#that screams dangerously ill man

[wahbegan]

If i could give the trans community advice, it would honestly be that y'all motherfuckers need to start gatekeeping way harder. Like, deny it all you want, but trans isn't like black or gay. It ain't something that you just is or isn't. It's a state of mind. You don't wanna call it like a mental illness, but it's definitely a state of mind. It's okay to look at some 50-year-old dude straight dude who has never had any shred of gender non-conformity before suddenly walking into the trans support group whose appearance makes every nerve in your gut scream DIDDLER VIBES in shoddy make-up squeezed into a dress making inappropriate comments and be like "You know what? No. You don't get it. This is not for you." In fact i'd argue it's imperative for the success of the movement.

Remember, back in the good old days? Like in Silence of the Lambs, when the FBI profilers were like "Oh, yeah, Buffalo Bill ain't a trans woman, he's a violent autogynephile, it's a completely different psychology"? Why don't y'all go back to that?

Again, not to sound Machiavellian, but i want to stress that rights movements that want to be all-inclusive and for everyone and are more concerned with being good people than getting shit done are destined to fail

[jockbots]

one day my mum will realise the reason her kid talks so much abt queer and womens rights is bc its fucking important to me

[solardrop]

love bites

spencer reid x reader

summary: a drabble where spencer won't give you a hickey on the neck tags: fluff some suggestiveness. no smut but its implied so ill say 18+. inaccurate medical discussions. talks about veins and arteries and strokes. i think this can be read as gender-neutral? word count: ~0.9k a/n: something short and sweet from my drafts I decided to pull out of hell so it's very rough around the edges but I still think the concept is cute! I was watching tiktok and a very qualified and well-trusted source said this can happen so obviously its a real statistic that spencer reid would believe. Let me live ok. Not proofread!!

“People actually underestimate the dangers of certain erotic activities like love bites. There have actually been some well-documented cases of people dying as the result of hickeys. There was one case in Mexico about a 17-year-old boy dying of a stroke caused by a blood clot in his artery from a hickey his girlfriend gave him”

You blink slowly at the man you were sitting on, baffled by the absolute nonsense pouring out of his mouth. 

“Spencer, you do realize you’ve left marks on me before?”

“Never your neck,”

“Yes you have-” you pull back to think. You bashfully recall the few times you two have been intimate. Marks littered across your thighs, chest, and ass; hell even a few on your shoulder blades. But for the life of you, you can’t recall the sharp sting of his teeth marring you anywhere above your collarbone.

“Ok fine, but you have bitten me on my thighs a lot.” you recall, “I remember when you got shot in your leg and damn near bled out. So is my femoral artery not a concern of yours doctor?”

He looks away with a coy smile. HIs cheeks redden as he stutters to put his words together. 

“Your femoral artery is a bit deeper in your body than your carotid is in your neck. The skin on your body is actually about two times thicker than..”

Spencer begins to ramble about delicate nature of the neck, firing off related statistics and study facts without missing a beat. You listen carefully, still amazed by overflowing well of knowledge your boyfriend could be all the time.He looked confident like this. His eyes would brighten and every trivial connection he could make to another topic would have his lips twisting with mirth. 

This time, with the topic at hand, you find your focus locked on his neck. His adam apple bobs with every syllable out of his mouth. The pale skin of his collarbone exposed beneath his frumpled collar teased you from your high vantage point. The skin was pristine, not a blemish or scratch in sight. You pause. Have you never given him a hickey on his neck?! You run through the cataloge of your most intimate moments all over again realizing the clear absence in your relationship. 

“... so you aren’t in much danger with your femoral artery for superficial injuries like a brui-oh—!” 

His words are cut short by the graze of your teeth at the base of his neck. You don’t bite down yet. If this was something he wanted to back out of, you’d let him. You wait for him to react, kissing the pulse point that picked up pace since the first touch of your lips to the delicate skin.

You continue to mouth as his neck. Licking at tender spots behind his ear earn you little moans, followed by sharp gasps when your teeth follow in their wake. You move to pull away after a moment. He didn’t throw you off and scream attempted murder when you started, but he also hasn’t been begging you from more either. You’ve teased hm enough for one day, kisses and lovebites on his sweet lips and elsewhere were more than enough for you anyways. But before you could pull away a firm hand at the back of your head presses you back into the crook of his neck. His other hand wraps tighter around your waist, sliding you closer to him, every inch of your body pressed against his. Got him.

“Please..” he whispers. 

“Hm..?”

Spencer’s voice starts with a crack, he takes a moment to clear his throat before he continues, “You can… You can leave a mark”

“But Spencer!,” you mock a startled gasp, “Your precious and delicate carotid!”

“I think just this once is fine..” he murmurs, “and I trust you”

You beam at his honesty, ending his suffering to press your lips to his neck again. You remain gentle. Running your lips along his skin, sofly grazing him with your teeth now and again. His breath hitches above you when your teeth graze that spot behind his jaw once more. You focus your attention there. Kissing and licking and blowing until you sink your teeth down into the flesh. 

A choked groan bubbles from his throat, the sound egging you on. You suck the spot into your mouth, careful to not be too aggressive— while you didn’t totally believe hickey strokes were that much of a danger, you still dont want to fuck around and find your way into that embarrassing statistic. 

When youre pleased with the variety of sounds you pull out of your love, you sit up to admire your work. Spencer looked at you in a daze, eyes cloudy and bottom lip pulled so tight between his teeth you’re sure he’d have a bruise there too later. Your eyes drop to the love bite at his neck, the skin deepening in color the longer you look at it. You tap the spot gently with your pointer finger beaming at the wince it earns you. 

“Feeling any signs of stroke or a heart attack doctor?” you tease.

“No, but we’ll need to run a few more trials to have a real experiment here.” you cackle at his sly wording when he pulls you off his lap abruptly, pinning you below his body instead. 

“We may also need additional test subjects for this research to be truly viable.,” Before you could fully process his meaning he attaches his lips to your neck with a smile.

[theoldsports]

SHITHEAD.

Art Donaldson x Reader.

warnings: a lot of them. 18+, slapping, begging, major angst, brat!Art, an argument with make up sex. Art is really manipulative because… he is a bit and we all know it. [Y/N] is very ill-tempered too. it’s dirty.

can be a part ii to SPONTANEOUS, or read as a standalone. this is my favorite piece of writing i have published on this account.

The bed was empty beside [Y/N]. She stared at Art’s empty side of the bed. The soft green sheets and mix-matched pillowcases went unoccupied. Not because he wasn’t home, but because [Y/N] hated Art so he had to sleep downstairs on the couch.

It wasn’t that she really hated Art. She did hate him right now. Not in a funny way. Their drive home had been silent. Poor Art didn’t know how to facilitate conversation that wouldn’t worsen the situation. His sorrowful eyes, but honest eyes kept glancing from the road to where [Y/N] sat in the passenger seat. The real showdown had started between them something awful when the door to their house slammed shut.

See, Art cried when he got mad. Or sad. Or profoundly excited. Their wedding photos were two-thirds Art crying and trying not to show that he was crying.

Art hadn’t cried tonight yet. That pissed [Y/N] off. She was furious and he seemed to feel absolutely zero discernible feelings about that.

They argued all the time. It rarely lasted all too long.

It was different this time. When [Y/N] started to say something cruel or shout or weep, Art got a little smaller, but he alarmingly stood his ground. He averted his gaze and said “I respectfully disagree,” or “What the fuck do you know about how I feel?” in a dangerously level tone.

Fighting with Art about this wasn’t fun. He was too cool about. He knew he was right. [Y/N] wanted to yell and scream because Art was so relaxed and condescending in his tone. When the man who had spent his teenage years getting referred at competition after competition as literally Ice tonelessly said: “Jesus Christ, aren’t you bored yet? What, going to over-explain the same information to me again, or…?” Finally, that had made [Y/N] drag herself to bed and yank the door closed violently enough that she felt the metallic vibration run all the way up to her shoulder.

And she was still laying there, staring at Art’s side of the bed.

At the Zweig’s party that night, there were a few hot topics in the Donaldsons’ sphere:

1) Lots of congratulations from people that had known them grow up, but hadn’t seen them since the wedding or prior.

This was mostly very kind. It dragged that smirk up Art’s face and caused his fingers to dig tighter into [Y/N]’s waist. That look of pride and tenderness on his face was more than welcome.

2) Lots of questions about Patrick. His lack of attendance was felt.

Both Donaldsons dodged these question as much as they could. Art kept an eye on [Y/N]’s liquor consumption. He knew how embarrassed she would be if she said something she regretted in front of Patrick’s family. Patrick had hurt them both, but Art’s heart went out to [Y/N]. Her world had been built around Patrick’s from a young age. Art was trying to engineer his own world higher around her so she wouldn’t be able to see the old place and people that had burned her over the walls.

3) “You’re married. When are we going to be seeing a little Donaldson running around?”

With Art keeping an eye on [Y/N]’s drinking, she hadn’t really been keeping an eye on him. She just assumed he would keep his shit together. Art drinking in public was never really a concern. He wasn’t a big drinker anyway. At this point, his career mattered more and he was approaching his mid-twenties which made him feel surely less young than he had once. He wasn’t a casual beer guy either. It was Patrick who liked beer and Art who would have a moledo or something sometimes. Art did like white girl drinks, though. Tequila and fruity stuff. He had been able to shoot shot after shot of vodka like a pro in college at a season-end celebration.

Art was a tight-lipped man, but he was a giggly drunk who he got pretty comfortable talking out of his ass from behind a glass with an umbrella in it. Art was rarely comfortable with anything, so a drink or two at a party was welcome to him.

Another important point of context is that the largest point of tension between Art and [Y/N] was starting a family. They desperately wanted a child together, but they disagree on when. [Y/N] felt like she was fresh out of college, so she figured they had plenty of time. Art felt that he was fresh out of college, so he figured they may as well get to it.

Their arguments about this were once semi-regular. In the last four months or so, Art timidly bowed out and hoped [Y/N] would tell him when she was ready (sooner rather than later). He got tired of the low-tier shouting matches. Instead, he would pick fights about things that were decidedly lower stakes when he was bored.

Art had let [Y/N] field comments about family planning throughout the night. Unfortunately, when Art was polishing off a second drink, he ran his mouth a little bit.

Knowing he was the designated driver that night, Art did go easy. Art was also, like, five pounds. While he could hold his liquor with grace, he always got giggly. He watched with heavy eyelids as [Y/N] walked away to collect another drink following the dinner portion of the evening. The paper placecards with their shared last name emblazoned on them rested comfortably in Art’s inner jacket pocket to be kept as a memory.

Some guy who sold boat insurance and liked to rub elbows with talent was talking Art’s ear off. Art couldn’t remember his name, but [Y/N] would know it.

This was the precise moment that got Art in trouble.

Because when the guy whose name Art was sure started with an R said: “So! You’re married. When are we going to be seeing a little Donaldson running around?”

Art said:

“Any day now, I hope. Tomorrow. I’m good to go. [Y/N] thinks now’s not a great time for her.”

He had said it with a smirk and a stupid little laugh. It was basically locker room talk. Big deal. He would’ve said it to Patrick with [Y/N] present in the room. This guy wasn’t Patrick and he was technically speaking behind her back.

Art had forgotten how close they were standing to the bar. He had forgotten that the frequency of his pitchy tenor was known to carry. He had forgotten that he was well known to be an instigator of fights even though he never actually threw the first punch. He had forgotten that he hadn’t been whispering. He had forgotten that this guy… Richy? Ronnie? was pretty much a stranger who had no business knowing their business.

Now, Art was sleeping on the couch and his side of the bed was empty.

Jackass.

[Y/N] stared still at the empty bed and didn’t know how to articulate her upset to an Art who had seemingly yet to feel ashamed.

She had a headache and was tired. But sleep wasn’t going to come easy and all she had to look forward to was a hangover.

Art didn’t really snore, but he was a heavy breather when he slept. The lack of his white noise made the A/C blowing and the stairs creaking too loud. Maybe all of this was on [Y/N] for making Art uncomfortable, she dared to think.

Then she reminded herself that it was Art’s fault for talking too much and for drinking when he knew he was supposed to drive home.

[Y/N] rolled over to face away from Art’s spot. All she could think about is how his hands always sleepily pawed at her to pull her back when she got too far away from him before he fell asleep.

“So, what’d you do?” Patrick asked.

“She hates me.” Art replied. It was almost a question.

“I asked what you did, not what she feels. She already told us what she feels and it’s that she hates you.” Patrick stated. When Patrick had stopped through town for a match, he had come by for dinner with, well, his best friends. This had been right after they’d gotten engaged.

Art sniffled. He didn’t want to cry in front of Patrick. Art would sooner cry in front of his own father. Both men would have laughed in his face, but it would have stung more from Patrick. “We got into a fight yesterday. A big one. Like, the first, uh, big one. She’s worried about the f—“

“The future? Please,” Patrick said bitterly. He frowned and his jaw tightened, but he combatted it by tossing Art a smile before the other man noticed the tension. “Stupid. You’re gonna marry her. You’ll play tennis. She’ll do her… columns? Articles. I don’t get what it is that she does—“

“She writes for—“

“Sure, yeah. You’re gonna have two kids so you can each pick a favorite one. And she’s gonna be a pain in your ass forever. Don’t be a pussy.”

Art sniffled again and stared at the floor. “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I didn’t think I did,” Art said meekly. “I don’t get it. She gets so mad sometimes. At me.” Patrick stared at him blankly. Art had to know that he was usually at least a little bit the problem.

“Did she do the thing where she calls you a—“

“Shithead bastard?”

“Shithead bastard.” Both boys said at the same time. Art dragged his hands through his hair and looked up at Patrick. Both of them quirked a smirk at the other.

“See,” Patrick started. “You’ll be fine. Fuckin’ go after her.”

“And say what!”

“Uh… ‘I’m sorry?’ You do that kinda shit. She’ll like that.”

It was impossible to know how long [Y/N] laid there. The clock was on Art’s side and she would get spitting mad if she rolled back over.

She could just go downstairs and tell Art to come back to bed. He was probably sleeping just fine.

“Hey, hon, you don’t hate me, right?” Art’s voice whispered in the darkness.

[Y/N] was fairly certain she had imagined it. She had not heard his sweaty feet on the stairs or his fingers against the doorknob. Quickly, [Y/N] whipped over to face the door behind her.

There was Art. His sweatpants sat low on his hips and his shirt was long gone. Clothing didn’t often survive the night on Art’s back.

Really, she couldn’t help but wonder how long it had taken Art to work through coming upstairs so quietly. “Mm?” [Y/N] groaned in question.

Art rocked his right shoulder into the doorway to lean. His arms were crossed and his eyes straight ahead on her from what [Y/N] could tell in the glow of the hallway’s thermostat. “Please just tell me you don’t hate me and I’ll let you go back to sleep. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

With a sigh, [Y/N] sat up and rolled her cracking shoulders back. “I don’t hate you, Art.” Her heart melted a little bit. [Y/N] knew it was immature, but her special attack in arguments since childhood was to bandy around the word hate a lot. Not that she had said it to Art tonight, but she had no doubt said it before. More than once. More times than she could count, maybe.

She was surprised Art had never asked this before. That surprise hurt in an a way that was too complex to describe. “I could never hate you.” [Y/N] continued, voice hushed only because it was dark out.

Art’s posture relaxed slightly. “You promise you don’t?” Said Art’s evermore crippling lack of self-confidence.

“I promise.” [Y/N] replied calmly.

“Okay. Thank you.” Art said in a small voice.

“I love you, baby. I don’t hate you. You shouldn’t have to ask that. I’m sorry I made you feel like you even have to ask that.”

Art frowned sharply. “No, I’m the one that should be sorry. You told me nicely not to talk about—“

“Don’t play that. You have to know you don’t feel like you did anything wrong, so you don’t have to invent a situation where you’re some horrible person.”

Art was silent.

[Y/N] continued. “I’m pissed because you told Randy,” RANDY. His name was RANDY. That’s it. “Our business. My business, really. He’s an asshole. It’s fine. Well, not now, but eventually. But you kinda martyred yourself on it. You don’t have to do that and I don’t hate you. You know I don’t… Right?”

“I’m sorry.” Art said quickly. He was gifted at making every single minor problem his own fault. He knew he was a little bit of an awful person for that, but he would die before admitting it. Art would hide behind his martyring habit as long as his cross could hold him, though. [Y/N] hadn’t noticed before this moment, but she could see the shining of his eyes in the digital blue-green glow. Tears. This time, less than obvious waterworks. Aw.

“I’m sorry. I’m still pissed at you for running your mouth, but I’m sorry too.”

Art nodded, said nothing else and reached for the doorknob.

Here is a frustrating thing about Art.

He said he was going to leave for downstairs once [Y/N] said she didn’t hate him. He started to make good on that vow. If he says something, he’s going to do it, even though he doesn’t have to do it.

“Come on,” [Y/N] called louder than she’d been whispering. “Come here, pretty baby.”

Pretty Baby by Blondie had been their wedding song. She had been calling him that for almost as long as she had known him. Saying it, or hearing the song always made that stunning, small crooked smile stretch up beyond his sad puppy eyes all the way to his ears.

Art’s kryptonite was pretty baby. They both knew it.

He turned to look at her with a slight blush on his cheeks, almost visible in the dark. Art shifted one of his feet childishly over the other in apprehension.. “Don’t make me say it again. I don’t like to ask twice.” [Y/N] reminded him.

After a hasty nod, Art was in bed before he [Y/N] blinked. The blonde sat bolt upright beside [Y/N] with his eyes wide. Hesitant, but coyly so. He knew this pattern. The agony and shame from her brutality would only last so long. Housepets loved to cause trouble for treat.

Not to say that Art liked to start fights so he could play some low-status lapdog that got to feel his wife’s fingers comb through his hair the way he liked as a reward for an apology. The man bit his cheek to avoid a devious smirk. A part of him did like to do that sometimes, though.

He always got away with it. He was such a nice boy.

[Y/N] rolled her eyes and leaned back into the threadbare pillows. With a finger, she beckoned Art nearer. Hesitation eliminated, Art flopped slowly down beside [Y/N]; she on her back, he on his side, facing her. Delicately, Art’s fingers dragged down [Y/N]’s arm to curl in her fingers.

Not long after that, his plush mouth climbed down from her neck. Then shoulders and collarbones. Then bicep. Elbow. Forearm and wrist. Down her hand to her silver-studded ring finger. Each kiss with accompanied with an honest and dutiful I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. He was sorry. Genuinely. Sorry for the upset he brought his wife, but not the cause. Art’s beautiful duel-colored eyes glanced up at [Y/N]’s blown pupils through her own fingers.

“I didn’t mean to talk about you like that… I just… I love you so much that I want more of you. That’s all, honey,” Art laid his head on [Y/N]’s upper chest and his mouth moved against the front of her throat. “I’m just a little stupid, huh…”

Under his lips, Art could feel the rumble of a laugh rip through [Y/N]’s throat. Her fingers tangled themselves in his hair to hold him in place. “Do-don’t talk about yourself like that,” she mumbled and gave his hair a lovely tug with both hands. He whimpered. [Y/N] wanted to bottle that sound. Art would always remember what she said next and how she said it: “Only I get to talk about you like that… St-stupid.”

This was the version of [Y/N] he was going to remember when he thought of her every day for the rest of his life. That sentence, the way her hair hung from where he had pushed it away from her neck. The sting of the cold metal from her wedding ring on the back of his neck and the stone of her engagement ring pressing into where he reached his palm to place his hand over hers. There was just the wrong amount of clothes between them. Her eyes ringed smoky from the makeup smudges and the exhaustion.

“Say it again.” Art whispered, swinging a knee over [Y/N]’s thighs so he could stare down at her. His forehead pressed softly against [Y/N]’s.

[Y/N]’s mouth fell open slightly with a breathy exhalation. Holy shit. “What, pretty baby, you want me to tell you how stupid you are? You like that?” [Y/N] almost whispered into Art’s still lips. He was too shocked to kiss her back, but too turned on to pull away. Art whimpered louder than before. [Y/N] felt him nod.

So she didn’t hold back. “You think I need to punish you after you behaved like that today or something? You need to atone for what a moron you were, shithead?” [Y/N] kept her tone light enough to just about tease as her nose trailed along the side of his. Her objective was to belittle. Her nails slid down Art’s muscular, sturdy back.

They both knew Art was a masochist on his worst days. Did he get off on being degraded sometimes? Sure. But this series of events was ridiculously new and exciting for [Y/N]. And shockingly obviously for Art too.

His hips pressed into her pathetically. “What? Did you need help with something?” She asked innocently when she felt Art’s hard-on against her thigh. [Y/N] kissed him distractingly warmly for how she was treating him. Art’s head spun and he couldn’t seem to make sense of anything anymore. He had backed himself into the best kind of corner.

Across Art’s hips and side went [Y/N]’s left hand, to the front of his sweatpants. Humiliatingly, Art blinked tears out of his eyes and screwed them shut. His mouth opened and closed, but no intelligent sound came out. [Y/N] planted a kiss at the corner of his parted lips. His strong arms boxed [Y/N] protectively in from above, but she had him locked into place, really. “Baby, if you want something, you know you have to ask for it.”

“Nnh,” Art tried, eyes stuck shut. His attention was mostly spent hold himself up over his wife. His insanely gorgeous wife. [Y/N]’s other hand grabbed his jaw tenderly. He still didn’t look at her. Art was gathering his courage. “Yo-you already told me I couldn’t have what I wanted.”

With a sharp inhale, [Y/N] grip went from gentle to nonexistent. At the lack of contact, Art’s damp eyes crept open one at a time to see if his brattiness had overstepped the situation. His frightened eyes caught [Y/N]’s. She popped the side of his face sharply with an open palm. Art blinked and tipped his head to the side like a dog.

That was big trouble, huh?

“Fuck,” he said. Both of them panted in sync. “I’m sorry.” He meant it.

[Y/N] pulled Art’s face to hers and kissed him hard. “I love… you.” She said.

[audreycritter]

every time i see a post talking about how alfred pennyworth failed bruce for not getting him into therapy as a kid i want to scream.

it did not exist. the idea that children could have PTSD was just starting to be discussed in the late 80s/early 90s at the FRINGE of child psychology, and then trauma therapy even for adults spent an unhelpful 2ish decades dominated by forced-conversation talk therapy. that's a thing that is detrimental to trauma recovery, because if someone doesn't feel safe or in control of the dialogue about their trauma and is repeatedly asked to describe their trauma when they're uneasy, it COMPOUNDS TRAUMA AND FEELINGS OF DANGER.

when bruce was a kid, even the best psychs available would have had training that taught them kids bounce back, that kids don't respond to or handle trauma the way adults do, and that any behaviors post-trauma were almost certainly unrelated mental illness.

i see this esp in fandom circles but a gentle reminder that therapy even when it's good doesn't fix everything. even if bruce had HAD access to good childhood PTSD therapy, he would still have grief, he would still potentially be socially awkward or withdrawn, he might have still decided to be Batman because it's a comic book where being a vigilante isn't as wild as it is irl.

therapy requires honesty, readiness, safety, sound application of theory, an accurate picture of life outside the therapy room (self-reporting is often flawed!), consistency, and more! it can help but it doesn't erase trauma or grief. it's dismissive of the history of trauma therapy to say an adult "should have" had a kid in a therapy approach that didn't exist, and it's dismissive of the actual work of therapy to act like therapy would have made everything ideal. bruce isn't going to be a normal, well-adjusted adult because his parents were murdered in front of him. he could be happy! he could have coping skills! but honestly it would be weirder if he didn't wrestle with residual trauma and grief throughout his life.

and maybe this is just because i love Batman, and love specifically Batman as a symbol/figure of hope and sacrifice and the belief that every life matters, but I don't think the worst ending here is Bruce deciding to give up a lot of his time, energy, and health to work in Gotham AND then choose to parent a traumatized child and actively meet his needs. like you think the alternative is that Alfred is a better parent by getting him into non-existent therapy and then he stays comfortably wealthy at home and is just another rich dude? that's the ideal version? the one who can't help Dick Grayson because Dick Grayson wants to run away and murder a man?

anyway tl;dr alfred should have flaws, yes, but there's a big gap between "flawed human parental figure" and "man who massively failed Bruce in multiple ways, one of which was not putting him in therapy."

[sunnymoonxx]

❝paint me a heaven of love with your bloodied mouth❞ | qimir x reader, ch1

pairing: qimir x fem!reader!yord's sister

summary: You were never confident about the retreat mission on Khofar, always fearing for your safety and that of your friends. Your worst nightmare comes true when a mysterious masked man kills your brother. Driven by grief and rage, you launch a desperate attack, which leaves you unconscious. You wake up, surprisingly unharmed, on the stranger's home island. Consumed by anger and a thirst for revenge, you set out to avenge your brother, only to uncover secrets you never imagined.

warnings: MDNI!, english is not my native language, violence, major character death, mentions of blood, mental illness, smut in upcoming chapters, enemies to lovers, vulgar language, angst n comfort

a/n: planning for this to be a mini-series, around five chapters, and for the idea I have to thank @ladysw01 . Hope y'all like this one too, and also stay tuned for he turns me scarlet pt2, it's in the works!

now playing, when it's cold i'd like to die by, moby

Shadows loomed, their rough forms twisting in the dim moonlight, filtering through the dense canopy above. The forest floor was a maze of roots and underbrush, but you navigated it with the agility of a creature born to the wild. Sweat poured down your face, stinging your eyes, blending with the fear that clawed at your heart.

You felt it—the tug in your heart, tearing at its edges. You experienced it once before and hoped you’d never have to again. But now, it was back, and far worse than ever. You dared to imagine what might happen but quickly dismissed the thought. He was your only family. You couldn’t let it happen.

Your breath came in ragged gasps as you sprinted through the oppressive darkness, the hum of your ignited lightsaber a solitary beacon in the gloom. Branches whipped your cheeks and tangled in your hair, but you pushed on, driven by the urgent sense of danger thrumming through the Force. You had felt it, a disturbance sharp and sudden, a vision of your Yord in mortal danger.

"Yord!" you screamed; your voice swallowed by the infinite, uncaring wilderness. Your steps faltered as the sense of dread intensified, leading you closer, ever closer, to the source of your terror.

Bursting into a clearing, you slid to a halt, your heart crashing at the sight before you. Yord was hanging mid-air, his feet dangling uselessly, held above by a dark force. The stranger you heard so much about, stood before him, one bloody hand outstretched, the other resting at their side with an eerie calmness.

Your eyes were only glued on the man and your brother, dangling in the air. You failed to see Master Sol and Mae standing close by, both standing there in shock, not daring to breathe.

Before you managed to move or cry out, in a fluid, almost nonchalant motion, the stranger twisted their wrist. Your heart stopped. A sickening snap echoed through the forest, and Yord's body went limp, his lifeless form flung aside with a casual flick, landing in a crumpled heap against the base of a tree.

Numbly, you stared at the lifeless body, discarded like a ragdoll, as if he meant nothing. No tears left your eyes, but you swore you couldn't feel your heart beating, as if it had stopped when your Yord’s did. You didn't know how long you stood there, staring at the person who once made you laugh and helped you become a better person. His soft laugh, his insistence on following the rules, and his desire to please others—all gone. He had taught you how to read. Now, everything was gone. His laughter faded into the darkness along with his heartbeat.

You felt like you heard faint voices in the background, but all your focus was on Yord's empty eyes.

It was Sol, shouting your name, desperately warning you to move. But no matter how hard you tried; you were frozen in place. The shock and grief had paralyzed you. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you caught a glimpse of the creature in the mask. The small flicker of its movement shattered your paralysis, and a surge of anger erupted within you, erasing all other thoughts. The need for vengeance overtook your grief, fueling your every breath and heartbeat.

It all happened like a fever dream—foggy, with only a few clear fragments. You heard a scream, unable to tell if it was yours or someone else's. But you didn't care. Your legs moved on their own toward the stranger, your eyes fixed on his dark, long waves of hair.

Your lightsaber slipped through your fingers, the weight of it suddenly too heavy to hold. Your arms seemed to move of their own accord, rising toward the sky as if reaching for something beyond grasp. The air crackled with a threating storm, ear-shattering roar that drowned out all other sounds. In that moment, you locked eyes with the stranger, fear etched deeply into their features, mirroring your own uncertainty.

Time slowed to a crawl as lightning split the sky, casting an eerie glow over the scene. The thunderous boom echoed through your bones, shaking you to your core. The stranger's expression twisted in horror, as if they knew something you didn't, something that would change everything.

Then, as swiftly as the storm had gathered, darkness enveloped your senses. Your consciousness faded into the cool embrace of the moss beneath you, leaving behind unanswered questions and a lingering sense of dread.

*· . ✶

As you woke up, cold air embraced you, raising goosebumps across your body. Your head pounded with such intensity that you considered it might explode, while your arms trembled in lingering unease. You slowly lifted yourself up on your elbows, trying to figure out where you were and recall anything that had happened.

Your head throbbed painfully, your legs were covered in bruises, and your hands were wrapped in bandages. Confused, you tore them off, only to reveal deep burns etched like tree branches from your palms down to your forearms, resembling thunder silhouettes in the sky.

You had no memory of what had happened, until you spotted your lightsaber next to the mouth of the cave you found yourself trapped in. Yord.

Yord.

Yord was dead. Your brother was dead. My brother's dead. Dead.

Your heart sank into your stomach, and suddenly, you found yourself lying on your side, vomiting beside your makeshift bed. Your hair fell like curtains around your head, your eyes fluttering shut. The reality of your Yord’s death was almost too much to bear. Thoughts swirled chaotically; you wanted to scream, cry, and even trade places with him. Emotions blurred together in your mind, but one stood out starkly: anger. It surged within you, painting your vision red. You yearned for revenge, for the murderer to suffer, to experience the agony you felt in that moment.

You didn't dare count how long you bent over, vomiting on the cold cave surface. The bitter taste of vomit mixed with your salty tears woke you up, pushing you to pull yourself together and look around. You struggled to breathe and see through your watery eyes, so you reached out through the Force. Finding yourself in a small cave on an unfamiliar island, surrounded by a wild ocean, you caught sight of a shadowy figure. A dark force enveloping their silhouette.

Your heart skipped a beat as your eyes flew open. There he was—the one who had taken Yord’s life. And now he has brought you here. Was it to end your life as well? To make you suffer? But you were already in agony. Doubt lingered whether he could intensify the pain any further.

You reached out through the Force again, seeking a clear vision of the target's location. You saw him taking slow, deliberate steps, carefully navigating around sharp rocks until he reached a shore where water brushed around his ankles. Following his trail from your current position, you discovered a path that would lead you to him.

It took you minutes to find the strength to get out of bed, ignoring the messy curls in front of your eyes and the dirty clothes from the previous night. Grabbing your lightsaber, you made your way out of the cave. Trusting your intuition, you followed the stranger's path, mentally preparing to face him. Fear wasn't in your heart—only fury and grief. You wanted to see his head separate from his body.

The trail was longer than expected, but you didn't stop once you reached your target. He swam peacefully in the calm water, his back facing you. His long, wet hair draped over strong shoulders marked with scars. You watched as he ran his hand through his hair—the same hand that had killed Yord and torn your family apart. Anger surged within you; your fury fueled by the simple sight of him.

He sensed you; you could feel it. Your anger was loud enough for the entire galaxy to hear, and you wanted him to hear it the loudest. Without thinking, you began walking towards the water, lightsaber ignited, ready to strike.

You focused solely on him—his strong back and raven hair. He didn’t even turn to face you, though you knew he could feel all your emotions. He remained motionless, confident that you wouldn’t attack. Or at least, he thought so.

Lifting your lightsaber as you closed the distance, the water now up to your hips, you struck his back. The stranger was slow to react, barely managing to block your attack. Your lightsaber grazed his shoulder, leaving a scorching scar. Realizing he was wrong about your intentions, he moved quickly in the water, turning and twisting your arm until you dropped your lightsaber, just as he had done with your brother. He pressed you against his chest, his hands gripping your arms, but before he could strangle you, you drove your elbow into his ribs, pushing hard until you heard a crack.

He released his grip to catch his breath, giving you a few precious seconds to summon your lightsaber from the depths of the water. As it returned to your hand, poised to strike, you felt the stranger's hands clamp down on your shoulders, his fingers digging in fiercely. The pain seared through you, his nails tearing at your flesh. Taking advantage of your vulnerable position, he seized your lightsaber and snapped it in half effortlessly, as if it was a mere stick. You watched in disbelief as he threw the broken parts into the deep ocean behind you, leaving you stunned. Before you could react, he swiftly wrapped one arm around your neck while the other pinned your hands behind your back, pressing his body close against yours.

"Not the morning greeting I was hoping for," he purred against your ear, his arm tightening around your windpipe, robbing you of breath. You felt a strange sensation in your stomach as he pressed closer, the warmth of his body making you shiver involuntarily. It was unsettling, making you feel nauseous.

You fought back, struggling to break free from his grasp, but with each attempt, his hold on you tightened, leaving marks on your neck and wrists. You fought against the tears threatening to fall, overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness and humiliation. You yearned to threaten him, to make him scream for what he had done to Yord and to you.

But you couldn't move an inch, forced to endure his deadly grip on you. You felt his breath tickling the hair on your neck, his damp, bare body pressed against your back, his hand crushing your wrists together.

“Do you remember me?” he asked, his voice low against your ear, his nose pressing against your cheek. You felt his smile as you struggled to breathe and move, fighting against his overpowering grip. The fury surged through you even more intensely, his mocking tone fueling a desire to scream out in defiance. How could you not? You saw him twist your brother’s neck and you were certain he was about to do the same thing to you.

As if he could read your mind, which he likely could, he chuckled softly to himself.

"Not from yesterday," he murmured into your ear, his arm around your neck loosening slightly to allow you to breathe, yet he did not release you. "We met a few days ago, in my shop. You were there too." he continued.

You resisted the urge to struggle against his grip, realizing you had no other choice but to listen. Attempting to calm your anger, you unwillingly focused on his words. You recalled visiting the suspect's shop a few days earlier—a place with a man with long, greasy black hair and an odd voice. Uncertain of where he was leading with this revelation, you listened intently.

"So lost in your own selfishness that you didn't even recognize me?" he mocked, twisting your wrists to inflict more pain, as though hurt you didn’t recognize him. Then, the realization struck. He had been there all along, pulling the strings and mocking everyone. Mae's master. The stranger beneath the mask. Yord's killer.

"You—" you choked on your words, barely able to speak. You recalled visiting the apothecary in the days before, noticing him as the new face in the city. He had pretended to be new, and you had enjoyed his company, visiting him several times. A wave of humiliation washed over you, and you sensed that he felt it too.

“That’s right,” he whispered into your ear, his hands briefly leaving your body before firmly gripping your waist and pressing you against the nearest rock. Finally, you got a clear look at his face. In the darkness of the previous night, you hadn't seen him clearly, and moments ago, you hadn't cared. Now, his gaze met yours directly as he pushed you against the rough surface, leaving your hands free, hanging by your side. You had the freedom to strike him, to fight your way out, but you remained still.

He allowed your eyes to roam over him. You scanned his high cheekbones and sharp features, framed by dark waves, curtains to his deep dark eyes. Pink, full lips, and set above a clean mustache. Your gaze then fell to his visible collarbones, adorned with salty droplets.

He was undeniably beautiful, and you felt sick you didn’t even try to deny it. He looked like a fallen angel, someone straight out of religious legends you would read about.

He savored your shocked gaze, but what intrigued him more were your thundering thoughts. Inside your mind, thoughts clashed and screamed over one another, leaving no room for silence or clarity. You instantly recognized his intent from his intense stare and tried to block him out of your mind. But it was too late. He effortlessly stripped you bare, reading you like a mythical book.

"You're scared," he uttered with total seriousness. You struggled to comprehend how he could read you so easily and attempted to use your powers to cloud his thoughts. Yet, after years of suppressing them, you failed once more. “Not of me. Of the Order.” He tilted his head, a gesture that suggested surprise at what he had uncovered.

"Get out of my head," you hissed at him, delivering a punch to his chest, but he didn't even flinch. The water was cold, and the chill in the air only worsened it. The only warmth came from his body—and from another place you tried to ignore.

"You lie to yourself," he added, ignoring the punches to his chest and the barrage of curses you hurled at him. "The Jedi were never your family. You live in delusion." He looked down at you, a hint of pity in his expression.

“You killed Yord,” you cried out, feeling his grip on your waist loosen.

“He was never your brother. Not really.” His words struck you like a blow, and in a surge of rage, you punched him in the chest with all your strength. He stumbled back, the warmth of his grip vanishing from your waist, leaving you both separated and gasping in the cold air.

You stared at him, eyes wide with uncertainty, unsure of your next move. You watched his chest rise and fall, strands of hair falling over his forehead. Fear gripped you, worried that he had seen through you, revealing memories you wished to forget.

"You lied about who you were. You murdered Jedi like they were cockroaches. My brother!" you screamed at him, tears threatening to spill as you fought to hold them back. You slowly made your way back to the shore, ignoring his presence following in your footsteps. The wet pants clung to your body, making each step more difficult than the last.

As you reached the shore, small rocks stabbing at your feet, you heard him speak.

“Then why did he never consider you as his sister.” His voice was cold and low, monotone with no emotions on the surface. Your movements stopped, listening as he made his way to the shore as well, standing just a few centimeters away from you. Your chest hurt like someone was pinching the flesh of your heart.

You forced yourself to turn around, facing him and his ethereal beauty. There he stood, bare before you, vulnerable and exposed. You tried to focus on his words, your heart sinking into your stomach.

"You heard me." He tilted his head, taking a small step toward you. His eyes locked onto yours, unwavering. "You know I'm right. Ever since you became Padawans, he kept you apart. No matter what you tried, even resorting to tricks just to see him, he always pushed you away. Following rules that made it harder for you to be together, like the Order meant more to him than you did. You were just a little girl, and he chose duty over your bond." He continued, every word a fuel to your anger. But now you weren’t sure who the anger was meant for.

