And then, as the evening wore on, you found yourself pacing the apartment. You didn’t know what you should do. You didn’t know what to feel. Should you show up tomorrow morning? Should you see him off? Should you do what you’d always done—pretend like everything was fine, like nothing had ever changed? Or should you face the reality of it all, admit to yourself that you might never see him again?

The decision was suffocating. You were pulled in two directions, unsure of what the right choice was. Every part of you ached to see him one last time, to tell him what you had never said. But part of you wondered if you were just chasing something that had already slipped through your fingers.

And so, you sat with it, the uncertainty eating at you, and waited. Tomorrow would come, and with it, the moment when you would have to decide whether you could let him go—or whether you would risk it all to see him one last time.

* * * * *

The morning air was cool, but the nerves gnawing at you kept your body warm as you pulled into the parking lot at 6:15. You wanted to be here early—too early maybe—but you couldn’t take the chance of missing him. It had been two months since you last saw Bradley, and now, you had no choice but to face everything you’d been running from.

The lot began to fill as you sat in your car, watching people say their goodbyes—families, friends, all of them hugging and holding on to each other a little longer than usual. Each goodbye seemed to break something inside you, a reminder of what could be lost, of what you had once had and might not again.

And then you heard it. The familiar rumble of an engine. Your heart skipped a beat as you glanced to your right and saw it—the Bronco—pulling in next to you. You didn’t even have to look twice. You knew it was him.

For a split second, your eyes locked through the windshield, the kind of silent exchange that spoke volumes. Neither of you moved for a beat, the weight of everything unsaid hanging between you like a thick fog.

You didn’t know who moved first, but before you knew it, the car doors opened, and you were walking around the front of the Bronco to where Bradley stood.

There was a long pause, the air between you thick with everything you were both carrying. Your lips parted first.

“I’m sorry,” you said, the words coming out choked and raw. “I’ve been… so messed up, Bradley. I’ve been pushing you away and—” You stopped yourself, your chest tightening as emotion swelled. “I didn’t mean it. I just… I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Bradley’s jaw clenched, his gaze turning hard with guilt before he stepped toward you, cutting you off.

“No, I’m the one who should be apologizing,” he said, his voice low but raw, full of regret. “I took you for granted. I lost you.”

The tears you thought you had already shed seemed to fall again at the sound of his words, and before you could stop yourself, you felt the sting of them, hot and sudden, blurring your vision.

His hands were on you then, pulling you into his arms, warm and solid. He was trying to comfort you, but it only hurt more, the realization that he knew—he knew it was his fault. The pain you’d been carrying had finally broken through, and you couldn’t help it. You cried harder into his chest, unable to control it.

Bradley’s arms tightened around you, his own breath shaky as he pressed his cheek against the top of your head. You could feel the way his body shook with something deeper than just the coolness of the morning air.

And then, between sobs, you whispered it—the thing you’d been holding in, the thing you needed him to hear.

"I love you."

There was no hesitation. No stiffening, no pulling away, just him pulling you closer, if that was even possible. 

His voice was rough when he replied, “I love you too, sweets. So damn much.”

The world seemed to stop then, everything else fading into the background as Bradley’s words sank in. The walls you’d built around yourself felt like they were crumbling as the words you’d longed to hear washed over you, finally, finally making everything feel right again.

But even then, the worry gnawed at you, pulling you from the moment. Your voice trembled as you looked up at him, hands gripping his shirt tight, “Come back to me. Please… come back alive.”

His hand cupped your face, his thumb brushing away a tear that had slipped down your cheek. He hesitated for a moment, his eyes searching yours. 

“I promise,” he said quietly, and you believed him.

But then, as if the weight of the moment suddenly hit him too, Bradley pulled back just enough to look at you fully. 

There was something in his eyes, something that made your heart beat faster as he asked, “Will you be here when I get back? Will you wait for me?”

You nodded quickly, the answer spilling out of you before you could even think about it. “Yes,” you whispered, breathless. “I’ll be here.”

Bradley’s gaze softened, a hint of relief flashing across his face, and then he leaned in, his lips finding yours in a kiss that was desperate and filled with everything you both had been holding back for so long. His arms wrapped around you tighter, and before you could process what was happening, his hands were lifting you off the ground, your thighs instinctively wrapping around his waist as he pulled you closer, his lips never leaving yours.

You heard the whistling before you could think about it, the sound of someone teasing. Maybe it was Jake. Maybe it was Coyote. Maybe even Bob, though it didn’t matter. None of it mattered because all you could feel, all you could think about, was the heat of Bradley’s kiss, the way his arms made you feel safe and wanted, the way he was home in a way nothing else could ever be.

In that moment, there was no question—no more uncertainty, no more fear. You were with him. And that was all that mattered.

[ncis-nerd]

Natasha winking at you in a meeting

grey november au

-You were new to the building. Steve hired you to listen in on their meetings and take notes.

-After one of many arguments of who said what, Steve finally caved. He agreed to get someone who they vetted well to keep track.

-Now it was quite obvious you were younger than the old agents but it didn't stop the Russian spy from stealing glances at you.

-You'd be in the kitchen making coffee and turn around to the red-head inches away from you.

-Startled, you jump, nearly clashing into her. "Sorry dear, didn't mean to scare ya" she hummed, catching you in her arms.

-"O-oh, it's okay Miss Romanov, I really should be getting back to my work." You rush out of the room. Why was she everywhere you went? You could swear she was following you. But she won't do that...Would she?

-Later that day, Steve called an emergency meeting. Something about their enemies plotting a heist and they needed to stop that.

-You took your usual spot next to Steve, across from Natasha. You put your computer down on the table.

-"Alright, now that we have everyone.." Steve babbled on. You were just focused on typing. Documenting everything that was said.

-Steve stops talking for a second. You look up, Steve says "We will have Nat go in, she is the best lookin and our only chance at distracting the guard."

-You looked at Nat with doe eyes. Could Steve really do this? Why was Nat always the one who had to do their dirty work? Seducing the gross older men.

-Nat met your eyes and gave you a wink. Upon seeing your frown, she gives you a comforting smile. But you go back to your duty of typing.

-After the meeting is over, everyone has left. Well, except you and Nat. You were still typing but you're about done now. As you're getting up to leave, Nat grabs your arm.

-"Wait." She said, looking at you. You turn around, confused because Miss Romanov never makes you stay back. Did you do something wrong?

-Nat could sense your anxiety and sees you fidgeting nervously with your hoodie string. "Don't worry. You're not in trouble hun. Just wanted to make sure you're okay. You seemed upset in the meeting?" Nat question.

-You sighed "Miss Roman-" "Call me Natasha" the spy cut you off. "Natasha, it's wrong for them to treat you like this. Like- like you're just a pretty woman they can use to distract creepy men who can't keep it in their pants." You pouted, holding her hand.

-"Pretty? You think I'm pretty hm?" She teased. You were still frowning. She sighed, realizing this is what was bothering you before.

- "Okay, detka. I'll be honest with you. In this field of work, unfortunately most people will want you on missions just because youre a woman. I do lose a bunch of opportunities because of my gender but if I can help the planet then I think it's worth it." she says in a more serious tone.

-Softening her gaze when you ask her why she doesn't just quit. "It's not that simple, love." She sighed, wiping a stray tear that escaped your eye.

-You don't register you're crying until the older woman pulls you in. Embracing her warmth, she holds you close and strokes your hair. She closes her eyes, trying to remember this moment.

-That you are real and you care about her.

A/N: new possible au?? what we thinking? want more of this storyline?

taglist: @ssa-shaylam @madamevirgo @radcherryblossompainter @midastouch013 @dumbasslesbi @krystallevine @ellieromanov @midastouch013

[unholyhelbig]

fuck yes wandanat!!!

Center picture Cred: Jadiakallisti

Title: The Beast You've Made of Me [Part 1/7]

Ship: Female!Reader x Natasha Romanoff x Wanda Maximoff

Wordcount: 3977

Summary: When reader wakes up in her own grave, she's suddenly aware of a past that spans lifetimes, but she's not the only one. Two Avengers are tasked with keeping readers past a secret, or at the very least, controlled.

Warnings: Being buried alive, claustrophobia, guns, general violence, cold leftovers and horrible grammar.

[a/n: Let me know if anyone wants to join the taglist! I should be able to post every week to bi-weekly depending on some travel! This is setting some things up, but I promise it gets better.]

[ Part one | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven ]

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The weight of dirt was beginning to make the lid of the state provided casket buckle. It wasn’t very sturdy despite its drastic price that the government contemplated paying. It would have been easier to cremate, send you into the afterlife with the kiss of fire white-hot enough to melt bone. But your will had been specific, not necessarily written by you, but detailing that you must be buried, nonetheless.

No state representative wanted to have the ghost of a twenty-something paralegal on their hands. Though most were Roman Catholic and believed whole-heartedly that once a candle was lit in recognition a spirit couldn’t possibly seek vengeance. Still, they respected your wishes.

No, not your wishes. You were too young to even think of a will, or any specifications that would result in your burial. You still swallowed two cans of candle-flavored alcoholic seltzer with your sad dinner of microwaveable lasagna. You hadn’t made a habit of signing legal documents between sloppy bites and buzzed naps in the sun.

Which begged the question of why you were in a casket in the first place, and why dirt was starting to sprinkle down from the creaking wood above. Doctors made mistakes, but burying you alive? Well- shit, that was less of a mistake and more of a deliberate ignorance.

Your body was stiff, cold and unwelcoming to the life that suddenly thrummed through you. Maybe you had been dead. Nothing two full bottles of Advil couldn’t ebb out of you. Your fingertips pushed against the fabric lining, testing the validity of the box you were in.

This was all somehow extremely familiar; the darkness that swam around you, the putrid scent of your own breath after being beneath the earth for God knows how long. You could taste the film on your teeth and almost craved a toothbrush more than you did freedom. Almost.

Despite the pain in your calves, you situated yourself to where your feet pressed against the lid. With just a little leverage maybe you could push hard enough to free yourself. There was a rhythmic shoveling above; so you weren’t completely packed in yet.

Suddenly, very thankful for the yoga classes Jennifer was making you take, you maneuvered until you got enough strength to push. For a few agonizing moments, nothing budged except your spine. Fuck, fuck, fuck. A few more breaths and a harder push and the latches on the outside of the casket seemed to give way to the pressure with a small pop. You could taste dirt, feel it in your eyes.

Another brisk shove and the lid flung off it’s hinges, crashing loudly against the meticulously carved grave. You winced at the cold soil that suddenly surrounded you. Worms squirmed against your skin and that was enough for you to sit up with gusto, holding back a stomach full of vomit. Formaldehyde? It tasted terrible, either way.

You shivered and dusted yourself off. It was either early morning or just before dusk. You couldn’t tell but the electric blue sky had just started to fade to orange. You wouldn’t have been able to handle the sun being in full force, barely blinking away the color of the world, much brighter than the dark box you’d dismantled.

And boy, did you dismantle it. You’d only intended to push it up, free yourself, but the cheap wood had splintered and crumbled under just a little force. You stood in the wreckage and peered up at the company you had obtained.

“What the fuck?!”

It was a man who looked younger than you in his fear. He held a shovel in his hands, hugging it close to his chest. His mouth was slightly opened and his deep brown eyes were widened in fear and shock. The knees of his dark blue jumpsuit were stained with dirt and water.

“Can you give me a boost?” You croaked.

“A boost… I, fuck, I shouldn’t’ have taken this job.”

“You can quit after you help me out of this hole.” You shivered, looking down at the dirt below your feet. You swore you saw it pulse like a heartbeat. Too many worms, maybe even a few spiders. You’d never been too fond of bugs. You reached your caked hand up. “Please.”

He made a small noise in the back of his throat. “I don’t want to be patient zero.”

“Do I look like a zombie to you?”

“A little,”

“Now I’m offended and freezing my ass off.”  

He regarded you, probably checking for a nasty festering bite, yellowing skin and any general signs of reanimation. When he didn’t find any, he reached a shaking hand down to you. Both of you struggled and strained until you found the perfect hold on the side of the grave. God- you were never so happy to touch grass.

You panted and stared up at the sky, stars were starting to pockmark the navy blue. It was, in fact, night. The metal tip of a shovel was pointed towards your neck. “Aw, come on, I thought we bonded there.”

“I’m talking to a corpse, we are not bonding.”

“Where are we?” You ignored his pointed stare and tilted yourself up on your elbows. A cemetery was the easy answer. But you wanted to know which one. There were at least 1,700 in the state of New York alone, and they all looked deceivingly the same. “Do I have to take a cab to Manhattan?”

“Uh, you’re in White Plains. Mount Calvary cemetery. I’m- I’m sorry, is this not freaking you out at all?”

You frowned, patting the pockets of a pair of jeans (why the hell would they bury you in jeans, they were the worst). In a long exhale you said. “Shit. I think worms ate my cash.”

It was a longshot to even think that your phone would be in your pocket. It wasn’t. But that left you stranded almost an hour, by car, outside of the city. It would be morning by the time you made it back and that was if no-one pulled up to the side of the road and tried their luck.

You did the only thing you can think of and peered up at this stranger with watery, wide eyes. It wasn’t a move you pulled often, meaning it still worked on Jennifer, on your mother and your father. This was a last resort and you were certainly willing to use it to your advantage.

“What? No.” He shook his head “No! No! Absolutely not. You just dug yourself out of a grave I fucking refuse-“

His name was Austin and he drove a 2002 Ford that needed to warm up for a few minutes before he even considered pulling out of the gravel drive. He was pressed as far as possible away from you and that didn’t exactly boost your confidence, but honestly, truthfully, you would take what you could get at this point.

Austin asked if you were freaking out, and you were. Everything was patchy and black in some places. You couldn’t remember how you’d ended up in a casket. It was clearly a situation that irked you for more than one reason. The forefront of which; no one had attended your funeral.

You weren’t even from White Plains. You’d known from your day job that this place had more than one government funded cemetery. So, most likely, you were given a half-rate priest with liquor on his breath and a funeral director that may have taken the twenty from your pocket, not the worms.

Your stomach clenched as Austin began to drive. He was tapping his fingers against the steering wheel nervously, and could you blame him? A corpse was in his passenger seat. Though, you felt alive enough.

“What’s your name?” He eventually asked, flicking on his high beams. You were on a long and deserted road flanked by oak trees. The occasional field passed by, the reflective quarter-sized eyes of cows blinking at the truck. “Frankenstein?”

You snorted, “Ha-ha. Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster, you know? And I don’t remember my pitiful grave being struck by lightning.”

“You’re deflecting.”

“Perhaps.”

“Pitiful? Really? I work hard to maintain those graves.”

“I’m sure they’re lovely.” There was a rolling beat of silence. He glanced at you twice before shrugging his shoulders and leaning his chest closer to the wheel to see better. “It’s y/n. Wasn’t it written on the stone?”

Austin shook his head softly, “No, they don’t put the stone in until later. I’m supposed to spray paint a neon ‘x’ on the packed dirt, so they know what to make.”

How humiliating. You’d supposedly died, no one came to your funeral, and you were reduced to less than a quarter of spray paint. There was a system to everything, but this one made your self-importance fizzle out like a covered candle. There one moment and gone the next.

“Do you have a plan?” Austin changed the subject.

“A plan?”

“Yeah, like, are you just going to show up and say surprise, I’m alive? I’ve seen a lot of horror movies and that never goes well.”

Well, that was your plan. It was a damned good one too. There was nowhere else for you to go. While this near stranger was nice enough, you couldn’t impose on him for more than a single ride. His kind chocolate stare was telling enough. He would let you stay with him as long as it took to figure all of… this, out.

