#tangent over. gotta do some homework

[momentomori24]

Just to spite my exhaustion I'm gonna try to get at least piece of homework done tonight before I get too tired. Spite and pettiness give me strength.

[pradaxstyles]

Alexa’s notes✨: this is a little self indulgent, but I hope you all enjoy some college! Ellie <3 let me know if you like this and I can always come up w some more for different scenarios 🌷

Thinking about college! Ellie and how she’d be hanging at your house for hours just sitting with you while you did homework/studied. Her classes finished early for the semester so she’s been nothing but supportive when it came to your studies. 

❃ “Come on baby, one more problem and we’ll take a break.”

❃ Your laptop and notes would be laid out messily, colorful pens and highlighters with caps mismatched (this was all Ellie, you hated when she did it) while she’s helping you go through your notes.

❃ “Okay, do you think you could tell me how to solve Hardy Weinberg’s Equilibrium formula? Or do we need to do a few more practice problems? Here, hand me that flow chart and we’ll go over it again.” 

Ellie would be really good at math, majoring in mechanical engineering so your bio homework is a breeze for her. She'd be all over you with the encouraging words, walking you through every step of an equation and explaining it. 

❃ ”No, no I don’t wanna hear it, you can absolutely do it. Just gotta put that pretty mind to it, you got it.”

❃ She’d be sitting next to you on your bedroom floor, playing some soft music from your shared playlist through your laptop, her knees pressed into yours while she waved a pen around.

❃ “What the fuck even is this? Why is this in biology to begin with?” 

She’d crack the stupidest jokes just to see your smile. She hated when you were stressed, and as final exams approached, it seemed as if you were always stressed, and she couldn't have that. 

❃ “Baabbbeeeee I have snacks! We’re gonna hunker down and study for your history exam and we’ll watch an episode of the office! How does that sound, my pretty girl?” 

❃ “Uhhh, why did henry viii have so many wives? What a whore.”

❃ She’d go on random tangents about people in history and how “I can’t believe they used to do that! Can you imagine if we did that nowadays?” 

And when you were really down on yourself, feeling like there was no end in sight, Ellie was right there, reminding you that you were so close to the finish line. 

❃ “I know, sweets. I know. You're almost there. You have no idea how smart and capable you are. You’re gonna crush these exams, and if you don’t, I'll crush your professors,” she’d say with a sly smirk on her face, resulting in you pushing her arm slightly.

❃ “No but I'm serious, babe. I know it seems like it’s all piling up and that it’s one thing after another, but you can do it. If anyone can, you’ll be the one to kick ass.”

❃ “My girl is graduating college in a few weeks. College. That’s fucking huge. I'm sososo proud of you, angel.” 

On exam days, she’d make sure you had a good breakfast, insisting on sleeping over the night before so she could make sure you ate. She’d walk you to class and send an encouraging text as you took your seat. 

❃ “You’re gonna crush it, babe!” 

❃ “Remember to take a deep breath and think each problem through.” 

❃ “No matter what the result is, I'm so fucking proud of you.” 

At the end of finals week, she’d pamper you the way you deserved. Ellie would plan a date night where she absolutely spoiled you and showered you in kisses and cuddles. Every time she looked at you or even in your general direction, her gaze was so full of love and pride. 

[ssa-babygirl]

Out of My League [Part 1]

Pairing: High school!Spencer Reid x Popular!Reader

Word count: 3.7k (god i don’t shut up do i)

Summary: Spencer begins tutoring you in chemistry, and the two of you bond (I would say no pun intended but fuck it that was GOOD so I’ll say pun intended)

Warning(s): Mentions of bullying, mental illness, some swearing, I made one joke about herpes??? sorry if thats a sore spot with anyone, light angst and pining, Reader POV

Author’s Note: Here it is, folks!! The first official part! I’ so grateful for all the feedback I got on the prologue, I’m glad y’all are liking it, I hope you like this part just as much!! Next part I’m gonna have some baby spencer, and by that I mean whole ass adult spencer that just looks baby

[Previous Part] [Series Masterlist]

You absolutely despised chemistry. It’s boring. It’s simultaneously stupid and ridiculously complicated. You weren’t dumb, you were a decent student in all your other classes, but science was never your strong suit. You preferred literature over litmus paper any day. Unfortunately, your failing grade was bringing down your entire GPA, just below the requirement for you to stay on the cheerleading squad. Your coach recommended you get a tutor, or else you were off the team. So you went to the library to see the peer tutoring program, and all of them were booked. The next best thing would be the kid genius in your class. He was probably a better first choice, honestly, but you figured he’d be booked with other students too.

He wasn’t like other kids in your class, not just because he actually cared and was a good student, he was also twelve years old. The kid was a prodigy. He was bullied a lot because of this because no one really understood him. That’s probably why he looked so terrified when you approached him after class one day.

“Hey, Spencer!”

His eyes grew wide as he stared back at you, saying nothing.

“I was just wondering if you were available for tutoring?”

“Oh, uh, um, y-yeah, in chemistry?”

“Yeah, what are your rates like? Like say we do an hour every other day, how much would that be?”

“Oh! N-no charge.”

“Really?”

“The first couple of sessions can be a trial run, I don’t want your money if you’re not benefiting from it.”

That made you smile, this kid was so nice and you just wished that people actually cared about that instead of the dumb shit they bullied him for. Sure, he was skinny and short and dorky and you know, a literal twelve-year-old boy, but if someone would take time to know him, they’d see he’s a good kid.

“That’s sweet of you, but I don’t wanna waste your time if you have other students.”

“I don’t, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Great! Are you free after school today?”

He nodded and avoided all eye contact before scurrying out of the room to his next class.

~~~

You met up later in the library. You greeted each other politely with simple hi’s and hey’s and nothing more. Then it was time to pour over your books for an hour and try to force the puzzle pieces into place and hope something finally clicked. Balancing molecular equations physically hurt. Just when you thought you got it all right, Spencer reminded you that you still had to balance the oxygen, which was always bonded with something else, which threw off the whole equation. Every time you made a mistake you just let out a groan and set your head on the table.

“It’s a lot of math, a lot of people have a hard time with it, don’t feel bad.”

“I’m so fucking stupid.”

“You’re not! It’s an easy mistake.”

“You don’t make mistakes like that.”

“That’s because I’ve been taking advanced math classes for the past two years, I’m good at this stuff.”

“You’re good at everything, you're a literal genius.”

“There are people who aren’t geniuses who are good at this sort of thing, just look at Johnny Abrams in our class. He answers every question Mrs. Gustin asks and I once saw him put his backpack on his car’s roof and start driving ‘cuz he forgot it was there. He’s just been practicing. That’s why we’re here, right?”

He always reassured you. Always told you that you weren’t stupid. You weren’t dumb. He always smiled when you got questions right and told you you were doing a good job. When your hour was up, you said goodbye and went home. 

Spencer’s mini lectures aside, most of your sessions were sparse in the conversation department. The first time he went off on a side about some chemistry facts, you couldn’t keep up. You just sat there, jaw hanging while he went into detail about saponification, which wasn’t even in this lesson.

“Sorry, I’m rambling.”

“Did we learn that in class? Cuz if we did, I’m screwed.”

“No, not yet at least.”

“How do you just… know that?”

Spencer avoided your eyes once again, something he did more than spouting random facts, “I read a lot.”

That’s how it happened the first time. All it took was you asking one question about different types of reactions for him to launch into another spiel. You figured you’d have to know it at some point, so you started writing down whatever you could catch from his fast-paced speech, taking notes in bullet points.

“And that-- Oh. Y-You don’t need to do that, that’s not even on the curriculum.”

“Well, I gotta keep up with you somehow, right?” You glanced up from your page and flashed an almost challenging smirk as you saw him stifle a smile as he avoided all eye contact with you, as per usual. He then cleared his throat and got back to the actually assigned chapter.

The more he went off on tangents, the more he realized you weren’t stopping him. He was actually able to make chemistry sound interesting to you, which is strange, but it was easier to understand through how he explained it all. Something told you that he wasn’t used to having someone listen to what he said, because he just lit up when he talked about this stuff. He was clearly passionate about it, so why would you make him feel bad about it? He always apologized, but you always reassured him it was no big deal. 

You didn’t know it at the time, but the kid was falling hard. This pretty, older girl was paying attention to him and didn’t think he was annoying? The bar may have been on the floor for young Spencer, but you were perfect to him. Eventually, he was able to look you in the eyes when you spoke to one another, he even smiled at you when you joked with him. That was another thing: you joked with one another now. You both warmed up to one another as your sessions continued. You said hi to each other in the hallways, you ruffled his hair as a greeting, he accepted your high-five requests every time you got something right.

You still didn’t talk outside of class much, which is why he was caught so far off guard by you calling his name from across the cafeteria as you approached his table.

“Hey, dude! Is it cool if we squeeze in an extra session today? I got a test tomorrow.”

“Y-Yeah, no problem, but, uh, it’s Thursday. Don’t you have practice after school?”

You did. And you had to be there because you had a competition this weekend.

“Yeah, I was wondering if we could meet after?”

“When does it end?”

“Five.”

“Library closes at four.”

“I know, but would it be too much of a hassle if I just… Pick you up tonight and we head back to my house to study?”

You could physically see his brain shut down in his eyes. After he realized he needed to respond, he picked his jaw up off the floor and gulped hard.

“Or you can stay after and hang out at practice and I can just drive you home?”

“Y-Yeah, um, yeah, tha-that works, I can, uh, yeah, we can do that.”

Spencer brought his books and homework and tried his hardest to not make it obvious he was staring at you while you danced. You looked like you were having so much fun and he loved seeing you happy and smiling with your friends like that, it was hard for him to look away and focus long enough to read a sentence, which is saying something, considering it does not take him long to read a sentence. 

After practice wrapped up, you told him to go wait by your car while you changed out of your uniform. The girls in the locker room were talking just as loudly as always, only this time, it was about something you actually cared about hearing.

“I mean, really, what was that little creep doing watching us today?” You heard one girl sneer.

“So fucking gross, I don’t wanna know where his prepubescent head was.” Another girl laughed.

You had to step in. You had to say something.

“I’m his ride home. He’s my chemistry tutor and I have a test tomorrow, so back off the kid, he didn’t do shit to you anyway.”

The squad learned to watch their mouths around you after that.

~~~

The neon glow of the golden arches shone through your car’s windows as you pulled into the McDonald’s drive-thru line.

“This isn’t your house,” noted Spencer, sounding confused.

You grinned, “Oh, shit… no way! Wow! I’m so glad my tutor is a genius! I would have never guessed this was not my family home!”

He let himself laugh for a moment, “Okay, okay, fine. Why are we here?”

“Uh… to get food? Duh.”

“But what about your food at home?”

“My mom’s visiting my dad, he works in D.C., and I haven’t gotten a chance to go grocery shopping this week, so I can’t cook for you. What do you want?”

“You don’t have to get me anything.”

“No, I insist, it’s almost dinner time. Lemme get you something. As a thank you for squeezing in an extra cramming sesh?”

“It’s fine! Really.”

“Hey, Reid, come on,” you attempt to stifle a stupid giggle as you gesture to the rather large window displaying the playroom inside, “you are a guest in my home!”

Spencer shakes his head and chuckles, but doesn’t dare let you think he found you funny, “I’ll have chicken nuggets.”

“Happy meal?”

He tried to look offended at your clarification, but he quickly dropped the facade, “Yes. Extra fries, please.”

“Of course, buddy.” You pulled up further to the ordering station, catching a glimpse at the menu and the ads they had displayed on it, “Oh no way! They have Strawberry Shortcake toys! I used to collect those when I was a kid!”

Spencer saw the look on your face and couldn’t help but smile at your childlike excitement, “Do you want my happy meal toy?”

You bit your lip and hesitated before throwing all shame to the wind and saying yes. Because it was Spencer. He got excited over chemistry, he had no right to judge you on your old Strawberry Shortcake doll collection.

After you got your food, you drove back to your house, and you ate together at your kitchen island while Spencer quizzed you on the last chapter. He had asked you eighteen questions so far, and you had answered all of them correctly. 

“Okay, this last one is for the Strawberry Shortcake--”

“Her name is Orange Blossom.”

“Whatever, this last one is for the Orange Blossom toy: Which type of reaction is represented by this equation?” He showed you his notebook where he had written a molecular equation.

“Substitution.”

“Correct! Now balance it.”

Your shoulders slouched as the pride drained from your body.

“Please don’t make me.”

“This is going to be on the test, Y/N, you have to know it.”

“What’s one wrong question, really?”

“You and I both know she’s not going to put just one balancing question on the test.”

“Fine.” You grumbled, grabbing a pencil and sliding his notebook closer to you. You worked it out after a few minutes, but everything looked right, and judging by Spencer’s proud grin, everything was.

He reached for the figurine, still in the plastic bag, and handed it to you, “You’re gonna do great tomorrow, Y/N.”

You took Orange Blossom from his hands and danced around the kitchen with it, overwhelmed with the sudden feeling of confidence you gained from nailing this practice session. You heard Spencer’s small laugh from behind you, causing you to turn around and face the boy as he lovingly mocked you.

Studying at your place became a regular thing after that, even when your mom was home. She loved him. She always invited him for dinner if she was home. He rarely took her up on the offer, but it was nice having him around the house with you. Study sessions turned into just plain hanging out. You spent more time bonding over Doctor Who than chemistry some nights, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

~~~

When Alexa Lisben invited him to meet her at the football field you were skeptical. You had good reason to be. She was never very nice to you or Spencer. You were able to be civil with her for the sake of the cheerleading squad, but something about her just didn’t sit right with you. You tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen. He seemed offended at the notion that Alexa would do something horrible to him. How dare you imply that the only reason someone would be interested in him would be to pull a fucked up prank?

“I’m not like you, Y/N, I don’t have a line of people waiting around for a date, no one’s ever had a crush on me before, and-and now that someone other than you is being nice to me, you’re telling me that they have some sort of ulterior motive?”

“Spencer. I know these girls, I’ve seen the guys they go for--”

“And I’m not like them?”

“No! You’re a sweet kid, you’re nothing like those guys and they’re gonna take advantage of that.”

“I really wish everyone would stop saying I’m just a kid!”

“You’re not! That came out wrong--”

“Listen, Y/N, I’m going whether you want me to or not, so if you really want to keep babying me, by all means, stay after and wait with me.”

“I don’t wanna baby you!”

“So stop it!”

You didn’t want to fight with him anymore, you weren’t his mother. “Ok, Spencer, fine. I’m sorry. You should go. How about you meet me in the library after and you can tell me all about it over McDonald’s? My treat.”

He warmed up and agreed.

So you waited in the library until four, and then you started to get worried. You went to grab something from your gym locker before you left to look for him and heard some girls from the squad gossiping about “the little dork.” Your blood started to boil as you heard the way they talked about Spencer. Your jaw only clenched harder as you recognized one of the girls’ voices as Alexa Lisben’s.

You poked your head around the lockers that divided the aisles and tried to manage a calm voice, “Hey Alexa? Spencer actually said he was meeting up with you today, do you know where he is?”

She just laughed and said, “I can’t believe you actually care about that loser.”

“He’s my friend.” All attempts to remain level-headed were tossed aside, “Where the fuck is he, what did you do to him?”

You could feel yourself starting to cry. It’s your fault, you weren’t there, you tried to warn him, but now you don’t know where he is or what he’s thinking or--

“Check the field.”

You sprinted out to the football field and saw him stripped down to his briefs, blindfolded, and tied to a goal post. You could kill Alexa. You actually considered turning right around and unleashing hell on that locker room, but your friend needed help. He was crying so hard he didn’t hear you coming until you called his name. You immediately went to untie him and grab his clothes from the fence beside him.

“You were right.” He sniffled, “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, I’m not mad, I’m sorry, I should have been there, I could have helped you--”

“No, you couldn’t. There were too many people.”

“How many were there? Who did this?”

“Y/N, please--”

“No, Spencer, tell me what happened.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it!”

You know when to stop, so you just shut your mouth while he got dressed, “Get in the car, I’m taking you home.”

You didn’t say a word to him as he buckled his seatbelt and you could tell he appreciated it. You just drove to McDonald’s and got him his usual. You parked in the parking lot and ate your food in almost silence, save for the radio in the background.

“You don’t have to tell me what exactly happened, you could pretend none of this ever happened, I won’t mind, it’s okay, but I just need you to know, Spencer, say the word and she’s dead. I have so much dirt on her, you have no idea, I can destroy her.”

“Don’t.”

“Okay, I won’t. At least give me names. I will personally make sure none of those boys ever get a date again.”

“Y/N, please.”

“I’m serious, I’ll tell everyone they have herpes.”

“I know you are and that’s what scares me, please don’t, I don’t wanna make things worse.”

You decide to drop it because if he doesn’t wanna talk about it, he needs a distraction.

After you finish your food, you ask him “Your house or mine?”

“Yours. Please.”

You drove back to your house and got yourselves set up on the couch in front of the TV, turning on an episode of Doctor Who that you had recorded. You made him popcorn as he curled up on your couch, clutching a pillow. You were mostly quiet for the rest of the night, but when you did talk, it was to ask him a question about the show or if any of the science was accurate. It was the best you could do to keep him mind off things. Eventually, he fell asleep and you felt too bad to wake him. He got up by himself around midnight, jolting awake as if from a nightmare, and considering how the last few hours had been for him, it probably was one.

“Hey, bud, I’m here, it’s me.” You didn’t touch him, knowing he got overstimulated sometimes when he got really stressed, but he felt around for you on the couch next to him, needing to know you were really there this time. You patted his hand when it reached across the cushion for you.

“What time is it?”

“Way too late for you to be here, let’s get you home.”

He nodded, slowly rising to his feet and looking for his backpack, which you reminded him he had left in the car. Your hand hovered above his head for a moment before he lazily drifted into you as he walked. You took this as an okay to touch him, so you ruffled his hair before loosely slinging an arm around his shoulders as you guided him to your car.

The drive back to Spencer’s wasn’t too long, thankfully, because you were sure his parents would be furious with him and the kid’s been through enough today. You wanted to take all the heat without making them think you kidnapped him. The lights were still on when you pulled into the driveway. They were probably worried sick about him.

When you knocked on the door, a frantic woman with short blonde hair opened it. When she saw Spencer, she grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him into the house, never breaking eye contact with you.

“Who are you? What are you doing with my son?”

“He didn’t do anything wrong, Mrs. Reid. I’m Y/N, he’s been tutoring me.”

“How do you know me? Spencer, what did you tell her?” She looked at him and back at you, “Get off my property and stay away from us!”

“Mom, she’s a fr--”

“Go up to your room, don’t come out.” She didn’t sound like an angry parent reprimanding her son, she sounded almost... scared.

A million alarms were going off in your head, and you needed to try to get through to her, “Ma’am, I’m sorry, he was helping me study and we lost track of time, it’s not his fault.”

“I don’t care, I don’t know you, get off my property!”

You decided it was best not to argue, so you hurried back to your car and drove home as quickly as possible so you could shower and go to bed and pray that Spencer would be okay tonight.

~~~

Your phone rang early the next morning. You rolled out of bed to answer it, sprinting to the hall table to take it off the stand. Checking the caller ID, you realized it was from a number you didn’t recognize. Answering it, you heard Spencer’s voice on the other side.

“Hello, this is Spencer, is Y/N home?”

“Yes, you woke me up on a Saturday morning, where else am I gonna be, kid?” Your voice was scratchy as you struggled to fight off the sleep still clawing at your throat.

“Sorry about that. I was just calling to apologize for last night.”

