#sullen-wise

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for S behind the cut; “but it’s weird that it happened twice”. (( chrono || non-chrono ))

“Tucker! You said you’d be right back, man!” Danny appears at the top of the stairs, looking stressed and kind of freaked-out, and then immediately jerks to a stop mid-step and stares down at Superboy looking totally baffled instead. “Uh. Tucker . . . ?”

“Ta-da?” Tucker tries, and attempts jazz hands at Superboy. Like, presentation-wise and all. Superboy looks dubious, and also kind of pissy and sulky still. Tucker understands, obviously, but it’s not super helpful. 

. . . no pun intended.

“Tucker? What took you so–” Jazz leans into the hall behind Danny, looking pretty stressed-out herself, and then cuts her own question in half and immediately looks just as baffled. 

Tucker maybe, uh, should’ve texted again. Like–maybe that was a thing he should’ve done. 

“So like, remember when you told me that Doomsday game was stupid?” he asks. “Well, it’s not, and also it gave me an idea? Kinda? Like–well, very much so it gave me an idea, yeah. Like, definitely there’s an idea.” 

Dani peers out from behind Danny and Jazz, looking exhausted and pale and just barely frowning, and Superboy’s sullen expression immediately clears and he pushes his glasses up into his hair and winks up at her. 

“Hey, cutie, ‘sup?” he greets. Tucker would assume it was a “cute girl” thing, except he didn’t do it when he saw Jazz, so presumably it’s more an “obviously identical to the guy answering to ‘Danny’ and therefore obviously who they’re here for” thing. Or maybe he just likes brunettes more than redheads. 

. . . yeah, unlikely. 

“Oh my god, you seriously kidnapped a superhero for me?” Dani asks, a brief flash of glee crossing her tired, pale face as she half-covers her mouth with a hand, eyes sparkling with a delight Tucker has really missed seeing. He also appreciates that she went straight to “kidnapped”, it’s very flattering that that’s her first thought. “Tucker, that’s so sweet!” 

“Oh my god, you kidnapped the actual Superboy,” Jazz says incredulously, then scowls disapprovingly at him and plants her hands on her hips. “Tucker! What is wrong with you?!” 

“I mean he came along willingly, I didn’t have to actually–uh, I mean, not that I would have actually–yeah no he came willingly, I didn’t have to enact Plan Krypton-napping,” Tucker admits sheepishly, though he’s only actually sheepish about any of it because Superboy’s, like, literally standing right next to him and all. Probably that sounds bad, from Superboy’s perspective. “So it’s fine! I didn’t actually have to commit any crimes, and thought-crimes don’t count! Therefore I am blameless and nothing is wrong with me and you can’t be mad about it!” 

“Yes we can, you should’ve taken backup, dummy!” Jazz retorts in exasperation, throwing her hands up in the air before gesturing pointedly at Superboy with both of them. “He can fly! That is like half of his whole thing, is that he can fly! What were you gonna do if he just pulled an up, up, and away?!” 

. . . okay, valid. 

“Unnecessarily waste time tracking him down, probably,” Tucker admits with a wince. “Uh. Yeah, sorry, my bad there.”

[butterymangowrites]

dad thief

paring: dabi / todoroki touya x fem reader

warnings: smut, non-con/dub-con, cum eating, creampie, childhood friends to enemies to whatever this is, obsessive dabi, possessive dabi, jealousy, non-con filming, blackmail, endeavor is a shitty dad but you both have daddy issues, child abuse, domestic violence, hate sex

word count: 2.5k

Even captured by one of the most dangerous villains in Japan, you still had the audacity to smirk. He wanted so much to wipe it off your face, make you sullen, make you regret. You had always been a pain in the ass, a bitch, and a dad thief.

—

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you asked. 

What Touya saw was you, a girl his age whom he had been friends with for a while now, wearing an Endeavor’s T-shirt two times your size. “That’s my dad on your shirt.”

“I know.” You smirked, didn’t tell him you stole it from someone, just like all the merches you had at home because you couldn’t afford to buy one. “He’s my fav hero after all.”

Having a fire quirk, you related so much to the number 2 hero. Meeting Touya was the best coincidence you could ever hope for.

But Touya hated it, your quirk was powerful, not more than his, but so much more stable. At Least you didn’t get burnt every time you tried to use it. His dad looked at you like you were a gift from God, given to him to replace his own incompetent children. You had become Endeavor’s favorite in such a short time. 

—

“So you’re still my dad’s simp,” the white haired villain said, looking at you from an old couch where he lay down, shirtless, his torso patched up with staples holding burnt skins to the body so they didn’t fall off. He looked like a doll that the owner didn’t want to throw away and chose to keep repairing. 

“Rich coming from someone with daddy issues.” Standing at his feet, you peered down at him. He had changed a lot, appearance-wise. Half of his face was burnt and stapled just like his body. With black hair, piercings, and impassive demeanor, he became someone else entirely, fooling everyone even his own family—he became Dabi. But those eyes, those were Touya’s eyes. “That was a desperate act back there, airing the plot twist on tv and shit.” 

It was amazing how quickly you got on his nerves. Dabi pounced from the couch and grabbed you by the neckline of your hero costume. You staggered forward from his pull but let him drag you to the couch and down onto him who now had his head back on the armrest. His hands adjusted your legs to straddle his waist, positioning you to his heart’s content. Your skin-tight suit was for sure fireproof; yet, you still felt heat emitted from the bare skin of Dabi’s naked torso. 

Seeing him face to face this close, you couldn’t help but tease your childhood friend a tad. “Fuck, you’re ugly. No wonder your dad didn’t remember you.” 

“This mouth of yours,” Dabi tsked, placing his index finger on your hot lips, “fucking needs to be shut.” 

He lifted the finger from your lips to point to the opposite side of the couch where a TV should be if there was one. Instead, there was a camcorder set up on a tripod, an ominous red dot blinking rhythmically. 

“It’s recording us,” Dabi said. “I’m gonna fuck you on it.” 

“Tsk, tsk. What happened to dates and dinners?”

His expression shifted dangerously. And you yelped, loud, when he suddenly snaked his hand around to unzip your suit from the back. 

“Touya, knock it off!” You swatted his hand. But too late, you already felt the suit loosen. 

“As I was saying,” Dabi continued, “I’m gonna film us fuck.” 

Heat crawled onto your back when he slipped his hand under the open suit and started to skim around. 

“But since I’m a generous man, I’m giving you two choices.” He tapped on your back once before saying, “Be a good girl and I’m keeping the footage”—he tapped twice—“or not, and I’m sending it to Endeavor’s office so he can see his favorite intern getting dicked up, down, six ways to Sunday by his eldest son.” 

His body heated up a little more; you knew it was from excitement. 

“Do you think you’ll still be his favorite after that? I don’t think so if you asked me.” 

You were… speechless.  

“Come on, am I really ugly?” He nudged his face against yours, which was so Touya of him. “I’ve heard people say I’m still hot, baby.” 

“Yeah, hot like the fire that burnt you this bad,” you countered.

He guffawed. “So, what will it be?” 

You thought about burning him, burning this whole place down, but your flame was no match for his. Having experienced what he could do firsthand on the battlefield, you would not withstand his flame—you would die. 

Contrary to his belief, you were not Endeavor’s favorite. That spot belonged to Shoto since the day he was born. Touya was just dumb and blinded by jealousy and prejudice to actually see it. You were nothing compared to Shoto—you and Touya were nothing compared to the half-hot half-cold prodigy. But Touya was not totally wrong, you still wanted to be his dad’s number 1, not wanting to disappoint the only man you considered a father figure.

But fuck if you didn’t hate Touya. “I’m not choosing shit.”

So he chose for you, tongue plunging down your throat while his cock drove in and out of your cunt. Standing in front of the camera, Touya stood behind you with his scarred arms around your midsection, forcing your whole body tight against him. Every short thrust made your breasts jiggle and eyes roll. The camcorder got it all—the visual, the sound. Even with Touya’s kiss shutting you up, you weren’t really silenced. And without it, you were loud. 

“Fuck baby, you like it that much?”

You would have closed your mouth if your hands weren’t stuck in his suffocating embrace. “Not—that good.”

Touya chuckled. “Yeah?”

He quickened the pace, and your brain almost shut itself down. 

“Stop,” you cried, legs starting to shake. That was when he really stopped. That dickhole.  

“This is what bad girls get.” He said, withdrawing his cock but still not releasing you from his clasp. When he walked back to the couch, he hauled you with him like a child hauling a big bag of toys to his secret lair. 

Guiding you to sit on him—again—you still faced the camcorder. 

“Dad, are you watching? Look at me. Am I doing good?” One of his hands mapped a path up to fondle your tits, switching left and right to pay his utmost attention into making you squirm out of your human seat. 

But he didn’t plan to let you go. His other free hand jerked his cock once, twice, before rubbing it on your still-wet pussy. No one was gonna believe you did not want this. Endeavor would not. 

“Have you fucked her yet? Do you want to?” He grinned against your temple. 

You swore out a soft ‘fuck’ when his cock eased its way in. It was burnt, too. Not as bad that it had to be patched up, but you could feel the bumpy texture against your moist walls.

“You know my dad is an abusive bastard, right? Fucking neglecting his own wife and children. He beat mom, too, have you heard? Did he have the guts to tell you that?” he said, tilting your head up so you could see him looking down at you. You were so hot he prayed his dad hadn’t touched you, he might never let him, too good of a pussy to share. 

“He’s not a good replacement for your scumbag of a father, trust me.” 

—

“I can do that, too,” you said from behind the bush you had been hiding, starling the boy you directed the sentence to. He jumped. You laughed. You had been watching him practice for almost half an hour. He looked sort of tired now. 

“Look,” you said before doing the same trick you saw him do, making a flame dance on one hand and moving it to the other hand like you were juggling a ball. 

He frowned, not looking very impressed, but didn’t take his eyes off you. 

That was the first day you met Touya—making friends with him—and after that, coming out to meet him almost every day. Soon after, you got to meet his family. Your eyes almost bugged out of their sockets when you saw who his dad was. 

The big man spared you only a glance when Touya first introduced you to him. The second glance, however, came after Touya said you had a fire quirk. 

Shoto was only two at the time, too young for his dad’s intensive training. 

Two years later, when Endeavor asked if you wanted to train with his youngest who had just turned four and you said yes, Touya didn’t talk to you for three days. On the fourth day, he didn’t let you in when you rang the doorbell. 

“Go away, dad thief.” 

But you didn’t want to. The Todoroki house was your paradise, the highlight of your day. Since Touya brought you to his home, you had been here everyday, spending your weekdays’ after-school time and whole days on weekends playing with the Todoroki siblings—Fuyumi, Natsuo and Touya himself if he wasn’t a bitch, complaining that his sister and brother hogged you all for themselves, and leaving dramatically to play alone, expecting you to follow. 

He was possessive like that. One time, he locked you in a room to only play with him. Rei—his mom—had to use a spare key to unlock the room and scolded her eldest. 

Now, the table had turned. Since your weekdays’ playtime had turned into training sessions, Touya was shunning you. 

“Go back to your shitty father,” he said through the crack of the side door before slamming it to your face. 

He played dirty mentioning your dad like that when he was the one who followed you to your ratty excuse of a home one day and saw your dad slap you on the face for no reason. It was a low blow since he was the one who interfered just before your dad used his fire quirk on you and your mother who was trying to shield you from the oncoming flame. Despite being the one who helped you that day, he used the fact that you had one of the worst dads a child could ever ask for to hurt you. You hated him so damn much for that. 

“Just you wait, Touya. One day, I’ll really steal him from you,” you said to the closed door, knowing he was still behind it. Tears were flowing down your face, but it was alright because Touya would not see them—because he would not open the door for you, and you resented him for it. 

How… wrong you were. 

“No.” 

Just when you walked back to the hand-me-down bicycle you got from the person you were most angry at at the moment—he was kind for that; you had to admit—you heard him before you heard the door open. Wiping the tears off your face, you turned to him and haughtily asked, “No what?” 

Touya didn’t answer. His eyes were locked onto your shirt. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you asked.

“That’s my dad on your shirt.” 

“I know.” You smirked. “He’s my fav hero after all.”

Touya scrunched his nose, his hair that used to be red at the ends was now full white. Then all of a sudden, he jumped you. 

You shrieked. It must have been a jaw-dropping scene for a passerby if there had been one—two 12-year-old children grabbing each other’s hair on the floor, fighting with their little hands. 

“Get off me!!” you screamed, but Touya who successfully got on top of you just laughed maniacally. Looking back, he sounded a bit too psychotic for a child. 

He shouted into your ear, “Dad is mine! Dad is mine!” 

From the corner of your eyes, you saw someone’s feet. 

“Touya-nii! Stop!” It was Fuyumi. “Mom, help!” 

The hands in your hair didn’t relent one bit despite the call for an adult who was soon surely going to rip his ears off if he didn’t get off you, but he did quiet down. 

“You’re mine, too,” he said softly into the ear he was shouting into before. “Dad’s not home today. Let’s play. You and me, okay? No Fuyumi-chan and Natsuo-kun. Just you and me.” 

The next thing you knew, he was pulled off you by his mother. Touya didn’t shed a tear when Rei spanked him in the ass, asking why he did that to you. She told him to apologize. 

“I’m sorry.” 

You knew he wasn’t. But he sounded genuine enough Rei let him off with only a one-week-no-tv punishment.

—

To you, he had been… off since that day. Today, he was full-blown unhinged. 

Your legs were spread wide over his own open ones, basically preventing you from trying to close them and hide your fucked pussy from the camcorder. His hands were busy, one grasping at your waist for leverage while the other circling over your clit. You were all bare to the camera with Touya’s cock ramming in and out, concentration drifting like smoke in the wind, so close to coming. 

“Such a good cunt. I’ll fuck it everyday”—he panted—“come in it. You can count on me.” 

“Don’t—” 

“I’ll be a good boyfriend. Will never fucking stray,” he prattled on. “Won’t hit you. Won’t be like dad. You’ll see.” 

You tried to hold it, but the hand on your clit just didn’t stop, pushing you to the top and making your hips buck up uncontrollably Touya had to push you down so his dick didn’t slip out. You felt the throbbing when he spilled inside. The little shit really did it—he creamed your pussy. 

“Want a taste?” Touya proposed, his hands spreading and closing your pussy to see the white thick cream dripping out. 

“Don’t be disgusting.” 

“Bet you drink his cum just to please him.” 

“I never fucked your dad, you villain scum.” 

“Mmmm.” You turned your head just in time to see Touya licking his fingers clean. When he saw you look, the menace put his tongue out to show his own cum on it. You knew what he would do next without a word being said and tried to turn away, but Touya grabbed your cheeks, stilling you, then he squeezed to force your mouth open.

His tongue invaded, feeding you his cum, and ending with a kiss. He took his time, like he had a lot on his hands, making sure you swallowed every drop. 

“Not even sucking his dick?” He continued questioning you. 

“No, you sicko.” You felt your body temperature rising, quirk activating, but didn’t let the fire come out. 

“Bet you thought about it, dad thief.” 

“Bet YOU thought about it, obsessive patchy bitch.” 

He laughed with his whole chest, shaking your whole body with it. “Guess we both ain’t shit, baby.”

[apoemaday]

Eurydice

by Carol Ann Duffy

Girls, I was dead and down in the Underworld, a shade, a shadow of my former self, nowhen. It was a place where language stopped, a black full stop, a black hole Where the words had to come to an end. And end they did there, last words, famous or not. It suited me down to the ground.

So imagine me there, unavailable, out of this world, then picture my face in that place of Eternal Repose, in the one place you’d think a girl would be safe from the kind of a man who follows her round writing poems, hovers about while she reads them, calls her His Muse, and once sulked for a night and a day because she remarked on his weakness for abstract nouns. Just picture my face when I heard -- Ye Gods -- a familiar knock-knock at Death’s door.

Him. Big O. Larger than life. With his lyre and a poem to pitch, with me as the prize.

Things were different back then. For the men, verse-wise, Big O was the boy. Legendary. The blurb on the back of his books claimed that animals, aardvark to zebra, flocked to his side when he sang, fish leapt in their shoals at the sound of his voice, even the mute, sullen stones at his feet wept wee, silver tears.

Bollocks. (I’d done all the typing myself, I should know.) And given my time all over again, rest assured that I’d rather speak for myself than be Dearest, Beloved, Dark Lady, White Goddess etc., etc.

In fact girls, I’d rather be dead.

But the Gods are like publishers, usually male, and what you doubtless know of my tale is the deal.

Orpheus strutted his stuff.

The bloodless ghosts were in tears. Sisyphus sat on his rock for the first time in years. Tantalus was permitted a couple of beers. The woman in question could scarcely believe her ears.

Like it or not, I must follow him back to our life -- Eurydice, Orpheus’ wife -- to be trapped in his images, metaphors, similes, octaves and sextets, quatrains and couplets, elegies, limericks, villanelles, histories, myths…

He’d been told that he mustn’t look back or turn round, but walk steadily upwards, myself right behind him, out of the Underworld into the upper air that for me was the past. He’d been warned that one look would lose me for ever and ever.

So we walked, we walked. Nobody talked.

Girls, forget what you’ve read. It happened like this -- I did everything in my power to make him look back. What did I have to do, I said, to make him see we were through? I was dead. Deceased. I was Resting in Peace. Passé. Late. Past my sell-by date… I stretched out my hand to touch him once on the back of the neck. Please let me stay. But already the light had saddened from purple to grey.

It was an uphill schlep from death to life and with every step I willed him to turn. I was thinking of filching the poem out of his cloak, when inspiration finally struck. I stopped, thrilled. He was a yard in front. My voice shook when I spoke -- Orpheus, your poem’s a masterpiece. I’d love to hear it again…

He was smiling modestly, when he turned, when he turned and he looked at me.

What else? I noticed he hadn’t shaved. I waved once and was gone.

The dead are so talented. The living walk by the edge of a vast lake near, the wise, drowned silence of the dead.

[bekkachaos]

I wish I didn't linger on every thought

8x06 coda | 700 words

Buck goes to Eddie's so he doesn't have to be alone. They don't really talk, but they don't really need to. aka, a continuation of the final scene in 8x06

Eddie didn't get up to turn the music off, in fact he was quite enjoying it. He never really played music around the house and it had been far, far too quiet lately.

As he leant back he turned his head to look curiously at Buck. He looked like someone had dropped him in cold water and put him out on their doorstep. Then there was the way he had already finished his beer when Eddie was only halfway through.

He took another bottle from his six pack and held it up, looking back at Eddie who just shook his head and gestured to his own bottle.

Buck sighed, cracking it open and taking another long swig.

"Slow down there," Eddie said, nudging Buck's knee with his own. "You only brought six."

He smiled like he was prompting Buck to do the same, but he didn't.

"I'm sure you've got one or two in the fridge," he said instead, sullen and monotone.

"Probably," Eddie said, putting his bottle to his lips.

He bobbed his head to the song as it played, taking in a deep breath and resting his head against the back of the couch. He was trying really hard not to feel guilty for taking a moment to feel joy, to do something silly and frivolous just because he could. It felt nice, and he was going to lean into that. He had to.

He turned back to look at Buck, now with his elbows propped on his knees and his fingers peeling at the label on the bottle in his hands.

"You... want to talk about it?" he asked, watching the way Buck's lips tightened as he chewed on the inside of his cheek.

"No, not really," Buck said in that same listless voice.

He turned his eyes to Eddie, and god they were so sad. Eddie thought that maybe there might have already been tears, or that they were so glassy because he was desperately trying to hold them in. He knew when to push and when to just let him be though.

If Buck wanted to talk then he would (usually it was impossible to get him to stop), but that didn't seem to be what he needed right now.

Buck's eyebrow cocked slightly as he gave Eddie a once over look.

"Do you?" he asked.

Eddie smiled, shaking his head and letting out a low chuckle.

"Nah," he said, taking in a steadying breath. "No I'm um, I'm good."

It might be the first time in a long time that he's said that and actually meant it.

"Good," Buck nodded, turning away from him and back to the disintegrating label at his fingers.

"You want to put a movie on or something?" Eddie offered.

He didn't mind just sitting there with Buck, but he seemed like he could use something to take his mind of whatever seemed to be revolving around in his head, not to mention some company.

"Yeah," he said, lips growing soft in the corners. "That sounds good."

"Any suggestions?" Eddie asked, and Buck turned to look at him.

"Risky Business?" he said, completely straight faced.

Eddie just looked back at him a moment, holding his eyes until he saw just the hint of a sparkle, and his lips pulled up in a smile.

It was a shadow of his usual one, but it was there, it was enough to let Eddie know that he was okay, just hurting.

Eddie let out a laugh and shook his head.

"Alright wise guy," he said fondly, getting to his feet with a groan and reaching for the rest of the beers at Buck's side. "Give me those, I'll put them in the fridge, you just pick something."

He started walking towards the kitchen when he heard Buck's voice call him back.

"Hey Eddie?"

He turned, resting one hand on the wall and looking over at him with eyes that answered his soft question.

"Can I crash here tonight?" he said, eyes crinkling in the corners. "I just... kinda don't want to go back home."

Eddie's smile was warm, feeling. Seeing Buck so in need of comfort left a tugging sensation in his chest.

"Couch is all yours, anytime. You know that."

Buck let out a sharp sigh and Eddie watched just a little bit of relief flood over him.

"Thanks," he said.

Eddie just gave him a nod, watching for a moment as Buck reached for the remote before going to put the beers away, and check that he had enough in the fridge in case Buck needed just a little more.

[badwriterrr]

Aegon the conqueror inverted. 🐉

Or, none of the Targs in ASOIAF ever fight and they all get married and live happily ever after.

About the kiddos.

So In this universe I think Danny probably married Aegon first, because he would have already had the iron throne. Jon wasn’t in the picture when Rhae would have been conceived. So everyone at least knows for sure that Rhaenys is Aegon’s.

Rhaenys is pretty much her namesake/aunt come again. She’s a spitfire and always getting herself into mischief. She’s Aegon’s pride and joy, and Danny’s eternal headache.

Visenya is the second oldest, but it’s a little unclear time wise who’s her father. Danny and Jon didn’t get along at first when they first got married, and it seemed they only really slept together out of ‘duty’. It was only after Visenya was born that Jon and Danny actually started falling for each-other, at the urging of Aegon who was getting annoyed with the both of them and all their pent up sexual frustrations.

Elaena, is the curious middle child. She’s the spitting image of Danny. And a quiet little toddler who spends most of her time nuzzled against Ghost’s fur. Like Visenya, no one is exactly sure who her father is, either Jon or Aegon— but in private both king consorts quietly boast they are in fact her father.

The only boy, and Jon’s only ‘confirmed’ heir is Aemon, who was conceived whilst Aegon was away with negotiations in Essos. He is evidently a Stark in blood, and looks just like a young Jon. He’s a sullen, soft little toddler who prefers not to speak much. Thankfully for him, his three older sisters make talking rather pointless. Obviously there is the implied issue of his birthright, as the only boy against Rhaenys, the eldest daughter. But with a boy so young, and a queen regnant ruling Westeros, the issue isn’t quite a priority just yet.

[ichorai]

apple pies & break-ins ; tangerine.

pairing ; tangerine x assassin!spouse!reader (gender-neutral pronouns)

synopsis ; tangerine comes back home just as you're about to leave.

words ; 1.9k

themes ; pure fluff, mild comedy, established relationship (married), assassin au

warnings / includes ; blood/injuries/weapons, slightly suggestive, tangerine has a potty mouth, lemon cameo, tangerine being clingy and sappy

main masterlist.

The entire house smelled of cinnamon, apples, and buttery pie crust. You sliced up another apple, taking care to carve out its core, before tossing it in the sugar syrup and popping the chopped pieces of fruit into the crust to bake in the oven. As soon as you bumped the door shut with your hip, the front door creaked open, followed by a familiar jangling of keys. 

You glanced up with a warm smile, glad that your husband was finally home—except it was quick to melt away when you took in his disheveled appearance. There was blood all over him, dribbling down his hairline, splattered over his neck, staining his once-pristine clothes. 

Despite his haggard state, he sent you a tired beam, his mustache twitching with the smile. 

“‘Ello, love,” he greeted, making his way to you behind the kitchen counter. “Close your mouth, darlin’, you’ll catch flies.” With a cheeky smirk, he slotted a finger beneath your chin, effectively snapping your lips shut. He mildly winced when he noticed he accidentally left a faint print of sticky blood on your jaw, but wisely decided not to tell you.

You fixed him with an unimpressed stare. “Jesus, Tan. Is that your blood?”

“Not sure, honestly. It’s coming from all over—some of it’s bound to be mine. Don’t worry about me, love. I’m fuckin’ peachy. Speaking of, it smells really good in here. You bakin’ something for me, darling? I’m flattered,” he hummed, leaning forward to kiss you. 

Before he could, you ducked away from him, pushing his face to the side with a wrinkled nose. “Ugh, go shower first, you’re getting blood everywhere! To be honest, I would’ve felt better knowing it was yours.”

“Ouch,” he murmured, though his grin still lingered by the corner of his mouth. “You wound me, sweetheart.”

Relenting, you leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to his unsuspecting lips. “There. You happy?”

“Very. Thanks, love.” He sent you a playful wink before slinking off to the bathroom, whistling a peppy tune under his breath on the way. You rolled your eyes and smiled to yourself, before turning to clean up the mess of flour and sugar and apple cores you’d made on the kitchen counter.

When your husband finally slunk out of the bathroom, a thick white towel hanging low around his waist and another ruffling at his damp curls, he made his way back into the kitchen.

“Put on some clothes, Tan,” you scoffed when he pressed against you from behind, sprinkling a bit of cinnamon sugar on the apple pie you had just taken out of the oven. 

“Hm, you don’t like me like this?” he queried, verging on a whine since you weren’t paying him the least bit of attention. “Naked and at your disposal?”

Amused, you finally turned around in his arms, trapped between him and the counter. The blue of his eyes were hooded and lustful, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. You, however, smiled sweetly at him. “You’re not naked.”

“Well, that can easily be remedied—”

Before he could reach down to undo the towel around his waist, you stopped him with your hands gripping both his wrists, quirking your brows. “As much as I’d love to, I have to call in for a job soon. I’m running late already. I was baking the pie for you in case you got back while I was gone.”

“Another job?” asked Tangerine, clearly upset at the turn of events. “Can’t you call off? I’m sure they can send another bloody assassin to do their dirty work.”

You pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, before gently pushing him away so you could head off to your shared bedroom and get changed. To none of your surprise, your husband trailed along behind you like a sullen puppy. “It’s a lot of money, baby. Don’t think I could afford to keep skipping jobs just to laze around with you.”

With a disappointed grumble, Tangerine wrapped his arms around you from behind again, squeezing tightly and kissing down your neck. “How long will this one take?”

“I’ll be back tonight,” you reassured him. “Tomorrow at the very latest.”

“Alright,” he acquiesced, though not without a loud sigh. He sat down on the bed, watching as you shirked off your flour-covered shirt in favor of a dark button-up. “You remember how we first met?”

Of course you did. You remembered it as if it was yesterday. You crossed your arms, stepping in between his legs by the edge of the bed. Both of his hands went to your waist, fingers curling over your back and absentmindedly tracing loose shapes on your sides. 

