#wanted to post this yesterday but tumblr mobile is hell

[tgmsunmontue]

Another Time (Chapter 1/14)

Summary: Jake wakes up in Rooster's body about ~30 or so hours post-Mission and they have to deal with it. They're adults. Apparently.

A/N: There seems to be a lack of body-swap in this fandom, so I thought I’d give it a crack. It’s one of my favourite tropes. I am from New Zealand but I write with lots of ‘z’s and remove a lot of my ‘u’s. However I don’t in my author’s note. Hopefully I caught them all – apologies for slip-ups. (I also type with wrist braces on so my finger mobility can be a bit screwy – that said I’m also a fandom old (but not an elder) so while this isn’t my first fic, it is my first in the fandom and after I’ve taken a break.

Jake’s POV for odd chapters, and Bradley’s POV for even chapters.

Also, obligatory note that I have no knowledge of the US Navy (and that whole ‘girl, what were you doing at the devil’s sacrament?’ thing applies here as well in terms of military propaganda).

(Posting on Tumblr, chapter a day until it's complete (currently 12 chapters in), after which I will post it on AO3 once a day until it's complete).

CHAPTER ONE 

               Jake wakes up in the sick bay, his breath coming in gasps as his dream fades into mist. Why is he in the sickbay? He doesn’t remember getting here and that’s never a good sign. There’s only half-light, the room has no portholes just some lights left on the dimmest possible setting; he can tell he’s still on the ship. The last thing he remembers though is falling into exhausted slumber in his rack, Javy below him and Payback and Fanboy opposite. He doesn’t feel right though, body aching all over, skin tight in places it shouldn’t be. He holds his hand up in front of his face and squints. Blinks.

                That is not his fucking hand.

                Okay.

                Deep breath.

                In.

                …

                And out.

                …

                Again.

                 …

                He tries to sit up and needs to slow down the movement, body stiff and he’s not in his own body. Or there’s something very wrong with his head. Or both. He’s staring at mostly bare feet that don’t belong to him (one is wrapped in a bandage and is slowly throbbing in time with his heart – it doesn’t feel like a good idea to test bearing weight on it) when the door to the sickbay opens abruptly and he just stares. He guesses he knows where his body got to.

                “Thank fuck! You okay?”

                “I… Rooster?” He’s hazarding a guess, but it’s the only one that makes sense. He has no idea where Mav is, the other bed is empty. And he’s somehow in Rooster’s body, and not in a way he previously imagined was ever possible.

                “Yeah. Fuck this is weird. You’re in my body.”

                “Yeah, no shit. You’re in mine. What the hell happened?”

                “I don’t know! I woke up in your rack and promptly whacked my head because I thought I was here…” Rooster says, putting his hand to his (Jake’s) forehead where a bump is already forming.

                “Be a little more careful with the goods there…” Jake says, and he feels like throwing up a little, although honestly he’s not sure if that’s in response to seeing himself through someone else’s eyes or if he’s feeling Rooster’s concussion. This is already a colossal mindfuck and he’s only been awake for a few minutes.

                “Yeah, you too. Are you feeling okay? I was feeling pretty shit yesterday.”

                “I can confirm this body still feels like shit.”

                “Okay, here, drink some water. I’m allowed to take some ibuprofen. That’ll help.”

                “We need to report this?”

                “No! Fuck. No… I mean, maybe it’s just a short 24 hour thing?”

                “You think it’s like a stomach bug? You think people just change bodies with someone and it goes away overnight?”

                “You have any smarter ideas? I want on the next transport off, and if they think I’m not stable enough to travel… or if something is wrong –”

                “There is something wrong!” Jake hisses, because he is not okay with this. Maybe if he wasn’t feeling like he’d ejected and then crash landed he’d be more… relaxed. Fuck if he knows. He can’t argue with wanting to get back to shore though.

                “Okay, there is. But let’s get back to shore, RTB and then… figure out a plan of attack.”

                “Oh, I cannot wait to hear what you think might work.”

                “Shut up.”

                The door to the sickbay opens again and they both turn to look at the corpsman entering the room.

                “Morning lieutenants. Any reason you’re here Lieutenant Seresin? Not bothering my patient I hope?”

                “Not at all, I just needed, uh, wanted to check on him…”

                Jake watches his own neck flush in embarrassment, and hmm, that’s interesting.

                “He can, uh, stay, while you check me over,” Jake says, because he has no clue what Rooster was like last night, over than alive. He’d been fine on deck right after Mav had (crash) landed, but he suspects adrenaline had been carrying them both forward for the most part. Now it’s been over 24 hours and he’s pretty sure Rooster’s ankle might be broken, given the sharp increase in pain as it dangles freely. He has no idea where Mav has fucking disappeared to, but he’d been here yesterday when he’d popped in for a quick check-in with some of the others.

                “Well, okay. Let’s look at your ankle first. I hope you weren’t seriously considering walking on it after what I told you last night.”

                “Sorry, forgot. Really need to piss,” he states, which is partial truth and lie. He couldn’t forget something he didn’t know.

                “Hmm. Here then.”

                Jake takes the container and chances a quick glance at Bradley who is fucking smirking at him with his own damn face. Unbelievable.

                “Nothing I ain’t seen before sailor…”

                Jake feels heat flood his face for no good reason and that’s mortifying, he’d take his own neck flush of embarrassment over this any day. Of course Bradshaw means it because it’s his fucking body, but the look the medic is giving them is amused, clearly having drawn their own conclusions and Bradshaw is looking completely unrepentant. Asshole.

TWO

[c-rowlesdraws]

ever see a freshly-shucked scallop with the roe still attached? ……….Now you have!

I got to take home a few live scallops from a photoshoot at my new job yesterday! I shucked them and pan-seared them in olive oil and butter, and fried the roe pouches with some jerk seasoning. I felt the presence of Gordon Ramsay over my shoulder while cooking the scallops (for some reason he always made Hell’s Kitchen contestants cook scallops? Probably because they’re so easy to overcook), but they came out all right.

(I want to link the video I watched for help with shucking them, but fsr tumblr mobile won’t let me paste the URL in? I’ll have to edit the post with it later)

[strykingback]

Okay TL;DR: A Response to a an a/nti-r/wde person who fell for satirical jokes while I provide proof of what I said last night.

Without further ado enjoy.

Alright P/apitimefire177. You wanted me to go band for band. Alright then. Let's go Band For Band.

Okay so you first kick things off by saying I didn't cook you cause I was drunk? No I was not drunk the other night. If I was drunk then there would have been three key things to tell if I was drunk.

I would have rushed to post this yesterday.

There would have been a MULTITUDE of spelling errors and what not

The post itself would have been completely rushed out with those things akin to Reasons 1 and 2.

And the BIG ONE of it all.

READING THE FUCKING TAGS AND SEEING IF IT SAYS:

TW: DRUNK POSTING

No I do not think that you are stupid for doing your research on the actual definition of Aryan. Now it could have been used in a satirical manner. Let me repeat it for you.

SATIRICAL.

Which Satire is used as a form of humor to ridicule, criticize, or exaggerate a vice whether it be visual, literary, or other works.. In no way was Doom saying that Jaune was a Naz/i or a White Supremacist. It's a JOKE that you once again decided to be belligerent about and I believe that you again stalked Doom's Blog just to make that post. Which if I'm correct you posted this as well:

Gee, its not like you also stalked Doom's blog just cause he made a JOKE about Jaune making you LOOK LIKE A FUCKING HYPOCRITE. Which yes I will admit I did have to look at your blog as well from the last post to break down what you said and posted. Which I will put myself there, but I'm not going to stoop down to your level and continuously find reasons to hate on you versus you who goes to stalk one person because they like Cardin or going into their DM's messaging them slurs, making every single post about them.

Lets also not forget that while on tumblr desktop R/WDE and A/nti-R/WDE stuff cant be seen. BUT On mobile it can be seen even if you mention it or post everything extremely properly.

I made now two posts about you, first one calling you out for your aggressive behavior, the second time was in response to what you said. This is the third post I had to make about you. and also

No, you hating on Jaune does not offend me at all you dumbass. BUT. I am a fan of the Cardin becoming the Reformed Bully Trope. Which in my opinion should have been done in Vol 7-8 of RWBY, where we see Cardin actually apologizing to Blake about his racism and that he is doing his best to learn.

Gee.. its not like we also see actual racists and people learn and forgive IN REAL LIFE AS WELL. (Video by VICE: Covering Up Racist Tattoos: Erasing the Hate)

Oh Heres another IRL Example! ( Video By WTAE-TV Pittsburgh: Former White Nationalist offers apology and seeks forgiveness for past lifestyle)

Or how even a DISNEY MOVIE SHOWED THAT A BULLY CAN LEARN FROM THEIR MISTAKES AS WELL AND OWN UP TO IT. (Zootopia: Gideon Gray apologizes to Judy)

I aint gonna stay too long on this, but I'm just going to move on as well.

Papi... you fell again for a SATIRICAL JOKE of me comparing you to DJ Akademiks. In no way am I calling you a fucking PDFile or for r-wordist. The only reason why I compared you to DJ Akademiks is because of the actual person himself being devoted to Drake. Which is why I called you "The DJ Akademiks of Jaune Stans" not because of what he has been recently accused of but for his devotion towards Drake.

Here are some examples of DJ Ak's devotion:

DJ Akademiks Top 5 (Which was during the CLB Album release in which at one song he fell asleep)

DJ Akademiks reaction to Drake being in Astroworld/Sicko Mode

DJ Akademiks Reaction to Drake using a clip of DJ Akademiks Top 5 snippet in his Diss

This is what I MEANT by calling you a DJ Akademiks of Jaune Stans. Now I'm not saying every Jaune Stan is bad, hell at one point I was one too before I realized how shit he is as a character.

Yet at the same time you gave a half-hearted apology about the slurs you used so casually, while also not addressing the DM's of harassement you sent, while deleting the posts of you attacking other people in the RWDE tag because you got caught lacking. You never apologized to them...

that is not a sign of maturity. That is a sign of immaturity and not taking accountability for your actions. Because guess what you think you got away scot free but I think you forgot.... ONE LITTLE THING ABOUT THE INTERNET.

WHATEVER YOU POST EVEN IF YOU DELETE IT STAYS ON THE INTERNET.

Okay what the fuck does Tauradonna have to do with what we are talking about here. STAY FOCUSED ON THE SUBJECT OF WHAT YOU ARE ARGUING AGAINST.

Psst, I see A belligerent jaune simp. My biggest problem is that you called me a "RWDE Person" who uses R/RWBY as a "Valuable Source" which I replied to in a mature manner while also telling you that I used reliable sources. I am aware of Cardin being racist in Volume One, which please refer back to above where I am a fan of Cardin becoming a "Reformed Bully" Trope along with some examples of actual racists and neo-n/azi's taking accountability for what they did and doing what they can to clean themselves up as a person.

Now I did mean to say, it's time for me to pack it up which was an error on my part (I was once again not drunk.)

Plus, at the end I told you to do some self-reflection, drink water, and to have a good one. While also before that I even said in my first call out to BLOCK AND MOVE ON and to not witchunt you. Because I wanted to give you at least SOME FORM of peace.

I once again provided proof of why you fell for these satirical jokes while also getting your ass chopped up and cooked up at the same time.

Now if you may excuse me I got better things to do instead of having listen to your hypocrisy.

[queen-of-boops]

"Doctor Lucas"

Alright friends, it's time to talk about my biggest LITG pet peeve. It happens all the time, I'm reading a Lucas villa fic or scrolling through Tumblr and I see it: "doctor Lucas". My brain immediately checks out, alarm bells blaring.

I want to be clear here, I'm not policing headcannons or what you can or can't do in fic, especially AUs, the entire point of AUs is to mix things up like careers or backgrounds, etc.

What I am saying, is that canonically, Lucas is a physiotherapist.

For some reason, of all the physios we have (Summer and Jack), Lucas is the only one that's often referred to as a doctor. Maybe it's because he works in a hospital, or maybe somewhere along the line fanon warped him into something else. But as an acute care PT, nothing will make me click out of a post/canon compliant fic/etc faster than "doctor Lucas" or having him do something wildly out of scope.

For one thing, the US is the only country that requires a doctorate for physical therapy. That being said, I can count on one hand the number of times someone even knows I have a doctorate, and I have never been called Doctor outside of the academic setting.

So what does a hospital physio do?

Preserve mobility: let's be real, sick people don't want to move, but lying in bed all day makes you lose strength and range of motion fast

Transfers: how do you get to a chair now that you suddenly don't have left leg anymore? How can I make moving less painful for you following major abdominal surgery? How do you move when you have new precautions and can't bend your hip past 90 degrees?

Gait: Do you need a walker now? A cane? Do you have weight bearing restrictions and need to figure out how to walk with them? Is your gait pattern unsafe?

Stairs: Are there stairs at your house? How can I make them safer for you and the person who's going to be helping you? What techniques can I teach you to help decrease pain and increase safety?

Balance: 99% of people in the hospital are at an increased risk for falls, how can I decrease that? What can I do to improve your balance?

Discharge recs: Where is the patient going after the hospital? Are they safe to go home or do they need rehab? Do they need any equipment to be safe at home? 90% of the time, the rehab department is the one making those calls.

Communicate mobility needs to staff and family: Most of the time, I'm the first one getting someone up. Do they need 2 people to sit on the edge of the bed? Does their right knee buckle when they walk? This is important information that the people taking care of the patient needs to know for everyone's safety.

We see patients post stroke, waiting on transplants, post surgery, after getting the transplant, chronically ill, etc. Patients on vents, with lines and tubes and drains all over the place, even with open surgical sites... they're all appropriate for therapy.

What physiotherapists definitely don't do:

Perform surgery or scrub up or observe or do anything even near the OR.

Give or adjust medications. I'm expected to know what medications do and look out for associated symptoms, but the most I can do is message the doctor and tell them what I'm observing.

Work with a crashing patient. It happens, you're in the middle of a session and a patient codes. Call the code and start performing CPR. But as soon as anyone else arrives, the therapist is the least qualified and least important person in the room. And if a therapist hears a code called, they're getting the hell out of the way to make space for the appropriate team to arrive.

Call time of death. Yes, patients die. Unfortunately, that's just how it goes. And yes, sometimes you come in to work only to learn that the patient you were working with yesterday passed away. But most of the time, if a patient is that close to dying, they're not appropriate for therapy. They're not dying in the therapist's arms or anything like that.

Use physical therapy as a stepping stone to become a doctor. There's not a ton of overlap tbh. I'm sure it has happened, but it's not like a PT degree is a degree that gets you into med school.

Listen, I LOVE my job. I get peed on, puked on, pooped on, etc. There are rude patients and emotional days and difficult conversations that need to be had, but at the end of the day I'm proud of being able to help people in need. You don't get into physical therapy if you don't love it. The pay isn't all that great and sometimes it's a very thankless job. Burn out rates are high, especially in the hospital setting. But those who stick it out are those who can't imagine doing anything else.