“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

“N-No, I’m not in trouble, I just wanted to explain why my mother was all--”

“She was worried, I get it.”

“N- she… My mother is a paranoid schizophrenic, she doesn’t do well with strangers. She doesn’t even remember what she said to you last night, she was having one of her episodes. She was just confused.”

You didn’t know how to respond. You were so shocked by his sudden revelations, you just stayed silent. You didn’t want him to think he scared you, so you had to say something. And apparently, that something was “Oh.”

“She wanted to apologize, but she’s just a bit embarrassed, so I called for her.”

“N-No, it’s okay, I…” It was suddenly so hard to say you understood because while it made sense to you, you wouldn’t fully understand what he or his mom was going through, you didn’t understand it, but Spencer didn’t seem to mind. He was just glad it didn’t bother you. After the events of yesterday, he couldn’t afford to lose you.

“Tell her I’m sorry I scared her.”

“Will do. She said you could come over so she could apologize personally and meet her if you want.”

“I’d love to. And Spence?”

You felt him take pause. You never called him that before, “Yeah?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t wanna scare you.”

“You wouldn’t scare me, dude, you can tell me anything.”

“Really?”

“I promise. I’ll see you Monday?”

Spencer nodded, but you couldn’t see him, so he spoke up through the lump in his throat, “See you Monday.”

Taglist ~~~~~~

(Lmk if you wanna be added!!)

@lawnmoa @ellvswriting @reidsmyhusband-emilysmymistress @baby-pogue @rottenearly

[aknosde]

Okay, you know earlier this week when I dropped a paragraph of a fic? I actually finished it, and the end isn’t the best so I’m posting it here and not on AO3.

Loneliness - (featuring my HoH Percy and Clarisse head cannons)

TW for attempted self harm and a generally bad mental space

Percy’s never really had a mentor. When he was young he was put in a few organizations as a mentee. The type of organizations that are supposed to make things easier on kids like him, brown and black kids with “authority problems”. They never really clicked though, sometimes it was him, a lot of the time it was the supposed mentor. He had never cared much, it’s not like they could help him in a way that mattered.

Then there was Luke. Luke who was tall and strong and quick and really, really, really good with a sword. Maybe some of it was a crush, but he had never met someone who he was so encapsulated by. Luke was cool, intelligent, and good looking. He was everything Percy ever wanted and ever wanted to be.

Luke left a bitter taste in Percy’s mouth and a scar on his hand and a distaste for soda. Luke left Percy with an even quicker brain and a knot in his stomach that turned into a murder plot for his stepfather. He drew Percy in time and time again with a hatred that was laced with unrequited love and left Annabeth with blood stains on her dagger and both of them with salt stains on their cheeks and the taste of ash on their tongues.

After Luke was Beckendorf. Granted Percy had had a bit of a crush on him too. Beckendorf was pure, not in the way some white campers might call Hazel innocent. He was just kind, and genuine, and warm. Percy looked up at Beckendorf, big, strong, brave, caring, and he thought this, this is something I could do. I might not be able to be a big hero, but I can do this. I want this.

Beckendorf left Percy with no body for the shroud to cover. He left Percy with inside jokes that would never again be completed and a desire in his brain to constantly be in the forges and to keep as far away from them as possible. Beckendorf left a hole in Percy’s heart that was filled by blood and guilt. Percy looks at the acid scars on his foot with a longing for the time when Beckendorf was taken by giant ants.

And after Beckendorf there was no one. Suddenly Percy was one of the oldest campers. A war veteran. Supposedly the strongest demigod alive. He wasn’t just a counselor now, of his cabin that was solely him, he was a senior counselor. Jake Mason sat in Beck’s seat and Percy cried because suddenly he was alone.

He shouldn’t feel alone. When Annabeth holds his hand while they wait for breakfast he shouldn’t feel alone. When Grover makes enchiladas in the kitchen of the Big House and they eat them together in a field Percy shouldn’t feel alone. When Nico comes running into Percy’s cabin telling Percy that Mythomagic is apparently run by demigods and that they made a card of Nico he shouldn’t feel alone.

It only gets worse when he’s back at home. His mom goes through their normal post-quest routine. She gives him time and space and love. She takes him to the doctor’s. His old prescriptions get refilled, adderall, meperidine. Sally tries again to find a demigod therapist, to no avail. They don’t celebrate his birthday this year.

He’s at Goode without Rachel and he has no other friends. He’s never really been good at that, the whole friend thing, and now it’s practically impossible finding someone who isn’t uneasy around him. He sits in the back of his physics class and eats alone at lunch and sleeps in Paul’s office during breaks.

A teacher hands him back an essay and there’s a paperclip in the corner keeping all the pages together. There is a B+ on it with a smiley face, and Percy takes the paper clip and sharpens it and tries to scratch his skin. It doesn’t do anything. His skin still won’t break, there is just a faint redness. Only after scratching away mindlessly for weeks does he realize that he’s writing words. Last words. “Go!” “Don’t let it happen again.” “Tell him I’m sorry.”

He can fill up his schedule with school and homework and swim and skating and basketball. He can wake up in the morning and eat breakfast and take adderall and carry around the other small orange bottle waiting for his skin to revolt against him. He feels disgusting and empty. Like a demon in a suit of skin that used to be Percy. He misses two years ago when the war wasn’t looming over head, when he and Annabeth and Silena and Beck would all hang out, when he and Clarisse had weekly midnight basketball games.

Grover knows. Grover’s gotta know. For one thing, there’s the empathy link. And Grover is calling multiple times a week, and he always asks how Percy is, if he’s alright. Percy lies “I’m all good man, don’t worry. How’s work?” Then Grover goes off on a tangent about pollution or some shit he saw a human do and the way he purses his lips when he’s worried doesn’t come back until they’re hanging up.

He hates it, the lying. He’s only told lies to protect others, when he doesn’t have enough information yet, when he needs to save them. Now he is lying for himself. How fucking selfish does he have to be? But he’s so lonely, and he can’t bare to lose anyone else. It feels like the smallest step out of line will make his world crumble.

So he lies. He lies his ass off, and he doesn’t know if he’s good at it, but he could be. When Annabeth comes over one weekend, all the way from California, and she asks about the pill bottle rattling in his pocket he says that it’s adderall and she turns back to the tv. When his mom asks if he’s made new friends he says yes, and proceeds to tell a mortal version of something that he and Beck did last year.

One day Rachel comes into the city to visit her parents. They’re sitting on a bench in Central Park and he takes the paperclip out of his coat pocket and goes to work on his wrist while they talk. It’s habit by now. Rachel stops in the middle of her sentence and gently pries the paperclip from his hands and in its place she leaves a blue eyeliner pencil.

Soon his arms are covered in names and words and horrifically beautiful drawings. Blue pigment against brown skin and pink scars, all swirling together. The pencil runs out quickly, but a week later, just as he’s about to take the paperclip back out, an envelope arrives. Sitting in the bottom is a new pencil of blue eyeliner. Percy throws the paperclip in the trash.

By Thanksgiving break Percy isn’t feeling good exactly, he’s feeling mildly better. Loneliness still hits him, in pangs. He’ll be walking to lunch and he’ll have to jump in the canoe lake because he can’t handle it, and swimming is a good excuse for missing a meal.

He wakes up early in the morning and sits in Rachel’s cave waiting for her to wake up. She makes hot chocolate and points out drawings she particularly likes, and then he’ll wash his arms off ready to begin again.

Days are filled with meetings. Meetings with Chiron and meetings with other counselors, trying to make up for being away at school. When he’s not in meetings he trains. Sometimes himself, but a lot of newer or younger campers. The disarming technique he teaches throws him back to Luke and he gives the campers a five minute break hoping the feeling leaves.  

Evenings are being tossed between one person and another. Racing up the climbing wall with Annabeth and laughing at the top and sitting there for way too long. Stopping by the Aphrodite cabin where Drew will catch him up on everything he’s missed being away or being busy. He sits on the floor of the Hades cabin trying for the fifth time to understand Mythomagic.

Every night since he’s gotten back Clarisse raps on his door at two in the morning and they play one v. one on the basketball court until they end up on their backs under the stars. There’s rarely any talking. It’s dark outside and Clarisse has left her hearing aids in her cabin and he’s left his back in Manhattan. Not like he ever uses them in public.

He’s still lonely. 

Maybe Clarisse can read his mind because she taps his leg and they sit up facing each other. He can just barely see her fingers in the moonlight.

“Sometimes people can be lonely not because they are alone but because they miss someone. You have a lot of people to miss.”

“Thanks for reminding me.” He signs back.

“Oh be quiet punk.”

They both break into laughter then, before she continues.

“Miss them. As much as you fucking want. I was in love with Silena, and she died, and Drew is a bitch about it, but she has a right to be.”

Percy is struck again by how similar he and Clarisse are, their lives and their feelings and their actions. The only difference is that Clarisse grants herself the freedom to do what she wants, and he’s scared to death of doing that himself.

“But, and do not ever tell anybody I told you this, a lot of people would miss you. You can pull away and feel lonely but you can’t disappear. Annabeth needs you, Rachel needs you, Nico and Will and Drew need you. And gods fucking dammit, I need you.”

Clarisse stands and pulls him up behind her. They part ways, heading back to their cabins. Percy mulls her words over in his head as he finally drifts into sleep, his body completely and utterly exhausted. Suddenly there is a blue-gold light, and he remembers Annabeth, and then everything is dark and there’s the smell of pine.

[ccsthemovie2]

Tomoyo and X?

Tomoyo + A Flash Of Anger

"Be right back!"

Sakura dashed into the back of the van with Tomoyo's latest creation.

"I'm sure it'll look great!" Tomoyo called back, cheerier than she felt.

When the door clicked shut, she let out a sigh and hoped it was quiet.

"Hey, you okay?" asked Kero.

Not that quiet, then. Oh, she’s really not holding it together today.

"Me? Yes, I'm fine. Maybe just a little tired?"

Kero flew up to her face and tapped her forehead with a little paw.

"Maybe? I don't feel a fever or anything, but you sure don't look fine."

She sighed again. It really was getting to her. But Kero was probably an okay person to tell, right?

"Well, truthfully..." she said quietly, "Something someone said to me earlier has been sticking around."

"Let's hear it, then!"

Tomoyo hesitated, and then realized if she waited too long, Sakura would be back. And it's not that that'd be bad, but...why weigh her down with Tomoyo’s bad mood? Better that she wouldn’t know, and wouldn’t have to worry.

"Kero... am I too nice?"

Kero tumbled in a shocked little midair backflip.

"What, is that all?! You were really scaring me there! Who said you were too nice?!"

It was a bit of a relief to hear she shouldn't take it so seriously, but still, a little frustrating to have her worries tossed away like that. It really was eating at her, all the way from her choir club earlier that day to right then and there. It’s good, right, to be nice to people and even-tempered and calm? It takes work, of course, but it’s worth it... right? She’d never thought of it as something to be embarassed about until it was called attention to. But now...

“...And Miss Daidouji will be staying late to practice for her solo, but the rest of you can go,” said the music teacher, and Tomoyo flinched- this was the first she was hearing of this. Nevermind that she had to finish sewing Sakura’s new dress before 7 that night because they were going to meet up to catch a card, and so it was themed, and if she missed it, who needs a dress covered in fake bubbles for any other occasion? And she had homework to do, and she had to fax costume patterns to Naoko for her drama club, and she’d promised to make Kero a cake, and, and...and aren’t there so many other talented people in the choir, why her, why now? 

“...Is that all right?”

“Not at all,” Tomoyo snapped.

And then she clapped a hand over her mouth. She hoped the groups’ agreements and chatter would cover her words, but by one look at the teacher’s face... they did not.

“Oh! I’m so sorry, are you not interested in the solo this time?” She sounded pretty concerned. 

“I...” Tomoyo took a deep breath, smiled brightly, tried to ignore the way people were looking at her. “I’m so sorry for being so rude! I’m just a bit too busy for it right now, but thank you so much for thinking of me!”

“That’s fine!” said her teacher. “Really, I’m not insulted. You kids have a lot going on. Tell me when you feel like another solo! We can find someone else tomorrow...”

Someone poked Tomoyo in the back.

“Whoa... I’ve, like, never seen you get frustrated before,” whispered the girl sitting next to her. She clearly meant it as a compliment - winked as she said it and gave Tomoyo a thumbs-up. But good or bad, it just made Tomoyo feel sour inside.

Kero only raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

"...And I know that she didn’t mean anything bad by it at all! It just made me start really worrying, am I usually a pushover?"

"Oh, no, Tomoyo, that's two totally different things! That's comparing candied apples and chocolate oranges. Actually, both of those sound delicious, we should totally make some of those later. Get some chocolate and-"

He seemed to have a point buried in that tangent.

"Can you explain, please?"

"Oh! Yeah. Being calm and letting people walk all over you. Totally different! If you fly off the handle, it's easy for the calm person to get you to do what they want. I’ve seen you stand up for yourself before, you’re no pushover."

"You're very hotheaded, Kero. I didn't know you would have a perspective like this!"

"Well, sure," he laughed, "From lotsa experience losing arguments! But look, even now, you could've said that as 'you seem too dumb to say something that smart', but you didn't, huh! You said it nicely."

"Well, thank you!" but she still looked a bit troubled. Kero held up a paw before she could speak again.

"But, y’know, don’t keep everything locked inside, either! Sometimes you gotta yell!"

"Why are we yelling?" asked Sakura, now done changing. Oh. Oh no. Um.

“No reason!” 

Kero raised an eyebrow at Tomoyo, like, See? What'd I just say about holding back?

It’s just- her sweet face looked so worried.

"Tomoyo, are you okay?"

"I..." 

She looked at Kero, and at Sakura, and then down at her shoes. 

“I’m upset!!” she finally said, louder than she meant to. “I- sorry-”

“No, don’t apologize!” Kero cheered, delighted. “Say it louder!!”

“I’m upset!!!” she yelled, and then broke into a self-conscious giggle. 

“Tomoyo...” Sakura looked miserable, she knew it, she knew it was the wrong thing to say- 

And then Sakura ran up and gave her a hug, and she felt better than she had all day. Kero joined in too, as wide as he could reach (which was not very).

[spxllcxstxr]

hello love! congrats on 100 followers <3 i'd like to req a ⛵️ with a boy from the marauders era :) i’m a gryffindor/esfj, i’m funny, sarcastic, bubbly, fair, and driven. i love to read, dance, listen to music, and volunteer! i like learning and i do very well in school but sometimes the pressure gets to me & i also tend to hide sadness with jokes :( i'm not overly adventurous but i will try anything once! lastly: i'm chinese-canadian, 5'4", with straight dark brown hair + freckles!

Hey! Thank you so much! Ship under the cut ❤️

I ship you with: James Potter

James is such an energetic guy and your energy just drives him wild

You’re like his right hand man

His partner in crime

Sure that can apply to Sirius too, but you’re the one he snogs and brags about to everyone so

You win

You and James have this thing where you tell each other a joke everyday to get the other to laugh

They’re so cheesy but also it’s so comforting

They can range from dad jokes to puns to long and complex jokes

It doesn’t matter

James is such a cocky guy so he loves it when you get sarcastic

He definitely loves that you get his sense of humor because that’s really important

HE THINKS YOUR LAUGH IS SO CUTE

Your laugh is music to his ears

James is also very bubbly

He’s a bit of a people pleaser which kinda goes hand in hand with that

Kinda going off on a tangent but he loves to lay his head on your body

You are basically his pillow

“Darling, you’re so comfy.”

“James, dear, you gotta get up.”

“Hmmmmmmmmm nope.”

Buries his face deeper into you

You’re stuck there

Sorry

James just likes watching you do things

When you’re reading, he’ll pull you onto his lap so he can see the text over your shoulder

He’ll point out some sentences or laugh at what a character says

Sometimes he’ll ask you to explain the plot

Dancing is a big thing for him

Now, I know nothing about dance, but when I think of James Potter, I think of him grooving and jamming out to 70s music in the dorm

Dance with this man

He wants to listen to you laugh out while you just let loose

You guys are going to dance until you’re all sweaty

And you’ll plop down on his bed and curl up next to each other and take a nap

He’s always down to listen to music with you

Late night jam sessions

As long as you play a few Beatles songs, he’ll listen to anything you want

You’ll sit by the open window in his dorm and just feel the wind on your face

Or listen to the rain

Music in the background

He’ll pull you into the center of the room and just twirl you around

Close to his body

“I love you so much, y’know that, right?”

He gets so sappy around you

James is totally down to help out and volunteer with you

He thinks it’s great

James just loves helping people and animals so he’s always down

James loves that you love learning

He likes it when you drag him into the library and just go silent doing your homework or studying

He should be doing his own work but his eyes are just fixated on you

And when the pressure gets to you?

He’s there instantly

James knows how to help you calm down

He’ll take you into the kitchens and get you a warm drink by the fire

You can cry into his shirt and he’ll smooth out your hair

Breaks with him are great because he’s willing to do anything with you

Just want to nap? Sure!

Want to run around the Quidditch pitch screaming curse words? Great!

Anything to see your smile again

Hiding your sadness with jokes? (Absolutely same by the way)

Remus does that a lot

And you bond over that

James, while he finds them funny and relatable, gets deeply concerned

He’ll pull you aside and ask what’s wrong and what he can do to help

A lot of reassurances

James will love doing crazy things with you even if it’s just the one time

He’s got a bucket list

You can help him with pranks or just challenges with the rest of the Marauders

Hope you’re down to roam the castle after curfew

Because he’ll love doing that with you under his cloak

Midnight dates are big

He loves playing with your hair so you should teach him how to do different things with it

He thinks you’re so cute

Always calls you cute

FRECKLES

It’s a must that he

Kisses each freckle

He counts

You think it’s so stupid

But like

He’s attached

James potter loves you with all his heart

Like

There’s no other way to describe it

Hope you like it! ❤️

[violetwolfraven]

It’s A Romcom Cliche

@gendistic42 here’s something I wrote as a Christmas present for you! I’m a bit swamped right now as far as writing projects but I may expand on this later. For now, enjoy a holiday piece. :)

I’ve never written from Mike’s perspective before, so this should be interesting.

Tw: underage drinking, general teenage chaos, vomit, who knows how to write that kind of party that doesn’t actually exist anywhere but in movies? not me!

Mike was definitely a bit drunk right now, but in his defense, he didn’t actually know the eggnog was spiked until he’d already had a huge cup and Ike told him matter-of-factly that he was going to throw up later.

In hindsight, Mike really should have seen that coming, but honestly he probably would have drank it anyway. It wasn’t like he didn’t usually leap before he looked.

That was what made life fun, after all. Taking risks without thinking. Thinking just lead to doubting yourself and doubting yourself just lead to not doing fun things and not doing fun things meant you were wasting your life. You had to seize the days you got, because otherwise why even live?

That was most of Mike’s friend group’s philosophy. Their little (junior, according to Elmer’s big brother who claimed they were too young to be a real motorcycle gang) motorcycle gang was full of impulsive, slightly-eccentric kids who lived in the moment. Of course, they looked out for each other as much as they could, confirmed excuses and alibis when necessary, but none of them worried much about their own safety.

Hence why they were having a huge party with spiked eggnog in December, meaning there was a likely possibility a lot of them would be staying overnight. Not that it mattered much.

Spot’s dad was at a conference in Boston and wouldn’t be back for at least a few more days. And if he did come back early for some reason, he’d probably just give them a lecture and then not tell anyone’s parents. Denton was cool like that. As long as nobody died, ended up in the hospital, or got anybody pregnant, he favored having the group’s trust over busting them, probably so he could be sure they’d come to him for help if there was a serious problem.

