#there's still a chance for it to get better

[navybrat817]

All Dressed Up

Pairing: Biker!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Summary: Bucky visits a gallery to support his best friend and unexpectedly meets the girl of his dreams.

Word Count: Over 2.3k

Warnings: First meeting, mild dirty thoughts, instacrush, swearing, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?).

A/N: Okay, lovelies. A new AU. I'm sorry. @targaryenvampireslayer @tavners @starlightcrystalline @whisperlullaby @sgt-seabass @vesearlee , I feel like you all either heard me screech, encouraged, or helped me, and I appreciate you. ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Edit by the beautiful @nixakimbo and divider by the incredible @firefly-graphics . Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

Bucky didn’t dress up for most people since it wasn’t his style. He would do so for any of his brothers though, especially Steve. His best friend since childhood, and his club’s president, he always had a love and talent for drawing and painting. And after working his ass off on his exhibit it would’ve been a crime for the vice president not to show up.

Steve promised if there was ever a day when Bucky’s writing became published he’d be by his side to celebrate too. As much as they liked to give each other shit sometimes about art and how they created it, the support was there through and through. The only catch for tonight was that he had to dress nicely to get into the gallery. So, instead of the usual leather jacket or vest he wore and jeans, he went with a plain black suit and white button up shirt.

He refused to wear a tie since it wasn’t a wedding. He had to draw a line somewhere. No one paid him any mind though as they walked around the gallery, and he was more than fine with that. This wasn’t his night.

“You should be proud, punk,” Bucky said, looking over the art lining the large wall, each piece crafted with care.

“I am proud, jerk,” Steve smiled. He hadn’t worn a tie either, and it made Bucky feel a little better. “And you know you don’t have to stay the whole time.”

Bucky knew that. He also knew members and prospects would be trickling in and out throughout the evening. “Not needed at the bar tonight, so I can stay as long as I want. But I might cut out early since I see your face enough between that and the club.”

Steve chuckled. “Still haven’t sold the place, huh?”

The brunette sighed. It wasn’t the first time Steve asked if he was going to sell the bar to focus more on writing. “Where the hell would you all hang out if I sold the place?” He liked the bar. It wasn’t just a great hangout for the club, but for his other regulars, too.

“There are other bars,” Steve teased. He said that, but he loved the bar, too. “You know I just want you to-”

“Follow my compass. I know. You’ve said that so many…” He stopped talking when he saw an unexpected angel walk into the room.

Well, angel was the word that came to mind since you were wearing a white dress and the light over your head illuminated you like a halo. But as his eyes swept over you, he wondered if there was a bit of a devil in you. He wouldn’t mind bringing that side out of you if you gave him the chance.

And here he used to think love at first sight was bullshit.

“Hey. Do you know her?” Bucky subtly nodded in your direction as you spoke to another woman, jealousy flaring up for a second at the thought of his best friend knowing you and not telling him. And if you knew Steve, that was that before things even started. While the blonde didn’t have much game growing up, he came into his own after his growth spurt, and everyone adored or wanted him.

Steve shook his head. “No, I don’t,” he said, making Bucky’s shoulders slump in relief before his friend scrutinized him. “Jesus, are you eye fucking her? You are, aren’t you?”

Bucky wasn’t the least bit ashamed. “And I’ll keep doing it ‘til she looks at me,” he replied, wishing you’d at least spare him a glance and get a look at him in his nice suit. Maybe you weren’t into guys with tattoos and piercings, but he was certain he could change your mind if that was the case.

“How long has it been since you’ve been on a date?” Steve asked. “Just introduce yourself like a gentleman and see where that goes.”

“A couple of months? Something like that.” Tearing his gaze away to glance at his inked hands, he chuckled. “You think I’m a gentleman?”

He could be dangerous and downright dirty when the occasion called for it, but just because he rode a motorcycle and covered himself in tattoos and piercings didn’t mean he treated others poorly. He was raised better than that. Even with his ex-girlfriends, things never ended because he didn’t treat them well. They just weren’t the one.

“We both know you are. Sometimes,” Steve answered, smirking as a beat passed. “And she’s looking your way.”

Bucky’s head snapped up to find you looking right at him with a curious stare. You had the prettiest eyes he had ever seen. Which was nothing compared to your smile. It was like watching the sun slowly rise to meet the day.

Fuck, he was being sappy. You ruined him with a single stare, and he wanted to ruin you in return. Make it so you wouldn’t want another man.

You whispered something to the woman beside you before she nudged you forward and he realized Steve pushed him to move, too. It only took three more steps before he was right in front of you, the gentle smell of your sweet perfume filling his nostrils. Need slammed into his body as you smiled again, and he actually felt the blue of his eyes shrink as his pupils widened.

If Steve thought he was eye fucking you before…

“Hey,” he said, his voice raspier than usual.

“Hi,” you said. It was a voice he could listen to for hours and he wondered what it would sound like when you said his name.

“I’m Bucky.” He took a smaller step closer, trying his damnedest to block out any other man around him so you’d keep those pretty eyes on him.

You introduced yourself, too, and it was a name he would never forget. “I like your tattoos,” you added almost shyly. Almost.

If he had his way, you’d see the rest of them soon enough. “Thanks,” he smiled, holding one hand up to show you. “Dressed like this, I bet you think I’m part of the mob.” After getting dressed and adding the gold jewelry, even he thought for a split second he looked like a mobster.

“Are you or is that information I can’t be privy to?” you asked, making him chuckle. You didn’t skip a beat, and he liked that.

“Not part of the mob, but I am part of a motorcycle club,” he replied. He wore his patch with pride and that didn’t seem to scare you, which was good. “I also own a bar.” He didn’t know why added that part. You didn’t ask and he didn’t want to brag, but there he was.

“So, you ride a motorcycle, and you own a bar?” You glanced back at your friend to ask her, “Do you mind if I…”

“I’m good. You two talk,” your friend smiled, giving Bucky an encouraging wink. He looked back to find that Steve walked away, too.

You smiled as you faced Bucky again. “Well, I’m happy to hear more about either of those things if you have time.”

“Yeah.” A lopsided smile appeared before he could stop it. “I got time,” he said. All the time in the world.

Over the next hour, the two of you stayed close together and talked in between looking at Steve’s pieces. He told you he was there to support Steve and talked a little bit more about the bar he owned. A hole in the wall kind of place he fixed up. While he wasn’t a big drinker, he loved making them for his regulars, and his profession allowed him to get away with all the tattoos.

“I’ll have to stop by sometime,” you smiled before it faltered. “If that’s okay.”

He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but his heart raced, and he wanted to see you smile again. “I’ll hold you to that,” he teased. “What about you? What do you do for work?”

You told him that you were a blood bank nurse and still fairly new to the area. While you didn’t have too many friends nearby, you liked your neighborhood and the one friend you had made invited you to the gallery since she was an art enthusiast. You also let it slip that you were single upon your move here, which he was happy to hear since he was, too, but he didn’t miss the note of sadness in your voice.

He could help fix it if you were lonely.

“I’m not seeing anyone either,” he stated.

You raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “You don’t have an old lady?” His eyes went right to your lip when he bit it. “That is the correct term of endearment, right?”

“That’s right,” he said, his eyes soft. “Both of those things are right.”

You bit your lip again and he wasn’t sure if you were purposely trying to entice him, but now he wanted to bite your lip. “So, do you do anything for fun outside of riding and work?”

He almost groaned when you said “riding” and he had to shake his head to keep his mind from drifting. He couldn’t think of you being on his bike with your arms wrapped tight around him or you riding him or anything like that. “Well…”

He explained that he wrote a bit in his spare time outside of work and the club. It was a hobby mostly, but it would be a dream come true to get his work out there one day. If not, that was okay, too, because he had a decent life and didn’t need much. His bike, his brothers.

But to have an old lady…

“Maybe I could read…” you frowned when you saw the time. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how late it was. I should get going,” you said, disappointment filling both of you.

“Oh.” He scratched the back of his neck. The two of you were having a nice talk, and he hadn’t had a chance to ask about your hobbies yet. “It’s still kinda early. Do you really have to go?” he asked, realizing just how desperate he sounded. God, if the prospects could hear him right now… He just didn’t want the night to end.

“Yeah, I do. I’m actually working a blood drive tomorrow and could use the rest,” you said, smiling sadly. He felt like an ass for asking you to stay when you had work to do. “I don’t know if you’ve heard anything about it, but you’re welcome to stop by if you want to donate. I always have this fear that people won’t show, which I realize sounds ridiculous.”

Bucky mentally kicked his ass for not knowing about a local blood drive. He was usually more on top of those sorts of things. “Where’s it at?” You gave the location and time, which was all he needed. “I’ll be there,” he promised.

And every single club member would be there, too, if they knew what was good for them.

“Really?” you smiled, your hand bumping his when you turned to face him. “You’ll go?”

He let his fingers brush yours and he smiled to himself when he felt the light shiver. “Of course, doll.”

“Doll?” you giggled. He hoped he didn’t offend you. “I hope you show,” you added in a small voice, your gaze focused on the ground.

Frowning a bit, he wondered if you didn’t believe him. Did someone let you down before? “If I say I’ll be there…” He lifted your chin, so you’d look into his eyes. He needed you to see the truth in them. “I’ll be there.”

You exhaled, staring deeply into his eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” you whispered.

He grudgingly released you, knowing he had to. Besides, if he kept touching you, there was a good chance he’d pin you against the wall and show you what a work of art you were. “Good night,” he whispered, watching you go back to your friend. She linked her arm with yours as you glanced back, keeping your eyes on Bucky until you were out of sight.

He exhaled, mentally kicking his ass again. Why the fuck didn’t he ask for your number? You two hit it off, and you wanted to see him at least in some capacity beyond the blood drive, right?

Steve made a beeline for him as he stayed rooted to the spot. “It looks like you two hit it off. You know you didn’t even say hi to Chris or Sam or-”

“We’re going to a blood drive tomorrow,” he cut in. He hoped people would show, but he gave you his word he’d be there, and the club was all about giving back to the community.

The blonde’s eyebrows pinched. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Blood drive. Tomorrow. Everyone,” he said, giving his friend a hard stare. “You’re the president. Make it happen.”

“You’re the vice president, which means you supervise plans for club events or gatherings. That includes last minute things,” he pointed out, his eyebrows shooting up as Bucky got his phone out and typed quickly. “You’re serious about this?”

“Is it too much to say, ‘You better fucking be there or you’ll pay for it later’?”

The blonde grinned. A shit-eating, knowing grin, and he wanted to smack him. “This is all for her, isn’t it?”

Bucky sighed. He hadn't expected to meet someone so perfect tonight. “She’s a nurse and I wanna help. Besides, it’s good for the community and you’re all about that shit.” And he had to make a better impression after not asking for your number. “Will you at least promise you’ll be there?”

“To watch my whipped best friend fawn over a pretty nurse? Hell yeah.”

“Beautiful,” he corrected him. “She’s beautiful.”

And while Bucky would fawn over you tomorrow, he also hoped he’d get your number.

So, what do we think so far? Part of this writing style was slightly different for me, but I like how it turned out! I still need to give this reader a nickname and the AU a name, but this is a start. I can't wait for the whole club to show up at the blood drive. I also have something silly and cute planned for these two. ❤️ Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

[rizzanon]

05 | UNTOUCHED MEMORIES

m.list | prev | next

Things between you and Damian weren’t perfect, but they were better. Slightly better.

Since that day, the tension that used to hang heavy between you had softened, just a little. He no longer avoided you like the plague, nor did he try to dismiss you every chance he got. Sure, there were still moments where you clashed—Damian was Damian, after all—but now, it didn’t feel like an outright war. It was more… playful. Almost.

He still had his sharp remarks, but they didn’t cut as deep anymore. And you? You’d give them right back, though with less heat than before. It was oddly satisfying to watch him bristle, his retorts coming slower and more thoughtful, like he was beginning to actually enjoy the verbal sparring. Though he definitely wouldn’t admit that.

One day, you decided to test the waters further.

You found Damian in the sitting room, a book in his hands and Titus curled up at his feet. He didn’t look up as you approached, though you knew he’d already noticed you.

“Hey, Damian,” you said, holding the plate out in front of you.

He finally looked up, one eyebrow raised. “What is it now?”

You rolled your eyes. “Relax. I made these with Alfred. Thought you might want to try them.”

He eyed the plate suspiciously, like it might explode if he touched it. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you offering me one?” he asked, his voice carefully neutral. “What’s your angle?”

You huffed, crossing your arms. “No angle. If you don’t want them, you don’t have to take them. Simple.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want them,” Damian said quickly, his tone defensive.

You raised an eyebrow, suppressing a smile. “Oh? So you do want them?”

He scoffed, snatching the plate from your hands like you might change your mind. “I’ll try them. But don’t expect me to praise you if they’re subpar.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Damian took a deliberate bite, his expression carefully guarded as he chewed. You watched him closely, waiting for his reaction.

“Well?” you asked.

He paused, his lips twitching ever so slightly before he schooled his face back into indifference. “Adequate.”

You snorted. “Adequate, huh? That’s basically high praise coming from you.”

“Tt. Don’t let it go to your head,” he muttered, but he didn’t stop eating.

You grinned, shaking your head as you turned to leave. “Enjoy them, Damian. Or don’t. Whatever.”

As you walked away, you heard him mutter under his breath, just loud enough for you to catch: “I will.”

You didn’t look back, but you couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at your lips.

No, things between you and Damian weren’t perfect. But this? This was progress.

Stephanie twirled her mug between her hands, the steam curling into the air as she sat perched on the couch at the Clocktower. Across the room, Cassandra sat cross-legged on the floor, cleaning and reassembling her grappling gun with quiet precision. The rhythmic sound of Cassandra’s movements usually put the blonde at ease, but today, she couldn’t shake the restless thoughts spinning in her head.

“I don’t get it,” Stephanie muttered finally, breaking the silence.

Cass didn’t look up, but the subtle tilt of her head told Steph she was listening.

“It’s been almost three weeks,” Steph continued, gesturing with her mug like it emphasized her point. “Three weeks since (Name) quit, and I haven’t seen her here. Not once. No check-ins, no training, no anything. She just… stopped. Like she wasn’t serious about any of it to begin with.”

Cass paused her movements, her sharp gaze flicking to Steph. “Serious..?”

“Y’know, serious about being Batgirl..!” Steph exclaimed, setting her mug on a table with a clink. “I mean, she was so into it. Always had to be the best, always trying to prove she could do everything better than me. And now? Nothing. It’s like she dropped off the face of the earth.”

Cass raised an eyebrow, her hands moving again to tighten the grappling gun’s grip. “You miss her.”

“What? No! I—” Steph’s protest faltered under Cass’s calm stare. “Okay, maybe a little. But that’s not the point.” She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “It’s just so unlike her. You know what I mean?”

Cass considered this for a moment, then nodded. “She fights. Always fights. And she doesn’t stop.”

“Exactly!” Steph said, throwing her hands up. “She’s stubborn as hell. She’d never just quit without a reason. It’s like she’s a completely different person all of a sudden.”

Cass’s gaze stayed steady on Steph, her expression unreadable. “Maybe something happened.”

Steph frowned. “Like what?”

Cass furrowed her eyebrows, setting her grappling gun aside and leaning back on her hands. “I don’t know. But something.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” Steph admitted, slumping against the back of the couch. “I mean, yeah, we weren’t exactly besties or whatever, but we spent enough time together. I thought I had her figured out. Now I feel like I don’t know her at all.”

Cass tilted her head. “Did you? Know her?”

Steph opened her mouth to respond but stopped. She hadn’t really thought about it that way. Most of her interactions with you had been competitive or snarky, sure, but there had been moments—rare ones—where it felt like there was something deeper under the surface. She just hadn’t taken the time to dig for it.

“I don’t know,” Steph admitted, her voice quieter. “Maybe I didn’t. But I thought I did.”

Cass nodded slowly, as if that answer didn’t surprise her.

“What about you..?” Steph asked, turning the question back on Cass. “What do you think of all this?”

Cass didn’t answer immediately. She sat in thoughtful silence, her dark eyes focused on nothing in particular. “Not sure,” she said finally. “It feels… off. Like she’s hiding.”

Steph frowned. “Hiding what?”

“I… don’t know.”

The room fell silent as Steph mulled over Cass’s words. For all your bravado and stubborness, there had always been something raw about you, like you were desperate to hold onto something—anything. Maybe Cass was right. Maybe something had happened—something you didn’t want anyone to know.

Stephanie sighed, reaching for her mug again. “You’re probably right. She’s hiding something. But what exactly is she hiding, that’s the question.” She took a sip of her coffee, grimacing slightly at the bitterness. “I hate not knowing. It’s driving me nuts.”

Cass offered a small, almost imperceptible smile. “You care.”

“Of course I care!” Steph shot back, her cheeks flushing slightly. “I mean, yeah, she’s annoying and stubborn and always has to prove she’s better than me, but…” She trailed off, her voice softening. “She’s still one of us. Right?”

Cass nodded, the smile lingering.

Stephanie leaned back again, staring at the ceiling. “Maybe I’ll try talking to her. Or something. I don’t know. This is just… weird. It doesn’t feel right. To just leave things as it is.”

Cass watched Stephanie closely, her quiet curiosity cutting through the lingering silence. “What was it like?” she asked, her voice calm but insistent. “Between you and her?”

Steph froze, mid-sip of her coffee. Her first instinct was to deflect, to brush the question off with a joke or a sarcastic remark. But Cass’s gaze—steady, patient, unyielding—made it clear she wasn’t going to let it slide.

“What do you mean, ‘what was it like?’” Steph muttered, setting her mug down with more force than necessary.

“You and (Name),” Cass said, gesturing vaguely with her hand. “Before all this. When she was still Batgirl. When you were still Spoiler. When you became Batgirl as well.”

Steph shifted uncomfortably, her lips pressing into a thin line.

What was it like?

“It was… complicated,” she said finally.

It was anything but normal.

Cass tilted her head, waiting for her to elaborate. Steph sighed, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees.

Stephanie could still remember her first few nights as Spoiler, still rough around the edges and carrying the weight of Cluemaster, her father’s, shadow on her shoulders. She’d been furious when she found out after he claimed to be “rehabilitated”, he actually returned to crime instead, leaving no clues behind this time. She knew then and there that something had to be done—that she had to do something—to stop her father. So, she made her Spoiler costume, and set out to stop her father. That night, she’d intercepted one of his coded messages and had made the decision to spoil yet another of his schemes—alone.

It hadn’t gone according to plan.

The warehouse was dark and cold, lit only by a few dim bulbs hanging from the rafters. Stephanie had crept in quietly, her heart pounding as she hid in the shadows. The stolen tech Cluemaster planned to sell sat piled high in crates, guarded by a dozen armed men. She’d hoped to sneak in, plant some evidence for the police, and leave unnoticed. Instead, she’d tripped a motion sensor and found herself surrounded.

She fought back with everything she had, but it wasn’t enough. Her moves were sloppy, unrefined, and born of sheer desperation. A blow to her ribs sent her sprawling across the floor, and she barely managed to roll out of the way of another thug’s steel-toed boot. Just when it seemed like she was out of options, a flash of movement from the rafters caught her attention.

You arrived like a force of nature, swooping down in your Batgirl suit, taking out two of the goons before they even knew what hit them. For someone who appeared composed and confident, Stephanie noticed quickly that your movements weren’t as fluid as you likely hoped they were. You were good—better than her, no question—but your hits didn’t land with perfect precision, and you occasionally stumbled, as though still learning the weight of your cape.

Still, the two of you managed to fight off the group, leaving the thugs groaning on the ground. Stephanie was leaning against one of the crates, clutching her side and breathing heavily, when you turned to her.

“Who are you?” you demanded, stepping forward.

“I’m…” She hesitated, brushing off her torn sleeve and trying to stand straighter. “I’m Spoiler.”

“Never heard of you.” You crossed your arms, looking her up and down. “What are you even doing here? Who are you working with?”

Stephanie groaned, more from frustration than pain. “I’m not working with anyone.”

“Then why are you here?” You gestured to the tied-up henchmen. “This isn’t exactly a neighborhood bake sale.”

“I’m here to stop my father,” she snapped, throwing her arms up.

That made you pause. “Your… father?”

She sighed, already regretting the slip. “Yeah. My father.”

You frowned, the pieces slowly clicking together. “Wait… you’re Cluemaster’s daughter?”

“Congrats, you solved the mystery, want a prize for that?” she muttered sarcastically, shrugging your hand off her arm when you instinctively tried to grab her.

You stepped back, your stance cautious now, your expression wary. “Why are you trying to stop him?”

“Because someone has to.” Stephanie said, her voice rising. “Because I don’t want people to get hurt because of him. Is that good enough for you, Batgirl?”

You stared at her for a long moment before sighing. “You shouldn’t even be out here. This isn’t a game.”

“I’m not treating it like one!” she shot back. “I know what I’m doing.”

“No, you don’t,” you replied bluntly, but your voice softened after a moment. “But… I guess I can see why you’re doing it.”

Stephanie braced herself for you to knock her out or drag her to Batman, but instead, you just grabbed the nearest thug and tied him up.

“You’re not going to say anything?” she asked, suspicious.

You didn’t look at her. “Not tonight. But don’t make me regret it.”

And with that, you had disappeared into the night, leaving Stephanie confused and to her own thoughts, unsure of what to think about you, Batgirl.

Why did you let her go?

It didn’t make sense.

Stephanie leaned back against the nearest crate, ignoring the dull ache in her ribs as her mind spiraled. Was it pity? Did you feel sorry for her something?

The thought stung more than she wanted to admit. She didn’t need anyone’s pity—least of all from someone who’d clearly been at this vigilante thing longer than her. Or maybe—you just thought she wasn’t worth the effort of turning in.

Over the next few weeks—for some reason—Stephanie kept on running into you. Sometimes it was because you were actively following her, and sometimes it was sheer coincidence. Each time, the dynamic between the two of you shifted slightly.

“I don’t need your help,” Steph had snapped when you intervened in another one of her plans to foil her father’s, her voice tinged with irritation. She’d bitten off more than she could chew, but the last thing she wanted was you swooping in to save her.

“You’re welcome,” you’d replied coolly, barely glancing at her as you tied up the last of the thugs.

Steph had bristled. “I had it handled.”

“Sure you did,” you’d said, your tone dripping with sarcasm. “That’s why you were about two seconds away from getting your head bashed in.”

This cycle had continued for weeks—an endless back-and-forth of barbed comments and unspoken challenges.

But then there were quieter moments. Like this one night—you both got stuck during a freezing rainstorm, huddled together under a flimsy overhang.

“You’re shivering,” you’d noted, tossing your extra cloak over her shoulders without a second thought.

Steph had blinked at you, surprised. “…Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” you’d said, leaning back against the wall and pulling your own cloak tighter around you.

That same night she’d cornered you on the rooftop after the two of you left evidence for the police and Batman to find to deal with Cluemaster.

“Why?” she’d asked, crossing her arms. “Why’d you go along with my plan instead of running to Batman?”

You’d glanced at her, your expression unreadable. “Because you’re not like him,” you’d said simply.

“Cluemaster, I mean. And because… I do think you mean it. The whole ‘trying to stop my father’ thing.”

For a moment, Stephanie had been speechless. She hadn’t expected that kind of answer—or the quiet sincerity behind it.

She hadn’t expected that. Not from a Bat. They weren’t exactly known for handing out compliments—or trust. Especially not to someone like her.

But then again, from the moment she met you, you hadn’t exactly acted the way she thought someone trained under Batman would. Not that she would know what that was like.

Stephanie’s arms dropped to her sides as she studied you, standing there under the faint glow of the Gotham skyline. You didn’t look like you were second-guessing your words or regretting them. You were calm like you’d just stated a fact. Like you really meant it.

Stephanie felt the knot in her chest tighten. What if you were wrong? What if she was like him? She hadn’t exactly proven otherwise had she?

Sure, she was trying to stop him now, but that didn’t erase the fact that she was his daughter. His blood ran through her veins, no matter how much she hated it.

But then, there was another thought, quieter and harder to ignore. What if you weren’t wrong? What if—just maybe—you’d seen something in her she couldn’t see herself?

Stephanie didn’t know what terified her more then—the idea that someone believed in her, or the possibility that you might be right,

She glanced at you again, half-expecting you to take it back or brush it off like it didn’t matter. But you didn’t. You just stood there, calm and steady, like your words had been obvious all along.

And for a moment, she let herself believe it. Just a little.

“Thanks,” she muttered, her voice barely audible, as she looked away. She didn’t know if you heard her or if you’d even care, but it felt like something she had to say.

When she turned back around though, you were gone.

Stephanie blinked, her breath catching for a moment as she scanned the empty rooftop. “Really?” She muttered, dragging a hand down her face.

“Was that a ‘dramatic exit’ thing, or do all you bats have to disappear every time someone tries to say thanks?”

“Afterwards…” Steph began, her voice soft. “I didn’t really get to see much of her.”

Cass looked up briefly, her head tilting in silent acknowledgment.

“I mean, even after I met you,” Steph continued, “I didn’t see much of her. I thought we were chill. You know?”

Cass’s hands paused over the grappling gun. “Thought?”

Steph hesitated, biting the inside of her cheek. Her gaze fell to her mug, and she let out a slow breath. “I guess… everything kind of changed when Bruce ‘died.’” She set the mug on the table and leaned back against the couch. “When you quit being Batgirl, and gave me your costume to take over you.”

Cass blinked, her expression neutral but her body language subtly shifting. “Oh.”

Steph turned to face her fully, brows knitting together. “I thought things would still be fine, but no. Not when Dick and Babs allowed me to take up the Batgirl mantle.”

Stephanie had found you on the rooftop of an old apartment building, your silhouette outlined against the Gotham skyline. The wind cut through the air, sharp and cold, but you didn’t flinch, your posture rigid as though the weather didn’t touch you.

“I figured you’d be here,” she’d said softly, walking closer, the crunch of gravel under her boots breaking the silence.

“What do you want, Stephanie?” Your voice was hoarse and low, but your tone was sharp enough to stop her mid-step.

Steph froze, the weight of the Batgirl costume suddenly feeling heavier than ever. There was something in the way you said her name—so cold, so distant—it made her chest tighten.

“I just… wanted to talk.”

You let out a dry, humourless scoff, still not turning to face her.

Stephanie clenched her fists at her sides, willing herself to continue. “Look, I know you’re upset. I don’t know why Dick decided to bench you from being Batgirl, but—“

“Oh, you don’t know?” You spun around, finally facing her, your eyes burning with frustration. “It’s because of you, Stephanie. He benched me so you could play hero. He chose you. You. Over me. He’s saying I wasn’t good enough to be Batgirl. His Batgirl.”

Stephanie’s heart sank at the venom in your voice. She took a step closer, shaking her head. “That’s not true… Cass wanted me to take over her as Batgirl because—“

“Because what?” you snapped, voice rising. “Because she thought I couldn’t handle it? Because she thought you deserved it more than I do?”

“No!” Steph said quickly, her voice breaking slightly. “Because she thought I needed it. And maybe she’s right. But that doesn’t mean—“

“It doesn’t mean what?” you interrupted bitterly. “That it wasn’t a slap in the face? That it didn’t rip away the only thing I had left?”

Your voice broke, just slightly, and Stephanie’s heart clenched as she watched your walls crack under thr weight of your emotions.

“My father is dead, Stephanie. The one thing that he gave me that meant something, the one thing that I thought could truly be mine, was ripped away. Do you know how much it hurts to watch you parade in that suit like it didn’t mean anything to me? Like I don’t mean anything?”

“It’s not like that,” Steph shot back, her voice more desperate. “I didn’t mean for it to happen this way. I never wanted to hurt you—“

“Just stop,” you interrupted, turning away from her again. Your shoulders were stiff, your voice cutting like ice.

“I don’t care what you wanted. I don’t care what excuses you or Barbara or Dick have. They decided you were better than me. That I wasn’t good enough. That I was expendable.”

“That’s not true,” Steph said desperately.

“Oh sure,” you said, your voice dripping with sarcasm. “You somehow convinced Dick and Barbara to let you play Batgirl while I’m sidelined and tossed aside. Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t know what this would do to me.”

Stephanie felt frustration bubbling under the surface. “Do you think I have it easy? Barbara doubted me from the start! She didn’t think I’d survive as Batgirl. She only gave me a chance because I refused to back down—“

“So then why did they replace me?” you snapped, your eyes glistening with tears you refused to let fall. “Why did they bench me while you got to take my place? Even Cassandra seems to think you’re better than me.”

Steph froze. “That’s—“

“Am I really that replaceable?” you interrupted, your voice trembling.

Stephanie opened her mouth, but no words came out.

You let out a bitter laugh, shaking your head. “Save it, Stephanie. I don’t care what their reasons are. You want the mantle? Fine. It’s yours. But don’t come here pretending you didn’t know what this would do to me.”

Stephanie took a shaky step forward. “I’m not trying to—“

“I’ll prove them wrong,” you interrupted, your voice dropping to a deadly whisper. “I’ll prove I’m better than you. Better than any of them thought I could be. Even if it’s the last thing I do.”

Stephanie stared at you, stunned, as your words hung heavy in the air.

“So enjoy being Batgirl, Stephanie,” you said coldly. “And stay the hell away from me.”

Steph stood there for a long moment, frozen, as your words hung in the air. She wanted to say more, to fix this somehow, but the look in your eyes told her there was nothing she could do.

Without another word, she turned and walked away, her footsteps fading into the night as you turned back to the skyline, the cold wind biting at your skin.

Stephanie’s hands tightened around her mug as she replayed the memory in her mind.

“From then on,” Steph said, her voice soft, “she did everything she could to one-up me. Patrol routes, takedowns, intel—anything. It was like she was trying to prove herself, not just to Dick and Barbara, but to me, too.”

Cass tilted her head slightly, her expression unreadable.

Steph hesitated before asking, “Why… didn’t you seem bothered by her quitting? Didn’t it… I don’t know, feel weird to you?”

Cass stayed silent, her hands stilling over the grappling gun.

“Cass?” Stephanie pressed.

Cassandra sighed softly. “If it’s what she wanted, then everyone should respect it.”

“But isn’t it weird? That she suddenly quit?”

Cass’s gaze flickered. “Yeah,” she admitted, her voice calm. “But it’s better if she doesn’t continue this path.”

Steph’s brow furrowed. “Better? What do you mean?”

Cass hesitated, her voice even. “She wasn’t built for this life.”

Steph blinked, confused. “Wait, what? What are you talking about?”

Cass looked at her, her voice quieter but resolute. “I’ve always seen it. A… blockage. In her body language. When she fights, when she moves, it’s always there. It never goes away.”

Steph tilted her head, confused. “A blockage? What does that even mean..?”

“It’s like… a wall she can’t break through.” Cass explained, her tone calm but firm. “No matter what she does, it stops her from reaching her full potential. And that wall… it’s dangerous. For her.”

“But she’s strong—“ Steph opened her mouth to protest, but Cass cut her off, her tone firmer.

“She’s strong,” Cass agreed, “but not for this. That blockage is something she can’t overcome. And if she keeps pushing herself, it’ll hurt her. Worse than being benched. Worse than losing the mantle. She should live a normal life. Away from this.”

Steph stared at Cass, her confusion shifting into an uneasy understanding. The weight of Cass’s words settling heavily in her chest. Cass’s ability to read body language was unparalleled—if anyone could see something like that, it was her.

“But…” Steph started, trailing off, her voice uncertain.

Cass shook her head, her voice soft but final. “This life—it would break her. It’s better this way. For her.”

Stephanie leaned back into the couch, the weight of Cass’s words pressing down on her. For the first time, she felt a flicker of doubt—not about you, but about what this life demanded of you.

It didn’t make sense. None of it did.

Her thoughts swirled as she tried to piece it all together. Cassandra had always been the most perceptive person Stephanie had ever known, able to read people in ways that felt almost supernatural. If she said there was a “blockage,” some invisible wall holding you back, Steph believed her. She had no reason not to.

But why hadn’t Cass told you about it? Why hadn’t she tried to help you work through it instead of letting you walk away? Cass wasn’t the type to give up on people, so why had she just… let you go?

Stephanie’s grip tightened on the mug. She thought back to the nights she’d watched you push yourself too far, the way you’d thrown yourself into patrols and fights with a reckless determination that bordered on desperation. It made sense now, in a way. You weren’t just trying to be good enough—you were trying to be better than everyone’s doubts.

“I don’t…” Stephanie hesitated, her words faltering. “I don’t know how to feel about this.”

Cassandra didn’t respond, her silence stretching between them like the distant hum of the city outside.

The weight of the conversation pressed on Steph’s chest, but then a stray thought flickered in her mind, pulling her out of her tangled emotions. She striaghted slightly, her brow furrowing.

“Wait. Where’s Barbara anyway?” she asked, glancing around the Clocktower.

Cass tilted her head, thinking. “Not sure,” she said simply. “I think… she said she had plans. With someone.”

Steph raised an eyebrow. “Plans? With who?”

Cass shrugged, her expression giving nothing away.

Steph groaned, flopping back against the couch. “Great. So now Barbara is being cryptic too. What is it with you Bat people and your secrets?”

The lunch spot was cozy but buzzing with just enough noise to drown out any awkward silences—though not nearly enough to mask the tension sitting between you and Barbara. She sat across from you, her gaze flickering between the menu in her hands and you.

You should have refused the lunch. Should have claimed you were busy. But the text Barbara sent you left you with no real excuse:

“Lunch? 1 PM? Don’t pretend you’re busy, I know your schedule. ☕”

And so here you were, caught in what felt like an ambush.

As the server came over, you placed your order for a black coffee and a bagel.

Barbara blinked, momentarily caught off guard. “Black coffee?” she repeated after the server left, her brows slightly raised.

You glanced up from your phone. “Yeah?”

“I just… didn’t think you’d be the type.”

It took you a moment to register her confusion, but then it hit you. Back when you were sixteen, you hated coffee—especially black coffee. You’d always opted for sugary drinks or anything sweet enough to mask the bitterness. Sixteen year old you would’ve gagged at the bitterness of black coffee. But time had changed you, as had many sleepless nights spent staring at mission briefs or reports, that you’ve gotten used to the taste of coffee.

“Just need all the energy I can get,” you replied, plastering on a small smile.

Barbara hummed, clearly unconvinced but unwilling to push further.

The two of you fell into a strange silence, interrupted only by the soft clinking of cutlery and quiet chatter around you. Barbara shifted in her wheelchair, wondering why this felt so… awkward.

Were you always this… standoffish?

After what felt like forever, Barbara finally spoke up. “I heard about what happened to your friend.”

Your fingers stilled against the edge of your cup. Oh.

Barbara glanced at you, gauging your reaction before continuing. “I just… wanted to say I’m sorry. That he got caught up in everything. I should have been more thorough.”

Your lips twitched downward, your voice coming out sharper than intended. “Yeah. You should have.”

The words left your mouth before you could stop them. Barbara’s eyes widened ever so slightly, the honesty of your tone catching her off guard.

Silence again. This time heavier.

The tension thickened between you both, the silence growing louder by the second. Barbara swallowed hard, feeling the weight of your words settle uncomfortably in her chest.

She opened her mouth again, determined to steer the conversation somewhere less hostile. “How’s school?”

