#the way omar fits right into his shoulders....

[wilhelmified]

so I made the mistake of brightening up this moment from the documentary and.... I want to die haha!

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I might be back on my bullshit thinking about Louis [as if I ever stopped] and episode 2 again. Like... there are a lot of things that could’ve been handled better when it comes to ep2, but can we just appreciate his apology to Clementine during the archery scene? 

[note: this turned into a bit of a rant, and for that, I apologize]

It still baffles me that he gets dismissed as a shitbird by portions of the fandom to this day for being upset with Clem and AJ when he just found out his best friend gave away the twins, murdered Brody and tried to pin it on Clementine to cover his tracks... only to then be murdered by AJ after he already gave up, shot him in the back of the head right in front of everyone and left Louis heartbroken and traumatized. 

Like I understand that some of y’all think Clementine and AJ should never be held accountable for anything they do and they’re always right, even when they’re in the wrong because you’re the player projecting yourself onto them and everyone who is mean to you is a stupid head unless they’re mean in the right way.

Or you’re one of those violentine stans who feels like the only way to validate your ship is to create this narrative that Louis is a traitor and Clementine would never love him after he voted for them to leave as if the only way you know how to make Violet look good is to make Louis bad by comparison instead of like... y’know, being one of the decent stans who explain and gush about the positives of the ship itself and why they love it rather obsessing over the other ship. 

Either way, you’re really gonna look at that situation of Louis reacting to his best friend’s death after what just went down and be like “calm down, Louis, you’re being a jerk :/” like.... I’m sorry? 

Aren’t you the same people who complained about Luke not giving a shit about Nick’s death back in s2? how he didn’t have a reaction? In fact, aren’t you also the same people who vigorously defended Kenny for his reaction to Sarita’s death after he lashed out at Clementine? Remember? When he yelled at her and called her a stupid fucking kid who thinks she can just get anyone killed and it’s okay because she said sorry? but it’s fine because Kenny’s reacting in a realistic way that makes sense for his character and he later apologizes for it? 

but now here you are, getting a realistic reaction out of Louis that makes sense with his character and all of a sudden, you don’t like it? You want him to just be like “Oh no, Marlon.... anyway.” Really?

Louis is hurt, he’s pissed and he doesn’t know what to do. He’s so shaken by what the hell just happened, Marlon’s dead body is bleeding out on the ground, Ruby’s talking about getting fucking medicine as if that’s gonna do anything, Violet waving her cleaver around at them even though literally none of them were looking at AJ they were all looking at Clementine, Violet you are not helping anyone in this situation, you’re only making it worse and adding to the aggression... but no, Louis shouldn’t be a fucking mess right now. He should just shrug his shoulders and be like “Welp, this is fine.” 

Then there’s the damn funeral. Look, Clementine and AJ shouldn’t have been there. I know they had to be for story purposes, but it’s such a bad idea that it makes Violet, the one who wanted them there, look like an ass who has no regard for anyone other than herself, Clementine and AJ, and those who agree with her... which is only Tenn and I guess everyone else sucks and their feelings are invalid because no one else wanted them there since it’s not a good idea to have Marlon’s murderer attend his funeral and if you believe that isn’t going to piss people off or make them uncomfortable, then either you don’t care or you don’t know how to read a room. 

And by the way, Louis wasn’t the one who suggested voting them out. He wasn’t even there when MITCH said they should take a vote and everyone agreed to it. So why is it that Louis gets all this blame for how the vote turned out? Oh, Louis is such a traitor because he’s the reason they got kicked out.... except no? 

First of all, if you’re so mad at Louis then how come you’re not mad at Ruby? She voted them out, too. So did Omar. They contributed to kicking them out. How come no one else talks about how much they hate them after they said having the vote was a fair idea and then voted them out? Oh, and Willy, too. Willy voted them out. The only other person who gets heat for the vote is Mitch, and he was the one who came up with the idea in the first place... but no one else, huh? 

Also, how come only Violet gets praise for wanting Clementine and AJ to stay? Never see anyone talk about how amazing Aasim is after he was the third vote for them. He has legit reasons for wanting them around, too, but he didn’t want them at the funeral either so what, does that cancel out his vote for you? Where is the Aasim love? 

Then we got the dorms where Louis and Violet come to escort them away, and once again, I have to mention that both of them are wrong in this situation. They’re on the extreme opposites where Violet thinks they should stay because they didn’t do anything wrong, and Louis thinks they should leave because AJ’s dangerous. Both of these view points make sense with their characters.

However, I guess some conveniently ignore how conflicted Louis is about the whole thing and how he’s feeling about it because it doesn’t fit with the narrative they’re trying to push about his character. 

Again, he’s dealing with a lot of shit right now only to be constantly invalidated by Violet, who keeps telling him what a shithead he is for hurting about this, how he’s just burying his head in the sand again and all this other shit, and he eventually snaps at her and says AJ’s dangerous, which hurts AJ and it’s all over Louis’ face that he realizes he snapped and he feels bad about it. 

But Louis never got aggressive with them, he never laid a hand on them, and he was there to escort them out in the woods. And that argument of “he sent them out there to die therefore Clementine and AJ should hate him, Clem shouldn’t want any friendly/romantic relationship with him because he put AJ at risk and got him shot” is.... I dunno, ugh? It’s ugh. You act like Louis did this to intentionally get them hurt when that’s not true. 

Clementine and AJ have survived on their own for years, so it makes sense that Louis would try to justify this to himself like “they’ll make it out there, they’ll survive because they’ve done this before... this is for the best for everyone” and no, him telling them that this is probably like going home for them isn’t okay, but it makes sense for his character because he doesn’t actually know how bad it is out there. 

None of them know, they’ve all lived in walls their whole lives. It’s naïve of him, yes, but it makes sense and he didn’t do this with shitty intentions of wanting them to get hurt. He didn’t know that Lilly and Abel would be out there, he didn’t know AJ would get shot, he didn’t know any of it. He didn’t think that if they voted them out, this would happen. He was struggling with his feelings about them and saying goodbye to someone he was starting to feel a connection with. 

And he let them back in. Hell, he carried AJ into the school himself when they showed up wounded and you still wanna call him an asshole and a traitor? He could’ve said nope, get the hell out. We kicked you out, you’re not welcome here. 

He didn’t do that, he ran to them to see if they’re okay, he brought AJ to Ruby and stayed with him the entire time Clem was in the office with Violet.... AND he apologized to AJ, quietly begging for him to be okay... and when he’s faced with Clementine after what happened, he doesn’t know what to say to her. He can’t even look at her because he feels so ashamed of himself and feels all the blame for this. 

This is a moment that ties back to backstory. Louis’ emotions overpowered him, he made a decision and now AJ is shot and bleeding on the couch.... when he came to the school, they [the staff, I assume] said these kids were bad people, they told Louis that he was bad after what he did to his parents and he internalized that, and this whole this just reaffirms that idea “I am bad, I hurt people, this is my fault.” He blames himself for everything even though there’s no way he could’ve known. You can feel Louis’ genuine concern for AJ and how he’s doing, but at the same time, he’s trying to distance himself from Clementine… and well, sorta failing since he brings her clothes and they have the conversation in the dorms. 

Then the archery scene.... y’know, the scene I was gonna make a simple little post about that somehow turned into this. 

Once again we have Louis and Violet arguing because that’s what they do now, and Violet continues to tell him to get over himself without listening to anything he says, and he goes to practice archery so that y’know... when the raiders come he can use a weapon to help defend them since he’s not very good with it and needs practice.

Clem goes to check on him, and Louis apologizes for voting them out, explains that when AJ shot Marlon, he blamed Clementine when that wasn’t the right thing to do. He had a lot going on emotionally on top of what was happening around him, but after having two weeks to work through things alone, even though he’ll never be happy Marlon died, he can understand why AJ thought it was the right thing to do... and if he could take everything back, he would. He knew that the moment they came back, and he still does. 

I just.... how often does Clementine ever get an actual apology from anyone who has hurt her? A real apology from someone who means it and then doesn’t just turn around and repeat the same hurtful actions? Like... it baffles me that people will look at this genuine apology and tell him to fuck off, but will accept and continue to adore someone like Kenny who will apologize for hurting Clem, only to never try to be better and ends up hurting her even more next time. 

Or they’ll accept and justify Violet’s last minute apology for punching Clementine in the face on the boat and putting everyone [including AJ, rememeber?] at risk of either dying or being made into brainwashed soldiers by the delta. 

They both have reasons for their behaviors and you’ll work your ass off to justify them, and I’m not saying your points are wrong or invalid, but you seriously won’t even try to extend that same thing to Louis? Why? 

Well, jokes on you because I too will work my ass of to talk about Louis and what he’s going through and that’s how posts like this get made. I know not everyone is going to feel that connection to him that I have, and you’re allowed to not like him as a character, but realize that I’m also allowed to give my perspective on his character and why I disagree with points posed by those who don’t like him. 

The archery scene is one of my favorites. It’s Louis and Clementine proving that they’re able to open up to one another and say they’re sorry, to forgive the other without being petty or holding it over the other to throw back at them the next time they argue. It proves that Louis wants to put in the effort to repair their relationship and atone for the mistakes he made, to step up and not be “bad” anymore. 

I mean, Louis says it best himself. Everyone heard the jokes and the piano, after that, they stop listening... a lot of people just boil him down to a funny man who never takes anything seriously and the only thing he could ever bring to Clementine’s life is a good laugh, but those who stuck with him and put an effort into building his and Clementine’s relationship know better than that. They know how much this apology in ep2 means even with the downer that the timeline of events rushes everything a bit. 

The fact that Louis doesn’t have this big ego that prevents him from apologizes, that he can forgive AJ for what he did and still build a strong relationship with both him and Clementine, that if you earn his trust he will follow you to hell and back, that he isn’t afraid to call Clementine out on her bullshit and doesn’t have a come apart when she does the same to him, that with her and AJ by his side he finally doesn’t feel alone anymore.... it’s all just so fucking good. 

I dunno, maybe you can understand why I get so ugh whenever I still see these same arguments about him being made with this double standard that doesn’t apply to other characters.

[marvel-ousnesss]

Unrequited (Valerio x reader)

Warnings: angst, use of drugs, alcohol, cursing, cheating, breakup, mentions of Valerio x Lucrecia 

Word count: 2000-ish

A/N: Sorry this took so long, I hadn't been motivated to write anything until recently. As always, I love to hear comments, thoughts and feedback. Also, thank you so much for supporting my work, hope you enjoy 💜

Masterlist

Request

“Stop it, Valerio.” You abruptly close the book you're holding, eyeing the teacher as you place it on the desk. “They won't even let me get out of the house.”

He had been nagging you all week long about some party he was dying to go to, and you wanted to, really. The only problem was that, a few days ago, the two of you had dragged Guzman on a nightly adventure to the beach, which seemed right at the moment, since he had spent the whole summer sulking. Your dad practically had to drag you home by an ear, and, to say the least, your family didn’t wanna hear a beat about parties or your friends any time soon.

He scoffs, “seriously? Your parents are like the chillest people ever, they weren’t even that mad.”

Incredulous, you look at him up and down, betrayed by the amused grin that flicks on the corner of your lips. “Just checking, were you there on Thursday? One step out of line, and I'll be walking around with an ankle monitor.”

“Y/N, Valerio, is my class, perchance, interrupting your conversation? Should I take it elsewhere?”

With a quick apology and a glare at your boyfriend, cutting the conversation was cut short. However, it was naive to think he'd just settle for the answer you had given him.

“Whatever, Y/N," he grumbles. "I’m sure They'll let you if I,” he frames his face and smiles coyly, “am the one who asks.”

"Geez, why didn't I think of that!". Turning the page of your textbook, you deadpan. "Oh, right, dick-in-a-sock incident.”

Valerio lowers himself on his seat as his face embraces a new tone of crimson. After a second, he recovers. “Can't believe you brought up that teeny-tiny mistake of mine. Low, Y/L/N, even for you.”

You open your mouth to respond, but the bell rings.

When it stops, you continue, “Seriously, V, they've been all over me these last few days, it's a long shot.”

Both of you get out of the classroom and begin to make your way to the lockers. “Just tell them Polo’s gonna be there, don’t they love Polo?”

You sigh, checking the time on your phone. You only have fifteen minutes before your next class began, and, honestly, lack the energy to spend them trying to knock some sense into your mule of a boyfriend.

“Fine,” you settle. “I’ll call them in a minute. But, don’t get your hopes up.”

“Too late.” With a captivating smile, he leans in and pecks your cheek.

After you agreed to at least call your parents, Valerio's mood improved considerably the rest of the day. The rest of the classes went by uneventfully; before you knew it, you found yourself in the car, duffle in hand, on your way to the Montesinos'.

You arrive at their house and let yourself inside, leaving your stuff at the door and heading straight to the kitchen, looking for something to drink. When you turn around to face the stairs, Lu’s making her way down.

"So, how did you manage to dodge your sentence this time?"

"Haggled my freedom, sort of." You place a glass on the table and open the fridge to fetch a bottle of sparkling water.

She rolls her eyes and sighs, exasperated. "A call from my dad would’ve done it".

"Thanks, but it wasn’t that bad, really, " you assure, pouring some water into the glass then cutting a lemon in half. "Just have to take my brother to some birthday party next week and, in exchange, they gave me their blessing for Valerio's thing, and let me stay at yours after."

"God, Y/N, you complain about my brother 24/7 and, in the end, the two of you are just as stubborn."She grabs an apple and takes a bite. "You could've saved yourself the trouble completely."

"Oh, well."You take a seat by the kitchen bar. "Guess it takes one to know one."

"Anyway, what are you wearing tonight?"

You unlock your phone and browse through the gallery. When you find the picture, you stop and point a finger at her. "You're gonna hate me. " You show her the screen smiling from ear to ear.

"Oh, my fucking god, Y/N! How- I- is that the Valentino you were drooling over the other day?"

You just grin.

"You, bitch, how did you get your hands on that?"

"Aunt Millicent."

"Of course," she huffs.

"Turns out that there were a few perks of her going off to Milan." You shrug. "But that's not important right now, what are you gonna wear?"

With that. she drags you up the stairs and into her room. You spend the rest of the afternoon immersed in makeup experiments and debates about fashion until Valerio and Guzman shout your names to start pregaming.

You enter the party together and go straight to the most vacant area of the VIP zone. After grabbing the first round, you join the others at the table and sit down with Polo and Carla for a few drinks. The group remains wrapped in conversation until Ander walks up to his friends and drags them to the bar, probably to tell them about his most recent disagreement with Omar. Soon after, Lucrecia makes eye contact with Nadia, muttering something about her daring to come, and standing up with a huff. Knowing she's physically incapable of keeping herself out of trouble, Carla stands up with a roll of her eyes and follows her.

Valerio lets his arm fall around you and chuckles, taking a sip of his drink. "And then, there were two."

“Wanna get high?" You don't wait for him to answer verbally. Instead, you grab his hands and pull the two of you to stand up.

He laughs, grabbing a bottle of whatever was on the table beside yours.

The two of you sprinted to the nearest restroom in a fit of giggles and lock the door behind you. He puts the bottle on the counter and reaches his pockets, freezing as soon as he lifts his gaze. You dig into your clutch and shake a small bag in his face.

"My treat," you grin, resembling a kid in a candy store.

"Oh, my, little miss Y/LN!" he gasps in fake horror. "What happened to the ankle monitor you were telling me about."

"I won’t tell if you won’t."You smirk, carefully arranging the lines.

The party comes to an end a few minutes before sunrise. You reunite with Lucrecia and Guzman by the entrance of the club and the four of you get in the Montesinos' car. Your head rests on Valerio's chest and he traces lazy patterns on the skin of your arm and shoulder.

When you make it to the house, Lucrecia doesn't waste a minute to drag a tipsy Guzman upstairs, waving a quick goodbye on her way. You giggle, well aware of your friends' plans for the night. Then, you head to the kitchen for a snack.

"Confess it." Your boyfriend stares at you from the stairs, arms crossed over his chest. "The only reason you ever visit is that we have a better pantry."

"To be honest, I thought you already knew that." You grab a pack of chips and walk toward his bedroom, passing by him and kissing his nose softly.

You don't fall asleep that night, writhing in Valerio's arms and debating whether or not to go find something for the hangover that was already beginning to haunt you. When you open your eyes, the first rays of sunlight are already peeking through the window. You decide to get out of bed. You throw the blanket off you and turn, expecting to see your boyfriend, but only find a mess of his blankets instead. You check the time on your cell phone: 8:22 a.m.

Seeing no point in continuing your attempts to get some sleep, you put on the shirt that was laying on Valerio's desk chair and leave the room. As you're crossing the hall to the pool, you hear noises coming through Lucrecia's door. For a moment, you think it may be her and Guzman, but remember hearing him say that he had to go home at dawn to get to a swimming competition.

You try to ignore the noise and convince yourself it's none of your business; but, when you continue to walk away, your ears are invaded by a voice you knew quite well. "It couldn't, they can't-, they're...", a million thoughts invade you. You take a deep breath and to open the door.

There are no words to describe the feeling of your heart being ripped in the blink of an eye. Your legs threaten to collapse and blood rushes to your head, making you dizzy for a brief moment. Not only do you find your boyfriend in the bed, with an unreadable expression coating his face, but you find your best friend redhanded, looking right at you like a deer in headlights.

You don't even try to digest the scene; instead, you run out of the house, suddenly not caring about your current apparel. Part of you wanted to shout what you had seen, to ruin them, but they meant too most to you. You couldn't do it, no matter how much you wanted to get it off your chest.

Luckily, your house was empty. You went straight upstairs and locked yourself in your room for the rest of the morning. You did whatever you could to take your head off what you had seen, but nothing worked. In the end, you wrote it down, desperate to get it out somehow. You hadn't opened your diary since you were twelve, but it was relieving; a weight was lifted off your shoulders.

You spend the remaining of the day so deep in thought, that you didn't even notice your family arriving from the park. You drifted off to sleep after working on some homework, only to be woken up by our brother's voice.

"Y/N, your boyfriend's here!" Hearing the word sends a jab of pain through your body. However, you reply, "I'll be down in a second."

You put on a hoodie, some shoes and leave the fort that was your room. Your parents are focused on a movie, so you take the opportunity to step into the backyard with Valerio.

You face him, trying to appear emotionless, even if your bloodshot eyes give you away.The childish gleam in his face is nowhere to be found, his shoulders are more drooping than normal, and his eyes are almost as red as yours. You wonder if it's because of the crying or the cocaine.

���How long?”

“Before I went abroad.”

You attempt to walk back into the house, but he grabs and pulls your arm, begging you to stay and listen.

You sigh. “I won't say anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He stays silent for a few seconds, bringing himself to believe that your thoughts on him were actually that low. Then he mumbles, “I don’t care about that, I know it’s unorthodox, and that you’re probably gonna stop talking to us now, and-“

You didn’t have the energy to hear him ramble. “Look, yes, I’m really shaken, to say the least, it's the first time I’ve seen something like that.” You grimaced. “But, the point is you betrayed my trust, V! Completely!” Your voice shakes, you try to clear your throat but it comes out as a sob. “I- even if it hadn’t been her, you hurt me. You promised you’d never do it, but you did!

He takes your hands, and, even if you don’t resist, feels how tense that makes you. Hours prior, it would’ve been comforting. “And I’m sorry, really. I did it without thinking, Y/N/N, it won’t happen again.”

You pull your hands out of his. “Please, V, it’s been happening for more than a year, half of the time we’ve been dating.”

He stays quiet.

You quietly question, “do you still love me?”

This time, his bottom lip quivers and his voice cracks when he answers. “I care about you, a lot, you know that.”

That’s the last you bear to hear. You avert your eyes from him. “I forgive you. You can go now.”

“Y/N/N…” He moves closer to you, but you shake your head, stopping him.

“Please,” you croak.

[pumpkin-stars]

Fresh sheets at home after a long time away for the pedro boys

‘You’ are in some of these, but not all. There’s fourteen of them... blimey I’ve watched a lot of his stuff oops. Suggestive content is marked with a *

Masterlist

Din Djarin

He doesn’t really have sheets. The little mattress in the tiny bunk and an old blanket have served him well for years. But returning to the Crest with a bounty in hand always brings a little sigh of relief (often mistaken for frustration when his quarry inevitably tries to make a final getaway). It’s the promise of removing his helmet that’s most comforting. The kid conked out on the way home, so as soon as he gets into hyperspace, the bucket comes off. He rests his head on a pillow, gets to lie comfortably, relax for the first time since he stepped off the ship.

Javier Peña

He knows he should make his bed more often, but for the amount of time he spends in the shitty agency-provided apartment he doesn’t always see the point. Passing out half-drunk on the couch is far more common than making it to the bed. He’s gonna have to buy Connie a present for this, though. He and Steve have been on a steak out for three days and in that time the wonderful Mrs Murphy has used the spare key to tidy up a little, make his bed for him. It’s a helluva lot more comfortable than his lumpy couch, and, despite the frustration at almost being shot (again) and not getting the information they wanted (again), the soft sheets allow him to relax, he can forget - if just for the moment - the stresses of the job.

Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales

His sheets hadn’t been clean when he left... Laundry day was Wednesday, after all. Three days, Santi had said... and it ended up being over a week. When he’d finally made it through the door, you were there, Maria burbling in your arms, and he’d almost broken down at the sight of you both - the two good things he had left... Santi texted me, you told him, get some rest. It was Monday. But there were clean sheets. You knew how to take care of him, exactly what he needed. The scent of cotton and patchouli (only recognisable ‘cause he’d read the detergent bottle one time) surrounded him as he buried his face in the pillow. It didn’t take long for you to join him, letting him be the little spoon as he told you about the latest shitty circumstances he’d ended up in, tears marring the clean pillow before he drifts off to sleep in your arms.

Pero Tovar*

He didn’t have a home for the longest time, part of him still debated it sometimes, but he found himself returning to the same little village year after year. To the same little house on the outskirts. To you. Home wasn’t a place to Pero, it was a person. Fresh sheets were the last thing on his mind as he dismounted his horse and strode to the doorway, hands already unbuckling his belt. You always seemed to know when he’d be home - and he hated to think he was so predictable, but he always said there was something mágica about you, his corazón, his alma. The bathtub was already full, your smile already directed to the doorway. The sheets weren’t clean today, there was no point - once he was finished they would be soiled with sweat and sweetness, a night of reunion and passion. His first job in the morning would be to help you take them, and his armour, to the river, and his second night home would be spent relaxing in the arms of his amor, freshly washed cotton beneath him.

Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels*

Things go one of two ways when he comes home to you. The stress that comes with saving the world either exhausts him so much that he’s out for the count as soon as his head hits the pillow, or riles him up so much that he needs to expel the excess adrenaline. Having clean sheets under his back as you bounce above him is always a welcome experience, and that firm mattress does wonders for his other aching bones.

Ezra

Life on the green is not for the faint of heart, and the sight of his sleeping bag is always a welcome one after a long day hunched over his work. Today has not been one of his best, still getting used to operating with a single arm, more gems destroyed than properly harvested. Swapping the sleeping bags is a good idea, the clean(er) one has been airing in the corner of the tent for a week or so, and while nothing on the green is especially fresh, it’s the best he can do. It’s the most comfort a weary and worn prospector can get without any company to rub the knots from his back.

Max Phillips*

Romania was fun, those blood filled orgies were the clear highlight of his year, but there’s just something about coming home to his apartment in the city that makes that the best part of the trip. The warm body beside him, the thrum of blood pumping, and the soft rhythm of your heartbeat filling his head after a week of nothing but other cold bodied vamps... (you’d have been invited, for sure, but the chance of you becoming an appetiser was too great to risk). Unlike other years, he’d stuck to the sidelines of the orgy, content to watch and leer at the more enthusiastic participants. It’s just porn, babe. Not cheating. You’d, surprisingly, been okay with that, but it’s not like he’d have put up with you for so long if you hadn’t been equally vulgar. The red satin sheets surround you both, and he lies back, listening to the sounds of your body, heatbeat settling down as you come down from the high. As fun as the orgies are, the sheets are always kinda scratchy, and these ones are the softest he’s ever had. Company’s not bad either.

Marcus Pike

International Art Crimes was a great division to work in, and he enjoyed the work. He just hated when it took him away from you. Three weeks, he’d been in London. Three weeks counting the days until he could go back to DC. But he was home now, and you were cuddled up to his side on the couch, head on his shoulder. Cliche, but, he honestly felt like you fit there perfectly. Contentment- the overwhelming feeling of the evening. It wrapped around him like a blanket, relaxed him even more than the jet lag. He knew there were clean sheets on the bed, but you were both comfortable here. They’d still be clean tomorrow.

Oberyn Martell*

His sheets are never clean. He’d told the palace staff not to bother trying to keep them so. Within minutes of them being changed, at least one of his lovers would soil them. So, when he returns from a trip to the savage north, it’s no surprise that he enters his chambers to find both of them amidst the silk and the pillows. A fine welcome fit for a prince.

Dave York

His schedule gets a little messy when he’s on a job. He tries not to be gone too long, but sometimes things get fucked up and he’s delayed. When he comes home to clean sheets it’s a pleasant surprise - like a final disconnect between his life as a mercenary and his life as a father. His three showers between finishing a job and walking through the door are enough, but clean sheets really help him shut off the sounds of his targets’ dying by his hand.

Marcus Moreno

He’s not away from home very often anymore - he doesn’t go on missions, he doesn’t have to leave the city unless there’s a multi-agency conference somewhere else. But when he does come home, the last thing on his mind is clean sheets. Though it is nice to be enveloped in their warmth. He knows he’ll wake up extra toasty, Missy crawling under the covers to join him at some point in the night - she’s getting a little old for it now, but he doesn’t mind, she just wants the assurance that he’s okay.

Maxwell Lord

Max is used to taking care of himself, of working hard for anything and everything he has. So coming home after a disappointing visit to one of Blacc Gold’s oil wells...  to find that you’ve cleaned the house, that Alastair is tucked up in bed, that you’ve made him dinner... To know that you’ve made his bed, given him fresh sheets to sink into... done something for him without expecting anything in return? There’s a lump in his throat. An even greater determination to give you both the life you deserve.

Zach Wellison

Sheets? A home? This guy’s just grateful to have somewhere warm and sheltered to sleep. He’s lucky, he’s so so lucky... and you? You’re wonderful. Amazing. Fantastic... He’s only been gone for a day, and he’d missed the warmth of you against him more than he’d missed anything else in his life. He can sleep anywhere, and while the lumpy motel bed wasn’t great, it wasn’t a park bench or a doorway during a storm. The sheets were still warm when he got home, you’d timed it perfectly - Zach was always on schedule, that military instinct still sharp as ever, and it made it easy to ensure the bedding was fresh from the dryer and put on the bed just minutes before he walked through the door. Dinner can wait, having a nap under warm covers with you in his arms is far more important.

