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saturnznct · 3 years ago

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attack on titan!au, mark lee x reader

word count: 3.4k words

warnings: head injury, physical fighting (for training purposes), descriptions of death, mention of knives and cult

note: will be working through this series slowly! hope u all like this xx

nct dream aot au masterlist

The first time you laid eyes on Mark Lee was in that iconic dusty courtyard. Bearing in mind he was being ripped into by Commander Shadis.

‘And what about you, Lee?’

A twelve year old Mark Lee’s eyes shone with tears of fear. He was clearly somewhat sheltered from the horrors of this world; hailing from the town of Jinae, southern Wall Maria alongside fellow cadet Marco Bott. The two of them were the image of innocence, although they barely knew each other, both round-faced and freckly.

Mark had cowered beneath Shadis’ gaze, likely having never been spoken to in such a way, especially not by his loving family. You felt drawn to him. What was he doing here?

That night he barely said much, nibbling on stale bread. You could tell he did not want to eat, but food was scarce, so he kind of had to. He listened intently to the words of Eren Yaeger who spoke about his experiences with the Colossal Titan on that infamous day two years ago.

Days faded into weeks. You passed your own balance test with flying colours, as did Mark, who’s face would become screwed up whenever his feet left the ground.

While you formed a casual alliance with Sasha, promising to go easy on each other during combat training, Mark swapped anecdotes with Marco and sharpened his wooden knife with Reiner.

One day Commander Shadis had demanded you pair up with Mikasa (likely because he was sick of you and Sasha throwing fake punches) and you were so distracted by Mark that she easily flipped you over, an ‘oof’ escaping your mouth as you hit the ground. When your back makes contact with the sand, your head snaps back, hitting the ground hard.

‘Wait, I didn’t mean that,’ Mikasa mumbles, seemingly unsure as to what to do.

Everything goes pitch black for a split second. When your eyes do open, your head is spinning, black spots dotting the sky above you like stars. You hear Commander Shadis yelling for the first-aid specialist cadets.

Admittedly in that moment you had absolutely no clue who was part of that squad. At this point in your training years, you were especially focused on yourself, working on your own skills and specialities. But when Mark Lee comes barrelling across the training yard your heart nearly leaps out of your chest.

‘Are you alright?’ He asks you as soon as he kneels down beside you, ‘can you see?’

Mark sounds far more concerned and more urgent than you feel, which you find somewhat charming, but your head is still spinning.

‘Mark, remember the procedures,’ Thomas Wagner seems to be somewhat supervising him.

‘Oh, uh,’ Mark holds up three fingers and waves them around as if to confuse you a little, ‘how many fingers am I holding up?’

He’s peering over you, almost like a pet trying to get your attention. You feel your chest swell at how cute he looks.

You blink, trying to decide whether or not you should play up your injury for his attention or get up so you can continue training.

‘Three,’ you mutter, deciding that returning to combat training was worth more than gaining the sympathy of a cute boy.

Mark and Thomas exchange a look.

‘Do you think you can sit up?’ Mark asks, eyebrows furrowed together in concern.

‘I don’t know,’ you mumbled, ‘I’ll try…’

You prepare yourself to have to lift yourself off the dirty ground, but you jump about a mile in the air when he holds the back of your head in his hand, slowly supporting your head as you sat up.

‘I’m sorry, Y/N,’ Mikasa apologises quietly.

‘It’s okay,’ you croak, ‘it’s my fault.’

‘Come on Y/N, we’ll have to take you back to your dorm room to lay down,’ Thomas has a sharp tone of authority, so you don’t even try to argue.

‘Dude, she can’t even stand,’ Mark points out.

‘How about you carry her then,’ Thomas huffs, turning on his heel to deal with some other cadet’s grazed arm.

‘I-I-Is that okay?’ Mark stutters, hand still on the small of your back as he held you up.

You nod groggily, ‘it’s okay.’

And so he scoops you up in his arms, and you automatically cling onto his neck. Mark is incredibly gentle, hand under your leg splayed out as to not touch your thigh.

You’re sleepy at this point, so the walk back to your dorm house is slow.

Mark tilts you to the side to twist the doorknob, the door loudly creaking open.

‘Which bunk is yours?’

‘Right beside the window,’ you mumble, ‘bottom bunk.’

He walks you over slowly, almost as though you were a baby in his arms, before gently lowering you down into your bed.

‘Are you comfortable?’

You nod, shifting around under the duvet to try and get comfortable.

‘Good. I’ll send one of the girls in occasionally to check on you,’ he says, ‘I hope you feel better soon.’

And then he shuffles out, clicking the door shut as quietly as possible.

‘How’s your head?’

‘Huh?’

The cafeteria is relatively empty, it being late than the normal scheduled eating time. You had finished up with your cleaning duties a bit later than usual, hence why you were eating bread at nearly 10pm.

You had been interrupted by a certain Jinae resident.

‘Your head… have you been feeling better? I’ve been worried.’

‘You have?’ Your heart nearly skips a beat at the thought of him worrying about you, hoping that you’re alright, ‘I’m just fine Mark, all thanks to you.’

You don’t miss the way a pink blush creeps up his neck, and he avoids your gaze.

‘It’s what I’m trained to do,’ he brushes it off, ‘what kind of medic would I be if I couldn’t help?’

‘You’re incredibly selfless.’

‘Not really,’ Mark shrugs, ‘it’s the right thing to do.’

’Still selfless.’

He looks up at you then, trying to read your emotions.

‘I just mean that, in this world, people are selfish. People always care more about saving themselves than saving others. So you’re different, in that way.’

‘You think people care more about themselves than others?’

‘I-I saw a lot of things during the fall of Maria.. When my town was under attack, the titans had destroyed some of the houses, and there were people inside, who couldn’t get out. And they were shouting- screaming for someone to help them move the wood or the rubble but nobody listened. I told my dad to help them, obviously I couldn’t myself because I was only nine, but he didn’t. He told me that we had to leave ourselves, that we were responsible for ourselves. Now I know that those people died. They died because my father refused to help, because I was too weak. That’s most of the reason why I’m here, to help people if that were to happen again.’

‘I think your dad just cared about his family.’

‘In the refugee camps, I saw people steal food from other families, have knife fights over money and blankets. We were all in the same position, displaced and traumatised. I don’t know why people were so unwilling to help each other.’

‘Where are your family now?’ Mark asks innocently enough, but you feel your heart sink a bit.

‘My dad was sent out on the recapture mission, you know, when they tried to retake Wall Maria. He died.’

‘Oh I’m-‘ Mark looks at you with wide eyes, as if he had no idea how to react.

‘I don’t really feel any way about it,’ you admit, interrupting him, ‘he was comfortable letting those people trapped in the houses die terrified. I’m sure he had enough time to prepare himself for death before he left, and as he rode his horse out of Trost. I knew he was going to die when he said goodbye to me, and I was quite numb to it then too. My mother left me and my siblings alone in that camp and went to work in the interior to actually make money. I imagine she’s a prostitute or something. I don’t know. I don’t hear from her.’

‘Does she know you’re here?’

‘Maybe. My siblings may have told her. Anyway. Enough about me, what about you?’

‘My older brother is in the Military Police,’ Mark explains, ’the grand jewel of our family… I think my parents want me to follow in his footsteps. But I have no idea what I want to do yet.’

‘Do you think you’ll get in the top ten?’

‘Probably not. I’m not as fit or strong as Reiner, or even Annie. And I don’t have Armin’s brains or intellect. I’m kind of just in the middle.’

‘You have Eren’s will,’ you point out, ‘you care about helping people.’

‘You’re really comparing me to Eren?’ Mark chuckles.

‘I’m not saying you’re arrogant, just that you have the passion.’

‘I know. I just don’t think I have the passion for being a member of the Military Police. I don’t think they really help people as much as I want to.’

‘They’re very culty,’ you grimace, ‘so weird.’

Mark chuckles, ‘you’re not wrong. Every time I see my brother he’s walking around the interior with a huge gun, probably bullying some random kids.’

‘Do you know what regiment you want to go into?’ You ask.

‘I’m still weighing my options,’ he shrugs, ‘the Garrison always seemed like the easy route, just patrolling the streets and sitting around all day. But now they’re basically partners with the Survey Corps. If the walls get broken, they have to fight alongside each other. Either way, I’m fighting titans. It’s mainly just a decision of how often I want to.’

’Wall Rose hasn’t fallen,’ you point out, ‘it’s been nearly three years.’

‘As time goes on, it gets more likely,’ he remarks darkly, eyes fixed on the table, ‘by the sounds of it, this colossal titan seems intelligent. Who knows when it will decide to strike next. Our lecturer said that titan behaviour is incredibly unpredictable.’

‘Don’t you think we’ll be prepared enough to fight by then?’

‘It’s the Royal Government that comes up with the evacuation and fighting strategies. They care more about the preservation of the interior than those in the outer walls. They probably half-arsed the whole plan. As for our training, remember what Commander Shadis said on our first day. Most of us will just be titan feed in the end.’

‘You’re strong though, Mark,’ you state gently, as if he were sobbing and you were trying to console him.

‘You think so?’

‘I know you are. I watch you fight for future every single day.’

Mark stays silent, mulling over your words.

‘You really inspire me to try harder myself. And you’ll be an incredible soldier.’

When Mark continues to be silent, your eyes dart around the room. You catch the gaze of Sasha, who is stuffing her face with the tiny amount of leftovers.

She wiggles her eyebrows at you teasingly, before getting up and walking out of the cafeteria.

‘Nice one Y/N!’ Mark yells as you land a kick on Sasha’s shin, prompting her to fall to the floor clutching her leg.

‘Ow, Y/N!’ She shrieks, ‘I thought you said you would go easy on me!’

‘No titan will go easy on you, Braus,’ you hear Annie comment flatly.

Sasha huffs while Mark comes up behind you, gently turning you around by your elbow and giving you a high ten.

‘You’ve gotten so much better recently,’ Mark compliments, ‘I’m so proud of you!’

’Thanks Mark,’ you grin, trying to ignore the way your heart skips a beat by his words.

‘Yeah, nice going,’ Sasha grumbles, wiping down her now dusty thighs and shins, before turning on her heel and walking off to find Connie.

‘I still feel as though my fighting skills are a bit lacking to be honest,’ he confesses, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

‘Really? Who have you been practicing with?’

‘…Armin.’

‘Ah.’

‘Not to say that he’s weak or anything- he’s definitely not. There’s just a certain level you can get to where you just can’t improve anymore.’

No, I know what you mean,’ you try to empathise.

‘Maybe we can practice together? I-I mean, your usual partner is kind of… limping away, and I just think that you’re really great at this kind of stuff-‘

‘Mark,’ you giggle, reaching out and touching his shoulder, ‘it’s okay. We can fight. But just know, I’ll win.’

You take a few steps back as he laughs nervously. You drop your smile for a much more intimidating glare, raising your arms up.

‘Ready, Lee?’

Mark nods, awkwardly holding his own arms up to mirror your own.

You both stare at each other for a few seconds before either one of you strikes. You lunge forwards at him, swinging your right arm around his neck, to trap him in a headlock. He splutters in your ear, flailing his own limbs around in an attempt to wriggle out of your grip, but fails to do so when you throw out your leg and clip the side of his ankle with your foot, sending both of you to the ground.

He lands first, back impacting against the ground with a thud and a grunt from Mark.

You had imagined that he would let you go as he tumbled to the ground, but he doesn’t, clinging onto your arms and bringing you down with him.

A split second later, you’re also making contact with something, but not the ground. Your abdomens clash together, causing you to make an automatic ‘oof’ sound.

It takes you a while to adjust to the situation. You’re face to face, legs tangled together. There’s orange dust in Mark’s hair, sweat glistening on his forehead, eyes squinting while trying to get used to the sun, cheeks and nose red with the heat, lips-

There’s a few moments of silence, the two of you studying each others faces.

‘Ar-are you ok?’ You stammer, and for a few seconds he does not respond, still just staring at you.

‘Oh! I’ll get off,’ you shake your head, unraveling your twisted legs and clambering off of him, much to Mark’s silent disappointment.

‘Uh, you did good!’ You murmur, ‘just, um, try not to be caught off guard, next time.’

When you turn to walk away, you don’t fail to notice the way Krista and Mina are sitting on the steps of the watchtower, whispering frantically to each other.

You don’t see Mark for a few days after that. Training becomes infinitely more rigorous, since you were split into four groups and sent to different parts of the forest for field training.

You had spent several days trekking through the rain and snow with your backpack on, and afterwards spending a few days recuperating.

Mark was in a different group than you, hence why you did not see him. It feels weird that he’s not there, like there’s a part of you missing, but overall you somewhat enjoy your few days away.

It also gives you the perfect opportunity to completely forget about your weird moment during your fight, and focus on building relationships with other cadets.

‘You don’t think Marco is cute?’ Mina exclaims with wide eyes.

‘No, I mean he’s ok-‘

‘Just okay?’ Hannah Diamant replies, absolutely stunned at your indifference.

‘She only says so because she has her eyes on Lee,’ Sasha teases, sticking her tongue out when you turn to glare at her.

‘Do not!’ You argue.

‘Do too!’ Sasha is in fits of giggles, ‘and he clearly likes you too.’

‘I doubt it,’ you mumble, suddenly feeling quite embarrassed.

’Nah, he definitely likes you,’ Mina chimes in.

Unbeknownst to you, a certain blonde had been paying a bit of extra attention to your conversation.

Hence why you were here now, violently stabbing at your dinner with a fork, glaring holes into Krista Lenz’s back while she whispered to Mark Lee.

‘I thought she was going out with that Ymir girl?’ You don’t have a clue who’s speaking to you. Your brain is swimming with anger, so fuzzy you can hardly think straight.

When Krista goes to whisper in Mark’s ear again, she places a hand on his shoulder, after which you’re plotting ways in which you could cut her fingers off.

’I wouldn’t worry,’ Sasha shrugs, ‘we know, and I mean we all know he’s in love with you.’

‘Even if you’re right, which you are not, I’m not her.’

‘Don’t be so worried you idiot,’ Mina half snaps half chuckles, ‘you’re gorgeous. And a total catch, obviously. Mark Lee would be dumb to not want you.’

Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.

‘What the actual fuck,’ you mutter, sitting straight up in your bottom bunk bed, coming centimetres from smacking your head.

You whip your head in the direction of the source of the noise.

And there he stands, Mark Lee, in the purple night at your window.

‘What the hell?’ You mouth.

He beckons, asking you to come outside.

You give him an incredulous look, trying to be as quiet as physically possible while getting out of bed and putting on your jacket and boots.

‘What sort of time do you call this?’ You exclaim, exasperated.

‘The best time to go to the lake.’

You can’t help but notice the smirk on his face as he turns on his heel, walking down the gravel path.

You quickly look around for possible bystanders, before following him.

His lantern lights the way as you walk down the hill in a comfortable silence, arms swinging at every bump and skip in your step.

The lake is glittering at this time of night, especially because of how high and bright the moon is in the sky.

‘I like to sit and have picnics in the moon rather than the sun. The food doesn’t melt and I don’t get sunburned.’

‘We’re having a picnic?’ You practically squeak, eyes widening to basically the same size as the moon above.

‘Well, uh, no, we are in a food shortage,’ Mark stammers, ‘but I did swipe some bread from Armin. Well I mean, he gave it to me, said he would take one for the team or whatever…’

’Thank you Mark,’ you interrupt him, grinning uncontrollably, ‘this is really sweet.’

‘But if it’s any constellation, I would’ve loved to have made you a picnic. When they take back the wall I promise I’ll make up a nice spread of food.’

‘Where’s all this come from, Mark?’ You wonder aloud.

‘I’ve just had a realisation recently,’ he admits, gulping.

‘What is it?’

‘I really like you, Y/N,’ he confesses, taking both of your hands in his and rubbing them with his thumbs, ‘and I know that you probably don’t feel the same, and that we definitely have much bigger things to focus on, but-‘

You cut him off by practically launching yourself at him, kissing him.

For a moment he is stiff as a board underneath you with his surprise, before relaxing and reciprocating your kiss.

For a while you sit there, under the watchful eye of the moon, eventually peeling away from each other when you become breathless.

‘I like you too, Mark. Being with you takes me away from this horrible reality. And I don’t know what the future will be like, but I know that I want you in it.’

‘I feel exactly the same way,’ he whispers, still holding your hands.

‘We have to pick our regiments really soon. I think that I might join the survey corps,’ you say, staring out into the lake.

‘I’ll go wherever you go,’ Mark murmurs, rubbing your cheek with his hand, which you lean into.

You sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes, your head resting on his shoulder, Mark occasionally turning his head to kiss your hair.

‘What made you decide to tell me this now?’ You ask.

‘Well, let’s just say I got some encouragement from Krista and Sasha.’

’I should’ve known,’ you chuckle, ‘I’ll get them back later.’

Mark laughs, perking up slightly as though he had remembered something.

‘Ready to crack open the bread, baby?’

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gemtail · 4 years ago

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Character Status and Predictions as Of Today’s Episode (minor spoilers for chapter 5)

Team rwby Ruby: Woot woot! Our heroine got some TV time! She’s famous!... She’s also about to get traumatized. She’ll survive at least, right?

Weiss: Hey, guys! Her story line is coming to a close! How exciting!... she may or may not have anymore family after this. Welp... at least she’s got her team... I think?

Blake: Good kitty girl letting the team cuddle up to her! Extra pets for her! Might be seeing her dad again if he comes to help... or he might witness her die.

Yang: Houston, we have a problem. Oh, right, we can’t contact houston! Welp... Mantle is more fucked than she thought. She’s now facing a problem her fists might not be able to solve.

Team JNR

Jaune: Same boat as Yang.

Ren: His emotional break down has been interrupted by Ruby’s broadcast and now he’s back to the weather which appears to be cloudy with a 100% chance of grimm and this just in! Chances of flooding in Mantle are also about 90% and this water is black... So ya know, no more time to be mad at the fact that he’s and co are huntsman. Major death flags.

Nora: Close to death but in recovery. About to have some badass scars though! She’ll survive for now... But just in case: death flags.

The rest of the Schnee Family

Jacques: In jail where he belongs. He can stay there. Death flags.... death flags everywhere and well deserved.

Whitley: Can’t decide if he wants to be scum like daddy dearest or ask one of the women in his family for a hug... There’s still chance for redemption, boy! Go ask Weiss for forgiveness and hug it out!... or stubbornly don’t do that and wait for her to save your ass. Also death flags but he’s got the set up for redemption.

Ironwood’s real puppe- I mean, er... Winter: About to find out if her old friend is alive and if she is, force her to do something she doesn’t want to do. Iron daddy will make everything better, right? Likely will have to choose between her sister and Iron daddy.

Team STRQ:

Summer: Better off dead at this point instead of the new fan theories people are making about her and the hound.

Tai: Worried sick. Raven’s semblance would be very nice right now. Might come over if Raven is asked nicely?

Raven: Has no good excuse to sit this out unless she’s either still too chicken or she and Tai made up but forgot to use protection again and has another one in the oven. I really hope she comes in later as a pleasant surprise.

Qrow: Still mourning his would have been husband. Might escape jail either because Robyn rolls high on charisma with Harriet or Watts rolls high on intelligence.

Ironwoods other puppe- Ace Ops! I mean Ace Ops!

Harriet: In denial about her master. This hare can’t figure out if she wants to shake hands with the Robyn or not. About to force a downed comrade into doing something she disagrees with. Death flags...

Vine: Hard to say other than that he’s about to force a downed comrade into doing something she disagrees with. Who’s the puppet again? Death flags...

Elm: Same as Vine. Death flags

Marrow: Good boy misses his friends but currently still likes the taste of boots... but they’re starting to get a bad taste... right? Right? Currently Iron daddy’s bitch like his coworkers... *sigh* Also *heavy sigh* death flags...

Cinder and Co

Cinder: Bratty kid who’s only using Salem for her own gain. That’s playing with fire, girl. She’s gonna get it if Emerald and Neo take her back to mama Salem... and when Salem finds out. Something tells me she’s gonna take her anger out on Emerald for this loss since her semblance, the only thing Cinder likes about her, was useless...

Emerald: Poor girl just wants to protect her girlfriend... still doesn’t understand that it’s totally one sided. Her ‘girlfriend’ isn’t going to be happy with her for simping too hard.

Neo: Only here to avenge her boyfriend and then leave. Got beaten up by a grandma instead. Doesn’t quite understand she’s a scapegoat yet but probably will in a bit.

Others

Ironwood: Permitted someone access to the inside of an innocent girl’s head. Ironically paralleling Qrow in entrusting someone evil to help him out... probably won’t end well for him, either. Also Ironically allowed Amity to go up but didn’t do anything to help or protect Penny. Like wtf, man?! More like General Asshole, am I right? Currently getting played like a fiddle.

Penny: Has someone inside her who is about to probably make her do things she doesn’t want to do... like kill people and forfeit the relic. You did great, sweetie! I hope Watts dies for what he’s about to do to you! Death flags or wreck flags.

Watts: About to force an innocent girl into doing something she doesn’t want to do. Well deserved death flags for that... also, Salem won’t need him after this. Hey, Harriet! Give him an extra punch in the face for us!

Hazel: JUSTICE IS BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF KIDS SO OZPIN WON’T KILL ANYMORE KIDS! NOT A HYPOCRITE AT ALL! Back burner villain otherwise.

Salem: Proud of Ruby for giving the world a wonderful presentation about her. And Tyrian is Mr. Bigglesworth to her. Ozpin being into dominant women confirmed.

Tyrian: Salem’s current pet confirmed.

Mercury: Likely will be that asshole that says ‘I told you so!’ to Emerald if Cinder does turn out to chew her ass for ‘failing’ her (AKA; being too much of a simp). I may want this boy to have a chance at redemption but I will applaud anyone who hits him if he reacts that way. Back burner villain for now, too... *sigh*

Oscar: Getting beat up by an angry and very buff old man... poor kid. He needs help *eyes Emerald and Neo*

Ozpin: ‘You’re doing great, sweetie!’ he says to his current human meat shield- er... vessel.

Maria: Baddest grandma in existence! Here to kick ass and take names! Bad children get granny’s scythe to the face! Has death flags but will probably survive this.

Pietro: Doing about as well as any father in his situation. Has death flags... either due to falling out of the sky via Amity or due to giving his life to salvage Penny. Your work here is done for now, old man. You did great!

Robyn: still waiting for that handshake but failed her charisma check.... just barely though. BONUS

Gheera: DON’T WORRY, BLAKE! DADDY’S COMING! Currently amassing an army in Mistral.

Ilia: DON’T WORRY, BLAKE! DADDY’S COMING! Joining the army in Mistral.

Sun and Neptune: Dude...

#rwby #rwby v8 #rwby volume 8 #rwby spoilers #predictions #funny #exciting #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #character predictions

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thevengeanceuniverse · 4 years ago

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Music is Worthless [COMPLETED]

A twist on the soulmate theme where Tony hears the music of other people’s souls. Warning, ready yourself for angst and pining (but there’s a happy end).

