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writefightandflightclub · 7 months

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Ride or Die (Santiago “Pope” Garcia x fem!reader): Chapter Three (of 11 - COMPLETED SERIES)

Series summary: Together, you and Santiago have been “soldiers” then “friends” then “lovers”; but can you ever figure out what comes next, especially when Santiago can’t (or won’t) stop running?

Genre: a LOT of tasty angst, some tasty smut, best friends to… lovers?

Warnings: see series warnings, here.

Series info: this is a COMPLETED SERIES. All chapters are written and queued. Posting schedule and series masterlist are here.

Author’s note: Thank you so much if you're still here :) Hope you enjoy chapter 3! I'm so grateful for the interaction so far, and any feedback / comments / reblogs / asks would seriously mean the world!

Word count: 7.1k for this part

Santiago’s eyes flit over you as you ever so deliberately lean yourself up against the counter edge, legs stretched and elongated before you.

He just told you he’s missed you, after all these months apart - an admission you’d never expected so readily from him - but you, on the other hand, can’t bring yourself to be quite as forthcoming.

Instead, you fold your arms firmly around your middle and your expression grows taut - despite his effort to soften things. To close this distance. To drag you back in.

Stubbornly, you offer a big fat nothing in response. Opt not to make things easy for him.

Still, although you don’t make any move to invite him closer, you certainly do not make any move to deter him.

And so, Santiago inches forwards, stepping into the place of your sketched memories of him -all you’ve had for months- and showing them up to be wholly inadequate. When you’d imagined him he wasn’t this. He is so much more than you had been dwelling on. More handsome. More affecting. More Santiago.

He was hard enough to resist as an outline - as a vestige of the warmth he offered you. You don’t know if you can resist the full force of his corporeal form, and its promise of touch. You don’t even know if you want to.

Santiago is a wound you could never close. A scab you always pick. A scar you will always carry. It’s not nice to think of him in such a way, but you don’t know another way any longer. He hurts you, but you don’t know how to stop letting him get close enough to do it.

Your expression remains taut, however, even as Santiago’s face dances with a tentative smile, crinkles blooming around his eyes like sunbeams. A veneer of easy charm paints his features, no doubt in an attempt to sucker you in.

He always was good at that.

He just never quite knew what to do next when he had you.

To answer Tom’s question, Santiago had never used a line on you, no; but, since you started hooking-up, he had never needed to. Not once. You were weak for him, and it didn’t take much at all to drag you into him. Barely anything, in fact. A bad day. A drink or two. A lingering hug and parted lips, hovering just a little too close to your neck. A hand smoothed down your back, a little lower than he’d thought to touch before. A thick, dark eyebrow raised with a question, a nod towards his bed with a solution, and then, you were his. Unravelling all over him. Tipping into him then falling - so far. Further than you’ve ever fallen.

And God, you had tried. Tried to love him only in fragments. See him in pieces. Friend. Soldier. Lover.

But you saw him all at once.

He had drawn you in; because that’s what he does, isn’t it? It’s what he’s good at. He drags people in. To him. To danger. Because he can. Because he wants to. Because he needs to. Because he can’t bear to hurt alone. Because anything is a weapon in his lethal hands. His touch alone had even become a weapon, in the end. His fingers on you, inside you. Santiago knew exactly how to take you apart; but he didn’t know when to stop dismantling you.

His hands had never learned to build things.

It’s not his fault. Not really.

Still, you can’t help but blame him for it.

Santiago treads closer still, and your chest tightens with feeling.

You wish desperately that you had that same power over him. The power to pull him, to drag him, to persuade him into safety; but Santiago’s always looking for a close call as though he depends on them. As though, if he steps back from the edge, he will forget what it feels like to live without the constant threat of dying.

Santiago stops a few strides from you, planting his feet and shuffling from foot to foot, ugly flip flops slapping obnoxiously against the tiles.

You have so much to say to him. So many things you’ve rehearsed and scripted in your head these past months. But suddenly, all of that is too much to verbalise. Instead, there is something else burning far more strongly than regret or resentment or anger or saving face. More strongly than the million things you had sworn you had wanted to scream at him if only you could finally get him in front of you.

The truth is, you’ve missed him too.

You miss him.

This distance of only a few strides is the furthest you’ve ever felt from him, and you want nothing more than to close it.

Here, like this, you’re achingly aware that he’s not touching you. Hasn’t touched you, since he arrived here.

There was no hug hello. There has been no conspiratorial huddle of your bodies. No leaning into him on the couch. No sign of the two of you moving as one. In tandem. Symbiotically.

No lovers. No friends. No soldiers. And what are you without that?

You had left the latter life behind but you didn’t mean to lose the former too.

Santiago scratches his chin, flecked stubble rasping along his jaw, against the rough pads of his fingers, and your core turns itself over. In this moment, you can recall the textures of him as thoroughly as if you are touching him yourself.

Touch - that’s it.

Touch is the shared language you two have even when there are no words.

It is the language you have always shared. Developed over time, adding deeper and more elaborate phrasings to the point that, now, there are things you simply cannot say to each other without your fingers, your hands, your bodies, your lips. Therefore, in so many ways, until you can touch him? Until you have touched him? It will continue to feel like you haven’t yet spoken. Like you haven’t spoken since he left you in that doorway and you spat cruel words at him down the stairwell. Like you haven’t spoken since his hands -his touch- were last on you. Inside you. Over you. Covering you.

You haven’t spoken since his hands were moving over your body and telling you he loved you. Needed you. Wanted you.

And that? That won’t do. That’s too long without speaking to your best friend.

You undeniably need his touch now, regardless of how dangerous it may be. You need it, regardless of whether or not it is a weapon in his palms. Indeed, with the words attempting to burst out of you still too numerous and craving this far more intimate, straightforward shorthand, you simply move to hug him.

Santiago.

To draw him into you and gather him up into your arms. Your oldest, dearest friend.

You drink the scent of him in, and it is the scent of home. A home you’ve been searching for everywhere since you left it behind. A home you haven’t found anything close to back here - even at the family dinner table. A belonging you haven’t found in your new place, no matter how many throw cushions you buy and rearrange or how many photographs you hang in the hallway.

And so, the sheer force of your embrace takes Santiago by surprise, his hands still shoved in the deep pockets of his cargo shorts; but, in only moments he is reacting, wrapping his arms around you too. You’re not proud of it, but for the first time in months you feel like you can breathe.

Your fingers travel to any bare patch of skin you can find, snaking up to the back of his neck, into his hair, relearning the textures of him. Mapping his body beneath your touch. Cataloging every contour and swell of his terrain. And, it gives you pause as you find a fresh, ridged scar sliced into the back of his neck.

How didn’t you notice this before?

Oh yeah – that’s right. Because you’ve barely dared to look at him. To see him. Only dared to grasp at fragments of him, rather than risk seeing him all at once.

