#please mute it because i WILL be miraculous posting
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hirachat · 4 days ago
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SEASON 6 IN 2 DAYSSS (technically 1 day bc of the gloob-disney beef) LETS GOOOOO
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novaalexanderwrites · 2 years ago
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Blood and Thorns - Chapter 16 (Part 2)
Chapter 16 (Part Two): — Rituals and Revenge (Read Chapter 1 (part one) here) - (See here for a complete list of chapters)
Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who's been reading along so far! If you're enjoying Blood and Thorns, please leave a comment, reblog or follow me here on my Writeblr! We're almost through our climax (one more part after this one which will be posted likely before next Friday!) and then on to wrapping up the ends! Just know that I appreciate every like and reblog I get here and I'd love everyone's feedback as always. 💖
“Razi, get down!” She hit the floor as two lengths of bright red and royal blue chain whizzed past her. With arms outstretched towards Sapphire, Frigga and Rosalind released the binding spells from their respective dominant hand, latching onto Sapphire’s arms and nullifying her ability to channel magic. The chain then began to coil around her, pulling her arms behind her and bringing her to her knees. Sapphire screamed with rage, attempting to throw off electric shocks, but eventually the chains enclosed and contained her in an ethereal prison that muted any sound she attempted to make.
Rosalind fell to the floor, catching their breath, and Frigga ran to Razi to hold her tightly. They held each other, Frigga sobbing into Razi’s shoulder, Razi lightly rubbing the woman’s back with her uninjured hand. Razi looked up to Rosalind who’s muscles were still spasming a bit, their whole body was shaking. Was their skin smoking? Their arms were covered in welts from the impact of electricity, and Razi couldn’t believe they were still conscious. Frigga’s head must have been splitting from hitting that wall, Razi’s sure was, and the witch was shaking from the electricity that she’d been struck with, but it didn’t matter. She was fine. Frigga was fine, she was right here and everything was going to be fine. Razi grounded herself, feeling her love in her arms, and pressed her cheek to Frigga’s own. “Frigga, we can still do it,” Rosalind weakly said from their place on the floor. Razi and Frigga looked at them and then to the clock. It was 7:15; there was still time and the circle was miraculously still intact, glowing softly purple. “I don’t think you’re up for it, Bloodswell,” Razi said skeptically. “You’re pretty banged up.” Frigga took a look at Rosalind and saw that not only were they bleeding from their arm and temple, but also their entire body was shaking. She joined Rosalind who was hunched over themself on their knees. She knelt in front of them, gaining their attention. “You’re hurt, Rosalind.” “If we don’t do it now, we’ve lost our opportunity,” Rosalind breathed, shuddering a bit. “And I’ve been through worse than this before, I can still do it.” Frigga frowned at the concerning statement and Razi wondered what the fuck they’d gone through if this wasn’t the worst of it. “Are you sure,” Frigga questioned, “because you’re shaking.” She channeled healing energy into her left palm and then placed it on Rosalind’s shoulder. It soothed some of the shakiness and Rosalind’s muscles started to relax a bit. But they pushed her hand away. “You’ve got to save your energy Frigga,” they protested. “It’s now or never, and you don’t have time to wait for another full moon.” From the conflicted look on Frigga’s face, Razi figured they were probably right. There was also no time to hesitate because the spell containing Sapphire would only last so long, especially because both of them were going to be incapacitated momentarily afterwards, if not permanently in Frigga’s case. The youngest witch cast a glance at the circle behind them and then nodded. “Alright, we’ll give it a try.” She stood, helped Rosalind back to their feet, and glanced at Razi. She was staring with incredulousness, as if the witches had started turning inside out. “You people are fucking crazy,” she muttered, lightly clutching the side that had been struck. She winced slightly, her hand opening and closing, before she hesitantly turned to Sapphire and said, “I’ll keep an eye on your aunt.” She took her spot beside Sapphire who was still magically bound and gagged, struggling to break free without any success.
Rosalind and Frigga returned to their places inside the glowing circle and started from the beginning, clearing the energy, building the protection circle, and then finally invoking the spirits they would need assistance from for the ritual. When that was done, Rosalind placed their crystal back down on the sigil in front of them. They cast a quick glance over their shoulder to make sure Sapphire was still solidly detained. Frigga did the same and was likewise satisfied. She then looked one last time down to Rosalind who nodded. Frigga turned back to the north, and repeated her ritual declaration: “I, Frigga Thorneheart, forsake my promise to Sapphire Thorneheart.” She raised the knife to her right forearm and placed it over where the contract’s mark was. She inhaled sharply and then pressed the knife into her skin, puncturing the seal. White light erupted in streams from the mark, wrapping around her like vines. Her arms, her torso, her neck, Frigga was completely incapacitated, enveloped in the streams of crackling white light. The magic lifted her up into the air and the witch once again blacked out as the energy began seeping into her mind. She hung limply in the air, though barely any of her was visible at all, and the bloodied ceremonial knife fell from her hands, clattering to the ground. Rosalind immediately started their own spell, securing a stream of their own magic from Frigga to themself and then another stream of magic from themself to the crystal, creating an energetic pathway by which to channel the magic. The streaks of white energy moved through them, in through one stream, through Rosalind, and then through the other into the crystal. It felt like the electricity they’d been struck by before, like a sewing needle was ripping through their body over and over, but they did not let go. They held onto their two energy streams for dear life, massive amounts of painful magic flowing into them through their left hand and flowing out from their right. Their body screamed for relief, the skin on their arms began splitting from the energetic pressure, but Rosalind kept their focus on moving this corrupting energy from Frigga into the crystal. It felt like an eternity, though it was really just a few minutes. Eventually, the white strands of magic began to shrink, slowing the flow for Rosalind. Strands of red hair peaked out, then a delicate hand dripping with blood, and slowly Frigga came back into view as she was slowly lowered to the floor. The last of the white energy disappeared, the energetic flow from her to Rosalind ceasing, and Rosalind collapsed to the floor too, their task finally complete.
Razi stared helplessly at the two witches in the circle. She had been warned to expect this but it was still horrifying. Frigga, usually warm and loving, had just been wrapped up in a curse and was unconscious on the floor, bleeding from her arm. Rosalind, usually so proud and tight-lipped was heaving, gasping for air, unable to find any strength in their arms to even attempt to sit up. But the sphere of purple light was still up, they would be safe for a moment or two more, giving them a chance to recoup a bit. Razi looked down and saw the spell keeping Sapphire at bay was starting to falter. Whether because it had a time limit or because the casters were incapacitated, the magic was starting to weaken and Sapphire was beginning to struggle against it again. Razi stepped forward, putting herself in between Sapphire and the others, but stayed within a range that might allow her to physically subdue the woman. She’d protect them, just like she promised. It only took another few seconds and Sapphire was free, streaks of blue magic crackling out from her. She was enraged. It was done and there was nothing she could do about it. “Leave it old lady,” Razi urged. “It’s over.” The witch stood from where she’d been kneeling, out of breath. “Indeed, it seems that way,” she breathed, rubbing her arm where the chain had bitten into her. “And now my niece is most likely dead, thanks to you.” Razi did not take her eyes off Sapphire for a second, she didn’t trust this at all. Should she take her down? Should she wait? She didn’t know what to do. Even weakened like she was, Sapphire was still the most dangerous person in this room. She had her answer quickly enough, the room began to hum with electrical charge once more, though fainter than it had been. Sapphire’s face was no longer angry, nor was it anything. Her expression was void of anything at all, and that was the most terrifying thing. At her feet, the ground began to flicker with electricity again and small jolts peeled off towards Razi. Razi had enough of this, this woman had toyed with them long enough. She jumped Sapphire, fist raised, expecting a shock in retaliation. Sapphire had anticipated her, but not how quickly it had come and was struck in the face. She was knocked to the ground, her nose bleeding furiously. But the second Razi’s fist contacted, she was electrocuted and paralyzed to the spot. Her brain shut down, she was in too much pain to do a damn thing, but she prayed this would give the two inside the circle enough time to get back on their feet. “Insolent,” Sapphire spat venomously as she loosed another lightning whip towards Razi, sweeping her off her feet, throwing her into the wall. She landed in a heap on the floor, seemingly unconscious once more.
Rosalind finally registered they were in immediate danger when Sapphire’s bolts crashed into the circle. They didn’t even know if Frigga had magic to contribute at this point, but she was unconscious and would be for a while. Rosalind was completely alone and the dome was beginning to crack. Their entire body was spent, they could barely breathe and their vision was blurry from exhaustion, but they had to do something. When Sapphire broke through their protections, she calmly, silently walked up to Frigga and knelt down to check if she was still alive. After a brief pause, she finally said “Congratulations, Rosalind Bloodswell.” She then turned her eyes to Rosalind who was trying to sit up, desperately trying to summon the strength to stand. “Not only is she still alive, but she’s also retained her magical ability.” She scooped up the ceremonial knife and crystal from the floor and inspected them like they were trinkets for sale at the market, Rosalind looking up at her weakly as she did. Panic set in, they didn’t even have the physical capacity to remain calm. Their heart was pounding so loud they could barely hear Sapphire over the blood in their ears. “Hmm, interesting. I always assumed you were merely good for necromancy. Looks like I was wrong.” She flung the items aside and knelt down beside Rosalind who had just barely gotten to their knees but fell again. “You know, I was starting to think you were different than the rest of your family. I thought you were just an anti-social brat, but you truly were the most brilliant out of all of them in the end. I don’t remember the last time I was pushed so far, very impressive.” Rosalind tried to find a reserve of energy, somewhere, somehow, to summon and protect themself, but there wasn’t enough to stand, never mind fight; their attempt just to stand was enough to cause Rosalind to collapse completely to the ground, flat on their back. This couldn’t be it, Rosalind’s heart was beating too quickly, their muscles pulsed with exhaustion, their lungs heaved for air. The electricity in the air dissipated, the buzz quieted. And now the room was just… Cold. Sapphire hummed at the sight of them on the floor as she dismissed her magics. She spoke, her voice dripping with condescension, “You look tired, dear, and I’m feeling generous. You must be in so much pain, why don’t you take a nap?” She closed her hand around Rosalind’s neck, pushing her weight onto it. There was no fight to be had, Rosalind was barely breathing as it was, now with this woman leaning her weight on their neck, it was all they could do to vaguely flail in protest. They were going to die, but not how they thought it would happen. They thought they’d imagined every possible way this might have gone wrong, but they’d missed this possibility. Somewhere in the back of their mind they found some humour in that. Death didn’t scare Rosalind, it was familiar territory, but their heart broke when they remembered that their last conversation with Marcus had been a lie. His sweet smile filled their mind and it gave them a small boost of strength, though not nearly enough to help them at all. They could barely move a single limb, never mind fight. They were going to die. They felt their consciousness begin to fuzz around the edges. They tried desperately to find some magic within them to help, anything! But there was nothing, the well was dry and with every second the burning in their chest became worse and more distant. The pain in their limbs was starting to fade, and Rosalind knew it was almost over; they were going to die.
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moonlight-at-dawn · 4 months ago
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I probably say this a lot, but damn, I really wish tumblr had a mute option. I don't particularly care about blocking the person, it's not that I need them to not see me, I just need to not see them and their dumb ass takes in the tags.
Even better would be if we could miraculously agree on finding ways to tag things so that people that are in a tag for fandom don't have to see hate that a person is just tagging for organization. Because people SEARCH tags to enjoy themselves (and if you're hate searching a tag, please get healthier hobbies), so having everyone use the same tags for different kinds of posts is-
Look.
I searched for pizza because i want to eat pizza, not because i want to see people talking about how much it sucks. I don't care! I'm not feeding it to you, I'm feeding it to me! You're making it harder because now I'm hungry AND angry! I just wanted some feel good food, dammit.
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banigarubug · 4 years ago
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Disney Princess (Corpse x FEM!Reader)
first time writing y/n ... wish me luck!!!
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Corpse x reader where the reader is really sweet and has a very soft and quiet voice?
Y/N is your name, N/N is your nickname/gamer tag.
corpse invites you to play among us with the gang. (moistcr1tikal, valkyrae, jacksepticeye, sykkuno, disguised toast, pokimane, lilypichu, kickthepj, pewdiepie)
warnings: swearing
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They say opposites attract, and though you and Corpse aren’t exactly opposites, you kind of agree with it. There’s Corpse, with his chunky rings and dark clothes and his famously low voice, and then there’s you: a head shorter than Corpse, voice a few pitches higher, recognizable by the pictures Corpse posts of your sweater paws on his Instagram stories and your token giggle. And Corpse is quiet, but you’re quiet.
But as shy and soft as you are, Corpse’s fanbase has kind of grown attached to you. He tweets about your adventures on his alt account all the time and everyone has begun simping for you almost as much as they simp for Corpse. From time to time, you’ll pop in during a stream and talk to the chat while he's a crewmate on Among Us, or do Q&A’s on your Twitter to ‘expose’ Corpse. That being said, you’re not much of a gamer, and you certainly haven’t ever met his famous YouTube friends.
It’s one thing to date a famous, albeit anonymous guy. It’s another thing to be introduced to jack-fucking-septiceye or another popular streamer you’re a fan of.
So you’re nervous for tonight. Sue me, you think: It’s scary. Meeting some of his objectively super cool friends in front of a collective million people is pretty nerve-wracking.
“It’s gonna be fine, Y/N,” Corpse reassures you. You guys are in front of his PC, and he’s spun both your chairs around so your knees are pressed together and you’re facing each other. “The camera won’t be on and you already talk to Rae all the time on Twitter. But if you really don’t wanna do it, that’s okay.”
He’s always so sweet. You express as much, cupping his cheek gently. “You’re sweet,” you reply, beaming when he smiles at you bashfully. “It’s okay. Thank you, but I got this. Right?”
“You got this,” he agrees, and drops a kiss to your cheek. “Ready to start the stream?” You nod quickly. Better to start now than wait until you’re afraid enough to bail.
Corpse clicks onto YouTube, hits some buttons you don’t understand, and starts streaming. Immediately, the numbers start flying up, and your heart drops to your stomach. Around 100,000 viewers, about a minute in, Corpse says, “Hey guys, I’m just getting onto the Discord now, one sec.”
Miraculously, you’re even more nervous than before. Corpse can tell, so before he gets on the Discord, he announces to chat, “I’ve got a special guest here, guys.” The chat goes crazy, and you can’t help but laugh at all the comments asking if it’s you. “It’s N/N!”
You have to lean towards the microphone because you know your voice won’t carry all the way if you don’t. “Hi,” you say, and the chat welcomes you with emojis and keyboard slams. “Oh, hi Kaylee,” you say, noticing a regular donor with their message about being happy to see you streaming with Corpse again. “It’s nice to see you too, thank you for the donation.”
As Corpse gets set up on Discord, your nerves are calmed quite a bit talking to the fans. You do this all the time. No big deal. Pretty much everyone is nice and welcoming, and the mods take care of the people who aren’t. You’re in the middle of telling them a story about Corpse spilling bubble tea all over your car when he politely interrupts you and says, “Ready to meet the crew?”
“Posted at Sizz with the crew,” you reply on instinct, and he laughs, rolling his eyes. ���Um, sure, yeah. I’m ready.”
He joins the call.
“Corpse!” Rae’s voice, enthusiastic and energetic as ever, comes ringing through the PC.
“Oh, hey Corpse!” Sykkuno says, and you can hear the smile on his face.
A few other greetings fly at him before Corpse replies, “Hello,” and everyone laughs. “Guys, I want to introduce you to someone.”
“It’s N/N, isn’t it?” Rae asks. “Please say it’s N/N!” She knows damn well it is. You told her last week.
“Say hi,” he whispers to you, and you lean in towards the microphone again with a sigh.
“Hi,” you say, and the Discord call erupts.
“Hi N/N,” PJ greets you. “Thank you for joining us today!”
“Hi PJ,” you reply. “Thanks for letting me.”
“Corpse, you’re dating a Disney princess,” Jack teases. “N/N, you sound like a Disney princess.”
“I know,” Corpse agrees, laughing, and you punch his side. “Ow,” he whispers at you, but he’s grinning and so are you.
“N/N sounds so nice,” Charlie adds. “And Corpse sounds like he’s a real life imposter.”
“It’s like me and Marzia,” Felix says, and everyone audibly agrees. “Fucking hilarious.”
“N/N is coming for Lily’s throne,” Toast butts in.
“No, N/N and I are twin flames,” Lily corrects.
“Is everybody ready to start?” Corpse asks, changing the subject before you get too flustered. It’s weird, being put on display for everybody. This is probably how Corpse felt when he first met everyone and they freaked out, playfully pitting him against Sykkuno. It’s not bad, not at all - but it’s definitely scary.
“N/N, if Corpse is imposter you have to tell us,” Poki pleads as the game starts up.
Big red letters fill your screen. “He’s crewmate,” you lie, and Corpse laughs.
He mutes himself and grins at you. “Very convincing,” he says.
You nod seriously. “I think I’m the MVP of this round. You’re welcome in advance.”
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beyondthebarrier · 4 years ago
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Starker Festivals Summer Bingo
Prompt: Didn't Know They Were Dating | Title: Rising to the Occasion | Ao3
Summary: The media seems to think that Tony and Peter are dating. In fact, so does Rhodey. And Aunt May. And the team...
Don't worry. Tony sets the story straight.
This is my first proper Starker fic so bear with me!
It wasn’t abnormal for Peter to be alone when he woke up, if he was being honest. Tony was rarely still in bed in the mornings, presumably quick to dismiss himself from the actions of the night before. Peter never minded, usually always able to find the man elbows deep in some project that he might be able to pick the genius’ brain about.
“FRI, can you start me some coffee?” Peter asked quietly, his voice a little raspy from sleep.
“Of course. Good morning, Peter.”
“Good morning, FRIDAY.”
Peter got to his feet, finding his sweatpants from the day before and Tony’s discarded Black Sabbath shirt before making his way directly to the kitchen for the promised cup of coffee. It took a few sips for him to realize that he heard voices coming from the living room - he’d assumed he was the only one in the penthouse. He recognized the second voice easily though so he wasn’t shy about heading that way.
“Look who’s awake,” Tony announced with a smile when Peter and his bedhead popped up in the open door frame. Rhodey looked his way and Peter waved around his coffee mug.
“Hope you’re here on your own accord and not because he dragged you for some nonsense, Colonel,” Peter greeted with a smirk towards the man in question.
“I’m not here for damage control this time, miraculously,” Rhodey replied easily, chuckling.
“In that case, I’ll leave you two to it. Tones, I’m gonna shower and head downstairs. It was good to see you, Colonel!”
As Peter made his way back towards the bedroom, Rhodey looked over at Tony and sighed at the look on the billionaire’s face.
“He looks good on you, Tony.”
--
“Here, May, I’ve got it,” Tony swooped in, grabbing the woman’s empty plate before she could fully get to her feet. Peter rolled his eyes but stood as well, his own empty plate in hand.
“I don’t know what you’ve done to him,” Peter started, exasperated. “This man would rather buy new dishes than wash them at his own house and then he sits here and readily offers when we’re over here. Please, I need to know your secret. I’m tired of coffee rings in all the mugs.”
“Oh it’s easy, Peter. He’s scared of me,” Aunt May said in a faux whisper, winking at Tony before she settled on her sofa with the rest of her glass of wine as the boys worked to clean the kitchen. Tony washed while Peter absentmindedly dried and put away dishes, chatting away quietly to the older man. When Peter turned back to face the man, Tony quickly smeared soap bubbles onto Peter’s cheek, grinning. With a laugh, Peter reached into the sink, splashing the man with the water in the sink, despite the expensive suit Tony was wearing. Tony didn’t seem bothered as he grabbed the young man around the waist and pulled him in close for a hug, getting him wet as well. Peter squeaked, making Tony lean his head back in laughter before kissing Peter’s forehead and letting him go. Only Tony noticed the look that May was giving them both and he just smiled before turning back to finish cleaning.
As they left, Aunt May wrapped both men in crushing hugs to say goodbye. As Tony helped Peter into his jacket, he looked over his head at the woman, smiling.
“It’s our turn next Sunday, May. Be at the penthouse at seven.”
--
“I thought the little spider was supposed to be here? I brought ale for him to try!” Thor announced, holding up a large jug full of… well, not even Tony was eager to try the liquid sloshing around. Peter had been excited with the prospect of an alcohol that would give him the proper effects but Thor was right - Peter was nowhere to be found.
“Maybe he’s just running late,” Tony replied with a casual shrug, even as he slid his phone out to send yet another text to the missing member of the team. It was meant to be a little game/movie night and Peter was usually the one coercing him into attending so his lack of punctuality was bothering Tony. However, it wasn’t until Natasha and Steve also pointed out Peter’s absence that Tony excused himself. They weren’t sure exactly where he was going until they saw the suit fly off from the landing deck, heading in the direction of a shitty little apartment in Queens.
When Peter didn’t answer the door, Tony let himself in with his key, calling out Peter’s name frantically. It was a studio apartment and Peter groggily sat up in bed, blinking at the man who had just rudely interrupted his sleep.
“Pete, there you are. You’re missing game night, why are you- You’re burning up, sweetheart!” Tony sat on the edge of the bed, the back of his hand pressing against Peter’s forehead.
“M’cold,” Peter mumbled, trying to wrap the blankets around himself again so he could lay down.
“When’s the last time you’ve eaten?”
“Not hungry..”
“Okay, you’re definitely sick,” Tony pointed out, jumping to his feet to search the kitchen for food. Peter spent so little time here now that the cabinets were practically barren. There was certainly no cans of soup or really… anything. With a wince, Tony reached for a half-empty jar of peanut butter and a spoon, heading back to the bed.
“Tones, m’not hungry,” Peter whined as he scooped peanut butter out of the jar.
“Sweetheart, you need calories. Just a little bit and some water and I’ll let you go back to sleep. Your body will kick this in no time but it needs fuel to do it,” Tony said firmly, lifting the spoon to Peter’s lips. He opened them, accepting the spoon reluctantly and smacking his lips as he tried to get the peanut butter down. Tony got up, fixing him a cup of water. Between the two of them, they painstakingly got a full eight ounces of water and four big spoonfuls of peanut butter into the enhanced man before Peter gave up, flopping back into the pillows.
“Are you going back to game night?” he asked Tony, a rather pitiful look on his face. Tony shook his head, laying down beside him and wrapping his arms around him.
“No, I’m not going anywhere. Go back to sleep, I’ll be right here,” he assured, running his fingers through Peter’s sweaty curls and kissing his forehead.