You have no idea how happy I was to see a character with my job who actually responds well to questions about it, so you can imagine how frustrating it is to constantly see my profession being overlooked or misinterpreted in the fandom.

Please, next time you go to respond to a post saying that you'd rather be stranded on a deserted island with Lucas because he's a doctor, or write a villa fic where Lucas talks about scrubbing in for surgery, keep this post in mind.

[hollywoodsargeant]

please you have to do a conpilation of the fish pics now😭😭😭😭 hes just a Florida man

this is so real. i will try. i think tumblr mobile’s images per post limit is 10 and there are definitely more than 10 so i will start w my favorites (bc of course i have favorites)

under the break for warning’s sake. open for fish 🎣

found this one pinterest yesterday. people (and fish) died. like why do i think any of this is attractive. good god. i want him SO bad

this one has been my favorite for a while. i still have no defense for it. Next

fish pictures with kyle kirkwood!! shoutout to the swordfish one for Getting Me every time also that’s the “yeah we slay” post. don’t they slay. blood and all

i hated this one for a long time but it’s inexplicably grown on me. idk. maybe i just want him

thank god. if you squint really hard you can see his god awful buzz cut in the second one. logan i’m in your walls why did you do that the fish i can accept (i say like i haven’t already said i think it’s HOT) but a BUZZ CUT?? maybe you should’ve cheated on your barber

Like. okay

whatever the hell this is. terrible flip flops. i’m. What

and some little logan. never change 🫶🏻🫶🏻

[writing-nebula]

Actually y'know what screw later this week I'm gonna do this now

SO, as I'm sure anybody following me knows very well, Aura tends to update very slowly, and unfortunately I often have writers block for it specifically, and honestly chapter 2 of AWU has been sitting basically untouched at like the third-to-last scene for at least a month now. Almost done! But who knows when I'll actually have the mind to finish it, because I certainly have no clue lol

Because of the slow updates/slow writing that happens for Aura, I also tend to forget about this blog about 90% of the time. Hell, I barely remember it when I'm posting Aura. And since Aura takes so long, that means this blog is basically never used, aside from the occasional ask thing that nobody ever uses and writing tips I'll sometimes reblog.

BUT, even though I haven't been writing Aura, that doesn't mean I haven't been writing at all- as shown by the post I reblogged yesterday! I've recently gotten back into Yugioh, and fic brain is Going To Town

I'll also be participating in Mayblade next month, and I have a few assorted stories half started or planned out in my notes- so writing in general has been going pretty good! Just. Not for Aura, so you haven't heard anything about it.

So with all that said, I've come to a decision- I'm going to be turning this blog into a general writing blog of my works!

I won't be backposting any of the stuff already on AO3, but I will start posting my fics to Tumblr as well as AO3, hopefully on the same day but definitely within a couple days, I want to keep better track of these things lol

I still have full intention to finish Aura: A World Unseen!! But right now, writing it just isn't working out, and I don't want to limit myself to only posting something that updates maybe once a year, if that.

So over the next few days, I'll be reorganizing this place a bit, changing up the pictures and messing with the theme probably (honestly I have no idea what the theme even is, Eko set that up and I only look at the blog on mobile lol) and then I'll probably start with fic posting on May 1st- again, for Mayblade! If someone from the Beyblade fandom has found their way here, you know what's about to happen lol

I want to thank everyone following me here So Much for your support, and while I'm sorry the content you signed up for is taking so long to come out, I do hope you'll stick around and see what other stuff I'll be writing in the meantime!

[thahiree]

1872!!!!!! 1872 SQUARE DANCING

1796 words of 1872 Stevetony.....not square dancing (sorry!) but Steve watching Tony dance with someone that isn't him 👀

Read Part 1 on AO3

"Quit beatin’ the devil around the stump, Sheriff, and ask that sweet girl for a dance," Stark said from where he was leaning against the bar, his elbows brushing Steve’s.

Well, the bar was packed full, the whole of Timely out for a drink, it seemed like. Steve saw no point in moving away.

"I don’t dance," Steve replied, staring at the laughing couples on the dance floor. Some of ‘em seemed a tad too close for polite company, but what did Steve know? He was an outsider at these kinda things, and he liked it that way. He swirled the last dregs of Apple Jack in his glass. "And what girl?"

Stark snorted. "The one’s that’s been tryin’ to catch your attention for the past half hour? I’m honestly startin’ to feel bad for her." A beat. "Not your type?"

Steve snapped around to look at Stark, but there was no suspicion in Stark’s eyes, only genuine curiosity.

Somehow, that was even worse.

"She’s a bit plain, but that’s about what you can expect in a shithole like Timely," Stark said after a moment in which Steve desperately tried to think of something to say. "Now in the city, whew, there you got all sorts of ladies."

Steve rolled his eyes. Stark was obviously waiting for him to show interest in his past exploits, but Steve wasn’t interested in that kind of talk.

"I do miss the redheads," Stark mused, sighing wistfully into his drink.

Steve snorted. "Well, nobody’s stoppin’ you from goin’ back."

"Tryna’ get rid of me, Sheriff?" Stark asked with a pointed eyebrow. "And here I thought you liked my company."

Steve smirked. "Just looking out for ya. Certainly no redheads ‘round here." Aside from Natasha Barnes but she wouldn’t give Stark the time of day if he was the last man on Earth.

Stark laughed, stumbling into Steve a little. He didn’t move away after he quieted down. "That’s right." A slow smirk appeared on his face. "But there are blondes, and they are just as good."

Steve blinked, taking a hasty gulp out of his whiskey. He could never tell when Stark was serious or not. Something about him always seemed to be laughin’ at Steve.

Stark snorted again, then finished off his glass and deposited behind them on the counter. "Well, if you won’t, I will."

"Huh?"

"Someone’s gotta help that poor girl out."

Steve opened his mouth to reply, but Stark was gone a second later, making his way toward the girl in the corner, expertly bypassing dancing couples and drunks alike.

Steve frowned, then downed the last of his drink. Time to head home, then. Stark surely would be occupied for the rest of the evening.

But something had him rooted to the spot.

Against his better judgment, he found himself ordering himself another whiskey and settling in, eyes going back to Stark and the girl. She seemed to have gotten over Steve quite fast, now happily laughing and twirling her hair ‘round Stark.

Steve had to roll his eyes when Stark reached out a hand to tug on the girl’s braid and the girl let out another shrill, girlish laugh, audible even though the saloon’s din. A moment later, he put the same hand on her back and led her to the dance floor, whispering into her ear.

Steve took another big gulp of his whiskey, watching her face as she came closer. Stark was wrong, there was nothing plain about her. She was quite the looker, actually. Big brown doe eyes, lovely blonde curls, her lips painted a dark red. Hard to believe a girl like that was without company in a bar.

Steve tried hard to dredge up something beyond objective appreciation for her within himself…and just couldn’t. She was a lovely girl, yes, but Steve didn’t feel like tugging her close and twirling her about the dance floor. Kissing her, caressing her. Doing any of the things Stark had been smirking about earlier.

His gaze wandered over to Stark again, standing with his back to Steve now. They cut a nice figure together, Steve had to admit, Stark tall and dark and her petite and blond, and when they began moving ‘round the floor once the music started, it looked easy and smooth, like they did this kinda thing all day.

Steve drained his drink and grabbed his hat from behind him. He’d seen enough.

—

He was listlessly leafing through the day’s newspaper on his springy old couch, trying to work up the energy to get ready for bed, when he heard one loud knock on his front door. There was only one person that came a knocking this late into the day.

"What do ya want, Stark?"

Stark lowered his raised fist, swaying close. "You disappeared on me."

Steve’s clenched his jaw. "Yeah, well, you seemed busy."

"I was just dancin’ with that nice lady, you know she was beatin’ herself up over nobody paying her no mind."

Steve scoffed, refusing to feel guilt over not caring to dance. "Well, she was quite pretty, I’m sure she would’ve found someone else to occupy her time with."

"But she wanted you," Stark said, eyeing him curiously. "But you don’t seem to care. Not for her, not for Betsy two weeks ago, either. And that one’s a looker. Why is that?" The playfulness from earlier was gone.

Steve swallowed. "I’m just not interested, alright. I’m not like you, runnin’ around chasin’…" Steve cut himself off when Stark narrowed his eyes.

"I’ll have you know that I was very happily engaged to a lovely lady and I woulda married her too, if it weren’t… for a lotta reasons, so you can take your accusations elsewhere. Anyway, this isn’t about me. Don’t think I don’t notice you evadin’ my question."

"Listen, Stark," Steve began, folding his arms over his chest. "I have an early day tomorrow, I don’t have time to stand ‘round here listening to you spew—"

"You pinin’ over somebody?" Stark interrupted.

Steve swallowed heavily. "No."

Stark was still eyeing him. "You know, I wasn’t going to say it, but to hell with it. I know plenty of men who—"

"Tony," Steve cut in, knowing where Stark was going with this with a sudden burst of panic.

Stark’s face twisted. "I don’t judge, is all," he said after a moment, "How could I? If I feel the same way."

Steve gaped. "But…but you said you were engaged to marry."

"So?" He shrugged. "I’ve always cared for women and men."

"I don’t think that’s…" Possible? But here he was. And if there was one thing Stark was, it was secure in his beliefs. Steve cleared his throat. "Well, good for ya."

Stark smirked. "Why, thank you, Sheriff."

Steve huffed a laugh.

"Anyhow, thank you for tellin’ me," Stark continued, straightening up. "I honor that."

"I ain’t told you nothin’," Steve said gruffly, but he had to smile.

Stark smiled. After a moment, he said, "You know, if you cared for it, I know there are men ‘round here who would—"

"I swear to God, if you don’t stop tryin’ to set me up with people."

"Nothin’ wrong with getting your rocks off occasionally. We all have our needs."

Steve rolled his eyes. Trust Stark to think he was ashamed of it. He probably knew plenty of men and women in his big city that didn’t hide it, but things were different here. Folks needed to be careful. But that didn’t mean Steve thought he was bad for it. He’d just never known a man like him.

Although, if Stark was to be believed, there were plenty of ‘em in this town. Who exactly? And, more importantly, how did Stark know? Did he know them like that? Steve had never seen him interact with anyone that wasn’t a barkeeper and occasionally Banner. But then again, who knew what Stark did up in his smithy?

"Not interested," Steve said simply.

"At all?" Stark prodded.

Steve shrugged one shoulder. He had no answer for that.

Stark stared at him. "What about…" He cut himself, shaking his head.

Steve frowned. "What?"

Stark pinched the bridge of his nose. "Nothin’. I’m just bein’ silly."

"Stark, spit it out."

Stark swallowed. He didn’t speak for a long moment. "What about me," he said finally, staring at Steve head on.

Steve blinked. "I don’t…I don’t understand."

"Well, the cat’s outta the bag, so I might as well go all out. If you ever want to…try some things, or even just talk about it, you know where to find me."

Steve couldn’t speak through the shock for a few seconds. "I could never take advantage of you like that."

Stark rolled his eyes. "It’s not takin’ advantage if I offered."

"Because you pity me," Steve said, more fact than question. Poor Steve stuck in this shithole without anyone to fuck. Is that what Tony thought? As if that was the be all, end all for everyone, as if Steve didn’t have a good life for himself here, protecting the folks of Timely.

"Because I want you!" Stark roared, suddenly loud. Steve grabbed him by the shoulder to shush him. It made Stark sway dangerously close, but he at least kept his hands to himself. "And you want me. I saw the way you looked at me in the saloon when I was dancin’. Wasn’t sure if it was in that way, but now I know for certain."

Steve narrowed his eyes at the tone. But he wasn’t wrong, was he?

"Are you gonna invite me in?" Stark said after a moment, swaying closer.

Steve snorted. "How about you go home and sleep the whiskey off. And then…we’ll see."

"Alright," Stark said easily, smiling and freeing himself from Steve’s hold. "I’ll hold you to that."

"You know I always keep my promises."

Stark hummed, reaching out a hand again to brush a hand over the star on Steve’s chest. It was terribly bold of him, but Steve let him.

Stark dropped his hand after a second, taking two unsteady steps backwards.

"Jesus, do I need to walk ya home," Steve asked, frowning, "make sure you don’t fall face-first into a ditch somewhere and drown?"

"You could just let me sleep in your arms, make sure nothing bad happens to me, how about that?"

"Good night, Tony," Steve said, rolling his eyes and stepping back into his house.

Stark winked, but he took another step backward, then another, until he disappeared ‘round the bend with a cheerful wave. Steve waited a few moments, then shut the door and thumped his head against the door, letting out a heavy breath. What in the Sam Hill had just happened?

[hahanoiwont]

.

[word-addict-lisette]

I can’t believe this!!!

So, something very weird and crazy happened yesterday night. I got i to little debate with my mom. It started from feminism and we ended on the LGBTQ community. But either way it was chaotic.

But the argument ended in me realizing that older generations... As in our parents, don't actually care about this feminism thingy at all. They don't care at all. They want good lives and want equality but it's for themselves, they fail to see that there are different types of women out there too. And even worse is that my mother has no idea of what the LGBTQ community is. And that's sick!

The only thing she is aware of is that gay is a bad word to call some like. What the hell? It sure as hell isn't! So it was like late night, and my mother was randomly scrolling through her phone while me and my sister were just cracking random jokes and laughing among ourselves.

That’s when my mother made this comment on seeing a post, “Women don’t look good until they have good hair.” I gave it some thought, not in the mood for an argument at 11 in the night. But my sister felt the need to speak so she retorted with, “Not necessarily, everyone looks good, and I don’t see how a person’s hair matters.” I agreed, my mother didn’t.

She said, “Not necessarily everyone looks good, we just say everyone is beautiful for the sake of it, but i don’t really think people look good with bad hair. And i don’t think really really short hair suits people either.” I didn’t like that comment one bit, so i stepped in.

“Not everyone says that everyone is beautiful just for the sake of it. Everyone truly is beautiful, and A lot of people look good with really short hair too, you can’t judge them like that.” She threw me a look for that.

“At that rate, you will say that even bald people look good. They don’t necessarily look good. they are people like that.” I shot back at her, cause now it was getting on my nerves. I told her, “Who said bald people don’t look good, i thought i just specified the fact that everyone looks good, and there are no exceptions to that case, even my sister had gotten my bald she was very young, you didn’t call her ugly. Then why others?”

“She said fine, I am not gonna argue with that, not necessarily all women and men look good. I don’t think that everyone is good looking. Beautiful doesn’t mean human, you need to have some things in you to be termed beautiful.”

My sister contradicted with, “I don’t think anyone set the parameters for beauty yet, if anyone has, they are crazy. Everyone is beautiful and if you don’t feel so, i’m sorry i can’t change that. But i’m with my sister in this.”

