#somehow even more violent than Parker

[gatorbites-imagines]

Kinktober day 18

Wade Wilson + Leather/Latex

Readers a spiderman variant of Last stand Spidey, cuz ive been a spideypool fan for years, and cool jacket. I was listening to NSYNC as I wrote this.

2024 kinktober masterlist.

Wade and Logan had never thought they’d stumble upon a spiderman variant of all things in the void. Deadpools, Gambits, Juggernaut and whoever else they stumbled upon, sure. But Spiderman? Savior of the world in many universes spiderman? With great power comes great responsibility spiderman?

Sure, Wade got one of the worst erections of his life when he watched the Spidey whip out a gum, and just blast the head off some variant of The Shocker. His knees almost buckled, Wade almost cumming right then and there. Seeing a Spidey in those tight pants, leggings? Spandex? And a leather jacket, waving around a gun and using it right? That was going right in the spank bank.

The scrunched up disgusted face Logan had, made it obvious that Wades arousal was strong enough for the mutants’ nose to pick it up. But how couldn’t he be so hard his head was swimming? Especially when that Spidey walked towards them, carrying himself with a confidence that spoke of many years of experience.

Why you helped them, even you didn’t know. Maybe it was some part of you that still wanted to be a hero, to help save the universe or whatever. In your own words, you were the worst Spiderman. You were selfish, violent and ruthless, nothing like the light in the dark Spiderman was meant to be. You had hurt your family and loved ones, and killed people who didn’t deserve it, but no part of you felt bad about it.

Hearing this, Wade almost excused himself to go jerk off again for what had to be the tenth time since you partnered up with them. It wasn’t his fault, okay? Spiderman and Deadpool just go together in most universes, you guys were literally soulmates in most universes. You just happened to be real eye candy.

It was surprisingly easy for Wade to talk you into coming with him to his universe. His universe didn’t have a spiderman, obviously he still knew about Spiderman though, he was Deadpool. Logan came along too, but he started grumbling about Wade being a horndog real fast, especially as you bunked with the two as well as Blind Al and Dogpool.

You found it easier than Logan to become part of this world, since there wasn’t really any memories. For Logan it was harder, with the X-men still being alive and all. But Peter Parker and other spider variants didn’t seem to exist. Youd also spent a long time dealing with your problems, so you were even able to get a job.

Guess where you got a job. The Daily Bugle, of course. You were able to snatch a job as a reporter instead of a photographer like you had in your younger days, and somehow you ended up not only befriending Jameson, but becoming one of his go-to reporters. Probably helped that his wife hadn’t died during that robbery, instead she was just injured real bad, but lived.

With your lucrative, or as lucrative as it could get, job, you found your own apartment and moved out, much to Wades despair. He had just started thinking you two were bonding, especially as you had started cleaning your guns together. Wade had even stopped longing for Vanessa, instead turning his attention towards you. and being Deadpool, Wade flirted up a storm, even making jokes about getting a red wig so he could be your Mary Jane.

And yes, Wade stole your spiderman jacket on the regular. You were working a lot, so you wouldn’t notice, right? You wouldn’t notice it being scrubbed clean after hed squirted all over it as he worked himself into a frenzy, huffing the scent of your sweat, gun oil and blood off the leather, right? Of course you noticed, you weren’t stupid, you just… didn’t feel like there was a reason to stop him.

With your new apartment you got to spend more time and space on your hobbies, which just happened to be guns and photography. You were still a spiderman variant after all. you just happened to focus on more than landscape and spiderman pictures, instead you liked taking more extreme or gorey pictures of the latest rogue or villains work, or whatever else crime that was busted around the city.

Wade would giggle and joke about you being some kinda freak as he ogled the pictures too, before turning his eyes to you once more. Wade hung around your place enough to almost live there himself. He had also bled through your couch multiple times, meaning you had to buy a new one semi-regularly.

You even ignored how hed jerk off on your couch when he though you slept, his noises only muffled by your jacket pressed against his face. Wade was pretty bad at hiding it at this point, with you walking into the living room to see him naked from the waist down, dead asleep with your jacket laid over his head. You had a thing for his suit too, so you never said anything. Plus, it did things to your ego…

It took a couple of months before you decided to be spiderman again, wanting to settle yourself before you got into the waves of it all. Plus, the usual spiderman rogues weren’t around in this universe, which meant you just went around dealing with different gangs or high rank criminals.

The X-men also got your help every now and then, even if you didn’t really count as a mutant, whatever that meant. You just knew you weren’t welcome to join their club. Something about you not being born with your powers, and not having the X-gene, meaning you weren’t technically a mutant. Colossus still invited you over for their grill evenings on Fridays though.

What you and Wade had couldn’t be called a relationship or sorts. You guys didn’t kiss, but he jerked off on your couch huffing your scent and licking the leather of your jacket, and you acted like he didn’t. at some point you even started doing the same with his suit, using the leather to jerk your cock and spilling against the insides.

Over time you both grew more confident, or sloppy depending on who you asked. You both stopped cleaning up your messes, leaving your spend all over the others things, meaning you both had to go around carrying the others scent when the mission called for you in a hurry. Logan always looked downright sick when he caught the scent, his nose scrunched up at the hormones wafting off you both.

This kept up for a longer period of time, with neither of you saying anything. Instead just marking the others things in your spend, hell, you had even rutted together on a rooftop, blaming it on “adrenaline of the mission”. The sound of the leather of your jacket and his suit only made it so much hotter, Wades hands grasping at your hips to pull you against him, voice warbly and high pitched from his excitement.

The one time opened the floodgates. That’s when you learned Wade really loved kisses, he especially loved when you kissed him like he wanted to devour him. Wades mouth was always so sloppy when you kissed, his tongue desperately curling around your own as he groaned and gurgled, his hands running up and down your back with need.

He was always so hot, ready for everything you may offer him. Wade had even started opening himself up and finding a red plug to slide home, ready for the moment you decided to fuck him. Of course, he was most excited when the time came and you bent him over some metal storage container in a warehouse, after your latest shared mission.

Wade was shaking in sheer excitement as you rucked his suit down just enough to free his ass, the mutant mercenary giggling and cooing as he waved his hips from side to side. Looking back at you, Wade was ready to finish right then and there, as he watched you open your suit up just enough to free yourself.

He didn’t even get to make a joke about how he plugged himself up for you, your usual patience running out faster than Wade ran his mouth. God, he loved how hard you fucked him, sing that super strength of yours to leave him feeling raw and used in the best way, Wade louder in the bedroom than he was normally, meaning he was almost howling and wailing with want and need.

His words were a slurred mix of begs for more, and some other mashed together comment about how the readers must love this, and how the author sucked at writing dialogue. Like always, you had no idea what he was talking about, instead just putting your hips into it and fucking him harder like he so clearly wanted.

Being a spider variant meant you had little rest period between orgasms, and you had a lot more energy than Wade. Being as backed up as you were, you also just kept fucking him until Wade was almost limp in your arms, his mask finally off his scarred tear and drool-stained face as he tried and failed to beg for more.

Wades cum was sprayed all over the floor and container hed been bent over, pathetic thin spurts shooting out of his tip as you lifted him like he weighed nothing, moving him like a ragdoll as his voice went raspy from all his moaning.

He was kinda cute like this, so fucked out he struggled to form a single thought or word. Especially when he rubbed his face into your jacket, which you had taken off and laid under his head as a pillow. It was only when there truly was nothing more to milk out of him that you decided it was enough and pulled out, cleaning Wade up to the best of your ability.

It was easy to lift him bridal style, letting Wade nuzzle against you and duck his head under your chin. Youd even put your jacket on him, just so he felt some extra safety as you somehow swung you two back to your apartment. You sure hoped none of the X-men had to check out the warehouse later on, it would be hard to live that down…

[catlady5001]

end of year fic recs, list #2

part one // here

same as last time: i want to share some fics i really enjoyed this year, organized by fandom! each fic will have a short summary, the word count, and a + symbol if it's a work in progress!

this list will have recs for Spider-Man and BNHA. enjoy! :)

Spider-Man

Fitting In (Tiny Spaces) by aloneintherain (@captainkirkk). while on a team mission, peter parker bites off a bit more than he can chew. 3k, hurt/comfort

In the Home by aloneintherain (@captainkirkk). The Avengers have been infected, turned violent and aggressive against their will. And Peter, the only one unaffected, is trapped inside the Tower with six feral teammates. 69k, angst and comfort

Dark Matter by mysterycyclone (@mysterycyclone). AU where peter parker gets pulled into the DCU after the events of Infinity War, and gets pulled into the both the Wayne family and the Bat Family. 213k+, angst and comfort

Spider-Verse

equifinality by Quillium (@quillium). In a world where Jefferson Davis dies instead of Spider-man, Miles Morales becomes the Prowler and somehow��still gets taken under Spider-man's wing. 20k+, hurt/comfort

so lucky, so strong, so proud by ProfessorSpork. Sometimes you end up in a superhero team up where half the people in the group have your face, or your dead ex/best friend’s face, and you just have to find a way to deal with it. 7k, angst and comfort

Down the Waterspout by Mockingone. spiderverse au where spider-man lives.

let's do this one last time by imoticon. michelle jones gets sucked into the multi-verse. gwen stacy helps her. 9k, dimension travel

New Moves by WildInkling (@wildinkling). miles morales takes up ballet!! 3k, fluff

BNHA

komorebi by Calamitatum (@calamitxtum). desperate to prove himself, Hitoshi agrees to help UA find the traitor, even if he has to sacrifice himself in the process. 157k, angst

Accidentally, Tragically, Heroic by whatagoodegg. shigaraki infiltrates ua as a student, and somehow, is accidentally a great hero. 118k+, hurt/comfort

reconcile by whatagoodegg. a child's quirk traps midoriya and shigaraki in a box together until they can 'reconcile' their differences. 151k, hurt/comfort

Foresight by akcugrai (@akcugrai). Izuku's quirk is simple, it tells him exactly what he needs to do, eventually leading him to tear down All for One. 66k, hurt/comfort

Candor by OwlF45 (@owlf45). The Hero Commission passes a new code that requires all heroes to complete a mental simulation test. For Izuku, the consequences are catastrophic. 60k, hurt/comfort

linger on the doorstep (come into the warmth) series by intheeveningsunrise (@intheeveningsunrise). au where midoriya inko adopts aizawa in high school, dramatically changing his life and the life of his brother, midoriya izuku. 408k+, angst and comfort

out of the frying pan (into the ice and fire) series by intheeveningsunrise (@intheeveningsunrise). Izuku runs into his twin at the USJ - and then proceeds to run into him seemingly everywhere he goes. 305k+, angst and comfort

Words as Weapons by NearoRiver. While navigating his father’s (All for One's) high expectations, insidious emotional abuse, and overpowering quirk, Izuku fights to become a hero. 129k+

Ill-Gotten Gains by ghostmaybite. AFO!Izuku steals Aizawa's quirk to kill All for One. things only get more complicated from there. 245k+, hurt/comfort

once forgotten, twice removed by blueh (@blu-eh). number one hero Deku gets thrust into an alternate reality where he’s All for One’s Successor. 42k, hurt/comfort

awake and (un)afraid, asleep or- by driedupwishes. after shouto and eijirou start trending on twitter, shouto starts an instagram to showcase his Hero Deku merch. it spirals from there. 54k, future fic

Independent Study by pianogavin (@pianogavinwrites). After one too many repeat injuries, UA puts a policy in place to alert parents every time their child is hurt at school. This leads to Momo taking care of her own injuries. MomoJirou focused. 6k, hurt/comfort

we don't know what's dead / till it's gone by carolinaa (@officialratprince). momo's dad dies. neither she nor Kyouka know how to feel about it. 8k hurt/comfort

spit to the left, carry on (smile & say you're good) by jublis. Jirou grows into herself during a time of war. 15k, hurt/comfort

old game (new rules) by carolinaa (@officialratprince). the ULTIMATE momojirou fic. after bad experiences in middle school, kyouka is determined to keep to herself at UA, but her classmates have a way of getting under her skin.

Despite Your Good Intentions series by xylophones. yagi toshinori moves into midoriya izuku's apartment building when he is eleven. this has a ripple effect that leads to midoriya izuku becoming the youngest licensed intern that japan has seen, and spirals from there. one of my favorite series!!! 204k, hurt/comfort

Thick Blood, Sweet Water by litbynosun (@coldwind-shiningstars). aizawa shouta and midoriya inko are siblings who only reunite after midoriya izuku has started his first year at UA. 15k, family fluff

the drip of melting ice by planet_B612. Hitoshi moves into the 2A dormitory at the beginning of his second year, learns who his neighbour is, and makes the friends he had declared he isn't there to have within the space of a semester. 20k, hurt/comfort

every story is a ghost by daylightbreaks (). shinsou learns that crushes get complicated quickly when you think that your crush is possesed. shindeku. 26k, hurt/comfort

between the lines (it was there the whole time) by placesinfive. eri, class 1-A, and all the little moments in between. 12k, domestic fluff

make this feel like home by carolinaa (@officialratprince). natsuo spends his winter break at home. surprisingly, it doesn't all go to shit. 27k, hurt/comfort

when the light returns by rubiginosa. bakugou, camie and uraraka go up north to steal a tree for Todoroki. 13k, road trip fic

Leitmotif by LunaLucrea (@lunalucrea). midoriya interns with present mic, and runs into a man with a quirk that lets him hear people's "soul song". 7k, hurt/comfort

pez dispenser debris by thepolysyndetonaddictsupportgroup (@polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup). a quirk creates a younger version of midoriya izuku, who causes headaches for himself and everyone else. this is straight-up one of my favorite fics, and this summary does NOT do it justice. go read!! 74k+, hurt/comfort

hours spent in a hospital waiting room just to lose a knife fight by SpiritusRex (@spiritusrex). izuku's friends support him when he's hospitalized for appendicitis - a disease he can only get after being born Quirkless. 3k, hurt/comfort

with just a little luck by SpiritusRex (@spiritusrex). izuku keeps getting hurt, so his classmates start to gift him good-luck charms, not realizing it puts him on edge. 7k, hurt/comfort

Small Enough to Carry by ghostwriterofthemachine (@ghostwriterofthemachine). One Thing Midoriya Izuku Starts Carrying Around for Each of the People that He Loves, and One Thing Each of Them Starts Carrying Around for Him. 12k, hurt/comfort

A Boy and his Ghost series by LowlyWriter. AU where izuku can see ghosts, and soon befriends Shirakumo Oboro, the ghost who follows his teachers around. 543k, hurt/comfort

hero’s shadow by feelingstabby. the story of how a few heroes help Midoriya Izuku become something more than a lost vigilante. one of my favorite longfics! 818k+, hurt/comfort

When Realities Collide by LowlyWriter. hero-in-training midoriya izuku gets transported to an alternate universe where he is a deadly villain. 168k, hurt/comfort

starkly marked by OwlF45 ((@owlf45). izuku is stuck in a timeloop, but the longer it goes on, the more people begin to recognize him - even if they technically haven't met. 4k, angst

but somehow i'll see it through by artfulacrostic (@artfulacrostic). izuku is the victim of an obedience quirk. 16k, hurt/comfort

idle worship by dreamtowns (@dreamvevo). shindeku social media au revolving around secret identities. one of the best social media fics I've read - dreamtowns puts HOURS of effort into their fics, and it shows. 28k, hurt/comfort

[detectiveangel]

post-traumatic synthesized dreamscape no. 1

this digital sound composition is an attempt to transcribe (record, mollify, exorcise) my emotions looking back on the events of last february as i experienced them.

i was living in st. petersburg as a graduate student researcher, one of the dwindling ragtag lot of americans with no family ties to russia still trying to live there, when the russian military invaded ukraine early in the morning the day after february 23rd, the federal holiday honoring military men that was once red army day. i had already given up on my dream of living in russia for anything approaching the long term and was trying to stay for just as long as i safely could as History unfolded around me. i left russia 24 hours after the start of the invasion and made it back to the u.s. safe but mentally shattered. I’d spent months navigating or avoiding tense encounters with russian migration police as weekly updates to civil law gradually made it very nearly impossible to legally reside in russia as citizen of a designated “enemy nation;” and then finally found myself alone in a windowless room with an fsb agent in the remote checkpoint by the finnish border that terrible morning. my battered psyche imploded before the questioning, which was, objectively, very mild, even began.