--
Peter had decided to leave the tower for his lunch break, the idea of a sandwich from the deli down the block on his mind all morning. It was a beautiful day and he’d been looking for an empty space on a bench when he noticed the pointing in his direction from a few people by a magazine stand. He glanced down at himself, trying to see if maybe his shirt had come untucked or he had trash trailing on his shoe but he didn’t spot anything. However, he did hear the words, ‘Tony Stark’s boyfriend’ come from someone’s mouth and his stomach immediately twisted. He couldn’t stop himself from going over to the stand, dreading the idea of seeing Tony’s smiling face on a magazine cover with some- Oh. It was him. Peter laughed, picking up the glossy booklet. They’d attended a gala on Saturday evening for SI and the photo on the cover was the two of them all dressed up and smiling at each other in front of some rose bushes. ‘Tony Stark and boyfriend, Peter Parker, Rose to the Occasion.’ Peter scoffed at the title, setting it back down and reaching for his phone. He wasn’t sure Tony would find it as amusing as he did but he was just relieved that it hadn’t been someone else on that cover.
Thankfully, Tony didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. He had already known about it, getting the alert from PR hours before, and even seemed a little concerned that Peter might be upset about it.
“Do you want me to put out a statement about it?” Tony asked him over the phone, as if sensing Peter’s slight discomfort.
“You won’t be rude about it or anything, right? Just clarify, sweet and simple?” Peter asked, noticing that he was still garnering a bit of attention. Thankfully, New Yorkers themselves were usually nonchalant about that kind of thing so it was only the tourists that were trying to draw attention to him.
“Of course. I’ll get it out right away,” Tony assured him.
Peter had no reason not to believe him. He thanked him, hung up, and moved further away from the news stand. He muted his phone before digging into his sandwich, taking advantage of the rest of his lunch break before heading back to work. It wasn’t until he was in the elevator going back up to R&D that he noticed his phone was blowing up. He sighed, expecting a tweet or something from Tony laying out the truth but what he found caught him off guard.
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Relationship. Tony said relationship. He hadn’t claimed that they were just friends or fuck buddies or whatever. He said relationship. Peter was so hyperfocused on the words that the next thing he registered was FRIDAY’s voice.
“Mr. Parker? Mr. Parker, are you alright? Your vitals are concerning, should I alert Mr. Stark? ..Peter?”
“No! No, FRIDAY, no, don’t alert him, I’m fine!” Peter scrambled to answer, glancing up to see what floor the elevator was at currently. “Please don’t. I’m fine. I’m answering you, I’m fine!”
FRIDAY reluctantly agreed not to tattle just as the elevator stopped at his floor. Peter wasn’t feeling very fine, despite his protests, as he stepped out. He expected lots of stares and whispers, perhaps even direct comments about him ‘dating the boss.’ But there was nothing. Either nobody here had seen it yet or they just didn’t care. That certainly helped matters as he made his way to his table, intending on trying to focus on work but finding himself scrolling through the comments on the post instead. It was full of congratulatory messages from strangers but their friends didn’t seem very surprised. Rhodey, Nat, Ned, even Steve commented, all seeming as if this was barely news to them.
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Peter got to his feet, heading back to the elevator to get to Tony’s lab. As the doors slid open on Tony’s R&D floor, Tony was standing there waiting to get on. The man flashed him his signature smile, stepping aside so he could get out.
“I was just coming to see you. May texted, said you seemed a bit out of it. Are you okay? I know the attention can be a lot but if I repeatedly make it clear that I want your privacy to be respected, it shouldn’t get too bad. Trust me, the fangirls will go rabid when reporters get too in-your-face about something,” Tony explained, leading Peter towards his office. Peter didn’t respond, staring straight ahead as Tony closed the door behind them. “They’ll want to protect you at all costs,” Tony continued, heading for the sofa instead of his chair. Peter remained standing, still just staring. Tony finally realized something was up and quirked an eyebrow at him, curious. “Pete?”
“Boyfriend.” Peter said blankly, staring at the man.
“Um, yes? I also have a name you can address me by.”
“Boyfriend.”
“Oookay, that works too. Peter, what’s wrong?”
The younger man started pacing the length of the office and Tony sighed, covering his face with his hands for a moment before regaining composure.
“FRIDAY, diagnose him. Fever? Has he been drugged? Is he having a psychotic break?”
“Sir, it appears that Peter is in a state of shock,” FRI replied easily. “His heart rate is elevated but nothing to be concerned about.”
“Shock over what?” Tony asked, watching as his partner continued to pace. He could practically see the gears turning in the boy’s head.
“It seems that Peter was not aware that the two of you were dating, Sir.”
Tony let out a humorless laugh while Peter came to a halt, his cheeks tinting pink as he stared at the floor. Realizing that there may be some truth in what FRI was telling him, Tony got to his feet, carefully approaching Peter.
“She’s right, isn’t she?” He asked softly, frown lines deeply engraved into his forehead. Peter refused to respond, not even looking up. Tony sighed, cupping the man’s chin and gently lifting it. “Pete? Is she right?”
Instead of answering, Peter’s face crumpled.
“I’m so sorry,” he mumbled, hiding his face in his hands. Tony immediately pulled him into his chest, wrapping his arms around him securely. “I didn’t know that’s what this was.”
“That means I fucked up somewhere, Peter. Not you,” Tony soothed, rubbing the boy’s back. “If it had just been sex, I could understand, but Pete, sweetheart. I go to Sunday dinners with your Aunt. I host Sunday dinners for your Aunt. I take care of you when you’re sick, I let you wear my clothes.. Baby, we practically live together.”
“You never asked! You never used the words dating or boyfriend or-or-or relationship or anything,” Peter defended, lifting his head to look at the older man.
“Eight months ago, we laid in bed and I told you that I never wanted this to end. That I wanted forever with you,” Tony explained. “You agreed. I thought we were pretty clear from there on.”
“I thought that was pillow talk!” Peter exclaimed. “I’m so angry right now that it’s not even funny.”
Tony frowned once more, immediately letting Peter go and holding his hands up in surrender.
“Angry? You’re angry that I thought we were dating?”
“I’m angry that I’ve been holding back for eight months because I thought I wasn’t allowed to have you! I don’t kiss you first or touch you first or cuddle you whenever I want because I didn’t want to be too much for you!”
Tony’s face broke out into a grin, seeming relieved.
“Well, let’s rectify that right away.”
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silksaddle · 4 years ago
Note
i kindly request any little spicy drabble you can give us between chapters of the traveler because i know it takes time to write such long and lovely chapters 🥺 what happens when he gets home from the post office?
jack daniels x f!reader, the traveler universe
rating: explicit
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Miraculously, you may find yourselves alone at odd times when he returns; sweaty, weary, but no less eager to get his hot hands on you.
His now-normal routine of slipping past the sides of the house and finding you unclipping the laundry from the line is not forgotten this evening; under the jewel tones of the sunset, he sneakily watches you fold and place sheets into the large wicker basket.
Sauntering up with a grin, he abruptly catches you by the waist and forces a shocked squeal to break from your lips at the tickle, blending with his deep chuckles as he tugs you away from the laundry towards the back door.
"Jack!" you whine, giving no effort to squirm away from his affectionate hold, grasping onto his forearms as he places you against the siding.
"Hey," he whispers lowly, the sheen on his chest beginning to press against yours as he comes closer and closer, caging you in for the umpteenth time. His breath is hot and soothing at your ear when he takes the lobe between his teeth, pulling a pleased gasp from you as your fingers slip up his front.
"Jack, I have to... move along..."
Sighing and giving another sad effort of escaping, your protests are muted by his open mouth landing a soft and gentle kiss on your neck. Its sweet nature turns to a suckle of your skin, your fingers tugging and tangling his suspenders.
"Ain't no one out here," he murmurs, hands hurriedly bunching up the fabric of your skirt, two fingers then tracing a tingly line up the inside of your thighs. His eyes darken in the disappearing sunlight, or perhaps it's in the way his pupils have blown up to two large black pools when he feels your slick pussy. "I was thinkin' of you all day."
"I— oh," you whimper into his neck, his thick fingers breaching your entrance slowly and firmly before he takes them away, much too soon and much to your dismay. "Don't tease me."
"You don't mind, do you?" he questions with an aggravating smirk and an added swoop of his fingers, this time deeper, gathering more of your shiny arousal on his large hand. He withdraws it, holding it up between your faces as you slump at the second loss, chest puffing up and down with your exasperated breaths. "Now, am I bein' cruel or do you just need me this bad?"
Staring at your quivering lip as you roll your eyes, he bends, snaking his wet hand all the way back up inside your skirt.
"You found me," you remind him with a stern tone that's hardly firm enough to break him— his face lights up with a crushing air of mischief before his fingers plunge back inside you with alarming ease, and you cry into the vast yard, pulling his hair to relieve the need to moan even louder for him.
"Tell me about your day, darlin'," Jack urges, carefully leaving a bite at your shoulder, pumping his fingers at an even pace with a pleasant curl.
"Fuck," you laugh, quiet words slurring while his fingers remain in satisfying motion, "that's impo— impossible."
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ashbrea381writings · 4 years ago
Text
Flying Blind: Chapter 2, Meeting the Bats
“Bunnyx? Should I be concerned?” Ladybug asked, turning to look at the person behind her. Bunnyx was obviously a good five or so years older than the rest of the team, and Batman would have shrugged it off if it weren’t for the next words from Bunnyx’s mouth.
“Nah, I wanted to be at this meeting since current me wasn’t.” Bunnyx pulled up a chair and flipped it backwards to sit on it that way. “To explain, Batman, I can’t tell them too much or the timeline would become unstable, and that really isn’t good. I help where I can and where they are going astray from the correct timeline.”
“Who is to say the correct timeline?” Robin asked. “Couldn’t you nudge it into a more favorable outcome?”
“Not without disappearing. Back to the Future style.” Bunnyx commented bitterly. “Been there, almost disappeared, it sucked. But I can tell you this, LB, it’s okay to trust them with the info you’ve got so far. They’re very helpful.”
“Thanks Bunnyx. Sticking around?” Ladybug asked, handing them a plate with some pastries.
“For the best pastries in Paris for free? Yes, for sure.” Bunnyx started laughing as they took the plate and took a few steps back. “I’m probably gonna let you all strategize without me though, I just wanted to hear the convo I missed the first time ‘round.”
“Oh please, you know they would feed every one of you guys for free if you asked. Unless you’ve had a falling out in the future I don’t currently know about?” Ladybug teased, loosening up more than she had so far.
“Nah, but at the point I’m at, I’m trying not to drain them, you have no idea how much time travel makes you hungry.” Bunnyx chuckled. “Besides, with the rest of these guys stopping by constantly, I’m surprised they even manage to make any money.”
Ladybug shook her head but didn’t comment, turning back to Batman and sighing. “We also have a friend who cannot always help out in battle for civilian reasons. That is Tempest, who has the ability to transform into three different forms; lightning, air, and water.”
“And you’re all about the same age?” Batman asked, his frown deepening.
“More or less, within about a year and a half from oldest to youngest.” Chat confirmed as Ladybug nodded. “We try not to advertise our real ages for both identity reasons, and to try and control just how many people don’t want us doing this due to our ages.”
“And you have no mentor? No Adult to pull you out if things get rough?” Batman’s voice was incredulous, and he sat up even straighter in his seat.
“Unless you count Bunnyx who jumps back from the future now and then to check in.” Chat joked, poking said hero in the ribs.
“Watch it, Kitty-Cat, I can and will send my younger self something embarrassing about you.” Bunnyx slapped his hand away, but sounded bored.
“Who gave you your powers then? You said before that you got your abilities from items?” Robin asked, leaning forward and bracing his arms on the table.
“Like I said, he gave up his memories to protect more of the artifacts.” Ladybug sighed, “The items in question are individually called the Miraculous. There is a box that I have custody of that usually holds them. I won’t say how many there are. Right now I’m letting each person here use one, Chat and I were picked by the former Guardian. When Hawkmoth found out the identity of the former Guardian, he attempted to find out our identities too and wanted to steal the box for himself.” Ladybug stood and began to pace slightly in the little room there was. “During the battle, Chat and I were able to retrieve the contents, and the former Guardian transferred his title to me. The magic of the Miraculous wiped his memories to keep the secrets of the Miraculous from ever being taken from him.”
“So not only are you a superhero as a teenager, but you guard a set of ancient artifacts that each hold incredible power?!” Batman stood abruptly. “If there is some sort of title involved, who gave that title to your mentor?”
“People who are a combination of long gone or not welcome here due to antiquated ways.” Ladybug snapped harshly. “Do not presume to know what is going on with us. Age does not mean wisdom, just that you assume you know what is best for other people.”
Batman took a step back and sighed. “I am angry on your behalf that you were put under this amount of pressure.” He took a moment to calm himself and shook his head. “Am I correct to assume that Hawkmoth is of a similar age to me?”
Ladybug studied Batman for a few moments, sharing glances with a few of the other teammates who all made some sort of gesture or facial expression that they understood among themselves. “Roughly, yes, we cannot be precise but I would judge you and him to be within 3 or so years of each other.”
“What other information do you have? We might be able to help figure him out.”
“It will be difficult, the magic of the Miraculous makes it difficult to pinpoint an identity, and tends to make you want to drop the search. Although, there are some exceptions. Rena figured Carapace out after meeting him in the mask twice.” Ladybug pointed out. At that comment, Rena chuckled and elbowed a blushing Carapace.
“Not fair, LB, you know why it was that easy for her to figure me out.” Carapace muttered, pulling his hood lower over his face.
“My point is, maybe someone with an outside perspective would be able to push past it.” Ladybug shook her head at her friends. “Here, this has everything we’ve observed about Hawkmoth, and information that will help you to identify him more easily. Some of that information covers Miraculous holders in general from our own observations about ourselves. Don’t look into our identities with this, just Hawkmoth.”
“What kind of information?” Batman asked, taking the flash drive.
“How much of a height difference we have when we transform, how much things like hair and eye color change, Chat is an exception for the eyes part.” Chat gave a bow as Ladybug said his name. “It also has Hawkmoth’s approximate measurements from what I’ve been able to figure out the few times we’ve seen him in person. He’s a very tall, slender man.”
Batman handed the flash drive to Robin, who plugged it into a screen on his glove, asking quietly, “Hmmm, how accurate are these measurements and how did you get them?”
“I’m good at sizing people, there’s a civilian reason for it that I won’t name. I could probably give you yours if you wanted.” Ladybug chuckled.
“She’s nearly dead-on, actually, I’ve seen it in action.” Chat added, smirking. “Like that time she figured out who was who at a costume party.”
“That was one time and it was a bet, King Monkey should have known better than to challenge me, he’s known me for years.” Ladybug sniffed. “Besides, it was a good team-building exercise for me to identify you guys in the crowd while you switched costumes.”
“Team building exercise?” Batman seemed unconvinced.
“We’d only just decided that we all needed to know who each other were. So we went to a big costume party with several quick change outfits and tried to identify each other so we’d always know who was who even if we switched Miraculi.” Ladybug explained.
“You all know each other as civilians?” Robin asked, looking shocked.
“After what happened with the former Guardian, I was rather… Stressed and didn’t have a way to tell anyone why it was so bad, so I confided in Rena, and she basically told me that it was time we all knew each other. She’d known Carapace from the start and he found out about her shortly after, so it was something that just made sense. We coordinate better now and know what’s going on in each other’s lives and can adjust for it.” Ladybug shrugged. “We know if one of us is sick, or busy, or can’t get away from civilian life long enough to handle Akuma’s now. We’re more coordinated in our plans and can cover for each other both as heroes and civilians.”
“Do your families know you’re all doing this?” Batman asked quietly, seeming to think about the situation.
“One of us has parents that know, I won’t say who.” Ladybug crossed her arms and stared the Bat down.
“And what do they think?”
Chat chucked, “They’ve basically adopted everyone who wasn’t their kid already and told everyone to stop by anytime. They also keep an eye on the news and give excuses for the one that’s their kid to make sure they get to be at Akuma fights when they’re needed for it.”
“They also offered to patch us up if there’s ever an injury that the Cure doesn’t fix. We haven’t run into that problem yet though.” Honey Bee added, making a gesture like she would start touching up her manicure before being stopped short by her gloves. “By the way, Bug, you need to teach us how to adjust our suits manually, you said there was a way.”
“That’s an entire Saturday on it’s own, Bee, save it for the next girl’s day.” Ladybug waved her off casually.  “Now, I’m sure you guys have what you need to start the investigation with you?”
“Yes, we’ll keep you posted.” Batman held out a comm unit to Ladybug. “The batteries last three days, if it takes longer than that I can meet you here to switch out. It’s also undetectable while you’re wearing it and muting it and turning it on and off is intuitive.”
“MmmmHmmm, I’m willing to bet it’s also a tracker. Pegasus, take a look?” She passed the device to said hero and he plugged it into a small tablet he pulled out of a pocket.
“There is the ability for it to track movements, but that was disabled before I even touched it.” Pegasus handed it and Ladybug tucked it into her ear, testing the settings a bit before leaving it muted but on.
“I know how important secret identities are, the tracker is only in there because it’s the same type as what Robin uses and I’d rather not have him injured somewhere and not be able to get ahold of him.”
“I still don’t like the tracker either, B.” Robin muttered, causing the Miraculous holders to chuckle.
“We can track each other when we’re suited up.” Ladybug swept a hand around the group. “It’s useful to know when each other is on the way or where someone is when you need to meet up.”
“Anyway, we all have places to be, so we’ll check in once and a while through LB to see how it’s going.” Chat said, cleaning off the table and tucking the dishes back into the baskets they came from. “Bee, here’s yours, I think you’ll be missed sooner.” He passed one off the Honeybee who promptly zipped away on her top, waving as she passed over the building. “LB, delicious as always, I need to convince them to teach me their ways.” He sighed, handing Ladybug a basket.
“Don’t be shy, if you ask I’m sure they’d show you. They don’t have anyone willing to take over when they retire, and it might be good for you to have a job like a normal person.” She laughed, taking the larger basket and setting it on the ground before wiping down the table with a cloth she’d pulled out.
“Don’t think I won’t… Next time I’m home alone for the weekend, I’m there.” He laughed and collapsed the table after she wiped it. One by one, the other Miraculous holders put away the chairs and helped Chat wrangle the table into it’s storage shed.
“How often do you guys do this?” Robin asked, watching as the other heroes took off in separate directions.
“As often as we have the time and can get away from our civilian lives. Since we all know each other, it isn’t as hard as it was.” Ladybug shrugged, ruffling Chat’s hair.
“We keep it to a reasonable amount of time and not everyone is always able to make it, but it’s always a nice way to get in some bonding time with the team.” Chat added, pushing Ladybug’s hand off of him. “We’re basically family to each other at this point, so we don’t see a reason why we shouldn’t spend time together. I gotta run, it’s almost time for my next thing.” He sighed and launched himself up with his stick, waving at them and running across the rooftops.
“We’ll be in contact, and I’ll be listening on the comm.” Ladybug pointed to her ear where the device was invisible to any who didn’t know it was there.
With that, the rest of the remaining heroes left, leaving Batman and Robin in a closed-off alley with a beautiful garden and a small shed. “Want me to check what else is in the shed?” Robin asked after making sure his comm was muted.
“No, there was nowhere to hide anything, it’s only big enough for the stuff that’s in there and they left it open the whole time we were talking.” Batman sighed and looked at the sky that was going pink with dusk. “Let’s get to the hotel.”
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goldafterglow · 4 years ago
Text
my love is a dagger
Summary: Jack Daniels is hopelessly gone for you, and you’re starting to think it’s a two way street. Maybe.
Request: “May I please ask for Basorexia and Whiskey please? 🥺” - @scribbledghost (ma’am I’m SO sorry this took me so long and then after the long wait you got whatever this is); taken from this post
basorexia: the overwhelming desire to kiss
Pairing: Jack “Whiskey” Daniels x reader
Word Count: 4.8k+
Warnings: suicidal themes (just a little and not really but there’s definitely a line), sexual harassment, anGST!!, PINING omg SO much pining like folks get ready to y*arn, a little bit of fluff bc Jack is a sweet talking southerner and I couldn’t help it, more angst I rly hope you cry, there’s a cute little lesbian couple in one line so don’t read if ur homophobic! but that goes for all of my work :)))
Author’s Note: Thank the GODS for @catfishingmorales for being my first ever beta reader!!! maybe this one will make any fucking sense at all!!! also a special shoutout to my wife @pascalplease bc she stayed up all night vomiting headcanons with me about this and I didn’t even get to all of them.
Gif Cred: the lovely @coredrive​
Masterlist | Taglist Modifications
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“Two single-bed rooms,” he says. No; he manages.
Jack has to pry the words out of his esophagus, the passageway so clogged with sleep that he thinks that if he clears his throat he might be able to clear it.
It doesn’t work.
He tends to add a little brightness and smile to his voice when he talks, always eager to please even strangers. He embellishes his sentences with pleasantries and a chipper shimmer that makes even the most overworked bartender smile and the most destitute rancher crack a grin because he has this uncanny ability to make everyone feel special. But right now, at eleven pm on a Saturday evening after what might’ve been the worst, most emotionally grueling mission Jack has ever completed, he is not pleasant. His words are simply a tool for him to get a message out, his voice choked and flat.
“I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, sir, but it looks like we only have one king-size room available,” the lady informs. She is looking intently at the screen, still typing and clicking like the words might miraculously change right before her eyes.
The powerful Agent Whiskey’s heart falls into his stomach.
He can’t tell if this is the best or worst thing that has ever happened to him. Is this finally the excuse he needs to sweep you off your feet, like the catalyst giving him the strength to overcome his intense paranoia? Or is this the last straw, the final stone before you step off the staircase of his heart and back out onto the run-down open streets without him? Panic floods his chest and he is so paralyzed that he doesn’t even know what to tell her; for once, Jack Daniels is speechless.
Thank god he doesn’t turn around; he’d’ve seen your wide frantic eyes and would’ve known immediately what you’re thinking.
“Oh, it looks like a vacancy just opened,” the hostess chirps, a hint of relief floating on her words. You and Jack turn your heads to your left, where a young couple is saying their “thank you”s as they rack up the handles of their suitcases, hand-in-hand. One girl leans over to kiss the other on the temple with a smile; they both seem so secure. You turn your head back to the hostess; the sight of two people being content was disturbing to you and frankly a little offensive. “Unfortunately they’re on separate floors. Is that-”
“We’ll take them,” Jack gruffs. He wants to sleep, wants to die, wants to be in any existence where your soft eyes aren’t glued to the back of his head because he can feel it and he thinks you might burn holes into his skull just to find that he’s hollow inside.
Empty.
The transaction is quick and a little forced. She hands you both your respective key cards wordlessly, and if your eyes had lingered on her just a little longer you would’ve caught her face falling into it’s default relaxed state of misery. Jack walks with you to the elevator in silence, but he’s still close. He’s always close to you. Often you’ll turn your head in an empty room and anticipate him being there just to be sorely disappointed, though you aren’t sure what you’re always so disappointed for. His spirit haunts your thoughts, floats around your body and does laps around your brain because he is always there when you need him, so much so that you expect him to be there when you don’t need him. You want him to always be there. To always be with you.
Strange thoughts to have so late at night.
Jack sets his bag down beside you, stepping forward to press the button for you; it’s such a small gesture, something that he probably didn’t even think to do since hospitality runs in his bones, and yet you noticed it.
Strange.
