#why do I gotta always turn everything into goddamn Star Wars | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

deniigi · 4 years ago

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hi I have something for y’all called a disaster.

I wrote an Inimitable!Spiderman/Modern Star Wars AU because no one can stop me, not even myself. it is like 47 pages long. I am handing it tenderly to y’all.

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Title: impossible scenario

Summary: Peter runs into some drunk assholes arguing, calling each other Han and Luke. He lets it roll off him until he can’t anymore and eventually finds himself for the first time on the other side of someone more chaotic than himself.

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There was an argument happening under a fire escape. Peter knew about it because a concerned dude wearing a fuckin’ Yankees cap had flagged him down with waving arms and told him that someone needed saving, Spiderman. Some tall asshole was kidnapping a young blond dude, the guy and his too-cool-for-him girlfriend explained. They’d heard the two scuffling.

Peter maybe stared for a beat too long at them because the gal pointed two blocks behind him and said, “That way. I think the blond guy might be drugged. He’s slurrin’ something strong.”

Peter liked her shoes. They looked like Miles’s, but blue.

“Spidey?”

Miles told Peter all the time that he wasn’t cool enough to wear Jordans. MJ and Johnny had agreed. Such sad times.

“Spidey.”

“I got it,” Peter sighed.

The gal tsked.

“Man, you’re too young to be this jaded,” she said.

Peter sighed.

“You’re the third person to say that this week,” he said. “You think I should go back to therapy?”

There was a pause.

“You know that answer, dude,” cool-gal said. “Go save the twink.”

Twink. Got it. Thank you, citizen.

“There are websites for that shit, Spidey.”

Bye now.

“Apps, even.”

Bye, bye.

“BetterHelp or Headspace or somethin’—”

“Two blocks, you said?” Peter asked.

Two blocks away, there was indeed a man with dark hair trying to lift a violently intoxicated twink up onto the first steps of a fire escape. Peter examined his options. There were many ways to ruin a potential kidnapper’s day. His favorite involved coke and mentos, although he’d received feedback that that was a waste of perfectly good food. Down the list was also the option to walk over and scream bloody murder so that the kidnapper shat themselves and dropped their target.

That was good, but Peter was tired and the thought of mustering up the energy to scream at a noticeable volume made his thighs turn to Jell-o.

That left snark and violence.

Today, he would not choose violence. Only for today.

He strode out of his dark temporary residence between two dumpsters directly towards the tall dude and his mark. The mark was a messy one. Bless his heart, he was unwittingly making himself the most noncompliant victim to have ever victim-ed. Every time the tall guy got him almost vertical, he gave up his corporeal form to become drunk slime and ooze back to the ground with various moaning sound effects.

It would have been funny if not for the kidnapping context.

The fact that Peter had been standing there under the beams of two separate side-building security lights and neither of those two had noticed yet was also objectively funny—or would have been, if Peter had the capacity for processing humor at the moment.

Alas. This was what he got for telling Tony that he’d evolved beyond the need for sleep. He got caffeine-pilled. And there would be no true rest until that shit wore off, exhausted as Peter’s body yearned to be.

“Kid, work with me here,” the tall guy said.

“I can’t, I’ll die,” the shorter one moaned.

“Luke.”

“I’ve done my time—thirty years in AZKA—”

“Keep your voice down, oh my god.”

Peter was just standing here, fellas.

“Luke.”

“Why’s it always me? Why’s it always gotta be me? The hell did I do to piss off the whole galax-galaxy? HA. My bad, my bad. The whole universe?”

God, what a mood.

The tall guy dropped his grip on the smaller one and loomed over his puddle of ooze with poison in his gaze.

“People are going to die, Luke,” he said.

“So what? They’re always dyin’. Everywhere I go, people’re dyin’ and when it’s not them dyin’, you know who is?”

“Kid.”

“ME.”

“So you’re just gonna wallow there, feelin’ sorry for yourself?” the tall dude snapped.

“Sure am,” the puddle of ooze hummed.

This was not a kidnapping. This was a come-to-Jesus in the back alley of a bar. Peter was not needed here. He turned around on his heel and stopped when he heard a sharp intake of breath.

“Is that?” someone whispered.

“Don’t mind me, pal, just your friendly neighborhood—” he started.

“Look what you did,” Tall and Handsome hissed at Ooze-Man. “Someone went and called Spiderman on us.”

Peter lifted a brow as Ooze-man ripped its chest up from the asphalt and composed itself back into a human shape with fluffy blonde hair and huge wide eyes.

“Omigod, it’s Spiderman,” the guy said. “Wait, no. Gimme a hand. No, not that one, fuck off, nevermind, I don’t need you.”

He drew himself up to standing, only leaning slightly on his buddy there and gave Peter as lopsided smile.

“Hi, there,” he said with a twang that Peter couldn’t place. “Were you lookin’ for someone, handsome?”

Ah, they had reached the time of night when all the drunks needed to tell Peter things he already knew about his ass. He loved this time.

Not to mention that this dude looked eerily like Johnny. Scarily like Johnny. So much like Johnny that Peter almost wanted to take a picture of him to send to Sue so that she could print up some lost and found posters.

“Just lookin’ at you, babe,” he said. “This guy botherin’ you?”

The tall guy blanched and then grabbed at his face in horror. Peter swallowed his laugh.

“He sure is, hon. You got time to rescue me?” Blondie crooned.

“Luke, please. Please.”

“Because I’m in real distress,” ‘Luke’ said with a pout mighty enough to fell Thor.

“You sure seem like it,” Peter said. “C’mere. I’ll walk you home. Leave that tool, he ain’t worth your breath.”

He held out an elbow like proper gentleman and was pleased at the hand that Luke laid over his heart in response.

Peter could imagine Johnny’s face in six different expression of jealous horror at a selfie taken with this look-alike. Each was beautiful in its own special way. As payment for being referred to counseling by the public, he at least deserved to receive at least two of those faces.

“You mean that?” Luke asked him.

“He doesn’t,” his tall companion said.

“I sure do, where do you live? I’ll walk you,” Peter said.

“Oh my god, I’m gonna cry, he’s gonna escort me,” Luke said, all choked up and fanning his eyes lightly.

This tall friend grabbed him before he could escape, though, and pulled him back behind his own body.

“Listen, Spidey, this is a misunderstanding,” he drawled. “I know this idiot—he is technically my idiot— and I’m the one escorting his ass home. Thanks, though. You’re a real menace. Beat it.”

MMMMMMM.

And here Peter had been planning on being jaded and miserable this fine night. How could he now when this dude was ticking every box that made him feel alive?

“What’s your name, dollface?” Peter asked across the short distance.

“None of your business,” Tall Guy answered abruptly.

“Luke,” Luke said around him. “Are you gonna save me?”

“In just a minute,” Peter said, striding forward with a hard roll in his shoulder and deep drop in his knees.

It was amazing how Tall Guy wanted to take some steps back all of the sudden. Peter couldn’t help but let a smirk widen his face as he advanced.

“Okay, hang on now,” Tall Guy said with both palms out in front of him. “You don’t know what this is about, Spidey. You don’t want to get involved with this, trust me. He’s just bein’ dramatic. No need to get testy.”

“You sure do a lot of talkin’ for your friend there,” Peter noted through his grin.

“Yeah, Han,” Luke said.

Ha.

Han. Han and Luke. Ned was gonna be enraptured when Peter told him about this later.

“Luke. Back me up.”

“Why should I?”

“Because,” ‘Han’ finally snapped. “I’m not doin’ this because I want you to suffer, alright? I don’t want nothin’ to do with it either, okay? No one does. But it’s this or—”

“Or everyone else,” Luke finished for him in a strangely toneless voice.

Han sighed.

“It’s always everyone else,” Luke said.

“Not here.”

“Why’s it always everyone el—No, no, here. Why not? We’ve got fucking Spiderman in our midst, how much more surreal can this moment get? No. You listen to me, Han—”

“I’ve been listening to you all damn evening and you know what I’m hearing?”

“—I lost my life for this. I lost my home, my aunt, my uncle, my hand—”

“I’m hearing you making this about you.”

“—everything I ever knew, and I tried to make it right, didn’t I? I made the school. I gathered the kids—”

“And it’s not just about you this time, kid. It’s not about you, it’s not about me, or Leia, or Chewie or—”

“—I lost my kid and the love of my life, and I finally get a second chance at finding them and giving them the goddamn happy ending they deserve, and the next thing I know—”

“Luke, you’re the only one,” Han said.

“I WAS NEVER. THE ONLY. ONE, HAN,” Luke roared out of absolutely nowhere, sober as a saint. “I was never the only one. EVER. Ahsoka. Go find her. She’s everything that I’m not and more. She’s the real—”

“Luke.”

“Stop saying that name. I HATE that name. I would do anything for twenty goddamn seconds where I didn’t have to be him.”

“You don’t mean that,” Han said quietly. His shoulders had rounded out and become black and heavy under the weight of their shadow. Luke’s eyes, however, looked like topaz.

“I mean it,” Luke said.

Oho.

So shit had gotten real tense, real fast, so Peter about to make a decision that was gonna make Shelley so proud of him she would weep when he finally slunk back in through her office door.

He was leaving. He was turning around and taking a wee jog. Maybe turning a corner, having a little jump over a fence, up a wall, to a place as far away from this one as superhumanly possible.

Bye, bye.

“This galaxy needs you, Luke.”

Peter stopped five paces away.

“They need you,” Han repeated. “And I need you.”

Peter slowly looked back to see that Luke’s face had twisted sharply out of the light, towards the alley wall.

“I’m sorry that we met again like this,” Han said quietly. “I’m sorry it’s always you. You don’t deserve this. No one deserves this.”

“Shut up,” Luke said.

“But if you don’t do something, then it won’t be just me and you and all these random others sliding back into that cesspit we all barely crawled out of.”

“Stop.”

“You’ll never find him if things go back the way they were.”

“You—you don’t know that. There—maybe—”

“Luke. Listen to me. Please.”

“Maybe there’s a chance—”

“Luke,” Han said reaching out and putting a hand on Luke’s shoulder and clenching it hard enough that Peter should see the bunched fabric, “Do you want Din to live through this shitshow a second time? Hasn’t he suffered enough?”

Peter shivered. The pressure at the base of his neck was building. The Spidey Sense wanted to hiss in his ears like white noise. It pinned him where he was, staring over his shoulder at those two solid shapes, one digging a hand into the flesh of the other.

His stomach turned.

Luke said something that Peter couldn’t hear. Han pulled him toward his own body by the grip he had on his shoulder. At first, Luke seemed to stagger, like he was walking on black ice. He stopped a single step away from Han’s body, still with his face angled severely away. Han said something to him.

There was a long pause, then Luke seemed to fall forward. Han caught him and crushed his head into his shoulder, lowering his own until it was almost touching Luke’s ear. They clung to each other.

Luke was crying.

The Spidey Sense started to crackle and pop in Peter’s ears.

“I gotchu, kid,” Han said in a rasp. “I gotchu. We’re gonna get through it.”

Peter blinked once and finally unlocked the muscles in his neck. He wasn’t meant to witness this. He held out a wrist and fired a line.

It was weird.

It was just weird.

Something wasn’t right. And Peter couldn’t make his stomach not writhe about it.

Luke.

Han.

An offhand mention of like, characters. Character names. They were character names. Leia, Chewie.

Peter had heard of people who lived their lives honestly believing that they had been other people—fake people—in past lives, but like, damn man. Why would you put yourself in a position like that were you were moved to actual tears for some elaborate street-drama?

Maybe it had been a joke? That was the only thing he could think it could be. Maybe the universe had gazed upon his hubris at work and gone ‘ah yes, I know what this young man needs: emotional confusion at midnight on a Thursday. That’ll fix him.’

If that was the case, then yeah. Good job, universe. Good job, larpers. Y’all are equally sick.

But if not—and Peter no longer lived in a world where he could rule out any possibilities—then he had just witnessed—Dude, he’d just witnessed—

He couldn’t even think it. It was beyond him. It was so far beyond him that like he might have a real stroke taking the thought seriously.

There was only one person who could hold that kind of information unscathed.

Only one.

PP: Ned. I need you to listen to me and tell me I’m not crazy.

NL: no promises but go on

PP: I think? I just saw? Luke Skywalker? And Han Solo? In an alley behind Kitty’s?????

NL: fascinating

JS: Say more

PP: who let you in here?

JS: you?

PP: SECURITY

NL: Peter say more

PP: I can’t there’s a nerd in here and it’s vibrating at the wrong decibel. SECURITY???

MJ: yeah?

PP: I’m trying to have a breakdown. Can you remove Matchstick please?

MJ: what kind of breakdown

JS: he thinks he met Luke Skywalker

PP: Security has failed me. God?

NL: Peter can you name three things you can see.

PP: I am not manic. I am in touch with reality. I’m just having anxiety because I just fucking saw two people calling each other Luke and Han fighting behind Kitty’s. Like real fighting.

JS: nicknames?

PP: I—

PP: oh my god nicknames

PP: Johnny I’m so sorry I ever doubted you. never leave my side

JS: 😊

MJ: wow that’s cringe. Imagine naming yourself after SW characters

NL: does kitty do a cosplay night now????

PP: idk it was wild. People thought that ‘Han’ was trying to kidnap ‘Luke’ but when I got over there, Luke started flirting with me and then shit got real and they started arguing over like him hating his name and not wanting to do something and losing everything or some shit

NL: that’s a lot. I’m sure it was nothing, though, peter.

PP: yeah it was. My SS has been going nuts ever since I left. You think they bugged me?

JS: yes I will come search your body imminently

MJ: my job storm, back off

JS: after MJ has finished prelim checks, I will then search your body for you out of the kindness of my heart ❤

NL: that’s weird, the SS doesn’t usually freak out about cosplayers

PP: ikr?

NL: lol imagine if they were serious

MJ: don’t say that

JS: well now we have to lean in. thanks ned

JS: they were definitely real. God they were so real. You hear that Fate? You got us. They’re definitely real.

PP: BUT WHAT IF THEY WERE?

MJ: cue breakdown

NL: that would be so fucking funny. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo trying to save the world from the hellscape of nyc. The rats alone would thwart them.

PP: ned I’m freaking out

NL: oh you mean you’re actually freaking out?

PP: deeply

NL: oh shit sorry. I’ll be over, have you slept yet?

PP: NO

MJ: on it

JS: can I join?

NL: no johnny

MJ: no johnny

PP: 😭

JS: one day our love will build a bridge, peter. In the meantime I am stroking your ear comfortingly from midtown

Need and MJ’s weight pinning him to a mattress brought sleep but not necessarily comfort. They both thought that this was a sick joke someone had played on him that was now destroying his psyche. They thought that the couple pointing him back towards the cosplayers had been in on the joke.

Peter would have agreed with them if it wasn’t for the Spidey Sense. Everything else lined up perfectly.

Ned sighed in the morning and told Peter to go talk to Wade.

Wade’s hallucinations were, by far, more auditory than visual, but he stayed quiet while Peter talked his ear off over the phone in his locked office. He waited until Peter had run out of words to describe the feeling of impending doom and then huffed a bit of a laugh into the receiver.

“Them Star Wars people are unreal, Pete, you know this,” he said. “Look at Ned.”

Ned was perfect.

“Take off those rosy shades, hon. Now, look again.”

Ned had perhaps memorized the entire scripts of the first three movie and 90% of the spaceship names and the jedi lineages.

“Uh-huh. Keep going.”

Peter didn’t want to.

“We all gotta do shit we don’t want do.”

Fine.

Ned’s goal in life was to go to his wedding in a stormtrooper suit.

“Keep going.”

Every Lego project they’d built together since 13 years-old had been a Star Wars-related one. When Ned had decided to move out of his parents’ place, he’d shed actual tears over MJ and Peter mutually suggesting that he sell some of his memorabilia.

“Will this delightful buffet before our very eyes, what is the likelihood of your two pals being drunk larpers in too deep to quit?” Wade asked.

73%.

“Uh-huh.”

“Thanks, Wade.”

“No problem. Although, now I gotta see this. You said they were behind Kitty’s? You think I can get a stormtrooper costume in 8 hours?”

“They’re not still gonna be there, Wade,” Peter huffed. “It’s 10 am.”

“You ain’t know that. What if Luke Skywalker’s a useless drunk, huh? You ever think of that?”

No.

“What’d he look like?”

Peter groaned.

“He looked like Luke Skywalker,” he said. “Blond hair, blue eyes—sort of like a chipmunk that forgot its stripes.”

“I’m onto you, Skywalker.”

Peter hung up to Wade’s cackle. He slouched low and tapped his pen against his desk. Then against his fingers.

He stared at the edge of his keyboard.

“What’s the weirdest thing you could imagine, Pete?” he asked himself.

PP: sam

SC: yeah?

PP: do you like star wars?

SC: nah

PP: you’re perfect

PP: do you believe in past lives?

SC: like spiritually or culturally? I know I was a cult-kid for a min there but before that we were Buddhists and like, past lives are part of the package

PP: that’s cool. What do you think of people being reborn as themselves again like, 500000000 years later? From a galaxy far far away?

SC: I don’t think about those people

PP: okay well, hypothetically. Let’s say that you were going to imagine someone who embodied that whole spirit. Who would it be?

SC: Buddha

PP: not buddha

SC: is this a riddle? Is it Jesus?

PP: THOR. Thank you this has been helpful ily bye

Mr. Stark asked him over a cup of viciously black coffee why Peter was seeking out the demigod of his present nightmares.

That usually meant that he and Thor had disagreed on basic physics principles again. Peter took that also to mean that the demigod was still in the building. Possibly loose.

“He’s with Banner,” Mr. Stark said scathingly.

“Thanks, you’re amazing,” Peter said as he sailed out of the room.

Thor was sitting on Dr. Banner’s lab table, despite Dr. Banner telling him to get off no fewer than two times in the five minutes that Peter was in there, schmoozing and making pleasantries. He warmed Thor up to the home-run hit by asking him all about past lives and present lives and what the soul was on Asgard. Thor was only too happy to explain a load of nonsense that made Banner roll his eyes and poke at his muscles with a thermometer.

“So, hypothetically speaking,” Peter drawled in a very casual lean, “With the infinite galaxies and universes, etcetera, there could be one where Star Wars people exist. And so hypothetically, they could get reborn into a universe like ours.”

Thor blinked at him.

“You remember the laser swords?” Dr. Banner deadpanned.

Thor lit up.

“I suppose it’s possible,” he told Peter indulgently. “But if that was the case then it would be a long tragedy, no?”

…yes…

Say more, Thor-man.

“Well,” Thor said with a big, happy smile, “The series of events that unfolded in that story seemed to me to be one of triumph and tragedy. With one would come the other—that’s how these stories work, yes?”

…yes.

“So if Master Luke Skywalker and his companions arrived into our space here, then they must experience the same in order to be themselves,” Thor said, bobbing his head in pity. “Perhaps what would look like a new start for such people would result only in terror and disappointment until the same conclusion was reached.”

Peter felt his own grin twitch.

“So it’s not impossible?” he asked.

Both Thor and Banner looked at him quizzically at the same time.

“Peter?” Dr. Banner asked. “Is this coming from somewhere?”

Peter’s grin twitched so violently, it turned into a grimace that even superstrength would not let him maintain.

“Can I borrow one of you?” he asked.

Wade was not happy to be met outside of Kitty’s in the middle of the day, especially because his stormtrooper outfit, in his words, ‘did no justice for the size of his balls.’

Peter was ignoring that. He dragged Thor past Wade’s righteous anger until he was standing on the place where the other two had stood the night before. Thor stood there gamely.

“There,” Peter said. “Any like, energy signatures?”

Thor glanced around and shrugged.

Wade scowled at him and hounded him off the spot so that he could stand there instead.

“I feel nothing,” he said, devoid of emotion.

“Same,” Thor said.

Damnit.

“Perhaps you are—”

The Spidey Sense smashed through all of Peter’s sense and screamed at him to get to the street.

Get to the street. Get to the street. Get to the—

There.

Across the way. Chipmunk, no stripes.

That was the guy from the day before. He was on the opposite sidewalk smashed in with the crowd, dragging a hand through his hair and laden with a backpack and two separate totes. He was wearing a strange set of clothes—a mash of casual and formal—and seemed to be in a hurry, the type of hurry that involved pushing past folks at a half-jog and not stopping at streetlights.

“Got ‘im,” Peter hissed.

“No shit?” Wade asked over his shoulder.

Thor made a sound of interest.

“I see him, too,” he said. “What incredible energy, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Wh—

Peter whirled on him.

“Don’t you fucking say that,” he warned. “I’m gonna go distract. You two, on my six.”

Peter broke four traffic laws on his way around the block. He swung himself around a corner and fucked up the collar on his labcoat and counted to four before stepping out right into ‘Luke’s path.

They collided. Luke stumbled back and dropped one of his totes.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Peter blustered. “Are you okay?”

Luke swore and dropped down without answering, collecting the odd ends of metal that had clattered out from his bag and now rolled loose over the pavement. Peter stooped to join, gathering rings and pipes of all sorts of sizes in his hands. Oncoming folks gave them a wide berth.

It took a moment for Luke to realize what Peter was doing, but when he did, his shoulders went stiff as a board.

“DON’T TOUCH THOSE,” he snapped, just as Peter made to pick up a little plastic bag with a wad of tissue inside it.

Peter froze.

“Oh. Sorry,” he said.

This time, Luke finally met his eye.

“Oh, Jesus. No. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Luke blustered, “Thank you. I’ll—I’ve got them. Thank you, though. It’s okay.”

He took the metal out of Peter’s hands and stuffed them back into his bag. He snatched the plastic bag before Peter could touch it and put that on top.

“Excuse me,” he said as he stood. “Thanks again.”

And just like that, he hurried off past Peter down the pavement.

Peter watched him go.

“Catch?” Wade asked softly from the corner.

“Negative,” Peter said, reaching into his sleeve and holding up the thin aluminum tube he’d hidden up there by the edge of his shirt-sleeve.

It was shiny and longer than he’d expect for any plumbing project. The inside appeared to be coated with some sort of heavy, non-reactive material, and half of the outside had grooved bands carved into it.

“Someone’s building something,” he said.

“Mid-century sink?” Wade asked, taking the tube.

“Nope,” Peter said.

NL: That is a lightsaber hilt

NL: where did you get that? It’s like mega accurate. Was it etsy?

PP: I stole it

NL: give it back

PP: I can’t I stole it from Luke Skywalker.

NL: Peter.

NL: we talked about this.

PP: He’s Luke Skywalker. I swear on the grave of my mother

MJ: this is a problem. This is now an intervention.

PP: I will prove it. If he’s Luke Skywalker, then he will do ANYTHING to get this thing back.

NL: and if not?

PP: then I will wait two days before politely tracking down his home address and then I will return it via wall crawling

JS: UM

JS: SORRY

JS: PETER CAN YOU CALL ME?

PP: no

NL: no

MJ: no

JS: are

JS: are you sure??? Because there’s a guy in Reed’s lab right now talking to him and Sue, asking SUPER politely for access to—I shit you not—the crystals we picked up from that space trip the other day???

NL: …

PP: …

MJ: …

PP: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

MJ: fake

NL: no way

PP: WHAT’S HIS NAME, JOHNNY BOY????

JS: I can’t

PP: nope you gotta

JS: I can’t I’m gonna cry I didn’t ask for this

MJ: out with it

NL: please say it’s obi-wan

JS: HHHHHHHHHHH

JS: nope

JS: just a guy named Ben 🙃

PP: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

PP: I told you motherfuckers

JS: right. So like. Awkward. But you uh, know that hilt thing you have?

PP: …is Obi-Wan Kenobi about to beat my ass, Johnny?

There was something about putting the hilt into the palm of someone more famous than Captain America that made Peter’s knees weak.

It did not help that Luke Skywalker had flirted with him the other night.

It did not help that Luke Skywalker didn’t recognize him as Spiderman.

Nothing helped, really, especially when those big topaz eyes lifted and Peter could see that their rims were red and raw.

“Thanks,” Luke Skywalker—the embodiment of hope itself—said in a soft, defeated rasp.

Every alarm in Peter’s head said to save him. Save him from what? How? Who knew.

Ned and MJ seemed to feel the same way, if the pressure on each of his arms was anything to go by.

“Well, that’s all cleared up, then. Thank you so much for your help; it is deeply appreciated,” a stupidly pleasant gentleman with a perfectly combed beard and lovingly coifed light hair said to the room at large.

Obi-Wan Kenobi—pardon, Ben Kennedi—was far more handsome than any movie could ever dream to make him. What they’d done to him in the 1970s, Peter saw now, was a fucking crime. He watched as this beautiful human being set a warm hand on Luke Skywalker’s—pardon, Luke Naberry’s—shoulder and used it to steer him towards the Baxter Building’s front entrance.

He watched as the two of them, like true Master and Padawan, stepped out onto the landing and opted for the stairs. For one fleeting, unbelievable second, Luke looked back over his shoulder at all of them before taking the next step after his Master.

He was right the other night.

He wasn’t the only jedi. Not anymore.

“So that just happened,” Sue acknowledged for everyone after the door had clicked closed and the sound of footsteps had faded off to nothing.

“I’m going to cry,” Reed announced.

“This is single-handedly the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Ned said.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi walked into our kitchen,” Reed told Sue like she hadn’t been there right next to him.

“The empire is trying to establish itself under our very feet,” Sue said back a little viciously.

“The real empire,” Reed whimpered.

Wait.

No, go back.

“For real?” Peter asked.

Sue and Reed looked back at the rest of them and then exchanged a look.

Peter was sad now. Depressed and laid out on his side staring back at Valeria’s huge eyes on the floor while Ned and MJ and Johnny asked Reed and Sue two hundred clarifying questions.

Peter didn’t need the specifics. He was thinking back on the conversation that he’d witnessed between Luke and Han Solo—Han Solo who was tall with dark hair and dark eyes and an accent straight out of New Jersey. Solo who had probably been charged with forcing Luke to face the facts in front of all of them because he was the one who Luke trusted most.

But it had shattered them—both of them.

The New Hope had given up everything. He was tired. His heart was torn. He was jaded just like Peter had been that same night. He’d been avoiding the tightrope that Peter had already started crossing, though, probably looking for every possible way to not have to set the first foot on that wobbly line.

He’d walked it before.

Valeria reached out with a chubby, round hand and touched the side of Peter’s face.

“Spiderman,” she said with terrifying understanding, “Someone needs help.”

He wriggled in close enough to bonk heads with her.

“Baby Storm,” he whispered, “I think you’re right.”

MJ thought that Peter needed to leave things alone. She pointed out that he had plenty of problems without getting involved in universe-saving. She gestured to Johnny and volunteered him for the job.

Johnny refused on account of needing to be the prettiest blond in any room. He claimed that if he wasn’t, he had to fight for dominance.

Ned was on the other end of the spectrum. He had 43 reasons why Peter should get involved with things, and 40 of them ended up in the same place which was ‘it would be cool.’

One of Ned’s better reasons, however, involved pointing out that Peter had already stolen half of a lightsaber. He was good and involved now, whether he wanted to be or not. And that was enough for Peter to decide to go on a hunt to give a formal apology.

He recruited Ned to help him locate Luke Skywalker.

That didn’t work.

They tried Luke Naberry.

That didn’t work either.

They ended up going through every possible iteration of every Star Wars name they knew and then filtered out the people who’d been named by exuberant parents and then filtered out anyone who didn’t live in New York and they ended up with fat lot of still nothing.

It was like Luke Skywalker didn’t truly exist in this world.

Until MJ found his Instagram by typing in ‘guys who look weirdly like Luke Skywalker.’

She held the phone aloft in triumph and they all gathered round to gape in awe at her intelligence and research skills.

Luke’s Instagram was nothing but pictures of coffee.

He had one selfie and this selfie was enough to have gotten him onto a BuzzFeed article. In it he was holding—you guessed it—coffee. Iced coffee. One in each hand.

He was shaking them, and one had been labeled with his name—hence the public connection made.

“Someone needs to tell him that coffee is not a food group,” Johnny observed.

“Maybe he works nights,” MJ said.

Ned lifted an eyebrow.

“Maybe this is his job,” he said.

There was a pause.

Some snooping revealed that Luke was an honest to god food website editor. He was a cameraman.

Repeat. Luke Skywalker, cameraman. He filmed all the food hosts for his company’s Youtube channel. He edited videos. He more or less blended into the background of everything, while having his finger prints on damn near everything.

This was a man after Peter’s own soul. They were kindred spirits in hidden identities, content creation, and suffering under a boulder of responsibility too great to cope with.

He had to find him now.

And after they had his Instagram it wasn’t too hard. He seemed to hang out in various parts of the Bronx and Peter just so happened to know some folks out that way.

Louis told Peter that he would never speak to him again if he found, befriended, and then didn’t share Luke Skywalker (the man, the real man, I’m not fucking with you, Louis). But he also recognized a place on Luke’s instagram that he seemed to be working his way through the menu of. He sent along an address and told Peter not to forget his promises.

Angel asked why he was looking for Johnny Storm in the Bronx.

Peter left Louis to rattle sense into her.

He took a walk on Saturday morning. A long walk. A long train ride, then a walk, then a half hour of squinting, and then, lo and behold, he found a blond guy banging his head into the center of an out door metal table across from a woman with heavy braids trailing down the sides of her neck. She was much older than him and drummed white-painted fingernails across her cheek as she thought.

Peter hid and called Ned and MJ for an ID. He peeked the phone’s camera out enough for them to see the other two and then snatched it back.

Ned was about to flip a table.

“That’s clearly Ahsoka Tano,” he said. “She—the braids, dude. Dead give-away. And she put ribbons in them, like what even is discretion?”

Peter didn’t know that person. He continued not to know this person, even as Ned dragged him through a trainwreck of Star Wars lore.

“So she’s a friend,” he said.

“She’s like a jedi, but not like a jedi, she was a jedi, but then she said ‘fuck the order’ and—”

Great. Peter was approaching.

Ned held his face in his hands. MJ told Peter to report back on his findings. Peter ended the call and inched closer, weaving through the crowd and slipping into the coffee joint to see what nonsense they were selling.

It was nonsense with lots of syrup. He could never say no to syrup.

He watched the two outside while waiting for his order. Luke gesticulated to his friend and she spoke, giving reasonable gestures back. He stopped her and dug out his phone and that little plastic baggy full of fluffy material. He answered his phone. His friend took the little bag and held it up to the light.

She frowned at it.

Luke pushed away from the table and walked away to take his call. Peter’s order was called. He grabbed it and swerved out towards the patio.

“Hello,” he said at the edge of Luke and his friend’s table. “Is this seat taken?”

Luke’s friend stared at him.

“It is,” she said. “Move along, hon, you’re ten years too young.”

Wow.

“For your friend?” Peter tried. “Could I leave my number?”

He had this lady’s attention now. She was looking him up and down, appraising. Peter tried not to flex. He stayed cool. Matt-levels of cool. He smiled winningly.

“Alright, why not?” she said, digging through her bag for a receipt and a pen. Peter beamed as he leaned down to scrawl his number down on the back. He got halfway through before he heard a step stop nearby.

“Look alive, kid,” Luke’s friend said. “Hey, Luke, this guy was just—”

“You again?” Luke said.

Peter lifted his head and brows.

“Hi,” he said. “I just wanted to apologize.”

There was a long silence.

Luke’s friend looked between them and then gave Luke a long, judgmental stare.

“You don’t have to,” Luke said. “Thanks, though. How did you find me here?”

Mmm. Beginner’s luck.

“Here,” Peter said, offering his number on the receipt. “If you ever need someone to talk to who gets it.”

Luke’s friend bit her lip and looked away in secondhand embarrassment. Peter ignored her for now.

“Thanks,” Luke said. “You don’t and you won’t. But you’re very pretty.”

Nice.

“You’d be surprised,” Peter told him. “Gimme a text. I’ll leave y’all alone now. Enjoy your coffee.”

He left. But not before hearing, “but that ass, Luke.”

Ned told him that there was no way that Luke was ever going to text him and he was disappointed in Peter’s hostage-taking skills.

But he was proved wrong two hours later and, for his crimes, had to admit Peter’s brilliance publicly.

LS: hi sorry. This is Luke. This morning when you stopped by our table, did you happen to see a little plastic bag on it?

Why yes. The one in Peter’s pocket right now? That bag?

PP: hi!! I did, actually. You guys aren’t very subtle 😏

LS: it’s not coke

PP: I’m not judging

LS: no, it’s not coke, I swear. It’s something INFINITELY more important. Did you happen to see if it had fallen on the ground?

PP: ah, no, sorry. I didn’t see it

PP: OH NO

PP: oh my god I’m so sorry, I think I took it with me when I accidentally took your friend’s pen.

LS: I

LS: what’s your name?

PP: Peter ❤

LS: Peter, you have a fucking problem

LS: I’m starting to think that you want something from me. And listen, you’re a handsome guy, but I’m not available and my type isn’t kleptomaniac. What do you want for it?

PP: well you got me

PP: to talk

LS: about what?

PP: mostly about why you look like you’re a wet phonebook in a bad gutter

LS: a phonebook???? What era are you even from????

PP: I could say the same to you, sir.

LS: I

LS: wh

LS: alright touche. The point is that I’m not going to talk to you. I just need that bag back. It’s a life and death situation.

PP: what are they? They aren’t coke crystals.

LS: how would you know?

PP: what are you, a cop?

LS: NO. This is going nowhere. What. Do. You. Want?

PP: To. Talk.

LS: I’m not going to talk to you.

PP: then why did you ask me to rescue you?

He held his breath.

LS: I didn’t

PP: you did

LS: I didn’t ask you for shit. This is it. What’s your last name.

PP: Man 😊

LS: Man what

PP: That’s my last name.

LS: Peter Man.

PP: oop, nope, sorry. That’s someone else.

LS: …so I’m calling the police, now. That’s what we’re saying?

PP: depends. Do you still need to be rescued?

Come on, Skywalker. Come on, remember.

LS: I never asked you to rescue me.

PP: You did. Think back.

LS: I didn’t

LS: I just made a joke to

LS: WHAT AFAJSDFA DTTH E FUCK

Peter cackled and let himself fall onto his back.

PP: Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ❤

LS: YOU’RE

PP: Just your friendly neighborhood guy ❤

LS: YOU

LS: you

PP: me

LS: THAT’s how the storms knew you

PP: yep 💋

LS: I don’t even know what to say

PP: it’s okay, you don’t have to say shit. The main thing I wanted you to know was that I hear you. And if you need it, I’ve got you.

LS: You’re literally trying to rescue me??

PP: it’s my job

LS: IT ISN’T. How have you never been arrested? how did you find me? Did you track my phone? Is it some kind of spider thing???

PP: yes

LS: I am legally obligated to kill you with the force now

PP: harder daddy

LS: ADaaSDASFSDFSdd

LS: oh my god Han is going to lose his gourd

LS: I’m sorry I just I can’t believe you of all people stole my damn hilt

PP: I’ve got……………………..sticky fingers

LS: go die

LS: no I didn’t mean that sorry that’s a thing with me and my sister. I mean, okay. You got me. Hero of NYC.

Peter’s cheeks were starting to hurt.

PP: I’ll bring them back to you.

LS: Please do, Ben’s about to have a stroke.

PP: you mean obi-wan?

LS: he’s convinced his cat ate them. There’s a staring contest happening. No one has blinked in two minutes and I don’t want to be here for the internal investigation.

PP: where do you live?

Luke sent an address. Peter held his phone high and walked it into the living room where Ned was bitchily composing an Instagram post. He and MJ looked up at the same time.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Peter said. “Luke Skywalker and Co. live in a cemetery.”

It wasn’t a cemetery. It was a funeral home, but close enough.

Luke was waiting outside on the stoop in a cardigan about four sizes too big for him. It was there probably to protect him from the equally large ragdoll cat in his arms.

Peter smiled. Luke stared at him and then shook his head and went through the screen door. Ned gave Peter a biting look.

“Made friends, I see,” he said.

“We’re doin’ great,” Peter told him, hopping up the stairs. “Look at us, totally—”

“Insidious.”

Peter stopped and turned nervously to see through the screen door where Obi-Wan Kenobi had seized both of the cat’s cheeks. Luke continued to hold it with maximum doneness levels.

“Where have you been?” Obi-Wan asked the cat seriously.

“We have guests,” Luke said. “Take your beast.”

Obi-Wan snatched the cat out of Luke’s arms with contempt all over his face.

“You are a villain of the highest order,” he told it.

“Ben. Guests. Please evacuate. I am hosting negotiations,” Luke said.

“We should have named you ‘Sith.’”

“Ben.”

Peter was not going to laugh at Obi-Wan Kenobi. That was too surreal.

“Come in,” Luke said, returning to hold open the screen. “I hope you’re not allergic. There are two of them.”

T-two?

“The other one is Junior.”

Peter stepped over the threshold and found himself in a room that looked like a human birdhouse. It was full of surfaces that were almost completely empty, as though an enrichment object had once lived there but had been removed as punishment. Luke waved Ned and MJ in and accepted their apologies on Peter’s behalf.

Peter ignored them to lock eyes with a creature more stunning than any he had ever encountered. It sat on the kitchen counter by a single clear jar labelled ‘Not Spice.’ It blinked grumpy green eyes.

“Oh, it’s these people again?”

They all looked behind them to see Obi-Wan peering around a doorframe with the first cat draped over his shoulders.

“Kleptomaniac,” Luke said, pointing at Peter. Peter waved.

“Huh,” Obi-Wan said simply. “I will distract Ahsoka.”

