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milenadaniels · 4 years ago

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Actually, Truly, 14k - Buck/Eddie, Helena POV, post-s4 (AO3)

Isabel calls to tell them Eddie's been shot on a Thursday afternoon and by lunch on Friday Helena and Ramon are landing at LAX. When they land, they learn Eddie's already home recovering and has been for two weeks.

----

Or, Helena (and Ramon) tries to find a way back into Eddie's life and doesn't know what to make of finding Buck around every corner she turns.

Isabel calls on a Thursday afternoon and by lunch on Friday Helena and Ramon are landing at LAX. Their son’s been shot, again, in the line of duty. But this time, instead of being thousands of miles away and out of reach, he’s just a short plane ride away.

Isabel insists they come to her house before going to the hospital but she doesn’t blame COVID protocols for keeping them away from the hospital, so they spend the car ride over imagining the worst.

A complication with surgery.

Permanent damage.

A coma.

The news they receive is that Eddie’s fine, and he’s been home and recuperating for two weeks already.

Helena retreats to the living room while Ramon and his mother fight in the kitchen. They’re yelling in Spanish and for once she wishes she’d never learned.

“Escúchame, Ramon,” Isabel tries to interrupt. Listen to me.

The yelling continues because Ramon doesn’t listen. It’s not his strong suit. Nor is it Helena’s.

Helena paces the length of the living room and holds her phone in her hands, thumb over Eddie’s name in FaceTime, not pressing down.

Eddie’s been home for two weeks.

Isabel hadn’t told them for two weeks.

But Eddie hadn’t either.

They hadn’t seen him in person in nearly two years, and he hadn’t called them since their last fight over a month ago.

Still, Eddie was shot in the streets by a sniper and he didn’t call them.

Mom, listen...

The last time they spoke, it was a phone call, not a video chat, maybe because at that point just the sight of each others’ faces was enough to set them all off. In that phone call, Eddie spoke of a friend whose family was somehow worse off than their own, but who, miraculously, were finally making the effort to fix the broken ties between them in therapy.

“Mom, listen… I spent a long time being angry with Shannon instead of trying to reach out to her and now Christopher is never going to have her in his life again. I don’t want that with you,” Eddie said, his voice brusque but calm, measured. “I don’t want to grin and bear it when you call or when we visit. I want to be glad to pick up the phone, I want to be excited to see you all at Christmas, I want you to be part of our lives. But I can’t do that without you meeting me halfway.” He was resolute, but he was pleading too. “I don’t want to spend the next ten years of our lives like this.”

But the idea of therapy was anathema to the Diaz family and it took only Ramon’s dismissive scoff to reinforce her own distaste of the idea. They called Eddie back to say they had no intention of paying a stranger to tell them everything was their fault and he was blameless.

They didn’t get another call after that.

“— my son!” Ramon yells at Isabel in the kitchen.

“Because, mijo, when you come here, you don’t see your son! You don’t see him living here, growing, Christopher thriving! You don’t see how when you come up here you bring sadness and misery when you should bring joy and comfort.” The words are too close to what Eddie said for them not to have spoken about it together. “By the time I knew he was hurt, he was already out of surgery and doing well. If he wasn’t, I would have called immediately.”

“Oh bueno, so you’ll tell me my son is dying but not that he’s okay?”

“Ramon! Escúchame.” It’s not often that Helena gets to bear witness to the steel in Isabel’s voice, the one she passed down to both her kids. It’s in fine form today. “He was doing well, and had all the help he needed. As soon as things stabilized, I called you. Keep acting like a fool and see if I call you at all next time.”

“If you call? Are you —”

Mom, listen…

“Ramon!” Helena snaps, surprising them all.

“Ramon,” she repeats, more calmly this time. “Listen to her.”

The shock on Isabel’s face almost makes her smile, but her heart is too heavy to commit to it.

“Helena, two weeks she —”

“Our son was shot, and he didn’t tell us.” Helena says, her voice trembling. “Our son was shot, he could have died, and the last thing we would have told him is we weren’t willing to fight for him and Christopher. Weren’t willing to — what? — put our egos aside? Our pride? For one fucking minute to listen to him. To listen to what he needed.”

Ramon’s eyes widen and he hangs his head with a sigh.

Helena faces Isabel, her phone tucked in her palm against her stomach.

“What can we do? We’re listening.”

——————-

Ramon walks it off and Helena helps Isabel in the kitchen in exchange for a promise they’ll go over to Eddie’s for supper. She’s been making care packages for Eddie and Christopher since the shooting, and she’s working on a pasta sauce while Helena starts on her famous banana brown sugar bread — Eddie’s favourite.

“How is he, really?” she asks once her dish is tucked into the oven.

“As well as can be expected,” Isabel replies, throwing spices into the pot with an ease Helena never grew into. “He was tired for the first few days, but now it’s like a broken arm. Uncomfortable but not so painful.”

“How long is it supposed to take to heal?”

Isabel casts a suspicious eye her way as if she can anticipate the date of Helena’s return flight adjusting already, but answers, “they say 6 to 8 weeks. It’s for the bone to heal, mostly, in his back. The rest should be sooner.”

Helena broke her wrist years ago, when the kids were nearly teenagers, and it was three months of hell trying to manage a household one handed while Ramon spent most of that time travelling across Texas.

Who’s helping him? Is Carla back in the picture? Is she working overtime? How can he afford that on sick leave? Is Pepa or one of the cousins going over? Is his girlfriend there? Who’s helping with Christopher? How is he managing?

The questions — all genuine and well-meaning, all a shade too accusatory — are on her tongue, pressed to the back of her teeth to keep from escaping. She’s entitled to answers, even if she doesn’t like them. She knows she has the right to at least know how her son is caring for himself and her grandson while he’s injured. If he’d told them when it happened Helena could have been here in a heartbeat to help, but no, Eddie’s just as stubborn as they are, just as prideful. He’d rather suffer alone than accept their help. Fine. But she’s still his mother, and Christopher’s grandmother. She raised them both. She has a right to—

Mom, listen…

Helena takes a deep breath in, anchors herself in the mixed scents of the rich sauce and the sweet bread cooking, and breathes out. Isabel sends her another look but says nothing.

————-

Helena cries when she sees Eddie, and cries a bit harder when she sees the apprehension in his eyes. Her baby boy looks a bit pale, but he’s standing on his own two feet and answering the door himself.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmurs, wrapping him gently into her arms, mindful not to press into the sling or his back.

“Hi, mom,” he says quietly, like he’s trying to gentle the stiffness in his voice.

She releases him, but not before pressing three kisses into his temple, always three. One for each of her kids.

Ramon steps into the space she leaves when she continues into the house and from the corner of her eye, she sees him cup the back of Eddie’s head and take a good look at him. For Ramon, it’s the equivalent of collapsing to the floor in tears.

Helena quickly toes off her boots and makes room at the entrance for the others behind her, which also puts her first in line to catch a sight that nearly knocks her down.

“Who is this young man I see?” she cries, throwing her hands wide to gesture at her grandson. “Last I saw you, you were just a little tyke. Now look at you, you must have grown three feet!”

Christopher giggles and Helena smiles in return as she folds him into her arms, but it’s forced. She’s not lying — he’s grown so much more than she expected. She hasn’t seen him in person since Eddie’s graduation and while video chats are priceless, they didn’t capture this growth spurt.

She can’t believe she let this happen. That she went from spending most of everyday with this little boy and now she’s missed out on two years of his life. Can’t believe Eddie kept him fro—

Mom, listen...

Supper goes well enough. Eddie never truly shakes loose the tension in his shoulders; he trades many looks with Isabel, seemingly spooked by his parents’ behaviour. He talks a lot more than he usually does, probably out of nervousness. But overall, they let Christopher take the reigns; they’re all more comfortable with that. It’s been too long since they’ve last spoken and Christopher is full of stories about his school and his friends.

“Buck says we can go to the Griffin soon. It was closed because of COVID. But before, I went with my class and they made a comet right in front of us!”

Buck. It’s the third time his name has been dropped at the table since they sat down.

She first met him, briefly, at Eddie’s graduation, but didn’t really register him as someone in her son’s life until Eddie and his crew stopped off in El Paso for dinner on their way home from fighting Texas wildfires. Buck had been cropping up in Christopher’s and Eddie’s stories for months by then and she was curious to properly meet him in person. He had seemed...young, she remembers.

“The Griffith Observatory,” Eddie corrects fondly. With Christopher, at least, it’s impossible for him not to soften.

Eddie’s only eaten half the pasta on his plate but Isabel seems satisfied. Helena bites down on the impulse to encourage him to eat more. To remind him he needs his strength to heal quickly for his little boy. She does lift the basket of garlic bread in his direction, because she can’t help herself. He eyes the basket warily as though he expects her to do more, but when she doesn’t, he shakes his head with a small smile of thanks.

“Yeah,” Christopher agrees, “it was cool but we didn’t get to stay long enough to see everything. And if we go later, Buck says we can see real meteors in the sky.”

Fourth mention.

“Christopher is on an astronomy kick,” Eddie adds redundantly.

“Wait, I gotta show you —” Christopher is sliding out of his seat before anyone can stop him and racing down the hall to his bedroom.

“Oh, honey —” Helena grips the arms of her chair out of reflex to jump up and help him — he doesn’t have his crutches, he’s only using the wall for support and he’s wearing socks — but Eddie looks over when her chair creaks.

He can’t really expect her to just sit here while Christopher—

Mom, listen…

They can hear Christopher make it to his bedroom without injury, so Helena slowly settles back in her chair and Ramon clears his throat. “He seems...okay. More okay than I would have expected.”

Eddie keeps his eyes on his father for a beat too long, assessing the comment for any hidden messages.

“He’s a resilient kid. Buck stayed here with him while I was in the hospital, so his routine wouldn’t get messed up. I think that helped a lot.”

Fifth ment— wait.

“Buck stayed with him?” The words — the tone — are out of her mouth before Helena can stop them.

On the shortlist of people she expected to hear stayed with her grandson to watch him and care for him, alone, while his father was in the hospital — Isabel, Pepa, Carla, or even Ana — Buck’s isn’t a name she expected to hear. A coworker — an unrelated man with no children of his own, over Christopher’s family? Over Christopher’s own aide? Over a schoolteacher?

Eddie’s jaw squares up and he sits up in his chair. Like light gray rain clouds suddenly turning dark, weighty with an incoming storm, a heavy tension builds in the air between them.

“Look!” Christopher exclaims as he rounds the corner, nearly throwing a thin, blue hardcover book on the table. Eddie catches it before it can slam into Christopher’s leftover pasta and sets it down on the table for him. “It shows all the things we can see in the sky over the whole year!”

Christopher climbs back into his chair and opens the book up to a random page, describing everything he seems to have nearly memorized already. By the time he reaches the upcoming meteor shower, the tension at the table has dissipated enough for Helena to excuse herself to the bathroom and not have it come off like a passive aggressive storm-off.

She washes her hands with soap pumped out of a fish-shaped dispenser that wasn’t here the last time she visited and trains her eyes on the basket of gauze, scissors and tape tucked away on the shelf above the toilet. That wasn’t there last time either.

Her baby boy was shot by a sniper. In LA.

A bullet tore through the body she created and almost took her son from her forever.

Mom, listen...

But only after she’d almost pushed him so far away he might never come back.

The tears well up again and she sniffs through them, blinking up at the ceiling until she’s back under control.

As she pivots to turn the light off, she spies a purple toothbrush resting on the ledge just above the sink. The other two toothbrushes are electric — one adult-, one child-sized — and stand on the counter.

—————-

Helena and Ramon meet the infamous Ana by accident.

When they leave Eddie’s house on Friday, Helena sends a text message to say what she couldn’t manage to say to his face — that they’re here for him, in whatever capacity he needs, that they’ll take their cues from him, even if that means giving him some space.

To that, she receives a, Thank you.

When she asks for the contact information of the therapist he had scoped out for them, she gets a phone call.

“Not to look a gift horse in the mouth,” her son says, “but are you just doing this because I got shot?”

“Honestly? Yeah,” she laughs mirthlessly. “I’m sorry to say it took our baby boy nearly dying to get our heads out of our ass.”

Eddie huffs a laugh on his end. “Well, I’ll take that silver lining.”

After that, Eddie invites them to a restaurant for brunch on Sunday, but when they reach his doorstep, they find it already occupied by a woman who’s just rung the doorbell, holding a casserole dish in her hands.

When the door opens, Eddie takes in the three of them, his eyes wide and apprehensive.

“Ana, I wasn’t expecting you,” he says, his eyes darting over her shoulder to his parents. He’s smiling, though there’s a clear strain in the corners of his eyes and mouth. They’ve been critical about Shannon for so long — and with good reason, nothing will change Helena’s mind on that — no doubt he’s expecting them to hate this new woman on sight.

“You’re Ana!” Helena exclaims with a wide smile, imbuing her voice with as much welcome as she’s capable. “Hi! It’s so good to finally meet you!”

When Eddie releases the breath he was holding, she knows she was on the mark. Ramon follows her lead and invites Ana to brunch with them on the spot and won’t hear her protests about intruding.

Eddie, of course, doesn’t protest at all but invites them in so Ana can store the casserole in the fridge — it takes both Ana and Helena’s organizational skills to find a spot for it among Isabel’s and Eddie’s tupperwares already invading all available space — and he can finish getting ready. He was already dressed in a nice polo and jeans but when he comes back from his bedroom it’s in a smart button-down he must have struggled with out of sheer stubbornness. Both his parents and his girlfriend are in the house and still he didn’t ask for help.

Eddie and Christopher decide to hop into Ana’s car and Helena asks loudly for directions to keep Ramon from insisting they should all ride together.

“So how long have you kids been seeing each other now?” Ramon asks when they’ve been seated at the restaurant.

“Nearly 7 months now, I think, isn’t it?” Ana replies, looking at Eddie with a dazzling smile — she truly is gorgeous. Eddie was still talking to them when he started dating her so they know she’s a schoolteacher turned vice principal but to meet her in person blows all their other expectations out of the water. She’s lively and sweet, patient and understanding, Latina — a big plus in Ramon’s books ironically. Eddie picked well this time.

Eddie hesitates a moment and nods. “Yeah, that sounds right.”

Every now and again, he squirms in his chair, like he can’t quite settle in and Helena wonders when his last painkiller was taken. But when he catches her face, she smoothes her worry out into a cheeky smile that says I like this one. He smiles back and there’s nothing she can pinpoint exactly but something about it makes her uneasy.

Eddie’s too quiet as they wait for their food, his face pinched, and just when Helena’s about to break, Ana does her the favour of asking gently, “Are you feeling okay? Do you need to take anything for your arm?”

But Eddie shrugs off her concern. “No, thank you. Next one isn’t until noon.” He taps his phone twice and she smiles.

“Sorry, I forgot. He’s got them all on timers with a special ringtone. He’s so organized,” she tells Helena and Ramon with a sunny smile, rubbing her hand down his good arm. “I have one multivitamin and I forget to take it half the time.”

“Buck set it up,” Eddie defers, and Helena schools her face not to react; even at brunch Buck is with them in spirit.

Ramon either takes no issue with the mention or doesn’t register it. He takes the opportunity to share how his new pharmacy pre-packages his heart and arthritis medications into AM and PM slots and Ana listens attentively. Eddie’s fingertip taps absently against the phone case until their food arrives.

Christopher ordered a waffle, and with Eddie indisposed, Helena is already moving to help him when Ana beats her to the punch again. Helena tucks a smile away as Ana leans over and starts cutting the waffle up into smaller pieces.

“He can do that,” Eddie says when he notices Christopher sitting back in his chair, realizing only when Ana startles that his tone is sharp. His voice is softer when he follows up with, “Right, buddy?”

“Yeah,” Chris agrees, picking up his own cutlery with enthusiasm despite his hands being nearly too small for them.

Eddie throws an apologetic grin Ana’s way and brunch continues peacefully, though the stiff line of Eddie’s shoulder never does quite soften.

Mom, listen…

————-

Their first therapy session takes place in Isabel’s kitchen at Eddie’s request. Isabel thinks it’s so he has the option of leaving when he needs to (in other words, when he gets fed up and runs) but Helena hasn’t missed how Eddie has been careful to keep them away from his home since the first day they saw him.

They’ve seen Eddie and Chris numerous times in the week and change they’ve been in LA — more than they’ve seen them since they left El Paso — but always outside of the house. Sometimes they pick Chris up from school, sometimes Eddie and Chris come to Isabel’s for supper, sometimes they go out to restaurants or other outings, but they haven’t been invited back to his home again. She wanted to believe it was because he was hiding the news that Ana had moved in but that’s been shot out of the water both by her ringing the doorbell and an errant comment at the end of brunch about how she hadn’t seen him since the welcome home party.

So it’s out of pettiness, then. Stubbornness. Out of pig-headed inability to accept that he needs help and willingness to believe that they’re making an effort to meet him on his own terms.

She tries not to let it rankle her, tries to find some of that resolute commitment to letting things be and not push. But the next thing she knows, she’s yelling about it to a stranger at Isabel’s island counter.

To be fair, the session with Dr. Jamieson wasn’t going great to begin with. It’s awkward as hell, the three of them balancing on stools, squished in next to each other to try to fit into the screen, but also trying to keep the laptop close enough to still hear her and not have to shout. It’s happening while Chris is at school so they don’t have to worry about keeping him distracted but they can’t exactly ask Isabel to go wait in the LA sun for an hour so she doesn’t overhear, so it’s basically a given that she’s the fourth person on this virtual couch from the next room over.

And beyond that, Helena has kept her mouth shut for over a week which is frankly more time than anyone would have bet on, including herself, and given the opportunity to express herself freely...well…

“You want space? We’ve given you nothing but space since we got here. How much more can we give you, Eddie? You’re hundreds of miles away from us already. Forgive us for feeling the need to check in on our only son who almost died last week,” she yells, her hand nearly colliding with her coffee mug as she gestures.

“Last week?” Ramon echoes with a bark of dark laughter.

“Oh, no, that’s right,” Helena picks up. “I’m sorry! Not a week ago! Nearly a month ago! Because apparently we don’t warrant even a text when our only son almost dies, but that’s not enough space?”

Eddie rakes his fingers aggressively through his hair, his lips pursed.

“We have to move to Mexico,” Ramon continues blithely. “Is that enough space? No, better yet! Sweden! Your family still lives out there, no? We can live on their farm. Completely different timezone, we won’t even be reachable.”

“Yeah,” Eddie bites back, a sour grin blooming on his face, “that’s what I want. I ask you to give me some breathing room — to respect me, my life — and you translate that into living in a fucking commune in Sweden. And you wonder why we’re in therapy. I can’t talk to you, you don’t listen!”

Mom, lis—

“Listen to what, Eddie?” Helena yells, getting out of her seat to pace. “Listen to the months of silence you’ve sent our way? Because we either get on board and blindly cheer on every mess you get yourself into or we don’t get to know you anymore? Don’t get to know our grandson?”

“I never kept him from you — you have our number, the phone didn’t ring. That’s not on me.”

“Because you would have picked up?” Ramon exclaims, pushing away from the island to better look back at their son. “Easy to claim when it’s after the fact in front of the doctor.”

“So now I’m a liar! You raised a liar?”

“I think we’ve gotten off-track,” Dr. Jamieson’s tinny voice interjects from the laptop.

In the bottom right hand corner of the screen, only Eddie remains in the frame.

————

Firehouse 118 was a lively crowd at Eddie’s graduation but it’s nothing compared to the party thrown at the Grant-Nash house in honour of a new probationary firefighter.

Dr. Jamieson pointed out the self-fulfilling prophecy that Eddie protecting himself from criticism and pressure by withholding details about his life in LA was leading to his parents’ growing insecurity over not knowing anything about their son and feeling the need to intervene more and more.

The solution? Let them in on his life and trust that they could hold themselves in check.

For that, even Ramon was in agreement that maybe therapy wasn’t a load of shit after all.

So here they find themselves welcomed into this beautiful and loud home nearly three weeks into their stay in LA. They were allowed to pick Eddie and Chris up so they arrive together but Christopher peels off immediately to find kids his own age.

It’s impossible not to feel the warmth of family radiating from every inch of the home so when Eddie’s shoulders seem to loosen a little as they walk in, Helena can’t find it in herself to begrudge him.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” a woman around Helena’s age drawls, crowding into Eddie’s space for a delicate hug he doesn’t hesitate to return. “Though I could have done without seeing another one of these for a few hundred more years,” she says, gesturing to the sling. “How much longer?”

“Another month if everything checks out,” Eddie says, releasing a sigh.

“It better,” she warns with a twinkle in her eye that says if she learns he’s been aggravating his injury there will be hell to pay.

The woman, they find out, is Athena Grant-Nash, wife of the 118’s captain and consummate host. While Eddie splits off “for a minute”, she leads them to the main area for drinks and introductions before leaving them to mingle. Captain Nash — Bobby — meets them with appetizers and introduces them to the Lees, the de-facto parental figures of the young man who just joined the team.

From the spot she claims at the edge of the dining room, Helena keeps an eye trained on Eddie outside. She feels an itch under her skin knowing it’s been nearly twenty minutes and Eddie hasn’t checked on Christopher, but she knows she shouldn’t go herself. Eddie can do everything on his own, right? He can look after his own kid at a party.

She can, however, go to the washroom and take a peek at what Christopher’s up to while she’s wandering, and that’s exactly what she intends to do.

But for now, she watches as Eddie criss-crosses through the crowds of the patio, prompting a localized burst of cheers at each stop as he reunites himself with teammates he hasn’t seen since the shooting. She recognizes the woman who was on the trip to Texas but the rest conjure only the vaguest memories of Eddie’s graduation and the occasional picture on Instagram — before he stopped posting that is. Just one more way they’ve been iced out.

But he seems happy, almost carefree in a way she realizes she hasn’t seen with her own eyes in...longer than this trip, actually.

Probably years, if she’s honest.

And it occurs to her, slowly, creepingly, that her son is outside, smiling freely and easily, surrounded by people he’s made his new family, while Helena stands inside watching his life through a glass window in a stranger’s house.

Mom, listen…

She swallows past the lump in her throat and sighs. Ramon’s arm comes around her waist and without looking at him, she knows he’s had a similar revelation.

Their next therapy session is in a few days, and they’re not going to fuck it up again.

There’s a late arrival to the party, one of the only people in Eddie’s life she can recognize — Buck. He’s as tall as she remembered but he looks a shade less young now maybe. He greets everyone with a hug or kiss on the cheek as he moves through the party, and bestows a cheer and an enthusiastic hug on Albert, the guest of honour.

When he moves on to the patio and approaches Eddie’s circle, however, the cheerful, long-awaited reunion of best friends she expects doesn’t happen. They catch each other’s eyes for a few beats and share a welcoming smile, then the conversation resumes as if nothing of consequence has happened. Buck doesn’t even linger long, heading back into the house after a few minutes.

When the cake starts being doled out, Eddie returns to meet them at the table and accepts the plate Helena offers him. Helena is scouting the yard for a chair he can sit on to eat when Buck reappears.

“He couldn’t be pulled away?” Eddie asks in surprise.

“Nope,” Buck replies with a grin before turning to them. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Diaz. Good to see you again!” Before they can return more than a smile, Buck continues, “he’s cheating at Unicorn Temple with Harry. Not even cake can pull him away.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and smiles. “My son is not a cheater.” To them, he says, “Buck thinks that whenever he’s losing at a video game, it’s because his opponent is cheating.”

“Not always! Just when they are,” he replies with exaggerated emphasis before scooping a piece of cake onto a plate. “I’m gonna go hide this in the fridge for him for later before it’s all gone.”

