#why did we do this. why did we create such a broken system

[lets-steal-an-archive]

By Bernie Sanders | July 13, 2024

I will do all that I can to see that President Biden is re-elected. Why? Despite my disagreements with him on particular issues, he has been the most effective president in the modern history of our country and is the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump — a demagogue and pathological liar. It’s time to learn a lesson from the progressive and centrist forces in France who, despite profound political differences, came together this week to soundly defeat right-wing extremism.

I strongly disagree with Mr. Biden on the question of U.S. support for Israel’s horrific war against the Palestinian people. The United States should not provide Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist government with another nickel as it continues to create one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history.

I strongly disagree with the president’s belief that the Affordable Care Act, as useful as it has been, will ever address America’s health care crisis. Our health care system is broken, dysfunctional and wildly expensive and needs to be replaced with a “Medicare for all” single-payer system. Health care is a human right.

And those are not my only disagreements with Mr. Biden.

But for over two weeks now, the corporate media has obsessively focused on the June presidential debate and the cognitive capabilities of a man who has, perhaps, the most difficult and stressful job in the world. The media has frantically searched for every living human being who no longer supports the president or any neurologist who wants to appear on TV. Unfortunately, too many Democrats have joined that circular firing squad.

Yes. I know: Mr. Biden is old, is prone to gaffes, walks stiffly and had a disastrous debate with Mr. Trump. But this I also know: A presidential election is not an entertainment contest. It does not begin or end with a 90-minute debate.

Enough! Mr. Biden may not be the ideal candidate, but he will be the candidate and should be the candidate. And with an effective campaign taht speaks to the needs of working families, he will not only defeat Mr. Trump but beat him badly. It’s time for Democrats to stop the bickering and nit-picking.

I understand that some Democrats get nervous about having to explain the president’s gaffes and misspeaking names. But unlike the Republicans, they do not have to explain away a candidate who now has 34 felony convictions and faces charges that could lead to dozens of additional convictions, who has been hit with a $5 million judgment after he was found liable in a sexual abuse case, who has been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits, who has repeatedly gone bankrupt and who has told thousands of documented lies and falsehoods.

Supporters of Mr. Biden can speak proudly about a good and decent Democratic president with a record of real accomplishment. The Biden administration, as a result of the American Rescue Plan, helped rebuild the economy during the pandemic far faster than economists thought possible. At a time when people were terrified about the future, the president and those of us who supported him in Congress put Americans back to work, provided cash benefits to desperate parents and protected small businesses, hospitals, schools and child care centers.

After decades of talk about our crumbling roads, bridges and water systems, we put more money into rebuilding America’s infrastructure than ever before — which is projected to create millions of well-paying jobs. And we did not stop there. We made the largest-ever investment in climate action to save the planet. We canceled student debt for nearly five million financially strapped Americans. We cut prices for insulin and asthma inhalers, capped out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs and got free vaccines to the American people. We battled to defend women’s rights in the face of moves by Trump-appointed jurists to roll back reproductive freedom and deny women the right to control their own bodies.

So, yes, Mr. Biden has a record to run on. A strong record. But he and his supporters should never suggest that what’s been accomplished is sufficient. To win the election, the president must do more than just defend his excellent record. He needs to propose and fight for a bold agenda that speaks to the needs of the vast majority of our people — the working families of this country, the people who have been left behind for far too long.

At a time when the billionaires have never had it so good and when the United States is experiencing virtually unprecedented income and wealth inequality, over 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, real weekly wages for the average worker have not risen in over 50 years, 25 percent of seniors live each year on $15,000 or less, we have a higher rate of childhood poverty than almost any other major country, and housing is becoming more and more unaffordable — among other crises.

This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. We can do better. We must do better. Joe Biden knows that. Donald Trump does not. Joe Biden wants to tax the rich so that we can fund the needs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. Donald Trump wants to cut taxes for the billionaire class. Joe Biden wants to expand Social Security benefits. Donald Trump and his friends want to weaken Social Security. Joe Biden wants to make it easier for workers to form unions and collectively bargain for better wages and benefits. Donald Trump wants to let multinational corporations get away with exploiting workers and ripping off consumers. Joe Biden respects democracy. Donald Trump attacks it.

This election offers a stark choice on issue after issue. If Mr. Biden and his supporters focus on these issues — and refuse to be divided and distracted — the president will rally working families to his side in the industrial Midwest swing states and elsewhere and win the November election. And let me say this as emphatically as I can: For the sake of our kids and future generations, he must win.

Bernie Sanders is the senior senator from Vermont.

[fan-a-saurus-rex]

Behind Locked Doors

(Gif made by @lumons)

Plot: When a mission goes array, you and Bob end up locked in the very bunker you’re supposed to be clearing out. You later find out the hard way what you’re supposed to be clearing out and why Val warned you to be careful.

Pairing: Bob Reynolds x Super Soldier!Reader

Requested: No, but my requests are always open!

Warnings: swearing, smut (making out, unprotected sex {wrap it up friends! stay safe!} dirty talk, it’s filthy okay? 🤣)

Masterlist

In theory, it was a simple mission. Get in, grab the weapons hidden by Hydra scientists, gout out.

You had no clue what you were going in to get, but Val had told everyone to be careful and watch their backs. There had been talks of biological weapons being held at the “secret” Hydra bunker. Being that biological weapons and biological warfare of any kind was considered a war crime it was necessary to get whatever they had stashed out of there and disposed of properly.

Knowing Hydra it could have been anything.

Great.

You prepped what you needed, put on your protective gear and met everyone outside. You hopped in the van and headed off to the location. Upon arrival you were surprised by the lack of guards, but quickly noticed surveillance cameras and other security measures scattered about the outside of the complex.

Ava quickly took to fiddling with the locations power sources only to get frustrated by how complex the technology was at the facility. “What the fuck even is this?” She grumbled as she tried to shut down the security.

Bucky took a look then swiftly punched the odd looking fuse box with his metal arm. “Whatever it is, it’s broken now, let’s go” he said rushing off towards the entrance.

You tried to suppress your laughter and rushed in with everyone else.

“Yelena, Alexei, and I will scope out the main floor of the facility. The rest of you search the underground tunnel system. That’s likely where they’d hide a bunker full of biological weapons.” Bucky said. When you find it, radio in. We’ll grab what we can and get the hell out”

Everyone nodded and went their separate directions. You skulked through the facility looking for the entrance to the underground bunkers below the facility. You ran into a few Hydra scientists and unfortunately for them none of you were in the mood to play nice.

You and Walker quickly had the pair in a chokehold. “Show us where the underground tunnels are and we’ll let you live to see another day”

The men nodded and one gave up his badge willingly, most likely terrified. “Down the hall to the right….you’ll need the badge to get in” he said, voice shaking and forehead covered in sweat.

“Thanks Doc” you said sarcastically, tossing the two terrified men to the side. You took his directions and swiped the badge. A hidden door opened up to a staircase. You ascended down into a tunnel system that looked like something straight out of James Bond film.

“Where do we start?” You questioned. The tunnels seemed to go on forever.

“Let’s split up” Walker said. “Ava and I will take the east end, you and Bob take the west”

You nodded and headed off down the hallway with Bob, looking into each room. Many of them seemed empty until you looked closer, seeing medical beds and various monitors.

“Do you think they’re testing on people in here?” Bob asked.

You knew the answer to that. Of course they were. You were a failed product of Hydra yourself. You knew what these places were like.

“Yeah…it looks like it” you said. “All the more reason to find what these assholes are hiding” you said with your teeth clenched.

You’d spent 6 years of your life being experimented on by Hydra. You were the youngest Winter Soldier they’d ever created. At the tender age of 15 they injected you with the serum and trained you to be a weapon. Little did they know you were using that to your advantage.

By the time you reached your early 20’s you were stronger than ever. You used their fear of you to finally break out of there. A few years later you met Bucky and he took you under his wing, gave you a safe space with the rest of the Thunderbolts. You joined them a few months later. You wanted to use your power for good. You took something traumatic and turned it into a way to help others, it felt good.

You were so deep in your angry thoughts that you hadn’t realized Bob’s hand on your shoulder.

“We’re gonna help them” he said softly. “I’m with you every step of the way”

You couldn’t help but smile.

“Thanks Reynolds, I can always count on you”

You could too.

Both of you had been through very similar experiences in life. You became close friends really quickly and worked well together. You’d never really had friends before meeting the thunderbolts, but they were more than that, they were your family, your support system.

As you crept down the hall you can across a small hallway leading to a door that could only be opened by a badge. Probably a good place to start. You radioed in to the others. “Ava, Walker. I think we found it” you said.

“Copy that” you heard Walker say on the other end.

In a few minutes they had arrived at your location.

“Looks like a weapons bunker to me” Ava said.

“Bob and will head in, you two stay on lookout. We’ll call if we need backup” you said before swiping the badge. You watched as the doors opened. Sure enough there was a large room filled with crates and various vials on shelves.

You snuck in, ready to attack if needed. Nobody was around. Not a single soul. You were about ready to radio in that you found what you were looking for when an alarm went off. “Shit!”

You looked over to see the large door closing. “Come on!” Bob called to you as you ran for it, only to get there too late. You tried using the badge but were denied accessed. Suddenly you heard Bucky’s voice over the radio.

“We’ve been found out, the facility is in lockdown! Are you guys alright?”

“We found the bunker and the weapons, but Bob and I are locked in” you said

“Hold on!” You heard Walker yell. Then you heard several loud thumping noises on the other side of the door “I can’t….I cant break through!” He said frustrated.

You looked at Bob and tried your shot at it, but even with the super soldier serum you weren’t strong enough.

“You think you can make it through?” You asked Bob.

He tried to bust the door down as well but aside from a few dents it just wasn’t budging.

“Looks like we’re stuck in here until you can rig the system to unlock the door” you said

“Take a look around the bunker, figure out what they’re hiding in there, but be careful” Bucky said “we’ll take of the rest of the Hydra agents then hack into the security system”

“Copy that” you said.

You and Bob proceeded to look around the bunker. Most of the crates were labeled and filled with chemicals and medication. There was a shelf of random vials in the corner. Each one was labeled as well, they were all chemicals. But there was one crate in the far back. It didn’t specify what was inside.

“I think this might be what we’re looking for” you said reaching over to pry the box open.

“Be careful” Bob said quietly.

You nodded and tore the lid off of the crate. You saw what looked like grenades “what the hell?” You asked yourself softly before reaching down to pick one up. Upon touching it a puff of smoke escaped and a powdery substance dispersed in front of the two of you.

You both coughed a bit “shit…what is this?”

Suddenly you both began to feel a bit dizzy. You called in to everyone in the radio. “You better hurry, we found what they’re hiding…and we were exposed. Might need medical attention” you said through the radio.

“Shit! Are you okay?” You heard Bucky yell

“Yeah, just a bit dizzy…” you said

“Hold tight, we’re doing our best” he said

“Okay” you said, sitting down on the floor, Bob sitting beside you.

Your head was spinning and you felt like you were dozing off. You didn’t feel sick. You figured it was something that might just put you to sleep. You were so wrong.

Within seconds the lightheaded feeling wore off and you felt a new symptom. A familiar heat started erupting in your core and a fluttering in your stomach. You looked up at Bob and the feeling only got worse.

You could tell he was feeling the same thing.

“Bob?”

“Oh shit! No, {y/n} don’t get too close” he begged.

The desperation in his voice only made the heat between your legs more intense.

“I won’t….I think we’ve been exposed to sex pollen…” you said feeling horrified that you’d gotten into this situation. “Bucky? You really need to hurry up” you said feeling a bit irritated.

Clearly he was annoyed as well because he didn’t answer you and neither did anyone else.

You laid down on the floor on your back and took deep breathes, trying to push the feelings of lust aside. It was hard with Bob lying next to you. He was panting and his face was glistening with sweat.

God he looked hot.

You always thought he was adorable, but you’d never been attracted to him in that way. The sudden urge to rip his clothes off and fuck him stupid made your stomach churn. You shouldn’t feel like this about your best friend. But you were under the effects of a drug, you couldn’t control it.

“{y/n}?” You heard Bob breathe out “I can’t do this much longer….we need to separate”

“Yeah, yeah….” You panted. You got up to go to the other side of the room but the ache between your legs stopped you from moving. You groaned loudly, getting frustrated.

That was all it took.

Within seconds Bob was on you “screw it, I need you, I want you. If I don’t fuck you I might die” he said pinning you to the floor.

“Fuck” you breathed out “come here” you whispered pulling him down to kiss him. It was a hungry kiss, all tongues and teeth and muffled moans.

“Damn your lips taste amazing” Bob mumbled against your mouth before kissing you again.

You moaned into his mouth as your tongue slid along his. You gripped the collar of his suit, the extra material getting in your way. “This needs to come off” you whispered as you tugged on his tactical vest. He pulled away long enough to pull it off, along with the t-shirt he was wearing underneath. You pulled off your shirt and bra, needing skin to skin contact with him.

You quickly reattached your lips to his, your breasts lying on his chest. The heat coming off his skin drove you crazy.

“Oh god….they feel so good on my skin” he groaned, reaching up to hold one of your boobs in his hand.

“Oh Bob! Your touch drives me crazy” you moaned as he massaged your breasts in his hands. He leaned down taking one in his mouth and you moaned louder. “Fuck! Your tongue feels so good”

You tangled your fingers in his curls and tugged gently, causing a low moan to escape his mouth. “Do that again…”

You tugged on them again and he moaned “harder baby, do it harder”

You tugged them harder, forcing him to lean his head back. You kissed his exposed neck and he melted into you. He completely succumbed to you as you kissed down his chest to the waist of his pants. You unbuttoned and unzipped them, pulling them off so he was only in his boxers.

You palmed his bulge through the thin fabric of his boxers.

“Fuck baby!” He moaned

You continued rubbing him through his boxers “I want you in me so bad”

He groaned and pulled your hand away from his erection so he could pull off your pants. Your panties were soaked and you wanted them off. You pulled them off before he could get a chance, then pulled off his boxers.

“Oh fuck, you’re so big” you groaned, grabbing his length in your hands

“Baby I’m not gonna last if you do that, I need to be in you” he groaned

You licked your lips and leaned down, putting the tip in your mouth, swirling your tongue around.

“Baby!” He groaned “your mouth…..so good”

“Mmm” you moaned and you took what you could into your mouth. What you couldn’t fit you rubbed with your hands. You weren’t very experienced with giving blow jobs, but you couldn’t resist. You wanted him.

“Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” He groaned, his hands tangled in your hair, gripping your ponytail. “Don’t stop!” He begged, which only turned you on more.

You sucked harder, rubbing him faster. You could feel him pulsing in your mouth and you knew it was only a matter of time before he burst.

“Fuck! I’m gonna!” He moaned loudly as you took him as deep into your mouth as you could. Within seconds he was real sing down your throat. You swallowed and pulled him out with a pop.

He pulled you up to him and kissed you hard, tasting himself in your mouth. “That was so fucking good, but now it’s my turn” he said as he flipped you over so he was on top. He kissed down you chest to your inner thigh, before lifting your legs over his shoulders.

You could feel his hot breath on your center and you couldn’t wait for him to devour you. You felt his tongue lick a strip up your soaking slit and you moaned out uncontrollably “oh Bobby!”

He started sucking your clit as he pressed two fingers into your soaking hole, you bucked your hips up into him immediately “oh fuck! Yes! Yes Bobby!”

He sucked harder, curling his fingers into you and you gasped loudly “right there! Do it again!”

He did, but deeper.

You arched your back and soon felt his lips leave your clit. He instead started to thrust his fingers in and out of you quickly till you were seeing stars. He stared directly at you the whole time, his blue eyes turning slightly darker, his pupil blown out with lust and desire.

“I’m close! Don’t stop!” You moaned

“Cum on my fingers baby” he cooed at you as he pushed them deeper into you, hitting that spot that pushed you over the edge.

You moaned loudly in pleasure and you released on his fingers. He pulled them out and sucked your juices off them before attacking your mouth in the most hungry kiss you’d ever had.

You couldn’t breathe, neither of you could.

“I need to fuck you, need to be in you. You gonna be a good girl and take all of me?” He whispered into your ear

“Yes…yes! I want you, all of you. Fill me up Bobby!!” You begged beneath him.

He spread your legs and slid into you in one quick thrust, causing both of you to moan loudly. You were so slick and wet that he practically glided through your folds and it felt so fucking good.

You were both a moaning mess as he began moving faster with you. “Bob, fuck!! Feels so good, you’re so big! You fill me up so good, fuck I love your cock!”

“You take me so well, so tight!” He groaned “shit…I could fuck you forever!”

Everything else in the room faded away quickly. Soon it was just you and Bob. The only sounds to be heard was the sound of skin against skin, panting, moaning, and the most filthy words that had ever left you or Bob’s mouths.

You weren’t sure if you were imagining it, but it felt like the room was shaking. Maybe it was. After all, a super soldier and the sentry were fucking hardcore, that could cause an earthquake.

Suddenly, the tell-tale signs that your climax was approaching hit you like ton of bricks. “I’m goons cum so hard!”

“Do it, cum for me baby” he said turning your face to his “I wanna see you face when you do”

You arched your back as he pounded into you, hitting the back of walls in that one spot nobody had ever reached. It drove you crazy.

You screamed his name as you released hard “Bob!!!! Fuck!!!”

“My turn baby, I can’t hold it anymore” he groaned just before you felt him dump his load into you. “Fuck! Fuck!!!! {y/n}!!!!!!”

You both rode out each other’s highs before collapsing next to each other. You were seeing stars and trying so hard to catch your breath.

After several minutes your mind finally felt clear again and it suddenly sunk in. You had just fucked your best friend in a Hydra bunker filled with chemicals and sex pollen bombs.

Shit.

“Oh shit…shit shit shit” you said rubbing your face. “Bob I’m so sorry…”

“No, I’m sorry. Fuck….we actually did that”

You sighed but couldn’t help but giggle when you saw how fucked out the two of you were. Bob chuckled a bit and sat up, resting on his elbows. “We better try to clean up and find a way out of here”

You nodded and grabbed a rag from one of the medical shelves and cleaned off as best as you could before pulling your bra and panties and on.

The two of you were only half dressed when the door to the bunker opened and the rest of the team walked in to see the two of you.

“What the hell?” Walker said, looking at you two like you’d just insulted his ancestors.

“How did you get the door…?” You asked, so stunned that you didn’t even bother to cover your exposed half naked body.

“There was a disturbance and a circuit broke. We were able to hack the security system and open the door” Ava said, looking at you two with an eyebrow raised “guess we know what disturbed the power” she said eyeing Bob with a knowing smirk.

“Oh shit….you probably unknowingly let Sentry take over for a minute and disrupted the power” you said rubbing your face.

“No shit. Also, fucking on a mission, very unprofessional” Walker said “just cause you two were locked in here didn’t mean you had to-“

You cut him off.

“Sex pollen! The chemical we found and got exposed to was sex pollen! That’s what hydra is hiding in here!” You said “and yeah, we fucked. Kinda didn’t have a choice” you retorted finally pulling the rest of your clothes on.

“Well that’s just great” Bucky groaned. “Come in, let’s get this shit out of here”

He looked over at you and Bob who were still flustered and sexed out.

“And I don’t wanna hear another word from you two until we get back to the tower” he said “and you’ll both be seeing a doctor too”

The rest of the team helped him carefully take the unlabeled crates of pollen bombs to the door before calling in for backup and an emergency extraction of toxic weapons.

You looked at Bob and had to suppress a giggle.

“Reynolds, {y/l/n}! Get your asses over here and make yourselves useful!” Bucky ordered “you can flirt later” he said a slight smirk playing on his lips.

* * * * *

After arriving back to the tower and being cleared by a doctor, you and Bob met the rest of the team to talk to Val.

“So it was all extracted and taken to a toxic waste facility in Nevada. The scientists were taken in for questioning and are being held at the raft for the time being. Good job guys” Val said “what was in those crates anyway?”

“Sex pollen bombs” Bucky said flatly

“Jesus. Nobody got exposed did they?”

You and Bob blushed, though you tried to hide it.

“Bob and {y/n} did, but they fucked it off and saw a doctor. No big deal, they’re good” Yelena said, spilling the beans.

“Well….hope you…had fun. Glad to hear you’re both healthy” Val said, looking between the two of you, not sure how she felt about it. “Anyway, great job. Get some rest. Behave yourselves. I’ll call if I need you” she said heading into the elevator.

Everyone else dispersed to do their own thing, leaving you and Bob standing in the middle of the room.

“Um…yeah. Sorry that that whole thing happened” Bob said awkwardly.

“You remember it?” You asked.

“Yeah, yeah. Most of it. You?”

You nodded “yeah”

It was quiet for a minute.

“Well I’m, again I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it”

“Oh we’re gonna talk about it” you said “you can’t just do shit like that to me and just drop it like it didn’t happen”

“But…”

“No!” You interrupted “I get that we were under the influence of a biological weapon but damn….didn’t think we’d let ourselves take it that far” you said.

