#so like she knows he has powers already and obviously she knows five went missing so if he goes ‘power = time travel and I fucked us all’

[strawberryraccoontails]

maybe the reason I was so quick to go “oh yup failed marriage lila moves on” is cause I never got over diego & patch….

[sweetlyskz]

For Better or for Worse

Chapter One: The Arrangement

Pairing: poly!ot7 x reader

Genre: Mafia Au, Strangers to lovers, yandere Au

warnings: none

November 16, 2015

Fall was always your favorite season of the year. It's when you and your father got to spend the most time with each other. However this year was different than any other.

"What are the streets saying these days, Gwi-Nam?"

"Rumor has it Bangtan just acquired some territory in Gwangju and Islan, right near Seoul", Gwi-Nam told your father. "Next up is Busan."

Your father huffed. "Who is Bangtan?" He asked.

Knock Knock.

Your father was not surprised to see you enter his office so suddenly. After school you would always visit him in his office, knowing that's usually where he is. You waved at Gwi-Nam and plopped in the chair in front of your fathers desk, paying little attention to their conversation.

"Bangtan is a new gang, led by a man named Kim Namjoon. Apparently, he's recruiting people from all over South Korea to Join his gang and has lots of powerful people already lined up" Gwi-Nam answered.

"So your telling me that a rookie gang leader has already obtained two whole territories?" Your father didn't seem as calm as you thought he would be. He honestly looked kind of worried.

"This is not good", he continued. "Any form of contact on this Namjoon kid? Maybe we can turn things around while he's still young and impressionable."

A couple days later and your father was finally able to have a meeting with Bangtan. However, he wasn't just having a meeting with the leader like he was expecting. After Kim Namjoon entered your fathers office, six other bodies followed.

"I apologize for not informing you sooner", Namjoon started. "But these are my partners and co leaders of Bangtan. Therefore, they couldn't miss this meeting."

It was hard to hear the whole conversation between them and your father from outside his office. You eavesdropped as hard as you could before hearing shuffling footsteps. In attempts to hide, you turned the corner into one of the many hallways in your family mansion.

"Listen, we appreciate the offer", You heard one of them say with a condescending tone. "However, there's already seven of us. Its not ideal for Bangtan." Letting curiousity get the better of you, you peeked your head out of the hallway, seeing the gang and your father standing in front of his office doors.

"You wont be able to acquire even a piece of Seoul territory without me", Your father promised.

"Wanna bet?"

While your father and the leader of Bangtan went back and forth, one of the members strayed away, walking in your direction. Did he see you? I mean it sure wasn't the best hiding spot but you tried.

"Jungkook, where are you headed?" He turned back around.

"Hyung, look", The boy pointed to the hallway you where hiding in. Everyone turned their heads to see you peeking out. Now feeling exposed, you walk out into the open, waving at everyone shyly.

"And who may this fine young woman be?" One of the members looked you up and down. Gwi-Nam ran and grabbed your arm, escorting you to your room.

"She is my daughter, and I swear if you even think about-"

"She's very beautiful, sir", Namjoon stated as we walked towards the exit. "I would watch her carefully. Some men might fight to have someone as gorgeous as her by their side."

April 20, 2018

Bangtan had become the Dracula of South Korea. They now owned territory in every single city- even most of Seoul.

"You put up a hell of a good fight I'll tell you that", Namjoon laughed in your fathers face. "You know I bet that I could take Seoul territory by today. Aish, now I owe Jin a meal.”

He rolled his eyes. "I promised you that wouldn't happen, remember? Not unless you let me in on bangtan affairs."

"Well I've obviously proved that I can do it without you. Out of the twenty five districts in Seoul you now only own three of them."

He gulped nervously.

"Face it. You've met your match old man."

This couldn't be the end. It couldn't possibly end like this, at the hands of his enemy and not the hands of old age or retirement. Grasping for straws, your father gets desperate. "What do you want? H-how can I keep my territory?"

Joon sighed. "Well there is one thing you have that I want. You can't get your territory back but if you give me her than I'll let you keep what you have left."

Her.

Namjoon said her.

"You m-mean my..."

"Yes. Our lovely Y/n", He smiled. "Where is she anyway? All the little ones do is talk about her."

Your father felt sick to his stomach. What did he want with you, anyway? "N-no, you can't have her! I won't let you!"

"Listen, I'm trying to be nice here. Do it for Y/n, for your legacy."

He fought tooth and nail to keep you, but it was time to weigh his options and right now this was the best one. Unfortunately, you were still off at college during the time of the arrangement, but Namjoon didn't worry. They'd get to have you when you got back home.

[limpfisted]

DESCENT INTO AVERNUS. references for my own benefit! please blacklist #descent into avernus ref if not interested in seeing this content! i cannot provide alt text to the images from the handbook, however, i will be showing notes on what i read in between screenshots!

PART ONE: chapter one of the descent into avernus guide book. shitty screenshots and summaries

Important to WYLL:

baphomet is a demon lord worshipped by minotaurs. wyll has fought a minotaur in his many journeys, it is one of his favorite and most impressive stories to tell

belynne stelmane : of emperor alliance fame, she had a stroke due to the emperor, wyll had a crush on her, she is one of the four dukes

dillard potyr: another of the four dukes

klim jhasso: member of the noble family, the jhassos

mortlock and thurswell vanthampur: 3rd son and 1st of duke thalmara vanthampur

thalmara vamthampur: duke of bg

tiamut: five headed dragon queen of evil dragons, wyll stopped this dragon from taking over the city 7 years ago with mizora

grandduke ulder ravengard: wyll’s dad, obvs lol

thavius kreeg: high overseer of elturel, this is the place and person ulder went to go see before it fell

notes: zariel intends to take ofer baldurs gate next, zariel and thavius kreeg, the high overseer, have an infernal contract.

ulder is missing after having gone to elturel. the flaming fist is useless without him, and are even referred to as “distracted” and “thugs.” there are HUNDREDS of refugees trying to get in, the dead three already has its claws in bg obviously.

thalmura vhampur using tiamut’s gold (tiamut if u remember was the reason wyll was banished) to fund the dead threes murders

thalmura is doing this to “shatter the confidence” of people who believe in the flaming fist, and get them defunded. she has made a deal with zariel that when the fist is disbanded, she will take over as grandduke.

the shield of the hidden lord will help her smack bg into hell, and has been corrupting the morals of bg for “decades.” i guess this means if u take it away it’ll make bg better! her sons have stolen it

ulder is “valiant” but he “opposes” elturel

zariel was once an angel and you can redeem her, wild

zariel wanted the other angels to fight in thr blood war between demons and devils, she made an army called the hellriders, the hellriders LEFT her gay ass there, and kept that a secret from the world

zariel lost her army but also her hand and her sword she was holding. she told yael, her bff general, to take the sword and get out. ollianthius and haruman, her other two besties, refused to leave her side. they were sent to nessus, the lowest of the hells

asmodeus was like i know u tried to kill is but that was so cool, rule avernus for me bestie? and bel was mad about it, but zariel wanted to fight demons so fuckin bad she said yes. haruman was like ok bestie lets go. olanthius killed himself bc he was NOT a true ride or die, but zariel brought him back as a zombie, bc fuck u olanthius, that’s why

zariel ALWAYS wanted revenge on the hellriders, who went to eltruel. in 1444 dr, she got her chance. they were raken over by a vampire lord. thavius, a priest of thorm, appealed to any power to save his city, zariel said “hi” and he accepted her deal, and elturel was safe.

EXCEPT THAT IT WASN’T!!!

thavius actually just became high overseer, only to ask ravengard to come on over RIGHT BEFORE the time limit was up and elturel would be pulled to hell!! ravengard didn’t even WANT to go, he was pressured to, probs bc elturel was gaining power n turning into a proper nation, and they have various disputes that make ulder “at odds” with them!

thavius greeted the duke and then LEFT HIM THERE to “watch from a safe distance” then disguised himself as a refugee and then tells everyone elturel has fallen with HUNDREDS OF HIS OWN PEOPLE THA5 ARE REFUGEES BC OF HIS EVIL ASS, and then goes to chill with duke vanthampur in her VILLA, while all the tieflings are in RAGS.

more to come……..

[lavenderstobins]

duddeeee I saw your post and I gotta ask about Josieverse 🙏 but then I saw your Ghostface au, AND Steve has powers au and now I'm foaming at the mouth

ty for the ask!!! i'll give you a tidbit from each <3

Josieverse

aka single parent robin au! nancy comes back to hawkins after eight years to find robin has a six-year-old daughter (josie). robin and nancy fall for each other again and have to figure out whether they want to be together, because robin has josie to think of and nancy has to work out whether or not she wants to be a stepmother. (they fall in love and get together, obviously). nancy adjusting to rebuilding her relationships AND parenthood and catching up on the years she's missed... so dear to me. here's a snippet:

“I’m not a baby,” the little girl says, sounding offended. She puffs up, fixing Nancy with an indignant stare, even as she tugs Robin’s arm. “I’m six and a half.” “Josie,” Robin murmurs, perhaps in warning, but Nancy’s struck by the realisation that Robin’s bright blue eyes are staring up at her from this little girl’s face. Her mouth dries as she looks back at the girl, taking in the smattering of freckles across her nose, the features uncannily similar to photos she’s seen from Robin’s childhood. Her head snaps back up to Robin, and Robin looks guilty, confirming her suspicions. It feels like the wind’s knocked out of her all at once.  “She’s yours?” Nancy whispers.

Scream AU

this one has one chapter posted on my ao3 already! students at hawkins high start getting murdered and when a few deaths hit too close to home for nancy she takes it upon herself to figure it out. who the killer is remains a mystery for now... it's focused on ronance & stobin and the older teens as a whole. here's a snippet from before everything kicks off:

“Wha’happened,” she mumbles, sinking back to rest her back against the couch. She looks at Eddie accusingly. “Why aren’t you, you know, weh.” She feebly waves a hand at him. He laughs, the bastard. “Designated driver, Wheeler.” He sits on the couch, carefully avoiding where her head is resting, and laughs again when she gives him the middle finger. “As for what happened, I shepherded all of back here last night. Steve and Robin went upstairs to find bedding for everyone, and then passed out in Steve’s bed, so they’re upstairs. You, Byers and I raided Madam Harrington’s bedroom for bedding and then slept on the floor.”

Steve has powers AU

steve has, you guessed it, powers. an ability to bring back the dead, to be precise. it's a 5+1 things fic that covers five times he gives life + one time he takes one. i haven't started writing this one as an actual fic yet, only mini threads over on my twitter, but here's a snippet:

nancy’s crying, calling jonathan’s name, and all he can think is that the universe can’t be unkind enough for joyce byers to lose both her sons. “you gotta wake up, man,” he says, aware that his voice cracks, frantically tapping jonathan’s cheek. he’s not breathing, and this is the guy who has rocked his shit not even 24 hours ago but he— he can’t be dead, not after all this. so he’s not thinking straight, is the thing. he’s holding jonathan, and he’s thinking that jonathan can’t be dead, he won’t allow it, he never again wants to hear the noise nancy made when she saw jonathan get thrown.  “get up, man,” he says, urgent, desperate, and— jonathan gasps for air.

[narhinafan]

No matter how many years have passed I still can't not say that I do not hate the Tenchi Bridge Arc but most of all the missed opportunity to develop NaruHina it was the perfect Arc to develop their relationship further obviously a few changes would have to be made for it to work but I do think it would have improved the arc tremendously cuz in my opinion I don't think the arc is good at all but I'm mostly talking about the wasted opportunity of developing NaruHina. Imagine for a second Hinata went with team 7. Kishimoto could have developed their relationship so much easier and effectively and one way you could have solidified Naruto and Hinata's relationship is having her see him transform to his four-tailed state.

Let's say Naruto accidentally hurts her in this state and she gets captured this would make Naruto feel even worse when Yamato scolds him for using the nine-tails power because because he harmed Hinata. Having her be captured would also raise the stakes of the arc and when they get reunited they have a moment where Naruto is scared that she would reject him this could have built their relationship even further where she reassures him that she already knew or it doesn't matter to her.

You can even give them a few moments here and there in the Arc and afterwards as well. I'm limited what I can type because I can't because I know you don't want to read an essay but I feel like this Arc could have easily helped them get closer and with Hinata learning about his secret early on

Tenchi Bridge is my least favorite Arc in all of Naruto but there's other reasons but such a waste opportunity not to develop Naruto and Hinata's relationship here I will never not think that.

I know what you mean, do you remember the anime ending which has Hinata hugging four tails Naruto we could have gotten that. Honestly I think it would be hard to include Hinata since I still want Sai in the picture, but it is possible since we saw a team of five ninja sent out before.

Hinata could have gone for recon and the Byakugan would help keep taps when Kabuto was approaching the fake Sasori. Also I feel Hinata could have helped with Sai as she would understand him a lot better then Sakura could.

At the same time it would have been amazing to see a scene where Naruto hits Sakura away, but he stops when he is about to Hinata. Since Hinata has only ever been nice to Naruto and was the one that uplifted him with her proud failure speech years ago I can totally see her having a untouchable position in his heart that even Dark Naruto is fond of her as one of the only people to never expressed any form negativity towards him. Plus it would be a great way to foreshadow Kurama's negative emotion sensing as Hinata even when facing an out of control Naruto would still be pure and not have a shared of negative emotions towards Naruto hence four tails Naruto stops as he doesn't feel any threat from Hinata and she calms him down. A scene I really loved to see is Naruto hugging him around the neck like the ending, but instead of her instantly burning like Orochimaru's snakes Naruto's cloak quickly powers down so while she still gets burned its not nearly as bad cause Naruto doesn't want to hurt her.

Also her finding out about the Nine Tails would have been a great way for them to get closer or at least have Hinata talk to Naruto about it. I always hated how Kishimoto just brushed off and have everyone just get told about his secret and the miss opportunity for bonding and comfort from many of his friends. Like I could see Sakura having doubts about Naruto or unsure after finding that till Ino or Hinata talked sense into her. Naruto could have had a talk with Hinata where he gets accepted despite the fox and he can show his weaker side to her just like before the Neji fight.

[newronantic]

HAIKYUU!! FICS

so this is mostly gonna be for myself to keep track of my favorite fics i’ve read, but hey if anyone else wants to check some of these out then thats great

MHA one is up!!

ill keep updating this as i read more, feel free to send me suggestions!

KageHina

plain as day - emleewrites

In which Hinata has spent the better part of the last twenty years putting his heart and soul into volleyball, hoping to be recognised, to be noticed. And yet he spends all these years also thinking of himself as rather plain, beyond his lack of height and bright hair, and not really noticeable at all.

In Transit - Mysecretfanmoments

Hinata finds that he likes standing close to Kageyama on buses and trains. It doesn't mean anything--probably. Maybe.

I like the way your clothes smell - Mysecretfanmoments

Power outages, ghost stories, and the presence of a certain orange-haired boy lead to bad decision-making on Tobio's part. He'd planned to keep his crush a secret; the universe has other plans.

Chaotic Neutral - akaraka

Who's this Kageyama person on twitter and is he gay?

1: Anonymous: see title

2: Anonymous: curry king

3: Anonymous >> 1: It's the curry king, obviously. Have you been using his memes this whole time without knowing who he was?

4: Anonymous: 1) Hinata Shouyou's boyfriend 2) See above

jellyfish - mysterytwin

At the beginning of his last year at Karasuno High School, Hinata Shouyou starts a list and calls it THINGS TO DO BEFORE GRADUATION, all with high hopes that he’ll be able to complete it before his time runs out.

TsukkiYama

Try This On For Size - CloudMonsta

A lot changed for Yamaguchi Tadashi over the course of high school. He started trying on dresses, for one.

The Great Yamaguchi-Tsukishima Split (Capitalization Necessary) - WyYeuw

"But no, the current situation isn’t normal. This situation requires the full attention of the team.

No, what’s really concerning this time around, is that Yamaguchi is the one ignoring Tsukishima.”

Yamaguchi confesses. Tsukishima fucks up—like, really fucks up. The volleyball club notices and loses a week’s worth of practice.

IwaOi

Terrarium - sausaged

He's practically a professional at being proactive (lies, lies, and lies when it comes to Iwaizumi).

At this point, is he really happy with just staying best friends forever? Will he be writing journals and collecting rocks forever (he will, he knows, but that is aside from the point)?

Can he really tag his Instagram photos with #YOLO if he doesn't actually put that phrase into practice?

A story about Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime, plants, and rocks.

They Say it Rain Diamonds on Jupiter - exsao

"You're in love with him."

Hajime considers denying it. He considers deliberately choking on his drink to express surprise, to create a distraction by spitting onto the man in front of him's pristine white shirt and causing a commotion. Instead, he swallows his mouthful of soda and heaves a small sigh once his mouth is free.

"Yeah," he says instead.

He's never been good at lying, anyway.

bait and switch - Stylographic_Blue_Rhapsody

Oikawa's university volleyball team knows he's in a long-distance relationship with someone from high school. They imagine a sweet-faced girl that matches his sarcasm with patience. They are so incredibly wrong.

my heart is where it’s always been - foreverautumn

Iwaizumi places his phone down carefully.

Oikawa. Pining after someone. There’s no way.

(Iwaizumi knows he shouldn’t care who Oikawa might have feelings for, but within the span of three days, it’s somehow the only thing he can think about.)

KuroKen

Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life - todxrxki

Kuroo Tetsurou runs a private Twitter account where he's constantly tweeting about how desperately in love he is with Kozume Kenma. Little does he know that Kenma sees all the tweets and keeps referencing the account in an attempt to get Kuroo to confess to him. / Or, five times Kuroo didn't notice Kenma hinting about his private Twitter account, and one time he finally did.

the things that get caught in the valves of his heart - ghostpot

Emotional competency is not exactly Kuroo's strong suit. Kenma finds it quite amusing.

Accidentally In Love - todxrxki

Kuroo frowns, but then slowly, the corners of his mouth lift up into a smirk. "Well, if it's so unbelievable, why don't we give it a try?"

Kenma glances up at him curiously. "What do you mean?"

"Let's do the 36 questions to fall in love," Kuroo says, still smirking stupidly. "If we don't fall in love, then you're right, it's bullshit. But if we do somehow..." Kuroo waggles his eyebrows. "Then I win." / Kuroo decides he and Kenma should do the 36 questions to fall in love as a joke, but they both start to realize they might actually be in love already.

the galaxy is endless (i thought we were, too) - cosmogony

TW: major character death

Kuroken AU where the last words your soulmate will say to you appear on your skin when you turn 16, and how Kenma and Kuroo learn what this means over the course of their lives

even if you’re ahead for a bit, i will catch up - ghostpot

Kuroo first confesses when they're sticky-fingered, wide-eyed kids, and subsequently every day after that. Kenma takes a while to come around.

you’re the brake lines failing (as my car swerves off the freeway) - ghostpot

Kenma thinks that Kuroo looks ugly with his head bent against the arm of the couch like that. Then Kenma thinks that he wants to marry him, and is promptly thrown into the 5 stages of grief.

teach me the way home - icespyders

“Don’t go far off, not even for a day, because —

because — I don’t know how to say it: a day is long

and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station

when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.”

Kuroo and Kenma grow up in transit.

in this universe - crossbelladonna

Living with Kuroo is sometimes, just like this. It always feels surreal like he's living half a world and a lot of things rush by too quickly. Kenma feels like he'd watched him come and go in a blink, eyes wide and wordless as the shared space went snug in an instant and far larger in the next.

All this, and a glass of water.

Beginning’s End - todxrxki

Somehow over the course of Kenma's lifetime, he’s never really had an opportunity to miss Kuroo. He’s always been there. Even when they went to different schools, Kuroo would meet him afterwards so they could walk home together, shoulders brushing, Kuroo occasionally taking the opportunity to guide him when his nose was buried in the newest video game. The thought of Kuroo not being there anymore is uncomfortable, to say the least. / Kozume Kenma's third year and the changes the year brings in himself and his relationship with Kuroo Tetsurou.

All I Want for Christmas is You - todxrxki

“Kuro,” he says. “You’re a single guy.”

“Yeah, great, thanks for pointing that out.”

“And my parents already know you, plus they already know you like guys or whatever so… what if you pretended to be my date for Christmas dinner?” / In which Kenma recruits his housemate and best friend Kuroo to be his fake date for Christmas.

BokuAka

just to miss the sun - rosevtea

Everything begins to implode when MSBY Jackals outside hitter Bokuto Koutarou crashes Akaashi's livestream.

Operation BokuAka - kazzydolyn

After spending two whole years watching Bokuto and Akaashi pine for one another, the rest of the Fukuroudani Volleyball Club has had enough. When everyone meets up for a reunion dinner, the team decides to play matchmaker and finally get the two of them together. Unfortunately, their plan starts to fall apart when they discover that Akaashi is already dating someone. And apparently so is Bokuto. What a strange coincidence.

bitter - silvercistern

He accepted his classmate's chocolates gracefully, then declared his lack of interest with as much dignity as he could muster. She deserved the courtesy. At least she'd acknowledged that Valentine's Day was all about her, and not about him in the slightest.