He vanished. Luke grimaced after him.

“Let’s go talk in the back,” he said. “There are no bodies, I promise.”

The funeral home had a little deck and a yard small even for this far out in Queens. It was crammed full of plants that appeared to be in a competition to bloom. Luke invited them to sit and then left to make coffee.

Coffee, yes, how had Peter forgotten.

He peeked over the side of the deck down where there was a large stone set in the center of the garden.

“A seeing stone,” Ned whispered to him.

“Oh, how did you know?”

They all jumped.

Peter swore that Obi-Wan hadn’t opened that sliding door. How had—what—

Ned was at a loss for words in the face of one of his greatest heroes.

“I—uh. M-movie? I mean, sorry. It was in The Mandalorian, second season, with the—”

“Yet more television,” Obi-Wan said derisively.

They all stared.

“Can you teleport?” MJ asked him.

“I thought you were bothering Ahsoka?” Luke asked, from inside. He squeezed past the man and his cat with three glass mugs in hand. He set them down on the little square table off to the side of the desk railing.

“I was, but then I got curious,” Obi-Wan said. “And I lost Junior.”

Luke stared at him.

“I’m going to lock you in the basement,” he said.

“Try, try, and try again,” Obi-Wan told him, petting his beloved cat’s head.

“Do you even know who Spiderman is, old man?”

“More television.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Peter had to keep a conscious watch on his jaw, lest it fall open in the face of the most handsome, clueless man on the planet. He watched as Obi-Wan, disgusted with all this ‘television’ nonsense skulked back off into the guts of the home. Luke shut the door behind him.

“So,” he said, holding out his hand. “We’re talking. Fork ‘em.”

Ah.

Fair was fair.

Peter produced the plastic bag from his pocket and handed it over. There was a shout somewhere inside followed by someone going ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’

“Ben keeps our home ghost free. He terrifies all the wannabee haunters,” Luke said simply. “Thank you for these. I imagine it’s somewhat of a shock to learn that it’s all real.”

It was, but it wasn’t the weirdest thing Peter had encountered by far.

“How long have you lived in New York?” he asked conversationally.

Luke gave him a weird brow.

He seemed smaller than before in that enormous cardigan. Certainly smaller than the movies made him seem. His face was a little thinner too, and his lips seemed to slope into an almost permanent pout.

“About twenty years,” he said. “We were born in California, but Anakin moved us here when we were eight.”

Anakin? Like, Darth Vader, Anakin?

“’Luke, I am your father’—yeah, that guy,” Luke said with a scoff. “Except, you know, he ain’t dead. And he’s the only one who can make Ben remember that tea isn’t a meal, so we keep him around for that and to scream back at Leia.”

Peter was already completely lost to the dynamics of this household. It wasn’t like the books and movies—Ned’s twitching for his phone to take notes was proof enough of that.

“That’s awkward,” MJ said. “So did y’all do like, collective counselling for the past life shit?”

Luke deflated and moaned into his hands.

“It’s not past life shit if your damn name is the same,” he said. “It’s complicated.”

It sounded like it.

Imagine growing up with your apparently-Star War-obsessed father and uncle who’d built a home and a business (presumably) around that shit, only to find out later that they’d done it because it was literally their religion.

What a trip.

“When did you find out?” Peter asked gently.

“Oh, you know. Last week,” Luke said with a bitter grin. “Quit my fulltime job. Dumped my ex. Broke my lease and now here I am. Once again. Back at this place.”

“Do you want a hug?” Ned asked into the awkward silence.

“You’re very sweet,” Luke said. “If I touch another human, I will start crying and never stop.”

Yikes.

Barely holdin’ on by a thread there, buddy? How’s the hyperawareness going?

“Why does it matter, is my question. For you, I mean,” Luke said with a suspicious squint. “You fought a goblin guy, didn’t you? With a hover board?”

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, yeah.

Yeah, Peter sure had done that.

“And like, the bird dude? Didn’t you down a plane?”

Perhaps.

But Luke had blown up the Deathstar, no?

“These things are not equivalent,” Luke said flatly. “I joined a rebel alliance. There were loads of us.”

Mmm. Perhaps so.

“God, how old are you even? You look 22.”

Peter gawked.

“I’m 27,” he said.

Luke did a double-take.

“That’s a lie,” he accused. “Tell the truth or be compelled.”

“By the Force?” Ned asked hopefully.

Luke blinked at him. He pointed at the glass sliding door which revealed Obi-Wan holding Junior the cat above his head by the kitchen sink.

“The Force,” he said.

Ned’s face fell.

“Do we not have the Force, here?” he asked.

Luke flinched.

“Listen,” he said abruptly, “We’re workin’ on it. This isn’t our original galaxy. The rules are all different. The only one who’s managed to make even a spark happen is Obi-Wan so far, but as soon as we find Master Yoda, it’s over. We’ll already have won.”

“You lost Yoda,” MJ mused.

Luke stammered and caught himself.

“We lost a lot of people,” he snapped. “It happens when you shift galaxies. Anyways, that’s what the stone is for.”

MJ glanced back at the stone and then leaned her forearms onto the small table.

“So, let me get this straight,” she said. “You jedi folks all popped up over here by some cosmic accident. You don’t have the Force. Most of you don’t even remember who you are. You lost your most experienced Master, and you’re going to fight the Sith?”

Peter stirred his coffee nervously.

Luke’s eye twitched.

“We don’t need the others,” he said. “We only need the Force. To fight the Sith. Yes.”

MJ frowned deep and held her chin with both hands.

“So you need the thing you for sure don’t have the most,” she said.

Luke opened his mouth, but not before the window by the door snapped open and Obi-Wan leaned out to say, “We always have the Force.”

Luke covered his face in despair.

“I was listening from the kitchen window,” Obi-Wan told him lovingly.

“GO FIND CODY ALREADY,” Luke roared at him.

“I did, he’s right here,” Obi-Wan said soothingly, stroking his angry cat.

“The other Cody.”

“Oh, I am trying, don’t you worry.”

“Ben, so help me God—”

“Force.”

“SO HELP ME FORCE—”

Star Wars had really left out the part about Luke’s explosive temper. Peter winced, but Ned laughed and the sound seemed to have a calming effect on Jedi-on-Jedi crime about to take place in the kitchen. Obi-Wan appeared pleased with this development and emboldened. He wove past Luke out onto the desk and came over, cat and all, to point down to the seeing stone in the middle of the garden.

“Others who feel the Force’s energy will be drawn to it,” he told Ned fondly. “It’s how we got Luke back home.”

“It’s not,” Luke said. “You called me.”

“And so others will also come,” Obi-Wan said with confidence. “The most important thing is that we believe in the Force. And from that, we will find guidance and power and—”

“He means Yoda,” Luke translated. “He’s been putting frogs on it as an offering, even though me, Ahsoka, and Anakin told him that this is a human’s world. A human’s world, Ben. Even if he did eat them, he’s not eating them raw.”

“Don’t be discouraged by Luke’s attitude, he is very stressed,” Obi-Wan told Ned and Ned only affectionately. “I told him not to be, you see there are four of us here already, and the Chosen One is among us.”

“Anakin told you to stop calling him that,” Luke moaned, massaging his temples.

“He was the first to be aware of our present situation,” Obi-Wan said.

“He took a hallucinogen and had a paranoid breakdown,” Luke pleaded. “Ben, please. Go inside. Think of your blood pressure.”

“Perhaps, but it was a useful breakdown, was it not?”

“I am so sorry for him, he’s getting senile,” Luke said to the rest of them.

“Your energy is different,” Obi-Wan informed Peter out of absolutely nowhere. “Are you also Force-sensitive? Were you drawn to the stone?”

Er.

No.

Sorry?

“He’s Spiderman,” Luke said, gesturing pointedly. “Remember Spiderman?”

Obi-Wan did not. Peter suspected, actually, that Obi-Wan still used phonebooks, if he used phones at all, that was.

Luke took a deep breath and let it out.

“Okay, let me just lay it out,” he said. “We’re doing the best we can with what we have. You don’t have to get involved with this. We appreciate your help, but what would help us even more is if you stay out of it, alright?”

Yeah, okay. Sure. Peter could respect that.

“Amazing. And don’t tell other people.”

Understood.

“Unless they’re Force-sensitive,” Obi-Wan said. “In which case, ask them how they feel about rocks.”

Luke just stared at him coldly this time.

“You didn’t used to be like this,” he said dangerously.

“No, I used to be stressed,” Obi-Wan told him. “But you and Ani are doing that for me, so I have resolved to be a free spirit. Nice to meet all of you. Have more coffee. I don’t like this one; I will have it out of the house by sundown.”

He left, and possibly for good this time. No one knew what to say in his absence.

“So,” Peter tried, desperate for something to break up the tension. “You said a few days ago that you were looking for someone?”

Luke finally stopped making growling faces towards the sliding door. He lit up like a bulb.

“I am, actually,” he said.

Luke was looking for a very particular person named ‘Din.’ He described him as ‘six feet tall and covered in armor.’ He asked if they knew of such a person.

Peter had to shove a hand against his mouth in case he made an unwanted connection between this description and Obi-Wan behavior.

“Haven’t,” MJ said. “Who is he?”

“My husband,” Luke said.

Ned choked.

Peter choked.

MJ tilted her head.

“You have a husband?” she asked. “I would have remembered a husband in that series.”

Luke leaned his chin on his palm and gazed sideways over the city. He seemed to sigh.

“I don’t know why he isn’t connected to me in the media created here,” he said. “It’s probably because he’s always been very shy.”

Oh, aw. Peter loved that. The contrast between them was heart-warming.

“We had a son together,” Luke said. “His child. He brought him to me. One of my students, at first.”

Hang on a minute here.

Peter exchanged a glance with Ned. Ned tried very hard to pick a way to approach this sensitively. He landed on asking, “What was his name again?”

“Din,” Luke said. “Din Djarin.”

Ned cringed.

“He was a Mandalorian,” Luke explained. “Very, very, very shy. Like, he would rather chew off his own leg than make small talk with a stranger. I think, before I knew all this, I was still subconsciously looking for him. All my exes are the same type.”

That—

Okay, so like.

Did these people own a TV?

“Do we look like we own a TV?” Luke deadpanned. “No. If Ben senses anything bigger than a datapad happening in this place, he’s driven to madness and breaks it.”

UH?

“He doesn’t actually break it,” Luke sighed. “He just finds a way to make it unusable—putting clothes on it, disconnecting the monitor, that kind of thing. He thinks they waste electricity.”

What a guy. Peter wanted to put him and May in a room and see what conspiracies they could spin together.

“Why do you ask?” Luke asked.

Ned cleared his throat.

“Do you have a, uh, datapad, then?” he asked.

“DIN. That’s DIN. He’s got his own show. Oh my god, that’s—stay right there. Don’t move.”

Bless this man. Peter wanted to hug him so bad. They’d lost him to the staircase leading up from the second floor to the attic. Peter wondered who he was showing the tablet to.

Maybe Obi-Wan?

“I told you this already,” a voice up there said.

“LOOK AT HIM.”

“You’re killin’ me, smalls. We had this exact conversation last week. Did you forget?”

“You knew where he was.”

“Alright, alright. Downward march.”

Anakin fucking Skywalker came down the stairs with a handful of Luke’s shirt in one hand and the tablet shoved under his other arm. He paused and frowned at the three of them in the kitchen frozen in shock, and then apparently decided that that didn’t matter. He carried on dragging Luke with him towards the kitchen counter. He dropped the tablet onto it and Peter realized that the lower half of his sleeve on that side was empty.

He watched as the guy let go of Luke and chased the not-angry cat off the counter, cursing.

“Alright, this?” he said, tapping on the tablet. “Is the link I put here.” He rapped the same finger on what Peter now saw was a whiteboard covered in rows upon rows of symbols that he’d never seen before.

“Din here? Din here. You see?” Vader told Luke with untold patience.

“I can’t read that,” Luke moaned. “You lied to me.”

“It’s up in the kitchen, Luke.”

“You’re a liar and a cad. Do it in Basic.”

“This is Basic.”

Oh, dear. All that fanfic about Luke meeting Darth Vader and having a breakdown was looking real embarrassed now, wasn’t it?

“If it’s Basic, why can’t I read it?” Luke demanded.

“Because, like I told you last night, the night before, and the night before that,” Vader said painstakingly, “It doesn’t all come back at once. It’s going to take time.”

“We don’t have time,” Luke snapped.

Vader leaned his head back with half-lidded eyes. Luke didn’t look even remotely like his kid, even with him looking all pre-quels-like now.

“We talked about this, too, remember?” Vader asked.

Obviously not. Luke was distressed. He had eyes only for the tablet now.

“No, of course not, silly me,” Vader said. “Why are humans here?”

“Ahsoka went home,” Luke said.

“Thank you, that was not my question.”

“What was your question?”

“Why are non-order humans here?”

“I told you, Ahsoka went—”

“Son, I will kill you if you continue to act like Obi-Wan,” Vader said without missing a beat.

“You can try,” Luke said offhandedly. “But only one of us has two handed grip.”

There was a long stare.

“It’s Obi-Wan,” Vader told him. “Why do we have living guests?”

He gestured back to Peter, Ned, and MJ like they were flies on a set of blinds.

“Oh, because that’s Spiderman and he stole your kyber crystals,” Luke said.

Vader rounded on Peter, and Peter actually felt fear.

Vader blinked once.

“This may as well happen,” he decided somehow placidly. “I’m going back upstairs. Where did your grand-master go?”

“Into the mist,” Luke said. “Can you feel Din?”

“Negative, ghostrider.”

“When the Force chooses you first out of favoritism, can you feel for Din?”

“Ah yes, can I feel for your Force-repellant life partner with all of the Force energy that I do not have? Yes, I sure can.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Anytime, primary monstrosity of my loins.”

UM?

This felt a little hostile for Peter’s tastes. Not that it wasn’t earned. Clearly it was earned. It was just horrifying.

“Guests, you are dismissed,” Vader said in their direction. “Unless you’re drawn to the rock outside, in which case, you may stay. Otherwise, do not darken this doorstep again, or else we will leave you with the other dead in the morgue.”

“Thanks for bringing the crystals,” Luke said from behind him. “And for talking. I do feel better, actually.”

They left the funeral home. Obi-Wan was outside by the mailbox as though waiting for them. Peter wasn’t sure he had any emotional energy left to approach him with.

“Thank you for speaking to Luke,” he said as the three of them attempted to pass unnoticed. “It’s good for him to talk to others his own age.”

Uh-huh. Good night, sir?

“Good night, Peter, Ned, and Michelle.”

They hadn’t given their names.

They definitely hadn’t given their names.

Ned wasn’t sleeping for two years. He made this clear with a lot of clapping gestures and then rolled around on the floor, talking about all kinds of shit that Peter couldn’t decipher. MJ watched him and flicked her eyes up to Peter with concern on her forehead.

“That family is cinematically dysfunctional,” she said.

Correct.

“They’re barely their own characters.”

Correct.

“What now?”

Peter wasn’t sure. The best he could think of was to just keep an eye on the situation. Maybe check in every couple of weeks?

“If you say so,” MJ said. “I think you made Ned’s life, by the way. Good job.”

Peter tried checking in every two weeks. It started because he happened to hear of a tunnel collapsing in Queens nearby the funeral home. He texted Luke to ask if he needed a save and all he got back was a ‘well, not anymore.’

After that, Peter kept a close eye on happenstances occurring around the city. There were more than he bargained for. And when he glanced at Luke’s Instagram after the first week after the tunnel collapse, he noted that two of the nails on the hand Luke held his coffee to the camera with had gone completely black.

That was worrying.

Peter was used to be the danger-prone asshole in his friendgroup. He did not like this role-reversal. MJ asked him sarcastically what the problem was.

He texted Luke again.

PP: how many nails do you have left bro?

LS: we put a hole in one to release the pressure

PP: that don’t sound great bro.

LS: it’s fine. Oh, but good news

PP: oh?

LS: the most predictable thing ever has happened. The Vader has regained force power

PP: that’s worrying

LS: ? why?

PP: won’t he go dark?

LS: ah, no. He fucked up and raised me and Leia with Ben this time after our mom died. He had his chance to go dark and traded it for 8 consecutive hours of sleep instead.

PP: I truly don’t know what to say

LS: It’s fine we did 12 years of family therapy after the accident so we are no longer on the DSS watchlist

PP: I know less what to say

LS: he won’t find din :/

PP: is that your priority right now?

LS: aren’t you supposed to be spiderman or something? Don’t you have chaotic things to say?

PP: you know normally I do, this is literally out of character for me. but I think you also might be absorbing my chaos.

LS: that’s fair. I have that effect on people. Hey, is your buddy Ned available to chat? He knows more than I can remember about my old life. Can I borrow him?

That sounded like a horrendous decision.

PP: yeah let me get you his number.

LS: thanksssss

Ned reported a few days later that his services were needed at the funeral home. He was leaving them all now to befriend Luke Skywalker as was his true destiny.

He came back a few hours later and reported that his services had been helpful and he was pleased to say that Darth Vader was now the official herder of ‘wans’ in the house. This included all Obi-Wans and padawans.

He seemed to be the only guy there who could like, retain information given to him for some reason. He accepted this as his lot in life and went around repeating the same things to the others ad nauseum until they finally stuck for them.

Peter wondered if that was his personal hell.

Ned didn’t think so. He thought the guy was pretty chill about it and had probably been doing it for a while now. He did it more for Ahsoka Tano and Luke than he did for Obi-Wan. Although that was probably because Obi-Wan appeared to be on a hunt that made all non-relevant information given to him slip off his back like water.

Another two weeks. Another text.

PP: hey luke, I saw you drowning on the news. You okay?

LS: GOD my ex-workplace keeps calling welfare checks on our house. We’ve had more cops here then flies these last few days.

PP: ex-workplace is one way to refer to your old job. Sounds like they cared about you. What did you do?

LS: preschool teacher.

Peter was going to lose his shit right here on this bed.

PP: was that your calling?

LS: that was Luke Naberry’s calling. Luke Skywalker’s calling is to make the lightsaber go vrrrrrrm

PP: you honestly terrify me

LS: thanks han says the same thing. OH. HE FOUND CHEWIE.

PP: no shit??

LS: yeah I told Ned, not you. But yeah. He found him lugging boxes for a bodega. And now they both work at the same bodega. Which like, objectively, is a bad thing because Han was a UN translator.

PP: I’m

PP: sorry

PP: what?

LS: I know he was all respectable and shit. It was awful. I can look at him again without feeling like I’ve failed in every part of my life.

PP: dare I ask what your sister does?

LS: lawyer

PP: not senator?

LS: we’re not old enough to be senators.

PP: every moment becomes more concerning than the next. You fascinate me. This is why they put you in like, all the films.

LS: because I’m sexy yeah

PP: that too

LS: not to you. I’m off-limits bub. I’m married.

PP: how’s that going for you?

LS: Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

PP: I see. So no Din yet?

LS: I will find him if it kills me

PP: that’s so romantic. Hey you should watch that series. They gave him a little green yoda in it. Really cute.

LS: that’s my son you piece of shit

There was no winning here.

MJ asked him a few weeks later if he was still keeping up with the Jedi drama since the whole city had recently decided that Peter was a snack.

Obviously he hadn’t.

She told him not to worry, Ned had. She told him to talk to Ned, so he went and talked to Ned with a heatpad in one hand and a coldpack in the other.

Ned patted at him sympathetically and informed him that Luke had reunited with the Force. It was going poorly for him, mostly because the Force wasn’t used to people being in touch with it in these parts of the universe. It kept telling each of the jedi that there was a disturbance and then luring them to each other to fight to the death.

Luke described it as the Force-equivalent of an auto-immune disease.

They’d taken to gathering in the living room of the funeral home to meditate in a circle, as though to calm the Force’s anxiety while scenting each other for protection.

It had a 40% success rate. Everyone was sleeping in locked rooms for the time being, just in case someone got compelled to do something rash.

Peter asked Ned if he’d finally lost his crown as King Chaos of NYC.

Ned patted him on the knee more firmly than before and said that he could regain his crown by introducing a calming element into the jedi household.

Peter had his pride to defend, so he asked what that element ought to be.

Din Djarin, the Mandalorian, the leader of all Mandalorians, was bound to have a name that looked nothing like the one they had for him. Luke nearly exploded when Peter approached him to asked him (and his taped fingers) more about who Din Djarin was outside the name.

They proceeded with caution, however. So far, Peter and Ned had discovered only dissonance between Luke’s account of his life partner (his ‘heart, stars, sun, and sand’) and the guy on the screen for the tv show. That was to be expected, given that they had met Luke now and learned of his somewhat explosive personality.

But even still, Luke’s description of Din Djarin as ‘kind, compassionate, tender, shy, emotionally stable, dependable, sweet, caring, and hunky’ seemed slightly biased.

Peter just wanted to know how tall this guy was. Hair color. Eye color. Skin color. Blood type. That kind of shit.

Luke said that Din had brown hair, brown eyes, Type Who Knows What blood, and was about six feet tall. He had no idea how much he weighed. He’d never had need for that information. He knew that Din was human, which was probably helpful in a galaxy far, far away. He knew that he spoke Mando’a as his first language, then Basic, then a whopping fifteen others. And he knew that Din was probably looking after their son.

Vader asked Peter over a mug of coffee (also labeled in the funeral home’s cabinet as ‘not spice.’) if Spidersenses could overcome a dearth of information. It took Peter a few moments to realize that he was sympathizing with him.

“You’re not going to find Din,” Vader told Luke. “You need to look for the kid. You’ll find the kid first, you always have.”

Luke took his coffee and poured it down the drain.

Peter decided that he didn’t want to get in between that burgeoning battle. He told Luke to text him if he remembered anything else.

Wade was pissed that Peter had been meeting and ‘cavorting’ with Luke Skywalker without him. He claimed ownership of the Din Djarin mystery in order to cram himself into Luke’s good graces. But quickly, he ran into the same stumbling blocks as Peter.

Din Djarin was six feet tall with brown eyes and brown hair.

That was what they currently had to go on.

Wade would have torn out his hair if he had any, but he stopped himself and accepted the challenge. Peter watched over his shoulder as he chicken-pecked his way into a list of social security numbers held by the NYC State ID issuing department and started methodically filtering names that did not sound like ‘Din.’

He started broad with all ‘D’s and then narrowed it down further and further and further until he was left with a shitload of Daniels.

He stared at the screen before him and vibrated.

Peter massaged his shoulders before he cracked.

It helped. Wade started filtering by height, then by eye color. Then by hair, and only ended up with several hundred people.

He vibrated again, but this time, Peter couldn’t help him.

He sighed. Wade said that there had to be a better way to do this. He got up.

Wade made about four thousand missing posters with the name Din Djarin on them which he recruited the whole team to plaster up around NYC. This was not a request.

Miles asked him why they were doing this for a tv character and had to be let in on the gig.

He lost his shit.

Louis tried to retain his shit.

Angel still didn’t know how the whole jedi thing worked.

Dave hummed and haw’ed and took his time in calling bullshit. Wade asked him to look deep into his eyes and ask if he was entertaining bullshit that fine evening.

Dave changed his opinion and took a stack.

There was no way that shit was supposed to work. There was just no way. A) because Wade had the worst ideas of all mankind and B) because Peter had the worst luck of all mankind. So the two of them together should have destroyed all the prospects of success for that job.

But instead, while they were hatching a new plot involving setting up a sham sociological study for people who responded to Star Wars names, Wade’s phone went off.

He grabbed it and opened the message and lo and behold right there was a note that read,

“I hope you are not a reporting body because this is going to sound certifiably insane, but I think I might be the guy you’re looking for?”

Wade screamed.

Peter scolded him not to get too excited too soon. They had to see the man first.

Wade texted furiously, asking for a picture and got a message back that said, “please do not dox me.”

They got no answer until Wade promised not to dox the guy.

And then they got an image of a man with brown hair and brown eyes with olive skin. His face was remarkably square. The picture wasn’t just him, though, he had in his arms a little boy with a head covered in tight ringlets. His eyes were so dark they were nearly black and he was maybe two years old.

The caption said, “apologies, my son needed to be in the picture.”

Wade cooed and entered Dad Mode to ask how old the baby was and what he liked to do and Peter lost the fathers to that small talk for a while before Wade oh-so-casually asked, “So you feel like you’re from outer space?”

“It sounds strange,” the guy on the other said wrote back, “But I do. Like every day I wake up and look in the mirror and something is wrong. I feel like I’m always forgetting something when I leave the house. I watched the tv show of the guy who’s name was on your fliers and the kid in it reminds me so much of my son. It’s eerie. They make the same sounds. He made the same sounds before we even watched that show.”

Wade whistled.

“I think this is him, Pete,” he said. “He called Baby Yoda a ‘kid’ not a yoda.”

Peter stared. He hadn’t even caught that. That was smart as hell.

“So what now?” he asked.

Wade sniffed.

“Get Skywalker to send you a selfie,” he said.

PP: Luke are you pretty right now?

LS: My face is intact

PP: take a selfie and send it to me

LS: cannot do that. Face is intact is a baseline situation. Let me find an old one. Oh, they all have my ex in them. This is awkward.

PP: it doesn’t matter I can crop it.

LS: no I have to be cute or I’ll perish hold on

PP: are you sure you’re not Johnny Storm?

LS: yes, he’s got loads of muscles. Sent.

Selfie acquired.

Luke looked very smiley in it. His eyes were blown out from the lighting, but it showed his sloping smile and his low, back-set dimples. Peter sent it to Wade. Wade sent it to his new friend.

They waited.

They waited five minutes.

Then ten.

Then half an hour.

Then nearly two.

And finally, Wade’s phone rang. He picked it up and set it on speaker so that Peter could hear.

“Hello?” Wade said.

There was a long pause.

“Where did you get that picture?” a low, almost smoky voice demanded on the other side.

“A friend,” Wade said sleazily. “You know him? He’s a cute little thing, ain’t he?”

It took the dude on the other side of the line worryingly long to respond.

“What do you want?” he finally asked.

Wade brought his head down in interest.

“What’re you willing do to?” he asked.

They waited. Peter didn’t know what was taking this guy so long to—

“Anything.”

Ah.

Okay. That.

That sounded about right.

Wade cackled.

“You know his name?” he asked.

“I do,” the man said.

“What’s his name then, pal?” Wade asked.

“It’s none of your fucking business.”

Holy shit. Holy shit. Peter clutched the back of the couch. Wade was grinning so hard, Peter could see it through his mask.

“You want him, you need to show me that you know who he is,” Wade said. “I ain’t got ‘im here, but I know where he is. Come on, big boy. Who is he?”

Peter could hear the man take in a deep, shaky breath.

“His name is Luke,” Din fucking Djarin, the Mandalorian himself, said.

Din fucking Djarin’s name at the moment was Danny Jabaran. He stood six feet tall with a medium build and that baby of his in his arms.

He was not afraid of Wade.

He was not afraid of Peter.

The suits didn’t scare him; this man was a space warrior. The leader of the space warriors. Peter was humbled to stand in his presence, old jeans and tattoos and all.

“Vigilantes,” he acknowledged.

“Deadpool,” Wade said, offering a hand. “And this is?”

“Grogu,” Djarin said.

Baby Yoda lifted his big liquid eyes up to Wade and blinked twice. Then he wriggled around and hid in Djarin’s neck. Djarin put a hand on his back and didn’t drop eye contact.

“Tell me everything,” Djarin said.

Ned screamed. Michelle screamed. Peter reminded them that he had neighbors and invited Mr. Mand’alor to sit on the couch for a bit while he called Luke.

Michelle claimed the spot next to Djarin and asked Baby Yoda Grogu for his little hand. He studied her and hid again, making a prolonged sound of distress that Djarin cut off by saying, “Hey. Manners.”

This somehow made baby Grogu turn back to Michelle to stare at her offered hand.

He took it. She shook with him and then took hers away.

Grogu perked up and reached for it again.

“You’re the Mandalorian,” Ned said.

Djarin looked right at him.

“A Mandalorian,” he corrected.

Ned blinked back tears.

“You’re so cool,” he creaked.

Djarin frowned.

“You...are too?” he tried.

Ned wept into a fist.

Peter left them to call Luke in his bedroom. Luke picked up on the third ring with the start of an ingrained greeting that sounded a whole lot like a customer service recording. He caught himself, though.

“I have someone I’d like you to talk to,” Peter said. “I think you might want to sit down.”

Luke’s unusual quiet on the other side made Peter grin.

“Are you sitting?” he asked.

“I’m sitting.”

“Alright, one moment,” Peter said, walking out into the living room. Djarin had edged far, far away from Ned, as far as he possibly could without being rude. He looked up when Peter came over and sat down on the arm next to him.

“Say hi,” Peter said.

Djarin frowned at him and then the phone.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

Peter waited. Djarin lifted his head over to see the phone’s screen.

“Hello?” he tried.

“Din?”

The Spidey Sense crashed through Peter like a tidal wave.

Djarin had gone completely still.

“Din? Is that you? Can you hear me?”

“Shit,” Djarin said, lifting a hand to cover his eyes. “Goddamnit. Jesus.”

“DIN.”

“Dank Fucking Farrik.”

“Oh my god.”

Baby Grogu’s face snapped toward the phone with huge eyes. He grabbed at Djarin’s collar, then his jaw and started bouncing a little in his arms.

“Bu?” he asked.

Djarin couldn’t make himself move.

“Grogu?” Luke asked. “Hey, baby, is that you, bubba?”

Grogu grabbed Djarin’s face urgently, so that he couldn’t hide his raw eyes anymore.

He pointed at the phone.

“Yeah, I hear ‘im, kid,” Djarin said.

“MMMMM. Gib.”

“Ah. That’s not ours. We don’t grab. We ask,” Djarin reminded as Grogu pleaded for the phone. Peter snickered and gave it to him. He just held it, staring.

“Do you wanna see him?” Peter asked. “Luke, can we maybe video chat?”

“Y-yeah,” Luke said. “Hold on. Oh god, my face. Uh, hey Din are you still near-sighted, hon?”

Djarin huffed a laugh that turned into a whole-body tremor.

“I got contacts,” he said a little hysterically.

“You got WHAT?” Luke yipped, “Okay, no. No, I gotta. Be still, this heart. Okay let me just take off the butterflies. On moment, Grogu, Daddy’s just gotta dunk his face in the damn sink.”

MJ bounced her eyebrows at Peter as he gently took the phone back from Grogu and tapped on the camera. He offered it back the kid and received a deep gaze of wonder in return. Djarin turned the screen right-side up in his hands.

Luke finally turned his camera on and revealed himself to be very swollen in the jaw with damp hair and a cut very close to the rim of his left eye.

Grogu screeched.

Luke laughed.

“Look at you,” he said, “I’m gonna cry. Oh my god. Where’re your ears, pal?”

Grogu analyzed this reaction for 2 full seconds and then shoved the camera right into his dad’s forehead. Djarin took it from him and liberated himself so that he could see Luke who was clutching at his face, absolutely already sobbing, bless him.

He looked up to see Grogu and instead got Djarin and finally just broke right in half.

Peter swallowed back the growing lump in his throat. His eyes were starting to warm a little.

Djarin found a watery smile in himself.

“I know you’re not cryin’ because of me,” he said gently.

“Where’s your helmet?” Luke sobbed, wiping viciously at his eyes. “People are watching, you harlot.”

“I know,” Djarin said. “I lost it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Luke.”

“This is all my fault. I should’ve—I should’ve—”

“Luke,” Djarin said again, full of warmth, “You died for us.”

Luke shook harder than ever.

“There is no greater sacrifice a warrior can make,” Djarin told him. “I was honored for you to have made it for me and our son. This has always been the Way.”

“This is the Way,” Luke stammered.

“I missed you,” Djarin said. “Where in God’s name have you been?”

“I was a preschool teacher in the Bronx, man, I dunno what happened,” Luke said tipping his face up to force the tears back in.

“In the Bronx? Where?”

“Uh, off Allerton and Lurting?”

Djarin started shaking with laugher.

“I work off Laconia and Mace,” he said.

“You what?”

“We’ve been blocks apart this whole time.”

Awwwwww.

“I’m going to stab myself,” Luke moaned. “I’m going to stab myself in the arm. I was right there and I sold out for my part-time gig barely weeks ago. Oh my god. I’m going to—move, old man, I’m suffering—Wait. Din, did you find your parents?”

Djarin stood up and held the phone out straight.

“Where are you right now?” he asked.

Look at all these people hugging each other.

Look at them crying all over. There was a baby in there, wailing because he was so happy to be back in the arms of his other dad.

Aww. AWWWW. Peter was getting emotional again, he was going to see himself out.

“Wait. Peter.”

He looked up to find Luke holding a hand to him.

“Thank you,” he said. “You really are a superhero, you know that?”

Yeah.

Sometimes, he did.

The city had plenty of problems as it was, yeah, more now with a bunch of jedi running around, linking up with each other and spreading memory like mushroom spores. But it didn’t feel that much different.

What it felt like now was Ned showing Grogu how to hold his hand at the seeing stone in the funeral home’s back yard to make the Force happen while Obi-Wan reported cheerfully that the cat perched on it was still not levitating.

It also felt like watching Luke freak out over text to Ned and Michelle about his ex losing their mind at him dumping them after two years to marry this random mechanic within a week of getting together.

Peter got to see this from new angles, too, one of which was the bottom of the funeral home’s attic stairs, which Anakin Skywalker liked to sit on while his grandkids—both Grogu and Han Solo and Leia Organa (pardon, Leia Naberry)’s son—came over to show him things that he was very well aware of. These were stolen from him by Auntie Ahsoka and her friends who Ned knew and Peter did not.

And there was something warming about how even these folks—people from a galaxy far, far away, occasionally needed a Spiderman.

#spiderman #starwars #dinluke #inimitable verse #ficlet #this is the niche of the niche but I know like 5 of you read both my mando and spiderman fics #so this is for you doll #and also the fact that I have a fucking PROBLEM

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demetriandelibinaryboyfriends · 4 years ago

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AIGHT Y’ALL I wasn’t tagged but I’m doing this anyways because f u c k i t

It's the year 2021 and you're obsessed with The Karate Kid. How are you feeling?

Deadasss weird as fuck, my dude. Like...out of all the things I could’ve predicted happening in our lord’s year 2021, it definitely was NOT getting hyperfixated on a hammy gay ship with a punk and a nerd from a goddamn karate soap opera. And yet...here we are??? I will never understand hyperfixations, my guy. But I’ve met a lot of really cool people in this fandom, so I can’t really complain.

Did you grow up with TKK or are you new to the series?

I have never seen a single Karate Kid movie in my entire life. When I was a kid, it looked kinda dumb so I never got into it XD But then I saw my roommate watching Cobra Kai on Youtube Red one day (he has every streaming service known to man) and I was hooked. And...here I am!

We gotta do the basics. Favorite character:

Literally EVERYONE except for Kreese, Yasmine, Kyler, and Tory, sorry stans

Okay but if we gotta pick, Johnny Lawrence is my Problematic Fave. Also I love my boy Daniel, he’s trying his best!!! And Amanda LaRusso, we stan a queen!!!

Among the kids, definitely Miguel, with Demetri as a close second. I also love Sam, Aisha, Moon, and Hawk (pre- and post-Bastardization Arc, anyways XD)!

Favorite ship:

Take a look at my username and take a WILD FUCKING GUESS lmao Yes it’s Eli/Demetri because DUH, every interaction they have is so fucking gay and Eli fucking saved him!!! And came back to him!!! And betrayed the world’s most terrifying dojo with a WAR CRIMINAL SENSEI all for Demetri!!! And how Demetri was willing to forgive him for everything at the drop of a hat because he always had faith there was still good in his best friend??? That’s TRUE LOVE motherfuckers. Please let them kiss in Season 4. I will sell you all of my limbs. Sam/Miguel is a close second because they’re cute as shit and it’s just so lovely to see two people so unapologetically smitten with each other. They are in LOVE, and I will RIOT if they break up again!!! Keep Sam and Miguel together 2k21!!!

Underrated character:

SAMANTHA LARUSSO!!! The amount of hate my girl gets for acting like a normal teenager and fucking up occasionally JUST like the rest of the cast makes me want to start punching things. She cares SO MUCH about her friends!!! And she loves the shit out of Miguel!!! She hasn’t always been the best friend but you know what??? Neither has Hawk, and we still forgave his ass!!! Also LET HER BE FEMININE but also kick utter ass, my god!!! Femininity should not be synonymous with being weak, y’all! ALSO DEMETRI, like yes, he likes to complain and occasionally run his mouth, but guess what else he likes to do??? Never give up on the love of his life his best friend Eli Moskowitz and refuse to lose faith in him no matter how much of a little shit he’s become, and I for one think that’s very badass of him. Also the way he takes care of Eli pre-Cobra Kai in his own snarky bastard way makes me absolutely Weak and needs more appreciation. Like the dude has charisma and COULD have probably made other friends and left Eli behind if he wanted, but did he??? No, he wants the weepy loser with the lip scar in the polo shirts and dorky sweaters and will protect him as much as his wimpy ass is able!!!

