#vampire zemo

[addict-rat]

Night Ties

Summary: You were a very famous hunter monsters, one day you decide to go after a famous vampier, but he was very aware of that and he change all your life.

Paring: Helmut Zemo Vampire x F!Reader Human

Words count: 3595 words

Warnings: +18 explicit, mention of blood, poor written smut, p in v, spanks, unprotected sex, bitting, ropes, bondage, desk sex, a little CNC, bondage. fingering, dominant/submissive.

Author’s note: Holas, I was writting this long ago, but I kinda forget when I get obsses with Ch.ai and all that, but here it is, I might be writting more of Zemo in the future. Please feel free to write me for any mistake I made or any suggestion.

You had begun to make a name for yourself within the small towns that were frightened by all those over-natural beings. It was many of those people that lived dominated by supernatural beings, whether they were werewolves, witches, vampires, etc. However, among the people they were more feared and dominated by vampires and werewolves.

It was for that reason that you began to gain popularity, you were known as part of the good cause dedicated to killing or hunting such beings. Not only were you doing that, but they were very few, not many survived them, and for that very reason it was that very few wanted to take their lives to kill a few of them. The few people who did so had a reason to simply want to get rid of them.

You did it for revenge, your mother had been killed by one of them, all the people you lived in had been attacked by werewolves, but it was not them who killed your mother, you had managed to flee before they saw them. Deep in the woods when they thought the werewolves could no longer find them, they stayed for a moment near a river to grab strength and find safety, yet their mother heard noises in the distance, afraid that something might happen to you, I took her to a small cave near the river, told her to rest there and come out until there was sunlight. With the ingenuity of a child, he was obvious and did what I ask, when the light came out he called his mother without any answer from her, came out of the small cave, I looked for her by the gunmen until he found her pale and lifeless body.

She wasn’t looking to find the killers who killed her mother, because she knew she’d never find him, she knew it wasn’t human, what killed her, she knew it was what killed her, but again she wasn’t looking for her killer to never happen to anyone else. He was aware that he could not kill each of them, but with his perseverance and courage he could perhaps make more people unite and decide to end the dominance of these beings.

You had come to a small town where it was dominated by vampires, especially a special one. You knew how to deal with vampires, you’d learned from your group, they’d taught you their weaknesses especially. You could say that you were a little popular not only among humans but also within these "monsters", they had divided to hunt these vampires, it was expected that the majority lived in mansions or even castles, were arrogant and presumed most of them, but they were also intelligent, manipulative and persuasive.

You had decided to go ahead, you already had experience you did not believe that something could go wrong, so you had made a plan to get into that castle, which was simple, it was not like vampires had bodyguards or anything. They didn’t watch the whole castle, so you looked for a room that nobody had set foot in many years ago.

That’s how you ended up like this now, kneeling, your hands tied on a short chain that was stuck on the floor. You heard a few steps and saw a man dressed elegantly, his hair well-groomed. —What a foolish, hunter— he sneered, his voice echoing throughout the chamber. —I’m surprised you made it this far. You must be very brave or very dumb— You only stare at him as if you look could kill him. —Don't look at me like that, darling. Who are you to judge me? You are the one trespassing on my home. I could kill you right now for your insolence, if I so desired. But I feel... merciful— He say getting closer to him, in your position you have to look up to him, feeling like so insignificant in that position. —I don't know if you are brave or foolish, or just a bit of both— He was now very close to you, you feel his hand touching your cheek —You intrigue me.—

That took you for surprised other vampires they have just taken all your blood of your body and leave you completely drain. —How can I intrigue you? — Your voice sounds almost sarcastic, but there was confusion there. —Oh, little one, you’re so much more than “just a human”— He leans down and run a finger along your face, gently stroking your chin and jawline. —You have hunted my kind… Even I don’t really care about those ones, is really fascinating to see someone like you murdered that kind of vampires— He takes your chin tilting up so you can his eyes, his crimson red eyes, you could not deny that I cause you to send a chill in your spine. —But that doesn’t take the fact you’re very foolish to come to my home and try to kill me… You’re here not just by coincidence, I bring you here you alone… Ever since I found out about your existence, which wasn’t a year ago, I’ve been watching every step you take, every decision you make, piqued my curiosity, my dear… Of course I had to bring you here with me.—You feel his fingers caressing your chin as he doesn’t let you go, the two of them staring. —M-my friends… They know I’ll come here, they’ll get worried and they’ll come here to help me— Your voice trying sound convinced that they will come to rescue you. —Yes, they certainly would come here and try to rescue you… But let me ask you a question... Do you know how many hunters have entered my domain? How many have existed?… Like I told you, you’re here because I want you to be here alone, I know where your friends are, and I know who are with them, I can make your friends get killed right now, but I will not do that yet…—He says in a threatening voice —B-but there are a lot of people that know me… Th-they will get worried… And they know I’m here— You say with a desperation tone —Hmmm... I'm sure there are many that know you, yes. But what will they do about it, hmm? Come to my domain? The place where hunters never return from? I admire your courage, my love, but I do not think your "friends" are going to come rescue you... And talking about your friends, I know you love them because you see a family in them.— Your eyes get worried and surprised —What if we make a deal… You have two options, you can stay here and we both wait for your friends and I killed them one by one, slowly and painfully in front of you… Or you can save them by submitting to me and save them, but you have to behave or there will be punishments for you for your bad behavior… You’ll have to write a letter to your friends saying that you retired from vampire hunting, that you found love and now you’ll dedicate yourself to staying with him and pleasing him in all his spades… Now take your decision, but we don’t have all day, darling so you better hurry up— You couldn’t believe that not only he have trapped you, now you have to submit to him to save your friends, he’s using them to get you, and he’s achieved it. You don’t have any option. You regret coming alone and not waiting for others to accompany you.

He kneels before you, his head moves to your neck as you can feel his breath, he lift a trail of kiss on the side of your neck —Frist I want a little bite, I want to taste your sweet blood— his teeth and fangs brush in your neck, you can feel the sharp of his fangs on your neck, then you feel how his fangs they break through your skin, you bite your lip trying to not make any noise, you didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of the sound of your pain. He sucks your blood for a few minutes, you start looking dark circles as you feel more weak until you close your eyes and you remain unconscious.

When you wake up, you were laying on the ground, your hands remain tied, you tried to sit down but your body was so weak, you didn´t know how long you were there locked. You don’t have any other option, so you have to access his deal. He comes back after some time. —Did you take your decision?— He looks down at you, looking deep at your eyes, you only could nod —I’ll submit to you— Your eyes look down as you say that, he smiles at your choice, he kneels and take your chin looking at your eyes. —Good girl. I will untie you, I know you’re weak so you can’t attack me, even if you try you only have your hands to try it, darling.— He takes the handcuffs in your wrists, you don’t even try to do anything, he lifts you up in his shoulder, your tired eyes didn’t even look the way he is taking you, until you feel the soft mattress of the bed, after a few minutes you fall asleep.

You couldn’t believe after years of hunting and killing vampires you end up cleaning the castle of a vampire. You were walking in a corridor and open one of the rooms, you look around and see there were black curtains on the wall, that’s when you notice it wasn’t a wall is a window, you open the curtain and you realize it wasn’t evening yet, you calculated around 4 or 5 pm, that means the sun was still up. You haven’t noticed the time until right now, and after Zemo wasn’t around, you could escape you have a few hours before the sun sets.

You didn’t take too much to find a door that leads to the yard, and for your luck it wasn’t locked. You open the door and go out, you see your surroundings and walk through the yard, it didn’t take you long to arrive in the forest that surrounded the castle, you walk with joy to the forest, without noticing there were two deep eyes looking you walk in the forest.

One of Zemo’s butler have notified about your “escape”. —My Lord, the lady has run away to the forest alone, I think she’s trying to escape, but I don’t think she might go too far after the sun sets… I know the forest is very tricky for someone doesn’t know it— Of course Zemo knows the forest like the palm of his hand.

Zemo looks up at the butler with a sharp look. —Very good, I'll take care of it.— He says, as he stands up from his desk. —Thank you for the information.— Once the butler leaves, Zemo smiles slightly to himself. —Run away, have you, my love? So eager for danger, eh?— He thinks for himself looking at the window of his room.

When the sun went down, Zemo went out to look for you soon enough to find you, you were lost and your solution was to climb a tree to the top and see from above, which clearly did not work and only served to stay trapped in one of the branches, you couldn’t get off and you probably stayed there for a few minutes until I found you —Do you know what a stubborn and foolish creature you truly are, my love? — He gets close to you, but he did nothing to help you. —Can you help me please, sir? — You didn’t have any other option but plead for his help. His cold, dark eyes look down at you. —Why should I help you? You were so eager to leave. To run away. To defy me. And yet now, when you are caught, you beg me for help?— You weren’t in a position to act up and try to get the worst out of him —Don't worry dear, I already have an idea of what to do with you…– You watch him walk away, he didn't come back after some minutes, you were scared and cold, you couldn't see anything in the darkness of the night.—

Of course, he leave you in the damn tree for a few hours and then one of his servants brings you back to your room. You wake up in your bed, one of the servants enters after some minutes to your room, he was very nice to you, he serves you food and make sure you weren’t hurt last night. Until he mention that Zemo wanted to see you in his room after you have eaten, your face goes pale you know the reason why he wanted to see you.

You finish your food and get dressed before to go to Zemo’s room, with a soft knock at the door you make your presence noticeable to him, you heard him talk in the inside of the room, you open the door and Zemo look up to you to meet your gaze. –Do you want to see me, sir? – You asked when you enter into the room –Yes come here, darling– You obey and stand closer to him, he stands up from his chair behind the desk –So, darling… You have a bad behaviour last night, and you know the consequences of your bad behaviour– He moves behind you while he talks, you softly nod when he finishes, feeling his hands on your hips caressing slowly you feel your cheeks getting hot, you couldn't help but bite your lip when you feel his lips brushing your neck, leaving light kisses, You bite your lip as he moves closer to that sensitive spot on your neck, his kisses getting more longer as he was close to that sensitive spot, you almost moan when you know he was about to kiss you there but instead he pats your hips lightly and pull away slightly. –This is a punishment, my dear. I know you're enjoying this and maybe you get a little more if you behave after your punishment… Now bend over the desk. – He says in a commanding tone, you didn't hesitate and do it, one of his hands move to tease your legs, his fingers brushing your thighs lifting slowly the hem of your dress, your face now red for the situation, he saw the way you press your thighs together, his fingers move to pull down your panties slowly until the small fabric falls on the floor.

—Such a pretty thing… See how obedient you can be— You bite your lip when his hand starts to caress your ass cheek, in the unexpected moment he slaps your ass a little to hard to make you moan, Zemo smirk when he gets a reaction from you. You heard one of the drawers open, you couldn’t see what is going on, you just wait impatiently. Then you feel his hands covered in the gloves of leather caressing your thighs –Oh darling we gonna have so much fun– he leans closer to you in a soft whisper, his hot breath against your ear, as you feel his grown erection inside your ass —I want you to count this one, I want you to count 20 and then I’ll stop, but if you don't say it loudly and right I’m gonna start again. — He pulls away and his hand caresses your ass cheek with the glove leather then again he slaps your ass, the leather makes your soft skin sting —O-one… — a soft moan come out of your mouth.

The slaps get even harder when the number gets higher, making you more difficult to count right —I didn't hear you right, sweetheart he has to start again… — You were for the 17 slap after start over 3 times, his slaps get harder every time you make him repeat.

After several times, you finally reach to 20, you couldn’t believe how much your ass sting and hurt, you didn't have to look to see how red it was, as you couldn't believe how wet your inner thighs and folds were, you don't want to admit how turn it on you have get when he spanks you. Zemo look at you with satisfaction, he leans closer to you, a soft moan leaves your lips when you feel the rough fabric of leather caressing your inner thighs —Such a good girl… Already so wet for me, that was supposed to be a punishment not for you to enjoy— He chuckled softly, his hands moving to your wet folds, a soft moan leaves your lips as you feel his finger teasing your folds to your clit making slow circles, making you squirm under him, with a warning he push two of his fingers deep inside of you the leather glove makes his finger more thick, he moves his hands in a slow pace, he was enjoying the way you squirm under him, your little whimpers and moans. —You're so responsive— he murmurs, his voice dark and seductive. —I can feel every pulse, every quiver. You belong to me now, don't you? — His voice possessive close to your ear in a whisper —Y-yes, I’m yours… — You whine, you were so close to your orgasm. —That's what I want to hear— he says, pushing another digit inside you. —You're mine and you'll do as I say. — His fingers thrust into you in a faster pace, filling you up completely.

—You’ll cum when I say you can— With that he continues to finger you, his other hand moves closer to your clit, his fingers start rubbing that sensitive nub. Your walls squeezing his fingers as you were trying to not cum in his hand, not until he tells you that you can. You squirm and beg for him to let you come.

—Cum for me, sweetheart… Cum around my fingers. — And you did, you cum around his fingers with a loud cry, he continue milking your organs moving his fingers in and out while he continues rubbing your clit. He stops when you finally finish your orgasm, he withdraw his fingers slowly, a soft whine comes out of your mouth.