Because if any of these girls had taken the time to actually get to know him, they’d quickly realize something even more important than his lack of interest in girls.

And that was that Akaashi hated sweets.

In Another Life - LittleLuxray

TW: major character death

Sleeping didn't come as easy as it used to. Bokuto knew this, and now Akaashi did, too.

The hospital AU that no body asked for, but that I took upon myself to write.

120% yes - pissedofsandwich

TOKYO FRANCHISE COMING SOON @OnigiriMiya

in reply to @bokkun_official 

Congratulations! In celebration of your historic engagement, please DM us so we can send you a free membership code with a 25% discount on every fourth purchase!

Kissing Ace - karasunovolleygays

It happens right after training camp.

Akaashi Keiji has a secret he has guarded since he was a child. He won’t go so far as to call it a fear, but more of an aspect of himself of which he is horribly mortified. No one on the team knows about it, and Akaashi does his best to keep it that way.

But years of dodging hugs and casual contact come to naught in the blink of an eye and the swipe of a hand.

daisy rings and frivolous things (i am deliriously in love with you) - gabstar

Akaashi Keiji is in love. Bokuto Koutarou is a star. Everyone on Fukurodani has a gambling problem.

SakuAtsu

The MSBY Black Jackals Read Thirst Tweets - isaksara (syailendra)

Sakusa’s eyes are very dark naturally, sucking in all surrounding rays of light and crushing them in his pupils. For an athlete, he is rather pale. His lips look very pink in comparison. Atsumu is suddenly catastrophically aware that in this instance, ‘accent’ is a euphemism. “Good enough for your Olympic-size ego, Miya?”

(In which Atsumu realizes that he is attracted to Sakusa Kiyoomi in the most inconvenient way possible.)

A Liar’s Truth - internetpistol

In which Sakusa Kiyoomi is raised to believe that gay people go to hell but then takes one look at Miya Atsumu and thinks, then why the hell did God make them so fucking hot?

[urimaginespimp]

How You Get The Girl (This Love Final Part)

Bucky x Reader (elemental witch)

Set on TFATWS last episode

Note: Thank you to everyone that's tuned in, gave feedbacks, and liked/reblogged. I had to so much fun writing these! After this I’ll be working on oneshots completely unrelated to this story of several prompts.

We got a new Cap!

Previous Part: Untouchable

Marvel Masterlist

--------

“I’m serious, Shuri. I am over him.” you groaned as Shuri won’t wipe off the smug, disbelieving look on her face.

“Sure, Jan.” She replied getting up to continue on what’s she’s working on.

“Hey, I know that reference!”

“I’m just saying... Seven years of pinning over the guy – which five of it was when he was practically dead, by the way – and you’re telling me it took one confrontation for you to get over him.” She shrugged.

Some of the Dora Milaje were also in the lab, and you haven’t been vocal about it, but you didn’t miss the knowing looks they’ve been exchanging every time Bucky was brought in the conversation.

“Well, it would really be nice if you’re being supportive right now.” you sulked in your seat. Yeah, who were you kidding. Maybe you’re not completely, completely over him, but now you’re sorting to the fake it ‘til you make it method and so far, you’re doing well.

“Okay, fine. Want me to set you up with someone? My brother has some contacts around the world and I think with some buttering up he’d consider setting you up to bachelor royalties.” She wiggled her brows at you.

“May I suggest the Prince of Brunei? The internet says he’s looking for a wife.” One of the ladies snickered, making the others hum in approval.

“T’Challa knows him?” this piqued your interest. “He’s pretty hot.”

“Well make up your mind. It’ll take me a few business days of persuading my brother.” She raised her brows at you.

“It wouldn’t hurt to start dating. I’ll think about it first.” you muttered, missing how Shuri winked at the other ladies in the room. Ayo had told her in private about Bucky’s little confession to Zemo, and the princess has a few tricks up her sleeve to speed up the matchmaking process.

“I’m only staying for a few days more. It’s been a few weeks and Val’s been complaining from lack of sleep.” She’s been taking over your nightly escapades, and it’s starting to irritate her to be surrounded with so much booze but not being able to indulge.

Just then, Okoye enters the lab. “Check the news. There’s a live coverage of a hostage in New York. Sam and White Wolf are on it.”

--------

Bucky was looking over proudly as Sam was talking to the Senator.

Seeing Sam now walking over to him, he straightened up and cleared his throat. “Sorry, I uh was texting and all I heard was um a black guy in stars and stripes.”

They both chuckled, now walking side by side. “Nice job, Cap.”

“Thanks.”

--------

He’s done it. He told Yori the truth. Though now that might have been the end of their friendship, he knew the old man deserves the closure for his son.

Now back in his apartment, he took the notebook Steve once owned from his pocket, and opened it to the page where his list is. Looking over it, he saw that the only name left uncrossed is yours.

Just then, his phone pinged twice. One message was from Sam, and the other one from Shuri.

Sam’s read:

I wasn’t kidding when I told you

back on the boat that I’d get the

younger ones here to give you a

crash course on romance.

Check your email.

He rolled his eyes and opened the one from Shuri.

Y/N’s explained everything to us.

We saw you save those people,

White Wolf. Wakand is proud of you.

Brother says you’re welcome to

visit anytime. Take care!

p.s.

It’s good to know Y/N and you are

are on good terms. It finally allowed me

to set her up with one of the princes

mother’s been pestering me about. One less

off of mother’s list for me.

“Damn it, Shuri.” he groaned, reading the last part over and over again. He had to move fast. Heading over to his email, he opened the one from Sam.

The subject says:

21st century romance for reformed dummies.

There was an attached 60-second video. Clicking on it, he chuckled when Sam’s voice started booming behind the camera, where it showed two young girls and one boy, all around below 10 years of age.

“Okay, I gathered you here today because a cyborg friend of mine is need of help. I already filled you in the details necessary earlier, and all you have to do now is give him quick tips. Remember, talk slow.”

The boy on the middle spoke up. “Is she an avenger?”

“Not important, but yes. It’s the one with similar powers to an avatar.” Sam answered, followed by the two girls saying they know which one, and the boy to mutter ‘damn it I always had a crush on her...’

“Okay the first step would obviously be to say sorry.” the girl on the right said directly to the camera.

“Oh! Extra points if you do it standing like a ghost outside her door and it’s about to rain.” the other girl from the left perked up.

“I said he’s a cyborg, not a weatherman.” Sam commented, still behind the camera.

“Say you were afraid to tell her what you want.” the first girl spoke again.

“Six months is a long time to be afraid, man.” the boy in the middle spoke up this time.

“Try years.” Sam muttered.

“Then you say you want her for worse or for better!” The cheery girl exclaimed once again.

“You’ve been playing too many fake weddings, but yes, that could work.” Sam told her, making her beam, showing a missing tooth.

“Tell her you could wait forever and ever.” the boy added.

“I mean he’s already old enough to be your great grandpa but go on I guess.” Sam was snickering, causing the camera to slightly shake.

“Remind her of how it used to be. That is if he was good to her.” the more mature girl was pointing out. “Saying you’ll put her heart back together could also work.” she smiled, and the other one fake swooned on where she was standing.

“She’s right!” she exclaimed, while boy nods and says “that’s how it works.” at the same time.

Now turning the camera, Sam was now in frame.

“And that’s how you get the girl, Barnes. Straight from the local’s experts. Don’t fuck it up.”

And three voices scolded him for saying a bad word as the clip ends.

--------

It didn’t take long for him to take a flight straight to Norway where New Asgard was. This time without the aid of Zemo’s jet, he had to find the means to travel from the airport, while trying to calm his nerves.

As if the universe was on his side, a couple claiming to be heading back to Asgard allowed him to hitch a ride with them.

Now on the backseat, he tried to make small talk.

“So, uh, how are you guys settling in the planet?” he asked.

The lady on the passenger seat turned to face him with a smile. “It wasn’t easy, really. But the princess went out of her way to educate us about life here on Midgard. She’s so good at it, you’d forget she hasn’t even been living here a decade.”

He smiled. They claim you as their princess despite only being adopted by Thor. He recalls how you once rambled about being scared that they’d be indifferent towards you once Thor brings you to Asgard, one of the reasons you’ve been making up excuses to go with him.

“Why, would you look at that. We’re just in time before it starts raining.” The man driving commented.

Peeking through the window, sure enough, the sky was getting darker.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” he muttered. He might just take the little girl’s advice after all.

After getting out of the couple’s car, he ran straight to where he remembers your home was, just in time when Val just got out of your house.

“Hi. I don’t think we’ve formally met. I’m Bucky.” He greeted extending his ahand to her which she took. A skeptical look on her face.

“Call me Val. I’m sorry what are you doing here?”

“I need to speak to Y/N, please.” He answered truthfully.

“Well it’s about night time so she’s getting dolled up.” She answered

“I know, I know, it’s for her date. But that’s why I’m here.”

Val raised a brow, confused about what date he was getting all bummed about when you were only getting ready to go back to looking out for people out and about at night. But then it dawned to her that maybe this was some of your friend’s doing.

“Y-yes... the date.” She decided to play along, holding back a smirk. Just then, rain started slowly pouring, along with thunder. “Well shit, I have to help some folks get their kids back inside their homes now. You’re free to knock on her door.” She excused herself.

His own clothes were starting to get drenched when he finally knocked on your door.

No answer. He knocked again, louder this time. Now footsteps were heard coming to the door, and the knob turned as you opened it.

“Damn it, Val, the door’s not even lo-” You stopped talking, surprised at the figure that greeted you.

“Bucky... are you insane? Don’t just stand there, come in it’s raining hard.” he urged him to get in and closed the door behind you.

Facing each other, he was taking you in. Val wasn’t lying when she said you were getting ready for your date. He can’t believe he was already getting jealous of a faceless punk.

“So uh... what brings you here?” You decided to break the ice, fidgeting where you stood, still barefoot as it looked like you were gonna have to stay at home if it was going to rain this hard all night.

“Don’t go on the date.” he pleaded, confusing you.

“What?”

“Please don’t go on the date.” He repeated, now walking towards you.

There is no date, but now you were wondering why he’s telling you not to.

“Why?”

“I love you.” he answered without missing a beat, now stepping closer to you. Instead of the reaction he was hoping for, you scoffed and took a step back.

“Don’t pull a Laurie on me.” you replied, a frown etched on your face. He was confused.

“A Laurie?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen enough adaptations of Little Women to know that you’re pulling a Laurie on me.” You spat as a matter of fact. “You’re being really mean, stop it.” you crossed your arms in front of your chest.

“What? I- I haven’t even thought of that reference!” he defends himself, cheeks reddening from embarrassment. “Amy was gonna get married, Y/N.”

“Oh then by all means, feel free to come back just after he proposes.”

“W- We’re getting sidetracked here, doll. I came here hoping there still an ounce of you that loves me. Please don’t tell me you’ve completely moved on from me.”

“What, like it’s hard?” you replied. It surprised you when his brows shot up from recognition of that line.

“Now you’re pulling an Elle Woods on me!” he pointed at you in an accusatory manner.

“Don’t point that finger at me, Barnes. How was I even supposed to know you’ve seen that movie?” you rolled your eyes, walking past him.

“I watched all the movies you told me about back in Wakanda.” he spoke up, making you stop in your tracks to face him again.

“Yeah, that’s right. I watched every movie, I listened to every song, read every book you recommended, and visited every internet site you once said I might like. I was always listening even when I made it seem like I wasn’t.”

You stared at him for a second looking for any indication that he was lying. Recovering from the mild shock, you pursed your lips. “I hope you know the Porn site was a joke. Sam did it to Steve once and I just thought it was hilarious.”

His mouth twitched. Walking over to you once more he stopped when he was only a step away, not breaking eye contact.

“I’m really sorry, Doll. I know it’s bold of me to even ask you, but please give me the chance to make it up to you. And I don’t care if it’s me that has to wait for you this time. Take all the time you need, just please don’t go on that date.”

“Bucky, there was never a date. I have no idea what date you were referring this entire time.” you confessed, making him bring his hands to his face and groan, muttering Damn it, Shuri.

Hearing Shuri’s name, you put two and two together. “Is this about Shuri trying to set me up with a prince?” he nodded as answer. “Well, I did tell her I was gonna think about it.”

He removed his hands away from his face. “Please say no.” He whispered. “I’d tell you what the kids told me what to say if I have to.”

“What kids?”

“Sam got a bunch of kids on video to teach me how to win you back. I’ve already stood under the rain outside your door just like what one of the girls suggested.” Judging from the grin on your face, he was now regretting even mentioning them.

“Well go on, then.” you urged. “Let me see how much you’ve learned.”

“The first time I saw you at the airport, I got so distracted looking at you just casually sitting on top if the ramps while we were preparing to fight. That wink you sent me that day is still engraved in my mind by the way. Then I was so taken back when you bluntly told me you’re attracted to me. I-”

“I don’t think the kids taught you to remind me of my attempts to flirt with you.” You cut him off, embarrassed at the memory. He chuckled at your expression.

“Okay, okay.” he took a deep breath.

“I think I started catching feelings for you the moment they woke me up from my cryosleep and you were there to be the first one to welcome me back. I didn’t think you were still gonna be there like you told me. But you were there, beaming at me like a ray of sunshine. All my years under HYDRA, every time I was woken up, I was only ever treated as an asset. But you welcomed me like I was a friend.” his eyes were starting to get glassy with tears, as he tried not to choke up.

“And then every time you were near, or even when I’d get a whiff of your perfume, I’d start feeling all warm inside and my entire body would be at ease, knowing you were an arm's reach from me. You were the last one I saw as I disintegrated from the blip, and you were the first one I sought out the moment we came back.” he was surprised when you reached forward to wipe away a tear he didn’t even realize had run down his cheek.

“I lied when I said I made a mistake kissing you. It was the first thing I wanted to do the moment I saw you again. But something inside me was always telling me that all I could ever be is someone grateful for your kindness. That it was impossible for the universe to even grant me someone like you after everything I’ve done." He let out a breath before continuing.

"But it was also you, Steve, Sam, and heck – even Zemo– that made me realize that I am worthy of a chance. And I’m sorry it had to take you telling me you were moving on, to have the courage to accept and take the chance that has been long offered to me by the world." He took your hand and gave the back of it a small kiss.

"I love you, Y/N.” Now it was him that had to wipe away your tears away. “Please don’t cry, doll. That wasn’t-”

“Just fucking kiss me already, James.” you laughed, in between sniffles.

He grinned down before you. “You’re my angel with a potty mouth, and I love you.” he whispered, leaning down.

“I love you too."

---------

You and Bucky were out with the Wilsons on their community's afternoon barbeque.

Sarah and you got along with ease, and she was telling you all about their old family business when Bucky hugged you from behind.

"Sorry to interrup, ladies, but I have to show you something Y/N." he said, kissing your cheek.

"Ew, man. I still can't believe your old ass has a girlfriend." Sam commented beside Sarah who was laughing

"You do know I'm older than him, right?" you chuckled.

"I know, but you don't look it." he replied, causing Bucky to flip him off.

Excusing yourself, both of you walked by the docs.

"What's up, old man?" you grinned at him.

"You know what, doll. Most couples would have endearing nicknames for each other."

"I'll call you something sweet once you tell me what that thing you call me when we're alone means."

"What, мое солнце?"

"Yeah, that one! Tell me or else I'll keep calling you ridiculous ones." you threatened, trying not to smile.

"Anyway, мое солнце, I just wanted to show you a text I got from Shuri."

I am yet to have any news that you

manned up and told Y/N you love her,

White Wolf. I was joking before, but now

I really might set her up on a date.

You both chuckled at Shuri's threat.

"I got this." you pulled your phone out of your pocket and dialled her number. You placed it on loud speaker once she picked up.

"Y/N! So nice of you to call."

"Hey, Shuri! Listen..." you feigned seriousness in your voice before releasing a deep breath. "I'm finally over Mr. Smokey eye. I think I'm ready to go on that date now." Bucky was playfully glaring at you for the nickname.

There was dead silence from the other side of the line for a second. "Oh! About that... uh turns out he already has a girlfriend. Planning to propose soon, I heard. Oops!"

"Well that's a bummer. How about the other bachelor royalties your family's friends with? I recently found an article with a list. I can send you one right now. Preferably ones that don't look much like blue-eyed grandpa." you grinned at him as he rolled his eyes. He knows what you were trying to get him to do.

"Uh... turns out my brother isn't that friendly after all." She let out an awkward laugh. "Hasn't Barnes contact you at all?" you could hear the frustration in her voice.

"Oh, that discount prophet, I haven-"

"It means my sun." He finally caved, rolling his eyes.

"What?" you asked him, immidiately forgetting that Shuri was still on.

"WHAT?" she screamed through the phone after a second.

"мое солнце means my sun." he grinned at you.

"Is that Barnes with you?! Hellooo?!!!"

"Talk to you later, princess." you turned off the call when she was about to protest. Facing him again, you stepped closer and put your arms around his shoulders, both of you sharing a grin.

"I love you, мое солнце."

"I love you too, minn stjarna."

"You gonna tell me what that means?"

"You wish."

fin.

--------

@eternalharry @iheartsebandchris @lizzarooni @the-ayo-lit @tanyaherondale @knowyourworth-sellyoursoul @eliwinchester-barnes @ebxny27 @just-a-littlebit-of-everything @fadingdreamersportsmaker @drama-queen-aa

[darks-ink]

Spark

Prompt: How does being constantly exposed to high amounts of ectoplasm affect the citizens of Amity Park? Prompt by: @robotbeowulf Word count: 2,487

[AO3] [FFN] [more Phic Phight fics]

---

Danny shrugged, shifting his backpack to lie a little more comfortably on his shoulders, and pretended very hard to be a regular student. It wasn’t easy, but it hadn’t been easy for the last two years. The constant secret-keeping from everyone was wearing on him.

Not to mention the constant ghost attacks, of course. He was pretty sure all of Amity Park was covered in a thick film of ectoplasm by now, considering how much of it he and the other ghosts spilled and fired during the almost-constant battles. Sure, his parents said that the stuff evaporated and then returned to the Ghost Zone, but his parents also said that humans couldn’t have ghost powers, and Danny was the (mostly) living proof that that wasn’t true, either.

He was jerked from his thoughts—literally—by a fist, grabbing him by the shirt and slamming him against the lockers he had been walking by.

“Hi, Dash,” Danny muttered, trying to hide away his weariness with apathy. “Good morning to you too.”

“Fentonia,” Dash growled back, leaning in close to Danny’s face. A little too close, thank you, ever heard of personal space? “Finally.”

Danny bit back the automatic reply—aw, were you waiting for me?—and settled for grimacing at Dash.

Not that that went over well, of course, because Dash’s other hand found its way to Danny’s shirt as well. With Danny well in his grasp, Dash lifted him, slamming him against the lockers again, this time with his feet off of the ground—no easy way of getting out. Not without using his powers, at least.

“What’s wrong, Fenturd?” Dash asked, pressing Danny against the lockers even harder. “Ghost got your tongue?”

Ha ha, how creative. How funny. Danny was sure he’d come up with funnier jokes in his sleep. “Fuck off,” he grunted at Dash as his back was slammed against the hard metal behind him again.

“Ooh, he’s got bite today.” Dash leaned back a bit, a vicious grin on his face, then crowded Danny against the lockers again. “Oh, no, never mind. Looks like he’s all bark.”

Danny snarled back at Dash before he’d really thought about it—before he could stop himself, really. It wasn’t even words, really, just an animalistic snarl and the pulse of his core that meant his eyes were glowing.

Oh, fuck. And Dash was way too close to miss that.

“Hey, there you go!” Dash… cheered? The fists clenched in Danny’s shirt released, and his feet thumped down on the ground before he’d really caught on to what was happening. Dash was already turning away from him, nudging Kwan. “See, I told you Fenton could do it too!”

That… was not the reaction he’d expected to get to ghostly glowing eyes. What the fuck?

Kwan laughed audibly, and Danny wrenched his eyes away from Dash and towards the other boy. The… the laughing, visibly cheery boy.

Seriously. What was going on?

“So, uh… No bullying anymore today?” Danny asked, and then felt like he could kick himself. Absolute moron. Who asks that sort of thing?

Dash snorted, apparently amused (amused???) by Danny’s idiotic question, and waved a dismissive hand. “What’s the point? I got what I was after.”

Okay? Good? That explained absolutely nothing. If anything, Danny felt even more confused. Had Dash seriously been bullying him trying to get him to glow eyes his? To snarl at him?

What???

Apparently he vocalized that last thought, because Kwan’s eyes turned back to him, a hesitant grin on his face.

And then Kwan’s eyes flashed a bright, glowing, cyan.

Danny, still leaning against the lockers he’d been pressed to, froze up automatically. He knew what that meant. Had spent enough time combing through his parents’ research—and with his own experience—to know that briefly glowing eyes couldn’t be caused by ordinary ghostly causes. An overshadowing ghost altered the eye-color of their host, but that was constant.

