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mirrorimage003 · 3 years ago

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it ends with laughter (chap 2)

i finally added a chapter! but now, i have a different lawna plot bunny (namely, a soulmate au) swirling around in my head. so maybe i’ll write that next?? idk we’ll see lol.

Chapter 1

Summary: law spends a gratuitous amount of time with the straw hats and no, they are not friends--what would even give you that idea?

Rating: K+ (so far)

Pairing: Law/Nami (Frobin, Sanuso, and even a lil Zona--if you really, really squint)

Genre: Family / Friendship / Humor / Subtle Romance (nothing crazy so far)

Also posted to AO3

Law has never been of lesser intelligence, but sometimes—well, sometimes the Straw Hats manage to make him feel…dense.

A week into their trip to Dressrosa, it has become very apparent to Law that the Straw Hats are even more abnormal than he’d previously thought. As a man of few words but exceptional observational skills, he’s come to the conclusion that he will never fully understand their logic and reasoning.

(How—exactly—a windy day on the most dangerous part of the New World’s seas translates to various members of the crew learning how to windsurf for the first time remains a mystery to him.)

But what well and truly confuses him isn’t even anything that they say or do.

It’s the way that they can all seemingly read each other’s minds—talk to one another without uttering even a single word.

And as the outlying pirate of the group—who occupies the margin between possible traitor and Luffy’s self-proclaimed friend—Law often finds himself frustrated with his inability to decipher this nonverbal language.

He notices it first with Robin and Franky, who are the most obvious out of the group. Despite the older woman’s typically subtle nature, her large, cobalt eyes flit constantly to the cyborg’s in the midst of group gatherings—who undoubtedly returns her glances with a knowing grin.

Several times now, Law has caught them exchanging these looks when one of the others has said or done something particularly immature or amusing. Just the other night, as the ship’s tiny doctor devolved into an exasperated lecture about the menstrual cycle when Luffy asked why women couldn’t “just hold it in,” Robin had covered her smiling mouth with the book she was reading and looked to Franky. The large robot immediately turned his head from where he was repairing the ship’s railing to send a barely contained grin in her direction.

(Occasionally, the skeleton will join in on their silent conversations, though Law really, really doesn’t understand what the other two could possibly read from the void that is his eye sockets. He’ll never admit it, but countless nights have been spent lying awake just contemplating the medical logistics of Brook’s very existence. It’s enough to send Law into a metaphysical spiral.)

Most often, though, their eyes find one another when squabbles break out among the mix of pirates and samurai. They’ll meet each other’s narrowed gazes, hold some sort of argument that Law is not privy to—and inevitably, one will sigh, break the staring contest, and go to play peacemaker.

The most subtle conversations typically occur between the cook and the sniper, much to Law’s surprise—considering one infuses passion into everything that he does, and the other seems to highly enjoy performing for an audience.

And yet, the two men seem to understand one another as if they share a mind. Unlike the archaeologist and the shipwright’s extended glances that are full of half-moon eyes and curling lips, Usopp and Sanji exchange blink-and-you-miss-it conversations without so much as batting an eye.

The first time Law witnesses it is when they are nearly to Dressrosa. It happens during the chaos that is lunch aboard the Sunny, with food flying around and a symphony of voices stubbornly attempting to talk over one another. Law wouldn’t have even noticed anything at all between them if it hadn’t directly involved him.

One moment, Law was munching grumpily on his specially-made onigiri as everyone else dined on custom sandwiches, and the next, he’s watching the last of his food disappear down Straw Hat’s throat. He had blinked, felt his ears begin to redden with anger, then promptly deflated as he resigned himself to an empty stomach until dinnertime.

And if he hadn’t chosen that exact moment to look up from his empty plate before him, he never would have caught the lightning quick glance that the Long Nose gave the Cook.

Without so much as a hitch in his step, Sanji had twirled from where he was serving drinks to the women of the ship and slammed a heavy heel into Luffy’s skull.

“Oi, Luffy! I don’t cater to every single person’s dietary whims and wishes just so you can go around inhaling shit at random! If you’re gonna steal someone’s food, take the marimo’s.”

Zoro had looked up at the mention of his name to scowl darkly at the cook and spit out some asinine threat while Luffy proceeded to laugh and apologize not-at-all-sincerely to Law and Sanji. After his round of verbal (and nearly physical) bickering with the swordsman, Sanji had then gone to the back of the kitchen counter and made several more onigiris just for the Heart Pirate Captain.

It had hardly been a big deal by anyone’s standards, but Law found that his salmon onigiri tasted especially delicious the second time around.

Since then, he paid closer attention to the Cook and the Sniper’s interactions, attempting to parse out their blindingly quick conversations. But unlike the three older members of the crew, the two young men seem to only utilize their carefully cultivated glances when a situation truly called for it.

While all the Straw Hats communicate interchangeably with one another in similar ways, Law finds that there does happen to be two main perpetrators.