You close your eyes for a few seconds trying to get your breath –Don’t fall asleep already, sweetheart… I'm not close to finish with you. – You try to turn to look at him when you feel the tip of his cock on your swollen folds, he groaned, his hands gripping your hips tightly as he pushed into you, filling you up with his length. You only could moan loudly and squirm under him. Your tightness around him felt incredible as he began to thrust slowly, taking his time to stretch you out. —So tight and warm for me… — His lips curled into a smile as he felt your pussy clench around his cock. He increased his pace, thrusting harder and faster. The sounds of their bodies slapping together filled the room, punctuated by your moans and gasps of pleasure. You don't want to admit it, but he was making you feel the pleasure you never though you could get. Zemo moves to kiss your neck and shoulders as he continues thrusting in you in a rough pace, his grip on your hips was strong, that's gonna leave you bruises the next day. You cry louder when you feel his fangs break the skin in your shoulder, taking your blood. —So sweet and all mine— he whisper on your ear after take some blood of your body, his hand move to your clit, he moan when he feel your inner walls clenching around his cock, he pick more faster and rougher the pace, you can feel the tip of his cock hitting om your cervix, making you squirm under him, you didn't even think straight in that moment he was fucking you deep and senses that you only moan and whimper, you have lost the count of how many times he had make you cum.

Seeing you all ruin for the pleasure just arouse more Zemo, he grabs your face making you to face him and he takes you in a messy kiss, with a deep thrust his cum inside of you filling you up with his warm seed.

Zemo stays inside of you for a few seconds as he catches his breath, you were laying on his desk, blushing and panting, he pulls out of you, his seed come out of your swollen pussy, dripping on your thighs and floor, your red ass checks just give him the imagination of you that he wants —What a messy girl you are, What you're “fans” will think of you? Their little hunter here on my desk all marked by me, you don't want they find out the truth about you? That you enjoy being my little maid and warm my bed. Don't worry, my love that's not gonna happen, because you're mine and you will stay here by my side—

You try to run away a few more times, but the punishment gets even worse with the time that you start to get used to stay around him, you even start to crave for his touch and his sweet words, you fall in love with him, and now you were tied to him for the rest of your life.

[deputyrook]

Deputyrook's Five Fictional Crushes-> I'm not sure how to describe my type, but I sure do have one

[bonbalaur]

Returning back to painting bit by bit. I am still thinking hard about @fleshtonyart Alienist vampire!au, but tbh lately I havent been in a mood for sadboi gothic vampyres… Rather was quite hard leaning into angry baroque feral monsters (imagining what w∆r cr|m€s they could commit to enemies of my people, let the girl dream for a bit after yet another week of "great news"). Also practiced with unusual (for me) portrait lighting+colors. Not sure I'm totally pleased, but it's also part of the process - accepting the end result and still letting myself enjoy the process and acknowledge it as a small victory.

[geekstuffkittykat]

Original art this time. I wanted to play more with my imagination and this time it was a combination for my bestie. Zemo + Buffy the vampire slayer. This one was fun 😏

[fleshtonyart]

Thinking about Vampire Zemo again 🩸🖤

[therenlover]

Slain (Vampire Hunter!Helmut Zemo/Vampire!Reader)

Chapter One: No Compasses, No Signs

Synopsis: The world undergoes change. Helmut Zemo finds new residence and perspective on his journey for revenge.

Tags: Vampire!AU, Vampire Hunter!Helmut Zemo, Slow Burn, Blood Drinking, Manipulation, Everyone Is Morally Grey, Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers

Rating: E (+18) For Later Chapters, Minors DNI

Warnings: Mild Gore, Minor Mentions of Child Death

Word Count: 9,900~

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

Her lips were a breath away from his neck, fangs bared, when his weapon found purchase in her heart. She settled there a while, leaning closer into him and the great bolt of wood that sat between them. He stilled as she did. 

One last shuddering breath escaped her lips. “Thank you, Helmut,” It was more than that, though. A confession of love hid itself within her words.

Helmut grimaced. Not this. Not now. 

Before there was even a moment to reconsider, he wrenched the stake free and brought it down again, and again, and again, and again… Better to make sure the job gets done than leave her to suffer. 

He walked from that room into the daylight an untethered man. The hunt was just beginning, though.

Every inch of the floor sat soaked red in his wake. 

———

Sokovia was always most beautiful in the autumn. 

It was a timeless place, or at least that’s what all the brochures had said. After spending the morning exploring old-growth forests or quaint villages, a three-hour car ride could take you straight into the city, filled with modern Sokovian culture and art. The capital city of Novi Grad was bursting at the seams with theaters, galleries, museums, historical districts, and Michelin-rated restaurants serving farm-to-table cuisine: anything you craved on an international vacation, you could find it there. Students the world over chose the Sokovian National University over all others across Europe and the globe for its arts department. People thrived there. 

At least they had. 

Now the theaters that still stood sat empty, never to play another film or host another symphony. Museums were looted, restaurants burned, and the university, with a campus several hundred years old, turned to dust as Novi Grad disappeared off the map forever. The bricks that had once built a nation came crumbling down in one final, fatal blow. In the span of one night, the history of the whole country was lost forever. 

Some things still remained, though; things older than even Sokovia had been.

Helmut Zemo just had to find them. 

There was no map to follow towards his prize. There had been once, an ancient thing that sat rolled up tight in a glass case on his father’s desk for all his life. It had been there, untouched, in every memory Helmut had of that office. He imagined his father and grandfather had similar memories there, looking up at the very same desk and pondering the stiff, crumbling parchment above. Not anymore, though. There would be no more young Zemos to gaze up at that sturdy oak desk. It had been found crushed beneath the rubble of their ancestral home. 

In fact, there wouldn’t be any more young Zemos at all. 

Carl had been found crushed in that rubble too. 

It was better that way. He had met a nobler fate than most Sokovian citizens had. Still…

Sometimes it was better not to dwell on things like that. 

Helmut’s father hadn’t had much time to teach him the ways of the family before his passing, but some things came with time and the rest could be gleaned from superstition.

Silver, for example, was plentiful across their vast collection of heirlooms. Those trinkets had become incredibly useful to melt down for bullets and crossbow bolts when he started to hunt. Much more helpful, though, was the fact that the furniture in their homes was often made of fine wood, and some of those handcrafted bedposts and coat racks, when twisted just so and pulled at the socket, would reveal a perfectly sharpened end hidden within. 

Those stakes had come in handy.  

And even if there hadn’t been any childhood lessons on how to slaughter a creature soundlessly in the darkness of the night, Helmut had learned plenty about that in the Sokovian special forces.

After months of little revelations, his preparations were long past done. Now the only thing left to do was follow his father’s footsteps. 

Surviving the journey was a secondary priority. 

Helmut didn’t need his family’s map to know exactly where to seek the first of his quarries. He had heard tales of her for his whole life in nursery rhymes and whispered childhood stories. 

Women, children, and wandering folk with pure hearts couldn’t be led astray, but if a man  with a guilty mind followed the Behnit River, he might just get lost. Thankfully, Helmut had that part covered. Once lost, the poor soul would trek through the winding Sokovian mountain passes, traveling far beyond the shadow of Mount Wundagore until he came across a forest of fog. If the man wandered the forest long enough, evading the great beasts that lurked there, he would find the castle of the Grey Lady. 

Anyone foolish enough to seek her there would see the face of death. 

Now, Helmut Zemo was not afraid of death. He had been intimately acquainted with it from birth as had twelve generations before him. Ever since his father’s head arrived home on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, shipped neatly in an ice-packed crate and wrapped with a red ribbon, the abyss was attached to him like a lover. Not even his wife or child could escape that cruel mistress’s clutches. Without anything left to lose, Helmut found himself in only death’s company. 

Even now, as he wandered the abandoned villages and barren fields of the country he once called home in search of the Grey Lady, he spent his time slaughtering the last stragglers of Ultron’s army and putting any live victims out of their misery before they turned. Neither tended to last long once they were starved, but a few stubborn bastards held on. He liked to think of it as a mercy when he drove his stake through their skulls. 

Death walked beside him like a friend, and Helmut didn’t fear his friends. 

They feared him. 

That suited him just fine. 

To be fair, not everything was bad here. The Behnit flowed through fields of flowers and fruiting trees where all manner of soft, warm, innocent creatures slept, untouched by the horrors of modern civilization. Helmut slept among them unnoticed. He sustained himself off of their sacrificial charity. 

Another silver lining: the longer he traveled along the riverbank the less it seemed to rain, which was appreciated. His coat kept him warm and the stars kept him company. The autumn leaves seemed just as beautiful as they were advertised to be in the travel brochures he used to wipe his ass on the trail. 

He had pitched his tent for the night in a cluster of boulders by the pebbled shore. The greatest of the stones were still jagged from where a slowly dying glacier rended the earth and left a river its wake. Still, they were softened somewhat by moss and time. 

When Helmut woke that morning, emerging from the boulder’s shadows, the once open field that had surrounded the river the night before had been replaced with more trees than could be counted. Thick morning fog rolled in from the water’s edge. Visibility was at almost zero. There were just trees and trees and trees and nothing.

It was exactly as he thought it would be. 

So he packed up his tent, tucked it away in his bag, and freed his wicked, silver blade from its holster- another heirloom coming in handy. Its weight rested naturally in his hand. Then, he walked on. 

Thus began the first leg of Helmut Zemo’s journey towards revenge.

———

Black blood splattered against the cobbles as my ringed fingers slammed into the younger man’s cheekbone again. 

It pooled in the stones’ creases; a thick, stinking ichor that clung to my jewelry and my skin as it continued to dribble down from his face and body. I couldn’t help but lick a stray droplet from my lips. 

He wasn’t quite broken yet. It wouldn’t take much longer, though. My hunger could wait until then. 

The pathetic creature stood his ground in the corner of the darkened stable as his eyes darted about to search for an escape route. 

There were none. I had made sure of that. There was only me and the sturdy walls behind him. Nowhere to go but down. 

As expected, he sunk to his knees after just one more sharp hit to the cheek. 

I allowed my hand to linger for a moment. It may have been cruel, but I didn’t care to think too much about it. “Are you ready to tell me now?” 

His red eyes glinted with tears. Slowly, he nodded. 

“What is your name,” I asked. 

“Pietro,” 

“Pietro,” I repeated the word on my ancient tongue, feeling each syllable roll over the muscle. A strong name. Sokovian. I brought myself down to his level, resting on the balls of my feet before him. My fingers danced along his skin. “How did you receive the gift?” 

“Please, I don’t kn-” 

His voice shuddered and stalled as one of my pointed nails slowly began to dig into the cold meat of his cheek and more sticky blackness coated my fingers. 

I smiled right through it despite the growing unease in my stomach. Maybe a gentle hand would be more helpful…

“You do know, Pietro, even if you don’t think you do. Don’t you want to tell me? To get this over with?” My voice was sickly sweet. The dank stall, once reeking of stale piss and rot, began to match my cloying tone. The air grew thick with a dizzying perfume and Pietro’s stiff posture softened at the first breath of it. All at once his eyes swam with not fear, but relief. He wanted to make me happy now. Nothing would make him feel better than following my command. It almost made me want to vomit more, if I were capable of it. 

The words came soft and dreamlike from his trembling mouth. “Novi Grad, at the university. My friend was a student. We were walking back from the bars to meet my sister and a man was waiting in the alley… oh god. No.” Pietro shook his head. His pulse began to speed. “I ate him. I ate Paul. The man attacked us and Paul tried to run and I- I ate him!”

His story was sad but unhelpful. 

My voice stayed even despite his hyperventilation. It was best to keep him calm for both our sakes. “Who changed you, Pietro? Who was that man?” 

The air grew heavy around us both, blanketing him in warmth and pleasant feelings from all sides. It was calm. It was safe. It was all a deception. 

Pietro leaned into my touch like a young, blind animal searching for his mother and I hated to admit it stirred something more in me than nausea. Whatever it had awoken, and I didn’t care to find out, it was bringing out my mercy. Death no longer waited for him at the first wrong move. I sat quietly at his side, smearing dark blood across his hair as I stroked it without meaning to; a small comfort. Absent tears dripped from his empty eyes. 

After a long while, Pietro decided he was ready to speak again. 

“He said he was a friend of Stark… that he would change the world,”

My voice came in a low sigh. “Starks always think they will,” 

I had known. Even if I hadn’t been absolutely certain, it was hard to ignore the sinking feeling his scent brought on. If I wasn’t in so much denial I could have guessed as much the second even a drop of Pietro’s blood hit my lips. He was of my own flesh in a way, however diluted by distance and time. I had tasted it in him. There was a flavor only attributable to myself under his chemical bitterness and the musk of wet dog. 

Slowly, I let my hand slip away from his face and stood, kicking at a pile of rotting straw on my way up. 

Pietro drooped further into the corner. His sandy hair covered enough of his face that I couldn’t tell if he was still crying or not. “I was just so hungry,” he breathed, “I couldn’t even think, I just kept eating them. All of them. Anyone I could catch. I was just… so hungry,” 

“Are you still hungry,” I asked. 

The stable went silent. 

He nodded. “I’m starving,” 

It was a huge risk, and a stupid one too. I hadn’t taken on a familiar since the 1800’s. It had been much longer than that since I’d created a thrall or spawn, and this… this was much more complex in new and different ways. He was not mine, even if he shared traces of my disease in his blood. Whatever hybrid monstrosity he was—I was almost certain he contained something other than the vampiric curse I bore—it meant he could not be controlled by force as a young spawn could. Pietro would instead need to be tamed to be trusted, much like the legacies of wolves that dwelled alongside me in my woods. 

Pietro didn’t look particularly defiant, though. Keeping him leashed to my side couldn’t be that difficult. Besides, the idea of having some company wasn’t a completely unpleasant thought. 

In fact, I rather liked it. 

I approached him again like I would have approached a wounded animal, undoing button after button on the sleeve of my coat and exposing the smooth flesh of my forearm. It was an offering. An olive branch. He swallowed hard. 

“I will not give you this gift lightly Pietro but I am in a particularly giving mood. You only need to answer one more question, and this can all be over. Do you wish to pay penance for your hunger? Or do you wish to die?” 

His body trembled as the pungent reek of fear took over the room once again. My glamour had worn off well before. It was only fair to let him make this choice with all of his mind in his own hands. “What are you doing?” He asked. His accent trembled on every syllable. 