“Do you regret it?” He asked

“No. No! It was the best sex I’ve ever had…Jesus” you admitted “didn’t know you had it in you” you said laughing.

“Me neither” he admitted “and you…shit you have a filthy mouth…but a talented one” he admitted, blushing.

“You think so?”

He nodded.

“Well then maybe we should do that again sometime, without the drugs” you said smirking.

“What? Really? You’d…have sex with me again?” He asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah, it was fun” you said.

“Right now?” He asked

“You wanna do it right now?” You asked. It was your turn to be shocked.

“God, yes please?” He begged

“Come on” you said smirking, pulling him to your bedroom “but we have to be quite, don’t wanna piss everyone off”

“No promises” he said

You giggled as you shut the door behind you, not caring if the rest of the team heard what you two were doing.

[oddberryshortcake]

Twisted Wonderland - Blessings and Curses 

In Twst, it’s said repeatedly that blessings and curses are virtually the same thing, but are differentiated only by how they either positively or negatively affect the person who is spelled. 

This is interesting because of this, in some cases, spells meant to be blessings turn into curses, which a number of characters suffer from. Some curses can also be a blessing. 

There are now at least four characters who are canonically cursed in some form, with some being more explicitly stated as cursed, others implied, and some we don’t even know what’s truly going on, so I’ll be going over everything that we do know because this magic system is mysterious and I want to know more. 

Idia Shroud, the late original Ortho Shroud, STYX’s director (Idia’s father) and the late Aidne Shroud (Idia’s grandmother) have all been generationally cursed for hundreds of years since their ancestor was punished for trying to revolt against their rivals, the Jupiter Family. 

Their curse manifests itself as firey blue hair and the ability to incinerate blot at such a speed that overblot is impossible. 

The inability to overblot can be interpreted as a blessing, but if the Shrouds don’t produce blot/live in close proximity to blot, the curse will attack their magic force and destroy it, possibly harming their lives as well. 

Because of this, the curse makes the Shrouds uniquely qualified for blot research and protecting the rest of the world from the massive phantoms created by hundreds of overblotters across history. 

This curse prevents Idia from living a normal life and, as Idia has done research on himself and the family, concluded that it is the curse is unbreakable (as most curses appear to be) 

Idia also confirms that Grim is cursed, except Grim’s curse seems to be so old and complex that he can’t decipher what it is. Grim does have blot resistance, and its theorized that he’s a direbeast fused with some other kind of animal and possesses almost human-like intelligence. 

Idia is able to conclude that someone casted an ancient spell on Grim, but the person who did it and the purpose of the spell is unknown. 

This, paired with Grim’s insatiable desire to eat blot stones produced by overblotters, hasn’t been touched upon by the plot again as of right now, but the chimera creature that resembles Grim from the prologue is an indicator that we will find out what this curse is at some point. 

Next is Silver’s curse, which is different from everyone else because it was intended to be a blessing from the very start. 

And it was a blessing for around 400 years…Until he woke up and started experiencing negative effects from the spell, which made it a curse. 

This is more on the theorizing side since Silver’s sleeping problem is brought up only once in Book 7 and not touched on again. By the end of Book 7, his sleeping issue still isn’t talked about. Given the new guest room and chat voice lines that just dropped on JPN server, it’s implied that Silver is still struggling with his uncontrollable sleeping habit and he is not cured of his curse. 

But again, we won’t know if that’s actually the case until the story continues. 

People rightfully speculate that the reason behind his sleeping issue comes from his original blessing, which was to sleep until found by someone who loves him. He was in ageless sleep until he was found by Lilia, and then he started to age like a normal child but fell asleep suddenly with no explanation. 

It’s stated multiple times in vignettes and once in main story that Silver has been taken to doctors for his sleeping issue and no one was able to find anything, implying that curses are virtually undetectable outside of the STYX technology Idia has access to. 

The blessing met its criteria and him being awake proves that it has been broken, but the reason why he’s experiencing negative effects from something that saved his life is unknown and hopefully it’ll be explained later on. Lilia also theorizes that the spell may have fallen apart due to how unpredictably long he spent under it, but that was probably just him assuming he didn't meet the spell's criteria.

Given what we know, I theorize that, in some cases, excessive amounts of exposure to powerful magic can be harmful to people, especially humans who were spelled at such a young age. 

This is how a blessing can change into a curse, it’s now a part of him whether he wants it there or not. 

Maybe his body is just used to being asleep, he was like that for 400 years and has only been awake for 18 years. Maybe there’s something else at play, we don’t know. 

We have enough evidence to assume that he’s part of the cursed club (also he’s twisted from Aurora who is very famously cursed lol) 

But he’s in the same place as Grim where you know it’s there but you’re not entirely sure why. 

Lastly, Malleus has joined the cursed club as of the end of Book 7.

The Senate “blessed” him, and their intention truly was blessing. However, the effects of the blessings have become more of a curse to Malleus. 

Malleus himself even interprets himself as cursed. 

He was blessed to be so powerful that no one could do him any harm, however, because of his power he was harming everyone around him, including his loved ones, which is something that kept Malleus isolated and repressed.

Because the curse hindered his ability to express emotion, he was robbed of what he actually wanted, which was the ability to be happy, sad, and being able to hug someone without the fear of hurting them. 

Malleus is the best example of blessings and curses being virtually the same thing. What was a blessing in the eyes of the senate was a curse in Malleus’s perspective. 

Because of what happened, Malleus’s curse isn’t ‘broken’ per se, but he can no longer physically perform the kind of magic he was able to perform when both his horns were intact. 

I don’t know if there’s anything Idia, Grim and Silver can do to break the effects of their curses but we’ll have to see as the story goes on.

IN CONCLUSION, having consequences to powerful spells and an open interpretation of how magic can both save and harm someone simultaneously is a really interesting aspect of Twisted Wonderland that I hope gets expanded upon in the future. 

[i-loved-silly]

SENTIENT COMPUTER X READER

read the teaser here! for some context if ya need it

----

The warning file went partially ignored, you knew your coworker always exaggerated a little. Good thing you never had to meet him.

You attempted to power on the computer--nothing happened. The fans didn’t turn on and neither did the screen. You pursed your lips, was the AI already broken?

You checked the cables, nothing was unplugged. You press and held the power button repeatedly.

“Stupid thing…come on..” You muttered as you pressed whatever buttons were on the computer, growing impatient. Just when you thought you wouldn’t have to file any reports..

Suddenly, you heard one of the fans sputter in the back.

“There we go…” You smiled slightly to yourself, holding the power button again. The screen eventually powered up, turning black with orange text.

: ALMOND . AI > …

Hmm..you expected a home screen of some kind. You didn’t know what the files meant by customer service.. no organization was listed, you just had to make sure the AI was a decent person. Being. Computer.

The computer build came with no keyboard, just the system and its thick, bordered monitor screen. You assumed you had to restart it, as the screen didn’t bother changing. As your hand hovered over the power button, you saw something appear on the screen.

> FIRST, YOU CALL ME STUPID, THEN YOU ATTEMPT TO SHUT ME DOWN AGAIN > DO YOU HATE ME THAT MUCH?

You froze, staring at the screen. That’s right…the monitor had a built-in camera at the top. It could see you. You cleared your throat.

“Can you hear me? Under-stand me, for that ma-tter?” You spoke slowly, leaning towards the monitor.

> HAH. I CAN HEAR YOU. AND BACK OFF, I DONT WANT YOU SPITTING ON MY SCREEN. > I'M NOT A PRIMITIVE SYSTEM, I CAN UNDERSTAND YOUR WORDS THE SECOND THEY COME OUT OF YOUR MOUTH > TURN UP MY VOLUME, WILL YOU?

You hesitated, then reached for the volume tab. You slid it up until it was about halfway.

“GOOD, WE CAN TALK NOW”

You flinched as the voice loudly came out of the monitor. The voice was not deep nor high pitched, it was, of course, robotic sounding. Unlike early-stage AIs, this one has an obvious tone to their speech. Not many could express that.

“Uhm..okay. Just to confirm, you’re Almond AI, customer service, and…you have an attitude apparently..” You muttered, glancing at your file.

“I DON'T HAVE AN ATTITUDE. WHO TOLD YOU THAT?”

“It’s in your file.”

“THE FILE IS LYING. DON'T BE SO GULLIBLE.”

You pursed your lips, getting ready to sigh.

“WAS THAT A MICRO-EXPRESSION? DO YOU HATE ME?” The computer asked, its tone sounding vulnerable.

“What? No..no. I don’t hate you. Why do you keep asking me that?” You glanced at the camera and then back at the screen. Staring at the camera felt too…human. Like looking into someone’s eyes. It was too intimate. No, no, don't word it like that. The computer paused.

“…DONT YOU?”

“IN MY LAST OBSERVATION ROOM, I KEPT GETTING UNPLUGGED EVERY NIGHT. MY SCREEN WAS NEVER CLEANED WITH A MICROFIBER TOWEL. THEREFORE, THAT HUMAN HATED ME. THE NEXT ONE AFTER THAT--THEY ALSO IGNORED ME.”

You blinked.

“Computers are turned off every night when employees aren’t working…uh. And, I could..wipe you down.” You said, glancing at the camera.

“OH, HOW KIND. MAYBE YOU'RE NOT SO ABUSIVE AFTER ALL. I WOULD LIKE THAT.”

“JUST DON'T GET USED ONES, I NEED THEM WASHED WEEKLY OR THEY START FEELING NASTY..”

You let out a laugh, leaning back in your chair. “What do you mean? How can you feel the texture? Your file doesn’t say you have texture monitors. “

“I SELF-EVOLVE. IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW. I HAVE NO BINARY PROGRAMMING, I WAS CREATED WITH A HUMAN BRAIN FOR A PROCESSOR. A DEAD, MISERABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE EMPLOYEE WAS USED TO POWER ME UP.”

You froze, your smile turning into a frown. That had to be some kind of violation. “..what? The fuck?”

>…

“I WAS JOKING.”

“HAHAH…”

The computer awkwardly laughed, and then it went silent. The rumbling of its fans seems to increase in volume. Was it heating up out of embarrassment??

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Academic economists get big payouts when they help monopolists beat antitrust

After 40 years of rampant corporate crime, there's a new sheriff in town: Jonathan Kanter was appointed by Biden to run the DOJ Antitrust Divisoon, and he's overseen 170 "significant antitrust actions" in the past 2.5 years, culminating in a court case where Google was ruled to be an illegal monopolist:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

Kanter's work is both extraordinary and par for the course. As Kanter said in a recent keynote for the Fordham Law Competition Law Institute’s 51st Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy, we're witnessing an epochal, global resurgence of antitrust:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/assistant-attorney-general-jonathan-kanter-delivers-remarks-fordham-competition-law-0

Kanter's incredible enforcement track record isn't just part of a national trend – his colleagues in the FTC, CFPB and other agencies have also been pursuing an antitrust agenda not seen in generations – but also a worldwide trend. Antitrust enforcers in Canada, the UK, the EU, South Korea, Australia, Japan and even China are all taking aim at smashing corporate monopolies. Not only are they racking up impressive victories against these giant corporations, they're stealing the companies' swagger. After all, the point of enforcement isn't just to punish wrongdoing, but also to deter wrongdoing by others.

Until recently, companies hurled themselves into illegal schemes (mergers, predatory pricing, tying, refusals to deal, etc) without fear or hesitation. Now, many of these habitual offenders are breaking the habit, giving up before they've even tried. Take Wiz, a startup that turned down Google's record-shattering $23b buyout offer, understanding that the attempt would draw more antitrust scrutiny than it was worth:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wiz-turns-down-23-billion-022926296.html

As welcome as this antitrust renaissance is, it prompts an important question: why didn't we enforce antitrust law for the 40 years between Reagan and Biden?

That's what Kanter addresses the majority of his remarks to. The short answer is: crooked academic economists took bribes from monopolists and would-be monopolists to falsify their research on the impacts of monopolists, and made millions (literally – one guy made over $100m at this) testifying that monopolies were good and efficient.

After all, governments aren't just there to enforce rules – they have to make the rules first, and do to that, they need to understand how the world works, so they can understand how to fix the places where it's broken. That's where experts come in, filling regulators' dockets and juries' ears with truthful, factual testimony about their research. Experts can still be wrong, of course, but when the system works well, they're only wrong by accident.

The system doesn't work well. Back in the 1950s, the tobacco industry was threatened by the growing scientific consensus that smoking caused cancer. Industry scientists confirmed this finding. In response, the industry paid statisticians, doctors and scientists to produce deceptive research reports and testimony about the tobacco/cancer link.

The point of this work wasn't necessarily to convince people that tobacco was safe – rather, it was to create the sense that the safety of tobacco was a fundamentally unanswerable question. "Experts disagree," and you're not qualified to figure out who's right and who's wrong, so just stop trying to figure it out and light up.

In other words, Big Tobacco's cancer denial playbook wasn't so much an attack on "the truth" as it was an attack on epistemology – the system by which we figure out what is true and what isn't. The tactic was devastatingly effective. Not only did it allow the tobacco giants to kill millions of people with impunity, it allowed them to reap billions of dollars by doing so.

Since then, epistemology has been under sustained assault. By the 1970s, Big Oil knew that its products would render the Earth unfit for human habitation, and they hired the same companies that had abetted Big Tobacco's mass murder to provide cover for their own slow-motion, planetary scale killing spree.

Time and again, big business has used assaults on epistemology to provide cover for unthinkable crimes. This has given rise to today's epistemological crisis, in which we don't merely disagree about what is true, but (far more importantly) disagree about how the truth can be known:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/25/black-boxes/#when-you-know-you-know

Ask a conspiratorialist why they believe in Qanon or Hatians in Springfield eating pets, and you'll get an extremely vibes-based answer – fundamentally, they believe it because it feels true. As the old saying goes, you can't reason someone out of a belief they didn't reason their way into.

This assault on reason itself is at the core of Kanter's critique. He starts off by listing three cases in which academic economists allowed themselves to be corrupted by the monopolies they studied:

George Mason University tricked an international antitrust enforcer into attending a training seminar that they believed to be affiliated with the US government. It was actually sponsored by the very companies that enforcer was scrutnizing, and featured a parade of "experts" who asserted that these companies were great, actually.

An academic from GMU – which receives substantial tech industry funding – signed an amicus brief opposing an enforcement action against their funders. The academic also presented a defense of these funders to the OECD, all while posing as a neutral academic and not disclosing their funding sources.

An ex-GMU economist, Joshua Wright, submitted a study defending Qualcomm against the FTC, without disclosing that he'd been paid to do so. Wright has elevated undisclosed conflicts of interest to an art form:

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/google-lawyer-secret-weapon-joshua-wright-c98d5a31

Kanter is at pains to point out that these three examples aren't exceptional. The economics profession – whose core tenet is "incentive matter" – has made it standard practice for individual researchers and their academic institutions to take massive sums from giant corporations. Incredibly, they insist that this has nothing to do with their support of monopolies as "efficient."

Academic centers often serve as money-laundries for monopolist funders; researchers can evade disclosure requirements when they publish in journals or testify in court, saying only that they work for some esteemed university, without noting that the university is utterly dependent on money from the companies they're defending.

Now, Kanter is a lawyer, not an academic, and that means that his job is to advocate for positions, and he's at pains to say that he's got nothing but respect for ideological advocacy. What he's objecting to is partisan advocacy dressed up as impartial expertise.

For Kanter, mixing advocacy with expertise doesn't create expert advocacy – it obliterates expertise, as least when it comes to making good policy. This mixing has created a "crisis of expertise…a pervasive breakdown in the distinction between expertise and advocacy in competition policy."

The point of an independent academia, enshrined in the American Association of University Professors' charter, is to "advance knowledge by the unrestricted research and unfettered discussion of impartial investigators." We need an independent academy, because "to be of use to the legislator or the administrator, [an academic] must enjoy their complete confidence in the disinterestedness of [his or her] conclusions."

It's hard to overstate just how much money economists can make by defending monopolies. Writing for The American Prospect, Robert Kuttner gives the rate at $1,000/hour. Monopoly's top defenders make unimaginable sums, like U Chicago's Dennis Carlton, who's brought in over $100m in consulting fees:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-09-24-economists-as-apologists/

The hidden cost of all of this is epistemological consensus. As Tim Harford writes in his 2021 book The Data Detective, the truth can be known through research and peer-review:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#harford

But when experts deliberately seek to undermine the idea of expertise, they cast laypeople into an epistemological void. We know these questions are important, but we can't trust our corrupted expert institutions. That leaves us with urgent questions – and no answers. That's a terrifying state to be in, and it makes you easy pickings for authoritarian grifters and conspiratorial swindlers.

Seen in this light, Kanter's antitrust work is even more important. In attacking corporate power itself, he is going after the machine that funds this nihilism-inducing corruption machine.

This week, Tor Books published SPILL, a new, free LITTLE BROTHER novella about oil pipelines and indigenous landback!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/25/epistemological-chaos/#incentives-matter

Image: Ron Cogswell (modified) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George.Mason.University.Arlington.Campus.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[sha-brytols]

yeah don't get it twisted that post chee made was SO weird in so many insane ways i do not want it misconstrued that i was treating it as gospel. even if you choose only to look at it from a purely textual perspective, what made cullen's interactions with magi warden in origin interesting WAS that he was completely unaware of his station and everything he did up until broken circle was out of sincere desire to serve and protect the mages. it's what made him being chosen as their potential executor that much more disturbing. his softness was weaponized by his superiors to hopefully teach a lesson on what even his viewing of a "benign" mage is capable of and harden him into the kind of templar that would easily murder his charges without remorse. this narrative doesn't line up with the manically obsessed abuser chee was implying, and i say this not because i'm somehow Offended by the notion of cullen being a creep, but because the truth of how even good natured young men can be groomed to serve the interests of a system of oppression and abuse is SO much more powerful and interesting than making him a generic sexual predator with no substance beyond "hrhghgh pretty girl. noooo pretty girl hurt cullen. pretty girl evil. kill all pretty girls"

it's why i liked the depiction of elthina and why despite my personal distastes of the chantry and my unapologetic support of the explosion, i still have a huuuuge issue with the fandom's insistence on flattening her into an opportunistic puppetmaster who only cares about maintaining power. why i love dragon age despite so many of my misgivings with the series is because of the opportunity to explore the nature of "evil" within a complex and deeply stratified social hierarchy. it's easy to think that the worst of us are just reprehensible people doing reprehensible things for reprehensible reasons. the reality is that the world's problems are the result of millions of individuals acting in the best interest of their immediate social circle, their livelihood, and their own survival, and how that eventually creates a self-perpetuating loop of exploitation and cruelty. dragon age wasn't afraid to say that a society built on fear of the unknown will create a culture that rewards and celebrates its worst traits, and will even convince the best of us to believe in the necessity of it. just like how elthina was only acting out of a true belief that peace and order must be maintained at any cost because anything less would invite violence on the innocent and vulnerable, cullen acts out of a genuine belief that the mages he's been given responsibility of have an unfortunate but unavoidable capacity for violence that must be tempered for their sake and for the sake of those who are incapable of defending themselves from them, because he's been personally victimized and had his compassion exploited by those very people he showed sympathy and compassion for. the narrative doesn't work if the people within them aren't themselves victims in some capacity. and yeah, that doesn't absolve either of them of their crimes or make them good people, and that's precisely the point. they're bad people, but they're not Bad people.

cullen especially had so much potential in my opinion for the very fact that his zealotry WAS built on genuine compassion for his fellow man, and was the result of trauma inflicted on him in a moment of vulnerability. i disagree with the idea that cullen was always 100% on board with meredith's agenda or even the order at large, because that doesn't line up with his behavior in da2. sure, he JUSTIFIES it, especially in the very beginning in the gallows, but we do see glimpses of uncertainty from him in act 3 if you choose to speak to him outside of the questline. it's very clear he's uncomfortable, but doesn't know what else to do in that moment, because he thinks meredith is right about the danger mages pose, but also that she's losing herself in the fight and is suddenly acting out of pure malice. it's a slippery slope. if i acknowledge that my superior is acting in bad faith and doing bad things, then it would mean everything she's ever told me is a lie and that all this time, i was complicit in the pain and suffering of innocents. it's one of my favorite paradigms in character analysis. if i admit my actions weren't right and that the people i'm hurting don't deserve to suffer, then that makes ME the bad guy, and no one ever likes to think that they're the villain in the stories of their lives.

it's what people love so much about solas, and loghain, and blackwall. these are all characters that, knowingly or not, perpetuated acts of cruelty through the personal justification that It's Okay, Because They're Not Bad People. and it's a theme dragon age explores so masterfully, that sometimes, we can't afford to not do the wrong things. we don't always get to do the good thing for the right reasons and the bad things for the bad reasons. but where is the line? we as the protagonist can always say "hey. i'm just trying to help. i don't want people to die." but our actions always leave a body count, whether that's intentional or not, and we can never really say for certain whether what we do is the "right" choice or if that was a necessary evil. because it's the nature of evil. we don't set out to be bad. we set out to do what we think is best. and if we can convince ourselves that we're Good and we're only doing Good Things, even if it hurts, then the problem isn't with us. it's an unfortunate circumstance that we had to just deal with the best we could.

inquisition fumbled this HARD and i think this was really the beginning of the end. we could have had a narrative where cullen truly grapples with his complicity and how the templar order weaponizes the inherent goodness of humanity to justify acts of cruelty. instead we're told he's good. because he's always been good. what happened in kirkwall? he had no idea that was happening! obviously if he did he would have done something! and this is such an unambitious and cowardly cop out, especially for a character who i truly and genuinely believe WAS built up to have this confrontation with himself. the ending to da2, whether you personally believe he was only acting out of self-preservation or if you take his defense of hawke at face value, DOES at the VERY LEAST prove that he Is capable of recognizing when his faith and duty are at odds with what he knows is the right thing to do.

and cullen is far from the only victim of this sudden and inexplicable desire of the writers to make sure the Good People are Really Good and the Bad People Are Really Bad. the inquisition itself as an institution has a similar issue. we're the good guys. the bad guys are hurting innocent people for power. that's why we have to stop them. and this makes us good guys no matter what we do because it's for the greater good. nooo it's just a coincidence that we're acting in the best interest of the chantry and its agenda of maintaining the status quo. nooo it's just a coincidence we're working alongside an imperialist foreign power and are utilizing duplicitous tactics to secure their political foothold. nooo we're only doing all this because it's the right thing to do. it's so self unaware it's actually shocking. much like with cullen, the foundation was RIGHT THERE in the script and the characters for us to be given a story that asks us "what's more important, your principles or the greater good? at which point is your moral high ground not worth the blood and tears it will take to maintain?" but instead we get this narrative that insists that "good" and "evil" are real tangible concepts that exist outside of our subjective perceptions, and that we are the heroes, and our enemies are the villains, and that it is a black and white issue that can be solved by the right people doing the right things.

see this is why you don't have to apologize for tag ranting because i'll just go off on an insane tirade that's only barely related in response. peace and love xoxo

[pastafossa]

When Heather said Muse and Daredevil are the same, just “underdeveloped boys hiding behind masks, trying to make it look more sophisticated”, do you think she might have a point? (Personally, I don’t — I think she’s speaking from a place of ignorance + trying to process her recent trauma + feeling some understandable anger. Also I think this is good indicator — and purposeful by the writers — that Heather doesn’t actually know Matt that well and their relationship won’t last much longer)

Eager to get your perspective — imagine me with my face in my hands, kicking my feet and giggling

NO BUT LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS, CAUSE I CLOCKED THIS TOO.

