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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months ago

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Prime’s enshittified advertising

Prime's gonna add more ads. They brought in ads in January, and people didn't cancel their Prime subscriptions, so Amazon figures that they can make Prime even worse and make more money:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/amazon-prime-video-is-getting-more-ads-next-year/

The cruelty isn't the point. Money is the point. Every ad that Amazon shows you shifts value away from you – your time, your attention – to the company's shareholders.

That's the crux of enshittification. Companies don't enshittify – making their once-useful products monotonically worse – because it amuses them to erode the quality of their offerings. They enshittify them because their products are zero-sum: the things that make them valuable to you (watching videos without ads) make things less valuable to them (because they can't monetize your attention).

This isn't new. The internet has always been dominated by intermediaries – platforms – because there are lots more people who want to use the internet than are capable of building the internet. There's more people who want to write blogs than can make a blogging app. There's more people who want to play and listen to music than can host a music streaming service. There's more people who want to write and read ebooks than want to operate an ebook store or sell an ebooks reader.

Despite all the early internet rhetoric about the glories of disintermediation, intermediaries are good, actually:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/direct-the-problem-of-middlemen/

The problem isn't with intermediaries per se. The problem arises when intermediaries grow so powerful that they usurp the relationship between the parties they connect. The problem with Uber isn't the use of mobile phones to tell taxis that you're standing on a street somewhere and would like a cab, please. The problem is rampant worker misclassification, regulatory arbitrage, starvation wages, and price-gouging:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/29/geometry-hates-uber/#toronto-the-gullible

There's no problem with publishers, distributors, retailers, printers, and all the other parts of the bookselling ecosystem. While there are a few, rare authors who are capable of performing all of these functions – basically gnawing their books out of whole logs with their teeth – most writers can't, and even the ones who can, don't want to:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#intermediation

When early internet boosters spoke of disintermediation, what they mostly meant was that it would be harder for intermediaries to capture those relationships – between sellers and buyers, creators and audiences, workers and customers. As Rebecca Giblin and I wrote in our 2022 book Chokepoint Capitalism, intermediaries in every sector rely on chokepoints, narrows where they can erect tollbooths:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

When chokepoints exist, they multiply up and down the supply chain. In the golden age of physical, recorded music, you had several chokepoints that reinforced one another. Limited radio airwaves gave radio stations power over record labels, who had to secretly, illegally bid for prime airspace ("payola"). Retail consolidation – the growth of big record chains – drove consolidation in the distributors who sold to the chains, and the more concentrated distributors became, the more they could squeeze retailers, which drove even more consolidation in record stores. The bigger a label was, the more power it had to shove back against the muscle of the stores and the distributors (and the pressing plants, etc). Consolidation in labels also drove consolidation in talent agencies, whose large client rosters gave them power to resist the squeeze from the labels. Consolidation in venues drives consolidation in ticketing and promotion – and vice-versa.

But there's two parties to this supply chain who can't consolidate: musicians and their fans. With limits on "sectoral bargaining" (where unions can represent workers against all the companies in a sector), musicians' unions were limited in their power against key parts of the supply chain, so the creative workers who made the music were easy pickings for labels, talent reps, promoters, ticketers, venues, retailers, etc. Music fans are diffused and dispersed, and organized fan clubs were usually run by the labels, who weren't about to allow those clubs to be used against the labels.

This is a perfect case-study in the problems of powerful intermediaries, who move from facilitator to parasite, paying workers less while degrading their products, and then charge customers more for those enshittified products.

The excitement about "disintermediation" wasn't so much about eliminating intermediaries as it was about disciplining them. If there were lots of ways to market a product or service, sell it, collect payment for it, and deliver it, then the natural inclination of intermediaries to turn predator would be curbed by the difficulty of corralling their prey into chokepoints.

Now that we're a quarter century on from the Napster Wars, we can see how that worked out. Decades of failure to enforce antitrust law allowed a few companies to effectively capture the internet, buying out rivals who were willing to sell, and bankrupting those who wouldn't with illegal tactics like predatory pricing (think of Uber losing $31 billion by subsidizing $0.41 out of every dollar they charged for taxi rides for more than a decade).

The market power that platforms gained through consolidation translated into political power. When a few companies dominate a sector, they're able to come to agreement on common strategies for dealing with their regulators, and they've got plenty of excess profits to spend on those strategies. First and foremost, platforms used their power to get more power, lobbying for even less antitrust enforcement. Additionally, platforms mobilized gigantic sums to secure the right to screw customers (for example, by making binding arbitration clauses in terms of service enforceable) and workers (think of the $225m Uber and Lyft spent on California's Prop 22, which formalized their worker misclassification swindle).

So big platforms were able to insulate themselves from the risk of competition ("five giant websites, filled with screenshots of the other four" – Tom Eastman), and from regulation. They were also able to expand and mobilize IP law to prevent anyone from breaking their chokepoints or undoing the abuses that these enabled. This is a good place to get specific about how Prime Video works.

There's two ways to get Prime videos: over an app, or in your browser. Both of these streams are encrypted, and that's really important here, because of a law – Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act – which makes it really illegal to break this kind of encryption (commonly called "Digital Rights Management" or "DRM"). Practically speaking, that means that if a company encrypts its videos, no one is allowed to do anything to those videos, even things that are legal, without the company's permission, because doing all those legal things requires breaking the DRM, and breaking the DRM is a felony (five years in prison, $500k fine, for a first offense).

