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void-of-unparalled-chaos · 4 months

Text

Slap a Bow on It

"Contrary to popular belief, Danny wasn’t stupid. He could be a bit oblivious, but he always got there in the end. So when Danny woke up the next morning and realized that last night wasn’t a dream, he had an epiphany. He was being courted by the super hot and apparently undead crime lord who ran the haunt on the other side of the street."

@deadonmayn Day 1: Courting Rituals | Flickering | Dinner is interrupted by a rogue/gang fight | "Are they gone yet?"

TW: Danny is thirsty as hell, mentions/allusions to nsfw but nothing explicit

AO3 Link

Danny blinked.

He could only assume that the crime lord, illuminated purely by the light of the fridge in the otherwise dark apartment, blinked back. The helmet didn't give anything away, red plating and slanted eye whites impassive. Good for being sexy menacing. Not so good for reading emotions.

Danny blinked again, wiping the rheum from his eyes with pinched fingers. He squinted once more at Red Hood, who for some reason was in his apartment at - Danny glanced at the clock - three in the morning. He seemed perfectly content to be digging through Danny’s fridge, if a little sheepish at being caught.

He should probably be more angry that his apartment was broken into. He absolutely was when he first woke to the uncomfortable feeling of an uninvited guest in his lair, but after seeing the vigilante’s arms laden with food his metaphorical hackles relaxed. The apartment was shitty anyway.

If anything, Danny was confused as to why he was here judging his fridge’s contents and playing Tetris with tupperware. It wasn’t like they knew each other.

Danny blinked a third time just to really make sure he was seeing what he was seeing, "...Hi?"

"Hey," Red Hood unfroze, seemingly recovered from being caught, and resumed stuffing what looked like a container of tamales into his fridge.

Danny couldn’t help but feel sullen at the dismissal. He'd woken up only for the admittedly hot trespasser with thick thighs to barely glance at him. Unacceptable.

"Do you want anything to drink?" Danny must have been momentarily possessed by the ghost of Midwestern manners with how urgent the offer seemed.

"Nah," Red Hood stuffed another container into the fridge, turning to look back at Danny, "You don't have any allergies, do you?"

"Nah."

Red Hood nodded, pulling out a bag of rotten lettuce. He held it away from himself like it might try to bite him. In Danny’s experience, it very well could.

“Do you ever clean out your fridge?”

Danny shrugged, “It’s finals week. I’ve got to keep my GPA above 3.5 if I want to keep my scholarship. No chores. Only study.”

Red Hood nodded solemnly as he threw the lettuce into the trash, “No chores. Only study.”

They fell into silence. Danny watched as the crime lord sifted through his fridge, pulling out rotten food as he went. “Is this because I decked that mugger? Cause’ he deserved it.”

Red Hood very pointedly threw the expired milk carton into the trash can.

“Okay then…” Danny yawned, “Well if that's all I’m going back to bed.”

“Kay.”

Danny shrugged, turned on his heel, and left the crime lord to rifle through his kitchen.

___👻___

When Danny awoke the next day, he was greeted by a clean apartment. The absence of crumbs on the freshly swept floor felt odd on his feet, although it was certainly much more pleasant. The trash had been taken out and a new bag had already been installed. He passed by the sink on the way to make coffee, the dishes that had been filling it suspiciously absent.

Danny would deny to the ancients and back that his knees went weak when he found the coffee maker already set and filled with grounds... his sister must never know.

As he waited for the cup to brew, he opened his fridge for creamer only to come face to face with more home cooked food than he’d ever seen in his life. Danny pulled the food out plastic container by plastic container to stare at in disbelief. Tamales, chicken mole, Mexican rice, enchiladas, and carne asada… It was only a handful of containers, but still. It wasn’t as if his parents had done much in the way of cooking with all their time spent in the lab. Jazz could throw together something basic but nothing like this.

The local hot crime lord slash vigilante had broken in at three in the morning to feed him and clean his apartment. Huh.

No time to think about that. He has a final on differential equations in five hours and minimal time to cram. Danny stirs the creamer into his coffee, heats up some Mexican rice, and sits down at the untouched mess of notebooks, paper, and textbooks on his kitchen table.

He studies until he has to leave for the exam, only getting up to refill his coffee and get more food. The tamales are pretty fricken good, but they make it hard to focus on the numbers scribbled across his notebook. It’s like each bite is urging him to go back into the kitchen and cook, which is odd considering that Danny can’t cook and he already has enough food to last him through the next day or two (courtesy of the sexy crime lord).

He leaves the exam room feeling good only for his mood to immediately crumble when he remembers that he has an aerodynamics final at eight the next morning followed by gasdynamics at one. He takes a brief break to faceplant on the table, scream, refill his coffee for the umpteenth time, and eat some more food but inevitably resigns himself to pulling an all-nighter. Time becomes liquid after that. It’s all just a blur of numbers and properties and instructional videos.

At some point, he registers another presence in the apartment. Danny recognizes the ecto signature from the night before so he pays it no mind. Let Hood poke around, Danny has to read more about Newton’s Third Law. What was he going to do? Feed him again?

The answer was apparently yes.

The background noise of shuffling in the fridge and washing empty containers stops and is replaced by soft, mechanical-sounding breaths. Hood is standing next to him, plastic container in hand as he watches Danny run through the Quizlet on his laptop.

Danny’s got around eighty percent of the terms memorized. Just another twenty percent to go. He types in the answer for a new blank.

Red Hood pokes his shoulder.

Danny grumbles. His response came back wrong.

His shoulder is poked again.

Danny ignores it and moves on to the next blank.

He continues unbothered for an uncertain amount of time. The words on the screen are blurry like he is trying to read underwater. His mouth splits into an entirely too wide, jaw-cracking yawn. His uninvited guest coos at him as Danny rubs at his eyes. The next thing he knows, his laptop is shut closed and moved away. It feels like any and all visual processing is delayed. Danny stares blankly at the spot the computer used to sit.

Something slides in front of him to replace the laptop. His core chirps when he realizes it's food. Hood’s answering chirp as he guides a fork into his hand is deep and rumbly with the faint stutterings of a purr. Danny starts to purr in return as he sleepily munches on the casserole.

Before long the empty plate is taken away. Danny slumps down on the newfound table space and tries to fight off sleep.

“I think it's time for you to go to bed.”

“Noooooo! I’v gotta study fr' aero’namics.”

“You’re slurring your words there, handsome.”

Danny’s sleep-deprived brain screeched to a halt. His core chirped to attention, “Flat’ry ain’t gettin’ you nowhere.”

“It was worth a shot.”

Danny smushed his face further into the wood to hide his blush and distracted himself by blindly reaching for his coffee mug. Upon noticing, the vigilante moved it out of reach. Danny whined into the table.

“You can’t overwork yourself like this, Danny,” Red Hood carried the mug to the sink and poured it down the drain. Cruel, cruel man. “I know you’ve got exams but your scores won’t be any good if you go into them like this. You've got to take care of yourself,” He lightly squeezed Danny’s shoulder. Danny hadn’t even heard him move across the kitchen. “Can you do that, darlin’? For me?”

Danny groaned, “F’ne. But only cause’ ur hot.”

The vigilante snorted. It sounded odd through the helmet but not bad. “I’m happy to hear it! Now let's get you to bed.”

___👻___

Contrary to popular belief, Danny wasn’t stupid.

He had been helping his parents in the lab since he was four, and he was nearly a straight-A student before the accident. He was an aerospace engineering major with a hefty GPA of 3.8, and most importantly, he’s had extensive lessons on ghosts, the Infinite Realms, and their culture.

He could be a bit oblivious, but he always got there in the end.

So when Danny woke up the next morning and realized that last night wasn’t a dream, he had an epiphany. The thought kept running through his head as he stared at the food in the fridge, the clean apartment, and the prepped coffee maker.

He was being courted.

He was being courted by the super hot and apparently undead crime lord who ran the haunt on the other side of the street.

Danny had never been courted before!

Sure, occasionally there was someone who tried to shoot their shot, but it always fell flat in the end. It was an unfortunate side effect of being undead. Every human relationship he had felt… lacking. Like it was missing something.

Val had come pretty close. All the fighting and shooting felt like a mimicry of ghostly courtship behavior. It's what had drawn Danny to her in the first place, but Val wasn’t fighting him in a display of power and capability. She had genuinely wanted to end him.

There was also the incident with Kitty, but she was overshadowing Paulina and mimicking human behaviors. There was never any ghostly courtship involved, and besides, she was only dating him to make Johnny jealous.

This is Danny’s first time being properly courted!

What is he going to do about it?

He decided that the question could wait until after finals.

The next few days pass by much the same as before: a tortuous cycle of studying, caffeine, minimal sleep, screaming, and exams. Red Hood continues to stop by and deliver food. Danny has got to figure out the dude’s actual name or a nickname or something. He refuses to keep calling his potential partner Red Hood. When you take away the scary crime lord persona it just sounds like a condom brand. He could always use a pet name, but it feels wrong given that Danny hasn’t shown much reciprocation outside of allowing Hood into his lair. Instead, Danny settles on greeting him with a trill and a series of chirps.

As soon as he finishes his last final he flops face down into bed. Tomorrow he’ll get to work on reciprocating Red Hood’s efforts. His kitchen is blessedly clean of any ecto contamination. Without the food fighting back, he should be able to whip up something presentable. How hard could following a recipe be?

___👻___

Danny was wrong.

Staring at the stove which was somehow on fire, Danny couldn’t help but finally understand why Jazz had never allowed him in the kitchen. He quickly rushes to turn off the heat. Danny doesn’t have a fire extinguisher. He’s a broke college student with just enough money to live on the outskirts of Crime Alley. Why would he ever be able to afford a fire extinguisher?

Danny slams a lid over the pot to smother the flames erupting from it and wacks the stovetop with a damp towel. As the fire dies down he glares at the somehow burnt gnocchi sitting ever so innocently in boiling water. He probably could have just iced it. The ice would melt into water and put out the fire, right?

He takes another look at the ruined food as the bubbles die down and decides he’s probably just cursed. Not all hope is lost though, Danny reasons as he dumps the ruined gnocchi down the garbage disposal. So Italian cuisine was not his forte. That’s okay! He’ll just try a different recipe!

___👻___

The recipe said quick and easy.

This was neither quick nor easy.

He dumped the carbonized remains of food into the trash with a sigh. It was French toast! How could someone go so wrong with French toast? The kitchen looked like something had exploded in it for ancients’ sake!

Danny thunked his head onto the counter, uncaring of the milk and eggs coating it. An entire loaf of bread gone and not a single edible piece of toast to show for it! He groaned. Maybe he just… wasn’t cut out for this whole courting thing.

Dejectedly, he lifted his head and began to wipe down the counter with paper towels. He really liked Hood.

He was funny! While he mostly left Danny alone during his study sessions, Danny had seen the viral videos. Hood knew how to crack a good death joke, and the compilations of him ragging on Batman were something to aspire to.

He cared for people! The sponsored soup kitchens and homeless programs were an open secret in Crime Alley, and the working girls were paid well. The street kids knew they were safe in the Alley because anyone who tried to touch them would end up with their head in a duffle bag. Red Hood protected them.

And ancients was he hot! Thick thighs for days and strong arms that could probably lift Danny like a couple of grapes. Danny wouldn’t mind being thrown around by a guy like that. He would happily let him pin him to a wall and box him in and then Danny could sink his fangs into his shoulder and then-

Okay! Stop! Too far! That’s awfully ambitious for someone who can’t even cook a proper courting gift. Think, Danny, Think!

Okay… okay. So he can’t cook. That’s fine because Danny can build. He’s been building things since he was practically a toddler. He can make something easy peasy!

What about a gun? Red Hood seemed to like guns. Danny’s core purred at the idea. If he had to guess, the vigilante had a protection obsession of some sort. A gun was something that could protect Red Hood but also be used to protect others in his haunt and directly feed into his obsession. Yes! The gun idea was good.

But then again, Hood had been working with Batman more and more frequently, and with that had been using guns less and less. How often could the gun be used? No, no. This courting gift should be usable in all scenarios.

What about a knife? Yes! A knife could work! As far as Danny knew, Batman didn't have anything against knives. Surely a knife paled in comparison to Robin's katana. A knife was sneaky and quiet, good for stealth missions unlike a gun, and easier to carry for everyday use.

Danny hummed, nodding to himself. He’d do the knife first and save the gun for later. He was going to need supplies.

Danny wiped the dripping egg away from his forehead before it could get into his eyes. But first, he was going to need a shower.

___👻___

So…

It could’ve gone worse.