Underrated ship (don’t say therapy, lol):

Among the adults, Daniel/Amanda!!! Like maybe I just don’t watch that much tv, but it seems kinda rare to me to see a happily married hetero couple, and it’s just nice to see a married couple who genuinely love each other and where there’s not like...lingering resentment or some shit. I feel like this ship gets overshadowed by Lawrusso a lot (which like--okay, fair!!! Daniel and Johnny do have a ridiculous amount of chemistry, and the gay undertones are undeniable, so I get it), and it makes me kinda sad. I do love Lawrusso, but I don’t like when Amanda has to get her heart broke for it to happen, you feel? Among the kids, honestly YasMoon. Like I really love the idea of Yasmine trying to better herself because of Moon’s influence on her and because Moon like...inspires her to be a better person, I guess? With their pretty strong friendship, it just makes more sense to me for Yasmine to get a redemption arc through Moon than through Demetri. ALSO girls DO often pull the whole “mean girl” shtick to cover up being closeted lesbians, and Moon IS canonically bi, so it could work!!! I just think this one could be a really interesting Friends to Lovers take, and could make a really nice coming-out arc for Yas. And MoonPiper too, honestly!!! Like they only got 5 seconds of screentime so I understand WHY it’s underrated, but I still love what we DID get and loved that there was a canon gay ship (even if only for 1 scene lmao). I’m really excited to potentially see more of them in Season 4!!! Please, I’m begging!!!

Wax On, Wax Off or Sweep the Leg?

Sweep the Leg because it will always be deeply hilarious to me how Demetri took note of the first move Eli ever used on him and spent presumably weeks perfecting it OUT OF SPITE just to get him back with it at the soccer game MONTHS later. Just goes to show how OBSESSED Demetri is with Eli and their little karate rivalry which is just NOT straight, I’m sorry

Which of Daniel’s dumb little outfits is your favorite?

There’s something so funny about this pretentious little fuck walking around in fancy suits once he becomes a #SuccessfulBusinessman, and still occasionally trying to do karate in a full-ass suit (take THAT, Tom Cole’s boba!!!) I’m also a big fan of how he looks in his gi with his little headband. Still killing that look as a 40-50-something!!!

Character from the films you most want to return, who’s not Terry Silver:

Tbh I have still never seen a single Karate Kid movie (they took them off of Netflix, RIP), so...I don’t really care if they bring anyone else back??? I’m invested in the characters we already have in the show, I don’t need some rando from the movies to make a cameo to have a good time XD The only character I really wanted them to bring back was Ali, and they already did, so like...I’m good??? That’s all I really needed, I can die in peace now XD

Scene that lives in your head rent-free:

Basically any fluffy Elimetri scene, but 5 in particular: ~Miguel first meeting Eli and Demetri at the lunch table, and Eli looking at Demetri like he hung every goddamn star in the sky ~Demetri going off at a terrifying, “unhinged” karate sensei on the first day of Cobra Kai because he made fun of Eli’s lip and Demetri is not about that shit ~ELI STEALING DEMETRI’S NACHO AND SMIRKING AT HIM, LIKE EXCUSE ME SIR PLEASE BE A LITTLE LESS HOMOSEXUAL IN FRONT OF YOUR GIRLFRIEND ~Eli yanking Demetri onstage during Valley Fest to hold a board, and Demetri being visibly like...extremely turned on when Eli breaks said board ~ELI SAVING DEMETRI DURING THE CHRISTMAS FIGHT, ELI APOLOGIZING, DEMETRI AND ELI KICKING COBRA ASS TOGETHER AKSBDCUWYVCBU

Will Anthony LaRusso ever be relevant?

I hope not! He’s kind of a funny meme character to pop up now and again but I don’t think he deserves a serious plotline when there are so many more interesting characters to follow.

You live in The Valley and are forced into the karate gang war. Which dojo do you join?

Miyagi-Do because Cobra Kai would eat me alive. Also I’d probably straight up get stuck and die in that cement mixer, if I even made it that far XD Besides, being salty that your friend who you have a crush on likes martial arts better than you and starting martial arts to impress them but also being too lazy to join anything TOO intense is a Big Mood and I am certainly not speaking from personal experience here, no sirree

What’s your training montage song?

"Shut Up and Drive” by Rihanna for a weight-training and bicep-flexing montage, “Whatever It Takes” by Imagine Dragons for a more intense punching-and-kicking-shit montage. I don’t know why this is, I just feel it in my heart.

It’s the crossover event of the century! Which TV show are you combining with Cobra Kai for an hour-long Saturday night special?

*Briefly panics because I don’t actually watch that much TV and most of the stuff I do watch is fantasy/sci fi shit that absolutely would not work for a CK crossover*

Hmmmm okay but ACTUALLY

You know what would be fucking funny as hell would be an It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia crossover. Allow me to elaborate: ~The Gang goes to LA on vacation during the height of the Karate Dojo Wars. They literally can get barely anything done without all these goddamn karate-fighting teenagers getting in the way. ~They are all very annoyed by this. Even the most obscure of tourist attractions is eventually intercepted by karate fights. ~Mac tries to join Cobra Kai because he sees all this karate fighting on, and wants to unquestionably prove both his badassery and masculinity. Both Johnny and Kreese are like “Wtf are you doing here? Aren’t you like 30?” ~Mac gets a planet-sized crush on Johnny after all of 5 minutes and endlessly gushes to the gang about him. The gang mercilessly roast him about this and about how much of a pathetic loser with his life together in no way whatsoever Johnny sounds like. They proceed to have exactly 0 self awareness about this. ~The Waitress is in town visiting family or something, and Charlie is stalking her, as per usual. However, every time he’s about to go up and talk to her, a pack of battling Miyagi-Dos and Cobra Kais throwing punches and kicks everywhere blocks his path. One times, Mac is among one of these packs and Charlie is like “???? He didn’t get kicked out of that teen karate dojo yet???” ~Seeing how much the Kids These Days seem to like fighting, Charlie drops by a local high school to try and sell Fight Milk to the kids doing karate. Only Kyler and Brucks buy into it, and subsequently get the entire West Valley High wrestling team sick. Charlie is inevitably arrested, as Counselor Blatt thinks he’s selling the kids drugs. ~Dennis makes a plan to have sex with every hot chick he can in Los Angeles. He meets Ali on a dating app post-divorce, and inevitably tries to bang her. It doesn’t work. ~Frank crashes the rental car, and inevitably the gang ends up at one of Daniel’s dealerships. Dee quickly takes a liking to Daniel and is like “Watch, assholes--Imma homewreck this guy’s marriage.” She starts frequenting the dealerships to attempt to flirt with Daniel, until one day she walks in on him having sex with Johnny in a back room and she’s like “Is that the guy from Mac’s goddamn dojo?!?!” ~Dennis, of course, tries to sleep with Amanda. Amanda is not having it, and rebukes him in the most snarky, Amanda-esque way possible. Dennis is just like “Oh not AGAIN--the women in this goddamn diva city have too high of standards!” ~Later on, the gang is at the beach and Dennis spots the blonde lady he went out on an ill-fate date with, and decides to give it another shot--that is, until he sees her go up and kiss another woman and he’s like “IS THAT THE LADY FROM THE CAR DEALERSHIP??? STUPID-KARATE-KICK-COMMERCIAL’S WIFE?!? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.” ~Dee complains to Dennis about her lack of luck getting laid, and Dennis is just like “Oh come ON, is everyone in Los Angeles gay???” Smash cut to Hawk and Demetri having sex, Moon and Piper making out, Bert and Nate holding hands, Chris and Mitch doing oral, and Amanda, Ali, and Carmen having a threesome. ~Frank tries to scam Kreese into buying cheaply-made karate equipment for his dojo. The gang ends up having to leave LA because Kreese is quite literally plotting all of their murders.

For tagging, uuuuhhhhhh @jackonthelongwalk @soe-leo @max-eagle-fang @cc-tinslebee @backawayfromthegay @asphodel-storm do the thing, if y’all haven’t yet!

#cobra kai #cobra kai season 1 #cobra kai season 2 #cobra kai season 3 #ck #tag game #binary boyfriends #daniel larusso #johnny lawrence #it's always sunny in philadelphia #iasip

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areiton · 4 years ago

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a bright pure pain - stevetony fic

I wrote a short fic set in the Tattoo AU created by @pineapplebread!

Read on AO3

~*~

It’s Bucky, who starts it.

Bucky who lies in bed with Sam, and traces his fingers over the black lettering, and Sam watches him, dark eyes calm and warm and when Bucky murmurs against his throat, “Tell me,” Sam did, spun out stories about the man he loved, before the sky exploded and tore him away.

Riley came first, and maybe, truthfully, Riley is the one who starts it.

~*~

Sometimes, when they’re out, Bucky will reach out, his fingers brushing over the plane of Sam’s stomach, over the smooth stretch of skin where he knows Riley’s name sits. Sam goes still, always, when it happens, his gaze tracking his boyfriend.

It happens often enough that Tony notices, because Tony notices everything, tracks the metal hand on Sam’s ribs, the way that Sam’s gaze ticks to Bucky, his smile a little sad.

“What is it?” he asks, and Sam shrugs.

“Tattoo. I got it right after I got out,” he says, easy, like he isn’t baring a part of himself, squishy and vulnerable, to Tony’s curious gaze.

Tony nods, and turns the conversation to the mission Bucky and Sam had gone one, almost tactful in giving Sam space.

It’s progress.

~*~

Steve is quiet, after they’re gone, but it’s not the tense kind of quiet that makes Tony anxious, it’s--quiet, comfortable, pensive almost. He watches Steve from across the room as he makes dinner, his eyes distant, like he’s lost in memories.

It’s still strange that they’re here, together. After--

After everything. The war and Thanos and the long empty years when he clung to bitterness and anger because it was so much easier than admitting what he wanted. After the last gasp of hope, and the months spent trapped together in the past, and that battle when Steve had knelt next to him and he lay dying--

After thinking, it wouldn’t be so bad, to die, if Steve was next to him when he did.

Well.

He pushes that thought aside because they’re friends now, finally, pieced themselves back together, and it was the idiotic thought of a dying man, not the rational one sitting in his living room, on his way back to healthy and whole.

Tony makes a face, feels the scars pull. Not whole. He’d never be whole again.

“Hey,” Steve says, soft, tugging his attention from the spiral and Tony blinks up at him. “You went away,” Steve says, and Tony flushes. He shifts a little, his legs folded under him as Steve sits down next to him and passes him a bowl of chicken chowder. It’s thick, hearty. There’s a heel of bread, oven warm and garlicky, from the bakery down in Queens that Peter knows he likes.

He wants, more than he’s wanted anything in a long time, a cheeseburger.

“Hey, Steve?” he says, and Steve flicks a look at him, curious and patient, and Tony almost bites back the words.

Steve made dinner.

They should eat it.

“Wanna go get a burger with me?” he asks, instead, and a smile, small and real, spreads across his lips.

~*~

They don’t go out often. The public adoration since the battle had been--disconcerting.

Tony was used to being watched, to being adored. What he wasn’t used to was the fervent outpouring of gratitude that so easily tipped toward almost cult-like.

“People need to thank someone,” Rhodey said, the one time Tony brought it up. “We’re keeping an eye on the extremists.”

It’s enough to keep him in the Tower. If it wasn’t, the empty space at his right, the scars snaking up and over his face, shoulder and ribs--they were enough.

His hand trembles a little, as they reach the garage, and Steve catches his hip, guides him forward until they’re standing by his old bike, the one that Tony is a little surprised to see still running. “Steve. I can’t,” he says, helpless, and Steve smiles, softly.

“Gotta trust me, Tony,” Steve says, patient and hopeful, holding two helmets and waiting.

He always waited , let Tony make that last step.

“I’ll fall,” he says, the fear bright and bitter in his throat.

“I’ll catch you,” Steve promises.

Tony can feel this--the heat of tears in his eyes, the burning warmth of Steve’s steady gaze, the way everything settles as that easy promise settles over him with the weight of a vow.

He nods, a jerky thing, and Steve’s smile blooms, bright as sunshine.

~*~

He rides cradles against Steve’s broad chest, and it’s dangerous, he knows it is.

Everything about their lives are dangerous, though, and this--here--the only way to hurt him, is to go through Steve, and Tony thinks Steve would rip the universe apart, to keep that from happening.

He closes his eyes, presses back against the steady strength of him, and Steve leans into him, solid and grounding as the city whips by.

~*~

Steve takes them to a greasy dinner in Brooklyn, where an old waitress named Delores delivers messy cheeseburgers, enormous plates of fries, and a thick chocolate shake.

It’s everything he’s been craving for months.

Steve ignores him while he works his way through his own cheeseburger, doesn’t offer to help when Tony grapples with holding it.

He quit offering to help after the first two months, when they got into a screaming match and Tony hid in his bedroom for three days. Sometimes, Tony was pretty sure he could see the want in his eyes, could see his fingers twitch towards helping before he forced himself still, a strained smile on his lips, but it happened less and less, and he almost didn’t mind, these days.

Steve didn’t offer to help because he thought Tony needed it--he offered because he did.

“Cut it in half for me,” he says, and Steve smirks, reaches over and neatly divides the burger while Tony picks at the fries.

“Did you know?”

Steve arches an eyebrow at him, and Tony hides his smile behind half his burger. “About Flybird’s ink?”

Steve chews, his eyes distant and restless, but eventually swallows and says, “No. I--I kinda suspected, but there’s just some things you don’t ask about.”

They’re quiet, lost in thought and food and Tony’s considering the second half of his burger when Steve blurts out, “I had a tattoo. For Bucky.”

Tony goes still, eyes wide and searching. They hadn’t--the one night they’d spent together, when fighting gave way to fucking in Clint’s cramped guestroom, it had been dark. He might have missed a tattoo, then--and he hadn’t seen Steve naked even when they were trapped in the past looking for that goddamn stone, but he’d seen enough and if it was any more intimate, he might need to re-evaluate everything he’d been thinking, recently, everything he quit thinking, after they left the farm and Tony left the team, and Steve did.

He blinks the thoughts away, focuses on Steve.

“It--after he fell, one of the Howlies did one for me. Just a nautical star--but it was mine, it was for him and it was,” Steve huffs, smiles a bitter little thing that Tony hates . “It felt like my body, for the first time since Rebirth.”

“What happened?” he asks, a whisper almost lost in the kitchen clatter of the empty diner.

“Serum happened,” Steve shrugged. “Body pushed it out. I kept redoing it--poor Jones got real tired of me showing up at his tent--but it never took. I had it, when I went into the ice.”

Not when he came out. SHIELD would have recorded that. A question burns in his throat, but Steve--Steve’s pushing himself out of the booth, muttering about the bathroom, and Tony swallows the question with the last of his milkshake.

He doesn’t need to ask, anyway. Why Steve didn’t try again doesn’t matter, not really.

~*~

It’s been seven months, since Thanos, since using that fucking gauntlet that almost killed him, that took his arm and changed his world, and didn’t change a goddamn thing, either.

Seven months, since he spent any time in his workshop.

“Hey, Steve,” he says, and Steve looks at him over the top of his paper because he’s a fucking luddite and still reads a paper, just to fuck with Tony.

His heart is pounding and he wants to wave it off, wants to hide from that expectant stare and the curve of his lips, and the burning itch in the back of his mind that he’s missed for seven goddamn months .

“I’m gonna go down to the workshop after breakfast,” he says, and Steve smiles, slow and pleased and Tony--Tony grins back, helpless to do anything else.

~*~

It’s Bucky, who starts it, so it makes sense, to drag him back into it.

“Stevie says you’ve been down here for most of a week.”

“Yeah,” he taps his fingers nervously, and then straightens up. “I was working on a late birthday present for Steve.”

“Not sure I wanna know any more about what you’re cooking up if it’s from your shop.” Bucky drawls, and Tony flushes.

“I’m not making sex toys,” he says, waspish and Bucky grins.

“His loss,” he says.

“Stop it. That’s--we’re not sleeping together.”

Bucky huffs, his expression all irritated exasperation, but he lets it drop.

They aren’t sleeping together.

Tony knows there’s something between them, something building that’s been there for so long he can’t remember when it wasn’t.

It’s different from that night on the farm.

It’s different even from the months in the past, when they didn’t sleep together, but everything else was stripped away and they were forced together.

It’s different because Steve stayed, when no one else did. When the world dragged Rhodey back into its damage control, when Pepper quietly voiced what he’d known was coming, when the nightmares and panic attacks and pain pushed Happy and the kid away--Steve stayed.

And they came back--Rhodey and Peter, Happy and even Pepper, although that was still--difficult.

But Steve stayed, the kind of stubborn irritating persistence that used to make Tony hate him.

Except he didn’t. Not really.

But Steve didn’t push. Not even on the nights when he slept in Tony’s bed, shivering in the clutches of his own nightmares.

“We’ll get where we’re going,” he says, softly, and then reaches for the vial of inky dark liquid. “Did you know the serum won’t let a tattoo take?”

Bucky arches an eyebrow, studying it and then flicking a look at Tony.

“You fixed that, didn’t ya?”

Tony grins, and shakes the bottle enticingly. “Wanna be my test subject?”

~*~

He comes back, a week later, Sam in tow for another meeting about the Avengers, and Tony arches his eyebrows, all curious and hopeful and he nods. There’s something peaceful and very very tired about his gaze, that worries Tony, and Sam stays close to him, almost cuddling him at the damn table. “It works,” he says, shortly, and Tony almost asks, what he got.

That wounded exhaustion and Sam’s warning look keeps his mouth shut for a moment, but then, “Are you ok?”

Bucky laughs, and it’s wet and wounded and hurts.

But it’s happy, too, a kind of bright purity that comes from the good clean pain of healing. Tony has spent months loathing and learning that pain.

“I’m ok, Stark. I’m gonna be ok.”

~*~

“Would you get one, again? If you could make it stick, this time. Would you get another tattoo?”

Steve looks at him. They’re in Tony’s bathroom, brushing their teeth. His hands smell of the scar cream he rubs into Tony’s shoulder and side, twice a day, and there’s a smear of it on Tony’s cheek, near his hair, and Steve reaches out, thumbs it aside and smears the excess onto his faded pants.

Tony makes a face.

Steve spits into the sink, rinses and straightens and Tony is still staring at him, eyes hopeful and impatient, familiar in a face that is still sometimes unfamiliar, and he nods. “The tattoo--it helped me feel like this was actually my body, not something I was shoved into, that was eating up Steve Rogers. It was Steve Rogers. It was a choice I made.”

Tony nods, and something clears in his eyes. He hipchecks Steve lightly aside, spits and rinses, before he straightens and says. “I have something for you.”

~*~

The vial of ink sits in his palm, a tiny liquid promise, and Tony watches him, with big dark eyes, small against the sea of pillows and broad bed, and Steve loves him.

Loves him so much it hurts, sometimes.

Loving Tony has been the best, sweetest pain he’s ever known.

“Sweetheart,” he breathes.

“We’re still working on it. On color. But. It’s--I want you to have this. You deserve to have this. Bucky tested it, and his body hasn’t rejected it, so--” Tony takes a breath. Smiles, small and brittle and Steve remembers him, before, larger than life with his grand gesture presents, with tech and suits and weapons and homes.

This--a tiny vial of ink.

It’s the sweetest thing Tony’s ever done for him, in a decade of gifts and sacrifice.

He leans over, brushes his lips against his cheek, the scars unfamiliar and somehow soft under his lips, and breathes, “Thank you, sweetheart.”

#arei writes fic #stevetony fic #tattoo au #inspired by art #the price of our peace #steve rogers #tony stark

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prettyboyporter · 5 years ago

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Heaven Is a Place on Earth

for @hartigays for harringrove for BLM, who asked for Billy teaching Steve to surf in California! I hope you enjoy!

~*~

“Why is it so big though?” Steve ran his hand over the width of the surfboard Billy had procured for him.

Billy wagged his tongue and grinned. “Bigger the dick, bigger the board, baby.”

Steve crossed his arms and fixed Billy with a glare.

“More surface area for you. You’re a beginner -- you need more room,” Billy explained.

“And this? What the fuck is this?” Steve lifted the cuff that was attached to the board by a cord.

“Always wanted to tie you up.”

“Really? Are we gonna do this for every goddamn thing?”

Billy licked his lips. “It’s a leash. You wrap it around your ankle to stay safe when you wipe out. Because trust me -- you will wipe out.”

Steve felt a bit of panic rise up in his belly. “I will?”

“Yeah. But you’ll be fine. I’ll be right here by your side every second, alright?” Billy placed his hand on Steve’s shoulder and squeezed. “And if you wipe out, this’ll help keep you attached to your board so you can find it to hang onto it. Could end up saving your life if the waves are rough.”

Steve nodded.

He wasn’t expecting the next part to consist of 15 minutes of warm-up stretches. The whole morning, he’d thought, would be just taking a couple of boards out into the water and learning on the fly. He’d watch Billy, imitate the movements, and that would be that -- Steve would be surfing.

But it turned out that Billy was actually careful and thorough, going step by step, explaining each step with the occasional dick joke thrown in there. He helped Steve stretch, his hands occasionally lingering on Steve’s suit not long enough to be lewd, but lingering enough to convey affection.

After doing a couple sets of torso twists, Steve felt limber from head to toe. The waves whoosed against the shore, and surfer after surfer sprinted out to meet the water. “Time to hit the water?” Steve asked.

“Patience, pretty boy,” Billy said. “Gotta show you the prone position.”

“Sweetheart, we’re in public,” Steve said quietly.

Billy smiled. “On your board. Like this.” Billy got down on his board chest-down, feet almost at the bottom of the board. “You lay too close to the tail, it’s gonna tip. Lay too close to the nose? Same thing.”

Steve mimicked Billy’s pose and found himself distracted by thoughts of how he’d never really seen Billy in this light before -- how patient he was showing Steve how to pop up on his surfboard, how he gently corrected Steve and helped him find the right balance and form.

“Now are we going in?” Steve asked after he felt confident that he’d be able to get on his feet on his board in the water.

“Not yet, padawan,” Billy said. He’d spent too much time watching Star Wars with Dustin back in Hawkins before Steve and Billy made the move to San Diego. “Take a minute to watch the water. Get a feel for the waves, y’know? See how they break. Watch what the other surfers are doing. It’s like, I don’t know, taking a moment to feel the rhythm of everything before you go jumping in. Not to sound cliche, but like, you kind of have to become one with it.”

They’d both been sitting in the sand, so Steve scooted closer to Billy’s side. Billy threw his arm around Steve’s shoulders as they looked out ahead of them. Steve watched the foam of the waves breaking -- saw surfers crouched, cruising along the waves in the distance. The sun had risen up even more from the horizon since they arrived at the beach, reflecting in moving patterns of yellow in the blue water below.

Seagulls called in the distance, and families chattered around them.

“I’m glad I came out here,” Steve said.

“Yeah. It’s a nice day,” Billy said, his eyes fixed on the waves.

“No. I mean, glad that I moved here. With you.”

Billy turned to look at Steve, his eyes shining bright and blue. He leaned over for a lingering kiss. “Let’s go in the water.”

#harringrove #harringrove for BLM #my fic #my writing #soft times at ridgemont high #soft fic for hard times

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the-awkward-outlaw · 5 years ago

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Hello ! Can u write an imagine where Arthur s/o kills Micah and she is banned from the gang. Would Arthur follow her ? Thank u :)

Man, I have been in the biggest writing funk for the first time in like nine months but I finally got this one done! Here you go, Anon! Sorry about the wait.

(Author’s note: Arthur doesn’t have TB) (BTW, Arthur is husband material and no one can change my mind)

It’s already been a long, exhausting day and it’s not even midday yet. You hate it here, always will without a doubt. Beaver Hollow is just a complete shit show and the gang has seriously deteriorated.

You miss how things used to be. You can remember how everyone was: Mary-Beth and Tilly giggling over romance novels, Sean bragging about how tough and smart he was, Uncle’s jokes, Hosea’s stories about his past and how he always added a note of wisdom. Oh Hosea. He was just another casualty of Dutch’s plight against modern America.

Everything’s changed since Hosea died and the boys returned from their tropical trip. Javier doesn’t sing or play the guitar anymore, no one laughs, people fight constantly. It’s a burden and a pain to be in the camp nowadays, and you hate it. The person who’s changed the most though is Dutch. He’s not the caring, almost paternal figure who was just struggling slightly to help everyone get back on their feet like he was right after the Blackwater mess. Now he seems to be on a suicide mission and intent on taking everyone in the gang with him.

The worst thing about the whole situation is Micah. He’s always known how to butter Dutch up but when Hosea was around, he kept himself in check. Now that Hosea’s gone, he’s been in Dutch’s ear the whole time and you haven’t liked it. You’re not the only one; Arthur and John have been suspicious about the whole thing.

Arthur’s faith in Dutch has been severely shaken. He questions Dutch much more than he ever used to. Dutch doesn’t like it, and he keeps on lying, saying he’s going to get everyone out. All he’s done is killed Cornwall, blown up a bridge, brought Pinkertons closer to camp than ever and used the war between the army and the Wapiti into his favor, even getting the chief’s son locked up during a feud.

Arthur walks over to your tent after donating a deer to Pearson, who’s drunk again. He’s been coming to you to talk a lot more lately, though you’re not sure why. You’ve had a crush on Arthur for ages but never acted on it. You two have been friends for what seems like forever and you refuse to destroy that over some silly feelings you have. You’ve wondered if Arthur has a crush on you too. It’s just the way he acts sometimes, things he says. The way he wanted you to come with him to tell Mary he didn’t want to be her errand boy anymore. The way you catch him staring at you sometimes. How he always wants you to go off hunting with him but won’t invite anyone else.

Just as he’s about to say something to you, Dutch calls him over. Arthur gives you a yearning look and then turns around to go see him. A few moments later, someone catches your attention, pulling you away from your work, with their voice. It isn’t Arthur, though or even John or Mary-Beth. It’s Micah.

“Ah glad to see you’re putting an effort into keeping this place running. We can use all the help we can get,” he simpers.

“The fuck do you want, Micah?” you snarl.

Micah’s always been a pebble in everyone’s shoes but now with Hosea out of the way and Dutch going crazy, he’s been acting like he’s in charge of things. He keeps badgering people to do their chores (which most of them have been) and that everyone needs to pull their weight. This doesn’t bother you, what does bother you is the hypocrisy of it all. He never does a damn thing. The last job he helped with was murdering Cornwall but you felt he did it out of a personal interest and less of a needs-to-be done basis.

“Always gotta be so bitter,” he says, smiling. “You know, if you were a little nicer, people might actually like you. Too bad nothing can be done to make you pretty though. Unfortunately you’ll just have to stick to nice but ugly.”

You throw down the sewing you’d just been doing and stand up, marching over to him. He wisely takes several steps backwards as you whip out your pistol.

“Give me one more goddamn reason, you cockroach,” you hiss. “I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

He whips out his own gun and points it at you. “You don’t have the guts, little girl.”

“Wanna bet? You ain’t the first person I killed, though I’m not sure I can really define you as a person.”

By this time, your argument has attracted the attention of many of the others. They form a circle and watch, but no one dares interrupt. You get the feeling that most of them want you to kill him. The majority of them have had problems with him too.

“Woe!” Dutch says, walking over with his hands in the air. “There is no need to have guns drawn in camp. Both of you fools, put them away.”

He stands next to Micah and glares from him to you. Arthur stands a few feet behind him and shakes his head at you, clearly trying to stop you from doing something reckless.

“She started it, Dutch,” Micah says, his gun still drawn.

“Bullshit! You’re the one going around insulting everyone. Trust me, if I don’t shoot you now, someone else will. Like Lenny said back in Colter, when you fall there’ll be a party.”

“Watch your mouth,” he growls. “Keep flapping your gums and you’ll end up just like Lenny and Hosea. Better yet, maybe you’ll get your head shot off like good ol’ Sea-”

Before he can finish, he’s silenced by your bullet slamming into his neck. He sputters and drops his gun, grabbing at his gushing neck. People start yelling and Javier and Bill grab you, making you drop your gun.

“Let go of me!” you scream as Micah falls to his knees. Dutch glares at you, clearly shocked. As Micah slumps down onto his stomach, he stomps towards you. Javier and Bill hold your arms tight and you can’t fight them off.

“You know the rules, Y/N,” Dutch says quietly. “There’s absolutely no reason to shoot anyone in camp unless they’re traitors.”

“How do you know Micah wasn’t a traitor, Dutch?” you snarl. “Ever since Guarma, those damn Pinkertons have been nipping at your heels more than ever.”

Dutch lowers his brow. “I’m going to give you five minutes to get away from here. Never come back, Y/N. I never want to see you around here again.”

Javier and Bill let you go, but you look around, silently pleading with the others to help you. No one does and your eyes finally fall onto Arthur. His mouth is partially open but his eyes say he wishes you hadn’t done it. He says nothing though, and you feel your stomach drop. Of course he’d choose Dutch over you. He’s known him for twenty years and Dutch saved his life. You’ve only known him a few years and maybe helped him get out of a few scrapes. You’ve got nothing on Dutch when it comes to Arthur. You don’t blame him either. No matter what kind of mess Dutch has gotten everyone into, Arthur’s been doing his best to keep things together. All you’ve done is create a bigger mess for him to clean up.

You know it’s time for you to leave. There’s no doubt in your mind that Dutch is just crazy enough to kill you, and the clock is ticking. You push your way between Tilly and Karen and go to your tent, packing everything up quickly. You feel everyone’s eyes on your back until Grimshaw barks at everyone to get to work and for Charles and John to get Micah’s body taken out of camp. You throw everything onto your horse and then run off down the path, feeling your heart break. You’ll never see any of them again, not even Arthur. Your best friend and the man you love will never be part of your life again.

********************************

It’s been three weeks since you were forced to leave camp. You’ve gone back west, back to where you’ve always belonged. You’ve found a small cabin not too far from Aurora Basin in Tall Trees. When you first arrived, the cabin had clearly been abandoned for a long time. You cleaned it up and made it habitable. You’ve decided to hang up the hat on being an outlaw. The Pinkertons won’t be coming out this way looking for the Blackwater robbers, not when they know exactly where Dutch is, so you’re safe out here. Besides, you weren’t even involved in that mess, so no one will associate you with that.

It’s been lonely but peaceful out here. No more having to rob people, no more feeling like you’re chasing your own tail in Dutch’s crazy schemes. No more having to worry about anyone else besides yourself. You’ve missed them though, all of them. You miss joking with Tilly and Karen, discussing books with Mary-Beth, listening to Javier’s stories about Mexico. Even Pearson’s cooking since you’re not much of one yourself.

More than all of that though, you miss Arthur. You miss the sound of his voice, the conversations you had during long hunting trips. He was the only person you could tell anything to. There were many nights you spent under the stars with him and even a few curled against him to keep out the cold. You miss the way he smelled, the way he’d hesitatingly touch you. You two were a perfect hunting team, you were able to track and kill prey without hardly saying a word. You try to settle with the idea that you’ll just have to reminisce in the memories of him but to forget a future with him in it. Not that you had much hope for that before. Arthur may have told Mary to take care of herself from now on, but you always knew he;d never go for you.

You’ve been fishing in the lake for some time and gotten hardly any luck. You sigh and decide to call it a day, collapse your pole and pick up your almost empty bucket. You head up the road, feeling lonely and missing the company of your family. When you round the bend leading to your cabin, you look up and see a familiar face.

“Arthur?” you say quietly, not sure if he’s really there or not.

He rubs his jaw and looks at you, clearly searching for the right words. You stop and look for him, your stomach clenching. Has Dutch sent him? Dutch said you only had five minutes to get out of camp, but not that he wouldn’t hunt you down. The only reason you can think that Arthur’s here is because Dutch told him to find and kill you. You hover your hand over your gun, hoping you won’t have to use it.

“Arthur, please let me explain,” you say. “You know Micah was just making things worse. Let’s just put this all behind us, okay? Just tell Dutch you killed me, at least do me that favor.”

“Dutch didn’t send me, Y/N,” he says softly, his hands on his gunbelt. He takes a step towards you but stops when you back up, clearly worried. He raises his hands. “I ain’t here to hurt ya, darlin’.”

Darlin’? He’s never called you that before. He’s always addressed you by your name. If you didn’t know Arthur, you’d think he might be lying and pretending to be harmless, but you know him too well. He doesn’t lie.

You blink heavily, feeling your eyes water. “Why else would you be here, Arthur?”

He sighs and takes another step towards you, his hands still up. “Y/N, I ain’t followin’ Dutch no more. You said it weeks ago, he’s gone crazy. He didn’t get better when you left either. Micah might not have been around to stir him up, but he’s just gone worse. He was real angry when Charles and I went and broke Eagle Flies out of jail, tryin’ to clean up his mess.”

Arthur goes on to say how the army tried to kill Chief Rains Fall for the oil on his land and how the gang went to help try and save Eagle Flies as he went to get revenge for his people. By the end, Arthur got trapped beneath a soldier and nearly killed. Dutch had been the only one there and could have easily saved him, but chose not to. When Arthur confronted him about it, a huge fight broke out between them and Arthur decided he’d had enough. He snuck John, Abigail and Jack out that night and then decided to find you.

“I knew you’d come out west, Y/N. You’re too much like me, this is where you’ve always wanted to belong.”

“But why would you want to come after me, Arthur? I understand why you left, but why come after me?”

He lowers his hand and walks up to you until he’s only a couple feet away. “Because I care about ya, Y/N.” His gruff voice is soft, sending shivers down your arms. “Because you’ve always tried to help me. If you’d been there, I know you woulda saved my life, not leave me to die like Dutch did. I did everything I could for him, even almost died for him multiple times. I gave him everything I had and got nothin’ to show for it. I’m done, darlin’. I want to be with you.”

Your entire body is shaking as he talks. He closes the distance between you and wraps his arms around you. What little strength you had holding you together crumbles and you sink into his chest, tears leaking out of your eyes.

“I’m sorry I weren’t there for ya when you killed Micah,” he says, rubbing your back. “To be honest, I was happy when you killed Micah. He’s been a giant thorn in my side since he showed up and I’ve wanted to shoot him myself since Sean died. I was just shocked that you’d done it so quickly. I shoulda gone with you when Dutch forced you out.”

You shake your head into his shirt. “No, it’s good you didn’t. If you’d left with me, Dutch would have hunted both of us down. He knows how essential you are to everything, he wouldn’t like it if you left with me.”

He sighs and leans his cheek against your head. “Well, I’m here now, darlin’. If you’ll have me, I’d like to stay with ya as long as I possibly can. You’re my best friend and…” He pauses so long you look up at him to find his cheeks red. “I gotta be honest, Y/N, I’ve been sweet on ya for years.”

It’s your turn to blush and you smile. “Really? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We had things so good, Y/N. We been friends so long, worked so well together, I didn’t wanna ruin that. Besides, I know you wouldn’t have feelings for me. I’m just an old, dirty outlaw. I ain’t worth no one’s time.”

You grimace at him. “Arthur, I hate how poorly you view yourself. You wanna know what I think about you?”

“I suppose, though I doubt it’ll be anythin’ good.”

You sigh and stretch up, placing your lips against his. They’re soft, though slightly chapped. He tenses up when you touch him but after a second he responds. His lips move with yours and you trace his with your tongue. After a moment, you pull away. He’s cheeks are darker but he’s smiling.

“That’s what I think of you, Arthur. I’d love it even more if you decided to stay with me. I’ve been sweet on you for the longest time, it’s been so hard for me to keep it out of our relationship. I just didn’t wanna ruin our friendship.”

He smiles in and leans in to kiss you again. You feel the first surge of excitement and happiness since you got kicked out of the gang. You can’t wait to see what the future has in store for you now.

#arthur morgan #red dead fanfic #rdr2 fanfic #awkward asks #arthur morgan x reader

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platypanthewriter · 4 years ago

Text

Yuletide Fic 5/5

Part One/Two/Three/Four/Five Read them as I post here, or all at once in Ao3 under peterqpan

What hadn’t occurred to Billy while planning for Santa was how long he and Steve would have to lie silently, waiting for the whispers around them to subside. The kids kept eating the Santa cookies, and then getting up to get more, and Will had the giggles about something. He kept wriggling out of the sleeping bags to put on more Christmas carols.

El kept sitting up at the slightest noise, staring suspiciously out the window, and Max wasn’t helping, all “What was that? Did you hear something?”

Jonathan’s shoulders shook suspiciously over on the couch, but at least he was quiet.

Steve didn’t let Billy throw anything at Max and El, and when Billy started to suggest knocking Dustin and Will out with blunt force trauma instead, Steve cupped his face with both hands, smiling at him in the light of the tree. They were scooted down far enough in the zipped-together sleeping bags that the edge shielded them from sight, their knees touching, and Billy let his eyes close as he leaned into Steve’s warm hands.

“Love you,” Billy whispered, almost inaudibly. “See, it’s romantic now.”

“It’s always romantic,” Steve whispered back, which Billy should have expected, honestly, from the man he’d had to flee earlier because he was professing his love loudly in the grocery store over Billy’s choice in mustard.

“Loser,” Billy sighed, squirming closer, and biting back a laugh at the feeling of Steve kissing his forehead, and his ears, and across his cheeks to his eyelids, and down his nose. Billy reached out and grabbed his boyfriend by the back of the neck, pulling him into a real kiss, but soft, so the kids couldn’t hear. “Merry goddamn Christmas,” he whispered, under the annoying, tinny tones of Marie and Donnie Osmond, apparently taped from the TV special. Steve snorted a laugh against his lips, and Billy could feel him grinning.

“Thanks,” Steve whispered, and Billy stroked his thumb over the base of Steve’s skull, and the shell of his ear, feeling the muscles move as he smiled.

“All I did was get out of your way,” Billy whispered. “But I get you tomorrow night, Harrington.”

“No, you—you did all this,” Steve whispered back. “I wouldn’t’ve thought of inviting the Byers. Or the tree. You invited Dustin.”

“Dustin invited himself,” Billy pointed out, and Steve nodded, squirming closer.