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Tony learned from very young that others didn’t hear the music. The music that underlaid a person, their own symphony that exposed the truth of what they were behind the fake smiles and the pleasant expressions.

It was constantly there, sometimes soft, sometimes loud, sometimes heartbreakingly sorrowful. He loved the times it was bright and joyful, inviting you to rock your knees to the melody. And when he was young and innocent, Tony danced to the music playing in his mind with uninhibited freedom, letting his childish laughter intertwine with it and create new harmony.

That didn’t last long. Howard lost the charm in Tony’s tales of the music quickly, shouting to grow the hell up and stop telling lies. Tony didn’t understand how his father could say he was lying when the music was so obvious. It was there all the time when there were people around. Tony only heard silence when he was with himself, so surely his father would hear the music he himself was producing.

It was Jarvis who told him the truth. His father wasn’t the one who was deaf to his music. Tony was the one with the problem.

He was the one hearing music no one else could hear.

The sent him to doctors to “fix” him. ENT specialists, neurologists, psychologists, anyone who might be able to figure where the delusions of sound were coming from. Test after test after inconclusive test, being poked and prodded and questioned and given that same pitying look. That’s the boy who was born Stark mad. His poor parents, they have so much to deal with. Insert sad head shake here. But I guess genius comes with a price.

Maria became more and more distant as time passed. Being married to Howard was its own difficulty, but having a son who could hear things that no one else could? No. It wasn’t getting any better and eventually, she just stopped wanting to know anything at all.

By the time Tony was six, he informed everyone that things had changed. One day he woke up and the music was just gone, he told his doctors, his parents. He didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. He was better.

He lied. It was hard in the beginning, to stop reacting to the music outwardly. But he knew that it wasn’t safe anymore for him to mention it, that being broken had punishments attached to it. Only Jarvis knew.

Even with everything, he was sometimes grateful for the music, for the warning it granted him. He knew his mother was broken and melancholy inside before she even started taking her sleeping pills during the day. Knew from the sound of the banging drums that his father was in a vindictive mood before he even heard the footsteps. The music warned him, and he always ran to Jarvis in that time because Jarvis was calm classical music that played over his frayed nerves like a rock skipping gently over a placid lake. Soothing him while he rocked in place, hands clamped to his ears and tears streaming down his face, everything around him loud and disjointed and breaking over him like waves trying to drown. In those ways, Jarvis saved him.

The silence after his parents died was worse than any of the music he had heard over the years. It ate at him incessantly like rats nibbling at his toes, sharp reminders that he was alone, that they were dead and never coming back. In those moments, he prayed for loud banging drums to force his eardrums to bleed, melancholy music to pull at his bones and make tears fall from his eyes. But there was nothing. Only emptiness.

He broke into Howard’s drinking cabinets on one of those nights, laughing hysterically at the realization that this was now his study. Howard was never coming back. Everything was his now, but he didn’t want it.

The alcohol blurred his awareness enough that he could fool himself that the sounds of the record player were people. That he wasn’t alone. He fell asleep there, sprawled on the couch and liquor bottle in his hand, clutched like the only lifeline he had.

Jarvis found him the next morning, the disapproving look on his face a clear enough message. Tony may be a prodigy and wealthy beyond imagination, but he was still underage and drinking alcohol was illegal.

Tony became very good at hiding it.

MIT Tony didn’t waste time hiding his drinking or trying to make friends. He could walk into a party and have 10 people hanging off his arm in 2 minutes or less. Sycophants who wanted to be friends with the Stark heir to millions, trying to use sex or charm or alcohol to win over him.

It became a game to him, to see who he could mess with by using their music against them. He sunk his teeth into the secret inner parts of people they didn’t know were exposed to him, prying open their carefully crafted shells to the soft white underbelly of their insecurities.

He turned the game around, mastered it, playing with the hearts and minds of the people who offered their bodies to him, expecting that he would fall into the honeyed trap and get stuck. He had no compunctions, his own heart locked away with the dead. Even Jarvis was gone now.

But then came Rhodey and his jazz music, a beat so tantalizing that for the first time in ages, Tony was tempted to dance again. And when Rhodey was happy, oh that was when the trumpets came out and everything was just 1000 times better. Tony fell for Rhodey’s music before he even spoke to him. And when he told Rhodey he heard things that no one else did—openers like that were sure to push sane people like James Rhodes away—Rhodey just shrugged and said: “Well, if that means you won’t complain about my snoring then that’s great.”

Tony did complain about his snoring because Rhodey was worse than the heaviest train car, but it all faded into the music of who Rhodey was. And once Tony tasted that unequivocal acceptance, he attached himself like a limpet and never let go.

Even crazier, Rhodey never asked him to, always holding on just as hard.

Yinsen had gentle music that reminded Tony of Jarvis, the same kind of person to be a shelter in a storm. His music was lullabies, nursery rhymes that were dark and cheerful all at once, an incongruous soundtrack to the sound of his hammering his desperate attempt at salvation together.

Listening to the bare moments when he would talk about his family, Tony saw how Yinsen’s music fit him. He was a father, through and through. The kind of father unfamiliar to Tony, the one that loved his kids with all his heart and all he wanted was to get back to them, reunited again.

He wove hope to the sounds of Yinsen’s soft music, praying to some entity he didn’t know if he truly even believed in for a chance. Just one chance.

Hovering over Yinsen’s broken body riddled with bullet holes, he listened to the music grow softer and softer until it disappeared altogether. Hating himself that he had been selfish enough only to pray for the one chance.

Merchant of Death.

Returning from Afghanistan confronted him with the reality of his moniker, the tens of thousands of souls that rested on his conscience because of the weapons that were his legacy and the gift he had given the world.

No wonder he had no music. With a death toll like that under his feet, Tony doubted he had a soul at all for music to stem from.

He should have known about Obie. The man’s organ music had always been unnecessarily dramatic, but Obie’s music hadn’t changed in all the years Tony had known him—even before Howard had kicked the bucket. Tony had assumed that all the political and economic manoeuvring the man did on a regular basis that affected his personal music, that the fact that he was prepared all the time to deal with damage control became who he was.

Turns out that Tony still had the capacity to be naïve to the worst extent because Stane wasn’t prepared so he could save the company, he was just prepared to be an outright backstabbing son of a bitch.

Lying there in that dreaded silence only interrupted by his own gasping breath, Tony wondered if this was how he was going to die. Surviving loss and torture only to be betrayed by the music he had come to rely on. Given hope and then having it seized away.

Tony didn’t know if he felt relieved to hear the violins that preceded Pepper’s rescue. He didn’t want to hear the music anymore.

Don’t waste it…Don’t waste your life…St…ark….

Yinsen saved him again.

“I am Iron Man.”

Steve Rogers was silent. In a world populated with people who had their own music, Tony had never met anyone alive who was silent the way Steve Rogers was. It wasn’t soft music, it wasn’t something with long pauses interspersed, it wasn’t anything at all. His very existence should be impossible. And yet.

Tony went on the defensive immediately, reminded of all the instances of loss that preceded quiet. Maria, Howard, Jarvis, Yinsen, even Stane.

He no longer wanted to hear the music if he could help it, not after Obadiah. These days he was good about separating himself and blasting music that didn’t have feelings or secrets intertwined with them, the living people that entered his life for more than a few hours’ time few and far between.

He was fine with silence when it meant there was no one there, but no music with a living human being disconcerted him. As far as he had known, he was the only one in the world who had no music, but Tony had developed hypotheses to explain that, all of which based on the fact that he was broken in some way.

But Steve Rogers wasn’t broken, he was the perfect specimen of a man and a hero. Steve Rogers was honourable and good-hearted and had a beautiful smile and Tony knew all of that without needing to be able to hear his music.

But no music meant he couldn’t read Steve, couldn’t protect himself against the mystery of his thoughts and emotions, couldn’t prepare himself for the inevitable fallout.

He was Tony Stark, there was always going to be an inevitable fallout.

With Steve Rogers, Tony was what he always wanted to be, like everyone else but he hated it. Being like everyone else meant doubt and insecurity and never truly knowing the right thing to say. It meant vulnerability. He wanted nothing to do with Steve Rogers and his impossible silence.

Thankfully, Steve didn’t want anything to do with him either.

The fought the Chitauri. They won.

Tony was plagued for endless nights about the complete, soul-sucking silence of space. In his dreams, he never returned. He continued to float unto eternity, the silence unbreakable by any kind of life. Tony was alone. Always alone.

He woke up gasping those nights, leaping from the bed and the room and going into the common areas of the Tower where his new occupants were taking up space with their stuff strewn all over. It took time to adjust to their presence in the Tower, but after the emptiness of space, he wrapped their music around him like a security blanket and tried to find peace.

Sighing when he heard no one around, Tony made his way to the coffee machine, already planning to head to his lab and blast music there until the chill in his bones was forgotten. Tonight was a bad night and his hands were still trembling slightly, cold and anxiety twisted in his gut in a toxic mixture.

Hearing a shuffling behind him, Tony whirled around and came face to face with Steve who was coming in from one of the side balconies. God, he did not want to be near Steve now, couldn’t stand to try and wrap his mind around the mental gymnastics that came with their every interaction.

“Hey Tony,” Steve greeted softly, his body swathed in a giant fluffy blanket.

“Cap,” Tony returned, nodding before turning back to grab his coffee. He didn’t know if he should linger and make awkward midnight small talk or if he should just make a break for it.

They had reached a place of congeniality, but Tony didn’t know if that was just because Steve didn’t really care one way or another or if he actually hated Tony’s guts and just wanted to keep things professional for the sake of the team. That was the problem with Steve, Tony just never knew and he was still struggling to figure out how to deal with that.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Steve asked, pulling out a chair at the table and settling in. Apparently, they were doing small talk.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Tony quipped, grabbing another mug. If Steve didn’t drink the coffee, it would just mean more for Tony and even at two in the morning there was no such thing as too much coffee for Tony.

“The serum means I don’t need as much sleep. More often than not, I’m just lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling and talking to JARVIS.” He accepted the coffee, wrapping his large hands around the cup.

Tony snorted. “You talk to JARVIS? About what?”

Steve was silent for a moment, his finger idly tapping his cup and his eyes focused on the ripples the movement made. “There’s a lot that I don’t know about the future. It’s like being transported to a whole other world, something familiar and alien all at once. I’ve been doing research, trying to catch up with the last 70 years, but there’s a lot to cover.”

His voice was matter of fact, but Tony knew how difficult it was to feel like you didn’t belong in the space you were in, like you could no longer find solid footing in a world that had been your own.

In the months after his kidnapping, he walked around feeling as if he was looking at a distorted reality of what he knew. Everything was the same except for little things here and there, but it no longer felt like home, like a reality he could trust.

Instead of saying any of that, he remained silent and the two of them sat lost in their own thoughts, the quiet surprisingly not at all awkward like Tony had suspected it would be.

“What’s your excuse?” Steve eventually said.

“For?” Tony finished his cup and got up to get a fresh batch, lifting the carafe in wordless offering.

Steve shook his head and Tony returned to his place across from him. “Not sleeping.”

“Genius burns at all hours of the day, gumdrop,” Tony said, winking cheekily, “and sleep can’t hold a candle to the miracles that go on in my lab.” He grinned at the tiny quirk of Steve’s lips, feeling like he had won something by making Steve smile even that little bit.

“What do you do down there anyway? I know you work on projects, but you’re in there so much we never see you.”

“I’m a busy man.” Tony shifted uncomfortably, knowing that Steve is hinting at the fact that Tony had kept himself at a distance from the rest of the team. They’ve made moves to include him, inviting him out for drinks or for team movie nights but Tony always declined. With his gift, he knew more about the various members of the team more than they would ever want him to know—then he wanted to know.

Steve hums noncommittally and Tony’s guard immediately goes up, wondering what Steve’s thinking, if he’s silently judging Tony for not having time to spend with the team. It’s not like he could explain what he’s really thinking. If he did, at best they’d think it was another practical joke or one of those billionaire eccentricities that Tony does because “he wants attention.” At worst, they’d force him to get a psych consult and bench him from the team. No, it wasn’t worth it.

Knowing it was time to end whatever this little moment was, Tony rose and got another cup for the road. “Well, this was fun, Cap but speaking of my lab, I probably should head there now.”

“Wait.” Steve rose too. “Can I come with you?”

“You want to see my lab?” Steve nodded and Tony thought about having the other man in what was probably his most sacred space. But this interaction was the most civil they had been, and Tony liked the glimpse of Steve he had seen and though he didn’t want to admit it, he wanted to see more.

It was almost like a challenge: How to Decipher the Enigma that is Steve Rogers. And Tony could never resist a challenge, or a mystery.

“Okay, follow closely, young padawan. I’m going to blow your fucking mind.”

Tony gets used to the presence of Steve in his life, his silence that had been so initially unnerving becoming an unexpected gift to him. Steve just plants himself in the couch in the corner in his lab, leaving and coming as if he owned the place and as antisocial Tony could get sometimes, he never felt the need to push him out.

It was nice, having company. It spoiled him. He wasn’t used to having anyone (except JARVIS) listen to him when he spoke, let alone listened enough to ask pertinent questions.

But though Steve wasn’t an engineer, he was an artist and a strategist. He had a keen ability to extrapolate how multiple moving pieces could come together as a cohesive unit and his insights were—surprisingly enough for Tony who rarely had someone who could make him fall into spirals of thought and genius that weren’t his own—inspiring.

They got closer and the team got better with their friendship. Tony allowed Steve to convince him to bond with the team, agreeing to a couple movie nights at first and then team bonding outings to play laser tag of all things.

Even after all this, Tony still hadn’t figured out why Steve was silent, but he did discover three things almost as alarming.

1. He had fallen in love with Steve Rogers.

2. Steve Rogers had not fallen in love with him.

3. When Steve Rogers touched him, he could hear the music too.

It started small.

They’d been working together on one of Tony’s vintage cars, Tony on his back with his hands buried in the elegant machine and Steve passing him the tools he needed. They’d been talking through what they were going to do so the background music had been low, when Natasha had walked in to ask them what they were feeling to eat.

A brush of hands when Steve passed Tony a tool he’d been looking for, and the blond paused what he was saying and tilted his head.

��Did you hear that?”

Natasha rose a brow in question. “What?”

“I don’t know. It sounded like something guttural…?” Tony froze from his position, ignoring the drip of oil down his arms. Natasha’s music today was low, guttural voices, like the meditative chanting music she used to calm her down when she was having a bad day. That it was playing with her emotions instead of her having to listen to it revealed that it was a good day for her, but no one but Tony knew that because he was supposed to be the only one to hear it.

“I guess I just imagined it,” Steve continued, shrugging unconcernedly. They spoke a little longer and Tony let her know what he wanted automatically, wondering if it was just a one-off.

The next time was one morning in the kitchen with Clint. He looked to be half-asleep and utterly unconcerned with Steve behind him who was humming while making pancakes, but he had the soundtrack of The Lion King playing in his head.

Lion King always meant that Clint was thinking of his brother and that was never a good day.

Grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl, Tony whipped up a banana and peanut butter sandwich and put it in front of Clint. He huffed out a surprised laugh when arms wrapped around his waist in a fond embrace.

Rolling his eyes, he patted Clint on the back while reaching out with the other to grab the cup Steve was handing over to him. Their hands brushed again and this time Steve jerked in surprise, letting go too soon. The hot cup jostled in their hold and tumbled to the floor, shattering and sending ceramic shards and hot liquid careening every which direction.

“Damn,” Steve swore. “Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”

Tony shot a quick mournful look at the coffee before he called out to Steve to don’t worry about it. “It’s fine, really. The cleaning bots will take care of it. Actually,” Tony looked around, “they should have been deployed already. JARVIS?”

“I’m afraid Captain Rogers has disabled the cleaner bots for the common areas, Sir.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I found Clint feeding them food like they were pets,” Steve replied, returning and aiming a sardonic look at Clint.

“They looked hungry!” Clint protested. “It was a humanitarian service really—”

“They’re robots—”

“—but they also have a grand purpose that needs to be fulfilled! And they get sad and listless if they can’t fulfill their duty. How would you feel if you couldn’t be Captain America anymore? Wouldn’t you want to fulfill your life’s purpose securing justice and freedom and whatever and whatever?”

“I want you to shut up now about the pet robots and help me clean.”

“It’s your fault!” Clint paused, brows scrunching together in confusion. “What happened anyway?”

Tony looked at Steve intently, not sure what answer he was hoping for.

“I thought—” Steve smiled sheepishly. “I thought I heard someone singing Hakuna Matata.”

Clint burst out laughing.

“Wow, Cap, must be your old age getting to you. Maybe you should go get your hearing checked out.”

Steve ended up giving as good as he got and they ended up bickering in the kitchen good-naturedly as they cleaned up. Through it all, Tony wondered if he should just grab Steve’s hand, press skin to skin and see if he could hear everything Tony heard. Every beat of a person’s true heart, every note of their inner emotions.

Did he truly want to test if he was no longer the only Listener in the world? Tony imagined what it would be like to no longer be the only one as Can You Feel the Love Tonight? played softly in the background.

Tony never has a chance to test his theory.

The next week, Steve found out that Bucky Barnes was alive.

Barnes took a hell of a long time to find, leading Steve in a merry chase around the world as he thoroughly waged war on any Hydra bases he had ever been housed in or heard whispers of.

Steve was gone more often than not, coming back for a few days every few months when he lost the trail, back to Tony so he could aim him in the right direction.

Tony didn’t blink at Steve’s increasing favours. He provided all the funds, created new algorithms for the search, researched the background of Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier program, kept the team together and safe during battle. He did not think about the fact that Steve had dropped everything at the mere mention of Bucky Barnes, that there were no more moments between the two of them.

He did not feel abandoned or used or any of those ridiculous dramatic emotions that would indicate that he was stupid enough to have expectations of a man he never truly had anything with. Even if he did, he was smart enough not to say anything that might reveal him. Horribly cheesy things like I need you or Don’t go.

Please don’t leave me.

Sifting through 70 years of torture and brainwashing protocol brought back his own nightmares. They blended together, making him remember the waterboarding, the yelling in his ears, the shock that lit him with painful intensity as car battery met with water and became electrocution.

Electrocution would turn into Barnes’ electroshock therapy and the hands holding down his arms would be bound to a chair. He would scream and scream, but there would be no sound. Gagged with the mouth guard, there would only be heartacheing, back-breaking, soul-shattering pain and that black hole of silence.

Once again, sleeping wasn’t the most successful experiment so far, but at least when he pushed himself far enough his body took over and knocked him out. He would catch a precious few hours before the nightmares came to say hi and then he would wake up with the trapped screams in his throat and get back to work.

It was like an alarm clock.

Even as he adjusted to his new normal, life decided to be the everlasting gift that it was and exposed a buried video from December 16th, 1991.

He threw up the first time he saw it, the image of Bucky Barnes killing Howard playing in his head over and over against the soundtrack of his mother having the life choked out of her.

Then he watched it obsessively, disturbed by finally seeing his parents after so many years with none of the accompanying music that made it feel like them. If he didn’t recognize their faces and voices, he could almost fool himself that it was strangers, people he didn’t know that wouldn’t make him feel grief and anger and sadness and every other negative emotion under the sun.

The one bare comfort he got out of it was that the main thing that Howard thought of as he was dying was helping Maria. Maybe he wasn’t such a heartless bastard after all.

He was still dead though.

He decided he wasn’t going to tell Steve, continuing to update him on the Winter Soldier’s movements and seeing him off to places unknown as scheduled.

He was so wrapped in the process of finding the man that he forgot what actually was supposed to happen when they found him. Until Steve landed the Quinjet on the Tower’s pad and out walked him and James Buchanan Barnes following like a dark, solemn shadow.

Tony locked down the lab immediately, bending over his knees as he struggled to breathe and remember what he’d been trying to convince himself of: Barnes was separate from the person responsible for the murder of his parents, that that sin lay at the Winter Soldier’s feet and the man had been tortured and had his memory and his very self wiped away like condensation on glass.

He didn’t come out of the lab for three days.

Tony was being an absolute creep and watching James Barnes through the safety of JARVIS’ many, many eyes in the sky. Barnes was subdued most of the time, always scanning the room as if he expected to be attacked at any moment and stiffening any time anyone touched him, even Steve.

But even as Steve’s face fell every time Barnes pulled away, Barnes’ face was impassive, set in a blank mask that said nothing of how he was feeling. It was as if he had no emotion at all. He watched everyone, and from where he was sequestered away, Tony watched him.

He decided to attempt his escape in the middle of the night when no one would see him. His stomach had started to cannibalize itself and all he had left was a moldy piece of bread. Tony wasn’t desperate enough to sink to that yet.

Peeking down from the elevator and seeing the lights off in the kitchen, he crept forward as carefully as he could while listening for any sounds of music or movement. When he heard nothing, he gave up on his Mission Impossible moment and strode into the kitchen, heading straight for the coffee pot.

The magic mix successfully brewing, he opened the fridge and started rummaging through the leftovers. Clint would be pissed that he’s taking the last of the Thai food, but Tony wasn’t worried. Thor was the only one you looked out for when stealing food, Tony didn’t even dare look in the direction of his PopTarts.

Popping the food in the microwave to reheat, he took the time when he was waiting to scrub some of the grease caked on his hands. He didn’t even remember how those got there.

“So you’re Tony Stark.”

Yelping, Tony whipped around to be confronted with one James Buchanan Barnes, shock and disbelief radiating through his core.

Holy shit, this motherfucker is Silent too.

Tony and Barnes stared at each other a long moment. Tony because he was trying to wrap his mind around two impossibly Silent people and Barnes because he just didn’t care to end it.

Packaging up his shock to deal with later, Tony plastered a welcoming grin on his face. “Sergeant Barnes, well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

Barnes forehead creased at Tony’s flirtatious tone, not responding even as he watched him. Tony was unnerved by the intensity of his attention, but he covered that with babble.

“I hope you’ve been having a wonderful stay here at Chez Stark, has Steve given you the grand tour yet?”

“I didn’t think you wanted me here, seeing as you’ve been avoiding me.” Barnes folded his arms across his chest, gaze still pinned on Tony.

“No, you misunderstand,” Tony waved off the accusations. “I’ve just been busy with a few very important projects—of which I would tell you about but then I’d have to kill you.”

Barnes gave him a once over sceptically. “I am absolutely sure I can take you.”

“Is that a diss?” Tony responded, astonished. “Do you actually have a sense of humour buried under all those scowly eyebrows, Robocop?”

Barnes shrugged succinctly.

“Ah, I see, a man of few words. Okay, Snowflake I’ll have you know that if I had the suit on, your ass would be kicked three ways to Sunday.”

“Maybe I’m too old for generation, but when people said that when I came from, you actually needed the ability to back up those words, Shortstuff.”

Tony let out an insulted squawk. “I am not short.”

Barnes raised a brow and Tony could almost hear the “Really?” Reaching behind him for Tony’s coffee cup, he offered it for Tony to take, only to pull it back and hoist it above his head the moment Tony reached out. Lunging for it, Tony came up short and ended up banging his knee on the bottom counter door on the way down.