“Shut the fuck up!” You raised your voice, stepping down to him. “You don’t know anything. You’re a Sith! A murderer! You don’t know anything about me or my life.’”

"Except I do." He allowed you to approach, keeping you within arm's reach. "You think things changed after you both passed the trials and had more freedom. They didn't. He feared you. He feared your power. An empath, right? The most dangerous ability one can possess. Even the Order feared it. With one emotion, you could overthrow everything overnight. They couldn't trust you. Not even your own brother could."

You lunged at him, aiming a punch at his jaw, which connected solidly. He stumbled back, a red mark blooming on his cheek. However, all you received in return was a smirk on his lips and the sight of him licking a drop of blood from his lip.

"That's not true," you replied, your voice stinging with anger. "They knew about my abilities, but no one feared me.”

You heard a laugh coming from him, lifting up his head, staring you down.

“Why do you keep lying to yourself?” He stepped closer, his breath almost brushing your face. “You knew they wanted to be rid of you from the moment you began showing signs. Master Sol? He distrusted you the most. Yord feared you. Jecki was too naive to form her own opinion and just listened to the elders.”

“Stop,” you failed to form a normal sentence, not knowing what to do or how to act. You were scared he was right. You didn’t want to admit it to yourself.

"Last night, when you attacked me, I took you before they could wake up," he confessed, gently brushing his hand over yours. You stared at his chest, too ashamed to meet his gaze. "What do you think will happen when they discover you used forbidden power? Do you believe they'll spare you when you're already hanging by a thread?”

He is right.

No.

He’s a liar. A murderer.

But he’s right.

"Kill me, and return to your naive trust in them," he urged, leaning closer with a mix of pity and understanding in his gaze. "Or stay here and let me help you."

You failed to notice that your hand was in his, unsure of how long he had been holding it. Your gaze remained fixed on his chest, searching for any hint of deceit or manipulation, but you found none. The weight of uncertainty bore down on you, and you wished to crumble, to disappear and never resurface again. Lost, confused, dizzy, you were paralyzed, uncertain of your next move.

“They’re my family.” You whispered, mostly to yourself.

"A real family wouldn’t betray you," he whispered back, his thumb tracing small circles on your palm. You felt the anger within you slowly melt away, replaced by an unfamiliar, strange sensation.

Raising your head slowly, you met his gaze, surprised by the softness you found in his eyes. Before you could gather your thoughts or resist, a waterfall of tears began pouring from your eyes, and the only arms there to catch you were the same ones that had stopped your heart just a few hours ago.

[tarjapearce]

Poppy Blue

Blue Jones! Miguel x Baby Doll! Reader.

Art by @marbipa on x

WARNINGS: MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. Power play, choking kink, rough sex, mentions of abuse, preying, toxic and perverted behavior, implicit clandestine and illegal activities, lobotomy, dissociation, implicit depersonalization, objectification, hate sex, manhandling, violence, sub space. No Proofread.

Summary: Messy things ~ (I guess?) Miguel as Blue Jones from Sucker Punch.

A/N: Watched Sucker Punch last night and... yeah. Had to get this out of my system. ~ Another one for the Miguelverse ~

Masterlist

All it took was a bullet. Aimed at your assailant with no intentions of missing. Yet you did. You missed, failed terribly so. His chest was your goal, instead it went directly to his shoulder.

Projectile ripping and scorching skin, tissue and muscle in the go, earning a shaky and pained yelp. But it was the least he deserved after trying to be sneaky on your sister, that laid cold and bled out in the floor. She was no match for his knife and his blood thirst of the night. The rest was a blur.

And now, you were dragged down to the wet and dull greys walls of your future home. Lennox House. Or rather Lennox Asylum for the Mentally Ill.

Everything about the place screamed danger, everything about the people working in the monstrosity of place yelled I'm no better.

Barefoot, soaked in rain, holding your new uniform and gazing at the biggest man you've seen in you life, holding a bunch of keys while his eyes bore into you.

The way he stared made your skin crawl and it didn't help your clothes clung to your body. Arms braced the uniform closer to your chest, trying to cover it up. His eyes wandered to the man behind you, a police officer with three scratched lines into his face. You hadn't left him unscathed. Not when he tried to play rough with you back at your old home.

The man showed you around, place was as depressing as it was from the outside, but The Theater took the prize.

Girls your age dressed in gray, socializing in the area. And by socializing it'd mean to watch them either receive therapy with a polish beautiful woman named Vera Gorski, or watch them fight over the stupidest things. But who could blame them?

Some probably had enough time inside that had memorized the cracks in the wall, the scratches on the floor, the number of chewed gums underneath the table or how many dust particles were accumulated in the windows. Gray. Everything was gray and dull.

Even the voice of the men behind you talking about a price for your silence were tiresome and dry. Two thousand. That's what your memories were valued as. A number you now hated.

Corrupt pigs

The police officer gave you a gentle push forward as a nurse came to fetch you. The simple touch of that man made your skin revolt and slapped him hard across his wilting face, a scowl on your grimace that slowly turned into a smirk as the police officer tried to catch you, but you were being dragged away by two nurses into a life that would turn your head upside down and backwards, the many times it saw fit until you'd understand that you weren't in charge.

Until you'd understand your purpose.

Dance.

"If you don't dance, you have no purpose."

Madam Gorski murmured to you. Pretty, dangerous and aware of the many many situations revolving in the brothel. Cause in truth, the asylum was just an alibi and a frontage for the real deal. House Lennox. A house of pleasure.

Bets, drinks, sex, meds and a hell of a show to anyone that filled Miguel's pockets.

The main attraction? Girls that society deemed unfit to keep within her picky guts. Too into messy situations to keep the pretense around relatives. Too fucked up to function properly but good enough to mold and shape into something useful, and too tempting to break even further.

She mumbled while circling you, her dark eyes scrutinized you unabashedly, taking in everything her sight could reach. Pursing her pouty lips upon your body.

Pretty, scared, still holding a grip on reality while trying to swallow a really hard to deglute pill, and oh so perfect for a new purpose.

"We do not keep things in here that serve no purpose."

The collide of her cane on the floor was like a metronome, setting the pace to enter a forbidden place, somewhere that none could reach but you. Mind splitting in two, dissociating soul from conscience, leaving an empty, moving vessel behind. You were free for a moment. And now you wanted more, more of that place where your imagination ran rampant.

Where Gorski's words meant nothing, where the guards had no power, where you were allowed to break down and feel without second intentions or being frowned upon. But mainly, without Miguel’s preying gaze licking you raw while undressing your form with it.

But the clapping and praising brought you back to this reality. Red eyes fell upon you, studying, raking over your body upside down, stopping at your thighs to then go back to your flushed and breathless face.

Mr. O'Hara. Miguel 'Blue' O'Hara. The asylum guard, the key bearer, perverted pimp, and your new shadow.

Ever since that dance many things changed.

Even though you danced, duties in the asylum weren't to be neglected. If you said no, you'd get a visit to the hole.

If you didn't dance, you'd get a visit to the hole.

But if you didn't do things Miguel's way, you'd get a personal talk with him, and then a visit to the hole.

And those talks, surely weren't words.

Scrubbing the floors gave you the chance to listen a bit of everything. Girl's derangements, psychotic outbreaks, mumblings that were filled in with regret and many more flourishing emotions; the ever loud music from the cook, and the unceasing mewls and obscene noises coming from Miguel's office.

Some girls misbehaved on purpose, just to get a taste of him. Others did anything to draw his attention to them, specially in the dance floor. But you knew better to anger him.

Sure, pleasure came in hand with a high price. He wasn't good, he wasn't nice nor gentle, matter-of-factly some girls cried during their one on one sessions and the degradation only enhanced the tears.

Sick fuck.

Gorski's alarms flared up upon seeing belt marks on their legs and ass, bites in their inner thighs and bruises on their hips. Eyes a bit too gone and tired to actually work in anything. They might have spread the gossip around of Miguel fucking them, and even enjoyed it.

But the aftermath of it, said otherwise. And it was enough to keep you on check, but even so he was pulled to you like a magnet so strong you could see the refrain in his eyes every time he approached you.

Hands shaky, tongue rubbing and wetting his plump lips, a soft flush on his cheeks and pleading eyes. A silent 'Let me play too' cause he wasn't allowed to touch, or taste you. Instead, he'd use the girls willing to please him to take his anger out. Their bodies meant nothing, they meant nothing cause they weren't you.

They didn't have your body, they didn't have your sweet voice that distorted into moans and gasps that he'd kill to induce every time you danced, but above all, they didn't have your spark.

That little interaction with the police when you first arrived, had him folding on a bathroom, stroking himself to oblivion at the mere sound of your slaps.

Unbeknownst to you, you held so much power over him. Power he was set to dull, because he was the only one in control. Not even Gorski and her stupid polish methods to get in the rest's head. He ran the place and had it under control.

For how long though?

You wanted out. His little Poppy wanted out and surely would get everything to be free and leave him, forsake him in this damned place.

Anger flowed within his veins like molten lava upon remembering how other men looked at you, how other men wanted you. They'd possibly been imagining how good and tight your insides would feel cause the way you moved when you were up in the stage, was surreal. It was like another person took over.

But he, a sick fuck through and through, would want both. No. He'd have both. He craved and needed both, even better when you were dressed in such things that only added more dry bones to his needy fire.

Fucking lucky of them to feel you and be a your second skin. Even that stupid and everything but innocent uniform you were to dress every day, stirring up enough to let him take a peek of your panties, or the stockings underneath that remained etched on your supple thighs he'd often fantasize in getting lost between.

He just had to wait for you to misbehave. But sadly you didn't seem keen into breaking the rules. He'd wait.

---

"Stormy, come."

Vera called another girl. Whoever gave their names either knew them too well or picked random words in a go. Gorski too engrossed into her lessons to notice you had been dragged away by other guards under Miguel's petition.

Had you forgotten about something? No. Surely not. Last week's chores were fulfilled completely, the bathrooms were clean, the kitchen's dishes turn were washed up, and so were the floors. Your wrists sore, a reminder to ask for a new brush.

And-

Shit.

Fuck.

The laundry.

Some dancers had ran out of stockings, lingerie, and some sheets from the brothel needed to be replaced ASAP.

But you, Poppy, as Vera had called you and it stuck with the rest ever since, had trouble. Just cause you had forgotten about the damn laundry.

Miguel's formidable frame came into view, he was on a call, lying on how well someone's daughter was doing after a lobotomy. How they didn't have to worry about her anymore.

Your stomach felt sick and your heart leaped on your chest once he ended up the call. The guards had been long gone, leaving you with your shadow alone.

If honest, you knew Miguel either followed or kept you watched under hawk's eyes. Time stopped as soon as he turned to face you.

Pupils wide blown as soon as you came into his sight.

"My sweet, sweet Poppy."

He inhaled deeply and clasped his hands together before his face. An uncontainable smirk morphed into a light titter.

"You've been a bad girl, princesa."

His hands slamming on the table before him made you jolt and blink at his sudden mood shift.

"We..." He wetted his lips as he came behind you, "We were counting on you, Mi cielo. But... you failed us. Failed me."

A gulp as his breath fanned over the crook of your neck.

"You see..." His big and long fingers brushing your hair away from the right side of your head joint, "Now I gotta improvise something for the next show. "

"I'm sorry, I forgot-"

His hand took a hold of your neck and the contact made him growl. Warm, smooth, feeling every heartbeat underneath his big and calloused palms.

Lips dangerously close to your ear, breathing and panting as he pulled you closer to him, your back colliding against his torso and abdomen.

"Shh"

He hushed while taking a big whiff off you. A mix of soap, perfume and cigarettes. His hand squeezed tighter, earning a lovely and sweet yelp from you as he pushed you against his desk.

Your eyes widened in surprise upon feeling the hardening cock in between the slot of your thighs, poking, begging to be released and finally take you.

"You remind me of someone. Too bad she lost her spark."

His hand riled the skirt of your uniform up, passing up some layers of extra clothing, your underwear and stockings. Hand plunged inside to finally allowing his fingers to have a sample of your flesh.

"But I'm keeping yours alight, sweetheart."

His cock twitched when he found your clit. Fingers dexterous and peeling the outer folds away to give a gentle rub before you closed your legs almost instantly. A little delaid reaction, your brain was still processing it.

You went completely still when he pulled his fingers out of you and brought them to his lips. He sucked them off with hunger, groaning and trembling at the taste.

"Por Dios, preciosa..."

You tried to pry his hand out of your neck but the struggle made his breathings more labored and needy as he humped and ground against you from behind. Letting his tip to speak volumes at how hard and wanton he was. How bad you made him react. How much power you had over him.

Of course.

The idea of having him subdued to you assaulted your mind. Pressuring you into pleading, just like your clit that clenched and twitched upon having his tip rubbing in a slow yet firm strokes.

His hands went back inside your panties, searching for the nub of nerves that had you melting. Tongue skimming at the tender skin of your neck.

Just as he was about to bury a finger knuckle deep, the ever annoying voice of Vera urging Miguel from outside the door, asking for you. Her dear and lovely Poppy.

"Chingada madre" (Fucking shit)

He sighed with an exasperated growl and looked at the door.

"The fuck you want?!"

"I need Poppy on the practice. Now."

Where was the shocking baton when he needed it the most?

For once, you were relieved to know that you didn't go unnoticed under Gorski's watch. She protected the girls in her own way.

Knees trembled as he kept the hand inside. A little miscalculation had you whimpering while his fingers remained trapped in your flesh. His eyes snapped back on you with a smirk.

A hand clasped on top of your mouth, suffocating any moans as he worked his fingers between your pussy. Touching and prodding at the forbidden flesh, a moan vibrated through his hand with a high pitched Hmm

"I'll get her to you right away!"

Miguel yelled while working his fingers harder and faster, alternating between rubbing and fucking your hole with them.

"Spread your legs wider, pretty baby" The husk of his voice made you close your eyes and hips hump ever shyly at his hands. Gaining as much friction as possible.

"Miguel, I need her now."

He grumbled under his breath while moving his hands faster. The wet smooch and sucking squelch had him humping against your panties, breaths agitated, muttering something you could only decipher as filth in spanish, your hands clenched onto him, tightly fisted on his clothes.

Just a bit more

He heard Vera cursing in her native tongue as he prodded his fingers inside, toying with your opening. Stretching and fucking it at his likings.

"You fucking little slut"

He tittered while rubbing furiously in your clit. A bit too rough that had you bucking and trembling in his arms. If his hands made you quiver and melt he couldn't wait to see what his cock could do. You drenched his fingers.

Said fingers were cleaned up again by his mouth with a droopy and pleasure drunk face.

Despite having your legs shaky, he held you by the hips, and forced you to grab onto his desk. His hands quickly fumbled with his pants and boxers, pulling his cock out.

He stroked a couple of times, tip susceptible to stimulation. He pulled the panties aside, your stockings the only barrier between you and his erection. The flimsy layer of clothes instantly adhered to your soaked skin, He pushed in between your thighs, rubbing his cock back and forth with slow thrust against your pussy. His hot length brushed against the already engorged and sensitive nub.

The tightness of your warm thighs smooshed together created the perfect friction hole for him without actually penetrating you. So close and yet so far of that forbidden territory. Soft mewls and whimpers came out your mouth, too enraptured in feeling than verbalizing your pleasure.

He also needed his toys. Specially his favorite. Stockings were thoroughly soaked the more he pushed his cock in and out. Labia clothed and slicked parted to feel his shallow moves. He used you as his fleshlight, his hips smacking yours. His chest rumbled with animalistic and low growls.

His hands were clumsy as the pleasure turned overwhelming, you could see the flushed tip of him peeking out your thighs, the urge of tasting him turned bigger the faster he went. You were trying so hard to keep it as quiet as possible.

"Wished I was inside you, don't you?"

You gasped as he purposely angled his tip in your dripping hole. A shivering breath was all he received.

He took you by your chin and squeezed

"Don't you?!"

"Y-Yes!"

"Yes, what?!"

"Yes, sir."

Jesus fucking Christ.

He pushed in deeper in your cunt, his cock pushed a bit of the stockings inside as he doused it with his cum, unable to hold back any longer, marking you.

You had never heard a man pant and wheeze like that before. So deep, raspy, needy, cradling you tighter, anchoring to you as he shook his orgasm out.

"Fuck- Ay Dios, fuckfuck-"

He slurred while engulfing your frame against the table. Breathings matching his erratic ones.

Your skin between supple thighs felt clammy and sticky. Black stockings ruined completely by the white and wet patch of his scent.

Hot breath fanned over your neck.

"Can't wait to feel the real de-"

The door banged.

"Boss! We need you!"

The guards and Vera had proposed to fuck around with him cause his patience had been tested many times.

Your steps marching away from him snapped him out of his thoughts, He blinked and held you by the wrist, pulling you once more to him to kiss you.

Your first kiss in years. Soft but needy and filled in with a promise to fulfill later.

Now that he had a taste, there was none to stop him. He'd take his favorite toy and go home.

----

Freedom was taken away from you, right before your eyes. Forsaken by your so called friends, marooned by the crew you had gathered within the depths of despair. Your hope had given them a chance at surviving, your courage had transformed you into a fucked up sisterhood, but it was their greed that made you the ultimate sacrifice to their success.

You could only watch while thrashing your way out, but the more you fought, the more guards came to you, but one in particular pulled you out of the mess like a feather. But you didn't stop fighting. Not even when your tabs were in absolute zero probabilities of winning, not when Miguel dragged you inside manhandling your crying form like a ragdoll.

Scratches, fists and other punches didn't move him in the slightest. His grip tightened once you both were locked up in his office once more. He tossed you on the floor.

"Why... Why did you want to leave?"

His tone menacing yet hurt.

The idea of you almost slipping away from him had sent him in a berserk mode that unleashed hellbent through the asylum. Just to find you and when he did, he wanted nothing but hurt you, just the way you've hurt him.

Wasn't his attention enough? , wasn't him being lenient on you and your chores enough? Wasn't he enough?

"WHY?!"

You were too dumbfounded to process his question. Too marked with shame at your failure and rage to pay him attention, and that alone sent him grabbing you by the neck and crash you against a vanity. Tossing everything above it to the floor.

Your back collided against the now shattered mirror, you yelped but still managed to slap him and that made him groan and nod frantically.

Yes

One of his hands was more than enough to hold your both arms as he positioned between your thighs, pressing further against you.

"You don't like me, Poppy? Why?"

"Let me go!"

His hand squeezed your neck tightly, cutting all air for a minute while he kissed you. Sloppy, angry and so full with lust and rage. It gave you no time to react while his other hand tore the panties from underneath your skirt.

You kept slapping him, but that only enticed him to spread you further

"Love that fucking spark on you, preciosa."

He then thrashed you against the table sending a painful jolt through your body, It made you still for a moment.

"No! No! Don't-" his eyes widened in panic, "Don't lose it. Please-"

"No" You panted, "Just found it" A flower vase was smashed in his forehead. And that granted you freedom from his hands as you fell on the floor, gasping for air and crawling away from him.

Heavy steps echoed, trailing dangerously after you. Miguel took you by the ankle and dragged you towards him.

"No!"

He hissed and pulled you upwards, like a statuette, and slammed your torso against the desk you had been clenching onto. All air knocked out your lungs.

A hand passed over his buckle and removed in a swift motion his belt in one go. The sight of your pussy peeking underneath the ruffles of your skirt made a smile that didn't reach his eyes to appear.

He quickly got the belt around your neck, your hands instantly pried, or at least tried to pry it away, scratching yourself in the process. The smell of copper filled in the air, the vase had broke the skin of his forehead.

"You fucking ungrateful bitch!"

He secured the belt tighter and you wheezed, hands flailed to get a hold of him. Fingers already prodding and toying with your cunt, to his surprise, the struggle and fight turned you on, knowing that a man wanted you so badly that would do anything to have you, and you denying such power had you soaked.

Specially when the man in question was this 6'9" cell guard that wanted nothing but to wreck you, destroy you the way you had destroyed his fucked up illusions.

"All I did for you, everything I did meant shit for you-"

He rasped before slapping your butt with such force it stung and left a red imprint on the now reddening flesh.

"I didn't... a-ask you for shit!"

He grunted at your broken words as he pulled the makeshift leash backwards, separated your legs and pulled out his cock once more.

"There we go, baby"

"Y-You're so pathetic-"

Words died in your throat as he slid inch by inch inside. The intrusion made you sob a feeble whimper, it burned and hurt, but in a way you weren't expecting and you liked it.

"Me? Pathetic? Ay muñeca, is not me whose gonna beg me to stop" He pulled your face towards him and kissed you once more, "You won't even remember your name once I'm done with you."

He buried to the hilt as he watched your expression. Troubled yet blissful. A little grip was loosened as he felt you were about to speak again.

"You talk too much shit-."

Part of you regretted said words, cause he smashed your head in the desk and dug his fingers around your hips.

"Is that so?"

Nothing had you prepared for the assailing onslaught of his hips. Fucking was a measly word compared to what he actually was doing to your poor and snug cunt.

It wasn't slapping, his hips thwacked yours with such force you were sure your cervix would be bruised and your legs wouldn't walk properly for the next few days, but as it hurt, it felt good. Too good for your own comfort. Specially when propped a leg ontop of a stool for more leverage to ruin you deeper.

A garbled moan came out your lips, before gritting your teeth together and shaking your head vehemently. He laughed in between deep growls and moans.

"Am I dulling that spark, muñeca?"

Your body lurched forwards, pussy drenched him with every remorseless push he delivered. Eyes struggling to keep on the front, but it was unavoidable to have them rolling back as your jaw slacked open.

High pitched wails rumbled out of your gaping mouth, permeating the once silent room. Two of his fingers slid in your mouth, hot breath colliding against them. They hooked forcing your mouth to keep open.

The desk shook under your weight, the room filled in with moans so sweet and delicious, unlike the many that had been under him.

You were experiencing first hand the danger. Miguel wasn't nice, he wasn't gentle. The latter made an emphasis on its own as he pulled the belt impossibly tighter. A gurgling and rasping noise came from your throat. He wasn't squeezing anymore, he was choking you.

And Dios mio, you were sure you'd die. But dying sounded way too much of a reward than staying in this awful place.

"Yes"

You hissed in between butchered pants and wheezing mewls. Mind set in welcoming the reaper as air was still cut out of your lungs. Legs too weak to keep on their own. Dizziness fogging your mind, fire engulfing your body, Your cunt slurped him in, wetness no longer an issue since he slid and out so easily.

The only indicator you still had consciousness was the little pathetic cries you did as his hips plowed you with a new intensity you didn't know possible.

He had been whispering the filthiest things into your ear, a couple of degrading words you couldn't quite hear, too busy being cock drunk and slipping in and out of consciousness.

Your torso and arms laid in between his arms and the desk, his upper body keeping you still as his hips did the whole assault. His face too snatched in a myriad of things.

Pride cause he finally got to have you and proved you wrong, lust cause you felt just like he had imagined, anger because of your previous words. He was the one that was rawing you into oblivion, had your brain turned upside down, not Gorski, and had you cumming with such an intensity it was overwhelming and too much for your brain to digest.

Too much.

The choking had your brain's fuse in a shortcut, shutting itself off for what it felt like forever, until he spilled himself inside. Renovating your walls white.

Hot cum spurted and not a single drop was wasted as he made sure you kept it inside.

His hulking figure trembled, torn in between subtle and violent spasms that shook him to his very core and raged pants that sent a shiver down your sore spine.

He finally had you and you were his. He wasn't letting you go. Not when he was about to give you a new purpose.

Being his.

---

Everything that he thought good and right blurred. Eyes filled in with tears at your state. Gone. Gone from this world, gone from him, the spark had vanished.

No

How this happened?

His mind raked through the memories, trying to find the right moment everything went to shit.

He signed a paper. A lobotomy authorization in your behalf.

No!, no!.

"Come back" He pleaded while kissing you and squeezing his hands on the joint of your head and shoulders, to pry something out of you. But nothing came.

The spark had been lost.

And so were you.

"Please, muñeca"

He sobbed and cradled you in his arms, but there was no push, no retaliation, nothing. Only a lovely vessel of his love.

You were gone. For real.

He had been so naive to believe that fucking you senseless meant to have you. He had been such a fool to fall for such a simple thing as that.

And now he had lost you. His own hand brought his demise. Guards and Gorski dragged him out, his hand latched on to you, but even your skin felt different.

"Poppy!"

He yelled but you didn't answer. Just watched him with a look that shattered his heart.

You were free. Free and far far away.

[luminiamore]

NEEDY.

brought back to life toji x black reader

warnings: cheating but he offs ur bf so not really?, angst in the beginning, we raised megs with toji, depression in the beginning, this is kinda sad but really cute, no prep just straight sex, reader has locs but it could be whateva u want, overstimulation, soft sex, soft toji, SPOILERS if u haven’t watched the anime.

masterlist

Twelve years.

It’s been that long. Twelve long, agonizing years have passed since you’ve seen Toji. He disappeared on you. Gone. Vanished. One day, he woke you up from a nap and told you he would be gone for a week or so for a job. You understood that his line of work is dangerous. You knew there was a possibility that he could die at any moment.

But he told you not to worry. They were kids, he said.

‘You know me, mama. I don’t die easily.’

He’s a sorcerer killer. He’s strong. It was always apparent to you that he could manage himself. Of course, that never stopped you from worrying.

You began to feel anxious after three weeks. During dinner time, you would cook him meals and fall asleep, hoping that he would come to you stumbling and embrace your body whole as he usually does.

After four weeks, you began to sleep less. The silence in your apartment would haunt you. The sound of every footstep passing by your wooden door and every creak on the floor would make you jump. Imagining that, finally, it would be him who would walk through it. He never did.

After the fifth week, you started calling his boss and friend, but he would never say it out loud. Each time it went to voicemail, you would cry uncontrollably. You may have sent him over one thousand messages, but they all went unanswered. The man probably blocked your number.

You honestly didn’t know what you expected.

Toji tried to keep Shiu and you apart as much as he could. You two were never close. The only thing you had Shiu’s number for was safety purposes, in case you were ever in danger while he was away on the job.

The truth took you five months to accept. To accept that Toji was never going to come back. It took you another three months to come to terms with the fact that Toji was dead.

Throughout all of this, Megumi, his son, gave you comfort. Though it was supposed to be the other way around, you had a feeling he knew what was wrong with you. At times, you couldn’t even get up to cook food and instead chose to order out so he could eat while you lay starving. At the tender age of four, Megumi was skilled in making homemade soup due to your frequent illnesses.

After a year or so, you thought -- you barely left your bed, so you lost track of time, a man came knocking at your door. White hair and bright, bright blue eyes can be seen even with glasses covering his eyes.

You should have fought him, beaten him to a fucking pulp. You’ve always had a keen sense of intuition. You knew he was the one who killed Toji, your Toji. Your gut was screaming that to you.

But what would you be able to do? You had no cursed energy. You couldn’t fight this man even though your husband had taught you some things in his free time. You had no chance against him, and the cocky bastard was aware of that.

He wasn’t here for you anyway. It was obvious to you that when he pushed past you and entered your home, he immediately started to search for Megumi. Knowing that the little boy could see curses, he suspected that his technique was starting to manifest, so he informed him that he could provide assistance.

Hearing the conversation in the kitchen, your breath paused when he mentioned that he would be going to Tokyo. You would be alone, but you refuse to be selfish and force him to watch over you in your depressed state. You urged him to go, urged him to make a change in the world even if it physically pained you.

Megumi made a promise to visit you every year and never leave you. He was truthful to you. Every year, he would spend a week with you, and you would see the boy you helped raise become a capable young man. He would occasionally show you his technique to demonstrate how much he has grown. You couldn’t have been more proud.

It took you 8 years, but you eventually moved on from Toji physically. Your heart still belongs to him emotionally.

Although you never remarried, you did have a boyfriend. He’s a kind man, has a regular corporate job, earns a livable yearly salary, and is not a killer, so there’s no danger of him being murdered. He also treats you nicely, arranging a dinner date every week and a vacation to a nice place every year.

You should’ve been happy. You should love him— why don’t you?

Why is it that every time he fucks you, all you see and think of is Toji? When you respond to his love for you, it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. Because you know it’s not true. You know it would never be true.

Megumi has a liking for him and believes he is a good fit for you. After what you went through, it’s fair to say that you deserve this. Though, it’s easy for him to sense how unhappy you are, that you’re putting on a facade in front of the man you’re supposed to love. If the man really knew you, he would understand that every time you smile and kiss him, it was an effort, especially after being together for almost 3 years.

You’re not sure why you never left him. You think this is better than feeling alone. Even if it wasn’t as good as Toji, you still got fucked every other night. It could never be better than Toji. You think he’s ruined you for anyone else.

October 31st, 2018. 11 a.m.

It’s Wednesday, October 31st, and it’s the week Megumi is supposed to come to see you.

You begin your day as you usually do. Your boyfriend wakes you up with a kiss right before he leaves for work, and you groggily force your body straight to the shower. While the eggs sizzle, you make a light breakfast as you stare into space.

As you’re eating, you feel your stomach drop. There is an odd sensation in your gut, a negative one. You experienced the same feeling when Toji died. You hastily pull out your phone and dial Megumi’s number.

One ring. Two. Three rings and no response.

“..Mom?”

His tone is fatigued as if you had woken him from his sleep. At that, you breathe a sigh of relief. However, the feeling persists.

“Are you okay, Megs?”

He sounds confused, although you suspect he can sense your concern in your voice, “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be? Is something wrong?”

“Do you have a mission today?”

Your frantic questioning without an answer is now causing him anxiety.

“There’s something going on in Shibuya tonight, so yeah.” You don’t answer him for a beat, just breathing as you feel your heart beating faster as his response.

“Are you okay, mo-”

“Please, don’t go. I have a bad feeling again.”

He sighs, “You know I can’t do that. It’s supposed to be something manageable, nothing too ba-”

You sternly cut him off, “Megumi. It’s not going to be manageable, I can feel it.”

“If you’re saying that, then it means I need to go and help even more, Mom.”

You’re trembling, and- Are you crying? You feel the tear slide down your cheek before you can even register it. You have always been afraid of Megumi going out to fight curses, but for some reason, your fear is growing stronger.

Your breath stutters, “What if- what if you-”

The thought of Megumi getting badly injured or even dying is so terrifying that you can’t even finish your sentence. You don’t believe you can endure that. No, you know you can’t. You’re still grieving over your husband. How could you possibly stomach his death?

This time, he cuts you off, “I can’t promise you that I won’t go. But I can promise to stay at a safe distance so I don’t die.”

“You’re so selfless, it’s infuriating.” You chuckle through your tears, using your unoccupied hand to wipe them off.

“I love you too.” You can tell he’s trying to stifle a laugh of his own.

You smile, even though he can’t see you, “I love you so much. Please, don’t die.”

“I’ll make sure to haunt you if I do.”

A gasp, “Megumi!”

“Joking.. sort of.”

He hangs up with another ‘Love you’ before you can scold him. And now you’re forced to swallow the lump in your throat. It’s okay, you remind yourself. You’re gonna be okay. Megumi is gonna be fine. He’ll come see you on Friday like he usually does. But even you’re aware that you’re just trying to console yourself.

The day is spent trying to distract yourself. You had the time to paint your nails and toes, try on some new outfits that you bought last week, and even try reading a book. But the feeling would never go away. In fact, it intensified as the darkness outside increased.

October 31st, 2018. 11 p.m.

Around 11 p.m., your boyfriend arrived and greeted you with his usual kiss on the cheek and casual discussion about both of your days. Every day, you think, today is the day. Today is the day you’ll get a tingling feeling whenever he kisses you. Today is the day you’ll feel warmth whenever he says he missed you or he loved you.

But it never came, and today was no different. You had made some food and decided to leave some for him, he had taken a liking to your cooking.

“I’m gonna head to bed. You’re gonna join me?”

“In a few, I wanna stay up a little longer.” You whisper, absentmindedly watching the plate he’s eating from. You don’t even notice. You’re entirely zoned out.

He kisses the side of your head when he stands up.

He kisses the side of your head when he stands up, “Okay, thanks for the food, babe. Let’s go out to eat tomorrow, yeah?”

“Sure.”

He pulls back hesitantly, hands still on your shoulder as he observes the lost look in your eyes, “Are you okay, babe? You seem.. out of it.”

All he gets is a slow nod and a small kiss on his knuckles. That seems to be enough for him because he hums and whispers a small “Love you.” and walks away.

The sound of the shower running after a few minutes is your cue to clean up. As you scrub the burnt parts of the pasta you made, you hear your phone ringing. When you glance over, it turns out to be Megumi.

11:38 p.m.

‘why the fuck is Dad alive? he just disappeared after helping me with some curse??’

Your hands become completely limp as the plate you are holding drops abruptly and crashes into the wet sink. Your eyes were wide and unblinking as you stood frozen. Your breath is caught in your throat, making it impossible to exhale. Your mind is overflowing with thoughts, each one more anxious than the last.

What?

You haven’t moved a single inch, but your hands are now shaking.

Toji is what?

No. He’s lying. But that’s not true either. Megumi would never deceive you, especially about his dad being alive. Your hands are trembling as you try to reach for your phone, but you’re stopped in your tracks by a loud crash.

You come out of your frozen state, and as if you’re running on autopilot, you run as fast as you can to the sound that hits the cold tile floor. But what you see next almost causes you to burst into tears because there he is, your husband.

Toji is right there, in your room, holding a sharp red wooden blade against your boyfriend’s neck. He’s in a gray sweater, but even then, you can see his muscles and just how big he is through it. He’s not looking at you, but with the way his shoulders raise and his breath hitches— he knows you’re watching.

Hearing him speak brings a tear to your cheek. It’s been a long time since you last heard his voice. The world seemed to stop moving, leaving you in a surreal moment stuck in time. You can’t believe it, you’ve lost all hope, but he is here. Sending the ugliest glare to the man on the other side of the blade in your bedroom is enough to make you shiver,

“Who the hell is this, baby?”

You say nothing, relishing in the sound of him speaking to you. Your heart pounded fiercely, echoing in your ears, while a wave of dizziness threatened to overwhelm you.

It’s when your boyfriend grunts in an angry tone, “What the fuck is happening, (❤︎)?!” You finally snap out of your stupor.

It’s not a surprise you stutter when you speak, but you don’t even say much. You pitifully let out a squeak of,

“T-Toji?”

You want him to look at you, want him to see you. You want to make sure that it’s really him you’re looking at, but he seems so focused and upset? Your eyes move away from his face briefly to take a glance at the weapon threatening to penetrate your boyfriend’s neck.

You speak so lowly, almost as if you’re ashamed to admit your following words, “My boyfriend. He’s my boyfriend.”

Despite boarding on the brink of death, he still manages to harbor a false confidence when you say that, “Exactly, man, so, who the fuck are you?”

“Her husband.”

At that, your boyfriend chokes, and now his anger is directed towards you, “Husband? You’re married?! We’ve been together for 3 years, and you-”

“He was dead!” You suddenly find your voice, a bit hysterically. You turn to Toji, who still isn’t looking at you but presses harder into his neck. You can see a trickle of blood start to drip. “You were dead- You are dead.”

His response is cold, blunt, “I’m about to kill the bastard standing half naked in my wife’s house, so, no. I’m very much alive, mama.”

“How? How are you alive?”

“Long story.” Is all he utters.

“I’ve waited 12 fucking years, I’m sure you can spare me a little more time.”

At that, he has the audacity to sigh as if you’re the one being difficult. You jump back and yelp when he suddenly plunges the weapon into your boyfriend- ex’s neck. You open your mouth, about to ask him what the hell that was for, but he answers before you can, “Unwanted company.”

When he finally turns his head to look at you, you swear he’s more beautiful than you remember. Everything looks the same, but something’s off. His eyes were blackish, or maybe it was a deep purple color in his sclera— that was supposed to be white, wasn’t it? His pupils are purple, too, or was it blue? You’re not sure, but you don’t find him any less beautiful.

“Toji.. I- how?”

He grumbles, and in one blink, he’s in front of you, hands on your waist and lips immediately logged deep in your neck, not quite sucking but just breathing you in. The action makes you shiver, and the feeling of him so close to you causes more tears to fall. “Some old hag did a seance. Wanted me to kill all sorcerers.”

Your breath hitches, but you sternly reply, “Our son is a sorcerer.”

“Obviously, I’m not going to.”

He smiles at the fact that you said ‘Our.’ He can feel the tears on your neck, and he honestly feels he might drop some of his own. Twelve years in hell—because let’s be real, there was no way someone of his caliber was making it to heaven— and he hasn’t seen you. Hasn’t touched you. He’d rather kill you than not fuck you again- he’d have to force himself to do so.

He’s not ashamed to admit he missed you. He feels guilty for putting you through this, through twelve years with him. He said he was coming back, he couldn’t imagine your despair when he didn’t. He hates himself for causing you that pain, for pushing you into the arms of another man.

He muffled out, “D’ya love him?”

It takes you a minute to answer, you feel a bit ashamed to admit this since he just died, “Never did. I only ever loved you.”

“Loved? You don’t love me anymore?”

You break out another sob, “I never stopped Toji.”

This time, he doesn’t answer, but there’s a nagging question in the back of his mind that he needs answered, “Three years, hm? You fuck him?” Your next words give him the answer he needs.

“Toji- it’s been years! You were-”

“Dead, I know. You didn’t look too sad when he died. He could never fuck you like me, huh?”

He knows he shouldn’t be upset. He knows he has no right to be angry at you. You had every right to move on. He didn’t ghost you or just disappear casually. He was dead. The thought never sat well with him, though. It made his stomach churn. He always told you that if you ever cheated on him, he would kill the man and then himself. He could never bring himself to hurt you physically.

But is it even cheating if he was dead?

A whisper breaks him out of his thoughts, “No.”

What an angel you are. Answering him even when he isn’t even speaking out loud. His mind is confused. So he does what he used to do when he needs to let out his frustrations— use your body as a stress reliever.

When his hands grope your hips, you let out a desperate moan. Fuck you are desperate, you haven’t felt your lover in years.

“Damn- I missed you, baby. Missed how soft you are, missed holding you.” His tongue starts slowly, lapping softly at your collarbone.