“You said it was okay,” he whispered. “I’d be...this’d be every other Christmas,” he laughed, a little catch in his voice, and pressed in for another kiss, murmuring against Billy’s lips, “Except for you. Love you. Babe. Billy Hargrove.”

“...I haven’t even killed you a reindeer yet,” Billy told him, his face so hot he could feel the blood pounding in his ears. “Jesus.”

“I love you anyway,” Steve whispered, kissing his face again. “I’m generous that way. Y’know. Even to losers who can’t even bring me a reindeer.”

Thank god, Billy thought, turning his head to kiss deeper, tasting frosting, and feeling Steve tremble against him, panting for breath. Thank god he shut up about loving me. Thank god he loves a loser who doesn’t bring him reindeer. He slid his hand up inside Steve’s shirt, under his sweater, and felt his breath hitch. Steve slid a socked foot over, hooking Billy’s leg by the ankle to sandwich their knees together, so their bodies were close enough to feel warm.

“Let’s sing carols,” Dustin said loudly, and Steve scrambled away, sat up in the zipped-together sleeping bags, and beaned him with a pillow he yanked off the couch, which had the fortunate side effect of dumping Jonathan Byers' ass on the floor. He yelled.

Billy should have expected the thankfully brief pillow fight, in which Will got the giggles so bad he fell over, Dustin took a three-pointer in the face from Max, and Jonathan Byers threw pillows at Steve, missing every time.

El smacked everyone indiscriminately, and Steve tried to be some kind of stealth ninja slithering around on sleeping bags while Billy called out plays like a sports announcer, but after they all flopped horizontal again, panting, the kid’s giggles finally petered off, and then there was silence.

It was time.

“How come I didn’t get a home run,” Steve whispered as they retrieved El’s bike from where Hopper’d slid it under the table, as Jonathan tiptoed off for the stockings.

“Didn’t hit the ceiling beam,” Billy whispered back, making it up as he went along. “Gotta hit the ceiling beam before it drops on somebody.”

“I should have got a penalty shot when they all ganged up on me,” Steve huffed, sitting out Dustin’s Commodore 64 games, and Will’s new markers. There was a photography book for Jonathan, and Billy waited until Steve wandered off to stick the two albums he’d bought him kinda behind it— Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and The Police: Synchronicity. Steve used one of his dad’s ski boots to make an ash print by the stove, before helping Jonathan prop stockings up not-too-near the fireplace, so the chocolate inside wouldn’t melt by morning.

Max had new walkie-talkies too, and Billy sat them out with mixed feelings, wondering who the second one would go to—her mom?! He hailed Steve over to have him write a note, too—Dear Max, it said, I have given your step-brother Billy a little Christmas spirit, so he’ll drive you to get a skateboard repair kit.

“Why am I writing it,” Steve hissed.

“She knows my handwriting, dingus,” said Billy, knowing she didn’t believe in Santa, but also buying in, a little, to the illusion.

Steve looked at him for a long second, and then yanked him in for a kiss.

They’d barely climbed back in their sleeping bags when Billy heard bells, and thought really, Hopper? Fuck you. Really?!

El sprang up, stumbling sleepily over Dustin and Will to the window, and from their grunts and muttered expletives, possibly doing internal damage. “Bells,” El mumbled, squinting outside just as they all jumped at the loud thud, and scraping noise, and El turned to stare at Max and yell “It’s his sleigh! It’s his sleigh!” before peeling off to run out the back door to stare up at the sky as Max fixed a sleepy, but extremely suspicious, glower on Billy.

“The fuck was that,” she hissed, and Steve said “Santa!”

“Go away, Santa, too early,” Dustin mumbled, and Billy’s liking for the kid grew three sizes that moment.

“It’s not even two in the morning,” Steve whispered, laughing, and pointing to the digital clock on the VCR, but Mrs. Henderson, Joyce, and Susan all stumbled downstairs, shivering and blinking sleepily, followed by Hopper.

He hummed as he put the kettle on, rubbing his hands together as his kid froze outside like The Little Match Girl, looking for Santa in her pajamas, and Billy finally went to the door with Dustin and yelled “El! Get in here, you’ll freeze!”

She yelled something back, but it got lost in the arctic wind, until she ran back, shivering, and held out a half-eaten carrot like she’d found the Holy Grail. “They dropped this!” she whispered, and Billy dropped a blanket on her head, and walked away to stand by the fire as Dustin pulled her inside, and Will saw his Santa-given markers and yelled.

Steve came up and threw his arms around Billy, either out of joy, or the realization he needed to stop his boyfriend from murdering the sheriff.

The kids all milled around the tree, Dustin’s fingers actually twitching towards the games, but they all noticed the time, and stared warily at their parents—except El, who was wrapped up in a blanket in the arms of the main offender, her snowflake-patterned socks sticking out as she yelled something muffled about Santa.

“Guess we’re opening presents now!” said Joyce Byers, grinning as she watched Jonathan catch sight of the photography book, and Will sitting, cross legged in front of his markers, his eyes wide and fixed on their target. El found her bike and yelled, snatching the note, and Max frowned at the handwriting over her shoulder, then fixed a startled frown on Billy, who shrugged. Max's eyes narrowed as El ran to show Hopper the note, and Billy looked away, watching Dustin rub his face briskly and trundle over to sit under the tree.

Dustin passed his mom a package, grinning up at her, and she crouched to hug his head.

“You’re all insane,” Billy whispered, warming to the idea of Christmas, a bit, as El passed him more hot chocolate, even though Jonathan immediately ruined everything by putting the Rudolph Christmas special on the VCR.

“Euuuugh,” Billy groaned, leaning his head against Steve’s.

In the ensuing melee, Billy ducked around flung Star Wars toys, Legos, what looked like a camping tent, a Ghostbusters baseball cap, and a rainbow of hats and scarves from Mrs. Henderson, who’d apparently made some for everyone there.

“How’d you have time,” Joyce breathed, running her fingers over a pattern in brown and green, and Claudia Henderson shrugged.

“Dustin’s cousins never send thank you cards anyway,” she said, grinning and handing packages to Billy, Steve, and Hopper.

Billy squeezed his, blinking at her, and she patted his shoulder. If Claudia Henderson could brave the wrapping-paper explosion, so could he, he figured, so he edged around to grab Steve’s stocking, and handed it over. “I’m giving this to you on one knee,” he whispered, and Steve blinked at him, then stared down at the stocking.

Instead of pulling out orange after orange, as Billy’d anticipated, Steve dumped it over his lap in a shower of fruit and walnuts, and burst out laughing at the ring-pop Billy’d stuck in the bottom. He yanked the wrapper open and put it on his finger, admiring the huge cherry candy gem, and leaned to whisper “I do.”

Billy flushed and scrambled away to find his actual presents for his boyfriend, rather than watch Steve stare into his eyes, swirling his tongue around his ring-pop, his mouth already red from the food coloring. Billy scrambled half under the tree and yanked out the first aid kit, and the cold-weather kit with handwarmers and foil blankets, and passed them up to Steve, who looked startled unwrapping them, then fond.

“I’ll be ready for anything,” he said, and Billy snorted.

“Can you be ready for anything in Hawkins?” Billy shot back, and Steve beamed at him.

Billy’s Santa presents for Steve, the albums, had been snatched up by Will and Jonathan, he realized after crawling around. They surrendered them after arranging some copies in trade, and Billy handed them over to their proper recipient while Steve stared at the pile of presents growing around him, and agreed to give one of his new walkie-talkies to Dustin.

Which made sense, Billy thought, it wasn't like Billy even knew how to use the damn thing. He didn't even know if he lived close enough to Steve for the damn thing to work, and it was probably more important to Steve that the kids could find him when they found monsters.

Steve was wearing one of his new mittens on the hand without the ring-pop, and the matching burgundy scarf, and Billy sat and watched him as he opened the note from Joyce, inviting him for New Years, and grinned at her.

Billy forgot he was in the middle of the whole Christmas mess until Max punched him in the shoulder, and shoved the note Steve had written in front of his face. “This true?” she asked, scowling. “You’re gonna take me to buy a skate kit.”

“Yeah,” he said, shrugging, and she stared.

“Santa is real,” she muttered, crawling back over to where El was trying on her new bike helmet.

Steve pushed his haul aside, pausing to blink at a wrapped package from Susan, and waved Billy over as he slowly ripped it open. Two packaged Hot Wheels cars spilled out into his lap—a BMW and a Camaro, and Steve looked delighted. "They're our cars," he whispered, grinning at Billy, his eyes sparkling in the lights from the tree as he ripped the cardboard off the backs, and touched their front bumpers gently together.

Billy shoved them down, hissing, "Don't make our cars kiss."

"But they're in love," Steve whispered back, bumping them together again, and Billy leaned his face in his hand and groaned.

He glanced over at Susan, sitting next to Max and El as El told his stepmom about things you could put in bike wheels to make noise. He couldn't picture Susan Hargrove going through the toy aisle, finding their cars, and he wondered for a wild moment if Max had, but that was even harder to picture. Steve kissed the cars bumpers together again, making a smoochy noise, and Billy elbowed him. He couldn't figure out what the cars had even been for—she wouldn't have given them to him—so the remaining option was Susan had shopped for Steve, intending the whole time to give him little toy cars in a mismatched pair.

Steve put both cars in his hand, their undercarriages pressed together, and rolled their tires together with a sly grin, and Billy smacked his hand again, reddening. “Okay, so,” Steve said finally, “—I didn’t know you’d want to come.”

“It’s fine,” Billy laughed, but Steve shook him gently by the shoulders.

“No, it’s not, but I gotta find you something better than what Bradley's Big Buy had, okay. All I got you was this—” he pushed a squishy package into Billy’s hands, and Billy ripped it open to find a soft sweater, clingier than the horse blanket Steve had pulled over his head earlier. “It’s the color of your—no, it’s not,” Steve said, squinting into his face, and Billy started snickering as Steve grabbed him by both arms and pushed him closer to the tree, then pulled him back, then walked him through the all the sprawled kids and around the other side. “There,” Steve said proudly. “It’s the color of your eyes.”

“I can’t see them,” Billy reminded him, grinning, and Steve stared at his mouth, licking his own lips, then groaned quietly in the back of his throat and stalked back to the couch, sucking on the ring-pop.

“Billy,” said Susan, holding out two rectangular department-store boxes with fancy bows, and Billy bit his lips together and sat down right where he was, lifting the lid on the top one. It was a button-down like he liked, the same brand he was wearing, in a deep oceany blue, and he bit his lips together, frowning into the box.

“Neil was busy, so I told him he didn't need to...supervise the shopping,” she said. “It should be the right size.”

Billy nodded, putting the lid back on, and opened the other, bigger box to see a wool coat, thick but tailored. He narrowed his eyes and put it on, and Steve whistled like a goddamn train. Billy ignored him, tugging at it and zipping up the front, and for once, dressed for the outdoors, didn’t feel like he was wearing an entire mattress tied to his chest. “...thanks,” he said, feeling his face heat, and avoiding looking up at her face by testing the size of the pockets.

“Don’t freeze to death,” Susan told him, sighing, and handed him his stocking. He pulled out Mr. T’s Candy Cups, and Nerds, and some oranges, and Starburst, and then felt something thick. He thought this better not be a fucking bag of coal, after she said she didn’t even think it was funny.

It was a pair of socks, warm and soft, and he considered them for a second before placing them in his lap, and reaching in to find a cassette of David Bowie’s Let’s Dance. He was just pulling out some Twix bars when Max dropped next to him, and he pulled his candy back towards him, narrowing his eyes at her.

“I got my own candy, dipshit,” she said, rolling her eyes, and fiddling with her new, shiny walkie-talkies. "The hat's warm."

Billy grimaced. "We'll get you the board repair kit."

"...he told you not to buy it, didn't he," she said heavily, and Billy winced, opening his mouth.

“Everybody done?” Joyce yelled, and Max opened her mouth and closed it again, gripping the walkie-talkie, but Joyce walked by and patted her shoulder, calling out, “Everybody done with presents? Okay! Go the hell to bed.” Max scuttled away to her sleeping bag, and Joyce prodded Hopper in the side, which he ignored. She cupped her hands around her mouth, shouting up at him. “Bedtime!”

“It’s morning,” Dustin said, snickering, but he covered a yawn, and Will walked over to his side of their shared sleeping bags, his arms filled with loot, and collapsed in a smiling pile.

“Fine, fine,” Hopper said, clapping his hands. “Everybody back to bed! G’night!”

Max opened her mouth, frowning at him, then sighed, and lurched tiredly to her feet, stumbling away. Steve came over and sat in her spot, throwing his arm around Billy, and sucking his ring-pop, and they sat and stared at the tree as the kids crawled back into their sleeping bags, Rudolph’s dad was terrible on the TV, and the adults all shuffled back upstairs.

“Love you,” Steve whispered.

“I heard those were invented to stop kids sucking their thumbs,” Billy whispered back, flicking Steve's hand with the ring-pop.

“It’s definitely been handy when I wanted to suck on things,” Steve said agreeably, and Billy choked, coughing, as Steve slurped away at his cherry ring-pop, looking smug.

Billy woke the next day alone in the sleeping bag, and tender where he’d rolled on his belt, and where the seams of his jeans had sanded his legs. He groaned into the soft blue-green sweater he was using as a pillow, and smelled food .

Nancy’d shown up, he found out, when he sat up like a groundhog blinking at the sun. She was on the couch with Jonathan, flipping through a different photo book in black and white. They both blinked at Billy, and then waved silently, and he waved back, looking around for Steve, and hoping Steve’s ex and her new beau didn’t try to include Billy in their conversation.

Steve was running back and forth from the kitchen, carrying plates and wearing an intent grin, and Billy watched him for a few minutes before clambering out of the sleeping bag. The others were rolled up, he noticed, and tried to zip his apart. He caught the ties in the zipper, somehow, and was trying to figure out whether he could just roll them together when Will dropped to sit next to him, eager to leverage his sleeping-bag-taming knowledge for copies of all Billy’s music.

Billy considered, aware of Nancy and Jonathan trying not to watch him repeatedly lose his battle with a squishy inanimate object, and finally agreed. “You figure this shit out and I’ll copy you the new Def Leppard,” he whispered, and Will hugged him, which was just—weird, so he waited until it was over, and walked away, trying to fix his hair by feel.

Lucas and Max showed up that afternoon, Mike was there, Billy registered vaguely, giving all the appropriate compliments to El about her bike, and Billy dozed on Steve’s shoulder in a turkey coma and let the Christmas carols float over him.

Just after he thought they’d left again, the floor pounded as Max stalked up to him and slapped the new walkie-talkie in his hand. “Everybody else has one,” she said, glaring at it, turning on her heel, and stalking off. Billy stared after her, wondering whether she honestly couldn't find someone to give it to. He'd seen Lucas', and it was twice the size.

“Ooo, I have one!” Steve said excitedly. “We can talk when you can’t get to the phone!”

Billy glanced up at him, and back down, imagining being able to call Steve when his door was padlocked from the outside, and bit his lips together. He nodded, and cleared his throat. “I, uh, yeah. I’ll...get some batteries.”

“I’ve got some,” Steve said, squirming away, then dropping beside him again to hand over an eight-pack of Energizers. “Dustin gave me some for mine.”

“...might use this thing a lot,” Billy said warningly, flicking the buttons, and Steve laughed.

“Good, I don’t wanna feel needy.”

Before everyone left, Billy got hugs from Joyce and Mrs. Henderson—he couldn’t think of her as Claudia, not when she was wearing an apron and reminded him so much of Mrs. Claus—a companionable shoulder-squeeze from Hopper, and a tense smile from Susan. El asked whether they could come back next year, explaining how Santa got lost sometimes without woodstoves, and Steve nodded seriously, agreeing to everything she said.

Jonathan shook Billy's hand like an awkward nerd, while Will tried to convince them to hang out and listen to music together, until El started questioning them all about music, and Hopper drug her away. As Jonathan, Will, El, and Hopper stumbled off in a hand-holding chain like Billy's paper-doll garland, Billy felt a tap on the shoulder, and turned to see Joyce Byers again.

"Jonathan and Will showed me the car," she said. "It looks really nice."

"They vacuumed it," Steve said, laughing and waving his hands, and Billy rolled his eyes.

"Steve fixed it so your battery will charge right, and changed your oil," he reported, and Steve laughed, grinning, then went wide-eyed as Joyce hugged them both around the necks, yanking them down even though she stood on her tiptoes.

"Thanks so much, you two," she said, sounding a little choked. "You're such good kids. You're such good kids."

Steve made a weird noise in his throat, and Billy's eyes skipped the stinging and went straight to blurry with tears, so he pulled away, clearing his throat, and made a show of lighting a cigarette.

"A-anytime," Steve said, laughing a little unnaturally. He folded his arms, unfolded them, and bit his lips, and Joyce squeezed his shoulder.

"Thank you," she said earnestly, and he nodded.

Billy threw an arm around him as Joyce walked away. Dustin glanced between Billy and Steve and saluted, laughing and shaking his head, and Nancy waved again from the car window. Steve waved back.

“We look like the parents in a Christmas special,” Billy said, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Steve, and waving at departing cars. "Like a sitcom." Steve snorted a laugh, wiping his eyes.

After they’d all gone, Billy leaned in the doorway between the kitchen and the front room, watching Steve pick up a couple pieces of wrapping paper, and sigh. He sat under the tree, holding a piece of Mrs. Henderson’s ugliest wrapping paper, covered in brown and orange angels that looked like a hollow-eyed Strawberry Shortcake. Steve stretched it flat, and bit his lips together, before crumpling it, his shoulders a little bowed.

“...you don’t think Chriatmas is over, do you?” Billy asked, wandering closer.

“What?” Steve laughed, his eyes lowered. “I mean, it’s still the 25th. I guess. Christmas until midnight.”

“Yeah, that too,” Billy agreed, coming up behind him to reach around with both arms and take the sad crumpled Christmas paper away. He tossed it behind the tree, and Steve snorted a laugh, leaning back into his arms. “But we haven’t even gotten our best present yet,” he whispered, letting his breath tickle Steve’s ear, so he shivered. “This is the part I’ve been waiting for.” Steve opened his mouth, shrugging, and Billy yanked him around so they were nose to nose. “I got the biggest present under the tree,” Billy hissed, “—and I’ve been so patient, don’t you dare tell me Christmas is over now.”

Steve grinned at him, wide and delighted, and Billy squished his face with both hands, making his grin kissable.

Having had plenty of time to plan, Billy grabbed one of the sleeping bags, unrolled it, and tossed it under the tree, towards the fire. Steve pulled him over for a deeper kiss this time, soft and exploratory, as though he didn’t know every hitch of Billy’s breath, and the way he trembled when Steve bit gently at his lower lip, and let it pull through his teeth. “Jesus god of reindeer,” Billy whispered muzzily, and Steve burst out laughing.

“What,” he said. “What?”

“You,” Billy said hoarsely, and cleared his throat, trying to remember his script. “You wanna put on, like, your Christmas songs. Or—or movies. Or something.”

“...you wanna fuck me to Rudolph?” Steve asked, looking a little weirded out, and Billy gritted his teeth, and committed, for the sake of love.

“You want your Christmas shit playing when you get presents, right.”

“...jesus,” Steve whispered, head cocked like Billy was crazy, but beaming all the same. “Uh.” He flushed, biting his lips as he narrowed his eyes at the TV and VCR, and then the tape player. “Uh, just music, maybe.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about Rudolph,” Billy grimaced, imagining the little reindeer’s nasal tones, and the nitwit misfit song. “I mean, if you want to, but I’m gonna...good thing I already know how fucking weird you are—”

“I didn’t come up with—with this Rudolph sex orgy idea,” Steve hissed back, poking him in the chest.

Billy shrugged, rubbing it. “I really don’t know what’s weirder about that than listening to, like, The Carpenters, or John Denver and the Muppets,” he said, waiting while Steve blew the dust off the record player, and frowned between The Jackson 5 Christmas Album and A Partridge Family Christmas Card. “Or those,” Billy said, making a face at little Michael Jackson, and sitting on the sleeping bag, waiting while his dick strained against the inside of his jeans.

“Just don’t think too much about it,” Steve muttered, crouching down to put on A Partridge Family with pink cheeks, and Billy waited until the speakers crackled and Mr. Partridge started singing to grab Steve around the waist.

Billy pulled his boyfriend's butt half into his lap, where he could slide his hands up Steve’s sides, lifting his sweater and shirt, and kissing the skin between his shoulder blades. Steve laughed, and leaned his head back against Billy’s shoulder for a kiss. Billy gave him one—then two—then stared at Steve’s startled grin, and sighed, brushing their lips together as the magnetic pull hauled him back in, and Steve gave a muffled laugh and a contented noise deep in his throat, closing his eyes. He tasted sweet, like the cookies he’d been eating, even sweeter than usual, and Billy groaned and shoved Steve forward again in order to push his sweater and shirt up over his shoulders, white from winter, and scattered with birthmarks. Billy kissed a few of them.

“Better keep me warm,” Steve whispered, curling up in his arms, and Billy pulled him in as tight as he could, burying his probably goofy-looking grin in Steve’s hair.

“Oh, I’ll warm you up,” he whispered, and Steve snickered, relaxed against him as Billy slid his hands around Steve's waist, and down to undo his boyfriend’s jeans. Steve groaned, shivering as Billy pulled his cock out—it was already satisfyingly hard in his hand, and Billy rubbed the edge of his thumb across it, so Steve grunted and squirmed in his lap. “...guess the Partridge Family really does it for you,” Billy whispered.

“Shut your face,” Steve mumbled, panting. “You do it for me, we could be—we could be listening to like. Bird calls, I don’t give a fuck—”

“You saying Tweety Bird gets your motor running,” Billy whispered back, and Steve elbowed him, mostly hitting sweater.

“Fuck you,” he hissed, his hips jerking so his dick bumped against Billy’s thumb again, into his hand, and Billy squeezed it, the wetness letting his thumb slide easily over the tip. “Oh jesus,” Steve whispered. “God…”

“Lay down,” Billy said, biting his shoulder gently, and Steve arched against him, groaning. “Come on, your majesty, I’m not even done unwrapping you yet.”

“...nerd,” Steve snorted, panting, but he let himself be pressed back onto the sleeping bag, his cock sliding against Billy’s hand as Billy held him down, gently, by the lower belly, tugging his jeans off. Steve bent his legs up to let Billy yank the legs off without having to move, and Billy laughed as he tugged Steve’s socks off, and tossed them away. Steve grinned up at him, his face lit by the lights on the tree, making him look a little starry.

“There,” Billy said, rubbing his free hand up Steve’s thigh. He leaned in to kiss his boyfriend’s naked dick, and Steve yelped, moaning in the back of his throat.

“What—about you,” he grunted, his voice a little rough. “You gonna raw me in your jeans?”

He sounded hungry at the thought, and Billy filed that away for later. “Nah,” he whispered, swinging a leg over so he was sitting across his boyfriend’s thighs. “Thought I’d make you watch me, for a bit,” he said, sliding two fingers in his mouth, and sucking on them.

Steve muttered “Oh, shit,” and propped himself up on his elbows.

“Now you got me in this damn...Mr. Rogers sweater,” Billy said, keeping his voice low as he drug his fingers down it, Steve’s gaze fixed on them as his dick leaked.

“Don’t talk about Mr. Rogers, gross,” he whispered, and Billy grinned, swinging his hips a little from side to side so Steve's naked thighs could feel the warmth of his ass through jeans. “Jesus,” Steve muttered, clenching his fists as Billy slid both hands around his own waist just under the edge of the sweater, lifting them up underneath against his sides, and Steve laughed a little unevenly, his eyes widening.

Billy lifted the sweater a little more, running his fingers lightly over his abs, and then his pecs as they flexed with his arms up in the damn sweater, and Steve swallowed visibly. Billy pulled the sweater off his shoulders and head, shaking his hair back, and flexed his arms as he pulled the sweater sleeves off.

Steve threw his head back laughing. “Love you,” he said, always picking the weirdest times.

“We’re boning to the Partridge Family,” Billy hissed, instantly irritated. “If this fuckery isn’t love I don’t know what is.”

“I know,” Steve said, his smile soft even as his cock dripped on his belly. “Thanks for boning me to the Partridge Family.”

“Shut the hell up, I’m stripping,” Billy growled, and Steve started laughing again, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, and Billy swore and leaned in to kiss him, flattening him to the ground, and wiping the wetness away from his boyfriend’s eyes with his knuckles. “The fuck is wrong with you,” he muttered, and Steve snickered, sniffling. “You want me to hurry up?”

“No,” Steve laughed, swallowing a suspicious gulping sound, and Billy frowned harder. “I just like this,” Steve whispered, laughing, his eyes welling up again. “I like this Christmas.”

“Are you gonna do this every year?” Billy asked in horror, imagining his boyfriend crying through sex while puppets wailed in the background, and Steve laughed harder, wiping his face.

“You saying you’re gonna bone me under the tree every year?” he asked, and Billy felt his face heat. Steve grinned, reaching up to tuck Billy’s curls out of his face, behind his ear. “In sickness and in health?”

“Why are you so weird,” Billy groaned, rocking his hips, so Steve grunted, closing his eyes. “Yes. Yeah. Next year we’ll fuck to Frosty, can I get back to stripping now?”

“Yeah,” Steve laughed, sniffling. “I love you. Yeah.”

“Christ,” Billy muttered, wiping his boyfriend’s eyes and cheeks again, his own eyes stinging a little—probably with embarrassment, he thought, fairly sure he was gonna get a half-chub every time he heard the Partridge Family playing, for the rest of his life.

Steve was still hard, at least—which was more disconcerting than anything—so Billy sighed, and rolled his hips again, as a reset. Every time he did, his fly brushed the bottom of Steve’s dick, and he groaned, rocking his head back against the sleeping bag. He was starting to sweat, and the light of the tree made him glisten.

“Look at me,” Billy told him, and Steve folded his arms behind his head to see. Billy ran his fingers up his new blue shirt—cupping his sides like his hands were Steve’s, and then running his hands up along the buttons to undo the first one.

“Never seen you with your shirt all the way on before,” Steve whispered, his eyes fond, and Billy snorted.

“Can’t let up on the advertising campaign,” he said. “Gotta show you the goods.”

“No, you don’t,” Steve reached down to squeeze Billy’s thigh through his jeans. Billy undid another button, parting the fabric over his collarbones, and running his hands down his neck, and Steve leaned his head on one shoulder, smiling up. “I’m not gonna...forget, jesus,” he whispered. “Never gonna forget what you look like, babe.”

Billy grabbed the sweater and leaned in to lift Steve’s head into a kiss, tucking the sweater behind it as a pillow.

“God,” Steve whispered against his mouth, running his hands over Billy’s half-unbuttoned shirt.

Billy sat back upright again, while Steve groaned and grabbed at his shirt as he pulled away. Billy undid another button, letting his nails scrape along his skin as he scooped his pendant into his mouth, swaying his hips. He slid his fingers down over the remaining buttons to brush over the edge of his belt, raising his eyebrows at Steve, who laughed, panting.

“Yeah, I’m watching, loverboy.” Steve leaned back on one elbow, smiling smugly, and Billy watched the low golden light on his boyfriend’s face and hair.

Billy ran his fingers over his fly, and down in his pants, tugging his shirt tails out one by one, and swayed his hips in a slow figure-eight as Steve bucked a little under him, grinning.

“Gonna be New Years by the time you’re done, jesus,” Steve said, his gaze riveted to Billy’s hands.

“Can’t keep it up, there, pretty boy?” Billy asked, arching his back as he undid the lowest button, and then parted his shirt like a curtain and undid the one above it to show his taut belly and the trail of hair leading into his jeans.

“Not the problem,” Steve said through gritted teeth, the fingers on his free hand digging into Billy’s thighs.

Billy stopped, looking down to unbutton his cuff and roll it up a couple of times, humming carelessly as Steve squirmed under him, smacking his leg.

“Hurry up, you bastard,” he demanded, and Billy smiled, unbuttoning the other cuff.

“You gonna ask nicely?” he asked, and Steve laughed, shifting under him with a grimace. “You’re leaking like a hose connection with a bad washer.”

“Shut up,” Steve hissed. “Like you aren’t making me.”

“Maybe I should stop,” Billy said, stretching so his shirt lifted.

“Please, please, you dickhead,” Steve broke. “My legs are fucking going to sleep, and my dick’s gonna explode—”

“Thought you loved me,” Billy said, licking his lips, and leaning in so his stomach brushed Steve’s dick. Steve yelped, groaning, and bucking up into the friction. “Isn’t that what you were saying earlier? King Steve, the chosen one?”

“Love you a lot more if you let me touch,” Steve growled, laughing. As Billy sat up, Steve reached out and yanked at his belt, and Billy laughed, smacking Steve’s hand away.

“Thought you didn’t want Christmas to be over,” Billy whispered, and Steve laughed harder, his cock dripping across his stomach.

“Yeah,” he admitted, leaning back with a shaky breath. “Yeah, I don’t. Never want this to be over.” His knuckles went white as his fingers tightened on Billy’s swaying thighs.

The Partridge Family switched to Winter Wonderland, and Billy’s side was warmed by the fire. He knew the light of it gilded his hair and skin as he flexed his bare forearms, sliding a finger under the leather strap of his belt as Steve groaned.

Billy flicked it out of the belt loops, tugging it off the tongue of the buckle and slowly drawing it loose over his fly. Steve twitched under him, swallowing back a noise as Billy’s jeans brushed his cock. “You want me to fuck you?” Billy asked, undoing the buttons of his jeans one-by-one so Steve could see he was going commando, and pressing his thumb and forefinger together in a tight circle over his own dick, so Steve’s bounced untouched on his stomach.

“Holy shit,” Steve breathed, looking him over, and Billy grinned.

“Want me to do all the work,” Billy whispered, swaying his hips with the music, “—so all you have to do is lie there?”

“Anything,” Steve said. “Love you, jesus.”

Billy’s hand stuttered, and he leaned forward again, bracing himself over Steve’s chest. “Tell me,” he said. “You want me to ride you? What?”

“I want everything,” Steve said, his eyes wide and soft, and then he grinned. “I mean, we got so many leftovers to get through. Whatever we don’t do now—”

“How can you be such a romantic and such a shithead,” Billy muttered, reaching down to squeeze his boyfriend’s hand.

“Fuck me just like that,” Steve said. “Your party jeans and that shirt. You look like—you’re a wet dream, jesus.” Billy grinned, cocking his head and licking his lips, and Steve laughed shakily. “Yeah, come on, asshole,” he whispered. “Billy.”

“Yeah,” Billy said, scrounging around in the back of the TV cabinet where he’d hidden the lube, and pulling the condom out of his back pocket. He squirted some lube in his hand, and pushed Steve’s legs up to slide his hand between them, watching him squirm against the cold.

“Warm it up, dickhead,” Steve muttered, grabbing his wrist, but as soon as Billy started sliding his fingers up and down, Steve relaxed, going boneless with one leg bent up, the other sprawled to the side. His eyes went half-lidded as he grinned up in the starry rainbow lights.

Billy watched him pant in the light of the Christmas tree, and smiled, holding Steve’s hips flat to the floor with one hand, and bending to slip his mouth over his boyfriend’s cock.

“Jesus christ,” Steve grunted, shifting under Billy’s hands, and Billy hummed along with the song, knowing he could probably shove on in, but taking it slow, swirling his tongue around Steve’s dick as his fingers worked. He rubbed over the edge of Steve’s hole, over and over, until he was squirming, red-cheeked, and biting his lips together, and he finally said “Jesus, fuck me, god—”

Billy lifted his mouth off Steve’s cock with a pop. “His majesty’s getting impatient,” he said, and Steve yelled “Yes, I fucking am.” Billy laughed, leaning his head against Steve’s knee, and then kissed it, before crawling up to kiss Steve’s mouth.

“Fuck you,” Steve muttered, panting, his skin gleaming with sweat in the light of the tree. “God…” he whispered against Billy’s mouth, whining softly, and Billy grabbed the sweater and shoved it under Steve’s back, pushing his legs up so Billy could push slowly in.

“Merry Christmas,” he mumbled, and Steve started snickering, grunting as Billy’s weight pushed the air from his lungs, but pulling him in for a kiss, bent nearly double.

“God, you feel good,” Steve grunted, as Billy narrowed his eyes, checking his boyfriend’s sprawled limbs for tension before thrusting his hips. “God, yes,” Steve moaned, kissing hazily at anything of Billy's he could reach.

It wasn’t so bad, Billy decided, boning Steve Harrington under the Christmas tree, and watching the Christmas lights reflect off his eyes. Even the music wasn’t too awful—he mostly tuned it out—until Billy went too hard, rustling the nearest branch of the tree as Steve writhed beneath him, and a popcorn ball smacked right between his shoulders and bounced off Steve’s knee, and they both had to stop while they laughed themselves breathless.

“Let’s do this every year,” Steve whispered into his shoulder once they’d finished, sweaty and smiling, and Billy snorted a laugh, pulling him closer.

“...yeah, okay,” he whispered back, running his hand around his boyfriend’s ass where it was still a little sticky, and considering Round Two. “You’re worth it.”

“Good,” Steve laughed, squirming closer. “You’re worth it too. This. Anything.”

“...love you too,” Billy whispered, hugging him close.

#harringrove #Finally the pornz #Found family #Boyfriend cookies #platypan FINISHED FIC

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nyahsaqueen · 4 years ago

Photo

Task 001: Character Playlist.

Death Becomes Her - a Nyah Queen playlist

Snippets of Lyrics below:

1. tipsy - Chloe x Halle

man just this entire song is her vibe, k bye

I've been crucified, darling Ghosts haunt me like New Orleans I've been charged with murder Need someone to push me further I'll hit you where it hurts, yeah If you don't put me first, yeah And I don't give no apologies If you lose a life, that's not on me, yeah

[Pre-Chorus] Better, baby, better treat me better Better than those other guys who change up like the weather, yeah It is such a shame that they went missing, they can't find 'em now Oh, I wonder how I accidentally put them in the ground, yeah

[Chorus] I might be a little tipsy on your love Makes me a little crazy, but so what? You're strumming on my heartstrings, don't be dumb If you love your little life, then don't fuck up

[Verse 2] I'll take you to the afterlife Boy, if you ain't actin' right Key your car and crash the lights Hit your head, I'm not polite Then I'll hunt down your family Let 'em know 'bout the tragedy Who did it? A mystery But you know that it, it was me, yeah

2. scream - Michael Jackson & Janet Jackson

Tired of injustice Tired of the schemes The lies are disgusting So what does it mean, damn it? Kicking me down I got to get up As jacked as it sounds The whole system sucks, damn it

Peek in the shadow Come into the light You tell me I'm wrong Then you better prove you're right! You're selling out souls but I I care about mine I've got to get stronger And I won't give up the fight

3. girls like us - Zoe Wees

It's hard for girls like us We don't know who we trust Not even the ones we love 'Cause they don't know

4. motive - Ariana Grande & Doja Cat

'Cause I see you tryin', subliminally tryin' To see if I'm gon' be the one that's in your arms I admit it's exciting, parts of me kinda like it But before I lead you on

Baby, tell me, what's your motive? (Motive)

You treat me like gold, baby Now you wanna spoil me Did you want a trophy or you wanna sport me, baby? Want me on your neck 'cause you wanted respect 'Cause you fightin' some war, baby Well, I had to bring the fists out, had to put a wall up But don't trust phonies, baby (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah) You gotta tell me, what's your motive, baby?