So far, through taking care of each other as best they could while having fun, there hadn’t been a serious problem.

Mike jumped as a tipsy Elmer grabbed his arm.

“Mike, buddy, this song fuckin’ slaps!”

Mike hadn’t noticed what song was on, given that his reaction time was currently a little slow, but he had to admit that Turn Down For What would always be a banger and being drunk just made it better.

He didn’t know how long he was bopping to the beat among his friends before he stopped, realizing that Ike’s prediction was about to come true, and barely made it to the toilet before puking his guts out.

Mike groaned. This was already becoming very un-fun, but throwing up was making him think about the killer hangover he was going to have in the morning. Also about how Ike had probably been drinking, too, so they’d need to stay the night at Spot’s. They could get a ride home, but hiding two drunk twins was significantly harder than just one.

In short, he was thinking ahead, which was reminding him why he didn’t like thinking ahead.

“Whoa, Mike, are you okay?”

Someone was rubbing his back as he retched, and Mike was officially shitfaced, because he could swear when he looked up that was Jojo de la Guerra.

He’d been joking when he invited Jojo. Not because he didn’t want Jojo to come, but because he’d never in a million years thought he’d actually show up.

“Did I pass out?” he groaned, hoping his words weren’t too slurred, “Am I dreamin’? Is that what’s happenin’ right now?”

“No?” Jojo looked confused, “You invited me.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d actually come.”

“Wait, are you drunk?”

“Yeah, that’d be accurate.”

Jojo now looked extremely nervous, “Ain’t everyone at this party underage?”

“Uh... I thinks one of Albert’s older brothers stopped by, so no. Wait, he left a couple hours ago, so yes.”

Mike was a little surprised when he slipped standing up and Jojo had to catch him. That was, he was a little surprised that Jojo could catch him. The nerd didn’t look like he had that much muscle on him.

Well, Mike was sure he was blushing, it wasn’t just the alcohol making his face flushed, but he wasn’t sure if the pink in Jojo’s cheeks was his imagination or not.

“Uh, do you need a glass of water or somethin’?” he asked nervously, “Why is there alcohol at a party where everybody’s underage, anyway?”

“Cause it’s fun,” Jojo said simply, “Ya think Mush and Blink’d be makin’ out against a wall in front of everybody if they wasn’t absolutely sloshed?”

“Okay, well, do ya need water?”

Mike thought about it, and he was pretty sure it wouldn’t take him so long to decide if he hadn’t drank so much.

“Nope. But I could do with some air.”

None of the others were sober and/or focused enough to notice as they made their way through the party to Spot’s back porch.

The air was icy cold, but Mike was overheated, so it felt good. And the snow was beautiful, reflecting light from the windows of the house. A few small icicles were hanging down from the roof above.

He wasn’t quite drunk enough that he didn’t notice when Jojo leaned against him, just a little, because of the cold. After all, Jojo was beautiful, too. Probably more beautiful than the snow.

But he didn’t say that.

“I love winter,” he said instead, “Ike and I used to play in the snow till we damn near froze to death. Or until one of us got a headshot in a snowball fight.”

“Sounds fun,” Jojo muttered.

“Oh, it was. And we’d stir our hot cocoa with candy canes when we went inside, so’s it’d be all minty.”

Mike smiled at the memory. They never did that anymore, whether it was because they were busy with homework or because they just... forgot, what with TV series to binge and Among Us games to win and friends to meet up with for a big snowball fight.

He liked their life now. He really did. Mike wouldn’t trade his friends for anything. But he had to admit, it had been simpler back when the only people he and Ike had were each other.

“And here you are now,” Jojo noted, “Drunk at a high school party on a back porch with that nerd ya partnered with for a science project once.”

“Well, that nerd happens to be my friend, so I counts that as a win.”

Jojo didn’t respond for a few seconds, and Mike realized.

“Wait, are we friends?”

They were close enough together that he could feel Jojo take a deep breath.

“I thinks so.”

That felt nice. And he could tell now. Jojo’s face was definitely flushed and it had been since before they came outside, so it couldn’t be from the cold. That sent a pretty clear signal, and...

“Mike, stop. What’re ya doin’?”

“I was gonna kiss you,” Mike said. He’d been pretty sure it was obvious.

Had he... been reading Jojo’s signals wrong?

“Mike, you’re drunk. Ya probably ain’t gonna remember this tomorrow. You don’t really care, it’s just that I’m here and no one else is. You don’t mean it.”

“I do mean it. Jojo—“

“You’re a boy in the biker gang all the girls and gays swoon over and you’re goin’ for me, the nobody from science class,” Jojo scoffed, “Sounds likely.”

“Jojo, it don’t matter who my friends are,” Mike tried to insist, “I like you. Like, like like you.”

“Even if I could believe you, there’s no way I’d kiss you while you’re drunk.”

That was worse than straight up rejection. Because Jojo was kind of saying that he did have feelings for Mike and just wouldn’t believe that Mike had feelings for him.

Mike had to focus on not crying for a good few minutes before he started realizing just how fast the snow was coming down.

“Hey, Jojo, how deep do ya think that snow is?”

“Shit.”

That made Mike laugh. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Jojo swear.

“It’s gotta be at least a foot, and still comin’ down. There’s no way anybody can drive home through that. Most of you’s is on motorcycles, and—“

That was when the lights inside went out abruptly, and more than a few people screamed.

Mike got up carefully, trying not to stumble too much, “We should find out what that was.”

They made it inside just in time to hear Spot holler, “A fuckin’ power line went down! And that don’t just mean no light and no WiFi—that means no heat! We ain’t got long before it starts to get real cold here!”

“I found the candles!” Hotshot (Spot’s little brother) yelled.

“Oh, that’ll help a ton,” Jack said sarcastically before Davey ran up.

Naturally, Mike’s mind chose that moment to go off on a tangent of how if Jack Kelly could get a smart boyfriend who was way too good for him, maybe he could too if he could just get Jojo to see that he really liked him, but he still caught what Davey said.

“There’s a foot of snow on the hood of my car. Nobody’s goin’ anywhere, so everybody text your parents before your phones run out of batteries.”

“What if my mom can tell I’m drunk?” Romeo shouted.

“I’m textin’ Mom, dumbass!” Jack shouted back, “For all of us! I’m the soberest person here!”

Race, Romeo, and Crutchie all called their thanks to their big brother.

“I think that’s me, actually,” Davey pointed out, “Soberest ain’t even a word, Jackie.”

Mike cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled into the darkness, “Ike, ya wanna text Mom and Dad, or should—“

“I’ll do it, moron! You’re shitfaced!”

“Shit,” Jojo was muttering as he typed a text, “Shit, shit, shit, I told my dad I’d only stay for an hour. Shit.”

“It ain’t your fault ya got snowed in,” Mike pointed out.

“No, but if my parents find out there was alcohol at this party—“

“Good news, y’all!” Spot hollered from the stairs, the multiple phone flashlights pointed at him the only thing making him visible, “Me and Hotshot’s dad has a big stash of blankets and sleepin’ bags and stuff, so we’s all gonna make a big nest and huddle together in the living room. Hopefully nobody freezes to death. If anybody don’t wanna sleep in what they’s wearin’, come find me!”

With that, he disappeared to go grab blankets.

“My parents are gonna kill me.”

“Don’t let ‘em,” Mike said, “I’d have to avenge you. Then I’d go to hell and I wouldn’t see ya in the afterlife! Plus you’d hate me for killin’ your parents, so—“

“Mike, please stop talkin’.”

“Wanna sleep with me?”

“What?!”

It took Mike a full 10 seconds to realize.

“Not like that!” he exclaimed as soon as he did realize, “Like if we’s all makin’ a nest to keep warm, ya wanna sleep next to me? For not freezin’ to death?”

Jojo was still looking at him pretty weird, and that made Mike sad.

“I’m sorry. Ya don’t have to. That was stupid. I’m stupid. I shouldn’ta said that, but I did cause I’m stupid. I’m sorry for everythin’. Like, everythin’. Everythin’ I’s ever said and—“

“Stop,” Jojo interrupted, “That’s... this is just gettin’ sad. Mike, it’s fine. Just... I guess I can’t expect ya to say things in a less weird way—you’re drunk.”

He didn’t seem especially annoyed or even uncomfortable. Just... blushing. Definitely blushing.

Mike could barely see him in the dark, but he still was pretty sure Jojo de la Guerra was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen.

“Uh, yeah, I’ll sleep with you. Next to you. Ugh. Just don’t barf on me.”

“Okay,” Mike mumbled. God, now that it was dark, he was already yawning. He didn’t remember where he’d left his hoodie. He should probably ask Ike about that.

It was already getting cold in the house, and the candles Hotshot was lighting definitely weren’t helping that much.

Mike didn’t mind how Jojo was sticking close to him even if it was probably just for warmth.

[damianwaynerocks]

Tim Drake & The Good Samaritan

hi i wrote something on ao3 so here it is

Description: Tim Drake tries to kill himself, whenever a therapist just so happens to stumble upon him. Tim opens up to her and realizes that maybe he's worth more than he thinks.

Warning: Suicide attempt, depression

dedicating this to @super-sons-a-bitches bc what a supportive mutual

_

He was done.

Tim Drake was done.

He'd known for a while what was true and what was not. Was he a good son? Not true. Was he simply a placeholder between Jason and Damian? True. Did anybody truly love him? Not true. Was he simply a burden? True.

Did he deserve to be alive? Definitely not true.

Tonight had been the last straw.

It had been him, Damian and Dick. They were going to bust a human trafficking operation. Tim had been paying attention, he would swear that up and down, but it wasn't enough. He had accidentally kicked a rock, and the traffickers noticed right as they started to pull into Gotham Harbor. With a yell of several crew members, the ship turned back around, into the open sea.

Where the brothers could not get them.

Damian was furious. "You incompetent fice!" he had snarled, "We almost had them! We were going to save fifty women and children, Drake, fifty!"

"You should've been more careful," Dick added, his arms crossed, "You scared them off." Dick never scolded like this. He only did it whenever he was truly upset.

And it was Tim's fault.

"I'm sorry!" he said, Dick clenched his jaw.

"Go home, Red Robin," he ordered. Tim stepped back.

"Good riddance, we'll be much better off without you, Drake," Damian sneered.

We'll be much better off without you.

Those were the words ringing in Tim's ears as he swung from building to building. The wind was whistling through his hair, and usually, it invigorated Tim.

But not tonight.

Tonight, it just reminded him of what he didn't deserve.

All he did was mess things up. He'd messed things up with Stephanie. He'd messed up not only this mission but countless missions beforehand. He'd even messed up his goddamn immune system, now that he didn't have a spleen.

Tim knew he wasn't enough. He wasn't enough to make his father, Jack Drake, proud of him. He wasn't enough to make his other father, Bruce Wayne, proud of him either. He wasn't good enough to be Robin, either. Dick had made that clear whenever he'd ripped the title away from him as soon as he laid eyes on Damian, even after he had tried to kill Tim.

Dick probably wished that Damian had succeeded, Tim thought, because Dick would have his Robin, and nobody would have to deal with Tim.

Tim decided at that moment that he was going to take it upon himself to finish what Damian hadn't been able to do.

He was going to kill himself.

Tim landed on the roof of an apartment building. He took out his earpiece, which doubled as a tracking device, throwing it on the ground and stomping on it. If he was going to die, he at least wanted to do it without Damian's voice in his ear.

How to do it? Tim thought. He knew some heroes kept cyanide pills on them in case they were ever captured, but Bruce had refused to allow that. Tim could jump off of the roof, but he was worried that he'd lose his nerve and grapple to safety before he could reach the ground.

There was only one way that he could think of.

Tim pulled off his gloves one at a time, letting them land on the ground. He took a Batarang, razor-sharp, out of his utility belt, and held it to his wrist. He took a deep breath, excited. He would finally be free. He would be free from the pain, from the knowledge that he was worthless. Better yet, his family would be free of him.

We'll be much better off without you.

With a small smile, Tim started to slide the blade across his wris-

"No!"

Tim whirled around, now poised to throw the Batarang. Hey, just because Tim was going to die, didn't mean he was going to let someone else die first. His eyes slid around the rooftop, looking for danger, but he only saw a woman.

She looked to be around Bruce's age, but there was something about her that was completely different than Bruce; her eyes had feeling in them.

"Please don't do it, Red Robin," the woman urged, "Please. Please stay."

"No," Tim replied stiffly. The woman took a deep breath.

"Okay," she said slowly, "But will you please have a cup of tea with me first? It isn't every day I get to meet a hero.

A hero. She thought he was a hero.

But she was wrong.

Before he could stop himself, he had thrown himself in her arms. She wrapped them around him, holding him tightly.

Tim gripped the lady's shoulders as hard as he dared- God, he didn't even know her name and he was crying on her shoulder -as she ran her fingers through his hair.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked gently. Tim shakes his head, choking back another sob.

"I don't want to think about it anymore," he croaked. The woman nodded.

"Okay," she said, "Then are you any good at geometry?"

Tim sniffed, then replied, "Yeah." The woman smiled.

"Would you mind helping my son, then? He's a freshman at Southwest High, and he's having trouble with his homework right now. And I think you could really help him."

You could really help him.

Tim nodded, shakily stepping back from the woman. She smiled warmly, grasping his hand as she led him off of the roof and down the stairs. "My name's Emira," she introduced herself, "But you can call me Emma. All of my friends do."

Friend.

"My name's-" he broke off, unsure of what he should say. Emma seemed to understand his hesitation.

"You don't have to tell me your real name," she assured him, "How about I call you Red?" Tim smiled weakly, and Emma took that to mean he agreed. "Alright, Red, here's the door." she fished a key out of her pocket, and opened the door to her apartment, Tim following.

The first thing he noticed was the Cross. There was a portrait of Jesus Christ on the Cross sitting above their table.

The table which had a young boy, around Damian's age, sitting at it, his brows scrunched in concentration.

"Hey, Danny!" Emma said, flashing her son a brilliant smile, "I found you a tutor!"

"Mom, I don't need a-" Danny stopped talking as he turned around, his jaw dropped. "Red Robin!?" he squeaked, "You're my favorite hero! And you're in my house!" he jumped up, smiling so wide it was almost unsettling, "You're the coolest! Holy crap!"

You're the coolest.

"Hi, Danny!" Tim greeted, putting on the smile he used for paparazzi.  "It's nice to meet you! So your mom says you need help with geometry?"

It took ten minutes, but Emma and Tim finally wrangled Danny to the table, where Tim was now helping him.

"See, you just gotta remember SohCahToa," Tim explained, "It's the easiest way to remember sine, cosine, and tangent."

Danny stuck his tongue out slightly in a way that reminded him of Damian. Tim's heart sank at the realization, all of his positive feelings sank with it.

We'll be much better off without you.

"Thanks, Red Robin!" Danny said excitedly after he'd finished his assignment and Tim had double-checked it, making sure that all of the answers were correct.

"Okay, Danny," Emma spoke up from where she'd been silently watching the two, "It's eleven. Time for bed."

"But Mom Red Robin is here-"

"You know what else is here? A big test tomorrow. You need your sleep."

Danny sighed, before looking at Tim and fishing his phone out of his pocket. "Do you mind if we take a picture? My friends will never believe I met the coolest of the Bat People!"

The coolest of the Bat People.

"Of course, Danny!" Tim replied, ruffling the kid's hair. After five minutes of multiple selfies on Snapchat, Danny gave Tim a hug, which Tim returned without hesitation.

"Goodnight!" Danny chirped and walked to what Tim presumed to be his bedroom.

After hearing the door shut, Emma turned to the hero. "Now, how do you like your tea?"

"Earl Gray, please."

As Emma set the kettle on the stove, she turned back to Tim. "He adores you," she said, referring to her son, "He wasn't lying. You mean so much to him."

You mean so much to him.

Tim sighed, putting his head in his hands. "Yeah, well, he's the only one then," he muttered. Emma waited for him to continue, and when he didn't, she spoke.

"I'm a therapist, you know," she stated, "So I can't tell anybody anything you say. HIPPA violation, jail time, huge fine and all that."

"This isn't an official session, so it doesn't apply."

Emma shrugged. "Maybe not legally, but if anybody gets wind of me telling anybody anything someone tells me in confidence, my clients will stop trusting me and stop coming, So my point's still there."

Tim bit his lip, looking up. This woman didn't know who he was, and judging from the average apartment, she had no connections to Bruce, which meant she wouldn't tell him- not that he'd care, of course, but still. Besides, it isn't like he'd ever see her again. "Maybe... maybe it wouldn't hurt."

Emma smiled warmly. "I promise, it won't," she turned back to the kettle as it whistled, and she poured the tea into two cups. Walking over to the table, she handed one to Tim, before sitting down herself. "Can I ask what led up to tonight?"

Tim looked down at his tea, not meeting her eyes. "I messed up bad tonight," he whispered, "Real bad."

"What do you think you did?"

"I-" Tim swallowed a gulp, "Nightwing and Robin and I were going to bust a human trafficking ring. Their ship was about to pull into the harbor, but I wasn't being careful enough. I knew they had motion detectors around the area, but I still wasn't paying attention enough not to kick a rock," He ran a hand through his hair, "And of course they saw, and they got away. And it was my fault."

"Who told you that it was your fault?"

"Nightwing and Robin."

Emma reached across the table to clasp his left hand in her right. "Tell me, Red, has Nightwing or Robin ever messed up a mission?"

Tim paused. There was one time where Dick was arguing with Jason, and Dick pushed Jason into the warehouse they were staking out, ruining any chance at catching a serial rapist for months. And then there was the time where Damian had been too hasty and let a serial killer get away because he refused to listen for Nightwing's signal. "Yeah, a few times," Tim finally said.

"See?" Emma said with another one of her warm smiles, "They aren't perfect either. So why do you have to be?"

They aren't perfect either.

"Because!" Tim groaned, "Batman chose them. He wanted them to be apart of the hero business. Me? I forced him to make me Robin. Nobody chose me. I wasn't wanted!"

"How old were you when you became Robin?"

"Like, eleven."

"Do you honestly think that Batman couldn't have simply wiped an eleven-year old's brain and sent him home if he didn't see something special in you?"

See something special in you.

Tim took a sip of his tea. "I... I guess not. But still! The Robin before me had just... quit. Batman probably just used me as a distraction from the pain of it. I was just a placeholder."

Emma took a sip of her own tea, thinking. "A placeholder? Because there's a new Robin?"

"Yes," Tim confirmed, "Exactly. I was Robin for a while, but as soon as Batman and Nightwing found someone else who had already been trained, who was Batman's... nephew," he paused, "They got rid of me! They made me stop being Robin! Nightwing retired, the other one quit, but me? I didn't have a choice!"

"And why do you think that-"

"And the worst part!?" Tim interrupted her, "This new kid? He tried to kill me! He had a sword and he was trying to kill me because he thought he deserved the title just because he was Batman's nephew! And he never got in trouble for it! They rewarded him with what he wanted!" he stopped nervously. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you." Emma waved her hand dismissively.

"Don't worry about it," she paused she took a sip of her tea, "Do you think there could be any possible reason as to why they made him Robin?"

Tim snorted. "Yeah, I know exactly why. They liked him better than me. He was better than me at fighting. He wasn't as scared as I was at first," he laughed bitterly, "Honestly, Emma? I think the reason they rewarded him was because he had the guts to do what the others were too apprehensive to do; get rid of me."

"Can I tell you what I think might have had something to do with it?" Emma asked, and Tim nodded his permission. "It sounds like this new Robin has a lot of rage. Do you think that maybe Batman and Nightwing knew that he needed an outlet for that and that the safest way to do that might be if they could keep an eye on him?"