“Yeah,” You sighed out, leaning your head against the cool glass “That’s all I’ve got.”

Jennifer’s apartment building had a small box that required a code for entry. You knew the right numbers to press in the right order, they had faded away from regular use, but the door was always propped open by a cinderblock to let in the cool summer air.

If it rained hard enough, New Yorkers would take partial shelter under the awnings, and sometimes going as far as to loiter in the front lobby by the large set of mailboxes. They were the oldest and most fascinating part of the building, large and wrought iron. Allegedly, they’d survived three building fires.

Thankfully, no one but you stood in the lobby as you watched Austin’s taillights flicker out of existence. You’d have to thank him later- of course, you hadn’t gotten his number, but you knew where her work. At least where he worked up until now.

Escorting someone who had kicked their way out of their own grave back into the city was grounds for quitting, in your book.

The elevator was the second oldest thing in the building, but you somehow felt a wave of relief wash over you when the familiar warmth pressed against your skin. The mechanics jolted and hummed like an old lawn mower. All of these were comfortable.

Hunger tinged at your stomach in one fail swoop of feeling. You steadied yourself against the reflective interior of the elevator as it rose to the highest floor. Each number was signified in a loud and crude beep. You were tempted to hit the emergency stop; gaging the feeling in your abdomen.

Brains?

Yeah, the thought of them was absolutely unappetizing. Austin had gotten into your head. There was no innate need to dig your teeth into flesh and devour. In fact, you became more nauseous at the idea than before it popped into your head.

Zombies were chained to shitty horror movies you and Jennifer curled up to watch every Friday night, making fun of the gelatin that was used for wiggly guts and the cooked rice substituted for maggots. You could go for rice right now.

Knowing your best friend, she would have some sort of left-over cuisine in her fridge and you didn’t hesitate to run your fingers over the top of the doorframe to procure her hidden key, taped with a single strip of adhesive to the surrounding paneling.

Her apartment was dark save for the small tank with a one-finned goldfish named Gus. He barely regarded you, the dull buzz of his home and the pale blue light gave you all the vision you needed. Again, the familiarity of Jennifer’s apartment warmed you, comforted you. If you stopped for too long, you’d think about it all too much.

Waking up in a grave, not remember how you got there in the first place. When was the last time you’d had a meal? You’d purposefully avoided the side mirrors in Austin’s car, even the rearview was gently nudged by your dirt-caked hand. One thing at a time.

The fridge swung open with a satisfying pop and you were never more thankful for the red and white takeout containers that rested on the top shelf next to a box of wine. Neither of you ever claimed to be fancy.

You knew Jennifer’s order like the back of your hand. Sweet and sour chicken with a side of fried rice and no matter what, you would eat it cold. When the scent hit you, you even considered going forkless. If not for the slick dirt under your nails, you would have.

There was instant satisfaction in shoveling a mouthful of rice into your mouth, you barely chewed before swallowing. The neon light from the open fridge illuminated your shame and you swore that Gus, the one-finned fish, was judging you. He ate flakes for fucks sake, watching you spoon cold leftovers was the least of his worries.

You’d moved on from the rice and to the chicken before you noticed that you had company. It was a shift in the air, the feeling of being watched. But there was something more too, something like an itch on the back of your neck.

In a split second you turned from your cold meal and lifted your hand up with enough time to grip a wedge golf club that Jennifer had gotten from her father for her twenty-first birthday. They collected dust next to her coatrack, and right now, the metal edge was less than an inch away from slamming into the side of your temple.

You’d never been necessarily graceful, nor good at picking up on your surroundings. You never had to be, not with your work as a paralegal. The worst thing you had to look out for was a bad reaction to burnt office coffee.

Jenn was in an oversized Pink Floyd t-shirt and a pair of boxers, her eyes were wild, hair even wilder. A bloom of fondness wash over you despite her attempt at assault. You couldn’t blame her either, your mind so one-track on getting a meal that you hadn’t warned your best friend, not in the slightest.

“Fuck! What the fuck!” she wrenched the club away from you and moved to swing again, holding it behind her head like a baseball bat.

“Jesus Christ! Oh my God, put the wedge down!”

“You’re not-“She gulped in a cold breath of air “you died!”

“Don’t hit me with that thing and kill me again!”

Her chest was heaving up and down, fingers tightening against the rubber grip handle. Her eyes were frantic. “Did you eat my leftovers?”

You blinked at her, not sure what to say. She didn’t give you a chance to answer either, instead she sprung forward and wrapped you in a bone-crushing hug. You breathed her in, her scent of summer rain and freshly cleaned laundry. Her hair tickled your nose but you held her back, held her as if it were the last time you ever would.

Something softly broke within you, and you felt tears well up in your eyes. They slid silently down your cheeks. The fridge closed with a padded thump and plunged you both into the neon blue glow. Eventually, the club fell to the floor with a clank and her fingers fisted your shirt. You were thankful that she didn’t use her full strength.

“How is this happening?”

“I don’t know,” You rasped.

And you didn’t. Everything was so fuzzy and each time you attempted to press the subject in your mind, you felt the start of a headache at the base of your skull. For now, you were perfectly content holding your friend flush against you.

“You smell so bad,” She sobbed.

“Yeah, well, I was dead.”

Jenn pulled back and squeezed both of your shoulders, studying you longer than you had studied yourself, her breath shuddered “Maybe this is one of those Halloween things, like… like you have one night back on earth.”

You gave her a weak smile “It’s June, Jenn.”

She frowned at you, fingers pressing against your goosebump covered skin. “Sweetie, it’s October. You’ve been… gone, four months.”

But you hadn’t been buried since June. You were barely buried this evening. Your body ached from how stiff the casket had been, fingers numbed from the cold. You figured you were jarred, not in a different season altogether.

“I don’t… I don’t remember anything.”  

She swallowed hard, linking her hands behind your, they rested at the base of your spine. You could tell that she was afraid to release her hold on you. Her breath was warm against your collarbone.

“You were hit by a car that blew through a redlight.”

Okay- anticlimactic. You worked alongside Jennifer at Goodman, Lieber, Kurzberg and Holliway on cases that were focused on Inhumans, superheroes and supernatural beings that had gotten themselves into legal trouble. Being taken out by a car accident wasn’t on your top-five ways to go.

“It was all very… weird. They wouldn’t’ let me see you, and at first, I thought it was because we’re not family, but they didn’t let them in either. I even pulled the attorney card, which I’m not proud of, but they refused to let us even identify you.”

She withdrew her touch and started to pace around the kitchen. It was her way of thinking, and now that she was sure that you were a solid being, she was free to move around. “Even when I got six feet tall, mean and green, they wouldn’t let me in. I was two seconds from calling Bruce.”

Jenn stopped and lifted both eyebrows at you “You look remarkable for someone who has been under the earth for months.”

“I was being buried today in White Plains. I’m assuming there was no funeral, then?”

“No… no. They had said that private arrangements had been made and it’s my guess that those were keeping you on ice until now.”

You winced at the phrasing. You were never too fond of hospitals and the blocks in your memory scared you more than anything. If what Jennifer was saying was right, then, you may not have died in that intersection. You may have been through something much, much worse.

“Sorry,” She sighed out, desensitized just as you were. “Y/n, you can’t remember anything?”

“No,” The word came out as a broken whisper.

The two of you stood in a quiet moment. You could feel your heart pounding in your chest, and you held onto that feeling. It was there, you were there, pockmarked memory and all. You felt the urge to reach out and hold Jennifer again, suddenly so exhausted you didn’t’ imagine your legs holding you up much longer.

Her eyes flickered down to the center of your chest and then back up to your stare with an immeasurable amount of fear. When you gazed down at the dirt-stained shirt, you saw a red dot, quivering as if a hand was behind it’s direction. Your shoulders slumped.

“aw, fuck.”

Jennifer let out a scream as her front door was splintered open and flung with great force across the room. The two windows that overlooked the view of the city shattered as heels broke against the panes. The one singular dot had changed to seven, long-range rifles aimed at you, and you were suddenly very sad that your last meal would be cold leftover rice.

Even in the dark, you knew that they had knocked over the fishtank holding Gus, multicolored rocks and glass slid across the wooden floor. There were light gray circles against the breasts of these intruders, a bird with outstretched wings in it’s center.

Your hands went up reflexively, both you ducked behind the breakfast nook, you were close to plugging your ears, the red dots trained on the fridge now, “Oh my god, did you call SHIELD?”

“No! No, I didn’t even know you were alive three minutes ago, I was going to hit you with a golf club and call the cops, not SHIELD.”

They were assholes and tight-lipped about everything, always. It was hard to get a phone call back from them divulging information about ongoing lawsuits, but now they were in front of you, guns raised and depriving Jennifer’s fish of life.

“Gus is going to drown,” You whispered harshly back.

“He’s a fish, he can’t drown.”

“In air.”

There was obvious shifting of firearms. The Agents were all calculated and still with their movements, there wasn’t subtle noise without intent. A gruff, raspy female voice called out to you. “Come out with your hands up, y/n.”

You peaked over the breakfast bar and squinted into the darkness. Your body was not equipped for this. It was already protesting from kicking open the casket with a bought of strength. It certainly wasn’t prepared for this.

Most of the agents were in swat gear, bullet-proof vests and helmets, their faces were covered with balaclava’s, leaving only small strips of exposed skin and eyes trained on you. You hadn’t had this much attention directed at you since your fifth-grade talent show, and you figured the last time would be your funeral, but that hadn’t gone exactly to plan.

The woman who was speaking was in a tactical suit. She didn’t’ bother to cover her identity, she didn’t have to. This was the Black Widow. Natasha Romanoff. Jennifer had gotten drunk one night after a losing case and told you about her cousin having a bit of a fling with her. You’d met Bruce, and that was… unbelievable in the nicest way possible.

Her emerald eyes were trained on you, serious and hard. A tingle ripped up your spine and your stomach squirmed at her scrutiny. Maybe it was the rice and the chicken, but you felt the urge to vomit. You wanted her to say your name again, despite not understanding why she knew it in the first place.

Jennifer gripped your ankle, shaking her head ‘no’ vigorously. Really, you should trust your lawyer friend.

The Black widow let out a sigh, the tip of her handgun pointed to the ground. “You can either come out, or I’ll blow a hole through your chest. Your choice.”

Your gaze flashed down to Jenn and she seemed to have changed her mind within a second, nodding with caution. “Okay, okay.”

Once you were at full height, the room bustled in movement. Your eyes remained on the Black Widow, and hers on yours. Your mouth felt dry, the tip of her gun pushing against your ribs before she flipped you and bent you over the granite counter. Jennifer was using her heels to scoot back to the fridge, trying to avoid the agents swarming around.

Metal cuffs were slapped against your wrists. The Black Widow was pressed flush against you, her warmth dominating. She grasped the back of your shirt and pulled you up. You were, for a fleeting moment, at her mercy. Her fingers searched your pockets, padded down your sides. Once she figured you clean, she holstered her weapon. “Y/n Y/l/n,” she husked in your ear. You suppressed a shiver, knowing she’d feel any move you made right now. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

Taglist: No one yet :(

[srslyblvck]

the devil you know, avengers

pairing: avengers x fem!reader, bucky x fem!reader

synopsis: the avengers seem really desperate as they come to you—the person who went under their skin like no one else to help them win against hydra. while they are walking on eggshells around you, you are having fun causing chaos.

warnings: mentions of y/n (maybe), blood, violence, gore

word count: 3.1k

chapter: 1/?

series masterlist

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ THE LAST TIME YOU fought the Avengers, you didn’t just leave a mark—you left scars. They were supposed to be Earth’s mightiest heroes, but they couldn’t even handle you alone. Your power wasn’t just raw strength or fancy tech. No, you were chaos, untamed and unpredictable. You had fun, didn’t you? Watching them scramble, trying to keep up as you dismantled their team, piece by piece.

The streets of New York were your playground. Thor swung his hammer, lightning crackling in the air, but you were faster. You sidestepped, sending him crashing into a nearby building. Tony tried to come at you from the skies, a barrage of missiles raining down. With a flick of your wrist, you sent them spiraling back into his suit, and watched with a smirk as he plummeted to the ground.

Then there was Natasha, sharp, lethal, and far too clever for her own good. She tried to get close, slipping through the chaos to land a blow. You almost admired her for that. Almost. But you caught her wrist before her knife could make contact, twisting it just enough to disarm her without snapping it—because where’s the fun in ending the game too soon?

And Steve, Captain America himself. Righteous, noble, irritatingly persistent. He charged at you, shield raised, eyes burning with determination. But his resolve only made you more excited. You met him head-on, your strength colliding with his as you deflected the shield with a grin. You knew it wouldn’t last forever. You knew they’d eventually overwhelm you with numbers or some sneaky trick. But that didn’t matter. For a while, you were winning. And that’s all that mattered.

It had taken all of them, working together, to finally bring you down. And when they did, they didn't leave you in some cushy maximum-security prison. No, they put you in The Raft—the highest of high-security prisons for supervillains. They wanted to make sure you couldn’t wriggle out and wreak havoc again.

Funny thing is, you didn't mind.

You lounge in your cell at the Raft, feet kicked up, arms folded behind your head. The guards pass by occasionally, but they don’t bother with you much anymore. No point. You’re the least troublesome prisoner they’ve got here. Not exactly the model inmate, but you’ve made it clear you weren’t going anywhere. You didn’t mind the Raft—no noisy world, no chaotic battles, just peace. Besides, you always enjoyed the looks people gave you. The way they seemed unsure if you were calm or just waiting to snap.

“Psychotic,” they called you. Maybe they weren’t wrong. But if that’s what it takes to keep things interesting, then so be it.

The Avengers. Now that’s where the fun had been. Fighting them, teasing them, pushing them to their limits. Especially Stark. He hated that he could never figure you out. You’d gotten under their skin in a way no one else had. And even though you were eventually caught, dragged off to this fortress in the middle of the ocean, it didn’t feel like defeat. No, it felt more like… a vacation.

The tension in the Avengers HQ could be cut with a knife. Seated around the long, sleek table, everyone had their eyes fixed on the glowing hologram floating in the center, displaying a map riddled with flashing Hydra insignias.

“Hydra’s moving faster than we thought,” Tony Stark said, his tone uncharacteristically serious. “They’ve got new tech, new firepower, and something else—something we don’t understand yet.”

Steve Rogers leaned forward, his jaw set in that familiar determined way. “We’ve taken down Hydra before. We can do it again.”

“We didn’t take them down,” Natasha Romanoff chimed in. “We knocked them back. This is different, Steve. Their intel’s better. Their strategy is… smarter.”

Steve crossed his arms, frowning deeply. “We are the Avengers. We have faced threats from beyond this world. Surely this Hydra can be beaten.”

Bruce Banner, quiet until now, shook his head. “No, Steve. This isn’t like our usual enemies. Hydra’s moving like they know every step we’re going to take before we make it. And whatever they're building—it’s got enough gamma signatures to make me nervous.”

That last statement made everyone pause. Even Clint Barton, who’d been silently fidgeting with an arrow, stilled his hands.

“Great,” Clint muttered. “So not only are they out-thinking us, they’ve got Banner-level problems in their back pocket. Awesome.”

Sam Wilson leaned forward, narrowing his eyes at the hologram. “There’s got to be a way to track them. Cut them off before they finish building… whatever that is.”

“I’ve tried,” Rhodey said, his voice exasperated. “Hydra’s cloaking this thing like it’s Fort Knox, and every time I send in recon, we come up empty-handed.”

