#cold thruster

[julianxxl]

Ben nu bezig met het hart van een exoskelet! Morgen effe kijken of ie klaar genoeg is voor de volgende test😁🤩

[arrestelonmusk]

Tesla promised the Roadster 2 would change everything. Instead, it’s been 7 years, $250M collected, and nothing delivered. At this point, the Roadster 2 might need a time machine to justify the hype.

[bucks-babe]

Be Mean To Me

Pairing: Bucky x f!reader

Summary: After a long day at work, you just want to lose all control and have your boyfriend fuck you into oblivion 

Warnings: Established relationship, slight angst, fluff, smut, mean!dom!bucky, reader asks for it, they are so in love, rough sex, dom/sub dynamics, oral (male receiving), ball sucking, slapping, spit kink?, degradation, humiliation, name calling (slut, whore, bitch, sugar, good girl), daddy kink, some praise, spanking, pussy slapping (like once), safe word (yellow), vaginal sex, no prep anal, Bucky has a huge dick, choking, aftercare, check-ins, crying during sex, crying after sex, soft!Bucky, no mention of Y/N, no description of reader other than being female

Word Count: 4.9k of mostly smut

A/N: This was very self indulgent. Work has been kicking my ass and I want to be taken care of. Any mistakes are my own. If I missed any warnings please let me know. @bucknastysbabe it's done! I think I should go back to therapy. But hey, smut

You feel your throat tighten as you walk up to the apartment you share with Bucky. It was one of those days that left you beaten down and wanting to curl up under your blankets and cry. You didn’t even want to go into work this morning, having to force yourself to get ready. Too many rude customers, incompetent coworkers giving you more work than you get paid to do, everything leaving you overstimulated and wanting your boyfriend.

It left a craving deep down inside of you, a want that you knew only he could quell. You just wanted to shut your brain off, have Bucky take care of you, ruin you, treat you like a whore, break you down, just to put you back together again.

You swallow the lump in your throat and unlock the front door, finding Bucky on the couch watching some random action movie that he claimed to hate. At the sight of him your body naturally relaxes and the urge to crawl onto his lap is too much to bear.

“Hey, sugar. I’ve been missing you all day. You’ll never fucking believe the video Sam sent me of Tony trying out his new thrusters! He flew rig- What’s wrong?” He perked up at the sound of the door opening, truly missing his girl. Whenever you’re around him his entire day gets better, a lightness filling his chest, but when he sees how run down you are, his heart literally hurts for you. Bucky wants to protect you from everything, from supervillains all the way to spiders in the house.

“Long day, baby. Just wanna be with you.” He opens his arms and you instantly crawl into his lap, eyes burning with tears you refuse to shed. He runs his metal hand up and down your back, pulling you as close to him as possible, while his flesh hand rests on your head, holding you to his neck, letting you breathe him in.

“What can I do for you, sugar? Want to talk about it? I can order from your favorite place. Can run you a bath. Whatever you want, sweet girl.” 

“Please, be mean to me, Bucky.” Bucky feels his heart clench in his chest. He wants to keep your heart safe from whatever it is that is plaguing you, but he knows he can’t. What he can do is follow your request and make you forget.

“How mean do you want me, sugar?” Bucky has done this for you a few times. He always asks how you want him to treat you. It’s in his nature to be sweet to you, fill you with praise, but that's not what you want right now. You want to be degraded and treated like a fucktoy.

“Mean.” You keep your eyes trained on him. This is the only part where you need to keep your head on, make sure that he knows you want this.

“Remember your colors, sugar?” You nob, excitement bubbling up inside of you. “Remember, daddy will only be upset with you if you don’t use them. If you need to say yellow or red, you will.” His tone is final. This is the only way he would ever agree to treating you like a slut.

“Yes, daddy.” And just like that, Bucky’s entire demeanor changes. He goes from your sweet, cuddly boyfriend to a cold and callous body of muscle. 

“Then take your clothes off, slut.” He pushes you off his lap, just hard enough to give the illusion of indifference. As you strip, Bucky keeps his eyes trained on the TV, not paying you any mind. Your core throbs at the fact that you are completely exposed while he is still fully dressed. 

“On your knees.” He’s still not looking at you, but you obey without thought, willing to do whatever he wants. Grabbing the back of your neck, he forces you in between his spread legs, and you whine at the fact that his cock is still soft inside his sweats. Any other day, Bucky would make sure that your knees were never on the hardwood floor without a pillow or something soft underneath, but not today.

On days like these, when you want to feel completely submissive, it takes Bucky a while to get aroused. It’s in his nature to love up on you, make you drunk with pleasure in the sweetest way possible. He feeds off of your energy. When he is sure that you are having fun, his body lets himself fall into his role.

“What? You think at the first signs of some tits I’m gonna get hard? I knew you were a dumb slut but I didn’t realize just how thick you were.” Your pussy was absolutely pulsing with need. With his hand still on the back of your neck, he rubs your face against his crotch, feeling his cock begin to harden at the smell of your arousal.

He pulls you back far enough to slide his pants down, foregoing boxers, and you immediately try to take his half hard length in your mouth. Before you can process it, Bucky’s right hand lands a slap to your cheek - hard enough to make a welt that will take a few hours to disappear. You gasp and your cunt pulses even harder than before at the sting left on your cheek. 

His metal hand wraps around your chin, much cooler than it’s supposed to be, and forces you to look him in the eye. In the back of your mind you realize that he turned on the cooling function in his arm to sooth your cheek; the arm was built to keep him cool in the Wakandan sun and heat. “Did daddy say you could suck his cock?” He uses his hand to shake your head from side to side, answering for you. “Then keep your slutty mouth shut.”

He spreads his legs wider and pulls your face closer to his heavy sack, already full of cum. “Hands behind your back, and suck on daddy’s balls.” You join your hands together behind your back without question and nuzzle his balls. Wasting no time, you take one into your mouth, sucking feverishly, enjoying the light dusting of hair tickling your face.

“Oh, fuck, come on, slut, I know you can do better than that. Take ‘em both in your dirty mouth.” He pushes you further into him, cutting off your oxygen, and you swear you hear your slick drip onto the floor. Your jaw aches as you try to get them both in your mouth, but you can't; his balls are too big. Bucky ruts against your face, squishing his balls, precum leaking from his tip, dripping onto his stomach after he takes his shirt off.

With your limited amount of movement, you alternate between each ball, licking at the seam. Every time you switch balls, you feel the other drag wetly across your face and you have to clench your legs in an attempt to quell the ache between them while fighting with your need for air. “Such a dirty bitch, lapping at your daddy’s nuts, shit.” He pulls you back just as your head starts to go fuzzy from the lack of oxygen, and you gasp for air, spit is covering the lower half of your face and is dripping down your neck and chest; Bucky feels his cock throb at the sight.

Reaching out, Bucky smears your spit around your face and leaves another, weaker smack to your cheek before he grabs his cock and uses his weeping tip to tease you, dragging it on your face. “What a nasty fucking bitch, drooling all over the place just from sucking some balls.” He slaps your cheeks with it a few times before forcing your head down all the way, making you gag and you immediately pull off, coughing.

He stares into your eyes, cold and calculating, waiting for you to speak. When your coughing subsides you manage to get out a hoarse ‘green,’ giving him the all clear. He takes your head and once again makes you take his cock, this time much slower and not as deep, the first time he wanted to fuck with you. “Such a perfect fucking mouth, shit.” He stops you from bobbing your head, “Stop being such a desperate whore and let daddy finish his movie.” You're sure you’re leaking onto the floor at this point.

You are able to see his face and he looks wrecked, mouth hanging open and head back; he’s not watching shit. Nonetheless, you rest your head on his thigh, getting comfortable, spreading your legs out to get closer to the floor so your head won't be bent at an awkward angle, ignoring the pain in your knees and the ache in your jaw. 

The only sounds filling the room are Bucky’s ragged breathing and the movie playing in the background. There is saliva everywhere, his cock, all over his balls, down to his ass and on the couch. His cock is constantly leaking precum into your mouth but you don’t swallow, letting his taste linger on your tongue. 

This isn’t what you wanted, you wanted him to demolish you. Sitting with his cock in your mouth is giving you too much time to think, so you do what any sane person would do - be a brat. At the first suckle, Bucky lets out a broken moan, at the second, he knows what you’re up to. Flicking your ear with his metal hand he hisses, “Don’t make me punish you, bitch.” At the third, he yanks you off of his dick, a trail of drool and precum keeping the two of you connected, as slaps you once again with his flesh hand, this time not soothing the marred flesh with his metal hand.

He stands and kicks the couch out of the way and pulls you with him by the neck. “You disobedient little-” he cuts himself short at the small puddle of slick that he finds from your previous position. “Is that what I think it is?” You only whine in response, his grip on your neck never faltering. 

With his free hand, he reaches down to your pussy to feel just how wet you are, confirming his suspicions. “What a dirty fucking slut, leaking all over my floor.” He pulls you in closer to him just to whisper, “Lick it the fuck up, bitch,” before pushing you to the ground. 

Your knees hit the wood hard and pain runs up your spine. You ignore the ache and brainlessly lap at your juices on the floor before Bucky smushes your cheek against the puddle and you moan. “Messy bitch, you are? Cunt is pulsing, waiting for my dick. Too bad I have to punish you, isn’t it, slut?” He leans down to the floor, eyes lined up with yours. “Daddy is going to give you ten spanks and I want you to count them.” You don’t respond immediately, stuck in a sort of limbo, drawn in further at the softness in his eyes.

No matter how hard he tries, Bucky can’t hide his devotion to you, that’s why he doesn’t let you look at him when he needs to play this role. His whole face softens at your silence, fearing he’s gone too far. “Color, sugar.” Stroking your cheek, he leans in closer, breathing you in.

“Green, daddy, so green.” The sigh Bucky lets out is audible and he feels ten times lighter.

“Good girl, you want to keep going the way we were?” Even though you said green, he wants to be certain.

“Yes please, daddy, want you to be mean.” You look so small and soft. Bucky struggles to put his facade back up, but he knows you need this.

Bucky positions himself behind you, staring at your ass and glistening pussy, and feels his cock bounce. The first slap isn’t soft by any means, you know there will be a handprint left. Your body jolts and Bucky groans at the jiggle of your ass. “One.” The second is on your other cheek and makes you clench around nothing. “Two.” He lands the next two much harder on the same cheek and you feel tears form in your eyes, yet continue to count, digging your nails into your palm.

He repeats the two spanks to your left cheek and takes a break to sooth your heated and raised skin with his metal hand after you’ve counted. The ground beneath your cheek is hard and unforgiving, leaving you neck bent at an odd angle. Spank seven lands on the back of your right thigh and somehow feels much stronger. “Shit! Seven, daddy.” Eight is on your left, and is just as hard. Your entire lower body aches: cunt pulsing and throbbing for his cock, thighs burning, and ass red and raw, sobbing with every impact.

“These last two are going to be harder, slut, since you forgot to count.” Even with his warning, you aren’t prepared. They are hard and fast, hearing them before you feel them, knocking the breath out of you, and you try to scramble up, but Bucky holds you down. “Don’t run away from me, you know better.” All of a sudden, the sharpest and most excruciating pain blooms from your cunt, and then you hear the wet smack of his metal hand hitting your core. 

You wail, body shooting up, legs fighting to close to soothe the sting left. Before you can, Bucky’s hand on the back of your head keeps you to the ground, while he slams his cock into your cunt, not stopping to let you adjust. “That’s it, fuck. Such a good pussy. Dirty fucking bitch.” You can’t breathe, his cock is knocking all of the air out of your lungs. The only sounds in the room are Bucky’s moans and the wet slapping of skin, his heavy balls banging against your sore clit. With each thrust you’re sure he’s hitting your cervix.

The hand on the back of your head leaves to grab your hip, letting him fuck you even faster, the both of you sliding further and further on the floor. You try to brace yourself with your hands, but the brutality of his fucking is no match. “Daddy, fuck, s-so g-good, please!” You don’t know what you’re begging for, but your cunt is pulling him in, barely letting him pull out.

Bucky is practically chasing you on the floor, hips never slowing down, eyes trained on your pussy, loving the creamy white mess on his dick. “Fuuuck, look at the ass bouncing on daddy’s cock, shit! Love the way this fat fucking ass looks when its all red and sore.” He’s in heaven, with the tight clench of your cunt wrapping around his cock, making him feel crazy.

“Daddy! I can’t, f-fuck, please, too much!” You’re fucking delirious with pleasure, feeling something twisting inside of you. You searched for something to hold on to, only finding smooth surface, legs locking, body seizing up.

“You can and you will take this dick, bitch. I don’t care if it makes you fucking bleed.” The pressure in your core builds tighter and tighter, all the while, Bucky’s hips never falter, sack still ramming against your clit.The breath is knocked out of you when you feel the most intense orgasm of your life pass through you.

Keening and wailing, you squirt on Bucky’s cock, the sounds of your fucking somehow getting even more wet until the force of your orgasm pushes his cock out. Your body is left twitching. There is a much larger puddle on the floor now - your cum. Bucky could fucking cum at the sight of your pathetic body laying on the ground, body wrought with pleasure. “Fuck, sugar! That was so fucking hot! You squirted all over, shit! I fucking love you so goddamn much.” 

The entire lower half of his body is covered with your cum and Bucky swears he can feel his heartbeat in his cock. Nonetheless, he wraps his arms around your waist and hulls you over to where he kicked the couch, placing your upper half on the cushions. “You’re so fucking wet now I bet I could slide right into that tight ass, what do you think, slut?” Your core pulses at the thought of his fat cock in your ass, the two of you don’t usually do anal, given how big he is, but you can’t think straight, especially after cumming so hard.

“Yes, daddy. I want your big cock in my ass, want you to fill me up.” Bucky groans at the thought of his excessive load running out of your ass. Leaning back, he ruts against your pussy, gathering more of your slick, before spreading your cheeks with his hands, staring at your puckered hole. He lines his cock up and watches as precum leaks from his tip.

His cock is huge, much longer and thicker than average, and he knows it. Grabbing himself near his tip, he pushes, grunting at the resistance, knowing that this would be much easier if he takes the time to prep you, but you want to be treated like a whore. “You gotta loosen the fuck up, bitch or else I’ll really fucking hurt you. Want this fucking ass so bad, better let daddy in. Cock is too big for this little ass, isn’t it, gonna split you in half, leave you leaking for days.” 

He pushes harder, tip finally popping in, causing searing pain to shoot through you. Crying out, you try to pull forward to escape the burning pain, wiggling further into the couch. Bucky leans over, careful not to push in any further, he knows you need a moment, any other time you would have been fully prepped and he would have slid right in, and wraps his metal hand around your neck, shushing you, “Shhhh, stop being so dramatic.” 