Looking up at you, he spoke between pressing soft kisses along your abdomen, over the black shirt you had donned, “I was on a mission with Lemon in Madrid… and we were in a tight situation. Bullets flying everywhere, my leg fucked up, and my gun jammed. Then, whaddya know, the most beautiful fuckin’ person I’ve ever laid my eyes upon comes flying through one o’ the windows. Took out three people with one knife, and took out another four with a bloody crossbow. You looked at me, covered in blood, and asked if I was alright. I told you that you were fucking gorgeous—and then you fell in love with me, right on the spot, and the rest is history.”

You burst out into a fit of laughter. “Hm, that’s not how I remember it. Need I remind you that I shoved you to the side because you kept getting in my way, asking if I’d like to have dinner with you? Gods, Tan, you were a pain in my ass. And your brother was laughing at you.”

“Cunt,” he grumbled at the mention of his brother. “Well, even if you didn’t fall in love with me right then and there—I did. I knew I had to be yours from the moment I saw you.”

You lowered yourself to a crouch, cupping his face and caught his lips in a feverish kiss. When you pulled away, you pressed your forehead against his. “Are you telling me this because you want me to stay?”

A sheepish grin tugged at the corner of Tangerine’s lips. “Is it working?”

“Nope,” you said, popping the ‘p’. You pulled away, slinging a packed bag over your shoulder and heading out the bedroom. “I’ll see you tomorrow, baby. Love you.”

“Wait! You said you’d come back tonight!”

True to your word, you had returned home at midnight, stumbling through the door tired and weary. Thankfully, you weren’t too banged up, just a scratch on your shoulder from the graze of a bullet that you managed to patch yourself before coming back. You were greeted with Tangerine dozing on the couch, a shitty reality show glowing on the television screen, with the half-eaten apple pie on the coffee table in front. He startled awake when you flicked his cheek with a smile.

“Hey, sleepy,” you said, dipping down to kiss his forehead, sauntering towards your bedroom to get changed.

As expected, your husband scurried off the couch to follow after you, gathering you into his arms and kissing you deeply. “I missed you,” he murmured, accent thick and lilting.

“Come on, I wanna get to sleep,” you said, tugging him to the bed with a muffled yawn.

In no time, he was curled up behind you, his large arm thrown over your waist and hand splayed out over your stomach. His nose was buried into the back of your head, unable to wipe the pleased smile off of his features.

It was relatively easy to drift to sleep, given how exhausted the two of you already were.

Not even three hours later, with the two of you already deep in slumber, there came a loud crashing from the front of the house. Someone was breaking in.

Immediately, you sat up in the bed, slipping out from beneath Tangerine’s heavy arms and the blanket. The cold air kissed your bare skin, sending a shiver spidering up your spine. You reached beneath your pillow to brandish a small emergency dagger you kept between the mattress and the headboard. Your husband also startled awake at the loud sound, eyes tired yet wide, grappling for a gun he kept beneath the bed.

“Stay in here,” he whispered, striding forward to the bedroom door, left slightly ajar.

“Like hell I am,” you quietly gruffed back, hot on his heels.

Knowing that there was no stopping you, Tangerine blew out a breath and the both of you crept closer, light on your feet. With no warning, Tan shouldered the door open and stepped out in one fluid motion, lining the gun up with the intruder.

A second later, he immediately lowered the weapon with a long string of exasperated curses. You peered over his shoulder, tense muscles loosening upon seeing Tangerine’s brother, Lemon, frozen in front of the broken window. His lips were twisted into a grimace and his eyes were as wide as saucers. There were shards of glass glimmering in his dark hair.

“What the fuck, man?” your husband erupted, immediately clicking the safety back on his gun and shoving it into the waistband of his sweats. “Are you daft? The fuck did you break my window for?”

“I was looking for you! Never heard a peep from you two after your missions. I just assumed the worst!” he exclaimed. For a moment, Lemon’s dark eyes flickered to you. “Hi, Y/N. Look lovely, by the way.”

You crossed your arms, more amused than anything. “Hey, Lemon.” 

“Why didn’t you fuckin’ call us, then? Bloody fucking idiot! Going down and breaking my window like that,” he angrily muttered, stomping forward to inspect the damage. “You’re paying for this, you twat.”

Rearing back, Lemon snarled, “Oi! I did call you! Didn’t answer your phones, the neither of you. I thought something happened! Forgive me for worrying about my brother and my in-law!”

“The fuck you mean, I would get the fucking notification if you called me!” Tangerine hissed back, pressing the heels of his palms into his sleepy eyes. After a second, he reached down into his pocket, fishing out his phone. He pressed the power button once, then twice. A third time for good measure. “Well, fuck me. It’s dead.”

You hid a smile behind your palm. You married a complete, hot-headed idiot. With an exasperated roll of your eyes, you wiggled your fingers farewell and swiftly turned, yawning as you dragged yourself back into the room. “I’m going back to bed. You two behave yourselves.”

Both of them grunted goodbyes at your departure, before immediately carrying on with their arguments.

“Why didn’t you just call Y/N?”

A long pause. Lemon's eye twitched. “Didn’t think of that, to be honest with you… What are you, a fucking halfwit? Of course I called Y/N!”

"Oh, right, yeah, Y/N does put their phone on DND before bed. Right."

"Right."

Frowning, Tangerine barked out, “Still, you’re a fuckin’ idiot, you know that? I could’ve shot you!”

“Alright, alright, calm your tits. D’you mind if I crash on your couch for the night?”

“What, are you bloody mental?” Another pause. “Alright, fine. Just take your shoes off. Don’t want you tracking mud all over the place.”

Half an hour later, Tangerine crawled back into bed, settling himself behind you. You had fallen asleep already, but shifted with a pleasant hum when he pressed a ticklish kiss to the junction of your neck and shoulder. 

“Love you,” he whispered, tugging you closer to his chest. You drowsily murmured something incoherent in response, and Tangerine contentedly drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

[vampiretendencies]

a visceral feeling, that i can never leave behind

summary; jj crossed his heart, hoped to die that he wouldn’t get in another dust up; now he’s suffering.

authors notes; getting back into the groove of writing full length fics, still doing blurbs. but if you have a request either way, requests are open.

pairing; jj maybank x pogue!fem!reader (reader is almost always a pogue, unless i specify other wise)

warnings; angst to fluff, maybe suggestive if you take it that way

It was unusual to not hear from JJ.

Whether it be sullen facetime calls, hundreds of affectionate text messages, or not being able to pry your hands off of one another in person.

It was just unusual.

Which is why you are silently cursing yourself, sat parked outside the Chateau. The Twinkie was gone, but that in more ways than one didn’t mean JJ wasn’t in his bedroom.

Maybe John B took it out on an errand.

Maybe John B, Pope, and Kie went out on the marsh.

The possibilities were endless— but JJ never was the type to miss out on a Pogue expedition. Nor was he the type to not tell you about it; hell he’d update you if he was doing a task, as simple as smoking a blunt.

Glancing down at the blue and grey text chain, a photo of JJ kissing the bone of your jaw ever so slightly adorned the top, a helpless dimple poking through— but, you couldn’t understand why most of it was blue. Why were they so many texts from only you?

J <3

JB did a lil fire tonight

Got mosquito bites in places I shouldn't have mosquito bites

Need you to help me scratch them :(

I'm being serious

Goodnight baby, wish I was sleeping with you

Those were the last few texts you'd received from JJ, after you'd worked a late shift at the wreck and he'd known you fell asleep. JJ also knew today was your late shift, typically he'd be at the front door of your home; parents ready to boot him out from how much he continuously rambled on about you. You even tried calling Kie, Pope, and John B numerous times with no response.

Yeah, something was definitely fucking wrong.

With a slam of your car door the leaves from the tree above crunch beneath your feet, adjusting your cropped tee so it didn't fall too low. Rays of the sun beaming thoroughly on the skin of your legs and the exposure of your back, making your way towards the screen door of the Chateau. Screen pulled back and worn out, the wood chipped and chewed but this wouldn't be the Chateau if it wasn't. Past the porch you step foot inside, pushing aside beer cans with your shoe clad foot; empty cereal boxes, stale three-day old pizza, open sodas. Anything that you could imagine that was on the hard wood floor, it was.

But what you couldn't find was answers.

"JJ!"

You called, knowing full well there wouldn't be a response as he isn't visibly here. But it's JJ, he could be fucking around.

"Baby!"

You tried the pet name in hopes that it would work, but as you enter his room and see an unmade bed with miscellaneous clothes thrown on it your thoughts grew thin. You huffed limp body falling back onto the solid twin matress.

Instantly flying upward upon hearing familiar voices and footsteps, one familiar voice in particular.

Questions seeming to be answered all at once.

Seeming.

"Did you see that headlock John B had him in?"

"Easy access! Took one hit and I swear I heard his jaw crack!"

It was, in fact JJ.

Doing that thing that he does after the Pogues think they've accomplished something big, yet they always fail to see the bigger picture.

Heat of the moment or adrenaline, you assumed.

"His face was so fucked up!"

"He's had it coming for a long time."

You confirmed it was John B's voice with Kies toward the end. Now the issue was, who the hell did they have to get into a fight with this time?

Though you may not know, you'd make certain to find out.

Creeping around the corner, you make your presence known at the entrance of the living room where they all stood. Appearing as if they's seen a ghost.

Not only did they not have the decency to include you or fill you in, but JJ's fist is coated in blood. Disheveled and mulled, like they'd been ran over by the same bus various times. Kie's curls fanned outwardly, John B with a busted lip, Pope with a black eye, and JJ with a welp against his cheek bone; a gushing cut seeping through.

Your voice grows horse, mouth running dry; fathomed by your supposed friends in front of you.

What were you? A sick joke?

"Look ... we can explain, JJ told us not to tell you and we-"

Kie offered, guilt eating away at her portraying a bad habit.

"Just don't."

"Shouldn't someone like ... be mediator this time, she might actually kill him."

Pope chimes in and it makes your stomach churn because he was partially true.

You brush past them, aiming for your car and of course JJ's steps behind you. Echoing your every move, fingertips knotting around your wrist in an effort for you to turn around and face him. Unexpectedly, your back met with the warm glass window of your car. His fists at the hood, arms hovering near the sides of your head. Tresses combed backward from his digits, out of fear that this situation right here would happen.

There were certain confrontations JJ appreciated and certain one's he didn't.

He had no problem with pummeling someone unrecognizable for the sake of his friends, which spells out the entirety of this.

The confrontations he hated though was this one, the one where he can't even look you in the eye. He invariably lost his tongue in a fight with you, his past making him think that every fight could result in you abandoning him and never coming back. For the long run.

"You should go get that looked at," you spat, biting back so harshly. Peering at a slash that would take weeks to scab over.

"Just stay okay? This doesn't have to be a fight."

His speech is low and he's looking everywhere but at you until you shoved him- hands connecting with his chest in an effort to get his attention and for him to stop caging you in.

Exasperated that he couldn't just tell you, that he couldn't just talk to you about it.

Animosity that he would dare get his precious face damaged in such as way.

Irate and bitter that his somehow get himself in this overwhelming imperilment.

A menace before you.

"It does JJ! We're lying to each other now? This is what we do?!"

It was a show, a show that people would stream on television for their on laughter and enjoyment.

But this was the sheerness of a susceptible couple, glass nearly empty.

Time bellowing out.

"I had to baby!"

Not to be dramatic but JJ's heart had been stitched together once, when you entered his life.

And that's why he tried his utmost to prevent any interference in this relationship.

Because now he swears, he can physically feel a stitch rip open with every remark you make.

"We tell each other everything JJ!"

"And I didn't tell you 'cause, I knew this is how you'd react!"

He stands still with a clenched jaw; tight enough for teeth to grind, hand gesturing at your current 'pissed off' stance—notrils flaring and mouth agape.

And he thinks this actual smoke fuming out of your ears.

Silence fell over the two of you, stood so desperately apart in the misty front yard of the Chateau.

"It was Rafe," He rasped through monotone. "We had to take this round while we could-"

"So fucking stupid, you know he's coming back for ya'll!" You still speak sharply, infuriated past envy. "M'the one treated like shit, just for you to get one up on Rafe Cameron ... of all people JJ!"

"I know, baby! I know-"

He reached for your arms, in ordinace to hold them close, but he failed whilst you inched to the car door.

What's upsetting is, after the fight and pirior to it- JJ craved to breathe in your oxygen and get lost inside your lungs.

"I dont care if it's a decision I won't like, it's still something I deserve to know," and now your voice is just growing weary. "You do such dumb shit and m'expected not to say anything."

All JJ could do was ache.

Ache with regret.

And ache with longing at the feeling of you not wanting to be near him.

He hadn't even gotten a kiss today, for Christ's sake.

"You said you wanted all of me JJ, I gave you that. Why aren't you doing the same..."

Your figure folds, stepping low into the car, JJ running forward bloody fist pounding on the glass window. Praying to God, that you'd give in just this once and hear him out.

"I am! I fuck up one time and you're there to make sure I don't hear the end of it!'

He's finding his voice, a minute two late as his takes note of gear switching and the vehicle moving backward to leave.

"Get out! Don't go ... please don't baby!"

“Baby!”

He trails behind the moving car, as if running would make a difference.

But you wouldn't be there this time.

The last altercation he got into, you were on the other end to clean his bruises and linger kisses onto his cuts; yet, there was also an agreeance that he wouldn't be caught up in another scrutinizing fight.

You validated yourself in thinking you had the right to your reaction.

And JJ validated himself in thinking he was right in not telling you, your words engraving in his brain like clockwork; agatizing that he saw reason.

Nearly a chore for him to listen— heardheaded beyond belief.

Ravaging in the come down.

Always finding the beat, now they can't find the rush.

All filaments of emotion turned to dust.

“You can stop shitting your pants now, she’s already seen us.”

John B’s banter is not one that makes JJ’s tongue stop clicking, nor does it make his leg stop bouncing up and down out of horrid anxiousness.

He’s forced John b to take him to your home, only to be dismissed in your family saying you weren’t around.

You were, you just couldn’t stand to see JJ.

Fed up with his antics and his constant need to put himself in a position of hazardous instability.

Allowing him to resort to plan ‘work invasion’— the one place he knew you couldn’t escape him.

Despite how he typically acts, JJ has precise memory when it comes to you. He still has the little crumpled piece of paper you gave him in first grade— folded neatly inside his wallet, being besotted with you for that long.

‘I like your hiar — signed Y/N’

He picked fun at the way you spelled hair, though he took pride in his hair since then. And no matter how much he misplaced things, he endlessly found his was back to that note.

Resembling you, evermore.

With that being said, remembering your work schedule was something of ease to him.

You did glance at them stepping foot into the eating establishment, sat at a table on the far side— also know as your serving section.

Ultimately, you didn’t want to argue any longer with JJ; you didn’t want to argue to begin with. You bargained with him to learn— to learn that he can’t always have his way.

Especially when he’s teasing you so, showing up during your shift, and wearing that stupid fucking navy blue button up shirt besides the fact that it was, unbuttoned. Chest on display, muscular and built.

You felt the dagger of his eyes on your back whilst you served the table that was ahead of them, still feet away. Unable to concentrate on the order, eaves dropping on their conversation.

“Ma’am, are you listening?”

“Sorry … sorry what was that?”

Your saccharine voice apologizing to the woman and her small child, JJ chews the inside of his mouth. He despised going longer than a millisecond without hearing that sweet, sweet sound, laced with the inticement of veneration.

Accidentally fumbling the pen and note pad in your hand, rubbing your sweating palms onto your greasy black half-apron.

“Just two milkshakes.”

The woman was quick to repeat, voice more stern at you for not getting it right the first time.

But JJ was going to win you over, wether that be clogging every toilet in the stalls to announce to everyone that there was a plumping problem— isolating only you and him.

Though, he had something else in mind. Maybe not we’ll thought out to most, but it was the quickest and most efficient way he new of to win you back over on his side.

You slide your feet against the tiled floor, anticipating serving the group of Pogues. Instead you plaster on as fake as smile, and interrupt their witty banter by clearing your throat.

“What can I get ya’ll today? Our special today is a main dish of lying with backstabbing on the side.”

You were being bitter and you knew it, purposefully standing on the side of the table that JJ wasn’t on. But still the dining chair screeched on the floor, in an effort to move closer.

“Look we actually love you a lot more than JJ, if we’re being honest,” Pope conquered, and Kie and John B shook their heads in eagerness, willing to mask the tension in the air. “He convinced us to leave you out of it and we didn’t want to get in the middle of anything.”

“You don’t have to justify anything JJ did Pope, he chose to break our promise and that’s on him.”

You sneered, eyes rolling harshly at the blonde that’s twirling his thumbs— peering up at you with a deathly smirk on his features.

“That was a one time thing, Rafe deserved it baby, you know he did.”

“Baby, you know he did.”

John B mocked JJ, warning a kick from JJ’s combat boot beneath the table with a scoff.

“Did you guys hear something … like this irritating buzzing sound of some bastard talking?”

That earned a hissing sound from John B, the actual remnants of what JJ felt from that comment.

“Are y’all ordering or what? I have other tables to serve.”

You conquer, JJ’s at the edge of seat, tapping his foot. His sense being filled with that of burgers, shrimp and grits, anything he could utter but he didn’t have an appetite.

No, not when the only thing he had a hankering for was currently in front of him.

Back straightened and stood tall, typically a stance he’d drool over but he can’t get past the weeping sensation— dire need to never be at odds.

To simply just be.

For you to be his, and him be yours.

All over again.

“I was hoping you were on the menu.”

Courage emphasizing his words, eyeing you up and down— nearly eyefucking. Seeing now as his opportunity to go in for the kill.

“Okay, you know what-“

You’re spinning on your heels, in a notion to walk away— refusing service.

Until.

“JJ! Get down, my parents are never gonna’ let us back in here!”

But, he didn’t give a fuck.

A sickly pit in your stomach causes you to turn around, to be met with a JJ stood bright eyed— a disfigured expression and sunken shoulders hanging low.

Standing atop the table, head closer to the ceiling than it ever was before. Loud and proud, whilst his hands clapped, cupping together for a infamous effect.

Your face burns with prim red scrutiny, horror covering your face— just powerful moments ago.

Insides scrambling to nothing, a stupid toothy grin plastered across his features.

Wreckless, per usual, consequences of no variation to him.

He’s irrevocably standing on top of a restaurant table with only lovingly sullen eyes.

“This woman right here,” He gestures his arms toward you, all bodies turning toward you— wanting to cower in shame but oddly enough you were enticed and lead by infatuation.

Pope and John B, just let JJ do his thing— either way he was going to do what he pleased.

Crowds of familiar faces, family, a friends— some with mouths wide open in awe, some making snarky remarks, and some wishing like hell that it was them.

“She’s gonna’ have my babies,” He started a small chuckle escaping his lungs. Announcing to the entirety of the restaurant, giving them entertainment; despite the promise he broke to not get himself hurt again.

This though. This was promising, and convincing and everything in between.

Salvaged with being allergic to the waiting.

Waiting for you to come around.

You’re in the room, you earn his gaze.

You open your mouth, he’s hypnotized.

Starstruck.

“And m’gonna have those lips on mine for however long she lets me … forever I hope.”

He beamed, Kie’s father’s disgruntled face entering the room, waving at JJ to get down.

A sinister grin still on his features.

“And ya’ll will pass by us in disgust, that you can’t be us. That you can’t have our love.”

You’d hoped someone was behind you because you were about to collapse.

“This enough of an apology for you, pretty girl?”

He echoes, bits of his accent flowing through the sentence.

You managed to fight the smile on your features.

Let’s just say JJ proclaiming his love infront of nearly thirty people didn’t come close to his usual public displays of affection.

“Get your ass down!” Kie’s father, Mike, stammered, and JJ willingly jumped down from the table, being that he wasn’t finished.

And he knows by the smile lines next to your mouth— that this argument is officially past tense.

And he knows that tonight he’s going to relish in all the delicacies that you have to offer him.

“I mean it was alright,” you joke, picking fun to pass your inkling of embarrassment.

Knowing that it topped any apology you’ve received.

JJ glides over to you, hands wholeheartedly cupping your face, thumbs nestling you chin. Like the two of you were on a stage and this was a live performance.

You hold his heart in your hands internally, JJ is merely thankful to be alive during this lifetime with you.

Appreciating your existence and the relationship the two of you founded, together.

He places a wet, sloppy kiss to your lips, pecking them repeatedly. Delving them together, molding with perfection and engulfing yours with his.

Exhilarated to have the opportunity to graze mouths with yours.

“Don’t ever make me chase you again.”

But, he knows he’d do it all over.

Standing hand in hand, with lovelorn souls.

Knowing that he’d redo it without hesitation.

[lalunanymph]

𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐑

𖨆♡𖨆 itoshi rin x fem!reader x itoshi sae

✧˚ · . a tornado meeting a hurricane, a wild flame catching onto dry straw—that was how it felt like to love the both of them: disastrous.

✧˚ · . cw. love triangles, sae is 27 / rin is 25 / yn is 24, cheating (w. rin), established relationship (w. sae), explicit smut, degradation (w. rin), dubcon (w. rin), stalking (rin), unprotected s[e]x (w. rin), language, tension, family dynamics, mentions of food, toxic relationship dynamics

dawn says: a reupload !! hopefully this permanently stays in the tags askdjf enjoy <33

masterlist | playlist

#1 — A BACKWARDS DANCE

The ticking clock overhead mimicked the nervous bumps of your heart as the atmosphere around the Itoshi dining table remained frigid. 

Despite Mrs. Itoshi’s efforts to keep the conversation going (Hana—she told you to call her Hana), the hard block of tension icing over the two grown men in the centre of the fold could’ve cut anyone’s efforts short. Sae was picking at his kare dish, listlessly nodding whenever his mother tried to poke more information about Spain out of him. Sometimes, he would reach underneath the table to take your hand, squeezing it—a silent reassurance that this will be over soon, baby, okay?   

But, funnily enough, it wasn’t your boyfriend who was contributing this level of unease throughout dinner.  

Sae was a perfect angel tonight (well, as perfect as one could get).

He remembered his manners, treated his parents with respect, did not turn the wrath of his apathy on them and even helped his mother to set the table while waving you off to catch up on the 7 o’clock news with his father on the sofa. 

The reason why this delicate balance of comfort this entire evening threatened to tip towards outright edgy nastiness was because of one dark-haired striker glaring at you from across the table.

Sae’s little brother, himself: a glaring and uncommunicative Itoshi Rin. 

Your friends did tell you that meeting the family for the first time would be awkward, but was it this uncomfortable?   

Despite your thin blouse and skirt, you felt stuffy and itchy all over; one hot gust was enough to make you break out in sweat like a sinner in church. You tried to be nice to Rin; asked him about his progress in Blue Lock, encouraged his sharing on his victories on the field (while pinching Sae’s thigh so the elder Itoshi would not make a nasty remark which would boil over this unbearable tension—and wisely, he kept his mouth shut). 

But, all your efforts were in vain. 

Rin would give you one syllable retorts or grunts, never peeling his glare from his slowly congealing kare. Even Hana had noticed and with the patience of a martyr, tried to worm out what was bothering her youngest. You could see how much she loved Rin; those teal irises she passed on to her sons would soften, and she would ask him about how hard his training was; if he was happy with his friends and working hard at the facility. 

Oh, yes. It was winter now, and the clubs were closed to prepare for football season in the early summer. You had halfway forgotten.

“I had a friend who used to manage a training facility,” you tried to gain a foot into the conversation. Sae’s shoulders suddenly tensed, as if preparing for a fight. If you had an iota of self-awareness, you would’ve noticed how the older brother’s eyes flashed towards the younger, a wordless warning to be fucking nice to you. “She loved it so much and spends every weekend there. Have you ever considered opening up your own training club, Rin-kun?” 

For a moment, he didn’t reply. Rin slid his sullen glare from his food to you, and your heart made a weird, constricting movement somewhere above your knotted stomach. You hadn’t realised you were holding your breath. 

Those cool, aquamarine eyes appraised you with barely concealed disinterest, though unlike his older brother’s natural apathetic appearance, Rin could not quite hide the flickering flame of anger behind the stoic facade. It made you want to curl upon yourself—hide your face in Sae’s shoulder until he told you it was safe to come out.

The tablecloth rustled for a moment, and Rin winced. The hostility soon clouded over, and a neutral sort of detachment took its place. 

“Yeah,” he mumbled, using the tines of his fork to poke a limp carrot. “If football wasn’t so demanding. Yeah.” 

At least he had uttered five more words to you than before. You counted it as progress.

Rin’s animosity aside, the entire dinner with Sae’s family was lovely. His father was good-natured enough to jab a few jokes, and his mother was a complete sweetheart with how much she doted on everyone at the table.

Only one person did not give you his full approval, and you desperately wanted to earn it. 

His acceptance would mean you and Sae were right for each other; that this relationship was worth pursuing and sticking to in the long haul. Granted, Sae and you have only been dating for a year, but you really could see yourself going the distance with the famous midfielder.

But, maybe, Rin probably thought you were with Sae for his money. 

This wouldn’t be the first time. 

Though your relationship was not yet public, you could foresee the SNS pages not-so-subtly hinting at your poorer background as a sports physiotherapist who had managed to sink her talons into Japan’s football prodigy. 

It was unfair, but a completely plausible reason why Rin was treating you coldly.

With that thought in mind, you waited until your boyfriend and his parents were in the living room watching a movie before joining the youngest Itoshi in the kitchen to help wash up the dishes. 

While you were bemoaning Rin’s disdain for you, what you didn’t know was that Rin could not stand being in the same room as them—as those fucking pacifiers. 

Despite how his parents knew what Sae had done to him; how the older man had intentionally ruined their entire sibling relationship, they still decided it was a good idea to spring this dinner on him the very second he entered their house. 

Idiots. Rin squeezed too much soap onto the sponge and started to scrub his mother’s fancy strictly-for-guests cutlery roughly. Not only did they tell him at the last minute that Sae was coming for dinner, but they also conveniently forgot to mention that he was bringing his girlfriend along. 

His girlfriend who was far prettier than that asshole deserved; whose vanilla perfume engulfed him the second you stepped close enough to give him an awkward one-arm hug.

He couldn’t get rid of the memory of how your pretty eyes sparkled whenever his father told a joke, or how softly you glanced at Sae everytime that fucking bastard opened his fucking mouth.

You were too good; too pure for someone as undeserving as Itoshi Sae. 

“Rin?” 

He almost dropped the plate he was holding. Thanking his fast reflexes, Rin tightened his hold on the delicate porcelain and turned around to find you hovering hesitantly by the doorway. 

“I thought you could use some help.”

Before he even had the chance to open his mouth to crisply tell you that he had it under control, you padded over, grabbing one fluffy white cloth and picking up a mug to wipe it down. 

“It’s fine,” he gruffly muttered, fully expecting you to come to your senses and turn around in embarrassment with an excuse that you had to go back to Sae.

But, you didn’t do any of that.

Rin’s ears pricked with the sound of your tinkling laughter. He turned to face you and it was a huge mistake.

Your smile was purity in itself, shining brightly with your effervescent personality that drew him in like a moth to a flame. He raked his eyes down the dip of your collarbone (how did Sae even allow you to dress this provocatively in front of his little brother?) and drank in your plush thighs jiggling slightly from the high stockings you wore which just touched the hem of your miniskirt. 

