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iam93percentstardust · 4 years ago

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Any kidfic recs where they have a lil kid but not a teenager? 🥰 Love ya!

Definitely! Kidfics tend to be very hit or miss for me since child development can be very hard to get right but the ones that I do like, i tend to positively love and frequently reread

You didn’t specify a ship so I went with Stevetony, Winteriron, and Stuckony, but I’ve separated them by ship so you can easily pick and choose which ones you want to read:

Stevetony

Of Strippers and Snow Shovels by @betheflame

Tony has some questions about what Peter's dad does for a living after Peter draws an ... interesting picture about why his dad is his hero.

Practically Perfect in Every Way by @betheflame and @hogwartstoalexandria

Tony Stark is a lot of things - billionaire, former playboy, professional philanthropist - but a few years back he added two more titles: widower and single father. As Peter keeps growing, Tony can't seem to keep a nanny. Thankfully, his employee James Barnes has a solution.

Art therapist Steve Rogers is really tired of living grant cycle to grant cycle, but is wary when he gets an opportunity from his best friend's boss to be his child's live-in caregiver. He hates Bucky's boss. But then he meets the kid and then he gets to know Tony and then...

And then they all live happily ever after.

Rockabye by @bladeofthenebula27

Cute alphas didn’t appear out of nowhere to help ruined omegas. That was a widely accepted fact.

Tony Stark had always known his life wouldn’t be easy as a genius omega in an alpha’s world. But not even he predicted getting knocked up and forced to move to a small town in the middle of nowhere.

Some things can’t be hidden by @s-horne

“What?” Peter sat up in the booth, suddenly alert. “Dad, what is it?” He followed Tony’s eyes right to a man in the doorway of the restaurant. A big, blond and young man that even Peter could admit was attractive.

“Is that him?” Peter asked. “He’s young.”

“He’s 32,” Tony argued, though he was still pale and didn’t shift his gaze.

“Have you actually seen proof of age? Because he looks young, Dad. Like not that much older than my age. Have you checked his ID? There are some good fakes out there, just warning you.”

“Will you be quiet?” Tony hissed, lifting his hand and waving to the man. “He is perfectly legal, thank you very much.”

Peter watched as the guy lit up as soon as he noticed Tony, awkwardly dodging the lunchtime crowds as he tried to make his way over to their table.

“Hi,” he said when he reached them, a beaming smile on his face. He made a motion to kiss Tony before his eyes flickered to Peter and he changed his course, pressing his lips to Tony’s cheek instead and stepping away quickly.

Adventures in Babysitting by @s-horne

Bucky babysits Peter for the first time on his own. There are cuddly toys, tears, cupcakes, and bedtime stories.

It Takes a Village (or a team of superheroes) by aven_garde

Three months after the Chitauri attack, Tony received a phone call that changed his life. (Or, the one in which a group of remarkable people come together and balance battling villains and raising a child).

In Trouble Deep by @festiveferret and @sirsapling

"Whoever did this has a reason, and Stark needs to be with someone who can protect him. He won’t exactly be able to protect himself like this.” Fury looked at the baby consideringly. “No, it’s you, Steve. Besides, he likes you. Suck it up, soldier, you’re stuck with him.”

Tony, Please by @festiveferret

Steve is doing just fine nursing a painful crush on his most captivating client. That is, until his babysitter has an emergency and drops Steve's six-year-old daughter off at his work. Somehow, everything goes off the rails.

like-like by nanasekei

Morgan doesn’t really know Captain America.

And honorable mention cause even though it’s just a pregnancy fic right now, I’m holding out hope for a sequel with a baby:

Baby’s Breath by @s-horne

Wow. Tony’s mind went blank when his eyes moved involuntarily and focused in on where Nurse Rogers was pointing something out on the computer screen. It was nothing, really. It was a blob roughly the size of a jelly bean. The picture wasn’t even clear. It was black and white and so ridiculously grainy that Tony couldn’t see clearly.

Oh. Actually, the reason he couldn’t see clearly was because of the tears in his eyes.

“Wow,” he said, voice breaking on the short words. “That’s…”

“Your baby. Right here.”

Tony fell silent again, just taking it all in. That was his baby. His child. A whole little person living inside of him, ready to grow and stretch and make his body do all kinds of weird things. Nine months of his baby inside of him and then eighteen years of them living in Tony’s house.

Somehow, it already didn’t seem like long enough. Seeing it on a screen wasn’t enough either. Tony wanted to reach out, to trace the tiny image with his fingers and try and feel what little extra he couldn’t inside of him.

After a long moment, he licked his lips. Shit. He was having a baby.

“Steve would love this,” he breathed out.

Winteriron

High Noon in Sandbridge (part of the Nights in Sandbridge series and does rely on some of the other works in the series, so make sure you read those first if you haven’t already) by @tisfan and @27dragons

Life is pretty good for Bucky and Tony these days. The restaurant is doing well, and they’re happy with their little family. Then Bucky’s sister meets an untimely end and Bucky and Tony are suddenly guardians to a niece they’ve only met a handful of times. Their attempts to make a home for the bereaved child are complicated by Tony's mother, Bucky’s ex-lover, and the man who claims to be Billie’s father. But whatever her parentage, Billie is a Barnes through and through -- stubborn and hot-tempered and not remotely interested in making a life in the one place that her mother had sworn never to return. Will she ever learn to call Dockside and Sandbridge home?