After a few minutes, the pain begins to subside and your breathing calms down. Keeping his hand around your throat, he pushes in, inch by inch, and the pain comes back. You whine into the cushion, every new inch burning more than the last until his hips are flush with your ass. “What the fuck?! Your ass is so fu-fucking tight, shit! Fucking milking my cock, wanna pound this little hole, wanna fucking ruin you.”

Burying his face in the back of your neck, Bucky was taking deep breaths, completely out of it. He wasn’t thinking straight, not when your tight hole was hugging every inch of his cock. You on the other hand, were struggling, it was too much too fast. It fucking hurt, there were tears in your eyes, but your pussy was aching like it wanted more. Your clit throbbed with need, even when your ass was stretched to the brim.

You didn’t want to stop, but you needed a break, before Bucky could move his hips you muttered, “Yellow, daddy, yellow.” The hand on your neck left and Bucky maneuvered his upper body so that he could look you in the eye without moving his cock. His entire demeanor was different, back was your sweet, caring boyfriend. 

“Good girl, daddy’s so proud of you for using your safe word. Shhh, it’s okay, sugar. Do you just need a second to breathe? Take your time, if you need to stop I will.” Bucky caresses your face as he soothes you, bringing you back down. His cock is still buried to the hilt in your ass, driving him insane. He wants to rail you so fucking bad, tip of his cock probably purple by now, but he would never do anything you didn’t want to, more than willing to sit with his cock inside of you until you’re ready or decide to stop.

You don’t know how much time passes, but eventually, you loosen up and your mind goes fuzzy once again, desperate for him to move. You wiggle your hips, rocking back and forth, instead of pain, blinding pleasure courses through you. “Green, daddy. I’m ready, just needed to get used to your fat cock, want you to pound into me.” Bucky lets out the most sinful groan and stills your hips with his hands.

He starts out slow, easing you into his motions, gradually gaining speed and force the louder your moans get. “Daddy, faster, please, harder, feels so good!” You were practically sobbing, loving the way he was splitting you open. His hips and thighs were wet from when you squirted on him, slapping against your ass, everytime he pulled back a vulgar shlick sound could be heard.

He fucked you faster and harder, staring at where you were connected. “This fucking ass feels incredible. Taking me so well, knew you could do it, fuck. Splitting your tiny ass in half. Oh God!” He could feel his orgasm building up, fighting it off everytime his cum filled sack slapped against your pussy. Letting go of your hips he snarled, “Show daddy how much of a fucking slut you are and bounce that fat ass on his cock.”

You whined, but complied anyway, digging your toes into the floor to get more leverage to keep slamming back on his cock. The sounds of skin slapping and both of your moans completely drowned out the ending of Bucky’s movie, not that either of you cared. Panting and moaning, you kept working yourself on him, feeling another orgasm bubbling up.

Meeting your thrusts, Bucky was rambling, not having one coherent thought in his head, “Look at that, give me that ass, yes! Don’t you dare fucking stop, bitch, want you to milk this cock. Love the way it fucking bounces, never seen anything like it, oh fuck!” He was getting whiny, high pitched moans falling from his lips. He couldn’t help it, his cock was too fucking sensitive and you felt too good. 

“M Gonna cum, daddy! Can I cum?” Bucky practically growls, getting up to his feet to squat, not missing a beat while still trusting in you. Every time his pelvis met your ass he whined and whimpered, loving the way it jiggled. He could feel you clenching around him, drawing his own orgasm closer.

“Not until I do. Fucking hold it, bitch.” It seemed impossible, but Bucky fucked you even faster, his hips moving at a ferocious speed. He wanted to cum so fucking bad and your high pitched moans were about to make him bust. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. I’m gonna fucking nut. You want daddy to fill your ass up, huh? God! Fuck, I’m splitting you in two. Uhhh. Balls are so heavy, so much cum. Fuuuuuuck. Daddy’s gonna fill you up, have you leaking.”

His hand wraps around your throat and chokes you, hips still smashing against yours, your orgasm barely being held in. You try to talk, get him to let you cum, but no words come out. Bucky felt his orgasm approach, balls pulling up, “Shiiit, daddy’s gonna cum, gonna flood your ass, you ready, cum with your daddy. Right. Fucking. Now.” Bucky cums with a long, drawn out moan. The feeling of his endless load pouring into your ass sends you over the edge and you cum so hard your vision goes black for a second. Waves upon waves of pleasure coursing through you. Bucky’s hips jerk involuntarily, prolonging both of your orgasms. 

As you both catch your breaths, you feel Bucky begin to soften inside of you, still plugging your hole, stopping his cum from leaking back out. “You were so good for me, sugar. I’m so proud of you.” At those words you feel your bottom lip begin to tremble. Burying your face into the cushions, a sob escapes your throat, all of your emotions finally bubbling over.

Running his hands up and down your back, Bucky soothes you. This was always his least favorite part, seeing you cry. He knows that you’re crying isn’t because of him, but there is always a twinge of fear that shoots through his body, scared that he went too far with you. Bucky pulls out as gently as he can, hissing when the air touches his spent dick, and moves to rest his back against the couch, pulling you into his lap.

Neither of you care that his cum is leaking all over. Bucky will clean the room later, after he takes care of his sweet girl. You cling to him as you sob into his neck, his hands massage your sore cheeks as he whispers in your ear, “Such a good girl for me, you made me feel so fucking good. Can’t even begin to explain how good you felt. There you go, let it out. I’m right here.”

Carefully, he picks you up and carries you to the bathroom. When he tries to set you down you just cling on harder to him, not wanting to leave his embrace. “I gotta draw us a bath, sugar. You know you have to pee, I’ll be right here when you’re done.” You hesitantly let him go while he draws the bath, putting in your favorite oils. After you pee and wipe, he helps you up so you can wash your hands before sitting you both in the tub.

Bucky sits against the wall of the tub and you curl further into his lap, not wanting any space in between you. Somehow you still aren’t close enough to him, wanting to be surrounded completely by him. Tears are still leaking down your face and even with Bucky’s consuming presence, you can’t seem to pull yourself up to the surface. Bucky’s arms are wrapped around you, making sure that you are as close as possible without him being inside of you.

“Sweets, can you look at me? Want to see those pretty eyes.” You can hear the concern in Bucky’s voice, but you can’t bring yourself to move away. He’s your safe space and you just want to bask in his warmth. “Sweets, please. Can you tell me how you feel? I need to know you’re okay.” You don’t know why that set you off, but all of a sudden more tears escape you, sobs fighting to make their way out.

Bucky’s entire world stops, fear shoots up his spine. He doesn’t know if he could live with himself if he hurt you, if he did something that you didn’t want. He knows that you asked him to treat you like a whore, but what if you didn’t want him to go as far as he did? You used your safe word when it got to be too much, but what if you really wanted to say red, not yellow, but wanted to please him, or felt like you had to please him. “Sweetheart, did I hurt you? Did I go too far? Please talk to me.”

Even though you didn’t want to talk, you could hear that he was about to cry. “I’m okay. Just love you so much.” You could feel Bucky relax under you.

“You sure, sweets? I’ve never seen you like this before.” While some of his fears subsided, Bucky was still worried about you.

Picking your head up so you could look him in the eye, you saw just how scared Bucky truly was. “I promise, Buck, I loved every second of it. You made me feel so good and cared for. No one has ever made me feel the way you do.” Bucky closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. At that moment, Bucky understood why aftercare was so important. Of course he knew you needed to be taken care of so that you knew how much he loved you, but hearing those words come out of your mouth made him feel loved in a way he didn’t know was possible. 

Before the water gets cold you’ve stopped crying, making Bucky feel much better and he washes the sweat and spit off of your face and body, being extra careful with your sensitive pussy and ass. All the while whispering sweet nothings into your ear while you take turns kissing each other all over.

Bucky feels ten times lighter when he gets a giggle out of you. He knows that there will be days when you need him to treat you like a slut, but you know how much he loves and respects you. He lays you on the bed before grabbing your favorite lotion to put on, being extra careful when it comes to your sore ass, placing kisses in each spot after he's rubbed in the lotion.

 The marks on your face are gone by now, but Bucky still fusses over your skin care routine, knowing you don’t have the energy to complete it. After taking care of you, he climbs into bed and covers the both of you up, still naked but you don’t care. Bucky reaches into the bedside drawer and grabs some chocolate while you feed it to each other. Neither of you say much, but nothing needs said. 

You place kisses on his chest and arms, anywhere that you can reach, trying to let him know how much you appreciate him - Bucky knows. You fall asleep first, not being able to keep your eyes open any longer, Bucky moves you to his chest, cocooning you into him before he falls asleep, your head tucked carefully under his chin, legs tangled together, completely protected by him.

[dcxdpdabbles]

#holiday requests

i wouldn't mind more royal consort if you're willing to write it

just sent a request for royal consort as anon

There was panic all around the room, but Danny couldn't focus on anything for too long with all his senses so overwhelmed. He was suspended in the air, power rolling through and over him in busts of electricity. He can feel himself being ripped apart, rearranged, and placed back in the same way he had been when he was fourteen, but this time, the feeling is prolonged.

The portal does so again and again and again until Danny can't tell what he is anymore. Oddly enough, it's relatively peaceful. There had been no ripping pain when his necklace and portal transmitter had connected, but there had been an overwhelming sense of cold.

It was as if Danny had been plunged into iced water, spreading across his body like a tidal wave. Danny would have almost relaxed into the portal's form if it wasn't for the pins and needles that followed each wave.

Maybe it was worse for Jaz, who was fully human when they did this to her, but Danny had Phantom to fall back on. In more ways than one, given the army his future self has summoned and the insane amount of killing intent that Phantom was broadcasting.

If he could pick up on it from within this ball of semi-consciousness, he bet everyone else was likely drowning in Phantom's rage.

The dead knights fling themselves towards the portal with gusto, slamming their swords and bodies against the force field. Each strict flung Danny further from reality, drawing them back into the welcoming void of numbness, only to be ripped back by another cold wave.

"Danny, focus!" Phantom voice boomed. "You have become the key! Close the damn portal!"

Danny blinks slowly, trying to comprehend what the words mean, until a bolt of lightning zaps out of his fingertips, twisting into the outer layer of the portal. It's then he knows the horrible truth.

The world's end is coming, and Danny is the cause of it. The portal makes a strange zapping sound before it starts stabilizing and expanding. The first large ship was passing through, leaning in like a bizarre docking ship.

"Danny!" Phantom yells, more than a bit desperate. His call reminds him of the future and what will come if he doesn't stop the monsters now. He curls his hands, grabbing the power that made him King, and yanks his arms together. His forearms shake from the effort, but he holds on, willing everything to return.

The air goes boom as the portal starts dragging things inwards instead of out, as he commands the thing to call back the aliens. The ships and the few foot soldiers- lizard-looking men- are yanked right out of the air and thrown back into a new white portal.

It takes Danny a moment to realize the animalistic screaming is coming from him as the portal slowly retracts all the energy it has thrown out. He wills the portal's power to retreat into his chest, overflowing his core with energy that spins and whirls in a tornado.

He instinctively curls up, wanting to escape the pain when he feels the cracks take shape in his core. The breaking apart of the center of his soul echoes through his skull, drowning out all other noise.

"No!" Phantom's horrified screech exploded into a ghostly Wail, ripping around the mother ship, attempting to push past. Since Danny yanked the edge inwards, it pushed beside Danny instead of through him. It had turned on its primary thrusters. The rockets burn against the strain of escaping Dany's gravitation pull and force their way through the small gap in the top left of the portal.

On the deck, more lizard-looking poachers are ripped to spreads. Their screams let Danny know Phantom had wanted them to die and die painfully. The Ghostly wail was a sonic attack, but it didn't skin enemies unless Phantom purposely rolled his tongue like that.

In a sense, Phantom had turned his wailing vibrations into whip lashes at a speed that only the Flash or Superman could outrun. The aliens had no chance.

Danny peeks through one pain-filled eye, watching as Phantom's lips curl, even as the poachers are scrambling to collect their dead. He knew that his future self hated these creatures, and they had ruined Earth in two short years, but he had not realized the amount of hate that burned in those glowing green eyes.

Hate enough that when Phantom started throwing glowing punches, the ground shook. The few people the Waynes hadn't been able to evaluate shouted as the King turned off the gravity. Everything started flouting, and Danny could even spot some cars outside lifting into the air.

Phantom didn't seem to notice as his features started melting into something inhuman, sharper, colder, and green glow expanding from his pupils across his entire eyes as punch after punch hit the force field.

A few scouter ships broke away from the portal, but they were quickly swarmed by the flouting undead soldiers who aggressively sliced the smaller vessels with their blades. Danny knew why his future self hated them, not the skeleton soldiers. Maybe they just like to fight.

A loud crack echoes through the room over ghostly wails, blowing wind, screams, and metal clacks. The sound is similar to breaking glass, shattering as Danny's core falls apart.

Danny's back arches as a scream that tears at his vocal cords is ripped from his throat. The portal around them crumbles, closing at the tip of the mother ship, tearing it apart. Just as it vanishes from sight, everyone floating around the Consort can see it slowly burst into flames on the other side.

The portal slams shut just as Phantom's fist shatters the force field. "NO!"

His head feels heavy, much too heavy for his neck, as he flouts up toward the torn-up ceiling. Gravity is still missing as Phantom swims towards him; his features melt back into more human ones as he wraps his arms around him. "You little idiot. Do you have any idea of what you just did?"

"Saved...Jazz," He manages to grunt out, smiling through the pain. Phantom's arms spam around him.

"You didn't just change the future. You rewrote our fate." As if on cue, Clockwork's amulet turns into dust. Phantom's timeline was gone.

He would have also turned to dust were he still in it, but since he was outside the timeline, Phantom would now live in this one as a permanent member.

Phantom's eyes soften. "You saved more than just Jazz. I'll send our armies to kill them off now that I saw which galaxy the rats were hiding in."

Danny's shaky smile wobbles as the numbness in his body starts to retreat. It leaves licks of burning, aching pain, and he whimpers, leaning his head against his counterpart's chest. "It hurts...."

"You shattered your core." Phantom whispers, almost as if he knows the loud noises hurt Danny's head. It thumped in time with his heartbeat, sending little shockwaves of agony through his bones. "We'll have to take you to FrostBite. But I can't take you without knowing who had the portal key. We can't risk them calling the army before our men finish them off. Pandora is leading the charge against them right now."

"Okay....it was the Wayne Butler who had the key. He needs help."

Phantom's arms tighten as furry rippled under his skin. "He's a dead man."

"No." Danny attempts to shake his head, but the motion is too much for his poor shot nerves. He thinks his fingertips are smoking when he curls one hand in Phantom's cape. "He was in the containment unit. An alien took his place. I think it was pretending to be him."

Phantom hums. "That was one of their favorite tactics. I chased them across the cosmos. I saw them collect other aliens on some protected planets, so they resorted to luring people away by using familiar faces."

Danny makes the same sound, half awake. "They stripped him naked. Covered him in triangles."