I’m going to fucking kill him for putting her in front of me. 

“You know, Sae always did say you were a little, um… different.”

At the mention of his nii-chan’s name, Rin calmed the ridiculous thudding in his heart enough to shoot you an unimpressed grimace. “I take it he means something offensive?”

“No, no,” you retorted hastily, and impulsively reached out to touch his arm. Rin hated how that simple motion got his cock twitching in his pants, and he involuntarily jerked back, sloshing soap suds onto the counter. You gasped softly and reached for a cloth the same time he did. 

Your fingertips grazed the other and you hastily retracted your hand, unaware of how hot your face was growing. It felt like a spark had gone off between the both of you, and you were incredulous to discover blood roaring in your ears; your heart thudding a mile a minute.

Rin fell into a thick disquiet, returning back to the dishes. You scrambled to pick up the cloth, steadying your heartbeat and trying to pretend like these last few seconds never even happened. Perhaps you should try again.

“He meant it in a way that you’re special.” 

Whatever he expected you to say, it was not this. Rin stopped his methodical scrubbing, and glanced at you from under those glossy dark green bangs falling in his face. An irrational urge overtook you to brush those stray strands from his eyes, and you almost did. 

Almost reached out to sweep them away so casually you had to catch yourself from acting out on that impulse. 

Almost crossed a huge line when it came to your boyfriend’s little brother. 

The butterflies in your belly quickly became warning chimes. 

Rin’s presence itself set you on edge; like a predator to prey, you wondered when he would sink his jaws into you. Tell you that he knew the only reason you were with his brother was because you were attracted to the yen signs and not the man behind them. 

You could not bear to handle such an accusation from someone this familiar with Sae. 

The potential backlash from tabloids were one thing (you would never pay them any mind), but if Sae’s otouto himself deemed you were nothing but a money-hungry gold digger, you would never get over the utter dismay of not being fully accepted into the Itoshi family. 

So, you waited with your hands clenched around the soft cloth. Waited for him to throw you a harsh word or shatter his judgement into your face. 

You never anticipated what he would say next.

 “You’re too good for him.” 

Something deflated in your chest, making you curl forward and hunch yourself like a frightened animal. Rin’s words echoed in your mind like you were standing under a roaring waterfall, clogging your ears up with cold disbelief of the implications behind such a treacherous observation. 

There was nothing you could do but chuckle uneasily, shrugging your shoulders.

“I like to think I don’t deserve him.”

“No.” 

This time, the frustration was evident in his tone. “You’re nice. You’re smart, kind and funny. What the fuck are you doing with a man like him? You can do so much better.”

He dried his hands off and perched those large, veiny palms on the edge of the damp counter, peering at you with those piercing teal eyes you were halfway drowning in. Your throat felt like it was closing on itself, and the utterly heavy realisation that set in far too late shook you to the core. 

Rin… wanted you. 

He wanted you. 

You were sure of it. 

Those half-hooded eyes, the parted mouth. You had only ever seen that familiar expression on your boyfriend’s face. 

Like someone had thrown ice-cold water into your face, you took one step back; though you were positively sure he could not miss the way your pulse was rapidly ticking like a trapped hummingbird against your flushed neck. 

Rin did not corner you nor call you to come back. 

He simply let you mumble an excuse and high-tail it out of the kitchen. Later, when he was finally done with the dishes, he stepped out to an empty living room and his mother’s inscrutable gaze.

“Sae and Y/N have gone home,” she declared, standing up and smoothing her skirt. “I take it you were nice to the poor girl? You know how much she means to your brother.”

She does? 

Rin had barely noticed Sae’s presence at the table. 

“I was nice,” he murmured defensively. Then, he let curiosity overtake him. “Is she returning to Spain with him?” 

Hana hummed, running a hand through her silver-streaked reddish brown hair and shrugged. “She’s staying behind, I think. Sae didn’t mention anything about her following.”

His mother would never know how much her words ignited such a strong fixation in him to track you down and finish what you both started. As much as the world saw him as Itoshi Sae’s little brother, he had forged a name for himself beyond the association to his brother’s lukewarm prodigy status, becoming a formidable foe on the field.

And subsequently, someone with a ton of contacts. 

He would find you, and he would make you admit the inevitable truth—that what you both felt in that little kitchen was not as unreciprocated as you would’ve liked to believe.

Ever since your encounter with Rin, you felt as if the air was humming with an inevitable storm. 

Its electric presence clung to the tips of your hair, a slight tremble in your fingers whenever a tall, dark-haired man appeared in your periphery. Sometimes, you would find yourself doing a double take at the familiar stranger and harp on your own stupidity. 

Rin wasn’t serious, you tried to persuade yourself. He’s just testing me to see if I’m true to Sae. 

And you were. You loved your boyfriend with every beat of your heart. You showed it to him through consistent calls and texts now that he was back in Spain. Sae’s presence was marked in your constant soft smiles and eager heart which yearned for him to come back. He had a match tonight and like a good girlfriend, you told him you would be watching it from home. 

Massaging your neck, you tried to ease out the kinks as you closed your shop for the day. As a physiotherapist, your expertise was sought out near and wide for giving mobility back to the people who needed it. Most of your clientele were athletes, which was how you were introduced to Sae when he came in for a sore hamstring. 

The world outside was quiet, streetlamps casting their orange glow on the rain slickened pavements. Your mind was working on autopilot, a constant hum of dishes, Netflix and mid-week laundry stringing in between your thoughts with the reminder of FaceTiming Sae after his match had ended. 

You didn’t hear the bell above your tinkling, nor feel a presence ambling into your shop until he cleared his throat.

A familiar pair of teal eyes shocked you out from your reverie, and you pieced on an uncertain smile when you realised who it was.

“Rin—hey. What’re you doing here?” 

He was clad in a pair of dark-wash jeans and a black turtleneck, his coat hanging limply in his arms. A cool draft seeped in from an open crack at the door, its chill mimicking the tightness in the corners of your eyes.

“I heard from Isagi that you’re one of the best for strained muscles,” he dropped his coat onto the counter and you tried to ignore how tall he was—easily towering over you and his brother. It would’ve been amusing to see how much Sae’s younger brother was bulkier and ganglier than him, but the flash of irony dissipated when he leaned forward, trapping you between the marble high top and his build. “Can you help me? My back has been feeling tight lately.” 

A bubble of nervous laughter spilled from your lips and you took one step back, trying hard to ignore how his warmth encroached your personal space and left behind the dizzying scent of pine and musk. 

You flickered your gaze to his damp hair, and surmised he must’ve been caught out in the rain. 

“Did you run here?” you tried to tease him, shifting past the behemoth of a striker to fiddle with the heater. Switching it up to sweltering proportions, you turned around and spared him a smile. “Don’t want you catching a cold.” 

You were ignorant to how Rin’s eyes darkened when you flicked off your white coat, pushed up your sleeves and beckoned him into an examination room. Warmth pooled from between the vents, swirling around both your close bodies when you positioned him on the table and started to feel up his tense back. 

Finding the tight knot in record time, you hummed. “I was right. A strained external oblique. I noticed it from the way you're compensating your weight on your right side—it must be sending dull sparks of pain upward, correct? Your brother had a similar injury before. Must be a family trait to kick the ever-loving shit out of a ball, huh?” 

Your joke barely found traction, and instead of offering a polite chuckle, Rin’s teal irises clouded over with an inscrutable emotion. The merriment withered on your tongue and you cleared your throat, beckoning him to remove his shirt. 

Rin did so without a single protest, and you couldn’t help yourself from raking your gaze down his defined back. 

“I sprained it while doing a sharp turn a few days ago,” he started to divulge. “Guess that’s what is causing my sleepless nights.” 

You prodded the toughened muscle with a pinch in your brow. “Is it affecting your sleep? That’s horrible. Let me help you get it sorted.”

Using a cold spray, you focused it on his strained muscle, the smell of sharp mint hitting your nose. When he was sufficiently medicated, you instructed him to raise his arms over his head. Rin did as you told him too, and you missed the tiniest shudder when you gripped his wrists and gently stretched him to the side, opening up his muscles slowly.

His hiss of pain made you wince and you chuckled lightly to hide your sudden nerves. “Deep breaths, Rin-kun. The pain will dissipate.”

“Why do you insist on calling me Rin-kun when you’re a year younger than me?” 

The sharp question he threw at you caught you off-guard. Luckily, your face was hidden from his prying eyes and you quickly schooled your features to one of professional neutrality. 

“I don’t know. Habit, I think. I am dating your older brother.”

It became like a game, then, for you to constantly remind him of Sae. You would tell him about his brother’s plays, the things he said about his otouto and the numerous dumb things you both would get up to, but it sounded hollow. Distracted. 

Rin could guess as much. 

“You hate it when he’s gone, huh?” 

He was bent forward on the table and your hands stilled from kneading his sides. Swallowing a sudden wad of nerves, you forced out a chuckle. 

“I do. I hate it so much. It makes me feel needy.”

Rin hummed, and turned his gaze behind to catch your wide ones. “It’s because he never made you feel secure in the first place.” 

You felt like he had scalded you; stripped your bare of your defences till you were left naked and bleeding, completely susceptible to his scrutinising dark eyes. Those same eyes that reminded you of Sae’s, yet were filled with more fire than his older sibling’s. More passion that made a shiver run up your spine just from thinking about it. 

Involuntarily, you took a step back, and the tense atmosphere tightened a bit more. It was unbearable how he was looking at you, like you were a treat dangling right in front of his face that he could not bite into. A forbidden fruit he was thinking of claiming for his own without caring about the repercussions. 

Rin shifted from his seat to face you, his thighs spread around either side of your body. You couldn’t move away, not when he picked up your hand and pressed it right onto his chest. 

“I meant what I said in the kitchen,” he mumbled, dark bangs falling in front of his face. Your fingers automatically brushed them back and his eyes rippled close, like your touch seared his skin and he lived for the thrill of that sharp pain. 

He brought you closer into his orbit, where you were close to crashing onto his murky surface. 

Rin’s lips ghosted your collarbone, and your breathing hitched. Unbidden, your eyes drooped close, and you held your breath.

Make it stop… I can’t keep away from him…

With a strength you never knew you had, you braced two hands onto his broad pecs and pushed yourself from the freefalling edge back into safe waters, gasping like you had nearly drowned. 

The spell broke and Rin’s eyes shot wide open. For a second, neither of you could speak. Your chest rose and fell with heaving breaths and his inscrutable eyes were peeled onto your faltering expression. 

“Are you testing me?” The quiet anger in your voice was unmissable. “Did you think I would fold and you could tell Sae that I’m nothing but a gold digger? You’re such an asshole.”

Rin blinked, computing what you were trying to say. “Wh—no. I didn’t,” he vehemently disagreed, standing up. 

You tried and failed to keep your eyes trained away from the deep V on his stacked abdomen leading to a slight dusting of dark hair, warmth scrawled across your cheeks. Embarrassment held you hostage to this situation, and you didn’t think to move yourself away from the crossfire until he roped his defined arms around you, bringing right back into the fray. 

“Rin—”

The press of his lips on yours shocked you like a lightning bolt. 

Your gasp was mistaken for eagerness, and Sae’s younger brother didn’t hesitate to dip his tongue into your mouth, drinking in your honeyed moans with fervour. His warmth was intoxicating, spreading from your palms pressed onto his broad chest. Rin kissed you differently than Sae did; where the older Itoshi brother was hesitant pecks that melted into slow, mind-numbing kisses, his younger brother was all fiery determination to eat you whole one kiss at a time.

You barely noticed that your back was against the wall, only cognizant that your thighs were wrapped around his waist when he hoisted you into his arms. Rin kneaded your ass cheeks with an eagerness that belied his dirty intentions. The taste of him invaded your tongue, saturating it with something sweet, musky and a flavour that was all him. 

He grunted when you tugged on his locks feverishly, your core rocking against the half-hard bulge tenting from his jeans. 

Hands which were intimately acquainted to how his older brother’s skin felt gliding against yours trembled when they reached for his pants, unbuttoning it with one swift tug. Rin was agile enough to manoeuvre you higher against the wall while he released his cock from its denim confines, letting the leaking head touch your bare thigh. The short skirt you wore was perfect for this quick rendezvous, and you could sense his impatience when he pushed your panties to the side and lined himself up with your slick entrance.

“Rin—” your gasp was cut off by the delicious stretch of his cock invading your most sensitive inner spots.

The blunt head grazed a part in you that had you gasping and keening, your thighs tightening around his waist. Rin started to move and the pleasure was unbearable. It felt like hot coals sliding down your spine, bringing gooseflesh to your skin and tears to your eyes. 

You were close to combusting from both the guilt and rapture combined, your heart aching even as it soared when his lips collided roughly with yours.

“Fuck,” he grunted against your lips. “S’fuckin tight for me… like you were made for me.”

You didn’t give him a response, and he didn’t need one. The hitch in your breath was proof enough that you were quickly unravelling; giving him a prime view of an untouchable woman coming apart just for him. 

Rin could hardly believe this was happening: Sae’s shiniest trophy right in his arms, moaning breathily into his ear. 

As a teenager, he would spend hours in front of his brother’s most prized accolades, glaring them down, pushing himself to be harder, better, stronger so none of them would mean anything to Sae anymore when Rin could easily surpass him at every turn. This was no different.

You were a golden notch on Itoshi Sae’s bedpost, a woman out of his league that Rin halfway wondered if you were cursed with blindness for loving a man he had the displeasure to call his brother. What a lukewarm choice. Rin was completely serious when he said that you were too good for his brother. Your shining smile, your lovely laugh and your endless kindness was wasted on a man who cared about nothing in his life but football and himself.

Would it be a shame that you would never get to experience real love from someone who meant every gesture and promise? Sae could not give you that. He had lost both his heart and the respect of his younger brother in Madrid all those years ago. 

One particularly hard thrust made your toes curl in his periphery and your head toss back, a cry of his name rebounding across the room.

Take that, asshole, Rin thought viciously as he bit on your lower lip hard, swallowing your dulcet whimper. She’s already mine. 

The walls of your pussy were slowly melting around his cock, leading him down this final path of heady betrayal. 

What you both did could not be undone; you had effectively cheated on Sae with his younger brother. 

Rin had to hide his feral grin in the crook of your neck at the image of his older brother’s wide eyes; his shocked expression to find his girlfriend in his younger brother’s arms, swivelling her hips in a silent plea for him to let her cum. You lose, nii-chan. 

“Rin!” your gasp rang loudly and your release was swift. Those perfect velvet walls sucked his cock in deeper, not willing to let go. Rin was hard pressed to fight against it, letting your composure and release crumble all around him. Your body went lax in his grip, your keens turning softer, skin flushed with pearly drops of sweat.

He gave a few more pumps before white-hot strings filled you to the brim, eliciting another soft moan from your swollen lips. Rin leaned down to kiss you the same moment his cum overflowed and oozed down his length, staining the floor underneath the both of you with incriminating evidence of this betrayal. 

Your arms were tight around him, your face nestled in his neck that he almost missed your soft sobs. 

Rin used the remnants of his strength to sit you both down on the edge of the examination table. If you both were actually lovers, this scene would’ve been heart wrenching—you staining his neck with salty tears, thighs trembling around either side of his waist and your sweet cunt still moulded around his softening dick. 

He rubbed his hands up and down your back, offering you quiet comfort to ease the festering guilt slicing through his soul. The hard reality slammed into him the same second you lifted your watery eyes to touch his own darkened ones.

I fucked my brother’s girl. 

A firm push of his hands away sobered him back to the grim reality that you two were not lovers. The darkened look flitting across your face was enough to remind him of his misdeeds. 

You clambered off his lap, the fall of your hair hiding your trembling lips and shiny eyes. Methodically easing your panties back up your hips, his outstretched hand to help was met with an instinctual flinch and a frosty glare from you, one which shocked the young striker into silent regret.

“Get out,” your cold voice pierced him worse than any injury he had ever faced from the brutal fields. “This never happened between us, do you hear me?” Taking a deep breath, you had no idea how much your next words hurt him to the core. “I love Sae. I love him. He’s the only one I want, not you. Get out.” 

Rin wisely kept his mouth clamped shut, though his hard teal eyes told a different story. I know you’re just trying to convince yourself.

He could sense it in your tight shoulders and downturned grimace. You loved every single second of this. How could you not see it? 

The both of you were perfect for each other. 

But, Rin sensed it was better to keep at bay than goad you on. 

He eventually regained his common sense and pulled his pants up, shrugging his shirt back on and walking out of the clinic, letting the door creak close with a muffled thud to cover your slowly spiraling sobs.

© LALUNANYMPH. do not copy, repost, or claim as your own.

[valaenatargaryensdragon]

The Stag and the Dragon

pairing: Aegon Targaryen x Female OC

summary: Aegon has to marry a Baratheon girl, what was so attractive about her?

Word count: 3,9K

Warnings: Smut, Cunnilingus, Slight dirty talk, mean Aegon at first

Masterlist 1

Masterlist 2

In the dimly lit chamber of the Red Keep, the king's small council gathered, their faces illuminated by the flickering candles that lined the table. King Viserys I Targaryen sat at the head of the table, his expression grave as he surveyed his most trusted advisors. Among them were Queen Alicent, his daughters Rhaenyra, and Helaena, and his sons, Prince Aegon and Aemond. The tension in the room was palpable, for the matter at hand was of great import.

Viserys cleared his throat, his voice carrying the weight of authority. "My lords and ladies, thank you for convening today. As you all know, our realm faces a time of uncertainty, and it is imperative that we secure our alliances and strengthen the bonds between noble houses."

The council members exchanged knowing glances. They were well aware of the precarious state of the Seven Kingdoms, with simmering tensions and rivalries threatening to erupt into open conflict.

Aegon, the young prince, shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He had been aware of the impending discussion, and it filled him with unease. He glanced to his left, where the Baratheons, Borros, and Olira, sat. His betrothed, Olira Baratheon, sat with an impassive expression, her stormy blue eyes fixed on the table before her.

Viserys continued, "To that end, it is my decision to strengthen our ties with House Baratheon. I have arranged a betrothal between my son, Prince Aegon, and Lady Olira Baratheon."

The announcement hung in the air, and Aegon could feel the eyes of the council turn toward him. His heart sank at the prospect of this union, a marriage arranged for political gain rather than love. He shot a quick glance at Olira, but her face remained a mask of composure.

Borros Baratheon, Olira's father and the lord of Storm's End, nodded in agreement. "A wise decision, Your Grace. This alliance will bring stability to the realm."

Aegon bit his lip, struggling to contain his frustration. He had hoped for a different future, one where he could choose his own path. But the burdens of his birthright weighed heavily upon him, and he knew that his desires were secondary to the needs of the realm.

Olira, on the other hand, gave no outward reaction. She had been prepared for this moment by her father, taught to hide her emotions behind a stoic facade. She understood the duty that came with her noble blood, even if it meant sacrificing her own desires.

Viserys concluded the meeting, "Let it be known that this betrothal is a sign of unity and strength. The wedding will take place in due time, and I expect both Houses Targaryen and Baratheon to uphold their obligations."

As the council members began to disperse, Aegon couldn't help but steal one last glance at Olira. Their fates were intertwined now, whether they liked it or not, and the weight of their responsibilities pressed heavily upon their young shoulders.

The gardens of the Red Keep were a labyrinth of beauty, a testament to the opulence and grandeur of the Targaryen dynasty. As Aegon and Olira strolled along the winding paths, the scent of blooming flowers and the gentle rustle of leaves surrounded them. It was a serene backdrop for a union neither of them had chosen.

Aegon, his arms crossed and his expression sullen, walked a pace ahead of Olira. His displeasure with the betrothal was evident in every step, every furrowed brow. He had not wanted this, had not asked for it, and it was clear he had no intention of making it easy.

Olira, on the other hand, walked with a measured grace, her chin held high despite the growing tension in the air. She had been prepared for a life of duty and had resolved to meet this challenge with civility. Her father had told her that alliances between noble houses were the foundation of the realm's stability, and she was determined to do her part.

Queen Alicent, watching from a discreet distance, hoped that this walk would at least lead to some form of understanding between the betrothed. She knew that her son's disdain for the arrangement was only matched by Olira's quiet determination to make the best of it.

Aegon broke the silence, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "So, Lady Olira, what do you enjoy doing in your spare time? Embroidery? Singing songs of love and honor?"

Olira's patience was wearing thin, and she finally replied, her tone cool and measured. "I find solace in reading, Your Grace. History, politics, and strategies of war interest me."

Aegon scoffed. "Of course, books. Just what every young lady dreams of. I prefer the sword and the thrill of combat, something you probably find rather unladylike."

Olira's eyes flashed with irritation, but she maintained her composure. "Not unladylike, Your Grace, simply different. I believe that knowledge can be a powerful weapon as well."

The tension between them was palpable, but Queen Alicent had hoped that their shared time in the garden would lead to at least a civil conversation. She decided to intervene, approaching the young couple with a smile that barely masked her concern.

"Enjoying the garden, my dears?" the queen inquired, her voice warm but tinged with a subtle hint of authority.

Aegon and Olira exchanged a glance, both recognizing the queen's intent to bridge the gap between them. Aegon grumbled under his breath, but Olira took the opportunity to be diplomatic.

"Yes, Your Grace," Olira replied with a forced smile. "The garden is truly beautiful."

Queen Alicent nodded in approval. "Good. You have much to learn about each other, but I have faith that you will find common ground. After all, you both have the best interests of the realm at heart."

As the queen continued to speak, Aegon and Olira exchanged polite nods, masking their true feelings. The walk in the gardens had done little to change their initial impressions of each other, but they both knew that their future was inexorably tied to the success of this betrothal.

And so, they would have to find a way to navigate the treacherous path that lay ahead, one step at a time, whether they liked it or not.

Olira subtly shifted the conversation, attempting to steer it toward the subjects she knew would capture Prince Aegon's interest. As they walked through the garden, she spoke of the lavish feasts, celebrations, and wine tastings she had attended in Storm's End, emphasizing the pleasures of fine wines and the art of winemaking. She couldn't help but notice Aegon's attention wavering from his mother's discussion about politics and alliances to her words.

Aegon's eyes brightened, and he leaned in slightly, his curiosity piqued. "You enjoy wine, Lady Olira?"

Olira nodded with a warm smile, her intuition proving correct. "Indeed, Your Grace. The variety of wines and the craftsmanship that goes into making them have always fascinated me. The different flavors, the stories behind each vintage, it's like experiencing a piece of history with every sip."

Aegon's demeanor relaxed as he found himself engaged in a conversation more to his liking. "I couldn't agree more. There's something captivating about the way a good wine can transport you to another world, even if only for a moment."

Encouraged by his response, Olira continued, "Perhaps one day, we could share a fine bottle of wine and exchange stories of our favorite vintages. It would be a pleasant diversion from the weight of our responsibilities."

Aegon's initial reluctance to spend time with Olira seemed to be melting away as they discussed their shared interest in wine. He chuckled, a rare smile gracing his features. "You might be onto something, Lady Olira. I could use a distraction from all these talks of alliances and politics."

Queen Alicent observed the change in her son's demeanor, pleased that Olira had managed to capture his attention and steer their conversation in a more enjoyable direction.

As they continued their walk, Aegon and Olira discussed their favorite wines, their experiences at various feasts and celebrations, and their shared desire for moments of respite from the demands of their noble birthright.

Olira had achieved her goal of establishing a connection with Aegon, recognizing that they shared a common interest that went beyond the political union their families had arranged. It was a small victory, but one that held promise for their future together, despite the challenges that lay ahead.

As Aegon and Olira continued to discuss their shared interest in wine, the atmosphere between them lightened, and for a brief moment, it seemed they might find common ground. However, Aegon, known for his brash and sometimes thoughtless remarks, made a comment that shattered the fragile connection they had been building.

With a chuckle, he leaned in closer to Olira and said, "You know, Lady Olira, I've always found the intricacies of wine to be similar to women. Each one has its own unique flavor, and sometimes it's best to savor them all before settling for just one."

Olira's face froze, her smile vanishing. Aegon's comment had not only offended her as a lady but had also revealed his casual and somewhat disrespectful attitude towards women. The disappointment and hurt simmered beneath her stoic expression, but she knew better than to engage in an argument.

"I see," she replied, her voice cool and composed. "Well, Your Grace, I believe I've had my fill of wine and this conversation for today. Please excuse me."

With a polite nod to Aegon and a curtsey to Queen Alicent, Olira turned and gracefully retreated from the garden. Her composure remained intact, but inside, she was seething with indignation and disappointment. She had hoped for a connection, but Aegon's remark had shattered any goodwill she had felt.

As Olira made her way back to her chambers, she couldn't help but wonder how she would navigate this new challenge in her role as Aegon's betrothed. The road to understanding and acceptance seemed longer and more arduous than she had anticipated.

The night Olira changed into her sleep wear before shooing away her handmaidens. The all left her without a word thinking she was going to sleep. She took a deep breath trying to summon as much courage as she could before walking over to the door opening it to show her sword guard, a man she did not know given to her by the king.

"Ser if you will, can you bring me a cup of water, I seem to have already drank that was left in the chamber" The guard turned to look at her. She let out a fake squeal an d hid behind the door.

"Ser please, I am underdressed, just bring me the water and place it inside by the door without looking, I am betrothed to the prince and wish not to tarnish my reputation" She faked a distressed voice, she had mastered the art of voice manipulation ever since she was a young girl. She used it to freak her sisters into thinking she was crying or get them in trouble by using it on their father to get what she wanted.

"Yes of course, my lady" He nodded before scurrying away. Olira smirked before slipping out of her room. She walked as lightly as possible on her feet down the corridors. She had been here before once and somehow still remembered some of the corridors that led to the royal family wing.

She hid behind the corner to see who was there. There was only one guard standing in front of Aegon's bedroom door. She smirked seeing that she needed only to distract him. She looked around her and found a small rock, big enough to fit in her palm, perfect. She scurried behind a huge statue of what looked like The Mother before throwing the rock to the other side of the corridor.

"Who goes there?" Seconds later came the sound of heavy feet walking over. Olira held her breath watching through the small hole between the arm and body of the statue. The guard walked over looking around in search of the intruder. He walked further and further down the corridor with his hand on the hilt of the sword.

Olira moved from behind the statue once he passed her and moved as quickly and quietly as possible. She felt pride fill her when she reached the door and no one stopped her. She opened it and threw herself in before closing it. Aegon was sat on his bed, his back against the headboard, naked as the day he was born. His eyes widened when he saw her, she stood with her back against the door, panting lightly.

"What in the seven hells...?" He pulled one of the pillows to hide his lower region. Olira was actually shocked he had the decency.

"Surprised to see me?" She smirked, cocking an eyebrow up at him. Aegon scoffed rolling his eyes at her.

"Well no shit, what do you want? Where is my guard?" He asked. He moved to stand up with the pillow tightly clutched in his hands to cover his lower parts.

"Well your guard may have gone on a small walk, he will be back soon" She shrugged her shoulders. She moved to walk closer to him slowly. Her lips high in a smirk that sent shiver down aegon's back.

"What do you want?" Aegon asked. He frowned when she moved even closer to him until they were almost chest to chest with one another.