Copyright law actually gives subscribers to services like Prime a lot of rights, and it empowers businesses that offer tools to exercise those rights. Back in 1976, Sony rolled out the Betamax, the first major home video recorder. After an eight-year court battle, the Supreme Court weighed in on VCRs and ruled that it was legal for all of us to record videos at home, both to watch them later, and to build a library of our favorite shows. They also ruled that it was legal for Sony – and by that time, every other electronics company – to make VHS systems, even if those systems could be used in ways that violated copyright because they were "capable of sustaining a substantial non-infringing use" (letting you tape shows off your TV).

Now, this was more than a decade before the DMCA – and its prohibition on breaking DRM – passed, but even after the DMCA came into effect, there was a lot of media that didn't have DRM, so a new generation of tech companies were able to make tools that were "capable of sustaining a substantial non-infringing use" and that didn't have to break any DRM to do it.

Think of the Ipod and Itunes, which, together, were sold as a way to rip CDs (which weren't encrypted), and play them back from both your desktop computer and a wildly successful pocket-sized portable device. Itunes even let you stream from one computer to another. The record industry hated this, but they couldn't do anything about it, thanks to the Supreme Court's Betamax ruling.

Indeed, they eventually swallowed their bile and started selling their products through the Itunes Music Store. These tracks had DRM and were thus permanently locked to Apple's ecosystem, and Apple immediately used that power to squeeze the labels, who decided they didn't like DRM after all, and licensed all those same tracks to Amazon's DRM-free MP3 store, whose slogan was "DRM: Don't Restrict Me":

https://memex.craphound.com/2008/02/01/amazons-anti-drm-tee/

Apple played a funny double role here. In marketing Itunes/Ipods ("Rip, Mix, Burn"), they were the world's biggest cheerleaders for all the things you were allowed to do with copyrighted works, even when the copyright holder objected. But with the Itunes Music Store and its mandatory DRM, the company was also one of the world's biggest cheerleaders for wrapping copyrighted works in a thin skin of IP that would allow copyright holders to shut down products like the Ipod and Itunes.

Microsoft, predictably enough, focused on the "lock everything to our platform" strategy. Then-CEO Steve Ballmer went on record calling every Ipod owner a "thief" and arguing that every record company should wrap music in Microsoft's Zune DRM, which would allow them to restrict anything they didn't like, even if copyright allowed it (and would also give Microsoft the same abusive leverage over labels that they famously exercised over Windows software companies):

https://web.archive.org/web/20050113051129/http://management.silicon.com/itpro/0,39024675,39124642,00.htm

In the end, Amazon's approach won. Apple dropped DRM, and Microsoft retired the Zune and shut down its DRM servers, screwing anyone who'd ever bought a Zune track by rendering that music permanently unplayable.

Around the same time as all this was going on, another company was making history by making uses of copyrighted works that the law allowed, but which the copyright holders hated. That company was Tivo, who products did for personal video recorders (PVRs) what Apple's Ipod did for digital portable music players. With a Tivo, you could record any show over cable (which was too expensive and complicated to encrypt) and terrestrial broadcast (which is illegal to encrypt, since those are the public's airwaves, on loan to the TV stations).

That meant that you could record any show, and keep it forever. What's more, you could very easily skip through ads (and rival players quickly emerged that did automatic ad-skipping). All of this was legal, but of course the cable companies and broadcasters hated it. Like Ballmer, TV execs called Tivo owners "thieves."

But Tivo didn't usher in the ad-supported TV apocalypse that furious, spittle-flecked industry reps insisted it would. Rather, it disciplined the TV and cable operators. Tivo owners actually sought out ads that were funny and well-made enough to go viral. Meanwhile, every time the industry decided to increase the amount of advertising in a show, they also increased the likelihood that their viewers would seek out a Tivo, or worse, one of those auto-ad-skipping PVRs.

Given all the stink that TV execs raised over PVRs, you'd think that these represented a novel threat. But in fact, the TV industry's appetite for ads had been disciplined by viewers' access to new technology since 1956, when the first TV remotes appeared on the market (executives declared that anyone who changed the channel during an ad-break was a thief). Then came the mute button. Then the wireless remote. Meanwhile, a common VCR use-case – raised in the Supreme Court case – was fast-forwarding ads.

At each stage, TV adapted. Ads in TV shows represented a kind of offer: "Will you watch this many of these ads in return for a free TV show?" And the remote, the mute button, the wireless remote, the VCR, the PVR, and the ad-skipping PVR all represented a counter-offer. As economists would put it, the ability of viewers to make these counteroffers "shifted the equilibrium." If viewers had no defensive technology, they might tolerate more ads, but once they were able to enforce their preferences with technology, the industry couldn't enshittify its product to the liminal cusp of "so many ads that the viewer is right on the brink of turning off the TV (but not quite)."

This is the same equilibrium-shifting dynamic that we see on the open web, where more than 50% of users have installed an ad-blocker. The industry says, "Will you allow this many 'sign up to our mailing list' interrupters, pop ups, pop unders, autoplaying videos and other stuff that users hate but shareholders benefit from" and the ad-blocker makes a counteroffer: "How about 'nah?'":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

TV remotes, PVRs and ad-blockers are all examples of "adversarial interoperability" – a new product that plugs into an existing one, extending or modifying its functions without permission from (or even over the objections of) the original manufacturer:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Adversarial interop creates a powerful disciplining force on platform owners. Once a user grows so frustrated with a product's enshittification that they research, seek out, acquire and learn to use an adversarial interop tool, it's really game over. The printer owner who figures out where to get third-party ink is gone forever. Every time a company like HP raises its prices, they have to account for the number of customers who will finally figure out how to use generic ink and never, ever send another cent to HP.

