#say hero cause that’s not the exact things I feel (plus it’s probably make his head all big) but he’s definitely someone who gives/beings m

[customizablefriend]

My true self still loves Tommyinnit I am still an inniter at heart I have not changed

[itsnothingofinterest]

You know, I saw a post the other day talking about if Deku should get OFA back. OP thought he should, but interestingly, said they'd think different if Shigaraki was alive and saved. OFA was sacrificed for him, it'd be okay to say gone if that carried through; but since it didn't, Deku should get it back. (The actual post probably explained the reasoning better, but I can't find it now.)

I found it interesting, because it got me thinking how I'm kind of in the exact opposite boat. If Shigaraki had lived and gotten saved, I'd be okay with Deku getting back the power he sacrificed. (It's even what happened in my write up of how I wish the final fight had gone.) But since he failed and Shigaraki is dead and gone, I feel OFA should share that fate instead of returning to Deku.

I mean if Shigaraki were saved, not only would that have allowed for better, less contrived ways for Deku to get OFA back if the guy who's got it still exists (maybe Tomura giving the quirk back to somehow heal in Deku or something); but it'd make perfect narrative sense to reward the kid for getting the perfect impossible save he was seemingly aiming for by letting his dream continue. From every angle, that combination of events just makes more sense to me

Plus, if we ever got that continuation that suddenly I am the only one not talking about; it'd have been sick as hell for Deku & Shigaraki to team up in the future, Goku & Piccolo style. All for One & One for All finally united for a common cause as the naming convention implied they were always meant to. Honestly that was the ending I was hoping for until 423 shattered those dreams like it did Shigaraki.

But that's not what happened. OFA was destroyed twice over. Shigaraki died. And as much as people like to hype up the impact of Deku's 2-panel speech on holding hands, he basically failed to save Tomura in any real meaningful way. Couldn't save him from hero society, couldn't save him from AFO, couldn't even save his life. In fact he basically threw Tomura to each of those fates. This previously hopeful and optimistic story suddenly decided it was a tragedy. And in tragedies, miracles don't happen to suddenly make things go the hero's way; when they fail, they're punished, not rewarded.

It's pretty hard to see a story like that decide to somehow give OFA back to Deku when whatever was left of it died alongside Shigaraki.

[brown-spider]

Hi! I really love your Spidersona Sunny, they're such a mood. Ngl they crack me up with how done they already are with the whole hero gig😂 and I was curious about something.

Do you think Sunny and Miles would get along? They seem like they would be great friends for lots of reasons, like their shared love of art and how similar you said their worlds are. Also maybe a shared kind of disillusionment with heroing, cause let's be real, there ain't no way Miles is coming out of any of this even slightly okay. Highkey think he was a little depressed before he got jumped by hundreds of spider people and after having the friends and mentor he was desperate enough to give up his passions for, only for them to gaslight and betray the hell out of him, plus whatever fucked up shit that's for sure happening in Btsv, it's gonna get so much worse. That and I think Miles would find Sunny's ability to juke the canon, kinda like he does, so awesome. Deadpool joking about Sunny avoiding plot trauma by running off screen is everything. They just say, "nah, fam I'm good" and just leaves🤣

Miles: If you teach me how to juke canon I'll watch Deadpool for you.

Sunny: Deal

I feel like Miles could make friends with anybody tbh 😂

Miles and Sunny's attitudes towards heroing are a bit different, i think. Miles stepped up to the mantle after building up confidence that he deserves it, that he can be someone ppl rely on. He's outraged by the idea that Spiderman as a symbol of heroism/hope can't "always" win or can't do "both." He also has bit of pettiness around the lack of reward/freedom/gratitude for being Spiderman; it comes with the territory of being a teenager who does selfless deeds on the daily only to get grounded or have his roomate not bother to dial 3 numbers or be told that he isnt allowed to stop his dad from dying-

Ahem.

Whereas Sunny doesn't have a sense of duty or optimism towards being Spiderman. They don't WANT to be someone people rely on, they NEVER believed that one person could "always" or "do both", they're resigned to the things happening around them.

Sunny doesn't know about canon events, courtesy of their Peter not telling them because they freaked out at the mere concept of a multiverse and want nothing to do with HQ outside of removing anomalies from their own dimension. Deadpool makes 4th wall breaking jokes but Sunny sees it the same way you and I would react if someone pretended to break the fourth wall; its just a joke. Like "haha, what if we were in a simulation." Of course, ever since they found out about the multiverse, those jokes became much LESS funny to them 😬

So yeah, Sunny dodging canon doesn't come from a determination to live up to what they think Spiderman should be, or out of defiance of The Way Things Are like how it is for Miles, its the exact opposite. They're avoiding responsibility and expectations, they've decided that nothing they do will make a Real difference except to make them More Depressed when they inevitably fail.

If Miles told them about canon events, their response would probably be something like "......... I wish you hadn't told me that." Because what are they supposed to do?? Not only are they being told that Fate has guaranteed certain tragedies occurred to hundreds of thousands of heroes WAY BETTER THAN THEM- but ALSO that those same far-more-skilled-heroes have dedicated themselves to making sure those tragedies continue to happen. So tell them, what the heck are they supposed to do??

They wouldn't do anything. But they also wouldn't stop Miles. They hate the concept of fate and would hope he breaks the algorithm with his friends and saves the day, because its way easier to place their faith in people who can Actually make change than to get involved and get themself hurt.

[marauderundercover]

This Side of Normal Ch. 6

Prev

AO3

Jason walks into the hospital room, heart breaking at the sight. Adrien, a huge bandage covering what was left of his arm and part of his shoulder. And next to him… This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to be there to make sure the kids didn’t get hurt. Instead, Ladybug- no, Marinette, he reminded himself. She had told him her name through sobs as he held her on the roof after they gave their statements to the police. Marinette blamed herself. He could see it in everything she did, the way she responded to people, her body language around Adrien and Jason. He knew she blamed herself. But she shouldn’t. She wasn’t the one who had been trained to fight villains like that. Villains willing to kill kids to get ahead. But Jason was trained. He was supposed to be prepared and know what to do. But now, Adrien would have to relearn how to do everything with just one arm. Sure, he could get a prosthetic, but that wouldn’t be for several weeks. And even if he chooses to get a prosthetic, he’d have to relearn everything. Again. And it was all because Jason couldn’t save him. He couldn’t save anyone. Jason turns to leave, not ready to talk to the boy who lost an arm because Jason wasn’t fast enough.

“Jay?” A soft voice from the bed calls, making Jason freeze. Whirling around, he rushes over to the bed, immediately looking the boy over to see if he’s okay. 

“Hey kiddo, how ya feeling? Are you- I’m so sorry.” Jason rambles, falling onto the spare chair next to Adrien’s bed. A chair that should’ve held a parent. If Gabriel wasn’t a piece of shit supervillain who cut off his own son’s arm and kept his wife’s corpse in a hidden basement. Yeah, that investigation must’ve sucked. 

“It’s weird.” He says, and Jason frowns at the tears filling the boy’s eyes. “My arm hurts, Jay. Really bad. But every time I try to hold it, or move it to a position that doesn’t hurt- it’s not there.” 

“Oh kid.” Jason clamps his mouth shut, determined to not let the kid hear his voice cracks, determined not to let the kid see him cry. What did he have to cry about? He’s the one that wasn’t good enough to protect these kids. Jason leans forward and gently wraps his arms around Adrien, letting the boy sob into his shoulder. Holding onto a sobbing Adrien, Jason’s able to see Marinette wake up and instantly leap into a fighting position. When she notices him, she relaxes slightly, until she sees the crying boy. Then her face morphs into pain and she backs up away from the bed, wrapping her arms around herself. 

“Mari?” Adrien says, pulling away from Jason and sniffling. 

“I’m so sorry Adrien. It’s, it’s all my fault.” She says, still keeping her distance. Jason sighs and stands, moving across the room in two large strides and wrapping her into a hug. She stiffens for a moment before basically collapsing in his arms. Jason just holds her and lets her cry, just as he let her on the roof two nights ago. After years of not being able to feel anything other than happy, Jason would support these kids and encourage them to feel. Even if it hurt. They deserved to feel. 

---

Sitting and talking to Adrien about anything and everything after school had become a daily occurrence for Marinette. Jason walking her from school to the hospital had also become a daily occurrence. So walking by herself was weird. Doable, because she was Ladybug and could walk across Paris alone, but still weird. Especially since Jason was so insistent on her being more careful now that Hawkmoth- Gabriel- was behind bars. Jay was convinced that that meant that the regular, run of the mill bad guys would come back out of the woodwork now that they didn’t have to deal with possible akumas. Regardless, that hadn’t happened yet and she could easily walk by herself. It was still weird though. Walking into the hospital, Marinette frowns at Jason who was pacing and rapidly arguing with someone on the phone in English. Quickly reminding herself that, no he wouldn’t be akumatized, and yes, he was allowed to have negative feelings, she moves so that she’s in his line of sight. Making eye contact with him, she raises an eyebrow as a silent question. He frowns, but doesn’t do anything else except nod towards Adrien’s room. Rolling her eyes in annoyance at his avoidance, Marinette lets herself into Adrien’s room, smiling softly at her friend. The first two days after the battle, she could barely look at him. She blamed herself completely and didn’t feel like she was worthy of being his friend anymore. Now, almost a week after the battle, she still blamed herself. But it was easier to look at him, easier to talk to him.  

“Hey kitty.” She says, walking over and sitting in the chair on the left side of his bed. 

“Hey bug. Jay still on the phone?” He asks, and that’s when she notices the tell-tale signs of worry on his face. 

“Yeah...how long has he been on the phone?” She asks, frowning at his wince. 

“Well, he tried to ignore the person the first three times they called. And then he finally answered, said ‘leave me alone’ and hung up. And then they called again, and that’s when the yelling and arguing started and he left the room. That was…” He trails off, looking towards the clock on the wall. “Almost two hours ago.” “Two hours? On the phone? You don’t think he’s in trouble, do you? I mean, I know he has a life back where he lives, and I’m sure his boss is probably getting frustrated with him. But-” Marinette stops herself, not wanting to say something selfish. She knew that Jason had a life outside of Paris. But he was the only grown up to care that Ladybug and Chat Noir were just kids, that they needed help. He was the one to make sure they weren’t spending too much time being heroes and not enough time sleeping and doing homework. He was their big brother, and she wasn’t ready to say bye yet. Even if they could still call him. It wasn’t the same.

---

Jason Todd was livid, and for the millionth time that week, thankful that Gabriel Agreste was rotting in a prison cell instead of manipulating people who were having a bad day. Cause this was not a good day. 

“B, I’m not sure what you want from me.” He finally huffs out, glancing towards Adrien’s shut door. 

“I just want to know why you haven’t returned. Dick informed me of the flooding your first day, and how things seemed to magically fix themselves. You told us that everything was taken care of, and then you stopped answering any questions about the situation. Seeing as there is apparently no immediate danger to anyone there, I think it’s time you returned home. You have responsibilities here, Jason. Your family is here.” Bruce says simply, and Jason has to bite his tongue from arguing. How was he supposed to tell Bruce about these kids who needed support that they weren’t getting anywhere else. That there were two young superheroes in Paris who needed someone to understand what they were going through, since they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) tell anyone else? Bruce would have adoption papers written up in minutes, and taking the two from their city didn’t seem right. Plus he would never let Bruce adopt them, the kids had enough emotional baggage to deal with without being a Wayne. 

“I just haven’t, Bruce. I’m a grown man. I-” “You have responsibilities, Jason. I let you take this vacation because I could see you needed it. But now we need you. I- your brothers miss you.” Bruce says, and Jason rolls his eyes at the man’s inability to be emotional. He would’ve done great in Hawkmoth’s Paris. 

“Okay, I’ll start looking for a ticket. I should be home in two or three weeks-”

“I’ve already ordered a ticket for you. Your flight leaves Paris at noon tomorrow. See you then.” Bruce says, hanging up before Jason has the chance to argue more. Not that he had the energy after going back and forth between arguing with Dick and Bruce for two goddamned hours. Resisting the urge to throw his phone against the wall, Jason takes a couple deep breaths to ground himself. No need to upset Mari and Adrien and if he goes in there pissed off, they’re gonna get upset. Shaking his head to try and clear it, Jason throws open Adrien’s door, grinning at the two, sitting side by side on Adrien’s bed. 

“Pixie Pop, you’re gonna piss off the nurse if she sees you up there again.” He says, walking over to his usual chair. 

“You’re upset.” She says, instead of arguing and reminding him that she can take anything the nurses can dish out (they’d had the exact conversation yesterday….and the day before.) Jason blinks, acting confused. 

“Don’t even try and act like you’re not Jay. Mari’s scary good at reading people.” Adrien says with a frown. Jason huffs and rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah, okay, I’m pissed.” He admits, slumping back in his chair and crossing his arms. Marinette turns to Adrien and whispers something to him, Adrien nodding before she turns back to look at him. 

“You’re gonna need our phone numbers.” She says, and Jason frowns in actual confusion this time. 

“Gonna need a little more than that, Pix.” He says. 

“Well, we knew that you’re not from here. And that eventually you’d have to go back. I mean, I’m sure your boss wasn’t planning on you taking a vacation quite this long. But-” Marinette pauses and lets out a shaky breath. “But neither of us want to lose you. You care about both sides of us, and you’re the only one. You’re our big brother, Jay, but we both know that you have another life somewhere else. And I’m sure those people miss you too. I mean, you’re kinda cool or whatever.” Marinette teases, but he can tell behind the smirk that she’s close to tears. Jason sighs and stands, bringing both of them into a big hug. 

“I don’t wanna leave, ya know.” He mumbles, frowning when he feels his shirt getting wet from tears. 

“I know. But you have to. And that’s okay. It’s not goodbye forever.” Marinette says, her voice breaking as she holds onto him tighter. 

“Expect a lot of calls and face times. Especially once I get my arm. I have so many jokes to make, you’re gonna be sick of it.” Adrien says, and despite the joke, Jason can tell the boy is crying too. Jason squeezes a little tighter, accepting the fact that he’d be leaving. And that he wasn’t sure when he’d see the two again.

Next

Tag list (open): @toodaloo-kangaroo @laurcad123 @kittenmywaythrulife @lost-in-the-world-of-maribat 

[milliumizoomi]

𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓡𝓲𝓭𝓮!

Pairings: A! TodoKiriBakuDeku x O! Black Fem! Reader

Synopsis: You, your friends and all your pups went out and it took a turn none of you were expecting.

Warnings: Slightly Mad Alphas, Mild Cursing Fluff, Implied angst at the ending if you squint.

Masterlist

Go Back ⇢ Part 2 ⇢ Up Next

So here you were on a Saturday, driving with your little pups purring and playing with each other in the back seats as you somehow got dragged out of your house by your friends. You hadn’t heard from the boys yet but you know that they will most likely not be too happy that you suddenly left the house.

Your friends wanted to carry the pups to the annual carnival that was being held. You decided to go since you knew that your little pups would love it. And plus, it would allow them to get used to all the different smells in the world. You scent was still lingering on them as they grew so you would have to make sure that no one else’s smell gets on them.

You had already called the girls and told them you and your pups were ready. You made sure to scent them so you could make sure of where they were at all times. So you were driving to the carnival with your friends following.

As soon as you got to the carnival, you parked and hopped out of you car and went to the backseats to unbuckle the pups out of their seats. “Mommy! This place is huge!” Katsuo said with stars in his eyes as you unbuckled him from his car seat. “I know baby that’s why I need all of you to stay close to me ok.” “Yes mommy!” All of your little pups said in unison.

“Cmon girls it’s time to goo!” One of your friends said as she help her pup’s hand. You and your other friend nodded. You told your two oldest pups to hold onto the their younger siblings hands and then you would hold onto the younger pups. Your friend got her two pups hands and started walking towards the entrance.

‘I hope the pups enjoy today!’ You thought to yourself as you smiled. You look down and your pups who were beaming with excitement. ‘Yup today’s gonna be an eventful day..’ you thought as you purred softly.

If only you knew how right you were..

With the boys...-

They had no clue you weren’t even home.

They were currently on patrol in the same area but different streets. Kirishima was with Bakugou and Todoroki was with Midoriya. They were just walking around and doing their job. “I can’t wait to get home and and see y/n and our little pups..” Kirishima sighed and said as he stretched. “Got that right weird hair. It sucks ass that we have to work today" Bakugou groaned. They knew they don’t get much days off being pro heroes and such but they wanted to spend some time with you and the pups.

“I’ma call pebbs and see what their up to” Kirishima yawned. “Plus we’re practically finished with patrol so it shouldn’t be a problem.” Bakugou just shrugs. “Tell that nerd I said hi” he smirks and says. Kirishima nods. He took out his phone to see the message you had sent. “Bakubabe... can you take your phone out for a sec.. I need to see something” He continued, growing weary. Bakugou sideeyed him, looking very confused. “Hah? For what?” Bakugou asked. “Please I just want to check something.” “Fine whatever. Here.” Bakugou digs his phone out of his pocket and hands it to Kirishima. Kirishima takes the phone and as soon as the phone lights up, he sees the same exact message he saw on his phone. “They aren’t home..” Kirishima whispers to himself. “What??” Bakugou asked as he tilted his head to Kirishima and quirked his brow. “Pebble and the pups.. they aren’t home” Kirishima tells Bakugou. “What?! The hell you mean they aren’t home?? That shitty woman didn’t tell us she was planning to go anywhere today especially with the pups!” Bakugou said as he raised his voice a little and grabbed his phone from Kirishima.

Lemme fill y’all in btw.. ya see the boys are very territorial and protective of you and the pups. They don’t like anyone getting too close to any of you.

As Bakugou took his phone and saw the message you sent, Todoroki and Deku were coming around the corner from the area they just patrolled. Btw Kirishima and Bakugou were still walking. “Oh hey Kacchan and Eiji,are you guys done with patrol?” Midoriya asked as he rounded the corner with Todoroki. There was no answer to his question. “Uh.. guys? Did you hear me?” “O-oh uh hey babes um.. y-yea we where just about to head back to the agency..!” Kirishima stuttered trying to contain his anger while Bakugou was still fuming at his phone. Midoriya looked at him suspiciously. “Something’s wrong” Todoroki chimes in.

Kirishima growls and so does Bakugou. Midoriya furrows his eyes at the sound of the growling. “Guys what’s wrong??” Midoriya asked growing impatient. “Look at your phones..” Kirishima says while running a hand through his hair. Todoroki and Midoriya looks at each other confused then fish their phones out of their pocket. They watch as the screen flashes on and immediately your message is the first thing they see. “..what?” Todoroki says as he looks up and Kirishima and Bakugou for confirmation. Kirishima nods as Bakugou just turns away. “Did she mention this before?” Todoroki asks. “Not from what I remember” Kirishima answers. “Midobabe? Bakubabe? Calm down ok we can just blow up like this on the sidewalk.” Kirishima tells them. When they are silent that means they are LIVID. “Yeah.. granted were all on edge about this but we can call when we get back to the agency.” Todoroki says as he walks up to both Midoriya and Bakugou and rub their backs. “Now let’s get back ok?” They all nod and begin to walk to the closest agency, which was Bakugou’s.