Santiago feels you urgently exploring the ridge with your fingers when you reach it, an unfamiliar range freshly cartographed on the map of his skin. A new dimension to the familiar paths your fingertips have traversed time and time again.

You pull away in shock, your fingers trembling. “What’s that? What happened?”

Santiago routinely got injured when you were in the field with him. Usually right in front of you. That hurt too, of course – seeing him in pain. In danger. But you weren’t quite prepared for the way it would scoop out a hole in your chest to know that he had been hurt without you by his side. That he had been hurting alone.

You knew, somehow. Knew he would throw himself into it when you’d left – into the danger. That he would get reckless without you around and God, what if something had happened? What if something had happened and you’d left it like that- the way you did? Fraught and angry and never having said any kind of proper goodbye? Leaving an open wound in your wake like that? How would you ever hope to piece yourself back together then?

Finally, your eyes swim with the tears that you’ve been holding back all weekend, for longer, and which suddenly find their exit valve so suddenly that you can’t even hope to prevent them. Instead then, you scrub them helplessly from your cheeks as you search Santiago’s eyes for answers.

“It’s okay,” Santiago soothes, smoothing his broad palms up and down your arms, shoulders to elbows. “Hey, it’s okay. Sweetie. I’m okay. Had that pain in my neck, remember? Went to get it fixed.”

It takes a moment for your surge of worry to still as you fight through the cloud of it, your eyes flitting all over his face. Your trembling fingers grasp his forearms in your grip as his broad hands shift to support you beneath the elbow, his thumb raking back and forth over your skin to subdue your concern. You feel ridiculous, but your eyes continue to ball with rogue tears. That is, until Santiago reaches beneath your chin and grips it, giving it a gentle jostle, his eyes steady and reassuring. “I’m okay. Really. Quick surgery. No complications.”

You nod. Blink through the tears. “Okay. Okay. Right. Did it work? Pain in your neck gone?”

His cheek tugs on a smile. “Debatable. Tom’s still sat outside, last I checked.”

You smile too. Release a light exhale of a laugh, venting some of the pressure.

You examine Santiago’s face, painted as it is with mild shock and confusion, as though he’s wondering how you could possibly get so worked up about this new little nick on his neck. He never did quite get it, did he? What he means to you? “You promise you’re not hurt? Really?”

He drops your arms. “It’s not your job to worry about me any more, remember?”

The blow feels low, even for him. A crack in his layered on charm, no matter how casually he attempts to pass it off.

“Sure. It might not be my ‘job’ but it’s still my life’s fucking work, idiot. You got surgery. Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

His brows draw down. “Well. We haven’t exactly been friendly lately. Not since…” his pink tongue curls around his lip, as though he can’t quite complete that thought. Can’t quite bear to revisit how you left things. At least, not out loud.

He folds his arms around himself, creating a barrier, and you see the shutters go up over his eyes too.

There it is again. This distance.

Your shoulders slump with an exhale. “Fuck, Santiago. This is so much harder than I… The way we left it. I…”

You watch a hard swallow trail down Santiago’s corded neck.

How did you leave it, exactly?

Hurt.

Yes.

But also; searing pleasure. Pulse hammering in a hot throat. Insistent, grasping, spearing fingers. Stubble as rough and warm as sand. The urgent, soothing slide of tongue. Unfinished.

Unfinished, and it’s so hard not to simply fall on to his lips in this moment. Warm. Soft. Familiar.

He’s remembering too, and his sunken gaze dips to your mouth. His throat bobs around another thick swallow. And, as he so often does when his feelings become too much, Santiago yeets them away. Far away, in the worst possible way. “It’s okay,” he says coolly. “Look. I forgive you.”

Your mouth falls open, in complete indignation. “Me? You forgive me?”

He rocks from foot to foot. “Well… yeah.”

Santiago’s -up to now- cool, calm expression twitches with evident irritation as you scoff. Meanwhile, a sudden, hot rage tremors in your belly, making you gallop over your words so fast you almost trip. “Excuse me?! You’re the fucker who stormed out. Who left it like that.”

“Princesa,” he says, still eerily calm despite the momentary fracturing of his mask. “You left the fuckin’ country without saying goodbye.”

Your nostrils flare. You boil.

This anger which has festered for months, it seems, is finally finding a release valve. It is an ugly, gnarled thing, and yet, you lean into it with your whole self. You lean into it because it’s bringing you closer to him, the distance between your bodies tightening and shrinking as you zone in on one another with this twisting, animated rage.

“Oh ho ho! Funny that the other boys managed to find the airstrip just fine, isn’t it? Frankie had a good luck banner. Benny brought me fucking sandwiches.”

Santi rolls his eyes so hard. “Benny’s always been sweet on you.”

“And you’re not?!”

The words scrape you on the way out, like sand in your throat, and by the time you are almost chest to chest with Santiago, jabbing your pointer finger into the valley between his pecs in utter disbelief, it is too late.

Too late to retreat as his hand almost absent-mindlessly settles over yours to relieve himself from the stab of your accusatory finger.

Then, as coolly and calmly as his words are delivered, he still opts to level an accusation of his own. “You never should have left in the first place.”

You snatch your hand away from his before the heat can travel up your arm and settle in your chest. And, in this moment, in response, you find that you want to hurt him. Perhaps a part of you truly is cruel.

This time, your words are delivered coolly too. Slow, so that every syllable has time to crawl under his skin. “Santiago. I had no damn reason to stay.”

You watch as his eyes flash with a momentary knife lick of pain. He takes an almost imperceptible step back from you, whatever wolfy words in sheep’s clothing he was about to rasp dying in his throat. Instead, he exhales a huff of air through his teeth. Shakes his head. Smiles a smile somehow entirely scrubbed of joy.

The implication of your words is clear.

He was not reason enough for you to stay.

“There,” he says coolly. Unfeelingly. Icily. “Are you done?” He scoops a hand around his mouth, stubble rasping beneath his palm, his eyes glassy and dulled now.

Whatever satisfaction you had expected to derive from hurting him was a false sun. You feel empty now too, for having dulled his brightness.

Did the anger make anything better, you ask yourself? Did it change a damn thing?

No.

Here you are, still entirely burdened by this weight in your chest.

Still at such an impasse.

Still best friends.

Still bound.

Still falling to pieces.

Still hopelessly in love with him.

And it’s still not enough.

You watch him rock self-consciously from foot to foot once more. Attacked but not retreating. Still here. Still trying, in his own way.

You wish you could state with some truth that you’re sorry. That you can forgive him. You don’t know if that’s real, but you still know one thing for sure.

You missed him, and you do still want to close this distance. To heal this wound, not deepen it. Whatever it takes.

“Fine. I’m sorry. I-”

“-Bullshit, hermosa.”

You look down at the floor, almost ashamed that you can’t bend the words quite enough on your tongue to make them feel true in your mouth. That Santiago saw right through you.

But why would you be sorry?

In your estimation, Santiago owes an apology far more than you do.