This is where DMCA 1201 comes into play. Once a product is skinned with DRM, its manufacturers gain the right to prevent you from doing legal things, and can use the public's courts and law-enforcement apparatus to punish you for trying. Take HP: as soon as they started adding DRM to their cartridges, they gained the legal power to shut down companies that cloned, refilled or remanufactured their cartridges, and started raising the price of ink – which today sits at more than $10,000/gallon:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/30/life-finds-a-way/#ink-stained-wretches

Using third party ink in your printer isn't illegal (it's your printer, right?). But making third party ink for your printer becomes illegal once you have to break DRM to do so, and so HP gets to transform tinted water into literally the most expensive fluid on Earth. The ink you use to print your kid's homework costs more than vintage Veuve Cliquot or sperm from a Kentucky Derby-winning thoroughbred.

Adversarial interoperability is a powerful tool for shifting the equilibrium between producers, intermediaries and buyers. DRM is an even more powerful way of wrenching that equilibrium back towards the intermediary, reducing the share that buyers and sellers are able to eke out of the transaction.

Prime Video, of course, is delivered via an app, which means it has DRM. That means that subscribers don't get to exercise the rights afforded to them by copyright – only the rights that Amazon permits them to have. There's no Tivo for Prime, because it would have to break the DRM to record the shows you stream from Prime. That allows Prime to pull all kinds of shady shit. For example, every year around this time, Amazon pulls popular Christmas movies from its free-to-watch tier and moves them into pay-per-view, only restoring them in the spring:

https://www.reddit.com/r/vudu/comments/1bpzanx/looks_like_amazon_removed_the_free_titles_from/

And of course, Prime sticks ads in its videos. You can't skip these ads – not because it's technically challenging to make a 30-second advance button for a video stream, and doing so wouldn't violate anyone's copyright – but because Amazon doesn't permit you to do so, and the fact that the video is wrapped in DRM makes it a felony to even try.

This means that Amazon gets to seek a different equilibrium than TV companies have had to accept since 1956 and the invention of the TV remote. Amazon doesn't have to limit the quantity, volume, and invasiveness of its ads to "less the amount that would drive our subscribers to install and use an ad-skipping plugin." Instead, they can shoot for the much more lucrative equilibrium of "so obnoxious that the viewer is almost ready to cancel their subscription (but not quite)."

That's pretty much exactly how Kelly Day, the Amazon exec in charge of Prime Video, put it to the Financial Times: they're increasing the number of ads because "we haven’t really seen a groundswell of people churning out or cancelling":

https://www.ft.com/content/f8112991-820c-4e09-bcf4-23b5e0f190a5

At this point, attentive readers might be asking themselves, "Doesn't Amazon have to worry about Prime viewers who watch in their browsers?" After all browsers are built on open standards, and anyone can make one, so there should be browsers that can auto-skip Prime ads, right?

Wrong, alas. Back in 2017, the W3C – the organization that makes the most important browser standards – caved to pressure from the entertainment industry and the largest browser companies and created "Encrypted Media Extensions" (EME), a "standard" for video DRM that blocks all adversarial interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

This had the almost immediate effect of making it impossible to create an independent browser without licensing proprietary tech from Google – now a convicted monopolist! – who won't give you a license if you implement recording, ad-skipping, or any other legal (but dispreferred) feature:

https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-browsers/

This means that for Amazon, there's no way to shift value away from the platform to you. The company has locked you in, and has locked out anyone who might offer you a better deal. Companies that know you are technologically defenseless are endlessly inventive in finding ways to make things worse for you to make things better for them. Take Youtube, another DRM-video-serving platform that has jacked up the number of ads you have to sit through in order to watch a video – even as they slash payments to performers. They've got a new move: they're gonna start showing you ads while your video is paused:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/09/20/youtube-pause-ads-rollout/75306204007/

That is the kind of fuckery you only come up with when your victory condition is "a service that's almost so bad our customers quit (but not quite)."

In Amazon's case, the math is even worse. After all, Youtube may have near-total market dominance over a certain segment of the video market, but Prime Video is bundled with Prime Delivery, which the vast majority of US households subscribe to. You have to give up a lot to cancel your Prime subscription – especially since Amazon's predatory pricing devastated the rest of the retail sector:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

Amazon's founding principle was "customer obsession." Ex-Amazoners tell me that this was more than an empty platitude: arguments over product design were won or lost based on whether they could satisfy the "customer obsession" litmus test. Now, everyone falls short of their ideals, but sticking to your ideals isn't merely a matter of internal discipline, of willpower. Living up to your ideals is a matter of external discipline, too. When Amazon no longer had to contend with competitors or regulators, when it was able to use DRM to control its customers and use the law to prevent them from using its products in legal ways, it lost those external sources of discipline.

Amazon suppliers have long complained of the company's high-handed treatment of the vendors who supplied it with goods. Its workers have complained bitterly and loudly about the dangerous and oppressive conditions in its warehouses and delivery vans. But Amazon's customers have consistently given Amazon high marks on quality and trustworthiness.

The reason Amazon treated its workers and suppliers badly and its customers well wasn't that it liked customers and hated workers and suppliers. Amazon was engaged in a cold-blooded calculus: it understood that treating customers well would give it control over those customers, and that this would translate market power to retain suppliers even as it ripped them off and screwed them over.