"I... guess," Tim admitted begrudgingly, "But still! They didn't punish him or anything!"

"How are you so sure? Did you see what happened after?"

Tim bit his lip again. "I mean, not really? I left whenever Nightwing told me I couldn't be Robin anymore." he shook his head. "Even if maybe Nightwing didn't see any other way, that doesn't explain why they treat me like shit now."

"How so?" Emma asked, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze.

"Like, I'll be gone on a mission for weeks and when I get back, they hadn't even noticed I was gone!" Tim counted off the reasons on his fingers, "Or when it's clear I'm upset, nobody bothers to ask! And nobody ever reprimands Robin for all the terrible things to me! And all Batman does it tell me what I do wrong!"

"What things does Robin say to you?"

"Oh, you know," Tim rolled his eyes, "That I'm useless. That I'm slow. I’m abysmal. Just today, like an hour ago, he said that everyone would be better off if I was gone. I hate that he has this much power over me, but his words won't leave my head; we'll be much better off without you."

"Well, I can tell you right now that Danny wouldn't be," Emma said, "Because if he had failed that assignment, he would've gotten detention, and I wouldn't have time to pick up his new inhaler."

"Danny has asthma?" Tim asked with a frown. Emma nodded.

"Yes, but it's okay now because I'll be able to get the medicine. Now, back to you. Do you think that the reason Robin is so mean to you is that he's insecure?"

"Robin? Insecure?" Tim snorted, "As if. He's the most arrogant person I know."

"The most insecure people are almost always the most arrogant. Is there anything he would have to be insecure about? Maybe that... he's intimidated by you?"

That made Tim laugh out loud. Damian? Intimidated by Tim? Never. "Definitely not."

"Are you sure? Because it sounds like he just wants to prove that he's just as good as you," Emma countered, "Or maybe- not saying that it's your fault because you definitely don't deserve to be treated like that-"

You don't deserve to be treated like that.

"Maybe you haven't tried to show him that you don't want to be enemies?"

Tim took a sip of his tea. "I mean, yeah, I don't want our relationship to be like this. I'd love to be close to him. I was so excited when I first heard about him- before I met him, obviously -because I was finally getting a younger brother."

"Have you ever let him know that?"

"I guess not," Tim said with a frown, "But it doesn't really matter. He won't care. None of them will, even if they did know I'm hurting."

"Why don't you try?" Emma offered, "It couldn't hurt, right?"

"Yeah, except then they'll think I'm even weaker than they thought. They'll think I'm pathetic, and then Batman will make me stop being Red Robin, too." His grip around his cup tightened. "And then they'd kick me out. And I live with Batman, Emma. I don't have a place to go."

"You could come here," Emma offered, "I really don't think they'd kick you out, but if you're right, you are absolutely welcome here. I promise. You're wonderful company, Red."

You're wonderful company.

Tim sighed. "Thanks, that means a lot, but you don't have to lie," his bottom lip trembled, "I know I'm worthless. I don't matter. All I do is screw up."

The pair were silent for a minute, the only noise being Tim's tears falling into his cup of tea. Emma was the first one to break the silence.

"Say, do you happen to be the first Robin that wore pants?"

Tim sniffled. "Yeah." Emma's face broke into another warm smile.

"Well, that Robin saved my life. Two men were dragging me into an alley, whenever you stopped them. Without Batman, I might add."

Tim blinked. "Without Batman?" he whispered.

Emma nodded. "Without Batman. All on your own, Red. If it weren't for you, I'd probably be dead, and Danny would be an orphan."

Tim smiled weakly. "It wasn't a problem, really."

"I know it wasn't, because that's what you do. You save people," she gave him another reassuring squeeze. "Now, Red, have you ever been in a position where Batman or Nightwing saved you?"

That's what you do. You save people.

"Yeah," Tim answered, once again not meeting her eyes, "I was locked in a warehouse. A bomb was strapped to me, about to go off. Batman came in and- and I've never seen him like that. So... a mess," he paused, "I haven't thought about that in a while. I guess that means he cares."

"That definitely means he cares," Emma corrected him. Tim smiled, but it was replaced by a frown as he began to sob again.

"Maybe he did then, but now- now he has his new Robin. He doesn't care, none of them do," he blinked back tears, "I don't have anything to look forward to. My days are filled with insults and complaints. There's nothing good." His hands shaking, he took another sip of his Earl Gray.

"Then look forward to this," Emma said, "Every week. Eat dinner with Danny and I, and then when he goes to bed we can drink tea and talk some. And if you ever, and I mean ever, need a place to crash, you can always come here."

If Tim thought he'd run out of tears before, he was wrong. He started crying again. Nobody had been so nice, so warm to him, in years.

Emma got up and enveloped him in another hug. "Will you promise me something, Red?" she whispered, and at Tim's nod, she continued. "Promise me you'll tell your family how you feel, okay? And promise me you'll come back and tell me next week. And if you need something from me between then and now, promise me that you'll come, okay?"

"I promise," Tim agreed, sobbing into her shirt.

The next thirty minutes were spent with Tim wrapped up in Emma's arm, still in full Red Robin uniform minus the gloves, watching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Tim hadn't been so at peace in as long as he could remember. His mom had always been distant, and Catwoman wasn't exactly a mother figure, so honestly? Being curled up in Emma was the closest he'd ever gotten to feeling a mother's love.

He would go back to the Manor after the movie, he told himself. He would tell them how he felt. He would try to mend his relationship with Damian. But first, he was going to soak in the feeling of a mother's embrace.

He was still nervous about it, but little did he know. Little did he know that Dick would break down crying and hug him, whispering apology after apology into his ear. Little did he know that Bruce would be riddled with guilt because how could he not have noticed that his son was hurting and would tell him he loved him so much. Little did he know that Damian, although he didn't show how much he regretted his harsh words, would shake Tim's hand and agree to try. Little did he know that every Thursday after he would have dinner and tea with Emma and Danny, to the point that he would reveal his secret identity to the family and make sure that Danny was enrolled at Gotham Academy. Little did he know that it wouldn't take long for Emma to start seeing him as another son, and she would not be scared to tell him how much she loved him and how proud of him she was.

Tim would find out these things later. But for now?

Tim just let himself sink into a mother's embrace.

[mondixu]

butterflies | d. kaminari

you're my new best friend if you get the reference </3

genre: fluff

gender: neutral

warning: none

[ ✾ ]

        You were fourteen when you first met him.          It was a rainy day when you were walking to school that morning, and instead of doing the smart thing - bringing an umbrella - you decided you could just run the whole way there.          And yet, despite training to be a hero, you couldn't run for ten minutes with your arms over your head as if that would somehow shield you from the rain like you imagined.          So there you were, walking in your uniform and worrying about your reputation and how much it would be damaged, when all of a sudden, you didn't feel the cold drops of water splattering on your soggy clothes anymore.          Instead, there was a slight feeling of warmth beside you. Glancing over, you looked into the golden eyes of a tall male, whose yellow hair wasn't the least bit wet.          Ah, yes, he brought an umbrella.          Like a smart person would do.          He grinned like a dork and you ignored your stupid heart that fluttered when he smiled his adorably cute smile.          "Hey."          That simple word changed your fucking life.          "Who the hell are you?"          "Can you . . . see me?!"          "Yeah . . . "          "You can see me! I'm gonna have a new best- FRIENNND-"          "Okay I think that's enough now," you said, pushing him away and snatching the umbrella out of his hand. "Wait wha?"          You stared at the cute boy in front of you and decided you didn't like him, no matter how many times he smiled his stupidly cute smile at you, no matter how many times he would save you from the freezing rain, you would never like him.          Never in your life.          And so, you traipsed away from the boy with his lightning-patterned umbrella clutched tightly in your hand down the path to your school.          You never looked back. 

[ ✾ ]

        Out of all the places you expected to see the blonde boy next, you never would've guessed the famous hero school of U.A.         You didn't want to be reminded of him, of his cute face, his golden eyes, his honey-blonde hair, and his adorable grin, it wasn't particularly fair that someone could look that good. Just looking at him made you want to puke from nerves.          And of course, he wiggled his way into your friend group.          The two of you never talked about what had happened, but he always flashed his bright grin whenever he saw you, activating the ever-present flutters in your heart once again.         You ignored the stupid butterflies.          Quickly making friends at U.A., you thought that everything was looking up for you, the future was looking bright!          That is, until villains suddenly bombarded USJ.          And of course, as "fate" would have it, you got thrown into a group with your least favorite blonde.          And yes, there were females from the class with you -- you hadn't bothered to learn their names -- but that didn't stop the stupid butterflies from deciding to come to life once again. They were worse when he made physical contact with you, such as when he saved you from tumbling off of a pile of rocks, or when he shoved you out of the way as a knife went flying by where your head had once been.          Stupid butterflies. 

[ ✾ ]

        Note to self: never tell the Bakusquad you're going to study.          They'll beg to come along.          It wasn't that you didn't love your friends -- far from it -- but they could be a little . . . hectic, to say the least.         When it comes to sitting still, go to the Dekusquad for studying help.         Bakugou was fine, the only reason he came along was because Kirishima wouldn't "get off of his fucking back", at least he knew how to study quietly.          Sero was okay; he was sorta mellow, occasionally finding the passion to study with no sound emitting from him, while other times, he was spilling Tic Tacs all over his books and having a mini food fight with Kaminari and Mina.         Kirishima tried.          He really did.          He just had no concentration in him whatsoever.         The red-haired male was constantly asking you or Bakugou for help, and while you were more than happy to help him, you came here to study, not to tutor. Bakugou, obviously, did nothing to help until Kirishima pulled out the puppy eyes.          Kiri's got him hooked on a fucking leash.         Kaminari = never ever ever ever ever ever ask him to study.          The child probably had dyslexia, as he was c o n s t a n t l y asking how to pronounce the simplest of words, then going off and googling it as soon as you told him, thinking that you were the one who pronounced it wrong, not him.          He peered over your shoulder, whispering in your ear for the correct math answer on the homework, fueling your already prominent blush on your face already.          To say the least, you didn't get much studying done when you sat beside him, and instead, spent the entire time glaring at your book as you thought about the stupid butterflies that existed in your stomach.          When it came to Mina, she honestly didn't really try. While she wanted to pass school and become a hero, it was hard for her energetic body to sit still and stare at books all day.         When you suggested she grab some snacks for the group after seeing her restlessness, she jumped at the chance, but then didn't come back for a whole hour.          When she did finally come back, she had no snacks in her arms, and instead, held a dog.          Yes.          Ashido fucking Mina bought a dog instead of getting a simple box of pocky for her friends.          Everyone but you and Bakugou found it hilarious, asking to see the dog, pet it, and become the fucking parent.          Then, they got kicked out of the library.          Kaminari tried to engage you in a conversation as the group walked back home, but you were too pissed to concentrate on anything he rambled about.          Mina bought a dog.          A fucking dog.          "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU BUY A DOG, MINA?!" you cried, interrupting the blonde's tangent about a hacker who beat him in Roblox.          "Because it was cute," she said simply.          You facepalmed.          Kaminari slung his arm around your shoulder, pulling you close and saying, "aw, c'mon [Name]! You gotta admit, it was pretty cute!"         You shoved him in a mud puddle.          Stupid butterflies. 

[ ✾ ]

        "Look Denki, I get that you want to have lightning bolt streamers everywhere, but this is Aizawa's party we're talking about here, not yours."          You were in your second year of U.A., all of your class having graduated the first year of hero training with flying colors. You were on better terms with Denki now, having saved him from impending doom when the League kidnapped Bakugou. You worked all your differences out and were now good friends, some even going as far as to call the two of you besties.          That didn't mean the butterflies had disappeared.          In fact, they were worse than ever the more time you spent around him. It was like every time he put his arm around your shoulders or abruptly snatched your hand, the bugs were on a reproducing spree, manifesting more and more butterflies every time he came into physical contact with you.          "C'mon! It's lightning! How could you not love it?!"          "You weren't the one who came up with the idea for this party! I was!"          Ah, yes.          Your fiery temper was still there.          "Fine, fine, we can use the black streamers," he said, rolling his eyes and heading to the kitchen. You grinned deviously, a plan already forming in mind that would surely get you a handful of swears from your teacher.          Fuck it all, you were doing it anyway. 

[ ✾ ]

        "[Last Name], what the hell are you doing?" Aizawa inquired, rubbing his tired eyes vigorously.          "Oh, don't worry Aizawa-sensei," you replied deviously, smirking at the black-clothed teacher. "Everything is a-okay!"          "That automatically makes me assume that nothing is okay."          "I SAID DON'T WORRY, AIZAWA-SENSEI!"          "And I said that automatically makes me assume I have to worry."          "BUT YOU DON'T!"          "Mhm." You could hear the skepticism lacing his fatigued voice, giving a boost of excitement to your tired legs as you dragged the sleepy man to the common room, smacking your hands over his eyes.          "Ow."         "Okay, okay, okay, open your eyes," you said, ignoring his cry of pain.          "I can't because your filthy hands are over them."          "NOW OPEN THEM."         His dark eyes opened, holding a small glint of surprise as he saw the black, silver, gray, and white streamers dangling from the ceiling that Shouji put up, the luscious dark chocolate cake Sato had prepared, the birthday balloons Yaomomo and Denki had dotted around, and the whole class sprinkled around the common room (plus Shinso and Eri), wearing party hats and smiling at their shocked teacher.          Aizawa's throat caught slightly at the end, but he still managed to get out the words, "who's idea was this?"          Denki stepped up, raising his arm but pointing his finger at you. "[Name] did, they just dragged us into it." You grinned sheepishly, rubbing the nape of your neck and quickly trying to atone for your sins.          "I understand if you don't like it, I could take it all down if you want, I just thought that maybe-"          Kaminari rushed over to your side and slapped his hand over your mouth, steadily looking you in the eye and shaking his head.          "No, [Last Name], it's great."          You were surprised to hear the tired voice of your favorite teacher, and even more surprised to see him crack a small grin at you, saying, "where'd you get the party hats?"          "Yaomomo made them," Denki cut in.          "He didn't ask you," you said, licking his hand as he jerked it away.          "Let's party!" 

[ ✾ ]

        So far, so good, you thought, twisting your fingers together as you watched your favorite blonde attempt to playfully flirt with Uraraka.         You can do this, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this.          "Hey."          You shrieked at the voice that suddenly appeared in your ear, jumping a little and whipping around, only to come face-to-face with an electric boy.          "Denki! You scared me!"          "And you made me bite my tongue! Even?"          "How did I make you bite your tongue?"          "When you jumped, my chin was on my way to your shoulder," Denki exclaimed, "but then it moved so my teeth clanked together and my tongue got in the way."          You smiled, lightly punching him in the arm.          "Clanked," you teased with a grin.          "It's a word!"          "Okay." You rolled your eyes. "Hey, what happened to Uraraka?"          "Oh, as soon as I started talking, she said she had to make sure Midoriya had his hero notebook or something, then ran away."          "WOW," you said, bending over and clutching your stomach, trying to breathe through your laughter. "That's a mood."          "It is indeed," Kaminari replied, a grin on his face.          Stupid butterflies.          "Hey, Denki --"          You were abruptly stopped by the strange feeling of another pair of lips on yours, kissing you passionately. Your shocked brain had no idea what was happening until the sudden warmth moved away, revealing the familiar golden eyes of a honey-blonde.          "I'm so sorry, I just thought you looked really cute in that shirt and then I thought 'well why don't I kiss you' and then you didn't kiss back and --"         You pressed your lips against his this time, a small smile gracing your lips as your crush kissed back with fervor.          Finally, after what seemed like it would never be enough, you pulled away from the awkward-yet-electrifying kiss to inhale the life-saving air around you.          "Did you get butterflies too?" you asked, panting. "Yeah, yeah I did."          Those golden eyes.          You couldn't look away from the millions of emotions swirling in his orbs, anxiety, euphoria, fear, nervousness, joy, shock, and trillions more.          The same feelings were probably circling round and around in your eyes.          "So what does this make us?"          Another kiss was your answer.

[valkyriesryde]

Proud

Pairing: Mentor!Bucky x Teenage!Reader

Summary: Y/N needs to interview someone for a history assignment and who better to go to than Bucky.

Warnings: Swears lol

Request: By Anon - I think I just saw you wanted requests so what about a Bucky one where you’re like a similar age to Peter and you and Buck have a similar child to parent dynamic (like Peter and Tony). You dont have to do it, it’s just inspiration xx

A/N: This was so much fun to write! It’s shorter than I would have liked so sorry about that but I hope you all enjoy!

Word Count: 1,806

Masterlist

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Afternoon Mr Barnes,” the young girl jumped onto the counter behind where Bucky sat on the ground in front of his motorbike. He couldn’t get any peace and quiet in this godforsaken place, also since when are there so many children around, he thought to himself.

“Afternoon Miss Y/L/N” he turned his head to the girl on the counter and gave her a small smile which she immediately returned, “and what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Peter said I could come round and study,” she shrugged her shoulders and picked at the edges of the book on her lap, the smile on her face no gone, “needed to get out of the house.”

Bucky nodded his head and pointed towards the toolbox next to her, “well if you’re here you may as well help me, can you pass me that spanner,” she did as she was told, sitting on a stool after the task was done.

Y/N was always thankful for Bucky, he never asked her questions when she would show up with Peter at the compound, he would just put her to work and teach her new things about whatever he was working on. Bucky was thankful for Y/N, she never pestered him about how he was doing and she always helped him when he was working on his bikes. He was starting to understand why Tony accumulated a number of unofficially adopted children, they were nice to have around.

The two didn’t talk much, neither were big talkers, but it worked for them. Steve had joked that she was a mini version of Bucky which got a series of nods and agreements from the others.It also got a groan from Bucky but then a giant smile broke out on his face, they were right and he was goddamn happy about it.

Y/N was fascinated with machinery and how things worked, anything from a microwave to a car to society she wanted to know how it ticked. She wasn’t so much interested in Tony’s work though, she liked it sure, but it was much too advanced for her, she was much happier working on machines by hand and not creating her own. She liked to break things apart just to see if she could put it back together. That’s how she found herself in the garage of the compound one day after telling Peter she couldn’t go home just yet. He’d invited her to hang out at the compound while he worked with Tony, maybe she could join them he had suggested. It didn’t take long for Y/N to start wandering through the halls until she came across Sam pulling out stones from between the metal components of his wings. She stood and watched for ten minutes before he asked if she was okay.

“How do you get the wings to move like that?” She asked instead, her head leaning forward to get a better look at the mechanics in the wing. “Did you use references from a specific species of bird or several different species?” Sam stared at her with eyes wide not quite knowing how to answer. It’s not like he’d made the thing he just had a deal with Tony that he’d keep it clean. Before he could answer the sound of an engine sputtering to life came from behind him, or an engine attempting to sputter to life, it didn’t quite make it. This immediately got the teenagers attention, She moved around Sam’s workbench to find Bucky scratching his head and muttering an assortment of swears towards the motorbike.

“Whatcha’ doing?” She’d asked eagerly, “and can I help?”

From then on whenever she came to the compound Y/N found her way to Bucky’s side, most of the time it was at his workbench. Sometimes he would be cleaning his guns while she sat and did homework and assignments, every so often asking him a question and getting the same answer “I don’t know, fuck knows why you’re asking me,” other times he would be working on his own project of building his own bike and she would be sat there helping him, she had made an entire notebook of specs for the different parts and what they were doing. On a couple occasions, and after months of begging, Nat had walked in on Bucky teaching Y/N how to throw a knife, she got the hang of that faster than Nat would like to admit. However Bucky couldn’t have been prouder and bragged about it for a solid week to anyone that would listen to him. ‘The kids a natural’ he would tell them.