Despite basically being raised reverse-engineering his parents’ inventions, Danny had never tried to make a knife. He could gut a microwave from the local back alley dumpster and Macgyver it into a functioning weapon, but building a makeshift forge on short notice and hammering steel down into a smooth curve was a whole different ballpark. Luckily the local trade school had a forge, and after some good old-fashioned bribery, they allowed Danny access. That was the first problem out of the way. Unfortunately, the second problem remained. It was fine. Danny was used to thinking on his feet.

After many YouTube videos and failed attempts Danny had a somewhat presentable blade. With a saw edge on the top and a sharp curve similar to a khukuri on the bottom, it certainly didn’t look like a beginner's design.

He probably shouldn’t have skipped straight to a more advanced shape. Danny hadn’t managed to fix the slight warp of the blade, and maybe the practice beforehand would have done him some good. Regardless, it was too late to fix it after the ecto wash, and he didn’t think the warp would affect the performance too negatively. Besides, with the ectoplasm infused into it the knife should cut through ghosts with no problem.

Danny had spent entirely too long trying to find the perfect shade of red leather for the handle, but in the end, he accurately matched it to Red Hood’s helmet. He had wanted to incorporate some protective runes into the leather, but he had no idea how to make a lasting pattern that wouldn’t affect the user’s comfort. Eventually, he decided it was an idea to be saved for another project.

With his courting gift complete, all that was left to do was break into Red Hood’s lair and give it to him…

That sounded wrong. Give the knife to him. It’s not an innuendo! Great. Now he’s thinking about those thick thighs again. Stop! Bad Danny!

He shook himself to dispel the train of thought. Danny had a different, more pressing problem to deal with: How could he present a knife to a vigilante without it coming across as a threat? He didn’t have a box for it, and the knife didn’t have a sheath yet. He could always make himself the box and store it in his chest, but watching someone pull random items out of their body was apparently gross and disturbing, or so he’d been told. What if he just-

Danny yanked open the kitchen junk drawer and began to root around. After a few seconds of sifting, he pulled out his prize and ever so gently stuck it to the knife. The green gift bow was squished on one end but remained comically large on the blade. He bounced up and down on his toes. It was so stupid that it just might work.

Feeling the cool rush of invisibility, Danny phased through the wall of his apartment to greet the early morning light beginning to peak over the buildings. Floating in the air for a minute, he absently fiddled with the bow on his courting gift. With the city starting to wake, Hood should be returning to his lair.

It didn’t take long for him to fly past the unseen territory lines and into Crime Alley. Danny had crossed through Hood’s haunt before. It had never felt aggressive like some in the Ghost Zone. Red Hood's haunt was more curious, probing with a warning to behave himself. The haunt felt different this time around. Now it felt welcoming rather than wary, warm. If Danny closed his eyes, he could almost imagine being held in a protective embrace. His core hummed in response, seeking out the other’s resonance.

Danny had never been to Hood’s lair. He hadn’t even been given directions, but he didn’t need them. He'd simply follow Hood’s ecto signature to where the haunt’s energy was most concentrated. Like the dead equivalent of a bloodhound.

Danny took his time meandering toward the heart of the haunt. He’d never been this far into Crime Alley before, and he didn’t want to get turned around. That was a lie. Danny was nervous and stalling. Doubts flew unbridled through his head.

What if the knife wasn’t good enough? What if the bow didn’t work? What if Red Hood thought he was threatening him? What if Danny blew his shot? Danny had already screwed up so many other things in his life, he didn’t want to screw this up too!

There was only so long he could stall. Jittery with nerves, Danny floated outside a decrepit apartment building. The entire structure was practically drenched in Red Hood’s ecto signature, but it radiated in waves from a unit on the top floor. Danny took a breath to steady his racing heart and struggled to quiet his core. It was now or never.

He cautiously phased halfway through the wall, chirping in greeting. The apartment was clean and orderly. The fireplace and full bookshelves gave it a homey feel that sharply contrasted with the worn and weathered bricks on the outer wall. The lack of weapons was a surprise. Even if he couldn't see them Danny figured they were still there, well hidden in the otherwise normal apartment.

A surprised sound draws his attention to the man on the couch. He’s built like a quarterback, lounging on one side as he struggles to stitch a laceration across his ribcage with a needle in one hand and a handheld mirror in the other. It's hard not to get distracted by the autopsy scar running cleanly across his collarbone and down to his pelvis. Danny wants to lick it.

Piercing blue eyes search the apartment, arm lowering the mirror. Danny is thankful that he's still invisible. With the heat flooding to his ears, he’s sure he’s as red as a tomato. Danny’s practically drooling at tousled black and white hair and the long scar reaching up from under his jaw to his hairline like a flower stretching for the sun. His crooked nose, clearly broken and healed many times over, only adds to his beauty. Red Hood is truly a modern-day Adonis.

Hood’s wounded side finally registers in Danny’s brain, rearranging his priorities and catapulting his obsession to the front. Immediately he lets his invisibility drop, absently shoving the knife into his chest for safekeeping. Hood makes a distressed sound as he does so which urges Danny forward. His hands hover worriedly over the man as he pushes as much help/comfort/safety/concern into his aura as possible.

He reaches to take the threaded needle from Red Hood’s hand only to be nudged away.

“It’s fine. I can do it myself.”

"Hood, let me help."

"Jason,” he licks his lips, “My name is Jason."

"Jason," Danny gently cups Jason’s face in his hands, "Please let me help, Jason."

Blue eyes gaze into his own. The ever-so-faint hints of green within them are captivating, swirling in a hypnotic dance that leaves Danny in a daze. Finally, Jason looks away and nods, breaking the trance between them and passing the needle over.

Danny allows himself to revert to the mindset of his vigilante days. He stitches the wound with a single-minded focus, practiced hands falling back into a familiar rhythm. Jason watches the entire time, staring intently at his face as he works. Danny struggles to keep his core quiet and pretends not to notice, taping a bandage over the cut. His fingers graze over Jason's body, checking it over for any other injuries. Jason allows it to happen with a distinct feeling of affection/amusement.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Nah. The kevlar usually prevents stuff like this. I was just unlucky.”

“Good.”

Danny runs his fingers through the white tuft in Jason’s hair, pushing the strands out of his face. His core kickstarts like an engine with a vengeance, humming and searching for Jason’s core song in anticipation. Danny squeaks, stumbling backward. He smothers the sound and quiets his core, but with the look on Jason’s face, he hadn’t been quick enough.

“Sorry!” Danny stutters out, flushing.

Jason’s expression shifts to confusion, “Why are you apologizing?”

“I’m being way too forward,” Danny drags his hands down his face in embarrassment, “We haven’t had a spar yet and fuck! I haven’t even given you your courting gift yet, but here I am! Invading your space and trying to harmonize! I’m so sorry.”

“Lucky for you I like forward,” Jason gently grasped his hands, lowering them away from his face. His palms felt warm against Danny’s skin, “Is that what you shoved into your chest earlier? A courting gift?” Jason punctuated the sentence with a gentle kiss to Danny's slow pulse.

Danny nodded, stunned. Tearing his gaze away from Jason’s lips, he reached into his chest and pulled out the knife. Jason chuckles, his eyes crinkling in mirth, “You put a bow on it?”

Danny grinned, his fangs on full display, “Well I had to make it presentable, didn’t I?”

He gets down on one knee, head bowed and knife held upwards in offering as if he were a knight presenting a sword to a king. Jason gingerly lifts it out of his hands, cradling it like a precious gem. Danny watches as his fingers trace the edge.

“It feels like you,” Jason looks to Danny for answers, eyes wide with wonder and a beautiful flush on his face.

“I wanted to make sure it was effective against ghosts, but it's hard to find enough clean ectoplasm around here. I sorta just… used my own?” Danny rubs the back of his neck with a wince, “Do you like it?”

He waits in anxious anticipation as Jason stands from the couch. Jason sets the blade gently down on the coffee table behind Danny before tugging him into his arms, “I love it, baby,” his words vibrate over a purr that Danny can feel in his bones, “Just don’t go hurting yourself for courting gifts anymore.”

Danny groaned, tucking his face under Jason’s chin. “You have no idea how much that narrows my options down.”

Jason laughs.

Danny pulls away to look up at him, lightly batting at Jason’s peck “I’m serious, Jason! I can’t cook for shit! You’re gonna need to wait a long ass time until I can get my hands on more ecto. I hope you’re ready to wait because it’s going to take me months to build that gun now!”

“You wanted to make me a gun?”

“Yeah? I was going to have one ready in the next few weeks but-”

Jason’s smile is dazzling as he leans down to press his lips to Danny’s. Danny forgets to breathe as he melts into the kiss. He’s tugged forward until they are chest-to-chest on the couch, cores close together. Danny’s not sure whose core starts to hum first, but the sound is unmistakable as they waver between pitches. Danny bites at Jason’s lips, making a pleased sound when they part for him.

It’s weird to be doing this before a spar. It’s backward, unconventional. Danny can’t find it in himself to care.

It’s a wondrous thing when their cores synchronize. Something finally clicks, like a lock snapping into place, and suddenly Danny can feel so much. The humming harmony of their cores permeates every single one of Danny’s nerves. The rush of giddy happiness is unlike anything he’s felt before. He can feel Jason, too. The rampant emotions fling between them until it's hard to tell whose is whose. In Jason’s arms with a core bond in place, Danny has never felt so secure in his life.

This. This is what he's been missing.

Danny breaks away from their kiss to nip at Jason’s jawline, paying special attention to the scar. Jason makes a pleased sound, tugging lightly at his hair.

“Your teeth are sharp as fuck.”

“Aren’t yours?”

Jason nuzzles under Danny’s shirt collar and into his shoulder. Danny shudders as he feels canines dig into his skin. They’re sharp, but not as sharp as his.

Danny giggles, pressing a kiss to Jason’s hair. “I want to see how skilled you actually are with those teeth. Once you’ve healed we can have a proper spar.”

“I’ll show you a proper spar,” Jason grumbles.

Suddenly Danny is pinned, lying on the couch with Jason’s weight on top of him. Jason kisses his cheek, tucking his head back into the crook of his neck with a contented sigh. It's like the world's best weighted blanket, Danny thinks as his eyes droop shut in relaxation.

They remain like that in silence, basking in the positive emotions and comfort of their new bond. It’s about ten minutes later that Danny finally breaks it.

“Why me?”

“Hmm?”

“Just… why court me? I know I pass through your haunt now and then but we’ve only actually seen each other like… once. What could I have possibly done to catch your attention?”

“You punched a mugger.”

“Yeah… so?”

“You knocked the fucker out in one blow before I could even lift a finger.”

“And?”

Jason lifted his head to give him a pointed look.

Danny stared back.

Oh…

Oh!

“Do you have a competency kink!?”

Jason flushed, ducking his head back down with a groan.

#Danny: You have a competence kink!#Jason: I do not have a competency kink.#Jason a few weeks later after watching Danny shoot a man with a Macgyver-ed microwave: Fuck... do I have a competency kink?#I'm not actually sure if this leans more toward a T rating or an M rating and I would appreciate input #Slap a Bow on It #deadonmayn24 #my writing #dpxdc #dead on main #dom24d1

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flamingpudding · 5 months

Note

do you still take requests? if you do can you write your take on this idea https://www.tumblr.com/ilydana/746501696852819968/cloneclonedbatman?source=share

Thanks for the Ask! That's is an interesting one!

Also as long as I can write something to it I don't mind getting requests, if I can't I will let people know if I can. So no worries about that K?

Out of courtesy and because I believe its is the right thing to do here the Link and a Tag to the original writer @ilydana I hope you don't mind that I am taking inspiration from you for this.

Also I don't know Conners Timeline well and I like to base my writings on the Wayne Family Adventures settings so.... yea sorry if I got some facts wrong....

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Clone double Wamy

Thinks were never easy for the Waynes, Bruce realised that when he sat in the meeting room. Usually he would have confronted his best friend in a more private setting, like when it was just the two of them or only Diana with them. But his best friend had been grating on his nerves with this for a while now. Bruce had honestly believed Clark had gotten better with the whole Clone thing but apparently he hadn't.

"All I am saying is that Conner is a person and to stop referring to him as 'it'." Bruce wasn't sure what had this brought on but maybe it was also having listened to his own kids rants about the way Conner had been and sometimes still was treated by Clark. Usually when someone called his friend out on it he would laugh awkwardly and say it was a slip of the tongue. That he still wasn't completely used to the idea of having a clone.

It's been years and Bruce wasn't buying that excuse anymore.

Well his persistent nagging had now caused this petty fight in front of everyone. He knew his children present, Dick and Tim, would have his back as well as most of their friends. But he also knew that those that prefer to keep the peace would try to argue in Clarks favor to sweep this hole problem under the rug once more.

"You don't get what it is like to be cloned or how long it takes to get used to it!"