Still, when you finally drag your eyes back up to his, his stare somehow feels softer. Bright enough with possibility, at least, to singe away your would-be tears.

Maybe it’s because he sees you still here and still trying.

You want to say something more, to do something, but you are entirely at a loss. The anger had gotten you nowhere - no closer to resolution - and you had not once in four months looked beyond it to what might happen next. To what the possibilities might be.

You blink slow and long, bringing your palms up to shield your eyes as you gather yourself for a moment.

Then…

“Here,” Santiago’s weakened voice sounds after a while. You hear the clink of a couple of glasses to the side of you, being grabbed up from the counter.

“What?” you blink a few times in confusion.

“Help me out.” Still, you look blank. “With the dishes.”

You look around the kitchen, as if suddenly noticing where you are. As if only just having clocked the chaos created by you and the boys after an evening of hearty dinner and drinking. Corn husks and burger buns. Beer bottles and discarded dishes littering the surfaces.

“Pope…”

“Come on. Like you wouldn’t be lying in bed staring at the ceiling all night if we left these festering ‘til morning?”

Festering.

Slack-jawed, you watch Santiago gather up the glasses and pad over to the dishwasher in his stupid flip flops, and you feel a sudden surge of affection for the man.

Your eyebrows jump up in delayed surprise. At what, you’re not precisely sure. At the fact he knows you well enough to understand that a mission, however small, is what you need right now? At the fact he remembers you? That should in no way surprise you, but it does.

Santiago ticks up an eyebrow in return, his hand brushing yours as he conveys a plate to you, ready to be slotted into the rack. “I haven’t forgotten you,” he promises, his voice silk, and an involuntary heat blooms through you.

You are grateful that your arm moves on autopilot to stow away the plate, your body turning away from him before you can ignite.

You are also grateful to have this small mission to focus on together. To place your two bodies back into their rightful routine. Sure, this domesticity is a far cry from what you’re used to. From any of the endless ways your bodies might have previously combined – acted as a unit. But, your heart aches as Santiago begins moving around you with ease. Effortlessly intuiting your path around the space, and slotting the path of his body around yours as you work together to get the job done.

You suppose there are some paths you never forget if you walk them enough, and the way you move around each other so fluidly exhibits your years of togetherness – of walking in the same direction – far more clearly than you might care to admit.

Your bodies remember each other, and, oh boy, do you want to test that assertion in all the ways you can think of.

Still; you don’t.

Can’t say anything for a moment, besides responding wordlessly to the brush of his skin against yours as he passes close to you.

“Better to do it now, I guess,” Santiago twitters mindlessly as he rinses a dish and stacks it. You look at him almost completely stalled, as a characteristic smirk finds its way to his full lips. “Personally, I like doing it in the morning.”

You wouldn’t know. He’d never stuck around until morning for you to find that out.

“Right,” you respond stiffly. “Always putting everything off until later.” Including you.

His face drops.

Shit. You can’t help yourself, can you?

You don’t know why you said that. Don’t know why you had to throw around more blame, just as things were softening. Just as things were beginning to feel more than a little like they used to. “Shit. I’m sorry. I…” This time, the words feel genuine.

“Yeah. No. It’s fine. I get it,” he says somewhat placidly, all things considered. Reaching for another stray glass and loading it up. “You think this is all my fault.”

You grab up a used pan and tuck it into a space. The words are so strangled in your throat that they barely come out as more than a whisper. “Well. Isn’t it?”

Santiago’s jaw writhes, tension travelling through his corded neck, his mouth a thin line. Still, he passes you the item in his hand all the same. “Agree to disagree?”

“Fine.”

You both opt to contain it, then. Not to let it erupt. To focus intently on your task and only vaguely on each other. After all, it’s far safer that way – dulling the intensity of him.

“Hey,” you try, forcing a brighter tone, which comes more easily than you might have expected. “Do you really play up the knee thing?”

“Sometimes.”

There is a beat, and you somehow can’t contain your statement. “I was never on top.”

A frown notches in his brow. “Sure you were.”

“No.” You swallow the lump in your throat as you watch Santiago rise from his hinged position, coming fully to standing,

You hold your breath for a moment, wondering where he might take this, but you are relieved as an amused spark glints in his umber eyes. “Made an effort with you, I guess.”

Fuck. You remember. His mouth on you for hours.

Aaaand… There he goes. Dragging you back in.

God, you want him to. Want him to soothe your anger. Win you over. You want that.

“Ha. What made me so special?” Shit. You hadn’t meant… you didn’t mean it like that. Still, you clock the way Santiago self-consciously scratches the nape of his neck.

His eyes glance off of yours now, like a careening, flung spark.

You try to refocus.

Knives and forks in the cutlery holder.

You let the question hang.

You let the moment breathe.

It sounds odd, maybe, for something so mundane, but doing the dishes with Santiago - or something equally domestic - has long been a secret desire of yours. When bullets and bombs hailed around you, everything heightened and extreme and horrible, you had begun to entertain dreams of normal, boring moments with him. A morning cup of coffee. Falling asleep in his arms. Doing laundry.

Peace instead of war.

You snort softly at the thought.

Now, it is the two of you who are at war.

If only your hearts could be as in sync as your bodies always were. Apparently still are. And, dammit, once again, you want to take that theory to its logical conclusion.

“So, look. What’s the deal?” Santiago asks self-effacingly, as he peels the wrapper away from the dishwasher tablet. “Are we ‘friends’ again, or what?”

“Santi. We never weren’t.” That’s not the issue, is it? Never was any question of whether you were friends. It’s that you didn’t know how to be more - not without tearing each other apart.

Santiago nods slowly, processing all of this, and his expression is so contrite that you can’t hope to dull the tide of affection for the man. You turn a bowl over and over in your hands as a distraction. “I still want to know, Santi. I want to know what you’ve got going on. When you get neck surgery. I… You’re still my best friend.” You want to reach out for him. To hold him. In years gone by you would not have hesitated to touch him - but things are different now. “I mean… right? Aren’t you?” When a lump balls in your throat, you realise it’s less of a question, more of a plea.

You can’t look at him, but in your periphery you note him moving closer. His arm extending, his broad, warm palm reaching out ever so tenderly to cup your cheek. Making you meet his gaze before he speaks. “You’re my ride or die, sweetie. Always.”

It’s a relief to hear it. So much of a relief that at least one thing is a constant that your eyes brim with tears, misting your view of him as you finally tip your gaze back up to his. You find his expression wistful at first, but then, as his thumb continues to skim back and forth across your cheek, the moment morphs.

That was always the problem, wasn’t it?

You were soldiers, then friends, then lovers. If only you could figure out what to be next. How to be all of those things at once.

So, when this heat between you is finally given a chance - instead of sparks flinging themselves into the dark - it catches, beginning to blaze.