"I want to punish you, my bad prince" She answered simply. Aegon huffed and moved to push her with one hand but she used both to push him first making him fall back onto his bed.

"Punish me? How dare you, I am the prin..." Aegon's words froze in his mouth when she kneeled down to her knees.

"You've been mean to me, my prince" She wrapped her hands around the edges of the pillow, slowly pulling it away. Aegon tried to resist but her words sent a shock of pleasure straight down to his cock.

"I do not know of what you speak" He tried to justify himself. She smirked shaking her head while clicking her tongue. The pillow now was fully away and seated on the bed.

Olira's eys moved down from his face to look at his chest then torso and lasly his hard cock, standing proud and ready to be pleasured. Aegon's breath got caught in his throat when she reached up and grabbed him at the base.

"I wish to show you the benefit of marrying me, my prince" Olira started moving her hand up and down slowly, teasingly.

"Go on then" Aegon smirked. He looked down watching her face as she slowly moved her hand up and down his shaft. He can see that she did not have much if any experience.

He placed his hand on top of her own and started guiding her. His heart soared at the feeling of her soft hands on his member. She watched the movement with caution, trying to learn. Poor thing came to seduce him ony for her to lose control without even noticing.

"Dirty girl, you came here to fuck your prince?" Aegon teased her. Her head snapped up so fast he feared she may have given herself a whiplash.

"I do not wish to fuck my prince, I simply want to show him reason" She answered. She retrieved her hand but he kapt a hold on it making sure she does not run away.

"But what if your prince wishes to fuck you?" He asked, his grip tightening on her hand. He slowly began pulling it up, watching as her eyes widened in almost fear.

"Then I advice him to go find a whore, for I am not one" She responded harshly. She tried to pull away, successfully and made her way to the door.

Aegon was quick on his feet, placing his hand on the door before she could open in and held it in place. She gasped shocked and turned to face him confused.

"Your prince shall not force you, dirty girl, but he wishes for the same luxury" Aegon placed his other hand on the door trapping her between his naked body and the door.

"What ever do you mean?" She murmured, he was so close, his nose touched her own and her eyes were fighting not to close. His body heat was engulfing her along with his smell, he smelled like flowers and wine. She had heard he rarely bathed meaning his mother had forced him to bathe before they took their walk together.

"You wanted to show me the benifit of our marriage, I want to do the same" Aegon answered. he leaned his forehead on her own, nuzzling his nose with her own sensing the way she shuddered at his touch.

"What is it you w-wish to show me" She sighed. He leaned down almost like he wanted to kiss her only to dodge her lips and move down to his knees, fully naked and against the door.

"What are you doing?" She whimpered. He pushed up her skirts making her squeal in surprise.

"If you wish for us not to be caught, you should stay quiet" Aegon delivered a slap to her exposed thigh. Olira slapped a hand to her mouth and waited.

Aegon moved her small cloth to the side exposing her cunt fully to him. He smirked seeing her so wet, she probably did not even know why she was wet, women in her station were usually taught that only the man found pleasure and to lay back and take it while the man enjoys himself.

"Aegon" Her whispered was muffled by her hand when he blew lightly on her cunt.

Aegon ignored her and dived right in without a second thought. Letting a moan at the mere taste of her lower lips. Olira felt her knees growing weak at the feel of him.

Aegon pushed his tongue inside of her knowing it will not hurt her nor will it take her virtue away. His hands wrapped tightly at her calfs. One slid up and up slowly to hold her thigh making sure it stayed open. He gripped the flesh so hard it will surely bruise soon.

Olira tried her best to hide the moans tryin to escape her lips, it was harder than she thought it to be. Her hand that was attempting to open the door snapped down to grab the bright locks of Aegon, who shook his head from side to side nudging her numb with his nose with each shake.

Aegon hummed at the taste of her arousal increasing with each swipe of his tongue. He pulled back from her cunt and moved one of his hands, he held his thumb out and ran it over her pearl. Olira's legs began to shake as he swiped over it with his thumb over and over again.

"Such a dirty girl, growing wetter with each touch as if you expected it" Aegon smirked watching her face scrunch up in pleasure. She shook her head trying to deny his words but being unable to even speak. She felt so much pleasure and pressure.

Aegon used his other hand to raise one of her legs and rest it upon his shoulder before diving right back it. Tongue swiping over her slit before sinking inside of her. Olira's head fell back against the door with a loud bang.

"Are you alright, your grace?" The guard outside asked, he must have returned during the ordeal.

Aegon removed his mouth from Olira's cunt debating if he should answer but his thumb did not cease it's movement. He decided that he was feeling merciful for her and responded "Alright, just banged my foot"

Olira's whole body tensed feeling a strong pressure in her lower region. Her hand in his hair pushed him closer to her cunt. Aegon obeyed sensing her shakiness increasing faster than normal. His eyes watched her with his tongue deep inside of her, he moved his tongue with as much speed as he could go.

Olira had to fight a shout when the most intense wave of pleasure hit her. She had never felt something like this before in her life. Aegon chuckled when she began sinking down against the door. He pushed her leg off his shoulder so she wouldn't hurt herself. Instead he pulled away and moved to stand up.

"That w-was ... what are you doing mff.." Olira looked up at Aegon about to praise whatever he had done only for him to place a hand over her mouth.

"I am not done, dirty girl, open your mouth" He ordered. She obeyed opening her mouth slightly not know what he wanted.

Aegon chuckled shaking his head but gave her the benefit of the doubt. Not noticing he had grabbed the bace of his cock too busy looking over his face, the way his eyes lit up when meeting hers. She gasped in shock when he placed the tip of his cock on her lips.

"Open up, dirty girl" Aegon tapped her lips with his cock. Olira opened her mouth enough for him to begin pushing his cock inside of her mouth. Aegon deciding to be gentle moved his cock inside slowly until the hair on the top touched her nose. She pushed him off coughing and chocking much to his amusement.

"I said open up" Aegon delivered a small yet firm tap, almost a slap, to her cheek. She gasped but obeyed his order. He pushed his cock inside of her mouth again massaging her head to comfort her while his own head fell back with a loud groan.

"Now suck, dirty girl"

The unexpected change in Aegon's attitude did not go unnoticed in the Red Keep. The court was abuzz with whispers and speculations about the prince's sudden transformation. He had gone from being openly opposed to his betrothal to Olira Baratheon to becoming positively smitten with her.

Alicent Hightower, Queen of Westeros, observed her son's transformation with a mixture of surprise and satisfaction. She had orchestrated this betrothal for the sake of political unity and stability, but seeing Aegon genuinely taken with Olira was a pleasant surprise.

Aegon's courtship of Olira was a marked departure from his usual pursuits of wine and women. He showered her with attention, gifting her flowers of various colors and varieties, each bouquet more exquisite than the last. He composed heartfelt letters, seeking her company at every opportunity, and displayed an uncharacteristic tenderness when they were together.

Olira, who had initially been taken aback by Aegon's earlier behavior, found herself touched by his gestures and drawn to his newfound gentleness. She realized that beneath his brash exterior, there was a man capable of genuine affection and kindness.

As the wedding date drew nearer, Aegon's enthusiasm for the union only grew. The court could hardly believe the transformation in the young prince, who was now eagerly anticipating his marriage to Olira. Some whispered that love had blossomed between them, while others attributed it to Olira's charm and influence.

The queen herself was pleased with the turn of events. Aegon's affection for Olira had brought a sense of unity and harmony to the court, and she had no doubt that their union would strengthen the bonds between House Targaryen and House Baratheon.

And so, as the day of their wedding approached, Aegon and Olira stood on the precipice of a new chapter in their lives. The young prince, once opposed to the match, was now eager to become the husband of the woman who had captured his heart. Their love, unexpected as it may have been, had the potential to shape the future of Westeros in ways no one could have foreseen.

[andystanberg]

Workplace Health and Safety [IronDad & Spiderson]

Word Count: 17,618 AO3 Link Summary:

Post-Homecoming, Aunt May makes Tony officialise Peter's internship with Stark Industries. However, Tony is deathly afraid of getting close to the kid.

It happens, anyway.

(Five times Tony Stark fucked up as a mentor, and one time he learnt how to be a dad.)

-

Heads up, the kid’s in a bad mood.

Tony scoffed at Happy’s text, hunched over his workbench to continue his latest Peter Project. Yeah, teenagers were perpetually moody (or so he had been told by various parents at various galas over the years), but this kid? His kid?

Peter always had a wise crack up his sleeve and a thousand too-long tales about his day that never really had a point. And he had just come back from school, on a Wednesday.

Tony was sure he’d soon be hearing all about how Señor Tomas snapped at him for not being able to roll his r’s, how APUSH after lunch was the worst when that old drone Mrs Crath couldn’t change her tone to save her life, and how Academic Decathlon was not the same this year without that Lisa, Liv, Liz or whatever girl.

Although, wasn’t Peter into that MJ girl now? Since Spring, the Liz mentions have been steadily replaced with wistful sighs over how cool his new friend MJ was.

Maybe the kid had worked up the nerve to ask her out and got rejected? That would certainly warrant some teenage blues.

Tony’s musing was cut short by the ding of the elevator, which echoed throughout the quiet of his lab. Before Peter, he always had music blasting in the lab, but since the kid’s internship had become official at May’s insistence, Tony always ensured he could hear the kid’s arrival on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. The only other sound was Dum-E’s quiet whirring towards the elevator doors. Tony suspected Dum-E liked the kid more than him.

The first time Peter came up to the labs by himself, after being issued all his security clearances, Tony had been so engrossed in his work and the music had been so deafening that he hadn’t noticed when the kid arrived. Peter, being too awkward to say anything, had simply started working at his designated bench on some homework from school. An hour later and Tony almost had a heart attack when he turned around, ready to yell at FRIDAY to call Peter to berate him for his tardiness, only to find the kid peacefully working away.

“Hey Dum-E,” he heard Peter quietly whisper to his robot friend as he entered.

“Hey, kid! Great timing – I have a new project for you.”

The kid walked in and dumped his backpack on the ground. Literally just right in front of the elevator.

“Woah, not cool, Pete. What if someone comes up here and trips over that? Throw it on the couch.”

“No one but us comes up here,” Peter muttered. Still, he picked it up and tossed it to the ratty couch pressed up against the wall, to the right of the now dim elevator.

“It’s about maintaining a standard. Workplace health and safety, huh, you ever heard of that?”

He frowned. Tony’s taunting didn’t seem to register. Instead, Peter came around to the other side of his workbench, eyebrows furrowed as he took in the mess Tony was tinkering with, and Dum-E following him from a respectable distance.

Normal Peter would have already sprung off a hundred and one questions about the project, trying to guess what this tiny circuit board, a jumble of wires, and bullet-proofing was meant to be. But this Peter just glanced at it, and then his eyes trailed off elsewhere, not saying a word.

Alright, maybe Happy was right.

“I’m trying to improve your suit,” Tony offered. “Of course, there’s that new one – that you turned down, might I remind you – but after your little fight with that eagle guy-“

“Vulture.”

“Yeah, don’t interrupt me when I’m talking, Underoos. Anyway, when that hawk thing kicked your butt-“

“He was a vulture, and I won!”

Peter was finally looking at him, and Tony laughed. Trust a teenager’s pride to win out against sullenness. Oh, he should share that tip with May – though, was it rude to assume he now knew more about parenting Peter than she did? Probably. He’d ask Pepper about this later.

“Sure, kid. What was the final count again? Three broken ribs or four? Anyway,” he waved a hand, taking delight in the indignation on Peter’s face, “I realised your suit’s too light weight if you’re going to be joining the big leagues.”

“I like my suit lightweight. Easier to swing in, and besides, I don’t need all that beefing because I actually have superpowers, unlike some people who are just old and rich.”

There was that Peter smile.

“Old and rich? Me being old and rich saved your ass from drowning, last I recall!”

“Wouldn’t need saving if your suit had deployed that parachute correctly!”

“Details, details.” He had already fixed that in the new designs anyway. Tony brought up the hologram screen on his workbench and ushered Peter around to join him on his side. “I know you want to keep it light, but we also need to give you some real protection, Pete. Your aunt made it very clear that she’d have my head if something happened to you, and I can’t let you run around Queens getting shot at. What if a bullet actually hit you? Then you’d be sorry you didn’t let this old rich man upgrade your suit!”

Peter laughed. “I’ve had like, ten bullets actually hit me, so I think I’ll be fine.” He leaned into the screen, examining the hasty ideas Tony had scribbled down, and some potential designs for the upgrade.

Tony stared in open-mouthed horror. “Please tell me that’s some youth slang.” Peter shot him a guilty look back. “Ten? Bullets?! How come this is the first I’m hearing about this? I’ve seen your medical records, kid, and I didn’t see anything about it then!”

“Well, you see,” Peter began, hands up in a placating manner, “I can’t exactly go to the hospital when it happens. With the no health insurance.” Tony’s face must have twisted more into anger, because Peter hastily added, “And mutated DNA! Super healing, can’t explain that, can I?”

Tony took a deep breath in. He pinched his nose. “So, how, exactly, did you manage to remove them?” A gut instinct screamed that he wouldn’t like Peter’s answer.

“Um, I didn’t- uh, never got a chance to. They’re all, you know, just chilling like villains… in there.” Peter’s hand gestured to his body.

Tony was going to have a heart attack. This was it. Helen kept trying to warn him- had told him to avoid unnecessary stress, said that his blood pressure was abnormally high especially for someone without a fully functioning heart, and here he was with a kid hell-bent on sending Tony to an early grave.

“But it’s not that bad Mr Stark! They’re not like, in any vital organs or anything, just the stupid ones. And you can’t even see any scarring!”

“Kid, I’m afraid to ask, but what organs do you consider the ‘stupid’ ones?”

“You know, like, the kidney-“

“Wrong.”

“Really?” Tony hated how genuinely shocked Peter looked. “Oh man, but I thought since there’s two of them…”

“We’ve got to get you to med bay. I can’t believe you. You’re supposed to be responsible!”

“It’s really not that bad, Mr Stark. The last time I got shot was months ago, No immediate danger, see?” The kid had the audacity to do a flip as if that would prove his point. Dum-E extended its robotic arm, giving Peter what looked like a high-five, of all things. “Can we at least work on the bullet-proofing for a little bit?”

“No!”

Peter turned those big baby-doe brown eyes on him.

“No,” Tony said again, extending a finger out.

“But then you’ll have to tell Aunt May, and she’ll want me straight home, and then you’re leaving my suit as is so the next time I get shot it’ll really be your fault.”

Tony cursed. When did his kid get so good at manipulation? He was spending too much time around Happy, that big softy. Tony knows all about the McDonald’s ice cream trips between school and here.

“Fine. But only for two hours. Your last hour will be spent in the med-bay, getting X-Rays.”

“What if the radiation makes me more spider-like?”

“I guess we’ll have to deal with it.”

Tony fended off Peter’s follow-up questions about radioactivity and the possibility of spiders in the med-bay getting mutated and going on a biting spree. Gradually, Peter fell into silence and began concentrating on the task.

They were testing different materials for flexibility, strength, and conductivity. Nothing worked well on all three parameters, and it was beginning to get frustrating.

“Let’s turn on the radio,” Tony suggested, noticing the kid flagging at the lack of progress.

The old metal box on his workbench crackled to life – something Peter teased him mercilessly for, because who had a radio in the age of phones, even though the kid’s phone was basically a brick – and jumped right into the middle of a news segment.

“-preliminary hearing tomorrow for his alleged attempt at stealing a plane from Avengers Tower, which crashed into Coney Island. It’s unclear whether Spiderman, a local vigilante who witnesses reported seeing falling out of the sky with the jet, was trying to help or stop the attempt.”

“Unclear?” Peter squawked. “I wrote a note!”

“It’s been reported that Toomes – known as the Vulture – has been offered a plea deal if he reveals the identity of Spiderman, who the state is considering prosecuting for charges of damaging city property, hijacking a plane, and attempted terrorism.”

Nothing new then, Tony mused as he switched the radio to something with actual music. They had been running that story all day. He had already investigated the plea deal claim himself to ensure it held no merit (and he didn’t bribe any government officials to make it so, although he would be donating to several of their kids’ schools out of the goodness of his heart). These reporters needed to get better at their jobs.

And as far as villains went, this was the best First Bad Guy a superhero mentor could ask for. The Vulture had been too preoccupied with stealing Tony’s tech to finish killing Peter (which, obviously, thank God and all that nonsense, Tony was petrified when Happy had called him in and he’d found Peter in the state that he was in – although that hadn’t stopped him from trying to make that point about a good First Bad Guy to the kid’s aunt when she inevitably found out).

Peter looked faint beside him. “C’mon, kid, they can’t charge you with shit if they don’t know who you are. And as if that eagle guy knew who you were.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve been pretty good at keeping your little secret, I’ll give you that. I’m, uh, proud of you, Underoos.” Peter got quiet at that. Had he gone too far? Wasn’t praise good for kids? Or was that just babies? “I mean, it can’t be that hard. I wouldn’t pay you if you were the type to let these things slip to the villain of the week.”

“You don’t pay me, Mr Stark,” Peter muttered before going back to running conductivity tests on various materials.

Hmm. Well, he’d have to speak to someone about that. Who even officialised all this internship nonsense anyway? He’d throw in health insurance, too.

“I’ll speak to the head of HR and get that changed. Really, you should have said something. You do alright work around here.” Then, uncomfortable at how sentimental he was becoming, Tony said, “Though when I was your age, I was building real rockets, not messing around with toys.”  

The kid got all quiet again. These mood swings were going to kill Tony. How many months did puberty take, anyway? Five? Six?

Normal Peter would have pointed out that Tony was the one who built all these so-called toys. Where the fuck was Normal Peter?

Maybe he was being too harsh. The kid saw stars in Tony’s eyes or something, so he changed tactics again. “Kid, seriously though, listen.”

When Peter still didn’t look at him, Tony sighed. This got Peter’s attention. He looked annoyed. Almost angry.

“I am proud of you, obviously. You know that. I see a lot of myself in you. More than that, I want you to be better. I think you will be better. My dad never-“

“I’m so sick of hearing about your dad!” Peter exclaimed suddenly, throwing his materials down. Of course, super kid, super powers, and the table indented enough that Tony’s glasses – his special glasses that he designed himself with FRIDAY installed – flung in the air, onto the ground, cracking. Then, the piece of steel Peter had been messing with (and he should’ve known something was wrong because Normal Peter would never have even experimented with steel for this project, knowing its absolutely shit thermal conductivity) slid off the now off-kilter table and crushed the remains of his glasses.

Tony watched as Peter’s head whipped from the glasses, to Tony, then back to the glasses. Dum-E followed those movements in an almost comical, if not equally infuriating, manner.

“Mr Stark, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to- I’ll pay for new ones, I’m really sorry-“

“Great, that’ll be five thousand dollars’ worth of time and materials.”

“Five thousand! Mr Stark, I didn’t mean-“

“Oh, you’re so grounded, kiddo!”

At that, Peter looked angry again. Dum-E rolled towards him. “You can’t ground me!”

“I can. I am.” Dum-E spun around to Tony.

Peter stared back in a challenge. “It was an accident. An accident. You’re punishing me for an accident?”

“You screwed up!”

Peter rolled his eyes. “It was an accident-“

 “You should know better. Clearly, I was wrong,” Tony said, sarcasm dripping from his words.

Dum-E rolled back and forth between the two, whirring unhappily.

“Why couldn’t you just leave me alone? Today I just wanted to come in, do my work-“

“Oh, so this is my fault?”

“- but of course, you couldn’t just stop talking and leave me alone-“

“Now you know how I feel, kid.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“I’ll stop calling you that when you stop acting-“

Dum-E, reaching a new level of distress, flung its arm around in a circle. It knocked Peter’s steel, which was attached to all its wires and electrical source, onto the ground. From the table behind, Dum-E’s arm swept a vial of white foaming liquid onto the ground, too, and instantly, the mixture began to spark before fully igniting. An inferno roared around Dum-E, and Tony suddenly remembered that the kid had been messing with flammable webs.

(“In case we’re teamed up, and your laser beams can set my webs on fire, and then I’d have, like, flame webs, Mr Stark!”)

Tony, being the responsible adult, ran towards the fire extinguisher and fire blanket in the corner of his lab. God, that kid was really going to kill him. First, he’d melt his robot, and then he’d give Tony a heart attack. Just perfect.

He was gearing up to yell at the kid some more when he turned back to the fire.

Peter was standing in the middle of the damned thing, picking up Dum-E, and screaming like all hell.

“Peter!”

Tony barely had enough sense to keep a grip on the fire extinguisher as he ran over to his kid. When he got closer, he could see Peter’s arms already blistering, then re-blistering as the heat continued to scorch him because he wouldn’t let go of that stupid robot.

He aimed the nozzle at Peter, letting the foam spray everywhere to dampen the flames. Peter was still screaming and still, stupidly, carrying the robot. He flung Dum-E to the other side of the room and immediately dropped to the ground, as if that was all he had strength for. Tony’s heart stopped.

He grabbed the fire blanket and ran in, ignoring the still scorching heat as he wrapped his kid up, picked him up, and started running like never before to the elevator.

“FRIDAY, med-bay! Now!”

Oh, god, the kid, his kid, was still screaming. “It hurts, Mr Stark, Mr Stark, please-“

One peak showed the damage all up his forearms, trying to heal themselves but only making the issue worse as his skin blistered even though his arms were still hot to the touch, opening wounds all over again as his kid kept screaming.

He was trying to pry the doors open before they had even arrived at the floor, and he stumbled out into the med-bay wild-eyed. “Help! Helen- someone- help me! My kid needs help!”

Why didn’t he become a doctor like his mother wanted? Why didn’t he have any first-aid knowledge? Wasn’t that a workplace health and safety thing? Why the fuck didn’t he have first-aid training?

All these thoughts raced through Tony’s head at rapid speed as he carefully set his kid down on a spare bed. He yanked open draws, pulling at rolls of gauze, but it seemed wrong to put that on without treating the burns first. How do you even treat burns?

And all the while, Peter was screaming.

That brought Helen running, and she quickly took over with the calm of a practised professional. She forced Tony into a seat away from the bed, but the curtains separating them couldn’t block out Peter’s agony.

Tony had fucked up so bad. The kid’s aunt was going to kill Tony. He wanted to kill him.

Burying his head in his hands, Tony stayed like that until Helen had gotten Peter as treated as possible for the time being. She made Tony apply some burn cream to his arms (where he had grabbed Peter’s burning body) before allowing him in to see the kid.

He looked terrible—almost head-to-toe wrapped in white, like some awful mummy costume that was only scaring Tony.

“Kid, what were you thinking?” Tony said, devastated as he dropped beside Peter. He went to take his hand but decided against it. Were fifth-degree burns a thing?

Peter, who had been staring at the ceiling, let his eyes fall on Tony’s face. “I had to save Dum-E,” he rasped.

Some vocal damage, too, then. Perfect.

“Pete. Dum-E can save himself. I had to program fire procedures into him ages ago. I can’t believe I’m going to have to program you, too.”

Peter barely smiled at that. “I didn’t want him to get hurt.”

Tony had to screw his eyes shut for a moment. Deep breath, Tony. “Peter. You’re my responsibility. You’re not allowed to get hurt. You’re my kid.”

“Stop calling me that, please,” Peter said weakly. The kid stared resolutely down at his hands.

“Oh,” was the intelligent response Tony managed to muster up. “Of course. Sorry.”

God, what kind of moron would do that? Of course, the kid didn’t want to be seen as his kid. Tony was probably disrespecting Peter’s parents, or his aunt, or… Or maybe Peter just didn’t want Tony saying that. Which was fine. Tony did just get him severely burnt. He wouldn’t trust himself with anyone’s kid either.

His nose was itchy, his eyes burning. “Um, I’ll just- I have to call your Aunt May. Inform your legal guardian, and everything.”

He frowned at the reminder of paperwork hell he’d have to go through now that he was sure the kid was alive. Two separate incident reports, at least, and since this definitely qualified as ‘grievous bodily harm’, he’d have to immediately alert Peter’s legal guardian (already doing), Peter’s head of department (which was, luckily, himself), and the head of Stark Industries’ Workplace Health and Safety (which was, unluckily, not him).

The latter posed a problem. Some normal manager couldn’t know about Peter’s injuries because when they inevitably healed themselves, that would be far more difficult to explain.  Did WHS fall into Pepper’s responsibilities? Did a CEO count as a head of department?

After he informed Peter’s Aunt May, he argued that point with Pepper until she made up a new role for herself, specifically as Peter’s head WHS officer. It felt good to argue with someone who wasn’t Peter, even though Pepper was more worried than mad.

“I fucked up today. I’m a failure of a mentor. Do you think I’m turning into my dad, Pep?”

“I didn’t know your dad, Tony,” Pepper said. “I’m sure you and the kid will patch things up.”

“Patch things up? We never fight. You know that. I didn’t say we had a fight. Why would we? The kid loves me. Did he tell you about the argument?”

“Tony.”

“Got to go, love you.” Tony hung up the phone as he stared down death herself.

“Where is Peter?” Aunt May demanded, stalking up to him in her blue scrubs. “What have you done with my kid?”

Which, ouch. Salt in the open wound much.

“Hey, nice of you to swing by! Did you guys meet on the web? Just hang here for a bit while I round up your friends, okay?”

“Tony, does the kid ever shut up?” Steve said over his comms.

Tony had been anxiously hovering two blocks away from Spiderman, making FRIDAY look through the walls separating them to keep an eye on his kid as Peter swung around fighting bad guys with those awful jokes of his.

He told himself it was because the kid’s aunt had threatened to kill him if he didn’t return Peter safely to her from now on, and not because he was also worried about a repeat of the lab incident. That was several months ago now, and although Peter had been cleared for a week after the accident, Tony hadn’t let him patrol.

He kept reminding the kid that he was grounded. It hurt that Peter was starting to resent him for it, but Tony knew it would hurt more if the kid died. So, he’d let the resentment simmer, and Peter hadn’t talked to him for three weeks. Big deal. They were fighting aliens, and Peter was here too because he couldn’t take no for an answer. But, for whatever reason, Peter had amped up the hating-Tony-for-no-reason vibe.

“Aw, Captain Rogers, I thought you loved my jokes!” Peter called out over the comms. “Unlike Iron Man. Iron Man is just some rich old guy who hates fun. Like Ebenezer Scrooge.”

“What happened to ‘Mr Stark’?” Steve asked.

Tony tsked. “Yeah, real mature, Underoos. Unfortunately, my Christmas ghosts haven’t visited yet, so I’m not feeling particularly charitable. One more joke like that and you’re getting benched.”

“Woof, someone’s getting touchy,” muttered someone that sounded an awful lot like Peter, the kid he just told off.

“Alright, that’s it.” He started steering towards Peter’s location. Peter must have spotted him, because seconds later the comms crackled again.

“C’mon, it’s not my bedtime yet!”

The little shit swung out of reach, and before Tony could chase after him, the remaining purple aliens on their hoverboards dove for Tony.

“Kid, when I get out of this-“

“What, you’ll ground me?” Peter mocked.

“Sheesh, I’m sensing some family tension over there,” Clint said.

“Or, wait, you won’t come to my birthday party?” Came the next snarky remark.

Although Tony had already felt a pit in his stomach form.