But i had a whole different topic to discuss after that, “This whole conversion was carried out as if it was pointed towards women, I don’t see why women don’t look good with short hair. Men look good in short hair, men and women are equal, and if men can have short hair and not be judged, it can be the same with women.”

That seemed to put my mother to think, but she didn’t change her thought one bit. she responded with, “Women and men are different, sure women and men are equal, but there are some differences, and by the way women are built differently and they ought to look good. That’s when you feel like a women.”

my sister felt differently, “Men and women are equal, at least they should be. And the word equal, doesn’t come with any exceptions like beauty or anything, so equal means equal. That’s what feminism is for.”

My mother looked confused at the last sentence, she looked like she didn’t know what feminism is. But then she automatically assumed it to have something to do with women being superior than men. She clarified that she didn’t think women ought to be on a higher position in the world, like unless the women actually deserved it with all right. But men had the higher position and the best we ought to get was gender equality, between females and males. 

Until a few years back, i would have agreed with her, just the way my sister did after explaining the real meaning of feminism to my mother. But, I didn’t agree with that statement either. Gender equality did not mean equality between males and females, it meant equality between all the genders. That is when i got in the LGBTQ+ community. My mother had literally 0% idea of what that was. And i felt like digging my own grave and burying myself alive. 

I did not even ask her to google the community like i had asked her to google feminism. I simply asked her what was her view on the transgenders. She said, “not much, they are like okay though i am not sure i really support them. I am still dicy about them.”

That reminded of something that happened long back. When I was in Class 7, one of my classmates accidentally called a guy in our class gay, because he used to make fun of them in class a lot. I truly used to resent it when they used to make fun of transgenders in my school, I wasn’t aware of the the LGBTQ+ community back then, but still I hated it.

When the fact a guy had called a friend of his gay in school spread around and our parents got to know, the kid got suspended for two days, and got a diary note. Moreover my mother told me then that I hope you don’t use such bad words and vulgarized language in school. If I hear you calling anyone such a foul word anytime, consider yourself grounded for a year. 

That day stuck with me forever, How the heck was GAY a bad word? 

So last night during the argument, I told her that gender equality meant it was for all the genders, literally all the genders. And i literally told her about the fact that she told me gay was a bad word whereas it wasn’t. I told her that there are homosexual people as well and just told her about the LGBTQ+ community. She didn’t seem to support them much. But at least she knew about it.

She still didn’t agree about the lgbtq+ community thingy and different genders. she also mentioned that she didn’t know anything about this community, and she wondered if she could have cared less about it before. And she was very shocked about the fact that i supported them, and that I was a feminist. she said that she never taught me any of this and was thoroughly surprised when she found out I knew so many things, that she thought that I shouldn’t.

It sucked that she thought of all of it in such a manner, But before i could go further with the convo, my sister just asked us to cut it out... Though i was so not pleased to know that my mom didn’t even know that there is something called the LGBTQ+ community and feminism. A similar thing had happened a few month ago, where i told her about black lives matter. Turns out our generation is quite more socially knowledgeable and mature than our parents. 

But then again, this morning i was called lazy, and again made to feel like crap. my mother termed that i ought to study and not spend so much time on my laptop and mobile, because, they aren’t going to get me anywhere and social media is poisoning my mind. Interesting part.... TUMBLR is my only source of socializing on the internet! She isn’t even aware of that. But yeah... at the end: I am the stuck up kid in the house.

[trillian-anders]

first blood

pairing: ransom drysdale x reader

warnings:  angst, general asshole-ness.

word count: 4.6k  

description: part 3 of 5. how did you become ransom’s glorified babysitter? and why the fuck are you keeping this job? who knows. you hate it, you hate him, but... the money. 

note: tumblr is being super shitty rn so I can only post on mobile, but I really wanted to get this off my desk! will add a read more and properly link later 💕

prequel to the assistant && four christmases, spoiler free loves. 

You have to do this.

You have to do this.

You have to do this.

You don’t think your eyes will ever feel normal again. They were dry and scratchy. There were no more tears to shed. You’d buried your Mom two months ago, but you didn’t know how it would ever feel okay. She did everything for you and Julia. Everything. She worked hard, made pretty good money, allowed you to have a part time job and just focus on school. Julia was in this really nice private school, she played the cello now for fucks sake. She had friends and was talking about maybe starting soccer soon, but after funeral costs and your sister’s tuition the life insurance money was running out.

You had to sell the house.

You’d moved the two of you into a small apartment right outside of Chinatown. Not the safest area, but not the most unsafe either. You’d be fine. You had each other, and she needed you to do this. You had to do this.

For her.

You sat uncomfortably in the cheap office chair, sitting across from a woman with too many papers on her desk, everything sloppily arranged around a couple of potted succulents and a framed picture of her and her three kids, no spouse.

“So your last job was in tutoring?” She asked you. You shifted nervously in your seat, nodding your head,

“Yeah, I tutored a high school student in English and Math.” You needed some water. The cheap pencil skirt and blouse you were wearing made your skin itch. She types into her computer some more.

“So why are you here?” She asked, “Why not continue tutoring?” A few more clicks and then more typing.

“The family I worked for paid me pretty well,” You admitted, “But she’s graduating this year and they didn’t need me anymore, I don’t really,” You cleared your throat, “I don’t really have much job experience outside of that and I need to start making money now… I’ve put out job applications but haven’t really gotten any luck.” Not with the income you needed anyway. The woman nodded. The plaque on her desk said her name is Stacy Chandler.

“Alright, here you are.” A printed page, address, date, and time. A job. Clerical work. Data entry. You have to do this...

-

“How was your last day of school?” Julia sat heavily at the kitchen table, backpack slumped on the floor next to her. She buried her face in her arms.

“I’m never going again.” Came muffled from her mouth. She lifted her head to look at you. The beginnings of puberty. You’d recently gone bra shopping for the first time. Real ones, no more training bras. You’d recently taken her to the dermatologist for her acne, but she’s not good at remembering to put on the expensive creams you bought. What a hard time. You don’t envy her.

“Luckily for you,” You smiled, placing a fudgy brownie in front of her, “You don’t have to go back for three whole months!” She rolled her eyes heavily, taking the brownie and disappearing into her room presumably to sit on her computer until dinner.

She was feeling the absence of your Mother just as you were. You weren’t sure what to do here. You loved your sister and you know she loves you too, but in the last few months it’s just been closed doors and a few parting sentences. Only because you had to work so much. Only because she spent a lot of time at friend’s houses where you’d think she would feel normal for a while. It would help ease the burden of being in your mid-twenties and suddenly feeling like a single mother. Of course you can sleep over at Mila’s house, her family is going to their cabin for the weekend of course you can go!

You didn’t know what to do other than keeping her in school and alive. You weren’t ready for this. But the only other option was your estranged aunt who reeked of mothballs and was constantly asking you if you were married, or dating, or ‘You’re Mother wouldn’t have wanted this’. No. It was very clear that your Mom wanted the two of you to stay together, and that’s how it’s going to be.

This summer she was going to spend with her friend Mila at their family’s lake house. Mila’s mother was a stay at home mom with six kids under the age of 12 and would be planning to spend the summer pintresting activities and projects with them while simultaneously getting out of her stuffy-old 10 bedroom, 8 bathroom mansion. Lucky her. Lucky Julia.

The apartment would be empty without the 12-year-old pre-teen for three months, but Julia has really been looking forward to it. Her bags were packed and ready by the door.

You hugged her tightly in front of Mila’s house, burying your face in her hair, partially not wanting her to go, but otherwise knowing that she’s going to have a better time than you could ever provide her. “Okay, you can let me go now.” She shifted in your arms, trying to pull away.

“Just another minute.” You mumbled, pulling her in tighter. “I’m gonna miss you.” She laughed,

“I’m gonna miss you too.” The two of you pulled apart and you tucked her hair behind her ears, cupping her sweet face.

“I love you,” You said very seriously, “If you ever want to come home just-”

“I’ll let you know.” She was getting impatient, the car Mila’s mom was taking to the lake house, a beautifully large black Range Rover sat packed next to you, they were waiting. “I love you too.” She slowly backed away towards the car.

“If she gets homesick, my husband still comes back every week for work so he can bring her home if need be,” Andrea was her name, Mila’s Mom. “She’ll be fine.” Andy was really nice. She made a lot of the food the two of you had eaten in the early days after your Mom’s death. Her gentle reassurance soothed you slightly. It made driving away a little easier, but it didn’t stop the tears that fell as you entered your apartment, alone. For the first time in a while. You didn’t have to hold it in anymore.

You sunk down against your front door, staring out into your living room, tears rolling down your cheeks in the silence of the home. Dirty shoes lined up against the wall, throw blanket hanging halfway off the couch, dirty dishes from breakfast still in the sink, and somewhere you’re sure under all of it was the will to pick yourself back up.

You just didn’t know if you were ready for that quite yet.

But you did it anyway.

More clerical work. More data entry. More bills going half paid and others being ignored all together. Student loans you didn’t even want to think about from a school where you hadn’t even graduated. Medical bills you didn’t even know where to begin paying back, itchy stockings, and uncomfortable shoes. With every day that passed you reexamined your life. How did you get here?

A new job, a new office. Temp assigned, but you knew who worked here. The building that housed it stood tall against the Boston skyline. Contemporary. You sat comfortably in a cushy office chair. The plaque on the desk read Linda Drysdale, CEO. And you waited.

You hadn’t seen the Thrombey’s, let alone the Drysdale branch of the family, for five months. Zero contact. Joni had talked to you last, thanking you for helping Meg, but also trying to sell you eye cream. “You really should invest in taking better care of yourself.” Which was her kind way of trying to tell you that you look old. Thanks.

You couldn’t imagine what Linda would want you for. You’d been doing some filing, they were transferring all of their documents to digital and hired extra help to do so, you were one of three hired from your particular temp agency, but yesterday she had called you personally and asked you to come in for an appointment today at 3 pm. And here you are.

Waiting.

There was a portrait of her family on the wall. Linda herself sitting in a high backed intricate chair, her husband Richard standing to her right, and to her left was her son, Hugh. He went by his middle name Ransom. They were stone faced, serious looking. This painting seemed ridiculous. If you didn’t know the Thrombey’s you’d think it was there to be ironic, as a joke, a play on what rich families were like.

But they were a rich family, and this is what they were like.

Linda was self-serving. She only ever talked to you when it suited her own interests and as soon as she was satisfied she would quickly direct her attention somewhere else, to someone more important. She used you to get what she wanted and when you served her purpose you were gone. She had no time for anyone, only her father. Anything for Harlan.

Richard was a predator. He was always making an uncomfortable comment about either your body or your face. He stood uncomfortably close at times and liked to settle a hand on the small of your back. He was a well kept man, throwing his wife’s money around like it was his own. He kept a money clip of hundreds in his pocket.

Ransom was a piece of shit. He was a self-centered egotistical asshole who was sure to make your life a living hell every time he saw you. There was always a comment, a jab at your clothes, your hair, the fact that you are poor. He once ‘accidentally’ threw your cardigan away because, “I thought it was one of those fucking rags you dust with, I didn’t want it touching my burberry.” He, like his father, felt predatory. Something about being a rich white man just really got them going, and the money clip with the hundreds… a learned habit.

“Alright,” Linda’s voice came from the doorway, you turned slightly in your seat. She was on the phone, “Well we will send Michael out to show them the properties instead, I’m sure we’ll find something they like.” She gave you a finger, hold on, even though you’d been sitting here patiently waiting for her for close to twenty minutes now. “Okay,” She continued, “Sounds good.” Sitting down in her chair, tapping a few keys to illuminate her computer screen. “Alright now, bye-bye.” She took her phone from her ear, looking down at the screen before placing it face down on the desk and smiling at you.

You knew that smile. She wanted something.

“So, Y/N right?” You nodded, “I see you’re looking for work.”

“Well, I’m with a temp agency right now but-”

“Would you like something a little more permanent?” A permanent job? The Thrombey’s had paid you very well to tutor Meg, better than you were making now. Granted you had only worked 15 hours a week when you were tutoring her, so $20 an hour didn’t seem like that big of a deal, but if they were looking for something, anything full time…

“Absolutely,” You smiled, shifting in your seat, “I’ve had trouble being hired because my-”

“Okay so you’re going to need Ransom’s number, and you’ll start tomorrow.” Your smile dropped.

“Ransom needs a tutor?” You asked skeptically. She laughed.

“No, he needs an assistant.” She gestured towards herself, “I can’t keep telling him when or where to be for family events and he has a fairly active social life so I’m gifting him an assistant for his birthday.” Oh.

“I uhm,” You really didn’t want to work for Ransom. You REALLY didn’t want to work for Ransom. “How much would it…?” You trailed off nervously.

“My father paid you $20 an hour to tutor Meg, yes?” She asked, typing something into her computer, no longer looking at you.

“Yes, he did.” You moved trying to see what she was typing without bringing too much attention to it. She was drafting an email.

“So I’ll pay you the same. Ransom will set hours for you and decide what days of the week he’ll need you and what else he wants you to do,” She waved her hand dismissively, “Cleaning, cooking, whatever.” She scribbled on a post-it before peeling and handing it to you. “Here’s his number and address, you can go over the particulars of your job tomorrow morning.” You opened your mouth to speak again, ask her the million and one questions you have but before you could say anything she dismissed you, “That is all.” She said. And she was done with you.

She got what she wanted. And now she wanted you to leave.

So you did.

“Well,” He grinned, “Linda really scooped you up from the bottom of the barrel, huh?” You stood on Ransom’s front porch. The only texts you sent and received last night were ‘What time do you need me to be there?’ and an hour later the reply of ‘11’. The scumbag was standing in the doorway, leant against the frame, looking down on you. In more than one way.

“Can I come in?” You asked. You really didn’t want to do this. But a $12 an hour temp job versus $20 hour stability… hard to beat. He smirked, pushing off the frame before looking you up and down, turning to disappear into the house.

“Take off your shoes.” What a fucking joke. His house was a mess. Clothes thrown haphazardly around, a pile of dishes not in the sink, but on the counter. Abandoned cups, tv was rolling on in the background, some political documentary. The house, while contemporary and clean, well kept on the outside. The inside looked like a frat house during rush week. You didn’t want to take off your shoes in fear that you’d step in vomit or something worse.

He grinned off to the side, “Had some people over last night.” He explained, drinking what looked like orange juice from a coffee mug. The vodka bottle that was capless on the counter led you to believe that orange juice wasn’t the only thing in the cup. “You can start by cleaning up.” He gestured around, sinking back down into the sofa. “I’m sure I’ll think of something else you can do when you’re done.” The fucking prick.

You shut the door a little heavier than intended, slipping your sneakers off and placing them by the door. “You’ve got a laundry room?” You asked, he didn’t look away from the television,

“Basement.” And he was done with you too. The tone was very, don’t talk to me. Which honestly you were grateful for.