The room fell into a heavy silence. Everyone was thinking the same thing, even if no one wanted to say it. The Avengers were backed into a corner, and they hated being in this position. Hydra had outmaneuvered them before—but never like this.

Tony leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temple. "There’s one option we haven’t considered."

Steve’s eyes snapped to Tony, immediately suspicious. “What’s that?”

Tony glanced around the room, hesitation clear on his face for the first time in a while. “We bring in someone who knows how to deal with these kinds of dirty tactics. Someone who’s unpredictable… dangerous.”

“Oh, no,” Natasha said, crossing her arms. “We’re not doing this.”

“What?” Clint asked, glancing between them. “What are we not doing?”

“You know exactly who he’s talking about,” Natasha replied, her voice cold.

Bucky Barnes, sitting quietly in the corner, shifted in his seat. “You mean her.”

“Yup.” Tony gave a tight smile. “her.”

“You can’t be serious, Stark,” Steve said, his tone edging into anger. “That… that psycho is locked up for a reason.”

“Yeah, well, unless you’ve got any other brilliant ideas for how to get through Hydra’s defences, I’m all ears,” Tony shot back, standing up now. “I get it, Cap. She's not exactly on our Christmas card list, but facts are facts. When we fought her, she nearly wiped the floor with us. She's good—too good.”

“That’s because she's insane,” Bucky said, his voice low, dangerous. “You think she's going to help us out of the goodness of her heart?”

“No, but she’ll help because she likes causing chaos, and right now, chaos is what we need,” Tony replied.

Bruce, still seated, raised a hand. “You’re suggesting we trust someone who has a history of, uh, not playing by the rules?”

“I’m suggesting we use someone who’s good at breaking things. We can handle the clean-up afterward,” Tony said. His tone was sharp, but there was logic behind it.

Steve stood up, crossing his arms, clearly trying to contain his frustration. “No way. We’re not that desperate.”

“We might be,” Sam said, leaning back in his chair, though his expression was skeptical. “I don’t like it either, but Tony has a point. Hydra’s not playing fair. Maybe we need someone who knows how to play dirtier.”

“I’m not working with her,” Steve said firmly. “We don’t need someone like that. We’ve beaten Hydra before.”

“Yeah, but not like this,” Clint muttered under his breath. “Not when they’ve got the upper hand.”

Rhodey, who’d been listening quietly, finally spoke up. “I hate to say it, but we’re out of options. We need something to break this deadlock. Even if it’s a wildcard.”

Steve clenched his jaw. “This is a mistake.”

Tony sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Probably. But we don’t have time to sit around and weigh the pros and cons. Every minute we waste, Hydra’s getting closer to finishing whatever nightmare they’re cooking up. We need to act.”

There was a long pause as the team exchanged glances, weighing their options. No one wanted to admit it, but they were out of ideas. And you were the only person who could help.

Steve finally exhaled, nodding once. “Fine. But if this goes sideways, it’s on you, Stark.”

Tony gave a small, triumphant smirk. “Trust me, Cap, I’ve got it handled.”

When they arrived at the Raft, the air was thick with tension. The Avengers weren’t exactly the kind of people who made house calls to criminals, and it showed on their faces as they were led down the long, sterile corridor toward your cell.

You knew they were coming long before they reached you. Hydra must have had them in knots for them to come crawling back to you. The idea was almost enough to make you laugh.

Lying on the small cot in your cell, your arms stretched behind your head, you kept your eyes closed. The hum of the Raft was soothing, a far cry from the chaos of the outside world. It was almost meditative.

Then, the cell door slid open with a sharp buzz, but you didn’t bother moving.

“Stark,” you said lazily, eyes still closed, voice dripping with amusement. “What, come to throw a going-away party?”

The Avengers stood before you, and when you opened your eyes, you didn’t miss the mix of tension and frustration on their faces.

“We need your help,” Tony said bluntly, cutting straight to the chase.

You sat up slowly, a lazy grin spreading across your face. “You must be really desperate to come to me for help.”

Tony opened his mouth to respond, but you raised a finger, cutting him off. “Let me guess. Hydra’s doing something nasty, and you’re stuck. Can’t get your shiny suits dirty, so you come to me, the wildcard.”

Steve glared at you from the back. “This isn’t a joke.”

You grinned wider. “Oh, I know it’s not, Captain. But I have to say… this is going to be fun.”

The Avengers stood there, tense, unsure. And you? You were in control, and it felt fantastic.

You strolled into the Avengers compound, a lazy smirk tugging at the corners of your lips, wrists cuffed in front of you with those annoying power-suppressing restraints. They’d made sure of that, didn’t they?

Of course, they had. The Avengers weren’t stupid. At least, not completely.

Around you, the team walked in a tight formation, like you were some kind of wild animal they needed to keep on a leash. Tony was up ahead, chatting with FRIDAY about god knows what, Steve right beside him, walking with that stiff-shouldered tension that was so him. Behind you, Natasha and Clint followed, their eyes boring holes into the back of your head. You could almost feel Bucky’s glare from across the room, like he was daring you to make a wrong move.

But you weren’t going to make a scene. Not yet.

“Gotta say,” you drawled, glancing around the compound, taking in the high-tech security, the polished floors, the holographic displays flickering along the walls. “I like what you’ve done with the place. Real homey.”

You whistled softly, admiring the upgrades. The last time you’d seen the compound—well, it hadn’t exactly been in one piece. You might’ve had something to do with that, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

“Hope you didn’t put in too much work fixing it up after our last meeting,” you added with a grin, turning toward Tony. “Wouldn’t want all that effort to go to waste.”

Tony didn’t miss a beat, glancing over his shoulder at you with a raised eyebrow. “Funny. I seem to remember you being more concerned with trying to take my head off than interior design critique.”

“Potato, po-tah-to,” you said with a shrug, as if it was all just some fun memory. You could feel the others bristling behind you, no doubt regretting this decision more with every word you spoke.

Steve’s jaw clenched, his voice low and commanding. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Easy there, Cap,” you replied, enjoying how his fists tightened just a bit more. “I’m here to help, remember? Or did you bring me back just for my sparkling personality?”

“Let’s not test that theory,” Natasha cut in, her voice cool but sharp. “You’re on a short leash here.”

You grinned wider, turning to give her a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

The group led you further into the compound, and you let yourself take it all in. It was strange being back here, walking freely (well, as freely as the cuffs allowed) through their precious headquarters. Last time you were here, they’d been chasing you down, trying to stop you from doing what you did best—causing chaos. Now, they were practically welcoming you with open arms.

Funny how things changed when they needed you.

As you passed by one of the large windows, you caught a glimpse of the sprawling training grounds outside. Stark’s money had definitely gone into this place—it was a fortress. High-tech, polished, the works. But beneath all that shine, you knew what was really going on. Desperation. They wouldn’t have come to you unless they had no other choice.

“So, what’s the play?” you asked, breaking the silence as you sauntered forward, hands still shackled but your posture loose and casual. “You bring me in, throw me at Hydra, hope I don’t enjoy myself too much?”

“You’re going to do what we tell you,” Steve said firmly. “No more, no less.”

You met his gaze, that stoic, unflinching look he always gave, and you couldn’t help but laugh softly. “Yeah, sure. That’s exactly how this is gonna go.”

Clint, ever the quick shot with a retort, piped up. “If you don’t follow orders, we’ll make sure you regret it.”

You turned your head slightly, just enough to catch Clint’s eye, your grin widening. “You threatening me, Barton? I thought we were all friends now.”

His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t respond. Behind you, you could sense Bruce watching quietly, keeping his distance but always on edge, probably ready to Hulk out the second you made a wrong move. Bucky was the same—silent, seething. Everyone in the room knew you were a threat. Everyone knew that the cuffs on your wrists were the only thing keeping you from unleashing a storm.

But what they didn’t know was that you were actually enjoying this little game. They were walking on eggshells around you, pretending they had everything under control, but you could feel the tension crackling in the air. It was palpable. Delicious.

“So,” you said, breaking the silence again as you strolled past the holographic displays, glancing at one that showed a map of Hydra’s activity. “What exactly is it you need me to do?”

“You’re not in a position to ask questions,” Steve answered, his voice firm and unyielding.

You rolled your eyes. “Still playing the Boy Scout, huh? Fine. I’ll bite. But just so you know, I’m not here for the teamwork, Captain.”

Tony let out a small chuckle at that. “We’re not exactly looking for team spirit. We need someone unpredictable. Someone who can get into Hydra without raising alarms.”

“Oh, well, in that case, I’m your guy,” you said with a wink. “Hydra and I go way back. They’ll be thrilled to see me again.”

“And that’s what worries us,” Natasha replied, eyes narrowing as she studied you. “You’ve got a history with them. We’re not letting you go in unsupervised.”

You sighed, feigning disappointment. “Always so serious, Romanoff. Fine, keep your watchdogs on me. Just don’t blame me when I get bored.”

The group finally stopped in front of one of the briefing rooms, Tony gesturing for you to enter first. You raised your cuffed hands slightly, giving them a little shake. “And these?” you asked. “Gonna make it a little hard to do anything useful.”

“They stay on until we’re sure you’re not going to turn this into a free-for-all,” Steve said, his voice leaving no room for argument.

You stepped through the door with a shrug. “Whatever you say, Captain.”

As you entered the briefing room, the large screen lit up with detailed schematics of Hydra’s new operation. Bases, weapons, movements—things even you hadn’t seen before. It was impressive. Even more impressive that they were willing to trust you with this kind of information.

Then again, trust was a fragile thing here, wasn’t it?

You took a seat at the table, leaning back in the chair as best you could with your hands still cuffed, watching the Avengers file in around you. Tension filled the room like a thick fog, everyone waiting to see what you’d do next.

“Well,” you said, kicking your feet up onto the table, flashing them a cocky grin. “This should be fun.”

The briefing room hummed with energy, a silent current of tension hanging thick between you and the Avengers. Tony took his place at the head of the table, arms crossed, tapping his fingers against his bicep impatiently. Steve stood just behind him, the shield slung across his back, his posture stiff. The others filtered in, taking up their positions like chess pieces ready for a match.

You leaned back in your chair, cuffed hands resting on the table in front of you, a lazy smirk playing on your lips. “Alright,” you said, stretching your legs out. “Why don’t we cut to the chase? What’s the big Hydra mess you need me for?”

Tony glanced at Steve, who gave him a short nod, the silent agreement of reluctant allies. Tony activated a holographic display on the table, bringing up a 3D map of several cities across the globe. Red dots flickered ominously, marking Hydra's known operations.

“You already know Hydra’s been rebuilding,” Tony began, his tone sharp and focused. “But this isn’t their usual underground terrorist network anymore. They’ve got something bigger, more coordinated. And now, they’ve been making moves we can’t trace. Military-grade weapons, tech we haven’t seen before, and worst of all, something that’s throwing up red flags on our radiation sensors.”

“Gamma signatures,” Bruce chimed in, his face serious. “A lot of them.”

Your eyebrow lifted, intrigued. “Gamma, huh? That sounds like fun. They planning on making their own Hulk? Gotta say, that’s a bold move.”

“It’s worse than that,” Bruce continued, eyes darkening. “They’ve been siphoning gamma energy from somewhere, but we don’t know what it’s for yet. And if they’re storing it, they could be trying to build a weapon.”

“Something big enough to level cities,” Natasha added, her voice cold. “Or worse.”

You chuckled softly, shaking your head. “Always with the doomsday weapons. Hydra really doesn’t know how to take a break, do they?”

Clint gave you a hard look. “This isn’t a joke. If they get this thing operational, it’s game over for a lot of people. Not even you want that kind of chaos.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” you quipped, leaning forward slightly. “But go on. Tell me what makes you think I care enough to get involved.”

Steve stepped forward, leaning on the table as his blue eyes locked onto yours with that intense, all-business stare of his. “Because you know Hydra. You know how they think. And you know their tactics better than anyone we’ve got. If we go in guns blazing, they’ll see us coming from miles away. But you? You can walk right in.”

You tilted your head, considering. “And you think I’ll just play nice, follow your lead, and do exactly what you want?”

Steve’s jaw clenched. “No. I think you’ll do it because you love playing the game. And because if Hydra gets their hands on this weapon, even you won’t be safe. They’ll come after everyone—Avengers, civilians, people like you.”

Tony stepped in, his expression tight but calculated. “We need someone who can play dirty. Someone who can think like Hydra, act like Hydra, and blend in without setting off alarms. That’s you.”

Bucky, sitting quietly to your left, finally spoke. His voice was low, dangerous. “They’ll kill you the second they get the chance. You know that, right?”

You turned to Bucky, flashing him a grin. “Hydra’s always had a soft spot for me, Barnes. I’m sure I’ll manage.”

Tony flicked the hologram again, zooming in on a specific location—a heavily guarded Hydra facility buried deep in Eastern Europe, surrounded by military checkpoints and defense grids. “This is the target,” he said. “We’ve been monitoring this base for weeks. It’s their hub for whatever project they’re working on. It’s locked down tighter than anything we’ve seen before. We tried sending in a team, but they didn’t get far. Too many layers of security.”

“Layers I can bypass,” you concluded, smirking at the challenge. “Alright, I’ll admit, it sounds like fun. But what makes you think I won’t just stroll in, grab what I want, and leave you all hanging?”

Natasha, leaning against the wall, finally stepped forward, her gaze cold and calculating. “Because you know what happens if Hydra finishes whatever they’re building. You’ve got a history of playing both sides, but even you can’t outrun a bomb that size. And let's be real—you hate losing control more than anything. Hydra’s playing a game you’re not a part of right now.”

You tilted your head, the smile slipping just a little. “So what? You’re offering me a chance to take them down from the inside?”

“We’re offering you a chance to prove you’re not as self-destructive as we think you are,” Steve replied, voice steady but firm. “This isn’t just about us. It’s about keeping Hydra from leveling cities and killing millions. You help us stop them, and maybe—just maybe—you walk out of this without a target on your back.”

The room went quiet, the weight of the situation sinking in. You leaned back, letting the silence stretch out as you considered your options. They weren’t wrong—Hydra was dangerous, even to you. And sure, there was a part of you that liked chaos, liked toying with the line between hero and villain. But even you had limits.

“You really think this will work?” you asked, locking eyes with Tony.

Tony’s expression softened slightly, just enough to show a glimmer of trust. “I think it’s our best shot.”

Another beat of silence passed. Then, with a slow grin, you nodded.

“Alright, I’m in,” you said, sitting up straighter in the chair. “But let’s get one thing clear. I’m not here to be your hero. I’m here because I like to win. Hydra made this personal when they tried to cut me out of the fun.”

Steve straightened, arms crossed. “As long as you follow our lead.”

You shot him a wink. “No promises, Captain.”

The team exchanged a few tense glances, but the decision had been made. You were in. And, for now at least, that was all that mattered.

“Good,” Tony said, the hologram flickering away. “We move out tomorrow. FRIDAY will upload the mission details to your room.”

You grinned wider. “A room, huh? How fancy.”

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Natasha said as she turned toward the door, her voice flat. “This isn’t a vacation.”

You chuckled, rising to your feet. The cuffs clinked lightly as you stretched your arms, casting a glance back at the Avengers. “Oh, trust me, Romanoff. I’m anything but comfortable.”