While walking there and greeting civilians, Midoriya looked at his phone one more time to realize that you had left your location on. “GUYS! HER LOCATION! IT’S ON!” The other three men perked up at hearing this. “Nerd are you serious?! You better not be f*cking with us!" Bakugou growls. “Kacchan none of us play when it comes to our love and our pups you know that!” Midoriya exclaims. It’s clear that they are all frustrated right now but are trying to not let it get to them too much since they’re in public. “Look I’m sorry ok.. It just makes me frustrated that we don’t know where she or our damn pups are.. Makes me wanna blow something up..!” Bakugou says as he clenchs his fists. Midoriya walks over to Bakugo and runs his hand through his hair and gives him little kisses all over his face in an effort to calm him down. “It’s gonna be ok Kacchan.. it gonna be alright.. how about we see where she is now so that we can all feel a little calmer?” He along with Todoroki and Kirishima nod. Midoriya looks back down on his phone. “Uhh.. it says that she’s at a carnival” he said. “Oh you mean the annual one that the have every year?” Todoroki asks. “Yeah I think that’s the one. The pups probably wanted to go or she got invited or something.” Kirishima asks. “Probably.. nobody better touch her though ‘cause I will find them and when I do I-“ Bakugou starts. “Calm down hothead we all get territorial when it comes to her so cool your jets. We can scent her when she comes back or we could even surprise her and the pups.” “Ok whatever” Bakugou says as he rolls his eyes.

They walk and walk and walk until they finally made it back to the agency. They open the door to see nothing but absolute chaos unfolding. “HEY! WHAT’S GOING ON IN HERE?!WHAT THE HELL DO YOU PEOPLE THINK YOURE DOING RUNNING AROUND MY AGENCY?!” Bakugou screams, seeing red. His agency was a complete disaster. Paper was being thrown everywhere, people were frantically running around the place and people were talking a mile a minute on the phone. Everyone froze at the sound of Bakugou’s voice. They looked up to see the heroes in the top 10 rank standing at the doorway with a pissed off look on their faces. “W-were s-s-sorry Dynamight sir..! But we’re in a lot of trouble right now and police are re-requesting a-a-all of your a-assistance..!” A young woman bowed and said. “Trouble??“ ”What’s wrong?!” Todoroki and Deku asked at the same time while they all we fanning Bakugou’s face to help him calm down. “Villains...! Their attacking!” The employees yelled. “WHERE?!” The boys frantically asked. “AT THE ANNUAL CARNIVAL THAT HAPPENS EVERY YEAR..! THEIR ESCAPED CONVICTS AND THEIR TERRORIZING AND KILLING THE CITIZENS..! WE JUST GOT THE REPORT!” The same young woman screamed. The Alphas froze as their heart dropped to their stomach. The people they swore to protect with their lives... are at that carnival..where dangerous villains are attacking.

©Property of Miashimaa. Please don’t rectify, repost or modify without my permission.

Taglist: Open (just let me know if you would like to be added)

[kimberly-spirits13]

Dating Damian Wayne HC:

(imma do one for all of the guys I just had the writing idea for Dames first)

How You Met: Artist credit @axeeeee​

.        You went to Gotham Academy before him

.        You were also making sure that you were top of the class and also maintaining class president

.        Anyways, it was just something that you pushed yourself for

.        Arts was another strength for you but that was something that you weren’t as inclined to maintain on an extreme level like everything else

.        So it was your job to show the new people around the school before their first day which meant that you were showing Damian around

.        Your parents already knew Bruce so you weren’t really freaked out at all

.        It was just another day tbh

.        That was until you met him

.        It was weird since you were more of the person to not talk much about yourself

.        No one really knew who you were and you were content to keep it that way

.        Everyone’s friend but no one knew who you were really

.        Damian was kind of the same way but not as friendly or open to people

.        He was like the younger you

.        Still, for some reason you were interested in him just as a person

.        He was as well

.        You didn’t immediately hit it off seeing as you are both reserved and closed off when it comes to personal things, but you hit it off faster than any one else

.        A miracle in all honesty

.        So you started hanging out and eating together in the lunchroom instead of either with a group or alone

.        It was nice and then evolved over time

Friendship:

.        So after a few months, you guys were getting closer and closer

.        It was something that you just expected to happen and when it did you were ready

.        You were starting to hang out outside of school whether that was at your place, the park, his house, maybe a café on a weekend

.        Just anywhere

.        If there were any galas, Damian would invite you and you him since you didn’t really feel great inviting anyone else

.        Sometimes galas had this secret mandatory code to bring someone so it was nice to finally have someone to bring

.        The media was all over it

.        It was honestly really weird for a second and then you just accepted it

.        Damian and yourself slowly started opening up to each other about everything

.        Depending on how fast you pick up on things and possibly if you’re also a vigilante, this is where you figure out that he’s Robin

.        He doesn’t call you by your last name anymore and instead by your first name which is fun

.        It’s an honor lol

.        If Damian is having an issue at the manor, you just have extra stuff for him to come over anytime

.        It’s always there and you make sure to get more when you see something’s running low

.        By the end of the friendship stage, you’re probably wearing each other’s clothes by now

.        He gets flustered sometimes though

.        That’s the first few signs

.        Also very protective but we’ll get into that

Signs:

.        So Damian now gets flustered?

.        Not something that you ever thought you’d see

.        Complimenting you too

.        It was a mutual thing that you both started doing more and more

.        Hanging around each other even more than before if that’s possible

.        He introduces you to his pets

.        All of them

.        Even Goliath

.        That was after watching random animal videos one night in the movie room of your house and seeing your reaction to them all

.        You bout died meeting Goliath

.        It was pretty awesome

.        Damian was so proud

.        Anyways, so you start getting more and more protective of each other

.        Any stupid girls from the Academy were getting immediately shut down

.        Same goes with the boys

.        For Damian he was always making sure that no one was messing with you or making you feel uncomfy

.        Death glares to all and smiles to none that tried it

.        That was both ways

.        Omg you guys have the death glare mastered

Confession/ Relationship:

.        So now that his brothers have caught on, they’re hell bent on getting you two together

.        So is Alfred and Bruce and that’s not typical at all

.        Everyone ships you and you both know it just won’t accept it

.        After some time though, you’re at this string of events and the press was just bombarding you for info on the relationship and whether or not you were dating

.        You said no every time and then just moved on

.        Damian noticed how much he missed you and loved seeing you thrive even from afar

.        It was kind of like oh shit I’d better say something now cause they’ve got everyone wrapped around their finger

.        So when you got back, he told you

.        It was kind of informal and unexpected

.        I mean finally but, out of the blue

.        You were thrilled

.        So basically from then on, it was wonderful

.        Sometimes his brothers might tease you two and post really just dorky things about you guys

.        Maybe one day it’s freaking out cause they found you in the movie room passed out on each other asleep with an older movie playing

.        Picture of you not being apart at all

.        The press loved it all

.        You guys loved it all

.        Now he’d spend the night all of the time but this time in your room, asleep, with you

.        Not just in some guest bedroom or in the same room but apart

.        Sleeping is actually a big thing since you both greatly lack it

.        You’ll sleep everywhere

.        The couch, a chair, the bed, in a car, on the floor sometimes, at a table just next to each other, anywhere

.        It was something that like your friendship just evolved over time

.        Eventually, you were taking vacations together during the holiday breaks and training together

.        Your families loved the other

.        Friend groups too

.        Sometimes you’d fight but typically it got resolved quickly

.        There was always this challenge of apologizing on Damian’s end even if it was really his fault since he just doesn’t know how to

.        He got better with that real quick

.        Basically, you just appreciate each other and see the other as your other half

.        Nothing gets in the way of that

.        Not even some stupid boy or girl hitting on the other or the media’s twisted perception of something taken out of proper context

.        Those are typically what more serious talks are about but they’re solved quickly

Dates:

.        You’re either going to a nice place or not staying in

.        There’s no in between

.        Either 5 star or the home theater at probably your place

.        He loves taking you nice places even if you’ve already been

.        Watching new movies

.        Or really bad ones just to judge them

.        Those are always really fun

.        Sometimes you might go for a coffee date and those are typically just spur of the moment type things

.        You might go to a gala and then go home and kick back

.        Either way it’s the best

.        Homemade treats and movies with a possible blanket fort and pillows everywhere over the couches in the movie room

.        There’s always a chance that they might get cut short for heroics but that doesn’t typically happen since someone covers Damian’s or your shift

Hero:

.        So if you’re a hero, it’s kind of an exhausting thing especially considering schooling and everything else

.        Sometimes you find yourself not getting sleep for days

.        There are times that you regret everything and Damian understands it all

.        He’s just terribly impressed that you can do all of this like he does

.        It’s great having someone like that

.        Both of you are extremely well trained which sometimes Damian questions where you got your training since it’s so similar to his and his father’s

.        Very calculated and precise every single time but also unpredictable which makes you dangerous

.        It’s something that you always use to your advantage

.        On nights that you patrol, you do it together and always tag team

.        Damian knows that you put up one hell of a fight, but he’d rather be there incase something happens then not at all and have something bad happen

.        Both of you are always stitching each other up and helping the other with nightmares

.        It’s just inevitable at this point

.        Staying over at each other’s places depending on how close you are or how badly injured

.        You always go to the manor if there’s something really bad that happened

.        That’s cause they have better medical equipment and Alfred who is a legend

.        Alfred can fix anything and if he can’t it’s to the hospital but that pretty much never happens

Routine?:

.        With everything, you have to have a routine

.        It’s very exact and important

.        In the morning, you both wake up together but not before hitting the snooze button three times

.        You have the alarm set early enough to be able to do this

.        Plus some time just to lay there for a second

.        Damian is typically the cutest and most tired in the morning

.        He hates them

.        If you’re washing your face or doing whatever, he’ll just hug you from behind and lean against your shoulder

.        Has fallen asleep before

.        Then you both eat and head off to school

.        After school, you go back to someone’s place to change into comfy clothes and complete homework which most is done at school since you wouldn’t have time otherwise

.        If you have a meeting to go to, you’ll go to that and then head back

.        After supper, it’s to patrol and then after two to three hours of that on average, you go back to one of your homes and shower typically together since you don’t have time to not

.        It’s easier and more time efficient so you’ve said

.        Also uses less hot water

.        Then, you check your phones for any other emergencies and head to bed

.        If you’re not a hero it’s basically the same thing but he comes into your room, locks the window again after he’s made sure everything is safe inside, creeps in your closet to get his nightclothes, looks at his phone for anything that might have happened since, goes to shower, and then gets into bed with you after making sure you’re okay without waking you up

.        When sleeping, you’re either touching slightly or just on top of each other in some way

.        Either way, you’re touching

.        He can’t have you far from him incase something happens

.        Never really sure what might happen, just that it could happen

.        Since he’s a light sleeper, if you shift or move around, he opens his eyes for a second to make sure you’re okay

.        That goes for hero or not

.        It’s really nice and sometimes he’ll come in and you’ll still be awake

.        Always asks why

.        “Dami, I’m always awake at this hour.”

.        “I know beloved, but you should sleep.”

.        “Well then let’s go.”

.        He’ll swing by for just a second during patrol to check in if you’re either grounded from patrol due to injury, sickness, just need a night off, or if you don’t do it

.        Texts you updates every now and then since he knows you worry and it helps him when he’s home and you’re patrolling

.        Basically keeps him from going insane so he does the same for you just incase

[nanaminsonyfans]

✨Birds of a Feather✨

Masterlist ✨ Requesting Rules

Request; Could I request a YJs1 Dick x reader with the reader being new to the team and a protege of black canary? He’s my favourite 🥰

A/N; honestly, if one robin is AT LEAST one of your favorites, if they aren’t in the top three, i don’t trust you. also, i really like the way i wrote this a stuff, if anyone wants i can make this a thing. I fucking grew up on young justice i love these characters. rock and roll buckeroo!

Pairing; Dick Grayson(Robin) x Fem!Reader

Warnings; fluff, slight cursing

Your upbringing wasn’t pleasant, for a short backstory, Black Canary found you when she did a raid on an illegal Meta-Human fighting ring. Your parents sold you to the leader of the ring. Your power was similar to Canary’s, in which your voice was a power. You could mimic sounds around you like a mockingbird, but you had similarities with an owl in the fact that your neck could turn all the way around and you had night vision. Black Canary found you when you were ten, taking you in as her own. She took you under her wing. *dad jokehehuheh*

She had taken care of you for four years, you ever really made you debut as a hero, until Batman started the underground team of sidekicks. Robin of course knew of you, as did Batman because, duh. Well, Roy did too but that was mainly because Green Arrow was dating Canary. He was like a big brother, and he deeply cared for you. 

“And this is Black Canary’s protégé, Mockingbird.” You walked out from the shadows, a black hoodie and red jeans on. Your hoodie had your favorite band one it, whatever it may be. “Sup.” You nod your head at the boys, your hood covered your face since it was dark but you also had glasses on, kinda like Robin’s but they were reading glasses. The glasses could profile anyone and bring up their history, if it’s in the web or files on the cloud, you gotem.

Kid Flash was easy, he didn’t both with covering his face, everyone else was open with you, but not Robin. You glasses always got glitched out when you tried to activate them while looking at him. He knew this and did it on purpose. He didn’t know much about you, only you hero name, you also did that on purpose, it was a fun little battle. You were closer to Robin anyways, being close in age but that didn’t stop Wally from flirting. “Hey babe~ Wanna spar~?” The redhead would ask, before you could speak he would go pale. “Nevermind.” Then he’d run away, you guessed it was Robin, he had mastered the infamous bat-glare.

When Artemis joined the team, you were happy. Another human girl on the team, no offense to M’gann but you felt more comfortable with another human female around. Plus, she was funny. You lived in Star City with Diane and Oliver, and you met her first, it was awesome when you came with her to the Cave and saw all of them shocked.

“What’s up, birdy?” You smile as you trotted over to Robin, you didn’t really have a superhero suit, you kinda took after Black Canary, civilian clothes were your hero clothes. It was usually blood stained black leggings, a navy blue crop top hoodie and black paint around your eyes and bridge of your nose rather than a regular mask because those were itchy. “Do NOT call me that.” Boy Wonder grumbled and elbowed you playfully. You gave him a smirk and batted you eyelashes at him. “You love me.” “No I don’t.” He snorted.

“The Wallman is here!” A redhead yelled through the zeta-tubes as he entered, the loud noise made you yelp and grab onto the nearest person, which was Robin. When you both realized that you both turned red. “Yeesh...stay whelmed Mockingbird.” He finally got out after being frozen. You both had completely ignored the situation going on around you, until...

“Recognize: Speedy, B06.” The computer spoke, making you grinning like an idiot and turn towards the tubes. “Well for starters, he doesn’t go by speedy anymore. Call me Red Arrow.” Your eyes lit up at your brother, well not really brother but you both looked at each other as such. “Roy-” Oliver started but you cut him off. “Roy!” You yelled happily and ran towards your redhead. “Wa to ruin his moment...” Wally grumbled but you flipped him off as you hugged Roy. “Why don’t you call anymore? I’ve been worried. So was Olly, and I guess Robin, Kaldur, and Wally, but I’m your sister!” You whined and teared up, your tears mixing with the paint you used as a mask causing black tears.

“Oh birdie...you know why.” Roy soothed causing you to sniffle and rub your tears away. “Right, sorry.” You mumble and pull away, “Sorry.” You mumbled again and walked back to your spot by Robin, the taller boy put a hand on your shoulder. “Roy, you look-” Oliver started, “Replaceable.” Roy hissed and walked over. “You know it’s not like that.” “Then why bother with a sub? Can she even use that bow?” He gestured angrily to the blonde archer. “Yes she can.” Artemis hissed back. “Who are you?!” Wally whined. “I’m his niece.” “She’s his niece.” “She’s my niece.” Artemis, you, and Green Arrow stated in a matter-of-fact like tone. “Another niece?” Robin snorted, earning an elbow from you.

“But he’s not your replacement!” You chimed in, walking over to the arrows. “We have always wanted you on the team.” Aqualad said, walking over to the now, Red Arrow. “And we have no quota on archers.” The leader continued. “And if we did, you know who we’d pick!” Wally chimed, glaring over at Artemis. “Whatever Baywatch,” Artemis glared, “I’m here to stay.” You stifled a chuckle and looked away. “Baywatch...” You snorted. “But you came here for a reason, right Roy?” You asked when you finally calmed down. “Yeah, a reason named Dr. Sterling Roquette.”

Both yours and Robin’s eyes widened before you both pulled up a file with the holographic computer. “Nano-robotics genius-” Robin started as he began typing. “And claytronics expert at Royal University in Star City! I love her!” You finished and gushed the last part. “Vanished two weeks ago.” Robin continued, earning a frown on your face. “Abducted two weeks ago, by the League of Shadows.” “Woah, you want us to rescue her from The Shadows?” Boy wonder said in a hopeful tone. “Hardcore.” Wally said in awe and fist bumped the other boy. “Dumbasses.” You scoffed and hit them both in the back of the neck. “Roy probably already did that.” You pointed out and walked over to him with a big smile. Roy smiled back and ruffled your hair. “She’s right, I already rescued her. There’s only one problem, the shadows already got her to make a weapon, ‘Doc call it the Fog.” Roy pulled up an image of a dark cylinder looking object with red buttons.

“It’s comprised of millions of microscopic robots, nanotech infiltrators, capable of disintegrating anything in their path- concrete, steel, flesh, bone.- but it’s true purpose isn’t mere destruction. It’s theft. The infiltrators eat and story raw data from any computer system and deliver the stolen data to the Shadows. Providing them access to weapons, strategic defense, cutting edge science and tech.” “Perfect for extortion, manipulation, and power broking.” Artemis starts, earning a groan from Wally, an admiring look from you, and a knowing look from Robin. “Yep. Sounds like The Shadows.” She finishes. “Oh like you know anything about The Shadows.” Wally groans and glares at the blonde, who just smirks. “Who ARE you?!” Wally yells obviously irritated, both you and Robin chuckled a little.

“Roquette’s working on a virus to render the Fog inert.” Roy says, ignoring the childish behavior. “But if The Shadows know she can do that...” Robin started quietly, you gasped softly. “They’ll target her.” You whisper in shock. “It’s okay, right now she’s off the grid. I stashed her in a local highschool computer lab.” Roy shrugs, opening his mouth to speak again. “You left her alone?” Green Arrow asks in shock and mild disappointment. ‘Oh great, here we go again.’ You think as you roll  you eyes. “She’s safe enough for now.” Roy spits and glares at Oliver. “Then let’s you and I take care of that together.” “You and I? Don’t you want to take your new protogé.” The redhead spits again, earning a groan from you. “Roy, you brought this to the team, we’ll talk care of it okay?” You say softly, putting your hand on his shoulder. “And she is part of the team. I promise nothing bad will happen. Trust me, big bro.” You smile, a child like glint in you e/c eyes. “Fine, Y/n. I trust you.” Roy whispered, kissing your forehead before leaving. “Speedy-” The computer started, “Change that to Red Arrow.” You spoke up before Roy could, you winked at him before he left.