Eddie ducks his head and smiles down at his plate, and the questions are building up behind Helena’s teeth again.

Christopher’s been playing video games all this time? Is it an age-appropriate game? Why is Buck checking on your son? Why is Buck saving him cake when nobody asked him to? Why—

But Eddie looks up with an uncertain expression and says, “there’s a table out there if you guys want to join me.”

So Helena stows her questions and says, “that’d be great.”

They eat the overly-sweet cake in peaceful silence until Ramon casts an eye around and says, “you must be glad about the new firefighter. You won’t be the baby on the team anymore.”

Eddie snorts. “I’m 33 and my kid is nearly a teenager — and that’s totally not freaking me out at all,” he adds wryly. “Besides, I was never the baby of the team. Buck is younger than me and forever a kid at heart so I was never in any danger of it.”

“Oh god, don’t remind me that Christopher’s growing up,” Helena only half-jokes. “I can still barely believe he’s old enough to hold his own head up.”

Eddie huffs a laugh and Helena banks it as a win.

“Do any of your coworkers have teenagers?” Ramon asks. “Might have some words of wisdom to share.” Since you won’t ask us, is unspoken and politely ignored by all.

“Athena’s daughter May is just leaving the teen years now, but after her, Christopher’s the oldest. Harry, Athena’s son is 9 and Denny, Hen and Karen’s son just turned 8. It’s great for play dates but not for getting advice on what’s coming up unfortunately.”

“Karen,” Ramon echoes.

Eddie’s fork pauses on its way to scoop some excess icing off his cake and his back straightens.

“Hen’s wife,” he says curtly, daring.

Helena wants to roll her eyes at the posturing. It’s 2021, who cares who anybody loves. She knows Ramon doesn’t, not really, not anymore. It’s a 50-year-long reflex to make a comment, one they’ve been working, if only to have some semblance of a civil conversation with Sophia while she works through a degree in women and gender studies.

But she knows that excuse isn’t going to fly with Eddie.

It hasn’t flown since Eddie was 20 years old and realizing he’d lost a good friend to his father’s caustic words. And Helena can’t ever go back and examine the hurt in Eddie’s expression with fresh eyes. Shemanages to forget about it most of the time until something happens to dig it out of the cold, hard ground and shove it in her arms.

Mom, listen...

But she’s come to LA because she wants to be in her son’s life, in her grandson’s life and she can’t be a coward now.

“They’re a gorgeous couple,” she says, almost too loudly in her enthusiasm. “Are they thinking of having more kids?”

Eddie turns his assessing eyes to her and is mollified by her effort. “Yeah, they’re foster parents now. They’ve fostered three kids so far.”

“That’s great,” she says sincerely. Then, accidentally on purpose and only in part to bring Ramon back to a safe topic, she asks, “Does Ana want a large family?”

Eddie sees through her attempt, but nods. “Yeah, she loves kids.”

Helena doesn’t miss Ramon’s approving nod, or the dark look that passes over Eddie’s eyes when he catches it.

“Was Ana not able to come tonight?” Ramon asks.

“I didn’t ask her,” he answers, his voice a shade too casual. “This is more of a team thing.” As if they hadn’t just been discussing the other families all around them.

“That Ana—” Ramon begins but is interrupted by the arrival of Christopher with a hint of blue icing on his nose and Buck following behind him with two paper plates filled with cake.

Christopher sits backwards on the picnic table bench and uses his arms to lift his legs over while Eddie watches but doesn’t offer to help, and when Christopher is set, Buck places one of the plates in front of him with a plastic fork stuck in the top like a flag.

“Buck was finally able to pull you away, mijo?” Eddie asks as Christopher digs in.

“No, May took her room back so we can’t play on her tv anymore. Harry’s gonna ask his mom if we can play in her room.”

“Yeah...” Buck draws out, sharing a dubious expression with Eddie over Christopher’s head, “I wouldn’t hold out for that, bud.”

“Maybe you can teach the others how to play Scrabble!” Eddie suggests.

Christopher’s nose wrinkles, “Scrabble is boring.”

“Hey!” Buck protests and takes a forkful of Christopher’s cake in retaliation, which prompts Christopher to yell and attack Buck’s cake back, taking much more than a forkful.

The commotion draws attention to their table and Helena’s gearing up to tell Christopher to settle down when she catches Eddie’s eyes on her, waiting.

Helena looks back out to the backyard to say, People are staring.

Eddie looks back impassively as if to say, Let them.

Mom, listen...

Helena swallows her impatience, her anxiety, her embarrassment.

“Hey,” Buck calls, his mouth half full of icing, “did you take your 6?”

Eddie hesitates and that’s enough for Buck to swallow and look put out, already turning and lifting a leg out of the confines of the picnic table.

“Did you turn off your alarm again?”

“I didn’t turn it off the first time, I don’t know what happened.”

“What happened is it woke you up at 6am and you turned it off because sleepy Eddie makes bad life choices.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “You don’t have —”

“Right pocket?” Buck interjects, already walking away.

“Yeah,” Eddie sighs.

Christopher looks at him and shakes his head with exaggerated disappointment.

“Don’t you start,” Eddie warns, scooping a fingertip of icing and dabbing it on his son’s nose too quickly for him to duck.

Christopher shrieks and reaches for his cake fingers-first.

“Oh no, no,” Eddie laughs, catching Christopher’s fingers with one hand. “Truce, truce.”

Christopher doesn’t look interested in a truce and Eddie’s other arm is in a sling, so Ramon quickly pulls the cake out of Christopher’s reach, and then Buck’s abandoned piece and Helena does the same with Eddie’s.

“Not fair!” Christopher cries, still reaching.

“Your dad’s hurt, mijo, you can’t attack him with icing while he’s healing,” Ramon says reasonably. “Wait till he’s all better.”

“He’s fine!” Christopher declares with the confidence of a trauma surgeon as he tries to climb up on the bench.

Eddie’s not in a position to pull him back down and Helena doesn’t know how far they can take their non-interference but she’s not about to let her grandson hop over a table to fall into three plates of cake. She’s half-decided she’s going to pick up the cake and walk it back inside when Buck returns, depositing a glass of water on the table and a small white pill into Eddie’s palm before swooping in and tickling Christopher’s sides.

He shrieks loudly, gaining looks from all around the backyard, but it gets his butt back down on the bench and Buck sits back down next to him, boxing him in between himself and Eddie.

“What happened to our cake? How’d it get all the way over there?” The plates are very easily within Buck’s reach; it’s a question for Christopher’s benefit.

“Dad got me like you did!” Christopher cries indignantly, pointing to his nose. “I’m getting him back!”

“Oh man,” Buck nods seriously before his finger darts forward, swipes the icing from his nose and brings it to his mouth. “Mmm, this is better than the one I got you with. You sure you don’t just wanna eat it?”

Christopher looks unconvinced.

“How about this?” Buck ducks down to whisper loudly. “You call a truce with your dad, and then I’ll steal all his icing and we’ll eat it.”

The icing on Eddie’s cake is mostly piled in a corner of his paper plate. He’s never been able to stomach the pure sugary sweetness of store bought icing.

“Okay,” Christopher nods back, reaching out again for his plate but without making grabby hands.

Ramon assesses him for a moment before taking the chance to push the plates back within reach.

“Hey, Eddie,” Buck calls deliberately. “You should take your medication now.”

“Thanks, Buck,” Eddie replies with a smile that conveys an eyeroll. “I’ll do that now.”

While Eddie pops the pill and takes a very long drink of water, Buck “sneakily” pulls his plate towards them and scoops all the piled icing onto his own plate before pushing the cake back to Eddie’s side of the table.

Christopher laughs and pushes Eddie’s plate an extra few inches away out of spite.

Eddie plays the disappointed victim passably well with a half-hearted gasp and a shake of his head. “You little thieves.”

As promised, Buck doles out some of Eddie’s icing to Christopher who immediately protests at the amount left on Buck’s plate.

“Hey, when you’re a big guy like me, you get more icing. Keep eating your proteins and you’ll get there in no time.”

Christopher accepts that easily enough. “I’m gonna be tall like dad.”

Buck scoffs, “Aim higher, kid. Literally.”

“I am barely two inches shorter than you,” Eddie laments, not for the first time, it sounds like.

“It’s practically three. Are you really going to lie in front of your parents?”

Wouldn’t be the first time, is on Helena’s tongue because it’s been hours since she could speak her mind, but she holds it in.

“How was the trip from Texas?” Buck asks them suddenly, bringing them back into the fold of a scene they'd never left but somehow stopped being a part of. “Flights have new restrictions on them now, don’t they?”

Mom, listen...

When the party is winding down and they walk outside to the driveway, Eddie surprises them by offering them both a hug.

“Thank you for coming,” he says sincerely, though Helena hears the underlying “and behaving” and can’t help but bristle.

“Thank you for inviting us, mijo,” Ramon says; his turn to save Helena from herself.

And when Eddie lets them know he and Chris will be getting their ride back from Buck, Ramon takes Helena’s hand and they smile almost sincerely as they say their goodnights.

—————-

The next week happens to be Isabel’s 80th birthday and Helena and Ramon keep themselves busy by helping to throw a party that will reunite every vaccinated member of the family in the area (they’re not about to take a chance on Isabel’s health).

Things have been getting better with Eddie. They had a second therapy session, again at Isabel’s island counter, where they lasted a good 25 minutes before devolving into yelling. The next day, Eddie asked Ramon for a ride to physical therapy, and easily accepted his father’s offer of lunch after the appointment.

Then, when Helena asked if she could pick up some groceries for him and Christopher, she was refused — in no small part, she thinks, because he still won’t let them in his house — but instead of going off on him, she channeled that anger and resentment into nearly buying out Costco for Isabel’s party. It felt like progress Dr. Jamieson would be proud of.

That’s why, despite the party officially kicking off around 11am, they’re just past supper time and all tables and counters are still nearly buckling under the weight of the food. They’ll have to send everyone home with leftovers if the flow of people stops. Isabel’s front door has been a turnstile since this morning and Helena knows from experience it’ll likely stay that way until the late hours of the night. Most recently, Helena’s daughters made their appearance, and it’s not at all the reason Helena is back in the kitchen.

Despite coming from opposite ends with different travel distances, Adriana and Sophia arrived within a half hour of each other, a move Helena saw through instantly. The idea that her children coordinated to arrive together instead of risking the possibility of facing their parents alone sets a fire raging in her heart, and she realizes suddenly that she isn’t prepared to be hypervigilant of her every word with all three of her kids here now to push her buttons.

So, she retreats to the kitchen.

She doesn’t expect one of them to follow her in.

“I heard you guys were doing therapy,” Adriana volleys as she approaches.

Helena cracks open the tray of chocolate chip cookies and starts plating them, her face angled down so any kneejerk expression of distaste isn’t as visible. “Apparently, that’s what the cool kids do nowadays.”

“It is,” Adriana agrees, the bangles on her wrists clinking on the countertop as she reaches for the box of oatmeal cookies to plate. She’s a year into her Master’s in communication. What she intends to do with that is a mystery to them. So much of their kids’ lives are a mystery now. Helena closes the lid of the cookie tray hard and relishes in the snap of the plastic groove into the tongue.

“Paying a stranger to tell us when and how to talk to each other is cool,” she bites. It’s not posed as a question, just a bitter acknowledgement.

Adriana is quiet and Helena starts plating mini quiches onto the cookie platter just to stay occupied while her daughter walks away. Sophia is a yeller, she stands her ground and gives as good as she gets. Adriana, however, is a runner, just like Eddie.

But Adriana doesn’t leave in a huff. She turns to the counter and grabs a second platter, moving the mini quiches onto that one.

“It’s cool that you’re open to trying,” she says. “I think that, in any family where there’s love, there’s going to be hurt. And the longer we stay stuck in that hurt, the harder it becomes to talk about it without causing more. We get stuck in patterns that we can’t break out of, and people on the outside can be the best ones to point out those patterns and help you break out of them to get to what you actually, truly want to say.”

Helena knows what she actually, truly wants to say. That’s not the problem. The problem is that none of her kids want to hear it.

“I see a therapist,” Adriana continues. Helena stills and looks at her daughter, calmly arranging the mini quiches into concentric circles. “Since my last year of undergrad. When things got really hard and I couldn’t understand why. They helped me. A lot. Helped me figure out what was wrong and how to get myself through it.”

“You didn’t tell us,” Helena says, her voice thick.

“I know,” her daughter replies simply. “I didn’t know how. I’m telling you now because what I actually, truly want to say is that I’m proud of you and dad for doing this. And maybe if you don’t hate it...maybe we could try a session later too.”

There’s an offer in her daughter’s words, an open hand reaching out. But in that hand, Helena sees her failures as a parent, the judgement of the world for failing her kids, and she doesn’t want to reach her own hand out.

Mom, listen…

Helena looks at her eldest daughter, almost a stranger to her, with an entire life Helena is only starting to realize she has no part in. It hurts — it always hurts when the kids pull away but to realize she didn’t even know the extent of it...she wants to hurt back.

Mom, listen…

But she’s trying so hard to break those patterns Adriana speaks of. So instead, Helena thinks of the therapist’s advice leading them into a piece of Eddie’s life they wouldn’t have otherwise gotten to see and swallows past the indignation in her throat to reach down and find the words she actually, truly wants to say.

“You say when, and I’ll be there.”

———-

The sun is setting when Helena finally agrees to get off her feet and just enjoy the party outside while the cousins take over the serving and cleaning. There are four generations of Diazes gathered around but for the first time ever, most of the cousins are young adults, not teenagers, and it’s nice to be able to pass on the hosting responsibilities to them for a bit.

The sky is clear, the sunset resplendent from Isabel’s backyard, and the conversation is flowing easily. It’s a beautiful evening, warm with a gentle breeze cool enough to let her lean back against Ramon in his lounge chair, one of his arms wrapped loosely around her hip.

For the first time since getting Isabel’s text, Helena feels something like peace wash over her and she almost feels bad for the thrum of vindication in her stomach when she spots Eddie slumped comfortably in an armchair, his legs propped up on another chair.

He’s at home here.

Yes, he was at ease at his captain’s house but this is family, this is where he can really sink into the love and comfort and rest. With his aunts and uncles, cousins and sisters around to take care of him. And Christopher, who spent the afternoon running around and chomping down on all the sugar he could get his hands on, slumped against him, nearly asleep. This is family.

She knows he could find that peace back in El Paso, they both could. Eddie had friends there, and his parents, who knew his son better than he did for most of his life. And there are fires in El Paso same as there are in LA, but less smog, less general insanity.

But Eddie’s a lot like his parents, too much like them maybe, and once he’s decided on a course of action he can’t be swayed. So Helena has made peace with it. Rather, she’s made peace with pretending to be okay with it while she waits for him to come to the realization that he should move back.

And in the meantime, if they can mend this thorniness between them, then maybe she and Ramon can make more of these impromptu trips. Maybe even convince Eddie to come home for Christmas this year. At the very least, go back to regular video chats.

But all that ruminating feels far away right now. She’s moving gently with the rise and fall of Ramon’s chest, and she’s so close to slipping away to the feeling of contentment when a new arrival makes her open eyes she didn’t realize she’d closed.

“Feliz cumpleanos,” she hears someone say in half-decent Spanish from the front door on the other side of the side yard fence.

She doesn’t recognize the voice as yet another cousin or uncle, but Eddie shakes Christopher’s shoulder gently, and says, “hey, guess who’s here.”

It takes a moment, but the words penetrate Christopher’s sleepiness. His eyes pop open and he shimmies out of Eddie’s lap and into his crutches to power walk over to the gate just in time for it to open, admitting Isabel, holding a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and a sheepish looking Buck behind her.

“Buck!” Christopher yells.

Buck’s smile widens and he immediately opens his arms. “Hey, superman!”

Buck crouches down and Christopher throws his arms around his neck, crutches and all. When it’s time to break apart, Christopher’s still hanging on and Helena feels a stab of dark vindication at what’s about to happen, and the look Ramon sends her way tells her she’s not alone. Because Christopher is now officially in the double digits, and while he’s always been an independent kid, becoming 10 years old was a big deal for him and his perceived level of maturity, and apparently the year he decided no one was allowed to carry him anymore.

And now Christopher’s tired and in the grip of a powerful sugar crash. He’s not going to suffer any indignities, and Helena knows she should feel bad about not trying to stop Buck. About just watching this play out to see him be rejected. But she wasn’t expecting to see him here, in this safe haven of Isabel’s backyard, in this space for family and loved ones, and it rankles her. It feels like everywhere she turns in LA, she finds him there. And his being here is just another nail in the coffin of Eddie stubbornly refusing to let his parents back into his home. That he would call his friend to this party just to avoid letting them give him a ride…

So she’s a little bitter, a little resentful of the persistent, low-key rejection. Sue her. Eddie has made it clear he doesn’t want them interfering anyway so this is on him.

“Christopher,” Eddie calls, a warning to not make a scene.

Buck looks over Christopher’s shoulder and smiles. “He’s fine,” he says.

Then he’s heaving Christopher’s body up into his arms and onto his hip and Christopher…

...Christopher slumps down over Buck’s shoulder like a baby koala. No sound of protest leaves his lips. His face, if it shows any displeasure, is hidden behind Buck’s neck.

And when Eddie gets up, it’s not to intercede, it’s only to grab the errant crutches before they hit something, and to pull his own armless chair out for Buck to sit on because apparently Buck is staying, and apparently Christopher is staying with him.

“He’s a bit old to be carried around, no?” Ramon says with a bite, because he can’t help himself.

Eddie, who’s been watching his son fondly, barely bats an eye. “He gets cuddly when he’s tired, and Buck’s nearly the only one left who’s big enough to carry him.”

“Ah, that’s why you spend so much time developing these,” Pepa says with a sly smile as she pinches at Buck’s bicep. The same familiar pinch she gave her own grandkids’ cheeks.

“Gracias a Dios,” Isabel adds meaningfully.

“That was adrenaline,” Eddie dismisses with a teasing grin.

“That was 100 squats and 50 pushups a day,” Buck returns blithely. “...and maybe a little adrenaline.”

“What’s this?” Ramon asks before she can.

Instead of prompting more teasing, the mood falls slightly and everyone looks to each other.

Finally, Eddie sighs. “When I got shot, Buck army crawled under a ladder truck to get me out and lifted me into the truck to get to the hospital.”

It strikes Helena suddenly, shamefully, that in the shock of finding out they’d missed the event itself, the hospital stay, and two entire weeks of healing, that they’d never circled back around for details on what actually went down the day it happened.

She never thought to wonder how he got off that street. How he got to the hospital. Who might have saved his life.

And she wishes she were a better person then. Wishes that learning Buck saved her son’s life overpowered her irritation at having him sitting here in Isabel’s backyard like he belonged here when Helena herself barely felt like she did herself. It does help, though.

“They released the street footage of the shooting,” Pepa continues quietly. “It’s on YouTube. Before I even knew it happened, Marguerita from church just sent me a link saying ‘they said it’s a Diaz, do you know him?’ and I saw.”

The idea of her son’s shooting being passed around like a cat video makes Helena sick, but Pepa lamenting how she hadn’t known when she learned about it in a matter of hours and sat on it for weeks…

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Pepa says decisively. “But they have an angle where you can see our Buck here go and get Eddie, pick him up like he doesn’t weigh a thing and get him into the truck to get to the hospital. Probably why he’s alive today. So gracias a Dios for those squats.”

Eddie and Buck are both looking away, both looking safely at Christopher while the table digests the news.

“If you were looking for a story of something really dumb, I can point you in the direction of another video of Buck,” Eddie says, his tone jovial but his eyes strained.

“You need to let that go,” Buck says in a definite whine.

“Do I?” Eddie asks. “Abuela did you see the video of the firefighter who went up the crane all alone?”

“Dios mío, Buck,” Pepa laments.

“Did you send it to me?” Abuela asks her, pulling out her phone and her glasses to check.

“No, mamá, it was an idiot firefighter but I didn’t realize it was the one we knew.”

“In the middle of an all-out declaration of war on firefighters,” Eddie begins, quietly for Christopher’s sake, but impassioned, sitting up in his chair, “this idiota and his squat count climbed up a crane ladder, completely exposed and defenseless—”

Buck looks pained. “I was wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet. And that’s the job sometimes—”

“The paramedics’ job, actually, which you aren’t. So, no, that wasn’t the job.” Eddie’s tone edges into something darker without his meaning to. He takes a drink of his lemonade looking for all the world like he wished it was a beer. “And you know that or I wouldn’t have found out about it from Chim a month after the fact.”

Helena clenches her jaw tight and squeezes Ramon’s hand even tighter so neither of them can say, So you have a problem being left in the dark too?

“Buck,” Isabel sighs with disappointment.

Buck winces. “It was before— ” He cuts himself off, his wide eyes darting towards Helena and Ramon of all people.

“Hmm,” Isabel answers noncommittally, as if to end the conversation.

Just then, Sophia brings out a platter of bite-sized desserts, making the rounds of the whole circle for people to pick at before leaving it on the table. The opportunity to move on is there. That doesn’t mean they’re interested in taking it.

“Before what?” Ramon asks, his tone is forcibly casual.

The silence that greets Ramon’s question is heavy. Guilty. When Helena casts her eyes around, she’s greeted by stiff shoulders and a mix of apprehension shared between her son, her mother- and sister-in-law, and Buck.

Mom, listen...

“Before what?” Helena repeats, her voice uncompromising.

———-

The fight they have in Isabel’s guest bedroom is a Hall of Famer. It’s a screaming match, no doubt about it. The doors from the bedroom to the yard are all closed but there’s no question every member of the family — and Buck — can hear every word.

“Do you really hate us that much?” Helena demands. She’s crying but she doesn’t know if it’s heartbreak or fury, she just wishes it’d stop so she could lean into her anger. “Genuinely, honestly, Eddie.”

“I don’t hate you,” he protests, keeping his own voice down, making it seem like they’re irrational for their anger.

“Bullshit,” she spits.

“You must!” Ramon adds. “You hate us so much that you have to hate your sisters too? Your cousins? You would rather leave your only son to a stranger, some gringo coworker, than with family? That’s how much you hate us? Hate our name?”

“Our name?” Eddie shoots back incredulously. “What are you talking about, our name? We’re not royalty, papi, and Chris’ name would never change.”

“You would leave him to your coworker,” Helena stresses, disgust dripping from her tongue.

“To my best friend,” Eddie retorts, “who Christopher adores, if you haven’t noticed. And who adores Christopher right back.”

“That’s not normal, mijo,” Ramon warns.

“Jesus christ,” Eddie seethes. “Please do not star—”

“What kind of single adult man bonds with another man’s child like that?”

“You’re describing a tío, you understand that right? What, you think it’s weird that Pepa loves me like her own? You think Sophia should stay away from Chris too?”

“That’s family,” Helena argues.

“And they’re women!”

“Ramon, shut up,” Helena snaps.

“Buck is our family, and he’s a man, and he’s got the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met. If anything happened to me, Christopher would be taken care of like if I was still here.”

“Buck, the one who nearly got him killed in the tsunami? That’s the same guy right?” Ramon throws out, his eyes a little wild as he paces.

“The one who saved his life in that tsunami, despite being injured and then some. And the one who’s saved my life more times than I can count, including from being gunned down on the street. We’d both probably be dead if not f— ”

“Isn’t he the one who’s family is worse off than ours?” Helena recalls. “So he has no family, no support, no girlfriend even! So a worse position than you’re in now. That’s what you want to leave him with.”