The door opens, and he wordlessly puts a hand on your back, guiding you towards the elevator in front of him. Letting you on first. You can’t help but smile a little at him; you can tell he’s so tired and yet he still finds it somewhere in his heart to make you feel so important.
“You know I don’t need that from you,” you tease lightly, turning to look at him as the doors drag shut. The elevator shudders around you, indicating that it’s ready to start it’s journey to the fifth floor.
Jack grins at you; it’s not something he’s doing with his voluntary muscles, something that he thinks is coming off muted because he just doesn’t have the energy. It’s something he doesn’t even think about doing, a visceral reaction to hearing your sweet voice like aloe vera on his scorched throat.
“Well then, darlin’, take it anyways just to indulge your favorite cowboy,” he almost begs, lip pouted and eyebrows raised like he’s a child asking for candy except he’s an addict crying for just one more dose before the night ends because the nights he goes home without the memory of your eyes, your smile, your scent in his system are the nights he can’t sleep through.
You giggle softly, nudging his side gently because you want to crush him in your embrace and lift him onto the barbs of feathers into the moonlight all at the same time. To Jack, it feels like you’ve just kneed him in the chest, hogging all his air and wrapping his head in plastic so he can’t breathe, not that he minds. He’d let you tear at the delicate skin of the inside of his wrists, bite into the gentle flesh of his cheeks until he’s on his knees, bleeding at the seams. He’d let you destroy him if you wanted to.
He sighs a little, so dead, as a flush of air enters the vacuum of the elevator; you’ve arrived. But he doesn’t want to leave yet, wants to wring every last drop of your attention out of your pliable bones, so he follows you out and walks you to your room.
“I don’t need this either,” you say, a yawn stretching and blurring the edges of your words.
“I know,” Jack concedes, rolling his eyes in a way that is so adoring that he might as well have kissed you full on the mouth.
Not that you wanted him to.
“I know you don’t need a lick of help from me, sugar. Maybe I just like giving.” He grins down at you again, his side brushing against yours as you place slow, careful steps down the carpeted floor.
Yeah, he likes giving.
He gives you his leftover coffee when he “doesn’t want it” - it’s a tall cup of his favorite brew. He definitely still wants it. He gives you his blazer when you call his desk landline just to tell him your office is cold because you know he’ll give it to you. What you don’t know is that it’s because he’s completely and utterly whipped for you - he’d strip naked in a snowstorm to keep you warm, hold you in an icehouse as the bite of the frost burrows into the cracks of his dried skin, because he doesn’t need clothes when you’re in his arms. That’s about as warm as he’s ever been.
He gives you his time of day - almost all of it. He’s the first person you see when you step into work, the last face you see when you’re ready to retire. He walks you to your office every morning - he had to beg Champ to switch offices with him so that he could be adjacent to you, but every ounce of dignity lost was paid back to him with royalties in the precious extra seconds he gets to spend rubbing his shoulder against yours. He saunters into your office unannounced daily at 12:35 pm sharp to eat lunch with you, flopping onto your couch with the audacity of a man wet with wealth and simultaneously listening to you rave about your day with the patience of a therapist. Your time is a sacred commodity to him, and he makes sure that he’s earned it.
He gives you his whole soul. Sometimes he wonders if you’ll one day open your purse and find his glass heart sitting there, beating hard and loud and only for you. He wonders if you’d pick it up and smash it against a wall. He wouldn’t mind it at all.
The silence hangs in the air, dancing on your breaths as you seem to be inhaling each other, soaking in each other. It’s strange, the moments you share alone with Jack. There are the ones you share late at night, croaking at each other over the phone about how shitty that one show ended or how beautiful blue things are. Blue like his suffocated lungs, like the ocean of tears that drown him when he looks at you, like the finger you’ve got him wrapped around real tight.
But then there’s the moments when you’re in a room full of people. The briefing room sitting at a table spanning the length of the room that’s completely full of people, a club chock full of sweat and neon energy, the lobby of the lavish estate of a target where the bourgeoisie can swarm and stalk each other. All he has to do is toss you a roll of the eyes, a grin, a subtle brush of his hand against yours, and you are instantly thrown into the web of his affection as you get lost and locked in the atmosphere of his presence. Like, even in a room full of people, he’s the only one around. You’re not breathing in oxygen but the hickory fumes of his skin, the only sound getting registered being his dark honey voice. You’re not quite sure how he does that, distorting reality so heavily that you feel like you’ve traversed to an alternate dimension every time he touches you, pays any mind to you. Every single time.
“This you?” Jack asks, his words like a rubber band to your pulse as you’re snapped out of your train of thought. You look up at the room number - room 513 - and then down at your keycard. It reads the same. There’s a dull ache of disappointment that erupts through your chest, beige and static like the chipped paint on the walls.
“Yeah,” you mutter, turning to face him with your back to the door. He smiles at you softly, gentle like his fragile soul that you always manage to make hurt so bad without doing a single thing, and he opens his arms to you. Nothing out of the ordinary; you’ve grown accustomed to his goodbye hugs. “You’re so needy,” you giggle, stepping forward to bury your face in his pillowy chest and letting yourself sink into the quicksand of his warmth. It’s so easy to get caught up in him like a butterfly to a flower, and yet it’s so hard to pull away. He’s always been difficult to separate from; every time it’s like you’re sewing a microfractal of your esse into the velvet of him. Not big enough for you to notice, but still missing, and it adds up every time until there’s a big gaping hole in your chest that Jack holds claim to and the only way you feel right is when he’s with you.
I know, he wants to say to you. I know I’m needy. I know that you’re the only one, the only person, the only fucking thing that I’ve ever wanted this bad. I know I steal your time and your space and your thoughts but I’m a greedy man. Please forgive me. But he doesn’t say that; he could never say that to you. So instead he buries his face into the top of your head, trying to get a big sleepy lungful of you before he parts with you for the night, and says “Can you blame me, baby?”
You look up at him, eyes bleary and red but still eager to be so close to him. “Always such a tease.” He smiles wide at you, like he’s looking at a whimsical sprite so colorful and magnificent, but it’s just you. What does he see when he looks at you?
“G’night, pretty girl,” he coos, arms still wrapped around you and eyes big and doe-y. Please don’t leave yet, my perfect thing. Except that’s the part that stings him the most; you’re not his. He doesn’t get to say that sacred “my.”
“Good night, Jack Daniels,” you whisper, words fanning on his cheeks like waves of heat from a bonfire. But you don’t move, and neither does he. Not yet. Please.
He’s looking down at you with a certain reverence, like you were sculpted by the angels and placed right here in front of him with intimate precision. And then, without a breath to spare, he leans down and presses a kiss on your forehead so light that you wonder if it even happened or if someone has just thrown a marshmallow at your face. A friendly kiss from a friend that you’re friends with.
It feels like the seams of your limbs are being ripped out as you slowly separate from him, flashing him a soft smile as you take your duffel bag and unlock the door in front of you. You step into your hotel room, the air conditioning immediately sticking to your damp skin. As you close the door you catch him still standing there, looking at you like you’re something so precious.
Platonically, of course.
You sigh as you look around the room, suddenly freezing. The tiny dress you’re wearing doesn’t add much insulation and the big diamond necklaces and chandelier earrings and silver cuffs adorning your body like ornaments become ice on your skin. Kicking your shoes off and into a forgotten pit of the room, you step into the bathroom. Flicking the light on, you stare straight at the bulbs, letting the light sear your pupils just so that you can focus on something other than Jack fucking Daniels. Your jewelry is the first to go, becoming a delicate display on the bathroom counter. Something so pretty, but they’ve left angry dents in your skin that are starting to inflame and you figured it was too good to be benign. Nothing so beautiful, nothing that makes you feel so beautiful, could do so without hurting the paper-thin barriers of your heart. You’d have to be a fool to not know that.
You open up your duffel bag, fishing around impatiently until you find your makeup remover and cotton pads. As you erase the paint on your skin, removing the rough mission from the memory of your face, you start beginning to look less disheveled and more exhausted. Now you can really see the dark circles under your eyes, the discomfort of Rolex’s touching the small of your back and Armani cologne grabbing at your hips while you let it happen. Your body had become free real estate and in just hours you had broken down to feeling like you were stained, a dirtier version of yourself that couldn’t ever be cleaned.
You hadn’t felt so filthy when you were in Jack’s arms.
Eager to try and scrape the mission from your lungs, you peel the tight fabric off your body, letting out a breath of something far redder than relief as it falls to a pool around your ankles. You turn around to reach for the shower handle and grip it hard, letting the cold steel fill your palm as you twist it mid-way. While you wait for the steam to seep into your pores you reach for a bar of packaged soap on the bathroom counter, sizing up the créme box. It’s about a centimeter thick, easily filling your palm, and you frown a little at realizing that most of it will be thrown away, unused. Such a waste.
Turning your attention to the water, you run your hand under the water pouring out of the shower nozzle. It’s warm enough. But you don’t want it to be enough. You want it to melt your skin, to burn through your used body and shed your cells to unleash the layers beneath, the layers that Jack had touched, because thinking that your body has been safe inside his embrace feels better than thinking that you put your head in the jaws of the alligators and hoped they wouldn’t snap.
Once the water is burning, sure to inflame your skin, you step in and close the shower curtain before beginning to let the soap glide along your arms. Except it’s not enough. You’re not clean enough. So you run the bar over yourself again and again, wearing it down as your skin turns hot to the touch until you’re using the tips of your fingers to salvage the last bits of product onto your chest. Shit. You don’t even realize that the bar is all used up until you feel the sensation of your fingers rubbing against your now irritated skin and yet you still feel soiled. So you elect to give up on your sorry attempt at washing away the strange eerie touches and predatory looks and turn off the water, drying yourself off.
The solitude in the air stings.
By the time you’re laying in your bed and looking up at the plain off-white ceiling so that you don’t have to look at the old collections of dirt in the crevices of the wall and carpeted floor, you haven’t thought about Jack for the past 30 minutes. Not since you were washing yourself and the ghost of his fingers scraped your scalp, making you long for the feeling of his chest pressed to your back and the sound of his voice floating into the vinyl of the curtain liner while his hands danced in your hair - 
Not since then.
But Jack Daniels is most certainly thinking about you, and he’s far too deep to bother pretending that he isn’t anymore.
He stands outside your door for just a little while longer after you close it, staring at the fool’s gold embellishment on the front as he basks in the faint warmth of your spirit that lingers in the space of the hall and inside of his bones. He’s not sure how he got so lucky so as to be able to touch you without abandon, kiss your forehead out of greed and hold you in his arms because he really is so needy. He replays the scent of your dainty floral perfume and rewinds the heat of your forehead under his used, chapped lips, trying to commit you to memory as if he hadn’t done this a million time already, as if he hasn’t tried to burn a million of your hugs into the plush cotton of his skin like a brand. Your fading ghost consumes his mind, and by the time it’s whispering farewell to him, he’s already at the bank of elevators waiting patiently for the doors to open for him. Jack does a lot of that; waiting.
The weight of his duffel bag starts to grow and he can’t tell if his tired left arm is getting weaker or if the bag is getting heavier, but he can tell that his nerves are aching because he already misses you.
He’s always missing you.
The trip to his room is quiet, lonely, and as the elevator doors close for him to make his way to the 6th floor he wonders if this is how it’ll always be. Having you so close, seeing you right in front of him, and yet never truly being with you the way he wants to be. Never belonging to anybody, just a wisp of air passing through your life without holding any true substance or having any real meaning to you; but what a privilege to be one of your wisps. To have been in your lungs and have seen what he imagines are wide open plains, vibrant with wildflowers and gentle beasts. He wishes he could stay.
The elevator door dings.
This time he is caught off guard and he inhales like a shudder, eyes darting around the cold yet damp walkway to see if anyone has caught him thinking, caught him yearning.
Hallucinating.
Deluded.
He steps inside of the compartment with his stupid heavy duffel bag, immediately letting it fall to the elevator floor. His eyes find the plastic, cloudy buttons making up the keypad of the elevator. His left arm lifts to press the “6” button but he immediately regrets it, feeling a searing agony shoot through his shoulder. He mutters a little “fuck” to himself like it’ll help balm the pain, and of course it doesn’t, but Jack is a stubborn man and the buttons are to his left, so he shakes his arm out the way you shake out your boots before stepping inside mama’s house and tries again. But his dry, chapped fingers struggle to reach for the buttons, shaking in his own seismic wake. It takes him a few seconds to steady himself, taking temporary control over his body so he can actually touch the button; the plastic is cracked, a small piece having fallen off to be lost, likely thrown away. A discarded fracture in the shell leaving the inner label forever open and exposed, never to be whole again.
The elevator door shuts.
Jack lets out a low sigh, leaving his arms to fall to his sides as he leans against one of the walls. The back wall of the elevator is reflective, muddled and stained but clear enough that Jack can see what has become of him. His stetson is barely on his head anymore, his tie crooked and his collar untucked. He almost feels like a suit monkey, walking around playing dress up with the caveat of poisoning a man’s fresh champagne. But you told him he looked so handsome all gussied up like a proper gentleman worthy of taking a dime like yourself out. So he leaves it at almost.
He does a lot of that too.
The elevator hiccups, and as expected the doors open, inviting him to leave. He looks down at his duffel bag and he can already feel the weight of it on his weeping muscles, but he’s so close to his room and he can’t give up now that’s he’s made it so far, so he uses the momentum of his swinging right arm to sweep the bag up off the floor and drags himself out of the elevator. Not the best thing he’s ever done, but certainly one of his proudest moments.
The sixth floor is less damp, less like a moldy underwater cave and more like he’s at the top of a breezy mountain where the strands of air are like spurs to his cold, tight skin. Crisp. It is different, and yet he feels the same. Like his joyful warmth has drained out of his system, flushed out of his body, and on the inside he is the 5th floor of a shitty decrepit hotel in the middle of fuck all Kentucky. 
He makes quick work of finding his room, the inertia from getting off the elevator being the driving force that gets him down the two hallways and standing before room 645. He pulls out the plastic keycard, adorned with scratches on its surface and stains on its edges, and shoves it into the card reader. With a subtle flash of green and a gentle click, the door gives way for Jack to practically fall inside. He flings the bag as far across the room as his arm will let him, letting gravity control his movements as he is drawn to the white mattress in the center of the room. He releases a groan a little louder than should be appropriate this late at night - he checks the alarm clock on the bedside table to confirm that it’s 11:08. He hasn’t been apart from you for longer than what, 4 minutes? No, he did stand outside your door for a little bit. He decides it’s been 5 minutes.
Oddly enough, the extra sixty seconds don’t make him feel any less fucked.
Now that he’s finally still, his body begins to focus on how sore his legs are as any pain grows from the ends of his limbs and seeps into his chest. He can feel the weight of the night press down heavy on his diaphragm, suffocating him in a way that travels to his eyes and sprays sand like mist onto the walls of his throat. He selfishly lets himself lay there for a second, thinking about that weight being you pressed up against him, face buried in his chest or his neck or in his own face. It’s sacrilegious the way Jack thinks about your touch, the flutter of your lashes like majestic butterfly wings against his cheek, so enticing. So pretty.
His shower is fast despite the way his muscles screech at him to let them rest, begging him to just fucking sit down. When he leans down, back made of creaky burnt red iron, to reach for his sleep clothes, he does a double take; there’s not much in the bag at all. A bunch of small, disguised weapons, communications devices, a pair of grey sweats, a white t-shirt. Nothing oppressively hefty to pull on his tendons; at least, not in a way that could practically drag his shoulder out of its socket. Then suddenly he remembers; he had been holding your bag until you’d both reached the lobby desk. It was a long walk from where you’d been instructed to dump the care and the hotel, so after watching you squirm a little in the freezing air, he offered to take your bag off your back. He’d walked with a bag in each arm for maybe a minute before he realized that his greedy fingers missed being wrapped around your side, missed your melted essence seeping into his stomach, so he’d held both bags in the one left hand for the rest of the thirty minute walk. He hadn’t even noticed how bad he was hurting; perhaps you were too distracting, smile too alluring as your words painted his eyes in lilac and blinded him from his own discomfort.
For being the one person Jack wanted, you sure did hurt him a lot.
Once he is dressed, he lets his sore body absorb into the linen sheets as his muscles finally find some form of permanent relief in the salve of stillness. But this is a dangerous state to be in; when Jack isn’t talking someone else’s ear off, he thinks. He fantasizes, ponders, mulls and muses himself into a state that is suspended between consciousness and sleep.
He thinks about your lips.
You’ve never been too shy to mouth him off, poking and prodding at him and his eccentric cowboy aesthetic. Seeing you walk in every morning and beeline it straight to greet him with a casual fifteen-second hug sends daggers flying into his heart every time, a pain that he’s learned to brace himself for and yet can never seem to be able to handle. And when he looks down at you, adoring eyes and all, he can never help but glance at your lips. It’s always short, a self-indulgent guilty pleasure that he could never admit to, and he thinks about the way they feel against his collarbone when you hold him tight. He thinks about the way they might feel on his own lips.
Sinful.
And then he is thinking about that wretched mission, flashes of luxury clothes and manicured hands trying to feel you up right in front of his eyes. The way you fake smiled at men with money and wrinkles as they leaned into your ear, trying to whisper enticing tales of exorbitant trips to islands that are garishly tropical and dresses so exclusive and designer that no one in the world would own a duplicate. Watching in utter silence because no matter agonizing his need for you is, you’ll never be his.
Suddenly that ache in his body has traveled to his face. It’s so painful to think about you, and yet he takes the jagged edges of his love for you and drags them through his wrists because he’d rather fucking bleed than ever forget you.
Outside his window he hears the clouds crash into each other as an icy downpour beats the pavement. And like a curse, at the expense of his own self-destruction, the image of you in his arms in front of room 513 slices through his brain. Your face right under his mouth, forehead right up against him, your lips right fucking there. And then the feeling of you pulling away. Of you leaving him to rot with the flies, because he’s never going to be strong enough to tell you how bad he needs you,  let you tear his heart into a million pieces for good.
From somewhere in his room the rain begins to fall on his face.
people who asked to be tagged: @gustavos @catfishingmorales @keeper0fthestars @1zashreena1 @blancatobarxoxo @honeyedspace @chaotic-noceur @opheliaelysia @adikaofmandalore @din-damn-djarin @ergotautology
people who most certainly did not ask to be tagged sir: @agentpike @damndamer0n @dindjarindiaries @moonglowcarrillo @girlwithanewplan @mrpascals @bunnykjm @maxlordd @buckstaposition​ @cryptkeepersoul​
This is new so I’m putting it down here too, but I made a little form for those of you that want to be added/removed from my taglist (pls take it my tags are very disorganized rn).
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herpronuonsarefemslash · 3 years ago
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TEASER - Bioweapons and Beef Stew - Chapter 2
Kara's pod goes into the wrong wormhole and she ends up in the Mass Effect universe. SEE MORE HERE: https://www.patreon.com/alephthirteen/posts?filters%5Btag%5D=Bioweapons%20and%20Beef%20Stew
=====
Shepard anchors her fingers around Liara's hipbones and pushes herself away. Tendrils twitch and try exposing Liara's hungry sex to cool air.
Her yelp of protest is not far from what she's heard humans call hiccups.
She's also kept her walls up. Somehow. Somehow a human, with no innate defenses against the meld--bar perhaps, her own stubbornness--has kept Liara at the edges of her mind. Pleasure has built and built and built, but she hasn't been allowed the meld, so she can't come. Not really. She's asari. She needs more than a muscular twitch, a burst of neurotransmitters and a gush of slick to release the pressure.
Crude but effective stasis fields pin her feet to the carpet while muscular arms are more than enough to pin her hands. At her request, they turned the lights off so that Liara's self-consciousness about her appearance wouldn't stop them. In her defense, she had expected to be drowning in the sparkling void of meldspace seconds after Shepard touched her, where there is no universe but each other and where any doubt she might have about whether Shepard is pleased with what she's seeing would be solved instantly because she would just know.
Shepard is just exploring rather than doing anything and it's driving her mad.
Fingertips walk along the skin because humans can't see in full darkness. Tiny, quiet huffs to draw Liara's scent, followed by a tilt of the head that makes hair tickle across the asari's skin and a pause. What she's noting in those contemplative moments, Liara shudders to imagine. Lazy drags of tongue at the crease of her thighs, from mound up to her breast and returning down the plane of her belly almost to her azure and then damnably retreating, at the inside of her wrists, one lashing lick against each of her ribs, a fierce suck under her chin that must have left a mark. Shepard's mouth is everywhere except the places--azure, tender spots on her back, the neck folds, her crests--everywhere except the places that might make her come or make her do what this damnable human thinks is coming.
Liara feels like she's a platter of food at a restaurant in the Presidium, nibbled and sampled and reviewed but not actually enjoyed to the fullest.
It's been hours, she thinks. Days. Weeks. Athame's mercy. She might have been lying here long enough for a galactic extinction cycle while Shepard explores.
Surely human soldiers are taught not to torture prisoners?
She tickles the hand holding hers fast and Shepard releases her. She pulls hard enough to bring her arm up and lay it out across her belly, and pokes at her lover's omnitool until she can get the lights on.
"Let..." she huffs.
"Yes?" Shepard asks, looking up from where she'd rested her chin on Liara's lap and fluttering her lashes oh-so-innocently. "Let you what?"
"Let me come."
"I need to meld, Shepard. I'm not sure if you're familiar with asari reprod-FUCK!"
The professor in her started lecturing. She was distracted too long and Shepard took the opportunity to turn her face down, climb over her and push her cheek to the sheets with one rough shove.
Shepard's tongue is laving across the jewel at the back of the skull, where all of Liara folds and crests meet. It's too good. It's too much. It's too much by light-years.
"Keep talking," Shepard snarls. "I love that you're smart."
She tries to explain about the layers of pleasure her body needs from a mate and about Tevura's Three Blades, about the sacred threes that echo throughout her culture. Maiden, Matron and Matriarch. Plaything, Lover, and Bondmate. Touching, Sampling and Blending. Tries to explain the way biotics, sexual pleasure, the meld and motherhood aren't separate aspects of being asari but that taken together, they are being asari, and all else are little tricks they use to experience those gifts.
Every time she catches her breath enough to speak, Shepard's teeth or tongue latch on to a neckfold, or dance through a crevice between, or a nip at crest-tip or her lips curl around the jewel where crests and folds meet and suck with building ferocity that makes Liara sag and moan into the bedsheets.
Finally, Shepard retreats.
"A good start?"
Liara calls on her biotics, flings Shepard into the air and then pulls her back to the bed, pinning her with as many points of stasis field as her pleasure-melted brain can concoct. She climbs on top and straddles Shepard's hips with her own. Surely now her tormentor understands. She must be able to feel Liara's azure weeping slick onto her...what did she say humans called it?
Shepard's grin--her damnable grin--is so wide it splits her face.
"I want you to make me come. You're a terrible lover, Shepard. Goddess knows how many times you've brought me halfway and refused to do more."
Shepard chuckles.