You cleaned up his messes, the red solo cups that littered almost every surface in every room, laundry was running in the basement, dishwasher working hard to sanitize the first round of plates and cups that could fit, the others waiting patiently in the sink as you wipe counters and dusted picture frames, the thick film of unappreciation. He didn’t care about his house, his furniture, the art that cost more than your apartment that lined his walls. His clothes, while having an extensive closet, some were threadbare and with holes.

He didn’t care.

And it made you angry.

You thought of the furniture you were able to keep from your Mother’s house, well oiled and kept. No scratches. The fabrics of the couches and chairs carefully cleaned and maintained.

His sheets were stained and you were unsure when the last time he had washed them actually was. The dampness made you gag. It wasn’t long before you were cleaning under his feet. His ankles crossed and feet resting on the coffee table as you straightened the area around him. You felt his eyes on you, briefly, but ignored it.

“Do you have any real clothes?” He asked suddenly. He stood from the sofa, rounding it to pull the vodka bottle back out from the cabinet you’d placed it in, pouring heavily into the coffee mug before leaving the bottle and the orange juice carton he followed with next to it.

“These are real clothes.” You stated, coming behind him to put the items away. He scoffed,

“I’m important,” He claimed, “I go to parties, events.” He took a large mouthful of the screwdriver he’d just made, “You can’t wear clothes like that if you’re gonna be babysitting me the whole time.” You rolled your eyes,

“I don’t have to go. You set my hours, I don’t-”

“As much as I love the whole, ‘I’m poor and don’t care what I look like’, thing you have going on,” Ransom laughed, “You’re gonna be around me, and as a reflection of me, you need to look presentable.” He gestured to the demin shorts a t-shirt you were currently wearing, mismatched socks on your feet. You felt your face flush. “And slap a little makeup on.” You rolled your eyes at that. Fucking dick. He smirked when you didn’t reply, turning back around to leave you and disappeared upstairs.

He didn’t come down for a while. In that time you’d finished cleaning the living area, the house looking a complete 180 from where it had been when you’d originally entered, it was nearing dinner time. Your stomach was growling and you’d realized you had been cleaning for five hours without stopping.

You didn’t get to enjoy the sense of accomplishment because Ransom came down the stairs not a moment later, dressed for his evening. If you didn’t hate him so much you’d drool. He looked good. Patterned slacks, chelsea boots, a lightweight white button down, blazer over one arm. “Let’s go.” He said, not stopping on his way towards the front door.

“Where are we going?” You felt gross, covered in grime from cleaning, sweat dried on your skin you knew you probably didn’t smell amazing, hair frizzed up in a bun. He didn’t answer you, continuing outside. You sighed heavily, throwing the pair of socks you’d just matched back into the laundry basket before slipping your shoes on and following him outside.

“C’mon!” He yelled from the front seat of his beamer, sunglasses on his nose, he was annoyed with you. Whatever. You sat heavily in his passenger seat, the dickwad not even giving you time to close the door before he was speeding down the driveway.

“Where are we going?” You asked again. One hand on the wheel, the other’s fingertips brushing against his lower lip he looked at you from behind his sunglasses.

“To dinner.” He smirked, looking back towards the road as you merged onto the interstate.

He was a fucking asshole. If you hadn’t thought he was before you definitely knew now. You were surprised the hostess even let you into this place. It was expensive, and you were very, very underdressed. Point taken Ransom. Thank you. Fucking prick.

He took glances at you ever so often, seated a few feet away from him at the long banquet style table that housed all of his ‘friends.’ Gorgeous women and equally as gorgeous men who had money to burn. You weren’t sure any of these people have ever worked a day in their life, much like Ransom himself. You’d met a few of them before, briefly, when Ransom would show up and ask Harlan for money before disappearing for a week, one or two of them would be in tow bragging about going on some guy’s yacht or flying out to some private island.

Regardless, they weren’t talking to you. You were a strange interloper, easily ignored, but only after a few poked fun at the stray dog at Ransom’s heels. It only stung a little bit when he laughed with them. You were wildly uncomfortable. You poked at your deconstructed salad, the little bits lined neatly up on the plate, a smear of salad dressing beside it. This menu was ridiculous. Why were you here again? You were so hungry and this was not your speed at all. Ransom’s booming laugh met your ears and you could feel the anger rising in your chest.

Fucking asshole. You hoped he would choke on one of the olives in his martini. His eyes met yours momentarily and he smirked. He fucking smirked, cheersing you with his martini before it met his lips again. You could kill him right now.

The money.

The money.

Technically you were still working. As the sun set behind the horizon. You’d been at work, technically, for about 10 hours. That’s $200. Okay, you can do this. You can do this.

You know he did this to embarass you. He made it clear when you’d pull up to the restaurant to give you a taunting look. Whether the dinner was already planned or he had planned it after the conversation about clothes and makeup earlier was anyone’s guess. You had the feeling it was the latter.

He’d paid the bill after all.

The entirety of it.

You’d wished you’d ordered more.

Afterward a giggling girl took your place in the front seat, you glared at the back of her head from the back seat,

“Ransom.” She whined, leaning over in her seat to press her lips to his neck, “I want you to fuck me.” Lips around his ear, sucking the lobe into her mouth. You shifted your gaze to the window, the city landscape passing your eyes as you’d pulled into another valet parking, a bar this time. A nice one.

Ransom and the bubbly girl from the car ride over slipped hastily into the bathroom, he’d sent you a dark look before leaving you to your own devices. Looking over the cocktail list while sitting uncomfortably on a bar stool while your boss was fucking a girl who’d laughed at you for being a ‘dog’ earlier in the bathroom of a bar that had a $20 old fashioned and their most expensive wine came with a thousand dollar price tag.

“You lost?” Another smirking asshole, sidled up next to you at the bar as you took a sip from the beautifully balanced old fashioned you’d tacked onto Ransom’s tab. He was handsome, the guy bothering you, almost everyone in this room was handsome. The lights low and romantic, candles on every table and across the bar, soft music played from the piano across the room where a man sat gently stroking the melodies to create the ambiance of the room. Close, cozy, romantic, and dark enough to forget yourself in.

“Oh c’mon honey.” The man slipped onto the barstool, thighs spread wide around you as you face away from him, his hand meeting your back. “I can help you find what you’re looking for.” His breath reeked of alcohol. You glanced over at him,

“I’m fine thank you.” Another sip, damn this drink was good. He chuckled, moving in closer, drifting a hand down to your thigh.

“Don’t be like that.” He laughed, “You obviously don’t belong here honey.” His hand traced your bare thigh, “You’ve gotta be wanting some company.”

Ransom had returned face flushed and you could almost see a tiny bit of white on his nose, but it was quickly rubbed away. He sat on the opposite end of the bar, the girl from earlier taking his lap. He looked down at you briefly, he had to have seen how uncomfortable you were, how this guy was breathing down your neck. He ignored it, ordering a drink from the bartender.

“I don’t want any company,” You shoved the man’s hand away, “Have a great night.” He leaned back in his seat, downing his drink before leaning back over to put his face in yours.

“Fucking ugly bitch.” He spat, standing from the stool, “Tryna give you a little charity here, you could've at least been grateful.” You wanted to leave. He shoved your shoulder slightly as he walked away from you, no doubt going to bother some other unsuspecting woman in his radius.

You needed some air, taking the last sip of your drink you’d scooted back from the bar, walking by Ransom to take your exit, walking out into the summer night. It was early summer. It was still only 60 at night. A chill went through you. You hadn’t expected to be out so late, the comfortable denim shorts and old ratty t shirt you’d chosen to wear had obviously been a mistake for this day. Ransom made sure to make you see that.

The bar was on the harbor, and it brought in a breeze that caused goosebumps to rise on your skin. You checked your phone, the battery almost dead. Julia had been texting you periodically, but not as much as you would have liked. You scrolled through the most recent messages, you asking how her trip was going and what she was up to and her stilted replies. She was busy you supposed. She didn’t need you, but right now you really needed her.

This night has been a massive blow to your self-esteem. You’d never felt more ugly and unwanted in your life. You just wanted to go home, but Ransom wasn’t done yet. You looked at him from the window, his fingers were gone between that girl’s thighs, they were both drinking expensive cocktails, completely oblivious to you.

He’d watched you exit, not giving it much thought it seemed, because he hadn’t made any motion to bring the night to a close, but you weren’t really expecting him to. It was Ransom’s world and you were just living in it. You worked for him. And you wondered if this is how every day is going to be from here on out. You really don’t know if you could do this forever, but you knew you didn’t want to go back inside.

So you didn’t.

Thankfully Ransom stumbled out about thirty minutes later, girl from earlier on his arm. “Let’s go.” He said. Valet pulling the beamer around he threw you the keys, “Take me home.”

He sunk down in the back seat, high and drunk. His words almost incoherent. Her’s were no better. They sloppily attacked each other in the back seat, indecently. And you were pointedly looking anywhere but in the rearview. Soft grunts and moans made you uncomfortable for the fourth time that night. Your skin crawling in unease as the girl’s giggles turned into breathy moans. Your foot sunk against the gas pedal in hopes you’d get back to his home faster, tears welling up in your eyes. The cry on the way home was going to be so good. So cathartic.

The gravel crunching against the wheels of the car was a sweet relief, so was the haste in which you left the keys in the car, running and skipped to your own car. His eyes met yours through the darkness as he was leant up against his car door, slacks loose around his hips, the girl’s lips attached to his neck as her hand worked quickly between his thighs. He smirked, waving a sarcastic ‘good-bye’. You turned your eyes to the road, cranking up the radio as you began to cry.

You didn’t want to do this anymore.

A text came through right as you finally laid down in your own bed, snuggling into the covers, ready to forget the night.

See you at 9.

.

.

.

taglist // @littlechillies @hellizhelusive2 @notbexmader @marvelouspottering @whitequeenasitbgan @Thegraylaway @readermia @i-believe-in-unicorns-and-you @princess-evans-addict @perplexed3001 @Diedrashouseofpain @hailmary-yramliah @sleepycvpid @joannaliceevans-fanficblog @starlywars @gifsbysimplysonia @rocknbasil @imnotelasticheart @wannabegonnie @d1sconnect3d @heyguyz13 @unimomajo @this-is-serenaa @steviemae @bemysugarbean @truefangirlheart @babiiface95 @mydarlingharry @elzzin​ @bookish-shristi​ @saturnki​ @jennmurawski13​ @geeksareunique​

[shianhygge-imagines]

Sundown 勿忘草 [Reno/Reader]{Final Fantasy VII} Episode 2

AN: Here’s the next part of Sundown Wasurenagusa! I’m sorry that I’ve been slow on posting any new story material! I had a bit of a writers’ block, and I’m still trying to work through it!

I had intended for this to be much longer, but I felt like this part was a good length to post. The first part of this ‘episode’ is going to be formatted weird because I can’t get Tumblr to format a text conversation in the way that I want.

If you like the content I create, please consider donating to my Ko-fi! Please help me feed my tea addiction!

|Masterlist Link|

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

December 12

Reno {07:10}

[Good morning, sleeping beauty]

Me {08:30}

[Morning]

[Do you not need sleep?]

[You probably went to bed late last night]

[And while it truly does make my day to hear from you]

[Why? It’s so early ;.;]

Reno {08:40}

[Can you blame a guy for being eager to talk to you?]

[Lol, Sorry. I didn’t disturb you, did I?]

Me {08:59}

[>///<]

[No, you’re good. I gotta get up to get ready anyways.]

[Flatterer]

Reno {09:34}

[I mean, can you blame me? ;) ]

[So, I was thinking about taking you on a date outside of Midgar, but I realized that I should probably get your opinion on it first]

Me {10:01}

[I mean, that depends? How early do I have to get up on my day off? And how long will it take to get there?]

Reno {10:05}

[Um… well, it’s getting pretty chilly in Midgar, so I was thinking about taking you to Costa del Sol… beach date :P]

Me {10:30}

[…]

[Costa del Sol is pretty far, Reno…]

Reno {10:31}

[And?]

[I’ve got a way]

[Don’t sweat the details]

Me {10:32}

[You’re taking a company helicopter, aren’t you  -.-]

Reno {10:33}

[Ack! You’ve figured out my master plan!]

Me {10:34}

[Are Turks even allowed to take company assets out for joy rides?]

Reno {10:35}

[ TT^TT I told you not to sweat the details!]

Me {10:40}

[I just don’t want you to get into any trouble.]

Reno {10:50}

[Awww, don’t worry about me.]

[You have a party to attend later, so do me a favor and have fun, okay?]

Me {11:03}

[That reminds me…]

Reno {11:05}

[??]

Me {11:11}

[bluedress.jpg sent]

(The image is of you in a sapphire blue dress, the sleeves long and neck high. The dress itself ends just below your knees)

[This dress?]

[reddress.jpg sent]

(The second image is of you in a backless ruby dress that ends just above the knee. There are no sleeves to this dress despite the fact that it has a high neck)

[Or this dress?]

Reno {11:13}

[…]

[Y/N]

Me {11:15}

[Reno]

[???]

Me {12:01}

[If I don’t look good in either of them, just be honest ;.;]

Reno {13:05}

[Gah! Sorry, I got pulled away for something]

[The red one. For sure]

Me {13:06}

[Just because red’s your color… >.>]

[I hope you’re okay, Reno ;.;]

Reno {13:15}

[Hey, first of all, remember what I said about red being your color?]

[I don’t lie, k?]

[But also, yeah. Also because it’s my color, you should wear it ;)]

[Do you have a sixth sense or something?]

[image.jpg]

(Opening up the image file gifts you with a selfie of Reno, looking minorly roughed up and being supported by an infrantryman. He looks like he’s by the old church that Aerith likes to visit. Despite needing to be supported by the infantryman, the red headed Turk’s winking and holding up a peace sign)

[Just a few minor bruises ;P I’ll be fine]

[Unless….]

[You want to kiss me better? ;)]

Me {13:30}

[… Well. I’m sorry for worrying (¬_¬) ]

Reno {13:45}

[Joking, joking! :D]

[All patched up]

Reno {14:07}

[Y/N?]

(´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`)

[I’m sorry.]

[Please talk to meeeeeee]

Me {14:00}

[image.jpg]

(It’s a picture of you in the red dress. Your hair is done up with an attractive amount of make up. You’re wearing a sensible set of black flats.)

[The party starts in an hour, so I might be answering my phone too often.]

[And Costa del Sol sounds perfect for tomorrow ;) I’ve got my outfit all picked out]

Reno {14:15}

[Uh, yeah, that’s gonna be your new contact photo]

[I’m picking you up earlier than we agreed so that we can have more time to relax in the sun]

[Duty calls. Have fun tonight, okay?]

Me {14:20}

[And what? My contact photo for you is going to be this?]