“I’m offering you a choice,” I replied. “You weren’t given the luxury of choosing what you have become, but now you can choose what you do with it. We’re similar, you and I. We’ve made mistakes. I know from firsthand experience that one needs to learn to control this curse or die before it kills them in the ways that matter, and you don’t look dead to me. At least, not yet. So what would you prefer, Pietro? How does this end?” 

Pietro gulped. His shaking hands were fisted in the soft cotton of his dirty AC/DC t-shirt. “I don’t want to die,”

My face relaxed into a soft smile. That would do just fine. 

“Then drink,”

He attacked my wrist like a mad dog. It didn’t even feel like a pinch as his teeth ripped into my skin. 

Cool, red blood flooded his mouth in an unholy communion, and, in that moment, I could have been his god. 

Pietro ate like an animal. 

It was clear that nobody had guided him when he was created. No one had sat at his side as he fed for the first time, showing him just where to put his teeth or how to keep things from getting messy. Of course he’d had to kill to eat. There were no lessons on where the major veins and arteries lay: which ones were deadly, which could be pierced and healed, how to heal them… It was a damn shame. He could have been so much more than an animal. 

Now, blood splashed wildly from his mouth as he tried to swallow as much as he could, ripping with his new, sharp molars to try to coax more viscera into his throat. I pitied his lack of understanding. He could barely feed himself, even off of my near-endless supply.

That being said, his desperation was almost cute. 

He drank his fill of me until his eyes glazed over. As a fed man, he was flushed with life again, breathing deeply and gaining color in his pallid complexion with every breath. From the looks of it, a few more hours without a meal would’ve killed him before I could. When he finally detached from my wrist there wasn’t a hint of guilt or shame or fear in his eyes. Instead, they reflected pure satiation into the darkness. His look promised gratitude. Servitude. 

I released a cold huff of breath into the air. “Full?” 

Pietro replied shortly, wiping his mouth with the butt of his palm. “Yeah, much better,” 

“Good,” 

His eyes darted to the wound he’d left. “Are you ok?” He asked. For all of his previous boldness, he now refused to meet my eyes. 

It didn’t matter much to me, but I shrugged, examining the previously mangled flesh. “No harm done.” 

Pietro gaped at the improvement. My skin was already knitting itself back together, though it was working a bit slower than usual. I needed to feed soon myself. 

Strong with a fresh supply, his pulse beat hard enough in his jugular that I could watch it pulse from half a meter away. More thoughts sparked behind my eyes. 

Well… it couldn’t hurt. 

I needed far less than he did to keep myself running. It would only take one bite. One big mouthful. One swallow. I had given him far more than that, so it shouldn’t leave him wanting in the least. 

“Would you do me a favor, Pietro?” Using his name was a manipulation. The air grew thick again with the scent of pear blossoms and juicy, dripping stone fruits. “The first step towards controlling your new form,” 

“Anything,” 

The graphic on his t-shirt was soaked with blood and bits of ripped vein.

“Give me your neck,” 

It wasn’t a question. Instead, I found myself demanding access to him. 

The worst part was he followed me blindly, even with his own understanding of what it meant to feed. Pietro tilted his chin to the sky as if he might begin to wail at the moon and waited. Not a muscle moved as he waited for brutality. 

I didn’t quite know what to do with him anymore. He was filled with too many unexpected surprises.

This man, barely more than a boy, was an abomination, a scientific marvel, living and dead all at once. He never should have been thrust into his creation, but abomination or not he would satiate the hunger that gnawed at every cell in my body better than any other source of blood at my disposal. His blood, however tainted, was warm beneath his skin. It called to me like the predator I was made to be. 

As I moved in for the bite, though, his eyes met mine again despite the obvious effort he was taking to close them and imagine he was anywhere else. I found a new terror overwhelming him there. Something even more ancient than I was sat deep in the dilated pits of his pupils, like a pig finally understanding his purpose as the axe began to drop. I had seen it more times than I wanted to count: The looks they gave when it was too late to squeal or run. Fear, understanding, and acceptance of the end. It was the place they went when there was nowhere left to go as they waited for the slaughter. I could stomach it in animals, a needed sacrifice to sustain myself, but to see it in the eyes of one so much like me, his eyelashes wet with blood and tears… I saw my own face looking back at me. 

Slowly, deliberately, I guided his head back to its front-facing position, patting his unscathed cheek with a cool but soft hand. “You passed the test, now go to the house. Find somewhere comfortable. I’ll meet you there,” 

I wasn’t that hungry anyways. 

Pietro sat still for a moment, eyes shifting warily from wall to wall, but as soon as he realized there were no more instructions to wait for he scrambled to his feet, bolting from the stables almost on his hands and knees until he managed to keep his balance. In a moment’s time, he was shoving his way out the door. Every few seconds, though, he would look back at me until he couldn’t manage to keep me in his sights. 

He still reeked of fear. 

Good. It was best for him to fear me. I would rather keep him in line with fear than with pain, and we weren’t here to make friends. Things would be better this way. 

Brushing wet straw from the thick leather of my day pants, I rose to follow, leaving the bloody stall behind me. I only paused long enough to spare a look towards the piles of rotting, ichorous bodies packed into the adjacent stalls from the months and weeks before. It would need to be dealt with eventually, but not tonight. I continued into the gloom, locking the door to the stables on my way out.  

There was more important work to do. 

———

Pietro adapted to my solitary life far better than I could’ve expected him to.

He mostly kept himself entertained, never lingering too long in my presence, not that he should want to. There was very little of mutual interest between the two of us anyway outside of mealtimes. Still, I kept a close eye on him, from a distance of course. 

The garden had become his main refuge, and that suited me just fine. It had gone neglected for a while anyway. Having a hobby would help him adapt to his new life more smoothly, and hey, a little uninformed TLC at his hands couldn’t possibly hurt the plants that had already survived generations' worth of being harvested but otherwise ignored. 

When he wasn’t scrounging around the loamy dirt, Pietro spent his days patrolling the grounds. He had probably seen more of the expansive property in the past weeks than I had in the past decade. It was a stark reminder of what a homebody I’d become in the past hundred years.

Every night, when the gardening and patrolling was done, he would trot back to his seat at the dinner table, right beside my own at the head, and share his informal report on the events of his day. Once it had been news of the wolves he’d befriended, then a broken fountain that needed repair, then a deer caught in a fence. I figured this was his way of earning his keep, even if I had never asked him to. I had barely done more than feed and house him since his arrival. No progress had been made on controlling his power. His proverbial leash grew longer each day I refused to put in the time (and effort) to discipline him. 

It would be so easy for him to slip away 

I had no more control over him than I did over the weather. If he truly wanted to, Pietro could have run off into the mist the second I let him out of that stable, escaping to whatever fate awaited him outside the bubble of my protection. There was no glamour, no psychic energy compelling him to stay. It would be as easy as him making the choice and enacting a plan. 

Still, he came back each night like a hound with a rabbit in his teeth, sometimes literally. We shared the details of his day over light, meaningless conversations each dinner time until he fed from my wrist once more and shuffled off to rest. 

Despite everything, the time I spent with Pietro in the evenings was the most fun I’d had in ages. 

Not that I’d ever admit that. There was still a certain air of decorum and fear-based respect that hung between the two of us and I refused to bridge the gap. He was my ward, after all. Or… manservant? No, he didn’t do enough around the interior of our home to warrant the title. Housemate indirectly threatened with death upon his departure? Whatever. The semantics of what he was to me were unimportant. What he wasn’t was a friend or equal. I lorded above him in every way: age, knowledge, sheer supernatural power. It wouldn’t do either of us any good to pretend we were closer than tentative acquaintances. 

That didn’t mean I couldn’t privately relish in the meals we shared, though, and the brief bits of humanity he coaxed out of me somehow with his presence. Our quiet companionship would perfectly toe the line to keep him respectful but less fearful. At least, I hoped so. 

It would be painfully miserable to be alone again now that I’d remembered what it was like not to be. 

My own days hadn’t changed much, with the exception of my evening meals. Dawn was spent in the animal pens. I fed and watered the pigs and chickens and lambs before taking their offerings: the sheep were sheared on seasonal rotation, the chickens laid in the mornings, and every once in a while, a pig would grow round and tired enough to be culled. Mostly I would toss anything slaughtered and drained to the wolves to keep them happy, but on occasion, I’d leave with a lamb of my own to quench my unending thirst. Not often these days. Instead, I supplemented my diet with wine in the hopes that, eventually, I could overcome my hunger entirely. It hadn’t happened yet. I hadn’t given up hope. 

Once the beasts were tended, the rest of the day was spent curled up in one nook or another attempting to pass the hours with whatever useless activity was available. If I stayed put too long, I had learned my flesh would begin to petrify, so I forced myself into monotonous, limited activities each day. Recently that meant embroidery, which made its way into the rotation once every few decades. Before that, I’d organized the library alphabetically by the author’s names (before it had been by book title), taken up oil painting until I ran out of paint, and spent a small stint attempting to design my own clothes for the hundredth time. It turned out as well as it always had. That was to say, every single design was awful and/or impossible to sew with the materials at my disposal. Even the garden Pietro loved so much had once been a time-sink to keep me from turning to stone. After almost a thousand years, though, nothing kept my attention long. 

Nothing new was left to discover here. On rare occasions, a new hobby would arrive on the body of an interloper, like the Game Boy with its drained batteries that sat next to my bed, but even those didn’t take long to break or lose their novelty. 

Besides, visitors had become a rarity as soon as cars and highways came into fashion. 

Who would spend their days wandering down old forest paths when they could take their new vehicle down a well-mapped road instead? It was quicker, cheaper, safer- and then came the airplanes and the busses and the high-speed rails. By my nine-hundred and eighty-seventh year of immortal life, I was lucky to get a lost hiker at my door once or twice a year that the wolves didn’t shred before I found them. 

Things changed for a bit after the world shook. Suddenly, it seemed as though there was a wave of new bodies wandering the wood every dusk and dawn. No companionship could be found with those maddened newborn creatures. They were like only one man-made monster I had ever witnessed, almost seventy-five years before, but they were mindless with the endless tug of their starvation, an unprecedented side effect of their disease. Always so hungry. Few retained any scraps of humanity by the time they made it to me, sunburnt and emaciated and so very confused. 

After a while, though, even they became rare. It was as if they had all been sent in a great burst before whatever event that bore them was over. The whole situation concerned me. I wondered if they weren’t coming to me anymore, where were they going? There must have been more of them than the ones who had come to my door. If this hadn’t been an attack on my home, organized to finally rid me of my life, why were they created? And if so many had made it as far as my castle, what had become of Sokovia? I feared I would never get an answer. 

Pietro was the last. 

I couldn’t have known it when I spared him, but no more followed in his footsteps. He himself had arrived almost a month after the young man who came before, and he had taken a few weeks to find me after the one before him. Then, after Pietro, there was nothing. If he hadn’t been spared, I would never have known of Ultron, or the children he sired to prove himself to Stark, or the bomb Stark had dropped to rid the world of the vampiric plague that would descend upon it.

Maybe it was the renewed scarcity that made me pause when I first saw him stumbling through the bushes. That split second of indecision before I gutted him on sight, was it curiosity or loneliness? Or was it luck? Whatever it was, and I didn’t care to dig too deeply into any of my feelings on the matter, I was glad for it. 

The pair of us kept each other company. Fog rolled in each morning and the moon glowed full each night and the world kept turning, but things were new now. The same china and linen and dining table I had stared at for hundreds of years seemed to have new detail in it every day. 

We had peace. 

Until the morning Pietro came wailing through the study doors with that mangled wolf in his arms. 

“There’s a man!” He gasped, blood running down his front and into the deep auburn of the rug at his feet. The poor thing was long dead. From a few feet away I could tell it had gone quickly to whatever had felled it. Even still, Pietro’s eyes were wild with something more than fear at the sight of the corpse’s state. “He-“ 

I cut him off, rising from my chair. “Where,” 

His eyes darted to the dripping gash in the wolf’s neck. 

“The front walk,” he said, “I didn’t see much of him, just a shadow, but he’s armed with something bad, something that felt wrong. There are more dead too, too many to carry, but I thought she might make it. I thought I could fix her,” Pietro was babbling now, talking faster than he could even rationally think. It was evident that he had never seen a slaughter like this. At least, he had never seen a slaughter like this without a driving bloodlust that would drown out every thought other than hunger. A slaughter that wasn’t his own to make. 

I crossed the room to him. “Watch the house,” 

“But-”

My eyebrow raised. I was chillingly calm, tutting at him softly. “Do you think I am incapable of defending my own home?”

“No, no, but he’s just… I… how can I help you?” 

Despite his fear, Pietro still so desperately wanted to do what was helpful. His moral compass was strong. I appreciated it. He was already making progress all on his own. I didn’t need him though, not for whatever awaited me in the woods. There were few people who had any knowledge of my location, and fewer still who would be able to enter and hold their own against my defenses. Knowing what I knew of Ultron, I was prepared for my feud with the Starks to come to an end. Besides, he would just be a liability, a clear weakness in my rock-solid strong persona. He was still too young. 

Teeth bared, I let out a soft growl. “Like I said, watch the house. That is how you can help me, just in case someone else attempts to enter while I’m distracted,” I gestured towards the door into the greater hall outside. “Eat, then keep watch. I would only judge you if you wasted her body. If I need you, I’ll whistle,” 

“How will I hear you from so far?” 

“I have my ways,” 

Without waiting for confirmation, I started my warpath towards the front of the house, leaving the sounds of sloppy tearing in my wake. 

———

As soon as I was out the doors I could feel him at the end of the walk, but it wasn’t until he had broken the tree line, several hundred yards away, that he noticed me waiting for him. 

Not a word was exchanged. That blurry body on the horizon shifted, reached back, postured, and- snap.