"Then as a matriarch's daughter, I think you should take what you are owed, princess."
Was it that easy? The entire time? Goddess. I did admit that I was a virgin. She was waiting for me to
take the lead...
"Let me in, Shepard. Now."
With little more than a nudge, Shepard's psyche yields and Liara's spilling into her mind, their mind, this space where two are one. Memory rushes and crashes like floodwater through a desert canyon.
Smoke and fire and blood and screams. Burning cities. Little children clinging to her exhausted, dirty body while she shushes them. Face after face sneering before Shepard's pistol or her biotics ends them.
She's a killer and a protector. She uses warpfire to melt a batarian slaver's skull down slowly, like a candle under a heatlamp while she takes his victim and pulls the crying turian child into her side to hide the violence, gritting her teeth as his spiny head scratches narrow wounds into her arm.
Pleasure blooms like a supernova behind Liara's eyes. It's as if all the half-ruined orgasms Shepard gave her collided and tangled and collapsed to a pinprick and exploded into something far more.
Meldspace thins as she can't maintain it against the trembling waves reaching down every nerve and then rippling back. She can feel and see her surroundings again and she sees Shepard's panting and spent, smearing a palmful of Liara's own slick over her belly. Her knees are damp from the soaked sheets.
"You're a messy one, Liara T'Soni. Good thing you look so sweet when yo-"
Liara leans down and covers her human's mouth with a kiss before she can say another stupid thing, swallowing whatever jibe or joke or tease while thanking Athame that the meld helps her know she's not wasting a proclamation of love.
=====
Oh.
She's messed up because she's hard and because the cause of it is painting wet breath across her wrist. Liara is using her right arm as a pillow and she's probably never getting it back. She's shifting in her sleep, dragging the firm curve of her ass against Shepard's throbbing, weeping cock while her hand holds firm around her back, fitting Shepard's body close and preventing any possibility of a gentlewoman's retreat.
Sex dreams spill from her bedmate's brain into her own and Liara murmurs half-words in Serraci, including her name.
If this is what morning wood is like, she's going to give Alenko thirty percent less shit when he shows up grumpy at a ninety-second wakeup evac drill.
"Please," Liara groans, voice sleep-scratchy and thick. "I need to feel you. Right there, Shepard. You feel so good inside me."
She tries to shake the sleeping temptress, and all she gets out of it is a catlike state that makes lifting her off about as likely as juggling a droplet of water.
"Lee."
She mumbles something else, something filthier and in English borrowed from her brain and shifts back, pressing as much of Shepard's skin against her scales as she can.
Her little Bluejay's brain bombards Shepard with images of exactly what she's imagining and some miraculous asari reflex guides Liara's hand across her skin, like she'll sleep better if the other body in the meld feels pleasure.
Liara wakes with a moan. Shepard is on top of her, pinning her with her weight alone. Her knees are inside Liara's, keeping her spread. Fingers are dancing through her crown, evading the hungry pulsations of the tendrils and fingers are on her crest-tip, squeezing hard as Shepard dares. She's sucking her jewel again and she sobs and moans and smears pleasure across her pillow from drool-slicked lips.
"Shepard..."
The lips abandon her jewel, but Shepard doesn't retreat, her breath ghosting across the tortured nerves. "Easy, baby. I could feel you dreaming. I'm sorry," she pants. "I had to have you."
"That's why we have the dreams, siame. To lure. When I do, wake me like this, please," Liara manages to croak out between her pants. "Always wake me like this." Then she feels it pressed against her ass.
Hard and hot and veiny, Shepard's pulse counted out in drumbeats. It must feel alien to Shepard too, this new organ, but she hides it well, jogging her own hips slightly and smearing something slick from the trembling tip.
"Can..." Shepard gulps.
"I want you inside, Shepard."
"Meld, so I don't hurt you."
=====
The intercom crackles.
"Update for you, commander."
"Joker," Shepard snarls. "I swear to god, if you were listening, I will have you Cat-6'ed for your porn collection. If you're lucky."
"No, ma'am. But congratulations to you and the doc. Got an unidentified object off our bow. Lifepod, we think but doesn't match any known models. Came in for a close pass. One aboard. Looks like a human female, twenty or a bit younger. Systems are powered and it looks like she's in cryo."
Shepard raises her hand to her omni and mutes the channel.
"Feel like solving a mystery, Bluejay?"
Liara turns her head to steal a kiss before Shepard dismounts her. Seed and her own slick pour out like a tide.
"I would love nothing more, Commander."
"Careful," Shepard teases, landing a teasing slap on her ass. "I might get jealous of the abstract concept of knowledge."
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zoethespiritwolf · 5 years ago
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~Lady Justice~ Viperion x reader (part 2)
I realised that I forgot to post a picture of the outfit Lady Justice has in the first part so here it is. The artwork isn’t mine, all credit goes to the artist.
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Previously
"No!" Luka yelled at them as he turned. "I won't turn my back to her and allow her to get away.."
Viperion then turned back to the streets below and jumped down to start looking for her.
"Not again. Not anymore."
Now
Viperion sprinted across the rooftops. His legs burned from the intensive running but he didn't dare to stop.
He had to find her.
He needed to bring her back.
Suddenly he stopped when he noticed some black wolves roaming the street.
"Why are there wolves on the streets?" Luka thought to himself. "Did someone free them from somewhere....or prehaps..."
An idea came into Viperion's mind as he watched most of the wolves moving towards one specific place. The Eiffel Tower.
"She has to be there." Luka said as he looked at the magnificent structure where he thought Lady Justice would be. He then started running again as fast as he could, not wanting to wait for the other superheroes for backup.
"I'm coming (Y/n)."
....
..........
.........................
"Why?" a feminine voice said from the shadows. "Why did you do it? Why did you accept his help?"
Lady Justice opened her piercing golden eyes that had this fire in them, that looked like the eyes of a wolf, a monsterous beast. She continued to scowl even when she didn't look at the teenage girl that had emerged from the shadows, her alter ego, her past self, (Y/n).
The name tasted bitterly on her tongue and her face contorted into a frown as her eyes narrowed and she turned her head slightly to the side but still not looking at her.
"What do you want from me?" Lady Justice growled. "You have nothing to do with me, even when I erased every weakness from my existance that came from you, you plague me still. "
"But one must wonder," she then turned to the girl, the figure that once was her, and hissed out, "why?"
Her past self just looked at her sadly, she felt pity for the akumatised version of herself. (Y/n) could sense the darkness radiate from Lady Justice, the poor girl that was humiliated in front of everyone, especially her best friend Luka, and in desperation seeked herlp from a darker force. She stepped closer, coming more into the light as her steps echoed in the abiss.
"Because it's wrong," (Y/n) finally spoke, "and you know it."
Lady Justice just 'tch'ed in responce and looked away from her past self.
"No." she bited back almost immediantely and her voice started getting louder with every word she said. "What I did was right in every way. Lila deserves to be punished! She needs to have justice brought upon her! She-"
"But that is not what Viperion would want you to do." (Y/n) said calmly as she slowly stepped forward, tentively reaching out her hand. "That is not what he would want you to think, to say."
"He is nothing more than a plague in my life." Lady Justice growled dangerously, cutting her off. "If he didn't exist, I wouldn't have started admiring him. I wouldn't have started to fall for him. I wouldn't have been humiliated. I-"
"No, he is not!" (Y/n) said in desperation as she looked at her other self with pleading eyes and reached for Lady Justice's shoulder. "Please, let go of this hatred! It won't help anyone! Viperion is going to save you-us! And everything will go back to normal!"
"SHUT UP!!!" Lady Justice yelled as she harshly slapped (Y/n)'s hand away. "THERE IS NO WAY EVERYTHING WILL BE AS IT WAS!! I DON'T WANT TO BE SAVED!!!"
She then turned her back on the figure of her former self and glared into the darkness. Eventually she calmed down and growled out: "And I will make sure the world will never be the same."
A long silence settled between them. (Y/n) didn't dare to speak, to move, to breathe. After some time she lowered her hand and started turning towards where she came from.
"..........Then there is nothing I can do." She said grimly and slowly started to walk into the shadows, her footsteps echoing before she stopped and looked back at the dark figure. "I hope you are satisfied."
She then turned and walked into the darkness disappearing completely leaving Lady Justice alone.
Lady Justice screwed her eyes shut, guilt starting to seep into her and she fisted her hand.
"This must be done."
1st person pov.
I opened my eyes to see that I am still in the Eiffel Tower, sitting on a throne that I had made. I looked to the side to see the civilians I had requested my minions to bring me to lure Ladybug, Chat Noir and Viperion.
Viperion....
I shook my head to rid my thoughts of guilt for what I'm doing. Instead I started summoning glowing orbs in my hand and throwing them at the terrified captives. The immediantly turned into black wolves and then came to my side.
"Find the heroes of Paris." I said to them. "Bring them and Lila Rossi to me."
They then growled animalisticly and ran towards the city while some stayed behind to guard me incase the miraculous holders  came here and started attacking.
I stepped closer to the edge of the tower and leaned on the rails. The view from up here was beautiful. It overlooked almost all the city of Paris and I loved to come up here from time to time to clear my head. But that was when I was weak, when I was pathetic, helpless...
"How is the search going?" Hawkmoth asked me as his image appeared in front of me.
"Soon they will be found Hawkmoth." I replied to him calmly. "And when they will be you will have the miraculouses."
"Exellent, Lady Justice." he replied, seemingly happy. "But do not fail to bring them to me or there will be consequences."
"I know." I replied as I looked over the streets of Paris. "I will make sure to deliver them to you. They will be found. No matter the cost."
His image then disappeared and I was left alone yet again. Something in my mind was telling me to stop, telling me that this is wrong and I shouldn't do this.
"Damn you..." I muttered as I imagined the image of the girl I used to be. The weak, naive little girl that used to believe that being kind would make the world a better place.
"(Y/n)..." I heard a male voice softly say and I immediantly turned to the figure that spoke only to find Viperion.
"So," I said calmly with a hint of hatred. "Finally you have decided to show up, Viperion."
I hissed his name as I looked at him. He was just standing there, no weapond drawn, no standing in a fighting stance. Just standing.
"I am not going to fight you (Y/n)." He said as he dropped his lyre to the grond with a loud clanck and slowly stepped closer to me.
I instinctively stepped back and the black wolves stepped between us and growled at the intruder.
"I am not (Y/n)." I said lowly. "I am Lady Justice. And I am here to bring justice to all those who deserve it. Including you."
My minions then bared their teeth at the hero and started to slowly stalk towards him. He stepped back a bit only to reach a hand out tentively and continuing to step closer to me.
"I know you are angry at me." Viperion said and when I looked up to his face I saw that his eyes were practicly pleading for me to listen. And for some reason, even though I hated him for being the source of my humiliation, I couldn't look away or to disobey his eye's silent command. "I know that you are angry at Lila for telling everyone you secrets-"
"Don't you dare mention that filth's name!" I growled at him and so did my wolves.
He stepped closer to me hand still up. "I know you are hurting."
Something about those words hit some kind of trigger in me and I started to feel like I was suffocating. I suddenly felt weaker and weaker by the second as I continued to gaze into his blue eyes.
Another step closer to me. The wolves growled quieter.
"I know what it feels like," he continued, "to be desparate, to want someone to pay for what they did."
Another step. My minions had calmed down.
"I know how it feels to be akumatised."
"What are you waiting for!?!" I heard Hawkmoth yell as his image came in front of me, but I didn't truly see him. I could only look at Viperion. "Attack him!!! Take his miraculous!!!"
"And I know that you know this is wrong."
My breath got stuck in my throat. I couldn't breath. I heard Hawkmoth yelling at me to attack him, but it sounded like a distant yell, almost mute, but I could still feel the weight of his words.
"So please....."
He was almost in front of me.
STOP!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!! ALL THE WORLD NEEDS TO BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE!!! WHY ARE YOU GIVING UP??? FIGHT HIM!!!
I heard the shadows of my mind yelling at me, the evil that resided in me since I became Lady Justice. But in the end Viperion's voice was the loudest of them all.
"...let me help you."
He finally stepped around the wolves as his hand reached my cheek. His eyes were shimmering like glass, possibly from tears welling up in his eyes. His gloved hand cupped my cheek and wiped away the tears that I now noticed were trailing down my cheeks.
I felt like I was suffocating. Like I was going to die.
I needed him to save me.
I wanted him to save me.
"Help me." I whispered as I looked up into his eyes.
He looked down at my choacker and his hand that had been on my cheek trailed down to it. And then he ripped it from my neck, letting it fall to the ground, break the jewel and release the akuma.
It felt as if all the weight from my mind and soul had been lifted. I finally could breath and a sence of euphoria washed over me. It was all overwhelming and I was suddenly consumed by darkness once again.
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Part 2 of Lady Justice is done!!! I'm so sorry to make you all wait so long but here it is and I hope you like it. There is going to be a part 3 and I hope that I will ahve time to get to it very soon. If all goes well, I will post part 3 later today.
Anyway, hope you liked this and have a nice day :D
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aroworlds · 4 years ago
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Those With More, Part One
When Mara Hill's magic results in her brother's impossible, wondrous transition, of course Suki wants to know how she did it! What if Sirenne's magic workers can help others find euphoria? What if this magic can heal Suki's hands—or at least lessen her pain? But Mara, distrustful of priests after their failure in protecting Esher, won't share her power.
A senior priest must bear responsibility, but Suki suspects her problems lie deeper than lack of oversight, and her reluctance to discuss her aromanticism with a woman who needs support only proves it. Would she have preserved Mara's faith and Esher's health if she hadn't first avoided revealing herself to her aromantic kin? If she'd faced their expectations that she shoulder their pain and grief as well as her own?
Suki has lived her life by the Sojourner's second precept, but how does she serve when she doesn't have more to give—and never will?
Contains: A disabled, non-partnering allo-aro woman struggling with the expectations of her young, fledgling aromantic community; an autistic, aromantic priest reconsidering their expectations of their community's leader; and an allo-aro woman in need of support as she struggles with her non-partnering, aro-ace brother's illness. 
Content Advisory: Please expect many references to or depictions of aro antagonism, allo-aro antagonism, amatonormativity, familial abuse, mental illness, suicidal ideation, death, gender dysphoria, chronic pain, ableism and ageism. This piece contains non-detailed, non-specific reference to a character's past suicide attempts. 
Length: 4, 409 words (part one of two). 
Note: This is the last story in my Suki mini-series, but it refers to characters introduced in The Sorcerous Compendium of Postmortem Query and is best read following the stand-alone story What Makes Us Human. You can find links to all on my pinned post or on this Tumblr master post.
Non-romantic love, to Suki, serves a similar role as the Sojourner or any other god: a fine concept in theory, but while she respects others’ need for a guiding framework, she can only nod vaguely at love’s existence.
***
They talk in a west-facing corner of the inner gardens, the sun edging towards the valley’s cradling ridgelines. Suki sits with careful stillness, resting her bony wrists and fingers in her lap. Her companion, Mara Hill, twirls a lock of dark hair around her finger with the ease of a woman unaware of her movements’ toll. Few people reach the ends of their lives untouched by disability, but Suki still aches to watch others take their youthful ability for granted … even if Mara’s restless fidgeting suggests anxiety as much as mind-type.
Suki was an artist once, albeit not the kind of craftswoman draped in the world’s renown. She built wonder from bare ingredients. She made the needed and the practical from scraps of thread and fabric. She took her hands’ ability to knead and shape for granted, revelling in others’ appreciation, until the pain built to a degree even she couldn’t deny. Given the option, she’ll always sit in her garden with her knitting needles or workbasket, making.
She can’t reconcile herself to hours spent halting her fingers and wrists in too-often-futile hope of preserving later use.
“Must I explain, one trans woman to another, why we want this?” Suki works to ease her voice, to sound possessed of patience and released of jealousy. “We … dabble, in spells and medicines, parlour tricks to lessen anguish, but this … it can be freedom. When wrought correctly.”
Now, Suki sees little sense in seeking such a transition: she’s had time to forge an accord with her body and gender. If said accord holds a touch of the defiant, rebellion nonetheless sheltered her through aching moments of feeling her body less hers than a chafing suit she’ll endure for this life. Gender, though, only began the war of Suki’s selfhood separating from her own blood and breath, and it long ago won second place on her list of impossible wishes.
What if Mara’s magic can do more than change a body’s sexual characteristics?
What if it can ease Suki’s hands, heal her knees, return to her the gift of unthinking movement?
Mara shifts her hands to twist the untied lace dangling from her bodice. She’s a handsome woman: tall and long-limbed, her cheekbones sharp enough to slice hard cheese. Full lips, wide skirts and a waist-length sable braid soften the flat planes of her face, shoulders and hips. Suki can’t call Mara beautiful, but she may have used the word “ethereal” if Mara didn’t also bare her haphazard humanity: hair falling out of its pins, scores of grass stains marking her petticoats, a waistcoat absent any matching buttons, a dress ten years out of style knotted up to bare clashing stockings and scuffed boots. Life with Mara, Suki suspects, is no small amount interesting, but one needn’t fear from her airs or pretentiousness.
This conversation, regardless, comes none the easier.
“I know you understand,” Suki says, attempting a beseeching gentleness. “How can’t you?”
“It’s a secret.” Mara stares at Suki with a distressingly direct gaze, as though hoping to emphasise her sincerity through eye contact. “Handed down from witch to witch. I’ve sworn oaths to the living and the dead. I can’t. And I won’t.”
Mara Hill is also a terrible liar.
“You insist this isn’t sorcery. It’s witchcraft—a type of magic that can be taught! Why, then, can’t you teach us? Can’t you imagine what we could do, if we could study and understand it?”
Just as Suki regrets such desperation-fuelled bluntness, flashes of brown, red and grey show through the eucalypts and fern-encrusted rockery dividing the outer garden from an interior courtyard. Only two other people in Sirenne stand tall enough to be seen over said wall of rocks, and neither looks towards her. Moll, their face set in their accustomed expressionlessness and their iron-grey hair scraped back in a braid, walks close by their companion: a man with Mara’s cheekbones, his gaze distant and his face cavernous. While health warms her sienna skin, even when moistened by anxiety and dappled sunshine, his sallow complexion provokes no kind adjectives.
Esher Hill is the gaunt, walking embodiment of the nightmare Sirenne’s priests struggle to dispel when discussing medicines and spells—a man who appears drugged and ensorcelled into a puppet-like lifelessness, a state absent all vitality.
His sister caused, provoked or necessitated most of it.
Most.
Like too many guests, Mara brought her brother to the monastery when absent solutions in her home village’s offerings of lay priests, physicians, magic workers and well-meaning family members—a last, desperate resort. Esher wasn’t happy or healthy, but he had muscle and energy enough that Suki decided his taciturnity somewhat intentional. He stopped to pet Sirenne’s horses; he allowed their cats to settle on his lap. He scowled when faced with chattering acolytes. He reacted.
Mara’s power stripped his bones of flesh and tissue in the quest to craft him an almost-cis body. New organs, somehow, grew; others withered and sloughed away like an unused cocoon. Such impossibility should be a miracle, but can one fairly call a tempest that devoured his body and hammered his mind miraculous?
What if, though, this transition becomes a goal identified and worked towards with desire, preparation and consent? What if a patient understands what lies ahead? Can one then cope with magic’s trauma, a difficult moment endured in travelling a chosen road? Or what if they narrow the scope to one change, one part of the body?
Will she then see a butterfly, bloodied but eager to take flight?
Will she then be able to live her last years still wielding her pastry brushes and knitting needles?
“It’s dangerous!” Mara follows Suki’s gaze towards the rockery, her lips pressed together in pale, thin lines. “Can’t you see that? Shouldn’t you?” Her husky voice sharpens like a blade on a grindstone. “And what makes you think I should trust you with it? Or would?”
Suki bites her lip while counting backwards from ten. Her tongue runs to tart even when voicing second and third thoughts, and she fears she offers little sympathy when she finds something worth speaking: “But less dangerous in better circumstances? If he knew, was prepared, agreed, expected…”
If a witch doesn’t work her magic behind the priests’ backs, but that’s less Mara’s fault than Sirenne’s.
The question remains: if a witch fears dysphoria's ache the cause of her brother’s depression, why didn’t she offer this magical transition weeks or months earlier? Why didn’t she gain Esher’s prior agreement and approval? Why did Mara bother to take him to a monastery? That she wrought this after Sirenne’s failures dashes Suki’s hopes: Mara’s supposed witchcraft is sorcery, unpredictable and unreachable. Nothing more than a panicked, desperate deal made with demons, a grave power Sirenne can’t replicate ... even should a priest be fortunate enough to make the same bargain with the same brace of demons.
If demons routinely offered such vast power, how many trans people wouldn’t sell their soul for a body suiting their nature?
“Prepare? After you made me—” Mara’s voice cracks like thick, shadowed frost under morning’s first footstep. “If there were anywhere else, if I thought … we wouldn’t be here!”
Suki shifts in her chair, her hands and feet aching as though a purple-black bruise engulfs her joints. Is it a wild, ridiculous joke that her body throbs as if beaten while showing no wound to draw sympathy? Why must a black eye or nasty scrape provoke sorrow while injuries or illnesses unable to heal garner, at best, a mute acceptance? Why do people following the Sojourner’s path lack comprehension in the second precept’s broadness? Why must a priest spend her day asking questions lacking comforting answers?
Because Amadi’s ideal became her god: question.
Mara’s desperation, too, deserves an answer.
“We failed,” Suki says, her own throat roughening. “We failed to serve Esher’s needs. A man who has too long had those needs unmet, and believes he has failed in even wishing his needs met, reacted to this lack in despair. There’s nothing irrational in that.” She wants to smile, because she can’t not know the rationality behind such a conclusion, but Mara won’t understand. She doesn’t know about Mama Lewis. “We went over our changes with you, for we can’t allow this to again happen. I ask you sincerely: are we now doing something inadequate? Are you unhappy with Moll or Thanh’s service? Within the limits of our resources and ability, what aren’t we doing that you think we should? How can we better help Esher? Help you?”
Suki didn’t assign Esher’s first priest. She didn’t speak or condone the words that gave him reason to lose the last shred of a trust abraded by too many authoritative people. She didn’t know why he needed consideration in the priest given to guide him; the unasked question wasn’t hers to speak. Ignorance, nonetheless, rings like an intimate, personal failure.
Not a failure Sirenne’s priests share as a collective whole.
A failure, terrible and tragic, in Suki.
Could she have tried harder to serve as an aromantic priest?
Mara purses her lips, her green skirt clenched in tight-knuckled hands. “He’s … always been. A little. But only in the last few years was he so distant, and I don’t think … he wasn’t bad like this until after the Thinning and Benjamin.”
Suki takes Mara’s non-answer as indication that, at least for the moment, she has no objection—and perhaps that’s a victory, but what good is winning when the war shouldn’t be fought? Suki sighs, shaking her head, as Moll and Esher move past the gap in the trees, vanishing behind canopy and granite outcrops. Only her garden, in its art-defying muddle of ferns, trees, mushrooms and bright-coloured orchids, remains—and while, ordinarily, such clashing shades appeal to her, today those greens and reds feel another mockery, a symbol and privilege undeserved.