Robin knew it was a platonic gesture, you both looked at each other like siblings, he knew that. He fucking knew but a piece of him was jealous. He didn’t know why, maybe he like you? No, he wouldn’t, doesn’t matter anyways. The team had a mission to do. But god damnit he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He wished he could be the one kissing your forehead, holding you, knowing your actual name like Roy did. Damn, being a teenager with feelings fucking SUCKS. 

All of a sudden you all were linked up by Miss Martian telepathy. “Everyone online?” Her voice rung inside your head, causing a giggle. “Mhm.”  You hummed in your head while you sat on a table between Kid Flash and Robin. “Woah, this is weird.” Artemis said, in her head of course, and you just giggled in response. “I know right? Prepare for a killer headache when Megan cuts it off!” You giggled more as you popped some of Wally’s fruit snacks in your mouth. Then the doctor started complaining. “Lady, I’m not really diggin your attitude right now.” You say while rolling your eyes. “You literally look like some random kid they got from the street!” The doctor replied earning a huff from you as you sat up straight. 

“You literally look like some random kid they got from the street.” You said, using your mocking power, you spoke in her exact voice, earning a shocked look from her. “Now shut the fuck up.” You hissed in your normal voice, earning a stern look from Aqualad. “Oh don’t judge my language fish boy.” You grumbled and crossed your arms, looking through a blind. “Do you always act like this when people try to help you?” Wally’s voice rung in your head. “Pot, kettle, you’ve met?” Artemis replied, you snickered slightly. “Great, now I want kettle corn. Thanks Art.” You whined and then ignored them arguing until Robin spoke. “You should give her some more credit. It was /her/ arrow that saved you from Amazo.” Robin said with a smirk, in which you practically swooned. “No, it was Spee-Red Arrow’s arrow, right?” “Not so much.” Robin snickered and you did as well. 

“God I love his voice.” You thought and then you realized that everyone was connected, SHIT. Your eyes widened and your face turned red. “I mean haha, I was thinking of something else.” You got up. “I’ll...I’ll go an patrol the halls...hall monitor duties.” You got up. “Oh god oh god. This is so embarrassing.” You though as you messed with your fingerless gloves. “Should we tell her?” Wally’s voice rang in your head, you could feel him smirking. “THEN DON’T LISTEN!” You screamed from the hallway and you could hear his laughs. Everyone basically knew you had a crush on Robin, it was obvious to everyone but him. He felt the same, it was also obvious to everyone but you. This was not the TIME.

You were walking down the hall, until you heard footsteps behind you. You turned around, punching the figure and wrapping you legs around the person’s waist as you pinned them down. “Woah woah, stay whelmed, Mockingbird.” You squeezes you legs tighter when you realized it was Robin. “What do you want?” You whisper-shouted. “You seemed to be distraught. You really should get traught.” He gave you a smirk that you always melted over. “Mind not squeezing me to death?” He asked and you flushed as you let him go from you thighs crushing him. 

“Your wordplay is so stupid...” You smiled softly and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. “So what? You said you love my voice.” Robin teased. “I do.” You sighed and then covered your mouth in shock. “I-I mean...shut up!” Robin bit his lip and rubbed the back of his neck. “I have to head out with Superboy.” He mumbled in which you sighed and grabbed his wrist before he could leave. “Be safe okay?” You whisper softly, getting closer to him. His lips were inches away from your. Robin smiled and kissed your forehead. “I’ll try.” He smiled in which you turned so red you were sure you would’ve been glowing. “It’s Y/n...Y/n L/n.” You spoke up as he started to walk away. “That’s my name.” You mumble. He turned around, wide eyed. 

“Y/n L/n eh? That’s a pretty name.” Robin teased before running off.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 11 second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Absurdity) 

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Message from the Lan Clan

After dinner the Yunmeng bros go to talk to Jiang Fengmian in his study. They're quiet and respectful here, with no shoulder-shoving or arguing. This scene has such Brady Bunch energy, where Dad's Study is the Man Place where boys come to talk about Serious Things.

The boys tell Dad Jiang about the Yin Iron and he says yeah, I know. This is probably why he let them run off on their road trip without punishing them, but he could have, like, shared data with them so they might have actually achieved something related to the Yin Iron, rather than just wandering around the countryside bonding with Lan Wangji and Nie Huaisang.

He shows them a letter from the Lans that basically says the Lan Clan is in the shit, and he tells them they've got to go to the Wen indoctrination because otherwise they will also be in the shit. 

He gives the boys a warning about the Yin Iron, which is that 

1. it can be refined and 

2. if you refine it carefully, it will not control you. 

Awesome tip, will definitely use, thanks pop.

(more behind the cut)

Jiang Cheng wants to argue about going to the Wen party, but Wei Wuxian vocally gets on board, not leaving any opportunity for whining. 

Wei Wuxian is only sucking up a little bit in this scene. He obviously has a lot of affection for Jiang Fengmian, but WWX doesn't play up to his favoritism nearly as much as he could. Compare, for example, how he leans into Yanli's preferential treatment of him.  

Fight Outside the Cold Cave

Over on the Gusu side of the country province township, the disciples have gathered outside the cold cave that previously none of them knew about, and Su She is freaking out. 

Most of the acting in The Untamed is naturalistic, but then there are occasional characters who are portrayed with a much more theatrical, broad style. Su She's villainy is not given a lot of layers; he's playing a type, more than a person.

Many of the villains in The Untamed are played this way, but not all. Wen Zhuliu, for example, is a genuinely horrifying bad guy while also conveying depth and ambivalence--despite having hardly any lines. And JGY is a masterpiece of a performance. For Su She, the directors or the actor have opted for "sniveling backstabber" as a type, which is unfortunate, because it robs his final scenes of emotional impact.

Lan Qiren tells the disciples to get to safety. He rushes forward, gamely getting his ass kicked by human cuisinart Wen Xu.  He's not as effective a warrior as either of his nephews but he's a brave S.O.B.

Hanguang Jun to the Rescue

Before things can go completely pear-shaped, Lan Wangji sails in with his guqin.

The Blue Steel technique of the Lan Clan

Like many gifted learners, Lan Wangji's musical abilities are more advanced than his social skills. Here he musically makes the ground literally explode, almost as if it had been specially rigged with incendiary charges.  

Lan Wangji is very pretty when he's worried, and his affection and concern for his uncle is touching. He's 100% not interested, as we will see, in Lan Qiren's whole "lets all die for the future of the Lan Clan while my nephews hide" agenda. He's on his own agenda of smiting the wicked and protecting the weak.

Notice how Su She is standing right next to Lan Qiren here, even holding his arm? The next thing that Lan Qiren says is to tell all the disciples to keep up as they run into the cave. Somehow Su She totally does not keep up, and he gets caught outside along with a bunch of other disciples.

Giving Up

Wen Xu and his men kill most of the other caught disciples, and then threaten Su She, asking him how to get into the cave. In fear for his life, he tells them. Not cool, Su She, but possibly forgivable. Although when you voluntarily join a, you know, battle cult, physical courage is kind of an important qualifier.

But this shit here...

They didn't fucking ask about the books, douchebag.  

Su She was there in Lan Qiren's house when the two heads of his clan knelt to each other, each claiming the right to be the one to stay behind and die. And he heard Lan Qiren say that the ancient books are the foundation of the clan and that only if LXC and the books survive, will the clan continue. By giving up both men, and pointing out the book situation, Su She has totally earned his expulsion. 

Lan Wangji Takes a Stand

Lan Wangji decides, for the first but not last time, to openly defy his uncle...and it's got nothing to do with Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji is a hero, who follows the dictates of his conscience. His conscience is extremely filial and extremely orthodox, but he’s got a growing open-minded streak.  This is going to cause a whole lot of conflicts for him over the next few years.

This time, however, he manages to skate out from under the whole disobedient, unfilial thing by citing Lan Yi's directive, which means Lan Qiren has to accept it because she's his predecessor and elder relative (She is probably not a literal ancestor, since she spent her life in a cave putting fucking headbands on fucking rabbits which probably didn’t leave time for having babies).

This is a pretty extraordinary moment for Lan Wangji and for Lan Qiren, because Lan Wangji just asserted his own form of authority to do the exact opposite of what Lan Qiren wanted, and Lan Qiren just sucked it up and let him.

It's also very different from western stories involving a holy McGuffin such as the Yin Iron. Lan Wangji's solution of "fuck it, just let the bad guys have it, it's not worth so many people dying for" is refreshing and surprising to me, a westerner raised on The One Ring, the Grail, the Death Star Plans, etc.

Lan Wangji steps out of the cave and uses a sword blast to save Su She, the ungrateful bastard, from getting stabbed by Wen Xu. Then he surrenders, and they break his leg to slow him down. This does not actually incapacitate him, because he is Lan Fucking Wangji, already a BAMF at like 17 years old. When they whack his leg, his chunk of Yin Iron falls out onto the ground.

That thing was in a magic bag of holding before. So...it just falls out when you whack him? If they whack him again will his guqin fall on the ground? What about candy?

Archery Practice at Lotus Pier

Meanwhile, back at Lotus Pier, the brothers are enjoying some quality time together before they head to the hostage-taking indoctrination.

Wei Wuxian is such a great cultivator that he can hit a distant target even when he jerks his bow upwards as he releases the arrow.

Jiang Cheng seems fairly pleased, and proud of his brother. He's competitive and fundamentally grumpy but not, at least here, a sore loser.

Club Ruohan

We go over to Da Club, where Wen Ruohan is yelling at Wen Qing for letting Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian go. He names them both, so they're becoming more and more known to their enemies. Which is not a good thing.

He menaces her with the zombie mosh crew, having them kill a dude in front of her and then saying her baby brother will be next in the circle of zombies if she tries any more stunts. Neither of them can imagine how much zombie ass her baby brother is going to kick, later in his (un)life.

Side note: What is up with WRH’s hair? Why bother pulling your hair up over your ears if you're going to leave an enormous curtain of it over your face? It's because he knows there's a wind machine next to his throne, isn’t it?

Leaving Lotus Pier

Jiang Cheng: when I ran off earlier in the year on my road trip you didn't pack a goddamn thing.

Wen Indoctrination

Is it even possible to stand next to this much active volcanic shit and not, uh, die? I live in the tornado part of the US so I don't know much about lava (yet. 2020 still has 2 months to go). But it seems like it would be hard to breathe the air. Also they appear to build houses on lava piles, which seems imprudent.  I say that even as someone who plays The Elder Scrolls Online, which is full of lava towns and nonsense like “ash farming.”

Nie Huaisang is adorable at all times, but particularly here, when he's so happy to see his friend who *didn't* fuck his gege and then abandon him without an explanation. 

Nie Huaisang: I'm so glad I can count on Wei-Xiong to be consistent and not vanish for months, or become a traumatized shell of his former self, or, like, horribly die.

Jin Zixuan isn't quite as happy to see Wei Wuxian.

Wen Chao enjoys the sound of his own voice way too much, and is malevolent and boring. On the plus side, he likes to stand with his hand stuck out in the air, which is fun for your resident photoshopper.

Nie Huaisang is so miserable every time he's holding a sword, or blade, or whichever we're supposed to call this. He's got his fan tucked into his belt, which is sweet. He is happy to give up his sword but don't you dare try to take his fan.

Meanwhile Wei Wuxian is worried about Lan Wangji, and Jiang Cheng isn't.

Lan Wangji shows up under guard, and takes his position at the front of the line, but without any extra disciples. The Wens let him change into snowy white robes after breaking his leg which will go well with arterial blood spray. He's focused and is determined not to interact with Wei Wuxian in this public context.

When I was little, I would sit near my best friend at church on Sunday, but not be allowed to talk to her until church was over, and it was exactly like this. She was good at churching and I was hyper and hated church. We are still best friends and these things are still true.

This interaction is like a thumbnail for the whole dynamic of these three boys: Lan Wangji outwardly ignoring Wei Wuxian while having many interior feelings about him; Wei Wuxian demanding attention and creating a bit of a scene, due to his very genuine caring; Jiang Cheng telling him to leave that boy alone for fuck's sake.

Lan Wangji: Stop trying to talk to me Wei Ying, I’m busy composing a song in my head about the two of us and our love for each other. 

[just-a-quirkless-loser]

The Days of Your Youth

Young Enji Todoroki x F! Reader

Hanahaki Trope + BNHA Universe

Words: 5.9k

Warnings: Angst, Enji is an asshole, sexual content, A bit of the redemption arc at the end, graphic descriptions of violence, Characters are 18+

Asagao flowers bloom so beautifully in Sakai; what a shame that Musutafu is four hours away from those gorgeous flowers. So, you knew whenever Enji came bearing the dark blue edged flowers with purple insides, that he had endured the voyage to get them. It was small things like this that made you fall in love with him. If only you didn’t, then maybe you'd still be alive.

The two of you met in your youth when you both attended U.A. High School, both of you having dreams of being the number one pro-hero for the next generation. You hated him at first, which is understandable seeing as he’s brash and cares for no one but himself. He always argues with you, he doesn’t hold back during training, and he has an unhealthy obsession with your childhood best friend Toshinori Yagi, known to the public as All Might.

Your quirk was strong, the ability to heal from any wound and regeneration of your limbs but, he made you feel trivial in comparison to him.

“You can take a bullet, great. How useless that would be in a battle with a villain? You can’t even inflict any damage,” his words stung. All your life, you’d been ridiculed as having a “rescue” quirk, always being told that you’d never have the chance to fight “real villains.” You wanted to prove them all wrong...although, you didn’t prove anything in the end.

Because of the nature of your quirk, you were often paired with Enji whenever it was time to spar. He’d hit you with his fire, blistering your skin with no mercy. He’d knock your teeth down your throat, making you cough blood at his feet. He’d choke you with your own support weapon, making you feel weaker than what you thought you were. He made your life a living hell. So, how did you fall in love with him?

Your love didn’t happen overnight. Actually, the relationship between the two of you changed drastically after that day. The day is clear in the archives of your mind, almost like you’re watching a movie through your own eyes.

“Are you sure you can handle Todoroki today?” you were walking to the training rooms with Toshinori Yagi. He loomed over you as he glanced anxiously at the man in question. Everyone knew about the obvious tension between the two young men however, that day was different. Something primal was lurking in Enji’s glance whenever he looked your way.

“Regeneration, remember? I’ll be fine,” you pat the large man on the back. “Plus, I don't think he could kill me even if he tried.”

“I’m just worried. He’s off today. More confrontational.”

“He’s like this every day, Toshi. He’s probably just on his man period or something.”

“...Y/N, you do now men don’t have menstrual cycles? Right?”

“Yes, Toshi, you’ve told me dozens of times. It’s just a metaphor...till I can get some proof,” he facepalms as you rub your hands together to mimic scheming hands. “He’ll have to take his clothes off eventually.”

“You’re a menace to society; I love it,” you lean against each other as you laugh, attracting the attention of your classmates. “But, seriously, I’m worried.”

“Toshi, I will be perfectly fine. What’s the worst that can happen?”

***

“More! Get up,” you were gripping the right pant leg of Enji’s training suit, trying to pull yourself up to face him again. You body begged you to stay down but your mind -your pride- forced you up. The right side of your face was scorched. One of your eyes was missing from its socket. The guns you normally wield for support were thrown elsewhere, leaving you vulnerable to his onslaught. “You’re pathetic. U.A. isn’t meant for the weak. You don’t belong here with us.”

“You don’t get to tell me where I belong,” you charge to attack, switching your technique at the last minute so you could throw a hard jab to his abdomen. He countered with raising both of his fists above his head in a gorilla fashion and slammed them down on your spine, once again taking you to the mat. But, this time you heard a crack from your spine.

“I don’t know why you waste my time. Sensei just needs to let Yagi and I fight,” you laid at his feet paralyzed. However, the inability to move doesn’t hinder your ability to speak.

“Awww, Todoroki, you miss your boyfriend? I knew you had a hard on for him,” and, while you felt there was nothing wrong with being homosexual, you knew Todoroki was a traditional man who wouldn’t want a rumor like that to be spread. You snicker at his silence. “Must be true if you haven’t denied it.”

Words are meaningless if he can show you with his actions. He wastes no time dropping to his knees so he can lean over you, pushing you into your back as he slaps your face from side to side.

“You,” smack. “Have,” smack. “Issues,” smack.

“ENJI,” you hear Yagi yell in the background as rushes in to save you from your beating. Toshinori’s strong hands pull Todoroki up by the scruff of his neck, looking at the bloody mess your body has come to be, checking to see the rise and fall of your chest before he deals with the man he’s holding. “You could have killed her!”

“She can’t die,” to prove his point, Enji encircles your form with a ring of Fire, the smoke clogging your lungs as your skin is barely holding its form. However, you don’t feel the familiar tingling sensation of your regeneration.

“It doesn’t matter if she can’t die. She’s still human!”

“I’m making her stronger.”

“You’re abusing her,” they both glance down to see that you’ve stopped twitching. You look like you’ve been hit by a land mine: body bloodied, bones exposed, missing limbs. The smoke has cover you in a fine layer of soot, the particles of your own flesh smothered in your nose. “Fuck, Y/N? Y/N?! ANSWER ME! PLEASE! SENSEI!”

There’s only a few things you can recollect clearly. You were rushed to the hospital and you could hear the urgency in Yagi’s voice. If you closed your eyes long enough, you could still see your Sensei’s face looming over yours as he tried to get your attention. The smell of Enji still invades your nose whenever you remember how he sat next to you in the ambulance. You think he felt guilty for letting his desire to measure up to Yagi blind him once again. It’s just a shame that you had to be beat close to death’s door for him to feel remorseful.

You awoke to an obnoxious beeping to your left, a throbbing pain in you head, and a nuisance fire wielder to your right (you had to do a double take to make sure he didn’t beat the sense out of you).

“You’re awake.”

“No thanks to you,” he winces.

“Let’s just be thankful you’re alive.”

“Unfortunately.”

“That wasn’t a funny joke.”

“Who said it was a joke?” you spot Asagao flowers on your bedside. “Who brought the flowers?”

“I did.”

You move to sit up but hiss and grab your side. “Welp, that’s new.”

“Take it easy,” Enji rises and gingerly presses you back into the bed.

“You expect me to believe you spent eight flowers just to bring me flowers?”

“Yagi told me they’re your favorite. I figured it’d be a good way to start amending for what I’ve done.”

“You almost killed me. All because you have a superiority complex that I’ve done nothing to fuel. And, you call yourself a future hero?” you snort. “Oh, wait, let me correct myself, you call yourself the future NUMBER ONE hero!?” you turn to face him so he can’t escape your eyes. “Everyone’s right about what they say about you. You’d do anything if it meant you’d have a chance at facing Toshinori. You don’t care how many people get hurt in the crossfire. As long as you win this competition Toshinori doesn’t even know he’s a part of,” you laugh at the irony.