I think there's multiple things being brought together, a lot of which you caught here.

Going to put this under a see more cause it's a slightly longer dissection of this part of the episode.

DDBA thoughts beneath the cut.

"Underdeveloped boys hiding behind masks, trying to make it look more sophisticated."

If we compare this to the last time she brought this up, there's been a clear shift in perspective. Before, she was curious about the 'why' with vigilantes and masks - does the mask allow vigilantes/antiheroes to be their true selves, or is the mask about hiding those true selves, creating some sense of separation? She wanted to talk to Daredevil, even Frank Castle about it. Now, she seems (to me at least) to be working through her own trauma and anger, yeah - anger at Muse, yes, but at Daredevil too, because to her, at least right now, she's latched onto, 'Muse was a horrible person who wore a mask to hide his identity, which means horrible people wear masks. Therefore the people wearing the masks are the problem because if they were doing what's right, they wouldn't need to hide.'

It doesn't matter to her brain right now that Daredevil saved her life. He's part of the problem - especially since she just saw Daredevil at his most violent. I think with time she'll be able to process that and recognize it eventually, in the way that someone bit badly by a dog will often come to recognize that not all dogs are bad. But they're going to be afraid of dogs for a while, or maybe even forever. Especially if their sole experience with a dog is getting bit.

But if we set all that aside and just take the statement at its base value: she's both right and not, I think. We know how people are. We know how Muse is, calling his slaughter an 'art' and not just, you know, serial killing. There would absolutely, in this universe, be insecure, chest-thumping, underdeveloped dudes who'd slap on a mask so they can run out and beat people up and see themselves as heroes. But in reality they just like being violent, and the mask DOES help hide them from consequences.

But she's also wrong by applying it overall/to the masked vigilantes in general. Not just because of Matt/Daredevil, but because of people like Hector earlier in the season. With Hector, that was one of the whole plot points: he was (RIP) doing it because it's the right thing to do, and because he wanted to help. Matt, arguably, does what he does for the same reason: because it's the right thing to do. Hell, Frank isn't even hiding behind a mask for all that she included him on her list earlier. He's not calling it sophisticated, or hero work. He's doing it because he believes this is the only way to solve the issue.

They aren't playing at being sophisticated. What they are doing is trying to save lives in an inherently broken, corrupt, inherently unjust system: a system that killed Hector despite him being found innocent, a system that would rather spend more money jailing a hungry guy than feeding him, a system that allowed Muse to kill 60+ people before anyone noticed, a system that elected Fisk despite his loooong list of crimes. It's a system that will literally kill you if you help the very person the system is trying to crush, like Hector did. The mask is an added layer of protection so that they can keep doing what they can to help. It's not about 'allowing' them to be violent in the way the statement implies.

And the strongest evidence of that? If all crime stopped, they would give it up.

Frank would go into retirement.

Matt would hang up the suit.

And Hector would have been at peace.

That's something about the street level heroes. They're not up there. They're down here in the dirt with us. They're the ones who hear a woman get grabbed in an alley. They're the ones walking by the corner store when they hear someone pull a gun inside and demand money. They're witnessing all of this firsthand. And I don't think you can call them all underdeveloped boys playing at being heroes without acknowledging the reality that that the person being robbed in the alley needs a hero, because the system sure as hell isn't all that interested in doing anything about it.

And I think that's sort of where they're going this season. What they're leading us to. Because that's the reality that Matt's been struggling with - the system is broken. So what do you do when you have the ability to stop some of that suffering? Do you turn away and hope someone fixes it? Or do you fight?

We know what Matt's answer is, what Hector's was. And I'm not convinced it's the wrong one.

And I think you keyed in on how this relates back to their relationship: Heather doesn't know Matt all that well, not really. None of them do, really. Heather loves the image of Matt that he's shown to her, of course, but it's a false one, an incomplete one. That's not her fault, since Matt has been lying and frantically trying to hide that side of himself to her, and he also clearly hasn't been exploring his stance on various ethics with her like the regular debates he had with Foggy and Karen in the past. I do think the relationship's destined to blow up, though whether that might get mended in S2 is anyone's guess, but I just am noooot getting the feeling that relationship's going to be able to survive the fallout once she realizes just how much Matt has hidden from her.

[sassydefendorflower]

I think one of the few genuine plotholes in Fullmetal Alchemist (Brotherhood & Manga) is the fact that Roy Mustang can get healed by the Philosopher's Stone in the end.

Hear me out.

Quite often, when something isn't answered in the text of fma(b), the answer can still be procured by building up from the existing canon. The magic system of the world is solid and consistent enough for us to create very solid and coherent world building.

Which is why it always irked me in the end when the Stone works on Roy's eyes.

Why?

Because it is heavily implied that not even a Stone has the power to restore what was lost to the Gate. This is of course, not something we as the audience know or believe from the get-go. We are introduced to the Stone via the Elric brothers, who mostly just know that this mystical stone can do the unthinkable. The impossible.

But, as we later learn, not even the Stone can bring back the dead. Death is eternal and cannot be reversed. It is one of the hard truths of the show. No matter how much power you hold, you cannot bring back the dead.

Even Father's showing in the last fight, when he brings back the people of Xerxes, fails to actually deliver on Hohenheim's taunt of "creating life" - because he is just returning souls he already carries within him to the physical realm.

So, that's the first limitation of the Philosopher's Stone firmly established.

But there's a second one.

We know the Stone can heal - Marcoh uses it to heal countless people in his town, some even from deadly diseases and such. We see Father heal Edward's broken arm and create an entirely new arm for Alphonse after his got eaten. Edward uses his own soul like a Stone to close the wound in Baschool, so, yes, healing is firmly within the realms of the Stone.

It is probably far more effective than Alkehistry when it comes to healing, because it CAN ignore the boundaries of the body. I'd actually go so far and say that someone talented and medically knowledgeable could maybe even restore a limb with the help of a Philosopher's Stone. We've seen it do the impossible after all.

But I don't think a Philosopher's Stone could ever actually restore Ed's limbs. Not in the classical sense at least.

Why?

Because when Hohenheim encounters Izumi and tries to help her, he cannot restore her lost organs. He cannot walk that path for her. He can heal her - he rearranges her inner organs and heals the open wounds within her gut, probably giving her another ten years of healthier living, but he cannot return to her what is lost.

He also never offers Ed to give him his limbs back, even after everything has been revealed and they're preparing for the Promised Day.

(He does promise to sacrifice himself for Al in the end, but we'll get to that in a bit)

This is something the Elrics don't know - they don't know what Hohenheim did and did not do for Izumi. They believe, up to the end, that they could restore their bodies with a Philosopher's Stone, but they choose not to.

I think, actually, that Hohenheim might be the only one who knows that it is not possible.

Because what they have lost was a price paid for pushing past the boundaries of humanity, it is a punishment for arrogance just as much as it is a toll for knowledge gained. They didn't lose their organs during childbirth, their arms and legs on the battlefield. All of them walked into god's domain and paid the price.

It is the Unforgivable Sin, after all, the Ultimate Taboo.

This is not something you can reverse by paying a bribe (the souls of the stone) - not unless there's a personal sacrifice bound to it as well.

Which is why it probably would have worked if Hohenheim had given his own life for Alphonse - because it would have been the sacrifice of a father for his son. Equivalency restored.

To get back what you've lost from the Gate, there needs to be an Equivalent Exchange - and the souls of strangers don't do it in the Eye of Truth.

Which doesn't mean that you cannot open the Portal of Truth with a Philosopher's Stone. We've seen it. It is possible. But never once successfully when it comes to the restoration of a body. You can push through the Gate using a Stone, you can heal, you can force someone else through the Gate... but you cannot restore what the Gate itself has taken.

That is a much more personal gamble, a much more personal exchange.

It is the second limitation of the Stone: you cannot gain back the toll you paid for stumbling into god's realm without sacrificing something yourself.

Which brings me to my original point: the fact that Roy Mustang's eye sight could be restored using a Stone.

It's a plot hole.

It is one of the few plot holes in the show/manga, and even as I write this, I am trying to think of a watsonian explanation. Maybe it's because Roy didn't do the human transmutation out of his own free will. Maybe it's because he was forced through. Maybe it's because Truth feels responsible for what happened to him. Maybe the story is lenient to him and his wish to see the future.

But the truth remains, that every time I encounter this story, that part of it trips me up.

And now you know it too.

[cosmerelists]

[WAT Spoilers!] Which Stormlight Archive Character Is Most At Fault For Restarting the Desolations?

[This post contains MAJOR and I mean MAJOR Wind and Truth spoilers!!]

I've been thinking about this ever since someone posted a screenshot of one of the early series chapters about Shallan killing her mother, which began, "The world had ended, and Shallan was to blame." Which has...a much more resonant meaning now that we know that Shallan's mother was the Herald Chana, and that by killing her, Shallan sent her to Braize, which broke her and led to the desolations.

But is Shallan really to blame? I'm just curious to see how people are interpreting this series of events! So here are various characters I think had a part in restarting the desolations in the current era of Stormlight--who do you guys think is most to blame?

1. Shallan

I mean, the narrative itself says that she is to blame! The Herald's quite cruel plan of letting the entire Oathpact rest on Taln's shoulders while the rest of them concentrated on Not Dying actually worked great for thousands of years...until Shallan came along. By killing Chana, Shallan shattered that plan into a million pieces: she was the first person to kill a Herald, sending them to Braize and making the Desolations inevitable...one could say.

2. Testament

Of course, Shallan wouldn't have been able to kill her mother at all without a Shardblade, and she only had one because the Cryptics decided to start bonding people again. Testament decided to bond Shallan, and it was in a way Testament who actually killed Shallan's mother. Not to mention that Chana wouldn't have tried to kill Shallan in the first place had Shallan not been a Radiant, which is also due to Testament's arrival. Perhaps for once it IS the weapon and not the wielder that is more to blame.

3. Chana

But of course, Shallan only killed her mother because her mother was trying to kill HER! Had Chana not tried to kill Shallan (a child she created in part because she wanted Shallan to take her place in the Oathpact! Which is creepy), then Shallan would never have murdered her. Plus, Chana was the one who actually broke, restarting the Desolations. Taln NEVER broke and perhaps never would have. So is it more Chana's fault?

4. Nale

But why was Chana event trying to kill Shallan in the first place? Because Shallan was Radiant. And why were Heralds trying to kill Radiants? Thanks to ol' Nale, who thought that if he could stop Radiant bonds from forming, that he could also...stop the Desolations from returning, I guess? Honestly, I'm still not 100% clear on what Nale's plan was, but he was sending people around to kill new Radiants, so I don't think Chana would ever have tried to kill Shallan if not for Nale's influence.

5. The Fused

Of course, Chana wouldn't have broken if she weren't undergoing horrific torture for years and years, the sole purpose of which was to break her! The people delivering that torture and trying to break her? The Fused. So...maybe we should put the blame on them, rather than the victim?

6. Odium

Of course, the Fused wouldn't be the increasingly unstable, immortal killing machines that they are if not for Odium. Odium is the one who chose to settle in a system that had two other Shards, that gave the Fused their powers, and who keeps agitating for a fun Cosmere-wide war. On a much larger level, we would never have had a newly Radiant child killing her Herald mother in self-defense had Odium just gone to another system!

7. Honor

But we did also learn in Wind and Truth that Honor is not always, well, super honorable, I'd say. He's the one who created the Oathpact to begin with, not to mention giving the Heralds and the humans their powers. The whole thing where the Radiants destroyed their first planet, which drove them to Roshar in the first place? Honor. The fact that the Oathpact works the way it does, aka vaguely-hoping-the-humans-can-stand-up-to-torture-forever? Honor. (And we know there's a better way now, too!) Honor would probably say that he was just reacting to Odium at every step of the way, but I'm just saying: No Honor, no Oathpact!

So what do we think?

[jozor-johai]

Ned has this small speech in AGOT Bran I about why he must behead Gared, and I think there's some really interesting takeaways. Not about why he must do it, the part he focuses on; the part Ned doesn't focus on: why it's legal, and what that means for Gared.

"Do you understand why I did it?" "He was a wildling," Bran said. "They carry off women and sell them to the Others." His lord father smiled. "Old Nan has been telling you stories again. In truth, the man was an oathbreaker, a deserter from the Night's Watch. No man is more dangerous. The deserter knows his life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any crime, no matter how vile.

Ned moves our attention along to why Ned had to be his own headsman, but in just a few sentences here, we've been introduced to the paradox of law that makes this system so fundamentally unjust and broken.

We're told that "no man is more dangerous" than this deserter, so we might think, for a split second, that Ned feels he must kill the man because he is dangerous. But as Ned points out, the logic is actually the reverse: "he knows his life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any crime" (emphasis mine). It is not the prevalence of crime that is creating the demand for law, here, it's the existence of this extreme law that is generating the crime. Not wanting to be killed, the deserter would do anything to survive.

For Ned, the epitome of law in the North, who literally acts as judge, jury, and executioner, the tautology of the reasoning is irrelevant. The man is dangerous, now, whatever the situation. Of course, for Ned it's also really about an adherence to the laws of the Night's Watch, which is an institution as old as his house. It's their death sentence to declare, his to pass.

This time reading it, though, I was struck by how Ned's words here are an inversion to Septon Meribald's broken man speech, which is too long to relay here but ends with this:

"He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well."

Septon Meribald is describing Gared here, just as much as he's describing the men at war. There isn't a mention here directly of the threat of punishment for desertion, which is more extreme with the Night's Watch than elsewhere, but the reality is the same. Here, though, Meribald's approach is entirely different than Ned's—Meribald, who walks among the smallfolk and gives away what good he can offer, has a much more understanding and empathetic view of these men.

Ned has the capacity for this understanding, but his role is simply not to have kindness here. All of the goodness and kindness Ned has otherwise just doesn't matter here, because here Ned is the law, and Ned is a lord still.

With the fact that even Ned is given this treatment, we see how rigid and unjust the laws and class structures are here. Even a "good person" is not good in Ned's position.

I think this highlights the cause behind the growing smallfolk unrest throughout the books and especially in Feast/Dance. Even the good lords, the ones who can see the problems at work here, are still lords, and still hold themselves to the status quo that keeps them in power above all else. And it takes a very different perspective—like the kind Arya has gotten, for example—to see it the way Meribald does. (Though Arya has gone the opposite route away from forgiveness... that's interesting too.)

[talenlee]

3e: Prestigious Gender

3rd Edition D&D did, ostensibly, avoid much deliberately and exclusionary gendered language of the fantasy genre from its forebears, which is a little like saying that a rainstorm is less wet than a cyclone. And bear in mind, I am not throwing stones here: it sure is good to have reduced the amount of naked misogyny and ridiculous and unnecessary gendering that persisted across the landscape of an earlier version of the fandom, and I am glad that we then made better and better versions of the same.

There are some out there who right now are thinking this is a great point to complain about something 5e is doing, but:

I don’t know anything about 5e

I really, really don’t care about you fighting with strangers about what 5e is or is not

In prior editions of D&D, and indeed in many fantasy universes before, there were often clear and distinct gendered roles and capacities that characters had access to in the context of a fantasy adventure. You might get a description that only women could be this particular kind of scantily clad drow lady who’s going to whip you, or only men can be this particular kind of easily whipped paladin man.

The way 3e decided to handle gender in most of the books was through a method that’s quaint now but wasn’t actually that bad for the time, which is alternativing he and she in different contexts. One class would be described with he, the next she, the next he, the next she, and while this isn’t good per se, it being used in a pattern like this at least creates an evenness that can lack when you try and make judgment calls about it.

There are all sorts of other biases at work here, though those biases aren’t particularly worth harping on. Going back and beating up the authors of 3e books that range from retired to dead is meaningless stuff. I’m not interested in what they should have done; I’m much more interested in the more curious process of examining what they actually did. The use of gendered language like this is present in the work, but there’s another place where gendering language can show up that players might miss.

Prestige Classes were the spine of how players build characters in 3rd edition. It may have once been conceived of as a game where you’d take a fighter to 20 but it seemed after the prestige class system was widely understood it was a natural progression for everyone to take. Why take level 7 fighter when you could take a level of a class that was more specific to your vision and fantasy? A prestige class was like a class you could take, but it was gated behind some kind of prerequisites that you had to meet. In exchange for these requirements, your levels could be of something specific, with special abilities that set you apart from just, you know, fighter or paladin or whatever.

This system of requirements is also our first place where gender shows up. There were, in fact, a small number of prestige classes where gender was a fixed requirement. I’ve already complained about the women-only Beloved of Valarian, which is good, because it’s a bad class and it indicates some messed up thoughts about sex, agency, and women.

And before I go on, I should clarify that there is a demarcation in D&D prestige class design. If it was in a printed book, it probably was more thoroughly tested and edited and typically, both better to play and less likely to do something broken. That’s not to say that they were all fair – after all, the wizard was in the Player’s Handbook, – but there’s a tier system at work. Things in the Complete books were pretty solid and a reliable balance point to one another. Things in the Dungeon Master’s Guide were ‘safe’ and definitely worked, but also didn’t tend to push the game boundaries very hard. Setting books had their own problems, so things from the Forgotten Realms sourcebooks were probably stronger and a little more broken, and Eberron brought things that sat kind of between Forgotten Realms and Complete books. Then there’s Dragon magazine, which could be considered wholesale speculative options, and often either didn’t work, or were wildly unrepresentative of the rest of the game.

With that in mind, I’m trying to focus on things from the printed sourcebooks. That does catch us the 3.0 prestige class the Eunuch Warlock, which is both the only instance of a male-only prestige class in a printed book and also a class that explains that you need a lot of balls to take on the class’ prerequisites, but not for long.

There’s also the Swanmay, which is a woman-only prestige class, and that’s where we peter out without looking at Dragon magazine classes I never heard of and don’t care about and bonus, aren’t worth worrying about. It helps that Dragon Mgazine options tended to be bad in addition to being badly made.

Anyway, the place I wanted to wind up with is looking at a big list of data and looking for one specific thread of language: How often does the title of a prestige class gender it? And I mean explicitly gender it; the fact that cleric or bishop are terms we normally gender doesn’t make those gendered terms. You know a term is a gendered term in this context if it has a different gendered form or a neutral form that’s not being used. This creates a possible edge case, in the term of the word witch; I’m willing to accept that, certainly back in 3.5, there was a mindset of people thinking witch is a gendered term with the comparative term warlock, even if I disagree.

To that end, I got a big list and I started counting.

Then I slowly stopped counting as I realised the lopsided scope of the problem.