Even when Moll gave her the opportunity to address her neglect, she took retreat in her brusque manner and authority, confident that a conscientious priest wouldn’t examine the shallowness of her answer. She offered reassurance, solved a problem, revealed herself in the most cursory of ways and fled with fears and feelings still buried within her aching bones.
Question.
If she considers god her ideal and Amadi’s ideal her god, why didn’t she?
“Benjamin is your partner, yes?” Suki shifts her left ankle, thinking even a circumlocutory attempt to build rapport better than another futile attempt at questioning. “May I ask what happened at the Thinning? You needn’t answer.”
Mara’s body softens, although she doesn’t ease her grip on the skirt. “Have you had … family, friends, come visiting? After they … pass?”
For all that belief in the Sojourner’s path embodies the human struggle to conceptualise, negotiate and accept death, hir followers still deal in euphemisms. Family come visiting. Bad like this. Suki, in the outspoken rebelliousness of a would-be priest, spent a year into her novitiate chanting “death, death, death” at her mirror before bed, just to prove that death isn’t a black-cloaked reaper summoned upon saying hir name.
Such boldness failed her, of course, when Mama Polly passed.
“There’s always spirits flickering about, but few speak.” Suki barks a hoarse laugh. “A man who desired me and told me that he’d never have broken his neck if I’d first wed him. Both my mothers. Mama Lewis talks too much.”
Such events aren’t for Suki as unusual an occurrence as they are for the non-necromantic laity, but the conversations between the returning dead and the priest who offered guidance on their paths through the life now history aren’t for outsiders. There’s always a few, often those who died in the last year and haven’t yet had their connections to this world stretch thin, who come back to speak rather than observe. Sometimes those spirits come burdened with regret and recrimination; sometimes they express gratitude or relief. Death, drawing closer with every breath, grants the living a night a year where one must look into hir shadow and fearlessly accept, even celebrate, hir company.
She’s none too fond of Mama Lewis’s bitter postmortem moaning, but a salt circle and poker at least puts paid to that nonsense.
Respecting the sacred covenant of life and death doesn’t mean tolerating abuse.
“Really?” Mara blinks, shaking her head. “She came to me, with other dead relatives and villagers—my Aunt Rosie. I think she knew I needed to talk to her. She told me that I don’t have to romantically love a girl to want or love a girl, and they told me all the ways they didn’t love, which made me feel that … I could talk to the woman I wanted. So I did.” A sweet warmth softens and curves her lips, but the speed with which Mara flattens them suggests she isn’t easy with smiling in current circumstances. “And we’re together, now. But Esh … he doesn’t want anyone, and that should be fine, but maybe … it wasn’t good for him to see me and Ben happy.”
She leans forwards, coughing, before wiping her palm on her skirt.
Suki clenches her hands, fighting to ease her expression before Mara catches her face. It rankles, to say the least, when someone happy in an intimate partnership—however non-romantic!—suggests that those without must be broken in their loneliness. How can she ignore the reflections of Mama Lewis, one shape of expected love or partnership replacing another in the same unyielding structures and assumptions? Mama Lewis cut and hewed the shape of Suki’s illnesses, not another’s possession of something she doesn’t want!
Non-romantic love, to Suki, serves a similar role as the Sojourner or any other god: a fine concept in theory, but while she respects others’ need for a guiding framework, she can only nod vaguely at love’s existence.
Anger, though, doesn’t explain the terror stiffening her body.
“Or after seeing you find a less-conventional form of the coupled happily-ever-after,” she says in a voice perilously close to “glacial”, “your kin and village increased their expectations that he should find the same?”
Mara stares, her lips parted as if in surprise or hurt. “I … Uncle Sascha would say that, I guess. So would the Fisher sisters.” She sighs, frowning. “I don’t know. Just that he got worse after Benjamin … right when I thought he’d get better, because Aunt Rosie said that we’re … real, human. Just a less-known ordinary. Even if we didn’t know the specific word before Moll said it.”
“Only your brother knows why,” Suki says in the mild, self-evident comment a guiding priest says to people having difficulty observing—or permitting themselves to observe—the truth before them. The mild, self-evident comment a priest, who doesn’t fear the direction of this conversation, may say to a guided guest. “So why bother yourself with if I didn’t non-romantically pair up with a girl, maybe he wouldn’t have tried to kill himself drivel? Can you go back in time to not pair up? No! Nor should you halt your life just in case it may be the reason!”
Mara’s half-raised eyebrows suggest that she doesn’t agree.
“Girl, the world tells you in so many ways that you shouldn’t non-romantically partner. After all that repetition, you’re inclined to find excuses to obey that! Keeping my brother from attempting suicide feels more reasonable to you than most puerile objections, but is this reasonable? Are you helping him by thinking this? Or are you obliging everyone who thinks you shouldn’t exist by undermining your partnership with misplaced guilt?”
She refrains from mentioning the insult in anyone’s assuming that depression must be provoked by the existence of someone else’s intimate partnership, as though such relationships are so fundamental one must sicken in witnessing another’s contentment! She refrains, unable to think of anything that doesn’t sound like an observation based in betraying knowledge. Shouldn’t they focus less, anyway, on Mara’s limited understanding of non-partnering people and more on the real issue at hand: her trying to craft another impossible?
Even if it means making herself the cause, Mara seems set on wishing together a world possessed of perfect assurance that her brother won’t again attempt suicide.
Sorcery is by far an easier art, but that’s no comforting truth.
Mara glances at Suki’s belt, as if in need of reassurance that she talks to a senior priest. “Are you, uh … well...”
“Am I what, girl? Don’t cluck!”
Mara swallows, stumbling over the word likely strange to her voice. “Aro … aromantic? Because you sound like…”
Aromantic.
A word in a book, discovered by accident.
A word feared, weighted down by her obligation and pain.
A word unsaid, a man nearly dying of its absence.
“Aromantic and allosexual. I like men for bedding. I don’t like partnerships.” Suki speaks with the casualness that shaped her words when speaking to a distressed priest in a vegetable garden, words said now as if they’ll make up for their silent past. Words said devoid of her terror. “I have enough of one with myself.”
She waits, wondering if Mara will subject her to the young, abled trick of past tense, as though sexuality must be Suki’s history and not her present or future. Something accessible only to the hale and young, presuming her sense of another’s sexual attractiveness withers along with her body? Or will Mara grimace, disgusted by the notion of an elderly, disabled woman whose sexuality hasn’t “decently” become distant memory?
She waits for the accusation: why didn’t you say this before?
“So you understand … why it’s … hard, to live unknowing who you are and what you want, what the words are?” Mara’s brow furrows, her hesitant speech giving way to a spurting rush of feeling: “That’s what Aunt Rosie gave us that night, but it came so late. I lived for so long not knowing, without a word, without knowing it an option! That it had a name! And that hurts, even now I have what I didn’t know I wanted or could want. For so long, I didn’t know! Maybe … that’s it, for Esh, the hurting? Or part of it? How can’t it be…?”
How old is she? Twenty-five? Thirty at most? One needn’t own precision in telling another’s age to know that Mara’s adulthood, outside of accident or illness, stands years distant from death’s shadow. Suki draws a sharp breath, fighting to swallow the tart, quill-bristled question clogging her throat: And when do you think I found the word, girl?
Amadi gifted her the other-shape-of-normal permissiveness, but ey died unknowing of the word describing them both.
Ey died, leaving her alone in a world where she feels outdated and unwanted, where everyone sharing in the known power of the word aromantic can’t comprehend her pain but expects her to, immediately and easily, carry theirs.
Mara needs her pain acknowledged, to have someone confirm that possession of a happy non-romantic partnership can’t and shouldn’t erase ignorance’s lingering hurts. Someone who acknowledges that such bruises are long in the fading but one can still build a life worth living. Someone who reflects understanding and the vital, powerful sense of aromantic siblinghood. Someone who can give what she needs and deserves.
Why must Suki provide it? Why not Moll? Why not anyone else?
“Yes.” She swallows, shifting her throbbing hands, fighting to keep the growl from claiming her voice. Another failure! “We all feel the … betrayal, the years lost to ignorance. Why didn’t I know? You’ll have times of hurting, of struggling, of wondering what could have been if your family knew, your friends, your neighbours. When something isn’t yet recognised or accepted, despite being extant and common … pain, for those of us ahead of that coming, isn’t optional. You aren’t alone in that.”
Suki isn’t gentle. Increased social permissiveness towards the crotchety manner discouraged in children and younger adults stands as one of age’s rare benefits. Mama Polly joked that Suki was set to be a grandmother while still a maiden, but Mama Lewis—curse her long-dead soul—didn’t laugh. Even after half a century gone, Suki can still recite her clipped lectures, delivered in the hope that decreased acidity and increased sweetness will help her daughter find the happiness packaged in a loving, romantic partnership.
Mama Lewis’s shade, returning for her once-yearly lecture, still hopes that her now-elderly daughter will soften enough to allow love into her heart.
It should amuse Suki that such gentleness is now demanded whenever she dares reveal herself as aromantic.
Mara nods, her lips pressed together, her jaw tight, her glistening eyes angled towards her lap.
“It could be part of your brother’s feelings. It could be something else. But this second-guessing of his motivations doesn’t help you or him!” Suki changes the subject for Mara’s sake: for a woman fighting to keep from breaking down before a near-stranger. “Where does this get you but exhaustion? You’re only going to chase your guesses around and around until you’re a dog barking at a rat behind a grate—only to finally spot a different rat gnawing on his brain, realise you’ve been barking at this one for no reason, and there’s actually a score of invisible rats feasting on his poor, bloody brain. Does this help you see those invisible rats? Does this barking help your health, girl?”
She absolutely, assuredly isn’t changing the subject because Suki fears the explosion of her own anger and hurt while discussing aromanticism.
Question. How can she?
Mara’s eyes meet Suki’s face in the bulging stare had by someone imagining rodents chewing on grey matter. “R—rats?”
“Chewing brain rats. You want pretty metaphors for a bloody illness? Don’t talk to a priest, then. Pretty metaphors leave people telling themselves depression isn’t illness, just something that can be shouted, shamed or pressured into abeyance. I don’t hold for that.” Suki sighs and attempts to ease Mara’s shock, hating her bluntness’ sharp, gleaming edges. Is she trying to hurt Mara, wounds delivered in return for those unintentionally given? “I know you want to help your brother. You’ll do more for him by asking what he needs, and listening to what he tells you even if it’s ‘nothing’, instead of chasing every rat in the hope they’re the ones eating him. There’s too many rats, girl! When he’s able to cope with your asking, ask. Leave handling the rats to us—because that’s what we’ll teach him.”
If only they’d thought to ensure Mara realised this before she attempted to bludgeon the rat labelled “dysphoria”, but who imagined a village witch owning such power or ability?
Mara nods: perhaps accepting such advice, perhaps planning to avoid future commentary on what she thinks provoked her brother’s attempt. Her silence is, though, more honest than immediate agreement. Better that than false approval or out-of-hand rejection, especially when she hasn’t agreed to a guiding relationship between priest and guest. Especially when Suki has already stepped further over that line than is wise for a priest struggling with herself! Anyway, hasn’t she gleaned enough to make a solid guess—that Mara sold her soul to purchase Esher’s transition? What more need they discuss?
She isn’t a powerful witch keeping her magic a solemn, oath-bound secret.
She’s a frightened sister doing everything she can to hold her brother into life.
Is that another rat set to gnaw on Esher’s brain? Is that, as much as distrust or fear of priestly reaction to sorcery, reason for her denial? Does she seek to keep this secret from Esher and the priests involved in his care to avoid making yet another rat? Does Moll realise this?
Is Mara all that different from Suki herself?
“I’m sorry that I can’t help you.” Mara stands and bows in the abrupt, jerking movements of a woman looking to leave before the conversation leads them anywhere uncomfortable—and Suki feels unreasonably relieved. “Thank you for your advice—and wisdom.” She hesitates, leaving Suki certain that “wisdom” is nothing more than politeness. “I’m glad, I suppose, there’s more people like us here. Maybe … maybe that will help Esh, if things go better.”
“If you think a priest’s guidance may be useful for your own sake,” she says, falling back on well-worn script in the surety that her own words are far too confronting, “please know that our service extends to all. And I hope, one day, aromantics are so ordinary there’s no need to comment.”
Mild, facile, trite.
Her hands throb, and Suki fights to unclench them.
Mara’s face shutters. “You’ve more than enough work with Esh.”
She bows again and, in a frenetic, long-paced stride best described as “hurrying”, heads down the garden path towards the guest quarters.
Trust.
Can she blame Mara for not trusting her when Suki has none to give?
She sighs and stares at her orchids, at the stone rising behind the tangle of shrub and ivy, at the blue-tinged mushrooms threatening to take over the lawn, at the green grass beneath her chair and the cloudless sky overhead. She stares at the rocks and leaves of her sanctuary, thinking about Mara, thinking about Mamas Lewis and Polly, thinking about the conversation with Moll in the vegetable garden, thinking about words unsaid and feelings concealed … but as the sun ebbs lower, she finds no course of action but the obvious.
Question.
Why has she, for so long, chosen avoidance over service? Why has she refused to face her pain, even while knowing the impact her absence has on others? If she preaches the sacred power in guiding another to a better road, why does she refuse another’s gift of the same? Will she leave this world as Mara is now? Or will she trust her own kin, her own ideals—the only god worth her wholehearted belief?
“Aziz!” Suki waves a hand at the acolyte reading on the lawn just out of non-shouting earshot. “Tell Moll that I’d like them to attend me here at their earliest convenience. Please have the kitchen arrange sweets for both of us and my afternoon tea.” She pauses, considering, as Aziz scrambles upright and straightens hir brown robe. “My shawl. And ask Thanh for an additional dose of my pain medicine. Thank you.”
Question.
If Moll is good enough for Esher Hill, they ought to be good enough for Suki of Sirenne.
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jalebi-weds-bluetooth · 5 years ago
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There’s More To Her #3
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Understanding
Akash Raizada was a far cry from his powerful, hot headed, and insanely talented cousin. However, Akash was just as unforgettable for his empathy and altruism .
No man would part with the only token of his beloved, yet Akash gladly parted from the dupatta, his prized possession, for Khushi. It was the one thing that had made the sweet woman smile on that horrid day.
No man would remain kind to their orphaned cousin who took his surname and attention from him. But Akash knew that Arnav had as much right on being a Raizada as he. That working under Arnav was not the same as being in his shadows - he was grateful for being mentored by one of Asia’s biggest fashion tycoons.  That Arnav, behind his masks of terror and anger, had been beaten brutally by life to become so.
Anjali might be Arnav’s biological sister, but to Akash Arnav was his brother - not cousin. He knew him better than anyone else.
Did he?
Shame was too small a word. And it was not due to what Arnav had said about the incident at Sheesh Mahal. It was the unsaid that occured after that. The events that Akash was too familiar with; the gossips of his brother letting Khushi fall a floor down, the forced photoshoot, the near accident at the parking lot, the guesthouse mishap.
Akash had doubted his brother’s sentiments for the woman he despised when he bolted off the house on that stormy night. He was not being heroic, he was making amends.
And Anjali, the sister he idolised, was not generous to offer Khushi a job. She was manipulative.
Akash took his spectacles from Payal and took a step back. He could not meet her eyes.
“I can’t say sorry for what my cousins have done. But I am sorry for everything, Payal ji.” He addressed her formally, as if they were back to being strangers - which was the truth. Today proved that neither knew their cousins - so knowing each other was out of the question.
“And I promise that I’ll never ask you to marry me.” He choked at the last word. Payal staggered, physically impacted by the implication of his words. How dare he write the future of their relationship? How dare he not attempt to change her thoughts?
“Please, it’s not a threat. My family has disrespected yours in every way but I want to respect you, by heeding to your request.” Payal knew she was doomed. Akash didn’t turn out to be the man she expected, he turned out to be better than she had ever imagined.
If he hadn’t listened to her, she would have wished he did. And now that he did, she wished he didn't. By accepting her refusal to marry him, he became the man she wanted to marry.
“Thank you.” She whispered, which meant I love you. Akash nodded and walked into the car, opening the car door for her.
Arnav and Khushi, mutely, followed their cousins into the car.
---
Payal sat by the temple, dusting the idol of Shiv Parvati over and over again. Khushi stood by the door, a big bowl in her hand. After fifteen minutes she gained enough courage to meet her sister.  
“Jiji, here’s your favorite gajar ka halwa!” Khushi sat by Payal and gave her a generous portion of the dessert.
“To anyone who says that a man’s way to his heart is through his stomach, he must have never seen a woman eat! What not have you forgiven me for this carrot dish! Remember when I spoiled your science project? Or when I stole all the chocolates you got for your birthday? Or to support Salman ji’s friend, Himesh ji,  I took you to watch Karzzzz?” Khushi and Payal winced at the memory of the film, it was the most traumatising experience of their lives. Payal could not trust Khushi for two years on film selections post ‘Karzzzz’.
They both burst into laughter recalling how Khushi followed Payal like a puppy, a bowl of gajar ka halwa always miraculously present until Payal relented.
Khushi took Payal’s hand, her smiles overwhelmed by her tears.
“Jiji, today, for the last time, forgive me-” Payal enveloped Khushi into a tight hug. This Khushi was the one Payal had known since forever.
“My sister would talk to me, try to understand me.” Payal broke their hug, wiped Khushi’s tears and handed her tissues before she could blow her nose in either of their dupattas.
“I do understand Jiji, but I don’t know why I thought you were being stubborn. I didn’t want to force you, I just wanted you to know how much Akash ji means to you… I thought you didn’t know how you felt.” Khushi confessed.
Payal kept their dessert bowls aside and held Khushi’s hands, “Khushi, a woman can accept, challenge or deny her feelings, but choosing either means she knows what those feelings are.”
In this turn of conversation about feelings, one can readily forgive Khushi for forgetting her sister’s feelings and remembering hers. To violently deny them though. Especially when a six feet tall, boorish, handsome man was in question.
“I was scared that you were hiding your happiness. That you were doing this for our sake.” Khushi mumbled.
“No Khushi, no matter how much I loved you all, I would never sacrifice my happiness for others. I need a man who can respect my decision.” And with a rue note, Payal realised that Akash had precisely done that.
“Good. Don’t ever sacrifice your happiness for others. It makes living difficult.” Payal would have thanked her sister, had she not noticed Khushi twisting her engagement ring.
For the second time of the day, Payal felt her blood run cold. Those words weren’t of a concerned sister, rather of a broken woman. In all the mess, Payal forgot that her sister was engaged, and to be married in a month if it went by Bua ji’s will.
Payal touched her shoulder. Khushi shook, pulled rudely out of her thoughts.
“Khushi-”
“Jiji, I’ll be back in an hour.” Khushi sprinted off. For a woman who was aware of a cheap metal key, she didn’t even bother when the single cut diamond engagement ring slipped off her finger and fell to the floor with a considerable clank.
Bua ji picked it up and yelled from the end of the hall. She waited until Khushi slowly slipped the ring. Shyam entered the hall and offered to help Khushi with it.
“No, it’s ok.” She forced the ring back and walked away, giving a polite nod to both Bua ji and Shyam.
“Aw, she’s still shy of you.” Madhumati gushed.
“It will all change after marriage Bua ji,” Shyam grinned.
An unsettling fear settled in the pit of Payal’s stomach. Khushi was far from shy,  and Shyam’s comment didn’t reflect his earlier unease and patience about marriage. How hadn’t she seen it before?
---
Arnav loved silence, unpredictability and accountability - but not when they were directed to him. Akash said nothing, asked nothing and kept firmly to his business on their way home. He behaved like Arnav, and in any other time or day he would be happy to see his brother aping his best qualities.
Except today. He wanted to talk, explain and be held answerable to the man who was more than a brother. One chance before he was judged, forever.
“Akash, what I did-” Arnav began.
“It’s not about that.” Akash interrupted, “I don’t need explanations Bhai. I know you, maybe not enough to understand your actions, but enough to defend your intentions.” His words humbled Arnav.  And he royally failed today to secure the happiness of the one person in his family who expected nothing from him.
He parked in the garage but remained in the car, “I’ll fix this mess.” Arnav promised.
“This is no mess.” Akash saw no reason to debate or blame his brother when he finally saw reason. The thirty minutes of silence gave him enough time to think about what went wrong in his relationship with Payal.
Relationship? Akash recalled all the times when he met Payal. There was attraction, respect, admiration, even love but not relationship.
“I’ll help you clear the misunderstanding.” Arnav offered, his eyes taking the sharp look which formed whenever a successful plan formulated in his head.
It was simple - he needed to go to the Guptas, convince them that they would ideally not find a better deal than that of a matrimonial alliance between Payal and Akash. If there were any doubts, he would guarantee that Akash would financially aid them as well. Akash loved Payal, Payal loved Akash - there was no need to waste further time.
In the society they lived, marriage solved everything. As Akash had said, there was no doubt about Payal’s place in his life - which said more than what Arnav could say for his fianceé.
Akash placed a hand on his shoulder, bringing him back from his thoughts.
“No Bhai, there’s no misunderstanding. Payal ji has said no, and that’s enough.”
“But you love her, you said you won’t regret bringing her in your life.” Arnav protested.  
“It’s a marriage, Bhai. A transaction based on mutual interest and possibility of profit for both the parties involved!” Akash got out of the car and slammed the door shut on Arnav’s face.
Counting to ten, he waited for Arnav to join him by the front door.
“Sorry,” Akash mumbled, fishing for keys in his pocket. Arnav gave him a half smile, his brother was forgiven even before he apologised. He rung the doorbell
“Bhai, Payal ji is not just the woman I love. If I’m bringing her to my life, I’m bringing her sister, her aunt, her parents, her values - everything! Tell me she won’t regret living as a Raizada.” Akash quieted as a flurry of footsteps approached the door.
In real life logic and example rarely followed each other in quick succession. To Arnav, Akash’s understanding felt all too sudden, and all too true. But when the door opened to a smiling Anjali, an unsmiling Nani and a confused Lavanya trying to understand the difference between different kinds of rice - Arnav finally understood the logic and the unfortunate example.
Lavanya Kashyap was a force to reckon with. The same could not be said for the to-be Mrs. Arnav Singh Raizada.
Akash has brushed away his discomfort with the modern-turns-sanskari program only because he believed his brother was a righteous, indestructible force who would let Lavanya become her old self once they were married. He had relied on the same shield to gain the courage to marry Payal.
“Do any of you have plans to enter Shantivan?” Anjali chuckled, clicking her fingers before Arnav and Akash. Once they sat in the lounge and had been served their favorite tea and coffee, Anjali attempted to dissipate the silence between the three of them.
“So how was your day?” She asked, preparing a plate of digestive biscuits.
“Di, I pay people to do that,” Arnav grumbled, taking the plate from her.
“I met Payal.” Akash said, keeping his cup of tea aside.