Omar Assarian

The once cocky, almost-world-middleweight-champion had lost another match. It wasn’t surprising, really. His heart hadn’t been in it since that first incredibly public loss. But it’s not like he knew what else to do with his life! Coming home to the only person besides his Ma who could put up with his shit was good though. Distracting. It’s easy to forget the swirling thoughts at the sight of your smile. Fresh sheets had become part of his post-fight routine, last on the list, right behind getting food, being patched up, getting the residual adrenaline out of his system, and taking a shower (with you). He doesn’t need the sheets to be fresh, really... Not when he uses you as a pillow, strong arms wrapped tight around your torso, keeping himself grounded, distracted from the ever growing doubts that boxing is what he wants to do for the rest of his life.

[captainsimagines]

To Topple A Giant || Chapter Eight

Summary: You had made it your mission to destroy even the smallest evils. When the opportunity arises to finally take down your own family after years of gaining their trust, you reach for it. And so does Steve, the man who represents a symbol of everything you hate.

Pairing(s): Steve Rogers x Reader || Avengers x Reader

Part 8 of 10 ~ Mini-Series

Warnings: This story contains mature themes and discussions such as extreme canon violence, strong language, emotional angst, mentions of Endgame deaths and recoveries, sexual situations, and emotional/physical abuse. This is purely fanfiction.

Warnings in this Chapter: abusive parental relationship; extreme canon violence (gun violence, hand-to-hand, baton use, knives); strong language; mentions of drug smuggling, drugs, and human smuggling; mentions of blood and blood loss; major/minor character death (not the mains, don’t worry!); angst; gunshot wounds; heavy alcohol consumption

Word Count: 14,600+

A/N: Listen... you know damn well I had to put some American Pie lyrics in this. The reader’s and Jackeline’s relationship is not modeled after Nat and Yelena lol it was literally the biggest coincidence. 

~

MedBay - The New Compound, 2024, 1:52 pm     

     “He did what?”     

Bruce smiles sheepishly as he lugs Steve’s practically lifeless body onto one of those beige medical beds. Dr. Cho is pacing calmly around the room, getting her instruments cleaned and ready. She tries to ignore the way you’re crowding her, inspecting everything she touches and in turn is going to end up touching Steve.      

“He took a bullet for someone.”     

“And where is that someone?” you bite. You immediately want to apologize to Bruce for your tone but you’re distracted by the tiny groans of pain coming from the pale super soldier beside you. You have to look away to avoid whimpering yourself, but you can’t exactly make yourself deaf. “Don’t tell me he took a bullet for you.”     

Bruce rolls his eyes and steps to the side as Dr. Cho begins cutting away Steve’s pants. “Everyone else is on vacation. He has no one here to take a bullet for besides. It was a shitty liquor store robbery and Steve was, of course, being a hero.”      

“Where’s he hit?” you ask, heading over to grab a pair of gloves yourself. No one questions it.      

“Femoral artery. Seems like he was plugging his own wound until he could get help.”     

Dr. Cho is right. There’s a massive gash in his thigh that’s leaking excessively and the skin surrounding the wound is raised like Steve’s own fingers had plunged so deeply it left an imprint. Not only that, but his hand is covered in his blood. So is Bruce’s, you realize, because he had tried to plug the artery as well.      

“How is he not dead yet?” Dr. Cho more mutters to herself than to you guys. Steve’s head is lolling to the side and his lips are an awful shade of white. His eyes are fluttering open and closed… open… closed… and he’s still mumbling random phrases. There’s a rough tug at the bottom of your stomach that pulls and pulls and there’s a weird urge to crawl onto the table to keep Steve warm.      

“He needs blood,” you say, even though all parties in the room know that as fact.     

Bruce, however, winces. “Sam’s not even in the state right now and I don’t think we have enough time to fly him-”    

“Is he Sam’s blood type? What’s his blood type? Why can’t Bucky do it? Bucky’s in Brooklyn, he can be here in five minutes if he runs.”    

Bruce starts rummaging through the upper level shelves and freezer cabinets. “Can’t mix the serums. We’ve tried.” He finally finds the blood bags, pulling them all out and spreading them across the clean tables. “It’s - shit - do we not have?”     

Dr. Cho is now covered in blood, working as fast as she can to close the wound. “What’s his blood type?”    

Bruce repeats it out loud and watches as Dr. Cho’s face falls. “I ran out yesterday. The blood drive isn’t until this weekend. I had a patient come in yesterday, I - I ran out yesterday.”     

They seem to be having their own conversation with their eyes and are too focused on each other to see you already stripping your long-sleeve shirt and wrapping that horrible blue rubber band around your upper arm. “Me. Take mine.”    

Bruce immediately shakes his head, stuttering as he tries to remove the rubber band. “Nu-uh, I don’t know if you know this but you’re human. I need two bags, three tops. I can’t just take it all from you right now!”    

“Then get me some cookies and a juice box. I don’t care how much you have to take to make him speak a coherent sentence. Do me.”    

Bruce hesitates but he rushes to the cabinets for the needles, vials, tubes, whatever - “No, do it direct.”     

Your words startle the two doctors but they don’t question it. They hook you up and poke the needle in the first vein they find, attaching the tube instead of a single vial and direct it to Steve.      

“You sure your blood matches?”     

You give Bruce a pointed look as if that isn’t something written on your dog tags or on your weekly personal reports.      

In the end, you’re told that you gave him the equivalent of two pints of blood. Not that you were awake for the second anyway but you vaguely remember Steve’s voice ringing in your ears. You’re not awake as he regains consciousness or to witness his very confused glare at seeing you in the bed next to him.     

He swears he heard small mumblings… ‘If you die because of some highway robbery, Rogers --- I’m never gonna fucking stop bullying your grave --- haunt it’.... ‘Stay --- with me, please’.... ‘---supposed to apologize first’....   

He tests the waters, mumbling a name he only says with annoyance nowadays. But now, it’s gently said. Soft, a whisper that sounds like a fractured hymn. 

Present Day, 2025, 12:05 pm

     There isn’t a set emotion in the world that seems appropriate. What are people supposed to feel when they’re singled out and chosen to suffer a life of pain? Self-hate? Pity for themselves? Anger? Sadness? Remorse? Nothing?

You really don’t know what you’re feeling. In the middle of rubbing vaseline on your newly acquired cuts and scrapes and bandaging yourself up, biting on a belt as Bucky set your shoulder back in place, and lying with Steve discussing everything and nothing all night after your promise - well, what the hell are you supposed to feel? As inevitable as it was considering he had ordered you shot before, the one feeling you know you feel is betrayed. Because even though Ernesto has proven himself evil time and time again, to his own flesh and blood, there was still a small part in your heart that didn’t think any parent truly wanted to inflict pain on their children. And your heart keeps proving itself wrong again and again.

“You just... jumped out of the car?”

Ramirez’s voice snaps you from your inner thoughts. He was let out of custody this morning. He’s currently filling in anyone who asks about the shipment, about Ernesto’s future plans, about the role he thought he had.

“Against my better judgment, but yeah.”

He chuckles and grins like he’s a kid hearing the best story ever told. “That’s what superheroes do. At least, what I’ve seen in the movies. John Wick, Bond, esos tipos.”

“I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, Omar,” there’s a teasing tone, “but I’m a fucking Avenger.”

That makes him laugh louder and in turn pulls one from you. “Ya se, ya se. I’ve known you since you were born. It’s weird hearing stories about you saving the world and jumping from bombed cars.”

“Mm, wait until you hear about that time I went into space and landed on another planet. Or time traveled. Take your pick.”

He’s stunned into silence and after a few more praises, he lets you return to typing out your report. There are plenty of other agents around for him to busy himself with. The base is tiny and not at all what you expected, but it’s secure enough to fit Torres, Sam, Bucky, and about fifteen other agents as they prepare for tonight. The plan you and Steve outlined was simple: attend the wedding, butter everyone up, send Steve away to help Ernesto retrieve and move the shipment, Scott and Sam will infiltrate, Bucky would be on standby to help you fight, and the rest of the team at base will begin arrests and sweeps. If everything goes according to plan, at least.

It’s easy to speak negatively about these things - there really were only two ways this could go.

You finish your report and go to stand, only realizing a minute later walking through the base that Ramirez is following you. You send him a funny look over your shoulder and he returns with a small smile of his own.

“Tengo preguntas!”

You stop and let him catch up. “Hmm?”

“Okay,” he starts, motioning his hands wordlessly until he could form them. “Are you and the Captain actually... juntos? Or just Avenger partners?”

“That’s personal, Omar,” you say with a roll of your eyes. “But I guess? That’s weird discussing with you.”

He nods in agreement. “It’s okay, I was just curious. So, him being mad was just an act? He doesn’t really hurt and threaten you, no?” He’s treading lightly, but you can already see the cartel mind turning. He would order Steve’s execution if he had to, even if he believed it to be morally wrong in some situations.

“Never. It was just an act for Ernesto.”

“Ah, Dios. Thank goodness.”

“Yeah, keep your men in line. It’s fine.”

He chuckles at that. “And the other Avengers?”

“They’re my family, Omar,” you grin wide, waking slower for the old man to keep up. “They would never hurt me.”

“That’s good, but not what I was asking.”

“Oh?”

“What are they like?”

Handing your report to one of the agents at a handful of monitors, you laugh loudly. “Do you want to meet them officially?”

“Aye, I know my daughters would like that...”

You raise an eyebrow.

“But I would like to meet them, too.”

“That’s what I thought. C’mon.”

The rest of the team are all relaxing and discussing the past days events in the lounge area, which is really just a glorified break room. Bucky’s still in his morning sweats same as Scott, Torres is already suited up, and both Sam and Steve are wearing their Avenger gear (minus Sam’s wings and Steve’s battered shield). Steve is the first one to notice you enter and he instantly gets up from his chair to greet you with a kiss on the cheek.

“Gross,” Bucky mumbles.

“You’ve been trying to get me a girl for over ninety years, Buck. And now that I’ve finally got someone who likes me back, you bully me for it?”

“Who’s bullin’? I said the same thing when Agent Carter smooched you in the weapon’s room and you thought you were alone.”

You pat Steve’s shoulder. “Think about it, Rogers. When Bucky settles down with someone, you have free reign.”

Steve pulls a thin smile and glances back at Bucky. “I’ll make them hate you.”

“Love and hate are the same thing, pal. It worked out for you two.”

“Okay, we’re done. Everyone, Omar wanted to formally introduce himself.”

Ramirez gives a shy wave. Torres returns it. It’s kind of hilarious to witness. Here you all are, Avengers and some standing over six feet with one of the most wanted drug lords in the world, and the all mighty drug lord is shy. 

“I’m so sorry we got off on the wrong foot.” You notice how when Ramirez speaks to strangers or those he deems good people on his side, his accent is a little thicker. It’s like he wants to speak only in Spanish other than the Spanglish you were all accustomed to. “But it really is an honor to meet you all.”

Scott is the first to stand and shake his hand. “Sorry I pointed my gun at you, man. Habit.”

Ramirez chuckles, “Sorry I broke into your room.”

Steve interjects, “Thank you, though. For telling us what more we’re fighting for.”

Ramirez nods, a solemn look spreading over his face. “The minute I found out, I didn’t know who to tell. I’m lucky you were never truly on his side.”

“And what will you do after all this is over?” Bucky stands. “How do we know we can truly trust you?”

Ramirez sneaks a glance at you and you raise your hands. “Hey, I’ve got the same questions as him.”

Ramirez must know he isn’t getting out of this one because he answers quickly. “Drugs have a market where people choose. I just meet supply and demand protocols. I don’t do the unnecessary violence or blackmail. There is no need to. People will always want drugs.”

There’s a round of agreement throughout the small room. Ramirez continues, “But smuggling humans? There is no choice, nothing moral about it, it’s evil.”

“But people get addicted to drugs. They die from them everyday,” Sam argues.

“I produce and deal what you American’s call weed. Ernesto does the big stuff, as does White. I’m,” he laughs a little. “I’m their weed guy.”

“That is true,” you confirm. You’ve moved and packaged Ramirez’s product before. “Literally just weed.”

Everyone seems deep in thought, like their processing Ramirez’s words and the weight behind them. Ramirez ran with the big boys and was the biggest distributor of marijuana in Mexico and America alike, but he never messed with any other product. Besides producing, selling, and smuggling illegal weed, his only other crimes included conspiring with Ernesto on how to get the product over state lines.

“Okay,” Steve starts. “So how is tonight gonna work? We have to discuss that.”

Ramirez bows his head. “You’ve allowed me safety, you’ve listened to me speak, and you’re saving both my life and my daughter’s. If you must arrest me, then you arrest me.”

“The minute you’re transferred to a prison with less security, Ernesto’s men will get you,” you reason, already shaking your head no.

Ramirez gives a nonchalant shrug, “But you’ll get him and White. That’s all that matters.”

You look over to Steve for some other ideas, but like you he doesn’t have any. No one seems to have any.

Torres matches his shrug and his voice is small as he speaks, almost like his next idea is insane. “We can always put him in the Raft.”

Everyone’s eyes go wide.

“That’s where all the enhanced humans go, no?” Ramirez is stunned. “Do I count?”

“We’ve got no idea,” Steve rubs at his chin, looking at you for confirmation he knows you don’t have. “But it’s an idea.”

     The plan is no longer singular. Fury had sent his best field agents for the job, the ones with the best aim, the ones with great strategic planning. Although you and Steve were still in charge, it was no longer just your mission. Your mission was to arrest the big three, big four when including Seda. That was it.

The plan goes like this: half the team will be focused on the venue itself, hidden in the shadows and monitoring the big three as well as your mics, and will aid you in the physical fight and arrests. Some are on the ground while others in the sky. Afterwards, they’ll sweep the estate and collect stolen property or priceless artworks. The other half is split into two, where one of those halves will be spread out for miles to capture anyone that might slip through, like guests who were on the most wanted list or guests that have helped Ernesto in the past. The other part of that half will intercept the shipment (once Steve radios in the location), save the hostages, and shut down the routes. 

They instruct Ramirez to call Ernesto and to ask him if there’s a vegetarian menu offered. Ernesto responds with only a muttered groan and in a wild turn of events, asks if Ramirez can call you to make sure you arrive earlier than expected to make sure Jackeline walks down that aisle. He’s completely serious. Not only does Ramirez play along, but Ernesto doesn’t give any indication that he knows about the car bomb. So the team makes a judgement call: this was only Seda’s doing.

Ramirez is then told that the Raft is not an option; both the US and Mexican government want him and the only reason he hasn’t been arrested is because he still has many cards to play. The more he helps, the less time he’ll get. 

One thing is known: this is the biggest mission anybody has been on in over two years. 

      Bucky remembers things in bits and pieces. Sometimes he’ll be minding his own business, enjoying this new world and the countless amenities it offers, and remember exactly where he was on the hottest day of the year in 1936. He remembers the blistering heat, boiling his once pale skin and giving him that beautiful olive he was now known for. He remembers the way his tongue dried almost instantly the moment he stepped outside and how he asked his next door neighbor, Ms. Kranshall, for a cup of water before work. He remembers her massive square glasses and how they nudged the tip of her nose as she nodded sweetly at him. He remembers her high but smoky voice and the way she patted his shoulder as he drank the cup down. 

The first time he remembered Natalia was around the same time he remembered Steve. He sees a flash of ember in strands, speed almost matching his, and he sees those panicked green eyes he was once all too familiar with. 

She was twelve when he first met her, forced to throw her around like a ragdoll until her ribs were bruised and her spirit broken. He went again and again, and when he wasn’t forced he would teach her how to fight properly and how to shield her most vulnerable areas. Scared as she was, she never showed it in those private moments, and decided to follow his lead in most things. And she learned to be fierce, no matter how hard he hit, and he still remembers the look in her eyes and the pull of her young face as they yanked him away for cryo before he could congratulate her on winning her first fight. 

The first time he remembered you was when you leapt onto T’Challa’s back as the chase neared, tackling the young prince become king, and watched with sad eyes as both him and Steve climbed onto the jet for Siberia. He remembers your clumsy punches when you fought him with half his brain and how he kicked you so hard you flew. He also remembers how when you took that kick for Steve, the sound of his wail almost deafened the soldier. 

Everytime he remembers something, a memory, no matter how strangled it may arise, the twinge in his chest is good. He’s remembering. He’s James Buchanan Barnes.

He feels that same twinge when a face full of freckles greets him at the entrance, documents raised above her head in a show of selfish glee, and a pep in her step that tells him she remembers him too. 

“Sergeant Barnes!” Maribel gives a toothy grin. “Never thought I’d see you again!”

Bucky tilts his chin up and rests the tip of tongue between his incisors. “What? Hydra wasn’t enough for you, you gotta infiltrate the Mexican cartel, too?”

She scoffs playfully, “Other way ‘round.”

He snatches the documents from her hand and leads her inside. “I hope you got something here. Steve put a lotta faith in you.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Y/N does. That’s enough for me.”

Rolling her eyes, she snatches the documents back to turn the pages herself. “Follow me. We need to chat in private.”

“Shouldn’t we get-”

“I’d rather you know, and you tell them later. No audience.”

This causes Bucky to tense. He follows her in further and closes the door behind them both. 

The left side of her face had less freckles back in 2012, he remembers, and now she’s covered in them.     

Bucky remembers things slowly, but he remembers them. 

      It’s cold outside, air bruising your skin, and there are hundreds of goosebumps now erupting. You joke with yourself that in the end, you’ll most likely have to ask Steve for his jacket and ruin your overall look but hey, you’ll be warm. The wedding doesn’t start until five in the evening and it’s one’oclock right now, and there are white clouds in the sky instead of gray and the songs of some desperate birds searching for their lunch near your ears. It at least drowns out the constant noise of the agents hammering away at each other and preparing for tonight.   

It makes your stomach roll: these agents are putting their lives at risk because of you. 

     You stepped through the discarded papers and tried not to leave your footprint anywhere important. His office was empty, left in a state of purgatory, and his lamp was still on. It’s like he stepped out for a minute.

You picked everything up: pens, computers, books, chairs. Under everything, there was dust. 

He really did die.

As much as you wanted to step on his remains and spit on him, you couldn’t. The gash in your heart was still open and bleeding for everyone else and there was no room left for anger. You were indifferent, for lack of a better word. Frustrated?

A paper crumbles outside his office. No one had followed you in - a week after the snap and every single person on earth was still searching for loved ones or running from something - so no, no one else was supposed to be here. Mexico had been hit hard, it’s government shattered, and every cartel was picking up pieces or tearing the world further apart. There was no line anymore. 

You twisted around and aimed your gun at the door, immediately lowering it when you saw Natasha raise her hands. She had this embarrassed smile on her face like she knew she had been caught.

“I meant to say hi over your mic. But you turned it off.”

You sighed deeply and dramatically shrugged your shoulders. “Well, I’m here. Guess who’s not.”

Natasha only nods and steps further into the room. She looks over the same things you did. “He’s gone? Good, good riddance.”

“But his death means nothing if trillions of others died also. It’s so fucking typical of him. If he’s going down, he takes everyone else with him.”

“He didn’t take them, Y/N.”

“I want to be happy,” you spit out through clenched teeth. “I want to feel relief. The fucking bastard is finally gone and I can’t even enjoy it properly.”

Natasha takes one more look at the hallway before letting her guard down almost completely. She envelopes you in a hug, squeezing tighter each time your breath hitches. “Hey, listen to me.”

“He’s gone.”

“I know,” Natasha’s voice is low and reminds you of the gentle hum of record static. “He’s gone and he can’t hurt you anymore.”

“But everyone-”

“No,” she pulls away and places both her palms over your neck. “He’s gone. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

It takes a while before you’re nodding along, repeating her words gently.

“You’re more than the pain he inflicted. You’re more than his name or crimes. You’re worth more than his impact ten times over. He can’t hurt you anymore. I know everyone’s gone, and we’re going to fight like hell to bring them back, but in this little moment, this little thread you can pull - pull it all out - he can’t hurt you anymore.”

She’s all muscle and bone and blood and real. What would you do without Natasha?

     The grass beneath your bare feet calms you down. It’s tendrils are a little ticklish and there are droplets of silver morning water fog melting as they touch your skin. Focusing on the feeling isn’t enough to get you out of your own head and for a wild second, you think the God of Thunder is going to come up behind you and hold your hand. It’s peaceful out here, but what you wouldn’t give to see him again. 

The day before Steve and Carol returned the stones, he had been here. He did as he promised: the second the flood of happiness extinguished like a Christmas candle, he found you settled in the mass of pillows with only instrumental music playing. He left for two cups of tea, sat in silence with you as you both drank, and whispered a strangled ‘I’m sorry’ as if you weren’t meant to hear it. Apologizing for someone who did come back, and you for someone who didn’t. 

‘You know I don’t regret what we did. We brought everyone back.’ 

‘Don’t try and justify your sadness. Not at all, not with me.�� His voice was stern and his eyes serious.

‘I’m sorry he didn’t come back.’

His eyes had closed, as if he was expecting that apology, and he looked out the window where the sun was just barely rising, shining on him and him alone. ‘I’m sorry, too.’

There are footsteps, though. Heavy ones, footsteps that announce his upcoming presence on purpose so as to not startle anymore. Bucky was too generous for his own good. 

“Had a visitor.”

You remain silent as Bucky sits next to you, looking up from his spot and expecting you to sit as well. “There’s water on the grass.”

“There’s water in the air in this godforsaken state, now sit down.” A push of laughter escapes your lungs but you follow his instructions anyway. 

You sit in silence for a few minutes, admiring the way the pine trees bend slightly with the gusts of wind and how the birds have changed their pitch. You expect Bucky to speak first so you occupy that time by playing with the strands of wet grass. 

“In 1997, I was taken out of cryo for a mission.”

You wince on accident. This wasn’t how you expected the conversation to start. 

Bucky continues, “There was this man south of the border.” He points south to prove his point. “Hydra wanted to take him out because he was interfering with the drug routes they were monitoring.”

“Hydra controlled drug routes?”

“Hydra had their heads in plenty of places. They didn’t control them, but they did monitor them.”

You shake your head in understanding. “And this man?”

Bucky sighs heavily. His eyes are focused on the gentle yellows behind the trees instead of you. “He was told to take out another man traveling through and out one of these drug routes. He made a different call.”

“Who was your visitor?”

“Maribel.”

“Wha-?” You go to stand but Bucky gently pushes your left shoulder back down. “Why are you telling me this and not her?”

“She wanted me to tell you. And I guess, in turn, you tell Steve and the rest of the team.”

“Bucky,” your voice trembles on accident. “Tell me.”

“The man I was ordered to take out was Maribel’s brother.” He chuckles at your frantic shuffling and pushes you down again. He continues, “Hey, it’s okay. She never knew him and she doesn’t hate me for what I was.”

You don’t really believe him. But his face isn’t telling you otherwise. You're stuck between wanting to dig for more information and giving him a giant bear hug. “Did you… succeed?”

“The soldier ever rarely lost.”

Your face contorts. “Bucky…”

“He disobeyed orders, Hydra didn’t like that since it disrupted the drug routes, and so I was sent to help. Hydra didn’t seem to care about the man he let go, though.” Bucky shrugs and starts playing with the grass behind your hand. “The thing was, Maribel’s brother had been doing this a long time. Ernesto was on Hydra’s radar but in a good way. Maribel’s brother was also given very specific orders from one other person - their mother.”

The story pieces are all discarded haphazardly, pieces that are from different boxes and don’t seem to entangle properly. 

“She told him to let the man go. Because this man was an American, and killing an American on Mexican soil was something that was impossible to hide from the claws of the law. So, this American made it back on US soil safely and was never heard from again. Until 1998, when he tried to re-enter Mexico under a false name but with one purpose. To see his newborn baby girl.”

The yellow behind the pine trees fades into orange. 

“Are you saying-?”

“Maribel’s mother kept everything your mother left her when she tried to cross the border herself. Your real birth certificate, her real birth certificate, you.”

Bucky looks over finally, sad smile and all. “Maribel thinks, and now I think, that Ernesto isn’t your real father.”

There are so many questions formulating at the base of your skull that you don’t really take the time to absorb the news. “What did she bring you? What was in those papers?”

Bucky seems startled that your reaction wasn’t one of shock. “Like I said, Maribel’s mother kept a lotta things.” He pauses momentarily before speaking again. “Blood results was one of them. Still trying to authenticate them.  The American was a doctor, after all.”

“A doctor,” you whisper. 

“A doctor. He changed his name but he’s alive. Maribel’s checked.”

“Why would she tell me this now? Why now just hours before the wedding? Isn’t that why you guys didn’t tell me about what was really in the shipment?”

Bucky winces and his expression tells you he’s sorry. 

You continue, “Why now? Why does it even matter anymore?”

He inspects you quickly, scanning your features for any signs of discomfort. “You’re okay? I thought this would surprise you more.”

The chuckle you release is dry, kind of harsh. “It actually answers a fuckload of questions. Like, number one, why he fucking hates me.”

His eyebrows scrunch together. “You think he knows?”

“If he doesn’t, then he’s a super fucking asshole instead of just a fucking asshole.”

Bucky pauses again and smiles up at the sky. The clouds are white and extra large today, and he suddenly remembers the taste of that mini popcorn he had bought and shared with his little sister Becca… Becks… while watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarves at the theater. The salt and butter had stuck to Becca’s fingers and she had wiped them on Bucky’s sweater. He remembers scolding her for that but giving her a napkin in between his giggle fit. He feels the same swell in the meat of his heart listening to you. “We don’t deserve you. You’re like the moon. Always there, shaping yourself into what that person needs, crater after crater beat into you and yet, you move the tides.”

The little snort that leaves your nose hurts a little. “That’s pretty damn poetic for this moment of ‘you’re not the father!’”

Bucky bites his lip and smiles toward the yellow and orange hues. “Like the moon.”

      The hotel had replaced the door, no questions asked. The reason Sam decided to bust open the door instead of using the very functional key you had given Torres? No one knows. But the poor receptionist was told that you couldn’t possibly change rooms because this was top secret business and you absolutely wanted to slap Scott upside the head for worrying her. So they fixed the bolts and gave you all new keys. 

Didn’t matter much anyway since you weren’t sleeping here tonight. You had already packed and made the beds. 

You lay your dress and Steve’s dress attire on the respective beds. The dress sent over was a backless red silk, spaghetti strapped and slit on the left side - you’ve wanted to wear it since it arrived when Scott did. 

Steve knocked before entering the room. You almost laughed at the gentlemanly aspect of it. “Thought for sure they’d have kept you for another hour at least.”

“I gotta change sometime. That your dress?” Steve shrugs off his uniform and climbs on top of his freshly made bed.  

“That’s my dress. Sort of skimpy for a wedding, no?” You hold it up to show him the front and back.

“Does ‘skimpy’ mean bad?”

“Means slutty.”

He gives you this disappointed look, like he’s judging your vocabulary. “I wouldn’t use that word. So no.”