5. boss bitch - Doja Cat

Yeah, ain't tryna be cool like you Wobblin' around in your high heel shoes I'm clumsy, made friends with the floor Two for one, you know a bitch buy four And two left feet, you know I always drop First thing a girl did was a bop I'm the whole damn cake and the cherry on top Shook up the bottle, made a good girl pop

I'm a bitch, I'm a boss I'm a bitch and a boss, I'ma shine like gloss

6. nightmare - Halsey

"Come on, little lady, give us a smile" No, I ain't got nothin' to smile about I got no one to smile for, I waited a while for A moment to say I don't owe you a goddamn thing

7. all the stars - Kendrick Lamar, SZA

Tell me what you gon' do to me Confrontation ain't nothin' new to me You can bring a bullet, bring a sword, bring a morgue But you can't bring the truth to me Fuck you and all your expectations I don't even want your congratulations I recognize your false confidence And calculated promises all in your conversation I hate people that feel entitled Look at me crazy 'cause I ain't invite you Oh, you important? You the moral to the story? You endorsin'? Mothafucka, I don't even like you Corrupted man's heart with a gift That's how you find out who you dealin' with A small percentage who I'm buildin' with I want the credit if I'm losin' or I'm winnin' On my momma, that's the realest shit

8. needed me - Rihanna

But baby, don't get it twisted You was just another n**** on the hit list Tryna fix your inner issues with a bad bitch Didn't they tell you that I was a savage? Fuck ya white horse and ya carriage Bet you never could imagine Never told you you could have it

You needed me Ooh, you needed me To feel a little more, and give a little less Know you hate to confess But baby ooh, you needed me 9. checklist - Normani, Calvin Harris feat. Wizkid

Come show me what the neck ’bout Might show you what the check ’bout Might show you what that net 'bout Give it all to you if you check out Way you moving it around me Make me feel like you wan’ drown me Make me feel like you wan' wet me Only you know how to get me up

10. truth hurts - Lizzo

You tried to break my heart? Oh, that breaks my heart That you thought you ever had it No, you ain't from the start Hey, I'm glad you're back with your bitch I mean, who would wanna hide this? I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever be your side chick I put the sing in single Ain't worried 'bout a ring on my finger So you can tell your friend, "Shoot your shot" when you see him It's okay, he already in my DMs

I'ma hit you back in a minute (Yeah, yeah) I don't play tag, bitch, I been it (One time) We don't fuck with lies (Two times), we don't do goodbyes (Woo) We just keep it pushing like ay-ay-ay

11. juice - Lizzo

If I'm shinin', everybody gonna shine (Yeah, I'm goals) I was born like this, don't even gotta try (Now you know) I'm like chardonnay, get better over time (So you know) Heard you say I’m not the baddest, bitch, you lie (Haha)

It ain’t my fault that I'm out here gettin’ loose Gotta blame it on the Goose Gotta blame it on my juice, baby It ain't my fault that I'm out here makin' news I’m the pudding in the proof Gotta blame it on my juice Ya-ya-ee, ya-ya-ee, ya-ya-ee, ya-ya-ee Blame it on my juice, blame it, blame it on my juice

12. motivation - normani

Fallin' into the bed Why would we ever do somethin' instead of Fallin' into the bed right now? Yeah

I'ma break you off, let me be your motivation To stay and give it tonight And, baby, turn around, let me give you innovation Hey, 'cause I do it so right Think about it, ooh, I think about it Think about it, ooh, take a look at me now Hey, a little motivation, alright

13. mi gente - J Balvin, Willy William

Esquina a esquina, de ahí no' vamo' El mundo es grande, pero lo tengo en mi' manos Estoy muy duro, sí, ok, ahí vamos Y con el tiempo nos seguimos elevando

English: i’m rusty, i had to get some google help

Corner on the corner, that’s where we go The world is big, but I have it in my hands I’m very tough, yes, okay, there we go And over time we keep going up

14. sorry not sorry - Demi Lovato

Now, I'm out here lookin' like revenge Feelin' like a ten, the best I've ever been And, yeah, I know how bad it must hurt to see me like this But it gets worse (Wait a minute) Now, you're out here lookin' like regret, ain't too proud to beg Second chance, you'll never get And, yeah, I know how bad it must hurt to see me like this But it gets worse (Wait a minute)

Now, payback is a bad bitch And baby, I'm the baddest You fuckin' with a savage Can't have this, can't have this (Ah) And it'd be nice of me to take it easy on ya, but nah

Baby, I'm sorry (I'm not sorry)

15. django jane - Janelle Monáe

And hit the mute button, let the vagina have a monologue Mansplaining, I fold 'em like origami What's a wave, baby? This a tsunami For the culture, I kamikaze, I put my life on a life line If she the G.O.A.T. now, would anybody doubt it?

16. perfect illusion - Lady Gaga

Tryin' to get control Pressure's takin' its toll Stuck in the middle zone I just want you alone My guessing game is strong Way too real to be wrong Caught up in your show Yeah, at least now I know

It wasn't love, it wasn't love It was a perfect illusion (Perfect illusion) Mistaken for love, it wasn't love It was a perfect illusion (Perfect illusion) You were a perfect illusion

17. formation - Beyoncé

I see it, I want it, I stunt; yellow bone-it I dream it, I work hard, I grind 'til I own it I twirl on them haters, albino alligators El Camino with the seat low, sippin' Cuervo with no chaser Sometimes I go off (I go off), I go hard (I go hard) Get what's mine (Take what's mine), I'm a star (I'm a star) 'Cause I slay (Slay), I slay (Hey), I slay (Okay), I slay (Okay) All day (Okay), I slay (Okay), I slay (Okay), I slay (Okay) We gon' slay (Slay), gon' slay (Okay), we slay (Okay), I slay (Okay) I slay (Okay), okay (Okay), I slay (Okay), okay, okay, okay, okay Okay, okay, ladies, now let's get in formation, 'cause I slay Okay, ladies, now let's get in formation, 'cause I slay Prove to me you got some coordination, 'cause I slay Slay trick, or you get eliminated

18. be careful - Cardi B

Be careful with me, do you know what you doin'? Whose feelings that you're hurtin' and bruisin'? You gon' gain the whole world But is it worth the girl that you're losin'? Be careful with me Yeah, it's not a threat, it's a warnin' Be careful with me Yeah, my heart is like a package with a fragile label on it Be careful with me

19. i like that - Janelle Monáe

I remember when you called me weird We was in math class, third row, I was sitting by you Right before Mr. Ammond’s class 'Cause my mama couldn’t afford new Js Polos, thrift store, thrift clothes that was all I knew Do you remember? Uh, I remember when you laughed when I cut my perm off And you rated me a six I was like, “Damn” But even back then with the tears in my eyes I always knew I was the shit 20. W - Koffee feat. Gunna

Everything we do, we give thanks, tell dem wah we do Lowe di L, take di W (Ayy, ayy) One thing deh out deh fi you (Ayy, ayy) And it nah come if you no go

#darkesttask1 #( dossier. )#( tasks. )

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ontheoddoccasioniwritestuff · 4 years ago

Text

Goodnight, Aaron (Aaron Hotchner x OC) Chapter 5

Summary: After being grilled about his ex-girlfriend on what is meant to be a fun birthday outing, Sebastian gets some new information dropped on him by a worn-out Jack.

AN: Sorry I haven't posted in a while! Been a bit busy with job and family stuff. Hope you enjoy this chapter. This chapter is mostly unedited sorry!

Tagging: @sunlight-moonrise, @clean-bands-dirty-stories, @genevievedarcygranger, and @davidrossi-ismydad

Chapter 4 // Masterlist // AO3 Link

“They asked you to coach?”

Sebastian watched Jack run off to warm up with his team, then he turned back to Hotch who clicked the car keys to lock, “Do they know what you do for a living? And they’ve asked you to coach before? Mental.”

Hotch let out a chuckle at how utterly ridiculous Sebastian made it sound. And, truth be told, it was “mental” that Hotch was still coaching his son and their team when he still had to wrangle together his own team back at the BAU.

Sebastian adjusted his bag strap, “You need to learn to say ‘no’ to some people, Aaron.”

Hotch shook his head, playing into that teasing tone that had worked its way ito the conversation, “Well I don’t suppose you would be up for it?”

“I know nothing about football.”

“Soccer.”

“Soccer,” and Hotch laughed at the way Sebastian’s nose wrinkled as he mimicked the accent – albeit with heavy exaggeration on the vowels.

“Dave!”

Hotch’s hand raised into the air, catching the attention of his co-worker. Sebastian felt the pressure crank up to eleven as David Rossi sauntered over. He did not look like he was about to coach little league. He looked like he was about to go to one of his many villas in Europe and lounge around there for two weeks drinking wine.

“David Rossi, this is Sebastian Porter.”

“Jack’s nanny, of course,” Rossi shook his hand heartily. Sebastian immediately wanted Rossi to be the cool uncle he never had.

He couldn’t think of anything wittier to say than this: “And you work with Aaron. On and off the pitch.”

“Couldn’t let him do it alone,”

“My ride’s here, so I’ll see you this evening. Nice meeting you, David.”

Though Sebastian was already behind schedule, he spared himself the embarrassment of his boss watching him lightly jogging over to his companions - and said companions clowning him for said light jogging.

“Aww, a lil peewee match?” Bellamy teased loudly, though not loud enough for the team to hear her.

Sebastian wanted to give her a playful shove, but he didn’t trust that she wouldn’t slide off her rollerblades deliberately, so instead he retorted, “Bullying kids, Bellamy? I thought you couldn’t stoop any lower.”

Klaus stopped rolling back and forth on his BMX, “Which one’s the boss then?”

“Wearing the white polo and shorts, not holding the clipboard.”

Klaus squinted behind his par of wholly unnecessary sunglasses, “Hmm, both are fit.”

“Come on, you’re staring,” and Sebastian twisted Klaus’ baseball cap around backwards before climbing onto the back of the bike.

As Klaus gave an indignant retort, he pushed off and began to cycle away. Sebastian’s hands gripped his shoulders tight and he opted to send a smile in his boss’ direction as opposed to a wave. Bellamy, the embarrassing mom type that she was, waved with both hands and skated backwards as she went.

Their afternoon sesh was off to a rocking start when Sebastian refused even one drink – sticking instead to a diet soda – while Bellamy and Klaus went for bottomless Bellini’s.

Bellamy discussed what children the new term had brought her. A short summary was that they were all little shits whom she adored and would protect with her life. That had been her track record for the part three years she had taught at this high school. The trio clinked glasses in celebration to her track record.

“Honestly, they’re so ready to get to using the Bunsen burners. It’s gonna be bonkers,” She beamed as a server brought her a refilled glass, “Can’t wait to bust out the copper.”

“As much as I love you talking science to me,” Klaus paused to put on a solemn mask that was cracked from the triumph he was wearing beneath, “We have to talk about Pippa while I’m still partially sober.”

When both his friends zeroed in on him whilst sipping their Bellini’s through straws, Sebastian all but exploded with excuses, “Oh my god, I get it! You told me so! It’s been a month! Can we drop it?”

“You went back to her!” Klaus ignored Sebastian’s “I know’s” with his head craning to reach over his friend’s voice, “After everything she did to you! You that desperate for attention?”

“Yeah!”

Both Bellamy and Klaus ceased their teasing, Klaus dropping back into his chair as he said, “Woah, ok, sorry dude.”

“It’s ok.”

Bellamy took Sebastian’s glass away, “Babe, that’s really depressing, you sure you haven’t been drinking?” She took a long sniff, her nose twirling around the rim before sliding it back to Sebastian, “No, he really is that deep.”

“Ha ha.”

Both Bellamy and Klaus sobered up considerably, the tone of their voices shifting into quiet support as Bellamy draped her arm around Sebastian’s shoulders, “I’m glad you got out of it, Bash.”

“Me too. And Rachael.”

“Ooo, how is Rachael?” Klaus pushed his sunglasses up his nose. How he looked like such a douchebag, shades on indoors, yet so happy with that status, Sebastian didn’t care to think about right now.

“She’s got a job in a firm now, big proper one.”

“Oooh! Can she get me out of my parking tickets?”

Suddenly the lights dimmed and Bellamy whipped out her phone, grinning behind it as Klaus looked up and around with a baby’s curiosity.

A troop of servers marched over with the birthday cake Bellamy had dropped off earlier that day. Its bright red buttercream icing Klaus went very quiet, a bashful smile glowing in the candlelight as the restaurant turned its attention to sing “Happy Birthday” to him.

“Happy Birthday, Klaus.” Bellamy and Sebastian kissed both his cheeks at the same time, a perfect photo op that one of the servers took for them.

The birthday boy was gracious enough to share his cake and give Sebastian a ride home after a few more drinks. Of water, Sebastian insisted that Klaus sober up a little so they weren’t going to crash the bike before his night out.

At the crossroads, Bellamy turned left when they went right, her arm stretching out to them like she was watching her loved one get shipped off to war. Sebastian was dropped off shortly after, just outside the block of flats, and Klaus was already off before Sebastian could tackle him with a hug. So he shouted after him. Nothing expletive, but it was enough for Klaus to look over his shoulder and smirk, swerving not a second later to avoid an incoming pedestrian.

When Sebastian entered the flat, Hotch and Rossi were in the sitting room, lounging in the settee over a bottle of whiskey artistically placed on the coffee table.

“Hey, how was the training?”

“Tough, but those kids are tougher.” Rossi raised his drink to his statement, and Sebastian thought about how he could subtly slide some adoption papers across the coffee table.

“Do you want a drink?” Hotch asked.

Already going to the kitchen, Sebastian checked in the stew he’d prepped that morning in the slow cooker, “I’m good, thanks.” He was a little peeved that he’d spent the afternoon sober, especially during the bashing of the ex-girlfriend, but he could always grab a nightcap later on. “Where’s Jack?”

“I SCORED A GOAL!”

Sebastian smile strained as he saw the state of Jack’s shorts once he rounded the corner to the kitchen. His shirt was off; clearly he was in the middle of getting changed.

“That’s brilliant, but if you come at me with them muddy keks, I’ll score a goal with you! Come back in your jammies and we’ll celebrate properly.” And he shooed Jack away to the bathroom. The star striker to be disappeared, his muddy rear skidding into his bedroom with the door closing quick behind him.

“‘Keks’?” Rossi repeated with an eyebrow raised.

So Sebastian clarified, “Trousers.”

“You mean pants.”

Sebastian narrowed his eyes at Hotch’s so-called correction before saying again, “No, keks.”

Thankfully they saw the funny side of it, allowing a hint of strain to drop from Sebastian’s shoulders just in time for Jack to come running back in. This time, he was wearing pyjamas.

Sebastian caught him neatly and plonked him on the countertop, “Tell me all about practice!”

As Sebastian prepared the rest of dinner, Jack babbled away about the training and his teammates. His energy by comparison to the other conversation between Hotch and Rossi caused theirs to stagnate in favour of joining in. Sebastian carried Jack across to the other counters without impeding his speech, keeping an eye on him and the food, while Hotch and Rossi joined in the storytelling.

At Jack’s description of Hotch and Rossi’s demonstration of a paired-up passing game, Sebastian’s abandoned phone began to buzz.

“Sorry Jack, I gotta get this. But why don’t you set the table?” Sebastian took him back down to Earth and shuffled him in the direction of the cutlery drawer before he picked up his mobile, “Hey, what are you doing up? Go to bed, young lady.”

Rachael replied with a heftier helping of snarkasm, “I’m in bed at the moment actually. Have you rung Mum and Dad yet?”

“I have, don’t worry,”

“Ok. Just checking.”

“Texting exists, you know? Not that I don’t delight at the sound of your grumpiness.”

“Yeah, well, you’re starting to sound more American.”

Casting an eye over to see Jack was nattering away to Hotch and Rossi, Sebastian whispered, “Shut your goddamn mouth.”

“I’ll call you after work. Love you, bye.”

“Bye.”

Sebastian hung up then slapped his free palm against his face.

Hotch caught his attention, leaning ever so slightly into his range of vision with concern, “Are you alright?”

“Forgot to say I love you, she’s gonna hold that against me for five years at least.”

As the person dishing up and the last to get to the table, Sebastian sat beside Rossi with Jack opposite him and Hotch diagonally across. There was a tautness in Sebastian’s back as he tried desperately not to gauge Rossi’s reaction to his food.

Instead Rossi reminded him of their meeting earlier, “Interesting choice in mode of transport today.”

Like a deer in the headlights, Sebastian tripped his way through his explanation, “Thanks, we’re desperately trying to reclaim our youth.” Then he popped a forkful of meat into his mouth to excuse him from further conversation.

Except Jack didn’t get the memo. “Who were you talking to on the phone?”

“My sister, Rachael, she’s got a big case on tomorrow.”

“She’s a lawyer,” Rossi pointed across the table with his fork, “Hotch was a defence attorney.”

The information was so shiny and new to Sebastian, that he forgot to implement his “you’re my boss” filter and he said, “You look for ‘intimidating’ in your job descriptions?”

No time for regret, Jack once against filled the space. “Intimidating?”

“Yeah, intimidating, big into justice, likes his suit,” and instead of back down, Sebastian leant over his plate as if to tell a secret, and Jack opposite him leant close too as Sebastian said, “Your dad’s basically Batman.”

Jack’s face lit up at the comparison, one he had made in the past, and he continued to grin as he ate his stew.

“Anyway, our kid’s following up on some advice about getting my deposit back from my bedsit. Landlord’s being an absolute bad word.”

“If you want, I can take a look at it,” Hotch offered.

Sebastian looked back at Jack with fond bemusement, “Told you, your dad’s Batman, just no billions minus the brutality.”

Hotch’s cutlery slipped and collided loudly with his plate as Sebastian said, “It’s all good, thank you. I just sent him some photos of what the mattress looked like when I first moved in, should get him to give up.”

The conversation stagnated from Sebastian, still worn out word-wise from his afternoon drinking non-drinking outing, so he was grateful for the fact he finished first and Jack finished second.

“We can leave the grown-ups now,” he said in a loud whisper, already walking off with Jack to his bedroom.

Over his shoulder, he heard Rossi say not so quietly an I-told-you-so about how “men can be nannies” and that Sebastian was a good choice. While Sebastian was relieved at he had made a good impression on Rossi, he was not so much feeling the inferred sexism his boss held. Still, he was hired now. Microaggressions could be tackled when he got to them.

Cross-legged on the carpet, Jack set about demolishing the rocket. Bricks flew across his little zone of construction. One stray red brick hit Sebastian right between his sock and his cuffed jeans.

“What are we on today, bud? Pirate ship?”

But Jack was quiet. His energy levels were definitely crashing after such a big day. Sebastian gave him space to answer if he wanted, taking charge of organising the bricks into sizes for Jack to pick from.

When there was no reply for a solid minute, Sebastian asked, “You ok?”

For a while, Jack continued his silence. He was busy looking for a very specific shape of brick. His fingers searched over the top of the pile then dove into it, fishing out the perfect piece. Then he spoke.

“Batman beats up the bad guys,” Jack said, his voice hushed, “But so does Daddy.”

Sebastian blinked then recovered just as quick, “Oh I’m not sure about that.”

But Jack shook his head with his eyes still on assembling his boat, “He beat up the man who killed Mommy. Don’t tell him, it’s a secret.”

“A secret from him?” Sebastian didn’t know he was whispering too until he had already spoken.

“He doesn’t know we know. Can you make the mast please?”

And Jack held out a square block. Sebastian blinked again and accepted the piece. Clearly Jack thought this was a very casual conversation, something that Sebastian should keep from Hotch very easily. And he was making a ship.

“Jack, have you told that to anyone else?”

“No.”

“How tall do you want the mast?”

Jack measured with the space between his hands. Taking note, Sebastian continued to stack bricks until the desired height was reached, and Jack took it off his hands, placing it in the middle of the boat.

“I’m gonna get a drink. Do you want anything?”

The little guy shook his head, now completely absorbed in his construction projects. With a pat on his head, Sebastian twisted his legs around to stand and went to stand in the hallway. The door closed behind him and he pressed his forehead against the wall. He took a deep breath, rolling his head to the left, and pushed back his shoulders. A crack from his neck introduced him to the kitchen, where he tossed a half smile at Hotch and Rossi. Then he busied himself with getting that drink. A few drops of water splashed against his wrist.

“Hey Sebastian?”

Said person looked around to see Rossi rocking on the back legs of his chair, “I don’t suppose Hotch ever told you that, when you were taking your trial day, he nearly called you every hour to see how you were doing?”

“Dave,” Hotch said with something that was clearly intended to be a warning tone. The smile he was fighting to keep off his face betrayed him.

“No, he didn’t.” He hid his smirk in his glass. It dropped fast though. The Batman comments were still heavy in his mind, and now with Jack’s context on the brutality aspect, he wasn’t really jazzed to crack another joke lest he stumble across some more unfortunate information.

Rossi didn’t seem to care about that so much, “I had to micromanage his micromanaging.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t’ve minded that.” Sebastian’s foot idly dragged across the tile in front of him, “I’m sure Jack wouldn’t’ve either. And speaking of-” He pulled out his phone and pulled up the website he and Jack had browsed during breakfast, “I have a very important question for you: can we get this bouncy castle for Jack’s birthday?”

He showed the photo of the dream castle to the two men.

“You mean a ‘bounce house’?”

“No, I mean bouncy castle. He was telling me all about wanting a slide one, he’d be over the moon if he got to bring his classmates around to go on one!”

“I suppose if we removed all my furniture and knocked down the walls, we could fit it in here,” Hotch said smartly. His eyebrows were raised as he looked away from the screen at Sebastian, who snorted. God, it wasn’t even that funny.

Once again, Rossi chimed in with his brilliant contributions, saving Sebastian from utter shame, “You know, we could have the party at my home.”

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner x oc #aaron hotchner fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds x oc #my writing #r: male #wc: 2k+#series #goodnight aaron

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lavendersuh · 5 years ago

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Doyoung rebel spy!au

doyoung x reader // sci-fi au, fluff, reluctant mission partners to lovers

word count: 1.5k

au masterlist

header by @itsapapisongo tysm!!

note: long time no see! here’s the next part of my little star wars nct au series! i’m trying to make these easy to read for people that don’t know star wars, but I’ve been in the fandom for so long i can forget that some of this terminology isn’t general knowledge lol. blasters = space guns and bacta = quick healing med patches

“Are you coming or not?”

You hear your mission partner call from outside the ship. You snarl as you grab a blaster and exit the ship as well.

“This is a bad idea, Doyoung!” You yell after him as he walks toward the desert town. “We have no idea where we are! How do we know there won’t be any Imperials walking around?”

“Calm down, sweetheart, why would stormtroopers come to such a backwater planet?” Doyoung tells you, casually strolling into the marketplace.

The stalls are bustling with a variety of species, all seemingly in a hurry to go about their business. You didn’t get a very friendly vibe from anyone, but all you needed was to get a part of repair your ship and be on your way.

While you really didn’t want to be here on this run down planet, it was a necessary stop. You were running out of fuel and some of the hyperdrive parts were completely fried from your last jump. You and Doyoung hadn’t expected to run into so much trouble while gathering information for the Rebel Alliance, but at this point, you suppose everything is trouble. Every mission with Doyoung seemed to end in a chase through the stars, and the two of you had only managed to escape because of one too many jumps into hyperspace.

The market is fairly mundane, as people and creatures try to sell their food, ores and tech to anyone who crosses their path. As you search for a place selling ship parts, the hair on the back of your neck stands up. You can just tell that trouble is on it’s way.

You look ahead of you to find Doyoung has already engaged with a vendor. He seems to be using his charm to knock the price down, and you can’t help but feel a smile as his usually annoying charisma comes in handy for once.

You didn’t hate Doyoung, no. You both were fighting for the same things, both having been pilots in the Imperial Academy before running away. With your similar backgrounds, the leaders of your rebel cell decided you would work well together. This was both correct and incorrect.

Statistically, you worked best with Doyoung. The missions were quick, to the point, and you got home with important information and relatively few scratches. But you always fought with Doyoung. It was never anything major, but every time, he somehow managed to piss you off and get you riled up. You were just praying you would get off this planet before you blew your cover.

You finally catch up to Doyoung, hearing him talk in a language you don’t know. He seems to be doing okay though, so you look around a bit as he makes the trade.

Out of the corner of your eye, you spot a speck of white in the midst of the dull browns and greys of the market. Your eyes widen as you see two stormtroopers emerge from a building.

“Doyoung, we gotta go.” You grab his wrist, startling him in the middle of a sentence. He looks over to where your eyes are trained and you assume he offers the creature a farewell before you take off at a fast pace towards the ship.

“Where the hell are we? Why are those bucket heads on every goddamn planet?” You snarl, making your way through the crowds of people.

“Haven’t you noticed we are fighting an Empire that rules the whole galaxy? Of course there are stormtroopers everywhere!” Doyoung calls behind you.

You’re about to argue back to him, but almost trip over a canister in the middle of the road. You weave around a corner, coming closer and closer to the spaceport holding your ship. You thank every star above that the repair you bought parts for can be made while taking off.

You look behind you to find the troopers hot on your tail, with Doyoung just a few steps behind you. Just as you catch his eye in your glance back, one of the troopers manages to hit his shoulder, causing your partner to cry out. He doesn’t stop running, though, instead catching up to you and making a covert turn so that the troopers are momentarily caught off guard.

The two of you make a few more turns, leading to a completely abandoned alleyway. You don’t have much time but you pause to inspect Doyoung’s injury.

“How bad is your shoulder? We have some bacta patches on the ship, we just have to hurry-”

“It’s not that bad,” Doyoung says, while he holds onto his injury, “But, I need to tell you something important.”

“Important?” you ask, “How important? Because we don’t have a lot of time.”

You know Doyoung’s injury is worse than he is telling you, and you know he isn’t someone who shows his pain. But there is a fear in his eyes. His skin is paler than it normally is, and he wobbles where he stands.

“Please, listen, I just- I need to tell you somet-” Doyoung never finishes his sentence, as he passes out. You are barely close enough to catch him, but after some jostling, you manage to secure your arms around his torso.

Panic sets in as you hear blaster shots a few roads away. You begin to drag your partner along as fast as you can, seeing the space port entry just a few yards away. It’s certainly not the most graceful thing, but soon enough you are setting Doyoung’s unconscious form in the medbay corner of your ship as you pilot yourself out of the city.

It doesn’t take long to exit the atmosphere, so you set up auto-pilot and fix the repair that caused this whole mess in the first place. It’s a quick fix, and you are soon traveling through hyperspace.

Doyoung is still unconscious when you return to him. You find the bacta patches and turn him over gently, removing his shirt and vest to get a better look at the injury. It’s not the worst you’ve ever seen, so you know with the right treatments it will heal in a few days. You press the patches onto his shoulder blade, hearing a seer of pain escape his mouth.

“Are you awake, or do you still wanna pretend like you’re dying?” You ask him, as he tries to sit up.

He coughs for a moment, so you find some water for him as he further wakes up. You stand silently watching the muscles along his neck as he drinks, suddenly reminded of the fact that you tore his shirt in order to apply the bacta.

You hadn’t thought about it at the time, but now that he’s awake, you start to feel flustered. Doyoung doesn’t seem to notice, though, as his eyes stare off into space somewhat intently.

He seems to notice you staring, as he shakes his head and gives you a small smile, “Thank you for getting me all the way back here.”

“It’s no problem,” you reply, “I apologize for any bruises that might appear due to dragging you.”

He lets out a chuckle, his eyes shining with appreciation. But something is still missing.

“Are you okay?” you ask, a bit hesitant. “Not just the shoulder injury, but in general? You were kinda manic before you passed out on me.”

Doyoung is quiet for a moment. You decide to sit next to him on the med table, equally silent.

“I haven’t gotten shot in a while,” he tells you. “I started panicking because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to tell you….”

“Tell me what?”

“I like you.”

He says it so softly, you barely hear it. He says it so bluntly, you barely believe it. You turn to look him in the eyes, and you find Doyoung’s face to be at peace, staring with a quiet smile settled upon his lips.

“You like me?” you ask, making sure you heard correctly.

“Yeah, I do.”

You can’t help the way your face scrunches up, “Since when? How? We always fight…”

He runs his hand lightly down your forearm in an affectionate way. “Sure, we have our arguments, but we make a good team.” he tells you, “I like that you always seem to know what I’m thinking before I do.”

“Oh.”

You don’t really know what else to say. Your mission partner who you have reluctantly found yourself getting close to has turned your world upside down.

Doyoung pulls you out of your thoughts again as he asks, “Can you tell what I’m thinking about right now?”

Tilting your head, you hate to admit that you can tell. His gaze roams around your face, settling on your mouth. You slowly look to his own.

His lips twitch up into a bright smile before he softly connects to yours. It’s light and chaste, but your head spins. Suddenly your partner in crime seems like he might be more after all.

#doyoung #doyoung x reader #doyoung x you #nct #nct fanfic #doyoung fluff #kim doyoung #sci fi au #doyoung au #nct scenarios #doyoung scenarios #my writing

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pulpwriterx · 5 years ago

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ALWAYS BEN SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY

What if Ben Solo had just escaped the Jedi Temple and Yavin-4 the night that his Uncle tried to kill him? What if nothing had burned, and no one had died that night? What if he had trusted his father enough to help him get away, and his mother enough to tell her about Snoke? What if he could hear Anakin's voice, then? This is that story.

CHAPTER 1: RUN, BEN, RUN!

Ben Solo awoke, and saw his Master, his Uncle, standing over him with a lightsaber.

He summoned his, and defended himself.

Ben knew he couldn’t beat his Uncle Luke with the Force, but he also knew he had greater physical strength.

When they were at crossed sabers, Ben punched Luke Skywalker in the face as hard as he could.

Uncle Luke flew back against the wall and slumped down, unconscious.

“Oh, shit!”

Ben was in a panic.

He felt alone.

His Master, his Uncle wanted him dead.

The Dark Side courted and tortured him in the person of Master Snoke.

His mother, who had left him to either his father’s world or his Uncle’s since he was 13 would never believe him.

Was this it?

Did he have no choice but to go to Master Snoke?

But whereas Ben considered the Jedi to be an ivory tower of unrealistic hypocrites, the Sith were a gang of power hungry killers who had used his beloved Grandfather's weakness to turn him into their pawn.

Ben didn’t want to be a Jedi monk and his mother and Uncle's shining saint, nor did he want to be a pitiless warlord doing the Sith's murderous dirty work.

He realized that what he really wanted was to tear it all down.

The Light, the Dark, the Jedi, the Sith.

But how?

If he was ever to figure that out, if he was ever to be free?

He had to run.

But where?

Dad.

The Old Man wasn’t the Father of the Year, but the times that Ben had fled Uncle Luke and the Jedi Temple over the past ten years, and spent time with the Old Man were his happiest times.

The last time he had escaped, he was gone for almost two years, and the Old Man hadn’t wanted to take Ben to the Jedi Temple any more than Ben had wanted to go.

He would get to the spaceport, and radio to his father for help.

He had to believe his Dad would save him.

Ben checked to see if his Uncle was alive, and finding that he was?

He quickly gathered up everything he could shove into a duffel bag, put his boots on threw it over his shoulder and ran.

Literally.

Ben ran from the Jedi Temple, borrowed a speeder, and ran down the road, and he was still running when he got to the little town around the spaceport that was once the Rebel Base on Yavin 4.

He burst into the cantina, and was immediately surrounded by pilots, scavengers, smugglers and pirates who knew him and his father.

Ben felt immense relief.

He went up to the bar.

“Holy Mother Force, Ben, your face is bleeding! look like someone just walked over your grave! What did those crazy fanatics do to you?”

Ben touched his face.

He was bleeding pretty hard.

“I need a fucking drink. I need to get the fuck out if here. Fast. I need to call my father. I need to use your radio. Please, help me. They want me dead. They tried to kill me. I had to run for my life.” Ben explained.

The bartender drew him a pitcher of Arkanian ale, and poured him a shot of Huttese Whiskey.

“Sure, kid, sure. You can hide in the radio room. Eat something. Trixie? They hurt Ben! Come out here and bring the first aid kit!”

Trixie, the Askajian barmaid, rushed out and bandaged Ben’s head and face up.

As soon as he had drank his drinks and eaten his sandwiches, Ben went into the back and radioed the Falcon, two or three times.

“Ben, do you know what time…”

“DAD! Yeah, you bet I know what fucking time it is! It’s time for you to fucking listen to me! This Jedi shit is murder! Literally! Dad you gotta help me! Uncle Luke tried to murder me he was standing over me while I was asleep with a lightsaber! He grazed my face, and I'm hurt! Just get me out of here and as far away from this Jedi shit that there is oh, Dad, I’m so fuckin’ scared! Please Dad please.”

“Luke did what?"

Ben began to cry.

“You don’t believe me, do you, Dad? Holy Mother Force! For once in your life, don’t be a fuckin’ asshole and let me down! Just get me out of this! I’m hurt, and I’m scared and I need you to be my goddamn father, for kark’s sake!” Ben wailed.

Then he just began sobbing.

Now Han was getting scared, too.

“Alright, Ben. Okay. Calm down. You sound terrified, kid. I believe you. I have to. I’ll come get you. Right now. Stay in the radio room and wait for me. If your Uncle comes back for you, don’t go with him. Tell him I’m coming to take you home.”

“Where’s home, Dad? Where? I don’t have one. I’m not safe! I’m not safe!"

Ben was on the verge of hysteria.

Han was strangely calm.

“You got a home, Ben. The Falcon is your home. I’m flying it, to get you, right now. And you’re safe with me and your Uncle Chewie. I promise.”

***

The two hours Ben waited in the radio room crouched fearfully behind the desk were the longest of his life.

He had never been so happy to see his father since he was a little boy.

Han ran into the room, with Chewbacca right behind him.

“Chewie, look. There’s blood on the floor. Luke must have hurt him! Ben? Where the hell are you?”

“Behind the desk.”

Han couldn’t believe that Ben could have wedged his big body into such a small space.

He moved the desk, and Ben was crouched there, with a bloody makeshift bandage around his head and part of his face, holding the blaster Lando had given him in his trembling hands.

Han's face distorted with anger and disbelief.

“What the fuck? Your head's bleeding! Do you still have an eye under there, Ben?"

Han pulled Ben out of the hole and Ben clung to his father like he was five, again.

He was trembling all over, in terror.

“I’m so scared, Dad. You gotta help me. Don’t make me go back! Don’t let them have me!”

“I won’t, Ben. I promise.”

Ben took a few steps and reeled.

“My head feels funny. I only drank one pitcher of beer. And I had two shots.”

“Not good when you got a head wound, kid. Chewie, get Ben. I’ll get his bag. We'll go out the back.”

They got Ben to the Falcon in a hurry and Han jumped blindly to hyperspace, not even caring where he ended up, as long as it was far away from Yavin 4.

***

In his hysteria, Ben told his father everything.

Chewie flew the Falcon while Han tried to do something about the bleeding slash from Ben’s scalp, past his eye, to the bridge of his nose.

He was putting clips on it.

“Don’t worry, Ben. It’ll be an interesting scar, not a disfiguring one. So, this Snoke guy is invading your mind, and torturing you. Have you ever seen him in person?”

“Not since I was a kid. I didn’t know he was a Sith, then.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“They wouldn’t believe me, Dad! In their happy fuckin’ world, everything is perfect, the good guys won and the Sith are gone. You see what happens when that’s not true?”

Ben was completely hysterical, hovering between fear and rage.

“Yeah. Instead of helping you, Luke goes crazy and tries to kill you, not this Snoke guy. Well, where is this Sith bastard?”

“Why, Dad?”

“Because we have to kill him.”

“It’s not that easy. He’d sense you coming a mile away. He wants me. If I was strong enough, and I could convince him I was interested in joining the Sith? I could kill him. But I’m not strong enough. And I’m not interested.”

“Then you can get strong in the Force, on your own, and you can go kill him. I mean, who says you need a teacher? How hard can it be for a Skywalker? You could do Force shit when you were five. Do it your way, Ben. Is that guy in your head, now?”

“Not really. When I’m not in the midst of all that Jedi stuff, I can block him out of my mind.”

“Then block him out of your mind. Because you’re not going to be around that shit, anymore. You feel better, kid?”

“Some.”

“Ben, you got me. You got Chewie. You got Lando. And you got your brains, your Force ability, your lightsaber, and your blaster. It’s like you told me, once. Dark Side? Light Side? Fuck it. My side. You stick with that, and forget this Jedi versus Sith shit? You'll be OK. Now go to your cabin, and clean up, and lie down. Get some sleep. We’ll take you to Bespin, to see one of Lando’s doctors. Get your wound taken care of.”

“You sure, Dad? You won’t make me go back?”

“With a Sith Lord trying to mind fuck you into being Vader Jr. and Luke trying to murder you? Fuck no. If anybody wants you, even if it’s your mother or your Uncle? They'll have to go through me to get you. I might not have been the Father of the Year, but this is Dad 101. Don’t let anybody hurt your kid. Go to bed. It’s OK, Ben.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Ben shuffled off to his cabin.

“What the fuck is going on, Chewie? Has everyone lost their minds? I told Leia, you are putting way too much shit on that kid's shoulders. Let him do what he wants. He’s a man, now. He’s seen my world, and yours. Let him find his own way. But she never wanted to hear that. Well, Leia’s going to have to listen. Meanwhile? I can’t even tell her or Luke where Ben is. Not till we figure out what to do.”

Chewie shook his head, sadly, and set a course for Bespin.

***

Luke Skywalker came to in his nephew's disarrayed room.

Outside, everything was normal.

But Ben was gone.

Luke gave his students a day off, saying he had urgent Republic business, and he took a speeder and went to find Ben.

He had left a trail of blood to the speeders.

Luke realized he must have clipped Ben with the lightsaber.

Luke went to the spaceport cantina, but they stonewalled him.

Ben had probably radioed Han, and was off-world by now.

Luke returned, and got Han on the Falcon’s radio.

“Kid, you got a lot of balls calling me! You disfigured my son's face while you were trying to cut his head off!”

“By the Force, did I? Did Ben lose an eye?”

“He could have. It’ll be an interesting scar, not a disfiguring one.”

“Just tell me if he’s safe, Han. I don’t know what I was thinking. I sensed a threat, a dark presence, and now I see that it wasn’t coming from Ben; it was around him. Tempting him. But he didn’t do anything but run.”

Han let out a long sigh.

“Yeah. Ben is safe. And he’s going to stay safe, because he’s done with all that Jedi shit. He doesn’t want to come back to you, and I won’t make him. Hell, I won’t let him!”

“His blood was all over the road. I’m worried about him. Did you get him to a doctor?”

There was anguish in Luke's voice.

“Yeah. I did. The doctor says it’s not bad. And he can make the scar minimal. Luke, why? Don’t give me this Force shit, either? Why?”

“I got scared. I lost my temper. Who did this to us, Han? Me and Ben? Did he tell you?”

“A Sith Lord. Snoke. He haunts Ben’s mind. He wants him to become another Vader.”

“That’s why Ben doesn’t want to finish his Jedi training? Because he doesn’t want to be used as a pawn by the Sith! By the Force! The fiend must have been tormenting Ben for years!”

“Yeah. And playing nice with him when he was a kid. Visiting with Ben righr under your nose! You missed that. Here’s the deal, Luke. Ben thinks the Jedi and the Sith are trying to use him as a pawn. He wants nothing to do with any of it. And I agree with him. Ben’s a tough kid, Luke. And he’s terrified. He was crouched in a three foot space with a blaster in his hand, half-drunk. Whatever this Snoke guy is selling? Ben doesn’t want any of it. And after what you did? I figure he'll be finding his own way with the Force, like his mother has.”