“What part of ‘I'm sorry’ do you not understand?” Enji growls as he pushes your body into the hospital bed, face coming to stare you down.

“What part of ‘you almost killed me’ do you not understand?” you return his energy with a sneer. “You don’t intimidate me; I’m not some bitch that will tuck her tail and run just because you try to throw a hissy fit.”

“You’re playing with the wrong person, little girl,” he fingers caress the side of your cheek.

‘Once again, this dude has issues.’

“I’m definitely playing with the right person. You need someone to knock you down a few pegs,” and this was when the doctor came to check on your condition, catching Enji and yourself so close that your foreheads were touching. His hands were parted on the sides of you as he puffed out some smoke through his nose.

“Sorry, lovebirds. I should’ve knocked. I’m Doctor Sugo and I have a few questions,” you nod in comprehension.

“Fire them off,” you intentionally use those words to make Enji tense. After years of verbal, physical, and psychological abuse, this was your opportunity to exact your revenge.

“You came in with extensive burns, missing limbs, choking around your neck, blackened lungs, and, it looked as though you died from asphyxiation. Your sensei notified us of your quirk, however, your behavior was reckless and had unforeseen consequences. I doubt you burned yourself alive. Did someone try to kill you?” this was your chance to end Todoroki’s chance of being a hero and end this silly game he’s created in his mind. It would’ve been easy.

“No, we were sparring and it got intense. Enji wanted to stop but I’ve been pushing my quirk limits to the maximum with the coming of our graduation. He lost control of his quirk,” you’ve never been the type to do things the easy way. “I apologize for the trouble my actions have caused.”

“Are you sure this wasn’t a young-domestic abuse situation?” he eyes Enji’s burly frame.

“No, Enji would never hurt me,” to prove your point, you intertwine your fingers with his and kiss the back of his hand, maintaining eye-contact with him. He blew more puffs of smoke into your face.

“In that case, I’ll notify your Sensei of what happened. Just let me check your vitals and I’ll leave the two of you to talk,” the whole time the doctor was in the room, Enji kept blowing smoke. You figured it was something he did when he was uncomfortable but, you couldn't be sure this was the first time you witnessed something like that in person. You both waited a couple of seconds after the doctor left before you continued the actual conversation.

“What the fuck was that?”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you cuss...Do it again,” he gives you a pointed look.

“Answer the question.”

“For someone that’s ranked at the top of your class, you’re pretty dense. It’s simple; I’m blackmailing you.”

“Why?”

“Because, you need to be held accountable for your actions and, selfishly, I want to make your life a living hell. It wouldn’t be practical to let a strong quirk like yours to be sent to prison for attempted murder; you’re useful to the world and there’s no way I can’t acknowledge that you’d be formidable if you chose to become a villain due to my inability to keep my emotions in check,” he just stares. You spot Toshinori in the door frame and wave. “Toshi! Come in. I was just explaining to Enji what’s going to happen to him from now on.”

“Y/N,” he said in a warning tone. “Are you sure this is a good idea. He tried to kill you.”

“Shut it, Toshi. You’re too loud,” you roll your eyes. “Yes, I’m sure. This is perfect.”

And, it was perfect. Graduating U.A. High felt unreal at times; it felt even more bizarre as you managed to become a pro-hero alongside your friend, Toshinori, and your personal butler, Enji. Yep, he became your butler as a way to repent for his actions (his words, not yours) and you actually found his company enjoyable when he wasn’t engrossed with beating Yagi. He’s dedicated to the tasks you give him, even if they’re demeaning like walking around with a collar (the press had a field day with that one) or task oriented (like making you fresh coffee whenever you please).

“ENJIIIIIIII,” you’ve taken to bothering him immensely. “Put on this skirt.”

“Y/N, I’m not putting on that skirt. It would tarnish my image.”

“Hm, guess I’ll have to call Sensei. He'd probably believe me if I said you attacked me again. I mean, I’m just an innocent woman. I could just say I was scared the first time,” and that’s how Enji Todoroki was seen wearing a skirt for training multiple times. In all fairness, he looked like a menacing kitten. And, you've grown to like him. Maybe, it was his guilt for almost murdering you but, he found himself showing you tenderness as well. He just couldn't hate you no matter what you did.

“You idiot. I told you not to jump in front of me,” he was carrying your limp body in his arms as though you were his bride. Holding close to his heart, he could feel the warmth of your breath on his chest.

“Why wouldn’t I? I can’t have you dying on me yet. I haven’t gotten you to dress in drag yet,” blood spills from your ears as you blank out of consciousness. There were plenty of times you protected Enji from a villains attack and each time you told yourself you did it because you wanted to continue to blackmail him to be by your side. But, you just wanted him to yourself.

As the years roll on, you find yourself getting closer and closer to him, just barely missing his flames. You became used to patrolling with him as the Pro-Hero ‘Zombie.’ You enjoy going to Sakai in search of the perfect flowers. You treasure being able to see him every day. But, it’s not all peaches and cream.

“Enji, get over it. Toshi worked hard to be first,” you’re arguing again. Two years after the incident and he still hasn’t let go of his yearning to be the best. While sometimes you want to admire his hard work, you can’t help but question his motives. He’s lost the very reason he wanted to become a hero.

“Toshi just leaves to go to America, didn’t tell you, comes back to climb the ranks of the hero charts, and you’re just okay with that? Meanwhile, you lose your mind on me after I don’t answer your call on the first few rings?” he’s sitting on your bed, his jogging pants hanging down dangerously low on his navel, a few red hairs peeking at you. You lick your lips.

“I’m not saying what he did was okay but, you’re blowing this out of proportion. You’re twenty years old. You need to let go of this foolish rivalry,” you throw your legs over his lap. “It’s not healthy.”

“I’m not having this argument with you again. You always take his side,” you slap his chest, gulping at the strong pecs. You wonder how’d they feel bearing down on your back as he-

“Y/N, are you listening?”

“Flamehead, you know I don’t listen to dumb shit,” he puffs out smoke in irritation. “But, I’m not taking his side. I just think we’re getting too old for this.”

“That’s what you always say,” and you laid there with him watching t.v. The conversation ends like it always does but, you can tell Enji isn’t upset with you. It’s the same routine you always follow whenever he wants to talk about Toshinori’s “false achievements.”

Somehow, you end up cuddled into his chest, head pressed firmly into his neck as you feel the warmness of his pulse move underneath you. His arms keep you against him, caging your legs around his hips (it takes a lot to keep your mind from wandering off).

His fingers play with the exposed skin of your back, leaving scorching trails around his fingertips.

“Are you hungry? I still can cook-” Enji’s phone goes off. He gets up and softly pushes you to the side, answering his phone as he absentmindedly rubs your hair. He’s soon getting up to get his things, pulling on his hoodie and ending the call, staring at the phone for a few seconds.

“Who has you up and in a hurry?” you’re kneeling at the edge of the bed, his jacket in your fist to keep him from leaving.

“My finacé’s family.”

‘Fiancé?’

“Fiancé? Who is she?”

“I don’t know yet. All I know is that her quirk is the perfect compliment to mine, which is the only thing that I need,” he’s pulling away. You’re speechless. Is-Is this jealousy? Is this bubbling fury jealousy? Is this small pain jealousy? Is this mind-numbing sensation jealousy? You can't be jealous. Not of some woman you don’t even know. “I have to go. I need to get ready to meet her?”

“B-But, you don’t even know her!”

“I know she’ll ensure that I beat All Might,” so, that's what this was about. Another last ditch effort to win something with no prize. You should’ve known those touches meant nothing but, how could you when they felt so tender? “Plus, you shouldn’t care. Soon, we’d both have to leave and start our own families; this would have had to happen eventually.”

“You don’t love her. You just want to beat him,” you slump down, your calves touching the back of your thighs as you feel a stirring in your chest. “I just don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret when you’re older.”

“That’s not your concern. I’ve got to go.”

You cough up an Asagao flower, staring at it with trepidation.

‘Oh shit.’

The next time you see him is two weeks later. His hair is still styled upwards, his scowl has deepened making him look older than what he really is, his eyes darker than before. Both of you sit one a rooftop, starting over Musutafu. His body is curled in on itself, the flames of his suit keeping you warm in the brisk fall night. Part of his arm is slung over your shoulder, drawing you into his side.

“Have you ever been in love, Enji?” you see him puff out a few smoke clouds, a telltale sign that you've either made him embarrassed or uncomfortable. “Like, real love? The type of love that doesn’t go away no matter how much you try to kill it?”

“You know I don’t have time for sentiments like that,” he looks at your wistful expression, wondering to himself how you manage to look even more breathtaking than the last time he saw you.

“But, what if you could fall in love? What if things like time and being a hero didn’t matter? Wouldn't you want that?”

“No, there’s no girl good enough for me or my love,” such sweet lies sound true coming from him and that burns you more than his fire ever has.

“What about marriage? Kids?”

“You already know I have an arranged quirk marriage. I met her and she is adequate enough to give me a child fit to be the number one hero of the new generation.”

“Jeez, you sound like you’re quoting a business proposal.”

“It is business,” he sounds like he’s scolding you for not knowing this. You feel your stomach fill with more flowers and you feel some crawling up your throat. It’s suffocating you but, you chalk that up to your nerves bothering you. “I’m guessing you brought this up because you think you’re ‘in love.’ “

“I know I am,” you stop your sentence to cough into your arm, catching a few Asagao flowers in your elbow. So, this is how you’re going to die? Dying from a disease that even your regeneration can’t save you from? Choking on flowers because Enji can’t reciprocate your feelings? “As you can see, it’s one sided.”

“Leave them alone. Feelings go away,” but, they didn’t. It just got worse and worse and worse. Because, as much as you knew you should leave Enji, you just couldn’t. Your heart longed for him. Your heart belonged to him. And, Toshinori couldn't understand why.

“Y/N, please, I don’t understand why you'd die for someone that wants nothing to do with you,” Toshinori chided. “Get the surgery. They can take the feelings out. I’ll be right by your side to help you.”

“You’d never understand, Toshi. You'd never understand waking up every morning, wanting someone so bad you have no motivation to do anything but lay in your own tears. I’d rather die loving him than pretend I never felt these feelings at all.”

“But, why?”

“Because, he’s hurt me so much; this is my last ‘fuck you’ to him. Because, I know one day he’ll change. One day, he'll want to see me and I'll be dead. I want him to feel the same pain that I feel now. He needs to feel my rage, he needs to feel my abandon. HE NEEDS TO FEEL ME!”

“Y/N, I’ve already lost Nana. I can’t lose you too.”

“I love you, Toshinori Yagi. Be great for me,” and that’s the last thing you ever said to your childhood best friend.

***

When you opened the door, Enji wasn’t expecting to see you only in a long shirt, tuffets of a flower stuffed in your mouth.

“What the fuck, Y/N? You look like shit. You can’t open the door like that,” he comes in and you immediately cling to him.

“I love you.”

“What?”

“I’m in love with you Enji.”

“You can’t be.”

“But, I am,” you hold one of your saliva covered flowers to his heart. Your eyes are tired and barely stay open but you can't take your eyes off of him. “This is for you. All of them are for you. Loving you is killing me,” you laugh at the irony. Who would’ve thought Enji would end up killing you anyway?

“Then, stop,” Enji rips the flower from your fingers and throws it to the side. You dive for the flower, causing him to follow you down to your floor. “Let it go.”

“I can’t. It’s all I have right now,” you’re sobbing while retching up flowers. His arms encase you, almost like he’s trying to keep you from falling apart. “I can’t just let go. I can’t just stop loving you, Enji.”

He doesn’t really say anything to you. Maybe, he’s too stunned or maybe he’s too afraid he’ll say the wrong thing but, he finds that it’s better to just hold you.

“Enji, could you do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“Could you make love to me?” he can’t deny you your wish with how pitiful you look. So, he scoops you up in his arms and takes you to your bedroom, heart pumping hard at what he’s about to do. He’s getting married in a week yet, he’s here about to give his body to you.

Laying your body down on the bed, he watches as your covers fan around your head like a halo and, for a moment, he wonders if that’s what you would look like as an angel. Ethereal and tired. The air in the room is growing hotter as he sweats, nervous to strip you down. He’s no stranger to sex but, this is the first time he’s ever focused on someone else’s pleasure.

“Just, lay there.”

“What the fuck else am I going to do? Run off,” he chuckles. Leave it to you to find some comedy in your weakest moments. He starts with stripping you of your long shirt -actually, his shirt that had gone missing the last time he stayed at your house- and stares at your body, naked and exposed to the air.

He takes a few minutes to take in your beauty, ghosting over your skin as he watches you quiver in anticipation. Your eyes are blown and a petal is on your cheek, reminding him of what had happened to you. Your hands wrap around his forearm as you silently beg him to touch you.

“Always have been needy,” when he kisses you, it makes your toes curl from his smokey breath. Envisioning his taste held no comparison to what he really was. It’s like he was breathing his smoke into your lungs, making sweat bead on your skin.

His hand grasps your neck and you moan at the warmth that he gives you, toes curling at the pressure he puts on your throat. The flowers slide down your esophagus, allowing some of your essence to mix with his. He’s weighing you down into your mattress as he’s ripping off his shirt, buttons flying everywhere as he tries to shimmy out of his pants. His kisses trail down the column of your neck and he’s groaning at the way you whine. Your body reacts so wonderfully to his touch.

“You should have told me sooner; you could’ve had all of my cock before this,” you giggle at his attempt of dirty talk. It’s weird to have the proper and correct Enji speaking naughty in your ear. “Damnit, woman, will you stop laughing? I’m trying to be romantic.”

“I can’t help it. You're like Recovery Girl whenever she tries to be cool.”

“Why did you have to bring her up?” he drops his head on your navel. “Are you trying to kill my erection?”

You did a mouth zipping motion and laid your hands on his shoulders, looking down your body to catch him staring at you as he licked below your belly button. The sensation of his textured tongue against your smooth skin is almost enough to send you into your orgasm. He brings his arms up to grab your breasts in his hands as he continues to slide down to your slit. Your smaller body is completely open to him as he tongues your small clit, keeping your legs spread around your head.

“Enjiiiiii, please,” you beg for your release. The inner sadist inside of Enji preens as you beg, his mind thinking you look beautiful at his mercy with a few tears in your eyes. He plunges his tongue inside your hole, only shallowly fucking your tight hole. He brings one of his hands beside his mouth, which is an awkward position for his large frame, and pushes his finger inside your tightness till he’s met with some resistance. You’re met with wide eyes.

“You didn’t tell me you were a virgin.”

“You never asked.”

“I’m serious, Y/N. If I didn’t find out, were you just going to let me pound into you,” he smacks your thigh as a way to punish you.

“As long as it’s you, I’d let you use me like a doll,” the words incite a new type of fire in Enji’s body. He gets hotter as he enjoys the words of someone that’s completely submitted to his control.

“Then, I’ll use you till I can’t use you anymore,” he places one last kiss to your hole and slivers up your body. Everything about this moment is perfect for you; the man you love is hovering above you as he looks at you with adoration and desire.

“Are you ready?” His forehead is leaned on yours as he wavers on top of you, his cock kissing the entrance of your folds. You can’t speak due to the flowers that are lodged in your throat, so you nod as you stare into his eyes. For the first time, you can feel the love he has for you. If only this moment could last forever for you as it would for him.

The first few moments of him stretching you make you whimper in his ear, your nails cutting into his back as you try to ground yourself in the moment. He tries to push into you at a slow pace, bottoming out and sitting there for you to adjust. Your pussy clenches him like a vice, testing his self control as he wants to grab you by your waist and use you like a fuck doll.

It’s hard not to scream when he pulls back slightly and snaps his hips into your own. Both of you are breathing into each other's face as he fucks you with slow, deep thrusts, pulling your hips to meet his thrusts in an angle.

“Such a problematic woman. Couldn’t just tell me you loved me,” you whine as he sits up on his knees and begins to fuck you with fevor. His cock rubs against that spongy spot in your pussy, pushing you toward your first orgasm. “Such a bad girl. I didn’t tell you to cum yet.”

“Enjiiii please fuck please I’ll be good for you,” he smiled through the pleasure that rips through him and pulled out of you to lay on his side behind you. He wasted no time lifting one of your legs and pushed into your heat, fucking you deeper in this position. He could now see the way you try to push your hips against his, fucking you with a patronizing smile.

“Such a horny girl,” you moan into your hands as you try to hide yourself from his gaze but he rips your arms away from your face, forcing you to scream for him. He makes it a point to fuck you harder as he’s addicted to your beautiful voice. “Scream for me little girl.”

“Dadddyyy gonna cum again,” your tearing u again as he keeps brutalizing your pussy.

“Oh I’m daddy now,” he’s grunting as he feels you clench again. You give him no answer as you cum once again, this time pulling him into his orgasm as you feel him spurt deep in your womb. But, even though he cums, he doesn’t stop. He’s determined to fuck you into oblivion.

“I’m not done with you, keep cumming in my cock,” your toes keep curling as you try to push away from him. However, that makes him wrap his arms around your shoulders and slam you down on his cock, keeping your legs spread as he fucks you so hard some of his cum is dribbling down the side of his cock. You’re shaking hard as your pleasure blinds you, the pressure in your abdomen building in a different way.

“Fuuuuckkk Enjiii, I-I- love you,” clear liquid squirts from your pussy as he slows down his thrusts. You lay there in your juices with his cum splurging out of you once he pulls out of you completely. He leaves you there as he runs you a bath, leaving you to think about what just happened.

He didn’t say he loved you back but, you hoped he would. With gentle hands, he put you into your tub, softly rubbing your hair like he had done many times.

“Y/N, we need to talk,” you smiled over at him. His pants were pulled back on his hips but he couldn’t meet your eyes. “You know I care for you and you know I wouldn’t want to hurt you but, you need to get the surgery. I can’t just love you the way you love me and, I don’t want you to die because of that. I’ll pay for the surgery. I’ll pay for you a new apartment and everything. I’ll even-” you droned him out.

“You know,” you shiver in the warm water as you start to tear up. You hacked up flowers and continued with a shaky voice. “I thought that having sex with you and telling you would make it go away. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I meant more to you than what I thought. I’m such a dumbass. You’ll never love me; you’ll never love anyone but yourself. Why can’t you just be a man and tell me I’m nothing to you compared to whatever the fuck you have with Toshinori? IT’S BEEN YEARSSSS,” you croak out as you sob, your heart hurting. “AND, YOU HAVEN’T CHANGED AT ALL. You’re still the Enji Todoroki that tried to kill me. I just tricked myself into thinking that you were a different person.”

“Y/N-

“Get out,” you turn to the shower wall, too heartbroken to stomach the sight of him.

“Y/N, just listen to-”

“GET OUT,” he goes silent as he looks back at you from the door frame. He wants to say something but, the thought of ruining his future keeps him silent. He leaves with a look of pity for you.

“I’ll leave money for the surgery on the table by your bed,” he calls before he leaves, the door slamming pushing you to your last limit.