His eye twitched under his cowl, he could also feel his kids tense up, especially Tim. His entire family had expirence when it came to cloning. The number of labs from the LoA they had shut down and destroyed was a testament to it. But there was one thing his entire Family aside from Alfred didn't know either.

"I actually do."

He stated calmly watching Clarks reaction as he stared unwaveringly at his best friend. He could see the colour drain, the paling and the pure look of disbelief he was getting, while Nightwing and Red Robin stood up to stand behind him with crossed arms. They probably thought he was referencing the time they had to fight Damian's Clones that sadly couldn't be saved like Conner had been.

"What do you....?" His best friend started but wasn't able to finish his question as Bruce decided to rip the bandaid off.

"The original Bruce Wayne died before he even was one month old. My parents, unable to cope with the loss cloned the baby with the help of a pair of scientist from Illinois." If the situation was different he might have laughed into the faces the people around him were making, not very Batman like of him but it was kind of funny. Still he was thankful for the comforting hand his son, Dick, placed on his shoulder or the way his other son, Tim inched closer protectively like. These two while probably shocked still stood by his side.

"And i was not the only clone that resulted from my parents original grief."

He left it at that as he stood and left the meeting without any further explanation. Bruce had made his point clear, now the ball was in his friends court. He was thankful that his kids followed him out as he went straight to the Zeta-Tubes to return to the Batcave. He knew his kids had questions for him, but he was not willing to answer them in front of the other heroes and thankfully his kids knew that that. So they silently followed him until they were back to the cave.

"B?" Dick asked tentatively once they were back in the came.

"It is as simply as I stated. My parents grieved the loss of their original son and unable to cope they cloned their own child with the help of a pair of scientist." He reiterated his earlier statement not looking at the two at first. For a brief moment he was thankful his other kids were out and about busy with other things.

"A pair of scientists?" Tim propped further and Bruce sighed wondering how much he should tell or if he could keep some things secret.

"Family actually. Estranged but they were... are family." He nodded. "The Fentons. Jack Fenton was my fathers cousin. Because of his field of research he got estranged from the family, not fitting into the perfect image my great grandparents had in mind for the Waynes originally. My father contacted him for help regarding the cloning back then."

"You said you weren't the only one?" He gave Tim a small smile, it was just like him to catch on to the small details and focus his questions on that.

"I didn't know until many years later when my parents died." He smiled a little remembering back to his training with Lady Gotham and how she asked him if he had siblings and then proceeded to introduce him to his clone twin. Ever since then Danny had become quite the fixture in his life, a reconnected family member. Though they had needed a lot of help when it came to actually speaking with each other but that thankfully Danny's sister Jazz helped.

He couldn't help the laugh that escaped him when he noticed Dick's stare of realisation. "Uncle Danny!"

Bruce just smirked, chuckling lightly as he gave his eldest a slight nod. "Danny."

Dick was the most familiar with Danny having meet the other a couple of times when he was younger and just started out as Robin. Bruce wasn't ashamed to say that Danny and Alfred had been the two he had asked for advice the most when he had taken Dick in back then. Danny had already expirence in raising kids from an even younger age than Bruce had. That their two cousins Dan and Danielle were in a way clones too was however something he would not be telling his kids yet. Frankly it wasn't his place and honestly if Danny hadn't become as comfortable as he had with this fact over the year he wouldn't have outed his clone twin to his kids either.

"So...." Tim started, rubbing the back of his head nervously. "...what now? Not that it will change anything now but uh...."

"Nothing really? I mean if Clark still got a problem then well I guess we don't have a super uncle anymore? But hey maybe we could introduce Uncle Danny to Conner?" Dick shrugged turning to Tim.

"But that would mean we admit to Uncle Danny that B let us in in the secret and that could make things awkward and..."

"Tim you are overthinking! It will be fine!"

Bruce smiled as he watched his two sons start to argue wether or not to introduce Danny to Conner. Well even if they did Danny wouldn't mind it. In fact Bruce had kept his clone twin updated on a lot of things that happened with his work as Batman. One of the reasons was that Danny had started out in the hero business way sooner than Bruce had but also because Danny was his last resort contingency plan against everything.

His twin would probably laugh in their faces and ask why it took them so long to introduce them and then drag his own daughter to meet Conner so they could have some 'clone'-bonding time and knowing Danielle, she was going to drag Dan along and then Bruce himself too. Bruce chuckled at that thought, he also knew that if Clark doesn't clean up his act than Danny would most likely swoop in and adopt Conner right out of under Clarks nose.

Well all he had to say if it came to that was that his best friend wouldn't be able to blame anyone but himself then.

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sindar-princeling · 1 month

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LOTR Newsletter 3 Shire Drift - FAQ

Hello everyone!

Just like last year: for those of you who are already familiar with The Lord of the Rings Newsletter, this serves as an announcement that I'm doing it again; and for those who aren't - an introduction to the project :)

What is LOTR Newsletter?

I'm one of the people who subscribed to Dracula Daily in May 2022, and immediately thought, "Hey, I can do this too but with XYZ!" - XYZ being The Lord of the Rings. Because the events of LOTR also have specific dates ascribed to them, we're gonna be reading LOTR as it happened.

When does it take place?

Because of the way the beginning of LOTR is structured (read: because I don't want to leave six-month-long breaks between the first entries), we're gonna start on September 15th - a week before September 22nd, when the main events start to take place. It's also the publishing date of the Silmarillion, but that's just a fun fact for my own enjoyment.

From September 15th to September 19th, we'll read the prologue, and the fragments preceding Frodo's departure from the Shire. From September 20th, we'll be reading according to the dates in the book until April 8th. Then we'll be reading last parts of the book - which are stretched over a long time - once a week, to once again avoid lengthy breaks in delivery.

The Newsletter will last from September 15th to May 26th.

Where do I go if I want to post/talk about something related to the Newsletter with other readers?

We discuss current (and not only current) entries in the #lotr newsletter tag, and we have a Discord server set by the amazing @k-she-rambles! (I really hope this time I managed to generate a link that never expires...)

How do I subscribe?

Since the original platform I was using (TinyLetter) was shut down halfway through the second year of the newsletter, I had to figure out an alternative way to execute this project.

For the lovely people who joined the last edition of the newsletter, just a short announcement - I weighed all the pros and cons and decided to continue carrying out the newsletter the way I did after TinyLetter shut down.

For the new folks, a lengthier explanation: check out this post if you want to learn the details, but long story short: I can't send the newsletter as e-mails anymore, so instead I decided to provide you with a ready copy of the entire thing. I prepared formatted copies of the whole newsletter - September 15th to May 26th - as an .odt file, as a .pdf file, and most importantly as an .epub file, because I assume most of you are reading on your phones (if you don't already have an .epub reader, I use FBReader, and everything worked fine on my phone). At the beginning you'll find the whole table of contents with hyperlinks, so the navigation inside the document should be easy!

The MEGA folder can be accessed right here, and it's available for everyone!

In the folder linked, you'll also find a calendar file made by @none-ofthisnonsense that you can download on your phone and import into your calendar app so that all days when we read are marked in your calendar!

If you want to receive notifications about when there is an entry to read, you can also follow @is-today-a-lotr-newsletter-day and turn on notifications! This is a blog created solely for notifying you all when we're reading a new fragment of the newsletter, so all notifications you'll get will be about new entries, and nothing more. The notifications are meant to be the equivalent of sending e-mails.

Anything else I should know?

Please don't rat me out to Tolkien Estate/j, and have fun reading!

(And as a PS.: Thank you very much if you join - or join again! Last year was very tumultuous because of all the changes in the format, and I know the new way is not for everyone - but introducing more changes again felt like once more creating new chaos, so I decided to stick to a solution that mostly worked. I hope you understand!)

See you on September 15th!

#lotr newsletter #it's mine my own my precious #I'm already excited 💕#lotr #the lord of the rings

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vbecker10 · 5 months

Text

What Prank?

Laundry Day (Loki x female reader Y/N)

How Could This Not Fit?! (Loki x fem reader Y/N)

Loads of a Fun (Bucky x female reader Y/N)

Pairing: Bucky x female reader (Y/N)

Summary: You and Bucky plan a week's worth of pranks to get back at Sam for telling Bucky the toaster was voice activated. A few days in, several members of the team decide to join in on the pranks without even questioning who is behind it.

A/N: So in Laundry Day (linked above) I wrote an off hand little comment about how much laundry Bucky needed to do and it led to Loads of Fun (also linked above). In that one, I mentioned a joke Sam pulled on Bucky and based on a poll I did, people wanted Bucky to get back at him so here we are 💚

This is not the same Y/N from Laundry Day & How Could This Not Fit?!, this is a different one. Apparently a bunch of women in the Tower have the same name as you (haha sorry that's dumb but I wanted them both to be Y/N fics so here we are)

Bucky's arm settles around your waist and he pulls you closer to him on the couch as you shut your laptop. "That's everything," you tell him with a triumphant smile.

"I really appreciate all of your help with this," he tells you and you turn to look at him. "I never would have even thought to do any of this myself."

"I'm happy to help. I hate when people mess with someone I like," you respond.

"Wait, you like me?" he asks jokingly.

You hit him lightly with a pillow, "I think I've made myself awkwardly clear about that."

He laughs and takes the pillow from you easily, "I'm just checking because I like you too." He moves his hand to the back of your neck and kisses you, when he pulls away he smirks and says, "You're an evil genius, you know that right?"

You giggle, "You have no idea."

Day 1

You sit at your desk, watching the clock closely as you wait for Sam's call. Ten minutes after 8, he finally reaches out and you answer professionally, "Stark Industries Technical Support, this is Y/N, how can I help you this morning?"

"Hi Y/N, it's Sam Wilson. There's something wrong with my ID badge I think, or my entry panel maybe. I'm not sure but I can't get into my office," he tells you.

"Oh no, that's not good. I'm going to put you on hold for a few moments while I look into this for you," you tell him and he says okay. After refilling your bottle with water from the kitchen down the hall, you take him off hold. "Hi Sam, sorry that took so long. Computer is a bit slow this morning," you make up an excuse and he asks if you figured out what's wrong with his door. "Yes, looks like we need to run a quick update on your entry panel. Should be about five minutes or so," you lie easily.

"Okay, thanks," he says but you can hear the annoyance in his voice before he hangs up.

You go back to checking your emails and five minutes later, you unlock Sam's office with a smile. Your phone vibrates, alerting you to a new text from Bucky, he has gotten so much better at sending them in the last few days.

You laugh at the thought of Sam being that annoyed and send him a quick text back.

As if on cue, your office phone rings. "Hi Y/N, it's me again," he says in a defeated tone. "I can't log into my computer."

"Well aren't you having the worst luck this morning," you tell him. You pretend to type loudly so he can hear it, "Looks like your password expired. I'll set you up with a new temporary one and then you should be good to go." He tells you thanks again and you wish him luck before hanging up.

Fifteen minutes later, your phone rings a third time. "Its Sam again," he says as soon as you answer. "There's something wrong with my computer now. I can't get my email to open and all my programs are freaking out."

"Oh no... I see what the issue is," you say dramatically and he sighs over the phone. "It looks like your computer needs to do a pretty massive update." He asks you how massive and you respond, "About an hour... maybe an hour and a half."

As soon as you and Sam hang up, Pepper calls him and he immediately knows he's in for a long day. "Did you finish the reports for the briefing this afternoon?" she asks.

"Not yet, I've been having a lot of really weird tech issues today," he explains. "IT is on it but it's going to take a while to get me up and running."

"That's unfortunate," she says but there is no sympathy in her voice. "I suggest you work through lunch if needed, those reports were supposed to be on my desk last night."

"I'll get them done," he promises then hangs up. With a loud groan, he drops his head heavily on his desk.

Day 2

Sam complains to Steve and Bucky about all of his computer issues while on their way to his office. He opens the door and Bucky jokes, "Sounds like the tech gods were really pissed off at you, huh?"

"I guess, it really was the weirdest thing," Sam says shaking his head. Bucky and Steve each take a seat and Sam goes to sit behind his desk. As soon as he relaxes into his chair, the seat detaches from the base and he falls to the ground with a loud scream of surprise.

Sam gets up quickly from the floor as his friends come around to the other side of the desk. "Someone is messing with me," he declares over Bucky's laughter.

"Why would anyone do that?" he asks, trying to compose himself. "Not like you've ever pranked anyone around here and would deserve a little revenge."

"Not helpful Buck," Steve rolls his eyes. "Are you okay Sam?"

"Yea," he answers while he examines the chair. "Did you do this?"

"Me?" Bucky asks in response. "I can't even figure out how to use the toaster. How would I have broken into your office?"