"Fuck. What color were the tringles?"

"Blue."

"They weren't going to sell him as a pet. They planned on marketing him a breeding bull or an expensive meat plater for aliens that like exotic animals. Likely due to the poor guy's age." Phantom hisses, pushing a floating table away from them. "What happened to the alien that was pretending to be him?"

"Killed him"

"Good job." Phantom pats his back. "Rest now. I'll handle the rest."

"Okay." Danny is releasing the few strands of consciousness when he hears Tim Drake's desperate call from Phantom's left. It's much closer than it should be, considering they were still flouting near where the once grand chandelier had hung.

"Your majesty! Please turn the gravity back on! The surrounding fifty miles radius is in a panic, and people are flouting away!"

Phantom sighs, his cape flaring dramatically as he adjusts Danny to snap his fingers. There are clacks and crashes as gravity yanks everything back to the floor. Phantom doesn't pay them any mind as a new green portal blooms in front of him, the swirling green like a calm lake surface, a welcoming difference to the zapping one of the enemy.

Phantom steps through, ignoring the cries of the humans. The portal closes on Tim's desperate "Please allow us to help the Consort!"

Strange, Thinks the injured Halfa. He shouldn't sound so close anymore. He should be on the ground somewhere.

Danny just knows they will be panicking about him being hurt. Didn't wars start because of similar situations whenever a royal visits a different country? Danny isn't too sure. His mind is fuzzy, and he's only awake because he hasn't been surrounded by darkness yet, but he's flouting near it."

Frostbite jumps to his feet with a slack jaw. He bends in a bow, stumbling around his desk's stacked scrolls and research papers.

"My King!" He cries, his eyes swinging back and forth between the two Dannies. The yeti bows again, a little more hesitant as he mutters, "And my other..... King? What is happening?"

"We need your help," Phantom tells him. "His soul core got shattered. I think he's dying."

Danny whimpers, only half aware of how serious this is. He doesn't want to die. Not like this. Please. Everyone still thinks he's married to himself. He'll forever be remembered as Phantom's Consort instead of all his other talents.

Like making one mean salsa.

Frostbite makes a sad, choking whine, but Phantom doesn't pay it any mind. He presses Danny closer, and the human can feel the vibrations of his voice on his chest as he demands. "Prepare your operation chambers. I'm giving him my core."

"But, My King, that would mean you....."

"I don't care. I didn't return to Earth expecting to live. This is a command from your King. Do it"

Danny fades away into the darkness, unable to protest Phantom's request. He goes limb in the strong arms of his future self, aching for the version of himself that saw his world destroyed and would not be able to see the peace their actions brought.

Frostbite's grim voice echoes in the darkness. "This is another way, my King, but we need a human sacrifice."

"I'll do it." A third, unexpected voice cuts in, and Danny identifies it as Tim Drake before he knows no more.

[itwillbethescarletwitch]

No Eject, No Goodbye

jake “hangman” seresin x fem!aviator!reader

call sign: Raven (again)

They used to call you two fire and gasoline.

Now? You barely share air.

The briefing room feels colder than it should. Not just from the frigid blast of the A/C rattling through the overhead vents, but from the silence that thrums between you and Jake Seresin like barbed wire. You can feel him across the table. Feel him not looking at you.

Typical.

“Target window is ten seconds,” Cyclone says from the front of the room, tapping the map with the sharp end of his pointer. “And Seresin and Raven are running backup sweep. Any deviation in their timing and you jeopardize the extraction.”

Your stomach coils.

Backup sweep. With Jake.

Of course they’d pair you with him again. You were too good in the air together.

Even when everything else between you had fallen apart.

You swallow the lump rising in your throat and nod once. Rooster glances at you from across the room like he’s checking your pulse. Like he knows you’re already vibrating under your skin.

Jake doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t even twitch.

He used to sneak you winks across this room. Used to walk you to the lockers after briefing, shoulder brushing yours, warm fingers grazing your wrist like he couldn’t help it.

But then he left.

No goodbye. No warning. Just a deployment notice on your locker door and your name wiped off his contact list like it never meant a damn thing.

You blink hard and refocus on the mission details.

“Questions?” Cyclone finishes. The room stays quiet.

“Good,” Warlock says. “Wheels up in fifteen.”

The second the chairs scrape back, Jake’s already on his feet. Already walking. And just for a second — just a second — he pauses at your six.

“Watch your six up there,” he mutters without turning around.

You hate that your chest clenches.

You hate that your voice is soft when you say:

“I always do.”

He keeps walking. You watch him go.

———

The sky is too quiet.

That’s the first sign something’s wrong.

You’re flying high, running support on the outer perimeter, when the static begins — sharp and sudden in your ear, like a scream underwater. The warning lights follow. One, then two. Then everything starts blinking red.

“Raven, you’re drifting!”

Jake’s voice slices through the comms, thick with alarm.

You adjust. You try to stabilize.

And that’s when it happens.

A sharp crack — not from outside, but within.

Your jet stutters, drops hard to the right, smoke billowing from the rear thrusters. The G-force hits you like a punch to the chest. You gasp. The sky spins.

“You just lost engine one—Raven, eject!”

You reach for the handle.

But then you hear his voice again — softer now. Not yelling. Not commanding. Pleading.

“Don’t you dare leave me, Raven.”

“Altitude. Altitude. Pull up. Pull up.”

The automated warning drones in your ears, a cold voice counting down your life. You can barely see through the smoke. Through the tears.

You’re not going to make it out.

“Jake—go. Please. Just go.”

“No.”

“You’ll die!”

“Then I’ll die next to you.”

The wind howls around you both as your jets descend in tandem, two blazing comets screaming toward the Earth. His voice is ragged now, breath hitching as he fights the controls, trying to guide his jet between yours and the ground.

“I left once.”

“Jake—”

“I’m not leaving you again.”

“…Don’t…”

You feel your grip slip.

On the stick. On hope. On him.

“It was always you, Y/N.”

And then—

Impact.

But not yours.

You see it happen, just before everything goes black. Jake’s jet dives underneath yours, takes the worst of the collision. Shields you with his own body, his own bird. The explosion consumes his left wing first.

And in those final seconds—

As the sirens die out, as gravity wins—

You hear nothing but static and his breathing. Slow. Shallow. Dying.

And the softest echo of your name:

“Y/N…”

Then nothing.

Just smoke.

Just silence.

Just the Earth swallowing you whole.

——

Beeping.

That’s all there is at first.

Steady. Mechanical.

Sharp little notes echoing behind your eyes like sonar. You don’t know what they mean, not yet. You just feel them — in your skull, your chest, your bloodstream. They’re dragging you out of the dark. And it hurts.

The light is blinding.

Sterile white. Too bright.

It sears behind your eyelids and digs into the soft spots of your skull like a drill. And then the pain comes. Slow at first, then sharp. Your ribs, your legs, your arms — it’s like your whole body was ripped from a second skin and stitched back together wrong.

You gasp — or try to.

But your throat is raw, sandpapered. Dry. Like you’ve been screaming.

You open your eyes.

The ceiling is too white. The room too quiet.

Then you see the machines. The tubes. The IV in your arm.

And finally—finally—

Jake.

The name flashes through your mind like lightning.

No images. No words. Just instinct. Pure and gut-wrenching. You move — just barely — but it’s enough to make the monitors spike. Pain punches through your chest like a bat.

And then—

“Y/N—!”

You hear the voice before the face.

Fanboy.

He’s standing to your right, in his khaki uniform, dark circles under his eyes, jaw tight like he’s been grinding it for days. His hands hover over you like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to touch you.

Halo is on the other side. Her hair’s tied back messily. Her eyes go wide when you look at her. She swallows hard.

“Oh my God,” she breathes, and you realize she’s crying. “She’s awake—somebody page the doctor—!”

But you don’t care.

None of it matters. Not the pain. Not the wires. Not the fear on their faces.

“Where’s Jake?”

Your voice is sand, but the question is clear. Fanboy glances at Halo. Halo doesn’t say anything.

Your heart starts to race.

“Where’s Jake?!”

You try to sit up again — agony rips through your side. The beeping grows louder, faster. Alarms join it this time. The machines are screaming for help. So are you.

“Y/N—please, calm down—”

“I need to see him—take me to him!”

“Raven—just breathe—”

“TAKE ME TO HIM!”

The door slams open. Nurses rush in. One of them shouts for a sedative.

“Don’t touch her!” Halo barks, stepping in front of them. “Don’t sedate her—she just woke up, for God’s sake—”

Fanboy’s voice cracks when he speaks. “Okay. Okay. We’ll take you. Just—please calm down.”

⸻

You don’t remember the hallway.

Just the wheelchair. The way Halo holds your hand the entire ride down. How Fanboy’s eyes don’t stop watching you — like he’s afraid you’ll disappear again.

They stop in front of Room 309.

Fanboy opens the door. He’s silent. Halo squeezes your hand before she lets go. You think she says “we’ll be right outside,” but you’re not listening.

You’re already looking at him.

Jake.

Your Jake.

Hangman Seresin.

Unconscious. Wrapped in gauze. Bruises blooming across his skin like shadows under glass. His jaw is taped. His arms are bandaged. His chest is rising — but only because a machine is breathing for him.

You forget how to breathe yourself.

The nurse locks the brakes on the wheelchair, but your fingers already reach out, slow and aching, like they’re afraid to find out he’s real.

You slide your hand into his. It’s warm — not limp, not entirely lifeless — but there’s no grip back. Not yet.

You curl your fingers tighter around his.

“You stayed,” you whisper, broken and shaking.

The words are barely audible over the machines. Just enough breath to carry them from your lips to his skin.

“You… fucking idiot.”

You don’t have the strength to shout, and even if you did — the only thing behind your ribs is sorrow. Deep, sharp grief laced with something rawer than rage. Something older. Love, maybe. Fear.

“You should’ve ejected. You should’ve saved yourself.”

You lift his hand — slowly, tenderly — and press it against your cheek. Letting it rest there, against the tears he doesn’t get to wipe away.

“You don’t get to do this to me.”

A sob bubbles up and you clamp your jaw to stop it. You fail.

“You don’t get to die for me. You don’t get to decide that.”

Your forehead presses against the edge of his mattress, your shoulders quaking as everything you’ve held in starts to bleed out.

“I would’ve rather died up there than live down here without you. You hear me?” you cry, voice cracking. “You think that’s love? Leaving me behind?”

His chest rises once, slow and shallow. The machine sighs for him again.

“Wake up, Jake,” you whisper. “Please. You have to wake up. I still love you. I still love you and I didn’t get to tell you.”

You press your face into his hand again. Just for a second. Just to feel it. Just to remember that he’s still here.

“Please come back to me.”

———

It starts with a twitch.

Barely noticeable — just the tiniest shift in his fingers beneath your grip. You almost think you imagined it.

Then again. His thumb nudges yours.

Your breath catches.

You lift your head, blinking fast through the tears as your eyes zero in on his face. The bruises are still there. The bandages. The lifeless slack of his jaw held open by the tube. But then—

His brow furrows. Just slightly. Like he’s trying to wince.

“Jake?” you whisper, barely daring to believe it. “Jake—?”

His eyes flutter.

Twice.

And then they open.

Just a crack at first — enough to show the green beneath them, glassy and confused, unfocused. But awake.

The heart monitor beeps faster.

“He’s awake!” you gasp, your voice finally rising. You fumble for the call button, slamming it with the side of your fist. “He’s—he’s awake! I need a doctor!”

Chaos erupts outside the door, but you don’t take your eyes off him. A nurse rushes in with two doctors, and you’re forced to wheel yourself back slightly to give them room. You feel your chest burning as they start shouting codes, checking reflexes, taking the ventilator out. He gags against it, his throat dry, voice rasping from disuse.

But then he coughs. And then—he speaks.

“…Y/N?”

You could shatter.

The doctor tells you he needs to run a few neurological checks, and though you don’t want to move, you nod and let them work. You watch it all like it’s underwater — the lights too bright, your head too full of white noise, your heart too loud in your ears.

They test his pupils. Ask him questions. Ask what year it is. Where he is. What happened.

Jake mumbles through dry lips and cracked jokes — something about “didn’t think Heaven would be so fluorescent,” and the doctor chuckles, but you don’t.

You can’t.

When the tests are done and they’re confident he’s neurologically stable, they let you roll back beside him.

The room empties.

It’s quiet again.

Jake turns his head toward you — slowly, like it takes all his strength — and offers the softest, most wrecked smile you’ve ever seen on him.

“I’m so glad you’re alive.”

Your chest caves.

“You’re such a fucking idiot, Jake.”

It comes out too fast. Too loud. Too cracked to be anything but truth. His smile fades.

“You could’ve died,” you snap, hands gripping the wheels of your chair until your knuckles go white. “You almost died.”

He tries to sit up. Winces.

“I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to leave you.”

“You don’t get to choose that!” you cry, heat rising in your chest, behind your eyes, burning past your ribs. “You don’t get to decide whether I live with you or without you! You don’t get to leave me just because you love me!”

He looks stunned. Shaken. Like he wasn’t expecting this to hurt worse than the crash.

“Y/N—”

“If you died… if you had died for me, Jake, I would’ve spent the rest of my life wishing I hadn’t survived. I would’ve followed you.”

That shuts him up.

“You think you did this out of love?” you whisper, tears running freely now. “You don’t love someone and leave them behind. That’s not love. That’s cowardice wrapped in sacrifice.”

You push back from his bed. It hurts to move. Every muscle screams. But you roll to the door anyway, furious and devastated and barely holding it together.

Jake tries to reach for you. His voice is hoarse.

“Wait—Y/N, please—”

But you’re already out the door.

Rooster’s standing right there, wide-eyed.

“Y/N—?”

You can’t speak. You roll right past him.

Rooster turns to watch you go, then looks into the room. And that’s when he sees it — Jake, broken in bed, shoulders shaking in quiet grief.

“She was here every morning,” Rooster says softly.

Jake’s head lifts, barely.

“What?”

“Since she woke up a week ago. She cried herself to sleep every night, and every morning she made them wheel her in so she could sit beside you. Wait for you to wake up.”

Jake looks gutted.

“She thought you were going to die,” Rooster says. “And it scared the hell out of her.”

———

The hospital room feels colder now.

Dimmer.

You haven’t turned the lights on since you left Jake’s room. Just let the sun sink lower and lower past the blinds, wrapping yourself in the quiet like it could numb everything echoing in your chest.

Your body aches. Your ribs hurt. Your wrists are bruised from impact, your legs are stitched and sore, but none of that pain compares to what’s pressing against your heart.

There’s a soft knock at the door.

You don’t say anything. You’re not sure you could speak if you tried.

It opens anyway — just a crack at first — and then Phoenix slips in, a gentle smile already tugging at her lips.

“Hey,” she says, and when you glance at her, she gasps. “Oh my God. Y/N. He’s awake. Did you hear?”