And, he left you there to you die in your bathtub alone, body worn from the sex you had with the man that you knew you couldn’t have emotionally. Your flowers soaked up the water as they kept falling, your eyes glued on one of the bruises he left on your leg. It’s too painful to try to move, so you lie there as your quirk does nothing against the disease. Getting the surgery would have saved you but, your body and mind would still remember the pain of your first and last love.

Per your request, Toshinori has your body cremated after they perform the autopsy. The young hero, grieving the loss of his best friend, doesn’t contact Enji to inform him of your timely death. He’s pained that he’ll never see you smile or hear your jokes or call your name and hear you respond. You're gone and part of him feels like he’s the blame. He can’t help but think that things would have turned out differently if he told Enji that he never cared about being the number one hero.

As for Enji, he doesn’t look back as he goes on to have his family. He goes on to marry his wife that he’d always compare to you (her hair wasn’t vibrant as yours, her voice wasn’t as smooth as yours, her eyes don’t set him ablaze like yours did). He goes on to have his kids and he wonders what they would look like if they came from your womb. He goes on to be the number one Pro-hero yet, he doesn’t feel like he’s won anything. He goes on to have a decent relationship with Toshinori yet, he feels as though he’s missing something -someone-.

“Toshinori, do you have Y/N’s number?” he called Toshinori one day, tired of letting his pride get the best of him. He’d grovel at your feet, stay by your side, sleep at your doorstep till you find it to forgive him.

“Enji, she’s dead.”

And, he sits in his house alone. His family has left him, their bonds slowly resurrecting from the dead but still fragile. His career being the only thing he has left, slowly showed him how truly unprofilling his life has been. His love for you, eating away at his heart. Why did he have to be better than Toshinori? Why couldn’t he tell you how much he loved you? Why did he let the both of you waste the days of your youth?

He coughs a single Asagao flower, the process of his unrequited love beginning. Because, let’s face it, how can you return his love if you’re dead?

——————————————————————————-

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@orokayagi @sakurashortstack @sinclairsamess

[franniebanana]

CQL Rewatch - Ep 28

Note: I will be critical of Jiang Cheng in these posts. If you can’t handle that, please feel free to scroll on.

Sorry this write-up is so late. I had a migraine that lasted for a few days, and I didn't want to do anything.

So, we're finally here. The big showdown between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian--they're finally talking, and Jiang Cheng is letting it all out. He starts off strong, leading with this: "you've pushed me to my limits." So, first of all, it's Wei Wuxian's fault that the other clans are pestering Jiang Cheng, as if this is an intentional act on Wei Wuxian's part to cause Jiang Cheng trouble. Obviously absurd--Wei Wuxian doesn't want to cause the Jiang Clan any more harm than they've already been through. That is the very reason why he took the surviving Wens away to a secluded area that no one else would try and enter.

Next Jiang Cheng pleads with Wei Wuxian to come back to Lotus Pier and turn in all the Wens. Yes, turning them in means they'll all be executed, but at least Wei Wuxian can come back into the fold and, most importantly, Jiang Cheng won't have to deal with him being a black sheep anymore. And what they don't really understand at this point is that if it's not the Wens, it's someone else. Someone always has to take the blame for whatever evil is occurring in the world. If Wei Wuxian were to turn the Wens in, they would undoubtedly be executed, but I don't think for one second that they wouldn't hold Wei Wuxian accountable as well, even if he were the one to turn them in himself. For one thing, they are still convinced he took piece of Yin Iron that Xue Yang had, and they don't trust him when he says (repeatedly) that he did not get it from there. Bottom line, there's always going to be a scapegoat, and we know that--we see it happen again and again in this story.

Last thing about this little scene so far: Defenders of the Wen Clan are going against the mainstream. No one will speak up for them. No one will speak up for Wei Wuxian, in particular. Jiang Cheng is pretty much giving Wei Wuxian an ultimatum: if you don't turn them in, it's over--you're out of the Jiang Clan. No one will take him in at this point, not even the Yunmeng Jiangs. Yes, Jiang Cheng is torn up about this. He wants Wei Wuxian on his side--at his side. He doesn't like the idea that Wei Wuxian's loyalty has switched from himself to these Wen remnants who are as good as dead. But here's the thing: there are still people who will speak up for him. Lan Wangji will. To a certain extent, Jiang Yanli will as well, but no one will really put much stock in what she says. When she and Jiang Cheng visit so that she can show her wedding attire to Wei Wuxian, they keep hidden--they don't want anyone to see them there. Lan Wangji, on the other hand, makes no effort to hide himself. He even calls attention to himself at the tea house when he gets pissed off at all the people gossiping about Wei Wuxian. He's really the only one who is truly on Wei Wuxian's side right now.

Heartbreakingly, Wei Wuxian tells Jiang Cheng to leave. He's the one who supplies the idea that he defected, and proposes that they stage a fight to make it believable. And I can't sit here and fault Jiang Cheng for giving this ultimatum. He's a clan leader--his priority is whatever will better his clan, and right now, Wei Wuxian is a detriment. He tries to convince Wei Wuxian, over and over, to abandon the Wens, but Wei Wuxian can't--he won't. He can't abandon them when they've done so much for him, and he can't abandon them when they've been so wronged. The people he is protecting have done nothing wrong, other than have the wrong surname. Jiang Cheng never really tries to understand that or fight for that. He knows that these people are not dangerous, yet he just goes along with the other clans.

In the end, Jiang Cheng kind of makes it about himself and his inferiority complex with Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian wants to be a hero, wants to be the best, he knows the Jiang discipline better than even Jiang Cheng. It's sad that it always comes back to this, despite how many times Wei Wuxian argues with it. Jiang Cheng just cannot get over not being better than Wei Wuxian, and what I find most frustrating is that that issue isn't Wei Wuxian's. It's not Wei Wuxian's problem at all. It is wholly Jiang Cheng's problem, but he behaves as if Wei Wuxian owes him something--as if he ought to do something about it. But there's nothing for him to do. Jiang Cheng just needs to get over his issues and himself.

Can you imagine how shitty Wei Wuxian must feel right now? The person he was raised like a brother to just told him he wouldn't be able to defend him anymore and essentially forced him to defect. He's leading and trying to protect a group of individuals whom the rest of the dominating clans want dead and, by extension, they probably want him dead as well. But despite this, he's doing his best to make everyone else feel better. He puts on a smile, a chipper attitude, and tries to comfort them all. He gives extra fruit to A-Yuan, then he goes to try and cheer Wen Qing up. This is the kind of person he is. And it takes a lot to break him. Think of what he's gone through! Gah!! He's so amazing, I love him!!!! Lan Wangji is my absolute fave, but it did take me a while to warm up to him. I was immediately enchanted with Wei Wuxian, and the more you know about him, the more you love him, I feel.

That fucking comb! Seriously! When will it end! I don't want to see that thing ever again!!! I'm a little irrational about the comb, but it's just really annoying to me, okay? I mean, I feel bad for the guy. He keeps trying and hoping to get a girlfriend, but it's just not happening. Wen Qing probably should have made it clear a long time ago that she had no intention of being his wife, though, and then maybe we could have ditched this subplot a long time ago as well. But the other thing is, if Jiang Cheng cares about Wen Qing so much, why is he so willing to let her be executed? It just...doesn't really make much sense that he can't even admit what his feelings are to even Wei Wuxian.

I love how Wen Qing hasn't said a word in this scene yet. Wei Wuxian is just talking and talking and talking, sort of having a dialogue with her, anticipating what she's thinking. I don't remember being this amused the first time I watched it, but it's quite funny now. Charming, as well. When I get annoyed at what the showrunners tried to do, having Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian be in a romantic relationship, I'm going to think of this scene, and the other moments where I really appreciate their platonic relationship.

Adorable! So adorable, I almost can't stand it! This part is so cute, and I swear, Jin Zixuan has never looked better. There's something about him being disheveled and maybe not having as much makeup on his face, plus the addition of the dirt and mud, that makes him really attractive and cute haha.

"I know this is not Lotus Pier, but I'm willing to build another Lotus Pier for you." Ugly sobbing ensues.

I just love them!!! <3 <3 <3

Just Lan Wangji quietly seething with rage over here. Seriously, these gossips! The funny thing is, they're all terrified of what Wei Wuxian will do, yet they sit in here and gossip about him, as if they'd ever be brave enough to stand up to him.

Favorite wangxian scene alert! I love this scene. So much. So so much. Everything from Lan Wangji's panicked expression to the way Wei Wuxian stifles his laughter, to the look on Lan Wangji's face when he hears his name being called (and recognizes whose voice it is) to Wei Wuxian's genuine smile when he and Lan Wangji make eye contact. It's genuine happiness that Wei Wuxian feels--not the forced cheerfulness that he puts on around Wen Qing. He's so glad that someone has come to see him that isn't Jiang Cheng or someone else who wants him dead. It's a friend--finally a friend.

Oh, my gosh--look at him! He's delighted! He's so happy!! When is the last time we've seen our boy actually happy? It feels like it's been forever! And my little wangxian heart soars, knowing that it's Lan Wangji that makes him feel this way. But really, it couldn't be anyone else, could it?

Indulge me. Just look at them.

Look. Look! Love! It's love!

I have so many feelings about this part, but I can't even talk about it. I just love these scenes of Lan Wangji's visit to Yiling so much. Beginning to end, it's one of my favorite parts of the series. There's such a range of emotions from joy to sadness to bitterness to love--it has everything. And seeing the beginning of their little family warms my heart: A-Yuan warming up to Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian being indignant about it. It's such an emotional time for the both of them, seeing each other for the first time in months, especially after all that has happened between them. If Lan Wangji hadn't come here, maybe they never would have seen each other again. Wei Wuxian certainly can't go to the Cloud Recesses to see him. Ugh, I have a lot of feelings, but that's to be continued, because of a strange episode break (as per usual).

Another kind of shorter post! This episode was just a lot of Jiang Cheng being dramatic about evicting Wei Wuxian, which is entertaining and all, but there’s not a whole lot to say. And then Wen Qing kind of has the exact same conversation with Wei Wuxian, which, again, not a lot to say there either. This episode was just me waiting impatiently for the wangxian part at the end to be quite honest.

Other episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | Or just check out the #CQL Rewatch hashtag

[qqueenofhades]

i noticed that you like to write a lot of heartrender husbands from fedyor’s side of things (which makes sense cause fedyor is fun!) but i have to ask in the modern au, what was ivan thinking the whole first two months 😂??

like was he carrying the joke the whole time? did his brain short circuit around fedyor?? was he worried about what fedyor was thinking or did he just think he was shy? Did he think the first date went well ☠️?

This was supposed to be lighthearted, but then there came Feels. So here is Ivan's backstory in Phantomverse. Content warning for mentions of an abusive relationship, familial homophobia, implied sexual manipulation, and dark themes. Nothing graphic, but duly noted.

Also on AO3.

Brighton Beach, 2015

It’s safe to say that Ivan Ivanovich Sakharov Kaminsky did not ever, not in a thousand years, not in a million, imagine himself ending up here. At one point, even Moscow would have been a stretch, and that was obviously still Russia. The fact that he would be walking down a sidewalk in Brooklyn, under the elevated tracks of the Q train that rattles and bangs overhead, on a cool spring morning to do his shopping at the Brighton Bazaar – in, should this somehow not be clear, America – and then returning to his apartment and his husband is, quite frankly, something out of an alternate-Ivan timeline. One from the Twilight Zone, or whatever they are calling that kind of thing these days. Sometimes when he thinks about it too much, he gets afraid that it is in fact a dream. That no matter how long it has gone on and how good it has been, it will suddenly and inevitably end. After all, he is Russian. Sunny optimism has never been accused of forming a notable facet of the national character, and Ivan himself would never be described as the hopeful type. But God, for this, he does.

He reaches the bazaar – a bustling blue-awninged international supermarket with three-quarters of its signs written in Cyrillic – and steps inside, grabbing a basket and pulling a scrap of paper from his pocket to double-check his list. He knows what he needs, but he likes the tidiness of writing it down, and he proceeds into the crammed aisles, passing customers speaking English, Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Yiddish, and several other languages he can’t identify by ear. Brighton Bazaar stocks all the Russian products necessary to satisfy even a homesick expat like Ivan, and he enjoys being able to navigate the store with ease and read all the labels at first glance. He can get by in English, if he’s pressed, but it’s easier to leave it to Fedyor, who is fluent, and in here, he can conjure the illusion that he will walk out on the street and be back where he truly belongs. He likes Brighton Beach a great deal more than he ever expected to, but it’s no replacement for the real thing.

Ivan collects his purchases, along with a few special extras, and takes them to the counter. He is greeted in Russian by the checkout clerk, who knows him well for always turning up at the same time every Saturday morning with military precision. As Semyon Pavlovich Kuznetsov (who is called Syoma by his friends, but he has not clearly stated that Ivan can use the diminutive and therefore Ivan does not) scans his items, Ivan consents to exchange a few gruff words of small talk on the weather (nice) how the Mets did last night (badly) and the old guy who apparently died of a heart attack two days ago in the Russian bathhouse on Neck Road (making Ivan glad he did not choose said day to attend). It’s this weird Russian-American hybrid of things, since Semyon is the teenage grandson of a Red Army veteran who fought at Stalingrad, but he was born and raised in Brooklyn, loves American video games, and is fully fluent in American pop culture. It startles Ivan to realize that while this kid speaks Russian perfectly, he has probably never done so in Russia outside of a few visits back to the old country when his family can afford it. That is a very personal question to ask one’s grocery clerk, however, and he does not.

And then there’s that other thing, which he would definitely never be asked in Russia, especially not these days. Semyon hits the button to tally up Ivan’s bill, informs him that he owes $56.77, and then says cheerily, “How is Fedyor?”

Ivan concentrates on digging the exact amount out of his wallet in cash, since he never had a credit card when he lived in Russia and is still somewhat leery of them. “Fedyor is fine,” he says curtly, in the tone that makes it clear that he understands this question is an expected part of an American social interaction, but that is all the information he is willing to venture. “Here is the money.”

Semyon accepts it, counts it into the till, and rings the transaction through, handing Ivan his bags and his receipt. “Have a nice day, Mr. Kaminsky!”

“Thank you, Semyon Pavlovich.” Ivan accepts his purchases and leaves the store, taking a deep breath of the salty, sunny air and the wind whipping off the seafront. It’s still a little too early in the year for there to be many bathers on the beach, though there are always people strolling on the boardwalk. It’s only a few minutes to the apartment, which is just off Brighton Beach Avenue and overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. Ivan buzzes into the old brownstone, takes the stairs to the third floor, and as he unlocks his front door and lets himself in, wonders, yet again, at the sheer impossibility that his life has led him here.

Ivan is the third of five boys, but he was the one who was named after his father. It was not, of course, because they had some special hope for him to be the great inheritor of paternal pride, but a simple matter of logistics. His oldest brother, Roman, was named after their paternal grandfather. His second-oldest brother, Oleg, was named after their maternal grandfather. When Ivan arrived, only then was it proper to name him after Ivan Romanovich, Ivan Sakharov senior, since rushing too fast to glorify yourself as an individual, rather than your community and your ancestors, could be seen as running contrary to the collectivist ideals of the great Soviet Union. By the time his two younger brothers arrived, his parents were hard pressed for ideas; Yuri (for Gagarin) and Vladimir (originally for Lenin, though that has obviously acquired a different connotation those days) were clearly obtained by putting the names of national heroes into a hat and picking.

Five children was quite a lot for a Soviet-generation family, and Ivan doesn’t know anyone else his age with that number of siblings. After all, more children meant more time standing in line at Municipal Grocery Store #5 for food that has to be shared among more mouths, more worries about how to clothe and educate and accommodate them, more chances for one of them to go terminally astray and betray the family honor. Ivan wonders sometimes if his parents only really wanted Roman and Oleg, but decided to keep going as a matter of gaming the system, so much as it was able to be gamed.

By the early 1980s, the aging, decrepit, dying USSR, run by aging, decrepit, dying men, was in the grip of a demographic crisis so extreme that it was a contest between worrying about which one would end them faster: crazy President Reagan with his finger on the nuclear button, or the whole country just keeling over of old age. The idea of what a family even meant had been under constant challenge since the heady days of the Bolsheviks, who denounced marriage as a construct of bourgeoisie oppression and preached for free love and sexual liberation. Then it went hard back in the other direction during Stalin and the Great Patriotic War, holding up the traditional nuclear family as the highest ideal and offering rewards to mothers who had multiple children. Then it lurched away again. Abortion and contraception had been legal and freely available since the days of the revolution and most Soviet women made good use of them. Plus, of course, the obvious difficulties of maintaining a sizeable family when it was increasingly impossible to obtain even basic supplies and foodstuffs. It just made no sense.

Desperately trying to counter this slide toward self-inflicted obsolescence, the late-stage USSR came up with a number of incentives to boost the birth rate by any means necessary. They allowed mothers to refuse to list fathers on the birth certificate, to avoid social shame if he was married, foreign, a drunkard, or otherwise unsuitable, and beefed up programs to support single women with children. They also went back to the old-school plan of granting extra stipends, housing privileges, and state recognition to families that had more than two children, and Ivan himself was the third of his. It doesn’t take a genius to deduce that he was almost surely conceived for the tax benefits.

Not, that is, that it didn’t work. When Ivan was born in 1984, the family lived in a tiny apartment on the tenth floor of a building with no elevator (or rather it did have an elevator, but it was always broken), crowded in with three single young men who were at the very bottom of the list for being assigned housing. By the time his youngest brother, Vladimir, was born in 1987, they had been moved to a small house of their own on the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk, not far from the bus that his father took two hours a day out to the mine. The cynical old joke in the USSR was that the people pretended to work and the government pretended to pay them, though in Ivan Romanovich’s case, the work was backbreakingly real, even if the money wasn’t. He would come home exhausted and filthy after a sixteen-hour shift and yell at Galina Sakharova to feed him, bark at his sons, and then fall asleep in front of the television, only to get up the next morning and shuffle off again.

Ivan Ivanovich has spent a lot of time after he left home trying to understand what that kind of life would do to a man, mostly because he didn’t do it while he was there. Of course he didn’t. He was a child, and it was simply what he was used to, the only way the world could possibly be. On the night of December 26, 1991, as Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev signed the United Soviet Socialist Republics out of existence with a single stroke of the pen, Ivan remembers his father crying and swearing and throwing things at the wall, the heavy yellow-glass ashtray that always seemed unbreakable, perched on the kitchen table to collect the detritus of his constant cigarettes, smashed to bits just like their country, their sense of self, their security. It wasn’t as if life in the USSR was so wonderful. It was just the only thing they knew. Beyond that, there was nothing but the terror of the utterly unknown.

At any rate, the world didn’t end. The oligarchs moved in and began snapping up Russia’s newly privatized economy. Ivan Ivanovich, of course, had no goddamn clue about this either, aside from overhearing his father curse about it some more. He trudged through secondary school and left at eighteen, without even trying to proceed onto university. Those weren’t for someone like him, he knew that. Instead he got a job at the ever-troubled Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant, and went straight to work on the factory floor.