Sam is obviously unconvinced and also on the right track. Last night after dinner, you unlocked Sam's office so Bucky could remove almost all of the screws from his chair. That wasn't the only prank you set in motion last night though. As per your plan, Bucky suggests they call maintenance for a new chair and get coffee while they wait.

Tony walks into the kitchen a few moments after the three of them and asks if they like the new coffee maker he just got. Sam pushes the button to make a medium size cup and turns to face him, "First time trying it out."

"Well be nice to it," Tony warns in a joking manner. "I had to lie to Pepper about how much the damn thing cost me but it's worth it for a perfect cup of-"

Tony's words are cut off my Sam swearing as the coffee begins to spill everywhere. The mug overflows and leaks all over the marble counter. Sam tries to press the off button to stop it but it continues to pour out.

"Don't hit it, just press it gently," Tony grumbles as he moves quickly towards his new favorite appliance.

"I am pressing it gently, it's not working," Sam says in a slightly panicked tone as the coffee spills onto the floor.

"How much coffee can that thing make?" Steve asks in shock as he backs up from the growing puddle.

Bucky shakes his head, his hand over his mouth to cover his laughter as he watches the scene unfold. He takes out his phone and sends you a text.

Tony unplugs the uncooperative machine from the wall and looks angrily at Sam, "Do not touch this again."

"I barely touched it this time!" he counters as he moves away from the massive mess of spilled coffee. "I told them, someone is messing with me."

You reply back after pulling up the live feed.

<🤣🤣 Bonus points for Tony being so annoyed!>

"And how would this mystery person know you were going to use the coffee maker next?" Tony asks with his arms crossed.

"I have no idea," Sam sighs, rubbing his face.

"Just get back to work," he says, "And quit being so damn paranoid."

Day 3

Your head rests against Bucky's chest, his arm holding you comfortably as you watch a movie in his room. Half way through the movie, Bucky's phone begins to vibrate on the coffee table. "Hey Sam, what's-" Bucky answers but you can hear Sam yelling faintly over him.

"Put it on speaker," you whisper and he looks at you confused. You smile and take the phone, showing him how to change the setting and he nods as the background noise becomes louder.

"I can barely hear you," Bucky says and you cover your mouth to keep quiet.

"I said, my apartment is going crazy!" Sam yells over the sound of the TV and other appliances.

"What are you talking about?" Bucky asks, his voice serious. He keeps his eyes on you and you try not to giggle.

"I don't know! I flipped the switch for the lights and the TV turned on full volume. I tried to turn it off but the remote doesn't work. The volume buttons control the air conditioner, the power button opens and closes my blinds, I even tried going in the menu but it turned on my freaking blender. How does that even happen?" he asks frantically.

"I have no idea what you want me to do," Bucky says and you shrug dramatically as if you don't know what is causing it either. "Sounds like your place is possessed," he adds. You giggle and he holds the phone away from himself to place a quick kiss on your cheek.

"I tried to call tech support but they are closed for the night," he explains. "Did you ever get the number for the woman in IT you know?"

"Who?" Bucky plays dumb.

He groans and you can hear the vacuum turn on, he must have tried another button on the reprogrammed remote. "The one you keep telling us is cute! Y/N, right? I talked to her the other day about my computer stuff," Sam says as the TV volume increases and decreases at random.

He blushes, he had forgotten he told Steve and Sam he wanted to talk to you weeks ago. "No, I chickened out of talking to her," he lies.

"Of course you freaking did!" Sam yells and you can practically hear him roll his eyes, "Screw this I'm gonna sleep in the common room tonight."

Bucky hangs up and tosses his phone back onto the table. You tap his shoulder with a smirk, "So... you think I'm cute, huh?"

He laughs, "Very." He kisses you and you lean into him as his arms wrap around you.

You curl up against him on the couch again then sit up suddenly. "What's wrong?" he asks when you get up.

You open your backpack and look over at him, "I brought my laptop... I can turn off the stuff in his room so if anyone checks, everything will be fine."

"Remind me never to get on your bad side," he laughs and you kiss him when you sit next to him again.

Day 4

Sam finishes adjusting his suit as he walks into the training room with Clint, Bucky and Scott. Tony checks a few settings on his control panel while Thor and Loki finish up their sparing session.

When the door closes Loki chuckles and turns his attention from his brother to Sam. "I heard you had quite the night," the God of Mischief smirks.

"Seriously, even Loki knows?" Sam throws his hands on the air.

"I think the whole tower knows you think you someone is pulling weird pranks on you," Scott chimes in.

"I'm not paranoid," Sam says. "Someone here is out to get me."

"That sounds like something a paranoid person would say," Loki shrugs and Thor laughs loudly at his comment.

"I don't like agreeing with Reindeer Games but he has a point," Tony jokes, ignoring the side eye from Loki at his least favorite nickname.

"Fine, whatever," Sam gives up. "Can we just get this over with?"

"Yep," Tony agrees and motions for everyone to get back a bit so Sam can spread the wings on his new gear. He puts his goggles on and turns around, checking to see that everything is in place but his focus shifts when everyone beaks out into laughter.

"What now?" Sam asks, turning back to face the group.

"Nothing, I think we all just like the new look," Bucky says with a smile.

"What the hell?" Sam exclaimes when he catches sight of the back of his wings in the windows.

Bucky snaps a picture, thankful you showed him how to do that a few days ago, and sends it to you.

You open the picture of Sam's wings covered in googly eyes of every size and color, causing you to nearly spit out your water with laughter.

Sam looks angrily at Loki, "Why are you messing with me?" He pulls down his goggles and walks over to him.

Loki scoffs, unintimidated by the Falcon and says, "If I was 'messing with you' I would have done more then put paint on your eyewear."

He turns back towards the window quickly and sees two thick black rings of paint around his eyes. "Come on! What the hell guys?" he groans.

Bucky, Scott and Clint can barely keep themselves together long enough to deny they had anything to do with this new prank.

Thor almost looks offended and asks, "How come no one assumes it was me?"

Tony pats him on the back and says, "You're not exactly known for being stealthy." He crosses his arms but nods in agreement. "Alright, now that... that whole thing is out of our systems, let's see what the new wings can do," Tony suggests, bringing everyone back to their original reason for being there.

Sam agrees and everyone moves back a bit to watch him take off. Bucky let's a small smile slip when Sam tries to turn left to circle around the room but his suit doesn't respond correctly. He grows increasingly more confused and annoyed as he discovers his controls are reversed.

He lands after only a few minutes and Clint asks, "First time flying? That was rough to watch."

"Shut up," he answers, fiddling with the computer on his wrist as Tony walks over.

"I'll get this thing debugged and we can try again tomorrow, Tony tells him. He nods and leaves with a loud sigh. Bucky and Steve turn to leave as well but Bucky catches Clint and Scott nodding proudly to each other. He chuckles when he spots a googly eye stuck to Scott's shoe.

Day 5

"I am so over this," Sam tells Steve and Bucky as the walk towards the kitchen. "When I find out who is doing all of this they better apologize like hell cause I'm furious," he threatens and Bucky practically bites his tongue to stay quiet.

His phone chimes in his pocket and says, "New text message to Director Nicholas Fury."

"Shut up," he says as he takes his phone out of his pocket.

It chimes again, "Texting, 'shut up'."

"No, no, no! Cancel, cancel," he says, frantically hitting buttons but none of them work to stop it.

"Text message sent," it alerts him with another chime and he rubs his face.

"What the heck was that?" Steve asks.

"I don't know... It's been doing that all day," he says. "I talked to Y/N and she said she is going to have a new phone sent up to me as soon as Stark approves it."

"Y/N, the woman Bucky likes-" Steve starts to ask with a smile but he's interrupted.

"New text message to Tony Stark," his phone says.

"I hate you," he tells the phone as he tries to turn it off.

The phones responds, "Texting, "I hate you'."

He groans and Bucky begins to lose the battle to hold back his laughter. "What is wrong with you?" Sam struggles with the device.

"Texting, 'What is wrong with you?'" it again repeats Sam.

"Stop talking to it," Steve suggests.

"Texting, 'Stop talking'," the phone adds and Steve cringes. "Text message sent."

"I'm gonna get fired," he says and slumps against the wall.

"Finding instructions on how to make fire," it says as if that is helpful.

His phone chimes to alert him to an incoming text message. "Oh good... it's Tony," he says sarcastically.

"Could be worse," Bucky says with a smile and Sam looks up at him skeptically.

His phone chimes again. "It's Fury," he says with a loud sigh.

Bucky laughs, "See, now it's worse." Steve smacks him in the shoulder and shakes his head disapprovingly but Bucky can see the smile on his face.

Later that night, most of the team is relaxing in the common room until Sam walks in angrily. He slams his laundry basket on the coffee table in front of Natasha, Clint and Wanda. Loki looks up from his book in the corner of the room and Bucky follows Steve in from the kitchen.

"Who did it?" Sam asks.

"Oh, what horrible prank where you the victim of this time?" Loki asks with a smirk as he gets up from his seat.

He pulls out his bedsheets which are all different shades of pink, "Which one of you did this? These were new."

Bucky takes out his phone and quickly finds your chat. You text him back, showing the picture of the pink sheets to your friends who joined you for dinner.

<Omg, they did not!? That's amazing 🤣🤣 I can't believe other people joined in like this>

Nat giggles and says, "I don't know but it is a really nice color."

Steve calmly says, "It might not have been on purpose. Someone probably forgot a red shirt or something in the machine."

"No, this is definitely on purpose," he argues with Steve. "I'm going to find out who is doing this."

He grabs the basket and leaves the room angrily. Bucky doesn't watch him leave, he's too focused on Wanda winking at Nat.

Day 6

Sam sits at the far end of the large oval table in the conference room, fuming with his arms crossed.

Loki smiles wide as he takes a seat next to him. He leans close and asks, "What seems to be the trouble today?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Sam responds.

Loki doesn't give up and says, "I think you should share with the team, it might make you feel better. Besides, I'm sure we're all curious as to why you are so annoyed this morning."

Before he can reply, Fury walks into the briefing room. He slams the door shut, which gets everyone's attention at once. He stands in the front of the room, covered in glitter as he glares at Sam. "We need to talk Wilson," he tells him.

"I didn't..." he stands slowly. "You don't think I did that?"

"You left your ID badge on my desk," he holds it up by the lanyard. Sam looks at him in shock then pats his pants and jacket as if it will suddenly appear on his person.

Loki laughs so hard, he slaps the desk and says, "This is the best week I have had in decades. I don't think I've been this entertained since humans celebrated the first April Fools Day."

Sam looks at Loki and then back to Fury, "It has to be him. Do you really think I would be stupid enough to glitter bomb you and leave my ID badge?"

"I have already told you, I have not participated in your torment," Loki says. "I am merely enjoying it."

Thor adds, "Trust me, if it was my brother, he would not deny it."

"Fine, so it's not him but it's one of you," Sam looks around the room at the full table.

Fury stands unconvinced at the front of the room, his arms crossed against his chest. "You have until the end of the day to pick up every single piece of glitter," he tells Sam then he takes a seat at the head of the table to start the meeting.

Loki whispers to Sam, "I must admit, I'm really beginning to like whoever is doing this to you."

Sam rolls his eyes and says, "Oh this person you like? I thought you hated all 'humans'."

Loki corrects him, "I am generally indifferent towards your existence, that's not quite the same as hate."

"I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or not," Sam says and Loki shrugs in response.

Day 7

Sam wanders into the kitchen in the morning, yawning from lack of sleep. He had stayed up most of the night trying to figure out who was behind all of the pranks. He assumed most of the team could have done the laundry prank or googly eyes but he didn't know anyone with the tech skills to pull off the other ones.

He stops short when he sees you and Bucky together, he stands behind you with his arms around your waist. You look up at him and kiss his cheek before you notice Sam.

Sam is confused and says, "Wait are you guys together? I thought you said you didn't talk to her..."

Bucky smirks and says, "Oh yeah, I guess I lied."

"How long..." you can see him trying to figure out if you had been together long enough to aid in his pranking.

You smile at his confusion and ask, "Wanna see something cool?" He shrugs, still processing your relationship. "Bucky told me the new toaster is voice activated."

"Oh shit," Sam slowly starts to realize what set off this whole chain reaction of pranks. "Bucky, it was just a joke. It's not actually voice activated, you know that right?"

You smile and say, "Oh, then how come this happens?" You push the button on your phone inside your pocket and say, "Toast." A few seconds later, two perfectly toasted pieces of bread pop out.

"What the hell?" Sam asks, you and Bucky laugh in response. He turns and walks back out of the kitchen, nearly walking right into Tony.

"Morning," Tony greets you both as he sets up his now fixed coffee maker. "I gotta say, I'm pretty impressed with you Y/N."