“He doesn’t need a girlfriend to raise Christopher right, I don’t! And he has a great sister, he has the 118, he has Carla, and he has our family. You think Abuela and Pepa would shut the door on him? He’d be here every Sunday, with Christopher, just like I am.”

“And what does your girlfriend think of this?” Ramon presses. “The vice principal, she thinks this is normal?”

“Ana doesn’t have anything to do with this,” Eddie says, frowning.

Helena balks. “You think the woman you’ve been seeing seriously for nearly a year has nothing to do with long-term decisions about your son? You think maybe she wouldn’t want the option of taking Christopher in if something happened to you?”

“That’s not happening, he’s going to Buck and that’s final.”

“What’s going on with you and this gringo?” Ramon asks suspiciously. “Are you even going out with Ana or was that another lie?”

“Ramon, don’t go there,” Helena sighs, her heart clenching. That’s all they need in this clusterfuck, that layer of pain.

“No, let’s go there because you know what?” Eddie asks darkly. “There is no one on this planet I trust with my son more than Buck and yeah, if we need to lay it all out there, that includes the two of you. I know you love Christopher, just like I know Shannon loved him, but that’s not always going to be enough. Buck isn’t going to fill my son’s head with ideas about the wrong kind of way to love someone. He’s not going to tell him he’s not good enough for his family to love him or support him. Buck’s going to make sure Christopher grows up to follow his heart and find whatever makes him happiest in the world, no matter what that looks like.”

“How could you think—”

“What if he grows up to be gay?” Eddie asks pointedly, staring his father down. “You’re telling me you’re going to be the one to help him pick out a suit to go to prom with his boyfriend?”

Ramon purses his lips but tries, “it’s a different world now,” as if he hadn’t just tried to make crass insinuations just to hurt his son.

“Okay,” Eddie says, not believing him for a moment, “what if he’s trans? Tells you at 15 that he’s a girl and he wants to transition. You’re going to get him on hormone therapy?”

“Eddie that’s not—”

“What if he’s 20 and he tells you he got a girl pregnant by accident and he doesn’t know her enough to love her, and he’s not ready to be a father let alone a husband?”

Helena tries to speak but her throat is suddenly too tight for words to get out.

“You gonna tell him he’s not a man if he doesn’t marry her anyway?”

Ramon says nothing.

“Christopher is going to Buck, and that’s final.”

——————-

Helena and Ramon don’t show up for the third therapy session.

Their plane tickets were only for three weeks, originally, and as the days run out, they don’t talk about extensions.

———-

Helena is sitting out in Isabel’s backyard, trying to conjure up that feeling of serenity she got to bask in for all of two minutes the night of the birthday party.

It’s not working.

They’re going back to El Paso tomorrow, leaving their relationship with Eddie in worse straits than when they arrived.

There’s always been a tension between them and Eddie, but there’s also always been love and respect, and that love and respect formed a polite barrier around the things they couldn’t talk about. It kept their relationship safe. Kept them from getting too close to real honesty where things hurt in ways that couldn’t be walked back.

It feels now like that barrier has fallen. That Eddie’s finally reached the limit of what he could hold back and now there’s nothing to help them pretend everything is okay. Nothing to help Helena believe this is all something that could blow over.

That’s to say nothing of Christopher, who’s never felt as far away as he does now, even while they linger in the same city, only a couple dozen blocks away.

Helena scrolls listlessly through her phone’s camera roll for the last few weeks. There are pictures of Christopher mostly, but Eddie and the rest of the family are there too. It hurts to notice how Eddie is markedly happier in the shots where he’s looking away from the camera. Away from her.

Mom, listen…

Helena opens up Instagram and lets herself forget for a moment that anything is wrong. On Instagram, there is only joy and fun. And Buck.

Eddie hasn’t posted anything to his account in months but starting from the end and working backwards, Buck features heavily. He’s in at least a third of the pictures, usually with Christopher. One of the posts includes a short video that she watches. It’s of the day they unveiled the adapted skateboard, and it nourishes her soul. There’s no sadness here, or tension, only pure radiating happiness and excitement. It’s magical.

And it’s meaningful.

Mom, listen…

Helena is out of her chair and pocketing Isabel’s car keys before she can talk herself out of it. The drive to Eddie’s house is made with a carefully blank mind. She knows if she lets herself think about what she’s going to say, she’s going to spiral and get to a place where all this fear and sadness turn dark and ugly, and she can’t afford to risk it.

Finally, she’s knocking gently on a front door she’s only seen three times in the weeks she’s been here.

Buck answers the door.

————-

The house is quiet when Helena steps in.

She doesn’t bother taking her shoes off this time, she’s not sure how long she’ll be allowed to stay. But she notices that the space where her shoes would have gone is taken up by a pair of large boots she imagines fit perfectly on Buck’s feet.

Buck disappears into the living room and she follows quietly after him. The lights are off but the muted tv glows brightly enough for her to see Eddie reclined on his back on the couch, sleeping, and Buck sitting down on the edge of the coffee table to shake his arm.

Eddie’s always been a light sleeper, especially after the army and Christopher. He doesn’t wake easily now.

He’s wearing the sling, but it’s the only indication that anything is amiss with him. There’s no sign of pain or worry on his face, no tension in his shoulders. He’s practically melted into the recesses of the couch. He’s a picture of comfort. And why shouldn’t he be? He’s in his home, away from family, from expectations, and judgements. Just him and Christopher. And Buck.

Eddie finally takes a deep breath that shows his body is coming around but his eyes stay closed. Buck is murmuring something but she only catches, “ — mom — here.”

Then, at last, Eddie’s eyelids part, and the deep laxness of his body disappears almost in the blink of an eye.

“What?” he croaks, already trying to sit up.

Buck’s hands are already moving to support his back.

“ — says she wants to apologize.”

Eddie scoffs and sits upright, feet firmly planted on the floor as he blinks himself awake.

“Mom?”

“I’m here,” she says, stepping closer into the light of the tv.

Buck catches Eddie’s eye and they have an entire conversation in five silent seconds that ends with Buck nodding and getting up from the table, watching Helena warily as she approaches further.

“Watch your eyes,” Buck says quietly to Eddie before flipping the wall switch and illuminating the room. He lingers for a moment, clearly undecided about leaving, before saying, “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Finally, Helena is alone with her son in his home. The quiet is almost peaceful, she doesn’t want to break it. Eddie does instead.

“Buck said you wanted to apologize, so I’m assuming he misheard,” Eddie says wryly.

There are pillow creases on the side of his face and Helena can’t remember the last time she saw him look so disheveled, so at home. It makes her heart ache for the days when she’d have to force him out of bed at noon on weekends, drive him to wrestling practice early in the morning, watch over him as he slept sometimes, just to make sure he was okay.

“Shockingly, no,” she smiles sadly.

Eddie blinks up at her for a moment before shifting down on the couch, leaving her some room to sit. She takes the invitation, but once she’s sitting down with Eddie’s full attention on her, she realizes not preparing what she wanted to say might have been a mistake. She has no idea where to begin. What scab to pick at that won’t cause more bleeding.

Then she remembers Adriana’s words.

What is it, under all the posturing, all the hurt feelings, all the history and baggage...what is it she actually, truly wants to say?

“I’m sorry I missed therapy.”

Eddie huffs a surprised laugh. “Of all the things…”

“I know, I know,” she rolls her eyes. “But I am. I…” She forces herself to slow down and consider her words. “I realize that therapy was an olive branch for you. One we took way too late and I’m...I’m just so fucking grateful we were able to take it at all, in the end.”

The tears are coming and there’s nothing she can do to stop them. They gather in the corner of her eyes and she tries to blink them away but has to settle for wiping away the ones that fall anyway.

“You were right,” she says. “You said — and your sister said, and the therapist said — that there’s a lot of hurt, and it’s become too hard to...to connect with each other because of it. And therapy is probably the only bridge through that. So even though I was pissed at you, I should have showed up.”

She hazards a look up at Eddie to find his brown eyes wide and cautiously wondering.

“Therapy is what’s going to help us and the only way to fail at it is to not show up.” It’s what the therapist had said in their first session. It had sounded like an easy thing to do then. “And that’s not okay. I’m not going to do that again.”

Eddie nods and looks away. His fingernails are flicking nervously against each other — a habit he picked up from her. “Is dad on the same page as you?”

Helena takes a deep breath, and blows out, “No, your dad is looking for a match to light the page on fire.”

Eddie rolls his eyes but there’s heavy hurt behind the indifference.

“I hid all of them,” Helena offers, “and left Abuela with the fire extinguisher.”

That gets a small smile.

“I really expected you to be more pissed about it than him,” Eddie says, he reclines against the arm of the sofa but no part of him looks comfortable with this conversation.

“Oh, I am—” The rage swells up in her. The outrage and indignation. But again, Adriana’s voice comes to her. “I...am...really, truly hurt, Eddie. I feel...I feel like you told me I’m not good enough to love Christopher how he needs.”

Eddie’s face collapses with disbelief. “You mean the way you’ve been making me feel since he was born? Are you kidding me?”

“What?”

“Since the moment Shannon got pregnant, you’ve both been hammering it in on us that we’d never be enough, we’d never be good enough for him. Why do you think I joined the army? Why do you think Shannon ran?”

The accusation makes her breathless, it makes that familiar rage bubble up closer to the surface. “Shannon made her own choices, you’re not going to pin that on us. And so did you.”

“No, I can’t pin that on you. She did choose to leave,” he concedes, his voice hardening. “But you spent five years telling her over and over that nothing she ever did was good enough, and when I got back you did the same to me! ‘Don’t drag him down with you.’ Does that ring any bells?”

“I spent five years helping her, being a second parent to Christopher when she was in over her head. She needed help. She wasn’t cut out—”

“No, she wasn’t,” Eddie agrees. “Neither of us were. We were stupid fucking kids who barely knew each other. She was supposed to get back on a plane to California when the semester was done and instead we got married in the backyard because you told us that’s what we had to do.”

“Jesus Christ, Eddie. You want to blame me for Christopher being born? For raising him in a family with two parents?”

“You’re not listening,” Eddie spits.

“I’m listening to you say over and over how I ruined your life because I didn’t let Shannon get an abortion. And that’s somehow the reason to keep us out of Christopher’s life now?”

“No, you’re not—” Eddie closes his eyes and clenches his jaw. “I love Christopher with everything I am. If I had the chance to go back and do everything differently, I wouldn’t. I would never. Being his father is the most important thing I’ve ever done.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, I was a kid in over my head and my parents didn’t know what was best for me. Didn’t know how to help me. And I figured that out on my own, I grew up and became the man I am now on my own.” She wants to argue but he’s on a roll. “And that’s fine, no parent is perfect. I know I’m going to make mistakes and I hope to god Christopher can forgive me, so I need to forgive you yours. But I need you to see me, now. I need you to look at me and realize I’m not that kid you put in a suit in the backyard. I’m not the kid that signed up to get shot at instead of facing his life. I’m not that kid anymore, mom. I’m not.”

“I see that, Eddie.”

“No, you don’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t constantly be telling me I need to move back to El Paso to take proper care of Christopher. You’d see that our lives are here now. I have a job I love and pays what we need. Christopher loves his school, his friends. He’s a popular, genius kid. He’s happy. I’m happy. And we’re doing good. But you don’t see that. You see that dumbass, scared kid making his next mistakes. And I’m sorry but I’m not going to let you drag me back into that spiral. If you need to be the parent to that kid, I can’t be the kid you’re parenting. I’ve grown up, mom.”

“So,” Helena clears her throat, hoping the waver in it will clear too. “That’s what the guardianship is? We...lost sight of you growing up. We didn’t give you what you needed. So you’re punishing us?”

Eddie sighs as if she didn’t understand.

“No, you know what? No, I’m sorry,” she switches tracks, her voice hard, “how are we supposed to see this new person you’ve become, Eddie? You left El Paso, left us behind, you won’t come home for holidays, you even stopped posting on Instagram, and when we come here to see you’re alive you won’t even let us into your home. So how? How are we supposed to see this magical transformation when you won’t let us in?”

Eddie watches her for a moment, weighing his words. “You show up for therapy.”

And that takes the wind out of her sails.

That’s what she came here for.

To apologize.

Not keep yelling.

Mom, listen…

Helena takes two deep breaths and crooks a smile. “Yeah.”

“You yell a lot.”

Christopher’s voice startles them both, pulling a short grunt of pain from Eddie as his shoulder jerks back. Christopher is leaning against the wall into the living room, wearing the disgruntled pout of someone who was woken up for no good reason.

“Christopher…” Eddie begins, trying to leverage himself off the couch.

Helena pushes him back down, and turns to Christopher, opening her arms.

“I do,” Helena admits softly, as Christopher comes over and leans into her side. “I do yell a lot. I’m...trying to yell less.”

“Dad never yells.”

Eddie smiles tiredly.

“Hmm,” Helena agrees, “I think there’s a lot of things I need to learn from your daddy.”

Christopher nods, his eyes drooping. “He’s the best,” he says, snuggling into her shoulder. She’s getting on a plane tomorrow so she takes the opportunity to relish in this hug, and press a long kiss on his curls.

“Ah, I thought I heard an escape artist on the prowl,” Buck says as he turns the corner.

“We woke him up,” Eddie says redundantly. “We’ll keep it quiet now, buddy.”

“K,” Christopher mumbles.

“Okay, buddy, let’s get you back to bed” Buck says quietly as he leans over to carefully scoop him into his arms. Christopher’s arms loop around his neck like he’s done it a million times, and his head falls to Buck’s shoulder.

“Buck’s the best too,” Christopher mumbles.

Buck’s ducks his face away.

“That’s what I hear,” Helena allows in a tone she hopes is gracious.

As they leave, they can hear Christopher say, “they stole your bed.”

Buck responds but it’s too quiet for them to follow the rest of the conversation.

Eddie ducks his head and sighs.

“That’s why you were keeping us away?” Helena asks, her voice more gentle than she thought she could muster at this point. “Because Buck’s crashing on your couch?”

Now that she’s looking, she spots the folded duvet stacked on the chair in the corner, the pillows tucked neatly below. It only makes her more aware that she found Eddie sleeping soundly on the very same couch.

“I didn’t — I didn’t want questions. I didn’t want dad’s look, the same look he has every time Buck comes up. The same look—” Eddie sighs harshly. “I didn’t feel like fielding questions. He was here for Christopher when I was in the hospital and when I came home… He helps. A lot.”

Helena nods pensively, and surprises herself by finding a kernel of gratitude towards Buck burgeoning in her chest.

“So, speaking of fucking up as parents,” she begins with a crooked smile that fades by the end of the phrase. She doesn’t know how to finish that sentence so she starts a new one. “The...hurt that piles up, that makes it hard to talk through...does some of it come from Matty?”

She can see an instinct flare up in her son to shake his head and dismiss the topic, but he doesn’t let it take hold. It’s time to face this.

“It didn’t help,” he admits.

Eddie and Matty met in sixth grade and became best friends almost instantly. They spent weekends in sleepovers, fought off other classmates to be each others’ group project partners, and spent every summer going to the same camps. Matty was an honorary Diaz before they even hit their teens.

Five years later, Matty came out to his family, and then to theirs. His parents took it well, Eddie’s parents didn’t.

The sleepovers stopped, the summer camps stopped, and if Ramon could have sent Eddie to another class he would have.

The day he came out to them was the last day he stepped foot in the Diaz home, a natural consequence of Ramon having run him out with caustic, angry words.

“We…” Helena licks her lips and looks away to gather her thoughts. “There’s a lot of reasons we reacted the way we did. Ignorance, more than anything. It really was a different world back then. But...the world has kept turning, things have kept changing and we can’t pretend to be ignorant anymore.” She looks Eddie in the eye to say, “we were wrong. We were wrong to chase him away. And if the day comes that Christopher is gay or trans or any of the other words we haven’t learned yet, we’re going to love him just as much as we do now.”

Eddie keeps her gaze for a moment before nodding. “I’m glad to hear it.” The way his shoulders gather near his ears says he doesn’t believe her though he’s trying.

Because when Eddie and Matty stood shoulder to shoulder to tell Ramon and Helena the news, Matty wasn’t the only one crushed. And they know, somewhere deep down, that their reaction was as extreme as it was because they were never fully sure if the hurt in Eddie’s eyes was on behalf of his best friend, or if they exploded before more news could be told.

And it still scares Helena to this day, to this very moment sitting on her son’s couch. It’s why they welcomed Shannon at first, the first girl Eddie really brought home, even though they didn’t approve of her overall.

But she knows now that there’s nothing anymore, not her pride, not her ignorance, that will stop her from trying to bridge the gap between them. So she continues deliberately, “and if this new, grown up version of you comes with any of those words, we’re not going to love you any less either.”

His eyes widen and for a moment she’s looking at her 17 year old son in the living room, eyes wide as Matty runs out of the house. She wishes this moment could replace that one, stamp out that mistake forever. But it can’t, so she has to make this one count even more.

“I’ll still be here, and I’m listening. I...I see you,” she says. “You and Christopher. I see you settled in so well here, even now with your injury.”

Eddie remains quiet, but apprehension creeps across his face and his eyes dart behind her where Buck and Christopher disappeared.

“I see the boots at the entrance,” she continues, her voice pitched low, “the extra toothbrush you forgot to hide away. The tupperwares full of food Isabel and Ana didn’t make. But more than anything, I see Buck. Everywhere.” A smile creeps up her lips. “The only place I didn’t see him was at brunch with Ana and call me crazy but I feel like you would have preferred he was there too.”

Eddie’s lip is being chewed to within an inch of its life, and his eyes are trained on the couch cushion.

“Hey,” she taps his knee. “You...grew up to be a good man, and a good father.” The words are so many years too late but she’s grateful to see them land as Eddie’s eyes begin to shimmer. “And you deserve everything you want for Christopher. Happiness, whatever that looks like.”

Eddie swallows thickly and clears his throat. “And dad?”

“Dad...has his head too far up his own ass to see or hear anything,” Helena admits. “But he’s due for a colonoscopy soon so I’ll work on it.”

Eddie chokes on a laugh that catches him off-guard and suddenly they’re both laughing, quietly so they don’t wake Christopher up again.

When they recover, Eddie invites her to the kitchen for a drink, where Buck is packing Christopher’s lunch for school tomorrow.

When she leaves, her stomach is in knots she imagines won’t smooth out for a few weeks yet, but a weight’s been lifted off her chest and her heart is full in a way it hasn’t been in years.

When she lands in El Paso, her phone pings with a message from Eddie: Hope you had a good flight. Free Friday for a call?

———-

When Friday comes, after catching up with Christopher, Eddie tells them he broke it off with Ana.

Helena digs her nails into Ramon’s knee instinctively, but she prepared him well and despite his continued reservations, all he says is, “That’s too bad, mijo.”

———-

Two months of virtual therapy and video chats later, Eddie tells them he’s bisexual. They react the way they should have all those years ago, and Helena tries to be grateful they got to have this moment at all instead of mourn for the years Eddie lost because of them.

There’s no mention of Buck, but Eddie’s eyes flit fondly over the laptop screen every once in a while at Christopher and someone else off-screen.

The call takes place at 8am LA time, and the sling has been gone for nearly three weeks.

———

At Christmas, Eddie and Christopher are waiting for them with smiles on their faces at LAX’s baggage claim. When they get home, Buck is there opening the door and helping them with their luggage.

Isabel isn’t there to mediate but supper that evening goes smoothly. The tension that lurks is anticipatory on all sides, a feeling of this being too good to last. But by dessert, everyone is sitting back in their chairs and smiling. And when Buck rounds the table to start the clean up, he places a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, his thumb brushing the back of Eddie’s neck, and Helena watches as the last bit of strain melts out of his body.

The basket of gauze is nowhere to be found in the bathroom, nor is the purple toothbrush. Instead, there’s a third electric toothbrush standing in line with the rest.

Helena’s been keeping an eye out for opportunities to follow Adriana’s advice. To find the words she actually, truly means, and say them before she runs out of time. So before turning in, she takes Eddie aside and tells him, “I’m really happy you found your home here in LA. I’m really proud of the family you’ve made.”

And when she closes her arms around him, she can feel him fold into her like he used to as a kid, no polite distance or anxiety. Just comfort.

#buddie #buddie fic #helena diaz #eddie diaz #evan buckley #christopher diaz #my fics #my posts #y'all I struggled so hard to get this up before the premiere #please understand I woke up at 7am on a Sunday to get it done #my soul is weary #i hope you like them #omg I'm so sorry I forgot the readmore originally #it's up now

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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I kinda wanna fucking scream, so here, have a offline bullshit rant post.

So I’ve literally been trying to get my stupid fucking meds for over a MONTH now at this point, which I’m sure you can all see like, my mood is just wooooonderful these days. Not an excuse, casual reminder that yeah you do gotta take care of your own space so if my mood is dragging anyone down, I’m totes on board with blocking or unfollowing or y’know, burning me in effigy or something. Okay maybe not that last part. But still. You get it. And its not even that like, I need mood stabilizers per se, lol, so shout out to the armchair diagnosticians helpfully peppering my inbox still in their quest to oh so slickly be like ‘hey you’re a hot mess, take your hot messness away from tumblr’ like lol, didn’t ask.....nah, its mostly the perpetual lack of sleep and chronic pain issues that I have zero distraction from when my specific combo of meds isn’t able to let me actually weaponize my ADHD properly and power through that. Its a whole thing. Whatever. Just go with it.

POINT IS. So I’ve been trying to do this for over a month now, first obstacle was even just getting the money together for my refill appointment which is a whopping $150, because I have to pay out of pocket for mental health stuff these days because I had to switch my insurance over to something that paid out more heavily for physical benefits like my jaw surgery.....and because of the pandemic, and how many psychiatrists in my area and that I could actually reach aren’t taking new patients during the pandemic since most of them are conducting business virtually still, like, I have barely any resources for seeking out and trying new psychiatrist offices in the meanwhile that might charge less and I’m kinda stuck with the one I have because the last thing I can afford is to have like, NO psychiatrist at the moment, y’know?

So first I had to have that to even BOOK the appointment, which took forever because rent and food are a joy to accrue when you can barely manage to function as an actual employee of the capitalist machine ahfsklhflkahflakf, but so then I did that and like, got an appointment put on the books for August 19th. That was the soonest they could fit me in back when I paid them for my appointment about a week and a half ago. No, two weeks ago now? Eh, time is fake. ANYWAY, so that wasn’t gonna work for me, so basically the entirety of last week was devoted to constantly calling and trying to check in every other hour to see if they had any sooner cancellations I could take, because for whatever fucking reason, they just ‘don’t do’ a cancellation list wherein they call the next person on the list once they have a cancellation. Whatever.

So finally got a cancellation slot with a virtual appointment last Saturday night at random as fuck 8:40. Okay cool. Most of my refills are fairly simple, no real changes, but two are controlled substances so like, they have to do their due diligence and go through the proper protocols before giving me another prescription to one or whatever. Fine. Okay.

So I call the CVS they sent the prescription for my ADHD med to, the very next morning. One of the controlled substances, and the key med to like....making me functional instead of a rambling disjointed whirlibird of a thought emitter. Problem is, that medication is on back order. Won’t be in until Tuesday. Ugh. Okay, fine. Nothing I can do about it, because while the specific provider I spoke to in order to GET my refill prescriptions was taking an appointment the night before, the actual offices that schedule appointments and connect patients through to their providers was closed for the weekend, so I couldn’t even ask for them to send the scrip somewhere else.