There’s something intimate about the way the swordsman and the navigator’s eyes find one another’s in a crowded room that speaks to sheer magnetic pull than any real habit. It is a complex language, full of all the things they refuse to give voice to and all the thoughts that they seem to share.

Dark brown eyes flit to hazel ones in the midst of chaos, quiet, laughter—everything in between. Their gazes clash with electric ease, often accompanied with the tick of a mint-green eyebrow or the puffing of a soft cheek. Pointed messages are constantly being conveyed over the head of their unruly captain, through the raucous of the other crewmates, and even—once—during the silence of a late night as the navigator let the swordsman carefully pluck a slumbering Chopper from her lap and whisk him off to the men’s dormitory.

And while Law resolutely tries to keep up with their silent conversations, he can never manage to fully crack their code.

Now, as they are all sat in a circle on the Sunny’s grassy deck (he’d tried to hide up in the crow’s nest to escape their never-ending festivities, but Luffy had forcibly sat him down with a pair of unbelievably strong elastic arms) Law quirks a brow as they begin a game of Liar’s Dice. They establish a quick set of rules against Observation Haki (courtesy of Luffy) and slight-of-hand (courtesy of Nami).

Reluctantly, Law participates, joining his rival’s crew as they roll their dice and take turns bidding. The cool night air is quickly filled with shrieks of laughter and loud arguments as bets are won and lost in turn. He’s the third person to be eliminated, following Luffy and Brook, but he contents himself with observing the others as they play round after round.

Eventually, the losers disperse themselves across the deck, having lost interest in the game. The sound of a lively violin fills the atmosphere as the final two players stare one another down.

Law rolls a stray die in his hand and watches from his seat on the bench as the green-haired first mate guzzles the last of his mead, wipes his mouth, then levels a wary stare at the ship’s navigator.

The corner of Nami’s mouth curls up as she tosses her last remaining die up and down in the air.

“Care to up the ante, Zoro?”

Her offer peaks both Law and Zoro’s curiosity, since the game had, so far, been played for bragging rights alone. Suspicion wars with interest on the other man’s face until he huffs and reaches over to snatch her newly refilled cup of booze. She slaps the back of his hand away and glares coldly.

“Selfish bitch…” the swordsman mutters before squaring his shoulders. He seems to internally mull something over before stating, “Three-quarters.”

The navigator scoffs. “Ha! One-sixth.”

“Half!”

“One-fifth.”

“What, scared to lose, Witch?”

Their eyes lock in a heated battle and Law gets the feeling that several choice words are being exchanged at a rapid pace between the pair. He’s left confused when, suddenly, an absolutely feral grin lights up the swordsman’s expression just as a calm poker face slides over Nami’s.

Zoro holds out a calloused hand for her to shake. “One hundred percent, including interest.”

She daintily fits her much smaller hand into his and cocks her head to the side in challenge. “Double. Including interest.”

They firmly shake, then vigorously roll their dice under their cups on the grass.

Law turns when he feels a weight settle down next to him on the bench. Robin crosses her legs and folds her hands in her lap, a secretive smile gracing her angular face as she watches the two competitors. Usopp plops himself down on Law’s other side with an eager grin. The rest of the crew forms a loose circle around the pair, drawn in from whatever other activities they had been engaged in to watch the final conclusion of the game.

“His debt,” the older woman next to him says abruptly.

“Pardon?”

Robin leans forward and perches her elbow on her knee, then her chin on her hand. “They’re betting on Zoro’s debt to Nami-chan.”

Law’s brow furrows. “Zoro-ya owes her a debt?”

Usopp cuts in, arms folded over his broad chest. “Well, technically all of us owe Nami at least a small sum of money. But she’s really got Zoro pinned with an insane amount. Mostly from the early years, if I had to guess.”

Baffled, Law asks, “Why would you all owe her money?”

This time, it’s the navigator herself who answers him from where she sits with her hand firmly atop her cup. “It’s financial, mental, emotional, and physical compensation. And not just them—you owe me too, Tora-o!”

A muscle in his jaw spasms when he hears Luffy snickering at his literal expense. “Me?”

Nami raises her eyes from Zoro’s own cup to give him an amused look. “Oh, so you thought that hijacking my body with Sanji-kun would have zero consequences?”

Law does not balk…but it’s a very near thing. “I saved your life from the yeti freaks. Doesn’t that cancel out the debt?”

She waves a dismissive hand. “If you hadn’t saved me, Luffy would have. And who knows what atrocities Sanji-kun achieved in the time he spent in my body. You’re indebted for both the psychological and physical pain you inflicted upon me.”

He scowls. “In that case, charge your cook, not me.”

Her brandy-colored lashes bat innocently up at him as she says, “Oh, I already did.”

The cook in question closes his eyes in reverie from where he stands by the ship’s railing. He puffs out a cloud of smoke from his cigarette and sighs dreamily. “Worth every belli.”