And, if there had been a ghost, Danny would’ve felt them. He’d grown more than strong enough to sense ghosts even if they were hidden in a host.

“He’s had them for a while.” Dash spoke casually, like this wasn’t a big fucking deal. “We couldn’t find anybody else with that brand of ecto-contamination, y’know, so Kwan was feeling super down about that.”

“Dash,” Kwan groaned, sounding put-upon. As carefully as Danny listened, the only thing he could hear was the undercurrent of care Kwan held for Dash. For his friend.

“Shut up, man.” Dash nudged his friend, then picked up his explanation that didn’t explain anything. “See, but I knew I had seen you do them too. The glowy eyes, I mean.” Dash underlined the latter with a vague gesture at his own eyes. “So I just had to push you into doing them while Kwan could see, to prove that he wasn’t the only one.”

“Uh.” Danny blinked at them, feeling like he missed everything Dash had said after the words “ecto-contamination”. What?

No, seriously, he knew he’d uttered that word a lot these past five minutes—even if only in his head—but what?

“You had to get him angry, though,” Kwan muttered, bumping shoulders with Dash. “You know that’s not the only way to make them glow.”

“Yeah, but it was the easiest to push him into,” Dash easily admitted.

And then, while Danny was still reeling, feeling like he’d missed at least seven steps in this conversation, Kwan stepped in closer and shot him a bright smile. “Thanks, Fenton. I feel a ton better.”

“Uh, yeah.” Danny blinked, watching the two of them wander off like nothing happened. “You’re welcome?”

“Man, what was all of that?” he muttered to himself, staring at the empty hallway for a moment before pushing himself away from the lockers. He desperately needed to talk to Sam and Tucker, see if they had any idea what all of that was about.

Somewhere, he kind of wished that Jazz was still in Amity. She would definitely know what the hell all of that was all about.

Seriously. Dash had just casually muttered the words ecto-contamination, and then suggested that it was common enough for there to be accepted variants of it.

How had Danny missed all of that?

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

“There’s Val,” Sam whispered, leaning in closer. Danny followed her gaze and, indeed, there was the girl they’d been looking for all morning.

Well, it figured that they wouldn’t manage to pin her down until lunch, but it was frustrating nonetheless. Sam and Tucker hadn’t known what the stuff with Dash and Kwan had been about, either, so they had decided to ask the only person they could reasonably ask: Valerie Gray.

But that, in turn, meant that they had to just sit on the knowledge until lunch.

At least she had picked a distant enough seat that they could talk in private. Small blessings.

“Let’s hope she actually knows what’s going on,” Tucker muttered, before nudging Danny forward. “You go first, dude.”

So quick to sacrifice him to the ghost huntress. Danny shook his head but walked over, slipping into the seat opposite of Valerie. “Hey, Val.”

“Danny,” she greeted him back, raising an eyebrow at Sam and Tucker, who sat down on either side of him. “Well, this feels like an interrogation all of a sudden.”

He shot Sam a meaningful glance, but she just grinned back, pushing herself to sit more squarely on the seat. Rude.

“Danny had a weird interaction with Dash and Kwan this morning,” Tucker started explaining, breaking the tension before it could really go anywhere. “We were hoping you could offer… I dunno, some clarification, since you know them better than we do.”

She snorted, leaning back slightly. “They’re Dash and Kwan. Every interaction with them is weird.”

“Well, yeah, but they were…” Danny paused, briefly hesitant to mention it—what would Valerie think of ghost-powered humans?—before powering through. “They were talking about ecto-contamination, and known variants of it.”

The look they got in response was flat. Flat, and clearly confused.

After a long and exceedingly awkward moment of silence, Valerie cleared her throat and asked, clearly hesitant, “None of you noticed?”

“Noticed what?” Tucker frowned, glancing between the three of them and Valerie.

“That pretty much everyone in Amity Park has ghost-like traits?” She raised a questioning eyebrow at them. “Everyone, but especially the kids here at Casper High, has ecto-contamination so bad that we’re all, well. Becoming a little ghost-like.” She paused, shook her head, then asked. “None of you seriously noticed?”

Danny drew back, considering his words, but before he could really think about it, Sam had already flapped a dismissive hand. “The three of us spend so much time in and around Fentonworks that we’re already contaminated to hell and back,” she dryly explained. “And honestly, Valerie, how much time do we really spend with anyone outside our direct circle?”

“Fair enough,” Valerie allowed with a shrug. “Right, so, it mostly seems to be caused by the Portal and the constant ghost attacks. I mean, obviously, right?”

“Right,” Danny agreed, ignoring the way his stomach was turning. He’d tried so hard to keep everyone safe, but had the presence of ghosts been endangering them all along? Had the spilled ectoplasm really affected people, and so badly too?

“Now, what we started noticing pretty early on is that people generally only display a single ghost power, once they become contaminated enough to actually have a discernible ghost power. Some people consider them distinct variants: people with invisibility, with intangibility, flight, etcetera.”

Sam and Tucker both hummed, thoughtfully. Valerie raised her other eyebrow at that, then shook her head and continued on.

“Generally people don’t get contaminated enough to display more than those basic powers, but exceptions exist, I guess. And your contamination is probably way worse than anyone else’s, except maybe actual ghost hunters like the Fentons.” She made a face. “And that’s assuming their jumpsuits don’t protect them, which I doubt.”

“I’m pretty sure they do,” Danny mumbled, trying to inconspicuously watch both of his best friends from the corner of his eyes. The more Valerie explained about the ecto-contamination that apparently haunted all of Amity Park, the more their expressions twisted into something they usually called “suddenly understanding weird shit that had been happening”.

It was, unfortunately, a somewhat common expression these days. What with ghosts becoming a common thing, and all that.

“I… Some of the plants in my greenhouse grow unusually well whenever I’m near. Some even seem to react to my presence…” Sam admitted, her voice quiet, uncharacteristically reluctant. After a moment of hesitation, she tacked on, “And sometimes, when I really really don’t want to deal with my parents, they just… overlook me, like I’m not there at all.”

Like she was invisible, they all heard, despite the fact that Sam didn’t say the words.

Seemingly encouraged by Sam’s admission, Tucker added on, “I rarely, if ever, charge my tech. Their batteries just don’t seem to empty as long as I have them on me. And sometimes when I’m digging into code, it feels like… like I can alter it directly, like I’m tapping into some inner world that doesn’t—shouldn’t—exist.” Just like Sam, Tucker also paused for a moment. “When I’m running from a ghost or whatever, sometimes I run into an alley that I know has a dead end and never hit the wall.”

Like he was just phasing through it, going intangible before he hit it.

Danny swallowed through the clog he suddenly found in his throat, watching Valerie turn a meaningful look to him. She wanted him to tell her about his— his ghost powers. But he couldn’t just pretend all of his powers came from the contamination of living at Fentonworks, could he?

And he definitely couldn’t pick certain powers as acceptable and others as not.

“I… I guess weird shit has happened to me too, yeah,” he finally admitted, cautiously, hoping she guessed the source of his reluctance wrong. “But I never really thought about it, to be honest. Anything I could blame the ecto-contamination for could just as easily be caused by actual ghosts.” And in a way it was, of course. Anything caused by his ecto-contamination was caused by an actual ghost: Phantom.

“But,” he tacked on, knowing Valerie wouldn’t just let that lie. She was far too stubborn not to investigate. “Dash and Kwan apparently saw me with glowing eyes?”

Valerie hummed, then nodded. “That makes sense, I guess. I know Kwan has the glowing eyes variant as well, so that would explain why they’ve been targeting you.”

“It’s been around that long?” Sam asked, leaning forward, clearly curious despite herself. “I figured it would’ve taken longer than that to show up.”

“Oh, no, that was long after I got kicked out of the group,” Valerie said dismissively. “But Kwan saw me with a ghost scanner one day, and he begged me to scan him. I guess he was seriously worried that he had been overshadowed, even if overshadowing doesn’t work like that.”

“I don’t think he got rid of that fear, to be honest.” Danny shrugged, uneasy. “At least, he seemed pretty cheered-up when I, uh, glowed my eyes at him and Dash.”

Tucker snorted, and Danny could see Sam crack a grin as well, probably at his word choice. Well, fuck them. What did you call it, if not “glowing your eyes at them”?

“Anyway, I can’t help but notice that we all told you, but you haven’t said a word about what you can do,” Sam prodded, nudging Valerie. “Come on, Val.”

“Yeah, that does seem a little unfair.” Tucker leaned forward as well, an expression of genuine curiosity on his face.

And, honestly? Danny kind of wanted to know as well. Her ghost hunting suit probably hadn’t protected her, and her new suit definitely didn’t. If anything, the Technus-made suit probably had just worsened it.

“I…” Valerie visibly hesitated, then gave in. “I can fly, a little. It’s not really all that great, but at least I won’t break anything if I ever fall out of a tree or something.”

She said it with a light tone, like it was just a casual joke. All Danny could think of, however, was all the times he’d seen Valerie fall off of her hoverboard, especially at the start.

He carefully does not wince.

“That’s pretty neat,” he forced himself to say instead. “Less lame than glowing eyes, at least.”

Valerie grinned back at him, but before she could say anything the bell rung.

“Guess we’d better head to class,” Sam said with a grunt, pushing herself off of the bench.

“Yeah.” Tucker got up as well, then nodded at Valerie. “Thanks for the explanation, Valerie.”

Danny followed suit, shooting her a smile. “Same. Thanks, Val.”

She had given him a lot to think about.

[oneoftheprettynerds]

Just My Type: Dark!Steve x Reader (Mob AU)

Chapter 2 in the Lipstick and Crayons Series.

Chapter 1: Welcome to the Darkside

Main Masterlist

A/N: This chapter is 2K words more than the last chapter and I’ve second guessed every single line in this one. This story is getting a lot of traction guys and I’m equal parts happy and scared. Thank you for the nice comments, they do encourage me. Also I’m just ranting feel free to skip this note haha. Your support in any form: like, comment or reblog is appreciated greatly. Also you can dm if you want to be friends, God knows I need those. Hopefully, this chap was worth the wait. Also, I made a poster for this on the main masterlist so check that out, it might be foreshadowing dome plot.

Warning: Eventual Non-Con, Sickening Threats, Mob Themes, Violence, Death, Manipulation, a mild mental breakdown, Cheap Tricks later.

Genres + Characters: Mob AU, Single Parents AU, Steve Rogers x Reader.

Summary: Steve can't ever repay you for what you did. After meeting you, Steve believes his broken family is the missing piece in the puzzle of your own wrecked one. Indebting the crime lord to you has been the biggest mistake of your life, cause now you can't get rid of him, no matter what. Loyalty and favours go a long way in the mob.

Chapter 2: Just My Type

It had almost been a week since the incident and you had barely gotten a wink of sleep. When you drove back to your house that night, Steve surprisingly didn’t argue as you had expected. After that friend of his whispered something in his ears, you only assumed he was needed elsewhere and you couldn’t be more thankful for that. They escorted you to your car and Steve thanked you with a strained smile, words genuine but eyes calculating. You didn’t even wonder what went inside his head. You were thankful for the peace and quiet of your own car, content to just get out of the area and into your humble abode.

After you put the already asleep Grace to bed, you couldn’t bring yourself to get out of her room. You just sat on the floor beside the bed, hand intertwined with hers as you rested your head beside her tummy on the mattress.

Your adrenaline wore off and your limbs ached as your thoughts finally settled into place, the gravity of the catastrophe a few hours prior hitting you. Tears made their way down your cheeks as you realized that you both could have very well died tonight.

One bullet could have sealed each of your lives and you were basically defenseless had Steve not saved you against the creeping assaulter. You couldn’t commend yourself for even defending yourself against one attacker, the guilt of killing someone harboring in your tired head. Your quiet whimpers eventually wore you out, while Grace’s shallow breaths lulled you to sleep.

You didn’t manage to sleep for long though, every time your eyes closed, horrific images flashed in your mind. A blood curdling scream here, heaps of dead bodies there, with distant exploding sounds all around. You could see men clad in black holding guns to Grace’s head and whensoever you woke up, you just wondered how much more creative your mind could get, making these visuals so realistic.

When 8 AM rolled in, you didn’t wake Grace up even though it was Monday and you had work. You got up, changed into a long tee after a shower and called your office and then her daycare. You knew you would have a hard time going back to your normal life, to become trusting enough to leave her alone.

Your assumption about yourself was right. You took almost the entire week off, which your boss generously allowed you to after hearing your traumatic experience, which soon made the city news headlines. All your colleagues checked on you, almost once in the five day break you took, and sweetly enough offered to bring you anything you needed.

It was kind of them, but none of them could bring you what your heart genuinely craved: peace and assurance that you and Grace would be safe.

Even though Saturdays were off, you did go to work to see what you missed and where to start on again. You went in because you knew that the random spurt of resolution you got in the bathroom to collect your life, wouldn’t last.

To ease back into your normal life, you gathered your guts, called a babysitter and left home. You couldn’t bring yourself to leave Grace at the daycare just yet. One of your good friends offered to come in to the office and help you, even on the weekend and you were quite grateful to him.

When you both decided to take lunch in the nearby dining place, you both got to talking, the conversation obviously originating from ‘How have you been?’ and ‘Is Grace okay?’. You reminisced about how you used a photobooth to hide, grotesquely and uncomfortably chuckling when you remembered Sarah calling you her mom and how her dad saved you all.

You deliberately left the part where you killed someone and Steve shot someone too. You hadn’t come to terms with it yet and you stiffly restricted your mind whenever it tried to go down that lane.

He sensed how the conversation was becoming tense and distressing for you and briskly redirected the topic.

“I hope the dad was hot though?” He wiggled his eyes creepily and you snorted at his vulgarity, light for the first time in days.

“He was easy on the eyes; I will admit that.” You played along, recalling your girlfriends and how you used to ogle people.

“Don’t be a homewrecker though, I don’t support cheating.” He said nonchalantly, checking his phone as a notification bell rang off.

“He’s a widower.”

His eyes snapped up and met yours as his head tilted in confusion. “That’s a strange fact to know about someone you met for a few minutes.”

Steve’s even stranger comment about his dead wife popped in your mind and before you could stop yourself, you blurted that out as well.

“He even said and I quote, ‘She deserved what she got.’” He put his phone down, weirdly amused.

“Ooh Creepy! Do you think he is one of those husbands who kill their wives and bury them in the backyard? The podcasts always say that the psychopaths are visually handsome and charming. And his statement was quite vague and spooky.” He continued munching, and you felt that now Aiden was really paying attention unlike before.

“Steve did have a gun while searching for Sarah, come to think of it.” You drank your tea and awaited his response. What you did not expect was his eyes to widen and worry to cloud his features.

“Um Widower Steve with a toddler Sarah? At the place where The Vices attacked?” He mumbled, grabbing his phone and doing God knows what on it. Your eyebrows furrowed and before you could ask him what was up with his antics, he resumed.

“This is a long shot but I really hope your Steve didn’t look like this.” He positioned the phone in your vision, and you could already tell it was Steve by the sapphire blue of his eyes piercing through the screen into your soul. The picture was a month or two old, his hair was much longer when you met him than in the photo.

“This is him.” Your eyes met Aiden’s and worry visibly took over his features as his forehead creased and jaw tense.

He looked around the restaurant, finding it empty in the afternoon. He leaned and whispered, “This Steve of yours is dangerous.”

You interrupted Aiden, even though you already knew Steve was, the sight of his armed men still fresh in your head, and inquired, “Why do you say so?”

“It’s just like the fictional stories we hear from our parents, except here, in this city of ours, every myth holds true. There are really powerful men, untouchable by law, who reign the city silently and live luxuriously. Every shady, under the table deal you’ve heard of, transpires. Illegal trades, fraud schemes and bounty hunters are not fictional, they exist here. These men kill whatever hinders them and trust me, you don’t want to be the deer caught in their Jaguar’s headlights.”

Ice froze in your veins again, resembling the fear you felt that night but now because of your deemed ‘savior’. You convinced yourself that you had not wronged him in any way, instead had saved his daughter’s life.

“Are you in contact with him? If you are, distance yourself cleverly, don't block him immediately.”

“No, we just parted ways near my car, he thanked me for Sarah and was called away. It’s almost been a week and he hasn’t reached out if that’s what you mean. We didn’t exchange contacts and I don’t think I even told him my full name.” You explained yourself as if you were on the witness stand in court, trying to convince yourself more than Aiden.

“Pray that he doesn’t remember you more than that, if at all. I’m being totally honest here in telling you this, I’m genuinely worried for you and Grace. You are smart but he is powerful. He has unimaginable resources and if you become more than a speck of dust on his windshield, you are screwed. There is no exaggeration here.” You took his words to your heart and swore to be careful, if not for yourself then for Grace.

The rest of the day went by and you found yourself dwelling on and worrying about Aiden’s words. At least he put it out there as it was. Heeding his advice, you did google Steve on your phone, finally finding him in the topmost news headline when you added ‘Buck’ in the search bar as well.

‘With 38 lawsuits pending against businessman Steve Rogers, the filers have lost all hope in prosecuting him. All cases are being drawn out for indefinite periods of time by the Chief Justice Bruce……’

Aiden was right.

Businessmen was code for illegal mob heads. Cases being stretched on meant he was, in fact, invincible, at least to the common man’s fists.

You flickered through several titles, each one more surprising than the last. He was believed to be involved in the carnival attack, alleged for three hit and run cases that he didn’t lose but the witnesses swore they saw him driving and was also rumored to have brought in quintals of drugs just last week, but the packets just evaporated into thin air and there was no proof of their existence in the first place even on incessant searching.

Every crime of his made you shudder and you mentally thanked Aiden for pulling you out of your oblivion. Your mind raced and heart palpated and you cursed yourself for being so drastically unaware even after living here for almost four years. Technically speaking, Steve and you were even, him saving your life and you saving his daughter’s. No logical reason came to your mind for him contacting you ever.

You wished as Aiden said and assured yourself that your paths would never cross again, Steve not having reached out in a week, so hopefully never again.

That thought went out the window when you reached home to find a box awaiting you. Hannah, the babysitter you had called, informed you it came around 5 in the evening and was exclusively to be opened by you today.

Your mind raced as you paid the babysitter, your hands sweaty as you tried not to think about the gift and its sender. There was an apparently clear answer to who mailed it but you refused to accept that, courtesy of Aiden.

The box was of the height of Grace, it was black with red hearts painted across it; some red roses also sparingly adorned it. You opened the lid and found tons of red tissues and a multi-flower bouquet adorned with mostly red roses and a few purple and pink flowers.

Because of your frequent gardening in your backyard, you knew all the flowers’ meanings. To sum it all up, red flowers, especially roses were used for courting someone. Pink meant admiration, purple for beauty and you knew the ‘violet’ flowers were for loyalty.

As your nerves increased tenfold, you willed yourself to get it over with and empty out the box first, ignoring the little card in your bouquet, saving the ‘best’ for last. You find a mini bouquet inside but unlike yours, it had chocolates of every kind. You did read its card and cringed when it was for Grace, bothered not by the deed but by the doer.    

Further inside were some animal plushies, face masks, perfumes, scented body lotions and shampoos. Your head hurt thinking about the ‘single mother care package’ delivered to you by someone you refused to acknowledge.

As Grace sat in her playpen occupied, you dared to pick your card and read its message, your heart beating unrealistically fast for someone who refused to accept the cruciality of her situation.

~

I can’t thank you enough in this lifetime for saving my little princess. The gift of your help is more than anything money could ever buy for me. Please accept this invitation of mine for dinner tomorrow night, 7PM at La Bonne Nuit, as a symbol of my sincere gratitude for everything you’ve done. I’ll gets the kids covered and pick you up, you just be ready and look as amazing you always do.                                                                                           Sincerely,                                                                      Steve Rogers

                                                                                            ~

You stilled as you read it over and over again.

An invitation, your ass. Even in writing his authority portrayed, there was no question and hope for you coming, he just stated that you’d come. Looking pretty as always? You just met him once, in the middle of a calamity, covered in dirt and blood.

All the red roses and gifts screamed his romantic interest but you illusioned yourself into thinking they meant gratitude. You wouldn’t be able to digest it all otherwise.

Knowing what you knew now about Steve, you understood there was no denying the dinner tomorrow. You had to get out of his clutches and distance yourself, but as Aiden had so rightfully said, cleverly.

That night you laid in bed mulling over your next course of actions. You had called the gift shop to return the unwarranted presents you received but they said it was non refundable and anonymous to trace. You bitterly snorted in their face, they put a card with Steve’s name on it for heaven’s sake!

You didn’t flinch even when you realized you never gave Steve your address, neither for mailing stuff nor for picking you up. There was no number given to call him and thank or to call him and deny. The bastard had planned it all out, and you felt like you were driving in a one way lane, going deeper into the tunnel. Somewhere among your all-relentless fretting, you managed to finally sleep.