Suddenly, there is a whole conversation happening between your bodies, without making any move. So fluent are you in the language of touch that you can even intuit his words before he speaks them. Suddenly, a whole tome is written in the fleeting moment that your eyes lock. A tome dedicated to every conceivable position your bodies might combine into. To how you might make use of every surface around you.

The way he could shunt you up against the-

-spread you open on the-

-turn you around and bend you over until-

-a collapsing of this need.

Your bodies, doing whatever they need to sync themselves back up. No longer out of rhythm.

In many ways, it would be so easy.

So easy to succumb.

In that fleeting moment, all the possibilities seem to flash through you as you contemplate what move you’re going to make. Which way you will choose to give into him.

But instead, you reach for the dishwasher door, and you push it closed. Santiago follows, standing formally beside you, hands folded in front of him as though mourning the moment you had both allowed to pass. Mourning the fact that your bodies are talking, screaming out to one another, but not one of you is prepared to listen. Not yet.

“There’s another job,” Santiago states blankly. “I found Lorea’s cash house.”

Your stomach drops. “Fuck, Pope.”

“The boys are in,” he snips back, almost defensively.

Are they? The others were meant to be done with that life too – just like you. It had barely been any time at all since they had followed you out. Started to move on with their lives in whatever way they could.

Thank God, is all you can think. Thank God you didn’t let your need collapse, because if you had, you’d be right back where you started. You’d never get out. All Santiago knows is how to walk around in circles.

“I’m out. I told you,” you reaffirm, as if in danger of being drawn back in regardless of your firm resolve. Santiago always was so very persuasive, that at times you wondered if his desire for you was anything more than a sales pitch. Fucking propaganda.

“I’m… Shit. I’m not asking you to be a part of it.”

You arc an eyebrow, trying your best not to let on that hurts you; contrary thing that you are. “Oh?”

“I’m just telling you what I’ve got going on. Like you wanted.”

“Right.” You swallow. Why did Frankie not mention this? Asshole. “Sure.”

Now that the dishes are stowed away, Santiago casually pops a couple of beers, leaning himself up against the counter. You follow his lead.

“So,” he breezes, nodding the head of his bottle at you. “I gave you something. Now you can tell me about the guy you’ve been dating.” You arc an eyebrow at him, definitely coming off as miffed that he’s found out about that. “Oh yeah,” he says smugly, with a knowing curl of his lips. “Your sister dropped you in it big time. Almost like she was trying to make me jealous or something.”

You shrug.

Well?

Did it work? Is he? Jealous?

Part of you wants him to claim you again. At least, you want him to want to. Want him to remind you in no uncertain terms of all the ways he can’t forget your body - and everything he knows how to do to it.

“He’s….” Possibilities of what you could respond with filter through your brain. He’s not even a thing. He’s none of your business. He’s what you deserve for letting me go. He’s revenge. He’s a bit of fun. He’s not someone I could make a go of it with. He’s not you. Never will be you. “…Hot.”

“Did you meet him at a wine mixer?” Santiago asks with a brash smile. “Does he listen to true crime podcasts and do ultra-marathons to prove he’s special? Take you on dates to Olive Garden?”

“That’s… ridiculously specific. Also; no.”

In truth, you know this revelation from your sister won’t even bother Santiago all that much - not on any real level. That’s because he knows it as well as you do. Knows that you’re his. At least, that you could be his, at any moment. That he could make you forget. Or remember. Whatever he wanted.

You prickle though, and he sees it. “Come on. I’m not trying to be an ass. I swear. I just-“ he bumps your arm with the back of his hand “-want to know too. What you’ve got going on.”

“Then you should ask me about my job, the house. All of that.”

He leans in, just a little. Conspiratorial almost, eyebrows shooting up. “I get all of that shit from Frankie.” So Frankie’s been selling you out too, huh? You’ll need to have words. “But… Look, he holds out on me when it comes to who’s giving you the dickin’ down these days.”

“As he should!”

Santiago chuckles, and God you’ve missed that sound.

You search his face. A gentle, genuine curiosity plastered over his features. You take a swig of beer, for some illusion of courage.

“Fine. I met him when I kicked his ass at a BJJ seminar, thank ya very much. He has tattoos. Owns a gourmet street food truck. Hangs with his two kids in his spare time.” Santiago nods solemnly, as though his own curiosity is coming back to bite him all of a sudden. As though he’s growing less and less sure that you’re his. “And it’s...” You clear your throat. Christ, there’s no subtle way to do this. “I mean. It’s still early. We haven’t even said we’re exclusive yet, you know?”

Santiago nods slowly again, processing all of this. Studying your face intently, without giving much away himself as a heat claims your cheeks. You’re not sure what you want him to do with that final piece of knowledge, exactly. Can hardly bear to think about how desperate it must come off.

Fuck. If he really cared about you, he’d let you go, wouldn’t he? But you won’t let him let you go.

Maybe you really are just as bad as one other.

“So… it’s not…” you continue, hoarsely. “I mean. It’s not serious.”

Santiago gives you a look then though. One which is desolate, eyes scrubbed clean of that perpetual, vital spark. “Don’t,” he pleads softly. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t give me hope.”

Santiago.

Why the hell not, exactly?

Why the fuck shouldn’t you give him hope? After all, there is so much of it twisting in your chest. Hope that somehow, this time, this thing you share could maybe be different. There is such an abundance of hope that it only seems fair to heap it upon him too, doesn’t it? So that he may share the burden?

“Okay. Whatever.” You set your mouth into a thin, pinched line, but there’s too much feeling bubbling up inside you to contain. “I missed you too, you know.”

Then, despite what he’d just said…

His eyes spark, glancing off yours like flint on rock, no more settled ash here; only kindling catching. “Oh you did?” he purrs in a smooth voice, like breath bellowed into a burgeoning flame – giving you heat.

You’re so fucked.

You want his heat. You want…

Fuck.

Your bodies betray yourselves, your resolve, your best intentions, magnetising ever so slowly towards one another until you are almost chest to chest, all hitching breaths and need-burdened brows. Hovering hands and blown-out pupils and parted lips, inching closer. His finger trailing up your forearm like the crackle of a licking flame, causing you to gasp from the way it burns.

He dips forward for a kiss you’ve waited months for.

Months; and yet… when it comes to it? When you finally get what you think you want, you deny it. Your head whips to the side, chin to shoulder at the last moment, leaving Santiago’s lips moments from your cheek, his breath fanning warm against your skin. It takes everything you have not to turn – to offer your mouth to his so that he might quench your desire like a cooling tide rolling over a hot, needy shore.

“Don’t…” you plead now too. Don’t, because if he starts, you will not have the strength to stop, and you’re so very tired of moving in circles.

Santiago remains in place for a moment, chest moving with gently ragged breaths, the scent of him all over you like smoke. The heat of this desire – the desire to consume you, devour you like fuel - pouring off of him in waves, and desire sinks through your middle too, tacky and hot and rolling.