But now, Amazon has clearly concluded that it no longer needs to keep customers happy in order to retain them. Instead, it's shooting for "keeping customers so angry that they're almost ready to take their business elsewhere (but not quite)." You see this in the steady decline of Amazon product search, which preferences the products that pay the biggest bribes for search placement over the best matches:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

And you see it in the steady enshittification of Prime Video. Amazon's character never changed. The company always had a predatory side. But now that monopoly and IP law have insulated it from consequences for its actions, there's no longer any reason to keep the predator in check.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/03/mother-may-i/#minmax

#pluralistic #amazon #enshittification #ads #prime #ad-tech #discipline

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deliciousangelfestival · 23 days ago

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Only The Lonely - Bucky | Oneshot

Summary: Late at night, the last train is Bucky’s escape from the chaos of his life—quiet and predictable. It’s his only peaceful moment. But when a stranger’s simple kindness interrupts his routine, what starts as an annoyance slowly turns into something unexpected.

Character: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Genre: Romance, Action, Comedy, Slice Of Life

Part 1, Part 2

Main Masterlist || If you enjoy my work, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-fi 🙏🏻

By the way I publish my book Arrogant Ex Husband in Kindle. 👉 Now available on e-Kindle Amazon! << here's the link.

Thank you to everyone who has read this chapter. Leave a comment and Reblog, please. I'd love to hear your thoughts. ❤️

1:00 a.m.

The last train of the night. The final hour before the city sleeps, when the world quiets and only a few remain in motion. Most passengers at this hour are creatures of necessity—night-shift workers dragging their tired bodies home, partygoers sobering up after a wild night, travelers in transit, students cramming for exams, or employees finishing late.

And then, there are the unpredictable ones. The lost souls.

It’s the perfect way to describe him. Bucky.

His job makes his life unpredictable—demanding, stressful, suffocating. Every day feels like it’s crushing him, the weight of expectations pressing down on his chest until it’s hard to breathe. But this train ride, the one just before the clock strikes 1:00 a.m., is his sanctuary.

It’s the only time his mind is blissfully empty. The rhythmic clatter of the train wheels on the tracks is a comfort—steady, reliable, unlike the chaos of his day. He listens to the low hum of the engine, the occasional screech as the train rounds a curve. He likes the way the train sways, how it rocks him gently, as if coaxing him to let go of his thoughts.

Most importantly, he likes being alone.

But tonight is different.

When he steps into the nearly empty car and heads to his usual seat, someone is already sitting there.

Have you ever felt that irritation when someone rearranges your kitchen and you can’t find the salt? That’s how Bucky feels. A simmering annoyance, irrational but undeniable.

He grits his teeth but says nothing. It’s public transportation—he has no right to be mad. Instead, he silently takes the seat across from the stranger, determined to ignore them.

At first, you don’t notice him bristling across from you. You’re relieved to see another person, especially this late at night. You’ve never liked taking the last train—it’s eerie when you’re alone—but it’s cheaper than a taxi, and money is tight. Working as a hotel chef is exhausting, and every penny counts.

“Oh, thank goodness. I was starting to think I’d be the only one on this train,” you say, offering a polite smile, hoping to make conversation.

Bucky doesn’t respond. He barely glances at you, his eyes dark and tired, fixed on the window as if willing the world outside to distract him. His shoulders are tense, his jaw set in a silent refusal to engage.

You sense his exhaustion and decide not to push. He’s tired, you think. Maybe next time.

The Next Night. When Bucky steps onto the train, he immediately spots you. Sitting in the same seat as before.

He exhales sharply through his nose, rolling his eyes. Not again.

As if sensing his presence, you look up and wave. It’s a small, friendly gesture. Bucky doesn’t wave back—he just nods, a curt, obligatory acknowledgment. He doesn’t want to be rude, but he also doesn’t want to encourage conversation.

The train ride is quiet, but Bucky’s peace is shattered.

The Third Night. This time, you both arrive at the station at the same time.

You smile when you see him. “Hey! We’re train buddies now,” you say cheerfully as you walk side by side toward the platform.

Bucky scoffs, a quiet, dry sound, but there’s no real malice in it. He glances at you briefly and catches the faint scent of caramel. It clings to you, sweet and warm, a stark contrast to the cold, metallic smell of the train station.

You’re talking about something—your day at work, maybe—but he’s not really listening. He’s too focused on keeping his distance.

Then, it happens.

A loud, unmistakable growl from his stomach.

The sound cuts through the quiet, echoing in the empty station.

You stop mid-sentence, blinking in surprise. Bucky clears his throat, his ears burning with embarrassment. He tries to appear nonchalant, but the redness creeping up his neck betrays him.

You stifle a giggle. “Looks like someone needs a snack.”

Bucky shoots you a glare, but there’s no heat in it. Just the begrudging realization that, for better or worse, you’ve become part of his routine.

You didn’t make a big deal of it—you simply reached into your bag and pulled something out. Holding it out to him, you offered, “Here, you can have this. We made too much in the kitchen today.”

Bucky glanced at the box in your hand. Before he could refuse, you added, “It’s monkey bread.” His gaze softened. It had been a long time since he’d had monkey bread. Hesitating for a moment, he finally took it. “Thank you.”

The sound of his voice surprised you—low and slightly raspy from exhaustion. It made you light up, a warm smile spreading across your face. “You’re welcome.”