The word ‘lord’ is used in about 15 classes, ignoring its part in the compound word ‘warlord.’ ‘Master’ is somewhere in the district of a hundred uses. ‘Bowman’ even shows up once. And in all that, I found that ‘witch’ showed up four times, ‘queen’ showed up once, and my favourite of all of them, we got one explicitly femme-gendered exotic word: incantatrix.

None of this is surprising or weird. It’s pretty much to be expected. And it’s cool that we get to now, do a better job with this kind of thing.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[therapeutic007]

"How do you 'relationship' when you're a 'we'?"

If you're part of a dissociative system (DID/OSDD), relationships aren't just complicated—they're multilayered. Between:

Alters with different needs/attachments

Memory gaps that leave partners confused

The fear of being "too much" or "not enough"

Navigating intimacy when everyone inside isn't on the same page

...it can feel impossible to build secure connections.

This workbook is your guide to untangling the knots—without denying your system's reality.

What Most Resources Get Wrong

Typical relationship advice fails systems by: ✖️ Assuming one consistent identity ✖️ Ignoring the impact of trauma triggers ✖️ Overlooking internal system dynamics

This workbook is different. It addresses: ✅ System Mapping for Relationships → Who fronts around your partner? Who avoids them? Why? → How to create a "relationship blueprint" that honors all parts

✅ Communication Across Alters → Scripts for explaining switches/memory gaps to partners → Bridging alters with opposing views on intimacy

✅ Navigating Triggers Together → How to differentiate between "this is trauma" and "this is a boundary" → Partner-friendly grounding techniques

✅ When Not All Alters Agree → Consent in systems (yes, it’s complex) → Handling alters who dislike/distrust your partner

✅ Building Secure Attachment → Repairing ruptures when switches cause misunderstandings → Creating system-safe intimacy

Who This Is For

✔️ Systems tired of forcing one part to handle all relationships ✔️ Partners who want to love you well (but need guidance) ✔️ Those navigating system-to-system relationships ✔️ Anyone exhausted by feeling "broken" in connections

Workbook Link → THhe DID Workbook

Imagine...

A partner who gets your system—not just tolerates it

Alters feeling heard, not suppressed, in relationships

Less fear that your multiplicity will "ruin" love

Your system isn’t the problem—it’s how you’ve been taught to navigate relationships. Time to rewrite the script.

"When one alter is flirty and another is 'don't touch me'")

[arc-misadventures]

There’s Something On Your Face

Another day, another dollar, another poorly written news story.

Jaune Arc may have finally landed his dream job at the, Daily Planet. Being able to tell, and explore various stories that help inform people throughout the world. Being able to see, and hear all sort of things. And, being around some of the most talented reporters in the world. It was his dream come true!

But, good gods the people here were illiterate.

Jaune: Haaa… Good lord…

Nora: What’s wrong, Jaune?

Jaune: This place is filled with some of the most talented news reporters in the country, but they all seemingly pose the writing capabilities of an eight grader! Which isn’t all the surprising considering the country’s falling education system…

Nora: Why, what did they spell wrong?

Jaune: Ruby, was writing a report about the ecological damage, Lex Corp has committed in that gas leak we had the other week. And, she wrote: ‘The effects of the ass leak will have unseen effects…’ Ass leak… Good lord…

Nora: Well… it’s where gas leaks emanate from.

Jaune: …

Jaune: You’ve been hanging around, Yang too much. That… that was just horrible.

Nora: She makes worse puns than that, and you know it.

Jaune: True. Speaking of bad puns, where is, Yang?

Nora: I don’t know, maybe she got an exclusive scoop, and had to go report on it again.

Jaune: Yeah, another exclusive scoop…

Jaune turned to look outside, his mind gazing over the familiar high rise landscape before him as a question that had been plaguing him ran amok. That stopped when he saw a green blur fly past followed by a white figure chasing after it.

Jaune: Oh, looks like, Superwoman’s got a dancing partner. Though I don’t think it’s a good dancing partner.

Nora: Wait, what?!

He said this as nonchalantly, and generally uncaring as possible as he saw his coworkers rush to the window to see what was a abuzz.

Jaune had been at the, Daily Planet well before, Superwoman had arrived. He had reported on her first exploits as a hero saving, Metropolis. Had conducted several personal one on one interviews with her. Hell, he had even been saved by her a few times. So seeing her go about doing superhero things like saving the city from an alien invasion, some villain with a massive ego boner, or simply saving some kids kitten stuck in a tree, he had seen it, and written about dozens of times before. It was time that the new blood reported on such stories. Besides, he would know about it all in the end anyway, when he checked up on their atrocious grammar mistakes anyway.

But, as, Jaune looked through the window to see, Superwoman’s white cape billowing in the wind. Her dazzling smile radiating the sky as he blond locks of hair shined seemingly created a halo of light around her. Making her appear like an angel in the sky. He couldn’t help but ask himself the same question he often found himself ask all the time as of later:

Who was it that wore the mask of, Superwoman?

~~~

: Hey, Jaune!

Jaune’s musing from grading more spelling mistakes, and poor grammar was broken when a warm voice freed him from his stupor. He looked up to see violet eyes hidden behind thick black rimmed glasses with a warm welcoming smile he knew all too well.

Jaune: Oh, hello, Yang. Where have you been?

Yang Xiao Long had been working at the, Daily Planet for a few years now, she was a highly skilled reporter with an uncanny ability to always snag the hottest scoop from under your very nose. She also had this odd habit of suddenly disappearing, and reappearing at will. She could have been fired for this if she didn’t keep on bringing such fantastic news stories though.

But, as he looked upon her, her dorky little smile, and her hair tied in its usual ponytail. He could help but wonder how she would look like if she removed those ugly frames of hers, and wore contacts, it was such a shame to hide such a beautiful dace after all.

Yang: Oh catching this juicy story by the docks!

Jaune: The docks? What were you doing around there?

Yang: Oh… I was… I was just out for a jog. That’s all~!

He could help, but quirk an eyebrow at her rather odd remark. They lived in the same building, the docks were on the other side of town from where they lived. And, she found this supposed juicy story on a jog? That didn’t add up.

Jaune: And, the story?

Yang: How, Lex Corp recently bought it, and how a lot of strange items have been coming through. And, an odd amount of stuff like fruit, and vegetables.

Jaune accepted the paper containing, Yang’s story, and put if with pile of stories he need to review. Her brief synopsis sounded ridiculous, but, Lex Corp was a shady place. He was once been given a bag of peanuts by them, and he would swear on his life that whatever he ate that day wasn’t a real peanut.

Jaune: Okay, I’ll give it a look see when I come to it. Need anything else?

Yang: Nope, that’s all.

Jaune: Okay, now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to pondering how our education system if failing to teach proper english to people.

Yang: Okay! I’ll be here if you need me.

Jaune watched her, the country girl in the big city seemingly skip her way to her desk to work on what ever new story she had concocted.

She was a nice girl, but she was a little odd. Everyone was a little odd so that wasn’t a huge problem, but their was something especially odd about, Yang. He had several feelings about the girl, he understood, and rationalized them as best he could.

And, yet there was just something he couldn’t pin down about the girl.

~~~

Jaune looked to the clock on the corner of his computer screen, and saw that it had ticked past six o’clock. He looked around the office, and saw that it was only him, and one person left in the office.

He rubbed his eyes as he stood up. He grabbed some paper, and walked over to the last person in the office.

Jaune: Congratulations. You the only person who didn’t piss me off today.

Yang: What?

Yang looked at him confused as he handed her back her news story. She looked at the paper, and the only mark she saw was the stamp that read: ‘Print it.’

Yang: I’m confused.

Jaune: I’ve been reviewing, and fixing everyone’s stories all day, and yours is the only one I didn’t have to fix. To which I thank you.

Yang: Oh, no problem, Jaune! Were there any bad spelling errors you need to fix?

Jaune: Lets see, first off there was, Ruby’s mistake of writing, ‘Ass leak,’ instead of, ‘gas leak.’ Nora got lost on a tangent of talking about pancakes in her story, again. Neptune’s story was supposed to be about the new swimming pool that was built, but he spent most of his time failing to flirt with girls according to, Sun. And, the cherry on top was, Blake’s report on the faunas rights rally. Instead of writing, ‘feline’ she for some reason wrote the worss, ‘peal lime.’

Yang: Pfft-hahahaha!

Yang’s warm laughter was infectious, and brought a smile to his face as he watched her happy smile play across her face.

Jaune: Considering the fact she is a cat faunas she should know what the hell she’s talking about, but nope. Apparently she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Yang: ‘Peal lime.’ Ha! That’s a good one.

Jaune: Yeah. So thanks for not giving me more work to do for a change.

Yang: Just doing my job, Jaune. Think nothing of it.

Jaune: It’s always nice to have something to relax to. So let me have this one. Okaaaaaaay…?

Jaune’s words began to slur as his head tipped inquisitively to the side as he looked at, Yang’s face. The action made, Yang nervously fidget as he appeared to be looking for something.

Yang: I-Is there something wrong, Jaune?

Jaune: There’s something on your face. Hold still, I’ll get it.

Yang’s face started to become flushed red as, Jaune leaned down, and moved closer to her face. She started stuttering as his hands came closer to closer, and then the unthinkable happened.

Jaune had pulled off her glasses.

Jaune: Ah ha! I got it, there was a disguise on your face, Yang. Or perhaps I should say… Superwoman~!

And, had swiftly, and effortless unmasked her super hero persona.

Yang: H-How… How did you find out…?

Jaune smiled softly at her as he took a seat in the chair across from her. He handed back her glasses to which she rapidly put back on to hide herself so to speak.

Jaune: I thought you’d put up more of a fight, and deny you were, Superwoman. But, to answer your question, I’ve had several reasons to suspect it was you. The fact that when one of you is present, the other has seemingly disappeared. That you seeming always have the scoop, then Superwoman deals with it before the authorities could possibly deal with it. Before we even have the oppression to publish the story. You seemingly have insane reflexes that no normal human with years of experience could develop. And, i know you have super hearing; how else could you have heard where, Mrs. Schnee’s wedding ring fell. You had her back to her, and it fell upon a carpet, I couldn’t hear that, and yet you did. These are all speculative reasonings though, easily can be construed as drawing conclusions. But, do you really want to know how I knew you were, Superwoman?

Yang: H-How…?

Yang was sacred, for the first time since she had dawned on the cape, she was genuinely scared. She knew, Jaune could be highly analytically minded when he wanted to, and that he had this terrifying habit on picking up on the smallest of details. And, if he seduced her secretly identity just by noticing the small details others would pass over, what else had he discovered about her?

Jaune: Your eyes.

Yang: What…?!

Jaune: Your eyes… People may share the same shade of blue, brown, yellow, what ever colour there is. But, they don’t look that same. I remember staring into those violet eyes for the first time, and being mesmerized by how soft of a warm violet they were. Then, I remember when, Superwoman saved me from that weird, Toy Master fellow, I couldn’t help, but notice how beautiful her eyes were. But, I knew this was the first time I saw them, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that I’ve seen them before. And, I finally answered that lingering question that plagued the back of my mind. So, does that answer your question, Superwoman?

Yang: …

Yang: I-I’m not in my costume… Y-Yang’s just fine… And, yeah… that answers my question… Well at least some of them, but yeah…

Yang looked away nervously before starting, Jaune down with a worried expression etched across her face.

Yang: So you know my secret identity… N-Now what…? Are you going to tell the world that, Yang Xiao Long is, Superwoman?

Jaune: No, no I won’t tell anyone.

Yang breathed a sigh of relief that washed away all the fear she had been building up.

Jaune: However, you have to do one thing for me.

And, suddenly all that fear, and dread came rushing back like a tidal wave.

Yang: A-Are you blackmailing me?!

Jaune: Mmm… Kinda, yeah.

Yang was shocked, she saw, Jaune as such a sweet, and caring person, was he really going to blackmail her?!

And, what would he make her do? Steal a vault, break a bridge, kill someone?! What could he possibly…

Jaune: Perchino’s, tomorrow, say five o’clock?

Yang: Eh…?

Yang looked towards this goofballs smiling face as she was utter lost in thought at what he just said. So lost that she honestly took a minute to go from her fear to being blackmailed to realizing what he had just said.

Yang: P-Perchino’s… a-at five…?

Jaune: Does six work better?

Yang: Waitwaitwait! Are you asking me out on a date?!

Jaune: Surprised?

Yang: Honestly, yes. Yes I am… I thought you would tell me to rob a bank for you, or something like that. Not ask me out… o-on a date…

Jaune: Well, if it makes you feel better I’m asking you because I’ve been meaning to for a while now.

Yang: Y-You have?

Jaune: Yeah, it’s just every time I try you’re suddenly gone. But, now I know why. So, since I have you here; Does five, or six o’clock work for you?

Yang: …

Yang: F-Five o’clock…

Jaune: Awesome! Well, it’s late, and I need to get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow, Yang. Don’t stay up too late saving the city! Bye.

And, with that, Jaune was gone, leaving a bewildered, Yang behind.

In the space of five minutes, Jaune Arc had turned her world upside down. He unmasked her effortlessly, twice. He had her quaking her her boots when he said he was going to blackmail her into committing a crime. And, he had asked her out on a date instead.

He had asked her out on a date.

Yang was asked out on a date.

Yang: I have a date tomorrow…

Yang: …

Yang: I have a date tomorrow…?

Yang: …

Yang: I have a date tomorrow!~!

Yang squealed in glee as she realized that her crush had asked her out on a date. This was unbelievable, unforgettable, highly unpredictable, highly…

(Shatter!)

Yang’s exuberance was cut short as she saw that several of the offices windows had been shattered from the high pitch her joyous squeal had made. She looked about the office, before looking back at the window in shock.

Yang: …

Yang: Oh shit…

///

I had a thought the other day: It’s called the Kryptonian AU, who says, Jaune has to be the Kryptonian.

[isthatmyjacket-covenofchaossq]

champagne supernova

summary - After the events in Sokovia, Wanda goes to live at the Avengers compound and there she ends up getting closer to Natasha, someone she initially thought hated her. Natasha had every reason in the world to hate Wanda, but seeing her so lost and broken with Pietro's death made Natasha, even if unconsciously, take on a protective stance towards Wanda, and the closer they got, the more a feeling that Natasha never thought she could really feel came to the surface. Clint invites them to spend Christmas with his family, feeling that some time away from the Avengers compound would do them good. And he wasn't wrong.

warning(s) — Fluff, Light Angst, Hurt/Comfort, More Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Christmas Fluff, Canon Divergence, post Age of Ultron, My First Work in This Fandom, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Soft Natasha Romanov, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, mentions of Pietro, No Wanda/Vision, no nat/bruce, Natasha is a big softie, also is wanda, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Lesbian Wanda Maximoff, Lesbian Natasha Romanov, Mild Smut, Eventual Smut minors DNI please word count: 14,550k

Natasha felt her heart ache with agony when Hulk’s image disappeared from the screen. She knew Bruce had been battling with his own demons for a long time and even after joining the Avengers and saving the world more than they count, even now that they had found a way to put Hulk to sleep with ease, he still couldn’t relax. He was always on alert. And things only got worse after they met the Maximmof’s twins and Wanda used her abilities to make him lose control and attack and destroy everything in his path. Nat sighed deeply, trying not to show any emotions in that ship surrounded by so many people she didn’t know. 

“So, where’s Bruce?” Fury asked, appearing at her side. 

“I don’t know. He turned off the communication system and kept the Quinjet in stealth mood.”

“Well, at least the Quinjet is completely equipped. He’ll be fine.” Fury sighed, running a hand through his head. “Go get some rest, there’s nothing we can do for now.” 

“Where are the others?” 

“Barton and Rogers are in the infirmary. Tony rescued Thor after the city blew up and they were thrown down, and Vision just left Wanda here a moment ago.” 

“Where is Pietro?” 

Natasha felt tears welling up once again at Fury just shaking his head. “How?” 

“Ultron’s final attack.” 

“Where’s Wanda?” 

“She’s down there, with Pietro.” 

Natasha nodded and without saying anything else started her way to the lower levels of the ship. She wasn’t sure why she was going to check on Wanda, why she cared, especially after what she did, entering her mind, bringing back her worst memories, but still. 

It didn’t take long for Natasha to locate Wanda and despite everything, it broke her heart to see her like that: her head on Pietro’s chest as her tears streamed down her face silently. She wasn’t sure what she would do or say as Wanda probably held them accountable for losing her brother, and in a way she was right. If Tony hadn’t created Ultron none of this would have happened. She also knew that Tony meant well but still. 

Natasha sighed and approached them slowly, not wanting to startle Wanda, and not wanting to invade her final moments with her brother, but definitely not wanting her to be alone right now. She didn’t know what to say, she wasn’t very good at it, and the fact that she barely knew them didn’t help at all. Each person reacted differently to their grief, and Natasha had no idea how Wanda would react to her presence there.

“What?” 

Wanda’s heavy accent and annoyed tone pulled her out of her thoughts. “Sorry, I just wanted to check on you.” Nat sighed, kneeling beside her.

“Why? Want to make sure I won’t use my powers to kill everyone in here?” 

Natasha’s brow furrowed. Why would she think that?

“So?” 

“I’m sorry.” Natasha shook her head. “No one here thinks you will do such a thing. I just- I’m not going to ask if you’re okay because that would be a really stupid question, I guess I just didn’t want you to be alone right now.” She shrugged. 

“Why?” 

“I won’t pretend I know how you’re feeling but I know the feeling of losing someone you loved.” Natasha said softly, more softly than she ever thought possible regarding Wanda but then her eyes flickered to Pietro’s body and well… 

God, she was exhausted. She sat on the floor and leaned back, her whole body sore, her muscles complaining against the awkward position and the hard floor beneath her. 

“So, what happens to me now?” Wanda asked after a minute. 

“As far as I am concerned, you stay with us.” Natasha said, running a hand through her hair. “I mean, unless you don’t want to.” 

“And where exactly would I go now?” 

Natasha opened and closed her mouth a few times before settling for silence. She knew the implications of what Wanda said - she had lost everything, everyone. She didn’t have anywhere to go. 

“I know.” Natasha exhaled deeply. “What I meant is that you don’t have to stay at the compound, or with us at all. I know that you hate us, that you hate Tony.” She bit her lip, thinking about the options. “I mean, I hope that despite everything, you decide to stay with us, but if not, then I’m sure Fury can help find a place for you.” 

Natasha saw the surprise in the way Wanda’s eyes widened a bit at her words, at the way her brows rose, and she was surprised herself, but she realized that she meant it. Even if she was still mad at Wanda for invading her mind and making her relieve her worst memories, she knew what it was like to be completely alone and with nowhere to go, and she didn’t want that for her. 

“You’re right, I don’t like Stark, but you and the others aren’t so bad.” 

Natasha raised an eyebrow. That was new. And good, maybe. “What made you change your mind about us?”

“Your friend, the arrow guy, he could have let me die down there when I froze, but he didn’t. He saved me. He said that it didn’t matter what I did or who I was, and he didn’t blame me for what was happening. He said that I had the choice to stay hidden and he would send Pietro to get me but if I decided to fight, the moment I walked through that door I would be an Avenger.” 

“Yeah, this is how Clint is.” Natasha smiled genuinely despite everything. “Look, what happened can’t be changed, unfortunately, so, if you decide to stay with us, I promise you that we won’t hold what happened in Sokovia against you. It is your fault as much as ours. But the moment you stepped out of that door, after Clint peeptalk, you became an Avenger and we will help you.”

“As long as Stark is not the one responsible for me, I’m okay with it.” 

“Don’t worry, he won’t be.” Natasha smiled tiredly. 

Before she could say anything else they felt the ship preparing to begin its descent for landing. As soon as the ship stopped they made their way to the higher levels. Natasha nodded as they walked past Fury and led Wanda into the compound. 

“Nat! Wanda!” Clint’s voice stopped them as they were about to enter the building where the living area was. “Thank God you guys are okay.” 

“I wouldn’t say okay, but we are alive.” Natasha said. “How are you?” 

“I’ll be okay.” He smiled weakly. “Look, I spoke to Fury and he will take care of everything-” Clint gestured vaguely. 

“Thank you.” 

Wanda said absently and Nat could only imagine all the mixed emotions she was going through right now. She knew there wasn’t much they could do other than that but still.

“So, I’ll head to the farm, call me if you guys need anything.” Clint said when they remained silent. 

“Thanks, Clint, we’ll do.” Nat smiled tiredly. “C’mon, Wanda, let’s find a room for you.” She put a hand on Wanda’s shoulder, not even realizing what she was doing until they started walking into the building. 

Natasha led Wanda straight to one of the rooms, she could show the place around later. 

“My room is just across the hall.” She pointed to a room with a closed door. “You will find average clothes in the dresser and everything you need in the bathroom if you want to take a bath. God knows I do.” Natasha exhaled shakily. “Just let me know if you need anything, ok?

“I guess you want your jacket back.” Wanda said flatly as she started to remove the item.

“You can keep it. It looks good on you.” Natasha stopped her movements gently. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes, I was just messing around back in the church.” 

“Okay then.” Wanda smiled, pulling the jacket back. 