An annoyed retort sits heavily on the tip of Law’s tongue just as Zoro interrupts their argument impatiently.

“Oi, Witch, are you going to bid or not?”

Nami’s attention snaps back to their game, her carefully blank mask sliding into place once again as Law tries not to grumble from his seat. Her eyes flit back and forth from the upside-down cups to Zoro’s face.

Finally, she says, “Three.”

Zoro considers this, then raises the value. “Five.”

Their showdown grows tense as she weighs her options. Her calculating eyes search her opponent’s face, though he remains relaxed as ever. Nami’s eyes narrow as a teasing grin stretches her lips. “It’s a shame your poker face has gotten so good over the years, Zoro-kun. I miss the old days when I could wipe you clean in five rounds.”

The swordsman makes an effort to maintain neutrality, but his back stiffens just the slightest bit under her ribbing. “Funny, you don’t normally resort to shit-talking unless you’re nervous.”

The woman clicks her tongue and they hold yet another silent conversation that Law cannot interpret.

He feels rather than sees Robin lean just the slightest bit closer to him just before she whispers lowly, “Nami-chan does consider tactical aid as acceptable compensation, Tora-o-kun.”

After a brief moment of bewilderment, Law puts the pieces together and has to refrain from smiling wide. He opens the palm of his tattooed hand to reveal the die he had been fiddling with since his elimination from the game.

His other hand subtly flattens out, and the tiniest Room that he’s ever made opens up just under Nami’s cup—right where her die sits. With a quick flex of his Observation Haki, he sees her 5 and Zoro’s 2.

Seven altogether.

And when Nami chooses to challenge Zoro’s bid rather than raise it, he smirks to himself and flips the die in his hand until one black dot stares back up at him.

Zoro promptly lifts his cup, revealing his 2 die and snorts. “Fuck.”

The other crew members gasp and demand Nami reveal hers to decide the winner.

Law watches her carefully as she breathes deep and slowly tips one side of her cup to the side—he watches as her expression nearly falls into disappointment, abruptly freezes in confusion, then lights up subtly with recognition.

He half expects her to give it away by looking at him, but Nami—ever the adaptable thief—only smiles in deep satisfaction and lifts her cup the rest of the way.

“One. Guess you’ll be owing me for quite a while, Zoro-kun.”

The swordsman swears darkly as the deck erupts with cheers and laughter.

And from his place beside a giggling Robin and a crowing Usopp, Law looks up and finds himself looking straight into knowing, hazel eyes.

She quirks a brow at him, as if to say, ‘you wanted me to know you helped me win.’

In spite of himself, Law cannot help the wicked smirk that crawls its way across his lips.

‘maybe. consider my debt paid?’

When she rolls her eyes and glances away to hide her own smile, Law actually laughs aloud. Nami turns back to him at the warm sound (and if her eyes are suddenly softer than before, he doesn’t quite catch it in his own mirth) and tosses her winning die to him.

‘i’ll consider.’

He deftly catches it with one hand and tips his hat to her in mock courtesy.

And though he spends the rest of the evening refusing to partake in any more of the Straw Hat’s games, Law has a hard time shaking off his good mood.

#wake up lawna fandom #there's new content for this extremely tiny ship #mostly because i am incapable of hyperfixating on anything close to canon!!!!#also i literally forgot that the wano samurai and caesar even exist LMAO #pls ignore that hahahaha #lawnami #lawna #trafalgar d water law #nami #straw hat pirates #canon compliant #one piece #fic

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mirrorimage003 · 3 years ago

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it ends with laughter (chapter 1)

i--uh--don’t know where this came from, but mostly, i really needed to answer the question of “what does law think of nami,” which quickly morphed into “what does law think of the straw hats,” and now i have this lmao.

Summary: law spends a gratuitous amount of time with the straw hats and no, they are not friends--what would even give you that idea? [post-punk hazard and on]

Rating: K+ (so far)

Pairing: Law/Nami

Genre: Family / Hurt&Comfort / Romance (and just because i know myself so well, there will probably be angst at some point)

Also posted to AO3

It ends with laughter—as things tend to when the Straw Hats are involved.

A party is thrown, rich ale is shared, and countless bodies scatter across the space with cathartic ease. Even the marines find themselves cracking jokes and swaying lightly to the sound of a lively guitar, habitual animosity sliding farther and farther out of their reach in the face of such unexpected camaraderie.

Trafalgar D. Water Law is one exception to the joyous atmosphere. He is, however, not the only exception.

Vice Admiral Smoker sips begrudgingly at the steaming puddle of broth in his bowl, his permanent scowl etching deep lines into his forehead. After their brief conversation—ending in a silent truce neither care to outline—a resigned sort of silence fills the air between them. The two men seem determined to distance themselves from the rambunctious activity around them, eyes narrowed in judgment and twin frowns marring their expressions to ward off any drunken bystander.