“What are you, five?” Tony retorted scathingly, glaring when he caught the sound of Barnes’ snort. In response, the man just handed Tony his coffee without fuss, before pushing him into a chair at the table. Grabbing the food from the microwave, he put it on a plate in front of Tony with a quiet order, “Eat.”

Suddenly remembering that he was ravenous, Tony arrowed in on his (stolen) food, groaning happily when spices exploded on his tongue. Yea, free food really was the best.

“You know, you aren’t half bad Barnes,” Tony complimented as he finished up, wiping his face and putting his dishes in the sink.

“Is that something you decided right now?” Barnes paused and Tony felt the air on the back of his neck prickle. “Or is that what you decided after watching me on your cameras for three days?”

Tony debated whether to deny it or not, raising an innocently curious eyebrow when he decided that a silent response was the best response.

“I could hear the whir of the cameras adjusting on me when I came into the room.”

“How the hell did you hear something as soft as that?”

Barnes just tapped his ear casually, as if being able to hear near soundless noises even in a room full of people was an everyday occurrence.

“I wondered why you would want to keep an eye on me even when going to such lengths to avoid me. The only reason I can come up with is that you know I killed Howard and Maria Stark.” At this confession, emotion flashed across Barnes’ face too fast for Tony to read, like the bare glimpse of silvery fish in water

Tony flinched at the confirmation, at the reminder of what he had spent the last three days struggling to reconcile with. Taking a breath, he reminded himself of the other videos he had seen in his search for Barnes, the ones that revealed the extent that James Buchanan Barnes’ personality had been wiped away to become the Winter Soldier. He had felt connected to this man, and Tony pulled on those memories of connection, trying to let those emotions guide him.

“It wasn’t you, it was the Winter Soldier. You had no choice.” It sounded rehearsed, like Tony was just trying to convince himself of his own words and it wasn’t working, not on him and not on Barnes.

“Mr. Stark—”

“—was my father. And your friend.” Tony let out a sigh, giving up on trying to say the right thing and just going for the truth. “He was your friend, someone you knew and someone who knew you. I watched the video, listened to the way he greeted you a million times. He was happy to see you Sergeant Barnes, recognizing you even after all those years and relieved to see you alive and well. And that more than anything says that the man you were that day was not the man that my father had known, was not a man you chose to be. You were robbed of your choice that day, and many more days before and after that and I can’t blame you for things that were beyond your ability to control.”

Tony extended his hand. “But we both are in control of this situation right now, Sergeant Barnes and I choose to forgive you. But you also have to make the choice to forgive yourself.”

Barnes shook his head in a negative immediately and made no move to take Tony’s hand.

“It won’t be easy—trust me, you’re talking to the Merchant of Death here and I committed my sins fully in control of my decisions, but you have to at least be willing.”

Barnes scrutinized him for a long minute before slowly, hesitantly grasping Tony’s hand with his own and shaking firmly.

“Sergeant Barnes, it’s good to finally meet you. Welcome home.”

“Thank you, Tony. Call me Bucky.”

Bucky told Steve about Howard and Maria and about the fact that Tony had continued to search for him and welcomed him into his home even after discovering the fact that he murdered his parents.

Tony found out when Steve barged into his lab (which was no longer blacked-out thank you very much) and pulled him into a hug. Bewildered, Tony returned the embrace thoroughly confused as to what could cause this influx of emotion until he caught the soft thank yous pressed against his hair.

Uncomfortable, Tony wiggled in Steve’s grasp, managing to get his hands between them and pushing away slightly. After a second of resistance, Steve pulled away, hands still securely holding on to Tony’s elbows as he gazed down at him avidly.

“So he told you.”

“He did.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. It means everything.”

“Steve—”

“No, Tony. Please, accept my thanks and my apology. We got off on the wrong foot and I never truly apologized for the things I said on the helicarrier. You’re a better man than I gave you credit for and you’ve proved that every step of the way.” He pulled Tony back into his arms. “Thank you.”

Dazed, Tony nodded when Steve waved goodbye and went back upstairs. Against his will, he felt a warm glow in his chest, as if Steve had planted some of his own happiness there to grow.

With the dreaded confrontation out of the way, Bucky became a regular visitor to the lab, sometimes with Steve and sometimes not but when they did come together, they didn’t interact that much, all of their focus on being with Tony.

If Tony had been spoiled before with Steve’s attention, now he was downright rotten. He got used to Steve reclaiming his spot on the couch to draw or call out questions as Bucky and Tony ran around conducting fun (explosive and dangerous) experiments with the arm.

Sometimes Bucky came alone when Steve was out or when things turned bad. He never begrudged Tony for not always noticing him at first, playing with the robots until Tony was ready. Then they would sit next to each other and they would drink the expensive Turkish coffee Bucky would bring in a thermos and he would talk about all the things he didn’t feel ready to talk about with Steve.

Bucky would bring out the broken parts of him he only felt safe enough to entrust to Tony and Tony was listen and sometimes entrust his nightmares to Bucky.

Sitting with the shattered pieces of their selves around them, Tony realized that he had also fallen in love with Bucky Barnes.

Tony was looking forward to team bonding night. He had JARVIS set an alarm so he wouldn’t be late, thinking that maybe he would help Bucky and Steve cook the dinner this week (okay, supervise).

Miraculously, he was early so he strode confidently into the kitchen where he heard voices. A grin already painting his lips and a quip ready for Bucky, he stumbled to a halt when he caught sight of what was happening inside the room.

Bucky had Steve pressed up against the sink, flesh and metal hands buried in blond strands. One of Steve’s hands was holding a strainer full of rice over the sink while the other clutched at Bucky’s side.

There was a clatter as Steve dropped the rice, turning slightly to fit himself more fully against Bucky and deepen the kiss. As Tony watched, Steve’s hand crept up to cup Bucky’s face, cradle it as if it was something precious and Tony could swear he heard the sounds of a rising crescendo.

Wait, no, there was music playing. Separate, Steve and Bucky had been as Silent as the dead, but together they made the most beautiful music that Tony had ever heard, sounds that were a tangled mix of loss and anguish and hope and redemption. It was as if they had no music without each other, as if they didn’t even fully exist when the other wasn’t present, but together they were whole, they were complete.

And they had no place for Tony.

Backing away carefully, Tony left the room and ignored the way his heart wrenched in his chest as if it wanted to stay behind with them.

Tony did what he did best. He avoided the problem and he called Rhodey.

Rhodey called back with an offer to get away and a few days later Tony went on a several month long tour of army and naval bases. He wasn’t in the weapon manufacturing business any more, but he did invest time and energy in creating protective gear for the troops. This way, he got direct feedback right from the source, instead of trailing through a line of intake forms and interview surveys that eventually made its way to him.

Having a worthy cause to keep him busy was doubly blessing. Not only did he truly feel useful, but he was successfully distracted from thoughts of Silent supersoldiers. Inevitably, he was able to convince himself that he hadn’t actually lost anything. There had been nothing between him, Steve and Bucky but friendship and one-sided feelings. And even if he was no longer under the illusion that that friendship could turn into something more, he still had his friends. Even when he was gone, they called to check in on him at least once a week and tried to convince him to let them tour with him on more than one occasion.

He always said no.

He flew back in time for the wedding, congratulating the two long lost lovers for finally taking the next step with a wide smile. He did not let his hand shake when he handed over the wedding rings and did not let his voice break as he gave a rousing, hilarious speech at the wedding reception. He watched them look at each other as if no one else existed in the world and ignored the part of him that crumbled at the sight of it.

And if he shed a few tears as the sounds of their symphony rubbed over his raw nerves as if it was trying to sooth him? Well, everyone cried at weddings.

Natasha was the one who found him after. Steve and Bucky were long gone, shipped off on the Quinjet to one of Tony’s private islands somewhere in the middle of the Pacific where they would have an uninterrupted honeymoon.

Tony was sitting in the common room contemplating if he wanted a drink, thinking about the instances over the last few years where he almost crossed the point of no return. Natasha made the decision for him, taking the bottle and gifting it away to a young couple who were getting ready to leave. Tony believed they were some of Bucky’s sisters’ grandchildren.

“That was a $500 bottle of scotch Natasha.”

“You’ve had enough for a lifetime.”

“You don’t get to make that decision.”

“And you don’t get to fall off the wagon right in front of us.” She sat down next to him, pushing her feet into his lap and wiggling her toes. He sighed, but he obliged her unspoken request and dug his thumbs into her heels, making her groan out loud.

They were quiet for a while, Tony focusing his energy on Natasha’s pressure points and Natasha lost in her own thoughts.

“You always know,” she eventually says.

“What do you mean?” he didn’t pause in his moments, dragging his fingers along the veins on the top of her foot and massaging the sides.

“You always know if I’m near you, no matter which direction I’m coming from or how quiet I am.”

“Oh.” He forced a careless smile. “That’s just because I’m a Secret Agent: Legacy Edition.”

“That’s not a thing,” she murmurs.

“It is so a thing!”

“Howard wasn’t an agent.”

“Pssh,” he flapped his hand dismissively. “I don’t mean Howard, I mean Peggy. She was like my other parent when I was younger and I would swear on my mother’s grave that Jarvis was under her command, not Howard’s.”

She shrugged. “You may be right about that part.” She pulled her feet off his lap, folding them beneath her as she turned to face him. Seeing her this way, Tony was reminded that Natasha wasn’t actually that big, she just had a large presence that made her seem tall.

“Clint has been my partner for years and even I get the jump on him sometimes. But you, not only do I never surprise you but you also always know what kind of mood I’m in and what I need to feel better even before I do. How?”

“Have you ever thought that maybe I just see more than you give me credit for?”

“I think you see more and feel more than you let people know.”

Tony knew he should feel probably feel alarmed, defensive even. But he just didn’t have the energy to be. He was lonely. There was an overload of emotion that sat heavy in his chest that he didn’t what to with, something he suspected had been building up for years. So he told Natasha, from the beginning, everything that had to do with the mysterious music only he could hear.

Along the way it shifted to Steve and Bucky, how they were unique, how he was fascinated by the complete enigma they were and how their love story was written out in their song.

“But that’s not just scientific curiosity, is it Tony?”

“No,” he whispered, finally daring to put words to his feelings, share their existence with someone else.

Natasha didn’t say anything to his confession, did not rebuke him for his truth.

But also did not urge him to share it with the Brooklyn Boys. They had just finished celebrating the wedding of Steve Rogers to James Buchanan Barnes in front of everyone who cared for them. If that wasn’t a clear indication of where things stood, nothing would be. All she did was pull him in close, pressing his head against her neck and holding him to her.

Gradually, Tony relaxed into her frame, allowing himself to let go and hurt while her music washed over him without any expectations. He was never going to be able to tell anyone else, but at least he had this one moment of acceptance.

Steve and Bucky didn’t stay gone for long, coming back a week later tanned and golden from the sun, rings shining on their fingers. Natasha did the only thing she knew to keep Tony busy and his mind off of their return. She posed an experiment.

All the things he wanted to learn about the music but couldn’t research before without other’s knowing was now possible for him to measure. What was the farthest distance that he could hear someone? Did proximity increase volume? How did emotion affect sound intensity? Could someone consciously change their music like a radio channel? Could they send out distress signals?

Tony threw himself into the work, hooked himself to a machine that scanned his brain waves as he listened to Natasha move in and out of the room, try to change her music or increase its volume. They discovered that Tony had a range of 15 feet at rest, but if he focused he could extend his range to 30. Natasha couldn’t change her music like flipping a radio dial so she wasn’t going to be blasting “Pon de Replay” anytime soon, but she could make her music turn sour and clamouring for attention if she focused on some bad memories from her past.

It wasn’t quite the distress signal they were thinking about, the noise sounding like an off-tune, off-sync marching band, but it would do in a pinch.

Steve and Bucky didn’t understand why they weren’t welcome in the lab, but Natasha was the one to put down the order and even if Bucky was tempted to outright ignore it, Steve wasn’t.

Tony told himself it wouldn’t be forever, he just needed time to figure out how to turn his love for the two supersoldiers into just friendship again, that was all.

The Avengers Alarm went off in the Tower and Tony jumped up from where he had passed out the night before to suit up. Soon enough he was soaring off, coding into the comms to the team on the Quinjet.

Tony arrived first, taking in the gelatinous giant that was releasing some kind of slime. Swearing when he realized that the slime was corrosive, he quickly ordered JARVIS to analyse its properties. While the team’s uniforms should hold up to the acidic compound, it was only be for a finite period before it would start eating away at their skin.

Tony fired repulsor blasts at the jelly-like creature, but it evaded his attacks, simply creating holes that made his blows go straight through and out the other side. Noticing one of the arms aiming a hit to Clint, he dove to catch the archer as he overbalanced when evading the blow and fell off the side of the high-rise.

“You’re supposed to be light on your feet, twinkletoes.”

“I was an acrobat in my past life, Stark, not an Avatar. If I was an airbender, I would have a fluffy flying bison to catch me when I fell, not a tin can,” the archer mocked back.

“Chatter,” Steve snapped out. “My blows are just rebounding and not causing any harm. What do we see from up top?”

“There’s a slight rough patch on its side,” Bucky broke in. “High up on its left.”

“I see it. Anyone have a good angle?”

“I can get it,” Natasha replied. “I just need a ride.”

“Your chariot is on its way, madam.”

Tony grabbed Natasha and flew her high up the side of the blob, letting her launch herself off of him once they got into position. She slipped at first but she caught herself and started prying away at the giant scab. The skin underneath was more solid than the rest of the thing’s body but still vulnerable and Natasha shoved some of her Widow Bites directly against its flesh.

“Ready when you are, Thor.”

Thor brought down lightning directly onto the monster the moment that Natasha activated her Widow Bites. The creature started to writhe wildly, it’s insides highlighted by the energy before collapsing in on itself and releasing cloudy gas that mixed noxiously with the scent of ozone.

Temporarily blinded, Tony checked in with everyone through the comms, scanning through the rubble when Natasha didn’t answer.

Finding no sign of her, he retracting his helmet in order to listen better, searching for the sound of her music. After a few minutes of flying over various ruined areas from corrosive slime, he tracked her down to one of the ruined buildings.

She was out cold, looking as if she’d been thrown from the monster when it had bucked. Reaching out, Tony had JARVIS check her vitals, sighing in relief when it showed that she had no major internal injuries, just a broken ankle.

“Sir, it looks like the structural soundness of this building has been deeply compromised. I advise you to leave now.”

“On it, J.” Picking up Natasha carefully, he followed JARVIS’ directions and was almost clear when he heard a little wind chime tinkle. Stopping, he listened again, realizing that it was someone else’s music, someone else who was in danger.

Flying out as fast as he could, he arrowed in towards Bucky, dropping Natasha in his hands before doubling back, ignoring the shouts in his wake and focusing on getting back in the building and tracking down the person before it collapsed. Because this music was soft, indistinct in a way that was only common in children.

“J, I need you to scan for any signs of life.”

Tony wove around abandoned corridors, the countdown in his data giving him a bare 3 minutes to track down the source of his wind chime. Luckily, after a few winding turns, Tony flew into a decrepit room to find a small infant wrapped in a tight bundle.

Tony picked her up oh so gently, careful of her head and uncomfortably aware of how kid friendly the armour was not. Opening the chest plate, he tucked her into his shirt before directing JARVIS to make sure she was getting enough air supply and wasn’t squished, but he was out of time to do more.

Hearing the crash of an area caving in close by, Tony blasted through walls to make his own door out of there, getting hit by a stray sheet of concrete that sent him spinning. Curving to protect his middle and his precious burden, Tony grit his teeth and forced himself to stop spiralling enough to collapse on his back a safe distance away.

Voices and music surrounded him before he saw them and suddenly arms were pulling him up into a sitting position and knocking at his helmet. Retracting it, he came face to face with a pair of worried blue eyes.

“Stop staring like you’ve seen a ghost, Rogers, I’m not dead yet,” Tony coughed out.

“God, you’re an asshole just like him,” Steve said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at Bucky who was holding up an awake Natasha. “I don’t know why I put up with you two.”

“Nice to see you awake, Sleeping Beauty,” Tony called out to Natasha.

“No one could sleep through the racket these two made when they saw you fly back into a collapsing building,” Natasha retorted.

“Oh god, J, is she okay?” Retracting the top half of the suit, Tony moved frantic hands to his chest to check on the infant resting there. She seemed no worse for wear, but she had woken up over the course of their bumpy ride and blinked chocolatey brown eyes curiously up at Tony. When JARVIS declared that she was okay, Tony sighed in relief though he knew he was going to get her fully checked out when they went back to the Tower.

“You gave me a hell of a scare, you know that?” he whispered to her, listening to the cheerful sounds of her wind chimes. She blew a spit bubble at him. “Yea, I know you weren’t worried, fearless heroine you are, yes you are,” he cooed, completely oblivious to his surroundings until a snicker broke through his haze.

Looking up, he saw Clint stifling a laugh as Natasha reached up to whack him on the back of the head but his eyes were caught by the soft expression on Steve’s face as he gazed down on them.

It’s the baby, idiot. He just thinks the baby is cute, don’t get caught up in this again, he reprimanded himself. Looking down at the child, he couldn’t help but smile, helplessly charmed.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she?”

“Yea,” Steve reached out to touch where she had a hand firmly gripping Tony’s finger, “Beautiful.” His fingers pressed against Tony’s and Tony looked up at the sound of Steve’s choked breath.

He had swung his head around, staring at the others uncomprehendingly. Lifting his hand away from Tony, he looked back and forth between them.

“Stevie?” Bucky asked worriedly, stepping forth to cup his face with his metal hand. “You okay?”

Steve nodded at Bucky’s question, taking his hand in his own, but reaching out another to Tony where he was touching him before.

They both gasped at the contact, Steve’s eyes widening with wonder as he heard the music of the others around him, swirling around in an orchestra of triumph and victorious weariness. He was looking at Tony as if he had never seen him before, as if he was the answer to a question he had given up hope in solving.

Tony on the other hand was trembling because Steve’s touch made a current run under his skin in a low vibration. Bucky quickly reached out a hand to steady him as he swayed under the feeling, grabbing him by the flesh of his arm exposed by his light t-shirt.

The feeling multiplied tenfold, as if instead of just hearing Bucky and Steve’s symphony, he was feeling it played underneath his skin. It coursed through him in brilliant waves, an intense combination of pleasure/pain that lit a fire through his veins like he was the burning, collapsing heart of a star.

He heard Steve and Bucky cry out but he couldn’t summon the strength to even open his eyes—when had he closed them?—and see what was happening.

Overwhelmed, he gave in to the feeling and everything went black.

Things came to him slowly, as if he was floating in a pleasurable haze that made everything warm and happy.

Drugs? He wondered idly, gradually becoming aware of the fact that he was in a hospital bed and that someone—no, someones—were holding his hands.

“Steve, he’s awake.”

Two heads appeared above him, faces painted in relief.

“Tony,” Steve breathed out. “Welcome back.”

“You had us worried there, dollface.” Bucky brushed over the arch of his cheekbone tenderly and instinctively Tony leaned into the light contact, nuzzling into the warm palm.

He’s not yours to have, a voice reminded him and Tony abruptly became aware of what he was doing, pulling away from the both of them quickly and sitting up.

“What happened?” he asked, to busy wrenching his emotions under control to notice the way hurt flashed across their faces.

“Well, after Bucky touched you, you passed out. Luckily, he caught you before you or the baby could get hurt and then we brought you both back here to Medical to get you checked out.”

“How is the little butternut squash? Have we found her parents yet?”

“No sign of them,” Bucky reported. “So far, it looks like she might have been abandoned.”

“Poor kid,” Tony sighed. “Where’s she now?”

“Thor’s walking around with her. She started crying when we took her away from you so we’ve all been taking turns.” Steve smiled. “I think she’s rubbing off on all of us already. Do you want to see her?”

“Please,” Tony nodded.

Steve stepped out, leaving Tony alone with Bucky.

“You knew, didn’t you? That Stevie had been hearing sounds when he touched you?” Bucky turned his intense attention to Tony, which probably should have made him feel uncomfortable but instead had the opposite effect.

“I did,” Tony shrugged. “But it only happened a couple times so I didn’t think he even really noticed it.”

Bucky scoffed. “It’s been driving him crazy for months. He once told me that it felt like he couldn’t ignore it, like every time he wanted to dismiss it, it would pull at him like an achey tooth.”

“Sounds about right, it’s impossible to completely ignore.”

“That’s not really what I meant.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Then what?”

“It’s more like, he couldn’t ignore it. It became an obsession for him that I didn’t understand until now, like something was calling to him that he just didn’t understand. We’ve been doing research on sound theory for months now, even delving into Greek myths and sirens.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why didn’t you?” Bucky challenged.

They stared down at each other before breaking into laughter.

“So, essentially, we’re all crazy,” Tony concluded.

“Yea, sounds about right. How do you deal with it?” Bucky gestured to his ear. “Constantly hearing sounds that others can’t?”

“You learn to tune it out to a certain extent, like the noises of the city. Like the sounds of the trains going by or the blaring of a police siren, you’ll notice them but it doesn’t overwhelm you. That’s why I like living in the city. If I was living somewhere isolated, I would get used to the quiet and the sounds would overwhelm me the moment I get back to anywhere that’s populated.”

“Sounds tough.”

“It is what it is.” Tony turned slightly to adjust his pillows so he was a little more supported, Bucky reaching out to help him.

“I heard it too,” Bucky admitted.

“When?”

“When I touched you after the battle. There were sounds that were coming in from all around and from within us as well.”

Tony shook his head. “Yea, that’s not how it always is. Usually you two are Silent.”

“What does that mean?”

“Here,” Tony reached out and grabbed Bucky’s hand.

Bucky tilted his head to the side. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly, unlike the rest of the planet, you and Steve are the only ones I can’t hear all the time.”

“Why? Is it because of the serum?”

“I don’t know really.”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say you don’t know something.”

Tony scoffed. “Yea, well, it’s not as of it’s an exact science.” He moved to pull away, but Bucky just held on tighter.

“Is it weird for you?” he asked softly, eyes searching Tony’s.

To his horror, Tony felt heat wash across his cheekbones and he resisted the urge to press his hands against his face to hide the blush.

“Huh?” he asked eloquently.

“Not hearing anything when you touch me?”

God, what a way to phrase it.

“Ah, well,” Tony stumbled over his tongue before managing to pull himself together. “No, actually.”

Bucky’s brows furrowed. “You said we were the only ones in the world though. Wasn’t that even a little alarming?”

Tony chewed on his lip, thinking back. “Initially, yes but then I got used to it. Or maybe I should say, I came to rely on it.” Tony squeezed Bucky’s hand in his. “It’s peaceful, as if the way I share the music with you, you’re sharing your silence with me. It’s like the reprieve I need sometimes, surrounded as I am constantly.” He smiled

Bucky grinned back. “I’m glad we can actually provide something for you for once.”

“Do you feel anything?” Tony asked, curious. “I don’t remember feeling anything specific when Steve heard the music through me.”

“Oh, I definitely feel things holding onto you, doll,” Bucky replied promptly.