Your breath starts getting shaky, and the slick that’s been forming since you first laid eyes on him is dripping down your thighs, “Missed you so much more.”

He’s not in the mood to wait. He’d usually tease you before he impaled you on his dick. But it’s been too long since he felt any warmth from you- he’s not stalling any longer.

“Need to fuck you, now. You remember how to take me, right?”

He was quick with his hands, ripping the nightgown you had on to shreds. You’re bare in front of his gaze, and you can see how he was practically drooling— the man was in a trance.

If Toji is as big as you remember, then taking him would be a challenge. You could never do it without some form of prep, be it him eating you out until you cried or fingering you till your legs trembled. Sometimes it was both. But you could tell he wasn’t in the mood to do either of those right now. He just wanted to stuff you, so you’d have to suck it up and let him.

You give him a shaky nod, “Yes, please.”

He lazily rubs on your engorged bud, spreading your slick all over your fat pussy lips. He releases the most toe-curling moan when he feels how wet you are, and it’s all for him. He doesn’t keep the act up for long and dips two fingers inside. They stretch you so wide you can’t help but buck your hips against the wall he has you pressed on.

“Hnng- Toji! Just put it in, p-please.”

He grunts, but he can never argue against you. Toji forces his tip past your tight walls, and you have to hiss it out. You’re wet enough that the first inch slides in easily, but you’re so tight that he thinks you’re about to squeeze his tip right off.

He groans out, seemingly more out of breath than you are, “Relax, mama. Breathe before you break my dick off.”

“M’trying!” Is your only response. More tears are dripping down your face, both from the pain and how close you are to him.

Toji decides to distract you by rubbing tight circles on your clit, and that causes your breath to stutter and your moans to increase in volume. That does the trick because as you’re focused on the pleasure, he doesn’t hesitate to shove everything into you in one go. All nine inches- but shit, you swear it feels bigger.

“Oh god! It’s too much- I can’t-”

“God took me away from you. Made us spend twelve years apart. It’s not God making you feel this way, it’s me. Focus on me.”

You’re nodding before he can even finish his sentence because he’s right. Toji gives you a few seconds- maybe 30 before his patience runs around, and he starts slowly rutting in you. He knows how big he is. Takes pride in it, too. So, he doesn’t stop rubbing your clit to ease the feeling of him stretching you out.

As he instructs, all your focus is on him. Your hazy eyes focus on his face, his brows furrowed in pleasure, and his lips parted as he pants against you. You can’t help but kiss him, suck his chapped pink lips so hard you can feel his scar against your tongue. And he doesn’t hesitate to kiss you back. It isn’t a fight for dominance, Toji easily takes all control of you, and you surrender with no regrets.

You take his cock beautifully, so well. Every time he pushes out, your pussy just pulls him back in, making a wet squelch sound when his hips slap against yours. He can feel the goosebumps on your body whenever his tip presses harshly on your g-spot, and so he keeps the same pace and stroke— determined to make you cum just like this.

You wail out as your eyes roll into the back of your head, “Oh! Right there, don’t s-stop!”

“Never. Won’t ever stop fucking you, baby. Need you to forgive me anyway.”

“For l-leaving me?”

He chuckles against your puffy lips and pulls harshly on your brown locs so your neck cranes to look directly at him, “Yes, mama. I’m sorry for leaving you, for leaving our son. So sorry. Won’t ever do it again, I promise.”

You’re crying again. Tears are flowing freely now, and Toji thinks you’re beautiful and even ethereal. He glances down, and a creamy white paste forms at the base of his cock- getting even more wet each time he pulls out of you.

“I c-cried so much, Toji. For months, for years. You- you-”

“Shh. I know, baby. I know. I’m selfish for doing that, a complete asshole. I’d hate me too.”

You’re nodding, but you could never think of him as such. You would never call Toji anything mean, anything harsh- despite what he put you through.

Your pussy is twitching against him, “Don’t hate you. Could never h-hate you.”

He kisses your lips, all over your face, really, “Yeah? Damn, I love you. You love me?”

“Yes! Yes- I love you. Only you.”

He moans and presses against your stomach, his bulge poking out. Your breaths come in ragged gasps, your body tightening as a wave of pleasure builds inside of you. Your muscles clenched, and an uncontainable rush surged through you. Fuck, you’re gonna come.

Toji can feel it, and his slow pace speeds up. He whispers in your ear, pulling at your lobe, “Cum, baby. Go ahead, I need it.”

Finally, with a shuddering cry, you tipped over the edge. Ecstasy washed over you in powerful, pulsing waves. Your body trembled a blissful release, leaving you breathless and utterly spent. Despite your haze, Toji doesn’t stop, nor do you feel his thick cum flowing past your walls.

He can sense the confusion in you, and all he does to ease your mind is, “3 years, right? How about 3 orgasms for every year I wasn’t with you, huh? Think we can reach 36, mama?”

Your eyes widen in disbelief because that doesn’t even sound possible, but you’re distracted by another toe-curling orgasm ripping through you- your clit pulsing in overstimulation. As always, he knows what you’re thinking, but he doesn’t seem to be backing down with his next words.

“Yeah, I think we can.”

[evansbby]

𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐓𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟓

part v - heart ripped, soul devoured

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: dark alpha!Steve Rogers x naive omega!Reader

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: smut, major angst, extremely dark themes, a/b/o dynamic, daddy!kink, dubcon, extreme depictions of depression, mentions of pregnancy, mentions of illness, 18+ only, minors do not interact!  

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: The end.

𝐀/𝐍: This is it. 37.7k words. The ending. I have read over it and edited it countless times, but please forgive any errors. Apart from that, enjoy!

PART I

“PETER! STOP!”

It's only when you scream at the very top of your lungs that Peter finally skids to a stop. But his grip on your arm remains firm – like he’s frenzied. And why wouldn’t he be? He must know the danger he’s put himself in; both of you look back at the mouth of the stadium for Steve. But there are too many people, too much going on, and you can’t tell whether your heart is beating crazily in longing for Steve or in warning for when he inevitably does find you. And Peter.

“Look, I’ve got a car.” Peter looks at you pleadingly, tugging at your hand again. He’s dragged you all the way to one of the parking lots of the stadium. “He won’t catch up to us if we leave now, not when there’re so many people. Please, just come on!” He gives you another yank, but you’ve got your feet planted firmly on the rough asphalt.

“I don’t want to go.”

“What?”

Now that you’ve verbalised it, it becomes all too real. You want to stay – right? That’s what you’ve just said, sounding as firm as you’ve ever sounded in your life. Clearing your throat, you take a deep breath before looking him dead in the eyes.

“Peter, I’m sorry but I don’t want to go with you. I want to stay with Steve.”

“What? No, you don’t mean that, you’re not thinking straight, you–”

His voice cuts off suddenly and he blinks. You wait with baited breath for the “you’re crazy” and the “are you kidding me?!” but all he does is stare at you.

What is it that he sees in your face through his unwavering stare? Is it something he refused to see before? Is Peter finally seeing the person who used to be his girlfriend before she cheated on him with another man? The same man whose baby you’re carrying? A man whose love you readily accepted after everything he put you through? A man whose proposal you accepted without even thinking of anyone else, Peter included?

“I can’t believe he’s done this to you.”

Genuine horror specks through his brown eyes, and you realise that it’s not your face he’s staring at. It’s your neck. Your mark. Shock donning his features, his lips parted and Adam’s apple bobbing, he reaches out to touch the jagged line. As if on cue, your mark throbs and you wince away from him. You feel a stinging pain, a warning pain – as if Peter’s touching something he’s not supposed to, and it makes you jerk backwards.

“No wonder you don’t want to come with me.” Peter sucks in his breath, and it’s like his face can’t decide between revulsion or pity and so it settles on a mix of both. “He’s marked you. Brainwashed you.”

Brainwashed? No, no, no. You want to stay with Steve, don’t you? Now that he’s finally turning a new leaf, now that he’s promised you everything? Now that the lingering fear of him stomping all over your trust and ruining it like he has in the past is gone… It’s gone, right? That’s why you want to stay!

“Peter, he’s going to kill you if he sees you. You have to go–”

“I can’t even begin to tell you how fucked up this is.” It’s like seeing Steve’s mark on your neck has incensed him to the point of anger. “How could he–? How could you let him do this to you?”

“I didn’t really have a choice–but a lot has happened since then!” You feel defensive – and what does that mean for you? You don’t really have the time to consider your complex feelings towards Steve marking you, however, because danger is imminent and Peter is refusing to see that. “Look, I’ll explain everything to you somehow. But you know how he gets when he sees you, or me talking to you. You know what happened last time, Peter, and I don’t want him to hurt you again! Please go!”

“STOP TELLING ME TO GO!” Peter bursts, “I’m not going anywhere, alright? I walked away last time and look what he’s done to you.” His eyes cloud over as he grips both your shoulders, “You were my girlfriend first, okay? We’d barely started dating but we were happy, weren’t we? And he took that away, he ruined that. But you were mine first.”

His lips press roughly against yours before you even have a chance to understand what’s happening. And it feels like you can’t breathe, like you’re drowning. Like someone’s dunked you in ice cold water and you can’t get out no matter how hard you push. It feels alien. It feels wrong. You’ve kissed Peter before and you remember it being sweet and safe. But now it’s like you’ve been programmed down to your core to only respond to Steve’s kisses. And the sudden foreignness of Peter’s lips has you recoiling – or at least trying to, except he keeps a firm hold on you, his lips moving desperately against yours.

Was he searching for something? Something that just wasn’t there anymore? Was it ever there?

You don’t have much time to mull over that, however, because you’re suddenly ripped off of Peter. Instinctively, you reach up to wipe your lips, heart beating in a mix of relief and confusion. And then a familiar scent makes your nostrils tingle, and you look down slowly at the fist holding tightly onto your wrist. Blue veins running up and down a muscular arm which seems to be shaking with anger. And your gaze trails upwards, and your blood freezes.

Steve.

It takes the alpha all of two seconds to tackle Peter to the ground. And then he stands over him, cheeks red and eyes narrowed almost to slits. Teeth bared, growl emanating from his whole chest like a wild animal about to strike. He’s breathing rapidly, too rapidly – you could almost mistake it for a panic attack except his face is so still. Not a muscle twitches, his sneer locked into place.

Steve is livid. You can tell from the pure rage you feel in your bond with him, from the way he’s so quiet. It reminds you of the night he forcefully bonded with you, how quietly angry he’d been, how frighteningly rough as he’d taken what he pleased. And it fills you with a cold terror, because that anger had been ignited because he’d seen Peter touch your arm. But this was a kiss. And Steve had seen it.

“You just made the worst mistake of your fucking life.” Steve says quietly, glaring daggers at Peter.

“Steve, don’t!” You grab at his arm but he easily pushes you off, not even sparing you a glance. He’s like a predator poised before an attack. And the poor prey never stood a chance.

“Go ahead, Steve.” Peter swallows, getting back up to his feet, his chin up. And it’s surprising how his voice is strong and unwavering, despite the alpha twice his size hovering over him. “You gave me a black eye once but I’m still here. Give me another one, it doesn’t matter. I’ll keep coming back for her.”

It only takes a nanosecond, a flurry of movement, before Steve punches Peter straight in the jaw. The force of the blow knocks the beta off his feet. And your mouth’s open in horror, a silent scream stuck in your throat at the sickly crackling sound, and the thud of Peter’s head hitting the rough asphalt underneath him.

“I told you, didn’t I? I told you there’d be hell to pay if I ever saw you near her again.” Steve says softly, yet there’s foreboding danger laced in every word. He grabs Peter’s collar so hard that his knuckles turn white, “And you fucking kissed her, you stupid fucking sonofabitch. I could split your fucking skull open on the ground right fucking now.”

His words are violent and so is his threat, but again, it’s the way he’s talking so quietly, so calmly as Peter coughs and sputters underneath him. That’s what chills your blood more than anything else.

“Steve, please don’t!” You try again.

Steve gives Peter several violent shakes, and each shake is accompanied by a venomous word, “Don’t – fucking – touch – her – again, you beta scum piece of shit!”

“She was mine first.”

“YOU SON OF A BITCH–”

It happens quickly after that. But for you, the sequence is delayed, like in slow motion. Steve lunges forward, holding Peter’s collar tight while his other fist lands another swift punch to the brunette’s jaw. And there’s that horrific crackling noise again, fuelled by white-hot anger. Anger and alpha seemed to go hand-in-hand, and Peter sputters and spits out blood and stares back defiantly despite it all.

Were you a fool to believe Steve would change? Blindly believing in his promises like you always had and then watching him go back on his word and destruct anything good that could potentially come of them? Were you doomed to watch the same story repeat itself over again? Hurt, pain, forgiveness. Then more hurt, more pain… more forgiveness. Like a vicious cycle, a path of destruction. More chaos. More hurt. More anger. Would it ever end?

Suddenly, you’re tired.

“If you hurt him again, I’ll never forgive you.”

Your tone is loud, clear and concise. No stutter. Like in the bathtub all those nights ago, when the dark claws of hopelessness had almost pulled you down under. But nothing’s tugging at you now, except the pull of Steve’s promises that he’d made earlier. Did they mean something, when it really came down to it? Would he be different this time?

Steve freezes, still breathing hard and he’s still got Peter’s collar in his hand. Peter, whose jaw is already beginning to bruise and swell. Two pairs of eyes, blue and brown, snap over to you but you only look into one of them.

“Steve.”

His name falls out of your mouth quietly. The moment is brief, but your alpha seems to see deep into your eyes. His lips press together to form a thin line, and his breathing slows, evens out. Then, for a horrific second, rage infiltrates his features once more, twisting them, turning them pointed and cruel. And then a beat passes and so does his fury, as he slowly, unbelievingly, seems to calm back down.

“You ruined her life by giving her that mark.” Peter says darkly, his words muffled because of a probably broken jaw, “You’re selfish, Steve. A selfish asshole for doing that to her. And if you had even an ounce of decency in you, you’d let me take her away.”

“You don’t fucking know what you’re saying.” Steve says through gritted teeth, “You don’t know the first thing about me and her.”

“I know that she’s good, she’s kind. And you feed off of that, because you could never fathom being that kind yourself.” Peter stares up at Steve brazenly, like he knows he’s on the brink of a beating but is long past caring. “You’ve manipulated her to the point where she thinks she doesn’t want to leave you.” And then he looks at you pleadingly, “You can leave him, okay? Just come with me.”

Steve lets out an almighty snarl, his anger coming back tenfold, and he draws his fist back, about to punch Peter again. And you move without thinking, throwing caution to the wind as you grab his arm with both of yours.

“Steve. Don’t hurt him. I won’t forgive you.”

Steve whips his head back in fury, looking from you to Peter and then you again, before his gaze drops down to where your hand holds tightly over his fist. The alpha, so big and foreboding, seems to be unravelling in front of you. Was there a chink in that unbreakable armour, in that searing anger on his face? Before, he would never have hesitated in his blind fury, but now…?

For the second time, the rage seems to dissipate from his face, before it fights its way back and twists his mouth into a snarl. And then it fades away again, like a receding wave. And that’s’ when you realise it:

He’s fighting himself.

“We should go, Steve.” You say quietly.

Almost robotically, Steve releases Peter’s collar. His entire being is tense with hardly-contained rage, but by some miracle, he listens to you. Maybe it’s your bond or just sheer luck, or maybe you’ve touched him somewhere from deep within, but he stands up and backs away from the scene in front of him. You take his hand, and he allows you to entwine your fingers with his and pull him away. But not before he gives Peter one last deathly look.

“The only reason you’re not dead right now is because of her.” Steve spits out, each seething word laced with pure venom.

And Peter’s face shines red with blood and his eyes shine bright with betrayal as he looks beyond Steve and straight at you. And there’s a part of you that wants to run back and help him, make sure his jaw is okay. Tell him you’re sorry, that you never meant for it to end this way. Instead, you take your phone out to call 911, hoping and praying he didn’t get a concussion from when his head hit the ground.

“Don’t fucking bother.” The beta spits out at you when he sees the phone in your hand, and you immediately freeze. And then he turns his attention to Steve.

“She’ll never love you.” Peter coughs as he stumbles to his feet. Steve goes deathly still next to you.

The alpha’s back is still turned, but that doesn’t deter Peter as he laughs bitterly. “You may have her trapped under your thumb, but just know that she’ll never really love you. Because no one could love you, Steve. And any kindness she shows to you is because she is kind, and any affection she shows to you is because you’ve marked her and she can’t help her biology.”

Steve still doesn’t turn back, but you can feel him begin to shake. And he grips your hand so tight, you feel like your bones might shatter.

“You think you’ve won, Steve?” Peter laughs again, “You had to forcefully mark her to get her to stay with you. She feels nothing for you, you hear me? She’s only with you because she’s scared and thinks she has no other option. She’s only with you because you preyed on an innocent omega, knowing you could trap her because she can’t help but do what you say. But take all that away and what’s left, Steve? Nothing. Certainly not love.”

People are starting to gather and get closer, a few of them muttering and pointing at Peter’s bruised face. And Steve still doesn’t look at the beta, almost like he’s rooted in place as he stares straight ahead. You spot a vein in his forehead; it looks like it’s about to pop.

“Alphas like you take whatever you want, with little regard to who you hurt. But mark my words, Steve, it’ll be you who’s hurting in the end.” Peter spits out blood before continuing, his eyes blazing as he ignores the small crowd of concerned people forming around him, “Every day you’ll wake up and you’ll look at her and wait for her to tell you she loves you. Hell, you might even be able to scare her into telling you that she does. But you’ll spend every day wondering whether she truly means it. Whether her affection is genuine or if it’s just the omega inside her that you’ve manipulated. You’ll wonder if her love is real, and I can tell you right now, Steve, that it’s not and it never will be. Because she will never love you.”

“Peter, stop–” You speak up.

“She won’t ever love you, Steve. No one could ever love you.”

Steve closes his eyes for a moment, his lips gaped open as if he’s struggling to regulate his own breathing. As if every fibre of his being is trying to hold on to remaining stoic. But you can see the chinks in his armour, you can feel his hand as it crushes yours almost desperately, and the way the muscles in his face twitch. You know that it’s taking everything within him to hold himself together, and you also know that anything could set him off.

Peter turns and leaves, the small crowd parting to give him space to move. A few people offer to help him, but he shrugs them off. You watch for a second as your ex-boyfriend walks away, feeling broken in more ways than one. There are so many things you want to say to him, but you have a bigger problem on your hands right now.

You pull on Steve’s hand to lead him away from the scene, and away from the crowd that begins to disperse almost as soon as it had gathered.

*

“FUCK HIM!”

You sit completely rigid in the passenger seat of Steve’s car, in shock over what’s just happened. Your eyes are glued to Steve, watching him through the windshield as he paces. His hands are clenched into fists, his face white as a sheet and hair a mess as he keeps running his hands through it. Finally, he throws open the driver’s seat door and gets inside. And that’s when you realise that he’s still shaking.

“Fuck.” He breathes, looking straight ahead. His slightly stubbled jaw is tightly clenched, and you can see that protruding vein on his temple. His blue eyes look wild, glazed, unfocused, as his hands grip the steering wheel, most likely in a bid to calm himself down.

“Steve–”

“FUCK!” He explodes, the word hurtling out like a venomous fireball bouncing off the interior of the car. He rams his fist against the dashboard, making the whole car shake just like he is. “FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK HIM!”

He’d held it together pretty well during the tense walk away from Peter and all the way to the other side of the parking lot to where his car was parked. He’d pushed you inside almost at once, as if he needed you sat in one place where he could see you. And now, with relatively nobody around you both, his emotions were quick to unravel.

Steve gets out of the car again. And you watch him, his brows heavily furrowed, lips twisted as he keeps chanting the same thing over and over again: “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!” And he gives the tire an almighty kick, once again making the car shake, and you grip the seat nervously, heart jumping up to your throat.

Another kick. And another one. Each one harder than the last, each one making your blood run colder and colder. Steve looked crazed, incensed, troubled, hurt and out-of-control – all those emotions wrapped up inside one alpha? You’re scared for what he might do next.

He stands there, chest heaving and face still screwed up. And then he gets back into the car, breathing hard. In fact, he’s gulping for air – as if he can’t seem to fill up his lungs no matter how hard he tries. Shaking hands, a wild look in his eye, they’re all tell-tale signs of a feeling you know all too well…

Was Steve having a panic attack?

It’s a side of him you’ve never really seen before. The formidable alpha who never outwardly showed even a hint of vulnerability.

“Fuck – him – he – doesn’t – know – anything!” Steve gets out between gasps of breath, his broad chest rising and falling at an alarming rate as he grips the steering wheel hard, almost as if he wants to tear it off and hurl it out the window.

You surge forward, cupping his face gently in both your hands. Slowly, you rub your wrists against his cheeks and nose. Scenting him. Like how he’d done for you all those weeks ago after the confrontation with Sharon had left you in tears and unable to breathe. You don’t know if it’ll work now, but you do know that if anything calms you down, it’s his scent. Maybe it would be the same for him?

And Steve looks at you, finally looks at you, with bewildered eyes but his nose twitches. His hand wildly grasps at your wrist, keeping it pressed against his face with a desperate carnality. Slowly, his breathing slows down, evens out. His shoulders sag, and then he crumples. Leaning over the console and hugging you fiercely, burying his face in your neck and holding you so tightly you fear you’ll pass out.

“He kissed you.” Steve says against your skin, “I didn’t like… Fuck, I hate that he did that. I hate that he touched you. It feels… It feels…”

It’s like he can’t find the words to explain what he’s feeling. But you know, you know, you know! For once, you know exactly what’s going on in his head because you’d felt it too! When he’d kissed the other omega. Like your heart was breaking over and over again, shattering when it was already shattered – was he feeling that too now? The worst feeling in the world, was Steve feeling it too? You don’t know what to say, but a part of you can’t help but think: now you know how it feels, Steve.

“You can’t kiss anyone else ever again. I hate it… I can’t fucking stand it… I –” His lips catch against yours desperately, biting and pulling as his tongue gains entrance to your mouth. You sigh against his lips and he lurches forward, consuming you with a possessive kiss that leaves you reeling.

“He doesn’t know us.” Steve says, digging his fingers into your flesh, “Fuck him. He doesn’t know the first fucking thing about us. I could’ve killed him.”

“I know.”

“Where the fuck does he get off? Taking you away from me, kissing you… And then all those fucking insinuations…? Acting like he knows me. Like he knows what I feel for you. As if his tiny fucking brain could even understand what we have between us.” He gives your shoulders a shake, “I swear to fucking God, I should’ve killed him.”

“I’m really grateful that you didn’t.”

Steve lets out a strangled sound, like a mix between a rumble and a sigh. “You’re the only reason I didn’t do it. I could’ve snapped his fucking neck.”

You don’t know what to say, all you can do is hug him and hope it’s enough to calm him down. He buries his face in your neck again, desperately smelling you as if he’s making sure you’re really there, as if your scent is the one thing keeping him grounded.

But then his head snaps up suddenly, and he cups your face in his hands.

“Let’s get married now.”

Your heart lurches, “What?”

His blue eyes are blazing with fury and excitement, and he sits up straight, nodding to himself, suddenly assured when just a moment ago he was losing it. “We’ll get married now, omega. We’ll go down to city hall and make it official right now. That’ll show that no good cuck of a beta, won’t it? That’ll show him what happens if he tries to fuck with me.”

“But Steve–”

“You said yes!” Steve whips his head in your direction, the sudden fierceness in his eyes making you cower back. He grabs your wrist tightly, “You said yes, omega. You said you’d marry me, and you’d be my wife. Mine. Not his.” He laughs maniacally, his grip crushing your wrist. “That stupid son-of-a-bitch, thinks he can make assumptions about us? Well, I’ll fucking show him.”

“We can’t just get married right this second because you want to prove something to him!” You blurt out before cringing backwards, hoping your words don’t set him off. “I know you could’ve hurt Peter really bad, Steve, but you walked away. And that meant everything to me, and you can’t just act impulsively now because you want to hurt him. You’ve done that before, Steve. You did that with me.”

You scrunch your eyes shut for just a moment, the memory of him telling you how he’d cheated on you the night you two had fought. It took a special kind of cruelty to exact such a calculated punishment, and you so wanted to believe he wasn’t that person anymore. Hadn’t he shown that by walking away from hurting Peter?

Fire and ice. It’s the only way you can describe Steve’s gaze as he looks at you. There’s frozen fire in his blue eyes, and a look that’s cold as steel. It contrasts against the rage that has his cheeks reddening as his grip on your wrist only tightens.

But then he relaxes, thumb stroking your hand as he brings it up to his lips, pressing warm kisses to your skin. It’s insane, because a second ago he was ready to commit a murder – Steve’s back and forth emotions are giving you whiplash.

“Baby,” He breathes, “I love you, okay? I love you so fucking much, do you understand that? I want you to be my wife, and that has nothing to do with him.”

Again, he cups your face and pulls you close, and the proximity calms your beating heart. You lean into his touch, explosions of summer sun like invisible fireworks all around you. His scent is reeling you in how it always does, and you’re diving in head-first like you always do. His thumbs stroke your cheekbones as he looks at you with eyes that are tender yet still slightly crazed.

“I love you.” He repeats, sounding meaningful. And then he looks at you expectantly, as if he’s waiting with baited breath. Waiting for you to say something back? But the moment is fleeting, and Steve pulls away and diverts his gaze, coughing slightly.

“Let’s go get married.” He starts up the car, and the engine revving to life is what knocks you out of your reverie, and you grab his arm once more.

“Steve, wait! You need at least two witnesses if you want to get married.”

“So what? I’ll call Sam and someone else. Or we’ll grab two random people off the street.”

“My mom doesn’t even know that I have a boyfriend! How can we get married without her knowing?!”

“Your mom won’t care–” Steve cuts himself off quickly, but his words sting all the same. You bite your lip in dismay, but he grabs your hand and gives it a squeeze, before adding softly, “Just text her and let her know.”

“I would like to tell her in person, Steve.” You plead. You know you’re stalling, trying to delay marrying him right at this moment. Why? Well, there were a plethora of reasons. It was too soon, you were too confused, and yes, you genuinely wanted your mother to know before you took such a huge step in life.

The alpha sighs, finally relaxing, but the determined, slightly crazed look in his eyes still remains.

“Fine. First thing tomorrow, we’ll go see your mother. And then immediately after that, we’re going to get married.”

***

You expect it to be dark and gloomy, but the sun is shining brightly the next day as you and Steve prepare to leave. And the nerves bubble up inside you like an incensed swarm of butterflies. Things were moving so fast… Two days ago, you weren’t even talking to Steve. And now you were taking him back home, back to where you grew up. Back to your mother. What could possibly go wrong?

The butterflies grow more frenzied.

“After we tell your mom, we’ll immediately head back to the city, where we’ll tell my parents. Your mom can come too, if she wants.” Steve says, locking the front door and leading you to his car. “Then, we’ll go to city hall and get married.”

You nod slowly, wishing your heart would stop pounding so hard. He made it sound so easy, checking everything off like a to-do list. Everything’s happening so fast, and yet you feel like you’re wading through quick sand as you walk down the driveway with your hand intertwined with Steve’s. You hadn’t heard from your mom since you left for university, and that was ages ago. You’d texted her on and off every few weeks, including last night to inform her you were coming back, but she was always too busy with work to ever reply. She didn’t know a thing about you – not that you and Steve were dating, certainly not that you were now engaged, and definitely not that you were pregnant.

Would she even care?

You get the sudden urge to cup your belly, but Steve’s words knock you out of your reverie.

“Omega, what the hell is all this?”

You blink, seeing his eyes trained on the little basket in your hand.

“Oh. I packed us some lunch for the trip.” You’d been so wound up all night that you’d awoken early to pack a bag full of homemade meatball subs, potato salad and several little boxes of apple juice. “It’s a long drive, so I figured we could use it. I also, uh, calculated our driving shifts.”

Steve squints down at you, “What?”

“W-Well, it’s a long journey, so I figured you could drive for the first half, then I could take over–”

“Omegas don’t drive.”

And with that stone-faced remark, Steve lifts you up into the passenger seat of his car. Before he clicks your seatbelt in place, you twist around to put your basket in the backseat before taking Steve Junior out from where he was tucked under your jacket. You place him beside the basket and his coal black eyes stare back at you as his precariously-stitched head lolls to the side. You didn’t feel right leaving him in Steve’s room while you travelled so far away. This way, he was close to his parents, and safe from any crazy men who might behead him for a second time.

The journey is quiet, and not even the cheery morning show host’s voice blaring out the radio can blanket the silence between the two of you. Because what more is there to say when yesterday’s events could’ve been ripped straight out of a telenovela? Your pregnancy, then Steve’s proposal, then the whole scuffle with Peter which had ended with a string full of damning words that had affected Steve a lot more than you thought they would.

“Why are you being so quiet?” Steve demands after ten minutes of no conversation. You jolt, staring at him with wide, wary eyes. He was being quiet too, but you know better than to say that to him.

“I’m sorry.”

The alpha sighs, “Don’t apologise.”

You almost instinctively apologise once more, before stopping yourself just in time. But you don’t know what else to say to him. Do you just go back to being normal after everything that had just happened? What even was “normal” with Steve? You can’t even remember the last time you’d had a proper conversation with him. One that wasn’t intense or emotional or filled with accusations and hurt. So, where do you go from there?

“Let’s play a game.” Steve says after a further ten minutes of silence and you staring out the window at the scenery, and you almost raise an eyebrow at the uncharacteristic suggestion. You peak over at him, and he’s staring straight ahead. His eyebrows are knotted and lips pursed, as if he himself is uncomfortable to a certain degree.

“A game?”

“Yes. You ask me a question and I have to answer honestly. And then I’ll do the same with you.” Steve says, sounding like he’s reading instructions off a manual. His “game” sounds simple enough, but you still can’t help but be wary.

“I…uh…I don’t know what to ask.” You confess and Steve huffs.

“Just do it.” He orders you.

“Okay, uh, wh-what’s your favourite colour?” You blurt out, immediately feeling stupid.

Steve rolls his eyes, “That’s not what I meant, omega.”

“I’m sorry.”

You turn back to your window, watching the scenic landscape go whizzing by and hating yourself for being so awkward. It was a wonder he didn’t rescind his marriage proposal right then and there, because you couldn’t even play his game right and it was such a simple game to begin with and –

“It’s blue.” Steve coughs.

The corners of your mouth quirk up. “Oh. I knew that. A lot of your favourite shirts are blue. They match your eyes.” You sit up straighter and glance at him but his expression is impenetrable as always. “My favourite colour is yellow–”

“You can’t answer your own question.” Steve interrupts. “And you can’t ask a question that you already know the answer to.”

“Oh. Of course, sorry…” You deflate, wanting the buttery leather car seat to swallow you up whole. You’ve been feeling extra sensitive lately, for obvious reasons, and your fingers itch for Steve Junior to calm your nerves. You really wish you’d kept him in the front with you.

“My turn.” Steve says after a while, right when you think he’s abandoned the game. There’s a pause before the car reaches a red light and comes to a halt, and he turns to look at you.

“Are you in love with Peter?”

He spits the question out like each word is pumped full of acid, and his blue eyes bore into yours as he waits for an answer. You can see his fingers already tapping at the steering wheel impatiently and you gulp. You weren’t expecting his question to be so loaded off the bat. 

“Wh-What?”

“You heard me. Are you in love with him? Is that why you were kissing him yesterday?”

Your jaw drops open, “Is that what you think??”

“That’s what I saw.”

“I did not kiss him back.” You say firmly, a part of you not even caring if he believes you or not at this point.

“You didn’t?”

“No, Steve. I told him I wanted to stay with you.” And now he’ll probably never speak to me again.

Steve pauses as if to mull over this information, and he seems to look somewhat touched before a smirk tugs at his mouth, “Well, of course you didn’t kiss him back, and of course you want to stay with me. I knew that.” But you notice how his shoulders relax and his jaw untenses, and he exhales in relief before–

“Well? Answer my original question, omega. Are you in love with him?”

“N-No–”

“Be honest!”

You take a deep breath, trying to gather your thoughts and give him a proper answer. “I don’t love him. He was my best friend and we used to hang out together all the time. We’d watch movies and study together and play computer games. I guess we both thought that since we liked each other’s company so much, that we might as well start dating. It was my first relationship and it was sweet. But I’m not in love with him. I don’t think I was with him long enough to explore that, but even if I had been, I think I knew deep down that I could only ever love him as a friend.”

You’re surprised at your own eloquence, and how you’ve finally put your jumbled thoughts and feelings into words. It’s like a weight lifted off your shoulders, but you’re still wary of Steve. In the past, you were never allowed to mention Peter or allude to your relationship with him.

But Steve only nods, relief flooding his features once more, “Yeah? Well, I already knew that. I knew you could never love him.”

“Oh... Well, I thought you said we weren’t allowed to ask questions we already knew the answer to?”

He shoots you a look and rolls his eyes while you turn to look out the window to hide your own smile. You can feel those butterflies creeping up inside you again, fluttering like crazy and making you feel shyer than ever. You only look back when he squeezes your leg.

“You could watch movies with me too, you know.” Steve says.

“I never thought you’d want to.”

The light turns green and the drive continues, as does the game. Now it’s your turn once more.

“Why did you – uh –” You play with the string of your hoodie, wondering whether you should bring this up. But he’d asked you a question about your ex, so you could do the same. “Did you promise Sharon everything that you promised me? About taking care of her and starting a family?”

Steve sighs, “Is that what she told you?”

“Is it true?” You whisper, not sure if you even wanted to know the answer.

“Look, I was with Sharon for two years. Things change as time passes.”

His answer is vague and unsatisfactory, and you feel yourself straighten up in your seat. “So, two years from now, you’ll change your mind about me too?” And our child?

“No, because you’re different. Everything I said to you was true. About how I wanted you to be the mother of my children, how I promised to take care of you. Ask me again in ten years, and none of that will change.” He inhales deeply, “I told Sharon that I wanted a wife and a family to take care of. But I never explicitly said that I wanted that with her. She never made me feel…”

His voice trails off, but your curiosity gets the best of you. And despite your reserved nature around him, you can’t help but clutch his arm and squeeze.

“She never made you feel what?”

He scrunches his eyes shut for a second, his fingers drumming against the steering wheel. Another long exhale and then:

“Nothing, okay? You can’t ask multiple questions, omega. That’s not how this game works. But to answer your original question: No, I didn’t promise any of that to her. She was just bitter that I dumped her, and she took it out on you. And I’ll make sure she pays for that.”

 You sit back, not knowing how to feel. It all boils down to the same thing you’ve been asking yourself for a while now: do you trust his word?

The drive continues on for miles and miles. The two of you settle into another short period of silence, but this time it’s more comfortable. You even pluck up the courage to turn the radio back on, engulfing the car in upbeat pop music that makes Steve frown and huff and roll his eyes. But he lets it play, and the melodious crooning of Taylor Swift accompanies you all the way to the gas station.

Steve polishes off his meatball subs in the gas station parking lot after filling up the car, whilst you and Steve Junior watch him. He offers you a sandwich too, but the smell of both the subs and the potato salad is making you queasy, so you politely decline.

“Well, you have to eat something.” He frowns.

“I’m okay.”

“It’s not a request, omega, you’re eating for two now. And why would you pack these sandwiches if you weren’t going to eat one?”

You shrug, trying to hold your nausea at bay. “I wanted it in the morning but now I don’t want it anymore.”

“That’s ridiculous. Just eat it!”

“No!”

“Do what I tell you and eat it!” He thrusts the sandwich into your hand.

“No, please! I don’t want to!” You blanche as the bile rises up to your throat.

Throwing up in a gas station bathroom in the middle of nowhere is a humbling experience, to say the least. You thank your lucky stars that you have your toothbrush in your purse, because the amount of grime and filth covering the toilet has you heaving everything out. You’d thought you’d lucked out this morning when you hadn’t had your usual bout of morning sickness. Well, it was here now, and with a vengeance. You throw up for what feels like an eternity, and then clean and freshen yourself up before emerging from the bathroom, feeling sheepish and embarrassed.

Steve drags you into the nearby convenience store after that, determined to get you to eat something to fill up your now empty stomach. You’re hesitant at first, but soon point to what you want and let him buy it for you. And then he sits in the car and watches you munch on a hot pickle dipped in peanut butter and a small bag of ice chips.

“You’re actually enjoying that?” He asks in disbelief.

“Yes, I like it.” You hold the pickle out to him. “Would you like some?”

Steve makes a face before the two of you share a look. You don’t know whether he cracks a smile first or if it’s you. But you do know that this is new, uncharted territory between you two – much like how this whole day has been. It’s in the little things, how his smile seems sweet rather than smug. How you’re able to hold eye contact with him longer than you’ve ever been able to before. How he’s talking to you like you’re a person, instead of an object that he wants to manipulate.

“I think I’ll pass.” He says, and you shrug, taking another deliciously satisfying bite of the pickle. And you’re so engrossed in how good it tastes (especially with the peanut butter) that you don’t even notice when Steve leans over the console and plants a kiss on your forehead.

“You’re cute.” He says, his cheeks blushed pink in a way you’ve never seen them before, and you can feel the tips of your ears growing hot and a fluttering spark deep in your tummy. And then he coughs and straightens back into his seat, shaking his head as if he’s trying to clear it. You continue to munch on your pickle while he checks the GPS and clears his throat.

“Let’s get going. We’re almost at your mother’s house.”

*

The rest of the drive goes by in a blur, and as the time passes and the roads grow familiar, the light-hearted feeling in your chest is replaced with one of dread and foreboding. Just seeing the signs leading to your hometown brings back a mixed bag of memories. Ranging from good ones (mainly involving Peter and school) to bad ones (everything else). And your stomach churns in anticipation when Steve finally parks his car in front of your childhood home.

“It’s not much.” You say as you reach out to ring the doorbell, gingerly brushing away stray cobwebs from the brass, hoping Steve didn’t see them, “And my mom is usually too tired to clean, so it’ll be a mess in there probably.” You take a deep breath before turning to face him, “Look. I… I know it’s not as fancy as what you’re used to, but p-please don’t judge it, okay?”