back in the u.s., i spent months struggling to operate my own person before i realized that i had ptsd from a war to which i had barely been a distant bystander. i started therapy and saw massive improvement after just a few months. good fortune, which saw me safely through so many close calls and near-disasters during the grinding buildup and violent lurch into fully-fledged military rule in russia, blessed me yet again.

before entering formal therapy, i leaned very heavily on intoxicating substances (alcohol in russia, marijuana in the u.s.) and movies to keep the terror at bay. my understanding of myself in this phase of my life is heavily mediated by cinema, especially cinema made or set in the wwii and early “post-war” era. this time when society’s psychic wounds were only just scabbing over and could be seen on nearly everyone who crossed a camera feels less like the past and more like a parallel present still playing out in ever-more garbled reproductions in the nightmare fantasies that govern life in the places that never healed properly from the traumas of the ‘40s. to make beautiful or joyful art has become impossible, but the need to externalize our disordered response to trauma in art is stronger than ever. our voices can no longer carry a tune, but we have all history’s old recordings to grind and reshape into new kinds of music that may somehow express the emotions no amount of time and treatment can resolve.

some notes on the recordings i used as material for this piece

during this last year of trauma recovery, i saw myself most vividly in one particular cinematic incantation of postwar psychosis co-created by a brit and an american both too young to have experienced wwii but raised in its fallout as men in societies where the publicly synthesized idea of maleness is overwhelmingly suffused with the radioactive particles still emitting from the atoms of that war. watching mickey rourke’s performance in alan parker’s metaphysically-canted neo-noir “angel heart” (1987) somehow made a narrative out of the glossolalia of confusion and pain humming at the core of my being during the strung-out spring that followed the terrible winter of ’21-’22.

in the autumn before that winter, i had found strength and solace from the encroaching fascist terror in russia in the exploration and nurturing of my own masculinity. i had long identified more with a masculine perspective than a female one, but various factors limited the extent to which i expressed this identification. various other factors led to me reaching new levels of masculine identification and expression that fall, and this was a positive, self-actualizing experience that nurtured me during the months in which i lived under increasingly dire threat of repression from a government officially opposed to the existence of queers, americans, and gender studies researchers within its borders.

months of trudging alone through seedy hotels, anxious crowds, and icy boulevards, all while looking over my shoulder for police, were bearable if i saw myself as a sort of postmodern pastiche of film noir protagonists, a hardboiled detective working an increasingly dangerous case, an existentially bedraggled man in the wrong time, space, and body muttering clever wisecracks for the benefit of none but himself and perhaps some imaginary audience of ghosts and angels. at that time i hadn’t, to my knowledge, actually watched any of the classic bogart & co. detective movies, so my metaphysical drag act was itself composed from impressions and parodies. i was, however, quite intimate with other strains of 1940s cinema (i was in the archives mainly to study a film from that decade) and though my active memory has retained nothing of “casablanca” (1942), i did see that film at a Formative Age and this would seem the most likely source of my improbable and ultimately impossible lifelong obsession with becoming a jaded-yet-romantic american expat on the fringes of europe.

lying prone in the rubble of my exploded expat fantasies back in my native california, i watched movies projected on my ceiling and in most cases enjoyed a vacation from my psychological perspective through the temporary occupation of another. but once in a while, i caught my own reflection in the kino-eye. such was the case with “angel heart,” a meticulously formalist meditation on the fractured collective psyche of “postwar” america via the methodical deconstruction of a man composed entirely of echoes and fictions masking unbearable trauma from participating in ritual human sacrifice both literally (as an occultist) and metaphorically (as a soldier in the war). as a supernatural creation bearing the souls of both perpetrator and victim of the sacrifice, his trauma response is self-annihilating – a mystical representation of the psychosis experienced by all us cogs in the war machine, one-souled or otherwise. the two souls bound up in harry angel/johnny favorite both experienced the war from a sidelined, un-masculine position: one as a section 8 discharge dismissed after a brief, traumatizing stint of service, the other as an enlisted entertainer. this allegory resonated in the contours of my imagination with incredible sonority, but i saw my reflection well before the plot unfolded, in the very first scenes of the film, in the physical demeanor affected by mickey rourke loping awkwardly through dirty manhattan snow in a wool trenchcoat. i had caught a similar reflection many times in the windows of moscow and petersburg as i trudged through dirty snow, insulating my frightened self from a hostile world with a similar wool trenchcoat and self-effacing butch affect cribbed from cinema-mediated memories of ‘20s-‘30s tough guys.

my identification with this character/performance is only one undercurrent of this noise-music composition, but it is the one i feel needs the most explication. the meanings carried by the other voices (among them those of vyacheslav tikhonov portraying an exhausted soviet agent within the ss in early 1945 berlin, leonid utesov singing the praises of his beloved odessa, and alexander vertinsky crooning an emigrant’s lament for distant st. petersburg) are more self-apparent.

2/23/2023

media sampled here:

audio from the films

“the third man” (1949)

“семнадцать мгновения весны” (1972)

“angel heart” (1987)

“black angel” (1946)

“casablanca” (1942)

song recordings

“у черного моря” (leonid utesov, 1953)

“girl of my dreams” (etta james, 1960)

“чужие города” (alexander vertinsky, 1936)

“крейсер «аврора»” (choir of the leningrad pioneers’ hall, 1982)

additionally

personal audio recordings

midi file created from the composition “песня о далекой родине” (1972) by mikаеl tariverdiev

the accompanying video was created with samples from the above-mentioned films, as well as personal recordings and archival footage from a filmed concert performance by leonid utesov in 1940.

audio edited & produced using ableton live 9

video edited & produced in windows movie maker + microsoft clipchamp

some notes on the recordings i used as material for this piece

during this last year of trauma recovery, i saw myself most vividly in one particular cinematic incantation of postwar psychosis co-created by a brit and an american both too young to have experienced wwii but raised in its fallout as men in societies where the publicly synthesized idea of maleness is overwhelmingly suffused with the radioactive particles still emitting from the atoms of that war. watching mickey rourke’s performance in alan parker’s metaphysically-canted neo-noir “angel heart” (1987) somehow made a narrative out of the glossolalia of confusion and pain humming at the core of my being during the strung-out spring that followed the terrible winter of ’21-’22.

in the autumn before that winter, i had found strength and solace from the encroaching fascist terror in russia in the exploration and nurturing of my own masculinity. i had long identified more with a masculine perspective than a female one, but various factors limited the extent to which i expressed this identification. various other factors led to me reaching new levels of masculine identification and expression that fall, and this was a positive, self-actualizing experience that nurtured me during the months in which i lived under increasingly dire threat of repression from a government officially opposed to the existence of queers, americans, and gender studies researchers within its borders.

months of trudging alone through seedy hotels, anxious crowds, and icy boulevards, all while looking over my shoulder for police, were bearable if i saw myself as a sort of postmodern pastiche of film noir protagonists, a hardboiled detective working an increasingly dangerous case, an existentially bedraggled man in the wrong time, space, and body muttering clever wisecracks for the benefit of none but himself and perhaps some imaginary audience of ghosts and angels. at that time i hadn’t, to my knowledge, actually watched any of the classic bogart & co. detective movies, so my metaphysical drag act was itself composed from impressions and parodies. i was, however, quite intimate with other strains of 1940s cinema (i was in the archives mainly to study a film from that decade) and though my active memory has retained nothing of “casablanca” (1942), i did see that film at a Formative Age and this would seem the most likely source of my improbable and ultimately impossible lifelong obsession with becoming a jaded-yet-romantic american expat on the fringes of europe.

lying prone in the rubble of my exploded expat fantasies back in my native california, i watched movies projected on my ceiling and in most cases enjoyed a vacation from my psychological perspective through the temporary occupation of another. but once in a while, i caught my own reflection in the kino-eye. such was the case with “angel heart,” a meticulously formalist meditation on the fractured collective psyche of “postwar” america via the methodical deconstruction of a man composed entirely of echoes and fictions masking unbearable trauma from participating in ritual human sacrifice both literally (as an occultist) and metaphorically (as a soldier in the war). as a supernatural creation bearing the souls of both perpetrator and victim of the sacrifice, his trauma response is self-annihilating – a mystical representation of the psychosis experienced by all us cogs in the war machine, one-souled or otherwise. the two souls bound up in harry angel/johnny favorite both experienced the war from a sidelined, un-masculine position: one as a section 8 discharge dismissed after a brief, traumatizing stint of service, the other as an enlisted entertainer. this allegory resonated in the contours of my imagination with incredible sonority, but i saw my reflection well before the plot unfolded, in the very first scenes of the film, in the physical demeanor affected by mickey rourke loping awkwardly through dirty manhattan snow in a wool trenchcoat. i had caught a similar reflection many times in the windows of moscow and petersburg as i trudged through dirty snow, insulating my frightened self from a hostile world with a similar wool trenchcoat and self-effacing butch affect cribbed from cinema-mediated memories of ‘20s-‘30s tough guys.

my identification with this character/performance is only one undercurrent of this noise-music composition, but it is the one i feel needs the most explication. the meanings carried by the other voices (among them those of vyacheslav tikhonov portraying an exhausted soviet agent within the ss in early 1945 berlin, leonid utesov singing the praises of his beloved odessa, and alexander vertinsky crooning an emigrant’s lament for distant st. petersburg) are more self-apparent.

[koinomegaluvr]

i watched insidious: the red door again with my sister, and it grew on me the second time around despite not knowing how to feel abt it initially.

At first i found the story was underdeveloped (and despite my opinions on the movie changing, i honestly still do feel this way lowkey ghgh) but like. i see exactly what they were trying to do, y’now???

i’ve always rlly enjoyed the insidious franchise, not necessarily because i found it scary, but because the concept of the further was absolutely FASCINATING to me. especially because it’s a place that’s like. an endless limbo that’s reminiscent of liminal horror (and i’m a sucker for that shit)

I rlly liked that they brought in more emotional depth & complexity for the lamberts and how they explore more of how the events of insidious: chapter 2 ultimately affected their family and each individual character.

I immensely enjoyed that they wanted to explore themes of generational trauma and repressed trauma, and how sweeping said trauma under the rug rather than trying to heal and resolve it at its root causes it to fester and ultimately harm everyone involved.

i like how they acknowledged how extremely traumatizing it must have been for renai and the kids to see parker crane josh trying to violently DESTROY them. like there ain’t no way that’s NOT going to have devastating effects on your psyche/marriage when you see what you think is your deranged looking father/husband, trying to beat y’all to death with hammers 😭😭 like i can’t imagine how that must have looked for the kids and i’m glad they explored that

i also really like how (at least in my opinion), the red faced demon and his lair is also kinda symbolic of dalton’s repressed & festering mental illness/trauma with how OBSESSED the demon is with dalton. and how he set up all those “scenes” of dalton’s past which makes him just. remember everything (and that made me feel SAUR BAD for him bc recalling that much repressed trauma would be overwhelming as fuck)

that said, i really feel like they could have executed these themes a lot better, in a way that would make a little bit more sense. during the scene with dalton and josh near the end where they’re in the further trying to close the door, dalton states that they have to stop running from the demon. and there i thought dalton and josh were going to slay the demon together once and for all, but dalton just paints over the door leaving josh in the further by himself and i was like ??????????? 😭😭😭😭 hello???

like. aside from it being a bit anticlimactic, i also don’t think it made very much sense of dalton to just paint over the door when he said they couldn’t run/ignore it anymore. i suppose in a sense, dalton painting over the door in of itself symbolizes that he is trying to break the cycle himself, but honestly? it would have made more sense imo if they somehow tried to relinquish the red face demon together, bc to me that would show that dalton and josh are finally trying to resolve their trauma together by tackling it head on, thus competing their arc more effectively.

i wish they could have introduced josh’s father a bit differently—i know the existence of josh’s dad probably wasnt planned from the beginning, so adding him in was going to be a bit clunky no matter what, but i had a hard time feeling anything at all for him as a character…..

i also wish elise had a bigger role in this rather than making a 5 second cameo at the end of the movie just for the the sake of it, especially since she is what makes insidious such an interesting franchise. but i am SO glad we got a specs and tucker cameo i genuinely teared up seeing them :,)

ANYWAY, overall, i’m quite pleased w the movie, even if certain aspects of it could have been executed better. it definitely isn’t THE BEST insidious movie. i think it had a lot of potential to be excellent. i have WAYY more thoughts abt it that i dont think i can convey in a single post but maybe i’ll talk abt them another time

also. dalton and chris my beloveds 🫰🏼🫰🏼

[youtwitinmyface]

Superior Spider-Man #6

Written by Dan Slott Drawn by Humberto Ramos Published by Marvel Comics

Here's a retro review of a comic book that was published by in 2013. The premise of this series is that Doctor Octopus had managed to take over Spider-Man's body.

That's right, through some sort of supervillain shenanigans (I wasn't reading that storyline, so I still don't know the exact details, but for the purposes of this review it's irrelevant), he was now in Spider-Man's brain and had all of his memories. And the plot twist is that once this happened, Doc Ock's massive ego made him decide that he was going to prove that he could live Spider-Man's life, both as a superhero and a civilian, better than Spider-Man ever could. And thus this new series was launched as Doc Ock set out to be a superior Spider-Man, get it?

This is #6 of the new ongoing series and part of a longer overall story arc but, thankfully, Dan Slott writes it as a self-contained story that any reader can follow even if they hadn't read the previous issues, which I hadn't done. I don't recall exactly how I found out about this issue in the first place but I picked it up because I'd somehow heard of the villains who appear in it, and I thought they sounded intriguing. The characters you see on the cover are the duo of Screwball and Jester, a couple of costumed criminals armed with various joke-related weapons like paintball balloons, slingshots, and squirt guns Their modus operandi is that they go around filming themselves "pranking" people in public and uploading the videos online to get hits. But with their software they're able to secretly phish the accounts of everyone who subscribes to their website, and hack all of their credit card and bank info.

I thought that was a clever idea for modern supervillains, as technology advances you'd think more supervillains would be engaging in cybercrime instead of just robbing banks or whatever. In this issue, J. Jonah James, who was the Mayor of New York at the time, is Screwball and Jester's latest victim as they throw a pie in his face and pull his pants down in the middle of a press conference. Jameson is outraged and contacts Spider-Man to track down and apprehend the criminals. So that's the main plot of the issue. There are a couple of subplots. We see that the real Spider-Man is still "alive" sort of. His mind and personality is trapped inside his body, he's unable to control anything, but he can see everything Doc Ock is doing, and can also access Ock's memories, including one flashback of Ock being picked on by a bully when he was a young boy, which is something we see motivates Ock's hatred of people like Screwball and Jester who like to humiliate other people.

Also at this time, Spider-Man was still serving as a member of the Avengers, and in several scenes we see his teammates, Captain America, Wolverine, Spider-Woman, Thor, Black Widow, and Spider-Woman, having a private meeting at Avengers HQ as they discuss Spider-Man's behavior. In recent weeks he's gotten more violent in his treatment of villains, even killing one of them. They don't know about Doc Ock, so they just think Spider-Man is getting out of control. Only Wolverine, no stranger to violence and killing himself, ever speaks to Spider-Man's defense. But they vow to keep a close eye on him.

In his private life, we see that as Peter Parker, Ock has re-enrolled in college to get his PhD. He's also struck up a close friendship, possibly more, with a woman named Anna Maria Marconi, a fellow college student. I can't tell if she's meant to be a Little Person, or just is just really short. But we see her getting made fun of by some other students because of her size, which enrages Ock but Anna Maria takes it in stride. Doc Ock manages to track Screwball and Jester, but when they get the upper hand and mock Spider-Man (all while broadcasting the encounter on their website), Ock snaps and proceeds to brutally beat the crap of both of them, to the horror of the real Spider-Man who can do nothing but watch. I really enjoyed this issue, the characterizations were all spot-on, J. Jonah Jameson is as insufferable as ever, and through captions of Doc Ock's private thoughts, we can see that even as he's trying to be a hero he's still an arrogant egomaniac. And I've also been a fan of Huberto Ramos' artwork and think that Spider-Man is a character that's perfect for his style. Re-reading this issue again after these years makes me think I should probably track down the rest of this series to see what happened next... SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #6

[ananxiousgenz]

hey op i hope this is okay but this inspired me to do a thing <3

i would like to dedicate this one to @percymawce-arts bc i love you so much and i felt like you deserved a gift from me <3

There are a lot of lessons to be learned about grief. It lingers in objects and actions and memories you would never expect it to find it hiding in. It’s brutally honest and vulnerable in a way few other emotions can be. It can poison passions and strangle relationships with a force stronger than the weight of the world. Grief can ruin someone’s life over and over and over again until they wonder how they’re even still going on. And here’s another fascinating thing about grief: people can never really escape it. They can run from it, hide from it, try to drown it in whiskey or work, but sooner or later it creeps in like a mist from the sea, cool and subtle until it blinds you from everything else in the present. 

