#should have a bloodied at the doorstop 'who did this to you' moment

[mellifluousoctopus]

Am I the only one that wanted to see what would happen if Gabriel actually did Fall and become a demon

[octavicn]

Holcroft Court, 10 Carburton St, Fitzrovia W1W 5AL, London

There’ll be a point in his life, Octavian promises, where his time won’t be measured in Julius Caesar’s calls. For now, that’s only a calcified threshold. A barometer of rust and grassroots, campaigns and fossilized ideals. Between him and it stands a world of interference.

He sets to scrubbing it like polishing your inheritance—which is to say, like earning it back.

It’s to do with semantics, after all: steel-capped pen, steel-wool sponge. The lunch comes and goes. Octavian is ready to rinse it off with hot water. A part of him wants to render Antony’s indifference sterile. As if antiseptic ever meant harmless; as if he hasn’t had his share of lessons of contagion, textbooks of public policy on containing and deterring. As if it didn’t plant something in his skin. Like all grand memorandums of disaster, Octavian turns his face away from it. Prepares his odds for better days.

Julius will have him cut the same cards for other people. He’ll get the in on this, won’t he? He was good. He can be. Cinna is far from stable—the balance is the rabble’s for the tipping. He’ll get other rooms. Which means... Jesus Christ, it means there is no need to recall the oil and gloom of that one. The Gallery, the table, the thick rumble of Antony’s speech.

People like Marcus Antony, much like tadpoles, he’s found, move in a dark and treacly lake. Everything is slower; everything is magnified. Its joys, if there’s fuck-all to it, are inscrutable to the likes of him. He leaves Westminster feeling not just dirty, but drowned under.

(How was it? Did he bite off your head? Forced-fed you those charts? Horace, from the kitchen. The quizzing pelted him like horseflies diving home. Octavian swerved by, shifting out of reach. Water. Cheap wood creaked where he moved. Good God, he thought. The man just begets these metaphors, does he not? Devotion and devouring. They should put him up at Toussaud.)

A few days after that lunch, his phone rings again. Octavian slathers a smile over the tone. Julius likes his congeniality to be just room temperature; obedient enough, but not febrile. Not saccharine. Nothing to tint the enamel on his teeth, when they sink into it.

A car is up front, Julius says. His voice is tired; scrubbed to a pallor of a different sort. If this was another moment, if the barometer tipped a tad closer, Octavian might ask him how he’s coping.

It’s a moot concern. No, worse; a weak one. It disgusts him, to feel it slop and spill. He asks how many days he needs him for.

He packs a clean shirt, double chargers, a blister foil of Advil.

Nothing stronger? Can you face up to Father Caesar in this wretched state? Horace; the common area, this time. Octavian wonders if it’s a skill you learn at public school, pissing all over people’s business. Murena left some Ritalin over. 

The hell of it is... he considers that. His tongue runs over his lips; chapped and cold. He’s betraying all the gaping scars of late deadlines. Except he’s never late. Except they’re not his deadlines. (He’d dare say he fares better, when it’s his skin on the bloody rack).

He wrote Antony’s draft over night. That left him two more days to brush up to snuff with Switzerland’s medical industry, then with the pitfalls of their own (snakes and fucking ladders). Then it was on with Cornelia’s past. Her ancestral squabbles, particularly aimed at her brother Lucius, and Lucius’ ex, and just about everyone in London who isn’t a Harrods attendant.

That left him one more day to send in the essays for Pompey’s youngest. A tiny illegality, as far as upstreet favours went. The twat was just an undergrad house plant, as fatalistic during mid-terms as he was trigger-happy to paypal him after each close shave.

How had Horace put it? Oxbridge boot, right primed for the dining.

It was a stupid use of his time. He knew it, back then. He knows it all the more now. It splatters with all the velocity of delayed realizations. Do I not give you enough? Julius would ask him.

That answer, of all, is the easiest in his mouth. Maybe even the truest.