It was around this time that the one disruption in his otherwise humdrum life, the one thing that stopped him from just settling into the same miserable existence as his father and going on like that forever, became too impossible to ignore. And that was the fact that no matter how much Ivan tried to squash it down, push it aside, or otherwise pretend it didn’t exist, he could no longer deny the fact that he was attracted to men, and only to men. He bought some of the cheap porn magazines from the tabak, tried to flip through them and get something out of the girls in heavy eyeliner and bleached-blonde hair, spilling out of their scanty lingerie, and just… didn’t. He wasn’t even interested enough to try a conversation with a real flesh-and-blood woman (not that Ivan had ever gotten through a conversation with another human being, especially a woman, without disaster) and see if it was different in the flesh. Nothing about the experience, even imagining it, appealed to him at all. But men…

He knew it wasn’t right, just because – well, you knew that sort of thing, you didn’t have to ask about it, you didn’t let on. But nonetheless, something, somehow, must have given him away, because one evening after the end of his shift, one of his coworkers cornered him in the back. His name was Konstantin and he was a few years older, big and bluff and constantly smelling like machine oil. He stood there, folded his arms, and said, “I will give you five hundred rubles if you suck my dick, Ivan Ivanovich.”

Ivan didn’t know how to answer. He had never spoken to Konstantin about anything aside from the job. He didn’t like him, he wasn’t attracted to him, and he didn’t want his filthy fucking rubles. He wanted to go home and take a shower.

And yet. He wanted to know. So when he went home, it was with five hundred rubles in his pocket, and a strange, indefinable feeling of something both excitement and shame. He looked it up later and found that it was barely seven American dollars, barely enough to buy a sandwich in this place he now lives. Then after that it became – not a relationship, not exactly. But he had done it once and Konstantin knew that he was at least theoretically willing, and there was no getting away from it now. Soon enough it became something of a regular thing, and then Konstantin wanted to try other stuff and not always pay, and if Ivan ever protested, Konstantin would threaten to get him fired from the factory or tell his family what they were doing. Ivan knew that he couldn’t let this happen, and besides, this was a relationship, or so he would tell himself. It was rough and it wasn’t very enjoyable and he didn’t like the way it made him feel, but it was probably the best he was going to get, here in this place, so he had no choice but to put up with it.

Until one night when his older brother came to pick him up from work, which he didn’t usually do. Something about it set off Ivan’s alarm bells, but he got into Roman’s battered old Zhiguli anyway. They didn’t head back toward the house. Instead they headed for the country, the narrow, crumbling road that led into the vast forests of Krasnoyarsk Krai. The city was often voted one of the most beautiful in Siberia, surviving even its long periods of grim industrialization with something of its soul intact. It wasn’t as cold as Yakutsk or Oymyakon, the places where it stayed at sixty below zero all winter long and boiling water froze when you tossed it out the window. Winters only got down to a few degrees below, and in Russia, that was par for the course. Ivan loved his hometown, and he was used to the outdoors. He was a sportsman, a natural athlete. He played hockey, bandy, football, rugby, and basketball (surprisingly popular in Russia). He swam and boxed. He was tall and tough and muscled and most people never bothered him. But when the car coasted to a halt in the middle of nowhere and Roman turned off the headlights, he was still terrified.

His brother said, “I hear you’re doing things, Vanya.”

Ivan didn’t answer.

“I hear you’re doing things with men.” Roman reached over and grabbed him violently by the shoulders, pinning him against the seat. “Disgusting things. I will not have one of those in the family, do you hear me? Do you hear me? If I find out that you have done it ever again, even once, I will make sure that you pay the price. Are you listening? Say that you understand.”

“Yes,” Ivan said. “I understand.”

What he really understood was that he was going to leave, when he had barely been out of Krasnoyarsk Krai in his life. Going as far as Novosibirsk for a shopping trip was unusual, and once, in school, he went to Georgia, which was the first time he had left the country (though of course, it used to be the country). But he knew that he could not stay here anymore, and in a moment of welcome serendipity, that was also when his conscription notice arrived. At the time, every Russian man over the age of eighteen had to serve two obligatory years in the armed forces (though it has since been lowered to one, of which Ivan does not necessarily approve), and his number had come up. So he quit his job, did not say goodbye to Konstantin or tell him where he was going, packed his few boxes of things, and moved four thousand kilometers and four time zones west to Moscow.

Ivan arrived in the capital trying not to present himself as a wet-behind-the-ears country boy, to act like he knew what he was doing, to show he was much tougher and meaner than any of these spoiled, pampered little children whining about how hard it was when they trudged into headquarters and presented their army notices. In that, he had a genuine advantage; he had worked hard for his whole life, he had already been through whatever could possibly endured with a father and four brothers, and he found the strict routines, harsh discipline, and predictable tasks of the army comforting. Everyone was scared of him, he didn’t need to try (though he did), and that was also gratifying. He worked hard and pleased his commanders, who tried to entice him to stay on as a full-time professional serviceman. There were many opportunities for a man of his talents, and more money than Ivan had ever dreamed of. As for his personal life, as long as he was scrupulously discreet and kept turning in good results, they would not trouble to enquire too closely. That was already better than from what he had expected with Konstantin. Once again, he thought it would be the best he got.

That was where, therefore, he met Aleksander Ilyich Morozov.

Morozov was his opposite in many ways – rich, well-spoken, well-educated, the son of a legendary KGB commander and the inheritor of comfort and privilege even in the lean last days of the USSR. He was about Ivan’s own age, but he had a self-possession and a gravitas that made him seem older. He had started training for a career in the Russian security services practically from childhood, and he had pegged Ivan as a particularly promising recruit. “You should come with me,” he said. “We would find an excellent career for you.”

Ivan was never sure how to respond when Morozov started talking like this. He admired the man and was admittedly attracted to him – not just the dark, elegant handsomeness, but the manifest air of being a person who mattered, who made the rest of the world sit up and take notice and play by his rules – and while he knew that Morozov was ruthless, he wasn’t bothered by that and was willing to do the same when it was called for. Ivan didn’t see the world as some nice candy fairy place where good deeds were always rewarded and violence was always wrong, not least since he knew full well that it didn’t work like that. He didn’t have time for these idiots who thought they would get out there and hold hands and change the world with the power of sunshine and kisses or whatever it was. He didn’t.

Then there was one night when Morozov was at Ivan’s apartment, and they had been drinking and making big plans for ruling the world behind the scenes, and Ivan forgot himself entirely and leaned over the table and kissed him. He tried to pull back almost at once, but Morozov didn’t resist. In fact, he leaned in and put a hand behind Ivan’s head and kept him there, and in that moment, Ivan knew that while this might not be personally objectionable for Sasha (his sexuality was undiscussed but evidently fluid), that wasn’t the reason he was going along with it. It was because he knew instinctively that it was a perfect way to control Ivan, to harness his attraction and his weakness and his willingness to go along with whatever Sasha wanted, and in that, despite all the big plans they had put together and the way Ivan had dreamed of his life changing, it was just Konstantin all over again, and Ivan was straight back at the factory on his knees, small and cornered and powerless. It was visceral and it was wrong and it wasn’t the best he would ever do and he wasn’t, he wasn’t taking that.

They pulled back and Sasha made an enquiring noise, like he wanted to know if Ivan was interested in sealing the deal, and instead Ivan ordered him to leave right now, get out. That was the end of their friendship; they never spoke to each other again, and when his third year in the army ran out, which he had already taken voluntarily, he left. He got a job at some Moscow industrial plant and it was there, through the friend of a friend, he met Nadia Zhabina. And it turned out that she was queer (the first time he had ever heard the word spoken in a good way, something he wanted to be, something he didn’t mind accepting, rather than as an attack), and it turned out after that that she had a friend she wanted him to meet, only it clearly meant that she thought they should go out. Like. On a date.

Ivan flatly shut her down. He did not date, he did not want to date, he did not think he would be good at dating, he did not want to meet some pansy city boy from Nizhny Novgorod who he would immediately dislike, and he was not going to do it, the end. Only Nadia really seemed disappointed, and maybe it was not the worst thing to try a little. This would backfire terribly, he would get over it, and move on with his life.

In Ivan’s opinion, the first date with Fedyor Mikhailovich Kaminsky was, at least on his own behalf, a modest success. He was unavoidably late, thanks to the bus running behind schedule, but he introduced himself, his hobbies, and made it clear what sort of person he was and what he was interested in. He even sent a polite follow-up text with an invitation to meet again. There. No questions, no confusion, everything very straightforward and clear. Nothing to complain about. That was how you did a date, yes?

It turned out, however, that Fedyor Mikhailovich was either very reticent, or perhaps confused, or maybe he did not even know that they had been on a date and Nadia had not clearly explained to him. Burned by his experiences at home, knowing how easily word could get out to the wrong people, Ivan did not want to bring up the subject explicitly, but he had to admit to a considerable confusion. Maybe Fedyor actually liked to just mince around Moscow city parks together, like something out of a Tolstoy novel, or to sit on his couch and watch bad American action movies together. (Later, Ivan learned that Die Hard is actually something of a cult classic, but it’s still slightly lost on him.) That wasn’t bad, because Ivan – to his great bafflement and wariness – liked spending time with him. Fedyor wasn’t like him at all, but they clicked nonetheless. He was the exact kind of idealistic activist that Ivan had long disdained, but it was different with him. When Fedya talked, he liked to listen, to dream about a world that really did work that way. It didn’t, but it felt closer.

Besides that, he was cute. He was well-put together. He was charming and vivacious and could talk to people that they met, while Ivan stood scowling with his hands in his pockets and wondered how long this was going to take. He really desperately wanted to kiss Fedya (and for that matter, do other things to him), and he found himself thinking about it a lot. But what if it was like with Sasha again, and it was either Ivan opportunistically taking it for himself, or Fedya selfishly trying to keep him there, to use him for his own purposes? Maybe Fedya was the idiot. He had to know they were together, right? Or were they together? Ivan suddenly wasn’t sure. Damn it! Why didn’t Fedyor subscribe to the school of just being clear about things? Ivan himself had nothing to do with the problem.

But then there came that night, and Fedya cooking dinner and stumbling through trying to ask him if they were maybe something, and in that moment, Ivan found it all so hilarious that the only thing he could do was sit there and let the whole thing play out. Then it turned out, of course, that they were together, and that Fedyor kissed him just as deliciously as Ivan had imagined, and maybe Nadia Zhabina was not so wrong after all.

Maybe she was not wrong in the least.

Ivan takes his supermarket bags to the sunny kitchen of the mostly-remodeled apartment and sets them down. Fedya has picked out all the colors and wallpapers and furniture and paint, and Ivan has done most of the work, since he is gainfully employed as a handyman and repair-person and he doesn’t want to pay some American to half-ass a job that he can do better. The apartment is really quite lovely now. The living room has been done in a pale, springy green, the white plaster moldings washed and repaired, all the junk of the previous owner finally cleared out except for one or two collectibles that they decided to keep. There’s a bookshelf and a desk filled with Fedya’s work things, a couch and a television and a coffee table and new curtains. The bedroom is big and airy, with a ceiling fan and new carpets. Framed pictures and art pieces hang on the wall. It looks like a place where real people live.

Ivan makes breakfast, cooking and stirring and brewing the coffee, and puts it all on a tray. It’s Saturday, so of course Fedya is still asleep, and Ivan pads through the apartment to the closed bedroom door, balancing the tray on his hip long enough to open it and cast a strip of light inside. It takes a moment, but Fedyor rolls over, groggy and tousled and very, very cute with his bed-headed dark hair and squinting eyes. “Vanya? What smells so good?”

“Happy birthday, my love.” Ivan sets the tray on the bedside table and leans down to kiss him, as Fedyor makes a happy humming sound and throws his arms around Ivan’s neck, cuddling against him like a barnacle. “I have made you breakfast.”

(His younger self was wrong, and he has never been so glad of it.)

(This was the best, this is the best, this was waiting for him, this kind of happiness could happen for him, and he is grateful beyond all words that he fought for it and believed it until it did.)

[luninosity]

*wanders by* Look what I worked on today...

Warnings for…NOT actual self-harm, but Jason spotting a scar on one of Colby’s hands, a scar he doesn’t know the story of, and briefly considering that possibility. (The actual story is much more of a cooking-related accident!) Plus general warnings for brief mention of Colby’s Awful Exes and family, & related emotional abuse.

#

“How’s this?” Jason waited, fingers resting over Colby’s hands in his. The hotel room wrapped comfort around them; it’d begun as nondescript, but had welcomed Colby’s rainbow cascade of scarves and Jason’s tidy unpacking. It was their home now, for these next two weeks of filming on location. “Helping?”

 “Very much helping, thank you.” Colby obediently didn’t move, holding both hands out. They were sitting on the bed, having changed into pajama pants and t-shirts—Colby’d borrowed one of Jason’s shirts, too large but in a cuddly flattering way—and the day had been long. They’d been filming into the evening, because Jill had wanted the specific light, dwindling away as Colby’s young and brilliant magician character got imprisoned and bound by iron and tortured, refusing to give up and lead the villains to Jason’s hero.

 The chains and cuffs had been fake, of course. Hollywood movie-making magic. A vast leap from real iron.

 But that didn’t mean they were soft or forgiving. They’d had hard edges, angled in spots, heavy, with no real padding. He’d had to struggle against them. He’d had to kneel while the villains shoved his hands to the floor and—cautiously, weight judged for performance—stepped upon them, pretending to shatter bones. The floor, and the impact, hadn’t been soft either.

 The bruises and scrapes and cuts were all too real. Colby winced as Jason spread healing salve across a tender spot. “Ow. Sorry, sorry, I know you’re being careful, I’m not complaining.”

 “Tell me if it’s hurting too much.” He tapped a finger over the back of Colby’s wrist. “And don’t apologize for it. Are you sure you don’t want me to get the medical people to check you out?”

 “They did, right after. I know you know; you were there. It’s fine, it’s not—ow—serious. It’ll heal.”

 “Might need some wrapping, though.” Jason eyed the bruises, the nicks. They shuffled purple and red across Colby’s skin, shame-faced. He didn’t like them existing, though he knew they weren’t anyone’s fault. “Just for tonight, to keep all this on. Not too tight.”

 “Whatever you think works best,” Colby agreed. “You’d know better than I would, as far as stunts and injuries. Ow, oh, drat, that one hurts a bit more.”

 That one was probably the worst, Jason judged: scraped raw, layers exposed, across Colby’s left wrist. The edge of that cuff had been both rough and sharp. And obviously his touch hadn’t been careful enough. “Shit. Sorry. Love you. Is the numbing part working, at all? It’s supposed to be helping.”

 “Oh yes,” Colby said, obligingly. “It’s already better. Thank you for doing this.”

 Jason sighed.

 “It’s true,” Colby protested. “I honestly do feel better. I’d tell you if not.” Hair tumbling to his shoulders in loose dark waves—not a wig, but extensions, left in for fantastical mystical effect—he was elfin and pretty and earnest, wearing Jason’s too-large shirt, eyes huge and blue and searching Jason’s face.

 “I know you would. But I also want to know if it’s not helping enough, okay?”

 “Yes,” Colby said meekly. “I’ll say so if it’s not working, I promise.”

 “Okay, then. Just checking.” He tried to make his touch as gentle as possible. He tried to be as soothing as he could: a protective bulk, not a threatening one. Hands offering care, not more harm. Weight and breadth positioned harmlessly on the bed, no demands.

 He knew Colby trusted him. He felt a small glow of pride that Colby did: enough to admit to being in pain, to wanting care. He loved Colby and would care for Colby with all his heart, all his strength, all his soul; not a question, not ever.

 He still hated seeing Colby in pain. Always had, always would.

 That’d be true for anyone he loved, of course. He’d had some discussions with their therapist about that, about grief and loss and Charlie and Jason’s own desperate need to save people, to be strong. He knew that about himself. But it was worse, it was the worst it could be, when the person in pain was Colby.

 Colby was the other half of his heart. The brightest piece of his life, the piece that’d dived in and reminded him how to swim and that he liked baking, the piece that’d made him laugh and drawn him into whimsical chattering conversations about wizards and dragons and romance and coffee. The piece that liked pink shirts with sequins on the sleeves, and anchovies on pizza, and history and stories and words that could steal an audience’s breath away.

 And Colby had been hurt before, so very badly, for so very long. Inside and out, physical and emotional bruises, day after day. Jason hadn’t been there then, hadn’t known him for the worst of it. But he knew now, at least as much as anyone could, after the fact.

 He’d seen Colby flinch from an unexpected touch, get wide-eyed at a large body hugging too tightly at a convention, and—the scariest of all—go silent and someplace else, someplace not present, at a drift of familiar cologne and a flash-flood of memory in the air. He knew what Colby had told him, which was enough to make Jason carefully store up a lot of emotions and then go down to the gym and beat the hell out of a punching bag for long enough to get his reactions under control.

 He knew about Colby’s family, too. The layers of those bruises—not physical, but emotional, a slow brutal evisceration of Colby’s sense of self and self-worth—went back decades. They were working on it; their therapist said that Jason being here, not leaving, not making Colby earn any crumb of affection, was the exact best thing he could do. Jason hoped so.

 He wished he could do more. He wished he could fight all of Colby’s demons. Like his character in this film, raising a sword. Lifting a shield. Fighting for a cause.

 He knew Colby’s hands pretty well, by now. He knew the way those slim graceful fingers felt in his, on his body—in his body, and oh that was always fun, Colby teasing him open and stroking him and pressing inside him. He knew Colby’s gestures on and off camera, the weight and shape of his palms, the backs of his hands, the old scars from period-piece swordfighting lessons and some small-scale stunt work, comedy pratfalls and in-role clumsiness. He knew about the short jagged line on the outside of Colby’s little finger on the right hand, from hopping a fence while filming a scene for that high-school coming-of-age comedy.

 He knew he didn’t know every smallest detail—he didn’t have a photographic memory—but he had a decent idea of Colby’s hands, he thought.

 Which was why his fingers slowed and came to a stop, as they felt something—as his gaze landed on something—that he didn’t recognize.

 Thin. White. Just above the heel of Colby’s left hand, across his palm. Long-healed—no texture at all, only noticeable if someone was paying extremely close attention, but enough to’ve left a line. Liam, Jason thought first, with a shock of anger like scarlet blood—but no, this was older than a handful of years, older than any injuries at Colby’s ex’s hands. Clearly so.

 Colby hadn’t seemed to notice—he’d been looking at Jason’s other hand, which had scooped up more salve—but he noticed the pause now. His eyes came up to find Jason’s, huge and flower-blue.

 Jason turned Colby’s hand more upward. Touched the line, very very lightly. His fingers shook.

 “Oh,” Colby said, soft with love, wry in the way of someone realizing, “no, it’s not what you’re thinking, and don’t say you weren’t thinking of at least two possibilities. It’s not either of those. I, er…well, I was about eleven years old and I’d been trying to prepare dinner for myself and I had absolutely nonexistent knife skills with regard to chopping carrots. And my father’s chef kept his knives very sharp.”

 “You were making dinner…for yourself?” He touched Colby’s palm again, traced the scar above the heel. It had plainly been a clean cut, straight, but deep enough to leave a mark once healed.