Arthur Lester had learned all of those lessons the hard way.

After Faroe… After her loss, Arthur couldn’t play piano anymore. He’d wanted to. God, he’d wanted to sit down and play the grief away, just like he had when he was a child and he had lost his parents, letting the music wash away every ill feeling and painful memory. He had tried, too, sitting down after her funeral with one of his favorite compositions and hesitantly plucking out the opening notes. It was odd, but sitting down in front of those shiny black-and-ivory keys, hearing the phantom notes stringing their way through the air like brushstrokes on a canvas… it made bile rise in his throat like the thought of the bathwater rising, like the memory of her auburn curls spread across the surface of the water, like the tears he was constantly, desperately, barely keeping at bay. Every song, every string, every key reminded Arthur of her, in some small, sparkling way. 

Other men might have seen it as a way to keep a connection with her, despite her loss. Arthur only saw it as a source of more pain. One night, in a bourbon-fueled haze, he’d smashed the lovely grand piano in his house with an axe, and then spent hours sobbing into the splintered remains. He’d only cleaned it up a week later, when he had been sober enough to call Tess and ask for her help in disposing of its remains. That had been one of the stranger ways Arthur’s grief had made itself known. 

It had devastated him at first. Music had been Arthur’s entire life up to that point, and now even the thought of a piano made his stomach turn with a guilt that would have made a Catholic proud. He supposed it was for the best. After all, music had been what led to Bella- what led to Faroe- well. It had led to some fairly awful things for Arthur. Perhaps it was time he gave it up for good. Drinking alcohol was all he seemed to have time for in the day, anyway. 

The whiskey and bourbon and cognac slowly took a hold of his mind. The days turned into weeks, which turned into months, which turned into years, and Arthur was convinced he would be stuck there forever, drinking booze and trying to outrun the nightmares where he was, once again, just a little too late, just a little too distracted, just a little too selfish. 

He had all but accepted and settled into that idea when he finally met Parker Yang, who was, in Arthur’s humble opinion, one of the most gracious, patient, and funny men he had ever had the pleasure of meeting in his life. Arthur couldn’t recall the exact details of how they met. In a bar while he was violently drunk, if he had to guess. He remembered Parker saying he looked like he’d hit bedrock, and he hadn’t been wrong. He remembered a cocktail too, a Blood and Sand, the drink that became their staple whenever they wanted to celebrate after a case went well. None of that quite mattered, though. 

What was important was the fact that Parker saw something in Arthur that night that, in the depths of his self-pity, Arthur had lost touch with: his spark of life. 

And somehow, miraculously, he’d gotten Arthur to see it too.

Parker was a force to be reckoned with when he set his mind to something, and once he decided that Arthur Lester needed human connection, there was little Arthur could do to protest. He tried to avoid him, going to different bars and keeping different hours and even trying to leave town once, but Parker always reappeared, just as chipper and friendly and honest as the moment they met. He tried being mean, being nice, being anything that would get him to go away, but Parker never faltered for a second. Arthur slowly realized that he enjoyed Parker's presence in his life, and began to seek out his company. Parker, in return, offered Arthur a new job as his investigative partner. Slowly but surely, they forged an acquaintance, then a friendship, then something beyond that neither of them could label. 

It was Parker who managed to revive Arthur’s love of music. When he discovered that Arthur used to compose over a cup of tea one night in their office, his eyes had lit up like a twin set of fireflies, sparkling on a dusky summer's evening. It wasn't long before Arthur returned to the office to find a piano tucked up against a once-empty wall, a shiny red ribbon resting against the keys. 

Go on, play me something! Parker had said, a bright smile crowning his face. If we're going to be business partners, I might as well hear your music.

Arthur had hesitated, mumbled some excuse about being out of practice, but Parker insisted. After all, he had paid for the piano already. The least Arthur could do was use it every now and then. So, Arthur swallowed down his guilt and grief as best he could, and played a melody. It was short and improvised, nothing like the grand sonatas or upbeat songs he used to enjoy writing and composing, but it was enough for him to feel the familiar tidal pull of the music, washing over him in warm, comforting waves. Parker had been entirely too impressed with the outcome and Arthur entirely too displeased, but it was a start. 

It had taken time, far more time than Arthur would have ever liked to admit before he was willing to let music back into his life. Most of it happened at Parker’s urging. He seemed to have the strange idea that Arthur actually doing something with his days besides work and drinking would do him some good. But when Arthur finally found himself seeking out the piano after a long day of solving cases, when he finally found himself humming along to songs on the radio, when he finally found himself quietly singing new melodies and mentally filling in the harmonies… that was when Arthur knew he would be okay, in some small, insignificant way.

Arthur found himself thinking about Parker and music and grief on the road to New York. It was some small distraction from the ache in his gut and the worries of infection creeping around in the back of his skull. He wondered if he’d ever get to lay hands on a piano again. Arthur missed that feeling music brought him, he realized, that calm, soothing confidence that made him feel like he could conquer the world. 

Without meaning to, he’d begun to tap out an easy waltz rhythm with his index finger against the steering wheel. He’d always loved a good waltz, even when he was a boy. They always felt so regular and easy, flowing like even drips from a faucet. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two three-

Arthur? John’s smooth, deep voice broke through Arthur’s reverie.

Arthur stopped his tapping. “Hmm?”

What are you doing? John asked.

“Oh, the tapping, you mean?” John hummed in response. Arthur smiled a bit at John’s ever inquisitive nature, just like a child seeking as many answers about the world as they could get their hands on. “I was just thinking about music. A waltz, to be exact. If the tapping is distracting you from the road, I can stop.”

No, no, it’s fine. It’s just- John paused for a moment. Arthur could almost see the look of concentrated thought on John’s face as he tried to solve the puzzle of wording his thoughts correctly. You were humming too. You do things like that a lot when you’re thinking, I believe.

“Oh, do I? I suppose I never noticed.”

What were you thinking about?

Arthur blew out a long breath and shifted in his seat before deciding to answer. “I was thinking about Parker, in all honesty. I was thinking about how much he did for me after… well, after I lost her.”

…Faroe? John always said her name so cautiously, like he was handling a delicate piece of porcelain that might shatter at the slightest touch. In some strange way, Arthur appreciated that about him. John never presumed that he was allowed to interact with Arthur’s past pains, allowing Arthur to decide how much he felt like reliving them.

“Yes,” Arthur responded, a quiet melancholy beginning to seep into his heart at the mention of her name. “Parker helped me find myself again after she died. I’d lost touch with everything I cared about, including music. He brought it all back. I owed him my life for that.”

There was a pause, and the only sound in the air was the noise of the tires spinning across the pavement as the car continued to speed towards New York.

Arthur? John’s voice emerged from the quiet.

“Yes, John?”

You said that Parker brought music back into your life.

“Yes, I suppose he did.”

Can I ask a strange question? About music, I mean. John sounded so hesitant that Arthur almost wondered if John would lose courage before asking his question.

Arthur dipped his head in a small nod. “Of course you may.”

You were singing something before and I wanted to know: Could you… could I sing with you?

Arthur felt a bemused grin creep across his face as he processed what John was saying. “You… you want to sing with me? I didn’t even know you liked music, John.”

I- Forget it. I’m sorry I asked, John snapped, clearly embarrassed that he had even asked the question.

“No, no, John, it’s not a bad thing. I’m just… surprised, I suppose. I truly didn’t even know you were interested in music.”

I… John sighed deeply, and Arthur heard his wooden pinkie tap twice against the steering wheel. We haven’t had many opportunities to listen to music. But I’ve been thinking about the song you played the first time we met, and I realized that I liked it, even if I didn’t know it then. 

Arthur chuckled a bit at the memory. He’d been so scared, so afraid and alone, that when John had told him to play, he’d almost considered curling up into a ball on the floor and sobbing his eyes out instead. But when he had started playing that song, the lullabye he knew like the back of his hand, all of it had melted away. There had been nothing but the song, and even when he came back to himself and the hellish situation he was trapped in, nothing seemed quite as bad as it had before. The music had offered him such a wonderful escape. Maybe it could do the same for John.

We’ve been together for quite some time, and you always manage to make music sound so… so beautiful. I’ve heard you sing in your sleep, or the shower, and I’ve just been wondering what it’s like, is all, John continued. I want to be part of it.

“You don’t have to defend your request, John,” Arthur said. “We can sing together, if that’s what you’d like.”

I.. I would like that.

“Alright then. Let’s get started, shall we?”

Arthur smiled gently, and began to sing, following the same, easy one-two-three waltz he’d been following before. John was silent for a moment, listening to the song Arthur wove out of thin air, before hesitantly following along. 

Arthur was expecting a lot of things from John when it came to music, but the loveliness of John’s voice was certainly not one of them. It was low and warm and velvety, like a cup of smooth hot chocolate in the dead of winter, like a warm blanket on a chilly autumn day. John’s voice was unsure at first, off-key on some notes and off-timing on others, but the longer he followed Arthur’s lead, the more confident and strong it became, eventually evolving into harmonies that sent shivers down Arthur’s spine. The music they made together was beautiful and haunting like the echoing refrain of a church choir, like a million flowers blooming in tandem, like a meteor shower raining light across the sky.

When it finally came to a gentle stop, there were tears running down Arthur’s face. He couldn’t tell if they were his own or John’s. He sniffled for a moment before he felt John’s hand against his face, gently wiping away the tears.

“John, that was…”

That was…

Arthur laughed lightly through another sniffle. “I didn’t know you had a voice like that.”

I didn’t either. But that felt… good. Could we do it again? John sounded so eager and excited that Arthur couldn’t help the smile that all but split his face in two.

“Of course we can. Maybe I can even transcribe the melody we just sang and turn it into a composition, if you’d like that. We can call it… ‘John’s Waltz’.”

The car continued on, the future looming in the distance but the music still lingering in the air. Arthur could almost taste the notes as they labeled themselves in his head, sweeter than raspberry wine. When John finally spoke again, Arthur could hear the fondness flooding his voice.

I’d like that, Arthur. I’d like that very much.

Here's a thought I had. Arthur humming to himself absent-mindedly. John harmonizing. Both creating a beautiful few seconds of a little harmony that only they can hear. A shared moment between them and only ever them.

[filibusterphil]

Man I really wish the subtitles on this show were better. I know they are not saying Darn It and I would really like to see words that reflect the venom (in Go Na-byul’s case) and fear (in Jeong Eui-sung’s case) that I can hear in their voices and see in their faces.

[captainsophiestark]

Fettuccini Alfredo

Kai Parker x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for @auroracalisto​‘s Halloween challenge and also INCREDIBLY late! Oh well.

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries/The Originals

Prompt: “Who’s there?” “Not me.”

Summary: Y/N was in love with and happily dating Kai Parker before everything went South. Things were looking up after he merged with Luke Parker, but it quickly went downhill after Bonnie trapped him in the 1903 prison world. It ended when Damon killed him, and Y/N's been trying to cope ever since. They've finally moved on and started a new life, far away from all the vampire drama, but all that might be upset when Y/N finds someone in their apartment who's not supposed to be there.

Word Count: 2,062

Category: Fluff, maybe a little bit of angst? Not really I don’t think...

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

"I'm gonna lose my mind before the end of the semester. I just know I am," I said, shaking my head as I put away my laptop and notebooks. My friends and I had been studying in the student union building for the past three hours, and my brain had started to melt around hour two.

"At least that way you'd get to take a leave of absence or something without guilt," muttered one of my friends. We all muttered our exhausted agreement as we started heading home.

"Maybe one of our professors will take pity on us and cancel a test or something," suggested one of my friends. I could tell even she didn't hold out hope for what she was saying, but she said it anyway.

"All we can do is hope," I sighed. "And at least in another few weeks we'll be done with all this nonsense, one way or another."

My friends nodded solemnly as we got out into the brisk night air. We said our exhausted goodbyes and went our separate ways, and I tried to focus on taking deep breaths as I made my way back to my apartment. It had been a long semester, but despite all the tests and work, I was doing better than I had been in a long time.

Over the spring and summer, my former friends in Mystic Falls had killed my boyfriend, Kai Parker. He'd done plenty of terrible things, but there'd been a glimmer of hope for him that I'd been determined to capitalize on after he merged with his brother, Luke. That is, until Bonnie trapped him in a prison world with a bunch of killer heretics, and he came back angrier and more violent than ever.

He did horrible things, and the Mystic Falls gang did horrible things back until Damon killed him at the beginning of the summer.

I'd been devastated. I understood why my friends didn't like him, but he was different around me. I knew there was good in him, and that he was starting to come around. But of course, he never got the chance.

It took me some time to come to terms with the fact that I'd never see Kai again. It still sucked to think about, and even with my busy schedule, he slipped into my thoughts more often than not. But one good thing had come out of the heartbreak: I'd finally decided to move away from Mystic Falls. I ended up in school in the middle of the country, away from all the painful memories, drama, and danger, and I'd almost never been happier.

The only thing that could've made it better was Kai.

I trudged up the stairs to my apartment, incredibly tempted to just pass out in one of the arm chairs in the lobby. Somehow, I resisted the temptation. I managed to make it to my floor, then staggered down the hallway to my door. All I wanted to do was pass out and forget all about the final projects, tests, and papers hovering on my horizon.

I reached into my pocket to pull out my keys, but froze on the spot when I realized my door was already open. It was cracked just slightly, and when I listened, I could hear some noises coming from inside.

Instantly, all thoughts of school disappeared from my mind. I set down my school bag and dug through it to find the stake that I always carried with me.

Just because I left Mystic Falls doesn't mean Mystic Falls left me.

I carefully pushed my door open the rest of the way, then tiptoed inside. As I got closer, I could tell the noises were coming from the kitchen, so I slowly but surely headed that way. I got within a few steps of the doorway when I heard a pot clatter.

"Dammit!" came a voice from the kitchen. I could smell something cooking, like pasta, and the sound of that swearing was hauntingly familiar.

I took up position just outside the doorway of the kitchen, clutching the stake close and getting ready to strike. I took a deep breath, then called out.

"Who's there?"

More pots clattered as the person in my kitchen jumped, then responded.

"Not me."

I froze, trying to process what I'd just heard. It was only two words (three if you counted the curse word), but I could swear I recognized that voice.

It sounded exactly like Kai.

After taking a beat to catch my breath, I swung around the corner. I knew it might not be the smartest move, but I couldn't help it. I had to know. I had to see for myself.

As soon as I made it to the kitchen, I froze. The stake slipped out of my hand and clattered to the ground, but I didn't even notice. Somehow, I was staring at the one and only Kai Parker, standing in the middle of my kitchen (and making an absolute mess) despite being dead.

At the sound of the stake hitting the ground, Kai whirled around to face me. He had a sheepish grin on his face, and most importantly, he looked wonderfully, amazingly alive.

"You weren't supposed to be home yet," he said. "I wanted to surprise you with dinner."

"I... you... Kai, how are you here?" I cried. Every bone in my body screamed at me to run to him, hold him tight, and never let him go, but I made myself pause. With everything that I'd seen and done, I couldn't just believe it so easily. I had to make sure it was really him.

Kai shrugged, still looking a little unsure of himself. "I caught a flight out of the first airport I could get to. Used a little magic to find out where you ended up. Used a little more magic to open your door."

"Kai."

"Alright, alright. Honestly, I'm not sure how I got here. One minute, my life was flashing before my eyes after Damon drove a stake through my heart. The next, I saw a bright light in front of me. It felt like you, calling me home. So I followed it. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in a shallow grave in Mystic Falls."