Steve, who up until this moment had been busy surveying the almost decrepit looking street crammed full of houses on the verge of falling apart, frowns back at you. “I wouldn’t judge.”

“Thank you.” You say quietly, although you feel extremely embarrassed. Steve is undoubtedly used to the grandeur and lavish lifestyle that most of the people at your university lead. You know he probably gets more money in his monthly allowance than your mother would see in a year.

But this was where you’d grown up, this tiny house which resembled more of a cottage, with its two rooms and leaky roof and creaky doors. The house you’d so desperately tried to make into a home, learning to cook and clean and sew at a young age just so you could spruce things up at home while your mother worked six – maybe seven – days a week and her boyfriend of the month sat at home and drank, and…

You blink it all away, ringing the doorbell again but no one answers. Nervously, you bite your lip and glance back at Steve, who has an arm protectively around your waist as if he thinks something might burst out from inside and attack you.

“Mom’s probably at work.” You explain, gnawing at your lip.

“What does she do again?”

“She’s a waitress.” You say sharply, your tone starkly defensive. Suddenly, you’re transported back to the beginning of freshman year – Steve and his gang smirking and laughing at you about everything, from your hand-me-down clothes to your scuffed sneakers. Would they have had a field day with the knowledge that your mom was a waitress? When all their parents were bankers, businessman, doctors and lawyers? “Why are you asking me that?”

“Restaurants would all be shut at this time.”

“Well, maybe she’s asleep. She works really, really hard, okay?” You can’t help as your voice grows more high-pitched; your tone more distressed. It’s like the past few hours of easy conversation with him all evaporated as soon as you entered this house. Your defences are now coming up higher and higher – the same defences that had slowly corroded and crumbled through incessant bullying throughout the year. But this is your home, your turf, your mother – you can’t help but be defensive.

“Baby, are you okay?” Steve asks softly, and it’s still so strange to be faced with this side of him. This softer, kinder side that almost seems to have manifested overnight. It’s like half of you is still on high-alert, waiting for him to burst out laughing. Waiting for him to get his phone out and take pictures of the poverty surrounding him and send them to everyone he knows. Instead, his warm hand rubs your back soothingly and you don’t know what to think.

“I’m fine.” You sound so clipped, it’s strange. You know you shouldn’t be speaking to him like this, and in the past, he would’ve warned you for being short with him. But right now, he doesn’t say anything as you both wait at the front door, with you shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

Finally, you sigh, reassuring yourself that your mother is probably just at work or asleep inside as you bend down and reach under the dirty welcome mat, thanking your lucky stars that the spare key is still there.

Steve tenses his jaw, “That’s not safe, omega.”

You don’t answer, because what robber would ever come to your house? What exactly would they steal? You don’t have time to mull over it before Steve snatches the key from you, grabbing your hand and stepping in front of your body like a human shield. He unlocks the door and slowly steps inside with you following on his tail.

“Mom,” You call out, trying to flip on the lights except they aren’t working. That’s nothing new – sometimes your mom was late to pay the bill and so they’d cut the electricity out, but it’s embarrassing for it to happen now, with Steve here. “Mom? It’s me! I’m home!”

Your voice echoes around the room, but there’s no response. Steve turns his phone’s flashlight on, shining it around and revealing the stark, dusty furniture. The stained carpet and cracked coffee table loaded with empty takeaway containers. You always kept the place neat and tidy when you lived here: surfaces gleaming and fresh flowers on the table, but clearly your mother and her boyfriend haven’t kept that up since you moved to college.

“Mom? Didn’t you hear me? I’m home! And my – uh – my boyfriend’s here too.” You cough and try not to look at Steve when you say that part; it still gives you butterflies when you refer to him as your boyfriend. Or fiancé. Father of your baby? Your mother has no idea about any of that, and you try to ignore the wobble in your voice, “I-I know I was supposed to come home as soon as the term ended, but a lot of things came up. There’s – uh – there’s a lot of things I need to tell you, mom.”

No response, and the door to your mother’s bedroom is ajar.

“Omega, I don’t think anyone’s at home–”

 You ignore him, and it feels like you’re wading through wet cement as you make your way over to her bedroom. Creaking the door open and seeing it empty, bedsheets stripped and drawers hanging open and closet left ajar too. All empty. No clothes, bags, shoes, anything. A gasp dies in your throat and you shut the door and step back, bumping into Steve’s hard chest.

“Is she in there?” He asks, although his eyes seem to know the answer.

“She’s still at work.” You answer brightly, clearing your throat to get rid of the lump, blinking several times as a wide smile plasters itself on your face. “She’s just at work.” You repeat, diverting your eyes when he gives you a concerned look. “She’s probably working late – maybe she got a new job where she has longer hours.”

Steve sighs, “Omega–”

“We could kill some time till she comes back. Please, let’s just…” You take a deep breathe, “Maybe we can go into my room?” You drag him away from your mother’s door and to the one right next to it. Your room.  And Steve is about to say something but stops short when you open your door and lead him inside, and he grips your dresser, inhaling deeply.

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and his eyes flutter shut, long lashes fanning his face. He looks so big in your tiny room – it’s about the size of a closet, much smaller than your dorm room. And with your bed, your dresser and your closet, there isn’t much space to walk or even stand for one person, let alone you and your 6’6 framed alpha.

“Your scent is everywhere in here.” Steve says, sniffing the air greedily before impulsively tugging you flush again him. The embrace comes out of nowhere, but you still feel the goosebumps you always do whenever he does things like this. And you let him hold you, relaxing against his comforting arms despite the alarm bells ringing at the back of your head.

“I grew up in here.” You answer quietly, still in his embrace as you turn around, back against his front and he wraps his arms around your waist. “I only moved out months ago, but it feels like ages since then. Like so much has happened, and this is a whole different life.” You reach down to stroke your pink bedsheets – they look exactly how you’d left them – and you imagine the ghost of a younger girl who’d hide in here and study to drown out the sounds of drunken fighting coming from outside.

Steve draws away from you, distracted by the contents of your bedroom. There isn’t much left, but you’ve still got a bunch of books and some tiny knick-knacks lying around on your desk. And you’re momentarily transported back to that first day as you watch him rifle through your things just like he’d done when he’d come over for that tutoring session.

“Aw look, it’s baby omega’s diary.” Steve grins, grabbing a tiny, worn-out yellow journal and flipping through it, making you snap out of it and frown.

“Hey! Give that back!” You lunge for it, embarrassed and not wanting him to read your childish wishes and whims that you’d jotted down over the years. But Steve is much too tall, much too strong, and easily holds the journal out of your reach. He opens it to a random page, his voice comically high-pitched as he reads your words out loud.

“Dear diary, we got our math test results back today and I got a B. I cried for a while but it just means I have to study harder.” Steve chuckles, “Wow, omega, you were a huge nerd even back then.”

“Please give it back.”

“No way, we’re killing time, remember?” He flips to a different page, “Dear diary, the classroom hamster died today and nobody else seemed to feel sad about it.” He snorts, “Cute.”

“Steve–”

“Dear diary, mom’s new boyfriend is really scary. Sometimes he stares at me…”

Steve’s voice trails off, but his eyes remain glued to the page, fingers almost crushing the old journal to dust as he grips it hard, and you swallow uncomfortably, blinking away bad memories. Oh, why had you written all that down? Journals were meant to store memories and you didn’t want to remember that…

Brows furrowed yet expression still unreadable, Steve finally sets the diary down. “What is this about?”

You shrug, diverting your gaze.

He draws you closer again, his face distraught, and you wonder whether you’re in trouble. And you know that’s insane – why would you be in trouble? – but you can’t help but worry all the same, the lump in your throat growing bigger and bigger. Steve’s hand cups your cheek, stroking it lightly and tipping your face upwards to meet his gaze.

“Did he touch you? Your mother’s boyfriend?”

“No.”

“I’ll find him and kill him if he did.” His threat is serious despite the gentleness of his tone, and his thumb strokes your cheekbones, and the heat that’s always radiating from him is almost like a hug, almost like he’s cocooning you in a warm whirlpool of safety, where the only man there is him, him, him. Just him.

“He didn’t. And there were a lot of boyfriends – they’d come and go.” You focus on Steve’s chest, not being able to look into his eyes. “One of them hit me once, because it was dinnertime and he ate my mom’s portion too and I thought that was so unfair. So I spoke up.” A bitter laugh escapes your throat, you can still remember how your cheek had stung with pain. “Well, I learnt never to do that again, and now I have this stupid stutter every time I do speak up in front of people.”

You stare out the window, at the desolate patch of dead grass outside and the ghost of a little girl playing there to escape the monsters inside the house.

“Most of my mom’s boyfriends hated me, but some of them would stare.” You scrunch your eyes for a moment before opening them and forcing out another laugh, “That’s why I wore those huge hoodies that you hate so much. It made them stare less, and then I guess I just got used to wearing them all the time.”

You wish with all your heart that you could read the expression on Steve’s face, or maybe read his mind and know what he’s thinking in this moment. But he only stares at you, and he stares and stares and stares, his lips pressed into a thin line.

“Let’s go from here.” He says finally, “Your mother clearly isn’t here and you’re getting tired. I need to take you home.” He grabs your arm, pulling you out the door but you dig the soles of your feet into the ground, shaking your head.

“No, Steve, please. She’s probably almost back!”

“You’ve had a long day, omega, and you’re wearing yourself out. You’re pregnant now so you need to be careful about these things. Don’t argue with me.”

The tears well up in your eyes before you can stop them, and the lump in your throat gets bigger and bigger. It’s no secret that your pregnancy has made you more emotional, but a small part of you wants to stubbornly lock yourself in your childhood room and wait for her to come home, no matter what your alpha tells you to do, no matter what you know deep down in your heart…

She’s not coming home… The voice at the back of your head is beguiling and mocking at the same time, but you forcibly ignore it with everything inside you.

“Please. I haven’t spoken to her for months. She… She doesn’t even know about you, Steve! Let alone the fact that we’re gonna be married, or that I’m pregnant. And she deserves to know–” Your voice breaks, and you will yourself to be brave but the tears are already halfway down your face, “She’s my mother, Steve. She deserves to know.”

Steve sighs, “Fine. An hour and then we’re leaving.”

It’s progress, because before he wouldn’t have even entertained the idea of listening to you. You give him a small smile of gratitude before taking a seat on your bed – he’s right, you are tired. There are so many aspects of your pregnancy that you’re yet to get used to: the unpredictability of your emotions, the nausea, the soreness, how tired you feel sometimes. Maybe it’s something you could discuss with your mother; a talking point, a bit of common ground. You sigh as your heart pitter-patters – why isn’t she home yet?

Steve resumes looking through your things – he really seems to like doing that. You watch as he rummages through your old scented candles which are all burnt down and used up, your pens which have dried out and your other stationary, your old clothes which are too small for you now. You wonder what exactly he finds so interesting about all this, and then he finds a stack of old photographs inside your drawer.

Quietly, he comes over and sits next to you, sifting through the pictures.

“That’s me when I was a few days old.” You point out when he pauses at a picture of a baby swaddled in white cloth. You’re gazing imploringly up at the camera, eyes big and tearful, with your tiny fists waving in the air. “My mom said I cried a lot as a baby.”

“Well, that hasn’t changed.” Steve snorts before a hesitant smile crosses his features, “You were cute.”

You shrug. There aren’t many more pictures from your childhood; none of you as a toddler or any as you got older. These baby pictures were all you had, and Steve quickly stores them in the inner pocket of his leather jacket.

It’s like there’s a big grandfather clock inside your head, and each tick is a mocking laugh as the time passes. You and Steve leave your room, and you take a firm seat on the couch, eyes trained on the door with a concentration nothing could possibly break. Steve sits beside you for a handful of moments before he grows restless, huffing and shaking his head. But every time his gaze fixes on you, it softens. And whatever words he’s got on the tip of his tongue seem to die in his throat.

Ten minutes pass. And then another ten. It’s almost pitch black all around you, except for the light from Steve’s phone. The alpha gets to his feet and resorts to pacing, but you block it all out. There’s nothing in your mind except for: she’s going to come home, she’s going to come home, she’s going to come home! Any minute now…

From your peripheral, you can see Steve make his way into the open kitchen, the space looking largely unused. You vaguely wonder who has been cooking since you’ve been gone. Who’s been cleaning through the cloud of depression that fogs this place? Who’s been making this house feel like a home since you’ve been gone?

It’s not a home anymore, she’s not coming back! The voice in your head sings but you’ve become good at pushing the thoughts out now.

“Omega.” Steve’s voice, loud, clear and serious, cuts through the war going on inside your head. “Look at this. There’s a letter here. For you.”

No. No. No. No. What letter? There was no letter.

“Steve, I’m waiting for my mom right now.” You answer unwaveringly, eyes locked on the door despite this horrific feeling slowly invading your bloodstream like poison.

You hear his footsteps before he sits back down beside you, his arm going around you and you feel his warmth but there’s also this foreboding type of chill within you. Just keep your eyes on the door, she’ll walk in any moment now.

“I think you should read this. It’s got your name on it.” Steve sounds oddly gentle, but like he’s miles away. Yet you only stare at the door, because you don’t want to look at the paper in his hand. Looking at it would make it real, and reality is almost always accompanied by pain. And there was already so much pain inside you, wasn’t there? No, no, no. There was no letter. You were waiting for your mother to come home. She always came home. Drunk, angry, upset, depressed – she always came home.

“I told you that I’m waiting for my mom right now.” Is it really you who sounds so clipped and dismissive? With just that little bit of desperation hanging off the end of your words, as if begging him, willing him to put the letter away? To pretend it’s not there? And that everything’s okay? And that you’re not moments away from crushing, mind-numbing despair?

Instead, you hear the rustle of parchment, knowing Steve’s unfolding the paper. He’s reading whatever is written on it. And you try and focus on the brass doorknob, waiting for it to turn. Willing it to turn but it remains rigid as ever, and you can hear Steve’s sharp intake of breath as he reads the contents of the letter, before he grabs your arm.

“Omega. Listen to me. We’re going home. Right now.” Steve says. But it’s when he stands up and tugs you up with him, that you feel the elastic band inside you snap. The band that was just about holding you together, breaking apart and tearing your insides apart along with it.

“FUCK OFF, STEVE! Can’t you see I’m waiting for my mom? She’s running late but she’ll be home any minute. Maybe you don’t know what it means to have a hardworking parent who works long hours, but if you want to go home, then just go! I’M NOT COMING WITH YOU BECAUSE I’M WAITING FOR HER!”

Never before have you yelled at him this badly, but you don’t even brace yourself for his anger or whatever punishment he’ll undoubtedly throw your way. You’re too distracted by the dread piling up inside you, threatening to shatter away that tiny sliver of hope that you still cling to. Stubbornly, you sink back down on the couch, crossing your arms over your chest and once more locking your eyes on the front door. She’ll come home. Any minute now. She’ll be here.

You can see Steve’s hands ball into fists, and you hear him take several breaths before he gets down on his knees in front of you. For a split second, you look into his clear blue eyes, seeing your own reflection staring back at you. Why do you look so scared? So haunted? So alone? But then you blink and look back at the door, doing everything to just block him out, even when he gently cups your face and his thumbs stroke your cheeks.

“Baby, she’s not coming back.” He says it so tenderly, but then why does each word feel like a sharp knife twisting into your stomach?

“Yes, she is.”

“No. She’s not.” And he presses the paper into your limp hand. And now you can feel it, and if you can physically feel something, then how long until you have to stop denying its existence? “The letter says that she –”

“Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop –”

“It says that she left, omega.”

“NO!”

For one feral second, you get the urge to crumple the letter in your hand and throw it far away. To another dimension, if that was possible. And then just continue staring at the door, willing your mother to come home and prove Steve wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! But the sane part of your brain that’s trying desperately to keep you grounded makes sure that the paper remains in your fingers. And with a shaky hand, you slowly bring it up so you can read it:

I don’t know if you’ll even see this, but it’s worth a shot. Look, I just needed to get out of here, okay? And I’ve got a new man, he’s got a place up in Minnesota. He’s not like the rest of them, he says he’ll take care of me real good. I just need a fresh start, to get away from all this bullshit. And you’ve always been able to take care of yourself better than I could ever take care of you. Who knows, with your fancy college degree, you probably aren’t ever coming back home. I wouldn’t blame you, Lord knows this ain’t a home and hasn’t been since your father left. I don’t know how to end this, so, I guess this is goodbye.

Your mother.

As the words sink in, you feel like you’re having an out of body experience. It’s like you can see yourself. Abandoned girl left alone in her abandoned home. Nobody cares if you hurt. Nobody cares about you. Everyone leaves. You hear a giggle and whip your head to the side. A ghost of a young girl playing in the shadows, not knowing what sorrow lay in store for her. A girl who once thought of this place as her home, despite all the terror, all the screaming. Despite the harrowing stench of booze and the men that came and went. A girl who was never allowed to forget that her father left her, but never once considered that her mother would leave too.

An ear-piercing, glass shattering scream leaves your mouth. Your lips curl, and then you let out another one. You scream and scream and scream, incoherent and crazed as your emotions finally pour out. Heart-shattering sadness like how you’ve never felt before, so much so that Steve grabs your shoulders and it doesn’t even register to you. It’s all swirling up inside of you and coming out: hurt, sadness, despair, and… Anger.

Some other-worldly strength overtakes you, and you shrug out of Steve’s grip. Grabbing the nearest object from the coffee table, you hurl it at your mother’s abandoned bedroom door with all your might. And then you’re pounding at her door, fists numb to the pain as you punch at the old, creaking wood before Steve’s strong arms grab you by the waist and pull you back.

“I did everything to make you happy, Mom!” You cry, as if it’s her in front of you and not just her bedroom door. “I tried everything to make up for him leaving! I’m the one who cooked and cleaned while you drank! And kept my mouth shut and stayed out of your way! I loved you even when you chose your boyfriends over me! Even wore big clothes so they’d stop staring at me, because I knew it made you angry! I did everything I could, Mom! SO WHY WAS IT NEVER ENOUGH?”

Suddenly, you can’t stand to be inside this dark house. Again, twisting out of Steve’s grip, you dart towards the front door, throwing it open and being met with the cool night breeze. You gasp, breathing as if you haven’t breathed in ages, and that’s when the tears start coming out.

You sink to the ground, which is just a patch of dried-up grass, crying for everything you’ve lost, for everything you never had. Crying for the little girl who grew up in a house that was never a home, and most of all, you cry for the unwavering hope that remained in her innocent heart – in your heart – and how the cruel world around you had snatched it away, chewed it up and spat it back out till it was nothing more than a husk.

Loud, ugly sobs wrack through you. You clutch at the dead grass, ripping it out and scattering it like a madwoman, like someone who’s reached the end of the end and doesn’t know what to do now. You can hear Steve behind you, quiet as if he’s in shock. And then he comes to sit on the ground beside you, his lips parted and his eyes glazed, and he lets you cry as if he knows you need to get it out of you.

And you both just sit there, two kids on a patch of dead, brown grass. Somewhere in between your screams and cries, Steve’s hand slips over yours, squeezing tightly.

You’re still crying softly when he finally picks you up, hugging your limp body close to his chest.

“Let’s go home.” He says firmly.

You look up at him sorrowfully, and you can see the moon twinkling in his eyes. There’s darkness all around you, but through your vision, blurred by your tears, it’s like he’s got a fiery halo around him. And maybe it’s just the dingy streetlights reflecting off of his pale skin as he walks you to his car, but it’s like he’s exuding this intense light. Safety. Warmth. Heat. You cuddle closer, but your lower lip quivers.

“I don’t have a home, Steve.”

He opens the car door and puts you inside, but he still holds on to you tightly, an almost earnest look on his face as he brushes your hair back.

“We’ll be each other’s home. Wherever you are, that’s where my home is. And wherever I am, I’ll take you with me. You’ll never hurt like this again. I promise, I’ll die before I see you hurt like this again.”

He sounds sincere, but you can feel yourself slipping away. Slipping into that dark place, darker than when Bucky had locked you outside of the house and the rain was peltering on your back like hard rocks. A billion times darker than that, and bleaker, like a sorrowful little hole where you just want to curl up in and die. Because what is there to live for when one by one, inevitably, everyone just leaves?

“I don’t want to live anymore.” You say quietly, more to yourself than to him. You close your eyes, willing yourself to somehow just slip and sink your way into blackness, into not existing anymore. “I just want it all to end, Steve. I just want to die.”

From the driver’s seat next to you, you feel a harsh grip on your upper arm. So hard that it pulls you back up to the surface from the metaphorical lake of sorrow you’re mentally trying to drown yourself in. And you see Steve staring at you with an expression of horror, anger and pity as he says your name again and again, sounding almost choked up as he does it.

“Don’t say that. I’ll find her for you. I’ll hire the best private investigator in the country, and they’ll find her and it won’t take long. They’ll find your father too, if that’s what you want.”

You shake your head, “It wouldn’t matter. They don’t want me.”

“Well, fuck them both. I want you.”

You don’t reply, and he shakes you hard before pulling you into a desperate embrace, his hand cupping the back of your head as he holds you against his chest harder than he ever has before.

“I won’t survive without you, okay? I know this isn’t about me but you’re the love of my life and I can’t live without you. I need you with me, okay? Okay?”

There’s a certain desperation in Steve’s tone, as if he’s seen you go to hell and back before and doesn’t want to see a repeat of it. Like he desperately wants to keep you from succumbing to the darkness that’s trying to pull you in like how it had before in the bathtub weeks ago. But you just feel limp in his arms, thinking back to the empty dresser in your mother’s room and how she’d only left you a letter. A piece of paper and that was it.

“Stay with me, okay? I’m sorry for being a fucking jerk and making your life miserable when you were already suffering so much. Just… Just please, don’t shut me out like before. I need you to stay with me.” Steve shakes you again, “I’ll be better, alright? I’ll be better for you and our baby. I’ll give you the life you deserve and I know I’ve been making all these promises but I mean it this time, okay? I just need you to stay with me, omega. You don’t need your mom or your dad, because they’re shitty people and they never deserved you. And you have me. And you’ll always have me, baby. I promise, okay? I promise.”

You sag in his arms, feeling so emotionally exhausted that you’re numb. But his words pierce deep down through all of that, sparking something in your heart through the heavy shrouds of hurt and pain. You remember back when you’d felt this numbness before, in the bathtub after being locked out. Steve had remained silent then, but he wasn’t being silent anymore. Oh, he was giving you hope!

You kick away at the grim reaper’s bony hands that try to grab at you, that are trying to drag you down that same path of sorrow and loneliness. Maybe you’re tired or just delirious from everything you’ve just been through, but Steve’s face radiates with light like the sun. Maybe he is the sun? But it doesn’t hurt to look at him, in fact, it’s the opposite. You feel warmth, fuzziness and lightness cut through and corrode the numbness away. And slowly, fighting through the pain, you surface up and hug him back.

“Stay with me.” Steve repeats.

“Okay. I’ll stay. But it still hurts so much.”

“I know, but I’ll make sure it all goes away.”

Your brain feels like sludge and your body feels like it’s moving through quicksand, but despite it all you manage to squeeze his hand. And then you close your eyes.               All that yelling, screaming, and crying. You want to stay with him like how he asked, but you’re so tired, so exhausted.

“Can I sleep?”

He nods as if he understands, putting you back in the passenger seat and strapping your seatbelt on. “I’m right here, I’ll keep the nightmares away.”

You really hope he does, although what nightmare could be worse than your own mother leaving you?

His warm scent puts you to sleep, and before you fall under, you can see him looking over at you. He strokes your hair gently before starting the car up, and his next words are the last thing you hear before sleep takes you over:

“I’ll take care of you, omega. You’re my family now, and I’ll make it all up to you. I promise.”

***

PART II

You wake up on a king-sized bed, on a mattress as soft as a feather with a heavy duvet on top of you. Soft, satin sheets kiss against your skin, and you bathe in the luxurious feeling for about five seconds before the panic sets in. Panic because Steve isn’t next to you. Your eyes blink open, immediately drinking in an unfamiliar room.

It’s massive. And you know immediately that it’s Steve’s room. You can tell by his scent which is potently covering every object, and the warm heat it brings with it calms you down some. As does Steve Junior, who is also propped up in your arms along with a bunch of Steve’s clothes that have been folded and thrown around you.

Someone had made a makeshift nest for you.

You smile, imagining Steve doing that while you slept. You look around some more. Yes, this was definitely Steve’s room. Minimalistic furniture in different hues of black, white and grey. A large desk with Steve’s laptop on top of it, as well as a framed picture of a pretty woman who looked to be in her early-to-mid forties. His mother?

You get to your feet, limbs feeling sore and weak. The memories of yesterday are clawing inside your head, forcing you to remember but you keep them at bay for just a little while longer. Instead, you grab your phone to check the time, and find a text from Steve too.

Steve: I’ve gone out to take care of something. Don’t panic, I’ll probably be back by the time you wake up. There are some clothes in your size hung in the closet. Make yourself at home and if you need anything and I’m not there, just ask the maid.

You draw back the curtains and almost gasp out loud at the acres and acres of land you seem to be sitting in the midst of. Steve had told you his family owned a house in upstate New York, but this was more of a mansion. No, scratch that, it was an entire estate! With a sprawling savannah of grassy land surrounding it. Did Steve’s family really own all of this? You suddenly feel even more embarrassed about taking him to your former home yesterday. The Rogers family tool shed was probably bigger than your entire childhood home.

Speaking of the Rogers family, you gulp at the thought of meeting them. They’d be here, wouldn’t they? His parents? You catch a glimpse of yourself in the full-length, floor-to-ceiling mirror and wince. Hair poking out in all directions, yesterday’s makeup smudged. Eyes swollen from all the crying, lips bitten and peeling. You glance at Steve Junior, whose unwaveringly honest coal black gaze tells you all you need to know: you look like a sight for sore eyes.

Steve’s bathroom is by far the most lavish bathroom you’ve seen in all your life, with its intricate marble flooring and gleaming gold taps. It’s bigger than your entire living room back at your former home. It takes you a few minutes to figure out how to use the complicated shower, but it’s worth it when hot jets of water shoot at you from multiple directions, and you feel your muscles relax.

Haunting images from the night before flit in and out of your head. Your mother’s empty dresser, the note she had left you. Crying till your throat was hoarse, losing it outside on the patch of grass in front of the house you once called home. But you also remember Steve’s hand squeezing yours, and all the earnest promises he’d made before you’d drifted off to sleep, and you feel yourself calm down.

The sun shines through the window. It’s a new day and you’re in a new place. Miles and miles away from your mother’s deceit and betrayal. You dry off and open the closet, examining the clothes Steve had mentioned in his text. They’re all brand new; leggings and hoodies and sweaters along with branded skirts, blouses and dresses.  You smile, selecting a cosy, plum-coloured sweatshirt and a pair of soft black leggings.

You look at your reflection in his mirror again. Better, but your eyes are still puffy, although there’s nothing you can do about that now. You give Steve Junior one last squeeze and kiss before propping him up in the middle of the bed and making your way out of the bedroom.

Within five minutes of exploring the mammoth house, you realise that navigating through a maze would likely be easier. You just can’t wrap your head around how Steve lived in what was essentially palace, at least in your eyes. Long hallways with thick, plush carpeting – was that where he’d run around as a child? Heavy curtains adorning huge windows, majestic architecture, marble floors, structured pillars, a ginormous grand staircase that reminded you of the one in the prince’s castle in Cinderella. There’s even a fountain in what you assume is the lobby of the whole house – an indoor fountain! Oh, the little girl you’d once been had always dreamed of living somewhere like this. You wonder if these majestic hallways have witnessed drunken mothers and their boyfriends with leering gazes. Probably not. You doubted this sprawling estate dripping with luxury and class had ever known any type of sadness or sorrow.

After walking by several private wings and bedrooms, you find yourself in the kitchen after a few minutes of exploring. You don’t want to be too nosy, but you can’t help it. Everything is tastefully decorated like it’s straight out of an interior design magazine, luxurious vintage furnishings mixed with touches of modernity here and there.

As if on cue, your tummy rumbles noisily. It’s already past noon, which means you’ve definitely overslept. Your hand goes up to cup your belly. “You’re impatient, aren’t you?” You whisper, stroking your stomach before you pause. Had you just spoken to… the baby? Gosh, you hadn’t ever done that before. In fact, there were moments where you felt disconnected from this pregnancy, as if you had yet to understand and accept what it was. It was awful to admit, but there were even moments where you forgot you were pregnant. Like yesterday at your mother’s house…

“Why, you must be Steve’s girlfriend.”

The voice, despite how soft it is, makes you jump. You turn around hastily, coming face to face with a middle-aged woman, and her warm brown eyes instantly remind you of the picture on Steve’s desk.

His mother.

You quickly clear your throat and smile in what you hope is a dignified manner. Immediately, your hands go to straighten any wrinkles in your clothes, and all the while you inwardly curse yourself for not wearing something prettier and more appropriate.

“I’m so sorry, hello, you must be…”

But your voice dies in your throat as you stare into a pale, sickly-looking face. The woman’s eyes still sparkle like the ones in the picture framed on Steve’s desk, but everything else is very different.

She looks incredibly thin and fragile, almost like she’d break if someone folded her in half. Her skin looks tinged a sickly yellow against her pretty pink sweater with elegant pearl buttons. Her clothes are smart and expensive-looking, but they seem to hang off her weak frame. Her face is gaunt, with no sign of the healthy plumpness you’d seen in the framed picture. But despite her appearance, she shoots you a kind smile and it makes her whole face light up.

“I’m Steve’s mother, yes.” She completes, adjusting the expensive-looking silk scarf she has wrapped around her head. “I was waiting for you to come down. The chef has made a lovely breakfast for you.”

You manage to snap out of your stupor, clearing your throat before you speak.

“Oh… uh… okay. Hello, Mrs. Rogers.” You introduce yourself, feeling incredibly awkward. You don’t quite know how to react to what you’re seeing in front of you. Why had Steve never mentioned…?

But Mrs. Rogers only smiles.

“You can call me Sarah, please. Come, let’s sit. I’m afraid I can’t stand for too long, and you must be very hungry.” She pauses, inhaling deeply as if her words have rendered her out of breath. After a handful of seconds, she continues. “You’ll have to help me, though. If you don’t mind.”

You rush to her side, grabbing her frail arm gently and allowing her to rest her weight on you. Her weight which is next to non-existent. It feels like you’re holding a doll. But she leads you to the lavish living room, where there’s an elaborate breakfast spread out on the ornate coffee table.

There are French omelettes and cheesy scrambled eggs and sunny side ups with deep orange yolks. A large pitcher of orange juice with ice, a pot of coffee and a crystal carafe of water. And that wasn’t even half of it – there were stacks of pancakes with knobs of butter and maple syrup dripping down them, and golden waffles with a variety of toppings including fresh berries and cream. Toast cut into elegant triangles, steaming bowls of oats with honey and nuts, and some English muffins with a jar of what looks to be homemade jam next to it. 

You gulp as you help seat Mrs. Rogers down, the aroma of the food tingling inside your nostrils and making your mouth water and tummy rumble embarrassingly once more. Mrs. Rogers – Sarah – laughs, motioning for you to take a seat on the sofa adjacent to the armchair she’s sitting on.

“Please eat, darling.”

You’re too hungry to argue, grabbing a plate and a piece of toast. But Steve’s mother huffs, loading your plate with a bit of everything, until it’s heaving in your hands. You politely take a bite, wondering if there’s an elegant way to eat when all you really want to is shovel this food down your throat. But you try to be graceful, acutely aware of Mrs. Rogers beaming at you as you do.

“I’m so happy to finally meet the girl Steve has been so smitten over.” She gushes, “It’s about time I met a girlfriend of his, and you’re the first one he’s ever brought home.”

“Really?”

“Of course. He talks about you all the time.”

That makes you pause, and you swallow a bite of pancake before looking up at her. “Steve talked about me with you?” You whisper, the shock clearly evident in your tone.

You think back to the whirlwind two months you’ve been with Steve. He’d mentioned his parents a few times, but always as a collective, and he’d never given any details (You hadn’t pressed him because you were shy and also because it’s not like you were particularly forthcoming with details about your own parents). He’d certainly never mentioned that his mother was sick… and you’d never heard him talk to her on the phone or anything. He’d probably done it in private.

“Yes, through calls and emails.” Mrs. Rogers smiles, taking a delicately small sip of water, and your eyes linger on her frail hand as it shakes. “When he first went away for college, he used to come home to visit every other weekend. Not so much anymore, but I understand that he’s busy.” She shakes her head sadly before letting out a chuckle, “I suspect he’s scared to see me in person, considering my current state.”

Your heart sinks. Oh gosh, how had Steve kept something so big from you? How had it never come up?

Mrs. Rogers clears her throat, “Enough about me, my darling. Please, continue eating.” She pauses, either to catch her breath or to wait until you take another bite of food, which you do. “Even if he doesn’t come home as often as he used to, I still call him every week to keep up with his life, and I’ll admit I was shocked when he told me he’d bonded with someone. I told him it was impulsive, that you two were too young. But I’m the last one to question young love.”

She’s silent as she looks at you almost curiously. You can’t hold eye contact with her long, so you just keep your smile up before it eventually fades away, and you look down helplessly. Perhaps she was now seeing all the flaws in you as they surfaced before her eyes now that the two of you were past pleasantries. Flaws and shortcomings that had made your own mother leave you, now Steve’s mother would see them too.

And the images flit back into your head again, your mother’s empty dresser, the note she’d left you, the nonchalance with which she’d exited your life. You feel your lower lip wobble and tears well in your eyes. Oh no, don’t do this here! Not in front of Steve’s mom! Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it!

Mrs. Rogers is stronger than she looks, because before you know what’s happening, she draws you into a hug that is surprisingly tight. You’re rigid in her arms for a second, not knowing how to react. Why was she hugging you? This was weird… You’d never really hugged anyone before, apart from Steve and Peter – but that was different.

It only takes you a few seconds before you sag in her arms. And then the tears won’t stop, and it’s crazy! How could you be crying in the arms of a woman whose problems were so evidently larger than your own? Because at least you had your health! But it feels so alien, how gentle she’s being. How she strokes your hair and whispers “there, there,” to you soothingly.  

“I’m sorry, this is so inappropriate of me…I just met you…” You apologise between tears, but she just shushes you.

“Don’t worry, darling. I can tell that you’ve been through a lot and there’s a lot on your mind.” She strokes your hair out of your face and she gives you a reassuring smile. “Is my son the reason for your tears? I know he can be a bit… controlling. He gets that from his father.”

You sniffle, about to shake your head but she cuts you off, her tone shifting from gentle to serious.

“Now, you listen to me. If my son has you feeling trapped in any way, shape or form, just know that there are ways to get out.” She fishes an embroidered linen out of the pocket of her cardigan and dabs at your tears in a manner that seems so motherly that you can’t help but burst into tears again. “We omegas aren’t as weak as they think we are, and there is always a way for us to flourish, whether that’s with an alpha or without one.”

“I…I…” you try to say something, anything, but all you can do is stutter and cry some more. And it’s embarrassing to a degree, because haven’t you cried enough? And aren’t your problems so trivial compared to hers?

Finally, you shake your head, clutching the pretty embroidered linen as if it’s a treasured family heirloom that she’s bestowed upon you, and not just something she’s given you to wipe your tears with. “N-No, Mrs. Rogers. It’s not like that… Well, at least not anymore. Steve wasn’t so nice to me at first, but now I want to be with him.”

Want to or need to? The shadowy voice inside your head mocks, but you force it away quickly.

“That’s good to hear. And for what it’s worth, I think you and Steve make a beautiful couple.” She pauses, doing that thing again where she needs a few seconds to regain her breath. You wonder vaguely if she’s in pain, but the thought is too depressing for you to linger on.

“Is it the baby?” She whispers suddenly, and her words jolt you upright.

“How do you know about the…?”

Her eyes twinkle, “Well, you just confirmed it, darling. And I confess that I could smell it on you. Pregnant omegas have a subtly different scent, I learnt all about that when I worked as a midwife before I got married.”

You’re stunned, but you manage to nod slowly, “Yes, I only found out a few weeks ago.”

A peculiar look crosses Mrs. Rogers’ face in that moment. Budding excitement makes her smile widely, her beautiful brown eyes lighting up her entire face and taking away that sickly gauntness for a second. Just a second, before something inside her dims, and her smile dampens, as if there’s a ticking time bomb behind her eyes that won’t allow her to get too excited.

“I do hope I’m still here when…” She looks somewhere beyond your shoulder, her eyes shining wetly before she takes out another embroidered handkerchief and dabs at them. “Well anyways, that’s wonderful news, my darling, just so wonderful. I was about your age when I had Steve.”

“You were?”

“Yes. Of course, I wasn’t at college but I was working as a mid-wife when I met Steve’s father and we fell in love.” She pauses, either to reflect on fond memories or to catch her breath. If you’re honest, she looks slightly tired and worn out, as if merely speaking is taking a toll on her and yet she continues because she has to get it all out. “We were married within two months of knowing each other. Of course, I had to leave my job, and I got pregnant that very year. Oh, what an exciting time it was…”

She was definitely reflecting now, and you take a moment to reflect as well. Would you also have to leave college and any prospect of a job now that you were pregnant and had agreed to marry Steve?

“Where is Mr. Rogers now?” You ask, trying not to think too hard about all your current worries.

“Oh, he’s on one of his business trips.” She chuckles, “He wanted to take time off work when we found out I was sick, but I wouldn’t hear it. I just wanted things to carry on as normal, and that’s also what I told Steve last summer when I first found out.”

You nod slowly, trying to take in all the information you’ve just been bombarded with. And oh, you don’t know how to feel! You’ve just met this woman and yet you wish you’d known her longer.

“Mom? Why are you out of bed? You’re supposed to be resting!”

You jump at the sound of Steve’s voice, turning around when you sense him at the doorway. As your eyes land on his familiar frame, your heart skips a beat and you jump once more – but for a different reason…

“Steven Grant Rogers, what have you done to your beautiful hair?” Mrs. Rogers cries out, dramatically holding her hand up to her heart.