“I asked her to marry me.” Like a wise sister, Anjali kept quiet, not knowing how Arnav would react to the news of Akash and Payal. Like a wiser brother, Arnav nodded to his sister letting her know that he knew everything and did not have a problem. Breathing a sigh of relief, Anjali grabbed Akash’s hands, excitement spilling from her incessant chatter and smiles.
“Thank God Chote! First I thought I’ll have to manage you, then Mami!” She rolled her eyes at the mention of her aunt, “But then since you agree, I can involve you into the plan of getting our younger brother hitched as well!”
“Yes, and marriage means that she’ll be my wife. Her family will be like my own. Her sister, as my own.” Anjali nodded, her traditional instincts proud of Akash’s understanding of marriage.
Arnav loved Anjali too much to question what he had learnt from the Gupta sisters. Akash loved Payal too much to keep quiet.  
“Exactly, what did she say?” Anjali asked.
“What any woman would say to a man who’s sister blackmails hers for a menial job.” Anjali stood up, dropping his hands like hot coal. Arnav stood up as well, with all intention to stop Akash. Anjali had to have meant well.
“Khushi ji said she forgave me,” Anjali whispered, unable to look at Arnav.
“Her sister didn’t.” Akash got up and placed a hand on Anjali’s shoulder. It hurt him to see his brother protect Anjali from a scolding she deserved but he could not judge. Arnav and Anjali so often switched between playing each other’s parents that they probably didn’t even realise when they did it.
“Don’t worry Anjali di, it happens,” Akash smiled, “we forget that people have families. Have respect. Self respect. It happens when our clothes cost twice of someone’s ten months rent.” Akash stormed out of the house, leaving a sobbing Anjali and a stoic Arnav behind.
“Chote, I truly thought that-” Arnav shushed her, “It’s ok Di. I just wish that I was the only one who made such mistakes. Now Payal will never understand that Akash-” Arnav stopped. Payal would not understand, unless someone made the effort.
In a flash he picked up his car keys and phone.
“Chote-”
“Di, I’ll be back in an hour,” He stopped on his way and turned around to face his sister, “and Di, I’m not upset that you did whatever you could for my happiness.” Anjali sighed in relief and approached her brother but he raised his hand, gesturing her to be where she was.
“But, I told you that the contract was no longer legally enforceable. And you knew that I didn’t tell Khushi.”
---
Work is therapy. Akash wished that was true. The two hours he spent negotiating the launch of the winter collection only added to his headache.
A wise man once said that words, like arrows, cannot be taken back. Especially the ones said in anger. And Akash was wise, furious and had a choice of words simmering in him all afternoon in the office. Hence he declined every single phone call from Shantivan, Anjali di, and even Hari Prakash, until he switched off his phone.
Unfortunately now someone was at his office door. What can a man do to get one peaceful day!
“Sir, you have a visitor.”
“Rakesh, you know I don’t want any visitors.” Akash said.
“How about a friend?” Khushi Kumari Gupta, disrespecting all beautiful rules of privacy, entered the room and stared eye to eye with a shocked Akash.
“Khushi ji, what a pleasant surprise. Is Payal ji here? No… why should be? Khushi ji, I have decided to understand Payal ji’s no, so there is no yes in the no. You are my friend, but I won’t be convinced. You know how Payal ji is,” This was another case of verbal diarrhea.
Victim, Akash Raizada. Cause, first love and heartbreak syndrome. Previously seen in Khushi Kumari Gupta.
Khushi wondered if this is how she sounded to her family members throughout her life. That would explain her nicknames and her sister’s continuous worry of her health. Right now Akash would faint if not interrupted, as in the case of diarrheas, and her sister would have her head if she inadvertently caused the death of Akash Raizada.
Oh wait, even the Laad Governor would have her head, without any preliminaries, if anything happened to Akash. So, out of pure selfishness, Khushi had to act.
“... Payal ji was right. I had no idea Di had enforced the contract on you. Don’t worry I have understood Payal ji’s no. You do not, please, convince me otherwise-” Akash babbled.
“Stop! Hey Devi Maiyya, who told you I’m here to convince you?” Khushi asked. Akash violently colored and sat on his office chair, to stand up again, show Khushi the office guest chair and sit down back in his chair.
“Oh.”
“No means no. But now that you’ve understood her no,” Khushi began, “don’t you think it’s time you understood her?”
---
“Coming! Khushi if you knock once more-” Payal opened the main door and stopped. Last she remembered, Khushi was not six feet tall, wearing  a pompom free and colorless suit, with a beard and a permanent scowl on her forehead. Also, she was not a man.
“You’re not Khushi.”
“So I’m told,” Arnav said.
If there were any doubts on Payal being Khushi’s sister, her inconsequential observation, and the necessity to voice it, removed it. Seldom had Arnav been faced with female attention not directed towards them, especially when he was in their line of sight. But Payal had other plans, and other intentions, as she craned her neck to find the taller, spectacled Raizada.
And even more rarely, had Arnav been pleased by someone’s utter lack of interest and disappointment in his solo arrival.
“Akash is not here.” He informed her. Payal blinked at him in a way that he interpreted as I-was-not-searching-for-him-at-all. It reminded him of Khushi.
“Why are you here?” Payal asked.
“I need to speak with you.” Arnav answered.
“I don’t want to speak with you.”
“What the fu-”
“What?!” Payal glared, knowing well where the last word went.
“Future. Of yours and Akash. He loves you.”
“I have said no.”
“I’m not here to convince you. I’m just saying that - damn it - Payal, not everyone gets the chance to marry someone they love.” Arnav said, his words betraying his inner turmoil. It struck Payal, love, it’s what Khushi spoke about and believed in but her current situation deprived her of the one thing she ever wanted.
“Ok, meet me in Happy ji’s garage, five minutes.” Payal instructed.
“Why Happy’s - his name is happy? - garage?” His question was promptly answered with a loud ‘Hai Re Nandkisore’. Payal raised her eyebrows, gesturing a conversation between Bua ji and him. Arnav was intelligent, he chose his battles well.
“Right, Happy’s garage, in five.”
---
Next Chapter
A/N: Thank you for your great feedback/response. Be sure to stay safe, alert not anxious during this season! Take care
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seasonofthegeek · 5 years ago
Text
A Fortress of Your Own Design, Part 1
I made a post about how much I would like to see Max as the Guardian of the Miraculous and it made me realize I wanted to do a story with all the heroes grown and trying to juggle the hero gig and adult life so here we go. :D
___
“Perimeter breach,” Hawking squawked in his artificial voice. “Initiating security protocol alpha-three-tango--”
“It appears King Monkey is paying us a visit,” Markov interrupted, swinging over to Hawking’s charging bay. “Override security protocol.” The floating AI turned to his creator. “I’ll make a note to have his body scans put into the security system so his perimeter breaches can be ignored. Hawking’s hasn’t learned the difference between friend and foe yet. We need to reconfigure his knowledge banks.”
Max watched his friend stroll towards the building on the security feed, the large fence with its prominent NO TRESPASSING sign at his back. “He knows better than to try to sneak in. He doesn’t get any special treatment. Hawking, initiate the security protocol.”
“Max!” Markov’s digital eyes slanted in disapproval. 
“It’s a lesson he needs to learn.” He rolled his chair to a bank of monitors. “Bring up the last ten calls over the police scanner please, Olivia.”
“Yes, sir,” the computer replied in a pleasant tone. “Listed in order from oldest to most recent and will update for the next hour.”
“Thank you.”
“He’s taken down the shockbot you posted by the door,” Markov announced with a hint of amusement in his tone. “Knocked it against the wall with the back of his hand and laughed. I don’t think there will be any piecing it back together.”
Max ignored him. “Olivia, more information on line five please.”
“Silent alarm tripped in the Louvre Museum, exhibit four-nine-seven-bee,” she replied evenly.  “Police have been notified and are in route.”
“Security footage?” Max sat forward in his chair to watch as the grainy night vision footage played across the screen closest to him.
“Firewall is temporarily keeping me out on the inside but street and perimeter cameras show five possible perpetrators.”
“Five is a lot for a quick heist. Chat’s on patrol. I’ll see if he can swing by in case the police need help.” He held out his hand and Hawking crossed the room to  drop a tablet into his palm and floated back to its station. Max opened the communication app and moved back to his computer bank to pull up the security feeds around the museum as Olivia brought down the firewalls. “Chat Noir, do you copy?”
“Loud and clear. I was just finishing up my route, and I have the sneaking suspicion you’re going to tell me that’s not the case,” Chat Noir answered back. Ambient city sounds filtered in behind his voice.
“Louvre break-in. I can see if someone else is nearby.” Max pulled up the contact list on the tablet and checked GPS coordinates. “King Monkey is currently breaking in here so I can easily send him.”
“Sounds about right. You trying to electrocute him again?” he chuckled over the line. "I don’t mind swinging by the museum.” 
“He knows what to expect when he comes here.” Max felt his lips tug up in a smirk as he watched the paw print icon on one of his monitors change direction to head to the museum. “If you’re sure you can handle it on your own, I’ll hold off on calling in reinforcements.”
“Hey, been doing this longer than you have, Oracle.”
“Not my name.”
Chat Noir laughed over the comm line. “Sure, sure. I’ll let you know what I see when I get there. Ladybug is busy tonight though so don’t bother her.”
“I’m aware and I’ll be waiting to here from you.”  Max muted his line and leaned in to review the security footage Olivia had sent to his screen. “Any I.D. scans come through?”
“Running partial face scans through databases now. Currently no hits.”
“Hmmm.” He sat back in his chair and the springs creaked. “Big move for first offenders.”
“Hey, are you going to let me in or do you want me to break this door down too? I know you’ve been watching me, man,” Kim bellowed from the other side of the steel door blocking passage to the room.
“You didn’t follow protocol,” Max replied, opening up the video line so he could see his friend on the other side of the door.
Kim stared up at him through the screen with a confused expression. “Huh?”
“No one is supposed to come here except for emergencies. Is there an emergency?”
Xuppu stuck his tongue out from his place on Kim’s shoulder. “This guy,” he scoffed. “Are we sure he’s really the Guardian?”
“The emergency is I bet you haven’t eaten anything except those power bar thingies you keep in there and I know for a fact you haven’t been home in a few days. I checked with Marcus. He’s the best doorman ever. He even gave me one of the donuts he was eating during his break.” Kim lifted a paper bag and grinned. “And I brought something really good for you for dinner. Let me in, Max.”
“Code names,” he reminded him with a sigh. “And I’m fine. You might need to meet up with Chat Noir at the Louvre. There’s a break-in.”
“Cool. Let me in and I can meet up with him after I make sure you eat this.”
“I’m not a child. I know the exact amount of nutrients I need to function at my best level. Actually I knew that as a child as well. I was the one telling you what to eat, if you’ll recall.”
“Come on, Ma...Pegasus. Just let me in.”
“This place is supposed to stay secret. You can’t keep drawing attention to it by visiting so much.” Max shook his head. “Make sure you aren’t seen when you leave.”
“It’s an old office building with a construction fence around it. No one is paying any attention,” Kim whined. “Come on. I miss hanging out with you. You’ve been holed up in there for ages.”
“He has a point,” Markov chimed in to the irritation of his creator. “More human interaction would be good for your overall well-being. I can bring up statistics if you would like.”
“All the calculations show that it’s safer if I stay here for longer and varied bouts of time so an observer couldn’t pinpoint my schedule since there isn’t one,” Max pointed out. “I have everything I need. I’ll let Chat know you’ll be meeting him, King Monkey.”
Kim stared into the screen for a long minute before his shoulders dropped and he sighed. “Fine. I’m going to leave the bag outside the door so if you don’t get it soon, it’s gonna start smelling up the place. Your mom says hi, by the way. She misses you too.” He turned without another word and faded into the darkness of the hall.
“He’s trouble, that one.” Kaalki stretched and rose from the pillow she’d been napping on. “But I think I rather like him.”
Max watched the empty screen and tried to ignore the familiar lonely feeling creeping up on him.
___
“The wine and cheese is lovely and all, Marinette, but do you want to tell us why you really called this emergency girls’ night?” Alya set her empty wine glass on the coffee table and looked to her best friend expectantly.
Marinette stood and smoothed her dress down in a nervous gesture. “Right, uh, well, so here’s the thing... So there was this, um, offer, I guess? Wait, maybe I need to go back further than that.” 
Alix snorted. “Come on, just get it out. It’s not going to be as bad as you think.”
“Wait, you’ve been to this moment? Can you just tell what to do?” Marinette perked up hopefully. 
“Nope. I like to keep the future in the future. It’s safer that way.” The other woman grinned and plucked a piece of cheese of the tray. “But you’re going to be fine so go ahead and spill the beans already.” She popped the cheese into her mouth with a self-satisfied hum.
“You know whatever it is, we’ll support you,” Mylene added with a gentle smile.
“I was offered a job with a fashion house. Like a real position, not just an internship.” Marinette bit her lip and tensed for the reaction.
“That’s amazing, girl! Why wouldn’t you want to tell us that?!” Alya got off the couch and pulled her into a hug. 
“Well, um, it’s not exactly local.”
“How not local?” Rose asked.
Marinette winced, feeling Alya’s arms around her loosen. “New York.”
“Is there a New York in France now? Because I hope that’s what you mean.” Alya stepped back. “New York, really?”
“I never thought they would call me back,” Marinette explained in a rush. “I was looking for job openings and sent in my portfolio, and seriously, never in a million years did I think they would actually want me, but they called for a phone interview and then they called for another one and then the third one was today and the head designer herself offered me the job and I just...” She took in a shaky breath and met Alya’s eyes. “It’s an amazing opportunity.”
“You’ve had three phone interviews?” Alya raised an eyebrow. “And you didn’t tell anyone, not even...?”
“No...”
“But she’s telling us now!” Rose interjected.
“Right, uh, now we know,” Juleka added after a nudge from her girlfriend. 
“Are you mad?” Marinette asked aloud but it was obvious who the question was meant for.
Alya shook her head. “Surprised but not mad. You deserve something like this, girl. Your work is amazing and you’re amazing and I think you already know what your decision is.” Marinette pulled her into tight hug, murmuring thanks into her hair.
“So now that that’s settled,” Alix stood and stretched. “Who wants to go grab some real food?” 
“We should crash Kagami’s lawyer gala downtown,” Mylene teased. “Chloe would have a conniption.”
“We mere mortals can’t be seen among the royal elite of Paris.” Alya flipped her hair dramatically while still keeping an arm around Marinette. “I could kill for some pasta though. I’ve been craving it all week.”
“Ooo, I think Japanese sounds good. Some teriyaki chicken maybe?” Rose added.
“I was just talking about a pizza or something,” Alix shrugged.
“Call in night?” Marinette suggested, wiping a few stray tears from her eyes after finally releasing her best friend. 
“Yes!”
___
“Wait, did Max send you too because I’m starting to feel a little self-conscious about his faith in my abilities.” Chat Noir looked over at Carapace as he settled down beside him and King Monkey. 
“Nah, Wayzz and I just needed to get out of the house and spotted you guys on the app. What’s going on?”
“One of the exhibit alarms was triggered and five perps were seen breaking into the museum on camera but the police haven’t found anything out of the ordinary,” he reported.
“So we’re waiting in case they’re hiding inside until they think the coast is clear,” King Monkey finished. “And at least you guys want to hang out.”
“Still no luck getting Max to leave his Guardian fortress?”
“Not so much,” he sighed. “I worry about him in there.”
“He’ll be okay. I think he’s just taking his role seriously.”
“You don’t know him like I do. He gets too caught up in stuff. He has to be reminded that there’s more to life.” The bigger man shook his head. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, but it’d make me feel better if I could get him to take a break.”
“Maybe we can storm his fortress and kidnap him,” Chat Noir suggested, amusement in his tone. “I just don’t want to get electrocuted or shot or something.”
“Eh, it doesn’t hurt as much as you would think.” King Monkey grinned at him. “I think I’m starting to like it actually.”
“That’s troubling.”
___
“Looks like we’re in for the night. Spotted three heroes staked out across the street. We’ll wait ‘em out.” The leader of the museum heist made a show of stretching his arms over his head. “All right, let’s get back into the wall. No need to get caught now when we’ve already gotten what we came for.”
“It’s so cramped in there, man. Can’t we just leave one at a time?” Another thief complained.
“Sure. You get caught and see what she does to you. I’ll see ya at your funeral.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
A third thief visibly shivered. “I’m just ready to be done with this job. The client gives me bad vibes.”
“Says the criminal,” the leader scoffed. “A job’s a job and this one pays well. Now shut up and get hidden with the others in case security comes sniffing around again.”
___
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riallasheng · 6 years ago
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s3 episode titles and summeries, translated
Don’t click past the readmore unless you want to see the leaks please
I’m serious, scroll at your own risk.
Oh, and snark/salt warning.
Last spoiler warning
RTS Deux (official site/distributor that posted the images with the synops): https://www.rts.ch/kids/concours/10185705-miraculous-les-aventures-de-ladybug-et-chat-noir-saison-3.html
301(because might as well) Cameleon - Ladybug and Chat Noir defy/offend Lila. Becoming Chameleon, she takes the appearance of anyone and intends to use this power to destroy ladybug. (wow.  Gee.  It was so in character and compelling.  Such wow. This is my serious face.  I am not being sarcastic at all.  Wow.  Such awe. ….blech)
302 Animaestro ladybug and Chat Noir defy/offend a director. Becoming Animaestro, he wants to show the world what an animated film director is capable of (…not expecting great things here. Probably a lot of ‘ooo look at all these tributes to shows I consider great from france’ and not much else.)
303 Boulangerix ladybug defys/offends her own grandfather. Became Bakerix, he wants to destroy everything he considers too modern and not of the Paris of his time. (…soooo her french grandfather… apparently her grandparents are divorced.   …I’m not sure I trust Astruc to do a ‘old methods compared to new’ given his behaviors and tweets in the past.  This is going to likely be as bad as Kung Food =_=)
304 Rebrousse-temps(Reverse-time) ladybug and chat noir defy/offend a friend of master fu. Becoming Reverse-time, she wants to make up for lost time by stealing the time of others! (…soooooo timebreaker but with the ‘twist’ of it being an old lady who is friends with Master Fu.  Maybe we’ll finally get more backstory on Fu and what his mistake was outside of the cringe and laugh inducing napkin ‘ghosts’)
305 Poupeflekta (doll-flection) ladybug and chat noir defy/offend juleka, who becomes reflekta again. But this time, the super-villain is not alone ... (name is a pun off dolls and reflekta.  Gee.  I wonder who the other villain is.  Wow. Gollee-gee.  Oh my.   …So Manon and Juleka are both re-akumatized.  Given how many OTHER ‘reakumatizeds’ there are this season, this smacks of ‘running out of ideas.   …why couldn’t we have replaced one or two of the repeats with Gagotor or the basketball star episodes we were SUPPOSED to get in s2?)
306 Papa Garou (seriously, garou means ‘human’, just like were- does.  This just means papa human) Translating just to see how the official synop spins it ladybug confronts her father, who is akumatised into papa garou. This monstrous guard-dog-man wants to lock marinette for the protection of the outside world!
307 Silence ladybug and chat noir defy/offend luka, who is akumatized into silence. Ready to give voice? (…so I’m expecting muting powers.  The way ‘ready to give voice’ is often used in France though is during revolutions ‘give voice to the small folk’ type stuff.   …and I really don’t trust Astruc to handle anything ‘revolution/riot/protest’ related well at all, sorry.)
308 Oni-chan (NO!  No no NO.  Kids are going to SEARCH FOR THE EPISODE TITLE AUUUGH) Ladybug and Chat Noir defy/offend Kagami, who becomes oni-chan. Jealous of lila, she wants to prevent her from approaching Adrien ... forever! (…sooo epic research fail to the point of ‘Astruc do you know even common Japanese?  Seriously how did the onii-chan/beloved brother to oni-chan/beloved demon pun turn into a female character?  And that’s even ignoring where oni-chan is in use.  I don’t want kids exposed to NSFW/adult content!!!  …also is it too much to ask to want to see Kagami (and luka) AWAY from the filter of love interest?  I get the show is romance focused but STILL)
309 Miraculeur Ladybug and her team defy Sabrina, who has become the Miraculeur! (…sooo at least one other person gets to use their miraculous pez candy this episode.  And apparently Sabrina gets a new/different akumatization.  I’m actually expecting this to be Mayura granting Sabrina her Avatar-warrior.  The heavy handed ‘oh no it is the new form of akumatization and is so powerful we must bring in the full team to battle it’ fits with what has sadly become the normal heavy handed writing here)
310 Oblivio A Villain rode in Paris and ladybug and char noir have lost their memory! Will they be able to defeat Oblivio so that this is only a bad memory? (could be interesting.  Heroes forgetting who they are generally those episodes that either are really awesome or crash and burn with very little in-between.)
311 Desperada Ladybug and her team face Desperada, an Akumatized guitarist. A Rock'n'roll day is in sight for our heroes! (wait…  it’s a pun off Desperado… which while done by a rock group was written by the Eagles to be a western/country song.  Not rock’n’roll.  ...Unless it’s a pun off the Desperado metal group(s)?  Seriously, Atruc, I get that you like rock but other genres are OKAY.   …also another ‘ladybug and team’ which makes me expect another Mayura avatar ep)
312 Maitre Noël (Master Christmas/Christmas Master) Nino’s little brother is akumatized into Christmas Master.  Ladybug and Chat Noir won’t have to give him a present if they want to stop him! (I… you… what…  that doesn’t…  Time is a THING.  The only two options here are that this is replacing Pire Noël… which doesn’t work because THAT HAD TO TAKE PLACE DURING SEASON 1 because it would have taken place BEFORE Disloceour… ***OR***  we are now officially in the new school year… and four months into said school year.  _WUT_)
313 Startrain ladybug and chat noir face Max’s mom, who becomes Startrain. Our heroes will need help to stop her! (so another team episode or possibly bring in a new hero or the like.)
314 Chasseuse de Kwamis (Kwami hunter/Hunter of kwamis) Ladybug and Chat Noir confront mme mendeleiev, who becomes chasseuse de kwamis  (so science teach finally gets akumatized.  Given the name my bet is she somehow sees one of the kwamis and now wants to hunt/capture them for study.  That’s MUCH more boring than I’d initially hoped when I saw the title)
315 Festin when the past master of master fu returns to haunt him, he withdraws Marinette and Adrien’s Miraculous to protect them ... (huh so we might finally get some backstory on Fu and the like.  …I’m not expecting much at this point, and flat out expecting it to contradict preiously established/hinted lore but maybe it’ll give us a springboard to something interesting.  …not expecting much out of the ‘the heroes must save the day without their miraculous plot line)
316 Gamer 2.0  (My god that is uninspired) ladybug and Chat Noir face Max, who has become Gamer 2.0.  Let the game start again! (…man even the summery sounds dull/like a rehash of Gamer.  I would have preferred Gagotor -t he comedian guest star – to this)
317 Climatika 2.0 ladybug and chat noir face Aurore Boreale again, who becomes Climatika 2. To stop it, the super heroes will have to be cold blooded! (…so we’re going from one ‘try to recapture past glory/popularity’ straight to another, huh?  ...wait cold bloo-  ...well.  Snake Miraculous is getting used.)
