#make this the second time that Edwin told a guy about being in Hell without context and they weren't phased at all | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ceealaina · 5 years ago

Text

Title: It Almost Seems Like Yesterday Collaborator Name: ceealaina Card Number: 3088 Link: AO3 Square Filled: S2 - Happily Ever After Ship: IronHusbands Rating: T Major Tags: Canon Divergence, Memory Loss, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort Summary: When Tony gets hit with an amnesia spell that leaves him unable to remember anything past 1990, Rhodey's right there to help him through it. (Now if only Rhodey could remember how the hell he's managed to hide his feelings for Tony all these years.) Word Count: 11,698

Rhodey walked into the room, already feeling tired. He knew he should have stayed home. He’d had a bad feeling before he’d left on vacation, had almost cancelled the trip, but Tony had insisted. He’d gone on and on about how he’d been an Avenger longer than Rhodey (by a whole three years, and look how well that had gone for him) and how if Rhodey missed this trip, it would be Tony’s ass that his mother would be coming after. Then he’d demanded that he bring back some of her chocolate chip cookies and practically pushed him out the door, promising everything would be fine.

What a fucking liar.

“Okay. What do we know?” Rhodey asked, rubbing at his temples in a futile attempt to ward off the headache he could already feel starting.

Rogers had the grace to look guilty, which he fucking should; Captain America or not, Rhodey was going to kill him if he had let something bad happen to Tony on his watch.

“Okay. Rhodey, first off all we’ve been assured repeatedly that this isn’t permanent.”

Rhodey managed to contain his groan. If that’s what they were starting out with, there was no way that any of this was good news.

“What’s not permanent?” he asked, not even caring that his voice slid into a tone that would have had him being written up for insubordination if he was still serving in the Air Force. He didn’t miss the way Steve swallowed at the sound, felt the vaguest hint of happiness at the sight, although it was quickly overshadowed by his concern for Tony. Beside Steve, Natasha looked like she was going to speak up, but he settled a hand against her arm, apparently willing to take on this particular burden alone. Rhodey resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Whatever weird spell Tony’s been hit with, it’s given him some… Memory loss.”

Rhodey felt his heart stop. “What kind of memory loss? How bad are we talking here?”

Steve winced, and Rhodey felt his heart sink further. “We don’t know yet, but uh. In the brief moment I saw him, he didn’t recognize me at all, called me a ‘bad Captain America porno rip off,’ and then he tried to hit on me, so…”

Despite the shitty situation, Rhodey smiled; that sounded like Tony, alright. At least there was something of him still in there.

Natasha rolled his eyes. “The doctors said he didn’t make any mention of the Iron Man suit, or seem bothered that he doesn’t have the arc reactor, so I’m guessing his memories predate 2012.”

Rhodey nodded. Clearly these two were absolutely useless to him, and it was time to take things into his own hands. “Right, I’m going to go see him. What did they tell him?”

“Just that he’d been in an accident, and that he may have suffered some side effects.”

Rhodey managed to keep his eye roll to himself. “Well, if you’ll excuse me…” He pushed past them, taking half a beat to steel himself before letting himself into Tony’s room. Tony was frowning at the medical equipment beside him, none of it actually attached to him, but his head popped up at the sound of the door opening and Rhodey held his breath, abruptly terrified that Tony wouldn’t know him either.

He needn’t have worried. A split second later, Tony’s face was breaking into a wide grin. “Rhodey!” he crowed. “Fucking finally! Did you come to spring me free?” Then he tilted his head slightly, eyebrows furrowing. “Did you dye your hair? It’s kind of… grey.”

“Um…” Rhodey hedged a minute, trying to think how best to handle this, but he knew Tony, knew he’d always dealt best with hard facts. Moving closer, he took a seat on the side of Tony’s bed. “Okay. They told you you’d had an accident, right?”

Tony nodded, wincing a little. “Was it in the lab? I know you threatened to kill me after the last one, but you also know how I get, so… Really this is on you, leaving me unsupervised like that.”

Rhodey huffed out a soft laugh. “No, Tones, not a lab accident. The thing is, you’re apparently suffering from some memory loss.”

Tony’s smile faded, eyes going wide. His eyes tracked over Rhodey’s body again, taking in the little differences, the grey hair, the extra few wrinkles around his eyes. He swallowed hard, and Rhodey could already see his brain working overtime, putting it together. He swallowed hard, breathing picking up, and Rhodey closed a hand over his.

“Hey, easy,” he told him, feeling his own flare of panic when Tony frowned down at his hand in confusion, like he wasn’t used to Rhodey touching him like this. “Everything’s going to be okay, Tones. It’s not permanent, and I’m gonna help you get your memories back. I just need you to tell me the last thing you remember, and we can start from there.”

“Um.” Tony scratched the back of his head. “There was that party we went to. When the drunk guy knocked me into the pool, and you punched him?”

For a moment, Rhodey couldn’t even place what he was talking about, racking his brain for anything even remotely like that. And then it clicked.

“At MIT?” he yelped, cursing internally when Tony jumped a little at his voice. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “Sorry, I just. That’s fine. We can work with that.”

“Rhodey?” Tony reached out, tentatively touching his upper arm. “I really need you to tell me what year it is.”

Rhodey took a moment. He really didn’t want to say it, but Tony was a genius, he was already putting it together, and Rhodey really didn’t want him coming to the conclusion that there was something he was hiding. He swallowed.

“Tony, it’s 2015.”

***

Once Tony had gotten over the shock of missing nearly thirty years of his life, and Rhodey had finished convincing Pepper that for now, at least, she and Happy were better staying in California and not overwhelming Tony with people that he only knew he was supposed to know, Rhodey had given him a rundown of what he was missing. He knew he was supposed to get his memories back eventually, but he couldn’t think how they would even begin that process without Tony at least knowing about Iron Man and the Avengers.

Telling him had been well worth it. In Tony’s mind, DUM-E was still a work in progress. So finding out that he’d succeeded -- and that DUM-E was still kicking around thirty years later -- Tony’s entire face had lit up.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, shifting closer to Rhodey on the bed. “You’re telling the truth? DUM-E works? You’re not just fucking with me?”

Rhodey hadn’t been able to help laughing. “Tones, that’s not even half of it. After you cracked the AI code, you built JARVIS.”

Tony frowned. “Jarvis?” he repeated, a flicker of sadness crossing his features, and Rhodey winced as he remembered that, for Tony, Edwin Jarvis had died only the year before. Still, Tony managed a smile, though it was fainter than before. “Tell me you didn’t let me Frankenstein my butler back to life.”

Rhodey snorted, but he laid a hand over his arm anyway, stroking a thumb over his skin. He, more than anyone, knew how much more than a butler Jarvis had been to him. “Not Jarvis,” he told him softly. “JARVIS. Stands for Just A Really Very Intelligent System.”

Tony blinked. “Another robot, like DUM-E?”

“And U,” Rhodey added, even though it was just adding to the confusion; he’d always been partial to U.

“Me?” Tony repeated blankly before he caught on and his eyes went even wider. “I built three robots??”

Rhodey couldn’t help laughing. He had absolutely no idea. “No, Tony. JARVIS isn’t a robot. He doesn’t actually have a physical form. He’s… Fuck man, he’s the most sophisticated machine ever. He’s a fully functional learning AI. He’s smarter than most humans I’ve met, he manages to keep you on your toes. I swear to god, Tones, he has emotions. As soon as we get you out of this SHIELD safehouse, I’ll get you back to the tower, and you can talk to him yourself. It’s gonna blow your damn mind.”

Tony leaned back against cushions, looking overwhelmed in the best kind of way, bright-eyed with wonder. He looked young, despite the laugh lines and the grey in his goatee, and for just a moment Rhodey felt his stomach twist with a funny sort of nostalgia. Rhodey had fallen in love with Tony when he was twenty years old, and he had never stopped being in love with him. He’d long ago accepted that it was unrequited, that he was never going to love anyone the way he loved Tony, and that was fine. It didn’t even hurt anymore, it was just… How it was. He wouldn’t trade their relationship for anything. But seeing Tony like this, smiling all bright and open like he was eighteen, he felt like he was falling in love all over again and it ached.

“Holy shit,” Tony breathed, shaking his head a little. “I can’t believe I did that. I mean, I can, because it’s me, but… Holy shit.” He shook his head again. “Wait, SHIELD? Like… The SHIELD that Aunt Peggy runs?” He looked around the room, like it would give him some sort of clue. “Do I work for SHIELD?”

Rhodey puffed out his cheeks and he blew out a long breath. “Not exactly,” he admitted. “You work with them sometimes, but… You’re an Avenger.”

Tony blinked back at him, expression blank, and Rhodey realized that, right. That meant absolutely nothing to him.

“Uhh. You’re a superhero?”

Tony blinked again and then started laughing, so hard that he couldn’t hold himself upright, bright giggles filling the room. Rhodey couldn’t help laughing too, the sound contagious, and it was several minutes before Tony managed to speak again.

“A superhero,” he repeated, wiping actual tears from his eyes. “Well, at least your stupid sense of humour hasn’t changed in the past thirty years. What, am I the new Captain America?” he asked, snorting again.

“No,” Rhodey told him. “Definitely not Captain America. But you do know him.”

Tony stopped laughing abruptly as he caught the look on his face. “Wait, are you serious? Are you…” He trailed off and flung his arms in the air. “How is any of that possible?”

And so Rhodey had told him about Afghanistan, how he’d been kidnapped but come out of it with a shiny metal suit of armor, how they’d found Thor, and then after that Steve in the ice, and then about the Battle for New York and how that had led into them becoming a team.

“Oh my god,” Tony breathed when he was done. “I’m not going to lie, that sounds completely unbelievable, but also, way too convoluted to be anything but real.” He leaned back, thinking, and Rhodey watched him mouth the words ‘Iron Man’ to himself. Then he shot forward again, grabbing at Rhodey’s arm. Rhodey shivered at the little thrill of pleasure he always felt when Tony was all close and in his space like this. “Can I see it?” he asked, like a little kid trying to sneak a cookie. “The Iron Man suit?”

Rhodey couldn’t help laughing. “Suits,” he told him, snorting as Tony’s eyes got bigger still. “And of course you can see them. They’re yours. Just gotta get the all clear to get you out of here.”

“Wait, so then… Those people that were here before? They’re Avengers too?” His eyes were still wide, but they took on a horrified expression. “Oh my god, was that actually Captain America?” Tony made a ridiculous ‘eep’ noise and actually pulled the blanket over his head. “Rhodeyyyy,” he whined through the fabric, giving Rhodey a flashback to Tony’s first date at MIT. “You’re going to have to resign on my behalf, because I can’t ever go back to being an Avenger.”

Rhodey patted his knee consolingly, taking advantage of the fact that Tony couldn’t see him to drink in his fill of him. “Of course you can, Tony. We’re your team. We all love you. And Steve’s your best friend, after me obviously. He doesn’t care, I promise.”

“You don’t understand! I told Captain America he belonged in a porn.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve said way worse to him.”

“And I’m pretty sure the words ‘wet dream’ were used. How do I ever look at him again?”

“Jesus,” Rhodey muttered as something that was definitely not jealousy twisted in his stomach. He’d forgotten about Tony’s weird Captain America hero worship phase. “Tony, you’re fine. I know you don’t remember, but Steve knows you. He wouldn’t have expected anything less. Do you want me to call them back in so you can see for yourself?”

The face that Tony made was hilarious. “No!”

“Come on, man. I know you. You don’t rip the bandaid now, it’s just gonna get harder and harder…” He nudged him teasingly. “Tones. They’re your teammates. They’ll want to see that you’re okay.”

“I hate you,” Tony grumbled, but Rhodey could already tell he was relenting. Patting his knee once more, he gave him a wink and got up to the door. Steve and Nat were, unsurprisingly, lingering outside, and he gestured them in.

“Come on,” he said, trying not to sound too grudging. He knew deep down that it wasn’t their fault Tony had gotten hurt, but they’d still been the ones with him when it happened, and he couldn’t help feeling a little resentful.

Natasha, at least, didn’t seem to care in the slightest. She brushed past him to sidle right up on the bed beside Tony, tugging him close and stroking a hand through his hair. “Hey baby,” she purred, a teasing smirk on her lips, and Rhodey resisted the urge to snort. “How’re you feeling?”

Tony stared up at her with wide eyes and Rhodey bit back his fond smile. “Uh.” Tony ducked his head and cleared his throat and then his gaze snapped back up to her like he couldn’t look away (not that anyone would really blame him for that). “You’re one of my teammates, I guess? I’m Tony.” He winced then, and stared up at the ceiling. “But… you… already know that.” He shook his head. “Amnesia is fucking weird.”

“Oh my god,” Natasha crowed. “MIT Tony is fucking adorable.” She wrapped her arms around his neck in a sideways hug and glowered at Rhodey. “You never told us,” she tsked, kissing Tony’s cheek. Nobody missed the blush that crept over Tony’s cheeks.

“Natasha.” Steve rolled his eyes, but he was looking amused. “Stop tormenting Tony when he doesn’t remember you enough to shoot back.”

Tony’s eyes darted in his direction before immediately flickering away again, and Rhodey felt something sour roll in his stomach as Tony’s blush deepened. Nat had noticed it too, hiding her smile to keep from completely embarrassing Tony.

“Um, thanks,” Tony managed, looking up again to give Steve one of those mega-watt smiles that Rhodey had first fallen in love with. It was bright and open, from before he’d even needed to learn his press smile, and the jealousy in Rhodey’s stomach grew. It felt ridiculous to even think it, but those smiles were supposed to be just for him.

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve told him, laughing a little.

“And, uh. Sorry about what I said before,” Tony blurted out all in a rush. “The whole… porno… thing.” He looked like he wanted to sink through the floor, and Rhodey very much wanted to hug him. “I didn’t, I mean… I hate hospitals, so I was kind of not myself, and then, you know, obviously if I’d known you were the real Captain American, I wouldn’t have…” He trailed off, hand rubbing at his sternum in the same nervous tic he’d had since 2008; his body, at least, seemed to remember. “Anyway.”

“Wow.” Steve grinned. “He really is adorable. Can we keep him?”

Tony gave a startled laugh at that. “You can definitely keep me,” he promised, a hint of flirtation in his voice, and when Steve had looked away he caught Rhodey’s eye and mouthed ‘oh my god.’

Rhodey forced himself to give a normal smile in return. He’d forgotten about this mix of shy, and awkward, and weirdly flirtatious that Tony had been, barrelling from one extreme to the other, and while he was loving getting to see this side of him again, he couldn’t help wishing that more of it was directed at him.

“I still can’t believe you’re the actual Captain America,” Tony continued. “I mean, I have all your trading cards at home, and I--,” He cut himself off abruptly, flushing again. “God, Dad must have shit a brick when he finally found you.”

Tense silence filled the room, and Rhodey felt his stomach drop. How had he forgotten to tell Tony about his parents? To be fair, thinking about Howard still made him want to put his fist through a wall -- or the man’s face -- so he did it as little as possible. And it was so far behind them now that it hadn’t even come into his mind.

Tony was looking back and forth between all three of them now, obviously picking up on the fact that something was wrong and Rhodey knew he wouldn’t want to get this news in front of two essential strangers.

“You two out. Now,” he told them, voice booking no argument. To their credit, Steve and Nat didn’t look inclined to argue anyway, Nat giving Tony one last kiss on the cheek, softer this time, before the two of them slipped out the door.

There was silence for a moment after the solid click of the door closing, Tony staring down at his hands. “Dad’s gone, isn’t he?” he asked, though it didn’t sound like a question.

Rhodey sighed, moving closer to the bed again. “Tones…”

Tony looked up at him then, and his eyes were shimmering. “Did he at least get to see me become a superhero?” he asked softly. Rhodey just shook his head, wishing not for the first time that he could bring Howard back to life just to kill him himself. Even after everything he’d done to him, all Tony had ever wanted was to make the man proud.

“No,” he told him. “That came a lot later.”

Tony nodded, looking back down at his hands. “Mom?” he asked, just the one word. There was a crack in his voice, and Rhodey felt his heart break.

“I’m so sorry, Tony.”

Tony made a soft sobbing noise, and without stopping to think about it, Rhodey was up on the bed beside him, tugging him into his lap. Tony moved into it easily, comfortable with Rhodey in a way he hadn’t even been remotely close to with Nat. He shifted until he was half sideways, arms wrapped around Rhodey’s waist and face pressed into his upper abdomen and Rhodey just leaned back against the pillows and rubbed over Tony’s back, letting him mourn his mother’s death for the second time. He knew the circumstances weren’t anywhere near ideal, but Rhodey felt his breath catch and couldn’t help feeling something inside him settle with Tony against him like this, couldn’t help thinking that he could stay like this with him forever.

Eventually, Tony’s sobs evened out, the shivers that had been going through him coming to a stop. He didn’t make any move to get up though, just squirmed a little to get more comfortable against Rhodey’s side as the other man continued to stroke through his hair.

“This is super gay,” he mumbled, still making no move to to pull away. Then he froze, body going tense and tight. “I mean, uh… Not that you’re gay. Or I’m gay. It’s not, like…” He was flustered, stumbling all over his words, and Rhodey couldn’t help laughing.

“It’s okay, Tones,” he told him. “I know you like men, too. It’s totally fine. Completely acceptable now, even.”

“Oh,” Tony said softly, and his arms tightened around just a little around Rhodey’s waist. “Okay.”

They stayed there in comfortable silence until Rhodey knew he couldn’t wait any longer.

“Tony,” he said quietly, still rubbing his head to keep him calm. “There’s more.”

He could feel Tony take a deep breath beneath him, steeling himself. “Okay,” he said again, voice quieter still. “Tell me.”

“Your parents’ death… It was set up to look like an accident, but. It wasn’t.”

Tony pulled back then, staring at Rhodey, and the expression in his eyes was enough to make something catch in Rhodey’s chest. He cleared his throat, and it took him a minute before he could speak. “It… It’s sort of hard to explain, but Hydra -- you know Hydra?”

Tony gave him a look like he was stupid, and Rhodey tried not to roll his eyes.

“Okay, well Hydra didn’t die out in World War II. They’ve been here, all along, working behind the scenes to do their evil Nazi thing. And they took your parents out, made it look like a car accident.” He drew in a deep breath, because he barely believed this shit, and he’d watched Rogers take out the helicarriers live on television. Trying to explain it all now was bonkers. “But they didn’t send just any operative to do it. It was their most feared shadow assassin and all that other fun Nazi propoganda bullshit, except in this case it wasn’t all bullshit. They called the asset the Winter Soldier. Who we found out after the fact was actually one Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.”

Tony blinked at him, mouth hanging open. “James Buchanan Barnes,” he repeated. “Like Bucky Barnes? The Bucky Barnes who died in 1945?”

Rhodey nodded. “That’s the one. Except, you know. He didn’t die, obviously. There was this whole thing with Russians, and brainwashing, and horrible, life-altering torture. I want to be clear here, Tony, it wasn’t really him. He was brainwashed, he didn’t know what he was doing. It was pretty tense here for awhile, after we found everything out, but we think we can help him break through the brainwashing, so you’ve been helping Steve try to track him down.”

Tony just nodded, still staring at him. “Okay,” he said, voice a little distant. He looked completely overwhelmed, and Rhodey nudged him.

“Hey, you alright? I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“Yeah,” Tony admitted with a faint laugh. “It’s… A whole lot.” He looked down at his hands for a minute. “This is embarrassing, but… CanIhaveanotherhug?” he asked, all in a rush.

Rhodey didn’t laugh, although he was tempted for a moment. “Of course, Tones,” he told him, opening his arms wide. “You don’t ever have to ask for that.”

Tony tucked himself back in under his arms, and Rhodey resisted the urge to kiss the top of his head, not wanting to freak him out anymore than he already was. There was silence for a few moments as Tony processed all the new information.