And with that, you followed them out of the briefing room, feeling the weight of the cuffs on your wrists and the eyes of the Avengers on your back. You were back in the game, and Hydra had no idea what was coming.

dividers by @dollywons

[wandasaura]

okay but what was R’s best orgasm that happened last Christmas? 👀 from your latest fic

this is from two months ago… i have no idea what fic we’re talking about so i’m just gonna tell you about ducky’s best orgasm… so… i hope thats okay with you

well to start, it’s somewhat of a competition (war) in the maximoff-romanova household. natasha claims that from her perspective, she gives you the best orgasms. she will analyze the patterns in your behavior over the course of months, just so when the conversation gets brought up again — which it inevitably always does — she can clap back at wanda with admissible proof that physically, she provides the best orgasms. she will also never shy away from bragging about how you turn to absolute mush in her arms after a scene, how you come undone so beautifully and give yourself to her entirely. because while she’s trying to factually assert her superiority, she’s also just a lesbian fucking her girlfriend really good… like really good (verbatim what she screamed across the living room at wanda during one rehashing).

wanda doesn’t even bother to bring her own facts to the discussion despite knowing natasha will pry at her like she’s on the stand for murder, she’s so confident in herself that she lets natasha just argue at her, sometimes natasha’s been going at her with facts for something close to three minutes, and wanda will just get so fed up with her wife that she sets her glare on ducky, accent thicker than all hell, and simply remind ducky of her title, of how she’s mommy. poor girl folds instantly every time and natasha just stomps away in frustration, although she’s literally thinking about wanda gives her some of the best orgasms of her life… which then prompts her to think that she really couldn’t pick between ducky or wanda.

this is natasha’s roman empire actually. she’ll randomly be sending emails and will just sit there and contemplate how ducky and wanda give her pleasure in such different ways. in the soft moments she steals with ducky, ducky always gravitates towards her thighs, while wanda will take her time up top. and then she gets horny and ends up texting wanda, which then just leads to them all teasing each other and pissing each other off because all three of them are meant to be doing their actual jobs… i’m telling you it’s literally all in good fun though. they’re lawyers… i think they just have a fear of losing their skill if they stop arguing and rebutting… poor ducky actually, sometimes they’re just so… in it… she knows she’d never survive actually seeing them in action

but ducky! she is just like natasha when it comes to organizing the facts and fantasizing about fucking her girlfriends on the daily . she will tell you when the best orgasm of her life occurred specifically (because she’s the only one who actually knows how to directly answer a question, or rather, the only one who didn’t endure like seven years of law school and cannot be bothered with stupid banter), but she has three categories and events.the first category is natasha, the second category is wanda, and the third category is the orgasms when they do it together.

natasha’s best orgasm was in the winter time the semester after they extended the contract. ducky was stressed, exhausted, overworked, honestly you name it, the poor girl was it. she was at the point where she had so many things going through her mind, and she was so tired that she was energized. she was staying on campus because the workload was getting to be too much to balance with a commute and an internship, and in a few weeks she’d somewhat stopped communicating with wanda and natasha. they talked on the phone, sometimes they’d go up to visit ducky whenever their breaks aligned with a gap in her schedule, but she was so preoccupied with a million other things that she just couldn’t give them a piece of her. she barely was herself with the sleep deprivation and the stress. she turned up at the house at eleven, searching for wanda. she was an absolute brat to natasha, huffing and rolling her eyes, getting annoyed when she kept being told that wanda was busy — which she was. there was a major issue in a contract that needed immediate attention. definitely not the kind of thing they could delegate or allow to sit on a desk — but ducky just wasn’t getting it. natasha was full on daddy mode at that point, and after an hour of teasing and edging and spanking, she finally let ducky cum as wanda walked into the bedroom.

wanda’s best orgasm is on the shore. they’d both been woken up around the same time in the middle of the night and been unable to fall back to sleep before tourist season, and so they’d sporadically decided to make a trip down to the shore to make the most of their early start to the day to see the sunrise. all they brought was a towel… which it is not ducky, nor wanda’s, proudest moment that they got so caught up in a makeout session that wanda fingered ducky on a towel in the middle of a public beach (granted it was empty) at 3 in the morning. it wasn’t even the most physically overpowering orgasm, but it was the way wanda somewhat collapsed on top of her afterward and nuzzled her face into her neck, giggling and mumbling about they’d just acted like horny teenagers. it was a rare moment where it was only wanda with ducky. it’s so hard for wanda to let go of everything, of mommy, of lawyer, of dominant. she craves the control, the discipline, and she panics when she doesn’t have it, so she’s always compensating for something, trying to mask the vulnerabilities she doesn’t want known. ducky just felt so loved in that moment, she doesn’t care that wanda’s also eaten her out until she passed out… but it’s also definitely up there.

and the best together orgasm was on her birthday. they’d been teasing her all fucking day. like all day. wanda woke her up by fingering her, natasha then insisted on showering together and washing her body for her, which was just a lot of lingering touchy feely, and then wanda had laid her accent on thick all through breakfast, uttering the most sickly sweet near condensing praise out of nowhere. thats what really got ducky, was how they’d be having a conversation and wanda would just… absolutely melt her brain. and then at lunch natasha snuck up behind ducky, hugging her tight, and not so subtly grinding her strap into ducky’s ass. and then wanda AND natasha had been touchy feely annoying teases during dinner and the drive home. and then took turns fucking her when they got home. to the point where she was basically mush until the following afternoon? yeah ducky thinks about that a lot

anyways ducky’s actual answer is wanda. she refuses to admit this tho. wanda literally knows tho

[dearsnow]

A TOP GUN X READER WEDDING COLLECTION…

based on music!

a/n - yes, some of these are based off of tiktoks 😭 I seriously do hope i get around to writing all of them, and as of right now this masterlist is incomplete as i search for ideas and creative ways to mix songs into the fics. also, if one of these isn’t a hozier song, I need y’all to call the fbi because i have been replaced by an imposter.

- music is the spark of life, passed down through generations and punctuating crucial moments in the lives of many. here is a collection of top gun wedding fluff one shots based on moments, music, and traditions <3

Fics

• Perfect (Perfect, Ed Sheeran) - Bradley Bradshaw. When a storm threatens to ruin your picture perfect wedding, a stranger and his guitar save the day.

• You and I (You and I, Ingrid Michaelson) - Robert Floyd. Bob’s family and friends have an odd musical wedding tradition that you are all too happy to participate in after marrying the love of your life.

• Mine (Mine, Taylor Swift) - Jake Seresin. Description pending, song subject to change.

• Roman Candle of the Wild (Jackie and Wilson, Hozier) - Natasha Trace. While most people think the actual wedding is the best event of your life, you find that saying goodbye and running into your wife’s newly detailed Lexus is an even better experience. Or, in which Natasha fastens cans to the back of her car.

• Everything Has Changed (Everything Has Changed, Taylor Swift & Ed Sheeran) - Mickey Garcia. Description pending, song subject to change.

Mood boards

• Perfect

• You and I

additional note: these will be written as the ideas come, and some may end up being scrapped as time moves on (💔). if you have any suggestions that may inspire me to continue, feel free to send them in! characters, songs, scenarios, anything. the characters not on this masterlist are ones you can request, wink wink.

[musicalcastingideas]

Succession The Musical Hypothetical Casting

I’m doing this in one shot and off the top of my head, so I will be missing characters, I do also welcome suggestions.

Logan Roy: Patrick Page

Is this the obvious first choice? Yes. Is it the correct one? Also yes.

Kendall Roy: Lucas Steele

Kendall is just Anatole if he didn’t have a close relationship with his sister.

Roman Roy: Brandon Uranowitz

He played a nice neurotic freak in Falsettos, let's see him play an evil neurotic freak.

Shiv Roy: Eden Espinoza

I'll be honest, if I was genuinely casting a Succession musical as a real casting director, I would look for a more unknown performer to play Shiv, because I firmly believe that Shiv Roy should be an alto part, heavy in the lower range (like basically a tenor). Shiv's plot revolves around trying to push past her gender to be taken seriously, and I think having her being an alto who stays in her lower register would really highlight how hard she's trying to be taken seriously. That said, I would not at all be disappointed to have Eden Espinoza in the part. She's insanely talented, and I would love to see her interpretation of Shiv.

Connor Roy: Josh Groban

So there's a clip of The Opera from "Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812" where the ensemble sings "Pierre, the cuckold, sits at home", and then Pierre pops up saying "No, I am enjoying myself at home this evening" while giving a sad little thumbs up, while his wife is off banging another man? That's the energy I want for my Connor Roy.

Tom Wambsgans: Brian D'Arcy James

Is he maybe a little old for the part? Sure. But age onstage is fucky, and Brian D’Arcy James would absolutely kill it as the combination ass-kisser and ruthless bastard that is Tom Wambsgans. Also he gives Minnesota.

Greg Hirsch: George Salazar

I kinda don’t feel like I have to explain this one.

Gerri: Bernadette Peters

Icons playing icons.

Frank: Mandy Patinkin

Sunday In The Park With George reunion!

Willa Ferreyra: Samantha Pauly

I rewatched her All You Wanna Do again last night (and cried again) and when I thought about Willa, that popped into my head. (Not in the sense that I think Willa is a victim like Katherine Howard, she’s a consenting sex worker, more the fact that in the succession world, women, like Willa, are only valued for their sexuality.) Anyway, Sam Pauly also just kills every part she’s in so…

Stewy Hosseini: Tony Yazbek

He’s played Billy Flynn on Broadway, so he’s good at being a smarmy yet charming asshole (I say this with love, I love both Stewy and Billy Flynn)

Lukas Matsson: Aaron Tiveit

He’s hot but can also be scary.

Hard Cuts/ Impossible:

Edward Herrman as Karl

Would he be fun in the role? Yes. Is he dead, and therefore incapable of doing it? Also yes.

Daniel Radcliffe as Roman

Barrett Wilbert Weed as Shiv

Mandy Patinkin as Logan

[rustedpipe]

things that happened on degrassi but i make them about riverdale

they had cheryl say cuckoo bananas one time, zig novak was heraldo, and also vanessa morgan was mike dallas's baby mama so like clearly there's existing connections here. and just like riverdale and degrassi writers-- i love putting characters into situations. so. without further ado..... things that happen on degrassi (tng & next class) that should've happened on riverdale.

betty pelts dodgeballs at jughead during gym class after he is vague about going on a date or not

dolly zoom on archie's face as fred says "your mom is gay"

betty and gay kevin have a fight while filming a fake commercial for unisex cologne for class

^ this with gay kevin

reggie does elaborate business deals with locker trading so that veronica can have the best one

archie sending veronica flowers with a card that says ”you rock! xoxo archie”

jughead choking and needing the heimlich but refusing to let gay kevin give him the heimlich because it would mean gay kevin has to touch him.

betty getting into an actual violent physical fight with blood with a random girl at school

^ okay go watch this video right now you only need to watch like the first minute exactly. the rest is completely optional. i have several scenarios in mind here:

- idea one is gay kevin having issues with fangs for the billionth time and so when in doubt kiss archie? - idea two is something jarchie related either betty or veronica is the dylan here . - IDEA THREE IS DYLAN=JUGHEAD GAY MARCO=ARCHIE. SO WHEN IN DOUBT KISS REGGIE?! - but also. the very first episode of riverdale is veronica so when in doubt you kiss betty. okay like realistically the scene is not like that but i think they shouldve let betty say "so when in doubt you kiss betty." for me personally. she would not fucking say that but i want her to

veronica and jughead go to the college admissions fair while extremely high.

RAS plays a similar role to kevin smith and gives advice to cheryl about being gay

kangs toxic poker game. what more can i say

veronica: as you and jughead’s closest friends- jughead: oh actually i don’t really like you. veronica: SHH!

natasha bedingfield performs at prom. archie gets to dance his heart out and cry a little to unwritten. and pocket full of sunshine woah oh

toni gets so much into vampire books that she makes out with cheryl and thinks about vampires too hard and bites her on the neck (this would be a great reference to vanessa morgan's time on another canadian teen show my babysitter's a vampire and also i think we should let toni be a little crazy for fun)

lgbt mixer at la bonne nuit. nothing crazy happens on the degrassi episode but i just wish it had happened on riverdale. like maybe veronica and kevin sing same love or born this way. (again that did not happen on degrassi just using the fact they did an lgbt mixer at the teen speakeasy as a jumping off point.)

when jughead gets hired by tabitha at pops, he immediately burns down the restaurant. they then go to a casino in niagra falls and get vegas-style married

cheryl adopts a pig (that later destroys her house) instead of coping with being alone

reggie attends a meeting about homophobia brought on by locker room bullying and someone explains the definition of internalized homophobia and he says out loud "im a homophobe" and starts crying

jughead poisons bret with stuff that makes you throw up. this involves cups being switched and a reference to roman history (but in the riverdale version betty supports and enables it)

jughead writes a story about a girl getting stalked who has a protective boyfriend trying to stop it but he makes the ending be that the boyfriend realizes he can never protect her from the stalker so he kills her. and betty is like dude um what that is insane. and hes genuinely like what it's just a story. later jughead ends up still not being able to figure out an ending and burns the script on stage while having a breakdown

they have to build rube goldberg machines for class. it doesnt matter who i just want this to be something

fp and alice wedding where bughead break up and get back together like five times about it

core four smokes weed during 2x14 The Hills Have Eyes (degrassi had an episode where teens were unsupervised in a cabin. Just Like.)

gay kevin does a gay musical production of romeo and juliet.

some film guy that jughead adores comes and does a guest lecture and so in order to impress the guy he smokes weed with chic and makes a terrible insane short film to show said film guy

timeskip jughead does mdma at an artsy party where people are very high and painting with their bodies on the walls and floors. in order to avoid his problems.

gay kevin wears a beret at least once

^ bughead texts

veronica sings triangle tra la le la by patsy cline while in the midst of one of her 'reggie or archie' moments

betty gets really into axe throwing with lesbians (the pretty poisons) in the woods

unfortunately i cannot find a video uploaded of gay tristan performing it but. gay kevin voice riverdale you make drama look! so! good!

veronica trying to tank her father's mayoral campaign by being gay with betty and outing hiram as a homophobe

reggie: for the last time i'm not gay. or homophobic. just missing my best bro....

jughead won't shut up in class so cheryl cuts off some of her hair and then asks jughead to hold the scissors for a sec. and then she raises her hand and tells the teacher jughead cut her hair

beronica has a heartfelt moment about admitting feelings for each other and in the middle of it reggie walks up to them with saddest look on his face and says "am i hotter than archie? be honest. actually don't." and then walks away

veronica comes out to avoid political backlash and the word gets around to hermione who tries to comfort her by saying "no one's gonna believe you're gay. it happens to all powerful women. even hillary"

cheryl and veronica have a fake trial in class over twitter beef

cheryl auditions for a boy part in a play directed by gay kevin. gay kevin initially says no, but cheryl points out that it should be about relating to the pain of the character, not gender. gay kevin agrees and says that he is going to play the part himself because no one understands what he's going through better than him, right?

i'm constructing a reality where fangs is dating gay kevin when he is in the infamous bus crash but instead of dying he goes into a coma. and gay kevin is loyally by his bedside until he snaps like three months in and hooks up with moose. the night he does that, fangs wakes up from said coma.

veronica, speaking to reggie: even though we're a toxic couple, i really miss you and i want our break to be over.

betty has a terrible reaction to weed and someone finds her sadly eating slices of bread from a bag saying “i thought the bread would make me less high but it isnt working”

and finally, and crucially, they should've done a shark in the water style promo for at least one of the seasons. thanks for tuning in.