You don’t mean to. You really don’t.

But your chest caves in again. Your chin crumples, and before you can stop yourself, a sob escapes — broken and small, and then another, and another. It all comes spilling out like the second crash you weren’t ready for.

Phoenix is at your side in an instant.

“Hey—hey, hey, it’s okay,” she murmurs, dropping to the edge of the bed, pulling you gently into her arms. “I’ve got you. Let it out.”

You bury your face in her shoulder, tears soaking through her scrubs.

“I still love him,” you whisper, voice wrecked. “I do. I never stopped. But I don’t know what to do, Nat. I don’t know how to look at him without remembering that moment. That second in the air when I thought—when I knew—he was going to die with me.”

She runs her hand up and down your back, steady and slow.

“You don’t have to know what to do right now,” she says softly. “You just have to feel it. Feel all of it. And when you’re ready… when your heart stops screaming and starts whispering again… then you decide.”

You nod against her, tears still falling.

“He loves you,” Phoenix adds, after a beat. “I saw it. The way he looked at you before the mission. Like he knew it might be the last time. Like he’d already made peace with dying for you.”

“But I didn’t want him to,” you croak.

“I know.”

Silence settles between you, heavy but safe.

“Do you think…” you whisper, swallowing hard. “Do you think it’s stupid to want him again after everything?”

Phoenix leans back just enough to meet your eyes.

“No,” she says. “I think it’s brave.”

You nod. Barely. And whisper, “I’m not ready.”

“Then don’t be,” she smiles. “Not yet. But don’t shut the door forever. Just leave the light on.”

She squeezes your hand before leaving.

And down the hall — in his own hospital room — Jake is sitting upright now. Grimacing through the pain, IVs still running, but there’s a fire in his eyes again.

“She came to see me,” he tells Rooster. “And then she left.”

Rooster nods. “She’s scared, man.”

“I know.”

“But she loves you. That much is obvious.”

Jake exhales slowly, his voice hardening with determination.

“Then I’m not giving up. Not after everything. I’ll wait. I’ll fight. I’ll prove it to her every day, however long it takes.”

Because she was worth crashing for. And she’s sure as hell worth staying alive for.

———

It starts small.

A knock at her door that isn’t a nurse.

A little bouquet of yellow roses in a glass on her side table the next morning. No note. Just the kind of flowers you give someone when you’re sorry, when you’re still hopeful, when you’re trying not to scare them away.

The next day, it’s a book. The same dog-eared copy of the novel she used to read on base, the one she thought she’d lost on deployment. There it is, sitting on the windowsill with a single sticky note tucked into the cover:

Thought you might want something familiar. —J

The door never opens. He never waits around. But every morning, something’s there. Gentle. Thoughtful. Quietly desperate.

Phoenix catches her one afternoon, staring at the third note — the one tucked into a chocolate bar.

“You still take two squares at night, right? Couldn’t forget that even if I wanted to.”

“He’s trying,” Phoenix says, softly, from the doorway.

Y/N doesn’t say anything. Just runs her fingers over the torn corner of the note, the ache in her chest flaring hot again.

⸻

Then one evening, it’s not a note.

It’s Jake.

He’s leaning in the doorway of her hospital room, out of uniform, pale and stitched up and still moving like he aches in every bone. His left arm’s in a sling. There’s still a bruise blooming beneath his jaw. But his eyes are clear.

Focused.

Fixed on her.

“Can I come in?”

Her breath catches. Her hands grip the blanket over her lap like it might hold her together.

She nods. Barely.

He limps in slowly, gently shutting the door behind him. No more cocky grin. No practiced swagger. Just Jake — wrecked and real and standing in front of her like he’s showing her every bruise she gave him without ever meaning to.

“I know you’re not ready,” he starts, voice low. “I know I scared you. Hurt you. And I’d take it back if I could. But I can’t. All I can do is tell you the truth.”

She doesn’t speak. Just watches him like he might vanish.

“That day… when the jet went down,” he says, swallowing hard. “I wasn’t trying to die for you. I was trying to live with you. I stayed because you were there. Because I couldn’t leave you alone in that sky.”

Her chin wobbles. Her throat burns.

“You think I was brave?” he says, voice cracking. “I wasn’t. I was terrified. Because I knew if you died and I lived… I wouldn’t want to. I wouldn’t know how.”

Her eyes brim over.

“But I lived,” he continues. “We both did. And I’ll spend every day proving I didn’t survive just to let you go again.”

He takes a few slow steps closer, then kneels down beside her wheelchair, eyes never leaving hers.

“You don’t have to forgive me yet. Hell, you don’t even have to like me. But if there’s even one piece of your heart that still wants this… I’ll wait. I’ll show up. I’ll be whatever you need.”

Silence.

Thick. Crushed.

Her hand twitches in her lap.

Jake watches it — watches it reach out, just a few inches, then stop, trembling.

“Jake…” she whispers, voice shaking.

“I’m here,” he breathes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And this time, when she lets the tears fall, she doesn’t cry alone.

Her lips part, but the words knot in her throat. Her fingers twitch again — reaching — and this time, they find his.

She grabs his hand like it’s a lifeline. Like if she lets go, she’ll drown.

Jake’s breath hitches, just once. He holds her hand like it’s glass, like he’s afraid to break it — or her.

“You don’t get to do that again,” she says, voice raw, shaking, barely above a whisper. “You don’t get to die for me.”

He opens his mouth, maybe to argue, maybe to apologize again, but she doesn’t let him.

“You said it was love, but it felt like a goodbye,” she chokes out, tears spilling. “I thought you were saying goodbye, Jake. I thought you were choosing to leave me.”

He closes his eyes. Pain flickers across his face.

“I wasn’t,” he says softly. “I was choosing you.”

“You don’t get to choose for me,” she snaps, breath hitching around a sob. “You don’t get to decide that my life goes on while yours ends. That’s not love, that’s…” Her voice cracks, collapses. “That’s not fair.”

She leans forward as much as she can, pressing her forehead to his. Her hand stays locked in his like she might fall apart without it.

“Do you know what I would’ve done if you didn’t wake up?” she whispers. “I would’ve stopped eating. I would’ve stopped trying. I wouldn’t have cared if I ever walked again. I would’ve blamed myself every day until I finally found a way to join you.”

Jake shakes his head, fiercely, desperately, and tries to pull her closer with his one good arm.

“No—no, baby, no,” he breathes, voice cracking. “Don’t say that—”

“You were my world, Jake. Even after we ended. Even when I hated you,” she says, shaking. “You were everything. And when you stayed with me in the air, when you refused to eject—God, it broke me.”

He closes his eyes, tears slipping past his lashes.

“I thought I was being brave,” he whispers. “But I wasn’t. I was just… in love.”

Silence wraps around them. Thick. Fragile.

Then she exhales, broken and shaky, forehead still against his.

“I still love you,” she whispers. “I never stopped. But I don’t know how to move past this.”

Jake nods, breathing shallow.

“Then we take it slow,” he says gently. “One hour. One day. Whatever you need. I’ll wait. Just… don’t shut me out. Let me try.”

She lets the silence stretch. But she doesn’t let go of his hand.

Not once.

[revelboo]

Do you ever plan to write for EarthSpark Starscream? There's a strange lack of him. No pressure to, of course haha just thought I'd ask.

I like how he was portrayed in the first season before they nuked his character 😭 (and how you write the bots from ES ❤️)

Yeah, I was so hopeful with the first season that we were going to get some character development and growth and then… yeah. Nope.

I just updated the Masterlist and just realized I’m up to 94 links there and I’m only allowed 100, so you may see me making sub-masterlists for each continuity. This one makes 95 🥲 18+ 🌶️

Disaster Hearts

Earthspark Starscream x Reader

• Venting softly, his face tips up toward the night sky outside the cave he’s been using as shelter to avoid tipping off Ghost. Unable to recharge for the nightmares. In his dreams, no matter how fast or how high he flies, that massive hand reaches after him. Those brutal servos always snaring him. And what was it all for? Everything he’s suffered only for Megatron to swap sides and betray them all. To be accepted by the Autobots with open arms even though Cybertron is a burned out husk because of Megatron’s actions. The future he’d believed in, had been promised just thrown away. Where is he now, he wonders? Playing house with those human pets of his?

• Can’t stay here as his anxiety begins to crank and his wings flare slightly before he throws himself off the cliff. Thrusters igniting as he launches himself skyward. He’d convinced his other Seekers to help in his vendetta against Megatron, but then it hadn’t taken much to gain their cooperation. They’d lost as much as he had. Betrayed just like he was. Rolling lazily in the air, he thinks of that human of Megatron’s. The soldier he’d thrown them all away for. That human too closely guarded by the Autobots to get at. And he can’t understand choosing a human over his own. Hates that soldier, because really, this is her fault isn’t it? They’re all much the same, though. Little insects waiting to be crushed under his ped.

• Exhausted, your fingers flex against the steering wheel. Telling yourself that it’s only for a bit longer. Only need to work two jobs for another year or so. That’s not so long. A bit longer to squirrel away enough to escape. Get as far as possible. Maybe try for the East Coast. You’re day dreaming about that as you drive. How the salty breeze off the ocean would taste. Would the sea spray be warm or cold? Salt drying on your skin and your hair and not caring. Finally free.

• Drifting through the cloudy night sky, he spots the headlights below on the empty road. And he normally ignores the humans. They’re beneath him, but right now? Angry and unsettled? Unable to take his frustration out on Megatron or his pet, he wants to lash out at someone. Punish someone for everything that’s been done to him. It’s what makes him drop from the sky and land in front of the little car. Hears the tires scream as the car brakes sharply and he lifts a ped and slams it down on the hood before the human can hit reverse. Watches the back of the car go airborne before slamming back down. Optics narrowing when the door is thrown open and a human throws themself out, running away.

• Decepticon. Heart racing, you run for the trees hoping the massive alien can’t follow you there. Screaming as the trees just explode, shards of wood and branches raining down on you as you fall on your hip. All the fight draining out of you to leave fear. Your head turns as you struggle to breathe, feeling those heavy peds hitting the road as he approaches you. And all you can think is it’s not fair. You’ve worked so hard to escape and it’s not even your tormentor that’s going to be the death of you, but one of the alien monsters.

• Baring his denta, he looms over the small form. One human is as good as another, aren’t they? He can’t get to Megatron’s human, but if he loves them so much, sacrificed his own kind for them, throwing another one’s broken body at his peds should be just as satisfying. Servos flexing, he bends to grab you and you don’t try to run again. Don’t scream or cry. Just stare at him, eyes closing as he curls his servos around you, unresisting. Just giving up as he frowns at your almost nonexistent weight in his palm. Why aren’t you begging for your life? “Just get it over with,” you whisper so softly he almost misses it.

• And the silence stretches out, takes on a weight. Flinching when a servo nudges your head his way. You open your eyes and stare up at that frowning, serious face. Those pretty, blue optics. “It’s not that I care at all,” he says, voice little more than a growl. “But do you want to talk about it?” What? Eyes drifting to that Decepticon badging on his wings, to his too human face, and you can’t even begin to respond.

Next

[shiani25]

@creepysmlile

"Oh have you try the seekers claustrophobia? I love all the lore the fandom created for the seekers"

"Caged Sky"

The pirate vessel never stood a chance.

Megatron had ripped through it like a storm, scattering its pathetic crew to the void. The Decepticons had moved with precision, cutting down every mercenary that dared raise a weapon against them. It had been an execution, not a battle.

Because no one—absolutely no one—stole from him.

And Starscream?

They found him in a dimly lit cargo hold, curled into himself, optics dim, frame battered. He hadn’t spoken much when they pulled him out—just muttered something weakly sarcastic about Megatron taking his time. But even that had lacked its usual venom.

Megatron hadn’t dwelled on it at the time.

They had won. The Seeker was back. Everything should have gone back to normal.

Except it hadn’t.

---

Starscream refused to leave the landing pad.

At first, it had been easy to dismiss. Maybe he was just sulking, milking the situation for sympathy or attention. It was Starscream, after all.

But then a cycle passed.

Then another.

And he was still there.

Sitting on the edge, wings twitching, staring out into space.

Megatron had ignored it as long as he could.

Now, he had had enough.

---

The Nemesis was a warship, not a Seeker’s personal perch. Megatron stormed onto the landing pad, optics burning with frustration.

“Starscream,” he growled. “This ends now.”

Starscream barely turned. “Oh? What ends?”

Megatron’s patience frayed. “Your pathetic stalling. Get back inside the ship.”

Starscream shifted, still not looking at him. “I will, Megatron. I just need a little more time. The—ah—the atmospheric recalibration is—”

Megatron’s optic twitched. “Enough.”

He grabbed Starscream’s arm.

And then—

Starscream panicked.

The Seeker shrieked, thrusters kicking in as he fought, wings flaring wildly. His talons scrambled for purchase, yanking his arm away with a desperation Megatron never expected.

“Let go!” Starscream’s voice was sharp, nearly frantic.

Megatron did.

Starscream stumbled back, vents heaving, optics wide—too wide. His claws gripped his own arms, shoulders hunched. His wings trembled, betraying tension, fear.

Megatron frowned. “What is this?”

Starscream ex-vented sharply. “Nothing.”

Megatron narrowed his optics. “You—”

“I just need more time,” Starscream snapped, though his voice wavered. “That’s all.”

Megatron studied him.

The way he avoided looking at the entrance.

The way his frame coiled like a cornered animal.

The way his optics flickered—not at Megatron, but at the walls of the ship.

Understanding dawned.

“…The pirates,” Megatron said slowly, testing his theory. “They confined you.”

Starscream stiffened.

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

---

Megatron dragged the truth out in fragments, each one like shattered metal pried from a wound.

The pirates had beaten him, sure. That was expected. But they hadn’t known what to do with him. He was valuable—too valuable to kill outright.

So they had caged him.

Not a brig, not a cell.

A crate.

A shipping crate, small, cold, dark.

They had folded his wings to shove him inside, forced him down, locked him in. No room to stand. No room to move. Just metal walls pressing in on all sides.

He had screamed—at first. Kicked, cursed, threatened. But no one had answered.

The air had grown stale.

His vents had struggled against the thick, unmoving atmosphere.

And for the first time in a long, long time—Starscream had believed he was going to die.

Alone. In the dark. Crushed in a box.

No sky. No escape.

Just metal, choking the life out of him.

And now?

Even Nemesis’ walls felt like a cage.

---

Megatron listened.

He said nothing.

When Starscream finished—when he finally ran out of words, voice tight and fragile—there was silence.

Then—

“…If I could,” Megatron said, voice low, dangerous, “I would kill those wretched parasites again.”

Starscream’s optics flickered toward him.

Megatron’s gaze burned.

“But this time, it would be slow. Painful.” His claws curled into a fist. “I would ensure they felt every agonizing second of their pitiful existence slipping away.”

Starscream stared at him.