You silently apologize and move the dress over to the end of your bed. Everyone else was also getting ready for tonight. Agents were posing as local police, many infiltrated the wait staff, suits were being double-checked for any malfunctions. There was so much going on, but all was relaxed in your room. Steve smiles at you from his bed, head resting in his palm as he leans up to stare at you. It’s impossible not to blush under his stare, so you move to climb into his bed. You lay down with your feet to his head, the sides of your hips pressing together; just two upside down puzzle pieces. He chuckles and goes to lay on his back, right arm coming up to lay rested on top of your right thigh. 

“All this week I thought I wasn’t ready.” You’ve had no more nightmares. “But I am. I’m ready to end this.”

He runs his fingers delicately along your thigh. “I’m ready to help.” He sighs deeply and cranes his neck to try and meet your gaze. “We’ll make sure they get maximum time.”

“You know that’s not our call.”

“Still.”

You rest for another few minutes, gentle touches calming you. His body is so warm, emitting sweet thoughts like the beginning of spring heat, and it’s impossible not to curl up into it. Steve breaks the comfortable silence, “What are you thinking about?”

You suck in a breath and tell him the truth. “That in the matter of like… five days, you and I are basically lovers now.”

“Lovers?”

“Lovers.”    

He laughs out loud and goes to sit up.  “I intend on taking you out when we get back home.”

Lifting your head, you rest on your elbows and grin at him. “Oh? And where are you planning on taking me?”

He thinks for a second before pressing his lips together and giving up. “I have to ask Peter or Wanda. I have no idea where you go during the day to eat.”

You laugh, “Seriously? I could’ve sworn you tagged along once or twice.”

“Nope. I always refused.”

You frown slightly, “Riiight.” Not wanting to rehash the reasons why, you try to soften any wrong feelings about what that implies. “I’m sure you’ve been, though. I take Bucky places, too. Ask him.”

“Mmm, I have my pride. Can’t have Bucky thinkin’ he knows more about my girl than I do.”

You smile largely now and hope no lipstick rubbed off on your teeth. “Your girl?”

Steve averts his eyes like he’s just now asking for your name and if you’d like to go dancing. There’s a beautiful scarlet glow painting his pale cheeks. “Like I said, I’m taking you out and asking properly.”

“We’ve already surpassed third base. I remember it vividly.”

His smile falls comically and he turns to grab a throw pillow to smack you with it a couple times. “Crude! Crude as always. Goddamn.”

“I’m sorry! Hey, I’m sorry!” 

He stops his attack and pulls you into his chest. He warms your back instantly. “So, you’ll let me take you out?”

“I really, really like french fries,” you hum lightly and tilt your head back to lean into his shoulder. 

“That narrows it down, thanks.”

You chuckle due to his sarcastic tone. He rubs his hands up and down your arms. An idea formulates while in the warmth of his body. “You know what I really want to do after we finish with this?”

“What’s that?”

You tell him honestly. “Rent a cabin. Spend a Christmas there, maybe. Catch some fuckin’ fish. Experience the snow properly.”

His eyebrows furrow like he’s dissecting such a claim. “I… wasn’t expecting that.”

You shrug, “Sounds cool though, right?”

“Got room for one more?” He looks down to meet your gaze and there’s a glint of hope shimmering in the blue of his eyes.

       “Nat… Natasha.”

Natasha took in a sharp exhale as she lifted her head from the desk, left cheek numb and pink. Steve shot her a funny grin and continued shaking her shoulder until she fully opened her eyes. She slaps his hand away with a huff of laughter. 

“Come here to do your laundry? You know, there’s only so many times I can help prevent shrinking shirts.”

Steve scoffs, “I used to do laundry by hand. I can figure out a few buttons.”

“You would think.”

Steve rolls his eyes and bumps her shoulder with the palm of hand before speed-walking into the kitchen. “It’s one of those days.” He opens the high cabinets and pulls a few vodka bottles. 

Natasha pushes down whatever was starting to eat at her. She calms her deep breaths and rises from her chair. No words needed to be exchanged. She makes her way over to pull two glasses from the same high cabinets. 

Steve watches her a little hesitantly, but she has that lopsided smile that pinches through only one cheek and her eyes are the slightest bit swollen from her power nap, and Steve breathes a sigh of relief. She tilts her head to the other side of the kitchen, that lopsided grin gracing her bare feet. Steve fumbles through a few cleaning supplies and some plastic bags before he finds the bottle. 

“I hid it after… after Thor had that meltdown a year ago.”

Now, he was second guessing. It was a small bottle, only half left, but half a bottle of Asgardian liquor was enough to knock the God on his knees. For Steve, a few sips would do the same. But he needed it, he needed it, god help him. It’s been four years, he needs it. “Be my designated driver?”

“How about you spend the night? Y/N wanted to start a new show anyway.”

“I’ll be passed the fuck out during the opening credits.”

“But you’ll be here.”

Steve sighs and pops open the bottle. Natasha puts her hand up to stop him from pouring, “Check under that sink again.”

His eyebrows pinch together but he does as instructed. More cleaning products… more cleaning products. He tilts his head to look at the corners and there it was: a small, pink paper airplane taped mid-flight. Steve hunched his shoulders to grab it and crawled out carefully. “You know, you’re not supposed to tell me where you hide them.”

“Well, I felt bad! I’ve found like fifteen of your blue ones and how many do you have of mine?”

“That’s besides the point-”

“Say it. You’ve found six.”

His cheeks turn hot. “I’m not here all the time.”

“Excuses.”

“I leave mine in good spots. You probably got better eyes or something.”

Natasha laughs, loud and from her chest. “Sure. But hey - I’ll promise you somethin’.”

Steve pours the Asgardian liquor into his glass and straight vodka into Natasha’s. “What do you have in mind?”

“You find more than me by the end of this year, and I’ll take that vacation.”

Steve takes his first sip and tries not to pull a hard face. “You’re on. But what if you win?”

Natasha raises her glass and clinks it with his. He wants to apologize for forgetting to toast but her eyes are playful and forgiving. “You come with me. I’m not the only one who needs it.”

“So, I win regardless?”

She takes a sip and pulls a funny face. “Easiest battle, don’t ya think?”

They’re off their right minds twenty minutes into drinking and the common area is chaos. Pillows are thrown, the TV somehow ends up with dozens of fingerprints, and they’ve broken a couple flower pots. The cushions of the couch know Natasha’s bare feet and Steve’s boots; the walls fail to constrict their loud singing; Rhodey has already snuck past them to get himself a snack undetected. 

‘And so I cry sometimes when I’m lyin’ in bed, just to get it all out what’s in my head!’

‘Hit the high note, Rogers!’

‘When you do, I will!... I scream from the top of my lungs-’

‘What’s goin’ on? And I say, ‘hey!’ ‘hey!’ I say ‘hey!’ What’s goin’ on?’

Steve’s still clear-headed enough to twirl Natasha around. She’s flexible enough to climb onto his shoulders.

‘I pray every single day - for a revolution!’

She’s starting to slur her words and Steve wonders if that blond streak in her hair was there last week. 

‘The story of my life! I take her home, 

I drive all night to keep her warm and time, 

Is frozen!

The story of my life, I give her hope, 

I spend her love until she’s broke inside!

The story of my life.’

She can longer feel her toes but seeing Steve let go makes her so incredibly happy and breaks her heart. I needed this too, she thinks.

‘So, bye-bye, Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry

And them good ol' boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye

Singin', "This'll be the day that I die

This'll be the day that I die!”’

She’s all muscle and bone and blood and real. What would Steve do without Natasha?

     “You wanna come?”

“Sure. I’ll cut down the trees for wood. Have a real fireplace.” He’s serious, you realize. Like, really truly serious. 

Your heart swells with excitement and some other feeling you can’t quite place. But it’s good, like really good. The sigh you release is full of sweet wonder. “A real Christmas tree.”

Steve tightens his grip around your arms. “December’s right around the corner. Trees should be ready and standing tall.”

It’s almost too much to imagine. You have the sudden urge to talk specifics, to plan out this vacation. A beautiful, rustic cabin with only a coffee maker brought from the outside century, knitted quilts, real snow, Steve’s body heat, Christmas lights… inviting Sam, Scott, Wanda, Peter, and Bucky down for Christmas dinner and presents. A whole sleepover filled with ghost stories, candle burning, board games, Christmas movies. You’re up and tucking your knees under yourself to look down at Steve in an instant. “You’d throw on that checkered shirt, grow out your beard even more, and chop down a few trees for me? With me?”

“There’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be,” Steve says, eyes crinkling. For a second, he’s worried you’ll realize that he’s quoted your letter. But that same moment, you’re giggling with excitement over your future plans.

“Well, we lasted a week here without killing each other. The holidays always hold a few surprises.”

Steve picks up another pillow.

       Business is not conducted during the church service. It feels normal, with half the guests attending the service and watching the happy couple exchange vows, while the other half only arrives for the party. 

Jackeline’s dress is modern with a mix of vintage - simple, with long sleeves of lace and fabric that isn’t entirely white but with hints of beige; the dress dips lower in the back than it does in the front, and it’s tight near the waist but loose as it drapes down her long legs. Her hair is left loose and her make-up is heavy, and she illuminates under the sun rays that burst through stained cathedral glass. You don’t even pay mind to Ernesto and Seda seated in the aisle in front of you - not when Jackeline looks the way she does. 

As the service ends, Steve tells you to wait until most of the guests exit. The priest eyes him warily, inspecting his young face and build and obvious persona. He says nothing, but he places a gentle hand over the cross on his chest as he follows the guests out. Steve stands, and out of respect dips his fingers into the holy water provided near the heavy wooden doors. He signs the father, the son, and the holy ghost and dips his fingers in again to sign the same on you. With a silent thank you and tender wipe to your forehead, you don’t question it. He’s not Catholic, or at least you don’t think, but you know he does it for what’s to come. No matter your beliefs, he just wants something, someone, to protect you. You turn back to the cathedral and grip the door as you bend down to one knee and tip your head. 

       Everything is grander, that’s for sure. The decorations are tripled; the violet lights are reflecting like diamonds off every marble and glass surface; the chandelier’s are no longer gold sculptures but diamond; the clay flowers hanging from the ceiling yesterday are now a part of the centerpieces, squeezed in with the largest bouquet of roses and violets; the live bands (because of course there are two) are each still setting up as everyone is getting seated; and there are about fifty round tables circling the large dance floor. There’s still a nice view of the lake and the pine trees ahead, and the tarp was abandoned as there was no rain in the forecast. All in all, and there were a thousand other things you could focus on but didn’t have the energy to, everything was beautifully put together.

Jackeline wasn’t lying when she said half of Mexico was attending. Besides family, there were celebrities in attendance, famous musicians who were simply guests and not performing, family of some of the other biggest drug lords from both countries (minus Europe), and a couple politicians who dipped before the new couple even walked through the doors after seeing Steve. But Steve worked his magic like he had yesterday and had everyone eating out of the palm of hand in pure amazement. He even had a famous actress hanging off his shoulder in under three minutes. Walking away to go congratulate Jackeline, Steve doesn’t miss the quick, sarcastic flick of your middle finger aimed in his direction.  

“You’d tell me if you needed my help, right?” Jackeline asks after a while, bottom lip dripping champagne. She wipes it gingerly, careful not to smudge her pink lipstick. 

“I would if there was anything wrong,” you respond truthfully. She pauses to swallow her sip and squints. She follows your gaze to Steve, whose right arm is being tugged by a girl who looks about twelve with five multi-colored bows trailing down her french braid, and who is also trying hard not to blush at the very attractive actress he can’t seem to get rid of. 

“You’re going to stop him, aren’t you?”

You glance to your left, but it isn’t really a question. Jackeline knows. “Yeah.”

She nods and tilts her chin up, eyes still on Steve. “Make him watch as you burn it down.”  You know she’s referring to Ernesto. She continues, “Every last bit of it.”

Smiling down at your feet, you raise your glass at nothing in particular. Just to salute the night air and whoever is watching. A few seconds pass as you both watch the guests enjoy the music and appetizers. Jackeline shuffles in her heels but she doesn’t seem to want to leave your side just yet. “You run, you understand?”

She’s only momentarily startled by your words. “Okay.”

“I never meant to leave you here, Jackie. I just had to find a way out first.”

“You found a loophole,” she chuckles, but the next moment she’s serious. “There is no way out.”

“Might not be,” you admit, downing your glass in one shot. “But I know this. He can’t hurt you anymore.”     

      You don’t exchange more than a few words with Steve before he’s called by Ernesto’s men and motioned toward those massive dry lava rock doors; doors that don’t muffle sound but are strong enough to withstand a bullet wound. You watch him leave with them, and he shoots you a smile over his shoulder to simply look at you. Your eyes swell only slightly, burning the corners and blurring everything. He’s bright and brilliant, walking head first into Hell and shining like the bolts of Zeus.

Steve has faced giants before, from all backgrounds and all worlds. He has blocked their punches, taken near mortal injuries; stared them in the face with every ounce of anger and determination his cells could produce. There was always this whispered voice in his head that warned him of the last day he would pick up that shield. In 1945, the voice was loud and raging as he drove that nosediving plane into the Arctic. Over the last few years, however, the voice had quieted and let Steve ponder his fate himself. Steve swears the voice, or rather his own conscience, is getting tired. 

He listens intently, responding only when spoken to, and prays his mic is picking up every bit of this conversation. Ernesto commanded the room as he screamed orders in both English and Spanish. His men fell in line; some as determined as the old man, some quiet, some bothered. Didn’t matter what the orders were. Steve noticed the few who would glance at one another and speak their distaste with their wandering eyes. And when Ernesto would speak directly to Steve, the same men would pinch their lips into a thin line and glare. 

The shipment had arrived mid-conversation and as men were sent out to do their jobs, Ernesto kept Steve behind. I need you to stay with me until the shipment is secure and can be moved - you’re my bodyguard, Ernesto had told him, confident and only slightly bending his back in discomfort from the weight of the day. Steve agrees, and hears Bucky mention how they have eyes on the shipment from the sky. 

Steve stays by Ernesto’s side even when Ramirez is called in. He’s prepared for a bloodbath, for two big men to cement their graves in this tiny office, but it doesn’t happen. Or at least, it doesn’t happen yet. Ernesto regards Ramirez as an old friend and finally trusts him enough to tell him what the shipment contained. Steve isn’t surprised, however, when Ernesto takes nasty satisfaction at Ramirez’s horrified expression. Because even though Ramirez had already known, the confirmation adds a multitude of terror. Steve can feel his palms sweating. 

As expected, Ernesto tells Ramirez that he plans to use his lands for his gain. The safe thing to do would have been to agree, to nod along, and to live in the knowledge that the shipment most likely wouldn’t head out. But Ramirez, for some reason Steve can’t fathom, stands up and says no. 

Steve understands now; the odd shaking of your shoulders even when your face was completely blank and emotions calm. He watches the beads of sweat drip from Ernesto’s forehead onto the tip of his nose; he watches the way his chest heaves as his voice becomes louder; he watches until he can’t take anymore and he enlarges the shield with Scott’s tech and tells Ernesto to move away from the other man. Steve understands now - the man really is scary, even if he wants to admit it or not.

      “You really are a phenomenal actor.”

Swaying slowly, you try not to step on Seda’s feet as he guides you across the dance floor. The music is calmer than it was five minutes ago, the guests are enjoying dinner and conversing, and Steve had told you fifteen minutes ago that he would be right back. Ernesto had sent you a malicious wink, but you knew better. Steve’s name was written in blue and Ernesto’s real target had to be you. 

“Acting with what? Acting that I enjoy this dance? Acting like I respect you?” Your upper lip twitches into a teasing smile. “Or acting like I don’t know it was you who planted that bomb?”

He matches your smile, looking down at you with a glint in his eyes. His grip around your waist tightens. “Acting like you’re really on our side.”

Lowering your voice just a fraction, you lean in, top of your head level with his chin. “I’m on Ernesto’s side. You almost had me and my Captain blown up.”

His left hand is settled on your shoulder and he uses the opportunity to dig his nails in. All around him, his men are watching. “How did you get away?”

You give a dry laugh. “You think that was my first bomb? It was childsplay.”

Seda scoffs, “You speak of this Avenger business like I don’t know who you are. You’re still that scared little girl who hid in her room when alien’s fell from the sky.”

“I may be. But there’s a difference between you and I. I actually stared them in this face and won.”

“The second time, maybe”

Sticks and stones, but goddamn did those words always hurt. Blame goes a long way but you and your team are used to keeping it close to home. “Why do you want me dead?”

His scowl deepens and the wrinkles by his eyes crinkle over each other as he squints down at you. “The Avengers are not secretly on our side. Tony Stark never was but Ernesto loves to tell people otherwise. Same about your Captain. You’ve been playing us for years.”

“What evidence do you even have? For years, we’ve done nothing but clear the roads for you,” you say, shaking your head in disbelief. 

He unwraps his arm from around your waist and sets both hands around your upper arms. He’s pressing down as hard as he can but still loose enough not to draw unwanted attention. He breathes a sharp exhale, and the puff of air hits your cheeks. “I don’t know what happened to my men after you got what you deserved. They were good men and just like that, erased.” He smirks. “I know you had something to do with it.”

A guest with bright red hair laughs loudly to your side as she is twirled around by her partner. It’s not as vibrant as you’re used to, but you still imagine that lopsided smile you hadn’t seen in forever. “Does it matter? You know what they did, so why is my hypothetical revenge chastised?”

“Tell me right now that none of your Avenger friends did your dirty work. Tell me your Captain’s hands are clean.”

“I promise you, my Captain is clean.” Seda doesn’t show any signs of believing you. Still, your mouth twitches into a mocking smirk. “But our once mutual friends Tony and Natalia tell another story.”

“Am I supposed to believe that two people who are dead are responsible for this? Ironic,” he grits his teeth.

You repeat, clear and true. “My Captain is clean.”

He fakes a tiny gag but you know he means his disgust. “You turned over so quickly for him. For the heroes who destroyed the world. Pathetic.”

“You really need to stop underestimating me,” you practically order, voice full of warning and annoyance. 

Seda continues, “Following orders from a fascist. Following orders from a country that only does harm.”

He turns you around as the dance instructs, a half-hearted waltz that didn’t have a beginning, middle, or end. You take that second to scan your surroundings and weigh your options. “I agree about the country part. But I don’t follow orders from the country, I follow them from my Captain.”

You’re facing him again and in those hellish eyes you see truth. “No, he’s a symbol of everything we hate. Of everything we need to destroy.”

“Touch Steve and I’ll blind you.”

His feet stop mid-step, as do yours. His eyes widen only a little, but it’s all the ammunition he needs. “I knew it.”

It’s barely a whisper, a tickle from a single strand of hair, but you catch it. No longer keeping it a secret, or rather a secret you didn’t care that you let slip, Seda now knows it was all a lie. All this time you had never referred to Steve as anything other than your Captain.

You feel the blunt head of a .22 press against your abdomen as Seda laughs, “You never could get a mission right.”

Twisting his arm and knocking the gun from his loose grip with your wrist was easy. So was catching the gun mid-air and elbowing him in the ribs. Seda falls to the floor in a state of shock, instinctively gripping his chest. You aim the gun at him and like you’ve seen in the movies, place the tip of your heel just below where his belly button would be. He releases a sharp breath and his eyes are challenging, practically begging you to dig deeper and get on with it. 

You can hear the screaming and frantic murmuring from the guests surrounding you and the leveling of guns from Seda’s men. But you’re focused on the man trying so hard not to quiver beneath you, his nasty grin spreading wider. 

“You’re alone,” he bites. “Your Steve is helping Ernesto right now, no? You’re alone.”

Your grin forms slowly, and you’re counting down the seconds you have until his men start firing, but you lean your upper body down slightly to make sure he hears you. “That’s never been a problem before. Don’t you remember?” You click back the safety as discreetly as possible. “I was trained by the Black Widow herself.”

You quickly raise the gun to shoot the closest of Seda’s men in between his collarbones, effectively starting the bloodshed. You jump out the way in a flash, rolling across the floor and behind a table. Tipping the table over is easy and it seems like a smart idea at first, until you realize the tables are all glass. The tablecloth had covered that detail, which sucks like hell, because now the bullets are shattering through and you’re forced to kick yourself away and run behind the pillars instead. The heels are kicked off at the same time you’re fishing underneath your dress. 

A stray bullet hits the pillar’s side making you squeal. It makes you work faster, though. 

Once you find the secure nano-tech ‘button’ (as Scott liked to call it), you strip as quickly as you can and slap the button on your bare shoulder. The nano-tech spirals and threads into itself as intricately as frost spreads on a window, shielding you in both metal and kevlar. 

When a storm of bullets hits the pillar and cracks the marble, you’re forced to crouch and hope Seda’s .22 and the myriad of weapons you’re now equipped with are enough. Before your thoughts can creep into a ‘last man standing’ mode, a roar of wind sweeps across the estate and between the cracked pillars, causing your loose hair to slap your face and blind you for only a second. Quickly putting your hair up and pulling the metal batons from the back of your suit, you’re met with the best sight - one that was a little late, in your opinion. 

“Kind of you to show up!” 

Sam ignores your quip as he flies into three men at once, feet first with his wings extended with the might of a guardian angel. He immediately shields runaway guests who were caught in the middle. He takes the ones on his left, you take the ones on his right. 

You let them swing first. They’re fast and pulling their punches and are clearly aiming for the end result of sticking you to the ground. But you’re quicker and deflect the punches. You manage to deliver a solid punch upward to crack the nose of one. As he reaches up as instinct, his ribs are open season. 

He falls out cold easily after your batons do their damage and the next man isn’t nearly as fast as the first. He doesn’t move enough to his right to avoid the harsh kick to his sternum. Each ambitious kick to the chest seems to demolish the man’s protective wall he’s trying desperately to keep intact, but once you give your legs a break and switch back to the batons, he doesn’t stand a chance. There are bullets raining across the venue, but Sam is shielding you and deflecting them elsewhere. It allows you the freedom to rip into whoever you think deserves it. 

You’ve got two men on your tail and after knocking their weapons from their hands, it seems like a fairer fight. The first doesn’t step back far enough to avoid your roundhouse kick and he falls hard on his ass, gasping for a lick of air. The second is closer, however, and manages to wrap you in a chokehold. Releasing yourself to fall deadweight for only a second, gravity tricks him and you use the momentum to kick up and fly over his shoulders. It’s hard to do without a wall to propel yourself off of. But your abs and thighs are clenched and you don’t quite think you’ll actually end up on this guy’s shoulders but you do. You don’t dwell on that moment of personal pride, though. Tightening your thighs, you use your upper body weight to lean downward and wring his neck. Once he’s down, you sweep your leg around across the floor to trip the other man who was just barely standing back up. With the .22, you fire point blank. 

Detaching yourself from the gore has never been much of a challenge. Eyes rolling back and clouding, limbs dangling limp after having just been full of life, bodies thumping against the floor after eating your bullets - you don’t so much as grit your teeth anymore. 

Sam is dealing with his own mess closer to where that poor cake is now destroyed, vanilla filling exposed and now two stories instead of four. The other cakes are no better. Sam pulls the trigger once more at someone charging at him and he averts his eyes. Sam, however, clenches his jaw. 

“Where’s Seda?” you shout, firing at men who are jumping out from behind tables but giving away their location before they even surprise you. 

“Lost him. I think he’s heading over to Steve!”

You look over the room and pray everyone got out safely. There are no civilians lying in their own puddle of blood, no guests begging for help, but you can never know for sure. “We need more hands. Where the hell are Scott and Bucky?”

A storm of bullets starts crashing into the tables and pillars beside you. Trying to duck doesn’t work and you’re grazed in the left arm. Sam tackles you behind the stage, wings extending further and out bending around you. 

“I’ve been shot!”

Sam can’t help the laugh that erupts from his throat because of your dramatic tone. “You’ve been grazed. The nano-tech has already rebuilt itself.”

“I don’t care, I hate being shot. It’s not nice. I’ve been hit.”

“Dramatic.”

“Y/N?” a harsh whisper sounds from under the stage tables. Watching your eyes bulge paints a mournful expression on Jackeline’s face. Julian is right beside her, pistol out but not shooting. You wonder if he knows you’re the invader.

“What in the hell are you still doing in here? I told you to run!”

“I’m sorry,” Jackeline squeals as bullets continue firing. “Everyone crowded. I was scared so I just got down.”

“Sam.”

Sam nods, already reading your mind. You had to find Steve; you couldn’t stay here. But there’s bullets still blazing in your direction and you find yourself hopping on your ass slightly each time a bullet connects to the ground beside you. The nano-tech does great in deflecting the lead but it really isn’t an invitation to get shot more times. The graze on your arm is already starting to burn. 

“Sam is going to guide you both out of here, alright? Julian, cover her. Sam will cover you.”

There’s a war going on behind Julian’s eyes. His face does a thousand things at once as he hears your orders and the scream of guns combined, but he nods. He grips Jackeline’s waist and pulls her in close, but before they can begin crawling Jackeline turns back to you. 

“Mátalo. Okay? Para nosotras dos.” She’s got this fierce determination in her eyes and her accent is as thick as can be. 

“Okay.”

Sam relays his location over his mic and who he has behind his wings, but before he can safely guide the married couple down the stage, a new wave of men enter and open fire. Sam’s wings can only take so much, and even though they’re vibranium, his suit is not. Ducking behind the table and reloading your gun, you then lift your head over to view the scene. It’s a mess and you could surely take them down hand-to-hand if you were close enough, but you’re stranded with your batons and seven bullets and a world of automatic machinery pointed at you. 

The storm of bullets pauses and every single person looks up to the sky. You thank the Gods for no rain today because the absence of a tarp allows for the quinjet to settle over the chaos and create a much needed distraction. Sam takes his leave, wings still wrapped around your sister, and you do the same. Running from behind the stage with batons lit up and tazed, you knock out the closest men. They fall in a strangle of electricity, vibrating and convulsing as each shock travels through their veins, ultimately paralyzing them for however long it turns out to be. This gains the attention of almost everyone else but before they can train their weapons back toward you, the back of the quinjet opens. There were a few tables still standing and it seemed the super soldier liked them better than the flat floor. 

The glass shatters from the impact of Bucky’s weight, glasses of champagne and plates with unfinished meals folding onto the shards. He’s dressed in his tactical gear and a dark navy blue jacket without a trusty sleeve. Even if the arm was covered and his hair was long rather than the short length it was now, the men would certainly know who just fell from the sky. Almost immediately, the men scatter. Bucky takes them down one by one, shot after shot, and decides to use his knives for the ones who don’t run. It’s tricky, but he manages to lodge his knives in the base of the spines of those who later changed their minds. 

He catches your eye after you manage to snap the neck of one of the runners. He tilts his head toward the left and watches you run to give Steve the backup he needs. 

     The mansion seems longer, wider, just generally bigger as you rush through the rooms and halls to get to Steve. The stuffed exotic animals follow your gaze and you can’t ignore them for long. There are men following you and men leaving Ernesto. You duck behind the standing polar bear and wait until the footsteps sound farther. Checking the amount of bullets in your gun, just in case, you finally flick the safety off and run.