[screenshot.jpg]

(It’s a screenshot of your mobile phone screen. There’s an edit with a red arrow pointing directly at the photo icon for Reno’s contact…it’s the photo that he sent earlier except you’ve photoshopped cartoon ‘uwu’ eyes and added pink anime blush to his cheeks)

[And don’t worry, I’ll probably have enough fun for the both of us.]

[We’ll have fun tomorrow, be safe, okay?]

Reno {14:30}

[I’ll try ;) But if not, I’ll have you to take care of me.]

[Also? That picture?]

[P.E.R.F.E.C.T]

Me {18:30}

[Hope you’re safe!]

[Message me after work to let me know you’re okay!]

[image-2.jpg]

(It’s a group photo of you and your friends in silly poses)

Me {19:21}

[image-3.jpg]

(It’s a close up shot of a delicious plate of food)

[I should have brought you with me ;.;]

|You called Reno| 20:58

[Unable to leave voicemail]

December 13 - 08:21

The morning after the confrontation with AVALANCHE at the Sector 7 Pillar, one would expect the medical bay in Shinra HQ to be jam packed full of patients. There should have been a horde of doctors and nurses, running around to treat the injured infantryman and civilian survivors. But there were only two individuals in the med bay, Reno and Rude. When the plate fell, only a handful of infantryman were able to escape the chaos. Many were left behind to fend for themselves.

Despite surviving a helicopter crash and the brawl with Tifa, Barret, and Cloud, Rude only sustained a few bruises and minor bone fractures. He had been assigned bedrest after being treated by the doctors, but the weight of what he and his partner had been tasked to do twelve hours ago felt like an overwhelming burden. Needing something to keep his mind occupied, the taller of the iconic Turk duo simply engrossed himself in a novel that Elena had brought over during her visit.

On the bed beside Rude’s, Reno groaned in pain as he sat up, eyes still not open and alert as he raised a hand to press against his pounding head. “Gah, what the hell.” Reno’s face stung at the cheeks when his face scrunched up at the pain that seemed to come from every part of him. Even the act of sitting up proved too painful due to his newly broken ribs.

Rude watched his partner sink back into the sheets from his own medical bed, sunglasses on as was usual of him. He wondered how long it would take Reno to realize that it had been nearly twelve hours since they had dropped the plate. He also wondered when his sassy partner in crime would realize that he had a date this morning. Of course, Rude didn’t think you’d get angry at Reno for missing a date when he was hospitalized, but the taller of the iconic Turk pair knew that Reno would never forgive himself for skipping out on you.

While Rude watched, Reno allowed his body to collapse back into bed, an exhausted and pained groan escaping his lips as he want, arms flopping onto the bed as he fought to remember what had happened to land him in such a pitiful state.

Oh yeah…Rude and I went to Sector 7’s plate… and we fought blondie’s group of self righteous freedom fighters… and then…I blacked out. Cracking both eyes open, Reno furrowed his brows and turned his head to examine his surroundings. Med bay back at HQ… The red head swiveled in place to stare at Rude, “The mission….” He trailed off with a questioning tone.

His partner merely grunted, “We finished it and escaped.” Lacking in detail, but still straight to the point.

Sighing in relief that his work track record wouldn’t have a stain on it, Reno flopped back down, “Whooo…” The red head cheered sarcastically, pumping a fist without any energy or cheer behind it. Gah, and I promised Y/N that I’d be safe… Reno’s eyes snapped open and he bolted to a seating position with an alarmed cry, “Crap! Y/N! What time is it?” Shit, I gotta message her to let her know that I’m going to be running late! The Turk second in command thought as he pat down his person for his cell phone.

When he couldn’t find it, Reno turned to his partner, who gestured towards the bedside table. “It was damaged during our fight with AVALANCHE, but it should still be working.”

Not paying any attention to the fact that he was now bleeding through the bandages wrapped around his abdomen, Reno grinned, “Whooo boy! Partner, you’re a life saver!”

The sheer amount of relief within Reno voice made Rude stop and stare at his partner. Hmm… maybe Reno’s serious about her after all.

Meanwhile, Reno quickly unlocked his phone screen, ignoring the fact that the glass display seemed shattered beyond repair. When he pulled up the chat room that he shared with Y/N, Reno cursed, “Five missed messages and one missed call.” Quickly reading through the text messages, and smiling at how much fun you were having at the party, Reno tapped out a quick message in reply to you before listening to the voicemail that you had left.

Yesterday

Y/N {19:21}

[image-3.jpg]

(Reno’s mouth watered at the sight of the food in the picture)

[I should have brought you with me ;.;]

|Missed call from Y/N| 20:58

[Click to listen to voicemail]

Today - December 13

Me {08:43}

[Gah, sorry Y/N, I may have bit off more than I could chew yesterday.]

[I just woke up in the med bay at HQ]

[I’m going to be a little late picking you up]

[And I’m a little roughed up]

[But nothing is stopping me from taking you on our date!]

[See you in an hour?]

When Reno lifted his damaged cell phone to listen to the voicemail that you had left him, the only sound that reached his ears was an error notification that the voice recording app had failed. “I’m sorry, but the voicemail recording that you wish to listen to failed to load properly. Please quite all applications before trying again. If the problem still persists, please contact Shinra Mobile’s technical support service to resolve this issue.” The phone recording informed Reno, pleasantly.

Knowing from experience that getting through to technical support at the current hour was next to impossible, Reno merely tapped out another message.

Me {08:47}

[Hey, the voicemail that you sent to me didn’t go through.]

[What was it about?]

Satisfied with the messages that he’d sent out, Reno shifted to get out of bed, an excited grin on his lips. “Welp! Time to get going! Got a wonderful day off with a gorgeous gal!”

Sighing, Rude lowered the novel to look in his partner’s direction. “Your date with Y/N?” When Reno only gave a sassy shrug in reply, Rude shook his head, “Just remember, you’re still injured.”

“Will do, partner!” Reno saluted the older man before dashing out of the med bay, dodging the nurses swiftly as he made his way to the elevators, itching to get back to the Turk dorms to change into something that would help him blend into the slum crowds of Sector 5. On his way to his room, the red headed Turk would raise his phone to check for any new messages, lowering it in disappointment every time there was no response.

“That’s weird, normally she responds by now.” Reno mused, sending out another quick text once he’d changed into dark jeans, a red hoodie, and a dark beige trucker jacket.

Me {09:12}

[I’m on my way to your place now.]

[Are you awake?]

Around twenty minutes later, on the helicopter ride down to the Sector 5 slums, Reno furrowed his brows and bit the inside of his lip when you didn’t respond again.

Me {09:32}

[Y/N?]

[Please answer.]

[I’m on a helicopter down now]

[Message back. I’m getting worried.]

When there is still no response, Reno taps on your contact and brings the phone up to his ear, trying to call you.

“Hey, this is Y/N. I’m probably away from the phone right now, so leave a message, and I’ll call you back as soon as possible.”

Straight to voicemail.

Something wasn’t right, and Reno could feel it in his bones.

When the helicopter started to land in the Shinra barracks, Reno didn’t even wait for the helicopter to fully land before jumping out of the aerial vehicle, landing solidly before taking off in a sprint towards your apartment.

She’s not answer any of the text messages… Did she lose her phone last night? Did she accidentally break it?… Did she find out what I did yesterday? Is she ignoring me?

The worries and thoughts that raced through Reno’s mind became more and more self-depricating as he neared entered the main town area and brushed past the crowds of people gathered in the streets. I know I said it was too late to grow a conscious, but damn it, please don’t let this be the reason she decides that she doesn’t want me around.

All but flying up the metal steps to your apartment, Reno starts to bang on your front door, calling your name in the meanwhile. “Y/N!” Bang bang bang “It’s Reno!” Bang bang bang “You weren’t answering your phone. Are you ready to go?” It took another few minutes of knocking before Reno head a door open below and slow footsteps ascend the metal stairwell.

Turning and expecting to see you standing there, Reno’s shoulders visibly slumped when he came face to face with a tiny old lady. “Oh, uh. Sorry for causing a disturbance.”

“Are you looking for Y/N, young man?” The old woman inquired, tilting her head to look up at Reno through friendly old eyes.

Feeling as if he was being judged by the elderly woman, Reno stood ramrod straight and nodded, clearing his throat, “Uh, yeah. We had plans for today.”

The old woman nodded sagely, “I see, I see. Ah, to be young again. I’m sorry to disappoint you, young man, but Y/N hasn’t been home since yesterday afternoon. I think she’s still at her friend’s home.”

The first traces of alarm flashed through Reno’s head, and suddenly his Turk persona was back, “Do you happen to know where her friend lives, ma’am?”

The old woman shook her head, “I only know that dear Selene doesn’t live in Sector 5. I’m sorry, young man.”

Suddenly jittery, Reno only nods and descends the metal staircase again, “Thanks for the help. I should get going.”

Reno doesn’t hear the old woman’s reply because he’s sprinting back towards the Shinra barracks, ears ringing and vision narrowed as he contacts a friend in Shinra’s tech department for help tracking down your cell phone’s location and retrieving the voicemail you’d left him. And while his friend works on it, Reno decided to change into a clean set of his uniform, mind suddenly kicked into overdrive as he tries to recall where you said your friend’s party was.

Gah, Reno… you pay attention to everything else she says, but you can’t figure out where her friend Selene lives? Some Turk you are! Reno scolds himself as he paces back and forth in Y/N’s office, somehow trying to find comfort in familiar surroundings. Damnit, think! What has she mentioned in the past about her friends. I only remember her talking about living in Sector 7 for a whi- Reno pauses in his steps as dread begins to pool in his stomach. “No.” He doesn’t want to entertain the possibility that you had gone to a party at your childhood sector the same night that he was tasked with dropping the plate on top of hundreds. But the more that Reno thinks about it, the more likely the possibility is, and he sinks to his knees in the middle of your office, eyes wide with horror and denial. “No… I refuse to believe it. Gotta wait for-”

His phone chimes with a notification.

Pulling out his phone as fast as possible without fumbling the already hazardously damaged device, Reno unlocks the screen, only to see that a voice file had been sent to him along with tracking coordinates.

Clicking on the voicemail and tracker, Reno’s frown deepens and his face pales as he stares at the map of Sector 7 Slums with a red dot in the center of it, the sounds of your final message to him playing in the background.

No.

The voice recording loops until Reno regains his bearings, body shaking and eyes burning as his ears pick up the sounds of explosions in the background, of your sobs as you fought to leave a last message for the man who had thoughtlessly killed you, and of your fear and acceptance that you wouldn’t live past that moment. The phone slips from his hands and clatters to the floor as Reno’s fingers go slack. “No… I didn’t… Y/N…” A strangled sob escapes Reno’s lips as he raises a hand to grip onto his hair, trying to maintain his composure, “I didn’t mean to… If I’d known, I would have…” The Turk second in command paused and hunched in on himself, not caring if anyone could see him through the glass walls of your office.

M-maybe she left her phone behind when she ran? But… if she’s not there, then where would she have gone if not home?

There weren’t any excuses or any other reason he could come up with. Reno knew that. If he had known beforehand that you would be in Sector 7 Slums, he would have warned you, but you would have tried to evacuate as many people as possible from that sector, and AVALANCHE might have managed to leave, therefore ending in a failed mission. He would have done everything he could to make sure you stayed away from Sector 7, but in the end, he’d still go through with the mission.

“I killed her.” Reno sobbed in realization, biting his bottom lip so hard that he tasted copper, “Just like I killed all those people.” Shaking his head, inconsolable, Reno could only mourn quietly. “I’m just the worst. This is karma for all the shit things I did in life, isn’t it?”

Eyes dulled and slightly puffy, Reno hastily wiped at his face and sat down with his back against your desk, his phone ringing with notifications as Tseng and Rude sent him requests for ‘status’ updates. And the Turk second in command ignored his colleagues, eyes staring into nothingness as he wreaked his brain for what to do next.

I really was looking forward to the date. Reno’s thoughts trailed off, It’s sappy as hell, but I wanted to ask her to be my girlfriend. Tseng said that relationships for Turks never ended well, citing Veld as an example, but… gah! This is the worst situation for Tseng to be right!

It was only the early afternoon… maybe he could start a search party for survivors… it was probably too late, but Reno knew that he had to do something to look for you. With renewed purpose, Reno got to his feet and marched out of your office, blue eyes burning with fiery determination as he hung onto the faint hope that you might have survived.

December 13 - 12:13

You groaned in pain and shifted your body, eyes cracking open to be met with blinding industrial lights. The pain from the glaring lights startled you into closing your eyes again, turning until your body was facing away from them. For a moment, you wondered why you were laying on some sort of weird metallic floor instead of your soft bed, and then the memories of a falling sky sent your eyes flying back open as you took in your surroundings.

The floor was indeed cold and metallic because it looked as if you’d woken up in a maintenance passage. Despite most maintenance passages usually being dimly lit, the one you found yourself lying in was lit from both of the walls. The ceiling above your face had a hole in it, though it was covered with metal and concrete chunks. You assumed, as you clambered to your feet, that you’d fallen through that hole and rolled a few feet away due to the pile of rubble directly beneath the hole. Wincing slightly, you poked and prodded your person for bruises, broken bones, or fractures. Slightly satisfied with just a few small skin lesions, bruises, and maybe a fractured rib, you patted yourself down for your mobile phone, hoping to call for help. Frowning, you found that you did not have your cell phone on you, nor was it anywhere on the floor near you.

Since you hadn’t expected to live through a plate falling on top of you, you could only look on the bright side of things, turning to walk down the metal tunnel with determination set on your face. I didn’t almost die from a plate falling just to give up in an empty tunnel. Plus, a fond smile appeared on your face, I have a date waiting for me when I get back topside.

It seemed pretty simple to you. You’d falling who knows how far down, but you knew for sure that the way out was up. So the only thing to do was to keep walking until you found a passage up. Easy peasy.

December 13 - 15:35

There’s a fierce snarl on Reno’s face as he stands by several parked helicopters. All around him, emergency responders and Shinra infantrymen scrambled to load up supplies and equipment. The dark look on the normally sassy, easy-going Turk’s face seemed like a literal beacon for anyone not bearing good news to stay the away. Though, if some of the troops were to be honest, Reno had very good reason to be irate. The Turk second in command had called in an emergency rescue operation for survivors trapped among the plate wreckage nearly three and a half hours ago, and they were only just beginning to start the rescue operation.

After Tseng, the Turk commander, had authorized the mission to rescue anyone buried under the rubble, the mission had quickly been side-tracked by Shinra executives Scarlet and Heideggar. Scarlet had protested against the operation simply because of the notion that dogs living in the slums were of no use to Shinra, and therefore, the mission was a waste of resources. Heideggar, meanwhile, had agreed that while in times of disaster, Shinra’s army bore the responsibility of launching operations to rescue civilians affected, the members of AVALANCHE were widely unknown and could easily disguise themselves as regular civilians.