Megatron met his gaze evenly.

A long moment passed.

Then, softly—softer than Megatron had ever heard from him—Starscream ex-vented.

“…I would like that.”

Megatron nodded once.

Then he turned toward the ship.

“Come,” he said, without demand or force.

For a moment, Starscream hesitated.

Then, slowly, he stepped forward.

And, step by step, he followed Megatron inside.

[starrywizz]

STARSCREAM X fighterpilot!READER

Disclaimer: I have very limited, google only, knowledge of how the airforce works so ignore any mistakes. Ignore any spelling mistakes it was late when I finished this.

~~~~~~~~~

It was a dim, gloomy day as you were up early, walking down past the hangers to talk to your mechanics. It was only after you passed hanger 013 that you paused.

The sliding doors were open, slightly parted at the centre, and a shiny nose-cone could be seen. You slowly walked towards the hanger and entered, flicking on the lights and gasping as a gleaming, tri coloured jet stood before you. It was beautiful, in a strange way, but most definitely out of place. You had never heard of one of the keys being painted red, white and blue so what on earth was it doing here?

It was humiliating. Megatron, the imbecile, had sent Starscream of all mechs to pose as human military jet in order to gain access to their databases which might hold knowledge of the whereabouts of the Autobot.

This was a job for one of Soundwave’s strange lackeys not the Second in command and the Air commander of the entire Decepticon force.

Starscream was seething, as he laid in wait among the feeble human jets. How did Megatron truely expect him to complete this task? What was he supposed to do, rip up the whole base?

Regardless, he waited and watched through the open doors. He would leave again soon, he just had to remain long enough so that it at least looked like he tried.

He was very close to firing up his thrusters when the human in front of him gasped. He would never admit that the human had caught him unawares or that he briefly panicked as they came closer to him. They placed and brief touch to the bottom of his nose-cone before running back out of the hanger. This was going to be a problem.

You walked over to where your mechanics were waiting with your heart thundering in your chest. There was something about that jet that just was not normal. You were sure of it.

You spoke about the strange jet to one of your technicians who all seemed equally as confused at its sudden appearance. Resolute, you marched back to your superior’s office, determined to explain your findings.

To your surprise, and part horror, your superior looked at you like you had gone mad. Still, he followed after you as you nearly marched down to the jet. It was still there, looking just as incredible as it had before and it still gave you that strange chill it had earlier. Beside you, your superior paled before telling you it was nothing to worry about. He walked briskly back to base, phone in hand. Confused, you walked back to your mechanical whilst giving brief glances to the jet over your shoulder.

The rest of the day trickled by, followed by next and then the one after that. The jet had not moved, nor did anyone (and you had gone around base interrogating people) know anything about it. It was not on the records. It really seemed like it didn’t exist.

That only made it more interesting. You had been taking your lunch breaks in hanger 013, sitting near the jet just staring at it. Questions flooded your head but there seemed to be no answer to them. It infuriated you. Sooner or later you would have to accept that nobody knew anything about this new and crazily colourful jet.

You spent your night in the barracks hardly sleeping so it was no surprise when you awoke to the sound of roaring jet engines. Any other day, you would have rolled over and tried to sleep. But not today because you knew that there were no scheduled flights this late at night and the only reason a jet would be taking off was if there was an emergency. If so, it was best you get up.

Walking outside into the cold night. You froze in partial shock and horror as you saw the tri-coloured jet heading down the taxiway. Somehow, your legs unfroze and you began to sprint down towards the jet. A thousand thoughts raced through your mind. Who was piloting it? Where were they going? What were they doing?

The jet turned to cross onto the runway and then… stopped. It was dark and there was no way for you to be able to tell who was in the cockpit, if there was anyone at all. Suddenly, with a robotic whirr, the jet shifted and began to fold in on itself?

You screamed and moved back as a giant, taloned hand reached out and grabbed you pulled you off the ground. Frozen in shock you barely noticed when the thing looked at you with glowing red eyes before it shifted around itself and suddenly you were snuggly inside its cockpit. Your mind was racing and your head was pounding as it tried to come to terms with what had just happened. The jet (which was also possibly a giant robot) took off at a near vertical angle. The sudden increase in g-force was too much and you blacked out.

Starscream growled at the feeling of a human inside of him. You had better be worth all the trouble.

[bookworrm1999]

How Far Away? Part 3

Caleb x Mc

Tags: unplanned pregnancy, presumed death, depression, miscommunication

Summary: Mc and Caleb fight right before he goes on a long mission into space. Caleb ends up MIA while Mc finds out she's pregnant. She struggles to deal with the grief while Caleb is fighting for his life to make it back home to her.

AO3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12

Epilogue

Stopping in the hallway, he glanced out a small port window to look at the stars rushing by.

Allowing himself a small sigh in the emptiness of the long hallway.

It had been a long few months, sabotages from plants here from the higher ups, the occasional metaflux incident causing wanderers to show, but worst of all was being away from her.

Caleb looks at his right hand, made stronger by improvements after all that damage in the explosion over a year ago now.

He could take it as a reminder of everything that had been done to him.

The experiments, being treated like a weapon, desperately trying to be cold and calculating all to take attention from the one person he wanted to keep safe.

To him though, it was his reminder of you. What he had sacrificed to keep you safe.

Maybe he should’ve just asked her to stay in his house the whole time he was away.

No, he shook his head a bit, that’s what had gotten him into trouble with her in the first place.

Caleb knew that he should just talk to her about everything.

But it helped his sanity to keep it all to himself, so she wouldn’t be burdened by all this knowledge.

He toed a dangerous line by keeping you so close.

Not that refusing to talk about his relationship with her really helped anything.

It kept him from having to be vulnerable to her though.

He was supposed to be your protector, the feeling that she would leave if she saw how weak he really was when it came to her.

It left him frozen inside, the fear and anxiety too much to bear.

Caleb made himself a promise though. He had left things on a terrible note.

The first thing he would do is apologize after seeing you again. Well after a kiss or two, maybe three.

Then finally sit down to talk.

The ship shook violently out of the blue.

Warning lights and alarms started sounding through the halls.

Caleb rushed to the command center.

“Report!”

“Sir, a wanderer has spawned in the engine room. Our anti gravity thrusters on one side have been knocked out. We’re slowly being pulled to a nearby black hole. The other thrusters are still working, which is keeping us from being pulled in completely but the wanderer is on the move.”

“Send the metaflux incident team to the engine room now, Tell them that I will meet them there.”

“Yes sir.”

Turning on his heel, his coat billowing behind him, he speeds his way to the engine room.

Opening the door, he’s met with a chitinous wanderer snarling at the assembled team.

All of them armed with firearms and specially picked for their evol abilities.

The room is trashed already, if he wasn’t fast, it could destroy life support systems and then they’d really be in trouble.

That is if the black hole looming outside didn’t crush them first.

The wanderer lunged at the team of 6 people with its front legs outstretched.

It manages to swipe one of the men’s forearms before it’s pushed back a bit by a slew of bullets.

Caleb had had enough, using his evol, he stops the wanderer in its tracks.

Doing this took more energy but he saunters over and shoots it straight into the core 2 times.

Letting it go, it slumps to the floor, spent.

Some blood splattering on him but he pays no mind as he casually wipes it off with his handkerchief.

“Salvage it.” He orders, not giving the flabbergasted team a chance to respond.

Caleb quickly left and called the engine crew to come and try to repair the thrusters.

But nothing came through.

“Report!”

Nothing.

Sensing something was gravely wrong, he storms into the command center.

A flurry of activity is happening as no one can contact anyone on the ship over coms.

“What’s the situation?”

“Colonel!”

Someone rushes over, breathing hard.

“In the chaos of you being gone, someone has sabotaged our communications relay for long range and ship wide. All of our escape pods have been ejected with the manual override in the shuttle bay and then escaped in the explorer shuttle!”

Damn it.

He brings his fingers up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he asks

“What’s our status on getting communications back up?”

“That’s the other thing sir, all of the containers of spare parts have been ejected.”

He smiles slowly to himself.

“So this was planned well in advance. They took advantage of the happenstance of me taking care of the wanderer.”

Usually he left the containment of those incidents to the metaflux team but the severity of it happening in the engine room led him to intervene.

They were truly fucked. These types of incidents needed to be reported, then help could be sent but with the communications relay out.

Unless they could magically find a way to fix the thrusters without new parts, they were going to be slowly pulled into the black hole.

Slowly crushed as all the oxygen left the environment, a slow and painful death.

Unless.

Well, they didn’t account for Caleb being a crazy bastard.

This wouldn’t be like that time at the academy when he just thought it might be ok to die after his test flight malfunctioned and sent him to deepspace.

He had to get home to you.

His evol was gravity based after all.

A black hole is a gravity well and all Caleb needed to do was create his own gravity well opposite of the black hole.

Using the remaining thrusters they had, he could slowly pull them away from the counter gravity’s influence. It would be achingly slow, grueling and exhausting.

Caleb didn’t know if the food stores would hold out or if any other systems would slowly turn off due to the existing damage.

He didn’t even know if he would last long enough to pull them out.

But he would do it to get home to her.

HER:

The camera turns on

You come into view of the camera holding a piece of photo paper.

“Hi baby! Oh I guess you should be saying that not me, haha. Anyways look!”

You hold up the small piece of photo paper, black and white with a small white blob in the middle.

“That’s our baby! Isn’t it cute? Well it looks more like a jellybean then a baby at this point but I still find it cute!”

You hold up your fingers to indicate the size, the size of a lentil.

“It’s really tiny right now, I’m only 6 weeks. I asked for a photo copy of this because I wanted something tangible. Especially for you, so that way you can keep it when you come home.”

Your head drops a bit, absentmindedly rubbing your firm stomach.

“I really miss you, it’s really hard doing this alone. I’m sick a lot right now and I lost a bit of weight before I realized what was going on.

Don’t worry though! Zayne helped me and I’m seeing an OB now. So I’m eating again.”

You point your finger towards the camera

“That does not mean that I need to be in bed rest when you get home. You hear me? This is normal for pregnancy. Well not the weight loss but the being sick.”

Sighing deeply

“I miss you so much, but I know you’ll be home in 3 months and a week. I’ve got this little bean to keep me company in the meantime. I’ll see you later Caleb.”

The camera turns off.

4 weeks pass, writing little messages to Caleb all the while.

The smell of meat cooking is horrible to me now, what am I going to do?! I want your braised chicken and pork when you come home!

My pants are getting a bit tight. I haven’t told my work that I’m pregnant yet. I’m waiting till I’m 12 weeks but my uniform pants just suck right now!

Maybe I could use a hair band?

Well my boobs are a little bigger now, you’d be happy about that. They’re super sore though so don’t even think about manhandling me!

I’m so tired all the time! It’s hard to go out and do work now. And don’t even start on my working! Pregnant women work all the time safely. Granted my work is pretty dangerous sometimes.

I just know if I tell them, they’ll put me on desk work.

I can’t do that right now, being busy keeps me sane while you’re gone.

I went to your house this weekend to grab some of your clothes. They fit so much nicer and they smell like you too.

I can just see your chest puffing out in male pride.

Yeah yeah, yuck it up.

I really wish you were here. I want to talk to you, cuddle up to you in bed and just be together.

I’m sorry we fought right before you left.

I’m sorry.

The camera turns on

“Caleb! The baby looks like a baby now! They did my ten week scan and it’s got little arms and legs now!

Oh don’t worry, I have the picture right here and a recording of the heartbeat. Ugh, sorry, my hormones just make me cry even when I’m happy.”

You wipe your eyes and display the newest ultrasound to the camera like the proud mama bear you were becoming.

A tiny white blob with little arms and legs.

“I think I can play the heartbeat off of my watch, hold on… there!”

The sound of a fast little heartbeat comes out and you start tearing up again.

“Caleb… Caleb, I wish you were here to do all of this with me.”

You sniff and dry your tears furiously, looking at the camera with a glare now.

“You better come home to me.”

The camera turns off.

3 months have passed since he left, your pregnancy is 15 weeks along now. You had been correct when you said that you’d be placed on desk duty as soon as you made your pregnancy known at work.

Xavier had goggled at you in disbelief, but Tara and everyone else were very happy for you. They wanted to ask you about the father, you could tell but they just gave you inquiring looks every now and again.

It was reaching lunch time as you finished reviewing a report someone had submitted recently.

You had been turned into the captain’s assistant somehow.

Stretching up, you noticed some unfamiliar colored uniforms out of the corner of your eyes.

Wait a minute, those are fleet uniforms! What are they doing here?

Your heart sank into the pit of your stomach.

You watched with bated breath as they caught someone, asking a question before your coworker pointed straight at you.

Oh no. Please.

Two officers walked over to your desk and asked for your name, you confirmed and they handed over a small box.

“As Colonel Caleb’s emergency contact and beneficiary, I regret to inform you that he has been reported as missing in action.”

You sit in stunned silence. They continue on.

“We can’t give too many details but a survivor of the disaster made it back a few days ago on board an escape shuttle, reporting the loss of the colonel and the rest of the crew.”

A strangled sob makes it out of your throat, you look down at the small box in your hands.

“These are the documents left behind for you, granting you access to his estate and trust. The house and everything else he owned is yours.”

You didn’t want this, you wanted Caleb.

Caleb was gone.

You slipped out of your chair, it rolling behind you as you lost all strength in your knees. Sobs coming out of you in frantic gasps.

The officers look uncomfortable as they left you with one last bit of information.

“There will be results of an investigation delivered to you at a later time, the colonels lawyers card is in the box. Good day.”

They left you there on the floor.

World shattered and a baby in your womb from a man you’d never see again.

Tags: @moonberry69 @supermyeon22 @tinnyrabbit @gavin3469 @marina27826 @crowleysthings @tabi-callico @midiplier @rosalyne08 @his-ocean-emissary

[660percent]

“The nice thing about flying to Giant’s Deep is that at a certain point, you aren’t flying anymore. You can just let go, your thrusters cold and silent, and the planet will reach out and take you in on its own.”

Chapter 32 of Interpolation has me in a chokehold. I won’t spoil anything but oughhhhhhhhhh, it hit me in the feels. Please read this fic, it’s beautiful.

[pinkanonwrites]

Handle with Care

Rodimus has finally been allowed to bring you into a meeting to hopefully curb some of his rampant fidgeting problems. It ends up having unforeseen consequences.

First Contact AU! Rodimus/Human Reader

NSFW, DUB-CON, Accidental Stimulation, Rodmius has ADHD and you can pry that fact out of my cold dead hands

(Since this is a First Contact AU Rodimus uses Cybertronian words for body parts instead of human ones for you, but the Reader is a human!)

Rodimus knew he always did his best thinking when he had something to do with his servos. As insistent as Ultra Magnus was that his endless tapping, bouncing, and desk-carving was simply "an untapped well of craving for mayhem", Rodimus knew that having even a little something to fiddle with would make those endless, droning safety meetings into something just barely bordering on tolerable.

And since Ultra Magnus was also sick of his relentless desk vandalism, he finally gave the begrudging all-clear for Rodimus to bring his favorite organic to the meeting room.

"They can remain so long as they are not a distraction." With his soft little buddy cupped carefully in his servos, not even Ultra Magnus's stern words could sway his captain's notable enthusiasm.

"You say that as if they could be any more distracting than the bot carrying them." Megatron added.

"You worry too much! We'll be quieter than moon mice, right bud?" Rodimus ran a thumb over your soft, fuzz-covered helm as he took his seat. You were sitting comfortably in the center of his right palm, legs dangling over the edge between his digits. He kept his middle and ring digits curled up slightly to keep you from toppling forward, and you'd settled yourself in with your arms folded atop them and your chin resting against the tips of his digits. He gave you another soft stroke to the helm and beamed at the content little chirp you let out in response.

Ultra Magnus cleared his vents. "If we may begin, we have a lot of ground to cover. Starting with the grievous filing system Brainstorm has insisted on using for the weapons bay. It flaunts any Cybertronian standard known to bot and presents a massive safety risk when considering…"

Yeah, if Rodimus hadn't brought you along he'd already be itching for a dagger to start carving caricatures with. Instead his left-servo digits wandered lazily over your helm and shoulders, absentmindedly petting as his processor already started phasing out the dialogue of his second-in-command. Primus, organics really were so soft. Even your little coverings were soft, he noted as he ran a digit tip over the fabric covering your torso. You let out another quiet hum, melting ever further into Rodimus's grip as he patted you.

"And if you think your petition to install turbo-thrusters on your private vehicle was approved, Rodimus, I assure you it was not."

"WHA-?! What's wrong with the turbo thrusters? Brainstorm already approved the prototype!" He sat upright and forward in his seat, left servo cupping around your back to make sure you weren't overly jostled. "And they'll look great on the Rod Pod, too. Already painted and everything."

"We can't have one of our captains blowing himself up meteor surfing just because he wanted a thrill. And must I emphasize the use of the word 'prototype'? Meaning 'unfinished and untested'?"

"What better way to test them than on my ship?" 

"Do you want them listed alphabetically, or by order of safety protocol?"

Rodimus grumbled, a buzzing charge of irritation spiking through his frame. He cupped your back tighter with his servo to make sure you were still settled in as he flumped back into his seat with an overly dramatic ex-vent. The motion pushed your entire soft fore up against his wide digits, and he could feel a shiver course through your small frame. 

"You bored yet?" He murmured, knowing you couldn't fully understand him but also knowing his comments would needle at Ultra Magnus. "Or are you cold? You feel pretty warm." A single digit stroked down the length of your spinal strut and Rodimus startled at the sudden, shaky in-vent you'd failed to stifle. "What was…?"

"Affectionate little organic you've found for yourself, Rodimus." Megatron's comment nearly made Rodimus leap out of his own plating. The taller mech gestured to the way you'd wrapped both of your arms around Rodimus's digits, your cheek pressed against the metal tip of one.