One soaring arrow cut through the air and found its target in my chest. 

He wanted violence? I would give him violence. It had been so long since I had someone to toy with, someone who had the capability to even try to resist the toolbox of horrors that my nature had lent me. I grinned. This was a game, and I was a sore loser when my life laid on the line.

Time turned to mist in my grasp. 

All at once, I was acutely aware of the bolt that had shredded through the shoulder of my coat. It stayed embedded there, the tip jutting out just below my shoulder blade, but the shaft sat too high, missing my heart by a significant margin. Stoney flesh burned all the way through the wound. When I tried to send a tendril of energy through the tunneled muscle, it fizzled out and died. 

The damn tip was silvered. 

This was a clever one; more than just another mindless, bloodthirsty drone in search of a throat to rip. This man had knowledge. He was a craftsman. A hunter. 

My revenge awaited. 

With a speed that defied the laws of the natural world, I greeted my opponent. 

I moved with the wind. Every molecule of my body sang as I pulled them apart and brought them together at will, drifting over his shoulder in an amorphous cloud of smoke. Blood thrummed under his skin like thunder even if he could not actively comprehend my presence. 

He was mortal. 

I could feel the loose amalgam that made up my mouth almost watering at the sheer feeling of a human pulse so close to me, however slowed in the wake of my speed. Every bit of him was lean muscle, too, wrapped up in leather and military-issue kevlar. It would rip like butter under my predator’s teeth. He didn’t know that, though. In his mind, he was blissfully protected from the things that went bump in the night. 

A quick scan with the looser edges of my cloudy form revealed that, despite his silver weapons, he wore none of the metal on his person. 

This man may have been a hunter, but he was also a fool. He wasn’t a Stark, either. No, he smelled wrong, not a note of wolfish musk surrounded him besides the stench of dead dog in his wake. A wild card, then. Or something I couldn’t quite recognize without my nose all put together. 

Plum, perhaps. 

A sword, silvered like his crossbow bolts, was strapped high on his hip, but it didn’t take much maneuvering to undo the clip and send the blade clattering to the ground. Next came the crossbow itself. Taking something from the man’s hands was a little trickier, but nothing was beyond my grasp, especially when I unleashed this power. Usually, it was kept close to my chest. It was a secret truth I couldn’t even burden myself to recognize. I was ancient. I was so much more than any living soul could be forced to comprehend, I was-

The seal on the crossbow caught my eye. A badger posed regal, gnawing on the snake in its dripping teeth. My snake. Their crest. 

Oh. 

Oh.

The game had just become so much more fun. 

I felt the air, bringing my nose together enough to sniff at it. I had to be certain. There could be no mistakes if it was who I knew it had to be. And it was: It was like a perfume I could never quite wash out, a song that always resided in the back of my head, as familiar as my own name after all of the years I had known it. Maybe, just maybe, I knew it better than my own scent. 

He was a Zemo. 

Twelve generations I had killed over that stupid attempt at a takeover to expand their barony. Twelve fathers of twelve sons, each more horrid and twisted than the last, had willingly walked into the lion’s den on the eve of their eldest son’s 18th year to fulfill their end of a bargain struck by the first of them all in the hope to spare their bloodline from total annihilation in my wake. One by one they sought me out of their own free will. Every time they believed they would improve on the failings of the last, finally besting me, but their pride was their fall. They were cocky and stupid enough to think they knew enough to defeat me. 

Every single son had died for their gall. 

They didn’t have to. If one had simply disobeyed or learned mercy, I would have let them go without a second thought. It wasn’t as if I could leave this forest to find them. Nothing compelled them besides their own hubris. 

And now, the thirteenth was there to take his place at the grave. 

This was wrong, though. An unshakeable feeling gripped my mind more than even my rage at the damned bloodline before me. Maybe not wrong, no, but not quite right either. He was far too young. 

It wasn’t as if he looked exceedingly youthful. The man’s eyes held a certain wisdom that only came with time. I was sure that, if I were capable of seeing my own reflection clearly, it would be a trait we shared. His face showed age too. A thick but well-trimmed beard decorated his cheeks and chin, obscuring the thin line of his scowl. I spent what felt like hours memorizing those features— searching for hidden signs of age, of course, or other features that might give away his weaknesses. 

The point wasn’t to admire him, though, or let his features become the focal point of my focus. This was not a man who had raised a man.

He had simply come too soon. 

There was no reasonable explanation I could find to explain him birthing a blood son who had reached the age threshold to fulfill our bargain. To take a father from his child… the thought haunted me. Even with the acrid stench of death and dog permeating my home from all sides, with the culprit all but waiting for release in my hands, I couldn’t do it. My standards remained. 

It just… wouldn’t do. 

I let loose my tight grip on time, letting each shred of my body come together into its correct place like the snap of a fresh rubber band. It was always dizzying to find time’s proper flow again but I leaned into the exhilaration of my physical form’s newness. My voice escaped my lips- at last, my real lips. It was a bone-chilling whisper. To him, I seemed to appear at his back in an instant, traveling with the breeze that froze him. 

“Next time, son of Heinrich, you’ll have to aim better than that,” 

He went stiff at the feeling of my cold breath on his neck, like every hair on his body had stood at attention the second he became aware of my closeness. It was more than just a startle, though. That fear was genetic, bred into him by father and father and father before him. It was in every drop of blood that rushed to his face in my wake. He masked it as well as he could have. His expression remained schooled even as a freezing hand came up to brush against his neck. I knew better, though. I saw things humans could never dream of comprehending about each other. 

Minutiae. Breath and pulse and scent and temperature. Predator senses. 

“You were expecting me,” he said. It wasn’t a question. 

“And you weren’t expecting me,”

Zemo laughed, a bitter thing. “Perhaps not. None of the others have been quite so… fast,” 

I tossed his crossbow aside. It landed in the nearby brush and shattered as it slammed against the ground. My own strength was unknown to me. I could only pretend it had been intended. “Your father should have taught you better than this. This is a disappointment,” 

“He might have,” he said, “but he didn’t live long enough. So, I believe you are to blame for his inability to mentor me in the rules of your little game. 

My pulse raced even as my mind paused. His dark eyes took in the surroundings, surely searching for something to get him out of my grasp and back into the upper hand. Little did he know that uncertainly was creeping below my skin. 

Men. They were all the same. They lacked the sight. 

“You’re free to believe that if you choose,” I replied, “but eighteen years was plenty of time for the rest of them. If it was not enough for you, well, I can only call that greed. Of thirteen men, you are only the second to lose your weapon before even crossing my threshold. That and the fact that the first was not your father, it seems, means it is your father’s failing that he did not pass on the wisdom he had learned.” 

“How long did he last?” 

“He lasted more than six hours of combat before I gutted him. It’s a shame you couldn’t do the same. At this rate, you won’t survive the hour. What a bore,” Slowly, and without a wince despite the burning at my fingertips, I snapped off the end of the bolt in my shoulder and placed the silvered tip in my pocket, patting it softly through the fabric once it settled at the bottom. Extracting the rest of the solid metal rod was an easy feat from there. His eyes remained trained on me over his shoulder as it joined his bow on the ground. 

Zemo, to his credit, mastered his fear beautifully. 

His pulse had stabilized some, though its steady rhythm still rushed through my nostrils and into my dizzy mind like an intoxicating symphony. He was a cocktail of emotion inside his well-kept exterior. The scent of sudden horror was now morphing into surprise, perhaps even curiosity. His gaze only escaped mine to examine the blood dripping lazily from my shoulder to my feet.  

“Confused?” I taunted. 

He shook his head. “Not confused, no.” 

“Then what are you?”

I wanted to know him. I wanted to rip the deepest secrets of his mind from his chest and devour them. I wanted to taste it. It would be so much sweeter if I didn’t have to take it, though. If it were given freely. 

“Learning,” he replied. 

It was my turn to be unprepared. 

I stalked around him, coming to face him head-on, and he held my gaze again. His pulse stayed steady despite the fact that the space between us was near nonexistent, as if he thought of himself as a predator too, just like me. Still, those damn eyes examined me like some sort of experiment, not like prey. Questions sat unsaid between us in the fog. 

What makes you different? What makes you special? What makes you tick?

Stars above, he made it so easy. It was impossible to keep from smiling just a little at the absurdity of it all as he took in the sight of my neck and the puckered scars that littered it. This was nothing like my dinners with Pietro. This was dangerous. Almost fun. 

Everything I gave to him he shot right back at me in spades, almost as if he was toying with me too and deriving his own sick satisfaction from the electricity in the air. It reminded me a bit of the great bacchanals that had been thrown here in my youth, when the castle halls ran red with the blood of my victims, both unwitting and all too willing to die by my lips. I hadn’t been alone then. There were faces to entertain me around any corner. Even when the party ended and the bodies ran dry, my creator waited patiently for me in the bedroom as dawn broke each morning. It was horrifically, terribly, irredeemably fun. I wanted to forget it so badly that I almost had.

Now, though, the memories were fresh. 

How long had it been since I’d really spoken to someone without their fear leaking from every pore? Since there had been someone to laugh with? To bounce off? To feed from?

My throat twitched shamefully at the thought. 

Blood was a varied thing. No two feeds would ever taste exactly the same, even if they were almost interchangeably similar. Every emotion, every dietary choice, and every passing second spent aging would affect the profile as it hit my taste buds. Omnivorous or herbivorous animals tended to be brassy and harsh on the tongue, yet somehow watery. Overall, unfulfilling. Carnivores left me a bit more satisfied, but not much, and definitely not in terms of flavor. Other vampires were more substantial than animals, but bitter depending on their age. A young vampire tasted a bit like a berry that wasn’t quite ripe. 

Humans, though… humans were uniquely human. There were no words to describe it. Mortals could not comprehend the kind of sensations that fresh human blood would fill me with enough to create the vocabulary to depict it properly. Some were savory, some were sweet; some were stomach-churning and heavy and some lighter than water on the tongue. They were ephemeral. Unique. Devastatingly addictive. 

There was one unchanging fact about the taste of blood, though, that haunted my waking dreams on my worst nights. 

However disgusting they had been in life, every Zemo had been orgasmically delicious in death from the very first. 

I resisted the urge to unleash my glamour and drain him dry right there and then heroically. I was not that woman anymore. I had to promise myself that, at least, to keep it all reined in. The last human I’d fed from had been his father and before that his grandfather. It would do me no good to give in to my basest urges which I had fought so hard to suppress. He would die with honor and dignity when it was his time, and it wasn’t. 

Not yet.

So, instead of ripping his throat clean out, I dragged a nail down the column of Zemo’s neck, relishing in the gooseflesh that raised at my touch. 

“Do you always play with your food?” He asked. 

I shrugged, playing the persona he needed from me to keep his dignity. “Only with your family. It keeps me young,” 

And suddenly, that little playful light in him died. I didn’t quite know what had set him off, or how, but it was as if a switch had been flipped on his mood. 

“I would appreciate getting on with whatever this is, then, if you wouldn’t mind,” He hissed. Zemo took a sharp step forward, closing the space that lingered between us in one swift motion. My nail pressed dangerously close to his jugular. “I am not your toy, nor was my family. This little game you’ve played with us is finished. It’s long past time. No more sons,” his nose was almost brushing my own as he spoke. I could taste every lick of hate in his breath. “This ends here.”

Even now, at my mercy, he was spending his last moments protecting his son from meeting the same fate. Not even once had any of the other men who came before even mentioned them. Not even in passing. 

For a moment, I almost let him go. 

The first of the Zemos had deserved it. The second had almost deserved it more if such a thing were possible. The generations seemed to snowball through the decades like some sort of horrid disease. Each man had found their way through the warding around my forest, and that in and of itself was evidence of their crimes in my eyes. The weight of guilt in their hearts had guided them to me like the light of the north star. Once they’d arrived too, every man had only continued to prove themselves unworthy of life. Every time, I thought maybe I could impart a lesson. 

Twelve men had failed to understand their own failings, though, and until they did, I had doomed them to pay the same price, over and over, in an unrelenting loop of loss.

But I was so tired. 

So, so tired. 

Who could say if they’d ever learn? The blood I spilled might have taught them nothing at all, and it might never teach them. How many years would I spend alone, haunting the halls of an empty castle, waiting for them to learn? 

Always starving. 

Always hurting. 

Even the guilt was gone. It was just… 

Emptiness. 

Deep down, I had to wonder if I was really doing it to teach them a lesson, or if I was just glad to have a warm meal and a conversation these days. When had it started to become less about them than it was about me and my own feelings?

Thirteen men. An unlucky number, but a prophetic one. 

Maybe it was time to let go. 

I took a deep breath and crossed my arms, letting my hand slip away from Zemo’s neck. “I have to admit, son of Heinrich, it takes a lot of nerve to demand anything of me,” I sighed, reluctant, “I’m impressed,”

He quirked up an eyebrow. “This sounds like the beginning of another game, vampire,” 

“You might find out if you let me finish,” 

Zemo stayed silent. I could almost hear the whispers daring to escape him as he licked his lips. Around us, the fog sat heavy and thick. 

“As I was saying,” I cleared my throat and my stomach turned. When was the last time I’d been so nervous about something? When had I last felt anything at all? “You want to end the games? Fine. Lay this bare. Why are you here? Thirteenth son of Zemo, what brings you to me? Why risk your life, your youth, for this?”

I did not dare unleash my glamour to pry the truth out of him, nor did I need to. His words came easily from the very depths of his soul. 

“Revenge,” 

His eyes glossed over as he said the word. No longer was Zemo looking at me, though, even if his eyes were trained on my own. Instead, he was looking somewhere distant. A wrath that moments before had seemed so personally tailored against me and my existence now resided not within me, but far beyond me… Interesting 

I could work with that. 