It took nearly two hours of careful negotiations and subtle ego inflating by Tseng and Reeve, before both executives agreed to support the relief effort. Viewing it as a strategic move to improve public opinion of the Shinra Company, President Shinra gave little to no resistance when Tseng forwarded the mission brief to be sanctioned.

Now, an hour after the mission was sanctioned, Reno felt the beginnings of a headache forming as he directed the flow of supplies to each helicopter before making sure that there were rotations of supplies and emergency responders that would journey to and from the wreckage of Sector 7 once he landed with the first round of helicopters.

When he had deemed all in good order to head out, Reno sighed and hopped into the helicopter cockpit, buckling himself in to the pilot’s seat. Plopping the headset on while he waited for the rest of the crew to load up into the helicopter, Reno busied himself with flipping switches to make sure that pre-flight and the ride down to Sector 7 would be as smooth as possible. When his co-pilot buckled himself in and gave Reno the thumbs up, the red headed Turk spoke as clearly and seriously as he could into the mic. “Alright guys and gals in all active units, hope you’re all buckled up with headsets on because I sure as hell will not be repeating this briefing.” After a brief pause, Reno continued to speak while directing the helicopter off the platform. “You all probably heard about what happened yesterday. The official reports from HQ state that AVALANCHE launched an attack to compromise Sector 7’s plate pillar. Despite all efforts directed to stop the terrorist attack, the plate still fell. Our job is to go down to the disaster zone to provide relief to all affected civilians. We will also be launching search and rescue operations for survivors.” Reno paused once more as helicopter gained enough air to safely fly out of the landing zone. “I’m gonna be real with you all. Someone important to me was in Sector 7’s Slums when the plate fell and I’m going to try my damnest to look for her. So if any of you fuck this up… not gonna lie, I’m gonna be pissed.” Nobody replied to Reno’s admittance… not that he really expected much of a reply after he dropped that bomb on them. Having enough of the silence, Reno exhaled, “Alright… good talk.”

December 13 - 16:03

It wasn’t easy peasy. Definitely fucking not.

The chrome walkways and exposed piping-lined maintenance passage that you had fallen into hadn’t been a simple few meters under the surface as you thought. No. It’s was more like several meters down with a layer of minor blocked off passageways right above. And, as if that weren’t terrible already? The maze of pathways that made up the layer above seemed to take joy in bringing you up a level, just to drop you back down a level because some asshole decided to seal off the passages at various points.

Your eye twitched in annoyance when you walked down a metal walkway only to be face to face with another fenced off passage lined with reinforced plating. To your surprise, you could see a man stumble around the corner of the opposite side. When you saw one another, your eyes widened. “Holy shit!” The man gasped, stumbling forward with a noticeable limp and sliced up arm. “I didn’t think there’d be another person down here!”

“This place is like a maze, so I’m not surprised that any survivors had yet to meet up. A-are… are you okay?” The blood leaking from the deep scratches in his left arm seemed to ooze a poisonous purple color.

The stranger bit his bottom lip as he hastily hid his injury, “Yeah… I’ll be fine. Listen, girl, you should watch out while down here. I think the rumors about the underground lab were true after all. There are monsters running around everywhere.” Your expression must have been one of utter dismay and despair because the man coughed and reached into his pocket to roll two materia under the fence. “Uh. Shit. Well, it looks like you could use these then. It’s a Cura and a Fira. Hopefully you won’t need it, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Anyways, I hope you make it out of here, girl. I gotta keep looking for other AVALANCHE survivors.”

When the man made to jog away, you called out to him, “Wait! You said that you’re looking for AVALANCHE members? Are you one of them? Do you know what happened?” You pressed yourself against the fence in order to see the stranger from around the corner.

The stranger turned around to stare at you with a grim expression. “Whatever you’re thinking, AVALANCHE didn’t cause this, okay? We were framed by Shinra.” At your confused expression, the man scoffed, “C’mon, you really think that Shinra was going to let civilians protest and riot against them? They couldn’t figure out who was a member and who wasn’t, so they figured they’d drop the entire plate on top of us to get rid of us all.”

“But that’s such a drastic move!” You protested, wanting to believe that your employers wouldn’t have such blatant disregard for human life. “They wouldn’t just sacrifice thousands to eliminate AVALANCHE!”

“Believe what you want, girl. But the reality is that my friends and I all went to the pillar to stop Shinra from dropping the plate, and it dropped anyways because two Turks were sent to finish the job.” The stranger didn’t allow you to retort as he limped away. Not that you would have responded anyways with how the stranger had said that two Turks had arrived to help ensure that the Sector 7 plate dropped.

Pulling away from the fence, you knelt down to pick up the two orbs of materia, the color of your skin taking on a sickly pale pallor. Two Turks were sent to the pillar to drop the plate on top of all of us. Your mind instantly supplied the first Turk pair that you could think of and you felt like you were going to dry heave. I don’t know Rude too well, but from what I know, he and Reno wouldn’t do something so horrendous. Surely, there must have been another pair of Turks who were sent to do it. But you did work in a different department as them, how did you know that there were more members of the Turks? And with Reno’s position within the group… He could have known what was happening…

You told Reno that you would be hanging out with your best friend… that you guys were having a party. He’s smart enough to deduce that your friends still lived in Sector 7… Did he forget? Or… Your stomach churned violently as you sank to your knees on the cold metal walkway. Did Reno just decide he didn’t care if I survived or not?

The edge of your vision burned with tears threatening to spill down your cheeks. A simple blink sent them trailing down your cheeks as you stood upon shaky legs. “Can’t worry about that now.” You muttered, eyes filled with determination as you gathered the excess fabric of your dress to gird up your loins. “I need to find a way out of here. The tunnels might not be able to hold for long.”

Lifting your arm, you pressed one of the materia into your forearm, like you’d seen a few SOLDIERs do before, marveling at how the orb of power sank into the flesh of your arm. Smiling at how seamless it was to merge flesh with Materia, you pressed the other faintly glowing orb into your other forearm, concentrating for a bit before casting Cura upon yourself.

Newly rejuvenated, you back tracked through the metal corridor to find the ladder leading down. “Welp, there’s no time like the present,” you mumbled to yourself as you descended further into the tunnels below.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[abreathofthewild]

And They Were Roommates, Chapter 1/?

Summary: After the events of Endgame, the Avengers try to regain a semblance of normalcy.  Steve Rogers decides to move to a small town, get a regular job and a regular room mate...

Word Count: 1832

Warnings: mentions of death.  some language.  some hanky panky (MILD exhibitionism?!??!).  Like neck kissing, hip straddling.  But not between Steve and reader...  yet.  Eventual warnings for possible PTSD and traumatic flashbacks.  Smut.  Oh boy I can’t believe I just wrote that this is going to be a wonderful journal.

Notes: Holy cow I’m actually posting this.  This is my first time posting a fic so please be kind?  I’m also open to constructive criticism though so yeah.  How I’m posting a Steve Rogers fic before a Thor fic is beyond me but I guess ya gotta follow the spark?  This literally is based off a dream so it should be interesting?!  If I can actually finish it?!  I have not seen Endgame (I’m not mentally prepared) but I have a general idea of how it goes and I’m writing things differently.  For reasons.  I hope you all enjoy!​ EDIT: I’m so mad at Tumblr I tried to add a tag through mobile and it DELETED THE WHOLE DANG POST FORMATTING AND ALL so here it is again.

Links: Chapter 2

You groaned as you rolled over and blearily felt around for your phone on the nightstand; the display lit up so bright it made your eyes squint in pain.  As they finally adjusted to the screen and you saw the numbers 2:43, you felt a familiar anger boil up inside you.  That anger spiked when you heard a few thumps and more giggling from the living room.  This was the third time this week Steve had brought some random drunk girl home from the bar where he worked.  He was a popular guy because he was great at what he did, good-looking too you had to admit.  And he was Captain America.  He knew he had these qualities though and he flaunted them.  For most people, his cockiness was a turn on; for you, it was the exact opposite and made most of the time rooming with him a miserable thing.  You rolled over and squeezed your eyes shut, desperately willing sleep to come.  Your mind trailed off to when you first met Steve.  After the defeat of Thanos and the death of so many, Tony in particular, the Avengers had dispersed; they remained in touch but they all had decided to lead normal lives.  As normal as possible anyway.  

Steve Rogers?  Captain America?  He decided to get a regular job at a regular bar in some regular town and move into some regular house.  You knew he hurt.  Who didn’t?  Everyone had lost someone.  You…  You had lost your sister.  She was the one who roomed with you before Steve.  Some of her pictures were still on the mantle along with one of the Avengers together.  You always smiled when you saw those pictures.  The one with your sister was her in the snow, her skin flushed a bright red from the cold, her nose and eyes scrunched up as she laughed.  That memory was so sweet, still fresh as if you had taken the picture yesterday.  She had tripped and fallen face first in the snow.  It was deep so it hadn’t hurt her.  Instead she had flooded the air with her laughter.  The two of you had ended up gasping for breath from hysterics.  The one of the Avengers was similar although the focus of their laughter seemed to be Tony Stark’s frown.  It wasn’t really a frown though, more as if he was trying to keep a smile off his face.  Steve had never told you the story (he never really told you much about that time) but you guessed they were ribbing him for something.  The love for each other was evident though.  Steve seemed to be the most enthusiastic; his head was thrown back, eyes closed.  He was holding his stomach and his golden hair was falling loosely in a wave.  It made you smile every time you looked at those.

“Steeeevveee…”  A whine came from the living room.  Your efforts to go back to sleep were a no-go.  All those girls he brought home were so…  Not Steve.  It made your blood run hot.

“That’s it,” you whispered angrily to no one in particular as you leapt from your bed and stalked down the hall.  The was a furry rug running down the length of the floor; you weren’t exactly trying to move quietly.  Still, you doubted Steve wouldn’t hear you, either way.  At the last minute, something stopped you from rounding the corner.  Really, what right did you have to tell him not to bring girls home?  This was half his house.  You had to be at work in three hours now though, a thought that made you somewhat desperate.  You took a deep breath and slowly padded out into the living area.  

There was Steve, sitting on the couch (the couch you sat on too sometimes for Christ’s sake).  The girl was straddling his lap, her blonde curls loose around her shoulders.  Her mini skirt was hiked up to her hips.  His arms were at her back and he was kissing her neck; her hands were in his hair and she let out a small moan.  You stood frozen in place.

They were completely absorbed in each other, completely oblivious to you standing there gawking.  It was an impressive sight to see Steve in action if you were being completely honest with yourself.  Then he opened his eyes.  You’d looked him in the face before, knew he had pretty blues but this…  This was different.  They were stunning, intense.  And focused on you as the girl he was holding let her head fall back on a sigh.  He didn’t stop, just watched you watching him.  It made the muscles in your stomach clench.  What the hell?  You stood straight, shook your head in an attempt to make the haziness leave your brain and cleared your throat.  She jumped in his arms but didn’t make any move to get off his lap.  She did a half turn to see who was there; you crossed your arms and tapped your foot.

“Look, I don’t wanna be rude and I don’t know if Steve told you but he doesn’t live alone.  And I gotta get up for work in the morning.  I mean, can you guys just be a little quieter, Steve?”  You directed your gaze to him.  He watched you lazily but…  Your cheeks flushed hot when he kept watching you.  Shit…  “That’s all I need…”  You trailed off awkwardly, frustrated with yourself.  He finally looked away and back at her face.

“Gosh, doll, looks like our fun’s over.  Maybe some other time?”  He smirked, squeezing her hips.  He continued smirking as she stared at him in disbelief.

“Look,” she finally said, mirroring your statement with sarcasm, “I don’t wanna be rude but I don’t  know who this bitch thinks she is—”  Your eyes widened when Steve didn’t even let her finish her sentence as he stood up abruptly, letting her fall indignantly to the cushion next to him.

“That bitch,” he said quietly, “pays half the rent.  She’s my roommate.  And I won’t have anyone disrespecting her.”   Now it was her turn to widen her eyes; her mouth gaped open.  Steve stood, imposing, one hand in the pocket of his blue jeans, the other arm extended to the door.  The girl stood quickly and grabbed her bag from the coffee table.  The door slammed as she left.  You crossed your arms and tried to look everywhere but at Steve who still faced away from you.

“Sorry,” you mumbled.  “I didn’t mean for that to happen.  I just…  I have to be there at, like, six—”

“It’s fine.”  His shoulders and back flexed; you gulped when he turned around and studied your face.  “She shouldn’t have said that.”  God those blue eyes.  He took a step forward and another when you didn’t back away.  Finally, he grinned.  “I think you made her jealous.  I mean, who wouldn’t be jealous of you?  You get to see America’s ass in person every day.”  You rolled your eyes.  Steve having access to the internet was all at once the worst and best thing.  He was fascinated by memes and when it came to memes of himself… well, he could make you sit for hours showing you memes.  “Play hooky with me tomorrow, let me make up for how she treated you.”  You crossed your arms again and pursed your lips, shook your head.

“No-can-do, Steve.  I’m one of the openers.  I wouldn’t do that on such short notice.”

“I figured as much.  I’ve never seen you call out.  I mean, except that one time you were puking your guts out.”  Steve smirked, you shuddered.

“Ugh, that was awful.  I was so sick!  Thank god you didn’t bring anyone here those nights.”  You returned his smirk as Steve gave you an expression of mock surprise, throwing his hands up in surrender.

“I don’t bring that many girls home, okay?  Besides, I have to drown out the bad memories somewhere.”  There was an uncomfortable moment of silence.  

“Steve—"

“Plus, you were so miserable.  I didn’t want to bother you.  I tried to stay scarce those days.”  He’d crossed his arms again, and you had to force yourself to keep your eyes on his face instead of how good he looked in that worn white t-shirt of his.  His words jarred a memory in you though from the last time you remembered being that sick.

You were fifteen.  Your mom had to work the night shift at the hospital.  She wasn’t particularly caring anyway.  Y/Sister’s name was the one who found you in the bathroom in the middle of the night, laying on the cold tile floor holding your stomach.  She had rubbed your back and held your hair back from your face and made sure you drank little bits of water to wash away the gross aftertaste.  

“Ssshh,” she had whispered.  “It’s all right, you’re okay.”  She had helped you back to bed, tucked you in with a bucket on the floor.  She had stayed there all night, waiting it out with you.  It was the best feeling just knowing someone was there.  She was always there for you, even when no one else was…

Tears sprang unbidden to your eyes and you bit your lip.  Shit.  Shit shit shit.  

“I, uh, I gotta go to bed, okay?  Um, sorry about tonight.  Didn’t mean for it to go that way,” you said again.  That quick he closed the space between you; he was so close you could smell the subtle aroma of his cologne, see the way his eyes searched yours.  He reached up and brushed a thumb across your cheek, wiping away a tear you hadn’t even noticed falling.