No. Never.

The thing with money is—

The thing with money is that there’s people who say sentences like that and believe it, people who dig for the hidden crick, the doorstop, the pulley—and people who never do.

Octavian takes two pills. Cheating. Wasn’t this your scene? 

It no longer sounds like Horace’s voice.

He knows too well whose voice it is.

In the car, he allows himself the hope that Antony isn’t there. He walks in through the lobby, coat draped over. He tries to come up less tenderfoot, less led by the throat, but light doesn’t hold its own, in Fitzrovia. He can practically feel his head peering round like a terrier’s.

A pulse rings in his soft tissue, each inch and ply of it. It should be grounding, but instead it sets a gong. A sense of urgency is cooking from the ground up. The house knows it.

A flock of suits he can’t recognize tells him two things—soundlessly, as all real lessons carry. The first is that Cinna will have about a few days before he goes the way of the political dodo. If not in flesh, then in the party. The other thing matters slightly less, and slightly more.

They’re all surrounding Antony.

[dreadwulf]

gwenspiration

@ofaclassicalmind tagged me for this meme started by @jaimebrienneonline: “Taking the idea from the amazing Gwendoline Christie, we should be promoting ourselves and not acting like our creative endeavors are worthless. In that vein, I challenge everyone to blog their favorite of their own works, art, fic, meta, manip, doll story, whatever it may be. Not someone else’s. 

I feel like I’m already promoting myself way too much, but because I was tagged for it... 

First I want to mention something from my old fandom, Dragon Age: Midnight in a Perfect World and its sequel, Visitations. I mostly shipped a side-companions pairing (Fenris/Isabela) that was not popular and both of these fics, although they are among my favorite things I’ve ever written, to this day have a grand total of 22 kudos each. I don’t think these fics are any worse than what I’m doing now, but I think my style and shipping preferences weren’t a great fit for that fandom. 

I also want to mention the Jaime/Brienne WIP I have shamefully neglected, Terrible Love, which is a Brienne POV book!canon fic that tries to recreate the red tent scene from the show using the book characterizations and after the Lady Stoneheart situation has been resolved. I’m pretty happy with the characterizations for both Jaime and Brienne, and I gave them a pretty intense confrontation where Jaime gives a love confession in a very Jaime way and Brienne does not take it well at. all. It was a little tough to write because there’s a lot of personal stuff in there, particularly when Brienne is having an emotional meltdown. The only reason it stops at chapter 3 is because originally, that was going to be the end of the story. Then once I put up chapter 3 I decided it was too soon to resolve Brienne’s conflict completely, and I would need two more chapters to get her there. And then I started AMFAS and have been writing that ever since. But the standing 3 chapters I actually think are pretty good in themselves. I’ll come back and add more someday. 

For an excerpt I think I pretty much have to put up my massive, 170k word and counting J/B fic A Man for All Seasons, but if I was going to pick out a part, I think I was happiest with Chapter 9: Annhilation. This chapter had several scenes in it that I had been planning since I started the damn thing back in 2017. 

The entire fic is in a lot of ways building to this chapter, but I think you could probably read it on its own, if you wanted to. Jaime has been in Winterfell for months preparing for a Siege by the impending Army of the Dead. Cersei is dead, Tyrion is gone, and Jaime has to start over entirely on his own with no allies while struggling with grief and regret. He’s kept himself pretty much in denial about all the things he’s been through and all the mistakes he’s made, but here he gets hit with absolutely everything at once on one awful day and self-destructs. Brienne, after keeping her distance from him for plot-related reasons, is there to pick him up when he falls. She takes him back to his room and puts him in a bed and essentially takes his confession.

(excerpt behind the cut)

[Jaime] doesn’t know what he’s going to say until he can hear himself saying it. He lets it happen, lets himself float a little way away from his body. It’s like there’s two of him: the one talking to her and another one listening curiously to his own voice saying things he doesn’t know he knows.