“Shit,” he curses, dragging both his hands through his hair and causing waves of turmoil through his grizzled curls. He steps back from you, and you look down at where his hand had found your arm, half-expecting it to be singed.

“Fuck, Santi,” you breathe - in despair, in relief - not knowing quite how you avoided this collision, your stomach in your throat as though you have lurched in a flung vehicle, narrowly avoiding the edge.

This is the one thing you promised yourself, coming here. That you wouldn’t go there. Not again. But, despite trying, it’s quite apparent that you don’t know how to go anywhere else. Your body can barely comprehend itself without his now. After all, you’ve been like a river coursing towards him your whole life. Every sign and route and valley and peak leads you towards him. Every fear and hope of yours is mapped on his skin – hidden in the crooks and valleys of his body. At this point, you don’t know how to flow any other way. How to be anything other than a team. How to do anything other than combine.

Except; when you combine, you collide. You buried your home in his bones, piece by piece, and you can no longer tell if that was love or violence. What do you do, when your home is also your battlefield? When you’ve already done enough fighting for a lifetime? When all you want is to feel safe and at peace, and he can’t give you that?

Your eyes glance off of his again, and this time they are cool and liquid, salt tides shrouding his burnt umber eyes. “Is it always going to be like this?” he asks flatly. “We never gonna to be able to be around each other again?” He looks at you earnestly, and you realise that he’s genuinely waiting for an answer.

“It can’t. It can’t always be like this.” Fraught. Difficult. Painful. It’s not an option. So, it can’t be a possibility. You can’t be with him; but more importantly, you can’t lose him. You just can’t.

You are unsure which words Santiago swallows in the next moment, but you see them bob down his throat and into his chest. Then, you wrap your arms around yourself, feeling exposed by the pain stinging your eyes like woodsmoke.

“So. Glad you got out, huh?” Santiago needles, and you wonder, for a moment, whether a small part of him is cruel too. You wonder what he truly wants to hear, and you resent the scepticism in his voice. Resent the way his words appear to say one thing, but his true meaning is clear. Look what you’ve done.

“Yeah. I am.” What else can you even say? It’s evident that Santiago will never get down on his knees and beg you to come back. And, even if he did do so, he’d be missing the point. You can’t ever go back. You need him to follow you out, and, meanwhile, he’s still looking backward. “I know you won’t leave, Santi, but I couldn’t stay.”

He never did have a clear vision for his future, did he? He only ever had tactics. The next mission. The next pay packet. The next bust. The next lay. Short steps, and never strategic ones. Always a soldier, and never a leader, not even when it came to his own fate.

Santiago sighs deeply, scooping his palm over his stubble. “I know,” he concedes, reluctantly. “I get that. I do.” The muscles in his jaw writhe as he bites the inside of his cheek.

A truce. A ceasefire. For the moment.

How did it come to this?

“And?” you press, trying to soften your tone and getting halfway. “What about you? Are things… good?” Are they better? Better with you gone?

Santiago looks at you then like you’ve just shot him in the leg, but like he also finds it kinda funny that you did. He juts his chin towards you in challenge. “What the shit do you expect me to say, huh?”

Nothing, in truth. Nothing at all with his words. Everything with his lips. With his fingers. With the sting of his teeth on your lips. The rake of his stubble on your skin. With his touch.

For a moment, once again, his eyes are soft and bright, and you can’t help it. Can’t help the way you take a couple of steps forward, extending your palm out to cup that pretty, ridiculously shapely jaw of his, the anger you’ve held on to for months lifting like a veil.

It’s not his fault at all, is it?

You simply loved him too soon; and he loved you too late.

Still, it feels a lot like love when he settles his warm, broad hand on top of yours. For all that has gone wrong, it still feels pretty right from where you’re standing.

Your gaze dips to his full lips and God, yet again, you are only moments from caving.

Maybe this time…

Maybe if you just hope-

“-Yikes! Sexual tension much? Hot as the Sahara in here.”

You and Santiago jump apart from each other as a booming voice fills the room, your heads whipping towards the noise.

Benny Miller.

Benny Miller has arrived at the beach house, everyone. The towering man is clutching a couple of holdalls, and a rucksack is slung over his broad back. You notice his clownish, pearly grin first, and the howler of a bruise on his eye comes a close second.

“Bring it in, bitches!” he encourages, opening his arms towards the two of you, and you quickly attempt to shift gears, a part of you grateful for the sudden interruption, but the whisper of that almost kiss lingering on your lips all the same.

Still, before Santiago can succeed in reading the disappointment on your face, you practically leap into the arms of the younger Miller brother.

“Benjamin!” you squeal in delight, squeezing him tight.

“Miller,” Santiago grins, pulling the taller man in for a backslapping, neck-grasping embrace.

“Where are the other chumps at?” Benny inquires, as soon as greetings have been exchanged, already beginning to shrug off his bags and piling them on to the floor.

You nod your head in the direction of the beachside portion of the house. “Out front. Fire pit. Beers. Three dudes who ate their bodyweight in tamales. Get involved, Ben.”

“Nice.”

Benny bounds outside to say hello, insufferably energetic for this stage in the evening, and once again, you are left alone in the kitchen with Santiago.

You feel like all of the air has suddenly been sucked right out of the room. And, with nothing else for it, you press the button on the dishwasher and it whirrs into action. Hell - that damn machine is the only thing around here getting any.

“We’re done here then?” you question, and, not for the first time this weekend, you’re entirely unsure what it is you want to hear.

Santiago looks at you. Looks at you with all the knowledge of someone who knows you in every way there is to know a person. His gaze is intense – locked and loaded and so very counter to the casual way he shoves his hands into his pockets. You wither under his stare, but his earnest words are the thing which ends you. “I wanna kiss you. So bad.”

Your arms wrap tightly around your middle, as though you are searching around your skin for an exit wound; but no. Apparently, you have not yet worked him out from under your skin. Santiago is still the bullet inside your chest. His love still hurts.

Apparently, there was no clean parsing of him from you when he slammed that door and walked away, but instead, the slow bleed of metal and blood under your skin. You think, all of a sudden; I will never get you out, will I? You are a part of me. You are scar tissue. The echo of a wound.

Your eyes swim, and your burgeoning tears extinguish any fire you may feel. Any words you might say catch on hooks in your throat and never make it out at all.

Santiago has something to say though, it seems, even as his gaze drops to his own toes and your silence speaks volumes. “For the record? It’s not good at all. Without you.”

You press your palm to his chest, a gesture caught smack-bang between reaching to pull him closer and pushing him away. You shake your head lightly, your plea whispered into the tight space between you. “Santiago. Don’t.”

And then, with a deep breath, you walk away. Calm and slow, but with just as much turmoil on the inside as when he had left you behind in a frenzy, doors slamming and voices raised.

After he watches you leave, Santiago remains in the kitchen for a moment, stooped over and his hands braced, palms flat against the counter.