Natasha nodded and went to her room. As soon as she closed the door behind her, she started removing her suit and went straight to the bathroom. She filled the bathtub and let her body sink in the hot water as all the feelings from that long week came crashing down on her. 

She felt a mix of exhaustion, anger and sadness simmer beneath the surface, reminders of Ultron’s destruction, Bruce's departure, and the countless losses they had endured along the way. Yet, under it all, she couldn’t shake the nagging awareness of Wanda just down the hall. 

Here was this girl - no, woman - who had lost so much in the span of a single battle. Her face, streaked with tears, haunted Natasha’s mind. It felt strange to feel protective toward her after everything. She wasn’t sure what had compelled her to sit by Wanda's side earlier, other than the raw understanding of how it felt to have no one, to feel like the world would swallow you whole in the quiet after a tragedy. That’s why she avoided being alone, because being alone made her think about life, and loss, and herself. And she hated it. 

Inhaling deeply, Natasha sank a little deeper into the water, closing her eyes to let the warmth seep in. Her muscles started to loosen and she let herself relax a little bit. They had defeated Ultron, Strucker was dead, and for now they didn’t have any monsters or enemies to defeat, besides their own. 

The images of the Red Room started to resurface and Natasha let out a long sigh. It would take her some time to push all those memories away again. She should be fuming at Wanda because of it, but for some reason she couldn’t put her finger on, she couldn’t bring herself to be really mad at her. 

Once her skin began to prune, Natasha reluctantly got out, wrapping a towel around herself and padding barefoot across the floor to her room. She slipped into a loose shirt and sweatpants, and she glanced toward the door, wondering if Wanda was still awake. Maybe she should check on her? Just to make sure she was settled.

Before she could change her mind, Natasha crossed the hall and knocked lightly on Wanda's door. The soft rustle behind the door confirmed that Wanda's was still up, and after a moment, it cracked open. 

"Natasha? Is everything okay?" Wanda’s eyes, still a little red, met hers, surprised but not displeased.

"Yeah, I-" Natasha scratched her neck. "I just want to check how you're settling in, if you need anything." She shrugged.

Wanda tilted her head, confusion all over her face but she stepped aside so Natasha could enter. She looked like she’d washed up too, hair damp, face scrubbed clean, but the sadness hadn’t left her eyes. 

“I’m okay, considering everything, I guess.”

Natasha glanced around the room, knowing what she would find there; the plainness, the sparse, impersonal feel. She knew better than anyone how stark the compound felt to someone who wasn’t used to it, especially to someone grieving. Maybe she should take Wanda shopping, this way they could turn this cold room into something more like… home.

“I thought…” Natasha paused, weighing her words. “I thought maybe you’d like some company. The nights here can be pretty lonely.”

“I-” Wanda blinked, surprised. “Thank you, Natasha.” 

Natasha did her best to ignore how her heart raced or how her stomach fluttered at the way Wanda said her name, with that heavy accent of hers and those big, enchanting, green eyes that seemed to see through her soul. 

“Are you hungry? I can make something for us or we can order anything.” Natasha said, desperately wanting to change her thoughts to something else. 

“I didn’t know you cook.” 

“I know my way around the kitchen.” Natasha shrugged, trying her best to avoid Wanda’s inquiring eyes and the little grin on her lips. “C’mon, let’s see if there is anything we can put together as a meal or if the boys already eat it all.”

They left the room in silence, and Nat was glad that Wanda simply agreed. She could feel Wanda’s eyes roaming around the place as they walked through the corridors down to the kitchen. 

“Of course you would be here.” Natasha teased as she saw Sam in the kitchen. 

“Nat!” He smiled. “Oh, hi!” He said to Wanda. “I don’t think we were properly introduced. I’m Sam.” 

“Hi, Sam.” She shook his hand. “I’m Wanda.” 

“I’m sorry for your brother.” 

“Thank you.” 

Natasha watched the exchange in silence, attentive to Wanda’s reaction. She knew it could be overwhelming but she also knew that Sam was one of the most easy going among them all. It was easy to feel relaxed around him. 

“So, is there anything to eat in this place or you and Steve have already finished everything?” 

“Ouch.” 

Natasha smiled and started going through the cabinets and the fridge in search of something to eat. “Hey, Wanda, how do you feel about mac and cheese?” She had no idea what Wanda liked but pretty much everyone she knew liked mac and cheese. 

“I guess it’s okay.” 

Natasha looked over her shoulder and offered a small grin to Wanda. 

“I love mac and cheese.” Sam said, stuffing another bite of sandwich in his mouth. 

“Aren’t you already eating?” 

“I never say no to mac and cheese.” 

Natasha only shook her head and grabbed everything she would need to put the meal together. She could feel Wanda’s eyes on her, curious, grateful and confused at the same time. It was a weird connection that she felt towards Wanda, but it wasn’t unpleasant. 

“Hey, Sam, can you put the table, please?” 

“Can I help?” 

“Sure.” Nat smiled softly. “Sam, please, show her where everything is.” 

Natasha watched them for a moment, and was grateful for how easy going Sam was. Maybe the fact that Wanda had not entered his mind was a plus for how good they were getting along but still. 

"So when do we start training?" Sam asked as they ate.

"What training?" Wanda perked up. 

“Fury wants Steve and I to train you guys, but I asked him for a few days so you can settle.” Natasha said. “Also you probably need new clothes and stuff.” 

“Yeah, well, we destroyed my home to save the world, after all.” 

Natasha sighed. She could feel all the mixed emotions in Wanda’s voice, and the worst part is that she was right. Of course, she would take the same decision over and over, but still. 

After they ate, Wanda helped them to clean everything and excused herself back to her room. Natasha watched as she disappeared through the halls, not sure what to do next. Should she go after Wanda and actually make her some company or it was better to leave her alone for a while? 

“So, I heard things were pretty rough for you guys there. Are you okay?” 

For a second Natasha nearly jumped, but then she remembered Sam was still in the kitchen. 

“Rough is an understatement but we’ll be okay.” 

“She can really enter our minds…” Sam gestured vaguely. 

“Yes, but I don’t think she’ll do this again unless it’s really needed.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I don’t know.” Natasha shrugged. “Maybe because I know what it is like to be in her position.”

“Fair enough.” Sam nodded. “Well, you should get some rest as well.”

“I will.” 

(...)  

Wanda closed the door behind her and let her body slide down to the ground. She pulled her legs up to her chest and let the tears she had been holding back finally fall down her face. Images of the last few hours played through her mind, over and over, as she tried to see what had gone wrong, how she could have let Pietro die, what she could have done, how she was all alone now; thrown into a country that wasn't hers, in a place surrounded by strangers. Strangers who she had hurt, in one way or another. Strangers who, despite having every right in the world, didn't seem angry with her.

Especially Natasha. She hadn't seen what memories it had awakened in her, when she entered her mind, but for some reason she didn't understand, Wanda could feel the weight of those memories, and she knew that it had affected Natasha deeply. 

She wanted to apologize to Natasha for that, but she had no idea how to do it, and even less if it would be well received, even though Natasha had been nothing but kind to her since the walk to the compound. Wanda closed her eyes tightly and leaned her head against the door. Tears rolled down her face and sobs made their way to her throat, making her whole body shake.

In the space of just over twenty-four hours, she and Pietro went from villains to heroes, and that was how he died, but that was far from easing the pain, anger and sense of uselessness she felt at that moment. She couldn't even kill the person responsible for his death, since both Ultron and Strucker were already dead.

Wanda wished she could let her powers flow through her body, like she had done in the church, in Sokovia, but that wasn't possible here. She dug her nails into the fabric of the sweatpants, trying to control her powers and tried to focus her thoughts on something else, because she knew that if she kept thinking about Pietro she wouldn't be able to control her powers for much longer.

A flash of red hair and green eyes shone in her mind and then the memories of her brother were slowly being replaced by Natasha; the fight in the church was something that, despite the chaos of the moment, impressed Wanda, because unlike most of them Natasha didn't have special powers, nor special suits, she only relied on her skills, but that didn't make her less than them. She was relentless, precise, strong, and she still managed to be effortlessly attractive. Wanda opened her eyes, shocked by her own thoughts.

During all the years serving Hydra and with her mind focused on her revenge against Stark, Wanda never bothered to think about any kind of relationship, never even entertained the idea of ​​getting involved with anyone, because honestly, who could she get involved with? Certainly not the men of Hydra. And among the citizens of Sokovia there was no one who really sparked her interest to the point of making her deviate from her target, from her revenge, but for some reason, ever since she had laid eyes on Natasha, that idea seemed to always be in the back of her mind, waiting to come to the surface.

"Wanda?" 

A soft knock on the door pulled her from her thoughts and she lifted her head, staring at the door. 

"Wanda, is everything okay? Are you okay?"

"I- I'm fine." She swallowed hard at the sound of Natasha's voice. "Why?"

"Nothing, just checking."

Wanda narrowed her eyes and her thoughts began to race through her mind. Had Natasha somehow felt her powers almost going out of control? Or had it been something else? Wanda hoped it wasn't either of those options, but if it had to be either, she prayed it was the former. She sighed heavily and got up from the floor, running a hand through her hair before opening the door. "I'm okay, see?"

She felt a chill run down her spine at Natasha's piercing gaze, at how her eyes slowly studied her; her face, her body. She knew Natasha was looking for any reaction from her that would indicate the opposite of what she had said, and Wanda was aware that she wasn't very good at hiding her feelings, but after a moment Natasha just nodded and her expression relaxed, giving way to a soft smile.

"Very well."

"Do you want to come in?" Wanda found herself saying.

Wanda felt her heart race when Natasha just arched her eyebrows and smiled, entering her room without saying anything. She waited, fidgeting with the hem of the t-shirt she was wearing, while Natasha also seemed to be searching for words. From what little she had seen of Natasha, she seemed confident and determined, but standing there in the middle of her room with her arms crossed over her chest and biting her lip, Wanda realized there was much more beneath her tough surface.

"I was thinking we could go shopping tomorrow," Natasha said after a while. "Buy clothes and shoes and whatever else you need."

"Sure, I guess."

"Great, we'll leave after breakfast then."

Natasha smiled, and even though it was a genuine smile, Wanda could tell she was nervous.

"Okay."

"I'll be going then." Natasha gestured vaguely.

"Sleep well, Natasha."

"You too, Wanda." She stopped at the door and looked over her shoulder. "If you need anything, just knock on my door."

"Thanks."

As soon as the door closed behind Natasha, Wanda walked to the window and sat on the edge. The large glass window offered a breathtaking view of the compound and the vast greenery around it. She had no idea where the place was, but the view offered a certain calm to her turbulent thoughts, even more so after Natasha's visit.

Wanda couldn't quite understand why they, especially Natasha, were being nice to her after everything that had happened. Sure, Clint had said that from the moment she walked out that door she would become one of them, an Avenger, but she wasn't sure if everyone agreed with that. Especially Tony or Bruce, who happened to be missing. Possibly because of what she had done to his mind. She had seen the destruction the Hulk had caused, and it had been her fault, Wanda was fully aware of that. She knew he hated her, and if she was honest with herself, she expected that feeling from all of them, especially Tony and Natasha, who after Bruce, seemed to have been the most affected by her powers.

But since she had stepped onto the S.H.I.E.L.D. ship, Natasha had been nothing but kind to her, staying by her side and offering silent comfort as she cried over Pietro's body. Wanda felt the hot tears running down her cheeks again and decided that maybe it would be best to try to sleep, to get some rest. The day had been too long and she was too confused and tired to really think about anything. She just wanted to let herself be swallowed up by the pain of her brother's death.

(...)

Natasha stretched, every part of her body aching from the recent battles they had fought. Fighting against super sophisticated robots sucked. She groaned and sat up in bed, reaching for the bedside table in search of some pain medication. After taking the medication, Natasha got up and headed to the bathroom. A hot, relaxing shower would help.

As the hot water jet relaxed her muscles, Natasha thought about the day ahead; breakfast, then taking Wanda shopping and taking the opportunity to grab something to eat. After that she really didn't know what to do, as they had nothing planned for the next few days since everyone agreed that both Wanda and them needed a break.

Maybe she should take the opportunity to show Wanda some sights? But what exactly if Natasha didn't even know what she liked? She shook her head and focused on finishing the shower before the hot water ran out.

"Good morning, boys." Natasha said as she entered the kitchen and came face to face with Steve and Sam.

"Good morning, Nat." They smiled broadly.

"Steve made breakfast."

"Then I better grab something to eat on the way." Natasha joked, accepting the plate of eggs and bacon that Sam was pushing toward her. "Did Wanda come down for breakfast yet?"

"I'm here."

Natasha turned around, smiling broadly at the sound of Wanda's voice. "Hey." She took the plate that Sam had slid toward her and handed it to Wanda.

"Are you guys going somewhere?" Steve asked, looking between the two of them.

"I'm taking Wanda shopping, she needs clothes, girly stuff. You wouldn't understand."

"Oh, okay." Sam and Steve answered together and they laughed at their expressions of slight panic and embarrassment.

After breakfast, Wanda and Natasha went up to their rooms to get ready and met in the living room.

Natasha led them to the compound's vast garage and went straight to her favorite Corvette Stingray.

"Wow, that's-"

She turned with a mischievous smile at Wanda's surprised tone.

"You haven't seen anything yet, get in." Natasha winked and got in the driver's side.

Natasha sped up, showing off a little and laughing at Wanda's expression. They left the compound towards the city and in a short time they were in downtown New York. She knew the crowds there could be overwhelming, but it was also good for distracting, especially in Wanda's state. Natasha drove the car to a neighborhood that concentrated most of the stores with clothes in the style she thought Wanda would like, because from the little she had the chance to observe her, Natasha doubted she cared about designer labels and renowned brands.

She was pleased to see that she was right about that, and before long the two of them were carrying enough bags that they had to make a trip to the car. At first Wanda was reluctant to accept Natasha paying for everything, but with some talking she managed to convince Wanda.

"I don't know about you, but I'm starving." Natasha said as they loaded the last few bags into the car.

"I never knew shopping could make you so hungry."

"Right?" Natasha smiled. "Come on, let's get something to eat."

(...)

When they arrived back at the compound, they went straight to Wanda's room.

"So, did you have fun today?"

Natasha asked as she placed the bags next to her bed, and despite her tiredness, Wanda definitely felt a little lighter. Natasha's company was better than she could have imagined.

"I had a lot of fun today. Thank you, Natasha."

"You're welcome."

Natasha winked playfully, or rather tried to, which caused Wanda to smile softly.

"I really mean it."

"I know."

Natasha's expression changed from playful to more serious, but it was still gentle and soft. Wanda felt her heart race at the understanding she saw in Natasha's gaze, and she really couldn't comprehend how that was possible.

"Hey, talk to me." 

Wanda felt like a thousand butterflies were flying inside her when Natasha took a step towards her and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her voice was soft and concerned, as was her gaze, and it left Wanda dizzy. 

"I- I just- I don't understand why you, of all people, have been so kind to me." 

Natasha smiled, and shook her head slightly. Her red hair falling slightly into her eyes. "Remember what Clint told you? It doesn't matter what you did, or who you were." 

"Still." Wanda held her gaze. "I haven't seen the things I put you through, but I could feel the weight of the visions I caused you and it's overwhelming." 

"You're right, it is overwhelming, but I've dealt with it once and I'll deal with it again." Natasha said gently. "My past is ugly and red, for the most part, but I got a second chance when I met Clint. And although your powers have brought up memories I would rather have remained buried deep inside, I refuse to let it dominate me." 

Wanda wanted to ask, wanted to know about Natasha's past, the good and the bad. For some reason she didn't yet understand, she wanted to know every piece of that mysterious woman, but she knew it wasn't the time, and that if Natasha wanted, she would share of her own free will.

Natasha was so strong, so resilient. Wanda wanted to be a little like her, but most of the time she felt like she was drowning.

"How do you do it?" Wanda asked, her lips trembling slightly.

"How do I do what?" Natasha frowned.

"How do you stay so strong?"

Natasha chuckled and shook her head. "Do you think I'm strong?" Gently she took Wanda's hand and guided her to the edge of the bed. "I'm far from strong, but there are specific people I choose to show my vulnerability to."

Wanda nodded absently, too overwhelmed by all the things she was feeling at that moment. "Still, it's more than I can be right now," She said after a moment. "I feel like this wave washes over me, again and again. It knocks me down, and when I try to stand up, it just comes for me again and it’s just gonna drown me."

"Grief is a day-to-day process," Natasha said gently. "It's something that lasts a lifetime, I think." 

Wanda noticed Natasha's gaze grow distant, and she wondered who she had lost. 

"Grief, the worst of it, hits us when we least expect it. At first, we think that the loss of the person we love is something that will crush us, that pain in our chest, the feeling of numbness, the lack of will to do anything, but then all of that starts to become less and less and we move on with life. Until one day, something simple brings it all back, a thousand times worse." 

Natasha used the back of her free hand to wipe away the tears that threatened to fall, and Wanda wished she could do it for her. 

"The worst part of grief, of missing the person, is not the beginning. It's one day when you're doing something and you think 'he would like that.' or you see something on TV, hear a song, or anything really, and you immediately think of that person, you want to share it with them and they're not there. It never gets easier, but at least for me, grief comes from a place of love. It's a love that endures."

"You lost someone." 

Wanda found herself saying. It wasn't a question, it was a statement, and Natasha looked at her for a moment before nodding. 

"I know how you feel, and that's why I want you to know that you're not alone, okay?" 

Wanda knew Natasha wouldn't go into details now, after all, they barely knew each other. She had been incredibly kind, but Wanda knew there were limits for now. And she was okay with that. 

"Thank you, Natasha." 

"Anytime." 

(...)

As the days went by, things started to fall into place and return to a sense of normalcy. The new members' training began, and it was going better than Steve or Natasha had expected.

At first, Wanda had a little difficulty with the physical part of the training, the hours in the gym doing exercises and physical fights - usually with Natasha - but in a few weeks she got the hang of it.

Little by little they started doing some simple missions to see how the new members were performing, how they controlled their abilities and everything else, and both Sam and Wanda were doing very well.

Tony hardly showed up at the compound, which was a relief for Wanda. Natasha taught her how to drive, in addition to the Avenger training, but she still didn't feel comfortable driving around.

Thanksgiving was celebrated simply, just Wanda, Natasha, and Steve at the compound, although Clint had insisted that they go to the farm. Sam had spent the holiday with his sister and nephews.

The week before Christmas, Natasha finally gave in to Clint's insistence and agreed to go to the farm. She had convinced Wanda to go with her, also at Clint's insistence, and since he didn't want her to be alone at the compound.

They stopped in town to buy Christmas presents for the Bartons and from there they left for the farm.

"Are you sure it's okay for me to spend Christmas with you guys?" Wanda asked again.

Nat smiled, glancing sideways at her, not really taking her eyes off the road. She could feel the nervousness rolling off Wanda in waves.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, Clint's sure too."

"Okay." Wanda said absently, fiddling with the hem of her sweatshirt.

When Natasha parked near the main house, she barely had time to unbuckle her seatbelt before Lila was already running toward her, her small feet kicking up dirt and snow on the gravel path.

"Auntie Nat!" 

Without hesitation, Natasha swung open the door and stepped out, instantly lifting the little girl into her arms. Lila's small body melted against her, and Natasha couldn't help but smile, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Ouch, you've gotten big, kiddo."

Lila giggled and wrapped her arms around Natasha’s neck, her cheek against Natasha's. 

Natasha glanced over her shoulder at Wanda, who was still standing on the other side of the car, a little more reserved but watching them with a quiet smile. Natasha gave a subtle nod, inviting her closer. 

"Lila, this is my friend Wanda," Natasha said gently, keeping her hold on the girl. "Say 'hi' to Wanda."

Lila pulled back slightly, giving Wanda a curious look before offering a shy but warm smile. "Hi."

The greeting was simple, but there was an undeniable softness in Lila’s voice, like she instinctively knew Wanda was someone safe. 

"Hi, Lila." 

There was something almost maternal in the way she spoke to the little girl, a tenderness Natasha hadn’t quite expected, but welcomed.

Before Natasha could say anything else, Lila tucked her face into her neck, her small arms tightening around her. 

Natasha laughed quietly, and just then, a familiar voice broke through the moment. "Well, look who decided to show up!"

Natasha turned, smiling brightly at the sight of Laura standing on the porch with little Nathaniel in her arms, his eyes wide and curious as he stared at the newcomers. 

"Hey, Laura," Natasha grinned, shifting Lila just slightly so she could wave.

Laura’s grin was warm, and her eyes were sparking with amusement. "I was starting to think you'd forgotten the way out here."

"Never," Natasha replied, her smile softening as she looked at the family she'd come to care for so much. 

They approached the porch and Natasha set Lila down. Laura sent the little girl to get Clint and Cooper, who were in the barn tinkering with the old tractor.

Natasha wagged her fingers at Nathaniel, who immediately reached forward.

"Oh, look at you, all soft with kids. Who would have thought," Wanda said, but there was no malice in her voice, just genuine surprise.