“Oh, you forgot about that, huh?”

No one seemed to miss the venom in Peter’s voice. Tony was scouring his memories. Had he been invited? The kid hadn’t texted in weeks. He remembered, vaguely, being told something by his aunt, like once.

Shit, the kid was sixteen now? And he’d missed it?

“Must have been a big one, Tony,” Steve said.

“Yeah, like his tenth,” Clint chimed in.

“Yeah, it was a big one,” Peter huffed.

Tony’s mouth was moving before his brain could stop himself or, better yet, obliterate himself. “Hard to feel welcomed to a party when you don’t talk to me for three weeks, kid. Let alone finding out from someone else.”

“Oh ho ho,” Peter laughed bitterly, “that justifies it.”

Steve, ever the negotiator, tried to intervene. Which was real rich, considering the whole Civil War thing was entirely his fault. “Tony, maybe you should apologise. It sounds like it was pretty important to, uh, Spiderman.”

And maybe that big dumb soldier had a point, but Tony was so full of anger and hurt and his kid didn’t want to be his kid. Yet, when he tried to put distance between them, he was the bad guy.

“Oh, as if you wanted me there. You hate my guts these days!”

“I hate your guts? I’m the ‘screw-up’!”

“I never called you that.”

“But you said it!”

“You screwed up!”

“I didn’t even know you guys were close,” said Clint, the awkwardness dripping from his words at the silence that followed.

Shit. Tony reeled his head in. The rest of the Avengers team (were they still technically a team?) didn’t know Peter’s identity yet. As if Tony would trust those buffoons to protect a secret so precious. However, if they knew Tony knew Spiderman beyond the mask, they’d be sure to interrogate him. Or trail the kid, and raid his school. Or whatever murderous traitorous bastards did these days.

“We’re not close,” Tony lied.

“If you guys are finished squabbling,” Natasha said in a cool drawl next, “we’ve got action in the three-storey walk-ups to the east.”

“On it,” Peter said, then came the tell-tale click of the comm being turned off.

“Underoos, you better not have-“

“He can’t hear you, Tony,” Natasha said. “And we need you to head north. Some of the bigger guys are converging on the Empire State Building.”

Tony stared after the retreating red heatform of Peter and cursed, turning off the thermal vision. He would track that spider down later and… do something. Report him to May. Or ask May for advice on how to reconnect with a teenager. Or… he’d think of something when it got to that point!

Turning, he directed himself towards the Empire State. It was safer for the kid to be in the east anyway. What if this building came down? Anyone in the immediate area would certainly die. Surely there were people working inside who hadn’t yet escaped.

“Steve, report. How is the evacuation effort going?”

“Not as swiftly as we’d like. One hundred civilians are still in the tower, elevators are down, and it’s difficult convincing people to walk down eighty flights of stairs when explosions are going off every few seconds.”

“Well, do they know that the explosions are only going to get closer if they don’t start moving?” Tony snapped.

“Don’t take your argument with your kid out on me.”

“He’s not my kid.”

Clint sighed. “There goes one theory. Though, it’d be real cold to miss your kid’s birthday. Did you at least get him a present?”

“I told you, we’re not close. Spidey doesn’t need presents.” He had, in fact, planned out a present. He was going to give Peter a Stark phone, one that they had been messing with the coding for together during quiet hours in their internship. Tony had fed the kid some lie about an unnamed superhero needing a durable but private phone for patrols (who patrolled except Peter?). From memory, Peter hadn’t questioned it and had excitedly chattered about all his troubles with a phone (from it being too bright, to too loud, to too loseable-). “You know what? Why don’t you focus on taking out aliens so innocent people don’t die today, Clint?”

“That was a bit harsh,” Steve said.

“Yeah, not really a safe workplace environment,” Clint muttered.

Tony briefly considered playing the Civil War card when an explosion knocked him sideways. His suit quickly righted itself, and he found that some of the hoverboard guys had followed him. They were grosser looking the closer he got, with nasty little scowls and small heads on their big bulging bodies. He blasted them off their boards and grinned to himself. Little bastards.

“What do these guys want, anyway? A tour of New York City's tallest buildings?”

He was half expecting Peter to chime in with, “Actually, Mr Stark, the Empire State isn’t even in the top five!”

Of course, no sound from the spider came.

“Wreak death and destruction?” Clint guessed. “Isn’t that always their M.O.?”

Tony was collecting a large amount of bombs the alien bastards were dropping as they flew around the city, so he supposed Clint must be right. As long as they didn’t blow the newly repurchased Stark Tower, all would be well. That damn thing had cost him more than it was worth, especially when he had plans of retirement soon, but he needed to be close to the kid to monitor his progress.

And step in as a real mentor. Happy had done a terrible job, clearly.

“FRIDAY, do you know how long until these things are set to detonate?” He held up one of the purple globes for FRIDAY to scan.

“Judging by their pulses, approximately thirty minutes.”

Tony sighed. He really was getting too old for this. “Excellent.”

Relaying that information to the team, they began working double time. Clint’s arrows sailed overhead in rapid succession, clearing out the alien guys while Tony blasted their ship to pieces. He finished dumping its remains in the Hudson River while Natasha, Steve, and his unmanned suits collected the bombs FRIDAY’s scanner, now knowing what to look for, revealed. The group worked from West to East in record time.

They weren’t quite sure what to do with the bombs, and so far, dumping it in the river was their only viable option, with just a minute left to go. So off to the East River they went.

Hopefully the city wouldn’t be too angry with them, although Tony had little faith that anyone but him (and his distant acquaintance, the perfectly adult-aged Spidey) would stick around to deal with the consequences. So, what, they blow up some fish? Less important than the Empire State Building, surely.

“Boss, incoming,” FRIDAY’s voice alerted. One of the aliens was flying towards them full-speed, half-dissolved webs hanging off him.

Oh, Tony was not looking forward to the scolding he’d have to hand down later. He could understand – maybe – saving human lives when you could, even if they were straight up villains. But aliens? Really, kid?

With all their hands full of the tiny purple bombs, none of them could block the attack, but as suited up as Tony was, he really didn’t care. This guy would just bump into him and away, like an unfortunate bug splatter across your car windshield.

But he didn’t account for the alien to reach for one of the bombs out of Tony’s arms, and drop it straight below them.

Natasha and Clint had just deposed their loads in the river, and Clint had already let an arrow loose straight into the alien’s grotesque, elongated neck. The bomb seemed to be heading for a building top with just a bunch of aliens webbed onto it, damn kid, but he asked FRIDAY to double-check to be sure.

“No pure human lifeforms remain in the vicinity, Boss.”

“Great, job done.” He’d turned to give the all clear signal – again, some old brick buildings or the Empire State Building, the city can choose – when FRIDAY’s voice chimed on again.

“To be clear, Spiderman’s mutated human lifeform is resting in the building.”

Tony dove.

He didn’t look at the count down in the corner of his vision. He knew what it said. He knew what it meant. But he could see Peter’s tiny red heat-form in there, on the bottom floor, lying out casually as if nothing in the world could be going wrong right now.

His desperate voice ripped out of his throat. “Kid, Underoos, you have to get out of there-“

“Spiderman is not connected to the communication system at present, Boss.”

These explosions were larger than the tiny ones that had been popping off earlier in the fight. He distantly registered the spray of water from the East River, the boom ringing in his ears, but all he could focus on was the roof of the building his kid was in shattering. The windows blew, then the building sides buckled, and then it caved in.

All on top of his kid.

He landed on the ground, stepping over rubble, trying to get FRIDAY’s thermal vision to pick up his kid.

“Boss, the rock layers are too thick.”

Tony ignored it. He knew where his kid had been. He’d start there. He started carefully hauling off pieces of building, but each piece he moved sent more cascading down on top of where Peter had been.

“Kid? Kid, I’m coming, just stay there, I’ve got you,” Tony said, words spewing out of him even though he knew Peter wouldn’t be able to hear him, even if he- if he was-

Natasha and Clint had made their way over from the river. They both looked as worried as Tony felt.

He killed his kid. His boy.

“The surrounding buildings need to be reinforced before any of the rubble can be moved,” FRIDAY instructed.

“My kid can’t breathe in there,” Tony snapped back. “We don’t have time.”

“Any further movement risks more damage, which could harm Spiderman. I advise reinforcing these points first, and then slowly excavating from the top.”

“We don’t have time!”

Then he heard a click in his ear.

“Guys,” Peter’s voice came, very strained over the comms, “guys, I might, uh, I might need some help if someone’s free.”

“Underoos!” Tony could almost cry from relief. “Are you okay? Talk to me, kid.”

There was a long pause, and Tony feared Peter had lost connection or had passed out or-

“I’m okay, but I don’t know how long I can hold this up.”

“Hold what up? The building?”

“Yeah.” Another pause. “Mr Stark?”

He was holding up the building? God, this kid was something else. They’d have to do some strength tests at some point, find out his limit. Tony flew to the building supports FRIDAY had identified, and got his mini drones to help lift them up.

“It’s okay, kid, we’re going to get you out. Can you breathe okay in there?”

“It’s not like this is my first time getting a building dropped on me.”

What?

“What?”

“Vulture guy,” Peter explained, his voice quiet and his breaths sounding raggedy and loud in Tony’s ears. “Before he went to steal your stuff. Dropped a warehouse on me. That sucked. Didn’t have m’suit at the time, ‘cause you took it. Thought I was going to die.”

Natasha and Clint shot Tony a sharp glare. He deserved that.

“No one’s dying today, kid.”

He relayed some orders to Natasha and Clint, and finally Steve rocked up on scene. Seriously, the Empire State building wasn’t that far, and the man was a supersoldier.

Putting aside his animosity, Tony made Steve help him lift the debris, carefully moving according to FRIDAY’s words.

“Mr Stark?” came Peter’s small voice again after a few minutes of silent work.

“Yeah, kid?”

“Can you talk to me? For a bit? ‘M just struggling to, uh, keep awake, and everything.”

Peter was definitely hurt. He must be. The way he was breathing, the way his voice got quieter and quieter, his speech more slurred…

Tony didn’t want to think about the extent of his injuries. He focused on the work at hand.

“Of course. Cap and I are starting to lift the most of it now. All the surrounding buildings should be fine, so it’s just a matter of digging you out in a way that we don’t send more debris down on you. You’ll be okay. We’ll get you out, we’ll patch you up, and we can-“

Tony stopped himself. They can… what? Watch movies? Get ice cream? That was something you did with your kid. Which Peter wasn’t.

“Can you visit me in med-bay this time?” Peter asked. Then, quieter, “I missed you.”

“I- uh, sure.”

Steve shot him a look. You don’t visit him? He mouthed.

Yeah, Tony was a screw-up. He knew that. “Kid, listen, I’m really sorry about this whole past few months. I want you to know that.”

“I know, Mr Stark.”

“No, but, I messed up. I failed you and I’m sorry.” He didn’t care that the others were listening in. All that mattered was that Peter was on the other end of the line, and he was hurt, and it was Tony’s fault, and if he died today the last thing they did together would be to argue. And that would kill Tony.

Another long pause. Peter’s breathing picked up, and Tony heard a groan of pain. “I’m really hurt you didn’t come to my birthday,” Peter just managed to get out. “I know it’s stupid, I know-“ another groan of pain- “I know you said we aren’t close, but-“ Peter cried out.

“Kid, it’s okay, stop moving,” Tony said. It was hard to focus when his kid was hurt, his head clouding with the emergency of the situation. “That was stupid of me to say. I’ll make it up to you.”

The pile of rubble, now considerably smaller, began shifting by itself. Tony and Steve fell to the ground and just barely got out the way of falling buildings pieces when another large push gave way to Peter, his arms outstretched as he threw the last of the debris off himself, and then promptly collapsed where he stood.

Thank god the kid still had his suit and mask on, because the tell-tale buzz of news helicopters had begun to converge on their location. Now that the imminent threat of alien invasion was over, the news vultures would be fighting to get the best shot of the tentatively reunited Avengers.

Tony flew over to Peter. His suit was torn in several places, but his chest was rising and falling – albeit quickly. He wouldn’t be able to check his head until they were safely back at the tower so Tony scanned the rest of his body. His heart twisted when he saw the big metal rod impaling Peter’s right leg, the blood soaking the crimson fabric into a deep wine red.

He blasted the metal rod off from the concrete beam it had been attached to, picked up his kid rod-and-all, and made a beeline for the tower. Whether Steve and the rest followed was none of his concern. Mission completed. The only thing that remotely mattered now was Peter.

The med-bay was up and running, anticipating his return, and Helen quickly took Peter into one of the private rooms. He let the other doctors check him out while Helen worked, even humoured their requests to bandage various superficial wounds, but brushed them off when, after an hour, Helen finally came out and said he could see Spiderman.

The door clicked shut behind him and Tony stood awkwardly over Peter’s bed. The kid looked so small out of that suit. His head and leg were wrapped in thick gauze, and although Helen had wiped the dust and blood off his hands and minor injuries, the kid was in desperate need of a shower. His curls were flat on his pale forehead, and his eyes barely focused in on Tony.

They had kind of made up, but would Peter remember that? He was almost certainly concussed. And maybe he’d only forgiven him in the heat of battle.

Tony had fucked up again today. There was no forgiving that.

“Hey, Mr Stark,” the kid said, weakly smiling up at Tony, “d’ya think we could get ice cream?”

Now that Peter and Tony were back on talking terms, Tony’s life was a lot calmer. He finally gave the kid his new phone, although Peter had vehemently tried to reject it on the grounds that it was too expensive of a gift. Their Saturday internship, which on the books was scheduled for six hours, became three hours of messing around in the lab and three hours of movies.

(“Mr Stark, have you seen that super old movie with that weird looking alien?”

“E.T.? That’s not that old, kid. I was like, twelve, when it came out.”

“Exactly.”)

Aunt May had been informed of both building incidents (it seemed like neither knew about the first) and was incredibly pissed that first, Tony had taken Peter’s only means of protection against the Vulture who had been deliberately targeting Peter, and second, that Tony had let Peter work on his own.

For any future world missions, Peter was to be buddied or benched.

Their Mondays and Wednesdays continued as usual, bar random fires. The kid had returned to his normal, happy self. He even dared to ask if Ned and his new ‘friend’ (“She’s just a friend, Mr Stark!”), MJ, could come visit the tower sometime. Tony, not wanting to upset their newfound balance by denying his kid something, made Aunt May talk to Peter about the implications of MJ being near his spider tech.

That woman was a lifesaver.

Today was a Wednesday, and Tony was out on a walk with Pepper, passing time until he could finally see the kid again.

“I mean, he’s just so great, Pep, you really should meet him.”

Pepper wore an amused smile. “I know, Tony, I keep asking to meet him. He’s a good influence on you.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed. “Talking to him makes me think that I could be a dad. Isn’t that crazy? Like, I barely keep that kid alive and here I am thinking that makes me worthy of fatherhood. But he’s just so great.”

“I don’t think it’s crazy. You’d be a great dad.”

“Really?” He caught Pepper’s eye. She seemed serious as she kept walking through the park. “Because, you know, I had this dream. And it was crazy realistic. Scary, honestly. Like dream-walking. Peter told me about dream-walking, the kid watches some crazy stuff online. Hey, Pep, slow down, slow down.”

“You’re totally rambling. You lost me.”

“You know how you’re having a dream, and in the dream, you got to pee.”

“Yeah.”

He proceeded to tell her about the dream he had last night, the one with their baby girl Morgan. Although Pepper confirmed she wasn’t pregnant, Tony was only a little disappointed because it was a Wednesday, and he still got to see his kid that very afternoon.

“And, I need this thing in my chest because what if the kid needed me?”

“Imaginary Morgan?”

“No,” Tony waved a hand, “I mean, yes, if we had a Morgan. But we don’t. I mean the kid. My kid.”

Pepper nodded in understanding. “Peter.”

“Yeah! He can’t just be swinging out there with no one to watch his back. What if a building collapses on him?”

“Buildings don’t just fall down, Tony.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Before he could argue his point further, another fucking alien invasion started in New York City. If he did have a kid, they were moving, that was for certain. Would this cut into his internship time with Peter? He had better wrap this up quick.

Just as the alien of the week geared up to punch him, his kid came swinging into the scene. Didn’t he have school today?

“Kid, where’d you come from?”

“Field trip to MOMA!”

Then they were in the heart of the city, and that stupid wizard was getting sucked up into a spaceship and so was his kid. So then they were in space. And then a planet, and then they were fighting another alien with a stupid glove.

And his kid was doing brilliantly, of course. But Tony was worried sick. He didn’t trust these random other aliens, who were apparently working on their side, led by that Lord guy.

Thanos got the glove, fucked off to Earth, so then, with no working way home, Peter and Tony began to help up their new tentative allies.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” Peter said, approaching Mantis. “How does your, um, power work? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I touch and I feel. I can try it on you?” said Mantis, her weird alien antennas bobbing towards him.

“Woah, stay away from my kid,” Tony said, stepping towards them.

She already had her hands on him. “You feel excited, curious. And disappointed. Thanos is very hard to beat. You did a good job, Peter.”

“Of course he did.” Tony watched the exchange unhappily. He didn’t trust this woman for a moment, and he wasn’t going to take his eyes off this kid.

“You feel very happy. Like he is your father.”

Tony’s head whipped to Peter, who avoided his gaze as he stepped backwards from Mantis. “He’s not my dad.”

Mantis cocked her head, as if she didn’t really understand what Peter was saying. Honestly, Tony was surprised aliens could speak English, so maybe she had misunderstood Peter’s thoughts.

“Is that how you see me, Peter?” He asked, smile on his face as if he didn’t care what the answer was. As if this was a joke. His heart pounded in his chest.

“No,” Peter said, still not looking at him. Tony frowned.

“That is a lie!” Mantis said. She was back beside Star Lord.

Tony didn’t say anything else for a moment. This day had been a lot. He was exhausted and it was making him emotional. They hadn’t taken down the big bad guy, but the majority of the Avengers were on Earth, which was apparently where Thor was heading. If this ragtag alien pirate crew had managed to almost take him down, he was sure Earth would finish the job.

His only job now was to get Peter home safely.

Everyone tensed up.

“Something is happening,” Mantis said, moments before she disappeared.

Tony looked for Peter instantly, but the kid seemed fine. Just shocked, and confused.

But then one by one, their companions disappeared. Tony held out hope that it was confined to the alien-adjacent people up until the Doc also began to disintegrate.

“There was no other way,” he said, and then he was ash.

“Mr Stark?” Came an unsteady voice from behind him.

No. No, no, no. This wasn’t happening.

Tony felt like this forsaken planet they were on had stopped moving, the breath punched out of his lungs as he turned around to his kid, slowly wobbling towards him.

“I don’t feel so good.”

The kid looked at his hands, and then back at Tony.

“You’re alright,” he said. Because of course Peter was fine. Peter was- Peter was his kid.

He was fine. His suit had every upgrade imaginable, to fend off every possible injury. They’d go home and they’d laugh about this. The kid would tell him how cool it was to go to space, even if it had been entirely against Tony’s orders.

He’d get Peter ice cream, and then he’d scold him, and Peter wouldn’t listen because he was a kid, and kids don’t listen. And- and Tony would ground him again. For good this time. Because he’d be fine, obviously, but Tony was so scared right now and he felt like his soul was dying and Helen would get mad at him. His cardiograms!

“I don’t- I don’t know what’s happening,” his kid said, stumbling towards him until he was falling into Tony’s arms.

Tony gripped him with all his might. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening. Nothing was happening. They were just… hanging out. On a planet. Where everything was fine.

“I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go.”

And still, Tony had nothing to say. Because his kid was fine. He could feel parts of his kid – his fucking kid – disintegrating underneath his hands but his kid was fine. They had ice cream waiting for them. He’d even let Peter force him into a Star Wars marathon. He wouldn’t even complain, he wouldn’t, he swore, because he’d do anything for his kid to be alright.

They dropped to the floor, Peter’s legs giving out. Tony laid Peter on his back, not letting go of his boy even as his panicked whispers gave way to silence, even as the arm that had been clinging to Tony’s shirt falls away into nothing.

And the kid looked at him. Even though it must have hurt. Even though he must have been so scared. The kid looked right at Tony.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. And then he was gone.

Tony’s hand fell to the ground, clenching dust that had once been Peter. But that couldn’t be true. This couldn’t be real. Peter was always fine.

The blue woman said something behind him. Tony didn’t care. He didn’t listen. Whatever she had to say wouldn’t matter. The world had ended.

He sat there, clutching his hand. Was the dirt streaked on it from Earth? From Peter?

Peter.

He closed his eyes, waiting for the dust to take him too. And he found he wasn’t even scared. He just sat there, waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and the dust never came.

And he was just stuck here, on this planet with a blue woman, without his kid.

Tony fixed things, of course.

Once he finally pulled his head out of his ass, he shook off the five-year long stupor and fixed things. He brought back his kid, introduced him to his other kid, spent months in hospital, lost an arm, built himself a new one, the usual.

The kid and his aunt had nowhere to go once they came back from what people were now referring to as ‘the Blip’, as if his kid hadn’t died in front of him, as if Tony hadn’t spent five years grieving, as if it was all just a silly little blip.

Tony had taken them in, moving Pepper and Morgan back into the city because that was Peter’s home, and he had two kids now. Pepper was angry, but understanding, and Morgan…

Well, she loved Peter.

Who wouldn’t?

He kept meaning to find Peter and his aunt a new apartment, but with the city suddenly overwhelmed with double the residents, space was scarce. And, well, it was nice to have the kid around.

Anytime Tony got that awful, tight, fearful feeling in his chest, he’d look up, and Peter would be playing Mario Kart with Morgan (and letting her win), or he’d be quietly studying at the table for when schools reopened, or he’d be looking for Tony with that awful, tight, fearful look on his face too.

Aunt May had started a charity to help clothe, feed, and rehome the blipped, and Tony poured copious amounts of money in as anonymous donations. He was fairly certain she knew who was doing it, but she never asked, and Tony never brought it up.

The kid’s friends had, and he couldn’t believe he was saying this, thankfully blipped with him, so they were the same age. He couldn’t imagine his kid coming back and finding out his friends had graduated, gone to college, and moved on.

Tony would never have moved on, at least.

He hadn’t gotten around to signing the paperwork to end Peter’s internship during the five years (he refused to read anything further on those papers than Reason: Employee death), so he was grateful he didn’t have to mess around with security clearances for Peter.

School went back, Peter and May found a place and moved out, and Tony spoiled his little baby Morgan (seriously, how was she growing up so fast?) to keep his mind off the gaping hole from his other kid no longer being within eyesight every second of every day.

There were more large scale attacks – Peter’s identity got revealed in one, but they dealt with it – and then Peter got rejected from MIT.

He was away with Morgan and Pepper when that happened, and he almost flew back when he saw the news about Spiderman fighting some robot-octopus-guy until he watched Peter win, and he thought that was that for the weekend.

And then he got the call from Ned and MJ.

“Um, Mr Stark, sir?” Ned said over the phone. Peter must have given him the number at some point, which was wildly irresponsible. Although, Ned had hacked into Happy’s phone before, so perhaps that was it.

Either way, it must have been important.

“Yeah, what is it? I’ve got an angry five year old waiting to make an igloo when all I have to work with is mush, so speak quickly.”

“Is Peter with you?” MJ asked, worried.

Tony was already sending for one of his suits, signalling to Pepper to get Morgan inside. “No, he’s not with me. We’re in Canada. Have you lost him?”

“We can’t find him,” Ned confirmed. “Peter was trying to get that Doctor Strange guy to do a spell and make people forget his secret identity, but it backfired, and now there are people from different dimensions trying to fight him, and his apartment blew up, and-“

“What?”

“It’s on the news,” Ned said.

Tony immediately got FRIDAY to pull the footage. Oh, no, kid.

They were replaying the scene – police converging on a burning building, blurry body cam footage showing Peter in his suit holding a woman –

His aunt. Oh, god.

And then Peter ran.

“Do you have any idea where he might be?” MJ cut in, impatient.

“No, he’s- he’s not with me. I’m coming back, hold on.”

Ned ended the call. He spun around to Pepper, who was holding onto Morgan and her pink snow jacket, and he was sure he was as pale and as unsteady as he felt, because she already knew.

“What’s happening with Peter?”

“I have to- Pep, I have to go. I have to find him.”

Pepper nodded, and Tony stepped outside into the waiting suit. It flew him down in record time, but it was still too slow, because it had been hours since May had died, and no one knew where his kid was. FRIDAY played the news over his suit speakers, listening as the police manhunt for Peter spread further into the city.

Tony checked his tower first – maybe Peter would be in his old room? But no, it was still made up for him, untouched. Tony cursed and flew off again. He was about to check the school when the skies began ripping open.

Figures made of light peered in through the rips in their universe’s fabric, reaching arms out. Tony followed their gaze to the Statute of Liberty, where Peter was conversing with Doctor Strange. Wasn’t Stephen the one who had gotten them all into this mess? God damn wizards.

He flew over in time to catch the end of the argument.

“-make everyone forget me! That would work, wouldn’t it?”

“No,” Tony’s voice cut in as he dropped beside the pair. “Are you kidding? Someone mind filling me in?”

Stephen grunted, holding a glowing magical cube in his hands. “These beings are from other universes, searching for Peter Parker. It’s going to rip apart our reality as we know it.”

“Well, why don’t we make other universes forget about this Peter Parker? And keep it so everyone who knew before Mysterio still knows.”

“It’s a complicated spell to pull off while our universe is dying.”

“Thought you were a grand wizard, or something,” Tony retorted, staring him down.

“Mr Stark, it’s fine, really-“

Tony held up a hand. “Shut it, kid. The adults are talking.”

“Mr Stark, this will fix it.”

“I’m not losing you again, Peter. Five years without you was hell, and I’m not going to pay that price twice.”

Peter snapped his mouth shut. Tony looked back to Stephen.

“We’re trying this. We try everything first before we resort to that, got it?”

The wizard must have grown a soft spot for Peter (who can resist?), because his gaze flickered to the boy before he nodded. He began weaving, the strain taking a noticeable toll on the wizard, as Tony pulled Peter into his arms and flew him down to the ground, then stepped out of the suit to hold him properly.

Peter fought him for all of two seconds, before his arms went limp beside him and he began to shudder.

It felt eerily similar to that planet, so Tony gripped his kid tighter. “I got you, Pete. You’re alright. Everything’s okay. I’ve got you.”

“Aunt May- she’s-“

“I know,” Tony said, ignoring the tears he felt burning into his shirt. “It’s okay, kid. It’ll be okay.”

“I screwed up. This is all my fault. I just wanted-“

“It’s not your fault,” Tony said firmly.

“You don’t know what I did,” Peter tried to protest, but Tony shook his head, his non-prosthetic hand pressing the back of Peter’s head into his chest again.

“You can tell me all about it when we get home, but I know enough. It’s not your fault. You were just trying to fix things. I can’t fault you for that. It’s okay, it’s okay.” Tony pressed a kiss to his hair. “I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner. I should have come home as soon as I saw you fighting that damn octopus-“

“He was actually pretty nice,” Peter said. He laughed weakly, before sobbing again. “Aunt May- she, uh, she really liked him.”

Oh, how much had he missed in those two days? How had Tony screwed the pooch this badly?

At least he was here now.