318 Ikari Gozen (Morning Rage) Kagami's mother is akumatized in ikari gozen and wants to punish kagami, who has disobeyed her. Will Ladybug save her best enemy? (…okay seriously Kagami has upgraded to ‘frienemy’ now?  Also I swear to God and all the little angels if Astruc tries to do a Tomoe Gozen ‘tribute’ here I am going to SCREAM.  He already screwed up EVERYTHING in the painting that supposedly was Tomoe in Origins 1, he’s screwed up every other instance of attempted ‘tribute’ and I don’t want to see another.  …also Kagami apparently is reduced to love interest again.  AUGH)
319 Timetagger ladybug and chat noir defy timetagger, a super villain come from the future to grab their Miraculous. The future of Paris is in their hands! (…I… you…  I don’t…  *buries face in hands and sighs*  Okay normally I’d be excited because in CONCEPT that sounds pretty cool.  …but I don’t trust Astruc for execution of concept anymore)
320 Trouble fete (Trouble party/Party Trouble) Ladybug and her team face Wayhem, now Trouble-Fete. Will our heroes succeed in making him smile? (…No.  No no no, I don’t want to see Astruc writing Wayhem as a bad guy!  I really came to love the adorkable doof in Gorzilla, esp with his moment of promising to grow and better himself and apologizing for stalking Adrien!!!  NOOOOOOOOOO  don’t ruin Wayhem I’m BEGGING YOU :( )
321 La marionnettiste 2 ladybug and chat noir face Marionnettiste 2 at the grevin museum! Our heroes should not remain stone-still if they want to stop her! (*sigh*  I'm expecting manon to be bringing statues to life, given the marble pun plus grevin is both famous for it's many statues AND it's where the two wax statues of LB and CN are irl)
322 Chat Blanc ladybug confronts the last person she thought she could get akumatize ... Chat Noir! (…You know, Astruc… if you’re going to lift plot lines from fanfics you probably  A: should not have bragged during hiatus and early season 2 about how often you read fanfics and how ‘off the mark’ they were B: should not be using super common fanon names like ladynoir, chat blanc, jade turtle and so on …Also lots of me screaming in rage here.  I figure there are three options.   From best to worst Chat/Adrien himself was not akumatized, it’s a situation like Copycat again Chat is akumatized but by some plot breaking twist manages to keep his ID secret (or he doesn’t.  We are at the end of the season here) Adrien is akumatized (not transformed) and become Chat Blanc and it’s 50/50 on him keeping his ID secret Félix (who wil be showing up next episode) is actually Chat Blanc) ... Please don’t let the ‘Civil War’ plotline actually be a thing, good Lord and little ducks.
323 Félix (there is a lot of screaming in rage occurring over here) Ladybug and Chat Noir battle alya, rose and juleka, akumatized in Punisher Trio, and Felix, Adrien's cousin. (No.  Just.  No.  Astruc has made no effort to hide that he flat out hates Félix and those who dare to like him instead of hating him.  If Félix shows up, it’s going to be a hate fest to one degree or another.  And I just… want Astruc to leave the PV fans alone.  We legit don’t DO anything except chill in our corner/servers and talk about what might have been and things that we like in what little content/concepts have been shown.  Heck most of us are equally fans of the cgi show.  Just… No.   I know I seem calm but I am actually very VERY enraged right now.)
324 Ladybug  Marinette gets taken out of collège/expelled from college, but another bigger problem awaits her: she has to face a sentimonstre that looks like… ladybug! (…meh.  I’m sorry, but meh.  Mari gets into school trouble again (maybe her parents look at the daily danger and decide to move to Nice or something) and there’s an imposter Ladybug.  We don’t even get the fake-out in summery of ‘maybe Mari will be akumatized’!!  Just tell us in the summery that it’s someone else, good lord =_=) ...Also apparently the avatars the Mayura creates are called Sentimonstres.  They literally just wedged sentient and monster together and called it a day.  I don’t... I can’t... It is so STUPID
325 Mangeamour: La battle des Miraculous partie 1 (love management?  Really?  …oh god is it a pun off couple counseling?) ladybug and chat noir confront the bourgeois couple, who become mangeamour, a cerebrus with two heads that devours all the love in Paris. (…wut)
326 Miracle Queen: La battle des Miraculous partie 2 Papillion akumatises chloe into Miracle Queen to implement a fatal plan. Will Ladybug and Chat Noir escape? (yes.  They will.  Like seriously there is no doubt they will and won’t even have to struggle much/risk failing really.   This isn’t like Zak Storm where there were times the writing and acting was so good I FORGOT that the heroes would win by the end of the day/wouldn’t be killed.  The fact that the heroes sometimes LOSE in ZS and have to scrap a victory at the end with much struggle added to that.  This?  This is just going to be the same episode it always is, following the same formula with no real risk or danger and I am just so… SAD… about that.  Right now all my hopes are pinned on s4 and s5 and Zag coming back to meddle like all hell again)
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secretevillustrator · 6 years ago
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A moment to breathe - chapter 2
I have finally finished writing the second chapter of ‘A moment to breathe’! 
Shout-out to @nublittlewings for helping me when I was feeling like deleting the entire chapter. I probably wouldn't have have posted this chapter if it wasn't for you ^^
You can either read it under the cut or on AO3.
Adrien didn’t know what to do of himself. He had so many things he wanted to say to Marinette, but he had no clue how to articulate it. It had already been a few days since he found her crying in the locker-room, but she has yet to tell him what happened to her.
For now, all he knew was that Marinette was hurting. And he wanted to help her; however it’s difficult to help when you don’t even know what’s wrong. Which is why he decided that, for now, he would just be there for her.
 After they had left the locker-room that day, he had escorted her home. She had managed to calm down quite a bit, but she didn’t say a word on the way there. She had looked so vulnerable. Her arms were pressed so firmly against her chest that Adrien had wondered whether it was possible for someone to crush themselves.
When they had entered the bakery he shortly explained the situation to her parents (though leaving out the part with the akuma). Her parents had thanked him before putting their arms around Marinette and leading her upstairs.
 He had tried to talk to her afterwards, but she didn’t seem interested in trying to keep the conversations going. Other than that she seemed to almost be back to her former self, but Adrien could sense that she was kind of… muted. He couldn’t really explain how he knew. Maybe it was because he knew how it felt to hide his feelings and pretend to be okay that he realized, but the others didn’t seem to notice.
-----
Ladybug sat at perched at the top of the Eiffel tower, her feet dangling over the edge. Her throat felt twisted and her eyes heavy from the weight of unshed tears. Her thoughts drifted while she overlooked the city.
The last couple of days she had been trying to get back to normal, trying to leave this behind her. She wasn’t sure how well her attempt had been, mostly because she couldn’t really look Adrien in the eyes for long. She didn’t worry about what Alya thought of it (she has a crush on Adrien after all), but she feared what Adrien might think of her.
I must have looked pathetic in his eyes. She groaned at the thought, resting her head in her hands.
She didn’t know how much he had seen and she had been too embarrassed to ask him. She may have the courage to face any akuma that comes her way, but to see how Adrien would react if he knew how those guys view her? She couldn’t do it. Of course Marinette knew that Adrien would never look down on her for something like that. Still… to even imagine Adrien viewing her as less than a human made shivers run down her spine. It was worse than the ‘nightmare Adrien’ that Sandboy had caused. But to be frank; it wasn’t fair to Adrien.
I probably have to talk to him at some point. And I will… just not yet.
A sigh escaped her lips, the fog it created reminding her of the cold.
Maybe I should go home. Sitting here alone won’t do me any good.
She stood up with a stretch, cast her yoyo towards home and launched herself off the edge.
-----
“I just don’t get it Nino. What is that you and Alya know that I am somehow not allowed to know?”
“Dude, you’re totally misunderstanding. It’s not that you’re not “allowed” to know what’s going on, it’s just that the situation that Marinette is in right now is one that Alya and I recognize.”
“How come you’re so sure I won’t understand it as well?”
“… I don’t know how to explain it to you without it coming across the wrong way, but I guess it’s because that in that perspective you’re really lucky. Listen, don’t worry about it. I can’t tell you for sure that Marinette will explain it to you, but what I do know is that this ain’t my story to tell.”
Adrien knew Nino was right; it’s Marinette’s decision whether or not she wants to share and if she didn’t want to, then she didn’t have to. Logically speaking it made sense, but for some reason he still felt sad and left out. He wanted to understand, and he wanted to help, but he also didn’t want to hurt Marinette by pushing her to tell him what had happened.
“I just want her to be ok...”
Neither of them knew what else to say, so they walked back to class together in companionable silence.
-----
Marinette sat on one of the benches in the locker-room. It didn’t really bring back happy memories, but at least it was quiet. She looked around the room only to spot her tiny companion.
“Hey Tikki, you have experienced the lives of so many Ladybugs, some of them must have gone through something similar, right?”
“Yes… I have seen it plenty of times. I haven’t ever really understood why it occurs. It always seems to stem from something different, but the hostility and thoughtlessness follow through most of the cases. So yes, multiple Ladybugs and other miraculous holders have been people who faced discrimination”.
“Well, I was just wondering. How did they deal with it?” For some reason she felt herself look away.
“… It’s hard to say really. All of them dealt with it in different ways…”
Marinette’s eyes began to sting as she pulled her legs close to her body. She should have known there wasn’t any easy fix.
“But I will say this; of all my charges I have seen a lot of them evade corruption, but never before have I seen another charge as strong as you. The akuma had already reached you, but you endured the pain and fought through it! I’m so proud of you”.
Marinette smiled at Tikki while the tears slowly trickled down her face.
“Thank you”
The small deity smiled and flew near Marinette to place a gentle kiss on her cheek.
-----
She was crying; it wasn’t anything like the first time he had found her crying, but even though this time was a lot more muted, it broke him even more knowing she was trying to fight this on her own. With the way she was curled up around herself he wasn’t even sure if she knew he was in the room with her.
“Marinette”
He could hear her short intake of breath.
Nope, she definitely hadn’t noticed.
To see the tears that spilled from her eyes silently falling, tucked on Adrien’s heartstrings in a way he wasn’t familiar with. She seemed more surprised than anything else, but her expression soon morphed into a timid smile (which seemed rather out of place with the tears still streaming down her face) as she took in who was in the room with her.
She averted her eyes, quickly wiping away the tears with the back of her hand.
He felt himself shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He stood there for a bit, trying hard to find the right words, but came up blank. So instead he sat beside Marinette. Marinette still didn’t look at him, so he let her be for a few minutes.
“What’s wrong Marinette?”
She didn’t answer and kept looking anywhere but at him. The only thing indicating she heard him was the tightening of her jaw.
He let out a sigh, an action which made Marinette peek at him. Adrien noticed and tried to give her a reassuring smile. “If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know”
Marinette’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly; just enough so that most people wouldn’t notice. But Adrien had done it enough time himself to know she felt troubled, and therefore he hastily continued:
“I understand that you don’t wish to tell me what is going on, but please promise me you’ll talk to someone. You’re not alone Marinette. You have so many friends who care about you and would be more than willing to help you if you let them. Remember that.”
Marinette seemed surprised at his sudden request, but the shock on her face was soon replaced with an expression he couldn’t quite place as she let out a sigh.
“You’re right… and I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark.” She looked at him and shrugged “You’re my friend and you’ve only been trying to help me, so I don’t want to keep you at an arm’s length.” She paused for a moment, seeming to calm her nerves. Adrien wanted to say something to comfort her, but he was afraid it might only make her unable to continue. “A few days before you found me in the locker-room some guys had decided to come on to me because I’m a different ethnicity. When I turned them down they became aggressive and Alya and Nino had to cut in before things got worse. It hurt, but I decided not to think too much about it. The day you found me I had discovered a note in my locker that said I should go back to where I came from. It’s not the first time something like this has happened, but it keeps surprising me how much hatred and anger people can feel towards someone they have never meet. And it just… broke me.”
Marinette was shaking ever so slightly. Adrien wasn’t sure whether it was from anger, frustration or if she beginning to cry again.
He didn’t really know what to say to all of this, but there were one question that had been tearing at him.
“How did you get rid of the Akuma?”
Marinette’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know you saw that.”
“I came in when I heard you yelling at someone, but it wasn’t until I saw the Akuma that I realized who you were yelling at.”
Marinette just looked at him. She opened her mouth a couple of times, seemingly at a loss of words.
“I, um, I don’t know how to explain this, but I guess you could say I saw a different solution to my problems than he did.”
Marinette’s words were so filled with conviction, but when looking at her it was clear to see how broken she truly was. Her eyes had become glossy from the tears that had filled her eyes yet again. She took on Hawkmoth and won, but that doesn’t mean she came out unharmed and it definitely did not mean that could or should face everything that come after on her own. He wanted to wrap her in his arms so badly, but he didn’t want to intrude on her personal space.  
“Uhm, I’m still not the best at these kinds of situations, but you look like you could need a hug”
Marinette looked at him through her tears. She didn’t even say anything, but nodded softly. When Adrien got closer, she moved to stand up. He wrapped his arms around her, feeling how the tension faded from her body. Marinette stretched her arms around him as well and clung onto him, digging her nails into the fabric of his shirt. He could feel her shaking ever so slightly.
“Breathe Marinette” he said as he placed a hand at the back of her head, lightly pulling her closer. The other hand rested on her back to support her and to keep her upright.
They stood there in each other’s embrace for a few seconds before pulling apart. Adrien’s left hand never left her side so that he could keep supporting her weight. She didn’t seem to mind or maybe she hadn’t yet noticed (which was plausible seeing as she was currently wiping away tears before they could take form).
She looked up at him with a smile, only to blush profusely a second later. He didn’t know how to explain her expression, but it was the same look she usually had when she was mixing up her words. He found it kind of cute.
Adrien had really come to feel protective of Marinette. He didn’t know how to explain it or even why he felt like this, but he knew for certain that he couldn’t just stand by and watch when it came to her.
“Marinette…”
She looked up ever so slightly, her eye puffy from all the crying.
“I may not know exactly what those guys said to you, but I want you to know that I think you’re the most amazing girl I have ever met. Even without the power of a miraculous you stood up to Hawkmoth! You’re stronger than anyone else I know. But I think it also means you try to take on the world alone when you don’t have to. You impact so many lives without even noticing and you are loved by so many. So please, don’t take whatever they said to heart.”
He could see her lips began to tremble, and he lifted his hand to grace her cheek with his thumb.  
“It pains me to see you cry like this”.
At those words she blushed, the pink colour dusting her cheeks and her ears.
…huh
It was an expression which he had seen countless times, yet until this very moment he had failed to notice how stunning she truly was.
-
Marinette gave a small wave as she left the room and a dopey smile spread across Adrien’s face.
“So” Plagg said while not quite leaving his hiding place in Adrien’s jacket, “finally caught the lovebug for someone other than ‘your lady’.”  
“Plagg, I have told you so many times; Marinette is just…” a friend? That’s what he had meant to say, but he couldn’t get the words out. It felt wrong. Marinette felt like something more, but he couldn’t place the feeling at all. He knew he loved Ladybug and what he felt for Marinette was… different.  
Plagg’s cackling interrupted his thoughts. He had flown from his hiding spot and was now hovering in the air. Adrien glared at him, but that apparently only made Plagg laugh even more. He stomped out of the room, not hearing the words in between the laughter.
“Man, these kids are oblivious.”
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bitsandbobsandstuff · 7 years ago
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Safe with me (9)
Summary: When an unknown threat enters your life, protection is offered at the highest level. As Bucky Barnes comes into your life, the game changes, and you realise falling for the man tasked with keeping you safe is the last thing you expected.    
Characters: Bodyguard!Bucky Barnes x Reader Warnings: Bad language. Blood and descriptive violence. Descriptions of bombing aftermaths, explosive devices, drug usage and associated effects.
PLEASE READ A/N: When I said this story would get more explicit, I was serious, so please understand the above warnings before you proceed. Seems fitting this chapter is more Bucky-centric, since today’s his birthday, however it’s not exactly a nice birthday present since there are flashbacks and we all know Bucky does not have nice memories. Sorry Buckaroo.
Tags for this story are CLOSED Link here for posting schedule
SAFE WITH ME MASTERLIST  PREVIOUS CHAPTER
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Previously...
Instead, he lays a tentative hand at your back, and weaves a path through the clusters of people lingering out front, guiding you toward the waiting car. His sharp profile is utterly serious as he scans the crowd, searching intently, committing everything he sees to memory. He feels you lean a little closer, and looks down to find you watching him, a hopeful little smile beginning to curve your lips, and he feels his mouth move in response, before he suddenly snaps his head up, meeting a pair of nervous hazel eyes.
And for the third time that evening, Bucky Barnes smells the bitter tang of lemons, right before the bomb explodes.
*****
Memory is a strange thing, the way it links and connect words and sensations and emotions.
When you were little, one of your favorite things to do each summer, was visit the local swimming pool. Finding a quiet corner to yourself, you would flip onto your back and float, letting your mind drift away, finding that relaxing feeling of blank nothingness. Eyes closed, ears dipped below the surface of the water, it was the oddest contrast of sensations, the fiery orange sunlight burning behind your eyelids, tempered by the coolly muted silence of blue waves.
Memory is a strange thing, and it's so hard to understand the triggers that bring it rushing back.
You haven't thought about those lazy summer days in years. Suddenly the remembrance arrives with the force of a hurricane, orange light tattooing designs behind your eyes, the feel of water dripping down your face, the world around you bizarrely muffled.
Memory is a strange thing, and opening your eyes right now requires an impossibly inhuman effort.
Open, open, open.
There are a thousand needle pricks digging into your face, a thousand pounds pressing on your eyes, and your brain fights to obey this one small command.
Open, open, open.
Nothing is working, nothing is happening. Your body feels like lead and terror begins to set in.
Open, open, open. Come on, OPEN.
Air pours into your lungs as you jolt awake with a gasp, searching wildly for something, anything, to hold onto.
Bucky is crouched on his hands and knees above you, the breadth of his body sheltering you from the debris raining down. He has you pinned beneath him, one arm curled around your shoulders, while his metal arm bends awkwardly behind him, shielding his head from the chunks of falling stone.
The world is crumbling into chaos, but all you hear is the steady thump of your heartbeat, curiously wet and slow as you stare up at him. He's covered in concrete dust, the thick powder accomplishing in ten seconds what seventy years of slave labour couldn't, and Bucky Barnes finally looks his age. Dust settles in the tight lines around his eyes, his dark hair a shock of white hanging forward.
Blinking dully, you see his mouth move, recognize the way his lips twist around the sound of your name, but the silence remains. His eyes glow fever bright, a sizzling electric blue against the pale dust on his skin, and the desperation in them is unnerving.
He ducks his head again, his mouth touching the shell of your ear. You feel his hot breath puffing against your skin, but still, you hear nothing.
What a peaceful sensation, this silence. Maybe it’s preferable to reality.
It doesn't last.
There's a faint, metallic ringing in the distance, like marbles clattering on tin as it pings, louder and louder and louder until the world suddenly roars back to life, exploding in a deafening burst of sound. Overwhelmed, you cling to Bucky's jacket in panic, while your ears pop and crackle, readjusting to the madness around you.
Sirens pierce the air, shrill wails echoing through the night, swirling blue and red lights flashing, and the only sound louder than the arrival of help, are the shrieks of people around you.
"Bucky?"
You can barely hear yourself say his name, but he must catch it, because his face sags in relief. He removes his arm from your shoulders and simply points to his face, wordlessly telling you to focus on him. When he pushes his hair back, you notice a clear device tucked into his ear, which lights up at the touch of his finger. When he speaks, his voice is loud and fast.
"I'm here, she's okay. I need confirmation, what the hell is this?"
He listens intently, eyes never straying from your face, as you grip his jacket so hard your fingers begin to ache. His expression transforms before your eyes, growing progressively darker, filled with tense fury, before he suddenly snarls. Slapping the comms device in frustration, he jerks himself upright and slides an arm behind your back, another behind your knees, rising effortlessly with you in his arms. Keeping you tight against his chest, he spins in a desperate circle, trying to orient himself in the fog of dust and smoke, searching for the black sedan that provides a ticket away from this disaster. As the haze begins to shift and clear, he finally sees Happy parked on the opposite side of the street, frantically waving both arms. Bucky pushes forward, shoving his way through the crush of people bumping and bouncing against him, panicked screams coming from every direction.
Curving an arm around his neck, you curl into him. He is perfectly steady, strong bands of flesh and metal wrapped securely around you, so you close your eyes, bury your face in his chest, and inhale the scent of clean laundry and cologne, of safety.
The backdoor is open when Bucky reaches the car and he barrels inside, still holding you tight, while Happy slams the door and sprints to the driver's seat. The engine revs when he turns the key and throws it into drive, and Bucky is shouting directions.
"Route three, use the back entrance, go, go, go!"
He looks over his shoulder, searching out the rear window for the familiar man among the sea of bodies, but he sees nothing, and then the tires are squealing and Happy hits the pedal, spinning the car around and throwing you both against the door.
There's a steady stream of curses under his breath, as Bucky regains his balance. Grudgingly releasing his grip, he places you on the seat next to him. Ripping off his jacket, he drapes it over your shoulders, the silky lining warm and slick against your skin, and you sink gratefully into the sweet heat.
Pausing to assess the damage, his rough scan confirms no life-threatening injuries exist, so he taps the device at his ear once more, reconnecting to the scene.
"I had him Steve, I saw him," Bucky reveals hoarsely, eyes still locked on you. "He looked right at us. White male, about 6'0, mid-forties, hazel eyes, light brown hair, long over his forehead. Wearing black jeans and a dark blue hooded sweatshirt."
Everything seems to move in slow motion, and you stare at Bucky in confusion.
He saw him? How did he know?
"No, I'm sure it was him," Bucky is saying, still watching you closely, and he flinches at the last admission. "Could smell him a mile away."
*****
Between the maze of shortcuts and miraculous openings in traffic, Happy reaches your apartment in record time, but he doesn't pull up front. There's an alley in the middle of the block, so he navigates here instead, reaching the freight entrance behind the building.
"Stay here, I'll come around," Bucky orders brusquely, jumping from the car.
Upon his exit, the only sound left is the harsh panting of your breath, still coming in disjointed rushes. Staring at your hands, you try to modulate your breathing, going for those slow, deep breaths, just like he taught you.
The door is quiet when it snicks opens, and Bucky silently crouches to his knees, looking up at you. His body is coiled tight, but he doesn't say a word. He simply waits, letting you find the necessary composure, before he reaches for you.
"Ready?" he murmurs, slipping his arm behind your back.
"I can walk, you know," you whisper peevishly, finding your voice.