The whole situation was incredibly delicate. One wrong move from me and he would be lunging for any remaining weapon in the vicinity. I walked the razor’s edge, the snake in Eden. But would he bite?                                                   

My voice came low like a prayer.

“Against who? Me?” 

“Against all of the monsters in this world,” Something akin to madness pushed through the man’s demeanor. It smelled inky and burnt on the skin: a human crematorium. Loss. “The things that roam and kill without a second thought, bloodsuckers like you who thrive off the deaths of those around them. Mostly, though,” Zemo grimaced, “I want to put a silver bullet between the eyes of Tony Stark and every monstrosity he’s ever created,”

Tony. He had a son. 

Despite the palpable tension in the air and the pang of shock that hit me at the mention of Howard’s offspring, the wrong Stark, I shrugged my shoulders, keeping up my unbothered persona as long as I possibly could. Anything to keep this moving forward. Anything to keep him talking and not attacking. Any excuse to keep him alive just a few minutes more. “You aren’t the first person to wish for a Stark’s demise,” 

He stilled. “Maybe, but I will be the last,” 

“What makes you so certain that you will succeed where even I have failed?” 

“He killed my wife and son,” 

After all the years I’d spent surviving off of the sacrifices of others, I had thought my heart was stone. That there was nothing left, just petrified muscle and dust. Somehow, though, I could feel it thump and ache for him. Ache for his wife, his child. All at once his early arrival made all the sense in the world. 

There would be no eighteenth birthday to wait for. 

No more sons, he’d said. Not now, not ever. 

My voice shook ever so slightly in the mist. “I’m sorry for your loss,” 

Zemo shook his head. Greasy, unkempt hair fell over his eyes, shading them, hiding them away from my prying gaze. “You say that now, and yet you were the one who killed my father,” 

Touche. 

Uncomfortable emptiness filled the air. Neither one of us made a move to continue the banter. 

It would be as easy as breathing for me to put him out of his misery. I could drink my fill of him and forget. After a few decades, my imagination would stop being haunted by the chubby cheeks of a boy who would never find a calling, fall in love, or have chubby-cheeked babies of his own. Zemo could have destroyed me too, in that moment, just as easily as I could have destroyed him. He couldn’t know it, but I would have let him. It would be as easy as lunging for his unbroken sword and ending it all. I wouldn’t dodge. I wouldn’t dare. Not when the guilt I had hidden away so well was finally rearing its ugly face.

This one felt different. He was like nothing I’d encountered in all of my long, miserable years of life. Maybe he was even more needed than Pietro had been. 

If I were to end my empty existence at his hand, I could die happily.

The idea came clear.

It had been foggy before, a half-assed imagining. I could overpower him, control his fragile mortal mind, and keep him tucked away somewhere where I could covet the feeling of his resistance against me, all to ease the endless, aching loneliness I still felt every day. He didn’t need to come willingly. Just like Pietro, I could break him to my will. If I could do it to another vampire, how hard could a stubborn mortal be? 

Now, though, I saw a different path through the darkness. It was a terrible idea. Self-destructive. Awful. 

The worst part? It might just work. 

“Howard Stark stole something from me too, once” 

Zemo scoffed in disgust. “Your wealth?” 

“No, my blood,”

My deepest secrets flew plainly from my lips like they were nothing more than facts. We lapsed into momentary silence once again. 

“So those creatures in the countryside…”

“Are a part of me, yes,” I mindlessly fiddled with the hem of my coat pocket, feeling the weight and heat of the silver within. “I have regretted trusting him every day for the last seventy-two years,” 

Zemo stepped back and I let go of the breath I’d been holding for what felt like decades. Finally, someone else knew. The jig was up. In its wake, he seemed pensive. Thoughtful. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but he seemed lonely too. 

This mess was my fault, that much was plain. I hadn’t set foot outside of this damned forest since 1943 and yet, somehow, the choices I had made back then had led to the destruction of my mother country. No amount of solitude could pay the penance I owed for the crimes I had committed now, no matter how desperately I had tried. 

The worst of it all was that so much was still unknown. If so many of those hybrid spawn had made it here to my home, how many more had ended up elsewhere? Was it just Sokovia that was overwhelmed by them? Who made it out? How many women and children had died at the hands of my own blood?

I rid my head of the poisonous memories as best as I could, shoving down the growing pool of guilt and regret that had been threatening to boil over for longer than I thought I could have swallowed. 

One thousand years of death was finally here for its vengeance, and it was fast approaching; finally catching up to me. It was poetic, though, for it to come from him. 

“I am willing to listen to your proposal,” Zemo said. “Let’s get on with it,” 

“Alright. I’m offering information about the Stark family; everything I know about their affliction, my affliction, their plans to use it, the weaknesses of the monsters that will stand in your way. Anything you want, anything I know from all of my years in this life, is yours for the taking,”

He replied plainly, eyes suspicious. “I won’t spare your life,”

“Did I ask you to?” I stepped towards him. We were nose to nose again. “You can’t kill me. It wouldn’t even take a second for me to snap your neck and leave you here to die in paralyzed agony—it would be so easy—but I’ve decided against it. I’ve already had my fun for far too long, so stay here and learn all you must know from me for as long as you’d like. If you ever manage to learn enough to kill me, we shall duel honorably as your forefathers did before you. Either you will die here a failure, or you will leave here with all of the information you need to become the deadliest hunter in history. Once that’s completed, your revenge will be all but guaranteed,” 

Ever the skeptic, he tilted his head to the side. “But what do you gain from this? Why would you decide against getting rid of me before I become a threat?” 

“Companionship, stimulation, absolution; take your pick,” 

“A meal?” 

“Not until you die. Not unless you ask,” 

Stroking his beard, Zemo took a step back and looked me over with a discerning eye. He had examined me intensely before, but it was like a canine scoping out its prey. Now, though, he searched me for signs of verity, any reason to distrust the suspiciously beneficial deal I had all but laid at his feet. Around us, the world seemed to pause for him as it might have for me. 

“As soon as I have the power to kill you, you’ll be dead,” he muttered. 

And so my final deal was struck. 

“I look forward to you trying,” 

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

Thank you for reading! Once completed, the next chapter will be linked here.

This work has been crossposted to Ao3

[youwearfinethingswellwriter]

Inspiration

[radioactivebearz]

Calling all my Daniel Brühl fanssssss

Do any of you guys use character ai? If so would you be interested in characters with specific character role plays? Like modern!laszlokreizler or Zemo in an apocalypse/post apocalyptic world type thing?

[xteslaangel]

Maybe I'll get back to posting my writing here and I have some pending requests in my messages. But we'll see! What kind of writing would you like to read?

[frostironfudge]

Tenebrous - Loki (AU) - Chapter Twenty

Pairings: Vampire! Professor Loki x Fem!Reader, Bucky x Loki x Reader

Characters: Loki, Reader, Bucky Barnes, Stephen Strange, Baron Zemo, Other OCs

Warnings: 18+ minots dni, angst, witch-vampire bonds, coven dynamics, blood drinking, emotional, swearing, sm/ut, mmf, mm, mf, thre/esome, soul bonds, vamipire stuff, or/al, fing/ering

Word Count: 5.1k || Dividers: @firefly-graphics​

Chapter Nineteen || Epilogue

Main Masterlist || Fic Masterlist || My AO3

Chapter Twenty: Time Will Be Immortalised

Eight Months Ago. 

They all stood at the foot of Thor’s grave. Nia placed a single flower near the headstone. Her hand pressed upon the apex, “God, Thor, did you have to be so horrible?” She grumbles. 

Loki stands solemnly between Bucky and Y/N. Her head resting against his arm and Bucky’s palm intertwined with his own. 

The vampire sighs, looking at the grave. Stephen and Emery stand a few feet behind Loki. Though he had an off feeling about the dead vampire, he had hoped this would not be the outcome. 

“He made bad choices.” Y/N reasons, Bucky wants to scoff. His displeasure at her words traverse across the steadily growing bond. Y/N’s gaze meets his blue eyes. 

“He didn’t take care of you as he had promised. Do not make excuses for his choice of actions.” Loki looks down at Y/N. 

“I—,” She begins but Bucky shakes his head. 

“Poetess, things would have been much different if he held focus upon you.” The warlock reasons. 

“He’s right, even if I did not know the truth of Loki leaving you. Thor did, I would have understood why he was being protective.” Nia stands, turning away from Thor’s grave. 

Y/N stays quiet, eyes lingering upon the headstone. 

‘Thor Odinson — brother, first love, and friend. Immortal in memory.’ 

Nia did not want to write soulmate, he didn’t deserve that title. 

“He did possess good qualities, it is a shame they were outshined by the bad.” Stephen adds, Nia joins them. 

“Any bars nearby?” She questions Loki, this was their hometown, built by them over years, most of the land owned by them. 

“In the town square there are five, Meade’s is decent, good hard liquor.” Loki chuckles as Nia grins. 

“Pretty good tab we’ll be stacking up.” Emery chuckles then looks at Y/N. 

“You okay?” They ask her, she nods in response. 

Having Emery know everything made their friendship even more strong. Y/N could tell them everything. They could ask the questions that Y/N could answer while still preserving her recovering mental health.

The bond thrums Y/N and Bucky eye Loki curiously. 

“You three go ahead, I want to take them to Mum’s resting place.” Loki gestures with his head towards the path which leads to the destination in mind.

“Very well.” Stephen intertwines his hand with Emery's, they blush. Y/N has a knowing smile upon her face. Stephen chuckles.

Emery meets her gaze, their happiness shining through the smile they harbour.

Nia checks her phone for messages from the law firm, nothing new, no fires to put out. She sighs, tucking the device back and following Stephen to the bar.

Loki, Bucky and Y/N remain back.

“I know I should have asked the two of you before—,”

“We’d like to meet her.” Y/N interrupts, quelling Loki’s nervousness.

Bucky smiles as well, “We would be honoured to meet the woman who raised our mate.” 

Loki smiles, leading them to the grave that has flowers bordering it.

“These were her favourite, we had a garden back home.” Loki touches the petals as the flowers sway in the wind. “Mother, this is Y/N and this is James, they both are my mates.”

Bucky and Y/N look at each other and then at the grave, then Loki,

“You have a wonderful son.”

“So full of love.”

Loki smiles hearing their words as he kneels placing his lips to the headstone.

“She is proud of you, you know?” Bucky adds with a smile. 

Loki nods, “I wish she could have met the two of you.”

“We wish we could have met her too.” Y/N places a palm on Loki’s shoulder. it trembles despite her best effort. 

She attempts to use the spell that would allow him to feel her embrace.

The spell spurs in and out, flickering like a broken lightbulb.

Bucky feels her frustration. Loki is about to tell Y/N that it is okay, she needs to rest. When his mother’s embrace takes over.

Y/N stares at Bucky’s warm hand placed upon her own. Eyes closed in concentration to stabilise her spell. She sighs, the inability to perform magick frustrating her to no beyond.

“Just a matter of time, you will get back to it.” Bucky whispers, peeking at her with one eye open, “Then we can have a magick battle to see who is the better spell caster.” He grins focusing back on the spell after her frown is turned into a smile.

“You both are not doing anything reckless.” Loki pipes up.

Y/N giggles, Bucky looks at her and winks, “Of course, we won’t.”

“I felt the wink, Warlock. Witchling, you better not be agreeing with him.” Loki mutters.

“Good, the bond works then.” Bucky laughs, drawing more laughter from their mate.

“Little troublemakers.” In a blur Loki has the two of them flush against him in his arms, lips brushing over their foreheads.

Seven Weeks Ago.

Y/N had avoided speaking to her quote unquote mother for as long as she could. Clark and Miles suggested she get it over with, but Sierra surprisingly told her to take her time. The moon ruled over them, as Celestials there was a bond of a higher calibre. 

Y/N purses her lips, as she trudges to Clark, moving away from where Bucky and Miles were discussing types of divination. 

“Keeping secrets?” Clark chuckles, gesturing for her to sit, she shakes her head.

“What do you know about power transferring? I read in one of the books that we can store powers in inanimate objects or other…. beings.” She keeps her gaze steady.

“Who do you want to transfer your powers to?” He places the book on the side table.  

“I’m not sure if I want to but I’d like the option open.” Y/N admits, fingers drumming against her thighs. The thoughts she was having, the aversion to magick that suddenly was thrust upon her only to take Alexander down.

It felt alien to her. Not a part of herself as it should feel. 

“Transferring is no easy feat, razor sharp focus and the person should accept your powers before the spell.” Clark writes upon a piece of paper, handing it to Y/N.

“This book is in the library, you can take it. I hope you think it through before giving away your abilities.” He regards her, knowing he was hard upon her.

“It doesn’t feel as though it is my own.” She admits out loud for the first time. Fingers run over the written words upon the paper. She sighs.

“You can work on it, as part of the coven–,”

“Am I part of it? I didn’t have a traditional initiation, I just practised and learned to protect. I know you’d save them over me.” Her words silence the High Priest.

“I will admit your journey has not been the easiest.” Clark wonders what words are correct, soothing in this situation. It doesn’t come easily to him.

“It hasn’t.” Y/N agrees, biting down on her bottom lip to stop the tears. 

Weak. The word rings across her mind.

“Giving up isn’t the way.” He advises, reaching out to place a comforting palm over her forearm.

“I’m not giving up Clark, I just, I feel disconnected. I went through so much with everything. I don’t belong in this world in this way. I can’t push myself to work with something that doesn’t seem to want me.” Y/N looks up at him, hoping he understands. 

Clark nods, “If you want to practise or have questions let me know. Learn to cloak the object you do pick. If it is another witch or warlock I suggest speaking to them first about it.” 

“Thank you.” 