“I think I’m falling apart. Something’s terribly wrong with me. I feel ill all of the time and I can’t pay attention to what I’m doing. I look up and I’m somewhere else, or it’s hours later and I’m still in the very same spot and I don’t know what I was doing during all that time. What’s worse is I think it’s been like this all along and I just didn’t notice. Gods, I think years went by like that, very much like that. There were all these things I couldn’t stand to think of, so I just didn’t think of them. I would just be somewhere else inside my head. But now I have to think about those things. I can’t stop thinking about them, unless I stop thinking completely.”

He has to catch his breath. His body has gone slack, arms fallen to his sides. Fortunate that he was already sitting down. There’s more to say and it’s going to hurt, it will be like lancing a wound and letting the poison out. It should be a relief to let it out, but it doesn't feel that way. It feels as though it will keep coming and coming, that perhaps he is all poison, that he is nothing but wounds loosely sewn together and when all of his pain comes out there might be nothing left of him.

Jaime goes on anyway, in a low, dead voice. “My father was right. I spent all those years in King’s Landing as - what did he call it? 'A glorified bodyguard'. Not even that, practically a doorstop. When I was young I had so many dreams and ambitions and so much I wanted to do and somehow I forgot it all. All my dreams of knighthood and once I had it I was just marking time. I didn't think past the next day, the next night, the next morning. I had no plans for the future, no desire but whatever stolen moments I could take with Cersei.  I thought of nothing but what pleasure I could get from her. If I ever wanted anything more it only registered as this vague unhappiness that I blamed on everyone but us. I never asked for more. I didn’t care who we hurt. And now she’s dead, and our children are dead, and it should have been us who died first, they should have outlived us both. Tommen and Marcella anyway. They were good. They were so good. I don’t know who they got it from.”

“Jaime.” Her tone is so gentle that it pains him to hear it. It puts him back in his body where every nerve ending is afire. He is light-headed, his breathing fast and shallow and this is going to be too much, he’s on the verge of going away completely and right in front of Brienne, and he does not want her to see that again. But he’s still talking. He can’t stop.

“I think I’ve wasted my life, Brienne.”

“You’ve mucked it up a fair bit,” she says steadily, not quite letting him off the hook. “But it’s not over yet.”

“I can’t stand it. I keep going away so I can not think about it, but when I come back it’s worse. I’ve done everything wrong. All of this is my fault, all of it. The war. It wouldn’t have happened if not for me. Cersei died because of me. But so did Ned Stark, and Catelyn, and all of the other people who died in the War of the Five Kings. Because of me.”

She is smiling up at him. “You are so incredibly vain,” she says fondly.

That shakes him. “What in the hells do you mean?”

Brienne shakes her head slowly. “I should have known you would jump immediately from total irresponsibility to blaming yourself for absolutely everything. You, all on your own, started a war between five Kings? Did you kill Jon Arryn? Or Baelon Greyjoy? Did you murder Renly with the red god’s magic? Were you at the battle of the trident? Are you to blame for years of misrule? A thousand years of Targaryen history? No single person did all of that. Many people did that together.”

She takes his hand. “You played your part, you and many others. And you are atoning for it. You’re defending Winterfell and the North from an enemy that has nothing to do with you, who stands to annihilate all of Westeros. You’re doing the right thing. You’re becoming the honorable man you were always meant to be. Not because anyone told you to do it or because you expected any reward. Because you wanted to, because it was right.”

Her kindness, as it often does, fills him with a kind of dismay. It’s a mistake. She has mistaken him for someone he's not.

“You don’t understand. I've done terrible things,” he admits, with a sensation like sinking into the floor. “I'm a terrible person.”

“Ramsay Bolton was a terrible person. You aren't nearly his equal. Nor Littlefinger's - and if any single person is responsible for the mess we're in now, he is. As a villain you wouldn't even make the Bloody Mummers.”