"Indulge me," he says quietly, the hint of a smile dancing on his lips. Gathering you in his arms for the third time that evening, he lifts you carefully from the car, kicking the door shut and striding to the back entrance.
The heavy metal door screeches when it swings open, and you see a tall woman in dark jeans and a green turtleneck, her blonde hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She steps aside to let Bucky pass, clearly waiting for instructions.
"Get back to the front, there's another agent coming. Lock down all traffic into the building, no one gets by unless they prove they live here. Two forms of ID, I don't give a shit if they complain." Looking back to Happy, he indicates the metal door. "Same here. No one comes in."
They both nod and move into position without another word. Bucky glances to the elevator bank in front of him.
Jesus, he hates the elevators in this building with a passion.
"Fuck it."
Turning to the stairwell, he begins the dizzying ascent up. Floor numbers tick by, higher and higher, but he never slows, three stairs covered with every leap. He moves so gracefully, you barely feel the movement, his smooth gait lulling you into a daze.
Warm in his arms, it's almost like being rocked to sleep.
*****
Bucky bypasses your security system with practiced ease, heading straight to the bathroom. He moves methodically, the accustomed motions of clean-up and recovery that follow every mission, an automatic response.
Cranking the sink faucet, he lets the water heat to near boiling before removing his cufflinks, dropping them in the soap dish, and quickly rolling back his shirt sleeves. With surgeon-level precision, he scrubs hard at his hands, until every trace of grime is washed clean, leaving the metal sparkling, the skin rosy pink.
Throwing a fresh washcloth under the water, he starts digging in the sink cabinets, knocking over bottles of hairspray and body wash, stacks of towels and bags of cotton balls.
"I don't have a first aid kit Bucky. I don't even have band-aids," you mumble, rubbing your eyes wearily. When you open them, you're surprised to find him unzipping a black case, pulling out a handful of bandages and antibacterial ointment.
"I left one here the first time I came, just – in case you ever needed it."
Snatching up the cloth, he wrings it out and drops to his knees before you, lost for a moment as his eyes roam, debating where to begin.
Clasping your hands in your lap to stem the trembling, you follow the path of his gaze, moving from your hair, down your arms, resting on your hands. That feeling of warm water appears again, sliding down the side of your face. When you reach to rub it dry, you start in surprise when your knuckles come away, sticky red with blood.
Bucky clenches his teeth at your shocked expression, and snatches up his phone, tapping in a long string of code. Looking intently to the silver tracking bracelet on your wrist, you feel the thin vibranium band heat your skin, before it emits three silent pulses. A wave of tingling warmth spreads through your nervous system and a flood of data instantly transmits to his phone, checking your vital signs and scanning for internal injuries.
When the screen turns bright green, signifying an 'all clear' result, he visibly relaxes.
"You're okay, you're okay," he repeats under his breath, as much to you as to himself.
Stark technology isn't enough to allay his fears though, and he insists on checking further. Reaching gentle fingers to your scalp, he searches for bumps, pressing lightly here and there.
"Does it hurt? Here? What about here?"
His soft questions elicit the same answer each time, a sluggish shake of the head, a quiet no.
When he lays his hand on top of the blood-caked fingers tangled in your lap, you latch onto them gratefully, the temperature a soothing balm cooling the throbbing ache in your palm. Bucky folds the washcloth and wipes it over your face, cleaning dust from your cheeks, dabbing gently at the blood still oozing from the gash in your forehead. The only sound in the bathroom is the slow drip of the faucet, the absurdly loud tick of the wall clock, and the occasional hitches in your breath.
"I'm sorry," he breathes, wincing at every sound of pain. The thin trickle of blood won't stop leaking from the cut, and Bucky huffs in frustration. "Motherfucking head wounds. They never fucking stop."
Gripping his metal fingers harder, a shaky laugh escapes at his irritation. The black humor of the situation forces a bleak grin, and he gives your hands a comforting press in return.
"If it hurts, squeeze my hand as hard as you need. Hell, kick my ass if you want, won't bother me."
"Probably gonna rain check the ass kicking, if that's okay. Wait until I'm back in prime form," you joke softly.
"Duly noted," he says, his lips quirking up.
Several minutes later the bleeding has stopped and Bucky reluctantly removes his hand to apply a smear of ointment and a clean white bandage. His fingers trail down your cheek, his thumb resting briefly on the bump below your eye, where the skin is beginning to swell.
"Jesus," he whispers to himself. "I knocked you to the ground, that's my fault."
"No," you say fiercely. "Don't be an idiot Bucky, I mean it. You did everything right. I'm here and I'm safe. Because of you."
His anguished expression melts at your words, his face lighting up at your unexpected defense.
"You're always safe with me," his voice cracks faintly on the declaration, but his eyes are steady, burning with an intensity that steals your breath.
"I know," you promise.
Dropping his hands to your lap, he drags his fingers delicately over your palms, until he's pressing his fingertips to yours. Curling your fingers inward, you lock your hands together and look up at him.
"You're okay," he confirms, one last time.
"You're okay," you reply softly.
You see the rapid rise and fall of his chest as you stare at each other, both standing so precariously close to the edge, daring the other to speak.
Bucky clears his throat.
And then he looks down, gently releasing your fingers, rising quickly to his feet.
"I'll – I can leave you alone for a bit. Take your time, take a shower, whatever you want. I just need to make some calls."
Willing him to look again, you watch him for a moment longer, but he stares resolutely at his feet. You slowly lower your eyes.
*****
The lock catches with a slow click, and Bucky pauses outside the bathroom, leaning his head against the door. When the shower turns on, the sound of rushing water muffles the shaky sigh he's been desperately concealing. Doubling over, he rests his hands on his knees and let's his control off leash, the wild panic racing through his body, lighting his nerves on fire.
How the fuck, how the fuck, how the fuck? The internal voice howls repeatedly.
He wants to punch someone, kick something, slam his fist through the god damn wall. He's so fucking wound up he can barely contain the furious scream threatening to erupt any second.
Shoving away from the door, he strides into the living room, pacing back and forth, running anxious hands through dirty hair. He stops short when he catches a grim view of himself in the living room mirror, covered in a coat of concrete dust. Toeing off his shoes, he quickly unbuttons the black dress shirt, peeling it carefully away and folding it inside out to trap the dirt.
The pang of self-doubt cuts through him as he considers the sleeveless black undershirt he's left with. It does nothing to conceal the thick ropes of scarring lining the seam of his metal arm, the skin a dull, angry red, but before he can tip too far into that familiar pit of self-loathing, he feels his phone vibrate.
"Any update?" He foregoes the niceties with Steve, moving toward the front window and dropping the blinds as he speaks, plunging the room into darkness. Cracking one of the slats, he peers into the street, eyes sweeping back and forth.
"We're going through camera footage, focus is on your description. Nothing yet."
"Injuries?"
Steve pauses, and the deliberate silence makes Bucky's heart plummet.
"Twelve injured. Three critical. One dead."
"God dammit," Bucky swears, his voice breaking. "It's on me. That's on me."
"No," Steve says sharply. "Stop. This is not on you."
"He was right there, I should've figured it out sooner –"
"It wouldn't have stopped him, the explosive was rigged to a separate device, he probably had the trigger in his pocket. Tony thinks it might’ve been PETN."
"PETN?" Bucky repeats slowly. The letters feel familiar, something from a past life. "Why do I know what that is?"
Steve sighs. "Same shit we had in the war, takes an electric current to detonate. We used it to blow those Hydra bases in Austria."
His words prompt an old memory to resurface. Steve laughing hysterically, goggles strapped to his head as he jumps on a motorcycle, the building behind him erupting in white flames while Bucky roars at him to hurry the fuck up, you stupid fucking dumbass.
Both men go quiet, swimming in their own thoughts for a moment.
Something feels – wrong.
It's a niggling feeling, picking at the edge of his brain, and Bucky rubs the back of his neck, trying to make sense of it before he speaks.
"This whole thing, doesn't it – doesn't something seem off?" he asks. "Nothing in his letters gave a single fucking clue he'd do this Steve. Nothing."
"Sure, but – he's crazy, right? Isn't this the kind of shit crazy people do?"
"He might be crazy, but he loves her – or he thinks he does," Bucky amends. "What would this accomplish?"
Steve is silent, the lack of response loaded with innuendo, and Bucky grips the phone tighter.
"Just say it," he grinds out.
"He's jealous. It was a way of getting you out of the picture," Steve replies instantly.
Bucky doesn't respond, but goes perfectly still. A full minute passes, before Steve's quiet voice comes through the speaker.
"Do you want to talk - "
"No," Bucky interrupts. "No, I do not."
"Buck –"
He hears the sound of the shower turning off, and glances behind him. "Nope. I need to go. Send through pictures as soon as you get them. I have his face burned into my fucking brain right now, but I'm not confident that shit won't disappear."
*****
Sometimes a hot shower does wonders for resetting perspective.
Dressed in sweatpants and your ratty blue Georgetown sweatshirt, you bend slowly, collecting the pile of dirty clothes and dropping them in the sink.
The dress is destroyed. The soft ruffles down the skirt are shredded along the side, where you slammed into the ground; the elegant lace sleeves are ripped and torn in pieces; the beautiful blue is a mix of rusty red and powdery grey, blood and dust now the most noticeable features.
It's a dress, nothing more, and it makes no sense, but suddenly the world is blurry, your eyes are burning with unshed tears, and great heaving sobs rip from your throat as they spill over.
"Are you okay?" Bucky's voice comes through the door immediately, as though he was standing guard the entire time.
Wrenching the door open, you launch yourself at him, and he stumbles back, catching you in surprise.
"What happened? Does something hurt?"
"No, I'm not – it doesn't – nothing is – Jesus C-Christ, it's a f-fucking dress, what the hell is wrong with me?" You stutter angrily, pointing in frustration at the sink, trying to speak through the tears.
"Alright, hey. Look at me," he says calmly, leaning back and tapping your chin. "Look up. It's not the dress. It's too much champagne and the whole bleeding from the head thing, and the fact that someone set off a bomb in front of you tonight. You're allowed to freak out, so go for it."
Dropping your forehead to his chest, you curl your arms around your stomach and let go, a steady stream of tears punctuated with the occasional shuddering sniffle. Bucky's arms wrap hesitantly around you, his hands rubbing slow strokes up and down your back. You cry and cry, and cry a little more, until blessedly, the well runs dry. Vaguely, you realize he's removed his dress shirt, and you've now drenched his undershirt in an unattractive mess of tears and snot.
"I'm sorry," you mutter, pulling away and wiping a runny nose on your sleeve. "I'm a god damn disaster."
"No, you're not," he chuckles softly. "Come over here, sit down."
Guiding you to the sofa, he bundles you in your old patchwork quilt, hands lingering on your arms as he stares down. Sudden awareness of him, of his bare arms and cautious expression, takes over everything. When your eyes drift to the joint of his shoulder, you see the jagged scars puckering his skin, and he shifts slightly at the scrutiny.
What the hell happened earlier?
Before bombs and blood morphed the evening into a waking nightmare, you were spiraling into a realization that was frighteningly unexpected, one with the potential to change your entire world. You want to say something, you want Bucky to say something, to figure out together what the hell is happening between you, but you can already feel yourself beginning to retreat.
This is real and terrifying and something, but you're not ready to say it.
"Can you just – stay for a little while?"
Looking down, so the vulnerability in his face won't confuse your emotions, you tense at the long silence that follows. Bucky's voice is barely audible when he answers.
"Of course, I'll stay. I'm not leaving you."
Nodding sluggishly, you rub puffy eyes with the soft fabric of your sleeve, trying to stifle a massive yawn.
Apparently overreacting is exhausting.
Without another word, Bucky falls to the sofa, tugging you down with him, and you curl into a ball next to him. The adrenaline dissipates at an alarming rate, and your body tingles, a heavy lethargy as it fights to shut down. Burrowing deeper into his side, your eyes begin to flutter.
The question surfaces, almost as an afterthought.
"Bucky? How did you know?"
"How did I know what?"
"Tonight, you told Steve you recognized him. How did you know?"
He doesn't answer. Instead, he tucks the quilt snuggly under your chin and pulls you closer.
"It's nothing to worry about, I'll tell you later."
Right before sleep pulls you under, you feel him slowly link his fingers with yours.
*****
Propping his feet on the coffee table, Bucky crosses his ankles, turns on the TV, and waits.
Flipping idly through the channels, a black and white picture catches his attention, and he grins when he sees cursive writing dashing across the screen. When he first came home, Bucky spent a week huddled in a blanket fort, binge watching every season of 'I Love Lucy', mesmerized by the exaggerated acting and the happy simplicity. It was a world that seemed easy and carefree, an innocently poignant reminder of everything he lost the day he left Brooklyn.
Keeping the volume low, he slouches down comfortably. He watches Lucy trotting circles around a giant wooden vat, smashing grapes with her feet, and with you nestled securely at his side, he begins to think.
Memory is a strange thing.
Bucky does remember. Not everything. But more than anyone knows.
In the months after he came home, he spent the dark hours of every night with a towel stuffed in his mouth, muffling screams of agony as memories of his old life cracked his skull open. Hours of horrific life footage fast forwarding through his head, until he passed out in his bathroom, covered in sticky sweat and salty tears, clinging to the cold tile floor.
Sparks of old memories are re-surfacing tonight, charred remnants of his past suddenly vibrant and alive. They exist indefinitely, something no amount of time or alcohol will bleach from his brain.
Gripping your fingers tight, he shuts his eyes and lets the vicious riptide pull him under.
*****
LATE 1940s
The Soldier sits on the damp floor of the locked cell, his harsh panting echoing in the small space. He is cold, so god damn cold, but the room contains nothing more than a ragged blanket and a metal bucket.
For three straight days, they kept him strapped to a chair, his shiny new arm hanging disconnected and useless, while doctors shot icy liquid in his veins, pressed chalky pills under his tongue. Every possible variation of medicine was pumped into him, sending him flying to inconceivable heights and crashing him into the terrifying depths of bone-weary depression.
Now the drugs have worn off, but the effects linger, and the sickening feel of withdrawal begins to ravage his body.
On the first day, the Soldier is crouched in the corner of his room, sweat running rivers down his chest, hot flashes rippling across his skin in suffocating waves. He yanks the rough wool shirt over his head, moaning in relief when he feels cold stone against his bare back. He tries desperately to breath, to force his body to relax, but the effects come harder and faster.
Muscle spasms skate through him, the entire right side of his body jerking and flailing, his legs kicking out, his head twitching so hard he slams his cheek into the wall.
Frustration courses through him at the helplessness. He sinks his teeth into his tongue, hard enough for blood to fill his mouth. Holding tight to the pain, he relishes the metallic taste, because it's the one thing in this world he can control.
It continues non-stop, for the next two days. Flashes of heat, wracking chills. At one point, he loses complete control of his muscles, unable to do more than lie on the floor and writhe.
On the third day, the hallucinations start.
"Steve? Stevie! Where have you been, why didn't you come sooner? Don't leave me here again, please please please, I don't wanna stay, I wanna go home, please Stevie, please!"
"Should we try to help?" There's no sympathy in the voice, only a hint of curiosity, as the two men peer through the iron bars on the door to the soldier's room.
"No," another voice dismisses, bored with the discussion. "Let him ride it out, he can take it."
On the morning of the fourth day, his body is his own again, and he crawls weakly to the metal bucket and pukes his guts out. The sour taste of acid and bile stays stuck in his mouth all day, until they come to collect him.
And it begins all over again.
*****
Bucky remembers this. The first taste of the 'oblivion' is a nightmare from which he never thought to wake.
*****
EARLY 1970s
"Open your mouth, Soldat."
The Soldier obeys instantly, dropping his jaw without question. Rough fingers shove a small yellow pill inside, and he feels it dissolving, the bitter chalky flavor absorbing into the meat of his tongue. He can feel splotches of burning heat spread across his skin, followed by that familiar cold numbness as the drug slices through his body.
That night, when the bomb detonates, the resulting boom rattles the foundation of the building, sending colorful orange flames licking up the clean grey exterior. Screams tear through the night air, crowds of people fleeing the scene in a desperate bid for safety.
Framed in a dark window high above the street, stands a man dressed in a wrinkled brown leisure suit. Watching the chaos below, sweat covers his forehead, plastering shaggy blond hair to his skin, itching as it beads beneath his unkempt mustache.
He knows what this is.
He knows what they're doing.
He knows who's coming for him.
From the corner of his eye, the man sees a shadow silently detach itself from behind his door. His trembling hands are still scrabbling for the gun under his desk when the knife whistles through the air. The blade slices through his skin like butter, embedding to the hilt in his windpipe, the worn handle wobbling lazily as his throat works against it. He tries to scream, but the only thing that comes is a gurgle of frothy pink blood staining his lips.
There's no pity in his face when the Soldier stalks forward, raising his arm mechanically and firing two bullets between his eyes. The body slumps forward, splashing the neatly organized desk with slick smears of blood. The Soldier's nostrils flare at the warm smell of raw iron.
Mission accomplished, he eases from the office, closing the door and turning down the hallway. He passes a woman holding a pile of folders to her chest, her steps heavy and exhausted. She glances at him, but her eyes never pause, sliding smoothly past him.
That night, the police question her for five straight hours – who did you see, what did he look like, what was he wearing, why can't you remember anything?
"I don't know, I can't remember! There's was someone, but I can't remember!" she sobs, over and over.
In the morning papers, the black ink blares the headline to the world:"Former Hydra operative, turned Federal agent, found murdered in his office"
*****
Bucky remembers this. Hydra is a life sentence. Once you're in, they will never, ever let you go.
*****
MID 1990s
The room is clean, nicer than most Hydra off-sites, but Alexander Pierce is still annoyed.
Sitting at a large wooden desk, he rubs his chin while he reads the latest mission report, the neat, block-letters as simple and concise as they've been since 1950.
The Asset stands silently before him, legs slightly spread, hands folded behind his back. His pose is automatic, classic parade rest for any soldier, even one who has no idea he was ever more than the machine he is today.
When Pierce finally looks up, his glasses have slid down his nose. His light blue eyes are pure ice as he looks over the rims.
"New Head arrives today. He wants to meet you."
The Asset nods once, demonstrating he understands. He's been here before, decades of service meant plenty of change in leadership. Sometimes it was frictionless, other times harsh and chaotic, but a glimmering thread of consistency has always remained.
The Asset obeys.
"Procedure will change, you'll be blindfolded for all meetings. Only top-level personnel are face to face."
The Asset nods again.
Pierce returns to his paperwork, summarily ignoring him, and the Asset returns to waiting, frozen and unmoving.
He hears the sound first, a rustle at his back, and he shifts imperceptibly, lifting blank eyes to Pierce.
At the quiet cough, Pierce looks up, immediately jumping to his feet when he sees the silhouette outlined in the doorframe. Walking past the Asset, he gives a low welcome to the visitor.
A long silence follows, before a firm hand presses between his shoulder blades and a heavy cloth bag is draped unceremoniously over his head. The Asset fights the natural urge to lash out, instead keeping his eyes wide open, his ears straining for sound, but his world has turned pitch black and muted behind the thick fabric. Laying his tongue flat against the fabric, he tries to orient himself with the lack of other senses, and tastes the dirty flavor of dust and wool.
The door behind him creaks shut, and the Asset is alone with the new Head. Although his senses are dulled through the rough cloth, he hears the quick breaths, smells the hint of expensive vodka. Silence reigns for several minutes, and the Asset knows he's being scrutinized as the man circles him.
"Look at you," the voice finally says quietly, quivering with excitement. "All these years, and still perfect. Strong. Beautiful. You're all mine." He runs his hand possessively down the silver arm, and it takes every ounce of the Asset's restraint to stop his fist from swinging forward.
As the man speaks, there's a flicker of recognition, not for the voice, but rather the cadence of his speech. For some reason it dredges up a staticky image of a woman in a bright red dress, something ancient and achingly familiar. The thought snags tantalizingly in the Asset's brain, before it recedes into the dark abyss.
The voice hums delightedly when he hears the arm whir to life, and the Asset feels him back away. When he speaks again, amusement colors the muffled words.
"We can fix that soon enough. I really am looking forward to breaking you in."
There's a knock behind him, and Pierce opens the door.
"Team are assembling for the Algeria mission. Did you want to send him?"
The voice is dismissive when it responds. "No, it's an easy job, don't waste him. Put him back on ice."
The Asset doesn't even flinch. The cold is infinitely preferable to his time spent awake anyway.
"Let's go," Pierce says, and the Asset turns obediently, his head still covered with the thick cloth.
The crackle of electricity warns him a second before it happens. He screams when the taser bites into his neck, his body crumpling to the ground.
The voice gives an ugly laugh.
"You should pay more attention, Soldier. Don't ever turn your back on me again." The voice drops lower, close behind him, and the Asset falls motionless. "I own you now, don't you ever fucking forget that. You were made to suffer for me, and I'll make certain you do."
*****
Bucky remembers this. In all his years, above everything else, the voice was the one thing he ever truly feared.
*****
Yes, memory is a strange thing.
Bucky hasn't spent time with these memories in years, but each one elbows forward tonight, clamoring for attention.
Drugs. Murder. Torture. Pieces of memory begin to click together, an unconscious response to the evening's events.
He ruminates on the voice, the wizard behind the curtain. Bucky never knew his name, never saw his face. He was a vague shadow, who poured pain over the Asset with boundless enthusiasm, always whispering in his ear of the greater horrors to come. The voice went silent after Washington DC and SHIELD assumed he was dead.
There's something, something, something there. He knows there's something, it blisters like acid in his brain, this idea, this realization, this –something.
And then a sick swoop sets his stomach churning, the impossible thought knocking him sideways, as he remembers the words, remembers the letters.
"All these years, and still perfect. Strong. Beautiful. You're all mine."
HE CAN'T HAVE YOU, HE CAN NEVER HAVE YOU. YOU'RE MINE.
"You should pay more attention, Soldier."
YOU REALLY SHOULD PAY MORE ATTENTION.
Bucky feels his heart stop.
It wasn't possible.
It couldn't be possible.
It was a coincidence.
It has to be a coincidence.
Terror whites out his vision as the idea lands.
*****
When the phone vibrates quietly, Bucky stirs from his self-induced trance, his heart pounding with the insanity of his thoughts. Without looking, he knows the sky is still dark, caught in that brief interlude of night when the moon has fallen and the sun still sleeps.
Steve's text is short and to the point.
"Bike, back entrance. Go now."
Bucky looks down to where you lean against him. Wrapped in your patchwork quilt, your arm is wrapped tightly around his, your face buried against his shoulder. He feels your slow, even breaths heat his skin, feels his fingers still tangled in yours, and it takes every last drop of willpower to let go of that comfort.
Rousing you gently, his stomach lurches when you blink slowly, contentment in your eyes when you recognize him.
"I need you to wake up, quickly. We're leaving," his voice is low and urgent, but perfectly calm.
Still half asleep, you struggle to follow. "Where are we going?"
"Somewhere safe."
 *****
Next Chapter 
*****
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