Their combined hostility almost works. Most of the pirates and marines catch one glimpse of their foul moods and give them a wide berth, with the giant girl and the Straw Hat’s tiny doctor being the only ones to approach them so far. But even they beat a hasty retreat after Law had reluctantly accepted their peace offering of food.

And yet, Law can’t bring himself to care about the anxiety he gives them when his own crew is miles away and Doflamingo continues to rule from his bloody throne.

Just the thought of the man’s heinous smile is enough to make his blood boil. The churning bitterness is a good reminder that he’s not here to make friends.

“Smo—” As if summoned by his line of thinking, a hand comes flying in from his peripheral, rocketing past the tip of Law’s nose and burying itself in the collar of the older man sitting beside him, “—key!”

There’s a split second where Law locks eyes with Smoker, a mirror image of his own shock, before the rest of Luffy’s body comes sailing after his fist. The marine seems to gather his senses seconds before impact, his form erupting in a thick cloud of smoke that sends the young captain barreling straight through into a pile of snow.

Unfortunately, this does nothing to dampen the boy’s cheerful mood, and he merely bounces back to his feet to beg Smoker to ‘please please please join them for a song—it’s a really good one, I promise—have you heard of Bink’s Brew?’

Physically exhausted and mentally at the end of his rope, Law takes this as his cue to find a new hiding spot. Preferably somewhere far, far away from the Straw Hat’s captain. He quietly crunches his way through the fresh snow, swerving several times to avoid being splashed with beer from careless soldiers or elbowed in the face by dancing partygoers. How any of them have the energy to celebrate after the events of the last few days is beyond him.

He finds a semi-peaceful spot close to the fire but away from the drunken adults and settles down with his back against a crate full of supplies. Fully intending to drift off and sleep to pass the time, he crosses his arms and closes his eyes, attempting to tune out the sounds of revelry before him.

“I found her! I found her!”

“No, this one’s her!”

“Ah, over here!”

His eyebrow ticks at the sound of childish giggles and the pattering of feet. Someone stumbles over his long legs in their haste, not even bothering to apologize. Irritated, he finally cracks one eye open to see what all the fuss is about, only to furrow his brow in confusion.

There are copies of the Straw Hat’s navigator everywhere.

Some are clearly warped—her figure altered to be shorter, rounder, straighter—but others are nearly identical to the woman herself, and Law scrutinizes them closely from under the brim of his hat. How…how is that possible?

The children they’d rescued from Caesar’s clutches run around gleefully, their hands outstretched to chase after the various doubles and catch the real one. But over and over, their grubby little paws pass completely through her body, disrupting the copy until it fizzles into nothing.

The long-nosed sniper stands amidst the chaos, a wide grin stretched across his face as he purposefully misleads the children with an ‘aha! that’s her real hair, i’m sure of it!’ or a ‘hurry, she’s hijacking Franky Tank!’

He hears a melodic laugh to his right and startles a bit, though he tries to play it off. When he looks up, she’s there (the real her, he’s pretty sure), half-hiding behind the crate he’s leaned against with a knowing look in her eye.

He expects her to say something, to attempt conversation with him the way she would with her own crew. However, she only gives him a wink and then returns her attention to the silly game she’s engaged all the children in. After a moment, Law follows suit, content to sit by her as long as she’s quiet.

When he looks back, Usopp has successfully wrangled Franky into the fray, the two of them chasing the children while a Nami-clone stands atop the robot’s tank and orders them around with gestures befitting a dictator.

“YOW. Lord Nami has overtaken my super brain! Prepare for total annihilation!” The large man rolls around the fire, scooping wayward children up into his arms two at a time and holding them captive in his lap. They belly laugh as he twirls them around, tossing them into the air only to catch them once again.

Usopp skids to a halt and puffs out his chest, his goggles tightly in place as he points a thumb at his chest and declares, “Have no fear—Pirate King Usopp is here to save you!”

He quickly loads a snowball into his slingshot and pelts it straight at the robot’s face. Franky freezes, wheels coming to a hard stop as the clump of snow sticks to the cold metal of his nose. His round eyes narrow into slivers and he raises his massive hand to point directly at the sniper.

“My minions—charge!”

And then, suddenly, the space is filled with snowballs being flung left and right. The initial game of hide and seek is quickly forgotten as a snowball flies straight through the remaining clone, dispersing it into the atmosphere.

Law moves his head sharply to the side as one smacks straight into the side of the crate where his face had been. He clicks his tongue in annoyance and moves to brush off the debris on his shoulder when a second projectile hits him square on the chest.

Determined to find some peace amidst the idiocy of it all, he stands to begin the search for a new place of refuge. The sound of a suppressed giggle stops him in his tracks, and he turns to give her a dark glare.

She only laughs louder, undaunted by his moodiness, and pushes off the crate to join the rowdy group.

As she passes by, she waves a hand and says, “Luffy’s finishing the leftovers from Sanji-kun’s dinner.”