[drabbles-mc]

Second Time Around

Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Jake "Hangman" Seresin Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x OC Roman

Summary: With the way that everything ended, Jake knew that he had no right to start getting jealous now. The whole mess was on him in a way, anyway. That logic, however, didn't stop the jealousy from creeping into the back of his mind when he heard about Bradley moving onwards and upwards.And, just like everything else with the two of them, trying to figure out where to go from here wasn't nearly as easy as either of them wanted to be. They just had to hope that it was all going to work out in the end.

Warnings: 18+, language, alcohol, jealousy, angst (with a happy ending), breakups & makeups

Word Count: 9.9k

A/N: I wrote this for Fic in a Box 2023 and I absolutely became obsessed with the ride this fic took me on while writing it. I also fell in love with my OC so idk maybe I'll keep him around and put him in other fics lmao. Hope y'all enjoy!

Top Gun Taglist: @garbinge @proceduralpassion

Everyone was finally at a point where they could hang out together on a regular basis again. There was a hot minute there when everyone was being sent off in different directions. And if that wasn’t the problem, there was also the issue of the fallout between Bradley and Jake. It was the risk anyone ran when they decided to get involved with someone they worked with. Only thing was, it wasn’t as though they were all just stuck in some corporate office together. They were on-base, in the barracks, flying out on missions together. There was no time or space for hard feelings, but somehow the two of them still managed.

So it was hard fought and well earned time together at the end of the week, everyone at The Hard Deck together without it being an issue. It was easier now than it had been a few weeks prior, things getting incrementally less tense as the days ticked by. Some of that was because everyone was too busy training for the next mission, but also the farther the two of them got away from the less than amicable ending of their relationship, the easier it got to at least be civil with each other.

They hardly ever talked directly to each other if they weren’t on base and under explicit instruction to be working together in some capacity. When they were all together and out the way that they were, they always kept a little bit of distance. Everyone else was also merciful enough to run interference, even if they didn’t realize that they were doing it.

“Alright, alright,” Bradley threw his hands up in surrender as he stepped back from their crew who were all sitting gathered around the pool table, “I know, next round on me.”

“Don’t forget to get yourself one, too,” Natasha joked as Bradley pulled his wallet out of his pocket.

Before Bradley could get too far, Jake stepped in. “I got it.”

Bradley hated the way that he instantly felt his jaw clench, but he couldn’t stop himself. “It’s fine. I can—”

“You get the next one.” There was the same smug look on his face that he always had, like he wasn’t thinking about or worried about everything that had happened—like it didn’t faze him at all anymore. “Back up on your perch, Rooster,” he said as he clapped Bradley on the shoulder and passed by him.

Natasha saw the look on Bradley’s face, the tightness in his jaw and shoulders. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t do whatever it is you’re thinking about doing. Don’t take the bait.” She paused. “You know how he is.”

Bradley scoffed. “Yeah, I do.”

When Jake got up to the bar, Penny was already there waiting. “How many this time, Hangman?” Penny asked, leaning against her side of the bar.

He flashed her the same charming grin that he always did. The same one that she never bought into but still accepted without comment. “Another seven, if you don’t mind.”

She nodded as she grabbed the bottle opener and started plucking bottles to open for everyone, “You playing nice over there?”

He chuckled, holding his hands out like he couldn’t believe that she would suspect otherwise of him. “I’m always playing nice.”

“Mmm,” she hummed, smiling but letting him know that she wasn’t buying what he was trying to sell. “If you say so.” She set the bottles down on the bar-top. “Let’s keep it that way, alright?”

He nodded, flashing her a wink as he gathered the bottles in his hands. “Yes ma’am.”

Hangman made his way back to where the billiard table was. Bob was just starting to rack up for the next game when Jake started to pass out everyone’s beers. Bradley was second to last in the unofficial line. Jake held the bottle out to him.

“Little liquid courage before you lose another game to Bobby over here,” he said, nodding back over his shoulder at the man in question.

Bradley shook his head as he tucked his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. “I’m good. I gotta go, actually.”

Confusion went over Jake’s face, but before he could say anything Natasha beat him to the punch. “Really? That much of a sore loser?” she joked.

“No, no,” he shook his head with a laugh, “not this time.”

When Natasha saw the small grin starting to pull at the ends of Bradley’s mouth, she knew exactly why he was ditching the rest of them. “Oh,” she said with fake exaggeration, “I see. Ditching the rest of us for date night. Got it.”

Bradley was laughing and for a split second he forgot about the fact that Hangman was still standing right beside him. “Don’t—”

“Tell Rome we all said hello,” she remarked with a slick grin.

“Yeah,” Bradley carefully maneuvered himself so that there was a little more space between him and Jake while also putting himself slightly closer to the door, “because I know he’s dying to hear from you.” He turned and looked at Jake. “Keep the beer—guess I’ll just owe you one.”

Jake fought to keep his expression from faltering but he managed it. “Guess you will.” He paused, and everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Much to everyone’s, including Jake’s, surprise, he wrapped it up with a sarcastic but simple, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Bradley scoffed quietly. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.”

The tension in the air was thick enough to suffocate all of them as Rooster finally started to make his departure for real. It was going to be a make or break moment for the rest of them that were staying. If no one said anything, there was going to be a long stretch of silence until someone tried to awkwardly break through it. So Fanboy took it upon himself to stop it before it go that bad.

“Better be home before midnight, Rooster!” He motioned to Natasha, more for everyone else’s benefit than Rooster’s, “Or we’ll sic Mom on you!”

Everyone was laughing, and Bradley was shaking his head as he continued his way out. They couldn’t see the look on his face, but they all knew each other well enough by that point to know what he looked like anyway.

Once Rooster was out the door and they were all settling back down into what they had been doing before, Hangman found himself standing beside Natasha. She had an idea of where all of this was about to go, and she was desperately wishing that she had tagged in to play the game with Bob before Fanboy stole the opportunity.

“Rome?” he finally asked as the two of them watched Bob break for the start of the game.

Natasha shook her head, not even bothering to look Hangman in the eyes. “I’m not talking to you about this.”

“You announced it to the class,” he said as he shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant as he took a sip from the beer bottle in his hand. “I’m just following up.”

She wanted to make a comment about the fact that the rest of the class didn’t have any extra vested interest in Bradley’s love life, but she stopped herself from being that intentionally mean. “Follow up with Rooster. I’m sure he has more to say about it than I do.”

“How long—”

“Hangman. Stop.” They were both expecting her to sound angrier than she did. More than anything it almost sounded like she felt bad for him. Which was shocking for Natasha, and annoying for Jake. “You knew this was going to have to happen eventually. If you wanna talk about it,” she started to shift away from him, putting space to end the conversation as politely as she could manage, “you have his number.”

Rooster found himself practically bouncing on the balls of his feet outside the door of Roman’s apartment. He had the bag with their takeout in one hand as he reached forward and knocked with the other. It felt different, not bad, not strange, just different, to be starting the night off in the position instead of ending it there.

The first couple times it was just Rooster dropping him off. A kiss in the doorway, lingering and stretching out the goodbye to be longer than it necessary so that he wouldn’t turn and go back to his car, back to his own apartment. After a few more dates Bradley would go inside. They’d both use the guise of “Just one more drink before you go” but they both knew that Bradley wasn’t going to be going anywhere once he stepped in and toed off his shoes. He’d wake up early in the morning, jostle Roman’s shoulder just enough to be able to say goodbye so it didn’t seem like he was just taking off.

But now he was here at the start of it all. He didn’t know why he had the jitters—it wasn’t like it was their first date, it wasn’t even his first time inside the apartment. But it felt good. Exciting in a way that was refreshing after everything else that had happened. He shook his head to dispel the thoughts before they could carry him too far away. This was a good thing. He was going to let it be a good thing.

He heard the chain, the flip of the deadbolt, and then the door was being pulled open from the inside. Roman stood there, leaning against the door he’d just opened with the same beaming smile he always greeted Bradley with.

“Hey,” Roman greeted him sounding like he was already out of breath, like he was still a little surprised by it all.

Bradley gave him an easy smile. “Hey.” He held up the bag of takeout, laughing as he said, “Your Doordash order has been delivered.”

“Wow,” Roman laughed as he opened the door a little wider and motioned for Bradley to come inside, “Don’t remember when the drivers got so hot.”

Bradley rolled his eyes, trying and failing not to laugh as he pushed the bag of takeout lightly into Roman’s chest. “Alright. Easy.” He was shaking his head as he toed off his shoes. “Also, definitely hoping that you’re not just letting anyone delivering food here come inside your apartment.”

“Not anyone,” he said as he passed by Bradley, bringing the food to the kitchen. “Just the cute ones.”

The evening was easy in a way that Bradley needed, a way that things had been consistently with the two of them. They sat at the small counter in Roman’s kitchen and ate their takeout while they each caught each other up on the day they’d been having. Bradley left a few key details out about what had transpired right before he showed up—there was no need to drag those skeletons out of the closet in that moment.

“You’d like Natasha, though,” he said with a nod as he reached over and stole a forkful of noodles from the takeout box in front of Roman.

All he could do was laugh and let him. “That’s Phoenix, right?”

He couldn’t hide the impressed look on his face. “Yeah.”

Roman gestured with his chopsticks as he spoke. “And she flies with Bob.” He chuckled. “Who is just Bob.”

“You got a corkboard with red string here that I should know about?” he asked jokingly.

Roman laughed and shook his head. “No. But, you know, you talk about them a lot—I try to remember.”

There was something so innocent about the admission that gave Bradley pause. He lightly tapped his fork against the flimsy cardboard that held his rice. Roman was already moving along to the next thing, unaware of the fact that the man sitting at the counter with him was trying his best to store that statement into his memory bank, the look on his face, the way he said it. It’d been a long time since someone had been so genuine, almost soft in a way—Bradley had sort of forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of that after so many months of highs and lows.

“Bradley?” Roman’s voice snapped him out of his trance.

“Hm?”

He chuckled. “I said next time we go out, you should invite them.”

Bradley laughed. “Natasha would lose her mind. She’s been about this close to tracking my phone and kicking down your door.”

The laugh that Roman let out made it seem like he was completely unfazed. “Should I get another lock, then?”

He shook his head. “Won’t matter.” He paused, finally getting himself to respond to what Roman’s initial suggestion had been. “But yeah, that’d be good—you meeting them, I mean.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have been letting himself get swept up in all of it. This was just supposed to be casual, fun. And while meeting Rooster’s friends didn’t inherently change that, it certainly could shift the trajectory just enough. It was too soon for something serious. Bradley knew that about himself at least. But Roman seemed so earnest, it seemed like more of a crime to not let it play out. Besides, in the back of Bradley’s mind he knew that the only way to really start moving on, was to let himself start moving on.

“My brother called today,” Roman said, forever just plugging right along to the next thing.

“Oh, yeah?” Bradley tucked back into his dinner now that it was his turn to listen instead of talk. “How’d that go?”

Bradley was more than content to sit there and listen to Roman ramble on about his brother. It was a nice change of pace, listening to someone talk about people and things that had nothing to do with the Navy, nothing to do with Top Gun. Roman talked about his work, about his brother and the girl that his brother was dating, who apparently neither of them liked very much. Bradley couldn’t help but to laugh at some of the things that he was saying, the way that he’d point and click his chopsticks together when he got really into a story. Roman was funny, his humor less harsh than the people Bradley spent most of his time around. Another nice change of pace.

Dinner was long since done and over with. Their silverware was discarded into Roman’s sink, the takeout containers all tossed into the garbage. Roman had made a joking comment about he was a fan of the whole, “No dishes,” thing even when they were staying in.

They were halfway through a movie, comfortably tangled up together on Roman’s couch. Bradley had one arm around his shoulders, Roman’s head resting against his chest, their legs layered up in a way that would probably take actual effort to unravel. Bradley’s other hand was tucked behind his head as he leaned comfortably back into the couch cushions. It was an easy night, a mid-budget movie, both he and Roman spending just as much time trying to figure out where they knew all the actors from as they spent actually paying attention to the plot of the film.

Another ten minutes went by and they gave up on focusing completely, Roman’s lips pressing against Bradley’s jaw putting the final nail in the coffin. Neither of them would have even known the movie wrapped up if it hadn’t been for the drastic change in volume as Netflix started playing the trailers of other movies that they could watch next. All they could manage to do was laugh quietly about it.

“I gotta head out,” Bradley mumbled, not sounding overly committed to it even though it was the truth.

Roman heard the lack of commitment in his voice and didn’t waste a second capitalizing on it. “Doesn’t really sound like you do.”

Bradley chuckled. “I know, I know. But I do. I told you,” he let Roman steal a kiss in an attempt to distract him since it had worked so well before, but he continued on anyway, “We got that training exercise tomorrow.”

“It’s not that far from here,” he tried to rationalize.

With the way that his fingers were creeping up underneath the fabric of Bradley’s shirt, he almost found himself giving into it. Shaking his head, Bradley forced himself to take a hold of Roman’s wrist before he got too carried away. “Soon,” he tried to compromise, albeit vaguely. He could see it on Roman’s face that he wasn’t convinced. “Next time,” he haggled.

It was enough, getting Roman to drop his feigned questioning expression as he smiled and nodded. “Yeah, alright. That’s fair.”

“Just, you know,” Bradley gave him a brief kiss before starting the work of untangling himself, “place another Doordash order.”

Roman laughed as he finally let him up from the couch. “That won’t take long then.”

It wasn’t until Bradley finally got home and flopped into bed at the end of the night that he checked his phone. Most of the notifications he just swiped away. Some he knew he would ignore for now and get to in the morning, others he knew he would still be ignoring in the morning as well. He was hardly paying attention to what any of them said until he saw the text from Hangman come in. Why Jake was texting him at nearly one in the morning, Bradley didn’t know. But he knew that it probably wasn’t anything good. Still, he opened it.

“Hope the date went well”

Bradley didn’t even realize he was letting out a sigh until he was out of breath to exhale. He stared at the phone as he propped it up against his chest. It was the first text either of them had sent in a long time. It’d been an even longer time since one of them had said something to the other that didn’t have to do with work. If Bradley knew that he wasn’t going to have to see Jake in a few hours, he would block his number like he did with every other ex and be done with him. But it wasn’t that simple with the two of them. It never had been, and apparently never would be.

He was tempted to reply. He could reply and be honest, rub salt in the wound and say how great the date had gone. He wondered if Jake would have anything to say to that. Maybe he’d come back with something cutting and sarcastic. Maybe something sincere enough to try and get Bradley to feel bad. The thought also crossed his mind to reply with something cruel. They were past that for the most part but if someone had asked Bradley on any given day, he’d say that he still deserved a few more good jabs as emotional compensation about it all.

He could have said any number of things and he would’ve been well within his rights on all of them. Instead, though, he said nothing. He reread the message a few more times, scrolled back and reread some of their older texts because apparently he was still a glutton for emotional punishment, and then he locked his phone screen for the night. As he forced his eyes to shut, he couldn’t help but to wonder why Hangman texted him, or why he waited so long to text him. Was he thinking about it ever since Bradley left The Hard Deck? If he was trying to ruin the date he could’ve called in the middle of it, thrown a wrench into the plan. But he didn’t. Instead he just sent a short text in the middle of the night, leaving Bradley to spin out about it until he fell asleep. Which, he thought to himself as he was finally about to pass out, might’ve been Jake’s goal all along.

When he woke to the sound of his absurdly early alarm that morning, all he could do was groan and blindly reach around for his phone to try and turn it off. He held it in his hand, draping his arm over his face to cover his eyes, like that would block out the light coming in from the cracks in his blinds, block out all of his responsibilities for the day that he was already thinking about. He was still laying in the exact same position when his second alarm went off and earned yet another groan from him. But this time he at least got out of bed.