I just kept staring at him, waiting for more of an explanation, but it didn't come. After a few beats, Kai sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Come on, Y/N, I'm the most powerful heretic there is, but I don't know everything."

"What do you know? What can you tell me to prove to me it's really you?"

Kai looked shocked, like he hadn't even considered I'd ask that question. He paused and thought for a moment, then looked back at me with the same wolfish grin I'd come to love.

"I know that you've got a birthmark shaped like a bunny rabbit on your-"

"Alright alright! I get the point, you're for real!" I yelled, cutting him off. Kai just grinned at me, and as the heat slowly faded from my cheeks, I realized what his remark meant: he was for real.

Kai had actually come back to me.

My face broke into a grin, and I raced across the kitchen without a second thought. I tackled Kai at full-speed, wrapping him in the tightest hug I possibly could and burying my face in his neck. He caught me without faltering a step, putting that superstrength to use.

"I missed you too," Kai chuckled, wrapping his arms tighter around me.

Tears of happiness and relief made their way down my face as I lifted my head and kissed Kai square on the mouth. I trailed kisses over his lips, cheeks, and nose, smiling through the tears at the feeling of having Kai in my arms again.

"Hey, hey. It's okay, sweetheart. I'm right here, and I'm never going anywhere again," he said, rubbing circles on my back and trailing a hand through my hair.

"I missed you so much, Kai," I said, blinking up at him.

"I can tell." He grinned, but it quickly faded as he took in my state again. "I promise, I'll never do this to you again. I'm never going to leave you again, not for anything."

"Wh... what about Damon? And the rest of the Mystic Falls gang?" I choked out. I hated to ask it, but I couldn't really relax until I did. I knew Kai. I knew how much he wanted to get revenge when someone wronged him. It's what escalated everything so terribly the last time in Mystic Falls.

"What about them?" he asked. I could tell he was trying to make light of the situation, but I wasn't having it. I just kept staring at him until he sighed and sobered up. "You don't have to worry about that, Y/N. I'm not doing anything about them. None of them even know I'm alive."

I raised an eyebrow, and Kai continued.

"Look, I'm not going to pretend the thought never crossed my mind. They killed me. I wanted revenge. I thought about everything I could do to them to make them pay, especially as I was digging myself out of that shallow grave. Oh baby, did I get creative."

He smiled to himself, and I frowned. His speech so far was certainly not making me more confident in anything.

"But, but, then I thought about you," he said, clearly reading the expression on my face. "And I thought about... about how much you mean to me. And... honestly, I still don't understand it myself... I walked away. I realized I wanted to be with you... more than I wanted to kill them. Is that weird?"

Just like that, I was crying again.

"No Kai. It's not weird. It's wonderful." I leaned up on my toes and kissed him, lingering a lot longer this time. He hummed and pulled me tighter to him, then deepened the kiss. I ran my hands through his hair and he moaned, but after a minute, I made myself pull away.

"Come on, sweetheart. What'd you do that for?" he muttered, nuzzling into my neck and starting to kiss up and down it.

"Kai, as much as I want to continue this, you're gonna burn my apartment down if we don't deal with the mess on the stove," I said, gently pushing him off me. He stepped back, a sheepish grin on his face.

"I thought it'd be nice to make you dinner to surprise you. It seemed like the kind of thing the guy always does in those romcoms you showed me."

I smiled. "You're better than any of those guys, Kai, I promise. And believe me, you definitely surprised me, even without a nice, fancy dinner."

He smiled and kissed me again, then pulled away and stepped back to give me a clear path to the stove. I quickly took the pot off the heat and turned off the burner.

"What were you even trying to make?" I teased. Kai huffed and elbowed me playfully.

"Fettuccini alfredo. Your favorite," he said.

"I love you, and it's so sweet of you to try, but this is not fettuccini alfredo." I paused, moving around to grab some new noodles from the cabinet. "Don't you have magic or something you could use to make pasta?"

"Yeah, but it didn't seem as romantic."

I smiled and turned back to Kai, taking a moment to appreciate that he was really here and back with me. I kissed him, then took his hand and turned back to the stove.

"Don't worry. Now that you're back, we have all the time in the world to make fettuccini alfredo and anything else we want to do."

[farfromharry]

You talk too much | Peter Parker fic

Peter Parker x Villain!reader

Summary: Peter cannot fall in love with a criminal, he can’t, right? So why does he find you so attractive and charming? And will mr stark be mad at him for accidentally kissing you after you wouldn’t shut up?

Word count - 3761

Warnings - mention of guns, nothing else i dont think

━━━━━━━━━♡♥♡━━━━━━━━━

Peter’s job was to protect the city of New York, that was a given, hell he was a superhero. But, sometimes stopping a crime took a lot more work than a few quick punches and a pair of handcuffs, even with the boy’s superstrength.

In his eyes you were a lady, not that you’d label yourself as so personally, but Peter was brought up by his Aunt May to treat ladies with respect. With that being said it meant he wasn’t going to go for the more violent approach with you, instead attempting to talk you out of keeping your gun pointed at the bank worker's face.

“Excuse me, I don’t think that’s how you make a transaction.” You chuckled to yourself, not even turning your head over your shoulder where you would’ve locked eyes with that familiar spandex spider suit. You assumed this was just a brave civilian in the bank, thinking he was the next Captain America there to save the day. You were planning on keeping the light mood going, teasing the man back.

“Oh really, maybe you were just taught wrong.” There was a grin on your lips as he stumbled over his words, trying to think of what to do next. You were growing impatient, deciding you were just going to carry on what you were doing. “Now, if you don’t mind, I was busy.”

Peter heard the man at the desk whimper when you forced the gun closer to him, prompting his hero mindset to set in place, determined to stop you from harming anyone.

“Ma’am, I’m gonna have to ask you to stop that.” You grinned widely, biting your lip to try and contain your smile, keeping up the banter.

“Or what?” you teased, hand slipping over the bank notes in your hand. Peter gulped. He’d been in fights with much scarier looking people than you, but somehow you seemed to have this lasting effect on him that he just couldn’t shake.

“O-Or you’re going to have to deal with me,” he said. He heard you cackle but you didn’t seem to be bothering to put up a fight either. You eventually turned around and saw the red and blue superhero standing there, hands on his hips as he tried to look much tougher than he felt. He felt his breath be taken away as he got a look at your face and he couldn’t believe the most attractive person he’d ever met was a criminal.

“Wait, you’re Spiderman,” you pointed out. He felt his lips curling into a grin at the fact that you knew who he was. But he quickly reminded himself he was here to stop your wrong doings, not fall in love. You saw his slip up as the perfect opportunity to continue flustering him; the money wasn’t actually that important to you anyway.

You more or less handed yourself over and let him web your hands together, much to his surprise, just so you could keep up your teasing. When he didn’t answer your statement you took that as your sign to just keep going. “You’re so cute.”

His head whipped up and you saw the eyes on his mask widen, mimicking the facial expression of the mystery boy man underneath it.

“Wh-What, I’m not cute. I-I’m scary a-and dangerous,” he stuttered. You let out a laugh, making Peter’s heart simultaneously flutter and sink at the same time. He thought you looked beautiful when you laughed, and he was cursing himself for thinking that way about a so-called criminal he’d just caught.

“Oh yeah, I’m just shaking in my boots right now, tough guy.” He tugged you by your bound hands over to a pillar in the bank, making sure you stayed there while he let the hostages out of the building to safety. He always had one eye on you, so he could see the way yours never left his figure as he moved, at least not until he was back standing in front of you.

“The police are on their way,” he informed you. He saw your lips form a small pout and a tiny part of him felt guilty for his actions, but with a quick reminder that you’d just held an innocent man at gunpoint, those feelings went away.

“You’re no fun.”

He rolled his eyes, not that you could see, continuing his pacing as he waited for the tell tale signs of the ominous sirens.

“‘M just doing my job.”

There were a few moments of silence where Peter thought maybe you’d had enough of the talking, but his blissful fantasy was quickly crushed by the reality of your sweet voice filling his ears another time.

“So, what’s your name?” It was clear you were just trying to make conversation, whether to pass time or as a distraction he didn’t know, but he didn’t really want to indulge a thief.

He was quick to respond, a practiced answer almost from how many times he’d been asked that exact question by fans. “I can’t tell you.”

You hummed quietly. For a second he thought maybe you’d give up, but it was becoming evident that you don’t tend to give up easily.

“So, what do I call you if you won’t tell me your name?” you asked, bringing your tied hands up to admire the complexity and intricacy of the webs donning your hands as you watched him from the corner of your eye pace up and down the room. When you didn’t get a response you kept going again, another thing Peter noticed you did a lot. “Mr man?” You giggled to yourself at how ridiculous it sounded. “Spidey? SpiderBoy? Spiderling? Spi-“

“Can you please stop talking for just a minute?” he snapped, hoping he could get some silence to figure out his thoughts. Your jaw dropped mockingly, letting out a giggle.

“He speaks,” you announced, watching as he finally came to a standstill. He turned to you and you could see the whites of the eyes on his mask get wider as he focused on where your eyes were. He grew deeply suspicious at the way you seemed to be looking at his webs, almost as if you were trying to figure a way out.

“What are you doing?” he questioned, gloved finger pointing at your hands.

You grinned manically, enjoying the way you made him so nervous with even the simplest of gestures. “Just admiring your handiwork. Very impressive if I do say, Mr Spider.”

The way you said it had Peter believing you’d somehow tampered with the webs on your hands, the man coming closer to you in case he needed to fix anything. His webs were incredibly strong, they’d held a ferry together only a few years prior for God sake, why did he think a girl around his age would be able to break them.

At this point he’d had enough of your teasing.

“Can we please just sit in silence until the cops arrive?” he more or less begged. You sighed.

“Whatever you say, Spiderman.”

He only turned his back on you for a split second when he felt your fingertips grazing the back of his suit, his gloved hands shooting out to grab the accused hand.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

You shrugged innocently. “Jus’ wanted to feel the suit, sir.”

He dropped your hands and took a few steps backward, creating a distance between you both that he enjoyed much more.

The sounds of close distance sirens from outside startled you both, a grin breaking out on Peter’s face as he was going to be able to finally head home and no longer have to deal with you in a mere few minutes.

Unfortunately, in his excitement he’d taken his eyes off of you for just a second, glancing in the opposite direction where you took your chance of escape. “Well, I guess this is goodbye,” he said.

He turned back to the pillar to see you were no longer there, panic striking in his chest as he furiously searched the room for you. He heard a sweet call of his hero name that drew his attention up towards one of the high windows of the bank, not accessible for a regular everyday person, which he assumed you were.

He couldn’t even begin to voice his confusion. “How did you- What-“

You held up the small bottle of web dissolver for him to see, the one Mr Stark had suggested he start to take with him on patrol to solve incidents like the time Peter accidentally webbed himself to the side of a building and had to call his mentor for help, that was an incredibly embarrassing day for him and his cheeks were almost permanently inflamed red that entire week. It pieced together in his mind that when he’d felt you touch his suit you’d actually been taking the bottled liquid that he’d carelessly attached to his suit.

You giggled loudly at the size of the mask's eyes, the man encased in a vivid bubble of confusion. You blew him a teasing kiss. “Until next time Spidey.”

»»——⍟——««

Unluckily for Peter, you kept popping up all over the city in the next few months. He was always hot on your tail but you somehow always managed to make that final escape with methods that he never saw coming. He really didn’t understand how you did it.

This time around you’d cornered him in one of the many alleyways of Queens, catching him off guard during his quiet night of patrol.

“Oh, Spidey,” you teased, hands pressed to his suit clad chest. “Won’t you ever learn?”

He didn’t plan on letting you go this time. You’d outsmarted him upwards of three times this week, and he was growing tired of it.

“Can you let me have this one? Jus’ make it a little easier for me,” he more or less begged. He listened as you cackled, very clearly finding it amusing to have the hero beg at your feet.

You traced your nails over the fabric of his suit, seeing the shiver it caused. “Are you getting bored of our little game already?” you pouted.

He didn’t respond, leaving you to be the one to keep the conversation going. Little did you know Peter was just practically malfunctioning at the close proximity you were sharing.

“Well I should keep it more interesting for you then, huh?” you teased, taking a few steps back from his frozen figure. You saw his head cock adorably as confusion laced his mind. He always got a little spacey when he was around you. “Come get me Spiderboy.”

Your angelic laughter echoed through the gap in the tall apartment buildings and you headed for one of the ladders that led to a fire escape. Parker was stunned for a few seconds, watching you get away how he was sure you did every time. It seemed so easy, especially for someone unenhanced like yourself compared to him.

“You’re mine this time,” he muttered.

He shot one of his webs up to the wall beside you, another giggle leaving your throat at how easily he suspected he was going to catch you.

He followed you for a while, unsuspecting of what was waiting for him around the corner of the next rooftop.

“You gotta catch me if you want me. Come on pretty boy.” The nickname had him stuttering in his movements, missing what should’ve been the next web coming out of his web shooters, causing him to fall just slightly before he picked up the rhythm again.

He was so close, you were in reaching distance, and definitely in the distance of his webs, but he thought the whole thing would be so much more enjoyable if he was able to catch you in his arms so he knew you couldn’t escape.

However something claimed his waist before he could claim yours, the man being tugged to a halt in his running. “What-“

He looked around curiously, the whites of the eyes on his suit widening when he saw the familiar looking tendril wrapped around his body. His hands were quickly bound by the monster too, the boy giving up as he watched you greet the brunette sweetly.

“You planned this?” he questioned dumbly. Of course you had, it was such a stupid question to ask. He could tell you were getting ready to make your escape again, his body sagging disappointedly. Just a small part of him believed you were better than every other villain he’d encountered, but apparently not.

“It’s just so easy to trap you,” you tutted, patting his cheek sweetly as you shared one last look with the villain sitting only inches away. There was a slight ounce of guilt weighing down at you as you watched him struggle in the bounds from the creature. But you still had some faith he could escape to fight you again one day, plus he seemed nice enough for a villain.

“Go easy on him, Eddie?” you asked, wrapping your arms around the suit clad hero’s neck affectionately. Peter tried to aggressively shove you off, however found it was no use. You heard the journalist mutter something about letting Venom decide the fate of your little boyfriend.

You just rolled your eyes, ignoring the way the boy in your arms nervously shivered at the thought of the parasite he’d encountered more than a few times.

“Sorry about this pretty boy, hope we can still be friends.” You kissed his masked cheek, flashing him a toothy smile before practically skipping out of sight, once again making a rather grand exit off of the rooftop, offering him a cutesy wave.

“And then there were two, Spiderman.”

»»——⍟——««

Peter was hoping to not run into you on this mission. He knew it was a large possibility because you were literally everywhere, but he didn’t want Tony to know of your existence, he thought his mentor would think less of him if he knew he kept being outsmarted by a criminal.

Of course he couldn’t have anything he asked for, catching sight of you before you saw him.

To his knowledge you worked alone, so he didn’t understand why you were now helping a huge crime organisation that had made its way onto the avengers radar. And you may have been breaking the law on multiple occasions, but he still expected more from you than to be working with such bad people.

You hadn’t seen him yet, he and Tony were trying to be as stealthy as they could while they figured out how to go about this. But it was only a matter of time before you did, and when your eyes landed on the bug for the first time he was sure you wouldn’t be able to stop with the snarky comments coming his way.

It went down exactly as he’d expected. Flashes of red and blue whipping past your eyes that notified you of the arachnids' presence.

“Ahh, my favourite spider. We meet again,” you teased, flashing your favourite friendly superhero an evil looking grin. The kid felt Tony’s eyes flicker over to him for a few moments, but Peter didn’t move to make eye contact, trying to hide his growing embarrassment. He was grateful Tony couldn’t see the bright red tint to his cheeks.

“You know her?” Tony asked, shooting Peter a look before blasting the man that was running in his direction. He watched as his mentee shot a few webs in numerous different directions before turning to give him his full attention.

“It’s a very long story.”

Tony watched the way you alerted all the other criminals in the warehouse of the avengers’ presence, the older man groaning loudly at all the extra work he was going to have to put in now he couldn’t sneak around.

“Well you better start explaining.”

While dodging bullets and other alien-like weapons Peter wasn’t really given the opportunity to explain the full story, keeping in the important parts of course, (and leaving out the ones that might make him look bad).

However, Tony got the gist, letting his mentee know he wasn’t too excited about him failing to do what he thought was such a simple job.