 Colby did that familiar nose-scrunch at him, the one that meant you won’t like this story. “You won’t like this story. But it wasn’t that bad.”

 “Tell me? If you want,” he amended. Not an order, not a demand. The freckle near Colby’s collarbone winked at him, playing peek-a-boo with the loose neck of Jason’s shirt.

 “Oh, of course. It’s hardly a secret.” Colby wiggled salve-smeared fingers at him. “So we were living in Paris then—Dad having been appointed as an ambassador and all, you know…”

 The storied instrument of his voice became, for an instant, more American than anything else, on the word Dad; Howard Kent personified the type of United States politician who embodied privilege, money, and self-interest above everything, including his marriage and his son.

 “…and my parents, being, er, my parents, did tend to do things like go on holiday without remembering that I existed, which meant the staff also generally forgot I existed, or took their cues from my parents, or assumed someone else had made some arrangements somewhere. So I was eleven and a bit, and I’d got used to making sandwiches and things, but I thought perhaps I’d try to cook, because I was trying to learn, you know, so I wouldn’t have to bother anyone.”

 Jason opened his mouth. Shut it.

 Colby lifted both eyebrows, inviting and amused. “Yes, go on, say it.”

 “You know everything I’m gonna say.”

 “I do. It’s all right; I’ve got you now.” Colby leaned against him, on the bed: easy contact, unremarkable, except for how it was remarkable, it was a marvel, given everything Jason knew.

 He wanted to cry for the boy Colby’d been, precocious and shy and so very alone.

 He held Colby’s hand. “I’m here. I’m always here. I’ll chop all your carrots if you need me to.”

 “You would, if I asked, wouldn’t you? Well, in any case, I managed to slice my hand open, as you might expect under the circumstances, and then I very nearly passed out from the sheer shock of it, and then after a few minutes I pulled myself together and found a first-aid kit and tried to patch it up, though it didn’t work terribly well because I was trying to do it one-handed.”

 “Jesus, Colby.” He could’ve demanded, why didn’t you call someone, a member of the security team, the household staff, a doctor, an emergency number, your parents? He didn’t.

 He knew why Colby wouldn’t. Not causing a fuss, not giving anyone a reason to disapprove or to not want him, not believing anyone would come or answer or care…

  His heart cracked open and bled more. Like younger Colby, huddled on a kitchen floor with a first-aid kit. “What happened?”

[itsnothingofinterest]

I’ve often said that it seems like a lot of the main pros below All Might seem to end up representing serious flaws in hero society; specifically the ones on the hero side of things. So as a fun little exercise I thought I’d go over all those main pros and what flaws they represent (should be easy, they’re usually their own personal character flaws). Maybe also give my assessment to what I think their chances of living to the end of the series are while I’m at it, since representing serious flaws in the old guard can be hazardous to your health if treated poorly.

Endeavor

A man who needs no introduction if you’re any kind of HeroAca fan. love or hate him, everyone knows the new no.1.

Funnily enough, he’s actually the main exception to the rule we mentioned before about a pros’ character flaw being the flaw they thematically represent. See, his character flaw is that he focus so much on heroics, his career in heroics, or just his own general needs over his family; to the point that he only had a family to have children he could live vicariously though, and felt no obligation to love the ones he couldn’t live through. What he represents, is actually two-fold: 1) the toxicity of the ranking system which makes heroics so competitive and encourage heroes focus on some arbitrary number, and 2) the power heroes have that let them do horrible things and get away with it. They’re connected concepts, for sure, but not exactly synonymous.

And with that said, what are his chances of survival? Well, the ranking toxicity is out of his hands, but besides that...it can be hard to tell. He has, under semi-aggressive guidance of his family, publicly taken responsibility for the things he’s done and vowed to make up for it; which helps his chances considerably. But in that same scene he also said that the only way he can atone is to keep doing what he’s always done; beat up villains and at least 1 family member. It sends a mixed message. But in general; I want to say that he’s gotten enough development that he doesn’t feel set to fail his arc now. I’d be tempted to say his chances look pretty good...were it not for all the separate reasons I think he’s likely to die anyway. Oh well, no one’s situation can be perfect.

Hawks

The controversial hero; Hawks!

I’ve summarized Hawks’ main flaw before as ‘hubris’, partially because he’s an Icarus figure so generalizing it like that feels clever, but it’s a bit more complex than that. Hawks main flaw isn’t so much pride as it is self-righteousness. Hawks represents the belief that everything is just right as it is, and the status quo must therefore be protected at all costs. A denial that the heroes he believes in have done anything wrong even after staring their mistakes in the face and spending months talking with those the heroes failed. In fact to contrast Endeavor’s line to the press; Hawks tried to excuse what he did as though it had to be done. That’s the opposite of promising.

With that said, what are his chances of survival? Well, I’d actually put him at 50/50 odds; since I see 2 endings for him, and it’s too early to tell which is more likely. See, while we’ve only got two instances of a “pattern,” Hawks seems like a guy who falls to the ground, recovers and gets back up, only to fall even further down because he never learns. So his two futures are either: A) To actually learn. Take a fall so hard that in the aftermath, he can’t convince himself he was right all along. Maybe he gets Endeavor killed, or does something to sever their relationship. Something that’d force him to self-reflect. B) To take a fall so hard it proves fatal; his mistakes catching up to him in a way that doesn’t give him a chance to self-reflect.

Best Jeanist

Sir Long Neck McImagine Obsession himself.

Best Jeanist represents the self-interest in hero society can have over justice itself. Already known for being focused on superficial image; he’s dramatic reappearance revealed just how deep that went. For when it’s revealed by a villain that a hero has committed great crimes that ended up motivating that villain’s actions; Jeanist’s immediate concern was the damage this would do to the reputation of heroes. More than what kind of person he’s been working alongside, and even more than saving lives, Jeanist’s first thought went the wellbeing of the industry he works in and how bad they would collectively look to the public; that’s what he’s most angry at Dabi for.

Chances of survival are...maybe 40-50%? There’s no real leaning one way or another frankly, so that kind of feels like it’d put him at even odds for the exact opposite reason as Hawks. Will he live? Will he die? Who can say? Leaning just a bit towards death though, because again, representing flaws in the old guard can be hazardous to your health.

Mirko

And here we have the violent one.

While I’m tempted to lump this one with Hawks, I actually think Ms.Mirko represents the heroes use of incredible violence best. See, Mirko is someone who really likes to beat people up, even once in a spin-off said Bakugou’s drive to murder was a good thing in a hero. And while she won’t even feel the need to kill like Hawks apparently did, her response to fighting the High End Nomu was something like “finally, some villains I get to just kill with no ethical issues, that makes things easy”. (Which, considering the High Ends are sentient is, um, hmm). Her love of violence borders on villainous, and she freely admits it is simple obligation that prevents her from crossing that boundary. It’s reminiscent of when Shigaraki pondered what the difference really was between heroes’ & villains’ violence. And, well, if it closes the gap in morality between heroes and villains, it’s going on this list.

Regarding her chances of survival, like Jeanist she’s not exactly defined enough to really say anything for sure or end up on any extreme end; I’ve no real reason to think she’s very likely live or die. That said; on the one hand she seems a bit more eagerly reveling in the flaw she represents, plus a blood knight getting back into the fight after sustaining heavy injuries is never a good sign. On the other hand, Horikoshi clearly likes her for reasons we won’t address here. I think I’m gonna average it out to 50%. Maybe even 60%.

Kamui Woods & Mt. Lady

You wouldn’t think some of the most plain as bread heroes would be joining the ranks of the problematic, and in fairness that’s because they mostly aren’t, but they are the ones who best represent a serious issues with heroes. They represent the way heroes will focus on flashiness & the problems they cause/exasperate in the process. Misconduct performed in the quest for fame; in so many words. Kamui showed this in chapter 1; calling a giant purse snatcher “evil incarnate” because that villain was attention grabbing and disturbing the peace. This is especially noticeable in hindsight, after we’ve see some real problems heroes could be dealing with but aren’t; like lost children on their way to becoming villains. And Mt. Lady represent it by how she operates in a big city despite her powers really working better for more rural or neighborly environments; because city work makes her more popular and rakes in the cash (that she loses paying for repairs).

That said, even if those are flaws I feel are highly associated with them, none of that is stuff they’re actively involved in; they’re naïve at best, and have already improved considerably (for minor characters at least) into better heroes. Frankly speaking, their changes of survival are probably averaging at 85% (80% for Kamui, 90% for Mt.). Like, they’re not gag characters per se; but they’re not super serious characters, they’re not connected to the MCs in any real way, and they don’t knowingly contribute to any of society’s corruptions. Really, so long as big H doesn’t really want to off someone we know for a shock, they’re probably fine.

Gran Torino

And lastly, the only non-big shot on the list, the unpleasant old geezer himself; Gran Torino!

What GT represents better than any other, I think, is the idea of passing any blame a hero may have for the actions/very existence of a villain on to the villain in question, thus allowing the heroes to better absolve themselves. You know like how with Shigaraki, he ignores any fault he has with that guys’ existence and simplifies him down to a criminals they can only beat down; and how dare he exist and thereby hurt Toshinori’s feelings. On that note, I’d say he also represents the idea that the villains are what they are, they’re too far gone, and there’s nothing the heroes can do about it. The most convenient excuse to not ever have to try to make up for what they did wrong, which you can’t even blame them too much for because they “tried their best” (even if they really didn’t).

So, what are his odds? Well frankly I wanna put him at 0% just cause he’s so old that if a villain doesn’t get him, time will. But that’s cheating. In actuality, it’s hard to say; dude’s a stubborn old man, and it really feels like it will depend on his ability to admit how wrong he handled things regarding Tomura. Now admittedly, he did admit to making the wrong choice in handling Kotaro, but he’s said nothing of Tomura so far. For now I’ll put him at 30%, but we’ll have to see if he sticks to his guns regarding current events next time he talks with All Might or whoever to really get a gasp on his chances.

And that’s about all the big ones so we’ll wrap it up. Anyway the point is it feels like a lot of heroes are gonna need to get their acts together lest they risk coming down with Not Alive Syndrome sometime in the future.

[backtobackbakubabe]

I am the Alpha Now Part 14

Bakugo X Reader

Words: 2194

Masterlist

Reader is from America and somewhat of a delinquent with an alpha quirk that allows her to turn into a wolf as well as bond with dogs. She is sent to UA to straighten out her attitude. She ends up in a power struggle with none other than our favorite hot head. Words in Italics are words said telepathically.

“Wait, wait, wait… Shigaraki? As in the leader of the League of Villains and YOUR BOSS! That Shigaraki?”

Dabi’s grip tightened on the wheel, “You know I’m starting to question how smart the kids at UA really are? YES! That Shigaraki.” His eyes shifted to his mirrors as if to check they weren’t being followed. “He’s been a pain in my ass lately… He’s always been twisted and ambitious. But now he’s… I don’t know he’s unhinged. He’s gotten sloppy and I’m tired of cleaning up after him.”

You could feel the panic bubbling in your stomach. You rolled your window down and took in a huge gulp of fresh air, trying to settle your nerves.

Dabi scoffed, “Hey where did the ‘I’ll go feral and kill you all’, crazy bitch go? You look like you’re ready to puke all over my car.”

You closed your eyes as you continued to breathe through your panic. “Why do you even need me? Don’t you have some badass cremation quirk? Just light the dude on fire and call it a day. I don’t see where I play into all of this.”

A tense silence fell over the car, but you could hear Dabi speeding up. “Look I wouldn’t expect you to understand right now, but I have a role to play just like everyone else. Believe me I would love nothing more than to watch as that dusty fuck turned into a pile of ash. Hell, I’d probably roast marshmallows over it. But for many reasons that are none of your fucking business… I can’t.”

You finally found the nerve to turn to look at him. “I still don’t see why you need me to do it. From what I understand, long distance attacks have the most success with him, and I specialize in close combat. How am I supposed to fight him if I can’t let him touch me?”

Dabi was whipping the car into a parking garage now, the shadows taking over his features. “You heal right? I saw it with my own eyes. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I tested it earlier in the alley after you passed out. I saw how quickly your head was healing so I tried to cremate one of your fingers.”

Your eyes almost bugged out of your sockets, which caused Dabi to roll his. “What? Don’t give me that look. I’m a villain… I beat you unconscious and kidnapped you and all that’s what makes you mad? You don’t even need all ten fingers!” He parked his car and grabbed your wrist and pulled your hand up to your face. “Look you’re fine. It regenerated almost as quickly as I could burn it.”

You ripped your wrist from his grasp. Rubbing the spot his fingers had just been. “Just because it worked with your quirk doesn’t mean it’ll work with his. I’m not invincible.” You shuddered as the memories of being tortured start to stir in your mind.

He could see the hesitation in your eyes. “I need to make something clear. While I don’t necessarily mean you any harm… I also don’t give a fuck about your well-being. So, this…” He gestured to your pained expression. “Needs to stop. Because I don’t care. You may not be invincible… but you are expendable. You bite the dust, we’ll just recruit someone else. Maybe even your boyfriend.”

You froze. What did he mean by we?

Dabi got out of the car and came around to your side and opened your door. You looked around the parking garage behind him, looking for an accomplice. “Are you going to get out on your own, or are you going to make me drag you?”

You couldn’t see, hear, or smell anyone besides Dabi. So, you slowly stepped out of the car, all the while flipping him off. “I’d love to see you try asshole. Lay a hand on me and I’ll pin you down and pull out every single one of those stupid staples one by one with my teeth.”

Dabi leaned forward so his eyes where level with yours, “Don’t tempt me with a good time.”

Before you could even say anything another presence suddenly filled your senses. One moment it was just you a Dabi and the next someone was there behind him.

“Easy you two. As much as I would love to watch, we kind of need to get somewhere private.” You looked at the familiar man with the red wings. He gave you a sad smile, “There are a lot of people looking for you kid.” He gestured towards the elevator and you and Dabi followed. The man looked over his shoulder at Dabi, “Including your dad. Apparently he was ready to give her a job. He’s not too thrilled.”

Dabi growled, “More reason for me to keep her.”

You kicked at the back of his knee making him fall as you stepped around him into the elevator. “I am not, and never will be your fucking pet. I am an Alpha.” Your eyes glowed as your fury of being treated like a plaything grew.

The man standing next to you whistled, “Damn, I knew you were intense but that was probably the best thing I’ve seen all month. But I guess you’d have to be a little aggressive to deal with Bakugo every day.”

You tried not to react to hearing your boyfriends name, but your heart pounded. He knew Katsuki? You wondered if he knew if he was okay…

You gave him a harsh glare, “Who the fuck are you and how do you know Bakugo?”

It was Dabi’s turn to chuckle now at the man’s shocked expression. “Just a ray of sunshine isn’t she bird brain?”

The blonde man made room for Dabi in the elevator before pushing a button. His attention returned to you, “You seriously don’t recognize me? I’m a pro hero. Number two to be exact.” You stared back blankly and shrugged. His eyes widened, “Oh come on! I’m Hawks…”

You maintained a bored expression, “Nice to meet you… what are you doing here with an LOV member number two pro hero Hawks…”

You watched him squirm a little, but he soon wore a dazzling smile, “We go way back. Best friends some people might say. Not him, but someone I’m sure.”

The doors to the elevator closed and you could feel your anxiety starting up again. You were trapped between two strange men, who could probably kill you if they really wanted to. Hawks could see your tension and made an effort to trade places with you, putting you closer to the door and away from Dabi.

As soon as the door opened you stepped out. Welcoming the cool air conditioning tethering you to reality and keeping your anxiety at bay. You’ve been kidnapped before. You were doing everything you could to keep those memories buried.

Hawks lead you to a room that needed a key card and a six digit code to get in. Once the door closed behind you, you stiffened. You could feel your nails grow out to claws and your teeth sharpen to a point. They may not be trying to hurt you right now. But that could change at any moment.

Dabi took one look at you clawed hand and sighed, “I need a drink if we’re going to be behaving like this. Be right back.” He gave you a curious glance, “You want anything?”

You shook your head, not trusting your voice not to give away your subtle anxiety.

As soon as Dabi was out of earshot you pulled Hawks to you, “You never told me how you know Katsuki…. Do you know if he’s okay? He hasn’t done anything stupid has he?”

Hawks groaned, “We had to send out a search party for him. Lucky for us it’s kind of hard to stay stealthy in the middle of downtown with a giant fucking wolf dog.”

Your eyes burned into his, “So he’s okay then? Someone keeping an eye on him?”

Hawks patted your tense shoulder, “Physically, yeah… he’s fine. But you leaving like you did really did a number on him. He wouldn’t come back to UA without kicking and screaming the whole way. Kept saying shit like, ‘I can’t feel her’ , ‘somethings wrong’ he wouldn’t even listen to his red headed friend. What his name, the hard guy?”

“Kirishima?”

“Yeah! Him. It wasn’t pretty. He’s a wreck.”

Your heart ached. Not only as his girlfriend, but as an Alpha. Your instincts are screaming at you right now. Your only job is to protect your pack. He’s hurting. Mercy is hurting. And you are the reason why.

You walked away before Hawks could see the tear spilling over your cheek. You stepped to the window trying to get a better idea of your surroundings. Even though you had absolutely no idea where you were. You took a deep breath and slowly opened up the bond.

*******Bakugo’s POV***********

“No you don’t understand she’s not just gone, she’s fucking GONE! I can’t feel her anymore.” Bakugo paced back and forth in his room. Mercy sat on his bed, his eyes following him but saying nothing besides the occasional whimper. “We’re literally bonded now. I’m supposed to be able to feel her Kiri. I’m supposed to be able to instinctively now that she’s okay. And now it’s gone. There’s just a fucking void. She’s gone… I can’t find her. Neither can Mercy.” He ran his hands through his hair for the hundredth time. Keeping his frantic hands busy. “He said she could have turned it off…. Or she… she could be… she could be fucking dead! None of you seem to care!”

Kiri put his hand on his shoulder in an attempt to calm him down, “Hey man, we’re going to find her okay. We just need you to calm down first.”

“CALM DOWN?! How the hell am I SUPPOSED TO CALM DOWN?! Did you not just hear what I said?”

Bakugo slumped to the floor and leaned against the end of his bed, letting Mercy put his head next to his. “We have to believe she’s okay. If not it’s going to drive us crazy. Look on the plus side. We are bonded to each other through her. If she were dead, wouldn’t our bond have died as well. As long as you can hear me I have to assume she’s alive.”

Bakugo reached up and started petting Mercy, “I hope you’re right about that. What happened last time… when she you know…?”

Mercy gave Bakugo’s cheek a quick lick, “The last time she died… I could feel the stress her body was under and then it was gone. Right now it feels almost like a closed door. The bond is still there, we just can’t use it. Then it felt like a brick wall. It wasn’t just her presence that was gone, the whole bond disappeared too. It was terrifying.”