“This is too much. This is terrible. What will we tell Leia? Let me talk to her. I failed Ben. It’s my fault. At least I know he’s fighting it. Just…keep him safe, Han. Please. And…tell him I’m sorry. Tell him I know I’ve done the wrong thing. A terrible thing. But I only because I’m almost as scared as he is.”

***

Ben felt safer on Bespin, but despite the doctor giving him a sedative, he couldn't sleep.

He was still terrified.

But his mind was free of Snoke.

Somehow, in the simple act of fighting his Uncle off and immediately fleeing into the night he had undone the Sith Lord's plans, or showed him he wanted none of them, or maybe Snoke was just regrouping.

But Ben was free of the presence that had dogged him relentlessly through all of his most recent year at the Jedi Temple.

Then?

Ben heard another voice.

Not Vader’s.

Like it, but not Vader’s.

“Ben? You can hear me? Finally?”

The room glowed softly blue.

The hulking man in Jedi robes sitting on the end of his bed was about the same size as he was, and he had the same prominent features; his hair was reddish brown, though, instead of black.

“Grandfather?” Ben asked.

He could feel fear leaving him.

“Yes, Ben! Finally! I can feel your fear leaving you. That is good. But you can’t relax your vigilance. Listen to me. Now that you know my presence? Don’t be fooled by anyone imitating me. Your instincts are sound. It’s time for there to be no Dark and no Light. No Jedi and no Sith. Time for a new path. A path of balance, where the Force is United. But you do need a guide. I know now is not the time. What you need now is to feel safe. Protected. You will have me to protect you, too. I am more powerful than Master Snoke. I will keep him away from you, until you have recovered from this terrible attack.”

“Why did Uncle Luke attack me?”

“He was afraid. And when Skywalkers get scared, rage comes. You know that, Ben.”

Ben nodded.

“I know. I was angry, too. But I was more frightened than angry. So I ran.”

“Sometimes retreat is your only option for victory. Had you given in to your rage and struck my son down? You would be a pawn in Snoke’s hands, now. Luke is as frightened as you are. Leia will be furious. It will be her instinct to immediately focus her considerable powers to destroy the threat. It falls to me to lead you all. I have been waiting. I am ready.”

“What should I do, now? Find my own way in the Force?”

“You must reach your own balance between the Dark and the Light, Ben. Then I can guide you. But first? You must admit that both live in your soul, and only then can you find your equilibrium. While you undertake this task? I will protect you from Snoke. But, after I become your guide? You will have to learn to deal with him.”

At least it was a plan that made sense to Ben.

“What about right now?”

“After you have slept? Talk to your mother. And I will speak with my son. Eventually, you must speak to him, too. But not yet. As for Snoke? My daughter and I will deal with him, for now. But in the future? When you are strong enough? You will destroy him, and his evil.”

“You will be my Master, grandfather?”

“No. You will be your own Master, Ben. I will be your teacher. And your guide. But now you must rest, so that your mind and spirit can heal. You’re in your rogue father’s rogue crony’s stronghold. The two of them, and the Wookiee, won’t let so much as droid past them. You are safe. I hate to say it, but your instinct was correct. When you are with Captain Solo? You are safe. Lie down, now. I will stay with you, while you sleep. You will not dream of the Dark Side.”

“Will I see more of you now, Grandfather?”

“Yes. Almost as much as if I were alive. All the love and attention that you have not had from your mother, your father and your Uncle? You will have from me. I have no other distractions. No other purpose, Ben, than to love and teach and support you. My love for you gives me form, and purpose, and the ability to come to this world. Sleep well, my boy. Sleep well every night, knowing that Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader, is watching over you. I am your sword and your shield, until you learn to defend and protect yourself. Sleep. And know how well you are loved.” Anakin promised.

Ben allowed the sedative to take effect, and he drifted off to sleep.

***

Han did not wait for Luke to talk to Leia.

He checked on Ben, and found him asleep, at last.

Then he immediately got Leia on the radio.

“I’ve been calling you and calling you! Something happened to Ben! I can feel that something is wrong. Is he sick? Hurt?” she insisted.

“Ben’s OK, now. He’s with me and Chewie. Hidden in a safe place. But something is sure as shit wrong! Luke tried to cut his head off with a lightsaber, while he slept. Ben’s going to have a little scar, but he'll be fine.”

“WHAT? Luke did what? A little scar! Where?”

“On his face.”

“My brother disfigured our son's face while trying to murder him?”

“It’s going to be a little scar. Once it heals. The kind women find interesting. I’ve talked to Luke about what he did. He admitted it. Ben’s not a little kid, anymore. He’s got to be a really big man. And he was cowering behind a desk. In a three foot spot. After I pulled him out, Ben was clinging to me, screaming and weeping. He hid all night, crying and drinking beer. I never saw him so terrified. I thought he was going to die of sheer fright. But I got him to a doctor and a safe place, and he’s OK, now. I just checked on the kid. He’s finally asleep.”

“Holy Mother Force, Han!”

“It gets worse. So Ben tells me some Sith guy named Snoke is in his head. That this Sith Master showed up to talk to him, in person. Ben’s afraid of him, too. I guess he did something to make Luke think Ben joined the circus. But he hasn’t. I told you this Jedi shit wasn’t good for him.”

“Well, I need to talk to him. Why would he tell you these things and not me? Why didn’t he tell us years ago?”

“When, Leia? When we weren’t busy? Ben’s afraid of you, too. He thinks you’ll send him right back to Crazy Uncle Luke and shove him into the arms of the guy who wants to make him Vader Jr. Ben wants nothing to do with any of it. Sith. Jedi. None of it. He’s a man, now, he’s old enough to decide what he wants, and he wants to stick with me. And I am not sending him back there. Never. No matter what you say. That’s it. No more Jedi shit for Ben.”

“He didn’t tell Luke about this Sith Lord?”

“He’s terrified of both of you. Me, he just thinks I’m a fuckin’ asshole. He told me so, and he’s probably right. But this time I’m gonna do the right thing. Because, right now Ben thinks Anakin Skywalker is great. Right now he still understands he was not so great when he was Vader. Right now. I think we need to keep it that way.”

Leia sighed.

“I couldn’t follow the Jedi path. Neither could my father. Ben can’t, either. We’ll have to help him find his own path.”

“Who? What? What the fuck does any of that shit matter?” Han insisted.

“You know what, Han? It doesn’t. When Ben wakes up, tell him I am not going to make him go back to Luke. Tell him I said I respect his choice. And ask him if he’ll talk to me. As his mother. He doesn’t even have to tell me where he is. I just want to talk to him. OK?”

“OK. I wish you were here, Leia.”

“I do, too.”

***

Ben agreed to talk to his mother, on the radio.

“Is it bad, Ben? Your face. I’ve been talking to reconstructive surgeons all day. I know how sensitive you are about your face.”

“Its OK, Mom. It’s not going to be a big deal.”

“Well, if you change your mind, I have a doctor lined up. Oh, Ben, I…I went wrong, somewhere. But I love you, and I want to make things right. I’m going to start talking to my father, as much as I don’t want to. I won’t let the Sith take you away from me. I won’t.”

Ben didn’t know what to say.

Leia sighed.

“I see that half of the money you got from your trust when you turned 21 is gone. Where did it go?”

“I’m having a YT-2400 custom built for me. Using some of my own designs. I’m going to call her the Hellfire.” Ben answered.

Enthusiastically.

“That’s a fairly practical use for money for a young man. I thought you were spending it on girls.”

“What girls, Mom?”

“You might have been a late bloomer, Ben, but I know you know about lot of girls.”

“You mean like Trixie at the Yavin-4 Spaceport Cantina?”

“Please tell me you didn’t. Even if you did.”

“I thought about it. Yeah I know a lot of girls. I know just about every girl at the Jedi Temple who’s over the Galactic Age of Consent. Not that I’m complaining. But they only like me for a little while, or they only like me at night, without my pants on. Like at the Temple. They all act like they didn’t even know me. Until they do. I’d spend money on a girl, if I could keep one.”

Leia wanted to laugh.

“Ben, your female classmates took a vow of chastity. They can’t act like they're crazy about you in public.”

“I never thought of that. Maybe they miss me.”

“They?”

“Yeah. I had the girls spaced out to different days of the week. Every day, I miss that day's girlfriend.”

Leia was at a loss for what to tell him.

And she was still trying not to laugh.

“You’re still too young to worry about getting serious about a girl. Or a series of them. Tell me about your ship.”

“Its gonna be great! All black, black as a raven’s wing. With red piping and Beskar steel chrome. And I’m having moulded retractable housings put over all the guns. To make the ship more aerodynamic. She’ll have the latest model hyperdrive, and I specifically designed the, uh, secret compartments to fit their different cargoes. Two layers. Where each false bottom has a false bottom. And in the cargo bay, a station for my TIE Fighter. I’m having the whole interior done in Beskar chrome, black leather and red Endor mahogany. I made the Captain’s cabin a little bigger than usual, so it’s big enough for me. Wait till you her, Mom.”

“Space really is your home, isn’t it, Ben?”

“I am a Skywalker. King of the Sky. The stars belong to me.” He replied.

“Well, since you’ve got your own ship, you should finish your last year at the Republic Academy.”

“I don’t need a commission to be a pilot, Mom.”

“But you liked the Republic Academy. You want to be a pilot, not a Jedi? I accept that. But you have to finish your education. Even your father finished school at the Imperial Academy. I want you to finish school.”

“On Coruscant?”

“Yes. Maybe you and your old man can come home for the Fall semester. I haven’t sold the penthouse, yet. And we can do family shit, until you graduate. Yell. Throw things at each other. Just like old times."

Ben laughed.

“I could do that.”

“I want you to. I want you to concentrate on what you want to do. Who you want to be. I admit it. I was wrong. I pushed you too hard to do what I wanted. So, can we compromise on this? You can go play pirates with your Dad, as long as you finish school. In case you ever want to do anything else with your life.”

“I’ll give it a shot, Mom. The Hellfire will be finished, by the Fall semester. You’re…you’re not mad at me? Really?”

“No, Ben. I’m not. Can I come and see you? I won’t nag you, or your father about where you’re going or what you’re doing all spring and summer. I just want to see you, and make sure you’re alright.”

Leia felt the conflict in Ben.

He wanted to trust her.

But he was afraid.

“I had a long talk with my Dear Old Dad. I’m not opposed to him guiding you. As long as he lets me in on what he’s doing. And I think I'll take over your non-metaphysical training. You know. The fun stuff. Lighsaber fights. Obstacle courses. Beating the drone with the blast shield down. Except I’m not going to coddle you, like Luke coddles you kids. It’s going to be hard. The way reality is.”

That swept the last of Ben’s conflict away.

He knew she was with him.

“We’re on Bespin. Don’t let anyone follow you.”

“I know that, Ben. I’ll see you, soon.”

#ben solo #ben solo lives #reylo #star wars fanfiction #rey #tros fix it #save ben solo

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mor-beck-more-problems · 5 years ago

Text

Paper Thin Glass || Morgan & Nicodemus

Nic and Morgan are fine.

@bountybossier

Maybe going to Quarter was a bad idea. Morgan watched her spare bills dissolve into a pile of coins, feeling the loss even though she’d yet to lose a single game. She gathered them up in a velvet bag she’d once kept for crystals and other spare alchemy bits. There was still a smooth amethyst stuck in the corner. Morgan didn’t have the heart to throw it away. None of the game titles looked familiar, and neither did the townies, a mix of college students, eager kids just reaching the age where their parents let them run amok for a few hours, and nostalgic thirty-somethings like herself. Or like how she was supposed to be. Would always be? Stars, Morgan hoped she’d be able to mature beyond her looks at some point, maybe actually figure some shit out. Right now she couldn’t even figure out if meeting up with Nic was a good idea or not. He was a hunter, after all, and things hadn’t gone amazingly when she’d told Kaden. But Nic was different. Nic knew how to be gentle with his hands already. Nic already used some kind of discretion with the creatures--fuck, the people he went after. And it would mean something that she had trusted him before, wouldn’t it? Morgan continued to pace the aisles, leaning up on a console for Mrs. Pac-Man for lack of anything better to do. Sitting and waiting seemed to sad, but she felt like she was kidding herself acting like she belonged here too.

It was odd. Spectacularly odd. People were trusting him. Opening themselves up to him in ways that Nicodemus was not at all familiar with. He had to wonder what that said about them when his was the ear they went to. He was good at listening, good at following through. However, listening and understanding were wholly different actions. Oddly enough, the more time he spent in White Crest, he was starting to differentiate between the two. Maybe that was why he never stopped moving. Standing still meant everything eventually caught up and in the absence of tangible footsteps, thoughts ran rampant. He couldn’t entirely blame it on that. He kept busy in White Crest. Took bounties in between honest hearts and dead money. It was complicated, he told himself. As he wiped the blood from his lips and stayed up to make sure Skylar got home safe from wherever she went, it was complicated. His dark expression lightened some as he walked in through the neon-rimmed doors of Quarter. People glanced at him and parted away from him. Morgan was here somewhere and she wanted to tell him something. The conversation they had with death on the other side of a makeshift barricade hadn’t left him. Every time he took up another snowglobe and a bottle of holy water, he stopped. To think and breathe. But sometimes what makes things better is more like a snow globe. He hadn’t finished it. The glass felt too flimsy in his hands. He caught sight of Morgan and made his way toward her. “Hey, Morgan,” he called out as he slowed. “Lose any money here yet?”

Morgan jumped to her feet at Nic’s arrival. She didn’t know if she should keep some distance between them, how long before he would sense what she was? And what was going to come next, exactly? What ‘getting ahead of’ this was there? They were sort of friends, she died. She had faith in him, and maybe that would matter and maybe that wouldn’t. A terrible, morbid way, Morgan found herself wishing they were in that basement room again. Things were, while life-threatening, pretty simple. All the bullshit went aside in the name of surviving together. And everything they’d talked about...well, they had to survive. They knew enough not to hurt each other over any disagreements. Now, though...now was different. “Hey!” She called, a little too brightly. “Not yet, but--” She shook her bag. “I’m ready to observe this time honored tradition. I never actually got the chance to when I was a kid.” She found herself edging against the console until it was poking her in the back. “Um, what about you? Ever a secret Pac-Man champion back in the day? Or Space...Shooters?” She didn’t actually know the name, but maybe if she made enough small talk she’d figure out how to explain she was dead, and maybe a little lost.

The hunter couldn’t tell if it was his own near-inability to be social or something in the water, but the situation felt off. Maybe it was him. Nicodemus hadn’t exactly felt anywhere near the proximity of alright in weeks. But Morgan seemed bright. A little brighter than the last time he had seen her. Granted, that had been a near-death experience. Anything after that would likely be brighter, he reasoned. It wasn’t just the neon. The brightness of the place made his eyes ache and his head pound, but he held fast. “I didn’t either,” he said as he glanced at the machines. He only had ever seen them in passing when his grandfather took them into town and that wasn’t all too often. He remembered the line of parents and their kids whenever the local pizza place finally got a Star Wars machine in the early nineties. He had asked to stop, mouth open and eyes wide. He had never seen so many colors. One glance from Samson had him quieting down. He never mentioned it again. All he ever saw of that machine was a passing glance. He blinked back out of the memory and looked at Morgan. “My, uh, grand-père wasn’t real big on this kinda shit or...fun in general, I guess. Yours?” Smiling didn’t have a place in the old Bossier home. Samson made sure of that. “Ol’ Pac-Man and I didn’t really get acquainted until...hell, Nashville? Few years back.” He snorted and shook his head. Looked at the Pac-Man machine with a strange sort of childlike appreciation. “Can’t really say I’m much of an eighties kid if I never really lived it, y’know?”

Nic looked at the machines with the same sad, mystified confusion as Morgan did, as if they were still behind locked doors and reinforced glass, treasures that never found their way into either of their hands. Whatever map of safety, of comfort, of a few quarters and free time to spare that seemed so effortless to all the people around them, they’d never been granted the key. Seeing the space between Nic and all the everyday good the people around them took for granted, Morgan wondered if he could understand what her existence was like after all. Had he tasted his own numbing tide between the family who had lied and mistreated him? Did it feel so fucked and so essential at once, to keep reaching through it? “Hey, that’s more than I can claim. Maybe you can show me the ropes.” Her brightness faltered as she spoke, a bulb that had been left on too long and turned tired and flickery. “Always wondered if I was missing out, you know?” Her voice caught and she had to remind herself to take deeper breaths when she spoke. Again. “But there’s uh….there’s some not fun stuff I feel like I gotta tell you too. And um...I don’t know. Something nice before seemed like a good idea when we were talking, but I feel mean about it now. So, maybe it should be your call…” She scraped her foot against the side of the machine, unable to look Nic in the eye anymore. “Kinda surprised you haven’t figured it out yet.” They were standing close enough, but maybe it really was too crowded for him to get a read on her. Or maybe Nic had started to hope for more good, and he couldn’t see that he’d put his chips in the wrong place yet.

There was a hollow look to Morgan’s eyes that Nicodemus reckoned his own matched. The arcade was full of life and noise, but around them, it turned to static. That bright edge to her seemed to dim. Or maybe that was the headache that was steadily beginning to pulse between his temples. It was strange ground to tread as he looked over the machines and listened to the clink of coins. It differed so greatly from the clink of bullets or the thunk of a knife as it struck wood. He didn’t know what life Morgan had led to make her a stranger to such things as well. In truth, he didn’t know the lives of many. Steadily, steadily, he began to learn. Long ago, he had exorcised the thought from him that he was the center of any universe. Or that it revolved around anyone. The universe didn’t care who walked in it. Lived or died in it. It was people that gave a shit about that, he thought, as he stepped out of the way of someone interested in the machine he stood in front of. “Sure I can,” he said with a slight lift of his brow as he turned his attention to Morgan. “How hard could it be? Yeah, I still wonder about it. The missin’ out. A lot of shit in town makes it feel that way. Especially...Especially lately.” He had a goddamn home now. Every machine in the room was an unknown object that he wasn’t certain how to navigate.

His senses rustled in his head like dried leaves. Someone nearby wasn’t what their human skin showed. A beast by learned terms. He didn’t care. He was there to meet with Morgan and that was it. Nothing else. Especially when something seemed to be weighing on her the way it was. Caught up in her throat. The faintest crease of concern slid between his brows. “Not fun stuff,” he repeated. He didn’t know what gave him the notion but a feeling seized his gut. One that worried if she began to talk about whatever it was where they stood, without any sort of buffer of merriment, that it might go poorly. And Morgan, for all the misdirected kindness and consideration she showed him, didn’t rightly deserve that. “Figured out what? That you ain’t really feelin’ Pac-Man and more of a...a BurgerTime fan? Sure we can find that around here.” It was a poor attempt at a deadpan but Nicodemus went with it as he started to walk in pursuit of the machine. “...Ain’t got nothin’ figured out until you tell me, Morgan. And you take your...your own time with it, alright?”

Morgan looked up at Nic, eyes wide and filming over with unshed tears. She understood the kindness he was giving her: the gift of relief, of pre-emptive forgiveness. He might not later when she told him everything, or as much everything as she dared, but he wanted to. He wanted everything to be okay for her. And stars above, between the town coughing up eyeballs and Deridre’s mushrooms, and Remmy, and everything after, it felt like things hadn’t really been okay in so long. Happiness wasn’t a given for anyone on this earth. Even when Morgan had her bright, living hope, she had only expected a balance to be paid, an equal measure of everything. But lately it was hard not to suppose that the scales tipped in favor of suffering, like some perverse extraction for a sorrowful beast. She could never dream to be happy forever. But oh earth beneath her feet, she wanted to feel okay. She flashed Nic a watery smile and dragged some sunken thread of brightness from the dregs of her spirit. “BurgerTime, huh?” She sniffled, bouncing on her heels. “Now you really gotta show me that one. I’ve never even heard of it!”

The machine was off against the wall right next to Dance Dance Revolution. Morgan sidled up and fed her quarters. The 8-Bit display came to life, orienting them with all the pieces, and the lonely little chefman who had to climb his way up and down the little labyrinth to make everything stack up just right even for all the peppers chasing him. Morgan sniggered and gave it her best shot, making it three levels up before she lost all her spare lives. There was something strangely desperate about the enterprise. Morgan wondered if she was simply too sad in un-death to appreciate something like this. Maybe it was too late to learn what all the fuss was about after all. She turned to Nic with a warm grin all the same as “Continue Game?” flashed on the screen, a timer counting down from a minute underneath. She handed him the change he needed, splaying the quarters against her fingers so they shined. “Okay, so that was weird, but kind of fun. I wanna see the next level up from the master, though, if you think you got it in ya?”

Nicodemus wasn’t sure what he had said, how it had landed with her, but the look in her eyes made his throat constrict. Shit. Had he said something wrong? Talking wasn’t his strong suit by the longest mile and he braced for impact. There was a reason he was a man of few sounds and even fewer words. What place did talking have when there was work to be done? Fifteen years of minimal words on his end has rusted his lungs over, among other things. The twenty years after it hadn’t done him any better. He could run forever but when it came to speech, a few sentences could exhaust like nothing else. But then she smiled at him through whatever it was she was going through and for a moment, he felt that maybe it was alright. The people he spoke to in White Crest didn’t exhaust him and if he felt hopeful, he thought maybe it went both ways. Why that mattered to him, he wasn’t sure, but he kept it close. Offered Morgan a thin smile of his own as he nodded. “Ain’t never heard of BurgerTime? Hell,” he said as he rubbed at his jaw. “Yeah, we’re makin’ a stop there.”

The closer they got to the machine, the blurrier his vision became. It was just a fucking arcade machine and yet looking at it had him sliding his fingertips against one another. A nervous tic. A memory played out, of a twenty-something year old who didn’t know how to handle other machines. The machine had cracked under his grip and in a beat, he was gone. He likely wasn’t meant for such things. A decade or so later, he looked at the same machine. Jesus Christ, he was about to cry in front of a BurgerTime machine of all things. He blinked back into the space beside Morgan when she spoke to him, his vision clearing as he swept it away. “It is pretty damn weird, but hell, people loved that shit,” he said. He took a moment to glance at the room. “...Guess they still do. Well, don’t mind if I fuckin’ do.” Maybe it wasn’t too late. He detached himself from that thought as he took the quarters and set about to his own game. With the precision and focus befitting of a hunter, he messed it up. The second level saw his demise from the peppers and he huffed loudly as the Continue Game appeared. “Maybe BurgerTime is bullshit,” he said matter-of-factly as he folded his arms. “Chef’s real shit as his job. Think he might get fired...” A moment of silence passed as he breathed in, glanced at Morgan to affirm the strange concoction of emotions that swelled in him. Made his tongue feel heavy. “But it was fun though, right? I had fun.”

Morgan could only guess what had happened to Nic to keep him on the outskirts of the world, but she felt a bittersweet kinship to him as he looked at her with a mix of feeling that almost mirrored her own. She wanted to launch herself into a hug at him, to have some epiphany that would make something better. Not everything, just their pasts, or this moment, with Nic trying his hardest for her and Morgan sitting on the truth, burying her secrets, lying with her passing normalcy. She nodded, too stiff in the throat to say much else. She’d had fun, yeah, but it was all so fleeting and terrible-- “I died, Nic.” She didn’t have enough air in her to make the words intelligible; the sound was a garbled, rattling mess. She always forgot that when she went stiff with anxiety. Morgan bit her lip, fighting back tears, and said it again, clearly so there’d be no mistake: “I died. April twentieth. I was...getting ice cream with my friend. I wasn’t supposed to. There was this evil ghost after me, she’d already tried to get me at the grocery store, but I did. And then there was a multi car collision and my foot got caught on some string and a pole of rebar went through me and stuck me in the ground and I died. And my friend…” Her voice rattled away again. More air. “My friend wanted to save me.” She slid up the edges of her cuff, showing him her scar. “I was in so much pain I didn’t even realize they’d done it. And then I died. And then I woke up again.” She finally met his eyes, lip trembling. Did she have to ask him? Please don’t kill me? Can you still see me here? I’m right here. I’m here and I don’t know what to do.

The dead ain’t meant to walk, Nicodemus. The dead are dead and meant to be kept as such ‘less it’s Rapture. Samson had never called him by a nickname. It was Nicodemus or nothing. It was profound, the moment he looked at Morgan and listened to what it was she told him. I died, Nic. She had died and was there to tell him about it. There to experience the flashing neon and clinking coin of Quarter. Him of all people. A hunter raised on putting down the beasts and deceased that roamed the swamps of Louisiana. Demons. If it wasn’t for her magic from that night with the vampires, he wouldn’t have known there was anything different with her. Anything...off. Shit. The only thing that had registered to him as being off was how kind she had been to him. He wouldn’t have known kindness if it looked him in the eye and said as much. Morgan had died and she told him how. Looked at him with something he knew to be related to fear. Skylar had looked at him the same way as she laid out her secret, her life. He didn’t know what he had done to earn such honesty and his jaw tightened. It occurred to him, in silence, how terrible it would have been to not hear it from Morgan. It would have meant that she wasn’t there anymore. The snowglobe he made for her would sit on a shelf and gather dust. The stillness of it in his mind’s eye unnerved him. It wasn’t hard to imagine a bounty being there and then gone. If she was hungry and he had never met her, he wouldn’t have hesitated if they crossed paths. Pieces from both a past and current puzzle tried to fit awkwardly together. It made his head ache and his eyes dry. His eyes lowered from Morgan’s as he briefly looked away. “Okay,” he said with a nod. His eyes slid back over to her. “It’s, uh, okay. It’s okay, Morgan.” He struggled to find words, as if he might string them around a bracelet and just hand it to her, be done with it, but they kept clattering and he took in a breath to steady himself. “I’m sorry that that...happened to you,” he said carefully. “But it--It don’t matter to me. That you died. I’m not gonna...” He trailed off. She had seen what he was capable of, what he could do when it was necessary. She had also encouraged him to consider something beyond that and the way it was, that sounded louder in his head than any gnashing of teeth. He didn’t know how to reconcile the two but he spoke anyway. “I’m not...Shit. You’re okay.”

The smallest of sobs bubbled past Morgan’s lips. She nodded, understanding, and slid into his chest. She hadn’t wanted his mercy and Nic hadn’t wanted to give itl, not because he wasn’t kind, but because they didn’t want the world to be so fucked and cruel that she would need it in the first place. What kind of place would ask Nic to kill her and call it the natural way of things? What balance was there in configuring themselves in opposition when their hurt seemed to resonate in similar patterns. No matter what she heard from anywhere else, Morgan couldn’t believe that Nic was made just to hurt people like her anymore than she was meant to hurt those like him. “You’d think after this long, I’d get better at saying it,” she mumbled. “And I don’t want to hurt anybody, Nic. I don’t want to be someone who does that for no good reason, I don’t…” She sniffled. She didn’t need to justify her existence. Every morning she showered, she reminded herself, I want to be here. I want to be myself. I am here. I am okay. I am, I am, I am… But it was different coming from Nic, from someone who was taught to see things where there was just sad, dead people trying to hang on to whatever they had left. And how different was that from him or anyone else struggling in this sad little town?

Morgan pulled away, sniffling. “Sorry. I should’ve asked if you were, you know, a hugger or something. We can, you know, go somewhere else. Um...I like ice chips. The cold is a nice change of texture.” She looked up at him, reaching down into the seed of herself that had survived, something that might be called good. “You’re okay, too, Nic. You really are. I--I trust you with this. With...me.”

It wasn’t the force of her hug that nearly had him scrambling. Physically, Nicodemus hadn’t moved. Not an inch. Something like sickness gathered in his belly, the phantom thought of what his grandfather might think screaming like tires in his head. It had been a long time since he had given a shit what that filicidal fuck thought about anything. It wasn’t with spite that he awkwardly patted Morgan’s back. It was with a morbid likeness to understanding but not quite. Not entirely. How many times now had he been forced to become something else than what he was? With a mind not his own? More times than he was comfortable with. It wasn’t the same at all, not really, and he knew it. Shit, Morgan had died. Maybe it was...Holy shit, he might have been empathizing. That was the word and it fit oddly between his teeth. “Figure you don’t,” he said. Oddly enough, he had started to wonder if that was the case with most people. A dangerously soft thought, a hopeful one. He preferred the burn of whiskey to the sweetness of honey. It was more honest. Even with that thought tightly in hand, he believed Morgan. Both had an equal chance to take the other out when they were stuck in that basement. Instead, they talked. They had been too tired to do anything. Maybe they still were. Maybe friendship was being too tired to be worried about anything and simply share a few thoughts. “Told you before that I...I ain’t gonna hurt you or nothin’. Just be careful and shit.”

It was the most he could offer. The most he could say. Protection wasn’t exactly what he did. He chewed on that before he nodded at her, unsure of what to say, and loosely folded his arms around himself. He couldn’t help the snort of a laugh that came out of him. Her mention of ice chips set off a lightbulb that prompted him to reach into his jacket pocket. When he opened his slightly scarred palm, a small snowglobe sat inside of it. Encircled in sparkling flecks of white sat a single tombstone. “Timin’ ain’t great on it and I kept fuckin’ up the bigger one but I finished this one....” He handed it to her with a frown that turned into a faint smile. “...Yeah, sure, we can go get some ice chips.”

Morgan gasped when she saw the snowglobe. Nic didn’t really give himself the credit he deserved. It was small enough for her to cup in one hand, painted and filled like the cemeteries of White Crest on the softest January day. One tombstone on a little hill, guarded by what looked to Morgan like the winter bones of a willow tree. Six little branches and their offshoots spread over it like so many arms. Morgan gave it a gentle shake and watched the flakes swirl and dance, one side, then the other, fluffy and sparkling, just like her first snow. “Oh, it’s perfect. I love it, and so will my girlfriend. We used to have all these little nick-nacks around the place, but they broke recently. The house doesn’t look the same without it, and--Nic, you even scored details in the bark and in the design on the little grave--” She looked up at him again, her wet eyes filled with wonderment. “I knew it was going to be perfect before but this is wonderful.” She cradled it to her chest with both hands, lest she lose her sense of the snowglobe and drop it. It was kind of funny, such a little thing to get so worked up over, to feel almost happy for. But in the glistening water that carried the snow gently back to ground, she saw some future spectre of another winter, of snow she wouldn’t feel but might still share in. Maybe when she dove into the mounds that gathered next to the sidewalks in the park and under sleepy graves like this one, it wouldn’t melt away but stay whole and perfect on her cheeks. Maybe come winter she would still be someone who was kissed and loved. Maybe she would feel more of other things, maybe she wouldn’t have to remember I am. “I appreciate this like nothing else.” She held his gaze good and hard so he knew it wasn’t just a little thing of glass and plastic and slipped it safely into her bag. “You pick the place? Ice chips aren’t exactly, you know, exclusive fine dining.”

The details were what Nicodemus excelled in. What he made a living off of and was damn good at picking out. It made the difference between a bounty and something else. Something with lesser value and as he considered it in those terms, he winced. It didn’t feel right. Whatever feeling right even was anymore. As Morgan pointed out every line and spare thought he had decided to put into the small snowglobe on a whim, his long withheld perception slowly became eclipsed. Because Morgan’s joy and appreciation couldn’t be valued as something less than. It couldn’t be. Not with the way his frown went lopsided. It didn’t bother him that he had broken the first two tries with shaky and frustrated hands. In time, it would pass over and he might be blinded again, but he held onto it with what he could for the time it lasted. Knuckles white with tension. The same way she held onto the snowglobe like something precious. Maybe he wouldn’t crack it. He could have laughed. That odd hopeful thought again. He couldn’t blame it on the White Crest water. He already knew what was in there and he hated it. Nicodemus huffed a laugh through his nose and rubbed at the back of his head. “Shit. Took a few tries, but sure, sure,” he said gruffly. An unsure smile peeked out as he shook his head and stuffed his hands into his jean pockets. “Think the guy at the deli might look at us funny if we get big ass cups of ice? Don’t think we’ll find a better deal anywhere else.” A low laugh rumbled through him and broke him out of the dirt he settled into. Hell if anything he ever did before went so appreciated. He hadn’t cared for it then. It was just a job. It was just surviving. Maybe living was borderline crying over a snowglobe in a place that thrived off nostalgia and years wasted. Dead or alive, they would make do with what they held in their hands. As sure as the sun came and went.

#paper thin glass #wr bossier #wr chatzy #wr bossier chatzy #wr

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randomkposts · 5 years ago

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Hello

I figured I should start with wall of quotes. Cause whynot

Quotes “It's hard to hate my prep team. They're such total idiots." - Katniss.”

“Here's some advice. Stay alive.” “The cat that Prim got hates me, I think partly because I tried to drown it.” “District 12: Where you can starve to death in safety.”“No. Now, shut up and eat your pears."

” It's lovely. If only you could frost someone to death." "Don't be so superior. You can never tell what you will find in the arena. Say it's a gigantic cake-”“Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying.”

“Technically, I am unarmed. But no one should ever underestimate the harm that fingernails can do. Especially if the target is unprepared.”

"Well, leprechauns. You know they're not real, don't you?""Let us proceed under the assumption that the fairy folk do exist and that I am not a gibbering moron."

"I majored in Ancient History. You have your own page in the 'Criminally Insane' section."

"Really, Butler, I must begin choosing my business associates more carefully. Hardly a day goes by when we aren't the victims of some plot.""The punching is not helping my concentration, by the way.""Oh, brilliant. I must write that one down in my witty retorts book."

"The pixie is crazy! Give me your gun, Holly. I'm going to shoot him.""Excuse me, Captain. Are you two going to weep salty tears of admiration over a helmet all night, or do we have matters to discuss?"

"This is a well. You might think that there is something to it... But in fact it is just an ordinary well."

Woman in Ur : Hey, where are you four brats off to now? What...? You're going to go save the world...? Did you get hit on the head or something!?

Gilgamesh : Enough expository banter. It's time we fight like men. And ladies. And ladies who dress like men. For Gilgamesh...IT IS MORPHING TIME! Galuf : Bartz! Stop that! Bartz : But it's fun! poke, poke, poke... Bartz : Jumping Christmas!

Edgar : "That's Shadow! He'd slit his mama's throat for a nickel!" Kefka : "This is sickening! You sound like chapters from a self-help booklet! Prepare yourselves!" Locke : "Hey! Call me a TREASURE HUNTER, or I'll rip your lungs out!" Edgar : "If something were to happen to me, all the world's women would grieve!" Setzer : "My life is a chip in your pile. Ante up."

Yuffie : So! I saved the great Vincent Valentine! Do I get any thanks?

Squall : Right and wrong are not what separate us and our enemies. It's our different standpoints, our perspectives that separate us. Both sides blame one another. There's no good or bad side. Just two sides holding different views. Squall : I dreamt I was a moron...

Seifer : Great, I have one chicken-wuss and one kid who just entered puberty in my team! Squall : ...Whatever.

Auron: The red carpet has teeth. Auron: Outside the dream world, life can be harsh, even cruel, but it is life.

Rikku: Memories are nice, but that's all they are.

Kimahri: Pick spot. Shut up. Wait.

Rikku: Do you think we need a password? Paine: How about 'Kick..it's..ass' Paine : The hardest person to know is one's self.

Raogrimm: People are capable of kindness beyond angels, yet we also commit sins that would put a demon to shame... Lonely Chocobo: Warkkkkk!!! Gweh!!!! Warkkkk

Naja Salaheem : (After Abquhbah faints when he realizes that he's speaking to the empress) Nothing to be concerned about, Your Magnificence. Mercenaries are trained to sleep anywhere, anytime if the opportunity presents itself.

Lightning: Worst birthday ever. Lightning: It's not a question of can or can't. There are some things in life you just do. Lightning: We live to make the impossible possible! That is our focus!

White Mage: Hi. I was just wondering if you knew how much we've suffered because of you. Good day. [after finding the Falcon Rydia : It's not yours. Edge : That's okay, it would be happy to be used by us!

...That's General Leo.. He could be my friend if he weren't my enemy.

You think a minor thing like the end of the world was gonna do me in?

"What a cute doggy!' "Leave us. The dog eats strangers...'

This should be fun. When do we leave?

Read my lips - mercy is for wimps! There's a reason "oppose" rhymes with "dispose"...If they get in your way, kill them!I don't care for the appearance of this pitiful little hamlet... So burn it!!

Figaro Guard : Kefka's "One shy of a six pack!" Imperial soldier : I oppose peace! Narshe resident : Narshe is a neutral city.! We want no war here, but that %#$@& Empire won't listen! South Figaro Resident : We may be thieves, but at least we have goals in life!

Cyan: This is the Phantom Train. It carries the departed to the other side. Sabin : Wait! I don't want to go THERE!

Strago: Go to your room! Relm : I will not! What a fussy old man! Strago : Relm! Is that you, my dear? You're alive! Relm : Idiot! Of course I'm alive! Strago : Oh, I'm so happy..." Relm : Did you think I was gonna check out before you, old man? Strago : You're as foul mouthed as ever, bless your heart!

Shadow: I know what friendship is... and family...

"It's not my problem."

"Don't fight here! You'll ruin the flowers!" "I think they believe I have what it takes to be in SOLDIER!" "Mine is special. It's good for absolutely nothing!"

Don't need no appointment... This is a 'mergency! Anyone who don't wanna get their face bashed in better git outta the way!! "I've got the wrong person."

W-wait a second. I won't run or hide. Yes, I was a spy. I was hired by the Shinra. I couldn't help it. How 'bout if we continue like nothing ever happened?