There’s really only one thing of importance floating around the padded confines of your skull - get Steve out. Another thing you two had in common: both sacrificial idiots. But there wasn’t any way that you would give up the chance to save his life, as he would yours. Didn’t matter if the man you were protecting him from was your father or not. It hadn’t really settled, hadn’t truly digested, and you didn’t think it ever would. Because for years, this man was your father. He was the only man with that title. He wasn’t fatherly, far from it, but he had the label and that’s what you were going to focus on. It made no difference. 

You push the office door open and start stuttering over your words. You want to ask what happened, why there’s so much blood, whose blood it is, but all that comes is a fractured series of what the hell’s? The last syllables push through with necessary force, hardly intelligible, but exhaled at last. 

Ernesto is kneeling with his head hanging low and his hands behind his back, defeated. But it isn’t Steve who’s holding a gun to the back of his head - it’s Seda. 

No, Steve is in the corner clutching at his right hip and gritting his teeth, a wild look on his face that tells you he too was blindsided. He’s hurt. He’s gasping and wincing at the slightest of movements and it ignites the flame you’ll use to burn this world to the ground. It’s splitting your fucking ribs apart. 

“Don’t move!” Seda yells, gun still locked on Ernesto’s head but eyes on you. “Put the gun down.”

“Seda-”

“Put the fucking gun down!” 

Biting your tongue, you flip the gun in your hand so it’s facing downward and move to gently place it on the table. Flicking your eyes to where Steve is, you get your answer as to why he’s been so easily shot. His massive body and shield are draped over Ramirez, who is also disarmed and pissed. 

The self-righteous idiot, you think, he’s always gotta save the little guy.

“We’re gonna talk about this like the gods we are, yeah?”

Your face pulls awkwardly, “Seda, what is happening?”

“Don’t act like you’ve been on this asshole’s side the entire time now,” Seda bites, shoving the head of the gun harshly into the base of Ernesto’s neck. “Go on, tell him.”

“The shipment was intercepted,” you tell him. But you’re not just telling Seda, no, it’s the first Steve is hearing the good news and it allows him to feel a bit of relief. “You’ve both lost.”

“What have you done?” Ernesto screams, cheeks vibrating and face red with anger. He pays no mind to the gun and dares to glare at you. “Tell me!”

The top of your lip greets a run of tears and snot and it isn’t until then that you realize your hands are shaking mid-air and your throat is closing. “My mission.”

Blood or not, this man had the power to tie your thoughts into knots. He only had this power at precious moments and sadly, this was turning out to be one of them.

Seda bites out a laugh - it’s wet and bloody and scares you half to Hell. “I’m not the only one here who wants to kill you. But I’m going to beat her to it. She brought you back, I can’t have that.”

“No!” You curse inwardly at your involuntary hiccup. “We’re not here to kill you!”

“Oh?” Seda raises the gun at you. “What’s the endgame? Que mas necesitas?”

“I don’t need anything. The shipment is intercepted. The estate is on lockdown. Your routes are down. You’re cornered. It’s over.” You let your shoulders drag just a little. “For both of you.”

Surprisingly, Seda doesn’t pull the trigger when Ernesto charges toward you. He doesn’t pull it when Ernesto wraps his hands around your throat, either. 

It’s instinct for you to hold out your hand to stop Steve from doing what he does best. He’s already halfway up and wincing with each push to help you, to rip Ernesto from your capable body, but Seda clicks the gun in his direction. Steve watches the way your arm extends, all five fingers spread in a hopeless plea of ‘don’t you sacrifice yourself for me, don’t you dare’. 

“I have done nothing but help you! I put food on the table and clothes on your worthless back! You spent my money!” Ernesto’s eyes are practically bulging and his thumbs are almost crushing your windpipe, but his placement is off. You can still breathe air, no matter how bruising his grip may be. “This is how you treat me? I should have killed you all those years ago. I should have ripped you limb by limb until your cries bled!”

“Please,” you whimper out, hand still extended toward Steve and the other attempting to push Ernesto by the chest. 

“Please? Please? Te voy a matar aquí, ahora, porque siempre te lo mereciste!”

You let out a strangled scream and are about to fight back. To save yourself and to end Steve’s suffering of watching you suffer, of watching his newfound hope dwindle right before him, when a gunshot erupts. Everyone screams, ears ringing, and there’s blood splattered all over your cheeks and neck, spots and leaks that trail down into the collar of your bodysuit. A heavy weight lands on you and knocks you back into the shelves. You hold Ernesto’s now limp body as best you can, knees locking painfully. There’s a massive hole where the top of his head should be and for the first time in years, you have to look away to keep from throwing up. 

“Dejalo.”

You open and close your mouth but regret it when the taste of copper lands on your tongue. You follow Seda’s order and drop Ernesto to your feet, the thud sending a shiver up every single one of your vertebrae. 

“Por qué hiciste eso?” you ask him, voice small. You choke on another hiccup. 

“Don’t lie to me and say you weren’t going to do it yourself.”

You look over at Steve. His eyes are just as wide as yours and the same red specks, now turning brown, are tainting the flush pink skin of his beautiful neck. 

“No,” you whisper. Steve hears your lost accent returning and it clutches at his heart. 

“It was for the best.” Seda marches over to grab Ramirez by the tie, ripping him up from the ground and pointing the gun to his head. Steve lunges forward and Seda fires another bullet into the same hip. 

“No!” Your throat is raw, scratched, and Steve hits the floor in another heap of muffled groans. Seda returns the aim on Ramirez. 

“Imagine my surprise when I saw this one confronting Ernesto with your Captain. Imagine my fucking surprise when I tried to find all our passports, all our files, and nothing was here! Imagine my surprise when I saw that fucking idiot White being taken away by one of your agents!”

“Seda, please.” You were never much of a negotiator. It was always go in and let the others do the talking. Steve was the talker, he was the negotiator, but he was out of his element. He was always the enemy to Seda. He could never convince him otherwise. 

“You’ve given me new purpose,” Seda grins and Ramirez is rather calm in his arms, like he accepts this. “Look at the crime scene. I’m using the gun Ramirez got from your team. My men are still loyal.”

He pauses and smiles with all teeth, blood in between most of them. “You shot Ernesto. You shot your Captain. You shot Omar.”

The frightened look on your face seems to fuel him even more. He continues, “We’ll never stop hunting you.”

“Try it,” Steve manages, standing up again and vaguely registering the flash of light to his right. His shield is no longer there. “You’ll have to kill me to win. You’ll have to kill all of us to win. Me, Y/N, Omar, Sam.” He breathes in deep but smiles. “The Winter Soldier.”

You swear Seda’s face pales but his grip around Ramirez’s waist only tightens. “Easy.”

“It won’t be,” you finally say, voice no longer wavering. There’s no plausible way Seda could win. But one thing is fact: whether they’re Seda’s or Ernesto’s men, they’ll never stop hunting you now. “You lost, Seda.”

All stills but there are shouts and the ring of gunshots still echoing near the lake. 

“No,” Seda looks to you and to Ernesto’s body. “I didn’t.”

He aims the gun at you and fires. 

Steve’s wail is grease to the fire in your soul and you accept whatever pain might hit. There’s space and then there isn’t. There’s emptiness and then there’s a space being filled by that horrid but lifesaving shield. There’s no one and then there’s Scott, blown up to his regular size with shield in hand and in front of you. The bullet bounces off the shield easily and hits the wall. You’re pushed into motion and in about two seconds, you’ve grabbed your gun again and do not hesitate to fire. The bullet hits Seda in his exposed chest and Ramirez fumbles to get the gun from him. Seda hits the floor and no one else follows. 

The shot hits its target perfectly. Seda doesn’t so much as stutter. 

“God,” Scott grumbles, eyes trying to focus on anything other than the pools of blood. “Was I late?”

You don’t pay any mind to Scott and rush over to Steve, where he’s barely holding himself up with his hip tilted on the edge of the desk.  “Steve? Steve. Did he hit anything important?”

“Besides the fuckin’ meat of my stomach?”

There isn’t a way to see beneath the kevlar, but your fingers have a mind of their own as they try to dig in. “You know what I mean.”

Steve huffs a laugh and gently slaps your fingers away. “No, but motherfuck me Christ, I get shot way too much and it hurts no less.”

“Was the shield not enough? You had to sacrifice your one-hundred year old hips? Are you hit anywhere else?”

“I was caught off guard. What about you? I heard over the mics that you were shot and-”

“Are you two done?” Scott interrupts, clearing his throat awkwardly but half a mind still paying attention to his own mic. 

It’s like you’re snapped back to reality. There’s not only Steve but others, alive and dead, and the smell of copper is all too familiar.  “Sorry, I’m still in shock. I don’t really know how to proceed from here.”

“Y/N-” Scott tries, but you resume.

“We were supposed to arrest them. Just arrest them.”

“Okay, I think we should get you outta here,” Steve acts like he’s the one guiding you, but his weight is falling. You faintly register a phone ringing in the room but Steve, ever so persistent, is still acting like he is holding you up. He lunges forward with a sharp wince, and your hand immediately goes to his hip. 

“Captain.”

Ramirez lowers his phone, call ended, and he wears an expression Steve recognizes immediately. It’s an expression that looks all too similar to Dugan’s when he relayed the news of enemy forces breaching their base. “...How many?”

“They’ve already sent the news to their men in Mexico.”

“Have they shut down the border?”

“It wouldn’t make a difference.”

“They don’t know two of their men are dead, so we can-“

Scott shakes his head, shield still in hand with specks of blood drying on the blue stripe. “They know White was arrested. That’s all they need. They’ll assume the rest, the worst.”

You sigh, “Seda was right.”

Scott literally pouts and he looks like he wants to wrap you in his arms. “No, don’t send yourself there.”

Steve, however, agrees with you. “If they know about White, then they know about Omar. Seda had time to tell his men.”

“Then we make sure he’s arrested and taken to a secure facility. We can keep an eye-” Scott starts, but you shut him down quickly.

“He’s wanted by the US government, not the Avengers. We can only transport him. We can’t guarantee his safety.”

Ramirez gives a small smile. “Mija, voy estar bien. No te preocupes.”

“I don’t know.”

Scott looks between the three of you. He places the shield against the wall near the door. He raises his eyebrows at Steve and looks to his wounds, but Steve waves him off. Reluctantly, Scott nods. “I’m gonna go check on Sam.”

There’s a pool of blood near your boots. You don’t want to know if it’s from the dead or from Steve.  

“Doll, what are you thinking?”

He can’t hurt you anymore. “That I need you to go, too.”

Steve forgets about the pain in his hip and focuses solely on you. “What?”

“Go. If there’s one more thing you can do for me and my reckless family, go check on Sam.”

“You know I can’t leave you here alone with him.”

Your voice is steady and calm and it’s scaring Steve. It’s scaring him. “I promised myself that you wouldn’t be hurt by this mission. I stand by it.”

“I promise, Captain, I have no resentment. Whatever she does, I will follow,” Ramirez speaks, and Steve doesn’t even pay him a glance. 

“I can’t just go.”

“Steve,” you interlock your fingers behind his neck. “Please. Listen to me.” He looks so confused, a million questions flying through his mind and almost escaping those sweet pink lips. Fierce, you whisper for only him. “He can’t hurt me anymore. He can’t hurt me anymore.”

He relishes the feeling of your soft hands behind his neck. They’re bloody, but yours. His neck is bloody, but you don’t seem to care. “Two minutes.”

“Two minutes,” you confirm.

He pulls from your hold and turns to leave. He picks up the shield. Before he leaves, he grips the doorway and looks over his shoulder, eyebrows pinched and jaw tense. “Two minutes, I swear to Almighty Christ, Y/N. I’m coming back for you.”

You smirk, the dim light from the office lamps creating nothing short of a sparkle in your eyes. “I don’t expect anything less, Rogers.”

Steve hesitates for a moment and then he walks away. Once his footsteps are no longer heard, you turn back to Ramirez. There’s a voice in your head telling you this was a bad idea and that you were an idiot to have your back turned on him for so long, but Ramirez is simply leaning on one of the chairs and grimacing at the bloody scene before him. 

“Remember when Ernesto bought you that car when you were thirteen? And then another when your brother crashed it?”

Your nose pinches, “I don’t feel like reminiscing when he’s lying right there.”

“Do you remember what you told me when he bought you that second car? The sports one?”

You sigh. Ramirez was clearly going to continue speaking. “‘No lo quiero. Soy una niña. Get rid of it.’”

“And I did.”

“You did.”

He smiles, and for the first time you notice all the gray hair dusting his head, the most by his temples. There's a limp in his step too but you can’t remember if he had before or after the wedding. “I’ll get rid of this.”

“What?” you blink, unsure if you heard him right.

“I’m already a traitor. If I spin this, you can continue the mission. You can arrest even more of his men. They’ll come after me instead of you.”

It’s what he’s been trained to do. It’s what he’s done since he transported his first shipment. It’s what he’s done time and time again for Ernesto, for Seda, for some of his own careless men. He’s numb to it, just as you were a few days ago, but now you can’t stop thinking about the aftermath. Where would he put their bodies? Would they be buried here or back in Mexico? Would people really care if Ernesto was dead? They didn’t seem to care when he was snapped out of existence. But Ramirez has this sag in his shoulders that tells you he’s already calculating the best way to wrap the bodies and how deep he plans on sending them… or burning them. Burning them was always easier. 

“They’ll come after your family. Your daughters.”

He shakes his head, “I’ve ensured their safety. They’re safe.”

Against your better judgement, you tap your mic discreetly and turn it off. “I can’t let you take one for the team.”

He chuckles, “I’m a part of your team? I’m an Avenger?”

You can’t help but laugh with him. It’s not a light moment, but it’s a moment nonetheless. “Sure, Omar. But we don’t trade lives.”

“I had this coming.”

“No, you didn’t. You don’t.” Straining your ears and shutting your eyes, you mumble a quick prayer in hope that this plan of yours worked. You pass Ramirez your own gun and speak low. “Go.”

He’s shocked and he stutters. “Que haces? Que esta pasando?”

“There’s no one on the east side right now. All the guests were moved to the front. It’s clear. But not for long.” Pushing him to the door, you make sure he’s not leaving any bloody footprints behind. He’s clear. “Go.”

“This will kill us both.”

“But it will give us a head start.”

“No puedo hacer eso! No quiero hacer eso.”

“Omar, they’re not going to protect you once you’re charged. I can’t protect you then. So I need you to go.” You reach into your suit and pluck that random Roman coin you had stolen just a few days earlier. It was a token of good luck but you didn’t need it anymore. You avoid looking at the carving for fear that the likeness to Steve will make you change your mind. You place it in Ramirez’s hand and clench his fist shut.  “If there’s one thing you can do for my stupid, anti-hero mentality, go.”

“Que hago con esto?”

“No me llamas. But let me find this.”

He looks at you with pity. It’s so much pity and understanding for your situation that you have to look away. “I owe you my life.”

Eyesight now on the wall over his shoulder, you offer him a thin smile. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

He stumbles at first, unsure if this is really happening, and finally passes by. “Y/N.” 

You figure it’d be pretty rude not to answer. You turn slowly. He continues, face somber and head shaking with so much pity. “The amount of Hell that’s coming...”

It’s funny, really. You shoot him that famous smile you were known for. It tricks him like it’s supposed to. “I’m already going to Hell for the lives I’ve taken and the crimes I’ve committed. But the journey to my fate has been worth it.”

     The estate is being swept as quickly as possible. There are agents dressing wounds, reading rights, snapping photos, on the phone, etc. It’s organized chaos and there’s so much happening but it’s never impossible to catch Steve’s side profile in a crowd. His nose is pinched up and he’s dealing with his wounds himself. No one is even looking at him. 

Speed walking to him, you hook your arm in his and turn him around. He’s too tall, and your toes strain as you rise on them, but you wrap your arms around his neck anyway. He returns the gesture and squeezes you as hard as you’re squeezing him. After a few seconds, he whispers quietly.

“Where’d Ramirez go?”

If he saw your eyes, he would know you were lying. You keep your arms in place. “He got away.”

He tries to push you away but fails. “Y/N.”

“He got away,” you repeat. Slowly, regretfully, you pull back.  “We should go.”

There’s a horrible crease in between his eyebrows and he knows he’s caught you in a lie, but he also knows that if there was one thing he knew most about you, it was that you were just as stubborn as he was. Quick with wit, always asking to be punched, and stubborn to the point it made strangers worry. So he doesn’t question it, and turns with you in the direction of the jet.  “Maribel has the safehouse set up. Montana.”

“You sure you can make it to the jet? Should I get Bucky to come with us?”

The quinjet is empty except for a few supplies, a medical bag, and Friday. There are only two seats and by the way Steve’s bending over to show his true pain, you’d be flying it. Once you land, you can fish out those bullets.

“No one else.” Steve bites. He can’t risk anyone else - hell, he doesn’t even want to risk you. “I’ll protect you.”

You board the jet and watch as the trees sway in rhythm to the movements of everyone doing their job. It’s dark, and you push the fact that you’re so horribly night blind to the back of your skull, and it’s starting to eat away at you that the mission didn’t really go as planned. No one seems to notice yet that you never brought them the two main players they were hoping for. It only makes you close the quinjet faster. You sit Steve down in one of the seats and kneel before him. “And I you.”

If anyone asked, Steve would lie and say he was tearing up because of the bullets piercing his skin in half.  To protect and be protected. 

“Let’s go.”

~

TAGLIST: @dumb-ass-writer @justab-eautifulmess @supraveng @mycosmicparadise @missnighttigress​

[thesmokingguns]

Carnival First Date with Tommy One Shot

Carnival First Date with Tommy One Shot

Word Count: 2001

Summary: Based on the head cannon from a few weeks ago. Tommy takes you to the carnival on a first date. He’s just a fun time to be around and you get to experience the various sides he has

Note: feedback is always welcome. Messages me any requests you have! Thanks for reading

Tommy was drumming his hands against the steering wheel, shooting nervous looks up at the front door. He was waiting for his date to come out. He had met this chick a couple weeks ago at a bar where she was a waitress. He had been doing every day asking her to go out, only to get that pretty little smile and a laugh as she declined him. Until today at lunch where he had been talking to Nikki about the carnival in town when she had been walking by. He had perked up seeing her and instantly invited her to go out with him expecting the usual no. She had slapped her address down on the table telling him she’d see him at 6pm. Now it was 5:59 and he was wondering if he should go knock on the door.

The front door flew and he saw the mess of brown curls out of your usual ponytail. You were wearing these tiny shorts, Converse and a cropped top to try and stay cool in the summer heat. You were letting the metal door slam shut, heart racing looking around until your eyes found him. Tommy smiled as you did a small wave, jogging over to the car tossing your bag inside the open window before jumping in.

“Hey, thanks for picking me up.” It was weird going out with this guy who had been hitting on you nonstop for weeks.

“Thanks for putting out of my misery and finally going out with me.” As soon as he revved the engine you grabbed hold of the door, your heart sinking as he sped through traffic. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind that you were going to puke tonight.

Tommy was like an over excited chimpanzee when you pulled into the dirt parking lot. His eyes were blazing in excitement as he climbed out the car over to your side and pulling the door open.

“We need to hold hands so we don’t get lost.” He was weaving his fingers into yours, a perfect fit. It was easy with how smooth he was. He was running, skipping and into the gates. Before you could pull your money out he was getting you bracelets for the rides tonight and letting go of your hand to put it on.

“Do you want to get on rides first or get something to eat?” You asked as he walked towards the excitement with your hands together once more.

“We should get the fried Oreos and maybe some cotton candy..Ohhh they have fresh donuts.” you suddenly were worried that maybe he would be the one that puked.

Tommy ate two full orders of fried Oreos, a chocolate milk shake, popcorn, and even decided to share his fried dough with you.

He’s so easy to joke with and you’re laughing so hard your stomach hurts. You’re holding hands as he runs to get you guys in line for the Zipper. You hesitate slightly before stepping into the ride and you feel his hand rubbing over your knuckles.

“We can go on another ride or play games if you’re into that?” He offers, giving the guy about to lock you in a look so you have time to decide what you want to do. Your hearts fluttering as you smile, reaching out to bring the bar down and lock you in. He’s smiling with you as the ride starts up.

It’s infectious. His laughter and joy deep into you and you’re laughing so hard as you weave between people. It feels like you’ve created this little bubble in the two hours you’ve been together and you’re seriously thinking it’s been the two happiest hours of your life. Even though you puked at one point in the bushes he had just gotten you water and asked if you wanted to go home but you didn’t want to go home. You wanted to be where he was, where this happiness was. Your cheeks were sore and you had a stomach ache from the muscles in your body adjusting to the joy Tommy was bringing them.

“We have to ride the Ferris Wheel!” He said, pulling you along and cutting the line that he didn’t realize was there to get you guys on. Your heart was racing as you thought of how high up you’d be but Tommy was already looking out into the distance.

You’re looking over the carnival, the sound of people slowly fading as you get higher up. The wind feels good on your flushed cheeks and you tilt your head up welcoming the cool relief.

“Can I kiss you?” You’re shocked when he asks this and don’t respond because you can’t remember a time when someone asked to kiss you instead of doing it. It’s respectful and kind. You manage a nod and he leans forward, his hand sliding over your face to hold you against him as his lips meet yours. It’s like everything that you’ve been waiting for. Tommy pulls away, this big smile on his face and he’s suddenly standing up rocking the whole Ferris Wheel car you’re riding in.

“Tommy-“

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” He’s screaming as the car is shaking and you question your entire life as it’s flashing before your eyes. He’s screaming and hollering, well the operator of the ride is shouting something that is lost in the wind.

“Tommy.” It comes out as a whisper and he sits down throwing an arm around you. A sheepish smile on his face.

He helps you off the Ferris wheel, spinning you around before dragging you off to the bumper cars. He stops along the way offering to buy you an ice cream.

You can feel him watching you. Your tongue on the soft serve, dragging upward. Your eyes dart to where Tommy is watching, ice cream dripping down his hand.

“Can I have a taste of yours?” He is reaching out holding his ice cream out, watching you. Smiling, you grab his wrist licking the chocolate off his fingers. Smiling as you see his smile spread. You pull away licking your bottom lip.

“Well, you’re definitely proving to be worth the wait.” He teased watching the way you smirked. “Are you having a good time because if you’re not we can leave?” He was so sincere and worried about you enjoying yourself you couldn’t help but smile at him.

“Cmon, drummer boy. I want to ride bumper cars.” You were tugging him along. Tommy couldn’t stop his smile watching as you pulled him along.

You were pretty sure that you had some sort of trauma from Tommy slamming his bumper car into you so hard you were sure you were going to have whiplash. As you turned the car to back up he was slamming into your side, a shit eating grin on his face.

“I like that you’re competitive, Y/N.” He said helping you stand from the bumper cars. You rubbed your neck giving him a look and wanting to kick him in the shin. But he was smiling offering you his hand and you guys were off again.

It was funny watching him get mad at the games. He took another three baseballs shooting a glance over his shoulder at you. He had been dead set on winning a teddy bear and was failing. He had, however, managed to gather an audience of kids. When Tommy noticed all the kids he slammed some money down on the table.

“Maybe they’ll have better luck.” He joked walking away as the kids excitedly rushed forward. His arm was around you as you walked through the carnival grounds that was getting less busy as closing time approached.

“That was really nice of you to do.” You said watching him shrug like he didn’t care. A smile danced over hour face and you rolled your eyes at the way he was trying to play off a cool rockstar, “would you think it was super lame if we did the photo booth?” His eyes lit up dragging you inside the tight space. Tommy was so tall that when he sat you had nowhere to really go other than his lap. His hands rested on your thighs as you fed the machine the dollar bill leaning back against him. You ended up feeding the machine a lot of money until the final picture where Tommy was kissing you.

You shifted on his lap, leaning into his embrace. Kissing Tommy felt good, like this relaxing wave of pleasure through your whole body. He tasted sweet, probably from all the junk food he had been eating. His hand was running up your leg, under the loose crop top, cupping a breast in his palm. The soft moan was drowned out in his kiss and he was ready to take you right there. You could feel him growing under your body and the primary urge for more was over taking her. A knock outside the booth had you both stopping. Instead of an awkwardness you both fell into a fit of giggle spilling out. He grabbed the pictures, stuffing them into his pocket and moving back over to the games.

Tommy stopped seeing the goldfish in the bags. He frowned, counting how many bags there were. Turning to you he gave you a quick smile.

“How much for all the goldfish?” He asked. The man seemed confused by his question and even you were confused. There had to be thirty bags of goldfish. But Tommy was counting out bills and grabbing bags of fish, motioning for you to take some too. And then you were headed for the exit. Stopping only when Tommy wanted to kiss the goats head at the petting zoo.

“What is the plan for all these fish?” You asked as you helped him lay them in the back seat. They did look pretty sad in their plastic little bags.

“We’re going to drive to the ocean and free them.” You wanted to argue you weren’t sure goldfish didn’t come from the ocean but you weren’t exactly sure where goldfish came from.

Tommy kept looking in the rear view mirror checking on the fish like they were kids. It was funny to see him so nervous about the thirty fish in his car.

When you get to the beach you’re unloading fish and Tommy is naming them as he unloads them into the ocean.

“Have a good life Jeffrey. Best wishes Omar. I hope you meet a good guy, Josephina.” You’re crying laughing at how sincere he is. Tommy finally lets out the last fish which he names after himself.

“Do you feel better?” You asked him as you’re both sitting there, the sound of the ocean all around you and just an easy understanding between you two.

“At least they have a chance of life now.” He scoops up your hand and you’re laughing again. Standing up to brush off your thighs. Tommy looks confused by this but stands up.

“I had a great time tonight but I have to work tomorrow and there’s been this cute guy coming in everyday so I need to make sure that I’m ready for him.” He shook his head.

“There better not be another guy.” You laughed shrugging your shoulders and starting to run up the sand with Tommy on your heels chasing you back to the black.

When you pulled up to your house he walked you to your front door. His hands were jammed in the front pockets of his jeans and you could see he was going to ask you something.

“I had a good time tonight.” You agreed with him, “Can I take you out again tomorrow?” You let the smile spread across your lips as you opened the door.

“I work the 11-7 shift tomorrow. Why don’t you ask me then?” You teased heading inside the house. There would be a lot more of that drummer boy in your future.

[deniigi]

Jack and the other folks at the gym; how they met, what their relationships are like, how they are with Matt etc.

For you, anon. I have an old fic that answers all of these questions.

It’s written from the perspective of Jack’s best friend and sparring partner Rudy DeLuca.

Title: Tape

Summary: There were two generations of devils at Fogwell’s Gym

Warnings: child abuse, physical abuse, references to drug use and suicide/suicide attempts, and foster care

-------------

There was a famed baby at the gym at the moment and Rudy was scheming how to get it into his arms when the old man caught him leaning on the front desk and told him that he had two whole grandbabies waitin’ for him at home.