You shrugged, your tone clipped. “It’s alright.”

“Are classes okay? Teachers good?”

“They’re fine.”

Barbara frowned, but she pressed on. “And your friends? Have you made any new ones?”

“No, not really.”

This wasn’t working. Every answer you gave was short, distant, like you were putting up walls. It felt unnatural, almost deliberate. Barbara wasn’t sure if she should press harder or back off entirely.

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” she finally asked, unable to hold back her curiosity any longer. Was this about your friend getting hurt? Was this about her not being quick enough to prevent the incident? Or was it something else all together?

You paused, but your face remained impassive. “No,” you replied flatly, taking a bite of your bagel.

Barbara’s stomach twisted.

That wasn’t a no.

Not really.

Before she could respond, a voice spoke from behind her.

“Hey, I thought I recognized you two!”

The familiar voice broke through the tension like a wrecking ball, and Barbara couldn’t have been more relieved.

Dick.

He slid into the seat next to Barbara, flashing his trademark grin, though his eyes darted to you with a hint of hesitation. “What’s this? A secret meeting without me?”

Oh, so this was a setup.

Dick must have told Barbara about you avoiding him, and they must have planned this.

You straightened, folding your arms and leaning back into your chair like a wall had gone up.

Dick, oblivious, leaned forward with his usual enthusiasm. “What are you guys talking about? School? Life? Come on, catch me up.”

“Not much to catch up on,” you muttered.

Dick frowned slightly but pressed on, his tone light and cheerful. “You know, I’ve been meaning to hang out with you more, (Name). It feels like we haven’t really spent time together lately.”

You didn’t respond.

“Maybe we could grab dinner sometime?” Dick offered, smiling earnestly. “Or I could swing by the manor and we could—”

“I actually have plans, so I can’t stay,” you said curtly, reaching for your bag.

Dick blinked, surprised by the sudden shift. “What? No, wait,” he said quickly, leaning forward. “You just got here.”

“I already told you,” you said, standing up. “I have plans. I can’t hang out.”

“But—”

“Thanks for lunch, Barbara,” you interrupted, sparing Barbara a quick glance before heading for the exit.

“Wait—”

You were already gone.

Dick watched you go, his shoulders sagging as the door swung shut behind you. He slumped back in his seat, rubbing a hand over his face. For a moment, he was quiet, his usual energy dimmed.

Barbara sighed, setting her cup down. She wanted to comfort him, but she didn’t have the words. After all, you’d been acting the same way toward her. Aloof, distant, standoffish.

“Don’t take it personally.”

That was all she could come up with.

Dick frowned. “She’s never acted like this before. It’s like she doesn’t even want to be around me.”

Barbara didn’t respond. She didn’t know what to say. She just wished she had an answer.

“She hates me,” he said quietly, his voice almost drowned by the chatter from the cafe.

Barbara glanced up at the man. “She doesn’t hate you, Dick.”

“Feels like it,” he muttered, running a hand down his face. “It’s like every time I try to talk to her, I just make things worse.” He paused, swallowing thickly. “….You don’t think she’s acting like this because of what happened before, do you?”

Barbara leaned back in her chair, her expression softening. “Which part of ‘before’ are we talking about?”

Dick’s gaze dropped to the floor as his mind pulled him back, unbidden, to those first turbulent days after Bruce’s death.

The cave had never felt more suffocating, its dim light and cold walls amplifying the tension crackling in the air. You stood across from Dick, your posture tense, fists clenched at your sides.

“You’re benching me?” Your voice was sharp, anger barely masking the hurt underneath.

“It’s not permanent,” Dick said, his tone measured but firm. “You’re not in the right headspace right now—”

“I’m fine,” you snapped, cutting him off. “I’m doing my job, same as I always have.”

“No, you’re not,” Dick countered, his voice tightening. “You’re reckless. You’re putting yourself in danger for no reason.” He took a step closer, his jaw tight. “I’ve seen you out there, and it’s like you’re not even trying to come back in one piece. You’re acting like you have nothing to lose.”

Your heart lurched at his words, but you refused to show it. “Don’t stand there and psychoanalyze me. I’m doing my job. If you think I’m not good enough, just say it.”

Dick let out a frustrated sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it. You’ve been through hell—losing Bruce—your father—and instead of giving yourself time to deal with it, you’re throwing yourself into the field like you have a death wish.”

Your fists clenched tighter. “So what? I’m just supposed to sit around, doing nothing? Let Gotham fall apart while you and Damian play Batman and Robin? I’m trying to help, Dick!”

“I know you are,” Dick said, his voice softening, but there was a steel edge to it. “But this isn’t helping. Not like this. You’re going to get yourself killed, and I can’t—” He stopped himself, shaking his head.

“You can’t what?” you demanded, stepping closer, your voice trembling with anger. “You can’t trust me? Can’t rely on me? What, am I just some burden to you now?”

“That’s not what I’m saying!” Dick snapped, his frustration finally boiling over. His voice echoed through the cave, bouncing off the walls. “I’m saying I care about you, and I’m not going to stand by and watch you destroy yourself like this.”

The raw emotion in his voice caught you off guard, but it only fueled the fire burning in your chest. “You don’t care about me,” you spat. “If you did, you’d let me do what I’m good at instead of sidelining me. You’re becoming just like father—deciding what’s best for everyone else without asking.”

Dick flinched at the comparison, but he recovered quickly, his expression hardening. “This isn’t about control. It’s about keeping you alive. You’re grieving, and it’s clouding your judgment. Until you can think clearly, I can’t let you keep putting yourself in danger.”

“You can’t let me?” you repeated, your voice cracking as your anger reached its peak. “You’re not my father, Dick. You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t do!”

“No, I’m not your father,” Dick shot back, his voice low but sharp. “But I am your brother. And I am Batman now. So it’s my call.”

The words landed like a blow, cutting through the air between you. Your breathing was ragged, your chest heaving as you stared at him, your emotions warring inside you—anger, betrayal, grief, all swirling together until you couldn’t separate one from the other.

“Fine,” you said finally, your voice cold and flat. “Do what you want. Bench me. Replace me. I don’t care.”

Dick’s expression flickered, a crack in his resolve, but you didn’t give him a chance to respond. You turned on your heel and stormed out of the cave, your footsteps echoing behind you.

The memory twisted in Dick’s chest like a knife. A few days later, he’d seen someone in Cassandra’s Batgirl costume, her movements unfamiliar, the seams of the mantle not quite fitting yet.

“Tsk, tsk. Sloppy.” Damian had commented.

“How is this the woman who led the League of Assassins? The “warrior” who ran the outsiders at father’s command?” he had asked sharply.

“You’re right..” Dick muttered, narrowing his eyes as he realized who it was.

“She’s not as good as the other batgirls..”

When he confronted Barbara about mentoring Stephanie, the conversation had been anything but calm. She believed in Stephanie, believed Gotham needed a Batgirl. He’d been reluctant, furious that Barbara had allowed Stephanie to go around Gotham wearing that Bat symbol on her chest when she’s not prepared for what the city has become in the absence of Batman. But he’d eventually agreed, seeing how much Stephanie needed this, seeing how much Barbara needed this too.

But when you found out? That had been the breaking point.

The sound of hurried, angry footsteps echoed through the Batcave, snapping Dick’s attention from the monitor. He turned just as you came storming in, radiating anger.

“Are you serious?” you demanded, your voice sharp enough to cut through the quiet hum of the cave’s machinery.

Dick sighed, already bracing himself for the confrontation. He should have expected this, but the fury radiating off you still caught him off guard.

“Stephanie’s Batgirl now?” you said, your words laced with disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“She’s doing good work,” Dick said, keeping his tone neutral, though he could already feel the tension building.

“She’s replacing me!” you snapped. “Neither you nor Barbara even thought to talk to me about this. Not a single word. You didn’t think for one second about how I’d feel.”

“She’s not replacing you, (Name),” Dick said, his voice taut as he tried to keep his composure.

“Yes, she is,” you shot back, your tone rising. “You’re saying I’m not good enough. That I’m not fit to be Batgirl anymore.”

“That’s not what this is about,” Dick countered, his patience beginning to fray.

“Then what is it about?” you challenged, stepping closer. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you decided I wasn’t worth it. You didn’t even give me a chance to prove I’m not—”

“You don’t have to prove anything,” Dick interrupted sharply.

“Clearly, I do!” you spat. “Because you didn’t just bench me. You handed over my mantle to someone else, like I didn’t matter. Like I’m just… disposable!”

“That’s not what happened,” Dick said, his voice rising. “This isn’t about replacing you—it’s about keeping you alive!”

You froze for a split second, stunned, before your expression hardened. “Keeping me alive? What the hell are you talking about?”

Dick exhaled sharply, running a hand down his face. “Like I already told you, you’ve been reckless. Ever since Bruce died, you’ve been—”

“Don’t bring father into this,” you interrupted, your voice dangerously low.

“I have to,” Dick snapped back. “Because ever since he died, you’ve been running yourself into the ground, throwing yourself into danger without a second thought. You’re not thinking clearly, and it’s going to get you killed. I had to take you off the streets before it was too late.”

“I’m fine,” you said through gritted teeth.

“You’re not fine,” Dick retorted, his voice sharp. “You’re angry, you’re grieving, and you’re not in the right headspace to be doing this. You think I wanted to bench you? I didn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” you bit out. “And you chose her.”

Dick’s jaw tightened. “Because Gotham needs a Batgirl who can think straight right now. Someone who isn’t running on grief and anger. That’s not you right now.”

“Oh, so Stephanie’s better than me now?” you said bitterly. “I see how it is. First, you replace Tim with Damian—without even talking to him about it—and now you’re doing the same thing to me.”

“This isn’t the same,” Dick said, his voice hardening.

“Isn’t it?” you challenged, stepping closer. “You didn’t even ask me. You just made the decision for me. Like I don’t get a say. Like I don’t matter.”

“Tim can handle himself,” Dick shot back, his voice sharp. “Damian can’t. He needed someone to guide him, someone to keep him from spiraling out of control.”

“And I don’t?” you fired back. “I lost my father, Dick. Everything changed the moment he’s gone. The ‘normalcy’ I had was no longer there. But instead of helping me, instead of guiding me, you just… tossed me aside. Like I wasn’t worth the effort.”

“That’s not what I did,” Dick said, his voice quieter but no less firm.

“Then what did you do?” you demanded, your voice cracking under the weight of your emotions.

“I’m trying to protect you!” Dick shouted, his frustration boiling over. “You don’t see it, but you’re not okay. You think you can just power through this, but you can’t. Not like this. If I let you keep going, you’d—” He stopped himself, his voice catching.

“I’d what?” you pressed, your voice trembling with a mix of anger and hurt.

Dick’s shoulders slumped, and he looked at you with a rawness in his expression you weren’t expecting. “You’d get yourself killed,” he said softly. “And I couldn’t live with that. Especially when I’m in charge.”

“Don’t make this about me being reckless or grieving or whatver you think is wrong with me,” you said through gritted teeth.

“It is about that!” Dick snapped, his voice rising even more than before. “You’re spiraling and you know it. You’re not in the right headspace to be out there right now, let alone as Batgirl.”

“I’m fine. I’ve been fine. I’m doing my job—“

“You’re throwing yourself into danger without thinking,” Dick interrupted, his voice sharp. “You’re not acting like someone who’s fine. You’re acting like you don’t care if you live or die, and I’m not going to let you do that under the Batgirl mantle.”

You stared at him, your chest heaving, your emotions a chaotic storm. But instead of softening, instead of understanding, the words only made the ache in your chest worse. “You don’t get to decide that for me,” you said coldly.

“Someone has to.”

You shook your head, tears pricking your eyes. “No. You don’t get to make that call, not for me. You didn’t even try to understand. You just made your decision and moved on.”

Without another word, you turned on your heel and stormed toward the exit, leaving Dick standing in the empty cave, his hands clenched at his sides.

Dick stood there, staring at the spot where you’d disappeared. His chest felt tight, a mix of guilt and frustration twisting inside him. He didn’t mean to hurt you. That was the last thing he wanted. But letting you keep going out there, in the state you were in, wasn’t something he could allow.

“It’s for your own good,” he murmured to himself, but the words rang hollow in the silence of the cave.

Dick stared down at the hot cider Barbara ordered for him, the steam curling lazily above the cup. His voice was low, almost pained, as he broke the silence. “It had been rocky after that,” he admitted, the memory of your argument still sharp in his mind. “Even after I told her not to go out as Batgirl, she disobeyed me. Again and again.”

Barbara didn’t respond, her gaze steady on him, waiting for him to continue.

“I’d bench her, and she’d show up on patrols anyway,” Dick said, his tone bitter with frustration, but there was no hiding the regret beneath it. “At first, I thought she was just trying to prove a point—to prove me wrong—but the more I watched, the more I realized…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “She was just hurting. She threw herself into every fight like it didn’t matter if she came out of it.”

Barbara shifted in her wheelchair, her fingers tightening around her own mug.

Dick ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t want to admit then, but I didn’t know how to handle it. I thought taking her off the streets would help, but it just pushed her further away. The fights got worse. She wouldn’t talk to me—or if she did, it would get messy. She didn’t trust me anymore.”

He paused, exhaling heavily. “And I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for that.”

Barbara’s lips pressed into a thin line, but she stayed quiet, sensing there was more.

“When Bruce came back, I thought things would go back to normal,” Dick said, forcing a hollow chuckle. “I thought we could reset, you know? Bruce took over as Batman again, I went back to being Nightwing, and she officially went back to being Batgirl. It was like the pieces were all back in place. Like things were the way they were supposed to be.”

Barbara tilted her head slightly, catching the way his voice softened.

“But they weren’t,” he admitted, his voice breaking just slightly. “Not really.” He hesitated, gripping the edge of the table. “(Name) quit three weeks ago. Officially. And… she’s been avoiding me ever since. I see it in the way she leaves before I show up, the way she makes sure she’s never in the same room as me. It’s like—like whatever this is, it’s irreparable. Like I played into her quitting.”

Barbara reached out slightly, her hand brushing against his briefly, grounding him.

“I don’t think I was wrong in my decision,” Dick said, though there was an ache in his voice that made it hard to believe him. “I just—I handled it badly. I hurt her, Babs. And now, I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to make it right.”

He fell silent, staring into his drink like it held some sort of answer.

Barbara shifted her gaze to him, guilt clawing at her chest as her own memories surfaced.

“I…. should have handled things better too,” she admitted softly, almost to herself.

Dick glanced at her, surprised by the admission.

“I should have been there for her,” Barbara continued, her tone quiet but heavy with regret. “(Name) wasn’t in the right state of mind, and I knew that. I knew it. But I…” She hesitated, gripping her mug tightly. “I chose to focus on Stephanie instead. To guide her. To help her become Batgirl.”

“You were trying to do what was best for everyone,” Dick said gently, but Barbara shook her head.

“No, I wasn’t,” she said firmly. “I was avoiding the harder choice. Helping her—helping someone who was grieving, who was hurt, who needed someone to pull them out of that spiral—that would’ve taken more from me. More patience. More time. And I didn’t give it to her.”

Dick’s expression softened, but he didn’t interrupt.

“I thought Stephanie needed me more,” Barbara said, her voice cracking slightly. “She was trying so hard to prove herself, to find her place—find what she needs. And she deserved my guidance too—but I shouldn’t have left (Name) behind. Not like that.”

The two of them fell silent for a long moment, both lost in their thoughts.

“She deserved better from me,” Barbara murmured, her throat tightening. “And now I have to live with the fact that I didn’t give it to her. I have to live with the fact that I let this gap between us grow so big. And I don’t even know when it happened.”

Dick looked at her, his expression softening. “It’s not too late to fix that.”

Barbara gave him a small, sad smile. “How do you fix something when you don’t even know where to start?”

Dick opened his mouth to respond, but the weight of her words settled over him. He knew exactly how she felt. But just like her, he didn’t have an answer.

“She’s so… closed off now,” Dick said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t even know how to approach her anymore. Every time I try, it’s like there’s this wall between us, and I just—” He stopped, exhaling sharply. “How did I mess up so bad?”

Barbara studied him, her heart aching at the vulnerability in his voice.

“I didn’t want to hurt her,” Dick admitted. “I just—I wanted her to be okay. I wanted her to stop putting herself in danger, to stop tearing herself apart over everything she lost back then. But now… I don’t know if I helped her at all. I think I just pushed her further away.”

Barbara placed a hand over his, squeezing it gently. “You did what you thought was right,” she said softly.

“Doesn’t make it hurt any less,” Dick muttered, his voice thick with regret.

They sat there in silence for a while, both of them weighed down by the choices they’d made and the consequences they were still grappling with. Neither of them knew how to bridge the gap you’d left behind—but they both knew they couldn’t just leave it like this. Not anymore.

finally done with this chapter lol. it’s been long overdue, so sorry about that 😭😓 i had to rewrite a lot of these scenes so many times because i wasn’t satisfied with it…but hopefully you lot are okay with this chapter haha.. 😬🙃 i slightly adjusted stephanie’s relationship with reader in this compared to the background info i posted because i thought this would fit better with the dynamic i intended for her to have. but for now, have this while i’m going to take a semi-hiatus/break to celebrate my bday which is coming up in 4 days and some other stuff 🫶 next chapter will most likely come out on 28 dec so yeah, until then, i’ll still try to reply to whatever is in my inbox 🫨

taglist is closed‼️

taglist (1/2): @tricksters-maze @dusk-muse @quethekillerqueen @silverklaus @isupportorbitalbombardment @nxdxsworld @vanessa-boo @coffeeaddictxd @moonsbluekingdom @yuya-bubbly @percythebitchwitch @anonymousdisco @jason-todd-fangirl-14 @redsakura101 @what-0-life @idkwhattoputhete @secretyouthcomputer @witch-waycult @allycat4458 @dazed-lavender @eclecticfurylady @wizzerreblogs @marsmabe @daddysfangirls-dc @hoeinthehouse @beeweensblog @ilxandra @agent-nobody-knows @thethingwiththefeathers @mochiivqi @pix-stuff @narration-ator @nebulousmoon3990 @delias-stuff @froggy-voidd @jjsmeowthie @kore-of-the-underworld @nen-nyy @juthesillylesbain @vikkus-main @emilylouise123 @blueiones @horror-lover-69 @chaotic-fangirl-blog @wassupbroski55555 @reallyromealone @plsfckmedxddy @sea-glasses @203moonysello @luvly-writer @dovey-quacks2332 @love-theangel-blog @hotdinoankles @vebbiewuzhere @animegirlfromvietnam @estreiiuh @simply-lovely78 @twismare @ssak-i @g4bbi3xx @alor-thes (idk why i can’t tag some of y’all, must be your settings i think 😓)

[andypantsx3]

BY THE BOOK : MIDORIYA IZUKU X READER

SUMMARY: When your pro hero boyfriend comes home to find you studying, he suddenly takes a great interest in helping out. You find his methods... questionable. TAGS/WARNINGS: nsft, hysterical literature (reading out loud while sexually stimulated), pro hero deku, deku still has ofa, support tech grad student reader, slight intelligence kink, gn + afab reader, cunnilingus, established relationship, aged up characters, fluff (3k) NOTES: Hi guys! I have been in survival mode as of late and the writing has been slow going; my sincerest apologies for how long it’s taking me to burn down my @ficsforgaza backlog. But I finally had the time & energy on my hands this weekend to work on this one and I had such a blast!! I hope I’m not too rusty—and if I am, I hope you enjoy it as much as I loved writing it regardless lol. Love you and thank you always for your patience. Happy Holidays!!

Sometimes, you thought you could tell your boyfriend was near, even before you heard his key in the lock.

It was something to do with his power, you’d always suspected—as a support engineer unduly interested in other people’s capabilities, you’d spent hundreds of hours turning it over in your head. It was the unnatural immensity of other people’s powers, you thought, pulling and coiling just beneath the surface of Izuku’s skin. In close proximity, after prolonged use, its presence felt like a shiver up the back of your neck.

You felt the barest hint of it now, an unsettled feeling creeping into the marrow of your bones, and you sat up on the couch just as you heard the scratch of Izuku’s keys at the door.

One For All fit cleanly into Izuku’s own unwavering intensity somehow, like the last piece of his puzzle. Though one would certainly never think so looking at him as he spilled through the door, pink-cheeked from the cold, all bright eyes, sweetly angelic features, and a riot of wild green curls. He looked windswept from the biting winter breeze. He also looked too kind to be carrying the sort of power he did—too sweet and eager and lovely.

“Look what the wind blew in,” you grinned at him over the back of the couch, after assessing he was well. Your eyes tracked the sinuous movement of those broad shoulders as he yanked his mouthguard over his head, the flex and pull of his bicep as he hung it beside the door. He was moving without pause, no sign of injury or muscle strain , and his suit was intact. Ordinarily you didn’t mind if there was a bit of shredding about the abs as long as he came back to you whole and hale, but in the winter you didn’t like him wandering about risking the chance of frostbite.

Your heart fluttered when Izuku returned your smile with one of his own, so beautiful and bright, chasing away the cold he’d tracked in like a warm sliver of sun.

“Lots of small, easy fights today?” You guessed, judging from his intact suit but clear whiff of power about him.

Izuku scrubbed a hand through that riot of curls, exposing the reddened shell of a cold ear. “I only had to use blackwhip a couple of times,” he said as he shouldered the door closed behind him, the muscle of his thighs flexing enticingly as he stepped out of his boots.

You gestured at the pot of soup you’d left warming on the stove, and the veritable pile of crusty bread beside it. Warmth and carbs, exactly what you would have wanted if you were a pro hero fresh off a long day of patrolling in the snow.

Izuku’s eyes fixed on it with an obliging amount of interest, and he almost tripped over himself in the genkan in his haste to get to the kitchen. “I love you,” you heard him say, muffled through a mouthful of bread, heard the clatter of the silverware drawer and a bowl being placed on the counter.

You smiled and turned back to the book in your lap, a particularly dry, knotty text on robotic imitation learning that had had your eyes drifting closed for the better part of an hour. It was the last you’d need to get through for your Wearable Technologies graduate course, and something you were deeply interested in incorporating into your design practice. You could train a piece of equipment on how an individual pro hero moved and deployed their quirk, and use predictive modeling to deploy assistance functionalities within milliseconds if you got it right—such as immediate cooling in pro hero Shouto’s temperature vest the moment he ignited an arm.

The implementation was going to be so cool—but the theory was so mind numbing.

You felt the couch sink in beside your feet, and Izuku peered interestedly at the title in your lap.

“Introduction to Robotic Imitation Learning,” he echoed, and you could hear the note of excitement in his voice. You suppressed a fond smile, knowing he was already thinking through the same applications you had—he was just as much of a nerd as you were.

“Introduction to Snoozing and Napping,” you grumbled, turning back to your page. “There are only so many words on the Kalman filter framework a brain can handle before the human mind shuts itself down.”

Izuku hummed in interest around a spoonful of soup, propping himself up against your leg. The exterior of his suit was still cool from the outside, and he groaned with relief from the warmth of your skin, even as you hissed at the chill.

You knew he wanted you to go on, so you generalized for him. “It’s an algorithm used for robotic motion planning—you not only take measurements of the thing you want to model but you account for uncertainties to predict the probability that something is going to happen.”

Izuku nodded, taking another spoonful of soup, gesturing for you to go on.

You summoned up the willpower to explain joint probability distribution, pleased when Izuku easily managed to follow—he’d always been a quick study, especially of anything that could be employed in the service of heroics. You’d long thought if he hadn’t been gifted his quirk, he would be an insane support engineer.

He managed to finish his entire bowl of soup in the time it took you to explain, and housed another two slices of buttered bread with the sort of alacrity you’d only ever seen in pro heroes and professional athletes, making you smile while you spoke.

His spoon clinked softly against the edge of the bowl as he set them aside on the coffee table, and he hooked his chin over your knees as you finished explaining. In the setting sun from your windows he looked especially lovely, the kind, angular planes of his face brushed in gold, softening the spots of his freckles.

His eyes were especially bright, the way they always were when something in particular had caught his interest, and he smiled at you again over the tops of your knee caps.

“I admire how smart you are,” he told you, in the simple, straightforward way he always gave out compliments. It was like a shot to the heart every time, and you could feel your face warm with the praise even after years of receiving similar compliments.

You reflexively flapped a dismissive hand. “Not smart enough to have internalized it all! I have mostly been falling asleep to it,” you promised him.

He tilted his head, a green curl falling into his eyes. “I know you won’t have a problem when you’re awake.”

You shifted your legs with embarrassment, and a long fingered hand came up to cup the front of your thigh, as Izuku turned more fully towards you. You could feel the warm, hard planes of his chest against your shins, the line of his jumpsuit’s zipper pressing insistently just below your knee.

“Gotta try to impress you somehow,” you joked, your skin prickling as Izuku’s fingers absent-mindedly drew a pattern across your thigh. You could feel the heat of his hand through the thin material of the leggings you’d lounged around in all day, the chill finally chased away from his skin now that he’d come inside and warmed up.

“You do impress me,” he said in his soft, gentle tone. Which made your cheeks and nose burn hotter.

You knew you did, and the steady faith Izuku had in the people around him was one of your favorite things about him. It still made you feel like a middle schooler with a crush to think about, though, the intensity of your feelings too much for one body to handle.

“I will study hard to live up to your faith in me,” you promised, unable to help the goofy smile you knew you were giving him.

Izuku’s chin shifted against the tops of your knees, and he pressed his mouth to the knob of your left one, leaving a smiling kiss. “Tell me more?” he asked, fingers still sliding softly over your thigh.

“I’ll read it to you as I go, then,” you said, turning back to the brick of a tome, propping it up more firmly on your stomach as you adjusted yourself against the couch arm. Izuku’s eyes watched you over the top of the pages, that emerald gaze tracking your face closely.

“‘The algorithm works via a two-phase process: a prediction phase and an update phase’,” you began, trying to turn your attention away from Izuku and back to the text. “‘In the prediction phase, the Kalman filter produces estimates of the current state variables, including their uncertainties. Once the outcome of the next measurement (necessarily corrupted with some error, including random noise) is observed, these estimates are updated using a weighted average, with more weight given to estimates with greater certainty.’”

Izuku’s long fingers traced firmer lines across your thighs, almost like he was taking notes. He layered another kiss along the line of your knee, eyes glittering at you as you read.

“‘The algorithm is recursive,’” you continued, “‘It can operate in real time, using only the present input measurements and the state calculated previously and its uncertainty matrix; no additional past information is required.’”

You almost jumped as Izuku’s mouth trailed lower, into the space between your knees, leaving kisses along your inner thigh. His fingers gently pulled one thigh away to make space for him in between, and you cleared your throat, trying to return to the text at hand.

“‘Optimality of Kalman filtering assumes that errors have a normal–that is, Gaussian–distribution,’” you read on. “‘The following assumptions are made about random processes: Physical random phenomena may be thought of as due to primary random sources exciting dynamic systems. The primary sources are assumed to be independent gaussian random processes with zero mean; the dynamic systems will be linear.’”

Izuku let out a soft breath, insinuating himself further between your thighs. Your own breath came out a little uneven as he bent over you, mouth tracking dangerously towards the inseam of your leggings.

You paused, but Izuku fixed you with a look of his slightly-darkened eyes. “Please—keep reading,” he said, his tone a little lower than it had been a minute ago.

You swallowed in shocked understanding, skin tingling. You felt yourself nod, as Izuku’s fingers strayed to the waist of your pants, dipping below the band.

You let him slowly peel your leggings down, your underwear with them, adjusting as needed to make it easy for him, even as you tried to return your attention to your textbook.

“‘Regardless of Gaussianity, however, if the process and measurement covariances are known, then the Kalman filter is the best possible linear estimator in the minimum mean-square-error sense,’” you quoted, nearly squeaking when Izuku pressed his mouth to your hip, his curls tickling the skin of your belly. His hands gripped either side of your thighs, palms square and rough against your skin, and you tried not to shiver with the feeling.

“Um—‘Although there may be better nonlinear estimators’,” you said, then nearly jumped out of your skin when Izuku pressed his mouth to the core of you, only the strength of his grip stopping you from accidentally kicking him in surprise.

“Oh my g—uh! It—um—‘It is a common misconception perpetuated in the literature that the Kalman filter cannot be rigorously applied unless all noise processes are assumed to be Gaussian,’” you managed, before your cut off into a groan as Izuku layered a hot, sweet kiss over you, tongue dipping carefully between your folds. “Ah-–Izuku—”

Izuku petted a thumb gently over the top of your thigh to show he was listening, even as he swiped his tongue over you again, a long, firm stroke that had your thighs flexing in his hold. He laved over your clit, sucking ever so slightly, and your grip almost tore the edge of your textbooks as it tightened.

“Keep going,” he urged briefly, then did it again, punching a groan out of you.

“Extensions—oh—‘Extensions and generalizations of the method have also been developed, such as the extended Kalman filter and the unscented Kalman filter which work on nonlinear systems,’” you read on, voice shooting up nearly into a squeal when two of Izuku’s long, firm fingers pressed into you, as his mouth moved over you again.

“Ah! Oh my god—the—um, the basis—-” you said, breath growing short. Izuku’s fingers unerringly found the spot inside you that made you twist in his grip with the ease of long practice, and his jaw worked as he kissed you so shockingly filthily. You could feel something already starting to build up behind your navel, a fluttery lightness, an insatiable insistence on more.

“‘The basis a hidden Markov model—oh, fuck—such that the state space of the latent variables is continuous and all latent and observed variables have–ah!--Gaussian distributions,’’’ you recited, your voice tripping up further into a register that sounded more like begging than reading.

Izuku’s fingers worked you, long and thick and perfect inside you, as his tongue drew unrelenting circles around your clit. Stars seemed to spark in your vision, and your eyes squeezed shut, losing your place on the page as your hips flexed into his face. You felt suddenly very floaty and lightheaded, and not at all in a position to keep going.

Still, you tried to refocus your attention.

“‘K–Kalman filtering has been used successfully in—oh—multi-sensor fusion—ah, ah!--and distributed sensor networks–fuck, please, Izuku—to develop distributed or consensus Kalman f-filtering,’” you said, your tone nearly a cry.

Izuku groaned softly, sucking gently as his fingers curled inside you. It made your veins spark under your skin, your legs shaking in Izuku’s hands. You abandoned your grip on your book to seize the arm of the couch, clawing desperately at the fabric.

“Please, Izuku,” you cried, hips bucking towards his mouth.

The book tumbled off your stomach but you hardly noticed, gaze refocusing on the way his eyelashes fluttered as he licked you. His fingers played gently within you, a maddening press that was simultaneously too much and not enough, and his other hand came up to slide under your sweater, plucking gently at your nipple.

You lost yourself to the feeling—caught between the mind-melting curl of his fingers, the delicate suction of his mouth, and the careful pinch of your nipple. A delicious heat curled through you, waves of unbearable pleasure, and you could hear yourself babbling nonsense—garbled syllables of Izuku’s name, and every entreaty you could think of, a hundred thousands mores and oh pleases.

Izuku abandoned your nipple to pull you more firmly against him with a strong arm curled under your thigh, pressing you even harder into his mouth.

You muffled a scream in the sleeve of your sweater as he sucked you harder, tongue laving over you in loving strokes. Only his terrible strength held you down as you writhed beneath him, and then his fingers twisted in a way that had your vision whiting out—and you were suddenly thrown out over the edge of your pleasure.

Izuku licked you through it as you squirmed and begged and cried out his name, your climax seeming to last for eons.

You were panting hard when you finally slumped into the cushions of your couch, the ceiling seeming to swim in and out of focus before your eyes. When you gained enough control of your body again you looked down at Izuku, finding him watching you with a satisfied, almost shy curl to his mouth.

“You’re beautiful,” he told you, emerald gaze glittering with sincerity. “You’re so smart.”

Impossibly you felt your heart swell with even more love for him, and you seized his shoulder, dragging him up over you so you could kiss his mouth. The taste of yourself on him was embarrassing yet thrilling, and you petted a pleased hand through Izuku’s wild mess of curls as you kissed him.

“Well you are amazing,” you told him, swiping a thumb over his cheek fondly, smoothing over his freckles. A gorgeous watercolor of pink washed over his cheeks and nose at the proclamation, and you could hear his fingers flex in the cushion beside your head.

The sight of him flushed and waiting over you like another small something inside of you, like a pilot light, and you let your mouth pull into a wry grin.

“I hope you know I learned nothing though,” you said casually, your plan for your next steps already forming in your head. You let a hand trail carefully down Izuku’s flank, tracking towards his waist. “I think maybe I might need a few rounds for it to really sink in.”

Izuku’s ears went red against the green of his hair, and you felt your smile widen. “Maybe you could read it to me this time?” you asked, guiding him to roll under you, retrieving your book from the floor as you did so.

You settled yourself on the tops of Izuku’s thighs, feeling the hard press of him against your core, as you placed your textbook into his waiting hands.

Izuku’s answering smile was all the permission you needed. You directed him to start from the beginning of the chapter, and he did so in that soft, lilting tone of his you so loved. And then your fingers trailed up to the zipper at his collar.

It was time to return the favor—wholeheartedly.

REFERENCES: Kalman Filtering (Wikipedia) I took the passages our Reader recited from here because I do not actually understand Kalman filtering at all and could not organically come up with feasible text for her to read through. Sorry in advance to the author of this page lol.

[butterflytint]

in your web of lies - s. gojo

summary: as a devoted student of science, you put all your time just to that. Misfortune falls upon you when you are faced with being in the same class as satoru gojo, your longtime academic rival and essentially the bane of your existence. It goes one step further when his strange behavior seems to get even stranger as the web slinging hero of New York suddenly swings into your life. . . not that there's any correlation.

pairing: spiderman!gojo x fem!reader

warnings: college au, excessive banter, guns, violence, death/bloodshed mentioned, sexual content, smut, porn with plot, mentions of SA, p in v, oral sex, missionary, doggy style, riding, little sprinkle of dirty talk

a/n: this is based off the spiderman gojo art by @ aliyartss on instagram!

First weeks of any semester are always brutal.

The sound of traffic clogging and polluting the streets, brutal. The beginning of ringing headaches from the lack of sleep, brutal. The start of all-nighters to complete homework and study, brutal.

That’s just a small piece of the brutality that follows college students.

At least that’s what most students can relate to.

You glance over at Shoko, next to you as you settle into class. Being miles ahead of schedule was always way better than being even a second behind. So walking into the small lecture room ten minutes before class plays in your favor even if it was Professor Yaga’s class, the same professor you’ve had for two past semesters already.

“You look a little annoyed,” Shoko comments while flipping through her notebook.

“Sorry—I had a bit of a fight last night with my Dad,” you sigh out, shaking your head. Your finger slides along the edge of your own notes. “And I guess I’m just a little stressed about everything. The JJ Tech guys are having me spend extra hours and I can hardly get an hour to myself in the day.”

“Well chin up, we’ve got a long lab ahead of us today,” Shoko tapped playfully against your chin, her eyes down on her papers.

“Hm, right,” you mumble, eyes drooping at the chalkboard. “Wonder how you’re getting through this lab by yourself.”

“Hey, Satoru is my lab partner. You shouldn’t worry too much about that,” she chides. Shoko has a habit of not looking at you when she’s in the middle of doing something while conversating. “You seem like you have something else on your mind. You wanna talk about your dad?”