He brought Peter back to the tower that night. He pulled the couch out and he held Peter while he cried himself into exhaustion. The kid had lost so much, all over again. He remembered the feeling, the soul-crushing, whirlpool feeling of so much grief.

“Your room’s still made up, if you want,” Tony said when the kid stopped crying and began to stare blankly at the ceiling, if only to get the kid to react and avoid the horrible numbness for a second longer.

“You kept my room?” Peter whispered, his eyes turning to Tony, although his head stayed put.

“Yeah, kid. You were always welcome to stay, you know.”

Peter nodded, then closed his eyes with the effort. “Can I sleep out here tonight?”

“Of course. Let me get you some blankets and pillows.”

When Tony returned, Peter’s breathing had evened out. Hopefully the kid wouldn’t dream tonight. He carefully tucked the blanket around Peter, and gently lifted his head to place a pillow underneath. He lingered for a moment, before turning to make his way back to his room.

A hand shot out to grip Tony’s shirt.

“Can you stay here? For a bit?” Peter asked, grip unrelenting. He looked so young and scared.

“Sure thing, kid.” Tony settled down next to Peter, back propped up against the couch, arm carding through Peter’s hair as he slowly and uneasily fell back into a slumber.

Only when he was sure that the kid was in a deeper sleep this time, Tony carefully used his left arm to twist his prosthetic out of place and set it on the floor beside them. Those tiny movements still caused Peter’s face to pinch, although he didn’t wake.

When Tony went back to carding through his hair, Peter’s face smoothed out.

The world forgot Peter Parker was Spiderman, which was fine and dandy until it came to explaining why a 17-year-old from Queens was frequently sighted with the Tony Stark, saviour of the world, ender of the Blip, et cetera.  Pepper and Tony spread the news that he was Tony’s personal intern, which was technically true.

Peter had been living with the Starks since Aunt May’s passing. Tony was happy that Morgan had accepted Peter moving back in with all the care of a six year old (“Peter’s gonna play Mario with me again!”), and even happier that Pepper had readily signed on to the guardianship papers. They were co-guardians of Peter, officially, until he turned eighteen in six months.

And then they were sending him off to MIT.

Now that the admissions team had forgotten about his controversial Spiderman antics, they had readily accepted Peter. Offered a scholarship, too, which Tony made sure to celebrate. Peter hadn’t wanted to make a big deal out of it, but when he came home from the last few days of school to Tony, Pepper and Morgan presenting him a homemade (and sloppily iced) cake, Tony hadn’t missed the way his eyes had teared up.

(“Seriously, Mr and Mrs Stark, you didn’t have to do this for me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, kid. This was all Morgan’s idea.”

“And call us Tony and Pepper, Peter.”)

Tony had considered buying a place in Massachusetts, but Pepper had been against the idea of moving again, at least for a few more years. Peter had also adamantly protested, saying he needed to learn how to be an adult on his own.

The kid didn’t seem to understand that he had already grown up more than he needed to; that out of everyone, Peter deserved someone looking out for him, too.

Later that week, Tony, Pepper, and Morgan were dressed in sunglasses, hats, and large jackets as they made their way to Peter’s graduation ceremony incognito. He had told them they didn’t have to come if they didn’t want to, “but it could be nice- if, you know, if you guys are free.”

“I bought an apartment in Boston,” Tony confessed to Pepper as Happy drove them. “In case the kid needs it.”

“Tony,” Pepper admonished, shaking her head. She was smiling at him, though, so she wasn’t angry. “You don’t have to worry so much. He’ll be fine.”

Tony shrugged and avoided her gaze. “It’s just a precaution. What if his roommate is evil? I don’t want him out on the streets.”

“Tony.”

“I mean, obviously, the kid is going to keep Spidermanning. And he needs somewhere safe to go, right? What if he got hurt on patrol or something? You know how much he hates the hospital.”

“Tony.”

 “What, you think I should get a private doctor for him, too?” Tony turned back to her. Pepper grabbed his hand. Under her gaze, he acquiesced. “He’s our kid, Pep.”

She rolled her eyes, but her tone was affectionate as she spoke. “Which is why I know he’ll be fine. He has an overbearing dad looking out for him.”

Tony shifted uncomfortably, tugging at the sleeves of his jacket. “Don’t- don’t, um, say that stuff in front of him.”

“Who, Pete?” Pepper laughed, but she cut herself short at Tony’s glance. “Oh, come on, Tony. You’re telling me you’re not like his father at this point?”

“Peter- Peter doesn’t see me like that.”

“And what are you basing this off?” A pause. Pepper sighed. “That argument from like, seven years ago?”

“It was two years ago to him,” Tony reminded her, his head buried in his hands.

“Morgan, tell your Dad he’s being a silly-head,” Pepper whispered to their daughter, who lit up at the opportunity.

“Dad, you’re a silly-head!”

Tony chuckled. “Don’t you start, little miss.”

Happy pulled up to Midtown School of Science and Technology and fought his way into a car park. Their family bundled together and kept their heads down as they quickly walked inside, finding a place at the back to avoid attention, even though Tony desperately wanted to be right by the stage. Once inside the hall, Tony took his time looking around.

They’d never been to Peter’s school during the few months they’d been his guardians. Tony had been afraid of another media circus and wanted to respect the kid’s privacy as much as possible, just like he did with Morgan. But his graduation? No way was Tony missing that.

The hall was decorated with gold and silver streamers and a sparkly banner that read “Class of 2025”.

Tony teared up at the opening speeches, even though they were the boring, same-old recycled stuff from teachers who droned on and on.

“And, now, Midtown’s very own Peter Parker, for his valedictory speech.”

“That’s Petey!” Morgan exclaimed, jumping up in her seat. A couple heads spun around to them, and Pepper quickly got her to sit down.

Tony was clapping so loud his hands hurt, his eyes glued to the stage. Peter hadn’t told him about this. God, of course, his kid was a genius after all. He looked great in his robes, and the gold valedictorian stole draped around his shoulders was just the cherry on top.

“Tell me you’re filming this,” he whispered to Happy, who was seated to the right of him. When he didn’t get a response, he looked over to see Happy with his phone out already, his eyes equally as misty as his own. “You big softy.”

Happy sniffled.

“Thank you for this great honour, Mr Harrington,” Peter began, and a hush settled over the crowd. “As many of you know, the majority of our class was blipped. It wasn’t easy for us to adjust to our new classmates, our new world, but I know it was equally difficult for our teachers to catch us up to the new curriculum. Especially because some of us weren’t caught up on the old one, either.” That drew laughs from the crowd.

Peter’s speech continued, Tony hooked on every word as he drew in the sight of his kid, who was clearly nervous but settling in the more he spoke.

“That’s our kid, Pep,” Tony whispered as the speech wrapped up. He fought the urge to stand in his seat as Peter went to sit with his classmates. “I wish his aunt could see this. She’d be so proud.”

When Peter crossed the stage again to collect his diploma, Tony did stand up and clap. At least most of the other parents were also clapping and cheering, so they blended right in.

Happy and the Starks darted back to their car just as the ceremony wrapped up, and it took another half an hour until Peter joined them.

“Sorry, Mr Stark,” Peter began as he opened the car door, “Ned’s Lola was there and-“

Tony wrapped him in a hug. “I’m so proud of you, kid.”

Peter returned it. “I’m not a kid anymore,” he mumbled into Tony’s shirt. Tony just laughed, and ushered him in the back.

“What do you want to eat?” Happy’s gruff voice came from the driver seat.

“Me?” Peter looked around at Pepper and Tony, who nodded. “Oh, I’m fine with whatever. You guys don’t have to go out of your way for me.”

“Come on, Underoos, it’s your night. We’re celebrating you.”

Peter hesitated just a second before tentatively suggesting, “Thai? There’s a place in Queens that Aunt May and I used to go to.”

“Thai sounds great.”

It was such a good night. Tony should’ve known the next day would be shit.

He was in the penthouse, idly switching through TV channels as he waited for Peter to come back. He’d taken Morgan out to get sandwiches and it was taking longer than usual for them to return. Tony didn’t think much of it – Peter had probably taken Morgan to get ice cream, too. His little girl had Peter wrapped around her finger.

His fingers paused over the TV remote when Peter’s face flashed across the screen. The kid looked angry, and he had a hand out to prevent the reporters from getting closer to him; the other hand reached behind his back where Tony could just spy the pink ruffles from Morgan’s dressing peaking out.

The footage cut to a young, blonde woman holding a microphone standing out front of Joe’s Gelati. “People are speculating that Peter Parker, a seventeen-year-old graduate from Midtown School of Science and Technology, is actually the secret son of billionaire Tony Stark after a video from his graduation has gone viral.”

The footage changed again. It was obviously taken on someone’s phone, the film shaky and blurry as it zoomed in on Tony, in his glasses and hat, among a sea of people in a dark hall.

“Is that Tony Stark?” Said a boy’s voice from behind the camera. “Woah, that’s Pepper and their daughter too.” Sure enough, the phone turned to catch their whole family, even Happy, sitting down at Peter’s graduation.

The dingy speakers barely caught the announcement, “And now, Midtown’s very own Peter Parker, for his valedictory speech.”

The camera caught Morgan standing up and pointing at Peter. Then, it flipped to the stage to show Peter walking on for his valedictory speech. It then turned back to Tony, who was obviously tearful, clapping, and smiling.

The footage cut back to the reporter outside the ice cream shop. “We’re currently live outside Joe’s Gelati in Manhattan where Peter Parker has been spotted buying ice cream.”

The next shot was inside the ice cream shop. The crowd of reporters and paparazzi had swelled, bright lights flashing as Peter tried to block his eyes from it while simultaneously shielding Morgan. The poor kid looked frazzled from all the lights and the noise, holding onto Morgan’s hand as he tried pushing through the crowd to the outside. Morgan looked angry too, especially when two cones were knocked out of her hand, and it seemed like she was about to start yelling when Peter scooped her up in her arms and shoved outside.

“It’s okay,” Tony could just barely make out the words over all the shouts, “I’ll buy you another one, Morgy.”

“Peter! Peter!” one man yelled as he walked in front of the pair, shoving a microphone in his face. “Did your dad buy you into MIT?”

Peter’s frown intensified, pushing Morgan’s head further into his shoulder as he tried to brush past. Another reporter blocked his path. Morgan peaked out from Peter’s chest, scowling.

“Morgan! Why have your parents kept your brother a secret?”

Morgan stuck her tongue out at the man as Peter pushed his camera away from her.

“Leave her alone, man, she’s only six.”

Someone reached out to grab the arm Peter was using to hold Morgan. Peter’s other hand shoved him away, and the man fell backwards with a grunt.

On-screen, Tony watched as Peter’s anger twisted into panic. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry-“

“Did you get your dad’s anger issues, Peter?” Came the next question from a snarky TMZ woman who shoved yet another microphone into Peter’s face.

“He’s not my dad!” Peter exclaimed, frustrated, just as Happy’s big build appeared in frame, blocking his two kids from the camera.

“Show’s over people,” his gruff voice called out as he led the two into his black car.

Thankfully, once his kids were out of sight, the news quickly moved to their next segment. Tony got up from the couch and paced in front of the elevator to the penthouse. Pepper joined him.

Someone had already reported the segment to her, as she was on the phone to what Tony assumed to be a lawyer.

“An assault charge would be ridiculous. Yes, I know they might go that route just so they can get their little story, but Peter’s a minor, the proceedings would be private anyway. Well, just have that counter-lawsuit ready in case they get any ideas.” Like him, she paced back in forth in front the elevator until it dinged.

The unhappy trio walked inside. Peter was still carrying Morgan, and Happy had his arm on his back.

“See, look, there’s Mummy and Daddy, everything’s okay now,” Peter whispered to Morgan as he gently set her down. Morgan held onto his hand though, still scowling even though her trembling form gave away her fear.

“I don’t like those people, Peter,” she said, stepping closer to him as Pepper rushed over to check her over.

Peter carefully pried her grip off him. “I know, Momo. But you’ve got your mum and dad here. They’ll look after you.”

He gave her a weak smile, ruffled her hair, and then brushed past Tony, face back to stormy.

Tony looked to Happy, who shrugged. “He’s probably just shaken up from everything. Give him some time, Tony.”

Not liking this, Tony knelt down to Morgan too. “You okay, Morgy?”

Morgan shook her head. “They were really mean to Petey. They said some mean stuff about you, too.”

“But are you hurt, Bambina?”

“He kept me safe.” Then, after considering for a moment, her lip wobbled. “I dropped our ice cream. Is Peter mad at me?”

Tony looked in the direction of Peter’s closed bedroom door. “It’s like Uncle Happy said. He’s just shaken.”

Morgan looked doubtful. Tony didn’t believe himself either.

Pepper laid a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t we go watch a movie? Anything you want.”

Morgan’s eyes sparkled. “Frozen?”

“Sure, my love,” Pepper said as she lead Morgan into the next room. She shot a look back at Tony, and jerked her head towards Peter’s room. ‘Talk to him,’ she mouthed.

Tony’s hands sweated. He straightened up, and looked at Happy. “You heard the woman. Go talk to him.”

Happy rolled his eyes. “Don’t put this off. You’ll regret it.” And then he went back inside the elevator.

Tony knew they were both right. He had to put Peter first and make this right somehow, but…

It was Tony that had caused this situation, ultimately. Peter knew that. Had basically said as much on live television. He wasn’t fit to be a father of any sort, and here he was with two amazing kids that he kept screwing up.

He knocked on Peter’s door. The kid didn’t respond, so he slowly twisted the knob and let himself inside.

The room was pitch-black, so it took some time for Tony’s old eyes to adjust. It was also silent in here, the soundproofing blocking out the opening Frozen song and Morgan’s excited squeals. It seemed that she had already forgotten about the afternoon’s events.

“Pete? You got a minute?”

“Go away,” came a muffled voice from the bed. Peter had heaped the blankets over himself and curled into a ball.

Tony’s mouth thinned. “Kid, I think we should talk about this. Don’t you?”

“I don’t want to talk right now.”

Tony approached the bed. He sat down, and put a hand on top of the Peter-blanket lump. The lump shrugged his hand off. “Peter, seriously,” he sighed, “I’m just trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help.”

Tony reigned back in the firey response that leapt to his throat. Now was about Peter, he reminded himself. Even if Peter hated his guts, he’d try to make amends with his kid somehow. “What do you need then?”

“I want to move out.”

What? Where did that even come from? Did Peter really hate living with him so much?

“Well, too bad,” Tony huffed, standing up. “You’re seventeen, and like it or not, we’re your guardians.”

“I never asked for that.”

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. He turned his back to the bed. “What other choice did I have? Let you sleep on the streets?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I’ve yet to see any proof of that.”

“Believe it or not, Mr Stark, I did just fine before I met you.”

“If you call running around in those red pyjamas of yours, getting shot at with no one to watch your back, doing ‘just fine’,” Tony mocked, “then sure, kid.”

Peter’s voice, which had been icily calm for most of the conversation, suddenly turned angry. “I’m trying to do you a favour here! Morgan-”

“I don’t need any favours from you. I get that you don’t want me to be your dad or guardian or whatever, and if I could change that for you, kid, I would. But you’re stuck with me, because somebody has to be responsible for you since you’ve proven incapable of being responsible for yourself.”

Peter went silent.

Tony screwed his eyes shut. Now he’d stepped in it. How did they even get here? He had just wanted to check if Peter was okay.

He stepped towards the door, then paused. “Morgan thinks you’re mad at her. She’s watching Frozen, if you want to join us.”

There, an olive branch. He’d asked Peter to join him in family movie night.

He cast another guilty look behind him, and seeing the unmoving lump, sighed and opened the door.

Peter stared at his hands. They couldn’t stop shaking. His mind just kept replaying him shoving that man.

He’d never lost control like that, not since he got a grip on his powers anyway. He knew he was dangerous from almost the instant he’d woken up after that spiderbite, when he had ripped his bedroom door in his aunt and uncle’s flat off its hinges.

He had spent weeks practising how to pull his punches. He knew better than anyone what he was capable of, and even up against the worst of humanity, he knew he was worse.  Which was why he made the web fluid, made sure that he was only detaining the bad guys, made sure he was never the executioner.

Tonight could’ve been so much worse. He could’ve seriously hurt that man. He could’ve hurt Morgan.

And that was the worst part. Sweet, little Morgan, who saw stars in his eyes. What if he lost his control around her? Or Pepper, or Happy, or Tony?

Tony was right. He was incapable of being responsible for himself. Which was why he had to leave the Starks’. He’d already overstayed his welcome, he knew that, he’d known that for weeks. What kind of family wanted to take in some random kid?

He knew Tony felt obligated to shelter him. Had taken his generosity anyway, because Tony was right, ultimately. What other choice did he have?

But the more Peter mulled it over, the more his conviction grew. He would be moving out come September anyway. Why not bump it up a few months? He would learn how to take care of himself. He didn’t want- he didn’t need Tony looking after him anymore.

Not when it caused him so much trouble. Not when his issues were reflected on Tony. His anger was his own. His anger had been simmering in him since he was a little kid being told his parents weren’t coming back, since Uncle Ben had died, since Aunt May…

And lately?

It had felt like it reached a boiling point. Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s deaths were his fault. No matter how much he tried to deny it, he knew the truth. He was a curse, and he had to protect Morgan from that by any means possible.

It was better for everyone if they forgot about him. Ned, MJ… He had hurt them, too, that last battle with the Green Goblin and Doc Ock. MJ had almost died, and that was on him. He knew what the right move was: sever ties with the Starks, go to MIT, let Ned and MJ make their own college friends, watch them move on.

Spiderman was simply incompatible with relationships.

But he was so tired.

He shook the blankets off his head and stared at his closed bedroom door. He could picture the scene behind it as clearly as day—Mrs Stark on the couch holding Morgan, who would be croaking along with the Frozen soundtrack. Mr Stark would sit next to them, one arm around Pepper and one arm stretched out over the couch back, a space next to him reserved especially for Peter. 

His chest ached at the image, and his eyes burned with hot, angry tears. It was selfish to want this family as much as he did. But, god, he wanted it so badly.

The tight feeling in his chest made him sit up on the edge of the bed, one hand splayed over his heart in an attempt to ease the awful sinking feeling. He wasn’t cut out for family, he reminded himself, but even as he did, Peter was getting to his feet.

With a deep breath, he opened the door.

The lights were off, which was normal for movie night, and he could hear the movie playing in the next room. But he couldn’t hear their voices, which wasn’t normal. Especially when Anna was singing ‘Love is an Open Door’.

He paused, the feeling in his chest sharpening into a sense of dread. The hair on his arms raised, and Peter instinctively jumped up to the ceiling, pressing himself against it as he strained his ears further.

Closing his eyes, he could make out Pepper and Morgan’s rapid heartbeats further into the penthouse. Morgan’s room, he realised.

Focusing again, he could also make out Tony’s voice from the other side of the penthouse, by the elevators, as well as ten heartbeats surrounding him.

“Come back in an hour; it’s movie night,” he heard Tony quip. His voice was steady, but strained.

Peter crawled his way over, moving silently. Tony was standing in the kitchen, bowl of popcorn in his hands, as the ten people dressed in black pointed guns at him.

Peter cursed mentally. He didn’t have his webshooters on him.

“No sudden movements, Stark,” one of them said – a tall blonde woman, who wore a mask on the top half of her face. Then, to two of her companions, she said, “Go get that woman and the kid. We need something to ensure compliance.”

Peter scuttled back towards Morgan’s room. The door was shut, and he could hear their heartbeats huddling in the far corner. Likely under Morgan’s bed, he guessed as he dropped to the ground. He raised his hand down on the door handle, knocking it off. He felt bad as Morgan let out a small scream at the noise, but it was quickly cut off. Pepper must have put her hand over her mouth.

Before Peter could jump back up to ceiling, the two men converged on him with guns drawn.

“Hands up, kid,” the bigger one said.

Peter did as he was told, eyeing them both. He could maybe fight them, but then what? Someone would hear, and then they might hurt Mr Stark.

“I didn’t think the rumours were actually true,” the other man muttered, going in with handcuffs. “Why’d Stark hide you, huh?”

Peter let him cuff his hands. He could get out of them if needed, but if they were going to take someone, it was best if it was him. Peter watched warily as they approached the door. They tried pushing it, then shoulder-barging it, but it didn’t budge.

“Security’s probably already on their way,” Peter said. “You guys should just call it quits and head home, don’t you think?”

The big man drove the butt of his gun into Peter’s stomach.

The smaller man, frustrated, turned away. “Let’s just take this one. The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

They shoved him back to the entrance, and the woman frowned.

“Where’s the other two?”

“Locked in a room, boss,” Big Guy said, shoving Peter into the crowd of guns with Tony, who was also now handcuffed. The popcorn was strewn over the floor, glass shattered, and Peter winced as little shards embedded themselves in his bare feet. They were going to suck to pick out once the skin healed over them.

At the woman’s sharp look, Small Guy jumped in. “We tried to open it, but the door handle’s broken and it’s too sturdy to kick down.”

Tony shot Peter a look. He shrugged.

“Whatever,” the woman said after considering for a moment. “Bring ‘em to the roof.”

The twelve of them packed into the elevator, Peter and Tony side by side.

“You should’ve stayed in your room,” Tony whispered. “I had this handled.”

“Sure you did,” Peter retorted, nodding down at Tony’s cuffed hands. Tony gestured to Peter’s own bound hands.

Petty old man. At least Peter could break out of his handcuffs if he wanted to. The gun barrel pressed into Tony’s side reminded him why that would be a bad idea.

They were marched out to the roof, where two helicopters waited for them. The group split in half, and they began shoving Peter to one and Tony to the other.

Panic gripped Peter. Being taken to a second location was bad enough, but if they were split up?

“Peter?” Tony called out to him, violently shrugging off the hands grabbing him.

Peter bucked against his own captors, elbowing someone viciously. “Keep us together!” He cried out. “I’m not going with you unless we’re taken together!”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, little Stark,” said the blonde woman, who shoved him backwards. Peter watched as another woman, this one smaller than the ring leader, shoved Tony to the ground. His head hit the concrete, and he groaned out.

“Get off him!” Peter yelled, watching as the other woman dragged Tony back up and to the second helicopter. Tony wobbled, and there was blood dripping down his head. “Leave him alone!”

He shattered his handcuffs, sent two punches flying, and raced towards Tony. A shot rang out, and Peter buckled.

“Kid!” he heard Tony’s voice scream, and even though his leg was on fire, he pushed himself to his feet and managed to stumble two more steps towards Tony before a second shot sent him back to the ground.

Both legs now screamed at him, and his spider-sense was going haywire. He barely managed to lift his head up to watch as they strapped Tony in, and the first helicopter lifted off. He reached out towards it, even knowing it was futile.

The blonde woman appeared in front of his swimming vision, her smile twisted and nasty. “Don’t worry, little Stark,” she said, “you’ll see him soon enough.”

She then raised the butt of her gun and drove it into Peter’s head, sending the world black.

He woke up in an empty room, bound with literal chains to a chair. His head hurt like all hell, and the fluorescent lights only made things worse. Squinting through the bright, Peter began to make out his surroundings. The floor was bare concrete, and the walls seemed to be tin. There were dust markings on the floor where it looked like shelves had once been.

So he was in a storeroom? Great.

He tested out the chains, but found he was unable to move at all. They were tight against his skin, and Peter could already feel burning pain where the metal had cut into him. His feet and legs were still killing him. At least they had bandaged the two bullet holes for him – one on each leg. The bandages had splotches of red where he’d been shot, but it didn’t look like he’d lost that much more blood. His skin had probably healed over them already.

That was, what? Twelve bullets now? They’d never gotten around to removing the others, as surgery had presented too much of a risk. They hadn’t known how much anaesthetic to use, for one thing, and they were also concerned about the risk of him starting to heal over while they were digging around inside him.

“Hello?” Peter called out.

When it became clear that no one was coming, he screwed his eyes shut and tried to listen out for Tony.

He found him soon enough, jabbering away as the man was.

“Don’t tell me you believe the tabloids! He’s just an intern, you know that, right? Just some lowly intern. A coffee runner, really. You should just let the kid go. Do you know how many forms I’d have to fill out because of this? I don’t even think there is a ‘my intern got kidnapped’ workplace health and safety report. I’ll have to draft that up myself, send it to his WHS officer to get it approved, and you bet there’ll be glaring errors with it. So then I’ll have to do it all again-“

“Do you ever shut up?”

That must be the blonde woman. There was a dull thud, and then Tony groaned in pain. Peter grimaced.

“What intern takes two bullets for his boss?” There was the small guy that had handcuffed Peter.

“An idiotic one,” Tony scoffed. “Which is what he is. An idiotic intern. You’d be doing me a favour by sending the kid home. Saves me from firing him, right? And then I can focus on your little project.”

“He broke through metal handcuffs,” said the woman.

“Adrenaline,” Tony answered quickly. “Makes you do crazy things. Like mothers lifting cars off their babies.”

“Or sons continuing to run with a bullet in their leg?”

“Maybe you just have crap bullets.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe we better test our guns on the little Stark, see which ones work best.”

Tony fell silent. Peter strained his ears. He could just barely make out the sound of metal on metal. Was he making something?

His mind raced through the possibilities. Tony wouldn’t. Would he?

Was he making a weapon? A suit? Something else?

Well, whatever it was, it couldn’t be trusted in the hands of these obvious villains. Peter strained against his bindings again, grunting as the newly formed skin on his legs ripped open with the movement. He slumped back against his chair, panting.

He had to think. If they were using Peter as collateral – which was ridiculous, really, since he wasn’t actually Tony’s son and Tony wouldn’t risk the lives of thousands just to save Peter – then they’d have to keep him alive, right?

His moved his legs again, letting the bullet wounds tear open even further, biting back a scream. Blood began to seep into the bandages again.

“Help!” he called out. “It hurts, it hurts!”

He became aware of two people outside his room, who whispered to each other. So that was four bad guys, total. That was nothing, Peter thought.

“Should we get the boss?”

“Please, someone, I need help!” For added effect, he even curled his toes, igniting several little fires in his feet as the glass ripped through again. He glanced down, and felt woozy at the amount of blood he’d managed to wring out of his lower body.

“You go,” grunted one to the other.

Peter settled down, and knelt his sweating head back against the cool metal of the chair as he waited. His head started swimming again, and he couldn’t keep his concentration enough to listen to what was happening in the next room.

He must have slipped back into unconsciousness, because he jumped awake as the door banged open. There was the blonde woman, who looked positively annoyed now. She came in with some bandages, which she wrapped tightly around Peter’s feet.

He meant to kick out, hopefully knock her unconscious, but he couldn’t get his legs to move. Everything hurt so much, even more so as her deft bandaging pressed the glass deeper into him.

Then she was dragging his chair, the awful scraping sound splitting Peter’s head open.

It felt like eternity, and all he could do was shut his eyes and try to block out the sounds. When they stopped, Peter forced himself to look around. The blonde woman was standing next to a bench of assorted tools and metal scraps, and there was…

“Mr Stark?” He couldn’t get his eyes to focus, which was bad. Maybe he’d under-estimated his blood loss.