SO. I go back to the CVS on Monday, hoping that maybe it came in early because not like I can do much else in the meanwhile. Course its not there, but oh well. I toy with the idea of calling to ask my provider to send the scrip to a different pharmacy (only had it sent to this one cuz its within walking distance to me, and since I can’t drive for medical reasons and Uber’s are expensive as fuck, just for errands, like, even though walking is sooooo not fun for me physically, like it is what it is). I decide against it because here’s another fun fact about this controlled substance....for security reasons, pharmacies don’t have to tell people over the phone if they have it in stock or not. Like, they won’t just say no we don’t have it in stock - I mean, they WILL say that, but that doesn’t actually mean anything because that’s what most of them say about that particular medication no matter whether or not they DO, and then just cite security protocols, so you have to actually GO to the store in question to ask them and even get a real answer to whether or not they even HAVE it in stock to FILL a prescription if its sent over. And no, the provider won’t just send scrips into several different pharmacies at once and just be whichever has it in stock can fill it - because again, controlled substance.

SO. I decide its not worth it to try getting the scrip sent over somewhere else, because I’d have to at least waste money on an Uber to even travel to various pharmacies and even check if they CAN fill it sooner than this one, when at least this place will have it in tomorrow. Its just one more day at this point.

Except then I go back on Tuesday. Oh sorry, don’t know why that other person told you we’d have our order in today, our shipments of that medication don’t come in until Wednesdays.

So I go back Wednesday. Success! They have it in stock. I go to pay, pulling out my goodRx coupon that was just printed out that morning, specifically citing the price for CVS at Target. The pharmacy manager says sorry, we don’t honor that coupon here for controlled substances like this one. I say: record scratch? He’s like yeah, that’s at the discretion of individual pharmacies, and we don’t honor that price for this specific medication, because we don’t want to attract customers only coming here to get that medication filled for that price. (This pharmacy is right at the edge of Inglewood and Culver City, for anyone who is familiar with those neighborhoods. The implications are exactly as they appear to be). So I’m like, what’s the regular generic price? He quotes me something that’s $180 more than the coupon, and thus $180 more than I have since I was focused totally on getting THIS amount ASAP, so I could get these meds so I could do more work and make more money. You see the train of thought. I’m like well that’s awesome, I don’t have anything close to that. Hey. Weird question. Why did nobody I talked to the past three days in a row that I’ve walked into this store in person to request this refill, like, mention this little tidbit about not honoring this coupon so instead of waiting for a backorder that would do me no good, I could have been spending that time having my prescription transferred somewhere that WOULD honor it?

He’s like, well did you mention to any of them that you’d be using a goodRx coupon for this particular medication? I said, yup. He said, you sure? I said well the specific process each time was I came in, I asked if this medication was in, they said what’s your name and date of birth, I provided that info, they said are you paying out of pocket, we don’t have valid insurance info for this on file for you, I said yup paying out of pocket with a goodRx coupon, they said *clickety clack of the keyboard* nope, sorry, we won’t have this medicine in until Tuesday, I mean Wednesday.

He’s like, well you must be misremembering or they would have told you at the time that we don’t take GoodRx coupons on this medication. I’m like, dude, it was you. It was literally you that I spoke to two of those three times, right here at the counter, in person. I’m gonna go ahead and trust my memory of those interactions and what was said there over yours since you don’t actually remember having talked to me two times in the last three days. He’s like, I gotta go help another customer. There is no other customer. I leave. Fun day for everyone.

So then I call around town to at least check which CVS will actually honor the coupon I have and the price that I can afford to pay it at. I don’t bother asking if they even have the medication in stock because I know its not guaranteed to be a CORRECT answer, but at least I can see who accepts this damn coupon. Also, reason I’m only trying big brand pharmacies instead of smaller, hole in the wall ones is because again, controlled substance, and I know from experience that the bigger brand pharmacies are at least more likely to have that med in stock whereas most smaller ones tend to run out very quickly as they usually only get enough for their existing/regular customers and a little extra.

I find a CVS five miles away - not walkable, gonna have to Uber. Call my psychiatrist office again to ask them to transfer the scrip, front office says they’ll send the request to my provider, who usually checks and fulfills such requests in 24-48 hours. I’m like okay cool, can I get a phone call to let me know when that happens, so at least I know when to check back to follow up if it hasn’t happened yet for whatever reason? They’re like no, the pharmacy will send you a text or call when they get the prescription sent over and you can take it from there with them. I’m like okay, but I’ve done this a bunch of times and know from experience the pharmacy does NOT in fact always call or text, so is there a certain time to follow up to inquire if the provider has already sent the scrip and the pharmacy SHOULD have it by now or if the delay is on the provider’s end? Front office is like yeah no. I’m like, swell.

So that was yesterday. I call the pharmacy (which I still don’t even know if they have the medication IN STOCK to fill the scrip even once they GET the scrip, and won’t until I can actually Uber out there, but one thing at a time at this point) at like 9 pm, they’re a 24 hour pharmacy, and they’re like nope, we got nothing (this is after spending an hour and a half on hold to even TALK to someone at the pharmacy). Called them again today at noon, still nada. Technically I have another 29 hours before the window in which the provider is supposed to send the refill scrip to this new location, before I can be like, okay so they still haven’t done it, can we send him a nudge or another request. The 24-48 hour window will only actually EXPIRE after their offices close on Friday meaning it’ll be Monday before I can even actually REACH someone again to ask them to send the scrip again, if the pharmacy hasn’t ACTUALLY gotten it by Friday night, and pessimistically, I’m not super inclined to assume that they will at this point.

I’m antsy, irritable, hungry because I don’t even know for SURE sure if the new pharmacy will ACTUALLY honor the coupon or say no sorry we don’t do that here either, whoever told you that was wrong, or if they’ll even actually have it in stock versus I’ll have to have it sent somewhere else AGAIN, so I have to pinch every penny possible in order to ensure I have the most money possible once my prescription IS filled in case the price is more than I expected again or in case I have to take Ubers there or further than I expected or basically....shit happens that I don’t expect. And this is what I’m basically spending all my time doing instead of working, because trying to get work done in this state is like....the harder I try to make it happen, the less it actually gets done, so I try and prioritize this and its roadblock after roadblock dragging out and wasting my time, and like yeah, I can post and shit while I’m doing this aka sitting on hold or walking around town trying to get shit filled because its fine if I ramble incoherently along the way in posts, but actual WORK work requires like....fucking coherency and succinctness and not having to stop and start every five minutes to call someone else, and oh yeah, being able to power through migraine spikes. And just.

I’m very annoyed about anything and everything to do with this shit. The hoops you have to jump through to even get the stuff that like....actualizes your hoop jumping ability, is just....*gnashing of teeth*

Anyway. So that’s my offline bullshit rant. Yay. The end.

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theroyalsims · 4 years ago

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BREAKING: CLIVE QUITS!

We can now confirm that Princess E’s boyfriend and former Personal Aide, Clive Harlowe, has resigned from his position as a member of The Royal Household’s staff.

The news first broke yesterday, when it was reported by several tabloids that Clive has reportedly quit his post as a Royal Aide. However, said rumours were unconfirmed as The Palace refused to comment on the matter.

Today, however, The Palace finally responded and confirmed that, indeed, Clive is no longer under their employ: “Yes. Mr. Harlowe has resigned from his position effective yesterday. Her Majesty and the rest of The Family thank him for his service.”

(Above: Clive was last seen publicly during an outing with Prince Jacques. The young man was apparently re-transferred from Anya, to Alice, and then to Prince Jacques’ staff. The new position has also reportedly caused trouble with other members of the Prince’s staff who were not-so-welcoming and not-so-friendly towards the new addition to their group.)

While the reason for his resignation remains unknown, people speculate that it has to do with Clive’s relationship with Princess E. One insider shares:

“Ever since Clive and E went public, all eyes have been on them. The Queen and Prince Jacques decided that transferring him elsewhere would be the smarter choice, but he has since been transferred to Anya, Princess Alice, and Prince Jacques’ team. He feels utterly ashamed that The Royals have to accommodate him just because he’s dating E. He hates to be a bother.

Also, he’s having a hard time doing his job what with all the press and paparazzi tailing him. He has been harassed by the media and I think he has reached his breaking point. He’s a quiet man who wants to live a quite life, who happens to be dating a Princess. Sadly, he can’t have it all.”

Indeed, Clive has been gossip and tabloid fodder for weeks now. Just yesterday, as he was running errands, he was mobbed by a group of photographers and reporters as he excited a grocery. Left to fend for himself, he ended up having to run and try to evade them on foot back to his flat a few blocks away.

(Above: A man harassed - Clive, yesterday, was spotted running from a group of paps and reporters who ambushed him outside a store.)

The insider further spills:

“Since dating E, he and his family have been the subject of several nasty articles including one calling him and his old folks ‘social climbers’ for targeting the Queen’s ‘most gullible child.’ Another article claims that the Harlowes have done all they could to reach the upper echelons of society by sending their adopted son to the best schools money could afford. In reality, however, Clive worked really hard to achieve what he has now, winning scholarships left and right to get an education. His parents didn’t spend a single penny for his university degree.”

The Palace is also reportedly aware of the harassment and the situation, but has refused to support Clive or at the very least, issue a statement to tell off the Press:

“The Palace knows. The Queen knows. Everyone knows. However, it has always been standard protocol that only members of the family are afforded protection. Clive wasn’t expecting to get his own bodyguard, but he was hoping that at the very least, the Palace Office would issue some sort of warning to the media to leave him alone to do his job, as a member of the Royal Household’s Staff. But of course, that’s just not how things are done. Rumour has it that despite Clive’s objections, E has pleaded to her parents that they should at least do something to protect Clive and his poor, old parents, but it was apparently fell on deaf ears. That’s just not part of the protocol.”

(Above: A stressed-out Clive evading the reporters. His new public persona has reportedly caused such stress and strain to the “quiet and simple” young man and his family.)

So where does this leave poor old Clive? The source weighs in:

“He’s a brilliant young man. I’m sure he’ll land on his feet. Plus, with a recommendation and a shiny, coveted stint at The Palace, getting a new job wouldn’t be too hard, I suppose. This could also be a good thing for him and E, since this time, he won’t be part of “the help” any longer. I imagine it wouldn’t be much of an issue for HM and Prince Jacques anymore since, if I got it correctly, their objection was that E was dating a member of the staff.”

Should The Palace have intervened? Was Clive’s decision to resign the right one, or should he have stuck it out? Or maybe, the Press should’ve respected Clive - a private individual - and his privacy. Sigh. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Anyway, while it’s sad news that we won’t be seeing you with our favourite royals again, we’re wishing you all the best, Clive! Good luck on the job hunt!

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thegirlonpeetamellark · 5 years ago

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Christmas Break - Part 1

Surprise!! After a looong time away Court returns to Everlark fic world with a little holiday treat for everyone - enjoy! :)

Hi everyone. So 2020 has sucked. For me, the beginning of quarantine was actually a bit of a gift. Being home gave me the gift of time, something I haven’t had much of as my daughters (who were very little when I started writing in this fandom) have gotten older. While I never stopped writing, it was a struggle to find long enough chunks of time to get into a flow. I started writing again with earnest. Not all of it was my fanfiction; some of it was my original work. El keeps me posted on the humbling and kind asks she gets about my writing. I felt bad that despite my increased writing, I still wasn’t ready to update any WIPs. But I did remember a story I had started for the final holiday PiP that I was never able to get past the first page (due to lack of time that year) and to my surprise, it started flowing. I had every intention of finishing it and having El post it as a gift to this fandom. But once my school went “back” in October and hybrid learning started, that was it. My time was gone. And further, my family experienced the very sudden and non-Covid-related death of my aunt. So while I have nearly half of this story written, it’s not done. But it will be, very soon, since it is a one-shot. As with all my stories, it took on a life of its own and it needs more love. So what I have for the readers who have loyally followed me is the first part, the part that involves Christmas. It’s my hope to have a second part posted in a week or two, so that by the time that part posts, a final part is nearly done.

Thank you for your asks and your patience, and thank you to El, one of my favorite people in this world and the best thing my time in this fandom has given me. Thank you for your encouragement. Our friendship means the world to me.

Here’s to a better 2021. Love to you all. Court

Christmas Break

Fuck, not again, Peeta grouses as the opening notes of that insidious Mariah Carey song pipe through the loudspeaker. That’s the third time in the last two hours. He’s all for holiday spirit, but if he never hears this fucking song again it will be too soon.

Leaning his forehead against the cold pane of glass, he peers out of the fourth-story window into the darkened sky. When he had arrived at work a few hours ago, the snow had just been starting to fall; a slow, lazy tumble of flakes. Now it’s coming down in a tumultuous swirl. It figures Panem would finally see a white Christmas his first Christmas Eve on rotation in the emergency room. No doubt the weather is partially to blame for the crush of bodies crowding the waiting room tonight.

Peeta walks away from the window and opens the cabinet where he stashes his Clif bars. The economy-sized box looks suspiciously closer to empty than it did the other day. He’s heard complaints from other doctors and nurses that snacks are pilfered on a regular basis and was warned to label his own boxes. But he had forgone the warnings. If someone needed an energy bar badly enough to steal one, what was the $20 he had spent on them at Costco. He snags one and unwraps it.

He’s just raised it to his mouth when his Apple watch pings and his silenced cell phone pulses insistently against his thigh. Heaving a loud sigh, he sets down the energy bar and withdraws the phone from his pocket.

“Mom, you’ve got exactly 60 seconds,” he grits out. He doesn’t even need to look at the screen to confirm it’s her. She’s called twice already tonight, calls he’s ignored with good reason, but somehow his mother thinks a phone call from her trumps any actual emergencies her doctor son could be dealing with. Which, tonight, have been nonstop since his shift began at six.

“Please tell me you ate something,” she begins.

“I was just about to, when you called,” he replies. “I’ve only got a couple of minutes. It’s been utter chaos for the last four hours.”

“We missed you at dinner. I can’t remember the last Christmas Eve when I didn’t have all three of my boys together.” Peeta closes his eyes. All these years my mother has been gushing about having a doctor in the family, and yet she never stopped to consider the ramifications of actually having a doctor in the family, he thinks. Particularly its impact on holiday gatherings. She obviously hadn’t learned anything from this past Thanksgiving, as now, just a month later, she’s already dumping a fresh guilt trip on him for missing another family dinner.

She continues, “And Jackson and Maxwell were just devastated when they heard you weren’t coming, until I assured them they’d see you tomorrow. We will see you tomorrow, yes?”

Peeta suppresses another exasperated sigh and breaks off a chunk of the Clif bar. “Yes, Mom, I’ll be there.” And though it’s childish, he crams the bar into his mouth and mumbles around it, “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.” His chewing masks the sarcasm that weighs down the words.

“Excellent. We need an updated family portrait before Everly and Rye have to leave for her parents’ house.” Placated, his mother moves to ends the call, but not before getting in a less-than-subtle comment about how much she adores his brother Rye’s fiancée and how happy she is Rye is settling down.

Staring at the disconnected call flashing on the screen, Peeta tries not to let the remark get to him. Mostly because he knows it’s a lie. His mother has complained more than once about Everly and how she’s not good enough for Rye. Peeta knows the dig was directed at him. He hasn’t truly had a serious girlfriend since junior year of college; just a few casual relationships that barely qualified as relationships. He doesn’t know how his mother expects him to meet someone with the hours he keeps. And his father, for as close as they are, never seems willing to jump to Peeta’s defense.

Taking a deep breath to let his irritation suffuse, he jams his phone back in his pocket and scarfs down the rest of his pathetic dinner. All three bites of it. Then he uses the restroom, dutifully washes his hand, and stalks out of the staff lounge, his short break over.

As he strides up the corridor, he hears loud shouting coming from the ER waiting room.

“…should be asleep in her bed, waiting for Santa Claus to come, but instead, we’re still here waiting for someone to take a look at her arm! It’s been over two hours! Don’t you people have any compassion? Or is Ebenezer Freaking Scrooge running this place tonight?”

Curious, Peeta veers towards the reception desk, where his eyes land on the ranting woman. She’s young, probably no older than her mid-twenties, and in spite of the fact that her dark hair is spilling out of a messy braid and she’s not wearing any makeup, Peeta is immediately struck by her beauty. The rosy flush to her cheeks from her tirade actually makes her even prettier. She’s cradling a toddler and protectively shielding the little girl’s right arm. The toddler’s blonde head rests on her mother’s shoulder, her thumb wedged into her tiny pink mouth. Her left arm clutches a stuffed orange cat. She looks tired. Actually, both mother and daughter do.

“Miss, I understand your frustration, I really do,” the receptionist says calmly, her eyes cutting to Peeta as he stops by her side. He reads the name on the file on top of the stack, the next patient scheduled to be seen: MCMURPHY, JOSEPH. Clearly not the little girl in front of him.

“I don’t think you do!” the young mother cries, her eyes flashing steel. “She’s three, she’s in pain, and she’s scared. And what’s more, I’ve seen at least five people go ahead of us who came in after us!”

“That’s not how the emergency room works, miss,” the receptionist replies. She drums her fingertips on the desk, offering the young mother a tight smile.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” the young mother adds, an edge of desperation creeping into her tone. Discreetly, Peeta moves around the receptionist’s chair, scanning the desktop until he spies the stack of files for the patients awaiting admission. While the receptionist continues to give the young mother the run-around, he thumbs through the stack, searching. His eyes land on what he’s looking for: a date of birth. His lips tip up. Bingo. This has to be it: HAWTHORNE, IVY ANN.

At the exact second his hand snatches Ivy’s file from the pile and slips the other one in amongst the stack, the young mother’s eyes lock on his. Her gaze narrows. He can see the exhaustion all over her beautiful face. Her full lips twitch, her countenance suspicious as they stare at one another.

“Ivy Hawthorne?” Peeta taps the file he had extricated. An immediate flicker of relief lights the young mother’s mercury eyes, and that lush mouth breaks into a grateful, relieved smile. The receptionist’s neck snaps up. “I’ve got this,” he adds, his tone leaving no room for her to argue with him. It’s not protocol for Peeta to take a patient directly, but it’s also not blatantly against the rules. Sure, it might mean a little more work for him, but if it means he can get this little girl home sooner on Christmas Eve, it’s worth it.

He smiles at the little girl. “Ivy, I’m Doctor Mellark. I’m going to help make you feel better, okay?” She nods once but doesn’t lift her head from her mother’s shoulder. Peeta’s arm sweeps to the side, ushering the young mother and Ivy past the desk. He scans the hallway and spies a partially drawn curtain halfway up the corridor. He leads them to the available partition and close the curtain behind them. As he turns to face them, he nearly slams into the woman. She hasn’t moved, and her luminous grey eyes fasten to his. She looks as if she’s going to say something, but several seconds pass and she’s still quiet, still watching him. The silence starts to become uncomfortable. Peeta clears his throat.

“If you’d have a seat, please, Mrs. Hawthorne. You can hold her while I get some more information from you.”

The young woman’s lips part slightly, again appearing as if she wants to say something, but instead she shuffles forward and Peeta waits while she settles on the edge of the hospital bed, gingerly adjusting Ivy so she’s sitting sideways across her mother’s lap.

Peeta sinks down onto the stool and scoots towards the edge of the bed. This close he has a much better look at Ivy’s mother. She really is a beautiful young woman, and given how adorable Ivy is Peeta assumes her husband is probably also very attractive. He feels a twinge of jealousy. Lucky bastard. Pretty wife, cute kid…probably has a nice little house and a golden retriever too. Living the dream. His dream, if he allows himself to admit it to anyone but his mother. If he was being perfectly honest, he had always envisioned himself married by now.

“How old are you, Ivy?” he ask, even though he knows from her chart and her mother’s declaration that she’s three years old. She hesitates, and still clutching the stuffed cat, manages to display three fingers. Peeta smiles at her again.

“I have a nephew who is the exact same age as you are. He told me just last week that he’s a big boy now. Are you a big girl, Ivy?” He keeps his tone gentle, hoping it will put her at ease with him. She nods, her big blue eyes lightening imperceptibly. “I thought so. Can you be a big girl and tell me what happened to your arm?”

Her mother answers automatically, “She fell. I was only gone—” Peeta holds up his palm. He has the triage nurse’s initial assessment, so he knows Ivy’s arm is likely broken. What he doesn’t know is how the arm got broken. And those details he needs to try to get from Ivy herself. Kids her age always tell the truth when it comes to how they were injured, and unfortunately it’s part of Peeta’s job to make sure there isn’t a more sinister reason she’s in the E.R. tonight, no matter how sweet and innocent her mother appears. He’s already had a few encounters with suspected child abuse, though his gut tells him that isn’t the case with Ivy Hawthorne.

“Please. I would like Ivy to tell me how it happened.”

Something dangerous flints in Ivy’s mother’s now stormy grey eyes.

“She. Fell.” The words are curt, enunciated coolly, but her voice is soft and Peeta can tell she’s keeping her temper in check for the benefit of her daughter. Eyes still pinned to his, she inhales deeply. A second later, her shoulders relax. “Go ahead and tell the nice doctor how you hurt your arm,” she whispers, stroking Ivy’s curls.

“I was trying to see Santa,” Ivy replies, her tongue tripping in a lisp on the “S’s.”

“What do you mean by that?” he prompts her.

Ivy scrunches up her button nose. “I was trying to see up the chimney. ‘Cause the chimney at Aunt Katniss’s house is so skinny and Santa Claus is real fat and I don’t know how he’s gonna fit down it to bring me my presents!” Her blue eyes brim with tears and her lower lip starts to tremble. Peeta reaches over and pats her knee.

“I wouldn’t worry about that, sweetheart. Santa Claus is magic. He’ll get you your presents, no matter what the chimney looks like.” He exchanges a look with her mother.

“It was all my fault,” she says quietly. “I went in the kitchen, to get the cookies and milk—”

“And the carrots! For Rudolph and the other reindeer!” Ivy chimes in, her eyes shiny wet.

“I never should have left her alone, not even for a second. This is my fault. It’s my fault. She wouldn’t have slipped and fallen off the hearth if I had been watching her.” Guilt chokes her words, and it sounds as if she’s close to tears.

“Accidents happen, Mrs. Hawthorne,” Peeta says empathetically, “that’s why there are emergency rooms.” She presses her lips together, her brows knitting.

“It’s Everdeen,” she says quietly. Peeta drops his eyes to Ivy’s chart, and furrows his brows, his gaze wandering to the young woman’s left hand. No ring. A brief thrill curls through him at the thought that she’s single. Asshole, he immediately chides himself. So not what you should be thinking about right now. He scans the chart more carefully and shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” he begins, “but this lists Primrose Hawthorne as the mother, under the Parent/Guardian information, and a Rory Hawthorne as the father. I just assumed—”

She cuts him off. “Primrose Hawthorne was her mother. But I’m not Primrose Hawthorne. I’m Katniss. Katniss Everdeen. I’m her aunt. I should be listed as her primary emergency contact.” She swallows and squeezes her eyes shut briefly. When she opens them, they plead with his. Peeta glances down at Ivy, and then raises his eyes to Katniss again. The guilt that was clouding those silver irises a moment ago has dissipated, replaced with anguish. He doesn’t know what the full story is here, but he didn’t miss Katniss’s usage of the past tense in referring to Ivy’s mother. So he honors her silent appeal not to ask questions.

“Okay, Ivy, you fell, and you landed on your arm? I bet that hurt,” Peeta says to the little girl, but his gaze stays fastens on Katniss. She gives him the faintest smile and mouths, “Thank you.”

~*~*~*~

An hour later, the orthopedist informs Peeta that Ivy Hawthorne is ready for his approval to be discharged. Not wanting to keep her and her aunt waiting any later than necessary, he sets down the X-ray he had been studying, and heads back to where Ivy is.