Place in Your Heart by potrix

They try to hide it, Bucky can see the effort they all put into making him more comfortable, but Bucky isn’t stupid, he knows they’d rather have him somewhere else, somewhere far away from their home, the place where they’re supposed to feel happy and safe.

The Long Way Round by potrix

“Maybe we shouldn’t see each other anymore,” Tony blurts out in a rush. “It’s—I think it’s for the best. If we stop.”

It takes a moment for the meaning of the words to register, but when it does, Bucky turns cold, stomach sinking. “Are—are you breakin’ up with me? Tony—”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Tony hurries to reassure, reading Bucky’s mind. “You were perfect, Bucky, I swear you were. Are. This. It’s not. It’s really not you,” he says with a small, humourless chuckle, “it’s me.”

Bucky looks at the tense line of Tony’s shoulders, at the sad set of his mouth, the defeat in his eyes, and he knows it’s the truth. Or, at least, what Tony believes to be true.

Or; sometimes, people mean well, but that doesn't always mean they know best. Bucky and Tony, unfortunately, have to learn that the hard way.

Letters to a Soldier by CityofAngels

When Peter Stark, son of the famous tattoo artist Tony Stark, signed up for a program to write letters to a soldier, he didn't know what Bucky Barnes would change in his and his father's life...

Boys Will Be Boys by NotEvenCloseToStraight

When Peter and Harley can't stop fighting at school, Dad!Tony and Dad!Bucky meet up to try and figure out a way to keep the peace between their kiddos, but end up falling for each other instead.

Stuckony

‘Til the End of the Line by Avengers_Whore

“Steeeeeve!”

“There’s the lil devil now,” Bucky murmured fondly. “Lemme see ‘im.”

Steve laughed and nodded his head, walking out of the kitchen and heading towards the bedroom. He opened the door and sighed when their omega was nowhere in sight on the bed. He made his way towards their closet and opened the door, pointing his phone at the brunet curled up in all of the clothes.

Fennel Root & Super Soldiers by @betheflame

Peter hasn't stopped crying for weeks and Tony is nearly at his whit's end. Thankfully, Steve and Bucky have a plan.

Forging Bonds by Huntress79

Just when Tony thought that his relationship with Steve and Bucky is safe and stable, he learns of a son he apparently has. How will “his” soldiers react to the sudden addition to the household?

#alle answers #fic recs #Anonymous

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theshipsfirstmate · 7 years ago

Text

Wonder Woman Fic: Pick a Star on the Dark Horizon and Follow the Light

Post-movie Diana/WonderTrev angst. “Perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of all is that Diana doesn't really learn about Steve Trevor's life until after his death.”

A/N: Definitely movie canon only, as I’m not super familiar with the comics, but I couldn’t not write this. Please forgive if there’s anything wildly OOC.

Also, big props to @blueincandescence, who made this amazing post about what Steve’s childhood might have looked like, which was an immense help in kicking off my own research.

Title from “The Call” by Regina Spektor.

Pick a Star on the Dark Horizon and Follow the Light (AO3)

Perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of all is that Diana doesn't really learn about Steve Trevor's life until after his death.

The details come in rapid, heartrending bursts in the weeks following the end of the war, but the dull ache in her chest is ever-present. There’s not a morning that she rises that she doesn’t think about his head on the pillow next to hers, not a night that she lies down to rest that she doesn’t long for his solid weight on the mattress beside her.

She had teased him, that night in Veld. They’d been halfway through disrobing, lips only parting when it became physically necessary, and she had smiled against his mouth, recalling something he told her on their first night together.

“So, Steve Trevor, this is what you meant when you said you’ve slept with women.”

His cheeks flushed red but it only made his eyes look bluer when they flicked back up at her. “Like I said, it's something of a euphemism.”

“You've slept with many women?” Jealousy, like some kind of acid, began to creep up her throat at the thought, and she was ashamed by the selfish, and hypocritical, impulse.

“Not many.” He smirked, and that burn hit her lower, making her fingertips flex against his bare chest. “And definitely none like you, Diana.”

Empirically, she knew it was the truth, but the way he said her name, soft like the flickering candlelight, reverent like a prayer, made her eyes slip closed. When she raised her head to the sky on instinct, his lips traced down her throat and across her clavicle and she lost herself in the flood of sensation. The only rational thought that remained in her mind was how foolish it would be to waste another moment of their precious time together.

Sammy, Charlie, and Chief stay in London for longer than Diana expects, given their various lines of work. They call it “celebrating the spoils of war,” but their tone isn't cheerful, grim visages incongruous with the happy, patriotic relief displayed proudly across the city. There’s no joy in a victory that came with so great a loss.

They spend most nights drinking too much at seedy establishments, and most nights Diana joins them, watching as they trade liquor for blood and listening as they tell her their most bombastic tales of Steve Trevor.

Charlie drains his glass and waves at the bar, forgetting that he’s already ordered another. “I once saw ‘im flip a tank with two perfectly-timed shots.”

Sammy’s hat is cocked too far to the side, and it tips further when he swings around to face her. Since Steve’s death, he’s been drinking his doubles like Charlie does, fast and without any kind of relish. “Not as impressive as the way you do it, my dear.”

“I once saw him row a sinking canoe upstream for 12 miles,” Chief mumbles with a smirk that makes its way around the table.

“I once saw him French kiss a duchess.”

“I tho’ it was a czarina.”

“It was both.” Etta sets down a tray in the middle of the table and everyone takes their next round with a mumble of woozy thanks. “And before anyone else goes blaspheming, remember, both were for a mission, only one was engaged, and, somewhat mercifully, they were not in the same night.”