Then, after a quick side-eye at the dishwasher - for it daring to whirr and intrude on his quiet, contemplative melancholy – he pushes it all down. Resumes wearing his mask. The one signaling that everything is fine. That he is fine, even though everything he held most dear seems lost.

The truth is, he needs you. He loves you. He wants you.

But you don’t seem to want to hear it.

You had left, and you had also left him behind.

The truth is, it breaks his heart.

#santiago pope garcia x reader #oscar isaac #triple frontier #ride or die series #santiago garcia

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maniculum · 11 months

Text

Bestiaryposting Plan

So the poll is still running, but I think I'm safe in saying there's sufficient interest, so I'm going ahead and typing up a "how we're going to do this" thing, which I will schedule to post after the poll ends properly. As of the time I'm writing this, over 500 people have voted for the "yes I want to draw things" option, and I had been expecting to get maybe a dozen, so we definitely have enough participants. Let's get started then:

Our Source

I had originally planned to translate an Old or Middle English bestiary, but haven't been able to find a good one -- the best option I was able to dig up only has thirteen critters, which I feel like isn't enough to really have fun with. I was debating the idea of translating a Latin one -- this would have been far more time-consuming since my Latin is terrible, but also I do need to practice it, so I figured it evens out -- when I found a solution that doesn't involve me spending hours and hours on translating.

It seems that when Aberdeen University created their digitized version of the famous Aberdeen Bestiary, they released it under a Creative Commons license. (Assuming I'm reading their copyright policy correctly; I'm not a lawyer.) It does not seem to specify whether the transcriptions and translations they attach to the scanned images are also covered by Creative Commons, but since all of those are already freely available online through their website, I can't imagine they would have a problem with me posting them here as long as I provide attribution (which I am hereby doing right here on this post) and am not using it for commercial purposes (which I am not).

The Aberdeen Bestiary is missing a few pages, but there exists a very similar manuscript, the Ashmole Bestiary (they're sometimes called "sister" manuscripts), which is not missing those pages. And I happen to have a translation of the Ashmole Bestiary in hardcopy on my bookshelf, so I can just use it to fill in the gaps. Edit: whoops, the one I have is the Bodley Bestiary. They are in the same bestiary "family", though, so it still works well enough. (I think that should qualify as "fair use", since I'm only taking excerpts and not using them commercially.)

The upside of using the Aberdeen Bestiary is that it means when I round up all the art of each critter, I can include their very nice illustrations alongside the reveal of what animal was being described.

The downside of using the Aberdeen Bestiary is that since it already is free online, people might be tempted to "cheat" by looking up the entries and finding out what animal they describe. For that, please see the next section...

Guessing the Animal

Guessing what animal is being described is not the point of the exercise. (Feel free to have theories and whatnot, but please keep them to yourself so as not to influence the artists.) If you see an entry and think, e.g., "oh that's describing a raccoon"*, and then you create a picture of a raccoon... well, you could have done a perfectly good raccoon at any point and didn't need this framework to do it. So just don't worry about what animal is meant, and do your best to draw (or paint or stitch or whatever else) based on the description! You're not getting ranked on accuracy and there are no prizes forthcoming, so... just have fun with it.

*Example chosen as something that will, for obvious reasons, definitely not be in a 13th-century European bestiary.

Edit after starting to type these things up: some of these are going to be super easy to guess, though, to the point where I don't know how possible it'll be to block out prior knowledge. Sorry about that.

General Procedure

I'm going to schedule a post every Monday (I'm thinking of queuing them for 6pm Eastern Time) with a new entry. It will be the translation of an entry from the Aberdeen Bestiary with all references to the animal's name replaced by a randomly-generated nonsense word. (Henceforth to be referred to as "nonsense-names". I'm Googling* each one before using them so I don't accidentally generate one that actually means something.) These posts will all be tagged maniculum bestiaryposting, so you can follow that tag if you want to make sure you see them.'

*Later Note: Did you know that if you search dozens of nonsense words within a short span of time, Google makes you prove you're not a robot? Repeatedly?

Anyone who wants to draw the critter being described should do so. (You are encouraged to describe your thought process re: why you've depicted it the way you have.) You can put it in its own post, or reblog the description with an image, or however you want to do it. Then tag your art with the nonsense-name I've given to the animal.This will let me and others find it. (You should probably employ copy/paste there to make sure the spelling is the same, since nonsense words are hard to spellcheck.)

A week after posting the bestiary entry, I'll go through that tag and round up all of the art contributed. Then I'll put the images in a big post (or series thereof, considering how many people might participate), along with an @ and a link to your original post.

If you want...

to not have your work included in the round-up post

to have only a link to your post included and not an image

to have me include a link to your website / other social media / etsy shop in addition to or instead of your tumblr

to have other information included alongside your work

anything else along those lines

... then just say so in your post and I will follow your instructions to the best of my ability.

I will also include, at the end of the round-up post, an image of the creature as depicted in the Aberdeen Bestiary and what it is actually called.

All posts I make on this will be collected at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting so that people can look at previous ones without scrolling through the tag.

Various Notes

I'm going to trim out any religious digressions in the original entries -- bestiary authors had a habit of adding stuff like "and the raccoon is symbolic of god in such-and-such fashion, which teaches us...", and I just don't think that's relevant here.

The entries will also be presented in a random order. This is because they're sorted into categories in the original text, so if I don't change the order we're going to get stuck with, e.g., a few months of All Birds All The Time.

You should all be aware that the animals described are not guaranteed to be, you know, real. There are several entries describing animals that straight up do not exist -- some of which are mythical creatures familiar to most people, others of which are extremely obscure.

Explanations of the animal's name within the entries will be redacted.

If other animals are mentioned within the entries, they will not get replaced with nonsense-names. Originally, I was going to make the switch globally, so that if, e.g., the entry for "raccoon" read "a raccoon is about the size of a possum", and the random generator had decided that a raccoon was a balzikhear and a possum was a flunggrish, the "raccoon" entry would now read "a balzikhear is about the size of a flunggrish". However, I decided that it will cause more problems than it solves to obscure any comparisons to other animals -- so the name-switch is now localized only to the specific entry. A possum is a flunggrish only in its own entry, and remains a possum everywhere else.

I was originally going to do one post for every single entry, but there are a lot of them and they vary wildly in length & quality. So I've cut it down to exactly 52 posts, meaning that if I queue them up for once a week, this will run for roughly a full year.

Most of that cutting-down mentioned above was done by combining a bunch of the really short entries into categories -- the last half-dozen posts in this series will be group entries. You can choose to make art of any of them that strike your fancy, or do a group portrait, or just ignore them --I dunno, I'm not a cop, do what you want.

I did also directly cut some, mostly domesticated animals because there's a somewhat different approach to them based on author and audience familiarity.

So yeah, that should cover everything.

#maniculum bestiaryposting

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literaryavenger · 8 months

Text

Captain America: Civil War

Summary: When on a mission in Lagos things don't go as you expected, Secretary Ross offers the team a solution.

