#navy seal!ari levinson x reader x navy seal!steve rogers x lawyer!andy barber

[imaginedreamwrite]

Come Hell Or Highwater: Part 4

Andy Barber, even as young as he was compared to other lawyers who were as seasoned as him, was at the top of his game.

He was a lawyer who built himself a reputation that exceeded others around him and had just as ruthlessly defended anyone that he could have helped. While his brothers had joined the military and became navy SEALs, the two driven by some force demanded they give back to the world by saving everyone that they could.

Their impressive military careers were commendable and had secured the two of them a position with the Navy SEALs, while Andy had chosen to attend university and get his law degree. Ultimately the three of them would end up working for the same goal to aid the Witness Protection Program as best as their skill sets would allow.

While Ari and Steve had aided the program with their skills learned in the military which had provided protection for the people integrated into the service, Andy had worked through the courts to ascertain protective orders and handle the proceedings that would hopefully allow whoever was in hiding to find some level of peace.

Some level of peace that would only be achieved once the men responsible, for beating the prominent businessman and politician to death in the darkened alley on that fateful night wherein your good nature won out, had been put through court and thrown into a tiny windowless cell.

Until then you were at risk of death, or an even worse fate if they had gotten their hands on you. And while Andy, Ari and Steve would do everything within their power to keep you safe and out of their hands, ultimately there was only so much they could do and if you hadn’t played the role given to you by the program, you could theoretically be the cause of your own downfall.

Although that chance was low, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities especially not for someone like you.

Naïve and good-natured to an almost fault, there were definite avenues that could be exposed, there were cracks that the other side of the coin would try and expose. If they had gained access to your heart that you wore on your sleeve, or if they had tapped into your willingness to help as many people around you as they could, they would have you exactly where they wanted you.

However they had to find you first, and finding you would grant them the most difficulty. Especially given the numerous trials they had left that directed the organization after you in countless directions. It was a ploy, an intricate plot to have your direct location hidden.

And the benefit of being in a place that was a secure and safe community for polyamorous couples and family units was its secrecy and tendency to stick to each other. A safe place that wasn’t well accessed by the general public, the town you were hiding in was like its own little separate world beyond the usual.

Andy had stolen himself out of his thoughts by the crisp crinkle of the receipt in his hand was almost as necessary as blowing on the cup of coffee in his hand before he had a taste.

With the weight of a case on his shoulders that was a vital step to making the defences’ argument entirely destitute, Andy could have declared himself rightfully stressed. With long hours being pulled at the office and lengthy scheduled meetings to build layer upon layer before heading to the courts, Andy was rightfully stretched thin.

However, as the cords were seemingly pulling him in every which direction, he had received confirmation from Ari, taking Andy’s name as a persona, that introductions had been made upon your arrival.

Steve, Grant, was to take a job at the local mill working on stripping lumber and smoothing it down.

Ari, Andy, was going to be taking shifts at a construction yard transporting materials to the surrounding area.

And Andy, Cole, was a travelling businessman that went in and out of town frequently, a role that would give Andy an excuse to be gone for weeks.

Arrived safe. Bunny fawn is safe — A

Andy read the message once, and then again. As he comprehended the encrypted text for the second time, he raised the cup to his lips and exhaled a soft breath to further cool his black brew. There were a number of files on his desk, a number of records that alluded to your reputation as being a good girl—an exemplary being of softness and empathy that helped anyone within your reach.

And that kindhearted was had struck you on the path of these men who wanted to strike you down to keep their crimes silenced and under wraps.

They would test your bravado; they would test you within all your boundaries of sanity in order to have you crack and crumble. There was nothing more they’d love than to have you cave and give them everything they wanted while they extended their cruel hand toward you to get what they wanted.

It was the true nature of their brutality that faced you if the brothers failed.

But you were a witness they couldn’t lose, and it was Andy, Ari & Steve’s jobs to make sure you made it to court. There was a chance to finally deepen the cracks in the system, the organization that tried to cripple an entire city with their cruelty and brutality.

There had never been an opportunity like this, to commit major players to the steel and iron walls of a highly secure federal prison, one that was untouched and unable to be infiltrated by every source they knew and had.

“Mr. Barber, there’s a call for you. Someone from New York.”

Andy waited for this.

He had sat further upright in his desk chair and set his cup down, a few beads of condensation darkening the coaster beneath the porcelain. He reached for the receiver and yanked it from its nestling hold, first hearing a beat of silence and then a crack thwack of a blade meeting something dense and sturdy.