Tony laughed, but before he could ask for clarification, but Bucky shushed him, tilting his head to listen.

“Wait, I think I hear something.” At that moment, Steve walked through the door, baby Jane Doe in his hands and the air was filled with the sounds of her happy gurgling mixed with the dainty tinkles of glass chimes.

“That’s amazing.” A grin broke out on Bucky’s face as he watched the baby ensconced in Steve’s large arms and he let out a low laugh as he heard the music through his connection with Tony.

Tony smiled back at him, “Yea, sometimes it really is.”

Tony picked up the baby from the crib, rocking her in his arms. After months of not being able to locate tiny Jane Doe’s parents, Tony had decided to adopt her and give her a home with him. He knew that he didn’t live the most safe or stable life, but he couldn’t turn his back on the tiny infant, her wind chimes having set up a place in his heart.

He named her Aria, in honour of his mother who had loved him to the best of her ability as well as the music that has always been a part of his life, whether he wanted it or no.

The team knew about his grand secret now, the whole revealing process disappointingly anticlimactic.

It turned out that Steve and Bucky were the only ones who could hear when they touched him, and location or pressure did not affect the ability. They could hear just as clearly if they touched him just the slightest bit as they would when they held him in a full-bodied hug.

He no longer avoided them, at first because he was unable to with the way they and everyone else had become immediately attached to Aria, but then because he found he was more at ease when he was in their presence than he was when they were apart. Even with his hidden feelings.

“Is she ready?”

He turned to face Pepper and Natasha who had claimed Aria for a girls’ day out. He knew his daughter would be safe with the CEO and the secret agent, but a part of him panicked at the idea of letting her out of his sight. She was still so delicate, with tiny little fingers and toes and the willingness to pick up and put in her mouth the exact thing that could choke her.

God, raising a child was terrifying.

“Are you sure she’s ready for this?”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “She’ll be fine, Tony. We’re just taking her out for a walk.”

“Yes, but what if she’s allergic to pollen? Spring is prime time for allergies.”

“You had her tested and the only thing she’s allergic to is pineapples.”

“Which just means she won’t be ruining pizza with fruit.” Natasha beckoned. “Now, hand her over.”

Tony cuddled Aria to his chest for another moment before reluctantly handing her over to Natasha, following them out with the baby bag as they headed for the elevator.

Before they reached it, Bucky stepped out, face lighting up when he caught sight of Aria decked out in her yellow ducky dress.

“Hello, darling,” he cooed, stealing her away from Natasha to press kisses on her breathy wisps that passed for hair. “Where are you going?”

Aria giggled happily in Bucky’s arms, kicking her legs and blowing enthusiastic spit bubbles. She had inherited her father’s taste in men.

“They’re kidnapping my baby,” Tony complained, pouting in the face of a possible ally.

“No, we’re just making sure that Tony doesn’t become a dictator daddy,” Pepper retorted, giving Bucky a few more minutes with Aria before snatching her away decisively.

“We’ll be back in a few hours and we will call if there are any issues at all, okay?”

With that, all three of the women in his life disappeared and Tony sighed mournfully.

“Hey, doll,” Bucky greeted him, wrapping him up in a comforting hug. “Are you free now?”

“Seeing as I’m without my child, the light of my life, yea I guess so.”

“Will you come with me then? There’s something I wanna show you.”

Curiosity piqued, Tony nodded. “Lead the way, Terminator.”

Bucky led him up to the roof where a picnic had been laid out on the grass Tony had installed there. There was champagne and Tony could spot mini quiches and stuffed panini sandwiches amongst the variety of other dishes.

“Wow, this looks great, what’s the special occasion?”

Hearing the sound of the elevator, Tony turned around to see Steve approaching them with a heavy bouquet in his hands, and extravagant mixture of purples and blues and reds and bright oranges.

“Okay, flowers, champagne, picnic on the roof…this is giving me date vibes you guys. Am I actually interrupting an anniversary or something because I can go…?” he trailed off when Steve handed him the bouquet, confused but unable to help burying his face in the blossoms, inhaling their fresh sweet scent.

“This way.” Tony let Bucky pull him forward by the hand, toeing off his shoes and sitting on the blanket obediently with each other the supersoldiers creating the other parts of their little triangle.

“Tony, we have something to ask you,” Steve began.

“Sounds ominous.”

Steve smiled, but his eyes were serious. “The truth is, I’ve been in love with you for years now.”

“You’re lying,” Tony denied. “Look, if this is some pity thing, you really don’t need—”

“Tony, no, I would never lie to you about this,” Steve interrupted. “Please understand, it was difficult coming to terms with my feelingsnot because of anything you did but because I felt too guilty about loving someone other than Bucky. Like I was betraying his memory when I was the one who failed him all those years ago.”

“Steve,” unable to ignore the pain he heard in Steve’s voice, Tony grabbed his hand in comfort. Steve squeezed back tight.

“And then, when he came back…well, I was so happy that I was given a second chance with him, I was scared what would happen if I told him about my feelings for you.”

“The punk felt he was being unfaithful to me for loving you even when he was with me and didn’t want to tell me,” Bucky broke in before Tony could even fully process what Steve had said. “Only to realize when he finally did tell me that I feel the same way.”

It probably said a lot about Tony that the first reaction to hearing two confessions of love was doubt. “Why tell me now? If you’ve loved me for months, why not tell me earlier?”

“Because even though we love you, but we didn’t know if you wanted us.”

“We were worried that it would be too much to ask of you,” Bucky elaborated to get involved with us when we were married already. We didn’t want you to feel like you were less a part of us just because you weren’t part of the legal ceremony because we love you just as much as we love each other.”

“And then there’s this.” Steve reached out to grasp Bucky’s with his free hand and Bucky reached out to Tony to complete the circuit. Like it had every time before, the symphony rose up between them, passing in waves of sound and feeling.

“When you explained it to us, you said that the song was proof of our love for each other, that we didn’t have a song if we weren’t together. But Tony, if you listen, there are three parts to this melody.”

Tony listened to the song, familiar to him as his own heartbeat at this point and realized that Steve was right. If you separated out the notes, there were three threads of music being wound together so tightly it was difficult to distinguish who was who.

“I’ve never had my own song,” Tony whispered, disbelieving. “Never. I’ve only ever heard Silence when I’m alone.”

“Maybe doll, it’s because the same way Stevie and I belong to each other, you belong with us. You just had to hear our song together to guide you to us.”

Tony wanted to deny such wishful thinking, but he remembered every time he had sat apart from Steve and Bucky, heart aching with the desire to be with them. The way their music would seem to call out to him in those moments, the way that it would surround him and wrap him in comfort and warmth as if welcoming him.

“Tony?”

He looked up at them both, the earnest hope shining in Steve’s eyes, the soft love in Bucky’s and let himself be brave and trust that this time if he leapt, the music would catch him.

“I love you too.”

Steve broke into delighted laughter and Bucky pulled him so his back pressed against his chest, wrapping flesh and metal arms around him tight. He buried his head in Tony’s neck and let out a deep sigh against the sensitive hairs there, causing Tony to shiver in response.

“I hope you know that this is forever, Tony Stark, because we are never letting you or the little munchkin go.”

“Watch out. That sounds like a marriage proposal, Snowflake.”

“It is,” Steve affirmed. “You don’t have to answer right now, but the offer’s there. If you want it.”

In response, Tony just let himself melt back into Bucky’s arms, pulling Steve to press against his front and kissing him as he had wanted to do from the first moment he saw him. Lost in the taste and sensation of Steve, he chased the sparks that flew between them in bright spirals, only pulling away when his body remembered that it needed to breathe.

Steve’s eyes were hot as he tilted Tony’s head helpfully to face Bucky, who didn’t waste a moment is stealing his own kisses. It was wet and dirty and glorious and Tony wanted to stay between their arms forever.

Eventually they got to enjoy the food and Natasha and Pepper brought Aria back to join them. Turns out, they had been in on the whole thing, the clever minxes. The rest of the team gradually wandered up and by evening, Tony was firmly ensconced between Bucky’s thick thighs as they watched Steve and Thor be utterly charmed at the way that Aria beat at a toy drum noisily.

“That’s not coming home with us,” Tony informed him.

“Definitely not.”

“You get to tell Steve.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I’ll trade you kisses.”

“Deal.”

Watching Steve walk back over to him, he accepted his child in his arms again and revelled in the way that Bucky and Steve trailed teasing hands over his skin, playing with their melody as if it was their own personal concert. He listened to the way their song wove together, all three of them melding together in a beautiful cacophony that told him that finally, he had found home.

If you made it this far and liked it, let me know here or on AO3! https://archiveofourown.org/works/24563422

#winterironshield #stony #stucky #winteriron #marriage #marvel #avengers #pining #soulmates #kid fic #parent tony stark #angst #vengeanceworks #fanfic #fanfiction

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cutegirlmayra · 5 years ago

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Sonic Movie: Sonamy Prompt

Birthday week!!! So, for my birthday, I’m gonna spend this whole week writing prompts for you guys! Yay! Commissions are open still but not for long, prompts are open and we’re at 137! If you’ve already submitted 3 prompt requests please hold off to let others have a chance! Thank you!

I’ve had SOOOO many ideas for Amy Rose in this adaptation of Sonic, and now I can finally write another one! :Db

Prompt:

After meeting Tails, Sonic is reluctant to leave Earth even if it’s only for a quick visit to meet the fighters who are striving for freedom and to prepare for the threat of the Master Emerald’s Chaos God.

It seems Eggman might have something to do with it, hoping to perhaps use it to return home for Christmas, but Sonic knows that’s not a good idea. Worriedly, he bids a hearty farewell to his adapted family and steps into the portal ring with Tails.

It’s there that he meets another Hedgehog, Amy gets easily flustered because, apparently, Tails warns she falls easily for people--but after so many heartbreaks, she’s gone a little extreme with her crush-happy tendencies.

However, Sonic--barely listening to Tails’s warning anyway--zips on over to her and excitedly remarks about all the parts of her that are hedgehog related, and naturally seems to be wooing her without realizing it. He plays the ‘cool new guy’ persona and she immediately falls for it, which surprises him because he’s used to acting cocky and confident but wasn’t expecting it to work this well... Tails scolds him but says he must live with the consequences, then proceeds to laugh behind his back at Sonic’s dense understanding of what has happened.

He grows shy after realizing Amy worries her strength will intimidate potential lovers, and thereby ruining her chances of love. She hints that she’s worried he’ll leave too, but he still doesn’t get that she likes him so much, so instead--he takes it as she thinks he won’t be her friend because of her powers. He admits he felt the same way, that because of his speed, no one would want to be with him without wanting to steal it. She thinks that’s him admitting feelings for her too and agrees to go back to Earth with him, thinking they’re going to get married.

She flirts and teases and swoons easily as he mistakes all this for her just trying to make a friend and feels he relates to that, even stating, “I’d love to be on a baseball team with you! You’d do great!” which confuses Tails because he thought Sonic wanted to have him on a baseball team... (they’re friendship is shaky at this point, but Tails’s admires him and soon learns that Sonic does want to be friends, even best friends. ^^)

When Eggman does get back to earth, also leading to Chaos finding his way to the planet, reigning down havoc and destruction, it’s up to Sonic’s new friends and a recently recruited Echidna (Knuckles was under the impression he needed Sonic’s speed but then sees the evil of his people and joins forces with him.) to save the day! Amy unleashes her Piko Piko Hammer fury and Sonic praises her, even starstruck by how powerful she really is. She blushes and loses her fear that her power will keep her from true love.

They, unfortunately, are defeated by Eggman’s cunning and machines. They flee into the forest where they meet an experimental ‘Sonic’ known as Shadow, who is protecting a little girl named Maria from the government. (President’s granddaughter in this version.) He hates the government and Sonic, who they tried to clone, and only wants to protect the little girl who freed him from his torturous experiments. Amy agrees to look after Maria if Shadow will convince the government to help stop Eggman before Chaos gets too powerful and all seven chaos emeralds.

Shadow and Sonic butt heads with each other but end up working well together (movie finale?) and Sonic turns Super for the first time... being an odd mix of Sonic, Shadow also can turn Super, and they use their combined power to defeat his ultimate form.

After the fight (More my prompt lol, this is just an explaination), Sonic and his newfound friends play a baseball game together, but Sonic’s sweet encouragements for Amy make her miss 2 swings. Worried, he says ‘home run’ as in make one, but she thinks he’s offering to run her home and gets serious. She explodes the baseball... leaving everyone shocked and horrified as the little kids playing against them look shocked.

Tom and Maddie don’t like Sonic staying out so late but he says he’s only dropping Amy off. Tom is suspicious but Maddie pats his chest and tells him this is probably good for him.

Racing along, Amy begins to feel uneasy about how people reacted to the ball exploding on impact, and if he was scared of her now.

He admits it was a shock, but he’s not scared of her. “It’s hard to be scared of a cute pink hedgehog, right?”

He doesn’t realize his words have gripped her heart and as he sets her down to return to her home, she kisses him and tells him she agrees to being his girlfriend, then leaves.

He’s absolutely taken aback and feels violated as he cries and complains to Maddie, who uses reverse physiology to see his real feelings. “You know what? You’re right. I’ll call Tom, he’s working late tonight.” She picks up the phone and starts calling him.

“It’s not even that late...” Sonic complains, wondering what she’s doing.

Sonic, being dramatic, looks up from whining into his arms on the couch and flicks his ear to her, his eyes watching her.

“Tom,” He’s holding up a sign on a street to let kids coming home from school cross the road safely.

“Yes, I’d like to report a felony.” Maddie looks away from Sonic, trying to sound ‘official’ but also fake.

“...Maddie?” Tom tilts his head, while also waving with his fingers slightly to a little girl who passes him and waved to him first. “What’s this all about?”

“Sonic was attacked by a vicious girl.”

“Wait!” Sonic jumps on the couch, dashing over to her, “That’s not true!”

“But you said she just launched herself at you! You were violated, it was awful!” Maddie continues, as Tom just looks side to side with his eyes... trying to put two and two together while working.

“Y-yeah, but...” He steps back a moment, growing shy. “She’s not a criminal! She just... caught me by surprise!” he admitted.

“Oh... A misdemeanor then.” Maddie concluded, then turned back to Tom, “You saw her explode that baseball, what do you think she did to his lips! We’ll have to schedule him for a check up, he could be positive for..!” she suddenly stopped, her eyes growing wide and putting her hand over the phone. Curious, Sonic runs to compile boxes to stand on and leans his head to her own to hear her next words. She holds in a snort of laughter, then whispers, “Cuties.”

Sonic gasps, and Tom smiles.

A woman in her car is gesturing to Tom, wondering why he’s still blocking them from going when the kids have already crossed. Thinking she’s also waving at him like the little girl did, and having no awareness for what’s going on besides the phone call, he waves to her and continues to take the call.

“There’s only one thing to do, a restraining order!”

“No!” Sonic jumps onto her, clinging to her neck, “She’s so alone as it is! And C-C-Cuties have never been proven scientifically deadly!”

She spins herself, pretending to try and get him off as his feet dangle and swish around her. “Pretzel lady, please! She’s just a innocent girl! She didn’t mean any harm!”

“She’s clearly made her victim delusional!” Maddie sits down on the couch, “That’s it. We’ll have to lock him in his room so he can never see her again.”

“What!?” Sonic then argues that she may need him, what if she gets in trouble?

Maddie, per Tom’s instruction, hands the phone over to Sonic and Tom convinces him that he should pull Amy to the side and explain to her that that kinda behavior is uncalled for and she could be arrested under charges of assault next time.

“Tell her you know a cop.” He joked.

Sonic takes the advice and goes to see Amy again, however, he’s trying to act high and mighty, haughty towards her but she just continues to act like nothing is the matter. He’s deflated by her not reacting at all to his words, and even seems to be pretending she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He pulls her aside, away from the crowd, but Amy gasps and realizes he just pulled her into the Olive Garden parking lot.

They get a table but he’s still trying to put the words together to explain to her the ‘grievous situation’ she could be in with the law and also how she shouldn’t do things like that again but the staff get the wrong idea and start setting ‘the mood’ by placing candles on the table.

Sonic’s words make Amy think he’s proposing, and she delightfully leans in as he leans in trying to whisper to her that they should keep a distance but he’s going about it all wrong.

“You see, heroes shouldn’t have love interests because there’s a-a-a lot of problems that can happen and-” he pauses in his tough boy hero act as he notices the scene and Amy coming in closer over the table. “Ah!” he sits back down and backs away, noticing the romantic setup and wondering how it all happened.

Amy sits back down, disappointed, but states, “I will only kiss the man who will be my husband~”

He thinks she’s being a rascal and playing with his feelings then, and states, folding his arms, “So you are just a flirt! Fooling with heroes hearts and all..”

She giggles, “I’ll fool with your heart forever and ever, Sonic. That’s all I ever want.”

From that time on, Sonic’s exasperated attempts to keep her away or at an arm’s distance is merely because he thinks she’s just teasing and messing with his emotions... However, she is as sincere as she can be~<3

#amy rose #sonic movie #sonamy #movie!sonamy #movie!sonic #movie!amy #cutegirlmayra #sonamy prompt #sonicxamy

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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In 2020, The Deutschland Series is As Relevant As Ever

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The final season of the Deutschland spy series begins with an ending. In the opening episode of Deutschland 89, the Berlin Wall falls, giving East German citizens free movement to West Germany and beyond for the first time in decades. What follows in the eight-episode final season is a social study in how different people react when their reality is suddenly and fundamentally altered. In the year 2020, as the world continues to reel from the seismic changes COVID-19 has wrought, it’s an unexpectedly relatable experience.

“Deutschland 89 is really about how people have to reinvent themselves during a crisis,” says Deutschland series co-creator Joerg Winger. “So I think, in that way, it does reflect today, but that was not intentional.”

From the beginning, the Deutschland series—which launched in 2015 with Deutschland 83, continued in 2018 with Deutschland 86, and just concluded with Deutschland 89—has used history as a metaphor for contemporary politics. Because of this and because, as Faulkner famously wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” it has never been hard to find topical parallels in the Deutschland story, especially when the world skews unfortunately closer to the historic tensions depicted.

“I still remember when Joerg and I first started working on Deutschland 83, thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll have to remind people of the Cold War. Maybe they won’t remember any of this,’” says co-creator Anna Winger (who also co-created Netflix’s 2020 German-American drama Unorthodox). “And then the tension with Russia began again, and there was this sort of egocentric writer moment where you’re like, ‘Did I write it and make it happen? Why is this happening again?’ … Certainly, we couldn’t have predicted tension with Russia coming back, but I think that the polarization definitely, the idea that you’re on one side or you’re on the other side, and that there is this kind of way in which the world has become divided, we were definitely exploring that.”

Deutschland 83 follows East German kid Martin Rauch (Jonas Nay) as he is forced by his HVA agent aunt Lenora (Maria Schrader) and his estranged father Walter (Sylvester Groth) to become a spy in West Germany. Using the real-life Able Archer incident (which some historians believe is the closest we’ve come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis) as setting, the first season is a fast-paced yet complex cautionary tale of what can happen when we lose track of the bigger picture in favor of political allegiances.

On a more character-driven level, Deutschland 83 is the story of a young man caught between a desperation to stay alive so he can return home to his ill mother and pregnant girlfriend and a desire to keep the world from erupting into nuclear disaster. Because of this, much of the success of that first season and moving forward relied on the casting of the overwhelmed yet capable Martin. When Nay read the script for the Deutschland 83 pilot, he knew he wanted the part.

“I think that the first episode of the whole series is a masterpiece in throwing you directly into something,” says Nay. “I think, dramaturgy-wise, it’s really brilliant. For me, as a reader, I was so addicted. I immediately wanted to know where it went and I so deeply wanted to play that part of Martin.”

Later, Nay would find out that Anna Winger had his picture on the wall during the writing process, imagining him as Martin, but Nay didn’t know that when he went for the part.

“I hadn’t played something of that genre, or anything comparable to that before,” says Nay. “So I don’t really know where she had the impression from that this could be a part for me, actually. The things I shot before were more like society drama, feature films. It was really, really, really different.”

Joerg Winger says that Nay was always their first choice.

“There was a discussion we had at a later point with the directors in 83, who were thinking, maybe we need someone who’s more of a conventional hero, like a young James Bond kind of actor,” says Joerg Winger. “But I think, for us, it was really important that he has something vulnerable since one of the tweaks of the spy genre in Deutschland 83 is that it’s a spy show combined with a coming-of-age drama, and Jonas has the vulnerability and almost the boyishness and innocence. He’s a very good, solid person. And that translates also, I think, into his performance.”

The initial idea for the series came from Joerg Winger’s own military service experience during the 80s as a conscripted Bundeswehr soldier in West Germany, intercepting messages from Russian troops in the German Democratic Republic. But, for many people watching the series who were born after 89, a divided Germany may be hard to imagine.

“With young people, it’s almost like what you learn in school ends with World War II, and then you never really got to the Cold War,” says Anna Winger. “So, for a lot of young people, at least in Germany, they would say to us, ‘This is like science fiction.’ It’s like, ‘Imagine a world, and there’s a wall that goes down the middle of Berlin, and West Berlin is cut off from supplies, and you can’t get across it.’ And you know, if you were to describe all that to anyone who was born in Berlin since 1989, it would sound absurd. It’s like, ‘And the dinosaurs roamed the earth.’ It’s very crazy to them. So, in a funny way, I’ve always thought the show is a little bit like the past as science fiction.”

Nay, who was born in 1990, days before the reunification of Germany, is one of those people.

“I think there’s actually a lot that changed my awareness of close German history, in particular the 80s, of course,” says Nay. “I remember that when I read the first series, the first question that came to my mind was: ‘Were we really so close to a nuclear war? Would anybody have told me if it was so close? Isn’t that crazy that nobody told me before? Is it real or is it just made up, to increase attention?’ I was like, ‘OK, it seems a little odd to me that we were close before to a nuclear war and I never heard that before.’ I’m really curious now what is going on behind closed walls, what I don’t know about nowadays.”

While all three seasons of the Deutschland series explores many of the same themes, the three-year time jump built into the fabric of the show means each season gets a soft narrative reset for its characters and setting. When asked about the choice to have three-year time jumps, Joerg Winger said it was somewhat incidental. Because of Able Archer and some of the Neue Deutsche Welle music circa 1983, the Wingers knew they wanted to start their story in 1983. They also knew that they wanted to do a trilogy and that it should end in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because of this, of the three settings, 1986 is the most random.

“I think it’s a little bit like the Buddhist wisdom: wherever you dig, if you dig for long enough, you’ll find something,” says Joerg Winger of the 1986 setting. “We were a little bit nervous about the 86 question. When we started 86, we were like, ‘OK, so what are we going to find in ’86?’ But then there’s just so much.”

When we catch back up with Martin in Deutschland 86, he has been exiled from East Germany for three years, living in Angola where he teaches English at an orphanage. While the other two seasons in the story keep their focus relatively tight on East and West Germany, Deutschland 86 expands its Cold War scope to visit places like Libya and Paris, where geopolitical tensions are manifesting in different ways but are still part of the same global story.