Matty took that moment to fly in from the back room where he’d been harrassing the shit out of the new ‘clerk’ (as Fogwell called him) to ask if Tina had finally popped.

Rudy was caught off guard by the image of Tina beating the shit out of Matt for that and then by the wave of nostalgia that the kid’s sudden enthusiasm bought.

“Well, look who’s here?” he drawled instead, slowly turning around towards the beast. “Where you been, neighbor?”

Matt beamed at him.

He looked good.

Happy.

Far, far too happy.  

Rudy squinted.

Matt waited a beat, then scrambled back into staff entrance and knocked shit over on the desk back there in his haste to go hide behind Fogwell.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

That’s right, troublemaker, go hide behind Grandpa. He’ll protect you, you little shit.

The new gym baby was a full two months old. He was fat and grumpy and his papa’s pride and joy already. Rudy managed to snag an opportunity to get the thing into his arms when Bert and Kenny came in, signaling for the youths that the senior citizen shift had begun.

Fogwell was the most distinguished of the senior citizens, but, of course, he would wait his turn until the rest of them had finished lavishing attention upon his fiftieth great-grandbaby.

Baby’s papa was proud as a peacock.

“His name’s Henry,” he told Rudy, while Henry wrinkled his nose and eyes up at him.

Henry.

Ehn.

Terrible name.

“He looks like a John,” Rudy said.

Papa, who Rudy had forgotten the name of at least six times since he’d joined the gym, laughed.

“I thought about callin’ him Jack,” he said. “But my girl drew the line there.”

Ah.

Right.

This was that kid.

Kenny had gathered everyone into a group huddle in the changing room the other week to explain seriously how they all needed to avoid the fuck out of this guy. He’d said in a whisper that the guy was one of them people into vintage shit.

A hipster, he meant.

A fuckin’ hipster in their midst.

God, there were more and more of them in the gym every day.

Rudy lifted an eyebrow at baby Henry.

He didn’t deserve to be called Henry. He really did look more like a John. But, for the sake of the dead, Rudy decided that he’d squint for as hard and long as it took for him to become a Henry.

 ---

 Fogwell’s had been legendary back in the day for producing pro boxers out of good-for-nothin’, trouble-makin’ guys with no other prospects.

Fogwell was that general from Mulan who made men out of boys (and the occasional girl. And the most recent kid who said that they weren’t a guy or a gal and if anyone wanted to throw down about it, they were posting their number on the cork board by the front desk).

Back in Rudy’s youth, that had been appealing as hell. And so he’d had a swagger on into the place, thinking that maybe he would pop his guns a bit in Fogwell’s direction and get the polishing he needed to make enough money to buy his girl a ring.

On the upside, Fogwell had, in fact, noticed him. But the downside was that Rudy had had no fucking clue what that actually meant, and so three years later, he’d found himself smoking only twice a week instead of every day, drinking goddamn protein shakes, and doing a daily fuckin’ jog like a military brat.

Fogwell had no time for dumb shit. He didn’t care if you wanted to kill yourself slowly with whatever vice you picked from the basket, but if you walked into the ring with his name on your back, then you would disgrace that name on pain of divine retribution.

It was way easier just to get one step ahead of the guy’s nit-picking than to suffer his judgemental silence.

That had been Fogwell back in the day, and that was still Fogwell in the now.

But as with any force of nature, even if the old man had planted his feet and announced his intention to rest there in that place for the next two millenia, the world around him still carried on spinning around.

Fogwell’s wasn’t just a facility for churning out pros these days. It wasn’t just legendary, now.

It was a fuckin’ institution.

God help them.

They were a tourist destination. Ghost hunters, folks on buses, sports fans, teen girls with a mighty need for a vintage-lookin’ selfie. You name it. They pressed their noses up against the yellowed glass to watch the people inside break their bodies down to build them up into something money-making.

It wasn’t an unwarranted curiosity, to be fair.

Fogwell had produced twenty pro boxers in the last several decades who’d really made it. Like, really, really made it.

Bert was one of them—to literally every one of the senior citizens’ surprise.

Bert had been a empty-headed wise-guy with a porn-stache at best way back when. And like, don’t get Rudy wrong, he was still an empty-headed wise-guy. He was just an empty-headed wise guy with a head like a helmet and a whole lot of money now.

Not that you’d have known it from lookin’ at him.

Bless him.

He was paying college tuition for all his kids and he was helping the older ones vet kindergartens with tuition or what the fuck ever, doing all that he could so that those babies didn’t have to live life out of Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese boxes like him.

Bert had made it. That was the dream.

The dream was just that, though. A shot in the dark. A drop in a bucket. Kenny had done alright, just like Rudy had done alright. They’d had their ten minutes of time in the spotlight. Had made enough to get by. Had made enough to be comfortable in Hell’s Kitchen. To retire and become personal trainers or sports commentators or whatever the fuck opportunity jumped up in their faces.

A lot of fellas hadn’t made it, though. And then there were the Almosts.

Jackie had been an Almost, god rest his soul.

This new hipster kid at the gym with his baby had latched onto Jack’s image, found in old magazines and grainy footage, and had decided that that whole vibe fit the image that he wanted to live in.

It made Rudy sick. It made Kenny angry—hence the group huddle.

There were about seven of them left who’d both known Jackie and who still used the gym on the regular. Eight if you included Fogwell.

Nine if you included Matty.

Jesus fuckin’ help them.

This dumbass hipster kid didn’t even know who Matty was. Most of the newcomers didn’t. He was just some bright, perky blind guy to them. He was Center-Left-Second-Back bag. That was his bag.

And he was good.

He was a curiosity to the newcomers and the people pressed against glass—one of a handful of middle-weights in a sea of heavyweights. He didn’t look like everyone else. He wasn’t packing muscle like everyone else. He was lithe and coiled and looked, honestly, a little out of place to folks who didn’t know the gym as Home #2.

He was interesting to the newcomers mostly because he was 100% Fogwell’s favorite. Fogwell doted on him by ribbing him and bullying him viciously, by bumping into him and throwing him off mark left and right, and all the while, Matty just beamed.  

The newbies thought he got preferential treatment because he was blind. But that wasn’t it. Matty got treated that way because that was how his grandpa told him he loved him.

 ---

 Before Jake and Carlos and Omar and Matty, Jack had been Fogwell’s favorite up-and-coming rookie.

It had been no secret. Well. To most people.

Jack had been horrified when he’d found out.

No one wanted to be Fogwell’s favorite. That’s how you went pro whether you liked it or fucking not.

Jack had pleaded with Kenny for hours to take his place, but there was nothing that could be done. Jackie was the youngest and Jackie had come from a shit home life and Jackie would do anything and everything Fogwell told him to do because he was just that kind of sweet and respectful.

Fogwell could smell Jack’s lack of a father-figure on him like Chanelle No. 5.

He could smell it miles away.

Jack had actually been at the gym before Rudy had joined up. He’d been around since he was about seventeen. He’d come in on the heels of his big brother who wanted to go pro.

It quickly became apparent to Fogwell that Tom Murdock didn’t have what it took to be a boxer. He was just a bully. But that little brother of his, Tom’s punching bag, now he had some talent. He had the diligence and respect that the game, in Fogwell’s opinion, was severely lacking.

So Fogwell did what he did best and drove a wedge slowly between Tom and baby Jackie, separating the two of them so that he could get his mitts on Jackie and do something with him before Tom and his junkie sister took Jackie down with them.

Rudy had met Jack soon after Jack’s eldest brother had been arrested for murdering his wife and stepdaughter.

The kid was a wreck. He’d just turned 18.

He didn’t talk. He just fought and fought and fought until he cried and cried and cried. All on his own, from 5pm to 1am, at Center-Left-Second-Back.

Fogwell let him.

Fogwell came over to put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed when he finally dropped from exhaustion.

It was hard to watch.

The older guard at the time had bared their teeth and clenched their jaws as Jackie had pummeled his heart out against that bag.

No one could help him.

Everyone but Rudy, at that time, had seen the man he’d walked into the gym with. They’d seen this coming a mile away. And over a few days of that, it become clear to Rudy that Jack didn’t have a home to go back to that didn’t scream at him from morning until night. At that time, the gym for him was Home #1.

 ---

 It took about a year, but Rudy eventually got to know this weeping, heartbroken boy from the worst side of the Kitchen.

Rudy learned from the others about the Murdocks.

They were sinners and drunkards and addicts, word had it. The police were always in and out of their rooms, taking one of the five kids or one of the parents to jail for some damn reason or another. Neighbors wasted their hard-earned money on phone calls to the police for domestic disputes and violence and so on and so on. Everyone on the streets said to be careful of the Murdocks, especially them boys.

They got the devil in ‘em.

But not Jackie, Rudy learned.

He was shy, bless him. He wasn’t suited to those others’ kind of life.

Rudy actually had felt, for the second time in his life, strong brotherly feelings around this kid. He and his own sister didn’t get on until someone threatened the other. Then it was no-holds-barred, bear-like feelings. Just them against the world.

But Jack was different. He had puppy eyes with a constant black one and perpetually chapped lips. It had never occurred to him that he could spend a buck buying chapstick. It had never occurred to him that he could have friends that he didn’t have to smile at until his face hurt.

He didn’t really get what it meant to have relationships with other people and for the first six months of their acquaintance, Jack refused to meet Rudy’s eye, much less say more than five words to him.

He was more than respectful.

He was skittish.

The other guys, who were happy to haze Rudy, warned him that he if so much as looked at that kid, Fogwell would break his bones and his career would be over before it even started.

It had definitely turned into a kind of spite thing.

Rudy had absolutely been that kind of shithead back then.

He’d started by offering to hold Jack’s bag while he worked out his aggression. That had been a mistake.

He’d caught Fogwell snickering at him about ten minutes into it, after trying and failing that whole time to find a way to plant his feet that would let him actually hold onto the bag.

Jack had noticed.

Jack had gotten flustered and freaked out bad enough that Rudy had been forced to leave him be or else he’d hyperventilate or go hide in the backroom in a cupboard or something in self-flagellation.

It took some practice and some muscle, but they got there in the end.

Jack was a great sparring partner because he did not fucking go down. It was like trying to fight a pine tree sometimes. He would, could, and did take hit after hit without batting an eye.

And when it was his turn for offense?

Rudy was well aware that he’d signed up to be a human punching bag, but this? This was a lot.

Fogwell critiqued the fuck out of Jack’s everything.

His form.

His posture.

His aim.

His drive.

His commitment.

His tape.

His fucking hair.

Jack thought he was like that with everyone.

Rudy loved that kid like a brother, but he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. Not by far.

That had become more clear when Kenny joined their mottley crew and, aggravatingly sharp, had taken to teasing Jack. That was more frustrating for Kenny than anyone else because Jackie didn’t get a single joke or jibe.

No, Jack didn’t know Seinfield. Or Friends. Or Charlie’s Angels. No, he didn’t know anything about cars. No, he didn’t know about physics or chemistry or math. What the fuck was English lit? Wait, what’s the difference between books and literature?

God.

Bless.

That.

Kid.

He wasn’t unintelligent, he just wasn’t academic.

He was sweet about it, though. The youngest of five, he had no choice but to be sweet because all his siblings called him hopeless and useless and stupid, so he had to be something and so pretty it was.

Rudy had never met someone who performed so well under pressure and around two years into their friendship and, suddenly privy to the full extent of Jack’s honestly horrific, borderline surreal upbringing, he finally got it.

But then along came Grace.

The Lord’s agent herself.

Jack was a good Catholic boy who saw a nun and dropped his eyes, but for some reason, this novice caught his gaze and he was gone.

He got dopey and dreamy the night after she and some friends had snuck out in their novice habits to see a load of guys in desperate need of the Lord hitting on each other.

It was tooth-decaying the way Jack swooned for that girl.

Her name was Margaret, she told him saucily at the church one street over from the one he’d grown up attending, but he could call her ‘Grace.’

Jack banged his melon on a locker a week later at the gym and the jolt make him realize that he was in love with her.

He cracked his head a second time with everyone watching him in a mix of pity, exhaustion, and indulgence and then scurried off to the bathroom to hyperventilate over a urinal.

“Someone go keep Baby M from drowning in a sink,” Horace Whalin, a professional beast at the start of his career, had sighed.

Everyone had looked right at Rudy.

 ---

 Grace was the worst thing that could ever have happened to Jack.

Everyone at the gym knew it. Fogwell hated that girl with a cold passion.

She made Jack stupider than usual. Bolder than ever.

She made him think and made him question things and like, that was probably a good thing in terms of Jack’s life experience and mental health, but in terms of boxing?

Not good.

Fogwell was openly dreaming up schemes to break them up the day Jack came tearing into the gym and announced that he was getting married.

It took everything in Rudy not to start cackling right then and there. The entire gym’s necklines bulged with the effort not to fucking laugh. Fogwell went silent and blank.

He’d waved Jack in close and and when he came—because he would always come to Fogwell, no matter what—the old man set a hand on Jack’s shoulder and told him that if he brought that woman into the gym he’d kill him.

Jack stared up at him and said that they were getting married in a church, Coach. Why would he bring her to the gym?

At that point, it would have taken a saint not to laugh and the gym was full of only sinners.

 ---

 Grace was the worst thing that had ever happened to Jack, but Matty was by far, the best thing.

Fogwell, after being vindicated upon Jack and Grace’s abrupt and tragic separation, found that Matt could be used as a motivator for his up-and-comer.

Matty, of course, played the part beautifully.

He was unfairly cute with those delicate, whispy red locks and them big hazel eyes. He was bubbly and chatty. An unrelenting troublemaker. Just a barrel of laughs.

Fogwell took to letting Jack put Matty’s carrier on a bench next to the ring or on one of the metal bleachers around the mats in the weights and sparring room. He found that if Matty started whining or crying, that Jack got twice as motivated to finish whatever task was at hand with maximum efficiency.

Matt was the best thing to ever happen to Jack’s boxing career, truly.

He also immediately became the gym’s darling because all the veterans there at that point were dads. Rudy himself had had his first girl Tina the year before, but unlike Jack, the rest of them had childcare arrangements and the money to maintain them.

 ---

 It was just natural for people to gravitate towards the baby. Out of paternal instincts, yeah, but also because Matty was a source of constant entertainment.

He called everyone uncle until he was seven and he needed to be negotiated with to leave Fogwell be until he was nine. Fogwell didn’t mind him. Fogwell had unwittingly adopted him.

Matty didn’t meet his own uncles and grandpa. Jack couldn’t bear that. He took Matty to meet Bill, Jack’s eldest brother—the one who’d killed his wife—in jail and afterwards had been heart-broken and anxious for days.

Grace did not approve, it turned out.

Grace, who went by Maggie at that point, and who had given up her rights to be the mother of Jack’s child, remained one of Jack’s closest and dearest friends.

They still loved each other, and in Fogwell’s very correct opinion, that was nothing but trouble. He snatched Matty at every opportunity and informed him softly but firmly that he was not going to fall in love with a nun when he was big or there would be consequences.

Matt seemed to have come to understand this rule over time, but he never seemed to put together pieces as to why Fogwell was so insistent about it.

 ---

 When Jack turned up murdered, everyone at the gym decided that it was their fault.

It was surreal.

Unbelieveable.

He’d been right there, just fine, laughing and smiling the day before. Rudy had held his bag and Jack had told him to tell the girls and Mel that he missed them.

And, in a moment of crushing realization back then, Rudy had understood the implications of those words and then remembered how good Jack had always been about smiling at people.

He knew how to make himself seem okay and unimportant. He knew how to fade into the background.

Fogwell took it hard.

He blamed himself for not recognizing how bad things had gotten at home for Jack and Matty. He blamed himself for not booking him for more jobs, for pushing him harder and harder on his form lately.

Matty was taken away by social services and his absence from the table at the gym the next day finally brought out the tears that Rudy hadn’t been able to let fall.

He tried.

He tried, he did.

Over the years, Matty had become a brother to Tina, Angie, and Penelope. He fit right in that two-year gap between Tina and Angie. Rudy had him over when Jack worked and Jack had the girls when Mel needed a break from the screaming and crying. And really, by then, everyone’s kids were everyone’s at the gym.

It wasn’t a matter of who belonged to who, it was more of a matter of when someone belonged to someone.

Rudy tried to get custody or at least foster rights. Mel gave herself an ulcer over it, trying to think of how to arrange things to make their home safe for Matt. Trying to think of how to make space for him. He could share a room with Tina. They were still young. They probably wouldn’t mind after some growing pains. But social services said that that wasn’t possible. Matt was too high-risk for them. They didn’t have enough experience with ‘his type of child.’

Which was bullshit.

Matt wasn’t high-risk, Matty was traumatized and scared and with people he didn’t know, who didn’t know him.

That was what made him high-risk.

He knew Rudy and Mel’s house. He knew their girls. He knew their neighborhood.

Still, nothing.

Fogwell himself tried. Shocked the shit out of everyone at the gym, but Social services sadly shook their heads.

By then, Matt had been placed out already.

 ---

 Matt disappeared for five years. Just vanished completely. There was no sight of him until one day, Tina came home and said that ‘oh yeah, I saw Matty today’ while playing with her food at the dinner table.

Rudy and Mel had set down their forks.

Tina sighed and said that he was taller now, but he didn’t look good.

He looked sick, she said. With dark rings around his eyes and broken sunglasses. He’d been sleeping, leaning against the side of some stairs out in his school uniform at the Catholic highschool a few blocks away.

She’d poked at her chicken and then set down her fork and excused herself.

Rudy stroked her hair that night as she cried into her pillow for her lost brother.

 ---

 Matt was, by fifteen, a troubled kid.

Rudy heard shouting one day from Clinton Church and stepped out to see what was happening. He was shocked to see that familiar ginger mop struggling in the arms of two cops, swearing that if these people took him back to wherever he’d come from, that he’d kill himself. He’d do it. Don’t try him.

The priest was called.

Matt was forced down to the ground and handcuffed, still fighting.

It was--it was a whole lot to see. Kenny swore softly behind him and Bert left them to go back inside. He went to the bathroom and didn’t join them out on the mats for a while.

 ---

 Fogwell decided around then that enough was enough.

He went to the church and asked if he could borrow Matt for a while. He needed some help getting his accounts together and he knew Matt was a bright kid. Giving him a little work experience in a familiar and disciplined setting would be good for him.

But Matt wasn’t there.

 ---

 The hospital didn’t allow anyone to visit Matt. He apparently hadn’t earned the privilege of visitors from anyone who wasn’t on his care team.

Rudy felt numb at the front desk.

Jack’s boy had tried to kill himself. He’d warned them all that he would do it.

He’d apparently screamed himself hoarse that he wanted to be with his dad in the ground.

He was still screaming.

This wasn’t the first time he’d done any of this, Rudy came to learn through a few whispered conversations with some nuns from St. Agnes.

Grace had found him after the three attempts the nuns knew of. This last one was just bad enough that she couldn’t bring him back from the edge.

Grace’s eldest younger sister had committed suicide. Grace had found her and then left home immediately become a novice. To find her own son as she’d once found her sister was cosmic and divine cruelty—enough that even Fogwell shook his head and said it just wasn’t right.

 ---

 The first time Rudy saw Matty after the whole situation, he looked exactly as Tina said he did. Tired. With dark circles. Thin. His clothes threatened to fall off of him. They were threadbare and had holes in them here and there.

Matty didn’t talk.

He moved his head around a lot and jerked when anyone spoke to him or brushed against him, and he scrambled back and tripped sometimes if he was touched directly.

It was like looking at a smaller, thinner version of Jack all those years ago—this time with tightly bound wrists and a hospital bracelet that looked like it had been stretched and torn and chewed on.

Fogwell asked Matt if he thought he could do something with the accounts.

Matt said nothing.

Fogwell gave him a box of receipts and bits and bobs of payment cards and IOUs and Matt had frowned and put his hand into the box to touch its feathery contents. He’d lifted his face up in Fogwell’s direction and sneered.

“You can’t seriously live like this,” he’d said in a voice that almost brought tears to Rudy’s eyes. He’d heard Kenny clear his throat behind him.

 ---

 Matty was the smartest person Rudy had ever met.

He set Fogwell’s accounts into order in an afternoon and then he fucked off for a few days, only to come back and digitize the whole thing after making the Big Man himself sit with him and read everything out individually to him as punishment for his nasty, twentieth-century ways.

Matt was disgusted with Grandpa’s living conditions.

He banged into every object in the backroom and swore like a sailor, loud enough that the folks hitting shit in the front room could hear him.

It was hard not to laugh.

“WHY?” Matt finally raged at Grandpa. “WHY. WHY. WHY?”

Grandpa shrugged.

Matt flailed at him in agitation at the lack of verbal answer and told him to get into the fartherest corner of the room and to get a pen, they were going to organize.

Matt was the reason that Fogwell’s Gym had survived for long enough to become a tourist trap.

Matt put every document in that place in order, ready for an audit. He made computer systems for payments and receipts and direct debits. He singlehandedly bullied Fogwell into the new century and made him get a card machine.

He bitched and moaned and belly-ached until Fogwell had interviewed a handful of tax people with actual, non-criminal reputations and picked one and once he was done with all that, Matt harrassed him to invest in a deep clean for the place and to make it accessible by ADA guidelines—the whole nine yards.

Matt, at fifteen, breathed new life into Fogwell’s Gym and it was kind of amazing how the place went from barely hanging on to a decent business once more.

 ---

 After that, Matt seemed to be doing a lot better.

He didn’t have any more foster home placements. He didn’t try to hurt himself again. He decided, instead, that he was going to graduate highschool. He’d failed a fuckload of classes, though. Rudy found him despairing in the backroom over these and settled in across from him and asked to see the reports.

They weren’t good.

Matty’s teachers wrote constantly that Matt was extremely bright, but failed to participate in class or turn pretty much anything in for a grade. He slept in class. He seemed dazed. He didn’t ask for help or give any indication that he needed it.

His assigned para said that she found him challenging to work with. He was resistant to questions and seemed to be angry or, at best, uninterested in her speaking to him.

He was way behind.

Rudy had tapped the reports against the table back there and had taken a deep breath.

“It’s okay,” he told Matt. “We’ve got two years. We can make this work.”

And Matty’s head had jerked up from the table.

“We?” he’d asked in a small voice.

 ---

 Matt really, really struggled with high school. Not because he wasn’t smart enough, but because his experience was so wildly different from other kids. He didn’t go home like they did. He went to St. Agnes’s. He didn’t play video games, he read books. He didn’t smoke cigarettes or joints. He didn’t drink. He was under constant surveillance.

He was bullied. Relentlessly.

Fogwell was quietly furious when Matt came in a few times a week to type away at the desk, inputting receipts for the new secretary to deal with later. Matt was always hurt. Always fighting.

He got his classwork done out of spite, seemingly, but then went home to the orphanage and got harrassed the whole way.

He fought his peers like the devil himself.

It was…

There was…

Something not quite right with him.

 ---

 Bert pointed out when Matt was seventeen that he didn’t always use his stick like other blind folks. He forgot it sometimes and wandered around the gym like anyone else.

He didn’t trip over anything or keep fingers touching the wall like he usually did in other places.

They all chocked it up to him having grown up in the place.

Matt asked Fogwell to let him train.

Center-left-second-back.

That was Jack’s bag.

That was his son’s bag.

The veteran boxers all cycled through teaching Matt how to box. He knew—they all knew Matt already knew how, but there was always shit to learn.

Except that sometimes there wasn’t?

Matt seemed to already know everything that they taught him, including the nit-picky, little things. He listened to their descriptions, let them manipulate his hands and arms and hips, and then did what they asked immediately and with perfect form.

It was eerie.

It just wasn’t right. There was just something about it that wasn’t right. Rudy couldn’t put his finger on it.

 ---

 Matt graduated highschool the year after Tina and it was only when Rudy saw the draft of the commencement program slip out of his bag on one of the benches that Rudy realized that Matty hadn’t mentioned it to anyone.

He picked up the program while Matt was attacking his bag and considered it, then did what was done in the gym and handed the program off to Fogwell who, in a booming voice, told Baby M to get the fuck over there, front and center.

Matt clung to his bag in terror at the sound. He, unlike his daddy, had the good sense to be reluctant to follow Fogwell’s orders. Eventually, with his tail between his legs, he skulked over and had his nose shoved in the program.

He pawed at it when Fogwell made him acknowledge it and mumbled something about not going.

Which was absurd.

“It’s not a big deal,” Matt said. “I’m not valedictorian or anything. It’s just highschool. And no one’s got time to go anyways, so what’s the point if it’s just me?”

God, this kid.

 ---

 Matt’s graduation was very Catholic. Far more Catholic than Tina’s had been, but when Rudy looked over his shoulder, he was pretty sure that even a school this Catholic hadn’t been prepared for the influx of nuns hurrying down from Clinton’s church, all bustling and excited about young Matthew actually getting his diploma.

Between those four (aw, Grace. Look at you trying to play it smooth) and the seven boxing families who’d shown up, Matt was embarrassed to the point of tears. He’d hidden behind his mortarboard for the thirty minutes it took for people started calling folks up on stage.

He didn’t want to come out to take any pictures afterwards, but Tina wasn’t letting that happen. Her sisters leapt on board with the program and Rudy had managed at least one picture of the four of them smiling. Even better, he had one of Matt trying desperately to keep a smile while Fogwell stood stiffly next to him in stone-faced approval.

 ---

 Matty was the first in the gym’s kid’s generation to graduate college, and then he was the only one to go on to law school.

It was only at that big graduation that Rudy finally saw Matt beaming like a loon—like he had up at Jack as a baby, but this time at the long-haired, chubby guy next to him.

This, legend had it, was the Roommate.

The one Matt refused to speak about to anyone at the gym.

Period.

At all.

There was no discussion.

That is, until he was forced by Fogwell standing menacingly over him in silent demand for a hug, to introduce them all to Foggy.

Foggy Nelson.

And then, just like that. It was exactly Jack all over again.

Veins bulging as everyone tried desperately not to laugh at Fogwell’s face at the realization that Matty had gone out and found a better, nicer Fog-person to be friends with.

 ---

 Foggy Nelson—Edward Nelson from the hardware store’s son—was not fucking good enough for Matty, Fogwell decided. He’d begun a stoic campaign to introduce Matt to every available boxer’s son and daughter in the city in the hopes that a little nudge would get Matty away from all them conniving lawyer-folk. That was all fine and well with Matt because Matt, they’d all learned after a few years in his company again, was a horrendous flirt.

God, this boy.

Incorrigible.

He flirted with Tina and Angie and Penelope and got slapped every time.

He flirted with Bert’s daughter Becka.

He flirted with Becka’s husband.

He flirted with Kenny’s son’s best friend at the son’s wedding.

He flirted with the new secretary’s sister-in-law.

He was completely unstoppable.

Kenny approved.

But Kenny also asked Matt pointedly if he and his roommate had worked things out yet and that sent Matt scowling and shuffling off to go hide behind Fogwell, wherever he was, for emotional support.

 ---

 Matt was Daredevil.