Being made fun of, even gently, he does not take kindly to. He shakes his head frowning. “But Tyrion was right. It doesn't matter that I didn’t participate or that I disapproved of the Red Wedding, or Ned's death, or all the things Cersei did. I let it happen. I looked the other way. I never tried to stop them.”

“Neither did he,” she points out, with tender stubbornness. “And you did work against them, in a lot of ways. You sent me after Sansa, when Cersei wanted her dead. You set Tyrion free. I’d wager you’ve done even more than I know about. I would not be surprised to find you've been quietly resisting them your whole life.”

This he has never understood, where she has found this faith she has in him. He must have fooled her somehow, but damned if he can figure out how. He must look bewildered, because she goes on to explain.

“The man who drowned entire houses for power has a son who rejects power at every turn. Imagine that -- Tywin Lannister's son, of all people. Ever since you were a boy, you were dreaming of being a true knight, protecting the weak, and righting wrongs. Where did that come from? That wasn't your father’s idea. Swearing yourself to the Kingsguard definitely wasn’t his idea.”

No, it was Cersei's, he tries to say, but before he can say it, she's rushing ahead.

“Giving up your inheritance and the family name, refusing positions of authority, avoiding responsibility - do you know what that sounds like to me?” She doesn’t wait for his answer. “It sounds very much like a man who desperately doesn't want to be his father.”

That… is something that has never occurred to him. It feels important. But he isn't going to be able to sort through that now. It’s too big, he can’t get his head around it.

“We did awful things. My father did, and Cersei did, and I helped them.”

“You did,” she says steadily.

“The truth is...” he looks at his feet. “I still miss them. I miss all of them.”

His vision blurs, and he has to close his eyes and clench his jaw tightly to keep himself in hand. He has never quite gotten around to grieving for any of his family, not his father nor his three children, not Uncle Kevan and Cousin Lancel who died at Baelor, not for his brother’s betrayal or his terrible defeat at Highgarden and the men he watched burning to death there. He had to be strong for Cersei, her pain had always taken precedence over his. He had no right to mourn or be comforted. And then she was gone too, and he is left utterly alone, untwinned, orphaned, widowed.

After so long repressing his grief he thought it had faded on its own, but he had only concealed it. Now it’s all flooding in at once. Suddenly it just hurts, it hurts beyond his ability to hold it all. It’s just going to crush him.

Then Brienne is putting her arms around him, around his neck, and pulling him close. “Of course you miss them. Of course.”

The only thing bigger and stronger than this agony is Brienne. She is as powerful and steady as a castle wall and she can hold him together. She takes all his weight onto her and holds onto him until he finally relents and puts his head on her shoulder and lets it all go, begins to weep quietly into her neck. All of the losses in the last few years that he has never been able to mourn, he feels them all at once, in a terrible flood of despair and defeat.

He holds on to her tightly, shaking with painful, wrenching sobs. He's having years of emotions all at once. It feels like it will tear him apart. Brienne does not recoil from his tears, not the way Cersei or his father or even Tyrion would. She puts her hand on the back of his head and runs her fingers through his hair and shows no impatience with his weakness.

Whatever it is that holds Brienne back from the world, keeps her tightly controlled and contained, she’s broken through it now. She’s right here with him, touching him, trying to get through. Because he needs her. That’s what it takes to bring down her walls, it turns out. If he needs her, she will take them down herself.

“You haven’t lost everyone,” she whispers in his ear. “You haven’t. I’m not much but… you have me. You will always have me.”

[imagining-supernatural]

The Best Laid Plans...

Part 2 of But It Burns

Summary: When you hit rock bottom, you have nowhere to go and end up on your former best friend’s doorstop, bruised, bloody, and broken. You aren’t expecting him and his girlfriend to take you in and try to patch up your shattered life, especially with the danger your presence puts them in.

Warnings: Language, medical scare, hospitals

Word Count: 3301

“This is huge! I should call this into the station. At least about Stark.”

“Why don’t you? We don’t own Y/N anything.”