Bradley was in the middle of putting his things into his locker when he heard someone else walk into the room. He kept a look out in his peripheral. From the lack of a greeting alone he had a fairly good idea of who it was. He was fully planning on not saying anything to him about any of it—it wasn’t anyone else’s business anyway. But when he swung the door of his locker shut, Hangman was posted up right on the other side.

The smirk that Jake had on his face had Bradley wondering if he even remembered sending the text. Then again, shame hadn’t ever really been in Hangman’s repertoire. “Bradshaw,” he said and nodded in greeting.

He didn’t even want to entertain the conversation. “Later, Hangman.”

Bradley was halfway out the door when Jake spoke up again. “Didn’t hear back from you last night—was starting to think you didn’t wanna cop to bad news.”

He stopped in his tracks, resting one hand on the doorframe. His head dropped, chin tucking towards his chest as he let out a sigh of defeat. He knew that he wasn’t going to get out of this without having to say something.

Forcing himself to turn back around and face Jake, he said, “Not bad news. Just not news I want to talk to you about.” He shook his head. “Don’t know why you’d want to hear it anyway. Why you’d even care.”

“Just wondering who was dragging you out of the little slump you found yourself in for a few weeks there.”

“Slump?” he repeated the word back, anger already shining through his tone.

“Something else you want me to call it?”

Bradley shook his head, trying to figure out where he even wanted to try and start with everything that had happened within the last twelve hours with the two of them. He was originally just upset about the text. But within the span of twenty seconds Jake had given him a whole slew of new things to also be angry about. He didn’t have it in him to get into what the immediate fallout of their relationship had been like for him.

“You,” he shook his head, “you don’t get to text me about my dates. You don’t get to tell me that you hope it went well, you don’t get to ask me how it went. All of that stuff? Officially none of your fucking business.”

Jake’s eyebrows shot up, surprised that Bradley was so quick to anger even though it shouldn’t have been surprising at all. “Whoa, whoa,” he held his hands up in fake surrender, “I was just—”

“I don’t get why you care at all about how I’m doing. Or why you care about who I’m going on dates with or not. That’s not your business, not your problem anymore. You,” he scoffed, “made real sure of that.”

For a split second Jake’s façade faltered. He recovered quickly, and he couldn’t tell if Bradley didn’t pounce on the opportunity because he simply didn’t notice, or if it was because he really was just that desperate to be done with and out of the conversation. Either way, it took Jake longer than he wanted to admit to come up with something to say in response to that.

That hesitation was something that Bradley didn’t have any issue preying on. He continued on. “If I remember right, Jake, half the reason you ended things was because you didn’t want to care that much about dating me. You wanted to care so little, actually, that you didn’t even want to bother doing it at all anymore. So you left.”

“That’s not—”

“You walked out. Don’t get mad at me because the door got locked behind you.” There was a pause, both waiting for the other to speak. Finally Bradley did. “Don’t text me.”

It was the first time that Jake had looked anything close to defeated. He wanted to have a pithy remark, something to grant him the upper hand at the end of it all, but he came up dry. Instead he just nodded and let Bradley finally walk out of the room to go and join everyone else.

It was impossible to miss the anger that was written all over Rooster’s face. No one wanted to ask him about it, though—no one was feeling quite brave enough for that. All of the things they had to do were typically stressful enough without anything else adding to it, and yet someone was always finding a way to make it even more stressful. That someone was usually Hangman, and everyone could tell by the look on Rooster’s face that that was probably the case this time around too.

By the time that Hangman walked back into the mock classroom area where everyone else was sitting, he looked as unbothered as he ever had. The cocky smirk was right back on his face, which served multiple purposes but most importantly it made Bradley seem like he was being the dramatic one. It always seemed to end up going that way.

“Was it something I said?” he asked the room with a chuckle as he took his seat on the opposite half of the classroom from Rooster.

Once the day got underway, everyone’s personal feelings about each other fell to the wayside for the most part. They were all being pressed too hard about things that had much higher stakes than exes and dates gone wrong. It served its purpose for getting everyone to tolerate each other for the day. But then, when the lessons were done and the exercises all wrapped up, all the same old tensions came back. To make matters worse, the same tensions came back and now on top of that everyone was exhausted and frustrated about training on top of being frustrated about everything else that was going on.

And, all things being equal, it wasn’t really everyone this time around. It was just Rooster and Hangman. It almost always was.

“What happened?” Natasha asked when it was just the two of them walking inside from the tarmac, bringing up the back of the pack.

Bradley shrugged and shook his head, the expression on his face showing that he was trying to be unbothered about it all but the tension in his jaw was working against him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t do that,” she said, fighting the urge to cuff him on the back of the head. “What the hell happened last night? You were practically skipping out of The Hard Deck.”

He scoffed. The image she painted was an amusing one but it wasn’t enough to undo his frustration. “Hangman say anything to you after I left?”

“Hangman is always saying things to me. Haven’t figured out how to get him to stop.”

“Trace.”

“He asked about Roman.”

Rooster shook his head. “Of course he did.” He paused, looking over at her as they walked. “What’d you say?”

She stopped a few steps from the doorway, not wanting to bring this conversation inside the echo chamber that all the buildings on base seemed to be. “I didn’t say anything. Told him that if he had questions, he should be asking you instead of me.” She waited for him to tell her what happened, and when he didn’t, she pressed him one more time. “Bradshaw, what did he say to you?”

He nodded towards the building. “Texted me at like one in the morning saying that he hoped the date went well.”

Natasha shook her head, knowing that even though it sounded perfectly harmless, it was the exact kind of thing Hangman would do to get inside Rooster’s head. “Bagman.”

“And then this morning—" Bradley started, but the more he thought about it, the more he didn’t want to replay the entire thing. Sighing, he asked, “What the fuck am I supposed to be doing about that?”

“Same thing the rest of us do when he’s being a dick—ignore him.”

“Yeah, but—”

“He does it because he knows that it gets to you. Don’t…don’t let it get to you.” She started walking towards the building again. “Did the date go well, though?” she shifted gears, a small smile starting to appear on her face as she attempted to lighten the mood.

It worked. Bradley fell back into stride with her again as they reached the door. He pulled it open for her as he responded, “It did, yeah.”

“When do I get to—”

“He asked the same thing,” he cut her off, chuckling because he already knew where the question was going.

“He did, huh? Wants to meet your friends?”

Bradley rolled his eyes despite the warmth rising in his face. “Don’t say it like that. Besides, I think he just wants to put faces to all the weird texts he’s seen pop up in the group chat.”

Natasha laughed. “Guess that means he’s gotta meet Fanboy too.” They shared a laugh about it as they got closer to the hall where their glorified locker rooms were. “When this starts to settle,” she said as they both paused in between the doors, “it’d be nice. We can go, you know, somewhere that’s not The Hard Deck.”

Bradley couldn’t help but to laugh as he shook his head at her. The suggestion was as genuine as it was sarcastic. “Probably smart, yeah.”

He was walking out to his car, toying with the keys in his hands. The last twenty-four hours playing on repeat in his head. He’d had a few precious weeks of status quo, and then suddenly all of this. He hoped that there wasn’t going to be anything that he had to do to get it all to quiet down again. Maybe Natasha was right, the way that she usually was, and all he had to do was ignore Hangman and he’d give up. Hangman wasn’t known for being a quitter, but Bradley also remembered the look on Jake’s face when they spoke in the morning. He hadn’t looked that hurt since the night they ended things and Bradley kicked him out of his apartment, and even then, Hangman had been the one causing most of the pain.

The shower Bradley had taken when he got back to his place was much longer than what was really necessary, but he felt a little better afterwards. It didn’t fix anything, but it didn’t hurt, either. He had his shorts on, was dragging the towel over his head to wick some of the water off his hair when he grabbed his phone off the charger on his nightstand.

He saw that he had one missed call from Jake. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that calling him back would be a bad idea, but his impulsiveness won out before he could try to rationalize himself out of it.

It rang twice before he picked up. “Was starting to think you blocked my number.”

“I might if you don’t stop—”

“Don’t lie to me like that, Bradshaw,” he replied, smug as ever. “You’re not good at it.”

He sighed, sitting down on the edge of the mattress. “What do you want?”

“About earlier—”

“Don’t lie and say you’re sorry,” Bradley tried to save them both the breath of that argument. “We both know you’re not.”

“Wasn’t gonna apologize,” he replied honestly.

“Then, what?”

There was a beat of a pause. “You like him?”

Bradley let out a sigh that turned into an exasperated laugh. “You called to ask me if—”

“Yeah, I did.” It was the most earnest he’d sounded in a long time.

He carefully considered his answer. “I do, yeah.”

It was a small-scale blessing for both of them that they couldn’t see each other’s faces. Jake couldn’t hide the way Bradley’s admission gave him pause, and he didn’t think that he would’ve been able to play it off even if they’d actually been face to face.

“Okay,” he finally said.

Bradley dropped his face into the hand that wasn’t holding onto his phone. “Were you thinking I was going to say no? That this was all just some big show I’m putting on for you?”

Jake chuckled but even he couldn’t hide the sadness in the sound. “Wouldn’t put it past you.”

“This wasn’t what I wanted, you know,” Bradley said. His voice grew heavier the more he spoke. “I didn’t want it to be like this. You did. You left. I don’t,” he huffed, “I don’t even think you really miss me.”

“Hey—”

“I think you’re just upset I’m not sitting around for you while you get your shit together. You expected me to just wait.”

“You always do.”

“Not always.” There was a long pause before Bradley spoke up again. “You lost this one. You always leave everyone behind.”

“I know,” he admitted, as much to his own surprise as it was to Bradley’s.

Bradley wanted to end the call. He wanted to hang up, block Jake’s number, and then put his phone through the garbage disposal regardless of how ridiculous of a notion it was. He shouldn’t have called back. He shouldn’t be listening to anything that Hangman had to say. He definitely shouldn’t have been letting the apparent sincerity in Jake’s voice put a knot in his stomach and a lump in his throat. But there he was anyway, doing all of those things.

He cleared his throat hoping that it would make him sound more in-control of his emotions than he really was. “Why’d you even bother, then?” Bradley finally asked.

“With what?”

He scoffed, pinching the bridge of his nose. This felt like it was a conversation that they should’ve had months ago. Neither of them were all that great with time management. “Any of it. If you didn’t want to—” he cut himself off, trying to find the right way to say what he wanted to say, “If that wasn’t what you wanted I don’t get why you even bothered with me.” He heard Jake take a breath as he got ready to answer so he said one more thing before he lost the chance, “And I don’t get why you’re bothering with calling me now if nothing’s changed.”

“I didn’t want it to be like this either.” He could picture the indignant and hurt look on Bradley’s face even though there were miles and countless walls separating them in the moment. “I know this is on me but it doesn’t mean that I wanted it to go like that.”

Bradley had the gnawing feeling that he was just setting himself up for more heartache, but he still asked, “How did you want it to go?”

“I wanted to give you what you wanted!” Jake said, the most desperate and honest he’d ever sounded. He took a breath, getting control back over himself again. “But…I couldn’t.”

Bradley felt the tears stinging in his eyes and he tried to ignore them. He didn’t know what he wanted to say to that, what he should say to that. “Why are you digging all of this up, Jake?”

“This guy—”

“Roman,” Bradley cut him off.

“Roman.” Jake corrected himself. Clearing his throat, he continued, “Does he…does he give you what you want?”

Bradley didn’t even have to think about the answer. “He could.”

Jake paused, not expecting the answer to be so quick and easy. Maybe he waited too long. Maybe the second he let Bradley oust him from his apartment all that time ago he’d lost him for good. It crossed his mind that he should probably quit before he landed himself even farther behind than he already was. But then again, he also reasoned with himself, Bradley called him back. Bradley hadn’t hung up the phone, even as the silence between them stretched on far longer than what was comfortable for either of them.

“Do you want it from him?” Jake finally asked.

Bradley scoffed, trying to cover up the fact that he felt like he’d just been punched in the gut. “Jake.”

“I’m serious.”

The problem was that Bradley knew Jake was serious. This conversation would’ve been so much easier to get through, or to end abruptly, if he thought that Jake was still just trying to get a rise out of him like he had been before. They were both past that now. Honesty was so much harder—this was why they hadn’t had any real conversations in weeks.

“You made it clear,” Bradley chose each word carefully and it showed, “that I wasn’t going to get it from you. And just, just because you’re jealous now, just because you don’t want me to want someone else, doesn’t mean that you’d…” he trailed off, brain suddenly swinging on the pendulum between what had happened between them before, what might happen if they tried it all again.

“Didn’t answer my question.”

“He’s good,” Bradley said as he shut his eyes tight. “He’s, fuck, he’s nice. And it’s easy and we don’t always end up fucking arguing every time something—”

“But?” Jake cut him off, knowing that the discussion was hurtling towards that point anyway.

“But he’s not you!” he snapped before he could stop himself. He sucked in a short, unsteady breath. “And that’s,” he let out a sad laugh, “that’s why he’s so nice and why we don’t argue. It’s why…it’s why he isn’t trying to make me give him less.”

“I didn’t want less from you.”

“You didn’t want more.”

“That’s not the same,” Jake argued. “I’m not used to being the one who’s trying to keep up.”

“And I’m not used to you being the one who quits.”

It hung heavily on the phoneline between them. Neither of them said anything, but they didn’t make any move to hang up either. All the things that they’d said and yet they still felt like they were stuck in the same spot they had been. It felt like all of that should’ve changed something. Bradley wiped at the corners of his eyes, glad that he was the only one who knew about the tears.

“I’m sorry that—”

Bradley cut him off. “You don’t get to keep doing this to me. You don’t get to walk out on me and then try to claw your way back in because you’re jealous that I’m trying to move on. Putting me through this again. Especially if…”

“I know.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“Because...I wish it was different.”

“Well,” Bradley said, “it’s not. I don’t know if it ever could be.”

“Ever?”

He laughed but there wasn’t any humor in it. “Ball’s in your court on that one.”

It was Jake’s turn to laugh. The sound was a little less sad than Bradley’s. There was no good rebuttal. He could keep dragging the two of them around and around but it was still going to come back to the same conclusion. It was always going to be Hangman’s doing that they were in the scenario that they were, and it was always going to be on him to deal with however the cards fell because of that. He wished that he could tell Bradley that he was wrong, that he wasn’t jealous, that that wasn’t what sparked all of this. And maybe it wasn’t the only reason he was doing all of this, but it was definitely the final reason, the one that pushed him over the edge.

“Can I ask you something?” Jake asked.

Bradley chuckled, sounding a little more like his old self. “Would it matter if I said no?”

Jake gave a short hum of amusement before moving right into asking, “You think we could ever go a second round?”

He found himself letting slip a small smile at the casual way Jake phrased the question, like they hadn’t just dragged each other through the emotional wringer for the last stint of it all. “Doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m seeing—”

“If you weren’t.” He could spot the deflection coming from a mile away.

Bradley sighed. “Maybe. If things could be different, then yeah, maybe a second round wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.” A beat passed. “But things would have to be different.”

“Right.”

He waited to see if Jake had more to say than that. When he didn’t, Bradley finally said, “I’m going to bed.”

“And tomorrow?”

He fought the urge to sigh again—his lungs could only take so much. “Next training exercise.”

“Bradley—”

“Night, Hangman.”

He didn’t give Jake the chance to return the courtesy before hanging up the phone. Once he hung up, he stared down at the now-blank screen staring back at him. Pulling the towel off from around his shoulders, he tossed it aside and finally finished getting ready for bed.