Steve’s blonde hair, which had grown longer in the past two months, is now sporting a buzzcut. His light blonde tufts which had even begun to curl up against his collar, now cropped down close to his head. The new hairstyle, paired with his growing facial hair, makes him look so starkly different from the clean-cut alpha you’d grown used to. Not bad different, just different.

Steve runs a hand through his hair (or what’s left of it), “It’s just a haircut, mom. Where’s your nurse?”

“But why? Oh, Stevie, is that where you went off to so early in the morning? To the barber? Darling, you could have just asked me to give you a trim, like how I used to!”

“It’ll grow back, mom, please don’t be so dramatic. Now where’s that nurse of yours?”

“Never mind the nurse, Steve. You’re about to be a father, for heaven’s sake! You cannot go around looking like a troublemaking hoodlum with that haircut!”

“I do not look like a troublemaking–” Steve cuts himself off, looking from you to his mother, “You know about the…?”

“Your baby? Yes, Steven. Your girlfriend and I had a nice long chat before you arrived to shock us with your appalling haircut.”

Steve sits down next to you, taking your hand into his and giving it a squeeze. You instinctively offer him a bite of your pancake, which he accepts, shooting you a small smile as he chews. And it makes your heart all fuzzy, because it’s still him, with his pretty blue eyes and long lashes and full lips. It’s still Steve, just with shorter hair.

“How are you feeling?” He asks you softly, and you give him a small, affirming nod.

His gaze shifts from you to his mother, and you see his face soften even more, “Mom, I told you I’d bring her to your room to meet you. The doctor said you need to rest–”

Mrs. Rogers bats her hand dismissively, “I’ve rested enough, Steve.”

“Where’s your nurse?”

“Oh, her? I sent her home.” Mrs. Rogers says proudly.

“What? Mom, you can’t do that. The nurse is here for a reason!”

“Yes, and I felt it pointless to keep her here when I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. She looked terribly bored anyways, and so I gave her the rest of the day off. And look, I’m perfectly fine despite her not being here.”

Mrs. Rogers doesn’t look perfectly fine. In fact, she already looks more tired and worn out in the few minutes since you’ve spoken to her. But seeing the stubborn resilience on her face makes your heart sink. You don’t know how, but you know exactly what she’s doing. Staying strong, pretending to be brave… For Steve. It’s a maternal thing, you realise – and you don’t know how you’ve come to this conclusion because it’s not like your own mother ever demonstrated this type of behaviour – but you just know.

“How are you going to get better if you don’t do what the doctor tells you to?” He demands, and you see Mrs. Rogers sigh, casting an almost pitiful look at her son.

Steve goes over to help his mother to her feet. And it’s sad to watch, but also fascinating. This is a dynamic that you’ve never seen him in, being so tender with his mother that it touches your heart. And there’s such genuine love in Mrs. Rogers’ eyes, despite how she huffs at his haircut and bats his hands away before eventually accepting them. She stands up, leaning heavily against him.

“Well, I guess I should rest a bit more.” She contemplates, shooting you a wink, “I’m sure you two want some alone time. I remember how it was back in the day, when Steve’s father and myself were freshly mated. Oh, you wouldn’t believe how much we–”

Steve wrinkles his nose, “Mom, please don’t finish that sentence.”

You giggle, and Mrs. Rogers gives you one final smile. And it’s wondrous how her smile seems to bring a glimpse of her youth and health back to her face, albeit fleetingly. Your heart hurts for her, but you also feel a sense of awe and admiration at how regally she holds herself, with pride in every step she takes and kindness in every word she’d spoken.

“Darling, please come into my room whenever you feel like it. I have many stories to tell you, and plenty are about Steve.”

You nod, also getting to your feet. “I would love to hear them.”

“And I’m sure you have a lot to tell me too. I know how stubborn my son gets –”

“Mom!”

“–and I know he’d love to keep you all to himself, but I would love to get to know you better too.”

You watch as Steve leads her away. She pauses when a sudden, wracking coughing spell makes her lean more heavily against her son. Steve freezes, watching as his mother coughs into her handkerchief. You see a flash of red on the white linen before she neatly tucks it into her pocket and clears her throat. It’s only when her coughing resides and she smiles up at Steve reassuringly, that the alpha seems to relax.

“It’s probably just a delayed reaction to your hair.” She jokes weakly, and Steve rolls his eyes before taking her to her room.

You sit alone, making a mental promise to go to Mrs. Rogers’ room at least once a day for as long as you were staying here.

“Steve, why did you never tell me about your mother?” You ask a few minutes later once he returns to the living room.

He blinks, “She’s fine.”

“B-But why didn’t you mention that she’s sick?”

“She’s fine.” Steve repeats, “She’s going to be fine, okay? That’s what my dad says.”

You’d only ever known Steve to be brave, because weren’t all alphas brave? You never knew him to fear anything, and yet right now it was plain as day – the fear and uncertainty glimmering in his eyes for just a moment before he blinks it all away.

“That’s where he is right now,” Steve continues, speaking fast as if to reassure himself and not just you, “My dad. He’s meeting with all the best doctors in the country, and they’ll fix her up easily. That’s exactly what he said, and we have all the money in the world to pay for any treatment or drug or surgery. So there’s no point in worrying about anything, omega. She’ll be fine.”

You feel a surge of pity as you watch him nod reassuringly to himself, and you clasp his hand with both of yours.

“Steve, she–”

“She’s fine, omega.” Steve says for the umpteenth time, and you see that glimmer in his eye again, that almost desperate little glint. A warning bell, or a silent cry for you to drop it. “She’s always been fine, okay? She’s always been healthy and active and all of that, so this doesn’t really mean anything, and you shouldn’t worry about it because it’ll go away soon and she’ll get better.”

You nod, not saying anything more. Instead, you hesitantly wind your arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. You rarely initiate intimacy with him – despite the fact that you crave it so much. Your shyness has always halted you in the past, stopped you from kissing him or hugging him first despite the fact that it was often the only thing on your mind. You’d always wait for Steve to initiate and then follow his lead.

But something had changed between the two of you. Was it in the football field, when he’d professed his love? Was it when he’d walked away from harming Peter? Or was it during the long car journey yesterday, where slowly but surely, you’d let your walls down around him and actually spoken to him. It felt like the first two months of your relationship had been a tumultuous rollercoaster filled with hurt, lies, pain and anguish – along with fiery passion and an intense need for each other. The latter two were still present now, but there seemed to be a deeper understanding that wasn’t there before.

In the span of the past two days, you’d seen sides to him that you’d never seen before. His panic attack after he’d walked away from the fight with Peter, his laidback demeanour during the drive to your hometown. How he’d consoled you after everything that happened last night, and the desperate way in which he’d begged you to stay with him, to not go back to that dark place within yourself. And you? He’d seen you at the lowest of low you could have possibly felt: crying at the foot of your childhood home that no longer was. And you’d asked yourself: where do we go from here?

Steve was changed, and so were you. And that shyness that you felt before, it isn’t all that consuming now as you hug him close, and kiss his cheek.

“She’s lovely, Steve.” You whisper honestly, shooting him a reassuring smile.

“She’ll be fine.” He says, again more to himself than to you. And all you can do is nod as he holds you close, before tipping your head up and pressing your lips against his. And your body shudders in his arms, having missed him this close to you. He returns your kiss feverishly, his big hands rubbing up and down your back in a way that makes you both sigh. Silently, he grabs your hand and leads you back to his bedroom, which is just as well, because this mansion was so massive, you’d have probably got lost trying to find your own way back.

“I booked us an ultrasound appointment for later this week.” He says, and you blink. Oh, right. The baby. Between marriage proposals and fights and road trips and disappearing mothers and mothers with illnesses, you’d once again put your pregnancy to the very back of your mind.

“Oh. Okay.” You aren’t sure what else to say.

Steve clears his throat, leading you over to his bed. He sits down and pulls you into his lap, “Yeah. You’ve had a tough few days and I thought we should get everything checked out. We don’t even know how far along you are.”

You don’t say anything, instead just cuddling up to him even more. Now, with your newfound comfort in initiating kisses, you can’t help but press your lips against his again. You just want to feel him, and feel something that isn’t dread. This morning when you’d woken up, you’d pushed all the bad memories of yesterday aside. But now, they were all coming back. Like sticky, black tar staining the inside of your head, and an evil voice laughing and mocking you…

“Baby,” Steve breathes, slightly pulling back, “How are you feeling?”

Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it. That’s what your mind keeps chanting, desperately trying to erase the picture of your mother’s empty dresser, and her note which you had ripped to shreds. Why did your fingers itch for that note now? Your mother’s parting words to you… maybe you should have kept them safe…

“Your hair’s all prickly now.” You blurt out.

Steve frowns, but he seems to understand that you don’t want to talk about your mother. “You hate it too, huh?”

“No, it’s just different.” You card your fingers through his buzzcut as best you can, scratching at his scalp lightly and it makes him sigh and relax under you. He grabs your other hand, the one that’s not in his hair, and squeezes it in his larger one before bringing it up to his lips. He kisses each of your fingertips, the act so intimate that it sends sparks up your spine. “It’s different, but it’s still you.”

He nods, “I just felt like I needed a change.”

You watch him as he plays with your fingers, his other hand grabbing the back of your neck and tugging you down till you’re lying on top of him, your cheek against his chest. Snuggling up cosily, you listen to his heartbeat, the steady drumming cleansing your mind and making you sigh in relief.

“You look so different compared to the first time I saw you.” You say absentmindedly, thinking back to the clean-cut alpha who had bullied you so horribly those first few months of freshman year.

“Well, I’m not like that anymore, okay? Like I said before, I’ll be different now.”

I hope, I hope, I hope! You think, wanting so badly to believe that… but all you can do is give him a weak smile in return.

*

The days go by quickly at the Rogers’ household. It’s the end of college and the start of summer, but you don’t know how you feel about that. It’s difficult to open up about everything surrounding your mother. A small part of you still wants to call her or leave her a text, but there’s also a part of you that wants to delete her number altogether. But you can’t bring yourself to do it, and Steve, despite wanting you to open up to him, doesn’t press you to do it.

It's comical, in a way. You won’t open up about your mother leaving you, and he won’t open up about his mother being sick. So depressingly sad that it’s comical.

You try and distract yourself from your feelings by exploring the mansion some more. Steve gives you a tour, explaining all the different wings the house has. The east wing, the west wing, the north wing, the south wing – gosh, you’d never stepped foot inside a house so big that it had four separate wings filled with a dozen rooms each. And Steve had grown up here, so it was all normal to him, but you could see the look of amusement in his eyes. As if he got a kick out of you being so entranced by the riches in front of you.

With your hand firmly held in his, he’d shown you the pools (yes, plural), and the indoor cinema (bigger and better than any real cinemas you’d been to) and the tennis courts. Your favourite was by far the ballroom, this gigantic room that seemed to stretch for acres, with shiny marble flooring and vintage chandeliers that held real wax candles.

“Oh, it’s just like a fairytale…” you breathe.

Steve smirks, “My parents used to hold galas in here, but I always thought they were stuffy and boring. They’d force me to come, but me and Bucky would always sneak out and go play videogames or smoke weed.”

You bristle when he mentions Bucky, but soon forget as Steve leads you to another room. It’s a library, and it’s bigger than any you’ve seen before. Bigger than the public library in town and even bigger than the university library on campus. Shelves upon shelves filled with books of all sorts, and oh, you could spend an eternity in here!

“I knew you’d like this room the best.” Steve says, “Some of the books in here are so old, they’re falling apart. But I guess that’s the charm of it…”

Steve tells you that you can use the library whenever you want. In fact, he says you can use the pool, the tennis courts, the cinema, all of it… “It’s your house as much as it is mine,” he says, but you have a hard time accepting that something so big could ever be yours. It’s all a bit much to take in, going from crying on a patch of dried grass a few nights ago to a plethora of riches surrounding you today. But you nod graciously, liking this relaxed and laid-back side of him which you were slowly getting used to seeing.

But it’s when he’s gone that you feel yourself beginning to unravel. It’s when he goes out to the gym or for a run or to his father’s company office, that’s when you feel yourself breaking down from the inside out. You find yourself calling him, texting him, begging him to come back so you don’t have to be alone with your thoughts. And he does come back every time, and he hugs you, and then you feel okay again.

Steve’s mother is also a calming presence for you, despite the fact that it’s only been three days since you met her. She has a nurturing quality that you find yourself gravitating towards. Sometimes, when Steve is gone, you go to her room to keep her company. (Or rather, she keeps you company).

She tells you stories about Steve as a child (“He wasn’t always so big and imposing! Oh no, my Stevie was a late bloomer, but he doesn’t want me telling anyone that!”) and about her days as a midwife (“It was rewarding work. I was sad to leave it behind but I knew that being a mother was more important to me than any other job.”) She also tells you about Steve’s father (“He used to be a lot like Steve, very impatient and hot-headed. But he’s mellowed out a lot now, and he’s the love of my life. I wish he’d hurry up and come home, because he’s been dying to meet you too, and I miss him.”)

She also tells you about how she wishes she’d had a bigger hand in raising Steve. She tells you she’d been exceptionally close to him when he was a child, taking him out to tend her flower garden with her, nurturing his talent for drawing and painting, even teaching him how to sew. But once he’d entered middle school, his father had taken over, wanting to properly teach him how to be an alpha and the man of the family. She said that her and Steve were still close, though, and she liked how he was becoming more sensitive because of you.

You love listening to her speak, and sometimes, even if it’s for just a few fleeting moments, you imagine how your life would’ve been like if she had been your mother. With her soft and caring nature, the way she was so inviting and kind, the way she held your hand and squeezed it, the way she was so forthcoming with her hugs. But then you blink those thoughts away, because a part of you feels like you’re betraying your real mother. The one who had betrayed you by leaving…

On one of your visits to her bedroom, Mrs. Rogers looks at you with a bittersweet smile on her face, “You’re a very good person, you know that?” She says, and you blink, taken aback by the sudden compliment. She pats your hand, “You visit my room more than my own son does, but I know he’s just afraid of the cancer taking his mother away from him, and he doesn’t know how to deal with that…”

You feel a pang of hurt in your heart, both for her and for Steve, but she continues speaking before you can say anything.

“It takes an especially brave woman to deal with someone as stubborn as my son, let alone change him into a better person, and you have done both.” She stops, taking a sip of water from the glass on her bedside table. “But don’t let him dim your shine. I know how hard it is for young omegas like yourself, who feel compelled by their own biology to do whatever their alphas want them to.”

You look down to your lap, not knowing what to say.

“My son is so in love with you, my darling, that it’s truly you who holds him in the palm of your hand, and not the other way around – as hard as that may be for you to believe. It’s the way he looks at you, how his eyes follow you no matter who else is in the room. It reminds me of how my husband looks at me.”

You look up to meet her gaze, and her eyes are shining again, in that special way that makes her look so youthful and full of life. She’s in a yellow cardigan set today, with a yellow rose brooch on her breast.

“What I’m trying to say is, you have no idea the power you hold over him. So, stand your ground and keep your chin up. He can be demanding, but don’t give in to him so easily. Because if there’s anyone who can make him do anything, it’s you. You’re an omega, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t strong and smart and resilient. Remember that.”

You’re unconvinced, but you tell her that you’ll try your hardest to do just that.

*

But you still can never be left alone with your thoughts for too long. Steve is constantly by your side, but it’s the worst when he isn’t. Like now, as you sit on the edge of the bed and wait for him to come out of the shower despite the fact that he’s just gone into the bathroom. But the dark voice in your head is reappearing, forcing you to relive your mother’s betrayal, taunting you about who will leave you next.

Before you know it, you’re stumbling into the bathroom, thanking your lucky stars that Steve hasn’t locked the door. He’s inside the shower, and you meet his gaze with a half sheepish and half desperate look on your face.

“Could I… uh… would it be okay if I joined you?” Your words come out rushed and knocking into each other. You bite your lip, shifting from one foot to the other and heart thudding with nervousness that he’d reject you or laugh. It’s still your default to feel that way, even after everything, and you wonder if you’ll ever unlearn it.

Steve draws back the shower curtain and beckons you inside. You sigh in relief, wanting to be in his arms more than anything else. Your clothes are shed quickly, and you step into the steam-filled shower and straight into his crushing embrace. The water cascades over you, so warm as you bury your face in his chest. He’s so warm, so familiar, so him. You inhale as deep as your lungs allow, his scent rushing past your nostrils and through your system, calming you from the inside out.

“How are you feeling, baby?” He asks, twining your hair around his finger.

You swallow harshly, digging your face deeper into his chest as you try to block that evil voice out, “I don’t know.”

You know you should answer him properly, you know you should talk about it, let it all out. Instead, you grab the bottle of shampoo and squeeze some out. It’s Steve’s shampoo – a 5-in-1 concoction that you’d never use on your own hair. But you lather it on your palm and reach up timidly.

Steve seems to understand what you’re trying to do and ducks his head down, sighing raggedly when your fingers card through his short hair which looks so dark now that it’s wet. And it’s nice, it’s calming, to have something to focus on. His hair is bristly yet still soft, and he inhales sharply when your nails scrape gently against his scalp. He hoists you up into his arms, holding you up against the wall so you have a better reach. He presses his face into the nape of your neck, placing soft kisses on your skin as you continue to wash his hair.

“Please, just tell me what you’re feeling.” He murmurs, holding you close.

You swallow harshly, “I just… It hurts, Steve. It hurts a lot. And I’m trying not to think about it because I feel like I’ll break down if I do.” As if on cue, your voice breaks, and you feel the tears rushing forward again, but you’re happy that the water from the shower washes them away. And Steve’s closeness seems to hold you together, and you clear your throat. “I knew we weren’t close but… But I didn’t think she hated me so much that she’d just leave.”

“I don’t think she hates you.” Steve says after a few beats of silence, as if he’s really trying to think of the right thing to say. “Nobody could hate you. I think she’s a terribly selfish person, but I don’t think she hates you.”

“But it still hurts so bad.”

He hugs you fiercely, whispering “I know, I know” while you stare morosely at the bathroom tiles.

“What if I become like her?” You whisper, and the choked words are almost lost against the pitter-patter of the water. Subconsciously, your hand slips up to rest against your stomach, “What if I… What if I’m just like her, and I don’t care about my baby either?”

“That’s not possible.”

“But what if I do? Steve, sometimes I… sometimes I forget that I’m even pregnant.” You look down in shame, your whole body shaking as you voice this fear that you hadn’t even realised you had until you said it out loud. “I knew I was pregnant for weeks before I told you, but I just pushed it aside. And even now, it’s like I’ll just forget, and then you’ll mention it or your mom will mention it and all of a sudden, I’ll remember that there’s a baby inside of me, and it’s scary and how can I just forget, Steve? That’s not normal, and what if I’m a bad mother, and–”

“Hey, hey, hey, stop it.” Steve shushes you gently, with pillow-soft kisses pressed all over your face and lips. He cups your face in his hands, “Look at me. You won’t be like her, okay? The fact that you’re even worrying about this shows that you could never be a bad mother.”

“But…”

He clears his throat, “You’re the most caring person I’ve ever met. You care even when you don’t realise it. I see it all the time, and before I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. How someone could possibly be so good, so pure, you know?”

You duck your head, but he grabs your chin and makes you look at him. There’s water and steam all around you both, distorting your view somewhat. But his eyes are crystal clear and earnest, so sharp as they cut through the steam wafting between the two of you. So honest, that it makes you dizzy, because you’re not used to his eyes ever looking so honest.

“I know our child is going to be the most loved child in the world, because it’ll be yours.”

“But–”

“You won’t be like how your mother was, because you’re you. And you’re the best person I’ve ever met.” 

Often, for as long as you’d known him, Steve was able to use his words to paint the most beautiful pictures inside your head. False promises and sweet manipulations fuelled by his intoxicating scent and designed to control you and mould the way you thought. Designed to weaken your defences and accept his lies and fabrications. And every time you fell for it; hook, line and sinker.

But the confident easiness on his face each time he lied to you in the past, was now replaced by a look of earnesty. Subtle changes like the softness of his tone, how he’d stop and think about the words he was saying to you. Had he changed? Steve Rogers, the formidable alpha who had bullied and manipulated you beyond belief. Was he changed? Was this really him?

“Do you really want to be a father?” You blurt out, almost scared to ask the question, almost scared to hear the answer. “I…I mean, not just because you’re an alpha and you have this whole plan.”

He frowns, “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” You gulp, “I mean, is it all just for show? You always said you had a plan for your life, and how it included me as the mother of your kids. I-Is it just for show? Or will you actually care for this baby?” And not leave if it’s not what you want?

His fingers, which know each crevice of your body so well, run up and down your sides before his hand splays out on your tummy. And you crane your neck to look up at him, and it takes your breath away, the tenderness you see on a face that’s usually so hard and impenetrable.

“Every time I think about the fact that you’re pregnant and we’re going to have a baby soon, I get excited. And nervous. I guess that’s how I know that this is what I really want.”

He cups your face in his hands, “Even if we never had kids, you’d still be my purpose and I’d still be content. But now that our baby’s in the picture, I know I’m accountable to both of you, and I want to be. You complete me, baby. I promise I’m done fucking around.”

“H-How are you saying all this now? When before you… When before you never did?”

He stares at you for what feels like years, this impenetrable look on his face.

“You told me you wanted to die.”

Your eyes widen and you duck your head, but he makes you look at him once more.

“The night we left your mother’s house, you told me you wanted to die. And I fucking couldn’t stand the look on your face, like you had no hope or happiness left inside you.”

“B-But that was because of my mom, not you…”

“It might as well have been because of me. I know your mom hurt you, but so did I. You had already gone through so much when we met, and all I did was make your life even worse.” He sucks in a breath, swiping water droplets off your face and cupping your cheek, so you can’t look away even if you wanted to.

“I used to be obsessed with my mom’s flower garden when I was younger. I’d always pluck the flowers because I wanted them to be mine, but they’d always wilt and die.” He kisses you, desperately, roughly, as he whispers against your lips, “I don’t want you to die, okay? I don’t want to lose you. And even if you’re physically here but emotionally gone… I think I’d lose it. And I can’t lose it, so I need to be better.”

You surge up and kiss him back doubly hard, your arms winding around his neck and drawing him closer, closer, closer till you both can’t breathe from the rapid, feverish kisses. Wasn’t this what you’d been subconsciously wanting from him since the very beginning? Despite everything, you’d had a crush on him since the start, and how badly you’d wanted him to like you. How badly you’d wanted him to change once he’d claimed you. How badly you’d wanted him to be your knight in shining armour, the gallant prince like from all the fairytales you’d read growing up. Instead, he’d been hurtful and manipulative. But now? Oh, he was saying what you’d always wanted him to say!

“I’m not gonna die, Steve. I promise, I’m right here.”

His dick slips inside you before you even realise it, but you welcome the slight discomfort of his large member easing its way up your hole. He hoists you up higher, pressing your legs further apart so he can drive himself deeper into you. In turn, you wrap your legs around his waist as you both moan into each other’s mouths when he bottoms out inside of you.

“You missed my dick?” He asks you in your ear, and you can feel the smile on his lips, his usual cockiness returning slowly, as if he can’t help himself.

“Y-Yeah.” You answer, despite the fact that you’d last had sex with him only a few days ago after the big game. But it felt like you’d lived an eternity since then, and you wanted him all the time.

“Yeah? You missed how I stretch your little baby pussy out?”

“Yes!”

He sighs, “Good. I missed being inside you.”

He ruts against you, and you have a feeling he’s trying to be slow and sensual but it’s like he can’t help but quicken his pace. You don’t mind, though. It’s like you need him fucking you to clear your mind of all your worries.

“You’re so tight, baby,” he grunts before pressing his forehead against yours, holding your body with just one muscular arm, while his other hand slips down to press against your clit. “So tiny and tight, baby omega. Tell me, does my dick feel good?”

“Yes, daddy,” you sigh, head lolling to the side at the feel of his huge member sliding in and out of you, the friction so delicious, not to mention the sparks of hot pleasure from him playing with your clit. You gasp when his mouth moves to hover over his mark on your neck, and he tongues your mating gland in a way that has you spasming in his arms.

“Daddy wants to eat your pussy so bad, baby girl.” He murmurs suddenly into your neck, making your eyes pop open in shock. You walls flutter around him violently, swallowing his dick in as you grind closer, so utterly turned on by his words. The way he’d gone from earnest declarations of love to “daddy wants to eat your pussy” was admittedly funny, although the last thing you’re compelled to do right now is laugh. You’re way too turned on to laugh.

“Please,” you utter when he goes to pull out of you, grabbing his arm, “Want you to stay inside me, daddy.”

He can’t help but smirk, “Let me make you feel good.”

He sets you down before getting on his knees in front of you. He takes one of your legs, hooking it over his shoulder so your bare pussy is on display for him. Carnally, he licks his lips, and your hands immediately go down to fist his hair. It’s buzzed off, but you make do. You have no choice, because he chooses that moment to wrap his lips around your clit, sucking down harshly.

“Oh, fuck!” You whimper, clutching at his short hair.

“Such a good little girl,” Steve says, voice muffled but it’s like the two of you are in a bubble so you can still hear him loud and clear. “Such a good little baby omega, always so good to me aren’t you, baby?”

He slaps your pussy lightly, a glimmer in his eye as he watches you spasm in his arms. He’s got one hand gripping your thigh tightly as it rests on his shoulder, the other holding your hip firmly so you don’t topple over (which is very likely given the intense amounts of pleasure you’re already feeling).

“Answer me, baby. I need to hear you.” Steve slaps your pussy again, the squelching sound so lewd as your wetness seeps down your thighs. You let out a choked whisper of his name, looking down at him pleadingly but all he does is slap your pussy again, this time squarely catching your clit and making you scream.

“Oh, oh–daddy!”

Steve’s tongue licks up your slit, lapping at your wetness while his hands roam your wet body. Slipping up to squeeze your breasts and play with your hard nipples, twisting them till they’re bruising with pain. But oh, you don’t even care! Your body feels like it’s floating in waves of pleasure administered by him. He grabs your hand and squeezes it, the act so intimate compared to the way he’s lewdly making out with your pussy, and you feel your heart flutter.

He keeps holding your hand, and you stare at your intertwined fingers till they blur your vision. Or maybe it’s Steve sucking on your clit that blurs your vision, his tongue circling around your bundle of nerves, making you so sensitive and bringing you closer and closer to the edge.

And he’s watching you the whole time, watching as you buck your hips into his mouth like you can’t help it. Watching as you cry at the pleasure, clutch at him and squeeze his hand back, and you hold his gaze as best you can. Could he also feel like the two of you were in some sort of impenetrable bubble? Like you’d gone through hell and back and now nothing could touch you or hurt you or interrupt what the two of you had?

“You’re so beautiful,” Steve says quietly, except it’s amplified in your ears. You don’t know if you believe him but his eyes are earnest and shining. You’re automatically about to tell him thank you, except he chooses that moment to press three fingers inside of you, making your knees buckle. But he has a firm hold on you, keeping you in place and pressing kisses all over your hips and thighs before returning his attention to your clit. “So, so beautiful, baby. The most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, and guess what?”

“Wh-What?” you breathe, peering down at him in a mix of awe and lust.

He smirks, “Your little baby pussy’s pretty too. But I wonder if she can take three of daddy’s fingers?”

Of course. Maybe you should grow used to the way he’s seamlessly shifting from romantic to lewd, and you’re even about to crack a smile at how comical his switches are. But instead, you squeak, eyes widening and a cry dying in your throat as he begins to fuck you with his thick fingers. Your walls are snug around his digits, and it burns because his fingers are so big and thick. But you don’t care, don’t care at all! Especially when he brushes that spot inside you that only he could ever find, making you fall forward till he catches you, and you’re whimpering and meeting his thrusts.

“Mmm, what a greedy little pussy, she’s just crying for her daddy, isn’t she?” Steve smiles wickedly, now lazily licking at your clit while he peers down at his fingers entering you at a rapid pace. “Fuck yourself on my fingers, baby. Let me make you cum.”

You don’t need to be told twice, your hips already bucking wildly, wanting his fingers to go deeper. And they’re so big and it hurts so good and yet you want his dick back inside you, which is even bigger. “S-So good, daddy,” you whimper, your body shuddering over how badly you needed this. All the pent-up sorrow, stress, anger from the past few days was all building up and ready to be released.

“Rub your little baby cunt on daddy’s face, omega.” Steve orders you, his voice so deep with lust. Of course, you’re too shy to do that but it’s like he anticipated that. And so he grabs your hips, grinding your pussy all over his face. And you gasp audibly, because he hasn’t shaved for a few days now and his stubble is so deliciously rough. The sensation is new, it’s different but you can’t say you don’t love it. And it’s like Steve’s forgotten about breathing, clutching your ass from behind and squeezing your ass cheeks as he pushes you closer into his face. Your pussy is effectively smothering his face, and you feel his nose nudge against your clit, and his fingers quicken in pace, so deep, so good, and…

You squirt all over his face. And it surprises you how it just won’t stop, your cream squirting out of you at an alarming rate, leaving a thin glaze on his face and catching on his stubble. And he laps at your cunt freely, coaxing your orgasm out of you while you quiver, your knees buckling again. You’re in a standing position – barely – but you can barely feel your legs and you know he’s holding you up otherwise you’d be on the floor right now.

“That’s such a good baby,” Steve coos, tonguing your pussy as it spasms, fingers still fucking into you, “Cumming so nicely for daddy, doing exactly what you’re told to do. You like making daddy happy like that, don’t you, baby omega?”

“Y-Yeah, daddy,” you pant, barely able to breathe let alone hold a dirty conversation right now.

In a second, Steve’s on his feet once more, and he’s got you up in his arms again. Your limbs feel useless, legs hanging as he hoists you up against the wall. But you jolt back into alertness when he pistons his dick inside of you, catching you by surprise. You whimper his name, nails already clawing at his back because it’s too much, your body still recovering from your orgasm. But the feeling is a good kind of overwhelming, as if you can’t get enough of him despite your body twitching in oversensitivity.

You bite your lip, focusing on his arm as it holds you in place against the wall. God, he was so big, every inch of him rippling with solid muscle. And it was such a turn on, how easily he held you up with just his one arm, the other one holding your hip in place while he drove his dick inside you again and again.

“You’re so big and strong,” you blurt out before your eyes widen in alarm at your slip, and you duck your head embarrassedly.

Steve groans, and you feel his dick twitch inside you before he increases his pace slightly. “Fuck, baby, I’m trying to go easy on you. But when you say things like that, it makes me want to lose control.”

“Do it,” you urge him, feeling extremely submissive, “Please, daddy, fuck me hard.”

Steve chuckles, peppering the top of your head with kisses before you look up once more, and then he bites at your lip. “Daddy would love nothing more, baby girl. But I gotta go easy on you a little bit, you know, since I knocked you up.”

And just saying that gets Steve more incensed, and his eyes flutter down to your belly, which he splays his hand over. He starts fucking you harder, his hips a blur as his dick disappears inside you. And once or twice you forget how to breathe, but you still feel safe because you’re in his arms and who needs to breathe when Steve’s there? When he’s looking at you with such intensity? When he’s fucking you so hard yet his thumb is rubbing so gently on your belly?

You cum again before you know what’s even happening, your walls pulsating around his dick so deliciously and it makes Steve’s hips stutter. You cry out his name over and over again, so overwhelmed my pleasure and other emotions. Encased in your little bubble with Steve, where it’s just the two of you and your pants and cries and gasps and moans.

“That’s my good little girl,” Steve praises, his words making you glow despite everything. “Cumming just for daddy. But I want your baby pussy to give me another one, okay, baby?”

“Wh-What? Another…? Steve, I can’t–”

“One more, baby. You can do it for daddy.” Steve encourages softly, and again his fingers slip down to play with your sensitive clit. “Cum once more, baby, before daddy fills you up and knocks you up again.”

Well, that wasn’t entirely possible but with Steve… who knew? And you were still so overly sensitive, but if anything could put you over the edge it was his words. Along with his expert fingers who knew your body so well after two months. Better than anyone else ever did. His thumb rubs at your bundle of nerves, circling and rubbing, pressing down and pinching it till you feel like you’re going to pass out, and it’s too much and yet your body feels like it’s about to spontaneously combust, and…

“That’s my good fucking girl,” Steve says proudly when you squirt all over his dick once more, falling like a dead weight in his arms as your body spasms. Your hips buck wildly and your toes curl as you cum so hard, you see stars. And you whimper your alpha’s name, you whimper daddy as you scratch and claw at him and he holds you close, telling you how good you are for him, how you’re such a perfect angel, and how you did so good.

He squeezes you hard against him as he blows his load inside you, keeping you in place so he can fill you up till the brim. Till thick ropes of his cum cover your insides, searing your walls and marking you as his forever and only his. And your mind is made up that this is exactly where you want to be, and despite all your other confusion, you kiss him fiercely, welcoming the feel of him releasing inside you. And you stay like that for a while, him holding you close while you just hold each other.

“I love you.” He whispers in your ear, his embrace all-consuming as he clutches you against him. Your body is slippery and wet and spent and you cling to him and hum in satisfaction. He pauses to kiss up your jaw before he pecks your nose, “Baby, I love you so much.”

A long pause, and all you can hear is the pitter-patter of the water and the pitter-patter of his heart. You wonder if this is what being content feels like. Just right now, inside this shower where it’s just him and you and none of your other problems can reach you. Where all you can see is him and smell is him and touch is him. Your own personal little slice of heaven, even just for a little while.

You don’t even notice that Steve’s holding his breath until he exhales heavily, and cups your face to make you look up at him. And his voice comes out soft, so soft it’s almost drowned out by the sound of the shower stream.

“You love me too, don’t you?”

You hesitate, a lump forming in your throat and your chest tightening. A billion thoughts rush in and out of your head, creating a whirlpool of confusion within you. You open your mouth, but it feels dry as cotton. And all that comes out is a little croak and a squeak. Oh god, oh god, oh god. Why couldn’t you say it? Weren’t you just thinking of how content you feel right now, with him? So then why the heck couldn’t you say it?

Abruptly, Steve’s hands drop to his sides and he steps away from you. You feel like you’ve been doused by a bucket of ice-cold water at the loss of contact, like the light within you has lost its fuse. You feel an unrest in your bond with him, and you know he’s hurt. Before you can grab his hand, he steps out of the shower and wraps a towel around his waist, avoiding your gaze.

You stand there alone as the water pours all over you, watching as he makes his way out of the bathroom. A part of you can’t believe it, because just a second ago he was being so perfect and honest and raw and intimate, and then you had to go ruin it by being unable to say what he wanted to hear! But he pauses at the door, looking back at you.

“I guess Peter was right, huh? You won’t ever love me.”

“Steve, it’s not that–”

“I’m not a fool, okay? I know I don’t deserve you. I definitely don’t deserve your love after everything I’ve put you through.”

“Steve–”

“But I’m too selfish to ever let you go.”

He leaves, slamming the bathroom door behind him. Your heart jumps all the way to your throat, and you scramble to follow after him. Before you know what’s happening, you lose your balance, slipping on the wet surface underneath you. But you grab on to the shower curtain just in time, steadying yourself and planting your feet firmly on the floor before you can fall. You breathe hard, your heart hammering crazily in your chest. Your hand automatically slips up to cradle your stomach, and you take a few deep breaths to calm yourself down.

Cautiously, almost at a snail’s pace, you turn the shower off and carefully step out of the tub. Every step you take seems to scare you, but you manage to dry off and put your clothes on before entering the bedroom.

He’s gone. The bed is empty and you’re the only one in the room.

Oh God, oh God, oh God… He left! The back of your mind whirs to life, thoughts immediately working into overdrive in five seconds flat. He’s gone! You couldn’t say you loved him and now he’s gone! You pace the room, inky darkness spreading within you like poison. That same hopelessness because it was happening all over again! He left you. And where would he go? What would he do? The image of him kissing another omega flickers in your mind, making you want to throw up.

You rush to throw the door open, peaking out into the massive, empty corridor. Marble flooring, exquisite tapestry and expensive art hung on the wall – but no Steve. You pitifully call out his name, the sound echoing around the hallway as if to mock you.

He left you! The cruel voice inside your head cackles. Your mom left you and your dad left you and now Steve left you too! You feel yourself being pulled under again, by that damning force inside that seems to want you to be sad forever. Your heart feels like it’s being squeezed by the icy cold hands of the grim reaper himself, pulling you down, down, down. You collapse on the bed, curling up into foetal position as you will yourself not to cry.

Eventually, you hear the bedroom door open. You don’t know if it’s been ten minutes or an hour, the haunting voice inside your brain making you lose track of the time. But you feel his strong arms pulling you back up, just like they always do.

“Hey,” He says gently, before frowning, “You’re crying.”

“You left.”

“I didn’t leave, I just…” He grips you tighter, cupping your face and making you look at him, and there’s a certain desperation in his actions, as if it’s dawning on him just how fucked up you are inside. “I just went outside for a while.”

“You were mad at me.” You draw in a breath, unable to look at him. “L-Last time you were mad, you…you…” A feral need to smell him overtakes you, and just like last time, your face collides with his chest, nose twitching as it sniffs all over him. Trying to detect a scent other than his own, the picture of him kissing another omega flashing behind your eyes once more.

But all you smell is a hot summer’s day speckled with cigarette smoke. And Steve’s thumbs swipe away your tears like they have countless times before.

“I’m not mad at you. I was just… mad at myself.” He breathes, an almost pained look on his face as he watches you cry softly in his arms. “Look, I’m trying to change, okay? I want to change for you, but it won’t happen overnight. God, I wish it would, but it won’t. I felt myself getting angry, and so I left the situation. But I was only outside. I didn’t leave you.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t say it, Steve.”

He presses a soft kiss on your nose, then your cheeks, then your forehead. “Don’t be. I haven’t given you a reason to say it. But it doesn’t mean I don’t mean it when I say it.” He sighs, tucking a piece of your hair behind your ear, a wistfully bittersweet look on his face, “I wish I had been different…”

You don’t know what to say, so instead you just hug him hard, finding solace in his rich scent as you snuggle your face into his sweater.