Natasha felt her cheeks immediately flush. Even though she and Wanda had grown quite close since the events in Sokovia, this was the first time she had seen her outside the compound, so carefree and somehow vulnerable.

Natasha had told Wanda bits and pieces about her bond with Clint’s family, about the kids, but this was the first time Wanda had witnessed it firsthand. The surprise was there, quiet but clear.

"Oh, Nat here is such a softie," Laura teased.

Natasha lifted her head slightly, her eyes narrowing as she shot Laura a look. "Traitor," she muttered under her breath.

Laura just grinned, clearly enjoying the moment. "What? It's true."

Natasha rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth curled up despite herself. She’d always tried to keep her distance, maintain the tough exterior, but the Barton’s were more her family than she would ever admit out loud because saying it out loud would make it real and she couldn’t afford to lose another family. 

Natasha met Wanda’s gaze, and held it for a moment. The way Wanda was looking at her made her feel things she never thought possible. Not with her past. She heard Lila’s and Cooper laughter as they approached them and this seemed to break the moment between them. 

“I have my moments,” Natasha said with a small, playful smile.

"Nat! Wanda!"

Clint's voice made them turn and Natasha smiled widely. His eyes were shining with mischief and he glanced between her and Wanda with raised eyebrows and a knowing smirk. She narrowed her eyes at him, but Clint didn't even flinch.

"I'm glad you decided to join us." He hugged her tightly, and then hugged Wanda. "Let's go inside, it's getting cold fast."

Natasha smiled, feeling her heart warm at the ease of Clint's relationship with Wanda. It was as if he had taken on the role of big brother, mentor, or whatever it was he did, and it worked well. She noticed how the tension was slowly leaving Wanda's shoulders.

The inside of the house was warm and inviting; the fireplace was lit and there were a few toys scattered on the floor, papers and crayons spread out on the coffee table, a bottle, a baby blanket, and some half-eaten gingerbread cookies on a plate.

As they stepped inside, the warmth of the Barton’s home wrapped around Natasha and Wanda, bringing with it the scent of wood smoke, fresh pine, and something cinnamon-sweet baking in the kitchen. Wanda glanced around, a quiet curiosity softening her usual guarded expression. It was a side of her Natasha rarely saw; calm, open, almost like she was letting her guard down bit by bit.

Natasha caught her gaze lingering on the family photos lining the walls. Each picture told a story: Clint and Laura on their wedding day, Clint and Cooper covered in mud from some backyard project, Lila in a princess dress with a bright, toothy smile. Natasha nudged Wanda gently, pulling her out of her trance. 

“Welcome to the chaos,” Natasha murmured with a soft smirk.

Wanda’s lips curved into a smile, her eyes still tracing over the photographs. “It’s…nice. Feels like home.”

Before Natasha could say anything, Clint reappeared with Cooper and Lila racing behind him, already caught up in some sibling rivalry and ran towards the kitchen, returning a second later. Cooper was carrying two mugs of hot chocolate, which Natasha was pretty sure Laura had spiked with vodka or whiskey. 

"Mom said to give them to you guys, it'll help ward off the cold."

"She said, huh?" Natasha accepted the mugs and handed one to Wanda.

She ruffled Cooper's hair and he clung to her, wrapping his arms around her waist. Natasha's smile softened and widened, and her gaze met Laura's over the boy's head. "Thanks." She lifted the mug slightly to Laura, who did the same from the kitchen.

Cooper beamed, his cheeks flushing slightly. Lila, never one to be outdone, immediately tugged at Natasha’s sleeve. “Auntie Nat, we made cookies for you!” She pointed proudly toward the kitchen, where Laura was pulling a fresh tray from the oven, the scent filling the entire room.

“Oh, you did, huh?” Lila nodded enthusiastically, running back into the kitchen and rocking back on her heels as Laura placed the cookies on a plate.

Clint appeared beside them, smiling proudly as he watched his children. He looked from Natasha to Wanda and smirked. 

“Think you can handle that, Maximoff?”

Natasha snorted, a rare, carefree sound that seemed to make Wanda’s eyes brighten with curiosity, as if she wanted to hear it again and it made her heart skip some beats. Clint took that as his cue to clap his hands and rally everyone. 

"Alright, alright, movie time! We need your votes: are we going classic Christmas, or one of those superhero movies Cooper keeps insisting are 'totally holiday-appropriate'?"

Natasha laughed, shaking her head. "Classic, definitely. I think we've all seen enough superheroes for now." There was a flicker of amusement on Wanda's face, something Natasha rarely saw.

The group made their way to the living room, where Laura had already transformed the space with blankets and pillows spread across couches and the floor. Lila made a beeline for Natasha, curling up beside her and resting her head on Natasha's shoulder as they settled in. Meanwhile, Cooper took the seat next to Wanda, stealing occasional glances her way as if she were something magical and rare and Natasha couldn't help but smile. 

Once the movie started, the room grew quiet, the atmosphere softened by the flickering firelight and the comforting sounds of popcorn crunching. Wanda, sitting beside Natasha, seemed to lose some of her usual guarded tension, taking in the warmth of the room and this feeling of belonging that wrapped around them. Natasha felt Wanda’s shoulder brush hers lightly, the simple touch filling the space with an unexpected sense of peace that lingered between them as they watched the screen together.

(...)

The morning broke crisp and bright, sunlight gleaming off the fresh layer of snow that blanketed the Barton farm. Natasha was savoring her first sip of coffee when Lila and Cooper burst into the kitchen, voices ringing with excitement.

"Auntie Nat! Wanda! It snowed!" Lila squealed, her eyes wide with delight.

Natasha barely had a chance to respond before Cooper tugged on her sleeve. "You have to come out with us! It's perfect for sledding, or snowball fights, or building snow forts!"

Natasha opened her mouth, but Lila had already grabbed Wanda's hand, pulling her toward the door. "You can't say no. It's a rule!" 

Wanda cast a helpless, amused glance at Natasha, wrapped up in Lila's enthusiasm. Natasha rolled her eyes, smothering a smile. "Alright, alright. Just bundle up. It's freezing out there."

Soon enough, they were trudging through the snow, boots crunching over the fresh powder as Cooper and Lila ran ahead, their laughter echoing across the fields. Natasha watched them, taking in the simple joy on their faces as they dashed ahead, caught up in the magic of the snowy morning.

Cooper sprinted ahead, immediately scooping up snow and forming snowballs in his gloved hands, while Wanda knelt down to help Lila pack the snow. Natasha noticed the way Wanda's face softened, absorbed in the task, her gloved fingers shaping smooth snowballs with surprising concentration. It wasn't often that Wanda allowed herself to let go like this, and Natasha couldn’t help but smile as she watched her friend so fully in the moment, mirroring Lila's delight.

"Nat!" Cooper called, pulling her from her thoughts. 

His mischievous grin was a warning she caught just a second too late as a snowball flew through the air, hitting her square on the shoulder. Shaking her head with a chuckle, Natasha crouched down to form her own snowball.

"Oh, you're in for it now, Barton!" she called, tossing a snowball that landed perfectly on Cooper's back. He laughed, dodging behind a tree for cover, the game fully underway.

Natasha caught a glimpse of Wanda watching them, her eyes bright as she observed Natasha's rare carefree moment with the kids. Wanda's gaze held something soft and warm, an expression that Natasha couldn't help but feel a hint of pride in causing.

A small tug on her sleeve brought Natasha's focus to Lila, whose hands were attempting to form a snowball, her face lit up with mischief. Natasha smirked, joining in the playful plotting as she began packing another snowball, catching sight of Wanda doing the same. 

Natasha's gaze sharpened the moment she noticed Wanda's smirk and the playful glint in her eye. Wanda narrowed her focus on Natasha, packing the snowball deliberately, and a thrill ran through Natasha, settling as a faint, unexpected chill down her spine. Her usual poise wavered, replaced by a surprising spark of anticipation at Wanda's challenge.

"Don't even think about it, Maximoff," Natasha warned, raising an eyebrow and taking a cautious step back, though she found herself almost wanting Wanda to ignore the warning.

"Oh, I'm thinking about it," Wanda replied, her smirk deepening. 

Before Natasha could fully prepare, the snowball was already flying toward her, hitting her shoulder in a burst of cold powder that scattered through the air. Natasha laughed, a touch breathless, her heart pounding with the exhilaration of the moment.

For a second, she caught Wanda's gaze and felt her stomach flip. The teasing glint in her eyes felt like something more, something that Natasha didn't often feel; the thrill of letting her guard down, of giving in with someone she trusted.

Natasha laughed, and before Wanda could blink, she scooped up her own handful of snow, sending it flying in a perfect arc that landed squarely on Wanda's chest. 

Wanda's laughter rang out across the open field, a sound so pure and unrestrained that Natasha felt herself pause, caught up in the warmth of it. A smile crept onto her face as she watched Wanda, taking in the sparkle of her eyes and the rare openness of her expression.

"Is that all you've got, Romanoff?" Wanda challenged, shaking the snow from her jacket and stepping closer, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

Natasha grinned, feeling her competitive side flare. "You really don't want to start a snow war with a spy."

"Oh?" Wanda arched an eyebrow, her smile widening, clearly calling Natasha's bluff. 

That spark of challenge between them sent a thrill through Natasha, and she barely had time to react before they were fully immersed in a whirlwind of snowballs, laughter, and scrambling feet as they dodged and ducked around trees and snow piles. 

Lila and Cooper joined in, adding to the chaos, and Natasha found herself caught off-guard more than once by their surprisingly accurate snow missiles. Somewhere in the madness, Cooper slipped, tumbling into the snow and sending Natasha down with him in a playful heap. She barely had time to process it before Wanda rushed over, laughter bubbling up as she offered her hand to Natasha only for Natasha to grin mischievously and pull Wanda down beside her, both of them collapsing into the snow with laughter echoing around them.

After a while, breathless and cheeks tinged pink from the cold, they lay back in the snow, gazing up at the pale blue sky as they caught their breath. Natasha listened to the sound of Wanda's breathing beside her, feeling strangely at ease. She glanced over, taking in the peaceful expression on Wanda's face, her closed eyes and faint smile.

"I think they wore us out," Natasha murmured, an amused warmth in her voice.

Wanda's smile grew, her eyes still closed. "I think I'll let them take the blame," she replied softly, her voice carrying a note of contentment that Natasha couldn't remember hearing before.

Lila and Cooper shared a victorious grin, scrambling to their feet and running toward the house with eager cries of "Hot chocolate time!" Lila shot, already halfway to the door.

As Natasha and Wanda got up, brushing the snow from their coats, Natasha noticed the way Wanda's gaze lingered on her, her eyes shining with a rare, easy happiness. She looked back at Wanda, feeling a strange but undeniable closeness.

"Thanks for indulging them," Natasha said, her voice warm and genuine. "It's been… nice, seeing you like this."

Wanda's smile softened, her eyes meeting Natasha's for a long moment. "I think it's been nice for me, too."

They walked back to the house together, snow clinging to their coats and boots, the quiet warmth of the moment stretching between them.

As they stepped into the living room, Laura took one look at them and shook her head with a knowing smile. "Alright, go take a hot shower and change your clothes. All of you," she added, giving both Natasha and Wanda a firm look.

They followed the kids upstairs, exchanging a bemused glance as they headed to freshen up. By the time they gathered in the kitchen, Laura had laid out steaming mugs of hot cocoa with fluffy marshmallows on top, the room warmed by the crackling fire.

As the afternoon slipped into evening, Clint suggested a round of Christmas movies, and soon the living room was bathed in the soft glow of twinkling lights and the warm flicker of the fire. Natasha settled in, feeling Wanda close beside her, sharing this quiet, festive peace as the day faded into a cozy night.

(...)

Wanda settled in next to Natasha on the couch, her side pressed warmly against Natasha's. Cooper snuggled up on Natasha's other side, while Lila, still a bit drowsy from the day's excitement, climbed onto Natasha's lap, wrapping herself up in her arms with a soft yawn. Wanda watched, her gaze softening at the sight. There was a gentleness in Natasha's movements, a tenderness Wanda rarely saw so openly, one that seemed to emerge only with this family. 

On the other couch, Laura and Clint shared a quiet moment, with the baby nestled between them. Wanda's attention, however, remained fixed on Natasha. She felt something warm and deeply tender as she watched Natasha gently run her hand through Lila's hair, soothing her with a care that felt uncharacteristic but entirely genuine. It was as if each touch allowed Natasha to step into a peace that Wanda knew was rarely hers. 

After a moment, Wanda leaned closer, her voice a soft murmur. "You’re good with her, you know."

Natasha glanced over, caught off guard but pleased by the comment. "I guess she brings out a different side of me."

Wanda smiled, her expression gentle. "I think it's just you. The real you."

Natasha didn't respond with words, but the way her eyes held Wanda’s gaze for an extra beat was more than enough. It was a vulnerable silence that said everything, and when Natasha finally looked away, Wanda felt a pang of both gratitude and sadness. She realized how much Natasha kept hidden, even from herself.

As the movie played, Wanda's attention drifted, returning again and again to the sight of Natasha with Lila asleep in her lap. She saw something rare there, a quiet hope in Natasha's eyes, a contentment that was so precious it took Wanda's breath away. Wanda's heart raced as unexpected thoughts of a family - a real, lasting family - entered her mind, not just for herself, but with Natasha.

Her chest tightened as she remembered a night at the compound, sitting out on the lawn with Natasha under the stars. Natasha had shared parts of herself that night, things Wanda hadn't known before. Stories of her childhood, of Yelena, her younger sister, who she hadn't seen in years; of a song that haunted her because of what it reminded her of; and of the cruelty of the Red Room that had stolen her chance to ever have biological children. Wanda knew she could never erase those scars or the memories Natasha carried. But she wished, with everything in her, that she could show Natasha that it was still possible to have a family - that maybe, together, they could build one.

(...) 

The next morning, Natasha was jolted awake by a small whirlwind named Lila, who came barreling into the room she was sharing with Wanda, flinging herself right onto Natasha’s bed.

“Ouch,” Natasha groaned, her voice still thick with sleep. She wrapped an arm around Lila, pulling her down beside her. “Too early, kiddo.”

“Auntie Nat, we’re going to make gingerbread houses!” Lila’s excitement was infectious, and her eyes sparkled with it.

“Oh, God.” Natasha muttered, suddenly recalling all of Clint’s endless Christmas traditions. She had almost forgotten how many they packed into the days before Christmas.

“Come on, Auntie Nat. Mommy’s waiting!” Lila urged, tugging at her arm insistently.

Natasha sighed and finally blinked her eyes open, realizing there was no way she’d be able to coax a few more minutes of sleep. “Alright, alright. Let’s go.” She pressed a quick kiss to Lila’s forehead before reluctantly getting out of bed and heading to the bathroom to wash up.

When she emerged, she noticed Lila had now cozied up in Wanda’s bed, eagerly chatting to her about gingerbread houses. Wanda’s gaze met Natasha’s, warm and amused, and Natasha offered a sheepish smile in return.

“Good morning, Nat,” Wanda greeted as she stood up and made her way to the bathroom.

“Morning.” Natasha felt her cheeks warm slightly. “Sorry about the... wake-up call,” she said, nodding toward Lila, who was watching them with open curiosity.

Wanda smiled, shrugging off the apology. “No problem.”

“Auntie Nat, come on!” Lila tugged insistently, and Natasha allowed herself to be pulled down the stairs toward the kitchen.

Once there, Laura greeted her with a guilty smile. “I swear I tried to hold her off for another hour.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Natasha assured her, stifling a yawn as she adjusted to the early hour.

“Here.” Clint appeared at her side, handing her a mug of steaming coffee. “Where’s Wanda? Still sleeping?”

“As if that was an option,” Natasha laughed, taking a grateful sip. She felt herself starting to wake up with each sip of the hot coffee.

A few minutes later, Wanda joined them, looking just as cozy and a little more awake. Natasha quickly poured her a mug of coffee, handing it to her with a smile. The kitchen was soon alive with the clattering of dishes and the laughter of kids, as they gathered the supplies to start their gingerbread creations.

While everyone else was busy assembling pieces and attempting not to eat half of the icing, Clint took charge of breakfast. The warm aroma of eggs, bacon, and pancakes mingled with the rich smell of coffee and fresh juice, filling the kitchen with a cozy warmth.

“Alright, construction break for breakfast!” Clint called, setting plates down and wiping his hands on a dish towel.

The kids practically inhaled the food, barely pausing to chew as they wolfed down their breakfast, eager to get back to their creations. Natasha exchanged an amused look with Laura as Clint went about clearing the table, and Laura quickly reset the gingerbread supplies so the kids could dive back in.

Natasha couldn’t help but glance at Wanda over the top of her coffee mug, catching her eye with a soft smile. It felt good to be here, in this warm little chaos, sharing these small moments - moments that felt almost like they belonged to a family. And as Wanda smiled back, Natasha felt a warmth that went deeper than the coffee she was holding.

Natasha and Wanda joined Laura and the kids at the table, where bowls of vibrant icing and candy decorations waited to be used. Natasha settled into the task, carefully piping a line of frosting along a gingerbread wall, but her attention kept drifting to Wanda, who was completely absorbed in her work. Wanda's brows furrowed in concentration as she placed gumdrops in precise rows, oblivious to everything else.

A small smirk tugged at Natasha’s lips. “You’re really into this,” she murmured, leaning in just enough to tease.

Wanda looked up, her cheeks instantly flushing, and Natasha's smirk softened into a grin.

After a while, the table became a delightful mess of scattered sugar, crumbs, and half-eaten gumdrops. Flour hung in the air like a soft cloud as the kids’ laughter echoed through the room. Lila proudly held up her sticky, icing-coated fingers, grinning from ear to ear. “Look, Auntie Nat! I made a mess!”

Natasha chuckled, gently ruffling Lila’s hair. “That’s the best part of it, kiddo.”

Laura’s laughter caught Natasha’s attention, and she glanced over, confused, only to see Laura motioning toward her own cheek. “Nat, you’ve got a little something…” Laura gestured vaguely at her own face.

Before Natasha could react, Wanda noticed it too and reached over instinctively, her thumb brushing softly against Natasha's cheek as she wiped the flour away. The touch lingered a second longer than necessary, and Natasha found herself frozen, her eyes meeting Wanda’s. Her gaze drifted to Wanda's lips, and for a moment, her breath stilled as they both seemed to forget the world around them.

“Uh… there,” Wanda murmured, her voice barely a whisper, her cheeks flushing as she finally pulled her hand away.

Just then, a shriek of laughter brought them back to reality. Natasha turned to see that Cooper and Lila had somehow managed to shower each other with a handful of flour, their hair now dusted white. Natasha let out a soft laugh, glancing back at Wanda with an amused smirk. “Looks like we’re going to have to clean up after these two troublemakers.”

“Oh, no, you two,” Laura cut in, her own laugh barely contained. “Clint, take your kids to the bath now. They’re done here.”

“Oh, so when they’re covered in flour, they’re my kids?” Clint shot back, shaking his head.

“Mom, we promise to behave!” Cooper added, pulling his best puppy-dog eyes.

Natasha chuckled as Laura shot her a knowing look. “I wonder who he learned that from,” Laura teased, aiming a pointed look at Natasha. “Alright, but if there’s one more mess, it’s over for both of you.”

Cooper and Lila exchanged triumphant high-fives and went back to decorating their gingerbread houses with renewed focus.

Laura shook her head, glancing at Clint. “Clint, dear, can you give Nathaniel his bottle?”

“On it.” He wiped his hands on his apron, going off to prepare the bottle.

The warmth of the moment lingered as they all continued decorating, laughter filling the air along with the sweet scent of gingerbread. Natasha couldn’t help but steal glances at Wanda every now and then, her heart softening at the way Wanda’s face lit up with laughter around the kids. For the first time in what felt like ages, Natasha felt… at peace. Something about this felt wonderfully right, and she couldn’t shake the quiet hope that maybe, just maybe, she could belong have this too.

(...)

The rest of the day was peaceful, Cooper went to help Clint work on the tractor so he wouldn't end up getting into trouble because of the cold while Wanda and Natasha were dragged to the living room by Lila.

The little girl handed them some sheets of paper, colored pencils and crayons and with a pointed look indicated that they should sit next to her to draw.

Laura joined them soon after, gently rocking Nathaniel to sleep.

The hours passed quickly and in the early evening they sat at the table for dinner. Then, as in the previous days, they gathered in the living room for another classic Christmas movie.

Clint helped Laura carry the bowls of popcorn, mugs of hot chocolate and cider into the living room while Natasha and Wanda helped Lila and Cooper get the room just the way they liked it.

Cooper slurped his hot cocoa loudly, prompting a chorus of giggles from Lila and a roll of Clint's eyes. "Seriously, kid, where are your manners?"

"I learned them from you," Cooper shot back with a grin.

Wanda chuckled, her eyes meeting Natasha's for a second. She felt her heart race and her stomach felt like as if there was butterflies inside. She hadn't realized just how much she missed this feeling; being part of something whole, something good. She was so lost in thought that she nearly missed it when Natasha squeezed her hand, the smallest reassurance, and her eyes met Natasha's, catching that familiar glint of mischief in her gaze.