“Buck… she trusted you. Above everyone else. In a matter of life or death, she came to you. Don’t you want to find out why?”

A whispered conversation slowly woke you up. After a moment of floating along the edge of consciousness, you finally tumbled over the edge and managed to just barely hold back a groan of pain. You needed to hear Bucky and Natasha uncensored.

“It’s just what she does, Natasha. She comes to me to try and sweep things under the rug for her when she fucks up. It was like this all throughout college. Maybe if we play this one by the book, call it in, have her actually face her consequences in jail, then she’ll finally get her shit together.”

“Or maybe this baby will set her straight. Maybe we can help her get out of the country, like she said. She could be a valuable asset to us. She was married to Tony Stark. The kind of information she has on the Mob?”

“She says she’s pregnant. She says she was married to Stark. She says the Mob will be after her. The last time I saw her, she was so fucked up on so many different drugs, Nat. Maybe she’s having some kind of drug-induced psychotic break…”

“You don’t believe that, Bucky. I can tell. Y/N’s telling the truth. I know you know it.”

“The truth as she believes it,” he whispered weakly.

You couldn’t blame him for not trusting you. You’d manipulated him into this. Manipulated him into hating you. Into letting you go. Into moving on without you in his life. You’d crushed the dream of a future the two of you had built up with matching houses in the suburbs and kids growing up next to each other and summer vacations with each other’s families. It was your fault you were no longer a part of his life.

Which just reminded you that you needed to get the fuck out of his life again.

Slowly, you opened your eyes. Well, your right eye. The left eye was swollen shut, which wasn’t a surprise in the least. It was a miracle you’d gotten out of your house alive last night, much less all the way across town to Bucky’s apartment.

Bucky and Natasha’s apartment. It wasn’t just his life you were putting in danger by being here.

Experimentally, you lifted you arm to push down the sheet of the bed you were on. They must have finished stitching you up, found some clean clothes for you, and put you in what looked to be a guest room. Tastefully decorated but lacking the personality that came from a constant occupant. Generic paintings from a home décor store and a bookcase with old classics and framed pictures of the two of them.

With careful, measured movements, you swung your feet off the bed until you were sitting up, biting back another groan. Tony hadn’t ever beat you this badly before. Some nights he got drunk and you angered him, but this had been different. It was as if the devil had possessed him. The man you’d married was nowhere to be seen.

It took a moment of deep breathing before you convinced yourself to stand up. As soon as you were upright, a sharp stab of pain hit your abdomen, quickly shooting through your body. A shout of agony escaped your lips and you curled in on yourself, falling to the ground. “Fucking, goddamned mother of shit!”

“Y/N?” Soft fingers danced across your shoulder. Natasha. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t—” another wave of red hot coals rushed through your body, cutting off your words. Something was wrong. Really wrong. Fuck, the baby… You reached down and felt along the leggings you were wearing, eyes widening when your fingers came back red. Wide, terrified eyes darted up to meet Natasha’s. “I’m bleeding. I’m fucking bleeding. God, I’m going to lose my baby. I can’t—I need him. I can’t lose him!”

“We are going to the hospital, Y/N.” Her voice left no room for negotiation. Not that you would have. You’d been an idiot last night. You should have gone straight to the hospital. If you lost your baby, it would be your fault. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself. Frozen in fear, you could only watch as Natasha looked over her shoulder. “Bucky, bring the car around. I’ll bring Y/N out. And give Steve a call. Have him waiting at the back door of the hospital and a doctor ready as soon as we get there.”

The drive to the hospital happened in a blur. Natasha sat in the back of the car with you, holding your hand while Bucky drove. You were only marginally aware of them. All of your attention was on your baby. You couldn’t feel anything. Could you feel him before now? Why didn’t you know what was going on with him?

“We’re here,” Bucky said in a low voice, drawing your attention. You looked up to see a cop by the back door with a wheelchair. Bucky turned around in his seat to look at you. “That’s Steve. If you trust me you can trust him.”