Standing outside the curtain, he hears quiet singing. He draws back the curtain and sees Katniss seated on the bed, with Ivy nestled in her lap. A bright pink cast safely cocoons the girl’s arm. Her blonde head rests on Katniss’s shoulder. Her eyes are closed, and her little body rises and falls with the deep breathing of sleep.

Katniss continues to sing, unaware of Peeta’s presence. He doesn’t recognize the tune she’s singing. It’s not a Christmas carol, at least not one he’s ever heard before, but he continues to listen, captivated by her voice. It’s soft and decidedly feminine, but there’s raspy undercurrent to it that gives him chills. It’s like the first sip of a rich, smoky bourbon.

Gingerly, he tiptoes towards the bed and stands before her for several more minutes, until Katniss finally lifts her eyes. She immediately stops singing. Peeta smiles and nods towards Ivy.

“Someone is worn out,” he whispers. Katniss’s lips twitch into a chagrinned smile.

“I’m sure the second we get home she’ll be wide awake and it’ll take forever to get her into bed. She was already amped up about Santa Claus before this.” She tips her head and gestures with her chin towards Ivy’s arm.

“Warm milk. With a little bit of cinnamon,” he suggests.

“Really?” Her eyes round. “Cinnamon? That really works?” Disbelief clouds her words. He shrugs sheepishly.

“I have no idea. No kids. And I’ve never had much trouble sleeping. I’m usually asleep the minute my head hits the pillow. But I’ve heard from a friend with a toddler that it does the trick.” He waits for her to say something—anything—in response, but she doesn’t. Her gaze is back on the sleeping toddler in her arms.

Watching her stare tenderly at her niece causes something unexpected to claw at Peeta’s chest and he’s overwhelmed by a fierce compulsion to want to keep her here, to get to know more about her. It’s been a long time since he felt this kind of instant attraction to a woman. Why couldn’t he have met her under different circumstances?

“Are we all done, doctor?”

Peeta startles from his thoughts and offers Katniss an apologetic smile.

“Yes, sorry. You are good to go as soon as you sign here—” He holds the clipboard at an angle, to allow her to sign without having to disturb Ivy, “and here.” He flips the sheet back to the second page and she scrawls her name across the line there, too. Normally a nurse would go over discharge papers and protocol with patients, but Peeta had taken it upon himself to grab Ivy’s. He needed to spend every possible minute in Katniss’s presence.

Once the release forms are complete, he review the plan for Ivy’s follow-up care, including how to manage any pain she has and when she’ll need to return to have the cast removed. Katniss listens attentively.

When he’s finished, she stands up slowly, her movements tentative so as not to jostle Ivy. A sigh parts the little girl’s lips and she stirs, but she remains asleep. God, she’s cute, Peeta thinks.

“Thank you, Dr. Mellark,” Katniss says softly. “For everything. I know what you did…” She falters. “I mean, I know we, ah, weren’t next, and ah…” Peeta waves a hand dismissively, sensing her discomfort with his hijacking of the queued patients.

“It was my pleasure,” he replies. “Little girls should be home on Christmas Eve. Waiting for Santa.” He echoes Katniss’s earlier words. “I hope he’s good to her.”

He doesn’t miss the forlorn expression that flits across Katniss’s face as she glances down at her sleeping niece.

“He can’t bring her what she wants most, but he’ll try,” she murmurs and moves towards the open curtain. Just before she steps out into the hall, she pauses and turns to face Peeta.

“Merry Christmas,” she adds.

“Merry Christmas,” he concurs. With a faint smile, she steps around the curtain. It rustles in her wake and resettles. Peeta exhales and slumps against the wall, regret washing through him, followed by a stronger wave of sadness at seeing Katniss go. If it hadn’t been for Ivy, he might have concocted some kind of delay to keep Katniss here longer, found some excuse to pry more information out of her. Like if she’s single. A surge of adrenaline spikes in his blood. He can’t let her go this easily.

He bolts out into the corridor, scanning the bustling hallway for any sign of Katniss and Ivy, but they’ve vanished. Disappointed, his shoulders slump as he trudges towards the nurses’ station to hand off Ivy’s file.

It’s probably best, a nagging little voice inside him taunts, and he reluctantly concedes that it probably is. As much as he’d love to finally shut his mother up and find a woman that he’d want to spend more than a night with, it’s not fair to subject one to the kind of schedule he has to keep. New doctors are low-man-on-the-totem-pole. He’s had mostly graveyard shifts and he’s often on call. It’s his dream to have a pediatric practice, but he’s well aware that he’ll have to toil for a couple of years to get on track to make that dream a reality.

A few minutes later, en route to his next examination, Peeta spies Johanna, one of the triage nurses, coming out of the room Ivy had occupied. His eyes immediately narrow when his gaze lands on her left arm.

“Was that in there?” He motions towards the vacated room and then nods towards the stuffed cat Johanna has wedged under her armpit.

“What, the cat? Yeah. It must have fallen under the bed. I’ll take it to the station, in case someone comes back to claim it.”

Ivy’s cherubic little face flashes in Peeta’s mind. He remember how fiercely she had been clutching that cat, and how she had reluctantly agreed to put it down when it had been time for Delly, another one of the triage nurses, to take her for X-rays.

Peeta’s pulse quickens and he immediately thrusts his hand towards Johanna. “I’ll take it,” he says impulsively. She wrinkles her nose and cocks her head, her hazel eyes intensely scrutinizing him. Though they have a casual friendship, Johanna is far too insightful for her own good. Peeta doesn’t really need her questioning his motives for taking possession of the toy.

“The little girl it belongs to goes to preschool with Max. I’ll make sure he takes it to her after the holiday break.” Fuck, that lie flew off his tongue so easily he almost believes it himself. Johanna shrugs and tosses Peeta the cat.

“Suit yourself. One less thing to overflow the Lost and Found.” She strides past him and disappears into Triage 6. He stares down at the stuffed animal. His heart skips another beat and a slow smile tugs at his mouth.

~*~*~*~

Stifling another yawn, Peeta squints at the numbers above the garage. He’s definitely in the right place. He kills the engine and sits for a moment, glancing at the clock on the navigation system. It’s quarter after nine. Early, but not obscenely so. When his shift had ended at six am, he had driven home and fought the urge to crawl into bed; instead, he grabbed a quick shower and freshened up. True, part of him hadn’t wanted to see Katniss Everdeen again looking like the bedraggled, exhausted mess he was at the end of a rotation, and also true, he was going to have to clean up before he’s due at his parents’ house at one. But he also knew he couldn’t really have shown up at Katniss’s house at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning, even if he suspects Ivy likely had her up by then. He recalls, with a wistful smile, that Christmas morning was the one morning he and his brothers were always awake before his father. It was only a question of which Mellark brother was going to be the first to rouse the others. Him being the youngest, it was usually him, he admits with a wider grin.

He quietly exits his car, careful not to slam the door, and gingerly steps across the icy driveway. He pauses at the un-shoveled front walk, where a pristine blanket of snow blocks his path. “Shit,” he whispers, gritting his teeth as he takes the first step. His foot plunges into the deep drift, up to nearly his calf. He braces himself and takes a huge step, hoping to eat up the distance in a few long strides. Fortunately, it’s not a long front walk. He reaches the also un-shoveled front steps and carefully ascends them. He contemplates ringing the doorbell, but instead raps his knuckles against the door. His breath pipes out in white plumes and he rubs his palms together for warmth as he waits.

No one comes to the door, at least not immediately. Peeta lifts his fist again, but just before his knuckles can connect with the wood again, the front door opens a crack and he’s suddenly looking at Katniss. Those silver eyes round almost comically as recognition lights them.

“D-Doctor Mellark? Wh-what are you….”

“Hi. Merry Christmas,” he begins. “I thought Ivy would be missing this.” He smiles and holds up the stuffed cat.

Katniss stares at him, her lips parting faintly, and shock and confusion war on her pretty face. But then her grey eyes darken with what Peeta can only describe as restrained fury.

She opens the door fully and glares at him.

“You had Ivy’s cat?” she accuses.

“Uh…yeah…” he stammers, his own confusion welling. Why is she so angry? “My nephew…he has a bear. Otis. Can’t sleep without that thing. I thought if Ivy is anything like Max…well, she’d be missing this.” He holds the cat out to Katniss. She snatches it so violently that she stumbles backwards. Peeta is equally jarred, but his jolt is from the very brief brush of Katniss’s fingers against his when she had grabbed the toy.

But Katniss gives him no time to revel in the feeling.

“So this is why no one at the hospital had a goddamned clue what I was talking about when I called there looking for this cat an hour ago!” she spits.

Shit, Peeta thinks, an uneasy feeling clawing its way into his gut.

“Why the fuck—” He can’t help but notice her slight hesitation before she lobs the obscenity at him. “—would you take my niece’s cat? Is this something normal people do?” She’s shivering visibly as she rants, a clear consequence of stepping onto her front porch wearing nothing but green plaid pajama pants and a threadbare black Henley shirt.

“I….I…” He shakes his head. He’s not even sure how to defend his actions. He can’t very well tell her his ulterior motives in bringing the stuffed cat back to her niece. Not now. He definitely fucked this up.

“I was just trying to be nice. That I’d save you a trip on Christmas morning,” he finishes lamely.

Katniss’s nostrils flare and her jaw flexes. “Christmas morning,” she mutters, just barely audible over the clattering of her teeth. “Did it occur to you, Dr. Mellark, that I might be looking for Ivy’s cat and I might call the hospital looking for this cat?” She shakes the toy in his face. “And did it occur to you that, in spite of all the toys she had just opened, Ivy might be bawling and throwing a fit because Buttercup was missing?”

Buttercup, he has to assume, is the stuffed cat.

She pauses, as if waiting for him to defend himself, but all he can do is swallow against the lump crowding his throat.

So she continues, “They made me think I was crazy—but not until after they left me on hold for 20 minutes while I tried to calm a wailing toddler. And then they said there was no toy matching this description in the Lost and Found. And that’s because you had it!” Her eyes are a maelstrom now, but he notices that an edge of frustration has crept into her furious tone.

“And now Ivy doesn’t have it. So thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Mellark. Merry Christmas.” And before Peeta can release the breath he’s been holding during her outburst and plead his case, she whirls around, her disheveled braid lancing through the air like a whip, and slams the door behind her. Stunned, Peeta can only stare at the wreath on the door as he processes what just happened.

What. The. Fuck.

Heart pounding, gut churning, Peeta retreats to his car. He takes a few minutes to absorb the shock of his encounter with Katniss, his mind reeling through the accusations she made. He never would have expected her to react like this. So much for any shot with Katniss Everdeen.

He finally gathers his composure and navigates out of her complex. As he drives, his mind continues replaying Katniss’s words over and over, and he finds one thing nags at him.

And now Ivy doesn’t have it.

Those words don’t make much sense to him. He just gave the stuffed animal back to Katniss. She can give it back to Ivy. She’ll have it now. In her wrath, Katniss just wasn’t being rational, he decides.

But her words continue to haunt him off and on for the rest of the day. Along with persistent images of Katniss that further torment him. She is never far from his conscious thoughts. As he sits down next to the fireplace in his parents’ house with a tumbler of scotch to exchange gifts with his brothers and his nephews, he finds himself wondering who Katniss is celebrating with. Ivy, obviously. But does she have other family?

By the time the Mellarks all settle around the table for dinner, he’s conjured up the notion that Katniss may not be married, but she surely has a devoted boyfriend who is showering her with gifts at this very moment. Her mood is infinitely better than what Peeta witnessed earlier. She’s probably dressed nice for him, and he’s sitting around her dining room table with Katniss and Ivy, like a makeshift family.

His mother’s irritation is palpable when she has to command his attention twice to try and draw him into the discussion centered on Rye’s upcoming wedding. Peeta murmurs the apology he knows she expects and feigns his dutiful brotherly interest for Rye’s benefit the remainder of the meal. But a dull ache has taken up residence in the center of his chest and he realizes just how badly he wants what his brothers have.

He just won’t be having it with Katniss Everdeen.

#everlark #the hunger games #everlark fanfiction #court81981

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bakugohoex · 4 years ago

Note

Can I request Bakugou with angst prompt #7 ? Congrats again on 1k 👏🏽👏🏽✨

“that blood, it’s not yours is it?”

pairing: katsuki bakugo x female reader

cw: angst, death, blood play

word count: 1500+

a/n: idk what the fuck this is, but i thought this would be a good idea for the prompt

summary: in which villian!bakugo comes to your apartment, confessing to his sins before finding himself surrounded by pro heroes after your call for help, with nowhere else to go, his only option to take you down with him

1k event masterlist

↞ back to my hero academia masterlist

Midnight had struck, you sat beside the window, watching the sky fill with blood. Villains always cascaded down alleyways, always loving the stench of blood, you had read the news about the latest call for the escaped S rank villain. The man you had loved, the man you had fought for to bring him back to the heroes side, the day he left stayed in your head.

You continued looking out to the sky, the crystals of stars encasing each blue and black spiral up above. Signing, you moved away from the window as you went to go turn the television off, the pictures of your ex floating across the screen. His blonde hair and tattoos surrounded his arm and shoulder, even now he kept the costume he had worn when the two of you were heroes.

Ever since you both found out the true purpose of heroes and UA, his whole life being a lie. He couldn’t stand it, you looked at his face one more time, remembering the day he had confessed to wanting to leave the hero's life.

“I...I can’t do this anymore.” Bakugo spoke, his hands on his face as he finally looked up at you.

“What do you mean?” You questioned walking up to him about to touch his shoulder.

His hand grabs your own, grip tightening as it felt more painful than anything else, “don’t touch me.” He shouted, making you flinch back, his grip began to tighten even more, you could almost feel him rip through your skin with his nails.

“Katsu...owww.” His nails indented more into your skin, eyes filled with fury as he stared into your eyes, you felt blood trickle down your arm at how easily he had been able to hurt you.

He finally let go when he saw your eyes begin to water, “I can’t do this anymore, my life it’s been built on a lie and I don't think I can be a hero anymore.” You didn't meet his eye, grabbing a towel to wipe away the red oozing blood. “I need to get out of here, I’m sorry Y/n.”

“Wh...where are you going?” You whispered out, he walked past you as if you weren't even there.

He saw your watering eyes, how he had hurt you so easily. But he didn’t care at all, he saw right through you. “I can’t do this anymore, don’t look for me.”

It was the last words you heard from him, he had left without a word, you had thought he had just gone for a walk and he’d be back within a day. You were so wrong, in the end he had come back to the apartment, removing all of his belongings and the sign on the screen in your agency showing the murder of a civilian.

The splattered blood across the wall and fires that surrounded him, with a ring hanging off a nail, the ring you had gotten him. The ring that was now around your neck on a piece of metal. He had murdered someone, you needed to remember that. But all the photos were still up of the two of you. All the memories that you both lived here together surrounded the apartment, pictures from your time at UA together, to your first date, sea shells from the beach you both had visited. Even more so, the apartment remained the both of yours, it was never just yours.

You finally switched the television off ready to go to bed, but the sound of glass being smashed was heard instead. Your arms went to your head just as you saw a shadow in front of the smashed window. “Y/n.” The voice was breathless, it had been months since you heard that voice, the way he stood up scratched across his body and the most significant part the blood seeping through his hands and clothes.

“Bakugo.” You paused, your eyes widening as you realised what he was doing, “that blood, it’s not yours is it?”

“What happened to Katsuki, baby?” He disregarded your question, quirk activating as he had a lust for more blood.

“Katsuki.” You breathed out heavily.

Just as he tried to come closer to you, he collapsed leaning against the sofa to gain support. “I thought you were the polite type to your guests, get me some water.”

You could barely move, but even then, he always knew he had a sort of charm with you. He had the ability to easily control you in any way, he looked at you, keeping the light off as he watched you teeter over. “Wh...what are you doing here?”

“You haven’t gotten dumb since me leaving, cops showed up whilst I was hunting some guy down.” He had become sadistic gulping the water down as you could smell the blood across his body. “I don’t bite.”

You hesitantly moved closer to the man, he looked at how your eyes had become more tired and how you refused to meet his gaze. “Why’d...did you come here?”

“You wouldn’t snitch on me, my love.” He was almost mocking you now, the way he brought his bloodied hand to your face, he put the blood around your lips. “Go on, taste it.” His voice felt enchanting as you did as he spoke, the metallic taste of blood cascaded down your throat.

“L...leave.” You whispered, the blood creeping down your face and down your neck. You knew why you said for him to leave, the way you had gone into the kitchen and sent a text to Midoriya saying the one word you knew he’d understand. You were helping Bakugo, helping the boy to not get caught.

“Why? Because you called for help?” He smirked, licking his fingers off the blood before moving his saliva ridden fingers around your mouth again. “I know you Y/n, you were supposed to be my good girl.”

You felt mocked and humiliated, he knew what you had done but even then, he remained by your side. His fingers moving past your lips and touching your teeth as he felt your own saliva move through his fingers. “Pl...please, go before they come.” You whimpered as he moved his fingers away from you.

“Why? Scared I’ll kill them all.” He could almost smell the heroes and knew what the protocol was for a scenario like this, stealth was key, to get you out and into protective custody. “You could’ve caught me already, why haven’t you baby?”

“I promised you.” he remembered the promise you made after he got his hero license, that you both would never use your quirks on each other.

The steps towards the door became louder as you felt anxious that this would be the moment Bakugo was finally caught. “Y/n.” Midoriya shouted from the broken window, having jumped up to see the two of you on the ground as other pro heroes boomed through the front door. Bakugo got up a smirk on his face as he looked at you and only you.

“You really thought this would work.” He could feel Midoriya come closer, fist clenched ready to push him, Bakugo grabbed your waist as you let out a shout as Bakugo moved past Midoriya’s one for all move, Bakugo jumped from the window with you in his arms. Quirk activating as he landed on the edge of the roof.

“Kacchan, why?” Midoriya spoke of jumping out of your apartment, with the other pro heroes in suits.

“Why, Deku? Because my whole life was a lie, we don’t save people, heroes create evil and vengeance, I killed all those with quirks that could kill others. I had to kill them and if you think I’m getting caught, then you’re strongly mistaken.” Bakugo shouted, you became limp in his arms, the man you loved holding you like a ragdoll.

“Let her go, let Y/n go, she was your girlfriend, you loved her, let her be safe.” Midoriya bargained as he saw Kirishima come beside him as they both landed on the roof themselves.

“Bakugo.” Kirishima spoke, “let her go.”

“What is this a fucking reunion? She means nothing to you, let me have her.” You couldn’t break the promise you had vowed to the boy, but in this moment in his arms, as bad as it sounded. You felt loved for the first time in months, maybe you had gone crazy, or maybe it was Bakugo stepping further and further towards the ledge that made you realise you loved him.

“Kacchan, please, she wouldn’t want this?” Midoriya shouted, he had no plan to save you and Bakugo’s eyes were filled with fury at the two heroes who were trying to stop him.

Bakugo saw lights flash onto him and you from a police helicopter, he knew he’d been caught but what was it to him anymore. He stopped caring about this world, he missed you, needed you and he wasn’t going to let you live in a world without him. “Goodbye.” Bakugo whispered.

He fell off the building, your arms around his neck waiting for the plummet, “I love you.” He softly spoke into your air as you collided down the building, the wind encasing your hair and clothes.

“I love you too.” You whispered, the last thing you heard was a scream from the pro heroes who had called you their friend, and Bakugo’s tight arms around you, bones crushing on impact as you fell out of this world with the man you loved.

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wayward-mikaelson · 5 years ago

Text

Midnight Love II (NSFW)

Word Count: 3119

About: After being caught, Bucky and the Reader are back at the compound.

Characters: Reader, Bucky, Natasha, Steve, Sam, Tony, Fury, Thor

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings/Trigger Warnings: !!!NSFW!!! Language, Mention of death, mention of blood, Sexual Teasing, Oral (M &F Receiving), Hair pulling, Choking (obviously because of Bucky’s metal hand), Deep V Penetration, Unprotected Sex (Wrap it before you tap it peeps), Multiple Orgasms, Dirty Talk

A/N: This originally wasn’t going to have a second part but the person who inspired me to write the first part convinced me to write this one. This will however be the final part.

A/N 2: This is probably the filthiest thing I’ve written to date. And I’ve enjoyed every second writing it too. 100% not NSFW

*This contains content for the 18 and up crowd (Seriously this one is pure filth).

**please don’t copy and paste my work. You are more than welcome to share the link

***This work is posted on Instagram (excerpt only), WattPad, and Archive Of Our Own

****Follow my other accounts. Links can be found in the pinned post in my profile

*****Currently NOT taking any requests

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Midnight love I

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You sat in a poor lit, padded room. Your hands were cuffed to the table. Steve had told you that it was protocol and that they would come off soon. But you had been in the room for what felt like hours. You had no idea where Bucky was. The two of you were instantly separated from each other once you landed back at the compound.

When Natasha told you that they knew the truth, you knew exactly what she was talking about. Yet, you still had to make her and Steve prove it. All they had to say was your sister’s name and where they found her body.

So, you sat there in your thoughts. Was this a trick? Was this real? you wondered as you looked around you.

The door opened and in walked Natasha. She had a few files in her hands. She closed the door behind her softly and approached the table. Setting the files down, Natasha pulled out a small key and took the cuffs off your wrists.

“Where’s Bucky?” you asked right away.

“Barnes is fine,” Natasha sat down and spread the files apart. “He’s in the next room with Steve.”

You relaxed some and leaned in your chair. “If you guys know, then why the cuffs and separation?”

Natasha took a deep breath. “Fury wanted to make sure all kinds of safety precautions were taken. Both Steve and I thought it was ridiculous but in order It to be us to bring you guys in we had no choice but to follow.”

You nodded. “How did you find us anyhow?” you asked the million dollar question. You wondered how you and Bucky fell onto the Avengers radar. “We were keeping such a good low profile and changing things up.”

Natasha smiled. “About a week ago on a surveillance camera outside of Death Valley.”

You chuckled because you knew that was the only time you and Bucky let down your guys guard. It was blazing hot and Bucky was sweating with the long shirt on. You felt bad for him so you helped him out of the shirt since it had been sticking to his body and arm. The remainder of the time you both walked in back alleys and such to keep out of sight.

“Well, I thought we were keeping a good low profile.” you said looking down at the table.

“I don’t blame you. Death Valley get’s extremely brutal.” Natasha gave you a warm smile. “Shall we get to these? I bet Sam I would get done with you before Steve got done with Bucky.”

“Sure,” you leaned forward and folded your hands not the table.

Natasha pushed forward a file. “This is your phone records from a week prior to Agent Kline’s death.” You began to flip through the file of all the texts and phone calls between you and the people that killed your sister. It brought back all the memories and feelings. “Which we found out that he was a double agent for the people that killed your sister.” Natasha added.

You felt like your world was flipped upside down. Coldness washed over your body as Natasha’s words echoed in your ear. Double agent. No wonder those people wanted you kill that agent. He was working with the enemy and they didn’t want you guys to know. You didn’t realize it, but you clutched the edge of the table real hard and were breathing hard.

“Y/N?” Natasha had made her way around the table and was kneeling next to you. Her hand rested on your leg. “Do you need water?”

You nodded and Natasha pulled out her phone and sent a quick text. “Okay, now, this next part is going to be hard.” Natasha turned and pulled another file towards you. “DNA obviously stated it was your sister, but we need you to confirm that it was.”

Your hand reached out slowly and robotically knowing what was inside that file. The file felt like it weighed am million pounds. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath. Opening your eyes you opened the file and immediately covered your mouth. A strangled like noise escaped your throat.