 When the doorbell rang, your eyebrows furrowed. It was just 6 PM and you weren’t expecting anybody else except for Steve. You had already begun getting ready, having developed a habit of keeping an extra margin of time now having a toddler. You still had to assemble Grace’s essential backpack, fill it with her meds and bottles.

While still putting on your diamond earring, you made your way to the door, unlocking it to find a redhead grinning at you. Before you could interact with her, a small body clung to your legs and you looked down to find the azure eyed kid that put you in this mess, Sarah, smiling up at you.

“Mama! You look pwetty!” She looked up in awe and now aware that she didn’t have a mother, you were even more so coerced into accepting this title rather than telling the kid that 'you are semi orphaned'.

“I’m Wanda, Sarah’s nanny. Mr. Rogers told me to pick her friend, Grace, up for the night?” So, this was what Steve meant. Bringing Sarah was proof enough of her legitimacy, but behind her you saw ‘Buck’ salute you from the driver’s seat of the black car. One of these days, you needed to learn his real name.

You invited Wanda inside and Sarah ran to Grace immediately, grabbing and whining while asking Grace to give her some popcorn she was munching on, her fist generously full.

In your open plan kitchen, you grabbed two plastic bowls, filled them with each with the tub of popcorn that sat in the microwave and handed each toddler one, fortunately quietening Sarah. Sarah obeyed Grace, in first thanking you, their ‘mama’ and then following her to her open playpen.

You faced Wanda again who sat on a barstool and kept on beaming. If your annoyance at her amusement showed, she sure didn’t let it falter the smile.

“Mr. Rogers told me you’d worry about your daughter, but I assure you she’d be in more than capable hands.” All you could focus on was how self-reassured she was. “I’ve served him for almost two years, the last family I served, I was there for 8 years and before them, I was employed for 3. I know the general bedtime and snacks, all I need from you is information about her allergies.”

You nodded and told her about Grace, her meds and what all you packed. When you got to know that her family owned the daycare Grace went to, you were finally somewhat convinced. After seeing them off, it was about fifteen minutes later, that the devil disguised in Prada showed up at your door.

You grabbed your purse and your keys. Wiping your sweaty palms on your dress, you opened the door. Steve stood there, a smirk lodging on his handsome face. His blue, three-piece suit perfectly paired with his cerulean eyes was impressive to say the least.

He was dressed to kill, and it appeared as if you were his first victim.

As your eyes took him in from top to bottom, his did the same lazily, taking their time, resting at certain places for longer period than others.

“You look stunning.”

You knew you did. You wore one of your more expensive dresses when you found out La Bonne Nuit to be one of the few seven-star hotels in the country. In hindsight, if you’d have dressed worse, maybe he’d have left you alone.

“Thank you.”

“Shall we?” He offered you his hand and you obliged with your palm in his. Your other hand pulled the doorknob while you stepped out, all alarms already set-in place. He waited while you locked and put the keys in and when you were done, with a soft kiss along your knuckles, he pulled you along.

The act surprised you, your stomach turning and your gut wrenching and you wondered if you’d be able to process the food after all, with your upset digestive system.

Like a proper gentleman, he opened the door for you and when you settled, he took his position at the driver’s seat. The silence was painful for you, your overthinking finally filling ideas in your head that you avoided contemplating about all day, focusing on Grace.

He was relaxed though; his humming was proof enough.

Mid way through, your thoughts were rudely interrupted when a hand housed itself on your knee. You glanced to find Steve’s palm slightly rubbing your knee. If it was meant to be assuring, you certainly didn’t feel like it.

You frowned and looked up to Steve who still had the arrogant smirk on his face, eyes straight ahead on the road, giving no indication of his inappropriate touching.

You wanted to swat his hand away but a brainwave dashed through your head and a disturbing thought made you halt, that whether he carried guns to restaurants as well, since carnivals were no big deal.

You ignored his hand and continued looking outside, pretending to ignore it as well as he did. Your scowl was a huge giveaway though.

You didn’t know that, but when your eyes found their way out, his finally rested on your face, the smirk growing even more.

Thankfully, apart from the incongruous touching, the dinner went okay-ish. The food and wine were impeccable, perfect even, the restaurant on the hotel’s top floors was so picturesque. You tried to savor your one-time experience there, knowing you’d no way be able to come back there.

Well, you tried to relish as much as you could while your mind still sat there, wary of the human in front of you. If you’d ignore your journey here, Steve was nothing short of a true gentleman, often making you wonder if you had imagined his hand on you.

This ‘friendly’ date you were having was probably one of the best you have had, he had left no expenses. He appeared to be interested in your work, about your childhood and about Grace’s but you swiftly avoided his questions about her father. He was growing a tad bit too comfortable for your liking and you still refused to entertain the idea that this was a ‘date’ date.

When you were finally onto dessert, the last course of your meal, your table was shadowed by the broad frame of a brunette and his date. He clapped Steve’s shoulder and Steve rose to hug him, you awkwardly smiled.

“It’s been far too long since you’ve been here, Cap. Why don’t you and your gorgeous date stop by my penthouse for a bit? We could finally go over the papers you sent me, in person?” He winked, they discussed something more and then went away, his date bowing and trailing after him as well.

Steve claimed his seat again, and finally told you about the interrupter. “That was my good friend, Tony Stark, always in a hurry. I’ll introduce you to him when we meet him later.”

“I think I’ll be heading home; you need not worry about my introduction, I hardly think we’ll ever run into each other again.” His eyes narrowed and you clarified, “Me and Mr. Stark, I meant.”

That’s good, don’t associate yourself with more of his kind.

“He was so kind in inviting you though, it would be rude to refuse.”

“It’s already late, Steve. And I’ve never left Grace alone for a night yet. What if she’s antsy? What if she is bothered? What if she feels unsafe? She's only used to very few people, and after last week, I-” You had started the sentence hoping to use Grace as an excuse but every word of yours succeeded in making you more apprehensive.

The carnival night flashed in your mind, along with the nightmares and you started panicking even more. Your hands clammy, your dessert spoon fell in your lap as sought your phone in your purse, hoping to call Wanda for an update. You felt like a terrible mother, who left her child with a stranger, only a week after she suffered trauma, just to go on a date with a mobster.

Steve reached across the table and grabbed your fidgety hands and as you wriggled to get your hands free, he softly called your name. Voice stern but vocals gentle. Your blurry eyes snapped to meet his while he guided you to breathe deeply, in and out.

His firm hold convinced you to listen to him, you’d never free yourself of them otherwise.

When you had calmed a bit, he withdrew his hands and fetched his phone. Your thoughts slowed down, and you wondered if anyone here was judging you. Your little scene, mercifully, went unnoticed by the other affluent people dining here.

Steve handed you his phone where four colored frames rested, the screen showing you Grace and Sarah cuddled in a frilly, pink four poster where Wanda sat too, her lips moving.

The feed was live and the screen muted, both the toddlers’ eyes fluttering close slowly, on the bridge of sleep.

You handed the phone back to Steve and drank your water while he rubbed circles on the back of one of your hands. You never freaked out like you did right now, always collected and never giving into anxiety. What had happened to you?

Well, In your defense, you had never experienced a disaster either.

“The kids are safe; I’m never putting either of them in harm’s way ever again.”

Your mind did catch the plural in his statement but you promised yourself you would not let it get that far and continued drinking your water, emptying the entire glass.

“The HD image you just saw was by cameras Tony recently developed. His technology is amazing, I’ll take you to his lab sometime.” You appreciated his attempt to redirect the topic but you also focused on how tech-savvy his friends were as well.

You hummed and agreed, trying to be ambiguous with your answer.

When you finished your dessert, you hoped he’d forget about his ‘friend’ Tony but to no avail.

“His penthouse is two floors above. He owns this hotel as well in case you didn’t notice.” He led you to the elevator as you recalled the Starks Group logo you saw earlier sometime.

Some AI named Jarvis opened the elevator doors for you in the living room of Tony’s penthouse. It was even more magnificent than the restaurant earlier, the place illuminated by several hues of different colours. Steve chuckled and strung you along, introducing you to a ginger-head named Pepper, who was Tony’s date earlier and went to search for his acquaintance.

She offered you wine but you politely declined, opting for water instead. She brought your glass to you from the extravagant kitchen and you both sat on the barstool there instead of the living room. Too anxious to say the wrong thing, you stayed quiet until her voice filled the deafening silence.

“So, Steve almost never brings dates around. You two serious?” She questioned, leaning towards you, waiting for some gossip, no doubt.

“Oh no! We aren’t dating. He just invited me for a friendly dinner. We merely met the other week.” You deliberately left out the part where there was bombing by crime families and attack on the common man.

“Honey, in the mob life, you don’t just introduce random people to the fam.”

Oh, she wasn’t being shy about the whole mob ordeal. It seemed weird to hear it from her, since you and Steve hadn’t used the word yet. Maybe he figured you already knew considering the circumstances you met in or how famous he was.

“We really aren’t romantically involved. This dinner was just a gesture of gratitude if I’m being truthful.”

She chuckled, as if you were a kid making stories and quizzed, “Gratitude for what?”

You trapped yourself into that one. You didn’t know how to answer her and your brain downright blanked. Surprisingly,, Steve came to your rescue and two voices interposed your conversation.

Steve called your name and as you turned to the men, he continued, “She’s the one who saved Sarah the other night. You know the story, Wilson probably got it printed.”

“Impressive, really. Hey, I’m Tony and I see you’ve already met Pepper, my fiancée.” He shook your hand and kissed your knuckles, much like Steve did earlier in the day. You bowed, smiled and mumbled a ‘nice to meet you as well’. They escorted you to the elevator and Tony continued.

“Well, it’s not everyday Steve brings brave and extraordinarily attractive women around. Welcome to the family, sweetie. She’s a keeper, Cap.” He winked while saying the last sentence and before you could correct him, Steve ushered you inside the elevator, bro-hugging him. As the doors closed, Pepper winked at you from behind Tony and a shudder ran through you.

Okay you had to make it clear, get on the same page.

As the elevator music filled the silence, you started, “Steve, look we aren’t-”, “I served in the army, that’s why Tony calls me Cap, short for captain.” And crudely got interrupted.

“I never wanted to get into the army, I thought people were fools to sacrifice the one life they got. But I went to make my mother’s dream a reality, I really loved her, you know? Sarah is named after her, my mother.”

His voice broke at the end and as much as you wanted to redirect onto your former topic, you couldn’t. This amiability of yours would be the death of you.

“She died alone in her bed; I was dispatched too far away to even make it back for her funeral.” He mumbled but you heard him clear as a sunny day, and he leaned back onto the wall for support while you awkwardly rubbed his shoulder to return the support he provided earlier during your mental breakdown.

He closed his eyes and gathered himself, taking deep breaths. As the elevator dinged, his eyes opened and he gave you a strained smile.  

The car ride to his mansion was painfully silent, his mind too sidetracked to focus on harassing you again. With all that you went through today, you almost forgot about that.

His mansion was enormous, twenty guards stood outside and even more patrolled the lawn. He took you inside his house, the interior even more detailed and scenic than Tony’s temporary residence.

You just concentrated on swiftly getting Grace and Uber-ing back. As Steve showed you earlier, Grace and Sarah hugged and slept and it was a meticulous task to untangle their limbs without waking either of them up andnd get Grace with her back-pack. You thanked Wanda on the way out, hoping to avoid Steve but somehow he stood outside before you, leaning on his sleek black car. He opened the door for you before you could refuse the ride. You settled with Grace in the backseat itself, trying to be smart.

He just summoned one of his guards to drive and sat alongside you in the back. You didn’t let the annoyance at his clinginess show though. You just focused on Grace who drooled over your shoulder.

Hopefully, there won’t be any point of exposure to him ever again, your circles didn’t match, both social and professional. Your Venn diagrams didn’t overlap anywhere. This should be reason enough to avoid meeting ever again.

He didn’t try anything even this ride around. You doubted it was hardly because of the toddler or because of the driver. He did as he pleased, if he wanted to he could very well grope you. Luckily, he wasn't in the mood.

When you reached your dwelling, you stepped out hastily, thanking him in a whisper. You fumbled to get your keys out, but since everything you held slowed you down, he caught up with you without even trying.

He took and held Grace’s bag while you drew the keys out, Grace still on your hip. He handed you the bag back, “So this is it, I guess?”

“Yeah, tonight was a total delight. Thanks for the dinner and everything, really.” You put up your best façade, hoping to convince him.

“It was, thanks to you. The company matters the most.”

You awkwardly chuckled and you sensed him leaning in, his eyes flickering shut. Your eyes closed as you turned your head to avoid him, so that his lips would peck your cheek.

They never came.

Your eyes opened to find his and he chuckled, leaning in once again swiftly, catching you off guard this time. He didn’t meet your lips though, he kissed the corner of your mouth, lips overlapping for a fraction of skin.

“In due time, baby.” He stepped back and strolled to his car leisurely, content in his own world.

You opened your door and slammed it shut, the peck feeling wrong on so many levels. It felt more sensual than a lover’s kiss, leaving room for intimacy and longing.

Your thoughts ran a hundred kilometers an hour, the most absurd but nauseatingly true being, this was a date and it was not your last encounter.

Steve smirked outside in his car, the dinner an absolute success in his opinion. Tonight just made him feel that you both were more than compatible for each other. You needing him during your mental breakdown, him relaxing under your shy touch, Tony’s approval, not that important though, and your anxiety for Grace was the best part, because he, more often than he’d like to admit, fussed about Sarah the same way, agonizing and fretting her well being.

A text lit up his black screen and his grin widened even more if possible.

‘The Stark cameras are up and working, Sir.’

[fill-me-with-your-memes-daddy]

Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭😭😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.

[writingtoforgetreality]

New World Order - TFATWS Rewrite Chapter One (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

[Marvel-Masterlist], [TFATWS Rewrite-Masterlist]

Next Chapter

Summary: You were an Avenger. That was how the world viewed you. Nobody else knew about your past & it was for the better. After all, you had Sam. You had Bucky. That had to be enough. At least for now.

Words: 6,214

Warnings: language, sarcasm, expect some sort of slow burn, there are hints already, this is a Bucky fic, which means that it'll focus on his scenes more, spoilers for TFATWS, (Y/E/C) = your eye color

If you like my work & wanna support me: a coffee would be highly appreciated ❤

You were no superhero. At least, you would never say you were one. Your past was filled with actions you regretted. None of it was your fault. It was not your decision to be the child of the leader of a HYDRA base. It was not your decision to grow up like a warrior. Fighting. Killing.

Your father was the bad guy. You knew that now. As a child, you did not see through his facade. How could you? He was your dad. Someone who was supposed to love you endlessly. Those years had shaped you. Into the person you were today.

Deep down, you wished there was a way to make you forget. Forget about your past. Forget about the pain. Forget about it all. Hell, you were a laboratory experiment. Those powers did not come from nowhere. No. They came from tons of needles, pumping a toxic serum into you veins. You should not even be alive anymore. Not by what now flowed through your body. Apparently, it was for your own good. That was how your dad put it. Absolute bullshit. Growing up isolated from the world, being trained to fight, to kill, daily. Your own good my ass. If it did one thing, then it ruined your damn life.

But at least you had powers, right? Blue flames you could control. Those blue flames that were hotter than anything else in this world. It took an awful lot of time to fully have control. Truthfully, you hated that part of you with every fiber of your being. It had been the cause of one too many deaths. You had been the cause. But weakness was not in your nature. If you did not show strength you would be a disappointment. Something you really did not want to be.

Bucky was the reason you got out of this life. He was the one to rescue you out of this hell hole. He was the one to show you an entirely different part of this world. And for that, you could never thank him enough. If it were not for Bucky, you would have gone insane ages ago. Who knew if you were still here today?

The Avengers were aware of your past. Of you being a part of HYDRA back in the days. Yet, you had never elaborated this any further. If there was one thing you were good at, it was keeping things to yourself. No need to burden others with your struggles. And you did struggle. Every single day. Because your mind was filled with memories. Memories you had tried to burn. Memories you wanted to erase. Memories of you being the bad guy. Just like your dad had been.

Your life changed when you were introduced to the Avengers. They did not trust you. Not right away. But during the fight with Thanos, the one after the Blip, you proved yourself to be worthy of their trust. Especially Steve. He had been there for you. When everyone else failed to believe in you. He was gone now. And it hurt like hell. Giving up was never an option. And the universe did not plan on giving you a break anytime soon. For now, you had to bury your feelings as deep as possible. Your focus should solely be on the new threats of this world. Threats, that seemed to increase daily.

“Bucky is an asshole.” you were on the phone with Sam & the fact that the super soldier had been ignoring him for a while did not leave a good feeling inside his chest.

“What a revelation.” sarcastic comments were part of your life. It was your way of coping with everything. Frankly, it worked. More or less. “Give him some time.”

“More time? No.” sighing loudly. “I have other things to focus on.” he was referring to the mission he was about to perform.

“You sure you’ll be fine on your own?” it was not like you did not believe in his abilities. Just, life had not been the same ever since billions of people came back.

“When have I ever not been?” you could think of a few times but Sam ended the call before you even had the chance to answer. Typical.

Luckily, Sam usually told you about his missions. And you were proud of him. You really were. The situation you found yourself in? With Bucky & him? Well, it was everything but good. Bucky called you. You called Sam. Sam called you. You called Bucky. A circle you kept alive. And it sucked to be their only way of communication. For now, though, both of them were too stubborn to change anything about it.

“Enjoying the Tunisian sun I hope?” whenever Sam went on a mission, you had him call you after it. Simply because he knew you worried.

“You know it.” in the far background you could hear him working on something.

“Is everyone alright? That trainee of yours? What’s his name again?”

“Torres.” he sighed, frustrated by your question. You had asked him about a million times & apparently, you still had no clue. Truth was, you just liked messing with him. “Redwing is hurt.”

“Naaaw, poor baby.” giggling slightly. That man cared more for a piece of tech than he should.

“Shut up.” okay, better not mess with Wilson if it came to Redwing. Got it.

“When are you coming back?” your voice turned serious again. Having him gone for so long did not stick right with you. Obviously, you knew he was doing it for the greater good. But still. “I swear to all the Gods, if you say when we’re done here…” mumbling quietly but loud enough for him to hear.

“When we’re finished here.” a chuckle could be heard from his side. By the way it sounded, you assumed Torres was laughing as well. Rolling your eyes at his antics. He could be such a child sometimes.

“Oh, fuck off, Wilson.”

“Hey, language!” Sam had fun. Yeah, you were the one cracking jokes all of the time but he could deliver, too.

“Okay, you know what? Bye. Text me when you’re back.” now, it was you who did not give him enough time to respond. After all, he would have clapped back with another snarky remark & you were not in the mood for it. At all.

“Steve represented the best in all of us. Courageous, righteous, hopeful. And he mastered posing stoically.” everyone chuckled at Sam’s description. Of him. Steve. Rhodey was standing right next to you. In that suit of his. The one that made him look way more approachable than you. No need for people to approach you. They did not know who you were before. And they sure as hell did not need to. It would turn things complicated. Humans did not like complicated. You did not like it. “The world has been forever changed. A few months ago, billions of people reappeared after five years away, sending the world into turmoil. We need new heroes. Ones suited for the times we’re in. Symbols are nothing without the women & men that give them meaning. And this thing…” he paused briefly, let out a short chuckle. The shield. “I don’t know if there’s ever been a greater symbol. But it’s more about the man who propped it up, & he’s gone. So, today we honor Steve’s legacy. But also, we look to the future. So, thank you, Captain America. But this belongs to you.” the crowd erupted into cheers. Applause was filling the room & you felt out of place. What was he doing? When Sam asked you to join him here today, he left out the fact that he wanted to give away the shield. The shield Steve had trusted him enough to own. And the people surrounding you? They…celebrated him for it? This entire speech was proof enough that Wilson was worthy of this job. So why the hell did he make that decision? Watching the shield being put into the showcase, you could hardly hold in the tears that formed at the corners of your (Y/E/C) eyes. Rhodey nudged you, sensing that something was wrong. Head hanging low, you ignored him, walking out of the room as fast as possible. If you stayed here any longer, Sam would have bruises for sure. Bruises caused by you. You would not risk that. Though, he kind of deserved it.

“Where’s (Y/N)?” Sam asked Rhodey when he finished with the press. You had told him you would wait here for him. There was no sign of you.

“Left a while ago.”

“What do you mean “Left a while ago.”? Did she say where she was heading?” why did you decide to leave? Had anything happened while he held his speech? All Rhodey could do was shrug. An explanation was not given by you. And he knew better than to ask.

“Take a walk?” Rhodey suggested, completely unaware to your weird behavior. The two of you were not that close. So he did not know you like Sam did. You were an adult, after all. If you wanted to go somewhere without asking someone first, then you were allowed to do that.

Disappointment was flooding through your body. Friends told each other stuff like that, right? So why did he keep it a secret that he planned on giving away the shield. With that action, he broke Steve’s trust & you were livid. If only Steve were here right now. You missed him. So much. Next time Sam met you, you could not promise anything. Because anger was all you felt. Anger & disappointment. Grief. But that one you could keep to yourself. At least for the time being. Shit. Bucky. One hundred percent did he watch Sam giving away the shield. Oh, he would be filled with hatred. Compared to that, you were only a small threat. Bucky was the one Wilson should keep an eye on. Well, he had been trying to get a hold of him. So far, without luck.