“He was a legend with the ladies,” Sammy declares with a lecherous smirk that twitches in an odd way when it lands on her. “Bien sur, none like you, Diana darling.”

“Yes,” she admits. “He told me that.” Everyone but Charlie lets out that polite little laugh that tells her she’s said something not quite right.

“S’a a good thing he did,” the Scotsman burps. “An’ not just because you're a goddess or wha’ever. S’important to say things that need to be said.”

Charlie's sudden solemnity seems to draw the melancholy out of the others and soon, without realizing, they’re all looking at her with the same sad eyes.

“It's true.” Etta says softly, after a long moment, and Diana’s heart twists again at the tears in her voice. “You never know when it’s your last good chance.”

She and Sammy haul Charlie home not long after that, and Diana's left at the table with Chief and a half-full glass of what she knows to be whiskey, but doesn’t like any better as she becomes more familiar. He's always the quietest of the bunch, and since Steve’s death, that’s only fueled her suspicion that he might have the most to tell her.

Thankfully, she doesn't have to wait very long. Perhaps he’s already learned his lesson about saying things that need to be said.

“When Steve sent for me, the first thing I asked was why in the hell he was so eager to get to the front of the war.” Chief's candor makes her grin, but his next statement makes her stomach drop. “He told me about you.”

“I promised to get him off the island, he promised to take me to Ares.” Diana remembers, with a cold twist of regret. How eager she had been to get to the front, how stupidly naive about the ways of war.

“No, he told me about you,” the man corrects. “About where you came from, how you fought, how you saved him. He said you were like nothing he’d ever seen.”

Surprise and heartbreak flood her chest at the admission, and a memory it conjures. “He said the same thing about the war.”

Chief just carries on with his tale, unaware of her inner turmoil. “He also told me he got some of your people killed. Said he owed you.”

“No.” She sucks in a breath. “No, that wasn’t his fault.” Diana recalls the words Steve told her on the beach, the look in his eyes when she was pleading with the gods for Antiope’s life. “He was one of the good guys.”

“He said that?” The man lifts his head to meet her gaze, and she can see his question is a serious one. “I didn’t know he still believed there were good guys.”

Diana realizes that Chief had known a different side of Steve entirely, one it seems he hardly ever showed. She thinks it’s probably the same one that had pleaded for her help on the air tower that night, the one who tried to warn her how terrible a world it would be it everyone only got what they deserved.

“He was good,” she insists, like she would if he were here, if she could hold his face in her hands so he’d see the truth in her eyes. “He was noble and brave and gave his life to save so many. What more can a man do, to be good?” Chief just nods, looking at her like she’s said more about herself than Steve with the insistent, almost frantic words.

“He used to say that bravery is decided by whoever’s in power, but loyalty is the measure of a man,” he recalls. “And he was the most loyal man I’ve ever known.”

From the corner of her eye, Diana sees the barkeep give the signal to clear out. It makes her chest ache, like she’s leaving something behind.

“My father was a soldier, too,” Steve had revealed, stretching across her to lay his watch on the bedside table. He set the memento down, but didn’t pull his body back to his side of the undersized inn bed, crowding her with a heavy arm draped across her ribcage and a smile pressed to her collarbone. She wanted him again, but she also wanted to know more.

“Who did he fight for?”

This question made him stiffen in her arms, and she almost regretted it. When he looked up to meet her eyes, she saw them swirling with pride and pain. “7th Cavalry, United States Army,”

“And then, when the war was over, he had breakfast and babies?”

The corners of his mouth twitched at that, despite the anguish she could see etched across his face. “Not exactly. He had the babies, sure, but the war never really ended.” It had been so clear to her then, why Steve’s belief in Ares’ power consisted solely of the trust he was placing in her. “See, Sergeant Charles Trevor was a career soldier, and he fought for what he believed in… Eventually, it killed him.”

Diana’s heart clenched painfully at the thought of the devastation that must have caused him as a younger man, a boy even. She knew the soldier in front of her could take care of himself, but she found herself wanting to protect him and fight at his side in almost equal measure.

Her most immediate desire, however, had been putting that blissful expression back on his beautiful face. “What do you believe in, Steve Trevor?”

He had taken a deep breath in then, and pursed his lips, like he was battling the lasso of Hephaestus. But when he exhaled, his whole body loosened, and he looked up at her with freedom on his face. “I believe in love.”

She has tea with Etta one day, not long after her talk with Chief, and in between cups, the secretary asks her to go to a place called Ohio, and meet Steve’s mother.

“I've got his uniform out of storage,” she says by way of explanation, as Diana tries to swallow around the bite of finger sandwich that’s suddenly stuck in her throat. “He never gave them her address, because, well, counterintelligence and all that. So they sent the Medal of Honor and Victoria Cross to his London office.”

Etta digs into her purse and pulls out a piece of bronze with a red and green ribbon, handing it over for Diana to see. “The French sent over a Croix du Guerre as well, which is nice of them, I suppose. So I’ve uh…I’ve got those too.”

“What does any of this have to do with Steve’s mother?” Diana’s stuck on the idea, one that hadn’t occurred to her until now, that there might be a woman, out there in the world of men, who understands what it is to miss him like this. Perhaps even more.

“Well, it’s a military tradition of sorts,” the secretary explains. “Returning a fallen soldier’s honors to his next of kin. A wife or a mother, usually. Don’t your people...”

“We don’t have marriage.” Diana remembers Steve telling her about standing in front of a judge, about breakfast and reading the newspaper and promising each other forever. “And I was the only Amazon to have an earthly mother.”