The next evening, you boarded the train with a small container of cookies and handed it to him without a word. He didn’t say much, but the quiet kindness in your gesture spoke louder than words.

A few nights later, you offered him a neatly packaged serving of beef Wellington. “I can’t eat all this myself,” you said with a casual shrug. Bucky took it, feeling the warmth of the box seep into his cold hands. He wanted to say something but found himself at a loss for words, so he simply nodded, offering you a faint smile.

Then came fish and chips. “You’ll like this one,” you said, placing the box in his hands before settling into your seat. “It’s fresh.” Bucky chuckled softly, the sound almost foreign to him. He wasn’t used to this—someone thinking of him, sharing without expecting anything in return.

Day after day, you brought something new. Each time, he accepted it, and each time, he found himself looking forward to the brief exchange. Eventually, curiosity got the better of him.

“Why do you give me food every time we meet?” he asked, his brow furrowed in confusion as he studied you from across the train.

You shrugged, as if the answer were obvious. “I just like sharing. Aren’t we train buddies?”

Your simple response caught him off guard. For a moment, Bucky was stunned. No ulterior motive, no hidden agenda. In your eyes, he was just a friend.

“I owe you,” he muttered, glancing away.

“It’s just extra food,” you said with a soft smile. “Don’t worry about it.”

That was the longest conversation Bucky had with another person, aside from those at his job. He thought only silence could bring him peace, but he realized that having friends could bring him peace too.

Then one day, you weren’t there.

He convinced himself it didn’t matter. Maybe you found a better job. Good for you.

But the train rides felt emptier. No chatter about your coworkers. No light-hearted complaints about your boss. No extra food in hand, given with that easy smile.

Something didn’t feel right.

Bucky found himself standing in front of the five-star hotel where you worked. He recognized the logo from the packaging you used. After asking a kitchen staff member about you, he was met with a puzzled look.

“She’s on the night shift. I’ve never met her,” the staff member said, scratching his head. “But I can ask my manager.”

Bucky nodded. “Thank you.”

Minutes later, the staff member returned, his expression more serious.

“She quit two weeks ago,” he explained. “Apparently, some guy came in and caused a scene—flipped a table, yelled about debt or something. The next day, she quit.”

Bucky’s heart sank. His chest tightened, and breathing felt harder.

Debt?

All this time, he thought you were the bright, carefree soul who brought light into his monotonous life. But now, he realized—you were the one hurting. Hiding behind your kindness.

He swallowed hard. “Thank you… and I’m sorry for bothering you.”

The staff member gave him a sympathetic nod.

Bucky walked out of the hotel, the weight of the truth pressing down on him. I never even asked…

He clenched his fists. He didn’t know anything about you—not your struggles, not your pain. But one thing was clear: He needed to find you.

👩‍🍳👩‍🍳👩‍🍳👩‍🍳

Bucky walked into his office during the morning shift—a time when he was rarely seen. Heads turned, confusion spreading among his coworkers as they whispered to each other. Bucky Barnes, the man who thrived in the shadows, was suddenly here in broad daylight.

“Is he… actually here in the morning?” one agent murmured.

“Maybe he couldn’t sleep,” another offered, but their eyes widened when they saw Bucky heading straight for the weapons locker.

The boss, a tall man with graying hair and a perpetual frown, stepped into the room just in time to see Bucky zipping up a weapon bag. His expression shifted from confusion to concern.

“Uhhh… Barnes, where are you going?” the boss asked, his hand resting on the doorframe as if blocking Bucky’s path.

Bucky didn’t pause. He slung the bag over his shoulder, his face unreadable. “Helping a buddy.”

The boss blinked. “Oh…” He nodded slowly, then frowned. “Wait. Who’s your buddy?”

“A train buddy,” Bucky said without missing a beat, securing the bag and striding past him.

The boss opened his mouth to respond, then closed it, watching Bucky disappear down the hall with a perplexed expression. “A train buddy?”

👩‍🍳👩‍🍳👩‍🍳👩‍🍳👩‍🍳

The basement was cold and damp, the air thick with the stench of mold and oil. The dim light from a single flickering bulb cast long shadows across the concrete floor.

In the center of the room, you sat tied to a chair, your wrists chafed from the rough rope binding you. Your heart pounded in your chest as you stared at the group of gangsters lounging around, their faces hardened with cruelty.

One of them—a tall man with a scar running down his cheek—stood before you, arms crossed. “Your brother owes us a lot of money,” he said, his voice low and menacing. “And guess what? We don’t care where it comes from. You’re gonna pay it.”

Your voice trembled as you shook your head. “I don’t have the money. I told you, I don’t—”

The scarred man sighed, rubbing his temples as if dealing with a stubborn child. “Put her in liquid cement,” he said, his tone casual, like he was ordering a drink. “Then throw her into the sea.”

Your blood ran cold. Panic surged through you, and you pulled against the ropes, your breaths coming in short gasps. “No. No! God, please, no! Help!”

The men laughed, their footsteps echoing as they approached.

Then—darkness.

The flickering light went out, plunging the basement into complete blackness.

“What the hell?” one of the gangsters muttered.

Suddenly, the sound of a struggle erupted—thuds, grunts, the sharp crack of bones breaking. One by one, the gangsters fell. Some screamed in pain; others were silenced before they could make a sound.

You squeezed your eyes shut, your body trembling as the chaos unfolded around you. What’s happening?