Shut up! Sit your ass down in that chair and DRINK YOUR GODDAMN TEA!

This's gonna be a big splash. Hold on to your drawers, an' don't piss in 'em!!

Maybe God'd forgive an ugly shit like you, but I won't!

I don't know what the hell it is, but it's falling from the sky. Hmpf! It's not even an omen.

Hey, do you know who I am? I'm Cid—that's who the hell I am! Now just let me handle it!

I don't want to regret not having done something later.

I always thought this planet was so huge. But lookin' at it from space, I realized it's so small. We're just floatin' in the dark. ...kinda makes you feel powerless. On top of that it's got Sephiroth festerin' inside it like a sickness. That's why I say this planet's still a kid. A little kid sick and trembling in the middle of this huge universe. Someone's gotta protect it. Ya follow me? That someone is us.

We're busy runnin' back and forth! Even my bikini goddess would be pantin' about now!

Oh, GAWD! If I knew this was gonna happen, I would've taken rope escape lessons more seriously!!

Escape from a world of illusions... Hmph... I wonder which is better.

I know you want my help because I'm so good!

Cloud, put me in your party, so I can get off this ship. Cloud...sign this. It's a contract that says when the war is over, all the materia will belong to me.

The stars shine so bright, like glowing materia... reach up and grab one. GROSSNESS! Don't mess with me old man! You don't even have any Materia!

Citizens, unite! Come to the light, Mako energy. Power is truth. Shinra is the future. Real happiness can be found in obedience to the company People are ignorant. They'll feel better as long as someone is punished.

Godo : Go! Survive till the end! And return! With the Materia! Doctor in Mideel : You can see for yourself what things look like, but at least no one was seriously hurt. We're just very unhappy now. Junon soldier : I'm learning to be a delinquent soldier!! I just can't seem to get the hang of it! Reeve Tuesti : What may be a few to you was everything to those who died...

Barret : She ain't gonna show up. 'Least this time she didn't steal our materia. Guess we gotta be thankful for that. Yuffie : How could you say that!? I came all the way here after being seasick as a dog! I didn't go through all that just to have you guys have the best parts all to yourselves!

...A speech? Forget it. Cut the mic!

You're-going-to-like-me! You're-going-to-like-me! Did it work?

D-Do you have any...hot dogs left?

...The HELL! Man...Now this is what I call boring. This ain't right, man!

YOOOO!!! The HELL you doin'!!!?

I'm a pretty lucky guy. Hand in hand with two beautiful girls.

That is sooo vague!

Super-Duper-Mega-Bummer!!

Well, Zell was riding his T-Board in the hallways of Garden. He made a sharp turn and went straight into the woman's res...

Sharpshooters are loners by nature... We hone our instincts, pour our whole being in a single bullet. The pressure of the moment... An instant of tension... That's what... I have to face alone...

Well, fine then! We WILL have a good time!

Thanks for the support, but I never miss my target.

Well, we could skin this little guy and wear him as a disguise...

I say things that get a rise out of some people. Just don't let it bother you and we'll get along fine.

Ooh neato! A hole in the middle of no-where!

You've all heard this before. How life has infinite possibilities. I don't believe that one bit. There weren't many paths for me to choose. Sometimes, there would only be one. From the limited possibilities I faced, the choices I made have brought me this far. That's why I value the path I chose... I want to hold true to the path that HAD to be taken.

Let's just fire like crazy and make a big hole, BOOM!

...Speeding. Let's go arrest that student for violation of academy regulations. Listen up! Teamwork means staying out of my way. It's a Squad B rule.

This is the scene where you swear your undying hatred for me!

And so, Laguna runs for dear life. She got upset and put fruit jam in your shoes. You were almost in tears!

Fujin: DISTURBING.RAGE!SHOCK!GOOD. CONVENIENT.PERSUASION, USELESS. SEIZE!IGNORE.RUN!ELLONE? NOT HERE.FATIGUE POSSE... We are. We always will be. Because we're a posse, we want to help you. Whatever it takes to fulfill your dream, we're willing to do. But... You're being manipulated, Seifer. You've lost yourself and your dream. You're just eating out of someone's hand. We want the old you back! Since we can't get through to you, all we have now to rely on is Squall! It's sad... Sad that we only have Squall to rely on... Seifer! Are you still gonna keep goin'?

Big Sister: I can't wait until I meet a guy that I can scream at and exchange blows with!

Quistis : You're the squad leader. Good luck to you. Seifer : ...Instructor. I hate it when people wish me luck. Save those words for a bad student who needs them, eh? Quistis : Alright, then. Good luck, Seifer. Seifer : [to Fujin and Raijin] Add Instructor Trepe to the list. Zone : Our plan is to...Selphie : ...Blow it to smithereens with a rocket launcher!? Zone : [taken aback] ...Ahh...not quite... Rinoa : Oh, shut up! I made it like that on purpose. It represents my hatred towards Deling. Zell : Hatred, eh? Yeah...right. Selphie : It's one of the...ugliest things that I've ever seen in my life. You must really hate him.

You don't need a reason to help people.No cloud, nor squall shall hinder us!Piece of cake. I'm an escape artist.

In the end, it boils down to two simple choices. Either you do or you don't. You'd think with all the problems in this world, there'd be more answers. It's not fair... but that's the way things are. The choice is yours.

SON OF A SHOOPUFF!

Al Bhed is Al Bhed. Rikku is Rikku. Rikku swore to protect Yuna. And Rikku is not a liar. Kimahri can tell. So, she is a friend.

Why are you still here, sir? (pause as Auron looks at him) I beg your pardon. We Guado are keen to the scent of the Farplane.

Rikku : Did you...hit your head or something? Tidus : Um, you guys hit me. Rikku : Oh, right...do you remember anything before that?

Sometimes, when I got a lot on my mind, it just helps to go, "AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"Once Lady Yuna fixes her hair, we leave." "Guard your emotions first, then guard your summoner." "Ha! Legendary guardian? I was just a boy. A boy about your age actually. I wanted to change the world too, but I changed nothing. That is my story." "Don't look to others for knowledge. This is your story."

Don't think it's just a game. Your life's on the line. "You. It's what's for dinner." You. Are. Hired."

Barkeep : Mish Yoona, what can I do for yoo?

Yuna : Duck Soup! Paine : Duck what?

Rikku : I'm gonna kick you in the spleen! Paine : Spleen?

Lightning : (to soldier).Nice gun. Noctis : Goodbye, whoever you are.

You sure are a keen observer of the obvious, kupo!

And I know some "little girls" who can kick your butt!

"You hit the Lord of the Titans in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush."

Rachel: They asked me a lot of questions about you. I played dumb. Annabeth: Was it hard?"

"Love conquers all," Aphrodite promised. "Look at Helen and Paris. Did they let anything come between them?""Didn't they start the Trojan War and get thousands of people killed?" "Pfft. That's not the point. Follow your heart."'

“Ever had a flying burrito hit you? Well, it's a deadly projectile, right up there with cannonballs and grenades." "The ADHD part of me wondered, off-task, whether the rest of his clothes were made the same way. What horrible things would you have to do in your life to get woven into Hades' underwear?"

Rachel: You're a half-blood, too? Annabeth: Shhh! Just announce it to the world, how about? Rachel: Okay. Hey, everybody! These two aren't human! They're half Greek god! . . . They don't seem to care."-

"What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous I should’ve been named ADHD poster child of the year."

“You're a stalker with hooves." "I am not! I followed her to the Big House and hid in a bush and watched the whole thing.”

Well, we kind of tried to kill each other in a duel to the death." "I see. You tried the diplomatic approach.”

"Well, Percy, what have we learned today?""That three-headed dogs prefer red rubber balls over sticks?""No," "We've learned that your plans really, really bite!”

"Dude!" said a party pony as he unloaded his gear. Did you see that bear guy? He was all like: 'Whoa, I have an arrow in my mouth!”

“Boys are usually forbidden to have any contact with the Hunters. The last one to see this camp…” She looked at Zoe. “Which one was it?”"That boy in Colorado,” Zoe said. “You turned him into a jackalope.”Ah, yes.” Artemis nodded, satisfied. “I enjoy making jackalopes…”

“Christmas in the Underworld was NOT my idea. If I'd known what was coming, I would've called in sick. I could've avoided an army of demons, a fight with a Titan, and a trick that almost got my friends and me cast into eternal darkness. But no, I had to take my stupid English exam.”

“Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian." "You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," I reminded him."Those are vegetables.”

"How about this: stealing is not always bad?""I don't think my mom would like that moral."

I thought about the lines Rachel had spoken in that creepy voice: about storm and fire and the Doors of Death. "Maybe," I said, "but it didn't sound so good.""No," said Apollo cheerfully. "It certainly didn't. She's going to make a wonderful Oracle!”

"My son here convinced me that perhaps I should prioritize my list of enemies." He glanced at me with distaste. "As much as I dislike certain upstart demigods, it would not do for Olympus to fall. I would miss bickering with my siblings. And if there is one thing we agree on - it is that you were a TERRIBLE father.”

Running with a drowsy child of Hades was more like doing a 3 -legged race with a life size rag doll.”

“Yay!' he said. 'Now we can eat peanut butter sandwiches and ride fish ponies! We can fight monsters and see Annabeth and make things go BOOM!”

“You know how teachers tell you the magic word is 'please'? That's not true. The magic word is 'puke'. It will get you out of class faster than anything else.”

" He tossed me a jar of thick green liquid—Greek fire, one of the most dangerous magical substances in the world. Then he threw me another essential tool of demigod heroes—duct tape”

“Juniper: Are you guys busy? Percy: Well, we’re in the middle of this game against a bunch of monsters and we’re trying not to die. Annabeth: We’re not busy. ”

Though "peanut butter" is a strange battle cry. It shall be as you say. But my son, pray this works."I am praying. I'm talking to you, right?"Oh . . . yes. Good point.”

“Let us find the dam snack bar," Zoe said. "We should eat while we can."Grover cracked a smile. "The dam snack bar?"Zoe blinked. "Yes. What is funny?""Nothing," Grover said, trying to keep a straight face. "I could use some dam french fries."Even Thalia smiled at that. "And I need to use the dam restroom." "I do not understand.""I want to use the dam water fountain," Grover said."And…" Thalia tried to catch her breath. "I want to buy a dam T-shirt."

"with great power... comes great need to take a nap"

“Oh no." I said panic rising in my chest. "No, no, no, Somebody get a can opener. I've got a god in my head!!”“Well," I said. "If you need me, I'll be outside, playing with sharp objects.”

“Fairness means everyone gets what they need. And the only way to get what you need is to make it happen yourself.”

“I guessed his name was Face of Horror. I wondered how long it had taken his mom to think of that. Bob? No. Sam? No. How about Face of Horror?”

“Now the tattoos," Zia announced."Brilliant!" I said."On your tongue," she added."Excuse me?”

“I just love family meetings. Very cozy, with the Christmas garlands round the fireplace and a nice pot of tea and a detective from Scotland Yard ready to arrest you.”

“Carter Kane, 14, died tragically in Paris when he was eaten by his sister’s cat Muffin.”

“There will be guards,” Bast said. “And traps. And alarms. You can bet the house is heavily charmed to keep out gods.” “Magicians can do that?” I asked. I imagined a big can of pesticide labeled God-Away.”

“I believe you, Sadie.""Oh really. I'm holding the bloody feather of truth, and you believe me. Well, thanks.”

I guess it started in London, the night our dad blew up the British museum.”

“The baboon is driving,” I noted. “Should I be worried?”

“Thank Ra!” She exclaimed. “Yeah, I’m alive.” “No, I almost jumped in after you. I hate the water!”

“Why did adults have to be so thick? They always say “tell the truth,” and when you do, they don’t believe you. What’s the point?”

“I must admit I’m impressed, Sadie. You controlled your magic and controlled Isis. And you, Carter, did well turning into a lizard.”

“That’s Narmer with the spoon,” I guessed. “Angry because the other bloke stole his breakfast cereal?”

“Most of Set’s forces were running towards our boat, screaming and throwing rocks (which tended to fall down and hit them, but no one says demons are bright).

"Great another mystery. I was about to suggest we ram Amos’s head against it and see if that worked.”

The stuff was so thick and rough, it made me wonder if the poor Egyptians had had to use toilet papyrus. If so, no wonder they walked sideways.”

“I looked back, but Bast and Sadie seemed fine. They were still staring at the water as if it were some amazing Internet video.”

. Why would someone display a rock? Aren't there enough of those in the world?”

“Dejardins was so stunned, he momentarily forgot how to speak English. "Ce n'est pas possible. On ne pourrait pas-”

#Random K #Hello #Former profile #So many quotes #I

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headoverhiddles · 6 years ago

Text

Chasing Rabbits (Elias Grodin x Reader) [Fluff]

Synopsis: Unwanted flirtation and the stress of working the front causes stars to align, and you meet one gentle soldier in a million.

Words: 3.8k

Warnings: PLEASE be careful reading this-- this fic has sexual harassment, assault intent, and just generally guys being misogynistic creeps. Except for Elias. He’s sweet boi :3 Eeeee I love him so much.

Tagging: @this-is-mysuperwholockd-design @thevideonasty

There'll always be one.

Every nurse has one, that's what they told you. Nurses always fall in love with soldiers. Plus, it makes for something to write home about. It would be nice, of course. You just didn't see how walking into this hell with your head in the clouds would help.

Patricia Arden, your fellow nurse and the only other nurse to accompany you to the front lines in the mobile M*A*S*H unit, hangs by your side as you sling your pack higher onto your shoulder. She's from a small town in Mississippi-- joined the war as a nurse to find a boyfriend, which isn't the smartest place to look, but hey, you're not about to judge.

The dust kicks up from the chopper blades, and you can already feel the humidity, as well as the bugs feasting on your skin.

"Look at all these men in uniform," she grins, “So groovy.”

"Yeah. You'll be seeing a lot of that, I think," you reply. She makes a face at you.

"I'd love to see what's under that one's shirt."

"Tish, the most you'll be seeing of any of these men are the fingers you're going to have to stitch back on them."

"Why do you have to be like that?" she pouts. You look away. If you didn't maintain your cynicism, the guys would treat you two like delicate little girls. That's not who you are, nor who you want to be.

After your introductions to your head medics and the breakdown of the platoon you'll be working with, you congregate again.

"That Sergeant Barnes..." Tish whispers to you, "He's cute."

"He scares me," you say.

"It's the scars, isn't it?" she tuts. "Hasn't anyone ever told you not to judge a book by its cover?" she mutters, "He could be the nicest man on Earth." You take another look over at Barnes, and shiver under his scowl.

"You can keep him, and his scars. He doesn't look like he'd cuddle anything but an AK 47."

"What about that one?" She points to a smoking man with curly auburn hair. Taller than Barnes, not as buff but reasonably muscular. Freckled, has a mustache.

"Mm," you consider, "Not the worst... but not my type."

From across the barracks, some of the men get a good look at you.

Chris Taylor's mouth hangs open, slack jawed as he adjusts his helmet. "Are those the new mobile nurses?"

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," Elias grins, and a playful slap on the back sends Chris on his way. But then he makes the mistake of looking over himself. You catch his eyes, and smile at him. He smiles back, giving a dopey little wave, and you giggle with Tish as you're lead away. Elias watches you walk off, running a hand through his mop of golden hair in awe. When he turns, he's met with Chris' smirk.

"You were saying, sir?"

"Get going."

After setting up in your quarters, you get the idea to go for a walk to see where you’ll be living for the next couple months, until your two woman unit is on the move again. Unbuttoning your jacket for a little relief, you tie your hair back in a ponytail, and step out.

About half-way to the mess tent, you're stopped by a tall body in your way. You look up from the chest you’ve bumped into.

"You a newbie?"

It’s the redhead from earlier blocking your sun. He's got eyes running up and down your body, and it makes you want to button your jacket back up.

"You could say that."

"Very nice, very nice," he says, continuing to admire you, "Red O'Neill. What's your name, baby?"

"(y/n)."

"Mind if I join you?"

The last thing you want is this motormouth accompanying you. "I was enjoying the quiet, but thanks."

"You know, I hate to cut right to the chase, but you're not making it easy for me, honey." He takes another step to walk with you. "Us guys out here get pretty lonely."

"Why?" you snark, "You have the pleasure of each other's company."

"Nah-nah-nah babe, you don't get it. Not like that! I for one miss feelin' a woman. Like really feelin' her. You must miss feelin' a man... huh?"

"Look... I might not be the right person to ask," you try to back out, "My friend Tish--"

"Your friend don't look like you do," he says, and you finally manage to shake him, changing direction.

"It was nice to meet you, Sergeant O'Neill."

As you're walking past him, you focus in on a group of men talking strategy. One looks over, and does a double take when he sees you. It's the cute one from earlier. He goes to give another wave, but someone in the group nudges him. His face changes, and he's back to business.

You stare after him, unable to stop yourself from dreaming about the handsome soldier. Sgt. O'Neill sees your gaze, and he looks between you two anxiously and with no small amount of jealousy.

The meeting breaks, and the man walks over, blushing a little. Your eyes fall to his open chest, where his dog tags are hanging against sculpted, lean muscle.

"Hi." He sets his hands on his hips, squinting in the sun. "I, uh... see you around a lot."

"Yeah, I'm just trying to get my bearings. Once I know the layout I'll stop wandering."

"Wandering is good for the soul," he says, "Never stop wandering." He blushes deeper. "Sorry. Geez. I sound like a damn croan, and I'm not even baked. I'm Elias."

"Nice to meet you, Elias," you smile, shaking his hand firmly, "I'm (y/n). What's your rank?"

"Sergeant. But you don't gotta call me that."

"According to army regulations I do," you giggle, and he falls a little in love. Realizing he can't just stand and stare at you, that he has work to do, he straightens up.

"I hope to see you around, (y/n)."

You watch him walk off with a confident gait, and admire his arms and physique. He's pretty tall, with lithe muscles and a wiry frame. You try your hardest not to fixate on his body in your mind as you keep going... but that's getting harder by the minute.

A week goes by, and you start to really see how hard the job is. Back at the static M*A*S*H unit you had shadowed in, you knew when wounded were coming from the choppers. Here at the front, the Viet Kong could strike against any of the boys-- even you-- at any moment.

After a particularly tough day filled with casualties, you enter the mess to find a group of enlisted men playing cards.

"You're out!" O'Neill yells obnoxiously, "Full house, motherfuckers!" You sigh. Maybe if you turned around and just--

"Newbie! Babe! Over here!" he calls. You pretend not to hear, so he gets up, and physically walks you over. Barnes sees clearly how uncomfortable you look in O'Neill's arms, but he looks down and ignores it, indifferent. "(y/n)," Red says, "Meet the big boys."

You want to tell him to shove off. You want to tell him just where he can stick that cigarette that's always dangling out of his mouth. But you're a nurse, and you're scared what could happen to you.

"Hello," you say. A kid named Junior sizes you up.

"Thank you for your service, ma'am," a young guy you think is named Bunny grins, "You offer any other kinds of service?" O'Neill laughs.

"Heh, that's what I've been trying to find out! Wouldn't we like to know, hey Bobarooni?"

Barnes glances up briefly. "That's enough." Red immediately shuts up, and sits back down, smile dropping.

"So, uh... you gonna play or not, honey?"

You shake your head, managing a smile for appearances. "I need some rest. Plus, I really shouldn't be here with all of you, especially playing cards with enlisted officers."

"Least one other person in this tent's got some goddamn sense," Barnes mutters, and you take that opportunity to head out. Thinking of hazel eyes and a wide grin, you wonder where Elias is.

Over the course of the month, you have trouble on and off with O'Neill. You see Elias occasionally, but he's busy leading his platoon, making decisions and generally, as O'Neill really wasn't, doing his duty. You did see him around one day while you were prepping to head over to the OR.

"Sergeant," you nod, trying not to stare at his shiny biceps. He must have been training his men, cause he looks dirty, sweaty, and everything you'd love to see on top of you.

"It's Elias," he says, blushing, (he never seemed to be able to hold a straight face around you) "I never did like to be called by rank. Even by my men."

You walk up to him. "Okay. How's the day, Elias?"

"Shit. But seeing you is already making it better." He ducks his head. "You have a nice smile."

That smile shows through. "Thanks."

He grins at you, and you drop something from your belt as you latch it up. He leans down at the same time as you, and your fingertips brush. He looks into your eyes, then down at your lips...

He stands back up, passing you what you dropped. It's a charm, a little silver peace sign.

"Where's the rest of the bracelet, flower child?" he jokes, and you smile.

"The rest of my charms are back home. This one felt appropriate to take with me."

"You know, I'm something of a hippie myself," he begins, "Out in the..." He's about to go on before he sees O'Neill marching around, torturing the new kids with a fellow soldier. He sighs, thinking of the rumors involving you and the other man. "Anyway. Nice charm. See ya around."

"Yeah," you nod, watching him go. Your thumb slides around the smooth surface of the charm.

That afternoon, your heart nearly stops when you see Elias being carried into the nursing tent, a little bloody and delirious.

"Out of the way," you mutter, and push through to him. "What happened?"

"River water got into his drink pack, same river a great big pig decided to die in. ‘Lias got sick, started hallucinating, got torn all to hell in the brush when he tripped."

"It's just a scratch," Elias gives you that stupid, infectious grin, “Although I’ve had better hallucinations than these ones.”

It is just scratch... but that didn't stop the nightmares of losing him that night.

"You keep smiling," Tish says as you both wash blood off your hands the week after. "Who is it?"

You look down. "Nobody."

"It's gotta be somebody." She smirks. "Sergeant O'Neill, right?"

You frown. "What makes you say him?"

"It's not just me. Everybody's saying it," she whispers, "They say that other guy... Sergeant Eliott Grodin?" Your breath quickens.

"Elias."

"Elias. Guy’s got a thing for you. But O'Neill got to you first, they're saying. That Elias is heartbroken, I hear." She shrugs. "News carries fast in places like these. At least you didn't have to tell Elias yourself." Unaware of your trembling hands, she goes on. "Anyway, I haven't had any luck with Sergeant Barnes. He's tough as a nail to sof--"

"Sorry Tish, I have to go," you whisper, and head out, tearing your hair out of its cap. You need to drown your sorrows... the thought of hurting Elias pains you.

Inside the mess, you sit at the makeshift bar, and someone gives you a beer. You pop it open, and the guy who passed it to you laughs.

"You drink like a man, sweetheart." You slam the can down.

"I also suture like one too. If you get your leg blown off, have fun getting your friends to treat you."

You sigh, turning away from him. It's an empty threat, of course. This job is just hard in itself-- you didn't need all the comments as well.

"Weeeell, well well well well, look who came to see me." You freeze, eyes sliding shut. Hands fall to your shoulders, and begin to massage. "Little (y/n). Cheers, babe!" He clinks your can with his, and you feel sick to your stomach. "Wanna dance?"

"I'd rather not."

"Come on, stop being such a buzzkill!" He takes your hand, and you take it back, standing up.

"Why me?" you snap, "Huh? Why'd you pick me to bother?!"

This leaves him stunned, and more than a little embarrassed. He looks around at everyone, laughing nervously.

Dashing outside, you look behind you. He's not following. You consider putting in for a transfer, but then you'd have to leave... him.

"Everything okay?"

You turn. "Elias."

"You don't look so good. And I mean that in the best of ways." His kind smile falters as he realizes how upset you are. "(y/n), what's wrong?"

"God, I had to get away from him."

Elias looks over his shoulder, then back to you. Then he sits down on a log, patting the spot next to him. "O'Neill? What happened?" His voice softens. "Did you two have a fight or something?"

You frown. "I wouldn't even call it that. A proper fight requires someone to be emotionally invested."

Elias sparks up a cigarette, and offers you a drag. "But you and O'Neill, aren't you...?"

By Elias' confused expression, you slowly start to realize what he means.

"Aren't we what?"

He smirks. "You gonna make me say it?"

"What gives everyone the idea that we were?"

"Are you kidding?" Elias huffs, "O'Neill's been telling the whole camp you're his girl, and that you two... well, every time he's got R&R, you... keep his bed warm." You make a face, and Elias nods. "I take it you don't. Figures. He'd have to pay someone to like him."

"I don't even want anything to do with the man, but he's the deafest son of a bitch in this platoon when it comes to someone telling him no."

Elias slides in closer to you. "That is probably the best description of Sergeant O'Neill I've heard yet."

You laugh. Elias' eyes close as he revels in the sound of your laughter. A strong, protective urge cocoons him.

During an NVA raid the next day, Elias finds himself the perfect opportunity to speak his mind.

"Hey, O'Neill."

The redhead turns back in the little hut, stalking over to Elias with a patronizing glare.

"What, sweetheart?"

"Lay off her."

"I'm sorry?" he frowns.

"Don't tell me, tell her." Elias leans against the wall. "You know exactly who I mean."

"You," O'Neill points at him, chewing his gum loudly in Elias' face, "Are meddling in shit you don't wanna meddle in, buddy. I could toss you into a raveen and say Charlie got ya, okay, I can do all of that without barely flexing."

"I invite you to," Elias says, stepping up in the other man's space and unfolding his arms. O'Neill's eyes cast down, and he stutters.

"Just... stay out of my fuckin’ personal life, Elias. Or I'll fuckin’ report you."

Elias watches him go, and shakes his head. Men like O'Neill never learn.

As the sun goes down and darkness falls over the valleys of Vietnam, you walk from the medical tent toward the nurses' quarters on the other side of the quiet barracks. No matter how beautiful the sunsets were here, you rarely enjoyed them with the screaming of the soldiers you treat still ringing in your ears.

A few twigs snap behind you, and you turn to see a tall man stumble out of a tent. Irrational fear courses through you.

"Running to Elias with your problems, now?" The sloshing flask of bourbon is clenched in O'Neill's hand, and he takes one last drag on his cigarette before whipping it into a puddle.

"Sergeant--"

"Don't Sergeant O'Neill me, honey, I'm not in the mood." He keeps walking forward, and you back up as he slurs at you. "I-I don't even see how I'm a problem! I'm a great guy, what's-- what's not to love?!"

"Sergeant--" He keeps walking.

"Just answer the goddamn question!"

"Get out of my way!"

"Get BACK here, you little bitch!" O'Neill snaps, and grabs your wrist, jerking you back with force. When he realizes what he did, he lets go and covers his mouth like a frightened little boy. He looks like he's about to cry.

"I'm... s... look, I just-- I need love too, ya know! I-I'm not a heartless prick like some of these other assholes here, I... I deserve love! I'm just..." He breaks down into a blubbery mess. "I-I'm just so fucking scared!" He cries for a minute, before taking you by your arms, walking you backward toward the forest. You try to jerk your arm away, but he wraps you in an uncomfortable hug.

“Hey--!”

"What the FUCK do you think you're doing with her?!" You both turn, and see Elias storming angrily from the far tent, where his group of friends congregated after hours. You'd never been so happy to see anyone. "Get your hands off her," Elias all but growls, and, seeing how furious the man looks, O'Neill complies, holding his hands up. "You're a fucking piece of work, you know that?" Elias says, voice so low that you can tell just how hard it is for him to contain his anger.

"H-hey, you don't know what the hell you're talking about," O'Neill warns, "Walking around like the caped crusader of the nurses. Hey, get back here and be a man!"

"You want me to be a man?" Elias nods. O'Neill gets in close, so close Elias can smell the liquor on his breath. His eyes dart around in the dark, flickering with a mixture of nerves and desperation.

"Hey... n-nobody'll know, man. You and me? We could just take her back there, and--" Elias' fist ends that proposition, with a swift punch to O'Neill's jaw. You hold onto his arm, and, leaving the tall man lying in the mud, he takes you by the hand, leading you back to the tent.

Warmth cascades over you as you enter it, the sound of laughter, the blissful vibe, clouds of smoke, and psychedelic music overtaking you. It's a welcome change from the outside.

"A chick?" King asks, grinning.

“A nurse,” Lerner corrects playfully.

"Lay off guys, it's her first time in here," Elias says.

"You mean we're not allowed to scare her?" Rhah jokes, baring his teeth, “It is the Underworld, man. Baaaaah!”

"She ain't even supposed to be here," Lerner laughs, strumming his guitar, and Elias turns.

"You gonna report me, ya little weasel?" Both of their tones are light-- you can tell already that arguments never get far in here, and every man here is a friend of the others. The young man just smiles easily, taking another hit of whatever he's smoking, and Elias brings you over to a hammock in the corner. You're immediately at ease.

"You okay?" he asks you softly. You nod, but he presses. "Are you sure, (y/n)? Are you really sure?”

“Yeah.”

“It took everything I had not to fry that bastard to a crisp out there, swear to Christ. Men in this war... we think we can do whatever we want out here, no consequences. They ignore the fact that you're a fucking human being."

"Thank you," you say, voice trembling, and he wraps you in a hug. It's nothing like O'Neill's forced contact-- it's gentle, and protective, and you feel eternal just sitting there with him, swinging back and forth.

"You don't need to thank me for being there, flower child," he murmurs back, "...I'll always be there."

Your heart skips a beat. For some reason, that hits home, and makes you feel safer than you've ever felt in your life. Something inside of you aches with longing as you stare at his lips, and you place your hand on his leg. Something in his face changes when he sees you looking at him the way you are, and he tentatively moves in closer. You make no move to evade, so he clutches the back of your head, pressing your lips together. It's sweet, barely there, but you want more, and you kiss him back, reciprocating against his soft lips with a little more passion. You both finally break for air, and he seems surprised. The look you give him tells him not to be, so he relaxes a little.

Your head rests against the nape of his neck, and he takes to softly stroking the base of your head, resting his head against yours. Everyone in the room is half watching, out of the corners of their eyes. Elias still outranks most of them, even after hours, and none of them want to intrude on his privacy. Elias doesn't seem to care, though. He threads his fingers with yours, rocking you both on the hammock, eyes blissfully closed.

"Would you look at that?" Lerner hisses.

King smacks Chris in the arm. "Ain't it cute? Shit, if all I gotta do is bring a chick back to the Underworld to get some pussy, how come I ain't done it yet?"

“Well cause uh, you’re not Elias, and you don’t look like a motherfuckin’ angel like he does,” Chris grins. King gives him a look.

“You wan’ go trade places with her, Chris, suck his dick?” Chris topples backward into Lerner, giggling uncontrollably from the weed and waving his hands wildly.

"I always said it," Rhah hisses back to the group, philosophizing as usual, "If anyone was going to get a girl, it would be one Elias Grodin. The soldier... the man... the legend."

Your eyelids grow heavy as well over on the hammock, but when he goes to lay you both down, you hesitate.

"’Lias. I'm a nurse," you whisper, "I can't be seen with an officer like this. I'll lose my position. You could lose yours too."

Elias gazes around at everyone. They finally look over now, with confidence.

"Hey," Chris says quietly, laughter subsided, "We won't say anything, man." You two look into the earnest faces of every nodding man in the tent, and rest assured, reclining to hold each other for the rest of the night.

Elias found himself, as he stared down at the pretty girl in his arms, wishing he never had to let go-- of you, or of this night.

The next day, you can't shake the good feeling you've had since the night before. Even just the memory of sleeping on top of Elias' chest, while breaking every rule in the handbook, would make this whole thing bearable.

Waking you from your daydream, O'Neill comes up to you, looking extremely unsettled. He's got a bruise forming from where Elias punched him last night, and a slight stagger. He puts his hands up.

"I'd just like to, uh..." he starts, "I'd like to say how sorry I am, (y/n). Ma’am. For last night.”

“Did you get threatened with a court martial?” You quirk an eyebrow. You wouldn’t put it past Elias to report that incident.

O’Neill looks down. “Look. I just... got out of hand. I'm not myself when I drink."

You stare him straight in the eyes, refusing to be passive.

"Noted. Red... I know how hard this must be for you. I'm a nurse; I see what you have to deal with first hand. But my responsibilities end at your physical well being. I'm not a comfort girl." You step in closer. "Now stay away from me. If you ever touch me again, I'll give you a bruise bigger than that one you have." Elias comes up behind you, and puts a hand on your shoulder. O'Neill gets the message, and leaves.

Elias' hand then drops down your arm, and he curls his pinky finger around yours. It's not much, but for now-- it's enough.

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cuthian · 5 years ago

Text

Dancing in the Rain Chapter Four

Hi everyone!

Hope you're all still safe and healthy :)

Longer chapter this week, since it'll have to last you two weeks. I won't be able to post again next week due to my busy and hectic exam and work schedule now that everything is opening again here in Belgium. As always, but especially from hereon out, PLEASE mind the tags (canon-typical violence, kidnapping, angst) and if you have any concerns, please feel free to contact me (@cuthian on Tumblr).

Or yell at me in the comments.

As always, much thanks to @juulna for putting up with me and helping me whip this thing into shape.

Lots of love, Annaelle

Chapter Four

28 CELEBRITIES WHO HAVE OPENED UP ABOUT THEIR STRUGGLES WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

- Research shows that stereotypes about mental illness often prevent people from seeking treatment or speaking out about their struggles.

- In recent years, stars like Sophie Turner, Chrissy Teigen, Demi Lovato and Prince Harry have spoken candidly about their struggles with mental illness.

Despite the prevalence and global impact of mental health conditions, it’s still hard to open up and ask for help when you most need it. Research shows that harmful stereotypes about mental illness often prevent people from seeking treatment or speaking out at all.

Luckily, in recent years, we’ve seen a shift in the way people view and talk about mental health conversations about depression, anxiety, addiction and more have moved from the private to the public sphere. That’s not only important, but effective, according to mental health experts. In fact, when public figures open up about their own mental health struggles, it can help break down stigma, spark important discussions and even inspire people to seek out treatment.

Below, we’ve rounded up 28 celebrities who’ve spoken candidly about their own battles with everything from postpartum depression to anorexia and PTSD.

[…]

Prince Harry spoke to a therapist about his mental health after two years of "total chaos" in his late twenties.

[…] recently revealed he felt very close to a complete breakdown all the time, and faced anxiety during royal engagements before he finally began to see a professional to address his grief. Now “in a good place”, Harry has encouraged others to open up about their own struggles.

[…] started the Heads Together campaign with Prince William and Kate Middleton to help “end the stigma around mental health issues.” […] "The experience that I have is that once you start talking about it, you suddenly realize that actually, you're part of quite a big club," he told The Telegraph.

[…]

An outspoken advocate for mental health awareness, Demi Lovato is open about her battles with bipolar disorder, bulimia, and addiction.

[…] recently released a documentary about her own struggles, shared powerful side-by-side photos of her recovery from bulimia and entered rehab to address her substance abuse issues. "It's very important we create conversations, we take away the stigma, and that we stand up for ourselves if we're dealing with the symptoms of a mental illness," Lovato told Variety in February.

The singer continued: "It is possible to live well and thrive with a mental illness."

Steve Rogers, or Captain America, who struggles with social anxiety, depression and PTSD, once said he suffers from "a noisy brain."

[…] interview with Ellen earlier this year, the former Army Captain and Avenger revealed how his anxiety often kicks in when he is asked to speak for causes he cares about, or during press conferences. […] Rogers, who has tried everything from meditation with fellow-Avenger Bruce Banner to learning several new fighting styles with close friend Natasha Romanoff, said he’s “getting better”, but still has moments of self-doubt.

[…] Avenger also opened up about his struggles with depression shortly after he was woken from the ice. “The kindness that was shown to me by my friends—my team—as well as my family and my therapists saved my life,” he told Ellen. […] also shared an emotional letter about his PTSD following his experiences during World War II and during the several battles he has fought in the 21st century.

"There is a lot of shame attached to mental illness, but it's important that you know that there is hope and a chance for recovery," he wrote.

—Evan Agostini, Axelle Bauer-Griffin, “28 Celebrities Who Opened Up About Their Struggles with Mental Illness”, Insider.com, March 2016

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

Avengers Tower, New York, Manhattan, New York State, United States of America

10:36 p.m., 2 April 2016

Tony

Tony was shaking a little, fidgeting, his heart beating unsteadily in his chest as he paced the floor again. He’d been hiding in his lab since this morning, because while he loved Pepper to pieces, and he was elated—re: terrified—that she was pregnant and that they were going to be parents, she was driving him fucking nuts.

At least while he was in his lab, he wouldn’t be shouted at for eating the last Oreo’s.

Pepper didn’t even like Oreos.

She didn’t even want to eat them.

Tony didn’t understand pregnancy brain, but he’d been informed by Google, J.A.R.V.I.S., Rhodey, and Cap that it was best to just not question it.

He also wasn’t sure why he was thinking about Oreos when Becca was potentially in very big trouble, and Steve had left the dubious honour of telling Thor to him. “J.A.R.V.I.S.,” he said, a little desperately, voice shaking. “You heard the man. Call everyone in.”

“I have sent an Alert to all of the Avengers’ personal phones,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied readily, and Tony exhaled a little in relief. Someone had clearly planned this, had gone through the effort of setting half a building on fire to keep Steve distracted and get to Becca without drawing attention to what they were doing, and Tony was a little afraid to think of who they might be—of what they wanted with Becca.

He was going to do as Steve asked, though, because he would never forgive himself if something happened to Becca and he could have done something to help, to stop whatever it was.

The way Steve had sounded on the phone had kind of… scared Tony too.

He’d not heard Steve fall back to that dull, lifeless, monotone tone of voice very often, and when he had… well… it had never meant very good things for any of them.