“I know you don’t trust me. But I promise I’ll be better for you, omega.” The pads of his thumbs never stop stroking your cheekbones, and the action feels so soft, so tender, glass butterflies flying around in your tummy as he speaks. “Remember what I told you outside your mom’s house?”

You sniffle and nod.

“What did I tell you?”

“Th-That we’re each other’s home.”

“That’s right. Which means I’ll stick by you until the day I die. And I know that sounds cheesy as shit but it’s the truth.” He lifts you gently and places you on his lap, wrapping his big arms around you and grabbing your hand and giving it a squeeze before bringing it up to his lips. “You know that yearning feeling you get when I’m not here? Where it feels like you can’t breathe?”

You nod.

“Well, I get it too. Probably even more than you do.” Steve kisses each one of your fingertips. “I need you more than I need to breathe. But even if I didn’t need you, even if I could breathe just fine without you… I’d still love you all the same.”

Your heart flutters, and you feel a sudden surge of emotion. This was really Steve Rogers, the biggest bully on campus? It was, it was, it was! And the three words are on the tip of your tongue, and the omega inside of you is screaming at you to just say it, say it, say it! “Steve, I…I…”

But your voice trails off, and you just stare at him helplessly and he stares back, looking both hopeful and knowingly bittersweet at the same time.

You let Steve tuck you in, covering you in your special blanket along with his heavy down comforter. He grabs Steve Junior from the foot of the bed, making the stuffie peck your face with kisses until you giggle. He tucks the teddy bear in against your chest before getting in beside you. You sigh, cuddling into his chest as he lifts you up so you’re resting on top of him, and he kisses the top of your head, and you feel okay.

***

PART III

The stark white lights of the private clinic make you more nervous than you already are. The waiting room is a lot more luxurious than what you’re used to at public hospitals. Plush sofas that are soft as a feather underneath you, yet do nothing to soothe your nerves. You wish Steve was next to you so you could hold his hand, but he’s too busy pacing around the room, a scowl on his face as he checks his watch every few seconds.

“Mr. Rogers?” A nurse appears through the door, her sudden chirpiness making you jump. “Doctor Alam will see you now.”

“Well, it’s about time.” Steve huffs, despite the fact that the two of you have only been waiting about five minutes. The nurse leads you to what you’re guessing is one of the ultrasound rooms, giving you a final smile before Steve pushes you in through the door.

“Steve! It’s lovely to see you again. Come in, come in.” A smart-looking woman in a white coat greets you both, her black hair streaked with white and tied back in an elegant knot. She shoots you a reassuring smile as you hesitate by the door, unsure what to do with yourself before Steve’s hand on your lower back ushers you in.

“Doctor Alam.” Steve nods stoically, pushing you forward. “This is my girlfriend.” He introduces you and you nod, feeling the usual tongue-tied, shy, awkward and stupid.

The doctor smiles serenely, reaching out to shake your hand. “It’s lovely to meet you.” She says kindly, “Why, I’ve known Steve for many years now – being his family’s personal physician and all. I never thought I’d see him settle down, but it’s wonderful to see that he has.”

Her smile falters for a nano-second when she spots the jagged mark on your neck. But she recovers quickly, squeezing your hand in a friendly manner.

Steve clears his throat, “Yes. She’s my girlfriend and she’s pregnant, so do your thing…” He gestures vaguely at the ultrasound machine with as little grace as only he ever could. Doctor Alam raises one perfectly plucked eyebrow, trying to hide the bemused look on her face at his choice of words.

“Well, why don’t you hop up onto the bed here, and we’ll get started?”

“O-Okay,” you whisper, frozen in place as you take in all the fancy ultrasound equipment next to the bed. Steve gives you a prod and you jump before climbing up and lying down, your heart beating like crazy.

“So, I’m just going to ask you a few routine questions, alright?”

You nod.

“It says here that you took an at-home pregnancy test?” The doctor asks, referring to the form the nurse had made you fill out earlier.

You nod, “Y-Yes. I – uh – I took three pregnancy tests and they all came out positive.”

“Approximately how long ago did you take these tests?”

Your wring your fingers nervously, avoiding Steve’s gaze. “I…I’m not sure. I think it’s been a few weeks now.” You quietly wonder if the doctor thinks you’ll be a bad mother because you can’t remember exactly when you’d taken the tests.

Doctor Alam smiles brightly, “Well, soon I’ll be able to tell you just how far along you are. That’s exciting, isn’t it?”

Exciting wasn’t exactly the word you’d use. Daunting maybe. Scary too. You cast a quick glance at Steve, who has taken a seat on the chair next to the bed. He grabs your hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. But even he looks distracted and a touch bewildered, his eyes locked on your belly before moving to the ultrasound wand in the doctor’s hand. As if he can’t wrap his head around what’s going on. And neither can you.

Kids, you think to yourself. We’re just kids ourselves. We don’t know what we’re doing.

Doctor Alam squeezes a cool gel on your tummy before she gets to work. The ultrasound wand is cold and foreign against your skin, and so you resort to looking at Steve instead. Not that he’s doing much better. All those football games in stadiums filled with thousands of people, and he never broke a sweat. But now? You can feel a sense of anxiety in your bond, and you know that it’s coming from both of you.

“Aha, there it is.” Doctor Alam interrupts. You turn, not really registering what she’s said. She’s sat there smiling, pointing to the screen and prompting you to look too. “Congratulations, there’s your baby!”

At first, your eyes can’t seem to focus on what she’s talking about. All you see is a black and white screen that flickers and moves every now and then. Swirling shadows that don’t really make sense – is that really the inside of your tummy? You’re about to ask the doctor where exactly this baby is supposed to be, but then she points to something in the middle of the screen.

And then… Oh, and then, and then, and then!

You see it. It’s like a miniature bundle, a tiny little ball – but once your eyes settle on it, it’s like you can’t look away. It’s bobbing, floating, moving slightly! And you can see the heartbeat, actually see it because this little thing is pulsing in the same way a heart beats! Oh God, oh God, oh God! Your hand automatically goes up to your belly, hoping to feel what you’re seeing on the screen in front of you. Steve’s hand falls on top of yours, and without looking at him, you know he can’t take his eyes off what he sees either.

“Whoa.” You breathe.

“Whoa indeed. See, that’s your gestational sac, with the yolk sac inside. And there’s your baby, it’s about 16 millimetres long, which is about the size of a raspberry.” Doctor Alam chuckles as she points out each individual detail. “By the looks of things, you are approximately eight weeks pregnant.”

Eight weeks…

“Two months…” You whisper, before tearing your eyes away from the ultrasound to look at Steve. “But that’s when we…”

“…That’s when we first got together.” Steve completes, a look of awe on his face before he, too, tears his gaze off the screen to look at you. It takes the two of you a handful of seconds to register what that means, and then you see a slow, self-satisfied smile spread across Steve’s face. He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest and looking extremely smug. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Doctor, I told her I’d get her pregnant the first time we slept together. Didn’t I, omega? Didn’t I say that? And now–”

His insanely inappropriate words become background noise as you turn back to the ultrasound screen. Your baby, actually tangible and visible and with a beating heart, no less! This whole time, you’d struggled to wrap your head around the idea that there was life growing inside you. What with all the problems with Steve and the confrontations with Peter and your mother leaving you… you’d hardly had time to think about the fact that you were pregnant. All these weeks of feeling like there was a disconnect, like this was something you’d buried to the back of your mind whilst you dealt with everything else. But now…

“I can see its little heart beating.” You murmur in wonder. The little raspberry-sized thing had a heart! And it was pulsing and beating just like yours! This little thing, it was full of life! And it was growing inside you! You feel a sudden wave of protectiveness and excitement, making your own heart flutter in a way it never has before. Had this little thing been inside you this whole time, for the past two months? Depending on you as the main source of its life? Oh, it was absolutely beautiful, wonderful, magical–

“It looks like a lima bean.” Steve comments, but his whole face softens as he smiles at the screen.

Steve and Doctor Alam discuss various things. He wants to know if you’re healthy (you are) and if the baby is healthy (it is) and he also wants to know a bunch of other stuff which you should also probably pay attention to but all you can focus on is your little baby on the ultrasound monitor. You feel oddly light-hearted, but also nervous, scared, excited and in awe. Vaguely, you wonder if this is how your mother felt when she found out she was having you.

Probably not, but you guessed you’d never know. But you do know one thing: hell would freeze over before you’d leave this baby like how your mother had left you. And that’s a silent promise you make to yourself and the life growing inside of you, as you sit there on the clinic bed and stare at the ultrasound. Steve was right, you would never be like how your mother was.

The doctor gives you a picture of the scan in a little envelope when you’re on your way out. You grab it almost greedily, holding it close to your heart and repeating your silent promise to yourself. I don’t know you yet, but I will never leave you. I’m your mother and I promise you I’ll never leave you. Not when you’re four, or eighteen, or twenty-five, or even fifty. I’ll always be there for you, I promise.

Was this what all the biology textbooks meant when they spoke about omegas having a natural motherly instinct? Well, unlike Steve, you didn’t think all omegas were the same. You could only speak for yourself, and all you could say was that this burst of motherly love or whatever it was you were feeling right now, it was quite literally warming you from the inside out. You feel light and excited, holding Steve’s hand and almost skipping out the hospital.

“You look happy.” Steve comments after helping you into the car and clicking your seatbelt in.

“Aren’t you?” You pause, stroking your stomach thoughtfully, “I was so scared of this baby being a reality, but now… Well, I’m still scared now, but I also feel kind of calm and happy, as if this was meant to happen, you know? Like everything’s gonna be okay.”

Steve looks at you for several seconds before his hand joins yours against your belly. He strokes the skin softly, his blue eyes tender, “Well, I told you from the beginning that this was always meant to happen, didn’t I?”

His gaze drops down to your stomach, and he lifts your cardigan up, palm spreading flat across your bare skin. You look closely at his face, how his breathing shallows and his lips part as if in awe. It’s just your tummy, and you haven’t even begun to show yet, and yet he looks as if he’s staring at a shining diamond, and his eyes have stars in them.

“Hey, little guy. Or girl.” Steve says softly to your tummy, and your heart skips a beat at how gentle he sounds. “Hang in there, okay? You look like a lima bean right now but trust me, by the time you come out you’ll be just as cute as your mama.”

You kiss him, catching him off-guard as you surge up and grab his face, pressing your lips against his with an almost carnal desire. But he’s quick to recover, holding you gently in his arms as he kisses you back. And kissing Steve now still makes the butterflies flutter in your tummy just how they did the first time he kissed you two months ago. It still feels so special, so sweet, so right.

“Two months ago, you couldn’t even look me in the eye. Let alone kiss me.” Steve says, between kisses, smiling against your lips.

“Two months ago you were so different.” You answer breathlessly. Hell, even last week he’d been so different. Had the change in him happened slowly, gradually? Or all at once? You didn’t know, but it made you happy to see him looking at you with stars in his eyes and a genuine smile on his face.  

“I’m gonna drop you home so you can rest, okay baby? I’ll join you later tonight.”

You pout. As pathetic as it sounded, you hated it when he wasn’t always with you. “Where are you going?”

He presses one final kiss to your lips before starting up the car, “I hired some movers to bring our stuff over from campus back up here. I gotta be there to oversee it all, make sure they don’t break something or miss anything.”

He was going back to campus? You feel a certain jolt in your heart, thinking about all your things sitting back there.

“Could I come too, Steve?”

“No. I want you to go home and rest.”

“Please?”

“No, omega. I don’t want you to be around a bunch of creepy movers. Not to mention how unsafe it is for a pregnant and fragile little omega like you to be around so much heavy-lifting. What if one of those idiot movers dropped something on you? I would fucking kill them...” His fist clenches against the steering wheel as if he’s already getting angry at the mere thought of that happening.

You bow your head, clutching the little envelope with your baby scan inside it as if it’s your lifeline, “Please let me come.” I hate being alone with my thoughts.

“Baby–”

Maybe it’s the way you sigh and look out the window, already shrivelling into yourself at the mere idea of being by yourself again. When just a few minutes ago, you’d been smiling from ear-to-ear, having seen your little baby inside your tummy. You hear Steve sigh.

“Fine. You can come. But stay near me, and don’t speak to any of the movers. In fact, don’t even go near them, or else I’ll call you an Uber and send you straight back home.”

***

“Well, well, well, Mr. Quarterback finally returns.” Sam grins, coming over to thump Steve on the back. The two alphas hug in that way that boys do, first clasping hands before pulling each in for a one-armed hug. You hang back and smile, things had been icy between Steve and Sam in the days after you got locked out in the rain, but clearly they had patched things up after they’d won the big game.

But what you don’t expect is Sam reaching out and pulling you in too, till you’re sandwiched between the two alphas in a tight, warm hug that you can’t help but return. You feel Steve stiffen, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as he looks from you to Sam. You half expect him to lose it, but after a few seconds he relaxes. But not before lifting Sam’s arm off your waist and placing it around your shoulders instead, and shooting the other alpha a warning look.

Sam draws back and hands Steve a beer, “Here I was thinking we’d all be celebrating the end of college, and the next thing I know I’m in an empty house because you guys fucked off to God knows where.”

Your heart skips at how he’s including you, saying “you guys” instead of just Steve. Sam had apologised to you after the whole being locked out debacle, but you hadn’t spoken to him since. It still felt nice to be included, however, and so you can’t help but smile.

“I just want to apologise again,” Sam says quietly when Steve goes into the kitchen to get you an apple juice, “How we acted with you, and my whole part in it, I really am sorry–”

“It’s alright.”  

The three of you toast to a happy summer to come. Steve and Sam clink their beer bottles against your glass of apple juice. You don’t know if this summer will be a happy one, but you can’t have anything worse happen to you than what’s already happened, right? It was a cynical way of looking at things but you couldn’t help that. On the bright side, at least if someone locked you out of the house now, it would be sunny outside.

The two of you go upstairs to pack. It’s easy enough for you, since you don’t have that much to begin with. But Steve had bought you a ton of new things in the two months you’d been with him, which is why you’re grateful for the new suitcases Steve had provided for you. The old, tattered suitcase you’d lugged along with you on the first day of freshman year could finally retire, along with the memories of what now felt like a past life…

Steve’s idea of packing is throwing everything into the suitcases and calling it a day. The omega inside you is horrified by this, wanting to fold and layer each piece of clothing, each book, each sheet. Savouring the memories behind each item you pack, like your polaroid camera, which you’d saved up for months to buy right before freshman year. It was meant to capture all the fun you thought you’d have…

I can use it when you’re born, you say to your tummy, and I’ll stick polaroids of you into a scrapbook, along with the scan from today. I’ll take some pictures of your dad too. And then when you’re grown up, you can look through it.

Speaking of books, you quietly grab the black sketchbook from underneath the bed when Steve isn’t looking, safely stashing it in your bag.

“Where the hell are those movers?” Steve glances at his watch, “I want to us to get back home before sunset.”

Home. Steve’s house. You supposed it was your home now, but you knew it would take time for you to feel like it was. You peak outside Steve’s bedroom window, taking in the campus courtyard for what felt like the last time. Would you come back here for your second year? How would that even work with you pregnant? How could you ever complete your degree with a baby to take care of too? That is, if Steve would even allow it.

“A bunch of my stuff is still at my old dorm room.” You say suddenly.

Steve wrinkles his nose, “Really? Is it anything important?”

He had slowly moved your things into his room when you’d started living with him, but he hadn’t brought along everything. You didn’t have much, but a lot of your old clothes were still there. Your scuffed sneakers (he’d bought you new ones) and the bag you’d sewed yourself out of your old jeans (he’d bought you a designer one to use instead). You supposed you didn’t have much use for your old things, but they were still yours, and you wanted them.

“Yes.” You say firmly, “Please could I go over there and check over my things?” What would even happen to them if you didn’t? Would they just go in the trash? Forgotten forever just like you’d been forgotten by your mother? No, you couldn’t let that happen.

But Steve shakes his head, “We can’t go right now, I need to be here when the movers get here.”

You bite your lip, “I could just go myself.” Your old dorm room was only on the other side of campus, where the cheaper accommodation was.

“No. You know you can’t go by yourself.”

“But Steve–”

“I said no.”

You sit down on the edge of the bed. It’s been stripped down to just the mattress, but you remember a time when it was covered in your flowery sheets that you’d brought over from your old dorm. A memory. Everything was slipping by so quickly… Your childhood home, your dorm, this bedroom, and now Steve’s mansion. Just for a second, you wish you could freeze time and breathe, and gain a little bit of control over what’s happening around you.

Steve crouches in front of you, taking your hands in his, “Look, I can’t let you go by yourself. The last time I left you by yourself…” His voice trails off and his eyes narrow, and you know he’s thinking of the day of the football game.

“If you think Peter’s gonna come back and take me again, he won’t.” You say, “I think he’s well and truly done with me now, and I don’t think I’ll ever hear from him again.” You can still picture the hurt in his eyes when he’d seen the mark on your neck, and when he’d seen you stay with Steve. From the deepest part of your heart, you mourn the loss of your friendship with him… Maybe one day you could talk to him and repair it?

Steve opens his mouth to say something, and you wait for him to curse Peter out, or say something awful about him. But he pauses when he sees the sad look on your face, and instead he sighs. You know he’s on a path to changing his ways, and you know it’s not easy for him. But you can see he’s trying, with the way his features soften and he kisses your hand instead.

“You really want to go back there right now?”

“Yes, please.”

Steve gives Sam express instructions on how to deal with the movers, telling him that the two of you would be back with half an hour. You figure that’ll be more than enough time to survey over your remaining things and pick what you want to take with you. A part of you feels emotional, as if not just a chapter, but an entire novel of your life is ending and you don’t know if the next book has even been confirmed. It’s weird, this mix of excitement you feel for the future which included the baby in your tummy, and this sense of bittersweet loss you also felt as if your college life was coming to a premature end.

Your dorm room looks exactly the same as how you’d left it. You haven’t been back since the day Sharon confronted you, and Steve had taken you to his house. Smell was the biggest carrier of nostalgia, and here you could smell so many memories… A girl, once eager and hopeful, happy to be at a prestigious university and away from the demons she’d left behind at home. Oh, you’d been so excited to live on your own!

“I don’t like being in here.” Steve says, clearing his throat uncomfortably and reaching out to squeeze your hand. “I was an asshole to you in this room.”

You turn back to him, and the two of you share a meaningful look where a lot is said despite nothing being said out loud at all. You know he’s sorry, you can see the remorse on his face and you can feel it in the bond you share. You know he wishes he could take it all back, and you wish to God that he’d been then what he was becoming now.

You grab your DIY bag made out of your old, patchy jeans, and a few of your hoodies which you’d stopped wearing and left behind because Steve had bought you new clothes. You rifle through all your old keychains and knick-knacks, remembering how Steve had done the same thing when he’d first come here. Moving on to your desk, you see the old notes still strewn about on the wooden surface, including the essay plan you’d so meticulously constructed for Steve when he’d come over for “tutoring.”

“You’re reliving old memories, aren’t you?” Steve asks tonelessly.

You nod. There are bad ones, but you try to focus on the good: your first time kissing him, how he’d gifted you Steve Junior…

His arms wrap around your waist from behind, and he hugs you hard. Holding you, rocking with you while you both seem lost in thought. His hand slips down, fingers splaying out over your stomach.

“We’ll make new memories. The three of us.”

That makes you smile. “Really, Steve?”

“Yes. I’ll be better. I swear I will.”

You pack your bag with the few belongings you want to take with you. Steve tries to help, but soon gets a call from the movers.

“What do you mean you can’t fit the bed frame into the van? Have you tried using your brain and maybe dismantling it?”

The response is cut up and almost inaudible, the connection extremely weak. He frowns, “I can’t hear you.”

More muffled sounds.

Steve groans, “Baby, I’m gonna take this outside, okay? Stay in here.”

You nod, distracted by all your old things surrounding you. You’ve always been a sentimental person, romanticising mundane things that other people wouldn’t glance at twice. Like your bottle of cheap suppressants that Steve had rattled around and looked at with such disdain. Your old keychains, your empty lip-glosses, you don’t know how long you sit there and reminisce about your old life that seems like it was ions ago instead of just a few months.

You don’t even hear the door when it opens.

“You know, this is how I always imagined it.”

His voice sends shivers down your spine, a coldness spreading through your veins that’s as icy as his eyes. You swallow, turning around slowly and holding on to the hope that maybe it’s not him. Oh God, please let it not be him. But it is.

Bucky stands at the doorway, a glint in his eye as he looks you up and down. You feel a sense of impending doom, your heart sinking down to the depths. Oh, but shouldn’t you have expected this? He was, after all, one of the problems you’d pushed aside, tried to run away from. Out of sight, out of mind – and yet here he was now. You swallow harshly, and you will yourself to be brave despite the fact that your hands are shaking. You don’t want him here; you don’t want him near you.

“Wh-What are you doing here?” You ask, hating how your voice comes out shaky.

“Sweetheart, it’s been weeks since we last spoke. And you can’t even say hello?” Bucky smiles, but there’s something wooden about it, something off. Something you can’t really put your finger on or even care to. “I mean, Sam got a hug from you. I saw it. I’m sure I should get the same treatment, right? Or maybe something more…” Calmly, he shuts the door behind him, and then you hear the click of the lock. Your heart jumps to your throat, panic beginning to set in. It’s okay, Steve’s only just outside, you think to yourself.

You clear your throat, narrowing your eyes in a bid to look more confident than you’re actually feeling, “The last time I saw you, you locked me out of the house in the pouring rain.”

He steps towards you and you instinctively take a step back. He notices and smirks, as if he finds your actions amusing. “Oh, right. I feel bad about that, but you were getting too big for your boots, sweetheart.”

“Just because I refused to kiss you?” You feel anger at his words, and it overrides your fear for just a second. You remember him twisting your arm when you didn’t kiss him, remember how he’d slammed the door in your face, how he’d sat there scrolling nonchalantly on his phone while you pounded at the door, drenched in the rain and begging him to let you in. Oh, how you wish you weren’t a weak omega just for a few moments, just so you could stand toe-to-toe with someone like him!

Instead, you cower as he crosses the room, and he’s only inches away from you when your back hits your desk and you can’t back away any more. And that’s when he smirks, reaching out to move your hair out of your face. You blanche, feeling your skin crawl at his touch.

“I saw you first.” He breathes.

“Th-That doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.” His eyes flutter shut for a second and he inhales deeply, “You smell so fucking sweet. The day I first saw you, all I could think about was how beautiful you were, and how badly I wanted to smell your scent but you were on those damn suppressants.” He opens his eyes and you see them darken, “Steve could smell you immediately, and I hated that. I hated that he was the only one who could.”

“Bucky, he’s right outside. He’ll be back any second.”

“He gets everything he ever wants,” Bucky’s tone hardens, and he surges forward, pressing up against you. You struggle against him, trying to somehow squeeze out from between him and the desk but he grips your arm, digging his fingers into your skin painfully to keep you in place. “Ever since we were kids… He got everything. A better car, a higher allowance. He got better girls and better grades and they made him the captain of the football team.”

Your jaw would have dropped open had it not been frozen in place with fear. Seriously? Those were his problems? That Steve had a better car? If you weren’t so scared out of your damn mind, you would’ve laughed. Somehow, you doubt Bucky ever had an alcoholic, absentee mother with a string of abusive boyfriends. You doubt his parents had ever left him. You know he’d never grown up in poverty, you know he’d never been bullied relentlessly. Oh, you wish you had his problems…

“But then you walked in and I called dibs and for once, for fucking once… I had something he wanted.” Bucky’s finger trails down your arm before he grabs your waist, pushing himself into you. You gasp, fists going up to his chest to push him off you but to no avail. Oh God, where was Steve?!

A bitter laugh escapes from Bucky’s throat, “But of course, he lied and manipulated his way into claiming you too. Down to his core, that’s who Steve is. That’s what he does.” His icy blue eyes look distant, as if he’s in another dimension inside his head – that’s the only way you can describe it. But then he snaps back to peer at your face, excitement covering his features and chilling you down to the core as you cringe away from him, subconsciously patting at the envelope containing your baby scan inside your pocket, as if to calm yourself down.

“But this isn’t about Steve, sweetheart. This is about you. Little Miss Omega who’s gotten too big for her boots. You got with an alpha and all of a sudden you think you’re the queen of the world, don’t you?” He yanks at your hair, and you cry out in pain as he drags you to your old bed.

Cold, incapacitating fear overtakes you when he pushes you down on the mattress. You land on your back with a thump, immediately trying to roll away but he grabs your leg and pulls you back before climbing on top of you. Oh no, oh no, please. God, please no…

“Bucky, don’t do this!”

“You think you’re too good for me, huh?” Bucky sneers, his face inches from yours. His hands move to grab your cardigan, ripping it apart. He doesn’t even flinch as the buttons fly everywhere, smirking maniacally down at you as you scramble to hold your tattered cardigan together. “You think you’re too good to kiss me? Well, sweetheart, I’ve dreamed of this moment. And I assure you, we’ll be doing a lot more than just kissing tonight…”

“Bucky, don’t! I’m pregnant, okay? I’m pregnant!” You scream out desperately, hoping and praying that he’d have a little bit of sympathy inside him to just stop. If not for your sake, then maybe for the sake of your unborn child. He wouldn’t hurt a pregnant woman, would he?

Bucky does stop, for just a moment. His hand freezes in the middle of trying to peel the remains of your cardigan off you and you see something register in the depths of his pale, icy eyes. But it only lasts a nanosecond, before they cloud over and he smiles, pressing his forehead against yours. “That’s okay, sweetheart. We’ll just pretend it’s mine.”

Oh, he was crazy! Utterly and completely crazy! And you don’t know what to do! Because when have you ever gone into a confrontation and come out on top? Hell, you couldn’t even hold your own against another omega like Sharon… let alone an alpha twice your size like Bucky. Steve, where are you? Please save me, please, please, please!

“Bucky stop, okay? I know you’re mad at Steve and… and you’re upset you didn’t get what you wanted b-but this isn’t the way to–”

He kisses you. And oh, it’s horrible! It feels like you’re being squeezed into a tight black hole where you can’t breathe and you can’t move and it’s just so wrong. Everything about it is wrong, like two misfit pieces from opposite ends of a puzzle. He’s rough yet almost robotic with how he kisses you, his kiss lacking any of the passion and fire you feel with Steve. It’s even worse than when Peter kissed you… oh, because Bucky’s kiss feels like it’s charged with hatred, and anger, and malice, and–

“GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME!”

You push with all your might, the shrillness of your words surprising you both. It catches him off guard, and you do something you’ve never done before in your life. You spit right in his face, sneering up at him defiantly. You’re sick of every single one of these fucking men kissing you when you didn’t want them to. Enough was enough.

“Little Miss Omega likes to play rough, huh?” Bucky quickly recovers, wiping your spit off his face and keeping you pinned down underneath him, “That’s alright. Fight against me all you want, but you and I both know you’re just a weak little omega. You never stood a chance, sweetheart. Not against any of us.”

Long ago, when you’d been standing on the porch in a thunderstorm, you’d made a promise to yourself to never beg him again. Something had snapped inside you then, flushing out all hope from inside you. Something snaps inside you now, too. But it does the complete opposite.

“You’re right, I’m weak compared to you. But at least I’m not pathetic.”

Bucky scoffs, opening his mouth but you beat him to it.

“I used to be scared of all of you alphas. You all looked so strong, powerful and untouchable to me. But what I’ve realised is that each one of you is more insecure than the next. Especially you, Bucky. And I feel sorry for you, because I can take all the bullying and the harassment and everything else that’s happened to me, but you can’t take even the slightest bit of rejection. You’re pathetic.”

He pauses, regarding you with narrowed eyes. And again, you see a semblance of something human glimmer across his face before his features twist into a snarl. “Save the condescending philosophy lesson for later, sweetheart. I’m not interested.”

He tries to kiss you again, but you turn your head because hell would freeze over before you let someone kiss you unwillingly again. His hands are all over your body, trying to get your clothes off you except you don’t give him a chance. You thrash wildly underneath him, something feral taking over from inside you. This wild survival instinct, this need to keep yourself and the baby safe. And the whole time during this physical tousle, you’re thinking: please don’t let him hurt my baby, please let my baby come out of this okay, even if I don’t. I don’t want to lose it… I know I didn’t pay attention to it at first, but I don’t want to lose it. Please, please, please, I don’t want to lose my baby.

“Let me fucking have this!” Bucky roars, pinning your hands over your head. You can feel the tears well in your eyes but you don’t want to spill any over him, over this. He roughly kisses up your jaw, “I went home these past couple of weeks to clear my head, and all I could fucking think about was you. I wanted you first, so just let me have this, okay? Fucking kiss me back! Spread your legs for me like you did for the first alpha who ever glanced your way.”

“STEVE!” You scream, growing more desperate by the second, “STEVE, PLEASE HELP!”

Bucky laughs wickedly, “He’s not coming to save you, sweetheart. I made sure of it.”

His words unlock something even more feral in you, but it’s when he splays his hand over your tummy that you completely lose it. In a way you never have before. How dare he? How fucking dare he?

“DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME!”

You ram your knee up, catching him straight on his crotch. Bucky grunts, falling on top of you. His hands let go of yours as he goes to clutch between his legs. You try to push him off you but he’s too big, too heavy.

“You stupid fucking slut,” Bucky swears, trying to grab at you with one hand but you know this is the only opening you’ll ever get. His face is grimaced in pain, and you’ve never been a violent person but you figure now is the best time to change that. You scratch at his face, shoving and pushing at him to get him off you. He grabs your wrist again, but you assume you got him hard on his crotch because it’s thrown him off his game. And you knee him again, this time catching him in his abdomen. The kick isn’t too hard, and Bucky barely flinches but it does distract him enough to allow you to slip out from underneath him.

You run to the door, managing to unlock it before Bucky grabs you by the waist and pulls you back. And now you really feel like crying, because you were so close… So fucking close…

Was this how it was going to end? Had God really written this in your fate? On top of everything else shitty that had happened to you since the day you were fucking born? No, it couldn’t be. You wouldn’t let it. You were sick of bad things happening to you while you stood there and cried and let them. If he was going to do this, you were going to fight till the end. You owed that to yourself, and your baby too.

“I hate you, you pathetic piece of shit!” You spit out, clawing and writhing as he half drags and half carries you back to the bed. Never in your life have you called anyone such a name but it just comes out of you with such vitriol, born out of both the fear and anger you feel right now. “I was only ever nice to you, despite how awful you all treated me! But you just can’t take rejection, and that is not my fault! You’re a pathetic, privileged jerk!”

“You could’ve loved me if it weren’t for Steve.” Bucky sneers, pulling your hair back and scowling at Steve’s mark on your neck. He bares his teeth, poised to bite. No, no, no, no! You punch, kick, writhe, claw, and–

“Are you done packing? Some asshole slashed my tires and–”

It’s like the whole world freezes when the door opens and Steve steps into the room. You freeze mid-fight, and Bucky does too. Steve does too. Pin drop silence. Not a single sound. Just the three of you staring at each other. And then…

“See what your slut of an omega is capable of, Steve?” Bucky says, gesturing at you while your jaw drops open in shock at what he’s saying. The brunette alpha’s eyes are as wild as his hair, and he’s breathing hard with an almost maniacal look on his face, “You see? Do you see this, Steve? She couldn’t wait to get on my dick the moment your back was turned. Guess you were right about her being the campus slut after all.”

For a moment, you’re rendered speechless. You watch Steve closely as he takes in what’s in front of him. You and Bucky on your bed, him practically on top of you, your hair dishevelled, your cardigan torn in half with the buttons broken. Oh no, Steve couldn’t possibly believe…?

“No.” You say firmly, your voice unwavering because if there was ever a time for you to be as clear as possible, it was now. “He’s lying. He came on to me, Steve. Like he’s been doing for months now.”

Bucky scoffs, “Oh yeah? Is that why you never told him that until now?”

Steve is motionless, stoic and his expression unreadable as he looks from you to his best friend and back to you again.

“Steve, he attacked me.” You look squarely into your alpha’s eyes, trying to sound confident but you can’t keep the desperate plea from your tone. “He’s been acting weird with me behind your back for months, and I know I didn’t tell you and I tried to brush it off but–”

“She’s a fucking liar,” Bucky cuts you off, “A fucking slut who wants two alphas at the same time. Me and her have been flirting for months behind your back, and she was enjoying every second of it, that’s why she never told you. She’s a goddamned slut, Steve, and she fooled us both with her innocent act.”

Each lie is like a punch to your gut, and you turn to stare at him in complete dismay. You could not fathom how someone could lie so cleanly, so unashamedly. And Steve? Why wasn’t he saying anything?

“That’s not true…” You say softly, not having it in you to say anything else.

“It is true, and you know it’s true, Steve,” Bucky claims, and he looks calmer now, as if he knows Steve will believe him and it breaks your fucking heart, the broken pieces sinking down to the depths of your tummy. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Steve, you know that–”

“Omega, step out of the room.” Steve says quietly. It’s an alpha command, because you feel your legs moving before you know what’s happening. You cross the bedroom, trying to catch Steve’s gaze but he won’t look at you. His eyes are locked on Bucky.

What follows is total carnage. The moment you cross the threshold, stepping out of the room and out of harm’s way, Steve attacks. Letting out an almighty snarl, he shoots across the room, pouncing on Bucky like a rabid animal. Bucky, clearly not expecting the attack, crashes to the ground with Steve on top of him. You wince when the brunet alpha’s head hits the floor, but Steve looks possessed, his face red and eyes narrowed to slits. And he throws punch after punch against Bucky’s face, and you can hear the repeated crack of his fist against his jaw.

You press your hand over your stomach as if to shield it, knowing you can’t step back into the bedroom to stop them even if you wanted to.

Bucky recovers quickly, and it’s different from Peter because Bucky matches Steve’s size and strength. He punches Steve back, his face screwed up in disgust as if he can’t fathom why Steve is attacking him.

“You’d believe her over me?!” Bucky roars, “You pussy-whipped piece of shit, you’d believe that slut over your best fucking friend?!”

“DON’T YOU FUCKING TALK ABOUT HER!” Steve’s voice rings across the whole room, and probably the whole building.

Bucky coughs, his lip swollen and his eye already blackening, but he’s still fighting back. “She’s a slut, and you’re a fucking joke for defending her–”

CRACK.

You’re sure Steve has broken Bucky’s jaw with how hard he punches him and how sickening the crack sounds. And he doesn’t stop there, grabbing Bucky by the throat while the brunet tries to recover underneath him.

“Don’t – you – ever – fucking – touch – her – again – you – piece – of – shit!” Each word is enunciated with Steve slamming Bucky’s head on the hard wood floor. And you look on in absolute horror, feeling torn because you hate Bucky with everything you have, because he’d just assaulted you and lied and he’d been awful to you and didn’t he deserve this? And yet you can’t bear to see such a display of violence…

“You always got everything!” Bucky sputters, and this admission catches Steve off-guard enough for Bucky to shove him off and tackle him to the ground, and now it’s Bucky’s turn to throw the punches, battering Steve’s face with renewed vigour. “You can’t have her too, you can’t–”

And you almost step back into the room, but you know you can’t put yourself and your baby in danger like that. You desperately look around, seeing if you can call for help. But who would come between these two alphas? And deep down, you knew they needed to hash it out.

They fight and fight, throwing punches and slamming and tackling each other all over the room. Swearing and cussing, spitting out words of venom. You run down the hall, banging on the other doors, hoping someone would help and break them apart. But no one answers, and you know no one would come within ten feet of two furious alphas.

You run back to your dorm room, making sure to stay outside just like Steve told you to. But your heart lurches at the bruises on Steve’s face, the beginnings of a black eye forming as Bucky continues to hit him.

“Stop!” You scream at Bucky, “Please, leave him alone!”

It’s like your voice snaps something inside Steve, and with the strength of his whole body, he pushes Bucky off of him. Smooth as a panther, he gets to his feet, landing several hard kicks on his friend’s ribs and abdomen. His face is battered and angry, feral yet still unreadable. It’s his best friend he’s fighting, and you can see that in how his features twist in disbelief mixed with animalistic fury.

And it’s with that same blind fury that he picks up your entire desk like it’s nothing. And you look on in horror, watch all your books and notes fall to the ground. Bucky looks too, his mouth bloody and parted in dismay as Steve lifts the heavy wooden desk over his head, poised on top of Bucky’s twitching body.

“Steve, don’t! You’ll kill him!” Or at least cause irreversible damage.

“He deserves it. He hurt you.” Steve’s voice comes out menacing as he looks straight at Bucky and only at Bucky, “All this fucking time, and right under my fucking nose...”

He kicks Bucky again, hard on the stomach and Bucky doubles over in pain. And Steve still stands over him, still gripping the huge desk as if it’s nothing. And you can’t imagine the damage he’d do if he let it fall on Bucky’s head, let alone slam it down with force.

But something seems to snap in Steve when he sees Bucky bent over in pain before he lies flat as if he’s resigned to his fate. And there’s blood gushing out of Bucky’s nose and his mouth, and his face is almost beaten to a pulp, and his eyes look glazed over, barely alert.

With a sigh, Steve sets the desk back down to the side, and then collapses next to Bucky. Sat down on the floor next to his friend who twitches in pain, and Steve looks at him in both disbelief and pity.

“You were my best friend.” Steve whispers, and it comes out broken and resigned. They stare at each other for a few seconds, and then neither of them says anything more, and Bucky turns away on his side, and Steve gets up and leaves him.

He makes his way to you, and you rush over to him. For a handful of moments, no one speaks. He hugs you hard, harder than usual but that’s not very shocking given the circumstances. He takes his jacket off and helps you put it on, and you welcome the warmth it brings you, his rich scent calming you down.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

“Yes. Are you?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you from him before.”

“That’s alright, you didn’t know.”

Steve refuses to look at Bucky even once more, and you know it’s because he’s afraid his anger will make him do something he’d later regret. So it’s you who uses Steve’s phone to call Sam to come help the brunet alpha, who is teetering on unconscious but fortunately still alive.