Then—silence.

A familiar voice cut through the darkness, calm and steady. “You’re safe. Open your eyes.”

Your eyes flew open, heart racing. You blinked, adjusting to the faint light as the basement door creaked open, spilling in a sliver of light from the stairwell.

Standing in front of you, weapon in hand, was Bucky. His dark hair fell into his eyes, his jaw clenched in determination.

Your breath hitched. “Bucky?”

He moved quickly, crouching in front of you and cutting the ropes that bound your wrists and ankles. His hands were steady, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes—concern.

As the ropes fell away, you flexed your stiff wrists, the lingering ache a reminder of how close you had come to disaster. “Why are you here? How did you find me?”

“Aren’t we train buddies?” he asked, his voice low and steady as if the answer mattered more than he let on.

You blinked, your chest tightening with a mix of relief and gratitude. Despite the chaos, despite the fear, here he was—your train buddy. Slowly, you nodded, a small, trembling smile forming on your lips.

“Yeah,” you whispered. “We are.”

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chocolilies · 2 months ago

Text

─── APOLOGY. ꒱

( ୨ৎ. gojo satoru x fem!reader. . .ᐟ

gojo finds a way to apologise for ignoring you after a date night. the catch? it's in the middle of a train station.

◟ꪆ୧ nsfw, afab reader, sex in public spaces, oral sex (f receiving), slight exhibitionism, pwp. first smut on this acc!! hope you all enjoy! <3

w.c : 3.2k.

also on ao3 + masterlist !

"it's so cold!"

gojo laughed as you complained for what seemed to be the hundredth time that night, making a show of crossing your arms over your chest and rubbing your hands up and down your arms as you trembled dramatically on the spot.

"c'mon, you're being dramatic," you glared at gojo before he even opened his mouth, knowing he would say some shit like that. "it's anything but cold."

you huffed, bringing your knees up to your chest as you continued to wait for the train, the cold metal bench you were sitting on not helping much to the cold that had enveloped your body ever since you'd stepped outside.

you knew you shouldn't be complaining, he had told you to put on a jacket, but the only jacket you had would have just ruined your whole outfit! and you couldn't have that, especially when you were going out with someone as pretty as satoru.

plus, you hadn't really expected to spend any time outside! you thought you'd be in a nice restaurant fawning over your gorgeous boyfriend the whole night before getting a taxi back to your flat where you'd thank him for the meal he'd paid for, but you'd somehow ended up in the closest train station, sitting on an empty platform in the freezing cold while you waited for a train that would take longer to arrive than it would've taken to drive home.

which explained why you were sort of on edge…

"you're never cold." you grumbled, pulling your legs up onto the bench and pressing them against your chest in an attempt to get warm, resting your cheek against your knees as you watched gojo tap away on his cellphone, screen reflecting onto his glasses and making it even more impossible to see his eyes, which were usually on you.

…especially since he was now ignoring you to text whoever he was, when you should be riding the hell out of him back home.

"you're just being dramatic."

you let out another huff, glaring at him for a full minute to see if he'd react, but when he didn't, simply continuing his messaging, you scooched your body away from him, turning on the bench so you were facing the platform instead of the rails and your back was facing satoru.

"real mature." he snorted, then funnily enough, considering what he'd just said, started poking at your back, making little annoying noises each time.

"hey. look at me. hey. baby, don't ignore me. hey, hey! heeeeyyy-" you started to squirm as you noticed he'd finally put his phone down, two index fingers now poking at you incessantly as you willed yourself not to turn around and smack him across his pretty face, jumping with a squeal once they found a specific, ticklish spot in your sides, flailing your arms out in an attempt to stop him.

he threw his head back with a laugh as your hands slapped at his, shoving him back but finally turning back to look at him, face pulled into a frown as he leaned over to you with a grin, glasses slightly askew, revealing those beautiful eyes of his that were, once again, only trained on you.

"that wasn't funny."

"got you to look at me, though." satoru straight up purred, hand coming up to cup the side of your face and caress your cheek with his thumb, feeling your skin grow hot under his touch. "don't feel so cold now, baby."

"idiot." you spat, though you only made his grin grow, pouting as he leaned in to press a kiss to your warm cheeks, hand moving from your face down to your neck, running his fingers down your nape while his thumb gently pressed against your larynx, watching your eyelids flutter as he did.

"mm." he didn't bother answering to your insult, finding you too pretty in the state you were in to care. hell, he would've let you call him anything you wanted as long as he got to touch you like this, and he hadn't even gotten to the "good" parts.

his hand ran over to your shoulder, expression slightly shifting as his fingers made contact with cold skin, other hand coming up to rest on the other in an attempt to warm up your shoulders, watching your face contort in confusion before hitting realisation, grinning at him cockily.

"told you i was cold," you puffed your chest out like it was an accomplishment, unaware that instead of bringing him down a notch, all you'd done was show off more or your cleavage to gojo's already greedy eyes, the necklace you'd worn especially for your date shifting with the movement and slipping dangerously close to the valley between your pert breasts.

“oh, i can tell.” gojo licked his lips, eyes falling down onto the sight of your pebbled nipples poking through your thin top, giggling as you groaned, wrapping your arms over yourself to cover them from his gaze.

“perv.”

“oh, baby, you think that's me at my worst?” he laughed, hands moving from your shoulders to your neck, similar to the position from before, but this time, both hands wrapped around your neck, feeling your heartbeat right under his touch.