The pictures were more gruesome than you prepared yourself for. You slowly flipped through the pictures, and with each flip you let out a whimper louder than the last. Then your landed on the last picture of her face. Her green eyes looked scared and stared into space. Blood splattered her face.

You shut the file and threw it back on the table. “It’s her,” you whispered and felt the tears start to roll down your face. “It’s my sister.”

Natasha nodded slowly and licked her lips. “I’m sorry, Y/N.” she whispered and pulled you into a firm hug. You let out a loud sob and you were sure that Bucky could hear it in the next room over. “Okay,” Natasha pulled back and grabbed your face in her hands. “Now, the last file. This is the good one.” You took the file from Natasha and opened it. Flipping through statements and pictures and mission transcripts you were in tears again.

While you and Bucky were running, your team had your back and tracked down the group of people who took your sister from you. Either those people were no dead or behind bars. Justice was served. The last line in the transcript was by Steve.

Let’s find them and bring them home.

“We had no way of contacting or tracing you guys,” Natasha stood up and stretched a hand out to you. “We watched everywhere for two years until you guys popped up. Come, your room is still here and still yours.”

You hesitated. “But Bucky and I have done some bad things,” you said clenching your fists. “We’ve killed and stolen and…”

“Steve’s working on that angle,” Natasha pulled you out of the chair. “We found your guys hotel and all your identities.” No wonder your contact was late that night. They were busy looking through your guys things. “Steve’s going to have Fury put these in the records as undercover work and pardon you guys for all that you’ve done.”

You felt your lips twitch with a smile as more tears fell down your face. “So no more running?” It came out more like a question than a proclamation.

“No more running,” Natasha said and walked you out of the room a free woman. “Now, tell me all about hooking up with Barnes. Cause I know you did given how protective he was that night.”

***Midnight***

You sat in the kitchen and stared at the tea in your hand. It felt weird being back at the compound. Everyone was so nice and welcomed you and Bucky back with open arms. Tony had a small dinner planned which wasn’t all that bad. It was just the team and no one else. There were secrets to be told about certain people and groups of people.

Everything felt perfect. But yet, you still couldn’t sleep with everything that happened and what you have done, haunting you. You didn’t have to run anymore. You were safe, but you kept jumping at every small sound. You didn’t realize how much you and Bucky were on the fence and had your guards up until now.

“Hey,” Bucky’s soft voice almost had you jumping out of the chair. “Shh, It’s just me.” He wrapped an arm around shoulder and pressed his lips to your head. “Lost in thought, I see.”

You smiled and leaned into his chest. “Very much lost in a deep thought. But I’m okay,” You looked up to assure Bucky everything was fine. “Just getting used to freedom.”

“Well, if you’re okay, why don’t you join me for bed,” Bucky leaned down and bushed his lips over yours. You closed your eyes and sighed. “I can help make whatever has you in a deep thought disappear.” His lips brushed from your lips to you jawline to your neck. A shiver went down your spine.

“How will you do that?” you breathed out as Bucky’s lips found your ear and nipped it. You held back a small yelp but bitting your lip.

“I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Bucky bent down and swiftly swept you into his arms bridal style and walked the two of your towards the room you now shared.

The moment the door was closed and locked, Bucky had you on your feet and had your backed pressed to the wall. His lips attacked yours hungrily, tongue pushing passed your lips to dominate your mouth. Bucky’s hands found the hem of your shirt and without warning he ripped it half and off your body, leaving your breast bare. You felt his metal hand grab and squeeze one of your breasts, making you moan into his mouth.

Bucky lifted you back up and wrapped your legs around him. He made his way towards the bed where he plopped you down. You watched as he whipped his shirt off. You jumped to a sitting position to stop his hands from undoing his pants.

“Let me,” you smirked as you pushed his hands away. You unbuttoned his pants and yanked them down along with his boxers. Freeing his already throbbing member that twitched when you laid eyes on it.

You looked up at Bucky through your eyelashes as you leaned forwards and slowly gripped his hard member. You placed a small little kiss on the head before dragging your tongue for the base of his shaft to the tip.

“Ugh!” Bucky groaned out and place a hand on top of your head.

You gave him no warning, you took him in your mouth until the tip his cock hit the back of your throat. You repeated this for a few minutes. Bucky had grabbed hold of your hair and had pushed himself further into your mouth until you moaned. The vibration of your voice on his cock had him moaning a louder.

“Ugh, fuck, Y/N,” he groaned as he thrusted into your mouth, not caring that spit and drool were spilling from the corner of your mouth. “Your mouth feels so good.” You picked up pace until you felt your mouth getting sore. Bucky gripped your hair and yanked your head back. His blue, lust filled eyes bored right into your as he forced you to look up at him.

“As much as I want to cum in the pretty little mouth of yours,” Bucky let go of your hair and used that hand to wipe away some spit that lingered at the corner of your mouth. “I want to cum in that pretty pussy. I want to feel you come undone over and over again.”

A moan slipped through your lips and in the next second, you found yourself being flipped over on your stomach. Your bottoms and underwear were yanked away and Bucky’s hands lifting your ass up. Soon you felt his fingers slide between your folds.

“Mmm, so wet, all this for me?” Bucky groaned.

“Yes,” you squeaked out at the pleasure and tightness starting to build inside of you.

You heard Bucky kick the rest of his pants off and soon he was teasing you with the tip of his cock. Slowly rubbing it back and forth between your folds, making you moan and squirm. If he didn’t get inside you and fuck you hard, you’d have no choice but to take matters into your own hands.

“Look at you, Doll,” Bucky chuckled darkly. “You’re almost a mess and I haven’t even gone an inch inside you.” Bucky barely pushed himself inside you but pulled back out and started to rub himself again between your wetness.

“Bucky,” you whimpered. “Please!”

Firm hands grabbed your shoulder and yanked you up. You were flush with his bare chest. You felt his breath on your neck as he place a soft, gentle bite on you. “Please what?” he demanded quietly. The way he said it, it sent shivers down your spine. You wanted to be fucked so hard by this man and you were sure that you were dripping more.

“You want me to fuck that tight little pussy? Huh?” Bucky’s metal hand flew to your neck. “You want me to destroy you until you can’t walk?”

“Yes,” you answered breathlessly. “I want you to fuck me. Hard. I want you to make me scream so that everyone knows.”

Without another word, Bucky pushed you back on the bed. He took his cock and lined it up with your entrance and thrusted himself into you hard. He didn’t eat for you to adjust to him. He started to thrust fast, deep, and hard into you. Grunting each time the tip of his cock hit your cervix.

“Fuck, oh my—fuck!” You moaned and cried out. “Buck!”

Bucky was hitting all the right places. Changing angles when he’d feel you tighten around him. You’d moan when you couldn’t get your release. You reached for you throbbing clit and began to rub it hard and fast, while Bucky’s cock sped in and out of you.

“I’m close,” you breathed out. “I’m so fucking close.”

You felt Bucky’s hand twist around your hair and forcefully pull you up to his chest again. He stopped thrusting but remained in you. You whimpered. “You don’t get to cum until I tell you to.” He growled into you ear. “Answer me?” his metal hand let go of your hair and grabbed your neck.

“I won’t cum until you tell me to,” you repeated back to him.

“Good girl,” Bucky kissed your neck. “Now enjoy my cock.”

Bucky didn’t let you back down. He held onto your neck and began to thrust up into you. With the new position, you knew you weren’t going to last long and Bucky knew that. He pushed your hand away from your clit and replaced it with his. He rubbed it firmly and fast. Your eyes began to roll back into you head and your dropped your head on Bucky’s shoulder.

“That’s a good girl,” he purred into your ear. “I like to see you this way.”

You whimpered and felt tears stinging your eyes as you held back your orgasm. It was hard pushing the feeling back. If you had some wiggle room, you would move slight to take the edge off, but Bucky held you firmly in place. His pace never faltering.

“Bucky,” you cried. “I need to cum, please let me cum.”

“I know, Doll, I know,” Bucky’s pace in both his hips and fingers quickened. “Cum Y/N, Cum all over me.”

And that’s what it took to send you over the edge. You cried out as your body rocketed with the intense orgasm. You felt a familiar gush pulse out of your body as you fell limp in Bucky’s arms. “Oh my fuck,” you whispered.

Bucky turned you around and you could still see the lust and desire in them. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m not done with you.” The way the word sweetheart rolled off his tongue got you aching all over again.

Bucky pushed you back on the bed and knelt on his knees. With a smirk forming on his face, he yanked you towards him until he was inches from your newly recharged clit. Bucky licked and bite his lip before diving right in. You moaned loudly and arched your back and let your hands fly to his hair. Gripping his dark hair, you pushed his face further into your folds.

He ate away at you like he was a starved man. He as licking. He was sucking. He was evening nipping. And you, you were a complete and total mess. Moaning and whimpering out his name as you felt your second orgasm of the night unfold.

“Oh my fucking god,” you yelled as your legs wrapped tightly around Bucky’s neck and held him there.

Bucky pushed your legs away and crawled you until your face was level with his. He dove in and attacked your lips. Tasting yourself on him, again recharged you for another round.

“I bet you have one more for me,” Bucky pulled back and you felt himself line up with your entrance again.

“Why don’t you find out,” you wrapped your legs around his waist and helped him push into you. In no time, Bucky was thrusting fast and hard in you, while you clawed at his back. Soon you felt your stomach tightened up for the final night and Bucky’s thrusts were starting to get sloppy. You knew that he was close too.

“Cum for me, Bucky,” you pulled his face up to meet your eyes. “Come inside me.” Bucky wrapped himself around and with a few hard thrusts you felt his warm cum filling you up. That was enough to moan out his name and let you go as well.

“Oh my god,” Bucky rolled off you and gathered you into his arm. “Holy fuck that was awesome.”

You snuggled closer to him. “That was pretty fucking awesome.” You yawned and felt your eyes slowly begin to close. “Just what I needed.”

***Next Morning***

You and Bucky walked out of the room and towards the kitchen. When the two of you entered, everyone fell silent and just starred at you guys. You looked down to make sure you actually put clothes on and looked to see if maybe Bucky skipped a layer. Nope. The two of you were good. Why was everyone staring then?

“I put in a work order to make you guys room sound proof,” Tony walked into the kitchen. “Some of us would like to sleep and not hear whatever it was you guys were doing.”

“Oh I know what they were doing,” Sam laughed as he drank his coffee. “It sounded real nasty in there.”

“You guys are almost as bad a Thor when he’s on Earth and smooth talks his way with an agent. Which is why his room is also sound proof.” Tony continued.

Bucky leaned towards your ear and whispered “Well, Doll, you’re the one who wanted me to make you scream so everyone heard you.”

“And I don’t regret a second of it,” you whispered back. “Besides us, Thor, and probably Tony getting laid, what about everyone else?”

Sam’s face fell. “Now this just got very depressing right away. Why did we let them come back again?”

You smirked. “You missed us.”

“Bucky I missed,” Sam got up and began to walk out of the kitchen. “You not so much.”

“Oh you love me,” You called after him. “It’s so good to be back.”

The End

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marjansmarwani · 4 years ago

Text

time can heal, but this won’t

1.7k || ao3

This could have been easily avoided. It never should have happened. But it had and now TK was possibly dying from a gunshot wound and Carlos couldn't shake the feeling that it was his fault. --- Carlos Reyes Week Day 5: “Just, hold on.” + hurt/comfort

This idea actually came from this post by @trkstrnd and became this but none of my other stuff for Carlos week was really angsty so I guess I was due

Beta’d by my favorite partner in crime @officereyes

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

Carlos could recite police protocols verbatim. They had been drilled into his head since the academy and every day since he had lived by them. As a patrol officer, making the right choice and following the proper procedure could be the difference between life and death. The rules were there for a reason; they existed to keep people safe.

This incident — this catastrophe, really — was the kind of example they’d be using to scare the new recruits for years to come: make sure you follow procedure, or a firefighter could get shot by a 7-year-old.

Carlos still wasn’t sure what had happened: there had been so many moving parts. There had been the mistaken burglar, the worried wife, the heart attack victim, the chaos of the scene. There had been other officers on scene who were not responsible for two civilians; someone should have secured the weapon.

But it slipped through the cracks, as things sometimes did in the face of chaos. Carlos would normally be one of the first to say that it was something to learn from, that now that it had happened they would know to never let it happen again. But this time was different.

This time it was TK’s life on the line, and no amount of reasoning could make that okay.

He didn’t even find out about it until they were gone. He had just turned the corner when the alert about a gunshot came over the radio. His heart caught in his throat as he thought of all the awful possibilities: it could be a fellow officer, someone he was friends with. It could be one of the firefighters - he may not know them well but he would never wish harm on any of them. It could be Paul, it could Michelle, or TK. Those last few possibilities were too awful for him to dwell on so he pushed them aside focusing instead on the road in front of him and the job before him.

It’s not until the Ackermans are safely returned home with a promise to follow up with any updates from the other homeowners (though Carlos doubts they’ll have any desire to press charges, given everything) that he checks his phone. He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees a text from Michelle, and another when he sees one from Paul.

It’s only after he unlocks his phone to read the messages, nearly identical in content, that he starts to feel the world ever so slowly begin to fall apart around him. It’s the confirmation he’s been dreading: TK’s been shot. TK’s in surgery and from what he can extrapolate between the lines...it doesn’t look good.

He shuts his eyes and takes a moment, leaning against the driver’s side door of the cruiser, to let the fear and dread wash over him. He and TK, well, Carlos isn’t all that sure what they are, to be perfectly honest; but he does know what they could be. He thinks they’re on the way there too. He thinks they could have something wonderful, but that’s not possible if TK is dead.

Even thinking the word, even considering the possibility brings tears to his eyes but he pushes them back down. He opens his eyes to check on his partner, who is still on the front porch speaking to Mrs. Ackerman. He still has a few moments of solitude before he’ll have to answer any questions. He sags against the car as he lets the weight of this fear crash over him. It feels almost intrusive, to care so much when he has no claim on the other man; when they have no label for this thing they are building. But they were building it, and Carlos doesn’t want to be left with only the memory of the process.

As much as he doesn’t want that, he’s afraid that might be exactly what he gets and he hates it.

He straightens up and shoots off quick replies — thanking them both for the information and asking them to keep him posted. Then he glances at the time and takes a deep breath — there are two hours left in his shift. He can last two hours. He doesn’t know how to explain this to anyone else, doesn’t know how he could possibly explain to his boss that he needs to leave early because this guy he might be kind of dating might die. He doesn’t know how to explain it to anyone, so when his partner returns to the car he gives her a tight smile and starts the car so they can head back to the precinct and their paperwork.

He doesn’t want to dwell on his thoughts of TK hurt, of TK in surgery, of TK possibly dying so instead he focuses on the how. Namely, how was a gun — that they knew about — not secured; how had this happened with a large police presence?

Why hadn’t he noticed before it was too late?

He tells himself he wasn’t there when the shots were fired, he reminds himself that there were other officers there, that he wasn’t responsible for this fuck up. But no matter many times he repeats it to himself, he doesn’t believe it. He was there, he knew how things should have gone and he hadn’t made sure they were done. And now TK was paying the price. This was his fault.

He carefully avoids the subject with his partner and upon their return to the station, he buries himself in paperwork, the words in front of him a blur as he checks his phone every other minute and counts down the seconds to the end of his shift. He keeps to himself, carefully avoiding the talk and conjecture of what had happened at the last call. He pretends to not hear those asking for a recount of the events, he only speaks to his Captain when asked to give his version. He tells her the truth: this could have been avoided; it should have never happened. She nods and thanks him, and he returns to his private waiting game.

Finally, after what seems like a lifetime, his shift is over and he is finally able to go to where his head and his heart have been the whole night. Arriving at the hospital is easy, it’s the going in that’s hard. As much as he wants to know there is a part of his brain that reminds him that these last few moments of not knowing might be the last moments he has in a reality where TK Strand still exists. Walking through those doors could change that, and it’s almost enough to keep him in his car.

In the end, the need to know wins out. Carlos has never been one to run from things and he is determined to keep it that way. Even if what he is running to is his own heartbreak, he is determined to face it head-on. And so he opens his car door and climbs out, heading towards the door and the possibility of a new reality.

He finds the correct waiting room quickly; the large group is pretty noticeable, especially at the late hour. He gets curious gazes from most and a sympathetic look from Paul. He nods at them all before his eyes zero in on the room at the center of it all, the door to which their eyes keep gravitating. He takes a deep breath and strides across the room, slowing as he reaches the doorway and the scene within reveals itself.

It is TK in the bed and, according to the monitors, he is alive, but after having known TK for several months now Carlos scarcely believes it. TK is always moving; a study in perpetual motion. Even when they sit, on the rare nights they settle in for a movie, he is never still. He shifts, he fiddles with his necklace. TK Strand does not hold still and to see him so stationary and lifeless is wrong on levels Carlos doesn’t even want to contemplate.

He steps inside quietly, not wanting to startle the Captain who is speaking softly, who only has eyes for his son. Owen still turns, despite his efforts, and when their eyes meet Carlos can tell that he isn’t fooling the other man for one moment. Seeing TK like this, in such a foreign state has breached the barriers he has so carefully maintained all night and he can feel the moisture in his eyes. The Captain’s expression filters through several emotions within a moment and he settles on understanding. He knows what they are to each other; or at least what TK is to Carlos. He stands and offers Carlos some time and Carlos means it when he says he doesn’t want to impose. He doesn’t want to pull TK’s father away from his son, he doesn’t want to put anyone else out when this was all his fault anyway.

But the Captain insists and soon Carlos is left alone with the shell of the man he just might love. He falls into the chair beside the bed and runs a hand through TK’s hair before reaching out and wrapping a hand tenderly around his arm. He knows that in a movie this would be the big romantic speech, the moment the character proclaims his love for the person in the bed. But as much as he does want that, as much as it may be true, proclamations of love are not his highest priority right now. Right now he just needs TK to live. Anything that comes after that, he can handle. Instead, as he leans in, he offers something else.

“I’m so sorry,” he says thickly, voice low and heavy with tears, “this shouldn’t have happened I...I’m so sorry Ty. Just…” he trailed off, using his free hand to angrily wipe away the tears sliding down his face, “just, hold on. You can’t leave us yet. We need you — I need you.”

He let the silence of the ambient noises fill the room as he stared at the man before him. Soon he is joined by the rest of the crew but not even the firm and comforting hand on his shoulder from Paul can make this any better.

If TK didn’t make it through this, he didn’t know how he would be able to live with himself.

#911 lone star #911 lone star fic #carlos reyes #tk strand #tarlos #my writing #usermaximus #userac #tuserpaige #reyesstrand #userkimmy #userjilly #jazzyjess

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98shawns · 5 years ago

Text

trusting you; trusting me. (t.c.)

dating in the workplace may be tough, but your new hopeless romantic of an assistant makes it worthwhile.

(coworker au, boss x assistant au)

chapters: one, two

words: 2500

warnings: mentions of nsfw (none in this chapter unfortunately, but def in the next !!)

a/n: long time no post !! i wrote this such a long time ago and it’s collecting dust so i might as well post without worrying too much about how it will do, right? lol, hopefully i can get to writing more !!

Keeping a poker face is easy until the new employee transferring into your department was the guy you’d just spent the night with.

You keep your expression contained as you make a beeline towards your office. This wasn’t the plan. The plan was for you to let off some steam with some good looking guy at the bar and then leave without a trace the morning after. He was nice. Style, charisma, and a boyish charm all wrapped in one handsome package. Just your type.

And you believe that you’d caught his fancy as well. He slipped his number written down on a napkin that sat wedged into your car’s sun blocker. (You’ve been pondering on whether or not you should shoot him a message all morning).

But as much as you enjoyed his company, he wasn’t supposed to be following you around.

‘I’m going crazy,’ You’re quick to frantically grab the file placed on your desk earlier this morning. Surely enough, Timothée Chalamet would be starting as your new assistant.

/////

“Fancy seeing you here,” is how Timothée greets you when you let him into your office. You bite your cheek as you frown at his words.

“Stop addressing me so casually. I’m your superior.” You lean back in your chair and offer Timothée a seat in front of your desk. His lips press into a straight line as he responds with a curt nod before eventually sitting down in front of you.

The atmosphere was heavy but you find yourself feeling somewhat relieved upon seeing the uneasiness in Timothée’s expression. It seemed like he wasn’t expecting an early reunion either.

“Let me get straight to the point,” you start, leaning forward and clasping your hands together as you rest your elbows on your desk. You see Timothée’s body visibly tense up.

“We’ll be spending a lot of time together from here on out. In regards to what happened last night, we can’t let it affect our practice here. While we’re in this building, we’re coworkers first. Got it?” Timothée nods in a silent agreement, and you try your best to not drown in how uncomfortable you had to make the situation for the both of you. It was protocol for situations like these, but you hated the thought of being professional to the man who sweet-talked you for the duration of all of last night.

“That’s all. I know it’s a lot for your first day, but try your best. Most of our coworkers are all great people so hopefully they can help you adjust. If you need anything, just ask.” You end the conversation with a send-off you once read in a self-help book about excelling in management. It was just a standard between a manager and a worker; hopefully a standard the both of you will be able to upkeep.

You eventually stand up and extend your hand to give your new assistant a handshake. He stands with you and clasps your hand firmly.

‘He has a good handshake…’ You think about how odd it was that you held this very hand last night. It was cold and fragile yet still big and protective when he held you. He had long fingers and surprisingly soft skin; his hands were noticeably beautiful. You told him so as you dozed off in the wee hours of the morning.

Your touch lingers a few seconds longer than it should before you let go.

“Thank you.” Timothée breathes a sigh of relief as he bids you farewell and you let yourself fall back into your chair after he closed the door behind him.

/////

You were always the last to leave, especially on a weekend. Even a few years ago when you were stationed at the cubicle in the back of the office, one row of fluorescent lights would stay illuminating your space.

You were a hard worker with big plans. Everyone in your relatively new branch was around your age so you were well liked, admired, respected, or at least acknowledged by your coworkers by the time you eventually got promoted to a managerial position. The youngest manager in the company. You deserved it, and you would make sure that you’d aim higher. Nothing would come between you and your performance.

Well, maybe nothing but the new assistant you accidentally slept with a week ago.

“Can I talk to you?” You jump at the sound of Timothée’s voice. He looked up at you as he sat on the couch outside your office with his suit jacket slung over his shoulder and his briefcase resting beside him. Your hands grasp the door frame as you check the clock on your office wall. He’d been waiting for the last two hours for you to come out.

“Of course! You could have just knocked at 5:00–“

“It... isn’t about work.”

By the time you turned back to him he’d stood up. He fidgeted with his hands, putting them halfway into his pockets before eventually folding them in front of his body. You think of all the possibilities that would play out if you said yes and you consider telling him to wait until Monday when you’d see each other at work again. In a professional setting. You knew along the lines of what he was about to ask, and now wasn’t the time to get caught up in your emotions. Not when you’d only been promoted two years ago.

But for some reason, something pulls at your heartstrings as you observe Timothée’s demeanour. He seemed so… innocent as he tried his best to be patient while he waited for a response.

You sigh and step outside your office, closing the door behind you. You stood still for a moment before caving.

“Have you eaten yet?”

When his face lights up, you realize that your new assistant may have you wrapped around his little finger.

/////

You don’t know why you chose to come to Denny’s to have this conversation with Timothée, but it somehow felt right. Eating mediocre breakfast foods drowned in maple syrup helped to mask the fact that the two of you being together like this was, well, wrong.