“We started writing 86 the day after the Trump election,” says Anna Winger, “and I remember feeling really focused on looking at capitalism, because the story of 86 is kind of about the capitalist core of the engine that kept the communist regime going. And you see all these guys who are holding on to what they’ve managed to build at all costs, even though it’s all really coming apart.”

The Deutschland storyline comes to fruition in Deutschland 89. Three years following the events of Deutschland 86, the East German government is in even more dire straits. They are out of money, and the people are protesting. The final season is set against the backdrop of the collapse of the East German government.

“People didn’t know what was going to happen for a few months, and that is a very unusual situation,” says Anna Winger of the time period. “And also, for all these spies, they were really good spies, and suddenly, they had no country, the goals were completely unclear, and they were in the same place. The crazy thing about people in Berlin who live on the East side is they haven’t gone anywhere, but everything else has changed. It’s as if their country completely changed, and they’re still living on the same piece of earth, and that’s wild.”

The Deutschland series may explore East German life in the 1980s at different stages of Communist collapse, but the parallels to the experience of living in today’s crumbling capitalism are striking.

“I think as we came towards the end of the arc of the trilogy, certainly we got deeper and deeper into exploring late-stage capitalism and how that’s the patriarchy holding onto power in any sort of regime,” says Anna Winger. “We’re writing a show about late-stage communism or socialism, but it still has a lot of parallels to late-stage capitalism.”

In the midst of it all, is Martin Rauch, an audience surrogate for an everyday person just trying to live a good life with the people he loves amidst political and social turmoil. By Deutschland 89, Martin is understandably much more jaded than his 83-era self, but he has also somehow held onto his humanity.

“What Anna and Joerg always told me was that when they created Martin and how they wanted him to succeed, he should always have this moral compass that he’s following,” says Nay. “In a big contrast to all the people around him, like [his aunt] Lenora or [his father] Schweppenstette, that they are following rules given from somebody else or they’re following their idealism, their socialist idea. Martin had the chance of getting a pretty uncolored picture of East and West, of both the states and both the sides. He had to find his own [way].”

Martin’s ability to hold onto his humanity, to maintain some kind of admirable moral compass despite all of the things he has been through, is where much of the optimism in the Deutschland series ultimately lies.

“I always saw it like Martin being in the middle and people from left and right trying to pull him in directions and he’s always trying to see or weigh out which is best for him and also for people around him,” says Nay. “He’s like, yeah, it’s a hero thing I guess. I don’t know. Yeah, Joerg and Anna wanted Martin to keep that. So it was kind of a challenge to, of course, let Martin grow up and let him harden and let him be very, very suspicious, more and more, not trusting anybody because what he learns is that, if he trusts somebody, he’s going to be betrayed so he has to keep it in himself. That is the development that he goes through through all the seasons. Then, given this little lovable touch of hero-ness and moral compass, not losing that. It was kind of a balance act I would say. I gave my very best.”

Ultimately, the Deutschland series ends as it told its story: thoughtfully, and with a fundamental empathy that doesn’t guarantee a happy ending but rather something better. The possibility of holding onto one’s humanity through pain and suffering and amongst forces so much larger than any one person. In 2020, that may be the flavor of happy ending we need most of all.

“In 89, the shit’s hit the fan, and it’s really over, and people are scrambling to redefine themselves,” says Anna Winger. “But I suppose, if there’s a message to the whole thing, it’s that there are possibilities in chaos. And this is truly something I think we can learn from Germany: is that maybe there’s the possibility of reinvention that is positive, that there’s hope in reinvention, and that maybe when things come apart, there’s a chance for something good to come out of it.”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The entirety of the Deutschland series is now available to watch on Hulu.

The post In 2020, The Deutschland Series is As Relevant As Ever appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2JLtG55

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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salmonthestoryteller · 5 years ago

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Fic prompt: this was supposed to be a new start. Malex

I should save this for October since it's from the Spooky Prompts list, but… nobody has ever sent me a prompt from a list I reblogged before, so I got really excited.

Two Plus Two Equals...

A Roswell New Mexico Fanfic

"There's this old house for sale."

Alex wasn't sure which one of them looked more confused, Michael or him, as they stared at each other over cups of cooling coffee at Bean Me Up. He'd accuse his boyfriend of reading his mind if he wasn't blinking his eyes in such astonishment at him.

"The old one by the dry creek?" He finally asked.

Michael nodded. "It needs a lot of work, and it's more room than we need."

"It's a great price, though. And there's a lot of land included."

"It's a pretty old house, can it really handle all your computer jumbo?"

Alex rolled his eyes at the taunt. "My computer jumbo? Like you aren't going to turn the tool shed into a science lab?"

"I mean, I'd probably have to lay down some wire to do that."

"Apparently a previous owner paid to modernize the electricity. Including the toolshed."

Michael glanced at him over the rim of his coffee cup. "So you already talked to the owner?"

"I may have called the real estate office and asked the agent a few questions."

"Nobody's currently living there. The previous owner moved out, probably months ago."

Alex shot him an unimpressed look. "Did you break and enter?"

"Of course not. I just took a brief look at the place. Newspaper ads don't tell the whole story."

"You read it in the newspaper? That's so cute." Alex teased him, and Michael balled up his napkin to throw at him.

"Yeah, and what were you doing looking at real estate online?"

"I wasn't. It was one of those ads that pop up because I had my location settings turned on."

"Mm-hmm. You do know the algorithm for those things aren't actually random, right? They look at recent sites visited, recent purchases made-"

Alex threw the napkin back at him.

-----

"I'm so proud of you two. Settling down in a place with modern plumbing and more than two rooms." Isobel teased them the day they moved in.

"My cabin has more than two rooms." Alex protested.

"And terrible water pressure." Isobel was perched on the kitchen counter, using her now developed telekinesis to unwrap dishes and put them away in the cabinets. He'd call it cheating, but he'd honestly just asked Michael to move the couch into the living room with his mind so he'd be a hypocrite. Of course asking Michael to use his powers had the added bonus of that look of concentration on his face and the beads of sweat sliding down his neck when the item was heavy.

Isobel shot him a look that said she knew what he was thinking about, and glanced at the counter she was sitting on suspiciously. "Make sure to utilize the cleaning supplies I brought. They sanitize." She sniffed.

"You do know this was the house everyone used to say was haunted when we were kids." Kyle decided to offer as he brought in another box. "We used to dare each other to come here."

Alex rolled his eyes. "Haunted, right."

"I'd make a joke about crossing the streams, but that would sound vaguely sexual."

"Valenti, I brought bleach for the house, not for my brain." Isobel scowled at him.

"The fact that you've both made more dirty jokes during this whole thing than Michael makes me seriously question my friendships." Alex pointed out.

"That actually suggests you're the bad influence in your relationships if you think about it." Isobel countered with a smug grin.

Alex opened his mouth to deny it, but then grinned, and studied the counter again. "I mean, when it comes to being a bad influence on your brother…"

"Ew! Ew! Stop it right now, Manes!" Isobel jumped off the counter. "Liz! You need to invent brain bleach!"

"Being a mind reader must suck." Kyle tormented.

"Oh, I can share these images with you if you like, Valenti." Isobel took a threatening step toward him, but Kyle was quicker - dodging out of the room.

"I think there's one more kitchen box!"

"Someone needs bleach? What are you spilling?" Liz entered the room.

"Brain Bleach, Ortecho. I demand you invent a way for me to unsee the filth that is in your best friend's mind." Isobel pointed at him.

Alex shrugged at Liz as if he had no clue what she meant, and escaped back to the living room.

"Don't play innocent, Manes!" The angry shout followed him.

"Geez, what did you do to upset the Princess?" Rosa asked him.

"I'm being falsely accused." He told her.

"Uh-huh."

"Coming through." Michael was using his powers to float pieces of the bed frame through the room and up the stairs.

"Wipe up the drool, and maybe I'll believe you." Rosa patted his shoulder and moved away - ignoring his spluttered protest. She headed back outside, but paused when she spotted Maria staring at the house. She had a box in her hands, but she wasn't moving. Her head was tilted to one side and her eyes distant - almost vacant. "Maria?" She approached her.

"Someone is here."

"Yeah, there's a lot of us here."

"Something happened - someone is missing?"

"I'm pretty sure we're all here." When she didn't respond right away, she reached out a hand to touch her arm. "Maria?"

Maria gasped, nearly dropping the box. She shook her head and stared at her blankly for a moment before she seemed to realize where she was. "I'm sorry, I just felt…" She glanced back at the house, and trailed off.

"Felt what?"

"I don't know. It's gone now."

Rosa frowned, but grabbed another box. "Well, come on. I'm gonna con Michael into buying us all pizza."

Maria laughed, and followed her inside.

-----

Leftover pizza from lunch was dinner. Michael couldn't seem to keep a smile off his face as Alex and he curled up in front of the fire. He was exhausted, both physically and powerwise. Maybe not the wisest choice, but right now things were quiet so it wasn't that concerning.

"Want anything?" He asked, despite the fact he didn't want to move.

"You." Alex replied, pulling him closer for a kiss. Michael went eagerly, letting their lips glide invitingly against each other's. Alex's hands were just beginning to tangle in his curls when a deafening crash echoed through the house.

"What the hell?" Michael was on his feet, and moving toward the sound.

"Michael, wait a moment." Alex hissed, struggling slightly to rise to his feet.

He cursed when Michael didn't listen, but caught up with him just as he was surveying the dining room. Nothing seemed out of place, and they moved into the kitchen next. They both relaxed when they saw things from the counter had fallen to the floor.

"The pizza boxes must have slid and knocked stuff." Alex picked up their paper towel holder.

"I'll grab the broom." Michael volunteered, and Alex only nodded in response.

It seemed like things had fallen pretty far. He frowned as he picked up the spaceship sponge holder Rosa had given them. It shouldn't have been anywhere it could be knocked. The air in the room felt chilly - he could feel goosebumps prickle up his arms. Placing the sponge back by the sink, he waited for Michael to return. He was ready to get back to the warmth of the fire.

-----

Over the next few weeks, Alex detected a pattern of things moving and falling. At first he thought they were simply misplacing things as they adjusted to the new house, but soon he was certain something more was going on.

Mysteriously moving belongings and telekinetic alien boyfriend. 2+2 = 4.

He thought it would be a simple conversation.

"I'm not moving things."

"Ever since we moved in here things have been moving." Alex pointed out.

"Or maybe we've been misplacing them because we aren't used to the house yet." Michael contradicted.

"Michael, my crutch was against the far wall this morning. So unless you did it on purpose--"

"I didn't touch--"

"You must be doing it subconsciously."

"I have not moved things while sleeping since I was thirteen, Alex."

"Well, I'm not saying that moving in together is like puberty, but since your powers do react to your emotions--"

"My emotions?" Michael crossed his arms. "Just what emotions do you think I'm having?"

"It's a big step, maybe you're nervous."

"I haven't been nervous, I've been happy. I thought you were too."

"I am happy, Michael. But something is clearly happening with your powers, and maybe making this big of a commitment has something to do with it."

"You're the one who's scared of commitment, Alex. Not me."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe this new level of commitment has you questioning us like you always do. And blaming me, which you always do, too, so you don't have to question your own motives."

"Or maybe your fear of being abandoned is clouding your judgement and you refuse to see what's happening."

When Michael slammed out the door a moment later, Alex sunk down onto the kitchen stool with a groan. This was supposed to be a new start, how had things gone bad so quickly?

-----

Michael hadn't returned by nightfall and Alex stayed up late, hoping he'd finally cool off and come home. It wasn't really like him to stay out late drinking anymore, not unless they were together. He finally fell into a restless sleep filled with hazy dreams where he searched endlessly for Michael but couldn't find him.

He awoke briefly when a cool hand touched his forehead. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Michael." He murmured back, glad the other had finally returned home. Something nagged at his mind, something about the hand that had brushed against his skin, but he was already drifting toward sleep again.

Cold. Cold hands. Michael's were always warm. Hot even, due to his alien biology. He shot up in bed, eyes scanning the darkness around him. "Lights." He ordered, and was glad he'd thought to install the program when the lamp turned on at the command.

Nobody was in the bedroom, it was empty.

Alex shivered, and grabbed his crutch - foregoing the prosthetic for speed. He went room by room but it soon became clear that nobody was there. He returned to bed, but sleep was a long time coming.

-----

He didn't feel very rested when the ding of his phone awakened him the next morning. He heard footsteps from the living room and was glad Michael had finally made it home. The screen showed the message was from Michael starting with "I'm sorry."

The idea of Michael pacing restlessly while sending a text message a room away made him smile fondly, and he sat up slowly. Both his crutch and prosthetic were across the room and he frowned at that - he was hoping the incidents with Michael's powers could be resolved by talking things out.

He clicked open the message to read the rest, and his blood ran cold.

"I'm sorry.

I spent the night at Liz and Max's. She and Kyle are going to run some tests to see what's going on with me. I'll be here all morning, but I'll bring lunch home."

The footsteps started down the hallway towards him…

#roswell new mexico #malex #alex manes #michael guerin #rnm fanfic #spooky prompts #prompt fic #rnm asks

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toooldforfandom-liveblogs · 5 years ago

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RWBY V07E07 - Worst Case Scenario

It has been two weeks since I last watched RWBY so let me try and remember what happened. There was a party, some flirting, a kiss... and that's it, right? Nothing bad happened, right? Right?

* sigh *

I assume someone is going to drop the title referring to the fallout after what happened last episode. I expect riots and Grimm, and maybe Robyn trying to commandeer the resources destined for the future Amity Tower (which is probably the only thing Ironwood _really_ cares about since he has been all "it's worth the sacrifice" the entire season so far.) I don't want to keep waiting so let's do this!

Oh no, sad Penny. What an auspicious start for the episode.

This is her dad, right? Those robot pats straddle the line between dorky and sad. I doubt the military wants Penny in the streets so I guess this is the only way he can be with her. Ugh. My heart.

Look at this crime against humanity. RT will answer for this someday!

Oh, one of the thirsty moms survived! The one with the casserole!

She's _terrified_, and with good reason. From her point of view, her own government killed her friends for daring to believe. What if she's next? Is Atlas going to start hunting everyone who supported Robyn? What about the people close to them?

We know that's not going to happen but she (and the rest of Mantle) is in all her right to believe it will

Oh no.

It's interesting how the scene that was, at the time, only a gag showing Jaune's bad luck and some cute kids with their moms, ended up being setup to show us how quick everything changed. Now their moms are dead and they are orphans, alone and in the cold.

Of course, this only furthers my belief that nothing good can be trusted in RWBY because it'll only be used to increase our suffering.

I'm going to _pissed_ if this happens. Stop killing Penny for god's sake.

First: I'm so glad she's okay.

Second: holy shit

did she just absorb an entire truck into her hand? Is she a human pokeball / dragon ball capsule? What a busted up semblance!

Huh. I really thought it was going to be something related to his tower. Unless that's what he's _really_ worried about (was that the truck's destination?)

ah, there you go.

Good!

Was Ozpin an "end justifies the means" man? I think he wasn't really, or at least he didn't consider himself one, but he had spent so much time alive he lost sight of what he was doing and asking people to do for him really meant.

In comparison Ironwood knows exactly what's going on. He believes he's doing the right thing by prioritizing the tower over his people. And maybe he's right from a global point of view? But the fact that the human lives that are going to be lost are the ones that were _already_ suffering is a supremely bad look. What's going to be left of Mantle after he saves the world?

You tell him, Nora!

Nothing good ever comes when someone says "the greater good."

Ilia said exactly the same thing back in Volume 5, almost word for word. I wonder if the callback is intentional or if there's just not that many ways to use that concept as an excuse.

I _really_ thought she was going to say "exchanging Salem for you."

I love how Nora is the one speaking up but I hate that no one is supporting her. Winter looks completely unimpressed back there but I didn't expect much from her or Clover but what about the rest?

_Thank you_

Wow, what did he do to get Salem's personal attention? Because "what are you?" followed by "Beautiful" has to be about her, right?

oh _no_ what is wrong with Reeeeeen.

We never got an explanation about his behavior, he didn't talk and Nora kissing him solved zero problems. Yay.

I was hoping for a cut away to them partying it up before all hell broke lose but oh well.

Treason!

I _love_ that they are all right, or rather, their opinions are all understandable. I can see where both Yang and Blake are coming from and there's no way to say "ah, the show is doing everything it can to show that Yang is wrong."

Which keeps increasing my worry about how they are going to handle the end of the arc because so far the show has been very even handed but any ending where the long term sacrifice and oppression of Mantle ends up being justified is going to be... well, bad. It doesn't help that the "oppression" hasn't been really visible so it could be reaally easy to just sweep it under the carpet and just say something about "things are going to be better from now on" or even "they weren't that bad to begin with"

Anyway, this is me getting worried about things that may not even happen so I won't keep talking about it. Let me say instead how happy I am that they are still dealing with what happened with Adam and of course that would color Blake's views of what she wants to do in the future.

And is that treason I'm hearing here? I expected a team up with Robyn but I didn't expect it to come from these two. Interesting. Is Yang going to spill the beans to her about the tower and Salem?

Look at those green borders inside the boot! Tsk, tsk, Watts. He obviously was getting bored of masking Penny frame per frame.

lmao. Maria is straight up vocalizing the section of the fandom that misses the early simpler seasons

Oh. Watts's plan has _layers_. I'm impressed!

ooh hidden penny lore

how many theories is this going to prove/disprove?

The man under the thumb has to be Watts, right?

WOW

I _really_ didn't expect this to be the answer for Penny's soul. I was in the "there's no artificial soul" camp but I expected something like Pietro transferring someone else's soul or a lost daughter, not him literally giving her part of his soul.

What does this mean for Penny? Does the part of the soul Pietro gives her grow like a plant from a cutting or everything she uses her semblance or is hurt she loses a bit more of it? It has to grow, right?

It's good to see an explanation for Pietro's death flags. Is he going to die saving Penny one last time? Jaune is learning how to manipulate his aura outwards...

Just lol at the being an obvious villain even in the group pictures.

So, is this personal for Watts? Did Ironwood choosing Penny mean the end of his career? Did he try to do whatever he planned anyway and got fired?

The hand again! Is that how she activates her semblance? But if she needs the person to grab her hand, what did she expect from Clover?

Also, props to the show for making everyone react somewhat realistically. Of course, Robyn was going to run the second she saw Ironwood's new pets.

Is Ironwood intentionally using RWBY and the rest to keep suspicions down? "They are all young and attractive, some even look innocent, there's no way they are doing anything _bad_, right?" But again, that would mean Ironwood is playing 4D chess and I'm not sure that's his deal.

Oh no. And Yang is so proud of her pun.

That was a good first step. I can't deny I was hoping for Yang and Blake to join the huntresses and kick ass but I was dreaming too big.

...so it was Ozpin idea to have a city floating above Mantle making ther differences permanently clear? Has Ozpin ever had a good idea?

FREE ENERGY AND THEY STILL ABUSE PEOPLE TO GET DUST

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I know it's probably not easy but

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa

Atlas is 100% going to crash into the ground. I think everyone already suspected it'd happen but this is a gigantic death flag.

Ironwood is sliding down as fast as he can down the slippery slope of the greater good. He didn't want Ozpin's opinion, he wanted Ozpin to tell him he was right.

It feels so bad to take away from Oscar's growth but I wonder if they are already merging.

welp

That was a great episode to return to. Somehow RWBY is managing to handle all the balls it had in the air earlier in the season and hasn't dropped one yet.

I was expecting that the episode would start with Yang and Blake or Weiss and company but nope, just sadness and tragedy. Followed by more consequences, in the form of Robyn and her happy huntresses finally doing what they probably wanted to do from the start. If the "legal" way didn't work, well, time to do it anyway. That does leave me with some questions about how long was the timeskip between episodes, it can't be that same night, especially with the news showing things like "additional deaths confirmed." Maybe same week but at least a couple of days later?

Ironwood needs someone to shake him by the shoulders. Some of the things he's saying wouldn't be out of place in any villain's origin story, especially the part about wanting to get rid of his fear. I hope Jacques being the awful man he is shows him what waits for him in the other side.

Pietro's reveal about Penny's soul really feels like the biggest of his death flags so far. Him dying trying to make Penny live again really feels like end-of-season drama, considering there's no Pyrrha to kill again and apparently RT really likes killing Penny. Jaune _just_ learning about the possibilities of his semblance feels weirdly suspicious now that we know about Penny's aura but... it's a bit too out there since I think they have never talked. Or maybe it's all a misdirect and someone else ends up dying with RT winking at us saying "you really though it'd be Penny, huh?" At this point I'm not sure what'd be worst.

I liked everything about Yang and Blake's talk in the truck. I'm not a big fan of Yang's main trait lately being "dislikes secrets" (the secondary being "likes Blake") but I'm not sure if overcoming that is just her next step in her growth or if that's all there's going to be.

Their chat with Robyn was great, I can't wait for the repercussions of telling the leader of the resistance the biggest secret Atlas has. With Ironwood being who he is, it could be _bad_ for the couple which could push everyone else in one direction or the other, and not necessarily the _same_ direction, as we already saw with Ren who's officially canceled because for some reason he's going all fash (I _really_ need an explanation before the season ends)

This volume is going places, can't wait for the next episode! Until next time!

#rwby #rwby liveblog #rwby v07e07

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schraubd · 5 years ago

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When (If Ever) Will the Left Turn on Sanders?

Many folks, myself included, have observed that Bernie Sanders the actual politician often differs quite substantially from Bernie the mythological figure as imagined by some of his more passionate supporters (and detractors). "Socialism" label notwithstanding, Bernie's politics are relatively standard social democratic prescriptions, not far off from New Deal style liberalism. And his route to accomplishing his policy agenda likewise will generally flow through relatively normal democratic (and Democratic) processes.

Nonetheless, one advantage Bernie has had over his career is that he's seen as ideologically incorruptible. Bernie Sanders is someone who votes his conscience; he doesn't play the games of triangulation and log-rolling that regular politicians do. Some of this is an exaggeration, but some of it is real enough, and it's responsible for at least some of his more passionate base of support which see him as a pure actor among a field of sell-outs.

Of course, there's a reason why he's been able to maintain this pure stance. Since he's rarely been "the decider" or the pivotal vote, there have been very few decisions that fall directly on his head, and so he's rarely been forced to engage in the grubby work of compromise and negotiation that eventually captures any political actor who actually wants to get things done. He can afford to be a purist because others are putting in the hard-rock mining to actually make things happen. Even as he's risen to the position of U.S. Senator, Sanders has largely been able to follow Weber's "politics of conviction".

But as he moves from presidential contender to probable presidential nominee to, perhaps, President of the United States, this is going to become less and less tenable. Eventually, Weber teaches us, any truly empowered political actor will have to abandon the politics of pure conviction. And to the extent some of his wildest supporters have his back primarily because of the perception that he can transcend "regular" politics and maintain the politics of conviction forever, it raises the question: what happens when Sanders, inevitably, has to start playing the game? What happens when he has to actually do things that inevitably will involve compromise, and cooperation, and bargaining with various grubby constituencies beyond the base? What happens when Sanders is actually forced to be the man making the decision, and can't indulge in purity any longer?