A gunshot blasting woke Bucky up from another night invaded by nightmares. His changed hair did not put his demons at bay. His look was different but there were some things he could never get rid of. His past. The past he dreaded as much as you did. Probably what you two had in common. Being part of HYDRA & all. His breathing was irregular & there was no way in hell he could go back to sleep. It was in the middle of the night & he hated himself for relying on someone else. But he would go insane if he did not call another person right now. If he did not call you. The only one who seemed to understand what he was going through. The only one who never judged him because of his nightmares. The only one who made him feel like he was a good person. Not the killer he once had been. When HYDRA controlled him. Back, when he was called “The Winter Soldier”. Would he ever move on from that? Grabbing his old phone, he did not overthink too long & dialed your number. One, he knew by heart. Because he had called you so many times. It stuck in his head.

“Buck? Is everything alright?” concern was present in your voice. Usually, when you got a call in the middle of the night, it was him. And you were fine with it. If he trusted you enough to help him with his demons, than you were more than happy to come to his aid. No matter the time.

“I-I…it’s just, ugh, I-“ still shaken up from his nightmare, you did not need him to finish his sentence. You had been in this exact situation so many times. You knew what he needed. Your presence. Your voice. Your comfort. You.

“I’ll be there in a few.” assuring him, you were already grabbing the stuff you needed & walked out of your apartment. Only one destination in mind. Him. “Do you need me to stay on the phone?” it was a simple question. A stupid one, too. Usually, he would not say a word until you were with him. But it felt right to ask him what he wanted you to do. Needed you to do. When he did not answer for a few moments, you guessed he only nodded, not realizing that you could not see his motions. Yet, he did not hang up. Neither did you. Your breathing was enough for him. At least until you were in his apartment.

Knocking softly, as to not wake his neighbors, the door opened almost immediately after. Squeaking ever so slightly. Taking in his appearance, you could tell that it had been a bad nightmare. No, not a nightmare. A memory. You knew that because it was the reason you woke up most nights as well. If it were not for him feeling miserable, you would have drooled by the sight of him. No shirt. Hair sticking around so beautifully. Eyes you could lose yourself in. But it was not the right timing. Besides, Bucky & you were just friends. That was it. Just friends. Though, you would lie if you said that you did not feel butterflies whenever he shot you one of his charming smiles. Whenever his body brushed against yours on accident. Yes, he did have that effect on you. Hell, that was not what he needed right now. Your feelings could be dealt with later on. Bucky was all who mattered now. There was no conversation. No words exchanged. It was enough for him if you were with him. A sign that he was not alone. That he still had you. Even after everything. Even after calling you, night after night, disturbing your own rest. Not that you got much to begin with but he did not need to know that. It had always been a mystery to him. Why you stuck around still. Though you had assured him thousands of times that you were in this for good. If he needed you, you were only one call away. And he appreciated you for it. More than he would ever like to admit. Friends. You were friends.

“So, Mr. Barnes, are you still having nightmares?” another session with Dr. Raynor. Another dreaded session. It was stupid to Bucky. But there was no way out of this. He had to. Seconds of silence went by before she spoke up again. “James, I asked you a question. Are you still having nightmares?” what kind of question was that? A stupid one. That was for sure.

“No.” simple, short. Sufficient. Not for his doctor, though.

“We’ve been doing this long enough that I can tell when you’re lying. Well, you seem a little off today. Did something happen recently?”

“No.” what an answer to move this session forward. Clearly, he was not in the mood to talk today. Not even you were able to get his mind off of things. Though, you definitely made his night easier.

“You’re a civilian now. With your history, the government needs to know that you’re not gonna…” her hand motioned stabbing. Awful action but who were you to judge? Bucky nodded with that look on his face that showed how completely done he was with this situation. Yet, she kept going. “It’s a condition of your pardon. So, tell me about your most recent nightmare.”

“I didn’t have a nightmare.” well, it was worth a try. After taking a deep breath, she grabbed the pencil, ready to start writing into that notebook of hers again. “Oh, come on. Really? You’re gonna do the notebook thing? Why? It’s passive aggressive.” looked like the two of them were going back to the roots.

“You don’t talk. I write.” Bucky sighed at that. He knew he would not get out of this.

“Okay. Okay. I crossed a name off the list of my amends yesterday. Don’t worry. I used all your three rules. Senator Atwood. She was a HYDRA pawn for years. Helped her get into office when I was the Winter Soldier. And after HYDRA disbanded, she continued to abuse the power I gave her.”

“So, rule number one, you can’t do anything illegal.”

“All I did was give some intel to the aide to convict her. And I wasn’t involved in anything else.”

“Rule number two?”

“What was rule number two?” his gaze drifting off, showing he thought about it deeply. How ironic.

“Nobody gets hurt. It’s a big one.”

“Then why isn’t it rule number one?” he did have a point there. No room left for arguing about that. “I didn’t hurt anybody. I promise.”

“And what about rule number three?” Bucky’s mouth opened, yet, nothing came out. “The whole point of making amends is to fulfil rule number three.”

“You know, you’re a cynic, Doc. Of course, I completed rule number three. I am James Bucky Barnes & you’re part of my efforts to make amends.” words followed by that smile of his. That smile everyone could tell was fake. Almost creepy. But efforts, right? It was all about the efforts.

“So, you did it all right, but it didn’t help with the nightmares.”

“Well, like I said, I didn’t have any.” Bucky Barnes, everyone. Still trying to fool his doctor.

“Look, one day, you’re gonna have to open up & understand that some people really do want to help you & that they can be trusted. People like (Y/N).” the mention of your name made his eyes snap up.

“I trust more people than her.” it sounded more like he tried to convince himself more than anyone else.

“Yeah? Give me your phone.” an order. Grabbing it out of his pocket to hand it over. A short look was enough. “You don’t have ten phone numbers on this thing. Oh, & you’ve been ignoring the texts from Sam. Look, you gotta nurture friendships. I am the only person you have called all week. That is so sad…Oh, that’s not right. You called (Y/N) last night. Anything you wanna tell me about that?” closing the flip phone, she threw it over to Bucky which he caught with ease.

“What? Do I need to justify calling a friend?” chuckling & shaking his head slightly, he brushed his hands over his thighs.

“If you call that friend at 3 am, then yes. Because you should sleep at that time. Except if you had a nightmare which you claimed that you didn’t.”

“We just talked. That’s all.” he thought that brushing it off as if it were nothing was enough to get her to shut up. Hell, he had brought you up during his sessions way too many times. After all, he still wanted the situation between you guys to be subtle.

“You’re alone.”

“A minute ago, you said I had (Y/N).” he tried arguing but his attempts failed.

“You’re a hundred years old. You have no history, no family…” right, pouring salt in the wounds. That usually worked.

“Are you lashing out at me, Doc? Because that’s really unprofessional, you know? When did that start? Yelling at your clients?” she seemed to have enough & again went for the little book next to her. “Oh, the notebook. That’s great.” sighing deeply, he braced himself to take her more seriously. “All right, give me a break. I’m trying, okay? This isn’t…This is new for me. I didn’t have a moment to deal with anything, you know? I had a little…calm in Wakanda. And other than that, I just went from one fight to another for 90 years.”

“So, now that you’ve stopped fighting, what do you want?” he had an answer in mind right away. Never ever would he say it out loud. It took him a second to reply. Because what he was about to say came in union with his first thought.

“Peace.”

“That is utter bullshit.” what a nice way to bad talk his answer. Maybe she was expecting something else from him. Maybe she knew the answer just as much as he did. The real answer.

“You’re a terrible shrink.”

“I was an excellent soldier, so I saw a lot of dead bodies, & I know how that can shut you down. And if you are alone…”

“Which I’m not because I have (Y/N).”

“…that is the quietest, most personal hell. And, James, it is very hard to escape. Look, I know that you have been through a lot, but you’ve got your mind back, you are being pardoned. I mean, these are good things. You’re free.”

“To do what?”

Wednesday. Bucky usually went to Izzy. Today, he asked you to join him & Yori. Why he wanted you there with them? No clue. But it was not often he asked you to go somewhere with him so you agreed on meeting them there.

“Take a look.” Yori was a cute, old man. Reading his newspaper like a good citizen. Bucky had yet to give you an explanation as to why you were here right now. But for now, you just sat next to him, quietly observing your surroundings. “Nobody made it past 90 this week.” it was funny, to see Bucky trying his hardest to sound interested. Like he understood.

“So young. Such a shame.” his words made you scoff. Apparently, once you hit the 100 mark, you turn into a sarcastic piece. If you were not one before. If you ever made it to 100? Only the Gods knew what would come after that. Most people called you a sarcastic asshole now. Could that be topped?

“You guys didn’t order the usual, huh? Feeling a little adventurous?” the woman behind the counter directed her words at the three of you.

“Um, actually, I’ve never been here before, so…” you chuckled to avoid the awkwardness that would sure as hell build if you kept quiet now.

“You should ask her out.” Yori leaned over to Bucky & you almost choked on your food at his words. Bucky asking her out? Her? Yeah, she was beautiful & all. But her? Really? Seemed like that Yori dude did not know Bucky as well as he claimed to. You, on the other hand, were aware that nothing good would come out if it. Besides, they would not even make a nice couple. Shit, were you jealous? Oh no. Glancing over at the man next to you, his face showed just how much he despised this idea. At least something.

“Mm-mmm…” shaking his head frantically, he shot you a quick look but before his eyes locked onto yours, your gaze fell down to your plate. Slightly embarrassed. Scared that, if he looked at you, he would notice something behind your look. Something more. Something, that you wanted to keep hidden. For everyone’s sake.

“He would like to take you out on a date.” oh fuck off, Yori. You had nothing against this man but he was pushing your buttons. Could he not see that Bucky was incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of going on a date? With her? “Maybe to bingo or a night of pinochle.” hiding your laugh behind one of your hands, you could not believe that he was serious. Bucky & bingo? Well, it was for old people so you guessed it fit quite well. Not with her, though. Oh no, you really were jealous.

“I’m really sorry about him.” Bucky apologized for his friend’s behavior. Yes, you were sorry for him, too.

“Why are you sorry?” of course, now the woman was flirting with him. It got better & better. Taking a deep breath, you tried to keep your emotions at bay. You could not lash out in the middle of this restaurant, after all. Even though you were this close to doing just that. Deep breaths, you got this. “I’m game.” sure she was.

“Wow.” really? Bucky was impressed? By this? Oh come on, why would he settle for less when he could have so, so much more. But it was not your decision. He was not yours. You did not own him. Neither did you make the decisions for him.

“Tomorrow night, then?” Yori leaned over the counter.

“Tomorrow night’s great.” she replied with a bright smile.

“Hey, I just remembered something.” you spoke up all of a sudden. Bucky’s eyes met yours now & he saw that you were uncomfortable. Though, he could not pinpoint why. “Um, I-I need to go. See you, Buck. Bye guys.” sprinting out of the restaurant, you hoped nobody would follow you. Not in the mood to deal with anyone right now. All you wanted was to be alone right now. Your mind the only one keeping you company. But your mind was not really the kindest to you. Not in this particular moment. So what? Bucky had a date. You knew that would happen sooner or later. He was a good looking man. More importantly, you just wanted him to be happy. Genuinely happy.

Fucking great. Who could you talk to? You still were not done being mad at Sam. And now you were mad at Bucky for something he did not even do. He sort of did. He could have said no. If he really did not want to, he could have said no. Bucky was enough of a man to speak his mind, you knew that. Maybe he did want to go on a date with her. What was her name again? Not that you cared too much. But still. Blinking away the tears that had formed at the corners of your eyes, you kept on walking. Without a real destination. You were stupid. Friends. Why could you not accept this? Usually, you would call Steve in such a situation. Or even Tony. But it was too late now. They were not here anymore. You had to deal with that sooner or later. Whether you liked it or not. Contemplating calling Sam, you eyed your phone carefully. One more button. But nope. The anger was bigger than the need to talk to someone. Stubborn you. Wilson could make you feel better. But you would most likely end up yelling at him. And you knew you would regret your words later on. So might as well stay silent for the time being. Until you calmed down enough.

It was 10 pm. Date time for Bucky. That same restaurant. Being the gentleman that we was, he even brought her flowers. Like it used to be back in the 40s.

“Well, if that’s not the most adorably old-fashioned thing anyone’s ever done.” Bucky felt lost. In her company. “Grab a seat, I’ll be done in a few.”

“Okay.” he could up & leave. It would not be too late. All he knew was that it felt wrong.

“So, have you dated much since half the fish in the sea came back?”

“Not really. I, um…tried the whole online dating thing. (Y/N), the girl who was here with me yesterday, she set up a profile for me because I didn’t understand a single thing.” laughing at the memory, he thought back to when he called you to ask you for a favor. How you laughed at him for wanting to try this whole bullshit. “It’s pretty crazy. A lot of weird pictures.”

“What kind of weird?”

“I mean, tiger photos? Half the time I don’t even know what I’m looking at. It’s…It’s a lot. When I showed (Y/N), she simply said that this was what I signed up for.”

“You sound like my dad.” definitely something a man did not want to hear while on a date. On the other hand, he did not even want this to be a date. “Wait. How old are you?

“A hundred & six.” only he could make it sound so casually. Like it was the most normal thing on this planet. Both laughed at his words. Simply because it was so absurd.

“What’s up with your big gloves?” a sensitive topic she just touched.

“I, um, have, uh…poor circulation.” sure thing.

“Hmm…Hey, what is it about this (Y/N) girl & you?” his eyes widened at her question. What was she getting at?

“She’s my friend. Why?” his dumbfounded expression made her chuckle.

“A friend, huh?”

“Um, yeah.”

“You sure about that?” an eyebrow raised. A questioning stare was sent his way.

“Why does everyone think I don’t have friends?” throwing his head back in frustration, he let out a long sigh.

“It’s not that.” she stopped briefly, thinking about her next words carefully. “Just, you guys seem pretty close.”

“Well, we’ve known each other for years.” he reasoned, gesturing with his hands to bring his point across.

“Yeah? And the looks you’re shooting each other when the other one’s not looking?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You two aren’t really subtle about this, you know?” she wiped the counter & did not even look at Bucky. He, on the other hand, started sweating.

“Subtle about what?”

“Oh, come on. Who are you kidding? I don’t even know why you’re here right now.”

“Because Yori set you & me up on a date.”

“And why did you agree?” she crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for an explanation from the man in front of her.

“I-I don’t know.” he responded truthfully. Because he thought it to be polite? Because Yori was the one who suggested it? Honestly, he was not sure.

“That’s what I thought. Look, you’re a nice guy & all but…just, listen to your heart from time to time. It’s late. You should head out. See you.” she turned around & walked further into the restaurant. Leaving Bucky alone with his thoughts. It was clear what she intended. Did not mean that it made this entire situation any easier. Bucky left without another word. Fresh air would help him think straight.

Your phone rang & you sighed when you checked who decided to annoy you. Bucky. Of course. But wait. Should he not be on his date right now? Did something go wrong? Not that you wanted it to but if you were entirely honest, you would not be mad about it either.

“Hi Buck. What’s up?”

“I need your help with something.” there was no hesitation in his voice. Just him being straight forward.

“Please don’t tell me you need help on how to get the girl.” it was your way to lighten the mood. You did that because you could tell that he was incredibly serious. Usually, this was never a good sign.

“Can I send you an address? Can you meet me there as soon as possible?” his voice was low, deep.

“Um, sure thing. But just to set things clear…I won’t join in on your fun, Buck. That’s between you & her.” again, sarcasm was your way of coping with emotions. Though, it was not the right time to use it right now. His next words were proof enough. You should not mess with him. Not in this moment.

“Can you be serious for a second?” he raised his voice a little. It was not much but it was enough to leave you confused. Bucky was not the person to yell at you. Especially not like this.

“I’m sorry…Um, yeah, tell me where & I’ll get there as fast as I can.” gulping down, you waited for him to give you more information.

Arriving at an unfamiliar building, you could make out Bucky’s form in front of it. Why would he want to meet you here? Where was his date?

“Buck?” your voice barely above a whisper. The night sky only illuminated by the moon that shone brightly. Providing just a tiny bit of light. Enough, to let you notice your surroundings.

“Thanks for coming.” you could tell that he was stressed, tough, you were not sure why.

“Is everything alright? Because I swear, if that woman did anyth-“

“No, she didn’t. Promise.” his warm smile was encouraging enough. It was clear that he was not lying to you. “Just…didn’t work out. But that’s not why you’re here.”

“Okay?”

“My last nightmare. Do you remember?” nodding for him to continue. “How I killed that innocent man?”

“It wasn’t you, Buck. You were being controlled.” touching his shoulder softly, squeezing it to reassure him.

“Whatever…That guy, it was Yori’s son. I want to, need to, apologize. Even though the apology comes way too late.” you nodded at him, your eyes meeting his briefly. Now you knew why he called you. He did not want to do this alone. No. He wanted you by his side. To support him through it. Entering the building together, Bucky led you to the apartment Yori lived in. His hand raised to knock on the door. Surprisingly, he did not waste any time. He wanted to get this over with. Understandingly so. No words were exchanged. You being here, with him, that was more than enough.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Yori opened the door, his face showed confusion by the appearance of you two. “How was the date?” you could not help but roll your eyes at the old man in front of you. Looking at Bucky, you were worried when you saw him having an internal conversation with himself. Mouth opening & closing again. No words coming out. Risking a look inside the apartment, you noticed a small picture frame with who you assumed to be his son. The one Bucky killed. No. The one the Winter Soldier killed.

“It was…It was good.” Bucky mumbled.

“Bullshit.” you followed after. None of them heard you, though. Luckily.

“Forgot I owed you for lunch.” Bucky handed him money. If you were not mistaken, this was not a form of apologizing. He had a hard time, though, that much was obvious. Afterwards, Bucky turned around & walked away without another word. Which left you alone with a confused looking Yori.

“I’m sorry for the disturbance, sir. Have a good night.” plastering on the sweetest smile you could offer, you followed Bucky outside. Jogging to keep up with the super soldier.

Back outside, you saw Bucky holding his little notebook in his hands. You knew about it. Because you were the only person he talked to when it came to his therapy sessions. A look over his shoulder could tell that his eyes were trained on the name being circled. His body was tense. That was not what he planned.

“It’s okay, Bucky.” your hand stroked over his lower back in a comforting way. Your forehead rested against his shoulder, hoping, that it would ease him a little. You could feel him calm down at your touch. “Give yourself some time.” you mumbled quietly, knowing he could hear you clearly due to the calm night. You just hoped that he would not beat himself up too much. Not more than he already did.

You were back in your own apartment. Still no words from Sam. But that was nothing new. Sometimes, he would go radio silent for a few days but after that, he would always check in with you. Maybe he figured that you were mad at him. For giving away the shield & all. And he probably was busy with work. The work he did with Torres. If he needed your help, he would call you for sure. Your TV got your attention again. Something told you to watch closely. So you did.

“Unrest, in the wake of recent events, has left us vulnerable. Every day Americans feel it. While we love heroes who put their lives on the line to defend Earth, we also need a hero to defend this country. We need a real person who embodies America’s greatest values. We need someone to inspire us again, someone who can be a symbol for all of us. So, on behalf of the Department of Defense & our Commander-in-Chief, it is with great honor that we announce here today that the United States of America has a new hero. Join me in welcoming your new Captain America.” the crowd cheered loudly & someone walked through the door. You could not believe what was happening. Please, this had to be a bad dream. When would you wake up form this hell? A man, wearing his suit, holding his shield, greeted the people. Looking at your hands, you could see small, blue sparks forming at the tips of your fingers. That only ever happened when you had no control over your emotions. Right now, you were everything but in control. Of course he had to wink at the camera like the sick person he was.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me…” breathing out lowly, you put your head into your hands, completely ignoring the sparks there. You did not feel them anyway. If you ever met this son of a bitch it would not end well for him. And the next time you would meet Wilson? Fingers crossed he could deal with your angry & disappointed self. Because you were seething.

~to be continued~

Next Chapter

Published (04/02/2021) by Cathy

Tags: @taina-eny​, @tanyaherondale​, @cool-ultra-nerd​, @toribentleyva, @buckyandlokirunmylife​, @annadier​, @howlongtillidie​, @mizz-kraziii, @theetherealbloom​, @millenniumloki​, @marvelbros-oneshots​, @ajbwasnthere, @bilesxbilinskixlahey​, @mystictimetravelcolor​, @dbrees256​, @sxpxrnxturxl, @dreamydreamerwriting​, @dolllstyles​, @angelicastiel​, @prettysbliss, @infinitelyforgotten​, @sweetserendipity65​, @lilystilinskicullen​, @partypoisonsblog, @btdsprayberry, @sarai-ibn-la-ahad​, @deamus-liv​, @simplybarnes​, @sethcohenluvr (let me know if you wanna be tagged <3)

[capesandshapes]

All You Had to Do Was Stay (Post Reveal/ Pre Relationship) (1/4)

Thanks to LNC for the title!