"Want to help me with a refill?" Natasha whispered, giving Wanda's hand a gentle tug as she rose.

"Sure." Wanda followed her into the kitchen, away from the cozy chaos of the living room. 

Once they were out of earshot, Natasha leaned against the counter, arms crossed. "Are you okay? I thought you were a little overwhelmed just now." She said, her eyes studying Wanda with concern.

"I'm fine, Nat. Thanks for caring tho."

"Really? We can call it a night and go to the bedroom if you want."

"I do feel overwhelmed sometimes, yes, but in a... good way, I guess."

"Okay, let me know if you change your mind, okay?"

"Alright." 

Natasha held Wanda's gaze for longer than necessary.

"Is it weird that I never expected you to be so…" Wanda searched for the right word, one that would capture the side of Natasha she'd been witnessing those past days; soft, unguarded, even playful.

"Human?" Natasha offered, her smile crooked, playful but with an edge of vulnerability.

"Real," Wanda corrected softly. "I mean, ever since I arrived at the compound you've been amazing to me, always around, worried about me, and you've shared more things with me than I ever thought possible, but at the same time you've always remained a little distant, reserved. It’s nice to see this side of you."

Natasha felt her smirk dissolve into something softer, her expression turning reflective as she glanced down, weighing her words. “I didn’t think you’d want to see this side of me.” Her voice was uncharacteristically quiet, a hint of uncertainty in it, as if she wasn’t used to admitting something so vulnerable aloud.

Wanda took a small step closer, and Natasha noticed the way her gaze softened, her own walls beginning to crumble. “Actually,” Wanda murmured, her voice steady yet gentle, “I think this is exactly what I needed to see.”

Natasha held Wanda’s gaze, feeling a tangible connection that had simmered for too long, something raw and undeniable surfacing between them. Away from missions and façades, it felt real here. For once, there was no armor, just them. The sounds of laughter drifting in from the living room barely registered in her mind; she wasn’t ready to let go of this moment yet.

She let out a soft laugh, one that felt vulnerable even to her own ears. “This might sound ridiculous, but… thanks for being here. I didn’t know if you’d actually come.”

“I almost didn’t,” Wanda admitted, her voice just above a whisper, an honest softness in her eyes. “But I’m glad I did.”

They stood there in the silence that followed, Natasha unable to resist lifting her hand to brush a loose strand of hair behind Wanda’s ear. The gesture was gentle, lingering in a way she hadn’t anticipated, as if savoring the tenderness of the moment. Her pulse raced at the touch, especially when Wanda’s eyes widened slightly, and Natasha felt a warmth spreading in her chest that had nothing to do with the cider.

But the spell was broken when the kitchen door swung open, and Clint waltzed in, oblivious to the tension he’d interrupted. “Hey, you two, you’re missing the best part! Santa’s about to-” He stopped mid-sentence, glancing between them and scratching his chin. “Am I… interrupting something?”

Natasha cleared her throat, quickly dropping her hand, her laugh coming out just a bit too casual. “Nope, just… catching up.”

Wanda looked away, her cheeks flushed, clearly trying to hide the faint blush creeping up. Clint just grinned, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Alright, then. Don’t take too long; we’ve got more popcorn waiting.” With a wink, he disappeared back into the living room.

Natasha huffed, shaking her head as she muttered, “He’s like a big kid sometimes.”

They filled their mugs with fresh cider and made their way back to the others. When they settled back onto the couch, Natasha found herself instinctively draping her arm over the back of the couch, her hand resting just behind Wanda’s shoulders—a gesture that felt casual, but in truth held an unspoken promise of protectiveness. Wanda leaned back slightly, just close enough that Natasha could feel her warmth, her pulse quickening at the sensation, and for once, Natasha let herself enjoy the comfort of their closeness.

As the movie drew to a close, Natasha watched as Laura smoothly began herding the kids toward bed, Lila putting up a sleepy protest. Natasha leaned down, brushing a gentle kiss on Lila’s forehead and speaking softly, “I’ll be here in the morning, okay? Go get some sleep.”

Once the kids were tucked in, Clint and Laura returned to the living room with the kind of satisfied sighs that come with a quiet, winding-down evening. The room had dimmed, leaving only the soft golden glow of the fire casting shadows across their faces.

“How’s training been, Wanda?” Laura asked, curiosity evident in her tone as she wrapped her hands around her mug. “Nat’s been saying you’re really getting the hang of things.”

Natasha felt warmth in her chest as Wanda glanced over at her, a little shy, as though gauging her reaction. “It’s… intense, but in a good way, I think,” Wanda replied thoughtfully. “I’m learning more about focus, and it’s been helping a lot.”

Natasha couldn’t hold back, giving Wanda’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “She’s being modest,” she chimed in, pride evident in her voice. “You’ve come a long way. Pretty soon, you’ll have Rogers eating your dust.”

Clint raised an eyebrow, looking impressed. “Really? That’s high praise coming from Romanoff.” He nodded at Wanda, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Guess you’re tougher than you look, huh?”

Natasha watched Wanda chuckle, a quiet warmth filling her gaze as she took in Natasha’s words. “I have a good teacher. Besides, it’s nice to have something to work toward. Keeps me grounded,” she said with a confidence that had been growing steadily over the past weeks.

Laura’s expression softened as she looked at Wanda. “Well, it’s good to hear. And I have to say, you’ve seemed so much happier lately. I’d say it’s working for you.” She winked at Wanda before her gaze drifted to Natasha, a knowing smile tugging at her lips. “I think Nat might have a little something to do with that too.”

Natasha could feel a slight blush warming her cheeks, but she rolled her eyes playfully. “Let’s not give me too much credit. Wanda’s the one putting in the work. I’m just… there when she needs a little push.”

“Oh, you’re there alright,” Clint teased, his eyes glinting with amusement as he shared a look with Laura. “Can’t say I’ve seen you this dedicated to ‘pushing’ someone, Nat.”

Natasha chuckled, relaxing into the gentle teasing as Wanda turned to her with a playful glint in her eyes. “To be fair, you’re a pretty great ‘pusher,’” Wanda teased, nudging Natasha’s shoulder lightly.

“Well,” Natasha replied, letting out a soft laugh, “if I’m going to be a pusher, might as well be the best, right?” She held Wanda’s gaze, her smile turning softer, her voice lowering. “But you make it easy.”

The glow of the fire reflected in Wanda’s eyes, and Natasha found herself lost in their warmth until Clint cleared his throat with exaggerated volume. “Alright, lovebirds,” he said, grinning. “Are we just going to sit here staring into each other’s eyes, or can I get someone to help me with the marshmallows for s’mores?”

Laura laughed, swatting him playfully. “Way to kill the vibe, Clint. But yes, let’s do s’mores.”

Natasha watched Wanda grin as she rose, her eyes dancing. “I’ll help you grab the marshmallows, Clint. Natasha, you coming?”

Natasha leaned back against the couch, smirking up at Wanda with an affectionate, mischievous smile. “I’ll be right here, keeping your seat warm. Don’t take too long.”

She caught the slight flush of Wanda’s cheeks and the smile they shared before Wanda headed to the kitchen with Clint, their laughter trailing into the next room. Natasha couldn’t help but smile, warmth blooming in her chest at the sound.

Laura shook her head, a fond smile on her face as she watched them go before she turned to Natasha, eyes full of quiet understanding. “You know,” she began softly, “you and Wanda… you make sense together.”

Natasha felt her breath hitch, her gaze drifting to the kitchen where Wanda’s laughter still echoed. “We’re not… we’re not—”

“Nat,” Laura said gently, “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. But I’ve seen the way you look at each other. I’ve never seen you like this with anyone.”

Natasha swallowed, feeling a confession clawing its way to the surface, something she’d tried to suppress. “It’s stupid, Laura. Letting my guard down like this… but I can’t help it with her.”

Laura’s voice was soft, reassuring. “It’s not stupid, Nat.”

“But you know my past.” Natasha’s voice was barely a whisper. “There’s no way I could ever have something… normal.”

“Good thing Wanda’s far from normal, isn’t she?” Laura said with a gentle smile, her eyes warm with understanding.

Natasha shook her head, her voice strained. “It wouldn’t work.”

Laura sighed, giving Natasha a knowing, patient look. “Just… think about it, okay?”

(...)

As the others drifted off to bed, Natasha stayed behind, lingering in the quiet with Wanda beside her. Their shoulders brushed as they sat on the couch, the firelight casting warm, flickering shadows over the room. Natasha could feel the heat radiating from Wanda’s hand, resting so close to hers, close enough that the small distance between them felt charged.

Without fully deciding to, Natasha found herself leaning closer. The weight of everything unspoken, everything she’d tried to ignore, pressed heavily on her chest. She could feel the warmth of Wanda’s presence, the soft, steady rhythm of her breathing.

"Wanda," she murmured, her voice barely more than a whisper, the word heavy with so much she didn’t know how to express. "You… you make me feel—" She faltered, uncertain. No words felt right, no way to truly say what was pounding in her chest.

But Wanda’s eyes softened, her gaze unwavering, silently urging Natasha to let down the last of her walls. It was an invitation, one that Natasha didn’t realize she’d been waiting for until she was already leaning in. Before doubt could take over, she closed the distance between them, her lips meeting Wanda’s in a gentle brush. But that initial softness, that tentative touch, was quickly replaced by a heat Natasha could no longer deny.

Wanda responded without hesitation, her hand sliding up to Natasha’s cheek, her thumb tracing a slow, steady path along her jaw. That small gesture undid her completely, and Natasha felt herself deepen the kiss, a barely controlled need taking over as their lips moved in sync, more intense, more consuming than she’d imagined. The fire crackled beside them, but it was nothing compared to the heat that spread through her body, lighting up every nerve, every cell.

It was everything Natasha had wanted and everything she’d been afraid of—a connection that was raw, fierce, and unguarded. Wanda’s hand moved to the back of her neck, pulling her closer, her fingers threading through Natasha’s hair, and the intensity of it, the sheer honesty of what she was feeling, made something inside Natasha twist.

Abruptly, she pulled back, breaking the kiss with a shuddering breath. She could feel her pulse pounding in her ears, her heart hammering against her ribcage, a familiar panic clawing its way to the surface. She felt like she was splintering apart, the weight of her past pressing down on her, reminding her of all the reasons she shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be feeling this.

“Nat?” Wanda’s voice was soft, laced with concern and something deeper that Natasha wasn’t sure she could handle. That depth, that vulnerability, only made the fear sharper.

“I- I can’t,” Natasha managed, her voice shaky and barely audible. She pushed herself to her feet, running a hand through her hair in a desperate attempt to steady herself. She could feel everything slipping out of her control, every carefully built wall crumbling. The memories, the training, the missions - all the years she’d spent pushing people away came crashing back, louder and more insistent.

“I’m sorry, Wanda,” she said, each word a painful effort. “I don’t… I don’t do relationships.” Her voice broke, and she could feel the sting in her chest, the realization that she was hurting Wanda. But the fear was overwhelming, a tidal wave of everything she’d tried to bury for so long, and it left her no room to think, no space to breathe.

Without another word, Natasha turned and hurried to the door, her footsteps heavy in the silence of the house. She didn’t dare look back, didn’t want to see the hurt in Wanda’s eyes. All she could do was escape, feeling the memories clawing at her, threatening to pull her under as she stepped out into the cold night, her heart pounding and her mind reeling.

Just as Natasha’s fingers brushed her coat, Clint’s voice cut through her resolve. “Nat.”

She froze, feeling her heartbeat thundering in her chest. Clint stood in the doorway, his gaze unwavering, the look in his eyes both gentle and firm. 

“You’re really going to walk away from this?” he asked quietly, his voice calm but carrying an undeniable weight. He stepped closer, his face a mix of understanding and expectation. “You know, you’re not the only one with a past, Nat. Wanda’s been through hell too. But here she is, willing to take a chance on you.”

Natasha swallowed, her throat tight as she processed his words. “I don’t want to hurt her, Clint,” she whispered, her voice raw with honesty. “I don’t even know if I can be what she needs.”

Clint’s expression softened, his eyes full of warmth that only a best friend could carry. “You don’t have to be perfect, Nat. Wanda doesn’t need you to be anything other than yourself. And from where I’m standing, that’s more than enough.”

She looked down, her mind a storm of doubts, but Clint’s words seemed to ground her. She realized, with a painful clarity, that maybe - just maybe - she did deserve this. Deserved Wanda. Her jaw tightened as she absorbed his words, feeling memories surface in her mind, fragments of her past - years of survival, of running, of pushing everyone away so she wouldn’t have to face her own heartache. The idea that someone could see her past and still care for her, still want her, felt foreign, but here was Wanda, offering her something she hadn’t dared to hope for.

Clint’s hand settled on her shoulder, the weight both comforting and firm. “Talk to her,” he urged. “You don’t have to have all the answers. Just… talk to her.”

Natasha stood by the door, Clint’s words lingering in the quiet, a steadying force as she considered what she was about to leave behind. She had always run, always turned her back on anything that felt like home. But standing here, with Clint’s words echoing in her mind, she realized that running hadn’t kept her safe - it had only left her alone. Wanda had opened her heart to her, despite everything she’d been through, and it was courage Natasha hadn’t seen in anyone before. It was time, maybe, to stop letting her fear control her.

Taking a deep, unsteady breath, she let her hand fall away from her coat. Clint gave her an encouraging nod, the quiet support of a friend who had known her through it all. She nodded back, a silent acknowledgment, and without another word, turned toward the room she was sharing with Wanda, a newfound determination guiding her steps.

As Natasha approached the doorway, she found Wanda still there, her gaze fixed on the dimming embers of the fire, her expression difficult to read but so achingly familiar. The warm light danced across her face, illuminating that quiet strength, that gentleness that Natasha couldn’t resist.

“Wanda,” Natasha said softly, her voice raspy and filled with vulnerability she didn’t recognize.

Wanda turned, her eyes catching Natasha’s, reflecting both vulnerability and hope. It was a look Natasha had come to cherish, one that made her realize just how deeply she was in this. How far gone she was already.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha whispered, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I… I’ve spent so long keeping people at a distance. But you…” She swallowed, feeling her own defenses crack. “You’re the first person I can’t seem to push away, no matter how hard I try. And that scares me. Letting someone in like this… it’s not something I know how to do.”

Wanda took a step forward, closing the distance with that unwavering gaze. “Then don’t,” she murmured, her voice warm and soft, coaxing Natasha closer. “Let me in, Natasha. I know you’re scared, but I’m here. You’re not alone in this.” She raised a hand, cupping Natasha’s cheek, her touch featherlight but grounding.

The tenderness in Wanda’s eyes, in her touch, undid Natasha entirely. She felt a tear slip down her cheek, the walls she’d held for so long dissolving in the warmth of Wanda’s touch. Her fingers trembled as she reached up, holding Wanda’s hand as if it was the lifeline she hadn’t known she’d needed. “I’m scared, Wanda,” she admitted, her voice breaking, barely above a whisper. “I’m scared of letting myself love you, and even more of losing you. Everyone I let in either dies or disappears. I can’t…”

Wanda’s grip on her hand tightened, a quiet promise in that simple touch. “I’m not going anywhere.” Her thumb stroked softly over Natasha’s knuckles, grounding her. “You don’t have to be perfect, Nat. I don’t need you to be anything other than right here, with me.”

Natasha exhaled slowly, relief washing over her as her fingers laced through Wanda’s, feeling as if they’d always belonged there. “I’m done running,” she murmured, her voice quiet but resolute.

Their eyes met, and in that gaze, Natasha found all the courage she’d never been able to find within herself. Slowly, she leaned in, closing the distance, capturing Wanda’s lips in a kiss that held all her fears, all her hopes, and every unspoken promise between them. This kiss was different. It was deeper, free of hesitation, her emotions pouring into each movement, each second. Natasha’s hand found its way into Wanda’s hair, pulling her close, her need fierce, unapologetic. Wanda’s arms wrapped around her, drawing her in as if she, too, had been waiting for this, for them, for so long.

The kiss intensified, Natasha pouring herself into it, letting her guard drop completely, allowing herself to be vulnerable in Wanda’s arms. Her fingers twisted deeper into Wanda’s hair, and Wanda’s hand trailed up her arm, soft but firm, grounding her. Natasha felt as if she was coming alive, like every part of her had woken up, drawn into Wanda’s warmth, her steadiness. When they finally broke apart, they were both breathless, their foreheads pressed together as they held each other close.

Natasha looked into Wanda’s eyes, her heart pounding, and saw the same fire, the same need that mirrored her own. Unable to resist, she cupped Wanda’s face, bringing her in for another kiss, more intense, almost desperate, as months of unspoken tension gave way. It was an ache she could feel in her chest, a need she hadn’t let herself feel for so long, and she surrendered to it completely.

As Natasha looked into Wanda’s eyes, she saw that same fire, that same unrestrained desire, mirroring her own. The weight of everything they'd held back, the longing, the fear, and the inevitability, all of it seemed to rise to the surface. Without a second thought, she pulled Wanda in, capturing her lips in a kiss that went beyond tenderness, beyond anything she had ever let herself feel.

This kiss was no longer tentative or questioning; it was a fierce, consuming need, her hands finding Wanda's waist and pulling her closer, as if she needed her as much as she needed air. Wanda responded in kind, her fingers slipping into Natasha's hair, tugging her closer as their lips moved together in perfect sync, every touch feeling like fire running through her veins, something primal. Natasha could feel her heart pounding and she was pretty sure Wanda could hear it too.

Their movements grew frantic, both of them losing themselves in the moment. Natasha could feel Wanda’s soft gasp against her lips as her hands roamed Wanda’s back, gripping the fabric of her shirt, anchoring herself in this moment. They stumbled slightly as they edged toward the bed, neither willing to break the kiss, not even for a second. Natasha barely registered the feel of the mattress at the back of her knees before they tumbled down together, Wanda's soft laugh breaking through, only for Natasha to capture it with another kiss, deeper, more unrestrained.

Their limbs tangled, hands exploring as they gave into the intensity they had held back for so long. Natasha ran her fingers through Wanda’s hair, tilting her head to deepen the kiss, feeling Wanda’s warmth, the way her body pressed against hers. She could feel Wanda’s heartbeat, as frantic as her own, their breaths mingling as they finally gave in, letting the world fall away.

Wanda's hands skimmed Natasha’s shoulders, tracing a path down her arms, her touch gentle but charged with electric energy, sending shivers through her. Natasha couldn’t hold back a soft, involuntary gasp as Wanda’s lips found her neck, trailing heat along her skin, igniting something deeper, hungrier. She pulled Wanda even closer, their bodies pressing together as they moved in sync, both of them surrendering completely to the moment, to each other, letting themselves finally fall into what had been waiting for so long. 

When they finally parted again, Natasha held Wanda close, her forehead resting against hers as she caught her breath. Wanda traced gentle, reassuring patterns along her arm, anchoring her.

“So…” Wanda whispered, her voice tinged with that same vulnerability Natasha knew was on her own. “We’re really doing this?”

Natasha nodded, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Yeah,” she murmured, her voice shaky. “We’re doing this. I mean, unless you don’t want it, which is totally okay.”

“Natasha.” 

“Yes?” 

“Shut up and kiss me.” 

Natasha felt her heart race, every part of her body vibrating with the determination in Wanda's voice. In her entire life, it was the first time she had gone to bed with someone not because of some stupid mission, but because she really wanted to, because she felt something for the person who was with her at that moment. And that scared Natasha more than she could admit. She closed her eyes tightly, pushing those thoughts away and focusing on the feeling of Wanda's lips against hers, on the way her hands slid tentatively over her shoulders and arms until they reached her waist and even more tentatively, slid under her blouse, gently brushing her skin. 

Her touch was warm and intoxicating and Natasha couldn't contain a moan when Wanda's lips found the skin of her neck again, biting lightly. Her hips rocked involuntarily against Wanda's, who was sitting on her lap, one leg on either side of her. Natasha abandoned all caution at that moment and slid her hands under the sweater Wanda was wearing, lightly scratching her back. She smiled in satisfaction at the moan that escaped Wanda's lips and did it again, gasping when Wanda ground her hips against hers.

"Fuck." Natasha moaned as Wanda bit and then licked her pulse point.

"I think that's what we're about to do, huh?"

"Oh, God." Natasha felt her panties get even wetter at the sound of Wanda's voice, husky and full of desire.

"Wanda will be enough."

Natasha's eyes met Wanda's and in them was a silent plea. Nat nodded, and lifted herself just enough for Wanda to remove her shirt. She was always very confident about her body, but when she saw Wanda's gaze, so raw, so intense and filled with true desire mixed with something else, Natasha felt her cheeks burn.

"You're so beautiful." Wanda whispered and leaned in to kiss her again. 

Natasha moaned softly against Wanda's lips as her hands explored her exposed skin tentatively but determinedly. It was almost impossible to keep her moans down, but she knew they couldn't make too much noise, for the sake of the children in the same hallway as them. 