“Please don’t apologize.  Can I take you out after you get off?”  You looked up at him (you definitely had to look up) and studied his face.  He looked so tired.  His eyes looked sad.  How had you never noticed before?  Maybe it was time you paid attention.  A small nod.

“Yeah,” you whispered, even though you didn’t even know why you had to whisper.  “I get off at 1.  Should I meet you?”  Steve smiled then.  Golden boy.  Apollo.  The sun.

“Nah, I got this.  I’ll pick you up.”  Was he always a gentleman like this?  A quick hitch of your breath as he leaned forward and spoke close to your ear “Good night, Y/N.”  He stood up and slowly brushed passed you heading to the room at the other side of the hall where he saluted you with a grin as he went in and closed his door.  He knew.  He knew the effect he suddenly was having on you and he was loving it.  If you were being honest, you didn’t mind that you were finally acknowledging it.

And now, somehow, you were going to hang out with Steve Rogers tomorrow.  You slapped a hand over your mouth to stifle your disbelieving giggle.  It felt good.

[therainroguefanfiction]

✻ Ichi-go, Ichi-e (Baekhyun Byun) Gets Better

📑 Table of Contents

Genre: Fluff, Crack, Slice of Life

Word Count: 1,241

Pairing: Reader x Baekhyun

World: EXO

Prompt: #22, “It’ll get better, right?”

Author’s Note: This was written for @challengingwords​ writing challenge.

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“Calm down and tell me what happened.” Baekhyun gently took you by the shoulders, his concerned eyes meeting yours.

You shook your head angrily and he was sure he could see steam coming from your ears. “No, you won’t understand!”

“You won’t know that until you tell me.” His lips met your forehead. “Breathe, baby. In and out.”

You mirrored his deep breathing, your head feeling lighter as your anger lowered to annoyance. He slid the desk chair over, motioning for you to take a seat as he kneeled in front of you, holding onto your knees to steady himself.

“Now, tell me how you feel.”

You rolled your eyes at the amused glint in his own orbs. “Not funny, Baek.”

He pouted. “You don’t like the idea of me being your therapist?”

“Pretty sure it’s morally wrong to sleep with your patients.” You clicked your tongue in disapproval. “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too, Byun Baekhyun.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He wrinkled his nose, lightly smacking your outer thigh. “Stop avoiding the subject. Tell me or I’ll be forced to cuddling you until you give me the info I want!”

Despite yourself, you smiled which made him beam with pride at his accomplishment. “I hate you,” ‘Because you always make me smile no matter how upset I am,’

“Hmm, my spidey senses say otherwise.” Baekhyun wiggled his eyebrows.

“Ew,”

“Y/N~”

“Fine!” You threw your head back and began to recall your story of woe.

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You loved to write stories and chose to post them on a site called Tumblr because you liked being able to customize your blog. What you chose to write was mostly fanfiction about your favorite fandoms, which helped you to meet people that thought the say way you did and liked the same things. Baekhyun didn’t know anything about this site that its users called a hell-site, but being the supportive boyfriend that he is, he always patiently listened to you every time you needed to rant about the site.

And Tumblr certainly is not a site without its fair share of problems.

You liked to keep your queue rather full so you didn’t spam your followers. That way, if you had a long day or simply didn’t feel like posting, you could relax without having to worry. You pulled up your masterlist so you update it with that day’s posts, but when you clicked on the link, however, a sense of dread filled your body. The once colorful links were now white, the default text color for your theme. Why were the links gone? You had over three-hundred stories at this point and the links were gone.

You were on the verge of panicking.

Had you messed up something when you edited the post yesterday? You were sure you hadn’t, so then why? Trying to calm yourself, you messaged your friend, sending the link and asking them to see if the links were there for them. Surprisingly, she reported that the links were fine, all intact as they should be. She also reported, though, that she believed the site had a link limit per post and guessed the number to be around one hundred.

You tried pulling up the post on your phone – the links were intact and working as they should be. So then, why were the links whited out when you pulled the post up on your computer? ‘Well… as long as my followers can see them,’ you frowned at the screen, trying to put it out of your mind.

After adding the new links, you clicked over to the tags page, relieved to see the colorful links, but after adding a couple new tags and saving, they also whited out. “You have got to be kidding me…”

You quickly debated with yourself on created an external list somewhere because the thought of having multiple masterlists and a rabbit hole of links per fandom made you feel queasy, but you worried that your followers would not be happy with a masterlist on a site outside of Tumblr. And then you remembered the existence of pages.

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“It’ll get better, right?” Baekyun interrupted you, feeling his temples start to throb at the tale.

“Shush, you’re ruining the mood!” You cleared your throat, picking up where you left off.

Baekyun felt like his mind was going insane, but he remained quiet, trying to keep up with the words leaving your lips.

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If you just added a new page with your theme rather than getting fancy with customized HTML, it should work just fine for mobile users. At first, you simply copy-pasted the list, but that did not work – for some reason, it made the text black which could barely be seen against the dark grey background of the post.

With a scowl, you deleted the page and tried again. ‘Okay, paste as plain text, then… yes, it worked!’ While the links were not there, all of the text was, which would save you some time. You did feel slightly annoyed by the lack of a header option, though, but it was fine because the preview looked quite nice, so you continued your work.

It took you nearly three hours, with distractions, to finally re-link everything and clean up your blog. The preview was perfect so you saved the page, feeling excited to finally look upon your hard work. You copied the link to the page, pasted it into the browser, and clicked enter.

Your heart sunk like the damn titanic.

The links were whited out, not a single one intact.

“Son of a bitch!” Your face fell to the keyboard with a thunk and you groaned, a mixture of frustration and pain coursing through you. “Stupid, idiotic, bastard hell-site! Why are you like this, huh?! Why are you doing this to me, huh?! Are you trying to make me lose it?!”

Baekhyun cautiously slipped into the roam, unsure how to feel as he watched his partner gripping both sides of the computer monitor, screaming questions at it as if it weren’t just an inanimate object. He had seen you freak out at the computer on more than a couple of occasions, but this? This was definitely new.

━━━━━━༻ ✻ ༺━━━━━━

“And that’s when you stopped me.” You huffed in annoyance, folding your arms across your chest as you sent your boyfriend an accusing look.

“Babe… I stopped you because you picked up a bat.”

“And? It was just wood, it would’ve been fine.”

He sighed, bringing his hand to his forehead. “That computer is expensive, you know.”

“It’s Tumblr’s fault for being such a dick!”

“If the site upsets you so much, why don’t you just stop using it?”

You recoiled back as if he had just made a move to strike you, the wheeled chair sliding back a bit. “I could never do that, Baek!”

“What?” His brow furrowed in confusion. “Why not?”

“Because I love it, obviously!” You responded matter-of-factly, sending him a look as if he should know this information.

Baekhyun deadpanned. “Why am I dating you again?”

“Because you love me~” You grinned, sliding the chair back over to him.

“That’s debatable.” He tried to keep a straight face but failed, lips curling up into a smile as he pulled you into his arms. You returned the smile, hand gripping his so you could bring it to your lips, planting a soft kiss upon his knuckles.

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📜 Read more by checking out my masterlist 📜

If you enjoy my writing, please considering tipping me on Kofi or Cashapp. Every little bit helps and means a lot, thank you so much ^~^)/ If you can’t afford to do so, that’s okay, too, thanks for reading!

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The term “Ichi-go, Ichi-e” literally means “one time, one moment”. As explained in [this] article, it is meant to act as a reminder that we should treasure every moment because it will never recur again. I thought that was beautiful, so I decided to use that as the title for this set.

[kaoarika]

Tfw Tumblr forces you into their update... and you cannot go back.

(still, not in this account, but one of my alt-accounts)

I KNEW something was weird when they rid off that switch from old dashboard to their beta at the top of the page. I WANT to believe it’s still in beta because, ffs, it’s so goddamn awful.

I SEE they changed some stuff around (so they DID pay attention to some feedback), and good for them... but aesthetically speaking (plus that gdm inifinity scroll, UGHHHHHHHH), it’s still awful.

They don’t really think in ppl who use older computers (my lap is 6-7 years old, despite me using it since 2015), and that freaking Chrome uses a LOT of activity resource from some websites alone. Their beta update DOES IT to me.

It’s a BIG difference going from the dashboard to the settings option because I can hear the fan of my lap acting LOTS more in the main dashboard page... and when I subtly change into Settings, it calms down. The layout there is still same old dashboard. So, that’s why I assume it’s still on beta.

I saw someone posting a thing days ago that you can go back to old dashboard from settings, but I don’t see the option so... either a) they are already pulling these onto us (gradually), or b) it’s still on freaking beta and this option hasn’t been reached to all of us that were on beta (also, gradually).

I have been on this gdm hellsite since 2009 and I know I have complained before about even the little dumb aesthetic changes they have made ever since. Lots of things they implemented in the past have been okay... (but not as excellent as those thing like the devs behind the extinct Missing e or even xkit) and I see they are TRYING to up their game...? (the devs, not the ones that spend money on the site...), but it’s like... like, I said before, it’s like they want to make their interface more “unified” for both mobile and desktop users... except they fail miserably on that because mobile =/= desktop. And the mobile experience look like far worse than desktop... so, it’s like a “pick your poison” kind of deal. (The site really went to hell after the Yahoo buyout, which was 7 years ago, I SWEAR TO GOD)

Twitter forced an update onto their users after a long while they were on beta stages. I still dislike it, but not as much as I did before (although they still have looooooots to improve, I am not kidding).

DeviantArt is also on constant beta with their “Eclipse” mode, but at least they give this option of changing it to the old version (until they make Eclipse as the new normal), and are constantly telling their users that they receive feedback.

I sent a few feedback comments about this Tumblr update, but... it’s still an automated robot and my complaints could fall into deaf ears (at least the tags send you to tags and not... your own tags).

...Infinity Scroll can be good for stuff like Twitter... but not Tumblr, really. It’s annoying and it consumes lots of my computer’s resources than it’s necessary (more than it already does because CHROME SUCKS A LOT OF IT ALREADY), and it might send me into despair (either my computer freezes... OR BSOD).

Also...I think I found a reason why my post from yesterday didn’t gain traction (besides the fandom being dead-dead) and it’s because I put links on it and I should remember how the frick this hellsite treats those posts - as invisible, unless someone is following you.

I mean, ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I know the site is dying to the eyes of the users that moved out to other platforms and I don’t follow many (active) ppl anyways (most activity I have is max. 15 pages out of new content). The sentence was there when the adult content ban was made.

I’m going to suffer if they don’t change their mind and put a “pages” option, especially when it’s going to be reflected on tagged stuff... and when eventually EVERYONE gets the update.

[peterpumpkinparker]

Shatter Me- Peter Parker x Starks Daughter! Reader

After the death of your father by the hands of Thanos, you are more than determined to risk everything to get the life you had before the Snap

———————————————————

Hey lovelies! I’m so sorry it’s been so long since a story-I’ve just been so busy and hecktic with life! But hopefully I’ll be able to post more with summer vacation ☺️

Genre: Angst

Warning: mild cussing, some mentions of depression (not much, just some actions/ symptoms describe depression)

AU: Infinity War (but instead of Peter dying, Stark does)

Word Count: 2300

Also-sorry if this has wierd spacing, the mobile app of Tumblr is NOT enjoyable to use when trying to post a fic

————————————————————

“Almost got it,” you mumbled, your mind completely overtaken on the task at hand. Your hands were sore and raw from working with the rough metal, the wires scratching your fingers, but you didn't cared.You didn’t care that you hadn’t eaten since yesterday. You didn’t care that you hadn’t talked to your friends, or your boyfriend Peter, in a month. You didn't care that you felt empty inside. That you had no life after what happened. That almost everything you loved was gone. Just getting it all back was what mattered to you.

You worked tirelessly in your dad’s old workshop, the Iron Man suits and parts laid around like he had last left it. It was yours now- well, until you got him back. All of them back.

The metal arm you were working on was almost complete, the exoskeleton reflecting your tired face. The dark circles around your eyes made you turn away, hating the world for giving you this momentous pain that you had to fix. The remaining Avengers had told you countless times that if you ever needed help, that they were there for you, that if you needed anything all you had to do was give them a call and they would show up. But what you really needed was your father-nobody could give you that except the monster that took it away from you.

And you knew they wouldn't help you with your plan try to defeat Thanos- you knew it was suicide to go on your own to defeat him- but you had to to at least try.

You continued to tinker on, not noticing the worried boy in the doorway. Peter stared at your arched back, your exhausted face, and wondered how he was going to even talk to you. Even though you and Peter were dating, you haven't called or seen him in weeks, and he just thought that maybe you were dealing with stuff beyond his control. Everyone mourns differently, he was dealing with it himself, but- he didnt realize it was this bad when Cap called him in. Now as he looked at you, he felt like he was staring at stranger; the snarky, smiling girl he once knew was seemingly lost in the ocean of grief she was quietly drowning in.

He knocked on the glass door, leaning on his shoulder to make it seem he was relaxed, but the clench in his jaw said otherwise.

Your head shot up, annoyance first riddled in you- but instantly disappearing once you realized Peter was the one that broke your concentration.

You brushed your hair out of the way, realizing you haven't washed it in a while.

“Hey,” you greeted aloud, your voice crackling a little from not using it in a while.

“Hey,” Peter repeated back. An awkward silence filled the room as you fumbled to tie up your hair in a quick bun. “Mind if I sit?” he asked, wondering how long you had been in here.

You shrugged your shoulders, and tried avoiding his gaze by inspecting a little bolt next to you.

Peter pulled up a chair next to you. “How are you holding up?” he asked, his voice laced with concern.

You shrugged again. Saying too much would make him scared- too little would do the same thing. “Not amazing,” you sighed, “but nobody really is after what happened.”

Peter stared down at his hands. “That's true.”

Another awkward pause filled the air. You hated this. All of this. Everything was going great before- you and Peter had just started dating, and you guys had the best relationship ever. Stark was completely fine with it, even though he acted like he was super protective, you being his daughter. You guys were inseparable, always together, always able to tell each other anything and everything. Now, you couldn't even look at each other without feeling awkward, without feeling like you were back to Square 1. Everything just seemed so backward and messed up now, it was hard to wrap your head around fixing it. But you had to.

You turned away from Peter, putting in the last few bits and pieces into the metal arm. It was a crude weapon, built off of one of the unfinished inventions of your dad’s.

Peter began to look around the room, the awkwardness making him worry more. You used to be so bubbly and full of life, but now you had drawn into yourself, a shell of who you were. Peter didn't know how to bring you back out.