You eyeball the warmup problem he has on the board, jotting it down in your notebook. Your mind races with that conversation you had with your father just last night. How he wanted to have an assigned detail with you on campus, safely getting you to and from class. You have enough to worry about with finally shifting to yours and Utahime’s new apartment in a few short weeks without having to think about your dad.

Your impending argument was scheduled to continue once you saw him again since you didn’t even have a fighting chance when he got a call about a high-profile criminal striking again. You wonder just what could have transpired last night, apparently there were witnesses that sighted him.

“Not really.”

His fingers trail down the side of his torso, eyes screwing shut when he grazes that sensitive expanse of skin. Throbbing mercilessly, he hisses through clenched teeth, opening his eyes and glancing at the banged-up mirror on his wall.

That skintight suit was still clinging to his body like glue. He tears his mask off his head, tousling his white locks in the process. His head tips back when his gloved fingers brush over that tender place on his side.

A series of slow, deliberate breaths travel past his lips. Mindlessly, he reaches for a vial of painkillers. He doesn’t even count how many he tips into his waiting palm before popping them into his mouth and chasing them down bitterly with a bottle of water.

The boy grunts out as he falls back onto his bed, hoping he could sleep the soreness off before class tomorrow.

RING! RING!

Those eyes of his that had just shut after eons of forcing himself to stay alert and prepared for any attack were cruelly wrenched open once more.

RING! RING!

Another blasted alarm sounded from across his room, an alarm clock he simply can’t punch to snooze as he’d already bought a new one after abusing his previous two.

Satoru sat up, wincing at the sting on his side.

He groaned, gruffly peeling that suit off his body. Thoughts of the day ahead warped his mind. He had spent all night traipsing rooftops, swinging through the streets in pursuit of a gang of sloppy bank robbers.

He usually had fun trailing and taking down thuggish rogues, picking them off and bringing them to justice ever so casually. He got to feel the rush of the midnight air as he swung from building to building, between the streets. Arms and legs easily stretching and freely moving without a care in the world.

He loves it.

Last night, he had run that stolen van off the road without much effort. Everything went swimmingly until he had foolishly been launched into a brick wall mid-chase.

That had caused him to lose a bit of coordination during the fight that ensued shortly after. After stringing them up with his webs, he had swung back home only to stop yet another mugger on the way.

Once he had finally returned the woman’s stolen purse and made sure she got home safely, he gave himself the same protocol.

He tries to rush out of the apartment as soon as possible. He had enough on his plate to worry about with school, he could hardly keep up with his nighttime activities.

No, not that. His work as a vigilante made it difficult to have even a moment to himself. Let alone the fact his internship at JJ Technologies started earlier this month as well. So yes, he has enough on his plate with no room to spare for the breakfast his conscience had suggested.

“Yo! Suguru!” Satoru calls. He is jolted out of his thoughts when he approaches his best friend right by the theology building.

“Oh, what’s up?” Suguru turned around. “You watch the game last night?”

“Wha—no,” Satoru shakes his head, pushing his glasses up. He sheepishly sighs, “You know I’ve been busy with the internship and with homework.”

“Oh right,” Suguru mumbles teasingly. “The internship? Speaking of, did you see the news? They’re saying the man who banged those guys up pretty good last night was the mysterious Spiderman.”

“Will you shut up?” Satoru gasps, almost slapping him.

Of course, Suguru knew. He found out in a freak accident only a week after Satoru had been bitten. The freak accident being Satoru forgot to lock his bedroom door while changing out of his costume and his best friend walking in.

“Relax. No one knows,” Suguru reassures, he takes a sip of his coffee. “Only a small population of the public are still choosing to be delusional.”

“Yeah, delusional enough to believe Spiderman doesn’t exist,” Satoru scoffs.

“No, delusional enough to believe he does,” Suguru corrects harshly. “If I didn’t walk in on you half naked with that suit on and saw how you shot out a web before you realized I was in the room, I would never have believed those photos I saw in the news either.”

“Spiderman is a household name now whether you like it or not,” Satoru self-righteously points at himself with his thumb. “You wouldn’t believe how big of a fan the ladies are.”

Suguru shakes his head as he eyes his student portal on his phone. “Fuck, I have a history quiz today.”

“Shit, me too,” Satoru grunts, shaking his head as he walks past yet another sorority bake sale on his way down the main streets of campus. “Wait—we’re in the same class.”

“Oh—yeah,” Suguru fumbles with his phone as he points at Satoru. “I think I might ask Nanami to let me cheat off him—Haiba won’t mind but let’s face it, he’s not the brightest—Wait, you never mentioned what exactly happened last night.”

“Toji Fushiguro’s on the run. There was a sighting of him last night and I went to track him down but no luck. Then there was a bank heist on West 7th, I wish I got to fucking sleep after. Being flung against a brick wall is not as fun as it sounds. Fuck—wait I have class!” Satoru interjects, darting off in the middle of the conversation, leaving Suguru with a look of disappointment on his face.

“I have the same class,” Suguru frowns.

Yaga has always been quite the authoritarian, he knows what to expect from one of his star pupils as he strolls into class with a lazy smile on his face, ten minutes late.

“How nice of you to join us, Satoru,” Yaga’s tone isn’t as sweet as his words. “I should count myself lucky you showed up at all today, no less right before we worked on our lab assignment.”

That hand you have your cheek resting on slides up to palm at your forehead, hoping to soothe the forthcoming headache once that boy settles into his seat.

“We’re switching lab partners today,” Yaga declares, pen in hand as he scribbles and crosses out names on his seating chart. “I know you must’ve been comfortable with your partners from last semester, but I’d like you to find your name on the board and sit accordingly. This partner is who you’ll be working with for the final project.”

Satoru was perfectly fine working with Shoko. Their scientific caliber was on par with one another and despite the fact they butted heads quite often, they somehow managed to do quite well on their labs.

His mind traps him in praying he doesn’t end up with Yuki that he almost doesn’t realize the fact you were his new partner. He whips his head to the right, seeing your brows raise as you glance back at him.

Seriously? Him?   

No one can relate to how brutal it is having Satoru Gojo of all people as your classmate in your organic chemistry class.

Yeah sure, give you an assignment of reporting the development and properties of organic photovoltaic cells for renewable energy applications or even deciphering the molar mass of your father’s whiskey collection, you could make sense of it.

You could never make sense of this kid, however.

Satoru Gojo.

The irritating kid you’ve been battling to beat out for the highest exam score since middle school. The kid that ran into class late and hardly seemed all that present but still landed a score almost as high as yours every time. The kid that sat at the back of class, dozing off during lab. The kid that spent a decent chunk of senior year playing Digimon on his phone and still antagonized you before every science test you had.

That kid you thought you wouldn’t have to worry about after high school but were proved severely wrong when you saw him on your campus your first semester. That kid you hoped you wouldn’t have to run into anywhere else but still did somehow where you had been interning.

If there was a chemical formula to understand why you couldn’t stand him, your list of grievances would have to be simplified to fit on one page.

You’re seriously contemplating on marching up to Yaga and demanding a switch in partners. Someone else. Anyone else.

Trying to change Yaga’s mind on anything though, was a feat greater than what any scientist could accomplish.

Heaving a sigh, you plop your books down on the table. There was this severity in your movements that wove seamlessly into propriety. He peeks over at your color-coordinated notes all lined out in neat handwriting.

Yeah, he’s been competing with you in school for years. It’s not like he meant to, he was just great at just about everything he did. It’s not his fault!

He knew you couldn’t stand him, and he enjoyed that for some reason. Getting under your skin with quick quips were designed to be much more fun because of that. Since he is on the clock every hour of the day, he needs to let out his stress somehow. Punching bad guys is not enough anymore.

“Look at your notes,” Satoru cheeses, flipping through your book. “All shiny and pretty. You know, if you put more effort in, you could look the same.”

You shove his arm, snatching your book back from him, “Shut up. Don’t make me mad. Words can’t explain how pissed I am already.”

“Aw, you know I’m kidding,” he grins mischievously. “You’re not that bad to look at.”

You press your lips together as you inhale heavily. Your eyes raise to look dead straight at the front of the class before you turn your head to face him.

He catches that fire in your gaze that he’s not even seen in the most vicious of criminals and mutants he’s gone up against.  

“I don’t get why Yaga didn’t call Suguru out for being late either,” Satoru frowns, facing forward.

“Because Suguru isn’t late every day,” you point. “You are. And half the time, you leave early. It baffles me how you still pass all your classes.”

“Is someone jealous?” Satoru smiles.

As you shake your head, you look down at your notes. You’ve known Satoru for many years, but he was always just a classmate. He was also always the classmate you would barely beat out to get the highest marks in science or any other class. The classmate that would get under your skin way too often.

There was something about him that made you pay close attention to him.

“Oh shit!” one of the students in class shouts out, eyes glued to his phone. Needless to say, he’s garnered the attention of the entire class. “There’s a robbery going on right now at the bank downtown! Six-gun men have all the customers and staff held hostage!”

This earns a series of nervous gasps and prayers from the students. The hair on the back of Satoru’s neck stands up and he’s still in his seat as his peers flock toward the lab table of the student watching the news live stream.

“Wonder when Spiderman’s going to show up,” one of his classmates ponder aloud.

“Nah, he can’t do shit. You think a clown in tights is going to take down a fucking group of men with guns?” another kid snarks, causing Satoru to all but roll his eyes as he stands up.

Ah, the everlasting and everchanging debate as to whether the wall crawling vigilante was a menace or a savior of society.

If he wasted his time worrying so much about what people thought about him, he’d never get a single thing done. He drowns out their discussion as he strides to the door with his mission clear in his mind: Save those hostages.

“Alright boys! Glad we wrapped this up!” Satoru, or should one say, Spiderman dusts off his hands ever so casually.

He crouches down, leveling with the leader of the gang who happened to be tied up thanks to Satoru’s expertise webbing. He breathes freely with the knowledge that the hostages have rushed out of the bank, straight into the arms of their worried loved ones outside and the police.

When a vial of green in the pocket of one of the tattooed thug’s glints in the light, Satoru reaches to pull it out. He squints through his mask at the bottle of green, “What do we have here?”

As expected, the thug spits out, “None of your fucking business, you bug.”

“Quiet, will you?” Satoru harshly smacks the man’s forehead.

“Robbing a bank on a busy day like this for me?” Satoru tuts, a menacing lilt in his joke. “You should feel lucky I haven’t strung you upside down in your underwear out on the street lamps. But I’ve got somewhere to be unfortunately, so have fun in jail!”

With that, Satoru extends his arms out and a thick web sprouts out in the direction of the tall buildings lining the streets. If it was any other day, any other time of day, he would’ve stuck around. Spewed out some more quippy remarks, had a bit more fun with the goons.

But alas, he must get back in time before class ends. He knew the twenty minutes he had vanished for were going to raise questions.

He was absolutely correct.

“Satoru, where the hell were you?” Yaga all but yells at the boy stumbling back in. “Class is over.”

The entire class has their attention steering over to the late boy. He knew what he had to say, the lie didn’t need to be ridiculous but he knew regardless, he would still sound utterly stupid. He did not particularly give a fuck though.

“Little boy’s room,” Satoru casually responds, not a speck of shame in his rather comical answer.

This has the entire class locked in a deadly silence. That is before they split into a fit of boisterous laughter. Satoru revels in the fact he’s defused the tension he suspected he may experience.

You narrow your eyes, eyeing Satoru as he trudges over to his seat, tugging his collar into place. You let your eyes fall to the tabletop, looking over your work.

Typical. He leaves for God knows what and you’re stuck doing his work. If this isn’t precedent enough to request a new partner, you don’t know what is.

He’s not said a single word to you yet . . . How odd. You expect him to do no less than tease the living hell out of you or ask if you missed him.

All that swarms his mind however is what the hell is in this vial?

“What the hell is in this vial?” Suguru murmurs quietly as he inspects the glass tube.

“Beats me,” Satoru replies, swiping the bottle off him. “I need to figure that out.”

“Don’t you think that maybe you should’ve handed it over to the police?” Suguru asks, the sound of fellow classmates typing away on their laptops and chattering away in the campus library buzzes in the background.

“Police won’t do shit,” Satoru bites back, rolling his eyes. “If law enforcement was capable of anything, don’t you think that there wouldn’t be a need for Spiderman?”

“What about Spiderman?” Haiba butts in unannounced.

Satoru nearly jumps five feet in the air at the sudden intrusion. His six eyes that worked in his favor as a sixth sense to alert him of danger have helped him tremendously in combat time and time again, but not so much with nosy classmates.

Quickly pocketing the substance, he looks at Haiba, “None of your business.”

“Are you kidding? I spent all afternoon looking for footage from today’s robbery—I got nothing,” Haiba whines, flailing his arms in the air.

“I heard it was pretty cool,” Satoru boasts pridefully, earning a well-deserved elbow to the gut from Suguru.

Haiba trots off to go bother Nanami before Suguru faces his best friend again. “Oh fuck. Y/n is coming this way. Good luck.”

The vigilante’s eyes widen when he recognizes your stern, no-nonsense face and stride. Everyone is well aware of what that means, your kind and lighthearted behavior is put on hold in favor of your stern approach to your academics.

He half expects you to create a scene in the library but he knows you better than that. You never openly got angry, the worst he’s seen you do is roll your eyes. It’s one of the reasons he pokes fun at you as much as possible, hoping to see how he can make you crack.

Yet, you never do. You hold notebooks and files close to your chest as you march to a halt three feet away from him. Indifferently, you pull out a packet and hold it out for him.

“Since your bladder has never-ending issues, I did your part of the lab today,” you chide like you have a myriad of other things on your mind.

“Shit—you did not have to do any of this,” Satoru knows he should be frowning, but he’s not. A little leer spreads on his face, eyes wide and glimmering through the lens of those glasses he absolutely had no more use for since the day he was bit by that spider.

“Don’t bail on me again. Then I won’t have to do it,” you purse your lips at him before you turn around.

He is left there with nothing else to do but embarrassingly watch you walk away, clutching his lab report in his hand.

“Hold on,” Satoru mumbles to Suguru as he watches you sift between the aisles of shelves.

 Before either of them know it, he’s making his way to the aisle you are in. He’s eyeing you up and down almost skeptically, eyes lingering far longer than they should.

“Can I help you?” you quiz quite impertinently, your right hand pulling out a heavy book from the biochemistry section.

“Why did you do my part?” Satoru tips his chin down, a crease forming between his silver brows.

“Because you . . . didn’t do it,” you slowly iterate, grasping the book with both your hands as you flip through the pages. 

“Well, duh, but why?” Satoru repeats. “You didn’t have to do it. I ran out of class and left it all on you—you shouldn’t have done it.”

You take a deep breath, slamming the book shut, “If you really think I did it for you, you really don’t deserve to be in the same class as me at all. I did it so I don’t have to rely on you to get the work done. I’d rather have the work done right than have it half-assed. And here I thought you were much more clever than that.”

“I’m not stupid,” he smirks. “Just confused about a lot of the things you do sometimes.”

“Yeah, because you don’t know me,” you say, sliding that book back into the open slot on the shelf. You look up, reaching for another book that is placed well above your head.

“I know you. I know you’re your father’s daughter,” Satoru’s statement is playfully delivered yet it strikes you like a bus. His fingers stroke the spine of the book you were reaching for, relishing the fact you couldn’t reach it. He looks down at you, tugging the book out and holding it in his big hands. “You might just be stricter than the captain himself.”

“Why are you talking like you know my father?” you glare, folding your arms.

“Seen his interviews on the news. He’s one tough cookie—but it only makes sense when you’re a cop, huh?” he has a lilt in his head.

“Why are you saying stupid things?” you question, narrowing your eyes at him. “I already have enough on my mind, I don’t need you badgering me with nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense, it’s my professional opinion as your partner,” Satoru holds the book out with a ridiculously charming smile.

“Lab partner,” you fix his statement, reaching for the book but he pulls it back out of your reach, stupid grin still on his face. “Don’t play games with me, I have to get to work now, and you have to get there too.”

You pry the book from his hands and stride off before he can annoy you further. Satoru’s head turns, following you march off. He’s not sure why he’s trapped in staring at you for so long.

“I’m guessing you plan on finding out on your own as to what’s in that bottle,�� Suguru interjects in the middle of Satoru’s wandering mind, popping up in the aisle.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Satoru fishes in his pocket, hoping that the touch of his cool fingers on the glass will telepathically reveal its identity to him. “If I had the equipment to do it on my own . . . it would be so much fucking easier.”

Suguru gapes at him like he’s stupid, “Hello? You intern at the biggest scientific research facility in the city.”

Satoru’s brows raise and the corners of his mouth turn down, weighing the possible next route to his answer.

“Okay, you have to log the results in the system like this,” you instruct your team. “Then you move on to the next step. Trust me you don’t want to forget logging that data, it could entirely throw off the process.”

You’ve been interning at JJ Technologies since last summer which has done nothing short of drain you of any free time whatsoever. It’s only been several weeks since you were moved up to lead a fresh batch of young interns. Luckily, you haven’t had to deal with teaching them in the laboratory with the equipment, just basic information and note-taking thus far.

That unfortunately was only the first of four hours at the facility. The next three hours, you would be holed up in the lab, inspecting and experimenting with nanotechnology. As tiring as it is, it is just as rewarding.

Knowing the amount of good that can be done with this research and work was a brilliant means of motivation. Society has advanced already as it is—the world of medicine has benefited greatly—billions of lives have the chance to improve. How could anyone give up on that?

Thoughts of what homework assignments you have yet to submit reign your brain. Hours and hours of straining your mind to intake as much information and apply it all in the lab was making you want nothing more than to crawl under your covers and call it a week.

With a hefty breath, you take a well-deserved recess to the vending machine. Hoping that this little trip for a snack can hold a candle to the sleep you oh so desire.

Satoru knows his assigned place of work is four levels down. He also is aware that his group had been dismissed ten minutes ago and he should be swinging his merry way through the streets to scout for trouble.

He is also entirely aware that he should not be on the twenty-something floor that had a chance of having an empty lab right about now.

Swiping his boss’s ID card is far too easy, shooting an inconspicuous web at any cameras of interest is just as simple.

The hard part is deciphering what is in this damn vial. The lights are dim inside the particular lab he steps into. A breath of relief pushes out of his lungs as he pulls the small bottle from his pocket, circling the stations to get to the specific equipment he needs.

There’s a limited amount of liquid in the vial, so he knows he must handle this process with care and precision. The story would be different if he had another vial or two.

You watch almost lifelessly as a bar of candy and a canned coffee drop down, landing with a dull thud. Mindlessly, you reach through the bottom flap, hearing the faint hinge as you pull out your restitution for break-free work.

Closing and harshly forcing your eyes back open, you try to keep your mind alert as you march on back to the lab to clean up. When you open the door, you’re not expecting this boy to whip his head up at you like a deer in headlights.

“Gojo?” you furrow your brows, one hand still on the door and the other clutching your food.

Gojo is stunned into silence, a laughable silence. When he says nothing, you tip your head down, “What are you doing here?”

“I just had some work,” Satoru quickly lies. “My manager needed me to look at something. I know you’re pretty happy to see me—your face says it all.”

“Oh, does it? Aren’t you supposed to be on the 20th floor?” you quiz, left eye twitching.

In most situations, when Satoru’s backed into a corner, he can somehow flip his way out of there or even sweettalk whoever he needed to. But he can’t explain why he actually feels bad lying to you, it makes his head whirl. “Uh—yeah, but I had to use some of the equipment up here.”

Squinting skeptically, you near him slowly. As you do, Satoru can’t help but gulp. He’s not sure what it is he should focus on. The fact he needs to come up with a way to convince you to not report him? Or the fact you are only a couple inches to his left, looking over his shoulder? The fact you look so adorable in a lab coat?

“What is that?” you peer down at the vial, noticing he has already placed a drop of that substance down on a microscope slide.

“Not sure,” Satoru shrugs. “I haven’t got the faintest clue.”

You continue staring at the chemical concoction, you flick your gaze at him, “Mind if I take a look?”

“Go for it,” Satoru shuffles a couple inches over, giving you enough room to peer into the eyepiece of the microscope.

He can’t help but tautly swallow, hardly able to pay attention because of how sweet you smell. He has to stop himself from telling you just that but he can’t let it get to your head. As effortlessly as he spins webs, he only hopes he’s half as graceful when feeding you some half-assed answer as to just what this chemical was and that his manager most definitely would give him such a compound.

“Hmm,” you hum, slowly turning the dial on the side of the instrument to lift and then focus what was in the slide. “Figuring out what is it shouldn’t be too tricky. I just need to measure the resonance frequency by breaking the substance down a bit more. Then determining the chemical properties shouldn’t be too tricky.”

Satoru’s brows lift and the edge of his lips turn down, amused clearly. “Wow.”

“What?” you blink.

“I always forget how smart you are,” he says airily. When you shoot him a look that seems to be a hybrid of threatening and offense, his nose crinkles and his glasses shift accordingly on his face, “That came out very wrong. I just meant—”

“So this is why you broke into my lab?” you cut him off, still squinting down at the substance.

“I didn’t break in,” Satoru defends himself. “I just figured no one would notice.”

“Why don’t you check over the logic in that again,” you suggest, eyes glancing up at him. “It’s hard to believe you’re the guy who almost beat me out for valedictorian.”

“And why’s that?” Gojo tilts his head, leaning his elbows on the table. It leaves you eyeing him from head to toe as inconspicuously as possible. Sometimes you forget how tall he is. The fact he towers over you serves as a friendly reminder he’s not just any old geeky kid from school.

Before you can give him an answer, his phone buzzes. He shoots a glance down at it, his pretty features sinking. The program he had compiled with Suguru to tune into the police’s radio communications to pick up on any crime alerts had pinged with notifications on his phone. There was a robbery currently taking place at a jewelry store three streets away.

“Shit—my aunt needs me to pick her up from her cooking class,” Satoru quickly lies, blinking unsteadily as he faces you. “It’s kind of far and not safe for her to ride the train by herself. I have to go. Sorry for bothering you—”

“Wait—” you hold a hand up, earning a wide-eyed look from him. It’s kind of endearing how earnest he sounds. “How about you go, and I’ll keep looking at this for you? Once I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”

“You don’t have to,” Satoru frowns, sliding his backpack on, his Spiderman suit nestled neatly inside.

“It’s no problem. You go—don’t keep your aunt waiting,” you beckon him to get a move on. “I’ll see you at school.”

There you go again, being so incontestably kind yet being so severe while doing so. It’s when you crack a hint of a smile to ease him that he actually does as you say. That must be the first he’s seen you sincerely look at him.

Satoru rushes out the door and you glance down at the vial again, trying to understand what exactly the contents of it were.

Satoru has no time to think about how badly he feels leaving you with such a task. He’s too busy webbing his backpack up high on an alleyway wall after he’s changed into his suit.

Before he knows it, he’s already in the air, swinging loosely through the streets of New York. He feels the wind rush at him like it wishes to capture him, keep him in the sky with the moon. But with how quick he’s moving, he feels invincible—like nothing can touch him.

Satoru’s fallen into the same routine every night. Despite the fact he never gets the recognition in his personal life, he would not give up being Spiderman for the world.

Citizens walking the streets all gasp and point when they see the great Spiderman shoot past them like a comet. His white and blue suit makes him look like he was meant to be a part of a winter night sky, the sapphire blue spider emblem in the center of his chest casting a beautiful contrast in the ensemble.

He pays no mind as the silver meshy strings of his webs cling to buildings, aiding him in passing through the streets with ease. He also doesn’t stop himself from enjoying the occasional flips to impress the children out with their families and friends. Satoru insists it’s entirely necessary.

Once he spots the store mentioned on the police comms, he zips around the corner. Landing right above the entrance to the small jewelry shop, he pushes it open rather discreetly. It’s almost comical the way the goons inside haven’t the slightest clue that the Spiderman was crawling into the shop right above their very heads.

Thanks to Satoru’s wall crawling abilities, he’s able to cling to walls and ceilings with ease and without so much as breaking a sweat. So when he casually gawks down at the masked thieves, he tilts his head in amusement at how panicked the men look shouting orders to one another.

“Quick! Before Spiderman gets here!” one spits, stripping a diamond chain straight from the display case. When his friend breaks the glass case all together, he screams, “What the fuck are you doing?!”

“The Spider’s not gonna come. He’s too chicken,” the other responds. “I’d like to see him try.”

“Cute,” Satoru chuckles above them.

This causes all four to whip their heads up at the masked vigilante. Satoru is only able to see their eyes through the cutouts but he can tell by the way their pupils dilate that they are downright terrified.

In the papers and in the news, Satoru is privy to the fact the general public is split on whether they see a need in all the flips and tricks that come along with Spiderman.

Satoru couldn’t care less though, he is wholeheartedly prepared to stand trial to attest to the fact that the flair is entirely necessary. He displays the testimony by the very way he does a backflip and lands with both feet and a palm planted to the ground.

“Y’know I left a really pretty girl all alone just so I could stop you?” Satoru teases lightly, straightening up and flexing his arms by crossing one over the other. “But hey, if that’s what you think, we can make this a lot more fun.”

One of the men reached for his gun, pulling it out and pointing it at Satoru. All he huffs out is a displeased and underwhelmed breath as he shoots out a web, yanking the gun back.

“Come on. Show a bit more effort. You’re killing me,” Satoru drawls like a six-year-old. His six-eyes alert him of an impending punch hurtling his way from his left, making him duck and grab the very goon’s fist in the process. “Missed me!”

The goon let out a threatening growl as he swung again, only to miss Satoru. . . over and over again. Satoru laughs childishly as he doges and parries off swings one after the other. Two of the others manage to finally point their guns at the arachnid hero, clicking the safeties with a string of snaps that causes the shop owner to gasp and cower further into the corner he was in.

Satoru rolls his eyes, delivering an unruly kick to one of the men that dominos into him clashing into his friend, knocking them both to the ground.

The hero giggles at the pathetic exhibition before him. He hardly bats an eye when one of the men throws something that resembles a marble to the ground. A cloud of smoke emits from the impact of the small pellet on the shiny limestone floor.

Satoru’s eyes widen behind his white and black mask. He moves to leap back but inadvertently breathes in far more than he intends to.

His head spins, or maybe it’s the room that is spinning, he can’t tell. All he knows is that his head is suddenly throbbing in pain, every nerve ending feels like it’s thrumming to burst within his very skull. Like they are conspiring against him and hoping to flee the purgatory of his mind.

His ears tune in and out like his head has been dunked underwater. Vision beginning to blur, he tries his best to plant his feet firm on the ground but to no avail. He’s hit with a great wave of despondency when he envisions his uncle’s dead body before him.

That and flashes of him in a beautiful house overlooking a balmy little coastal town, the sound of his laughter blends in with a girl’s and he cannot distinguish whose.

He hardly gets the chance to decipher the strange blend of images when he is suddenly hit in the back of the head with a crowbar.

Once again, the poor boy’s head rings and his head snaps down from the impact of the weapon to his skull. He lets out a pained groan, doing his best to gather himself and seize control of his sense again.

His vision begins to clear and all of a sudden, his six eyes begin to tingle and flash in his mind. INCOMING.

He listens to his instincts and ducks straight away, successfully dodging another deadly swing of that damned crowbar.

“Alright, party’s over,” Satoru scowls under his mask and flips back, snaking a well-aimed and well-timed web sticking to the man and tugging him back.

He punches him quite harshly in the face that it all but knocks him out. Satoru quickly lunges for the two goons in the midst of aiming their guns at him. The thieves don’t even process how quickly they are disarmed because Spiderman has already smashed their heads together.

They drop to the ground, leaving one more thug, quivering in terror. He points his gun at Satoru with a shaky hand, only to find that weapon of his leaving his very hands when Satoru tugs it at towards himself with the help of his webs.

“Last one, huh?” Satoru smugly says. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

The thug fumes as he charges at the vigilante, “I’ll fucking kill you. If not me, then the others!”

He throws a fist at Satoru, but he whips his head to the side, “Others?”

He then lands a punch of his own at the criminal before successfully dodging yet another hit. As Satoru’s third punch causes the thief to lose balance, he’s already in the middle of stringing the man upside down from the ceiling.

“Who are your friends—” Satoru stares at the tangled man, readying his fist to intimidate the thug. “And I advise you talk.”

“I’m not saying shit!” The thug spits, trying to wriggle free.

“You’ll be here for god knows how long. All that blood rushing to your brain, oof, must hurt a little.” Satoru threatens playfully. “And it’ll hurt like hell when I actually beat you to a pulp!”

“Shit! Okay! Okay!” the thief cries, panic-stricken sweat dripping down his forehead into his hairline. “I—I work for a guy named Jogo! He’s this freaky looking guy that wears this mask on his face—I’ve never seen him but he’s big in the group, works with some other guy—I don’t know his name.”

“Jogo,” Satoru mumbles wracking his brain to see if he has had a run in with him. “What is he up to?”

“I’ve got no clue! I swear!” the man attests frightenedly. “All I know is that they needed us to look for a specific relic—You see my partner you knocked out right there? He’s got a picture in his back pocket. Jogo sent a bunch of us on heists in banks and jewelry stores to see if we can find it but there’s no sign of it anywhere.”

Satoru steps back and grabs the photo from the pocket of the man the other thief had indicated. He pulls back the photo, glossing over it briefly.

It was a photograph of a box. Made of some sort of coppery-silver metal with engraved eyes on the sides of it. The irises though, were made of jewels—rubies.

“Going through a whole lot for this freaky looking thing,” Satoru waves the photo with a dexterous flip of his fingers. “Why are they going through all that trouble for this? And what’s in it for you?”

“Wish I knew why those guys want that thing,” the man shakes his head, eyes still wide. “They told us they’d give each of us a cut in all that we returned from the heists—Jogo is not someone to be messed with—he’d track us down and kill us if we went back on our deal.”

“Tch. You’re scared of the wrong people,” Satoru tuts, stowing away the photo for safekeeping. “Tell me what that thing was that your friend threw on the ground. That little ball.”

“That? I have no idea. The boss just gave my partner a few—I think that was the last one. He didn’t tell us what it was or what it did,” the felon explains.

Satoru feels his own fingers twitching in irritation, “Think again. Remember what it was and I’ll go easy on you.”

The criminal’s eyes widen, “I don’t know anything! I swear! Please don’t hurt me!”

“Goodnight,” Satoru grunts out, ramming his elbow into the man’s nose, putting him to sleep.

It’s a matter of seconds before Satoru is watching from a few rooftops over as the cops arrive on scene. The flashing blue and red lights flashing into the back of his very skull. He’s running through what the thug he interrogated said, trying to make sense of it.

Speaking of making sense, you’re lugging yourself out of the lab after finally making sense of just what that vial Satoru had given you contains.

The worry on your face embeds itself into your features as you stash the chemical in your bag. Why would his manager hand this to him?

You glance over your phone, seeing your father calling you as you’re walking towards the train platform. Taking a beat to answer, you speak into the receiver, “Hey, Dad.”

“Hi, sweetheart, are you on your way back? It’s getting late,” your dad says, chatter in the back cause your ears to perk. Radios and police codes being tossed around in dialogue.

“Yeah, I’m waiting for the train,” you reply, looking up and down the tracks. “Are you still working?”

“Yeah, captain duties, dear,” your father responds calmly, yet you can hear the annoyed strain in his voice. “That spider’s strung up a few men in a jewelry store downtown. Taking care of what’s left of this place.”

“Oh—you saw Spiderman?” you ask, watching the train stop in front of you, bracing yourself as the lashes of wind whipped at you full speed.

“No, he’s left his webs all over the place,” your dad grunts dishearteningly. “Damage control is going to have lots of fun with that . . . Mom’s going to be pretty mad at us tonight for missing dinner, huh?”

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” you nod like it’s obvious, sitting down and making eye contact with a gruff pair of men before quickly averting your gaze. “Maybe you should bring her flowers. She always likes that.”

“Yeah, maybe I will,” your father says. “Alright, honey, get home safe. I’ll see you in a bit.”

You think over what he says. Your father always mentions the elusive Spiderman. How none of his men have gotten even close to cracking the case on who the wallcrawler is. How Spiderman is somehow everywhere and takes care of crimes of all scales.

How could a man find the time to even do all that?

The desire to study a man like him plagues your mind far much more than you would like to admit. Who would pass up such an opportunity?

But more of what’s spinning in your mind like a deadly train is why Gojo has a vial like this?

Speaking of trains, when yours comes to a stop, you stand up to get off. It’s unfortunate that the subway stop couldn’t be closer to the next one you are supposed to take.

As you drag on down the street, you mull over what you plan to say to your dad when you try convincing him to simply leave you be once you move out because your safety is put more at risk from the distant and late commutes after classes and your internship.

There’s something in your gut telling you to rush, like you’re being chased or watched at the very least.

You toss a look over your shoulder, seeing those two rugged men about fifteen feet behind you. It’s well past dark and your heart hammers louder against your ribcage, a prisoner demanding release.

Facing forward again, you try to hurry as fast as you can but you feel helpless when you enter a scarcely populated street.

Fuck.

That’s when you break into a full speed run. You hear the footsteps behind you pick up. Your hand slips into your bag’s pocket to grab your mace or taser, but when your fingers only skim the glass of that substance Satoru gave you, you know you’re doomed.

You glance back again, thundering heartbeat blaring just as loud as your footsteps against rough pavement.

“Hey, pretty!” one of the leering men shout. They are far too close to you now. “We just want to have some fun!”

You reach for your phone to send an SOS message to your dad—but that’s exactly the moment the man grabs your arm. You scream in horror, trying to keep going but the other one grabs you too.

Against your will, they drag you into the deserted alleyway nearby. You’re still wriggling in their hold, hoping to free yourself. Thrashing, kicking, screaming, you try it all.

“Let go of me!” you scream. “My dad’s a cop and he’s on his way right now!”

“Shut up,” his friend spits. “You’re full of shit.”

“I’m not,” you grit your teeth. “Captain L/n—badge number 103—”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” the first man says. “You look better when you’re not talking. We gotta do something about that.”

Your eyes widen, and you try pushing, screaming as loud as your lungs can take. The elbow you throw against the jaw of one of the men seem to have done some damage. His head whips to the side but surprisingly his body shoots back about five feet, striking against the brick wall.

Your big eyes follow the man, seeing that wasn’t your doing at all. Of course, it wasn’t. How could a girl like you simply cause a man to fly across an alley and slam against a wall?

That’s when he appears like a fallen angel. In black and white, a glowing blue in the core of his chest, a symbol of hope.

Spiderman.

He’s against the wall the man had flown into, but you have to crane your neck a fair amount to look up at where he’s clinging to. You can hardly blink at the fact he’s against the brick wall with no reinforcements whatsoever, just his fingers and soles of his feet keeping him afloat, defying physics, logic, and gravity.

“You gotta be at least a little attractive to hit on a girl like that,” Spiderman tilts his head, voice light yet husky, young.

“Fuck,” the man closest to you now was backing away. “I didn’t do nothing! I’m—I’m sorry—”

“Ugh, shut up,” the vigilante drawls, dragging out his syllables childishly.