“You better get her this time,” he demanded.

And get you he did. For the first time since you met Peter wasn’t going to let you get away. He gripped onto you with a strong grasp that even you couldn’t have wriggled out of if you tried. Although you found it rather, strangely, comforting, so you probably wouldn’t have tried.

He left the rest of the bad guys to Tony, leaving him to come and find you both in a safe spot on the second floor of the building.

Awe was written all over your face when you watched the infamous hero approach, your mouth practically gaping like an awestruck child.

“Woah, you’re Iron man,” you said, pointing to the man in the suit only a few feet away. “I gotta ask, are your suits really made of iron?”

He turned to look at Peter with disbelief written all over his face, silently asking if you were serious. “Is she always like this?”

“Um, yeah. Pretty much,” he confirmed. You just nodded along, agreeing with the masked hero. Tony rolled his eyes, checking around the warehouse for any more bad guys before he could properly let his guard down.

“Well kid, web her up or something, we need to take her to the cops,” Tony said. Peter glanced at you and you grinned innocently, holding out your hands for him to web like you’d done the first time you’d met. Only now he knew a little bit more about what to expect from you.

“I, uh- Actually I don’t think I should do that.” The older man looked shocked that the brunette had protested, he didn’t know Peter had the courage to speak up for himself.

“And why not?”

“The last time Peter webbed me up I stole his web dissolver and escaped,” you explained. The boy wouldn’t have quite put it that way, maybe tried to give himself a little bit more credit, but the truth was out there now. He shrugged. “Yeah.”

The hero was understandably angry at how easily the kid was tricked by a criminal. He was acting like he’d never accidentally let someone slip out of his hands too, but he also did hold Peter to a higher standard than himself.

“Fine. Just swing her there or something then.”

Peter nodded, not giving you much of a choice as he pulled you into his chest. The longer you stood alone the more chance you had of escape. Usually he’d be more of a gentleman, but considering the stress you’d put him through on his last few patrols, he didn’t grant you the option of refusal.

“Hold on,” he instructed, sending one last look to Mr Stark over his shoulder as he stepped up onto the ledge of the window. You scrunch your nose, wrapping your arms around his neck but still feeling the need to tease anyway, that was who you were.

“What if I don’t want to?” He huffed, shooting his web at the building across the street, tightening his grip around your waist. “Then you’ll probably fall to your death.”

Your eyes widened. You didn’t know if he was being serious or not, but you didn’t get time to ask before he was leaping into the open air, a scream rippling from your lips as you clinged to him nervously.

A shrill scream ripped from your throat as your grip on the masked hero tightened. Your eyes were shut tightly as you tried to block out any notion of what was going on. He could probably sense your fear and hear your heart racing.

This kind of adrenaline was not something you were a fan of.

You refused to move your head from where it was buried in his suit until you felt your feet being firmly planted on some kind of ground. At the moment you didn’t care what or where it was. You’d even be happy to land on the steps of the police station.

When you finally did land you could hear his laughter, a sound that was angelic to you normally but now was only aggravating you.

“That was mean,” you pouted, ignoring the way his chest shook with laughter. It took a few seconds to register your location, noticing this wasn’t the place Mr Stark had told Peter to take you. You really didn’t understand, you thought after your encounters the last few weeks he’d do anything to be able to turn you in.

“What? This isn’t the police station. Where are we?” you asked. Your eyebrows furrowed as you looked up at the hero, his hands still tightly holding your waist so you were pressed closely against him.

“I-I can’t turn you in.”

A smug grin split on your face, one that Peter wished he could wipe away, and he’d try if he didn’t find it so adorable. You were going to take every opportunity you could to tease the fact that he was so weak for you.

“Has Spiderman fallen in love, and with little ol’ me?” With your rambling you failed to notice him lifting the mask to just below his nose, allowing you to see the bottom of his face for the first time since you’d met. He grew sick of your teasing, not wanting you to keep reminding him that he was breaking Tony Stark’s trust.

“Shut up,” he demanded, not giving you a chance to reply before he was smashing his lips on yours. You were shocked for a few seconds but eventually melted into him. You were glad that you finally wore him down, because truly you did start to feel something in your heart every time you saw the boy in the blue and red suit.

Your arms snaked around his neck, tugging him closer to you as you enjoyed the feel of his soft lips. Neither of you wanted to let go, you were enjoying this far too much, but the burning of your lungs for oxygen called for it.

He pulled away from your lips, chest rapidly rising and falling as he tried to get his breathing under control. “You talk too much,” he stated.

You grinned, nodding your head as you fully intended on kissing him again. “I’ve been told that before.”

━━━━━━━━━♡♥♡━━━━━━━━━

peter parker taglist → @call-me-baby-gir1​ @parkerlovebot​​ @sinisterspidey​​​​ @givebuckyhisplumsnow @lowkey-holland @hollandcrush @wizkiddx @sannie-san-shine @sonnydoesrandomshit @hopeless-romantic-baby @thehumanistsdiary @dummiesshort @itsbieberxholland @lillucyandthejets @bvttercupbby @spideyspeaches @celestialholland @captainamirica @lou-la-lou @slutforsr @tayyx @annathesillyfriend @paninipress @lovableparker @whoeveniskendall @dhtomholland @multixfandomwriter @magicalxdaydream @hallecarey1 @avengers-hamiltrash @aayaissaa @jacksnoodles @edmundspevensea @lovehollandy12 @peterbenjiparker @the-girl-in-the-chair @tom-softie @rqmanoff @hogwartsmarvelmommy @elishi03 @mn-jun @nocturnalms @kayasholland @peter-parkers-gf @wrendermeuseless @ladyluvr @ccosmic-illusion @camelliaflow3r @ellabellabus07

[racke7]

"Amity Park is a black-hole for background-checks, so obviously nothing is happening there." Boring.

"Amity Park is an exporter of Violent Criminals and anyone from there should probably be arrested preemptively." Exciting!

Amity Parkers are constantly annoyed by cops suddenly charging into their "friendly greetings" and waving guns around. They don't mind people waving guns around, but like... it's kind of rude to just interrupt you know?

The Heroes are all very confused about them. "They tried to kill each other moments ago, why are they not at all hostile towards each other?"

The Heroes are suspecting mind-control of some sort, but nothing meant to "deprogram" them actually seems to work? There are no drugs, no weird trigger-based traumas, not even any magic spells or anything-...

Well, there's a little bit of magic. Like. Something that stops them from swearing? Which they claim is from some kind of genie-wish made in their hometown?

So, whatever is causing this? The Heroes clearly need to investigate Amity Park.

They don't know if they're expecting a cult, or some magical shenanigans or what. They just want answers for why seemingly normal people would suddenly try to murder each other for seemingly no reason.

Meanwhile? The GIW was disbanded years ago at this point, and Vlad had to deal with the consequences of this.

Not with dismantling their bases or whatever. No. He was an investor. He put a LOT of money into that organization. Purely as a way to screw over Danny (it was a lot of fun, having a government kill-squad ready to aim at his arch-nemesis at a moment's notice).

And now they're not around anymore. So he's basically wasted all of that money. Poured it all into a black-hole.

Which wouldn't be an issue, because he could always just steal more. Is what he would've said before he revealed himself as a half-ghost to Danny.

He can't rob people anymore, because Danny will know. And not only will he openly mock him for being so "shit at business" that he needs "outside help", he'll also break Vlad's nose if he catches him in the act.

And Danny has the exact kind of luck where he'll always catch Vlad in the act. (Read: the other ghosts like Danny better, so they tattle.)

This is especially a problem because Amity Park is run on a shoestring-budget at the best of times. And with all of the collateral-damage from the ghost-attacks? They're pretty much shit out of luck.

Now, Vlad could just cut his losses and move back to Wisconsin. But Jack at one point volunteered to be "the next mayor", so Vlad can't leave. Leaving would mean admitting that Jack beat him at something. He can't let that happen. He has to win.

And the only way to win is to somehow (impossibly) make this budget work.

So Vlad decides to cheat.

Ghosts are willing to work for peanuts (or boxes). So he just needs to sell "friendly government-employed ghosts" to the masses.

Which... is a smash-hit? Vlad somehow becomes "the savior of the town" because he convinced the ghosts to stop attacking the living and start being employed.

Vlad is quick to rub this in Danny's face. Danny breaks his nose.

Now. Obviously. Ghost employees? Not exactly the golden standard for work-ethics. They're more likely to "fuck around" than "do the job", and everyone knows it.

So nobody is really worried about "losing their job to ghost-immigrants", but they're very worried about ghosts running around without supervision.

Which causes a kind of buddy-system to form, where Vlad basically only has to pay one person to have two workers. And that helps a LOT with his budget, and also with employee-satisfaction. For some reason.

SO. When the Heroes finally arrive in Amity Park?

They find it overrun by ghosts. Ghosts everywhere. Doing jobs. Hanging out. Fighting. Making friends.

Aaaaand suddenly? It's starting to make a lot more sense why Amity Parkers are so violent. Look, they're in the middle of a massive culture-exchange with a species who considers "stabbing" to be a "friendly greeting".

And... they might be contagious? With "ectoplasmic contamination"? And nobody will explain what "ectoplasm" is except for "it's the green stuff. can't miss it".

The Heroes are now very sincerely considering putting Amity Park into an enforced quarantine away from the rest of the world. Because what the fuck?

Paulina was walking home from her little self-care date~ when she noticed a familiar figure, she slowed, double checked to make sure it wasn't some random civilian, grinned and-

threw her knife!

Wes caught it, because of course he did cautious bastard. And yes she realises this now that fighting on the street was not the smartest move but it was a long time since she saw her friends from Amity and they got along fairly well with Weston.

So they had a good time, she managed to nip him on the cheek with her knife (after taking it back) he left her with a new bruise (it will be gone by tomorrow noon) and then they were both taken in by the police...

And now she has to explain why she did what she did to the GCPD and Ancients help probably Batman as soon as she gets back to her apartment. Who could've guessed that having a friendly brawl would be so taboo in Gotham? (who is she kidding of course it's suspicious it looked like they were trying to kill each other to any normal person!)

and she's not sure how much she should say!

[fiction-boys-rule]

Your Love-Fueled Soldier

Pairing: Eliot Spencer x non-gender specific reader (established relationship)

Warnings: extreme violence, mentions of death, torture, slight gore

Word Count: 2,865

Summary: When a job backfires on the team, Eliot and you find yourselves in a dangerous situation. But who will pay the ultimate price?

I felt like tormenting y'all, so here you go. Beware of the warnings for this one please. This is non-gender specific for the reader and I made it as general and inclusive as I could. Thank you for reading. Hope you enjoy :)

Eliot's laugh is something you would give almost anything just to hear more often. Especially when it is a reaction to something you had said. You don't remember what you had said to make him laugh, as you sit on the floor against a wall. All you know is that sound in itself brought such warmth and joy to you. More than you could ever imagine. You reach over and grip Eliot's hand, wishing for him to squeeze it back. All you know is you would give anything to hear it now. They weren't supposed to be able to find you. Hardison said he had the building under surveillance. Nate said you were safe. They lied.

Eliot's laugh had erupted from him like lava from a volcano, his arm had gripped you tighter as his body folded. You had laughed along with him, enjoying that you were able to put him at ease with the current situation. As you rounded the corner of the hallway, your body had let out a rough gasp as Eliot's arm forcibly crushed you to his body even more.

You had let out a short protest before your eyes met the sight in front of you.

More than two dozen men, armed and clothed for combat. The man in front looked both of you over, his gaze like steel. His hand held his gun steadily. The tattoos on his neck and his demeanor made you shiver. The way Eliot was holding you confirmed your suspicions.

They were not here to rough you up a little bit. They were here to kill you.

Somehow, the team had not found out about the criminal ties of your mark. Somehow, this one had slipped. Your mark had disappeared, the combined skills of the team ending in no newfound information on his whereabouts whatsoever. This mark was good, and it scared you. Nate's constant assurances hadn't calmed any of you, so Hardison agreed to find makeshift safehouses for the time being. Nate and Sophie had one, Parker and Hardison had one, and Eliot and you had agreed to pair up as well. Nate said splitting up would be for the best. Until things were figured out.

One week, Nate had said. One week for the mark to show any trace, and if not, Nate would be pulling all of you from the job.

You had all thought he was just a coward who got spooked and scurried off to who knows where, but now you know you were all terribly wrong. He had gone for reinforcements.

You have no idea how the hell they had bypassed Hardison's security. But you knew that if they were good enough to kill, they were going to make sure to finish the job without any interruptions or possible suspicion on them or their investments.

The man talked in a foreign language you didn't understand, commanding other men forward. The way Eliot didn't move forward did not do anything to give you more hope.

Before you knew it, shots rang out. You screamed, holding Eliot's body as he stumbled. He hit the floor, and your hands and eyes moved over his body. He was bleeding quickly. One in his shoulder, another in his leg, and the other grazed his head.

They weren't missing by accident. They were elongating this enough to give you a merciless and painful death.

You cried, your hands cradled Eliot's head. His eyes looked up at you, a painful expression in them. He almost looked scared, doubtful almost. As if he couldn't believe that this was happening. They had caught you off guard, and you were both going to pay for it.

Eliot never goes down.

A pair of arms wrapped around you and violently heaved you from Eliot's body. His jaw and hands clenched as you were pulled from him, kicking and screaming. He had tried to sit up and grab you, but instead earned another bullet into his body. Your hands reached behind you to grab at your assailant's face. Your attack was cut short by another man punching your stomach, hard. The wind was knocked out of you, making you lower your hands.

You heard Eliot's screams, your heart broke at the sound of them. Even through his pain, he was pleading for you. For your life.

Eliot had always prioritized teaching the team basic self defense skills, you knew that much. But after you had begun your relationship, he continuously encouraged you to participate in his self defense lessons and always made you practice sparring with him. You knew he was afraid of something happening to one of you if he wasn't there. But for you, this fear seemed to grow tenfold. You had been annoyed at his protectiveness and determination at first, but had slowly grown to be grateful for it, knowing it was his way of keeping you safe and showing his love for you. If you hadn't been so in shock and sure that you were both going to die, you might have actually tried to put those skills he taught you to use.

Shock is a funny thing. It paralyzes you, muting your mind's screams to your body to just do something, anything.

Love is a funny thing. It can completely shock you to life, or shatter you to your core. Seeing Eliot there on the floor had both shocked and shattered you, leaving your mind and body in a numb and stagnant state. Hope had abandoned you as soon as you were ripped from Eliot's body. This was surely your end, though you wished it wasn't.

You were hurled to the floor, landing with a hard thud. Your head throbbed at the impact. You looked up to meet eyes with their leader, his body bending over you. His eyes stared at you as though you were an interesting object he was observing. Curious, but nonchalant. Almost as if he was entertained.

He spoke softly, and ran a finger up from your stomach to your chest. He poked your collarbone, making you flinch. Out of the corner of your eyes, you had seen men crowding over Eliot, kicking him. The man's hand closed over your throat, making your body lurch from the force. He immediately put immense pressure on it, ripping your oxygen flow from you immediately. You had croaked out, your hands feebly wrapped around his wrists in a despondent effort to release yourself from his grip. Your legs had flailed about, your body jerking with your movements. His grip never loosened once, nor did his stare waver. He was watching you, and he was enjoying it.

Your vision had started to go black at the edges and you could hear your rapid heartbeat in your ears. You hadn't wanted to die like this. But you had known the risk of joining the team. You just hoped the team would be able to go on without Eliot and you.

He was going to kill you. And there was nothing you could do.

Suddenly, through your blurry vision and hindered hearing, you had heard gunshots and had seen Eliot rising from the floor.

You knew Eliot wouldn't have gone down without a fight. But still, your heart went out to him. There were too many of them. It was impossible. The man's hold nor stare never faltered. You were seconds away from losing consciousness, and your life.

He was not trained to survive. He was trained to kill. He was trained to finish the job. He was trained to kill you, at all costs.

The gunshots had stopped, the only sound you had heard was your whimpers and deep gasps in despair.

Eliot was surely dead. Now you were next.