He blinks for a moment, confused, then relaxes as he realizes what she’s really saying. The other captain will be too preoccupied with gorging himself on food to bother him for the time being. He debates thanking her, but she’s already walked off to join Usopp and Franky, one hand spinning her baton over and over.

For whatever reason, Law hesitates, observing the odd trio as they continue to humor the children. While being far from the wildest thing he’s seen pirates do, it certainly isn’t normal behavior for a group of high-seas criminals.

Despite what the Straw Hats had originally accused him of, Law never approved of Caesar’s schemes for the kids—but he also hadn’t planned on ever addressing the issue himself. It was simply an unfortunate circumstance, a moral blip on his radar.

He studies the three crew members. He notices their gentle hands and soft smiles—their attentive eyes watching carefully for any sign of tears or pain—the way they shake off their own exhaustion for the sole purpose of bringing thirty-minutes of joy to a few dozen children.

Law has a quick mind—one that rarely rests—and before he can even attempt to stop it, the correlation is made and a picture of Corazon flashes across his mind’s eye.

A familiar sensation stings the corners of his eyes, but he only blinks hard once, twice, and resolutely turns away from the merry scene.

He thinks that—just maybe—he’s in way over his head.

____________________

#do people still like lawna?#lawna #nami #trafalgar d water law #fic #one piece fic #mugiwara crew #straw hat pirates #idk man i just am in an op funk rn #usopp #franky #monkey d luffy #canon compliant

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mirrorimage003 · 5 years ago

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I FOUND IT

it’s chapter 10 of Menagerie by @silverfootstepswrites

all itasaku fans need to read this series (ESPECIALLY CH10 MY GOD IT’S BEAUTIFUL), and leave a review bc silverfootsteps consistently churns out god tier fics and deserves all the praise

itasaku fandom, pls help me i am desperate

okay, i once read this oneshot about there being an alternate dimension where sakura and itachi were married, and somehow the alt. sakura got switched with canon sakura and they had to adjust to each other’s realities. it was a beautiful fic with a lot of fantastic imagery, and it ended with both sakura’s meeting in this odd, not-quite-reality space and being like “so that’s what my life could have been,” and they both get pulled out by their respective-dimension itachis. i’m almost 90% sure it was part of like a oneshot collection or a drabble series???

i just recently read “hiraeth” by mistressdragonflame on ao3 which is a sort of similar concept to that oneshot, and it reminded me of it so i wanted to reread it, but IVE LOOKED EVERYWHERE AND CANT FIND IT IM GOING INSANE. CAN ANYONE HELP ME PLS

#itasaku #fic rec #silverfootsteps #sakura haruno #itachi uchiha

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mirrorimage003 · 5 years ago

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itasaku fandom, pls help me i am desperate

#idk if itasaku fans are still active here but if you are i am begging you to help me lol #if i find out it was deleted i will riot #uchiha itachi #haruno sakura #itasaku #itachi x sakura #fanfic #fanfiction #delete later #archive of our own

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mirrorimage003 · 6 years ago

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title: bite me and see, said the fly to the spider

fandom: naruto

chapters: 2/?

summary of chapter 2: making good first impressions is a difficult task. sakura, sasuke, and naruto are already pros.

EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 2:

The grass hasn’t even grown back over Akemi and Yuji’s graves when Sakura gets reassigned to a new genin team.

Team 7’s token female quit after one week of training, and the males of the team have been looking for a fourth teammate for the last month. When the Hokage visited her hospital room and asked if she would like to continue her shinobi career or return to civilian life, Sakura had answered before she could fully process his question.

Now, she thinks she should have asked for more time.

#mi3-writes #mirrorimage003 #fanfiction #sakura haruno #team 7 #sasuke uchiha #naruto uzumaki #kakashi hatake #canon divergent #dai-nana-han #sakura centric #non mass #no uchiha massacre #non massacre #archive of our own

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mirrorimage003 · 6 years ago

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title: bite me and see, said the fly to the spider

fandom: naruto

chapters: 1/?

summary: In which Sakura is not initially a part of Team 7. In which she wears her failures like armor and brandishes her fears like her most trusted weapons. In which I do what hundreds of other authors have done before me, and rewrite Sakura's story. [Non-massacre AU. Canon Divergent. Slow-burn]

EXCERPT:

There’s the scrape of a chair, light footsteps, the rushing of blood in her ears. A warm hand tips her chin up and she is staring into the blue blue blue of the Hokage’s eyes. He doesn’t look angry, but somehow that makes her feel worse.

He’s going to ask her what happened and then she is going to have to confess that she froze when the enemy-nin fell upon them like the plague. She is going to have to explain how every piece of tactical training she ever learned in the Academy and in training sessions with Kichi-sensei abandoned her the moment she saw the sun reflect off the first kunai flung in her direction.