"With what?" you suddenly feel nervous.

He smiles and asks, "Did you really think you could get into all of my systems without me noticing?"

Bucky moves slightly in front of you and says, "Don't fire her, it's my fault. I asked her to help. We just wanted to get back at him a little."

Tony laughs, takes a sip of his coffee and says, "Oh, I'm not mad. I actually am very impressed by how well you got into every part of the towers tech, we should probably talk about a promotion into our security division."

You look at him speechless, you had always wanted to work in that department.

"Also," he adds, "I had that glitter bomb for almost a year and I couldn't figure out how set it off in Fury's office without getting blamed for it so thank you for the distraction."

"Um... you're welcome," you tell him with a laugh.

"Barnes, you're luck she is on your side," he says as he turns to leave. "She's absolutely terrifying."

Bucky pulls you closer, looks at you and says, "I know I'm lucky."

I hope you liked this!! Please like, share and comment if you did 💚💚 Please let me know if you want to be added to my taglist!

@soubi001 @mochie85 @lokiswife-dark-fox-queen @animnerd @cabingrlandrandomcrap @icytrickster17 @lokisgoodgirl @mischief2sarawr @stupidthoughtsinwriting @mjsthrillernp @holdmytesseract @lulubelle814 @goblingirlsarah @foxherder @alexakeyloveloki @siconetribal @jiyascepter @eleniblue @loreniscrying @muddyorbsblr @alyeskathewave @loz-3 @firedrakegirl @javagirl328 @princess-ofthe-pages @morally-grey-variant @soulpiercing @km-ffluv @yeehawbrothers

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meazalykov · 2 months

Text

renewal

sydney lohmann x bayern!reader

summary: the latest transfer window was scary for you and your girlfriend

you’re one of the best, if not the best, attacking midfielders for bayern munich. one of the highest valued players in the women's bundesliga, for a player that isn’t german herself. your skills and loyalty for the badge have made you a valuable asset to bayern, but your contract is set to expire in 2024.

the online rumor, started thanks to soccerdonna, has been buzzing with speculation about your next move—at first some said that you're transferring to lyon in france, while others think you might return to your home in the united states to play for the portland thorns.

the rumors have caused quite a stir, especially for your girlfriend, sydney, a midfielder who plays for bayern.

after you started at bayern in 2020, sydney and you were friends. not long after, she confessed her feelings for you and you guys have managed to maintain a strong relationship throughout the next three years, making it a point to spend a lot of time together.

however, the recent speculation about your future has made sydney anxious.

little do you know, sydney is going to renew her contract for bayern. you kind of suspected it, sydney is in love with bayern and would never leave anytime soon.

little did sydney know, bayern is pleased with your performance and eager to extend your contract until 2026, a detail you're not yet allowed to disclose publicly.

during an interview after the game between bayern and freiburg, where you managed to score a goal and two assists, you were asked about your recent rumors. you should’ve known that the elephant in the room needed to be addressed.

"y/n, there's been a lot of speculation about your future in the last few weeks. can you shed any light on the rumors linking you to lyon or a return to the NWSL with the portland thorns?"

you smile politely, moving your cross your arms as you think about the words you have to say next,

"well, you know how rumors can be," you begin, trying to keep your tone light. "right now, i’m fully focused on bayern and finishing the season strong with my team. it's been a great journey here, i’m very very happy with this club and i'm committed to giving my best."

the blonde interviewer nods, pressing on gently. "but with your contract expiring in 2024, fans are eager to know if you've made any decisions about your future. can you give us any hints?"

you chuckle softly, as your fingers tangle onto the red zipper on your puffer jacket. the media rooms were a little cold considering you’d played a full 90 minute match.

"i understand the curiosity, but at this point, there's nothing official to announce. bayern has been a fantastic place for me, and i'm really happy here. when the time comes for an announcement, you'll all be the first to know.”

there were rumors about sydney going to the wsl or the nwsl. you knew you shouldn’t believe them, but transfer windows can shock anyone. sydney was outspoken about “not being afraid to live in new places” too.

during the days where you guys have the day off to spend with each other— you can feel the tension between you both grow as the rumors persist.

sitting on the couch in your munich apartment, sydney stared at you intensely as she stood by the couch. she watched your fingers flick on the remote, while your eyes watched the TV flickering in the background with a rerun of your favorite netflix show. you know she's staring at you, but she had a tendency to do that a lot.

"baby, i need to ask you something," she says, her voice hesitant. you look up at her with worried eyes as she moved to sit beside you on the couch, only giving an inch of space. that was too far for you, though.

your eyebrows knitted together in curiosity, your look gave her the silent permission to continue with her question.

"are you really moving back to the states to play with portland?"

you fully turn your body to her, ignoring the tv, and you see the worry in her eyes. before moving to munich in 2020, you played in the nwsl in your home country. starting off with the washington spirit straight out of high school before playing in the 2019 world cup, winning it all at just 17.

eventually, you moved to orlando pride before wanting to have a full change. you knew that a different league would be the best for your growth.

many european clubs were on your doorstep, wanting to send you offers due to how natural you were with the ball. you chose bayern and have been loyal to the club ever since.

your heart aches knowing how much the uncertainty has been affecting sydney. one thing you couldn’t stand was seeing your happy and silly girl so upset.

at this point, you’ve already signed the renewal with bayern, it wouldn’t hurt telling your girlfriend about the news.

"no, sweet pea," you say gently, taking her hands in yours. "bayern is happy with me and i’m happy with bayern so i'm renewing my contract with bayern until 2026. i’m sorry for not telling you before, i just couldn't say anything until it actually happened."

sydney's eyes widen in surprise before a wave of relief washes over her face. she wraps her strong arms around your shoulders as you, naturally, place your hand on her right knee.

"you're staying?" she whispers, almost in disbelief. the rumors scared her recently and it was clear. the german girl loves you so much.

you nod, smiling softly. "yes, i'm staying. i love it here in germany, and i love being with you. I can’t leave, this is my home."

tears of happiness well up in sydney's eyes as she pulls you into a tighter embrace, moving your body so you’re sitting on her lap instead. she holds your lower waist as you bury your head into her neck. "you don’t understand how relieved i am," she says, her voice muffled against your shoulder. "i've been so worried."

you hold her tightly, grateful that feeling the tension between you both is gone. "i know, syd. it's been hard not being able to tell you."

syd pulls your body back slightly, looking up into your eyes as her hands move to sit on your thighs. "well, i have something to tell you too," she says, a small smile playing on her lips.

“what is it?” you say with a surprised look on your face. you hoped it was good news, but due to the look on syd’s face, you can tell it was.

"the rumors about me staying at bayern are true. i wanted to surprise you later but the rumors are starting to get a little crazier."

your heart skips a beat. "you’re staying?" you ask your lover, hardly daring to believe it. especially since you thought sydney wanted a change away from her home.

she nods, her smile widening. "yes, i wanted to stay close to you and stay in germany. i wouldn't stand the thought of us being apart for so long."

you both laugh, the joy of the moment overwhelming. "this is amazing," you say, kissing her forehead softly.

“i love you.”

“Ich liebe dich mehr.”

#sydney lohmann #gerwnt #woso community #woso fanfics #woso x reader #barcelona femeni #fc barcelona #portland thorns #olympique lyonnais #bayern frauen #germany nt

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neil-gaiman · 1 year

Note

Dear Mr. Gaiman,

I’ve been meaning to write to you for a bit and today - May 1st - is a prefect bit of timing.

I’d like to address 2 1/2 things if I may: You recently posted a conversation you had about losing a cat and how much the death of a pet hits you. My spouse and I have and have had a number of pets - best friends really - pass away. One of the ways we have come to deal with their moving on is to make up a story.

(To be honest, yet another story. Our friends live very full lives, indeed.) Our Tuxedo cat, Tybalt, is now playing bass in a Journey cover band that tours. I travel a lot for work and that allows “Tybalt” to send us postcards telling of his latest adventures. Since today is May Day and the expiration of the Writer’s contract I wanted to say bravo to you for posting about it and the subtles of the issues at hand. Most people looking at Hollywood will not give carful consideration to what is at hand.

Since you have the currency of a celebrity that is thoughtful and nuanced your voice carries over much of the rhetoric. I thank you for that. I should say at this point that I also work in film and television and have for most of the last 30 years. I am a grip and enjoy the craft of my job.

While the concerns of your Guild are valid and should be addressed i would like to point out that your voice and those of your colleagues are heard. All the national pages and news outlets are carrying the story. As they should. In 2021, IATSE (the union the covers all the below the line craft people in the United Staes and Canada with approximately a 150,000 members) was set to renew our contact that August. Our asks for that contract were minimal and most of us assumed the contract would be updated with little haggling. The producers balked. They, in fact, wanted to get rid of a number of long held points in our contract. This went on for four months. Something that never happed in my 30 years of work. I won’t go into all the details. I assume that you have a passing familiarity with the issues.

My point to all of this is that our voice was never heard. All the news outlets merely interviewed the producers and only gave their side of the story. And this happens every time the is a contract or safety issue (Think “Rust”. Reporters never interviewed other armors. The closest that came to a below the line voice was an essay written by a Prop Master - who happens to be Martin Scorsese’s daughter.)

Most producers have little idea of what it takes to make a show. But they are the only ones who are quoted. Overlapping during these 4 months was the John Deere strike (with just over 10,000 members). And good for them.

It should be noted that their coverage was far greater than ours.

There are 7 stories about the John Deere strike in the New York Times morgue. There are none for the IATSE contract negotiations. I can go on but I feel I should wrap this up. If you’ve read this far, I thank you.

I have an ask for you. The half of my 2 1/2 things to say. When the IATSE contract comes up for re-negotiation next year, would you please put a posting on your social media sites about it?

The same as you have done for your Guild? It would give us a voice we have not had before. Thank You, Spider Goat P.S. Also thank you for all the wonderful stories you've written. I do so love visiting the worlds you've created.

I was pushing IATSE on Social Media last time -- for example

and pushing things like the @ia_stories Instagram link -

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by IATSE Stories (@ia_stories)

instagram

I will do it again. And I was disappointed by the outcome of the negotiations last time, too.

#IATSE

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alphabetboyluvr · 1 year

Text

masterlist

all fics are posted to wattpad first (don't judge a girlie by her primary upload platform </3)

i write about the stars, boys who are carved like greek sculptures, and the inability to communicate in a healthy, functional manner. and i also like to write about bangtan sonyeondan in relation to all of those things.

WATTPAD // AO3 // KO-FI // CARRD

no translations | minors dni | don't be a dick x

JJK

SERIES

THROTTLE

pairing: boyracer!jk x fem reader - mutual disdain to lovers synopsis: in which jeon jungkook hates speed limits, the local government, and the way that min yoongi looks at you. current wc: 160,244 warnings: explicit language, drug usage, violence, dangerous driving, smut, and themes of an adult nature. not a mafia au, but teeters around the edges of it. organised crime and corruption are at the heart of the story. the characters have questionable morals and do dumb shit. be prepared to hate them as much as you love them. jungkook is a tittie luvr. no further questions.

BAD DECISIONS - link will take you to the clubdionysus tumblr!

pairing: bartender!jungkook x female reader | strangers-friends-lovers, fwb synopsis: it’s simple: write your deepest darkest fears on origami birds and string them up on jungkook’s ceiling. when they fall—which they inevitably will, thanks to his cheap daiso washi tape—you have to face the fear. set it free. the issue? you’ve a fear of intimacy. jungkook, a fear of rejection. and you’ve both got the capacity to make some incredibly bad decisions. current w/c: 450k notes: smut, fluff, a lil angst, bartender!jk, student!jk, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers (?), fwb, deal arrangement, undefined relationship (they’re just friends! just besties!!), miscommunication, idiots in love, emotional slow burn, bucket list (a.k.a. the birds 2024 note: wattpad took down bad decisions as part of their 2024 purge </3. it's now hosted on it's very own tumblr (clubdionysus) and over on ao3!