A gunshot rang out right above you, and the hands around your neck suddenly slackened. You could faintly feel liquid dripping onto your face. Everything had felt so vivid but so distant at the same time, the sudden return of your oxygen flow making you dizzy and disoriented. The man's body slumped on top of you, making you groan from the weight. Your throat stung, and your eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets. Your had tried to blink away the tears, and your eyes welcomed Eliot into your line of sight.

He looked half dead.

His clothes were bloody, so were his hands. His face had a hard expression on it, matching what he had just done. But his eyes had been the worst. They had a distant look in them, a steely gaze. He had looked at you as though you were a stranger, or an object. As though you meant nothing to him. You had never seen him like that before. His gaze moved down to the gun in his hands. He had disarmed it and thrown it across the floor. It looked as though the action was more robotic than a conscious effort. You knew he hated guns, you had never seen him use one before. He had then unceremoniously keeled over, falling to the floor again. Though he managed to catch himself with his hands.

You started to cry, looking over at him and willing the relief of him being alive to calm you.

He then leaned over, pushing weakly at the man still on top of you. Your hands responded at last, helping him to push. His body landed beside you, his blood on your shirt. Eliot's arms give out, his head falling back to land on the floor. You pushed yourself up from the floor despite your body's every protest and weakly moved over to Eliot. Your hands shakily caressed his cheek, your fingers running over his blood slicked skin and hair. His eyes stared at the ceiling, looking as though he was in another dimension.

That was when it hit you.

Eliot loved you. You had never fully understood what that entailed, despite what the team had repeatedly tried to hint at with their short suggestions.

Eliot loved you, just like the others. But his love for you was different. You had almost died, and Eliot too. But his body, mind, and soul went through a complete reset once he saw you on the brink of death. You realized then, as your hands caressed your detached lover, that every fiber of his being had made it his mission to save you.

To protect you. To keep you alive. Even if it cost his life.

Eliot was trained to survive, you knew that. But he was also trained to keep people safe. That was his job. And Eliot always did his job. No matter what. You were reminded of his secret past with Moreau, and how much he kept it from everyone because of what he did. What he had become.

Eliot had become what he hated most to save you.

He had turned off all of his emotions except for his anger, all of his morality, just to do what needed to be done. What he knew he could not do if he was not disconnected from reality.

You wondered if this was worse than what he did for Moreau.

You hated that your love, which you had thought to be such a beautiful and wonderful blessing, turned out to be the cause of such violence and torment by the hands of one man. One man that you loved so much, despite his constant thoughts about being not enough for you. Not good enough.

But some selfish part of you deep inside was secretly grateful that he was alive, even if it meant that this could produce unpredictable results. You hated that selfish part of you. The one that was too selfish to let him go, let him be at peace instead of having to live a life of mental affliction.

You couldn't imagine your life without him. And you didn't want to.

He had groaned, the first sound out of his mouth.

It wasn't a laugh, but it was enough.

You had moved his hair back from his face and ignored the blood. His eyes had closed, making a surge of newfound anxiety go through you. Your hands were still shaking, your breaths still uneven. But Eliot was alive. And that was enough for you.

Your eyes had caught sight of the blood seeping through the bullet wound in his leg. Your hands left his face, and instead they gripped your shirt and pulled it from your body. You tied it around his leg tightly to stop the blood flow, making him groan again. You had then apologized to him softly, your voice sounding out of place. Hoarse and weak.

You willed all of your remaining strength into surrounding his upper body with your arms to pull him into your lap. His hands laid limp at his sides. You felt his chest taking heavy breaths, the sweat drenching his shirt. The dark bruises present on his visible skin had made you afraid to see what other injuries were covered under his clothes. Some possible scars to remind him of this horrible day. Battle scars. But what had scared you the most was the thought of the mental trauma and non visible scars he will surely carry with him for the rest of his life. Knowing him, most of it will present itself in debilitating nightmares that come during the few hours he does manage to sleep. Ones where he allows himself to be a prisoner inside his mind and body. Hours spent without distracting himself with training or other activities and missions that allow the dark thoughts and memories to be kept at bay for the time being. Only you had known just how fearful he is of them. How crippling they were.

Your eyes looked up, as if your mind was suddenly made aware of where you were. Your eyes raked over all of the bodies, splayed out at irregular angles and bloody. There were so many. You had no idea how Eliot had done it. It honestly scared you. His determination when it came to you. What he was capable of.

Your love-fueled soldier.

As you had sat there, with your slowly diminishing adrenaline and your detached lover in your arms, you vowed to thank him for the rest of your life. Eliot always risked his life every day, without hesitation, for the team. But with you, it was different. Even at the end of the road, where hope was lost and death was certain, he didn't give up. Instead, it had seemed as though his body was shocked to life, energized from the injuries instead of shutting down. He had not risked his life for you today, he had shown that he was ready to give it, as long as it meant that you would live. Your hands tightened around him, vowing again and again in your mind that you would thank him every day. You knew the guilt would come eventually for you, especially on nights when the nightmares would come for him, crippling your soldier. But you also knew that if you were to ever let the guilt consume you, it would mean that Eliot's efforts would have failed. Because if there's one thing that you knew, it was that Eliot would need you more than ever after today. And you were more than happy to be with him for the rest of your life, no questions asked. On the good days, and the bad days too. You would show him just how thankful you were for him saving you, and in turn you would save him from himself. You would not let his own mental warfare take him from you, not as long as you would be there to love and support him.

A blinking red light on a camera caught your attention. You frowned up at it. It started to move up and down, as if saying yes. Comprehension washed over you, and had made more tears spring to your eyes.

Hardison.

Hardison was going to get help.

Everything was going to be okay.

Eliot was going to be okay.

You had looked back down to Eliot, a few of your tears fell on his face.

You leaned your forehead against his with a whimper, as if to say I'm sorry.

Your lips kissed his forehead, as if to say it's going to be okay.

Your hands moved to softly grasp his face, as if to say I'm right here.

Your lips kissed his softly, as if to say I love you.

You leaned your head on his chest and tightened your hold around his, as if to say I'm not leaving you.

You heard sirens wailing nearby, and you could not stifle the sudden sob that pushed its way out of you.

You sat up and leant your head back against the wall as your hands gripped the fabric of Eliot's shirt.

You looked over to the camera again and smiled through the tears. You did not have much more strength to do anything else but nod your head.

You reach over and grip Eliot's hand, wishing for him to squeeze it back.

He does.

[blindingdutchy]

lamentation | ONE

{peter parker x fem!reader AU}

based on All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

SERIES MASTERLIST

word count: 2,725

warnings: thoughts of suicide! unsuccessful attempt! depression, grief, angst

18+!!! minors stay away! TRIGGER WARNING.

Nothing made sense anymore. The world was upside down, all messed up, and you were hanging by a thread. How could it have been a year since the incident? How could you be okay with being older than her now?

Grief is something that nobody expects to be easy, but you never expected it to be quite so hard. Every day people promised that tomorrow would be better, but it never was. It never got better. It never got easier. You were fairly sure it never would, because if it still hurt this bad after thirteen months, twenty-two days, and six hours, how could one more hour, day, month, or year bring any sort of respite?

It couldn't. It wouldn't. Sometimes you wondered if this was your punishment. Maybe you felt this way because you deserved to, because you had earned a life time of suffering when you let her die. Sure, big sisters are supposed to look out for little sisters, but at the cost of their life? That couldn't go unpunished.

Every day was the same since she died. Wake up, wish you hadn't, feel everything and nothing all at once, and go to sleep. It was a strange and horrible existence; people weren't meant to feel so many big things at the same time. The guilt, the shame, the anguish, the longing... it consumed every part of you like a black hole until you were left with nothing. Until you felt nothing, thought nothing, you were nothing.

They were all the same until today. It was your birthday, your eighteenth birthday to be exact, and for once that ever present black hole in your chest was gone. Instead of waking up to the constant weight of all those heavy emotions on your shoulders, you woke up with the familiar numb emptiness you felt at the end of every day.

There weren't words to describe how much that terrified you. Every single day since your sister died, you'd wished endlessly for those painful feelings to go away. You'd begged for relief, for peace, and you'd taken solace in the hollow of the evenings. Waking up already vacant and listless did not bring the comfort you dreamed of.

You were officially older than her. You'd finally reached that first milestone she'd never reach, and the thought of it punched a hole in your chest so large you wondered if there was anything left of you at all. It wasn't fair--how could you celebrate the big ticket birthday she'd yearned for so anxiously? You couldn't.

You didn't deserve to celebrate. You didn't deserve to achieve all those goals she never had the chance to. You didn't deserve to live through all the years, experiences, moments that she never would. You didn't deserve to live.

It was all your fault, after all. It was your fault that she was there that day, it was your fault she lingered behind, and it was your fault she died. If you'd just gone shopping like she'd asked instead of insisting on going to the park, she'd still be here. If you hadn't frozen like an idiot, she'd still be here.

With a mind swimming with all the reasons everything would be better if you just weren't around anymore, you snuck out of your bedroom window. It was finally dark outside; you'd managed to make it through the day for your parents. But, with the day over, you couldn't hold on any longer.

The letter you'd written for your parents to find was tucked under your pillow, and with one final glance around the bedroom you used to share with your sister, you made peace with your life. This was for the best. Everyone would be so much better off if it had been you instead of her, and now you were going to make things right. It wouldn't bring her back, but at least you wouldn't be there as a reminder of what should have been.

As ready as you were, you didn't really have a plan. There were a million possibilities as far as how you could execute your desires, but none of them seemed right. It had to be fast, though, and something that didn't require much work. If it took effort, conscious thought and execution, you wouldn't follow through. You'd learned that the last time.

That was how you ended up on the roof of one of the more swanky apartment complexes. It was a tall building, taller than those surrounding it, and a fall from that height would surely do the trick. Strangely, the moment your feet dangled over the ledge with your bottom firmly planted in place, your mind went blank.

All those thoughts of the stress and pain you caused went silent, and you finally could breathe. With a deep exhale, your body relaxed for the first time since the incident; you didn't feel any of the bad things anymore. There was no pain, no grief, no sadness, nor were there any of those empty or numb feelings. You just felt peace.

The peace was short lived as you looked down to the street far below, though. This was it, this was the end, and suddenly your mind was racing with all the what if's. What if it could get better? What if it didn't work? What if this made everything worse? What if this was a mistake?

What if, what if, what if, "Whatever, just shut up." you gasped, clutching your head in your hands to keep it from spinning. "Get it together, (Y/N), this is the right thing to do."

Pulling out the letter you'd written to your sister, you opened it and cried for the first time in months. You'd long ago stopped crying; despite how many horrible things you'd been feeling, the tears just never came. But reading the words you'd written to her, thinking of her as you came to terms with your decision to join her, it was as if a metaphorical flood gate opened.

Thirteen months, twenty-two days, and seven hours. You couldn't wait any longer. You couldn't do it, do anything, anymore; you just needed to rest. The clock was running out, and your time was up.

"You can do this." you whispered, "For once in your life, do something right."

With shaky hands and weak knees, you scrambled up onto your feet and stood atop the ledge. You weren't that tall, but somehow the new perspective made the drop look so much longer and your stomach heaved with fright. Sobbing, you stumbled back to your knees and threw up the little bit of cake you'd forced yourself to eat earlier that evening.

You wiped the sick from your mouth and stood up again, this time with panting gasps for air and knees that shook so violently you feared you might fall before you were ready to. Maybe that would have been for the best, though, because the longer you looked down the more doubts you had. No one would ever know it was an accident if that were the case.

A sudden noise behind you startled you, and your heart seized in your chest as your knees gave out and you tipped dangerously over the edge. You didn't fall, though, because a sticky substance latched around your arm and dragged you back over until you were laying on the roof. For a moment you just laid there, staring up at the empty sky where the stars were all drowned out by the city lights, and you tried hard to figure out what had just happened.

"Are you okay? Oh--oh my god, are you hurt? What were you thinking? Shit, oh shit, Karen, what do I do?" A masked head leaned over your face, blocking the starless sky from your view, and all the feelings came flooding back like a tsunami. "Um, can you hear me?"

One feeling stood out against the current, and your body tensed as you were overcome with seething, white hot rage. An anger like you'd never felt before; you were furious. How dare he stop you? How dare he ruin everything?

It was Spiderman, the friendly neighborhood hero who'd been gallivanting around Queens for some time now, and that made you even angrier. Spiderman was one of them, one of the ridiculous superheroes who'd killed your sister without a single care in the world. He was one of them, and he'd just stopped you from finally fixing everything they had ruined.

You stood so fast you nearly threw up again, but you swallowed the bile down and hissed, "You should have let me fall. I wanted to fall."

Spiderman pulled you back with a firm grip on the web that was still wrapped around your arm, stopping you in your tracks as you stomped back toward the ledge. "Hey, stop! I'm not going to let you do this." he shouted, but his voice was more nervous than commanding.

"Get out of here, Spiderman. You're not saving the day by stopping me, okay?" you snapped fiercely. No matter how hard you pulled against the webbing holding you back, you couldn't break free. It didn't budge when you pulled at it, clawed at it, or even pried it. "What the hell is this shit?"

He pulled you in further, and you stumbled over your feet as you tried to keep your distance. "I'm not going to let you do this. You don't need to do this." he repeated, this time more firmly.

For a moment you were silent, studying the masked hero as he stared back at you with a hidden face. "You don't even know me. Why do you care?" you tried again, but your voice was softer, more fragile. The numbness was creeping back in again and you knew that you wouldn't be able to follow through anymore, even if he let you go.

"I do know you, (Y/N), and you don't need to do this. We can--I can help you. Let me help you."

Your eyebrows furrowed as you narrowed your eyes suspiciously. How the hell did he know your name? Did you know him? Even though your mind was running wild with unanswered questions, you seethed, "You can't help me. Unless you can go back in time and kill me instead of my sister, you can't fucking help me."

The eyes of his mask widened at your shout, and he stammered, "I--no, I can't do that, but I can help you. I can be your friend, you... you can talk to me. I know what it's like to lose someone, (Y/N)."

You scoffed, "Do you know what it's like to watch a family member die right in front of you? Do you know what it's like to see someone get killed, and it's all your fault? You can't help me!"

"I do, actually." he stated.

Your entire body slumped at the revelation, the anger leaving you as the numbness finally took over completely. It was silent for a few long moments as you cried noiselessly, the only sounds being those of your still frantic breathing and the bustling traffic far below. "If you know, then you know why I have to do it." you whimpered.

Spiderman dropped the web keeping you in place as you collapsed onto your butt, your legs too weak to support you anymore from exhaustion. "I know why you think you have to, but I also know why you're wrong. This isn't the answer." he responded, tentatively taking a few steps closer to you.

You didn't respond, looking up at him as you wiped your cheeks and nose weakly, and he took the chance to continue, "I'm going to make you a deal. I'm going to take my mask off and show you who I am. If you still want to do it after, fine, but at least you'll know who will be blaming themselves afterwards."

True to his word, his fingers creeped under the edge of his mask as he stared you down intensely. Your breath faltered as you watched, completely still as you realized he was serious. Spiderman was going to reveal his identity to you, and you knew that once he did it was game over. As much as you felt the world would be better off without you, you couldn't bare the thought of leaving someone behind to feel the way that you did.

So, stubbornly, you squeezed your eyes shut tightly and refused to look. "I'll wait here all night if I have to. Besides, I could just say my name, you know. I'm pretty sure you know me too."

"Don't." you pleaded.

"Open your eyes, (Y/N). You want this, right? Knowing who I am shouldn't change anything, then." he urged, his tone soft despite his harsh words. "It's Peter. Peter Parker. I've sat behind you in at least two classes since freshman year, and I've lent you pencils before. You always give them back, and you always let Flash copy your homework even though he's a total dick to you. You--"

Your eyes snapped open as you cut him off, "Stop! Just because you know things about me doesn't mean you know me."

It really was Peter Parker, and the numbness faded a little to make room for anxiety and guilt. You knew Peter had lost too much in his life; his parents and his uncle, too. Could you add your name to that list? Could you jump when you knew he'd blame himself for the rest of his life?

You couldn't. You wouldn't. Peter's brown eyes were filled with worry and sadness as he studied you, his mask clutched tightly in his fist. When you remained silent, he sat down and spoke quietly, "I know enough to know the world would suck without you. I could be your friend, you know, you don't have to do this alone."

"I don't need friends." you huffed.