“Barber.” The voice was concise and controlled, Andy’s name the only verbal catalyst to get the conversation rolling.

You could only see slivers of moonlight that were peeking through building clouds, the promise of rain later in the early morning hours had hung over the area. While the house was still bare-boned and empty, boxes scattered with hastily packed dishes and other kitchen items were all a ploy to make this whole story more believable.

It was all a faceted cover to keep you in a safe area while somewhere else on the east coast, an entire legion of cold-blooded killers and criminals wanted you strung out because you were too kind. It was a choice you made to do good and be good, to try and help other people who needed you, that caused your life to be held in the hands of three men and the WPP they worked for.

Ari, Andy and Steve didn’t know you from Eve, they didn’t know who you truly were off of paper and out of files and yet your life depended entirely on them. Your life, your short life that barely grazed the 22nd year, was in the balance and you were meant to play the part of a young wife. A woman who was in a polyamorous relationship and new to this whole idea of having multiple husbands while in a community that was incredibly tight-knit and close.

You were cursed by your inability to mind your own business and say no. You were going to be fucked over by your innate need to be a people pleaser and overextend yourself to errands that hadn’t belonged to you.

It was your kindness that drove you to stop and grab your roommate’s prescription, saving her from going out herself. It was your inability to turn away from someone who needed help that made you a target, a witness that could put some Butcher away in a federal prison.

Your kindness, your sense of urgency to be a Good Samaritan had caused your entire life to upheaved.

And now you were in a position where you were set to play a young married wife with two men who had seen hell while in the army, and a lawyer who was deep diving into your life to build a case to protect you.

Now, you were restless.

At the moment you were unable to sleep despite the weight of the day driving you to close your eyes and find slumber.

Every time you closed your eyes you saw them, the two men abandoned in the alleyway bleeding out.

Every time your eyes shuttered you could feel the warmth of blood on your hands, the stench of copper hanging in the air while you attempted to stop the bleeding. The two men whose life had been brutalized, with one losing his life entire, and the other almost dying before the ambulance came, had set you on this path.

The men, or man, responsible for this beating had been sure that they wouldn’t live until you stepped in and when word got out that the other tangent was alive the task had been finished in the hospital room.

You were the only witness left, the only one who could possibly testify against the hellish beast that sent the two men to hades. There was more riding on your testimony and your future witnessing in the courts of law than you even knew.

If you had made it to court, you had a sneaking suspicion that you would aid in the devastation in whatever hellhound had called for the extermination of those two men.

For now, until the day came when you were thrown into court, you were going to have to keep your mind clear.

Though it was a task that was easier said than done, restfulness had found you and you had managed to shift on the bed and face the window with your hands cupped under your cheek.

Through the clouds the silver streams of moonlight had acted as a siren song, one that came over you in a haze to usher your to sleep. Your eyes grew heavy and fluttered closed like the groggy clouds shifting in the night sky, and slumber had come to you quicker than before.

Time was fickle. Time had given you sleep that felt like minutes instead of hours while simultaneously slowing down to an infinite crawl once you had stepped foot into the kitchen in the morning.

The two guards who were you faux husbands were already awake and although only Ari had been dressed for his first shift at the construction yard. The pair of jeans had been faded and worn, still in well enough shape to be used until the end of their life however you could see scuffs against the hems of the legs and a few small holes in the thighs.

Underneath the flannel he wore there was a white loose shirt with a scuff along the neckline and a small tear that could have alluded to him working with tools and lumber, just as Steve was supposed to. He truly had looked the part of a blue-collar employee, a man who was used to lugging materials and lumber around from construction yards to their destination, added by his clothing choice and the sheer size of him.

The long drive from the city to this remote and rural settlement, this closed and secured community where you’d be hidden, hadn’t affected him anymore than a single raindrop against dry sizzling earth. If anything, you were the one who’s been affected the most of the three of you, with your body aching still from the long hours in the truck, and your eyes heavy from not white enough sleep.

“Did you sleep okay?” Ari’s question bared no answer.

At least not at first.

Not until you had gotten your bearings and settled your weight on your toes instead of your heel or the ball of your foot.

Truly you didn’t know what to say to Steve and Ari, how to communicate your fears and inability to sleep due to your stress and anxiety. How could you have easily quantified your feelings while being forced to trust them despite not knowing them?

How could you open yourself up to being honest with them while feeling as if you needed to guard yourself?