“Who, by the way, I would love to meet someday,” Etta muses, so cheerfully that Diana almost forgets it’s an impossibility, turning over the spiked medal in her hands and seeing the glint off of his family name.

“This is how the world of men celebrates the deaths of their bravest.” It’s not really a question, but Etta nods. “Parades and confetti and scraps of bronze tied up with bows.”

“It's all very ceremonial,” Etta agrees at first, before sucking a breath in through her teeth. “But it's not really about celebrating how he died, is it? They're medals for honor and bravery, selflessness in the line of duty. It's more about how he lived.”

With each day they spend together, Diana comes to see more and more of the reasons that Steve trusted the secretary among his closest counterparts. And friends too, Diana muses. She's never had a friend like Etta Candy.

“Anyway,” the woman continues. “Won't be a long trip, we’ll be back before the new year. London at the holidays was Steve’s favorite. Ridiculous man, always loved the snow.”

There's so much still to learn about Steve Trevor, Diana feels a rush of nostalgic relief to hear something she already knows. That night, she dreams of snowflakes getting stuck in his eyelashes.

It's a long boat ride to America, much longer than their trip from Themyscira. Perhaps it just feels that way without his company. It's gloomy and freezing for the entirety of their journey and on the fourth day, she's just about to go stir-crazy in the shared state room when Etta digs into her bag and shoves a box wrapped in red paper into her hands.

“Happy early Christmas, Diana.”

She's aware of the significance of the impending Pagan holiday, but confused all the same by her friend's gesture.

“No, Etta, I cannot accept this.” It seems right to protest, though she knows the woman well enough by now to understand it won’t work. “I did not get you anything in return.”

“It's gift enough, not to have to this make this trip alone.” The sincere words are framed with a sad smile. “Besides, to be honest, I didn't really get it for you. It's, um -- it’s Steve’s present.”

Diana's vision blurs and her heads lists to the side, unable to see past his name written on the tag, barely hearing as the other woman explains, “I thought I might give it to his mother, but really, you should have it.”

She peels back the paper and opens the small box. Inside, nestled in tissue, is a blown glass figure, delicate and intricate and beautiful.

“We always joked about getting an office Christmas tree,” Etta explains, “but we usually weren't in one place long enough to make things festive.”

It’s a woman, dressed in a flowing gown, with wings lIke Hermes’ blossoming from her back. A simple thing, really, but it takes her breath away.

“It’s fitting in a way, isn’t it?” Etta muses when Diana remains silent. “You did pluck him from the ocean, after all.”

“Angel...” Steve's voice came almost as a whisper, but filled the silence of the room in Veld. They were tangled up in each other, catching their breaths for the third or fourth time since he shut the door behind him. “I think you must be an angel.”

“You know that I’m not.” Their faces rested so close on the pillow that her lips nearly brushed his as she spoke. “I told you, Zeus--”

“I know, I know, you're the greatest piece of pottery in human history.” This time he was teasing her, but as he nuzzled at her nose, warm hand running up and down her side, she found she doesn't mind at all. “But hear me out, okay? You come from the heavens. You pull me out of the sea, save my life. You protect humankind. Sounds like an angel to me.”

She could have corrected him again, but she decided to kiss him instead. The hours were ticking away on his father's watch and soon it would be time to fight again.

When their feet finally touch land in New York City, there’s barely time to enjoy it. Next up is a train to Cleveland and then a long ride to the Trevor family farm.

Diana knocks at the front door first, impatient for their journey to see its purpose through, and annoyed at the nerves that have begun fluttering around her stomach. But when it swings open, Etta has to take the lead. Diana freezes in her tracks, because another thing she never knew about Steve Trevor is that he got his eyes from his mother.

“Mrs. Trevor...” Etta begins, but instead of a reply, she gets wrapped up in a bear hug. Diana expects the bitter kind of breakdown that she’s watched for weeks as ships came back to harbor with less men than they departed. But there’s a soft smile on the woman's face that makes her tears look something less than tragic.

“It’s good to see you again, Etta.” She even sounds a little like Steve, the same dialect, same warmth. “Really, it is.”

“I’m sorry it has to be like this.” There are tears in Etta’s voice too as she nods, stepping inside at the other woman's insistence before turning back to the door. “Diana, this is Sarah Trevor. Mrs. Trevor, this is--”

“Diana.” She extends a hand, which Steve's mother shakes with the same smile and only the slightest hesitation. “Diana Prince.”

It's the name she'd given Etta a week or two earlier, when the secretary explained how she'd need a verifiable identity in order to do things like take a boat across the Atlantic. She's not sure why she sticks with the moniker at first, until she realizes it's one of the things she'll always be able to remember about Steve Trevor, how he sounded when he said her name.

“It's nice to meet you, Diana.” The woman releases her hand with a quick squeeze, and then turns back. “And Etta, please, I’ve told you. Call me Sarah.”

“I'm sorry... for your loss.” Diana’s heard the stilted words passed back and forth amongst strangers since the end of the war. It seems to be what one says under the circumstances, and somehow, suddenly, it becomes the only thing she can find within her own grief. “I'm so, so sorry.”

Steve’s mother turns back to her then, and gives her a long, discerning look. It’s almost too much to bear. She’s seen those eyes in her dreams almost every night since the war ended, she’d know them anywhere. “My dear, that's kind of you to say but it's certainly unnecessary.”