BAD DECISIONS SMUT INDEX

ONE SHOTS

extended - 5k words or more

ONCE THE THRILL EXPIRES

pairing: college!jungkook x female reader synopsis: your housemate-turned-fwb takes another girl home after a night out wordcount: 5.8K notes: angsty, smutty turmoil. it’s not that bad, but it definitely isn’t a happy lil number. fingering, oral sex (f receiving), rimming (f receiving), vaginal sex, doggy, protected (!!) sex, lil spanks, jaykay sorta makes out with her ear???, jaykay is a fawk boy who needs to learn self-control, oc is holding out for something that’ll never happen, multiple partners in one night (jk), jk calls the reader diz (dizzy)

LANDSLIDES

pairing: officeworker!jungkook x female reader (coworkers) synopsis: jungkook asks you to dog sit over chuseok. he doesn’t ask you to steal the empty spaces in his head, the dreams he’s yet to have, nor the idea of you always just being ‘you’ to him - and yet, like a thief in the night (with his own damn dog as your accomplice), you do. wordcount: 6.8K warnings: fluff more than angst, but it’s not clean cut - there’s also a touch of smut. office worker jk, fuck boy (but kind!) jk, mentions of his workplace escapades, oc is dating mingyu (yay), oc sorta fancies jk (boo), solo masturbation (m), vivid thoughts of shagging (jk is a perv! wow! unlike me to write him as randy bastard!), lots of facetime calls, oc and jk are fundamentally flawed as a pairing, genuine friendship, daddy kink? ig? but like kinda sweet?, jungkook has a complex brain house and you’ve been banished to his annexe!! he also has a thing for claw clipped hair lol

ONE SHOTS

short - under 5k words

something borrowed

- mafia au | forbidden love

dance with the devil

- royalty au | former lovers

KNJ

ONE SHOTS

short - under 5k words

back to you

- idol au | exes

KSJ

MYG

SERIES

HUSH

pairing: rockstar!yoongi x female reader | mutual disdain - lovers (but also strangers - lovers? kinda?) synopsis: in which you work for your brothers band by day and accidentally anonymously sext his bandmate on the regular by night! whoops ! current w/c: 17.5k notes: okay, where to start with this one lmao, sexting! and i mean… a lot of sexting (so much sexting oc will probably get early-onset arthritis in her thumbs), yoongi is a dick, he also hates nepotism, and in turn, you. oh yeah, you’re jin’s sister, you work with the band on tour. jin, yoongi, tae, jk and joon are in The Scouts aka the hottest band since sliced bread. jimin is their tour manager, hobi works up in the head office (he’s sleazy and i love him). slight love triangle, one-near-footjob (and counting!), eventual smut, a little angst, dating app that is exclusively for celebrities / people in the public eye, one incredibly inconvenient pairing, yoongi calls the oc clementine / clemmie and it’s cuter than it sounds, idk how else to explain this, mistaken identity i guess? although not really? look, just read it lol. smut warnings will be on chapters individually!!

PALLADIUM

pairing: dilf!yoongi x reader // friends to lovers, slowburn, eventual smut synopsis: min yoongi is urgent. in the way he bites his nails down to the bed, and the way his sore fingers type out desperate sentences just minutes before deadlines, he is urgent. how he prepares jaehyun’s day bag before grandma comes by, and how he double checks everything is packed, he is urgent. the requests for you to watch over jaehyun each and every deadline day are, always, predictably, urgent. but the way min yoongi falls in love with you is slow. gradual. tepid. until, like everything with min yoongi, it becomes urgent. wordcount: 3.2K notes: three part series, fluff, angst, eventual smut, yoongi is incredibly conflicted, the oc is just as dumbfounded by the way she feels, lots of feelings!!

JHS

PJM

KTH

ONE SHOTS

short - under 5k words

sundae (kinda love)

- childhood friends | angst

#bts fanfic #bts masterlist #byholly #jungkook fanfic #namjoon fanfic #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook angst #jungkook smut #jungkook ff #jk ff #jungkook masterlist #jungkook x reader

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arealphrooblem · 1 year

Text

Mutually Assured Destruction Part 11 -- The End!

This is the last part everyone! I may right little snippets after this one if the inspiration strikes, but this is the definitive end to the series.

Synopsis: Villain x Civilian. Civilian can sense other people's powers through auras but hides this ability. They are terrified of the most boring person at their office job, who hides the most powerful aura Civilian has ever felt.

CW: Mentions of death, low self-esteem thoughts, brief vague mention of sex at the end, two kisses

Part One Here

Part Ten Here

At first, they thought he was sick. Jonathan didn’t ever give them a cell phone number, so they couldn’t call and check on him. By Wednesday they drove round for three hours after work, trying to find the neighborhood that housed his apartment, with no luck. By Friday, worry stayed a constant pit in their stomach.

Monday morning brought the news that Jonathan had “transferred” to another in another part of the country. Civilian had to suffer all day through the cloying sympathy of their coworkers. Gloria had even hugged them. Everyone assumed a breakup occurred so horribly awkward that it drove Jonathan to move several hundred miles away a week before the holidays.

For the rest of December, Civilian kept up religiously with the news, looking for something big enough to fit the plans Jonathan had hinted at — massive art theft, large scale arson, hell even a government coup.

There was nothing save for constant Christmas ads that Civilian tuned out.

Eventually they had to accept the truth that Jonathan had just got the fuck out of dodge and didn’t look back. Fine. Civilian knew their ‘relationship’ had an expiration date, that it had never existed in the first place. But they had expected some kind of goodbye, even if it had been a threat to stay quiet — not this slipping away in the dead of night like a ghost.

Maybe his plans fell through and he had to leave before someone else discovered him. Maybe the Agency had found him despite his best efforts and he had to abandon everything. Both scenarios were more likely than the one echoing cruelly in Civilian’s head at night:

That they had driven him away; that he couldn’t take their needy loneliness anymore and bounced.

It’s a thought that hounded them for the next six months, followed them as closely and loyally as their own shadow. As the weeks drifted by, Civilian burrowed further and further inside themselves, rejecting offers from Gloria to eat lunch, rejecting their mother’s requests to call or visit, rejecting drinks after work with the other members of their department.

It wasn’t that Jonathan broke their ability to trust anyone — it was the stubborn, naive belief that if Civilian chose to be alone then they weren’t lonely, that it didn’t count because it was self-imposed, a choice, a preference. And being around other people reminded them so sharply of feeling not alone that they couldn’t handle its absence once the night was over.

The whole thing was ridiculous, and Civilian berated themselves at each night for it. They were acting childish and silly. Jonathan was right: the only thing stopping them from having friends was their own fear. They could find a new job, move to a new city, find a place where Jonathan had never set foot in and build anew.

But they didn’t.

And six months later, the bank went under.

Ironically, the one thing Civilian needed to watch the news for, they had ignored in favor of a Buzzfeed shopping list. Their mom had sent a text with a link to a video and a series of question marks.

Isn’t this your bank????

The video explained how the entire board of directors had been arrested for fraud and embezzlement to the tune of billions.

Billions with a B.

After that number, Civilian’s attention went a little fuzzy. The explanation of the complex series of fund transfers and shell corporations and blah blah blah faded to the background as Civilian tried desperate to work out just how the hell Jonathan made it happen.

Over the weeks, each man screamed his innocence of course, but camera footage and witness testimonies — even ones from the other board directors, all eager to stab each other in the back — denied those claims. Each director passed a psych test with flying colors, despite their protests of their body moving with out their consent. It all looked very much like a bunch of disgustingly wealthy men got caught trying to illegally make themselves even more disgustingly richer.

After a certain point, Civilian could have spoken up about Jonathan, and no one would have believed them anyway.

It was the perfect crime and now Jonathan was walking out there will several billion dollars in his pocket and Civilian . . .

Well Civilian was now out of a job, living off a pathetic severance package, and trying to find a solution to their problem that did not involve moving back in with their mother.

It happened in the middle of the night. The ear-popping pressure of a powerful aura dragged them from sleep. In the soft darkness of their bedroom, they could just make out a shadowy figure looming over them.

In seconds confusion crystalized sharply into fear. Civilian’s hands dove under the pillow for the knife they kept there and yanked it out. Their hand froze in the air, gripped by invisible fingers Civilian knew all too well.

“Did you just pull a fucking knife on me?” The figure asked incredulously.

The familiarity of his voice hit them like a physical ache, like a thumb on a bruise.

“Jonathan?”

The lamp switched on, bathing the room in a dim glow. Civilian squinted and blinked against the sudden light. Standing there, eyebrows raised and dressed in all black, was Jonathan Anderson.

The knife gleamed between them. He glanced between it and Civilian and shook his head.

“You should give me that before you hurt yourself.”

He took the knife gently out of their forcibly relaxed fingers and set it on the nightstand, far out of their reach.

Their chest was a swirling maelstrom of too many emotions to count — joy and fear and anxiety and relief.

But most of all anger.

How dare he just show up after ten months of nothing.

“You should go fuck yourself,” they retorted, sitting up and swinging their legs over the side.

“Awww, Civilian, did I upset you by leaving?” He gave them a mocking frown. “Did you miss me?”

The truth of his words pierced them, sending a hot flush of humiliation up their neck.

“No, I did not miss you, you sick on of a bitch — ”

Jonathan bent down, cupping their face in his hands and cutting them off with a fierce, almost desperate kiss.

“I missed you,” he breathed. “So fucking much.”

Civilian’s heart pounded like thunder in their ears. How often did they daydream this kind of moment happening, and yet now that it was here, they couldn’t help but doubt it. It felt dangerous to believe it.

“How am I supposed to believe that?” they demanded. “For all I know, you could be here to kill me and — and tie up loose ends.”

Jonathan had the gall to laugh. “Where do you think we are — a mobster movie? Do you think I’m going to tie cinder blocks to your legs and throw you off the pier?”

“You wouldn’t need the cinder blocks to make sure I drowned,” they said mulishly. “You wouldn’t even need a pier. You could make me smother myself right now with my own pillow.”

Why they were arguing this, they had no idea. Perhaps stubbornly clinging to the belief that he didn’t care about them protected them from hope. Jonathan’s grin faded into something more somber as he studied them. Then he slowly sank down on one knee before them, putting him at just under eye level.

“Why would I come here to kill you after everything I’ve done to protect you?”

“Protect me? Is that what you calling taking off with no goodbye like I didn’t mean anything?”

“Tell me, Civilian, how suspicious it would have looked if I had stolen all that money and then skipped town? How many people would be scrutinizing the newest hire that suddenly disappeared and anyone who associated with him? How long before the Agency would come sniffing around, looking for someone with my skill-set, and find you and your glorious little secret? Hmm? Tell me.”

Civilian glared at him and his tight, unbeatable logic. How dare he make sense.

“Some warning would have been nice,” they said instead, crossing their arms. “I thought I had — that you ran because — ”

They couldn’t finish the thought, it was too embarrassing. How stupid they had been, obsessing over a silly kiss, when Jonathan was executing such grand larceny on an unheard of scale. Like he had even spared it a second thought.

He gave them a knowing, crooked smile. “You thought I took off because you kissed me and I flipped out.”

“No,” they lied. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It is ridiculous,” he agreed. “It’s the one thing that made it hard to leave in the first place. And I couldn’t let you know, in case someone did question you. You were my insurance, not my accomplice.”

The one thing that made it hard to leave. Staying angry at Jonathan was getting more and more difficult. Civilian tried to hold onto it, but it slipped through their fingers like an eel.

“So the bank . . .that really was you?” they asked.

This time his smile widened into a full smirk. “Beautiful, wasn’t it?”

“Beautiful? It fucked over a lot of people — including me! I’m out of a job now, you prick.”

He shrugged. “People will move on just like they always have. As for you . . .that’s why I’m here.” He reached out and traced the pad of his thumb down their jawline. “To spirit you away.”

Civilian fought and failed to hold back a shiver at the light touch. “You mean kidnap me.”

“It’s only kidnapping if you don’t volunteer for it,” he said. “You’re being very stubbornly angry with me. You must have missed me quite a bit.”

They swallowed thickly. “I hate you,” they lied.

He smile, soft and gentle, his thumb swiping over their bottom lip. “You wish you did.”

Civilian’s pulse fluttered. They wanted very badly to kiss his thumb, his hand, anywhere they could reach. “And where would you take me?” they whispered instead.

Jonathan turned his hand so the back of his knuckles brushed over their cheekbone. “Where do you want to go? I have more money than God, Civilian. We can go anywhere in the world and disappear and never have to look over our shoulders again. What say you to that?”

“What happens if I say no?”

As tempting as his offer was, they had to ask the question, regardless. His answer determined everything.

“You will never have to see me again,” he said, taking his hand away. “And I will find a way to anonymously give you enough money to do whatever you wish in a way that can’t be traced. With me or without me, you will have the same freedom from the Agency that I do. I had planned for that for a long time.”

Whatever resentment for their months alone evaporated in an instant. This time Civilian took his face in their hands and kissed him, long and fierce.

“Take me to Greece first,” they said. “I want to see the ruins.”