He drops down with the most impressive of flips you haven’t even seen gold medalist gymnasts do. After he effortlessly sticks his landing, he wastes absolutely no time in lunging at your assailant.

He punches him square in the side of the jaw, the pop loud enough that you gasp, stepping back.

The man lets out a frightened cry, and right when you almost feel bad, you’re reminded of how you screamed a few moments prior. Yeah, this terror is well deserved.

Spiderman delivers a seamless kick to the side of his opponent’s abdomen. The entrancement you’re trapped in doesn’t let you avert your eyes at all. His movements are like water, like a choreographed dance even Broadway level performers can never imitate.

A scientific miracle. Something inhuman. Someone untouchable.

The man falls to the ground after taking a quite deadly strike to the face. Your eyes go from the attacker on the ground to his attacker.

The superhero stands there, his back to you, silhouetted by the dingy light from the end of the alley. He turns his head to the right, and you’re guessing he sees you from his peripheral because he’s still not looking directly at you.

You want to watch him for much longer, the superhuman that saved you. The superhuman in a well fitted suit, defining every inch of his body—his muscles, his perfect height.

“You okay, miss?” Spiderman asks, turning to you.

“Y-yeah,” you rasp. “Is—he . . .”

“Dead?” he finishes, snickering. “No. Just sleeping peacefully till the cops get here. Which should be in about five minutes.”

You nod, humming in the little frozen state of yourself. Behind the mask, Satoru wants to do a million things. Ask you a million things. But he knows he needs to keep up the persona of the wall-crawler he his.

“You don’t want to get caught in the lengthy questioning the police are going to do, right?” Spiderman (Satoru) crosses his arms, leaning against the wall.

“Not really, no,” you hardly move at all as you speak.

“See? That’s why I like my way of business. Less paperwork,” the web slinger jokes. “I can get you where you need to be in a matter of minutes. Tell me where you were headed.”

You gulp, “Home. But what do you mean? I don’t think you have a car—wait a second.” That’s when the reality of the situation hits you. “You’re real?”

Satoru chuckles, “We’ve been talking for almost a minute now, lady.”

“I know, but,” you’re looking him up and down. “I thought those news reports were based on just pranks. Seriously—no one has seen much of you—I thought these criminals were just leaving webs everywhere as a sign of loyalty to their gangs.”

This gets the man to laugh again, his head is facing down, and he shakes his head. You’re staring again, it’s hard not to.

“Alright, miss,” Satoru looks at you, making sure he doesn’t accidently slip up and call you by your name. “Where were you headed? Home?”

“Yeah,” you say, watching him push himself off the wall and hold a hand out to you. You glance down at his hand, then up at his face. His mask is covered in synthetic fibers stitched to imitate webs.

“I know you’re shaken up by those guys and what just happened but please trust me,” he sounds inexplicably genuine, unaccountably sincere. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

Your eyes soften, so does the rest of you as you place your hand in his. There’s a level of trust you don’t understand the strength of when you do so. It’s borderline undermined when he tugs you toward him quickly, eliciting a gasp from you.

“You might want to hold on tight,” Spiderman suggests, snugly sliding his arm around your waist, pressing you against him.

“What are you—,” you don’t have the opportunity to finish your question when you find that your feet have left the ground.

You grasp on tighter to him, heeding his suggestion without so much as a second thought. You look down, feeling the wind whipping in your hair. The sight below you is enough to draw a yelp. Well, anyone that is being swung through the streets of New York would. It’s only natural.

“Oh my god!” you scream when you feel yourself hurtling towards the ground.

He shoots another web in the nick of time before you hit the concrete, and you’re in the air again. You bury your face in his neck, clamping your eyes shut. Satoru holds you close, tightening his grip on you. This feels nice.

A part of him doesn’t want this little swinging spree to end. Maybe it doesn’t have to.

“Sorry. No seatbelts,” Satoru laughs. “Should’ve mentioned that!”

“You think?” you quiz, half gasping with the rush of the wind. “Wait! Where are you even taking me? I didn’t tell you where I live!”

“Just trust me!” he yells back.

You open your eyes, looking over his shoulder at the city. The lights don’t blur like you expect them to. You feel like you’re flying, like the moon was waiting for you to join with the stars.

Cars seem smaller suddenly. People look smaller. New York, though, looks just as vast as it always has been.

Once the initial fear shakes out of you, you stare at the city, “Woah.”

You turn to look at him—at Spiderman. He’s still focused on swinging you through the city with one arm. Studying his mask, you can see the fibers of fabric, polyester or something similar. There can’t be many people that can say they’ve seen Spiderman, let alone been this close to him.

You’re amazed, in awe of the impossible. Peace consumes you as you continue to gaze at the wonderous city you love.

Another swoop over rooftops and you feel him lowering towards one. You hold on again, hoping the landing isn’t so rough. Luckily, it isn’t.

You look around, realizing you aren’t on just any rooftop. You’re one of the rooftops of the building you live in.

“How’d you know I live here?” you quiz, brows furrowed and jaw slack.

Satoru has a bit of an oh fuck moment. Words almost fail him but he’s easy to recuperate.

“Well, your dad lives here, doesn’t he?” he points at the ground. “The captain?”

Your mouth that was agape slowly closes and your eyes drift to the edge of the building, “Oh. You know who I am.”

“I know who your dad is,” the man replies. “Seen him a bunch of times. So I’ve seen your face around the main precinct a lot and on the news.”

“You have?” you cock a brow.

“Yeah—hey, don’t worry about those guys. Just try not to be alone at night,” he advises, gesturing with his hands. “Guys see a pretty girl and don’t know how to act a lot of the time.”

You can’t help the slight brow raise when you realize he called you pretty. Satoru pays it no mind however as he scratches the back of his neck.

“Where were you coming from anyway?” he asks, pretending not to know.

“JJ Tech headquarters,” you answer, licking your lips discreetly to tame yourself from gawking at his lean yet muscular figure. Eyes lingering far too long on how the skintight suit fit him, accentuating everything.

Satoru catches this, smirking to himself, “JJ Tech, huh? You must be pretty smart.”

“Pretty smart would be an understatement,” you say. “I wasn’t even supposed to be there this late anyway. I should’ve been home two hours ago.”

Satoru’s ears perk up, he takes this as his opportunity to pry, “How come you stayed longer?”

“Just this guy—he ran in and asked me to help him with an assignment,” you grumble, rolling your eyes.

“Just a guy? He your friend or something?” he asks, leaning his back against the wall to the stairs.

“Or something,” you mumble.

“Oh?” Satoru pipes. This is the perfect moment to see what you think about him. To even flirt with you without any repercussions. “Does that mean he’s your boyfriend?”

“What?” you squeak, voice all high pitched. “God, no. No. He’s just a classmate. He pisses me off most the time—I can hardly stand him at all.”

Satoru scowls beneath his mask, not what I was hoping for.

“I still can’t wrap my head around the fact you exist,” disbelief clings to your tone. “You know you’re a scientific marvel, right? Scientists would kill to study you.”

He laughs, it’s a pretty laugh, one that feels hauntingly familiar, “You want to cut me open or something?”

“Oh, I’m not qualified enough to do something like that,” you wave your hands. “Who’s to say I can’t study your body in other ways?”

Satoru can’t help but smile, he sees that glimmer in your eye and you sound so innocent despite how inviting you phrased that. You don’t even realize it, but he smiles wider.

“You’re funny,” he laughs, shaking his head.

There’s a bunch of things on your bucket list, a lot of things you aren’t sure you’ll get to even accomplish. One of them being making thee Spiderman laugh was definitely not one of them.

“Thank you for saving me,” you say, pulling him from his little fit of amusement. “I thought I was . . . I thought they were going to get away with what they wanted to do.”

Satoru raises his head again, straightening up. It dawns on him that he’s responsible for you being out on that street this late. That if he had hurried up, he could’ve gotten back in time like he planned. He just feels lucky that he made it in time.

He made it just in time, and he’s thankful for that. But he truly hates the fact you almost got seriously hurt because of him. He’s at fault and he knows this will haunt you for a long time.

“Don’t thank me. It’s nothing any normal human being wouldn’t do,” Spiderman tells you, walking over to the edge of the building. “Just stay safe. And know you can depend on your friendly neighborhood Spiderman anytime.”

And with that, he dives off the side of the building. You suck in a harsh breath, rushing and leaning over the elevated stone along the perimeter. Looking down, you find that you have to follow the black and white blur swing up again.

You smile breathlessly, watching the amazing Spiderman soaring off.

“Suguru, it was all my fault,” Satoru paces his apartment . . . ceiling?

 He’s walking in circles upside down, feet sticking to the ceiling like it isn’t scientifically impossible. His mask off but his suit remains on.

“If I hadn’t left her there for so long working on that freaking solution, she wouldn’t have left so late. If I was even a second off, I don’t even know what could’ve happened,” Satoru’s white locks are swaying as he walks. Although he defies gravity, his hair doesn’t.

“You saved her though, that’s all that matters,” Suguru assured, stuffing the chopsticks with a mouthful of noodles in his mouth. “But how did she not recognize you? There’s no way you talked to her.”

“I did,” Satoru drops to the ground. He makes his way over to where Suguru sits on the couch, picking up a box of takeout. “Maybe she’s not as smart as she thinks she is.”

“Please,” Suguru eyes Satoru, handing him a pair of chopsticks. “Don’t underestimate that girl, she’s smarter than half the tri-state.”

“Sure, she’s cute and happens to be smart,” Satoru shrugs. “She’s just a girl though, not a threat.”

“Why did you bring up her being cute?” Suguru narrows his eyes, lowering his food. “That had nothing to do with the conversation.”

“What?” Satoru mutters, chewing on his noodles. “She’s beautiful—there’s no denying that.”

“Beautiful?” Suguru laughs.

“What?”

“You just took it one step further,” Suguru teases, laughing again. “You have a crush on her!”

“What? No, I don’t!” Satoru snaps.

“Now it all makes sense,” Suguru has a wide grin. “Teasing her nonstop, annoying her to get her to yell at you. Wow, you can just ask her out, y’know.”

“Okay, you’re on drugs,” Satoru squints at his best friend.

“Yeah, yeah,” Suguru dismissively says. “So did you get that vial back from her?”

“Obviously not, I’m not supposed to know about that as Spiderman. Only Satoru Gojo knows that,” Satoru states, pointedly gesturing with his utensils. “I’ll ask her tomorrow.”

“Hm, what are you going to do now though?” Suguru asks. “I mean about this Jogo guy that thug told you about.”

“I’m not sure,” Satoru mumbles. “I’ll have to look into that.”

“Shoko, you know I wouldn’t make up something like that.”

“I know! That’s not what I said, it just sounds insane. Like, Spiderman? The Spiderman?”

You stare at her flatly and Utahime rubs your shoulders, “That sounds terrifying. Did you tell your dad?”

“What? Are you kidding? No,” you quickly spit. “If I tell my dad that he’s going to station two cops to follow me twenty-four seven. I can’t have that.”

“Y/n, that could’ve ended very badly,” Shoko frowns dejectedly. “What if Spiderman didn’t show up?”

“But he did,” you say. “If he didn’t, I’d be dead, and all my stupid little worries would be gone. But you don’t understand—that man . . . wow.”

Shoko and Utahime pause to look at one another, the former quizzing, “You—you don’t have a crush on Spiderman, do you?”

“Not a crush, no,” you chuckle, sipping your coffee before you look down at Shoko from where you’re sitting on the picnic table. “Fascination, yes, I have that. But to be honest, he was incredible to look at—his body was . . . ugh, I don’t have anything appropriate to say.”

“Now, this is how I know you need to get laid,” Shoko chuckles. “Having a crush on a spandex wearing spider is insanity.”

“Is it?” you look at where she sits on the bench. “You experience what I did, and I’d love to hear your opinion.”

Shoko frowns at you, then at Utahime. That’s when the latter says to you, “Wait, didn’t you need to talk to Gojo?”

“Yeah,” you murmur, sparing a cautious glance to your bag containing that mix. “Got to go over that stupid project before class. Would it kill him to be on time? He’s always late.”

There’s no need to tell your friends what the fuck Satoru had given you to configure on your own. Not until you at least talk to him and get the full story. You have enough on your mind as it is, having Shoko and Utahime’s thoughts thrown into the mix would only rattle and confuse you further. It doesn’t help that one of them grew up with Satoru and knows his aunt and the other loathes him almost more than you do.

“I’m going to grab a croissant before class,” Shoko rubs her stomach. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

You hop off the bench and head on down towards where your Orgo class is. There’s still about twenty minutes left till class and Shoko falls behind to grab her baked good.  

Those memories of last night carry you where you need to be. You strut along the path with a purpose, your hair is effortlessly styled, makeup barely there, yet it somehow masks just how disheveled you truly feel.

“Gojo!” you call as you spot him by the bottom of the steps in one of the University’s vast courtyards, he just so happens to be in the midst of discussing something Digimon related with Haiba.

Haiba and Suguru’s eyes widen as they realize it’s you storming towards Gojo and not just any other girl.

Satoru flicks his gaze over as you walk over, stopping in front of him. He’s not sure what to say, he knows he should probably address the task he stupidly left for you to do but he hardly strings a solid greeting together without sounding stupid, “Hey.”

“Can I talk to you—in private?” you ask, your face gave away an austere look, like you were about to scold a child.

How can he say no?

He nods, standing up and following you down the side of the building. The two of you are supposed to be heading down to class that happens to be the other way but he doesn’t even question you when he’s whisked onto the school grounds.

His mind fumbles through the events of last night. He had two conversations with you. One as your savior and one as the guy you got stuck with for science class. He’s racking his brain enough to decide how to behave although the answer should be obvious.

The boy follows you behind the bleachers, looking around with an incredulous quirk in his brow when you step into the dark underside of them.

“Is everything okay?” Satoru blinks as you stop.

“Gojo.” You sternly face him, not saying anything else.

“That’s my name, yeah,” he sassily retorts. “Doesn’t answer my question though.”

“Don’t test me,” you hold up your index finger threateningly.

Cute, he thinks.

“Where did you get this?” you hold up the small vial. “And the truth this time.”

Satoru’s eyes lock onto the green liquid, unsure what lie he should curate this time. He could simply insist on the same lie as before, convince you that you were overthinking. Or he could tell you the truth, ultimately putting your life and his secret in danger, but hey, it’ll save him from looking entirely idiotic.

“I told you, my manager,” he states, reaching out to take it.

You pull it back, further from his reach and he wants to laugh at how easy it would be to take it from your hands in the blink of an eye.

“How stupid do you think I am?” you quiz.

“I don’t think you’re stupid at all,” he says, a smile goes with that shake of his head, his hair falling over his bespectacled blue eyes. “Just a little scary.”

“Listen, I know your manager didn’t give you this because he wouldn’t give you this.” You pointedly flash the vial in his face. “Do you realize what’s in here?”

“Wait,” Satoru’s smile fades. “You’re telling me you actually found out what’s in it?”

You nod haphazardly, more confused than skeptical, “You don’t know?”

“No—I don’t, what is it?” he asks, nearing you too closely without meaning to.

You lower your hand, “It’s a highly concentrated blend of hallucinogens and anesthetics. One sip could send a man into cardiac arrest—or worse, kill him.”

Your eyes are on his, but his eyes aren’t on yours. His are on the bottle of chartreuse in between your fingers.

“Satoru,” you murmur quietly, lowering the bottle into his indecisive palm, his fingers edging closer to yours but pulling back ever so gently before they attempt to muster the courage once more. You glance down at his long pale fingers, his skin glows sweeter than the moon itself.

Your gaze dips to your skin grazing his as you place the bottle into his hand. You let your hand linger against his, not sure why you don’t think of retracting.

Why are you just realizing how pretty he is?

The rims of his glasses glint as he looks at your face, studying your features like he’ll never get the chance to ever again. You blink yourself into snapping out of it, pulling your arm back and swallowing dryly.

“Sorry about the trouble,” Satoru quietly says, stowing away the vial.

“It’s okay,” you reply, voice rasping. While his eyes are focused on tucking the bottle safely, you say, “I don’t know what it is you’re hiding—I won’t ask, but please be careful.”

Satoru can’t help the grin he cracks, “I’m tougher than I look.”

And when he walks away, there’s a strange feeling that stirs in your gut. A feeling that tells you he may be right.

You aren’t sure why you’re still thinking about why he had that chemical in the first place. Did he make it himself? Did he buy it off someone? What was it intended for?

The rest of your organic chemistry class, you’re left there wondering what that boy is up to. You’re left wondering why he is missing class again today after you just saw him. And you’re left wondering whether Satoru thanks Yaga for never marking him late or absent at all. Call it favoritism, you suppose.

He thanks any deity that he can think of when he arrives on time to JJ Technologies before his manager questions him.

He finds some time to slip away, sneak up to your floor while you’re instructing your latest interns. He smiles, watching you scribble something down on your clipboard while you walk.

“Okay, this right here is just a sketch of one of our current studies,” you point at a holographic, digitized image that appears above a table. “This is a paradigm for a new discovery of nanoparticles. They’re commonly used to reduce the number of catalytic materials within chemical reactions. There are two fields within certain industries that they are applied to. Can anyone tell me what they are?”

The students all flip restlessly through their notepads, struggling to look for the answer to your question.

Satoru can’t hide the snicker he lets out. Half the student look back at him and you peer through the batch of preppy kids to see him.

“Petroleum refining and automotive catalytic converters,” Satoru replies, still smirking complacently.

You have a bit of a curl to your lips, eyes locked on his as you say, “Yes. That’s correct.”

Seeing him appear within your mix of pupils almost throws you off, but you know you have a certain image before the students so you keep yourself composed. You quickly instruct the students to write the answer down and head to their stations with their teams.

When the interns disperse, you cross your arms, face to face with Gojo.

“What do you want?” you ask, a sickly-sweet smile on your face.

“Oof, would it kill you to talk nice to me?” Satoru acts like a wounded soldier, palm across his abdomen.

“I feel like it might, so I’d rather not take the risk,” you say pointedly.

“Hm, right,” Satoru scoffs, he looks down. “You’re going to be alone now in the lab, right?”

“No, I’ll be in the lab but not alone,” you say. “My colleagues are going to be in there with me. You need something?”

“No, I wanted to ask you something,” his brows tense.

An odd sensation stirs in your stomach, “Ask me what?”

It’s been a while since either of you actually began interacting with one another somewhat civilly. You don’t know what it is that will come out of his mouth but you’re suddenly hopeful.

He grabs your hand, leading you off to the side, causing you to jerk your head around in case anyone’s looking.

Once you are beneath the mosaic mural of DNA helixes on one wall, Satoru stops, letting go of you. You try not to let the idea of his hand staying in yours distract you from what’s to come.

He tries not to focus on how soft your hand is, and once again how the fragrance of your perfume feels like candy on a summer day.

“You didn’t tell anyone about that bottle, did you?” he whispers, eyes darting between yours and the rest of the busy facility.

“No,” you shake your head. “Of course, not. I had a feeling you wanted to keep it private.”

Satoru looks at you, his smile reaching his ears, “Aw, how sweet. You care about me.”

You smack the back of his hand, causing him to hold it close to him possessively and rub it gently from the very slight sting of your slap.

“Shut up,” you snap, catching the way his blue eyes gleam behind his glasses. “Is that all?”

“No,” he states, straightening up and switching his tone from light and playful to serious. “You said it was deadly to take a single sip. That the properties within it were so overly saturated it could do serious damage. But let’s say . . . you needed to use it in combat . . . could you?”

The nature of his question startles you, “Combat? Like if soldiers were fighting?”

“Yeah, sure, like that.”

You’re blinking heavily, looking towards the place where the wall meets the floor, “Well, I suppose it could be used in a vaporous form. Like gas or something. That could do enough damage too.”

“Ugh,” Satoru closes his eyes and pinches his nose. “I was afraid of that.”

“What is it?” you peer up at him through your lashes. “You’re hiding something.”

“No—I’m not,” Satoru groans. He notices the suspicion on your face, “You got time for a snack in the cafeteria?”

Flaring your eyes over his, you glance discreetly at the time, “Fine.”

You begin to walk away.

“That was a yes or no question! Not a secret third response,” he trails behind.

“You got your answer, didn’t you?” you gesture to yourself.

“Yeah, but you seem entirely unenthusiastic about it,” Satoru grumbles. “A little energy may do you good.”

You hit the elevator button, crossing your arms, “I’m not here to appease you.”

“Appease me? Oh, god,” he lets out a baffled scoff.

“What?” you furrow your brows. “Poor choice of words?”

“Not exactly,” Satoru replies, loosely shifting to get into the elevator. “It might be nicer, I guess, to know if you actually wanted to get a snack with me and not as if I’m holding you at gunpoint.”

You roll your eyes, “You brought up a snack and I happen to be hungry. Where does gunpoint come in the mix? You really want me to do cheer like you came to my rescue?”

He almost laughs from the irony but he knows not to. He knows just as well that things could have gone extremely wrong the other night if he had not gone about everything carefully. There’s another sort of irony to him, a different form of saving.

“Mhm, but you like coming to my rescue pretty often,” he responds, a lopsided smile on his lips as he leans against the wall with folded arms.

You squint at him, the word rescue coming out of his mouth reminding you strangely of the danger you were in right in that alleyway.

“What does that mean?” you say with tightening eyes.

“You did my part of the lab report to save my ass, you helped me with that liquid, you kept that secret for me,” Satoru breaks eye contact, looking at the ground. “And that time in freshman year of high school.”

His final reminder steers your heart to a slow pace, your shoulders untense. You remember that event all too well.

“I’m a decent human being,” you explain as if it’s a scientifically proven, immutable fact. “It’s less about enjoying something but more of the fact I would be miserable and angry with myself if I didn’t help someone that needed it.”

Satoru lifts his head to level with you, his eyes are wide in a blank stare. That is right before he suddenly blurts a short chuckle. “Spoken like a true hero.”

Your eyes flit upwards as the doors to the elevator open. He leads you out into the hall, his strides are much longer than yours.

“Wait up! I can’t walk that fast!” you snap breathlessly.

His gaze flicks over to you, his eyes close behind his lens, laughing again. Bustling closely to him, you quiz, “Okay, well you still have a lot of explaining to do. Like where you got that green thing from.”

Satoru stops by the line of sandwiches. His head turns to face you, “Don’t you trust me?”

“Absolutely not,” you’re quick to counter. He throws his head back as you grab a saran wrapped sandwich from the stall and face it at him strictly, “You’re not normal. That’s what I’m realizing.”

Satoru grabs a sandwich and a sugary soda too and he’s about to follow you as you walk off to a table but is interrupted when the employee behind the register curtly clears his throat. A nonverbal cue to pay for you both.

Satoru lets out a throaty groan, fishing deep in his pockets for a crisp ten dollar note. He rounds the table to the other side, sitting down with you.

“You’re having all these revelations pretty late into our lives, aren’t you?” Satoru picks up the conversation as if there was no gap in between. “I’m a little surprised you just came to the conclusion I’m not normal.”

“Hm, I’ve known for a while,” you hum, turning focus to your sandwich.

Memories are thrust upon you from high school. When you first met him, he hardly spoke. He was short with his interactions and would hardly have the grace to offer more than five words. He clearly didn’t enjoy being around people.

Suguru seemed to help him out of this at some point because in your sophomore year of high school, he came to school as a completely brand-new person. His personality shown more, and he only then began pissing you off.

In a way, it was better than seeing him so down like he was before. Because of that, you have been more inclined to tolerate his shit a lot of the time.

“Listen, Satoru,” you sigh, not even noticing the way his body electrocutes at the fact you called him by his first name and not his last. “I’m very serious about my future. It means everything to me and to my parents. There’s only a certain amount of shit I can tolerate. And I can’t tolerate you slacking off at my expense.”

Towards the end of your warning, you look at him. He lowers his drink from his mouth, eyes straight ahead.

“Fair enough,” Satoru says. His head falls loosely between his shoulders, his hair glistening in the fluorescent lights. “It’s important for your parents too, that’s something I respect.”

Your brows uncinch.

“It’s important I get home on time for my parents too,” you sigh, looking at the time.

“You have an hour,” Satoru asks. “Why are you worried?”

Now he knows why you are worried. He still has to act oblivious, that’s all.

He sees the faltering blinks, eyes dancing here and there, mouth parted without a word ready to fly out.

Satoru takes another bite from his sandwich, talking with a full mouth, “Is your dad strict or something?”

Those anxious eyes morph into a revolted side eye, “You know who my dad is. You know what my dad is.”

“Yeah, he’s just the captain. Not some flesh-eating monster,” Satoru makes himself giggle.

You set your forearm on the surface of the table, rotating your body to turn to him, “My dad is a great man. He’s all law and order and then there’s my mom, also law and order. If I didn’t have enough on my mind, now my dad wants to assign a detail to me.”

“Assign . . .” Satoru shifts in his seat, lowering his meal. “You mean have a pair of cops following you around all the time?”

“Yeah,” you breathe.

Satoru’s eyes travel over your face while you’re not looking at him. If the captain does sign cops to tail you, that means that there’d be cops around him. Background checks, tailing him to get a sense of who he is . . . that could lead them to him being Spiderman . . .

“That—he can’t do that,” Satoru pipes, jolting you out of your little trance of eating. “That isn’t fair to you. You wouldn’t be able to hang around me—hell, they’d be standing right behind us listening to every word you say.”

Your lips turn down and brows raise, “I had no idea you cared so much.”

“Sure, why not?” Satoru dials down his emotion.

He supposes he’d have to stay away from you if your father went through with that after all. And he finds his heart twisting and turning from the very idea of doing that.

“He’s pretty stressed because of those string of bank robberies,” you exhale, Satoru’s eyes refuse to move from your face. “So my safety has gotten to his head too.”

Satoru’s blinks were slow, something that could be confused with lethargy, “Does he have any leads?”

“Not really. He just knows they’re all linked. He thinks Spiderman’s involvement is fucking everything up,” you say, remembering your encounter from last night.

“Hm,” and he can’t help but ask. “What do you think about him?”

“Spiderman?”

“Yes,” Satoru’s heart teetering on the edge.

“I think,” you begin, “he’s what our city needs. As a medical miracle, you decide to help others—that shows what kind of man you are.”

He has nothing to say for once. No quick quip, no fast remark. His mouth falls open, unsure how to respond. You were talking about his alter ego, but it felt like you were telling him.

“He’s pretty cool,” you nod, thinking about the vigilante.

He watches as you get up, saying, “I’ve got to get going, I’ve got to get work done before my dad picks me up.”

He feels like he has much left unsaid, but he still watches as you make your way out on your own.

Satoru is rooftop hopping, rushing back after he hit a dead end on a potential jewelry store he believed a heist may occur. That has been his routine that past week on top of annoying you in class and sitting with Haiba and Suguru in the library.

“Hm, okay. I just need to get a minimum of a C on this next exam to maintain my A,” Suguru mumbles aloud. “Satoru, you should maybe focus on your philosophy paper, you don’t want to get called out by the professor again—"

Suguru continues talking but Satoru is on a completely different planet. His gaze had flicked over to you walking through the maze of tables, and it was like an angel had stepped onto Earth.

The dim library of the university had mysteriously brightened tenfold. The incessant chatter of students around you crashes to a muffled halt as the faces begin to lose definition. All he can focus on is your pretty face. Your graceful smile. Your beautiful existence.

He feels his heart caper at the very sight of you laughing, the honeyed sound of it. His heart twists a bit more at the fact that it’s because of another guy.

“Hello!? Earth to Satoru,” Suguru breaks into Satoru’s eyeline. He looks back at whatever could have grasped his attention so unapologetically. He groans in frustration, “When are you going to tell her you want her?”

“I—what? I don’t want her,” Satoru snaps his head over at Suguru.

“It’s pretty obvious you want her, bud,” Haiba says with wide eyes and all Satoru can do is roll his own.

The sleep deprivation is catching up to him and he’s not sure how to remedy it. Those brief hours he does get to sleep he can hardly do so, he’s too busy trying to figure everything out. Where is Jogo hiding? Where is the next hit going to be? Why does he need that relic?

What could you be wearing tonight?

He has to shake his head like a wet dog, screw his eyes shut and bury his ears with his pillow. What is going on with him?

The next lab you have together, you spend most of it trying to figure out how to get through it working together and not competing against one another.

Afterwards, he wants to trail behind you, talk more to you but you’re tugged away by Shoko without fail.

 Every time.

Every time you sit on some staircase out on campus, step through the winding aisles of bookcases in the library, sit at some table in one of the cafes, Shoko or Utahime are always there.

He figures he’ll get the chance at JJ Tech but he’s barely seen you with how busy both of your schedules have been. His last resort is waiting for a perfect moment to get you alone. 

Satoru manages to catch up to you somehow once again in the library, studying for midterms.

“Here,” he places a cup of coffee in front of you on the table, it sat before your notebooks and thick textbooks like an almighty divinity.

Your eyes pierce through the coffee, then up at him, “How’d you know this is the flavor I like?”

You look tired, usually you can put yourself together enough to not seem so, but tonight it’s apparent. Your pens and highlighters are spread across the desk in a crazed frenzy.

“That’s the one you usually get at work, I don’t know. Thought you might need it,” he shrugs nonchalantly, sitting down.

You straighten up, wanting to smile but holding that feeling back, tying it down, “Oh, thanks.”

“I see you’re studying for . . .” Satoru tries guessing but squints at the papers you have strewn across the table, “what class?”

“Neuroscience,” you sigh, chewing on the end cap of your highlighter.

“Stop doing that,” he lowers you hand, essentially pulling the highlighter away from your mouth. He then opens the bottle of chilled coffee, handing it to you, “Here.”

You take it from him, eyes on his as you pull it towards your mouth, taking a sip. He leans back in his seat, his eyes roaming the papers you have laid out.

“Looks fun,” he drawls, looking through everything. “Have you had something to eat yet?”

“No, not yet. I’ll eat when I’m home,” you answer. “Have you?”

“No, me neither,” he says.

“Oh,” you ponder over what the situation is. “If you aren’t doing anything, we can go get something to eat right now.”

Satoru nearly stops breathing, he has every reason to frantically say yes. One: he happens to be starving. Two: he knows he’s going to be busy all night with studying and with his Spiderman duties. Three: he can sit and relax with you. Four: It’s you.

But he needs to get going, a potential lead came up in relation to Jogo he needs to check out right now.

“I can’t,” he wants to punch himself. “I have to help my aunt with something.”

Disappointment prickles through your body, a feeling you weren’t expecting in the least in a situation like this.

“Oh, that’s okay,” you gather your belongings.

“Wait—where are you going?” his eyes go wide, watching you pack your bag.

“Uh, home,” you say as if it were obvious. “Did you forget what we talked about that one time? Dad—security detail—never letting me breathe?”

“You can’t actually be worried about that,” Satoru says as you sling on your bag. “I highly doubt the captain will go through with that.”

“Just make sure you’re on time tomorrow for class, we have to work on that lab,” you tell him, flipping your hair as you adjust your bag on your shoulder. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“I have an issue with losing track of time,” Satoru frowns. “It’s not my fault.”

“Maybe use your glasses to keep an eye on the time. Are four eyes not enough? Do you seriously need six of them?” you challenge with a look over your shoulder before turning back to the exit.

He wants to laugh at the sheer irony of your question.

Satoru’s on a rooftop again. Another sleepless night is sure to pass him by. He follows lead after lead, suspect after suspect, but nothing.

That tip he got led him to nothing. Led him to nothing but missing class the next morning.

He’s thinking only about how guilty he feels, how he should apologize for bailing on you again during lab. Especially when you told him not to.

You count your lucky stars that you are sitting at home today worrying about your midterm exams approaching and not worrying in the lab.

Your father shows up at your door with a cup of hot cocoa, settling it down beside you. He has a cup of his own, a rare to see smile on his face as he sits down next to you.

“Thanks, Dad,” you beam, taking the cup.

“How’s studying going?” he asks.

“It’s okay,” you sigh. “How’s that heist case coming along?”

“It’s stressful,” he huffs out as well. “Got a bunch of different stories coming from the witnesses and that Spiderman jackass isn’t helping with my peace right now.”

“He’s not so bad,” you chuckle, taking a sip.

Your dad cocks a disgruntled brow, “That guy’s a menace. Just like that one news guy keeps saying.”

“That guy is crazy, Dad, and you know it,” this time you scoff.

“You calling me crazy, too?” your dad quizzes.

“No,” you set down your cup, “That’s not what I meant. I just meant that Spiderman has saved a lot of people. A lot of his good deeds go unnoticed because there are so many little things he does that don’t get broadcasted. Whatever—anyway, what are the witnesses saying?”

Your dad slowly lowers his offended brow and explains, “Witnesses from each location are saying they were knocked unconscious. Then there are witnesses who are also saying that the suspects dropped some sort of spray on them, then there are others saying it may have been a gas they inhaled.”

“Gas?” your nose scrunches.

“Hm,” your dad nods. “After they either inhaled or felt it on them, they started hallucinating. Some saw flashes of things they feared in their life, or of traumatic moments, or they were close to being driven to sleep by pictures of nice dreams. It all is difficult to figure out what it is. Our forensics team is having a shit time with narrowing it down since it may flush out of their system quick.”

You gawk at him, lost for words. It’s a highly concentrated blend of hallucinogens and anesthetics. One sip could send a man into cardiac arrest—or worse, kill him.

Your own voice rings in your head but his face is what appears before you. Those sparkling blue eyes and that silvery white hair. A flash of that green vial struck in an instant too.

“It’s all pretty confusing,” your dad exhales, taking a sip from his foamy drink. There’s a ring at the bell, steering his attention to it. He looks over at you, ruffling your hair, “You get back to it kiddo, I’ll see who it is.”

He walks out, closing your door and you look over that video about the fundamentals of chemistry, your notes splayed open with highlighters and sticky notes littering your desk.

But you can hardly focus—now that you’re thinking about Gojo all over again. This all has to be a coincidence, right? There’s no way Satoru Gojo of all people is affiliated with a high crime gang and drugging people to rob banks. There’s just no way.

But his voice rings in your mind once more—a memory of your conversation when he asked about that liquid being able to be used as a gas in combat. . . ‘I was afraid of that.’

The little three tapped choreographed knock on your door tells you that your father is on the other side.

“Sweetheart, there’s a . . . boy from your class here to see you,” your dad awkwardly says.

You blink the tiredness away, getting up and heading to the foyer of your penthouse apartment. Your hand rests on the railing as you descend down the stairs, only to stop halfway when your eyes land on snowy hair and silver framed glasses.

His sky-blue eyes lock onto yours, his blinks are restless, and his pretty lips are parted. You see him visibly gulp, like he was nervous to face you.

“What’re you doing here?” you finally say, remembering the fact he abandoned you once more today.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Satoru waits a beat till his heart tries to settle down. “Is that okay?”

You should yell at him, and you truly want to but for some reason you can’t. You huff out a sigh, beckoning him to follow you. As you turn around to lead him up the stairs, he’s once again scattering his field of vision everywhere.

He’s paying attention to the extravagance of your home. The chandelier in the foyer, the numerous potted bonsais and lilies, the expensive stonework polished floors, the ornamental china vases and molded ceiling. He shouldn’t expect any less from the daughter of the veteran police captain of the city and the successful assistant district attorney. Your parents were clear overachievers, mother and father both, it is no less than obvious you would be on a similar path of greatness yourself.