“I should have stopped him.” Now she can’t seem to turn the words off. She's revisited that night a thousand times in her mind, futilely perfecting a thousand different strategies where Steve got to live. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize what he was planning and I should have... I should have stopped him.”

“Diana--” Etta's right to warn her, she's spinning out a little and getting dangerously close to details she shouldn’t be sharing. But Sarah Trevor just shakes her head with a smile and takes Diana's hands in her own.

“See now, if you knew my Stevie at all, then you know there wasn’t going to be any stopping him.” It's the truth, and Diana takes what feels like her first deep breath in months, trying to smile back.

She follows his mother's eyes over to the fireplace, where there are a few framed photographs displayed on the mantle. One is the same picture from the victory parade in London, Steve grinning next to his plane. Diana battles the urge to cross the room and run her fingers over it as Sarah continues.

“Mothers of soldiers spend their lives dreading the call.” Diana thinks briefly of her own mother, remembers Hippolyta's words about her greatest joy and sorrow. “Mothers of spies just hope they'll be lucky enough to get one.”

“I should have stopped him…”

Etta mercifully saves her from her reverie, interrupting cautiously. “So, Sarah, how's the farm been?”

“Doing pretty well,” she answers, without turning to face the question. “We were back to top yield last summer, which is a good sign.”

Diana crosses to the window, where a half-melted white candle sits in a dish on the sill. She can see for what seems like miles across the rows of tilled earth, frozen and capped with white.

“Winter wheat,” Steve’s mother explains behind her. “Not much to look at until springtime. My brother-in-law runs the farm and the mill, his house is across the field.”

“That is important work.” Diana turns back to see she's being studied by both women in the room. “Something to be proud of.”

“Stevie always was,” Sarah nods, joining Diana at the window. Her hair is more grey than brown and the lines on her face might be from worry or laughter, but she's undoubtedly beautiful. Diana can't help but look for Steve in every part of her. “He’d ride his bike a half-mile across the way every morning before the sun came up, work the fields after school, and ride back at sunset.”

“In the summertime, when it was time to cut, he’d be over there all day long,” she continues, grinning blindly at the glass, at the memories of time long past. “I wouldn’t be able to see him across the field, the wheat was so high. But I could always hear him on his way home. He’d stand up on the pedals and stretch his arms out, calling to me as he got closer, ‘Mom! I’m on the wind!’”

Diana smiles and turns back to the mantle with her head swirling in a hundred different directions. Next to Steve’s army photo is a different man in uniform, a man she recognizes immediately, even though she's never seen him before.

“My boy was born and bred to be soldier, but I always knew he’d be a hero,” his mother recalls, when she sees what’s drawn Diana’s attention. “He loved frontiersman, pirate kings, dime novel detectives… But his biggest inspiration of all was--”

“Sergeant Charles Trevor.” Sarah falters only slightly when the name leaves Diana’s lips and then she blinks, looking at her like she’s seeing her anew, nodding softly in confirmation.

Diana looks again at the photo on the mantle. Steve may have gotten his eyes from his mother, but the crinkle in his brow, the good-natured smirk, and the debonair jawline were all from this man, standing proud with a rifle strapped across his back. He fought for what he believed in, she remembers. Eventually, it killed him.

“One day, Charles came back early from the front, beat all to hell.” Sarah's voice changes tone then, and when Diana looks up, she’s watching the front door. “He had ridden all the way home from South Dakota on his own, and it us took a while to put together what had happened. My little boy didn't say a word for a whole two weeks when he found out that his daddy was a deserter.”

The Amazons don’t speak such a word, but having witnessed the horrors of war in the world of man firsthand, Diana thinks she may be forming a new perspective on military obedience.

“Stevie didn’t understand what happened at Wounded Knee until some time later, and by then, his father had already given up on this world.” Diana thinks of Steve’s sad eyes, then of Chief’s words. It seems every death in the world of man is more tragic than the next. “The guilt derailed Charles for good, but it only pushed Stevie forward. He was always saying, ‘If you see something wrong happening in the world, you can do nothing, or you can do something.’”

“He said his father taught him that.” Despite what Steve had told her the night they met, Diana still can't imagine him taking the passive way out of any conflict. “He couldn't do nothing.”

“His father may have taught him the difference, but my boy never did ‘nothing’ a day in his life.” Sarah tells them with conviction that’s laced with a little exasperation. “He came home from his first day of secondary school with a fat lip and a story about a cripple boy who was getting picked on. Then it was a tribe that needed help, then an army that needed guidance, then a world that needed saving.”

“He was a hero,” Diana tells her, certain that a woman as bright as Sarah Trevor must surely know it by now. “He was a great man, and I…”

It's almost the first time she says it aloud, and she hears Etta swallow a gasp. “I’m sorry every day that he’s gone.”

If Steve’s mother senses the truth that’s threatened to spill out of her, she doesn't let on. In fact, she just smiles again, letting Diana see the best of him in her likeness. “Thank you dear,” she says, reaching up to brush away an errant hair. “But he's not gone. The wheat will grow high next summer, and I'll hear him from across the field. He's on the wind.”

Diana reaches up to touch at the wet corners of her eyes then, and when the sleeve of her jacket pulls down a little, something catches Sarah’s eyes. Oh. Of course.

“You should have this,” Diana fiddles with the clasp, her wrist instantly feeling more vulnerable without the timepiece or her gauntlets. “He told me about it, gave it to me to keep safe, just before…”

Her words and movements stop with a gentle hand that closes her palm around the watch, pressing it back towards her chest. It brings back a memory so strong, Diana’s knees almost buckle.