At this point in time Y/N was sitting on the workbench while Bucky puttered away with his bike,  she wasn’t quite sure how to ask him for help but she needed it.

“Hey Bucky,” he hummed in response, not looking up from his hands, “I have this history assignment due and I was wondering if you could help me? It’s just an interview,” her words were rushed but it caught his attention.

“I’m not good at helping you with school work you know that,” he looked at her pleading that she not ask for his help, he hated that he wasn’t able to help her with such a big part of her life but what did he know about what they learnt in school these days? It’d been a while since he’d sat in a classroom. “Why don’t you ask Bruce?”

“Because it’s about The Great Depression, I thought maybe I could have a first hand account of it,” she gave him a toothy grin, knowing he couldn’t actually say no to her. Bucky sighed as he put his tools down and wiped his hands on a rag.

“What about Steve?” he tried.

“Steve’s not here.” and he failed. Bucky rolled his eyes but stood up nonetheless and sat on the stool next to her.

“Fine then, what do you want to know?” Y/N opened her notebook to a blank page and paused for a second, her pen hovering before turning to Bucky.

“I’m not going to lie, I didn’t think I’d get this far,” she turned back to her notebook and pulled out a paper from the back that had the questions she wanted to ask on it.

“Good, it’s never happening again,” he chuckled.

“That’s a lie, okay first question…”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Y/N sat at the dining table finishing her analysis of the interview she’d done with Bucky while he was in the kitchen making them food. ‘You need food to keep that brain ticking’ he’d said.

There was a decent amount of information to get through to be fair, once she got Bucky talking he would go on tangents about different things and tell her all sorts of stories about what he would get up to to pass the time back in the day. She’d written everything down, recorded it on her phone to go back over at school tomorrow just in case she had missed something. It was rare that Bucky talked about himself, let alone his life before the war, but it was a refreshing change that she hoped she could get more of.

“Eat,” Bucky said dropping a plate of cut up fruits on the table. Y/N muffled a thank you at the same time shoving a slice of apple in her mouth.

“Ohh oranges!” Peter jogged up to the table and reached across her to grab a piece of the fruit before sliding in the seat across from Y/N.

“Hey, you all done?” she asked, looked up at the boy smiling at her with the orange peel in his face and nodding.

“Yup, what are you doing?” he asked taking the peel out of his mouth and going for another piece. Bucky picked up the book in front of him, Y/N’s history textbook and started skimming through the pages.

“My history assignment,” she smiled, Peter thought for a second before he perked up, remembering what she was talking about.

“The one you have to interview a grandparent for?” he asked, feeling proud of himself for remembering what the assignment actually was, until he saw his friend’s panicked face.

“GRANDPARENT?!” Bucky yelled looking at Y/N with an unamused face.

“It’s not like that!” she exclaimed back, “thanks a lot Peter,” she mumbled under her breath and side eyed the boy who was sinking into his seat.

“Oh so you didn’t have to interview a GRANDPARENT for your assignment?” the sarcasm drooled out of his mouth with every word. Is that how she saw him? As some old coot?

“Okay yes that was the outline but I didn’t want to do that! I wanted to interview you! So I picked a time where I could use you and it would still fit the outline,” she looked at the man next to her, her eyes were wide and she had a slight frown. As soon as Y/N had gotten the assignment she wanted to interview Bucky, but she needed a piece of history to ask him about that would fit, so she found one. Was that so bad? That she just wanted interview him and not anyone else?

“You wanted to interview me?” his voice was softer now, he couldn’t help the smile on his face when she nodded. He felt a sense of pride that she had thought of him first, that she wanted him to be apart of her school work. He felt special, thought of, like she’d confirmed the special bond they had. “Suppose that’s alright then,” Bucky laughed at Y/N’s face lighting up, “but I better get a copy once you’re done, gotta make sure you’re not talking shit.” He pointed a finger towards her and passed her the textbook so she could put it back in her bag.

“Promise,” she smiled standing from her seat with Peter following, “thanks Buck,” Y/N wrapped her arms around his neck from behind before running off after Peter towards the elevator, giving him a final wave goodbye.

“Bastard kids get under your skin before you know what’s happening don’t they,” Bucky turned his attention to Tony who had sat himself where Peter had been.

“Yea,” Bucky agreed, picking up the last piece of apple from the plate, “suppose it’s not a bad thing.”

It was definitely not a bad thing and you can bet your ass that as soon as Bucky had that assignment in his hands he was shoving it in everyone’s faces exclaiming that his kid wrote all about him, “that’s right Steve, she picked ME for her history assignment!” and it was pinned to his board in his room from there on out, more permanent than on the fridge, he told her proudly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Thank you for reading and as always, requests are open!!

[itsybitsyspiderling]

the reality of a nightmare

find it here on ao3 ! 

Summary: Peter has a bad dream about Tony. And then it starts to come true. Kind of.

Word Count: 5.7k

“Hey. Kid. Yoo-hoo. Earth to Web-Head. Web-Slingin’ Slasher. You awake?”

Peter had fallen asleep in Tony’s workshop again. By this point, the kid had lost count exactly how many times he’d done so. He was up to his waist in midterms and projects, and May had taken extra shifts at work, so when he wasn’t out Spider-Man-ing, he was covering the list of chores she left for him in the meantime. He even fixed up a few dinners for her so she had something in the fridge when she got home at an ungodly hour. Peter’s brain was running eight miles a minute, and he wasn’t sleeping.

He stirred, humming and rubbing at his eyes as he straightened his posture. “Mhm. Yeah. Totally.” As Peter adjusted his vision, his eyes fell to the slick surface of the workbench below where a small puddle of drool sat. Yuck. Gross. He wiped at his chin.

Tony stood behind his desk with a few dozen holograms surrounding him. He raised an eyebrow at Peter. “This is gonna sound gratuitous coming from me, but have you considered sleep? It’s this newfangled thing everyone’s ravin’ about. They’re awake all day and then go to bed at night. You should try it. Works wonders.”

Peter sniffed and nodded. He didn’t even feel tired, but sleeping was so much easier than staying awake. “Not for me,” he said. “Don’t like it anyway. The dreams are never good. There’s better stuff I could be doing.”

“Now that’s a red flag,” Tony muttered, and the holograms disappeared before him. He slowly meandered over toward Peter. “You good, then? School going okay? Grades fine? You can tell me if there’s something bothering you, Pete. Pretty sure we’ve established that the walls-down-protocol has been in effect since last November.”

“Yeah, no, I’m fine,” Peter said, and truly, he meant it. He felt fine, his grades were fine… all he wanted was for life to slow down a little. “Just got no time to breathe, s’all. Ready for summer.”

Tony nodded. “Sure. Yeah, actually, that reminds me––start thinkin’ about places to go for your sixteenth birthday. Any place. And don’t say Disney World.”

“Mister Stark, it’s just that I haven’t been there before, and––”

“A nightmare is what it is. It’s my worst nightmare,” Tony said. “Crowds and crying babies and water rides.” He shivered. “I couldn’t imagine any place else closer to Hell. Speaking of things that are hell, I dry-cleaned your suit. And repaired it. How many times have you gotten stabbed exactly?”

Peter chuckled dryly. He didn’t have the energy to work on whatever the hell he had been working on. If he squinted, it looked like some ugly prototype for a new web-shooter. “Just a few times. Maybe six. Dunno. Thanks though. It was getting smelly.”

“Yeah, welcome to the wonderful world of sweat and smelling bad,” said Tony as he returned back to his spot behind the desk. “You’re gonna love it. I’ll buy you a twelve-pack of deodorant next time I’m out.”

“I use deodorant, Mister Stark.”

“Extra strength. Clinical. Ten dollar entrance fee from now on if you don’t come in smelling like fresh daisies.”

Peter rolled his eyes and smiled. “Sure,” he mumbled, setting his head down onto his arms before shutting his eyes, “start paying me then.”

“Okay, now you've crossed a line.”

Peter laughed, and for a few moments, he felt calm and at ease. He let the machines and Tony’s occasional swears lull him into a light sleep. After that, Peter soon became conscious of his sub-conscience. He was dreaming.

And it was a good dream for a while.

It was sharp and clear. Tony was there doing what Tony did best. He worked on his suits and hummed along to the music blasting through the speakers, and Peter was there tinkering away at his own suit. It resembled a comfortable pattern that they had fallen into over the past few months. It was nice.

When dream-Peter looked at Tony, however, the older man wasn’t as at peace. His expression twisted as he read over a message on his computer screens. From a distance, Peter couldn’t read it, but he knew the message wasn’t good. There was a subtle shift in the atmosphere, and Tony was uncomfortable.

“What’s that?” dream-Peter asked.

Almost as if he had clicked a switch, Tony’s face broke out into a smile. “Nothing,” he answered. “Just junk. Happy’s gotten on the chain mail trend. Dancing cats and ‘you-will-die-in-ten-days’ kind of stuff.”

Peter nodded, accepting the straightforward answer. But somewhere, the truth floated in his mind, weaving in between prefrontal decisions and hippocampus memories. Something was wrong, but in his dreams, he wasn’t aware enough to take notice.

The workshop faded into the kitchen, and now, Tony was in the midst of preparing some pasta dish that Peter couldn’t identify. Meanwhile, he sat at the counter with a few sheets of illegible homework problems below. They didn’t share moments like this often––usually, Peter was too busy with school and evenings on patrol, and Tony spent more days out of town than in. It was special when he invited the kid over for a nice home-cooked dinner. It felt surreal. Not everyone had the opportunity to eat Tony Stark’s subpar cooking.

In the dream, none of that mattered.

“––well, when the guy tried to stab me,” Peter began on a tangent, “I was kinda expecting it, so I dodged and said something like ‘whoa buddy, that’s not nice. You gotta work on your aim.’ And then wham! He stabbed me. And then you showed up, punched the guy, and yelled at me for… ”

From his spot behind the stove, Tony had stopped stirring the pot of pasta to glance at his phone. He looked troubled. It was the same expression from the workshop.

Peter totally forgot what he had been talking about. “You okay, Mister Stark?”

He shook his head, still a bit mentally distanced from having read something odd. “Yeah. Fine. I keep getting these weird messages.”

“From Happy?”

Tony shook his head again. “No. I think someone’s just trying to scare me.”

“It doesn’t bother you that you’re getting them?” Peter asked, to which Tony simply shrugged. “Are they death threats? Are you receiving death threats?”

Tony chuckled. “No, no, God––I’ve received a shit ton of death threats in my life, but this––no. They’re just weird. I’m not bothered. Look who you’re talking to. I’m Iron Man. They don’t scare me.”

Again, Peter accepted the answer, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it just wasn’t right. He didn’t like that Tony found humor in something that would terrify Peter. He didn’t like that he was stuck in a dream where he could do nothing about it.

After that, when things became hazy and Peter wasn’t sure where he was next, the pieces of the puzzle slowly came into place. The news broke that Tony had gone missing. Televisions in windows and big, gaudy screens in Times Square dedicated their minutes to the billionaire’s disappearance. Peter couldn’t go home and he couldn’t go to school. He couldn’t walk down the street without seeing the reports plastering his mentor’s face everywhere. And worst of all, Peter saw this coming, but it was a dream. He had to let it all unfold. He was stuck.

He didn’t know how or why, but the next thing he knew, he was staring at a reel of security footage dated from hours before. Tony was there, locked in some dark room with blood dripping from his forehead while three other men surrounded him. All Peter could do was watch from the monitors in the workshop as they tortured and beat Tony senseless. And Peter couldn’t react. He couldn’t hear anything, but he knew that the men––the evil, diabolic men––were using Tony’s relationship with Peter to their advantage. He just knew.

Tony didn’t have a lot of weak spots, but his Achilles’ heel was his friends and family.

When Peter finally made it to Tony, the dream felt more real than it had before. The hallway was empty and eerily silent, and Peter could paint every detail with his eyes closed. He wasn’t sure how he got there. The room that Tony was in was cold. It was lifeless. Dried blood was splattered across the floor, and as hard as Peter searched, he couldn’t hear a heartbeat. No breaths, not even a blink of an eye.

For those few moments, he believed that they had taken Tony elsewhere. But then Peter turned a corner, and the wreckage of an Iron Man suit stared back at him.

Peter felt to his knees, anger seeping down to his fists while his chest filled with a heavy sadness. He couldn’t tell if he was crying. The image of Tony, beaten skull and blood-soaked skin, was enough to make Peter heave. The men had been merciless. Tony was dead. Murdered. Gone.

And while Peter’s stomach sank further and further, heart lurching with each breath, he crawled over and tossed himself around Tony’s waist. It seemed as though the limp body held him back.

The dream became hazy again, solid shapes fading into nothing while Peter’s terror only grew. He swore, as the colors turned to gray, that a voice cut through the waning REM and said to Peter, “I’m sorry for giving up on you.”

____

Someone was nudging Peter’s shoulder.

His body jolted awake, and he gathered himself quickly, eyes adjusting to the low light in the workshop. The sun had set a long time ago, but he hadn’t been awake to see it. His heart hurt in his chest, and the more conscious he became, the more he felt the erratic beating against his rib cage. To his right, Tony stood, gaze confused and lingering while he pressed his hand on Peter’s shoulder blade.

“You okay?” he asked, slowly retracting his hand. “You’ve been mumbling in your sleep for about an hour, kiddo. You’re as white as a sheet. Maybe you weren’t kidding when you said you have bad dreams, yeah?”

Peter stared straight ahead. He felt numb and in shock, not to mention slightly dehydrated as he evened out his breathing. He remembered everything. The entire dream. God, it felt so real. And he felt warm. Like a fever had struck him without warning. He blinked over at his mentor. “Tony?”

“Tony?” The man raised an eyebrow. “Since when was that a thing? What happened to ‘Mister Stark’?”

Peter blinked again. “S-sorry,” he whispered, shifting in his chair while he pushed back the vertigo that crept up.

Tony walked over toward his desk, but he didn’t hesitate to occasionally look back over at Peter in concern. The confusion never quite left. “Jesus, Pete. Did you physically go somewhere else for three hours? You’re lookin’ at me all weird. Relax your eyes. You’re freaking me out.”

“Oh, sorry.” Peter did his best to loosen whatever muscles were tense. But that was the problem––his entire body was tense. It felt like that one time he volunteered to receive acupuncture when a lady came into his health class freshman year. It didn’t hurt, but he was an idiot to think his fear of needles would be cured over a few pricks in his forehead and thumbs.

He didn’t want to tell Tony about his bad dream. Peter hardly wanted to call it a nightmare. He just couldn’t shake the images out of his head. Tony laying there, a corpse, with broken parts and ghostly apologies. It didn’t make sense––Tony was Iron Man. Iron Man could fight. He never lost. He never died.

But why did Peter sit back and let him die?

He had known it the entire dream: something was wrong. And he didn’t do anything. He saw his mentor beaten and bruised and bleeding until there was nothing left to give. Peter could almost feel his body still curled up against Tony’s side, desperate to hear a heartbeat muffled by the thick metal suit. Nothing. There was nothing. And it was because Peter had been too late.

His hand shook as he raised it to wipe a tear. He tried to keep the action subtle, but he couldn’t hold back the sniff and the small whimper that refused to be contained. The weight of the dream finally set in. Peter had broken his own heart.

“Whoa, kiddo,” Tony mumbled. He dropped what he had in his hands and made his way over, quickly plopping himself down in a stool so he could wrap an arm around Peter’s shoulders.

Peter let himself break. He fell against Tony, sobs wracking through him all wet and strained while a burning ache grew in his chest. “I-I let you die,” he cried out. “I let you die. I’m––I’m sorry, M-Mister Stark.”

“Pete,” whispered Tony, voice low and comforting. He kissed the top of Peter’s head. “What’re you talking about? I’m right here. I’m alive. Okay? It’s okay.”

Peter shook his head against Tony’s chest. “N-no,” he said. His tears were hot on his cheeks. “Dream. In my dream.” He could hardly breathe between words. “Y-you were gone. They––these people––they took you and––”

“But they didn’t, Peter, I’m right here.”

“I just let them kill you!” Peter shouted, pulling away from Tony just to collapse against the desk. He wrapped his arms around his head and breathed in deep.

The workshop was quiet for a moment. Distant technology whirred and buzzed, but the unsettling atmosphere was louder. Peter had never yelled like that, not in front of Tony. After a few seconds, Tony placed a hand back on Peter’s shoulder.

“I can’t erase your bad dreams, kiddo,” the man said. “I would if I could. Hell, I could figure out a way if you wanted me to. But for now, the dream is in the past. It was scary––it made you upset. And I’m sorry. You don’t deserve that. Dreams tend to find the worst things to dwell on. Believe me, I know. Good thing is, Pete, I’m still here. I’m right here. Not dead. See?”

Peter peered over at Tony from over his arm.

“You’re gonna forget about it in a few hours anyway,” said Tony. “Dreams are like my entire life pre-2005. They’re there but then poof––gone from memory like that. Tell you what, though, we’ll get some ice cream and Twizzlers and eat until Happy comes to find us drowning in food comas. How’s that sound?”

Peter cracked a smile. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Okay, good.” Tony grinned, standing up. “No dreams about death from here on out. All right? You got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

____

Tony was wrong.

Peter couldn’t say that to his face, of course, but it didn’t make it any less true. Tony was wrong. Peter remembered every vivid detail of the dream, all the way down from the clothes the man was wearing and up to the words he said. Even Peter’s worst nightmares never stuck like that. He couldn’t unsee any of it. Tony lying there. Tony, dead.

Tony not even giving a shit that people wanted to kill him.

The thing that upset Peter the most was just that. The dream wasn’t some fantasy where he rode dragons and summoned an army of spiders. The dream was something that, if he were honest, had the possibility of happening. He knew that Tony would ignore messages like that. Peter knew that Tony would scoff and shove them off because he was Iron Man. And Iron Man never lost.

Every time Peter tried to talk about his dream, the older man was always half-preoccupied with another obscure project. He cut in between with hums and “yeah”’s, absent-minded responses while Peter was haunted by the dream.

After a week, Peter realized that Tony’s lack of attention most likely meant a lack of interest. The kid kept his mouth shut from then on out.

But for some reason, that wasn’t what Tony wanted either.

“Incoming call from Tony Stark,” Karen said one evening.

Peter was out in the suit, but there wasn’t much activity for the night. For over an hour, he had been up on a roof and using his webbing as a jump rope up when Karen cut in.

“What?” Peter asked breathlessly. “Why’s he––?”

Tony’s face popped up in the heads-up display, a small smile decorating his features while a knot formed in Peter’s stomach. He still saw the Tony from his dream, even nearly a week later. Dreams never stayed around that long. They never stuck like that.

“Word to the wise, kiddo, don’t leave your homework sittin’ around if you don’t want me to correct it,” the man said, holding up a handful of papers. “What’s with all the stuff you left behind, huh? Since when did you journal?”

“I just––I dunno,” Peter said and shrugged. “I’ve got feelings and… yeah. It’s just easier to write it all down instead of––wait, Mister Stark, did you––you didn’t read my journal, did you?”

Tony appeared briefly offended. “What? No. That’s a serious invasion of privacy. I’d never do that. Besides, if you wrote anything about that dream you’ve been chatterin’ on about for the past week––”

“You were listening?” Peter sat down on the ledge of the roof and looked over at the street below.

“Pete, you didn’t give me the chance to not listen,” Tony said. “Granted, I usually don’t listen, so, you’ve got a point.”

“It just didn’t seem like you wanted t’hear about it,” Peter mumbled, shrugging once again, “that’s all. I just—I can’t stop thinking about it. The dream. It scared me.”