“you're always at your worst,” you blurted out, not really knowing if that even made sense, too distracted by the fact that he was this close to choking you out in public, something you'd never done outside of the bedroom. well, it wasn't like you'd done anything sexual out of the bedroom, this was the closest you'd ever gotten to dabbling in something like public sex.

“mm, but you love it.” he leaned in, warm breath wafting against your face as a full body shiver wracked through you as a consequence to his touch and the cold wind hitting your exposed back.

gojo’s lips brushed against yours tauntingly, feeling you tremble against his touch from need and cold, letting out a sigh before letting go and pulling back, leaving you dazed and confused.

you watched him get up with a grunt, standing with a disinterested look as he started to unbutton his jacket, pulling it off before holding it up in front of you with a smile.

“up.” you did as he said, outstretching your arms once you were standing and allowing him to slide the jacket onto your body, smiling in content as he buttoned it up for you, eyes dragging up his exposed arms as he wrapped them around your waist, hands landing on your ass as he moved you back to the bench. “‘that better?”

“way better. only took…” you mused, turning to look up at the clock that hung over the platform, grinning cheekily. “two hours of complaining.”

“mm… didn't think you were serious, honey. should've hit, me, made me touch you so i could see you were being truthful.”

“why would i lie?” you frowned, watching him kneel in front of you and place his hands on your exposed thighs, moving them up and down to help you warm up the parts he couldn't cover up.

“thought you were just bein’ needy, baby.” he flinched as you gasped, eyes focusing on your plush thighs before braving a look up at you, your expression unreadable.

“you were ignoring me!” you whined.

“so you were being needy?”

“no!” your hand came up before landing down on his head, a moan leaving his mouth as he dramatically collapsed, head falling onto your thighs as he continued to whine and complain softly as if you'd just fatally wounded him, huffing as you crossed your arms. “i was cold! and annoyed that you weren't paying attention to me after dinner!”

“‘m sorry, honey. was talking to nanami about work. couldn't really get a taxi with some rando while discussing this… didn't realise it actually annoyed you.” he moved his head so his chin was resting on your thigh, looking up at you with a pretty set of puppy eyes and a half concerned half amused look, already knowing you were going to forgive him no matter what.

“well, it did. ‘thought we would be home by now, but due to this stupid detour, we're stuck in his dark, cold station! when we could be at home fucking!”

gojo laughed at your crudeness, shaking his head in disbelief. “is that what this is really about, baby? you being upset that i'm not dicking you down right now?”

your cheeks grew warm, avoiding his sharp gaze with an annoyed grunt as you looked up at the train timetable, heart sinking as it seemed that the time left for it's arrival had somehow increased.

“hey, i’m talking to youuu…” gojo whined, leaning up and pressing a kiss on your jaw, hands slamming on the bench to keep himself up.

you continued to ignore him, wanting to play with him for a bit longer before you eventually gave in, your way of getting back at him for ignoring you.

“want me to make it up for you…?”

now that caught your attention.

you snapped your head towards him with a concerned look, already recognising the mischievous glint in his eyes.

“‘toru, here!?” you hissed, looking around the empty platform nervously, knowing anyone could come in at any time and see what you hoped assumed he was suggesting.

“no one's around, baby.” he hummed, kissing up your jaw and then moving to continue down your neck, tongue licking at the spots he knew were most sensitive. “and you're cold, angry at me, needy…”

you sighed out as he licked up a stripe back up to your jaw, moving to be face-to-face with you, cheeky grin on his flushed face.

“good way of getting you warmed up, apologising and dealing with my deprived girl, right…?”

his hands landed on your thighs, gently pressing into the supple flesh in an attempt to spread your legs, stopping once he noticed the uncertainty on your face.

“we don't have to, honey.”

you looked down at him smiling face, loosening his grip on you once he thought you'd tell him to stop.

he was delighted when you squeezed your eyes closed instead, spreading your legs by yourself before letting out a soft whine.

“be quick, please, ‘toru.”

“anything for you, my angel.”

you let out a breath you didn't know you were holding, being pulled further towards the edge of the bench by gojo’s strong grip, watching him flip your skirt up with a cheeky grin, exposing your panty-clad core to the cold air.

“‘toru! cold!” you complained, legs threatening to close before he shushed you, hands pushing your legs further apart.

“don't worry, i’m on it, baby.”

you expected him to get up, get his cock out before shoving himself inside quickly, but you were pleasantly surprised when he held your skirt up, his head finding its place between your thighs.

“oh my god.”

gojo smirked as he heard you cry out before he could even do anything, the thought that you had made such a cute sound by just seeing him get close to your pussy enough to get his cock twitching.

“needy, needy girl.” he chastised, clicking his tongue before lolling it out, licking up your clothed cunt a few times while you squirmed above him before placing a chaste kiss over your clit, happy to find your panties soaked with his spit and your natural lube once he pulled back to take a look at his handiwork.

you were already letting out soft whines and mewls despite gojo not really doing that much, but he, for one, was not complaining.

he'd once told you that your sounds alone would be enough to make him cum. your whiny sounds and strings of moans better than any song he could ever listen to, feeling blessed each time they reached his ears.

he could feel his cock straining against his pants, knowing that even if he might tease you for having such a big reaction to such tiny actions, he was as desperate and needy for you as you were for him, and the mere idea of getting to eat your cunt was enough to get him going.

it didn't help that this scenario was downright filthy, something he'd fantasised about for a while. eating his needy girl out somewhere anyone could see? fuck, did it get him going.