“Fuck, I don’t even care. Get me to a fucking doctor.”

You could figure out logistics later. Right now, your kid was the only thing that mattered. You tried to keep as quiet as possible when Bucky moved you to the wheelchair, even though it felt like an earthquake was setting off landmines inside of you. Once you were inside the hospital, a nurse and doctor took you from Bucky and wheeled you into a room without windows. They poked and prodded and asked questions upon questions and somehow managed to finagle your entire medical history from you in the first five minutes. On minute six, you were being prepped for surgery. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, you were pulled under the line of consciousness and left at the mercy of others.

It felt like you’d been run over by a garbage truck when you woke. Fuck, what happened? You couldn’t even move your legs. They were like cement locked to the bed. Tony had been out checking on a shipment last night, so he couldn’t have—

Fucking shit, you’d killed him. Then you went to Bucky’s and his girlfriend stitched you up and—

“Y/N?” Bucky’s raspy voice broke through your thoughts.

“The baby? What—God, please tell me he’s okay. I can’t feel him, Buck!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Bucky was by your side in an instant, holding your hands still so you wouldn’t rip out your IVs and make things worse. “The baby’s okay, Y/N. He’s fine. As long as you take it easy, he’ll stay that way.”

As his icy blue eyes bore into yours, you forced yourself to calm down, process his words, accept them. “Really?”

Bucky nodded.

Relief flowed through your veins, making your head fall back onto your pillow like a weight. “Oh, thank God.”

Hesitantly, Bucky let go of your hands, as if he wasn’t sure that you wouldn’t start thrashing around again. All you did was move your hand over your stomach gently, as if you’d be able to feel the baby. Bucky pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat down, keeping his eyes on you. “You were in surgery for twelve hours. Dr. Banner thinks both you and the kid will be just fine, but he’s putting you on bedrest for at least a month. Maybe the rest of the pregnancy.”

“Gonna make getting to Ecuador a hell of a lot harder,” you mused. But you could make this work. The kid was fine. You were fine. And you’d make damn sure the both of you stayed that way. Which reminded you… “How am I here? Who knows I’m here?”

“Me, Natasha, the doctor and nurses who worked on you, and Steve, Natasha’s partner. But as far as computer records go, it’s Natasha who’s three months pregnant and just had a twelve-hour surgery. We know you were worried about being put in the system.”

“So you decided to commit insurance fraud for me?”

He raised an eyebrow. “No. They’ll bill this, but they’ll make a mistake so the insurance company rejects it. We’ll pay in cash, full. And you will pay us back.”

“With interest,” you promised, closing your eyes. “And hazard pay. And rent for the night I stayed with you.”

“Oh,” Natasha’s voice came from the door, prompting you to open your eyes again. “You’re paying more than one night of rent. You’re on bedrest, sweetie.”

“I can be on bedrest in a hotel room. You’ve already done more than you should have to.”

Bucky let out a short, humorless laugh and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “You came to me. Again. If you didn’t want my help you should have stayed away.”

“I should have,” you agreed quickly. “But I’m still that selfish person I was five years ago. You’re still my safe place and I needed that last night. But I didn’t think about how that would affect you. And I’m sorry for that, but I’m trying to fix it, Bucky.”

“You weren’t selfish, Y/N. Not last night.”

“That’s why I have a cop committing insurance fraud for me while the entire Mob is out for my head on a platter?”

“Why did you come to me last night?”

“I just killed my husband and I was bleeding out and—”

“Why did you come to me last night?” He interrupted to ask again.

“You were the only person I knew wouldn’t kill me—”

“Why did you come to me last night?”

“I don’t know what answer you’re looking for!” You yelled. “I was emotionally strung out and not thinking straight and I needed someone I trusted while I got my feet back under me.”

“You didn’t come to me because you were scared for your own life, Y/N. You were scared for your baby. Making sure you lived long enough for him to be born. That’s why you came to me.”