Sakura inhales and the acrid scent of roasting human flesh invades her nostrils. Akemi has stopped twitching and there is a senbon needle sticking out of his throat and the skin around his eyes have simmered away to nothing. And the heat—oh god the heat—coming off of Yuji’s flailing body dissolves the cold, clammy sweat that has gathered on her forehead and trickled down her neck. He’s pleading for her, for Kichi-sensei, for anyone to make it stop, and she doesn’t know how to help, doesn’t know how to do anything, why isn’t she moving why can’t she remember why won’t he stop screaming—

“Sakura, breathe.”

Large hands envelop her face and she’s brought sharply back to the Hokage’s office, and oh—she’s hyperventilating.

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mirrorimage003 · 6 years ago

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shameless self promotion, but i just wrote this oneshot on AO3 if you wanna check it out!

Really in the mood to read some ItaSaku or ShisuiSaku fics right now. Anyone have anything new I’ve missed while I’ve been gone?

#itasaku #also hello sariasprincy! you might recognize me better from my main blog: zutaras-where-its-at lol

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mirrorimage003 · 6 years ago

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title: never let ‘em know your next move

fandom: naruto

feat: itasaku

summary: six times itachi is surprised by sakura, and the one time he's surprised by his mother

EXCERPT:

The first time Itachi ever confesses his feelings for a woman, he gets punched in the face.

He has been avoiding her for precisely eleven days, ten hours, and fourteen minutes. And in that time, he has come to recognize the odd streak of hope in his situation.

Although their last encounter had left him embarrassed and ashamed, it had also all but confirmed that Sakura is now aware of at least a small fraction of his feelings. Which means that half of the work is already done for him.

Now, he only has to confirm her suspicions and officially present himself as a possible suitor. If all goes well, he may just have a shot at redeeming himself.

#sakura haruno #itachi uchiha #itasaku #sakuita #naruto #itachi x sakura #shisui uchiha #tsunade senju #archive of our own #sasuke uchiha #non mass #non-massacre #canon divergent #mi3-writes #mirrorimage003 #fic

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mirrorimage003 · 6 years ago

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Title: cut me open, bleed me raw

Fandom: MCU

Feat: Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers, Romanogers

Rating: T

Summary: set during the five year gap // natasha-centric // “His jawline could cut her, could slice her six different ways with barely any effort.She doesn’t quite understand why that intrigues her.”

His jawline could cut her, could slice her six different ways with barely any effort.

She doesn’t quite understand why that intrigues her.

Because really, despite her appearance and reputation, she’s not the kind of woman who enjoys unnecessary displays of violence. On the contrary, she’s a sucker for a well-written rom-com, and she still sleeps with the stuffed lion that Clint won for her at an amusement park over a decade ago (although that may be for deeper reasons than just her sentimentality).

Maybe it’s the way he’s grown into himself, into the Captain who exists and thrives in this era, instead of the freshly thawed, punch-before-you-look kid he’d been. Maybe it’s the way he’s learned how to slip in a lie with the confidence of a politician, but none of their dirty underhandedness. It could even be the way he spars with her like she’s someone to be reckoned with, not a girl playing at guns and knives.

More likely, it’s that he’s the only one who still visits her regularly at headquarters and looks at her with all the understanding that she needs without any of the pity.

They haven’t slept together. Haven’t even kissed, really. At least, not since that one time in that one mall running from that one guy all those years ago (funny, how the world had seemed like it was ending at the time).

But there have been moments among the Moments—instances occurring between the events of complete lunacy that is now their lives.

He’ll find her, after particularly devastating news have been delivered by one of the remaining team members—after she’s tucked away the part of her that is shredded open and throbbing with hurt hurt hurt—and has implemented some semblance of a plan for damage control. In those moments, he’ll hold her hand, or run fingers through her brittle hair, or sometimes just sit, shoulder-to-shoulder, and let the despair overtake them both for a minute.

There are other times, when the world (the universe, she corrects, because it’s not just Earth that they have to avenge anymore) seems to be on an upward trend, and they can almost forget how epically they have failed as people laugh and live around them.

Those times, it’s usually her that approaches him. She’ll pull up to his rundown apartment in the city (because even still, he prefers the simplicity of a “lower-class” life) with her 1996 Harley-Davidson, and he’ll meet her at his front door already sporting a worn leather jacket and an even more worn out grin. And they’ll go to that tiny, under-crowded Mexican restaurant on the corner of 8th and Broadway and eat their weight in beef tacos with extra cilantro.

He always bets that he can out-eat her, and she always wins.

And if she gets tipsy off of one too many margaritas (he drinks too, but his super soldier blood is still a huge pain in the ass), he’ll take the keys to the bike and she’ll cling to his broad back all the way home. She doesn’t mind, even though she knows he only buys her countless rounds because he loves getting to drive her Harley. Sneaky bastard.

It’s all of these moments and hundreds more that’s led her to where she is now: sipping at her bitter coffee, standing in the shadows of the destitute auditorium, and watching Steve wrap things up with his support group.