“I suppose it makes sense,” he said finally. “If Bucky was brainwashed, it wasn’t like he was the one who killed mom and dad, not really.”

Rhodey didn’t bother telling Tony that he was accepting this a lot faster than he had the last time. He had a funny feeling that none of this was quite real for him yet, even if he was understanding the words.

“And if Steve is my teammate, and Bucky was his best friend, of course I’d help him track him down. And well, Bucky always was my favourite Howling Commando.” Then he squirmed a little, flustered. “Uh… Don’t tell Steve I said that. That was when I was a kid, I mean.”

Rhodey did his very best not to tense up as jealousy flared through him, not wanting Tony to notice, or pull away, or think something else was wrong. “Don’t worry, handsome. Your secret’s safe with me.”

***

Rhodey was pretty sure that he had Natasha to thank for the fact that the wealth of additional, likely unnecessary tests the doctors had wanted to run were suddenly forgotten (it was magic, for fuck’s sake. What did the doctors think they were going to find?), and after a final check over to make sure Tony was all healthy (memory loss aside), they were able to take him back to the tower.

Tony had blinked as he spotted it on the drive over, eyes going wide as he took in the giant ‘A’ shining in the waning light of the day. “Is that the Avengers Tower?” he asked, and he was trying to sound casual, like it was just a vaguely interesting conversation point, but Rhodey could hear the burning curiosity in his voice, could tell he was only pretending not to be impressed. “They built their own building?”

“Yep. Well, technically it’s your tower, but you’re nice enough to let us all live there.”

Tony turned to stare at him, mouth hanging open, before he remembered he was pretending to be cool and quickly turned back to face the window. “Stark Tower,” he breathed, even though nobody had referred to it that way since he’d woken up. Then he shook his head. “You mean it’s Stark Industries’ tower,” he corrected. “So technically it’s dad’s tower, since he started the company.”

Rhodey fought back a wince. “No, Tones,” he told him softly. “This is all you. As someone who’s been your best friend for thirty years now, you’ve gotta trust me on this. You’ve accomplished things Howard couldn’t even dream of.”

Tony didn’t answer, still trying to play it cool, but Rhodey could see his pleased little smile reflected in the tinted glass of the window.

His attempts at playing it cool only lasted until they had pulled into the tower garage and stepped into the private elevator that would take them to the avengers’ floors, at which point JARVIS greeted them with a, “Welcome back, Sir. Captain Rogers has already apprised me of your current situation. Let me assure you that I am here to assist you in every and any way possible, and that Dum-E, U and I are all hoping for your speedy recovery.”

Tony’s jaw had dropped and he’d stared at Rhodey with absolutely enormous eyes. “Holy shit,” he’d gasped. “I thought you were exaggerating!” And then he had promptly forgotten Rhodey’s existence entirely as he bombarded JARVIS with question after question, wanting to know about everything from JARVIS’s operating system, to the power set up for the tower, to finding out how they’d managed to miniaturize the arc reactor. For the first time in this whole insane situation, Rhodey hadn’t minded losing Tony’s attention; it left him free to watch him, to take in his excitement and enthusiasm without worrying that Tony would catch him staring with that stupid, besotted smile that he knew was plastered across his face. It was uncanny how young Tony managed to look despite still being in his 45-year-old body, and it was wreaking havoc with Rhodey’s heart. God, he was so fucking in love with him.

Tony was still bantering with JARVIS when the elevator doors opened and he stepped out automatically, not even looking where he was going. Then the lab lights came on and Tony’s cut himself off mid-sentence, staring around the ‘shop with wide eyes.

“Holy. Fucking. Shit,” he managed. “Is this… Am I…”

“It’s yours, baby,” Rhodey told him, unable to keep the grin off his face; it wasn’t often that he got to see Tony’s mind blown like this. “It’s all yours. This is where the magic happens.” He gestured around the room. “Have at it.”

With a final, disbelieving stare at Rhodey, Tony was running deeper into the lab, immediately trying to negotiate about six different things at once. He was poking at the latest iteration of Sam’s wings when DUM-E came rolling up with a curious little chirp. Tony whirled around, pure joy on his face.

“Oh my god,” he breathed, patting DUM-E’s strut. “You really do work.” He positively beamed, and Rhodey swore he saw a glimmer of tears in Tony's eyes. “Look at you, you big, dumb thing. You’re so beautiful.”

Fighting back a laugh, Rhodey moved across the room to give U some love too. “Don’t worry, gorgeous,” he hummed. “He’s gonna love you too. DUM-E’s just his baby.”

Tony did, of course, cooing over the two of them like they were actual babies. Rhodey couldn’t do much more than stand back and watch, absolutely captivated by watching Tony discover twenty-five years worth of technological advancements at once, looking completely overwhelmed in the best possible way. The noise he made when re realized that his entire system was holographic was the greatest thing that Rhodey had ever heard. He immediately had JARVIS record it and send it to him so that he could set it as his ringtone. Every move that Tony made seemed to remind him all over again why he had fallen in love with him.

Tony glanced up then, eyes narrowing suspiciously as he looked Rhodey over. “What are you smiling at?”

“Nothing,” Rhodey answered just a bit too quickly, hoping his expression had been more ‘amused’ and less ‘hopelessly in love with you for all of eternity.’ “Nothing, man,” he repeated. “I just forgot how precious you are when you’re all excited.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Shut up,” he grumbled, but his cheeks flushed a little and he gave Rhodey a bright, sweet smile before turning back to whatever was spread out across the table in front of him. Rhodey whistled to get his attention back.

“Hey Tones!”

Tony whirled back to look at him, holding up one of Clint’s new prototypes. “Are these exploding arrows?” he demanded.

“Yeah, man, probably.” He arched an eyebrow at him. “Thought you wanted to see the Iron Man suits though?”

***

It was hours later that Rhodey got a notification from Steve, letting him know that they’d ordered in food from Tony’s favourite Italian place and that the rest of the team was up in the common area, if they wanted to join them. Rhodey couldn’t help making a face at his phone; he knew they’d have to meet up eventually, but he was kind of enjoying their little bubble, just the two of them and the bots in the workshop. It wasn’t like he was jealous of Tony’s Avengers status, or his friendship with Steve -- really, he was glad that he had someone else in his corner -- but sometimes he missed the days when it had just been the two of them.

“Hey. Why so glum, chum?”

Rhodey nearly jumped; he hadn’t realized that Tony was even looking at him. When he’d glanced over a minute earlier, Tony had been fully absorbed with the HUD in one of the Iron Man helmets.

“No,” he said quickly. “I’m not. Just distracted. Uh… They’ve got Italian for you upstairs, if you’re hungry.”

“Oh, uh…” Tony quickly ducked his head, suddenly fascinated by the HUD display. “I’m okay,” he mumbled, just as his stomach growled loudly. Rhodey folded his arms across his chest, arching an eyebrow, and after a long moment of silence, Tony looked up to give him a sheepish look. “Okay, maybe I’m a little hungry?” he admitted. “Maybe you could bring some food down?”

Rhodey snorted. “Nope. I know what you’re doing.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Tony protested, but he was pouting a little.

“Come on. I know it’s intimidating, but they’re still your team, man. And hey, I’ll be right there with you.”

Tony rolled his eyes, but there was a hint of a smile at the corners of his lips. “Promise?” he asked, the pleading in his voice probably a little more genuine than he’d meant it to be.

Rhodey gave him a wink, couldn’t keep the fond smile off his face. “Promise,” he assured him.

Tony dragged his feet, saying goodbye to all the bots and promising to come back down to hang out with them again after head. Rhodey felt his heart swell, his stomach melting into something warm and gooey, and he turned for the elevator before Tony could see the stupid look that he knew was all over his face.

When the elevator dinged open on the common floor Clint was standing there, waiting for them. Rhodey rolled his eyes at the sight, but before he could warn him off, Clint’s face dropped into a pout. “Aww, Tony, no,” he protested. “He looks the same.” He turned his head, hollering somewhere behind him, “He looks the same!”

“I said his memory deaged, Barton!” Nat hollered. “Not his entire body!” This was followed up by some creative Russian cursing that made Clint’s frown deepen.

“Well that’s just rude,” he protested, getting him a shy smile out of Tony. Clint tilted his head at that. “Oh, wow. I didn’t know your face could look like that.”

Tony blinked back at him. “Thanks?”

Clint beamed in return, then shoved his hand out. “I’m Clint, by the way. I guess you don’t know that anymore. Or… Yet? This is confusing.”

Nat came out of the kitchen, laden down with serving dishes of food and an unusually soft smile for Tony. “It’s really not that complicated, Clint. It’s amnesia, not time travel. I don’t know how many more times I can explain this.”

“Uh, it’s Clint,” Sam offered, following her out with a giant basket of garlic bread. “So at least three more times.”

“Fuck you,” Clint shot back without any real heat. “Man, you don’t even go here. You just followed Cap in, what, three days ago?”

As the rest of the team slowly trickled in to join them, Tony took a half step back, moving a little further into Rhodey’s space. Nobody else even noticed, except probably Natasha, but Rhodey grinned, giving Tony a reassuring pat on the back before he stepped further into the room.

“Come on, Barton,” he said, deflecting the attention further from Tony. “Don’t be jealous just cause you’re not the only birdbrain on the team anymore.”

In slightly different circumstances, it could have been any other team bonding night, everyone bantering, and jokily arguing and fighting over the last serving of spaghetti. But Rhodey was hyperconscious of how quiet Tony was, watching the exchanges with wide eyes, rather than jumping to join in. He had tucked himself on the shorter couch beside Rhodey, on the far side of everyone else, clearly trying to pretend that he wasn’t overwhelmed. Rhodey knew him though, could read that awkward little smile. He may have liked the team, but Rhodey was the one thing he knew right now, and so he was sticking close. And judging by the way he’d grin into his tomato sauce every time Rhodey would run interference, his hand brushing appreciatively against Rhodey’s elbow, that wasn’t going to stop any time soon.

***

By the next week, Tony showed no sign of regaining any of his memories. It was a messy situation; magic meant that there was no medical reason that they could determine for his memory loss. On top of that, Tony had been the only one around when the witch or whatever-they’d-been-fighting had cast the spell on him. And since Tony couldn’t remember anything past 1990, nobody had any clue exactly what the spell was, or how to break it.

It didn’t help that Thor, the only one of them who had any actual experience with magic, was currently off in one of the other nine realms, doing his god thing. (Although, judging by the way Tony had started warming up to Steve, and was now shyly flirting with him every time he walked into a room, Rhodey couldn’t say he was too upset that Thor wasn’t around.)

He’d thought that if anything, the lab would be the thing to jumpstart Tony’s memories. But while he’d been fascinated by everything there, and it had taken him mere hours to get everything up and running (despite having his memories stuck in a time when pagers were the height of technology), it hadn’t helped him remember. Rhodey was ready to try anything, so he’d called Pepper, and made some arrangements with JARVIS, and when everything was ready, enlisted Steve’s help to carry four enormous boxes down into the lab.

Tony looked up from where he was soldering something onto one of the Iron Man suits. Rhodey winced a little because if Tony had fucked something up on the suit he was going to kick both Rhodey and himself later. Tony flushed a little when he spotted Steve, who didn’t even have the grace to be straining under the weight of carrying three of the boxes himself. Rhodey resisted the urge to roll his eyes and mutter something about show offs.

“What’s this?” Tony asked, looking at the boxes curiously and blinking when Steve winked at me.

“Don’t ask me. It was Colonel Rhodes’ idea. I’m just here to be the muscle.”

Tony grinned back at him, waggling his eyebrows. “And what a fine job you do.”

“I hate you both,” Rhodey grumbled. He’d liked it better when Tony had been all shy and nervous and had to look away every time Steve walked into a room. “These,” he added, dropping his one box down on a table with a bit of spare space. “Are your memories.”

Tony arched an eyebrow at him, though he set down the soldering iron and moved around to peer down at the box. “Oh good,” he said dryly. “You found them.”

Rhodey elbowed him, hard, grinning when Tony yelped and then laughed as he tried to shove him in return. “It’s pictures and photo albums and videos and things from when we were at MIT, and then afterward. It’s sort of all mixed together. You keep insisting that you don’t want to put them out because it’s ‘relic technology’ and you’re going to digitize them instead. But you haven’t yet, so it’s just been sitting in a heap in storage. I had Pepper send them out. And then of course JARVIS has a bunch of more recent photos and video clips when you’ve worked your way through these.”

“What?” Steve made a ridiculous noise, staring at Rhodey accusingly. “You didn’t tell me I was carrying around photos of baby Tony!” He grinned wickedly and immediately set down all three boxes, starting to paw the top one open. “I wanna see!”

Tony actually screeched, rushing around the table to try and wrestle Steve away from the boxes. “Nooo,” he wailed, trying to peel Steve’s hands away. He was doing a terrible job, except that Steve was too busy laughing at him to put much effort into fighting back. “I was such a dweeb when I first got to MIT! I don’t need Captain America seeing that.”

“You’re still a dweeb now,” Rhodey pointed out helpfully, getting a beam out of Steve in response. Rhodey told himself to calm down. He liked Steve. It wasn’t his fault that Tony was so obviously crushing on him.

“See!” Steve said. “What’s the harm in letting me see?”

Tony narrowed his eyes at Rhodey. “Traitor,” he grumbled. “Seriously, Steve. Out. Only MIT graduates allowed.”

Steve frowned. “I feel like that’s a roundabout way of calling me stupid.”

Tony rolled his eyes, so much like now-Tony that it was hard to believe that he had no memory of the last few years. “I’ll make you a deal. Let me go through them, and I’ll let you look at some of the least dorky ones after.”

“Fine,” Steve sighed, like he hadn’t just been hassling Tony for the fun of it. “Sam and I were gonna grab coffee anyway. Have fun!” he added, heading for the door and leaving them to it.

Tony waited until he was sure Steve wasn’t coming back before immediately yanking open the tape on the first box and practically falling headfirst into it. “Get over here, Rhodeybear,” he hollered, voice slightly muffled by the cardboard. “We’re in this together.”

Even with Tony’s memory loss, Rhodey had to admit that the afternoon was the most fun he’d had in awhile. Pepper had sent along an old VCR that she found with all the pictures, so they were able to play the VHSs, and for the millionth time this week, Rhodey found himself falling in love with Tony all over again. He thought he had a pretty good memory, but he’d somehow forgotten how adorable Tony had been, that bright, open giggle that he hadn’t bothered to hide back then, the way he’d go all wide-eyed in excitement, not trying to temper himself. Rhodey hadn’t even realized how much he had missed it. And it was even better when he had Tony’s giggle in stereo, the Tony beside him laughing just as hard over terrible jokes and lab accidents and everything else. Several times he had caught Rhodey staring at him with probably a dumbass look on his face, giving Rhodey a moment of panic that he’d figure it out and know exactly what that look meant. But Tony didn’t seem bothered, would just give Rhodey a soft, sweet smile in return before turning back to whatever was in his hand.

They’d gone quiet for a bit, Rhodey searching for a particular photo from the Halloween party they’d gone to in ‘97, when Tony made a soft noise across from him. Rhodey looked up to see him perusing a red, leather-bound album.

“Tones? You okay?” God only knew what else Tony might have had tucked in there.

But when he looked up, Tony didn’t look upset at all. In fact he was smiling, eyes shimmering a little. “Ohhh,” he breathed. “I get it now.” He ducked his head a little, shy but still pleased, and then leaned over to give Rhodey a soft kiss on the cheek, the beard that he’d immediately fallen in love with (of course) ticking Rhodey’s skin.

Rhodey felt warm all over, Tony’s kisses always making him melt, and it took him a minute to realize that this version of Tony hadn’t quite reached that level of casual affection -- the cheek kisses were still another couple years away. Feeling like he’d missed something, Rhodey blinked at him. “Get what?”

Tony’s smile was growing into something completely goofy and he rubbed at the back of his neck. “That’s why you were so cool with me before, right? Because you like me...n too.”

“Yeah?” Rhodey offered, because his sexuality was never something he’d hidden from Tony.

This just made Tony smile wider. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Rhodey asked.

Tony held up the album, showing off a page of pictures of the two of them draped all over each other. “That we’re married!” he proclaimed.

Rhodey choked on air. “We’re what?” he asked. His voice was weak, and he could feel the blood draining from his face. Panic twisted in his stomach, sharp and bitter. He fucked up, he’d done something to give Tony the wrong idea entirely.

Tony just gave him a look. “Come on, Rhodes. I know I’m a little behind the times now, but I’m still a genius.” He waggled the photo album in the air. “I have an entire photo album devoted just to you, titled ‘Honeybear.’” He flipped it closed, revealing the nickname titled on the front in gilt cursive letters. “What, have we not told the team or something, is that why you didn’t say anything? Oooh, secret marriage! That’s kind of fun!” He grinned at Rhodey. “Why haven’t we told them? Would they not react well? I know Steve’s from the 1940s, but he was also an artist living in like, the gayest part of Brooklyn. Doesn’t exactly scream homophobic to me. Wait! Is that why you’re so jealous when Steve gets all friendly with me?”

“I’m not jealous,” Rhodey said weakly.

Tony arched an eyebrow at him with a look that was painfully familiar. “Sure you’re not. I can read you like a book, hot stuff. Oh!” His eyes lit up and he gave Rhodey a smirk that was half teasing and half unbearably pleased. “Now you know I mean it when I call you stuff like that.”

Rhodey had long since gotten used to Tony’s rambling when he got excited about something, but right now he was having a hard time focusing on what Tony was saying. “Wh… Where are you getting all this?”

“What? You said gay was okay now. Or… Bi, anyway.” Tony beamed at him. “I've been doing my research.” He got distracted then as a loose picture fell out of the album. It was a later one of Tony and Rhodey in the Iron Man and War Machine armors respectively, faceplates up and arms around each other as they grinned at the camera. “Aww, did I make you that? We match! Cute!”

“Tony.” Rhodey opened and closed his mouth a few times as Tony looked up at him, not knowing how to explain. Tony tilted his head, frowning at him.

“Rhodey? You okay?”

“We’re not married,” Rhodey blurted out. He immediately winced; that wasn’t how he had planned to tell him. And then he winced harder when Tony blinked, looking like Rhodey had just told him that the world was flat after all.

“What?”

“We’re not married, Tones. We’ve…” He swallowed, the admission hard for all he’d thought he’d accepted it. “We’ve never been like that. I’m so sorry, Tones. I fucked up. I didn’t mean to give you that impression.”

Tony went suddenly, perfectly still, all his manic energy just… Stopping. “We’re not?” he asked, voice soft. Rhodey shook his head and Tony looked away, suddenly unable to even meet his eyes. “Right,” he said softly, and for a truly terrible moment Rhodey thought he was going to cry.

“Tones…” He reached out, curling a hand around Tony’s wrist because everything about this was awful but comforting Tony was ingrained in his blood. “Come on, you’ve never felt like that about me, and that hasn’t changed,” he told him, and Tony’s eyes snapped to his again. “We’re friends, nothin’ else. This is just… A crazy situation, and you’re unsettled, and you’re latching on to what’s familiar.” He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Tony, or himself. “Right?”

And it was completely crazy, but for a brief moment Rhodey found himself hoping against hope that Tony would tell him he was wrong, that he did feel that way for him, always had.

But after a too long moment, Tony nodded, scratching at the back of his neck and giving Rhodey a tight smile, fake in a way that it hadn’t been all week, that it had never been for Rhodey. “Right,” he agreed. He gave a strained laugh. “Well, don’t I feel stupid?”

“No, Tones, don’t--,”

“Anyway, uh… Thanks for all this.” Tony cut him off as he gathered up an armful of photos and videos, not even bothering to look at what he was collecting. “I appreciate it, but I’m feeling kind of tired now, so I’m gonna…” He nodded his head toward the elevator. “I’ll finish looking at these later.”