Taglist: @those-damn-snippets@heroes-villains-side-blog@anonymousewrites@follow-me-into-the-fog@sunnyside-world, @rivalriotrenegade@trappedgoose-in-a-writblr-room@midnightsillusions@villain-obsessed-word-nerd@deflated-bouncingball @pickleking8 @cesspitoflove@to-sneak-away-and-hide@im-a-wonderling@hasel-anne@ghostly-writer@moonknight-s-cumdump@valiantlytransparentwhispers@galactic-squiddo@boomimhere@organizedchaos03@dungeon-roomba@vidiaka@powerflower119 @cbiom @meltedgallium@skevethefool@sarcasticlittlebook@lisapicklemagick@dragonfirephoenixflame, @royalmuffinsworld@sillypeachduck

#my writing #hero x villain #villain x civilian #enemies to lovers #writeblr #mutually assured destruction

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lunaloveeee · 4 months

Text

past lives

chapter one

In one age, your elbow is tucked in the crook of your father's arm, held tight as he guides you toward a pale-haired figure who watches you with his piercing eye - the man you're arranged to marry.

In another, your elbow is propped on a cedar table in the library, your head heavy as the endless hours of research and swirling words on a page are drowned out by thoughts of your classmate who sits beside you - daydreams about running your fingers through his pale hair, about finally feeling his piercing gaze on every part of you.

Time ripples with these familiar echoes. And as you turn each dusty page - when each word beckons past and future to collide - you ask yourself: Is my end already written?

aemond targaryen x f!reader || dual timeline, second chance, modern day (but also set in the past), soulmate au.

masterlist | ao3 link, for those who prefer.

Anticipation is a funny thing. It’s the body’s innate way of setting an expectation, of looking forward to an event, an opportunity, a change. It’s also interesting, in that often it can do exactly the opposite of what you would like it to. For example, you know you’re meant to wake up early for class today.

It’s a class many dream to take with a professor who touts many accolades throughout their career, and it’s only offered as a summer class. Only — you don’t wake up early for class. In fact, by the time you roll over to reach over and slap your alarm clock on your phone off, you realize it never even went off in the first place. Nervousness had led you to staying up until the early hours of the morning. The repercussions are clear now as panic-stricken fingers tremble as they reach across the surface of your night table, grasping at air until colliding with the edge of your iPhone. Oh no, you slap a hand to your forehead, 7:30. Class starts at eight, and if there’s one thing you know about this professor it’s that they’re prompt. Punctuality is not a laughing matter.

“Crap,” you nearly shriek, rolling off the bed completely in your haste, grunting as your body collides with the carpeted floor below. “Lydia?!”

The apartment is silent. Lydia must have stayed out the night before at her fiancé’s place. Suiting, as they would be marrying at the end of summer and finally moving in tighter once your lease expires. Choosing to ignore the impending realization of having to find a new place soon on top of everything else you have presently going on in your life, you quickly dart over to the closet in search of something to wear. Two weeks of laundry sits in a hamper, taunting you, the offerings of your closet dwindling with each thrust of a hanger as you rummage about.

“Come on, come on,” you cry, settling on a pair of shorts and a tee shirt that probably should be thrown away at this point, as the edges are fraying, but it’s all you have at the moment that isn’t in need of a wash.

It’s a mad stumble over to your mirror, shrugging out of your clothes and slipping into new ones, taking in the horrifying state of the makeup you never took off the night before. Mascara and eyeliner has since smudged along your cheeks in your sleep, and it seems you’re doing a great impersonation of a raccoon. You don’t have much time, so you make work of brushing your teeth and washing your face at the same time — not a simple task — and blow a strand of your messy hair out of your face, giving that a quick brush before deciding you’ll have to forego makeup this morning. Already off to a great start, you huff out a sigh, snatching your backpack from the floor and phone off the charger. Fortunately, your school is a quick few blocks away that you manage to run, ignoring the protesting blisters that are likely forming on the bottom of your sandal-covered feet.

Students whirl around as you enter, muttering your apologies under your breath as the professor reprimands, “Lateness will not be tolerated, Miss…”

You provide your name, slouching as you make your way over to a seat beside Lydia and think about all the ways you might disappear off the face of the earth. And quick, preferably.

Her blue eyes scour your features, gesturing to the state of your clothes and the bedraggled hair on your head. “In a little rush this morning?”

“My alarm never went off,” you tell her in a low growl, quieting as the professor stands to his feet and draws the attention of everyone in the room with their booming voice.

“The summer syllabus is simple, students. I want passion. I want exploration. I want you to research something that gives you life. So I want you to explore, to really dig into the material, to see why history is still a living, breathing, thing.”

The professor’s words ring throughout the classroom. It’s a small one, housing only twenty-eight students for the summer course, but naturally they’re the most eager of your classmates. You recognize most of them — the history major itself is not very popular at this school as it is. But that’s not to say you’re friendly with most of them, so when the professor announces you’re to pair up before they explain the project any further, you immediately blurt out your best friend, Lydia’s, name. Only she’s holding onto the hand of her fiancé, looking up at him like the sun quite literally shines out his ass.

“Babe…” she starts, frowning piteously, and you raise a hand, not needing her to finish, “You could try Demi —”

“Demi is working with Paul,” Chase tells you both, curling his girlfriend closer to his chest. “I saw her run over and grab him.”

Damn you, Chase. A forced smile tugs your lips. It’s not like the morning can get any worse. “No, no — it’s fine. I can work with…” Your eyes circle the room, a groan of frustration spilling from you when you find most of your classmates already pairing off. You start to question if you spoke too soon, if things could actually get worse, and then — “Aemond Targ. Uh —” A pause. “Aemond?”

“Yes?” he asks, sounding bored as ever, head rising from whatever he’s scribbling in his notebook.

Aemond…well, you wouldn’t call him your friend. He’s really not anyone’s friend in class; mostly keeps to himself, aquiline nose always in a book of some sort. Even now, he regards you with very little care. His lips are pursed, in disapproval if you had to guess, the scar bisecting his prosthetic eye (you only know this because people gossip around campus), pinkened against pale flesh stretched taut along angular features, silvery blonde hair wavy against his forehead.

It’s unfortunate he’s so beautifully handsome, sculpted like the gods of old, and yet so…

“You called my name,” he repeats, tucking his book beneath his notebook. You can barely make out ‘weaponry’ scrawled on the binding. Curious. His eyes trail down to where yours have seemingly chosen to linger. “Hm.”

Lydia presses at your lower back in your clear hesitance that has you rooted on the spot under his stare, pushing you forward, whispering. “He’s not going to bite.”

Swallowing thickly, you laugh, muttering, “I was wondering if you wanted to…be my partner for the project.” Aemond glances over his shoulder, looking to see if you’re truly talking to him, and you wish for the ground to open up beneath you at the way he eventually returns his focus to you and smirks. Your stomach plummets, chest burning with your growing embarrassment. “Look — if you’re going to make fun, I —”

“I won’t prolong your evident misery. I’ll be your partner.” And he says it with that accent of his, that reminds you he’s not from New York, that he’s seen the other side of a world you’ve only read about in books.

“It was not evident misery,” you grumble beneath your breath as you stalk over to the chair directly beside his, hearing the professor’s voice call out above the din that everyone is to make their way back to their seats. With a thump, you drop down beside Aemond, not missing the way he shifts further away from you — as though the very thought of you simply touching might ruin his day. “I am quite mysterious, I’ll have you know.”

“What?” he asks, leaning in a little toward your ear.

“Hmpf.” Your arms cross, head tips upward in defiance, and lean back against the chair, awaiting further direction.

All in all, the project is simple. Instead of the traditional six weeks spent in a classroom, you are to use the six weeks of class to work on your summer project. The professor does not care how it is done — be it worked on literally together, or within a shared document. They just want it to be a culmination of actual interest. Something not derivative. Something new, invigorating, something you’re passionate about.

Which you suppose is simple enough, but through your limited scope of exploration in the last twenty something years of your life…by the time you return to your shared apartment later that evening, Lydia is ready to glue your fingers together because of your incessant tapping on the keyboard. Because as it stands, you have no idea what you feel passionate about.

“You're going to destroy your backspace button.” She’s grimacing as she pours a glass of wine, handing you one, then pours another for herself.

“The letters are already worn off,” you point out, sipping gratefully at the rosé. “Why is this so hard?”

“Because you enjoy your major,” Lydia states plainly, dragging you over by the hand to the living room couch, “because you care. Because you’ve been dreaming of taking this class for ages and convinced us all to take it with you, because you said it’s the best the school has to offer.”

Pouting, you whine, “I want to care less.”

“Have you texted Aemond? Maybe he has ideas?”

You level her with a frown. “He actually hates me. I think he took pity on my soul to work with me; he could see a sad, lonely me standing in the corner with no partner. It was like gym class back in high school all over again —”

“Now that is dramatic,” Lydia giggles, choking a little on her wine. “From where I was standing, he only looked at you with mild disdain.”

“You know, from Aemond Targ, that’s practically a love declaration. Move over, Mr. Darcy.”

Groaning, you press your fingers to the bridge of your nose and tug out your phone. His contact is there, in the form of ‘Ae-hole’ — for asshole, naturally. It brings a little — slightly evil — grin to your lips that has Lydia leaning in closer to see what it is you’re laughing at.

“How should I start…?”

Lydia stares into your eyes, giving you an ‘are you serious’ look. “Hello might be a good start, you weirdo.”

Waving a hand in front of you with a swirling flourish, you begin, “Hello, Partner. I hope this is a good time — although, seeing as it’s seven on a Friday night…I would say it’s a little sad if you’re already sleeping —”

“Babe,” Lydia warns, cutting you off.

Backspace, backspace, backspace. “I hope you’re having a good afternoon. Thank you again for showing mercy, it means a lot to little ol’ me. You’re probably wondering why I’m texting you on a Friday night. Well — shit! I accidentally sent it.”

There’s silence in your shared apartment, and you chug the remainder of your wine glass in anticipation. Holding out a pathetic hand, Lydia snatches your cup and refills yours and her own, dropping back down beside you on the sofa. Little dots appear on your phone screen, and then —

Ae-hole: I am wondering why you’re texting me at all, actually.

A knife emoji is typed out, but Lydia tuts and you backspace. “I wasn’t actually going to send it,” you tell her, blanching.

“Sure you weren’t.”

Ae-hole: I’m assuming you want to talk about the project?

“He is so charming,” you drawl, practically seething at your phone.

Fingers press against the keyboard, striking swiftly with your next words — and backspacing the ones that are a little more colorful and mildly offensive (Lydia’s suggestion, naturally). In the end, you settle on: ‘I was wondering if you had any ideas. Anything you’re passionate about? You seem…refined and…worldly. Hop, skip, and a jump across the world and all of that. Isn’t that the saying?’

Ae-hole: I’m from England, not Mars.

“Well isn’t he a ray of bloody sunshine,” you grind out, pressing your phone screen to your forehead in exasperation. “This is useless.”

Another text comes through a second later.

Ae-hole: I’ll think about it. Let’s bounce ideas back and forth over the weekend. How is that?

——

Clothes bounce and roll around in the dryer when the first texts come through. Aemond’s suggestions are intriguing enough, sure, but you’re hours deep into two week’s worth of laundry, so it shouldn’t really be much of a surprise when you hop up onto one of the folding tables and type out. ‘How do we feel about Khal Drogo?’ — Just to get a rise out of him.

The buzzer goes off on your machine and you begin folding when he finally replies. Part of you wishes you might see the look on his face when he reads the message to himself, watching those little bubbles appear and disappear multiple times before he must have finally hit ‘send.’

Ae-hole: Are you quite…passionate about Khal Drogo?

A giggle spills from you, drawing the attention of a woman reading a gossip magazine that touts the latest scandal. Her lip curls at the loud interruption, and you wonder if you might get kicked out of your favorite laundromat should a folded pair of socks end up as a projectile object.

‘I mean…have you seen the old drawings? Call me Khaleesi, am I right?’

His reply comes quickly. Almost instantly, really.

Ae-hole: Striking Khal Drogo and any related topics off the list.

‘Rude.’

Ae-hole: I didn’t complain when I crossed out ‘Free Folk migration patterns’ earlier.

‘Aemond, no one is passionate about that.’

——

It’s Saturday night and you’re out to dinner with Lydia and Chase at some fancy Italian restaurant that definitely pushes your ramen noodle budget.

They’re talking wedding plans, bridesmaids dresses, and groomsmen and you’re scrolling through social media, flicking past reels and memes and you land on a history meme with a familiar face that has you reaching for your cell phone.

‘What about this: Hodor, man, myth, or legend that he is?’

You attach the photo for reference, at which Aemond reacts with a thumbs down.

Ae-hole: Sometimes I wonder if you’re being serious or if you’re just trying to screw with me.

Lydia raises a brow your way, head tilting at the smile that unknowingly blooms across your lips. “Are you good over there?”

“Huh?” Lifting your head, you snap to attention, “What were we talking about?”