When he’d first come to her with the tentative idea to lead a few people in an emotional support group, she’d been the one to find the location and give him a few not-so-subtle nudges. At the time, she’d been relieved. It had been months after the First Moment (aka the Moment it all ended, and the new Steve and Natasha and Avengers began), and he’d been slowly waning into a dark solemnity that surpassed his usual contemplation.

She was already heading the Avengers (what was left of it) and attempting to locate anyone who was lost, and he’d been desperately needing a purpose. It wasn’t that he was doing nothing—because he was shouldering whatever responsibilities she hadn’t been able to catch and doing a phenomenal job at it—but there was a certain heaviness to his whole countenance that made her hackles rise.

That heaviness began to lift incrementally once the group had kickstarted. She’d never asked about the specifics of why or how his old self had returned, but she’d been overwhelmed with relief all the same.

He’d nicknamed the group “The Fledglings” half out of an off-brand kind of humor, and half in respect for Sam Wilson, who’d inspired his idea.

Now, as she listens to the soft, vulnerable tones of the members as they methodically and intentionally face and reface their pain, she thinks the name couldn’t be more perfect.

Natasha studies the slope of Steve’s nose as he announces the next meeting date and time.

Years ago, she remembers doing the same thing during some boring SHIELD debriefing—back when she and him had been a favorite duo of the recon and special ops department—and she’d noted that his nose wasn’t actually as straight as she’d always thought it was. Halfway down the bridge, it juts just slightly to the left, belying a previous break.

It must’ve been from his pre-serum days, since she knows for a fact that he’s taken more than a few nasty hits to his nose in the past few years (one from herself during a particularly aggressive spar), but they’ve always healed perfectly in less than a week. Fucking super soldiers.

She fixates on that little divot for a moment, then follows it down to his lips (which she promptly skips over for reasons she would rather not examine), and finally settles back on his jaw.

It’s still sharp, and she still wants to try her hand at dulling it.

The members begin to disperse, some hanging back to thank Steve or ask him a question. Natasha watches the muscles of his neck shift as he speaks.

Finally, the door shuts behind the last stragglers, and it’s only them.

“There’s no one to hide from here, you know.” Steve doesn’t even look at her when he says it, forearms flexing as he stacks the blue plastic chairs.

She finally steps out from her dark nook, dumping her empty coffee cup in a waste bin on her way. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

At her lack of playful sass that he’s so used to receiving, Steve pauses and eyes her.

“What happened?”

Natasha debates drawing this out, but she’s never been one to play coy—at least not when she doesn’t have to. She finds that she almost never has to around Steve, but mostly because he has the uncanny ability to sniff out her bullshit like a bloodhound on a rabbit.

“Rhodey found another trail.”

Her voice does not waver. Her body doesn’t even twitch. She’s very careful to remain relaxed. He purses his lips and sets down the chair all the same.

“Where?”

“Guatemala.”

“How bad?”

She stutters in a breath, hiding her shaking hands behind her back. He notices.

“Rhodey wasn’t even looking for him. Some teenager—a kid, really—ran right up to Rhodey, begging him to help his family. When Rhodey asked him what was wrong, the boy told him about a strange man who’d come and slaughtered his father. Along with eleven other men in the same night.”

Steve’s eyes are somehow achingly tender and sharply assessing all at once. “Who were they?”

“Dirty cops. All associated with arms dealing and drug trade in some form or another.”

He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, hands sliding into the pockets of his khakis. “And you?”

He’s using his I’m not Captain America, just your loving and concerned friend voice. She hates when he does that, because it always manages to wiggle underneath her emotional armor and she hasn’t figured out how to develop an immunity to it yet.

Instead of answering right away, Natasha pulls one of the stray chairs towards her, ignoring the awful screech it makes on the linoleum floor, and sits down. There’s a nervous kind of energy hovering just below her skin, something that itches and makes her want to run a few miles just to burn it out.

She ignores it—suppresses it—with a well-practiced numbing of her mind and a painfully steady breath.

“I wish I could meet you as Little Steve.” Her voice is distant even to her, and she’s not even sure where this half-accidental confession is coming from, but she dismisses his surprised look and plows right on. “Sometimes, I think I can almost see the shadow of him when I look at you. Like this vintage kid in baggy clothes and a too-big forehead is just blinking back at me. Just for a second.”

He doesn’t interrupt, recognizing that she has more to say, more to give.

“I think...I think I would have liked Little Steve.”

He quirks his mouth into a barely-there-smile, and sits on a chair directly across from her. If she stretches out her legs, she’d be able to poke him with her big toe. She doesn’t, even as she eyes the wrinkled fabric on his knees.

“I think he would’ve liked you too.”

Natasha glares at him then, though it lacks no bite. He’s bullshitting her, trying to make her laugh and realize that this hollowness she’s full of is just a passing sting, not a lifetime of biting down.