Before Rhodey could say another word, he was on his feet, scrambling for the door. It went against every instinct Rhodey had, but he didn’t stop him, didn’t try to follow him. This was his own fault; thirty years of wanting and he’d managed to give it all away in a week. Some space between them probably wasn’t a bad idea.

And as it turned out, t was fairly easy for Rhodey to avoid Tony, when it seemed as though Tony was doing his level best to do the same. Rhodey wasn’t going to pretend that it hadn’t hurt when Tony had walked into the kitchen, spotted Rhodey, stared at him with painfully wide eyes for a too-long minute and then spun on his heel and left again without even grabbing whatever he’d come for.

He knew they’d be alright. They’d had distance and rough patches in their friendship before. He’d always joked it was the mark of a healthy relationship, that they’d been able to come back from whatever life threw at them. And, presumably, Tony would eventually get his memories back, and they’d be able to look back on this whole thing and laugh about it -- if he even remembered it at all. They still didn’t know how this amnesia thing worked.

But in the meantime? It really fucking sucked.

***

Steve had slipped into the rarely used library, in search of the sci-fi novel he’d lost somewhere. He spotted it on a side table and was just planning to head for the deck and enjoy some sunshine when he heard a faint noise, a sniffling sound that sounded suspiciously like crying. He hesitated a minute; he wasn’t known for being the most emotionally intelligent member of the team, preferring to punch his feelings away. But if one of his team members were upset, or hurting, it was his job to check in.

Wincing, he made a point of clearing his throat in case they hadn’t heard him come in. “Hello?” he called. “Somebody there?”

There a sharp inhale, and then a soft, quiet voice came from the armchair facing the window. “‘S just me.”

“Tony?” Steve followed the sound of his voice. “What are you doing in here?”

“Sorry,” he said, voice still soft. “JARVIS said this was the least used room in the tower. I just… I needed a minute.”

Steve came around the front of the chair, and his eyes went wide at the sight of Tony curled up in a tiny, miserable ball in the chair, arms folded across his chest, face red and damp with tears. “Jesus Christ, what happened?” he asked; he’d seen Tony cry before, of course, but never anything like this.

“It’s nothing,” Tony said quickly. “Nothing happened. I was just leaving anyway.”

Not for the first time, Steve felt the stirrings of resentment, thinking about Howard and what he’d done to make Tony think he had to hide something like this. “Tony… Talk to me. Something must have happened.”

But Tony shook his head, still not meeting Steve’s eyes. “It’s nothing,” he insisted, starting to slide off the chair. “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine, everything’s fine. I’m fine.”

Steve had been trying to be good about respecting Tony’s boundaries; teasing him was fun, but he knew Tony didn’t really know him right now, and the last thing he wanted was to make him uncomfortable. But as Tony started to slide past him, Steve couldn’t seem to let himself do that now. Without thinking, he carefully grabbed Tony’s arm and pulled him in against his chest, hugging him close. For a split second Tony went stiff and tense him, and Steve wondered if he’d made entirely the wrong choice. Then, with a deep exhale, Tony crumpled against Steve, pressing his face into his shoulder as his tears started fresh. Steve tightened his arms around Tony’s back, running a hand up and down his spine in a way that he hoped was soothing. The little shudder Tony gave against him suggested that it was helping at least a little.

They stayed like that for a while, Steve taking Tony’s body weight easily, mumbling soothing nonsense phrases like he vaguely remembered his mother doing for him when he’d been sick. Eventually that shifted to actual humming, which got him a sad little giggle out of Tony, his hands squeezing against Steve’s sides.

“Uhh, no offense, Cap,” he said, pulling back a bit. “But you’re truly terrible at singing.”

Steve shrugged, unbothered. “You say terrible, I say I got a laugh out of you, so that’s another win for Captain America.”

Tony snorted and rolled his eyes, but it was a little less sad this time. “Whatever you say, Steve.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, ducking his head a little. “Uh, thanks for that.”

“Steve shrugged. “That’s what I’m here for. Now, you gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

“Oh. You don’t have to… I’ll be okay.” He gave Steve a wry smile. “For real this time.”

“Tony… I know you might not remember this right now, but you really are one of my best friends. I’m not asking because I think I have to, or because I’m Captain America and it’s what I do. I’m asking because I love you, and I care about you, and I’m here for you. I want to help if I can, or just sit here and listen if I can’t.”

“Um. Okay.” Tony fiddled with his hands a moment before flopping back into one of the arm chairs and running a hand through his hair, leaving it even more unruly than usual. “You better be cool about this, Rogers. If you storm out of here in an offended 1940s huff, you’ll break my heart.”

Steve gave him a look as he dragged another armchair over, positioning it he could sit opposite Tony. “Right. Because I’m known for definitely being a stickler for those 1940s sensibilities,” Steve told him with a crooked grin. He reached out, patting Tony on the knee. “Come on. You can tell me.”

“Okay.” Tony bit his lip. “It’s just… I love Rhodey. I mean, obviously I love him, everyone know that. But I’m in love with him. Like the get married, and buy a house, have lots of babies in love… Or adopt them, I guess. I’m just…” He trailed off, shrugging helplessly. “I’m in love with him.”

Steve grinned then, but it was soft and reassuring. “Tony… I know.”

“You do?”

“You’ve been in love with Rhodey for as long as I’ve known you. We’ve talked about it ad nauseum.” He laughed, not unkindly. “I can’t tell you how many times you’ve told me how wonderful he is, all the things you’ve done together, how much you care him… How hot he is in his dress uniform, which personally I don't get. It’s an air force uniform.” He shook his head. “You used to tell me that how so much of what you’ve done was to make yourself the kind of man who would be worthy of a man like Rhodey. I’m pretty sure that being in love with Rhodes is just a part of who you are now. It’s not news.”

“Oh.” Tony smiled faintly, but this didn’t seem to make him feel any better. There was a shimmer in his eyes again. “That’s… great.”

Steve tilted his head, frowning. “Okay, what am I missing?”

Tony gave him a pained look. “I did a stupid thing, Steve. We were looking at the pictures, and I had these albums that were all just Rhodey, and he didn’t even flinch at him, and I don’t even know why now, but I thought…” His voice trailed off to a whisper, so soft that if it wasn’t for the serum, Steve wasn’t sure if he would even have heard him. “I thought we were married.”

Steve felt his heart break at the raw pain on his face. “Oh, Tony.”

“I know, okay? I know. It was so fucking stupid, like why did I jump to married, we don’t even have rings, I don’t know why I said it, I should have just kept my stupid mouth shut. Dad always did tell me I talked too much. But the point is…” He made a choked noise. “The point is, he doesn’t love me back. And future me might be okay with it, but right now it really sucks knowing for a fact that you’re never going to get that happy ending that you don’t admit to daydreaming about. And, and it’s worse. Because for just a minute, I thought I had it. I thought I had everything I could have wanted, and then it was all just yanked away again and…” His voice cracked. “And that really fucking sucks,” he concluded. “Not to mention, I’m pretty sure I just ruined five years -- or thirty years -- of friendship in the process.”

“Hey, hey no.” Steve shook his head rapidly. “Tony, it may not be the way you want, but Rhodey loves you. He’d throw every single one of us under the bus if it meant helping you. I know it feels awkward now, but no way has this ruined your friendship. You’ll get through this.”

Tony huffed out a bitter laugh, face tight as he met Steve’s gaze. “I may be an idiot, but I know Rhodey. I can tell when my best friend is avoiding me.”

And there wasn’t really anything Steve could add to that to that, nothing he could offer except to sit in companionable silence with Tony, until he looked up at him with a sad, tentative smile.

“Don’t suppose you wanna watch a movie with me tonight?”

Steve gave him the most reassuring smile he could manage. “Of course, Tony. Any time.”

***

It had only been a couple days, but it felt like an entire week before Steve came to him. Rhodey hadn’t missed the way Steve and Tony had been spending more and more time together, had been trying to press down the overwhelming jealousy every time he spotted them together. He wasn’t being fair, and he knew it. Tony didn’t trust him now, couldn’t trust him right now, that wasn’t his fault. Rhodey should have been glad that he had someone in his corner, he just… Wished it didn’t have to be Steve.

Not that there were a lot of other options at the moment. The entire team had been pretty scarce lately, probably sensing the tension even if they didn’t know exactly what was going on. Clint had made it a habit to glare at Rhodey every time he passed, because Hawkeye had realized Tony was avoiding him, and apparently Clint was the only one who was allowed to be a shithead to Tony. It was exhausting.

He’d been in the kitchen, making a snack, when Steve had stormed in. Rhodey would never admit it, especially not to Rogers, but for just a moment he’d felt genuine terror. But he hid it well, turning back to the sandwich he was making. “Captain. What can I do for you?”

Steve didn’t answer at first, moving to lean against the counter beside him. “You need to go talk to Tony,” he told him.

Rhodey pinched the bridge of his nose. “Steve…”

“No,” Steve told him firmly. “Rhodes, he’s a mess. I’m trying, but you’re the friend he wants. Talk to him.”

Rhodey felt guilt twist through his stomach, tangled up with the same thrum of fear he’d been fighting off since the whole marriage exchange had happened. “You sure he’ll talk to me?” he asked skeptically, the words slipping out without his consent.

Steve made a pained noise. “You two deserve each other,” he muttered before promptly stealing Rhodey’s sandwich right off the plate in front of him. “Go. Talk to him,” he repeated before taking an enormous bite and walking right out of the kitchen.

Rhodey sighed. “Worst. Team. Ever.”

***

He found Tony, surprise of surprises, in the lab. At least, he reasoned, he hadn’t ruined that for him.

He still had full access, apparently, the doors opening for him automatically, but Tony didn’t look up and so Rhodey hovered inside the doorway, tapping his knuckles against the frame. “Tones?”

“I know it’s you. JARVIS told me.” Tony flicked his eyes at him for a split second, but Rhodey couldn’t help noticing that his expression was less angry and more sad and nervous.

“I, uh…” Rhodey didn’t know where to start or what to say. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I know we haven’t seen much of each other the past few days.”

Tony looked up again, eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “I know I freaked you out, and of course you wouldn’t want to be married to me. I’m really, really sorry. I promise, I’ll get over these feelings. It’s just a crush, probably… Maybe… Well, Steve said--.” He cut himself suddenly, skin flushing. “Well, anyway. I mean we’re, we’re still friends thirty years later, right? And you don’t know how future me feels, so I must have gotten over it, or at least used to it, or adjusted at some point, right? I promise, I won’t make it weird, just… You’re my best friend. Please don’t go.”

Rhodey blinked, across the room and beside Tony before he was even conscious of the movement. Tony had dropped his eyes back to the table in front of him, but Rhodey caught him by the upper arms, pulling him away so they were facing each other. “Whoa, whoa, hey. First of all, I’m not going anywhere, Tones. Not ever. Second of all. What??”

Tony gave him a pained look. “Come on, Rhodey. I know you’ve been avoiding me.”

“Because… I thought… Tony, you thought we were married. And I… That’s on me. The truth is.” He drew in a long breath, ignoring the pang in his stomach at the thought of confessing. “The truth is, I’ve had feelings for you for a long time. Like three decades worth of a long time. And obviously I was doing a shit-ass job of hiding them, so I just… I just thought you might want some space.”

Tony was staring at him, face unreadable. “What?” Then he shook his head frantically. “No, no, no! Rhodey, are you kidding? I’ve been crushing on you for so long. Since… Well, since we met, really. I walked into the dorm room and you were wearing this old, thin t-shirt and it was so tight around your biceps and I kinda melted a little, and I…” He winced a little, coughing to clear his throat. “Well anyway, that’s kind of too much information, but the point is… The point is, I’m into you too. And then, when I saw the photos, and the videos, and there were all the other little things. You kept touching me, and looking at me, and you said that being gay was accepted now, and I guess I just… I wanted it to be true so I totally misread the situation.”

He ran out of steam then, going quiet as he stared at Rhodey, and for a minute Rhodey just stared back, feeling a little like he might pass out. “Oh,” he said faintly. “Oh, shit.”

Tony smiled at him, soft and tentative. “You… you like me too?” he asked, hopeful and nervous like Rhodey hadn’t just said as much.

Rhodey grinned, feeling like he was buzzing with happiness. “Tony, I am completely and absolutely in love with you,” he told him, watching as the biggest grin bloomed across Tony’s face in response.

“I, um…” He ducked his head a little. “I’m a little in love with you too.”

Rhodey arched an eyebrow at him. “Just a little?”

Tony rolled his eyes at him. “Shut up.”

“Come on, man. Get on my level.”

Tony snorted, the sound turning into a full-on laugh. “Your level?” he replied. “We just confessed our undying love and you haven’t even kissed me yet.”

“Oh, really?” Rhodey focused all his attention on Tony, watching as his tongue darted out to swipe over his lip a little nervously. “That what you’re waiting for?”

Tony shrugged, trying to play cool. “Maybe,” he offered, like it was no big deal, but his fingers were fiddling anxiously. Rhodey shrugged.

“Alright then.” He moved forward, covering Tony's hands with his his to still their nervous twitching. Then he shifted one hand to curl around the back of his neck, stroking his thumb over his skin. Tony stared up at him with those big, beautiful eyes, lips parted slightly in anticipation, and Rhodey grinned at him before closing the distance between them and kissing him gently. Tony almost immediately melted against him, hands shifting to grab at Rhodey’s hips, clutching them tight as his lips parted and Rhodey deepened the kiss. He slid his hand down Tony’s back, pulling him in close, and grinned at the startled, pleased noise Tony made against his mouth.

They were both breathing hard when he pulled back again, curling his other hand around his neck so he could stroke his thumbs over his pulse points. “That good, baby?”

Tony blinked at him a couple times. “Holy shit,” he breathed, eyes round and huge. “That was… Holy shit.”

Rhodey smirked at him. “What? Don’t tell me you don’t remember kissing.”

Tony gave him a mock glare. “Of course I remember kissing! But it was never like... That. Jesus Rhodes, where’d you learn to kiss like that?”

Rhodey couldn’t help laughing, shaking his head and ducking his head to give Tony another quick kiss. “Practice,” he told him, waggling his eyebrow.

“Yeah? Wanna go upstairs and practice some more?”

“Smooth, man.” Rhodey laughed harder, not wanting to admit how much Tony’s terrible line delighted him. He hummed consideringly, and then yelped when Tony pinched his side. “Come on, like I’m going to turn down making out with you.”

Tony beamed at him. “And then, maybe, you could… Stay? Even if we don’t do anything. I Just… I missed you the last couple days.”

Rhodey slid his arms down over Tony’s back, pulling him in and hugging him tight. “I like the sound of that.”

***

They ended up stretched out on Tony’s massive bed, stripped down to boxers and t-shirts. Tony was sprawled out on top of him, making contented little noises against Rhodey’s mouth as they made out lazily for what felt like hours. Rhodey was particularly fond of this angle, as it let him drop his hand down to Tony’s ass and squeeze whenever he felt like it. The little giggle that Tony had made the first time was Rhodey’s new favourite sound.

“Hey,” Tony pulled back, blinking at Rhodey with sleepy eyes. “You know what we should do?”

Rhodey hummed, running his hands over Tony’s back. “What’s that?”

“You should take my virginity.”

Rhodey burst out laughing, tipping them onto their sides. He shook his head, beaming at Tony. “Okay, I know for a fact that you’re not a virgin, even at your memory age, or whatever.”

Tony gave him a scandalized look, but he was laughing now too. “Not for butt stuff!” he insisted. “I’ve never done that!”

Rhodey laughed harder. “Okay. The fact that you just called it butt stuff? Means we’re not fucking doing it tonight. Or at all, until you get your memories back.”

Tony giggled, pushing at Rhodey until he shifted onto his back, letting Tony snuggle up against his side. “Fine,” he sighed, not sounding particularly upset. “What about blow jobs? We’ll split the difference! I’ve gotten them before, but I’ve never given them before… We can 69!”

Rhodey snorted, wrapping his arms around Tony. “You’re hopeless,” he informed him. He traced long fingers up and down his spine. “Also, no. It’s just… I get that you might be fully onboard--,”

“I fully, absolutely am,” Tony informed him, biting at his chest through his t-shirt just to be a shit.

“But that doesn’t mean that you’ll feel the same way when you get your memories back.”

Tony lifted his head to give him a skeptical look. “Well, I don’t think that’s likely to happen.”

“Probably not. At least I hope not. But we won’t know for sure until you get them back. I don’t know, Tones. It’s a weird situation. I’m just not totally comfortable with it.”

Tony hummed. “That’s fair,” he acknowledged. “Although, I do feel obliged to point out that you did just spend the last hour making out with me.”

Rhodey shrugged. “Hey man, I’m only human.”

Tony giggled again, settling in closer. “Hey, you’re gonna stay though, right?” he asked, a little bit of nervous energy sliding into his voice again. “Here, I mean? Tonight?”

Rhodey hummed, pressing his face into the soft curls on the top of Tony’s head. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

***

Rhodey woke up the next morning to bright laughter beside him. He rolled over to find Tony sprawled out on his back, laughing up at the ceiling. “What the fuck are you giggling at?”

Tony turned to grin at him, and oh. “Tones?” he asked, because that face was all his Tony. Well, every Tony was his Tony, but it was now Tony.

Tony smirked at him. “Hey handsome. Guess who got their memories back.” Then he was shifting forward, kissing Rhodey with all his extra years of experience. “God, your morning breath is terrible,” he informed him, still grinning.

“Yours isn’t exactly candy floss,” Rhodey replied automatically, setting Tony off laughing again. “Okay, laughing at the man you just kissed isn’t a great start.”

“It’s not that!” Tony said quickly, sliding a hand up under Rhodey’s t-shirt to splay his hand out over his abdomen. “It’s just... “ He snorted. “The spell. It’s so fucking stupid, but the key to getting my memories back? True love’s kiss.” He buried his face in Rhodey’s chest, body shaking with laughter. “We’re such cliches, baby.”

Rhodey grinned, running his fingers through Tony’s hair. “I wouldn’t expect you to be so pleased by that idea.”

Tony lifted his head to give him a dopey grin, shrugging a little. “I don’t know. Nothing in my life has exactly been what you’d call normal. If it means you’re my one true love, absolutely, I kind of like the idea of being a cliche.”

Rhodey felt his face go soft and soppy. “You’re the sweetest damn thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, earning him an eye roll even as a pleased smile crossed Tony’s lips.

“Shut up,” he muttered, before wriggling his way down Rhodey’s body. “Now, about those blow jobs you promised me…”

@tonystarkbingo

#tonystarkbingo2020 #tsb2020 #ironhusbands #tony stark #james rhodes #steve rogers #memory loss #canon divergence #fluff #hurt/comfort #fic #my fic

43 notes · View notes

winryofresembool · 7 years ago

Text

EdWin one-shot: Laundry day

Summary: Doing your laundry can lead to unexpected confessions.

A/N: my part of the fic trade with @edxwin-elric! I used the fluff prompt “No, like…. It’s just, I can’t believe you’re actually wearing my clothes.” for this fic. (I guess I could have taken this to an entirely different direction but didn’t :-D). And, since this is (another) confession fic, I also used @kittykatz009‘s prompt “I wanted to say “I love you” for the first time without stuttering, but that failed.” because I really don’t think you’d want to read 23526436 confession fics from me. I hope you don’t mind me combining them, since this is kinda long-ish (for a one-shot). Please enjoy and review!!

Words: 2340+

Genre: ultra fluff (aka cotton candy, named by @kilmartin85).

Warnings: swearing (Pinako ♥)

“Edward Elric! Where the hell are you? We are supposed to do laundry today!”