“pull these to the side f’me, baby.” gojo pleaded as he leaned back, watching you comply to his demands and tug your soaked panties away from your cunt, his mouth watering at the sight of the creamy wetness that your cute hole was pushing out with each wave of stimulation.

“god, look at her…” he whined, his thumb coming up to gather some of the slick you'd made for him, spreading it around your lips while purposefully avoiding your clit.

you knew gojo was a teaser, he couldn't fuck you or get close to doing it without teasing you beforehand, whether it be edging or just straight up being mean like he was doing now, considering he'd agreed on being quick mere moments ago.

you could feel your legs going numb, your mind going hazy and eyelids drooping as he gently caressed your cunt, heaving breaths leaving your mouth until his thumb finally came into contact with your clit, forcing you to jolt up with a loud gasp.

“good girl.” he praised, rubbing circles onto your clit before leaning his head back in with an excited look, ready to press his mouth to your cunt properly. “god, how long has it been since i've eaten you out? missed your taste, honey.”

“t-too long, ‘toru.” you whined, shaking in anticipation as you moved your hands to rest on his head, knowing that you'd be pulling at his hair soon enough. “missed your mouth…”

“can't have that, no, no…” he felt like he was drooling, like he was starving and you had just offered him a ten-course meal between your legs.

he finally dived in, your whole body reacting as soon as his tongue pressed against your clit, hands pulling away from your core and finding their place on your thighs instead, spreading your legs further apart before hearing an uncomfortable whine leave your lips.

“‘round my neck, baby. don't be scared.” he mumbled into your cunt before going back to basically making out with your clit, running his tongue around the tiny bundle of nerves.

you did as he said with a desperate whine, wrapping your legs around his neck and shoulders before leaning back against the wall of the platform, your tailbone digging into the metal bench awkwardly, but with a man such as your boyfriend between your legs eating you out like a man starved, you couldn't care less.

with your thighs pressing against his head, he could now slip his hand to your cunt to aid him in his endeavours, the other resting on a thigh and kneading its flesh.

you whined out breathlessly as he slipped a finger into your tight cunt, lips wrapping around your clit as his finger pumped into you experimentally, knowing it had been a tiny while since you'd had anything inside.

you felt like you were on another plane, the cold air compared to the heat gojo was creating down there a weird yet strangely pleasurable contrast, your heels digging into his back as your nails scratched at his scalp, tugging at his hair as you let out moan after moan, the fear of being seen that you'd initially had fading away once he finally started to eat you out like be usually did.

“s’good?” he slurred between sloppy kisses to your clit, finger curling inside of you and perfectly hitting the spot he knew would make you jolt, grinning into your cunt like a crazed person.

“so good! so so good, ‘toru!” you cried, grinding down onto his face as you started to feel that familiar feeling build up, the mixture of the assault his mouth was dealing out on your clit and the constant stimulation to your g-spot blending in to a perfect pleasure smoothie, your lower body trembling with each wave of pleasure gojo created.

“god, love this cunt so much, baby,” he continued to ramble while still running his tongue over your pussy, the tart taste of your slick driving him insane, starting to feel almost drunk off the pleasure he was giving and the thrill of eating you out somewhere so public. “can't get enough of her, she's so perfect, perfect, perfect…”

the sound of your boyfriend praising your cunt got you closer to the edge than you would've liked, crossing your legs behind his back and pressing his face further into you, wetting his entire face while you rubbed yourself against him, moans increasing in sound as you found yourself getting closer to that oh-so beautiful peak of pleasure.

“‘toru, ‘toru, ‘m close!!” you cried out, your head falling back and hitting the wall as you cried out in pleasure, drool dribbling down your chin as you felt another finger slip inside, so long and thick that you could almost imagine it being his cock.

“cum on my face, baby. you can do it. make a mess of my face.”

you felt him move his face from side to side, tongue laying flat on your clit as his spit mixed in with your slick, making a mess of his hand and creating a pool of liquid beneath you.

his words were all it took for you to reach your peak, your whole body shaking as you let out a silent scream, mouth wide open as drool dribbled down your chin, fingers pulling aggressively at his white locks.

gojo could almost feel your pleasure as you came, your sounds and shaky body driving him insane.

he moaned into your cunt as he felt your cum soak his fingers, waiting for you to ride your high out before pulling them out and leaning down to lap up everything you had given him gratefully.

“‘toru, too much…” you whined as he cleaned you up with your tongue, nose bumping against your clit and sending tremors of overstimulation down your spine, a chuckle leaving his mouth.

“sorry, sorry…” he smiled up at you, watching you slump back against the wall with a whine, sufficiently warmed up like he'd promised. “look so pretty from down here, baby.”

you whined in response, too fucked out to answer yet still wanting to reply, eyes fluttering closed as gojo got up, sliding your panties back over your ruined cunt, the man letting out a soft whine as he moved.

he looked down at his crotch, cheeks flushing as he realised that in the heat of the moment he had ended up feeling your pleasure, except not in the way he had initially thought.

cum soaked his boxers, yet he could still see the imprint of his cock against his trousers, letting out a laugh in disbelief that he was still hard after cumming once untouched.

he looked up at you with a cheeky grin, noticing that you'd already seen the state his lower body was in, leaning in for a kiss and letting you taste yourself on his tongue, taking one of your shaky hands and placing it on his cock.

“hope you're not too tired, baby… still got a few more rounds in me…”

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