“No one’s gonna hurt you again.” Steve vows, holding on to tighter than ever, and you lean into him, burying your face in the crook of his neck. Warm, safe, relieved, you feel all of it as your adrenaline finally begins to come down.

“I know they won’t. I won’t let them, and you won’t either. I’m glad it’s all over now.”

***

The sun is shining as you and Steve set out across the grounds of his family home. The gardens stretch out across acres, so beautifully kept and flourishing, yielding all types of different flowers that are in full bloom. As you walk across what looks to be an entire field of yellow roses, you notice that Steve plucks one out every few steps, till he’s got a bunch of them grasped in his fist, and with gentle hands he expertly picks the thorns off.

You stop at a patch of green grass under a pretty looking tree, and that’s where you set your picnic basket down. Steve Junior smiles up at you from inside the wicker, and he seems to begrudgingly extend that smile to Steve too, which makes you happy. Steve helps you sit down as the sun splashes down on all three of you, and a gentle breeze makes your dress flow.

It’s been weeks since the whole ordeal with your mother leaving and then with Bucky. The first few days immediately after it were tough, as both you and Steve came to terms with different things. Steve went through periods of anger so strong, he wanted to get in the car and pay Bucky another visit. He couldn’t believe what Bucky had been doing to you behind his back, and once you told him the details, he was nothing short of livid. You’d often find him just sitting there, deep in thought about it all, formulating plans of revenge and plotting to take Bucky down. You told him that Bucky’s own insecurities and bitterness were his downfall, and to not worry about him anymore. You certainly wouldn’t.

As for you, you found that your mother leaving you would always linger in the back of your mind – at least for the foreseeable future. That made you sad, but you also found that it wasn’t too hard to continue life with this information. At first, you didn’t know what you wanted to do. Track her down and yell at her for being so heartless? Ignore her existence and carry on, just like how she was doing with you?

Well, you decided to take it one day at a time. And you’d already spent one whole year of university without your mother, and in a way, it was practice to what was now becoming your new normal. Despite her imperfections and shortcomings, it still sucked being left behind by her. But all you could do now was slowly piece yourself back together and hope that you’d never have to go through anything traumatic like that ever again.

To his credit, Steve did his best to distract you in the weeks following that fateful visit to your childhood home, as well as the ordeal with Bucky. Or maybe he was trying to distract himself from his own worries and concerns… about you and about his mother, and about his former best friend. True to his impulsive style, he’d wanted to take you on vacation right away for a change of scenery, as an escape. You told him that his family’s mansion was vacation enough for you, what with the gazillion pools and the luxurious interiors and hundreds of other features which you had yet to explore.

It's in these few weeks that you got to know Steve ways you never had in the two months you’d known him prior to this. The two of you went swimming together in one of his pools (Steve wouldn’t let go of you at first, afraid that you’d drown or somehow put the baby at risk. But he changed gears pretty quickly once you beat him in a freestyle race, although he scoffed and claimed he was going easy on you).

You cooked together too (well, it was originally just you cooking, as you always did for him, but Mrs. Rogers pushed him into the kitchen to help you, and once Steve saw how sharp the knives were and how hot the oven was, he immediately put himself in charge. “Try the mashed potatoes, Mom. I made those,” he had boasted over dinner that night, and his mother had smiled at him indulgently, and shot you a wink).

You also gave him his sketchbook which you’d retrieved from under the bed. He was shocked that you knew about it and that you’d brought it back, and you told him how touched you were seeing how much he’d drawn you and how talented he was. He played it off at first, tossing the sketchbook aside and telling you he didn’t draw much anymore. But then one day you caught him sketching what you guessed was his mother. In his sketch, she was on her feet, pretty and full of life. Dancing amongst a flower garden, a little blonde boy holding her hand. It moved you so much, you couldn’t help but wrap your arms around him tightly, as if to tell him that it would all be okay. In those moments, you felt more bonded to him than the mark on your neck ever made you feel.

Speaking of Mrs. Rogers, her health remained the same. But she did seem to light up when Mr. Rogers finally came home. You were so shy, especially when you noted the formal way in which he greeted his son. Steve’s dad looked a lot like Steve, just older and more mellow, a touch of sadness in his eyes. But he greeted you warmly, and told you that he was happy his son had found you.

 And then he turned to his wife, and it was amazing how his face morphed completely, as if he had hearts in his eyes. They’d left you and Steve to your own devices, and later, when you walked by their room, you saw them dancing together. Well, she was fragile and weak, and stood on his shoes while he moved around the room. But it was very cute, and you weren’t used to seeing parents love each other like this, and so you stood transfixed for longer than you cared to admit. And then Steve dragged you away to go do some activity around the house. 

Nevertheless, slowly, in these past few weeks, you’d begun to feel happy again. It happened very gradually, and yet so naturally at the same time. You allowed yourself to enjoy this new side of Steve, this loving and laidback side of him that you just couldn’t get enough of. You found yourself waking up and looking forward to spending the day with him, finding out what activities he had planned for the day, giggling at the thought of doing something fun or romantic with him.

Today’s activity was a picnic in the Rogers’ family estate’s never-ending gardens. Steve had picked out a pretty yellow dress for you (it was too hot for a hoodie) and he’d helped dress you, too. He was treating you like you were made of glass, babying you more than ever before. You wondered whether it was because you were pregnant, or because of everything you’d been through. Either way, you liked how he sat you in his lap and cooed at you as he slipped the lacy socks on your feet, how he kissed your neck and told you how beautiful you were. It made you feel special, how only he could.

“For you.” Steve holds out his makeshift bouquet of yellow roses, all but thrusting them into your hands with comical haste, as if he’s afraid something will come up and snatch them away. But you accept them happily, admiring how pretty they look.

“They’re beautiful,” you bring them up to your nose and give them a delicate sniff, “Yellow is the colour of hope.”

“It’s also your favourite colour.”

You nod, pleased that he knows this. “It is!”

It’s when you’re both sat down under the tree, that he takes both your hands in his, and looks at you with meaningful eyes.

“I don’t think you know how much you mean to me.”

“Steve–”

“I love every single thing about you. I love how brave you are, and how resilient no matter what life throws at you.” He tucks a piece of your hair behind your ear, “I love your eyes, your nose, your mouth,” he kisses each of the features that he’s listed down, till you’re giggling and looking up at him in awe. “I love how smart you are, the way you knew all the answers during classes but you were too shy to raise your hand. I love how you mouthed the answers to yourself anyways, and I love how you were always right.”

You feel a surge of emotion, but he’s not done.

“I love how you rehearse your order under your breath whenever we go out to eat, and I love how relieved you look when I order for you instead. I love your big hoodies even though I told you before that you shouldn’t wear them. You look cute in them, actually. I always secretly thought that.”

He takes a velvet case out of his pocket, and your breath catches in your throat. Whatever you were going to say dies away, and you look on as he opens the box. The diamond glints in the sunlight, so blindingly bright and pretty, attached to a delicate gold band.

“I know I’ve promised you many things in the past, and I’ve hurt you and broken those promises, too. But I’m telling you now that I will love and protect you and our baby with my whole life. And I want you to be my wife, so I can take care of you. So, baby, will you marry–”

“Yes!” You cut him off, unable to wait any longer because you feel this bursting happiness in your heart. You kiss him hard, catching him off-guard but he recovers quickly, holding you gently in his lap while your mouth moves against his. His hand splays over your tummy, and you really do feel loved. Perhaps for the first time in your whole life… you really do feel loved.

He slips the ring on your finger and you admire how perfectly it fits. And then the two of you kiss some more, bathing in the sunlight of the hot summer’s day, and in a way, you feel like you were always meant to end up here. That this was that hot summer’s day you’d always been yearning for every time you’d looked at him and felt that hunger, that longing…

You feel it now too, almost tenfold. And you draw back, taking in a deep breath. It happens suddenly and yet it’s the surest you’ve ever felt about anything ever. You push aside the neckline of shirt, till enough of his neck is bare to you. And then you bite down hard. Not too hard at first, because you’re afraid of hurting him. But then that feral feeling takes over you, and you hold his biceps tightly to steady yourself, and you bite down till you feel his skin breaking.

You lick and suck against his pale, broken skin as he holds you close, holding your head in place as if there’s nowhere else he’d rather want you to be. And when you pull away and see the little jagged mark you’ve left on him, a thrill ripples through you like no other.

Now he was yours too.

“Did that hurt?” You ask him.

He scoffs, ever the macho alpha. But there’s love in his eyes when he speaks. “A little. But it’s a good kind of hurt.”

You pepper kisses on your mark, trying to soothe any pain you may have caused him. And then he cups your face with his hands and catches your lips with his own, giving you the most passionate kiss you’ve ever felt from him.

“Steve?” You say breathlessly between kisses.

“Yeah, baby?”

“I love you too.”

The end.

***

EPILOGUE – ONE YEAR LATER

You don’t know if it’s the nightmare that jolts you awake, or if it’s the sound of Rosie crying. But you wake up to a dark, empty room. The bed is empty, save for you. You scramble up to see that Rosie’s crib is empty too (you keep it right next to your bed because you need to know she’s there all the time). But she’s not here right now, and neither is Steve, and that dark voice inside your head, the one you’ve worked so hard to keep out, begins to cackle… They’ve both left you…

You jump to your feet, heart hammering like crazy. But you find Steve in Rosie’s nursery, with your little baby girl in his arms. Or his one arm, and she looks so tiny and comfy, nestled on her dad as he gently rocks her, holding her bottle in his opposite hand. You immediately sag in relief.

Steve looks up at you, “She was crying so I came to check on her. I thought I’d let you sleep.”

You let out a ragged breath, “I thought you’d left me.”

Often, you wonder if he’s sick of your whole “I thought you’d left me” thing. There have been many occasions in the past year, where you’ve gone to that dark place in your mind, where you’ve woken up in the dark and somehow convinced yourself that he’s gone and he’s taken your Rosie with him. You still have nightmares about this happening. Not every night, but enough times that you’ve woken up crying.

Your therapist says that trauma and insecurities don’t heal overnight. That it’ll take time for you to completely believe that no one is ever going to leave you again like how your parents did. And that it’s important for you to have a strong support system that makes you feel reassured and safe. And Steve never hesitates to tell you that he’s never leaving you, that he’s right here, that everything’s okay. You’re amazed at how much patience he has when it comes to this, but he does, and you’re grateful for it.

Now, he lets you hold Rosie before gathering you in his arms and kissing the top of your head. “I’m right here, baby. It’s all okay, I’m never leaving you.”

You calm down, letting him lead you to the armchair in the corner of the nursery. He sits down, pulling you on top of him and switching on the lamp. Rosie coos in your arms, awake and smiling despite it being the middle of the night. She’s such a happy baby, and you love that about her because she makes you happy too. So overwhelmingly happy, that you want to smother her face in kisses and cuddle her all day and all night.

She nestles closer against your bosom, and you and Steve both watch her in awe. She’s so special, so perfect. Only five months old and yet you can’t imagine your life without her. When she was born, she’d been so, so tiny and she’d cried so much, but you’d held her against your chest and she’d calmed down, and it made you feel so needed, so wanted.

Steve had been scared to hold her at first, convinced that he’d somehow hurt her. You also suspected that he was afraid she’d cry if he held her, reject him somehow. But those little fears had gone away quickly, probably because she was so cute and he couldn’t resist cuddling her, even when she was a newborn and practically just the size of his hand. And you couldn’t get enough of watching him with her, because a year ago he’d been a cruel fratboy hell-bent on his mean ways. And now?

Now he was a father. And your husband.

The wedding had been small, just you (pregnant and beginning to show) and Steve and his parents. “I don’t want anyone else there, Steve. Just us. Please,” you had begged. Maybe it was because his friends weren’t your friends, or maybe it was because you were insecure that you’d have no one there for you. No one to walk you down the aisle, no one to go pick your wedding dress with, just no one at all.

Steve had agreed – it was your special day after all. Mrs. Rogers – hell-bent on making it to her son’s wedding despite the fact that she had to do so in a wheelchair – helped you pick your dress by having a large selection delivered to the house. You’d chosen a flowy dress that reached till your knees, and you’d gotten married on a private beach owned by the Rogers family. And despite the fact that it was Steve’s father who walked you down the aisle instead of your own, you felt happy.

You’d even received a card from Peter, congratulating you on your marriage. The message was brief, but it touched you nonetheless. You’d spoken to him once more after the day of the big game when he’d tried to save you from Steve. It had taken a while to persuade Steve to let you see him, but you felt like you needed this closure, and so did Peter. And so, in a coffee shop with Steve waiting in the car outside, you’d sat across from Peter and apologised from the bottom of your heart. You’d told him how you never meant to hurt him, but how you really felt you belonged with Steve.

You also told him you were pregnant, and that got him to crack a smile. He told you that you didn’t need to apologise, and that if this was what you truly wanted, then he wouldn’t stop you from living your happiness. He looked you in the eye and told you you’d be a great mother, and he wished you all the best. He also told you that he had to move on with his life, but he’d be there if you ever needed him.

You knew you could never truly be friends with Peter again, not in the way you were before. But his card meant a lot to you anyways.

Steve received congratulatory calls and cards from a bunch of different people, one of them being Sam. He was off traveling the world, and he’d met a girl called Wanda who he wanted to settle down with. He told Steve that he hoped you all could hang out when he brought her back. You told Steve to tell him that you’d like that very much.

After getting married, the two of you had decided to stay in the Rogers’ mansion, much to Mrs. Rogers’ glee. Steve had told you that his family had an apartment on the upper east side as well as one in Brooklyn that you guys could move in to, if you so pleased. He also said that once he’d settled in with a proper job, he’d begin building a dream house for the two of you and your future family. He was currently working in his dad’s company which he was set to take over, but he wanted to go into politics too.

You were happy to stay in the mansion, however. You enjoyed Mrs. Rogers’ company, and you really considered her a friend. Finally, a friend. An unlikely one, but a friend nevertheless. She was stark and honest about her cancer, and it filled you with sorrow knowing that she wouldn’t be here forever. Steve was still confident that she’d get better (or that was how he acted) and Mrs. Rogers told you that you’d have to be strong when the day came, because she knew that he wouldn’t be.

By some miracle, you’d also persuaded Steve to let you go back to university. He wasn’t thrilled about it, but you remembered Mrs. Rogers’ advice on how he’d listen to you when it truly came down to it. And he had, he had, he had! You had just finished your sophomore year, having done most of it online, and passed all your exams with flying colours. You didn’t know if you were going to go back for junior year this fall or if you’d differ it till next year (since Rosie took up so much of your time) but you knew you had the option either way, which you liked.

But right now, at this very moment in time, you’re content just to watch Rosie babble and coo in your arms. Steve strokes her chubby cheek and her little fist grabs his pinkie finger, and your heart just feels so full, your nightmare already forgotten and almost laughable in comparison to how happy you feel right now, encased in your little family. A family of your very own, just like Steve had promised you so long ago.

“She looks exactly like you.” Steve comments softly, and you chirp happily in agreement. Rosie did have a few of Steve’s features, like his freckles. But everything else was so… you. Often, Steve compared her to the baby picture he had of you in his wallet, the one he’d taken from your childhood room, and the resemblance was uncanny. She was you all over again.

“She does, doesn’t she?” You smile, hugging her close. And then your heart drops, and you feel your eyes well with tears at the sudden overwhelming thought of being unable to protect her. “I don’t want her to be like me, Steve. I don’t want her to be shunned and bullied, and unable to stand up for herself. I don’t, I can’t, I…”

He shushes you with kisses, scenting you and calming you down like how he always does, stroking your face and gathering your tears on his fingers. Rosie gazes up at you imploringly, reaching a chubby hand up to pat at your face as if to mimic her daddy, and you can’t help but smile through your tears.

“If she’s anything like you, she’ll be perfect. But she’ll also be perfect if she’s nothing like you.” Steve presses more kisses to the top of your head as you keep your eyes glued on your baby daughter, wanting so badly to protect her from all the cruelty this world had to offer. “Look, why don’t we just take it day by day? Just know that I’ll protect her with my life, and she’ll grow up safe and loved.”

You nod. When had he become so wise?

“Gah!” Rosie squeals cheerfully, as if to say she agrees. The two of you can’t help but laugh.

“That’s right, Rosie, you agree with daddy, don’t you? That’s because daddy is always right,” Steve coos, taking her from your arms and pressing a gazillion kisses to her face. “Your mama’s just worried about you, but you gotta tell her that you’ll be fine.” He thrusts the baby at your face in typical Steve fashion (albeit gently). “Go on, Rosie, tell her!”

Rosie blinks before kicking her feet that are encased in her adorable yellow footie pyjamas, smiling and babbling happily. It’s her own baby language of cute yet nonsensical sounds, but it touches you nonetheless.

If someone asked you a year ago whether you thought you’d be here now, you’d probably have burst into tears because of your own bleak expectations. But watching Steve and your little baby girl, you realise that this is your happy place. Here, in the dead of the night with the only light coming from the dim, orange lamp. Here, where you watch as Steve gets up and twirls Rosie around and around, gently throwing her up in the air and catching her as she laughs and laughs. You’d had a heart attack the first time he’d done that, but now you trusted him with it, and the sound of her gleeful laughter was the most beautiful thing on earth to you.

“C’mere,” Steve reaches for your hand and pulls you up, twirling you around before yanking you into him (again, gently, as he holds Rosie with his other arm). You crash into his chest before he tips you back, kissing you sweetly as your arms wind around his neck. “You make me so happy,” he whispers against your lips, “both my girls make me so happy.”

“You make me happy too,” you say shyly. One year later, and he still makes you shy and gives you butterflies. But you’re so comfortable with him now, so at ease, so familiar, so safe. You guess that’s what love is, and it’s also how much he’s grown as a man. He still has his rules, he’s still that strict alpha that he always was. But he’s also more laidback, sweeter, kinder… You think it’s Rosie who has softened him up, but everyone else (his mom) tells you that it’s you too.

“Oh yeah? I bet I could make you happier, baby.” Steve smirks, bouncing Rosie up and down in his arms while she plays with the stubble on his face. “When are you gonna let me give you another one?”

Your eyes widen, heat rushing to your cheeks. You weren’t opposed to the idea of another baby (although Steve’s vision of having at least five children was something you’d take a while to wrap your head around). But right now, you really just wanted to focus on Rosie. Along with Steve, she was your whole entire world.

Rosie’s tiny arms reach out for you, and it secretly thrills you how you seem to be her favourite person. You take her from Steve, rocking her gently in your arms before you let her rest her head on your shoulder. Her eyes droop, long lashes (just like her daddy’s) fanning her chubby cheeks. All that laughing and being thrown in the air had tired her out, and it only takes her a few more minutes to fall asleep.

“I love you, my beautiful baby girl,” you whisper to her softly, brushing her hair off her face, “sweet dreams.”

You and Steve watch her for a while after you’ve put her down in her crib, her tiny stuffed bear clutched in her fist. It’s something the two of you do quite often, as if you’re both in awe of this perfect little thing that you created together. Steve’s arm winds around your waist, and you lean your head against his chest.

“We need to get her a new bear.” Steve points out. Rosie’s favourite stuffed animal is already kind of tattered, its yellow bow-tie hanging off where the stitching has come loose.

“Or her daddy could sew this one back, just like you did with mine.” You glance at Steve Junior, who is comfortably lounging on his usual place in the middle of the bed.

Steve scoffs. Till this day, he denies it. “I did not. I paid someone to do it.”

“Whatever you say.”

He takes you back to bed, and you lie comfortably on his chest, breathing in his scent. Moments like this make all of your insecurities feel insignificant in comparison. Yes, your mother had left you, and sure, your father had too. And every now and again, you feel strong pangs of hurt when you think about it too much. But the pangs were dulling over time, and they could never contest against the strong feelings of love you had within you now. Love for your baby, love for Steve. Love for your perfect little family. And maybe a little love for yourself, too (you were working on it).

 And so, every time that dark voice inside you tries to pull you down under, all you have to do is remember the little things that you have the luxury of enjoying every single day now. Like the feel of Rosie’s chubby fist as it grabs your finger with crazy strong baby strength. Or the way Steve’s eyes light up when he comes home to you both after a long day of work. The feel of his soft hair as you card your fingers through it, how he buries his face in your neck and sighs. The sound of Rosie’s laughter, the way Steve says your name.

You know one day you’ll conquer that dark voice inside your head, silence it forever. In the meantime, you cuddle closer to Steve, brush your hand over his chest. Lean up to kiss his cheek, smile at how his lashes fan his cheekbones. A sense of calm washes over your chest, and you don’t feel afraid of your nightmares anymore.

You settle down, and you go to sleep with a smile on your face.

A/N: The end. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you for letting me tell this story from beginning to end. I really hope you found it satisfactory. There is so much I want to say, but I will write a separate post for that. Thank you for reading. I love you all. Please reblog and PLEASE leave feedback, i am dying to know what you guys think!

link to my ko-fi

[st0rmyskies]

What Your Favorite Link Says About You

A.k.a. The Links as tarot cards/your rising sign/your blood type.

Time

You're likely an older Zelda fan. Ibuprofen has become a food group for you. Anyone who thinks OoT isn't the greatest Zelda game has you clutching your pearls and tutting. Kids these days don't know how good they have it.

You are a person to whom young people come for advice, either in your career or in life in general. You're happy to give it, especially because you love to help, but on the inside you're silently screaming, What?? Why me???

You may have trouble sleeping through the night. Even if it's not every night, there are some where you just can't turn your brain off and worries or worst-case scenarios just keep playing and replaying ad nauseaum.

You enjoy time in solitude to appreciate the beauty of nature. I bet you know how to braid a mean daisy crown.

“The flow of time is always cruel...” - Some event in your life took your innocence from you, perhaps much too early. You grew up quickly because of it.

Legend

Either you had a crush on the emo kid in high school or you were the emo kid in high school.

You might be jaded by the world, but you still have a solid work ethic and a soft heart despite it all. Even if you hide it all beneath a healthy layer of sass.

You possess a multitude of skills, not all of which are related. Anytime a friend needs a piece of clothing mended or a picture frame hung on the wall or a leak in a faucet addressed, you have the tools and the willingness to help.

Either you have a history of moving frequently when you were young, or you have a restless spirit. You may never quite feel 'at home' in any given place.

"But, verily, it be the nature of dreams to end." - You’ve suffered a meaningful loss in your life and you have a hard time opening up again because of it. 

Hyrule

You root for the underdog, or perhaps you are the underdog. Any of those "against all odds" stories just hit you square in the chest.

Somewhat quiet by nature, you do vital work behind the scenes but you aren't the type to seek out a leadership position. Leave the limelight to somebody else, please.

You might sell yourself short when it comes to your skills and abilities, but you should believe in yourself, man! You can do it!!

You have a capricious streak in you that rears its head now and again. That smile can look sharp and devilish in the right light.

"It's dangerous to go alone!" - You either already have or are destined to find 'that one person' with whom you can open up and truly be yourself. 

Twilight

I'm willing to put money on the fact that Twilight Princess was your first Zelda game.

You have a strong sense of justice and get really bent out of shape when you encounter unfairness or flaw in the system, whatever that may be. You might be considered an outsider in some way because of this.

You're the friend who scoops spiders up in a cup and sets them outside. Live and let live.

You were the 'wolf kid' in middle school. Come on, those amazing tie dye shirts? Wolf Woman? Julie of the Wolves?? Even if you kept it inside, it was there in some way.

"Your current power would disgrace the proud green of the hero's tunic you wear." - You put a lot of stock in the opinions of others and hold yourself to a higher standard because of it. Sometimes that standard isn't achievable, though, so try to be kind to yourself. 

Sky

You, my friend, have a soft heart. You're generally a happy-go-lucky sort of person. You're likely to make excuses for those who've been mean to you in the past and come out as friends on the other side.

You're crafty, or at the very least good with your hands. You're the type to give someone a handmade gift rather than go buy something for them for their birthday, a holiday, etc.

You have a strong affinity for your friends. If anything bad were to happen to them, you'd turn violent at the drop of a hat.

You may have some level of chronic illness that affects you. Although you might do things in a different way or at your own pace, though, you still come out on top.

"You fight like no man or demon I have ever known." - You have the capability for great things. World-changing sorts of things. Don't give up!

Wild

You're some flavor of neurodivergent, if I had to guess I'd say ADHD. You have 42 tabs open in your brain at any given time and you have no idea which one the music is coming from.

You're an incredibly creative person, although you might have trouble finishing tasks/works-in-progress. Doesn't mean you didn't learn something along the way!

Rigid guidelines or deadlines stress you out. You'd rather be given a goal and decide for yourself when and how to get there. When you do have a deadline, you're a bit of a procrastinator.

Sometimes you don’t get the 'right' way to do things, but you carve your own path--although sometimes it's unorthodox--and get there in your own time.

"Courage need not be remembered, for it is never forgotten." - In spite of how your life changes you, for better or for worse, you have a driving inspiration or ethic or vocation that moves you forward at all costs.

Warriors

Those who don't know you well tend to boil you down to one or two trite traits. In reality, you contain multitudes. Most people couldn't handle all of you, not that they deserve to know even part of you.

You tend to lay it on thick--be that your charm, attitude, or whatever else your social shield might be--because you're hiding some deeper secret or insecurity at your core.

You're the mom friend or the planner in your group, or perhaps you're the oldest child. You’ll pass on an authority role if and when you can, but likely you’re still involved in some supervisory capacity in a given situation. 

You kill spiders with fire. Show NO mercy.

"You dare raise the blade of evil's bane to me? So be it. Hyrule's blood will be on your hands." - You have strong convictions and you aren't afraid to take risks, major risks, to do what you know to be right.

Four

Babe, if you ain't short, you've got short person energy. You scare me a little bit tbh.

You were praised for not being a problem child growing up, or for being very responsible at a young age.

You have a vivid imagination! You may have had an imaginary friend as a child or lived in your own little world altogether. I bet your notebook pages were strewn with little doodles in school.

You're a lover of information. If you could choose between an afternoon at the library or a movie matinee, it would be the former.

"Hanging around with you fools is dangerous for my health." - You're the snark friend, aren't you.  

Wind

You are extroverted to a fault. You need the company of others to recharge that social battery. The quintessential golden retriever friend.

You had active involvement in the music and theatre department. I'd be surprised if you weren't in at least one show in high school.

Having adventures is where it's at! You're a big fan of travel, either cross-country road trips or international flights. You could happily live out of a suitcase.

You tend to make friends easily wherever you go. If everyone in this classroom/workplace/bar doesn't know your name already, they will pretty quick.

"I have been waiting for you, boy... Do not betray my expectations.” - Against all odds, you've proven yourself to be worthy of great things. Screw what fate has in store! You're the type to take your own destiny by the 'nads.

[innistable]

Talk talk (snippet) [Full fic coming 10/07/2024] [1/4]

jason todd x reader

summary: the sequence of events that led you and your neighbor, Jason Todd, to fall in love. For better of for worse.

a/n: I'm new to tumblr and I'm still getting the hang of this. English is not my first language so I apologize for any mistakes. Please, like and reblog if you are interested in reading the full fic, any comment is highly appreciated.

word count: 2k

Your grandmother had always been a superstitious woman, constantly talking about those omens lying everywhere, praying to be seen, both as a warning sign or as a blissful encounter. However, you have never been the one to pay attention to that, not caring about cats, stairs, corners, clover and everything in between, especially in a city like Gotham, where you don’t need an auspice to know that danger is close. 

For all of its sketchiness, Gotham City is a pretty straightforward place, there is always something happening, you may not see it, but it is there, an uneasiness that you can’t quite shake, hiding in a blind spot, a shadow in the corner of your eye. Still, in this precise moment, you wish that you had paid attention to something, omen or not, maybe the gray sky had been a good pointer that it was going to rain, maybe for once you could have listened to weather forecast, and maybe, just maybe, you should have just stayed at home after you saw that black cat licking one of its wounds on the fire escape. 

The point of all this is that it is raining, pouring, it’s one of those rainfalls that’s so loud and strong that it makes you think that the sky is being torn apart. Now you are on your knees, blue jeans now wet and grayish against the cold pavement, trying to retrieve your scattered groceries. 

It went like this: a few harmless droplets when you were cornering Monolith Square to take the bus after spending the evening seeing the Wayne Botanical Garden; on the bus, you were reading a book, something short and too pretentious for its own good, suddenly, the driver was using the windshield wiper and you noticed that the window view was then translucent, being barely able to make out the street silhouettes, it all became a blurry heap of buildings, street lamps and ill-defined legs, torsos and heads; then, you recognized the “C” Building, your stop, so you pressed the button, the bus slowed down and opened its door, outside a storm awaited. 

It’s a two hundred meter walk to your apartment, but what normally was easy, it turned into a midday odyssey, strong winds and warm water made the route unbearable, your tote bag felt heavier by every passing second and just when you were in front of your building, keys in hand, your bag tore by the seams, and all of its contents fell to the ground. 

It’s frustrating and you feel like screaming, it’s not the worst thing to ever happen to you, but it does feel like it is, probably because Gotham is some kind of cruel mistress, no matter how hard you try to play by its rules, it always ends up having a way to humble you, you might try to avoid trouble, but it ends up finding you, one way or another. You have this kind of overwhelming sentiment that makes your eyes sting when you see the damp sugar on the floor, just next to the trinkets you got from the Wayne Botanical Garden and your favorite brand of cookies. 

The rain seems to feel your distress and it starts pouring even more. Great. 

“Need help?” a voice asks. 

You have never been a very religious person, but when you hear those words dripped in that thick gothamite accent that sometimes makes your stomach churn, you think that perhaps there is something out there that has decided to glance your way for once, and that for once, it felt pity for you. 

“Yes.” you say. 

You look up and see a tall man, gruff, huge. He has dry blood on his upper lip, a thin scab, dark maroon, recent but not too fresh. His hair is black, tousled, with a white streak on the front, and it seems a little bit damp, locks sticking to his forehead. His skin seems thick, probably because it is littered with scars, white dents on his skin, some big and some small, you don’t think too much about it, it’s Gotham, everyone has some scars around here, from gunshots to safety accidents on the swings of Robinson Park. His eyes are blue, almost icy, and his pupil is enveloped by vibrant green hues, his gaze seems curious and fixated, he is analyzing you, the same way you are analyzing him, ‘fair’ you think. He wears a worn out hoodie, overused, with grease spots and frayed holes, he is wearing also a pair of black shorts, the ones you use for running or going to the gym, and he’s also using trainers, the label says Numa instead of Puma, they are probably from the street markets that you can find around in every corner of Gotham. 

He is alluring, you concede, even handsome. But that doesn’t matter, because he is kind. Gotham is isolating, people keep to themselves, they look the other way, not because they are necessarily assholes, but because they have clear boundaries, they distinguish your business from their business, and unless those two spheres intersect, they don’t see a reason to cross the line, it’s easier that way. Therefore, unapologetic kindness is not something easy to come across; in fact, you would be wary of it, if it wasn’t for the fact that he has a plastic bag and is taking your milk carton from the ground. Thank you, that’s what your eyes say. 

For Jason it goes like this. 

He is in his apartment, for the first time in days. It’s Wednesday and on Saturday he had a complicated patrol with Nightwing, the kind of complicated that leaves your face scarlet and body mauve, the type of convoluted patrol that leaves you aching for days, movements limited and a sore spot under your sixth rib. 

He was kept in the Manor until yesterday evening, not because he wanted to, but because he was forced to. I can take care of myself he grumbled, but then Afred got this look in his eyes, not the one that says I am disappointed, he doesn’t care about that, he is used to disappointing, to failed expectations and lists of unspoken requirements he will never meet, it’s fine, what’s not fine is the other look, the one that softly whispers You are breaking my heart, master Jason, and Jason doesn’t want to do that, not to Alfred, who seems the only one ready to accept him for what he is now and not clinging to an old memory of what could have been. So, he stayed, receiving medical care from Leslie and Alfred, but he left as soon as he could. 

Alfred had asked if he was staying for dinner, even though at this point it’s more of a silent plea, some sort of want for him to stay for once, to really be part of the family, to act like one, but Jason never agrees. The thing is, Jason never stays, he flees, he doesn’t do goodbyes or excuses, he is not a Wayne, perhaps he was at some point, when he was loud and excitable, full of wonder, but that part of him died, and no magic or god can bring that back, some things stay dead and maybe it’s better off that way. 

The point is that he was finally back at his apartment. The closest thing he had to a proper home. It was small, he could afford bigger, he had bigger, but it began being just a plain safehouse, some impersonal storage unit to keep ammo, League weapons, gear, etc. However, at some point, he started spending nights there, probably because it was in a nice part of Gotham, Midtown, without the constant chaos from Uptown, where he mostly operated, but still far away from the haughtiness ever so characteristic of Downtown Gotham. It was a perfect balance, not too much, not too little, and Jason likes evenness, equilibrium, perhaps because most days he tethers the line between sanity and insanity so he appreciates any resemblance of stability he can grasp onto. 

He arrived yesterday at 20:30, ordered delivery from the mexican restaurant a few blocks away, and fell asleep watching reruns from an old, mildly successful tv show. He likes the background noise, when everything is too quiet, he starts imagining things: footsteps, the sound of a crowbar against his flat’s parquet, screams and wails, the sound of a ticking bomb, etc. He likes everything that makes his subconscious believe that he is not alone. 

His morning wasn’t different from any other mornings and that was fine. Jason enjoys routines, the predictable. He enjoys his usual morning channel; the black cat that visits him every morning to silently ask for food; the cadence of his neighbors footsteps as they run around their flat trying to get the kids ready for school and Roy’s texts. There is no sign that today is going to be different, and he likes that. He hits the gym, as always. He prepares lunch, nothing fancy. He reads, today it is The Master and Margarita, he is one hundred pages in, he marks words, phrases, writes thoughts on the margins and slowly makes his way through. He journals, he is not much of a poet, not that he wants to; he might be tortured, but he is not an artist, words more times than not get stuck on his throat, scratching like barbed wire against his larynx, drawing blood; however, Dinah, also known as Black Canary, who acts as his psychologist via Roy, advised him to write, she told him that it could help, sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t, he keeps doing it anyway. 

When the clock marks 17:23, he gets bored, so he goes to his balcony. It’s sad, but he lives his days anticipating the nights; he likes patrolling, he savors the adrenaline, he basks on the rush, he thrives under the light of traffic and streetlights; daylight stuns him, he doesn’t really know how to navigate the world once the sun has risen, it’s disorientating. Therefore, he just rots, he decays around his apartment, and now he feels like festering on his balcony. Suddenly, it starts to rain. It begins as a drizzle, so he doesn’t really care, he takes a cigarette, he lights it up and takes a puff. 

He started to smoke when he came back to life, his dad used to do it, his mom too, everyone in Crime Alley did it, since it helped you to stay warm. When he was younger, he didn’t like it, back then when he was the bright-eyed Robin and he treated his body like a temple because Batman told him to do so, back when the only thing he wanted was to prove himself worthy, something he never was. His body as Robin was a temple; his body as the Red Hood are the ruins of a long forgotten empire that lived its own demise, and no one cares about ruins, why should he? 

His first cigarette was given to him by Egon, one of the first mercenaries who trained him after his resurrection; then, the habit sticked, after all the life he chose, the life he lives, happens on dimly lit bars and dingy hideouts where a thick layer of smoke covers everything, it’s only normal that he smokes. Furthermore, he admits, there is some kind of masochist element to it, at first, the smell of smoke was enough to send him to a panic attack, since it reminded him of bombs, collapsed buildings, screeching manic laughs and charred skin; smoke was what filled his lungs when he gave his last breath, so if he was able to control the panic that the smell evoked, that meant that he won, in some way, in any form, it may be a consolation prize, but a prize nevertheless. 

So he smokes and the rain starts falling with more force, but he doesn’t bother going inside, he likes the feeling of the droplets against his skin, it’s nice, it feels real. He looks down and he sees you, hunched over picking things from the floor and, after a few heartbeats laced with smoke, he decided to go down and help. 

He sees you up close, eyes fixed in your face, taking in every detail, engraving them on his memory as he does with everyone. Right now, the world doesn’t tilt on his axis, there are no sweaty palms or rushed breaths, nothing has stopped, it doesn’t feel like something monumental, but it is. 

He helps you and accompanies you to your apartment, it’s on the second floor - his is on the fourth - and he feels content about knowing someone new after Roy has been nagging him about needing to be friendlier and meet other people. He doesn’t talk much, he never does, he tells you his name and his apartment number, it’s enough for such a small talk. You thank him and it feels nice. He leaves and you close the door, it’s enough for today. 

Like and reblog for the full fic

[gamblersdoll]

IT'S THE MATTER OF IT.

summary: after dying of hanahaki disease, youre reincarnated.. but you are the past lover of the king of curses.

WARNING: story contains sexual content, blood, gore, death of reader in first half.

"sukuna-sama." she said, bowing to the tallest man she's ever seen. she wasnt too afraid of him, but she gave him his respect he required.

"Y/N." he said, looking down at her. "are you still sick?" he asked, almost sounding worried.

was he even caring... of course not. he is sukuna after all.

"yeah. im not sure why." she said, shaking her head in a light chuckle. "ill be okay though."

"if you say so, Y/N." he said, turning his focus to uraume. the voices of the person you loved and cared for, and the person you were acquainted with drowned out.

if only you knew.

coughing violently, you covered your mouth and witnessed a petal falling into your hand.

you're fucking with me.. right?

you couldn't allow sukuna to witness that, then he'd either call you pathetic or actually showing true concern and hunting down whoever you were in love with and making them pay. but the first thought was that he truly wouldn't care.

or so you thought when you landed in a bedridden state, the flowers consuming your lungs and making it up to your esophagus and eyes, almost not being able to speak nor see.

"why on earth didn't you say anything? you know how dangerous this is!" uraume screamed, worried that their friend would die– no, you were dying for certain. you couldn't tell sukuna that you loved him. otherwise, he'd laugh.