Up in his room, Ed closed the book he was reading dramatically and let out a deep sigh. He had beaten the god himself and saved the entire country, yet that didn’t give him free pass on boring things like household chores. To be fair, though, Ed hated being useless, so he didn’t actually mind helping around. He just found bickering with Winry too enjoyable.

“Didn’t we just do the laundry last week? Why do we have to do it again?” he yelled back, preparing for an explosion.

“DO YOU ENJOY USING DIRTY CLOTHES? I am NOT touching your underwear, you jerk!”

“Alright, alright! No need to yell. Just give me a second!” He started piling all the clothes he had thrown around the room onto his bed hastily, not wanting to make Winry any angrier. For some reason, he had become a bit more careful about that lately.

Al peeked inside Ed’s room and snickered.

“I recommend you hurry, brother. There might still be someone in Resembool who didn’t hear about Fullmetal Alchemist, the hero of the people, having to wash his dirty boxers himself.”

Ed threw the closest piece of clothing (lucky for Al, only a T-shirt) at his brother and fumed of anger.

“Laugh ahead, Al. There will be a day when Winry and the old hag will decide you are strong enough to be their slave as well.”

“You know I would help them already if they let me. Unlike some people, I don’t feel the need to complain about every chore I’m supposed to do.”

“Har de har.”

Ed picked up the pile of clothes from the bed and made Al a face when he handed him the T-shirt he had thrown but left from the room without saying another word.

When he sauntered into the laundry room (earning a pointed look for his purposefully lazy appearance), Winry was already washing her own clothes in a huge bucket filled with water and soap. Some richer families already had machines to do this job, and Ed had suggested the Rockbells get one too since he had money to buy them one. However, Pinako refused, saying that they were still perfectly capable of doing this with their own hands so there was no need to waste money on such unnecessary devices.

“Finally. I was about to come and drag you here,” Winry noted, not lifting her gaze from the overalls she was currently trying to scrub clean. There was no way she’d ever get the oil stains off it, but that didn’t stop her from trying.

“Why is it so important to you that I wash my clothes? It’s not like you have to wear them or anything…” Ed grunted as he filled his own bucket with warm water. Then he pulled his hoodie off to avoid getting it wet, giving Winry a nice view to his strong, bare arms, and put the rubber gloves on.

“Yes, but I have to smell you,” she pointed out, trying to not get too distracted by Ed’s appearance. “Clothes start smelling, Ed, especially when you sweat a lot, and trust me, no one in this house wants to deal with your stink.”

“I do not smell that bad!”

“Then what’s that weird stench that comes through your door every time I walk past it?”

“I… it’s… I don’t know! It’s probably Al!”

“Right.” Winry sighed.

“How about we just stay quiet for a while and finish this?” Ed pointed towards the mountain of laundry, and for once both of them agreed on something.

Soon enough, they had more clean than dirty clothes in their hands and Ed decided it was safe to speak again.

“How’s your apprenticeship going? Are you done with it soon?”

Winry was genuinely pleased that Ed seemed interested in her work. Before Al and his return, he had never asked about it.

“It’s going nicely. I think I’ll be done within the next few months!” she exclaimed happily. “Did I mention I’m gonna go to Rush Valley next week again? Garfiel wants to see how I’ve progressed, and you guys don’t really need me here anymore…”

“Don’t say that!” Ed said unexpectedly. “Who will make me do my laundry when you’re not around? Who will make me cook and clean and fix the broken roof and so on?”

Winry frowned at him. “I know you would do those things either way, you’re just pretending to be a tough guy whose job is to complain a bit first. And Granny is always here to keep you guys in line if you suddenly forget how to function.”

“I… We just like to, you know, have you around here,” Ed said sheepishly.

“Even though I should probably be honored, I need to remind you that I’m only going to be away for a couple of weeks. You guys were gone for years. How do you think I was feeling when I never even heard anything from you?”

“Sorry, Winry!” Ed squeaked before she had a chance to throw something at him. “We needed to focus on getting Al’s body back 100 per cent, and besides, I thought you’d understand. It was to protect you… and to avoid getting distracted.

“What do you mean by ‘getting distracted’? I don’t understand you, Ed.”

“I’m really bad at explaining this stuff, but… this place was the only home we had left, and had we come back, it would have been so easy to forget our mission and get too relaxed. Do you think we’d be here if we had slacked off?”

“No! But you guys never called, never let me know if you were OK… Would it really have ruined everything if you had talked with us two minutes on the phone?”

“You don’t understand!”

“What do I not understand?” Winry was practically yelling now. Here they went again, she groaned in her mind. Why could they not have a civil conversation anymore?

Ed had already passed the point in which he cared about what kind of consequences his next words might have.

“Have you ever considered that perhaps one of the reasons why I didn’t want to contact you was that I cared about you too damn much? That when I heard your voice or saw your face I was afraid I’d forget what I was supposed to do?! What if someone had found out how important you are to us? What if someone had tried to find out about our plans through you? They could have hurt you!”

“What?” Winry stared at him with wide eyes. Was he really saying what she thought he was?

“Don’t make me repeat it.” Ed said coldly and turned away from her.

“You are making me even more confused than I was before! Give me an honest answer to one question: does what you just said mean that you have been in love with me all this time?”

“I don’t… they all say… YES.” He nearly yelled the final word.

“You idiot,” Winry sighed and put the shirt she was washing back into the bucket, getting up and sitting down next to Ed. “How long were you going to keep that inside you?”

“I was going to tell you eventually.” He still couldn’t look at her. “This wasn’t really how I planned to do it…”

Winry set her hand on Ed’s knee and said: “It’s OK. I don’t care. I… have been keeping things from you too. I was scared you’d freak out if I told you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Edward Elric, the youngest state alchemist ever, yet still so dense… Hey, could you help me hang this sheet?” She suddenly suggested.

“Huh? What…”

Before Ed had time to react, Winry threw the damp sheet on them and pulled Ed up, setting her hands on his shoulders. Ed couldn’t see much, but soon he felt something moist that definitely wasn’t the sheet against his lips. It was warm and soft, making Ed shiver a bit. The sensation was over too soon, but Winry’s voice said: “Sorry… I just found it easier to do this way.” She took a deep breath and continued: “I love you too, you weirdo. Have loved for a long time now.”

“Why haven’t you told me earlier?”

“I think I could ask you the same question,” Winry snorted and pushed some of Ed’s hair aside so she could see his face slightly better under the damb sheet.

“Fair enough. But, um, why are we still under this thing? It’s wet and cold!”

“This may sound ridiculous, but in so many stories that I read as a child the prince and princess or whatever kissed in the rain… and I wanted to try that. Well, it’s not raining now so I had to improvise a bit.” Despite the cool cover, Winry felt her cheeks warm.

“OK, but we’re not kissing, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Jerk. We can always fix that!”

“OK.”

Lips met lips again, this time more eagerly, and since he was now prepared for the kiss, Ed took the lead. He snuck his hands into her hair and tilted his head to get a better access to her lips. Just when he thought he had gotten the hang of it, the door opened.

“Why is it so quiet here? Are you two slacking off? OH!”

Pinako spotted the feet under the sheet in the middle of the room and grinned at the sight.

“I was starting to wonder when you’d make the move, pipsqueak. You guys have been frustrating me ever since the boys came back, so it’s about time. Just make sure you’re not having sex under my roof when I’m nearby! And for fuck’s sake, don’t mess that sheet or you’ll get an earful.”

“Granny!” both youngsters screamed and threw the sheet off them, rushing to hang it on the clothes line.

The couple continued doing their laundry in an awkward silence as Pinako kept observing them. When they were finally done, Ed, who had noticed Winry seemed a bit cold after getting her clothes wet, handed her the white hoodie he had worn earlier.

“Here. You probably need it more than I do,” he said awkwardly, and Winry took the hoodie happily, enjoying the softness against her skin.

“Thanks.” Winry smiled and sighed of relief when she saw her granny finally leaving them alone.

“About that earlier…” she said quietly. “I think we should do that again sometime.” “Yeah, when the old hag isn’t nearby.” Ed stated. It was the second time that day they agreed on something.

…

Five days later, Ed, Al and Winry were waiting for Winry’s train to arrive to the Resembool station. Ed had secretly wished Al would let him walk Winry there alone, but unfortunately the younger Elric had been bored and wanted to take the opportunity to tease him mercilessly about his new relationship. Pinako had of course told him about the events of the laundry room, and after that Ed’s life had been a “living hell” (a couple of times Ed had thought fighting a Homunculus was easier than facing both Al and Pinako who always had those knowing smirks on their faces when they saw him, looking ready to taunt him). To Winry, Al had told that he was happy for them, and that he had been wishing his brother would finally admit the inevitable.

As they were standing at the platform, Winry noticed that Ed was staring at her with a weird look on his face.

“What?” she raised her eyebrow.

“What what?” Ed asked.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Is something wrong?”

“No, like…. It’s just, I can’t believe you’re actually wearing my clothes.”

“Oh.”

Winry was wearing the very same hoodie Ed had given her in the laundry room, not even realizing there was anything weird about it. When she had picked her outfit for that day, she had been pretty nervous about the upcoming evaluation with Garfiel (although Ed had claimed she was already better than anyone in Rush Valley), and the hoodie had seemed comforting in that moment. Maybe it made her feel that way because it was Ed’s, she had concluded in her mind.

“It suits you.” Ed said when Al ran a little farther to pet a cat that was walking by.

“Huh?”

She wasn’t used to Ed giving her such direct compliments, but she definitely wasn’t going to complain about this change.

“Do you mind if I keep it?” she asked then.

“Naah, I have plenty of them in my wardrobe…” Ed rubbed the back of his neck in a way that had become familiar to Winry during the years they had known each other.

“Good. Oh, I guess this is it,” she noted when she saw the train approaching the station. “Hey, Al, I gotta go!” she yelled at her friend who was now holding the cat in his arms and waved at Winry with its paw. “I’ll see you later! Please don’t traumatize that cat!”

“You know I wouldn’t!” Al yelled back and set the poor feline that had been meowing loudly back down.

“See you, Winry,” Ed said and snuck a kiss on Winry’s cheek when he saw Al wasn’t watching. When Winry was lifting her luggage into the train, he took a deep breath and added: “And don’t forget: I-I lo-love you.”

“What?” Winry genuinely didn’t hear what he said because the train was whistling loudly, signing the passengers it was about to leave.

“I wanted to say “I love you” for the first time without stuttering… but clearly, that failed.” He said much louder, not noticing Al was now in the hearing distance.

“Silly. Love you too,” Winry said before stepping inside the train and waving the brothers through the window.

“Aww, brother, I didn’t know you were so sweet!” Al said when the train disappeared from their view.

“Fuck off, Alphonse.” Ed growled, his face almost the color of burgundy.

#edwin #edward elric #winry rockbell #my fics #fullmetal alchemist #also i /promise/ to not write any more confessions at least before something happens in lcmti #y'all get bored with them :S

58 notes · View notes

littlebitofeverythingphff · 7 years ago

Text

Chapter 50

A/N: PLEASE READ CHAPTER 49 HERE FIRST! This is the second chapter of the DOUBLE FEATURE today and just so happens we have hit 50 CHAPTERS!!! WOW thank you guys for all the love and support xx please enjoy! It would mean a lot to me to hear from you xx

Adalyn stepped slowly down the stairs as the two dogs wounded around her feet purposefully trying to trip her. She rubbed her tired eyes as she stepped onto the cool floor. The wintery morning air chilled her to the core.

“Good morning, sleepy head.” Her eyes darted towards an oddly alert Carlson sipping on his coffee. Turning around to find the clock it read 0800 am.

“You are never up this early.” Adalyn confusedly wondered why her father was up this early on a Saturday. Rounding the counter island, she greeted her grandmother who was elbow deep in pancake mix. “Morning, gran.”

“Morning, sweetie. How did you sleep?” Florence tried to mask a mischievous smile.

“Ok…” Adalyn caught the look on her grandmother’s face before it faded. Taking a step back she glared at both her father and grandmother curiously. “What the hell is going on?”

Carlson stood up with the paper, grabbed his coffee and left the room making the guilt evident. Popping her hip out she stared down her grandmother. “Gran?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Florence brushed it off like she did not know a thing. “Will you set the table for breakfast dear?” Adalyn pursed her lips together knowing that something must be up. Opening the cupboard doors she grabbed a stack of plates.

Everyone was around the table eating breakfast when Elena turned to see a black SUV coming up down the road to the house. “Gran are you expecting anyone?” Florence had just sat down in her chair and simply shrugged her shoulders.

“No, honey. I wonder who it could be.” Her innocent granny voice could fool anyone.

Adalyn peered out the front window following everyone else’s eyes. Indrawing a breath, she recognized that vehicle. “No…” she whispered and turned towards her father who was grinning from ear to ear. “Daddy?” The whole table turned to see Adalyn’s face light up.

“Yes, Addy?” His face was beaming seeing how happy Adalyn her green eyes were shinning once she realized who it was. “Go and see who it is.”

“Wait... it’s Harry?” Elena leaned into Reid and asked him while her fiancé shrugged his shoulders in return being completely unaware of the situation.

Adalyn pushed her chair back and slipped on a pair of boots. By this time the vehicle had pulled up to the side of the house and stopped. Hearing the door slam shut, everyone’s eyes followed Addy as she ran towards the car despite the snow coming down hard.

The back door opened and Harry stepped out with the biggest smile seeing Addy running towards him. Within a few seconds Addy practically launched herself into the prince’s arms as Harry caught her and slowly twirled her around.

“What are you doing here?!” Her voice muffled by his jacket.

“I wanted to surprise you.” Harry gently placed her back on the ground feeling her cool hands cup his cheeks. Placing his hands over top of them, he angled his head to kiss one.

“Well you really did! I had no idea!” Addy’s eyes were shinning happily staring up into Harry’s she still did not believe that he was here.

“I told your father not to tell you.” Harry confessed as his head turned to see Addy’s whole family eagerly peering out the window by the breakfast nook at the couple, watching their every move. He waved politely, making Addy turn her head to see where he was looking having completely forgot about them.

“I knew he was acting strange this morning!” Addy snaked her arm around her boyfriend and leaned up to kiss him. “Come… I want you to meet my grandparents.” She simply could not stop smiling at the fact that Harry surprised her and had come here.

The couple walked arm in arm towards her grandparent’s house. Addy just stared up at the prince in silence with an adoring smile plastered on her lips. “What?” Harry smirked as he caught a glimpse of it.

“I just…” She shook her head in shock. “You are here, you are at the farm!” Addy giggled lightly. “I thought you had to stay longer?”

“Let’s just say Zara easily convinced me to surprise my girl.” Harry and Addy climbed the steps to the house stopping briefly on the porch. Harry had noticed this was probably the last private moment he would have with Addy until later and he definitely was going to take advantage of it.

“Come here...” He lifted Addy’s chin and captured her sweet soft lips against his. Addy moaned into the kiss, putting more pressure on his lips indicating she wanted more of him. Harry cupped her cool cheek rubbing it over with his warm hand and holding her lips steady as he continued to taste them. Breaking their lips apart, Addy had her signature blushed cheeks on display.

“I love it when I make you blush like that.” Harry leaned in and placed a quick reassuring kiss to her lips.

“Stop it…” Addy tried to hide her head in embarrassment. “My whole family probably saw you kissing me.” She opened the door and reached back to find Harry’s hand to lead him into her grandparents home. The Mackenzie family had left the table and congregated near the front entrance ready to bombard the couple as they came in.

Addy walked in with Harry, never leaving his side as he greeted her family. Addy’s grandmother pulled him right into a warm inviting hug that caught him a little off guard. “Hello, Harry. I am so happy you were able to join us and spend some of your holiday time here.”

“Thank you, Florence. I hope it wasn’t a bother me showing up like this.” Harry moved out of the hug.

“Oh not at all! We have been waiting what seems like forever to finally meet you, dear!” Addy gently rubbed Harry’s back up and down, staring up at the prince fondly.

“Harry, this is my grandpa, Edwin.” Adalyn proudly introduced Harry to her grandfather who was like a second father to her.

“Hello, son.” Edwin shook his hand firmly while Harry admired the elder man’s huge hands. “Welcome to the farm!”

“Thank you, sir.” Before Harry could speak another word, he felt Chance whacking his leg with his tail trying to gain the prince’s attention. Kneeling down he was met with an excited pup dancing around in circles happy to see Harry. “Well hello to you too Chance.”

“Babe, are you hungry? There are a lot of pancakes left.” The family sat back down at the table finishing their breakfast.

Grandma Florence gave Harry a healthy helping of her pancakes. “Eat up, son.” “Harry, you are going to gain probably ten pounds here.” Gavin, Lila’s boyfriend chimed in.

“Oh, I believe it.” Harry took a bite of the pancake and was in literal heaven. “This is amazing Florence, thank you. Now I know where Addy gets her cooking skills from.” Addy’s smile still had not left her lips as she turned to glance at the prince.

Elena leaned into Reid and whispered, “Look how happy Addy is, Reid.” She placed her hand over top of her chest watching the giddy couples sit beside each other and steal loving glances. They were constantly touching or leaning into one another. Harry had finished his pancakes and had Addy leaned into him, absent-mindedly rubbing her arm gently up and down while the couple listened to a story of Edwin’s.

Addy had gone up stairs to shower after Harry brought his things to her room. He was outside with Addy’s grandfather getting a tour of Edwin’s gun cage. The look Addy displayed when her grandfather offered to show Harry it had him dissolving into a fit of giggles along with everyone else at the table. Edwin and Carlson convinced Addy that they would return Harry to her in one piece.

“Addy was sure surprised to see you.” Carlson watched Harry handle one of his father’s guns.

The prince smirked and bit down on his bottom lip. “She really was.” Harry handed the gun back to Edwin. “Thanks for letting me come, Carlson. I couldn’t wait any longer.”

“Hey, if you can make my daughter as happy as I saw her this morning you are welcome whenever, Harry.” Carlson crossed his arms and became quite serious. “I need to ask you this since it seems like you are the closest to Addy…” Harry lifted his gaze to lock eyes with Carlson. “How is she really doing?”

Harry released a deep sigh and bit down on his bottom lip. “With all due respect sir, I want to answer it but I think the best person to is your daughter.” He was not about to discuss every thing that Addy had confided about to Harry.

“I am asking you because she won’t tell me, Harry.” Carlson was putting Harry in a tough position. Her grandfather had become silent and was staring at the prince waiting to hear his answer.

“I can’t do that to her.” Harry firmly stood his ground with Adalyn’s father. “I can tell you that she has her moments like anyone would assume, but she is doing what she needs to get through it.” Sighing deeply Harry continued, “it is not fair to Addy to tell you what she tells me in confidence, without her permission.”

“He’s right.” Everyone turned around to see Adalyn leaning against the doorframe, surprising the whole group. Her eyes drifted towards Harry and smiled weakly at him. “You should not have put him in that spot dad.” Adalyn pushed herself away from the door and walked towards Harry.

“Addy, we all want you to be ok… we are worried about you because we care about you.” Harry lifted his arm so Addy could come in beside him. He watched her face morph into a soft gaze while staring at her father as she let his words sink in.

“That doesn’t mean you are allowed to ask Harry to do that. If you are so worried about me, then ask me.” Addy angled her head and leaned it on Harry’s shoulder.

“Fine, are you ok Addy?” Her father crossed his arms stubbornly and for the first time Harry knew exactly where she had gotten that trait. He coughed to try his best to stifle a laugh knowing it was serious question. Silence filled the room, the tension becoming more palpable with each passing second. Harry could feel the anxiety from Addy’s tense body as she blindly searched for his hand that he freely gave.

Inhaling a deep breath she answered, “I’m not ok, dad. How can I be ok? I am still working through it all.” Addy looked up at Harry who quietly smiled at her. “But, I will be because I have all of you.”