Summary:

Three years ago, Marinette revealed her identity to him. Three years ago, he promised to wait in a hotel room for her. Three years ago, she opened the door to find it empty.

Now she's expected to play nice with him, since she's the maid of honor and he's unfortunately the best man. But old habits die hard, and old feelings die harder.

"This is a wedding, not a death march, Marinette."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Things that need to be done before Alya Cesaire could marry Nino Lahiffe:

1. Designs combining both Martinique culture and Réunion style needed to be made for the whole wedding party. Everyone should get to have a say in what they wear.

2. The video of Alya dancing overenthusiastically to the cupid shuffle needed to be removed from Lila Rossi’s Instagram, lest Nino’s nana see and wonder what type of woman he’s marrying.

3. The cake tasting needed to be had. Marinette needed to make sure that her parents didn’t go overboard and keep the couple for the whole night. Even if Alya was practically their daughter. Even if they begged. Even if papa cried.

4. A totally unique and unreplicable combination Bachelor and Bachelorette party needed to be planned.

And, lastly… The most difficult of all:

5. Marinette somehow needed to be able to stand in a room with Nino’s best man, Adrien, and hold a conversation for more than five minutes. Even if, three years ago, he found out her identity, left Paris, and broke her heart.

“Easy,” Marinette groaned, sinking further into her barstool as she closed her notes app, her head touching the counter of the bar. She’d already crossed off the top two of the list items, and yet…

“I’m not asking for a miracle,” Alya began, obviously knowing what she was thinking about. She was the one to ask Marinette out that night, wanting to find out her progress… and also to check in on her wellbeing. It was obvious that she felt bad, she knew how things went between the two and how Marinette originally thought they would go. But she couldn’t just ask Nino not to have Adrien be his best man. “Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking. Just five minutes in a room together. You quickly plan the bachelorette party, since we know that you’re far too organized not to, give him the run down, and then leave. Back to your life, back to doing whatever it is you do now.”

“Sit at home. Alone,” Marinette supplied.

Alya grimaced. “It’s for the best that Luka got married, Marinette. You couldn’t keep playing that game. All that kiss and tell was gonna kill you some day.”

Marinette groaned, somehow sinking further into the wood of the bar. Anymore and she’d become part of the grain.

“Plus, Juleka’s in a better mood with you now,” Alya said, obviously looking at the other young woman as she undoubtedly danced on the floor with Rose. Marinette’s habit of coming back to Paris and making out with her brother had obviously put a strain on their relationship, even if Luka insisted that things weren’t committal and he was totally fine with only seeing her twice a year. “Who knows, maybe Nino will have a handsome cousin and you’ll fall madly in love.”

Marinette raised the side of her head to cast Alya a glare from one eye.

Alya didn’t falter. “So, he’s back. After spending three years in New York, Milan, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. I get it, it’s life changing, it’s world ending, it’s all the things you don’t want and more—especially after how things ended,” Marinette groaned, Alya carried on, “but, you know who else is back? Max, Rose, unfortunately Lila, and Kim. Good old Kim. All your friends, everyone who you’ve known for years, everyone who has missed you as you flitted in and out of Paris! Sure, you found out that Adrien was Chat Noir, went to his hotel room, thought you were finally going to get together, and then opened the door to find it empty—but you know, life happens! And when you least expect it, it keeps going on and on and on and on!”

Marinette turned her face back to the wood.

“I really did try to get Nino to change his mind,” Alya said flatly. “I begged.” Marinette doubted it, but…

“Why couldn’t he just stay in New York?” Marinette mumbled.

“Because Nino is his best friend.”

“Why couldn’t Nino go to New York,” Marinette said, “or Adrien done a zoom call for the wedding.”

Alya snorted. “Okay, that’s it,” she said, grabbing Marinette’s arm. “Adrien’s landing today, nothing’s going to stop it, you just have to clear your head and power on.” She leaned into Marinette’s view as her friend finally turned her head, insistently stating, “you were Ladybug for god’s sake. Even if no one else knows it, you do. I do. You gotta suit up, lovebug, and face the day, lest another evil butterfly come flying by.” Never mind the fact that there hadn’t been an Akuma in years.

Not since Gabriel Agreste was arrested.

Marinette rolled her eyes, finally lifting herself off the bar.

“There’s my girl,” Alya said. “Now, finish your dirty shirley, order another drink, and come do karaoke with me. I’m a hundred percent certain that I saw Say You’ll Be There on the song list, and you know that I’ve been singing Spice Girls since I was in diapers.”

--------------------------

Marinette stumbled into her apartment at one am. Not drunk, she didn’t get drunk, not out in public at bars. In friends’ apartments, maybe. She was still a bit tipsy which was, in its own way, dangerous. But she could fight through it, maybe.

Kicking off her heels, she looked at it, the studio she called home and had once been so proud of a few years back, the same studio she’d lived in ever since she was a fashion design student. The same one in which she’d left Chat knocking on her balcony door when she struggled to stay asleep, and eventually relented to let him in time and time again before he knew who she was.

“Someday, I’m going to move,” she grumbled, beginning to pull the bobby pins from her hair. She wouldn’t, of course, not for a long time. Rent-controlled apartments were rare, and while she pretended that the history that practically stained her hardwood floors was something she would rather forget, she was a nostalgic young woman. She’d be there for at least another five years, or until she was finally well and truly over Chat.

Five years would probably come first.

She passed by the photos washi taped to her walls, the ones where fourteen-year-old kids gave toothy smiles and eighteen-year-old young women gave winks while leaning into blond young men. If she was so concerned about history, she’d have to get rid of those first.

She sighed, finally removing the last bobby pin from her hair and letting it fall down her back, placing the black pin in one of the many bowls around her apartment placed for that very reason. Adrien would be in Paris by then, she was sure. He was probably sound asleep in the Agreste mansion.

“Welcome home, kitty,” she said sarcastically, beginning to climb the steps to her lofted bedroom, a space that was not unlike her childhood room.

This wasn’t how she expected things to be.

Of course, this wasn’t how anyone expected things to be. If you asked anyone, they told you how the story ended. Ladybug and Chat Noir finally got together, they were hiding in Paris somewhere, they were in love. They probably had kids, a dog, a hamster—normal jobs and normal lives. That was what the people of Paris wanted. She thought that that was the ending they would get.

She thought that when she went to the hotel room that night, he would be there. She thought that he was happy to know who she was. She thought that he loved her.

She thought wrong.

Marinette always thought wrong.

She thought she could get over him. She thought making out with Luka was a solution, one that she could keep trying every time she went to Paris. She thought that she would miss Adrien more than Chat, the promise of love more than sitting in her bed and watching subtitled anime while he mouthed the English translations.

By now, she thought she’d be waking up to someone else. That maybe she’d have a steady life, someone to wrap their arms around her in the morning.

Adulthood hits hard.

“Adrien Agreste,” she said, flopping back in her bed and pulling open her phone. She wasn’t above social media stalking.

There he was. Gold hair, tanned skin, too many muscles to know what to do with. Landed in Paris four hours ago, his Instagram posted a picture of him with his arm around Nino. His eyes were still kind, his smile still flawless. Her heart still pounded.

“Jerk,” she muttered, letting her phone fall down beside her. “I didn’t need you anyway,” except for all those times she did. Like when she put the earrings back in the box and said goodbye to one of her closest friends. She could have used him then.

She could have used him a lot of times.

Her eyes stayed glued to the ceiling, her chest rising and falling with every breath. There was no sound, no doting kwami, no laughter from her parents, and no Alya playing with her hair. Just her.

“Now I’m going to see you and fall in love with you all over again,” she said, wishing she could steel herself against the inevitable.

[youbloodymadgenius]

Ivarello (Modern!Ivar x reader) Chapter 1

Moodboard by @quantumlocked310

Ivarello’s masterpost here

A/N: This is my entry for @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie 500 Followers Fairy Tale Challenge. It's a retelling of Cinderella. Congrats again, darling 💖

A huge thank you to @mrsalwayswrite, who's a great beta reader and an even greater cheerleader 😂

A massive thank you to @quantumlocked310, @vikingstrash and @serasvictoria. Thank you for agreeing to collaborate and for sharing your talent with me. Your moodboards are beyond amazing 🤩

In this story, Sigurd is alive. Ragnar and Aslaug are dead, but Lagertha didn't kill her. I took a lot of liberties with the show, I hope you won't mind.

Unlike the tale, there will be no magic involved. Not everything will be realistic, however. It's a fayritale, after all!

Let me know if you want to be tagged 😊

Summary: Orphaned five years ago, Ivar and his brothers have been living with Lagertha ever since. Now 16 years old, he wants to attend Harald's traditional Midsummer party, but obstacles stand in his way.

Warnings: description of car crash; orphaned kids; Sigurd being Sigurd; OOC characters.

Words: 1806

Additional note: I'm afraid I'll disappoint some of you. No more newspapers... The articles defined the setting of the story. From now on, it'll be a regular fic.

Hope you enjoy it nevertheless 🙂

🛡⚔️🛡

June 2021

Ivar yawns, rubbing his eyes, when he suddenly hears the front door open. The next moment, Ubbe shouts, "Hey baby bro, we're home!"

Slightly confused, Ivar looks at the time on his computer. Stunned, he blinks repeatedly, shakes his head and checks the time again, now looking at his watch. "Guess I lost track of time," he mumbles as he realizes it's really 5:30 pm. He clears his throat. "I'm coming!"

Yawning once more, he wheels to the kitchen. Hvitserk waves at him with one hand as Ubbe greets him with a grin and Sigurd... Well, Sigurd ignores him, as usual.

"Hello boys!" Lagertha smiles as she also enters the kitchen. "Did you go to the beach this afternoon?" It's a rethorical question, since sand can be seen on the tanned skin of his brothers, shirtless and wearing only swimming shorts.

When she looks down at him, her smile becomes softer. "Ivar, you seem tired. Did you work all day long?"

He nods, glad that for once she called him by his first name and not by one of those stupid nicknames that she likes but that make his skin crawl.

"Yep," he shrugs without smiling back, "I made good progress. The new version of your website is almost done. It could probably be online by the end of the week."

His stepmom flashes him a beaming smile. "Great, thanks!"

The conversation then moves on to the subject that everyone in Kattegat has been talking about for the last few days: the midsummer party thrown by their neighbor Harald Hårfager. Every June, it is Kattegat's not-to-be-missed event, to which every resident hopes to be invited.

Lagertha is invited every year, yet rarely attends; his brothers wouldn't miss it, not in a million years; Ivar never went.

He listens with half an ear as his brothers prattle on about the upcoming party, while taking a seat at the large, wooden kitchen table on which Lagertha has just put cakes and drinks.

"What are you going to wear?"

"Do you think Marit will attend this year?"

"Hopefully the music will be better than last year."

"Can't be as bad! What was the name of that reggae band?"

For a fleeting moment, Ivar entertains the thought of attending as well. Not that he's dying to, but… Sometimes, he feels a little bit like Cinderella in this house.

Don't get him wrong, it's not that bad.

First, his stepmom is not–

Wait, wait, wait, is Lagertha technically his stepmom? He's not sure. After all, she wasn't when his parents were alive, she was just his father's first wife. Anyway, she may be his guardian now, but he sees her as his stepmom and he honestly doesn’t give a shit if it's a little weird.

Where was he? Oh yes, Cinderella.

So obviously, Lagertha is not a wicked, haughty and abusive stepmom like this Lady Tremaine of the fairytale.

Actually, even if it pisses him off to admit it, she's pretty nice, patient and composed. Does he love her? Let's not exaggerate – he doesn't. She may love him though, which is a little bit uncanny, if he's being honest. He was the favorite son of her nemesis. Shouldn't she hate him? He would, if the situation was reversed.

The truth is, when he was younger, he tried, he really tried to hate her, blaming her for everything and anything. When too much pain prevented him from sleeping, he let his imagination run wild. There, bound to his bed of suffering, he could see Lagertha cutting the brakes on his mother's car, causing her crash, causing her death.

Of course, even then, he knew deep down that Lagertha had not killed his mother; that the story he told himself was just the product of his endless nights of insomnia. But what can he say? He needed this. Because blaming Lagertha rather than admitting that his beloved mother was at fault – by being distracted, or by falling asleep, he'll never know – was easier for the heartbroken boy he was.

Anyway... So yes, Lagertha is definitely not an evil stepmother like Cinderella's.

Also, he doesn't sleep on a sorry garret, on a wretched straw bed either.

Actually, he has a very large room on the main floor, with a king-size memory foam bed, a walk-in – well, a wheel-in for his case – closet and his own, huge bathroom, fully equipped for his special needs.

Sure, the bathroom and the dressing room were already there when his parents were alive; however, the memory foam mattress had been Lagertha's idea.

Anyway... So yes, he can't exactly complain about his sleeping conditions, unlike Cinderella.

And obviously, he's not forced into servitude.

Actually, one might think so, but no, he's not. Sure, sometimes he works for his stepmom, like today. But so do his brothers. When she had taken them in, she was a powerful businesswoman, working twelve to fourteen hours a day. Once she had become their guardian, she had rearranged her working time and learned to delegate; but even so, she had often run out of time. Therefore, it had seemed normal to them – yes, even to him – to help her out, each of them according to their skills and abilities.

So, while Hvitserk almost always does the grocery shopping, while Sigurd vacuums and does the laundry, while Ubbe mows the lawn and trim the bushes, he, Ivar, runs her company's website and sometimes even does the accounting. And since he loves computers and numbers, it's not exactly a problem.

Anyway... So yes, he's not a slave in this house. Unlike Cinderella.

So, yes, to sum it up, he can't really complain and he's by far not Cinderella. And he knows it.

But... Yes, there's a but...

Sometimes, he feels trapped, as poor Cinderella must have felt.

Sometimes he feels like a spectator of a life he doesn't belong to.

Sure, he doesn't have to be homeschooled – but gods, he's glad he is. The reasons for him to be continuously bullied by classmates are endless. The simplest ones being: he is a cripple, an orphan, the son of a dead mob boss, the smartest one in the whole damn school, let alone his class. Take your pick. It's no fun, no fun at all. Being home alone is preferable to that alternative.

Therefore, barely leaving the house except for medical appointments, he has no friends. He doesn't do sports either – obviously – and yeah, he lives a lonely life, filled with video games and Netflix series. And he's okay with that. Well, most of the time.

Sure, his brothers, or at least Ubbe and Hvitserk, always try to include him as much as possible. But the truth is that because of his legs, there are many, many things he just can't do.

And the other truth, the less pleasant one, is that he partially did that to himself. He cut himself off from a world that hurt him, yet he still misses this world sometimes. At times, he blames himself. Because his life, honestly, is hardly what you would call a life, is it? Not when you're sixteen.

That's why sometimes, like now, he feels this longing, almost a need, to live. To really, truly, fully live. And that's why, for a brief moment, lulled by the light chitchat of his brothers, he considers attending Harald's midsummer party.

But he knows better. This life is not for him, never has been, never will be.

And so, shaking his head, he chases the thought away and, placing his hands on his push rims, he's about to leave the kitchen while the incessant babbling of his brothers goes on.

"I can't wait."

"Don't tell me! As every year, the most beautiful girls of Kattegat will be there."

"Remember that burger food truck? Best burgers ever!"

"I've heard Y/N would be attending this year."

"There'll be booze and girls! Sounds like Valh–"

Wait. His mind goes blank.

Fuck.

What? Did he hear right?

As he replays his brother's words in his head, it's like there's an earthquake happening inside of him.

Fuck.

He stops breathing. Blinks, then clamps his eyes shut.

Fuck.

When he finally manages to draw air into his lungs, he swallows loudly before asking in a weird, high-pitched voice, his heart pounding in his chest, "What– What did you say, brother?"

Hvitserk turns his head toward him and shrugs. "I just said there'll be boo–"

"No, not you!" Ivar snaps at his brother, pointing his pointer finger at Ubbe. "You, what did you fucking say?" Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Lagertha frowning – 'no curse words in this house, boys'– and even if he barely contains an eye roll, he still mouths a quick 'sorry' at her before rewording his question, impatience coursing through him. "What did you say, dear brother? Who did you say would attend?"

Stunned, Ubbe looks at him with wide eyes. "Y/N? I said Y/N would come. That's what I heard anyway. She's Harald's niece. She was here once, right? Remember her, baby bro, huh?"

But Ivar is no longer listening, the blood draining from his face. Y/N... Y/N... Fuck. Finally. Fucking finally. After so long... He may see you again. Wow.

I'll go! I'll fucking go!

He barely contains the words, suddenly acutely aware of the deafening silence in the room, his brothers shamelessly staring at him.

With her brows furrowed and her lips turned downward in a slight frown, Lagertha takes two steps forwards before crouching down in front of him. "Are you all right, sweetie? You're a little pale."

He barely hears when Sigurd giggles, "A little pale? He's greener than an alien!"

Lagertha shoots Sigurd a dirty look and then gently cups Ivar's cheek. "Do you know her, Ivar? Do you know Y/N?"

Overwhelmed, self-conscious, freaked out, caught off-guard, he doesn't know how to respond. Should he tell the truth? Should he lie? His brothers will mock him, for sure. What is the point of telling the truth? What good would it do? On the other hand, he could really use some advice. Yeah. Sure. Advice from Sigurd. Just the thought of it is enough to make him sick. Fuck, what is he going to do?

Rushed words are out of his mouth before he can even gather his thoughts. "No. No. I don't. I mean, yes, I think I do but–" He's being pathetic and he hates it. So after a sharp intake of breath, he shakes his head and eventually replies in a flat, calm voice, the white lie rolling off his tongue. "I know her, but I thought Ubbe was talking about someone else. Sorry."

With these words, he hastily leaves the room, his eyes riveted on his knees, his heart still drumming in his chest.

Y/N. Fuck.

🛡⚔️🛡

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[keiichikuzuryuwu]

Place Your Bets

Implied (Future) Keiichi Kuzuryuu x Reader

Summary: This is a reimagining of the manga’s version of the Four of Clubs game, featuring a very stubborn, very smart mother hen Y/N instead of a gentle girl.

A/N: I have literally never seen anyone write for Kuzuryuu and that made me sad, because I love him. Also I know very little about how to actually take care of a baby so please be forgiving.

TW: Blood, leg injury, a crying baby

Walking along a deserted street, a man in a hat was making his way toward tonight’s game. Based on his body language, you would think he didn’t want to go, but in honesty, he was tentatively looking forward to it.

“Oh my god, another person!!” The voice of a woman caught his attention, pulling his gaze away from the lights in the distance. As he looked over, he took note of how clean she was, all glow and innocence compared to the world around her- a new arrival, clearly. But what truly surprised him was the fact that she was carrying a sleeping baby in her arms. It was rare to come across a child here, much less a baby. Perhaps it was her’s, which was why she hadn’t abandoned it yet, “You wouldn’t happen to be this baby’s father, would you? Or at the very least have seen anyone who could possibly be their parents?”

So it wasn’t her’s. The man wondered how long it would be until she gave up on it.

“No, sorry. I’m on my way to a game, so if you’ll excuse me,” He tipped his hat and took a step, only to feel his arm grabbed.

“Wait, what game? Should I be heading there too?”

“You… don’t know about the games? Are you new here?” He already knew the answer, but no point in signaling that to her. She may end up a Heart Specialist and get into his head, after all.

“Yes, actually! One moment, I was going to meet up with my friends, and the next, the entirety of Shibuya was powered down and empty except me and this little one here,” So she’d walked all this way from Shibuya in just a few hours? Maybe a Spades Specialist, then.

“Well then you should come with me. We need to get you registered for a game so you don’t end up a day one victim.”

“Woah, what?? Day one victim??” The color drained from her face, before she grabbed his hand and began walking, “What and where is this game? Is it Trivial Pursuit? Because I’m really good at Trivial Pursuit! Wait, but that’s a one winner game and this is looking more and more like the set up for a death game manga but in real life,” She looked back at him, “Did I get stuck in a death game manga but in real life?”

“Um…” He didn’t really know how to respond to this woman. Regaining his wits, he caught up to her brisk pace and pointed in the direction of the lights, “See those lights? That’s where the closest game is. And, yes, you unfortunately did…”

“Brilliant, let’s go,” She still held onto his hand as they walked, confusing the man. They were complete strangers and he’d just told her that she was walking towards her probable death, yet she continued to hold his hand as though they were allies.

Walking up to the glowing tunnel, the man spotted the registration phones on a table, three of them already missing. The already registered participants were scattered nearby, looking at them strangely. Did they perhaps think he, this woman, and the baby were a family? The thought almost flustered him.

“So what do I do?” The woman asked him when they got over to the table, “Just take one of these phones?”

“Yes, here,” Handing her one, he watched as she tapped to turn it on.