He eyes you rather shamelessly, it’s not like you have eyes on the back of your head. You glance over your shoulder at him.

Or maybe you do.

Satoru already felt scrutinized at the door when your father opened it. He should care a little more but finds that he doesn’t care one bit about the police captain’s protective gaze on him following his daughter up to her room.

You open your door, unveiling your bedroom to the boy. Suguru and Haiba would go nuts if he were to tell them he was standing in your room with you right now. Nanami would hardly believe him at all.

Your room is neat, that’s the first thing he notices. And it’s exactly how he pictured it. Furniture white, minimalistic and clean. The bed had four posts, sheer curtains draping down the top. You had white boards, bulletin boards, filled with excessive diagrams and notes. You had bookshelves in a corner of the room, lined with chemistry and medical textbooks where your desk was.

There was a wall of windows that overlooked the city, a balcony that had a set of Parisian doors to it. He wonders how much time you spent out there with your thoughts and what they could possibly be.

While he’s observing every element of your room, you face him. He has this wondrous look in those frosted eyes of his, a look that makes them look even wider. His lips part and when you look at him in the dim lighting from your study lamp, you notice the way his top lip prods out slightly over his bottom. That they have a pouted yet subtle curve to them that came to life when he smiled. That there was a soft pinkish sheen to them.

You wonder why you’re suddenly paying such close attention to him these days.  

“Here,” you speak, ringing yourself out of wherever your mind was going.

He cocks a brow, gawking at you rifling through your school bag. His puzzled expression deepens when you press a packet of paper against his chest. “What’s this?”

“Your part of the lab report,” you grumble, eyes cold yet thwarted. “Just memorize the material by next Friday before our presentation. I’ll make sure the rest of what’s left throughout the week gets done.”

Satoru’s entirely taken aback. You have every right to be mad but he wasn’t expecting you to still want to help him. His arm shoots out to grab yours before you can walk away. Your halted against your will, shocked as you gape at him trapped in the lamplight as it clings to his skin.

“Wait—that’s not why I came here,” he sighs begrudgingly. “I came to apologize. I’m sorry I missed class and bailed on you.”

“Twice,” you correct with furrowed brows.

“Twice,” he revises. “It was a shitty thing to do. And it won’t happen again.”

He swallows dryly as he stares at that cynical look on your face. He looks like a lost pet, waiting to be scolded by its owner.

“Promise?” you tip your head to the side.

“Promise,” he answers, he feels his heart tearing through his chest at how you’ve suddenly acquired a childlike disposition, one he’s never had the chance to witness before. And all because of him.

“Okay,” you smally smile, flashing your pearly teeth at him. “But if you bail on me again, I’m telling Yaga to give you a zero.”

“Got it—but how come you’re so sure he’ll give your word priority over mine?” Satoru challenges.

“Because you were the second smartest kid in high school, and I was the first,” you pointedly say. “I have a higher GPA than you, I have won three more academic awards than you have—and let’s face it, my attendance record outranks yours in an embarrassing way.”

Satoru presses his lips firmly and raises his brows in hilarity, trying to contain that laughter wanting to blurt out of him. He fails though, laughing anyway.

Your lips part as you stare at him, suddenly you’re so aware of how tall he is again, how he’s not as lanky as he used to be in high school.

“At least I’m not stupid,” Satoru tells you knowingly. “You could’ve ended up with a lot worse than me.”

“Really? Like who?” you cross our arms.

“Yuki—Haiba—Need I go on?” he speaks with a teasing tone.

“God, no. I got your point,” you hold your hands up in defense. Your nose twitches as you let your hands slowly fall to your sides. “You didn’t have to come all this way to apologize, you know. You could’ve just apologized tomorrow or over text, you have my number.”

“You wouldn’t have thought twice about forgiving me,” he puts his hands in his pockets. “Or murdering me.”

This evokes a laugh from you, cheeky and bright, this cold light of the moon suddenly feels like beams of sunlight embracing him, warm and comforting.

Then you point a finger at him, “But you have to tell me why you have that green liquid.”

Satoru can’t flip his way out of this corner. Another lie must suffice, “One of my friends from my neighborhood gave it to me—said he swiped it off some kid in his school. He wanted me to find out what was in it.”

“Oh,” you frown, all doe-eyed and innocent. “You should get rid of that thing. It’s dangerous.”

“Will do,” Satoru salutes with his middle and index fingers. He catches that little sideways twitch of your mouth, as you stare at him from the bottom up but stop halfway. “What is it?”

“I’m just a little shocked you’re not really how I thought you’d be,” you say. “Is that bad?”

“Depends,” Satoru eyes the room shamelessly, glancing at you before he sits down uninvited on your bed. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. We’ve known each other for like over half a decade—and we hardly ever really talked. I always thought you were some nerdy guy that had a bad attitude. I guess I thought you never really liked me.” You circle around the bed post to get closer to him.

Satoru’s brows are raised so far up high that they are practically skimming his hairline. He was talkative, just not with you at first. He feels like he might’ve been a bit blunt overall—but that changed for him when he became Spiderman years ago.

“I’m sorry I made you feel that way,” Satoru says the unexpected. “I guess I just found you intimidating.”

“Me?” you point at yourself, sitting down. “Why? You’re, like, one of the most talented kids I know.”

“Because you’re crazy smart,” he blurts out, smiling as he can’t even maintain eye contact with you. He feels your body heat, just a few measly inches to his left. You’re in reach and he’s scared he’ll do something to cause you to slip away.

Your eyes widen at his words, and he seems to not be done yet with the way he sucks in a breath, hands resting either side of him on the comforter.

“You’re insanely clever and nice and it doesn’t help much that you’re pretty,” Satoru is shaking his head, meeting your gaze once again. Once again, gorgeous eyes stare back at him.

You furrow your brows, not remembering an instance in your life where you had seen him look so vulnerable for even a moment. Your eyes flick down to his pouted lips then back up to his eyes.

“You think I’m pretty?” you whisper.

“Is that even a question?” Satoru breathes.

You lean close, his icy blue eyes contrast his half lidded warm look behind his glasses. He inches closer, your noses brushing against each other.

Your lips are half a centimeter away from his. He can smell the scent of your lotion, the sweet scent of your lip balm. He’s so close to tasting it that he feels like he’s the closest he’ll ever be.

That tingling sensation shot up his spine and straight to his ears, not because of this tension.

It’s his six eyes telling him there’s an incoming threat. Footsteps. They’re faint, but he feels them coming this way.

He suddenly jumps up, grabbing the lab report and rifling through it, “Your dad.”

“What?” you’re taken aback, your face crinkling.

“He’s coming,” he says.

You blink at him, wondering if he’s just scared or if he didn’t want to kiss you in the first place.

“Listen, Satoru, if you don’t want to—”

Your door swings open, revealing your father. One hand rests on the knob and one on the door frame. The way he opened it indicated a sense of urgency, or a sense of wanting to catch Satoru in the act. The act being the boy making a move on you.

“Hey, sweetie, everything alright in here?” he eyes you quickly at the term of endearment but then keeps his razor-sharp cop stare on Satoru. He’s not doing anything to ring alarm bells, simply just thumbing through report papers like he gave the impression of initially.

“Yes, Dad!” You glare at your father. “I thought we talked about knocking.”

“Oh, sorry—I was just—” he attempts defending himself but your eyes widen as you tilt your head at him and he ushers himself out of your room.

“Jeez. You’d hardly believe I’m nineteen years old with a dad like that. What is he going to do after I move out,” you grumble. Your eyes slowly dance over to the boy who was standing up, “How’d you know he was coming?”

“I could hear his footsteps,” he says.

“Yeah, you told me like a whole minute before he actually was at the door,” you stand up, nearing him. “I know your eyes suck, but no one has that good a sense of hearing.”

“I told you that’s what I heard,” he defends himself.

You tighten your lips, watching him set the papers down with his eyes fixed on the door. His eyes are still but his mind runs a mile a minute. He’s ruminating on the fact he almost kissed you and that your father could have walked in. What’s worse right now though is the fact he is still standing in the wake of your missed moment.

“Satoru, something is up with you,” you stand up, taking a daring step forward. Your shoulders square in assertion, “I’m not sure what it is. But I promise you can trust me.”

He slowly turns his head to you, thinking about what to say but his breath stops short when you place your palms over his chest, gazing up at him.

He gulps, and he hopes you don’t see how his nerves are clearly rattling, shaking his very bones. His phone buzzes with the soft four chimed ring he’s all too familiar with and he curses himself and every other wrong doer in the whole city of New York.

“I . . . I’m sorry,” he grabs yours wrists. “I have to go.”

He goes around you, passing you without so much as another glance. You watch him leave your room and in the simplest of terms, you felt like shit.

You begin walking to your door to slam it shut when your father runs past you, frantically pushing his limbs through his police jacket, his other hand on his phone.

“Dad—what is it?” you question breathlessly.

“Sorry, honey, have to go in. There’s another theft in progress in the upper east,” your father explains in two quick breaths.

Your eyes follow him as you hear the front door shutting after he leaves, only a minute or so after Satoru did.

You can’t help that scowl you toss at your microscope on your desk, or how you sprint towards it to inspect the elements once again.

Satoru is thinking only about you. Only you, only you.

His cognizance on the fact he should focus on this heist is hardly doing him favors from how much he regrets not kissing you. If being caught by your father was a repercussion anyway, how bad could that have possibly been? Yeah, so what. Mild embarrassment, maybe a few threats here and there.

His hand wraps around the web he shoots at the side of the building, swinging straight through the shattered window. He has no time for histrionics, he just wants to get to the bottom of this case.

When the thugs turn to face the man that flew in through the window, they all drop what they are doing, scowling menacingly at the boy.

“Okay,” Satoru cracks his knuckles, tweaking his neck to the side. “Let’s wrap this up.”

That’s what prompts four burly men to lurch at the boy. Gojo makes quick effort to shoot at one’s face, gluing a sticky web to his eyes and hindering his senses completely.

He knocks over another one with a horse powered kick, pushing him into a glass display. He’s nearly amazed with himself by how rushed this fight is.

Another man comes at him with a closed fist, brass knuckles adorning them as they hurtle straight for Satoru’s face. With lightening reflexes, he swats the man’s arm, aiming the base of his palm straight up the man’s jaw. Except it isn’t his jaw he’s aiming for.

An anguished scream of agony leaves the man as he cradles his bleeding, broken nose. Spiderman towers over him again, kicking him in the gut while he’s down.

The fourth man fires several shots at Satoru, unfortunately for the goon, he hasn’t experienced just how the Six Eyes senses really benefit the Spiderman.

His gun is in Satoru’s hand before he knows it, a stringy web stuck to the end of it. The thief’s jaw drops, eyes reddened and wide when he witnesses the way the gun crushes in the vigilante’s hand, the pieces of it crumbling to the ground.

“This is getting boring,” Satoru whines immaturely. “I can’t believe I had to give up being with a pretty girl for this.”  

Forcibly tugging the man towards him with a web, Satoru delivers a lethal blow to the back of the man’s head, instantly knocking him out.

The sound of a glass rustling behind him draws his attention, the man he had knocked into the display was on his feet again. He has something in his hand that catches the vigilante’s attention, three small balls.

“Fuck no,” Satoru grabs the pellets by shooting webs again. “Not falling for this again.”

He lunges to the wall behind the man, psyching him out when he kicks off the wall and practically tackles the man to the ground.

“Not in the mood to get to know you,” Satoru frowns, his boot on the side of the man’s neck. “Where’s Jogo? And who gave you this?”

He hold up the pellets of gas, the stare of whitened eyes through his mask are enough to terrify the man.

“Please! I don’t know where Jogo is! I was just instructed to make this hit!” the man chokes out. “I got these through the—the lady we got that makes these—her name is Hanami—she works in a lab somewhere—we don’t know where. She has someone drop them off and she tells us where after the drop’s been made but—”

“You’re not telling me what I need,” Satoru steps down on the man’s throat harder.

“I—I can tell you where she gets her stuff from! In fact, I heard from somewhere that she’s got a guy on the inside getting her the goods. It’s at Myrtec Chemicals—one of her guys told me there’s a drop happening later tonight!”

“Thanks,” Satoru lifelessly smiles, kicking the man unconscious.

Shivering behind a wall of crates is not how you expect to be spending your Friday night. What you envisioned after a long night of studying was curling up with some popcorn and other snacks to watch a nice movie.

Most certainly not a group of men talking about people they are planning to kill.

“Man, I fucking hate the captain,” one spews. “I’d love to rip his heart out of his chest if I ever got the chance.”

You cover your mouth, trying to contain your gasp. The suspicion that Satoru may be involved with these men is tearing you apart. You haven’t seen or heard him in the last twenty minutes you’ve been here.

Standing outside the wired fence of Myrtec Chemicals is not how you want to go out. So slipping out now makes sense. You needed to make sure Satoru wasn’t linked to these guys and there’s been no sign of his loudmouth anywhere.

As you shift to run off as fast as you can so you can get to the bus stop at the edge of the next street, you accidentally bump your elbow into one of the big crates. A dull yet prominent thud reverberates through the air.

Fuck.

“What the fuck!”

“Someone’s here?”

“Who’s there?”

You know once again you’re cornered. Why must you test your luck so often? How on earth will you get out of this one?

“Hey! You!” a man is looking around the pile of crates, eyes landing on you.

You make a run for it but he grabs you—as expected. You cinch your eyes shut and a loud whoosh over your heads shoots through the air.

No way.

“Hey! Hands off her!”

The voice is hauntingly familiar. So is that black and white suit and that emblem of blue across his chest. That glowing spider—hope.

Spiderman leaps at the man that had grabbed you, striking him across the face. The other men shout out, rushing to grab their weapons, all the while the great Spiderman is making haste to scoop you into his arms.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Sorry about this.”

“That’s okay, been wondering about you for a while,” he says with ease, then he leaps and you scream out, not realizing you’re on top of a small security tower. “Stay put here, okay?”

“Okay,” you nod seeing the thumbs up he gives you as he falls backwards to the ground, flipping straight back into action.

You watch as he takes down the remaining men, but the fascination to him isn’t all that you think about. You’re trying to pinpoint that voice—that cadence and rhythm in it. It sounds an awful lot like—

“How’d you end up here?” the vigilante is hanging upside down by a web in front of you, attached to the top of the watch tower’s antenna structure.

You blink, retracting in place, “I thought my friend might be here, but I might’ve been wrong. I was just worried.”

“You get into trouble pretty often, don’t you?” he chuckles, still upside down.

That thought invades your mind again—his voice sounds too much like his. There’s no way. There’s just no way.

“Sorry about that,” you shake your head.

“Why’d you think he’d be here?” the man tilts his head.

“They’re using a chemical, aren’t they? Those thugs?” you quiz. “They’re using it on people when they ransack places like banks and jewelry stores. I analyzed the particles and managed to isolate where certain specialized compounds can be mixed and it traced back here. Thought I’d check it out.”

Satoru’s suspended in the air, his state of mind matches his physical state. Speechless, he does nothing but stare.

“Ugh, God, why are you so stupid for someone so smart?” he groans.

“Excuse me?” you quickly pipe, taking a step back as he lowers onto the tower’s rail with you.

His arm slips around you, and he murmurs, “You could’ve gotten really hurt. This was a very dumb thing to do.”

“I know that but . . .”

“Why’d you have to come, huh? You care about that guy or something?” he asks, shooting out a web to another building.

“Yeah, or something,” you quietly say, eyes on him. Your suspicion as to who is behind the mask is starting to piece together and you aren’t sure whether you should comment on it or not. “Wanted to make sure he was okay.”

He can’t even face you. Do you even know what you’re saying? He wants to chalk it up to delusion but a mind as sharp as yours can’t be subject to something so petty as delusion.

When your arms slip around his neck, you stare at him and you can practically see through him.

“Hold on as—” Satoru begins.

“As tight as I can, I know,” you finish, not even being as terrified as you were the first time he web slung you through the streets of New York.

He stops at the top of a building, one far too high above the ground. That is when you realize you aren’t on top of any old building at all. You gawk from this point, the highest point of New York’s famous Vessel.

You look down, overlooking the Hudson Yard and seeing that the structure is closed to the public due to how late in the evening it is.

“I’ve never actually been here before,” you marvel at the sight. “It’s beautiful.”

“Hm, it is,” Satoru mumbles, staring at your wonder-stricken eyes.

At the sound of his voice you turn slowly, facing him, “Thank you for saving me. Again.”

“Nothing to it,” he replies, his tone hinting at a smile you can’t see. “Think I might’ve chipped a nail back there.”

Your eyes flit over him, head to toe. While your eyes stay by his feet, you say, “I want to take off your mask.”

“That defeats the whole purpose of it,” Satoru states. “Then you’d see my face. It defeats the sense of mystery too when you find out who I am.”

“I think I already know,” your eyes settle back on the white blank eyes of the mask, wanting to see the blue you’d been thinking far too much about.

Satoru’s stunned silence screams over how you move toward him. Your searing palms set on his chest, he feels like he’s being scorched to ash with how close you are.

He makes no effort to move away or tell you to stop. He swallows his inhibitions when your hands hesitantly slide up his chest to the base of his neck. The tips of your fingers caress his collarbone and neck till they tug at the edge of his mask.

Satoru knows he should tell you that he can’t let you see but he wants it so bad at the same time.

That’s why he watches with withheld breaths when you inch your way as your pull up the mask, slowly.

The pale of his moonlit skin exposes itself to you while you gently tear the mask further up. His chin peeks out, the sharp cut of his jaw, then you see his soft lips, the ones you want to just lean in and kiss so damn bad.

So you do and he knows he’d be stupid to stop you this time around. Your mouth feathers over his before you finally press onto him. Your lips meet his, buttery soft, warming your cold ones by a single touch.

He kisses you back softly but you back away, his head following your back before you part lips. He gazes at you as you cradle the lower half of his face, easing him into letting you take the mask off further.

You pull it back more, seeing that pointed nose of his you were accustomed to watching crinkle as he smiled. Then you finally pull them away from his eyes and his hair. You aren’t so surprised anymore, not as much as you should be at least.

That snowy white hair, like a fresh fleet of ice had poured onto his head ever so lovingly. Then those eyes, God those eyes. The shimmering blue that twinkled so brilliantly in the amber light, the eyes you feel like you’re seeing for the first time without any pair of glasses or masks in the way.

For once, you are the one smiling and he’s left with a somnolescent look on his face, like he could fall over at any moment. His eyes are half-lidded, fixed on your eyes and fleeting down to your lips without any sign of subtly.

He bends his neck down, capturing your lips in his again before slipping his arm around you and his free hand to your face. Now even if you wanted to move away, you couldn’t. Key word ‘if’.

You feel the way he softly inhales from his nose, breathing in like he’s breathing you in. He’s gentle and yearning, like he’s wanted this for a long time.

He presses his lips a little harder, and you can’t help the little sigh you let out. If you were in this situation two weeks ago, you’d be running around flipping your lid at the revelation that Satoru Gojo was the Spiderman. Except now, that mattered slightly less to you.

You both pull away by a hair, noses grazing one another’s as you gaze into each other’s eyes. You pull back a little more to see his face in its entirety. A fallen angel.

The little fidget of your smile as you decide whether to smile or not is enough to have him take the lead and smile anyway.

“So you did want to kiss me,” you say cheekily, eyes glistening from the city lights, the winter air pinching your nose and cheeks.

“Yes, dummy,” Satoru responds with a quiet nuance of hilarity. His gloved hand remains on your face, his thumb pressing down on your chin.

Tipping your chin down, your mouth opens. The cool air of the night blends in with Satoru’s warm breath, swirling in a strangely comforting breath, one that bore escape.

He pushes his tongue into your mouth, doing his best to taste every bit of you because he missed the chance for far too many years. Here, there is no police captain father to rush in, no thug or criminal to interrupt, no man that could touch you. Other than him of course.

You taste like peppermint, like what he would envision a warm and loving Christmas with family to be like. He wants more—he needs more.

Your tongues twirl in tandem, pace still slow but you each feel a growing desire crushing on your souls. It’s heavy and bone rattling, enough that he pulls back to shake himself out of it.

“I should take you back home—your parents—”

“Dad’s going to be out all night with that heist and Mom drank too much wine at dinner and my brothers and sister aren’t going to say anything about me not being home,” you’re quick to arbitrate. “I’m a little cold though.”

“I can see that,” he laughs as you shiver, the frosty air intermingling with his warm breath to create a translucent fog. “I—I don’t wanna sound like I’m rushing but you can come home with me to my place. I can explain everything there.”

You press your tongue in between your teeth in thought before you grin, “Let’s go.”

You help put on his mask when he cranes his neck down to you. He grabs you and you know the drill, hold on tight and do not, under any circumstances, let go.

He’s swung you through the entire city again and you take the time to enjoy, this time trusting him without a shadow of a doubt. The city looks pretty from his view, you count yourself grateful to get a glimpse of that, and that he has shared this special thing with you.

He stops outside a half open window on the side of an apartment building, he helps you through the ledge, safely getting you inside. You take a few steps back and watch him crawl inside, dropping to the floor with the agility of a cat.

“I can’t believe I’m seeing this,” you say softly. “I can’t believe I kissed Spiderman. I can’t believe I kissed you actually. That’s crazier to me.”

Satoru tears the mask from his head, his hair all disheveled fell into his eyes, “That’s crazier to you? That you made out with me not that I saved your ass again?”

“Shut up,” you narrow your eyes, looking around. “This is where you live, huh?”

“Mhm,” Satoru answers, watching you. “So you looked into that liquid again. Why did you come all the way to that place? That was very dangerous. And very very stupid. You really came all that way because of me?”

You face him, the air still coolly frosting at the shell of your ears, “I thought you might’ve been involved with those guys at first but based on our conversations, I assumed that maybe you were trying to play hero.”

“And you showed up and realized I was,” Satoru peers down at you. “Idiot.”

“Hey, if I was an idiot, I never would’ve been there in the first place,” you jab your pointer finger straight into his chest. He lets out an exaggerated and overdramatic cough, clutching his heart as if you did serious damage. “Seriously, Satoru, I get why you couldn’t tell me but . . . were you planning on not being near me to protect that secret?”

He stills, the smile vanishing from his face. His icy hair falls over his equally icy irises, bottom lip pushing ever so lightly into his top one in a small frown.

“I didn’t mean to push you away. I tried to stop myself from being close to you—that day you were late was my fault,” he shakes his head, eyes wide.

“But you still saved me,” you justify.

“But you wouldn’t be there in the first place if it weren’t for me,” he counters quickly.

You lower your eyes, “I have a mind, you know? I can say ‘no’, and I can make my own choices. Staying to help you was my choice. And I don’t regret it.”

Your eyes lift to meet his, lights darkened in his apartment. The only thing illuminating the space is the moon, its incandescent glow spilling into the room as if it were sneaking in secrets.

Shining down on your clandestine meeting, you each are inching closer, lips feathering over one another’s before he can’t take it anymore and kisses you.

His hands thread through your hair, his fingers interlinking at the nape of your neck, pushing you against him. He’s kissing you like he wants to breathe you in, like you’re the air that needs to be in his lungs.

You let your tongue slide across his bottom lip, easing it into his mouth. You lap inside his mouth, exploring every bit that your muscle can physically reach, intertwining with his.

Feverishly, you keep kissing each other, and it simply isn’t enough. Panting like starved dogs, you want to whisper to him to take you to his room but it feels too far—and your mind is running in circles right now.

Between kisses, you reach back, shedding your coat and kicking your boots off. Fuck, why is it always so cold in New York? Couldn’t it be summer, so you had less layers to shed?

He’s reeling you back in every time your lips leave his for even a moment. Taking yourself away from him for even a split second is cruel to him, worse than battling a group of mutants as Spiderman.

Satoru appreciates your enthusiasm and your forwardness, considering he’s not as experienced as he’d like to be for you. Hey, it’s hard to date as a superhero. He just prays it’s not too obvious

Your hands are busy unbuttoning your pants as he backs you into the backrest of the couch, not as coordinated as he hopes. He is not all that concerned clearly because you find yourself on your back on his couch, him hovering over you, lips not leaving yours for even a slight moment.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” he breathes, his hips in between your parted legs. “I can’t believe my luck right now.”

“You’re such a dork—” you begin to joke before he rolls his hips against you, that tent in his pants prods at the heat between your thighs and you gasp out in pure shock and thirst.

Your eyes widen when they shoot down between your bodies, seeing that prominent bulge at the front of his pants, so obviously emphasized in that tight suit of his. How had you missed that before?

“What was that?” Satoru teases, eyelids bonneting over his irises seductively, a coy smirk pulling at the edge of his mouth.

He tries to hide just how painfully hard he is but now he understands there’s no use. After all, he can still play with your head a bit—just a bit.

“Oh fuck,” you gasp, wrapping your legs around his waist.

And his lips are on yours again, swallowing in your gasps and vice versa. All the while, he ruts his hips against you, grinding and dry humping like two pathetic teenagers.

Each time he rolls his hips into you, you moan, humming into his mouth shakily. He’s taking each sound in with pride, he can hardly believe he’s drawing out noises like that from you, miss put together. His lips trek down your jaw, peppering kisses as he makes his way down your neck, a smile curling at his lips.

With hazy eyes, you let your hands skirt at his abdomen, trying to tug at the fabric at his waist, “How the fuck do you get this thing off?”

“You’re supposed to buy me dinner before you see me undressed, you know?” he chuckles against your jaw.

“Ha ha, very funny. Now take your suit off—I don’t want to play any more games,” you plead, your tone dwindles towards something most would call pathetic, but he knows better than to make that mistake. “Please, I just want you.”

Okay, maybe he’s wrong.

He doesn’t have the heart to wait any longer either. The command is clear in his mind, tear the suit off, but his fumbling hands make the effort stretch beyond eternity.

While he is busy with the strenuous task of undressing, you decide to get yours over with. With the desire to stop, go slow, take it all in, each of you are still keeping your eyes on each other—listening to the other’s breaths, taking in the sight of the other’s skin unveiling itself bit by bit. 

As ceremoniously as one could in a moment like this, you discard your top and kick off your pants. You regret the split second you look away because when you look back at him, his shirt is gone.

The spider suit has a variant of features, all that aid in the never-ending trade of fighting crime. That suit also serves justice to whoever it may be underneath it, but fuck it underscored just how beautiful Satoru’s body is.

In the dim light, you make out his chiseled abs, how his shoulder blades are sculpted like an artist spent every drop of sweat, blood, and tears into defining them. How those broad shoulders seamlessly crown the defined muscles of his biceps. Your eyes trail down his arms to his forearms, veiny and working to take off his pants.

That’s when your focus shifts to his chest once more. The plains of his torso display his corded abs.

And you’re counting. Five—six—seven—eight—For someone so rambunctious, he sure fails to flaunt his perfect eight-packed figure.

Your eyes lock in on his lower abdomen, how his waist his much narrower in comparison to the width of his shoulders. His hips hollow out as they carve out a defined line, trailing down between his legs.

Temptation is close to getting the best of you when you realize he’s been frozen in place for half a minute now. Shooting your attention back up to his lustful gaze, you’re suddenly hyperaware of the circumstance of you only in your bra and underwear.

“You’re staring,” you warn with a sharp look.

“Mm—and you weren’t?” he returns the same expression, smugly lowering to kiss you once more.

Any argument you wish to spew are revoked the second his lips are on yours again. Satoru’s hands roam your body. Despite the freezing cold of the winter, his fingertips are piping hot, searing your skin wherever they touch. Your hips, your waists, your face, your breasts, your thighs.

Those lithe fingers slide down your side, around your back and where the clasp of your bra is. And you want to giggle at how he’s struggling to get it unhooked.

“Need help?” you grin, leaning on your elbows.

“Shut up—I got it,” he grunts out. He doesn’t have it in him to admit that he’s suddenly registering the fact that it’s you. You’re the one underneath him right now. It’s your body he can’t believe looks this perfect.

His breaths stops when he manages to tear off that stupid bra from you, your fingers toying with the waistband of his underwear.

“Holy shit,” he mumbles under his breath.

“Hm?” you hum interrogatively, being cut off when he dives down. “Satoru—ah—”

He buries his face in the valley of your chest, kissing you harshly while making his way to your exposed nipples. He latches his mouth over one and your chest nearly caves in. A moan slips from your mouth, hands at the back of his head, curling in his hair while he sucks your tits so lasciviously.

“Fuck—Satoru—ah,” you try to keep your eyes on him but find yourself cinching them shut anyway.

“You sound so cute saying my name like that,” he gasps out, tongue flicking over your pert nipple, and hand massaging at the mound he’s left alone.

Chills dissipate over your arms and legs, causing you to let out shivers. Shivers that could be a mixed response of the cold air and at the sensation of his mouth sucking you.

Satoru begins to lower himself, trailing kisses down your stomach as he goes. He doesn’t stop when he reaches the waistline of your panties. His lips press on top of the cloth, over your pussy, his fingers curl into the waistband at your hips.

His eyes flick up to yours, a smile on his pretty lips as he takes in your expression, pure desire stitched in every crevice of your face.

He pulls down your panties, eyes fixed between your legs like he was seeing the holy grail itself. His mouth is watering at the sight before him. He can’t believe that after years and years of knowing you, this is the outcome. All the competition, the annoyed glances, quick remarks, all boiled down to this very moment. With you spread out underneath him like a slut.

“Fuck me,” he groans out, tossing your underwear to the side. He lifts your left leg, kissing your ankle and trekking his way up your leg. When he reaches your thigh, his tongue begins to playfully drag across your skin. “Mmm.”

With shaky breaths, you watch him get close and closer but then he stops. He mulls over every form of research he’s ever done. He knows if he puts his mind to it he can please you, he just needs a second to reel himself in. Quite unlike him.

You watch him carefully, seeing how his smile faded and how he’s swallowing down dry lumps. There’s a flush in his face that isn’t something you’ve seen before. Is he . . . nervous?

Your hands shift down, cupping his face. At the endearing action, his heart quivers, as do his eyes. That’s when his jaw slacks, tongue lolling out and licking up your pussy.

You suck in a fragmented breath, fingers trembling when he smiles again and does it again. The saliva on his tongue drips down from the tip of his muscle, dribbling straight down to your slit.

“Do you always get this wet around me?” he has a smile painted on his face that is reaching his ears.

“Can you for once put your mouth to good use?” you whisper back sharply, earning a deep chuckle from his as he lowers his face between your legs again.

Eagerly, he swipes a long languid lick from the bottom of your pussy to the top, milking out his spit as well as your arousal. His arms easily slip around your thighs as he now buries his face, lapping at your cunt like a starved animal.

A loud moan rips straight from your throat, you toss your head back from the sheer intensity. And you can’t help but cry out like that again, feeling his tongue circling over your clit over and over.

When he hears a rather high-pitched cry leave you, his chest swells with pride. He isn’t sure what he was so nervous about. He just can’t believe he’s the one making you feel this good—or you’re the one he’s ever had a moment of weakness like that for.

Tilting his head to the side, he angles his tongue. Licking, sucking slurping your cunt, he’s producing the lewdest of noises, getting absolutely high off your taste.

“Oh my god!” you whine, now rolling your hips on his face, fingers tugging his hair and digging at his scalp. “Do that again.”

“What? This?” Satoru feigns innocence, flicking his tongue repeatedly and quickly over your clit, teasing you.

You almost let a scream burst from you, slapping your palm over your mouth as he teases you. It dawns on you then that those blue eyes looking up at you, are the same very ones you took so long to truly see. He’s not in his glasses but that sight between your legs would’ve been just as gorgeous too.

His hands grip your thighs, pushing them closer to your chest. His jaw unhinges like he’s eating a meal, nose rubbing against your puffy clit as he feels himself become impossibly and painfully harder that he could cum right then and there.

Goosebumps ripple over your body, every cell in your body short circuiting. His fingers dig into your flesh in a bruising grip. With another wanton tug at his hair, he slips out a nasty moan, eyes deliriously rolling to the back of his head.

There’s a sense of greed in the way he’s eating you out. Hunger and lust intertwine together in his movements, he can’t get enough.

His hand comes down between your thighs, fingers swiping over your clit.

Your back is arching off the couch, loud and shameless cries escape you one after the other with no end in sight. With your vision beginning to blur like a flock of clouds rolling in before a storm, you feel a white-hot heat between your legs.

Your eyes flicker towards his face below you. His eyes were shut and his brows your furrowed adorably in concentration. His hair fell in soft tufts and his jaw and tongue are moving in ways you would never have fathomed to see before. Needless to say, he is so fucking sexy.

Feverishly rocking your hips as best you can to meet his insatiable mouth, you know your orgasm is closing in. Every piece of your being is only focused on this immense pleasure and straining to get to the peak point it so desperately needs.

He sees you becoming more and more restless, your legs shake more and your fingers tug harsher at his scalp. The way you’re practically screaming tells him all he needs to know, you are right there.

You scream when it hits you like a freight train. You’re cumming right on his tongue and gushing down his mouth. By no means does that indicate he is stopping though. He continues his motions through your orgasm, not daring to stop till you were done.

Free falling from a great height, you’re whining, clawing at his hair, his shoulders, anything. Pushing him away because of how criminally intense the feeling is. He stays right there, undeterred by your efforts to get him away from you.

Your eyes stay shut but your mouth hangs open, long and drained breaths filling the air. Satoru raises his head, “So fucking messy—I find it hard to believe you haven’t always had the hots for me.”

Meanwhile, you still are reeling in your post-orgasm state, chest rising and falling. Your eyes shift to Satoru straightening up, expanding his posture.

“You okay?” he says, devious tones underlying in his voice. Sincerity had flown out the window.

You respond halfheartedly anyway, “Mhm.”

You slowly move to sit up, biting your lip to ground yourself. Despite your head feeling as weighty as a boulder, you hold yourself up. Your hands reach for his briefs, fingers hooking into the waistband and tugging at them.

“Woah—someone’s impatient,” he chuckles.

“We both know you’d prefer this over anything else,” you say with a daunting lilt of your head.

“That might be true but—” he sucks in a sharp breath when your hand grazes over the precum soaked bulge in his briefs. “Holy fuck.”

Hearing his exasperated breaths draw a smile from you, urging your hands to tug his underwear down and freeing—no way.

No Fucking Way.

Judging by your reaction, Gojo understands through and through that you were expecting much less from him.

It isn’t like you expecting so much less, but you weren’t expecting so fucking much. A dire mistake on your end.

It’s monstrous, big enough that if you wrapped both palms around it, there’d still be uncovered length left. You tilt your head in awe, eyeing the slight curve in it. How his pale skin underneath doesn’t overmine the flush in his tip, the white precum seeding at the opening of it.

“Something the matter?” Gojo flatly whispers, fully aware of how long you’re staring. But by no means is he feeling the heat of it.

“No,” you quickly glance up at him, unblinking.

“Uh huh,” he accepts disbelievingly, a cocky smirk on his face.

You lean forward, wrapping your palm around it. You give it a few precautionary pumps, almost as if you’re petting a wild beast, hoping to tame it. When you hear the reaction it elicits from Satoru, you can’t help but fixate on his face.

His brows knit together and his mouth drops, heavy breaths escaping him. Not only that, but you feel it. You feel the way his dick practically jumps in your hand, sensitive to your touch yet wanting more.