Carlson steadied himself as he leaned back against a pile of boxes. “You know… if you are ever feeling like uh…” Addy sensed what her father was trying to say as he struggled to formulate the words.

“Dad…” Addy shook her head. “I would never.” Her voice faded away.

“Good…” Carlson chocked back tears while hanging his head low. Addy dropped Harry’s hand and walked towards her father, engulfing him in a warm hug. After sharing an embrace with Carlson, Addy looked back at Harry remembering why she had come out here to find him in the first place.

“Would you like to go for a walk with me?” Addy patted his chest.

“Of course I would!” He let Addy lead him back through the house to grab their coats.

“Do you want to go for some walkies?!” Willow started running around the room while Chance wiggled in Harry’s arms ecstatically.

“He’s missed you.” Addy couldn’t help but giggle as Chance attacked Harry with kisses. “Shall we test out his Christmas present from you, love?”

“You got it already?!” Harry’s head snapped up. “Yeah, I got it that afternoon you left. Your friend was not sure if it would work, but at least we can give it a try?” Addy pulled out a make shift puppy leg prosthesis. A man that Harry had worked closely with for a veterans charity was known to make custom prosthesis for amputee veterans. Harry had mentioned that his girlfriend’s dog was in need of one and within a week, Harry had brought Chance to the man to get measured and fitted. It was Harry’s Christmas present to Chance as he knew that Addy had been in search of one for a few months. With how Chance’s leg was injured, he was not able to fit the average prosthesis commonly made for dogs.

“Here…” Addy handed it off to Harry. “You put it on him.” Harry shook his head up at his girlfriend.

“I will hold him, you put it on. You are the one who rescued him after all, it should be you who gives him this chance to walk normally again.” Addy’s eyes locked with Harry’s as his words tugged at her heart, choking her up.

“Ok.” Was all she could manage to force out with a shaky breath.

“Come here Chance.” Harry gently grabbed the excited pup.

“What are you guys doing?!” Elena and Florence glanced around the kitchen corner.

“Chance is going to test out his first prosthesis!” Addy grabbed the first piece and slipped it over Chance’s stump. Chance shook his leg, glancing back at it becoming unsure whether he liked it or not.

“It’s ok buddy. It’s going to be different, but you have to wear one.” Harry provided gentle strokes along Chance’s body that instantly calmed him down. They had now gained a full house audience as the couple fastened the last piece onto Chance.

“He will be more likely to try it outside.” Addy told Harry to pick Chance up as she held the doors open so Harry could carry him through. Addy was right behind Harry as she took out her phone to capture the moment. Her family had all come out and stood on the porch to watch.

Harry gently set Chance down on the ground and petted his ears. “Merry Christmas Chance.” He swore that dog smiled at him as he stood up and told Chance to run.

The dog looked back at his leg and took a few stumbling steps in a circle. “It’s ok, go play with Willow!” Addy encouraged the pup.

Chance spotted Willow running ahead and took off in chase of her. He stumbled a few times, but eventually caught up to Willow and egged her to chase him back.

“Yayy!” Everyone from the porch started to cheer and clap.

Harry turned his head hearing silence coming from the woman that stood beside him. Tears were forming in her green eyes, threatening to over pour. But, beyond those tears, her green eyes were smiling proudly as she watched Chance run free.

“You ok, love?” He wrapped his arm around her tightly.

“Yeah…” She wiped away a tear trickling down her cheek. “This is why I do this, Harry. Moments like this are what keeps me fighting for them.” Adalyn’s head twisted to lock in Harry’s eyes. “But, I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“No. You helped Chance when no one else would, you gave him this amazing life Addy. I only bought the prosthesis.” He leaned in and placed a soft kiss to her lips. “This is all you, babe. Enjoy it.” Addy’s head turned to see Chance running back as fast as he can just like a normal dog with a slight hobble. His tail was wagging happily while his tongue hung out over a smile. “Hey boy!” Addy bent down at her knees to give the dog some love. Chance jumped up steadying his paws on her knee and leaned into her body as if he was thanking her. “Do you like Harry’s gift for you? Isn’t he the best man anyone could ask for?” She angled her head to look up at the prince with a fond smile.

“I wouldn’t be half the man I am without you.”

“Oh, you two!” Elena had walked down the steps of the house. “Give me that phone and let me take a picture of the three of you!”

Harry gave Elena his phone before kneeling down beside Adalyn and Chance. “You should put this up on your website.” Harry spoke through a smile.

Addy turned her head and was scolded by Elena for not looking at the camera. “I want this moment for only the three of us... our little family.” It was now Harry’s turn to look her in the eyes as the camera captured their tender moment together.

“Our family.” Harry repeated while looking into Adalyn’s deep green eyes seeing the future clearly within them.

“Ok, where do we start?” Harry rubbed his hands together eager to learn some baking tips from Grandma Florence.

“Before we start young man, you need one of these!” Florence bent over and rummaged through a cupboard pulling out a flowered apron.

“I think I am good…” Harry eyed that thing knowing if one of the guys saw him in this, he would never live it down.

“Oh! Wipe that look off of your face. You don’t want it to stay that way!” Grandma Florence insisted as Harry reluctantly put it on to appease Addy’s grandmother. “What are we going to make?” Harry looked around searching for a recipe book. “Where’s the recipe?”

“Oh, my dear.” Florence leaned in and pointed to her temple. “It’s all up in this young mind.” Tying her apron behind her, Florence looked up at the tall prince. “I am going to teach you how to make Adalyn’s favourite dessert. That way, when you have a special occasion, you know how to surprise her with it? How does that sound?”

“That sounds fantastic Mrs. Mackenzie.” Harry’s lips spread into a wide smile.

“First rule, please call me Florence or granny.” Florence eyed the prince with smiling eyes. “Second rule, this kitchen is my church and we treat it as such.”

“Yes, Florence.” Harry leaned in and deliberately spoke her name.

“Be a dear and grab those pots on the top shelf for me.” Harry turned and grabbed a handful of them. Setting them down on the counter, he recognized one that had little paw prints and flowers all over them like a child had painted it. Pausing to admire he, he saw Addy’s scribbled name on it.

“I am sensing that she has not told you much about this place, has she?” Florence could see the curiosity brewing on Harry’s face.

“No… to be honest she hasn’t.” Harry set the bowl back down. “Just that she loves it here. I know that she was really looking forward to coming her for Christmas.”

Florence directed Harry on what to mix in the bowl as she handed him the items while telling him more about Harry’s past. “Addy… my son’s whole family stayed with us the summer that their mother left. This is all of their safe place.”

Harry’s hand froze almost dumping in a cup of flour into the bowl. “She doesn’t talk much about her mother. I guess I don’t either.”

“This is Addy’s safe place. She comes here when she needs to think, when she feels she has no where else to go.” Florence handed Harry some more ingredients. “She came here when you were deployed.” Harry’s head snapped towards Florence having no idea that she had done that.

“I could tell she had met someone new. There was a little sparkle in her eyes and I knew she was worried about whoever it was.” Harry remained quiet while gently mixing the ingredients together. “Now, I know that it was you, Harry.”

“And I am happy that it was you.” Harry’s lips spread into a wide smile at her grandmother’s remark. “I can tell how happy you make my granddaughter, Harry. You and Addy have been through a tremendous amount of struggles and hardships already. I know she can be….”

“Stubborn.” Harry interrupted causing Florence to bark a laugh.

“Ah yes… she is my granddaughter after all, Harry!” Florence offered the prince a wink. “Be careful with her heart. It’s full of love, but it has had it’s own fair share of breaks. I can see the way you look at her, that look of love. Just remember to keep seeing her.”

“Thank you, I will.” Harry smiled politely.

“Well we must move on because this dessert is not going to make itself young man!” Florence got right into the mix of things with Harry and taught him how to bake Addy’s favourite dessert.

It was after dinner when Harry and the guys were down stairs playing a game of pool when Addy wandered her way down to the basement. Catching Harry’s eye, he noticed in the way she fidgeted towards him that she was anxious about something.

“How’s it going down here?” Addy’s feet brushed against the wooly carpet walking towards Harry.

“Reid and Harry are winning.” A snide remark came from Gavin who was not the greatest at pool, but did his best.

“Hmmm… I see.” Addy wrapped her arm around Harry’s waist and watched Reid pocket a ball.

“What’s on your pretty little mind?” Harry whispered into Addy’s ear and placed a gentle kiss to her temple knowing that she was nervous about something. Green eyes turned to stare right into his own as they searched for whatever answer she was looking for.

“I want to steal you away for a bit…” A glint in her eyes sparkled. “I want to show you something.”

“Addy can’t it wait? We are in the middle of a game.” Reid turned around and must have over heard their quiet conversation.

Addy was clearly nervous to even ask Harry meaning that it was important to her that she show Harry whatever it is. The upset expression forming on Addy’s face at Reid’s remark made Harry step in. “It’s just a game Reid, it can wait.” Addy’s face perked up hearing Harry defend her.

“Let’s go.” He placed his hand on the small of Addy’s back and guided her forward.

“But we are going to win?!” Reid tossed his arms up in the air making the couple look back at him.

“I am already a winner.” Harry smirked and walked off with Adalyn up the stairs.

“So, where are you taking me?” Harry held Addy’s hand as she led him up the stairs towards the kitchen.

“Some place special to me.” Addy grabbed a thermos and a few mugs. “You better go change into something more warm. We may be outside for a while.” Addy giggled and gently smacked his ass as Harry ran up the stairs quickly.

“Addy? Where are we going?” She had led the prince down a narrowed path past a small pond towards the bush.

“It’s only a little further ahead.” Addy squeezed the prince’s hand firmly to reassure him.

“Here!” Addy looked up towards the trees. The sun had set, making their only light coming from the bright moon that reflected over the small pond.

“A tree house?” Harry glanced up, aligning his view with Adalyn’s.

“Not, just any tree house.” She pulled Harry close to her body. “It’s the one my father built us when we stayed here one summer.”

“The summer your mom left?” It came out without Harry even realizing it until it was too late. Addy’s smile instantly fell off of her face hearing Harry’s question.

“Shit.” Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry Addy. Your grandmother told me.”

“It’s ok…” She trailed off and a hint of her smile re-appeared. “It just caught me a little off guard is all.” Addy inhaled deeply trying to calm her nerves. “I wanted to show you a little piece of my childhood…” She glanced up towards the tree house. “Share a little bit of my past with you.”

This was Adalyn finally opening up more to him and he was eager to hear every single thing she was ready to share with him. A mischievous smirk formed on his lips. “Well, shall we go up and check it out? Isn’t that why we brought all these flashlights, blankets and hot chocolate with us?” Harry encouraged Addy as best as he could.

“Here. Hand me these and I will carry them up and then help you.” The prince gathered all of their supplies and quickly climbed up the wooden steps up along the tree. Clambering into the tree house he took a brief look around to see little drawings that clearly Adalyn had done. Turning around and reaching his arm out, he waved for Adalyn to climb up.

Addy looked up and started to climb the wooden ladder. Her head rose to find Harry watching her carefully over the edge of the entrance. He stuck his hand out for her and she froze in her spot as a memory of Alex came flooding into her mind.

“Here, Addy grab my hand.” Alex reached down and offered his hand to his little sister who was trying her best to climb up the ladder. “I won’t let go of you, I promise Not now, not ever.”

“Addy?” Harry’s voice broke her out of the memory.

“Sorry… I just. You reminded me of a memory of Alex.” Harry clasped their hands together and hoisted her up into the tree house.

“I am sure there are a lot of memories with him here.” Harry sweetly spoke to her.

“There are.” Adalyn glanced around the tree house seeing little pictures and memories written all over the wooden walls.

Harry laid out a blanket across the floor and motioned for Addy to join him. Wrapping them both up in a thicker blanket, he ensured that Addy was warm enough from the wintery night air. Pulling out the hot chocolate Harry asked Adalyn. “So your grandmother said you spent the whole summer here, that year?” Harry wanted to encourage Adalyn to share what she wanted to, but did not want to push for any details.

Nodding her reply, Addy accepted a mug of warm hot chocolate that Harry had poured. “I know I don’t talk much about my mom with you.” Addy sighed, “but, it’s because no one really does anymore. It’s like she doesn’t exist to us and quite frankly that’s how we think she feels about us…”

“I don’t want you to tell me if you don’t want too, but… what happened?” Addy smiled warmly at Harry and snuggled in closer to Harry as if she was searching for his comfort to get her through it. “I’m right here.” He reassured her quietly.

“I was six.” Addy started. “I was in grade one, having only a few days left before summer break. My mom dropped me off at school that day and all I remember was that she was sad, but… happy too. She hugged me and said that she would always love me.” Adalyn grabbed Harry’s hand and stared down at their interlocked fingers.

“That was the last time I saw her. She didn’t pick me up from school so I sat on those steps for hours, at least that is what it seemed like. That is until Alexander came dressed in his football gear and asked if I was hungry. He took me to a convenience store and bought me anything I wanted.” She sighed deeply and closed her eyes. “When we were walking home I remember him holding my hand really tight, like he was never going to let it go. But, when we walked into the house something wasn’t right. Like our home would never be the same.”

A frown formed on Addy’s forehead creasing it. Harry slowly rubbed up and down her arm soothingly. “My dad came running towards me and hugged me tight and said that everything was going to be ok. At the time I had no idea what he was talking about. That night, Alexander said I could sleep in his big bed with him, which he never let us even be in his room, but he even let Lila and Reid in. He said he were having a sleepover party, celebrating him making the football team… but now I know he did it to make sure we were all ok and so dad didn’t have to worry.”

“He was looking after all of you.” Harry comforted Adalyn with a quiet whisper. In that moment, Harry wished that he had the chance to meet Alexander. He seemed like he was always looking out for Addy and his family. He understood better, how hurt they all were and are still that he is no longer with them.

“The next day, my dad packed us up and took us here for the summer. I kept asking where mom was and he couldn’t reply until he finally said she went on a long trip.” Addy leaned her head and rested it on Harry’s chest. “She abandoned us Harry. She never came back, never once did she write or even attempt to contact us.” Addy sat up slowly to stare into Harry’s eyes.

“She never even came to Alex’s funeral.” He could see the hurt, the betrayal, the heartbreak, all-circling in her green eyes. The same ones no doubt her mother gave her, the only thing that she ever gave Adalyn. “Years later, I found out that she was having an affair with a co-worker and that day she decided to leave us all behind. She wrote my father a note… a bloody note… saying that she did not want to have this life anymore with him. It wasn’t like he treated her poorly, he loved her and all of us. And what hurts the most is the memories I do have of her, I remember dancing and smiling and laughing with her. There was never a time where I felt that she didn’t love me. But, now I wonder if she ever really did and that is why she was able to leave. Some days I think if I told her I loved her or wouldn’t argue with her that things would be different.”

“It’s not on you that she left, Addy.” Harry firmly assured his girlfriend then fell into silence as Addy tried to comprehend what happened even to this day. He could see how difficult it was on Addy and probably her whole family to talk about their mother leaving them all one day. “My dad could hardly look at me…”

“Because you look like her?” Harry questioned as she nodded her reply. “The eyes?”

“How do you know?” She angled her head at Harry.

“You are the only one in your family with green eyes, babe.” His hand reached out and touched her cheek giving it a loving stroke. “They are gorgeous.”

“Thank you…” She grew quiet. “Thank you for letting me share this. I uh –” Adalyn paused and looked down at the wooden floor that creaked as she shifted her body. “I found it hard even thinking of sharing this with you because of your mother.”

Harry’s brow furrowed questioningly about to speak, but she cut him off. “I thought if you knew how much I hated my mother that you would somehow think less of me because of what happened to yours and I know that you would give anything to have her back, but I cannot say the same about mine.” She breathed out. “I felt I couldn’t share this with you earlier because I felt guilty about hating her and whenever I wanted to I knew it would bring up things for you too.”

“Addy… shhh…” His girlfriend bursted into tears and covered her face being ashamed from Harry. “I don’t think that at all.” He scooted towards her and brought her shaking body down into his arms. “Your mother left you by choice, mine had no choice. I would never think less of you because of that and I want you to tell me everything…. Things like this that make me know you more, that make me love you even more.”

Addy wiped away her tears and lifted her head. “I was so scared to tell you how much I hate her. For what she did to my family, my father… everyone.”

“Don’t ever be scared to talk to me.” He held her head steady between his hands before placing a sweet kiss to her forehead. After wiping her dampened cheeks dry, Harry rummaged through the bag they brought and pulled out the final product of his baking session with Florence.

“I baked these for you today.” Harry handed one to Adalyn who displayed a shocked expression.

“Gran, showed you?!” Adalyn was nearly speechless. “Harry, she won’t even tell me how to make them! She always says then they would not be special to me.”

“Well take a bite!” Harry laughed seeing how amazed Adalyn was that he actually made them.

“Ok, ok.” She took a bite and let the dessert melt in her mouth. “Oh my god… this is.” Addy took another bite. “Amazing!” She spoke with a mouthful of dessert.

“Anything to make you smile.” Harry took a bite of his piece and was thoroughly impressed by his baking skills.

“I cannot believe you are here, right now, in this tree house with me.” Addy leaned in and kissed Harry’s lips tasting the dessert on them.

“Believe it, because I am here and I always will be.”

#royalfanficcentral #prince harry #prince harry fanfic #phf #fanfic #chapters #chapter50 #littlebitofeverythingphff

34 notes · View notes

nickuwonu-blog · 7 years ago

Text

two shots [z.k]

request: "can you write something about the reader and one of the boys getting walked in on?" (this part is really long so I'm cutting it up into two parts. smut and the anon’s request will be in the next one.)

word count: 2.1k

warning: underage drinking.

it had only been a month, but zion was going crazy.

their relationship lasted a good six months before it took a turn for the worst, ending in her leaving out of spite and zion's pride watching her walk out the door.

so they went a month without talking to one another. but seeing each other? that was a completely different story, let's just say the two of them were extremely grateful that social media was a commonly used thing now. every so often, zion would find himself "accidentally" liking one of her pictures when he'd go lurking through her page. liking one of her photos from six weeks ago was most definitely not his best move.

but here she was, standing across the room from him with a guy he'd never seen before. this guy had curly hair, was tall, tan, and full of tequila (despite him only being eighteen). zion thought this mystery guy's outfit was basic and was surprised that (y/n) had left him for a guy who couldn't even properly dress himself.

it was edwin's birthday party today, and he just had to invite all of his friends to party with him at the prettymuch house, including (y/n) and her date for the night. the artificial lighting of the double 'beanz' signed sat on the walls as 'no more' had started to play from a stereo that had yet to be found.

zion let a sigh escape his lips as he leaned against the counter in the kitchen, the kitchen itself had been filled with alcohol and tipsy people tripping on one another. he watched as (y/n) and her date talked amongst one another and wished so badly he was the one up there with her.

"what do you look so sad for? i told you she was coming," edwin pulled zion out of his thoughts once he saw how miserable-looking his friend was. although edwin was drunk at his own birthday party, he felt the need to make sure everyone around him was okay before going back to enjoying himself, he wanted this night to go perfect.

"you didn't tell me she was bringing some dude with her," zion gestured to the two of them, wondering if they were actually together or if this was some twisted plot to make him jealous.

edwin sucked his teeth before walking over to the fridge and pulling out a bottle of hennessey. "who bought that?" zion question while raising a single brow, speaking that no one in the house was old enough to legally buy alcohol.

"fiffany," edwin replied as he reached up to the cupboard to grab a pair a shot glasses. finding two of them, he carefully placed them down on the counter then unscrewed the drink after toying with it for a few moments. he filled both of the mini glasses up to the brim before handing one to zion.

"after you take this shot, you're gonna waltz over there and get your girl back. okay?" edwin held his shot glass out in the air while he talked, waiting for zion to clink them together.