He had to be.

Everyone in the gym suspected this.

He was too good at fighting. To flexible. Too sturdy and relentless and angry to be anyone else. They all recogized his shoulders in those little blips of videos people posted online. They recognized how close he got to people from the way he get up in his bag’s imagined face.

He had some kind of superpower—some kind of 360 degree awareness was the best Rudy could describe it.

He felt like he remembered Jack freaking out about something like this a million years ago. Nattering on about super-senses in the aftermath of the accident.

Fogwell was the one who’d brought it up again after he’d noticed that Matt liked to come in at night and spar on his own.

One time, just once, he’d left one of the security cameras on, concerned that Matty might get mugged in the night on his own there.

But Matty wasn’t getting mugged anytime soon.

No, for real.

Matt was…maybe something a little beyond them.

The video Fogwell had shown the older guys before deleting it and telling everyone to mind their own fucking business had shown Matt throwing his weight at the bag—throwing legs and fists—in complicated, almost choreographed movements that spoke of lethal intent.

He moved like a weasel. Like a predator.

Like a devil.

God knew where he’d learned those moves. The boy had lived a lot of life in those few years he’d fallen off of the gym’s radar. There was no telling who he’d met or how he’d learned to be as he was, but things made a lot more sense after that.

Jackie had had a devil in him. It only made sense that his dramatic-ass kid had one, too.

Matty had made something more of himself than his daddy. In so many other things, but in this, too.

Fogwell’s Gym was protected. It was home to a devil in disguise.

 ---

 The hipster Jack-fan appeared with baby Henry a few more times before Bert asked him if he knew that his hero’s kid, who’d lived the life baby Henry was currently living, was actually a regular at the gym.

Hipster-kid gaped and fell over himself trying to ask Bert if he could meet the guy.

Bert smirked. And then waved across the place over to where Matt had just slithered in with absurd orange sneakers that he was very proud of. He was clearly on the hunt to go show Fogwell so that he could be disgusted.

He froze when Bert called his name.

The hipster’s jaw dropped.

“Matty, come tell this man about your daddy,” Bert said.

Matt stared.

Then made a sad, aborted gesture with his free hand that said that he had very important annoyances to make of himself, so could this maybe wait?

“You’re—you’re--?” the hipster stammered.

“Matt Murdock,” Matt said hurriedly. “Great to meet you? You’re the one with the kid, right? Congrats. Have either of you seen Fogwell?”

The hipster blinked.

“Uh?” he said. “Not today?”

Matt scowled.

“He’s not escaping these,” he said, tapping his way angrily back to the door. “I got him a matching set. No one is escaping them.”

The gym at large watched him stalk back out the door, tapping away furiously, no doubt on the way down the block to Fogwell’s house.

“That’s Matt Murdock?” the hipster asked.

“Man, I thought he’d be taller,” another newbie said.

“Kid, that is the least of your problems when it comes to Matt Murdock,” Bert laughed. “Now, all of you, back to work. This ain’t a dog and pony show. Go on.”

 ---

[luverofralts]

Post Arkhelios

This was all too much for Wanda to process. She had to call Melvin! Finally some justice could be found for at least one Arkhelios murder. Kamalani had shot Roman. If the bullets matched, it was reasonable to assume that she had killed Abraham as well. Her motive was still unclear, but Wanda had practically overheard a confession, and one that incriminated her mother in law as well.

Wanda grabbed the phone in the room she was hiding in and dialed her brother's number. Cell phones weren't allowed in the hospital for safety reasons, so she would have to whisper on the phone rather than text.

Melvin answered his phone, and Wanda hoped the landline phone would be quiet enough not to carry out into the hall.

"Melvin, you need to get to Oriana's immediately," she whispered. "Abe is the next victim, you need to get him to somewhere safe right now."

Wanda was immediately cut off by the sound of screaming. She slammed the phone down and took off towards Roman's room, followed by several nurses, and the no longer sleeping male Bellamys.

What Wanda saw broke her heart. Roman was awake in bed, trying desperately to inch further and further away from Malika, who was trying in vain to comfort him.

"Roman, it's me, Grandma." Malika said sweetly. "It's okay now, I found you. You're in the hospital."

Roman's eyes were wide and full of fear. He looked exhausted from the combination of pain and all the pain killers he'd been given. He tried to speak but the words slurred together making them unintelligible.

“Roman, you probably don’t remember things clearly right now. That’s sometimes how trauma works. Your brain is trying to protect itself, but you’re safe here.”

Kamalani stroked Roman’s hair in a loving, motherly way, and Roman froze in place at her touch, terrified to move. Wanda pushed the two women aside, earning her death glares from both.

“We’re all here to support you,” she stated firmly. “My brother will be here soon, and we’ll get a statement from you when you’re ready, so we can find who did this to you.”

Kamalani’s face revealed nothing at this, while Malika was looking paler than usual. Wanda took Roman’s hand in hers and gave it a comforting squeeze.

“We’ll all stay here with you until Melvin arrives. We won’t let anyone hurt you, you’re safe.”

True to her word, Wanda and Malika stayed at Roman’s side. The nurses had come in to request that some people leave to not overcrowd Roman, so Kamalani, Omar and Salem had gone home to get some sleep and eat.

Malika hadn’t acknowledged that Wanda was in the room with her. She flipped through an old magazine, while Wanda watched Roman sleep. He had succumbed to unconsciousness long before Kamalani and the others left, but he had moments when he would briefly wake, look around in terror, and tremble before losing consciousness again. Wanda hoped that her presence was comforting to him, knowing that he wasn’t alone with the grandmother who was trying to gaslight him into forgetting her part in his shooting.

An hour after Wanda called Melvin, he showed up to the hospital, looking very much like the determined detective he always wanted to be.

“Everyone vacate this room immediately!” he announced, waving the women out with his hands. “This is police business now, and I need the room to collect evidence.”

The last thing Wanda wanted was to go home and try to fit in with the Bellamys and their (mostly) fake grief. While Melvin was with Roman, she decided to visit Elaine and Abe to follow up.

Elaine looked exhausted. Abe sat on the couch in the living room, propped up with pillows, and surrounded by empty glasses of what looked to be water still left on the bottom of the cup. Everyone looked at Wanda with clear apprehension. Once she explained that she was there to see how she could safeguard Abe, and not to spy for the Bellamys, the Helios family seemed to relax. Wanda explained everything from the weird text message that had lured Roman away, to overhearing the plot to kill Abe. If the Helios’ had looked tired and stressed before, this news had multiplied that.

“Can I see him?” Abe asked cautiously. “If you’re there to prevent anything from happening, I’d be safe to see him right?”

It couldn’t hurt. As long as the Bellamys are at home. Otherwise, this is their exact plan to get to Abe.

“I think so,” she answered. “But not for too long. Melvin should be able to keep them busy for a while.”

Wanda grabbed Abe’s hand and teleported them from the house to the hospital. She was accomplished enough to teleport two sims, even one who was pregnant. Abe didn’t know how Ulyssa or Roman handled teleportation. It made him more nauseous than the morning sickness. Wanda had filled her brother in on Abe’s short visit, and sent him on his way to interview the Bellamy family to get statements. He would take as long as he possibly could.

Wanda looked at Abe, who stood spellbound staring at Roman. It had to be upsetting to see Roman like that. She would be devastated if it were Hunter.

“He’s been sleeping a lot, but I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you when he wakes up,” Wanda explained. Abe looked nervously at his unconscious boyfriend, taking in the evidence remaining of tubes and wires that had been used to keep him alive. He was still so pale, but Abe could see Roman’s chest rising and falling steadily. He really was alive.

Abe sat next to the bed, and reached for Roman’s hand. Roman began to stir.

“Roman? It’s me, Abe.” He rubbed his hand gently, and Roman’s eyes began to open.

“Abe?”

Wanda smiled and went to leave the room.

“I’ll give you some privacy to catch up,” she said, pulling the door closed behind her. “I’ll be in the hall the entire time, so don’t worry.”

As soon as the door closed, Roman weakly pulled Abe onto the bed with him, hugging him as tightly as he could, and then wincing when he did. There was an awkward shuffle of arms and legs, and bending to avoid bruises but eventually Roman was holding Abe in his arms and all was right with the world once more.

“You’re here,” Roman murmured, running his hands all over Abe to confirm it. “I thought you were dying. I thought....” He trailed off so softly, Abe wondered if he’d gone back to sleep. He squeezed Roman’s arm reassuringly.

“I’m here,” he replied. “I’m not going anywhere ever again. Every time I let you out of my sight you end up doing something stupid or reckless. What kind of example are you going to set for our kid if you’re always in some kind of trouble?”

Roman started trembling at this, for reasons Abe didn’t understand.

“I was just teasing you,” he said. “It’s okay. I know you thought I’d lost the baby, Wanda told me everything. Everything is completely fine.”

Roman shook his head groggily. This was important to say, but the painkillers kept dragging him back to sleep.

“They...they want...Helios...shouldn’t...they want....”

Abe brushed the loose hair from out of Roman’s eyes and watched him struggle to get out the words he was desperately trying to say.

“It’s okay,” he promised. “You can tell me later, I’m not going anywhere.”

He shifted to a sitting position and leaned Roman’s unconscious body against him for support. Abe could feel the rising and falling of Roman’s chest against his shoulder. He closed his eyes knowing that Wanda was safely near by to protect them, and for the first time in days, began to relax.  

[harritudur]

rpf  •  amita suman/freddy carter  •  1220 words  •   rating g

notes: the following words are for fun and these are all lies. i own nothing and no one. it’s a real person fic, and if it is not your cup of tea, that’s fine! FEEL FREE TO IGNORE ME OR TO BLOCK ME —and i’m not english sepaker, sorry for any typo/misspelling ♡

•

(february 2020)

This weekend, they had the two days off.

No filming, no rehearsals, no production meeting, nothing, just holed up in their hotel in Budapest, cable box, TV, and a ton of junk food. Half of the cast decided to go to some jazz Club in the Hungarian capital for this Sunday night, the other half staying at the hotel to have their 8 hours of rest, and this was when Freddy suggested watching Lawrence of Arabia.

Jessie gives up after one hour and goes to her room. Sujaya does the same ten minutes after. Now, in front of the screen, Amita and Freddy are the only remaining awakened souls: Amita, for she shamefully admitted to have never watched the so-called masterpiece, and Freddy, for the simple fact this is one of his favourite movies ever.

“You know what?,” Amita says without taking her eyes off Omar Shariff, “after two hours, I notice I didn’t hear the voice of one single woman in this movie.”

Freddy snorts because she’s right. “Yeah, yeah, I mean the homoerotic subtext is clear.”

She laughs and he enjoys being the reason of it.

The rest of the watching goes on in silence. They are both sitting on a couch, in simple clothes, t-shirts and sweatpants, barefoot, the remote and a six pack of beers with a torn open box of choco Jacob’s biscuits between them. And it’s comfortable and nice, despite Amita making fun every scene of the bad makeup or bad stunts, and Freddy almost throws a pillow at her for her lack of respect for the great Peter O’Toole —or despite the time Freddy burps (oddly elegantly) as he lifts the beer bottle to his lips and takes a swig with a wink, and Amita grunts as typing something on her phone.

“Okay, the music is nice but, can you change the channel now?”

“No. I like this movie.”

“It’s a stupid movie, Freddy.”

The actor rolls his eyes. “No it’s not. So now, please, can you be quiet? Here comes my favourite moment.”

He takes another swig of his second beer before putting the bottle down, and at the exact same moment, Amita reaches over the remote… yet, she doesn’t have her character’s celerity. Freddy bats her hand away quickly, but she ignores the move as fast and decides to grab the remote again with her two hands this time. In vain.

“Stop it!” Freddy shouts with an unconvinced tone of complaint in his voice.

The remote now in his right hand out of reach, the actor tries to block all Amita’s attacks with his left one, and after ten seconds of uneven combat, she almost succeeds to win —but Freddy’s hand connects through her t-shirt with her ribs, fingertips sliding down the length of her side in an attempt of escape, a light and quick touch, and—

“Did you just giggle?”

She blinks, dead serious. “No.”

Slowly, Freddy’s mouth twitches like he’s going to laugh, or mock, or something wicked —and in the span of a second, he starts to grin and pushes Amita back on the couch.

“ ‘the fuck, Freddy!” she smacks him on the shoulder and instead of it turning into an all out slapping fight, Freddy’s fingers begin wiggling. Before they know it, they’re having a damn tickling fight of all things.

He is taller and stronger, and Amita is quickly losing herself in her cackles. He somehow manages to keep her at a safe distance with one hand, his other one brushing her ribs and making her giggle even more. She never stands a chance. 

“Do you surrender?” Freddy asks, and he’s laughing like a friggin’ jackass. Amita follows with an even bigger laugh, half trapped beneath him. 

“Never!” she grunts between shallow breaths.

Freddy watches in amusement as she is contorting on herself protecting her left side, but there is another undefended one… Amita gasps out and flails inelegantly, laughing spilling from her lips like a waterfall the moment his hand finds her right ribs once more.

The sound is light, graceful, eerie and contagious, and Freddy loves it. Beautiful, he thinks.

She takes a deep breath between fits of laughter, mouth working independently of her brain, and tries to clamp it shut without giggling, because uh, she is no more a teen —she is a grown woman in a production of several millions that’s not having a tickle fight with her (charming) co-star —bloody hell!

Grabbing her two hands, Freddy presses them by her head into the couch. During a few more seconds Amita chuckles, fighting to maintain her composure, trying to get her hands free, but eventually ceases to move when she realizes his wiggling fingers are now locked and still around her wrists.

She looks up through tears of laughter and finds two piercing blue eyes observing her. Freddy has a fond, bright smile on his face, messy strands of dark hair all around, cheeks pinked because of the loss of air and the two beers he drank, and the young woman is stunned by how close his body is to hers.

Too close, a tiny part of her mind says.

Not close enough, says a bigger part.

“Fred…” she starts, softly, and something lights up in Freddy’s eyes at the nickname. “Huh, my hands please?”

His faint scent of soap and beer wafts around them and his hands squeeze her wrists tighter for a microsecond before letting go. 

“Sorry,” Freddy says and immediately moves to sit back on his previous spot.

“It’s okay! I mean… I should be the one to apologize,” Amita starts, straightening herself on the couch, and tilts her head in her colleague’s direction. “I made you miss your favorite moment and the credits are already rolling. Peter and Omar kiss at some point, right?”

The fact that she is able to make a joke so quickly after what just -almost?- happened makes a tense part of Freddy relax completely. He snorts a laugh and turns his face to look at her and her wide grin. It’s all resolved it seems, yet his mind is still a blur (for the beers, of course! —definitely not for her smile).

“C’mon. Let’s grab some food,” she suggests and stands up. “We drank enough. Now time to eat!”

Tomorrow, the whole cast will be back on set and Freddy realizes that it could be the last time he has Amita just to himself. He mutters something unintelligible and looks up at the actress from his spot: she is pulling a vest over her t-shirt that immediately makes her look chic and elegant. And beautiful.

“Sure, why not?” he says as he puts on a pair of old sneakers. “I saw London Fish & Chips on their menu. It could be very fun to try it and to criticise how bad the Hungarian version tastes!” 

Amita laughs once more and Freddy is again proud of making her do so.

“Brilliant idea. Fish & Chips at 1:00 am is one of my favourite hobbies!”

After putting a semblance of order in his hair and checking his phone, Freddy joins Amita’s side to offer his arm, which she takes without hesitation. They make their way to the door and leave the room to join the elevator, the restaurant being on the ground floor.

A great movie. Beers and dinner. Pleasant company for the night… and none would admit it, but it had been a very long time since any of them had laughed like that. Like two kids, without inhibition.

They exchange a look as the elevator doors open, and blue meets black.

Yes, this is a nice weekend.

•

end

•

[nekojitachan]

Hmm, slowly working on Casts a Shadow ch8 while trying not to be distracted by the MDZS fic (so many ideas!). Trying to decide to post the next CAS chapter or upload the Raven!Andrew soulmate fic this weekend.

Either way, here’s a sneak peek at ch2 of CAS. Warning for the Nest, and dealing with sexual harassment in a... removing parts way.

*******

“You are such a speedy little demon; we should put a bell on you so we can at least keep track of you on the court,” Kari complained while she tousled Nathaniel’s hair. He grimaced at the affectionate gesture but allowed it since the offensive dealer was one of Natalie’s friends.

“You’re gonna give your mark fits once you’re an official Raven.” Octavia frowned as she handed over her apple. “We need to bulk you up some more by then.”

“He just burns it off,” Natalie said as she gave Nathaniel a slight nudge in the side. “This one seems built for running. Maybe he should be a striker or a dealer.”

“I like running,” Nathaniel mumbled after he swallowed a bite of apple; it was crisp and tart, just how he liked them. “And I do fine as a backliner.” He certainly had no problem blocking Riko and Kevin.

The three young women agreed and commented that lack of size didn’t equate to lack of toughness; Octavia and Kari were two of the newer Ravens, both sophomores, and among the few women on the team.

The Ravens – or at least some of them – had stopped being so standoffish with Nathaniel and Natalie in the last few weeks. Part of it had been them noticing the split (such as it was) between the two of them and Riko and Kevin (the ‘heirs’ of Exy), and part of it had been when John, an asshole freshman striker, had heard about Natalie’s sixteenth birthday and thought it a great idea to ask her if she was now ‘ready for some fun’.

Natalie had immediately pulled a knife on him and asked if he was ‘ready to live life as a eunuch’, while Nathaniel told her to leave him his balls and go for his dick instead.

For some reason, that had endeared the handful of women Ravens to them, and earned them the respect of some of the men. It also meant that Nathaniel had to put up with people messing with his hair and teasing him about his height (more the lack of it), about them being ‘asked’ to fetch drinks, snacks or other items during their downtime… but no one tried to hurt them.

(Other than Tetsuji when they messed up drills or practice, or Riko with his tricks out on court, but that didn’t count.)

Nathaniel supposed he could put up with becoming the Ravens’ ‘unofficial’ mascot when it made Natalie smile and got him extra fruit.

After lunch, everyone returned to their rooms or one of the common areas to study during the short time before the final practice of the day; Nathaniel and Natalie usually went to her room to do their homework together. They passed Riko and Kevin in the hallway since their rooms were nearby, and of course Riko couldn’t resist getting a taunt in while passing.

“Ooh, what class is it today? Reading for dummies?” He laughed at the pathetic joke while Kevin gave them an apologetic look; long used to the asshole’s antagonistic behavior, Nathaniel and his sister simply ignored him (which they knew would affect him the most).

For once, Riko left the insults at that, which was a surprise; he enjoyed taunting Natalie over the fact that, despite her being sixteen, she wasn’t that far past Riko and Kevin in academics since she’d dropped out of school after joining the Bloodhounds. She’d done an incredible job catching up while living in Baltimore, but Tetsuji’s intense training regime didn’t leave her much opportunity to study ahead so there was talk of holding her back at least a year, probably two, which would grant her more time to work on her Exy skills.

(Perhaps it was selfish of him, but Nathaniel wouldn’t complain about having Natalie around the Nest longer.)

They didn’t say anything until they were in Natalie’s room. “He’s been a bit odd lately,” she said as she fetched her laptop.

(There was no question about who ‘he’ was.)

“He’s an asshole,” Nathaniel muttered as he dug through his bag for his own laptop. “What’s odd about that?”

“It’s just….” Her brows drew together as she stared at the device’s blank screen then shook her head as she powered it on. “He was so angry when he found out about us swearing to Ichirou, but the last few days he’s been less antagonistic.” At Nathaniel’s dubious look, she rolled her eyes. “For an asshole.”

“Maybe he’s plotting something,” Nathaniel suggested as he logged on to his online classes. “Maybe he thinks he’s figured out something so much better than messing with our beds in that little asshole snake brain of his.”

Natalie smiled as she bumped into his left shoulder. “Tell me how you really feel about him.”

Like he needed an excuse. “He’s an asshole snake of a bastard who-“

His sister cut him off by smacking him lightly over the head with a pillow. “I think I get it!” When he batted the pillow aside and glared, Natalie grinned and pointed at his laptop. “Show some of that creativity for the essay you have to write for English.”

“School sucks almost as much as Riko,” he grumbled as he clicked on the mentioned assignment. “Hey, I’ll do your math if you-“

“No,” Natalie said, smile gone as she focused on her own lesson plan. “You need to learn more than math, Ram.”

“Why, when we’ll be playing Exy and doing stuff for Ichirou.” He narrowed his eyes when he spotted his latest reading assignment. “We gonna debate Pride and Prejudice while slitting some guy’s throat?”

“Perhaps,” she mused while she typed something. “You never know what triggers some people. Might be the thought of figuring out a calculus problem or they’ll lose a finger, or hearing the breakdown of War and Peace’s plot.”

Nathaniel gave his sister an intent look for several seconds. “You’re terrifying, you know.”

Natalie’s special smile returned, the one which she mostly reserved for him, the one that brought out the dimple in her right cheek. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He resumed lying down next to her and forced himself to start on the detested essay. “Hey, why do people hate math so much?” he asked after a few minutes.

“Hmm, not sure, maybe because it doesn’t come to them as easily as it does you. Just like how you pick up languages.” She flashed the special smile again. “But not essay writing.”

“That’s for you to do.”

She hummed in pleasure and stroked a hand over his hair in agreement.

They studied for the rest of the hour (Natalie corrected his essay once he had it written, and he checked her math – they still covered each other like that), then they got ready for the last practice of the day.

There had been some uncomfortable stares from the Ravens when Nathaniel had first changed with them, as they took in the knife and burn scars on his chest and back, but now they no longer paid attention to them. Instead, they teased each other about who would score the most points or rack up the most blocks, then took turns rubbing Nathaniel’s head on the way out to court.

“Why?” he demanded to know as he fended off Gerry’s hand.

“For good luck of course!” the older backliner declared with a laugh, while his partner, Liam, nodded in agreement.

“Your fault for being a redhead, Nat,” Omar called out while he tugged on his gloves. “And so adorable. You should-oof.” He stumbled as Riko ‘accidentally’ swung his helmet at the junior striker while he stormed out of the locker room, a quiet Kevin ever his shadow.

“Spoiled little brat,” Omar muttered as he rubbed his ribs, a sentiment that was echoed by a few other Ravens; Nathaniel wisely kept his opinion to himself (even if it was much the same). He might badmouth Riko to his sister all the time, but they were still Moriyama property even if they now answered to Ichirou and not Tetsuji.

Tetsuji had Nathaniel, Natalie, Kevin and Riko work on drills while the official Ravens warmed up, then scrimmage together for a while. Nathaniel enjoyed the matches because even if Riko was an asshole who always used excessive force against him (which Tetsuji ignored), he was a talented asshole, along with Kevin (who wasn’t as much an asshole as Riko’s toady).

When it was time for them to stop and join in with the Ravens, Tetsuji ordered Nathaniel and Natalie to go back to working on drills; Riko smirked at them as he and Kevin left to join the older players. Nathaniel opened his mouth to complain about being deprived of scrimmage time, except Matsumoto offered to call out drills for them.

Tetsuji nodded in approval while Nakamori and Akagi fell in step behind the ‘Master’; normally, Nathaniel was uneasy around older men (especially ones his father’s age), but Matsumoto was in his early sixties, possessed a quiet voice and kept his hands to himself.

He was also very pragmatic and while he might be one of Tetsuji’s assistant coaches, he realized that ‘the Master’ and his grand Castle Evermore only existed with the main branch’s blessing. That meant he often passed along useful bits of information to Nathaniel and his sister.

They spent half an hour going through the eight Ravens drills (which they’d perfected) in the random order Matsumoto called out, knocking down cones again and again. It was while Nathaniel was setting up the cones yet again that he caught Matsumoto leaning toward Natalie and whispering something in her ear.

He had to wait until after dinner to find out what it was; Natalie joined him in his room. “It seems that someone owes a debt to Kengo, and the only way he can pay it back is to offer up his son, who plays Exy very well,” she explained in French.

For a moment, Nathaniel felt an intense wave of anger at the thought of another kid being sold to the Moriyamas, of having a father like his, before he shoved the thoughts aside. He jumped a little when Natalie gave a gentle touch to his left cheek (scrubbed clean for the night of the stupid ‘3’ which Riko insisted he bear). “I think it’s why Riko’s been acting up lately. Matsumoto said that he overheard Tetsuji telling Riko that you’re getting a partner, so he probably knows about the kid’s background.”

Nathaniel huffed as he rubbed his sore ribs, the ones which Riko had smacked with his racquet earlier in the day. “Knowing the asshole snake, he’s probably expecting a new ‘toy’ to play with.” One his big brother wouldn’t snatch away this time.

“Perhaps.” Natalie didn’t appear pleased with the thought, but there wasn’t much they could do about Riko’s personality worsening by the month. “Come, time to practice.”

“Slave driver,” Nathaniel groaned even as he climbed off his bed and slipped free the knife he kept sheathed on his left ankle at all times; he figured the sooner he suffered through their nightly fighting practice, the sooner he could sleep.

More like pass out on his bed, by the time they were done.

Jean Moreau arrived two days later, a young Frenchman around Kevin’s and Riko’s age, with black hair, grey eyes, and a massive attitude problem. He glared down his nose (of course he was taller than Nathaniel) at everyone but the adults while Tetsuji introduced him to the rest of the ‘Perfect Court’ (as Riko had dubbed the four of them). “Nathaniel, Jean will be your partner. He’s a backliner, too.”

“Understood, sir,” Nathaniel said with a slight bow.

“You’ll teach him everything he needs to know.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’ll be-“

“I don’t want to be here!” Jean complained in French as he tugged on the front of his new uniform, which bore the number ‘4’. “All of you can go to hell, I refuse to-ow!” His pale grey eyes grew wide as he stumbled forward beneath the force of the blow to his back from Tetsuji’s cane.

“You’ll speak English,” Tetsuji reprimanded while Riko smirked and Kevin stared off into the distance as if he wasn’t participating in the whole ‘here’s a new possession’ thing.

“I’ll speak whatever I wa-ow!” That time, Jean was knocked to his knees, where he was hit several times before Tetsuji relented; Nathaniel was disgusted to notice the gleam of pleasure in Riko’s dark eyes over the abuse.

[indigosandviolets]

Hey could you do headcanons on what the basterds were like when their S/O was going through labor? Love your writing aaa!

here you go! fair thing i should mention, these are from the perspective of a person who has never given birth(hi, hello, that’s me!) , but have heard many a gory tale.

Aldo Raine

you and Aldo have three children. you are also an incredibly strong woman.