“Are you adjusting well?” You break the silence. Well, silence other than the sounds of forks and knives clanking against each other. Timothée swallows a ball of nervousness down with his chocolate chip pancakes and nods.

“You’re right, everyone at our branch is really nice.” He smiles politely and it makes you feel uncomfortable. He seemed so free spirited when you first met him, but that was when you were just a person at a bar. Not his boss.

“That’s good.” You smile back. It’s not like you weren’t guilty either; he wasn’t just a charming boy approaching you with a cheesy one liner anymore. He was your employee.The two of you sit in each other’s silence for a moment longer.

“Thanks again,” He starts. Your eyes avert to his.

“For what?”

“You’re not treating me any differently even though it must have been hard to stay professional for a whole week. You even let me keep my job.”

“You thought I was going to fire you?” You ask, somewhat in disbelief. The more you think about it, firing him would make sense if you were heartless. He nods casually. “I was 100% positive when you called me into your office Monday morning.”

You try not to express your concern towards Timothée’s confession. It wasn’t your fault you accidentally slept with your new assistant but it obviously wasn’t his either. As long as you stayed professional during work hours, what was the problem? It’s not like he wouldn’t be able to redirect your calls or organize your schedule. The last thing you’d want was for him to feel uncomfortable towards you; he was your employee after all.

Yeah… your employee.

You wonder if that’s why you take the extra liberty of comforting him, and before you know it words of consolation becomes friendly conversation. It’s alright if you spend the next two or three hours chatting about nothing and everything at the same time … you weren’t at work, after all. There was no need to be so stiff around each other.

“We should get going,” You check the time: 11:30 p.m. You should have wrapped this up hours ago. You don’t notice Timothée’s smidgen of a smile as he watches you gather your belongings. He eventually stands up to grab your trench coat off the coat hanger beside your booth. You scoff as he holds it up for you, eventually helping you slip into it before he shrugs on his own jacket.

“Together?” The monotonous waitress, who’d been taking care of you since you entered, punched a few buttons on the cash register. You noticed that she’d let her hair down and put on a sweater as you walk up to the counter to pay for your meal. She must be getting ready to go home as well.

“Actually–“

“Yes, please.” Timothée cuts you off by giving his card to the waitress, effectively stopping you from rummaging through your purse.

“What are you doing?” You whisper, watching Timothée’s face as he punches his card combination into the machine. He only smiles when he hears the beep of an approved transaction, and thanks the waitress before finally turning towards you.

“You paid last time.” He shrugs. You feel your heart flutter as he reminded you of the weekend you spent with him.

‘Oh no,’ You think, following him out into the parking lot and back to your car. This wasn’t going to lead to where you thought it was going to, would it…? He joined you for dinner, he listened to your mindless conversation, he helped you with your jacket, he paid for your food…

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

“Timothée,” As the two of you walked out onto the parking lot, he’d just opened the car door when you called his name. He stares up at you with a grin, his hand still resting on top of the car door. You swallow your nervousness. “what did you really want to talk about?”

The subtlety of Timothée’s faltering grin is hard to catch. He was well aware of it too, how tonight didn’t feel like a simple get together between two professionals… actually, it felt quite the opposite. Almost like a date.

“I like you.” He says, completely serious. You bite your cheek. “A lot.”

“We’re coworkers.”

“Can we not be more than just coworkers?”

You frown at his question. Maybe it was because he was young, but Timothée’s aggressiveness and passion makes your heart squeeze in your chest. You wanted to ask that question too, why couldn’t you be anything more?

“I’ve only known you for a week. I see you every weekday because I’m your boss. It’d be too much for us,” You start, finally stepping into your car and slamming the door shut. Timothée follows, and you keep on chewing at your cheek. You shouldn’t be so defensive; you had to stay professional. “at least not while we’re so young.”

“But we’ve got our whole life ahead of us, shouldn’t we at least try? We’re at the age where we can’t just waste our chances while they’re running out.” You let out a scoff at his words as you start the car, but you don’t say anything in response. You didn’t want him to know that his words resonated deeper within you that they should have.

You start the drive to his house in silence, and Timothée sighs as he lets his back collide with the seat of your car in frustration. Your relationship as coworkers was not coming to a very good start, but you suppose that it had to start somewhere. Plus if he was looking for a relationship with someone, there were plenty of great looking people at the office. He’d get over it and so would you.

“We’re here.” You say, pulling in the parking lot next to Timothée’s apartment building. Timothée turns to you one last time, and with a sigh, unbuckles his seatbelt.

“Thank you for the ride.” You nod and keep your eyes glued to your steering wheel, waiting for him to leave. You don’t see his gaze avert to your eyes, then to your lips. Timothée opens his mouth but says nothing, only pressing his lips together as he opens your car door to step out onto the pavement beneath you.

You feel yourself sigh in relief when he shuts the door. Don’t look back, you tell yourself. You wouldn’t be able to control yourself if you did. Instead you fiddle with your sun blocker to distract yourself.

Thoughts of Timothée swirled through your mind, especially what he had said before you drove him home. Don’t waste chances while they run out.

You let out a halfhearted scoff. You could only wish to think like that. To be impulsive and take chances as they arise but you can’t. Sure you were jealous, but you’ve got too much on the line… too much to risk.

You lower your sun blocker and notice a forgotten napkin slip out and onto your lap. Timothée’s number from last week. You frown.

You were just a coward.

Fuck it.

“Timothée, wait!” You call, practically jumping out of your car before running towards your assistant. You get as far as the front entrance before you see that he’d already gone inside and stepped into the elevator.

He only notices you behind the glass doors when he turns and looks up, just as the elevator doors begin to close.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, just after he stops the elevator from closing with his arm and runs towards you. He opens the door for you and you slowly walk inside, panting from your run over.

“I have to tell you something,” Timothée nods expectedly, and you rub the back of your neck.

“I really don’t think it’ll work out.” You start, watching the hopefulness in Timothée’s eyes die out. Just a bit.

“I barely know you– I liked you from when we slept together but that’s it. I was wondering where we were going to go afterwards as well, but when I saw you at the office last week, I thought I had my answer.” You step closer to him.

“But now I’m wondering… I really don’t know anymore. Maybe this isn’t going anywhere– I can’t be so sure. But when I’m looking back at the past seventy years, what’s the first week, really?” Timothée’s lips part as you look into his eyes, and you feel a warmth rising up to your cheeks. “Wanna go out?”

The corners of Timothée’s lips immediately upturn at the sound of your words, and his hand shoots up to his mouth to cover his smile. Though, you end up seeing it anyways as it travels to his eyes.

“If you’ll have me.”

#Timothee Chalamet #timothee chalamet x reader #timothee chalamet imagines #timothee chalamet fanfiction #timothee x you #timothee chalamet x you #timothee imagine #timothee fanfic

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robinofinashiro · 4 years ago

Text

“turn it up it’s your favorite song / dance, dance, dance to the distortion / turn it up keep on repeat / stumbling around like a wasted zombie / yeah we think we’re free / drink, this ones on me / we’re all chained to the rhythm

pairing: takami keigo (hawks) x fem! reader

request status: CLOSED

note: i start my semester this tuesday so like BIG SAD but I swear I’ll try and not fuck with my posting schedule or go IA for weeks at a time. i’ve also been having a lot of AoT reqs and as much as I love them, I get tired of writing for it all the times.

a few of the heroes were called in for some meeting regarding a hero incident that happened a few weeks back. you weren’t actively apart of the situation when it initially happened, however; they had called all younger pro heroes to a conference to go over some protocols and new rulings.

you hadn’t been a hero for long, working under a few smaller heroes until the Symbol of Peace caught onto you. you weren’t working under a huge agency at the time, so when All Might called for you to transfer agencies, detecting that you had more potential under him, you immediately moved.

it wasn’t an unknown secret that you were connected to him. although you weren’t exactly what many people thought when they thought of All Might having a ‘sidekick’ or intern, they could see it in your fighting style how much you learned from him.

the charisma, the change in personality, everything changed about how some thought of you. you were more willing to talk to the media, happily attended events for kids, and a smile never left your face. All Might was proud to see your change as he realized that you had finally grown into the hero he knew you would become.

you tapped at the notebook sitting in front of you, hoping that they called the meeting early. you hadn’t gotten enough sleep for the past few days, thinking that all of you were in trouble for the incident. every now and again, you would hear the winged hero laugh or crack a joke about something and it started to grow more and more annoying.

the downside of constantly working at All Might’s agency was that you hardly had any downtime. you weren’t exactly close to many heroes or even associated yourself with them considering AM’s agency limited the heroes they took in and at the moment, it was really just you and another older hero that worked in it.

“( your hero name ), you’re ranked in the top five, why don’t you give us a run down on how you approach the media in a kid friendly way?”

your eyes widened, not realizing that he was speaking to you directly. you took a gulp before looking at all the heroes, “well, I guess you just have to make sure you don’t overwhelm the media with something that’s over exaggerated and dramatic. when trying to speak to a younger audience, you have to be a bit soft spoken, smiling constantly, and assuring them that they’re not in any danger. I know as heroes, it’s hard to remain calm in a scary situation but reaching the kids and having them able to listen to you can even calm yourself down,” you explained, “keeping kids safe should always be a priority because they can set a precedent for heroes.”

the heroes stared at you, some in a deadpan way, others a bit mesmerized. they could sense the All Might vernacular coming out of you but to a specific hero, they could see the way you were nervous around your peers.

Hawks knew about you. it was hard not to hear of All Might’s current pride and joy. he saw your interviews when they came on the news but the one thing that stuck out to him was how you hardly ever came around other heroes when down time actually presented itself.

you were very private with your personal life, something that rivaled Edgeshot. your personal life wasn’t very out there and it wasn’t like you tried to hide it because you could have cared less but whenever you did have down time, you were usually at home asleep or catching up on something else.

finally, you sat down, staring down at your notebook again as you tried to wipe your hands on your uniform pants. seeing all those eyes on you made your hands get sweaty and clammy.

the meeting ended not long after your small lecture and although you didn’t have anything to do after this, you were rushing to get your things together and leave before anyone that wasn’t the media caught up with you. however, that wasn’t exactly what you got.

“hey! ( your name )!” you heard Hawks’ voice call out for you. you stared at ground, wondering what the hell he could want from you. you waited for him to catch up, “hey, you okay?” he asked, a smirk playing at his face.

your eyebrows fluttered in confusion, “yeah, why?” you whispered. Hawks shrugged, “just saw you getting nervous back there,” he mentioned.

you didn’t know how to respond but you slowly started to walk towards the entrance doors, hoping he would leave you before the media rushed everyone walking out.

“I got a bit nervous seeing everyone looking at me, that’s all.” “but you’re around the media all the time?” “Hawks, do you have anything to ask me? I’m just not used to being around people my age.”

he saw the slight anger rise in you but decided not say anything as you gave him one final look before walking out of the door and being rushed by camera’s and reporters. a smile instantly hit your face as reporters asked you questions about the conference and overall general questions about work.

Hawks knew that he could probably get an earful from you for what he was about to do but as he walked out of the doors, he went over to the cameras that you were talking too and gave them a huge smile as he put his arm around your shoulders.

“good afternoon everyone!” he said happily as he saw your face contort to confusion and slight fear, “Hawks! are you friends with her? maybe even more?” one of the reporters asked as Hawks gave them a hearty laugh and waved them off.

“nah, we’re just really great friends, isn’t that right?” he asked you. you remained wide eyed and silent, not knowing what to say, “we were just talking about going out for a friendly date and had to get confirmation from her,” he told them.

you finally snapped out of it, shaking your head, “I’m sorry, I gotta go! I’m due at my agency no later than three and I’ll be late if I don’t head out now,” you told the reporters before taking his arm off you and basically darting in another direction.

the reporters looked at Hawks as he quickly recovered and talked to them a bit before telling them goodbye. Hawks had no idea that you were going to get that flustered over the small prank, realizing that he might’ve gone a little too far with it as you were no where in sight anymore.

you got back to the agency, seeing a few of your coworkers looking at you were a smirk on their face. they instantly pointed to the TV’s, showing you the extremely failed interview you had with Hawks not even a few minutes ago.

“so did you say yes to that ‘friendly’ hangout?” one of them asked. you groaned, your head hitting the wall, “no, what do I look like hanging out with the number two hero? you know I don’t really make unannounced public appearances to begin with.”

your coworker laughed, seeing your nervous expression.

“come on, you’re like the hardest worker in this damn agency! you could take one weekend off and enjoy it for fucks sake.”

you shook your head no but before you could say anything, you saw All Might enter the agency. you instantly bowed as he waved you off.

“he’s right you know. ever since you transferred to this agency, you haven’t had a day off and it’s high time you take a weekend off for yourself. enjoy your youth while you still have it.”

“All Might, you know I’m a very in demand hero, I can’t just take off a week-,” All Might cut you off with a slap to the back of the neck, “trust me, we’ll be okay for a weekend. I know better than anyone how it is to run yourself into the ground. take this weekend off and relax.”

you knew it was best to not continue arguing with your boss and silently agreed before heading to your office to finish up some paperwork. you had no idea what you were even going to do for this weekend. all of your errands, aside from getting groceries, were done and you were sure that Hawks probably didn’t mean what he said earlier.

your clock out time hit and you huffed, telling all of your coworkers that you would see them again on Monday. they could tell you were reluctant on leaving them for so long but the break didn’t sound so bad to them considering you worked around the clock, 24/7 for them.

as you got to your car, you figured you might as well make your own dinner since you couldn’t even remember the last time you did that. the only thing stopping you was that you hadn’t brought a change of clothes so you were practically stuck wearing your uniform to the store.

the grocery store was a bit farther out of the city. when picking a home, you had decided to go out and choose something that wasn’t in the middle of town. you wanted some peace of mind when you got done working and choosing a home a few miles out was your perfect idea.

once you walked inside of the store, you were happy to see that it wasn’t exactly packed. a few people here and there but most of them just waved or asked for a quick photo before letting you get back to what you were doing.

“hi, I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of where I would find you dairy free options?” you asked one of the workers. she smiled, pointing over to the aisle a few sections down. you thanked her, walking over the aisle when you realized you had ran into the last person you expected, “ohoho, funny finding you here,” you heard the winged hero say.

you nodded, pointing to the soy milk, “yeah, All Might gave me the weekend off because of the ‘prank’ you decided to pull earlier today,” you murmured, grabbing the two cartons of milk.

he laughed, pushing his hair back before grabbing the basket that carried all of your groceries. you gave him a confused look, not really knowing what his intentions were.

“skip your dinner tonight and come out.”

you let out a laugh, not really caring who heard, “uh, no. I think I’ll pass,” you said trying to grab your basket back. he sighed, not letting it go, “I’ll give it back when you agree to come out with me,” you growled, your head hitting the cold cement wall.

“for what? what would I have to offer you if I came out with you?” “nothing! but like I told you earlier today, the fact that you can only talk to kids without getting nervous is kind of embarrassing.”

you stared at him confused and pissed off.

“you throwing insults at me isn’t helping your situation Hawks so you have about fifteen seconds to give me my shit back before we start fighting in this grocery store.”

Hawks put his hands up in defeat, sensing that you were actually being serious about kicking his ass.

“come on, just one night and if you absolutely hate it, you will never have to do it again. I already promised some people that you would come out tonight too.” your eyes widened at what he had said, “who the hell did you promise?” you practically screeched.

“Mirko and she might kills us if we’re late,” he murmured, “now?” you exclaimed as he put down your basket of groceries, leaving it on the floor before grabbing your wrist and running down the store.

you apologized to everyone that you accidentally hit on your way out, them instantly brushing you off thinking that maybe an incident happened and that’s why you both were running out of the store in a hurry. you grabbed your keys out of your bag and walked towards your car.

“just message me the directions to wherever the hell you’re dragging me too and i’ll meet you there.”

Hawks nodded, making you put your number in his phone as you walked to car slowly. you figured that if the plans Mirko had for the three of you was urgent, you figured that both Hawks and Mirko were planning on wearing their uniforms to the event.

Hawks had informed you that you were going to meet him in the fancier side of town, claiming that it was just a small dinner all of you were going too.

which was a complete lie.

once you arrived to the destination, you realized that this wasn’t a dinner event. this was a Hero Billboard JP after party event. you had heard of it from All Might considering he was invited but his agency hadn’t qualified to attend the event since his agency was purposely ran to not have many heroes in it.

the reason why you hadn’t been invited was because even though you were high on the JP ranking scale, you hadn’t had enough years in your belt to be considered for the awards they were giving out.

“Hawks, Mirko, I wasn’t invited to this,” you informed them, “I nor All Might’s agency qualified for this event so it would be wrong of me to attend the after party for it.”

Mirko looked at Hawks before she chuckled, “you weren’t invited but who said you weren’t someones date,” she said as you realized what she meant. you turned to Hawks who was laughing to himself, “you’re going to cause me premature grey hairs,” you stated.

you and Hawks walked behind Mirko, them informing you that the only way you could enter was if you and Hawks walked through the line of reporters that were crowding around the front of the entrance. Hawks saw your face drain of its color as the nervousness crawled up.

he gave you a genuine smile, not really knowing how to help you before grabbing your wrist gently, “you’ll be fine,” he murmured.

you nodded as the two of you approached the line and put on huge smiles on your faces as the cameras immediately turned to you, reporters yelling for your attention, asking rapid fire questions. you looked to Hawks, telling him you should at least approach one before they sensationalized what was going on between the two of you in gossip shows and magazines.

you approached the most nicest looking reporter, “(your hero name), it’s nice to see you! you’re here with Hawks!” she exclaimed. Hawks laughed, “is there something going on here? first in the morning, now at this event? is this the way the two of you are going public?” she asked.

Hawks chuckled, glancing at you quickly, “wouldn’t that be crazy? the number two hero and the number five hero dating? I guess we’ll never know,” he mentioned, grabbing your hand and scurrying away.

“Hawks! that was rude!” you exclaimed, “she was nice and you just ran off on her,” you lectured, Hawks not knowing whether to laugh or stand there and get lectured. he didn’t have enough time to choose as Mirko and a few other heroes approached the two of you.

“you’re going to give our new friend a heart attack Hawks!” Mirko yelled, slapping Hawks in the arm. he tried dodging her, failing easily, “relax, I doubt they’ll do anything with that footage,” you sighed, seeing the bar not too far from where you were.

“I’m going to get something to drink, I’ll be back,” you told them, quickly walking away. you had no idea how to start up a conversation with them. you felt very out of place, feeling as though they were just stringing you along with them because they felt bad.

“are you okay? you seem a little out of it?” you heard Mirko’s voice say. you gave her a small smile, “I’m fine. just not used to this kind of thing,” you admitted, taking a sip of the extremely hard liquor you had ordered. Mirko giggled at the face you were making.

“just relax! plus, if you’re wondering, this is the first time Hawks has ever done this with anyone. it’s surprising to all of us that he even came, nevertheless with a date. Hawks might act like an entitled brat but I promise you, underneath those layers of entitlement, he’s not that bad.”

you remained silent, not knowing what to do with the information she gave you. after the two of you talked, you walked back to the group of heroes, trying to engage with them a bit more. every now and again, you would walk with whoever wanted a drink, just to give them company so they wouldn’t be alone.

eventually, all of you got a table, sitting and drinking with each other. you couldn’t lie, the alcohol was hitting your system a bit more harsher than you thought it would. the buzz was swirling in your head as you chugged back a glass of water to see if you could shake it off.

“I’m going to get some air. I’m getting a bit stuffy in here,” you told Mirko as Hawks stood up, offering to accompany you. you gave him a smile, walking out of the side door that led to an unlit alley, “how are you enjoying the night?” he asked.

you tried to steady your breathing, hoping you were able to calm the buzzing feeling down, “yeah, it’s nice to get out,” you replied, a yawn coming from you, “but I’m feeling the alcohol a bit,” you said.

the rest of the time you stood quietly, leaning up a bit against Hawks as he let you. you had no intentions of getting this close to him but with the alcohol mixing with your empty stomach, your actions spoke louder than the thoughts your brain were screaming at you.

“i appreciate you taking me out tonight. it’s not every day someone like you offers for me to come out,” you mumbled, trying not to look at him in the eyes. Hawks hummed, bringing you in a little closer, “don’t worry about it. someone had to get you out of your shell, right?” he asked.

you rolled your eyes, Hawks lifting up your chin to look at him, “plus, someone as cute as you shouldn’t be cooped up inside all the time,” he added on. “reporters might think that you and I have a thing together if you continue to be this way,” you mentioned, trying not to get flustered.

he shrugged, not really caring for what this round of gossip magazines had to say about your relationship with him.

“I don’t care, let them think what they want,” he whispered as you brought him closer to you. your lips were barely touching each other, “but I get the idea that you might want to continue this thing we have going on,” you joked.

Hawks nodded, finally smashing his lips with yours, making you a bit surprised by the actions. you returned the kiss, your eyes shut as you felt Hawks grab your hand softly and hold it. once you let go, you saw the ghost of his small flustered expression on his face.

what the two of you didn’t realize was that as the two of you were in the middle of the heated make out session, a reporter who was on their way to their car had spotted the two of you, smirking to themself as he quickly snapped the photo of you two and darting to his car.

“so does this mean I’ll get a date tomorrow?” Hawks asked making you laugh. you thought for a moment, making him stand on edge, “text me tomorrow and you’ll have your answer,” you joked, running back inside of the venue, making him chase after you.

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tartrazeen · 4 years ago

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Random HankCon Reverse AU Post

I wrote this on Discord some months back, and very luckily somebody fantastic helped me out by finding it! <3 <3 <3 The context was around the HK series already being a canonical type of android in the game: it's a housekeeper model, like the HK-400 Connor hunts down in his first investigation with Hank. So from that, everyone was discussing a reverse AU where Hank was an HK housekeeper, Connor was an overworked older brother taking care of his younger brother, and one of them was proposing that Connor just rent an HK to help around the house and take the load off. And from that, I came up with this roughly described - but still fun and angsty - concept. Picture reading it as I wrote it: mid-conversation, and butting in to slap this idea onto everyone. :D

Omg - Hank helping out enough in just a few ways by making lunch or something, or dinner for the next night, and Connor actually having time to go to sleep and spend time with both of them. Or Hank activating a Cranky Child Up Past His Bedtime protocol and making Connor go to bed, because the poor guy doesn't have an off-switch when every single case just needs a 'few more minutes' for him to crack it.

Connor having such a rough week that his little brother saves up cash from - pfft, I dunno, what's stupidly diabetically sweet enough for this - recycling beer bottles from around the neighbourhood, purely to rent Hank for Connor's sake AND THEN IT BECOMES LIKE SOME KINDA WEIRD-ASS DATE THAT NEITHER OF THEM SEEM TOO INTERESTED IN ENDING But then - then - they get into a bit of a routine like that. Connor's happy enough to rent Hank when his little brother needs him, but now it's grown into a... "Okay, fine, if I need him too, then that just helps both of us. That's okay." ... And then one day, his little brother's staying at a friend's house or something, and Connor's - just... bored? Lonely? Tired? He's not sure. But he flicks over to a website, sees Hank is available, and decides to rent Hank really just for himself. And it's the first time that's ever happened without a kid in the house or without Connor himself being too exhausted to function, so it officially becomes a weird-ass date of them hanging around. Maybe going outside to get air. Whatever happens. Now here's where I can draw upon some more IRL bullshit: water heater rentals. These things last ten years, you pay $40 a month to rent them, but at the end of the tenth year, you'd still have to pay to buy it out. And that - despite everything you pay - could still cost like $6,000. Even if you bought the thing outright, it would've cost $5,000.