Your chest swells with pleasure, letting your hand feel just what he has to offer. You can feel the ridges in it, the way his veins ran thick, pulsating in your hand.

“If I knew this was the most effective way to get you to shut up, I would’ve done it a long time ago,” you murmur, half-lidded eyes on his twitching face.

“Ngghh—Ahh—Shut up,” he shudders, one hand gripping the backrest of the couch, and the other reaching across his stomach, a feeble hope to ground himself.

“Why should I?” you tease, tugging at his dick as you begin sinking further down on your knees, eye leveled with his waist. “I like hearing you like this a lot more, Satoru.”

And just as you’re about to drag your tongue along the tip of his dick, something within him snaps. He shivers, grabbing you by the back of the head and pulling you to his lips. A soft moan slips from his mouth into yours.

“I don’t think I can wait any longer,” he breathes between kisses. “—I gotta be inside ya.”

Just then, you practically feel a second heartbeat between your thighs. There is no argument in the world that you could use to refute him. All you do is nod dumbly, giving yourself up to him.

He pushes you down, your back falling against the couch cushions beneath you. Satoru hovers over you, staring down at your face, truly studying it. His gaze flicks down when yours does too, to where your fist covers his shaft.

He shudders pathetically when your hand moves along his dick, pumping it impatiently. He notes the clear enthusiasm it elicits from you, how your body curves into him from how horny you were.

Satoru’s own hand reaches for his cock, jerking it slowly before he drags the tip up and down between your folds, gliding over your quivering hole enough to tease it but not give it what it craves so desperately.

You whine, feverishly bucking your hips up into his dick, hoping he takes pity and gives you what you want.

He chuckles darkly, “So needy.”

He slaps his tip against your clit and you gasp, legs jolting at the feeling. It is more than clear he enjoyed pulling a response like that from you, so he does it again. And when you jerk in place like that once more, he sadistically laughs in a way that you wouldn’t believe he’s a hero at all.

“Look at it when I put it in,” he quickly pecks your jaw.

You hesitantly look down, seeing how he coats his cock with all your arousal mixed with your cum. A little huff drips from your lips, watching how his thumb swipes over his tip, a little wet sound stringing as he fists his heavy dick.

While he aligns his cock with the opening of your pussy, your right hand flies to his left forearm and your left hand curls around one of the couch cushions.

He begins pushing it in, grunting as the softness of your walls cling to his tip, threatening to suck him in. Your jaw drops, choppy breaths falling one after the other at how it feels like he’s splitting you open.

“Shit,” he chokes, his hair tickling your face with how close he is. “You feel so fucking good.”

Your fingers tremble the further he pushes in. Your pussy wraps around him so deliciously that he has to remind himself to practice restraint—for your sake. Ever the hero, Satoru Gojo.

Your breath stops, realizing he has way more left to go when you spare a painful glance down. He isn’t even halfway in yet.

“Fuck—Satoru, you’re too big—it won’t fit,” you push at his abdomen, teary eyed.

“Then we’ll make it fit, baby,” he coos, swatting your hand away. “Nothing to worry about.”

When someone tells you not to worry, you learn, it is entirely appropriate to in fact, worry.

He angles himself to sink into you, glancing down between each of your bodies and up at your face, seeing your face contort into a pained yet pleasured expression. The more you become acquainted with his shape, the more it begins to feel good.

When he ruts himself against you, you let out a sharp squeal, clinging onto him. Your eyes feel like they are about to burst from their very sockets, in an almost cartoonish sense.

He watches you, a smirk on his restless face. He draws his hips back and jams them back into you.

“Oh fuck!” you cry, a crease forming between your brows.

“Aw, you look so cute,” he smiles, taking a breath to wince at just how snugly set he is inside you. “All the other guys at school would want to fucking kill me to get to have a sight like this.”

“You talk too much,” you shake your head, reaching up to grab his jaw.

“And you love it,” he pulls himself out till only his tip rests inside you, then he drives his cock back in you, stringing a shriek from you. He begins doing it repeatedly, thrusting in and out of you.

At first his pace is slow yet precise, the tip of his cock prodding so far inside you, you feel it kissing your cervix. Then he decides it’s better to make you work for it before he gives you his all.

His quickens his pace, his thrusts rough and catching you off guard with each one. Your legs wrap around his waist, ankles hooking behind him and toes pointing tautly.

“I’m beginning to think you go looking for trouble just to get the Spiderman to ruin you like this,” he accentuates his point with a well-meaning thrust.

The sounds filling the air are beyond your wildest dirtiest dreams. The sound of his heavy breathing is like music to your ears, just the way your moans are to his. The lewd noises of pap pap pap ofhis balls hitting your ass mix with the squelch of his cock drilling into your wet cunt.

The feeling of him on top of you—inside you, is something you can’t even comprehend the perfection in. Every inch of your body just feels so fucking good that you feel yourself teetering on the edge of delusion.

Your hands make their way up to the base of his neck, your fingers loosely intertwine behind his head. You moan again, letting your fingertips scratch at the back of his head.

Satoru pumps himself in and out of you. He can’t even help it—it’s like his body has a mind of its own. And now, he’s trying to have at least some form of restraint, trying his utmost best to not cum. It isn’t like you’re making anything easier on him.

He nearly falls apart when you pull his mouth to yours, gasping adorably as you let your tongue meet his. You’re sharing the same air at this point, and he fucking loves it.

You feel like you could cum at any given moment. You fixate on that feeling, realizing that you haven’t had time to yourself at all in the last few months. Certainly not enough time for a man to make you cum, let alone give yourself the time to do so.

Now though, you come to the understanding you were deprived. Satoru is giving you just what you needed after so long.

He knows that if his mouth stays on yours, he doesn’t have a fighting chance. So he parts from you, holding himself up by his arms and fucking you even harder.

Your hands jump to his biceps, whining as you do so. All the while, he soaks in your appearance. Your fucked out face, the way your tits are bouncing with every one of his strokes, and the way his cock is slipping so easily in and out of you.

When he suddenly pulls out of you completely, you hardly have beyond a second to realize he’s flipping you over. Your arms rest on the arm rest of the couch, while he adjusts your hips, getting you on your knees.

You turn your head over your shoulder, seeing his big strong hands spreading your ass, spitting down between your legs. You shudder, nose crinkling at the feeling of his spit dripping down to your pussy.

He then slides his dick between your folds again, coating it before he, without warning slips back into you.

He doesn’t ease into it like he did before at all. He has a quick, relentless pace from the get-go. His dick moves inside you like it wants to blend into your body, or perhaps go so far inside you that you feel him in your throat.

With this new position, you feel him prodding deeper than before. Your walls suck him in, helping the tip of his length brushing your cervix, this time at a higher intensity.

He angles his strokes better when his hands grip into your hips. With every lust driven thrust, you feel his fingers dig into your flesh even more. You’re more than certain it will leave a mark that you’ll be seeing for days.

“Fuck me,” Satoru breathlessly laughs. “You’re being such a good girl for me. You feel good?”

“So—so fucking good,” your eyes are closed, nails digging into the plush of his couch. “Don’t stop.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” he darkly mutters.

He ruts himself into your pussy again, feeling the warmth that he never wants to ever part from. He clenches his jaw, trying to ground himself in the smallest way possible at the very least.

His pelvis slams against your ass with great fervor, over and over again. Your heads drops pathetically, forehead against the armrest as you jolt forward . . . forward . . . forward. Your shoulders blades contract, back arching and creating a beautiful crease down your spine.

While he’s fucking you, a part of him wants to bend down and lick up that expanse of skin. Right where the spokes of your spine take shape. Then his eyes fix on the way your ass meets his skin and he does not dare tear his gaze away.

“Mmm shit, baby,” Satoru throws his head back deliriously. “Sucking my cock in so fucking nice.”

Then he rocks his hips against you so zealously that the angle he’s at elicits a loud scream from you. Your body falls forward, knees shaking.

“Oh?” Satoru comes to a grinding halt. “Did I find something?”

He draws himself back and drives himself straight into your pussy again, realigning himself to hit that same spot again.

When you choke out a sob, he grins, “Looks like I have.”

You spare another glance behind you, meeting eyes with that complacent expression on his face. His strokes are quick, deep, and precise, skimming at your g spot just right.

“Oh my god,” you cry, arms and legs shaking. A familiar heat stirs in your core, an iron searing heat. One that feels much more intense than anything you’ve ever experienced before.

You look back again, seeing how Satoru’s washboard abs are glistening with a beautiful moonlit sheen. He throws his head back and you spy the way his jaw hangs when he moans.

Your trembling legs are on the verge of giving out and he feels your pussy clenching. He knows you’re on the edge. He hovers over you, his chest pressing against your back as his hand swirls your sensitive clit in circles.

His senses are clouding, vision blurring just as yours is. Every muscle in your body tightens without any direction, moving at their own accord. A million little tingles flurry over your body like blizzards.

Your throat is drying out from the sheer amount of stamina stringing out of you. And you weren’t even doing any of the work.

Your cunt tightens around him, clamping down on him. His ministrations on your clit get you right where he wants you, cumming like a whore on his dick.

You cry out, body spasming like you no longer have any control over it. You’re writhing beneath him, spilling the sweetest of moans that are going straight to his head.

“Yeah, baby, come on. You got this,” he’s whispering encouragingly in your ear, lips brushing against your helix. “Ah—ah—yeah, just like that.”

Stars stipple across the night sky of your vision. All flickering on and off as if children are playing with light switches in an empty house. Any rational thought flies out of your mind, all you can focus on is this feeling, ardent as a flame.

Satoru’s pace comes to a stop, hands slowing on your nub as he backs away. He chuckles as you slump into the couch, watching you catch your breath.

Once you do, you get back on your knees, turning to face him. He looks as if he’s about to spew some condescending rhetoric but you push him so he’s now seated.

“Your turn,” you say hoarsely, taking your place on his lap.

He surprisingly has nothing to say. Or perhaps he does but his tongue fails him quite severely in that moment.

You straddle his hips with your thighs, sitting up straight in his lap. Your arms are slung around his neck and he finds it so sexy the way one of your hands reach down to put his dick back in you.

As you sink down on his cock, both your mouths fall open, eyes on each other’s. Your arms are slung across his shoulders as you look him dead in the eye and bottom out. You softly whimper but fuck, the whimper that escapes him is worth more than any currency.

His brows pinch and nose scrunches, his pretty lips fall into a pout. One that you want to kiss off his lips so bad. His hands are on your ass, pathetically trying to guide you to go faster and move at the very least. And you do, but the speed you move at is far from fast.

You lift your hips up, and then slam yourself down, earning a strangled gasp from him. You do it again, eliciting the same reaction. Your arms slide down till your hands are at the nape of his neck, feeling the scruff of his undercut.

He moans again, this time wrapping his strong arms around your back and letting you take the reigns completely. He watches the way your cunt sheathes down on his cock repeatedly, your hair in your dazed eyes and all.

As you ride him, he can’t steer his eyes away from any part of you at all, especially your tits bouncing in front of his face. He can’t even help leaning forward ever so slightly, wrapping his mouth around your nipple, hoping it stifles his moans.

You let out a raspy cry, feeling the way his tongue flicks over your bud. His prior hope of suppressing moans is all but futile for you can hear how his heavy breaths spiral into pitchy whines.

Your hips gyrate, rolling against him and he’s already been edging himself to prolong his orgasm but now he knows he’s done for. His dick twitches, and he lets go of your nipple with a pop.

His hands come to rest on your thighs and he looks up at you darkly, “You on birth control?”

Your nails scratch tenderly over his nape again, you bite down on your lip and nod.

“Good,” he simply mutters.

He lets out a choppy moan again, eyes hooded and breaths heavy. His cock twitches inside you again, and with one final plunge in you he’s fallen completely apart. “Fuck—"

His cum spurts inside your pussy, ropes of white liquid shoot in you. The warmth of it invaded your space, hurtling deep in you before it begins leaking out of where the two of you are connected.

Shakily, you breathe as you look down, feeling his seed dripping down your thigh. You take a moment to breath, watching him come down from his high as well.

You both heave heavily, catching elusive breaths. Each of you slowly trail your eyes up at each other, staring for a moment before you both break into laughter.

He rubs his hands over your thighs, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you smile, tilting your head unconsciously. You flick your gaze over his face, seeing the damp mess his hair is now, sweaty and clinging to his skin. His eyes still have that wintered glimmer. A smile rests on his lips too.

“Can I ask you something?” you quiz.

“Shoot.” Ironic pun.

“Is the reason you’ve been getting under my skin a lot because you had a crush on me?” you ask.

“What? No,” he scoffs, hands on your hips. You cock a suspicious brow, your hands loosely skimming his neck. “You’re crazy.”

“Uh huh,” you nod sarcastically.

“You hungry?” he asks, raising his brows.

“Oh, like crazy,” you breath.

He grins, “Let me order something and I’ll get you cleaned up. Now where’s my phone?”

He stands up, carrying you easily with one arm as he reaches for his phone on the floor. You squeal, tightening your grip on him. “Satoru!”

He pays no mind as he’s already halfway through punching in his pizza order, “Hmm, how do you feel about stuffed cheesy bread?”

“I could go for it, yeah,” you say.

“Great. Done,” he clicks, a satisfied bliss on his face.

“You know have a lot of explaining to do, right?” you remind him.

“You don’t think I know that?” he scoffs airily. “I’d be pretty dumb to forget that with you badgering me around all the time.”

You open your mouth to argue and he laughs, “Kidding! I’ll tell you everything—I swear. Let’s get you cleaned up first. Food should be here by then so I’ll explain while we eat.”

“Okay, but I like hot showers—if you put me under cold water I’m feeding you to that mutant lizard thing on the news,” you warn as he carries you off into the bathroom.

“Oh—I wouldn’t dream of it,” Satoru says. “Besides, can’t take that risk. The city needs me.”

Rolling your eyes at him, you choose to keep your sarcastic remark to yourself. Instead, you lean your head against his shoulder, letting him whisk you away.

hope you guys enjoyed as much as i enjoyed writing this!! likes and reblogs are appreciated!!!

[tourturestarradio]

𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐇 𝐏𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐇

"𝐝𝐚𝐦𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟𝐟."

☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆

Pairing: Sanji x flirty reader

Prompt: Sanj after being rejected time and time again finally has a woman give him a chance, and he does NOT know what to do with all that.

Warnings: Virgin Sanji, switch Sanji, switch fem reader, NSFW, face sitting, oral (M receiving), tit job, cumming early, pussy drunk

☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮

Sanji didn't think he'd make it this far, a woman, an ACTUAL woman was laying in his bed, this wasn't a dream, this was real life.

You were laying back your silky robe was loose enough to show off your goods as you looked at him waiting for him to make a move.

But he didn't move, he was stiff and sat up straight his hands folded in front of himself placed neatly on his lap and fully clothed, you called out to him snapping him out of his own head "you gonna stare or are you gonna fuck me?" you asked, legs spreading open.

Sanji almost seen the light as he went stiff a blood gushing out of his nose, you sat up in worry moving over to him but soon as your hand touched his shoulder he stood up.

"I-I-I'll be back!"

He stated before running to the bathroom, leaving you alone on his bed. "Get yourself together Sanji...you've got a woman waiting for you out there, a damn fine woman at that! so man up and get your ass out there!" whipping off the blood Sanji left the bathroom and walked over to you his legs going numb the closer he got.

You watched him a sultry smile gracing your face thinking you were finally gonna have your fun when he plopped right back down on the edge of his bed still stiff as a board, you huffed getting off the bed "alright if you don't wanna do this it's fine" you were upset and a little embarrassed.

Sanji realized his mistake and quickly grabbed your hand "w-wait, i'm sorry, I just....I just never gotten this far before most women just turned me down" Sanji had a bright red blush across his face.

He pulled you closer so you were standing in between his legs his hands resting on your hips his lovesick eyes staring up at you, tilting your head you giggled "you've never felt the touch of a woman?" Sanji looked away gulping

Your hands slid up his chest to his neck "well if you gave me a chance to I could fix that" Sanji swallowed thickly "y-yeah" he shakily pulled you onto his lap.

"There you go" rolling your hips forward you settled yourself in his lap he looked you up and down "can I...can I touch you?" he asked, "that's the only thing i've been wanting you to do to me all night" you stated rolling your eyes.

Sanji chuckled letting his hands roam your body, you started to undo the buttons on his shirt, leaning closer you captured his lips surprising him the faint taste of cigarettes and mints.

Sanji pulled away to press kisses further down your neck you moaned his name gripping onto his shoulders. That seemingly fueled his flame as he started to grope and fondle your body.

Grinding your hips against his, you could feel how hard he was "ooh so hard just for me?" he nodded his head rapidly "yeah all for you baby hm fuck" he groaned.

Pulling his hands off of you, you lowered yourself onto your knees "want me to make you feel good? hm?" you asked rubbing your hand against his boner resting your head on his thigh.

He nodded tensing up again "please, please baby please I need this" you obeyed and unbuckled his pants "wow. better than I imagined" you muttered.

He smirked "you imagined this?" you smacked the tip of his cock sending a jolt through his body "shush" taking one long lick up his cock making him let out a long groan.

Taking him in your mouth Sanji's hands flew to your hair grabbing it as you took him all the way down letting your tongue swirl around his cock "fuck~ hah ah, ah fuck that feels good~" his grip on your hair only grew tighter as you bobbed your head up and down.

The warm and wet mouth taking him in so well had his head spinning.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck wait I-I-!" before he knew it he had came right in your mouth, lifting your head up you giggled at his the embarrassed look on his face, swallowing his cum you looked up at him still pumping his cock with your hand "barely even did anything, cute" he covered his face with the back of his hand his gaze looking away.

"Sorry"

"S'okay, just makes me wonder how many times I can get you to cum before tap out" you state before placing his still hard cock in between your breasts pressing them together you moved them up and down at a slow place. Sanji groaned his hips bucking upwards, his previous orgasm lingering as he gripped the sheets.

"Ya like that? huh?" you asked taking his tip into your mouth, Sanji nodded his head rapidly "y-yeah k-keep going just like that hah~" you swirled you tongue around the tip but just before he had the sweet release of cumming in your mouth again you pulled your head away.

Through heavy breaths he looked down at you "wh-why'd you stop?" he asked a sheen of sweat coating his face and body. You pressed a kiss to his tip causing him to jolt.

"You can't be the only one feeling good, i'm feeling needy too" Sanji nodded pulling you up "can I try something?" he asked, you nodded pressing a kiss to his lips.

He backed himself up dragging you closer "sit." you cocked your head to the side, "sit on my face." he corrected, you let a laugh "oh Sanji~" climbing up on him Sanji grinned from ear to ear "eager aren't you?" you asked, but before you knew it Sanji had started to eat you out his tongue flicking skillfully against your slick folds.

A surprised moan left your mouth as you hunched forward grabbing the headboard "a-ah! ah wait, w-wait" Sanji had his hands groping at your thighs holding you in place as you rode his face.

"taste...mm so good~ fuck- sweeter than I could ever dream fuck~" Sanji groaned against you, he continued to lap up all your juices "ah~ S-Sanji ah! mgn feels s'good, hah!" between the way your pussy tasted to how you screamed his name was driving him insane.

--★--

It's at least been an hour and you were still seated right on his face, he just couldn't get enough, you had came at least 3 times now and still he held you down mumbling and muttering against your swollen pussy.

Spit, cum, and slick all dripping down from your things onto Sanji's face. When you couldn't take it anymore you grabbed his hair yanking his head back causing him to groan "can't take, m-much more...." you mumbled scooting back "please j-just one more please, darling please?" you hovered over his cock sliding down onto it.

He gasped gripping your hips tightly "yes...hah yes s-so good just f'me, feels so good-pussy feels so good fuck~" you started to bounce up and down moan as his cock slid in and out of you riding right on the edge of ecstasy.

Your nails dug into his back leaving painfully scratch marks but Sanji was so lost in pleasure he didn't even notice. Suddenly he felt that tightness reamurge as he cursed "f-fuck m'gonna cum..." he mumbled dropping his head.

Your hands tangled in his hair yanking his head up "shut up." you hushed his babbling by kissing him his whines and whimpers filling your ears suddenly he froze up before bucking his hips up as he came hard. You also came, your body shuddering as you both slowed your movements leaning back you looked up seeing him breathing heavily.

Sanji looked at you "l-let me...clean you up" he slowly pulled out of you watching the cum leak out of your hole. Sanji could feel him growing hard again upon seeing your body splayed out on the bed forcing himself to get up he went into the bathroom to clean you off.

Afer the long matter he laid down pulling you into his chest pressing a kiss against your forehead. "Goodnight my love." he muttered, You cuddled closer to him "goodnight..." both of you falling asleep.

.

.

A/n: I have such a love/hate relationships with Sanji. But I always see things about how Sanji would be sooo good in bed, and I disagree I feel like at first he would be so stiff (pun intended) and not know what to do with himself.

[ariestrxsh]

.• ° * જ⁀➴ content warning: smut, angst, manipulation, cheating, toxic relationship, crying, oral (f!receiving), rough car sex, hair pulling, toxicbf!chris, gf!reader

.• ° * જ⁀➴ author's note: sorry guys i kind of made chris a cheating asshole in this (but i'd still let him hit bc i'm lowkey a cuck).

.• ° * જ⁀➴ summary: you and chris get into an argument after you find him cheating on you at a party, but you can't stay mad at him for long, especially when he knows just what you like, and he gives it to you in the backseat of his car.

.• ° * જ⁀➴ this fic is very loosely inspired by this post (it started off as a roadrage fic that leads to sex but the fic really took me down a different road, so i took the rough car fuck from it and kind of changed everything else so idk)

(i used two different songs for inspo, but they both have the same name, and i actually like this concept a lot bc the halsey song more fits where the reader's head is, and the current blue song more fits where chris' head is, so keep that in mind if you ever listen to the songs associated with my fics.)

Drive

You set foot out of the bathroom at a New Year's party your boyfriend had dragged you to, your eyes scanning the sea of faces in search of him.

You didn't recognize most of the people here, but they all recognized you. Chris knew almost everyone, and they all knew of you by association. Chris was a bit of a social butterfly, especially at parties, constantly flitting through each room and getting easily distracted, so you weren't sure where to even begin looking for him.

You had a better chance of finding one of his brothers first and hoping that maybe one of them had seen him. You continued to look for either of the three of them through the crowd while music thumped loudly through some shitty speakers.

You found your way through the living room and the kitchen, bumping into a few people who knew your name but failed to tell you theirs and were no help in finding Chris. The smell of marijuana burning floated into your senses as you wandered out back, thinking for sure that you'd stumble upon your boyfriend outside lighting up a joint, but he was nowhere to be found.

You did, however, find Nick who was getting hit on by a group of girls who were all giggling and playing with their hair while they all completely missed the obvious signs that he was totally uninterested and also gay. "Hey, have you seen Chris?" You called to Nick as your heels clicked against the stonework in the backyard.

Nick politely excused himself and started walking towards you. "No, I haven't, but thank God you're here. I thought they were going to eat me alive back there," Nick whispered in your ear, wrapping his arm around your shoulder as the two of you started to walk back inside. You frowned at him. All you wanted was to find Chris.

"You know, I saw a cat earlier. If we can find the cat, I'm sure we'll find Matt close by. Maybe he's seen Chris," Nick suggested, shrugging. You and Nick pushed your way past a bunch of drunk college kids when Matt caught your eye at the top of the second floor.

He was bent down, petting a black cat and scratching the sweet animal under the chin as she purred and brushed up against his leg. You two made your way over to the banister and started climbing the steps. "Hey, have you seen Chris?" You called to him, startling the cat and causing her to run off to one of the dark rooms down the hall.

Matt glared at you. "No, I haven't," he huffed. "I can't find him anywhere. I swear, I left him alone for like ten minutes," you rolled your eyes, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling in your stomach and the thoughts creeping into your mind that he might be somewhere entertaining another girl.

"I wouldn't go up there if I were you. I think there might be someone hooking up in one of those rooms," Matt pointed down the hall, smirking. He turned his attention to Nick. "Hey, since Chris can drive himself now and we don't have to wait for him, do you wanna go?" The rest of their conversation was drowned out by the sound of your heartbeat thumping away in your ears as you peered down at the only room you could tell was lit up.

You saw what looked like two pairs of feet stumbling around as their shadows broke through the light shining through the crack in the bottom of the door. Something told you that Chris was in that room, and even though you had nothing to go off besides a gut feeling, you had to be sure.

After Nick and Matt had made their way back down the staircase and out the door to Matt's car, you finally worked up the courage to march towards the door. You pressed your ear up to the wooden barrier. You couldn't make out what the two voices on the other side were saying, but one of them definitely belonged to Chris.

You subtly turned the knob and threw open the door. Sure enough. Your scumbag boyfriend was getting close and friendly with another woman who had her lips latched onto his neck, and he had his hand resting on her hip. He immediately pulled away and backed up as he realized he'd been caught.

"Hey babe," he said, trying to sound casual. You could tell by the sneer on the girl's face and her body language that she wasn't happy to see you. Your glance flickered between the both of them a few times before you felt tears starting to well in your eyes. You turned away and bolted down the stairs and out into the front yard.

It was a shame Nick and Matt had already left because all you wanted to do was go home, and now the reason you were crying was your only ride. Chris followed closely behind, chasing after you. "Babe, what's wrong?" He asked, playing dumb, as if that could really get him out of this one. You pushed him away, but he pulled you close again.

"What the fuck were you doing with that girl!?" You asked through your tears, raising your voice. "We were just talking," he sweetly told you, wiping away a bit of your smeared eyeliner. "Chris, I'm not stupid! She was kissing your neck," you sobbed in response, shoving him again.

"Babe, you're embarrassing me," he shot back, sounding a bit annoyed with you. "You're the one making out with some other girl at a party where everyone knows we're together, and you're the one who's embarrassed?! You're unbelievable!" You yelled.

"You're always jumping to conclusions and accusing me of shit," Chris responded, embracing you once more. "Shhh. Come on, baby. Come home with me, and I'll show you how sorry I am," he cooed in a soft voice, trying to de-escalate the situation.

"You're not fooling me, Chris. I'm not giving into you this time. Just take me home.." you said, your voice trailing off as he started kissing and nibbling on your ear. "Please. Come home with me. I'll make you feel so good," he whispered into the crook of your neck, pressing his body up against yours.

Your knees and your willpower grew weak as you turned your head to expose more of your throat to him, a soft moan escaping your lips.

As angry as you were with him, he could always win you over with sex. It was like a vicious cycle. He'd hit on another girl in front of you, you'd get jealous, the two of you would start fighting, and then he would console you with sex. You hated that it always worked, but you couldn't help the effect he had on you. He was intoxicating, and you were addicted to him.

"Mhmm. Please, Chris.." you hummed back, giving into him. He had you in the palm of his hand. He reached behind you and opened your door for you, leading you into his car and closing it once you'd gotten in.

It still had that new car smell. He climbed into the driver seat, turning the key in the ignition. You listened to the sound of his engine purring as he pulled away from the street, one hand on the steering wheel and his other on your thigh. His pretty blue eyes shifted between the road, his rearview, and his side mirrors.

You watched the way the streetlights overhead illuminated different parts of the car as you drove underneath them, shadows bouncing off the leather interior, creating a strange illusion, kind of like how it felt to be in a relationship with Chris - like a long, late night drive where the lights and shadows played tricks on your eyes to the point where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't.

"Why don't you put on some music, babe?" Chris suggested, breaking you out of your thoughts and attempting to distract you from bringing up the girl from the party again. "My phone's dead. Can I use yours?" You casually asked him, reaching for his phone that was sitting in his cup holder.

"Mine's dead, too," he replied, trying to grab it before you did. You watched his screen light up as an incoming message came through. "Bullshit!" You yelled, snagging his phone out of his hand.

When you opened his lock screen, it was open to a new contact he'd just saved, and you saw a woman's name you didn't recognize, and when you pulled down notification bar to see who the text was from, it was from her.

"Give it back," Chris demanded, trying to wrestle his phone out of your hand while trying to maintain his focus on the road. The text read: I had fun with you tonight. I hope I didn't get you into too much trouble with your girlfriend. Text me the next time you're lonely. ;)

"That's it, Chris. Let me out of the fucking car," you told him, throwing his phone at him and reaching for your door handle. "Jesus Christ," Chris said, rolling his eyes and turning down an empty road that was dark besides one lone streetlight at the corner.

"I'm not kidding. Stop this fucking car or I'll jump out while it's moving," you threatened. "I know you will," he scoffed at you, hence the reason he was pulling off of the main road and bringing his wheels to an abrupt stop.

Chris had pulled over on the side of the street in a residential area, but there was stretch of empty field before you'd hit any houses, and there were no people around because it was around 11 p.m. on New Year's Eve night and everyone was either out at a bar or a house party or nestled comfortably into their beds ready to start off the new year with a good night's rest.

You threw open the car door. "Don't - slam it," Chris started to say, but he was cut off by you slamming the door shut in his face. You grew even more pissed off at the audacity of him to care about his car in a moment like this. You started marching down the street, your heels angrily clicking against the sidewalk as you tried to hold back your tears with arms crossed over your chest.

He rolled down his tinted window. "Get in," he told you, but you ignored him, not even bothering to slow your strides. "Get back in the car," he repeated through gritted teeth. "No, you can leave. I'll find my way home."

"We're 45 minutes from your house, you've been drinking, and your phone is dead. I'm afraid I don't have a choice. I'm not leaving you out here alone like this," Chris told you, slowly driving beside you, his wheels inching forward with your angry stomps. You gave him the silent treatment, continuing down the pavement.

He stopped the car and pulled himself to his feet, coming around to the opposite side where you were and grabbing you by the wrist. "Look, I know you hate me, and you can tell me all about it in the morning, but for now, let's get you back to my place, and I'll do my best to make it up to you," he softly cooed, looking into your eyes as he grabbed both sides of your face and pulled you into a deep kiss.

You kissed him back, your lips moving in unison with his, but you pulled away. "What? You gonna leave me over it?" He asked genuinely. You stared at him blankly. "Because you never do," he pointed out. He was right.

This was a pattern, and there was a part of each one of you that loved the drama of the tumultuous relationship the two of you shared. You both knew it wasn't healthy, but Chris loved the way you'd get jealous over him and cause a scene. It made him feel like you really cared. And you loved the great lengths he'd go to in order to win you back over after a big fight.

And, of course, you were both addicted to the makeup sex. Neither one of you understood the psychology of why neither one of you wanted out of the relationship. After all, you two really did think you loved each other. You just only had really fucked up ways of showing it.

"Come on. You know you want me. You'd get bored with anyone else," he said in a seductive tone as he winked at you. Again, he was right. He pushed you up against the car and started kissing you, wedging his knee between your legs.

"I need you, baby, and I know you need me, too. I'm the only one who can give you exactly what you like, hmm?" He moaned into your mouth in-between sloppy kisses. "Fuck me, Chris," you moaned back.

"Yeah? You wanna go back to my place, and I'll fuck you nice and good," he purred into your ear. "No, Chris. I want you to fuck me right now," you sternly replied. He raised his eyebrows at you. This was out of character for you, but he liked it, and he wasn't going to let the chance go to waste.

"Fuck. You're so hot," he rapsed as he pulled open the back door. "Get on all fours," he ordered you, pushing you into the backseat. He pulled the hem of your black dress up over ass and started taking down your panties.

He eagerly spread you open, and you shuddered at the feeling of his hot breath radiating onto your core. He leaned in and buried his tongue in between your folds, lapping up your wetness. Your face was pressed against the cold, leather interior as a mewl passed through your lips.

He started to harshly suck on your clit, moaning against your sensitive nerve endings as he brought his hand down and slapped your ass hard. You yelped, leaning back into him. You reached around and entangled your fingers in his soft, brown locks as he continued to eat you like a man starving.

"Like when I eat it from the back?" He seductively asked you. "Mhmm," you whimpered, biting your lip and nodding your head. He wrapped his lips around your bundle of nerves, and he began methodically flicking his tongue over it as your whole body started to tremble.

He slurped up all your juices as he roughly kissed your drooling cunt. He created a bit of suction on your clit again, pulling away slowly and stretching your flesh, which made the feeling far more intense. He smirked after he released it from his lips and it snapped back into place. You whimpered at the delightful sensation.

"Fuck, you taste so good," he praised you. You dug your freshly-manicured nails into the seat as he brought you closer to the edge. His tongue explored you in ways that no one else ever could. You felt the knot in your stomach come undone as he devoured you, paying close attention to every part of your vulva, stimulating you with his soft, wet mouth.

You started to shake as you finished onto his tongue, strangled moans pouring into the car. Chris chuckled against your heat, licking you clean. He released his mouth from you, and you heard the sound of him fiddling with his belt. Then his zipper.

You felt him draw a line up your slit with his tip, dragging it through your wetness. He slapped it against your entrance, laughing at the way you sent your hips back trying to coax it in. "You forgive me, baby? You forgive me for getting mixed up with that girl?" He cooed, teasing you with the head of his cock.

"Of course, Chris. I could never stay mad at you," you whimpered, eager for him to put it in. He smirked, snapping his hips forward and burying himself deep inside you. "So big," you whined as you generously accepted him, your pussy stretching around him and accommodating his thickness.

"Take it," he groaned, starting to buck his hips back and forth. He admired the arch of your back and all your perfect curves as he had you in his favorite position. His eyes wandered towards your ass and the way it jiggled every time he jerked his hips forward, driving himself deeper into your hole.

He grabbed ahold of your hair and used it to steady himself as he pounded away. "You take my cock so well," he growled, rutting into your gspot with every jagged thrust. Your eyes rolled back, and you let out a deep, guttural sound that you almost didn't even recognize coming from yourself.

He started to break a sweat, a few drops of perspiration forming on his forehead, his thick hair sticking to it. The car windows started to fog up with the moisture from your combined breath as the two of your bodies moved as one unit in an escalating exchange of energies.

He relished in the way you squelched around him and the sound of skin slapping against skin. "Harder," you practically sobbed as you felt the pressure building in your abdomen again. He fucked you ravenously, picking up his strides and giving it to as hard as he could, sending satisfaction through every inch of you.

His eyes were slammed shut, his eye brows knitted together, and his jaw dropped, pleasured sounds unfurling from his lips. They were deep, sensual, and almost frustrated - almost animalistic. His car rocked back and forth as he took you in the back seat, your fingers grasping for anything to hold onto as you felt your stomach flutter.

"So close," you managed to whine as you reached the point of no return. With Chris still gripping your hair tightly, he kept his pace as steady and strong as he could while on the brink himself. "Cum on my cock, babe," he demanded, his voice textured with lust. He gripped your hair even harder, tugging with even more force than before as your orgasm rippled through you, fully surrendering to him.

Your bodies reacted to one other in a language of unspoken desire as he pumped you full of his warm, sticky load and your walls throbbed around him, creating a positive feedback loop in which each of you triggered a more intense climax in one another.

"Oh, fuck," he rasped, his dick twitching inside of you as he filled you with every last drop. He relaxed his hold on your hair, and you collpased into the back seat of his car. He pulled out of you, admiring the way his cum glistened on your skin in the faint moonlight as it peeked out from behind the clouds.