Aldo, being the Southern gentleman that he is, stayed with you the entire time and held your hand

you broke his hand, every single time

after the first time he kinda stopped caring about it

and when people would ask about it he would say, “My wife did that.”

then you would give him the look and he’d say, “Not in an abusive way, she’s in labor.” and you’d want to fucking die every time more than you currently did

but he’s already on top of shit when you’ve finished and i’m talking ON TOP OF SHIT

he’s got an order for your favorite food ready and on the way and he may or may not have snuck in a cooler that has your favorite drinks in it, as well as the first alcoholic beverages you’ve had in nine months

trust me, he’s on top of shit

Donny Donowitz

Donny isn’t...terrible, he just wasn’t...great

turns out, an ex-blood-thirsty-nazi-killer hates seeing people in pain when the people is you whose in pain

and it’s not like he can do anything about it and that pisses him off, so in the end he’s more frustrated than you are and that’s some fucking news to you

that pisses you off ‘cause he’s not allowed to be the one freaking out but whatever

he’s got his hand on your shoulder the whole time and you’re holding onto his wrist

Donny seriously hates you being in pain and he almost wants to fight the doctors for not giving you enough pain killer but you held him tight so he couldn’t

he’s better with you when Anja is born because when Art was born he was an absolute wreck

though he does climb into the hospital bed after and holds you and Art, and then when Anja is born you somehow fit art in there too

Hugo Stiglitz

so he was freaking out way more than he let on during the birth of your daughter Margret

like usual he didn’t say much, as he is a man of few words around people he doesn’t know, but when he heard Margret cry he tilted his head back and said “thank the fucking lord”

seriously, he’s a man of steel about his emotions until he gets to hold her

and you see a single tear slide down his cheek

“Hugo?”

“Shut up.”

“The hell did you just say?”

“Sorry.”

he was a lot calmer for Leon and Benjamin because that was a C-Section

he was waiting with water and some soup when you woke up (home made soup, might i add)

Wilhelm Wicki

so you and Wicki were totally prepped for when Stefan was born

until Stefan was born a week late

nothing to worry about, but you were just so sick of being pregnant that eventually you two just went to the hospital and said “Fucking really?”

Wicki was calm the entire time and it helped you out a lot

he’s calmer than the fucking doctors and that’s the worst part

especially when Stefan doesn’t cry when he’s born and he has to tell the doctors that he can literally see his son breathing and that there’s nothing to worry about

he cuts Stefan’s cord and when he’s handed over, that’s when he starts crying and Wicki has to look at the doctors with the “i fucking told you so” look

“How the hell do you know so much, Wil?”

“I think I read more than our doctors do.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Smithson Utivich

everything Smithson Utivich has learned from being an uncle to his sister’s kids and her telling him what it was like went out the fucking window when you went into labor

yeah, his sister was accurate on some shit, but not with him calming down while his wife is having fucking twins

it’s fine, though, but not really, but he stopped hyperventilating and now just has to worry about you hyperventilating but you’re both fine

once they’ve hooked you up on an epidural it’s a little bit better but you’re still in a lot of pain

he’s there the entire time. this man does not move from beside you and he has one arm around your shoulders and one hand in yours and he’s constantly saying reassuring words

the only time that changes is when he’s holding your first son Dov while Eli is busy being born but he’s still telling you as many reassuring things he can

once Eli was born you practically passed out but when you woke up you saw Smitty in the chair next to you holding both of your children, passed out

Gerold Hirschberg

i actually wrote this for the fight/make-up headcanons i wrote, so you can check those out here! (you’re gonna have to scroll down to Hirschberg, but it’s there, I promise!)

Omar Ulmer

Omar’s on top of fucking everything when your daughter Elizabeth is born

thing is, he didn’t need to be because they accidentally gave you the wrong epidural and you end up getting way more killer than you were supposed to

you were so drugged out that when anything happened you would laugh

so he’s there trying to get you to calm down, meanwhile you seeing him do to just makes you laugh even harder

everyone’s freaking out that you’re gonna laugh this baby out, which you find absolutely hilarious

so he decides ‘fuck it’ and just starts talking about stupid stuff to make you laugh

an expected eight hour ordeal turns into a four hour one

you did have to stay in the hospital until the drugs wore out of your system, but Omar did still tell you dumb stories that made you laugh a fun smile while you two held your newly born daughter

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

[against all odds, your hand is in mine] [1/4]

Seasons change, and with each comes a different story. In a world where the dead roam around, romantic companionship seems unlikely. Yet Ericson stands, and within it are four couples who are proof that it's possible.

Spring: Briolet | flowers, picnics, blueberries, running river

Read on AO3

Notes: Sometimes I get the urge to write four oneshots over the course of two days. This is the first of those oneshots. It’s briolet in spring, but be careful: there is so much hand holding and some smooches. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

[screenshot used is from the lovely @pi-creates]

---

Brody pricks her finger again. It's easy to avoid that, but she doesn't have a thimble, and her hands refuse to stop trembling.

No blood, and really, it didn’t even hurt. It more startled her, a bit of panic sparking in her gut at the idea of staining the martial and ruining her project. She stops her work to rest her hands and the fabric in her lap, closes her eyes, and sucks in a deep breath. It does little to calm her nerves or her impatience.

“Don’t rush,” she mumbles to herself, readjusting her position on the bed. She crosses her legs and notices a long strand of thick, pale blue thread stuck to her pants. Great, she needed that color an hour ago to finish one of the flowers.

Doesn’t matter now, the floral design is complete and all she has left is to sew the pieces together. If she can finish soon, there’ll be more than enough time to clean up, gather the basket she made up the night before, and head down to the greenhouse. Violet should still be there.

Brody smiles, setting down her needle and holding the handmade eyepatch in her hands. She rubs a thumb over one of the little white flowers. She embroidered them just this morning, a final touch to the overall design. That feeling strikes her gut again, exciting her nerves.

The idea came to her one night after Violet found her in the common room. It was late at night, and the two shared a blanket on the couch and drank tea. Violet's ruined eye was covered with bandages despite being healed over. No one was able to find her an actual eye patch. The best they found was a plastic one used for a children’s pirate costume, so she kept it bandaged.

Violet never complains about it. She considers the bandages her patch, even though they're not the most comfortable to wear every day.

Brody decided at that moment that she would make her one. She tore through her closet the next morning, sorting through old shirts until she found one she never wore. Taupe in color, a thicker material, something she could easily work with.

Though she had no idea how eyepatches were made, figuring those things out came easy to Brody. She made several patterns, testing each one out on scraps until one worked. From there, it was all about creating a design should could see Violet wearing. It wasn't difficult- sewing and embroidery work came easy to her.

A family thing that stuck, she assumes.

Her grams used to do embroidery and cross-stitching work. She made a living off sewing intricate designs, all more beautiful than any painting. If Brody closes her eyes, she can still see the doorway into her gram’s cabin. The framed design of a flowery cottage with a stone path, rural trees and a cloudless sky hung up on the wall. Her gram’s final masterpiece. She worked on it for months, pouring every ounce of love she had into each stitch. It was something Brody admired every time she walked through that doorway.

She learned to hunt and skin animals from her dad and uncles, and sewing from her grams. Best of both worlds, she supposes. Two skills that became handier than she would’ve ever thought at the time.

Though her flowers weren’t as flawless as her gram’s once were, she still put her heart into each stitch just as she did. She hopes that when Violet sees it, she’ll feel the unspoken words Brody threaded through the fabric.

Purple, white, and blue flowers of all sizes, each with a yellow french knot in the center, standing bright against the muted taupe. She sewed a thicker piece beneath it, used a tiny bit of stuffing from an old, ripped pillow to give it some comfortable cushion. A piece of a silky shirt lines the inside so Violet’s skin won’t get agitated while wearing it.

After weeks of work, all she has left to sew is the straps she made. She had no way to measure the fit for Violet’s head since she wanted this to be a surprise, so she figured she could make them extra long enough to tie comfortably while wearing. If she needed to adjust anything, she could do that later.

Brody picks her needle back up.

It doesn’t take long to finish, even with her forcing herself to take her time.

With triumph, Brody sticks her needle back into its rightful container and hops off her bed, singing, “Ta-daah~ !”

Her mind is all over the place. Wrap up the patch-- does she have a box or even a bag?-- and hide it at the bottom of the woven basket she found in the basement, stuff the blanket in as much as she can so the two cups don’t clank together, and start boiling water for tea-- where the hell did she put the jar of blueberries?

She flicks a match to light the heater she borrowed from Clementine, letting the water come to a slow boil as she searches around for the mason jar. It’s right under her nose, of course, sitting in plain sight on her shelf.

With the greenhouse running smoothly and the trading they’ve done with the traveling caravan that comes around, they're able to plant seeds for several different fruits and vegetables. This week, they finally got their first bunch of blueberries in. She managed to pick a bunch and seal them away in a jar yesterday without Violet noticing. She thought they’d make for a refreshing picnic snack to pair with tea.

Brody’s been planning this picnic for a while now, all while she was working and spring came to chase the cold away. Her favorite time of year where it’s finally warm, but cool enough to not overheat everything. Grass grows greener, flowers bloom all over the place, the river flows, and the sun shines bright in the sky most days. Other days, like yesterday, it rains. She was worried it would rain today as well, but there isn’t a cloud in the sky today.

She lets the tea steep in a large mug and squeezes what she can from an old container of mostly crystallized honey. When it’s cooled down enough, she pours it slow and steady into an empty water bottle. Sure, they can’t have iced tea given they have no way to actually make ice once winter ends, but lukewarm tea would be just as good.

Basket in hand, Brody looks out her window one last time before leaving the dorms. With every step she takes, she grows closer to the greenhouse and her heart thumps gaily against her ribs.

Outside, everyone is out and about, enjoying the warm weather. AJ and Tenn color together at the table while Mitch works on sharpening his favorite knife. Willy sulks on the couch beside him with Ruby attending to his bleeding knee. She's going on about him needing to be more careful.

Clementine and Louis sit on the steps leading into the admin building. She sits a step lower, leaning back into his chest as the two talk. Brody waves at them as she passes, and Louis gives her a knowing grin when he eyes the basket.

It’s not a long walk to the greenhouse from there. She stops when she notices the wildflowers growing by the fence of the rabbit coop. Bees buzz around the white flowers, landing in their yellow centers. She hates to disturb them, but these flowers were part of her inspiration when designing Violet’s eyepatch. They're too perfect not to pick. She shoos away a fat bumblebee with pollen sticking to its little black legs, and gathers eight of the flowers, leaving plenty for the rest.

A simple bouquet, if she could even call it that, but it works.

Once inside, the fresh scent of wet soil and leafy greens hits her. Not as refreshing as the sweet air outside, but still, it fills her lungs with warmth. Or perhaps that sensation is from seeing Violet standing beside Omar, watering what Brody believes are the potatoes.

Most of her hair pulls back into a hair tie, apart from the bangs that fall over her forehead and bandages. She hasn’t had a haircut in a while, letting it grow long enough past her shoulders. A surprise, actually. Violet hasn’t had long hair since they were kids.

Not that Brody was complaining- she likes it very much.

Violet breaks her attention from the potatoes to meet her gaze. She grins, and yes, that warmth is definitely from her. Omar continues on about some sort of new stew he wants to try making, only stopping when he notices he’s lost Violet’s attention.

“Everything doin’ okay in here?” Brody asks.

Violet gives a shrug. She sticks her hand out to run along the wooden planter to steady herself. She meets Brody halfway, replying with, “Eh, nothing too exciting. Willy biffed it while watering the rabbits this morning, but other than that...”

“He about crushed one of the babies,” Omar adds with a shake of his head. “More upset about that than he was about his skinned knee.”

“Aw, poor little guy,” Brody laughs. “That why he looked so miserable when I passed him?”

“Probably. He tried to catch it to apologize, but it was too quick even for him, and Ruby didn’t want him getting a bunch of muck all over him with an open wound, so…”

Apologizing to a baby bunny that they’re eventually going to eat? Sounds like Willy, Brody thinks. But never mind that, she has more important things than rabbits.

She reaches out to grab Violet’s free hand, her lips involuntarily curling into a bright smile as she asks, “Are you almost finished ?”

“Yeah,” Violet says, raising a questioning brow. “Why?”

“We’re going on a picnic!”

Violet pauses, only now noticing the basket in Brody’s grasp.

“We are?”

“We are!”

“That’s news to me.”

Brody lets go of her hand to present her with the flowers. Violet stares at them for a moment as her skin flushes, starting at her neck and blooming along her cheeks. If Omar weren’t standing over there, Brody would lean over and kiss that lovely blush.

“And where exactly would we have a picnic?”

“By the river. Already got a spot in mind.”

Violet holds the flowers close to her chest and clears her throat. She glances back at Omar, and says, “Uh, I don’t-”

“Go ahead,” he interrupts with a wave of his hand. “I can take care of the rest. Go have your picnic, be careful. And Brody,” he points to her, putting on a stern voice, “have her home by eight, and don’t have too much fun.”

Brody laughs.

“Yes, sir!”

Violet shakes her head, but her smile betrays her amusement.

“Well, okay, I guess we’re going on a picnic. There better be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in there... that's what people eat on picnics, right?”

“Yeah, but no. Close, though.”

Locking their hands together once more, Brody leads Violet out of the greenhouse and through the gates. Soon, they’re outside the walls of Ericson. Heading down the path, she makes sure to keep watch out for any obstacles to warn Violet about.

Brody knows that Violet’s other eye works perfectly well, but given that her depth perception isn’t what it used to be, she can’t help but be extra careful. She used that excuse to hold Violet’s hand before they were together, both still recovering from their respective injuries. Better safe than sorry, use the buddy system, and that system requires hand-holding. Brody didn’t make the rules.

“Never been on a picnic before,” Violet breaks the silence.

“No? Not even before?”

“No.”

“We used to go out on picnics to eat and play games all the time. Me, my grandma, my daddy and uncles, cousins- if it was warm out, we were out.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Most times it was,” Brody says, giving Violet’s hand a squeeze. “ Just because those days are gone doesn’t mean we can’t do that kinda stuff now, y’know?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Though there are more walkers around than there were back then.”

“True, but that shouldn’t be a big issue today,” Brody smiles. “I asked James to check the area and he collected the walkers he found. The river should be clear.”

Even without looking at her, she can sense her surprise. Violet’s quiet for a moment, turning her head to peer around them before saying, “You planned this.”

It’s not a question, but more of a realization.

“I thought this was a spur of the moment thing,” Violet admits. “I, uh…”

When she doesn’t continue, Brody says, “ Not many opportunities to take you out on a date,” the word makes Violet blush and repress a smile, “and when one does arise, you bet your bottom dollar I’m gonna take it .”

Violet says nothing more, but her grip on Brody’s hand tightens.

They make it to the river without spotting a single walker. She kept her knife handy in case, but James was thorough, it seems. Brody makes a note to thank him again for helping her out.

The running water is soothing and the grass colors with golden dandelions. It’s nice to be down here without the intention of working up a sweat while fishing, she thinks. They find a flat piece of grass, kicking rocks, sticks, and pinecones out of the way to lay the blanket down. Together they sit side by side with the basket between them.

Rubbing her hands together, Brody digs in to pull everything out. Except for the eyepatch. It remains, wrapped in a pillowcase she found. Hopefully Louis won’t notice she snuck it from his horde of pillows.

“Alright, we got tea and blueberries,” Brody says, handing one mug to Violet and opening the mason jar of berries. Their sweet scent escapes into the air, making her mouth water.

“How’d you manage to sneak these past Omar?” Violet asks, popping a blueberry into her mouth. Her face twists at the taste, and for a moment Brody worries they might be sour, but Violet shakes her head. “They’re good, just not used to that.”

By now the tea is completely cooled, and while not cold, still delightful to sip on.

“Open wide,” Violet says, holding up a blueberry. It misses Brody’s mouth, bouncing off her chin. Violet laughs. “Pfft, c’mon.”

“Okay, okay, I’m ready, try again.”

Another miss.

“Aww, nope!”

“Well, let's see you try!”

Brody throws up a berry, and Violet misses it completely.

“Damn depth perception,” she grins, grabbing the berry and tossing it up herself. It hits her cheek, lost to the grass. “Damn it!”

Violet’s laugh, while rare, is as bewitching as it is infectious. It’s been so long since Brody heard her laugh like this, and to know that they’re here together, comfortable together…

Emotion builds in her throat, and she has to eat berries to suppress it. She aims the blueberry just right, and Violet catches it this time. As she chews, they both let out victorious giggles.

Once the laughter dies down, Violet brings her knees to her chest as she watches the river.

“Think we’re missing out on a fish haul?” she asks.

“Nah,” Brody pulls the basket closer to look inside, biting her lip as she runs her fingers over the covered patch. “And if we are, I’m sure the traps’ll make up for it.”

Should she do it now? They did just get here, did she want to surprise her early, or…?

Brody grabs a flower instead, bringing it up to her nose to inhale the soft scent. An idea occurs to her as she admires the girl before. Scooping up the flowers, Brody breaks off most of the stems. The flower slips in through Violet’s hair, right where the hair tie is.

Violet jerks her head around to look back, but Brody says, “Don’t move.”

“What are you-?”

She doesn’t need to answer the question, she merely secures a few more flowers within the light strands of hair before leaning back to admire her work. She even tucks one behind her own ear so they match.

Violet remains quiet, but lays her hand on Brody's. A silent, content thank you.

Brody doesn’t know how long they sat there watching the river, sipping tea, and listening to the birds chirp from the trees . A small butterfly flutters by them, and for a moment, Brody forgets the world around them. Forgets the walkers, forgets Ericson, too swept up in the way the warm air blew against her skin, in how Violet’s hand felt in hers, and the strange sense of wonder, a desire to kick off her shoes and run through the river.

It took Violet kissing the back of her hand to break her out of it.

Violet grew sheepish, glancing away as if she needed to come up with an explanation for the kiss, and that was it.

“Vi,” she started, pulling her around to face her. “I have- I made ya somethin’.”

The nervous pounding in her chest thumps in her ears as she reached back into the basket, pulling out the pillowcase.

“Aw, from Lou’s stash,” Violet grins, amused. “You shouldn’t have.”

“No, no, not the pillowcase,” Brody fidgets with it until she finds what she’s looking for. Her thumb brushes over the flowers beneath the thin material. With a deep breath, she goes for it. “Listen, I’ve been thinkin’ a lot about you. Us... just everything, and- Remember that night we stayed up in the common room talkin’? I thought… well, I wanted to do this for you.”

Brody hands her the pillowcase. Not once does she take her eyes off Violet’s face, noting the curiosity and confusion playing in her features as she accepts the gift.

The eyepatch is finally brought out into the sunlight, laying in Violet’s palm.

Neither of them speaks. Violet’s lips part, eye widening.

Brody lets the air out of her lungs slow, and then the words spill from her lips before she can stop them.

“We couldn’t find you anything to wear other than that stupid costume patch, and I know you said you didn’t mind the bandages but then I got to thinkin’ ‘bout how bandages might not always be the comfiest-”

“Brody…” Violet’s voice is quiet, trembling as it breaks.

“-and I want you to be comfortable in somethin’ that you like, so I made this for you- the whole thing, hand sewed it myself. I- but y’know, if it’s maybe too much- I wasn’t sure if it might bring too much attention and you wouldn’t like that-”

She’s cut off when Violet practically throws herself at her, burying her face in the crook of Brody’s neck and holding her tight. Brody doesn’t hesitate. She embraces her back, pressing a hand to cradle her head.

“I… don’t know what to say,” Violet's voice quivers.

“You like it?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s enough.”

Violet pulls back, and without warning, her hands cup Brody’s face. She presses their lips together in a way that’s anything but gentle. It’s firm, purposeful, and loving. All tension from her body melts away, and Brody truly believes she could kiss her all day and that tingle? The one that coursed through her veins, the butterflies that fluttered in her belly? It would never go away. It wouldn't even lessen.

They break apart, and Violet’s staring down at the eyepatch in her hands.

“Holy shit. It’s… I don’t-” she tries again. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to,” Brody assures her, brushing the bangs that fell over her face.

“No one’s ever made me anything like this before. I mean, not a patch, just … you know.”

“Want to try it on?”

Violet nods, and Brody’s undoing the bandages with ease. Her eye's healed from the damage the raiders inflicted, leaving only angry scars. The patch is a perfect size, covering everything.

“Does it feel okay?”

“Yeah, it’s… nice. Soft.”

“Does this feel tight enough? Like it won’t fall off, but not too tight?”

“Yeah, it feels good.”

“Couldn’t figure out a good way to clasp it together, so it ties. If ya want me to change it or anything, I can make adjustments... There!”

Violet turns back around, avoiding her gaze. Brody studies her face, the way the colors of the embroidered flowers make the green in her other eye vibrant, how the taupe of the fabric flatters her.

“Beautiful.”

Violet scoffs, ducking her head to hide the flustered smile that betrays her lips. This gives Brody the perfect excuse to place a quick kiss on her forehead.

“You’re so mushy,” Violet says, embarrassed but trying to force a playful tone. “Y’know that?”

Well, to be fair, Brody could be mushier, so she replies with an over-the-top, sweet, “Only with you.”

Violet groans and they laugh once more.

They know their little picnic will wrap up soon, so together they sit close and enjoy the comfort of nature for a few minutes longer.

“Thank you, Brody… really.”

Brody responds with another kiss.

Yeah, she thinks. She could kiss Violet all day.

[christineeej94]

One look❤

a/n:guys, I’m baaack. Finally. I have some amazing requests and I can’t wait to dig in. This one is so cute, I can cry. I hope i done it well. Okay, now I’m being weird. Bye. Stay safe and great. Kisses 🌻

the request:

Anonymous said:

can I request an Aron Piper imagine where the reader attends the red carpet even for Elite & both of them just so happen to be each other’s celebrity crush so when they bump into each other they instantly click & if you include them going on their first date too that would be great!

warnings: maybe bad language, some fluff and bad writing.

word count:2.016

Arón Piper x Reader

♠♠♠♠♠

“(Y/N) get your ass here.” My friend yelled from the kitchen and I rolled my eyes. “What?” she pulls her hair on the said and start dancing. I try not to laugh but she is so funny. “What’s happening chica?” I asked again and she start dancing again. “You receive an invitation to ÉLITE season 3 premiere. You are going to see ARÓN FUCKING PIPER on the red carpet.” She screamed so loud that I think the neighbors heard everything she said. I blocked and I look at the open envelop. “You are kidding me?” I yelled and I start dancing too.

I’m new in acting and everything, I just got a role in the new series called “Toy Boy” and it’s my first big role. This invitation was a surprise but I think my manager has something do to with this. I was so obsessed with Élite when the first season appeared on Netflix, I love the story line and also, I had a huge crush on Arón Piper, like the other thousands of girls. “We need to find you a fit for the event.” My friend said serious and I rolled my eyes. The rest of the day I spend it searching for some interesting outfits.  

A while ago when I started to shoot for Toy Boy, I went to a private Netflix event and I was so close to meet him. But he left with a problem and I could meet the rest of the cast. I’m a good friend with Ester, Mina and Danna, we are meeting every weekend and we are having brunch at a small and chic restaurant.  “The dreams are over, puta, cause you my friend are going to finally meet him.” My friend talk with her mouth filled of noodles and I laugh, taking a sip from my wine. “Yeah, I’m kinda afraid of this. Just imagine, what if I’m going to step on something and I will fall or something and he will see that and OMG.” I put my hands on my face terrified and it’s my friend turn to laugh. “Look, amor, you are funny, gorgeous and very smart. Don’t let emotions destroy your chance with him.” She said serious and I nodded. “But if he doesn’t like me at all? I’m not thinking at a relationship because I’m not that childish but if he doesn’t like me?” “Then is a very stupid man.” She said and take another huge bite.

The day of event came and now I’m struggling with my anxiety and, also, my hair. I’m on my hotel room waiting for my hair and makeup stylists to do their job, I’m so nervous and so excited in the same time. And I’ve the weird feeling right now. I heard a knock and I hurry to the door. “Ester?” the blonde girl jumps on me and we hugged tight. “Why don’t you tell us that you are coming to the premiere?” she asked and take a sit on my bed. “I wanted to be a surprise.” I smiled and she smirks. “You know that in this hotel are almost the entire cast of Élite, including Mr. Piper.” Ester winked and I blushed. She figured out a long time ago that I like Arón and she advised me to let everything chill for the moment because he is complicated. “I know now.” I look in other direction and I heard a knock again. My stylists come in and Ester went, but first she told me that I should come with their limo. “I already talk with Carlo and I’m coming with him and his girlfriend. Thank you, hermosa.” I kiss her cheeks and we promise to see each other at the premiere.

 After 4 hours, I was ready to go in a small pink and shiny dress, having a pair of white sandals and some tight wave. I look at my sparkly makeup and my manager made some photos for her Instagram. “Carlo is here.” She informed me and I look again in the mirror. “You look amazing. Now, go or they will leave without you.” She pushed me from behind and I took my clutch in a hurry. Carlo and his girlfriend wait for me in the lobby, at the entry I saw Mina, Omar and Arón waiting for their limo. When my group passed them, I stopped to give them my congratulations. “You look absolutely stunning. Congrats for the season 3.” I said and my gaze went to everyone and stopped on the breath-taking guy which is analyzing me. My cheeks got red and after a small chit-chat with Mina, I got in my car.

“You are so in love” Carlo comments and I pinch his arm over the suit. “And he seems like he his liking you too.” I rolled my eyes and he pinch my arm. “Be careful amigo, you can start a war that it’s already over for you.” I joked and he laughs. “Of course.” He smirks and takes his girlfriend in a hug. I want what they have.

At the event we need to take some photos on the red carpet and we arrived too soon so we need to wait for the Élite cast. We wait on the said and I drink without stopping, like 2 or 3 glasses of champagne. “Look who is here.”  Carlo’s girlfriend pointed me the spot when the limos are stopping and I saw him getting out of the car, followed by Mina, Omar, Ester, Miguel and Alvaro. My legs are shaking right now. We let them to do interviews and photos, after them Carlo drag me in front of the blinding lights and a lot of cameras and microphones are around me. “(Y/N), look here. Give us a smile.” The photographers yelled at me and I try to keep up. After the photo session, a guy stopped me for an interview. “How do you think the new season would be?” he asked and I smiled. “Explosive. That’s the word that defines the new season.” “What’s your favorite character?” “I love them all, but more specific, I adore Nadia, Ander and Lu. For me they are the most powerful characters in Élite.” I respond and he asks me other questions about my career and my new role.

At a moment, when I thought that everything is done on the red carpet, Arón passed me and some photographer yelled at us for a photo together. We gazed each other and Arón smiles. “Come here.” He comes closer and puts his hand around my waist. “You look incredible tonight.” He bends and whispers, while the photographers catch the moment. “I don’t outdo you.” I replied blushing and a cute smile rose on his beautiful face. After the photos, we went in opposite directions.

“Finally, you are done. Come, let me introduce you to Arón.” Ester grabbed my arm and she dragged me on the ball room. “Arón, bom-bom, she is one of my besties, (Y/N), she is playing in Toy Boy.” She pushed me from behind and I almost fall in his arms. “Hi.” He said simple and I blushed like a little girl. “Hola.” I respond and I didn’t know what to say so we stayed in silence for a couple of minutes. I just listen to the music on the background and I pay attention to his conversation, and I know it’s inappropriate but I didn’t know what to do next.