Your answer was soft, mumbled and came with you rubbing your hands on your fleece-lined joggers, wiping your sweaty palms on your thighs.

“Sure.” It was a weak answer, you knew it was. It wasn’t anything close to the truth but how truthful could you really get when your head was full of garbled chaos?

“I made coffee-” Steve had just slid the porcelain cup against the cupboard toward you when a knock on the front door had rung out in the house.

Your head whipped around to face the sound, the steady knocking sounding more like an alarm than anything, and you were not the only one to think so.

“Stay here,” Steve’s hand was steady on your shoulder, directing you toward Ari and his black and red flannel, “don’t move.”

Steve brushed past you and Ari, trekking from the kitchen through an arched doorway to the front entrance, his voice calling through the door with firmness that created an illusion of a man who was not a morning person.

“Hi! Sorry to bother you!” The neighbour from yesterday called through the door, eliminating the tension almost instantly, and yet Ari still kept you close. “I thought maybe your wife might want to go to the farmers market with Sam and I.”

You heard the twist of the lock before the door opened, the subtle shift of Ari’s body next to yours had stolen your attention off of Steve and your new neighbour if only for a moment. It was enough of a distraction to allow Steve to bring Lia & Sam into the house, and even further toward the kitchen.

“Hi! Hope we’re not interrupting,” as if Lia’s gift of food yesterday wasn’t enough, she had shown up with her husband and a new basket of locally crafted jams and cookies, “Sam and I wanted to invite you to the farmers market.”

“I’m off,” Ari had whispered lightly, stooping low to kiss the top of your head as an affectionate send off, “be good, sweetheart. Grant, you going?”

“Sam, right?” Steve had stepped aside to let Ari past, and then he moved toward you, hands resting on your hips. “Nice to meet you again, yesterday was a long day on the road.”

“That’s right.” he confirmed the name with a smile and then slipped an arm around his wife’s waist, “Are you headed out to work too?”

“I’m sticking around with Danah,” hearing your fake given name for the first time with over people had been the catalyst that drew your eyebrows together in a furrow, and cast your lips into a frown, “we should go to the farmers market, love.”

This was your life for the moment, this was who you had become. This is who you were meant to be in this moment without much of an argument allowed.

For your well-being and to save your life you had to wholeheartedly accept this role as if you were born the persona, you had been assigned.

“I’d like that.” Your reply came as you accepted the basket of gifts and set it on the countertop, and then glanced down at the clothes you’d slept in, rolling your shoulders and picking at the front of the sweater. “Let me change first.”

You escaped without hearing the next spoken word, leaving the room to take the stairs back to one of the guest rooms you’d occupied while using the excuse to change as a chance to catch your breath.

[imaginedreamwrite]

Come Hell Or Highwater — update sneak peek

A crisp crinkle of the receipt in his hand was almost as necessary as blowing on the cup of coffee in his hand before he had a taste. With the weight of a case on his shoulders that was a vital step to making the defences’ argument entirely destitute, Andy could have declared himself rightfully stressed. With long hours being pulled at the office and lengthy scheduled meetings to build layer upon layer before heading to the courts, Andy was rightfully stretched thin.

However as the cords were seemingly pulling him in every which direction, he had received confirmation from Ari, taking Andy’s name as a persona, that introductions had been made upon your arrival.

Steve, Grant, was to take a job at the local mill working on stripping lumber and smoothing it down.

Ari, Andy, was going to be taking shifts at a construction yard transporting materials to the surrounding area.

And Andy, Cole, was a travelling businessman that went in and out of town frequently, a role that would give Andy an excuse to be gone for weeks.

Arrived safe. Bunny fawn is safe — A

Andy read the message once, and then again. As he comprehended the encrypted text for the second time, he had raised the cup to his lips and exhaled a soft breath to further cool his black brew. There were a number of files on his desk, a number of records that alluded to your reputation as being a good girl—an exemplary being of softness and empathy that helped anyone within your reach.

And that kind hearted was had struck you on the path of these men who wanted to strike you down to keep their crimes silenced and under wraps.

They would test your bravado, they would test you within all your boundaries of sanity in order to have you crack and crumble.

But you were a witness they couldn’t lose, and it was Andy, Ari & Steve’s jobs to make sure you made it to court.

“Mr. Barber, there’s a call for you. Someone from New York.”

Andy sighed and set his cup down, a few beads of condensation darkening the coaster beneath the porcelain. And then he reached for the phone receiver and lifted it from the holder.