"W-Well yeah! I am their favorite, after all." He asserted, though his free digits kept wandering up and down the expanse of your back. The last thing he wanted was for Megatron and Ultra Magnus to think something was wrong with you. That would just give them more reason to not let him bring you to meetings. No, as soon as he could slip out of here he'd take you to Perceptor himself to get you checked out. Hopefully you could wait it out that long.

But as the meeting progressed Rodimus found that everything that was being said to him was going in one audial processor and straight out the other. He was too focused on your movement, each tiny rock and wriggle. He kept the palm of his other servo pressed against your back to keep you snug and warm, though his own sensors didn't indicate anything out of the norm for your current ambient temperature. Maybe you got bored like he did? Absent-mindedly he began bouncing you in his palm, just barely enough movement to jostle your frame. The dull motion would keep you occupied and keep Rodimus from going stir-crazy with nothing to fiddle with. He was killing two birdbots with one stone!

"...And if we're going to allow Swerve to continue his antics, I must insist that he is at least properly licensed and certified." 

"C'mon! It's good for-!" Rodimus had tried to interject, but before he could he was interrupted by a strangled yelp from his palm. All three bots' optics were drawn to your form as you shuddered in Rodimus's servo, arms and legs squeezing around his digits and your helm hanging over the tips of them, hiding your faceplate from view. Your own little servos pushed pathetically at Rodimus's, trying to shove your fore away from his touch as you whimpered.

"You didn't squash them, did you? Rodimus."

"They don't appear to be harmed. Merely… distressed?"

"No worries everything's fine let's pick this up next cycle sounds good okay BYE!" Rodimus spat out a flurry of placations and excuses as he scrambled to leave, cupping you close to his chest the entire sprint back to his own habsuite. Only once he was over his desk, littered with your various human-sized furniture and items, did he carefully uncup his hands and let you sprawl out across a single palm. You remained lying flat on your back, fore heaving as you vented, helm fluff sticky with your organic-made coolant where it clung to your face. As you made optic contact with him you let out the tiniest, most pathetic whine as your servos flew up to cover your face.

"Rodimus…" Though you couldn't fully understand each other, you had settled on a throaty, metered recreation of his name, doing your best to mimic the mechanical warbles he had used to introduce himself to you. He'd heard you use it a handful of times before, mostly to get his attention. But now? Now you seemed absolutely distraught, whining out the word in a high, flustered pitch through your cupped servos.

"What?! What did I do wrong?" He blinked owlishly down at you, poking ever so gently around your form with a free digit. He prodded at your helm, your shoulders, your chassis… But as his digits trailed down your fore you whimpered, hips jerking pathetically up as he neared your pelvis. You let out another embarrassed squeak, one of your pedes kicking frantically against his digit with a metal 'bang!' to shove it away. 

Oh. Oops.

Rodimus wasn't stupid, he knew that humans didn't have armor plating. Instead you delighted in covering yourself with various colorful fabrics for different occasions and times of day, a freedom of self-design that he both greatly admired and slightly envied.

But Rodimus had never actually considered that no armor really meant no armor. Not even a modesty plate. 

"I'm so sorry!" He hissed, heat rushing to his own faceplate as well. Accidentally making you overload in the middle of a meeting wasn't even on the list of possible ways Rodimus thought things could go wrong, but apparently now it needed to be added. He'd used the vibrating buzz if his digits many a time on other mechs and femmes, but he never intended to use it on you. At least not in that way! Letting you slide oh-so-carefully from his palm and onto the surface of the desk, you continued to languish in your humiliation sprawled out on your back. "I really didn't mean to! I know you don't know what I'm saying but I promise it wasn't on purpose!"

You glanced through your fingers at his faceplate and his apologetic frown, letting out another huff. This one sounded less overwhelmed though, more resigned. You gestured for him to bring a servo closer and he did, only for you to duck your helm under one of his digits and let him pet your soft organic head fluff. 

"You forgive me?" You couldn't understand him but gave him a small, reassuring pat on the palm. "Ahh, thank you! If it's any consolation, I don't think either of them noticed."

But as he carefully stroked your helm with two digits, a teeny tiny part of Rodimus's processor was curious. How hard was it for you to keep quiet? Was the wiggling around from you trying to get away from the stimulation, or chase it? Were you scared, overloading in a room full of giant mechs? Or was there a chance that part of you might have… enjoyed it?

Weird. He was weird. And he was going to file those thoughts away behind a door in his processor to only be opened when he needed things to feel self-deprecating about. Rodimus of Nyon, Captain of the Lost Light, secret fantasizer of human overloads… Yeah, that probably wouldn't go over well.

And yet, Rodimus couldn't help how little he actually minded that.

[severedfromthesource]

Without

Cohl has been down a long time before Yui can get to him, but he refuses to give up. No matter what logic dictates. Features M resus, M rescuer, mechanical CPR, intubation, prolonged resus, hypothermia, drowning.

He couldn't even remember why they were diving in the middle of this godforsaken planet. Drowned treasure? Some ancient alien wreckage? All Yui knew as he piloted the little drone sub down the black depths was that Cohl hadn't responded on comms in a very long time. They'd exceeded the point he'd told Yui to find him if he didn't respond, and gone well past it in the twenty minutes it took him to even find the spot the Captain had dove to. The GPS and radar systems didn't play well with the planet's near constant electrical storms. When he did at last find the ship, he drove the submersible until the lights finally caught a flash of something reflective in the dark. His heart seized. Cohl was lying on his side on a platform outside the sub he'd taken down, unmoving. In an instant he snatched him up into the drone sub's hull and drove the thing as fast as he could back up to the waiting Hawk. Her bay opened up to recieve the little craft and he tore open the door as water sloshed out.

Yui heaved his Captain's sopping wet body onto a stretcher. His usually deep bronze skin was ashen, and he looked so utterly dead that it took everything inside the second in command to not burst into tears. The stretcher rose on its thrusters and he shoved it towards the Medbay. All the while he chattered to the ship's intelligence system, "How's he looking? How long has he been without oxygen?" "Body temperature is extremely low. Patient is in full cardiac and respiratory arrest, no BP or oxygen saturation. His suit marked the start of the cardiac event." Yui's stomach lurched. He asked quietly, "How long has He been down?" "37 minutes," replied the Hawk's comms. His legs went weak at the knees and he nearly fell. Adrenaline pushed him forward, careening into the medical unit. No wonder he looked like a corpse. He'd been one the entire time Yui was looking for him. He'd hoped, somehow, the oxygen reserves would last a bit longer than the projection. Cohl was lucky like that. Luck only got you so far with faulty equipment.

He slammed the levitating gurney into the dock and the medical system hummed to life. Another intelligence system with a masculine voice to contrast the Hawk's system piped up from the hub, "Warning, Code Blue. Warning, Code Blue." "I know, goddamnit," Yui sobbed, the strength going out of him for a brief moment. He almost crumpled over the side of the gurney as a sob bubbled up. He had to grip the railing and control his voice enough to say, "Start resuscitative protocol." "Patient's system has high levels of-" "Get him back!" he spat, jamming the controls until he got to the screen for the revival procedures. He blindly jabbed at any prompt, initiating CPR, defib on standby, airway, IV push with both epinephrine and adrenaline queued once the line was established.

He started cutting away the wetsuit clinging tightly to his Captain's clammy skin, so frozen and stiff he nearly lost it again to touch him. Every inch of exposed skin was cold and gray where it should have been warm and brown. The only color to his skin was the blue and purple edged around his lips. His stomach distended slightly from water inhalation. Yui continued to run the shears through the side seam of the fabric, under his armpit and down to where it ended at his ankle. He pulled away the shorn fabric from underneath his still body and discarded it, leaving him bare under the harsh lights of the Medbay, making him look all the paler as it caught on the rivulets of water collecting here and there in the dips and hollows. Yui planted his hands over the too firm and too round stomach and shoved down, expelling a gush of foaming white seawater from his slack lips and nose. He did this a few times, shuddering as Cohl gurgled and grunted with dead lungs. The Medbay's small mechanical arms and pincers moved about the body as it started an IV and raised the bed beneath his shoulders blades so his chest sat in a slight arch, forcing his head to tilt limply back. When Yui returned to the head of the gurney to clear away the foam from his face, he shivered to see his eyes had slid slightly open. "It's okay," he whispered as he dried off his lips and nose, though he wasn't sure if he was saying it to himself or his Captain.

"Beginning cardiopulmonary resuscitation," the system announced, sliding a thin band around Cohl's chest. In the middle of this sat a small rubber plunger, and in an instant the band was tightening in a vice and shoving the plunger against his sternum. His body rocked, the little device having a surprising amount of strength. It forced his shoulders to shrug inward, his arms rocking at his sides as his stomach, flattened by Yui's efforts, again bulged with displaced force. An additional arm lowered to pull his jaw open, easily sliding in a narrow breathing tube that split into two. A clip at the halfway point extended over his cheeks and mouth to hold it in place, and nearby a ventilator began breathing for him. The other tube in his throat suctioned out the remaining water and fluid in his throat, and for a moment the room was full of wet gurgling and squelching as the compression band beat against waterlogged lungs. Even when his airway was suctioned clear, Cohl still rasped out any air the ventilator fed him, the plastic tubing making each soft grunt whistle slightly.

Yui stood to the side of the mechanical assault. After punching in a few hypothermia procedures to be done alongside resuscitation, there wasn't much else he could do. He tried to help, tried to find something to do to not feel so useless, but the Medbay was an advanced system from a newer model of space cruiser than the Hawk, and most of a doctor's work was automated. It did a lot more than a failed med student could do. So he watched, his knuckles white around the bed railing, as Cohl was shifted and pounded into the back support like a ragdoll. The compression band made his head rock and he shifted to the side to slide a pillow underneath to hold him somewhat still. He couldn't stand watching the way his body bonelessly jerked and spasmed under the chest compressions. He glanced up at the monitors. A flatline, broken by the artificial pulse, raced across the nearest holo. His gaze slid to the cardiogram beside it. Cohl's heart was being squeezed, coiling and releasing in tandem with the machine, but the muscle didn't so much as twitch on its own. Yui pushed back dark hair from Cohl's lidded eyes for want of something to do with his hands.

One of the Medbay's arms implanted a small device over one of Cohl's kidneys, a port which connected to a suspended bag of saline. Heating coils hummed in the dispenser the IV liquid appeared from, and Yui could feel the table radiate a low warmth against Cohl's skin. He wanted to just crank the damn thing up, but knew he could easily kill him that way. As if he could get any deader. Cold, bloodless, without a pulse or respiration. He scrubbed his hand over his face to chase away the morbid thoughts. He dropped out of med school, but one thing had always stuck dealing with the cold: you're not dead until you're warm and dead. Medbay put his Captain's core temp at 75 degrees and climbing by minute percentiles. Not warm, and not dead. Not yet.

Machines pumped his heart, circulated his blood, filled his lungs, and some piece of hardware was in charge of his every vital organ. Yui told himself there was no way Cohl wasn't coming back. But the minutes crawled by. His body temp got to the upper 80s as the warm saline piped through his kidneys to heat up his bloodstream from the inside. His skin wasn't so wooden anymore, and although still noticeably cooler than usual, Yui could finally touch him without wincing. The band zipped in against his chest and pulsed through his upper body, his belly rising just a touch whenever the ventilator hissed oxygen into his lungs. There was no longer the wet sucking sound, which marked an improvement as well as his core body temp. At least his lungs were finally clear of water.

The minutes stretched on. He kept imagining Cohl in the dark, swallowed up by pitch black water, waiting for him. Drifting off. Laying dead on that platform for over half an hour. He checked the time marked on a nearby holo and flinched to see he'd been in cardiac arrest for an hour. His organs had been pumped and blood suffused for the latter half of that hour, and there hadn't been a sign of ventricular fibrillation, no improvement. Yui touched the cheek that finally had back some of its color. "Any change?" he asked as his voice cracked. "No change," announced the Medbay, "Patient is exhibiting a low level of brain activity, but no electrical activity in the heart. Temperature has risen another three points since last reading, and circulation to femoral and carotid seem to be unimpeded." Yui pressed down hard against Cohl's thigh and lower belly, squinting as he felt the pulse from the machine. "Yeah... Yeah blood is circulating. Push..." His chest felt too tight to speak and he pressed a bit harder into Cohl's femoral for the comfort of his pulse, even if it was one being forced on him. "Push another round of epi." It wasn't bound to be much help while his temp was still so low, but if he didn't do something, even just order something, he might break down completely. There had to be something he could do besides stand around like a jackass while machines jostled and pumped his body. Yui slid his hand under his Captain's neck, the other resting just above the thumper jamming down into his cracked sternum. He tried not to focus on the way his entire body seemed to pulse with each compression, or the way his throat flexed with each breath shoved into his lungs, unwilling to take up their own task.

"Surat," he whispered, invoking the name the illustrious Captain Cohl only ever trusted Yui with, "If you leave me alone in the middle of nowhere, I will never forgive you. If you-" His voice caught and he sagged over the rippling body, pressing his forehead to Cohl's cheek. He rubbed his hand gently over his clavicle as the thumper jabbed again and again at his heart. "Don't leave me," he pleaded in a quiet rasp, "Please... please, just come back." The warm saline had softened him again, raising his body temp enough he just seemed slightly cool to touch. Yui continued running his hand back and forth over the space just above the compression band as if in apology. It was, in a way. He hated doing all this to him. Every bit of it felt invasive and violent in a way he would never wish on the Captain he loved as dearly as anyone in his life. More than anyone, if he were honest with himself. Seeing his ribcage pulverized, his organs forced to function, the tubing and wires snaking from his body. One in his throat to make him breathe. One cycling saline through his kidneys. A catheter, also helping pump warm fluid through his system. He felt like he would break if he had to watch much longer, but knew he would never recover if he stopped the resuscitation efforts. He checked the temp gauge one more time. 90.9 glowed in red. A few more degrees and he would be in the normal range. Warm and dead. Yui shook his head, trying to clear it of that thought.

The code went on. The second in command had nothing to do, so he simply held Cohl's hand, trying to find comfort in the artificial pulse he could feel in his wrist. "Doctor Yui," the Medbay said after some time, though it was hard to tell just how long- he couldn't bring himself to look at the clock ticking down the seconds Cohl had been without a heartbeat. "Not a doctor," he sighed. "Noted. Commander Yui," the voice corrected. Suddenly the body went still. The automatic CPR stopped, and the heart monitor went from the rhythmic pip pip pip pip in time to the compressions to a long, flat whine. He sat bolt upright, jabbing at the controls. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded. The controls had locked. He slapped at the RESUME button, but it wouldn't obey. "Patient has suffered a total lack of cardiac activity for two hours." Yui's blood went cold to hear that. The Medbay went on, "Protocol dictates the attending physician calls time of death and ceases all resuscitation efforts." "Don't you dare fucking stop," he snapped, trying to shift the compression band out of the way. It held firm. Yui cursed under his breath and awkwardly stuck his hands between Cohl's chest and the machine, shoving as well as he could. The plunger got in the way of actually pumping his heart, but he got as close as he could with the intrusion. He looked up pleading at the health display. "Please don't stop, just- he's got a chance, he was in subzero for long enough to preserve-" "Patient has had a temperature of 98 degrees for the past twenty minutes with no electrical activity." Bile rose in his throat. Indeed the display which marked his temperature was in the green, and still he had laid unmoving on the gurney, without even fibrillation to suggest his heart might remember how to beat. "Just a little while longer," Yui gasped out, shoving against Cohl's heart. "He's gonna come back, alright? He has to." He clutched the sides of his face and shook him slightly. "Surat, just fucking breathe, please! One breath, come on!" The ventilator stuck out from between his teeth, but this too had been stopped. Yui pulled his mouth open enough he could get somewhat around it, pressing their lips together as he pushed a breath into his throat. "Protocol dictates-" "Override then!" he shouted, returning to the display, "Override security code, fuck... s-security code 226784, Yui H-" "Insufficient clearance."

The stupid thing was designed for this exact situation. A doctor who didn't want to admit defeat. Who would keep a patient's heart beating and their lungs inflating until the ship lost power, because he was too stubborn and stupid to know when enough was enough. A higher ranking crew member would be the one to have to make the call on whether it could continue. But on the Hawk, it was just the two of them. It was always just the two of them. And the only person who could tell the Medbay to keep it up was the one laying pulseless on the table. Yui shoved a hand through his hair, his breath quickening. "Goddamnit, override security code-" Cohl only ever used two or three passwords repeated through computer systems on the ship. It had always been a huge security risk, but he was glad of it now. He tried, "Code 011289!" Cohl's birthday. "Invalid." He tried his mother's birthday. "Invalid." He tried the anniversary date of the day Cohl had adopted his dog back on Earth. "Invalid." A sob stole Yui's voice for a moment as he collapsed against the bed. His mind raced, heart thudding as he tried to think of what else his Captain might use, his blood rushing almost too loud to think. He again cupped his face, searching his slack features like he might have some answer to give him. Then, as a last resort, he quietly murmured, "Override security code... code 122492." "Override accepted. Would you like me to continue resuscitation?" He shuddered. The big idiot had used his birthday for the Medbay's systems. "Yes," Yui sobbed, pressing their foreheads together. "How long should efforts continue if there's no change?" "As long as it takes. Keep going."

Again his body spasmed under the compression band, again air hissed into the ventilation tube. Yui's gaze flickered over the body in front of him. Naked in a nest of wires and tubes. Bruised black and blue where the mechanical thumper pistoned into his chest. He pulled a sheet over his lower half to preserve some kind of dignity, but there was no dignity in assaulting a corpse like this. But he couldn't give up. Even if, by now, it felt less like giving up on him and more like letting him rest after a long, drawn out fight for his life. Tears ran warm down his cheeks and he shuddered in a breath. There was nothing he could do but wait for the inevitable warning on the ship's power supply, when he'd be forced to stop or risk shutting down the whole place. Until then...