Bucky’s leg bounces as he watches Y/N approach the dinner table. Loki places a gentle hand on his knee. Reassuring him silently. Two weeks after the meeting with the Celestials and things were going well for the three of them. Date nights, days, falling further in love. Exploring aspects of their bonds one on one and together. 

Things were looking further upwards and onwards for all of them. Y/N and Bucky both recovering from the traumas of the past year. Healing. 

The bonds no longer looked decaying and broken but now gleamed gold, fragments repaired. 

“You’re not going to hurt her by your decision.” Loki assures yet again, the sinking feeling Bucky has quells in the slightest when he feels the love rush across the bond. 

Y/N grins at the two, her loves, her mates. 

Recovery wasn���t an easy road in the slightest but things seemed better, felt better. She takes her place at the table. The mahogany is covered with different dishes for dinner. 

Impeccably plated and micro greens used for garnishing. 

Loki cooked, she deemed then her brows furrowed. It was Bucky’s turn to cook today, she looks up at the warlock who regards her and allows his own unease to trickle past his carefully guarded walls. 

“You can tell me… what happened?” Y/N reaches towards him, Bucky’s fingers intertwine with her own. Giving a squeeze he grounds himself. 

She had her own decision to share, but what had Bucky worried would take priority. 

Loki grasps Bucky’s other hand, “Whenever you’re comfortable.” 

Y/N squeezes Bucky’s hand, he nods. Pursing his lips and then closing his eyes. She gazes upon Loki; he offers a smile that is assuring but she notes the hint of his own anxiousness. 

“Whatever it is we’ll get through it okay? We’ve been doing so well since everything went down months ago, even the pending conversation with Moonmy.” Y/N recounts, attempting to ease their worries. 

“I have decided that I want to turn. I’m close enough to Loki’s apparent age and I think it is time.” Bucky’s words are met with happiness from his bond with Loki. The vampire is smiling at his mate.

“Oh.” The word leaves past her lips with such heartbreak her mates both lose their smiles.

“Are-are you not happy?” Bucky begins to pull his hand away from her own.

Y/N tightens her grip on his hand, “Bucky, I am happy, I just, I wanted to discuss something with you and based on your decision I don’t think what I had in mind will work out. I’m happy for you, I’m glad you’re taking this step and Loki and I both are here for you during your transition and after it.”

“What did you want to discuss?” Bucky counters, not allowing her to be dismissive. 

“It’s nothing, I–,”

“Witchling.” Loki shakes his head, “You need to share whatever it is that is bothering you, with us.”

“Exactly, Poetess. How are we to provide you with the tools necessary or be there for you in the way you need us to be there if you don’t tell us?” Bucky unlaces their intertwined fingers cupping her cheek. 

The book and her notes weigh heavy on her chest. 

Loki and Bucky exchange a glance then gaze back at their mate. Observing her internal turmoil. Watching her swallow before gesturing with her index finger for them to wait. She heads upstairs.

Loki follows her footsteps with his hearing, “Her reading room.” He watches Bucky’s brows furrow attempting to decipher what was there that had a profound impact.

“She has been in there quite a lot, I deemed it was for her return to her course.” The warlock reasons. 

Y/N returns, a thick book and notes in hand, post-its sticking out of several places and handwriting strewn across the pages haphazardly. Loki denotes the different coloured pens adding to the notes.

“I um, I was reading up on how to transfer powers.” Y/N begins placing the books and notes in front of the two. Bucky takes her notes and Loki opens the book to the first sticky tab annotation. 

“Transferring powers is not uncommon, but you will require training.” Bucky assures, “I think you will be able to do it.”

“I, um, yes, yeah, practice is required but it’s straight forward.” Y/N agrees, her fingers intertwine as she fidgets nervously. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

Bucky hums as he reads over her notes, “This is good extensive research. I’m pleased and an object that can be kept safe so that no one may steal and–, oh.”

Loki’s gaze moves from the book to the page Bucky is reading. 

‘While transferring powers to inanimate objects is the far more common and reversible practice it is not lost that a witch or warlock can provide another living being – either animal or human with their powers, provided permission is sought and the recipient of the powers is willing.’ 

‘Supernatural beings such as witches, warlocks, werewolves and vampires may be considered as recipients; this practice is lesser known and explored. It is deemed, however, to be an irreversible spell.’

Bucky’s azure eyes find Y/N’s nervous gaze. Loki gazes upon her as well. 

“Why?” The two of them ask her together. 

“I don’t feel connected to my powers… I know I did the magick when it was required but,” she looks to her warlock, “You had your initiation, a coven that cherished you as their own and not a pawn that was needed to fight battles and only trained in a manner of dire circumstance.” 

“You’ve been doing well, gaining control.” Loki counters, he feels her heartbreak before she vocalises it. Bucky winces, this wasn’t the reaction she expected or hoped for from them.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m getting better… I just, I appreciate the powers, I appreciate what flows through my veins but it’s second nature or rather basic instinct for all the other warlocks and witches I know. For me it's…” She takes a deep breath. 

“Does it feel as if it's more of a burden to you?” Bucky offers, his heart cracking as she nods. His Poetess’ entire demeanour feeling as if she’s admitting defeat. 

“Did you want to transfer your powers to an object?” Loki shifts the focus, they needed to know what she was thinking and how to get through this together. 

Y/N says nothing just swallows the lump forming in her throat, her eyes flashing towards Bucky and then back to her fidgeting hands. 

Bucky looks at Loki, the two gaze down at her notes. Finding the small scribble at the corner.

‘Ask Bucky… if he says no then consider Midnight’s old collar.’

“Did you want me to be the one to receive your powers?” Bucky questions, thumb brushing over her handwriting on the paper. She doesn’t answer. 

“Witchling…” Loki’s voice is pleading; making her look at him.

“Okay, you know what? We’re going to the living room to discuss this, this isn’t a conversation where you need to feel small or thinking you’re asking something you aren’t supposed to,” Bucky tucks the notes back in the book. He then walks towards his mate, gently taking her hand and guiding her to the couch. The three spent the most time either reading, talking or binge watching shows and movies. 

Y/N easily falls into place across Bucky’s lap, Loki follows suit settling next to them, his hand holding hers, kissing her palm. Bucky allows Y/N to nuzzle against the crook of his neck grounding herself before they continue the conversation. 

“You don’t have to be afraid alright?” Loki assures, “No matter what choice Bucky makes, his feelings towards you won’t change nor will he feel forced to choose for you.”

Bucky feels her nod, his palm rubs up and down her back soothing her. 

Loki presses a soft kiss to Bucky’s temple, “You do know you won’t be forced to choose.” 

“I know, I want to hear our mate out completely and help her research further before taking an informed decision together.” 

Y/N takes a few more grounding breaths, lifting her head from Bucky’s neck and she faces the two of them. Her explanation falls from her lips the feeling of disconnect, the way it doesn’t feel nurturing. As though it was a chore to teach her rather than a tradition of passing down knowledge. 

Bucky understands every word, knowing what it is to have a coven that nurtures their baby witches and warlocks rather than just prepping them for battle as if a lamb to slaughter. 

Loki understands nodding along to everything, a worried pit forming in his stomach at the prospect of her regretting the decision. 

“It’s okay if you say no…” She shrugs, “I just, I think I was supposed to be normal?” Once she’s done she looks at both waiting for a response. 

“You’re anything but ordinary, witchling.” Loki kisses her nose making her giggle. 

“Look, I’m not saying no, but I did consider the fact that I would lose my powers when I turned.” Bucky begins, “It’s not to say that I don’t mind losing them, but my powers are another thing that connects me to my coven and Grandmother. I know I would probably have some other kind of ability in place if it is part of my transition but I doubt it.”

“Celestials are known to retain their abilities after the shift.” Loki adds.

“I could transfer my powers to an inanimate object,” Bucky looks at Y/N, “It humanises me, then you could well transfer your powers to me.” 

Her features light up.

“Provided the two of you research this in depth and are equally prepared.” Loki adds, “Also if her transfer doesn’t work can you reabsorb your powers from the inanimate object?” 

“I will be able to, it’s reversible.” Bucky assures, tucking a stray strand of hair behind Loki’s ear. Then brushes his lips against Y/N’s cheek. 

“Will you be telling Moonmy?” Bucky raises a brow. 

“I guess she already knows…” Y/N shrugs, “It doesn’t matter if she says no, either way I want to do it.”

“If you had undergone a better time as part of the coven would you still feel the same way?” Bucky questions her, Y/N ponders over it, replaying all the interactions she saw between the other members and the stories Bucky told her.

“I wouldn’t feel disconnected if I had that kind of witchy upbringing.” Y/N admits.

“Okay.” Bucky nods.

“Dinner then research?” Loki offers, his mates both nod.

Present.

“Professor?” One of Loki’s students cuts through his thoughts of the past five weeks. He refocuses into the present, plastering on a smile for the student. 

Questions answered for his students yet Loki’s own worried curiosity knows no bounds. He retires to his office, heading straight for the alcohol. 

“Pour me a glass.” Bucky’s whisper travels across the floor to Loki. He places another glass filling it with the amber liquid. 

The vampire waits for his warlock to join in, Bucky opens the door, closing it softly. In a few strides he’s pressed up against Loki. Wrapped in each other’s arms. Their mutual worry over their mate quelling in the slightest. 

“It will be alright.” Bucky whispers, “It has to be.” 

“It will be my warlock.” Loki runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair, he sighs leaning for more support onto his mate. 

Grasping onto his blazer lapels, blue eyes meet green ones. Loki leans in, his lips meet Bucky’s own. The soft gesture is comforting enough to quell the growing anxiety. 

They part when their phones vibrate and chime in unison. 

The dates had aligned; it was the phase of the lunar cycle when Bucky would be completing his conversion. It was also the night they would be transferring the powers before Loki would complete the process and turn Bucky into his own kind. 

Bucky’s nerves were shot but in a good way. Excitement of being the same creature as his mate, having the chance to deepen the bond he shared with Y/N. There was a part of him that was melancholic over the loss of his original powers. 

The blue markings on his left arm glow in response to his call. He traces the lines with his eyes. 

Loki gently raises Bucky’s palm to his lips, tracing the lines to his elbow. 

“Loki.” Bucky whispers, red rims surround his vampire’s eyes, “Loki.” he says yet again with need.

Loki pulls Bucky closer, nose tracing the juncture of his chest and neck, “You smell divine, our mates blood mixed with yours and mine.” open mouthed kisses have Bucky whimper. His shirt unbuttoned, Loki sinks to his knees. Undoing the jeans, Bucky hisses as the confines upon him are released. 

Loki brushes his lips over the tip, Bucky’s fingers tangle in his hair. 

“Mate, you’ve come at the right time.” Loki speaks, Bucky’s eyes snap open and towards the door.

“I,” Y/N’s hand is frozen on the door knob, arousal brims through the two bonds

“Poetess I-,” Bucky’s words are cut off as Loki takes his length in his mouth, cheeks hollowed, a wicked gleam in his eyes.

‘Get inside.’ Loki’s voice instructs in her mind. 

Y/N scrambles inside, locking the door. She moans at the sight of her mates. Bucky beckons her closer. His lips meeting hers in a bruising kiss, teeth and tongue and moans as Loki continues his movements, varying speeds enjoying the sounds he draws from Bucky.

The scent of Y/N’s arousal urges Loki on, one hand caresses Bucky’s balls. The other moves along her inner thigh, the skirt allowing him leverage. Her soaked panties have him moan around Bucky. 

The three moan in unison. 

Loki’s thumb draws circles over her clit, the fabric adding another layer of sensations that have her whimper into Bucky’s mouth. Bucky’s arm wraps around her waist, holding her flush against him. 

Their sounds grow needier, Loki times his head bobbing to the thrusts his fingers provide to Y/N. His sweet mates unravelled for him. Bucky tugs on his hair. 

Y/N moves as Bucky lifts her in his arms, facing Loki. Her dripping cunt soaking his cock her legs thrown over Loki’s shoulders. His fingers now move on her clit.

Loki takes Bucky back in his mouth, their mixed arousal only urging him onward.

She falls apart first with a cry, her head thrown back against Bucky’s left shoulder. Bucky places kisses over her neck as he moans against her sweet spot as he cums. Loki swallows every drop they give him.

Slowly the two humans calm down, Loki kisses them deeply each stated to an extent.

“What brought you to my office?” Loki questions his witchling.

“I um, forgot…” Y/N’s cheeks flush, drawing laughter from Bucky. 

“Perhaps another set of orgasms might jog your memory.” Loki offers, Y/N squeals before she’s placed on his desk. Bucky and Loki both gaze at her glistening folds. 

“We’re the luckiest aren’t we Loki?” Bucky’s large palm traces up her thigh, spreading her legs further apart.

“We are.” Loki agrees, “Have your fill my Warlock. I’ll have her moan around my cock.” 

Y/N clenches around nothing, preening under their intense gazes, words having her grow wetter. 

Bucky takes a seat on Loki’s chair, lips tracing her folds as his lips then latch upon her clit. Loki traces her parted lips with his cock before slowly sinking into her beautiful mouth. 

<><><>

Everything was set up, candles arranged in the shape of a crescent. Y/N sitting at the centre of it. Bucky’s jaw clenched as the air became heavier around them. 

Iridescent glimmers shift through, candle light adding to the glow. Embers casting shadows across their features and the walls. 

Loki attempts to quell the growing unease across the bonds. Disallowing his trepidation to trickle to his already worried mates. 

Y/N bit her bottom lip, eyes meeting his then drifting to Bucky. The warlock gives an encouraging nod. His spell was done, he was left without powers, they were encased into a necklace he had bought for Y/N.

She blinks, the white glow returns. Loki swallows, shifting towards Bucky. The warlock grabs his hand. Then let it go.

It was time. 

The charged air seems to move. Loki watches, the flames of the candles shift into circles. Burning full moons. 