From all the reports and stories and files she’s read or heard, Little Steve was a thing of light. Coulson used to ramble on to her—before the Avengers were even a suggestion on Fury’s lips—about the incredible, straight-laced, honor-bound Steve Rogers who fought Hitler with a star slapped to his chest and an iron gavel of justice clutched in his bleached-clean hand.

For most of her life, she’d basically been raised by and with the kind of guys Little Steve used to sling his shield at on the battle lines.

She tells Big Steve this now with an arch of her brow and a tired sort of smirk.

True to form, Steve doesn’t back down. “I’m serious. Little Steve had a habit of getting drawn to people with bites worse than their bark.”

She does laugh then, a huff of hot air filling the space between them. “Is that what I am?”

He grins and nods, thick forearms crossing over his chest. “That’s what you are.”

His smile softens into something nostalgic that makes her heart pulse with I understand, I know I know I know you.

“Peggy was like that. So was Buck.”

“Peggy?”

It’s his turn to slant her a look that cuts her innocent facade down to the bone. She grins a little sheepishly and tilts her head for him to continue.

“I don’t know about what he was like in the Red Room, but the Buck I grew up with—he was the thing that grounded me, among everything. A lot of people think my life is divided by before-serum and after-serum. It’s not. It’s divided by before-Buck and after-Buck.” Steve’s eyes are unfocused, the echo of a deep appreciation, an unrepentant affection, resonating from inside out. Little Steve rises to the surface more vividly than ever. “And Peggy... I didn’t know a person could be like that. Could be so present, so built for the time and space that they occupied. She gave me something to work for—a purpose I could never reach, but I would gladly chase for the rest of my life.”

There’s a little bit of regret and a lot of longing in his voice as he says this, and Natasha finally gives in to her previous urge, the tip of her sneaker pushing against his leg with a comforting weight. He slides his foot out until the back of her ankle rests on the top of his.

“They were the ones who made me who I am now. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them.” Steve clenches his jaw once, twice, then relaxes. “I owe everything to them. I owed it to them. And now they’re gone.”

And it happens here. In the space between one second and the next, she knows. She understands—all too suddenly, all too intensely—why she wants to trace the hard edges of the man before her.

His edges are the same as hers.

In the oddest, most unexpected—most understated—way, they are the same.

The revelation washes through her with the force of a scorching bullet. She blinks hard against it, unable (and unwilling) to shake it.

In the absence of Steve’s voice, the silence has stretched out before them for minutes.

Finally—after allowing her spiking blood to settle, her heart to fit neatly into the Steve-shaped space (Big or Little, she isn’t sure) she’s only just realized that she’s been carving all this time—Natasha stands and eats up the floor between them with slow, steady strides.

Her knees are between his, and his hands are somehow already on her wide hips, but he looks up at her without any of the lust she’s come to expect from men. His face is relaxed, eyes leaking a patience she never knew could be directed at her.

And finally—with a shaky tenderness she cannot help—she lays the calloused palms of her hands on his marble-cut jaw.

“Clint,” her voice breaks here but Steve’s ice-blue eyes hold no judgment, “Clint used to tell me that it doesn’t matter what we tell someone; it only matters what we get someone to tell themselves.”

He doesn’t cut her, but it is a very near thing, because the feel of his stubble scratching at the pads of her fingers is enough to peel back the last layers of her self-preservation and leave her bare.

Her words are filled with a soft sort of confidence. “I don’t think anything that they had done or said could have made us who we are now unless it was already there from the start—unless we had already been planting those seeds from the very moment we existed.”

His broad chest fills with air under her hands and his thumbs dig into the meat just below her hipbones.

Only now does she allow herself to inspect his full lips. They are parted at the seam, parted with a silent promise she swears she can return, she can keep.

When it happens, it is not a passionate, messy thing that she has often seen in movies or read in cheesy romance novels. It is not burning with need or thrown to the wind like an afterthought. Neither is it wholly innocent or lighthearted.

First comes their foreheads pressed to one another’s, as if the mere proximity will be enough to meld them together. Then their noses bump, hot breath fanning over high cheekbones and soft dimples.

And even still, they remain, the demand of being heroes forgotten and abandoned for pressing on this still-fresh bruise that they have only just discovered to see if the pain is a healing one.

It is only when their heartbeats have properly synced that he tilts up, and she down, and they meet solidly somewhere in the middle.

It is not passionate or burning or needy. But it is whole. It is becoming one in a way that sex could only hint at.

It is enough.

Iron sharpens iron, Natasha thinks, and when she pulls away, she swears there’s a phantom trace of blood where her lips cut into his.

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

also found on AO3.

#romanogers #avengers: endgame #marvel #mcu #natasha romanoff #steve rogers #clint barton #james rhodey #marvel cinematic universe #mi3-writes #mirrorimage003 #romanrogers #capwidow #black widow #captain america #fanfiction

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