“If he gave it to you, dear, then he meant for you to have it,” Steve’s mother assures her with a meaningful look. “My son didn't part easily with the things that he loved.”

“Is it always this quiet when it snows?” It was in the space between very late night and very early morning when she sat halfway up to pull back the curtains and look out the window at the town square, which appeared far too serene for the war zone it had been just hours earlier. “Does it always feel there isn't a soul around for miles?”

“Is it quiet?” Steve was prone on the bed, dozing off but still grabbing for any part of her he could reach. When she looked back at him, the biggest grin split across his face. “I can't hear anything over my heart pounding in my ears.”

Diana flopped back down beside him with a full-bodied laugh that tapered off when she pressed her forehead to his. “Is it always like this?”

“When it snows?” She had nodded in agreement, despite the fact that her eyes were telling him something else entirely. In return, his told her everything she needed to know. He couldn’t promise her anything but one night, they both knew that. But maybe it was enough that he wanted to.

“It could be.” Steve’s smile matched her own and so she pressed them together, swiping her tongue across his lower lip. She didn’t ever want to stop teasing him, didn’t ever want to stop tasting him. But she knew the sun would be rising soon.

“And what happens in the morning?”

“In the morning...” he started softly, and she didn’t miss the way his gaze flickered dark before settling back on her. Time was nearly up. “In the morning, we have breakfast, and we read the newspaper, and then--”

She almost wanted him to lie to her, but she knew that he wouldn’t. “Then it’s back to the war.”

The sun is setting over the farmhouse in the distance when they step back outside, leaving Mrs. Trevor with another firm hug apiece and a promise to return someday that Diana hopes isn’t an empty one.

As they walk toward the waiting car, her footsteps slow, physically unwilling to leave this place that has memories of Steve in its bones, this place that had been the reason for so much of who he was. For miles around her, the fields are draped in white, but Diana can picture them in the summertime, golden grain high enough that Sarah Trevor would barely be able to spot her son's hair -- the color of chaff -- over the tops of the stalks.

A cold breeze picks up and Diana’s hit with a feeling so familiar, she can’t help but close her eyes and turn her head towards the sky. She’s done this countless times before, but it's never felt like it does this time, and she knows why.

Time will pass, and things will change, but Steve will always be with her. For the next hundred years, and then on after that. He's on the wind.

#wonder woman fic #wondertrev #wonder woman #wondertrev fic #diana x steve #diana prince #steve trevor #diana prince fic #wonder woman angst #first mate fic #diana x steve fic

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prettivol · 8 years ago

Text

scared to be lonely

my paper roses contest submission @v-0-3 it’s a fic!

I started this yesterday and im literally screaming b/c I was able to finish it. Inspired completely by the artwork you posted for 4k subscribers. I loved it so much and was craving to write something for it. Thankfully I finally did.

here is a song to go with it -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvZyp8zMvnI

Story below~

There was an accident a week ago and then Hiro was gone. It’s not as simple as that but Akio still misses him, draws him in places where he would normally be, brings him up in just about every conversation. And this, Yuki is tired of but can tell how bad it must be to have Hiro up and leave, knowing the way he can be. Impulsive, emo to the point it ruins other people's moods (these are Yuki’s words), and a whole lot of self-loathing. Things that Akio could usually balance out with his bright and far more optimistic attitude but it’s must be hard for them to balance each other out when they are separated and have been for over a week.

But now the days are bleak, the sun is often shadowed by rain clouds or a simple overcast sky that leaves a lot to be desired. And Yuki doesn’t know what it is that’s really hurting Akio, even after watching him from afar all week. Even now, as he sits by the window looking out as the sun sets. Waiting, perhaps for Hiro to come back. Probably, for Hiro to come back. It’s really dramatic and something right out of a drama and if Akio didn’t have amnesia he’d know that Hiro did this often and came back every time but even then he worried. Stupidly, to Yuki anyways.

“Uhm, Aki-” Yuki begins and is cut off when entering Hiro’s room where Akio seems to spend most of his days. He startles at the first vestige of sound making his sketchbook fall off his lap with a loud slap in the otherwise silent room. Apparently he was asleep but Yuki couldn’t tell from the way he was leaning against his hand, his unkempt hair hid his face just too well. “Are you okay?” She tries again, hands pressed nervously against the pleats on her dress. Akio is still blinking sleep away, looking at her, around her but his shoulders fall as if he’s expecting something. Like he has been all week.

Yuki can tell he understood her, from the way his expression shifts, calculating and forming an answer where one begins, he stops himself. And starts again. “I….I’ve been better.” Without even hiding the pain that he’s feeling, he leans over to pick up up the fallen sketch book as Yuki crosses the room, making sure not to let her eyes wander. There are countless paper roses covering Hiro’s bed, she doesn’t know if Akio made them but it’s a lot.

“You, uh, we can talk if you want? Dinner is ready.” This was -- sigh -- hard. Yelling at Hiro for upsetting Akio was always easier because he didn’t remember some of the crazy stuff Hiro did but it wasn’t like Hiro had any trouble practically recreating those memories, even as going as far as injuring Akio, again. Of course not on purpose, never on purpose. Hiro wasn’t like that.

“How’s your arm?” Yuki tries as they transition to the dining area, Akio is so quiet behind her that she has to turn and look to make sure he’s actually following. The arm held up in a sling is a grim reminder in itself of both things weighing heavily on his mind. One, his wrist is broken...because of Hiro and second, that Hiro is gone.