“We were talking about our entrance songs. I wanted to get your opinion…” Lydia trails off, leaning over to try and see who you’re texting. You tuck it away into your back pocket, feeling your cheeks burn hot. “But it seems like you’re elsewhere. It’s fine, I’ll let you keep your secrets, you weirdo.”

And maybe, just maybe, as Lydia leans back in to throw her ringed hand over her fiancé’s arm, you sneak off to go to the bathroom to text back your history partner.

‘Hodor is NEVER a laughing matter.’

It’s worth it, if only because it’s the most fun you’ve been in a bit…even if he doesn’t reply.

——

“I always hated this next season,” Lydia sighs, leaning back against the mountain of pillows you’ve lined around the floors for your TV binge night.

“We can stop after this one if we want? Pretend it doesn’t exist.”

“No,” she decides, “let’s keep going.”

These nights have become a weekly thing over the years — a way to keep the ‘Sunday Scaries’ at bay. You wonder how soon that’ll change once she’s married and living with Chase, but decide not to dwell on that for now.

Instead you return your attention to the screen, where Jon Snow and Danaerys Targaryen are sleeping together for the first time, unknowing of his parentage. It’s a loose retelling and wrought with historical inaccuracies, you know this, of the history of Westeros — but it’s also highly addictive. Unfortunately, the last season of the show adaptation, right before it was sadly canceled, truly left much to be desired. Still, it remains your favorite, and you rewatch religiously with your best friend, often turning to it as a comfort show.

It’s only then, your body cocooned beneath a fluffy blanket, that a sudden idea strikes you.

‘What about dragons?’

Your mind jumps to the CGI dragons that you’ve seen on your screen, the ones you’ve seen in textbooks and children’s books growing up. Great beasts with large wings — tails, talon, and teeth that could rip one to shreds. People rode on them back in the day, soaring high above the world, immense power beneath them — one with them.

Ae-hole: The Targaryen family?

‘Yeah, don’t you find all of that so interesting? I mean, they rode on dragons, Aemond!’

The next episode of your show begins, Lydia’s face awash in the bright light as the HBO logo flashes there in the reflection of her glasses. “Have you guys settled on a topic yet?” she asks, gesturing to the phone in your hand.

“Not yet,” you mutter, reading his next message. “But I think we might be getting close.”

Ae-hole: It was also a really…abysmal time. All of it, really. Starting from Aegon and ending with Daenerys.

‘Killed by her lover.’

Ae-hole: How most love stories end, it seems.

‘Don’t know what kind of love stories you’ve read but — anyway! I feel like there is so much there. We could start researching and try to find something that intrigues us?’

Ae-hole: I admit it’s an area I haven’t read much about. It’s one of those things in classes they talk about so briefly. Which was always so strange, seeing as not only did the family line die out — but the dragons, too.

‘See! Look at us, coming to our first ever agreement. I’ll let you enjoy the rest of your Sunday. We can text tomorrow about when we want to meet up and start honing in on our topic. Sounds good?’

Ae-hole: Yeah, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

“Well?” Lydia asks, and you’re smiling, endlessly smiling.

“It seems we have a topic,” you tell her, flopping onto your stomach, reaching into the popcorn bowl to fish out an M&M in the mix of salty goodness. “Finally.”

“You two seem to be getting along,” she says, and it’s the tone in her voice, the searching within it, that has you turning your head and narrowing your eyes. Innocence blooms in the jut of her bottom lip, in the tilt of her head. “What?”

“He’s my partner,” you remind her, shaking visions of his dark and stormy features out of your head when they announce themselves unbidden in your mind’s eye. “And he’s kind of an asshole. Now let me watch my silly history show in peace, woman!”

——

Corner Street Coffee sits a few blocks away from Columbia University, sitting quite literally on a corner of a street. The money isn’t great, but the customers are, and you’ve found that after a few years working here, it’s one of your favorite places to be other than the library studying away.

“What can I get you?” Your voice is bubbly and bright as expected of you.

You’ve been running around behind the glass case for hours, sweat likely dotting your forehead and hair a mess, the morning rush finally behind you, when your next customer appears before you. As you lift your head, air spills from your lungs in a giant rush. Standing there is none other than Aemond Targ in all his glory — as in, he’s dressed down for once. His usual dress shirt has been swapped for a simple black tee shirt that shows off way too much of his arms and a pair of dark wash jeans.

“Is it typical that you stare at your customers for this long?” he queries, head tilting to the side.

“I’ve just never seen you outside of the classroom,” you admit, though that’s not true. If you’re being honest, you’ve seen him at the library often. He keeps to himself there, always settled at a table or on one of the couches, typically positioned by a window to watch the bustling city move and swirl below. Shaking your head rapidly, you continue, “Just…surprised me, is all.”

“Hm.”

“Can I get you a coffee then?” You whirl around, reaching out to grasp a cup in hand. “Black, perhaps?”

“Is that a remark on my soul?” he asks, stepping in closer to the counter.

“Let it be known on the record that you said that,” you laugh, writing out his name on the top of the cup, “not me. So, what does Aemond Targ like to start his…afternoons?” The clock reads noon, you notice as you squint a bit. Fortunately, or unfortunately for you, there are no other customers waiting to be served. Most have settled into their studies or chatting with friends along the many tables positioned around the building perimeter.

“An Americano, black, two sugars.”

Maybe you’re dreaming, maybe you expect too much from him, but when you narrow your eyes his way the corner of his mouth twitches — and it’s the closest thing to a smile you’ve seen on his face, and you’ll take it as a small victory to kick off the next few weeks with him.

“I actually came here to proposition you —”

“That sounds sexy,” your coworker, Markus, teases as you pass him Aemond’s cup along to be made.

Aemond ignores him, focusing on you as he continues, “It…might be outlandish. And you can say no, though I’d be a little upset as I’ve already done something impulsive.”

“I’m listening.”

He runs his tongue along his bottom lip. “Come with me to London.”

Your stomach drops, because there’s no way he said what he has. “You say it so casually,” you prattle mockingly, an overly airy lilt to your words, “‘come with me to London,’ he says. I have a job, Aemond. And what are you…rich or something? We’re broke college students, and I’m pretty sure tickets to London are expensive.”

Aemond gives a little dismissive, blasé shrug. So he’s rich, rich.

“His father, Viserys, is quite literally the Hotel King,” Markus interrupts, handing Aemond his coffee over the counter. His lip ring glints as he points to the building across the street and says, “T Hotel.”

You’re contemplating how you haven’t quite put two and two together about the fact you never even realized his name was on a building you stared at every day as your manager, Solene, appears from counting money in the back room.

“Take her off our hands,” Solene orders. “She hasn’t asked for a day since her accident.”

“Hm.” Aemond sips his drink, eying you wearily. “Accident?”

Changing the subject, because that’s not a light conversation at all to be had with a literal stranger, you tell her, “He’s trying to steal me away for a long time…like — well, how long?”

“Five weeks,” Aemond says, like it’s the simplest thing he’s said all afternoon.

Your head whips around, brows high on your forehead. “Five weeks?! You can’t be serious.”

Another shrug. “I figured we needed the time for research.”

Markus whistles. Solene’s lips curl into a feral grin full of scheming and plotting and you want to be mad but your heart swells instead. “She’s due for a vacation. I can’t get rid of her; even when she’s off she’s here.” A pause, and then, “In fact, you’re fired for the next five weeks. Effective immediately.”

Eye twitching, you raise a finger at Markus and Solene. “You’re traitors.” Markus chuckles. “Both of you!”

“Goodbye,” Solene sing-songs, waving at you as you untie your apron from around your waist and toss it onto a nearby hook. “Enjoy London. It’ll be your first time abroad. Take lots of pictures!”

Aemond trails behind you on your way outside, the door swinging shut behind you both with a lyrical chime. He takes it upon himself to grab the nearest chair and pull it out for you, tipping his head in the slightest so you get the memo and drop down onto it. Once you’re settled, he joins on the other side, taking another sip of his drink, anticipating your latest outburst.

“Five weeks?” Heart hammering, you run your fingers along your bare forearm, trying to wake yourself from whatever fantastical dream you’ve found yourself caught within. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a lot of money,” you remind him, chewing on your bottom lip, “I can pay you back in installments, I just can’t afford it out right at this moment. I just paid my rent and my phone bill and I —”

“Don’t worry about it.” Another sip. “My family flies so much, it was basically free. I always go home for the summer, so I figured I might bring you with me. For the project.”

“Right,” you whisper, voice trailing in the wake of the thoughts swirling around in your head, “for the project. And you’re certain you want me there?”

“Yes —”

“That’s five weeks of constant me. I’m an early riser. I start the day with a run — not really, but maybe I’ll take up running in England.”

“Hm.”

“I also snore. I get car sick on long rides. I’m a serial music-changer.”

“Serial music-changer?”

You nod. “I can’t listen to the same song for more than thirty seconds before changing it. It’s an impulse or something, I don’t know how to stop it.”

“It’s not that unusual,” he states, a little too calmly, “you remind me of my brother, Aegon, in a lot of ways. Will you stop trying to talk me out of my decision?”

Your fingers snap together. “What about your family? Won’t you want to see them?”

“Naturally.” His head dips. “My mother already knows you’re coming with me for the project. She’s asked that you come along — if you’re open to that, of course. She and my father like to host.”

“Oh.” Your fingers toy with the hem of your shirt. “I mean…if it’s no trouble —”

“Then it’s settled.” He rises to his feet. “You’ll come?”

Standing to join him, you say, “Yeah.” You grab your things. “I’m temporarily fired anyway, thanks to you.”

He stares at you evenly, eyes glazed over a bit in thought. “Which way is your apartment?”

Your eyes narrow, not quite understanding his meaning. “Uhm…”

“To walk you home,” he supplies, with what you might call a groan, only it’s much more reserved than any sound you might have produced of the same nature.

“Oh, you don’t…” Words trail off at the glare he shoots you. A thumb is thrown over your shoulder, head tipping in the way of home. Aemond dips his head, following your lead. “Thank you.”

The roads are busy even for this time of day, bodies brushing your’s and Aemond’s as you walk. Cars honking greet your ears, the familiar smell of exhaust in your lungs. Summer hasn’t fully rained down on New York City’s streets, but it’s always warmer here — clings in a way that it doesn’t anywhere else. Part of you wants to ask Aemond why he chose to study in the place you’ve lived all your life, but the words dry up in your throat, caught in the nervousness like sticky tar in your belly.

“So you’ve never been out of the country?” Aemond’s voice carries over the chatter of a group of women out to brunch, the open doors of a restaurant spilling sound onto sidewalks.

You haven’t really been much of anywhere. New York, Long Island here and there — Florida, for a girl’s trip. The past few years haven't really been conducive for traveling, as it is.

“Nope.” You pop the ‘p,’ glancing at him over your shoulder. “This will be my first time.”

“Hm.”

It’s quiet again, save for the world around you and the flip-flop of your shoes beneath you. You’re only made aware you’ve arrived at your apartment building when you step up onto the curb in front of it and Aemond calls your name. It sounds so…odd coming from him; coming from someone who you’ve rarely spoken to, but was always aware was living life in the background of yours.

“Oh — this is my place.”

“Okay.” He tosses his drink into a nearby garbage can, and you can’t help the way your eyes linger on the curves of his arms, the defined ridges of muscle there.

“Look, I’m really grateful that you want to bring me home with you but it feels like too much, and I —”

“Please,” he starts, cutting you off, “it’s really nothing.”

To you, to you it’s everything. It’s…an opportunity you’ve never had before.

“Okay.” Your bottom lip settles between your teeth. It’s decided, then. “When do we leave?”

“I’ll be here to pick you up Friday at four for our flight at seven”

“In the afternoon?”

“Morning.”

Your throat bobs with a swallow. “Okay, four in the morning. We’ll get coffee?”

In the light, you think he almost smiles. Almost. “We’ll get coffee.”

“Have a good day,” he says, jolting you from your silent reverie. “Friday, remember.”

“Friday.”

Waving goodbye, you open the door behind you, slipping into the main area and rushing up the stairs leading to your floor. People passing by throw themselves against the stair railing as you barrel past, your shouts of ‘sorry’ and ‘excuse me’ doing little against the suddenness of your exhilaration. But you’re on a mission. You’re reeling — spinning like a top, brain moving a mile a minute. Trying to plan outfits in your mind, dreaming of potential excursions, trying to process that you’re finally getting away after long years of being stuck in one place. Sure, you’ll be working on a project as well, but it’s one of those ‘once in a lifetime’ sort of experiences that has fallen into your lap, the kind of thing that only happens in movies, and you’re not going to put it to waste.

Lydia’s watching Love Island without you (rude) as you enter, and just as another bombshell enters the villa, you enter the apartment, shrieking, “You will never guess what just happened!”

——

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