“Perhaps you need incentive,” the blonde woman said to Tony. Peter wasn’t sure if he had progressed to hallucination, or if Tony really did look that pale. “I’m surprised little Stark has survived as long as he has. Every minute you spend fucking around,” she seethed, “is another minute he goes without treatment. Every two hours that pass? We put another bullet in him. Hopefully somewhere non-lethal, but, I’ve never been a good shot.”

She shoved Tony back to the bench. His hands were shaking as he picked up the tools.

“It takes longer than two hours to build what you’re asking.”

The blonde woman strode over to Peter and drove her gun into the wound on his left leg, sending his vision back to pure white. He was screaming, he was sure of it, but he couldn’t hear himself. Everything was focused on the awful burning fire spreading throughout his body, all his senses just screaming pain, pain, pain.

Peter clawed back his control bit by bit when the woman relented, forcing himself to focus on nothing but drawing in another breath, and then another, and then another. His voice was raw, and his head hurt, and he was crying. He felt someone touch his hands, and he tensed, bracing himself for the next round of pain, but it never came.

“-ete? Kid, you with me?” Tony’s hand came up to touch his face, and Peter leant into it, his eyes still shut.

He didn’t want to look at Tony. He didn’t want Tony to see him like this, either. He wanted to go home.

“It’s okay, Bambino, everything’s okay.”

There was that lie again. But Peter let it comfort him, forced himself to believe it even though it wasn’t okay, everything hurt.

He couldn’t let Tony build whatever it was they wanted him to build, so he had to be okay. What was a little torture? He’d heal. He always did.

Peter cut off a sob, forced it down, and opened his eyes to look at Tony. The man looked relieved to see that, his eyebrows unfurrowing just a fraction. Peter took in a deep breath. He could do this. He’d be fine.

“’M ‘kay,” he whispered.

Tony shook his head, his good hand coming away from Peter’s face all red and bloodied. Was that Peter’s blood? He squinted at it, but couldn’t make sense of it.

“I’ll get you out of this, okay?” Tony said, gripping his hands again. “No matter what it takes.”

“No,” Peter croaked out. “No, no.” He had a point to make, Peter was sure of it, but he couldn’t grasp the words. “Don’t do it,” he begged, looking up at Tony. The blonde woman was eyeing them.

Tony hugged him, pressing a quick kiss to his hair. It shouldn’t have felt as nice as it did. Tony did that to Morgan. Peter wasn’t Morgan.

Then, he felt something drop down the back of his shirt, where Tony’s arms were draped. He only just managed to catch it with his bound hands.

Tony pulled back, gave him a look, and then went back to his workstation.

Peter forced his throbbing head to focus. The blonde woman was supervising Tony, and no one else was watching Peter. Couldn’t be too much fun, watching a kid bleed out.

His hands fumbled around the object. A screwdriver.

So that had been why Tony hugged him. To give him a chance to free himself, so he could free the both of them. Peter glanced around again, and he carefully used his hands to feel the new cuffs he was in. There was a screw, he thought, on either end of the cuff, but he couldn’t exactly look to confirm.

He began to fiddle with the screwdriver, painstakingly trying – and failing – to get it into position. He kept his eyes forward, scanning to make sure no one noticed what he was doing.

Tony was hunched over the workbench, screwing metal together, connecting wires, and testing fuses. He was going fast- faster than usual, perspiration beading on his wrinkled forehead.

Shouldn’t Tony be buying time? Go slow so Peter could break free and get them out of here?

Every now and then, Tony would glance at something behind Peter, before his eyes would drop to Peter and his frown would deepen, his movements hastening. Peter painstakingly drew his head back, and spied a clock above him.

He didn’t get it at first. Was he waiting for something?

A long stretch of time passed, and Tony’s hands had seriously begun shaking. Peter had just managed to loosen both screws when the blonde woman tsked, and began walking towards Peter. Tony threw down his tools and raced between them, his back to Peter.

“I’m almost done,” he begged, hands out as she kept approaching. “Please, just give me another hour.”

The woman drew her gun.

“Stand aside, Stark. Can’t promise I’ll be as gentle with you as I will with the little one.”

Still, Tony didn’t move, and Peter realised what was happening. Two hours had gone by, and his punishment was due.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, voice still hoarse from his earlier screaming, “I’ll be okay.”

It would hurt, sure, but Tony was a normal human. A bullet like that could kill him. Peter would be fine. He could take it. He would.

“Shut it, kid,” Tony said, and he kept standing in front of him, infuriatingly.

“Listen to your son,” the woman mocked, staring down at Tony as she pulled the safety on her gun. “Last chance, Stark.”

Peter tugged at his handcuffs again, which slipped off now that the screws had come undone. He held it to prevent it from clattering to the floor, and slipped it underneath himself.

With his hands free, he tried tugging on the chains behind him, but any pull only constricted them tighter around himself, digging into his skin and his bullet wound, making his teeth grit to keep him from crying out.

“Mr Stark, move aside, please,” he pleaded. The woman’s hand twitched on the trigger, and Peter’s head exploded again with the sheer sense of danger, danger, danger.

Both hands gripping the chain now, he yanked, and he felt it break before he heard it. Everything seemed to move in slow motion then.

He jumped to his feet, chains still falling off him as he grabbed Tony and hauled them to the ground. He felt the bullet whiz over the top of his head, felt the burning fire licking at his feet and legs, and felt the gripping sense of move, move, move.

With Tony still in his arms, he jumped, legs almost buckling beneath him as his thighs protested, warm blood dribbling down his body, as he caught the ceiling with one hand. Another bullet, where they’d both been just a second ago.

The blonde woman gaped at them, then snapped her mouth shut as she readied her gun again, aiming up. Peter dropped, placing Tony down before he hauled himself towards her. Peter’s spidey sense wouldn’t shut up, but he couldn’t stop moving. The gun went off again between them as Peter tackled her. They wrestled for the gun, and if Peter wasn’t so woozy it’d be no contest, normally.

The woman jabbed a knee into his stomach, which shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but there was that whiteness again as all his other senses just shut off and all he could think was it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

He sensed danger again, and his head screamed at him to move, but he couldn’t because everything just hurt so much. Another shot rang out, and Peter tensed, expecting to get hit again, but nothing hurt as much as his stomach and his legs.

Tony, he thought, and he forced his eyes open. Blurrily, he could make out two forms fighting each other above him, but even that was too much and his eyes closed on their own.

He fought against everything in his body to stay awake, to pay attention, but the best he could do was listen to the bits he caught in between passing out.

More gunshots, people running, nothing. Then people touching him, saying things to him, then nothing. A jet, monitors beeping, panicked orders, nothing.

Peter couldn’t tell if it was the fourth or the hundredth time he had tried to wake himself up when he could finally hear Tony’s voice.

“I don’t need treatment right now. Focus on my kid!”

And Peter wondered if that meant they were home, and if Morgan was nearby, and if she’d gotten hurt after all, when unconsciousness took him again.

Some undeterminable time later, he drifted back to the realm of the living, feeling someone grip his hand. Sensing no immediate danger, he kept his eyes shut, worried that when they saw him awake again, they’d shoot him another time just for fun. Slowly, he tuned in to each of his senses.

He was lying down, and he was no longer bound, which was a huge improvement. More than that, the bed he was in was soft, his aching muscles sinking into them. There was something in his nose, and his legs and stomach still hurt but the pain was duller than the previous sharp fire that had seemed to consume his whole body. There were wires in his arms – I.Vs, his mind supplied – and a soft beeping sound reflecting his heartbeat.

And the hand clutching his was calloused, but it held him so tenderly.

Peter peeled his eyes open, and groaned at the bright white beaming down on him.

“Pete?” he heard the person behind him say, and then the hand was gone. Peter groaned, grasping for it but unable to find it. The lights dimmed, and he heard quick footsteps approaching his side, and then Tony had grabbed his hand again. “You with me, Peter?”

Tony never called him that. He must be shaken up, Peter thought, as he blinked back his vision.

He looked shaken up. Huh. He was wearing different clothes to the warehouse, and he wasn’t wearing his prosthetic. Peter spied white gauze peaking out from Tony’s shirt, and he reached up a hand to pull the shirt away from the collarbone.

He was frowning, but he couldn’t form the question.

Tony chuckled, and shook him off. “What’s a bullet, right, kid?”

Oh. He got shot? When had that happened? He vaguely remembered being on the ground, waiting for the woman to shoot him again. Had Tony blocked it?

“I think I win the getting shot competition, Mr Stark,” he managed to rasp out. “One to thirteen. You’re behind, old man.”

Tony grimaced.

“What happened, anyway?” Peter asked, staring up at the ceiling as he tried to piece things together. Then, remembering what he heard earlier, he asked, “Is Morgan okay?”

“What?” Tony’s forehead creased, and he laughed again. “The only thing wrong with Morgan is that she’s worried sick about you, Pete. Thank you. For keeping her and Pepper safe.”

Peter nodded. “Of course.”

“But don’t you ever do that shit again.” Tony’s face became serious, and he shifted closer to the bed. “I’m the one that takes the bullets, kid. Got it?”

So he had taken the fourth bullet meant for Peter. Peter shook his head. “You have a kid, Mr Stark. I wasn’t going to let them kill you.”

“You’re my kid, too.”

The statement stunned Peter into silence. Tony looked down at the ground, hand still gripping Peter’s.

“I- I know that you don’t see me like that, but there’s no changing that you are my kid, Pete. I accepted that a long time ago, and I’ve also accepted that when push comes to shove, I’ll die for my kids. You and Morgan both.”

Peter blinked back tears. “I don’t want that,” he said before he knew what he was doing. Tony’s face fell, but Peter pushed himself to continue. “I don’t need anyone else to die for me, Mr Stark. My parents, Uncle Ben, Aunt May… I can’t go on like that. I need- I need someone to live. I don’t want to lose anyone else. I don’t want to lose you.”

Even just saying it felt like a jinx. Peter half expected Tony to drop dead on the spot, just so the universe could spite him. But Tony kept breathing, and so did Peter, and the world didn’t end just because he admitted Tony was important to him.

“I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, kid,” Tony said gruffly. And then, having apparently reached his limit for emotional conversations, Tony climbed into the hospital bed with Peter, draping his good arm around Peter’s shoulders. “But you’re banned from getting shot ever again.”

“Not sure how you plan to enforce that one.”

“Copious amounts of bubble wrap.”

Peter wanted to quip back, but the door was opening and in came Pepper. Morgan peaked out from behind her, teary eyed.

“Petey?” She called out, still clutching Pepper.

“It’s less scary than it looks,” he was quick to assure her, offering her a smile. Morgan returned it with more tears as she ran toward him.

Peter scooped her up, ignoring the twinge in his stomach as he shifted, letting Morgan sit by his head.

“I missed you,” she confessed, pressing a blubbering kiss to his cheek. “Please don’t leave again.”

“Seconded,” Pepper said

Peter looked at them both, a funny feeling forming in his throat. It was one thing to want a family. He was no stranger to that. He’d been left wanting most of his life.

But to be equally as wanted?

He looked back to Tony, who smiled. “Sorry, kid. You’re stuck watching Frozen with us three forever.”

Peter sniffled, and then he was crying. He tucked his head into Tony’s chest, who looked alarmed.

“Dad! You made Petey cry!”

“I’m sorry, kid, I didn’t know you hated Frozen that much! We can watch something else! Anything, your pick!”

And Peter knew he’d choose those three bullets again, a hundred times over, if it meant being here with his family.

[marlenesgirl]

“ Chapter 1: The White, Bright Bumblebee

August 30, 1971.

Surely, it was too early for visitors. The sun had yet to pool past Remus’ curtains and it was chillier than usual. Most days, Hope would wait until the birds sang and the laundry was hung to wake him. He loved that; loved opening his eyes to the light reflecting off of her long red hair and her lips tickling him with kisses.

But today was different. His mother stood at the foot of his bed and shook him firmly rather than peppering him with love.

“Remus, darling. Get up, there’s some people I’d like you to meet.” Her voice is soft, daring to lull him further into sleep. “Up, sweetheart,” she continues, “and get dressed. They’re from Hogwarts.”

This grabs his attention, the boy allowing himself to open his eyes. “Hogwarts?” Remus murmurs, sitting upward. He grunts a bit. His body was growing sore, a headache threatening to emerge as it always did the week of a full moon.

Hope hums as he finally looks at her. “Quickly now. I’ll start some tea to give you some time.” She offers him a half smile, but Remus notices the worry behind her eyes. They usually adorned a light brown, but today they were sullen and harsh. This wakes him up quickly. Hope only ever got like this when she was worried - and she was only ever worried about him.

She leaves as quickly as she arrived. Remus sits in his bed, still dazed, and listens hard. He felt uneasy now, but focused nonetheless.

He hears the voice of his mother first.

“Sorry about that, he’ll be down shortly. Tea?”

“Oh, yes. Tea sounds wonderful, but with no sugar.”

The second voice is unfamiliar. A bit shrill, aged and wise beyond her years.

“Yes, thank you.” A third voice. Man. “Five cubes for me.”

This one is harder to pick apart. It certainly belongs to someone older, but how old puzzles Remus. He can strip back many years behind the man’s words, but almost more than what’s humanly possible. Then again, Lyall had always said magic tended to defy rationality.

Remus pulls back his covers. Flinging his legs over his bed and onto the cool ground, he makes his way to his closet. His heart races and ears begin to burn. What could they possibly want with him? His mother had already sent letters ahead, detailing their typical full moon procedures, and Oxfordshire wasn’t particularly close to the Scottish Highlands. Am I in trouble already? Remus shakes his head at that thought. There is simply no way he could mess up before he’d even started. …Is there?

The eleven year old tugs a jumper over his head and runs a hand through his hair to part any knots. This would simply have to do. His anticipation overruled a nice shirt and effort. It’s not his fault they had shown up before the sun had fully risen.

Remus opens his door which is almost immediately met by the staircase. Each step creaks, so his presence doesn’t exactly go unnoticed.

“Here he comes,” Hope announces, followed by the quiet clutter of teacups sitting back onto the table. Remus prepares himself, taking a deep breath as he enters the kitchen.

The young boy is immediately drawn - no, entranced - by the two strangers. They sat at the small, circular dining table, straightening up as they, too, took him in. “This is my son, Remus,” Hope prompts. She sat opposite of them, an open seat beside her. This was the most full their dinner table had looked since Lyall’s death.

Remus focuses back on the visitors. To his right sat an old woman - just as he had guessed. She wore a strict look softened by years, with narrow glasses perched on her nose. A pointed hat sat atop her head as if she’d walked out of a storybook, leading him to conclude that she is a witch. The man beside her wasn’t as easy to break down. He had a white beard that pooled in his lap, and a less conspicuous hat of his own. His glasses were similar to the woman’s, but adorned a half moon shape instead. He had an air of importance to him, but what really grabbed Remus’ attention was the electricity seeming to radiate from him. It rattled his bones, and pulsed through his veins. Magic.

“My name,” the old woman begins, “Is Professor Minerva McGonagall.” Her words are much more gentle than Remus had previously heard; kind and unprovoking. In that moment, he knew he could place endless trust in her.

“And I am Professor Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But just Dumbledore will do.” Dumbledore spoke slowly, but with kindness and intrigue. He allowed a slight pause between each word as if saying it all at once would scare Remus off. And it kind of did, either way. Hogwarts felt more real now than ever and that meant dedicating the next seven or so years of his life to being away from his mother and all things familiar.

“Have a seat,” his mother said. Remus’ train of thought is interrupted, and he is quick to oblige.

“We’ve heard a lot about you, Remus,” Professor McGonagall said. “I’m sure,” Remus murmurs, “I doubt you get many kids that turn into animals.”

Dumbledore laughs at this, his eyebrows raising at Remus’ ease in mentioning his “problem.”

“That is very true,” Dumbledore said. “Your case is unique, unlike anything we’ve seen before, which is why we’ve come to visit you, Mr. Lupin.”

Remus’ cheeks go red at that. Mr. Lupin. No one had ever spoken to him that way. Especially someone who seemed as important as the witch and wizard that sat before him. He’d only ever heard Mr. Lupin when someone addressed his father, but of course, it had been years since then.

“And, I must admit, this is a bit more than a visit. With the new year beginning at Hogwarts, there are many supplies you will need. Quills and books, and most importantly, a wand,” Professor McGonagal said. “With your mothers permission, we intend to have a good friend of ours take you to a place that can offer these things to you.”

Excitement bubbles within Remus, seeming to overpower his uncertainties. He’d lived rather mundanely up until now with random bursts of prepubescent magic here and there, but nothing grandiose. The most he’d ever seen Lyall do was Silencing Charm.

“I’m sorry,” Hope suddenly interrupts. “I am completely fine with him going wherever he needs, but I don’t understand why both of you made such a far journey just to say that. Is there something I’m missing here?” His mother speaks tightly, and it becomes clear she is suspicious of their intentions.

Professor McGonagall clears her throat awkwardly.

“Well, we’d like to assess him,” she admits. “There is not much research on werewolves, particularly on children who have been raised with the…condition.”

Remus looks to his mother. She remains unfazed, but her arms are crossed, signaling her dissatisfaction with Professor McGonagall’s answer.

“We know that you and your husband have a routine during full moons,” Dumbledore intervenes, “but we intend to find a different solution. Perhaps with the aid of stronger magic. In order to do this, we need to learn about Remus; see how he interacts with others.”

“We only intend to help him,” Professor McGonagall adds.

The room is quiet for a few seconds, but ultimately, the air grows less tense. Hope relaxes her shoulders.

”Ok,” she concludes. “Do what you must.”

Remus allows that boyish excitement to grow once more. Hope was the most stubborn of the Lupin’s, but she was logical. She knew when an argument wasn’t worth standing on. Surprisingly, Remus had always admired this and he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever be half as great as Hope Lupin.

“When does he leave?” Hope asks. She allows her first full smile of the morning.

Dumbledore chuckles, a bright glint in his eyes that Remus would grow to find familiar.

“Now.”

[poppadom0912]

Together (X)

Warnings: Mentions of violence, blood, injuries, abuse, kidnappings, shootings, swearing and scary men.

Summary: Everyone's reunited at last and are never letting go.

A/N: This is the last chapter before the epilogue. I just wanna reiterate how much fun writing this has been and how much i appreciate all the love and support you've shown this series.

It's a bit too late for my liking but I've only now finished writing. This week was so busy for me but I promised and here it is!

Enjoy the last 2.5k words of angst because the epilogue is next!!🙃😊

Previous Chapter / Series Masterlist / Next Chapter

Kelly was bursting through the seams with anxiety. The entire time while responding to the car pile-up, he was riddled with it and the tension he harboured carried through to everyone else.  

It put him at somewhat ease to know at least Sylvie and Violet were with you as well as Intelligence and then eventually everyone at Med. You were going to be surrounded by people you loved and vice versa.  

When the scene started to get cleared up, Boden wasted no time and let Kelly go, urging him to take his buggy and promising everyone would be there once everything was finished.  

The second Kelly stepped into the ED, April was at his side and guiding him towards the ICU where you were being kept for now. On the way up, she carefully explained what she knew and warned him about your appearance.  

Kelly didn't know what to think till he saw your face for himself and God, he wanted to bring hell onto earth.  

Jay heard his soft steps, picking up his head from the back of the chair. Kelly wouldn't say it to his face, but Jay looked horrible, eye bags dark and sullen, hair uncombed and frizzy and injury wise, the bandages told him enough. Somehow, Jay looked worse than what he did yesterday when Kelly last saw him.  

Upon seeing the lieutenant, Jay tiredly smiled at him, easing himself out of his chair and half limped out the room with the IV pole in his left hand. Kelly went forward hastily to help him, telling him to sit back down or help him out the room into another seat but Jay shrugged him off, weakly pushing his efforts away. 

“Go be with my sister you dumbass. April’s here to help me, don’t worry.” 

And with that, he watched his childhood friend help support his supposed soon to be brother-in-law down the white hallways of the intensive care unit. 

Kelly's eyes burned when he first caught sight of you. The last time he saw you was on the video he'd been sent of you screaming as you were being beaten up.  

Gosh, Kelly had felt so helpless and still feels as such.  

Sitting in the chair Jay had previously been inhabiting, Kelly took his time to fully study you, memorising every feature of your face once again in fear of having you ripped out his grasp again.  

You looked so different. Kelly knew your body by the back of his hand and had your every single detail down to the cell engraved into the forefront of his mind. You looked so different but so recognisable, there was no mistaking that this sleeping woman was indeed you.  

Six hours ago, everyone was ready to mourn the oldest and the youngest Halstead. Despite the resilience Intelligence bleed, everyone had been told to prepare for the worst and six hours ago, all hope was lost and giving up seemed so sweet but so sour it still stung now.  

Kelly hesitated, hand hovering mid-air over yours, eyes cast down on your battered body that he could only see little of. Healing scabs and scars alike marred your hands, the sight making him falter, wondering if it was even a good idea to hold your hand. But then the last two days flashed in his eyes and without another thought, he gently placed your hand in his.  

Relief washed over him in waves, flooding his veins. This sensation felt so bittersweet, the sweet poking the tears from his eyes and the bitter nipping at his ankles. To have you back in his vicinity, to have you back home, Kelly never wanted anything so badly before in his life. Despite this, you had been through the ringer, experiencing pain like no other, pain that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

Actually, the Murray’s deserve worse, maybe the devil himself. Hell and a bit more sounded sufficient enough.

With his hand safely enveloping yours, Kelly felt himself calming down. Even with all the machinery beeping around him, to feel your pulse against his fingers made this dream a reality.

Soft knocking brought him out of his thoughts. Reluctantly pulling his eyes away from you, Kelly found Sylvie standing at the door with two coffees in hand, Violet nowhere in sight.

“Maggie said I can’t give this to Jay, so…” Sylvie said, dragging the word as she held out the paper cup towards him, shrugging her shoulders sheepishly when Kelly smirked in amusement.

“Thanks Brett.” Kelly smiled, gladly taking the caffeine from her hands, and drinking with no hesitation. Truth be told, no one in the firehouse slept much last night, they had too much playing on their minds.

“Crocket said surgery went well.” Sylvie started, standing by your head, fingers caressing your hair as she gently pulled each tangle apart one by one. “I know it doesn’t look like it but she’s going to be fine.”

There was a pregnant pause, Sylvie’s attention diverted and solely on detangling your matted hair before bringing a washcloth that sat on the table to get rid of any residue and dirt stuck on your face. Her trained fingers were put to work, her eyes not once leaving your face as she continued without stopping.

“She’s going to be just fine.”

*****

Kevin was overwhelmed, so was Kim and Hailey but much less so than the aforementioned man. The rest of the team, well they were off busy with the Murray’s and their many, many (somehow attained) henchmen.

The two women were bystanders in it all, coming much later and missing out the most brutal parts. The same could not be said for Kevin and Will.

The two men were following Jay out the warehouse but at a much slower pace. Kevin was supporting Will as best he could, apologising every time the doctor winced and faltered in his steps. Eventually, Jay got so far ahead that he disappeared and very likely was already outside and getting you into the single ambulance waiting.

All of a sudden, the silence that was only interrupted by Will expressing his pain was intruded by gunfire.

They really couldn’t catch a break, could they?

Will apparently remembered the hallways and pointed out a dead-end corridor for them to take cover in and despite his pain riddled brain, he wasn’t wrong.

Without any hesitation, Kevin drew his gun from his holster and shot when necessary and whenever he found someone lurking nearby. Without diverting his attention, he grabbed his walkie and called for backup, relaying both in code and not what was happening.  

Eventually when some time had passed, way too long for Kevin to be comfortable with, Kim and Hailey appeared from around the corner, guns held up in caution before they lowered at the sight of the officer.  

Despite having everything under control, Kevin felt better having his colleagues with him now that Jay was gone. With their help, together they could probably get Will out quicker.  

Now that everything calmed down, Kevin could finally solely put his focus onto said man. Turning his back to the two women, Kevin went to talk to the redhead but found himself speechless at the sight he was met with.  

Lord knows how but up above was a window that some crazy henchman busted his way through and had silently landed on the ground behind him. The man was dressed in all black, blonde hair pocking from the mask he wore armed with both a gun and knife.  

Worst of all, the unnamed and very much unwelcomed man was way too close to Will for Kevin's liking.  

Before Kevin could properly take care of the dude, a shot was fired, and the man fell very ungracefully onto the solid floor, the sound of the impact making all the intelligence personnel internally wince.  

With the nuisance out of the way and no more pathetic distractions, Kevin turned to the redheaded man once again and the sight made him sick. So sick that he had to bite his tongue and hold back any bile from coming up.  

Kim and Hailey clearly felt the same, both gasping from behind him.  

The annoying man had been left ‘alone’ with Will for plenty long enough because along with all his injuries, another gaping wound had been added. Will was riddled in open wounds, the longer you stared the worse they looked. This one, instead of sitting among the others in his torso, was nicely placed in his thigh which conveniently was just above where Jay had been shot.  

It seemed very convenient that every place on his body that had a wound were the places that bled the most. Will was having so much fun right now.

“Shit! Will!” Kevin rushed to kneel down before the slouched man. Chucking his gun and radio aside, quite carelessly, his brain short circuited before everything kicked in.

“Pressure.” Will coughed out, visibly struggling to keep breathing steadily. “You- you need to put pressure on it.” He repeated, wheezing as he liked his chapped and pale lips.

Without question, Hailey hastily took off the thin jacket she was wearing, rushing forward, and kneeling besides Kevin. With caution and slight apprehension, she positioned the jacket around his thigh but hesitated when she was supposed to tie it.

“This is going to hurt Will.” She said firmly, her strong tone warning him.

“The tighter…” Will started, slowly blinking up at the blonde woman who he knew secretly liked his brother and vice versa. “The better.”

And with that, Hailey tied the simplest knot and pulled hard.

“Fuck!” Will exclaimed, voice breaking. “Motherfucker-“

“Sorry! I’m so sorry but it’s all done.” Hailey incessantly apologised to him; her remorse visible on her face but before she could get up, she was stopped by a hand gripping her wrist.

“You have to go tighter.” Will stated, his fingers clutching her wrist as tight as he could but Hailey barely felt any weight. “Just like a torniquet. It has- has to be tight or else…”

“Will, stay with us man.” Kevin said, his tone leaking with urgency, almost pleading him. “You’re the doctor, walk us through it.”

Forcing his eyes open, Will blearily started at the three of them. His mind was completely muddled and subconsciously, he incredulously wondered how they hadn’t been trained to make a tourniquet in the field.

“Belt?”

Without further say, Kevin was getting up to unbuckle his belt easier, Kim replacing his space.

With much struggled, many pauses and tons of encouragement, they kept him alert enough for him to guide them through making a tourniquet around his thigh. The pain was unbearable, altogether it was blinding.

“I’m so sorry Will.” Kim whispered, sitting in front of him but she was alone with him, Kevin and Hailey gone off to find what was taking the medical attention so long to arrive. “Just a little longer I swear.”

“Jay! Stop panicking.”

“Hailey, it’s Will-“

“We’ve got him, go be with Y/N.”

“But Will- are you sure?”

“He’s trying his best, okay? Go be with our girl.”

And that might’ve been the last thing Will heard, the faint shouting between the two detective partners. Kim’s voice actually, he heard that last, her shouts for help when his eyes slid shut.

Actually, Jay’s desperate pleading, that was the last thing he heard.