Tony frowned. His eyebrows furrowed and wrinkles deepened on his forehead, meanwhile, Peter was dreading the fact that, now, Tony was listening.

Peter sighed. “I just can’t stop seeing you a-and––”

“Pete,” Tony said. “I know. I’m sorry. I can’t get it out of your head. I wish I could.” He was quiet for a moment, and Peter could see the thoughts running through his head. “Why don’t you go home and tell May you’ll be spending the night up here? ‘Kay? I’ll get in a car. Me instead of Happy this time. I hear he’s been babbling on about his old boxing days again; you wouldn’t last a minute. Swing on home and get some stuff together.”

“Yeah, okay,” Peter mumbled, sniffing as he blinked away a few tears. “Sure. Thanks, Mister Stark.”

“Of course, kiddo,” Tony replied. “And, don’t worry about me, all right? I’m alive. I’m breathing––to many, many people’s dismay.”

Peter chuckled. “Okay.”

Tony smiled, too. “See you in an hour. Stark out.”

Once the phone call was over, Peter shook his head and tried to wipe the grin off his face. Tony was right. He was there. He was alive. All the dream had been was just a dream.

____

A month later.

____

“That’s––huh. Well, you don’t see that every day.”

Peter sat up and took out an earbud. “See what?” he asked. Music continued to play lowly into one ear.

Tony stood at his desk, rubbing his chin while he stared at his array of computer screens and holograms. Peter could only see a reversed image of a few things, but he had never been good at reading things backward. It wasn’t a trait he picked up in elementary school when the rest of his classmates did.

“Uh, nothing,” Tony muttered, waving his hands to make whatever it was disappear. “No big deal. Just observing. Doesn’t matter. What’re you working on?”

“Just some homew—”

“Can I help?” he asked fervently as he made his way over.

Peter took out the other earbud. “Sure. It’s on oscillations and gravitation. Physics stuff.”

Tony sat down and slid the paper in front of him. He looked over the homework, eyes rapidly reading over every word, equation, graph, etc., before he reached over for the pencil in Peter’s grip. “Easy. Just use the values as Jacobi elliptic integrals.”

Peter watched, eyebrows raised, as Tony scribbled messily on the sheet. “I’m not sure that’s––”

“Shh, working,” the man said and held up a finger. As he did so, however, the gesture trembled. He kept his jaw clenched while he wrote a variety of illegible functions.

So, Peter kept watching. He didn’t care about homework though. He watched Tony’s actions, thoroughly observing every nervous tick or coping habit. Every nail bite, deep breath, forehead rub, and so on.

“You okay, Mister Stark?” Peter asked after a moment.

Tony blinked, barely glancing over as if he hadn’t heard a word. “Hm. Yeah––what?”

Peter almost laughed, but something felt off. Tony was off. “Are you okay? You seem… I don’t know. Weird.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. He set down the pencil. “Oh, yeah. Totally. I’m great. You okay?”

“Yeah…” Peter cracked a small smile. “I’m good. What you were talking about earlier––you sure it was just nothin’? You look all pale. And sweaty.”

“Sweaty?” Tony laughed, but even that sounded nervous. “I’m fine, Pete. Don’t worry about me. Worry about how physics is a joke and how no high school student should ever have to endure his crap. Jesus Christ.” He looked back over the sheet, flipped it over, and rolled his eyes. “Your little brain must hurt having to look at that. How the hell do you do this and be Spider-Man? I couldn’t even run a company and––”

“Mister Stark.”

“Yeah?”

Peter didn’t want to forget about what was bothering his mentor, but there wasn’t a conversation at hand. Tony wasn’t going to crack; he was going to keep avoiding it until he grew frustrated at Peter. And then, there would be uncomfortable silence for an hour or two before Tony decided to apologize and finally assure Peter that he was, in fact, okay. But Peter knew better. He knew there was something, but he needed to face the facts. He wouldn’t get the truth.

“Nothing,” he muttered. “Thanks for––uh, doing my homework.”

Tony smiled and slapped a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Anytime. Don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Yeah, well, next time I’ll be sure to,” Peter said with a laugh. He picked up his pencil and looked over the homework as Tony walked away. Nothing was legible. Nothing was right. But, with Tony, something was clearly wrong.

Peter kept noticing the shift in behavior over the course of the next week. Little changes like occasional tics and habits––all summoned by a quick glance at a phone or a watch. Peter wondered if it had something to do with Pepper or Rhodey, or maybe the company’s stock had taken a tumble and Tony was nervous he’d go bankrupt. He was high strung at all hours, and it seemed to be triggered by something he read or received.

The nervous mannerisms made Peter nervous. His senses nagged at him, prickling at the back of his neck whenever Tony acted weird. It was getting worse and worse, and Peter couldn’t handle it anymore.

He had Happy drive him up to the compound after school without telling Tony. The weather was getting warmer and spring had started to show itself, but Peter couldn’t enjoy it if there was something wrong with someone he cared about. Tony was Tony. Tony was Iron Man. He hid his emotions fairly well, yet he wasn’t doing a great job around Peter.

The sun was setting outside as Peter walked through the compound. It was empty and cold, but most of the life was tucked away in Tony’s workshop. Yet, as Peter strolled, an unsettling feeling crept up, one that felt vaguely familiar.

“FRIDAY?” Peter asked into the air.

“Hello, Peter.”

“Hey––uh, is Tony––Mister Stark––is he here?”

“He isn’t,” replied the AI. “Would you like me to alert the Boss that you’ve arrived?”

“Sure,” Peter said, rubbing at his sleeve as he stepped down the corridor to the workshop. “Where is he?”

“I haven’t received any activity regarding his location.”

“Oh, okay.”

“The last check-in was four hours ago in Queens,” she said.

Peter furrowed his brows and he opened the door to the workshop. The room lit up around him. “He’s in Queens? Where?”

“JFK International Airport.”

“Fri, you could’ve just told me he was on a plane,” said Peter, stepping around a few strewn tools before sitting at his usual workbench. It felt weird to be there alone––it felt like he wasn’t supposed to be there at all.

“Boss doesn’t have any upcoming scheduled flights.”

“Huh, okay. Weird.” Peter slumped down against the table, arms surrounding his head while he rested his chin on them. He faced Tony’s desk, blinking up at Post-It Note doodles taped up to the backs of monitors. Most of them were done by Peter when he was bored, but DUM-E and U had contributed to a few.

“Hey, Fri?” Peter mumbled, bring his hand up to his cheek. “Does Mister Stark ever design things for me and not tell me about them?”

“It’s possible,” the AI said. “He has a few files that have not been opened in a while. Would you like to view them?”

Peter instantly sat up. His hands slammed against the table, and the sound echoed throughout the workshop. “I can do that? They’re not––he doesn’t have them locked up or encrypted, or anything?”

“Of all people to keep secrets from, Peter, Boss wouldn’t keep them from you.”

Peter smiled. He rapped his knuckles against the table before letting the stool slide out from under him. Excitement filled his chest as he rushed over to Tony’s desk, fingers quick to access the server and tap into whatever files the man had on Peter.

And for hours, he sat there scrolling through design after design, idea after idea until FRIDAY announced that Peter had eaten out all of the popcorn left in the compound. He couldn’t believe that Tony had done all of this for him––he couldn’t believe that he was even sitting there at Tony’s desk and eating up all of his food. It all felt surreal.

“Hey––uh, Fri?” Peter asked, sipping at some soda he found in the kitchen. “What’s this?”

Peter’s finger was pointed at an odd amalgamation of numbers and letters slotting through the screen.

“The system is rebooting,” she said.

“Oh.” He nodded and sat back against the chair. “Why?”

“I’m not sure,” the AI replied. “It’s possible its last reboot triggered an automatic update.”

He leaned forward, watching the numbers slowly fade away until the monitor turned back. And then it came back to life. On the middle screen, a small message sat lonely in the center. Peter squinted so he could read it.

Subject Acquired. Mission Accomplished. Good luck.

“F-FRIDAY?” stuttered Peter. The message disappeared. The monitor returned back to the way it had been before. “What was that?” Peter’s voice cracked as he spoke.

“I don’t know, Peter,” she said, and even she sounded scared. “I can’t track its origin.”

“Where’s Tony?” he asked. “Fri, where is he?”

“His last location is still JFK International Airport.”

Peter stood, hands shaking as flashes of his old dream filled his head. His skin pricked, and optimistically, he believed he knew exactly where to go. But he was just hopeful. Hopeful that Tony hadn’t moved since he was last tracked. Hopeful to find him in one piece. Hopeful to find him alive.

Peter clicked his web-shooters into place and sighed. “Well, then, got any suits for me ‘round here, Fri?”

____

Tony was going to kill him. If he wasn’t already dead, he was going to kill Peter.

Peter wasn’t sure how to get to JFK any other way than using one of the Iron Man suits. He needed something quick, something that would get him there in a matter of minutes. As air traffic control cut into the suit’s communications, Peter searched for anything that would prove out of the ordinary. He landed on a bit of unused tarmac and winced as planes roared by in the distance.

“Search the hangars, Fri, search anywhere,” Peter gasped out, tired from pushing down the panic threatening to rise in his chest. Plus, he had on his suit underneath Tony’s; it was getting hot in there. “How am I––how am I supposed to find him with an airport full of people?”

“There is a supposedly unoccupied hangar across from terminal seven,” the AI said. “You are within a distance for me to pick up on an odd heat signature emitting from the building. I would say that is your best bet.”

Peter nodded, breathing hard while the repulsors ignited beneath his hands and feet. He soared into the air as FRIDAY directed him to the hangar, and finally, he could see what she was talking about. Through the suit’s thermal imaging, he could see that the building was empty except for an odd––almost blob-like––anomaly in a corner. Peter dove down and landed onto the adjacent road as quietly as possible.

“Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead,” he whispered to himself. “Dammit, Tony, I have school tomorrow. Please don’t be dead.”

Peter tried to hide it from FRIDAY, but truly, he was terrified. His stupid dream was coming true. And he hadn’t recognized the signs. Tony’s behavior, the messages, and now, he was missing. This wasn’t fair. He couldn’t be dead.

“Is he in a suit, Fri?” Peter asked lowly.

“If he is, all functions have been powered down or removed,” she said. “I’m not receiving anything.”

Peter nearly broke, expression crumbling for a moment as he snuck in through a door. “Please don’t be fucking dead,” he muttered and stepped into the hangar.

It was large, empty, and cold. It reminded him of the compound.

Peter stepped out of the Iron Man suit. As comforting as it was to have FRIDAY with him, the suit’s technology was hindering his ability to hear for a heartbeat. He stood, unmoving and quiet as he listened for a sound. Any sound. A single breath would suffice.

And somewhere, faint as could be, was a slow heartbeat.

“Mister Stark?” Peter found himself shouting into the dark, and he didn’t care if he was yelling it to no one or someone unfamiliar. He didn’t care if the entire airport knew he was there.

He heard a small gasp along with winces of pain. Peter was quick on his feet, dodging boxes and other obstacles. The hangar had been abandoned and used for storage––a great place to hide a famous superhero that no one would know how to find.

“I’m––I’m coming! Shit.” Peter stubbed his toe.

The heartbeat was drowned out by his pants and the rush of wind as he ran. God, why were hangars so big?

Oh, right. Airplanes. Duh.

Peter wanted to believe he was dreaming, but instead, he kept running and following his instincts.

“Mister Stark?” he called out again as he slowed. He glanced around, looking beyond the boxes and the mounds of crap the airport had stored in there. There was even a giant dumpster full of odd things like busted microwaves and broken chairs.

“Yeah, Pete, I’m here,” the man breathed out from behind.

Peter turned and rushed over to where Tony was propped against a stack of wooden pallets. His helmet had been removed, and portions of the suit had been damaged. There were large gashes on any inch of exposed skin, including a rigid cut along the man’s cheek. But he was alive. He was bleeding and bruised, but he was alive.

“Nanotech’s gonna need a bit more work,” he said, grunting while he lifted himself higher into a sitting position. “Jesus. Fuck.”

Peter crouched beside Tony, eyes examining over every wound and bloodstain on his mentor’s skin. He set a hand on his back and another on his arm, and Tony looked up at him with a smile.

“It was an ambush,” Tony mumbled through a busted lip. “Fucking embarrassing.”

Peter shook his head.

“Some guys who’d gotten their hands on old Chitauri stuff from 2012.” Tony shifted his shoulder and groaned. “Shit. That stings. They––they reminded me of the dude you fought. The one with the wings. That Vulture guy.”

Peter bit his lip to keep from tearing up. Tony was alive. The dream hadn’t come true after all.

“They got away,” Tony whispered, turning his head so Peter couldn’t see the emotion in his features. “I-I let them get away.”

“We’ll get them,” Peter said, “one day. We’ll get them. Together. Okay? You’re just covered in blood. So, we should probably get you help or somethin’.”

Tony nodded, chuckling. “Yeah. Help. I’d like that. Know how to cauterize?”

Peter’s eyes widened. “Uh, Karen?” he said to his AI, voice cracking. “Let’s get some medics down here. Now.”

Tony continued to laugh. “Relax. I did some myself.” After a moment, his laughter settled, and he set a hand over Peter’s. “You did good, kid. Thank you. I’m sorry.”

“Why’re you sorry, Mister Stark? You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Nah, I’ve got lots to be sorry for,” said Tony. “You’re just being modest. Sorry for letting this happen. Sorry for not letting you in on what was happening. They warned me, and I didn’t listen.”

“You’re good at that,” Peter muttered and smiled. “The not-listening thing.”

“I told you, I totally listen to everything you say.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Start having good dreams from now on,” said Tony. “Dreams where I retire and you go to college, and we all live happily ever after. That’s your job. Stop dreaming about me dying. Now I know this shit can come true.”

Peter laughed. “I’ll try.”

“Good kid.” Tony patted Peter’s cheek. “How’d you know to come here? How’d you even get here?”

“FRIDAY had a location, so I just followed instincts and stuff after that,” Peter answered. “Plus, I totally didn’t take one of your suits. Not at all.”

“You totally didn’t what?”

“Uh. Nothing. I told you. You totally won’t find that I took one of your suits.”

“You’re dead, Parker.”

[tickletastic]

I’m The Bad Guy

Rating: G/SFW

Warnings: Profanity

Word Count: 1903

Fandom: Marvel

Ship: N/A

Summary: Based on this prompt from anon. Tony finds out that the villain he’s been fighting is just a kid, and has to come up with a creative way to convince the kid to cut out the crime act.

Notes: I really loved this prompt, thanks for it anon! Sorry it took so long to write.

Everything around Tony was engulfed in flames. Parts of his armour had completely broken off, and he was in the process of calling for a new suit when the man in a completely black suit, the one he’s been fighting this entire time, stands in front of him. 

“It’s time to give up Mr. Stark, you have been defeated. The Iron Man will be no longer. You can’t save this city.” The mysterious figure spoke. 

Tony did feel a little hopeless, but he knew he would soon be in a new suit, He just had to find a way to distract the malicious man in front of him. He held eye contact with the man, or as much as he could with both of them wearing masks, and quietly called for another suit within his helmet. 

The villain, who seemed to refer to himself as Recluse, walked closer and closer, until Tony was at his feet, and stuck out his wrist. “Any last words?” 

Tony laughed, a smirk on his face that could not be seen, “Uh, yeah actually. Wanna tell me your name? ‘Cus we’re about to find out.”

With that, an arm of the second suit Tony had called swept down and made an attempt to grab the mask off of the mysterious villain’s costume. It came off with ease, but Recluse had turned around to fight the suit before Tony could see his face. As Recluse went back and forth, grabbing for his mask, the original suit Tony had called for landed in front of him and he equipped. 

Recluse began shooting out his webs, trying to get the mask back, doing everything in his power to contain his identity. Tony took this as an opportunity to fly over in the working suit and look at the villain’s face.

When the two of them were face to face, Tony began laughing, hysterically. He deactivated the helmet of his suit and landed, laughing so hard he could barely breathe. 

“You have been wreaking havoc on New York City for the past week?” Tony began through his laughter. “You-you’re just a kid. What’s this? Teenage angst? Can’t you just listen to punk music and dye your hair black like the rest of us did?”

The baby-faced villain gave what he felt to be a wicked glare, but to Tony all it looked like was a wounded puppy dog. A new round of laughter began for Tony.

“You better remember this. This isn’t over.” Recluse spoke before shooting out a web, launching himself onto the rooftop of a building.

“It better be kid, or I’m gonna have to tell your mommy and daddy!” Tony called before Recluse disappeared into the distance.

Back at the tower, Tony had quite the laugh telling Pepper, Natasha and Steve about the situation. What was a kid doing causing such chaos? What happened to the good old school stuff when teens would just scream into their pillow and get a piercing when they were going through it? Didn’t he have homework to do or sleep to catch up on?

He had done a full analysis of the kid’s face back at his lab from footage from the suit. As it turns out, the kid is only sixteen and his name is Peter Parker. He lives with his aunt, May, because his parents passed away when he was little. It’s possible that his parents could be the source of his extreme angst. Nevertheless, Tony knew that if he came across Recluse again he would need a creative way to deal with him, there’s no way Tony could hurt a kid.

Three weeks later, Tony is enjoying a cup of coffee on a green balcony that he had installed into the tower so he and the other avengers could enjoy plant-life while still living in the tower. He’s humming to himself and taking in the fresh morning air, smelling the dew on the plants surrounding him when there’s a noise that he most definitely knows to be an explosion. He sighs to himself before looking out, towards the source of the sound, where he spots a large building engulfed in fire and smoke. “Aww man, villains don’t take breaks huh?” He says to himself, opening the sliding door and going back into the tower.

Tony notifies the other Avengers that are currently in the tower and asks them to join him since he doesn’t know what, or who, caused the explosion.

Steve, Natasha, Sam and Tony are at the sight within 10 minutes, where chaos is ensuing as more buildings and cars get blown up. They quickly assess the situation, in search for a cause of the chaos, until Tony spots a familiar figure in the corner of his eye. Steve notices the figure at the same time as Tony nudges him.

“I’ll take the kid. Sam, get the civilians somewhere safe, Steve, Nat, check the other buildings around here for explosives.” Tony commands. He waits for the a-okay from everyone else before launching himself onto the roof where he saw Recluse.

“Looks like we meet again kid.” Tony greeted, deactivating his helmet. 

“This time I will beat you. You haven’t bested me.” Recluse responded in a tone that Tony would describe as ‘upset toddler’.

“Actually Pete, may I call you that? Anyways, I had other things in mind for us Pete.” Tony grins before spewing webs out of one of the fingers of his suit. The webs were a lot like the ones Recluse had used the last time the two of them had met, and the teen resented the fact that the web formula that had taken him a year to perfect had only taken the iron man three weeks to imitate.

The teen gasped in surprise, but jumped away from the webs. It seems as if Tony had anticipated this movement because Peter was soon covered in webs despite his ability to see attacks before they happen.

“So first, kid, I’ve got a question. Where’d you get your powers from? Are you some sort of spider mutant?” Tony inquired, approaching his newly captive prisoner. 

“I’m not telling you shit old man.” Peter spit as Tony removed his mask from his face. 

“I think I might have a way to convince you otherwise. While we’re on the topic of questions, you’re young kid, there’s still time to choose the right side to fight for. You’re only sixteen, why cause all of this chaos when you could help save the world and make it better?” Tony went off on a bit of a tangent, feeling a slight fondness for the kid despite his hobby of bombing buildings and causing chaos.

Tony had definitely taken notice that the kid hadn’t killed anybody yet, and that definitely had to say something about his character, so the kid still had time to change for the better.