Huffing a short breath, you looked away and shook your head. “No, I didn’t. If I had then I would have gone to a hospital. I would have chanced being entered into the system so an actual doctor could patch me up and make sure my baby was fine instead of my former best friend and his cop girlfriend.”

“Well, your former best friend and his cop girlfriend have already talked about this,” Natasha said, pulling up another chair. “And you’re staying with us. Tony Stark’s body was found early this morning. James Rhodes was also found dead a few hours ago. I’d guess there’s a few days until someone takes Stark’s mantel and the Mob get in order again. That means we have a few days to figure out how to keep you in our apartment, safe.”

“Safe,” you laughed. “Right. Safe. I’m pregnant with Tony’s baby. His only child. They killed Rhodey because he was Tony’s second. You really think they aren’t going to feel threatened by Tony’s kid? His heir? There are people in the Mob who fucking worshiped the ground Tony walked on. They’re probably searching for me so they can make sure this kid is born, then they’ll kill me and raise the kid so they can brainwash him into their perfect ideals. And the people who want to take Tony’s place? Well, I’m a threat. I know far too much. I’m not safe here.”

“We’ll figure it out, Y/N,” Natasha assured you, to which you just laughed. She brushed off your reaction. “The doctor wants to keep you here overnight. He’ll be in in a few minutes to talk to you himself. Bucky and I will install a new security system at our apartment tonight—”

“No. Fuck, you can’t change anything. If they come looking and find out about Bucky, they’ll notice the new system. It’ll be a red flag.”

“We’ve been looking at new security systems for a few weeks already. It’s not a rash decision.”

“I—” well fine. That wouldn’t be too much of a red flag. Besides, a cop and a P.I. living together? Talk about a couple who had every right to be paranoid. And the opening line to some joke. “Okay. But as soon as I get the green light from the doctor, I’m out of here. I promise you won’t see me again. I’m done putting you in danger.”

“You say that like you’ve put him in danger before,” Natasha observed.

Shit.

“If only you knew how many black eyes he got on the playground because of me…” it was a weak coverup. And, unfortunately, both of them saw right through it.

“Y/N…” Bucky prompted. “When did you put me in danger before?”

The door to your room opened, showing in a doctor and you could have kissed him for his perfectly-timed intrusion.

“Ms. Y/L/N,” he started, eyes still on your chart. You shook your head briefly in surprise. Y/L/N was a name you hadn’t heard since you married Tony. “Your tests look good. Not as good as I’d like, but you’re stable. You and the babies.”

“He’s really fine? He won’t have any problems?”

The doctor – Dr. Banner, Bucky had said – met your eyes and you didn’t like the apology in them. “There is a good chance your babies will be just fine. However, I do want you to be prepared for the developmental issues that might arise. The stress and trauma they endured was substantial. But with proper care, they should be just fine.”

Holy fuck… “Hold up…They?”

“You’re carrying twins, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“What the fuck?” It was like all of the air had been sucked out of your lungs. “Fucking twins?”

Dr. Banner nodded. “It’s a miracle both of them survived.”

“How the hell didn’t I know I’m having twins before now?”

“You’re about ten weeks along, which is usually when the ultrasound shows if you’re going to have more than one child. Would you like to meet them?”

“I— I don’t know.” Twins… What would Tony have done with twins? Would he have chosen a favorite? Were you going to end up choosing a favorite? What kind of a mother did you hope to be? One child had been a daunting enough future. But two?

“You don’t know?” Bucky challenged. “How can you not know?”

What kind of a mother didn’t even want to see her children on an ultrasound? Your eyes fell to your hands laying limply in your lap. The hands that killed the father of these children. Shit.

“Okay, men out,” Natasha announced, standing up to pull Bucky out of his chair. “Y/N and I are going to have a little chat.”