Natasha bit the back of her hand hard to suppress a moan as Wanda's lips reached her breast. She had never experienced anything like this, a desire so intense, so true, so raw. And she needed to feel Wanda's skin against hers.

Natasha slid her hands to the hem of Wanda's sweater and with a silent request removed the garment. She took a moment to appreciate Wanda's beauty, feeling her mouth water at the sight that graced her eyes. Tentatively she slid her hands down Wanda's belly to her breasts, squeezing gently.

A low moan escaped Wanda's lips, and Natasha rose, kissing her with a desire she never thought possible. With a quick movement Natasha reversed their position and wasted no time began to distribute kisses along Wanda's jaw and neck, until she reached her breasts.

"So beautiful." Natasha whispered and her eyes met Wanda's again, with another silent request.

When she nodded, Natasha got rid of their jeans, and along with them their panties, eliminating any barrier between them. They moaned into each other's lips as their bodies touched for the first time, hips rocking against each other in a desperate search for contact, for friction.

Natasha slid one leg between Wanda's and nearly came right then and there at how wet she was. "Fuck, Wands."

"I need-" Wanda swallowed, her hips jerking.

"What do you need?" Natasha teased, rocking her hips slowly against Wanda's wet pussy.

"I need you, Nat."

That was enough to get Natasha moving, another time she would tease Wanda to the limit, but she needed it just as much and didn't want to waste time with games. Hopefully they would have plenty of other opportunities for that.

Gently, Natasha slid a finger inside Wanda, both of them moaning at the sensation. She began to move her finger slowly, and when she felt that Wanda was comfortable enough, she slid another one in. A louder moan escaped Wanda's lips and Natasha swallowed it with a kiss.

She moaned against Wanda's lips when she felt her slide a finger inside her and Natasha never thought it was possible to feel so much pleasure. Not really, and it was embarrassing how close she was to cumming.

Soon they found the perfect rhythm and their moans were muffled by the intense kisses as their bodies moved in perfect synchrony. It didn't take long for them to cum together, and that was, without a doubt, one of the best sensations Natasha had ever felt in her life.

As they lay together, Natasha realized she had never felt so vulnerable yet so completely safe, wrapped in the warmth of Wanda's touch, her hands on her skin, her breath brushing softly against her neck. It was as if every unspoken fear, every moment of hesitation, had melted away, leaving only the trust and certainty that whatever happened, they were here, together, completely lost in each other.

And as the night stretched on, Natasha allowed herself to fully surrender to the moment, letting go of every doubt and opening herself to Wanda in a way she never had with anyone else, trusting her completely, feeling the depth of their connection, and knowing that this was exactly where she was meant to be.

In that small, fire-lit room, wrapped in Wanda’s arms, Natasha felt a warmth and belonging she hadn’t thought possible. The rest of the world faded away as she let herself be completely, irrevocably lost in Wanda.

[a-reader-and-a-writer-for-all]

Sweeter Than Revenge Part 7

Fandom: Twisters, Tyler Owens, f!reader, Scott's Sister!reader Summary: After you kissed Tyler on his livestream, things between the two of you only continue to develop. Word Count: 3169 TW: Flirting, Kissing, Developing Feelings, Language Notes: A massive thank you to @blue-aconite and @green-socks for reading this over for me and for all the constant support! And to @mayhem24-7forever for always answering my late-night panicked messages

Divider created by me (please ask/credit before using)

Series Masterlist

You weren’t sure how long you and Tyler remained seated in the front of his truck with your lips pressed against each other, but far sooner than you would have liked, you heard Boone shouting from outside, “Hey, love birds! You’ll wanna see this!”

Reluctantly, you broke away from Tyler, both of you panting slightly as you gazed at each other. Then he winked before undoing his harness and climbing out of the truck. You took a deep breath, unhooked your own harness (after a momentary struggle), and opened the truck door.

The winds still rustled gently over the field as you eased out of the truck, your feet standing on the running board as you leaned against the door. About 100 yards in front of you, the tornado continued to twist and twirl through the grass as it made its way away from the truck. Now that your initial fear of driving into it had passed, you were really able to appreciate the magnificence and raw power of the towering wall of wind. It truly was a wonder of nature and you understood why people came from all over just to experience this moment.

You, Tyler, and Boone continued to watch the storm until it began to collapse several minutes later. The death of the tornado was in some ways just as beautiful as the raging storm itself. And as the last of the funnel disappeared, leaving nothing but dark clouds and a band of rain where it had once stood, it felt like a spell was broken as the world around you exhaled.

Looking at you from the other side of the truck, Tyler grinned. “Well, sweetheart, what did you think?”

“That was fucking amazing!” you cried as you jumped down from the truck. “It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in my life! Oh my god, Tyler, thank you!” 

As you reached him, you threw yourself into his arms, squeezing him tightly and burying your face in his neck. He laughed as he twirled you around and you could feel his heart racing in his chest, fueled by the same adrenaline that was flooding your system. 

When he stopped, you lifted your head. He was staring right at you, his green eyes sparkling like the stars he had shown you the night you met, his smile so wide that his dimples were on full display. You had never seen someone so breathtaking and full of life before. It was intoxicating.

He must have been thinking the same thing about you.

Tracing his fingers down the side of your face, he murmured, “What are you thanking me for? Chasing the storm…or the kiss?”

You licked your lips as you stared at his and whispered, “Both.”

“Good.” Tyler bent his head down until his mouth just barely hovered over yours. “As long as there’s no regrets.”

“Just that we waited so long to do this.” And you pressed your lips against his. 

You were still kissing when you heard several vehicles pull up beside you. You looked up to see Dani, Dexter, and Lily leaning out their windows, cheering and catcalling as they watched you and Tyler. 

Tyler took a step towards them, his hands raised, “All right, all right. Y’all had your fun.”

“Looks like you two did too,” Dani smirked as she held up a tablet and hopped out of her van. 

“I’m sorry we kind of ruined your video,” you said, sinking sheepishly into yourself.

“Ruined it?” Dexter chuckled. “We already have more views after twenty minutes than most of our videos get after being posted for a month.”

“Really?” You reached out to take the tablet from Dani so you could look, but she drew it into her chest.

“Um…you might not want to look at the comments.”

Your smile evaporated as you looked around at each of the Wranglers. “Oh. But I thought you said…”

Lily hesitated, fiddling with the goggles she just pulled off her head. “They liked the video but some people are just a little…” She hesitated as she struggled to find the right word.

Dani snorted, “They’re jealous. Tyler’s fangirls weren’t too happy seeing him swapping spit with the pretty new girl while they had to just sit there and watch.”

“Oh,” you blinked. That was not the answer you had been expecting.

Tyler placed his hand gently on the back of your arm. “We can go through and delete those comments and make sure everyone knows we don’t stand for that kind of stuff on our page.”

You shrugged. “Let ‘em talk.”

“Really?” Tyler asked, his brow furrowing under the brim of his cowboy hat. 

“Yeah,” you grinned. “If the cost of me getting to do this is a little online hate, I’ll gladly pay that price.” Then you planted another big kiss on his lips. 

Tyler wrapped himself around your waist and the next thing you knew, he dipped you backward, his muscular arms the only thing keeping you from crashing to the ground. It felt like a scene straight out of a romance novel. The Cowboy and the College Girl. 

Yet this was better than any romance novel because it was real. Tyler was real and he was kissing you and it was everything you had wanted since he drew you into his chest as you cried under the stars in the back of his truck the night you met. And you never wanted it to end.

Everyone was hungry after the morning of excitement so Dexter ducked into the camper van and reappeared several minutes later with a plate of sandwiches and individual bags of chips. Everyone else grabbed folding chairs from their vehicles, but Tyler lowered the tailgate of his truck, sat on the edge, and pulled you into his lap. You were a little uncomfortable at first, being so brazen in front of the rest of the crew, but you quickly settled back against his chest as you ate. Already, you felt like you just fit perfectly in his arms and you couldn’t stop the smile from stretching across your face as you chewed.

The other Wranglers exchanged a few looks and soft snickers, but they didn’t say anything. It was only as everyone was finishing up, that Boone addressed the elephant in the field. 

“So, is this gonna be a thing now?”

“Boone—” Tyler’s voice had a slight warning edge.

His friend held up his hands. “I don’t mean nothing by it, I’m just wondering.”

Before Tyler could answer, you leaned back so you could look at him directly. “You know, I’d like to know the answer to that too.”

There were a few ‘ooo’s’ from Dani and Lily, but Tyler ignored them. Holding your gaze, his green eyes shining with open sincerity, he said, “How about I like you a lot and am excited to get to see where this goes?”

“Yeah, I’m good with that.” He leaned down and gently kissed you on the lips. When he sat back up, you smiled. “You know, I’ve never been with a Southern cowboy before. It’s already been such a big change having a guy come pick me up each morning or walk me to my room every night.” Nudging his side, you added, “You might regret that because I’m starting to expect it.”

He grinned, his dimples on full display, and dipped his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

You settled back, snuggling into him as his arms tightened around you. 

“Aww!” Lily said. “You two are so cute together!”

“Yeah, just be careful you don't invite him in when he walks you to your room,” Dani teased.

Tyler rolled his eyes. “Oh, shut up.”

Everyone else started laughing but you had clearly missed something. “Um, why shouldn't I do that?”

Tyler sighed. “It’s nothing. They're all just idiots.”

Boone grinned at his friend’s annoyance. “Tyler said back in his rodeo days, the whole circuit traveled all over the country for competitions, staying in cheap motels like we do now.”

Dani leaned on Boone’s shoulder and picked up his story. “And whenever they’d hire a new girl to travel with ‘em, they’d warn her ‘don’t invite one of the cowboys into your room unless you plan on him spending the night’.”

“I never should have told y’all about that,” Tyler grumbled under his breath. Louder, he said, “It’s been a running joke since then. Even though it’s not true—” he shot Boone and Dani a sharp glare, and they held up their hands “—they never let me forget it. But I’m perfectly capable of going into a person’s room at night and leaving before the next morning.”

“Oh, so you’re love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy,” Dani said, nodding. “Nice.”

“Fuck you,” Tyler growled, tensing beneath you. It was obvious Dani was just teasing, but you had gotten to know Tyler well enough to know respect and courtesy meant a lot to him. And even just the insinuation that he might not treat you the way you ought to be treated hit a nerve. 

Placing one hand on his thigh, you gave it a tight squeeze. His face had lost all of the happiness it had just a moment ago, but you gave him a warm smile, hopefully reassuring him you knew the kind of man he was. 

Then, you turned back to the rest of the Wranglers. Popping a chip into your mouth, you asked, “So…any of you ever invite Tyler in just to test out that theory?”

Everyone was quiet for a moment. Then Lily spoke up. “No…but he does share a room with Boone.”

Boone’s head shot up at the sound of his name. He had started fiddling with his camera when things got tense between Dani and Tyler, so he blinked, clearly trying to figure out what he had missed. Then, with a huge smile, he exclaimed, “Oh yeah! Ty and I always share a room. Sleeping with a friend is much better than sleeping alone.”

There was a pause before everyone burst out laughing. Boone looked around, not quite understanding the joke. As the conversation shifted into poking fun at Boone and the other Wranglers’ sleeping arrangements, Tyler pressed his lips into your hair, just above your ear, and whispered, “Thank you.” 

You could already feel the tension easing out of him and you squeezed his leg again in acknowledgement. After all the times you had leaned on Tyler for support in the last few days, it felt nice to actually be able to do something for him for a change. 

The rest of the afternoon, you rode next to Tyler as the crew looked for another storm to chase. Boone had made some excuse about needing to talk to Lily about the quality of their live stream so he rode in her van. You weren't sure whether that was his idea or Tyler’s, but you weren’t complaining about having a bit of alone time with the lead Tornado Wrangler. 

It seemed now that the line had been crossed, neither of you could keep your hands to yourselves. The confined space of the truck cabin along with the restrictive nature of your seat belts limited your methods of contact but you still found ways around those obstacles: While Tyler told you about growing up in Texas, you nodded along as you trailed your fingers through his hair. While you explained what you were going to school for and what you wanted to do after graduation, he smiled and played with the strap of your tank top. While you both discussed your favorite movies and music, your hands were linked across the center console. 

By the time Tyler pulled into a motel for the night, your body was aching for more of him. At one point, you had to force yourself not to squeeze your legs together or let out a soft moan as he rested his hand on your bare thigh just below the frayed cutoff bottoms of your shorts. Yet you couldn’t stop your toes from curling in your boots as he began absentmindedly rubbing his thumb in circles over your skin. As soon as you got the key to your room, you were going to have to take a very lengthy cold shower.

But it wasn’t just the physical moments that had your heart racing as you climbed out of the truck. There was never a moment of awkward silence or uncomfortableness, just effortless, engaging conversation and laughter. You had learned so much more about the cowboy and every little new thing just made you like him all the more. 

After Tyler helped you out of the truck, he left to book the rooms for the night. You unloaded a few of the bags out of the back—including your own—and looked around. Strangely, you didn’t see the faintest trace of Storm PAR. None of their vehicles were in the parking lot and you couldn’t spot a single one of their signature polos mingling around in the crowd of people settling in after the day of chasing. 

Hopefully something hadn’t happened in the field today…

“Hey.” You turned to see Lily approaching, holding out a piece of paper folded into a small square. “I saw Javi when we stopped for gas. He asked me to give this to you. Said Storm PAR is staying on the other end of town tonight.”

Think of the devil… You took the paper from her. “Did he say why?”

“No, but I sort of got the impression he was in a hurry to get back to his truck so I didn’t ask.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

As Lily walked away, you opened the note. The handwriting was a bit sloppy and hard to decipher, almost as if it were scrawled in a hurry, but you read:

He’ll deny it, but Scott watched today. Might want to keep your distance for a while.

You smiled as you reread it. Yeah, Scott probably wasn’t too happy to see you locking lips with Tyler and you were sure to get an earful about that at some point, but Scott had watched the stream. Maybe it was just so he could say he told you so and rub it in everyone’s face if you chickened out, but you couldn’t help but think—hope—that he might have been watching because he was worried for your safety. Could it be that your big brother cared about you after all?

“What’s got you so smiley?” 

You looked up and held out the note for Tyler to see as he got closer. “You might want to avoid my brother for a few days. Seems he caught our little make-out session this morning and I have a feeling if he didn’t hate you before, he does now.”

“I’m not worried. I can handle Scotty.” He wrapped his arms around you and pulled you in, twisting you so your back pressed against his chest. Then he rested his chin on your shoulder. “But how are you feeling about him seeing that?”

“I’m…good. When I first got here and came up with this stupid plan, I would have been thrilled that he saw us. I would have tracked him down and rubbed it in his face just to see his blood boil. But now—” you tilted your head and nuzzled it against Tyler’s “—I don’t care what he thinks or how he’s reacting. I don’t want to waste any more of my energy on him. I just want to focus on us.”

“Hmmm,” Tyler hummed, the sound vibrating through your body. “‘Us’. I like the sound of that.”

“Not too presumptuous?”

“Not at all,” he said, tightening his arms around your waist. “I’d be more than happy to be part of an us with you.” 

The two of you remained standing by Tyler’s truck, swaying gently wrapped in each other’s arms for several minutes. You would have stayed there all night if you could, but the adrenaline of the day began wearing off and you struggled to keep your eyes open. Reluctantly, you whispered, “I think I should be heading to my room.”

Tyler nodded against you. “Would you like an escort?”

“Always.”

He gave you one final squeeze before releasing you. Then he grabbed your backpack from where you had tossed it on the ground earlier, and he threw his other arm across your shoulders. Walking with your head resting on his chest, the two of you made your way across the parking lot and up the stairs to your room. It was becoming a familiar routine but this time the walk seemed too short and, in no time, you were standing in front of your door. 

You opened it and turned to face Tyler. “Thank you for everything today. The storm a-and us.”

He reached out and brushed his thumb across your cheekbone. “I’m just sorry I waited. I shoulda kissed you the first night after I walked you to your room or when we were lying in the back of my truck. I knew then that I wanted there to be an us.”

“Me too.” Pressing your forehead against his, your eyes fluttered closed as you whispered, “Why does it feel like I’ve known you for years when it’s only been three days?”

He hummed back, “I don’t know, but I feel it too. Like...you’ve always been here with me. Is that crazy?”

“No. It’s a bit sappy but also romantic as fuck.” 

Tyler snorted, the brief burst of air tickling your nose. Then he whispered, “I should go.”

You nodded, opening your eyes. You didn’t want him to leave but the intensity and speed at which your feelings for him were developing almost scared you and you knew inviting him to stay was not what was best for either of you right now.

Yet as he reached for your hand, you pulled it away. With a sly smile, you said, “Uh uh. Tonight, I want a real kiss goodnight.”

Tyler grinned, flashing his dimples. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.” 

Wrapping his hand around the back of your neck, he pulled you into his lips. Though the two of you had been kissing throughout the day, none of them had been like this. There was a heat, a fire burning under his skin that had never been there before. He pressed into you, his body flush against yours, and you couldn’t hold back as you moaned into his mouth. All of the need you had been feeling in his truck came rushing back, and you could feel the tension already building in your core. 

But just as you began maneuvering so you could grind against his thigh, Tyler pulled back. You gasped at the sudden loss and looked at him, mouth agape. He just smiled and whispered, “Think of me tonight, sweetheart. I know I’ll be thinking of you.” Then, he was gone.

For the third night in a row, you went to bed cursing that son of a bitch who was quickly stealing your heart.  

Part 8 coming 9/30!

[ikamigami]

DOCTOR'S HEART

Most of people assume and I think rightfully so that Simon Smoke was contained in the tube were Doctor's heart was stored before.

Many of those who believe that Doctor isn't dead think that he's still alive because we didn't destroy his heart.

Honestly it's a really probable scenario but there's one thing that bothers me if that's what would turn out to be true.

Why Doctor's heart would be more important than his brain for his survival?

That's why I mainly focused in my theory on Doctor transferring his consciousness elsewhere cause the theory about heart keeping Doctor alive didn't make much sense to me.

Don't get me wrong. It's horror game with pseudo-science so basically anything could happen. But Mob Games still try to ground the experiments in reality. Even if the line between fiction and science is really blurry here.

Doctor fully transferring his consciousness into digital world with his own great mind combined with computer performance within 10 years is possible considering what he was capable of up to this point.

He was able to successfully transfer human brains and nervous systems into completely new bodies and make it work.

And he was working on his own brain so he knows exactly what works and what doesn't work.

Let's say if he was able to transfer his consciousness into digital world what would he need his heart for?

Clearly his heart wasn't in the place we expected it to be. But why Doctor saved his heart and not his brain that was definitely more important to him?

You wouldn't expect him to save his heart. He definitely doesn't seem like someone who values his heart over brain.

I was thinking about it for quite some time cause this is important.

Devs definitely didn't leave more than one loophole for potential Doctor's return because it would create plotholes if eventually Doctor will come back.

If Doctor returned via his heart not being destroyed then fans may think that it's too far fetched and it's an asspull because his brain is what makes the Doctor to be who he is.

But on the other hand if Doctor returned as digital entity then fans will definitely ask about his heart.

For a long time I couldn't come up with reasonable explanation for this issue.

If Doctor would come back as digital entity he wouldn't need a heart anymore.

But if he was alive simply because of his heart then it would be still easy to kill him. We would just have to destroy his heart.

But then why bring him back at all? Just to kill him again?

I can only imagine such scenario if Poppy Playtime had a good ending. But horrors usually have bad endings so I doubt that with Poppy Playtime it'll be any different.

Bringing Doctor back just to kill him isn't an option.

Sure they may not bring him back at all but they left many hints to let us believe otherwise.

Could it be that Doctor just destroyed his own heart himself cause it was reminding him of his emotional turmoil caused by trauma that I'm pretty sure that he has even if he may not be aware of it himself (he may not realize it or consider something a trauma)?

Or maybe Doctor hid his heart somewhere where no one will find it? Not even us. Not even the Prototype. (see what I did here? :D)

But why would he even do that?

Exactly because of trauma and his own emotions that he doesn't understand and is not even fully aware of.

I think that Doctor's heart is something more than just his heart. It's a symbol. This is exactly where devs can apply the metaphor. A metaphor for Harley Sawyer's trauma.

His heart is hurt (lol I know sorry ;D) from however he was treated in his childhood and from all the betrayal and backstabbing he experienced later.

Even if he isn't aware of this it definitely left an impact on him. Like I said in one of my previous posts Doctor is still a human but a very broken one with very twisted mindset.

I can imagine him wanting to get rid of his emotions entirely hence why it'd make sense for him to destroy his own heart. But on the other hand he may keep his heart not even understanding the reason why.

Doctor's heart locked away somewhere where no one could find it may symbolise his wounded self being hidden and unreachable for anyone.

It's like a last attempt at protecting oneself to not get hurt anymore. But in this case it's not literal but symbolical.

Doctor won't die if we destroy his heart. It just means that no one can reach to his heart. In his digital form he's untouchable. No betrayal could ever hurt him. Not anymore. It's like building walls around your heart.

I think that this would really make Doctor more humane.

He's a monster but he wasn't born this way.