Bucky swallows, feeling the first of the powers wrapping around him. His eyes close. 

The charged air recedes into nothing, the flames return to their normal shape. Y/N’s eyes open first, no glow present. Her eyes move to Bucky. Loki waits, their breaths held.

Bucky falls to his knees, wheezing and then his eyes open. White crescents visualise across his irises and then fade back to blue. 

‘She may have given you her powers, but they do not make you a celestial.’ The voice rings across the room. The necklace shatters into pieces and blue lines form along the broken fragments. They move towards Bucky wrapping around his left arm. 

The moon gave him back the markings of his old coven. The three of them stare at one another for long moments.

Loki and Y/N move then, helping Bucky up. The warlock only stares at his arm, the lines do not fade as they used to but now remain as a constant as though a glowing tattoo. 

Her hand reaches to touch the line, she had done it before, but this time she feels nothing. 

No flow of magick. Nothing weighing down upon her, making her struggle to stay afloat. A responsibility she wasn’t encouraged or nurtured to bear.

No sense of connection to Bucky and Loki beyond the soul bonds.

The way it should have been. The way it felt before her awakening as though there was something between them but now it was more, deeper and defined.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Bucky gently grasps her face, wiping her tears away with his thumbs.

“I don’t regret it. I just, it feels peaceful?” Y/N looks up at him, he nods.

“I just feel my magick, not the Celestial one.” Bucky admits his own eyes glazing over with tears, “Even if I don’t retain it when I turn it's okay.”

Loki pulls the two of them into his embrace. 

Kissing every bit of their faces, taking away the tears that flow. Salt on his lips, his mates cradled in his arms. 

Nia, Stephen and Emery join them hours later. In the last of the night, Bucky consumes the last vial of Loki’s blood mixed with Y/N’s. The taste wasn’t blood-like, the bit of ironish rust taste one would get when trying to curb the bleed of a paper cut.

“This next part may hurt.” Loki says, setting the glass down.

“It definitely will hurt.” Stephen pipes up.

“Does it have to be this way?” Emery questions, their own transformation pending. 

Stephen reaches out to them, gently stroking their arm to soothe them.

“It has to be a sort of clean death. Not to say other forms of killing don’t work. They do but this is swifter.” Nia explains nursing another glass of alcohol. Y/N looks at her in worry. 

“Nia…”

“Doesn’t affect me. Perks can’t get drunk.”

“Nia.. still.”

“Drop it, your boyfriend’s about to turn into a vampire. We’ll discuss this later.” Yet again Nia tables the discussion.

The loss of Thor doesn’t hurt as much. It’s the betrayal, Nia missing the signs. Signs she was fucking good at noticing.

“Just do it.” Bucky exhales, eyes meeting Y/N’s worried ones, “Just a nap, Poetess.” 

“Just a nap.” She affirms, walking back to him. 

“It’s going to hurt like a bitch.” Nia reminds Y/N, she nods.

“My blood runs through him, so I know he will awaken, I’ll be there to hold you through it. Unfortunately you know the experience of the breaking of a bond.” Loki strokes her cheek, “I’ll keep the bond fully open so it may help quell the despair.”

“Or you end up feeling mine.” She mutters.

Bucky laughs, “Look, he fully deserves to feel it.”

“Bucky!” Y/N lightly hits his chest.

“Rude.” Loki rolls his eyes but he smiles at the banter.

“Hey you were the one deciding for us before. This is just karma.” 

Y/N laughs at Bucky’s retort, Loki grumbles under his breath.

“Alright, alright, it’s a bit of time away from Bucky.” Stephen assures, pointing at the clock.

Loki grapes Bucky’s face gently, palms moving to his jaw. 

“I trust you.” Bucky assures, “I love you both.” He looks between his two mates, smiling.

“I love you.”

“I love you, thank you, for trusting me.” Loki places a kiss on his forehead.

Y/N and Emery close their eyes. The cracking sound has them flinch. 

At first Y/N feels nothing and then the bond rips apart, her chest heaves. Loki grasps onto her pulling her against him where the two remain near Bucky. He opens the bond he shares with Bucky to the bond he shares with her. 

The certainty of his soon to return to life status begins to wash over the turmoil in Y/N’s chest. Her sobs begin to quiet and tiredness takes over. Loki rocks her back and forth, her hand not leaving Bucky’s own. 

Sleep finds her after an hour still not letting go of Bucky. Loki feels the vampire aspect take over Bucky stronger, the warlock markings begin to gleam and change. The parallel lines once linear now wrap around his arm.

Y/N is placed in the farthest room as it gets closer to Bucky’s awakening. Nia and Loki remain in the house to prevent things from going south in case the bloodlust is too much for Bucky to handle.

The former warlock stirs, groaning, his hand reaches for his neck rubbing over where he could feel the ghost of the bone breaking. Bucky’s eyes open, black with red rims, a deep hunger manifesting in his belly. As he licks his lips they are dry, parched. The thirst is taking over. He suppresses it, walking to the mirror to observe the changes he’s gone through. 

The short sleeved V neck fits him, his features seemingly sharper and defined but not taking away from what he was born as a human with, it wasn’t as though he was fully changed. 

When he touches his face with his left hand he notices the biggest difference. The three lines of his tattoo now wrap around his arm in swirls.

The middle line has a small crescent at his wrist and a star akin to the northern star is now over his cubital fossa. At the centre of the star however, is a crescent moon with a tiny sprig of lavender.

Pride swirls in his chest as does a familiar happiness, Bucky turns, Loki stands at the door with a bottle in hand.

“Welcome back, James.” Loki greets with a bright smile, their bond thrums. Bucky almost knocks his mate over when he’s by his side in a blur. Loki chuckles, wrapping his mate in his arms.

“Loki.” He breathes, melting into his embrace. 

“You need to feed.” Loki reminds and the thirst comes back tenfold.

“I need to see her.” Bucky argues.

“Warlock, she’s still human.”

“She’s my mate.” 

“And you will know then to feed before you see her.” Loki’s eyes turn black with red rims in response to the defiance, “Quell the beast within, James. You do not want to accidentally hurt Y/N.” 

Bucky clenches his jaw, pushing away from Loki, “You didn’t tell me it was this hard, curbing the need to be with my mates.” 

“You’re a half mated newborn, two basic urges are strong.” Loki hands the bottle to Bucky.

The latter drinks the blood in large gulps, sighing in content as the thirst quells. 

“Better?”

“Maybe after two more bottles.” He jokes, Loki chuckles.

Two more bottles are consumed, Bucky wipes the corner of his lip. 

Enhanced hearings pick up soft careful steps and then a ‘oof’ along with a whined out call of Nia’s name.

“You will wait patiently for Bucky to come to you.” Nia chastises Y/N, She huffs in response literally being dragged away as though a child.

“I need to see him.” She reasons when Nia pauses in the room.

“I know, but you need to let him feed,” Nia looks to the side, “Well you’re in luck, impatient little human he’s on his way.”

Nia stops at the door, “There are about 5-6 gatorades in the drawer.”

“For what?”

“Stamina, you have to keep up with two vampires now.” Nia laughs, easily dodging the pillow thrown her way. 

Y/N sits at the edge of the bed. There is a knock at the door. Her heartbeat picks up, as does the rustling of pages within her chest, as though pages being turned to reach the favourite part of a beloved novel.

Loki smiles at Bucky, noticing the anticipation of the bon trickle through the bond. 

“Come in…”

Loki turns the door knob, he enters with an encouraging smile. Y/N doesn’t look at the door but at Loki as he stands before her. Cupping her face.

“He’s fed, taken to the change well. Eager to see you and bond if you’re willing. He’s told me to pull him away if you do not want to tonight.” Loki explains, Y/N nods.

“I’m ready. I trust him.” She whispers. 

Bucky sighs in contentment.

Loki shifts, Y/N looks up at Bucky. The blue flickers in and out of focus as he tries to keep the beast at bay. Her eyes fall to the markings. The star gleams in the slightest and then the lavender sprig. 

Bucky’s fists clench, “Poetess.” he calls out to her, voice hoarse, needy. 

“Bucky.” Y/N says with equal need.

In a blur she’s pressed against the mattress, a breathless laugh leaves her before Bucky’s lips find her soft ones. Her scent thrums through his senses. The beast within him wanted more. 

Bucky’s hands wander over her frame, drawing moans from his mate into his mouth. Her hands grip at his t-shirt arching against him. He nips at her bottom lip. Bucky moans at the taste of her blood. 

“You’re so fucking divine.” He hums, “Loki was right, a goddess, we’re blessed with a goddess.”

Y/N preens at the praise, Bucky allows the beast to take over, the spot under her left collarbone calls out to him. His thigh grinds against her core.

He raises his head looking at Loki who watches them with a lust filled gaze, “Claim our mate, James. You can have her this once alone, because after that she isn’t leaving from between us for a long time.” he smirks.

Bucky returns the gesture, “Hear that Poetess? You’re going to be worshipped. You’re going to feed our hunger the way no other could ever.” He kisses the spot of their bond. Y/N hums, the pheromones clouding every sense their needs brimming across the bonds.

Bucky’s fangs break through the skin, tears brim over as the bond forges between the two. Golden, gleaming, bright. Strong. Bucky feels whole, his bonds complete. The magick thrums through him as well. As before, stronger now.

Y/N breaks out of the haze of the bond, her chest feeling full, the love prominent and everything she needed it to be from both of them. Her hand moves to Bucky’s new markings, thumb brushing over the crescent on his wrist. Both vampires watch the outline of the same crescent form in her eyes then fade away. 

Clothes are scattered over the floor, their mate worshipped between them. Bonds thrumming happily, sighs and moans fill the room. Y/N falls apart between them and is put back together by her mates.

The tangled mess of limbs, she lays between the two. Bucky’s chest against her back and Loki’s chest pressed to hers, she’s on the precipice of sleep with a smile on her face. 

“I love you both.”

“I love you both.”

“I love you both.”

A.N: finally combated the block on this fic and the epilogue will be uploaded next week! thank you for waiting and supporting this fic, i'm so happy i was able to finish it and give it the ending that i feel is deserved by our witchling/poetess, warlock and vampire

tagging: @camerons-specialinterest@stevesmewmew@pandaxnienke

[notacyborg]

So many of my ships yes.

yeah your ship may have kissed but did they try to kill each other?

[the-unspeakable-tsar]

Superhero Timeline.

10th Millennium

First appearance of humans. Some super powered. 

Proto Avengers (heavily altered humans, primordial gods, and mutant). Celestial tampering happens on countless planets. (Tamaranians, Skrulls, Kree, Eternals, etc) causing multiple humanoid aliens to exist.

Myths concerning “Elders of The Universe” and proto-tangible beings are formed by early life.

Vandal Savage, Immortal Man, Anthro, King Kull, Kyra Arg, Gnarrk. Hippolyta (first life).

Grak (neanderthal politician)

Cotati, Kree, and Skrulls discover eachother.

Atlantis forms.

“Ulysses” Bloodstone

50,000 B.C.E (Thurian Age)

Inhumans created by Kree scientists. 

King of Atlantis, Kull.

Doctor Mist.

Darkhold creates some of the first vampires.

Atlantis and Lemuria Sink.

Amazon Race born.

Selene Born.

Hyperborian Age.

Conan

Kulan Gath

Red Sonja

753, 785- BEC

Ancient Greece

Ancient Rome

Golden Gladiator

Alpha Centurion.

Rome forms a colony in South America. Nova Roma.

Rama Tut

En Sabbah Nur was born.

Wizard Shazam empowers Teth Adam.

Mad Pharaoh discovers an alien Scarab and claims to have created it.

6th Century

One of the Camelots (for there are many and they are nebulous)

Etrigan

Merlin (Merlyn)

Arthur

Shining Knight

Silent Knight

Black Knight (Sir Percy of Scandia)

Mordred the Mystic (not arthur’s mordred)

Earth was briefly invaded by Klyntar. 

New Genesis and Apokolips forms, set in a higher plane of dimension.

7th Century

Tang Dynasty was contacted by aliens the likes of Fin Fang Foom. They take advantage of their advanced technology

Jong Li Green Lantern

Viking Prince

8th Century

Brotherhood of the Shield was formed in 750.

9th Century

Diablo (Estaban De Ablo).

12th century

Crusades, the mutant Bennet Du Paris meets Eobar Garrington and clan akkaba.

Belasco born at the tail end of the century.

14th Century

Mutants immune to the black page die in the sea.

X’Hal ascends to godhood.

15th Century

Intelligent gorillas form Gorilla City.

Manhunters deviate from original programming.

Zemo barony formed

16th Century

The Black Pirate

Andrew Bennet becomes a vampire.

17th Century

Gotham City founded

Romeyn Falls founded

Metropolis founded.

1700s-1800s

Tomahawk

Uncle Sam

Frankenstein Monsters

Jonah Hex

Atlas City formed.

Hellfire Club formed

Trigger Twins

Rawhide Kid

Carter Slade

Red Wolf

“Firehair”

Irene Adler and Raven Darkholme

Sherlock Frankenstein

1859 Nathaniel Essex begins experimenting on Mutants.

1882 Wolverine Born

1900-1920s

Morpheus Imprisoned.

Tom Strong born

Balloon Buster

Mister Cakewalk

Jazzbaby

Enemy Ace

Freedom’s Five

Cult of Blood formed in Zandia

Krypton destroyed

Kal El Lands in Kansas

Doc Steele, Tazara, The Crimson Fist

Ghost Hunter, Baron Von Fang

1930s - World War 2 

Batman appears

Superman first appears

Wonder Woman appears

Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) appears.

Invaders. Captain America 1-3

Based on Project Rebirth, Vought develops Compound V, empowering Soldier Boy. Germany empowers Stormfront using a duplicate.