Pairing: Platonic!Avengers x F!Reader

Warnings: Descriptions of violence. Language. My poor attempts at being funny.

Word Count: 3K

A/N: It's only half of January and I've already been sick, great! Anyway, basically all the other parts of this story were queued and ready to go, so I got some time to rest but now I'm here writing with a fever! So, if anything doesn't make sense or I missed some mistakes, that's why. Enjoy!

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

After months of tracking down Rumlow, you finally have a chance to get him once and for all.

You’re in Lagos, sitting at a cafe.

“All right, what do you see?” Steve’s voice comes in your ear. You know he’s talking to Wanda, she’s still learning how to be an Avenger.

“Standard beat cops,” she looks around her. “Small station. Quiet street. It’s a good target.”

“There’s an ATM in the south corner, which means…” he trails off letting Wanda finish his sentence.

“Cameras.” she promptly says.

“Both cross streets are one way.” Steve keeps going.

“So compromised escape routes.” Wanda reasons.

“Means our guy doesn't care about being seen, he isn't afraid to make a mess on the way out.” Steve says, “You see that Range Rover halfway up the block?”

“Yeah, the red one?” she asks “It’s cute.”

“It's also bulletproof,” you discreetly point out ”which means private security, which means more guns, which means more headaches for somebody. Probably us.”

“You guys know I can move things with my mind, right?” she says and you smirk.

“Looking over your shoulder needs to become second nature.” Natasha answers from a few tables away.

“Anybody ever tell you you're a little paranoid?” you hear Sam ask and try hard to contain your laughter.

“Not to my face. Why? Did you hear something?” Natasha says and you can see her smirking.

“Eyes on target, folks. This is the best lead we've had on Rumlow in six months. I don't want to lose him.” Steve says in our comms.

“If he sees us coming that won't be a problem.” Sam says.

“Yeah, he kind of hates us.” you add.

There’s a minute of silence as you all keep an eye on your surroundings, then you hear Steve’s voice again. “Sam, see that garbage truck? Tag it.”

You turn around just in time to see Redwing flying under it to scan the truck.

“Give me X-ray.” Sam orders the drone. “That truck’s loaded for max weight. And the driver’s armed.”

“It’s a battering ram.” Natasha says and your eyes widen a little.

“Go now!” Steve says and before the words are even out of his mouth you’re moving.

“What?” Wanda asks confused.

“He’s not hitting the police.” you say and then you’re all running in the truck’s direction.

Steve and his supersoldier ass get there first, then Sam and Wanda who can fly, while you and Nat are stuck driving your motorcycles as fast as you can, but can still hear the conversation through the comms.

“Body armor, AR-15's.” Steve says “I make seven hostiles.”

You hear some gun fire and then Sam “I make five.”

“Sam.”- Wanda says and, after a few seconds, Sam again “Four.”

“Rumlow’s on the third floor.” Sam says, then Steve says in his Captain voice “Wanda, just like we practiced.”

“What about the gas?”-you hear her ask.

“Get it out.” he orders. You can see the green and red whirlpool from the street.

“Rumlow has a biological weapon.” Steve after a few minutes, just as you and Natasha get there.

“We’re on it.” she says and basically jumps off her motorcycle and it skids into an agent.

You make a sharp turn and come to a sudden stop in front of an agent on your right side, so you push your left leg off the bike and, twisting your body, you kick the guy hard on the stomach while also dismounting the motorcycle.

When you turn around Nat cocks her eyebrow at you and you shrug. “What? I’m not throwing my bike at these assholes.” she rolls her eyes at you as you two keep taking out soldiers.

You can see Nat getting dragged by Rumlow, but you’re too busy fighting off some agents to help her. You vaguely hear him saying ‘I don't work like that no more’ and frown, you manage to take out the last one around you and, just as you turn, you see Rumlow launch a grenade into the truck and say “Fire in the hole.”

You run towards it, knowing Natasha’s probably in it, but it explodes before you can get close and do anything, the door flying and Natasha falling out of it coughing.

Once you’re sure she’s okay, you turn around but Rumlow’s already gone.

“Sam. He's in an AFV heading north.” you hear Steve say and, sharing a nod with Natasha, you get back onto your bikes and run to catch up with the truck.

“I got six, they're splitting up.” Sam says just as you and Natasha get to where they ditched the truck.

Natasha jumps onto a car and then another and you follow her. “I got the two on the left.” she says.

“I got the middle!” you say and start your pursuit.

“They ditched their gear. It's a shell game now.” you hear Steve say as you run after your two guys. “One of them has the payload.”

Just as you manage to catch up to your guys and knock one of them out, you can hear Sam saying “He doesn't have it. I’m empty.”

You quickly take down the other guy and search through them. “I struck out, too.”

Then you hear Natasha say “Payload secure.” and you allow yourself to relax.

“Thanks, Sam.” She adds.

“Don't thank me.” he answers and you frown, confused as you start making your way back.

“I’m… not thanking that thing.” is all Natasha needs to say for you to understand, and you roll your eyes.

“His name is Redwing.” Sam corrects her.

“I'm still not thanking it.” she says.

“He's cute. Go ahead, pet him.” he says and you can’t help but laugh.

Your amusement is cut short as you hear Steve’s grunts, clearly still in a fight and you try to move faster to make your way to him.

You catch up right after Wanda, just as Rumlow says “And you're coming with me.” and activates the bomb vest he’s wearing.

You don’t have time to even try and cover yourself as Wanda keeps the blast contained in a ball around Rumlow, his screams the only thing that can be heard.

She launches him in the air and the ball of energy explodes too close to the building next to it, setting a couple of floors on fire.

As you all watch in horror, you barely register Steve asking Sam for Fire and Rescue as you put your hands on Wanda’s shoulders and turn her away from the building. You let her rest her head on your shoulder as she starts crying, your own shocked attention still on the building.

This is not good.

It’s been a rough couple of days for the team after the mission in Lagos.

You’re all back at the compound now, and you’re on your way to the conference room to wait there for Tony when you pass Wanda’s room and hear her talking to Steve.

“Rumlow said ‘Bucky’ and… all of a sudden I was a 16-year-old kid again, in Brooklyn.” Steve pauses “And people died. It's on me.”

“It's on both of us.” Wanda counters.

“This job…” Steve starts “we try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody. But if we can't find a way to live with that, next time… maybe nobody gets saved.”

You see Vision approach and keep walking to make your way to the conference room, exchanging a knowing nod with him.

When you get there you’re a little startled to see The Secretary of State, but you sit down at the table in silence.

Once everyone gets there, Steve sits at the head of table, to his left Sam, then Vision and then Wanda, to his right you then Natasha, then Rhodey and Tony is sitting in a chair by himself to the right of the table.

Secretary Ross is on his feet in front of the table and, once everyone takes a seat, he starts talking.