Peter frowned briefly, before rubbing his nose and hiding it again. "I did just tell you my biggest secret, (Y/N), so I think we kind of have to be friends now." he finally rebutted, a faint twinge of humor in his voice, "You might not want friends, but you do need one. I'll be your friend."

You stared back at Peter blankly, uncaring as he shifted uncomfortably in your silence. Why did he want to be your friend? He already got what he wanted. You weren't going to go through with your plan, and he wouldn't have to live with guilt like you did every day. So, why was he still here?

Part of you wanted to believe he really cared, because he seemed to pay a lot of attention to you to notice the little things you did, but you knew better. He didn't really care about you. He only cared that you knew his secret and now you had leverage over him. You could out him if you wanted to, and that meant he had to keep tabs on you.

"I don't need friends." you repeated stiffly, "Don't worry, Parker. Your secret is safe with me."

His eyes widened as he stammered, "That's not--"

"Save it, Peter. Can you please just get this shit off of me so I can go home? I want to go to bed." you cut him off with a deep sigh, gesturing to the web that was still hanging from your arm.

He looked like he wanted to argue, to further plead his case, but after a few moments he visibly wilted and gave in. "It'll dissolve in two hours. I'll... I'll see you at school, (Y/N)."

It was a statement, but it sounded more like a question. You knew he was still hesitant to let you out of his sight, fearful that you'd go back on your word and follow through, and this was his way of confirming you wouldn't do just that. Achingly stretching up off the ground, you muttered, "Yeah. Bye, Peter."

Peter tugged his mask back over his head, but didn't make any move to leave until you were opening the door that lead back into the building. As you stepped through the threshold he gave a forlorn wave, before jumping over the ledge and swinging away. The door shut behind you as the weight of the world settled on your shoulders once again. You'd failed, like always.

[awakening5]

Prompt: I think I’m in love with you but your sibling/best friend is my nemesis AU

Jess tysm for these prompts for which I don't actually have to write fics. This is so much fun for me. And this is a delightful AU. I considered taking it a Spidey direction. But went with a dumb teenage direction instead cuz I love the young dummies.

Peter doesn't believe in love at first sight

But he might believe in love at first extended conversation

So it's really not his fault that he falls for MJ before finding out that her best friend is Harry Osborn

Regional AcaDec championship introduces Peter to MJ. They meet at one of the lunch events, and it takes about 12 minutes for Peter to realize she is the funniest and most brilliant girl he's ever met. And even if she goes to a different school, he learns she only lives a couple blocks from him

They're likely going to face off in the tournament in the next couple of days, and he only hopes he's not too distracted by her to compete on a passable level

He's not optimistic, because he was clearly too distracted by her to realize the school she says she's from is the same school that Harry Osborne goes to

Harry and Peter have clashed several times over the last few years in various competitions like this. And Harry is everything Peter is not

His father is something of a scientist himself, and Harry has had every privilege growing up that Peter only recently gained in Tony's mentorship--but can an upgraded suit and ignored texts really compare to having a father with those resources

(Peter doesn't realize, but the answer is yes. Norm Osborne is a dick of a father)

But Peter has powers in part because of Harry--he never would have been on a spider-infested field trip to Oscorp if not for the grand battles between them--so when his rival joins MJ and Peter at the table with his expensive Vanilla Bean Mocha Frappuccino, Peter manages to stay cordial

All while falling harder and harder for one Michelle Jones

The air is tense. There's a weird possessiveness to Harry. Or maybe Peter's projecting. Maybe he's the one being possessive even though he's only known MJ for all of 30 minutes

· Still, it's so satisfying to see Harry's shock when Peter calls her MJ, and he asks, aghast, how Peter knows her nickname

Michelle tucks her hair nervously behind her ear and shrugs. "He's my friend," she says. Peter's heart is close to bursting with affection for her

After another tense five minutes, MJ finally cuts through their terse replies and (barely) veiled digs

"So what's the history here?" she asks, sounding almost bored as she waves her hand between the pair

"No history," Harry says while Peter shakes his head, "Nothing."

She looks thoroughly unimpressed, and Peter liked it better when he had been impressing her. Without Harry present

So he shrugs. In half an hour, Peter has already learned that this girl doesn't suffer bullshit. "Three years of photo-finishes at this competition."

MJ smirks. "Oh, so who has won more?"

Harry grumbles. "It would've been me if Parker didn't cheat."

"Buzzing in before you isn't cheating, Osborne," Peter replies sharply, and he doesn't miss the twinkle in MJ's eyes as she watches them. He hates that this matters so much to him, and finds it rather charming that MJ is merely amused by it

He finds everything about her charming

Except that she is somehow friends with Harry fucking Osborne

"Nobody has those fast of reflexes. You somehow rigged it to always register your beeper first"

MJ huffs, and for the first time seems more annoyed than amused. "Now that's just being a sore loser, Hair"

"Yeah, Hair," Peter bites out, but there's no satisfaction there. Because he feels a little guilty that his Spider abilities mighthave given him an edge. But he can't give up AcaDec! Isn't it enough that he didn't join the football team after leveling up?

MJ turns her unamused look to Peter, and now he feels reallybad.

"Sorry," he mumbles to her.

The conversation doesn't really evolve from there. Peter's terrified he's ruined any chance at a friendship (or more) with MJ by the way she closes herself off.

The lunch event ends soon after. And the three wish each other good luck for the rest of the competition

(Peter and Harry's exchange is so laced with sarcasm, it's clear to anyone within earshot that "good luck" means "I hope you get violently sick and spend the competition vomiting into the school-funded hotel toilet. Peter doubts Harry Osborne is staying at the same cheap motel as everyone else anyway)

Michelle shoos Harry away, and Peter's heart leaps that she lingers to talk to him.

"I did not expect to see a side of you like this," MJ tells him, eyes narrowed.

"Sorry," Peter apologizes. Not necessarily for his hatred of Harry, but that it made MJ's day worse. "Something about him that just...I don't know."

"For what it's worth," she says, "I never see him like this, either. I actually think you'd get along in normal circumstances."

Peter snorts. "I doubt that." Then he hesitates. "Or at least...I would have. But if you're friends with him, then maybe there's more to him."

She gives him a half smile. "What is it that you hate about him?"

Peter thinks about it for a moment. He can come up with some rather quick, surface-level answers. But MJ isn't a surface-level human, he's sure of it. "Probably jealous," he says, looking away. "He's got the nice car, he goes to the better school, he has every resource available to him." Peter looks back to her and shrugs. "And now I find out he gets to spend every day with you?"

MJ snorts and shakes her head at him. "Dork," she says, but Peter thinks it's a term of endearment. Fondness. "After today's competitions, you can come hang out if you want. Room 317."

"You trying to get Harry and me to like each other?" Peter asks, dubious again. "Because I seriously doubt that's going to happen in the middle of the tournament."

"No," she shakes her head. She tucks her hair back, shy. "It'll just be me."

She pecks him on the cheek, and turns, and leaves without looking back.

After staring after her in shock for a few seconds, Peter hastily writes down the number 317 on his arm, puts it in his note app, and texts it to himself.

[tracybirds]

tidying is good for the soul

I just really really didn’t want to tidy my own room.... I forced Gordon to do it in my stead :)

Some angsty Pen&Ink decided to show their faces in the middle for ReasonsTM and I ran with it. I wish I could say the mess I’m avoiding is worse than Gordon’s... it is not.

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

The smell hit Scott first as he walked past, musty air filled with sweat, rotting food and something else he didn’t want to identify. The stale oxygen forced its way into his lungs as he peered into the room.

Breathing through his mouth only ensured he could taste the rich, ripe aroma. He bit back his instinctive reaction to gag, instead shoving his hand over his nose and mouth. He could see an egg on the plate sitting innocently on the chest of drawers, clearly abandoned in a rush to get to a rescue, still in its shell. Still in its shell, after what must have been days, the green-grey fuzz of mold cradling it gently where it lay.

“Gordon, you can’t live like this, you have to clean this up.”

“Huh?”

Scott gestured at the room at large.

“This! This garbage heap you call a room! How can you just lie there and… and… relax? When it’s like this?”

Gordon shrugged.

“Good defence mechanism.”

“You’ll get yourself sick like this, you know that.”

“It’ll strengthen my immune system.”

Scott coughed back the stench.

“Is that…?”

No. He didn’t want to know.

“I’ll be fine,” said Gordon, staring deliberately up at the projection on the ceiling. He was watching Buddy and Ellie again, nestled between two piles of laundry and exercise gear abandoned at his feet.

Scott knew what he had to do. He knew what he should do. He just couldn’t be sure if there were any landmines ahead of him if he strode into the room.

Necessity called.

He jabbed a finger at his comm and cut the power.

“HEY!!”

“Clean it up, Gordon. You’ll get your damn show back when it’s liveable again.”

“I was busy!”

“You were watching videos! And I know you’ve seen that episode before, at least four times.”

“At least give me my lights! Please?”

Scott shook his head, his mouth twisting in disgust.

“You can start by opening the curtains, and the windows too. Get some fresh air in here.”

Gordon grabbed at the water bottle, hidden in the clothes by his head, and threw it with the aim of an athlete at the door slamming shut. It hit with a loud thud and clattered as it hit the floor.

Water began to seep under the gap and Scott rolled his eyes at the sight. Let Gordon have his tantrum if he wanted. The space was becoming a hazard to them all, and his disorganised brother needed a push. He remembered the last ‘argument’ that had stemmed from someone else daring to do it for him. Scott still had the scar.

***

Gordon glared at the offending door in the dark. The glow of his comm on his wrist provided the only light in the gloom, being the only object not reliant on the power that Scott had taken away from him.

Guilt stabbed at him as he looked around. Now that Scott had brought it to his attention, he couldn’t deny the truth in his accusations. Most of the precarious piles in the space was trash he’d been holding on to, or items that needed a home that he couldn’t find the energy to designate. There were meals and dishes long forgotten as he traipsed in from a rescue in the small hours, stumbling forward with eyes only for his bed. By the time he’d woken up, they’d just become another faded feature of the past. And speaking of his bed, he’d been sharing that space with an assortment of clothing, tablets and oceanographic equipment for longer than he cared to remember.

Thank goodness Penny hadn’t dropped by for a visit. Not that she wanted to see him at the moment, a voice in the back of his mind reminded him slyly.

Gordon scowled, pushing the memory of their last meeting away with a practiced ease. He wasn’t dwelling.

He scrambled to his feet and picked his way across the background noise of the past two months. He yanked open the curtains and looked around, eyes blinking as he took in the sight of dishes piled eight deep glinting in the afternoon sunlight.

He could see Alan, waving up at him from the deck below, and felt the tug to join him, to dive into whatever his brother was doing, anything to not feel alone and stranded on this antipodean island.

Instead, he shoved open the balcony doors and scooped up the wrappers that spilled out of their caged position on the edge of his dresser.

It was a room of categories.

Trash and not-trash.

Things with a home, and things without a home.

Stuff that was mere clutter, and stuff he was still most definitely using, never mind that weeks had passed since they’d last found their way into his hands, thanks Scott.

He doubted Scott had ever found himself with a stray hair dropped on his bathroom floor, let alone sworn violently at a smear of toothpaste that somehow stretched from the mirror to the floor, smeared by a sleepy hand in a futile attempt to clean it off before Gordon collapsed.

Gordon was scrubbing at it now.

The food was an easy fix at least, and he’d quickly employed MAX for depositing the dishes in a soak, wash, rinse, purify with fire cycle.

The room was becoming semi presentable again, enough that Gordon could actually walk between the piles instead of taking strategic leaps from clearing to clearing. That one for laundry, that one for clean clothes, that one for clothes that might have once been clean but had been trapped under so much stuff he thought they might appreciate another rinse if only for a shot at seeing the local scenery.

He tugged at the comforter, trying to extract it from under the “still-being-finished” projects he’d placed lovingly out of the way on his bed. It might be nice to sleep under something that smelt fresher than his socks.

A final jerk, accompanied by a necessary grunt, pulled the bedspread clear, turning Gordon’s sound of frustrated power into a hard-earned yell.

He fell, yelping as his shoulder struck the edge of his drawers and sent a precarious collection of borrowed items cascading to the ground. With him underneath.

A sharp knock on the door drew his attention.

“Gordon? You alright in there?”

Gordon scowled at the door, imagining the way he might throttle Virgil if he came in now, with his barely disguised approval and his wide-eyed sympathy that Gordon couldn’t keep his space straight like the rest of them. Especially now that the once clear floor was covered in junk all over again.

He hit his head against the floor with a thunk.

“Fine. Get lost.”

He didn’t need X-ray vision to see the huff and rolling eyes Virgil gave in response.

“Have it your way. Scott’s got dinner sorted in an hour or so if you want it.”

Gordon was very certain he would not.

He didn’t move even after he had heard Virgil’s footsteps fade away. The afternoon light had turned golden warm as the sun began to set. He could ask Scott for the lights back, he knew Scott had only turned them off to grab his attention, but the dimming room suited his dark mood just fine.

He wished he could call Penny, twelve hours behind him and a world away, just to complain and joke about ways to pay Scott back tenfold for the trouble he’d caused him.

He wondered if she still bothered to wake up early when there was no one scheduled to call anymore. His 0400 alarm had hardly wavered, his body attuned to the rhythm and his heart wishing beyond reason to hear word of the daily minutia of life in high society London.

He couldn’t call her just to talk about junk.

He couldn’t call her to talk about anything.

Gordon scrubbed at his face, drawing his legs in as he made to stand once more. He reached out, fingers splayed on the floor, as he hauled himself upright. His eyes fell on the shimmering pink material at the base of the tower that now lay scattered across the room.

A scarf, but not just any scarf, as she’d haughtily told him. A gift from a Duchess, another high end and frivolous purchase, on loan from a very, very good friend of her father – Gordon could hardly remember the details, laughing at her affronted look while he downplayed its importance.

“Just a piece of fabric, Penny, no better, no worse than my pants.”

“Than your trousers, I should say.”

Gordon laughed again.

“Nah, Pen, definitely my pants.”

Maybe it had meant something to her, but she’d let him take it home, covered in her perfume and her love and her firm belief that he deserved something special of hers.

A tangible image of her heart and he’d taken it in with irreverence and mockery, and hidden it away beneath clutter and trash and the needs of everyone and anyone that wasn’t her. Lost it among a pile of junk now strewn on the floor, none of which even mattered, not even to him. He’d thrown half his life away, only to find her still draped all over him.

Draped, no thrown carelessly on his chest of drawers, with none of the delicacy and care that her vulnerability and trust deserved, none of the precious love he had sworn up and down was hers.

His vision blurred as he ran his rough hands through the soft folds and he tapped the comm before he could think twice about the consequences.

He couldn’t look at the holo as it answered, its blue light spilling out into the room, cold and lifeless. It might have been Parker for all he knew as he sobbed into the scarf.

“Gordon?”

Her voice was a balm against the wound rending him in two.

“Pen, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Her silence chased his mumbled apologies and regret into the darkened room.

“Thank you, Gordon.”

[sheabeeprime]

I Drive Me Mad

AO3 Link

By: @sheabeeprime for @superherotiger as part of @friendly-neighborhood-exchange -> I'm so sorry this is late. I worked really hard though and wouldn't even read my story until this was posted so I hope you love it <3

Rating: Teen + Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark

Summary:

Even though he couldn’t make out most of the distinct features that would confirm this figure to be human, let alone someone he knew, he wasn’t afraid. This man wasn’t scary like his captors had been. No, he radiated safety and warmth and through the armor plating that now gently caressed his cheek, Peter detected a familiar smell of expensive cologne mixed with motor oil which he recognized as home. “D-Dad? Please…help me,” Peter whimpered, fighting spirit returning ever so slightly as he resisted the need to allow his eyes roll back into his skull and fall into the forever slumber. It hurt to stay awake and to try and comprehend reality, but something inside of him said that he had to. He had to, if not for himself than for the blob of red and gold which held him close. He couldn’t imagine how terrible it would be for a father to lose their only child. “It’s okay Peter; you’re going to be okay." Or: In the aftermath of his kidnapping, Peter takes comfort from Tony during a Thunderstorm.

References to Torture

The first time Peter called Tony “Dad,” he was tired and 100% drugged out. Whatever his kidnappers injected him with was strong, with its effects still lingering even after his captors ceased their torture and left for him dead. Peter only hoped the reason they finally abandoned his husk was because they realized Iron Man and the rest of the Avengers were hot on their tail.