I wanted to go away and find someone who I can talk to but he stopped me. “Sorry, I’m such a douche. I’m Arón, nice to meet you. I think I never had the opportunity to meet you in person. I heard some many things about you.” I shake his hand smiling and he smiled too. “I hope are good things.” He laughed at my remark and I blushed. We started to have a normal and relaxing conversation about acting and his next projects. I told him that I’m so excited for him and he is a very funny person. “I wanted to talk more with you, but now my duty calls.” He winked and before go on the stage he placed a small kiss on my cheek. I can tell that place, where he kissed me, burned for a while.

 In the rest of the night we didn’t intersect and I left after an hour because next day I had a fly in the morning. I’m going to visit my family in my hometown.

 After 7 days.

 It’s been a week from the event and me and Arón don’t stop talking from then. I’m starting to catch feelings for him. He is such a nice and talkative person. He asked me on a date a while ago and today is the big day. He didn’t tell me where we are going, but he informed me to dress comfortable. I pinned my hair in a bun, I put on some shorts and a flower print top. I get out of my apartment and his car is parked in front of my block. He leans on her and smiles provocatively and beautiful. “You look amazing.” He comments and I blushed. “Look, you even don’t need blush.” He jokes about my red cheeks. I get in his car after he hugged me tight and he parfum replace my entire air.

He drove to the peripheries of the Madrid and he stopped the car next to a forest. “You are going to kill me now?” I joked and he smirks. “Of course, but first we eat, then I can kill you with the butter knife.” He continues the joke and he get out. Arón took a basket and a blanket from the backseat and in the other hand he takes my hand. We walk on a small path to nowhere, but I see that he knows the way. We finally stopped and I looked over his shoulder and I could see a glade shaded by tall trees. Small rays of light illuminate the place and I’m able to heard the birds' chirp. I’ve never seen a place like this. Is beyond beautiful and because he brings me here, makes my heart melting.

“It’s amazing.” I said and he smiled nervously. “I thought you wouldn’t like it.” “I love it. How you find it?” “Let’s set up everything and I will tell you.” We put together the blanket and while I’m putting the food on the said, he went back to the car to get drinks and napkins.

“So, tell me.” I said curiously and he nodded. Arón have his head in my lap and my fingers are playing with his short hair. He is finishing chowing a grape and when my hand went down on his face, he kissed my back of the hand. “So, I loved a girl so much a while ago, before playing in Élite, and she broke my heart. I found this place after the breakup. I decided to bring here the girl I like the most.” His words filled my mind with a lot of thoughts. “You like me?” I mumbled smiling and he nodded. “I’ve had a crush on you and when I saw you at our premiere, I thought it’s a sign. I know you had a crush on me too, Ester told me after the premiere. (Y/N), babygirl, you are lighting my life right now.” He raised his head and I prone mine, our lips meet each other in a small and cute kiss. His lips taste like cigarettes and fruits. “You taste like a candy.” He smirks and I giggle. “I can’t believe this is real. Weeks ago I didn’t know how to talk to you and look at us now.” We kissed again, this time more passional and after we confess our feelings for each other, we enjoy the food and we took a lot of photos.

I feel inside me my love growing and I know, actually, I’m sure that our life together will be the most amazing and exciting thing ever.

[newobsessionweekly]

Sad Jealousy 🌿

berfingsss said: Hellooooo :) how's the quarantine going? 😂 I'm so boreddddd :( Anyways I was gonna ask for a aron request. I just saw his photo shoot for lacoste (one looks like a Greek god) anyways I as thinking he could have his girlfriend on set with him and she gets like super jealous because of the shoot he does with the girls. 💜💜💚💚  a/n: so yeah, this is it, I hope you like it. For me quarantine is going great so far, I am enjoying sun and fresh air in the garden and I write almost all day. I don’t want it to end, it feels like heaven tho knowing there’s a virus thing killing people outside, it freaks me out. Thank you for asking. How are you guys? 🌿❤️

word count: 2.384 warnings: idk.

Arón Piper x reader 🌿

You first met Arón at a private gathering with the Élite cast at your brother’s place, Omar. You already knew who he was, he played one of the main characters from a very special movie to you, Omar and your mom. And before you knew, he and your brother became closer and he was around maybe too often just for a set buddy. In a couple of shakes you started talking and figured out you have more things in common that you thought. Your taste in music, movies and books, your ideals, thoughts and expectations. He revealed to be this kind and sensitive man, with a thoughtful heart and unavoidable you fell in love. You were not the only one whose heart had been stolen, you unknowingly robbed him and his heart is in your hands since then. You started dating and discovered a perfectly imperfect man, with a lot of qualities and flaws that fits with yours. Omar always made fun of you by saying what a disgusting perfect pair you made.

When Arón asked you to join him on his shooting for Lacoste, you thought it was sweet. You’ve been on the Élite set before and saw him acting, admired him while he gave the best of him in front of the camera and saw him helping at creating a breathtakingly project. You saw him working with Omar and were the most exceptional team you’ve ever seen. You were beside him and saw him at the make up area.You thought he was already gorgeous. He didn’t need a bit of make up on his beautiful face, but you weren’t exactly the best person to comment about it, you are not a public person as he is, at least you tried to understand why he has to wear that powder thing. Before he passes you and takes his place in the front of that white background, he leaned and placed a lovely kiss on your lips. He smiled, proud that he could bring you there, for you to see his work and be as proud as he is. The love you carry for each other is no doubtable, he loves you more than anything and he is proud to call this brilliant person his girlfriend. You are happy for him and proud as well, he is working so hard and he is making his dreams come true, beside him you feel like you are constantly living in heaven. Waking up with his lovely voice and some kisses, going to bed beside him, with your legs tangled and falling asleep on his chest. His cologne floating in the air, it is following you and his smile haunting you. The excitement you receive after a busy day when he finally sees you and the “good-bye” too hard to say when one of you has to leave for work. You adored him since the day one and that feeling only grows every day. He was posing in a Lacoste underwear and all you could do was to smile like an idiot. Seeing him giving everything to make it great, made you realise he’s indeed the most charming and talented man you’ve ever seen. He gained your sight and automatically smiled as he saw how proud you are of him. He felt his heart bumping on his chest and his lips refusing to take any form but the form of a bright and beautiful grin.  “Come on, Arón! I need your serious face right now!”the photographer laughed too as Arón tried to maintain his face straight. Five takes, and he still couldn’t get that frowned, serious look characteristic to him. Around you he couldn’t keep that frown on for too long. He consistently says you are the brightest light from his life, and he just couldn’t help smiling every time he sees you. “I’ll go and grab a coffee.” you laughed too when you saw his face blossoming again in a smile.

------

Half an hour later you ended the call with your mom, notifying her about the last days and all helped you stay outside the room and let Arón get done his photoshoot. But when the clock turned three in the afternoon, you couldn’t help it and became concerned, entering the room after you threw away the plastic cup. He was dressed in a dark blue polo t-shirt and dark coloured pants, and despite the fact that those clothes weren’t really his style, he however could manage to slay in those. The girl next to him was also dressed in a similar way, in that royal blue. Your attention was captured when the girl suddenly started laughing though they needed to be serious and present some watches. You frown as the girl apologised. “I’m sorry! He’s extremely funny and the joke he told me earlier is just repeating on my mind.” she laughed. “Alright, calm down and let’s focus so that everyone could get home in a reasonable hour.” Arón placed his hand on her back and shifted it up and down to calm her. That was the moment when your chest burned a little and you could feel like the air was not enough. He’s such a lovely person and no one could resist him. Everyone got along with him so quickly though he remain an introvert. He knows how to make himself loved despite the fact he is shy and silent at first. When he did that thing with the girl, you understood you are replaceable. That girl is stunning and they share the passion for acting and posing. You don’t know what was that joke about, but you were convinced that this photoshoot isn’t the only thing they have in common. Everyone got along with him so quickly though he is an introvert. When he put his arm so naturally around her shoulders and she clasped his hand, you knew he could also do another things with so much naturalness with other girls beside you. He could discover in others all the things he finds in you and many more, and that made you feel not that extraordinary. She has a very beautiful face and body, and you couldn’t really say you fit into that category. You were merely staring at them, and all those thoughts made you feel jealousy running through your veins. You didn’t want that girl to touch him or him touching that girl too much. You didn’t want him to look at her too much; you were afraid that he might realise he could do more than just you. You didn’t feel that kind of angry jealousy, where he isn’t allowed to talk, touch, laugh with other girl because you are too possessive.You were feeling that sad jealousy where you realised how replaceable you are and the thought that he might realise that, made you experience so many feelings at once. You weren’t convinced which one you should let out so you just stood there and gazed at them while the photographer told them what a wonderful job they did.

Your expression changed, and it was one that showed no emotions. When Arón approached next to you and collected his stuff, he saw something was changed at you. You weren’t paying attention to anything around, you were just scrolling through your Instagram. He put it on the tiredness, because you hadn’t the best night, but when you stayed quiet when the most annoying music was playing, instead of commenting about it and changing it eventually, he knew something was truly wrong.

“What is going on inside that lovely head of yours?” he looked at you as your hands were staying in your lap and you were looking absently on the window.

“What? Nothing is going on. I’m just tired.” you tried and lied to him.

“You have to get better at lying if you want me to bite that. I know you far too better to know that even when you are tired and you can’t keep your eyes open, you still talk too much for a normal human being. So talk to me, amor!”

He indeed knows you better than anyone, even better than yourself. But it’s hard for you to admit all of your thoughts that have been rushing to get inside your mind even deeper.

Him on the driver seat with his hand on your lap and stealing kisses when the red light is on, would normally feel the most genuine thing in this world, but in this moment, you don’t find your place next to him.

“I just, I...” you stopped and moved your head, so you are not facing him. “I don’t think I’m good enough for you anymore.” you said it and Arón’s left hand frizzed on the steering wheel. He immediately pulled over on the edge of the road.

“What are you saying?” he stopped the engine.

“It’s stupid but-“ you could feel some tears in the corner of your eyes, but you didn’t allowed them to move any farther. “I try so hard to be like your girl friends, like your costars and your colleagues. I try so hard to be skinny and beautiful as them, but lately it seems impossible. I’m not like that and I will never be, I’m just ordinary. And I am not good enough anymore.” his heart broke at those words coming out of your mouth.

“What is going on inside that beautiful head? How can you say that? Do you think I stayed with you all this time just because you are thin and have a beautiful face?” his hands moved from the steering wheel and landed on your lap, reaching for your hands.

“I don’t know. Did you?” your head was still down.

He grabbed your chin, so you could look at him, “Of course not! I fall in love with you because you possess something that I couldn’t find in any other girl. You have the most superior type of beauty.” you waited for him to continue, “To me you are beautiful because you know how to speak your mind and heart out. You are the kindest person and a very talented one. You know how to talk, and you have far too many topics you could talk about. You don’t talk all day and all night about bags, make up and clothes. You have a beautiful heart, you know how to love, how to be loved and how to be a friend. You are funny, kind and much more than just that beautiful body of yours.”

You were crying, you couldn’t see him clearly and you couldn’t even breathe properly. His hands were holding yours tight, he is searching your face. He is crying too, and he is glad that you can’t see it.

“Are you serious?”

“No, that was a fucking joke, and I want you to get out of the car.” his sarcasm is so natural, like he was born with it and for him speaking sarcasm is like his first language. “Stupid, you can’t imagine how much I love you. But I need to know if you still love me.”

What kind of question was that? The love you’re caring for Arón isn’t doubtable, your feelings are pure and sincere, beside him you’ve discovered yourself, you have felt a love that Omar simply couldn’t understand how that feels. Beside him you found happiness, friendship, understanding. You found everything in one man, and now he is questioning your love.

You promptly responded,“To be sure I do love you. I worship you.” you didn’t want him to think any farthure that that. 

“So where those thoughts came from?”

“When I saw you with that girl today-” you swallowed the lump and shake your head.

He grabbed your chin once again and made you look into his eyes as he smiled,“So you are jealous.”

“Yeah, kinda. But it was a sad jealousy, you know.” you admitted and shrug.

He was confused, “Sad jealousy?”

“Yeah, like when you realise that you are so easy replaceable and the fearing of losing the other person... you know.” you tried to explain, but what you experienced was so intense. 

His heart broke again because of those words. He also discovered so many things in you. He knows he can find friendship, understanding, commitment in you. He is in love with you so deeply, therefore couldn’t imagine his present without you in it. He doesn’t like to plan his future much, but beside you he thought maybe he was wrong about that, maybe he should plan something so there will not be any chances of losing you. For the first time, he feared that he might not find you in the future.

He joked again,“So you are jealous.”

“Oh, shut up!”, you finally smiled and that was the moment when the car lighted up.

 “I’m sorry you had to consider about not being good enough. I’m sorry I haven’t showed or told you how perfect you are as much as I should have to.” his smiles paled a little, now on his face a sad one was painted. You could tell looking in his eyes he regrets it, he thinks your thoughts are his fault.

“Don’t apologise, I shouldn’t have thought about it in the first place. Everything you do is perfect, it’s not your fault. I love you so much.” 

“I love you more.”

You couldn’t resist but smile, “Don’t start this game, you know you are not able to win it.” 

“Maybe you should let me win, because you are just too precious and you need to hear that you are the most beloved girl of the earthly. And I am the most beloved boy because I am loved by you.”

 Your heart dropped on your stomach and you stopped breathing for maybe too long. You have beside you the sweetest, caring and lovable man you had fallen too hard for. Him, standing in his seat, looking at you with his beautiful brown eyes, the sun kissing his face, make him look like he was unreal. He is made itself by the Goddess of beauty. He can be itself the God of beauty, kindness, love. All of the Gods batteling inside your man because he is far beyond perfect. He is something this world would never understand.

[lustinglilac]

Netflix & Chill

A/N: In which reader gets flustered during movie night.

Warnings: 18+, smut, read at your own risk ;)

“So, how was work?” She asks him with a mouth full of rice, digging into her chicken next which makes OA chuckle.

“Baby, you’re going to choke.” He winks at her which makes her cheeks heat up as she ignored his innuendo.

“Omar, do you have to make everything dirty? Just answer the question.” She scoffs, pretending to roll her eyes at his lame joke.

“Work was good. Had to chase someone down. But Maggie says she misses you.” He smiles warmly at the thought of his work partner and how well she got along with the love of his life.

“I miss her too! We have to go out together one night. Or just me and Maggie, leave you at home.” It was her turn to wink as he tensed up, his jaw clenching.

“You wouldn’t-“ he teases her.

“Nah, we wouldn’t. I just wanted to get a reaction out of you.” She laughs loudly as he relaxes.

“How about I’ll clean up, and then we watch a movie on Netflix?” He says, chewing the last piece of his dinner.

“Sounds good.” She stands up, taking their plates to the sink and smacking OA’s ass on the way out of the kitchen.

A few minutes of scrolling through Netflix and she had finally settled on a comedy movie to watch with her boyfriend.

She sighed, stretching her arms above her head just as OA walked into the living room with only sweatpants on, his chest and abs on full display for her to drool over.

“That’s not fair, OA.” She scoffs, bewildered that he would come in looking that good for just a movie night.

“What did I do? I can’t have my shirt off to watch a movie with you?” His voice mocking as he saw the reaction it drew out of her.

“Whatever. Let’s just watch the movie.” She settles into the crock of his arm and he welcomes her there, the warmth radiating off of his toned chest.

Minutes after his shirtless shenanigan, he found himself getting distracted by the cleavage of her breasts in that damn crop top she wore, how the swell of her ass fit perfectly with his crotch. She shifted against him as if she knew what he was thinking.

He places a warning hand on her hip, caressing the skin that was exposed there.

“I’m just trying to get comfortable.” She whispers as she rubs against him and finally finds a good position.

Fuck, he was hard now. He shouldn’t have pulled that knowing how she would get back at him. Two can play at this game, he thought to himself.

OA’s hand finding itself burried under the waistband of her leggings but not pushing it just yet, “Are you cold?” He whispers as he kisses her exposed shoulder.

Her breath hitches as his hand travels further into her leggings and past her thong, his long finger rubbing at her clit that was beginning to get wet already.

“Oh, fuck.” She breathes out, whimpering as he spread the slick that was collecting there down to her pussy lips.

“Wanna make you feel good.” He says softly into the skin of her shoulder as he pushes a finger in slowly. Her smaller hands immediately go to his wrist, trying to stop his movements but OA refuses and pumps his finger faster into her.

As if on cue, her leg spreads wider, throwing it over his thigh as she tries to push down her leggings to get more friction.

“Baby, I wanna be inside you.” He groans behind her, eagerly pushing down his sweats and boxers, ripping her leggings as he pushed them past her gorgeous, round ass.

Her jaw goes slack as he pushes into her slowly, barely fitting because he was so thick, “Yesss, fuck me.” She manages to moan as he thrust into her at an unforgiving pace.

“You’re fucking tight- mhmm.” He reaches a hand around her front to rub at her clit as she pushed back onto him, her thrusts meeting with his perfectly.

“OA, OA, please-“ His name slipping through her lips like a chant as her eyes threatened to close due to the overwhelming pleasure.

“I’m right here, baby, cum for me-“ He grips her thigh tighter, stretching it even further to hit an angle she didn’t even know was possible.

The head of his cock relentlessly nudged against her g-spot until she felt the pressure building in her stomach. That was it, the perfect spot that allowed her to let go. 

“I can’t!” Her beautiful body convulsed as he held her tight to him, his thrusts slowing down once he felt his own thick cum seeping down his shaft.

“That was-“

“So fucking good.” She finishes his sentence with a kiss to his lips as she pulled up her ripped leggings once more and he tucked himself back into his sweats.

“Well, my favorite sweatpants are ruined.” He chuckles as he tries to dab at the cum stain on them.

“Yeah, no kidding.” She looks down at the hole in her leggings from the damage that OA’s eager hands had done.

“Baby, I love you.” He turned her head towards him and kissed her softly, his large hand splaying around her throat.

“I love you, OA.” She pulled back and smiled. 

She would never know how she got so lucky.

[probably-writing-x]

Early greetings, late nights.

Andér x Reader (Gender not specified)

Request from @isthatmaryanna : hi!! could you write a imagine with ander? where he’s not gay and fall in love with the reader at a party and the finds out she’s the new girl from las encinas and then their first kiss

Gif is not my own (But this gif is literally my favourite thing - I’ve rewatched it so much😂😭)

Requests are open❤️

“Okay but I’m not saying I’ll hate it,” You defend, “But I definitely won’t fit in.”

Omar laughs from beside you, “Definitely not, please don’t become one of them.”

“Do you think it will be that bad?” You ask as you hand him another one of the glasses to set up for the night at the club.

“It will be worse, (Y/n),” He grins, “You’ll forget all about me!”

“How could I ever?” You gasp, handing him the final glass before tossing the kitchen towel over your shoulder, “You’re already ditching me for this shift so you owe me one. When I need saving at school, you need to be there.”

He grins and steps through the opening of the bar, “Of course, I’ll be your knight in dodgy-shiny armor.”

- - - - - -

It’s a busy night at the club and you find yourself counting down the minutes until Omar would return for his late shift so you could escape for the night. It felt like you were serving carbon copies of every single person - the same drinks, the same smug looks as they assumed you’d never be able to pay for it.

“What can I get you?” You ask the same question as you clean off another of the taps and toss the towel over your shoulder.

When you look up, the eyes looking back arent like the rest. They’re piercing and lit up by a light smile as you look back. He looks about your age, dressed in an open shirt and white tee - a simple, understated look. But the curls on his head give him a boyish, friendly characteristic.

You swallow the lump in your throat, “What would you like to drink?”

He smirks gently, “I’ll take a scotch please... Omar?”

You glance down at your uniform and chuckle, “Not my uniform, but nice try!”

You go about grabbing the bottle and glass to make his drink, trying your best to not notice how his eyes followed you for the entire time. He seemed interesting. Like he had a personality beyond the money his parents bank account held.

“Shall I put it on the tab?” You offer, going to tap the screen to put his drink through.

“I’ll be back for another soon enough,” He raises the drink to you and turns away, only glancing back once as he takes a second take in your direction.

You try to stop yourself from getting too flustered as you serve the next customer, and the next.

- - - - - -

“Alright (Y/n)!” Omar calls as he comes behind the bar, “You’re done for the night, go home and feel bad for me.”

“So it’s (Y/n).”

You go to reply to Omar but stop instantly when you hear the words. The boy from earlier was stood at the bar, evidently expecting a second attempt at learning a little more about you. And Omar handing that attempt to him with ease.

“Maybe you won’t be going straight home,” Omar wiggles his prominent brows, “Give me my name tag and get out of here.”

You laugh and unclip it, untying your apron and handing that to him too, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Omar.”

The boy walks the length of the bar until he pushes through enough to meet you where you’d be exiting for the end of your shift.

“What do you say to having my second drink with me?” He suggests, leaning close to ask you the question.

You glance at him once more and smile a little, “I say I’ll have whatever you’re having, I’ll be back down in five.”

Hurriedly, you push through the staff door and grab your things to at least make yourself a little more presentable. You comb your hair through and try to perfect your appearance just slightly - though there was only so much it could improve by whilst you were still wearing this uniform.

When you get back downstairs, the boy is leaning against a nearby wall with two glasses of scotch in his hands. He pushes off and grins a little when he sees you.

“I thought you might have found a back exit and left me alone,” He comments, handing over one glass to you.

“I tried, it was locked,” You joke, having to yell over the music blaring through the room.

He gestures over for the two of you to go to one of the emptier corners of the club and settles a hand on your back with such ease as he leads to over.

“You seemed so set on knowing my name, you never told me yours,” You point out, taking a sip of the drink and wincing at the taste.

“Ander Muñoz,” He responds, dipping his head to speak to you.

Muñoz. That name sounded oddly familiar.

“You enjoy working here?”

“Serving a bunch of snooty rich people that just complain about us not having the right champagne or not making their drinks fast enough? It’s a dream!”

He laughs and it makes his eyes crinkle and dimples appear on his cheeks, “Is it really that bad?”

“They pay me so I can’t complain,” You shrug, “And I have Omar.”

“So am I one of them?” He raises his brows, “The snooty rich people?”

You laugh a little and shake your head, “You tell me Ander Muñoz.”

Before he can say anything more, somebody knocks into the back of him and causes him to stumble into you, tipping his drink onto both of you a little.

“Do you want to get out of here?” He suggests, setting down the empty glass onto a table.

“Yeah, definitely,” You nod, swigging back the rest of the drink with a hiss and setting your glass next to his.

- - - - - -

It’s another three quarters of an hour later when you find yourself still strolling around the empty streets with him. You’d talked about anything and nothing and were yet to get to a point where the conversation ceased.

“Okay, where in this town do you go to then?” He asks you, having grown jokingly tired of you mocking his ‘rich boy’ lifestyle.

You laugh a little, “You want to see how the other half live?”

“Please, do tell, (Y/n),” He smirks, looking at you expectantly.

You reach out a hand for him to lace with his own and tug him out of the path you’d been following, “Down this way.”

Your hands stay locked the whole way as you eventually reach the docks and you lead him up the steps to the top of the bridge.

“Isn’t this just where people do drug deals?” He laughs, stumbling behind to catch up with you and hold your hand a little firmer.

“Well, yeah,” You admit, “But at night, you get the best view of the stars.”

You let go of his hand and push yourself up onto the edge, shifting your weight until you sit on the edge with your legs dangling over.

“Woah, woah, careful!” He holds out his hands like he’d have any hope of catching you.

“Don’t worry,” You laugh, turning and laying down on the hard surface so you could look up to the sky above.

“Isn’t there a much safer way of seeing the fucking stars?” He mutters to himself as he mirrors your actions opposite you.

“Nobody ever did anything good by being safe,” You roll your eyes, glancing up to watch as he cautiously lowers himself to lay against the rock.

You two stay in silence for a while as you watch the stars stationary in their movement, until one comes shooting across as if by fate.

“I think that’s a good sign,” He comments quietly, voice a little raspy from the lack of conversation.

“So, Mr Muñoz, was this up to scratch for showing you what I do for fun around here?” You raise yourself to sit on the stone and swing your legs back over.

He hops down and dusts off his jeans, “Id say you need to find yourself some friends and get yourself to some parties.”

You laugh and can’t help your heart from bubbling as his hand finds yours again.

“I should probably get home, I have a big day tomorrow,” You comment, walking slowly back down the steps from the bridge with him.

“What’s happening tomorrow?”

“Let’s not talk about that,” You shake your head with a half-laugh.

“Then I should get you home as soon as possible,” With that, he dips down in front of you and hoists you onto his back until he has a firm grip on your thighs, “Your carriage has arrived.”

He somehow manages to carry you the whole way home, complaining whenever you made him laugh as you found yourself in hysterics - blaming it solely on the fatigue and that scotch in your empty stomach.

“Well, I’ve had a very good night, Ander,” You smile as he sets you back down, “You’ve slightly restored my faith in the other half of society.”

“Slightly?” He cocks a brow.

“There’s always room for improvement,” You smirk, leaning in to kiss his cheek, “Goodnight Ander.”

He stops you there until you’re close enough that your nose knocks against his. And he musters every piece of courage he had left in him to kiss you for the first time - soft and very much aware that you could easily pull away. When you don’t, his courage dials way back up and he cups your face in his hands with ease, like they were always meant to be there. It’s longing and you regret not starting this earlier in the evening.

“Goodnight, Ander,” You repeat as you pull away, slightly more breathless now.

“Can I get your number at least?” He asks as you go to walk towards your apartment block.

“Something tells me I’ll see you very soon anyway,” You confirm, heading inside before any other part of you could convince you otherwise.

- - - - - -

You’re shown around school by one of the admin staff who explains to you what to expect from your new student role at Las Encinas. You’d already noticed a few people that you’d served at the bar multiple times and tried to avoid too many peoples prying eyes on the new kid as you reach your new class.

“Class, we have a new student joining us today,” The teacher stands up as you go to walk in, “I’m sure you’ll all be very welcoming to (Y/n).”

There’s only one student that you’re focused on as the name is spoken. Sat in the back on the far side of the class is none other than Ander. That’s where you’d known the name from - his Mum was the fucking principal! He glances in your direction and quickly turns away, unable to stop the smile from crawling onto his face as he shifts a little in his chair.

“There’s a seat beside Ander if that’s okay,” The teacher mentions, gesturing over to the boy you were meant to not know yet.

You nod and take the adjacent seat to him, setting your book onto the table.

“So, last night was fun,” He smirks, handing you a pen, “Maybe now would be a good time for me to get that number.”

You roll your eyes, “When I said soon, I didn’t think I’d be seeing you the next morning.”

Nevertheless, you scribble down your number onto some paper and hand it back to him.

“Definitely seems like we’ll be seeing more of each other now, (y/n).”

And it suddenly becomes impossible to complain about his slightly cocky demeanour.

“I guess we will, Mr Muñoz.”