When Bradley woke up the next morning, he expected to be exhausted, angry even, but he wasn’t. He felt a little rattled after his conversation with Jake the night before, but he wasn’t as spun-out as he thought he was going to be. As he got ready in the morning, he started to think to himself that perhaps he was dealing with everything better than he thought he was—not just their conversation, but everything else about the two of them as well. There wasn’t a knot in his gut the way there had been before. For a second, he thought that maybe even after all the heartbreak and the second-guessing there was the possibility that things were playing out how they were supposed to. There was the possibility that he was moving through things, or past them, in a way that he hadn’t been able to before.

Then, as he was walking out to his car, his phone buzzed with a text from Roman. That was all it took for the pit in his stomach to start growing again. Guilt started clawing at the back of his mind as he tried to think about what to say in response. It was a simple text—that wasn’t the issue. Up until now, Bradley had played coy about everything that had happened with Hangman. There hadn’t been much of a need to get into the details of the breakup, or who his ex was, not when it was just a casual thing. Now, though, they were slowly wandering out of casual territory. Not only that, but up until now it wasn’t as though he’d had any heart-to-hearts with Jake since he and Roman had started to see each other. It was easy to avoid talking about things when they were things that happened in the past. This was brutally, disgustingly present. He avoided it for now while he could, opting to slide his phone into his pocket and get into his car.

Despite the intensity of their conversation the night before, both Bradley and Jake were able to keep it civil, almost friendly throughout the day. It was the most normal that things had been in a long time. Everyone around noticed, caught between wanting to be thankful for a break from the antagonism and bickering, but also wanting to know what happened and how long this ceasefire was going to last.

“You did something stupid, didn’t you?” Natasha called after Bradley at the end of the day when he was walking to his car.

He stopped, head tilting back so he was looking up at the sky. He could dodge and avoid a lot of people, but never Natasha. She wouldn’t allow it. “What?” he asked, even though he’d heard her perfectly fine the first time.

“No, I know you did something stupid. I just don’t know the specifics.” She strode so that she was standing in front of him. “What stupid thing did you do?”

“I didn’t—”

“Tell me.”

He huffed, like a teenager on the brink of throwing a tantrum. “Hangman called.”

“And you definitely didn’t pick up, right?”

“I missed the call.” He saw the way that Natasha refused to let herself be relieved by that piece of information. “So I called him back.”

“Bradley.”

“Natasha,” he mocked. She didn’t say anything, just giving a wordless nod to prompt him to explain himself, so he tried. “Something told me to call him back.”

“Yeah, the under-developed part of your brain.”

He rolled his eyes and forged onward. “It wasn’t…bad.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Was it good?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Last time we talked, we decided that you needed to not speak to him anymore. How did it go from that to having late-night—”

“I miss him,” he said plainly.

She sighed, not completely unsympathetic to his plight. “I get it.” She pulled a face, remembering who it was that they were talking about. “Kind of, I guess.”

It got them both to laugh as Bradley said, “Shut up.”

“But it ended. Then it was hell for you and just about everyone else. And now you,” she gestured broadly at nothing, “you have Roman. And he wants to meet your friends. And twenty-four hours ago you wanted him to meet everyone. That’s good, Bradshaw. Why…just, why?”

“You think he could be different?” he asked.

She scoffed. “It clearly doesn’t matter to you what I think.”

He smiled. “Humor me.”

“People can change,” she finally said. “But it’s not usually that easy. Plus this is Hangman that we’re talking about. He is…exactly who he is.”

“You think he’s just dicking me around?”

“Not necessarily. He probably does miss you. Probably wants a second chance and wants to be better. Doesn’t mean he can pull it off.”

She wasn’t saying anything that he didn’t already know, hadn’t already thought about even long before his phone call the night before. It was different hearing it from someone other than himself—it sunk in a little more.

“Was hoping for something a little more positive,” he said, half-joking.

She shrugged. “Wanna hear something positive about Hangman? I’ll give you Machado’s number.” There was a beat before she asked, “What are you gonna do, Bradley?”

“I don’t know.”

She fought the urge to groan. As much as she didn’t want to say what she was about to, she couldn’t stand there and lie. “The fact that you’re even weighing the pros and cons of this…” She shook her head. “You gotta talk to Roman.”

“And tell him what?”

“That’s on you. But he likes you. And I know you like him. But if you’re really thinking about going back into all of that with Hangman…there is definitely a conversation that needs to be had there.”

“You think it’s a dumb idea?”

She offered a smile. “I think that something being a dumb idea hasn’t ever stopped you before.”

“Real nice way of saying yes.”

She laughed. “Look, you know who you’re dealing with here. If you think that it’s gonna be different, that it could actually work out and not drive you completely insane in the process, then okay. If it’ll make you happy, then okay. I would just think about it first. Don’t do this just because one conversation threw you off—even you aren’t that stupid.”

Bradley was smiling as he shook his head. “Right. Thanks.”

“Either way, though, you gotta talk to—”

“I know,” he said with a nod. “I will.”

Bradley said that he would, and he did. He sat with himself for another day, weighing over his options and the likeliness of different outcomes. He tried to be logical enough to weigh what he wanted to happen against what was most likely going to happen. He thought about Roman, and how fun and easy it all was. Then he thought about how new it all still was, too, comparatively. It was always fun and easy at the beginning, or at least it should be. And if he was at the point where things were still that new and enjoyable with Roman, but he was still finding himself contemplating if he could make things work with Jake, it felt like that was all the answer that he needed. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them, really, for Bradley to try and drag it all out for the sake of hoping the feelings would go away. It would’ve been a much easier conclusion to come to if Roman hadn’t been so kind, and funny, and accepting. It would have been so much easier to follow through on what Bradley had to do next if he hadn’t enjoyed the company so much.

When Bradley turned up to his apartment a couple days later to have the conversation and deliver the verdict, he didn’t know what he expected to happen. He wasn’t expecting a fight, a screaming match—that didn’t seem like Roman’s style. He was hoping that things were still new enough, and that they were both mature enough, that it would be a disappointing but not a spiteful conversation. And it wasn’t—Bradley was fairly certain that Roman didn’t have a single ounce of spite in his body.

“I’m really sorry,” Bradley said as he sat back at Roman’s counter once more, forcing himself to look him in the eye even though he just wanted to stare at the floor instead.

The smile on Roman’s face was weak, but there was a genuine air about it too. “It’s okay—I get it.”

Bradley wasn’t used to things going so well with situations like that. Roman being so understanding about it all ironically made him feel worse about the entire fallout of it. He knew it was too soon to say that he wanted to stay in touch, to even try to be friends if it could all play out like that, but he also didn’t want to get up and leave without at least trying to get that point across. It wasn’t something that was going to happen immediately, but it’d been nice if it could happen eventually.

“I’m sorry. And I know you probably don’t—I just—I really do like you and if at some point—”

“Thank you,” Roman put him out of his misery as gently as he could.

Bradley sucked in a breath and nodded. “Yeah. Right. O-okay.”

It took a little bit for the weight to drop off his shoulders after that conversation. But he knew it was the right thing, which was why he was able to keep moving on from it without beating himself up too much over it. As the days went by it crossed his mind once or twice to reach out, but he knew that it wasn’t his place to do that, and that was okay. Maybe it would happen and maybe it wouldn’t. As it stood, he had plenty of other things to keep himself busy and occupied with.

He told Hangman what had happened a few days after the fact, once he’d had some time to sit with everything on his own. There was a moment when he wondered if he was going to say something about it directly, or if he was just going to let it come about naturally in conversation at some point. He knew that whenever, however, it came up, Jake was going to have some follow-up questions about it—that was what made him hesitate on breaking the news. Bradley didn’t know if he wanted to get into the reasons behind it all, if he was ready to open that door again.

But he ended up telling him. Of course he ended up telling him. In the back of Bradley’s mind, whatever Jake’s knee-jerk reaction to the news was, was going to give him an idea of where he was really at. It was easy to say and promise all sorts of things over the phone late at night when he was under no obligation to actually follow through on any of it. But now Jake was going to have to put his money where his mouth is, and Bradley was hoping that it would all work out, that Jake wouldn’t instantly fire back with something crass or sarcastic.

“Why’d that happen?” was all Jake said, face pensive, when Bradley told him that he decided to break things off with Roman.

The surprise on Bradley’s face was momentary before his expression grew serious again. He leaned against the closed door of his locker, also wondering for a split second why so many of their conversations had to happen there. “Because I think that, maybe, things could be different.”

Now it was Jake’s turn to look surprised. He even looked hopeful, which was a new look for someone who was so known for just looking cocky. “Yeah?”

Bradley nodded. “Yeah.”

It wasn’t just as simple as that, and neither of them thought that it would be. They took things slow, much slower than they had the first time around. Bradley thought that Hangman was just going to try and dive right back into things and hope for the best, but he didn’t. They were both still a little gun-shy about the entire thing, and rightfully so.

It was a lot of talking, having conversations that probably would have saved them the first time through if Jake had been ready to have them then. But he hadn’t. Then again, he was ready to have them now, or he was at least trying to be ready. It wasn’t all perfect, because it was still the two of them after all, but there was more effort being put in than there had been, and realistically that was all Bradley had been wanting the entire time.

Even with all of the late-night phone calls, the drop-in visits as they tried to navigate and rebuild a foundation that had been so shaken before, they still kept a small shred of distance. For once neither one of them had been brave enough, cocky enough, to try and cross that final threshold. There were opportunities, too, like when they were standing in the doorway of Bradley’s apartment and Jake was saying goodbye, or when they were the last two of their group still lingering at The Hard Deck even though they’d stopped drinking a while before.

They both knew they’d let it be a substitute, a band-aid, before, and they didn’t want to let it happen again. Once or twice Jake had been so tempted to make a snarky remark when he would see Bradley’s eyes drift to his lips, but he always stopped himself. It wasn’t like he had to say anything anyway for Bradley to know—he could tell by the cocky little smirk on Hangman’s face after the fact that he’d been caught. He didn’t say anything about that either.

Everyone was getting ready to leave The Hard Deck. It wasn’t exceptionally late, but they all knew that they were in for an early morning so they decided to quit while they were ahead. They all started saying their various goodbye’s and see you tomorrow’s as they split off in the parking lot. Natasha went to say goodbye to Rooster, noticing immediately that if she was going to do that, she was going to have to say goodbye to Hangman too considering how close they were standing to each other while they were talking by Rooster’s car. Part of her wanted to shake her head and roll her eyes at the sheer ridiculousness of the two of them, but even she couldn’t deny how different things had seemed between them, how much better. They seemed happier, even in the moments when they bickered during training. There was no real malice the way that there used to be.

“Bradshaw,” she said with a smile and a nod before turning to Jake and letting her expression get a little more serious, “Bagman.” They all chuckled for a moment before she stepped in and gave Bradley a brief hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See ya,” Bradley replied with a nod.

Jake let her get a few steps away before calling after her, “Sweet dreams, Phoenix!” He and Bradley both fell back into laughter when she responded to that with a middle finger as she continued walking away.

When the two of them quieted back down again, Jake turned and looked at Bradley, who was so casually leaning back against his car and toying with his keys. “You still gotta be home before midnight, Bradshaw?”

He laughed as he shrugged. “Only if you don’t want Phoenix hunting you down.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Right.”

There was a pause, both of them trying and failing to ignore the tension that had been thickening between them. It was a wonder either of them could breathe at this point. Clearing his throat, Bradley tried to sound as normal as possible as he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I’ll be there.”

Bradley nodded. “Goodnight.”

“Night.” Jake watched as Bradley went to unlock the front door of his car. After a quick second of contemplation, he decided, fuck it, now was as good of a time as any. Reaching forward, he rested his hand on Bradley’s shoulder. “Hey.”

Bradley turned around, eyebrows raised like he was waiting for Hangman to ask him a question. What he was met with instead, however, was the feeling of Jake’s lips crashing into his. The shock of it all only lasted a moment before Bradley was giving right into him, keys clattering to the ground as he opted to grab onto Jake instead. He had one hand still on Bradley’s shoulder, the other cupping the side of his face.

It felt new and familiar all at once. Bradley was fairly certain that if Jake’s body wasn’t pinning him so effectively to the car, that he would’ve melted into a puddle in the middle of the parking lot. He wouldn’t have been upset about that either.

When they finally pulled apart, each of them catching their breath, Jake let his forehead drop to rest against Bradley’s. They each had a grin on their face, chests rising and falling from not just the kiss but the excitement, the relief of it all that there were some things that were still the same as they ever were and that it was a good thing.

“Now I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jake said with a smile, quieter than he usually was.

Bradley chuckled, wanting to part ways for the night even less now than he had before. “You could come over still.”

Jake chuckled and stepped away, stealing another quick kiss as he went. “I gotta be home before midnight too.”

“Liar,” Bradley said with a laugh.

“Yeah,” Jake agreed, grin growing wider by the second. “It’s just good to leave you wanting more.”

[echoingbirdsofprey]

Take Me Back To Eden

14 - My Hands Are Not Worthy

Pairing: ii x OFC Violetta Kastor

Rating: EXPLICIT (MDNI!)

Warnings: smut, smut, smut, SMUT, and some flirting

A/N: This one's a rollercoaster lol

Vi: Okay I have to tell you something 

Leilani: yes ma'am 

Vi: Blue

Leilani: 👀 

Leilani: good or bad?

Vi: it is good but I feel like I'm going at the speed of sound here 

Leilani: spill

Vi: im on birth control

Leilani: are you pregnant???

Vi: no no no

Leilani: okay so...?

Vi: I did let him finish...inside me

Leilani: feels weird doesn't it?

Leilani: when I said spill

Vi: 🤣

Vi: I've never let a guy do that, and I've let him do it...a lot

Leilani: you're in love, that's sweet, I can't wait to meet him

Vi: I want you to

Leilani: was that it?

Vi: so no thats not all...we were having sex last night and he's been going through some shit and we had a really fucking crazy intimate moment and he asked if I'd marry him but it wasn't like an actual proposal 

Leilani: Vi!!!! 🤯 he really loves you then, huh

Vi: well and he was gonna ask something else and I cut him off and I basically said I'd have his babies 😬

Leilani: GORL

Vi: and then I let him come inside me

Leilani: GUUURRLLL YOU TRYINA GET PREGNANT 

Vi: im not I swear! It all feels like some weird ass fever dream

Leilani: you sure you didn't dream it?

Vi: the cum stained sheets beg to differ 

Leilani: ya nasty 

Vi; I've never been so down bad for a guy like I am with Cal

Leilani: HIS NAME IS CAL, WHATS HIS LAST NAME

Vi: fuck!

Leilani: just fucking send me a picture give me something damn it

Vi: ugh fine but please keep it quiet! They all want their privacy 

Vi: *multimedia message sent*

It was one of the pictures that Jesse had taken of them, except you could see Cal's face fully, a huge smile on his face, and Violetta's eyes locked on his. They both had smiles that went all the way to their eyes. His arms were around her waist and hers around his neck.

Leilani: oooh Vi

Leilani: Oh Violetta...I see why you called him Blue, those eyes. He's got fuck me eyes

Leilani: Violetta.

Vi; what

Leilani: Violettaaaa 

Vi; whaaat!!

Leilani: please have his babies holy shit you two are so fucking cute together. I want to be an aunty or whatever the fuck I'd be

Vi: stop 😳

Leilani: gorl I cannot unsee he's a cutie

Vi: thanks

Leilani: from everything you've told me he seems like a great guy, what's your hang up?