"Come on. Let's get you cleaned up, go back to my place, and I'll do that as many times as it takes me to make up for what a jerk I was to you tonight."

taglist: @sturnioloslut1 @trevorsgodmother @aaliyahsturniolo @larallott @bsturnzmtts @sturniolo-girl @theyluvme-2315 @jassturn @brookiecookie-18 @maggot3647 @slut4chriztopher @strnlslvr @sleepysturniolo @lvrsturniolo @sofieeeeex @imjusthereforthesturniolosmut @matts-myloverboy @witchofthehour @slutforsturniolosss @sturniolosweets @whoahoahoahoahoa @ilovechrissturniolosposts @smt-obsessed @sturnioloxlver @that1fangirll @hrtz4alex2211 @luvhsien @sp3ncerslvt @sturniolo-munch44 @jakewebberswifee @ssturniolooss @thenickgurl @sturniolo-fann @sst7niolo @babysturniolo @chestersturniolo @riowritesitall @camzeecorner @mattsturnixlo @annedebeijer @scorpioosworld @mattlover-00 @sweetlikesug4rvenom @m11rx @sturniolocharms @mickelodeon-2003 @sigmarizzler1 @chrislova @stellarsturns

[qwimblenorrisstan]

(im back, christmas break is here!!)

tw: mentions of abuse, violence, sexism (but secondary gender), omegaverse dynamics, crying, heavy angst no aftercare (again)

The uncomfortable tension in the room was palpable as they all sat in their usual debriefing room. Usually, the nest was a place for such a personal and volatile topic such as this, but none of them felt worthy of being there now. Not with how they’d treated you.

Soap was tapping his foot against the floor, the pattern uneven and sporadic, until Gaz snapped at him.

“Could you quit it, mate?” It had come out harsher than he’d meant. Soap huffed through his nose but obliged. They were all tense and on edge, their usually oh-so-controlled scents now sour and bitter with unease and anxiety.

In the field, they had their skills and weapons to fix problems, to take out the enemy. But here, back home? They had absolutely nothing in this fight. No amount of backup or fights could win this for them. In this fight, they were the enemy, and the only way to win this was by fixing the sacred little strand keeping you together that they had so carelessly unwound until it had snapped.

Ghost looked to Price. His hand was in his beard, thoughtfully running through the hair, stressed as Ghost has ever seen him. A sour pang of guilt shot through him. If he hadn’t tried forcing you to his scent gland, then you wouldn’t be in this position, and he wouldn’t have messed everything up, again—

“Y’re thinking too much.”

Price muttered, Simon’s feelings clear through the thick scent that somehow seemed to overpower everyone else’s in the air. He swallowed thickly. They needed a plan of action, some way to fix this, and the only way Price saw things being mended was by a lot of time and effort.

Gaz let the silence simmer for a moment, before speaking up.

“Cane Baker Syndrome, I looked it up yesterday night, it’s just like the med’ said. PTSD. Do you think…?”

An alpha being abused wasn’t as commonplace as it had used to be. Only 50 years ago, if you’d stepped into the common era, you’d see alpha’s being forced to work for a family they’d been forced into providing, their protective instincts abused. Among the more insane practices had been scratching out an alpha’s scent gland, so they couldn’t scent or get attached to their offspring, meaning the omega got the child all to themselves.

Awful things such as that had been outlawed years ago, but still happened in little forgotten corners of the world where loopholes existed.

“We can’t know for sure, but based on their reaction, I’d say we have a safe assumption. When they’re in a better….state of mind, we can ask a few questions.”

Price answered, voice heavy with an edge of guilt that seemed to grow richer by the second. Soap’s incessant tapping started up again, anxiety clearly chewing away at him. He couldn’t defuse you or the situation they’d created so easily like any other bomb he might during a mission.

“Could we get a background check on them?”

He asked, a hint of desperation in his tone. All he wanted was for you to be better again, for things to go back to normal, for a second chance.

But as they all split up, and he went to the nest, usually all so warm and comfortable and smelling of their sweet, rich scents combined, all he found was isolation among his team, sour scents mingling with rotten ones, a few sniffles and the salty scent of tears, he knew one thing.

They’d made their bed. Now they had to lie in it.

(sorry for the short part I’ve been playing cod bo6 multiplayer a lot and I’m kinda addicted + depressive episode, but there’ll be more soon I promise!!)

Part 1 | Part 2 |

[persevereforahappyending]

No Man's Land |15 - Final|

Pairing: Sam Carpenter x Reader

Summary: Sam can’t help but be drawn to the cute stranger from her gym, even if everything about them makes them the perfect suspect, just when Ghostface has returned.

Warnings: None?

Word Count: 2.7k+

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15

Sam stood next to Tara as she got patched up in the ambulance. Sam couldn’t believe she made it out without another stab wound and that Tara only got stabbed in the shoulder. Her eyes drifted across the way to see you in the back of another ambulance, getting stitched up once again. It seemed you had been right; you tore open all of your stitches, again.

Chad was standing next to you, seeming to talk rather animatedly as he gestured around crazily with his arms. Sam was sure that when they got outside, they’d find Chad in a puddle of blood, but they didn’t, he had been completely fine. When Chad hadn’t been able to get ahold of Mindy, he said he went to go inside but the doors were all locked, so he ran to the nearest police station. By the time they were leaving the building police and medics were already waiting, a few minutes earlier and maybe Bailey and the others would have been arrested instead of dead.

“You know,” Tara said, interrupting Sam’s thoughts. She looked to see her sister was all patched up and now had a simple makeshift sling as she hopped down from the ambulance. “They’re not so bad,” she nodded in your direction. Sam followed her sister’s gaze and couldn’t help but smile. “I think you picked a good one.”

Sam let out a breathless laugh. She knew Tara was right, you were one of the good ones. They didn’t lose anyone with you by their side, you ended up getting the most hurt out of all of them in fact. Sam didn’t even want to know where they’d all be without you, she certainly didn’t think they’d make it out and she didn’t think she could handle losing any of them.

“I almost got them killed,” Sam said. She couldn’t see why you’d ever stick around; no one was crazy enough to put up with her after seeing her life. She figured you’d return to North Carolina and go back to your special ops missions; you were clearly quite good at it after all.

Tara scoffed and Sam looked back at her sister just in time to see her rolling her eyes. “You’re ridiculous,” Tara said. “They almost died for you!” She gestured at you. Sam furrowed her brow; Tara said the same exact thing she just did but in a different tone. Sam couldn’t figure out how it was any different, she was pretty sure you almost dying for her and her almost getting you killed meant the same thing.

“They’re still here,” Tara said slower as if that would make Sam understand better. Sam guessed it was obvious she was still confused because Tara threw her head back and let out an exaggerated groan. “They know everything,” she gestured widely. “And they still stayed.”

“They had a whole life before me.” Sam watched as the medic finished stitching up another one of your wounds.

“And you could be a part of it.”

“I don’t-”

“You deserve to be happy Sam.” Sam snapped her head towards her sister in shock, Tara sounded so confident when she said that. “You just got to take the chance:”

Sam sighed and looked back over at you. You stayed, you got hurt protecting her and her friends. Not to mention the fact that you also killed two people for her, probably would have done all three but you let her have Bailey. You didn’t need that kind of drama in your life, you could go back to your own life before you ever met her. Sam wasn’t even sure what a relationship with you would even look like. She worked two jobs to pay for the apartment and Tara would always be her priority. She would be stuck working dead end jobs because she never went to college, she barely got her high school diploma, but you were exceptional, you were smart and strong, you were a hero.

“Hey,” Chad said as he jogged up to the sisters. “I just got off the phone with Mindy.”

“Is she okay?” Tara asked. Sam watched Chad’s face with worry, they didn’t know anything besides the fact that Quinn apparently stabbed her. Chad had been asking for information on his sister since they got outside, several people said they’d learn what they could.

“Yeah,” Chad nodded. “She’s at the hospital, she said Gale also made it.” Sam couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief, her and Gale may have had their differences, but she certainly didn’t want to see the woman die, Gale didn’t deserve that. “I was going to head down there now; did you want to come with?”

Sam opened her mouth to say yes, she wanted to see Mindy and even Gale for herself. She wanted to be able to tell Gale that they got them, that it was finally over. The words never came out though as her eyes drifted back over to you. Chad whipped his head back and forth looking between you and Sam, when she finally turned back to answer Chad he was giving her a knowing smile.

“They’re okay,” Chad said without even being asked. “Giving the medics a hard time.”

Sam couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle and roll her eyes. That definitely seemed accurate, they were probably trying to give you the best care possible while you insisted you were fine. Sam was sure the only reason they didn’t take you to the hospital was because you, once again, denied doing so.

“But you should talk to them,” Chad continued. Sam raised an eyebrow at that, she knew how much Chad liked you. Only one conversation and you had Chad vouching for you and had him telling you all about them, probably when you didn’t even ask. “They seem great!” He smiled innocently.

Sam rolled her eyes again; between Chad and her sister she didn’t know what she’d do. “We’ll meet you at the hospital in a bit,” Sam finally said. Chad nodded and ran off to a police officer who seemed willing to give him a ride.

Sam looked up just as you smiled and thanked the medic as she packed up her supplies. She looked back to her sister who gestured at her to go over to you. Sam sighed and made her way towards you. She had talked to you plenty of times, it wasn’t until you almost died trying to save her life, but since then it seemed like the two of you shared a lot. You talked about your past, Sam talked about hers, the two of you even shared a kiss when you spent the night. None of that meant you wanted anything more, if anything you’d probably want nothing to do with her.

“Hey,” you said as you hopped out of the ambulance.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked. She looked you up and down, her eyes seemed to only go to the injuries she knew you had and a the blood covering your shirt. She knew most of the blood couldn’t have been yours, it was most likely from Quinn and Ethan.

“Yeah,” you shrugged as if everything that happened to you was no big deal. “What about you?” Your brow scrunched up as your eyes searched her face. Sam hadn’t even been stabbed and yet you were asking if she was okay. “And your sister,” you nodded at something behind her and Sam glanced back to see Tara watching the two of you.

Sam rolled her eyes; Tara was relentless when she made up her mind about something. “She’ll be okay, has to wear the sling for a few day.”

You let out a knowing hum. “And Chad said Mindy and Gale made it. Guess everyone made it out,” you smiled.

“Only thanks to you.” You scoffed and let out a little chuckle as if you didn’t actually believe Sam’s words. “I’m serious.” You rolled her eyes, still clearly not ready to accept what Sam was telling you. “Hey,” without thinking Sam reached out and caressed your cheek which you almost instinctively leaned into. “You saved us, there is no way all of us would have made it out, especially with most of us unscathed.”

You gave her a soft smile, finally seeming to accept the fact that you wouldn’t win this argument. The two of you fell into a comfortable silence and Sam couldn’t help but get lost in your eyes as they stared into her own. “Your sister is staring at us,” you whispered, never taking your eyes off of Sam.

Sam felt her face heat up at that, she should have known you’d notice, you proved to be rather observant. “She’s making sure I talk to you,” Sam admitted.

“About anything in particular?” Your mouth twitched up in a smirk, as if you knew what Tara wanted Sam to talk to you about.

“I just…” the words got caught in her throat as she stared into your eyes. She couldn’t believe the person who was looking at her with so much cared had just killed two people, had killed them for her.

“Just what?” you rasped out. Sam wasn’t sure when she got so close to you, she had heard you as if you were the only two in the world.

Sam shook her head and pushed out all the voices telling her this was a bad idea and that you could still hurt her. She didn’t hesitate as she shot forward, catching your lips in a surprising kiss. She felt you stiffen but before she could pull away you grabbed her by the waist, pulling her closer, deepening the kiss. Sam couldn’t help but smile into the kiss, it was even better than the first one and this time she didn’t intend on stopping you.

Eventually the two of you did have to breakaway because both of you needed to catch your breath. Sam couldn’t remember the last time she smiled so much, she bit her lip as she looked up at you shyly, as if she hadn’t just been to make the first move. She didn’t ask permission; she just went for it and the soft smile on your face was making her want to do it all over again.

“My life’s a mess,” Sam blurted out, but this time she was smiling as she spoke. “As you’ve seen,” she gestured to the chaos around them. “But, would you maybe,” Sam couldn’t help but bite her bottom lip as she was suddenly unable to look you in the eye. “Want to go out sometime?”

Sam glanced up through her lashes and was met with your soft smile. “I’d like that,” you said.

Sam smiled; it had been a long time since she asked someone out. She almost felt like she was back in high school, having her first crush. You gently put your finger under her chin and tilted her head up, so she was looking into your eyes again. Both of you couldn’t seem to help but smile as you leaned in for another kiss.

You broke the kiss quicker than Sam would like this time; she wanted to chase after your lips, but it was clear you had something you wanted to say. “Maybe I’m overthinking and rushing this,” you whispered. “Maybe our first date will go horrible, and you won’t want another.” Sam couldn’t help but silently chuckle at that, she didn’t think that was possible. “But I’m not easy to be with.” Sam furrowed her brow at that.

“I’m military, if I’m not deployed, I’m in North Carolina, I only get to come back home, to here, when I’m on leave, maybe a weekend, if I’m lucky,” you sighed, you seemed to really be stressing how little you would actually physically be able to be in the same place at Sam. “A lot of people don’t want to put up with that. You’re trying to lessen the complications in your life, I don’t want to add to it.”

Sam rested a hand on the side of your face, you closed your eyes as you leaned into her touch and Sam couldn’t help but smile at the sight. “I don’t think either of us can make any promises, or that we should,” Sam said. “But I’m willing to try.” You gave her what she could only describe as a relieved smile, as if you expected her to back down. “Let’s just live in the moment and take it day by day.”

“I like the sound of that.” You smiled and it seemed like you were about to lean in for another kiss, which Sam was more than happy to meet in the middle when the two of you were interrupted by someone calling out Sam’s name.

Sam furrowed her brow and turned to see Kirby being wheeled out on a gurney. “Oh my god,” Sam yelled and ran to Kirby’s side. “You’re alive!”

“I’m so glad while I was bleeding out, you two were making out,” Kirby mumbled, slightly drowsy from the drugs the medics gave her, or the blood loss.

“We weren’t the ones and who got ourselves shot,” you snarked.

“Hey,” Kirby pointed a finger at you, leaning up from the gurney slightly. “Remember who gave you that gun.” Sam’s eyes widened, she completely forgot you had a gun, one you didn’t tell her about. “And it seems it came in handy.”

“Whatever,” you rolled your eyes and waved her off. “We’ll stop by and visit in a bit.”

Kirby nodded, seeming to get more sleepy the longer she laid there. “You did good sergeant.” You smiled at that and nodded for the medics to continue on towards the ambulance.

Sam crossed her arms as she stepped in front of you. She raised an expectant eyebrow at you, and you just tilted your head, as you pretended to be confused. “You failed to mention Kirby gave you a weapon,” Sam said.

“The less people who knew the better,” you defended. Sam scoffed; she couldn’t believe you were trying that with her. “And look, your sister is coming over,” you gestured to the side, effectively changing the subject as Sam glanced over and saw Tara was indeed walking over.

“So, you two together now?” Tara asked as a greeting.

“No!” Sam denied, she was sure her face was bright red after that. “We’ve barely known each other three days.” It felt like she had known you a lot longer than that, even if she didn’t count the longing stares she gave you at the gym the last three months. “But, we are going on a first date.”

Tara rolled her eyes. “Guess that’s something,” she mumbled. Sam smacked her sister in the arm and nodded towards you. Tara gave a dramatic roll of her eyes again. “You did good,” she nodded at you. “Total badass.” Sam closed her eyes and let out a long sigh, that wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. “And thanks for saving our lives,” Tara mumbled under her breath.

You took it well though and just quietly chuckled at her sister. “You weren’t so bad yourself,” you said.

“Come on,” Sam said, giving you and Tara a tired smile. “Let’s go check on Mindy and Gale.”

The three of you walked away from the flashing lights and the chaos all of you just survived. Sam couldn’t help but smile as her hand brushed against yours, until you took the initiative and took her hand within your own. She glanced at you out of the side of her eye and saw you looking ahead, the only evidence that you knew what you did was the smirk on your face.

“So,” Tara said, interrupting the peaceful silence. “How many dates do the two of you have to go on before I can meet the dog?”

Sam chuckled to herself; she should have known that would be a thing. The second Tara learned you had a dog her face lit up. Sam wasn’t sure she wanted to see your dog again; she was still a bit intimidated but based on the smile on your face and the way Tara was looking at her, she had a feeling she’d be seeing a lot more of the dog.

Taglist: @thatshyboy1998 @artrizzler19 @btay3115 @acutenobody @godamnityess

@luvwanda @rqizzu @riyaexee @bella423 @rayisaknight

@assgradiangod @canyonyodeler @marsyay78

[nefariousnemesis]

okay, so. OP i hope you don't take this as me getting upset, i just get super passionate about pokemon and need to explain to everyone in the audience why most people did not think to do this.

first is the most obvious thing like. it came down to arrogance right? the leaders before this were some of the biggest pushovers in pokemon history. falkner and bugsy. another point is that a lot of people don't really want to use pokemon from past gens unless they REALLY love them.

any way it's time to go over the type of team most trainers would've had at this point. you got your starter, you got your pikachu/mareep, free eevee, flying, and bug poke.

now. here's the problem: barring chikorita (who takes not very effective) and totodile/eevee (takes regular damage), EVERYONE on this team is weak to rock. also who would've guessed a gym leader would have type coverage?? actually. this is a good time to bring up the crown jewel: this ABSOLUTELY ingenious setlist and break it down:

Stomp: a 65 base power move and 30% chance to flinch. not only that, but it's a STAB move making the moves power closer to 98. yeah.

Attract: a status move that has a 50% chance of working every turn. to make things worse, your starter (who would normally be doing the most heavy lifting) is very likely to be male.

Milk Drink: basically just recover/soft-boiled/roost (ok so roost is a bit different) which is VERY GOOD. 50% of max health is even better than any potion you would have access to at this point. also wanted to point out but if you slapped whiney's clefairy before she had a chance to heal it, that means when you FINALLY managed to whittle milktank's health down, she could just heal it with her two potions as well but. why would she at that point when she's got MILK DRINK.

ROLLOUT: oh god. so. it comes to this. here is all the numbers and information on pokemondb.net which i will post now and we can all boggle at the absurdity of these numbers:

so yeah. as you can see the big problem is even when you switch out your pokemon into another one, even if it's something with high defense, as long as the move hits, it has a chance of a OHKO.

(btw in hgss miltank is level 19 instead but in exchange holds a lum berry. just in case you wanted to like. paralyze it or something you gotta do it AGAIN)

miltank is a pokemon that does not evolve so i guess the best way is to describe it is that pokemon with no evolutions have some pretty strong base stats compared to ones that have yet to evolve fully.

here's an estimation of what the machop you would trade IF it was the same level as miltank:

and here's quilava (the starter i chose):

ok, not bad-

NOW THIS IS MILTANK:

as you can see, even if your pokémon were a few levels higher, they're still at a disadvantage here. machop has some low base stats so unless you train and evolve it, its STILL going to be a battle as a turn 4-5 rollout can most likely oneshot it. this is why, for speed runners or nuzlocks the beginning is almost always the hardest just in terms of your options being severely limited and shit like this.

an way just to close this out but this post really unlocked another interesting memory in me. you need drowzee to trade for the machop and like. drowzee in joto was MY FIRST shiny pokemon and i captured it on route 34. i didn't know what it was, but it LOOKED special. reading this post, i wonder if i was looking for drowzee specifically for this purpose?

idk about y'all but when i was playing pokemon as a baby, i did not know defense and special defense were separate. or attack and special attack for that matter, i just saw a move and clicked on it. flame wheel looks cool on quilava and has a higher number than ember, so im keeping it. even though it's attack stat is the weaker of the two. so yeah. machop is the closest to a "hard counter" we would've had for miltank but fortunately whitey's strategy really only works the one time. the best thing to do was level up your pokemon or catch a heracross or quagsire. for full transparency, whitney is the only time i've ever been bested by the game's AI (not counting battle frontier...) but i think that's awesome. it taught me to become more diverse and creative with my movesets. any way i just think breaking stuff down like this is a lot of fun, and i always find it interesting when a community of people all had the same experience.

wait hold on yall didnt just use the machop that resists rollout, is immune to attract from female pokemon, can ko normal-types in like two hits if you just train it a little, and is basically given to you for free in the very same city you fight whitney????

[chancloud8]

CHAPTER 1

series masterlist

Pairing: OT8 x reader

Word Count: 3,9k

Tags: Intro, bodyguard!ot8, idol!reader

Summery: Meeting your new bodyguards doesn't go as smoothly as everyone hoped..

‘I don’t need a group of bodyguards,’ you repeat for what feels like the hundredth time. 

Your manager Yoona doesn’t even look at you anymore and you fight the urge to stamp your feet like a little child to get her attention. You won’t stoop that low though, so instead you place your hands on your hips and glare at the woman who’s been by your side since you debuted about two years ago. 

‘We’re not having this discussion again, y/n,’ Yoona says, her eyes still fixed on her phone screen. ‘Your popularity is growing by the day, you’ve received multiple death threats in the last few months and in case you forgot, last week someone tried to break into your home.’ 

Your shoulders deflate and your hands fall down beside your body. You can’t really argue with that, but you’ve grown so accustomed to having Faris at your side as your one and only bodyguard, that the thought of eight men taking his place makes you shiver. Who the hell needed eight freaking bodyguards? You weren’t a princess for fuck’s sake. 

Yoona finally looks at you then. ‘It’s very important to us to keep you safe, darling. I know it will be an adjustment, but you’ll get used to it.’ 

‘But eight?’ you argue, trying once more. ‘Do I really need eight men following my every move?’ 

‘That’s why we’re placing some of them around you with other jobs as well, kind of like undercover bodyguards,’ Yoona smiles at you like that makes it any better. 

You slump down in the chair across from Yoona and frown at her. What could bodyguards possibly go undercover as in your team? Woman, sure, no problem, but a muscled man? They’d stand out immediately. 

‘What do you mean?’ you ask carefully, not sure if you even want to know. 

‘They all have multiple skill sets, but we decided on adding three of them as your dancers and one will probably step in as a personal assistant of sorts,’ Yoona explains, her eyes once more on her phone screen. 

‘Why?’ you blurt out. ‘I don’t even need new dancers? We’re not firing anyone are we?’ 

You were perfectly happy with your team as it was and it would kill you to let any of them go because Yoona decided you needed eight freaking men to watch you. 

Yoona sighed and put down her phone. ‘We’re not firing anyone, but Dohyun is still recovering from his injury and Ju-won has asked for a few months off to visit his family. As for why, it will allow them to be around you more casually.’ 

Damnit. That actually made sense. 

‘And you’re sure they can dance?’ you ask, already knowing the answer. Yoona would never suggest something like this if they couldn’t. 

‘Yes, y/n, they can dance. I think you’ll be impressed actually.’ 

That makes you curious. Yoona isn’t easily impressed, so if she thinks you’ll approve, they must be good. Maybe you should give them a chance, or just be such a brat they run away screaming. 

‘Fine,’ you sigh. ‘When will I meet them?’ 

Yoona looks at her watch and your eyes widen at the movement. She wouldn’t do this to you, would she? 

‘They’ll be here in an hour to meet you,’ Yoona says and you let out a relieved breath. ‘You better be back here by then or I will let one of them drag you here by your ear.’ 

‘Bossy much,’ you whisper, but you don’t really mean it. You luckily have a very good relationship with your manager and even though she drives you up a wall sometimes, you know she has your best interest at heart. 

Yoona rolls her eyes at you and waves her hand at the door. ‘Go be bratty somewhere else, I’ll see you in an hour.’ 

You bark out a laugh and jump up from the chair. ‘As you wish, my Queen,’ you say, doing a little courtesy. 

Your current bodyguard Faris is waiting for you in the hallway, a smile on his handsome face as he spots you. 

‘Good talk?’ he asks, following one step behind you. 

‘You knew about this, didn’t you?’ you ask, glaring at him over your shoulder. 

‘I’m the one who recommended them actually,’ Faris says and only his quick reflexes stop him from walking straight into your back as you stop walking immediately at his words. 

‘What?’ you turn around to frown at him. ‘Why would you do that to me?’ 

Faris raises his eyebrows and stares down at you with a knowing look, his arms crossing over his chest. 

‘Fine,’ you roll your eyes at him. ‘I know why, Yoona was so kind to remind me, but I still don’t get why it has to be eight.’ 

‘It might seem excessive to you Nabi,’ Faris says, addressing you with your stage name which he knows usually softens you. ‘But you don’t see all that we see and trust me when I say that once you’re on tour, you’ll be happy to have them by your side. It gets crazy out there.’ 

‘I know that, but undercover bodyguards?’ you make a face. ‘I’m not royalty.’ 

Faris chuckles and with a gentle push on your shoulder, he guides you further through the hallway and towards the studio you were working at before Yoona called you to her office. It was one of the things you really liked about your agency. Nearly everything you needed was in the same building. 

‘You may as well be and I trust Chan and his guys to keep you safe,’ Faris says as he holds a door open for you. 

‘So you really know them?’ you ask, sitting down at the desk you were working at before. Your laptop is still open on the editing program you work with and there are multiple notebooks, paper coffee cups and empty candy wrappers spread all around it. ‘Did you work with them before?’ 

‘I trained 3RACHA actually,’ Faris nods. ‘Chan and I had multiple gigs together after that and I’ve only heard good things about the others as well. I’m confident I’m leaving you in good hands.’ 

‘You shouldn’t be leaving me at all,’ you groan, throwing your head back against your chair. ‘But I understand and I hope that when I have a husband one day, he'll do the same for me.’ 

Faris just smiles at that and gets comfortable on the couch facing the door. He knows better than to get into this conversation with you again. Last time you ended up facetiming his wife in tears and he ended up having to calm down two crying women. 

‘Wait, did you just say sriracha?’ you sit up in your chair when your brain suddenly realizes what he had just said. ‘As in the hot sauce?’

‘No, I said 3RACHA, that’s what they called themselves back then,’ Faris replies, glancing at you. ‘I think they made music together in their free time, before they started their own company.’ 

Huh. Interesting. Why on earth would they go from making music together to becoming bodyguards? 

‘So all eight of them made music together?’ you ask curiously. 

‘No, just Chan, Jisung and Changbin. I think they mostly rapped, but if you’re interested in knowing more, you can always ask. It could break the ice when you meet them,’ Faris suggests, winking at you. 

‘I’ll pass, I don’t want them to think I’m happy about this arrangement,’ you murmur, turning your chair so your back is to Faris. ‘Will you tell me when it’s time to go?’ 

‘Don’t I always?’ he chuckles. 

You flip him off without looking and put on your headphones. Time to edit some more music. 

****

You’re so engrossed in your music, that it takes Faris multiple tries to get you to put down your headphones. He even goes as far as opening the blinds to let the light in, making you whimper and flinch by the intrusion of it. 

‘Alright, alright,’ you yell, your eyes scrunched close. ‘I beg for mercy, I’ll come with you.’ 

Faris laughs and closes the blinds, once again developing the room in darkness, just how you like it. He has scolded you many times before about how bad it is for your eyes to squint at your screen in a dark room, but you rarely listen to him about it. 

‘If you think about telling my new watch dogs this trick of yours, I’ll haunt you,’ you warn Faris when the two of you walk towards Yoona’s office. 

Faris makes a movement with his hands as if he’s zipping his lips closed and you nod happily at him, trusting him to keep his word. 

‘How late are we?’ you ask, having forgotten your phone in the studio when Faris basically dragged you out by your arm. 

‘About five minutes too early,’ he smiles proudly. 

Of fucking course. He’s been working with you for two years so he knows all your annoying traits by now, including having a habit of being late because you simply forget the time when you’re working. 

‘What will I do without you,’ you pout at him, ignoring the nervous butterflies in your stomach as you near Yoona’s office. 

‘You’ll be just fine, Nabi,’ Faris says and you’re not sure if he means it as a reply to what you just said or as a reassurance before meeting your new team of bodyguards. 

Taking a deep breath, you turn towards Faris. ‘How do I look?’ 

‘I thought you didn’t care?’ he grins, but he reaches out to flatten a few wild strands of your hair. 

You blow him a kiss, put on a straight face and turn around to knock on the door before pushing it open. The first thing you’re greeted with is the silhouette of 4 men standing with their back to you. Each of them have broad muscular shoulders that are clearly visible under the black suit jacket they’re wearing, the fabric straining like they’re wearing a size too small. 

The man on the right turns around when you enter and you nearly gasp at his beauty. His hair is styled to show a little v of his forehead and the black strands nearly reach his eyes. Jesus. He could be a model if he wanted too. He raises his eyebrows at you when you just stare at him for a moment, before he nudges the man next to him. 

‘Are you fucking kidding me,’ you mutter under your breathe when the other man turns around and piercing eyes meet yours. 

Of course he’s beautiful as well. What the hell was Yoona thinking? 

‘Ah, Y/N, there you are,’ Yoona says when she notices you. ‘On time, even.’ 

You roll your eyes and stroll forward to her desk, ignoring the four men as you make your way around them. In that little moment you forget there’s supposed to be more of them and when you turn to stand next to Yoona and see the chairs in front of her desk filled with four more gorgeous men, you nearly stumble. 

Yoona grins at you and you narrow your eyes at the woman. 

‘You think this is funny, don’t you?’ you grumble at her. ‘Where did you even find them? heaven?’ 

One of the men snorts before trying to cover it up with a cough. 

‘Don’t mind her gentleman, she’s in a mood today,’ Yoona smiles. 

‘I wonder why,’ you mutter, sending a fake smile in the direction of the bodyguards. 

‘That’s alright, it must be a lot to take in,’ one of them says with such a deep voice that your eyes widen. 

It must look comical, cause the same man that snorted earlier, lets out a giggle. ‘Don’t worry, Miss, it’s how everyone reacts to first hearing Felix’s voice,’ 

You want to focus on him calling you Miss, but the urge to see which face belongs to the deep voice is stronger.

‘Who’s Felix?’ you ask, your eyes searching the men in front of you. 

‘I am,’ the only blonde man of the group says, lifting his hand to show you where he is. He’s absolutely stunning with freckles sprinkled over his nose and cheeks. 

‘Holy shit, is that your real voice?’ you ask without thinking, slapping your hand in front of your mouth as soon as the words come out. 

He laughs and a few of the other men chuckle as well. 

‘It is, sometimes it gets even deeper,’ he says. 

‘Yeah, Lix actually has like three different voices,’ the man who called you Miss grins. 

It’s getting annoying not to know his name, but you don’t want to ask and seem interested. Luckily one of the men at the back seems to read your mind somehow. 

‘Why don’t we all introduce ourselves, my name is Bang Chan, but you can call me Chan. I’m the leader and head of your security team as of now. So if you experience any problems with our service in any way, I’m the one you can come to.’ 

‘Noted,’ you mumble, ignoring Yoona’s glare at your rudeness. 

So that’s Chan. Faris forgot to mention how beautiful his trainee was and you were so going to punch his arm for that later. 

‘I’m Lee Minho,’ the one with the piercing stare says. ‘I’ll be joining your dance team.’ 

Fuck. Of course he is. 

‘So will I,’ Felix smiles. ‘Lee Felix.’

‘And me, Hwang Hyunjin,’ the man closest to you winks. 

Great. They were absolutely going to kill you. In more ways than one. 

Biting your lip you wait for the last four to introduce themselves and pray to all the gods that Miss guy is going to be your assistant. He already feels like the most easy going out of all eight and if you need to work with one of them closely, you’d rather it be him than anyone else. 

‘Kim Seungmin, I’ll be one of your bodyguards’ the one who noticed you first says, his eyes flicking up and down your body as if he’s calculating how much of a flight risk you are. 

Oh just you wait and see buddy. 

‘I’m Yang Jeongin, but you can call me Innie or Ayen,’ the very cute man in front of Seungmin smiles and you nearly smile back at him. 

Finally the man you’ve been waiting for speaks up. ‘I’m Han Jisung, your new assistant.’ 

You cheer in your head, keeping a straight face as you look at the last man. He’s definitely the most buff of them all, his biceps really testing the fabric of his suit jacket. 

‘And I’m Seo Changbin, also part of your daily bodyguard squad.’ 

‘You’re all way too beautiful to be bodyguards,’ you say, crossing your arms with a frown while tapping your foot on the ground. 

Yoona makes a noise beside you and you don’t dare to look at her. She’ll definitely lecture you later, but this is all on her anyways. 

‘Worried your fans will fawn over us?’ Jisung jokes, winking at you. 

Your lips tip up in a tiny smile, but you quickly straighten your face. It was going to be hard to be a brat to them, but you were nothing if you weren’t stubborn. You’re not going to just warm up to them because they were hot and funny. Nope. Not going to happen. 

‘More like you’d be too busy worrying about your good looks to protect me,’ you say, raising your eyebrows at them. 

‘Aren’t you a ray of sunshine,’ Minho grumbles, placing his hand on Jisung’s shoulder as if to comfort him. ‘You won’t have to worry about that, looking this good doesn’t cost us much.’

You open your mouth to reply, but Yoona gets up and goes to stand next to you. 

‘That’s enough Y/N,’ she hisses before smiling her million dollar smile to the men. ‘As you can see Y/N hasn’t really warmed up to the idea of having this many eyes on her all the time.’ 

‘Don’t you have that all the time though,’ Seungmin says directly to you. 

You glare at him. ‘That’s not the same. 

He just shrugs. ‘We don’t want anything from you like your fans or stalkers. We’re not here to be your friends, we’re just here to keep you safe. That’s all that should matter.’ 

His words hit you harder than they should and you can’t help but flinch. The idol life isn't great for maintaining friendships and since you weren’t in a group, the only people you really had around you to talk to were your bodyguard Faris, Yoona and your dancers. You didn’t have a best friend, or even really friends in general, not since high school ended. 

‘Min!’ Chan calls out, glaring at the man. 

You square your shoulders and tilt your head, putting another fake smile on your face. ‘It’s fine, he’s right isn’t he.’ 

‘No, he’s not,’ Chan shakes his head. ‘Listen-’ 

‘It’s fine,’ you repeat, interrupting him. ‘How about I’ll show Jisung his office and we can go over the schedule for next week?’ 

Chan frowns down at you, sharing a look with Jisung and Yoona, but then he nods. You give him a nod back in thanks and without looking at any of the other guys you make a beeline for the door, hoping Jisung will follow you. 

‘Well, that went great,’ you hear someone say before you step outside. 

Faris frowns when he sees the look on your face, but he doesn’t say anything and falls into step behind you like he always does. It’s one of the things you love about him, he always knows when to not ask questions. You can hear him and Jisung quietly talking behind you, but you don’t mind, they know each other after all. 

‘Well, here we are,’ you say, opening the door of the small office area next to the studio you usually work at. ‘You can arrange everything how you like and if you need anything you can ask Yoona.’ 

‘I wasn’t expecting an office,’ Jisung smiles at you, stepping inside the room to take a look. 

It’s not much. Just a desk with a comfortable chair and a computer, a two person couch and in the corner there’s a bookcase that so far only houses a cactus, your first three albums and a box with documents your last assistant left behind. 