The earliest time I can imagine this playing it out is when Sanders is choosing a Vice President. In general -- not always, but in general -- a VP nominee is chosen to shore up support among the wing of the party that did not win the nomination. So Sanders likely will face a lot of pressure to choose someone "establishment" flavored, as a gesture of unity, and will face even more pressure not to choose a loyal Berniecrat, as redundant. But how will Sanders supporters react if he picks, oh, let's say Kamala Harris, as a running mate? Will they be shocked at the betrayal -- the caving in to establishment forces? Or will they be trusting, willing to give him leeway and (finally, albeit one-sidedly) accepting the realities of political maneuvering? Or will he be held innocent, the victim of hostage-taking by a DNC that will do anything and everything to preserve the power of the old guard?

Maybe he can avoid this (maybe he can be pure once again, and select a down-the-line loyalist). But if he becomes President, these issues will only continue and will become harder to avoid. Change will never occur with the immediacy that one would hope, the bills that are passed will never be as clean as they were drawn up in the progressive caucus, administrative appointees won't always give advice or produce studies that say what one wants to hear. And when that happens, what will happen? Will it be assimilated as part of the costs of doing business in the highly complex, modern bureaucratic state? Or will be evidence that Bernie, too, ultimately sold out? Or will it show just how entrenched the deep state is against him -- Sanders did not fail us, he was betrayed from within.

I honestly don't know, and I can see things going any which way. There is, among at least some Sanders supporters, a toxic kool-aid making the rounds where Sanders cannot fail, he can only be failed. This story about Sanders supporters standing outside a Nevada Democratic Party official's house at 11 PM with a bullhorn railing about the inevitable impending corruption in the caucus is disturbing on a host of levels, but let's focus on how the ringleader responded to pleading by the Sanders campaign to knock it off:

“The Sanders campaign is run by the establishment,” she wrote on her Facebook page in response to some critiques of her nighttime demonstrations. “I can care less what Bernie’s staff thinks of me. They aren’t relevant to me or my race. I have seen screenshots of the way they treat Berners and it is absolutely not reflective of Bernie Sanders.”

Now the woman in question, Maria Estrada, is at the fringe of the fringe -- she's a raging antisemite who nonetheless received an Our Revolution endorsement to challenge the (Democratic) California Assembly speaker in 2018 (she's seeking a rematch, but it's unclear whether Our Revolution endorsed her again). But boy howdy is this some cult of personality business. With all due respect to Sanders' campaign staff, there's no reasonable argument that Sanders is more encouraging of ... let's call them "hardball" tactics from the activist base ... than are members of his staff. But no matter: From Estrada's vantage point, Sanders cannot possibly deviate from the path of the true revolution -- and if he does, then he didn't, he was simply led astray by false prophets and establishment whisperers. This isn't healthy. It would not be healthy if the movement Bernie leads decides he's betrayed it, and it's not healthy if the movement Bernie leads decides every setback is the result of insidious forces corrupting from within. Bernie Sanders may well make a fine president. It's possible he will be a great president. But he is still going to be a president, within the same system and subject to the same political constraints as have all the occupants of the office before him. Donald Trump may be the president who has most aggressively resisted these strictures, and to the extent he can get away with it it's only because he doesn't care how many people he immiserates and lives he destroys along the way. If your goal is to build rather than destroy, to improve rather than decay, you don't have Trump's luxuries. Most people who ask a question like "when will the left turn on Sanders" do so, I imagine, with a note of hope in voice -- when will they see the light? (a libertarian friend of my in-laws used to always ask my wife "are the youth turning on Obama yet?", convinced that any day now they'd realize that big government represented a bigger threat to their liberty than losing health insurance coverage). I do not ask this question with hope. I suspect that if the left turns on Sanders, it will be for the worst reasons. Convinced that it is only a failure of will that their dreams haven't yet been realized, they will infer from Sanders inability to the impossible that either he or his team were traitors all along. And as ugly as some of their attacks on "the DNC" and "the establishment" and Hillary and Obama and Perez and Wasserman-Schulz and ... (ever onward) have been, the fallout of that reckoning would be terrifying to witness. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2vbNwPD

#Bernie Sanders #Election 2020 #leftists

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miserablesoldier · 5 years ago

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i’m gonna get you (one way or another) - ONE

Summary: The world has it's best defenders, the Avengers, providing a beacon of defence, hope and light but with light comes darkness, those with the power stripped you of everything that made you human and gave you only one mission: kill the Avengers.

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warning: Violence, character deaths

A/N: Set before Infinity War and Endgame, and Civil War didn’t happen because I said so lol also Bucky, Sam and Peter are Avengers and please review

Read on AO3

The world has changed since way before 2008 when Tony Stark announced himself so candidly as the Iron Man, way before a crater appeared in New Mexico with an un-lifting hammer in the middle, and way before Steve Rogers became Captain America and plummeted himself in a HYDRA vessel straight into the frozen Arctic.

There dark things in this world now but there remains light as well to always fight the good fight, protect the innocent and bring peace to their home, to those who live in it.

That light is called the Avengers, they provide a beacon of hope, a shield of protection around those who fear the dark and what lives in it. They know this and they plan to suffocate, eradicate, slaughter and crush every single one of those Avengers until they are nothing but a speck of dust floating in a downwards spiral the air.

Good things don’t last forever.

They clawed, spidering and infecting the shadows searching for the perfect vessel. A vessel that won’t shatter and dissolve under their influence, a vessel of the perfect, powerful, strong warrior puppet.

They have found such a person.

You.

The found you stumbling out of a bar somewhere up North in England, you weren’t too sure these days, and swaying from side to side, putting one foot in front of the other down an aged cobblestone street, you had a pleasant time knocking back a few Strongbow’s, played a few games of billiards, listening to the tribute band of the week.

You weren’t drunk by any means, you didn’t have that luxury, not anymore at least. You were different, enhanced due to a horrific accident as all of those ‘heroes’ tragically tend start off these days - what that night gave you is what made you so special, utter perfection in their eyes.

Which is why they violently ripped you out of that street, consumed you in the shadows, violated and infected every crevasse of your body, soul and mind until the very person that you were was nothing but an empty husk, a shell to be used, carved and shaped into their very purpose.

You were just a puppet now, a mindless slave with no freewill, no choice, no emotions.

You only had one task now.

Kill the Avengers.

Stark.

Rogers.

Barton.

Romanoff.

Odinson.

Banner.

Maximoff.

Vision.

Rhodes.

Wilson.

Parker.

Barnes.

Every single one by tedious one.

…

When you woke up, you were no longer in a nameless town in England, you woke up naked in an abandoned, under construction office building and when you pushed yourself off the dusty plaster boards you peered out the shattered window.

The Empire State Building, you were in New York and unsure how and why. When you asked that to yourself, you were hit with sharp burning shards in your head. You clutched your head, groaning out your pain but it didn’t stop there. Red scalding burns circled your forearms in spirals, you hissed in pain and brought your arms down and stared at the hideous burns fading into black markings resembled pythons coiling with their heads going into your palms.

They were a reminder as they seem to move and come alive, hissing their wishes at you.

You have a purpose.

You may begin.

You have everything you will need with you.

2:25pm. Downtown.

Do not fail us.

The snakes faded back to black markings on your skin, you turned from the window and everything you needed was placed in front of where you woke. A navy backpack filled with sustainable food and water, and weapons. Monotoned clothes lay neatly beside the bag, underwear, socks, black jeans, long sleeved grey shirts that embellished a symbol you recognise, a black and blue bikers’ jacket and military combat boots, holsters for your legs and torso. You put these all on, everything seemed to fit perfectly for you.

You returned to the window and looked over, at the ground and saw a motorcycle just lying there. You understood what the jacket was for now. You lifted yourself through the window, not caring for the shards glass penetrating the skin of hands, you let yourself fall and landed on your feet not metres away from the bike.

No keys, you noticed. You patted down the jacket you’re wearing and head a jingle in your right pocket, you pulled the object out. A key with a dartboard keyring attached. There was a name engraved on the back.

Yours, you suspected but none of that matters.

Seating yourself on the bike, you slotted the key in and started the engine. The machine purred with a rumble to life. You had to be somewhere more important to be. You drove out of the construction yard and onto the streets of New York.

You drove for hours and you were running out of time, you needed to get to Midtown, you parked and turned off the bike to take a look of your surroundings. Tall, greyed buildings everywhere, there was no colour other than the people. The place felt empty, but it was packed, busy all the same.

You could hear tyres burning rubber on the roads, screeching which seemed too loud for your ears. Your eyes then caught the sight of the out of the control car and it was on a crash course straight into a dark-skinned man with a black eyepatch covering one of his eyes and a woman walking together.

The woman with pinned back dark brown reacted too late, she called out to the man. “Fury, move!”

The man known as ‘Fury’ had no time left, the car was a metre away from him, but the hit never came. He opened his one good eye and saw a woman in front of car, perfectly fine and stopped the kamikaze car with her body, creating a dent in the nose.

She was one of them.

He stared at the woman; he could have sworn that her eyes had no colour. “Thanks, what’s your name, soldier?”

You blinked at him, reading him, watching him like prey. You knew he was why you were here; he was important, and you needed him. “Lieutenant-Colonel (Y/N) (Y/L/N) of the British Army, sir.” You answered him clear and concise, there was a memory that came with that, but it was just a whisper, closed off and not to be touched.

The brunette woman stepped towards her and beside Fury. “You’re a long way from home, soldier,”

“Yes, I am, Ma’am,” You nodded.

“You saved my life, soldier, and you exhibited extraordinary abilities there,” Fury smirked and wondered what more the likes of this soul weary soldier could do.

You pressed out a small smile. “I wouldn’t call it that, sir,”

Fury let out a chuckle, you reminded him of a recently thawed captain back in the very early days of the Avengers Initiative. “Let me buy you a coffee and let’s talk about it, or would you rather prefer tea?”

“Tea, actually.”

You did perfectly. You did what they wanted you to do, you had unknowingly made a link to the Avengers that would soon reveal itself, but you were still quite in the dark about that. They would continue to keep you in the dark until it is necessary for you to know specific things.

You felt a warm hiss against the back of your left ear as you followed the two into a coffee house.

Slowly.

Work and you shall see.

So, you did, you answered all of their questions, the right answers were hissed to you perfectly. You made Nick Fury and Maria Hill think you were a lost, wounded soul from the war with so much more left to give. So, they took you in, tested you and your abilities, saw what you were capable of and so much more, they trained you with agents and simulations for months and months. You did exactly what they asked of you and gave them the results they wanted to see.

A new Avenger.

Time will tell when that title will come to pass and be bestowed upon you by the Great Tony Stark.

They gave you a ‘home’, they called it, it was an apartment that you lived, slept, ate and received your messages in. Home meant absolutely nothing to you now. Nothing did.

You didn’t sleep, you’re not sure that you can so the snakes hiss whisperings to you encouragements of darkness, information that you need, what to do, how to act and what to say as you were a puppet with them pulling your strings.

Which you are just that.

A means to an end, and a gory one at that.

You know you will not survive this.

You didn’t care.

#marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #steve rogers #tony stark #natasha romanoff #clint barton #thor #bruce banner #miserablesoldierfics #peter parker #sam wilson #wanda maximoff #vision #fanfics

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boofphil · 7 years ago

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this isn’t you - 1

summary: phil just wants to know who dan really is. he isn't like the rest of the football team, who bully people and harass girls. he's hiding something from everyone, something that maybe isn't as bad as he thinks it is.but dan doesn't know how to stand up for himself and the memory of how painfully lonely he was keeps him on the team.a series of unfortunate events (that slowly turn into fortunate ones) may change that, however.

genre: angst with a happy ending, slow burn

word count: ~4000

chapters: 1/19

warnings: bullying, homophobic/transphobic slurs

a/n: this fic is a gift to @dreamdilddy ! merry christmas c: i hope you enjoy this! the idea came to me in a strangely detailed dream.

fic updates every sunday

prompt: I'm really into like slowburn/friends to lovers type stuff. it's my absolute favorite and I'm not very picky when it comes to it!

ao3 link

Dan should have been more careful when spying on the theatre club.

It wasn’t that he was doing it with malicious intentions, he simply couldn’t afford to be caught. He had many reasons to hide. For starters, he was supposed to be at football practice. It was unbearably cold outside, however, and the coach insisted on them still practicing two hours three days a week no matter the temperature. Dan wasn’t in the mood in the mood for freezing to death.

Secondly, if the football team knew where he had gone, the humiliation and bullying he would have to endure would be unbearable. He still remembered the bruising he received when he had mentioned going to the school play at the beginning of the season.

The team was, essentially, a bunch of bigoted boys who thought they were cooler than everyone else.

Which brings up the third point. It would seem suspicious that he was only there to watch the rehearsals. The football team was notorious for playing pranks on the theatre club (when Dan asked why, they had explained that it was their punishment for being “a club of fags”).

The thing is, he loved theatre and wished he could be apart of it. But pressure from his parents to join something sporty and the overwhelming loneliness lead Dan to joining the football team instead. Dan was mediocre at the sport and figured he wouldn’t be picked at tryouts. Apparently he had underestimated himself, as he’d been one of the first people chosen to be on the team.

He had been distracted by the singing of the lead actor of the play when everything went to hell. He was too focused on the melodramatic song to realize that someone was approaching his hiding area. It was only when that person began moving the boxes that Dan began to panic. There wasn’t any other place he could escape to; he hadn’t thought out his hiding place very well. It was either he be discovered by whoever was moving the boxes or run out from behind and cause a scene.

Dan was trapped.

He squeezed his eyes shut, accepting fate. Hopefully it’d be somebody who didn’t hate the football team, though his brain quickly reasoned that there was not one person in the theatre club who didn’t hate the football team’s guts.

“What the hell are you doing here?” a voice hissed, making Dan flinch. “Don’t you have football practice?”

Dan opened his eyes, keeping them on the floor. “I-I was leaving right now, sorry-”

“Trying to play another prank on us?”

Dan finally looked up and was met with the face of Phil Lester. He didn’t know much about Phil, other than some kids on the team liked to beat him up every now and then.

“No, I swear, I wasn’t-”

Phil scoffed and grabbed Dan’s arm. “Save it, Howell. We all know the football team wants to humiliate us again, don’t try to play innocent.”

Dan felt curls of panic forming in his stomach. They increased as Phil dragged him out of his hiding space, trying to bring him into the stage.

“Please, no, I promise I was only watching,” Dan begged, heartbeat increasing as he fought against Phil’s grip.

“You’re such a terrible liar.” He overpowered Dan’s panicking struggles and brought him onstage, disrupting the scene that had been going on.

Dan stared at the ground, trying to will away the red shame on his cheeks. He listened in horror as people reacted to his presence.

“Phil? What’s going on?”

“Why is he here?”

“Is that Dan Howell?”

Dan could hardly breath. There were so many eyes on him, all of them tearing him apart and judging him based on his association with the football team. He felt sick and dizzy from the amount of anxiety Dan had rushing through him.

“I found him hiding behind some prop boxes. Looks like the football team is trying to prank us again,” Phil loudly announced, his voice echoing through the auditorium.

Dan didn’t need to look up to know that everyone was scowling at him. He needed to play it cool, as it was expected of him. Be mean and arrogant like the rest of the team. Have no respect, just like the captain told him.

“The only people you respect is the football team,” the captain had jeered, “and girls with big boobs.”

The team had erupted into laughter at that, Dan nervously joining in.

He kept his eyes trained to the ground, waiting for someone to act.

“Well, if they were going to prank us, they should have sent a better person.” Dan knew that voice; it was Maria, the director of the play. Her slight accent and loud voice made her very recognizable even without looking up.

“Everybody knows Dan is the clumsiest person on the team. I’m surprised they even keep him with how much he messes up.”

Dan clenched his hands together, fighting off the urge to recoil or run off. He needed to be strong. “There was no prank.”

Maria snorted. “Oh really? Then tell me, why were you hiding back there?”

Dan couldn’t tell her the truth, that he longed to be apart of the play, that he knew every line of his favorite character. Word would spread like wildfire and Dan would have to face the football team.

“That’s what I thought.”

Dan listened to her heavy footsteps as they approached him. He stiffened up and finally dragged his eyes off the ground, facing Maria head on.

Maria stopped in front of him, her eyes icy daggers that looked over him and made him feel insecure. Dan didn’t know alot about Maria, but he did know that she was very intimidating and not somebody to cross.

Maria smirked. “I have an idea.” The way she said it let Dan know that he was not going to like this idea. “Why don’t you pay us back for all the times your team has pranked us?”

Murmurs of agreement rose around him. Dan’s heart pounded nervously and his palms were becoming sweaty, though he tried to ignore it.

“And what makes you think I’ll do that?”

Maria’s smirk didn’t even twitch. Dan had to admire her confidence and ability to face Dan head on. “Because if you don’t, we’ll make sure that the football team hears about you being here, listening intently to the play, reciting every word to yourself, and pretending that you were the star of the show, that you were doing this instead of football practice.”

She nailed the point right on. He knew that there was no point in telling the truth; Maria wouldn’t believe him and it’d only humiliate him more.

Dan crossed his arms both trying to look intimidating and to hide the shakiness of his hands. “What do you want from me then?” he snapped.

Maria grinned, knowing she had won. “That’s up to the rest of the crew. Everyone here wants some sort of revenge; the football team made sure to make everyone’s job much more difficult You’ll do whatever is asked by whoever. If you complain or cause any trouble, there will be consequences.”

The crew cheered in approval. The cheers filled Dan with dread, his stomach knotting up. Someone even called dibs on him.

Maria smiled at everyone, bathing in the approval of her crewmates. “You come and do what they want for two times a week and we’ll all pretend that we never saw you here. But if you dare make any slip up, we can’t promise that our mouths will remain shut. It’s all up to you what you choose to do. Got it?”

Dan could only nod slowly, fearing that any words would reveal how terrified he really was.

“Good.” Maria patted his shoulder, then pushed him over to the crowd of crew members. They all glared at him, each one holding some sort of grudge. “Now, what shall be our first job for our friend Dan?”

Dan watched in horror as people began shouting out, trying to claim him to work on their part of the play. He let his eyes fall back to the ground, his shoulders slumping with it, and his tough facade melted away. Maria went through each request loudly, but her voice sounded like white noise compared to the anxiety that was coursing through Dan’s veins.

“I’ve called dibs already!” someone yelled, pushing through the crowd.

“Eloise,” Maria greeted.

“The football pulled a prank on the makeup crew last week. Thought it would be funny to cover all our makeup in powder. We can hardly get to it without sneezing or having some kind of allergic reaction.”

Maria nodded sympathetically. Then, she turned to Dan. “Looks like you got yourself a job, Danny boy.” She shoved him forward towards Eloise. “Go on, Eloise will show you where it’s at.”

Dan sighed, trudging slowly after Eloise. She began yapping away about how awful the football team was, but Dan didn’t say anything. She was right about everything and he didn’t want to try to argue that he wasn’t like the rest of them.

The whole cleaning process left him with a raw throat and watery eyes. The entire time, the makeup crew had mocked him and laughed at him, making him feel worse. By the end of the practice, Dan wanted nothing more than to curl up in his bed and cry.

He headed out without a coat (one of the theatre members had stolen it) and made the long journey home, having missed the bus. He shivered as he walked, his eyes watery and making it hard to see. Home seemed so far away and he couldn’t get there fast enough.

When he did get home, he collapsed on the couch inside, curling up with some blankets to stop the shivering. He needed water to soothe his throat and clothes that weren’t his scratchy uniform. He waited until his shivering was relatively under control before finally getting up.

After changing into clothes, he went to the kitchen and got himself a glass of water. As he gulped down the water, trying to clear his throat, Dan couldn’t help but feel bitterness towards the theatre club. They’d essentially turned him into a puppet, obeying them out of fear of being blackmailed.

Phil could have easily left him alone or simply thrown him out, but instead he had to embarrass him in front of the whole club and ruin any opportunities Dan had at redeeming himself and joining the club. He cursed his asshole teammates for tormenting the theatre club and for inadvertently getting him in the situation he was in.

Dan knew it was partially his fault too; no one was supposed to be in the theatre during rehearsals and he had been skipping football practice. He’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time and was paying for it now.

Dan sighed, putting the now empty water glass down. He could kiss his dream of being the lead role in a play goodbye.

Dan’s stomach growled once again. Dan paused from putting away a costume, pressing a hand against his stomach. One of the theatre students had taken to stealing Dan’s snacks that he packed for after school. Usually, it was an annoyance at most, but Dan hadn’t had any money for lunch. The most he had eaten was two pieces of toast for breakfast.

“Get back to work, Howell,” the costume manager, Ty, yelled. Dan turned to see him glaring at Dan, watching his every move and waiting to lash out.

Dan hated the costume manager and wasn’t surprised to hear that everyone else working costumes hated him too. Ty was cold and unlikeable and very disorganized. He was supposed to have organized the pile Dan was currently going through, but Ty had instead waited until he had Dan under his control to do it. He’d been watching Dan like a hawk the entire time, not letting him take a moment’s break.

Dan was starting to feel nauseous and dizzy from both the hunger and from being on his feet for too long. He knew he was going to pass out soon if he didn’t take a break or get some food in his system.

That’s why the moment Ty looked away, Dan took off running towards the dressing rooms. Most people were near the stage wings, focusing on perfecting the cues, allowing him to slip through the door that lead to the dressing rooms without any trouble. He was distantly aware of yelling coming from behind him, but he didn’t care; he’d rather not pass out and embarrass himself even further. He could risk getting in trouble with Maria. She seemed too focused on the play anyway to notice any commotion backstage.

He found himself heading towards the lounge area where a fridge was at. He remembered overhearing people talking about putting their food in there to save for breaks during rehearsal. Dan didn’t hesitate to make a beeline for it once he entered the lounge, stomach demanding food.

Dan figured a little bit of food wouldn’t hurt. Nobody would miss it.

Inside the fridge, people’s food sat, unknowingly being scanned over by a hungry teenage boy. His eyes landed on a rather large sandwich and his hands grabbed it without giving Dan time to think.

Dan sat down at the table set up in the middle of the lounge, unwrapping the sandwich. He felt slightly bad for whoever’s sandwich he was about to eat, but the growling in his stomach was enough to overpower any guilt he had.

He had taken a few bites of the sandwich when Phil burst through the door, scanning the room with wild eyes. They froze when they say Dan and the sandwich.

Dan felt his cheeks start to burn, the tell tale sign that he was blushing. He ignored them and instead took another bite of the sandwich, albeit much slower than he had been earlier.

“That’s my sandwich,” Phil said, glaring at Dan.

Guilt pooled in Dan’s stomach. Already he looked bad in Phil’s perspective, this merely made him look much worse. He continued eating the sandwich, however. He was hungry. “Not anymore, I guess.”