It took an additional 36 hours after that, however, before Tony and the others finally found him. At that point Peter was damn near dead.

Days prior he was still trying to fight through the toxins as they were administered. He tried to stay awake and learn everything he could about his captors... Now, the spiderling was just trying to save his energy enough to stay alive, to maintain his vital functions, even if poorly.

Peter couldn’t even hold his head up anymore; allowing it to lull from one side to the other when his mentor tried to shake him back into awareness. The unpleasant feeling of his head rolling about his shoulders, however, was just barely enough ignite the fringes of his mind with a semi-consciousness. He mentally reached for the feeling, trying to hold onto it as long as possible.

“D-Dad?” He asked, tongue thick and cottony.

It took all his enhanced strength, but Peter lifted his head up just enough so that when his eyelids fluttered open, he was looking at the blurred figure before him in their eyes.

Even though he couldn’t make out most of the distinct features that would confirm this figure to be human, let alone someone he knew, he wasn’t afraid. This man wasn’t scary like his captors had been. No, he radiated safety and warmth and through the armor plating that now gently caressed his cheek, Peter detected a familiar smell of expensive cologne mixed with motor oil which he recognized as home.

“D-Dad? Please…help me,” Peter whimpered, fighting spirit returning ever so slightly as he resisted the need to allow his eyes roll back into his skull and fall into the forever slumber.

It hurt to stay awake and to try and comprehend reality, but something inside of him said that he had to. He had to, if not for himself than for the blob of red and gold which held him close. He couldn’t imagine how terrible it would be for a father to lose their only child.

“It’s okay Peter; you’re going to be okay.”

He clung to the feeling of hope that being in this figure’s arms brought him. Hands still bound behind his back with vibranium cuffs, Peter simply nuzzled into the neck of who he hoped to be his father, breathing in a heavy and ragged way while trying to hold back tears as the man cradled him and whispered sweet nothings, only stopping on the occasion to bark orders at the other Avengers.

Peter tried to ignore how every fiber of his body seemed to suddenly be subjected to hot flames when he was finally lifted up by the red and gold. As they took off into the air, Peter moaned, head throbbing to the same rhythm of his uneven pulse. His senses were both still dulled and on overdrive. He couldn’t even enjoy the way the cool air that filtered past them brought relief to his burning body because of the simultaneous wind sounds and air pressure that pounded in his ears.

Landing had to be worse than flying though. Peter wasn’t sure how long they’d been in the air for prior to hitting the ground, but the jostle it wrought was enough to displace Peter’s empty stomach such that his body, tired as it was, instinctually lurched forward in an attempt to dry heave. The strong arms holding him tightened their fatherly grip as Peter trembled in the aftermath, praying that the numbness he felt before might return and mask this pain once again.

There seemed to be no time to try and relax though. Almost immediately after his stomach attempted to turn inside out did a group of hands try to pry the crime-fighting-spider from his human safety blanket. Peter half expected the metal man to defend him, so when the man instead began the relinquish the hold he had on Peter to the group of strangers, Peter felt fear strike his heart.

“No!” he cried out, pushing back into the chest of the one person he knew was safe while trying to violent kick at his attackers.

“Pete, it’s okay. They just want to help. You’re safe,” The figure spoke in his ear, voice smooth and even, never once showing there was a reason to panic.

The words seemed to cocoon the spiderling up like his favorite MIT Hoodie. They allowed just the smallest morsel of comfort to sink into his skin and convinced him to momentarily stop bracing against the mass of hands just long enough for them to somehow release him from confines of the vibranium cuffs.

When Peter felt the pressure on his writs dissipate, his arms immediately snapped forward to wrap around his red and gold savior, gripping into the alloy mixture without fear of denting it. The person behind the armor didn’t even flinch he crunched the suit like aluminon foil.

“Don’ wan you ‘o leave me,” Peter slurred.

A couple minutes of silence passed, where the figure just hushed Peter by massaging his arms with one hand, supporting him still with the other, until the teenager could be coaxed into letting go and laying onto a gurney. When he finally relinquished the last of his grip and the medical staff began to work, Peter felt a stab of panic into his heart again. Behind his eyes, he could see the masked faces of his captors, taunting him in his intoxicated, helpless state and reaching to inflict more pain. Before Peter could open his mouth to scream, however, the sensation of someone holding his hand cut through the vision, anchoring him to reality.

The hand was about the size of the metal ones holding onto him earlier, except this time they were made of flesh. They felt soft yet calloused; gentle yet firm.

“Dad?”

Peter blinked a couple times, double vision lining up long enough to see Tony Stark’s face hovering over his own, concerned eyes and a worried smile. He ran his free hand over Peter’s sweat and blood matted hair, just like a parent would.

“It’s okay, little Bambino. I’m not going anywhere.” ~~~~~~~~

Peter didn’t remember calling Tony “Dad.” Actually, Peter didn’t remember much from his recuse at all. He wasn’t as embarrassed about it as his mentor, and even he himself, thought he was going to be though. Peter had recused people from kidnapping situations before and accepted that sometimes they say and do weird things. Never mind the fact that he had been fighting off calling Iron Man “Dad” in everyday conversations about a month prior to the incident.

Surprisingly, Peter was more flustered to find out that, true to his word, Tony stayed with him through all the poking, prodding, and evaluating. Even when surgery was deemed necessary

to reset some broken bones Peter had, Tony was there while he was put under and prepped for surgery. It was not until the lead doctor, Helen Cho, insisted that his presence in the surgery suite would be unsanitary and could inhibit the team of doctors that the billionaire finally did step aside. And even still, Tony’s face was the first he saw when he woke up.

Peter made a pretty quick recovery after that, all things considered. Once he gained enough weight back for his super healing to begin and work again, his bones and wounds seemed to knit themselves back together at an astronomical rate. 48 days after the incident and Dr. Cho even cleared him to be Spider-Man again, to Tony and May’s disgruntlement.

But Peter figured, this kind of thing…it happens to heroes. It happened to Tony. Sure, that was before he became Iron Man, but it still counts. And anyway, he didn’t want it to stop him from helping people; from preventing that kind of thing from happening to anyone else. He did the time in the hospital, he went to Tony’s mandated therapy, he should be able to be Spider-Man. It was the best thing for him anyway; to just move on.

Because that’s what heroes do.

Right?

But while he may have recovered from his physical wounds, his mental ones seemed tattooed with ugly ink on the back of his skull

Peter found he no longer felt safe in the apartment, with the sounds of the city beneath him. Whenever he closed his eyes, the dripping of their old bathroom faucet, or the sounds of his neighbors arguing, or the smell of the trash on the curb somehow brought him back to that grimy warehouse he had been kept in.

And when he was out and about, Peter’s Spidey Sense would constantly thrum. It made him seem paranoid. He would jump at just the sound of car doors closing or cats meowing or even just his friends approaching from behind. Everyone felt too close, but also too far.

The nightmares had to be the worst of it. Every night, he felt tortured again. Sometimes they were memories, sometimes imaginative scenarios, but always his fears playing out before his eyes. He tried to immerse himself with Spider-Man patrols and schoolwork in the late hour of night when sleep felt like imprisonment, but that wasn’t helping his mental state either.

That’s how Peter found himself sleeping at the Tower.

Peter wasn’t sure if being so high up and far away from the streets was what helped him calm down, or the bullet proof windows, or if it was just being close to Tony, but something about the Tower allowed him to sleep, even if only a little bit.

May was the first to approve of the arrangement.

“Anything to help my baby get better,” she said.

Tony had been pushing for him to stay anyway.

“It’s safer,” the genius would claim. And he was right, but there was more too it than that.

Either way, the Spiderling now had his own Star-Wars themed room in the Stark penthouse, down the hall from the master bedroom. And he would be lying if he said staying with his mentor hadn’t been great. The long lab days, the movie nights, the expensive family dinners, all of it was wonderful…except for one thing.

Thunderstorms.

KA-DUUUM!

Peter snapped forward in his bed, a mangled shout caught somewhere in this throat, never to make it out into the open. His eyes darted to the window which was being battered by rain. Part of him was thankful for the thunder for waking him from his impending nightmare. The other part of him, however, knew that this was almost worse.

FU-FOOM!

Another burst of noise had Peter jumping from his bed and into fighting position, hands balled into fists to keep them from shaking.

The tower was not soundproof. And being so high up, Peter felt the sounds of the storm were the only things that were made to be even louder.

Peter could feel see his veins throbbing with increased blood pressure. He squeezed his eyes shut to try and focus on his breathing, but the darkness behind his eyelids made his mind swim with anxiety.

“There is nothing to fear. There is nothing to fear. I’m safe here. I’m safe here,” Peter whispered to himself.

Logically, Peter knew this was just a harmless storm. He used to love watching them out of the massive windows in the tower. But ever since he came home from being kidnapped, he couldn’t handle it. The noises, the flashes of light, the way the tower seemed sway in the wind, all of it was too much for his heightened senses. The worst of it was, he didn’t know why. Maybe it was because it had been storming the night of his capture, or maybe it was just his PTSD, but either way it was driving him insane.

BARROOOM!

This time, Peter darted out of his room and into the hallway. Instinctually, he wanted to seek out comfort from the only other person in the house: Tony Stark. However, Peter was also trying to hide his fear of thunderstorms from his mentor, and up to this point he thought he had done a pretty damn good job. He had even had Ned hack FRIDAY so she wouldn’t alert Tony when he wasn’t sleeping well. He just didn’t want anyone to worry about him more than they already did. Which was a lot, by the way.

Tony didn’t need anything more weight on his mind, in Peter’s opinion. Despite how he hid behind a mask of sarcasm and sunglasses, Peter knew his mentor blamed himself for the world’s problems and carried that weight on his shoulders at all times. What kind of person would he be to add to that weight?

So, the young superhero padded past the Stark master bedroom and instead went into the kitchen to grab some water. He was about halfway done with his glass when another flash of lightening caused the kitchen-living area to momentarily flicker to life with a blinding white light. He could feel his stomach drop and hairs stand on end in the pitch black that followed, waiting for the room to be filled with sounds of thunder.

WA-BAMM!

CRASH!

Peter dropped his glass to the floor and jumped to the ceiling, whimpering when the glass he was using shattered beneath him. Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes as he crawled into the safety of a corner.

“Peter?”

Tony poked his head up over the back of his luxury couch, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes to help them adjust to the dark as he scanned the room for the spiderling. It wasn’t long before he spotted the human-sized form on the ceiling, huddling in a corner, silently sobbing.

“Oh Pete…”

Before Tony could even get up to go collect his kid, thunder struck again.

BUUU-DUDUMM!

Inhibitions falling, Peter scurried across the ceiling and dropped down on the couch next to Tony, curling up into his side like an infant.

“Dad, I’m sacred…” he mumbled into the genius’ oil-stained shirt, fear completely taking over.

Tony was sure Peter was unaware of what he had called him, but one look into the teen’s desperate, pleading eyes, and Tony decided he would let it be. The title gave him a warm, tingling feeling anyway. He knew in a second, he would be honored to be this kid’s Dad.

So, Tony did what any Dad would do and wrapped his arms around the boy, rubbing circles into his back and told him it would be okay. And they sat like the for the whole duration of the storm, until sobs became sniffles.

Peter was the first to break away, although not far enough that he was out of his mentor’s strong hold.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. I don’t know what came over me,” he said, faced flushed from both crying and embarrassment.

Tony gave him the same concerned eyes and a worried smile that he vaguely remembered from his rescue. The man then ran his hand through the boy’s curls and, in a move that surprised them both, kissed the top of Peter’s head.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. I know how difficult recovery can be. After Afghanistan…well…I guess you could say storms bothered me too, and I don’t have your senses,” the billionaire admitted.

Peter was shocked.

“Really? Is that why you were sleeping on the couch?” he asked.

“Uhh, actually, I just stay out here because I worry about you…ya know, in case you need me,” Tony answered, looking away a little nervously. He felt exposed, although deep inside knew his kid would never exploit that.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Peter said quietly.

Tony noticed his guilt sinking in and immediately looked back at the kid and squeezed his arm so Peter would do the same.

“Hey, don’t be sorry. I really don’t mind.”

Peter looked skeptical.

Tony sighed.

“Listen. You are so good, Pete. What happened to me, I deserved that. But you? You do nothing be help people who have no advocate. I am so proud of you and the least I can do is be here when you need me. I’m not particularly good with my emotions but know that just how Iron Man will always look out for Spider-Man, Tony Stark will always look out for Peter Parker. Okay?”

Peter smiled. A genuine smile. Tony could swear it stopped raining in the moment and the room seemed almost brighter.

“I’m here for you too,” Peter said.

Damn this kid was too good.

“It won’t always hurt like this. It’s okay to lean on other people. I guess that’s something I’m still learning too.”

“We’ll get through this, Mr. Stark. Together.”

Tony smiled down at his kid, but a sudden thought turned his sweet smile into a mischievous smirk.

“Don’t you mean ‘Dad’?”

Peter flushed.

“Mrrrr. Starrrkkk.”

[shinyeeveelynn]

"Hey baby." a woman's voice cooed from beyond the darkness of Frank's eyelids. The gentle touch of soft lips against his own felt like warm blanket on a cold New York winters night. A tender hand caressed his cheek lovingly.

"Happy birthday." He could hear the smile on her face.

For a moment before fully coming to, Frank could swear he had somehow gone to heaven. Her words such a beautiful sound, they washed a divine peace over his entire body. That is, until he felt the full force of a pillow slam into his face, causing him to snap back reality.

"I said happy birthday! Now get your ass up."

Right, he hadn't crossed over. Frank was in his apartment with his girlfriend, Evelynn, who's affection often toed the line between playful and abrasive. Frank was willing to bet Heaven's angels were certainly more well behaved, but he wouldn't have his angel any other way. Despite what their banter would lead you to believe, anyway. "Christ, you always gotta be that violent?" "That's hysterical coming from you of all people."

"Good point." He sighed, sitting up and rubbing his head.

It was already noon, the bustling city loud and alive in the streets below their room.

"Enough whining, Castle. Come on, get up!"

"For what exactly?"

Evelynn scowled at him like a kid whose parents had forgotten their promised trip to Disneyland.

"Hello? Your birthday? You may be old but not old enough for your memory to be going, Frankie." "Aw, man. Sweetheart, I know you think you need you to do something special for me but-"

"Now hold on! I know better then to go planning something extravagant, it's not your style, but I thought we could maybe go out for lunch with Pete? Y’know, have a quiet day without doing anything illegal for once." She said with a shrug and a half way sarcastic chuckle.

"Parker? Like he'd want to spend the day with my old ass." He couldn't help but laugh.

Smack! The pillow collided with Frank's face again.

"Aye! Cut that out!"

"Of course he wants to spend time with you! You mean a lot to Pete. It was his idea for us to get together." "I-? It was?" "Yes, asshole. I told him it was a great idea, to.. Uh, you know. Spend time together. As a family." Family. The word hit Frank like a truck going 100 miles an hour straight into him. He never saw himself leaving Evelynn's side, his feelings for her so deeply ingrained into his person that he couldn't be with anyone else even if he wanted to. They never left each others side, she may as well be his wife. Somewhere along the way, Peter went from being "that one kid" from The Avengers to practically seeing him as their son. If you had asked Frank at the time of losing his wife and kids if he thought he'd ever have a family again, he would have said hell no. Truth of the matter was, he didn't want another family. He never thought he'd get past the hurt, nor did he ever think he'd allow himself to get that close to anyone ever again. How could he expect anyone to want someone like the monster he saw himself as anyway?

Yet against all odds, here he was. Getting woken up by his girl on his birthday to go have a nice afternoon with his kid. Frank didn't find another family, they found him. Love itself had found him again.

He hadn't noticed the smile this realization had put on his face.

"Sooo..." Evelynn broke the silence.

"Oh uh, sorry. Yeah, I'd like that."

"Really? Wow, I thought for sure I was going to bitch at you longer than that."

"Nah, I won't give you a hard time. Maybe later." He smirked, motioning for her to lean in for a kiss.

She obliged, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him deeper into the kiss than he expected.

"Thank you, Frank."

"No, thank you, sweetheart. For everything."