The last time he’d heard Steve sound like that… the last time Steve had called Tony sounding like that, Tony had had to rush Natasha to Steve and Becca’s tiny Brooklyn apartment to keep Steve from doing something drastically stupid—she’d found the war hero crumpled in a heap on the floor with tears running down his cheeks and a gun to his head, begging her to just let him pull the trigger…

To let Steve stop the nightmares permanently.

He shuddered.

Yeah… Hearing that tone coming from Steve meant something.

Tony was barely holding himself back from rushing down to the lab and throwing himself into a suit, hurtling off to… to nothing. Nowhere.

He didn’t know anything yet.

Steve didn’t know anything yet.

He’d asked Tony to assemble but had left him with no other instructions and Tony knew, okay, he knew there was nothing he could do until he had more information.

And fuck if that didn’t frustrate him more.

He was stuck, wandering his Tower while his stomach twisted at the many implications his mind was set on conjuring up, each more gruesome than the other.

The elevator let out a bright ping and Tony jumped, eyeing the sliding door nervously until it slid open to reveal Natasha, dressed in a tight tank top and leotard, her hair coiled up into a tight bun and ballet slippers dangling from her left hand.

“What was so urgent, Stark?” She demanded, crossing her arms over her chest with a frown.

He waved his hands dramatically, because he was Tony Stark and if ever there were a time he were allowed to be fucking dramatic, it would be when Captain goddamn America called him in a panic because he’d lost Tony’s little Baby-Becs, and then giving Tony a heart attack when her tracker wouldn’t work.

“Gotta get to the others first,” he said impatiently, snatching her wrist and pulling her along when he started walking again.

He led the Spider through the silent, unlit hallway, but didn’t bother asking J.A.R.V.I.S. to turn on the lights; he’d designed these hallways, he’d walked them so many times he could probably do it in his sleep—which he had a few times, when Pepper had dragged him to board meetings before he’d had coffee. The twins would likely already be waiting for them in the boardroom anyway, and after all of Thor’s dramatic appearances in the past few years—all of which had cost Tony more than a few light bulbs—he didn’t want to bother anymore.

He ignored the Widow’s cool, silent surprise and dragged her through the door, entirely unsurprised to find Wanda seated at the table in her pyjamas, spinning a thread of red light between her fingertips as she sat cross-legged in her seat, her brother next to her, lounged back in his own seat, boots propped up on his table.

“You know,” he drawled impatiently, glaring—okay maybe mock-glaring—at the silver-haired boy impatiently. “You live here for free. You could at least pretend to take care of my furniture.”

Natasha snorted a laugh and pushed past him, settling in the seat to Little Red’s left. Before the Red fucking Menace could do anything but smirk at him though, the door swung open again to reveal Bruce, dressed in an old band shirt and threadbare sweatpants, his lab coat halfway up his shoulders and his glasses crooked, almost as though he’d just rolled out of bed.

There was a single clock on the wall—for Pepper’s decorative purposes, Tony presumed—and he couldn’t quite stop himself from frowning as he eyed the clock’s hands.

10:45 P.M.

Bruce probably had just rolled out of bed then.

The other scientist had a disgustingly strict sleeping schedule.

“Why are we assembling?” Bruce groaned, rubbing his hand through his—surprisingly curly—hair, and Tony unexpectedly found his thoughts derailed from Becca and Steve to Bruce in much more pleasurable territory, fingers itching to tug on those curls and to press into Bruce’s arms, because the other scientist gave really good hugs, okay?

He’d always been a little sweet on Bruce, even if nothing was ever going to come of it.

He had chosen Rhodey and Pepper years ago, and he was pretty sure Bruce had been dating that astrophysicist girl that Thor had introduced them to a while ago anyway, but… There was a part of him that’d always be kind of weak for the way Bruce looked all adorably sleep-rumbled and soft, and the way he was one of the only people in the world that could keep up with him, one of the only intellectual equals Tony had ever met in his life.

He wasn’t going to do anything about it though.

It was a harmless crush—he was even pretty sure Bruce knew about it. Bruce was, objectively, handsome, and really fucking smart.

He hit all buttons for Tony—except that, you know, he wasn’t Rhodey or Pepper.

He shook himself, chancing one more furtive glance towards Bruce’s sleep-rumpled form before he sighed and shook his head. “Something happened at the gala,” he said. “Steve’s gonna tell us more when they get here.”

He pushed his hands into the pouch on his hoodie and contemplated waking up Pepper, but he knew well enough not to disturb her once she’d managed to get comfortable and fall sleep unless it was super urgent, and he didn’t know what this was.

What if Becca had just wandered away?

He ignored, for the moment, that her subdermal tracker—the tracker he had designed for her, for all of them, that he made sure couldn’tbe taken out unless completely smashed to bits—wasn’t working. The comms hadn’t worked in the building either; some of those older buildings were practically Faraday cages, even his tech wasn’t always good enough to get through that—for all they knew, Becca’s tracker had also been jammed.

It wasn’t worth risking Pepper’s wrath for, he thought. Not yet.

He couldn’t even call Rhodey, because he was off in Europe for the week, doing… military stuff.

Which was fine.

Tony didn’t need both of them around all the time.

He wasn’t pouting.

He wasn’t.

Romanoff snorted at him and eyed him carefully. She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at him, but he didn’t budge—Romanoff always liked to pretend she knew everything—she probably hated that she knew no more than the others did, right now.

“You know more,” she stated simply after a few seconds. “Is everyone alright?”

Tony opened his mouth to say “yes”, to nod reassuringly, but the word wouldn’t fall from his lips. “I don’t know,” he admitted. The atmosphere in the room abruptly went from sleepy yawns to rapt attention, and Tony fidgeted a little. “The building caught fire during the gala,” he explained. “Everyone was evacuated, but Steve lost Becca in the chaos, and now… we kind of can’t… find her…”

“What do you mean, you can’t find her?” Natasha demanded hotly, sitting up straight and glaring at him. “Activate her tracker. She can’t be far.”

Tony winced and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Her tracker… isn’t working,” he admitted, looking up at the Widow defiantly. “Steve and Clint are canvassing the building and then getting back here. For all we know, she got taken onto one of the ambulances, or the building interfered with the signal. The comms were spotty too; it’s why Clint went inside with them.”

Natasha hissed, almost like an angry cat, and stood, stalking up to the large holographic screen present in almost every room in the Tower and began pulling up… documents? Tony wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she seemed intent on doing it, and far be it from him to discourage the Black fucking Widow from doing what she thought needed doing.

“Have you told Thor yet?” Pietro said, glancing between Tony and Natasha nervously.

Almost like the man was summoned by the mere mention of his name, a loud clap of thunder shook them all and the giant blond god bounded inside, his smile wide and infectious.

“Greetings, friends!” The tall god beamed, and Jesus, Tony was not in the mood to deal with Thor’s sunny personality. Christ. “I apologize for the delay in my arrival,” the god boomed excitedly, thumping down his hammer on the conference table. “Heimdall did not inform me of your request until I had finished the duties the All-Father assigned to me.”

Tony half-watched as Bruce stood to shake Thor’s hand, only to be brought into a tight bear hug, a startled squeak falling from his lips before he patted Thor’s shoulder awkwardly until the taller man set him down again and repeated the hug with Wanda and Pietro, who basically threw himself in Thor’s arms—Tony didn’t miss the pointed look Wanda shot Pietro at that.

He almost jumped right out of his seat when Bruce’s knee bumped against his, his eyes drawn to the other scientist’s immediately, because obviously Tony was a glutton for punishment and he really needed to get a fucking hold of himself.

Bruce looked a little tired, but not nearly as anxious and unsteady as Tony felt, and of course he didn’t, he didn’t know what was going on, none of them did, really—

“Thor,” he exclaimed suddenly, yanking himself away from Bruce abruptly. “We gotta… Steve called, about the gala—something’s happened.” He ignored the way the rest of the team eyed him nervously and settled back in his seat with minimal fidgeting.

Thor’s smile abruptly disappeared and he sat, heavily, on the nearest chair. “Rebecca,” he said hoarsely. “The baby, are they—are they alright? Is Steven?”

“I don’t know,” Tony admitted, his leg bouncing erratically underneath the table. This was… he was doing something, even if it was just telling Thor, even if it wasn’t much, and that was better than nothing. Doing nothing drove him absolutely and entirely mad—and that wasn’t good for anyone.

“I don’t know a lot yet,” he continued. “The building… there was a fire, and everyone was evacuated, but…” He stalled Thor’s words before he’d even said them, holding up a hand as though to ward off the questions that were sure to come. “…Steve said they got separated during the evacuation. He can’t find her. Her tracker’s offline. She… She might still be in the building or somewhere around there, but…” He swallowed. “Well, it’s not like our trackers can be disabled accidentally.”

Thor looked gutted, but the expression was swiftly replaced by one of utter rage.

“Who?” he demanded. “Who would dare take her from me? From us?”

Tony’s eyes widened when lightning sparked between Thor’s fingers and thunder rumbled loudly above them. “I don’t know, big guy,” he said in his calmest voice, although it didn’t seem to be doing much to assuage Thor. The crackle of electricity hung heavy in the air and made Tony’s skin prickle and thrum—the raw power rolling off Thor was… fucking intimidating, a reminder that the man wasn’t human, and that he could likely squash them all like bugs if given proper motivation—

The door swung open again and Steve and Clint walked in, and Tony nearly choked on his own tongue, because he’d seen Steve look pretty terrible over the years—in the throes of depression, bruised and beaten after battle, but…

He’d never seen Steve look like this.

There were dark circles beneath Steve’s eyes and several cuts and bruises were in various stages of healing, but Steve’s dark bespoke suit was riddled with bullet holes and splashed with so much ash and blood and Tony really hoped it wasn’t all his.

“Steven!” Thor bellowed, leaping from his seat and crossing the space between him and Steve in a few short strides. “You wear battle upon your skin, yet Tony informed me there was none. Where is Rebecca? Have you found her?”

Tony’s eyes flicked to the door again, then to Clint, who shook his head, and his stomach sank.

“I—the—she wasn’t anywhere,” Steve finally said, his expression stony, but Tony heard the barely perceptible waver in his voice regardless, and he felt abruptly sick, keeping his eyes fastened on the door, begging for Becca to walk through at any moment, to just be there, to be okay—

Please, please, don’t let her be dead.

“Hydra took Becca,” Steve continued, and Tony’s entire world screeched to a halt for a long, tense moment, his breath punching from his lungs in a startled breath—

“Are you sure?”

“Hydra took Becca,” Steve repeated, but Tony could again hear the waver in his voice that matched the sudden nausea that crawled up the back of Tony’s throat. “Her tracker’s offline, and we came across some stragglers when we canvassed the building and the rest of the block,” Steve went on, turning his attention from Thor to the others. Tony wanted to do something, to say anything, but he wasn’t quite sure what words were for a moment there, because he couldn’t think past ‘Hydra took Becca’. “They had cyanide capsules,” Steve said. “Spitting Hail Hydra before they died.”

He took a harsh breath and looked up at Wanda. “You were right. They’re back.”

Tony’s legs gave out from beneath him as he fell backwards onto his seat. He had not even realised he had risen from his seat in the first place. “Why would they—”

“It was a trap,” Steve interrupted harshly, anger infused in his every word, but Tony could see him fraying around the edges in the way his hands trembled before Steve pressed his palms flat against the table. “It was specifically set to draw me—or us—in,” he continued tensely. “I don’t know how they knew Becca and I would be there or why they took Becca instead, but I don’t intend to let them keep her long enough to find out.”

Thunder rumbled loudly above their heads and lightning flashed through Thor’s eyes at the same time as it lit up the night outside, and everyone jumped again, turning to the God of Thunder with wide eyes. Thor looked livid, and Tony suddenly realised he had never seen Thor really angry before, not truly, not even during their most intense battles, and the sight of it was… surprisingly terrifying.

Outside, a storm unlike anything Tony had ever seen before raged, and Tony wasn’t sure what to do to calm the god down.

He was, honestly, not sure he wanted to.

Let Thor unleash his anger on the bastards who’d dared kidnap Becca.

“J,” he said briskly. “Pull up everything you can find on the gala tonight. I don’t care how many firewalls you have to bypass or how many people will know we’re looking. Just get the info.” He barely waited for J.A.R.V.I.S.’s murmured affirmation before he jumped out of his chair, pulling up a large holoscreen above the table.

“Tell us everything,” he ordered Steve as soon as he had the screen set up, whirling around to find Steve looking at him with the same kind of desperation that was burning in his own veins.

“Now, Steve,” he ordered sharply, knowing it would get through to him the quickest.

Steve faltered for another moment—which Tony guessed he could forgive him for, since he was pretty sure Steve had been up since yesterday morning—before he launched into a detailed explanation of his and Becca’s strategic plans for the gala, all the way down to the color of her dress.

Tony watched, a little lightheaded and in dire need of caffeine—or like… six 5-hour energy shots—as Steve’s plans were laid out on the holographic screen, in clear and direct terms. Clint and Thor were leaning forward, eyes flitting between Steve and the screen, and even Natasha sat, tensed, on the edge of her seat, staring intently at the screen.

His hands trembled when he swiped a picture of one of the targets to the side, and he was very much not thinking about how triggeringthe situation had to be for Becca. She’d been doing so good, and he knew, he knew his Becs was stronger than any of them, but there were limits even to what she could take. He was also very deliberately not thinking of his own issues with being kidnapped—even though he was basically an expert at it now, having been kidnapped like six times before he was even eighteen—or the way he’d found Becca in Iraq, pale and beaten on the floor in a filthy little cell.

She was important to him, always had been, even though he’d been annoyed as fuck at fifteen to be saddled with the baby at family gatherings. She was his Baby Becs and he hated the thought of someone getting their hands on her and hurting her.

He’d promised himself, the day he found her, after he’d led the Army to where she was being held, and the day he’d spent sitting by her bed after the Battle of New York, that he’d find a way to keep her safe.

It’s a pledge he felt truly shamed to have failed at.

“Wait, wait.” Bruce waved his hand slowly, pulling his glasses down his nose and pinching the bridge between thumb and forefinger and completely interrupting Tony’s train of thought. “We have good contacts in S.H.I.E.L.D. Why are we not calling them in? If we can legitimize the mission through them… Making this an official S.H.I.E.L.D. mission would make it easier, wouldn’t it? We’d have all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s resources.”

“Because revealing that S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers purposefully put active agents in that gala would have meant treading on some very powerful toes,” Fury boomed from behind them, causing Tony to nearly jump out of his skin, knocking his knee painfully into the underside of the table. “We cannot afford that right now.”

Tony swivelled around, because how the fuck did that asshole keep getting into his Tower without his goddamned permission, how did he even know—and then froze, his mind screeching to a stop as he watched Fury approach with Agent Hill—he remembered her, very pretty, badass, had a brief fling with Becca after the fiasco with Romanoff—and…

Coulson?

“Bruce, am I drunk?” he choked out, feebly patting around until his fingers found the fabric of Bruce’s shirt to clutch and hang onto. “I’m seeing dead people.” He was vaguely aware of the sound of Clint dropping his mug onto the table, but no one else said anything, and he couldn’t—

What the fuck.

“This is a whole new level of madness.” Tony shook his head dramatically. “J, call my therapist. Wait.” He frowned. “I don’t have a therapist. Damn it, call a therapist. If they’ll take me. Will they take me? Fuck. What the absolute fuck, Fury?!”

“Tony, shut up!” Steve shouted empathically, and Tony would yell back, but just then, he caught sight of Clint’s expression and oh.

Yeah.

Tony cringed. He’d only heard of Clint’s relationship with Coulson after the man had died on the Helicarrier—although not so much, apparently—but he’d witnessed Clint’s intense grief first hand. So… realising Coulson wasn’t dead after all?

Not cool.

Not cool at all.

Everyone watched, tensely, as Coulson tentatively moved towards Clint, before Natasha suddenly stepped into his path—

That wasn’t going to end well.

“Don’t you dare talk to him,” she hissed, and if Tony had been on the receiving end of that look, he swore he would have just shrivelled up and died because damn, that woman and her icy glares.

“Nat, I—” Coulson began, falling silent immediately beneath the weight of the Black Widow’s lethal glare.

“Enough,” Fury cut in, and Tony almost wanted to pout—this was dramatic as fuck and it didn’t even involve him, for once—before he remembered why they were there and promptly felt sick, because how could he—or any of them, except for maybe Clint—have forgotten, even for a second, that Becca was missing and in danger?

“Yes,” Steve boomed, face stoic but hands clenched into fists nonetheless before he lifted one hand to point at Coulson. “Enough. You… I’m glad you’re not dead. Head’s up would’ve been nice.” He turned to Fury, and Tony was impressed by the way his expression actually grew icier. “And you… when I’ve got Becca back safe and sound, you and I are gonna have a conversation you’re not going to enjoy.”

It struck Tony then, in a moment of dizzying clarity, how much Steve was struggling to hold onto the Captain America mind set, in a way he hadn’t seen him struggle in…

God, in months.

Tony hadn’t understood, initially, that Captain America was Steve’s shield just as much as his vibranium shield was. He hadn’t understood that, to deal with the expectations people put on Steve from the moment they laid eyes on him, Steve hid behind Captain America.

He showed people what they wanted to see.

Tony could tell that, in the light of Coulson’s reappearance, in the light of Becca being kidnapped on his watch and the botched mission—Jesus fucking Christ—that Steve was on the verge of losing it though.

Tony caught Steve’s eye, and the exhausted desperation in the younger man’s eye nearly made him wince. Nearly. Tony was worried about Becca too, the frantic energy humming beneath his skin nearly electric the longer he sat still, but he was willing to concede—just this once—that Steve’s nerves might be slightly more frayed than Tony’s.

Slightly.

To be fair, neither of them was quite as badly off as Thor obviously was, vibrating where he stood, lightning continually sparking between his fingers and his eyes flashing white with each clap of thunder and flash of lightning outside. But then again, it wasn’t Tony’s girlfriend and child on the line, now was it?

God, he didn’t even want to think about Pepper and the baby being in this kind of danger.

Tony could be a good teammate and take the focus off of Cap and Thor for a bit, though.

Let it never be said Tony Stark didn’t play well with others.

Tony cleared his throat loudly, effectively drawing all attention back to him.

“Not that this isn’t fun,” he drawled sarcastically, rolling his eyes at Fury’s annoyed huff. “But I’d prefer to get back to why we’re actuallyhere.” He gestured back to the large screen, his heart clenching a little at the sight of the photo J.A.R.V.I.S. had pulled up—a picture Pepper had taken during one of the Team Movie NightsTony had insisted upon, catching Becca in the middle of a peal of laughter at something silly Thor had said to Steve—before he glanced back to Steve and Thor and steeled himself.

One of them had to keep it together.

Just figured it’d be him again. Tony never thought he’d be the stable one, but then…

Here he was.

Again.

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

BREAKING: NEW YORK CITY HIT BY UNEXPECTED THUNDERSTORM

The torrential rains that have been ravaging New York City for the past few hours hit unexpectedly and, reportedly, entirely out of nowhere around 10:30 p.m. today. The rains and repeated strikes of lightning have yet to cause any real, lasting damage, but it is only a matter of time if it continues, according to experts.

[…] at least 46 people were caught entirely by surprise by the heavy rainfall and needed to be extracted by firefighters from a partially flooded subway tunnel. “[…] situation is, for now, under control, and we’re trying to help those that have been caught up in the storm, but the streets are flooding, and we recommend everyone to remain at home,” said Anahera Taumata, a senior official at the New York City mayor’s office.

[…] Military units have been deployed to assist emergency workers as they search for [missing] people and clear the streets for emergency vehicles. […] storm unlike any in living memory, according to local authorities. New York’s weather agency has reported up to 6 inches of rain fell within four hours, triggering several flash floods in various subway tunnels, and 4 reported lightning strikes to various buildings.

Amusingly, several New Yorkers have taken to Twitter to ask Thor Odinson, New York’s resident God of Thunder, to take the lightning and rain elsewhere. Interestingly, several weather experts have agreed that such a sudden change in the weather can only be attributed to the God of Thunder. […] no response from Thor or the Avengers yet, although the storm rages on.

[…] no reports of deaths or serious injuries yet.

—Pedro Isaac, “New York City Hit By Unexpected Thunderstorm”, DW.com, 2 April 2016

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

Avengers Tower, New York, Manhattan, New York State, United States of America

11:57 p.m., 2 April 2016

Steve

“This has to be a trap.”

“It’s a one-way video feed,” Tony said scathingly, glaring at Fury. “It can’t be a trap.”

The tension in the room was so palpable that it thickened the air surrounding them, making Steve feel almost like he was choking. The others were spread haphazardly throughout the room, eyeing the video feed J.A.R.V.I.S. had pulled up after receiving an anonymous email with varying expressions.

“Is there any way to trace the signal?” Bruce asked reasonably, looking between Tony and Natasha with a furrowed brow. Natasha had taken control over one of Tony’s holographic screens and had, in the past hour and a half, managed to collect a mildly terrifying amount of evidence of Hydra’s continued existence. The things she had found and was currently investigating were so immensely complicated and implicated so many people that it gave Steve a minor headache at just the thought of considering it all.

She’d managed to uncover a terrifying amount of documents, video footage, photos and other evidence, which was mildly terrifying, considering how hard it had been to find even the slightest scrap of evidence before. When Steve had asked why she was finding so much now, Nat had only muttered, “It’s easy to find things when you know what you’re looking for,” before refocusing her attention on the screen.

And yet, nothing she’d found—nothing pointed towards there having been plans to take Becca.

Except… Except that there had clearly been a plan.

The security cameras in and around the building had been masterfully and methodically rerouted to replay previously recorded footage starting three minutes and forty-three seconds before the fire alarm had been triggered until seven and a half minutes after the alarm had been triggered.

In addition to that, whoever had hacked the feed had done so at the scene—which meant they couldn’t be traced through an I.P. address.

The kidnapping clearly was premeditated, but whoever had done said premeditating had not left a paper trail for them to find. They’d not left anything for them to find, other than Becca’s glaring absence and the three trigger happy goons Steve and Clint had run into when they’d canvassed the area.

And now this dark video feed.

“I don’t care what it is,” Thor thundered, eyes flashing with barely suppressed rage. “Will it help us find Becca?” A particularly loud clap of thunder punctuated his words, making his feelings on the matter abundantly clear. Of course, the thunderstorm outside had been gaining in strength since Thor had learned of the kidnapping.

Steve winced.

After their initial explanation of what had happened at the gala, Thor had simply stood, walked out, and—according to J.A.R.V.I.S.—disappeared through the Bifrost. He’d returned not ten minutes later in full armour and with his friends, who had all immediately spread out into the city to track down whatever leads they could find.

Thor had, after they��d spent a tense few minutes watching him talk to his friends, re-joined the team in the board room, although he’d barely said three words since his return, and most of those words had been used to inform them Heimdall was also searching for Becca with his all-seeing gaze.

He hadn’t spoken to Steve directly since he’d walked in.

And Steve hated it.

He hated that he’d failed Thor and Becca so badly. He’d promised Thor that Becca would be safe, that he’d be by her side the entire time—and because he hadn’t been, because he’d decided trying to dance with the target’s date was a good idea, Hydra had been able to get to Becca.

He wouldn’t be surprised if Thor wanted to throw him from the Tower.

Steve kind of wanted to throw himself from the Tower too.

“As soon as it activates,” Tony said fervently, nodding at Thor. “I don’t care what they’ve done to erase their digital footprints, as soon as they give us an inch, I’m gonna take a fucking mile.”

Thor nodded curtly. “Very well.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away, staring silently out the window into the dark storm.

Steve wondered, not for the first time, whether the sight of the storm soothed Thor, or if it made his anger and fear all the worse. It was, after all, a physical manifestation of Thor’s emotions—a blatant and palpable demonstration of everything Thor felt for anyone who cared to look.

Steve had seen Thor’s control over his lightning slip a few times over the years, but every single one of those instances had been… different.

With the exception of the two-week long thunderstorm that had followed Thor’s return to Earth after his mother and Loki had been killed, every other instance of Thor accidentally letting his lightning loose had been… if not outright funny, then certainly amusing.

It’d happened once after his and Becca’s second anniversary, when Becca had apparently done something very well—although Steve preferred not to think about what exactly she’d done so well, for his own sanity—and once after Clint and the twins had teamed up to play a prank on Thor, and the god had startled so bad he’d electrocuted the entire Tower.

Both instances had been hilarious.

There wasn’t anything funny about Thor’s lack of control now.

Steve eyed the raging storm—if it even was due to a lack of control on Thor’s part. He didn’t doubt that his friend was terrified, because Steve was too, and it wasn’t even his girlfriend, his child on the line. He wouldn’t be surprised if there was a reason Thor had decided to unleash the thunderstorm to end all thunderstorms on New York.

Maybe he was hoping to flush out whoever had taken Becca—quite literally.

Steve would be more concerned about the consequences of letting this storm rage—people could get hurt, there could be floods due to the unrelenting rain—but most of his higher brain function was too occupied with Becca to care.

While Tony, Bruce and J.A.R.V.I.S. bickered over how they were going to trace the video feed, Steve took his chance. Natasha, Clint and Wanda had their heads bent together to try to figure out why there was a video feed in the first place, and thankfully weren’t paying attention to him either.

Steve approached Thor, feeling simultaneously nervous and like he was going to get whatever horrible fate he deserved.

“Hey,” he said quietly once he’d reached his friend, leaning against the wall beside Thor.

Thor barely even glanced up at him, but nodded in acknowledgement nonetheless.

“I—” Steve tried, but his voice rebelled, and the words died in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he finally managed. “I promised you she’d be safe, and… I didn’t—I should’ve stayed with her. I’m sorry.”

Thor heaved a sigh beside him.

“Steven,” he said wearily. “My friend. I love you very dearly, and I want you to know that the only people I blame are the people that tookBecca from me, but…” He sighed again and looked at Steve with dark, haunted eyes. “I do not have it in me to reassure you right now.”

He turned away from Steve again and stared back out the window.

Steve opened his mouth, changed his mind, and then closed it again, feeling distinctly nauseated.

He wasn’t sure how long he and Thor stood there, backs against the wall in silence, before Natasha suddenly announced, “We got something.”

At the same time, Tony exclaimed, “The feed’s going live!”

Steve’s stomach dropped away and he felt distinctly nauseous as he eyed the video footage Tony had pulled up on the largest screen in the room. He pushed away from the wall and joined the rest of the team as they gathered around the screen in a tight half circle, each set of shoulders bumping into the next one over.

And there, right in front of them and yet completely out of their reach, was Becca.

The camera hardly shook at all, and the quality of the video was exceptionally high—whoever this was, Steve would bet anything they were using a professional camera, which spoke volumes about the level of preparedness of the kidnappers, at least in his opinion.

When he voiced said thoughts aloud, Natasha nodded in agreement and Tony insisted he had spotted the same thing immediately. Steve didn’t really pay attention to them, trying to focus his gaze on the details of the scene, on anything that might betray where the footage was being filmed or who was filming it—anything that might tell him where Becca was, but the backdrop was a simple, infuriatingly, undoubtedly purposefully white sheet.

He carefully refrained from looking at Becca, who sat tied to a wooden chair in the middle of the image, because he needed time to steel himself for what he was sure he’d see.

He remembered what Hydra did to the people they took.

He remembered what Bucky had looked like right after Steve had pulled him from that concrete slab in Azzano—remembered the blank stare in his best friend’s eye that never really left after.

Steve wasn’t sure he could stand to see another friend tortured by Hydra.

When he did finally look at her, she looked relatively unharmed, although she’d clearly not been handled carefully, either. Her hair had fallen from the elegant mess of braids and curls Nat had done for her earlier, and there was an ugly scrape on her forehead. She was paler than Steve thought was healthy, but when she looked up at the camera, he could recognize the defiant anger in her gaze.

“This is live, yes?” Thor demanded, glancing towards Tony, and Steve wondered if anyone else could tell just how badly Thor’s hands were shaking.

“Yeah,” Tony nodded. “Yeah. J.A.R.V.I.S. is recording and tracing the feed right now.”

He looked stricken, and though Steve felt a wave of sympathy for him.

“Well, smile for the camera, Barnes,” someone drawled on the feed, voice smug and self-satisfied even though it was clearly distorted by some kind of voice modulator.

When Becca continued to scowl at the person behind the camera, someone heaved an impatient sigh and stomped forward, roughly grabbing Becca’s chin with a gloved hand and forcing her to look directly into the camera. “Come on then,” the man—because it was a man, dressed from head to toe in black, a dark ski mask covering his face—in their field of vision spat. “Smile for your friends, bitch. Gotta say goodbye.”

Lightning sparked between Thor’s clenched fingers and jumped up his arm, and the thunder outside roared deafeningly loud.

Steve winced in perfect tandem with the others, and barely resisted the urge to grasp Thor’s shoulder in comfort. The gesture wouldn’t be appreciated right now, he was sure, and he wasn’t very sure he wouldn’t be electrocuted if he touched Thor right now, in any case. Thor certainly didn’t seem entirely aware of the light current of electricity that was dancing from his clenched fists up to his shoulders and the white that crept across his eyes—

It was, admittedly, slightly terrifying.

He returned his attention back to the screen, where Becca had bared her teeth in a bloody grin.

Steve fumed, because it was obvious she’d been slapped hard enough that her upper lip had split, which meant one of those sick sons of bitches had had the gall to hit a pregnant woman hard enough to make her bleed.

“You gonna scream real’ nice and loud for us, baby?” the male, though still unidentifiable voice taunted on the screen, shaking Becca’s chin roughly while several other voices jeered and the man in the frame cupped his crotch suggestively. Becca winced—a small, minute thing, but Steve had known her long enough to recognize her expression of pain—before she spat at the hand that was holding her.

“You and your pathetic little needle dick couldn’t make me scream if you tried,” she spat, voice strong and clear, glaring up at him.

Steve snorted a laugh despite himself, and even Thor smiled.

Unfortunately the kidnappers were not quite as amused by Becca’s innate inability to stop sassing people, and the man who stood next to Becca in the frame, who’d cupped his crotch to taunt her, slapped Becca hard. Her head whipped to the side and Thor growled as the thunder above them roared, and—miraculously, thankfully—the sound echoed on the video.

They could hear Thor’s thunder on the video.

They could hear it.

She was still in the city—whoever had taken her hadn’t taken her out of the city. And thunder had a limited sound range, at that.

Amateurs, he thought contemptuously.

Becca slowly swung her head back towards the camera, grinning that same bloody grin. “Oh, you’re fucked now,” she chuckled. “Thor. Babe. There’s only five of them. Fucking annihilate them.”

“Someone calculate how far that was,” Clint shouted. “How long was the delay?”

“Couple of seconds tops,” Tony said absently, hands moving feverishly across the keyboard.

“You insolent bitch,” the man behind the camera spat, lurching forward in a blurred movement to backhand Becca across the face once more, and Thor’s thunder howled so loudly everyone reflexively covered their ears. A massive bolt of lightning struck the nearest building and the city went dark beneath and around them.

The Tower, mercifully, seemed mostly unaffected, although there were quite a few red alerts popping up at the bottom of the screen. The video feed, too, seemed unaffected, although the lights shining down on Becca had dimmed considerably, and everyone except Becca seemed a little spooked by Thor’s outburst.

“Well,” the man chuckled, although his voice was just a little shakier than it had been before. “We know they’re watching, then. Good.” He disappeared from the frame again and ordered, “Go get the Soldier.”

Becca swayed a little against her bonds, clearly dazed by the last blow—though still with a slight smile on her face from the proof of Thor’s wrath—and Steve bit his lip nervously. Even though they knew they were in the city, that they couldn’t be far, he didn’t like that they couldn’t get to her right away, that they couldn’t bring her to the medical floor to have her checked out—

“Captain America,” the man on the video said, and Steve’s head snapped up. “You’ve been a thorn in Hydra’s side for far too long. Consider this a warning of what’ll happen to everyone you love if you continue to cross us—we know where your friends live, know that certain elderly friends of yours are particularly vulnerable. I hope you’ve enjoyed your time with Barnes while it lasted, because it comes to an end now. Hail Hydra.”

“What,” Tony said, baffled, and Steve’s stomach roiled—he might throw up; something he’d done maybe thrice since waking from the ice.

Becca had been shaking her head the entire time the man was speaking, but when she opened her mouth to say something, she seemed to spot something behind the camera and her eyes went wide, her jaw going slack. “Wh—Uncle Bucky?”

Steve, who’d been reaching for the nearest trashcan—just in case his rebellious stomach decided to stage a full-scale riot—abruptly jerked back towards the screen, wide-eyed and confused, and Becca blinked owlishly at whoever was behind the camera.

But then, suddenly, before she could gather herself, there was a commotion from the same direction she was staring into as if she’d seen a ghost. It devolved rapidly into unintelligible shouting, and before any of them had any chance to figure out what the hell was happening—

The camera toppled on its side with a loud crash, and for a second, through blurred, jagged footage, Becca’s feet were visible, before a loud bang startled them all, and the video abruptly cut out.

“J.A.R.V.I.S.,” Tony inquired shakily, “tell me you have something.”

“Why would she say that?” Steve whispered, staring at the blank screen without really seeing it, without really… without really thinking.

Why would Becca say Bucky’s name?

No one replied to him.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. responded apologetically, speaking over Steve’s whisper, and Steve felt sick. “The signal was heavily encrypted and was being bounced off servers on every continent. Even with the knowledge they were still in the city, I was not able to narrow down the location. Based on the delay before we heard the echo of Thor’s thunder, however, I estimate that they are no more than five miles away from the Tower.”

“We have to do something,” Natasha exclaimed a little desperately. “There has to be something—they’re in the city, we know they are in the city—you have to be able to find something.”

“Their lights weren’t off,” Wanda remarked from next to a quivering Thor, wringing her hands nervously, anxiously. “It was darker, but not fully dark, and I think there was a hum in the background after. They must have an emergency generator. Doesn’t that help?”

“Why would she say Bucky’s name?” Steve repeated, a little louder, ignoring the slight hysteria in his own voice, choosing to focus on that rather than the gunshot they’d heard at the end of the video, because… because…

Because she’d said Bucky’s name.

Steve was unable to ignore it or chalk it up to coincidence—he couldn’t.

He knew Becca would have known that too.

“I don’t know, Steve!” Natasha shouted suddenly, startling them all into silence. Steve stared at her with wide eyes—he had never seen Natasha lose her cool like this, and that more than anything shocked him into immediate silence and stillness. She exhaled shakily and continued in a—slightly—calmer voice, “It doesn’t matter why she said Bucky’s name. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t. What we need to focus on right now is where she is and who has her. Once we have her safely back we can look into anything she said and why she said it, but not now.”

Steve blinked at her. “Okay,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

He’d forgotten, for a moment, that he wasn’t the only one that loved Becca—that he wasn’t the only one that was going out of his mind with worry.

Natasha glared at him for another tense, drawn-out moment before she sighed. “It’s fine.” She looked to Thor, who was still glaring at the screen where Becca had been projected just minutes before, almost like he hadn’t even registered the commotion erupting around him.

“Thor,” she said, switching gears, her voice softening into something more comforting. “We’re going to find her. Can you meet up with your friends, see if they’ve found something? In the meantime, we can work out a search grid and work in pairs, search more efficiently—they can’t be far, so we have to make sure we get there before they move again. Maybe start on the outer perimeter of a five mile radius and work your way inwards; that’s what I’d do, and you can do it in a snap compared to most of the rest of us.”

“I’ll go with,” Steve said immediately, because his skin was crawling and he couldn’t stand sitting here and doing nothing any longer, because he knew his brain would drive him mad if he did.

Natasha nodded. “I’m going with you. Thor, with your friends—there’s four of them, yes?”

When Thor nodded, Nat smiled tightly. “Split up into groups of two. Tony, I need a map.”

Tony jerked into movement, blinking blearily but pulling up a map of the city obediently. Natasha walked up to it and indicated a ten-block radius. “You and your friend search this grid. Steve and I,” she indicated another ten-block grid, “will be searching this area. Your other two friends can search here.” She pointed again and Thor nodded sharply.

“We can search too,” Pietro piped in. “I’m fast, and Wanda can fly; give each of us ten blocks. Wanda and I can clear more than you can and faster, and that safely frees up Thor for the perimeter.”

Natasha nodded grimly.

“Be careful,” she told them after she’d indicated a good portion of the city. “Hydra will probably be looking to take you two back as well.”

Wanda bared her teeth in a snarl. “I’d like to see them try.”

With that, she slung her arm around her brother’s neck, and they blurred out of sight. Thor looked at the map intently for another few moments before he too, without words, stomped out of the room.

“Tony,” Nat said sternly, “Keep trying to hack the signal. If you find anything, any clue to narrow our search down, let us know.”

Tony nodded.

Clint settled in a corner, dragging several laptops, Starkpads and phones with him—staunchly ignoring Coulson and Fury, who were both pacing in the corridor, barking orders on their phones—and told Nat, “I’ll contact everyone I know—someone’ll know something.”

Nat nodded again before she turned to Steve. “Well,” she said, eyeing him up and down. “Suit up.”

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

Start from the beginning:

In Hell We Stand By You:

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Never Feel Alone:

(1) (2)

Decisions: (1)

Dancing with a Limp:

(1) (2)

Chances:

(1)

Starting Over:

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Dancing in the Rain:

(1) (2) (3)

Or read it HERE on AO3 :D Find the next chapter HERE on Tumblr :)

#stucky #stucky fanfic #Steve rogers #Bucky barnes #IHWSBY sequel #Dancing in the Rain #DitR #my writing #Lisa writes #thor #Becca Barnes

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