He looked around the workshop, noticing the disarray. There were objects everywhere, broken parts scattered on the floor, a makeshift bed in the corner, notes and paper strewn on different tables. He passed a desk, noticing the writing on the paper as yours. He picked it up, glancing up to see if you were watching. You were so intent in your thoughts, you didn't even notice Peter’s body leaving your side. He tentatively looked back at paper and at the words, the gibberious making him confused- all it talked about was about some weapon and the parts it needed. He turned the page, watching again to see if you were paying attention to him sneaking in your belongings before he looked. Once Peter finally looked down, he felt his heart sink- you had drafted up a replica of an Iron Man suit, with notes on the side for space travel. He looked at the notes in confusion, wondering why you would be go into space, until it hit him- your quiet moodiness, your concentration for building, your absence in any type of life outside you dad’s workshop. He realized you wanted revenge on your dad’s death.

He looked around, his heart beating frantically. Being Stark’s daughter, you were incredibly smart, so he didn't put it past you to make an Iron Man Suit, no less finish it in a month. He set down the paper as if it were a bomb about to ignite, and turned around, trying to see if you had finished the suit and left it somewhere. He had to see it for himself-he couldn’t believe that you would risk yourself so dangerously like this.

He began to walk again, looking for anything that resembled your drawing, until he came upon a tall object draped over with a brown tarp in a dimly light part of the workshop.

You looked up, the sound of Peter’s footsteps beginning to echo, which made your nerves tingle in annoyance. You loved Peter, you truly did, but right now, he was ruining valuable progress and wasting precious time. You watched him walk around the lab. You hoped that he didn’t realize what you were planning, and you lied to yourself that he didn’t. But deep down, you knew your deep connection with him was still there-he figured it all out before you even said a word.

You kept watching him, sadness turning into horror as you helplessly sat and watched as he raised a corner of the tarp-the tarp that hide your massive plan-and began to yell at him to stop. Instead, he ripped it off to reveal what you had been working on- a crude version of a Iron Man suit.

“Holy crap,” Peter breathed out in shock, his eyes wide as he looked at your guilty face.

He looked between you and the suit. “Did you…?” he asked hesitantly, pointing at it.

“I didn't exactly build it,” you said, answering his question sheeplessly. “They’re pieces of my Dad’s suits that he never really finished. I just pieced them together to make,” you raised your hand at your creation, “this.” Your hand came down, slapping your outer thigh,the sound ringing in the silence as Peter gawked and you sat back wearily,waiting for his reaction.

He swallowed, looking back at your creation. “So does it really work like an Iron Man suit?” He didn't want to ask you straight out your plans, because he didn't want you getting angry at him for snooping in your things. But leading you to saying it sounded a little better than being blunt at that moment.

“I dont know for sure,” you explained, your hands shaking, “but it should. I've learned enough from my dad just watching him make his suits. It took me forever though, and it's definitely not like his suits- its not as sturdy, but it should be okay if the power source is not tampered with. If thats broken,” you laughed sarcastically, “all hell breaks loose in it.”

“How do you know that?” he asked curiously, his arms folding in front of them stiffly.

“Well,” you smiled a little, “ I tried to readjust the router through the chest on time- thats were it at- and I got shot across the room like a rag doll.”

You two laughed, it being a little forced, but the air felt so strange that any type of dry humor was appreciated. You guys felt like total strangers, yet you knew each other’s secrets- Peter being a superhero, you at the moment, building a massively technological machine under cover for the past month.

But after the little bit of light heartedness it went back to tension and awkwardness.

Peter stuffed his hands into his pockets. “This is really- intuitive- and amazing y/n,” he smiled with concern, “but why?”

You sighed, dreading the question you knew he would ask. You looked down into your lap, rubbing the red mark on your thigh.

“My father died Peter. And almost everyone he knew, and I knew, are gone.Nobody has tried to do anything. Everyone's giving up. And nobody wants to try to fix this mess except me. So this is how I'm going to fix it”

Peter listened to you, scared at what you said. He was hoping that maybe this was a joke, that you werent really planning to go out and get revenge, but you were. Peter stared at you, trying to read your emotions. He had never seen you like this- so low yet so determined at the same time- and he was worried for you. terrified.

“What are you planning y/n?” he asked, his brown eyes boring into yours.

You looked back at your work table. “Nothing, Peter.”

‘Its doesnt look like nothing, though.”

“It's nothing.” you said with force, frustration spilling out.

“If you don't tell me y/n, Im going to tell the Avengers.”

“Like they care!” you spat angrily at him. “Like they ever cared! Ive been down here for God knows how long, trying to get back the life I had, trying to fix everything, and they havent done jack shit”

You knew everything you were saying was false and wrong. Natasha had been the one bringing you food and made you the make shift bed you sleep and eat in. Steve came to ask if you needed to talk every Friday without fail. Rhodey gave you the news that your father died, and gave Peoper and you his mask-and hugged you as you cried from the shock of losing your father. They did care and they were trying-it just felt good to yell at something, anything. You were angry that you didn’t have your father, and you were impatient for everything to be back as it was.

You shook your head, anger raditating off your body.

“Absolutely nothing! they haven't figured out a damn plan either. And if they had, they haven't let me in the loop.”

“Y/n their going to fix this,” Peter tried to reason.

“No. I'm going to fix this.”

Peter stared at you in disbelief, not really knowing you anymore. You were never this lost in your own head. He understood you were going through a lot of pain, but going after Thanos was usicide.

Peter stared at the contraption, contemplating what to do.

“Nobody has thought of a new plan,” you continued, “it's time for a change. Im sick of waking up every morning, and realizing everyone is gone. Im sick of waking up and feeling guilty- Like I couldve done something.”

“ I shouldve done something.” you said, almost saying it to yourself.

Peter felt empathy swarming his body. How could he tell you he felt the same way?

“But, y/n- you couldn't have done anything that day. None of us could- we all tried our best.”

“Really?” you countered angrily. “I did shit- I literally stayed home and watch my dad fly onto that weird spaceship. I watched you leave. Did I leave? No. You know why?

Tears began to brim in your eyes, your lids binking rapidly to hold them back.

“You know why?” you repeated, your tone getting smaller as your voice cracked, “because I was scared. You breathed out heavily, letting that new realization hit you like a ton of bricks. You didn’t want to admit this to yourself, but it was true to you. The day Thanos and his warriors came, you stayed back. The one time your dad yelled at you to stay back, you listened. You never listened to your dad-you always were the first to fly in and help save the day. But the one time your dad truly needed you, the one time the whole universe needed help, you didn’t do that. Seeing those aliens and that ships freaked you out- you were terrified you’d actually lose your life that time. And because of that, you didn’t die-but your dad was gone. You worked tirelessly every day to keep that evil secret away from your mind because it was too hard to come face to face with-now you had to work to fix that fatal mistake.

“I was scared because I had no idea what to do. I wanted to help, but I was too selfish about my own safety. I could have grabbed one of my Dads suits. I couldve flew up there with you guys. I could've helped. But I didn't.”

You looked up shaking your head, your lips pursed as you tred to will your body to hold back the tears.

Peter walked to you, his arms open and welcoming, but his expression full of pain. Every day he felt the same pain- that he could’ve done something more to save everyone he loved. It was the worst pain he ever felt in his life- it ate his insides, anytime it was quiet, anytime he allowed himself to relax; that guilt and sorrow and hate for his actions at that time ate his insides until he felt like screaming. Some days were better than others, and he'd been learning to cope with it. But he just never realized you were dealing with the same thing. And so much of it.

You looked at Peter, your lips quivering as a single tear spilled onto your cheeks. You looked down at your hands, terrified that talking more to Peter would make you break down. You had broken down so much in the last month that you thought that one more would destroy you.

Peter knelt down, eye level to you, sweeping the hair out of your face that was curtaining off your tear stained cheeks.

“Its okay, y/n,” peter said softly, “Youre okay.”

You looked up, your eyes full of pain. You shook your head, chuckling sarcastically as your smile quivered.

“Im not,” you whispered out of your throat, your voice tight with the effort of keeping yourself together. To not cry. To not show that life was really messing you up right now.

Peter wrapped his arms around you, the purity of the embrace and the warmth of his body making your shoulders shudder harder, your hiccups louder, your heart hurt more and less at the same time as you wrapped your arms around him. The waves of tears wracked your body,one after aother, the pain making you hurt. You grabbed the back of his shirt, the fabric balled up into your fist as you let all your emotions leave your body.

‘Its okay y/n,” Peter whispered, his voice low and soothing, “eveyrthing’s going to be okay. I know you wont believe me right now, but- youre going to be okay.”

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Happy a great night (or day) lovelies! I’ll see you in the next fic ❤️

[ms-demeanor]

The different approach would probably be, I don’t know, sabotage and killing people? I honestly don’t know what you want people to do, like really, honestly. If we’re already fucked, if the surveillance state is as scary as you’re describing, if all our systems are useless to deal with it (you’re an anarchist, I presume you believe this), what’s left to do? And what’s the point of doing anything if the technology that, like, I absolutely rely on to live is so toxic?

The different approach is to organize.

Organize, organize, organize.

We have been trying to foist the responsibility for evading surveillance onto individuals and that’s bullshit. Your grandma who wants to see baby pictures shouldn’t have to learn how to strip metadata or read a 10K word ToS and argue with it in order to function online.

We are fucked as individuals, we can’t fight this as individuals. It’s a good thing that we don’t have to.

Google and Amazon employees have protested when their employers started working with facial recognition software, corporate and government whistleblowers have told the public when we’re being watched. You might not be able to do those things but you can support the people who HAVE done those sorts of things. You can also work to educate people about the state of modern surveillance and try to get them to pay attention to legislation that they might otherwise overlook.

There is an entire organization (https://www.eff.org/) that exists exclusively to protect online freedoms; if nothing else you can donate to them (because what EFF is doing is working a HELL of a lot better than telling people not to post selfies.

And I don’t know why people always jump to “well so what, killing people is the answer?” when you’ve got “sabotage” right there in your sentence. Yes. 100%. Sabotage the shit out of this system. Spraypaint cameras, point cameras out to people around you, print up sheets of hyperface and wheatpaste it up in high traffic areas.

So much of this shit is blamed on individual people for creating accounts to share news with their family or posting photos on vacation and making individual people feel guilty for being complicit in modern surveillance. Most people don’t even realize that this is a thing. Most people aren’t worried about facial recognition software and the vast files of data being compiled about them because it’s not an immediate problem and I sure as hell can’t blame someone who’s struggling to make rent for not giving a shit about where their face is seen. Our exhaustion leads to apathy and that apathy is being taken advantage of by governments and massive corporations in order to build up a system that does not yet control everyone but easily could in the future.

You can’t kill the apathy. You can’t make a person who says “I’m not important to worry about this, it’ll never impact me” care enough to delete her facebook. So don’t go after her. Find people who DO care and go after facebook. Be shitty and criminal about it and hack it. Be polite and legal about it and agitate for oversight (and not in Zuckerberg’s shitty “we shouldn’t have to be responsible for our platforms, the government should be responsible for preventing bad shit on our platforms while we maintain control of data sales” way).

I brought up David Brin and sousveillance yesterday, that’s a part of this too. The public should have access to police camera footage and since they won’t give it to us we should set up some fucking cameras of our own. You know why we’ve affirmed the right of citizens to film police? BECAUSE PEOPLE FUCKING ORGANIZED. Here, have a state-by-state selection of apps to record the cops: https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/aclu-apps-record-police-conduct

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So what can you, as an individual, do if you want to step back and get away from some of this but you aren’t quite ready to start slapping stickers on security cameras?

First, detach as much as possible from the toxic aspects of technology as you can.

I’m pretty clearly a big advocate for open source software and surveillance is part of that. Apple tracks your shit. Microsoft tracks your shit Linux doesn’t. Google tracks your shit. Firefox doesn’t. Yahoo tracks your shit. Protonmail doesn’t. Install adblockers, browse incognito, and see how well you do without certain kinds of social media.

I get it, I had to create a facebook page for a job and now I have to keep one for another job and it sucks because you’re forced to participate in order to just be allowed to survive. Participate at the lowest level you can.

(Real talk: I am *floored* that Chrome is a thing. I understand that gmail got off the ground before we all realized how nuts google was and that almost everyone has a youtube account but it is balls to the wall *bonkers* to me that people would use a google browser)

Start running a good adblocker (I like ublock origin) and NoScript. It’ll really narrow your online experience to do so, but it might also make you aware of just how much bullshit is quietly going on in the background of the pages you visit.

Second, become unpredictable.

I wasn’t kidding about randomly leaving your phone at home or at the office. You probably don’t need it with you all the time so don’t take it all the time.

Change the way you get to work, change where you go to eat, change where you shop. Routine is comforting, it’s also a trap. (And if it’s at all feasible cut yourself off from Amazon; don’t shop there, don’t interact with it, don’t use alexa, don’t use their storage products, don’t sell through it. I know it’s really difficult, and if you can’t do all of that try to do the most you can)

It’s easy to observe and build profiles on people who have habits set in stone and a particular path they follow each day. It’ll be good for you to shake yourself out of those habits not only because it blurs the edges of your profile but also because novel experiences are good for your brain. And if you can’t change your commute or leave your phone at home at least vary your behaviors. If you go on tumblr every day start taking a day off once in a while. If you play mobile games on your phone most days maybe switch to an ereader for a bit.

One of my friends once said “your credit card company should always have to call you to check for fraud because they should never know what you’re going to buy next” and honestly I like that philosophy (this came up after he purchased a box of communion wafers and a boat oar about an hour apart). Shop like you’re trying to confuse the fraud department, drive like you’re trying to lose a tail.

Look for alternatives to the things you do every day and start doing the alternative thing once in a while for the sheer novelty of it.

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Nihilism

The system is broken. The system is broken. It is broken and it can’t be fixed, we let it go too long and by the time we even thought about trying to control this shit it was so far gone that we couldn’t walk away. It’s all well and good to talk about avoiding cameras but people gotta use roads and ride busses and take the subway. People gotta eat. People gotta go to school. It’s all well and good to talk about disrupting data patterns and checking out of social media but you’re still gonna get googled and your name is out there. The cat’s out of the bag.

That is not an excuse to throw up your hands and say “well I guess there’s nothing that can be done,” it’s a reason to say “there’s no reason things should be like this.”

People talk about surveillance and technology and security like they’re set in stone, like they’re forces of nature and can never be changed.

That’s fuckin bullshit. We make this. WE MAKE THIS. And we can change this. We can change it collectively by putting pressure on companies like facebook or amazon or google by agitating for oversight, sabotaging them, or leaking documents. We can change it collectively by making alternative options and participating in open source projects. We can change it collectively by leaking data and supporting leakers. We can change it collectively by filming cops. We can change it collectively by pushing toward norms of privacy, by moving away from always-on, always-reachable culture.

And it’s always going to be a fight. There’s never going to be an end-state in which there *isn’t* someone trying to take advantage of the structures we’ve built. But together we can keep pushing anyway. One must imagine Sisyphus happy, after all.