*****

"It was part of protocol we run a rape kit."

Kelly couldn't breathe. His only saving grace being that Jay wasn't currently in the room with him.

"It came out clean."

Kelly physically deflated at the good news.

"It's going to take a while but she will recover. They both will." Ethan said, having permission from Crocket to tell him the news.

"And no one's heard anything about Will yet?"

The silence was so suffocating, if Kelly squinted, he could probably see Ethan turning blue from the lack of oxygen.

"We've been told we're waiting on a body. They want us to confirm it."

Kelly didn't need to ask for Ethan to break it down for him. He knew exactly what that meant.

If he looked the Korean man in the eye, Kelly would definitely see a thin sheen of tears coating his eyes.

*****

Antonio had been doing this for a long time, he’d seen and been through a lot himself but this, this would stay with him for a long time.

The guttural screams that tore his vocal cords to further damage. The blood trailed after him like the bread from Hansel and Gretel, painting the crime scene a war zone. His cries begging to know his baby brother and sister were safe and, in a hospital, where they could recover.

They were watching the innocent doctor become a martyr right before their very own eyes.

What happened next could only be explained by pure, sheer will and determination.

While they were hounding for an ambulance, Antonio caught men getting escorted away in cuffs, all looking identical until the final two men left the building. The rage he felt, Antonio didn’t know how any of them remained stationary.

It was a miracle Will came back to consciousness. When he closed his eyes and his body went limp, everyone truly thought that was it, after everything the Halstead’s had done to survive, this was the unhappy ending they were getting. But then, Will gave the biggest middle finger to fate because after all of this, she could be damned for all he could care.

Will remained alert enough, being continuously roused by each of the remaining intelligence members when they noticed his eyelids sliding shut. They tried distracting him, updating him on the wellbeing of his siblings, news that was happily provided.

The only ones that remained was Antonio and Kevin. The rest had been forced to accompany Jay just in case, they were all preparing for the worse case scenario. And Hank, he was making sure the bastards never got to see the light of day ever again.

Ten minutes passed. By now, it had been two hours since they got on the scene and an hour since they raided the warehouse. The more Will struggled; the more Antonio was losing his patience. Right before the naked eye, out in the open for the entire universe to see, Will was bleeding out; he was dying. Death was looming, crawling from a mile away but its stench was strong, it’s shadow too close for comfort.

Making eye contact with Kevin, they had a silent conversation and with no argument, they were lifting Will up and nearly carrying him towards the car.

This was their last chance and they weren’t going to wait for that ambulance anymore.

And for once, fate guided them with a beaming light. She overturned the hatred she'd shown and led them safely, holding out a much-needed lifeline.

And so when the car screeched to a halt at Med’s ambulance bay doors, Will found it easier to breathe.

Series Masterlist:

@mads-weasley @sowrongitslottie @elite4cekalyma @senjoritanana @hufflepuff-blackwidow @mrspeacem1nusone @kmc1989 @goth-cowgirl-03 @daggersquadphantom @photographerkaiya0306 @jamie0515 @samanthavitale @iamasimpingh0e @lanea-1 @swidkid @jamie0515

[flowerandblood]

The Impossible Choice (50)

[ Aemond • Targaryen x Baratheon! • female ]

[ warnings: sex content, angst, smut ]

[description: Aemond comes to Storm’s End to choose his future consort. However, Lord Borros Baratheon presents him with only four of his five daughters. Being attached to his youngest child, he does not want to marry her. The prince, however, thwarts his and her plans with his decision. This is slow burn, with a lot of dark angst and sexual tension. (Anon Request)]

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Previous and next chapters: Masterlist

______

After speaking with Royce, she felt much better. They hugged for the first time since their father's death and cried in each other's arms, sharing their pain at last. She felt relieved that Royce had opened up to her and not pushed her away despite his suffering, believing, as he always did, in her sincere and good intentions.

Her brother had revealed to her in shame that Lord Greyjoy and his granddaughter were to arrive in King's Landing for Prince Daeron's funeral, which was to take place the following day.

Royce was apprehensive and embarrassed; he had experience with women, but only purely physical, and walks in the gardens were not in his nature.

He feared that the woman from the Iron Islands would be coarse and insolent in her behaviour, humiliating him at every turn.

She was surprised to realise that her brother was asking her for advice in some ambiguous way, embarrassed, not knowing how he should behave. She thought long on her answer, not wanting to say anything hastily.

She thought about how she had felt when she had arrived at the Red Keep.

Like an object.

Sold to her future husband, who had the right to show his displeasure if she did not meet his expectations, having the right to possess her body even if she did not want it.

She realised reflecting on how lucky she was that her husband had such a weakness for her from the beginning.

She knew that if Ellyn had been in her place, she would not have been able to stand it all and would have fallen into despair.

She swallowed loudly at the thought.

"Put yourself in her place. A free woman comes to King's Landing to be enslaved and to meet her future master. She can take three tactics: either to try to please you, to distance herself from you, or to show you outright that she despises you and will never break. I distanced myself from my husband, wanting to show him that he doesn't have power over me and that I don't need his affection." She said thoughtfully. Royce looked at her with his lips clenched, embarrassed.

They had never discussed it.

"First of all, show her respect. Don't pay compliments or insult her with displeased looks or grimaces. Show her that you are a man of honour, strong and determined, but respectful of her boundaries. Show her that if she needs distance at first, sure as you are, you are able to offer it. Show her that you are not desperate to get her affection, but at the same time that if she desires to get close to you, you will give her a chance." She finally finished her statement by looking at him. He sighed heavily, as if relieved, and massaged his forehead.

"Yes, you're right. I shouldn't be desperate. Gods, let her be at least a little pleasing to my eye." He muttered under his breath and sat back on his bureau, sighing.

Royce reached out to her and she gave him her hand, his lips pressed against her skin in an act of respect and brotherly love.

"My wise little sister." He said with pride and pain at the same time.

She left his chamber filled with hope for the first time in days – she felt that she had won both him and her husband back, and she needed nothing else for happiness.

She looked down at her already slightly rounded abdomen and stroked it, heading for her and her husband's rooms.

She stepped inside and immediately saw how sullen and tense he was – his healthy eye was fixed on her as if to ask what she had been doing with her brother for so long.

She tried not to show any amusement on her face at the thought that after a year of marriage, her husband was still jealous of Royce.

She recognised that she wanted to reward him for his trust, for trying hard to tame his possessive side for her.

"– do you wish to take a bath, husband? –" She asked quietly, and his gaze momentarily softened.

This was their intimate time of greatest closeness, a moment just for them, where her attention was devoted to him alone.

He hummed under his breath and nodded almost invisibly. She summoned the servants and instructed them to fetch and fill the tub with hot water.

Her treatments worked – she saw him momentarily relax, his face expressing peace and relief as she pulled his eye patch from his head. She took her time washing his hair, rubbing it with oils, her hands roaming his cheeks once in a while.

She smiled under her breath, feeling him flinch slightly as she did so, pleasant shivers passing through him from her gentle touch.

"How is your brother feeling?" He asked suddenly and she looked at him surprised, not expecting him to want to broach the subject.

She figured she would simply answer truthfully, not wanting to give him the feeling that her attention was once again turning away from him.

She rinsed his hair with water one last time and went around the tub, sitting down next to him on the wooden stool, dipping her hand into the already not-so-hot water along with the cloth.

"He’s trying to manage, but the new responsibilities are overwhelming him. He’s afraid of marriage and he’s afraid he won’t make it as a commander. As a Lord." She said, wiping his arm slowly. She saw that his eye opened, he looked at her thoughtfully for a moment.

"He's been preparing for this all his life." He said indifferently, however, there was no mockery or accusation in his voice.

She looked at him, wondering if he was trying to comfort her in this uncharacteristic way.

She knew that getting the words out of him was difficult and time-consuming.

She swallowed quietly, thinking about what he had said.

"You weren't afraid before we got married? After your father died?" She asked uncertainly, dipping her hand in the water again, and he pressed his lips together.

There was silence between them for a moment, and she was frightened that she had somehow offended or frustrated him. She wanted to add something already, but he preceded her and answered her first.

"My real father died in Eyrie."

She lifted her gaze to him, stopping in mid-motion, unsure if she had heard correctly.

She analysed the sentence he had said in her head, but couldn't make out its meaning, her heart pounding like mad.

Seeing her disbelief and confusion, he pressed his lips together in embarrassment, looking away. She heard him swallow loudly.

"I told him, then, when I threatened him, that even though my mother treats you as if you were her daughter, he doesn’t treat me like his son." He said carefully, his voice trembling slightly at the very end of the sentence.

She felt a strong sting in her heart because she had never thought he was thinking of it that way.

She was convinced that he and her father resented each other and tolerated themselves only for her sake.

It would never have crossed her mind that her husband could desire his favours, not after what he had said to him in Storm's End.

"− Aemond −" It came out of her mouth like a plea for him to stop, she felt tears welling up in her eyes again, her stomach clenched tight in pain.

She wasn't sure she could think about it now, after what had happened, now that her father was no longer with them.

Her husband, however, looked shaken, running his hand over his chin as he stared ahead with his eye wide open.

"− ever since that night when he saved me, I have imagined what would have happened if my father had sent me as he sent Daeron, only not to Old Town, but to Storm’s End − if, after I had lost my eye, he had stated that I needed, as a future Lord Commander of my brother’s army, to learn the art of war, so that I could watch from the sidelines how the best army in Westeros, the Baratheon army, functioned −" He muttered in one breath, as if the words were pouring out of him in a torrent, making her gasp completely for a moment.

She stared at him with her lips parted, her hands on the edge of the tub involuntarily clenched into fists from stress and pain.

She couldn't believe what he was saying, his words simultaneously rejoicing and hurting her.

"− If Borros had shared with me everything he himself knew, if I could have trained with Royce, if I could… −" He said and didn't finish, glancing at her again, as if only now remembering that she was really beside him. His gaze frightened her.

Broken, infinitely sad, deep.

"−… get to know you sooner − maybe then… −" He muttered, his voice breaking so hopelessly that she felt like she was about to burst into tears.

"−…maybe then I would have been a different person −" He mumbled, burying his face in his hand.

The way he said those words and their meaning was so striking to her that for a moment she was at a loss for words.

Her hand, by natural reflex, touched his shoulder, his face, his cheek, stroking him, wanting to reassure him, soothe him, not expecting completely that he felt anything towards her father, that he felt something when he saw him die.

This realisation came upon her suddenly and crushed her, his words and self-awareness startling her so much that she struggled to get any words out.

"− my beloved − I wish so much that this was true − I wish so much that I had met you sooner −" She whispered, letting her tears flow.

She wished that his dream could come true, that he could fly to Storm's End when she was a child, that he could experience the comfort and affection of her father and brother, that he could truly be part of their family.

She thought it was a beautiful vision and that surely she would have fallen in love with him much earlier, that everything would have been different.

Their first kiss, their wedding night, their whole life.

She squealed loudly when he suddenly got up from the water, grabbing her in his arms, getting out of the tub and heading towards the bed with her.

They were both breathing heavily, hugging each other tightly even though his body had soaked the entire front of her gown. He laid her down on the bed, kneeling over her and began to undress her, looking at her with a gaze she had never seen from him before.

He was vulnerable.

"− I would have taken you for myself sooner − I would have kissed you in the cold corridors of your father’s fortress −" He breathed out pulling her top gown off her. She felt a squeeze between her thighs at his words and immense embarrassment, having the feeling that her cheeks had ignited with scarlet as she slipped her bottom skirt off.

She imagined them kissing somewhere in a dark alley of the fortress in Storm's End and felt her moisture run down her buttocks onto the sheets beneath her.

She squealed quietly as her husband suddenly pressed his lips to hers in a hot, possessive, desperate kiss, as if he himself was his thoughts in his imaginings.

He didn't even wait a moment, aroused as she was, her body trembled all over as she felt the his fat erection push hungrily against her pulsing, swollen entrance. He opened her wide on his cock with ease and she arched her back, a quiet mewl escaping her lips.

"− would you visit me in my chamber? − in my bed? −" He hummed into her mouth, sucking and licking her puffy, fleshy lips. She felt his question between in her thighs, her walls clenched tight against him as he rooted into her like mad.

He groaned feeling it, his hips sped up, fucking her quickly and chaotically with a loud slapping of flesh against flesh, bringing out her perverted, pathetic sounds.

"− yes, gods, you know I would −" She mewled embarrassed by her words, by the fact that she knew it was true, responding greedily to each thrust of his hips.

She was imagining that she had in fact come to him to take her, to give her pleasure, in secret from her father and siblings.

She was humiliatingly close to fulfilment.

"− I would be your prince − brother − lover − fuck! −" He hissed, and she felt downright spasms of pleasure run through her body at what he was saying.

If someone else had said similar things to her she would have felt embarrassed, but now, with him, she wanted nothing more than for him to fuck her harder and faster, his erection throbbing and swollen like never before, marvellously stretching her walls.

"− A-Aemond − oh gods −" She mumbled out with difficulty, feeling him speed up his pace, slamming into her brutally and loudly, his hand clenched on her leg not allowing her to escape, rolling of his hips rubbed a wonderful spot inside her, making her head spin.

"− fuck, fuck, fuck −" He exhaled loudly, biting his lower lip as if what he was saying was his innermost desire, his darkest secret.

This realisation made her clench her eyelids shut and tilt her head back with a sigh, her insides began to clamp down on him frantically in an orgasm that coursed through her body like a storm, the moans and sobs that erupted from her throat were so loud that a part of her subconscious felt ashamed.

She was unable to focus on it, her misty eyes looked up at the face of her husband, who was looking down at her with parted lips, clearly having the same vision as her. She heard his throaty moan, his eyebrows arched as if in pain, and then she felt him come inside her, his hot spend filling her insides.

"− my sweetest − shhh −" He whispered tenderly trying to soothe her, she struggled to catch her breath, her body suddenly soft and light, numb.

"− Aemond −"

Prince Daeron's funeral was one of the most sorrowful events she had attended since her own mother's funeral. At the time, however, she had understood little of what was happening; now that realisation made her perceive it even worse. She felt sorry for her husband's family, she even felt sorry for Aegon seeing that he was unable to burn his younger brother's body.

However, in the end, he did.

She was surprised at how he addressed Helaena and how she addressed him.

It seemed to her that their relationship had warmed and she wondered if her husband shared this view.

Aegon had ordered a small feast for his family and guests who had chosen to honour his brother's death. As soon as they entered the great hall, however, her gaze was not focused on what was happening at their table, but on finding Royce.

She spotted him suddenly, seated next to some woman she was seeing for the first time − her black gown was simple and elegant, her hair tied back in a simple bun, both of them drinking wine, looking ahead, but their lips were moving.

They were conversing.

She thought the woman's face was pleasant and similar to their mother's, her hair and eyes dark, her body was shapely and pleasant. She may not have been petite, however her figure was very feminine.

She wondered hopefully if Royce would like her, if they would find common ground, however, it seemed that so far neither of them looked upset or angry.

She shuddered as the door suddenly opened, one of the guards stepping inside and announcing that one of her sisters had just arrived at the Red Keep. She smiled broadly and corrected herself in her seat, confident that as the eldest daughter it was Cassandra who had taken on the role.

She felt a cold sweat on her neck and a powerful tightening in her stomach when she saw Floris, smiling under her breath, walking proudly down the stairs in a beautiful emerald gown with buff, slit sleeves, the neckline of her gown under her breasts covered by her undershirt, her hair combed into an intricate braid.

She dressed just like her.

She knew that this cut of dress had been worn by their mother and that each of their sisters had the right to wear it, that any woman could comb her hair in a similar way, however, she was unable to stop the pain of humiliation that spread through her body.

She glanced frightened at her husband, his hand soothingly stroking her lower abdomen, as if he knew what she was thinking, knew what she was feeling.

Was this how her husband felt when he looked at Luke?

Was this what he felt when he thought of him?

The perpetually crushing, overpowering humiliation?

She watched helplessly as her sister, dressed shamelessly in the Hightower colours now, that everyone was dressed in black, wrapped Aegon around her finger, insulting her husband in the process.

She watched as Aegon easily caught on to her tricks, watching her with eyes full of satisfaction.

She knew what he was thinking.

She was similar enough to her to satisfy him.

She cast an anxious glance at Royce and saw that he was looking at her too.

They were both thinking the same thing.

She tried to eat something, but was unable to, feeling her heart pounding hard as she heard Floris speaking with Aegon on the side, pretending to settle with him how and when their father's body would be transported to Storm's End.

"…of course I understand the rush, however, I want to pay your heroic father respect and a burial worthy of a King. I want to organise an entire retinue for him to escort him with you to Storm's End, my Lady." He said softly and she rolled her eyes, feeling sick, frustration and tension filling her body.

She was furious.

"You are too kind, my King." Floris whispered in such a way that she clenched her eyes shut.

She knew what she was doing, she knew what she wanted.

Floris wanted to land in the King's bed, and she didn't even realise how straight the road to it led.

She probably considered it her great success and achievement without even realising how many whores and servants Aegon had fucked so far, and his interest in her was because she was similar to the woman he had fallen in love with.

"Are you feeling well?" She heard her husband's low voice beside her and looked up at him, realising that for a moment she had completely forgotten about him. His gaze expressed something she had never seen before.

Concern.

"No. This is some sort of nightmare." She mumbled hiding her face in her hands, shaking her head.

She saw the way Alicent looked at her sister, she knew what she was thinking about, and she was right.

They were at the young prince's funeral feast, having to pay their respects to him, and she was just seducing the King, much to his delight. She looked at Helaena and saw that she was staring blankly ahead, pretending not to see or hear anything.

She felt as if she was now feral and over-stimulated, unable to focus on anything, her husband's hand again soothingly stroked her womb.

"Let's go to our chamber. You shouldn't upset yourself in your condition." He said remarkably softly for his usual way of speaking, having never seen her in such a state before.

She sighed heavily and nodded, then they both stood up, heading for the side entrance. Her husband let her go ahead, putting his hand on her back for a moment as if to let her know that he was there for her, that he understood what she was feeling.

"Brother, sister, are you leaving us already?" She heard Aegon's soft, surprisingly pleased voice.

Her husband pressed his lips together at his words.

"My wife, who is expecting my child, felt worse. She needs to rest." He said with emphasis on the fact that she was expecting his offspring, and she immediately understood why he had done so.

Floris swallowed hard, looking down at her womb, only now noticing that indeed her abdomen was slightly rounded. She placed her hand there with contentment and smiled, feeling a pleasant wave of satisfaction.

"Aren't you going to congratulate me, sister?" She cooed, repeating words her husband had said to his brother.

She saw Aegon look at her shocked, his cheeks flushed red. Floris swallowed loudly, the realisation of humiliation spreading across her face − she could almost sense how her husband's dangerous, menacing, wide grin stretched across his face at her question.

"Congratulations, dear sister. May the labour be easy." She said quietly, looking somewhere to the side on the floor, nodding.

She approached her elder sister slowly, placing her hand on her shoulder as if in a gesture of tenderness and closeness, her smile not leaving her face.

"I am sure that you too will soon live to see your child, sweet sister. From the righteous bed, I reckon." She said so softly and warmly that Floris smiled, only after a moment understanding what her sister had actually said, the corners of her mouth slowly dropping in disbelief.

She heard behind her as her husband involuntarily snorted with laughter at her words, clearly delighted with his wife's behaviour and what he had taught her.

She threw a smile to Aegon, who swallowed loudly, clearly horrified at how easily she had guessed his thoughts, and turned, heading lightly towards the entrance, her husband walking a few paces behind her. She threw him a warm, happy look, amusement and pride on his face.

"My wife can breathe fire." He muttered lowly, his eye glowing dangerously in the torchlight in the corridor around them as they walked. She looked ahead with a content smile.

"Fire and Blood."

_____

Taglist 1

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[superscrub323]

Some Fun Facts about the Aphrodite and Hephaestus Divorce

Everyone knows the story, Hephaestus and Aphrodite get married, in most tellings more or less against her will, Aphrodite cheats with the man who already gave her one of her kids and gives her 3 more, Hephaestus finds out, Golden Net, Ares (or Poseidon) pays back the dowry, and the two get divorced with bitter feelings for all involved. But one thing I did find curious is that where Hephaestus was raised after getting baby yetted by Zeus and/or Hera was a place called Limnos which is a sacred placed to Hephaestus. Aphrodite also, in a time which is implied after the divorce, stops getting worshippers and tribute, which is also implied because Hephaestus worshippers aren't going to worship the Goddess who broke their poor smith god's heart, so as a method of punishing them and getting back at Hephaestus for both the marriage and the net, she then curses the women to have bad body odor making the men not want to have sex with them*. The men, unwilling to let a little thing like bad body odor slide in the name of booty, like actual champions, decide to conveniently go to Thrake, a homeland that is sacred to Ares and is where he goes to his metal palace** whenever he's sick of the Olympians' shit***, to kidnap the woman as sex slaves which is implied as retribution to Ares for making Aphrodite break the poor smith god's heart (as if Hephaestus didn't force Aphrodite to break Ares's heart first). The women, both Thrakian and Lemnians, in response decide to take a page out of Ares's playbook by getting revenge on the men for neglecting them and stealing them from their homeland to be sex slaves by violently murdering them and making it so that only women reside on Limnos (which is implied to be motivated by either Aphrodite and/or Ares) until Jason and the Argonauts came to *fix* that problem. Which in turns makes me think that the whole Limnos situation was a cycle of revenge situation involving all 3 Gods.

*Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 114 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "Lemnos happened to have no males at the time [when the Argonauts visited the island], and was ruled by Hypsipyle, the daughter of Thoas. The reason for this was that the women of Lemnos had failed to give due honour to Aphrodite, in return for which she afflicted them with a foul odour. Whereupon their husbands took to bed women whom they captured from neighbouring Thrake. For this dishonourable treatment the Lemnian women slew their fathers and husbands."

**Statius, Thebaid 7. 64 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic C1st A.D.) : "Barren forest [of Thrake], the sacred haunts of Mars [Ares] . . . where on the far slopes of Haemus his savage mansion is ringed by a thousand furies. The walls are of iron structure, iron portals bear upon the threshold, the roof is carried by columns wrought of iron. The rays of Phoebus [Helios the Sun] are weakened when they meet it, the very light fears that dwelling, and its murky glare dismays the stars. Fit sentinels hold watch there: from the outer gate wild Impetus (Passion) leaps, and blind Nefas (Mischief) and Irae (Angers) flushing red and pallid Metus (Fear) [Phobos], and Insidia (Treachery) lurks with hidden sword, and Discordia (Discord) [Eris] holding a two-edged blade. Minis (Threats) innumerable make clamour in the court, sullen Virtus (Valour) stands in the midst, and Furor (Rage) exultant and armed Mors (Death) [Thanatos] with blood-stained visage are seated there; no blood but that of wars is on the altars, no fire but snatched from burning cities. All around were spoils of every land, and captured peoples adorned the temple's high front, and fragments of iron-wrought gates and ships of war and empty chariots and faces ground by chariot-wheels, ay, almost even their groans! truly every form of violence and wounds. Himself [Mars-Ares] was everywhere to behold, but nowhere with softened looks; in such wise had Mulciber [Hephaistos] with divine skill portrayed him: not yet had the adulterer, made manifest by the sun's bright beams, atoned his shameful union in the bed's grasping chains [in which he was caught with Aphrodite] . . . Lo! Earth trembles, and horned [river] Hebrus bellows and stays his torrent's flow; then all the war-steeds that troubled the valley sped foaming o'er the frightened meads, sure sign of his approach, and the gates barred with everlasting adamant flew open. Glorious in Hyrcanian gore he himself [Mars-Ares] comes riding by; far and wide the dire bespattering changes the aspect of the fields, behind him are borne spoils and weeping throngs; forests and deep snows give him room; with bloody hand dark Bellona [Enyo] guides the team and plies them hard with her long spear." 

***that part was added my me but if you want to tell me that he doesn't go to his kick ass Thrake palace whenever he's sick of the Olympian's shit go ahead

[ukdamo]

Judas Iscariot

Countee Cullen

I think when Judas' mother heard His first faint cry the night That he was born, that worship stirred Her at the sound and sight. She thought his was as fair a frame As flesh and blood had worn; I think she made this lovely name For him— "Star of my morn."

As any mother's son he grew From spring to crimson spring; I think his eyes were black, or blue, His hair curled like a ring. His mother's heart-strings were a lute Whereon he all day played; She listened rapt, abandoned, mute, To every note he made.

I think he knew the growing Christ, And played with Mary's son, And where mere mortal craft sufficed, There Judas may have won. Perhaps he little cared or knew, So folly-wise is youth, That He whose hand his hand clung to Was flesh-embodied Truth;

Until one day he heard young Christ, With far-off eyes agleam, Tell of a mystic, solemn tryst Between Him and a dream. And Judas listened, wonder-eyed, Until the Christ was through, Then said, “And I, though good betide, Or ill, will go with you."

And so he followed, heard Christ preach, Saw how by miracle The blind man saw, the dumb got speech, The leper found him well. And Judas in those holy hours, Loved Christ, and loved Him much, And in his heart he sensed dead flowers Bloom at the Master's touch.

And when Christ felt the death hour creep, With sullen, drunken lurch, He said to Peter, "Feed my sheep, And build my holy church.” He gave to each the special task That should be his to do, But reaching one, I hear him ask, “What shall I give to you?”

Then Judas in his hot desire Said, "Give me what you will." Christ spoke to him with words of fire, “Then, Judas, you must kill, One whom you love, One who loves you As only God's son can: This is the work for you to do To save the creature man."

"And men to come will curse your name, And hold you up to scorn; In all the world will be no shame Like yours; this is love's thorn. It takes strong will of heart and soul, But man is under ban. Think, Judas, can you play this role In heaven's mystic plan?"

So Judas took the sorry part, Went out and spoke the word, And gave the kiss that broke his heart, But no one knew or heard. And no one knew what poison ate Into his palm that day, Where, bright and damned, the monstrous weight Of thirty white coins lay.

It was not death that Judas found Upon a kindly tree; The man was dead long ere he bound His throat as final fee. And who can say if on that day When gates of pearl swung wide, Christ did not go His honoured way With Judas by His side?

I think somewhere a table round Owns Jesus as its head, And there the saintly twelve are found Who followed where He led. And Judas sits down with the rest, And none shrinks from His hand, For there the worst is as the best, And there they understand.

And you may think of Judas, 'friend, As one who broke his word, Whose neck came to a bitter end For giving up his Lord. But I would rather think of him As the little Jewish lad Who gave young Christ heart, soul, and limb, And all the love he had.

[foursaints]

i follow the rosekiller tag so sometimes posts about them hit my dash and i read them & my only thought is 'tumblr person foursaints wouldn't do this to me' these boys are strange. crooked. rotten. alive. dead. you get it. so happy someone else sees them this way too.

you’re so wise anon… rosekiller has this innate austere ghoulishness that i don’t think incorrect quotes can capture… those are two sullen pureblood children raised in empty estates by hard-handed private tutors… and both of them have gone deeply wrong inside…

one is a violent delinquent who is also a charming prefect making disconcertingly perfect grades & the other is the school’s dark-magic nobody who quietly disdains everyone (and only talks to his twin) <-scientifically perfect dynamic. why would you tamper with this