"i don't want her back," zion lied as a coping mechanism, "it's just weird seeing her after a whole month of ignoring each other."

edwin shook his head, "i don't know why you lie to me, it actually kinda hurts you think i'd believe that. like, you seemed happy when i told you she was coming; now she's here and all you wanna do is pout, you sensitive ass crybaby." it was obvious that edwin was drunk, he'd never say anything like this to someone as tall as zion when he was sober.

"you're so drunk right now," zion stated the obvious.

"as you should be. now, drink up, caleb!" edwin announced before clinking their glasses together and downing the shot in less than a second. he slammed the glass back down on the counter before yelling once again.

"extra as fuck," zion mumbled to himself before finally taking his own shot. he had drank before, so the feeling wasn't quite new to him. but, he didn't do it often so the burning feeling in his throat hit him as if it were the first time, causing him to slam his eyes shut in response.

"how do you feel?!" edwin playfully hit zion on his back.

"like pure shit," zion coughed while continuing to keep his eyes shut, "aka the fuckin' same." finally opening his eyes, he looked back over to (y/n). she had surprisingly been standing alone. if there was a time zion planned on talking to her, it was literally right now.

zion turned back to face edwin, his eyes suddenly filled with fear. "should i go say something?"

edwin poured himself another shot, "if you're feelin' bold enough then go for it."

thinking quick, zion grabbed the shot from edwin's hand and downed it before he even had the time to process exactly what he was about to do. "fuck you. just for that, i hope she doesn't even give you the time of day."

zion walked away, he was too focused on his future actions rather than dwelling on what his drunk friend had been saying to him. he was beyond nervous, a feeling that was absolutely foreign to him. overall, zion was a very bold person who didn't feel nervous or intimidated by anything or anyone. so the fact that he felt this way about a girl was enough for him to pass out from the feeling.

he kept his eyes on her the entire time, almost as if she'd vanish into thin air if he dared to look away. starting to feel the hennessey kicking in, he finally felt the courage to talk as he stood in front of her.

"i need to talk to you," zion started, his heartbeat increasing rapidly.

"you're here, talk." (y/n) replied, zion felt she was actually might be interested in what he had to say but tried not to get his hopes up only to be completely shut down. (y/n) was an unpredictable girl, so trying to map out what she's thinking about is nearly impossible.

"i mean in private. can we, like, go somewhere else?" if zion could cross his fingers without looking desperate, he would.

"zion, you ca--" she began talking but stopped once the tan boy from earlier came back with a drink in his hand. "gracias," she accepted the drink from him before turning back to zion. "zion, this is giovanny. he doesn't speak english."

she turned to giovanny, "seguir la corriente, por favor." (translation: "play along, please.")

"por qué le estás diciendo que no hablo inglés?" he replied, trying to figure out where the sudden need to lie came from. (translation: "why are you telling him i do not speak english?") although spanish was his first language, gio could speak english fluently.

"él tratará de hablar contigo, eso no puede suceder." she answered honestly, shedding a bit of light to him in this confusion situation. (translation: "he will try to talk to you, that can not happen.")

maybe it was the hennessey taking over his mind, or maybe he just really fucking missed (y/n), but for some reason, zion's only desire was to get her alone. completely alone. right now, he was confused as hell. he had no clue what the two of them were saying and quite frankly, he started to feel nervous again.

"creo que quiere hablar contigo," gio whispered to (y/n), "no yo." (translation: "i think he wants to talk to you, not me.") at this point, all gio really wanted to do, was go home. it's not like the two of them were actually dating, only friends who had romantic slip-ups sometimes.

"can you please just tell him i need to talk to you for, like, less than ten minutes?" zion asked, annoyed at the fact he had no idea what was happening.

(y/n) sighed, "volveré pronto," she said to gio before following zion upstairs. (translation: "i will be back soon.")

constantly going up to zion's room was something she missed doing; whether they were going to sleep or just chill together, it was always a good time. it almost felt like a regular day of dating zion, but that just wasn't reality anymore. at least not now.

(y/n) entered zion's room behind him and watched as he shut the door behind him while she plopped down on his bed, his sheets feeling the same as they were when she had last touched them.

"do you miss me? at all?" the question rolled off of zion's tongue before he even realized what he was saying. "fucking hennessey," he thought to himself, "got me all the way messed up."

"i should be the one asking you that," she shot back, "you got all these fangirls on you, i imagine it's hard not to get caught up in the moment." her eyes genuinely looked sad, and it killed zion to see her this way. the girl that was always smiling and kept her guard up was slowly unfolding himself before his very eyes.

"are you kidding? for the past month i've been losing my fucking mind, (y/n). i probably almost called you at least ten times a day." weirdly enough, he became frustrated for some reason. he and the whole world knew exactly how he felt about (y/n), yet the only person who didn't know was her.

"you should've," she replied honestly, "i would've liked to hear your voice. why didn't you?"

mentally, zion wasn't prepared for the question. so instead, he let the alcohol do the talking for him. "it'd be a lot easier to talk to you if you didn't have some guy up under your insta every single time you post a picture."

she scoffed, "oh, so you think i enjoy seeing random girls calling you daddy and telling him to fuck them? you think i like that shit?"

he knew she was mad at the fact he was being hypocritical as hell right now, but he had no clue as to what to say to make the situation better. the most irritating part of it all was that he knew there was something that needed to be said, he just couldn't figure out what that was.

"it's not like you enjoy being called daddy anyway, you light skinned dudes much rather preferred to be called papi," (y/n)'s bold statement took zion by surprise, causing a smirk to appear on his face.

"i don't think your boyfriend would be to happy with you talking about my sexual preferences."

(y/n) laughed, realizing she still hadn't told zion what was actually going on. "gio and i aren't dating. and, he actually does speak english by the way; i just wanted to mess with you." making room for zion on his own bed, she slid down until her back hit the headboard.

"so you guys are just friends?" zion questioned, sitting across from the girl.

she nodded, "just friends."

zion hummed, "y'all fucked?"

she wasn't exactly shocked by this, it was question zion wouldn't be afraid to ask. especially if he was feeling a little tipsy. but, she was feeling guilty. her and her "friend" had hooked up once or twice and originally had promised to only keep it between the two of them.

so she kept quiet, not wanting to lie to zion anymore, and hoped her silence was a way of answering his question. noticing what was going on, zion let a petty chuckle slip out of his mouth. he couldn't exactly be mad at her, or anyone, but the only thing he wanted to do is go downstairs and completely deck gio.

"i can bet money sex with me is way better than sex with him," zion barely knew what he was saying as he stole (y/n)'s drink from her hand and drank the small amount that was left in the red, plastic cup.

"alright then," she laughed while resting an elbow on one of his pillows.

"damn, you need a reminder or something?"

a/n: part 2 comin soon

also, i don’t speak spanish so i had to use google translate. if you can speak/read spanish let me know if my working is fucked up.

#prettymuch #prettymuch imagine #zion kuwonu #zion kuwonu imagine #edwin honoret #beanz #prettymuch preference

470 notes · View notes

aenigmaticdays · 7 years ago

Text

Coda: Chapter 3 - Friction

A/N: I really, really thought this would have stopped here. It’s been hard, stripping Fitzsimmons down to the bare bones, but the pages grew and grew until I had to split this chapter up into 2. So no, it’s not quite the end yet.

Also on AO3 or FF.net

“Fitz?”

Is that…?

Her voice. Her voice.

What the hell...?

He has to be dreaming.

Fitz blinks once, twice and still sees the same thing. The same face.

Her face, those worried eyes. Hears her voice, calling his name.

There’s no fucking way that he’s blacked out beneath Jemma Simmons, when all he remembered was running to the nearest shelter before something detonated and something else heavy had hit him hard enough to pass out.

Waking up beneath Simmons in the worst way possible isn’t what Fitz had counted on. In fact, he hadn’t counted on ever seeing her again, let alone meeting her in this manner, months after he’d said his goodbyes.

And if Simmons is here, the rest of the team isn’t far behind.

The vague possibility of their paths crossing again existed, of course, something that he’d feared and hoped in equal measure. The overlap between the black-ops paramilitary stuff and the other kinds of missions that deal with potential extra-terrestrial activity Edwin takes on always make him edgy.

In the past few weeks, it has just been low-key risk management and technologically-driven security solutions, but being in Greenwich right now drives home this overlap of what the team’s doing with what they might run across in this mission.

Or rather, whom.

That worry as it seems now, is fully merited.

The rest of the boys have told him with matching grimaces that it doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it often involves some kind of fatality that no one can really solve—at least, no one whose knowledge goes beyond advanced weaponry and engineering. Their part has always been to provide more of the brawn than the brain and it’s Fitz, as they tell him, who tips the scales a little more in the latter direction and gives the team a wee bit more class.

For it to have happened in Greenwich—the place of yet another battle between humans and races determined to subjugate humans—is a kind of unpleasant reminder of being led back by the tip of his nose to the very things he’d been trying hard to move on from.

Bruised, dusty and too flustered for his liking, Fitz takes his time sitting up, too aware of the heat of her hands on his shoulders even through the thick fabric of his gear.

“Simmons? What are—”

Before he can have another word in edgewise, she starts babbling, something so familiar that a completely different kind of ache stops him short.

“—might be hurt when the blast happened and your head…there might be a concussion that I need to check—”

“Simmons! Stop! I’m alright.”

She finally does and moves awkwardly to the side as he sorts himself out, getting first to his knees, then to his feet.

However, the shock of seeing Jemma Simmons in the flesh fades enough for him to notice the rubble around them and their very precarious position just under a jutting pillar that’s in danger of toppling right over their heads.

“We have to move. Now,” he grates out and grabs her hand, starting to navigate clumsily over the debris when a chorus of voices reaches them.

They take a mere ten steps before Smithy emerges out of the cloud of dust with a torch and a weapon dangling loosely in his hand.

“Fitzy, you alright there?”

Shite.

It’s Smith who has come calling. Or rather, Smithy, the large Viking that Fitz dubs him in secret, with a penchant for telling the wrong jokes at the wrong times, which is why Fitz loves him too much and hates that he’s soon about to be the victim of a stray, throwaway line that will only make things more awkward.

“Yeah. The rest of the guys?”

A beefy finger points in a direction. “Outside. Waiting for you. Everyone’s good, considering the circumstances.” In the dim light, Smithy’s eyes widen in curiosity when it finally registers on him that Fitz isn’t alone. “And who do we have here?”

“Let’s get out of here first before story time starts, shall we?”

Fitz grimaces at the sharp, knowing glance that he gets in response. But he’d take his new team’s funny brand of shelter and protection over the dread of talking to Simmons again, despite the lad jokes the guys are certain to spring on him when the site’s secured and the place canvassed.

Simmons is oddly quiet as they make their way to where his team is and as Fitz had fully expected, garners wide-eyed stares when she stumbles out of the rubble after him. With her hand still tightly latched onto his and barely any physical space between them, he can only imagine what sort of picture he’s presenting to a team that is currently gaping at the both of them.

The surrealism of the moment strikes him hard, along with the urge to laugh hysterically at this twist of fate or whatever the cosmos has done this time by putting him straight where both his old life and his new one converge.

Avoiding her eyes, he gently disengages himself from Simmons and faces his leader. “What’s going on, Langston?”

Langston’s disgruntled shrug says it all. “Nothing that we should know about, apparently. Direct orders to stand down and move out.”

Classified information, then. Above their pay grade. Only those with the appropriate clearance levels have access, the knowledge meant only for a particular group of people within S.H.I.E.L.D. so the rest should buzz off. Fitz isn’t part of S.H.I.E.L.D. any longer, though he can probably guess what it’ll be about as he takes in the aftermath around them.

From where he stands, he finally sees May, Daisy, Hunter and Bobbi trying to contain the fallout, and with May’s usual efficiency, things get done quicker than most people can blink.

In some alternate universe, he’d be waiting in a lab awaiting the new toy or gadget that they’ll bring back.

Now however, he’s content to stay back, to watch with detached eyes.

But there’s still Simmons by his side, silently taking in everything and suddenly, he’s unsure what to do with her.

He opens his mouth to say something, but a vast chasm suddenly opens up between his mind and his tongue. All he knows is that what has been worth saying has long been said, which leaves the mundane and the banal.

So what’s really left but yet another cursory (and lame) adieu and a clean getaway?

(He’ll pray later to whatever higher being out there—even if the odds have never quite been in his favour—in the transport that’s arranged for the team, that this severing is permanent this time around.)

He faces her and aims for an evenness that he barely feels. “Simmons, I have to go.”

oOo

Jemma is entirely unprepared for this. Whatever this is, but it’s almost akin to a second-chance that she knows she needs to grab by the bull’s horns. But how rare is it that Fitz is—

“Wait!”

Her body functions apart from her mind for once, as she clutches his arm again and pulls him back.

The detonation, the weird hums, the blast…and Fitz. It’s taking a while for her to catch up—mentally and emotionally—but all she knows is that Fitz is turning to leave and that he simply isn’t going to flit out of her life the way he did all those months ago.

Between the force of her pull and her yell, Fitz jerks to a stop and so does his entire team.

Someone nudges Fitz’s side. “You know her?”

The man Fitz called Smithy earlier shoots her a meaningful look. “Looks like this isn’t over yet.”

His eyes flit to her then back to the group of men moving to stand rather protectively around him. “She, um…was someone I used to work with.”

Disbelief wars with anger. “Honestly, Fitz, someone you used to work with? Is that all we are? All we were?”

To his credit, he looks a little uncertain at her outburst.

But the euphoric excitement of seeing him again crashes with that muttered denial, melding with rising hurt and outrage that she can’t contain. There’s not a Simmons in any multi-verse that would willingly go on in life without a Fitz, she’s that sure of it now (how wrong she’d been all along), but hearing him so easily disavowing the weight of their personal history to a curious audience nearly puts paid to that theory.

“From the looks she’s giving him, I doubt that.” The tallest, blond one strokes an imaginary goatee and looks like he’s starting to enjoy himself to her chagrin.

“Now this is something the bloke’s never mentioned.”

“Quite a bit of drama here. Ah, is that why that thing you had with Amélie—”

“So, still waters and all, eh, Fitz?”

The men look as interested in their bickering as gossiping old ladies at a Sunday morning brunch, which makes her cringe. Thankfully, Fitz seems to feel the same—she doesn’t miss the glare that he shoots his team and the rife speculation that their untimely reunion seems to spark.

Beyond the surface irritation however, this Fitz is somehow…scarily indecipherable. Shuttered, with so much distance and a touch of coolness that she isn’t used to seeing on his face, more so when he’s talking to her.

Not so much of an open book any more, then. For all of his warmth and kindness that she’s used to seeing, to be the recipient of the other end of the emotional spectrum from Fitz, of all people, sparks a twinge of panic.

But just because she’s crossed some distance in her own head, or even jumped some major emotional obstacles, there’re still the physical ones to overcome with him. With the added complication of the last half a year of separation, this version of Fitz might as well be a stranger she’d be trying hard to reconnect with.

Unless, what they had before…it’s all irrevocably lost.

Had it taken all but 6 months to erase them completely?

“This is Agent Simmons.” Fitz looks at the men around him and introduces her curtly to them. “She’s with S.H.I.E.L.D..”

He gets a slap on his back and several nods of acknowledgement by the team with that revelation. Jemma doesn’t know much he has or hasn’t told them or just how settled he’s been in this new life but it’s apparently enough to bring out those looks of sympathy…for him.

She sighs, the painful edges of their stilted interaction rubbing salt into the wound of their broken friendship. “We can’t be doing this, Fitz.”

“—what the lady said, Fitzy lad,” Smithy chimes in with a smirk. The mischievous twinkle on his face suddenly reminds her of Trip, along with the nagging feeling that Fitz has found another team of his own to fit into.

Someone else—the team leader, perhaps—cuts right back in. “As fun as it is seeing Fitz in a domestic dispute, there is actually still work to be done. And those reports aren’t going to write themselves, ladies, if you’ve conveniently forgotten.” He pauses long enough for the loud groans to fade. “Wheels up in fifteen.”

The relief that shows up on Fitz’s face is stark. “Yeah, copy.”

The rest of his team reluctantly head out, leaving the both of them alone. Only a few feet separate them now, yet this awkwardness is as new as the man standing in front of her.

Jemma tries again, needing a solid footing with him but finds none. Her hand darts out to grab at his arm, yet again. “Fitz…it’s…it’s good to see you. I was hoping you could…stay and talk a bit?”

He’s silent for a moment as he stares at her. “I think we’ve said all we needed to say, haven’t we, Simmons?”

She doesn’t quite know how to answer that. There are in fact, a thousand things she wants to say, having imagined every conversation between her and Fitz nightly in her bunk, but seeing him in the flesh, so changed, so altered in a way she can’t recognise, leaves those words clogged in her throat.

“I—”

“You heard Langston,” he rushes on, looking in the direction where his team went. “It’s not the best time, I have to go, and I think May and Daisy will be looking for you. I’m sure S.H.I.E.L.D.—”

“Please, Fitz.” Her protesting plea comes out unbidden, causing him to pause.

The hardness in his face softens for a second, as he shakes his head with a small sigh. “I’m glad to see you well, Simmons. Take care of yourself.”

That goodbye tastes like a subtle and involuntary form of rejection. It’s not in him to be cruel at all but she feels the sharp sting of it just the same. The formality of his address is jarring—never in their years together had he spoken to her like that—, snagging the air in her lungs and widening the fissures in her heart.

Through eyes that suddenly burn hot, she watches despondently as he stalks out of the alcove and into the night.

The post-mission briefing goes by in a fog.

There isn’t much she can say about the 084 at the end of a hard week at the lab. That it comes with the power to influence human behaviour as well as the ability to tear open a dimensional rift that existed for all of 4.56 seconds when the blast happened are cause enough to get S.H.I.E.L.D. lab techs moving a little faster and more enthusiastically. Test results remain inconclusive, especially with the kind of dark matter they’ve been dealing with, which isn’t of the Earth variety, just to complicate matters.

But weak boundaries between realms, mysterious portals, inter-dimensional slippages are all quite beyond any of their expertise right now. Maybe they’ll just leave it to the self-styled Avengers to deal with those—Jemma couldn’t actually care less.

Kranz takes over from her with a technology update and she’s more than happy to sit back to let her mind wander to the previous week’s meeting with Fitz.

It’s new fodder that she obsesses over, and how wrong it’d gone in so many ways and how she might pull a mulligan. As she’d done the entire week with every spare moment she had, taking apart every facet of their brief interaction and putting every word and action under a mental microscope, the immutable conclusion that emerges each time is that Fitz had truly given up on them.

Her thumbs brush absently across the pages of the report she’d just given Coulson as her jumbled thoughts finally coalesce in an idea so reckless that it continually twists her insides in dreaded anticipation.

Only when the rest of the room clear out later does Jemma ask to speak to Coulson privately.

With a tight, tearful hug from Daisy, cheerful little twin smirks from Hunter and Bobbi and solemn nods from May and Mack, she walks off the Zephyr with her bags and into the dreary and muggy London evening.

There will be a ton of favours she knows she’ll owe Hunter by the time she’s settled. But he’s gone through hoops and hoops to get her here—something she suspects that he’s doing more for Fitz than her after his wry confession that he’s been in and out of Fitz’s corner since he’d left—by giving her more than probably deserves at the moment.

Pressing the button and the code that she’s been given at the entrance of the nondescript warehouse where Edwin has his team headquartered, Jemma waits until the opaque doors slide open to reveal an empty sitting area and an electronic barrier that requires a biometric scan before she can even step foot into its inner sanctum.

The barrier slides open silently before she can do anything else, the corridor ahead lighting up as she shoulders the bags with a deep breath and walks ahead.

She’s rustled the hornet’s nest. No turning back now for the stings that await.

It’s Edwin Sorcher himself who meets her halfway, the man whose name she can finally put a face to. There’s an assessing glint in his eye before he holds out his hand and she gets the uneasy feeling that he already knows way more than he lets on.