“I don’t like the fact that this facial recognition already had me registered with an ID number,” She scoffed, putting the phone in her skirt’s pocket before hesitating, “Wait, do I need to register this baby too? I mean, obviously I’m not gonna abandon it, but… they’re a baby, they can’t really play a game.”

“No, unfortunately they need to be registered… Here,” Picking up another phone, he held it up to the face of the babe, the ping of the completed registration sounding a moment later, “You keep hold of this one too, since you’re holding the baby.”

“Alright, sounds good to me,” Placing the other phone in her pocket, she cooed at the baby, “You better hope this isn’t Trivial Pursuit or I’m gonna have to kick your butt, baby~ That’s right, that’s right~”

“Please don’t taunt the baby like that. It’s… unnerving…” Nervously pulling on his collar, the man was surprised when she just laughed.

“Sorry, I cope with stress by joking around…” She placed a hand on the back of her neck as they walked over to the others, “The only way this baby isn’t surviving is if it’d be better to do a mercy killing. Other than that, I’m fighting tooth and nail to make sure they get through this with me.”

“You for real??” One of the men closest to them, with spiked, pitch dark hair, scoffed, “You really think you can keep a baby alive here? Put yourself first if you wanna live, lady!”

“Come on, don’t say that!” The woman snapped back, before taking a breath and calming down, “Here, how about we start over and introduce ourselves?”

“This could be a Hearts game, or the rules could state we need to kill each other,” The only other woman there, a stark, gothic contrast to the Mori girl aesthetic of the woman with the baby, stated coldly, “I’ll pass.”

“One minute until registration closes,” A calm, female voice suddenly came from all of their phones, startling the woman with the baby.

“Huh?” Taking out her phone, she looked it over, “Guess it speaks too… These are my least favorite part of this nightmare so far,” Then, she took note of the camera app, “Ooh! Hey, wanna take a selfie?”

“You want to… take a selfie with me?” The man she’d arrived with questioned her, utterly befuddled by this woman.

“Yeah, come on! This might be the last chance we ever get to take a good picture!” Moving in close, she held up the phone, making sure to get both them and the still sleeping baby in the shot, “Awesome! Thanks for indulging my possibly last request!”

“You are way too chipper, lady,” A new man spoke as he walked up. Short cropped hair with designs buzzed into it and a mean face, this man screamed gangster. In reaction, the woman held the baby tighter.

“Entry has now closed,” The phones spoke again, “There are a total of seven participants. Please proceed into the tunnel.”

“I just hope it’s not Spades… I’m not very good at physical games…” The man in the hat grumbled, causing the woman to raise an eyebrow as they walked into the tunnel. About 100 feet in, the woman suddenly stopped, “What’s the matter?”

“I hear something…” Straining her ears for a moment, she suddenly looked up at the top of the tunnel’s entrance.

“Wha?! What the hell?!” Just as the words left spiky haired man’s lips, a barrier fell from the ceiling, creating debris and, more importantly, blocking them in.

“UWAAAHHH!!!!” The baby had woken up due to the world shaking from the force of the barrier’s impact with the ground, only for the woman to pull out a pacifier from her purse and stick it in the infant’s mouth.

“Thank goodness I thought to grab that…”

“W-We’re trapped in??” Goth woman shouted, panic taking over, “But that isn’t the standard!!”

“Guess they really don’t want us to be able to choose the coward’s way out this game…” Gangster guy placed his hand on the wall.

“ARGHH!!” Everyone’s attention was directed to the man in the hat, who was sitting on the ground, blood gushing from his leg, “Some rubble… it went into my leg!!”

“On no!!” The woman with the baby was the first to react, rushing over to him, “Hold the baby, we need to wrap this up and restrict the blood flow!”

“O-Okay…!” Carefully, he took the baby, doing his best not to shake as she took an extra baby blanket out of her bag and used it to create a makeshift cotton bandage.

As she worked, their phones chimed again- “The game will now commence. Difficulty: Four of Clubs. Game: Runaway. Rule: Endure the four trials and reach the goal within the time limit. Clear condition: Reach the goal safely.”

“Trials? Goal? What’s it talking about?” The goth woman mumbled.

“It looks like these are the trials it’s referring to…” At a man in glasses words, everyone turned around and saw what he meant.

In the floor, walls, and ceiling were various doors and hatches. The first door was in a wall, marked ‘Trial One,’ with a timer stating the lock released in fifteen minutes. Next to that, several round hatches labeled ‘Trial Two’ were going to release in thirty minutes. Trial Three’s vents in the ceiling were releasing in forty five, and Four’s hatch on the floor was set to release in an hour.

Spiky haired man noticed a placard on the wall by Door One, and walked over to inspect it.

“The distance to the goal is written here… But I can’t read the most important part. Damnit…” Sure enough, where the number should be, instead was worn down metal.

Looking down at the ground somberly, Glasses stated, “A conjecture… ‘Runaway’ means to flee… Something will come out of each of these four doors after a delay. Perhaps it means we should run towards the goal while running away? If the fourth lock opens after an hour, and we were to run for that amount of time, then the distance to the goal is around ten kilometers…”

“Ten??”

“Game… start.”

At that moment, the timers started counting down, and their phones switched to an hour long timer as well.

“Ten kilometers in an hour is cutting it too close! We can’t afford to waste a second!” With that, everyone save the woman with the baby and the man in the hat started running.

“Can you stand?” The woman asked him as she took the baby back, genuinely concerned about this stranger.

“With help, I think I should be able to…”

“Hey, you lot! Care to help a lady out??”

“I make no promises that I’ll hold on to you till the end…” The gangster helped lift the man to allow the woman to continue carrying the baby safely.

“Thank you in the meantime…” The man got out through labored breaths as they walked.

Within the first five minutes, everyone reached a bus covered in graffiti, the first car they had seen since the game began. By the time the man, woman, and gangster got there, it seemed their fellow players had exhausted it.

“There’s nothing here except junk, and it’s not going no matter how hard I hit the gas!!!” Spiky hair complained as glasses looked underneath the bus.

“The belt is cut, that’s why. Looks like this isn’t meant to be our method of transportation…” Getting up, he began running, “Looks like we have to run! We lost time here, so let’s hurry!”

“Gaaah!! I’m at my limit… There’s no way I could run…” The man in the hat groaned, “Don’t worry about me anymore, you all should hurry on ahead…”

“But-!”

“It’s like he says,” Goth woman cut off the other, “The first trial is about to start… In order to survive in these Borderlands, sometimes we have to do callous things. If you don’t learn that quick, you won’t be long for this world,” With that, she began running as well.

For a moment, the man, woman, and gangster didn’t move, until the gangster helped the man over to the first step of the bus and set him down before walking away.

“You too??” The woman angrily called out after him, “You’re going to desert us??”

“I tried helping… But now, things have changed…” He picked up speed, quickly catching up to the others.

“Selfish cowards!!” She yelled, shaking her fist at them. Sighing, she turned to the man, “Guess it’s just you and me, huh?”

“Are you sure? You should go run-”

“Nuh uh. I’ve decided I’m staying here, so I’m staying here,” Scooting around him, the woman gently placed the baby into the dip of the driver’s seat before helping the man up and to a seat so he could prop up his leg, “Let’s see…”

“What are you doing?” He raised an eyebrow as he watched her go up and down the bus.

“In order to slow the flow of blood more until we can get you help, we need to raise your leg. By doing that, the blood will- Here-” She took the baby and handed them to him again before looking around more, “The blood won’t be able to pump up there as fast, and it should give us some wiggle room.”

“You seem awfully knowledgeable about this. Are you perhaps a doctor?”

“Hah, no, I just remember a lot. Picked this up from a medical book I read when I was sixteen for fun. I’m actually a Masters student working towards simultaneous degrees in Psychology and Religion with a focus in cults,” Before the man could comment on how impressive that was, the woman sighed, “I’ve found a Japanese to English dictionary, a space heater, a set of keys that turn on this motionless bus, and a gum wrapper, but nothing to prop up your leg,” Sitting in the chair across the row from him, the woman took the baby back and gently bounced it, “Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens…”

“I’m sorry I’ve dragged you down with me…”

“Nonsense!” She waved her hand dismissively, “I’m not much of a runner, and I’ve got this little angel to look after. There’s no way I could run to some mysterious goal even if I wanted to. Besides…” Her eyes shifted back and forth before leaning in and dropping her voice as though they were being watched, “Something about this game is striking me as odd.”

“What do you mean?” The man leaned in as best as he could, voice dropping as well.

“Before I tell you my theory, could you explain what exactly the card level of this game means? You said you hoped this game wasn’t Spades because you weren’t good at physical games, while the woman stated we shouldn’t tell each other our names in case it was a Hearts game. That means the different suits represent different types of games, while the number represents how hard it is, right?”

“You picked that up quickly. Most people don’t realize that their first game, it generally takes someone explaining it to them their second or third game for them to get it,” Thinking for a moment, he nodded, “Very well, since we’re going to be here for at least an hour, I’ll tell you. Yes, the number on the card connotes how hard the game will be, with Ace being the easiest, while King is the hardest. As for the suits- Spades represent physical games, lots of moving around and exertion. Diamond games are intelligence and wit based games, and are the least physically demanding. If you were to find a game of Trivial Pursuit here, it would fall into that suit.”

“I see,” She sounded enraptured.

“Hearts,” He paused, considering his words, “They’re psychological games…  They mess with your mind and your morals, and are widely regarded as the most brutal of the four suits. If possible, you do not want to join a Hearts game.”

“And Clubs?”

“Clubs games like this one refer to team battles and a mix of the other’s elements. It’s an unofficial rule that there is always a total win scenario, that it’s possible for all participants to make it out alive.”

“Then that puts us at an advantage!” She nodded decisively, “If Clubs are a team battle, then by sticking together, we have a better chance at survival!”

“But we’re just sitting in a bus?”

“Look mister, I’m trying to remain positive here, so if you could work with me a little?”

“Alright, alright,” The man put his hands up, chuckling. From the sound of it, it was an unfamiliar noise to come from his mouth, “We’re at an advantage because we stuck together while the others are only thinking of themselves.”

“That’s the spirit!” She held out her hand for a fist bump, which the man would have returned, had it not been for the bus suddenly lurching forward, “The hell??”

“UWAAHHH!!!” The motion woke up the baby again, but neither the man or the woman had time to calm them down again, as water was quickly rising around their enclosure and leaking in through some gaps in the windows.

“Oh no, you take Yuuji, I’ll stop the water!” Handing the baby to the man, the woman began to shed layers of clothes, using her jacket, cardigan, tights to plug the gaps. In the end, she was left in just a camisole and her torn up skirt, having even used parts of that to slow the water, “There, that should keep us relatively dry as long as the water goes down soon.”

“You called the child ‘Yuuji,’” The man commented, a bit surprised.

“Huh? I did, didn’t I?” Laughing sheepishly, the woman sat back down, “Don’t know why, they’re not my kid. I don’t even know if they’re male or female.”

“Well, I suppose they do look like a Yuuji,” He looked down at where he was bouncing the slightly calmer baby on his shoulder, “Can I ask why you chose to take this baby with you? You even grabbed their diaper bag.”

“Guess I felt bad about them being abandoned by their parents,” She shrugged, “Something just told me I needed to hold onto them and protect them; which makes no sense, given that it’s not like I grew up with great parental role models.”

“Maybe you just possess a natural maternal instinct, bad parents or not.”

“Who knows? Maybe you’re right.”

For several minutes, neither of them said anything as the man calmed down the baby, lulling them back to sleep.

“It seems as though the water is going down,” The man finally commented, the woman looking out the window to see that they were no longer surrounded.

“Yeah, but now it seems like the temperature is dropping fast!” The woman was right, the air was indeed getting colder, “I’ll go turn on that space heater before Yuuji wakes up again!”

“Sounds good to me.”

With the space heater on, the bus quickly warmed back up, keeping the baby asleep in the man’s arms.

“This cold must be the… how much time has passed?” Looking at her phone’s timer, the woman's brow furrowed, “Forty five minutes?? When the heck did the first trial happen??”

“We must have missed it somehow while we were talking.”

“Weird. Maybe it just passed right by us,” The woman didn’t let it bother her too much, just grateful to have not had to deal with it. Silence passed for a few more minutes as the woman held the baby, before she spoke again, “Okay, something’s been on my mind for the last half an hour, and I gotta know before we die… You were totally faking your personality when we got here, right?”

“H-Huh??” The man’s eyes widened, and he could feel his pulse quicken.

“Acting timid and stuff. Fake, right?”

“I… I…” Sighing, he looked her in the eyes, “How’d you know?”

“I sorta guessed around the time you told me about the suits. Your speech pattern started getting more eloquent, your sentences became longer, and you didn’t bat an eye at the fact that I’m working towards two Masters degrees at the same time. That last thing doesn’t really have to do with the timid thing, but it did tell me that you’re smarter than you seemed. That accident with your leg was very real, something you didn’t account for that truly did leave you near helpless; but before that, it was all strategy so we’d underestimate you in case this turned out to be a single winner game.”

“That’s… phenomenally impressive,” He stared at her in awe, “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“Because I’ve been having fun talking with you and didn’t want to make it awkward,” Laughing, she shrugged, “But my natural curiosity got the better of me. I want to die with as few regrets as possible, and I’d regret not getting to see your actual personality,” Tears welled up in her eyes, and she kissed the top of the baby’s head, “I hope however this ends is clean and painless. I doubt it would happen, but if my family were to ever find my body, I wouldn’t want their last image of me to be tainted by something like decapitation, y’know?”

“Yes, I… I understand,” Moving closer, the man took the woman’s hand and squeezed it gently, “I promise you, if we survive this, I’ll do whatever I can to help you survive long enough to reunite with your family.”

“Aww, thanks,” She smiled sadly at him, “That means a lot. You’re a really nice guy, even if you are a crafty strategist.”

“I-”

KABOOM!!!!

An explosion violently shook the bus, causing the baby to once again wake up and cry.

“Quickly, on the ground!” The man pulled the woman and baby into his arms and got on the ground, shielding them with his body as the bus continued to shake. It seemed to go on forever, the shaking, as the bus grew warmer and warmer, far warmer than the heat the space heater would have been able to produce. But, finally, the shaking did stop, and the world became quiet outside of the baby’s cries, “Are you two alright?”

“Y-Yeah, I think so,” After she was helped up by the man, the woman grabbed the baby’s pacifier and returned it to their mouth, “That was the fourth trial, right?”

“I believe so,” He nodded, looking out the window, “All I can see are scorch marks, so I can’t tell, though.”

A little fanfare like tune emitting from their phones answered them, however.

“Game clear. Congratulations! To the survivors of the game, we will now supply you with a Visa.”

“G-Game clear?” The woman’s eyes widened in surprise, “You mean… we won? But that would mean…” Handing the baby to the man, she threw open the door to the bus and hopped out, running around the bus, almost immediately spotting the confirmation she sought, “The goal… It was the bus…”

“It was the bus??” The man limped out of the bus, handing the woman the baby due to feeling shaky as he saw what she’d found, “The graffiti… G-O-A-L… Dear lord…”

“Your injury saved us,” Tears flowed down the woman’s cheeks as she suddenly hugged the man, laughing almost manically, “It saved us! I don’t normally believe in luck, but tonight I think I’ll make an exception!”

“I can’t believe it, though! You were right!” The man laughed as well, “We stuck together as a team instead of only thinking of ourselves, and we survived!”

“Wait- oh no!” Pulling away, the woman frowned, “Those poor people that ran on ahead!! They… If the trials didn’t kill them, then… what did?”

“Anyone who breaks a rule like leaving an arena before the game is over or doesn’t achieve game clear… They’re struck down by a laser from the sky…” His words cause the woman to gasp, a hand covering her mouth, “I hope for their sake, their deaths were as clean and painless as the one you had wished for…”

Taking his hand, she squeezed it gently, “I’ll carry their memories with me, and push forward. As ill as they treated us, I can only hope that wherever they are, they find peace.”

“You’re an incredibly kind woman, Miss…?”

“Oh wow, we never did introduce ourselves, huh? If we’re gonna be sticking together, we should probably at least know the other’s name,” Wiping away her tears, she laughed, “My name is Y/N L/N, Y/A years old, Masters student, and guardian of this little angel until further notice. It’s nice to meet you, Mister…?”

“Kuzuryuu. Keiichi Kuzuryuu, 37 years old, attorney at law, and Diamond Specialist here in the Borderlands. It’s a pleasure to meet you as well, Miss L/N.”

“Please, we just nearly died together! You can call me Y/N. Mind if I call you Kuzu?” She looked at him so hopefully that he couldn’t find it in himself to refuse her.

“Alright, you may call me ‘Kuzu’… Y/N.”

“Excellent! Now let’s get out of this place! I’m tired and we need to get you off that leg.”

“I believe I saw a furniture store near here that we could use as shelter before finding something better tomorrow,” He offered as she helped him limp out of the tunnel, the barrier to the outside having been blown off in the explosion.

“Perfect, let’s go there. There’s some supplies to take care of Yuuji in this diaper bag I grabbed, but we’ll need to find some more tomorrow as well.”

“Sounds good to me.”

An hour later, as Y/N and Yuuji slept soundly in one of the spacious beds on display in the furniture store, Kuzuryuu stood outside and pulled out a walkie talkie.

“HQ, please respond. This is Four of Club’s observer, Kuzuryuu,” Taking off his hat, he pushed back his hair and slipped on his glasses, “Surviving players- two of six. Dispatch the cleanup squad to deal with the disposal of tools and materials.”

“Copy that, sir. Anything else?”

“Yes… Tell the others I won’t be back for a while,” He looked back through the doors to where Y/N and Yuuji slept, a small smile on his lips, “I have a player I’d like to place my bets on.”

Y/N L/N

Clubs Specialist

End of Day One of Sojourn

[phoenixes-and-wizards]

tua headcanon (vanya’s first concert after the apocalypse):

despite being an amazing violinist, vanya’s still a bit shy about performing in front of her family, mostly because--aside from five--she’s never done it before and partly because the last time she did it, she sucked the life out of four of them with energy tentacles and caused the end of the world. you know--just musician things

when she does land a solo, she takes extra care not to tell a single soul, only practicing when they’re nowhere nearby and never the same passage twice so they don’t realize just why she’s been rehearsing so much lately

they find out anyway when one day, diego does some small-time vigilantism in an alley behind the icarus theater and finds a poster advertising VANYA HARGREEVES PERFORMS SIBELIUS, MAY 21ST AT 8PM

he tells luther who tells allison who tells klaus who tells five and ben. they don’t breathe a single word of it to vanya, and all of them spend the next twenty minutes convincing the ticket seller to spare six tickets, despite the show having sold out a month ago

luther folds as soon as the man tells him “no" so diego plucks the phone from his fingers and says "you're hopeless" in an exasperatedly fond tone

ben practically has to wrestle the phone away from diego and five once it’s clear their "polite" bargaining won’t work 

”he’s not gonna listen to you if you keep threatening to chop his fingers off!!!!!” “oH YEAH???? THEN I’M GONNA MAKE HIM--GIMME THAT PHONE BENJAMIN I’M NOT DONE DONT YOU DARE LET THAT TENTACLE COME ANYWHERE NEAR ME”

in the end, allison saves the day, as always. no rumoring, of course; just plain “hi, i’m allison hargreeves and--yes, i’m the lawyer in that movie, of course i’ll sign an autograph for you after the show. could we pick up our tickets tomorrow? four o’clock? that’d be great, jim. oh, can i call you jim? excellent.” 

she walks away with a cocky smirk while diego mutters “show-off” under his breath, but he says it fondly enough that she lets it slide

ben spends the week leading up to the concert reading about sibelius’ life and the inspiration for his only violin concerto. on some afternoons, five joins him, being the only other member of the family who actually listens to classical music

diego starts leaving dinner in the kitchen for vanya on the nights when she has to rehearse with her orchestra, and klaus drags ben to the mall one day to look for something that’ll help with vanya’s peeling calluses

luther brushes up on classical concert etiquette, making extra sure to tell his siblings not to clap after a movement ends and to give their sister a standing ovation

(”as if we wouldn’t have already. she’s brilliant,” five assures him)

allison takes them all shopping for suits and to her surprise, none of them grumble because they’re all doing it for vanya and they’ve got thirty-two years of missed concerts and recitals to make up for

on the day itself, ben ‘accidentally’ makes too much bacon and eggs and blueberry pancakes, and he loads most of it onto vanya’s plate so she’ll have enough energy to power through all three movements of her concerto tonight. vanya’s so nervous that she doesn’t even notice

when she leaves around noon, violin case on her shoulders, they all file into allison’s room and start getting changed

vanya’s nervous as fuck of course, and fifteen minutes before she goes on, she starts regretting the fact that she never told them, it would’ve been nice to have familiar faces in the audience, but hey she’s here now and she’ll simply play the best she can because damn it she’s earned it and worked too hard on this entire thing for her to chicken out now

when she steps out, she actually thinks she’s seeing things when she spots all six of her siblings sitting in the front row, wearing the largest shit-eating grins she’s ever seen in her life

out of the corner for her eye, she sees klaus giving her two thumbs-up and mouthing “you got this” as she tunes, and it’s more than enough to make her relax completely

vanya takes a deep breath, and as soon as she starts with that familiar “sol-la-re” motif, the entire audience--her family included--is captivated 

halfway through the first movement’s cadenza, ben turns to luther and whispers “how come we never went before? she’s incredible” and five’s face hardens when he replies with “because dad never let us”

diego actually sheds a tear during the second movement; allison subtly passes him a tissue, her own dark eyes damp with emotion

they’re all at the edge of their seats when vanya starts the third movement, it’s brisk tempo and syncopation more than enough to catch their attention

there’s a brief moment where vanya drops her bow and--to an outside viewer--miraculously catches it right before it falls, but her siblings see the way her eyes pulse white for a second as she levitates the bow back into her hand and resumes playing as if nothing happened, and they all trade knowing smiles afterwards

when she finally plays the final note, the audience simply lets it ring throughout the hall for a few seconds before they’re on their feet

even so, she can hear her family’s voices above the din and they look so proud and allison is crying happy tears, diego shouting “brava! bravissima!” over and over, and her other brothers all have matching grins on their faces, and oh gosh, she’s really done it, hasn’t she

they meet her in the lobby with tons of bear hugs, the largest sunflower bouquet she’s ever seen, and half-meant scolding about “why the heck didn’t you invite us, vanny? you were amazing!!!” and while five and diego argue about who gets to carry her case on the way to griddy’s, ben simply rolls his eyes and plops it onto his back

halfway to the donut shop, luther presses close to her and gives her a one-armed hug that’s slightly awkward because they’re both walking and he’s obviously the size of a house compared to her, but vanya leans into him all the same, grateful for his quiet comfort. he keeps his arm around her all the way to the shop and only lets go when klaus drags him away to look for a booth that can accomodate all seven of them

they buy her all the donuts she wants and tell her which parts of her concerto they loved best, and vanya just feels so warm, down to the tips of her toes, and it’s all because she has never felt this much love in her life before

she’s getting ready for bed that night when diego knocks on her door and pokes his head in long enough to say “i’m proud of you, you know? like really, really proud” and gives her a long hug to boot

after that day, her siblings start sitting in whichever room she’s practicing in to hear her play, and the attention is overwhelming at first, but eventually, vanya just gets used to ben reading while she slogs over tchaikovsky or luther munching on a bowl of cereal as she works on her etudes

she invites them to every concert from then on, and vanya makes something of a ritual out of plucking petals from the bouquets she receives afterwards, pressing them into a notebook and running her fingers over every single one before a show to calm her down

[mmvalentine]

The Birchin | Feysand x Bat Boys

So, I have to imagine this scene has been written a thousand times to Sunday but firstly, I haven't actually read one and secondly, I JUST HAVE TO. Scene lift from ACOFS. The dirtiest, filthiest thing I have ever written and arguably too long for a oneshot sorry. Smut warning, OBVIOUSLY.