‘Of course you get an office, can’t have you shacking up with me in the studio,’ you say, trying to joke with him. 

‘Hey, about what Seungmin said,’ Jisung starts, sitting down in his desk chair and twirling around. ‘He’s just very serious about his job, he didn’t really mean the part about us not being your friends.’ 

‘It’s fine,’ you shrug. ‘You’re not really meant to be my friends anyways, you’re hired to protect me.’ 

‘Yeah, you don’t look too happy about that. Why is that?’ Jisung asks and he sounds genuinely curious. ‘I mean, sure we’re a whole lot, but isn’t it nice to know you’ll be safe?’ 

‘Safe? Yes. Watched by eight, I repeat, eight men? No thank you, I don’t need that.’ 

Jisung tilts his head and purses his lips in thought, like he’s actually trying to see this from your side. ‘I get it, I do, I’ve lived with most of them for the last few years and like I said, we can be a lot.’ 

‘But?’ you ask, falling down on the couch in front of Jisung’s new desk. ‘I feel there’s a but there.’ 

‘You really have no idea, do you?’ Jisung leans his chin on his palm as he looks at you. ‘We’ve seen the threats Y/N, we’ve seen the video’s of handsy fans, we’ve seen the footage of that dude trying to break into your house. It’s a miracle really that nothing has happened to you so far with only Faris by your side.’ 

‘He’s right, Nabi,’ Faris says from his spot by the door. 

‘Okay, maybe more than one bodyguard would be better,’ you say slowly. ‘But eight? I still think it’s a bit much, especially the undercover bit.’ 

Jisung shrugs and leans back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. ‘Maybe so, but at least you’ll know you will be safe.’ 

‘I guess,’ you mumble. 

‘Wanna go over the schedule for next week with me?’ Jisung asks. ‘Get your mind off all this for a bit?’ 

You jump up from the couch immediately and walk around the desk to stand next to him while he starts up the computer. 

****

About half an hour later you’re fairly confident Jisung will make a good assistant. He’s written down your interviews and gigs for the coming month and made a list of all the things he wanted to take care of before that. It was cute how he wanted to do it right. 

‘Knock, knock,’ a voice called out from the door and when you looked up you saw Chan and Changbin hugging Faris. 

‘How’s it going here?’ Chan smiles at you as he walks inside, his hands in his pocket. He probably tried to come off less intimidating like that, but it didn’t really work. 

‘Fine,’ you say, looking at the computer screen again. 

If you kept your eyes on him you’d probably drool all over your favorite studio outfit. That man was way too fine. 

‘It’s going great, Channie,’ Jisung says. ‘We’ve been getting along perfectly without the ice kings here.’ 

‘Don’t let them hear you call them that,’ Chan chuckles, moving to sit on the couch. ‘I hope we’ll be able to make this work, Y/N. I take great pride in my work and I’ll do anything I can to make you feel comfortable around us.’ 

Ugh. Why did he have to be so kind too? 

‘Thank you,’ you mutter, your eyes still on the screen. 

‘We’ll promise not to impose your privacy too much when we move in, but–’ 

Your head snaps up to look at him then and from the corner of your eyes you notice Jisung covering his face with his hands. 

‘What did you just say?’ you ask, standing up. ‘Please tell me I didn’t just hear you say the words moving in?’ 

‘Uhm,’ Chan tilts his head in confusion. ‘I thought you knew?’ 

‘Knew. What?’ you growl, your fingers balling up in fists. 

‘Oh boy,’ Jisung whispers and you turn to glare at him. 

‘You knew about this?’ 

‘Uhm, we all did? And we figured so would you,’ he shrugs, looking at you with big innocent eyes. 

You close your eyes, not at all immune to those brown doe eyes. If you keep looking at him you will stop being angry and you can’t do that. Not now. 

‘If somebody doesn’t tell me very soon what exactly this thing I’m supposed to know is, I will scream,’ you clench your jaw and take a shaky breath. 

This can’t be happening. They are not moving into your house with you. Yoona won’t do that to you, not after your talk this morning. Right? You close your eyes in frustration, already knowing the answer to your own question. She will. 

‘Such a drama queen,’ a new voice speaks up from the door and when you turn your head, already seeing red, you see Minho smirking at you. 

Changbin and Faris look concerned and when you look back at Chan, he actually looks like he’s pitying you. Fuck. 

‘Just say it already.’

‘Well, we’re supposed to move into your new house with you,’ Chan says, confirming it. 

Oh hell no. 

a/n: eeeeeeekkk I'm so excited for this series you have no idea!! I wasn't going to upload till tomorrow, but @staylovesmiley made me flip a coin and here I am at midnight, feeding you the first chapter.

Please let me know your thoughts <3

taglist: @jaeminie-cricket @jeonginsbaee @staylovesmiley @newbbystay @cashtonsbetch @mariahxrrera @kaleigh-2002 @silencionyx @smileykiddie08 @my-neurodivergent-world @yaorzu-blog @yoongiismylove2018 @staytinyluv @bookswillfindyouaway @queen-thiccness @notastraykid @ateez-atiny380 @estella-novella @furfoxsake22 @hyunjinhoexxx @insomnjen @hannahisnotblue @vivilovesuu @velvetmoonlght @skz8love @eastjonowhere @stellmeiv @bookishcaptain @flylis @deadpool15 @0325ale @thatgirlangelb @iknow-uknow-leeknow @nchhuhi @shycreationdreamland @readr1221 @beewilko

[chanelnumbermine]

2024 f2 boys when someone else compliments you | f2 grid picks x gn!reader

since u liked the previous part so much, i decided to write a little more and added franquito! he has a special place in my heart after this season (mentally i’m still in imola sprint). i’m very open to learn about more drivers and add them to the list! have a nice read!

pairing(s): ollie bearman x gn!reader, kimi antonelli x gn!reader, zane maloney x gn!reader, paul aron x gn!reader, pepe marti x gn!reader, luke browning x gn!reader, franco colapinto x gn!reader;

warning(s): itty bitty possessive behaviour, mostly cuteness!!

ollie bearman | prema —> haas f1

squeezes your hand and smiled politely

"thank you. they really do light up every room."

he says dryly and tries to shrug off this weird feeling in his chest

becomes a little stiff and after a while he asks

“do random people compliment you like that often?”

you shrug and smirk, seeing he’s a little jealous

“they were right, you look stunning. i should say that more often”

andrea kimi antonelli | prema —> mercedes amg pertronas

he’s already a little flustered because you came over to see his family

you click with them instantly

"uh, thanks mom. i say it every day."

to him you’re the sweetest prettiest person ever and he sometimes forgets that other people can also see that

it’s just hard to remember about the whole world when he’s in your presence

you’re his and he’s fully yours, and he’ll spend the rest of the day clinging to you

he’s nott that good with words, but very good at making you feel loved

paul aron | hitech —> bwt alpine reserve driver

i bet it was one of your friends who complimented you

and paul? tries to outdo the other person with compliments

"you're not just radiant, darling, you look literally ethereal. you know, your eyes ere like the moon. so big and shiny."

thinks he's smooth

he's not

but he's adorable as hell, grinning like and idiot and spewing nonsense just to make you laugh

you'd have to kiss him to shut him up

“i was supposed to make you blush, not the other way around…”

zane maloney | rodin —> formula e

awkward as hell

could be even a little insecure

why would anyone dare compliment you? do they think they have a chance with you?

he tries not to show it, but is not good at it

"aww, are you pouting?" you teased him

he chuckled and scratched the back of his neck nervously

"what, me? you're seeing things"

please reassure him!! he’s the sweetest bunny

pepe marti | campos, red bull academy

"yeah, of course my baby looks beautiful tonight."

goes full on protective mode

could become sarcastic, maybe even passive-aggressive

"i knew this day would come. i have to fend off other admirers."

you laugh and poke his arm

"must be so hard having a beautiful partner, huh?"

huffs playfully and kisses your forehead

luke browning | hitech —> f2

he was joking around with his friends when one of them made an innocent cute comment about your looks

“i know, right? they make me look better just standing next to me”

tries to divert the attention from you

on the outside he seems quite normal, but inside he’s seething with jealousy

like, why would anyone feel the need to point out the obvious???

sneaks his arm around your waist

peppers your face with kisses when you have a little time alone

franco colapinto | mp —> williams racing

whatever the circumstances, he goes into full yapping mode

franco takes seizes every opportunity to brag about who he managed to pull

"right!! you see, mom, they bake the best cookies. one time, when we were in madrid, we ate those cinnamon buns i like so much and..."

he just wants everyone to know you're the best person he's ever had the privilege to meet

he wants to share all the best memories with his family! and has no filter

"no, sis, we weren’t drunk that much… oh, you’re totally right amor, we were, sorry”

the compliments are flowing from both sides, its very natural and franqui doesn’t get worked up at all

masterlist

[heavyhitterheaux]

How did wife feel about Joe buying the bat mobile?

She was NOT happy 😭😭

Especially since she had told him literally two weeks before that she was pregnant

Joe's eyes fluttered open from feeling the weight shift on the bed, meaning that his wife was awake. He was facing away from you and let his eyes adjust for a minute before turning around to face you. Once he did, he instantly saw that you were giving him a death glare.

“Uh? Princess? Good morning. Is everything okay?” He asked as the same expression remained on your face.

“Your name is not baby right now to me. It's Jos…”

“No! Don’t you dare say it.”

“Don't interrupt me, Joseph. Because I am pissed at you right now.” You told him as he looked around confused.

“What did I do? I literally just opened my eyes.”

“I will throw you across the room if you don't lose that attitude.”

“Baby! I don't have an attitude! I'm just confused as to why you're mad at me! Are you going to tell me what's wrong?” He asked as he sat up against the headboard.

“Why did I wake up at 2 in the morning to throw up because your children know absolutely no chill and I glance down at my phone to see a bombardment of text messages AND alerts having to do with my husband?”

“Well Hard Knocks premiered last night…. I did look pretty good if I do say so myself.”

“It's what you said on Hard Knocks that has me pissed off.”

Just then Joe had a realization.

He bought the BatMobile and forgot to tell you.

And the first thing after he said it to Ja'Marr and Tee was them asking the question if he had told you yet.

“Oh um… I forgot to mention that.”

“Joseph Lee. That thing costs 2.9 MILLION DOLLARS. HOW DO YOU JUST FORGET TO TELL YOUR WIFE!?”

“And Justin did mention that it wasn't the smartest financial decision…” He muttered and you continued staring at him.

“Hmm, is it going to come equipped with two car seats? Because you better figure out how to fit them in there.” You told him and he gave you a tight lipped smile.

“Well I don't get it for a year, I can always make a call and ask for adjustments. Who knows? They might be able to fit the car seats in there.” He answered but you did not look amused.

“You knew that you were going to be a father to twins and you still decided to buy it?”

“The opportunity was right there, babe! Like when am I going to have another chance like this!? And this was before I knew you were pregnant!”

"When we have no money to feed our kids, I'm going to tell them that daddy decided to buy a batmobile instead and that's why everyone's stomach is EMPTY."

"Okay little miss dramatic much."

"I'm about to tell Ja'Marr to come and get you because between me not sleeping and you buying things for 2.9 MILLION DOLLARS you are on my nerves."

"Just think about us fucking in the front seat."

"No. Stop trying to break my focus from me being mad at you."

"But is it working?"

"A little, but if you ask me again later, I'll deny it."

But she's obviously going to let him keep it despite how annoyed she is about the entire thing.

And now she's going to try and get her elephant 😭

[just-sg]

If the community doesn't welcome "cis men", then it excludes transmascs who pass or at bare minimum sends a message that the goal they worked so hard to achieve has made them less welcome in spaces that once supported them, actively punishing them for transitioning. It forces transfems to out themselves, which can be especially dangerous. It forces nonbinary amabs who can't or don't want to change their presentation to out themselves and sends a message that nonbinary people owe you androgyny or visual non-conformity. And if you think you can gauge any of these things by looking at someone, you're not doing the community any favors.

If the community doesn't welcome cis men, it excludes gay men. If men are welcome only when in a relationship with another man/person who reads enough like "a man", it excludes bi/pan/etc men and sends a message that what relationship they're in Right Now determines whether or not they're Queer Enough, you know, one of the core tenets of biphobia and erasure.

If the community doesn't welcome cis men, it excludes men all over the ace and aro spectrums. :) And yes actually, the heterosexual aromantic straw-man does deserve to be here just as much as anyone else. IF he's treating his partners like shit, then we judge him for that behavior, but queer people can be douchebags with shit views and we don't get to say they're not still queer. And if the het-aro dude is instead communicating honestly and being respectful-- a thing I promise is fully possible for humans to do-- then guess what, assuming he couldn't possibly be a decent person is just arophobia and maybe a side of puratinism.

Anyone questioning their identity, anyone who isn't actively questioning yet but later will, guys about to experience bi panic, transfem eggs who haven't clocked anything about themselves yet. Their early exposure to queer spaces being a hostile one is not going to help anyone, and can easily actively discourage people. We also need to be welcoming of supportive partners, siblings, parents, friends, etc, especially in cases where a queer person is disabled or otherwise has trouble going places on their own, or for helping ease anxiety in virtual spaces, etc.

Listen.

The nature of Being A Man is not and has never been the problem. And as much as some of you don't want to hear it, and as much as it fucking sucks and is objectively unfair when it does involve men who are participating in and benefiting from oppression, trying to turn the tables is never going to be an effective strategy. It's "not fair" that it's more dangerous for women to walk alone at night either but you hopefully wouldn't advocate against carrying mace on the basis no one "should" need it. Whether something is fair and whether it's true are not the same thing.

You cannot Get Revenge against a whole huge portion of the human population, and when you actively threaten or ostracize people, (a) you're mirroring the very thing you fight against, but (b) it makes people defensive!!! Some allocishet dudes would get defensive anyway at the idea of not being on top of the ladder anymore, but giving them more fuel won't change that. Dudes who'd have that kneejerk reaction but could be reasoned with won't be if no one bothers to try, or oftentimes even if someone bothers but it's immensely overshadowed with hostility. And people who were already allies can actively be pushed out and turned against the cause. (Not to mention perpetuating in-fighting.)

You catch more flies with honey, I'm sorry. And yes, we do need allies. Perpetuating the "us vs them" mentality helps no one, patriarchy does not target men in the same or as many ways as women but it is also harmful to many, and we will always have a better chance of fixing any system when we have people working for the cause inside and out. People using their positions of privilege to help provide extra leverage and voice to those with less privilege is always going to be desirable overall.

Even mainstream media writers throwing in crumbs of badly handled representation isn't without some merit, if only for proving it's not illegal and won't destroy sales to have Anything At All, which couldn't be said mere decades ago; if only for normalizing that queer people exist even the tiniest bit more. But just, normal people going about their normal lives. Just every random man who will frown at their coworker's homophobic joke and give a simple "not cool dude". Those little things adding up are important. When people hate you, it's easy to ignore you standing up for yourself, and harder to ignore people they like also standing up for you.

Cis queer men are not your enemy. Amabs who "read" cis to you and don't want to out themselves are not your enemy. Bi men who happen to be in relationships with women are not your enemy. Straight male partners of queer women are not your enemy! Allo cishet dudes married to allo cishet women with no queer kids or siblings or anything are not your enemy, not if they're behaving like friends.

People operating on ignorance, especially to a point of willful ignorance because they don't 'have' to deal with it, can be enemies-- inaction in the face of oppression is taking the side of oppressors, and all-- but even they're like... minion enemies if that makes sense. (That goes for men, women, questioning folks or folks who are definitively queer but don't feel like Part Of The Community, etc, to be clear.) It's not your personal job to educate every person, but when you can afford to, taking no shit but remaining civil will leave someone else a better chance of getting through to them. Picking a nasty drawn-out fight with that jackass on Twitter won't fix homophobia but may well increase his devotion to the enemy cause.

Prioritizing defense isn't always an option and I'm not saying it is. Sometimes you need whole riots to make a point, but even that involves group effort, and often times lashing out in your personal daily life can do more harm than good. THIS SUCKS. OF COURSE IT SUCKS. But it's a matter of the big picture. It's not about letting people "get away with" anything, it's about expressing disapproval in a calmer and more casual manner while trying to minimize anything they could twist into an excuse to be worse.

And that's with people who ARE actively shitty, the ones more casual and micro-aggressive about it but still ultimately against us. Lashing out pre-emptively on the assumption that people would be shitty does a lot more harm and no longterm good.

People joke about The Gay Agenda but honestly, yeah. The Agenda is ultimately for the queer community as a whole to be accepted, have the same rights and protections as anyone else, to end oppression, etc, right? Sometimes that's gonna mean dealing with being uncomfortable or uncertain or even biting your tongue in the name of forwarding the Agenda. Especially when it's literally about acceptance within our own communities. How can we reasonably expect everyone else to accept us if we're struggling to accept each other?

i don't care how uncomfortable you are around cis men, queer cis men still need places to go, and sometimes, those spaces will be shared with yours. disabled and neurodivergent queer men and queer men of color especially need a place to go. the queer community isn't the "fuck cis men" community. that is the rad fem community. if you think cis men and people who read as cis men are inherently "too scary" or shouldn't be allowed in queer spaces, you joined the wrong community.

[insomniadreamzz]

Imma go combine two requests in that one.

Request 1: i was thinking if you could write something like jinx using her shimmer speed for fucking?

Request 2: If you still take requests, and when you get a chance, could you do a G!P Jinx x fem reader? The scenario I was picturing was that they are cuddling with the reader in Jinx's lap, and the reader is sort of grinding against her as they try and reposition themselves. And they're unaware of what it's doing to Jinx and eventually Jinx has enough and and fucks the reader right then and there.

———

My good girl

Mentions of G!P, smut, rough sex, overstimulation, blowjob, bratty Reader, dom!Jinx

You finally got Jinx away from her work bench, cuddling for a while now, you straddling her lap while your head rested in the crook of her neck. You loved cuddling with her, inhaling her beautiful scent. In moments like this even Jinx was calm, not being her usual bubbly self. The only thing that you could hear was her calm breathing and feeling her hand caress up and down your back. Jinx showing affection like this is a rare thing so you enjoyed every second.

„I love you.“ You whispered, your breath tickling her a little, she pressed a kiss on your forehead. „I love you too.“ You loved hearing her say that, slightly shifting on her lap to reposition yourself a little, feeling how Jinx‘s body tensed up but she didn’t say anything yet. You did move again, your crotch grinding against hers and you leaned up to have a better view of her now, you could see her cheeks being flushed red and her expression showing a little bit of weakness. You didn’t think about anything not innocent so you didn’t really understand why she looked at you like this.

„What? You okay?“ You giggle innocently, placing a soft kiss on her lips, as you do so you shifted again. „Ngh…fine that’s enough.“ Jinx groaned as she flipped you over, now being on top of you as she pushed you into the mattress. „Don’t you think I noticed this?“ She grumbled as her hands pinned yours down, she was being serious but you still didn’t get it. „Noticed what? We were cuddling.“ You mentioned and she let out a little sigh before pressing her clothed crotch against yours, making you feel her bulge.

Your cheeks instantly heat up, surprised by her getting excited so fast. „I-…I didn’t think you would get that hard because of a little shifting.“ Your words made her grunt, rolling her eyes annoyed. „Yea sure. You grind against me and think I won’t get hard? Nice try love, I am gonna give you what you deserve for lying to me. You know I hate being lied on.“

Even though you didn’t lie at all to her and just wanted a innocent moment with her without thinking about your own movements and what they would cause, you felt excited to see what she will do to you so you just played along with her. Telling her you didn’t do it on purpose won’t work on Jinx anyways if she is stuck in her own mindset. That’s what you learned about her very fast.

„Mhh…so you wanna put your little brat in her place?“ You just went along with the little game, not knowing what it would cause. „So? You’re so confident aren’t you? Let me fuck that confidence out of you then.“ She said with a husky voice, sitting up to remove her pants to let her hard cock free. Before you could react she grabbed you by your hair, making you sit up and shoved her cock inside of your mouth. „That’s it…use that bratty mouth on me.“ Jinx groaned as she moved her hips, letting her cock slide down your throat, making you gag a little bit on it. You tried your best to please her, letting her go all in and as fast as she wanted, your tongue swirling around her cock, hands placed on her hips to keep you up.

When she had the feeling she shut you up enough, only hearing your muffled moans and looking into your teary eyes, she decided to pull on your hair as she made you lean back a little, her cock and your mouth being connected by a string of your saliva as you looked at her beautiful pink eyes glowing of excitement. „That’s my good girl…I am not planning on giving you the pleasure to swallow it this time. I‘d rather want to make a mess out if you. Brats do deserve that.“ Her smirk was very evil, you knew that look on her face. She really meant what she said.

Jinx removed your pants and panties as well along with your shirt, wanting to have you fully exposed to her, smirking playfully as she gazed down at you, spreading your legs to see you being dripping wet for her. Your own hands move to your breasts, wanting to touch yourself but Jinx didn’t like that idea, giving you a little slap on your wet pussy which made you whine out loudly, whimpering after. „No touching. I am gonna touch you, your hands better stay away if you don’t want me to slap you again.“ She commanded you before adjusting herself properly between your legs, moving her cock inside of you deeply without a warning, making you moan out. „Ah! Fuck Jinx!“

Jinx only smirked playfully at your reaction. „Didn’t I tell you I will fuck the brat out of you?“ She didn’t wait for you to get used to her size as she started thrusting her hips inside of you, both of you ending up being a moaning mess, your tummy making a little bulge each time she thrusted into you made her know she was just hitting the right spot. Her eyes started glowing a lot again, a sign that showed whenever she used her shimmer which made her thrust into you in a inhuman speed, making you moan uncontrollably as your legs clenched around her, reaching your orgasm as your juices spilled all over her cock.

Jinx didn’t think of stopping yet, throwing her head back as she moaned out loudly, little strings of pink light following her eyds as she moved her head back. „J-Jinx! Stop!…I-I can’t-…ahh!“ You try to beg her to stop feeling overstimulated, not even able to form proper words, your whimpering moans cutting of your words. Jinx loved everything about this, looking down at you with such a needy gaze, you were wondering how she could keep herself from cumming.

„Naw…I am sure you can baby. You are my good girl. You can take it.“ She encouraged you, still pounding into you hard and fast, filling up the room with lewd wet sounds. Your juices helping her to slide in even more easier. „Hnng! You are so good for me, taking my punishment so good huh? Yes that’s it, good girl, my good girl.“ She groaned in between her moaning, biting her lower lip, a sign she was close and so were you, cumming again with a whine, your legs trembling underneath her, arching your back, tears of pleasure running down your eyes and finally Jinx reached her high as well, pulling out to cum on your lower tummy, making a mess out of you. „God…so sexy for me…“ She mumbled under her breath, jerking herself off on you before she leaned down, running her tongue along your wet folds, tasting your juices mixed together, feeling you twitch when her tongue reached your clit.

Jinx was satisfied for now, seeing you all done as you are still not ready to form words, being out of breath. „Next time don’t be so bratty and I will cum inside you instead~“ She said with her usual playful voice like she didn’t just dominate you and fucked you breathless.

She positioned herself back beside you, pulling you close to her chest as she began to be her soft, loving self again towards you, whispering so softly to you. „You’re mine, remember that.“ You just nod, feeling your body already feeling sore and she knew that, keeping you close to her until you both eventually fall asleep in each others arms.

[adragonprinceswhore]

Celebratory Dinner

Aemond Targaryen x Girlfriend!Reader

Summary: Aemond wants to try something new for your one year anniversary.

Warnings: 18+, AFAB reader, she/her pronouns, fluff, lovestruck Aemond, oral (f. & m. receiving), 69, spanking, manhandling, rimming (f. receiving)

A/N: This is straight up porn lmao. A request by anon from last December, enjoy! 🩵

Word Count: 1800

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

“What time did you say we have reservations?”

Observing your reflection, an annoyed huff leaves your lips as you try to pin your hair back for what feels like the 50th time.

Uncooperative, it seems like your locks stubbornly refuse to wield into the style you have in mind.

Fuck it.

You throw the pin into the sink and sigh loudly, hands coming up to harshly unravel your hard work.

Before you get the chance to do more damage, Aemond appears behind you and gently places his hands over yours,

“In 30 minutes”

He leans to the side and picks up the hair pin you’d thrown into the sink.

“Let me help you”, he says softly, inspecting your hair before sliding the pin between your strands to effortlessly accomplish what you’d spent a good 10 minutes fussing over.

You roll your eyes when the cocksure smirk you’ve come to expect appears in the mirror.

“You’re insufferable”, you mumble, inspecting your hair. He had a habit of being unexplainably talented whenever he tried something out, especially tasks that required him to work with his hands. It was equally enchanting and infuriating.

“You love me”, is all he retorts. He’s still standing behind you, watching you through the mirror with an intense glint in his eye, “You look beautiful”

He ducks his head down to press a kiss to your cheek while his hands grabbing your hips. You lean back against him, smiling as you regard the pair of you in the mirror.

One year today.

When you first met Aemond, he didn’t give the best impression with his stern demeanour and one-worded answers. But as you got to know him better, you soon learned that his stoic appearance merely worked as a façade for him to hide behind. He doesn’t hide from you anymore.

“What kind of place is it? Dornish?”, you ask as Aemond places kisses down the side of your neck.

He hums in reply, lips refusing to leave your skin.

“Did your mum recommend it?”, you tease, knowing that anytime you two ventured outside of the regular rotation of restaurant Aemond deemed worthy a visit, it was by the influence of his mother.

You feel him smile against your skin, and it’s all the confirmation you need. The hands on your hips begin to caress your sides slowly as his mouth moves down to your exposed shoulder.

“So, celebratory dinner. What about the rest of the evening?”, you ponder aloud as Aemond’s attention stays on exploring your softness with his lips.

“I have a few ideas”, he murmurs, mouth coming up to nibble at your ear, “But I prefer showing you over telling you”

You feel a bolt of excitement travel through your body at the thought. He’s ridiculously skilled at rendering you a wanting mess, and the brief attention he’d offered you now had already left the apex of your thighs delightfully sticky. Maybe there’s time for a quick pre-dinner treat?

You push your ass against him, slightly wiggling your hips in provocation, hoping he’ll take the bait.

He does. Aemond traps you in the embrace of his strong arms as he roughly pulls your body against his, the hard proof of his arousal pushing against your backside.

“You want me to show you right now?”, he lowly inquires against the shell of your ear, and the sudden husky tint to his voice sends you deeper into the trenches of desire.

You grind your ass against him in reply, head rolling back to rest against his shoulder. You tilt your head slightly to the side, careful not to ruin the styling Aemond had helped you achieve.

Impatient, a state you often find yourself in around your partner, you start pulling at the form-fitted evening dress you’re wearing, visions of him taking you against the vanity unit flashing before your eyes. Even after being together for a full year, the effect he has on you is potent, if not a little worrying.

Aemond’s hands find yours as he once again restricts their movement, grabbing your wrists in one hand as the other moves down to land a smack against your still covered ass.

“We’re not celebrating our anniversary with a quick fuck in the bathroom”, he chides, voice low and still calm, “Get on the bed”

You feel giddy with excitement as you rush out of the bathroom, moving to quickly sit on the cotton-clad duvet adoring the bed.

Aemond’s right behind you. His fingers move swiftly to undo the buckle of his belt while his gaze stays trained on you. The familiar clink of metal makes your core clench in anticipation as you look up at him, now standing right in front of you. You’re determined to get him as worked up as you are; to balance out the power.

Your hands come up to assist him, grabbing the belt buckle and pulling the leather band out of the belt loop. Your expression is innocent enough, voice overly sweet as you look up at him and ask, “Can I suck you off, baby?”

Your rousing proves successful. Aemond’s jaw tightens, one eyebrow rises as the corner of his mouth slightly twitches to fight off a smirk.

“Why should you have all the fun?”, he questions as he gestures for you to move further up the bed. You comply, allowing Aemond to manoeuvre your position so it is to his liking. He places you on your side, surprising you by lifting one of your legs and laying his head down on your thigh, facing your core.

He revels in your softness for a moment, nuzzling the smooth skin of your inner thigh before pressing trailing kisses up to your centre, teeth biting into the flimsy fabric of your lace thong, moving it to the side.

He wastes no time in devouring you, diving into the apex of your thighs without restrain. The tip of his pointed nose pushes pleasure from your swollen clit out through your entire being, causing you to moan his name and arch your back, pushing yourself further into his face.

He brings a large hand up to grab the flesh of your ass, encouraging your previous movement. His tongue comes out to swipe over your bundle of nerves in confident strokes, and when you let your hips absentmindedly rock against his face, he moans unabashedly into your heat.

Eye-level with his crotch, you watch as his length strains against his trousers in neglect.

Your fingers move skillfully to undo the buttons, releasing his cock with one swift motion before indulging as quickly as your lover had, tongue collecting the pearly proof of arousal from his red tip.

Aemond moans again as you take him into the warm wetness of your mouth, letting your tongue explore the veins of his cock. His hips begin to match yours; both of your bodies moving in a slow rhythm as you give and take pleasure.

His tongue finds your entrance, slightly stretching you out as it searches for that special spot inside you that makes you see stars. Aemond finds it in seconds, erupting a choked moan from you, causing you to vibrate around him, eliciting a moan from him.

Aemond, set on having you peak before him, continues to fuck you with his tongue as the sharp point of his chin bullies your clit. Though the build up is exquisite, it is nothing compared to the peak that he suddenly pulls from you, causing the muscles of your thighs to press against the sides of his head as your walls capture his tongue like a vice.

Any attempts at pleasuring him falter as you're consumed by electric satisfaction, senses fully consumed. You selfishly throw your head back in pleasure, neglecting his aching want as you cry out your own.

Aemond’s face moves away from you as well, looking down to observe your bliss-filled features. He’s breathing heavily, face flustered pink and wetness adoring almost every bit of skin visible.

“Turn over”, he commands breathlessly, manhandling you so that you lay on your stomach before you even have a chance to oblige on your own accord.

He impatiently moves his hands over your pliant body, grabbing your ass in an instruction for you to keep it in the air.

Pleasure is still ebbing inside of you, yet you try your best to yield to his silent command, weak legs folding underneath you so that he can access your backside.

He swipes two fingers through your folds, making your body jerk slightly in overstimulation as they grace your clit before sliding inside you, finding your sweet spot instantaneously yet again.

He’s really learned every single way to give you pleasure; either as an act of love or ownership.

His fingers move slowly, clearly on a mission to steal another peak from you, while you’re still basking in the bliss of the first one. He moves towards the exposed cheek of your ass, teasingly biting the smooth flesh, soothing it with a kiss as you yelp in surprise at the sting.

“You taste so good, baby”, he praises you, “so fucking perfect for me”

You close your eyes and push your flustered face into the duvet on the bed as you feel Aemond’s tongue swipe over your ass, moving closer to the cleft, leaving teeth marks and saliva in his wake.

Your hands fist the bedding next to you as his tongue moves closer to your puckered hole, gently caressing the sensitive skin surrounding it.

His fingers persistently bully the most responsive spot inside you and paired with the slow movements of his tongue, you’re consumed by another forceful orgasm.

You cry out, voice muffled against the bed. Your walls contract rhythmically against Aemonds finger as he works you through the high, moaning loudly behind you. You’re almost certain he’s climaxed too by the sounds of his ragged breath behind you. It shouldn’t surprise you, there’s nothing he loves more than having you at his mercy.

A giggle escapes you, muffled by the duvet your face is still pressed against. You don’t have to lift your head to know that Aemond’s crooking an eyebrow at your unexpected laugh, and before he has a chance to ask, you tell him,

“I think you’ll have to fix my hair again”

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

[loveandpeaceanddoughnuts]

after hours, a fluffy husband!Nanami oneshot

an: this one goes out to all the babes working through the holidays, in all forms<3

“Working late again, my love?” Nanami wrinkled his brow as he looked over your shoulder at the computer screen. “Is this the same project you’ve been working on all week?”

You rolled your neck, trying to ease some of the tension, and he took it as his cue to begin gently massaging your shoulders. “Yeah, it is,” you sighed. “I tried to tell my boss we should’ve started this months ago, but they ignored it until this week. Now I’ve got to get it all done by an impossible deadline.” You jabbed at the button to lower the brightness on your monitor. Your eyes stung, and it only frustrated you more. “It sucks.”

Nanami kept kneading your shoulders as he listened, softly pressing down when they rose up to your ears as you vented. “That sounds awful. They should have listened to you.”

“Mhm. But it doesn’t matter now, I still have to fix their problem.”

“There’s no one else that can do this? Or at least help?”

“Ha, no one else who can do it right, or on time.” You shrugged his hands off, ignoring the way it made him frown. “I’ll be working late tonight. Don’t stay up waiting for me, okay? Only one of us should have to suffer.”

He hummed dismissively. “I don’t think so. I’m keeping you company, at the very least.” He pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “You know how I feel about overtime.”

“It’s shit?”

“Exactly. I’ll be back in a moment.” 

You slumped in your chair and scrolled through a few more pages of documentation as Nanami clattered around the kitchen. When he reappeared in the doorway, he was holding two mugs of tea, with a book tucked under his arm. Your softest pair of sweatpants were draped over his shoulder. 

“What’s all this, Kento?”

He set the tea at your elbow and held out the sweatpants with a crooked smile. “Trying to help a little.” He knelt down in front of your chair. “Will you let me?”

You nodded and let your head fall back on the chair as he pulled off your trousers, your scowl easing just a bit. Kento’s touch was gentle and warm, chased by light kisses. He slid your comfy sweatpants on, smiling as you lifted your hips to let him work them up to your waist. “There we go. Better?”

“Much,” you conceded. He lifted your bare foot and pressed a kiss to the arch, like Prince Charming doting on Cinderella. But instead of a glass slipper, he adorned you in fuzzy socks.

Nanami didn’t give you a chance to protest as he pulled a chair up beside you and settled in, one hand resting firmly on your thigh. “We’ll see this through together, alright?” He opened the book he had brought in and began to read. 

His silent support made the work go faster. Though it was a miserable slog, leaning your head on his shoulder or feeling his hand in your hair reminded you that there were better things waiting for you when the work was done.

True to his word, Nanami stayed up as late as you did, microwaving your tea, massaging your aching shoulders, and murmuring words of encouragement until your monster of an assignment was vanquished. You sent your last email and slammed the laptop shut with a triumphant grin, and he scooped you up in his arms. "You're incredible. My wife, the genius. My brilliant- what is it you say?" he stopped to think for a moment. "Corporate baddie."

You burst into a fit of laughter. "Where are you taking me?"

"To a well-earned rest, my love." You smiled into his chest, feeling a familiar heat between your legs, his sweetness and strong embrace making you want to feel the rest of your him, to reward him for his patience...

Despite your grand plans, you were half-asleep by the time he reached the bedroom. He laid you gently in bed and set to work wiping the makeup from your face with a reusable cloth- he wasn't new at this. "This" being taking care of you- by far the most important responsibility in his mind.

He accepted the half-asleep kisses you pressed to his lips between mumbled promises of what you'd do to him tomorrow, in thanks.

"As lovely as it sounds, at least I think," he teased, "I don't need to be rewarded for caring for you. I seem to remember saying some vows to that effect..."

You shushed him with another kiss, already drifting off beside him. Exactly where you belonged.