Vi: we really just met

Leilani: you've been on this tour for like 3 months...give or take

Vi: still

Leilani; just cause he's got some baggage doesn't mean you cant work it out...everyone has shit...also don't pull the we just met shit...you've been fuckin him since the start, you guys obviously have some kinda super strong chemistry going on, just roll with it, trust yourself, trust him maybe

Vi: eh fuck you you're right

Leilani: I know I know I'm a plethora of wisdom

Vi: 🙏 

¤ ¤ ¤

Backstage, Violetta hunted for Jesse first. Cal had gone earlier in the morning with Roman and let Violetta sleep in a bit. She knew he was in good hands with Roman so she wasn't worried about Natasha finding him. Roman was taking him to a large music shop, wanting his opinion on a new keyboard as the one they'd been using was starting to die. She was sure while they were there, Cal would be looking at some drum equipment as well. She was excited to see what he brought back.

She was still reeling from last night's conversation though. She wanted to ask Jesse his opinion but when she found him he was talking with Jack. They both smiled and were very excited to see her.

“Violetta!” They both said together and it made her blush and smile. Jesse scooted over to her, putting his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his body. He was warm and a little sweaty. The venue was an outdoor one and it was hot as hell again.  

“Whatcha up to, Princess?” Jesse asked, causing Jack to shoot him a suspicious glance at the use of the pet name. Jesse smirked and Violetta rolled her eyes. She did like the name but it was a little embarrassing when he used it in public, especially around Jack. Violetta felt a little bad. She wanted to spend time with Jack as he'd been so welcoming at the start of this but she felt like she wasn't even giving him the time of day lately.

“You're stinky, Jesse.” She said, laughing at him and glancing at Jack. He smiled at her and continued setting up their computers.

“This is the smell of a young, virile, man.” Jesse said, jokingly, and Violetta smirked as she shook her head. She slipped out of Jesse’ grasp and snuck behind the soundboard to stand next to Jack. She'd almost forgotten how tall he was. She bumped him gently with her hip. 

‘Hi.” She said softly and he smiled and he said the same back. He glanced at her with a small smile and then spoke. “Hey could you do me a solid? Wanna clean and check the guy's In-Ears?”

“Yeah sure.” She said, leaning down to grab them all out of one of the drawers. There was a cleaning kit right next to them in the drawer. She placed everything next to Jack's workspace. He pulled up the program on one computer that checked the sound quality of the IEM’s for her and she set to work. Jesse continued to mill about, playing around with one of his guitars. 

“When you're done with those, you mind cleaning the 8-string too? I got so much paint on it last night.” Jesse asked and Violetta said, “of course.”

She waited a few moments until Jesse was out of earshot and then nudged Jack again. He glanced at her with a small smirk.

“Can I ask you your opinion on something? I don't want to ask Jesse cause it might upset him.” She asked and Jack's brows furrowed.

‘Is it about Cal?’ He asked with a little smile and she nodded. Jack spoke again, with a teasing tone to his voice. “Yeah, Baby Jesse is a little jealous.”

‘I figured.” She shifted uncomfortably, catching Jesse’s eyes and the upturn of his lips as he stared back at her. She felt like she was breaking his heart but she just wasn't in love with him like she was with Cal. “How seriously would Cal wanna marry someone? Has he ever talked to you about it?” 

“You're barking up the wrong tree. I think you should chat with him about that. I can tell you he said he was done with women after Natasha and then you came along. So what does that tell you?” He explained, then he added something else. “I just know when you're not with him, all he talks about is you. The only other thing he talks about like that is the drums. But that’s if he talks at all. You know how reserved he can be.”

That made Violetta blush heavily and then she smiled up at Jack and thanked him. No, her question wasn't answered but she could guess the outcome all the same with this new information. 

“Now what do I do about Jesse?” She asked and Jack shot her a glance that she couldn't quite gauge emotions from. 

“Cal needs to have a discussion with Jesse. He let Jesse catch feelings for you before saying anything.” Jack said softly, looking around for Jesse. He was on the complete opposite side of the stage, flitting around with his other guitar and annoying Alex.

“I did hang out with Jesse first though.” Violetta said as she finished with Roman and Steve’s monitors and moved on to Jesse and Cal's.

‘Well Jesse knows not to get attached. That boy is not capable of settling down and he knows it, despite whatever he's said to you. I love him but he'll say anything to keep a girl coming back if he likes her in his bed.” Jack explained. Violetta was quick to clean Jesse’s and move on to Cal's.

“How do I know Cal isn't doing the same? Hypothetically.” She asked, and Jack shook his head.

“Nah Cal is different. He never slept around on the past tours. He was trying to date a girl and she didn't like that he was gone as much as he was. I also think that Natasha got to her and made her break up with him because he went back to Nastasha right after they broke up. I don't know what fucking hold that bitch has over him but you might be the one to break it. At least I hope you will.” Jack said warmly, putting an arm around Violetta and hugging her. They had quite a few  more hours until the ritual, so while waiting for Cal to get back, Violetta decided to spend the time with Jack, helping him with the drums and audio and cleaning the guitars.

¤ ¤ ¤

"Will you stop squirming?" Violetta said, as she dipped the brush in the tub of black body paint. Jesse had his shirt off and sat across from her on a gear box. He kept moving, the brush tickling his skin. 

"You're tickling me. This isn't how I usually put it on." He said with a smirk. He caught her hand, stopping her. His eyes narrowed as his icy blue eyes meet her pretty emerald ones. He scooted closer to Violetta, crowding her space slightly as he reached for the paint.

"Well, then how do you put it on?" She asked, a grin forming on her lips. Jesse dipped two fingers in the tub and spread a line of black on his arm. He tilted his head toward the paint, his eyes motioning to it as well. Violetta shook her head and took a glob of it with her much smaller hand and slapped it on his arm, splattering it on herself and his chest as well.

"Fuck off." He said, laughing as she rubbed the paint up and down his arm, trying her best to get it on evenly. She smiled, averting her eyes. He took a dab from what had splashed on his chest and put it around his eyes.

"You look like a fucking raccoon, stop." She said, giggling as she took more paint and wiped it on his face with her fingers. She carefully outlined his eyes almost like he had a sleeping mask on.

"A cute raccoon though." He said softly as he leaned even closer. Her breath caught and she swallowed hard as her eyes met his, the icy blue burning through her. She gritted her teeth and glanced around, finding no one else in sight. He tipped her chin up and closed the distance, pressing his lips to her. She nearly melted as his other arm wrapped around her waist and a small moan escaped her lips as he pressed closer. His hand dipped under her belt and cupped her ass, making her jump. When he pulled away, it was just enough to speak. "Goddamn, Princess, I just wanna steal you from him. I know it would never happen. You love him too much. Besides, we'd never get anything done."

"Yeah, especially with me around." They heard a voice and footsteps and Jesse slid away from Violetta, his cheeks going bright red in embarrassment.

"I was just..." Jesse began and Cal placed a hand on his friend's shoulder.

" Leaving . You need to get dressed." Cal said, pressing a kiss to Jesse' cheek before pushing him gently off the gear box and sat himself in front of Violetta. She watched Jesse as he walked away, trying to finish applying his own paint. Violetta tilted her head and smirked as Cal removed his plain white t-shirt and sat close enough for Violetta to only have to reach up and barely outstretch her arm to touch his bare chest. Her emerald eyes floated back to the drummer's ocean blue ones and she blushed as she gazed down at his body, taking in the tattoos all over him in better light than she normally saw them in. 

"He was kidding." She said as she took some paint on her hand and spread it with her fingers over his inked arms. She took special care as she traveled up his arms, cupping his biceps with her hands, feeling him flex into her hands. He blinked slowly and a smile began to form on his lips. 

"I'm not jealous, Vi. I'm a big boy. I can handle a little competition." He said and tilted his head as he watched her work, slowly and methodically covering his pale skin with the black paint. 

" Competition ." She scoffed and she took some of the paint to apply it to Cal's face but when she reached her hand up he caught her wrist gently and leaned closer.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked, the tip of his nose touching hers. 

"Jesse is...great...but he's not you. After last night...I don't know why you would think there would be any competition at all." She said and Cal immediately pressed his lips to hers. 

"Ah, that's what you mean." He said softly, and Violetta smirked and glanced back down at the tub of body paint as he spoke again. “Might be that I'm just a jealous fuck and I want you all to myself.”

“Is that so?” She smiled and took some more paint in her hand and began rubbing it over his chest. He hummed from her hands trailing over his chest, letting his head fall back as she worked. He brought a hand up to her cheek, running his knuckles carefully across it and posing a question. "You gonna do my whole chest and back tonight?"

"You gonna leave your shirt off for me?" She asked, tilting her head. He nodded and her smile widened significantly, as her lashes fluttered and she dragged her fingers across his chest, smearing more paint on. Her fingers were slow but firm, as if she was massaging the paint into his skin rather than just over the top.

"That what you want, sweetheart?" He asked and she smirked again. She nodded her head and continued to smear paint all over his upper body. As he turned to offer his back, he asked, “Do you like that you know what's underneath the paint and they don't?”

“You mean, do I like being privy to not only the tattoos, but all of the other things too?” She asked as he pulled her closer, his lips brushing hers softly.

‘Yes, Vi...that's exactly what I mean.” He closed the distance, warmth radiating from him. She reached for his chest, almost forgetting about the paint smeared all over him. He let a small smirk cross his lips.

He'd put a black shirt back on but when it came time to go on stage, Violetta was adjusting wireless units and IEMs, when she got to Cal, he'd not put his jacket on yet. He pulled Violetta in for a kiss, mask on, and then pulled his shirt over his head just as they were walking on stage. He handed the shirt to her, kissing her one more time, as she handed him back his drumsticks. Violetta's cheeks went bright red and stayed that way for most of the ritual. She felt like everyone on the crew was either smirking or staring at her after that. Jack had even nudged her and hugged her once the guys were on stage.

¤ ¤ ¤

Afterwards, once Cal had washed off his paint and taken a shower so that he was squeaky clean, even though he was absolutely exhausted, he had begun to seduce Violetta, repeating lyrics back to her from one of the songs they'd performed.

“My hands are not worthy.” He said softly, fingertips caressing the tattooed ivy leaves that lined her ribs. She giggled and took his head in her hands as she pressed her lips to his in a gentle kiss.

“They are.” She said and he shook his head. He pulled her onto his lap, letting her settle, their most intimate parts touching. Her hands crept up his torso, to his chest, then up onto his shoulders.

“My hands are...” He whispered, leaning up to let his lips travel her jawline. “Not worthy.”

She closed her eyes, relaxing into his arms. One of his hands made their way up to her neck, fingers feather light over the drumstick scythes at her sternum, lifting it with one digit, feeling how warm the steel was from resting upon her skin. 

“My hands...” His fingers traveled to her collarbone, then gently up to fold around her throat, his thumb running under her chin. His other hand was still on her back, and he pulled her closer still, his lips brushing her earlobe. “ Are not worthy .”

Violetta smirked, tilting her head toward his mouth. She realized then what he was saying. He inhaled deeply, the scent of her skin like the spring, thinking of fresh cherry blossoms and a warm breeze. He opened his mouth, not to kiss but just to let his parted lips brush her skin, like he was painting, mixing his own scent with hers. She took a deep breath, a sigh filled with relief and excitement all at the same time. He carefully shifted his hips, silently signaling her to roll onto her back. 

My hands are not worthy.

He pulled her shirt up, revealing the red bra that he liked oh so much. She locked eyes with him, seeing lust filled blue looking up at her. He reached around, unclasping the bra with two fingers. He grabbed the front of it with his teeth, careful not to bite down too hard and pinch her. That was not his goal. 

His ultimate aspiration was her pleasure, never her pain. She shimmied out of the bra and he sat up with it still in his mouth. He smirked and her eyes darkened, her lips parting, her head tilting. As if she hadn't already been horny, it increased tenfold, as he chucked the bra to the side of the bed, with a shake of his head, and watched as his eyes widened at the sight of her exposed breasts. The nipples pebbled in the airconditioned night air of the room and he took them in his hands, giving a gentle squeeze.

“Oh...my hands are certainly not worthy...” He laughed and settled over the top of her. He leaned down, taking a nipple in his mouth, dragging his tongue over it, then rolling it in his fingertips before sucking gently on it. Violetta moaned, throwing her head back against the sheets, and her hands went for his hair, taking handfuls, then scratching his scalp with her nails. He let out a sigh, moving to her other breast. 

She was writhing underneath him and insatiable. She wanted so badly to grab him, wrestle him to the sheets and mount him. She figured that might be traumatic for him. She never went heavier than he asked for. And he would reward her some days by fucking her so hard she could barely walk the next day but those were few and far between. She didn't need those encounters as much as she needed and loved the ones like this one.

Cal pressed a kiss to her sternum, then moved down between the valley of her breasts. Her head fell back as he traveled further down her body, tracing every tattoo with his mouth. He nibbled gently at her stomach, pressing a kiss to the middle, then moved down more until he was at her pubic bone. He traced a line from just below her belly button to each hip bone. She heard him moan softly as he delved between her folds with his tongue. He lapped at her entrance, the sounds of her wetness sending her closer and closer to the edge of her pleasure. He reached around and cupped her ass cheeks with his hands, pulling her as close as he could to his mouth, nearly suffocating himself. He pulled away for air, then moaned as he dove back in, sucking her clit into his mouth. That sent Violetta plummeting through a hard orgasm, her walls squeezing nothing and feeling very empty.

It wasn't long though before he was pulling away, wiping his mouth on the sheets, then lining his cock up at her pussy. He leaned down to kiss her and ask her if she was ready to which she nodded so quickly. He pressed inside her, her wet warmth engulfing him, pulling a strained groan from him as he seated himself as deep as he could on the first go. He took a hold of her hips and spread her legs as far as he could. When he pulled back out, almost to the tip, he would thrust back in even slower than his first one. Then he began an odd rhythm, three slow thrusts, two quicker ones. Leave it to a drummer to use his hips in rhythm like a vibrator. He would pause when he was completely sheathed for a few seconds after each thrust, almost as if he was trying to feel her deepest parts. His cock twitched and he couldn't help the labored breaths and soft moans that left his lips.

Violetta felt exceptionally filled on this instance. He felt abnormally large and she didn't know if it was because he was extra hard, or so it seemed, and she'd just come so she was super tight to begin with, but either way, she was stuffed. He was lingering inside her, like he was trying to memorize every inch of her. 

“My hands are...not worthy.” He moaned softly, and it sounded almost like he was singing it, and she could feel him beginning to throb inside her. It had taken her until now to realize when he was fully sheathed, that the skin just above his cock rubbed nicely against her clit. So nicely in fact that she'd been so enthralled in him making love to her that she didn't realize she was about to come again. He grasped at her hips, his nails digging in, as he begged her for release. “ Come for me sweetheart. Say my name .”

She did, and she moaned his name so wonderfully, as her eyes met his, which made him come immediately after, and he painted her inner walls with his hot seed. He stilled, enjoying the feeling of her wringing every last drop from him. He kissed her softly as he carefully laid next to her, placing a leg over her to help keep his cock inserted. He just wanted to stay in her warmth forever. 

“Say my name again.” He whispered as he brushed his knuckles against her cheek, leaning in to press his lips to hers. 

“ Cal ...” She said, just by his ear and he nearly vibrated with happiness. “That was...fucking incredible.”

He wrapped his arms around her, reveling in the feeling of her skin sticking to his. He wasn't sure how anything could get better than this.