And some point during this Yuki expects Akio to get fed up with her, tell her to leave him alone and just blow up because everything wasn’t going to be okay and that some things just can’t be fixed. At least that’s what Hiro always did and it would go on like that until Hiro left. But Akio’s voice is soft and level when he answers, the quiver of his voice when he first woke up is gone as if by putting his guard up again that could hide all of the other signs showing that he wasn’t okay.

“It’s fine, thanks.” There is a hint of a smile trying to make it’s way onto his face but funny how even that has become difficult.

In all honesty, Yuki doesn’t entirely know what has shifted between Akio and her brother since Akio’s memory loss. Sure they’re best friends, grew up together but Akio doesn’t remember that and things are the same but very different. And it wasn’t Yuki’s fujoshi side speaking here, it was the calculated, and observing sister who begrudgedly admits that Hiro didn’t try to change anything between them. He wanted to have his relationship with Akio remain as similar to when he remembered they were best friends and that was good of him. But he couldn’t help that something in Akio’s own heart resurfaced or blossomed like rose bud in spring but the familiarity of it all made her think it was the former.

Akio ate, as much as his mood would allow him and Yuki just wanted to slam her face into her bowl the entire time, this was getting really sad. Goddammit Hiro, you’re still being a selfish prick.

Later when washing dishes and putting them away, there is a distant sound of one bedroom door opening and another closing. Yuki can’t tell if it was from Akio leaving his room and going into Hiro’s or the other way around.

❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦

The fourteenth day that Hiro has been gone, it starts tame and quiet. Just as bleak and dreary as the days before. Yuki is outside, just to take a break from the heavy atmosphere of the house. Somehow it’s even seeped outside or perhaps it just clings, heavy and suffocating. Just enough that it’s always on your mind and when you find one spare moment to not think about it you end up being grateful that you’re not thinking about it. But in that same moment of thanks you realize, you’re thinking about it all over again.

“If it’s going to rain just rain, get these gross clouds out of here.” Mumbling on her way back into the house where Akio is disappearing behind a door. They don’t see much of each other lately, Yuki tries. Akio doesn’t. He’s probably drawing again but Yuki can’t imagine there being anything left for him to draw, unless he’s drawing the same thing over and over. The thought alone worries Yuki enough to follow Akio behind said door. It’s quiet when she approaches and maybe he’s fallen asleep again but once at the door she hears it. The faint sound that only resembles paper tearing, it’s fast and frantic almost. Yuki pushes open the door to see Akio huddled over on the floor with his back facing the door and he’s pulling apart the paper roses scattered around the room. Pieces of white are raining down around him, in bits that almost resembles snow. They’re all around him, on him even.

Yuki steps in and her bracelet hits the wood on the door and Akio turns around, face wet with tears. Yuki runs over to kneel besides him, suddenly scared because it’s been this long and she expected him to snap days ago. But he picks up another paper rose from the floor and tears it apart, screaming as he goes.

“He thinks he’s nothing, can’t be good, can’t be anything!” Yuki goes to grab the paper from Akio’s trembling hands but he drops it and picks up another to repeat the process. Worrying Yuki that he’ll do something to his cast, he’s only been without his cast for two days and it’s completely possible for him to make his wrist worse. “He just thinks he’s a monster or something stupid. It’s why he always treats me like im easy to break and tear apart.”

Rip.

“I’m not!”

Rip.

“It’s not fair! I’m not- Ah! What are you-”

“Stop it, Akio!” Yuki has finally had enough and grabs the rose from his hand and sweeps all others around him away, feeling her own tears want to break surface but she blinks them away and helps Akio stand. Giving him a once over she can’t help but be disappointed in herself in letting him get like this, he should at least look better than he feels. She doesn’t have the words to comfort him right now because she knows he just wants Hiro to come back.

“Let me fix your hair,” Looping her arm gently around his as she pulls him out of the room, making sure to shut the door behind them.

And about ten minutes later Akio’s hair and pulled back tamely in a ponytail almost longer than Yuki’s but it’s her hand that hovers where she usually places a flower. Hesitant because it’s a yellow rose that she holds and she wants Akio to wear for all the thing it symbolizes. Joy, gladness, friendship, delight, and promises of a new beginning. Because if Hiro doesn’t come back this time they’ll have to move anyways. So she tucks it behind his ear gently and she watches how his eyes lift in the mirror to look at it and regardless of how he must be feeling, he smiles. It’s the most genuine one she’s seen in awhile.

❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦

Thirty-two days and counting. Well, maybe not counting. Akio smiles on a regular basis now, doesn’t draw Hiro in the places he would have been, doesn’t bring him up in every conversation or at all really. But Yuki knows he still thinks about him, how can he not?

“We’ve already watched this one.”

“Yeah well, we’re watching it again. It’s one of my favorites.” Yuki sits down next to Akio as the movie starts to play. They’ve been watching plenty of fantasy movies because it’s the next best thing being as far away from reality as possible aside from sleeping. So they’ll take the dragons, the fairies, witches and wizards and imagine they don’t live in the world that they do. In a world where it’s actually been over a month and Hiro hasn’t come back.

They don’t talk much during the movie, movie etiquette of course. But Akio pipes up just halfway through. “Is it supposed to rain today?”

Yuki is squinting her eyes and looking around because why would he suddenly ask- Oh. There’s the window just beyond them that shows the front yard of the house. And to think that Akio would give himself away so easily, through a mundane question about the sky that was growing darker the passing moments.