Yui crawled onto the gurney beside his Captain as the compression band mechanically seesawed his body, making his stomach bulge when it hit. He laid down at his side, laying his head against his shoulder, which jerked underneath him with each thrust. Cohl's arm hung limp at his side, and he took his wrist and folded the limb over himself like a blanket. Like the embrace he'd only ever stolen during those nights of drinking and revelry, when Cohl would pull him into his body and he'd feel his warmth and smell the dust of some adventure on him. He smelled like salt water now, and antiseptic. Still, he curled in against him, the ripples and pulses of the machines serving to lull him into a trance like state. Yui slid an arm around his stomach as the thumper forced it to bob up and down, closing his eyes in the warmth of the embrace, and pretending, at least for a little while, that everything was fine.

He stayed like that for an eternity, waiting for the system alarm that warned him the code was taking up too much energy. Just listening to the steady blip of the monitor and feeling the Medbay's work jostle his limp body around. Then, nearing the third and final hour of Cohl's cardiac arrest, the Medbay said, "Commander Yui, please do not touch the patient." He jumped slightly and sat up, still holding Cohl's arm around his shoulders. "W-What is it?" "I've detected ventricular fibrillation. Stand clear while I charge the defibrillation unit." He felt weak with relief, almost too weak to climb down off the bed. Part of him didn't want to either, he wanted to lay there with him forever, suspended in a moment where there might still be some glimmer of hope. But this was better, this was real hope, and he reluctantly laid Cohl's arm back against the bed, drawing away. Two sets of thin robotic limbs placed pads against his upper chest and flush against his ribs on the opposite side. "Charging to 200," announced the Medbay as the machine whined with electricity, "Stand clear." Cohl jerked up against the plunger pinning him down, his limbs contracting inward. Yui glanced at the monitor showing an inside view of his chest, able to watch as the muscle, fluttering and thrown into chaos, seized up with the shock. When the contraction passed, it again vibrated without rhythm or meaning. "Shock advised. Charging to 260. Stand clear." Cohl bucked again, fingers jerking into a fist for a moment before his body slid back into stillness. No change. The Medbay shocked him again, then again, and again, but his heart wouldn't obey. The display showed it jerk, tense up, then continue quivering. Or it would push out a few quick beats and return to its useless shaking. On the fifth shock, when Yui was nearly broken from his catatonic mania and about to tell the Medbay to at last stop, Cohl's body jumped particularly hard. Then his heart started beating.

The sudden stillness felt so wrong after hours of rhythmic spasming and jerking that for a moment, Yui thought something else had gone wrong. But something had gone right instead. Cohl was alive. The compression band slid back into the ports it had come from, leaving his battered chest at last. His sternum was sunken slightly where it had been beating at his heart for at least two and a half hours, and his dark skin was mottled with an ugly bruise that stretched over most of his chest, but Yui could see his pulse leaping at the apex and pounding in his throat. As if not trusting the most advanced med system on board, he fumbled for an old fashioned analog stethoscope amidst the supplies, pressing the bell to a few points on his chest. He heard the ventilator hiss, the air filling his lungs in a whoosh, and beneath that, at last, was his heartbeat. It sounded like a lame animal, still shaky on its feet as it occasionally stammered in half-beats. Lub-dub, lub-lublub- lub-dub, lub-d-dub. But it was there. He was there.

It would be a long time before he woke up, miraculously with minimal brain damage. It still took months for him to fully recover. Yui still carried the shame of the event with him for awhile after Cohl was well enough to captain the ship again. Any other patient subjected to everything he'd put him through might have been angry he didn't just call time. But the shame warred with the joy he felt to see him alive, and most of the time that won out. He confessed one night the full extent- told Cohl of curling up next to his body in his grief and the guilt he felt for what he'd done. But Cohl had just wrapped him up in his arms and kissed the top of his head. "I'm glad you didn't give up," he murmured against his hair. Yui closed his eyes, pressing his face against his chest hard to take comfort in the beat of his heart, and whispered, "Me too."

[marvelousels]

THE GRAVITY OF YOU

FIRST CONTACT | 1

authors note: currently obsessing over that one caitvi nasa fic, so i just decided to write a quick little something, lmk if yall want me to continue (probably no one)

pairings: caitlyn x vi 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

hello? by clairo (ft rejje snow) playing!

Vi had never been one for rules, which was why it was kind of hilarious that she now worked for an organization with "Aeronautics and Space Administration" in the title. NASA wasn’t exactly known for its leniency when it came to reckless behavior, but somehow, she’d landed a spot as a mission specialist. She blamed Vander. He always said she should put her energy toward something bigger than herself.

And space was pretty damn big.

But she wasn’t the only one who took this job seriously. Caitlyn Kiramman, lead flight director, was a stickler for protocol. She was precise, intelligent, and—to Vi’s eternal amusement—completely incapable of tolerating her disregard for rules.

The first time they met, Vi had been leaning back in a chair at orientation, arms crossed, smirking while the trainers droned on about safety regulations. She caught sight of Caitlyn, standing at the front of the room in her neatly pressed uniform, dark hair pulled into a sleek ponytail. Everything about her screamed discipline. The way she listed off procedures, her sharp blue eyes scanning the room, the way she carried herself like she could handle anything NASA threw at her.

Vi had made it her mission to make her crack.

“You look like you got the stickiest stick up your ass,” Vi had whispered during a break, sidling up next to Caitlyn at the coffee station. “Must be exhausting.”

Caitlyn had barely spared her a glance, stirring her coffee with infuriating patience. “And you look like you take nothing seriously. Must be dangerous.”

Vi had laughed. “Only for people who don’t trust me.”

That was months ago. Now, Vi was one of the best mission specialists NASA had, and Caitlyn—whether she liked it or not—had to work with her on almost every assignment. Their relationship had settled into something of a routine: Caitlyn scolded her, Vi teased her, and somehow, everything got done perfectly in the end.

But something was different about this mission.

This time, Vi wasn’t just another cog in the machine. She was set to be part of Piltover-9, an upcoming lunar mission that had everyone at NASA buzzing. And Caitlyn? She was the one leading Mission Control.

“Piltover-9, this is Mission Control. Status check.”

Caitlyn’s voice crackled through Vi’s headset, cool and professional as always.

Vi smirked, adjusting the panel in front of her. “Control, this is Vi. All systems are green, looking good.”

A pause. Then, a sigh. “For the last time, you need to use proper protocol.”

“You’re no fun, cupcake.”

“I have a job to do, and so do you,” Caitlyn shot back, irritation laced in the crisp accent Vi had grown to adore. “Now, confirm your final diagnostics before launch.”

Vi rolled her eyes but scanned the numbers anyway. Thrusters were good, oxygen levels optimal, everything running smooth. It was kind of a miracle, considering how fast she’d had to run pre-checks. Not that she’d admit it, but Caitlyn’s meticulous nature saved her ass more times than she could count.

“Diagnostics confirmed. We’re golden, Control.”

“…Thank you,” Caitlyn said, and Vi could practically hear her rolling her eyes.

“Don’t sound too happy about it, now.”

“I’m sure I’ll find a way to contain my enthusiasm,” Caitlyn deadpanned. “I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t improvise the checklist.”

“Come on, you know I like to keep you on your toes.”

“More like give me a premature heart attack.”

Vi chuckled, stretching in her seat. “If you wanted my attention so bad, sweetheart, you could’ve just asked.”

Caitlyn went silent for a moment, and Vi swore she could feel the exasperation through the comms. “I will personally ensure you remain on Earth for the rest of your career if you keep this up.”

“Oof, that’s cold. And here I thought we had something special.”

“Vi.”

“Yeah, yeah. Focusing.” Vi grinned, biting back another remark, and let the silence settle. The countdown had begun, and her heart pounded faster. Adrenaline surged, thrumming in her veins. Through the static and the distant, muted voices of mission control, Caitlyn’s voice was the only one that mattered.

Then, quieter, almost as if she didn’t want the others to hear—“Be safe up there, Vi.”

The words settled in Vi’s chest, warm despite the void she was about to plunge into.

She grinned, strapping in as the engines roared to life. “Always, cupcake. You better miss me.”

And then, with a force that stole the breath from her lungs, she was gone—propelled into the stars, Caitlyn’s voice still echoing in her ear.

[marlynnofmany]

At Home in the Mud

“Hey Wio, does your hover stool work over mud?” I asked from the door to the cockpit.

“Not deep mud,” Wio said, glancing at me with her tentacles at work on the controls. “The sensors feel for solid ground.”

“Dang.” I sighed. “Guess I’m stuck with cleaning the exo suit after this delivery.”

“Yeah, sorry,” she said. “There are fresh batteries for the gravity wands, at least. Shouldn’t take you too long.”

Zhee stalked past me, his many bug feet clicking in what was probably irritation. He didn’t say anything, and neither did I, at least until he was out of earshot in the direction of the cargo bay.

I whispered to Wio, “And at least I only have two legs to clean.”

“Good point,” she agreed. “Best of luck!”

I thanked her and headed off after Zhee to where the exo suits waited. He had a head start in getting his on, which he needed. I tried not to draw attention to how easily I tugged mine on over my regular clothes (minus the shoes). Zhee didn’t even take the opportunity to make fun of my need for footwear; he seemed determined to get this delivery over with as quickly as possible.

He said, “Be sure to hold on to the hoversled so you don’t fall and slow us down.”

“Sure thing,” I agreed. I’d planned to keep a solid grip anyway. Hopefully this mud wasn’t the foot-sucking kind.

The ship landed gently — or rather, arrived. There was no landing pad close enough to our client’s location, at least none above the mud at this time of year, so Wio held the ship just above the surface on stable thrusters. The ramp nearly touched the mud.

Captain Sunlight had come in to see us off, and she stood to the side as we hustled down the ramp. “Be quick but careful!” she told us.

Zhee replied, “That’s the plan.”

I freed a hand to wave, then grabbed the edge of our most reliable hoversled. I would have liked to ride on it next to the cases of medical supplies (low priority, not urgent, thankfully), but that wouldn’t have been fair to Zhee. So I did my share of pushing and stepped cautiously into the mud.

Whew, I thought. More watery than thick. I can walk in this. And it was cold, but the exo suit did a decent job of insulating for temperature. I took in the sights more confidently, appreciating the fuzzy moss on all the trees, and the intricate shapes that the bushes grew in. It didn’t quite look like an Earth swamp, but it didn’t look hostile, and that was all I could ask for, really.

Behind us, the ship closed the bay door and lifted up to a more comfortable height to wait. Zhee, with a better view of the screen on the front of the sled, pointed with a pincher arm. We changed direction slightly and trudged through the mud.

The depth changed a few times in quick succession, going from ankle deep to above the knee and back. I did my best to maintain a careful speed, though it was tricky since I couldn’t see the bottom. Zhee seemed to be doing fine. I held onto the sled and took long strides, feeling the way with one foot before trusting my weight to it. Thicker lumps and rocks lurked along the uneven ground. I focused on stepping between them without losing my balance, trusting Zhee to keep us on track.

“Scenic,” I commented to break the monotony of silence and my own breathing inside the helmet.

“Wet,” Zhee replied.

“Scenic and wet.” I glanced up at the mossy trees, then back down at the watery mud. Muddy water? Somewhere in between. “Not the easiest place to walk, though.”

“The captain could have chosen Blip and Blop for this delivery,” Zhee griped. “But no, they’re busy helping Eggskin prepare some complicated food.”

“And Paint wouldn’t be up for this temperature,” I said as I stepped into deeper water that chilled me to my thighs. “Or this depth, really.”

“Paint misses out on a lot of unpleasant environments. Lucky.”

I looked over at him across the pile of strapped-down cases. “Only because she’d pass out and die if she got too cold. I don’t know if I’d call that lucky.”

Zhee tapped an antenna against the inside of his helmet. “Bah. Today, she’s lucky to be coldblooded. We’re stuck with this instead.”

I mentally ran down the roster of our other crewmates. Some of them, like Wio, had other jobs to be doing. “I suppose Mur wouldn’t have an easy time in something this deep either.” I didn’t even know if he could swim. Looking like a squid didn’t necessarily translate.

“No one is likely to have an easy time in this,” Zhee said, shaking a foreleg and splattering watery mud across a tree trunk. “I can’t imagine why the client chose to live here.”

“Maybe they like mud,” I said, trying to watch my feet even though I couldn’t see them.

“They are welcome to it. I look forward to getting back to the ship.”

I was in agreement about that. The info summary about this location had said it was the wet season (Really? Shocking) and that the regular roadways were unavailable. I was under the impression that there was a town somewhere nearby, or at least other people than just the one, but all I could see was endless swamp.

With rocks and the occasional tree root just waiting to trip me. I focused on stepping carefully and trying not to slow our progress.

Concentrating as I was, I didn’t realize we’d arrived until Zhee tugged the sled to the side. I looked up to find the first dry ground I’d seen rising out of the mud into a walkway of flat paving stones. A round stone house perched at the top of the rise.

We slogged up to leave an interesting set of footprints along the walkway: my left/right muddy bootprints and Zhee’s collection of much smaller splats. With the hoversled between us, it looked like this house was getting two visitors interested in staying as far away from each other as possible, instead of a single delivery.

When we got close, a chorus of tiny squeaks started up. I located the source: a small cage hanging beside the door, which held a handful of cricket-sized whatevers. While Zhee found what passed for a doorbell, I took a surreptitious look. They were small and blobby, not mini near-cousins of his, which was definitely for the best.

“Delivery!” Zhee announced while a chime jangled.

Various bumps and a muffled voice sounded from inside, then our avian client opened the door eagerly. “Thank you for coming!” he said in the same trade language we were using, just with the distinct quackity overtones of his particular species. His dark feathers were flecked with white and he kept his arms folded as if they were wings. He said earnestly, “I hope it wasn’t too long of a walk.”

“It was fine,” Zhee said. “Would you like your packages unloaded right here?”

“Oh! Ahmm…” the ducky fellow looked indecisively between the stack of boxes, the paving stones, and the indoors.

I said, “We could carry them in for you, but we’d track in a bit of mud.” The sled was much too wide to fit through the door.

“That’s all right; I’ll move them,” he decided. “Out here is fine. Now where should I—? Yes, thank you.” He took the payment screen from Zhee and signed for the delivery while I undid the straps holding everything down. We didn’t always bother with those, but I was starting to think we should. If I’d managed to trip and knock a box into the mud, that would have been an embarrassing bad mark on our record.

While we unloaded the boxes, those little whatsits serenaded us with a fresh chorus of squeaky chirps. It reminded me of tame finches with just a touch of guinea pig. I wondered if this was the local version of a windchime or something else.

The client saw me staring and said, “My dear little Cozy went missing, and these are his favorite food. I’m hoping to lure him back. You haven’t seen him, have you? A young cuddlebeast about this big, with a white stripe on his head?” He held clawed hands a few inches apart.

“Sorry, no,” I said with a look at Zhee. “I didn’t see any beasts at all. Did you?”

“No,” Zhee agreed. “Just mud.”

The client ruffled his feathers in a way I didn’t know how to read; maybe he was embarrassed. “They did tell me he’s suited to living in this environment, and he might not return if I let him out, but I haven’t given up hope. My home is nice and warm, after all.”

“We’ll keep an eye out on the walk back,” I told him. “Does he come when he’s called?”

“He always did when he was inside the house,” the guy said. “Cozy! Cozyyy!” He waited for a moment, then looked down. “He loves his cuddles. I hope nothing bad has happened to him.”

Zhee set down the last box. “You’ve done what you can,” he assured the client, sounding like he might have even meant it.

“I suppose so.” The ducky guy looked sad for a moment, then rallied. “Well, thank you again! I don’t want to keep you. Safe travels!”

We bid him goodbye and headed back down into the mud, with me waving goodbye and Zhee trying to make good time. The client went back into his house and I focused on taking long strides again.

We went slightly to the side of the route we’d taken before. The mud was much lumpier here, with herds of round rocks that rolled around and made the footing treacherous. Despite my death grip on the sled, I was nearly swimming at a couple points in an effort to keep up. The muddy water was deep enough to swim in, but not consistently so, otherwise I might have given up and started paddling.

I had just decided to ask Zhee to slow down when I lost my footing completely and went under, holding my breath in panic before I remembered the exo suit covered my head. I got my feet under me by kicking lumps out of the way and I stood in the waist-high mud, wiping futilely at the dirty face mask.

Zhee sighed audibly and stopped walking. “Really?”

“It’s hard to find somewhere solid to step!” I exclaimed. “There are rocks and lumps of mud everywhere!” I scooped one up to prove my point, ending up with what looked like a potato. “Huh. That’s too light to be a rock. Tuber?”

“Fascinating,” Zhee said drily.

“It reminds me of an Earth food, but those don’t grow in swamps,” I said, giving it a closer look.

“Do not bring it back to the ship for eating,” Zhee said sternly.

“I wasn’t going to!” I protested.

“Good. It’s probably horribly smelly and liable to poison half the crew.”

I started to protest more, just on principle, then the potato opened an eye and I dropped it. “Ah!”

“What?”

“It’s a creature!” I shuffled in place, feeling more potato-like shapes bump against my ankles in the cold watery mud. “Are these all animals??”

“Ugh,” Zhee declared, lifting a couple exo suited legs out of the murk on his side of the hoversled. “What an unpleasant choice of environmental niches.”

I was thinking fast. “Wait, these could be like toads. It’s cold right now; maybe they’re hibernating. Hey, do you know what a ‘cuddlebeast’ actually looks like?”

“Not a clue. That’s your area of expertise.” Zhee gave me a look through the domes over his faceted eyes. “Do these things look especially cuddleable to you?”

“I don’t know, maybe.” I felt around gingerly for another one, hoping they didn’t have sharp teeth to use on people who interrupted their hibernation. “But that would explain why Cozy never came back, if he’s out here dozing with his distant family.”

“Well I’m sure he’s very happy if so,” Zhee said, stepping forward. “Let’s be off.”

“Wait, lemme try something first.” I put a hand on the sled as it eased past, but did my best impression of the squeaks that the food animals had made earlier. Cute little questioning sounds, like they were curious.

“If that didn’t work close to the house, it’s unlikely to work out here,” Zhee said. But he stopped again.

“It’s worth a shot,” I said. “Cozy! Cozyyy!” Then I squeaked some more.

“What a surprise; nothing. Now let’s—” Zhee flinched when something by his hind leg croaked.

“Cozy!” I said with a grin, ducking to look under the hoversled. “Here, boy!” Something potato-like with big eyes and a distinct pale swatch on the top was treading water in the murk.

Zhee stepped fastidiously to higher ground. “I can’t believe you found it.”

“Yup,” I said, testing my footing. “Now I just have to catch it.”

“As long as you keep your mud to yourself.”

“No promises,” I said, making the first lunge of many and only splashing a little.