"its... fine." you whispered, only a whisper is what you could do. or risk you damaging your throat from the thorns. "where is ryo..?" you asked, barely seeing uraume's white and red hair.

"he said he was coming, I don't know y/n..." they said, raking their hands through your locs, the locs that sukuna somewhat admired.

"is it okay if I nap? getting really sleepy." you asked , smiling softly until you again, violently coughed up blood and flower petals.

"... yeah." uraume said, leaving you to yourself. they walked out the room to see sukuna, conversing with him about you. how bad have you gotten? he didn't know.

he doesn't care.

the door opened and closed slowly, revealing a flower consumed you, your eyes have flowered out, but still managing to speak.

"who is it." he asked, glooming over you with worried eyes, but filled with.. rage? you didn't know. you couldn't see him, but you could hear him.

"i..." you trailed off, wondering if it was worth telling him. you decided against better judgment, coughing for a bit until you could feel yourself slipping away from life, deciding it was time.

"you." you had said, "it was you...." until you took your last final breath, the prettiest, bloodiest flower consuming you whole , sprouting out your mouth, and eventually, your heart stopped beating. all your warmth had gone away.

sukuna stood there with a blank expression, his hands did tremble a bit, but only for a few seconds in counting. he thought about pumping your heart, but he knew by his strength and anger, he'd crush your ribs, stabbing through your lungs from the brutal force he'd press onto you.

"ill make you pay for putting me in such a position like this, you damned woman."

—————————————

"y/n, these are your classmates slash partners, nobara , megumi, annndddd... yuuji!" gojo had announced, clapping his hands together in glee. "y/n and yuuji, you'll be great friends!"

"why would we be." you deadpanned, folding your arms and tapping your foot. "why are you so excited anyway? it's nine in the morning."

you felt a pair of eyes on you, it felt... dangerous. like a curse is watching you. you didn't recognize them, but yuuji gave you the friendliest smile and shook your hand, while in sukuna's domain, he peaked through yuuji's cheek.

there is no way you're here, you damned woman.

[spectral-snippets-and-drabbles]

A Martyr From the Ashes

For everyone in the fandom saying saying that Danny thinks Martian ManHunter is cooler than Superman, we don't really see it all that much in writing.

I'mma try and fix that...

~•~•~•~•~•~

The Martian Book of Legends held the heroic tale of Saint Da'han'yul Fen'tuun of Mars, a sickly albino priest of a small town that held marriages, sermons regarding life and how it should be enriched and lived to its fullest, and specialized in funerals that used cremations with fire, a feat thought to be physically impossible by the masses. As people saw him look into the flames without fear while others cowered, rumors spread that the young man was blessed by H'ronmeer himself, the Martian God of Fire, Life, and Death.

People spoke about how Da'han'yul turned down all attempts at courtship, for he had decided to dedicate his life to bring light in the darkest times to all lives in the name of his God. He was a thing of beauty with a gentle soul and shy demeanor, even the Red and Green skinned who had still held a firm belief on the caste system could not deny his charm. How the terminally ill Martian carried on his mission with a smile, nobody knew.

However, tragedy struck on the day that should have spelled the beginning of the end for the Martian people. A parasitic species had invaded the Martian Homeworld and was causing untold havoc. As civilians fled from the threat and prepared a counter offensive, it was Da'han'yul Fen'tuun who charged into the danger headfirst to save his people from becoming prey.

As others pleaded for him to run away, in a great bright flash of light, a gigantic Martian loomed over the enemy emerged where the ill Martian stood, coated in flames in a form they've never seen before with a halo and body that burned a haunting green.

The deafening silence still held as the enormous creature brought a massive fist on the giant pale walker that was destroying homes. A wave of its hand sent a wall of green flames raced towards the foot soldiers, reducing them to ash while his people and buildings were not harmed in any form without an ounce fear of these fires the creature used to purge the enemy. Within the hour, the threat had been neutralized and peace was brought back to the red planet.

As the Martian people looked to the titan, they knew. H'ronmeer's had chosen his most loyal servant, Da'han'yul, as the avatar of his wrath to smite those who would bring his people harm. The people hugged and wept tears of joy and cheered for the priest and H'ronmeer for saving them, but the tears soon became tears of sorrow.

The giant groaned in pain as he fell on one knee as it began to crumble into ash before the people's very eyes. Like a flame, Da'han'yul Fen'tuun had burned his brightest when life needed him most, and now death called to him as it slowly extinguished it to give him peace. With a final message, he pleaded to his people to come together as one and to not see one another as lesser or greater than, but as equals who can help one another in the darkest of times and the hardships yet to come. With his final moments gone, a final telepathic embrace was given to all before he fell silent for the last time.

The massive pile of ash that were his remains was brought back to his little village and made into a beautiful garden of ash in the temple where the newly titled Saint made his home in, where it would be made a holy site that many would come to give their thanks and pay their respects for H'ronmeer' and his champion alike.

And for centuries, peace was held before it was shattered by Ma'alefa'ak, who unleashed the Fire Plague to take vengeance on his people for his inability to experience the psionic way of life that was the norm. His smile as his people screamed in anguish was knocked off his face in the most literal of terms when a Martian struck him down and had him by the throat.

A Martian with eyes burning in anger as Ma'alefa'ak failed to break free and was being beaten severely for his crimes against the people of Mars. A Martian made entirely up of ash and green embers.

Saint Da'han'yul Fen'tuun had returned, if only for a moment longer. And he was not happy.

Quickly, one by one across the planet, the martians set ablaze burned a gentle green that healed them. In this miraculous act of divine intervention, not a single Martian had lost their life. Most were now unconscious with labored breathing being heard.

J'onn watched on as his brother screamed in agony as his body burst into green flames as a pool of ash began to swallow his brother whole. Before disappearing entirely, Da'han'yul told him the punishment his brother would be facing.

"Ma'alefa'ak's psionic abilities have been awoken. He will be sentenced to become a living flame until he has lived the collective life span of all that he has tried to extinguish."

J'onn was too stunned to speak. With how long a Martian can live, it was the equivalent of telling him his brother would be suffering for an eternity. It seemed unethical, but he knew his brother had dug his own grave the moment he saw the reanimated remains of Da'han'yul Fen'tuun's ashes take swift action.

"Everything will be ok now, J'onn. Go to your family and tend to them.

"Da'han'yul...Thank you. I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you when you were still alive." J'onn solemnly uttered as he looked to the ground, unable to look at his deceased youngest brother.

"Nonsense J'onn, it's not your fault...The caste system...it–"

"I could've done more! Instead I saved myself instead of being there when my brothers needed me most!"

"J'onn...you were just a child."

"It makes none of it right!"

He was right in that aspect, but it still didn't feel right. Ma'alefa'ak' was ostracized by society, was treated like a freak of nature for lack of natural gifts and he wanted to burn society to the ground in the most literal of terms because of it.

While Da'han'yul, the forgotten youngest brother, was treated horribly for being albino and treated cruelly. He contracted a deadly disease when he separated himself from the family to live in isolation with other albinos that made him sickly and cut his life expectancy down severely. Knowing what befell him, seeing him struggle to move and hold down food at times while J'onn and their parents did nothing.

These tumultuous emotions sat in J'onn for so long. The way he wanted to go and help them both, but the fear of association and social punishment for merely being seen with his brothers made him cry when he younger for being so weak willed. It wasn't until their parents bragged about the sacrifice their forgotten child had made, the sone they purposely scorned made him snap.

"J'onn, promise to keep my message alive for me. Help our people become whole again."

"Of course, brother." Is what J'onn tells him as he watches his little brother vanish again for a third and final time.

[cheolism]

DEVOTION (TEASER)

✰ — choi san x gang leader!reader ✷ — summary: after a year of fighting in a rebellion, san was tired of battle. like an angel, a goddess, you offered him peace. ✰ — teaser wc is approx. 1.8k ✷ — genre: nsfw, mafia/gang society, themes of worship, cultish, power imbalance. simp!san for his "rescuer". ✰ — warnings: violence and murder; mature themes. morally gray reader and san (san is the equivalent of a stray puppy you’re nice to once and then never leaves you alone ever again). ✷ — rating: 18+. ✰ — note: this fic draws inspiration from the roman colosseum and society with a mafia. the reader in this fic is the leader of a gang, or a “sect” that inhabits a city and she is referred to as “the empress”. FULL FIC TO BE RELEASED OCTOBER 25.

p r o l o g u e .

the city held its breath when you fall ill. it's a fleeting illness, your aunt, who was left regent in the wake of your illness, announced. the empress will return to her duties as quickly as possible.

and then nothing happened for six months.

rumors spread. you'd died and your death was kept a secret to prevent rival sects from trying to steal territory; you'd been kidnapped for ransom and the "sickness" is a smokescreen. some spoke of treachery, but that's quickly hushed up. for who would dare betray the empress, the sweet little lamb of a girl who crowns her citizens with flowers?

your aunt was found dead in a pool, and you began to get better.

the city let out a relieved breath.

you began to appear in public once more. the city basked in your attention. all seemed to thrive. you kept the city secure under your watch, each entrance and exit under firm surveillance, guards on the corners of streets with guns at their hips, politicians carrying suitcases of powder, corrupt men and women entering your penthouse and never seen leaving.

"it's wrong," said choi bada to his brother. "she'll run our sect to the ground."

and once again the city held its breath as choi bada blew up your favorite temple.

war had begun.

choi san had no choice but to stand beside his brother. surely choi bada was right; he wouldn't steer san in the wrong direction. he wouldn't do the wrong thing.

temples crumble; public buildings were desecrated with bullets and blood. san got used to the feeling of fighting, of bruised muscles and blood staining his clothes; he got used to the feeling of wrongness, of feeling as if he was walking a dark and dangerous path of sin.

then choi bada was killed.

the empress, it is relayed to san as he was chained to a wall, was giving him a choice: die beside his treacherous brother or fight in the empress's arena for her forgiveness.

in the end the choice was easy. after all, san had been fighting for the past year of his life. what was one last battle?

the final body striked the ground, face having turned a violent mixture of red and purple, blood staining his mouth and teeth, and the crowd roared with approval. 

it was deafening. the screams and shouts of the crowd nearly drowned out the thundering of blood in san’s ear, his adrenaline shooting through his body like waves crashing down against rock. he couldn’t think. he couldn’t do anything other than stand there in arena, looking at the bodies littering the sand. 

“our winner!” declared a voice, loud and booming even without a microphone. the overseer moved into the arena, his clothes a bright, clean stain against the bloodied sand. he effortlessly wove around bodies to get to san. “our champion!”

the overseer grabbed san’s forearm. the other man’s hand was spotless against san’s skin, dirt and sand and sweat molded to flesh. san protested for a moment, instinctively pulling away. 

he had been fighting for as long as he could remember. touch meant hurt, and he had long stop expecting otherwise. 

the overseer laughed at san, lips twisted thin and wide. he grabbed at san again. “keep easy, pup,” he hissed out. “you’ve won the fight. congratulations. but you won’t win the battle if you keep trying to bite.”

san wanted to punch this man. he remembered how the overseer had introduced him, the sanke in wolf’s skin, the brother of the traitorous subordinate to the empress. he remembered the overseer glancing over him, loudly announcing that he’d do. 

san was just another pawn for entertainment to the overseer; to the crowd. he was just another puppy expected to sit and lay and play dumb. 

he’d been fighting for so long. who would fault him if he were to swing around and throw a punch into the overseer’s face? who’d disapprove if he were to slam the man into the ground, if he were to fucking drive his knee into his stomach? 

san made to draw back. he cast a wild look around, searching for something. instead of aid, his eyes caught on the large screen. for a split second he saw himself, feral and filled with hatred. then the screen switched, showing the empress. 

the empress’s lips were split in a smile, showing off the white of her teeth. she had her chin resting on her hand, watching; watching san.

“our champion!” the overseer yelled out once more. “the winner of our empress’s victory! choi san!”

the crowd’s praise grew to a frantic roar, rabid with their adoration. he couldn’t see them, the lights of the arena bright. they loved this, san knew; loved blood, loved fighting. it was a performance to them. it didn’t matter who was in the arena. they were all dispensable. 

what mattered who walked out. 

“to the empress,” said the overseer, moving his hand to clap san’s shoulder. his nails dug into san’s flesh. “she was most impressed by your little performance.”

san let the overseer direct him from the arena. the crowd was alight with awe, despite knowing san. well: despite knowing san’s brother. despite knowing that for the past year san had fought alongside his brother, war replacing the blood in his veins, soft words replaced by venom. 

none of that mattered anymore. none of it mattered now that san had won, had survived a fight against forty-nine others. he was blessed, the crowd saw now; blessed by the gods and to be blessed by the empress. 

he had punched and murdered and shot relentlessly in the name of his brother for the past year. and as the overseer bid the guard to open the gate separating the sands of the arena from the crowd, san realized he wouldn’t be expected to fight anymore. 

because that was why he had been fighting, wasn’t it? 

he was bound by blood to fight alongside his brother. even as he realized it was wrong – fighting for the sake of it, fighting for the sake of power was wrong. he had to stand beside his brother.

and now he was stepping from the arena, stepping from the sands of war and leaving behind bodies he had injured with his own hands. he realized he could leave it all behind. he walked in a prisoner, was walking out a winner. he won the empress’s crown; would wear the flowers of victory. 

his brother was no longer his ruler. 

now it was – 

“the empress,” the overseer began, speaking loudly into san’s ears as to be heard over the crowd. people reached out to press their fingers against san. he didn’t know why. he had been bathed before the arena, but it didn’t matter. he was covered in sweat and grime. he was bruised and scratched. 

someone pressed their fingers against san’s bicep. he flinched back, inadvertently pushing back into the overseer. the other man gripped san tight. “when you see the empress, you won’t look the empress in the eye. kneel at the empress’s feet. both knees, hands on the ground, forehead between. the empress will say your name. you will announce your wrongdoings and beg for forgiveness. if she forgives, you will earn the empress’s victory. don’t look at her. don’t say anything beyond what i have instructed you.”

the overseer directed san up the stands. there were all kinds of people: some wore tattered clothes; some suits, hair greased back; some industry uniforms. they were all youthful and vibrant beneath the arena lights. 

the empress and the empress’s court, as it were, were separated from the rest. the empress’s balcony overlooked the entire arena. only the elite within the gang – sect, san remembered, within the sect – were allowed to sit this far up, this near the empress. 

and it showed. they wore polished suits and glittering jewels. the holsters of guns were bedazzled and glimmering. instead of cans of beer, they held crystal glasses. these were the ones the empress trusted most – no, san corrected again. the empress doesn’t trust anyone. these are the ones that have gained, in one way or another, the empress’s approval. 

murderers and sellers; crooks and robbers. 

san was directed up a short staircase. he stepped foot onto the platform. the metal was covered in soft, lush rugs. incense was lit, overtaking the dusty air of the arena with a fragrant scent. it was purified; they were purifying the space. 

san’s eyes flitted over the rising smoke from the incense, and then he caught sight of the empress. 

caught sight of you. 

“eyes,” the overseer warned. 

san fixed his eyes onto the ground. the overseer guided him with a hand on the shoulder, steering him towards the center of the podium where you sat. once the overseer adjusted san so his shoulders were square with you, presumably, he dug his hand down onto san. san went, obediently, to his knees. 

his knees, bruised and raw from fighting, hit the soft carpet. san placed the palms of his hands down against the rug, his knuckles violently red from all the punching he had done, already swelling – and he placed his forehead down against the carpet. 

something settled the crowd, silence taking over and reigning. 

a voice broke through. “choi san,” you said, “younger brother to our dearest choi bada, of the formerly respected choi clan.”

your court tittered with laughter at the reminder of how far he had fallen. 

“no worry.” your voice neared. you had risen from your chair – your throne. “the man you were when you walked into the arena is no more. now you are before me, clean from your sins if you so wish. 

“tell me: choi bada spoke of treachery and murder, of annihilation of our precious sect; do you concur with your brother’s disastrous agenda?”

san spoke to the ground, but, he found, he was speaking from the heart. “no.”

two letters, one syllable. 

that’s all it took to renounce his brother, to turn his back on his brother’s corpse. 

“no,” you echoed. “yet you had fought alongside him. you had killed and burned alongside him. were you not his most trusted?”

san scraped his nails against the rug. “i was.”

you hummed. san thought he recognized the tune, but then it was gone just as he was able to reach out and catch the thread of it. “you could have chosen loyalty to this true emperor, as he proclaimed himself. my guard would have killed you alongside choi bada. and yet you entered my arena, fought, and won. you entered to leave your old life behind, yes? you entered to renounce your clan.”

“yes.”

“and so you will,” you said. “rise, choi san, and know that no hatred, no ill-will, will be held to you.”

slowly, as if you were a predator, a lion, and he were the prey, a mouse, san moved. he lifted himself from the bow. he did not stand. he remained kneeling, palms placed on the torn fabric stretching over his knees. san kept his face towards the ground. 

“let me see you.”

san thought back to the overseer and his warning: don’t look. he wasn’t to look at you. yet you were asking, were telling him to look. 

so san looked. 

[itsabouttimex2]

Fiery Reunion: Part Two

(Part One) (Part Two)

From the moment the Demon Bull King opened his eyes, he had assumed the worst. How could any father not? After five long centuries spent in stone slumber, he had awoken to nearly everything a conqueror could desire.

His prodigal son, grown and proud. His loyal wife, composed and ever-gorgeous. An army of reminiscent machines ready to obey his every whim, obedient and powerful.

All that a man could crave stood before him, with one singular exception. He had scanned the area subtly, eyes narrow and intense, searching for his youngest child, who was very conspicuously absent.

And when his search came up empty, he considered you dead.

It was not an easy fact to accept, but his children had not been born equal.

His son had come into this world with a dangerous abundance of power, so great that it had to be ripped out and split into pieces for his own safety. And although some inherent, internal flame still burned within his elder child, it did not hold to a torch to the strength of the Samadhi Fire.

You, though…

You could not have been born further from grace.

Sick from your very first breath, you were born into a body unfit for life. A deathly pallor clung to your skin from conception, proof abound of weakness and frailty.

And you had not made a sound.

Even when Princess Iron Fan held you away from her warm chest, or shook you, or; wearied from her post-partum state and frayed from desperation, struck you across the thighs- you had not cried. Nor would you scream. Not when you could only barely manage your own weak breathing.

It was only when your older brother Red Son; still just a child himself, clambered into your crib and held you that you made any noise at all.

He wasn’t supposed to be in there. He wasn’t supposed to even be in your room, let alone your crib… but curiosity had overtaken his obedience and led him right to you. With unsure hands, he had scooped you up and lifted you towards his face, inspecting his newborn sibling.

Nearly inaudibly, you had sounded a feeble giggle, pulling at his pince-nez glasses and reaching for his eye-catching crimson hair.

With wide eyes and careful arms, Red Son held you against his small chest, a long-lingering warmth left behind by the otherworldly fire keeping you cozy in his arms. Just a few reaches towards his face and scalp had worn your sickly body out, drifting off to sleep without any further sound.

In the morning, Princess Iron Fan and Demon Bull King had awoken to find you in your brother’s arm, alive and breathing, if barely.

And they hadn’t the heart to separate the two of you from one another.

———————————————————————

Demon Bull King and Princess Iron Fan alike knew that you would never become a great warrior. The notion was contradictory to the make of your flesh, foreign to the skin of an ill body.

It was impossible to train someone so young, to teach someone so physically impeded.

It had taken you six years to speak your first word, seven to take your first step.

Both of them had been for your prodigal elder brother.

And though your (severely delayed) milestones had managed to somewhat quell the long-standing fear that you’d forever be weak and helpless, you remained ill- thus, your family remained worried.

It had been hard for you. Perhaps it had been harder for your family, living in fear that by the next time they woke you’d be cold in your bed. It wasn’t a good way for any family to live.

Red Son had grown particularly protective of you in your youth, rarely letting you out of his arms or lap no matter how much you would protested. No amount of arguing, squirming, or struggling would free you. The most you could of was strike at him with your open palms, and even then, your uncoordinated hands bounced right off of his skin.

It was a convenient way to keep an eye on you, so your parents never intervened, setting what would become a long-lasting precedent: allowing Red Son to do as he pleased with you, because it was probably best for you anyways. He kept you out of trouble, and kept a close eye one you. There wasn’t anything wrong or harmful about it, after all.

Not back then, at least.

Red Son would only grow more protective as you aged, as it turned out. You went from being a helpless infant who genuinely had no way to escape his well-intentioned coddling to a child that was capable or arguing or hiding away from him. This shift had prompted him to grow more vigilant and insistent on your safety, even when it meant clumsily strapping you to his chest and bundling you around as you shrieked and bit him.

It was harmless. A little bit cute, even.

And then your father had been buried under a mountain, sealed by a staff that only one known living being could wield- who then disappeared from the world for centuries on end.

Red Son had changed in seconds. From a bright-eyed boy who was a little too eager to follow in his father’s wicked footsteps to an angry pyromaniac with a short fuse.

And his leash on you had only grown tighter. One family member that he had lost, and one that he could lose at a moment’s notice. An admittedly reasonable and well-intentioned protectiveness had quickly morphed into a much less tolerable possessiveness.

There’a a nasty dichotomy here for Red Son: his little sibling is weak and frail, and therefore needs his protecting, making them useless. But they’re also his little sibling, and therefore unimaginably valuable and precious, requiring him to protect them at all costs.

So he keeps you at an arm’s length while also keeping you under his thumb, attempting to satiate both aspects of his feelings, all while he strives tirelessly to free his father.

A strange distance grows between the two of you, Red Son both viciously protective and distantly standoffish.

For a time, you seek his affection and attention, vying for his warmth and praise. Even if it was annoyingly overbearing, your brother’s prior love was important to you. Try as hard as you might, Red Son’s response is always to order a Bull Clone to take you (gently) back to your room.

You’re still a bit too young to understand why, however, so you take his restriction of love much worse than he would expect- you shut yourself away in turn.

In time, you grow distant from your mother, as well. Iron Fan hadn’t pushed you away, per se… but her unwavering determination to free her husband left the two of you distant.

You had changed with them.

The effect of isolation has settled in deep, rooting through your mind, reflecting on your body- you look tired and sad, weary from the constant reminders of your result, guilty for not remembering your father.

“How can you dare to call them your family, if you contribute so little and remember even less,” a wicked voice within asks.

Do you deserve to call them your family?

“My Queen,” you say for the first time, and Princess Iron Fan raises an eyebrow and frowns. Her hand softly cups your cheek, dark eyes peering into your own. It’s impossible to miss the fatigue plaguing your face. Your mother wrongly assumes that it’s your own way of coping, that you’re trying to distance yourself from them, and therefore from your father. Given that it’s still respectful and proper, she’ll allow you to refer to her as such.

“My Prince,” you say for the first time, and your brother laughs, loud and harsh. Red Son thinks you speaking to him so formally is funny- for a while. He’ll allow a few uses of the phrase before he cuts you off and informs you very clearly that the ‘joke’ has turned stale, and you should really stop.

“It wasn’t all that funny to begin with,” he informs, sharply flicking your forehead. “And it’s certainly lost what little charm it had by now. Give it up, Y/N.”

And he’ll send to you your room to ‘lie down or whatever’, because he’s still desperately worried for your safety, deep inside. He just won’t admit it.

“My King,” you say for the first time, and Demon Bull King is left with few words, getting to see just how much you’ve grown without him, speaking clearly and standing steadily. How much has he missed? Have much have you grown without him?

But none of that really matters to you.

“Titles are more appropriate,” that little voice reminds you, keeping you insecure and humble. It keeps you from noticing how badly your family wants to be a whole unit again. It keeps you from seeing how much they love you.

And it will keep you blind, until everything builds to a single tipping point-

and you drown in obsession.

[borahaerhy]

Regime - one || myg

Summary: Everything is dull. Your job, your hobbies, your downtime: everything is just dull. That is, until your workplace is raided by the anti-capitalist organization run by the notorious Agust D.

Pairing: Ringleader!Yoongi x NewRecruit!Fem!Reader

Genre: Anti-Capitalist Gang au, Found Family, Smut, Angst

Series Warnings: anti-capitalism! mental illness, some gang violence, unaliving, smut, hella angst, drug/alcohol usage, very fowl language

Warnings: y/n uses all the self-defense, quite literally bites a chunk out of someone's hand, everyone has a gun, there are a few hostages, Yoongi kicks someone in the face, y/n very casually holds a gun to someone's head, references to y/n's childhood being... interesting (relatives' drug usage briefly mentioned), Yoongi's tries to manipulate y/n for like 2 seconds, y/n definitely has depression, someone gets murdered, Yoongi almost exclusively goes by Agust, References to Nick being hella shitty, what the fuck is going on with Kevin?

Wordcount: 3.2k

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It was odd. 

The parking lot of your job being completely empty had only happened on one other occasion that you could recall; that was because it was Easter, and everyone had gone home early. 

But today was different. It wasn’t a holiday, and there should have been plenty of work to get done; yet there was no one. Not a single car in the parking lot. As you drove past, you turned your attention to the side of the building, where security parked. You pulled into the space beside the empty car of one of your coworkers, Nick. 

But it’s ten minutes until shift change; first shift should still be here. Did Nick let them leave early for some reason? Aside from yours and Nick's, there was only one other car in the entire lot. A black SUV parked haphazardly beside Nick's car; and it was still running.

While all of this might scream “danger” to others that would have seen it, to you, while it was weird, that's all it was: weird. It’s a relatively small company; one where there were so few employees that they were all friends. Everyone knew everyone and they often all liked to fuck with one another, maybe this was just some kind of prank. 

While the company was small, it was also one that had no problem fucking over its employees when it comes to their paychecks; even whenever the company execs wanted to come in and check the place out, they certainly never would’ve listened to any complaints about pay. 

You cautiously walked up to the door and punched in the pin before you opened the door and stepped in. As you closed the door behind you, you realized that you walked into something you definitely wished you hadn’t. 

Tied up in the middle of the floor was the owner of the building, and the one who ran this branch of the company, Kevin, along with the guy supposed to work your shift with you, Nick. They were completely surrounded by men in black, all of them with guns pointed at the two men's heads. Kevin looked like he just got into a fight and lost; blood covering him, his nose crooked while Nick had a swollen lip. In front of them, there was just one man, but as soon as your eyes had adjusted to the dark building, all of them were looking at you. 

Seconds after you walked in, your arms were pinned behind your back and a hand covered your mouth. “Just make sure she doesn’t go anywhere for a second, I have to deal with this asshole before I talk to her,” 

While as a security officer, you hadn’t been formally trained in any kind of combat, you did grow up with uncles. A lot of them, and they would all get varying levels of high and various substances and decide that you needed to know how to defend yourself. 

So while the man that spoke, the one standing in front of Nick and Kevin kicks Nick in the chin - no doubt knocking out a few of his teeth - you stamped down on the foot of the man behind you and bit a chunk of flesh from his hand clean off. He screamed, letting go of you so you could turn around and knee him in the groin as one of your hands took the gun out of his side holster and held it to his head. 

You stood beside him, facing the group of people with one hand holding the gun to his head while the other was up, level with your head to show you weren't armed more than what they could see. You spit out the chunk of flesh that you still had in your mouth, mostly for dramatic effect, and slowly moved your free hand down to wipe the blood from your lips. 

Everyone was staring at you, even the boss was staring at you with a kind of intensity that would’ve been hard for anyone to withstand. “You can finish whatever you were doing, I’m not going anywhere, I just don’t really like people touching me,” Your hand was back up next to your head, but no one moved. All the men just looked back and forth between their boss and you, and Kevin and Nick both looked like they’d just been saved. 

The one that just kicked your coworker, the one you presumed to be the boss, started walking toward you. He moved slowly and carefully as he pulled each of the weapons he had on him, showed them to you carefully, before he threw them down on the ground. He pulled one last weapon from the inside of his boot, a small pocket knife, and threw it to the ground, too, as he stopped a few feet in front of you. 

“I’m unarmed, and so is he. I would appreciate it if you put the gun down,” He spoke calmly, eyebrows raised and hands up. While it was hard to think of where he’d be hiding a seventeenth weapon, you also wouldn’t put it past the man that just pulled sixteen weapons off his person to have a secret compartment in the bottom of his shoe. 

Your eyes narrowed as you looked at him, his face covered with a ski-mask like the rest of them, only his eyes visible to you; dark brown pools of honey that bore into you, but they weren’t as harsh or intimidating as you would’ve thought someone like him to be. They were soft, almost gentle as they moved back and forth between yours.

“You might not be, but they are,” You looked over at the men that surrounded your coworker and boss, his gaze following yours. 

“They’re not going to do anything, you’re not the target here; they are. Just put the gun down and we can talk,” You looked carefully at him, then at the people behind him, before you slowly raised the hand with a gun in it, before crouching down slightly and slid it across the ground, making sure it was well out of reach of anyone before you stood again. 

“Kay, come get Mars and clean him up for me, everyone else, don’t let them move a muscle,” He was facing his men as he spoke, but turned back to you once he’d finished. “You probably know this place better than I do, so I’ll let you lead the way,” You looked over to the door to one of the conference rooms briefly, before you looked back over to him, Kay already collection Mars from off the ground beside you. 

“That room there would work fine, I’ll meet you in there but I need to get my water out of my bag,” He looked you up and down skeptically, about to say something before you cut him off again. “It’s just to rinse your friends hand out of my mouth, I’ll leave the bottle out here,” He paused slightly, then nodded once, stepping toward the door you’d just referenced to. You moved slowly as you got your water from your bag, rinsing out your mouth thoroughly before you took one last gulp and swallowed it. You put the bottle back down and headed into the room. 

“You can have the chair, I’ll stand,” He gestured to the only chair in the room as he leaned against the table across from you. You crossed your arms and leaned against the door. 

“I’m good with standing,” He nodded briefly before he took his mask off, revealing his admittedly handsome face to you. 

“My name is Agust, I’m the leader of the group of people out there with your coworkers. We’re here because Kevin, the owner of this branch has been stealing from his employees to pad his own pockets-”

“And why’s Nick out there?” You asked, trying not to let your anger show too much, but your not sure how successful you were judging by the look on his face. 

“Nick’s here because when he pulled in, I had my guy out in the parking lot run his tags and we found him to be… a really shitty person, to put it mildly,” You swallowed thickly, feeling almost a sense of relief that your suspicions were right, and you weren’t just overthinking about him.  

“Yeah, that checks out,” You nodded, looking down at your feet as you let your arms fall, sliding them into your pockets. “So why are you here? Kevin likes to fuck over his employee’s, sure, that’s shitty, but what’s in it for you?” He looked you up and down again, as if trying to gauge whether or not you were worthy of knowing this information or not. 

“I’ll tell you, eventually, but I have a few questions of my own first,” He crossed his arms as he stood straighter. 

“Like?” 

“Your name, for starters,” You laughed slightly, extra air flying out of your nostrils as you smirked lightly and cocked your head to the side. 

“Ah, so I’m supposed to believe that you had someone run Nick’s plates but not mine?” It was his turn to smirk, his head falling slightly as he nodded. 

“Alright, Y/n. Let’s get really into it, then,” His demeanor changed, the once kind eyes now seemed to drop their facade, his face bore a cocky smirk and his overall presence was that of a leader. Someone calm and collected, even when his initial plan was swept off it’s feet; he still knew exactly what his next step would be. “Why are you pretending you don’t care about Kevin fucking over his employees?” 

Your own attitude changes slightly as he forces you out of your facade the same way you did his. Your shoulders dropped slightly as you felt all the color drain from your face. You cleared your throat a stood up a little straighter, trying to mimic his own attitude. “Because I’d like to know a little more about you and your organization; I already knew Kevin was a piece of shit, I don’t need you, or anyone else to tell me that,” 

His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked you up and down again. There was something about the way he was looking at you, as if he was trying to see into your mind, see what you were thinking. “Why would it matter who I am if I want to bring someone like him to justice?” You sighed as you changed your stance slightly as you tried to think of a way to explain. 

“It matters because all you’d have to do to get me on your side is tell me what Kevin’s done, how long he’s been doing it, and what you plan to do about it; and I’d probably agree with you based purely off my emotions rather than if I actually agree with you or not. But if I know who you are, what you and your group are capable of, and what you plan on doing in the future, I can judge you based on logic; wether you’re inherently shitty or not.” A knowling smile seeps across his features, an almost proud look as he listened to you speak. 

“And why would I want you to agree with me, princess?” You scoffed, although you were far from offended; knowing the game he was playing. 

“I’ve seen your face and I know that you’re the leader;  not to mention the chunk of DNA that belongs to your friend still wedged between my teeth, and how it got there. Either you have to find a way to get rid of me, or recruit me,” He looks impressed as he steps down from the table and takes a small step toward you. 

“Let me re-introduce myself. My name is Yoongi, and I’m the leader of an anticapitalist organization. We steal from the rich, especially the ones that make a game out of fucking their employees out of the money they worked hard for. I don’t want to get rid of you, as you put it, because that’d be a waste; but I don’t want to recruit you just because you took a chunk out of one of my best man’s hands - or because you took his gun from him like it was nothing, or because I know you have plenty reason to want to fuck over the same people that have fucked you and your family,” He paused, taking another small step toward you, now standing less than a foot away from you.

“I want to recruit you because you’re scared shitless right now,” His voice was much lower, a serious tone filling the space between you as the smirk was gone from his face. “You still don’t know if I have a weapon on me, or if I’m going to let you out of here alive, or if we’ve hurt any of your friends or coworkers. But here you stand, speaking to me as confidently as someone that knows they’re more powerful than me,” His eyes bore into yours as if he could see your entire life laid out on a platter with just one glance.

“So, Y/n,” He took a step back, arms crossed over his chest confidently as he looked at you almost sweetly. “You’re not who we were after, and I don’t find you to be a threat to us. So, you’re free to go, if you want. You don’t have to worry about us following you or keeping tabs on you; you can just go home, go on with your life and forget this ever happened.” He paused, looking you up and down. "Or,” He leaned back against the table, one leg crossed over the other. 

“You can come with us,” You stood silently for a moment, eyes only leaving Yoongi when he finished speaking. You pushed yourself from the door and took a few steps over to the window and looked out of it, taking in the world as you had been seeing it for the past several months, before you closed your eyes, drinking in the inky black that the cover that your eyelids provide. 

You’d noticed that everything looks different throughout different phases of my life; as if there are filters over your eyes that change the colors and shadows in accordance to how you’re feeling. Some memories are all cool-toned, some warm. Some memories look yellowed, like they’d been tea-stained while others seemed more vibrant and vivid than anything else you’d ever seen. 

For the past couple of months, everything’s been dull. The world’s almost been in grey-scale as you try to find a purpose; try to find something to do with yourself. Nothing looks or feels like it used to; but for the first time in months, you are scared. You’re terrified. You smile as you relish in the feeling, the first true, raw emotion you’d felt in months.  

When you open your eyes, there’s color in the world again. The trees dance in the wind with various shades of red and orange and brown; the sky beyond them littered with soft purple hues as the sun was already beginning to set into the autumn sky.

“What happens if I decide to go with you?” You turn to look at him as you finish speaking, a light smirk on his lips before he turns to face you. 

“You come back to our base with us, we show you around, show you the ropes, and figure out how you’d best assist us. Then, if you decide you want to leave, you can. If you still want to have your job here and go back to your home and just help us out on the weekends, you can. You can also live with us and work with us full-time; but no matter what, I’d be sending you home tonight. This is something you need to think over.” You nodded again, still trying to take everything in.

“And as far as Kevin goes, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” You shook your head and raised your hands, stopping him from saying anything further. 

“I don’t want to know anything about what he did,” Yoongi nodded as he looked at you almost empathetically. “But, I’ll uhm, I’ll go with you,” His facial expression softened lightly as he smiled at you. 

Your relief very quickly changed when he reached behind his back and pulled out yet another gun and out the barrel right next to your head and pulled the trigger, shooting through the wall behind you. The sound was deafening but you didn’t flinch, your eyes never leaving his as his smirk grew wider yet. 

“Wait here, Princess. I’ll come back to get you in a few minutes,” He pulled the mask back down over his face before he opened the door and stepped out, all eyes suddenly on him. “She had a real fucking mouth on her, didn’t she?” Yoongi sauntered back over to where his captives were tied up, gun casually swinging in his grasp as he walks. 

“Kept talking about her mom; something about her still being alive if only she’d gotten her benefits like she was supposed to,” He kneeled down in front of Kevin, using the barrel of the gun to point at him. “That sound familiar to you, Kev?” Kevin was shaking, eyes wide as they bounced back and forth between the gun and Agust, who was only smirking at the terrified face of his captive. 

“Cat got your tongue? Nick?” At his lack of response, Agust moved the gun from Kevin to Nick, the barrel now only inches from his head. “Do you know anything about that?” Nick shook his head wildly, eyes clenched shut as tears spilled out of them. 

It pissed him off how scared they acted. He had a gun to their heads and they just bawled like babies; as if they hadn’t done the same thing time and time again to others. Kevin took money away from people that needed it. Money that he definitely didn’t need; and in doing so, he took away not only financial stability, but the lives of the people that depended on that money.

And while Nick didn’t steal from the poor like Kevin did, that didn’t make him any less of a piece of shit. He’d been accused of many crimes in his life; including attempted manslaughter, statutory rape, and several different domestic violence charges, but he’d never been convicted of any of them. There was never even a trial, just complaints dropped the day after they were filed, along with several very large transactions coming out of his obscenely rich father’s bank account. 

So watching them sit here and sob when their lives were threatened, knowing fully that they’ve put others in this very situation with their greed and ignorance enraged him. August pressed the gun to Nick’s temple and pulled the trigger, blood spraying all over Kevin's face in the process. 

Kevin screamed, loud sobs filling the warehouse that only pissed him off more. “Shut up, would you?” The gun was back under Kevin’s chin, his sobs silencing almost instantly as the gun forced him to look up. “I’m not going to kill you,” He took his time pulling the gun away from Kevin, eventually putting it into the waistband of his jeans before he carefully stood, his gaze already on the door you were behind as his men pulled Kevin up and dragged him out to their car. “Not yet, anyway.” 

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