Azriel won.

His one-hundred-ninety-ninth victory, apparently. The three of the had entered the cabin an hour later, dripping snow, skin splotched with red, grinning from ear to ear. Mor and I, snuggled together beneath a blanket on the couch, only rolled our eyes at them. Rhys just dropped a kiss atop my head, declared the three of them were going to take a steam in the cedar-lined shed attached to the house, and then they were gone.

I blinked at Mor as they vanished, letting the image settle.

"Another tradition," she told me. "An Illyrian custom, actually- the heated sheds. The birchin. A bunch of naked warriors, sitting together in the steam, sweating."

I snorted. "So the three of them are just in there. Naked. Sweating."

Mother above.

Interested in taking a look? The dark purr echoed into my mind. Lech. Go back to your sweating. There's room for one more in here. I thought mates were territorial.

I could feel him smile as if he were grinning against my neck. I'm aways interested to learn what sparks your interest, Feyre darling.

I paused.

How... interested?

Dark amusement rolled down the bond. Why don't you come in here and find out?

I felt my neck grow heated at the invitation. Was he serious? And for that matter, was I?

At that moment, Rhys trailed a single talon down my shields. I didn't know what he was up to, but I let him in. And saw what he was seeing.

The room was thick with steam, and for a moment, white clouds were all that was in front of Rhys. Then the vapour dissipated, and I became aware of Cassian and Azriel's voices in the room. They were both sitting in opposite corners of the room, elbows propped up on the backs of the bench. Their dark hair was pushed back off their faces, although a lock fell into Azriel's eyes. The black of the Illyrian tattoos stood out even in the steam. And both of them were completely, gloriously naked.

My eyes travelled very, very slowly back and forth between the two of them. Gleaming hair. Powerful shoulders. Broad, patterned chests. Abs you could count. Lower.

Rhys snapped his shield neatly back down, and it felt like a window closing on my fingers. I snarled down the bond, and Rhys just laughed.

Want more? He purred. You'll have to come look yourself.

I was back in my own head now, but the images still danced before my eyes. Rhys' invitation glittered darkly before me, and I turned it over in my mind. Would he really be okay with that? Would I be okay with it? Were the Cassian and Azriel actually interested?

Cassian and Azriel. Rhys' best friends, and males I now considered kin. I wondered how something like sex might change our dynamic, and if finding out would be worth it.

Then I remembered that Mor had tangled with them and remained close as ever. Maybe five hundred years was a very long time, and new experiences were not so daunting to them.

At that moment, Mor yawned hugely and stood to her feet.

"I think I'm tapped, kiddo," she said. "I'm winnowing home." "You're not staying here?" "Sleep in my own bed is rare," Mor said, "and I take it when I can get it." She kissed me on the cheek and picked up her coat. "Are we still on for lunch tomorrow?" "Definitely," I said, and with a wink, she was gone. Leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I looked toward the birchin, and my heart drummed fast in my chest. Before I had fully made up my mind, my feet were taking me toward the door.

I stood in the snow, the wind icy but my cheeks burning. I couldn't bring myself to knock, not just yet. But I couldn't quite walk away, either. So I reached out with my mind.

Rhys? The endless amusement, again. Yes, my love? I'm here.

For a second, there was silence, and Rhys must have felt my apprehension because when he spoke in my mind he was gentle.

You know I'd never want you to do anything you're not comfortable with. That wasn't the part I was worried about. Do... do the other two know you invited me in?

Rhys paused again, and I could hear the feline grin in his silent voice.

They do. And, I asked. Do they... want me here?

The grin stretched.

They do, he said again. I have no idea how to convey to you how fucking stunning you are. You walk in here, and they will kiss the ground beneath your feet. Amongst other things.

The idea sent shivers down my spine. I put my hand to the wooden door, and stepped inside.

The first male I found was Rhys. Strong as our bond was, I often found myself turning toward him like a compass. So I wasn't surprised when my eyes sought a face and found his. He had an animal grin, and his eyes burned.

"Hello, Feyre darling," he said aloud. Down the bond, he said, You naughty, wicked thing. I can't wait to see you play.

Rhys reached for my hand, and tugged me to stand between his legs. The heavy air settled itself on my skin. My heart jumped at the sight of him, slick with sweat and bare before me. He was already hard, and my core pounded in response. I wondered in that moment if the mating bond, the wanting him, would ever lessen.

"It's very, very warm in here," Rhys said. "You won't be needing this anymore." He took hold of the hem of my sweater, and slowly pulled it over my head, keeping eye contact the whole time. Making sure I was okay with this.

"Or these," he added, and slid his fingers into my waistband. I hadn't looked Cassian or Azriel in the face yet, but I could feel their gaze as Rhys slid my leggings off me. I put my hands on his shoulders to steady myself as I stepped out of them, and as he straightened back up his fingers trailed up the inside of my leg. I shivered, despite the heat.

"In fact," Rhys went on, "warriors in the birchin get undressed completely, as a rule." My underthings were pulled off too.

Now, I was fully naked in front of him. Rhys' eyes roved over my body, and his hands followed. I still hadn't turned to the other two. And then Rhys put his hands on my hips, and very slowly, rotated me around. I leaned back into him slightly for reassurance, and he squeezed warmly.

"Feyre," he said, his lips at my hip. "Azriel won the snowball fight today. I would like you to be his prize. Would you do that for me?"

And then I looked at him. Azriel was still in the relaxed position I had seen him in through Rhys' eyes- leaning back, arms on the back of the bench, wrists limp. But his eyes were hard and glazed with lust, and now that I was here in person, there was no hiding the solid length of him.

I could feel myself staring, but I couldn't drag my eyes away. Not when Azriel brought his bottom lip between his teeth, without moving a single other muscle, and I could see him staring right back at me.

"Would you give him his prize, Feyre?" Rhys asked again. He kissed the back of my hip.

I was too nervous to say anything, so I just walked. One foot in front of the other, and as I got closer I found that I wasn't so nervous, after all. Because now I could fully see the hunger on Azriel's face. Rhys hadn't been lying. Azriel wanted this, too. I stopped in front of him, and made sure to keep my eyes on his.

"Congratulations, Azriel," I said shyly. "Give him a kiss, Feyre darling," Rhys drawled. "Azriel is the best snowball fighter in all of Prythian."

I stepped over Azriel's knee and settled myself carefully in his lap, facing him, relishing the feeling of his breathing speeding up beneath me.

"Feyre," Azriel said softly. His eyes searched mine. "Can I touch you?" "Yes," I breathed, and waited.

Azriel's hands came up cautiously, and glided over my hips. A groan so low I almost missed it issued from his throat. He met my eyes again, and I gazed steadily back at him. Azriel's hands moved now, up my sides and down my back. They were so hot on my skin, that I relaxed into him. When they slid back down, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his.

In all the time I had known the Shadowsinger, I had never seen him ruffled. That was kind of his thing. Every movement Azriel made was controlled, calculated, intentional, and it made him the perfect spymaster. Not this time.

As soon as my lips touched his, Azriel inhaled sharply through his nose, and his arms came up around me. He was so beautiful, I had always wanted to touch him. But I hadn't expected the sudden tenderness, the emotion that seemed to pour forth from him as he crushed me to him, and the fluid motion that replaced his utter stillness of just moments ago. Then his tongue touched mine and this different, unfamiliar taste was intoxicating. I suddenly wanted more, so much more, and my shyness was completely forgotten.

A nudge between my legs alerted me to his growing hardness, and knowing he wanted me was fuel to my fire. With both of us naked, there was no going slow, no stopping his cock from sliding under me. He was slick from the steam, and his sweat, and what I was now realising was my own increasing wetness. I was losing myself in it, when Rhys cleared his throat.

I turned at the sound, and looked at him from Azriel's lap. I pictured myself through his eyes- lips reddened and eyes hooded. From kissing someone else. Rhys' violet eyes danced dangerously, and for a second I thought he was going to call me back to him. But instead, he said, "Azriel, share please." Then beckoned Cassian over without moving his eyes from mine.

I had honestly forgotten about Cassian, sitting in the opposite corner. But now I turned to watch him as he stood, taller and broader than his brothers, and walked toward us.

Sometimes I got too comfortable with Cassian, and it made me think he was another regular male. Sometimes he didn't seem so big. But now he towered over us both, and when he kneeled behind me he was still a head taller than me. He spoke in my ear, his voice like bottled thunder.

"Where do you want my hands, High Lady?" He hadn't touched me yet, but I felt it right down my spine. "Everywhere," I breathed. Cassian obliged.

First, his enormous hands closed over my shoulders. He squeezed, massaging me so I became liquid beneath his touch. His fingers probed the back of my neck, and my eyes slid closed in pleasure. So like Cassian to bring me this gentle strength.

Then the hands coasted down my shoulder blades, around to curve over my stomach, and up. To cup my breasts. I thought that anyone touching me like this who wasn't Rhys would be abhorrent, but I found that I trusted Cassian absolutely. The feeling still thrilled in my chest, but it didn't scare me like I thought it might.Then my nipples were sliding between his fingers and I heard my own moan before I knew I was making it. Sweat beaded down my back, and Cassian ducked his head and licked it off my skin, up my spine. My second moan was louder.

This seemed to awaken Azriel, who leaned forward to kiss my jaw, at the same time as Cassian put his teeth on the join between my shoulder and neck. Both of them grasped and massaged with their hands, and the pleasure was everywhere. My mind started to slide in and out of clarity, accidentally relaxing my shields enough for Rhys to slip in an image of us from where he sat. The two males all over me. And Rhys watching with his cock in his hand.

Does this turn you on? I asked him hazily. His answer rumbled down the bond. Does the sight of you naked, in heat, and being worshipped, arouse me? Oh yes. Yes I'd say it does.

I turned my head to see him with my own eyes, and the sight of him stroking himself as he watched me brought my blood to the boil. My skin grew extra sensitive, and being touched all over by the other two males was suddenly almost overwhelming. My head dropped back, and then there was Cassian, his hand on the back of my neck and turning my head so he could catch my lips with his.

Cassian did not kiss like Azriel. Not soulful and sensual like the Shadowsinger, but rough and unrestrained. His mouth was on mine only a moment before teeth and tongue were clashing with my own, and at the same time his fingers fisted to scrape against my scalp and pull at my hair. One of my hands floated to touch Cassian's face, but the other clenched on Azriel's shoulder. Somewhere far away, Azriel was scratching his nails up and down my thighs, as he watched me kiss Cassian while still seated directly over his own cock.

"Feyre," Rhys' voice carried from the opposite side of the room. "I want to see you while they work you. Turn around for me."

Cassian leaned back to let me up, and I stood and turned to face Rhys. He had slipped further down the wall, more slumped than he had been, and his eyes stayed on mine as he continued to move his hand over himself.

"That's right," he said. "Show me how much you're loving this."

Azriel's hands came up from behind me and pulled me back into his lap, now facing forward. Cassian, still on his knees, put his mouth on my nipple, and his hands gripped just above my knees as he sucked and flicked his tongue. I gasped and grabbed onto Azriel's thighs as my a shudder wracked through my body- but I kept my eyes locked on Rhys, and the hand that was now speeding up between his legs.

Now Azriel was moving. His lips meandered from my shoulder across and up my throat, and his hands... his hands were sneaking across my waist with gently, stroking fingers. Under my breasts, still beneath Cassian's busy mouth. Down my sides. Over my belly. Lower. He squeezed my hips once before his fingertips drifted between my thighs. The light pressure on my clit had my head dropping back and my knees falling open.

Look at me. The demand flashed through my mind. I pulled my head up, so heavy now that Azriel's fingers were moving. That's it, Rhys said, gentle again. Just keep those gorgeous eyes on me.

So I stared into the bottomless violet, even as my focus faded in and out with the steady, rocking rhythm Azriel was making. The same rhythm Rhys kept with his own hand. The realisation brought a gush of wetness between my legs, and Azriel moaned softly behind me as his fingers slid through it.

Cassian stood then, and his hips were level with my face. He brought his cock into his hand, and now the tip was at my lips. For a moment I just stared. Cassian was thicker than Azriel, in every part of his body, it seemed. There was something intimidating about it but also... very sexy as well. I opened my mouth, and Cassian placed the head of himself on my tongue.

Cassian's groan was deep and rolling, as he slid up and down. I closed my mouth over him and sucked as he pulled out, and then moved forward to take him as deep in as I could. Cassian's eyes closed as his hand slid around the back of my neck, and as I started to speed my pace, Azriel matched it with the movements of his hand on my clit. My moan was muffled in my full mouth.

Then Rhys coughed, and we all paused. Azriel was the first to move, standing up so I was pushed off his lap, and then turning me to the side before dropping to the floor behind me. Cassian took a step to the side too, and now Rhys' view of me was unobstructed once more. I resumed my work on Cassian, concentrating on breathing through my nose and flicking my tongue over his head.

It meant I was distracted, and taken by surprise when Azriel put his hands on my ass and licked right up the core of me from behind.

I pitched forward, grabbing onto Cassian's hips for stability, and choking slightly as his cock was pushed further back into my throat. I had to take him out of my mouth, and just brace against him for a moment as Azriel continued to slide his tongue into me, and stars burst before my eyes. Then Cassian was tapping his cock against my lips and I opened for him. I eased myself back and forth, pumping Cassian in my mouth but also rocking against Azriel's tongue. Cassian's head lolled back, and his fingers slid back into my hair. I opened my eyes, and looked sideways at Rhys.

It was too much. Azriel's mouth building me up. Cassian filling me with the thickness of him. Rhys staring right at me as his hand moved steadily up and down his beautiful hardness. The four of us, moving together, slicked with heat and sweat and sex.

My knees started to shake as I stood there, bent over, and my release started to trickle down my spine. My mouth salivated over Cassian's cock and made a dripping mess of it. But despite having much, much more than I had ever had at one time, I knew I couldn't come like this. Not without him.

Rhys, I begged silently. Rhys, please.

In what seemed like a single, fluid motion, Rhys had stood and crossed the floor toward us. Cassian and Azriel withdrew as soon as he approached, automatically deferring to their High Lord.

Rhys sat down on the floor, his back against the low wall. He pulled me into his lap, and for a minute I was relieved to be back in his arms, all of home to me. I took a deep breath, recovering slightly from the overwhelm of having the two other males all over me.

And then Rhys lifted my hips and sat me down on his hard cock.

Wet as I was from Azriel's tongue and the heat of the steam room, I came all the way down around him, and a loud, wanton sound escaped from my lips. Rhys waited for me to adjust, then started moving beneath me, and suddenly I was right on track for that orgasm. My eyes shuttered and my jaw dropped open as he thrust in and out of me. Then Cassian lay down on his stomach and sucked my clit into his mouth, and at the same time Azriel lowered his cock to my lips, not as thick but possibly longer than Cassian had been. I tried to move my head for him, but I was fast losing control of my muscles.

Rhys smoothed my hair back as he fucked up into me, and my head fell back against his chest. Since I couldn't move, Azriel started pumping himself in my mouth. Rhys' hands squeezed over my breasts, and Cassian's tongue flicked over my clit the way I had done over his head before. I was dimly aware that he had started jacking his own cock in his hand.

How does it feel, Feyre? Rhys asked silently. I could barely comprehend him. How does it feel to be fucked three times over like this? To have all these males, wanting you so badly? I tried to reply, but I couldn't even form words in my mind. All I could do was whimper down the bond, and Rhys fucked me harder. I was strung out like a taught bow, and started to seriously doubt I could survive this.

Behind me, I felt Rhys' attention shift.

"Azriel," he said, "you can come now." He slowed his hips and ground into me in circles, instead. It had me wound even tighter. "Come on her chest, Shadowsinger."

I was so caught up in my own pleasure that I was only now recognising the taste of precum on my tongue, and just as I did, Azriel pulled out, grabbed himself with his right hand and shot hot, white cream right over my breasts. It dribbled down over Rhys' fingers.

"For winning the snowball fight," Rhys said. "Congratulations."

Azriel slumped onto the bench, and watched the remaining three of us.

"And you, Feyre?" Rhys said. "Would you like to come, too?" "Yes," I babbled. "Gods yes." "Well," Rhys said to Cassian. "You heard her."

And then Rhys was kneeling up, keeping himself inside me, and pulling me up with him. Cassian had to shift upward too, and kept his tongue moving in this new position.

Now, upright but on our knees, Rhys could get an angle that meant he was that much deeper inside me. He pulled almost all the way out, then plunged in to the hilt, over and over while Cassian kept up the pace over my clit and the stubble of his chin added extra sensation as his jaw moved.

"Go on Feyre," Rhys said, breathless now. "Come for me. Come right between me and Cassian." No sooner were the words said than my climax ripped through me, the two males holding me up because there was no way I could hold myself. I shuddered hard against them, the intensity that had been threatening to ruin me this whole time finally breaking like so many ocean waves. Through the aftershocks, I watched as Cassian came jerkily in his hand without a sound.

As my body finally stopped shaking, Cassian rolled over and closed his eyes. His head rested against Azriel's foot, and although I was sure no one could fall asleep that fast, that's exactly what it looked like.

"My turn," Rhys breathed.

He let me down so I was on all fours, gripped my hips in his hands, and started pounding into me with no mercy. I thought I was spent, but my body reacted the way it always did to Rhys. I didn't see my second climax coming, but as Rhys knocked that spot inside me over and over, the orgasm hit me like a sledge hammer.

I came so hard I barely noticed Rhys coming, slamming into me from behind and breaking apart inside of me until it was running down the backs of my legs.

We dropped to the floor together, Rhys pulling me into his arms and my head onto his chest. With a glance, his magic cleaned us up and then we just lay there, breathing in the steam. My leg was draped over Cassian's, and he was indeed now asleep and snoring. Azriel was dozing off, too.

"I don't think you're supposed to fall asleep in a steam room," I said to no one in particular. I turned to look at Rhys. "Should we try to get everyone back into the cottage?"

"In a second," Rhys replied, his lips on my temple.

So I closed my eyes too, snuggled into his chest, and let the heat settle over all of us like a blanket.

****

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