“Nat—”

“Out,” she ordered, cutting Bucky’s protest short. It wasn’t long before it was just you and Natasha in the room. She took a deep breath before turning towards you. “So, twins, huh?”

“I can’t do this.” It just slipped out. “Fuck.”

Natasha perched on the edge of the bed. “You’d be surprised at what you can do.”

“I started working at a bar and dealing drugs part time for my boss in college and somehow ended up marrying and ultimately killing the Mob Boss of Brooklyn not even six years later. There’s very little that would surprise me about myself anymore.”

“Dealing drugs? Bucky never told me that.”

“Bucky doesn’t know.” With a shaking hand, you carefully lifted up the hospital gown you were wearing and looked down at the white bandage on your abdomen from where they’d made the incision during surgery. “Fucking twins. God has a twisted sense of humor.”

If you could stay alive until you gave birth then you could give them up for adoption. Let them go to a family that would raise them right. It would be anonymous. They’d be safe from the zealous mobsters who followed your husband.

“Look, Y/N. If you give us intel on the Mob, I can get you into Witness Protection. You’ll be safe there.”

“They’ll find me there. You really think someone’s safe from the Mob just because they have a brand spankin’ new government issued ID?”

Six months. That was how long you’d have to stay alive. Just long enough for your babies to be adopted by someone else. After that, no one would care what happened to you. After that you wouldn’t have to worry so much. It would just be your life on the line. And your life wasn’t worth much.

“What’s your big plan, then?”

“Ecuador. Los Cuernos de Cobre keeps away the Brooklyn Mob. Really the only enemies that can hold a candle to the Mob. They don’t know my face there. I’ll be safest there.”

“Too bad the doctor said you’re not cleared for travel of any kind. Sounds like you’re stuck here a little longer.”

“I’ll figure something out,” you mumbled.

Natasha glanced around the room and sighed heavily. “Look, Y/N. I don’t know you. And I instantly didn’t like you when Bucky told me about you. But… There’s another side to your history with him, isn’t there? A reason you were such a bitch to him.”

“Nope,” you lied. “That’s just who I am.”

“I’d be a horrible detective if I believed you.” She reached for your hand and you hesitated before letting her take it. “You’re going to be staying with us for a few weeks. If you take off now, Bucky will worry himself sick over you. He’s still hurt over what went down five years ago between you two. So don’t you dare think you can just sneak out. Promise me that you’ll, I don’t know, talk to him? Talk to me? He loves you. I don’t know in what way he loves you, but he does. And after everything you’ve put him through, he deserves to know why you treated him like that.”

“Great idea,” you mumbled. “Let the hormonal, pregnant murderer into your home.”

“Self-defense, Y/N. You killed him in self-defense.”

“Maybe I wasn’t just talking about him. You don’t know shit about me, Natasha. If you did, you’d arrest me right now.”

She smirked, squeezing your fingers. “Don’t worry, Y/N. I haven’t ruled that option out yet.”

You really didn’t have any options here. No say. You were going to be staying with Bucky and his cop girlfriend for the foreseeable future. At least she was likeable. She wasn’t going to take your shit. But she also wasn’t going to be an easy target to pull the wool over her eyes.

“I’m glad he has you,” you said honestly. “You seem like the kind of person he deserves.”

“You don’t know shit about me, Y/N,” she stole your words with a half-smile.

“And if I did, I have a feeling I’d be saying the exact same thing.”

She squeezed your fingers again before letting go and standing up. “You should take the doctor up on that ultrasound. See those cute little blobs and remind yourself why you got yourself into this shit-storm in the first place. You’re protecting them.”

Just before she reached the door, you called out her name. She turned and caught your eye. “Thank you, Natasha. And, uh, can you send in the doctor? You’re right. I should—I should see the babies. Remember why I killed him.”

She caught the way your voice broke on the last sentence and tilted her head. “You loved him, didn’t you? Stark?”

“More than I should have,” you confirmed, offering a half smile to mask the pain.

Next: Blood Revealeth Secrets

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