Justice Society of America was formed.

Seven Soldiers of Victory

Freedom Fighters

Liberty Squadron

Black Hammer Squadron

Doctor Star

Abraham Slam

Sgt Rock

Sgt Fury and the Howling Commandos

Haunted Tank

GI Robot

The Losers

Albrecht Strong born.

Magneto

Charles Xavier

Golden Gail (spawn of a shazam protege)

1950s (Silver Age Beginning)

Billionaire Oliver Queen is stranded on an island.

Hal Jordan inducted into the Green Lantern Corps

Astro-Naut dies and Astro City is named after him.

William Burnside and Jack Monroe become Captain America and Bucky.

Hero Licensing Agencies were formed in Japan, one of the first being formed by Dragon King. “Former” villain of the JSA and Acrobat.

J’onn Jonnz teleported to Earth.

Barbalien, a contemporary of J’onn’s arrives on Earth.

Colonel Weird.

1960s

Peter Parker was Bitten by a radioactive spider

Blue Beetle (Ted Kord)

The Confessor

The Midnight Mink and Chippy (Short lived Batman inspired criminal)

Jessica Jones falls into a coma.

The Question

Fantastic Four

Challengers of the Unknown

First Family

Max O'Millions

Suicide Squad.

The Flash (Barry Allen)

Black Canary II

JLA formed

Teen Titans formed

X-Men founded

Captain Marve (Mar-Vell)

John Stewart Green Lantern

Avengers Formed

SHIELD

Black Rapier

1970s

Luke Cage.

Iron Fist (Danny Rand)

Shang Chi

Silver Agent framed and is executed

Outsiders

Glamorax

Putrid Punk

Black Lightning

Black Hammer I

JLI formed.

Aaron Aikman becomes a doctor and is murdered by Morlun.

Doom Patrol

Winged Victor

Original Batman Dies

Mister Unknown, inspired by Batman becomes a vigilante crimefighter in Japan.

1980s

Suicide Squad II

Checkmate

Spiral City is almost consumed by eldritch Anti-God.

Gangbuster

Daredevil

Nightingale and Songbird

All Might receives his Quirk.

The Samaritan prevents The Challenger Disaster.

Tesla Strong born.

1990s

Vought America begins to push its corporate superhumans. Their minds are twisted by Compound V. Vought refuses to seek alternatives.

Jon Kent, Cir-El Kent born. 

Christopher Kent adopted

Superman Dies.

Unteens (not super long-lived)

Hal Jordan goes evil and dies.

Kyle Rayner.

Spider-Girl

A-Next

Stormwatch

X-People

Skulldigger

First superhuman reality TV show, Youngblood.

They’re immediately met a year later by Vought’s onslaught of Superhuman reality TV shows.

2001-2019

Black Hammer II

The superhuman civil war in america.

Japanse Military creates Big Hero 6 in response to Hero Agencies.

The Super Young Team forms an act of social rebellion by the children of Japanese superheroes who reject the Hero Agency route while despising government work like Big Hero.

Little do they know, they are integral to humanity's further evolution into the super-world.

Peter Parker dies. Mantle was taken up by Miles Morales.

Skrulls invade earth.

Black Hammer II

Black Rapier retires

Jiro Osamu, the replacement for Mister Unknown becomes "The Batman of Japan"

Young Avengers Form

The Authority was formed after Skywatch and IO were exposed to the world

 Izuku Midorya receives the One-For-All quirk

The hero agency system in Japan has cracks forming and they’re big.

Green Door Opens.

Miss Marvel (Kamala Khan)

Multiverse opened up.

China formed the Justice League of China, followed by its very own Lantern Corps.

2020s

Izuku becomes a superhero once again.

Black Hammer II becomes a mother.

Miles Morales becomes a vampire.

Team Titans

First Krakoan age. Mutants who have been dead for decades return.

Hulkling unites Skrull and Kree to form a new galaxy-spanning empire.

2030s

JLA Beyond

Bishop Born (Good Timeline).

The Future State. Corporations begin to create private security to crack down on superhuman threats. Especially in light of corporate superhero projects repeatedly failing.

Superman’s dynasty ascends to the stars. 

2099

Corporations Dominate the World.

Age of Heroes is Over.

Spider-Man 2099

Avengers 2099

Franklin Richards ascends.

Superman’s Dynasty returns to Earth. It’s an ancestral land. It is in ruin.

Compound V-descended humans begin to activate their powers en masse but after 100 years of development, their minds can handle it.

30th Century

Legion of Superheroes

Centuries of Mutants, Compound V Descendants, Inhumans, Metahumans, and alien-influenced humans have fundamentally changed the definition of a baseline human.

Humanity is almost there. The rest of the universe is inching toward it too.

Golden Lantern

853rd Century

It’s a superhuman universe. 

The Justice Legion, influenced by their literal and metaphorical ancestors patrol all sections of the known universe. 

[bonbalaur]

Vampire!AU and uniforms, because I am angry and I will be sublimating my rage into donations and Zemo.

[breadtheft1796]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

thank you for the tag @palettesofrenaissance <3

1. How many works do you have on ao3? 91 (with 8 of those posted anonymously and 26 current hidden).

2. What's your total ao3 word count? 316,689

3. What fandoms do you write for? i currently write for marvel and good omens. previously i have written for doctor who, hannibal, harry potter, hetalia, interview with the vampire, les misérables, and the walking dead (occasionally i dip back into writing those). and some other one-off fics for other fandoms.

4. Top five fics by kudos: quips and endearments (t, 1.6k) aragorn and legolas flirt to keep morale up acts of service (t, 4k) aziraphale falls nothing but theatre (e, ongoing) bucky/zemo fake dating and time travel au behind the make-up (t, 1k) the grandmaster exposes loki's mouth scars hannibal, it's tinsel (g, <1k) hannibal/will fluffy hissy fits over xmas decs

5. Do you respond to comments? i like to and try to but i've got behind on it lately. i need to catch up.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? angst is my thing so most of my fics end angstily. maybe either: uncovered secrets (e, 5k) bucky recognises heinrich in one of zemo's family photos lithium (e, 3k) zemo's first look at the latvian apartment since his family's death

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? definitely this, it's very hopeful for the future: falling leaves and apple pulp (g, <1k) bucky and sarah go apple picking

8. Do you get hate on fics? i used to but not so much anymore. i've had a couple of hate anons on here related to fics though.

9. Do you write smut? yes, occasionally but i'm not very good at it.

10. Craziest crossover: i haven't really done many crossovers but i mix adaptions a lot.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? i had a couple stolen off deviantart and ff.net back in the day but nothing off ao3 that i'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? no but i had one of my anonymously posted fics podfic'd, so that was nice.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? i'd say so, yes, because even though it wasn't a back and forth thing some of the babes from the winterbaron discord have plotted and contributed so heavily to fics that i refuse to take full credit. also me and @palettesofrenaissance are going to be co-writing something soon so that's exciting!

14. All time favorite ship? usually i would usually say peggy/steve from mcu because i've loved them fiercely since 2011. but i'm going to say england/spain from hetalia because i'm feeling nostalgic at the moment and i always fall back into writing fic for them when i'm feeling particularly stressed or down.

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? i don't often write multi-chapter fics so only have one wip currently up. it would be good to get that finished, since i'm only 1 chapter away from an epilogue.

16. What are your writing strengths? angst. character studies and introspection. oneshots. i've been told i'm good at setting the tone and atmosphere, and i keep getting comments saying i'm good at conveying emotion, which makes me insanely happy.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? worldbuilding in general. multi-chapter fics. spelling and grammar. knowing how to end fics. smut. i'm also very quick to get discouraged and abandon fics all together.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language? i love it. other languages are often so beautiful and i like looking up commonly used phrases and contexts for how they are used. i've used other languages in most of my mcu fics.

19. First fandom you wrote in? i have hazy memories of this but i think it was twilight, where instead of going to italy to save edward, she and alice got together instead. i stand by 15 year old me's taste in ship. the first fic i posted online was for hetalia though, the twilight one stayed in a notepad.

20. Favorite fic you've written? i couldn't just pick one so: the last of fine days (m, 15k) zemo's old family home plays tricks on their minds -> my first attempt at gothic domestic/horror and i'm proud of it. migraine aura (m, 5k) aziraphale and crowley are exes stuck together at a party -> i wanted to write the most claustrophobic, overstimulating environment i could and i think i succeeded.

no pressure tagging, in case any of you felt like it: @zsparz, @milarca, @zemos-bathrobe, @fuddlewuddle, @yolkinthejump, @captainjimothycarter

[nekoannie-chan]

Week 25 Reblog Masterlist

Welcome to Week 25 2023 or Week 181, as always, fics would be listed in the order I read them.

I hope you enjoy it!

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

♥ You can check my reading guidelines here.

♥ You can check my masterlist here.

♥ You can check my main reblog masterlist 2023 here.

♥ You can check my June reblog masterlist 2023 here.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

𝙺𝚎𝚢𝚜: 💛 ᵒʳᶤᵍᶤᶰᵃˡ ˢᵗᵒʳʸ

💜 ʰᵒʳʳᵒʳ

🖤 ᵈᵃʳᵏ

❤️ ˢᵐᵘᵗ

💚 ᶠˡᵘᶠᶠ

💙 ᵃᶰᵍˢᵗ

🧡 ᶜᵒᵐᵉᵈʸ

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

This is the list of the fics I read and recommend in Week 25 2023:

  Time and tines part I (Steve Rogers X Reader) by @ronearoundblindly​💚💙

If He doesn't Scare You, No Evil Thing will (Cruella!Helmut Zemo x Reader) by @multific​💚💙

My saviour chapter 61: Get caught! (Brock Rumlow X Reader) by @talia-rumlow​ 💚💙❤️🖤

Marry me part 2 (Jack Rollins X Reader) by @there-goes-thefighter​💚💙

Normal, not boring ((Post)Endgame!Steve Rogers X Reader X TfatWs!Bucky Barnes) by @holylulusworld​💚❤️

Enigma (Steve Rogers X Reader) by @incorrectmarvelquotesss​ 💙

My saviour chapter 62: I wouldn’t do that if I were you! (Brock Rumlow X Reader) by @talia-rumlow​ 💚💙❤️🖤

Never fall in love again (Scott Lang X Reader) by @there-goes-thefighter​ 💚💙

Perturbation chapter 1: run for your life (The Gifted) by @cactiem​ 💙

I thought you left me for good (Steve Rogers X Reader) by @youreobsessedwithtoomanyfandoms​ 💙

Closer to Heaven and Closer to You part 1 (Frank Adler X Reader (Past), Ransom Drysdale X Reader (Present)) by @georgiapeach30513​💚💙❤️

Home Sweet Home Chapter 2: Red Lights (Brock Rumlow X Reader) by @talia-rumlow​ 💚💙❤️

Closer to Heaven and Closer to You part 2 (Frank Adler X Reader (Past), Ransom Drysdale X Reader (Present)) by @georgiapeach30513​ 💚💙❤️

Imagine (John Proudstar & Clarice Fong) by @myriadimagines​💚

Soulmate AU (Steve Rogers X Reader) by @youreobsessedwithtoomanyfandoms​ 💚💙

Perturbation chapter 2: emotions are complicated (The Gifted) by @cactiem​ 💙

New world order (Zombie!Steve Rogers X Vampire!Reader) by @queen-of-the-avengers​💚💙

Dog tags (Stucky X Reader) by @sidepartskinnyjeans​💚

Hands are tied (Joker X Reader) by @there-goes-thefighter​💚💙

My saviour chapter 63: I’m so sorry (Brock Rumlow X Reader) by @talia-rumlow​ 💚💙❤️🖤

Didn’t break me (Steve Rogers X Reader) by @imyourbratzdoll​💙

Falling chapter 1 (Steve Rogers X Reader) by @bloodonmyhands-1221​💙

I knew you were trouble (Steve Rogers X Reader) by @jamneuromain​ 💚💙

My saviour Epilogue (Brock Rumlow X Reader) by @talia-rumlow​ 💚💙❤️🖤

Late nights (Steve Rogers X Reader) by ​@princessbellecerise​❤️

His inheritance part XXIX: There for the taking (Steve Rogers X Reader) by @jtargaryen18​ 🖤

A hard world (Biker!Steve Rogers X Reader) by @holylulusworld​ 💚💙❤️

Home Sweet Home Chapter 3: You (Brock Rumlow X Reader) by @talia-rumlow​ 💚💙❤️

[therenlover]

Slain (Vampire Hunter!Helmut Zemo/Vampire!Reader) THE MASTERPOST

A/N: Welcome! This is gonna be the home base for all of the chapters of Slain on Tumblr. If you prefer to read on AO3, you can find the fic here. I can't wait to finally share this story with you <3 If you want to be added to the taglist for this fic or all of my Zemo fics, just let me know. My hope is to get one or two chapters out a month, but as of now, due to my current work schedule being variable, I don't have a set upload schedule in mind.

Synopsis: Sokovia is destroyed. Some say it fell to Tony Stark's bomb. Others say something much darker tore the country to shreds. Something supernatural. Something that had to be covered up by total destruction. Helmut Zemo doesn't care about the how, though, or the why; He cares about revenge, and he will stop at nothing to rid the world of those who live to harm it, even if that means going toe to toe with the ancient vampire who killed his father.

Tags: Vampire!AU, Enemies to Lovers to Friends, Angst, Vampire Hunter!Helmut Zemo, Morally Grey Characters, Slow Burn, Eventual Smut

Rating: E (+18) for later chapters

Current Word Count: 9,900~

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Chapter One: No Compasses, No Maps

Synopsis: The world undergoes change. Helmut Zemo finds new residence and perspective on his journey for revenge.

Rating: M

Word Count: 9,900~

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Chapter Two: Thirst

Coming Soon!