“Jemma Simmons, in the flesh. Welcome to Citadel.”

oOo

Housed in the residential zone of Edwin’s cluster of warehouses, her smallish bunk isn’t unlike the ones she’d lived in previously, except that it isn’t underground or on a plane. The squeaks and squawks of urban wildlife interrupts her first early morning, and along with the sunrise to regulate her body’s biorhythms, waking up in London’s backyard of sorts takes some getting used to.

It is far from a difficult change in routine really, the adjustment passably pleasant as far as transatlantic upheavals go.

But everything else lies outside Jemma’s comfort zone; she’s eking out a series of paths she’d never envisioned past S.H.I.E.L.D.’s grey walls since the Academy.

The induction here in contrast, is as quick as the one at S.H.I.E.L.D. had been bureaucratic and multi-tiered. Without mincing words, Edwin points out everything that she needs to know, gets her settled in Fitz’s small lab with a makeshift space of her own and then ushers her out of the building to look at the residential spaces of the place.

The discussion she had with Edwin the night before had instilled a new sense of hope, prompting her to wonder if this was what Fitz craved when he’d left: the exhilarating chance of a fresh start, the opportunity to forget and forge something entirely new on his own.

The bland terms of their agreement had been hashed out, rehashed and then renegotiated, until both were satisfied with what they’d put on the table. At the end of it, with her contract drafted, Edwin told her unhappily that she’d driven a very hard bargain, then ordered her straight to her bunk to get some rest after their signatures were put to paper.

Not for the first time, Jemma wonders just how presumptuous this move of hers to South London really is, depending as she is, on the assumption that the decade-long friendship with Fitz is more invincible than they’d both thought, and that Fitz would be willing to have anything to do with her after what she’d done to him. That he’d still have her around in any kind of capacity, even if he’s seeing someone else, as heart-splintering as that might be.

It isn’t a coincidence that her arrival is timed such that Fitz’s team is away on assignment for a week in Africa, thanks to Hunter, whose private conversations with Edwin (and Fitz) have probably paved the way.

In the lab, two days after her stepping off the Zephyr, Jemma takes a moment to centre herself. This small space, even without Fitz, is Fitz in every way, the tells (the slight quirk in the arrangement of his half-finished prototypes, the physical files, the tools) in this pristine, organised room only obvious to her because she knows—knew—him in and out. This ingrained habit of his hasn’t changed at least, as meagre a source of comfort as she has in putting together what she knows of him in his absence.

She’s on his turf now, attempting to piece back together their shattered relationship, or rather, to tell him how much she’d missed him beyond friendship, that she’d stop at nothing to show him how important he is to her—

The rush of footsteps into the lab cuts even that thought away as she turns to face, for the second time, shocked blue eyes.

It finally registers on her that he’s back early, still fully dressed in the same black tactical gear she’d first seen him in, with an atypical-looking rifle of sorts slung over his right shoulder and a backpack hanging on his left.

Five full days early, which meant the assignment hadn’t gone according to plan, leaving her as flustered and as unprepared as him for this unexpected meeting.

Just the thought of this sends her into a freefall. Like a week and a half ago, when that shock detonation had sent her careening into him, adrenaline and anticipation now flow through her veins, fusing into a mass of tumbling emotions she can’t separate from one another.

“Fitz,” she begins with trepidation, “I—”

Taking a tentative step into the lab, Fitz blinks twice and rubs a hand over his face as confusion slowly melds into irritation. “This has to be a fucking joke.”

She steels herself for the outburst, needing some courage for the specific and uncomfortable questions that are just around the corner.

“No, it isn’t, Fitz. You wouldn’t talk to me the last time we met, so I…I took matters in my own hands.”

“You…you took matters—what have you done, Simmons?” He stalks to his bench, dumps the rifle on it and unceremoniously drops his pack on the floor before turning to face her with his arms crossed over his chest. “Why are you here?”

It’s only now, in the harsh fluorescent lighting that she gets a good look at him. With a pang, she realises there’s so much she finds unfamiliar and yet familiar.

But it doesn’t matter that he’s slightly bulkier and more leanly-muscled and assumes some sort of distance between them like a protective coat of arms.

The hard introspection she’d put herself through had merely helped her articulate clearly what she hadn’t bothered to put into words before: that she has loved every iteration of him and probably always will, from the handsome, pasty boy in mismatched colours and odd cardigans, to the man who struggles with trembling hands and faltering speech…to the one right now who’s harder to read, who’s more confident in his own abilities, whose distrust now shines a little too brightly in his gaze.

The old hurt, however, lingers in his eyes. That vibrant blue which she loves, becomes a faded and dimmed version of what she remembers as he looks at her, now hooded and fortified by the mile-high walls he had constructed for himself in the intervening months.

There’s so much timidity in her voice when she ventures a question of her own. “How…how have you been, Fitz?”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “Don’t—I…I…just, don’t make this any harder, Simmons. Just answer the question.”

“I’m trying not to, I swear.” She’s fumbling around, hating this stilted, awkward moment that has barely just begun. It’s infinitely harder to be brave, she finds, to do the right thing, to say the right words, and later, to stick around, than to run away and call it the convenient solution to problems. “I just wanted to be your friend again, Fitz, if you’d let me.”

He stiffens noticeably on her emphasis of that word.

Not the best of beginnings, then.

“You’ve come a long way for that,” he says flatly, his hands already busy with dismantling his vest and weapons, stopping only when he finally notices the new setup of his small lab and the space sharing that he’d be required to do in the future. “What’s this really all about?”

“Can’t you tell?” She asks softly, desperate to erase the wariness that laces his response. And to set that initial course of action, she knows that he rightfully needs an explanation—no, her full disclosure—of her sudden insertion in a space that’s probably sacred to him. But her frantic thoughts, rushing at a mile an hour, prove to be tiny snares that refuse to settle into logical coherence.

“Can’t I tell…? No, I can’t, Simmons!” He gestures wildly around him, his escalating distress manifesting as a trembling hand and a raised voice. “All I know is that we’ve just returned from Africa, I’m bloody tired and…and…there’s…there’s this! You!”

Mutely, she watches him pace with a fist pressed to his mouth, anxiously trying to find the words other than sorry.

“Fitz, please, please listen to me.”

He stops abruptly in a corner of the room, fighting for control as much as she is.

“I—I know I’ve made an unforgivable mess, Fitz. I know that. You have every right to be angry. I took advantage of our friendship, your affection and your attention…I just…I just wish I saw it sooner before and—”

“And so here you are, trying to apologise?”

“It’s more than that, Fitz. I know we didn’t part on the best of terms—”

He interrupts her with some annoyance. “At the risk of rehashing a history that I’d rather leave alone till the end of the universe comes, I don’t recall ever trying to make you feel bad about it. I offered to do those things and you know damn well too that I did. To give you the oxygen. To bring Will back.”

“I know! And I wish you weren’t so noble—”

“Because that wouldn’t give me the chance to play the hero?” He cuts in bitingly.

Frustration pools deep at his insistent interruptions, at his deliberate dodging of the conversation that she’s been trying to steer them into having. “That’s not what I’m saying!”

“Is that why you’re here?” Fitz stubbornly repeats the question, the pinched look on his face growing with each punctuated syllable. “If this is some effort on your part to—” He paces in a tight circle, gesturing at her then at himself, seemingly at a loss for words. “There’s no need to make amends, Simmons. I did what I, no—we did what we had to do, and that’s it, okay? We both made choices and now we live with them.”

“That’s just it, Fitz! I can’t live with them!” Some deep-buried instinct born of emotional turmoil tells Jemma that this is their last chance. Mess this up and there’ll be nothing more left of them to salvage.

He tilts his head upwards and sighs. “Some things are best left alone.”

“This isn’t!”

Conversely, his agitation spurs her on. It’s the only thing that she’s hanging onto right now—any show of emotion, any kind of reaction from him—because it’s the only indication she has that he hasn’t turned completely indifferent to their friendship, or whatever he’s willing to restore to them both.

“What about S.H.I.E.L.D.?” Fitz demands suddenly.

He’s raking his hand through his hair, rubbing his hand over his mouth—all the signs of increasing agitation that she wants to take away, but only exacerbates.

“Indefinite leave of absence,” she tells him simply, feeling the burden of the past few months shed immediately, as though giving voice to those words could make that fact more concrete than it really is. “And a temporary place here with Citadel.”

The shock that rolls off him is like a tangible wave of disbelief and incredulity. “You what? Coulson allowed that?”

“I told Coulson that I needed to go. And with some help from Hunter, I did. They both understand.”

“It’s been six months, Jemma!” He finally yells, the agony so clear now on his face that it hauls her back to the very day he’d left. “I’ve only had six sodding months away from you…that’s like a magical number isn’t it? Six sodding months to get over you and I really thought I was on my way there. And then you waltz in here after all this time like nothing’s out of place, wanting our friendship back like nothing ever broke it in the first place—”

“No, that’s not it at all!” She puts in urgently as tears start to burn at the corner of her eyes, as the pressure on her chest grows with the revelation he’d just tossed at her. If the months of separation have brought such a different outcome for her, and as eager as she is to talk out her personal revelations, it’s harder to accept that Fitz isn’t even willing to meet her halfway.

“I…I couldn’t come to terms with what your leaving really meant, Fitz. For six months, I wondered and struggled with how I’d done everything wrong such that you had to leave. Then envisioning a future without you…I couldn’t do it.”

“Really? When you came back from Hydra, when you chose Will…that was you moving onto a future without us.” Fitz stalks up to her, forcing her back against the lab bench as he leans in, heedless of her personal space. “I did nothing, Simmons, that you didn’t already first do to us. I left because there was nothing else there for me. Maybe it’s the coward’s way out, but it was the only option I could stomach back then.”

His mirthless chuckle and flinty stare dissect her as he delivers blow after blow of hard truth that feels like a blade in her ribs.

“Is that what you wanted to hear? I helped bring Will back to you, because it was him you wanted. Will, the man you said you loved! You’ve made that abundantly clear. So tell me, why are you here, in South London, when you should be at S.H.I.E.L.D. with Will Daniels at your side?”

The anger that pours from him shouldn’t be unexpected. But everything shifts yet again in a fundamental way, condensing, shrinking around her despite the conclusions she’d come to in the months they were apart. Hearing everything from Fitz’s perspective merely confirms how her words about Will, tossed out in a fit of despair and confusion, had merely raked over festering wounds and left them with such prominent scars.

Time might have passed, but the current of grief and hurt remains. Jemma knows that full well. But to adequately convey that it’s him that she’d really ever wanted or needed or that she’s beyond sorry for playing too big a part in making him feel that he could never measure up, is a momentous task she’s clueless to undertake.

“Will isn’t even in the picture.”

He retreats hurriedly as though she’d burned him and hikes a thumb backwards over his shoulder in challenge. “Everything you’ve said and done previously contradicts that statement.”

She stops short for a few seconds.

Fitz had always held his own in an argument, their competitive natures always providing the creative fodder that had driven them forward together. But this man…this man, unmoved by her half-baked confessions and still full of questioning doubt, makes her feel as though Fitzsimmons is truly over.

This man in front of her, programmed by betrayal and holding her up to relentless scrutiny, is terrifying.

Never had she wished more than now that she could take back that thoughtless statement said so long ago; evidently, it’d torn Fitz up more than he’d let on and just…why hadn’t she looked past her own confusion to see how devastating this would have been on him?

“Don’t you want to know what happened after you left?”

His scoff is loud in the enclosed space, his knuckles already white from the death grip he has on the lab bench which he’s leaning against.

“It’s none of my business, Simmons, what you do now.”

“You’re hearing it, anyway,” she snaps in return, tired of hitting her head against the Fitz-sized-wall repeatedly for all the lack of progress they’d made. “Will…left. Those first few days after you—I can’t remember them too well, only that I couldn’t stop obsessing over why you went away and how big a part I’d played in it. I think he tried to talk to me, but all I could think about was you and the gaping hole you’d made when you left. So he…all he could do was to walk away a week later and I can’t even blame him once for it.”

Fitz is already shaking his head as she barrels on ahead in a rambling glut in order to quell the doubts and hurts that he’d been sequestered with, panicked that she’s on the verge of losing him again when she’s so close in laying the first, small brick in their wrecked foundation of mutual respect and trust.

“I missed you, Fitz. I don’t know what to say to convince you, but you’re really all that I want. In whatever way you want me back. You’re the only one I could love in the way you need me to. It’s you, Fitz. I just need you by my side, Fitz, in whatever way you want us to be. I’m…sorry I took so long, I’m sorry I couldn’t figure it out earlier and made you suffer. I need you to believe me. If you couldn’t trust anything I said before, please believe me this time.”

The light-headedness that sweeps in after her clumsy, inelegant confession leaves her shaking and wrung-out.

He flinches instead, his scepticism almost a tangible entity as he hangs his head. “Did you come to this conclusion only after I left?”

Involuntarily, the question makes her think back to the days and weeks that had greyed out everything else and brought to the fore the mind-crippling fear that she’d truly lost him.

“If I can forget those months apart from you, it wouldn’t be soon enough. If I thought Maveth was my greatest nightmare,” she pauses as he briefly turns shimmering eyes to her, “the last half a year surpassed that a million times. I don’t know how else to convince you, Fitz, because I know this probably sounds flaky and glib and…and hollow and empty. But could we, please, have this chance again?”

Fatigue and defeat wash out the anger in the slump of his shoulders.

“It doesn’t work that way. We can’t just turn back the clock, Simmons and you know it. There’s no such thing as starting over, no reintroductions or the pretence that we’re both 16 years old and achingly shy and completely out of our depths in a whole new world in an Academy too unprepared for us.”

Not when the following years have left them out at pasture too long for the scars to be erased. It’s what Fitz doesn’t say but what she hears all the same. He’s merely echoing what hadn’t already occurred to her.

Still, her voice cracks as his implication sinks in. “You…you don’t want to try? Not at all? Not even as colleagues?”

He fiddles anxiously with a spare part on the bench before putting it down, as though mulling his next words. When he finally looks up at her, the conflict and guilt written on his face break her all over again.

“This—this is not what I wanted at all, Simmons. Not someone who…who suddenly realises I’m worth something more only after I left, but hasn’t been sure of it when I was around for years.” He waves that bit away, as though it’s an insignificant detail that he shouldn’t have bothered with. “The point is, I wanted you happy and I’ve long accepted that it wouldn’t be with me. So you don’t have do this only because Will is gone.”

Her denial is sure, this time. “You don’t understand! I’m not—”

“—and honestly? I…I don’t know what you’re really saying right now,” he squeezes his eyes shut in consternation, “I’m not ready to…I can’t process this, alright?”

Caught at this impasse, misery lodges itself as a lump in her throat. Floundering in an area where there’s no specific scientific method to follow, no easy answers waiting at the end of the line, she’s steering a ship into a treacherous storm without any navigation markers.

It takes her a few tries to find her voice, as impulse prompts her to move towards him and grab both his hands tightly in hers.

“You were once my best friend. But you’re also much more than that.” He snaps his eyes back to hers as the familiarity of the words washes over the both of them. “Please, Fitz, please let me show you.”

#Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D #AOS #Marvel #Marvel: AOS #Fitzsimmons #Fitz x Simmons #Leo Fitz #Jemma Simmons #fanfic #fanfic au #My writing

9 notes · View notes

alittlesliceofcucumber · 7 years ago

Text

Little Jarvis: Chapter 2

Agent Carter / Avengers Crossover

When Howard Stark is surprised with a phone call, he is tasked with explaining to Mr Jarvis that he has a son. Not only that, but that son will go on to save Tony’s life multiple times. And also that he will end up saving the entire world in the future.

Feedback is greatly appreciated!

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12881637/2/Little-Jarvis

Chapter 2: Breaking Bonds

Lucy sighed with relief as she stepped out into American air. She looked down at the sleeping baby in the stroller. He had slept the whole journey. It had taken her by surprise when the officials had asked her to take a baby with her on the aeroplane. She had initially refused but after receiving a large sum of money (apparently courtesy of Howard Stark) she had agreed without hesitation.

She scanned the area for a man. She had been told there would be a British gentleman coming to collect the child, but the only people she could see waiting for someone was an odd looking group of people. There was a woman who was in conversation with a man that looked suspiciously like Howard Stark himself. Standing next to them was a young boy with scruffy black hair who was tugging a different man’s hand. Said man was tall, with neatly combed brown hair with the odd grey sprouting. But what concerned her was the fact that this man was ignoring the rest of the world, and not breaking eye contact with the stroller she was pushing. She sighed. “Well little guy, it’s time to meet your daddy.”

It had felt like an eternity to Jarvis until the lady had emerged with the stroller. And he couldn’t keep his eyes off it. His son was in there.

It wasn’t long until Howard noticed the woman too. “Oh, hello.” He said, before promptly receiving a pinch from Maria. Tony couldn’t help but giggle.

Lucy approached them cautiously. “Hey there, I’m looking for an Edwin Jarvis?”

Jarvis snapped out of whatever trance he was in upon hearing his name. “Ah, yes, that would be me.” He responded.

“Well, I have a package for ya.” Lucy replied as she carefully took the waking week-old boy from the stroller and handed him to Jarvis.

The baby was skinny, but that was understandable knowing he was born unnaturally. He had pale skin, with a mop of blonde hair on his head. Sapphire blue eyes began to open and peer at the new, loving faces staring back at him.

“Got something for me too, doll?” Asked Howard before once again getting pinched by his wife.

“Hey! What the hell, Maria?! Not in public!” “Shut up Howard, let Jarvis have his moment.” “But-” “You should be over this by now, Howard.” “Ugh, fine. You’re no fun.”

Maria nodded to Lucy who began to make her way to where many cabs were waiting. Then the couple turned to Jarvis and Tony, who were both cuddling the baby in Jarvis’s hands. Tony playing with his finger, and Jarvis simply looking at him with tears in his eyes. Howard smiled. This was the happiest he’d seen his butler since Ana’s death.

“No! Master Tony! Robert has to have a bath! Master Tony come back here!” Jarvis called as he chased Tony carrying his son through the halls.

It was chaos in the Stark household. Mr Jarvis had somehow been managing to keep most of his duties and look after his son perfectly. But when Tony was involved, things took a turn for the worst. Right now the boy was desperate to prevent either of them getting washed.

“Master Tony, I must insist you hand Robert to me this instant. Are you so deaf that you can’t see that he is crying?”

It was true, little Robert Jarvis had begun to cry now, exhausted by so much movement. So Tony reluctantly handed back the baby.

Jarvis, his face red from running, gently cradled his son and it wasn’t long before Robert was calmly tugging on his tie. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“Master Tony,” He began, looking down on the 8-year-old who was refusing to make eye contact. “You must understand that Robert is still very young, and that means his body works on a strict timetable.” “So…?” “So you can’t run off with him when it’s his bath time.” “But I wanna give him a bath!”

Jarvis blinked a few times. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?” “I wanna wash him!”

Jarvis was spellbound at Tony’s enthusiasm. “Why on earth would you want to do that, Master Tony?” He asked eventually. “Because he’s my kid too!” “Well, I, erm…”

Jarvis loved Robert and Tony equally, treating them like brothers as Howard was too engrossed in his work to care about either boy. He was certain that Howard had forgotten Robert’s name mere minutes after being told. The loyal butler didn’t mind. But he had always considered the boys to have a brotherly relationship. Apparently not, as it made sense that a clever boy like Tony would use the age gap to his advantage and almost be a second father to Robert.

Jarvis was getting old, and he almost knew for certain that he wouldn’t be able to see his son grow up fully. So he could only hope Tony and Robert’s father-son bond would last.