“Five years ago, I had a heart attack. I dropped right in the middle of my back-swing. Turned out it was the best round of my life, because after 13 hours of surgery and a triple bypass… I found something 40 years in the Army had never taught me: Perspective. The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives… but while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some… who would prefer the word ‘vigilantes’”

“And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?” Natasha asks.

“How about ‘dangerous’?” Your eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Definitely not the word you were expecting “What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?”

Ross activates a screen behind him and News footage from past Avengers and SHIELD matters flash on the screen as he speaks.

“New York.” A Chitauri leviathan. Terrified citizens. A soldier firing a gun. The Hulk smashes into a building and sends a dust cloud that engulfs the camera. Rhodey looks regretful and he glances behind him at Natasha.

“Washington DC.” The three Insight helicarriers, firing on each other. The destroyed Triskelion. A helicarrier crashing into the Potomac and throwing up a massive wave, engulfing citizens and the camera. You and Sam look at each other, then down.

“Sokovia.” Terrified citizens, running. The city rising. A building falling over. Everyone’s eyes are glued to the screen.

“Lagos.” The burning building. Paramedics moving a body. A dead girl. Wanda is particularly affected by the footage from Lagos. Steve sees this and intervenes.

“Okay. That's enough.” Steve says, looking at Wanda.

Secretary Ross nods to his aide and the images disappear, then he starts talking again.

“For the past four years, you've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution.” he places a thick document on the desk and passes it to Wanda. She looks at it and then slides it over to Rhodey. “The Sokovia Accords. Approved by 117 countries… it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary.”

“The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place.” Steve points out. “I feel we've done that.”

“Tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?” Steve looks up and meets Ross's eyes. “If I misplaced a couple of 30 megaton nukes… you can bet there'd be consequences.”

You narrow your eyes at him. They’re people, not weapons. Before you can voice your thoughts he goes on. “Compromise. Reassurance. That's how the world works. Believe me, this is the middle ground.” He points at the Accords.

“So, there are contingencies.” Rhodey says, familiar with the politics by now.

“Three days from now, the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords.” Steve glances at Tony “Talk it over.”

He starts to walk away when you speak up for the first time. “And if we come to a decision you don't like?”

Ross stops and looks back at you. “Then you retire.” he deadpans.

You simply nod, trying to stifle a grin and, when you look at Natasha, you can see she’s doing the same.

He leaves with his aide and there’s a moment of silence before you all get up and walk quietly to the common room. Some sitting, some standing and Tony laying down on a chair. And then the discussion starts.

“Secretary Ross has a Congressional Medal of Honor, which is one more than you have.” Rhodey says to sam. You’ve lost track of how long the team has been discussing.

“So let's say we agree to this thing. How long is it gonna be before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?”

“117 countries want to sign this. 117, Sam,” He leans in to look at Sam since you’re currently between the two men. “and you're just like, ‘No, that's cool. We got it.’”

“Why am I always in the middle of this?” you say, a little exasperated at the two that are almost glaring at each other now, you make eye contact with Nat and she clearly feels the same way you do.

“How long are you going to play both sides?” Sam says, ignoring your comment.

“I have an equation.” Vision jumps in and everyone looks at him.

“Oh, this will clear it up.” you say sarcastically and cross your arms in front of your chest.

“In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man, the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. And during the same period, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate.” Vision explains.

“Are you saying it's our fault?” Steve asks.

“I'm saying there may be a causality.” Vision clarifies, before going on “Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict… breeds catastrophe. Oversight… oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand.”

“Boom.” Rhodey says and you roll your eyes while Sam glares at him.

“Tony. You are being uncharacteristically non-hyper-verbal.” Natasha points out.

“It's because he's already made up his mind.” Steve says.

“Boy, you know me so well.” Tony says sarcastically and gets up, rubbing his head. “Actually, I'm nursing an electromagnetic headache.”

He walks to the kitchen and grabs a mug before continuing. “That's what's going on, Cap. It's just pain. It's discomfort- Who's putting coffee grounds in the disposal? Am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang?”

He puts his phone in a basket and taps it, the phone projects an image of a smiling young man. He looks down, then back up, and pretends to notice the picture for the first time. “Oh, that's Charles Spencer, by the way. He's a great kid. Computer engineering degree, 3.6 GPA. Had a floor level gig at Intel planned for the fall. But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul, before he parked it behind a desk. See the world. Maybe be of service. Charlie didn't want to go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn't go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where, Sokovia.” Everyone is listening to him intently as he seems to be having a little meltdown, but his words are clearly affecting the whole team.

“He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. I mean, we won't know because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass.” He pauses and takes a pill with some coffee, then faces you all. “There's no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, I'm game. If we can't accept limitations, if we're boundary-less, we're no better than the bad guys.”

“Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don't give up.” Steve says.

“Who said we're giving up?” Tony promptly answers.

“We are if we're not taking responsibility for our actions.” Steve counters. “This document just shifts the blame.”

“I'm sorry. Steve. That- that is dangerously arrogant.” Rhodey says. “This is the United Nations we're talking about. It's not the World Security Council, it's not SHIELD, it's not HYDRA.”

“No, but it's run by people with agendas, and agendas change.” you interject, seeing Steve’s point.

“That's good. That's why I'm here.” Tony says, pointing at you. “When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands, I shut it down and stopped manufacturing.”

“Tony, you chose to do that.” you tell him, then Steve talks, nodding at you.

“She’s right. If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go? What if there is somewhere we need to go, and they don't let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own.” Steve says.

“If we don't do this now, it's gonna be done to us later.” Tony reasons. “That's the fact. That won't be pretty.”

“You're saying they'll come for me.” Wanda speaks up for the first time since this discussion started.

“We would protect you.” Vision says confidently.

“Could we?” you say and everyone looks at you, so you elaborate. “If we don’t sign this we’re criminals for even trying to keep her safe. If we do sign, it’ll be our job to come for her if we get ordered to.”

There’s a moment of silence while you all think about this, before Natasha speaks up. “Maybe Tony's right.”

You all look at her, surprised. “If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer. If we take it off-” she gets interrupted by Sam.

“Aren't you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?”

“He’s not wrong, Tasha.” You add.

“I'm just… I'm reading the terrain.” She explains. “We have made… some very public mistakes. We need to win their trust back.”

“Focus up.” Tony says and looks at Natasha, clearly amused. “I'm sorry, did I just mishear you or did you agree with me?” you roll your eyes.

“Oh, I want to take it back now.”

“No, no, no. You can't retract it. Thank you. Unprecedented. Okay, case closed--I win.”

They all start to talk over each other, but you’re focused on Steve’s phone that you can see over his shoulder since you’re standing right behind him. He gets a text that says ‘She’s gone. In her sleep.’ and you frown, watching Steve quickly get up.

“I have to go.” is all he says while dropping the Accords on the coffee table and, when he exits the room, you exchange a worried glance with Sam.

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