“Ha, fat chance.” Peter laughed, struggling to get out of the webs.

“Well, desperate times call for desperate measures kiddo.” Tony laughed and kneeled next to the teen. 

Peter’s facial expression said shocked all over it when he felt fingers working their way up his side. Never in his life had he tried so hard to fight off a smile. He cursed under his breath as he struggled significantly more.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The teen said through gritted teeth, trying to glare up at Tony.

“First of all, language. Second of all, You’re a kid, so I’m gonna treat you like one. By the end of this you’ll have one of two decisions, you can either join my team and fight for the right side, or go back to being a kid, it’s up to you. One thing’s for certain; this whole crime thing needs to stop, you gotta cut it out. So tell me Petey, are you a little ticklish?” Tony explained, the last part coming out in a baby voice. 

Tony sped up his fingers, and pressed a button on his suit. Suddenly, the webs surrounding Peter began to vibrate. He knew that this was definitely bad news for him. As much as he hated to admit it, his damn broke, and an adorable stream of giggles started to pour from his lips.

“Yohohohou fihihihight dihihihirty! This isn’t fahahair!” The teen squeaked as he tried to keep his laughter and facial expressions under control. 

Tony grinned down at the cute kid, whose face was a pale shade of pink all the way up to his ears. While his mouth definitely showed that he was trying to hold back, his crinkled eyes said differently, they said that what Tony was trying was working. 

Recluse let out a loud squeal when Tony’s fingers met his ribs, and he finally threw his head back with unfiltered laughter. “Ah! Plehehease NOHO!”

Tony moved his fingers in the most ticklish fashions possible, running up and down Peter’s ribs quickly, counting each one agonizingly slowly, and drilling in between them. The kid couldn’t stop giggling, his face turning redder and redder as time went on. Tony let his fingers explore higher and higher, until bubbly giggles turned to frantic laughter.

“Aww, does the wittle baby have tickwish undewarwms? How adorable,” Tony cooed, taking in the bright, bright red that the teen’s face had turned. 

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Peter screamed through his frantic laughter. 

“Ready to give up yet?’ Tony inquired. The teen rapidly shook his head, so Tony decided to step it up a notch, “Peter, wanna tell me where you’re most ticklish? Or do you want me to find out?” 

After getting told to ‘fuck off’ again, Tony decided to visit some different spots. 

The kid’s neck elicited a never-ending stream of soft, quiet giggles, and a small, cute smile on his face. Tickling behind his ears produced high-pitched, hiccupy giggles as the kid tried to touch his head to his shoulder. 

Peter’s eyes were wider than saucers when Tony finally found his worst spot, and he screamed and laughed loud belly laughter as he gave up struggling.

“Does the wittle spider have a tickwish tummy? How does this feel?” Tony teased.

“PLEHEHEASE! STAHAHAP IHIT!” The sixteen-year-old screeched, surrendering to his laughter. A few more moments and his laughter had turned shaky and fragile, ridden with hiccups and weak pleas.

“You know what you gotta do for me to stop mister big scary villain.”

“Ohohokay! Ihihihi-I’ll johoin yohour teheheam! EHEHE JUHUHST STAHAHAP!” Tony listened, pulling his hands away from what he could only assume to be the kid’s belly button from the reaction he received. He cut the kid from the webs and stood there, waiting for him to recover.

“Expect mail from me kid, welcome to your Stark internship. You better not pull a stunt like this again. I know where you live and I will do this again if I have to.”

“Ohokay, okay.” Peter weakly agreed, “I gohot it.”

Tony smiled and walked over, ruffling the kids hair. “Go home kid. Your first day we’ll work on finding different ways to cope with those complicated teenage emotions and hormones.” 

He received a weak thumbs-up in response.

“See ya Pete.” With that, Tony joined his fellow avengers, another story under his belt to tell them about later, and a new recruit to explain. He’d have to do something about the emo colour scheme of the kid’s suit, but that was a problem for another time.

[movedvalkyriesryde]

Proud

Pairing: Mentor!Bucky x Teenage!Reader

Summary: Y/N needs to interview someone for a history assignment and who better to go to than Bucky.

Warnings: Swears lol

Request: By Anon - I think I just saw you wanted requests so what about a Bucky one where you're like a similar age to Peter and you and Buck have a similar child to parent dynamic (like Peter and Tony). You dont have to do it, it's just inspiration xx 

A/N: This was so much fun to write! It’s shorter than I would have liked so sorry about that but I hope you all enjoy!

Word Count: 1,806

Masterlist

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Afternoon Mr Barnes,” the young girl jumped onto the counter behind where Bucky sat on the ground in front of his motorbike. He couldn’t get any peace and quiet in this godforsaken place, also since when are there so many children around, he thought to himself.

“Afternoon Miss Y/L/N” he turned his head to the girl on the counter and gave her a small smile which she immediately returned, “and what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Peter said I could come round and study,” she shrugged her shoulders and picked at the edges of the book on her lap, the smile on her face no gone, “needed to get out of the house.”

Bucky nodded his head and pointed towards the toolbox next to her, “well if you’re here you may as well help me, can you pass me that spanner,” she did as she was told, sitting on a stool after the task was done. 

Y/N was always thankful for Bucky, he never asked her questions when she would show up with Peter at the compound, he would just put her to work and teach her new things about whatever he was working on. Bucky was thankful for Y/N, she never pestered him about how he was doing and she always helped him when he was working on his bikes. He was starting to understand why Tony accumulated a number of unofficially adopted children, they were nice to have around. 

The two didn’t talk much, neither were big talkers, but it worked for them. Steve had joked that she was a mini version of Bucky which got a series of nods and agreements from the others.It also got a groan from Bucky but then a giant smile broke out on his face, they were right and he was goddamn happy about it. 

Y/N was fascinated with machinery and how things worked, anything from a microwave to a car to society she wanted to know how it ticked. She wasn’t so much interested in Tony’s work though, she liked it sure, but it was much too advanced for her, she was much happier working on machines by hand and not creating her own. She liked to break things apart just to see if she could put it back together. That’s how she found herself in the garage of the compound one day after telling Peter she couldn’t go home just yet. He’d invited her to hang out at the compound while he worked with Tony, maybe she could join them he had suggested. It didn’t take long for Y/N to start wandering through the halls until she came across Sam pulling out stones from between the metal components of his wings. She stood and watched for ten minutes before he asked if she was okay.

“How do you get the wings to move like that?” She asked instead, her head leaning forward to get a better look at the mechanics in the wing. “Did you use references from a specific species of bird or several different species?” Sam stared at her with eyes wide not quite knowing how to answer. It’s not like he’d made the thing he just had a deal with Tony that he’d keep it clean. Before he could answer the sound of an engine sputtering to life came from behind him, or an engine attempting to sputter to life, it didn’t quite make it. This immediately got the teenagers attention, She moved around Sam’s workbench to find Bucky scratching his head and muttering an assortment of swears towards the motorbike. 

“Whatcha’ doing?” She’d asked eagerly, “and can I help?” 

From then on whenever she came to the compound Y/N found her way to Bucky’s side, most of the time it was at his workbench. Sometimes he would be cleaning his guns while she sat and did homework and assignments, every so often asking him a question and getting the same answer “I don’t know, fuck knows why you’re asking me,” other times he would be working on his own project of building his own bike and she would be sat there helping him, she had made an entire notebook of specs for the different parts and what they were doing. On a couple occasions, and after months of begging, Nat had walked in on Bucky teaching Y/N how to throw a knife, she got the hang of that faster than Nat would like to admit. However Bucky couldn’t have been prouder and bragged about it for a solid week to anyone that would listen to him. ‘The kids a natural’ he would tell them.

At this point in time Y/N was sitting on the workbench while Bucky puttered away with his bike,  she wasn’t quite sure how to ask him for help but she needed it.

“Hey Bucky,” he hummed in response, not looking up from his hands, “I have this history assignment due and I was wondering if you could help me? It’s just an interview,” her words were rushed but it caught his attention. 

“I’m not good at helping you with school work you know that,” he looked at her pleading that she not ask for his help, he hated that he wasn’t able to help her with such a big part of her life but what did he know about what they learnt in school these days? It’d been a while since he’d sat in a classroom. “Why don’t you ask Bruce?”

“Because it’s about The Great Depression, I thought maybe I could have a first hand account of it,” she gave him a toothy grin, knowing he couldn’t actually say no to her. Bucky sighed as he put his tools down and wiped his hands on a rag.

“What about Steve?” he tried.

“Steve’s not here.” and he failed. Bucky rolled his eyes but stood up nonetheless and sat on the stool next to her.

“Fine then, what do you want to know?” Y/N opened her notebook to a blank page and paused for a second, her pen hovering before turning to Bucky.

“I’m not going to lie, I didn’t think I’d get this far,” she turned back to her notebook and pulled out a paper from the back that had the questions she wanted to ask on it.

“Good, it’s never happening again,” he chuckled. 

“That’s a lie, okay first question…”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Y/N sat at the dining table finishing her analysis of the interview she’d done with Bucky while he was in the kitchen making them food. ‘You need food to keep that brain ticking’ he’d said. 

There was a decent amount of information to get through to be fair, once she got Bucky talking he would go on tangents about different things and tell her all sorts of stories about what he would get up to to pass the time back in the day. She’d written everything down, recorded it on her phone to go back over at school tomorrow just in case she had missed something. It was rare that Bucky talked about himself, let alone his life before the war, but it was a refreshing change that she hoped she could get more of. 

“Eat,” Bucky said dropping a plate of cut up fruits on the table. Y/N muffled a thank you at the same time shoving a slice of apple in her mouth. 

“Ohh oranges!” Peter jogged up to the table and reached across her to grab a piece of the fruit before sliding in the seat across from Y/N.

“Hey, you all done?” she asked, looked up at the boy smiling at her with the orange peel in his face and nodding. 

“Yup, what are you doing?” he asked taking the peel out of his mouth and going for another piece. Bucky picked up the book in front of him, Y/N’s history textbook and started skimming through the pages.

“My history assignment,” she smiled, Peter thought for a second before he perked up, remembering what she was talking about.

“The one you have to interview a grandparent for?” he asked, feeling proud of himself for remembering what the assignment actually was, until he saw his friend’s panicked face.

“GRANDPARENT?!” Bucky yelled looking at Y/N with an unamused face. 

“It’s not like that!” she exclaimed back, “thanks a lot Peter,” she mumbled under her breath and side eyed the boy who was sinking into his seat. 

“Oh so you didn’t have to interview a GRANDPARENT for your assignment?” the sarcasm drooled out of his mouth with every word. Is that how she saw him? As some old coot?

“Okay yes that was the outline but I didn’t want to do that! I wanted to interview you! So I picked a time where I could use you and it would still fit the outline,” she looked at the man next to her, her eyes were wide and she had a slight frown. As soon as Y/N had gotten the assignment she wanted to interview Bucky, but she needed a piece of history to ask him about that would fit, so she found one. Was that so bad? That she just wanted interview him and not anyone else?

“You wanted to interview me?” his voice was softer now, he couldn’t help the smile on his face when she nodded. He felt a sense of pride that she had thought of him first, that she wanted him to be apart of her school work. He felt special, thought of, like she’d confirmed the special bond they had. “Suppose that’s alright then,” Bucky laughed at Y/N’s face lighting up, “but I better get a copy once you’re done, gotta make sure you’re not talking shit.” He pointed a finger towards her and passed her the textbook so she could put it back in her bag.

“Promise,” she smiled standing from her seat with Peter following, “thanks Buck,” Y/N wrapped her arms around his neck from behind before running off after Peter towards the elevator, giving him a final wave goodbye. 

“Bastard kids get under your skin before you know what’s happening don’t they,” Bucky turned his attention to Tony who had sat himself where Peter had been.

“Yea,” Bucky agreed, picking up the last piece of apple from the plate, “suppose it’s not a bad thing.” 

It was definitely not a bad thing and you can bet your ass that as soon as Bucky had that assignment in his hands he was shoving it in everyone’s faces exclaiming that his kid wrote all about him, “that’s right Steve, she picked ME for her history assignment!” and it was pinned to his board in his room from there on out, more permanent than on the fridge, he told her proudly. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Thank you for reading and as always, requests are open!!

[acrobaticcatfeline]

Unstable (A Fe Sides Fic)

Word Count: 2171

TW: It’s another vent fic babyyy swearing, yelling, insults, threats (sort of), an excess of anxiety, there’s an intrusive thought from one of them about jumping off of a building but its one line that she gets scolded for. I think that’s it but if there’s more let me know!

Notes: I had a really rough week last week and now that I’m done with school I have time to write fun things again and I needed a vent. It also is part of rebuilding my personal mind palace! I plan on making more with these guys, they are really easy to write honestly, it was like an out of body experience.

Pairings: Lol nope, not even a little bit no.

Summary: The mind palace was usually quiet. The facets did not all get along, and everyone is high strung during Quaranfinals. Someone needs to step in and get this train moving again.

The mind palace was usually rather quiet. All facets left each other alone for the most part, hoping to stay functional and avoid unnecessary fusions but the last few weeks had been out of the norm. Inge was high strung as ever and was snapping at the smallest inconveniences and that wasn’t even addressing the others.

“Listen here you unstable mother fucker! We don't have time for your whiny depressed bullshit right now! She has two huge finals and your fucking cahoots with Barbie is the opposite of helpful! She needs to WORK and you guys are actively working against that! Don't either of you care about her future?!”

“How about you shut your trap for 5 seconds and drop your high and mighty act? The only reason me and Izzy have been working against you is because you have been failing at your job ever since this quarantine started. If you actually did your fucking job maybe me and Iz wouldn’t be falling down a hole ourselves. For someone who needs to have so much control all the time it's surprising how little you’re ever able to keep. You act like you're the ringleader around here when it's obviously Izzy and Lia. I may not like Lia but at least she can work with me. You on the other hand-”

Lia and Isadora were nervous. They were onlookers in the argument and couldn't get a word in edgewise to stop them. Izzy was trying to hide in her Roman Sanders sweater and Lia was hidden in her hoodie that was too big on her, biting her thumb as her eyes darted everywhere but the fight. In the real world Fe was closing her laptop with a sigh, desperate to go and take a nap. She looked quickly to Izzy with all she had to say, communicated in the glance. Suddenly the palace shook and Inge snapped her head at Lia who was very interested at her chewed up Crocs and not the anger filled gazes directed at her.

“LIA WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

“She's too stressed. If you keep at this you're gonna wake up T and that wont help you in getting her to do her work. If T gets up right now she's gonna fail and we all know it. Let Izzy calm her down for a bit. See, she's only taking a half an hour long nap, like her dad told her to. We all just need to chill for a bit.”

Lia was scratching at her face and Inge finally let the anger and annoyance leave her. She gently swatted at Lia’s hand, placing a quickly conjured sheet of bubble wrap in it. Lia smiled at the floor, still not meeting her eyes, vaguely worried at the signs of T waking up, hoping beyond hope that she was just still channeling the hyperactivity that Fe was plagued with. Izzy was meanwhile glassy eyed, placing herself on the floor blindly, waving her hands about in a way that all three recognized as her weaving a dream. It was wonderful to watch, extremely relaxing to see her go off on an adventure of her own design. It was almost meditative to watch her methodical movements, the simple twists of her wrists as she moved the story along. Lia busied herself with popping the bubbles, as Carli and Inge both left to busy themselves in their own wings of the palace. Lia sat across from Isadora, glancing up at her every once in a while. She muttered quietly to herself and maybe Izzy as well.

“She's waking up. I don't know what we’re gonna do, we really gotta get Fe through this last week, but Isa will stop us, I know she will, but how are we supposed to still get things done”

“We’ll figure it out”

Lia’s head snapped up at Izzy whose eyes were still unseeing as she spoke.

“Talisa works with us. We just need to convince her to use her strengths to support us in this. I know she can. Besides, dreams are so much more fun with her around. Who knows, maybe daydream mode will help her write her essay”

Lia smiled softly as she felt comfortable enough to look Izzy in the eyes that couldn't see her. She nodded and went back to her bubble wrap, far more content with the slow draining of anxiety from her body. At least until the palace shook again.

“AAAAAH!!! Well what a wonderful time to be alive eh? Heh, that's a joke, gods, she's asleep and she's still exuding panic like no one's business!”

Out of a darkened corridor walks Talisa in all her glory and self deprecation. There was yet another shake as Fe awoke. Isadora’s eyes cleared in an instant as she rose to her feet.

“Oh boy, Pops woke her up? Ooooh that's not great. I'm sure she's gonna be off all day huh Iz? Oh that's just fuel for this, gosh what have I missed?”

“Quarantine you lucky bitch”

Izzy walks to her with a cocky grin and does a simple handshake with the crazy eyed side. Talisa’s eyes glance around the room. She grins wider, scratching at her scalp.

“All this panic and mania and I wasn't invited? I feel like I should be insulted!”

Lia rose as well, abandoning the bubble wrap as the need to stim left her, and walked over. She smiled small and avoided her face.

“She's got homework. Its, it's all homework now, everything's homework. I haven't been helpful much, but I knew you would probably make it all harder for her, I've been enough of a hindrance for her, I imagined she probably wouldn't do well being overly mentally compromised AND lazy as all get out”

“Oh Lia! I'm wounded! I'm not all bad! Plus-”

There was a sudden shift of the palace again as Fe sat down and started furiously writing her essay, anxiety as her fuel, aided by a giant cup of soda from the gas station.

“A little blood pumping’s good for the brain, ain't it? She just needs a little push! Maybe off of a building eh? Sounds like a ball!”

“Yo, you've been up for less than 5 minutes, stop with that shit, give her a week maybe? So we can properly talk her down?”

“Oh fine, I guess my premium service can wait to activate!”

Her hands moved from her scalp to her arms, scratching without conviction. Isadora softly took her hand off, stopping the scratching and handing her a fidget cube to replace the destructive stim.

“Ohhhh! This is neato mojito Dora!!! Where'd you think this un up? It's pretty! It's my colors too! Ain't that sweeter than molasses! Why I've been so rude, how've you been doing Dora? And you Lia?”

The two smiled. They genuinely liked her, she was nice to be around, while she had her problems, she didn't get mean and angry like Inge and Carli do. She was just… manic. A little odd, maybe crazy, but she wasn’t mean. She didn't yell, and it calmed the two. And they got along well anyways, Lia because she often was a placeholder for her when Fe wasn’t extra out of it and knew how to deal with her quirks, and Dora because divergence fed her like nothing else, made her imagination run wild.

“Whoo! Well ladies, looks like I've got my work cut out for me eh? She invited that boy over last week and that was the first time she saw him in weeks? Oh and her other school friend left her group chat? Yikes, she's a right mess!”

“Yup. she… hasn't been adjusting well to all of this well”

“I’ll say!”

Talisa fidgeted absently with the cube in her hand as she walked around the palace commons, looking around at the scenery. The walls, usually a light lavender were dark violet and the paint was peeling in spots, revealing a gooey black underside. The TV was stuck on a looping image of the most recent Sanders Sides episode. She grinned wide enough to look uncanny, bending her back to crack her spine, almost splitting in half and did a spin as she rose again. She interlocked her fingers and cracked the lot of them and twisted her neck to pop that as well. 

“What are you about to do?”

“Why, what I do best dear Lia!”

She jumped in the air snapping her fingers twice. Her appearance changed, her extraordinarily unruly hair was tied back in a ponytail, tucked through the hole in the back of her baseball cap with the Slytherin logo across the front of it. Her shirt that had been well worn from being worried between her fingers as well as used as pajamas, changed to a tangent hoodie, her shorts with frayed strings switched to a flower patterned pair of leggings, and a skateboard appeared under her feet. She spun around on the board with her wild smile never leaving her face.