Phil stormed over, barely letting Dan have another bite before snatching it away. Dan looked towards the tabletop, not wanting to make eye contact in fear that he’d feel even more guilty. He felt awful and not tough or cool at all. Wasn’t he supposed to feel that way? His teammates always did after they stole someone’s lunch.

All he felt was guilt.

“What’s your problem? All you ever do is act like you’re some entitled brat who can humiliate others that you deem lower than yourself and take whatever or whoever you want.”

Dan didn’t say anything. The part of the sandwich that he did manage to eat was now aching in his stomach.

“I have no respect for someone like you. Nobody does.”

Dan felt his eyes water, the hunger making him more sensitive than he usually was. No, this couldn’t happen. Not here, not now. He wasn’t going to let Phil see him cry over something as silly as getting yelled at. Dan quickly rubbed at his eyes, hoping to hide the tears that had began to form in them.

“I didn’t have lunch,” Dan finally snapped, sounding much more pathetic than he had intended to. “And one of your theatre friends keeps stealing the food I do save.”

It was Phil’s turn to be silent.

Dan looked up at Phil and before he could stop himself, words were tumbling out of his mouth that were never meant to be said.”I didn’t ask for all this, you know. I never wanted to join the football team and become somebody who treats everyone else like shit. I know that I’m some God-awful person that nobody can stand, okay? And I’m sorry for it, I never wanted to be that kind of person.” Dan sighed and turned away, feeling tears in his eyes again. “I’m sorry. You’re right; it’s your sandwich, and I have no right stealing it.”

Phil stared at Dan, shocked from his outburst. The way he looked now, unable to make eye contact and cheeks red from shame, was foreign to what Phil expected of him. He was expecting a fight, physical or verbal, and for Dan to insult him back. He didn’t expect Dan to agree with him and apologize.

Before he could think properly, Phil slid the sandwich back over to Dan. “H-here, you can have this.”

Dan stared at him, confused. He wanted it badly, but only a moment earlier Phil had been yelling at him for taking it. Now he wanted Dan to have it? “Are you sure?”

Phil nodded. “You’re obviously hungry; I can hear your stomach growling from over here. I don’t need the sandwich anyway, I had a pretty big lunch.”

Dan hesitated, then snatched up the sandwich and began to devour it. Phil stayed silent as Dan ate, mulling over Dan’s words. Dan had basically told him he didn’t want to be on the football team and that he knew they treated everyone like shit.

The more he thought about it, the more Phil realized that Dan didn’t exactly fit in with the rest of the players. Dan always went along with anything the theatre club had him do without complaining or putting up a fight. He’d been respectful of everyone, even when Maria was gone. And when Phil had originally found him hiding behind the boxes, he had almost looked scared.

Dan was more aloof than rude, unlike the other football players. It didn’t make any sense; why was Dan on the football team if he knew they were awful?

“Why’d you apologize?”

Dan looked up briefly from eating his sandwich before looking away. “Like I said, it wasn’t right of me to steal your sandwich, even if I was starving. It’s common sense.”

This only made Phil more intrigued about the mystery that Dan was slowly becoming. “Why are you on the football team?” Phil blurted out.

Dan shrugged. “I like football.” He’d dealt with this question long enough to know how to respond.

Phil shook his head in disbelief. “There’s plenty of people here who love football but refuse to join because of the team. And you obviously don’t like the football team; so why are you on it?”

Dan shifted uncomfortably. He’d finished the sandwich, leaving him no excuse to stay silent. He’d already told Phil too much; he barely knew Phil. For all he knew, Phil could be secretly plotting another way to embarrass him in front of the theatre club. Dan stood up, preparing to leave.

“Dan-”

“It’s none of your business,” Dan said, “I like football so I joined the team. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

Phil watched wordlessly as Dan slipped out, heading back to do who-knows-what. Phil frowned after him.

Dan didn’t join the football team because he liked football, that much was obvious to Phil. He sighed, running a hand through his hair.

Maybe some things were better left alone.

Dan didn’t see Phil for a long time after that, thankfully. He didn’t want to risk more interrogation or spilling more of his secrets. He didn’t need to deal with a too curious boy pestering him about a decision he’d made long ago.

Phil had already told the whole theatre club he had been spying on them for a “prank”. What would stop him from telling everyone about Dan’s true distaste for the football team?

Dan felt like he was walking on eggshells around the theatre club. He constantly panicked whenever he heard his name being whispered or saw someone looking his way for too long. He tried to keep himself distracted with chores, but the theatre club was being oddly nice and giving him only easy tasks that took ten minutes at most.

Dan had a feeling it was because the football team had been leaving them alone. Dan was kind of glad for it; the team had been focusing their efforts more on preparing for a tournament than beating up fellow classmates. Unfortunately, that didn’t last for long.

It was lunch break and the team had agreed to have some fun (Dan having said nothing, knowing what this “fun” would be). Dan trailed along behind them, occasionally adding in the appropriate statement or laugh.

It made him feel guilty, allowing these people to get beat up while he stood back and pretended to be the bully, all because he didn’t want to be the on being bullied. He refused to look at the person that was chosen to be the victim, fearing that the guilt would overwhelm him.

He followed them miserably as they moved down the halls, looking for the next victim. Dan wasn’t paying attention to what was happening, instead mentally battling his consciousness like he always did when this happened.

What he wasn’t expecting, however, was for the team to go after Phil.

Dan watched helplessly, nausea pooling in his stomach, as the team captain, Luke, shoved Phil up against the locker. Dan knew what was going to happen next.

Luke threw a punch while Dan watched cowardly. He couldn’t find any malice or ill feelings towards Phil that he had earlier that would make the experience easier on Dan. It only made him feel more guilty; why couldn’t he stand up for Phil?

His teammates were laughing, Luke kicking Phil’s side as he laid curled up on the floor. Dan felt dizzy as Luke hit Phil’s face, Phil wincing with pain and protecting his face with his hands. Dan swore years passed before they were finally done with Phil.

Dan was grateful when the team began to leave, forgetting about Dan’s existence in favor of finding a suitable target to harass. Dan didn’t bother following after them; if he saw one more person being bullied, he knew he’d throw up out of guilt.

Phil’s lip was bleeding and he was clutching his stomach, trying to sit up.

“A-are you okay?” Dan whispered, frozen still in his spot.

Phil glared at him and tried to get up, but his limbs were still shaking from the whole ordeal. Dan finally moved, coming over to help Phil stand up. At first, Phil tried to fight him, but gave in and let Dan pull him up. Dan winced as he heard Phil groan in pain, his body sensitive to any contact.

“I’m sorry,” Dan whispered, staring at the ground.

Phil sighed. “It’s fine, it happens all the time.”

That only proved to make Dan feel worse. “You shouldn’t have to,” he muttered.

Phil looked at Dan in surprise. The silence stretched on, until Phil finally spoke again.

“You really don’t belong with them.”

Dan bit his lip, fearing what would come next. He couldn’t risk it.

Phil didn’t expect an answer for Dan. “Thanks for uh-helping me I guess.”

“I didn’t really do anything, I’m sorry.”

Phil smiled softly at Dan. “It’s alright, being here is enough.”

Dan returned the smile, albeit smaller. “I-uh have to go. But, thank you.”

Phil nodded, letting Dan dash off to catch up with the team of assholes. Phil could feel the bruise forming on his belly and knew he needed to stop the bleeding soon, however he couldn’t help but stare after Dan.

Dan was a boy full of secrets, that was for sure.

#this isn't you #phanfiction #phanfic #phan fluff #dan and phil #phandom #phan #phan angst #jock!dan

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get-something-to-write · 7 years ago

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Prompt from bullet anon(?): “ Prompt 152 for your favorite Hamilton ship? ”- “ Stop texting me weird stuff so late at night. “

( what a relatable prompt )

A/N: I wouldn’t say this is my absolute favorite ( that title belongs to Marliza! ), but is my guilty pleasure ship. Heh.( BWAHAHA I IS A REBEL ) Maria’s texting name is Angelica’s contact name for Maria and vice versa, to show how much those suckers are in love.

Maria: 19, freelance artist who quit college, basically what you’d expect a full time artist to do on Tumblr

Angelica: 22, majoring in PoliSci and Journalism, interns under George Washington

3rd POV omniscient

Warnings: nothing, at least this time, except for poor editing ( I'm too cheap for a beta :P)

Ping! Ping!

Angelica stared at her phone, watching text notifications blink across her screen in a rapid succession. She was waiting for a makeup tutorial on YouTube to load already, so she tapped on the notifications to see what Maria Lewis was sending her.

Maria <3: so ive been working on some art commissions

Maria <3: and this weird thing came to me

Maria <3: if mammals have hair and create milk

Maria <3: therefore

Maria <3: that means that the coconut in my kitchen

Maria <3: is a mammal

Maria <3: u get it right?

Even without any presence nearby to react to such a thing, Angelica let out an exasperated sigh and glared at her dimly-lit screen. Of course Maria was sending her weird shit at 1 am in the morning, because what sane person would? Although, she was heads-over-heels for the artistic girl, so she only half-joked about being irritated by the texting.

Angel the Angelic: y the heck r u sending me this

Angel the Angelic: also that’s not how it works

Angel the Angelic: besides, its super l8

Angel the Angelic: get to sleep so u can wake up 4 ur job

Maria <3: nah I don't have work today

Angel the Angelic: ugh can’t ur commissions wait 4 morning

Maria <3: it is an unspoken rule to never interrupt a writer or artist at work ;)

Angel the Angelic: k fine, but I'm sleeping now

Maria <3: gn then, or good morning actually

Angel the Angelic: please go to sleep

Angelica Schuyler barged into the living room of Maria Lewis’s apartment, with the latter wearing only underwear and an oversized hoodie. It hardly affected the taller woman much, since she was commonly seen in her apartment. After all, Angelica did have the spare keys.

However usual it was to have her in Maria’s place, Maria herself was becoming redder by the second as she was being caught wearing, well, not much. By her undying crush, Angelica Schuyler.

“ Stop texting me weird stuff so late at night, “ she said, plopping down on the couch after a day of working at her journalism/political science internship.

“ Eh, benefits of being a decent artist and not having to go through college. “

“ I don’t really get how you don’t stress out about not having a major. Lucky you, I suppose. “

“ College isn’t for everyone Angelica. “ Maria brought out some chai tea and granola bars that the older woman apparently was addicted to. Angelica studied Maria, making a show of flashing her eyes up and down. Feeling very numb inside from running around doing errands for the higher-ups all day, she spaced out and glared at the ceiling, attempting to count the amount of times the fan was spinning to distract herself from the fatigue and Maria’s body leaning on her side.

“ Hello? Ang? You want a bar or not? I’m gonna eat it if you don't want one...” Maria chuckled. Registering her words, she became a little crimson at the cute nickname and her teasing voice.

“ Oh no, you wouldn’t dare do that.”

“ Oh yes I would, just to spite you.” Growling, Angelica pounced on Maria, struggling to steal the beloved granola bar from her hand. She snickered, throwing the snack across the living room. During the process, Lewis had been pinned to the couch and was blushing furiously, although Angelica mistakened it for raucous laughter.

The normally serious woman sitting on Maria’s knees had crossed her arms, looking perpetually annoyed.

“ Ugh, now I have to get it. Thanks a lot Maria Lewis. “

“ You are very welcome my lady. “

Huffing, Angelica awkwardly scrambled off the younger girl to snatch the granola bar. She gazed at Maria’s face, which was red as a tomato. It was easy for her to read most people, but she was always confused by Maria

Maria was a fairly good actress, able to mask her emotions if needed, but never did around Angelica. Perhaps there was a chance that they mutually loved each other after all.

“ Well, while you enjoy your snack, I'll go back to working on my stuff. And tell me when you leave, ‘kay?” Angelica merely nodded, chewing through the granola bar while flipping through all the assignments from class. There was also a minor article from her internship, but it wasn't much. She contemplated staying over at Maria’s, since she was feeling too lazy to go to her shared apartment with her siblings.

After finishing her bar ( and went to the kitchen for more ), she was curious about what Maria was creating this time around. Angelica always loved looking at people's hard work, especially Maria’s. She was always quite amazed by the younger girl’s art.

“ Hey Maria! Uh, may I see what you are doing?” Angelica hollered, somewhat politely.

“ Actually, I'm just putting on some pants. Kind of indecent to not be wearing some when there's someone in your home, ya know?” Huh, that's pretty strange. She's been acting weirder and weirder, why would she refer to me as a stranger in the apartment?

“ Well, I would like to see what you’re drawing or painting or whatever. “

“ Eh, I’m the lineart pieces right now. And, you can come in now.”

Angelica stepped inside the only bedroom in the apartment, smiling to herself as she viewed the minimalist room, with the exception of the art desk that contained an organized clutter of cabinets labeled with the specific kinds of supplies. There were two watercolors drying on the wall, and the desk itself contained some sketched papers and few of what Maria was currently working on.

The drawing tablet and laptop were sitting on her bed because of the little space on her work area. Angelica wanted to aid her artistic friend more, maybe upgrade the apartment or endorse her art so she could have better luxuries. Angelica knew better than to ask so; Maria Lewis was a proud girl and was used to striking it out on her own.

She placed her arms gently on Maria’s shoulders, loosely hugging her neck as Angelica perched her chin on her head. Her hair was oh-so-soft. She twirled a strand with her fingers, absentmindedly playing the curly hair as she peered at Maria’s hand sketching out a majestic griffin.

Angelica sniffed her hair, taking in the intoxicating scent. She didn't notice how Maria had stopped drawing and stared deeply into the paper.

“ Hey Angelica? You're kinda distracting me a little, uh, are you sniffing my hair?” No response, solely because Angelica had leaned her body weight against Maria and was slowly drifting out of consciousness.

Angelica mumbled something, most likely about the younger girl to continue drawing, but Maria was having none of that. If the Angelica Schuyler was tired from staying up real late and doing her college stuff, she would push her into the closest bed. Okay maybe that sounded weird.

The Schuyler observed Maria as the artist sighed, swept her papers and pencils aside and considerately made sure Angelica didn’t stumble onto the floor as Lewis stood up from her swivel chair. Maria gently dragged her over to her mess of blankets and pillows.

“ Honestly, you should take a nap. Or stay over for the night, you can't go anywhere if you’re gonna fall asleep standing up. Actually, whether you like it or not you’re sleeping over for the night. I’ll text your sisters. You’re probably asleep by now, I should stop rambling to myself.” Angelica was truly unconscious by now, surely. Maria half-ran to her living room to snag her phone.

During that time, Angelica had internally realized where her body was laying and the simple smell of someone she recognized and loved dearly. She snapped her eyes open, mildly confused that she wasn't gazing over Maria’s shoulders.

She was actually relaxing in bed, Maria’s bed for the matter. A thin blanket covering most of her body. Its scent consisted of lavender and ink, an odd combination but nonetheless pleasing to Angelica’s nose.

Angelica squawked a little as Maria strolled back into the room and they stared each other awkwardly as she inched towards Angelica. The silence was practically sexual tension to any outsider had there been one there.

“ Would you want to sleep with me?” Angelica blurted out before cringing to herself. Way to creep out one of your best friends, Angelica.

The other looked just as surprised. Maria looked down at the floor as she slowly slipped into bed. In another impulsive movement, Angelica grabbed her arm and swiftly pulled her down, instinctively shifting around so Maria was comfortably settled on her side while facing her.

Both of them were glowing crimson, mere inches apart. Angelica was quite perplexed as to why she was feeling so ruffled by this. It wasn’t as if they had never made contact before. But those has been innocent hugs and cuddles during group sleepovers, perhaps watching sappy or horror movies.

Maria flipped over, desperate to not stare into those curious brown eyes. Her thoughts glazed over how it was impossible that the wonderful and confident Angelica Schuyler could possibly love her back. She nearly dismissed this situation as a thing that Angelica did when she was fatigued when a pair of arms warmly hugged her sides.

Holy shit is she actually cuddling me in my bed? What the hell is happening? Maria’’s face grew even redder, and had not gone unnoticed by Angelica who had very keen senses. Angelica used one hand to turn Maria’s head over.

“ Goodnight, and I love you too.” Coming to a decision that Maria indeed liked her back, based on her reactions, prompted Angelica to duck her head under Maria’s chin and lightly kissed her neck, her tongue poking through her teeth.

She smiled at Maria’s shock and sudden gasp before cuddling her even tighter, limbs wrapping Maria like a pillow. Angelica felt the tension on her fall before Maria calmed down, even pressing herself against Angelica a bit. Eventually, they peacefully slept fro the rest of the day and night.

For once, neither of them regretted staying up past one.

Hey there! This, as usual, got out of hand and I did not expect myself tone writing so much for this one. Hope you enjoyed this, leave a note or two, and send me requests! Rules on are on my bio.

( you can find my fanfics under the crimson-writer tag )

#margelica #maria x angelica #maria lewis #angelica schuyler #hamilton #modern!hamilton #hamilton the musical #hamilton fanfic #hamilton ships #the schuyler sisters #fluff fanfics #wlw fanfic #crimson-writer

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rachelbethhines · 8 years ago

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The Antoine and Bunnie Retrospective - 134

“Sonic’s Angels” - Sonic the Hedgehog #152

So this is quite the controversial issue for many reasons. Mainly because of the way it resolves the whole Evil Sonic mucking with Sonic’s love life plot. In that it doesn’t resolve anything.

The freedom fighters are sent on a mission to stop a bunch of nanites from destroying the ecosystem. And the group is split into two teams, the “brain trust” (ie the smart guys) and the psychical fighters. Only without the Chaotix or Antoine around, most of the heavy hitters are all women save Sonic himself.

This leads into my first problem with story and possibility with the whole of the Sonic franchise. There aren’t any super smart women!

In all of the games, cartoons, and the majority of the comics (I haven’t read Fleetway so forgive me if I’m wrong) most women in the franchise can be roughly categorized into five groups.

The Cute Bruiser or Action Girl - Amy, Bunnie, Julie-Su, Barby ect.

The Serious No Nonsense Leader or Loner - Lupe, Sally, Madonna, Topaz, Blaze, Shade ect.

The Innocent - Hope, Maria, Cream, Elise, Tikal, Mina, That genie from Sonic and Secret Rings, ect.

The Femme Fatale - Rouge, Breezie, Fiona, Lin-da ect.

The Mothers - Vanilla, Rosie, Bernie, Lara-Le, Aleena ect.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any the above tropes and it’s good there are enough differences between theses characters to make them unique from one another. But it’s telling that the only genius women, like Wave and Relic, are fairly new additions to the franchise. ( I think Fleetway has one, Tenko, I believe?) And anyone else who doesn’t fit into theses categories are often outliers like Sarah, Merlina, Regina, Sonia, Marine, or Sticks. (though Sticks is becoming more prominent)

Basically what I’m getting at is, due to the nature of the series, there’s an over abundance of psychically strong women and few that have equal but differentiating strengths. Especially since the innocents tend to be plot points and/or motivators for male characters. Cream and Mina being the exceptions.

So I can’t really fault Penders for wanting to do a story that highlights the fact that over half of the comic’s warriors are women. But I can gripe about how he merely uses them to further forced relationship drama and how none of them, save Bunnie, actually do anything productive. With character’s like Mina being outright redundant with the comic actually stating that she is.

So what does Bunnie do? Well she get captured by the nanites who thinks she can be converted into the collective because of her cybernetic limbs.

Now I don’t have a problem with this scene necessarily, unlike many others who seem to, and here’s why....

It’s a logical conflict that’s true to the unique nature of the characters. Robotization already involves natnite technology and Bunnie is one of only two people in the world who still has this technology present in their biological system.

This ties into Bunnie’s already established internal conflict about her identity but puts a new spin on it where she realizes that who she is now is better then some of the other alternatives out there. This could also potentially tie into future conflicts as her cybernetics could be considered a danger to herself but it’s not one that’ll come up often.

Some have argued this scene is too “intense” for children but I grew up with late 80s/early 90s cartoons where crap like this was deemed ok.

I’m of the mind that as long as it doesn’t involve outright gore and has a happy ending you can go as dark as you want with kids and they’ll be fine. Usually. I do recognize that there are exceptions to this rule.

Last off, there is a happy ending and she’s not permanently psychically harmed by the event.

No, what I have a problem with is what happens after she’s freed.

Ya see Sonic outwits the nanties with logic in order to free Bunnie.

Grateful and relieved to be herself once more, Bunnie gives him a kiss.

Now this isn’t a problem within of itself so much as every thing revolving around it is awful. Bunnie’s already interested and Sonic and believes he has feelings for her because of Scourge lying to her and Sonic himself is unaware of both Scourge’s actions and Bunnie’s new found feelings. So instead of responding to this action in an believable manner or trying to to set the record straight he just goes along with it. So I guess they’re dating now, only no, wait, they’re not, because they never follow up on this ever!

This is indicative of a larger problem within the Sonic franchise as whole. I mean, yes, it’s also because Penders is mainly a shit writer, but hear me out. From Ben Hurst to Pontaff, 90% of conflicts in Sonic are reactionary. Most characters simply react or respond to events going on around them. Rarely does a character initiate conflict themselves. The few that do, Eggman, Lyric, Metal Sonic, ect. often have very base motivations and rely heavily on mindless monsters to do their dirty work.

(Note: I do know there are exceptions to this rule such as Shadow in SA2 or Merlina in SatBK)

In short most Sonic stories tend to be Overcoming the Monster plots. Therefore, external conflicts like Man vs Technology or Man vs Supernatural works for the most part. However when trying to introduce any other potential conflicts, like say love triangles, the writers tend to cock it all up because they’re still running off of that reactionary mindset.

In order for a Man vs Man conflict to work, which is what relationship drama is based off of, then characters have to have basic motivations, make consciousness decisions, and initiate action. The conflict then comes from two or more characters having conflicting desires and needs.

By having outside forces like Scourge and Patch be the instigators of the love triangles you then take way any agency on behalf of the other characters involved. They merely become participants reacting to events rather then characters with real agency.

Now I still defend Penders idea to turn Evil Antoine into Anti-Antoine as Bollers original plan also had that same lack of agency problem with having the Source of All be the manipulator of events. But the entire Bunnie/Sonic/Antoine/Sally triangle is such wasted potential. Because there is a story to be told there, it just required everyone to maintain their agency.

Bare with me if you will as I explain how I would have written out this love triangle.

Sonic is believed to be dead and trapped in space as in the real comic. Meanwhile Antoine becomes more serious and over protective as he doesn’t want to lose anybody else. He spends more time training and becomes something of a workaholic. He also becomes more attentive of Sally as she’s in mourning and in need of friend. He and Bunnie grow ever more distant as his new goals shifts his focus away from her. It’s not that he’s become colder or uncaring, the opposite in fact, but rather they just start spending less and less time with one another.

When Bunnie confronts him over his obsession, they eventual, but reluctantly, agree that things aren’t working out like the once were and break up. Or at the very least agree to give each other some space to figure things out. During all of this Sally and Antoine become even closer as they find they confine in each other about their problems. Then Sonic returns.