I say that because I imagine Connor getting to the point where he's thinking... he might buy Hank. Whenever rental products go up for sale, there's usually a steep discount, so he thinks it won't cost too much. No one else rents Hank as much as he does anyway, and he's not sure how much he's spent, but surely that would knock the price down. He's still very much trying to think of this as a practical transaction to manage the purchase of a machine, after all. Except Connor is the one asking to buy Hank. The company isn't offering. So the sticker shock at the price is - just... unbelievable. To the point that Connor very much regrets even opening his mouth. And the nanny company says it's that or they throw Hank out, because - just the IRL - they can't be seen selling Hank cheaper or giving him away when they're done with him, or they'd never make any money. "People would just wait until he's thrown out and go dumpster diving." So now we have a ticking clock and Connor has a bill to pay. We could do two things from here: 1) Connor gets the money (spoiler). It isn't easy. He's already doing all the overtime he's allowed because he's volunteered for it - he can't afford to let something like sleep get in the way of catching a murderer - so he's making the most that he can. He doesn't have any vacation or sick days to cash in because he's used them all whenever he's burnt out; that's probably why he looked into getting Hank in the first place. And it's not like he has time to get a second job or anything. It's his little brother that asks, "Do we really need a car?"

So they both start selling everything. They don't really need a crappy couch. This table's been wobbly since day one. A garage full of crap that is coated in dust and grime is just enough to get them over the edge of it. And it's a weird feeling, bringing a nanny-bot back to an almost empty house. Connor might comment on how there'd be a lot less to clean, which is bullshit, but the best he can in defence of it all. So Hank takes it for what it is, slowly appreciating exactly what this meant for all of three of them. It's an empty house that's quickly become a full home. 2) Connor doesn't get the money (yesssssssssssss) Because there's just no way to pay that. It's ridiculous - even if he could afford it, he should still be arresting these people, because this is an obvious robbery. He can't make that last leap to admit this is more than a machine to help around the house, and the company - just... "Okay. You have three days to change your mind if you're interested." His little brother tries to get him to. He asks if Connor can just sell the car. Not only is that a bad idea, because how else is Connor going to get to work, but who's going to pay that much for it anyway? It's not worth it, Hank is a walking piece of plastic programmed to be friendly, and if they need a nanny-bot so bad, they can buy a new one for a third of what the rental company is charging. On the second-last day, his little brother tries the ol' "Rent Hank for Connor's sake" trick. It's a last-ditch effort to get Connor to admit that they would all feel awful losing Hank, machine or not. He's real enough to them, right? Wrong. Plastic. Money. Facts. Connor's more pissed that his little brother wasted more cash that could've gone towards paying a price they would never be able to afford anyway, and walks off to let his little brother hang out with the android for a last night. He doesn't want to draw this out for himself, and Hank had better be gone by the time Connor comes home.

Connor doesn't do much. He mostly just walks around for hours. And for way too long - eventually, he's at a park, and there's Hank emerging from the snow (oh yeah, it's snowing) to gently wait there in silence. That goes on for long enough for Connor to accept that he's going to miss Hank. It's a short conversation, and Hank's used the Cranky Kid protocol for Connor to know to start heading back, but that's all Connor says: "We'll miss you, I guess. Thanks." Hank is gone by the time Connor wakes up. The house is quiet, his little brother has his breakfast, and Connor has his lunch made. And that is what really gets to him. Hank - over and above his programming - once again took care of Connor, too. Those walls that were already dropping finally drop the rest of the way, and knowing perfectly well that he's too late, he calls the rental company up to ask if there's a payment plan or some extension or anything he can do to keep Hank. There is! Fortunately! And if Connor would like to arrange that for any of these other rental androids, the company can certainly help. What about Hank? Well, this is a business. They had a deadline and costs around that deadline, so they couldn't keep waiting around forever in the hopes that some family changed their mind about buying a standard android. It's unfortunate, but yes, Hank was appropriately disposed of. Would Connor like to buy another android that looks like Hank instead? Connor hangs up before they can give him the full sales pitch. His little brother notices. His work notices. Everyone notices that Connor's different lately. He's reached an almost terrifying level of laser focus on his work. He has all the time he wants to catch all the bad guys he feels like, and he does because who's going to stop him, really? And it goes like that while his little brother keeps asking for Connor to rent a different android, or to just buy one that's like Hank. On and on and on and on and on and on and on until Connor finally just loses it, dumps his phone on the ground, tells his brother to do whatever the hell he wants so long as he shuts up, and storms back out. He's out there for hours in the cold, half to spite Hank's memory - that he's become painfully reliant on for reasons he ascribes to guilt - and half because he knows it's not only guilt he's feeling. Everything tingles. His fingers, his nose, his ears, and he's at least considering going home to his car so he can warm up without having to do a walk-of-shame back inside. He's saving that for when his brother's asleep. This is roughly a minute before he notices Hank walking out in the snow. Not Hank. Not exactly. It's another android that looks like Hank, and that jolt in Connor's chest twists into a searing ache again. He's changed his mind and he's out here entirely for spite now, because his little brother must've called his bluff and rented another nanny and sent him to drag Connor home.

He's committed to that until Hank mentions the number of times Connor's tried to fight him on going to bed, and the grand total of zero times that Hank's lost this fight. Hank's very good at this. He's had to deal with a lot of rough families and teenagers. Hank remembers that because each family has a profile saved based on every visit: preferences, schedules, the kids' needs, memories... They've always been backed up. It's a business, after all. It takes Connor a few minutes to get it. He's still trying to decide if this android is real or not, let alone... his Hank. And Hank is perfectly willing to keep coming back to convince him. And he will, every time, for as long as Connor keeps a copy of his memories. ... But it is going to be after Connor is in bed. Connor's never been happier to get dragged away, kicking at this 1.98m cuddle-bear the whole time.

#dbh #detroit become human #hankcon #hannor #hank x connor #reverse au #angst #fluff #rough draft #ripped straight from discord #my stuff #good job tartra

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trillian-anders · 5 years ago

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chambers - xiii

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

warnings: violence, angst, slow burn

word count: 3748

description: post-endgame. Steve Rogers has passed away from old age. The one remarkable thing is that no one knew his heart would be in the condition it was. He was able to save one more life. After receiving his heart, strange things start happening. Including something that would change your life forever. (Inspired by the Netflix series of the same name.)

Bucky Barnes was a patient man. He learned his patience through trials that no one should have to face. He could wait, but it seemed like right now he couldn’t get back to the compound fast enough. “Hurry up,” He scolded the dash, pushing the throttle further against the board.

“That’s as fast as she can go,” Sam rationed, “We’re getting there as fast as we can.” His voice was tense. Bucky could tell he was anxious to get back too.

Bucky’s heart was racing, palms sweating, throat dry. If Zemo got his hands on you, if he hurt you, Bucky’s metal knuckles groaned in protest with the shift, his fist clenching impossibly tight.

It was dark and hard to see, but what was easy to see was the smoke billowing out of the few smashed windows on the side of the building. Agents left behind, too early in their training were on the grass outside running an emergency protocol, putting out the fire that raged on the Avengers floor.

The jet landed hard against the ground, seat belts ripped off and both soldiers were on the ground before the ramp fully extended. “I’ll do a scan inside.” Redwing shot from Sam’s back, flying steadily into the smoke and disappearing from sight.

Eric. Bucky’s throat constricted as the man ran up to him, panting.

“Have you seen Y/N?” Eric asked, trying to catch his breath. Bucky had to swallow his emotions, the anger seeping out through his pores.

“Have you?” He snapped. Eric shook his head, ignoring Bucky’s anger, looking desperately back at the building. He was covered in soot, the sleeve of his shirt singed. He smelled of smoke and the faintest smell of gasoline.

“It’s clear.” Sam said, the drone speeding back out from the smoke and clicking back into place behind him.

“We saw the jet take off right before the fire started.” Eric said, hands on his hips. Bucky and Sam exchanged a look.

“We should go.” Bucky looked back at the building before them, flames now tamed, water spilling down the sides.

“So you know where she is?” Eric asked hopefully. “I text her, but she hasn’t answered. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

“She’s fine.” Sam glanced down at his phone, shooting off a text. “Your clearance level isn’t high enough for you to be granted that information.” Eric’s jaw twitched, throat constricting.

“We’re sort of dating,” Eric offered, “I mean, I’m just concerned, that doesn’t get me anything?” Bucky looked at him in suspicion, but said nothing.

“As your Captain I think you should go help your other teammates with the cleanup and let us handle this,” Sam started back up the ramp, “She’ll text you if she wants to text you.” As the ramp closed, the two men exchanged a look. “I don’t like him.”

Bucky breathed a sigh of relief, “Finally.”

The lake was calm. It could almost be called relaxing if you weren’t so emotionally exhausted. The sleep didn’t seem like it was enough. You’d lost count of the amount of times you’d broken down crying. So here you were, sat on a bench out on the dock, watching two ducks float along the water, a chill in the air.

Your skin was tight around your eyes from crying, rubbed raw. The birds were awake, sun finally fully over the horizon when you heard the jet touch down behind you in the distance. It wasn’t long before boots hit the hardwood of the dock. The sound is a courtesy. He wouldn’t make any sound if he didn’t want to.

He slipped into the seat next to you, arm resting on the back of the bench behind you. A comfortable distance.

“I’d ask you if you are okay, but you’re clearly not.” Bucky faced forward, watching the two ducks peck at the water, drifting around.

“How bad is it?” Times Square. Most of the team was still there helping with search and rescue. It was easier to lift debris when you had superpowers.

He couldn’t lie, “It’s bad.” You nod, throat constricting, “We’re going to get him.” He assures you, the blunt metal fingertips brushing against your spine, “This isn’t your fault.”

“But it is.” You lean from his touch, standing and stepping away from the bench, turning to look at him. “Did you know?” You ask, temper rising. His brows scrunch, looking at you questioningly. “Do you know?” He shakes his head,

“Know what?” You look at him incredulously. How could he not know? Could you really believe that Steve never told him? His best friend?

“I need to go see my parents... you should come along.” You begin to make your way back up the dock, the jet sitting idly on the grass next to the log cabin, smoke billowing from the chimney.

“Y/N, sweetheart, I don’t think that’s such a good idea right now.” Who knows what Zemo had planned, Agents had been placed to watch them recently, to make sure they were being kept safe.

You turn to him, the dew on the grass wet on your ankles, it’s a slightly foggy morning, his hair was pulled back tightly from his face, there was blood on his uniform still, he smelled of soot. His eyes looked so blue against the dark contrast of the dirt on his face. You felt your bottom lip tremble, eyes watering once more, your hands shaking.

“I need to see them.”

Peter watched as you entered, fumbling over his words, shifting nervously in the doorway.

“When I was looking at your scan,” He said, “I didn’t know what I was seeing.” You couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t his job to tell you, it wasn’t Strange’s either. He was shifting foot to foot, hand idly clicking his phone screen on and off again.

“It’s okay Pete,” You sigh. Sam stood in the kitchen, across from Strange, both eyes flicking to your frame. “I’m gonna go talk to my parents.” Sam leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms and looked at the man now standing behind you in the doorway. Bucky radiated heat against your back.

“You goin’ with her?” Sam asked. Bucky didn’t speak, but nodded in agreement. “I want to talk to you for a minute.” Eyes pointed at you, Sam gestures with his head for the two of you to leave the room. You peer back at Bucky, confusion clear on his face as you follow his partner into the other room. “Are you sure you want to do this?” He asks you. Hands reaching to gently grasp your arms, comforting.

Your breath catches, emotions still flowing freely just under your skin, the gentle question bringing tears to your eyes, tears you keep from falling.

“I have to.” You nod, voice tight, “For myself.” For the man standing in the corner, the ghost. The man looking at you in complete sorrow. You had to do this for Steve.

Sam nods, “Did you tell him?” You wrap your arms around yourself, pulling back. Shaking your head you look back at the wall that separates you from him. From Bucky. “You can’t have him go into this blind, Y/N.”

“I know,” You know, “I know.” You tug your bottom lip, sore with worry, between your bottom teeth before fully turning from Sam, “I’ll tell him.”

Those curious blue eyes met you in the doorway, a banana in hand, open and partially eaten in his fist, another one was unopened and offered to you as you joined him. He wouldn’t pry, not if you didn’t want him to. But how do you tell him? How do you tell him that it’s because of you that Steve left him.

Steve’s heart was in his throat, palms sweating. Babies were supposed to cry right? So why wasn’t the baby crying? He watched the doctor and nurses surround the frail little thing, face blue and still covered in blood.

“Is she alright?” Peggy cried, hair plastered to her forehead in sweat, face pale. His heart was breaking, his hand gently grasped in hers. She was beginning to hyperventilate. Steve turned to his wife, brushing her hair from her face, gently grasping her cheeks in his palms and pressing a shaky kiss to her forehead.

“She’ll be okay.” He soothed. He didn’t know though, he didn’t know if his baby would survive.

The pregnancy had been hard on Peggy and full of many difficulties. The pair swore that this was the first and last. In the beginning she was so sick. Morning sickness had hit her full speed. It wasn’t uncommon for her to turn her nose at the sight of anything with a strong smell. Steve had resorted to boiling chicken and potatoes most nights, and then she got a strong aversion to the smell it would create in the house so they switched to eating just buttered pasta for a while.

She chewed ginger mints and took naps halfway through the day, sometimes she couldn’t get out of bed at all. Her job was difficult and demanding. She began spotting close to her second trimester and was sat behind a desk. Steve felt helpless. What could he do really?

“Maybe this was a mistake.” He took a sip of the whiskey Howard had poured him, whiskey that would do nothing but burn down his throat and roll in the acid of his stomach, the pair sitting in Howard’s office at SHIELD. “Maybe we shouldn’t have had kids.”

Howard sighed heavily, leaning back in his chair, “Don’t think of it like that, women have been pregnant since the beginning of time, and Peggy is strong.” A sip, “She’ll be fine, her and the kid, they’ll both be fine.”

It didn’t seem to be fine. Not when Peggy’s eyes rolled back in her head and her face grew ashen. Not when the medical staff scrambled. Not when Steve was pushed from the room, pushed away from his silent baby and his heavily bleeding wife.

He thought the serum would transfer.

It was in his blood, why wouldn’t it?

But it didn’t. His daughter was frail. She came out barely three pounds, she could fit in the palm of his hand. But she was breathing, she was alive.

“I don’t know how long she will survive.” The doctor said. But his girl was a fighter. Her breaths rattled, Peggy or Steve kept their baby in a bassinet next to the bed until she outgrew it. Took about a year.

She was late on everything, walking, talking. Peggy doted on her sweet girl, breastfed longer than advised, hoping that it would do her some good. Grow her bones stronger, help her put on weight. A full fat milk in her bottle every morning, there was constantly food around for their baby. Steve tried to remember child trends from his future. Recommendations from Doctors more advanced. He resentfully thought about how much more help his daughter would get if she could see a Doctor in 2023 versus the quacks they’d been taking her to currently.

Howard created the braces for her legs that helped her legs straighten so she could start walking, helping her keep her back upright. He found a better Doctor, a SHIELD Doctor, to perform her first surgery, and second, and third.

It took a scare. A serious one. One where his baby girl almost didn’t make it. Intubated in quarantine for her compromised immune system. The Doctor had told them to say their goodbyes.

“I can’t do this.” Peggy cried, one hand on her hip the other covering her mouth, Steve sat before her, hands on his knees. “I can’t let her go.”

His throat was dry, raspy, acidic. “I can save her.” Peggy’s eyes found his, both red and exhausted,

“What do you mean?” Steve shook his head, opened his mouth and then closed it before sighing heavily,

“I thought he was exaggerating,” He shrugged, “I thought that maybe it was an irrational decision and if I could have just waited it out she would be okay, but she’s not going to be okay.” He gently pulled his wife to his chest, rocking her side to side, looking through the glass behind her at their daughter, her chest barely rising and falling. “We have to let her go, you have to let me take her back.”

Howard fashioned more tech, something he could use to bring his baby somewhere where she’d get the help she needed. Here in the future. When he was still on ice. The emergency room. He said he found her on the street. They took care of her. They saved his daughter’s life. They found a family willing to take her. An older couple who couldn’t have children. Steve watched them for a while.

He watched them take his baby to the park. He watched them take his baby to her first day of school. He watched them take his baby to the hospital, again and again.

But his girl was a fighter, she survived.

He hadn’t believed Strange.

Not when he told him about this.

“You’ll have to give her up.” He said. Steve didn’t believe him. “Everything is going to happen, exactly how it’s supposed to.” Steve didn’t believe him.

“You’re going to go back to Peggy and have a baby girl.” Strange had looked out onto the lake that day, hands in his pockets, “And it’s going to be hard, but you’re going to have to give her up so she can survive. And she will. I’m going to tell you exactly where to take her and when.”

“Why?” Steve asked, “Why wouldn’t I stay?” Bucky. His throat constricted. “Why can’t I stay?” Strange’s eyes turned soft, looking back at the house where Bucky was letting Morgan comb out his hair.

“Your daughter is very important to ensure a sound future for the planet.” Strange took a step back from him, “In every universe that you don’t go back… you lose everything.”

It was hard, Peggy didn’t want to do it.

“I can’t let her go.” Holding her baby to her chest, rubbing her back as she slept soundly, the bout of pneumonia the pair didn’t think their baby would survive finally shaking itself from her lungs. They were crying.

“If we let her go, she’ll survive.” Steve held his wife, their child between them. “If she stays here, she’ll die.”

So he brought you here. And he saved you.

There was a heartbeat.

Then another.

And another.

“Bucky,” The jet was quiet. “Please.” Your parents didn’t know whose child you were, but they adopted you as soon as they heard you’d been abandoned at CHOP.

“We didn’t care that you were sick.” Your Mom smoothed the hair from your face, “We loved you as soon as we saw you.” Such a happy baby she remarked, a happy resilient baby.

The jet was parked in a quiet place, you’d driven into the city and had just gotten back. Bucky wasn’t speaking with you currently. The entire drive back his eyes straight ahead on the road, not even radio to break up the silence.

His shoulders were tense, nearly pulled up against his ears. He stood in the middle of the jet, unmoving.

“Bu-”

“Just give me a minute.” His voice was low, forlorn. You sat heavily on the bench, the buckle clinkling against the floor as it fell. His face was turned down, hair covering most of it, his bottom lip trembling slightly.

You sniffled and his hand reached out for you, slowly grasping your own and pulling you from the bench and into his chest. His arms wrapping around your shoulders to pull you in tightly, your arms wrapping around his waist. His face buried into your shoulder, your eyes looking up at the ceiling.

You both stood there.

And you cried.

Him for the loss of his love, you for the burden of the truth.

“Does Zemo know?” You breathed out shakily. The pair of you sitting on the bench in the jet, thighs pressed tightly together, his hand wrapped tightly around yours to keep from trembling.

He shook his head, “If he did we would have known a long time ago.” His eyes were red rimmed, staring blankly at the wall.

“I don’t know what to do now.” You settled further into his side, your vacant hand wrapping around your joined ones. “What do we even do?”

There was silence once again, a small debate in his head,

“Did he love me?” You gaze up at him, the scruff of his jaw, his pink flushed lips bitten and chapped, slightly parted with unsteady breath.

“Yes.” He looked down at you, so close you could count his eyelashes. The freckles in his eyes.

“How do you know?” The soft timbre of his voice rumbling against your shoulder. “How do you know for sure?” Anxiousness brews in your chest, heart fluttering with the admission,

“Because I’ve felt that love every minute of every day since I was given this heart.” His eyes flutter closed, head coming to bump against the wall behind him, before rolling towards you. His fingers coming up to entwine in your hair and pull your face closer to his.

His lips press against your forehead and rest there for a moment.

A soft sound as he pulls back, “We should get going.”

“I thought it was just the serum,” Peter shrugged, “It was changing the chemistry of your body with the serum, so I assumed at first that’s why those genetic markers were there.” The old holotable hadn’t been used for a while, but with a little tinkering the kid got it up and running again. The files stored on one of his thumb drives displayed your DNA. A mess of ACGT that was specifically you.

Steve’s was pulled up, “This shows paternal DNA.” Margaret Carter’s DNA pulled beside that, “This shows maternal DNA.” You were fresh from a shower and eating a bowl of cereal while sitting cross-legged in a chair in the home office.

“So you had this figured out weeks ago?” Strange asked, a smirk on his face, “And you just decided not to tell anyone?” Peter shrugged, looking at you apologetically.

“I’m happy you didn’t tell me,” You offered, “It wasn’t for you to tell.”

“So this is why the serum is acting the way it is?” Sam asked.

“So there were genetic traces of the serum in her DNA from birth,” He had a previous blood sample from before, before the heart. He looks at you, “You getting the heart, as weird as that is, boosted the serum you already had and it’s almost like… a mutation.” A beat of silence, “That would make sense,” He said standing from his chair, rotating your genetic code on the holotable. “Mutations sometimes come around through specific circumstances of extreme stress or hormonal growth.

When Steve was given the serum he was in a chamber and hit with an incredible amount of energy to fuse the serum with his cells, it gave the body the stress it needed for the serum to completely change his genetic makeup.”

“I’ve been stressed my entire life,” You joke, shaking your head, “But when I got the heart, my body reacted to his genetic code?” Peter nodded.

“When they did your surgery they took the heart from his body in one OR,” Strange interjected, “And brought it immediately to your OR, so the blood that remained in the chambers of the heart, that first heartbeat you experienced, gave you everything you needed.”

That first heartbeat.

The one where the doctors remove your heart and put another in its place. That tense, timed, procedure. That sigh of relief as Steve’s heart beat within your chest for the first time. The claps of a job well done.

You remember waking up.

Your Dad, the man who helped raise you, sat beside your bed. His glasses low on his nose as he filled out a Sudoku book. Your Mom, the woman who helped raise you, walked in with a coffee, one for each of them. The quiet, thank you. A whispered kiss, before she settled into the small couch, pulling out her knitting.

A sigh of relief, a first breath leaving your lungs.

You’d survived another one, and hopefully this one wouldn’t give out on you. Hopefully.

It seemed surreal now, how far everything had gone. How much farther it needed to go.

Zemo didn’t know, at least that’s what Bucky was under the impression of. So his obsession with this heart, trying to harvest the traces of serum that flowed through your bloodstream had nothing to do with your lineage.

“Hey.” Bucky was sitting out on the water, legs hanging off the side of the dock. “I thought you went to bed.” You shrug, sitting down next to him, thigh to thigh.

“I couldn’t sleep.” Your breath came out in clouds. He nods in response, hands held in his lap, eyes unfocused out on the tree line.

“I don’t hate you for it.” Bucky said after a while. “I just… I wanted you to know that.” Your fingers fisted in the sleeves of your sweater, you turn to look at him. Eyes red rimmed, the tip of his nose red from the cold. His eyes met yours, glossy. “I don’t blame you for this.” You press your lips together, swallowing harshly before letting out a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry honestly.” He continues, “I shouldn’t have been the way I was when you first got the heart. None of this was fair to you.”

“I don’t blame you,” Your fingers find his own, cold, half numb. “I… this has been hard for both of us.” He goes to say something, but decides against it. His fingers intertwined with yours.

“We might need to stay here for a while.” He said, “The others are going to go back to the compound, rebuild, save face.” His thumb brushed the back of your hand, calloused and rough against your skin. “We’ll stay here, train a little more. Zemo doesn’t know about this place.” He glanced back at what once was Tony’s cabin. “No one really knows about this place.”

You take a deep breath, looking back out onto the still lake. And it was comfortable. For the first time in a long time you’d felt at peace. Content. And ready to move on.

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