~~~

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.

The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).

[obseshin]

Depressing Transformers shower thought - as if the nerdy whiteboy wasn't sad enough

In Transformers G1, Fire in the Sky, we are introduced to Skyfire, who has been frozen in the ice for thousands of years after crashing on Earth.

Now, on the surface there is nothing wrong with this episode, but if you start asking questions, things get depressing very quickly. I would like to begin by stating what we know.

- Skyfire crashed in his alt mode

- As far as I can remember, G1 Cybertronians are not affected by cold temperatures

- In G1, heavy injuries sustained in vehicle mode often cause a Cybertronian to become stuck in said vehicle mode

- Skyfire was found in his bot mode

Do you see where I am going with this? The clues all seem to point to the idea that Skyfire was conscious and had enough strength to change modes after his crash. Furthermore, we can pretty much rule out the idea of him going into stasis by freezing and rule out the idea of him succumbing to his wounds, because any wound severe enough to put him into stasis would likely also prevent him from transforming. What does this mean? He probably starved. Let me put this into a clear scene for you.

Disoriented by the harsh blizzard, Skyfire crashes. He has an injured wing, or maybe a broken thruster, and his coms have been knocked out. He can't fly and he can't call for help. He can probably hear Starscream's jet engines passing overhead as he searches for him, but Skyfire can't do anything to contact him. Days pass and his fuel levels drop. At some point, he realizes that nobody is coming to save him. He slowly loses power and falls into stasis lock, not to awaken for several thousand years.

Please note that this is all coming from memory, and based solely on the G1 cartoon.

I am probably wrong... but that's just a theory.

[revelboo]

hey. you know that one meme where planktons standing in front of a board giving a speech? something soemthign that next psa megatron makes but it gets hacked or whatever. in light of 'everything is alright's update <333 HJGDSKGMDSGDS--

Poor guy has no idea what’s coming for him

Everything Is Alright Pt 101

IDW Starscream x Reader, Soundwave x Reader, Megatron x Reader

• Say something. Anything. Feels you begin to tremble against him as you stare at Starscream and Soundwave curls an arm around you, anger simmering through him and growing with every moment of silence. Knows the Seeker views the world through a lens of how it affects him, but he also knows that you need Starscream to at least pretend to be glad about this. To say something and not just stare at you like that with no expression whatsoever.

• “You’re mistaken,” he rasps, dragging his optics away from the sight of you in Soundwave’s lap and those eyes he gets lost so easily in. A new cruelty, a new ploy to get a noose around his throat. Because sparking you is impossible. As impossible as bonding you and he’d seen how that had went. Servos flexing and spark aching when you make a soft sound. “You’re lying.” Denta bared, his servos curl under into fists, because it must be a lie. Dangling something he can’t have right in front of him. And he won’t fall for it, won’t be manipulated or tricked.

• “Star?” Voice small against the fury in his voice, you don’t resist when Soundwave’s servos shift against the back of your head, keeping you pressed close as his other arm curls around you. His hold protective. But Star’s not a threat. He’s just upset. Angry. Turning your head to see him, your words fall away. Because you’ve seen him look at you like that before when you’d first been taken, all cold calculation and it prickles through you. A whisper of uncertain fear even though you trust him. Love him.

• Curling himself around you as your emotions grow chaotic and needle into him, he wants to grab the Seeker by the neck and shake some sense into him. Because that empty lack of a reaction is hurting you and before he can separate you from him to make good on the impulse, the Seeker is mass displacing and walking away. Running away from dealing with what he’s done. He can’t possibly be that selfish. That cold, but Soundwave feels you press your face against his neck, shoulders shaking. “I’m here,” he says, catching your chin and tipping it up so he can brush his mouth against yours as you cry. “I’ll always be here.”

• Not running, but striding through the halls, wings drawn tight to his frame as panic claws at him. Just needing to get away. Escape, because it hurts. Transforming, thrusters screaming, barely aware of other Decepticons ducking out of his way as he flies through the halls. How own furious howls lost to the scream of his engines. Because this blow he wasn’t expecting, hadn’t even dared to entertain. Had let his defenses down and Soundwave had struck out to hurt him. Or at least he didn’t think he had wanted it, wanted a sparkling, but to use it to hurt him? Like a cruel joke?

• Denta bared as Megatron pushes away from the wall and his servos flex watching the fleeing Seeker, he’s tempted to fire at him in retaliation. But what’s sent Starscream running like that? Venting tiredly, he’s almost certain the answer will be you. A lover’s spat maybe? Amused now, he heads toward the Seeker’s quarters and lets himself in, fully intending to toy with you, see that anger of yours flare. And stopping short at finding you in Soundwave’s lap, making a noise of such pain that his own spark aches. “What did that idiot do?” He growls tiredly as Soundwave lifts his head, his old friend stiffening.

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Nevermind about not opening the limited editions… gold Megs and Sounders to go with Star