There was a ringing in Bakugo’s ears. Had it been there long? Was his hearing deteriorating without you there to take care of him. Was there something wrong with the bond? Was there something wrong with you? The ringing grew louder and louder until it consumed him. He clutched his hands in his hair and yelled for it to stop. Tears pricked at his eyes as his breathing got shorter. He was on the verge of one of the scariest panic attacks he had ever had and then all the sudden his chest burst open with warmth.

He was bombarded with soothing thoughts and a happy relaxed buzz. He tried to grip it for dear life. This was you. He knew it was. He reached out the way you taught him, and he tried to find you. He got a quick glimpse of a cityscape through what looked like a window. But before he could figure out where you were it was turned off again.

He felt like he had been sucker punched. Kiri was looking at him like he had lost his mind. “Hey… are you okay. I know you can like talk to Mercy and stuff. But it still freaks me out. Then one moment your raging, then the next your crying, and then out of nowhere you look completely blissed out…” Kirishima sat next to Bakugo looking concerned. “I’m worried about you. You seem a little… unstable.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever we can talk about it later in therapy.” Bakugo pushed Kiri to the side and looked at Mercy, “You felt that right? That’s a good sign, right?”

Mercy barked and jumped towards the door, “She’s alive alright, and she wanted us to know it. From what I could tell she was unharmed. A little stressed out, but otherwise healthy. I couldn’t figure out where she was though. How about you?”

Bakugo was grabbing his hero gear and rushing towards the door. “Not a one hundred percent sure. But I have a decent idea of the general area.” He looked at a shocked Kiri who was still on the floor. “You gonna come help me save my girl or what?”

*****************************************

Tags :

@tspice283 , @realityisoftendisapointing , @imbi-101 , @thoughtfulpandazine2 , @hotarumorikawa , @huh-iwasntpayingattention , @starfishlovingbnha , @weebnumber3622 , @mixedfeeelings , @munchmunch01 , @inumorph @xxoperatexx @runrabbitrun3

[malereader-inserts]

Shoot Your Load (I-I Mean Shot!)

Fandom: Avengers Pairing: Peter Parker x Male!Reader Summary: When you think about your soulmate, you think of a handsome man of your age, perhaps polar opposite to you or like you. But, not fucking spiderman Word Count: 1,475 Request: @will-grammer​ “Can I ask for Peter Parker and stranger male reader? They both bare marks that indicate they are soulmates but they've never met. They haven't really thought of seeking each other out due to stressful life obligations like Peter being Spiderman but reader is drowning himself in his studies/job hoping to make enough money to go out and search for Peter one day - but they actually meet when reader witnesses a purse-snatching incident and tries to help, running into Peter who's in his spider suit?” A/n: okay, but why is my Grammarly not working for me anymore, I hate this godforsaken site with their new update.

It's not that you don’t want to meet the love of your life, the happiness within the horrible world, a companion, your soulmate - if you will. It’s just, you don’t have the time or money to look for them. Plus, you’re busy with your part time job and your work load for uni, it’s practically impossible for you to venture out as if it was some Disney movie. You have a life that you’ve been restricted to, and you’re only nineteen, you’ve got so much life ahead of you. 

But, you don’t mind if you were to randomly bump into this person you were destined to be with.

Peter, your other half, was in the same boat. He has too much responsibility to look for you. What was that quote that his uncle Ben told me? Never mind, despite the Avengers telling him to go look for you, he doesn’t feel like there was a need. He’s a hero, whether it was fighting big aliens or just being the friendly neighbourhood Spiderman, he already has stuff on his plate and it’s piling up. Of course, just like you, it’s a university student - whilst he loves to make the joke that he’s a web designer, chemistry is where it was at. With that in mind, he helps Mr Stark with his work too.

Peter would love to meet you, don’t get him wrong, he’s been caught wondering what this fateful person would be. He imagined how he’d meet you, he imagined how he was going to tell you that he’s Spiderman, and yet, he doesn’t think he needs to meet you. Fate is fate, if fate wants you to meet, she’ll let you. 

So, Peter goes on with his day, much like you do. 

And, the thing with soulmates, it’s the fact that you can’t just forget about it. Every time you look in the mirror, you see the burn print grip your upper arm, and you often wonder what type of interaction you’ll bump into. Peter, like most people’s soulmark, is his hand - it wasn’t unique, but he can’ t wait to place that hand on his soulmate, see how it perfectly lined up. 

“You should go find them, kid,” Tony patted Peter on the back, ruffling his hair, “How hard can it be?”

Everyone thinks looking for their soulmate is easy, it really isn’t.

All you wanted was three shots of espresso in you. 

It was far too early in morning for any human interactions. Whilst you didn’t have a shift that morning, you had a lot of work to do. You were only annoyed that morning because you got your days confused, alas you were up bright and early, and unneeded. Though, whilst you were out in the great New York City, it didn’t hurt to at least grab something for breakfast before heading back to your university flat and start on work, the three essays, presentation and two projects to get done by the end of the month. You wanted to get ahead before you started stressing out.

That’s all you wanted. Was that too hard to ask?

Because, apparently, it was. 

But, you’re not a selfish human being and the morning was barely touched by humans at the hour you were about. Just on your way to the local small coffee shop you had witnessed a crime. A poor elderly woman got her purse snatched, you only thought this happened in movies but apparently targeting sweet elderly women was an actual thing around in real life.

You could be like every twat in New York City, ignore it, or be an actual nice person. You decided the latter, knowing you have a guilty conscience that would probably keep you up awake later in the night, had you done nothing at all to help a fragile elderly woman.

“HEY!” You shouted, alerting the thief and the elderly woman - which probably shouldn’t have been your first thought of action, just as you were about to sprint after the man, you were interrupted.

“Don’t worry I got it!” You hear a voice above you, confused to what could be shouted above you.

Next thing you see was Spiderman swinging through buildings before landing right next to you, his hand grabbing you in the upper arm. You were confused to as why Spiderman was in this part of the city before realising your arm was burning. Your knitted eyebrows faded away as you looked down at his hand, realising that it was the same exact position to where your soul mark was. 

“Holy shi-”

Peter must have realised what was going on as he picks you up, and out of panic, throws you into the fucking alley way and webs you up to the wall. You[’re lucky that you didn't smack your head against the wall upon impact. 

“I’ll be back!” He calls out, hoping to find this thief quickly and be reunited with you.

Meanwhile, you were against a wall with only webbing to support you. It had baffled you that he was able to web you up so quickly. As of now, you were contemplating life and how you got into this weird situation. It took Peter fifteen minutes to finish what had happened. Landing back in the alley way where you were trapped. You looked at him with a raised eyebrow as you watched him freak out.

When you think about your soulmate, you think of a handsome man of your age, perhaps polar opposite to you or like you, exactly like you in personality. But, not fucking Spiderman.

“You’re Spiderman!” You exclaimed.

“You’re my soulmate!” He exclaims back.

You stare at him as he stares back at you, you blinked slowly as you watched his mask eyes slowly decrease in size before increasing bad to full size.

“You’re fucking Spiderman!” You shouted, heart racing, “My soul mate is Spiderman and he’s webbed me up!” 

“Well, you know what they say, shoot your load.”

“What?”

“I-I mean shoot your shot!”

There was silence between the two of you. Peter scratching the back of his neck, he was panicking because this wasn’t how he was supposed to meet you. He was supposed to meet you as Peter Parker, the awkward nerd who was very socially awkward and then he was going to struggle to admit that he was a superhero. Not the other way round. But, as you both stand in awkward silence, Peter got to actually look at you.

“Um, can you help me down?” You asked, tilting your head to the side, “Unless they melt over time, cause if so, I’m going to get hungry.”

“It’s pretty easy to get out of that,” Peter says as you struggled to wiggle, let alone tear a section of webbing, “Right, you don’t have super strength.”

Peter came up to you, ripping his webbing, his face flaring up with redness because my god, this was such an embarrassing situation to get yourself. He caught you effortlessly when you had escaped the webbing. He lets go of your hands, however the pair of you don’t miss the electric sensation that was produced when you make contact. 

You brush yourself clean from the webbing, “Shoot your load?”

“I panicked!” Peter confessed as you laughed.

Peter got to admire you, you were of his age, with a bright smile and a lovely laughter he wouldn’t mind getting to hear often. He thinks your voice was soothing to listen to. You looked at him, fixing your jacket and you smiled at him.

“So, who's under the mask?” You asked, eyes wide, it’s only fair if you know the identity of Spiderman, he is your soulmate after all.

“I’m Peter,” Peter takes his mask off and surprises you at his attractiveness, his hand outstretched towards you, “Peter Parker.”

You take his hand to shake, a corner of your lip uplifting, “Stark’s intern? I thought you sounded familiar, well, I’m (Y/n) (L/n).”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Peter says, trying to ignore the tingling sensation as you grip his hand in the handshake.

You let go of his hand, rubbing the back of your neck, “Uh, so I was going to grab breakfast, I was wondering if you have a change of clothes, you can join me.”

Peter looked down at his attire, his face reddening once again, nodding, “I have a change of clothes somewhere, give me like five minutes and I'll join you.”

“I'll be waiting at the end of the alley way,” You say, there was an inviting smile on your face, walking towards the end of the alley way, coming back to civilisation.

You laugh to yourself, your soulmate is Spiderman, and you know from then - you have wild life ahead of you with him. For once, you’re excited for what the future holds.

[feral-yearning]

Femme Fatale ch 3 (Bucky x Natasha)

Relationship: James "Bucky" Barnes & Natalia "Natasha Romanoff" Romanova

Tags: No powers, neighbors, messy, PTSD, sex work (not prostitution), war hero Bucky

Maturity rating: 18+

Warning(s): sex work (not prostitution), discussions of trauma, abandonment issues

Word count: 2,140

AO3 | FF.net | Wattpad | Tumblr

_____________________________________________________________

Until the twenty minute walk between the tailor and the pub, Bucky didn't regret giving the coat to his neighbor. Once he was lightly frosted with snowflakes, he wondered whether it was really the right thing to do.

"Why're you walking so damn slow?" He grumbled, rubbing his hands together to wake his fingers. It didn't really work, his metal arm was basically frozen. The fingers were getting worryingly slow to respond.

"Aren't you supposed to be a native? I thought y'all were born cold blooded up in the Great White North," Sam teased, patting Bucky's back... His muscles were so tense that the light hits still hurt a little. He wouldn't admit it, though.

"The Great White North is Canada, but nice try," Bucky deflected, stepping faster once he saw their destination.

Sam retorted with something that was probably clever, but by that time Bucky was too focused to hear him. He slipped into the pub and sighed in relief the moment that he was enveloped in warmth. When Sam found him again, Bucky was perched on a bar stool as close to a heating vent as he could get. He'd already ordered them two beers.

"It's a little early, isn't it?" Sam pointed out, taking a sip of his beer nonetheless. Bucky shrugged, setting his bottle down.

"Warms the blood, doesn't it? Us cold-bloods need to get our warmth from somewhere."

Sam chuckled. The pub was emptier than they had expected, but the building blizzard outside was most likely why. He wasn't exactly upset that they didn't have to wait for a seat, he wasn't much of a fan of crowds.

For the first twenty minutes or so, while they were waiting for their food, they were shooting the shit. They talked about the tux fitting, about each member of the Howling Commandos and how Steve changed when he was around the whole group. He seemed younger whenever they all got together, it was nice. Nowadays he was too serious, not that Bucky was a ray of sunshine most of the time.

"Well, what about you? Hm? You didn't say a word unless someone spoke to you first," Sam pointed out, stealing one of Bucky's fries in the meantime. Only reason he could get away with it was 'cause he was on the left and Bucky's metal arm was still warming up.

"I'm fine-"

"I'm fine," Sam mocked him, saying it at the exact same time. "Yeah, I know you're always fine. But fine isn't good, man."

Bucky groaned dramatically. "It's really not that deep. I don't have anything interesting going on. I'm just... I don't know, I'm always tired. Even when I'm having a good time, I'm thinking about going home and taking a nap."

Sam hummed thoughtfully. Bucky knew that hum, it was his therapy hum. That hum said 'what you just said was a problem, but I don't know how to tell you that without making you act all defensive.' Bucky braced himself for the reproaching tone that came after, but nothing happened. Instead, Sam switched subjects.

"What about the arm?" He asked, looking down at Bucky's left arm. "It still looks brand new. How does it feel?"

Finally, and easier topic. "It doesn't feel brand new," he said, lifting it and slowly rolling his wrist. "It's better than the plastic ones, don't get me wrong. I can still use it the way I need to, it's just slow to respond when the temperature drops or rises too much. Plus, I think the battery is starting to go. I don't know how to replace that, but I bet I could find someone to do it."

"You don't want to give that to just anybody, Bucky. You should get Steve to talk to Stark about it, he's the one who gave you the damn thing in the first place."

Bucky wrinkled his brows, uncomfortable with the idea of having to ask Steve for something like that. It wasn't even that big of a deal, the arm lasted two full years and it was only an early prototype. He hadn't had a single complaint until recently and he was pretty sure it'd last another two years before he really had to get a new one. He could save up for one of the newer arms that Stark is selling by then. Sam tried his best to convince Bucky that he could just ask Sam, but that was already his decided course of action.

Once the obligatory prying was over, Sam let him relax. He knew how stressed talking could make Bucky and most of the time he just... let him be. As long as Bucky was eating right, his apartment was clean, and he didn't miss any of his therapy appointments then he couldn't be too bad, right?

At least, that's what Bucky did his best to make him believe.

"I'll see you on Friday, right? You're not gonna flake out on us?" Sam asked, shrugging his coat back on once they were ready to leave.

"I can't flake out, the whole thing's in my apartment," Bucky pointed out, laying down a twenty dollar bill for the tip. Sam raised his eyebrow but said nothing about the amount. That was close to a seventy-five percent tip.

"You never know. James Buchanan Barnes is a crafty one." Bucky pursed his lips, particularly unamused by Sam's joke. "Alright, fine. I've got to get to work anyway, you sour ass. Take care of yourself 'til Friday, got it?"

He clapped Bucky on the back and walked away without another word. Bucky watched the door shut before he pulled out his phone. It had vibrated three times during their lunch, and he wasn't in the mood to discuss that with Sam.

Two Text Messages from: Rebecca B.

One Voicemail from: Rebecca B.

Becca was nothing if not persistent. He read the messages while he walked to the nearest subway station.

Rebecca B.: Is now a good time? I have to talk to you.

Rebecca B.: It's either me or Mom, Jimmy. I'm trying to save you the grief, I swear.

As much as he didn't like it, Becca was right. She was a lot easier to talk to than their mother. At least she didn't pry when he clearly didn't want to talk about something. He waited until he found his seat on the train to listen to the voicemail.

"Hey, Jimmy. I know you're probably busy doing whatever it is hermits do, but you've really got to call Mom at some point. She's worried about you and the more you avoid her, the more that the rest of us have to hear about it.

"Plus... you know, we're worried about you too. I haven't heard from you since Thanksgiving and even then it was just through texts. I hope you're planning on coming home for Christmas. If Winnie's coming all the way from California, you can get here from Manhattan. Plus, I already got your present and I'd really like to see the face you make when you're trying to be nice about your disappointment.

"Oh! And bring Steve too. Unless he's visiting Peggy's family for the holidays.

"Call me back whenever you listen to this, okay? Love you."

Bucky listened to the voicemail one more time before even attempting to type out a message to his sister. He wasn't even sure that he had anything to say.

He finally managed a somewhat adequate reply.

To Rebecca B.: Sorry I missed your call, can't call back now. I don't know if I come home, but I'll try my best. Things are moving pretty fast at the moment, just trying to catch up. I'll call you soon and I'll do my best to catch Winnie before she flies back, I promise.

He could already hear her reaction, the exasperation wasn't exactly hard to predict. But what was he supposed to do? He was already exhausted, pretending to be okay for the whole Christmas break would wipe him out. He was already run ragged by having to plan Steve's bachelor party.

The bachelor party was going to happen on Friday 'cause the wedding was on January 5th and the holidays made it impossible for most of the wedding party to attend any time closer to the wedding. Frenchy even had a daughter and a wife to spend Christmas with.

As per Steve's request, it was going to be a relaxing night. Bucky wasn't exactly a fan of having strippers in his apartment, so that made him feel better about hosting in the first place. They were going to be drinking good liquor and playing cards the whole night, just like they'd do when they were sitting around in the muck waiting for a mission. The only difference was that Sam would be there too... and they'd have a bathroom to use.

Bucky was actually looking forward to it despite the nerves he had about so many people being in his space at the same time. When his post-nightmare-insomnia would strike, most nights as of late, he'd spend hours cleaning and rearranging his furniture.

It was hard to admit that just the thought of one night with his closest friends could overwhelm him so easily. He was supposed to be stronger than that.

When the train stopped, he shook off that thought and instead tried to think of what he could get his sisters and his mother for Christmas. He knew that Becca liked candles and the color yellow. Soph would probably like something for her cat, maybe a toy or one of those stupid outfits that she put the poor animal in. Winnie was a mystery to him, just like she'd always been. She was the chaotic sister, the one that went to California instead of staying in the area like the rest of the family. The art student. He'd have to ask Becca what to get her. He'd inherited their father's tendency to give absolutely terrible gifts.

He spent the rest of the walk home laughing to himself at the memory of when their father had given them all matching Muppet-themed pajamas. He wasn't even sure what the thought was behind that, none of them had ever been massive fans of the Muppets in the first place.

Thinking about his father always hurt a little bit, but it was getting easier. The man had died when Bucky was overseas, he'd gotten a short reprieve to attend the funeral but without Steve there... well, he'd spent the whole time being strong for his mother and his sisters. He didn't get to grieve until after he was home and by then there was too much to grieve for him to process it all. His dad, his arm, his health...

He was forced to shake out of that thought too, thankful to finally come back to his front door. The doorman was sat behind the front desk with his feet up, watching something on his phone. He didn't look up when Bucky passed him.

Bucky made it to the elevator before the guy spoke up. "Hey, Nine E! You've got a coat back here," He called out, sitting up and pulling out the peacoat he'd given the neighbor earlier. He nodded, collecting it and folding it over his metal arm before walking back to the elevator and climbing on.

Once the doors closed, he examined the coat. There was a receipt for a sandwich in the pocket and a long strand of brown hair on the collar. When he folded it again, he caught a wave of something floral... and maybe peaches? He chuckled, though he wasn't quite sure why.

The elevator stopped on his floor and he stepped off, already back to thinking about what he had to do before Friday rolled around. Maybe he should get something like those fancy cheese platters his mom always got for parties... He was so busy considering the food he'd serve that he almost tripped over the back of Chinese food sat at his front door.

He picked it up and glanced inside to find a note scrawled on the back of the receipt:

Sorry about your soup. Thought I'd pay you back for that and the coat. Also sorry about the coat.

- Natasha, 8E.  (from the elevator)

He folded the note into his pocket and unlocked the door. After putting away the food and hanging up the coat, Bucky dropped onto the couch like a bag of stones. There was always so much to do...

He decided that he would allow himself 20 minutes to relax. So, he unattached his arm and set it to charge, returning to the couch a moment later so that he could kick up his feet.

Three hours he woke up in complete darkness to someone knocking on his door.