“WE’RE ON THE HIGHWAY TO HYPERFOCUS BABES!!! And a little smidge of depression but hey it’ll add to its effectiveness”

It was then that Inge and Carli came running and screamed simultaneously.

“LIA YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KEEP HER ASLEEP!!!”

“Couldn't you for once just do something that was helpful for Fe?”

Talisa stopped in mid spin, turning slowly to look at Carli and Inge. She was no longer smiling. She was glaring and she stepped off of her board and took slow methodical steps towards the two.

“Now now girls, there's no need to scream!”

She was completely in Inge’s face when she said her next words.

“Isn't that right brainiac?”

Inge nodded instantly, fear filling her instantly. Talisa then turned to Carli and grabbed her by the collar of her dress. She glared hard into her eyes and began to grin as Carli’s eyes filled with panic and she avoided her gaze.

“And just for your information, Lia is more helpful than you could ever hope to be, you coward. For someone whose supposed to be confidence you’d think you might be able to share some of that with our host instead of sitting in your room at 3 in the morning and crying into Ramen over the fact that she still isn't in a relationship”

She released Carli, who fell to the ground and scrambled as far away from her as possible and sobbed quietly in the corner she curled up in. and then a moment later, her entire demeanor changed and she smiled happily.

“Oh hi there gals! I was just starting to get Fe to get working!”

Inge blinked owlishly. Her head tilted, as if the whole interaction before held no merit over what Talisa had just said.

“What? But I thought?”

She walked to the TV screen, changing the screen to be a first person view of Fe working away on her essay. Inge made a noise of confusion as she looked back at Talisa yet again.

“But, but you’re a hindrance! You, you make her life a living hell, how is she still doing her work?”

“You know what I do right? Like, you know what my job is? Come on pinky and the pain, I do ADHD yeah, but I also do anxiety and depression. If she doesn't get this stuff done she’ll fail, doncha think that'd drive her to be anxious enough to get it done? If she doesn't she’ll be depressed as all hell, there's no chance she can do law school if she can't even pass an English course. And the bonus of ADHD is that sticky hyperfocus! She’ll be done with that essay before Thursday, and that test for math?”

The palace shook again as the TV showed her turning in her math test. Talisa grinned.

“I’d say it was a walk in the park, wouldn't you? But you know, on an unrelated note, we should really fix that shaking affect, makes me dizzy”

Inge stared in shock and Carli did the same. Talisa stuffed her hands into her front pocket on her jacket and went over to the beanbag across from the TV and plopped down onto it. She pulled her right hand out and chewed on her thumb as she watched the screen. Her job was done for the moment so she let herself relax as she felt the others do the same. Inge rushed back to her room to help aid Fe with the memories needed for writing her essay, but the others placed themselves somewhere in the common room. Carli sat on her love seat and watched the screen intently. Izzy fell asleep quickly, not being needed for the moment, same for Lia, the both of them curling up with Talisa. She let her left hand leave her pocket to pat Lia's head. The only noise was coming from the soft snoring of the sleeping sides and the TV projecting the real world. Finally, finally, the mind palace was quiet again.

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Let me know if you want to be tagged in my writing or taken off my list!

Thank you for reading I will see you later ladies lords and nonbinary royalty!

[dear-space-cadet]

al horford sleeper agent

—————

anyway by now ive told basically everyone i care about but i had a life changing experience over the weekend. n it sounds dumb as shit but i met a real life dude who was basically a clone of nick from franz. weird hours. guess this is a thread

before we start i want to say i havent thought about franz in weeks. theyve gone away on their own finally but really i think my old obsessions just get replaced every few years and maybe it was my hard work in therapy or my new obsession with rap or

maybe it was just a realization or me growing up and maturing or something but i dont even want to work on my favorite fanfics anymore or anything. it’s just odd. i think im changing

and i don’t think about how my former favorite band members are doing or worry about them or check their socials n it feels really good. but i know there probably is or probably will be a replacement

ok that was a tangent. if they were replaced by anything they were replaced by new friends and the NBA. so there’s the exposition of this story sorted

anyway back to the weekend. the sleeper agent invited me to lunch. and that was the catalyst. god people are being so loud in here let me go to the art library

anyway i just kind of realized "huh i guess there's more out there." i went to lunch n shit. WE went to lunch n shit. stopped caring so much about my math homework. let myself be dumb and in love

that’s a very human thing. lunch. he spilled his stupid chipotle burrito all over his stupid bright green celtics jacket

he’s from italy. never even stepped foot in a chipotle. immediately clowned himself. some world we live in

we hung out all weekend. we went to lunch like two more times and we went to dinner. there was this big threat of leaving looming over my head the whole time. i made him walk like a mile on crutches and i feel very bad about it

i don’t know what’s wrong with him. it’s somewhere between a basketball injury and a chronic disability. either way that just made me feel even more emotionally attached to him. i never saw him without the celtics jacket

it was so cold that weekend. or maybe i just didn’t bring the right jacket. if he were a gentleman he would have offered me the celtics jacket. i didnt even hug him goodbye

and then of course he went back home. theres a million girls all over his instagram comments all the time. theres nothing special about me. he doesn't want to talk. i wrote my ap psych notes in green yesterday bc i was so in love with that stupid celtics jacket

im a sixers fan. the sixers and the celtics have been rivals forever. it was about to be war, except i want to move to boston. but really i want to move to dc. i wish the whole world was philly. things would be less complicated

im in love with a celtics jacket. a celtics jacket. of all teams. and i cant even talk to my basketball friends about it because they think im dumb shit for falling for some celtics fan with a million girls all over his instagram comments all the time

im not like those girls. i don’t think im like those girls. but i definitely exactly am

i have an economics test in fifteen minutes. i think one day ill drown in the atlantic ocean.

the test wasnt that bad. i thought about writing this the entire time. i would just zone out and stare and think about the phrase ‘al horford sleeper agent’

because he has to be. why else would someone put a diehard sixers fan right in front of a diehard celtics fan who looks exactly like the guitarist of their middle school favorite band

in reality i should be calling him a celtics sleeper agent because the whole point is that al horford is a sleeper agent for the celtics. but i hate al horford so i guess it’s more funny to include him in the title

i mean how can one player change so drastically like that? al horford was benched for the first time since his rookie season, like, two weeks ago after being traded to the sixers. how does that happen? why *wouldn’t* he be playing badly so his old friends win the title?

al horford’s gotta be retiring in like, three years, tops. he’s working for the celtics, i know it. and my sleeper agent is trying to convert me to a celtics fan

i understand why people make jokes, though. it’s a very human thing to want to go home. al horford just wants to go home. he lived in boston for however many years let me look it up

god whatever it was only three years i thought it was like eleven that just ruined my point

back to the matter at hand though that’s all we’re trying to do. we all just want to feel at home. we’re all just these little things trying to connect somehow. sometimes we are more desperate than others

i think im pretty desperate right now. sometimes i sit in my bedroom and im like damn when do i get to go home? but im home

i didn’t even want to leave dc. it was all star break and there wasn’t even basketball on. so there i was, in basketball purgatory, wizards territory for some god forsaken reason, losing sleep over a celtics fan and not wanting to go home

and when i say i was losing sleep you better believe me. i was so excited to wake up in the morning that i didn’t want to fall asleep. i wanted to be awake forever, endless, running through the city

i’ll get there soon enough. it’ll be with different people. college, yknow. all that. but sometimes i feel like certain things can’t be replaced.

and im acting like a different person lately. im using my phone at red lights just so i can check for a message from the sleeper agent. it’s always one word responses

yes. ok. maybe. some shit like that. a haha every once in a while. he’s not interested and i should stop trying

and then, INEVITABLY, i send something stupid back, a photo of my hand on the wheel or something, and i get left on read

and i know im stupid for it. everyone i know is screaming at me “disco, you’re dumb shit” but i just want to believe for a minute that im loved, im special

I want to feel like someone out there cares about me that isn’t obligated to, yknow? my mom can say she loves me all she wants but it doesn’t feel as good as some italian celtics fan saying it

some hot italian celtics fan mind you

even if he wasn’t hot or italian it would be nice. and actually it would be better if he liked like, ANY other basketball team

except maybe the knicks

but whatever. main point: i know im dumb shit and should stop trying. but it feels good to feel like if i keep trying maybe i’ll be wanted

sleeper agent is just one of those people tho. he’s magnetic and everyone always wants to be around him. dumb as hell in the most charming way ever. my friends are still all making fun of me

i started crying in a pizza place the other night because even the CONCEPT of italy sent me over the edge. i need to stop before i

wait what’s the word

i need to stop before i immortalize him? no, no

i need to stop before i deify him. soon enough he’s going to be a new canonical character in my head and i’ll start making up legends and stories to myself

we barely knew each other. if i deify him i’ll start telling people he offered me the celtics jacket when it was cold out. he’ll become a perfect gentleman. and he wasnt. he was just some stupid hot italian boy in a bright green jacket

im not going to deify him. it won’t happen. but i love the color green. i always say i love yellow more but i think that’s passed. i wear a green ring on my right ring finger every day. im not going to deify him and i still hate the celtics

overall, the celtics are winning the rivalry. i don’t think the sixers have ever truly been “great,” at least outside of philly. maybe allen iverson. wilt chamberlain. dr j? theyve never had like, a dynasty. idk. i don’t think you’d be able to get a sixers jacket in italy.

it’s his birthday today. i should probably text him. i should probably stop thinking about him. that’s just dumb shit, disco youre better than this what happened to a little self confidence every now and again

sure lets say external validation isnt necessary but also i think that’s something the mindfulness crowd made up to sell more planners and tote bags in 2011. it feels good to be wanted

never waste all your time on it sure. know youre still worth it even when you have no friends and there are a million girls all over his instagram comments. but it does feel good to hear “goodness disco i like how much you like the philadelphia 76ers”

my friends are all making fun of me for being on some romeo and juliet shit because he’s literally from verona and he’s a celtics fan and im a sixers fan god damn it disco why does this always happen

i never even read romeo and juliet but i saw the dreamworks adaptation so i guess ive got the story relatively right i know they die in the end. the gnomes shatter into little pieces i think

anyway tangents aside the sixers won tonight. philly is lit up green. why the hell is philly lit up green? the eagles were done like three months ago and the flyers are orange. why is philly lit up green

oh god, he just snapped me. a zoomed in photo of himself with caption that says “76ers” with like five exclamation points

here we go again, everybody

wish me luck

[turtle-steverogers]

Chaotic Neutral

ok so i was gonna write literal angst but then saph and i got on a tangent and this was born so take this Fruity Pebbles+Walgreens crack hybrid

warnings: stab wounds

ship: ralbert

editing: no

“Can you drive me to Walgreens?” Albert asked as he walked out of his room, looking slightly disheveled as he walked out of his and Race’s shared bedroom.  

Race glanced up from his place at the kitchen counter, chewing absentmindedly on the eraser of his pencil, “Why?”

Albert shrugged, padding over in his fuzzy socks to lean across the counter, blocking Race from his physics homework, “We’re outta fruity pebbles.”

Race rolled his eyes, “Planning to get high soon?”

Albert shook his head, “No, but I’m thinking of it right now, so I wanna get ‘em while they’re on my mind, ‘cause I’ll forget otherwise,” He paused for a moment, lost in memory, “And you remember what happened the last time I didn’t have fruity pebbles when the munchies hit.”

A dark look washed over Race’s face, “Oh, I remember alright,” he rubbed his elbow subconsciously, “I still have the scar.”

Albert clicked his tongue, “Yeah, sorry ‘bout that.  Anyway, can ya bring me?”

“Sorry, babe,” Race said, shoving Albert off his textbook, “I gotta finish this, but feel free to take my keys if you wanna just take yourself.”

Albert pouted for a moment, “Fine, but it’s no fun without you.”

Race didn’t grace him with pity as he focused back in on his assignment, “Suffer.”

Albert huffed again, “Ugh, okay, I’ll be back.”

“Pick me up some lactaid,” Race called as Albert shoved his socked feet into a pair of Race’s slides.

“Yep,” Albert shouted over his shoulder as he left the apartment, making his way down to Race’s car.  

What should have been a ten minute ride turned into twenty five minutes due to traffic, but eventually Albert arrived at the Walgreens off campus.  He trudged inside, hyper aware of the fact that he looked like some sort of college student-hobo hybrid with his bright red fuzzy socks and slightly-too-small sweatshirt.  

He scanned the cereal aisles, letting out a quiet, ‘aha’, as he located the fruity pebbles, taking several off of the shelf to stock up.  Frantic whispers from the aisle beside him piqued his curiosity and he shifted closer in order to listen.  He couldn’t make out what the voices were saying, but in his peripheral, he could see two rather burly men huddled against the wall, shoving armfuls of varying items into one of their backpacks.  Blanching as he realized what was happening, Albert considered his options.  He could casually slip out of the aisle and pretend he never saw anything, or-

“Hey,” He heard himself bark, instantly regretting his decision as the two men’s heads whipped up, fury and confusion glinting in their eyes, “What do you think you’re doing?” Albert bit his tongue, willing himself to shut up as the guys processed his words.

Albert took an involuntary step back as one of the two men crossed over to him, “You didn’t see nothin’, princess,” He snarled, the smell of cigarettes hot on his breath, “Move it along and no one gets hurt.”

Albert couldn’t help the scoff that escaped his throat, “Wow, real threatening,” he drawled, “I feel so threatened right now.  C’mon, shoplifting a Walgreens?  Seriously?  I mean-”

He cut himself off with a gasp as he felt a sharp, almost nauseating pain grip his gut.  He looked down, open-mouthed in shock as he watched the knife the guy had stabbed into him leave his body.  

A wave of dizziness washed over him as his knees buckled and he managed weakly, “There are security cameras, you know.”

The men exchanged alarmed glances, before stumbling around each other to grab the backpack.

“Yeah, bet you didn’t think of that,” Albert managed around the ever growing pain in his abdomen, “Dummies.” he added for good measure.

The men ran out of the aisle, only to be stopped by one of the employees, who must have heard the commotion.  Or seen Albert get stabbed on the security footage.  Albert didn’t have the energy to question which.  He rested his head on the shelf behind him, closing his eyes briefly, before standing up.

“Sir, I don’t think-” He hadn’t even noticed the other store clerk, hovering worriedly near him.  

He waved a hand, cutting her off, “S’fine,” he mumbled, “I’ll be chill.”

“An ambulance is on its way-”

“Where’s your first aid aisle?” Albert asked, pitching to the side slightly.

The clerk raised her eyebrows, “Excuse me?”

“You’re first aid stuff, like, band-aids and shit.”

“Sir, I-”

“Ma’am, please,” Albert groaned, “This ain’t my first rodeo, I’m fine, just tell me where the goddamn bandages are.”

The clerk looked taken aback, but she pointed to an aisle diagonal from the one they were in nonetheless, “Uh, that one.”

“Thanks,” Albert mumbled, turning and staggering towards the first aid materials.  He blearily squinted at the shelves, haphazardly plucking a few bandage packs, as well as some gauze pads from the wall.  He grabbed a bottle of antiseptic from one of the higher shelves, then sat himself down on the carpeted floor and lifted his shirt, working with shaky hands to inspect the stab wound.  It was fairly deep considering and blood was flowing out weakly with each beat of his heart.  If he were in a better state, he probably would have been freaked out by the image.  Instead, he clumsily tore off a chunk of his already ripped t-shirt and soaked it in some of the antiseptic.

He gingerly pressed the cloth to the wound, hissing in pain as the alcohol sent a stinging jolt through his body, making his head light.  

Diligently, he cleaned away the blood, then dressed the wound using gauze and bandages, wrapping tightly to ensure the blood would clot.  After taking a few steadying breaths, he stood up and pulled a crumpled twenty dollar bill out of his pocket, crossing back over to the store clerk who had been watching him in awed horror.  

He handed her the twenty, then stooped down to pick up one of the fallen boxes of fruity pebbles, “Hope that covers everything I used,” he slurred, “Take care.”

He could hear various sirens outside and decided to slip out the side door to avoid any paramedics who might see him in his bloodied state.  He hailed a cab, ignoring the frightened stare of the driver as he rattled off his and Race’s address.  He zoned out during the ride, only realizing they had arrived when the driver called back to him, demanding his payment.  Albert tipped a little extra after discovering the blood stain he’d left on the seat, then made his way up to the apartment.  

Realizing belatedly that he’d left his apartment key in Race’s car, which was still in the Walgreens parking lot, he knocked weakly on the door.

Race appeared a moment later, eyes widening as he looked over his boyfriend, “Albert, what the fuck.”

“I got m’fruity pebbles,” Albert said, smiling.  

Race shook his head, dumbfounded, “What the hell happened to you- fuck.” He grunted as Albert jerked forward, collapsing unceremoniously into Race’s arms.  Race grimaced, hoisting Albert’s arm around his shoulder and leading him to the couch, carefully laying him down the length of the cushions.

Albert leaned to the side, the pain finally catching up to him as he gagged, vomit forcing its way up his throat.  Race stepped back as Albert threw up onto the ground, blood intermixing with his sick.

“Albert, Jesus,” Race murmured, worry creasing his eyebrows.

“S’fine,” Albert croaked, gesturing to the bandage around his stomach, “I handled it.”

“Clearly not,” Race said, voice cracking as he frantically waved his hand towards the bloody vomit, “What happened?  Actually, nevermind, I don’t wanna know until we get you fixed up.”

“I am fixed up.”

“Properly fixed up, you dumbass ginger fool.”

“Race, Racer,” Albert reached out a hand, latching onto Race’s pant leg.

Race bent down, carding a hand through his boyfriend’s hair, “Yes, love?”

“Are there munchies in heaven, do you think?”

Race blinked, “My god, you’re an idiot.  Hospital time, let’s go.”

XXX

“So, let me get this straight,” Race leaned back in the crappy plastic chair he was sitting in, studying Albert as he lay in a hospital bed, finally stable, “You saw some guys shoplifting, so you called them out, then challenged them, then got stabbed, then sassed some poor store clerk, then fucking yeeted over to the first aid aisle, tried to treat yourself, then dipped before an ambulance could get to you?”

Albert bit his lip, “Uh, yeah, basically.”

“Jesus Christ, Albert, you coulda gotten yourself legitimately killed.  I mean, good on you for stopping a robbery, but next time an ambulance is called for you, fucking take up that offer, okay?”

Albert groaned, slumping down into his pillows, “But I was fine, Racer!”

“No, you weren’t!  You needed a blood transfusion, Albert!”  Race closed his eyes, emotion rising in his throat, “Listen, it was really fucking scary seeing you bleeding out on our couch and I really don’t know what I’d do if you were to like, literally die or something, so for the love of god, use your singular fucking brain cell and take care of yourself next time, okay?”

Albert softened, guilt spreading through his body, “Okay, I’m sorry.”

Race stood, walking over to Albert and leaning down to hug him, “It’s okay, I just worry.”

“I know you do,”  Albert said, burying his nose in his boyfriend’s hair, “I appreciate your care.”

“I love you, bitchass, you know that?”

“I do,” Albert smiled, “I love you, too,” a pause, “Race, you didn’t happen to bring-”

“Planned ahead,” Race said, pulling the box of fruity pebbles from under his chair.

“I fucking stan you so hard what the fuck.”

“I...stan you, too?”

“You better,” Albert said through a mouth of cereal, “I’m wonderful.”

“Uh huh, sure.”

-

jfc someone literally tell me how al is still alive at this point

thanks for reading, chiefs

hmu to be added to my tag

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