But she won’t mention it, there’s no need. “I’m not sure but it looks like it.” Answering honestly, she looks over at Akio to see how he’ll react. His hair is shorter (he finally let her cut it) and he’s now traded out the cast for a brace. He really does look better, he even acted like he felt better and it actually fooled Yuki.

All Akio does is hum a reply, sad eyes downcast to his lap but he does what he must’ve been doing these past weeks to fool her. He looks up and gives her a bright smile and gestures towards the screen where the movie still plays. “Are you watching? You’ll miss your favorite part.”

She already did.

Sometime after lunch and just before dinner, Yuki tells Akio she’ll make them a snack because yeah they’re hungry but not enough to eat a full meal. Yuki also felt like it was a good idea to eat something before the rain put them to sleep.

Standing on her tippy toes to reach into the counters for a bowl, usually she recruit Hiro for this kind of stuff but not anymore. It’s not that things had to change because Hiro left it’s because Hiro left that things became changed. He was a vital part to their everyday lives, even if Yuki gave him so much grief, that’s her brother and that couldn’t be sullied by any childish animosity she had towards him.

But some adjustments had to be made. Pulling up a chair from the kitchen table she test it’s stability before climbing up to open a cabinet and pull out a bowl. Yuki is younger than them both and tip toeing around Akio’s feelings has become a bit troublesome for her but it wouldn’t be fair to take it out on someone else.

“Akio, what was it that you wanted again?” She calls back to him in the other room but doesn’t get a reply. “Akio?” Calling out again, putting the bowl in her hand down on the counter just as she see’s him run past her, bumping the kitchen table and she can’t get down from the chair fast enough to keep the vase from falling over. It’s a loud crash that she covers her ears to block but it doesn’t matter now. The front door is hanging wide open and the loud pour of rain barges into the house. Leaping over the mess of water, glass, and flowers she follows Akio to the door but stops when she see’s him crash into a figure wearing a white t-shirt some ways out. And hand comes to her mouth and there are a myriad of emotions that flooding her. She wants to run out into the rain too, but also to fall to her knees and cry because she’s missed him but this moment isn’t for her.

The rocks hurt when they stab the bottoms of his feet, they tell him to slow down and take his time but it’s Hiro. It’s Hiro who stopped walking when he saw Akio come out of the house, barrelling towards him like a frieght train. And there is an impact when Akio finally reaches him, it’s cold and wet and feels very much like the rain. But Akio is solid, he’s actually here. It’s Akio who embraces him before words start spilling and he seems entirely okay that Hiro hasn’t hugged him back. But Hiro isn’t at all okay that he knows that the tears on Akio’s face are because of him, holding him just an arm's length away so he can see and hear everything Akio has to say.

The first thing he noticed before he even reached Hiro was that he was wearing different clothes from when he left and didn’t at all look as disheveled as he could have been and that makes Akio curious as to where he went but now, with him fully here in his arms, he doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t want to hear about what he’s been up to when he wasn’t here. None of that matters.

Akio tries not to cry but his heart doesn’t have the capacity to hold back these feelings anymore. “Why would you leave, Hiro? What good does that do?” He knows Hiro isn’t going to answer. “I’ve already told you that I’m not scared of you but you keep acting like you want to be a monster. Look at this Hiro!” Lifting the arm to show Hiro the brace on his wrist. “It’s healing, Hiro. Wounds heal, you can’t act like I’m broken forever. And you definitely can’t leave like that because it hurts far worse than any broken wrist, arm, or bone would!” And because Hiro hasn’t responded, Akio feels like hitting him for the first time ever.

Hiro’s head falls lower to avoid eye contact. “You act like I didn’t hurt you, it could’ve been worse. That’s what you don’t get, Akio.”

“No, Hiro,” His tone is soft again but loud enough to be heard above the rain. “You did hurt me, I get it but I know for a fact you didn’t do it on purpose so I have no reason to be scared of you or to want you gone. And I will never want those things because I know you’d never hurt me on purpose.”

“How do you know I wouldn’t?”

“Because I’d like to think I know you, Hiro. This has nothing to do with any other accident before.” A warning, to keep Hiro from saying what he knows he’s going to. “I’m fine, okay? It isn’t fair for you to just leave because you think it’s the right thing to do. Not having you here was unbearable and you fooling yourself into thinking that I don’t want to see you is unnecessary. No matter what it is, neither of us deserves to hurt as badly as we have.” Akio brings him in again, hoping maybe he’ll hug him back this time.

Yuki is still standing in the doorway with a hand over her mouth, unable to hear anything Akio is saying above the rain. She’d feel like she were intruding if she did but she could tell Akio was angry or whatever that emotion was to him. A moment after Akio hugs Hiro again and he doesn’t respond, Yuki’s heart sinks, assuming the worst, that Hiro has surely convinced himself he can’t be forgiven for what he’s done. But he wouldn’t come back if that were the case.

Akio is going to have a cold for sure tomorrow and it’ll all be dumbass Hiro’s fault. She’s just about to yell for him to come back but Akio moves his head where his forehead rest against Hiro shoulders and this way she can’t tell if he’s saying anything at all. But whatever happened did something amazing. As slow as they may be moving, Hiro’s arm come up around Akio smaller waist and squeeze as though he’d never want to let go. Yuki takes a step back into the house to hide behind the door frame, feeling like she’s peeping from a hundred feet away. When she can see them again Akio is smiling, a smile she’s seen countless times. Both real and fake but this was clearly real. Her own smile that has showed itself few and far between the past month radiates through the stormy weather.

“Welcome home, Hiro.”

#mine #my writing #paper roses #v-0-3 #prettivol

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