“Jarvis.” “Yes, Sir?” “You do realise that he was born in a lab.” “I do, Sir.” “And that makes him a sitting target.” “I understand, Sir.” “Look Jarvis, I payed a lot of money for all evidence of his existence to be destroyed, and so if the press start asking who he is, we’re both gonna be in a situation that none of us want to be in.” “I’m not leaving him alone, Sir.” “Jarvis, listen to me! I let you keep your son in my house! So if I forbid him to come to the party for your safety, you listen to me! I’m your boss, and I’m telling you-” “I don’t know if you understand this concept, Sir, but I love him. He’s my son.” “WHO IS ONLY ALIVE BECAUSE OF ME! I COULD’VE TOLD THEM TO KILL HIM RIGHT THEN, EDWIN! AND I’M BEGINNING TO REGRET NOT DOING JUST THAT BECAUSE THAT BOY HAS ONLY BROUGHT EVEN MORE PROBLEMS IN MY LIFE.”

Robert held his breath. The 7-year-old had only come downstairs to ask his Dad for something to eat, but had overheard the heated conversation between his Dad and Mr Stark. So he had pressed his ear to the door, and was heartbroken to hear the old genius screaming at Jarvis who was silently taking it, his good manners preventing him from retaliating.

He held his breath, as the silence after Howard’s outburst continued. The only audible sounds were Howard’s heavy breathing and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall.

After what seemed like forever, Jarvis finally gave a response.

“From this very day, I promise that Robert will never interfere with your life again, Mr Stark.” “Yeah, h-he’d better not. And I’d like that spare room back please.”

There was a hint of regret in Howard’s voice, but he masked it well. Jarvis took a deep breath. He wasn’t prepared for his son to be kicked out.

“I will interfere considerably less, too.” “Wait, wha-” “I am resigning, Mr Stark.”

Another silence.

“Hey, Jarvis, c’mon pal you ca-” “I have made up my mind, Howard. But I would like to make it clear that my employment with the Stark family remains, just not with you. I will dedicate my time to Tony now. And you will probably never see Robert again, for with your son’s help he can easily gain a temporary home.”

Howard was taken completely aback by the use of his first name. He was sure that this was the first time Jarvis had ever said it. In front of his face, at least. He decided to play the same game. “Edwin… you can’t do that.” “I think you’ll find I can, according to the contract you wrote.” “Look buddy, I’m sor-” “If you want to make an apology, apologise to my son. And while you’re at it, apologise to your son too. You treat him awfully.”

It happened to be that very moment when the sneeze came to Robert. The old men’s eyes snapped towards the door, where little Robert was peeking through with tears in his eyes. Howard was stone-faced and ready to shout whilst Jarvis simply walked towards him, hiding his emotions well, and led him to his room.

That was the last time Robert ever saw Howard Stark.

#agent carter #iron man #the avengers #crossover #edwin jarvis #howard stark #tony stark #maria stark #robert jarvis #fanfic #little jarvis

1 note · View note

bjadventures · 7 years ago

Text

Mt. Kinabalu - Part 2 (go read part 1 if you haven’t already)

I’m awake before the alarms. It’s 1:30am. My head is pounding. I hear the wind outside howling, sweeping past our hut and slamming into it. What I don’t hear is rain. Do they close the summit for wind? Priority 1 for me is to feel better or I won’t be able to summit anyway. I get some caffeine, peanut butter toast, and Advil in me. I start feeling better. I’ve actually slept pretty well all things considered, waking up a few times, mostly due to being cold. It’s colder than I thought it would be up there, and my layers are barely holding up. I drink hot tea and get some more food in me as I start to feel better. I figure I can give it a shot and if I start feeling worse, I can always head back down to base camp. We’re told the summit, while windy, is open - it’s the first day all week that it’s not raining! Time to go.

Because we’re a “fast” group, our guide tells us we should leave at 3am to be at the summit for the 6am sunrise. Just after 3am we depart the hut bundled up in every piece of clothing we’ve brought, and headlamps over our hats. We ascend up stairs, and more stairs and rocks, and steep slopes, sometimes using ropes on the ground to help us keep our footing. Outside it’s 45 degrees, with winds sustained 20-30 mph, gusting north of 40mph. New goal: don’t get blown off the mountain. Visibility ranges from seemingly unlimited to just a few feet, depending whether we’re covered in a cloud or not. With our elevation, the incoming clouds pass through us. When it’s clear, the stars are absolutely amazing, and we see many shooting stars in the sky. It’s a pretty surreal environment, and hard not to get caught up in it.

We’re told it’s 3km to reach the summit, which sits at just over 13,400 feet. We climb and climb. Katie in our group feels a bit light headed, but the rest of us are doing ok. My headache is completely gone. Thank you Advil! We trudge onwards in the cold, windy, pitch black early morning. We pass the 7km sign. The 8km sign. We’re almost there. We see the first light of the day rising over the rocks behind us. The crescent moon rises just above the rocks to our right. I take a picture, but the phone doesn’t do the view justice.

At this point of the climb, it’s mostly a steep incline of pure rock, and it looks like we’re on another planet. Maybe the moon. Around 5:30am, we get our first glimpse of the summit. It keeps alternating between cloud-covered and perfectly clear as we near. We’ve timed this right. Around 6am, we reach the summit as the sun just starts to appear above the lowest clouds. It’s an incredible sight, and one of the best sunrises I’ve ever seen. We’re all trying to catch our breath from the climb while taking in this breath-taking sight. We take pictures. Our hands are frozen. We high-five each other excited about our accomplishment. We got lucky as hell with the weather, and we all survived the ascent together.

We spend about 25 minutes at the top enjoying the scene. Unfortunately, the time to descend has arrived. We need to make room for other groups, and we also have a huge descent ahead of us. We climb down a few thousand feet enjoying the incredible views of the awakening city and rolling green fields below us. At the 11,000 feet mark, we begin the Via Ferrata. For this, we harness up and follow a different guide. We split up into two small groups, and he ties our small group to one another. We climb over rocks, across and up ladders, and scale rocks on all fours to duck away from the wind. It’s a really cool experience, and we have a blast.

Back down at base camp, it’s 10am and we’ve having breakfast #2. I don’t think I’ve ever burned that many calories before 10am, and the average food tastes incredibly good. We reminisce about our summit from hours earlier, and discuss the state of our legs, which are all shaky. As in, cannot stand up without them shaking. Problem is, we still have a 4,000 foot descent!

The entire way down, we combine distracting ourselves through word games and fun questions, and enjoying the view. I ask Edwin to tell us a “fun fact.” He says “no.” Can’t win them all. Our legs are definitely feeling it, and it’s all we can muster to get down in one piece. Back at the base, we take a picture with a sign that reads “you are successful climbers!” We celebrate with a round of Snickers candy bars.

What a climb! Honestly, had no idea what I’d signed up for when booking this trip. But, one of the best outdoor experiences I’ve had. After looking at our tracking apps, we conclude the metrics they’ve laid out are completely off. It’s more like 6 MILES to base camp (not 6km) and another 2.5 MILES to the top. I ask when the last time they mapped it out. I’m told “sometime in the 1970s.” Might be time for a refresh guys!! So, the entire climb up and back is about 17 miles, and on the second day we did a total of 11 miles, with 3,000 feet of vertical up and 7,000 feet of vertical down. More than I’ve done in a day by FAR. And, my legs for sure let me know of that the next day. We could all barely move, and nobody wanted to see even a stair.

0 notes

winryofresembool · 7 years ago

Text

EdWin one-shot: Bath time

Summary: Ed and Winry try to wash Den together... and of course it doesn’t go like planned (Post Promised Day)

A/N: whelp, more than a month ago an anon asked me to write a fic about the prompt “Stop being so attractive!” and now that I finally managed to write it, I went a liiittle overboard. Also yes, I know this has certain elements similar to ‘Future is full of possibilities’, but this is even fluffier (if that’s even possible) version of how Ed and Winry’s relationship could start to progress.

Warnings: I don’t think there’s much to warn about this time, if you ignore Ed’s dirty mind.

Genre: fluffy fluff

Words: 2661

“Alphonse?! What the hell are you doing?” the 15-year-old boy could hear his big brother yell somewhere nearby. He turned to look at the source of the voice, and saw Edward stomping towards him with an angry scowl on his face.

It had been raining for a few days in Resembool, but now that the sun was shining again, Al had immediately wanted to go out to smell the fresh air, feel the sun warm his already tanned skin and jump in the big puddles because he had missed the opportunity to do that for five whole years (it was one of those things that hadn’t been as fun when he hadn’t been able to feel it). Ed wasn’t amused by his new habit, though, because he knew he was the one who had to clean the mess Al made (his shoes weren’t 100 per cent waterproof, and his pants tended to get muddy as well because Al simply didn’t care. He had his body back, so what if his pants got a bit dirty). According to Winry and Pinako, the younger Elric was still “too weak to do household chores”, but Edward disagreed; he had seen his little brother racing with Den out on the fields like it was nothing the other day. Besides, he had already begged Ed to let him start practicing martial arts again (the protective big brother he was, Ed had forbidden it).

Ed’s scowl deepened when he saw that Al had taken Den with him again; the dog was a pain to wash, because she seemed to hate water (the /clean/ water, to be more precise) more than any of the cats he had met on their journey did. Usually it took two people to make her stay in the bathtub more than two seconds. And of course Al, who couldn’t say “no” to any animals, let Den go through each and every puddle she found. The white spot under her neck was far from white at this point, and the same had happened to her three white paws. Her automail was caked with mud, and Ed winced knowing that Winry would probably scold /him/ for it (“Ed, why did you let Al take Den with him?” he could hear her voice say in his head) because she had been exceptionally nice to Al ever since the boys had returned to Resembool.

“Al?” Ed tried to get his brother’s attention again. Despite being almost grown-up, the boy had a tremendous skill to find enjoyment in things that younger children usually did, and he was so excited about being able to feel and smell everything around him in the summery Resembool that he had already forgotten Ed had asked him anything.

“Can’t you see? Just taking a walk in the sunshine!” Al finally answered to Ed’s question as the older brother continued to glare at him.

“And getting yourself dirty,” Ed sighed, pointing at his shoes and pants. “You do realize that /I/ have to clean that?”

“You know I would help if Winry and Granny let me,” Al claimed, and Ed knew it was partially true. Al was generally speaking the more helpful one of the two brothers, but he was still an Elric; taking the full advantage of his brother’s suffering.

“Hmmph,” Ed huffed, and shook his head. “I will still tell Winry that you would take Den with you no matter what I say to you if she starts complaining about how dirty the dog is.”

“Whatever makes you happy, brother,” Al grinned.

Suddenly an idea started forming in his head. Ed and Winry had been insufferable ever since the boys’ return, not really knowing how to be around each other with their painfully obvious feelings, still unable to confess. That’s why they usually kept some distance from each other, but this, Al realized, was an opportunity to force them to communicate with each other. All they needed to do was to bath Den together, and maybe trying to hold the thrashing dog in its place, having their arms brushing each other, their hands accidentally touching, and so on, would finally open their tongues…

Al didn’t dare to wish that his plan would actually work, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Once the brothers got back to the yard of the Rockbell house, he told Ed to get Winry outside to help him with Den while he would fill the tub with water. The older brother mumbled something like “as if washing one dog required three people” under his breath as he went. He still did what ordered, and soon he showed up with Winry, already arguing about Den with her.

“And why am I supposed to help you with the mess you made? I have work to do,” Winry snarled, her eyes shooting daggers towards Edward. The boy didn’t understand that in reality Winry’s anger was only misplaced frustration over him treating her so coldly after his return, and he got annoyed for being accused of things he hadn’t done.

“Because you know Al can’t do it alone! He’s the one who walked Den, not me!” he argued back, already starting to feel like fighting the first person who’d dare to look at him. “Actually, you guys,” Al interrupted their argument, offering Den’s leash to Ed, “I think I just heard meowing on the backyard…The neighbor’s cat must have gotten lost again. I gotta make sure the kitty won’t get too close to Den, you know how she feels about cats. I’ll be right back!”

“Oh no you won’t!” Ed yelled at Al’s back, but he was already running away, leaving the two frustrated teenagers alone.

“Ugh… let’s do this then,” he finally gave up, knowing his brother well enough to know that he wouldn’t be back in a while. “I’ll hold Den, you wash her, ok?”

“Fine.”

Since it was a warm day, Ed was only wearing a tank top and shorts, but he decided even the top would be too much when Den would be thrashing around and splashing water everywhere, so he threw it away. The dog started whining immediately when she realized what he was about to do, but she didn’t have time to resist when Ed was already lifting her in the air and laying her down in the tub.

Meanwhile, Winry couldn’t resist watching him do his movements, the muscles in his torso and his arms tightening and relaxing as he carried the dog and set it down. Suddenly the girl felt her cheeks starting to heat, and a strange, warm feeling that she didn’t remember having often before formed in her belly. Fine, she admitted in her mind, maybe she had had that feeling once or twice when the same boy had been in front of him without a shirt having his automail checked. But those times she had shaken the feeling off quickly, knowing she couldn’t have such thoughts about her patient. However, now she /didn’t/ have to act professionally because she and Ed were simply two friends trying to wash a dog, and besides, she was fairly certain Ed had ogled her chest (covered only by her usual black tube top since it had been hot in her workshop) only a moment before.

Finally, the girl got a grip of her thoughts and turned her attention to Den. She was whimpering as Ed wrapped his arm around her neck to hold her still, trying to calm her down by petting her with his other hand and muttering to her quietly. Even though his voice was calm and surprisingly soft, Winry could hear him ask:

“You idiot dog, why do you like mud so much when you hate getting washed?”

Winry had to resist a giggle because Ed’s question was just so him. She crouched down to take care of Den’s paws, and thanks to Ed holding the dog, she managed to get them somewhat clean.

When it was time to clean Den’s automail, Winry realized she couldn’t get it properly clean unless she got closer to it, and that meant getting wet. That’s why Ed volunteered getting into the tub, claiming that it would be fine since he was only wearing his shorts anyway. He got a small brush that Winry had taken with her from her hand and blushed slightly when their hands touched.

As Ed was polishing the metal, Winry got a chance to observe him again. The sight made her decide that she would be a dog person for the rest of her life; (even though she swore she’d never say it aloud) the person she loved looked so damn adorable taking care of the dog who had now somewhat calmed down. He smiled as Den nudged his arm with her snout slightly, begging for more pets.

“Soon, girl, I’m almost done!” he promised, and the dog gave him a happy yip as an answer.

Something snapped in Winry’s head as she watched the scene unfold, and she couldn’t control her tongue anymore when the words “Stop being so attractive!” came out of her mouth.

“What did you say?” Ed turned to stare at her with wide eyes. Winry covered her mouth with her hands and her face was as red as a tomato as she registered what she had said.

“I said… your automail… looks attractive?”

“That’s not… what I heard. Besides, I don’t think you can say that about automail anyway.” Even though the words were meant to be teasing, his voice sounded far more serious than what Winry would have expected from him. His gaze was intense, the kind that made butterflies fly in Winry’s stomach, as he asked:

“Winry… Is there any chance… that you might like me?”

“What?! Why…?”

She hesitated for a good while before finally deciding that maybe this was the chance she had been looking for.

“Um… You know, there’s this one guy … He is sometimes such an idiot, and a loudmouth, always picking up a fight, and blind to my feelings, but he’s also very sweet when he wants to be, and caring, and brave, and he would anything for those who are important to him…”

“…And I truly admire that. His name is Edward Elric.”

It was quiet for a painfully long moment. Ed was so dumbfounded that he let go of Den and she jumped on his lap and out of the tub, making him fall on his back in the process. When he got up, he was wet from head to toe and he shook his hair like a dog shakes its fur to dry it. Winry couldn’t help but giggle internally at this scene.

Den, having been forgotten by the two of them, had run to the door and started howling, so Granny would let her inside. The two youngsters were so distracted that they didn’t even notice when Pinako opened the door to the dog, sighing: “Oh well, of course those two didn’t dry you properly. Well, come in then, it’s about time those two solve their issues.” She couldn’t hear what was being said, but something about the way Ed and Winry were looking and pointing at each other told her that something important was about to happen. And she wasn’t wrong:

“Yes, of course I like you, you silly!” Winry finished her confession, again surprised by her own boldness.

“Good,” Ed said softly after he let Winry’s words sink in, “because that makes it equivalent exchange.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what you think I mean.”

“Please, stop being so vague, Ed.”

“I. like. you. Winry Rockbell. There! Happy?!” He gestured towards her wildly with his hands.

Winry almost burst out laughing, because Ed looked so embarrassed, but then she realized she must have looked exactly the same way. What a bunch of losers the two of them were, was their mutual thought at that moment. This had to be fixed.

That’s why Winry took a hold of Ed’s wrist and pulled the wet young man closer to her. She combed the wet hair from Ed’s face, also removing his hair tie in the process, and the boy shivered as her fingers traveled through his wet locks.

“You know, about that earlier… you are pretty attractive too,” Ed said and slowly wrapped his arms around her waist. Winry responded by letting her hands rest behind his neck, leaning her head against Ed’s still wet shoulder (happily noting that Ed had grown tall enough that she was able to do that).

“I knew you were watching,” Winry murmured, her lips vibrating against Ed’s skin and causing him to take a deep breath, but her voice held no anger.

“Sorry, couldn’t help it… I just said you are attractive.”

“Heh, thanks, I guess. Hey… why didn’t you say anything earlier? About your feelings?”

“Because sometimes I’m much more better with actions than words?”

“Really? Prove it,” Winry challenged.

Ed decided to do just that, and he leaned in to give the girl a peck on her cheek. However, she moved her head slightly in that moment, and he hit the corner of her mouth instead. He quickly pulled his head away, trying to see her reaction, but to his surprise, it was encouraging.

“It’s OK, Ed, just do it.”

She looked at him expectantly, and finally, he pressed his lips against hers. Sure, it was awkward, and he used a tad too much pressure, and didn’t really know how to move his mouth at first, but she helped him, making him less tense. After a while, it started feeling good, but then their lungs started demanding more air.

“How did that feel?” Ed asked, worried he had done something wrong.

“I think I want to do that more with you,” Winry smiled at him, giving him another quick peck on his mouth before it was her turn to shiver. She realized only now that her clothes had gotten too, and that pulled her back to earth. Where had Den gone? she thought aloud.

“I think Granny must have taken her in… We would know if she had gone after Al,” Ed reasoned.

“You are probably right,” Winry agreed, and took the towel that had originally been meant for Den from the chair near her and wrapped it around herself.

“Ugh, I guess I should go and have a shower, that water was gross,” Ed noted, then raised his eyebrow suggestively. “I don’t mind you watching, by the way.”

Winry knew Ed was only playing games with her. It had taken him so much courage to simply kiss her, so there was no way he was ready for anything else yet despite his words. That showed on his face, which screamed “did I really just say that?” and was even redder than before. The young woman decided that two could play this game, and answered:

“You know what, maybe one day I will join you.”

That left the young man hot and bothered as his mind traveled to an unwanted territory, so he just huffed and turned to go inside.

“Remember to dry your automail well!” Winry yelled after him.

“Gearhead!”

“A gearhead you want to make out with!”

Ed didn’t think he could have blushed harder than he did when he disappeared inside. He admitted in his mind that she was not wrong, though.

Al decided to show up at that moment, and he looked at Winry curiously.

“What did just happen here?”

“Oh, nothing,” Winry smiled. “We just washed Den like you asked.”

“You sure?”

“Yup.”

What had just happened was too intimate to be shared even with Al, one of her best friends. However, he did notice that from that moment on, Ed and Winry seemed a lot more comfortable around each other, shared some shy looks and even let their hands brush against each other from time to time. What happened when his eyes weren’t seeing, though, was a whole different story.

#Pleaaaaase let me know what you think #edwin #my fics #edward elric #winry rockbell #fullmetal alchemist

46 notes · View notes