Every thing in Home plays out more or less the same minus some bitching between Bunnie and Antoine and less slapping on Sally’s part.But the end result is Sally realizing that, while she does still love Sonic, they have very different goals in life and he’s not ready to commit the way she needs him to. But Antoine is. He’s been the study rock she’s leaned on and her shoulder to cry on for nearly a year now. And after his break up with Bunnie they’ve only gotten closer. So eventually after her break up with Sonic, they start dating.

So that leaves Bunnie and Sonic both feeling lonely and dejected. Since they’re already friends and now have some common ground with their former significant others braking things often to date each other. Well you could see how they would eventually become closer, and may even agree to try dating one another.

From there you have multiple ways which this could pan out. You could have the clean “happy” ending where everyone eventually realizes who they really love and both couples return to the original status quo. You could have the bitter sweet complex ending where only one couple works out and the others are left to grow from their experiences. Either Bunnie and Antoine get back together, leaving Sonic and Sally to press on, or have Sally and Antoine remain a couple and Sonic and Bunnie break up to figure out who they are without a relationship to depend on. You could also have Sonic wind up permanently with either Sally or Bunnie and leave Antoine and one of the other girls alone, but knowing Sonic it seems unlikely. Finally you can have the unhappy ending where none of the potential pairings work out.

Either way, regardless of the outcome, the story becomes more compelling as the motivations involved stem from real issues, not evil forces manipulating events. No one turning out to be evil, no one losing their shit and slapping someone just force a plot point, no miscommunication driving the conflict, and no one responding to events just because, but rather making active decisions. It’s people learning to deal with life and how it changes both themselves and others. Its real, complex, and mature. And because all of the people involved are already close friends with established histories and chemistry; any of the potential outcomes makes internal sense regarding the characters.

Well enough fanfiction, back to the issue at hand.

Since Sonic “out logic-ed” the nanites they release everybody. Meaning the rest of the girls didn’t have use Snively’s plan to short circuit the city. Oh yes, did I not mention that Sinvely’s in this and by the end he’s now joined the Freedom Ftighers? Yeah he’s here now and no one manages to accomplish anything, making the rest of girls completely pointless and the “brain trust” a good three or four too many.

That’s it for this weeks review so tune in next time on the retrospective as we dive even deeper into the final days of Penders run.

#sonic the hedgehog #Bunnie Rabbot #sonic #archie sonic #archie comics

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thekoreanlass · 7 years ago

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I’m Not a Robot (로봇이 아니야; Robosi Aniya) is a South Korean television series starring Yoo Seung-ho, Chae Soo-bin and Um Ki-joon. It is written by Kim Sun-mi and directed by Jung Dae-yoon. Producing the series for MBC is May Queen Pictures. It aired on MBC from December 6, 2017 to January 25, 2018 on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 21:55 (KST) for 32 episodes.

The Cast

[Main] Yoo Seung-ho as Kim Min-kyu (28 years old) Chae Soo-bin as Jo Ji-ah (28 years old) / Aji 3 Um Ki-joon as Hong Baek-kyun (34 years old)

[Minor] Santa Maria team Park Se-wan as “Pai” Angela Jin (30 years old) Song Jae-ryong as “Hoktal” Kang Dong-won (33 years old) Kim Min-kyu as “Ssanip” Eddie Park (31 years old)

KM Financial Kang Ki-young as Hwang Yoo-chul (28 years old) Hwang Seung-eon as Ye Ri-el (28 years old)

People around Ji Ah Seo Dong-won as Jo Jin-bae Lee Min-ji as Sun-hye (28 years old) Yoon So-mi as Hong-ju (28 years old) Lee Han-seo as Jo Dong-hyun (8 years old)

The Plot

Kim Min-kyu (Yoo Seung-ho) lives an isolated life due to a severe allergy to other people. He develops extreme rashes that rapidly spread throughout his body once he makes any form of skin contact. Jo Ji-ah (Chae Soo-bin) is a woman who is trying to make it in life by creating her own businesses. However, after an encounter with Min-kyu, she ends up pretending to be a robot in place of the supposed Aji 3 robot. The Aji 3 robot was developed by Ji-ah’s ex-boyfriend, professor Hong Baek-kyun (Um Ki-joon) and his team. The robot was meant to be tested by genius Min-kyu, however an accident caused the robot’s battery to malfunction. As Baek-kyun modeled the robot after Ji-ah, the team ends up recruiting her to take the place of Aji 3.

First Impression

I’m Not a Robot didn’t strike me, at first, as anything interesting so I skipped it. I’m not really a fan of robot stories, much less one that mixes romance with it. Well, not unless it’s anything close to Transformers or Iron Man (I’m Team Tony Stark, sorry) or something akin to it, I’ll probably buy it.

Besides, what are the odds that someone can write some robot shit and love story in one without ruining the story line? Many attempted to do so but failed, so I had my own share of doubts about the drama. From it’s summary, to the choice of cast, the genre and themes. There are so much to worry about.

Plus, the ratings are really low when it aired and people’s reviews were bluntly realistic in a sense. Well, it made sense to me when I haven’t seen the drama yet, but now I think they are just being plain mean and judgmental or just had too much expectations since it’s an MBC produced drama and Yoo Seung Ho is the lead.

I don’t really enjoy criticizing a drama not unless it’s that bad. And I’m Not A Robot isn’t a failure, if you ask me. Finishing it put all my doubts and worries to rest.

Review

Cutie Min Kyu with the Human Allergy

I think that starting the drama with a question and a mystery was a good way to buy the viewers interest.

During the first episode, we see Kim Min Kyu enter a room, I guess, to an interview for his mandatory military enlistment. He must have been in that kind of situation in the past and all the time they think he was just making up excuse not to fulfill his duty to his country, but it’s quite funny to see the officers’ reactions when he revealed the reason why he can’t fulfill his enlistment–he is allergic to humans when his skin merely comes in contact with them. They think it’s a contagious disease and almost bathed in antiseptic.

I thought it was pathetic for people to think that, but at the same time I felt sorry for Min Kyu for getting the kind of rare skin allergy. Nonetheless, this caught my curiosity. I had my own question: why is he allergic to human contact? Is it even possible to be allergic to humans? If so, what caused for him to turn out the way he is? I have a clue as to why but I didn’t really want to get too ahead in the game. All I knew is that it has to be psychosomatic; meaning, he exhibits physical symptoms because of a psychological cause or stress.

On a brighter note, I am blessed to see a really cute side of Min Kyu after his visit to the base. Call it cliche; Min Kyu is a filthy rich 28-year old bachelor, but has the rare character that of a child. He’s so serious, snobbish and untouchable one moment, but has the naivete of a child. I’m not sure if people realized why he’s like that when they watched this, but I’m sure that it rooted from the isolation his allergy to humans caused him.

Just imagine yourself unable to touch another human. Imagine yourself putting up with it with no moral support around you, just an empty house in your inheritance, a huge company to one day rule, a gardener to be your guide, an awful lot of pretending people around you whom you couldn’t trust. I guess, it would really result to him depending on his own, learning on his own–with only books and movies to guide him through, resulting to a man with less knowledge of what life is really like. He was enclosed in a box filled with darkness that he didn’t know what it was like to be under the bright sun or how it’s like to love someone or what it’s like to do things. I think this is the reason why he was so dumb to realize that Aji 3 isn’t really a robot but Ji Ah, who is a human.

Not realizing this might make the story look really dumb, so I’m trying to make a point here if I even make sense to anyone else. Because of this, it made everything else really amusing; the fact that because it’s Min Kyu they were fooling that the plan of putting Ji Ah through the robot act made it foolproof and the fact in which even Santa Maria and Ji Ah are so frustrated and dumbfounded he wouldn’t get a hint she isn’t the real deal. It makes the entire mood comical and light.

And I guess, because it’s Yoo Seung Ho acting that I didn’t find Min Kyu annoying for being so dumb. In fact, he made Min Kyu a really sensible character, adorably charming even. His smile is always so precious and the moment he did that during the first episode when celebrating ‘Pretty’s birthday was so cute I wanted to pinch his cheeks. The depth of his character isn’t nonsense at all, in fact his backstory is really believable for me.

Ji Ah the Human Aji 3

If there is one thing I am really good at, that is doubting. Chae Soo Bin isn’t really a favorite of mine since her last antagonistic role in Sassy Go Go, where in she acted as the backstabbing and lying best friend of the main lead (played by Jung Eun Ji).

That’s also part of the reason why I avoided watching I’m Not A Robot as much as possible, because I felt like once I hate someone because of a particular role they played in the past that truly annoyed me, I would probably hate them forever. Nonetheless, I think I am getting over this pace just like with how I used to criticize Suzy or Park Min Young and I don’t regret any second I spent watching and giving Chae Soo Bin a chance. There’s no doubt she is an actress, a versatile one at that, that you know will do well whether it’s an anti-hero or lead female role.

She proved herself with being a double role with Ji Ah and Aji 3.

Getting to the point, I think she portrayed the misfit Ji Ah really well. At first, we come to learn that Ji Ah isn’t really bright and looks probably dumb to her peers, even her brother who graduated law; this is quite emphasized by her low IQ. That is really fine, though, with me since Chae Soo Bin didn’t really make Ji Ah seem annoying unlike a couple of heroines I’ve seen in the past who has the innocent character but are just really dumb.

Though this emphasis doesn’t really back up the fact that Ji Ah is innovative in her own way, where in she has a way of creating simple inventions, albeit as eccentric looking as how her brain works, she can make it work. She can’t just sell her inventions because of her lack of knowledge how to make a business out of it as President Jo, but because of her simple brain, she gains a little fan–who will later be revealed as our cutie Min Kyu!

Ji Ah gets the courage to join a contest to get herself a sponsor for her new invention–her heart lamps that simultaneously light up if you touch one no matter how far the pair is from each other–but she is hit by ups and downs along the way, including a low blow from her very unappreciative older brother, who will later admit Ji Ah must be a genius behind her dumbness; this was a notable scene where the eccentric-looking Doctor Hong Baek Kyun explained how Ji Ah used quantum physics in making her heart lamps without her realizing it.

On the other hand, as the robot Aji 3; the real one, I am quite impressed at how believable Chae Soo Bin acted as a leggit AI robot. As Aji 3, she fascinated me how she managed to act and speak like a robot. Aji 3 is quite refreshing and adorable with her innocent and blunt robot responses that sometimes frustrated Min Kyu for the lack thereof emotion from her.

With Ji Ah pretending to be Aji 3, I think this is where I get the most comedy from. Ji Ah’s reactions are just so precious, like that time when she reacted out of surprise of seeing Min Kyu after their unexpected squabble over a toy that they almost killed each other for, that I can’t help but anticipate for the next dumb and un-robot like thing she will do.

Min Kyu made the situation even better and even laughable by believing her poor acting as a robot that it’s hilarious. Plus, it is always so much better whenever she is in ‘friend mode’, as Doctor Hong called it, and is either fearlessly swearing at Min Kyu and the latter letting her or just being a friend to our lonely hero who apparently only has his appliances as friends.

With Aji 3 in the picture, Min Kyu finds a precious friend in the human he thinks is a robot. The friendship and trust Min Kyu allowed himself to give Aji 3 credit for, made it possible for him to get cured from her disease, not because of the thought she is a real robot, but instead because he thinks he finally found something real; something that will not betray him.

Chae Soo Bin is able to create a picture of a female lead in Ji Ah and Aji 3, who is filled with warmth, hopes and dreams, and a brightness that sets the mood of the drama to a really lighter note. She’s really pretty too and can really act as a nice girl apart from her old image that I stuck to.

A Unique, Bright Concept and Romance

I’m Not A Robot is arguably going to be your favorite in terms of concept and the adorable, bright, albeit unconventional romance of a human and another human pretending to be a robot.

There’s no dull moments in this drama and the heart fluttering romance is surely something you can indulge on if you’re up for some light romance with a touch of drama. It is so simple yet so complicated you will laugh at the thought of Min Kyu thinking he fell in love with a robot, though unknown to him, he is in fact right in liking this robot because she’s definitely a human. This really brings me back to the old Hana Kimi feels where in the second lead doubted himself because he was crushing on another guy, not knowing that this guy is in fact a girl pretending to be a guy. Ironic, right? Possibly dumb, but very effective to create laughs.

Then on one side, you will totally sympathize with Min Kyu as he starts learning other feelings because of Aji 3. Watching him grow and improve, with his human allergy almost gone, does really make me proud like a mother watching her son grow up. He’s just so cute and innocent, but with a secret angst about betrayal that I watch with a broken heart when he found out Ji Ah is in fact his Aji 3. He thought everything is a lie. That all they went through was too and this really almost killed him. That was probably one of the saddest parts of this series, but I guess, because Min Kyu learned to love Ji Ah as her, that it outweighed the mistrust and eventually he learned to move on from the shadows of his past, curing his illness in the process.

I love that the drama is able to use the robot concept well, in a very refreshing light that doesn’t feel too much or too less. The graphics or effects are absolutely stunning and realistic that I can give five stars for the visuals of it as a whole. And I am glad that they were able to remain faithful to the concept, not wavering one bit throughout the entire storyline

I think to this point that everything is just right. Just perfect that I still feel my heart flutter with thoughts of the story from time to time. Being reminded of I’m Not A Robot makes me fall in love with it over and over again because of these reasons. You won’t get bored every single moment of it.

Chemistry & Bromance is Real

In the beginning, I am not really sure whether Yoo Seung Ho and Chae Soo Bin will click, but I have not seen any moment in the drama where they became awkward or anything. In fact, Yoo Seung Ho as Min Kyu, with googly eyes and an adorable puppy personality, made me believe he truly likes Ji Ah as a robot and as a human. It’s so real I don’t mind them dating.

Then here comes my second and third favorite pair in respective order. (1) Sun Hye and Hoktal – this pair really only proves that opposite attracts. Sun Hye definitely has a unique taste with boys. She comes off as a playful character that doesn’t seriously date, but then when choosing between the cool Ssanip or the conservative Hoktal–that says the opposite of what he really means, she sees beyond the facade and chooses the guy everyone would probably think she won’t choose. (2) Doctor Hong and Pai – the relationship of these two took years in the making. You can probably relate their progress to that of a walking turtle; slowly but surely. Probably Doctor Hong’s lingering feelings for Ji Ah also became a hindrance for him to realize too late his affection for the timid Pai, who later takes the advise of Sun Hye and learned to come out of her own shell. Nonetheless, they are just as cute as the other pairs.

Let’s also not forget the cute bromantic pairs! Ssanip and Hoktal is probably my top bromance pair, leaving me in a heap of laughter with most of their antics. They are quite an unseparable duo to the point Ssanip thirdwheels even when Hoktal and Sun Hye already started dating. It’s like they were a package deal and he can never be left behind.

I also like the Min Kyu and Jo Jin Bae pair. Together they are a mix of hot and cold. In terms of work, Min Kyu is the boss and Jin Bae is his loyal subordinate. On the other hand, when it comes to Ji Ah, it is fun to always watch whenever Min Kyu’s personality mellows and he resembles a puppy around Jin Bae, his future brother-in-law, always trying to please him. Even going out of his way to hire him again when Jin Bae tried to end his contract with Min Gyu.

Of course, the Min Kyu and Hong Baek Kyun pair also fairs. Though I won’t mind if there was some kind of tension that escalated to some sort of fist fight between them because of Jia, I’m not complaining that they got along instead. It seemed anticlimactic though that it didn’t happen, but it’s not disappointing that Doctor Hong became Min Kyu’s hyung instead and everyone is happy.

Lovable Supporting Characters

I think I have not loved supporting characters as I loved the ones in this drama. They just have very rich character and backstory that I felt more connected to them than not. It made the encounter with these characters even more personal and more human as the store went on, because despite the allegorical portrayal of some themes, these people’s emotions, words and actions made it simple for us to understand their point in a very relatable manner.

Santa Maria Team. I am dumbfounded every time these people bond, because their jokes aren’t really that funny, but their skills are so superior I believed they are real inventors that can do anything and everything. Santa Maria, on top of that, isn’t just a group of people with a hobby of creating robots, but instead a family that has loyalty for each other, is humble and really hardworking.

Doctor Hong Baek Kyun. Though I still can’t believe he’s Jo Ji Ah’s ex-boyfriend–who she calls ‘Fungus Guy’ by the way–I am hands down that Doctor Hong is a genius. Aji 3 is probably his most notable work, but I think there’s no doubt he can do so much more. Plus, I think you know now why he named the robot ‘A Ji 3’ and even created her in the image of Ji Ah; he was so hung up with his ex that is!

Nonetheless, Doctor Hong may be smart, but because he’s so focused at his craft that love always came second to him and eventually since Ji Ah isn’t really in the same league as him that they grew apart. Sharing something in common with Pai made them both more compatible with each other, though there’s no doubt constant bickering is expected of two very common personality.

Pai. To be honest, I found it a little hard to empathize with her character at first because she was too quiet and it looked like she didn’t like Ji Ah very much. But when I realized the reason is because he likes Doctor Hong, all I could complain from then is how annoying her curly curls were and how plain she dressed up. I could tell she is really pretty without the curls and the glasses that I am really happy she changed her appearance for the better but maintained her simple personality. She’s so enduring and so loyal to Doctor Hong that I am also quite happy her one-sided crush with him didn’t end in vain.

Sun Hye. I was thinking that this girl is going to be the typical sidekick that has no real depth in the series, but then it turns out Sun Hye is our modern cupid. Her looks makes her seem intimidating, but it is always quite fun whenever she opens her mouth and says something poetic and predictive and it always comes true. Truly, she is a love guru, who gladly found her own happy ever after with Hoktal. And also a loyal best friend that has a bag of wisdom that often help our protagonists clear their heads.

Ye Ri El. She comes off with a common bitch vibe at first glance, especially when she treats Min Kyu–who liked her for years since he was a kid–coldly and doesn’t acknowledge his efforts of winning her with his sincerity, but I guess it wasn’t really her fault Min Kyu misunderstood her. Her father was the one who continuously wrote to Min Kyu, anyway, pretending to be her, paving her fate by being Min Kyu’s first love and probably last.

I was just happy, though it made the build up turn anti-climatic and kind of get to waste, that she didn’t got with her daddy’s plans and followed her heart when she realized it wasn’t Min Kyu but Yoo Chul she likes and decided to pursue her own path.

Hwang Yoo Chul. I was determined Yoo Chul was going to be the ultimate villain with some vengeful plan in store for Min Kyu that will probably bring him to tears and make him pay with revenge at some point, but his role is almost similar to Ri El, where in he draws back and finds his conscience and admits to his own faults. I find it really cool though, how he found the strength to ask for forgiveness and do the right thing even if it will compromise his father’s position. It made me respect him and cross him out of the blacklisted characters’ list I kept in my head,

Jo Jin Bae. I found older brother such a jerk when he got mad at Ji Ah for doing what she wants, because though it sounds too far-fetched and fruitless, an older sibling shouldn’t discourage their less privileged younger sister, right? I mean, he should have at least supported her not make her feel like crap more than the situation already was. Gladly, I think Jin Bae grew a pair and came to appreciate Ji Ah and saw how beautiful her her heart was beyond her 80 IQ.

Over All

If you want a cute and light romance, with a set of bright characters and superb acting, that has an easy and steady approach to its overall plot, I’m Not A Robot is going to be the perfect choice. Not only it is sweet, but also filled with underlying lessons about love and life figuratively placed across the story line.

I especially love that they tackled about the lives of different people with almost the same dilemma in the world; people who can’t find a place to belong to and who are struggling all the same whether it was about their dreams and aspirations or simply with getting by life in its tendency to put you into a loneliness that can break you or just finding someone who will sincerely love them. Because they were people yearning for these things that somehow they must have unconsciously found each other, somewhere to belong to.

Notably, I truly appreciate, too, the philosophical take on love; how sometimes the truest love can be in the form of the sweetest yet ugliest lie. This kind of love has seen negative effect most of the time, probably due to the motive of the doer. But I guess, not everyone has bad intentions towards the recipient of their actions. Sometimes you love someone so much that you have to lie to them in order to prevent them from hurting, but you basically hurt them in the process after all, especially if it comes to the point where in they learn about the truth in the most painful way.

“There are times when lying to a friend is better than telling them the truth.”

That’s why I was able to totally relate with Min Kyu when he found out Ji Ah was really his A Ji 3. I mean, it was nice he found someone that really is a mirror image of Aji 3. The idea of it was so dreamy and too impossible that wishing and looking from a distance at something you don’t think can happen and is too far-fetched would be great until it last. I am just glad that his love for her reigned and he was able to see the truth past the big lie.

I know lying may hurt and looking past through it takes so much courage, but if the person is worth it, why not?

“The deeper the love, the deeper the wound. He must have liked you more than you thought.”

In terms of the plot, I must say I commend the drama for having such a light story despite incorporating corruption and politics in the business sense, it’s a relief the story didn’t dive deeper into exploring that area and having our cutie Min Kyu turn into another protagonist fighting for his position in the office or battling for his inheritance for his parents’ sake or something like that. It will only make the story darker and I guess that’s not what the production is aiming for. Since the story have to be easy to watch and light for the heart, I love that they focused more on the romance and the relationship of the characters with each other. By doing this, I think we see a more graspable human story.

What I think I will call an only ‘miss’ for this drama is the sort of sweet, but really fast-paced and mediocre ending. I guess, because I have invested so much time and emotions during the first 31 episodes that I didn’t expect the ending to just show a few seconds of heaven with how our team is doing. Yes, everyone seems happy and all but it doesn’t really say much or I might have expected so much more. But then, seeing Min Kyu finally get discharged from the military after two years, Jo Ji Ah finally doing good business with her heart lamps, and that sweet ending kiss made up for the miss.

Anyway, I think I got what I signed up for. The drama has hinted on a couple of ideas to which they left it open to the imagination to fill in the blanks. Just like what does Aji 3 really look like after the makeover? They said they will change her face and I guess they turned her to a male robot that they named after the late President of KM Financial. If so, does this mean he will look like the late president or…? Another example is when after all what happened, they didn’t really reveal the identity of Madame X. This mysterious character helped Min Kyu a lot with his battles against those who wished to take over KM Financial, but it isn’t really clear who she is, right? My only guess is that she is either the gardener or the lady Min Kyu talked to and said she is only there to represent Madame X. But then a guess can only remain a guess and we can only wish they will spill the beans.

See my point? They left some questions unanswered not because they want to leave us hanging or they just have a way to end it properly, but instead I think they did it to give us the liberty to find out for ourselves or imagine what comes next. So, even if some were left unsaid and it’s truly quite frustrating, I am not really that upset about it, it just makes me think from time to time what the answer to those questions are.

Nonetheless, I really had a fun time. I say it’s cool and if I will revisit this drama one day, I won’t really mind. Giving it a rating, I think 4.8 out of 5 is perfect.

Review: I’m Not A Robot – A One of a Kind Romance I'm Not a Robot (로봇이 아니야; Robosi Aniya) is a South Korean television series starring

#Chae Soo Bin #Featured #I Am Not A Robot #I&039;m Not A Robot #kdrama #korea #korean #popular #review #Romantic Comedy #thekoreanlass #Yoo Seung Ho

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